reflection

See the end of the work for more notes

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This art was done by the lovely Koschei! find them on ao3 and on tumblr!

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Hari Potter grows up in gotham. 

It changes nothing. (It changes everything.)

---

Hari Potter smiles shyly under the floating candles. His green eyes seem luminescent with the reflection of golden lights. His skin seems bronze, a picture perfect storybook hero cast from metal. These people desperately want a hero. A savior is all they see.

Hari Potter is a reflection. He adapts. He takes your expectations, your stereotypes and shows what you want to see.

After all, Hari Potter may be the Boy-Who-Lived but he was a Gothamite before that.

---

Hari Potter is swept under the inviting wing of Gryffindor and why shouldn't he? He's a carbon copy of his father, after all. From his bird's nest hair, to his round glasses, to the way his nose slopes downwards.

Hari Potter is brave. He's saved all of Britain from You-Know-Who! What else can he be other than a Gryffindor? Who else could face the greatest dark lord of their age! There are books about his death-defying stunts as a five year-old facing down a dracula, a novel about him destroying a cursed catacomb, a memoir about the adventures he's had. Hari Potter is brave.

(Hari Potter is brave. Hari Potter lived in Gotham. He's seen monsters come out of the sewers and has been mugged with a gun pressed to his temple. He remembers when the clown hid a bomb in the street over. He remembers seeing the cloud of dust flying outward, the slow collapse of the building. He remembers running, running so hard, hoping so hard to the edge of that rubble. Please, please, please don't let him die. Dig with bloody fingers and wiggle into tight crevasses. Looking for a person, his very best friend Majid. He remembers a firefighter dragging him away. Five hours later, Majid is carried out broken and blue. Three days later, he attends the funeral. Hari Potter is brave.

Hari Potter is more than a cold halloween night.)

---

 Hari Potter has watchful eyes that gleam behind his glasses. He smiles brightly at his yearmates, noticing how Ron chases after him like a puppy, how Dean and Seamus look at him curiously but not unfriendly, how Neville is tucked away into the corner melancholy. He catches the titters of Lavender and Parvati as they romanticize his every move, Hermione Granger looking up with longing from behind a book. He can feel the older students watching, assessing his every move, dissecting intention from a twitch of his fingers. It's a staring match, a silent battle of wills between a lone first-year and the masses of the Wizarding World.

(Hari Potter grew up under the scornful gaze of his aunt, under the dismissive look of teachers, under the tired stare of case workers, under the hungry leer of Gotham. He learned early that any attention is bad attention. So, he learned to fit in. in school, he was the quiet but friendly kid that teachers overlooked and peers had no trouble talking with. With the Dursleys, he was the meek, servile shadow that everyone ignored as he subtly stole himself half of a dinner roll for lunch. With his foster parents, he was the bright, sweet child that went out of his way to help with chores and never garnered the beatings loud, rebellious children got. Out on the Gotham streets, he was the wary, vicious stray that would stab you if you got too close. Hari Potter watched the world and changed himself into different puzzle pieces to slot himself into place.

If they want a golden hero, that's what they will get.)

---

Hari Potter is sweet with a hint of mischief under McGonagall's eye. She seems to expect something from him, something like his father. So in Transfiguration, he laughs and jokes with the Gryffindor boys, transforming his needle after a few tries. Something cold and hard softens in the professor's eyes and in her mind, she notes him just like james. Her fears have been assuaged and she assumes everything is fine with Hari. Hari drops his smile as McGonagall turns around. 

Hari is gentle and quiet in Sprout's class. He listens intently and digs his hands into the dirt without a single remark. He handles the plants carefully and pats the soil as he replants them from pot to tub. Sprout deems him a pleasant and hard working child unlike several other children. Where did he learn garde- Oh Helga, how did Mister Crabbe manage to agitate the Phantom Snakeberry?! Sprout bustles away to sort the boy out while Hari watches her out of the corner of his eyes.

Hari is curious and fierce in Flitwick's class, asking questions and making plenty of notes. The tiny goblin professor smiles widely with each new question and answers enthusiastically, seeing Lily's familiar spark in Hari. Hari levitates his feather and Gryffindor receives two points for "his hard work and curiosity" as he distracts Flitwick with the question of "how much can a wingardium leviosa lift?" His green eyes and voracious appetite appeases Flitwick's hopes of teaching another student like Lily potter. What a tragedy she died so young before completing her charms mastery. Flitwick thinks he has another charms prodigy on his hands but he doesn't know that the dark bags under his eyes are from staying up late to practice last night.

Hari is sullen and grouchy in Potions, noting the hatred in Snape's curl of a sneer as he reads roll. He replies with a hint of lip, darks brows settled lowly over his eyes like heavy storm clouds, and loses five points. The bat swirls imperiously in his robes, and Hari Potter plays his part well, the spoiled brat that Snape wants to see. He is as exact as possible in his dicing and brewing but still, the potions professor dissects all its flaws apart with vicious glee. Hari Potter glares at the ground and every single assumption Snape had about him is justified. The dour man catches a glimpse of a wobbling lip but it is gone in an instant. Pah! Let the boy cry that  for once he won't be coddled! 

("Hagrid, what were my parents like?" Hari asks, licking at his mint chip ice cream.

"Ah, let me see…  your father was a brilliant lad but quite the trouble maker, he liked playing pranks on others with his friends, the marauders." Hagrid took a bite out of his triple scoop.

"Marauders? Who were they?" Hari wondered if they played the funny types or the vicious types of pranks. 

"Ah, a lot of four Gryffindors- that's the house both your parents were in, you know, - with your father, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew. Sirius Black is well, in Azkaban for betraying your folks, that maggot. Remus Lupin, hmmm, he ought to be alive but I haven't heard from him in ages.'' Hagrid's cone was now gone, only a few drips of ice cream left on the stoop below him. 

"Do you think he'd mind if I wrote to him? I don't even have any pictures of them. After Aunt Petunia died… we didn't even get to go back home to get our stuff. The case workers just brought our clothes and sent us to a home.'' Hari bit his lip, looking up at the orange glow of the sky from sunset and smog.

"Of course, he would! Of course, he would…" Hagrid muttered gruffly, staring mournfully at the dark boy. He wrapped a big arm around his shoulder. "Now, let's move onto cheerier topics! your ma was an incredibly fierce witch that was pure genius, she was! a right wonderful lady she was, a favorite of  Flitwicks-"

"Are there any teachers who knew my parents?" 

"O' course! There's McGonagall, she was the head of both yer parents, Flitwick, Binns- though I doubt he knows what students he's teaching in any decade-, Snape was in the same year as them, mm, had a right rivalry with your father he did…'' Hagrid rambled on as Hari soaked up the stories of his parents like a sponge.

Just for a moment, Hari can see the ghosts of his parents.)

---

Hari Potter is idling in a courtyard, a tucked away square of greenery between the stone walls of Hogwarts. A square of arches line the courtyard, a bench interspersed every so often. A gnarled tree stands in the center of it all, its foliage a bright, burning red. A few leaves drift lazily to the ground, a sign of the changing season.

It's quietly abuzz with Hufflepuffs and the occasional Slytherin. He's finally been able to lose his red-haired shadow by twisting away in an opportune moment and taking turns willy-nilly before he finally stumbled upon clarity.

He's writing in code–the one he and Majid had created–of his observations of Hogwarts and his housemates. A messy map of Hogwarts is drawn on the other page. He wonders why there haven't been any maps handed out, he knows that's common practice for larger schools. 

"Speak normally, you chink! All I hear is ching-chong, ching-chong!" A group of jeering third year Hufflepuffs, cluster around a second year Slytherin. 

Hari Potter watches with narrowed eyes. His blood boils at these bigoted pigs; he's seen this scene a hundred times already. He's been in her shoes too many times to count. He can't stand by and just let this happen.

He grabs "Jinxes and Curses: 1st Edition" from his bag and opens to a random page. The Squawking Jinx, perfect! He does the celano sign, similar to an upside w, before slashing it up and across. 

"Lingua avium" He intones, pouring all his will into the spell. 

It shoots off in a streak of golden light, hitting the ringleader. His taunts turn to indignant squawks at a truly ear-deafening level. The scattered Hufflepuffs begin to giggle then to laugh. The blonde twittering boy turns bright red before storming off with a twirl of his robes. His lackeys stand stunned there for a second before hurrying off after him, clearly lost without his brilliant leadership.

The Slytherin girl is holding a hand up to her mouth, trying to hold back her laugh. Shiny tear tracks glisten on her cheeks with her long black hair ruffled and unkempt.

He catches her dark eyes and gives a small nod. A fleeting connection of like recognizing like before she slowly picks up her bag and walks away. 

Hari looks down, unclenching his hand from his wand. He can taste blood and he finds it very fitting.

(Hari Potter knows hate. He knows it bone deep.

 It's been forced down his throat by leering drivers who yell words he pretends not to hear as he walks past, by racist teachers who called him "savage" and "dumb" in front of his entire class, by his own family.

He has tasted its bitterness when drinking from the waters of affection and companionship. when his schoolyard friends would play during recess but always stand as far away from him when their parents were picking them up. When his favorite teacher watched him far too closely in the gift shop, wary of his dark hands stealing merchandise. 

It is ever-present, it has permeated his entire existence. He knows why shop owners always watch too closely when he enters. He knows why he will never be seated in the front row of the academic team. He knows, he knows, he knows.

He cannot change the wild kinkiness of his hair. He cannot change his dark skin. He cannot change how he looks. So he must change how he is seen.)

---

Hari Potter is a tangle of nerves on Halloween but his hands are steady as he lifts his fork to his mouth. His green, green, green eyes flick from place to place, watching, waiting for something to happen. 

All his life, as a metal rod attracts lightning, Halloween attracts trouble for Hari Potter. Every single year, without fail, something out of the ordinary happens. 

And so, he watches, he waits, because he knows it is coming. 

It's already dinnertime and still, nothing special has happened. He's nodding along as Weasley and Finnegan argue over whether the Chudley Cannons could beat the Montrose Magpies ("the cannons got a snowball's chance in fiendfyre to even tie with the maggies!" "YOU TAKE THAT BACK!") when it finally arrives.

Quirrel bursts in, robes disheveled and turban looking more like a tangled mop of ace bandages on his head. "TROLL IN THE DUNGEONS!" He booms, the first time Hari has heard the professor not stutter. "Tho-ought you migh-might want to know…" 

The hall descends into chaos. Students scream. Teachers yell. Amidst all this chaos are select pinpoints of stillness: a few students from Ravenclaw, Dumbledore, most of the slytherin upper years and Hari Potter.

The boy breathes out a sigh of relief. There it is, the annual lightning. A troll? Those don't seem too bad. Don't fairytales say that they guard bridges and you have to pay a toll or something? Can't be worse than Gotham Metro security.

"Why are you so scared wWasley, it's just a troll?" Hari asks, eyeing the stark white boy in front of him.

"A troll… that is taller than two meters...resistant to magic...bloodthirsty...and carries a giant club ... who wouldn't be scared to death…'' Weasley mutters, blue eyes glazed over as he stares off into space. Hari pales himself, half-remembered experiences overlapping with the chaos of the great hall.

(They were just trick or treating! It was even in a relatively safe neighborhood, Puckett park, a firmly middle class area. 

The fucking Ventriloquist was chasing them, a tiny ass puppet shooting bullets at miniature vampires, zombies and heroes fleeing from him in fear. A high pitched demonic laugh followed like a rabid dog.

Hari slid into a side alley, abandoning the white coat he bought for two dollars from the thrift store from the "low cost costume" budget the foster system gave them. Robyn, his fostermate, followed him. 

"oh my god, oh my god, we're going to die." tears slipped down her face.

"Shut up!" He hissed, "We will actually die if you don't shut up!")

Hari put his fork down. Well, this just upped the ante. "How did a troll get into hogwarts? shouldn't there be precautions for this sort of thing?"

"...six...seven...eight...wait shouldn't there be nine?" Hari heard the prefect Weasley mutter as he passed by. "Who's missing?"

Hari runs cold. Granger hadn't appeared for dinner which was unusual for her as she was prone to skipping lunch but never dinner.

"Where's Granger?" 

Lavender leaned over, "I heard from Lisa who heard from Megan Jones that she's been sobbing in the girls' bathroom on the first floor ever since Charms."

Hari made a hum, glancing up at the table. Despite never having talked to Granger, he felt responsible to make sure she was alright. If another person died on Halloween… 

He looked up at the staff table, filled with white european adults and saw the reflection of every single racist teacher, every distrustful cashier, every white woman who tugged her children away from him just because his skin tone was too dark for them. He didn't trust them to do what was right for someone they might consider lesser: a black muggleborn girl.

"Hey Thomas, can you switch seats with me real quick," Hari cut in, patting Thomas on the shoulder, " I got to do something real quick." 

Under the simmering chaos and constant shuffle of students, Hari Potter slipped out of the hall and walked calmly down the corridor, took a turn and started sprinting. 

Loud footsteps sounded behind him. "Hey! Wait up!" Weasley yelled.

Hari just ran faster. He had already explored this part of the castle the first week in the early morning. Up a staircase, around the loop de loop hallway, through the green classroom, open up the cabinet and through the doorway there, slide down a bannister and he's lost him!

("Here's what we're going to do." Hari grasped her by the shoulders, staring down at the muddied girl. 

"We're not too far from bridgeway, so you're going to be quiet as fuck and take a left, a right, pass two exits and then take another left until you get to Workman's Route. From there, you do whatever to lose any tail you have and get back to the cauldron! okay?" Hari whispered, eyes looking at the mouth of the alley and ears straining to hear how close those gunshots were getting.

"But what about you?" Robyn looked up at him, lip wobbling. 

"I'll be the distraction! Now go!" Hari pulled her to her feet before giving her a push. "And don't make a sound!"

Robyn ran off, just a rustle of clothing to mark her departure. Hari squared his shoulders. Time to be the most annoying distraction this side of the city.)

Hari slows down, conserving his energy and listening carefully around him. Who knows where this troll is. Hopefully on the opposite side of the castle. He's only a few corridors away when he hears:

"Hey! What was that bloody for!" Weasley yells, red and wheezing.

Hari's spine prickles with fear. He knows this lesson, knows it very well: draw attention to yourself and die. He can't– he can't– no more deaths, Hari swears to himself.

"Shut the fuck up you idiot! Do you want to get killed? What if it hears you!" Hari crosses the distance between them, fisting his hand into Weasley's shirt and dragging him closer. He hisses, "I left you behind because I knew you'd just be dragging me down."

(Hari sprints forward, feet slamming extra hard on the pavement, breaths exaggerated to come out in wheezing huffs, cloud of vapor bursting forth from his lungs.

The sound of gunshots ricochets off the walls of the brownstones. There's the slamming of doors, whimpers of children, all so goddamn loud. 

The puppet giggles, like some sort of psychopath child. "You can't hide from me! I can hear you!"

Hari darts across the street, taking cover behind an ugly shade of puke green prius. Bullets indent the metal and makes the whole car shake against where he is leaning. at that moment, he firmly believes he will die.)

Weasley's eyes spark and he yells but no words come out. 

He pushes against him but Hari holds firm, wiry muscles locked up like jaws closed around bone; there is no give or yield in his grip, just luminous eyes that cast a green glow across his face. Hari potter looks feral, teeth exposed in a harsh smile, nose wrinkled like the maw of a growling dog, knuckles turned white in his iron grip.

It scares Ron. He is not a child who grew up too quickly into a shadow with rough, calloused hands, with ribs that revealed themselves every time he took a breath, with a heart shattered into shards and never put back together. 

Ron has had a good childhood, a father who loves and takes care of his children, a mother who cooks meals and gives them loving hugs. He has cheerful siblings who tease him good-naturedly. Sure, he's had some trials, he's seen discrimination at work but it's never been the chains that held him down, dragging him down under the water, a constant struggle just to keep treading water.

Hari Potter had none of that. He is a Gothamite through and through. He is smog and concrete and stone gargoyles. He is steel iron ribs and barbed wire knuckles. He has gravestones for parents and slammed doors for family. He has lonely nights and hungry stomachs as constant companions. To survive, he had to bend metal bones into different shapes for some acceptance, for some love. Hari Potter is forged steel, put through the burning fires of crisis and cruelty, with the mettle to survive above all else.

Ron is standing in front of a feral creature that lashes out in fear and on instinct. Was there really any doubt on who would win? A boy who has never thrown a punch or a street rat that would murder to stay alive?

Hari leans in close and whispers, "Stay out of my way or else."

(There's heavy dragging footsteps as the Ventriloquist comes closer. Hari holds his breath, hot tears prickling the corners of his eyes. Death narrows in on his position like the city hawks swooping for gutter rats.

A click of the gun. 

Hari squeezes his eyes shut.

"Hey ugly!" Someone yells. It's a familiar voice. "You fat, ugly fuck! Your mama's a bitch and she as fuck knew you were trash!"

There's a scape of gravel as the man turns. "Ahahaha! You really dink so? Well, you'll have to ask her what she dought of me!" 

The gun fires and fires and fires. 

Hari's frozen. There are only bullets landing in Robyn's body and a high, pitched demented cackle. The world doesn't exist around him.

Another person dies for Hari Potter on Halloween.)

It's a choice on the knife's edge. None are better than the other. Choose to live in comfortable apathy or choose to bleed for justice. 

In that moment, Ron chooses his friend over safety. 

There's a spark in Ron's red hair, like a match striking. For a brief second, you can smell woodsmoke and summer nights. There's a pop in your ears, like when you go down elevation rapidly; Ron's magic wrestling with Hari's to break his accidental Muffliato on him.

"I'm going." He says, using his taller height to lean over Hari. "There's nothing you could do to stop me."

"Fuckin' idiot" Hari snarls, gotham accent leaking through, pushing Ron away and spinning on the balls of his feet. "You better shut the fuck up though or you'll be sleeping with da fishies in da lake."

(There's the scratch of metal on stone and a dark figure slams into the ventriloquist. 

Purple twists and slams elbows first into the torso. The man who claims to be controlled by a fucking puppet of all things falls to the floor. Hari wishes something more deadly than an elbow went into his torso. 

There's a crackle of electricity as The Spoiler slams an escrima stick into his head. Blue lines arc across the expanse of skin and hair before disappearing into nothing.

There is no shade of blue as beautiful. 

"Are you okay kid?" A distorted voice asks.

Hari laughs, manic and desperate, tears and giggles, grief and relief. 

He's not dead, not today. But it's fucking Halloween and there's yet another person to mourn.)

No words pass between the two as they creep down stone corridors and empty portraits. Hari is a whirlwind of rage and fear, gunshots echoing through his memories. He doesn't want to be hero, he just doesn't want to see anybody else die on this fucked up holiday. Ron is a pulsing heartbeat, as fear wars with adrenaline, that taught hesitance overcome with the singing energy of battle. He's not sure what happened but deep down, there's the crystal sound of door shutting. Something, far older than of this world, whispers fate, fate, fate.

Hari Potter and Ron Weasley were always meant to face the troll together.

They were always meant to walk these dark halls on this day, whispering castle walls and dripping pipes–the symphony to this fateful event. There is no one else who is coming for Hermione Granger, a girl who wanted to learn, to protect, to be accepted. 

Their steps echo down Hogwarts' labyrinth of rooms and hallways, an ever-shifting puzzle never meant to be fully understood. Even if someone did try to find Granger, a prefect or a professor, would the serpentine passageways even allow them through? Consider for a second, three seventh years are on the fourth floor, stuck on a staircase that has never moved before but now floats on empty space. Consider for a moment, Professor Flitwick's locating charm, that has never failed before, spins wildly, refusing to reveal Granger's location. 

This is what was always fated to be.

Fate is fickle, it wants blood and tragedy and grief, it grins a bloody smile when Hari Potter opens the bathroom door.

Regardless, it is Hari Potter and Ron Weasley that breach the girls' bathroom, their first shared battleground, where the golden threads of fate began to intersect into a gleaming tapestry of a prophesied hero.

(Hari Potter sobs into his hands, crouched beside the still warm body of Robyn. There's a puddle of blood around her and it smells like the steel factory close to their foster home. There's the soft stutter of doors opening and families coming out to watch. Sirens wail as they creep in, too late, far too late.

He can feel Robyn's blood soaking through his shoes. He wonders if you can wash blood out of socks.

Spoiler tugs him up into her arms. She's short but there's strength in her arms, a certain mettle that comes from being a gothamite. 

He cries into her shoulder, it's covered by her purple cloak but underneath, unyielding kevlar doesn't give to his snot-filled demands.

"I'm sorry, kid," She whispers, gloves ruffling through his hair. She holds him tighter, like she can hold the jagged edges of his soul together.

"I–fuckin'--h-hate Hallo-Halloween," He chokes out, curling into her purple protectiveness.)

When he steps through that door, he makes the same choice as he did for Robyn. "I'll be the distraction, take her and run," He murmurs to Ron, eyes unwavering focused on the monster in front of him. 

Hari burns with fear and rage, magical energy crackling off of him. He draws a pocket knife and stalks forward. "Hey fuckwit! Leave her alone!" There's a vibrating rumble to his voice, an otherworldly glow to his eyes, hair lifting in an unseen wind.

The troll turns around. It is ugly and grey and smells horrendous. 

It is not scarier than the Ventriloquist. 

He stares into its eyes, wide set and goat-pupiled and sees an animal. It is threatening but it acts on instinct, there is no true intelligence or malice behind its eyes.

This is a beast and in this moment, he is the hunter.

There's a primal scream and swell in the atmosphere, magic crackling into existence. Hari leaps forward, brandishing the knife forward and stabs its iridescent metal into the meat of its gut. He doesn't know that his magic has seeped into the metal over the years, turning it into something much more deadly than simple steel. He does know that the pointy end goes into the body.

The troll roars in pain, swinging its club wildly, narrowly missing Hari by a finger's width. 

Hari scampers back, twisting behind the troll's back. Ron and Hermione are screaming their heads off, cringing back from it.

He bites the handle of the knife between his teeth, gripping the strange, waxy flesh of the troll as he climbs up its back. 

It rears backward, trying to dislodge him but he holds firm. He's held onto the rickety trains of Gotham, hopping from car to car. He's jumped across the building, using ledges as handholds, finding his way across the skyline. This is easy compared to home.

He inches forward, gripping the ribcage with his legs. He reaches out with his hand, feeling for the fluttering heartbeat in the throat. There's the vibration of the troll's vocalisations underneath his fingertips, so close to his artery. It shakes itself violently, trying to throw him off.

Pressing in closer, squeezing his legs tighter, Hari grabs the knife with the other hand and stabs it into the soft fluttering spot right beneath his fingertips. 

Blood spurts out, hot and wet against his skin. It screams, higher and more painful. It scrabbles with its large hands, claws tearing at him. Hari grits his teeth, pulls out the blade and stabs again. 

The troll writhes and thrashes, trying to throw its attacker off. It slams its body against the bathroom floor. There's a yelp as Hari's caught between the wall and the troll but doesn't let go, only tightening his grip on its blue flesh. 

There's another final stab before the troll's movements start to grow weaker as a red puddle drips onto the floor. It collapses, a mess of grey limbs and ratty clothing slowly starting to stain with red.

Hermione screams one last time, "Oh my god! You killed it!" 

"Merlin's saggy balls," Ron's so pale that his freckles could be mistaken for flecks of blood.

Hari groans as he flops backward. He can feel the blood soak through his robes as he lays on the tiles. 

"I fucking hate Halloween," he pants, placing his forearm over his face as he can hear the teachers convene on the bathroom in their clicking shoes and swishing robes.

"Mr. Harry Potter!" Came the stern cry of McGonagall before Hari passes out.

(A gloved hand brushes his cheeks.

"You did your best, kid." The mechanized voice echoes.

He stares up into blinding white eyes, seeing his own reflection in them.

"Look, there's nothing you can do but keep going. All you can do is pick yourself up and live. That's the definition of a hero right there, picking yourself up again and again. So live, okay kid?"

Survive, Hari. Survive to fight another day.)

---

Hari wakes up in the infirmary.

He can hear people talking about him. They're always talking about him in Hogwarts. 

He misses home. Back in Gotham, he was just another brown kid in the classroom, on the streets, in foster care. There was no all-seeing eye always focused on him. There was safety and refuge in adults not paying attention to you.

There is no safe place in Hogwarts.

He can hear snippets of whispers, "Stabbed a troll to death", "Willfully sought out danger", "Potter deserves to be expelled".

It's nothing new. People will always see the worst of him, no matter what he does. 

Hari sighs and turns over, reaching for his knife. Its handle cradles the curve of his hand, comforting him like a teddy bear might comfort a scared child.

No matter what happens, he'll pick himself back up.

(He remembers the conversations that happened behind closed doors, around corners, in the dead of night, when they thought they couldn't hear.

"He's a troublesome boy." His teacher would say in the lounge, "He always lies about cheating when everyone knows he couldn't get those scores."

"That boy," Uncle Vernon spits the word like a curse, "Is a plague on our family. If he disappeared the next day, I would thank God for getting rid of him." He says to the neighbor.

"He's a bit of a problem child," The social worker stutters, "Has a bit of a history with violence. He'd need a firm hand in guiding him onto the right path."

Hearing it said behind your back makes the pain worse. Hari knew that no one liked him, but the simple act of existing, of being himself incites rage and hatred in everyone.

It doesn't matter that Hari's really good at math, he's obviously a cheat. It doesn't matter that the only time he stabbed his foster parent was when he tried reaching for them in the middle of the night and with the stench of alcohol across his breath. 

It doesn't matter that Hari Potter's only crime is daring to live.

It doesn't matter. He's Hari Potter and no one survives like him.)

---

When he emerges into the great hall the next day, he finds that there's a subtle shift in the atmosphere. He can't explain it properly but it's an expectant, satisfied tension. One might even say relief even though the whispers follow his footsteps. He can feel the prick of eyes assessing his moves as he slips into an empty spot on the bench.

He's fulfilling their expectations. He's the golden hero of Gryffindor! Who else would have gone after a troll to rescue a muggleborn?

It's nothing new but still his fists tighten as he eats his breakfast, hair raising on his arms as he sees the swivel of heads as he turns, all eyes are on him, staring straight into the mask.

And that is all they will ever see: the golden hero, the Boy-Who-Lived, Harry Potter.

Right beside him are Hermione and Ron, who've been dubbed as his friends, as 'the golden trio', but are  strangers to him.

Still, Hari turns to them easily enough, slipping into his role like an eel in the water, smiling indulgently. He'll play the game and he'll play it well. 

(He remembered the first time when it all clicked for him: people want their expectations to be met. 

If they see you as dumb, then play into it, fit into their projections so that eventually their expectations slide off, thinking they see everything that you are. If they want you to be nice, smile and nod and there won't ever be a bad word said about you.

The Dursley's wanted a punching bag. The teachers wanted a quiet, easy student. The students wanted a friendly ear.

They all wanted something from him, one way or another

He hadn't known at the time, how malleable the self really was, seeing as how he was crushed under the Dursley's heel. It was hard to know the sweet taste of oxygen when you were always held under the water. Still, you yearned for it, that life-giving substance that you could only snatch it for a moment, just a single moment when you struggled upright and gasped, desperate to live. 

Love is just as essential as oxygen for a person. Existing without it, while it flows freely to everyone around, is torture. You yearn for love without having ever experienced it.

Hari knows that he won't ever experience it from the Dursleys. He tried when he was three and four and five to do his chores so well, so perfectly that Aunt Petunia would have a kind word at least, not even a treat or reward. She didn't even notice, continuing to pile on the work.

So he tries to earn it from the only other adults in his life: teachers. The older he gets, the colder they become. In Gotham, the teachers just… don't care. Still, he tries to get on their good side but his classmates tease his accent and he still freezes up when called on in class and the teachers don't have the energy to give a damn now, assign him detention. His classmates laugh and jeer when Dudley trips him. They whisper when a ball flies too close to him and he flinches. He's not normal, he doesn't fit in, he's a freak so they don't like him. 

You can't change who you are–or so he thought.

It wasn't a prominent example. She was just a straight-A student who ran the playground black market for glitter pens, takis and pokemon cards. 

Despite the shrewd business shark she was, the teacher never suspected a thing with her good grades and guileless face. She'd smile at the teacher calmly and when his back was turned, she pocketed money for a bag of takis. 

Hari watched this all silently, taking it all in. How she never stuttered or seemed flustered, how her confidence let her move smoothly through both students and teachers alike. He watched and learned these first lessons of deception, of receiving love.

So he stopped stuttering, stared smiled at his classmates and helped with passing out papers. What differences were so stark between himself and his classmates disappeared. He made friends. The teachers didn't give him detention as often. Even if the Dursleys refused to be fooled, it was good enough for him.

Hari Potter had tasted the succor of love and he was more than willing to change himself to get some more.)

---

It's strange adjusting to Ron and Hermione dogging his every step, though it's not much of a change from Ron. They're his 'friends' as everyone seems to remind him.

Eventually, Hari has to admit that they are kind of friends. Hari can't say he hates the two of them, but neither does he like them at first.

It comes suddenly and slowly, the friendship between the so-called golden trio.

Almost overnight, the day after Halloween, the three strangers are heralded as the golden trio. Hari doesn't get why "golden" was chosen, except for the fact one of their house colors is gold.

He glances at Hermione while she natters on next to him during breakfast. One single act of kindness and she's stuck to him like a burr. She's lucky she wasn't around when he was still getting used to a lack of coffee or he would've shivved her.

It's one of the things he missed most about home, the fact no one asked why a child clearly still in elementary was drinking coffee. A coffee addiction in Gotham was the least of your worries. Here in Hogwarts, charmed coffee carafes always slide away from his hands as soon as he reached for them. Even if someone poured him a cup, as soon as tried to take a sip, it would turn to pumpkin juice which has a nasty, pungent taste.

It's another mark against Hogwarts on why it sucks. 

They slowly grow on him, like the glowing mold of the Gotham sewers, until eventually, one day he realizes that they're friends. Somehow these tricky bastards sneaked inside his defenses. For all their faults, they're loyal, good friends. 

Hari likes them, he genuinely does but there are still things that they don't know, things that he can't share. Sometimes… being around them hurts. He can't help but remember all the friends he's lost.

He's talking about gothic architecture with Hermione one day and his heart can't help but remember the spirited debates between him and Majid. How can he sit here and smile while Majid is dead? When Majid will never be able to talk about his conspiracies again? He goes quiet. 

Hermione notices when he stops replying, only giving one word answers. 

He's teaching soccer, sorry football, with Dean to some of their yearmates. Dean's pretty good, having been on a team before Hogwarts. Hari much prefers basketball. Hoops were pretty much on every residential street in Gotham, much easier to find than a soccer field.

Lilly Moon's got one hell of a kick, grinning roguishly when the boys scatter whenever she approaches the ball. Seamus keeps tripping over the air whenever he tries to dribble and Neville never gives enough power in a pass. Ron's doing the best out the boys, making it somehow  work though he misses the ball half the time. Dean's one of the goalies while Hermione volunteered to be the other one. 

When Ron scores a goal against Dean, he cheers, grabbing onto Hari and Seamus nearby. Hari smiles and congratulates him though he feels grief wells up inside. Robyn used to be the exact same way, jumping on backs and hugging the closest person if she won or her favorite team scored or if anything good happened.

Hari pastes a smile on, acting the same as a moment ago but the light in his eyes has gone out. Ron frowns, turning to give a puzzled look to Hermione. 

(Hari's had friends before. They've never stayed before. 

He moved away or they moved away. Their parents would tell them to stay away from him. He'd switch schools. Some of them would begin to turn on him as they grew up. Or they died.

Friends don't stay in Hari Potter's life. They leave, one way or another. 

The earliest friend that Hari can remember is Mary from first grade. He'd just recently moved to Gotham, lonely because he wasn't from around here and Dudley being so openly against him. 

She was nice to him. They liked to climb the trees and shared crayons together. She'd share her lunch with him, giving her apple to him.

The Dursley's never gave him lunch nor did they care to pay for a school lunch.Ssince they had recently moved to the US, they didn't qualify for free lunch.

Mary ended up leaving, her parents divorcing and moving away with her mother to Pennsylvania.

She was his first friend but she wasn't the last.

He had school friends, ones that changed with each passing year. He doesn't remember most of their names at this point, though he can still see their faces' in his mind's eye. 

When he was first placed into the foster system, he was at a group home for a couple months. There had been a pair of twins, Navonna and Jadonna. They promised that they would stay best friends forever. 

It's the same story. they leave, on a good note at least, taken into their grandmother's custody. They hug and swear they'll keep in contact but they never do. 

Friends will always leave.

Majid was his closest friend, living in the same neighborhood for two years. Those two years were the best in his life. They were inseparable, joined to the hips for those two years, trawling old abandoned buildings, bat-watching during summer nights, planning to become heroes of their own. They were of the same soul, a breath shared between two bodies. 

They had the world at their fingertips–but it can never last.

He's had friends at school parks, foster homes before. But there will always be something to tear you apart.

Friends are not made to last.)

---

Hogwarts is a different type of winter than Gotham.

It creeps in, a deathly cold in stone hallways that no one ever wanders in, just waiting to claim you. It's an older, primal kind of winter, the one that prowls beside your bedside, just aching for the chance to take you. The hearth in their room doesn't seem so old-fashioned now, the only thing keeping the room from becoming a crypt of frozen bodies. 

Hari bundles up, wearing two sweaters, his winter cloak and three pairs of woolen socks. Wearing warmth as an armor is not new to him. Ever since he went into the foster system, his fingers would go stiff and a cold would dog him throughout the season. There's much to say about the Dursely's but they weren't that vindictive to freeze themselves alongside him.

Snow lays in huge drifts outside the castle walls, an utterly changed landscape. The black lake lies, dark and still, only a few spears of ice covering its shores. Beyond it, lies the forbidden forest, shadowed under the weight of its own ancient limbs. Behind the castle lies the mountain slope, no longer the grey-green color they had been in the fall but sleek white plains that beg to be sledded on.

Carafes of hot cocoa are served alongside every meal now, children's hands grasping the steaming mugs to warm up their fingers. Great snow forts are built almost daily, aided with the use of magic, and vicious battles break out between them, flinging snowballs at each other. even in playful games, Hogwarts students still align themselves by houses, playing house against house. 

Hari joins in with glee, slinging snowball at any passing enemy from inside the icy fortress. Ron begs a charm off of his older brother, Percy the prefect, that multiples every snowball they make by ten. With it they manage to pelt the opposing team of Slytherins into icicles until the third year has enough and sends a great gust of snow that caves in their fort.

On Decemeber first, the castle magically gets bedecked in fir and lights in preparation for Yule, what they call Christmas here. Hagrid carries giant pine trees all by himself, twelve Christmas trees that fill the great hall reach the top of the ceiling. Flitwick and Babbling charm the tree bedecked with conjured baubles and flickering lights. Somehow, the Weasley twins produce a gnome that sings carols horribly off-key. Mcgonagall keeps trying to take him away whenever they break him out into the common room, but Fred loudly sobs and claims its their pet while George squirrels it away. 

Fred and George are playing cat and mouse and Hari knows that Mcgonagall is not going to win this one. 

The break gets closer and closer and a hectic excitement seems to be overtaking the air. couples go on romantic Christmas walks. The snowball fights get more frantic as all the boys try to satisfy their blood lust before break. Everyone, third year and above, go onto their Hogsmeade trips, desperately searching for christmas gifts.

Hari slips a shopping magazine from some of the other students here and there. He flips through a Parvarti's clothing magazine, penning an envelope to Briffo's Daily Wear. Katie Bell was kind enough to give him Honeyduke's catalogue. Between everyone he knows, he thinks chocolates or a scarf is good yet cheap present. So far he's got a box of chocolate for Moon, Finnigan and Thomas, a jar of chocolate frogs for Ron, a scarf for Longbottom and a copy of Silent Spring for Hermione.

The book was the hardest thing to get, having to arrange with an older muggleborn student who'd order it for him. The Christmas present have taken a sizable dent out of his savings. He still has to buy his flights for next year, his school supplies and anything else he might need over the summer.  There are some job options for him at Gotham. Big Mama said she'd be willing to have him be a dishwasher at her diner, which is the safest option. Gangs are always looking for runners and job openings are constant at the docks. Not good options, but high reward for the risk.

It's not like many jobs are available for kids, except the illegal ones.

(The first winter was the worst.

He wasn't prepared for it, that deep, sinking cold of Gotham's winter.

He was only one week into foster care when the winter truly settled in. He knew it was cold, it wasn't his first year here but when the building refuses to turn on the heater, you become intimately acquainted with how cold the human body can get before your pride collapses, willing to crawl into a twin bed with two other kids to share body heat. There was a space heater per room but the windows were poorly isolated and the house hadn't been up to code for at least a to code. 

The Bates didn't hit kids, at least he never saw them do it, but they did yell and scream and berate anyone within eyesight. Hari thought he was already used to it, living with the Dursleys. Aunt Petunia had been cursing out his parents for his birth not even two weeks ago when he shattered a glass.

 It wasn't new, but that didn't mean it wasn't hard.

It ended up being easier to leave the house, on the days it wasn't absolutely cold outside. He learned quick how many socks you needed, what type of sweater was best, which homeless group would be willing to share the fire with him. 

The library was open from 9 to 5 and he could ride the buses and trams all night long, no one even caring if he came back or not. The parks were safe in the daytime and some parts were not bad at night, if it was in the center of a Bat's territory. 

He went back eventually, through the door at dinnertime or knocking on the window at night for someone to let him in. a nine year old's got to eat and sleep some time, right?

Just because he had a house to return to didn't mean he wasn't homeless.)

---

Yule break came and nearly everyone left. The Weasleys stayed behind, their parents off to visit their eldest sons for Yule and the rest of the boys were left to spend Christmas in a dreary castle. There were a handful of students from all houses, enough to fill a single table for break, with the professors down from their raised pedestal and beside them. 

It was quieter, colder without the masses of students and everyone drew ranks to combat the feeling. Dumbledore was his usual cheerful, barmy self, showing up in stranger than usual robes and occasionally inquiring students about their health, their mood, grades, anything. he asked Ron and Nott, the only other first year that stayed, but never him.

Hagrid invited him over for tea, sending him a letter by owl when he could've just asked him during breakfast. Instead, the giant man beamed at him when he looked up from the letter, winking conspiratorily. Well, it was kind of nice, he guessed, that Hagrid wanted him to have someone to write to on Christmas.

Later that day, Hari went down to his cottage, grinning wildly when Fang jumped up to lick his face and Hagrid welcomed him in with a hearty grin. 

"Merry Yule, Hari!" Hagrid pulled him and fang into a hug, lifting them off the ground to dangle.

"Merry Yule to you too, Hagrid," A softer smile, a slipping of the accent.

"Now, do ya want some tea? I made some fruit cake if ya want some?"

"Sure, I'd love to try some," Hari slipped out of the hold, settling into one of the two huge armchairs Hagrid had around his fire. Hagrid, despite his debacle with the rock cake, was quite a decent baker. 

After a round of tea and chit chat, Hagrid reach to pull out a box underneath the coffee table. It was wrapped in butcher's paper and a small note was written on it with his slanted style.

"Now, I know it's not much but I wanted to give ya something fer Yule." He pushed the present onto his lap, his beard shaking as he nodded and looked into the fire. "Ah don't know if yer 'Fosters' will send ya something but everyone deserves something for Yule."

"Thank you Hagrid." He couldn't look him in the eye, tracing the edge of the box, "I really appreciate it."

(He spent his first ever Christmas when he nine and at a Islamic household.

Majid invited him last minute, begging him to join him over break because 'no one deserves to spend Christmas alone! It's the time for family and you're pretty much my brother!'

Majid's parents loved Christmas, not for the obvious Christian aspects of it, but for the warmth, the light of the season, how the world seemed brighter, kinder even in Gotham.

They ordered pizza and watched the specials on TV. Majid said that they did do presents but not the same amount for birthdays or Eid. 

His parents gave him a box of chocolates and a thick, fluffy blanket. He still has that blanket to this day.

That  day where he sat in front of their TV, eating pizza and playing Mario Kart was maybe the only time in his life when he understood the meaning of family.)

---

The log crackled and hissed in the hearth, the fire burning low and casting uneven, red light across the dorm.  Hari slipped another pair of socks on, before shoving them into unlaced tennis shoes. 

Hw couldn't sleep. He'd been staring up at the stone ceiling above him, listening to the cold wind howl annd raking icy fingers against the windowpane. The wind was a tangible presence this high up in the castle, hundreds of feet above the ground.

When nearly all the students had left Hogwarts and it was reduced to nearly a fraction of its usual population, the halls seemed darker, deeper. The teachers forbid them to go anywhere except the dorms, the great hall, the library and the courtyard. Even venturing to the Great Lake was forbidden due to the persistent snow storm that hung over Hogwarts. The snow fell slowly but it kept building up and up until the snow drifts were high above even Hagrid's head. 

But its when no one wants you to explore, to find things, when you feel that call most deeply. They were trying to hide something and Hari was going to find it.

He tugged on his cloak, nearly invisible except the silver inside. It rippled over him, a sheen of water stilling into a mirror.

Like a ghost–no, like a Bat, he crept out of his dorm, slipping down the stairs and out of the corridor on soundless feet. 

In the dead of night, the school was familiar but unknown, where he expected hallways to split off, they come far later and doors he had never seen before set in the walls with differing handles, one more victorian, another outright medieval.

Some, he had tried. Most were locked even though the handle turned, the door would not budge, like it was set against an invisible force. Others had opened, looking out into dusty classrooms, sheet-covered bedrooms and one distinct door led to a set of old, slimy stairs that disappeared down into the darkness.

They were a secret but not the secret, the one the adults were trying to hide from them. 

Up and down, Hari roamed, invisible under his cloak, except for the occasional brown hand that roached out to open a door.

It was when he was on the fourth floor, looking out at the darkness of the night, no moon, no light, except the white snowflakes that drifted past.

He kept walking, let his feet take him on an unknown road.

There was an open door. 

There hadn't been open door yet.

Hari crept closer, looking to see if anyone was inside. 

The room was a cleared out classroom, no desks but chalkboards on the wall. The only thing in the room was a tall, thin object draped in a white sheet.

Nothing else.

He watched it for a minute, let the seconds drag on, as he waited for movement, for life.

Hari didn't know how long he waited, crouched by the door, straining with his senses.

The wind howled behind him, reminding him he was alone, that he was the only thing awake for miles and miles.

Finally, he broke, muscles and bones creaking with the movement. Toeing over the threshold, one last time, he looked behind him, almost expecting to see the swooping black form of Snape.

Stepping over, he almost expected something to happen, to get in trouble, to be found out that he's a fake, he's not really Harry Potter.

But nothing did. so he walked closer, to this thing.

Taking hold of the white sheet, he swept it off with a big movement, cloth fluttering to the ground. 

He stared into the mirror and his reflection stared back. Hari took a step back but his reflection didn't.

It was him, in the mirror, Harry or was it Hari? He wasn't in his school uniform but in jeans and jordans and a Gotham Knights jersey. There was no scar on his brow, his skin was dark and tan and he looked like himself, like the real self. 

And Majid was right there–oh god, it was Majid and he was smiling and hugging and there was Robyn right beside him, chattering real big and hanging off his shoulder like she used to and there was even the faded, flickering figures of his parents behind him, a woman with bright hair and gentle face, a man with square glasses and the same complexion as him but no discernible facial features, like his mind couldn't picture them distinctly.

It was a lie and it broke his heart. It was a horrible, heart-twisting lie, the one that whispered sweet nothings in front of you before it came to kill you. 

It was like that one variant of joker toxin, two Christmases ago. The one that made you see things you desired most while your blood pressure kept going down and down until your heart eventually stopped beating.

Hari knew it was just a trick, a poison that struck the soul instead of blood, but he couldn't help but keep staring.

It was him and he was happy and no one was dead and nothing hurt.

But that wasn't life. Life hurt. Life hurt you and kept on hurting you until all the way into your grave. If you were lucky, maybe you'd find some peace and joy in your life but that wasn't promised, wasn't a given. 

'It's a lie, it's a lie, it's joker venom, c'mon snap out of it!' The thought echoed in circles around his brain, chasing one end after the other.

Majid. Robyn. His parents. That school shooting on Halloween. The drive-by. The earthquake. The prone bodies in the alleyways seen when walking by.

They were all dead and he had seen them all either die or buried or felt their absence so deeply that it could not be unwound from his existence. 

Life was death and these were all dead people in front of him, including himself.

With physical pain, Hari tore his eyes away from his reflection, dropping to his knees. His eyes burned, either from not blinking or the tears that welled up, he didn't know. His hands shook as he tightend them over his head, pulling at his hair as the pain grounded him, reminding that this here was real, this was the real life and the lie life in the mirror.

There was the click of a footstep, faint, distant but still there. The first sign of human life this entire night. 

Hari panicked, scrambling up from his position on the floor.

Surely this was the secret and he couldn't be seen here.

Hari ran, an instinctual fear leading him to flight, far far away from this accursed mirror and whoever came knocking. 

A few minutes later, with Hari already a floor down, a wizard in hazy purple robes opened the other door to the room.