Chapter Text
Many things have been said about Wednesday Addams: Freaky, kooky, weird. From those with a functioning brain: grotesque, macabre, morbid. All acceptable compliments. Suppose it comes with the tedious burden of being extraordinary — even among Outcasts, — or downright supernatural by Normie standards. Wednesday never minded much, most of it falling onto her not-so-deaf ears, to be filed away as irrelevant blather. Save for occasional off hand “creepy” to lift her spirits, opinions of unwashed hormonal masses are rarely of note.
Never has she been called an outright liar.
Normally she welcomes an outlandish rumor. Most often there is truth behind the gossip, and she enjoyed setting the story straight, confirming their suspicions in the most blood-curdlingly descriptive way possible. Like that time Brittany from Middle School Hell #3 started a tale about worms living Wednesday’s teeth. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out who had ended up with a mouthful of Annelida the very next day.
Not this time.
It’s even more insulting that they don’t say it to her face, robbing her of a witty comeback. She prepared several good ones, and yet. Oh, they are thinking it, whispering. They mutter behind her back in their friend’s ears, fancying themselves shrewd, the cowards. Some even have the gall to sound sympathetic. Poor Wednesday this, poor Wednesday that. Disgusting.
Even Bianca resorted to underhanded insults and petty know-it-all competition over botany, of all things. Wednesday presumed better of her in their short acquaintanceship. Alas, Epictetus was right about those pesky expectations.
Not to mention the pathetic attempts to convince her she’s gone mad. Who does Weems think she is?
The truth is, nothing will scrub away the metallic smell of Rowan’s fresh blood and or erase the memory of the velvety texture of the small intestine. It was different that night, untainted by chlorine or spices in Grandmama Addams’ stew. No anatomy book, morgue, or vision can reach the high of seeing a freshly disemboweled body. It’s ingrained in her now, a nice memento of a horrid evening.
Rowan was ready to kill her because of the prophecy. Too bad she did not recognize that murderous glint in his eyes sooner. A divination about her from a true seer, as the drawing seems to suggest. How exciting. Everyone knows that there is no running away from Fate. So Wednesday will run toward it.
Ironic, isn’t it, that out of all people it’s a Normie who has enough of a backbone to believe her?
A surprisingly strong hand grabs her from behind again, pulling her back for the second time in a day. It takes all of her self control not to break his right radius. Maybe the left one as well, just to teach a lesson. And a couple of fingers.
“Sorry,” Tyler lets go. “There is someone over there.”
“These woods are getting crowded,” she murmured.
There is a man pacing over the murder site, muttering under his breath. Or what Wednesday thinks is the murder site. That tree feels awfully familiar to her back.
On a second glance, the man is more of a teen boy, dressed in Normie clothes too big for his gangly body. His hair is a crow's nest, unkept and jet-black, not helped by the constant racking of his hand through it. She can’t see much else from the back.
Wednesday tilted her head, listening in.
“Stop breathing so loud, he’ll hear us.”
Tyler sighed, too noisily for her taste.
“Don’t think he hears much of anything right now.”
“Shush.”
But Galpin is right. The suspect is lost in his own world, perhaps reliving the previous night. Could this monster have a second, human face? That would complicate things, but it’s not uncommon amongst Outcasts. Wednesday’s heart jumps in excitement; she loves a challenge.
“Can you make out anything?” Tyler's breath brushed her cheek, annoyingly close.
“Shut up.”
She sent him one of her more chilling glares over the shoulder, which finally curbed him into silent submission.
“... murder always everyone’s first solution, huh?” The pacing stopped abruptly, and Wednesday felt Tyler tens up behind her. Such unnecessary dramatics. The suspect continued talking, none the wiser about their presence, only taking a pause as if someone, or perhaps something, replied to him. “What was her name again?” a pause. Waiting, and then. “Sorry, I’m not going to summon her, please quit asking. You’ll see her soon anyway, don’t worry. Just tell me more about the creature.”
He has a strange accent, too muddled for Wednesday to place exactly. British. Perhaps from southern England. Not something Wednesday was ever expecting to hear in this neck of the woods.
“Oh, shit.” Tyler sighs behind her as soon as the suspect turns, his profile now visible from behind the tree where they are hiding.
He has glasses, old fashioned round ones that oddly suit him. Strange, considering the Monster’s bulbous eyeballs. Though Uncle Fester always said that there is no better disguise than a ‘stache and a pair of specs. Alas, no facial hair in sight - the murderer’s first mistake of many, Wednesday’s sure. Choosing a very distinct shape of his disguise is his second one.
“Do you know him?” She asks sharply.
He wasn’t one of Nevermore’s students she’s seen so far. Granted, Wednesday is not one for a social scene, despite Enid’s desperate attempts to drown her in pointless team festivities, but it seems like everyone has tried to catch a glimpse of her in the past couple of days at least once.
Wednesday never forgets a face. And this one is unfamiliar. An Outcast hiding among Normies?
“Yeah, that’s latte, two pumps of golden syrup. Recently started coming in every couple of weeks or so with his girlfriend, double espresso. They usually sit in the furthest booth, and sometimes-“
“This is not the place to discuss his life story, Galpin, just a name will suffice for now.”
“I don’t know his name, Wednesday.” She whips around, inwardly cursing the stupid barista incompetence, about to order him think harder, but he anticipates her indignation. “What? Do you know how many people I see every day? I can’t remember every customer’s name, no matter what my manager, or you, say!”
“Lower your voice. You’d think when it comes to life or death your pathetic brain would try harder. Don’t you call the customers’ names when their drinks are ready?”
“Literally when have I ever done that? It’s not a Starbucks, Wednesday.”
“Obviously I know it’s called Weatherwane. It’s the only place in that miserable little town that serves passable coffee. What does this Starbucks have to do with anything?”
“That’s where they do the name calling thing, we don’t-“ he looks past her, to where ‘Latte, 2 pumps of golden syrup’ should be muttering away like a raving homicidal lunatic he probably is, but the spot is empty. “Aaaand he’s gone.”
But Wednesday is already running, pushing right past the safety of the tree, twisting around like an eel to check every direction. She is ready to give chase, ready to get some answers for the mass grave of questions that keeps getting deeper.
He couldn’t have gotten far. Tyler distracted her with his trivial arguing for barely a second. A second too long. The suspect disappeared into thin air.
She drops to her knee, scanning for tracks. The evidence should be right here, in the ivy covered ground. The displacement of dirt, leaves bunched together — it all tells a story. There, the tracks to the spot, clear as day. Clear, even footprints. American men’s size nine and a half, steady gait — no limp, no distinct sole pattern, somewhere between five eight and five nine. Too tough to determine weight after the rain.
But no steps leading away. As if he just evaporated.
She traces them to where the killer must have stopped last with her hand, burrowing into wet muck, urging her ability forward.
It’s for nothing. Her unmastered sight shows a frustrating zilch.
“Good thing serial killers like to return to the scene of their crime, huh?” Tyler chimes behind her. “Maybe he’ll come back again?”
Useless.
“There must be something here. Even if he is a Vanisher… You’ve seen him too, right?”
“Kind of hard to miss a mumbling dude in the middle of a clearing,” he kneels down beside her, but, to Wednesday’s relief, thinks better of placing a placating hand on her shoulder. Good. She would have broken it this time. “Yes, I saw him, don’t worry. You’re not crazy. Or at least not that kind of crazy.”
Here, on her hands and knees on the earth, Wednesday is transported back to the night Harvest Festival. This is the place. She doesn’t need her ability to know it.
But there must be something. Wednesday can’t just accept another dead end. Blood, fabric, hair, glasses… glasses!
Only a few feet away from them, innocently glinting in the sun are Rowan’s glasses. She knew it!
Wednesday scrambles towards them, grasping her missing link, and finally sees.
***
“Ah, Mr. Black, just the person I’m looking for.” Principal Weems’ red lips stretch in a sharp smile, her voice cloyingly sweet. She beckons him with her perfectly manicured finger. “Come, we have something to discuss.”
Come, little boy, follow the trail of sweets.
Harry didn’t know what to think of Larissa Weems when they first met almost three months ago. He nearly laughed out loud when he first saw her, this flawless long lost Malfoy cousin that presided over Nevermore Academy for Outcasts. He didn’t, of course. She was doing him a favor, — or, well, whoever had to pull the strings for the Great Savior, — by letting him into the Academy. And he does have some manners.
The stay hasn’t been very productive.
His stomach felt queasy from apparition. Rowan’s shrill voice still rang through his throbbing brain, desperate to fulfil his mother’s wish even after his death. Standing there with half his abdomen falling out, — and here’s Harry, complaining of routine side effects, — he looked like one of Greyback's victims. Not a pretty sight. Not a nice reminder.
Harry was once again surprised by the single mindedness, the obsessiveness, of the recently departed. By this point he really shouldn’t be. For those who linger a little but don’t have enough power to actually stay it’s usually either revenge or one last all-consuming wish. From his experience, — what has his life come to? — Rowan won’t be for much longer, already on the precipice of Beyond. Holding on only to his promise to the late Evelyn Laslow.
Just his luck.
To stumble onto another prophecy, barely more than a year after full-filling his own. Classic Harry.
This Wednesday Addams sure is lucky Rowan is not sticking around as a ghost. Something tells him he’d be a particularly malicious one.
A poltergeist
Otherwise, these last months have been quiet to the point of being boring. And that’s good. Great even. Boring is something Harry needs more of in his life. It doesn’t make him twitchy at all.
Are you soothed yet?
Harry likes Nevermore. Far less whimsical than Hogwarts and not quite as warm or welcoming, it has its own unique charm. There is no quidditch, which is a bummer, but the absence of moving stairs and old judgmental portraits is a plus.
The faculty are nice enough, with an added bonus of no attempts on his life. Yet. They don’t pay him much attention, what with them being so much older and Harry barely past the student age and trying his hardest to keep his head down. The only one who ever lingers in the library beyond requesting a book is Ms. Thornhill. And that, Harry suspects, is only because other professors dislike her muggle nature and not for his irresistible personality.
Overall, it’s refreshing to finally be in the background.
The students are fun though. Per the agreement, he doesn’t get to interact with them much. You’d think he’s sick with Dragon Pox or something, what with how adamant Weems was about this precaution. Though it kind of works out for him. Harry does okay in the moment but he's a shitty long term liar. He couldn’t really keep any elaborate ruse straight anyway, so his best chance of not blowing a centuries old Statute of Secrecy to a bunch of teen Outcasts is just not talking to them.
He spends most of his time cooped up at the library in the age when homework answers are one computer search away. He doesn’t get many visitors, save for occasional couples wanting to indulge in a semi-public make out.
Harry leaves those be.
He is kind of jealous of electricity working here. It would have been nice to just type “Ten uses of billywig sting” and be done with it instead of crawling through musty potions tomes. So he accepts the lack of academically inclined company.
That doesn’t mean he doesn’t watch them in the Quad under Invisibility Cloak from time to time. In a completely non-creepy, non-stalkery way, thank you very much, Ron.
What Headmistress Weems and MACUSA don’t know won’t hurt them.
It gets a bit lonely without Ron and Hermione’s constant camaraderie, but loneliness is better than being smothered to death in hero worship. And it’s not like he doesn’t see them at all. In fact, he probably would have seen less of them back in England, what with the amount of mirror calls to check on his wellbeing.
And did anyone honestly expect him to just stay from this new and eccentric part of the magical world?
Though perhaps it’s wrong of him to just mush it all in the same category. They are proud of their identities. It’s in their songs, paintings, poems. Harry admires this courage to stay true to themselves. It takes a lot. Too strange to fit in with the normies and too limited to join witches and wizards, they are Outcasts from both muggle and magical.
Too bad that the divide between their societies is a festering wound with no signs of healing.
Unsurprisingly, the majority are creatures, but there are those with select magical abilities. Harry doesn’t really have a clue how that works, and it seems that magical governments aren’t too concerned or interested in it. Happy to sweep everything under a rug and call it a day, as always.
This community thriving despite their differences, or perhaps because of them, is something extraordinary. The fact that a school housing completely different species, some with historical bad blood between them, is still functioning better than a wizarding one would have been funny if it wasn’t so sad.
Not that it’s perfect. Harry commends Weems for introducing a muggle to the academy, but it’s been slow going, especially with the older generations. Parent’s Weekend in the Ophelia Hall was a bit of a disaster.
Still, it’s a step in the right direction. One that perhaps Hogwarts will take one day. Merlin knows he’s heard enough of Hermione’s tirades to pick up that Muggle Studies is in desperate need of a refresh. It’s still a long way away, what with half the population hunting muggles for sport just a year ago, but Harry believes that Kingsley will make progress during his term.
That this war they’ve won wasn’t for nothing.
He doesn’t like to think about the feeling he gets low in his gut when he catches the way some Jericho residents look at passing blue striped uniforms. It reminded him too much of Aunt Petunia, and he’s past all that.
Nevermore held its own against Hogwarts in lingering shadows and secrets. The sheer amount of passageways and hidden room alone is enough to wake a bright eyed eleven year old in Harry. He nearly burst when he stumbled on a first dusty hall behind a cracked mirror. This time though, he’s on his own. No trusty friends at his side or magical map from his dad to aid him. He’s still got the cloak though. And it’s been exhilarating , to stalk the corridors under unusually bright moonlight, feeling invincible.
“Marilyn tells me that the library is looking much better these days. I am glad there is at least some benefit from your presence with us.”
It was in the right state, alright. A big tedious dusty messy state. It seems the previous tenure librarian, a werewolf nearing a hundred, was happy to let things slide as long as no one bothered him much. Unsurprisingly, the result was missing manuscripts, ten layers of dust, suspicious looking mold in the corners, and a complete lack of any kind of organization.
Hermione nearly had an aneurism when she saw it through the mirror, extracting a solemn vow that he would do his best to fix it. So he agreed; anything is better than being a student again. The thought of writing essays alone makes him shudder. Frankly, a future as an undercover librarian is not something Harry would have ever guessed for himself, but it’s not like he has any other career goals in mind.
So it was either the library or caretaking. Harry decided it’s better to be Pince than Filch.
“Glad I could help,” he replied sincerely.
Weems paused at a tucked away tapestry with a pair werewolves lost in a howl and smirked, — dare he think it — conspiratorially. It made her look like a girl. One that must have spent time between classes discerning hidden nooks in a striped uniform of her own.
“Follow me,” she ordered, and just like that the girl was gone. “It seems you’ve been quite an admirer of Nevermore’s more hidden parts. I trust this little tidbit of architecture will also stay between us, hm?”
Harry found this passage eight weeks ago. Suspicious tapestry in the corner of a dead end hallway? Please, it was begging for it.
“Of course, ma’am.”
They exited through Medusa’s mouth, stepping through the fire unharmed. Seriously, Harry has got to find her family tree. He’ll eat his pointy hat if there is no Malfoy on there.
“Take a seat, Mr. Black.”
Harry plonked down on the rich chair in front of a grand wooden desk. The office, outfitted in posh fabrics and deep dark colors, lets Weems’ paleness take the stage, drawing all of the audience's eyes on her. Under the right circumstances, with the right person, the grandiosity might have been intimidating.
Not now though, and not with him. Still, she tried and they sat there, listening to the crackles of fire.
Harry shuffled back in his seat and got comfortable. It’s not like it’s his first time at the fair; in the past year he had to sit through many uncomfortable silences in pursuit of his goal. And he’s really past the stage in life when a heavy gaze is enough to pressure him, no matter who is giving it to him.
“How goes your…” she finally said and paused, picking the right words, “personal endeavor, shall we call it that? Were you at all successful?”
“If I am to be honest...”
“Please be. This is a safe space for you, Mr. Black. That Ministry,” not a fan of MACUSA, are you, Headmistress? “employee spent an excessive amount of time making sure of that. It would be in poor taste to waste all of his hard work.”
Harry, who sensed a couple of minor wards against information leaks and an old binding vow on Weems, could have sat mute the whole day with no remorse. Though that’d be dull.
“Then not really, ma’am. Your collection is remarkable, but unfortunately not as full on the subject as I’d hoped.”
“Disappointing. Perhaps… if I knew what it is you are searching for, I could be of some assistance.”
It can’t be ruled out that she might know something useful. At this point, Harry is almost desperate enough to try.
Yes, Harry, tell the nice lady all your deepest darkest secrets. That’d end well.
He had hoped that Outcasts’ peculiar approach to magic might reveal something new. They’ve had centuries away from wizards to develop it after all. But what’s written in those dusty books is not much different than what he had seen in wizarding titles, if more readily available. The terms are different but the concepts are the same: Dark magic, sacrifice, ultimate control, blah-blah-blah, etcetera-etcetera. All things Harry knows all too well to avoid.
Much of the knowledge, however, is passed down from parents and teachers to children orally, never written down.
So maybe Weems really could help him.
It’s just not a risk Harry’s willing to take.
Only two other people in the whole wide living world know about his new condition, and he lived through hell with them. A woman he talked to maybe four times, if that, just doesn’t make the cut. No matter how conspiratorial the smirks, how sweet the words, how motherly the eye. Or how strong the leverage.
There are things worse than death. A lacklustre prospect when one’s immortal.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but The Boss would be very unhappy if I said anything. You know how it is.”
“Oh, cut the crap, Harry Potter,” Larissa scoffed and Harry’s whole body gave a visible twitch.
Bugger. Now he felt that crawling discomfort she was aiming for all along.
Because of course there is no boss. Harry hasn’t worked a day of his life for either of the Ministries. But he is a shitty liar. And a secret government mission right out of Dudley’s old spy movies is the best he could do for a cover story in the moment. So he slapped on his godfather’s last name to fit in with the Outcast aesthetics and mumbled about a special secret research project when asked.
“Did you think I wouldn’t try to find out everything I can about the man some magicians hoisted on me? That I’d let an unknown near my students? It took some digging, sure, but your magic is really not as full proof as you lot seem to believe. And that scar of yours is very famous. Tell me, do they really call you The Boy Who Lived? Such a mouthful.”
Weems leaned onto her elbow over the desk, now towering over Harry effortlessly with a shark’s pearly white smile back on her pallid face. Fire glinted off her golden brooch.
“I’ve spent years of my life successfully protecting Nevermore from undue influences. That includes people like you. Just because we share some similarities in our abilities does not mean Outcasts fall under you, Mr. Potter, or your Ministries. You abandoned us a long time ago,” she sighed, leaning back in seat. “Now tell me why you’re here. The truth this time.”
“I really can’t.”
“Then get the hell out of my academy.”
No. Not yet
“Can’t do that either,” he replied. “You did sign that contract, Principal Weems.”
The thing is, Harry likes Nevermore. And, more importantly, Nevermore likes him back.
It’s in the way his foot never gets caught on thorny roots when he walks the grounds, even during his deepest bouts melancholy, when the rest of the world ceases to exist. Or how he always ends where he intended with no directions, even on his first day. In the lingering shadows that keep those pesky sun rays away from his face until Harry felt well rested and ready to wake. He hasn’t had to take Dreamless Sleep in months.
Little coincidental things. Only Harry knows that there is no such thing as coincidence.
“Spare me your childish attempts at deception. I already have one teen playing master manipulator, I don’t need another one. We both know Nevermore is able to terminate you whenever I want. I wrote it in myself.”
Did it really have to come to this?
He hasn’t harmed or even bothered anyone. Harry barely left that library without the Invisibility Cloak on. But as he looked deep into her piercing blue eyes, light dancing across her cheek, he knew no amount of placating or assuring would work.
Because her issue wasn’t with him personally, not really.
Harry stood. His stomach churned at what he was about to do, sour taste blooming on his tongue, but his gut told him that his time with Nevermore cannot be cut short. Was it the prophecy that caught him in its web? The bloodthirsty creature that roamed the grounds? Or the crypts he’s been stubbornly avoiding? Regardless of the reason, he needed to stay. No matter the method.
He took only a few steps to the door before succumbing.
”Before I go,” Harry said, half turned to face his adversary. She lounged there, filled with the winner's gratification, like a cat who got the cream. “I just have one last question. I’ll be quick, promise.”
“Whatever I can do to get you packing faster.”
“I’m simply curious, how is it that you know how to clean up a murder scene so well?” He asked, taking a step closer. “Rowan Laslow’s been dead for less than twenty four hours, with only an hour and half to spare before police started combing through the forests. Tight window to scrub all that blood away. Impressive, really. Covered up a crime or three before, Principal Weems?”
It gave him no joy, using a death like that. He felt slimy, remembering Rowan’s dull eyes that lit up with the last of his passion the moment he spoke to him. But Nevermore is the key. Key to what?
He can’t leave.
Elder Wand hummed its perverse excitement in his sleeve, urging him on.
“If you are referring to the rumors Ms. Addams is spreading, I assure you they are completely unfounded. The girl has an overactive imagination. You know how teen girls are. Terrible little attention seekers. Rowan is safe and sound, on his way home to his father. Not that it’s any of your concern.”
She kept her smile, placid and indulging, not giving anything away. So Harry pressed harder.
“His ghost would agree to disagree. All those intestines pooling out? Nasty, painful way to go,” Harry said quietly. “He was barely sixteen. But you know what’s nastier? Not getting a proper burial. Not letting even the closest friends mourn him. Not informing other kids of imminent danger. Killed and forgotten, just like that. What boggles me” he said, pointing a finger at her frozen form, ”is that you can sit there, pretending that one of your students hasn’t just died under your watch, and snip the bureaucracy at me.”
If he learned anything about Larissa Weems in their short acquaintanceship is that she was fiercely proud to be a headmistress. So Harry hit her where it’s sore.
Just like that, the marbled cool was gone. Her pointy features contorted into a grimace, wrinkling, and splotches of red crept up her neck and cheeks.
“How I run my school is none of your business!” she whisper-yelled, shooting up from the desk, “You have no idea what you are getting into!”
“You’re right. What do I know?” Harry shrugged, backing away. “But the Ministry might be interested in Class XXXXX creature running loose around a muggle town, killing hikers. You think I’m bad? Imagine this place crawling with wizards hoping to make a quick galleon off the monster’s hide.”
“Mr. Potter,” she hissed, her eye twitching, “if you know what’s good for you...”
“I can’t,” Harry shook his head in resignation. “Look, I respect what you’re trying to do here, despite some of the more… controversial methods,” And really, what head of a learning institution hasn’t covered up an occasional death? “You have enough on your plate and I promise you I don’t mean any harm to the students. And who knows? Having a wizard around might come in handy.”
“It seems you chose a suitable alias, Mr. Black,” She let out a weary sigh, the kind that’s born from years of enduring teen mulishness, “Like your moldy namesake you are determined to cling on. Very well.”
Weems crossed the room in a few measured steps, heels clicking on the hardwood floor rhythmically, her shadow dancing behind. She extended her hand to seal with a shake and Harry took it gladly. It felt great to get a win, even if he had to resort to dirty blackmail.
Her nails pierced his flesh like gargoyle claws the moment they touched. She hauled him close by the arm, her grip unrelenting.
“But know this. Nevermore does not need a hero,” the points of her nails dug deeper, leaving red marks, “Do not presume for even one second that you are welcome here."
Harry reaped his hand away from her clutch.
Welcome or not, he’s staying.