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A sad, mournful song echoed through the halls of Grimmauld Place, drawing Harry from his slumber.
The wizard groaned and reached for the pillow beside him, placing it over his face in an attempt to block out the light filtering into the bedroom and the phoenix’s song.
“Fawkes, it is way too early for this,” Harry grumbled when his attempt was unsuccessful and he realized that sadly, his mind and body were officially up for the day.
Again.
Normally Harry liked sleeping in, but those days were becoming fewer and fewer the longer Fawkes stuck around.
Fawkes. That had been a twist no one had expected. When the phoenix had disappeared after Dumbledore’s funeral, no one had expected to ever see him again—there had never been a phoenix that had bonded with more than one wizard or witch in their life, especially one that had been born in the wild like Fawkes.
But a little after the final battle at Hogwarts, a little after the year anniversary of Dumbledore’s death, Fawkes had appeared again and had practically attached himself to Harry, showing up wherever the wizard happened to be. After a week or so, Harry had gradually accepted he now had a phoenix familiar to his name.
A phoenix familiar that apparently was very insistent on waking everyone in the house up at dawn.
Harry grumbled to himself as he forced himself out of bed and got dressed. He really needed to have a conversation with Fawkes about a human’s need for sleep and what could be considered a decent time to wake others up, because dawn certainly wasn’t it.
Harry snorted as the thought crossed his mind. Having a conversation with a bird—such a thing sounded absolutely ridiculous.
But to Harry, it didn’t feel as absurd as it sounded. Many days, Fawkes felt very—human.
More human than Harry himself sometimes felt, on his bad days.
Hermione claimed it was because phoenixes were very intelligent creatures, but Harry suspected it was something more. Hedwig—oh, it still hurt to think about her—had been a very intelligent creature. But there was a difference between that sort of intelligence and a more humanlike intelligence.
Fawkes often displayed the latter—to the point where Harry was convinced he had a roommate who just happened to have feathers, instead of a phoenix familiar.
Once he was ready for the day—very reluctantly ready—Harry poked his head in Sirius’ old room, which was now Fawkes’.
“Fawkes,” he sighed as he approached the phoenix’s perch. “We’ve talked about this…”
Harry frowned when the majestic bird shied away from his touch—that hadn’t happened before.
He took a closer look at the phoenix, noting the dull, greasy appearance his feathers had developed overnight and patches where it seemed feathers had either fallen off or had been plucked. He was starting to look as bad as he did in Harry’s second year, right before he—oh.
“Getting ready for a burning?” Harry asked quietly. Was that normal? He wasn’t sure how often phoenixes went through a burning cycle, so he couldn’t say. He knew next to nothing about phoenixes in general and there was very little information about how to care for one in any books—only a handful of people had ever had a phoenix as a familiar before—so when it came to Fawkes, Harry was mostly winging it.
Ha. No pun intended.
Harry held out his arm, wondering if Fawkes would join him for breakfast like normal, but the phoenix crooned mournfully for a minute before turning his head and tucking it under a patchy-looking wing.
“Alright,” Harry sighed. He wanted to grumble about the phoenix waking him up only for the bird itself to go back to sleep, but it was hard to be upset when Fawkes already seemed so miserable.
Well, thankfully Harry wasn’t working yet, so he could just stay at Grimmauld Place and monitor Fawkes to make sure it was a burning and not something else—though, if it was something else, he wasn’t sure what he could do. It wasn’t like there was a healer for phoenixes…
When Fawkes refused to eat for the second day in a row, Harry placed a series of monitoring charms on that particular room—mostly to alert him if flames were detected since the last thing he wanted was for Grimmauld Place to burn to the ground—and tried not to think about how lonely he felt now that Fawkes wasn’t following him from room to room. The phoenix had the ability to go wherever he wanted in the world, but he seemed to prefer staying inside Grimmauld Place—specifically in whatever room Harry was currently in. Harry hadn’t realized just how accustomed he’d become to it until Fawkes’ sudden absence from what had become their daily routine.
And then a few days later, the charms were triggered in the evening, quickly followed by the intruder alarms placed all around the old home.
The sharp, piercing sound startled Harry so badly that he immediately went into fight mode, lurching to his feet, wand drawn, a spell on the tip of his tongue. It took a moment to process what was actually happening, especially with the intruder alarms going off. That detail was mildly concerning, but Harry wasn’t too worried—the alarms on Grimmauld Place were very sensitive and had alerted him to stray cats or rabbits in the garden before.
But maybe he should have been more concerned because instead of finding a naked baby bird in a pile of ashes when he opened the door to Fawkes’ room, he found a naked and happily grinning red-haired man instead.
Harry yelped at the unexpected sight and quickly closed the door again, pressing his back against the wall and breathing hard as he recovered from the shock.
What on earth?
His mind quickly began to work through the possible explanations. The most obvious one was that someone had broken in through the window Harry constantly left open for Fawkes to go in and out of as he pleased. But that wouldn’t explain why the alarms hadn’t sounded as soon as the man entered the property. Not to mention, that particular window was probably the most heavily warded part of the property. Not even bugs could get through—Fawkes and Fawkes alone could pass through it.
But Harry couldn’t get it out of his head that the man had red hair and had been sitting in a pile of ashes under Fawkes’ preferred perch.
It shouldn’t be possible. The idea was absolutely ridiculous. But could that many really be—
“Fawkes?” Harry called hesitantly through the door.
“Yes? Oh, I can talk again! Actually talk! With words! And fingers! I have fingers again! Oh, this is wonderful!”
From the floors below, there was a sound of someone apparating and then—
“Harry, is everything alright?” Hermione’s voice called up the stairs.
Harry groaned. He had momentarily forgotten that Ron and Hermione would also be alerted if the intruder alarms on Grimmauld went off and, if he didn’t notify them within a few minutes that it was a false alarm, they would come check on him. Already he could hear footsteps on the stairs—Ron, given by how heavy they were.
The bedroom burst open and the next thing Harry knew, a pair of hands were gripping his face and a set of lips descended on his.
The kiss lasted no more than a few seconds, but when the red-haired man pulled away, Harry could see Ron and Hermione on the stairs, clearly having witnessed it. Ron looked baffled, but already Hermione had a knowing expression in her eye and had raised a hand to smother her laughter.
Oh no.
Harry suddenly realized exactly what this looked like to them. He knew what his first impression would be upon seeing a naked man kissing one of his friends. At night. In the supposed privacy of a home. Near a bedroom.
The worst thing was that Ron and Hermione wouldn’t even think twice about Harry being kissed by a man, not after his recent fling with Charlie, right before the other wizard returned to Romania.
“It’s not what it looks like!’ Harry said quickly, but it was still too late.
Ron grinned and gave Harry a knowing look. “Sure it is, mate,” he said. “Don’t mind us, we’ll go ahead and show ourselves out. Have fun.” He turned and started to head down the stairs, closely followed by Hermione.
Oh no.
Harry groaned and slumped against the wall. He considered collapsing to the floor or falling to his knees to bemoan his luck, but there was still a naked man in front of him and that would put his face in a very awkward position.
There was no point in running after his friends and denying things to them—it would only convince them more that their first impression was accurate.
The man—Fawkes?—followed Harry’s gaze down the stairs, after Ron and Hermione.
“Ah, did they think—?” he started to say.
“Yes,” Harry replied.
“Oh. Um, sorry?”
Maybe it was just Harry, but the man didn’t sound very sorry at all.
It took a lot more convincing than it should have for the man—Fawkes, Harry reminded himself—to put on clothes. Harry eventually had to resize a set of his dress robes for him because apparently all of the other ones Fawkes was presented with weren’t of high enough quality.
How did a phoenix even know what high quality fabric was?
“Ah, well, I was human before I was a phoenix,” Fawkes said, once Harry started demanding answers. “Phoenixes can’t just randomly turn into humans. There was a curse, I think, one that left me stuck in my animagus form. Maybe. Honestly, some of the details are lost to me. It was a long time ago, after all.”
“How long ago are we talking?” Harry asked warily.
Fawkes shrugged. “Several centuries, I think? It happened in a rainforest and I got lost, so it took a few years to get out. And then I decided not to leave? Didn’t bother keeping track of the days in there—didn’t really pay attention to time at all until Albus came across me and saved me from a leviathan.”
That was the exact opposite of helpful, Harry thought, and raised more questions than it answered.
“And then you just attached yourself to Dumbledore?” he asked skeptically.
Fawkes shrugged. “Yes? I mean, since the first part of the prophecy was true, I figure the rest had to be.”
Harry rubbed a palm over his face. “Another prophecy?” he muttered. Of course there was a prophecy involved.
“Friend against friend, lover turned to foe, something, something. Beastly passions turn men into beasts, something, something. Immortal quests are filled with fire and blood, something, something about the triumph of the slayer of snakes—that’s why I thought it was Albus. Well, that was before you and the basilisk.”
Harry twitched. And Voldemort and Nagini, he supposed—though Neville was technically responsible for Nagini.
“You don’t remember an actual prophecy about your life?” he asked. He couldn’t relate.
“I was a literal child when I snuck away from court and encountered the seer responsible for it,” Fawkes explained. Ah. Court. That explained the demand for quality fabric then. “And it’s been centuries! Like I said, details are missing.”
That was an understatement, Harry would realize later. A very serious understatement. And yet, somehow, the mixture of the carefree and reckless attitude was oddly endearing.
“Do you have any books?” Fawkes asked. “I want to figure out what I’ve all missed.”
A lot, Harry was willing to guess.
Still, he nodded. “There’s a library.”
Fawkes beamed. “Wonderful!”
Maybe history books would help them narrow down a timeline for how long ago the man had been cursed into phoenix form.
Through the night and over the course of the next day, Harry only succeeded in getting a little more information from Fawkes.
Maybe he should save future interrogations and questionings for Hermione.
Fawkes wasn’t his birth name—that had been a name Dumbledore came up with. Maybe because of a particular swear word that Fawkes had been screaming in his mind while being attacked by the leviathan. The pair had had a limited telepathic connection, just enough for Dumbledore to pick up an important word here and there—such as the word ‘prophecy,’ for example.
There’d been a fight with his—friend? lover?—something like that. During the fight, one of them had cast a curse, which had backfired on both of them and stuck them in their animals forms with no way to change back—a phoenix for Fawkes, some sort of magical snake for the other man.
Despite the blank spots in his memory and complete lack of concern over those blank spots, Fawkes had a very clever mind and was very curious. The man had thoroughly enjoyed ripping to shreds the magical theories in some of Harry’s old textbooks when he’d found them and pointing out holes in their logic. He’d been some sort of tutor for a few years before he’d decided to travel, which eventually led to the fight in the rainforest.
They’d wanted to find the fountain of youth, something which had made Harry roll his eyes.
Why were people so obsessed with the idea of immortality?
Ironically, in his phoenix form, Fawkes had been pretty close to immortality. He’d lived through several lifetimes, even after accounting for the longer lifespans of wizards. But he predicted he would start aging again now that he was back in his human form. At the very least, that was what Fawkes was hoping for. While he still looked fairly young—late twenties, Harry would guess—his mind had aged enough that immortality no longer seemed as desirable as it had in his youth.
Well, at least some people could learn, Harry thought wryly. It was an improvement from Voldemort.
Still, dealing with Fawkes was exhausting and Harry had forgotten that he was supposed to have dinner with Ron and Hermione until Hermione and floo-called an hour before he was supposed to leave, checking to see if he was still coming or if he was—in her words, not Harry’s—still hosting his friend from last night. She then promptly informed Harry he was welcome to bring his “friend” along and they could have something like a double date.
Harry was less than thrilled to learn that things had progressed from him having a fling to him supposedly dating in his friends’ minds overnight.
And since he was still highly skeptical of the idea of leaving Fawkes alone for even a few hours—the man had nearly fallen down the stairs three times because he was too preoccupied with reading all the books in the library in record time—Harry’s options were to either cancel or bring Fawkes with him.
Either way, it was a lose-lose situation for him.
Really, at this point, Harry wouldn’t be surprised if Mrs. Weasley floo-called in the next few days to inquire about “the young man he was seeing” and to invite Fawkes to Sunday dinner.
As much as it was a headache for him, it was easier to let his friends believe he was seeing someone new rather than try to convince them that the guest in his house was a phoenix who had actually turned out to be human. Harry’s luck was weird, but usually it wasn’t that weird.
“What’s his name anyways?” Hermione asked after Harry reluctantly confirmed he and his guest would come over for dinner.
Harry hesitated, not having thought that far. After all, he couldn’t very well say Fawkes.
And Fawkes didn’t remember his birth name….
“Phil,” he lied, gritting his teeth as he did. “Short for Phillip, I believe.”
“That was fun,” Fawkes remarked cheerily later that night, after he and Harry returned from having dinner with Ron and Hermione.
“That was stressful,” Harry countered. All night, he could see Hermione observing Fawkes—or Phil, as she believed he was called—like he was a puzzle she couldn’t quite figure out. She’d asked a lot of questions designed to trip someone up and Harry could tell that she didn’t believe most of Fawkes’ replies. She knew that something was up.
“One thing confused me though—were they not sure that we’re courting?”
Harry choked on air. “What makes you ask that?” he asked weakly after a minute.
“It’s just … when they first saw me, they assumed that we had been having intimate relations. And yet, they were surprised you might be courting tonight?”
“Dating,” Harry corrected. “The modern term is dating.” It was also a keen reminder that Fawkes was very old, so he probably had a different set of societal standards to work off of. “And, um, one night stands are a possibility now so they might have assumed that when they first saw you.” He internally cringed and prayed that Fawkes didn’t take too much offense.
The other man’s eyes narrowed as he considered the information.
“One night, like with a—” He paused to think about the word he wanted to use. “Person that would be paid for having such relations?”
“Prostitute is the current term,” Harry muttered, face turning beet red. “And maybe slightly similar, but no payment involved. Just two people having ... sex because they both want it, no strings attached usually. I’ve had one or two before, so they wouldn’t have thought anything of it.” Him dating anyone would be more surprising to Ron and Hermione than a random one night stand, after the few months between the final battle and Fawkes showing up.
“Fascinating,” Fawkes murmured. He tilted his head. “So they thought it could have been this one night stand thing until you brought me to dinner tonight?”
Fawkes hummed in consideration. Then, he abruptly turned and disappeared into Grimmauld’s library.
Harry simply stared after the man with a baffled look.
After that night, things got … weird.
Harry started receiving a steady supply of chocolate from Fawkes—which, okay, he wasn’t going to turn them down. Especially because they were high quality chocolates most of the time.
Fawkes also started making dinner almost every night—and serving it by candlelight.
He also insisted that they go on walks together in nearby parks or go to the cinema—actually, in general, he was insisting that they do as many activities together as possible—not that Harry minded since most of what Fawkes wanted to explore seemed to be in the Muggle world and he was very hesitant to let the phoenix-turned-wizard out into non-magical society by himself.
Harry only started getting suspicious when Fawkes randomly started gifting him flowers, of all things. Even more so when he found a couple of Muggle romances laying around—he assumed that they once belonged to Sirius, because if any Black would dare bring such a thing into Grimmauld Place, it would definitely be his late godfather.
He didn’t put a stop to things once he figured out what Fawkes was trying to do, though. Because it was weirdly endearing? After his poor attempts at dating in the past, it was nice to be on the other end of things.
As long as there were no singing dwarves involved.
Harry also tried to reciprocate as best he could—treating Fawkes when they had their dates in the Muggle world and when they went out to eat.
He still had some questions, though. Namely about the flowers and chocolates and how Fawkes was paying for them.
“When you were having a lie in one day, I went to Gringotts,” Fawkes explained when Harry worked up the courage to ask finally. “Asked if I had any family vaults that I could access after a blood or magic test. Apparently my original vault was still accessible and had funds in it—or rather, funds from interest. Remarkable, really—I thought I had emptied it long before I was done traveling that last time.”
“So you figured out your name? Or at least your surname?” Harry wasn’t sure if he would be relieved if that was the case or upset that Fawkes had figured it out and forgotten to tell him.
Fawkes cocked his head to one side. “No, actually. They did the test on my blood, reminded me of my vault number, and gave me my key before politely asking me to leave.”
“Sounds like most of my Gringotts visits,” Harry muttered under his breath. Except they usually didn’t ask politely.
“To be fair, you did break in and steal something out of one of their vaults, try to renege on a deal you made regarding a goblin-made artifact, and steal one of their dragons. Goblins have barred wizards from their bank—even executed wizards—for a lot less.”
“Freed one of their dragons,” Harry muttered, but didn’t deny the rest. He was fully aware that the only reason he, Hermione, and Ron weren’t completely barred from Gringotts was because they had destroyed Voldemort’s horcruxes and ultimately killed the dark wizard.
“So, I just send them an owl now with the vault number and amount requested and sign it with my magic,” Fawkes explained. “Which thankfully is an accepted way of doing things because I don’t know if you’ve realized this, but it’s kind of awkward to admit I don’t know my own name?”
Understandable, Harry decided. It was awkward enough when he forgot the names of people he should have known and had to ask them to remind him. He usually just pretended he remembered and prayed that someone else said it in the course of their conversation.
It was probably much worse when it was your own name.
Harry had other questions too, like why Fawkes was dating—or trying to. Because of the cover story Harry had originally given his friends? Because they were living together?
“Because you’re attractive,” Fawkes drawled, as if Harry was being particularly stupid when he asked that question. “And because I got a sense of your magic when we were familiar and wizard for those few months. We’re very compatible, magically speaking—your wand has one of my feathers, right? It wouldn’t have worked for you if there wasn’t a great amount of compatibility already. Also, because of all people, you’d get it? I had a reputation for being a great wizard, I’m fairly sure. Most people didn’t look beyond that.” Fawkes paused. “And I’ve always been attracted to Parselmouths.”
Harry sputtered at the last comment. “Seriously?”
Fawkes shrugged.
“Aren’t phoenixes and snakes mortal enemies or something like that?” Harry asked, eyes narrowing, remembering all the incidents Fawkes had mentioned—the fight against the basilisk, the leviathan situation when Dumbledore had rescued the phoenix animagus, the fight against his former lover who had transformed into a snake of some sort. “So wouldn’t you be violently against Parslemouths instead of trying to date them?”
Fawkes shrugged again. “The danger is half the fun,” he admitted. “And besides, not all snakes are bad.”
Harry’s eyes widened and he had to swallow back a laugh as he caught the purposeful double meaning in the statement.
“That was bad,” he informed the other man, lips twitching.
“Would you rather I try out others? I can easily find more. There’s an entire book full of—”
“Absolutely not,” Harry interrupted, failing to contain his laughter any longer. How was even something like that so endearing? He also made a mental note to confiscate that particular book, especially if Fawkes woke him up at dawn again—because despite being human again, Fawkes’ internal clock was set and the other man seemed to think that if he was awake, Harry had to be awake as well.
He briefly wondered if that would still be the case if he kept Fawkes up all night with … ‘intimate relations’ as the other man kept referring to such activities.
It was a tempting thought, now that the pair had established that they were officially dating. Especially tempting, considering that all they’d done up until that point was kiss—and usually only when Fawkes was especially excited about something or had had a revelation of sorts about his past. Harry was getting used to being randomly pulled into such excited kisses, but sometimes he wished that they lasted longer than a moment.
Was it something about not doing such things before marriage? Harry suspected that Fawkes was old enough that such a tradition might be affecting that part of their relationship. And the romance novels that the phoenix had been reading probably wouldn’t have helped, since Harry was fairly sure that some of them had been historical romances after glancing at the covers and titles while hiding them away one night after Fawkes had gone to bed.
Maybe he should start taking Fawkes to romance movies to see if the other man would catch on, instead of the typical action films or comedies they’d been seeing…
Taking Fawkes to romance movies had … mixed results.
It turned out the other man was a romantic at heart, so he absolutely loved them and wanted to try out everything he saw in them that he found especially romantic.
It was very sweet and very adorable, Harry would readily admit. But some of the ideas that Fawkes got from the movies were … slightly awkward.
At least for Harry. As it turned out, the Yule Ball had left its mark on him and slow dancing under the stars was probably never going to be his thing. Especially when it ended with a floo call to Luna to get Fawkes’ toes fixed, because Harry ended up breaking three.
And they learned during a picnic on a rocky beach that while Fawkes had a beautiful singing voice as a phoenix, he was completely tone-deaf as a human. For a few minutes, Harry had to adopt a grin-and-bear-it approach as the red-haired man tried to serenade him until he decided to silence Fawkes by kissing him.
The snogging that followed made the serenading worth it.
Still, Harry made the other man promise to save the singing for when he was in animagus form.
Thankfully for Harry, one snogging led to another and another and then to some more physical stuff. An awkward conversation that Harry had mostly blocked out of his memories revealed that no, there had been no traditions or ingrained societal standards preventing Fawkes from pursuing that part of their relationship—he really was just a huge romantic at heart and often forgot about the physical stuff in favor of the romance.
Especially when there were so many new things to try now—in both worlds. Most of their dates were still in the muggle world, but where Harry and Hermione often felt that the magical world was stagnant and out-dated compared to the muggle world, it had still apparently progressed enough that Fawkes was continually amazed by how much things had changed and developed. He wanted to try everything—Harry guessed that part of it was to make up for what he had missed while stuck as a phoenix, but a larger part of it was just Fawkes’ personality.
But as long as their relationship kept progressing, Harry wasn’t going to complain.
Nowadays, for the most part, his biggest complaint was one that he had been voicing for months, ever since Fawkes had come to him.
“Fawkes, it is the crack of dawn,” Harry grumbled as his partner shook him awake. The bed was shaking, a large hint that the other man was probably bouncing up and down on it. “For once, can’t we sleep in?” The light was just barely flickering into the bedroom that they’d shared for the night.
“Sleep later,” Fawkes replied. “This is important, Harry. I finally remembered my name!”
A green eye opened slowly and Harry reluctantly raised his head off his pillow. “Go on.”
Ron was in the process of cooking breakfast while Hermione sipped her morning coffee when Harry stumbled through the floo, looking as pale as a ghost.
As soon as he was steady on his own two feet, Harry promptly turned back to the floo and started hissing through the still-open connection. “No, stay there! Let me freak out in peace for a moment! I’ll be back in a few hours.”
“Did Phil propose?” Ron asked knowingly. It was a bit fast in his opinion—Harry and Phil’s whole relationship was, really—but Harry was the happiest he’d seen him in a very long time, so he wasn’t going to protest. His mum would probably be thrilled to plan another wedding, especially since Ron and Hermione had decided not to get married for another few years. She might be disappointed that it wasn’t Ginny and Harry’s wedding, or Charlie and Harry’s, but she would probably adopt Phil within minutes of meeting the other man. Like Harry, there was just something about the man.
Ron’s only concern was that he and Hermione hadn’t quite figured out where exactly Phil had come from. He’d appeared one night, practically out of nowhere. And both Harry and Phil had been very vague about how they met whenever the subject came up—Ron didn’t really believe that it was a one night stand that had just progressed into something more.
“If only…” Harry muttered, as he slumped down in a free chair at the kitchen table. He groaned and covered his face with his hands for a minute. “I’ve got to tell you something and it’s going to sound barking mad,” he admitted.
“Madder than normal?” Ron remarked dryly. “Or our version of normal, at least?”
“You have no idea…” Harry groaned. “His name isn’t Phil. That was just something I made up.”
Hermione crowed triumphantly at the admission. “And why did you make up a name?” she pressed.
“Because he didn’t remember it at the time,” Harry mumbled.
“You brought home a man who didn’t even know his own name?” Ron repeated. “Was he that drunk?”
“Wasn’t drunk at all and technically I didn’t bring him home.”
“What are you going on about now?” Ron turned away from the food he was cooking to give Harry a questioning look.
“He was already living with me by the time you guys spotted him kissing me,” Harry explained.
“Harry, that doesn’t make any sense,” Hermione tutted. “No one was living with you before him, just Fa….” She trailed off as she understood what Harry was trying to say without having to directly admit it. “Fawkes? He’s Fawkes?”
Harry grimaced when all the cooking in the kitchen suddenly came to a standstill, a clear indication that Ron was just as surprised as Hermione, but he reluctantly nodded.
“How?” both of his friends demanded.
“Long story short? There was a prophecy—”
Ron and Hermione promptly groaned.
“Oh, it gets better,” Harry muttered. “He was in a fight and cursed to be in his animagus form until a certain set of conditions were met—apparently me killing the basilisk and then Fawkes bonding himself to me after Dumbledore’s death fulfilled those.” He grimaced as he spoke. “So the next time he had a burning day, he turned back into his human form—he had just turned back the first time you met him and was kissing me in gratitude—I guess that’s his thing? Kissing people when he gets really excited about something?”
“Kissing people or kissing you?” Ron asked under his breath.
Harry glared at his friend.
“He forgot a lot,” he continued. “Including his own name. And at the time, it seemed a lot easier to make up a random name and pretend he was a fling that stuck around than explain the entire situation—you probably would have tried to chuck us in Saint Mungo’s if we tried at the time.”
Hermione and Ron considered the statement for a minute.
“Maybe not that extreme,” Hermione hedged.
“But yeah, we wouldn’t have believed you. That sounds completely mad,” Ron finished.
“There’s a reason that you’re telling us now, though?” Hermione pressed.
Harry grimaced. “Yeah, because what I’m about to tell you will make all of that sound completely normal,” he replied. “Things have been coming back in bits and pieces. According to his research, that’s fairly common? The amnesia goes away slowly as his brain adjusts back to being human after so long in an animagus form?” Hermione was nodding, so he guessed that there must have been something to Fawkes’ research, Harry determined.
No, not Fawkes anymore. He had a different name to start using.
“He finally remembered his name?” Ron guessed.
Harry groaned and dropped his head into hands. Very, very reluctantly he nodded.
Only he would manage to get in a situation like this.
“And?” both of his friends pressed.
“Godric,” Harry squeaked out.
Ron and Hermione exchanged looks.
“Did you say…” Hermione started, then paused. “Harry James Potter, are you telling us that—”
Harry very much looked like he wanted to die as he said the next four words. “I’m dating Godric Gryffindor.”