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It all happened rather suddenly. Graham was watching Potter slowly approach the Headmaster with a look of bewilderment. It was obvious the boy had no idea what was going on so he couldn't understand why the Gryffindor's friends were looking at him in betrayal. As if he had hidden something like that from them. Couldn't they see? The boy obviously hadn't been involved in this! Graham truly hoped it was something serious because if a student had put the boy's name in the Goblet as a prank then it was really fucked up of them to do that. Potter was walking towards Dumbledore when there was a great puff of smoke just where the Boy-Who-Lived stood. Graham gasped and stared at the puff of smoke in incredulity. What in Merlin's name was happening now?
All around him, students were yelping and muttering, exchanging looks of confusion and asking what was happening. The teachers and organisers appeared to be just as stumped as the rest of the room.
When the puff of smoke cleared though, that's when things became really interesting. There was a man where Potter had been. No matter how changed the guy looked, he was unmistakenly Potter, only... older. Gasps and mutters echoed in the room as they took in the grown Boy-Who-Lived. He was a beauty, Graham thought, staring at the leather-clad man standing defensively in front of the Headmaster. Potter appeared to be... at the very least 18 years old though Graham wouldn't give him 20. His raven hair had grown longer; long enough to reach the bottom of his shoulder blade and be gathered in a low ponytail by a red ribbon. A sleeveless armoured shirt exposed his muscular, tattooed arms, and powerful legs were hidden behind cargo trousers. The man had a blue-haired baby (what the hell!?) strapped to his back and he was wielding dual swords in his hands.
All around him, the students were whispering. He heard Pansy Parkinson sigh dreamily and saw Daphne Greengrass blush slightly, her icy demeanour thawing ever so slightly at the sight of the very attractive man.
Graham closed his eyes when Dumbledore -once he had regained his composure- smiled benevolently at Potter and questioned him:
“Who are you, my boy?”
“ARE YOU DUMB!?” An exasperated (and still stunned) Hufflepuff 7thyear exclaimed.
“Mr Fleamming!” McGonagall scolded him, scandalised.
Graham shared Fleamming's mindset though; it was obvious who the man was even if Graham couldn't understand how this happened. Yes, Potter looked older and completely different but he was easily recognisable – his heart skipped a beat when Potter's impossibly green eyes met his as the man swept a gaze over the rest of the Great Hall. How could Dumbledore even ask this question?
“This is sick, even for you.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your illusions won't work on me, dipshit!” the newcomer snarled, his grip on his weapons tightening.
Graham felt his cheeks heat up. Realistically, he should have known that Potter swore. Everyone swears once in a while, right? Well, most people swear from time to time. But why was it so hot? What was wrong with him? (He knew exactly what was wrong. Having a crush on Potter was really inconvenient at best.)
Did... Did Potter not believe the man talking to him was Dumbledore?
Dumbledore must have thought the same thing because he tried to convince him that he really was Dumbledore. The baby on his back babbled, squealing in happiness as if everything was fine in the world. Despite himself, Graham felt a smile tug at his lips even as the whispers picked up when the others noticed the baby strapped to his back.
“My boy, I assure you I am who I present myself as.”
The snort the newcomer let out told everyone that he didn't believe the headmaster. Good for him. It was at that moment that Graham noticed a slight distortion around the baby but it was Terence who said:
“Oh. There's a barrier around the kid.”
A barrier. Yes. Whether it was to protect the kid or to protect the kid's hearing (or both) there was indeed a bubble around the child. Some might have called it exaggerating but considering the man had swords in his hands and was talking to Dumbledore in a defensive tone – obviously thinking it was an impostor- perhaps, it had been a good idea.
“Why do you think this is an illusion, my boy?”
“You mean apart from the fact that you chose to show yourself as two of my dead teachers? Hogwarts is still in reconstruction, cretino!”
Gasps echoed in the room. Reconstruction? Dead? What in Merlin's name happened in the future? How could the headmaster die? Who else died? How? It couldn't even be all that far in the future since Potter couldn't be much older than 18. And what did he mean by “Hogwarts is still in reconstruction”!?
From the corner of his eyes, Harry saw a movement and he jerked back, two daggers in his hands. Within seconds, they were coated in purple flames and he sent one at the immediate threat.
It turned out to be the fake Snape. Oh, well. Couldn't have happened to a better doppelganger. Exclamations of shock erupted when the dagger morphed into a giant Scythe that trapped Snape against the teachers' table. Harry had never been so glad for his choice of weapons. They were pretty badass.
“So okay, maybe your illusions are not mediocre. That doesn't mean shit. You can't hurt me if you can't touch me, Vittorio.”
Graham felt his soul almost leave his body when Potter concluded his statement by sticking his tongue out. He had no right to be that attractive. That wasn't fair!
He saw the considering expression on the old man's face and prayed to the Old Gods that the grandpa wouldn't do anything that would make the situation go from bad to worse.
“What could convince you that I am who I am, my boy?”
Terence saw the contemplative look on Potter's face and he gulped down. He had the feeling that the boy... man wouldn't make it easy for the headmaster. For some reason, it seemed that he held no love for him even if Dumbledore was found to be who he said he was. Did something happen to make the Golden Boy dislike the Headmaster? Maybe not dislike him but... there was clearly no love involved when he mentioned his “dead teachers”.
“Perhaps if you gave me the name of your one and only true love.”
There was a pregnant pause during which Terence saw Cassius choke on his sip of pumpkin juice and he could understand why; for all that the newspapers loved to speculate; no one had ever been able to prove that Dumbledore had a love life. No one wanted to think about it, to be fair. Terence certainly didn't want to think about old people's love lives even if it was very chaste. Nope.
Jason Urquhart and Silas Vaisey couldn't stop staring. Dumbledore? In love? When!? When did that happen? There had never been anything about it in any newspaper apart from vague gossip rags. And how would Potter even know it?
Speaking of Potter, the young man smirked when he saw the hesitant look on the headmaster's face (so there was someone in his mind! He just didn't want to say it):
“That's alright, you can whisper it if it makes you feel better.”
Graham felt a blush crept up his face and he almost groaned. He couldn't believe he was developing a crush on the older Boy-Who-Lived (well, to be fair, he had developed a crush on him before but he was still in denial).
“Bah!”
He snorted at the baby noise emitted by the toddler strapped on the young man's back. It was hard to take the situation seriously when a babbling baby was taking all the attention. Still, he knew the situation was tense and one wrong move might make things worse than it already was. Why was Dumbledore taking all his time?
“Ah, it was... It was Ariana.”
To everyone's surprise, Potter only snorted:
“You're a liar but that's alright. The real Dumbledore would have lied too. I guess I can believe you. Nobody ever seems to remember little Ariana Dumbledore these days.”
From the wide eyes of the headmaster, it seemed that he wasn't expecting that but Graham was still stuck on the fact that the old man had chosen to lie rather than tell the truth. In such a tense situation!? What was so bad about his “one and only true love”? Surely, it couldn't be that bad. If anything, Graham was surprised to see that Potter could tell the old man had lied. Did he become good at reading a person's face? He knew the truth beforehand, sure but he might have grown to be able to get a read on someone's intention. It sure would be useful to him.
“Alright... Let's say I believe you. Why am I here?”
“Ah, my boy.”
Graham saw Potter twitch and he had to smother a choked laugh. He should be on the lookout for 14-year-old Potter and see if that dislike for the headmaster went far back enough that it might be visible now or if something happened along the line.
“If you could first tell us how you ended up here. The current date is October 31st of the year 1994. I did expect young Harry to join my fellow Heads in the chamber, not his... future self.”
Graham – as well as anyone who was looking closely at the Potter heir- saw him twitch at the mention of the date. Either he was surprised to be truly in the Past or he remembered the date in question. That would not be surprising if he too had been selected by the Goblet of Fire. It could have been for both reasons.
The young man shrugged:
“I'm not surprised to have been displaced in time. I was unexpectedly hit by a... fellow's toy. I was supposed to be replaced by my future self, not exchange places with my younger self though. I guess Giannini got his hand on that blasted bazooka,” he mumbled the end of his sentence although some heard him and whispered excitedly.
Cassius exchanged a perplexed, bewildered look with his friends and Housemates. Even Marcus appeared to be stunned. A toy? And he was expecting to be replaced with his future self? What kind of toy (invention!?) could do that? How come he was not surprised? How come, the only reason he was surprised to begin with was that instead of switching with his future self, he switched with his past self.
“It's not... ideal. We weren't having fun,” the Potter heir continued with a frown. “Ah, well... October 31st of 1994... Please tell me you did not reinstate that damn Tournament.”
There was a tumult in the Great Hall as students and delegation members started to whisper with confusion and excitement.
“Ah, yes, we did,” Bagman started cheerfully before he was cut off by Crouch.
“Yes, yes, if we get on with it. Potter, come. Follow us and we'll -”
“Absolutely not.”
Potter hadn't moved an inch since he had thrown his dagger-turned-scythe at Snape. As a matter, Snape was still stuck under the giant weapon and nobody could get him out. It was kinda funny to watch if you asked Marcus.
“I will not follow you anywhere and nor will my younger self do so. I will not go anywhere near you while my kid is in easy reach either.”
“So... it's his kid?” Astoria Greengrass asked hesitantly.
“How old is Potter anyway? He can't be much older than 18, right? He doesn't look older than 17 but he's always been rather small,” Theodore Nott whispered.
Blaise stiffened and scoffed when he saw Bagman and Crouch move as if they were going to try and surround Potter.
“Those idiots. They're going to send a protective Cloud on a fucking rampage.”
To be fair, he hadn't immediately realized Potter was a Cloud. He wasn't active and couldn't recognize an active flame user unless they used their flames in front of him.
“A cloud? What are you talking about?” Miles Bletchley asked with a confused frown.
Upon seeing the interested looks on his upperclassmen's faces, Blaise immediately backtracked:
“Nothing, nothing. Nothing you need to worry about.”
He didn't exactly know how this Vindice business worked seeing as he was not an active member of the Mafia but he had heard enough horror stories about them to know he didn't want to mess with them. He was not about to reveal the inner workings of this secret world to a bunch of schoolchildren.
Still... He never expected Potter to be a Cloud. 'Figured the Boy-Who-Lived would be one of the most sought-after and dangerous Elements in the whole goddamn set. He didn't want to imagine what would happen if those morons from the Tournament (or Merlin forbid, Dumbledore) made Potter feel trapped and threatened. Something told him that this Harry Potter would not be above mauling people out of his way. And as entertaining as that would be, he wasn't sure he would escape this situation unscathed.
Idly, he wondered if Potter was a bonded Element. Surely his Sky (if he had one) and the others would have freaked out upon realising they couldn't sense him anymore? That was a bloodbath waiting to happen. Even if the rest of his set were not violent by nature. The loss, even temporary, of a bond like that could turn even the softest lamb into a crazed killer.
Just then, Potter made an enquiring noise and Blaise was abruptly pulled back to the tense situation.
“Did I miss something?” he asked quietly, staring at Potter.
Miles snorted:
“Oh, nothing, just Potter making fools out of the Tournament organisers.”
“It's not that hard,” he commented lightly.
Miles' lips quirked upward and he tilted his head to the side.
“Right.”
“Well I'd say a magical oath would do the trick,” he heard Potter announce quite suddenly.
… He might have missed more than Miles told him. A few seats away, he saw Graham Montague choke with his saliva and he blinked.
“A magical oath? Surely, that's a bit much, my boy.”
“I'm not your boy,” the young adult replied curtly, uncrossing his arms to pull out his wand. “You will keep your hands when I can see them, old man. That goes for your minions too.”
“Holy shit!” Terence swore softly. “I am loving this.”
“No surprise there.”
Most students in Slytherin disliked the Hogwarts Headmaster. Surprisingly, Terence Higgs, usually soft-spoken and very accepting, was one of Dumbledore's most fervent haters.
“My b – Mr Potter, really?”
The look Potter gave him made Fred and George cackle.
“I have my one-year-old godson on my back. I'm not taking any chance, idiota.”
“Oh. So that's his godson, not his child.”
“It could be both.”
“Yeah but... I meant biologically speaking.”
“Did Potter just call Dumbledore an idiot? This is the best day of my life.”
Graham couldn't look away from Potter. He couldn't... he had just had to stare at him. It wasn't creepy! He was just... admiring.
With a sigh, the Slytherin almost let his head hit the hard surface of the table. Even in his head, it sounded stupid. Instead of trying to reason with his inner voice that sounded suspiciously like Peregrine, Graham shook his head and reported his attention on the situation at hand.
Potter had pulled out his wand and was currently swearing an oath stipulating that neither he nor his past self had anything to do with his name being drawn out of the Goblet of Fire. Smart. Then the young man took it a step further, saying that neither he nor his younger self would participate in the tournament which made Dumbledore pale and incensed the two other organisers.
Hm... Interesting. Graham wouldn't have expected them to react that way. Clearly, there was more to this 4th surprising selection than just a prank gone wrong (or an attention-seeking brat if the silver tongues were to be believed). A confused frown grew on his face when he saw Potter check his watch frequently. Was he expecting something? Did the switch thing have a time limit?
“[...] Look, I don't care what you have to say about this tournament. I went through this bullshit once. Never again. Thanks but no.”
“Babadabah!”
“What Teddy said,” Potter agreed even though 'Teddy' didn't say anything understandable.
Then, Baby Teddy glanced around at the Great Hall and extended his chubby arms towards the Slytherin table
“Gwam!”
Graham stared. He didn't hear that. He did not hear Potter's kid (godson) call him. Gram... was not a babyfied version of his name. He felt his friends' stares at him even as he tried to reason with the obsessed-with-Potter part of his mind. He was just too hopeful about this.
Potter nodded.
“Right. If you'll excuse us. I'd like to switch back with my hopefully still-alive younger self. Graham must be waiting for us.”
Graham flushed. It could be... it could be another Graham, he thought although 'Teddy' was staring at him with an adoring expression and a toothy grin on his face. And, anyway, even if it was him, nothing said that there was something going on between them in the future. He wasn't even friends with Potter!
A large hand clapped him on his back, hard enough to almost make him tumble into his plate.
“Well, well, well. Would you look at that?”
Graham glared at Lucian.
“That doesn't mean anything.”
He wished he could will the blush away. He would have looked more intimidating that way.
“Please, we're all thinking the same thing here.”
“It can't be. I'm... He's...”
He didn't finish his sentence. How could it possibly be true? And nobody else outside of his friend seemed to consider him to be possibly the Graham Potter had mentioned. No surprise there, he wasn't the only Graham in the world.
Potter checked his watch again before extending an arm towards the teachers' table, seemingly recalling his weapon. The Scythe pining Snape down flew to him, morphing back into a dagger. The dagger was coated in purple flames and Graham heard Zabini whistle, impressed.
“I think I'm about to be swapped back with my younger self. I'd say it was a pleasure to see you again but I would be lying. Teddy! Say goodbye to the brats.”
The baby strapped to his back hummed happily, waving both hands in the air and babbling something that might have been a cheerful “Bye-bye”.
The students didn't have time to coo or be indignant about being referred to as “brats”.
“Mr Potter-”
POOF
With an identical puff of pink smoke as the time Older!Potter arrived, the young man was gone and replaced by the version they all knew so well except...
Terence gasped, horrified. Potter had reappeared, sure, but he was using his right hand to apply pressure on his left bloodied shoulder. The shoulder was steadily dripping red all over his clothes and onto the floor. The boy had a wild look on his face, scanning the room as if he didn't quite realise he was back at Hogwarts. Finally, he seemed to calm down but he was still holding his wand defensively.
“Time travel to the future... Well, that was a new one,” those sitting near him heard him mutter.
He looked unsettled and considering the state he was in, it wasn't surprising. That made Graham worry. Were Older!Potter and baby Teddy in danger? But, no. He couldn't think like that, especially not after having seen how efficient Potter was with his scythe.
Graham shook his head, just in time to hear Terence swear loudly.
“Wha-”
He didn't even get the time to ask what was going on because Terence was already explaining (not that he knew Graham had been lost in his mind), glaring at the headmaster and the organisers:
“Those bastards. Haven't they heard enough? They know he didn't enter his name so why are they still trying to make him participate?”
Potter for his part, raised a brow at Dumbledore, seemingly amused.
“Are you dumb?”
Fred snickered: Harry was probably too tired to notice how out of character he was behaving at the moment. He briefly wondered if they'd have to do some damage control later but decided to leave that for... later.
“Mr Potter!” McGonagall scolded him.
“Damn, he reminds me of Fleamming,” Lucian Bole whispered, snickering.
“If I know about magical oaths, then I'm sure my future self didn't hesitate. So, no... you're not gonna force me into a death trap parading as a school tournament.”
“Damn, he's on a roll today,” Miles whispered in awe as Zabini whistled.
“I wonder how he got hurt.”
And there was Terence already fretting over the little Potter. Marcus rolled his eyes but he knew better than calling Higgs a mother hen. He learned his lesson.
Even though nobody argued, Terence still glared at them all:
“Look how hurt he is! He needs to see Madam Pomfrey!”
“Gyah! Stop clutching me, old hag!”
“Did you just call me an 'old hag'!? Do I look like an old hag to you, Derrick?”
Graham tuned them out to focus on Potter. With the organisers arguing back and forth with Dumbles, no one of the adults present was paying attention to the Gryffindor and the boy in question was slowly walking backwards. Graham wondered, stunned if the green-eyed wizard would try to make a run for it when Potter shook his head and turned around to do exactly that.
What.
Harry, still out of breath and more than a little bit unsettled by everything that had happened in the last ten minutes, glanced around nervously.
Right. Obviously, he had been wrong when he thought he would finally have a quiet, stress-free year.
Alright then. Time to go.
He caught the twins' eyes and nodded at them. They nodded back. Then he glanced at Hermione and Ron and inclined his head. They understood immediately. Hermione didn't look happy but even she must have understood what kind of trouble and danger he would be facing if he stayed here this year. He would find something to do this year, maybe get a tutor or something. Perhaps he would just travel until he lost the people tailing him.
Who knows?
With his mind made up, Harry turned around and walked briskly out of the Great Hall, ignoring the people looking at him with questions in their eyes.
He didn't give a fuck about them. He was too focused on something else; in the future, he had been stationed in Italy (for some reason). And the guy who had attacked him, he was wielding the same flames as him! Except they weren't purple, they were red. But anyway, the guy was a talker and as soon as he realised that his opponent had been replaced by a tinier, younger version of him, he started teasing him. Sure, it was annoying but at least Harry got to learn a few things despite the broken English the guy spoke in.
Harry needed to go to Italy. He would find answers there.
Unseen by most but not all, The Weasley twins pulled out their wands and vanished Potter's blood. They weren't about to let anyone get a few drops of their baby brother's blood. Who knows what they would do with it?
[In the future]
“VOOOOIIII! Where the Hell were you, damn brat!?”
18-year-old Harry Potter sighed as he closed the door behind him after having put Teddy down for a nap.
“Can you please stop yelling Squalo? The boss is passed out on the floor.”
He heard the silver-haired commander wonder why the boss was on the floor but considering how drunk Xanxus tended to be, they probably didn't want to know.
“Where were you? Bel said you were switched back with a tiny version of yourself.”
Harry snorted. Squalo might tried to hide it but Harry knew he cared. He had still been a 'tiny version of himself' when the Rain commander first found him in the street of Sicily.
“Wanna tell me how the Bovino Bazooka hit me when the Lambo kid wasn't anywhere near me?”
Squalo froze and gained a sheepish expression.
“Ah, err... I think Bel might have sto- borrowed it from the Bovino brat? He's going to give it back!... Eventually.”
Right, Harry wasn't going to get into that. He didn't want to get in trouble with the Vongola even if he was technically part of that family if only because he was part of the Varia. He liked Tsuna, the teen was so sweet and innocent despite his status as heir and future Decimo.
“Aw ~ were you worried, Squalo?” he teased the older man.
“What? No. I didn't want to have to look for you. That would have made more work for me.”
Harry knew him well enough to know that Squalo was lying but he let it slide.
“Well, I was switched with my younger self when Vittorio was cornering me.”
“Doesn't that guy know when to let go?” Squalo mumbled, left eyebrow twitching in annoyance. “Is he still drooling after you?”
“Gods, I hope not. If anything, I'm pretty sure that my younger self decided to hightail it out of Britain a few years before I did the same.”
Squalo snorted:
“Good for him, I'd say.”
Harry sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
“Yeah. Look, can I give my report now? Graham has been blowing up my phone ever since I failed to text him earlier.”
The silver-haired man's lips twitched in amusement. He knew exactly how protective the Montague heir was of his lover and it was always fun to watch. Especially since their Cloud could handle himself just fine – even if he was one of the strangest Clouds he had ever met.
“Sure, let's hear it.”
Hogwarts, Scotland – October 31st, 20XX [Present]
Wayne Hopkins from Hufflepuff watched, stunned, as the Boy-Who-Lived beat a hasty retreat when no one of the adults was looking. He was too shocked by the recent events he had witnessed to react outside of widening his eyes, staring at the retreating figure of the Golden Boy.
All he could think about though was that Harry Potter could make a very pretty fire.
“What was... What was that?” Justin Finch-Fletchley asked.
He looked dazed and Wayne couldn't blame him.
“That,” came a voice behind Wayne, “was a pretty and confident man. It's very sexy. I can't wait for Potter to become that man. Not that he's not cute right now but...”
Wayne blushed and glared at Lisa Turpin, a Ravenclaw from his year. They got along just fine but sometimes he wished Lisa wouldn't be so blunt.
The others must have thought the same thing because they started arguing. Bad idea. Never argue with Lisa Turpin. You won't win.
The Ravenclaw girl raised a mocking eyebrow at the Puffs:
“What? You can't tell me you didn't think he was hot. Most of you are blushing and – HELLO? This guy literally threatened some of the most dangerous people in our community. That was hot. And he had a baby with him.”
Baby Teddy looked so cute, Wayne thought with a dreamy sigh. He wondered whose kid it was. He would have thought maybe it was one of his friends like Granger or one of the Weasleys but... Teddy didn't look like them. At all.
“Kid's a metamorphomagus,” Anthony Goldstein whispered.
“What?”
“Yeah, his hair changed from black to brown a couple of times.”
It wouldn't have been obvious, especially since the kid had been bundled in blankets but those who could see him probably spent some time focusing on the adorable kid strapped to Potter's back.
The metamorphomagus ability was mostly known as a Black ability in Britain. Sure, it wasn't just the Blacks but that was the predominant line known for their metamorphomagus abilities. Could the kid be a descendant of the Blacks? Wasn't Potter distantly related to the Blacks as well?
Well, they weren't about to have their answers any time soon, especially not when Potter had just slipped out of the Great Hall to go who knows where.
He was probably back in the Gryffindor tower to calm his nerves or something.
Spoiler alert: Potter did not, in fact, go back to his common room to relax and destress.
The next day around noon, it became known that the Boy-Who-Lived had done a runner. Neither Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger nor the infamous Weasley twins appeared to be worried about Potter's disappearance but upon being questioned by the teachers, they only shrugged and said that they trusted Harry to not get into trouble outside of Hogwarts. Which... Wayne might have snickered when that particular quote was relayed through the Hogwarts rumours mill. The Hufflepuff boy wasn't quite surprised to find out that the Boy-Who-Lived had hightailed it out of there. He would have done the same thing had he been in his place but he was surprised. Still, he wondered how the boy changed so much in a couple of years to become the man who stood up to Dumbledore and pinned Snape to his seat with a giant scythe.
[Spoiler Alert #2: Dumbledore and the other organisers got into a lot of trouble for not securing better age wards around the Goblet and for losing the Boy-Who-Lived.]
Harry wouldn't return that year but he would be back the next year, having heard from a permanently injured but alive Cedric Diggory. (1) Upon returning to Hogwarts, he would be bombarded with questions from students and headmasters alike but would refuse to say anything about it. It was none of their business anyway. He and Montague would stumble into each other during a cancelled training session for Montague and a morning routine workout for Harry. They would start talking and find out they have a lot of things in common and go from there.
Bonus:
Graham looked up from his notebook when he heard the door open.
“Hey,” he greeted the newcomers before even seeing them as he stood up from his seat.
When Harry appeared at the entrance of the living room, the former Slytherin stopped and blinked.
“Did something happen?”
He walked around Harry, who had cuts all over his jumpsuit but didn't appear hurt and he pulled Teddy off his baby carrier attached to Harry's back.
“Hey there, baby.”
Upon seeing him, Teddy gurgled happily and his hair turned a lighter shade of dark and his eyes turned blue.
Graham cooed and hugged him.
“I missed you too, Teddy,” he said before leaning down to peck Harry on the lips. “Did something happen?” he repeated quietly.
Harry sighed, stretching his limbs.
“Nothing much. Got cornered and attacked by bloody Vittorio-”
“That fucking bastard,” Graham swore only to be elbowed by Harry.
“No swearing in front of the baby. You know Teddy is at an age when he starts repeating everything he hears.”
Just to prove his point, Teddy let out a sound that might have been the baby version of 'fucking bastard' and Harry gave Graham a warning look. The Montague heir smiled sheepishly and raised his free hand in a gesture of peace.
“Did he hurt you?”
“Nah but the Bovino Bazooka swapped me with my past self.”
The 10 years Bazooka? What was it doing there? Did someone steal it from the Lambo brat?
Graham shook his head as he grabbed Harry's hand and led him to the couch. He sat down next to him and put Teddy in his lap.
Harry snorted at the look on his face:
“Probably Bel. He was swearing against Lambo the other day when the kid dropped by.”
Graham knew that despite the tired look on his face, Harry liked the Lambo and Belphegor. His partner had a soft spot for children, no matter how destructive they were.
“If anything, I managed to save my younger self from participating in the tournament. My memory is blurry. I don't remember if I managed to avoid it or not the first time around.”
Graham thought for a moment but there were some memories he never quite recovered due to an unfortunate incident three years ago.
“You're okay, sweetheart?”
Harry nodded sleepily, his head lolling to the side as he curled up against Graham.
“Yeah, just tired. I could have done without encountering Vittorio and being catapulted in the past.”
Graham nodded and turned his head to kiss Harry on the forehead. His boyfriend giggled and tilted his head back, slowly reaching his lips to steal a kiss.
“I think we should bathe Teddy,” Harry mumbled against his lips.
Graham groaned but conceded. Bathing Teddy first it was. With another groan, he stood up, bones cracking in a way that he knew would make Higgs wince. Harry only scrunched up his nose before following his partner out of the living room and towards the corridor. Teddy's squeals and giggles accompanied them all the way to the bathroom.