James watched Harry expertly disable the alert wards on the Gaunt Shack. Runes made of magic flew around, binding things James couldn’t see, Harry’s wand moved like a dance, until finally it stopped the area still alight with glowing runes.

“Alright. The wards are temporarily disabled. Now to tear through the rest.”

Then instead of an intricate dance of beauty and skill Harry pointed his wand forward and spoke in a language James couldn’t even begin to decipher.

Magic rippled out of the old man in front of him, and shrieks of painful twisting metal and tortured souls rang out. Then it reached a crescendo, and then… nothing.

“Sweet cheeks, lets go in.”

James shook his head. To go from unparalleled skill to decimating power like that was awe inspiring, but all that awe was washed away when Harry spoke like that.

The old man whistled, twirling his wand and skipping as he headed for the shack.

On the door was a large rusted metal snake, and Harry stopped.

Then he hissed and the snake slithered away.

James gaped.

“You’re a parseltongue?”

“Mhm,” Harry said kicking the door open.

Well shit. Couldn’t be Sirius’s kid then. Unless whoever he knocked up had some Slytherin blood…

“On. Merlins. Sweaty. Balls..”

Harry turned and looked at James.

“You’re Moldyshorts's son.”

Now Harry gaped at James.

“It all makes sense. You treat him like a joke because he’s your dad. And you both had stupidly simple names. Seriously, who names their kid Tom? Or Harry? It's like you were just asking to be a wallflower. And you even share his family ability. You’re Harry Riddle!”

Harry just stood there for a moment. Today his eyes were hazel like James’s and they were wide with shock. Then he just shook his head and continued on.

“Fucking brat…” he heard the old man mutter.

They entered a room. In which Harry sent out another dozen disabling spells followed by some snake speak. Then a box floated up to meet his gaze and he whistled.

“Daaamn, those are some deadly curses right there. Surprised the old Dumbbell got through them.”

Dumbbell? Really?

Harry waved his wand again, this time pairing it with Parseltongue until eventually the box dissolved into metal snakes that fell to the floor with a plink plink plink.

Just like before Harry slapped away James’s hand as he reached for the ring floating between Harry’s fingers. Harry pointed his wand at the ring.

“Avada Kedavra.”

James shuddered as the green bolt hit the ring, a horrid dying scream echoing out as black mist poured off the ring.

“Interesting thing about the Killing Curse, it only physically affects things if they are soulless. Like it would blow a hole in the house if it hit it. But if it hits something carrying a sole, as in anything living, it only strips the soul from the container. So if you Avada Kedavra a person and they die, they will be unscathed, but if you do it again, their body will blow up.”

“Yeah, super interesting dude.”

Harry grimaced.

“Please don’t call me dude again. Its weird. Slayer of Evil and Getter of Bitches works though.”

“G-Getter of Bitches?” James spluttered.

Harry posed, ring still floating above his hand.

“Indeed. Believe it or not but this old man used to have every girl in Hogwarts swoon from just a grin.”

“Bet I would have had you beat,” James said.

“Doubtful. I had my own section in Witches Weekly.”

Damn, that was impressive.

“Bet being a Metamorphagus helped.”

Harry rolled his eyes and tossed the ring to James. Taking out his copy, and again slapping James’s hand away as he reached for it.

Harry spoke in the snake way again, and the metal snakes formed the box around the fake ring. He waved his wand a few times and James could feel the dreadful power of the curses he laid on the box. He tossed it back into the desk it had been placed in. Then retraced his steps, slowly adding the wards one by one as they exited.

Once they were free, Harry clapped James on the shoulder.

“You haven’t acted like a complete buffoon, wanna go grab something to eat?”

“Uh, sure. Wait, you mean like a restaurant restaurant not like whatever you decide to cook?”

“Mhm, it’ll be muggle of course I’m fairly certain you’d be recognized, probably already in the Prophet daily at this point.”

James cringed, he had been enjoying his time with Harry despite some of the dreadful topics they discussed. He was not looking forward to speaking to his family once he got back. Outside of the whole seeing them again thing.

“Sure.”

They disappeared, reappearing in an alleyway.

“Ah, lets change first eh?” Harry said, flicking his wand at the both of them quickly.

Their clothing became more muggle. James wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt with the words STAR WARS on it.

“What the hell is Star Wars?”

“Don’t worry about it, doesn’t exist yet.”

“Then why am I- What the hell are you wearing?!”

Harry was wearing a hawaiian shirt, cargo shorts, socks and sandals along with a fishing hat. It was the first time James was seeing so much skin, the old man’s knobby knees sticking out. But also, damn. Scars littered Harry’s body. A deep scar on his forearm looked like a jagged knife had been stuck through it. A burn on his other elbow was stretched oddly on his skin. One of his legs looked like it had been through a whirlwind of blades while the other one had a single deep pink line stretching from kneecap to ankle. He also noticed for the first time a light white scar on his hand that seemed to spell out something. What the hell could do that?

“Cool huh?”

“Can I go alone?”

“No.”

They exited the alley to see a quaint little burger joint across the street.

“Ah, burgers. I love burgers,” Harry said walking to the edge of the road and stopping.

James tried to walk forward, but Harry grabbed him, pressing a button on a metal pillar.

“What are you?”

A rumbling and a metal box the size of a buffalo sped past on the road.

“What the bloody hell is that!” James yelled.

People around them looked at the boy in confusion.

“He’s from middle of nowhere Scotland.”

A few of the passing muggles nodded as if that made sense.

A light on the other side of the road turned from red to green and Harry began to walk, tugging James along with him. They entered the restaurant and Harry sat down at a booth.

James looked around in wonder, then his eyes darted to the road again where another metal box of death rolled past.

“What are those?” James hissed. “They’re like trains but not on tracks.”

“Cars. Common Muggle transportation method. Not like they can apparate.”

The waitress looked at them oddly as she walked up and James blanched. Oh shit, you can’t talk about magic in front of muggles, thats how the Department of Mysteries gets their recruits. From stealing naughty- Oh Merlin. That was just his mother telling him scary stories again.

“Sorry about that lovely,” Harry said, giving the waitress a flirty lopsided grin. “Can we get two Pops while we look at what we want?”

The admittedly pretty waitress actually blushed a little.

“Of course sir,” the woman said, giving Harry a wink.

“She’s like a hundred fifty years younger than you,” James said, gagging.

“I’m never too old to enjoy life. And just flirting never hurt anyone.”

“Tell that to Evans…” James muttered.

Harry laughed.

“I don’t get how you got a waitress to blush while being a step away from death and looking like that,” James said waving to Harry’s outfit.

“Its all in the intention Jamie boy. I didn’t leer her, or try and get a rise out of her. I was honestly complimenting her while not trying to hard. She knew I wasn’t trying to get her to bed, and she knew I wasn’t fishing for a prolonged conversation. What she could sense, because yes, even muggle girls have a magical sense for when a guy has indecent intentions, is that I was calling her pretty and nothing else.”

“I do that.”

Harry rolled his eyes.

“Sure you do.”

“Potter?!”

They both turned to see… beautiful green eyes. Oh fuck, what was Lily doing there?

-

10 more Chapters up on my P@ treon

P@ tre on.c om/BronzeTurtle