"Then inside this place," Snape said at last, voice low, "you're… a god?"
"If that helps you make sense of it, sure," Arthur shrugged. "But I still eat, sleep, sulk, and nick biscuits at midnight. Feels pretty human to me."
Snape chewed on that, eyes roving over the lake, the glittering Erdtree-sapling, the herb plots that grew and vanished in time-lapse flashes. After a long silence he asked the question that had been sitting like a stone on his tongue.
"Who are you—really?"
Arthur smiled. "Me. Arthur. Your student—sometimes pupil, sometimes partner."
That, unexpectedly, undid something behind Snape's eyes. Trust wasn't a potion you brewed; it was offered. He inclined his head. "Very well."
"The golden tree?" he added, recovering.
"Think of it as the root of this space."
"A World-Tree?"
"Not quite. World-Trees grow worlds. This one… probably doesn't." Yet, he added privately.
"And the herbs? Don't tell me the tree accelerates growth."
"Not the tree—time." Arthur tapped two fingers against the air. "I can change the flow here. Up to a hundredfold now."
After a certain bloody dynasty had been… recycled, the garden's clock obeyed Arthur's hand. The latest droplet condensed from Mogh's rune didn't do much for a god-tier owner, but it would let summoned allies heal Arthur when they felled an enemy—perfect gifts or training boons for others later.
Snape's mouth twitched. Which was more outrageous—the idea of a tree making herbs sprint, or a teenager casually regulating time? Either way, for a potioneer it solved the worst kind of shortage: everything's ready except the fresh sprig that takes three years to grow.
He cleared his throat. "And your… pets?"
"You know Errol, my owl. Claudia, the unicorn—I pulled her out of the Forest in first year. Loris the cat adopted me and is now in dignified retirement. The little basilisk is for research and because it'll look brilliant when grown. Rya is… special—Ranni's niece, properly speaking." The tiny lizard on his shoulder lifted a paw and waved at Snape. "And the viper's Nagini—once a blood-cursed beastwoman."
Arthur sketched the Albanian trip: the fog that throttled magic, the hidden chapel, the diaries, the Black Era's missing footnotes—and Voldemort's den. Snape listened, expression darkening and then, unexpectedly, easing. With this garden, with two entities he now suspected were gods… the Dark Lord felt less like a storm and more like bad weather you dress for.
They lay back on deckchairs by the lake. A long minute passed in the hush.
"What do we do about Voldemort?" Snape asked finally.
"Send Dumbledore a note," Arthur said lazily. "Forget soul-hunting—he can fetch the man himself."
Snape nodded. Revenge for Lily could wait. He had a daughter now. There were better uses of a father's time than chasing wraiths.
…
Life in the garden moved like honey—warm, slow, golden. Outside, Harry's summer felt like the bottom of an empty mug.
The Weasleys had won the Daily Prophet's Grand Prize Draw—seven hundred Galleons—and had bolted to Egypt in a flurry of postcards and sun. Harry, who'd planned to spend August at the Burrow, deflated like a punctured Quaffle. He wrote to Arthur and got a politely apologetic reply from Mrs Granger: on holiday. The Dursleys no longer hissed at him; they treated him like a stranger renting a room, which was better and somehow lonelier.
He talked to Hedwig. Thanks to Hermione's newly published Animal Communication Charm, she now answered back without charades. (Lockhart, newly bound for the Wizarding Weekly, had oiled the cogs to get Hermione's paper into print. The Daily Prophet had also run a short "how-to" Hermione sent—addressed to Barnabas Cuffe by name so that one Rita Skeeter wouldn't spin it into a heartbreak sob story about a girl whispering to kneazles because boys were mean.)
Skeeter promised, of course, to "visit Hogwarts for a full interview in September." Of course she did.
One restless night, Harry slipped out to walk off the boredom. The streetlamps hummed. A breeze lifted his fringe.
Something watched him.
He turned. In the mouth of an alley sat a huge black dog, yellow eyes steady, unreadable.
Harry approached. "You on your own too?"
He reached out; the dog flinched but didn't flee. There was a look there Harry couldn't place—guilt, raw and old. He shaped the charm Hermione had taught him.
Hello. Can you understand me?
Shock rippled through the dog—through the man inside the dog. Sirius Black—Animagus, prisoner, godfather-by-oath—heard a human voice in his head without seeing lips move.
Twelve years ago, he'd argued against being the Potters' Secret-Keeper, suggested Peter Pettigrew instead—a clever decoy, he'd thought. Twelve years ago, Peter had sold James and Lily to Voldemort, blown up a street, faked his death with a severed finger, framed Sirius, and scuttled into the cracks as a rat.
Sirius had not resisted the Aurors. He had gone to Azkaban and sat in the cold with his grief and his guilt.
Last week, the Prophet had printed the Weasleys' Egyptian family photo. On Percy's shoulder—a rat missing a toe.
Peter was alive.
And if Peter went back to Hogwarts with Ron, then Harry…
Hello. Can you understand me? Harry sent again.
Y-yes, the dog's mind-voice stammered.
"Oh, brilliant! You're the second animal who talks back. Hedwig's the first—she's my owl. D'you—um—have a name?"
A pause. Call me… Regulus.
His brother's name. The one thing Sirius had loved in that house of serpents.
He couldn't tell the boy the truth. The papers would scream soon enough: SIRIUS BLACK ESCAPES AZKABAN. Tell Harry his name now and the lad would connect Animagi and secrets and draw a straight line. No. Not while Peter breathed.
"Nice to meet you, Regulus. Do you need help?" Harry asked.
A bit of… food, came the sheepish reply.
Harry grinned. "Wait here."
As the boy jogged away, Sirius watched him go and felt his chest ache with a tenderness he didn't deserve.
"James," he whispered to the dark, "you've a good son. I'll keep him safe."
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