Chapter Text
Harry is 17. He has been 17 for a while now. He knows he should keep growing with every year, add a number to his ages every time that day passes.
But he is not growing. Everything stopped and Harry’s heart is no longer beating. Everything around him changes, but he remains the same.
He was only 13 when he got sick, the year was 1645.
As long as he could remember it had only been him and his sister, together through fire and dark, never leaving each other’s sides. Harry had no memory of someone else who had ever held him loved like his sister did, it had always just been them.
Gemma had sometimes told him the stories, when he wanted to know who they really were. She would tell him how their parents had been really poor, even before Harry was born and that they just could not afford to feed another child. When Harry was about a month old, she had heard them talking one night, about leaving him on the street and hope that someone would find him.
Gemma was young but she was not stupid. She knew a lot about how their world looked like and she understood that no one would pick up a child from the streets, everyone had enough of their own problems. If you left a new born baby on the streets, there was no question about that you left it to die.
And Gemma could not leave her baby brother to die. He was the most precious she had. He had come as a tiny light, brighten up the darkest of times to give her hope and she swore that she would always protect him with everything she had.
So she did the only thing she thought could save him. That night she scooped their last bread in a bag, together with some worn clothes and carried it with Harry, leaving their house and parents for good.
She did what she had to do to protect Harry, she never stopped. Today, all those years later, Harry would hate her for it, for never putting herself before him, and for believing Harry’s life would be worth living without her. He hates her for leaving him.
They lived like thieves on the streets. Wandering around, never staying at one place for too long. They tried really hard to live like honest people, but they learned to at least put their own well-being first. Every time one of them would come home with a stolen loaf, Gemma would make him pray, pray for forgiveness for the sin. They just did what they had to do to survive.
Sometimes they would be lucky, it turned out that not everyone with gold in their pouch was greedy and selfish. There were families that happily would open their doors for two young orphans. They would let them sleep in warm beds, and eat of their food. They could sometimes take them in as their own but they never stayed. Harry could never really understand why they could not stay where it was warm and safe, where they stomach never had to be empty and they always would have clean clothes.
“Taking their thoughtfulness for granted, would not be very polite, Harry,” was all Gemma said when she woke him up in the middle of the night and they once again sneaked out with nowhere to go. He would think that leaving this caring couple in the middle of the night, not even with a good bye, was very polite either. “We cannot count on them to love us, we have only got each other. It’s only you and me, little brother.”
Harry wishes Gemma had remembered those words when she had decided to leave him. It was no longer the two of them, it was only Harry. All alone with no one to count on or no one to love him.
When he got ill, things got harder for them. For a starter, they were convinced things were going to get better. It was just a cold, it happened that people would recover from that. But when he after a year only had become worse, they knew things were not looking bright.
It was harder for them to move around, but Gemma made sure he would never have a hard time, and she made sure he would never see how hard this was on her or how much she really fought.
He did notice, he noticed how she was she never slept more than a few hours, or how she gave him almost all of her food.
“Please stay,” he would murmur through his coughs when she would leave him at night. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“You are all I’ve got, little brother, I cannot let you die,” she would answer before she left their hiding place. Leaving him all alone, trying to get some sleep while wishing with all his heart that his sister would be back in the morning. She always was. Right there, holding him tight and feeding him with whatever she would find that night.
She would give him herbs and weird spices. “This will make you good again,” she said. She would give strange sorts of things, to drink, sometimes while reading out words in languages Harry did not understand, “I swear, this is going to work,” she said every time.
“Who could have guessed I would make you become a proper witch, Gems?” he would smile as he drank the disgusting substance, without making a face to show that he would disapprove, just to make her happy.
“I’m not a proper witch until I can make this work,” she sighed.
“You know they will hunt you down if it does,” Harry said. “I cannot live without you.”
“And I cannot live without you, I will always do what it takes to make sure you are safe.”
What was the big problem though, was the she would never understand that he would give his life to protect her, too. And that he too would never want to live without her. She would never listen. “I am older than you, Harry, it is my job to make sure that you are alright.” Sometimes she would say that it was her fault he was living like this, that she never should have taken him away from his parents.
“No, Gemma, I am alive because of you, and I will forever be in debt because of that. Please, I can take care of you too.”
“Harry you are sick,” was all she ever said, and then she left before he would see her cry.
She took him to a priest when he was 16. She was holding his hand tight in hers, while she was leading him up towards the small church.
“It is no use, Gemma,” Harry said when he understand where this was going. “There is no chance they will help us when we have nothing to pay them with.”
“Don’t worry, little brother, I’ve got this covered,” she said with no other explanation, and forced him to follow him towards the gate.
The priest had no friendly face. He was an old man who Harry would never want to trust with his problems. “He is good, he is a man of God,” Gemma said. Harry never told her he had given up the hope of that there was a god, a long time ago. The priest looked strictly at the brother and sister, dressed in rags, as they nervously approached him.
“How can I help you?” he said with forced smile.
“My brother is very ill, please help him get well again,” Gemma spoke as carefully she knew how and Harry stayed loyally by her side. “Please, he is all I have.”
“Why would I help you?” the priest asked, “What good would I get from that?” and that was it. Harry knew this would happen, no one would give without getting anything back. It was no use in even asking.
“I have money!” Gemma said and Harry looked at her in surprise as she pulled out a big leather pouch from the inside of her jacket. That was not right. They did not have any money, where had she got these? “Please help him,” she said and handed the pouch over to the old man, before Harry could stop her.
“I will pray to the man himself, and hope he will do his best to get your brother well,” the priest said after inspecting the coins in his hands. Gemma thanked him a thousand times before they left, Harry did not say a word but felt himself becoming furious.
“Where did you get all that money from,” he asked when they were out of hearing from any living, and pulled his hand away from hers.
“I have been saving for this for a while,” she confessed, and Harry had no idea from where she would get money to save, in the first place.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked with his lips tight pressed together.
“If I had told you I had the money, you would never let me give them to him,” Gemma said as a matter of fact.
“Of course I wouldn’t,” Harry yelled. “Do you have any idea of what we could have done with that money? We could wear real clothes! We both would be able to eat ourselves full, for months! And you just throw that away to a stranger!”
“I did not just throw it away, Harry! I bought you your life back!” she was yelling back and tears fell down her cheeks.
“But it is not going to work, Gemma. I am going to die.” Harry felt his own eyes filling. “I am going to die, and you are going to be alone, you could have used that money to let yourself have a good life, when I am gone.”
“You are not going anywhere!” She said for what felt like the millionth time. “I cannot live with myself if I know I have not tried everything there is, to make sure you will be good. This might work, and we won’t ever know, if we have not tried.”
It did not work.
He was 17, going 18 and they both knew he did not have much more time. It was a matter of days, maybe only hours.
“Please don’t go out tonight,” he said when Gemma was about to leave. His biggest fear was to die when she was not there, to die alone and for her to find his empty body when she came back. “Please don’t leave me,” he begged.
“I won’t leave you,” she promised and kissed him on his forehead. And then she left.
Harry fought with every power he had in his body, not to fall asleep. He had to be awake when she came back. He had to see her one last time. He fought so hard, but his body was weak and eventually his eyelids would close themselves and force him into a worried sleep.
When he woke up, the sun had yet to rise. But to his relief Gemma was sitting right next to him, carefully pushing his hair through her fingers.
“I am so glad to see that you are back,” he smiled at her, “For a moment I thought you had left me.” And he knew he was stupid, because Gemma never really left him. He sometimes wished she would, leave him behind and give herself the possibility to have a good life. But he knew she could not do that, just as he could never leave her.
“I am going to leave soon,” and it is not until then he sees she is crying. “I just had to say goodbye.”
“No,” Harry shook his head, “Please don’t, I only have a few days left, don’t let me die alone,” he cried.
“You are not going to die, Harry,” she said desperately and held him tight in her arms. “I am not going to let you die!”
Harry tried to stay calm, not get mad at her pertinacity. “Please don’t leave!”
“I love you so much, Harry,” she said, ignoring Harry’s beg. “So, so much,” she soothed.
“Don’t leave,” Harry cried again.
“I have to,” she said, “I have to protect you.”
“You cannot protect me from this, please don’t leave me alone.” He held on as tightly as his weak body would allow, trying to force her to stay.
“I know you are going to live an amazing life, and I am so sorry I won’t be there to live it with you,” she cried and Harry wanted to scream but no sound would come from his throat. He was going to die, and there was nothing no one of them could do to stop that. There was no life left for him to live.
“I love you so much, I hope you will forgive me one day,” was the last thing Harry heard his sister cry out, before his body gave in and he lost all his strength to hold on to life anymore.
He woke up the next day, and she was gone.
The air felt fresher and he found it easier to breathe. The sun shined brighter than he had seen it do in years. The thick, heavy ache in his head was gone and he felt free. He moved his legs and his arms, he tried to stand up and let out a cry of relief. His body felt lighter than it had done in years, he could walk around, without the feeling that he would fall over.
For the first time in years, he felt good. He could feel the strength again, and for the first time in a very long time, he felt hope.
With a huge smile on his, he sat down and waited for Gemma. Everything was going to be alright, he was good again! He refused to believe that she actually had left, she would always be back again. She would never leave him. She always came back.
But when the sun set that night, she still had not made it back.
After a few weeks, a started to wonder if maybe he had actually died. Maybe he was just a ghost, waiting for his sister to come back. But why would she come back, if she had seen him die. What if she would come back, but would not be able to see him, since he was a ghost.
But he was not invisible to human beings. This much was proved to him when the owners of the house they had been hiding in suddenly came home and yelled at him for being a thief. He had managed to run away and it was not until then he believed that Gemma had spoken the truth when she had said she was going to leave.
And if he really was dead; why would he feel hunger? Why would he still feel the need to sleep? His sister, the only one he had, had abandoned him, left him all alone with nowhere to go.
When three years had passed when he came to the realisation that something was not right at all. When the year was 1657, he should be turning 25. But not a single bone in his body was changed, his face looked just the same and he was not growing older. He still looked and felt as 17 as he had done seven years ago.
And so did he do ten years later.
He stopped counting years, coming to realisation that maybe he was going to stay 17. They was no use in telling someone you are 50 years old, if you looked like a child.
It was 1780 when he made it to the mansion.
He had kept his life as it had been with Gemma, never staying too long at the same place, always keep moving. To begin with he had tried to find her, but when 100 years had passed he had to realize that she had to be dead a long time ago.
And he was not. He was still young and 17, to healthy for someone who was living on the streets. Everything was moving and changing, and Harry stood still. He might be immortal but a day never passed without him feeling dead. Empty.
He had tried to get rid of it, leave it all behind. The world changed so fast, it was hard for him to keep up, it started to feel like somewhere where he did not belong. It was no longer the England he once had known as his home.
His sister, the only one he had ever had, had left him all alone in a world he did not know. She had just left him and he was so mad. He spend so many years being so mad, how could she do this? Why would she leave without him?
I hope you will forgive me one day… After trying to kill himself eleven times, only to wake up the next day without even a single small wound, he decided he would never forgive her.
The mansion was a bit grander than anywhere he had ever worked before. He usually found a place where the master was willing enough to take a young orphan as him, in. Stayed maybe a few weeks, never longer than a year, made some money, and then he was off on the roads again. He could not risk staying for too long, did not want to the attention he would get, if people would notice he would not age in line with the times.
“How old did you say you were again?” The master of the mansion asks.
“Seventeen, sir,” Harry answered unfailing.
“Don’t you have a family you would rather be with, than work with mine?” There was something with this man he did not run into a lot. He looked at Harry with concern, like he was sorry Harry had not been better protected.
“No, sir,” Harry took a deep breath. He had learned a lot about people during his years, this man looked like someone who would put family values high up on the rank. He probably had a family of his own that he would protect with all his might. And never leave to live alone. “My parents abandoned me and my sister when I was just a baby. My sister past away just a year ago, sir.”
“I’m sorry to hear about your loss,” the man said and unlike few, it really looked like he meant it. “I would love to put you on a trail for a month, Henry. We are in need of new people on the kitchen, and I am pretty sure we can find you somewhere to sleep.”
“Thank you so much, sir, I promise I won’t let you down!” Harry made a grateful bow, as his new master stood up from his chair.
“I sure hope you won’t!” He said strictly, to show that he was always to be treated by respect. “Roger will show you around,” he made a gesture towards his own personal servant, standing by the door. “He will also give you somewhere to sleep. Make yourself feel at home, and you will start working tomorrow morning.”
“Thank you,” Harry said one last time, before he followed Roger out of the door.
“Harry, was it?” Roger asked.
“Henry!” Harry was quick to correct. He always made sure to use a new name when he let for a new destination and right now he damned himself for choosing a one so similar to his real one.
“Whatever,” Roger muttered and that was about it for Harry to know exactly what kind of servant Roger was. The kind that did whatever it took to be loyal to its master and probably would not even blink before selling his own children to satisfy his master. This was not the kind of person that was trustworthy as a friend. That was always good to know.
Roger showed him the kitchen and he was presented to the rest of the workers. He walked him around the mansion, made sure to put some extra care in mentioning where he as a kitchen servant were allowed to be, and not.
“Eyy, Roger!” A young voice yelled behind them, speaking to Roger in a way Harry never would have dared. “Who is this?” A young boy stopped in front of them, looking Harry up and down, just like Harry was watching him.
“This young man is going to work in your father’s kitchen, Mr Louis,” Roger said with his lips pressed in a thin line.
“That is amazing!” the boy said and Harry could not remember how to form words. “I’ll guess we will see a lot of each other then, I love the kitchen!” he smiled at Harry.
“Let me remind you, Mr Louis, that this man is here to work for your father, and not to be a part of your games,” Roger said before Harry had figured out how to talk.
This boy was unlike from anything Harry had witnessed in his whole life.
“Don’t mind him, he takes work a little too serious,” the boy said to Harry, ignoring Rogers dissatisfied expression. “I’m Louis,” the boy held out his hand.
“Harr… Henry!” Harry when I finally remembered how to talk, and gave Louis his shaking hand.
“Nice to meet you, Harrny! That is a very unusual name!” And with that Louis run of down the corridor.
“No one would be hurt if Master would let his children learn some discipline,” Roger sighed as he took off again.
But Harry loved it, he thought as he followed Roger. He loved how free this boy was, having the possibility to grow up to be anything he wanted to be. In most home he had stayed in, the children were raised not to talk to their servants as equals, but Louis was not like that. No one was telling him to stop.
Harry never stayed for too long at the same place, and he had no plans in stop living like that. When he had stepped inside the gates to this huge house, never had he thought that everything was going to change. He had been dead for a while now, and never had he believed that he would ever feel alive again.
But this were where everything was going to change and it had everything to do with that feather haired boy with eyes blue as the sky.
They year was 1780 and it was the year when Harry met Louis.