"Legilimens".

He can feel him inside his head.

It's 1993.

"You're such a big boy now," she says, touching his hair, then his cheek, but her eyes are looking through him.

As a teenager, he won't recall the way he recoiled from the length of silver bangles on her arm, but he'll think of her every time he sees his sister's son -- same dark curls, same grey eyes. She smiles but doesn't seem happy, another trait she shares with her great-grandnephew.

"I've missed you." Her hug lingers beyond what's polite, too tight to feel sincere. They've never actually met, but this is the wife of an important man. Archibald the Great. Archie the War Hero. Archie Who Died in Tunisia. His ears ache for stories. He wants to hear about Kyiv and Bialystok, about the Western Front, and what it feels like to sit on the back of a dragon, and knows that she has to know.

He's too old to be carried, not long for Hogwarts now, he thinks, but his mother scoops him into her arms in a flurry of movement, and the room begins to go fuzzy around the edges as they step into the sunlight. "Tá sí tinn," she says to him, but as he looks over his mother's shoulder, he doesn't think his aunt looks the part.

He runs too slowly to keep up, the difference between ten and six times that. The dog in front of them seems to consider stopping at the water's edge, then darts across. The young one meets the lake like an old friend, stepping – not in but over, the liquid solidifying beneath his feet. He makes size 36 discs with each stride and he's halfway across when he notices the water around him still moving. Up ahead, the dog is gone, lost in the blur of colour where earth and sky become one mass.

The ice splinters.

He never intentionally tries to disappoint them, not yet, desperate to be included even when the chasm between them grows vaster. But he slips. The lightbulbs above their head grow brighter, and he knows that it's her, but the thought slides off his brain as soon as it comes. "Do not follow me," she orders, and he shrinks in his chair. The man with one thousand prefixes is sat across from him as she storms out of the restaurant, knowing that he should go after her, but it's as though he exists in limbo as two different people. He can't stop himself from leaning across the table, wand in hand. For my next trick--

Loch Eishort is cold and dark. He wakes as they splash into it, pyjamas clinging to his legs, as the chill begins to set in. He opens his mouth to yell, but she covers it with her damp hand, smoothing down his hair after a moment's silence. She makes a shushing sound, and he looks back towards the shore. "Take yours; thoiribh an balach againne air ais," she pleads, water lapping at his shirt.

They're massive. Thirty feet tall. Even though he knows the old words from the days they ruled, they can't help. They haven't brought the right things. They can't buy an alliance with words and gold, not when the others have promised them glory.

He swims, but never here. Swimming came as naturally as flying, but tonight his arms flail wildly, swatting at the small waves. He is not brave: not for her, not for himself. He tries pushing her away, and her arms tighten around him in response. "Andrew, stop," she says, the sweetness in her voice replaced by an angry hiss. He squirms more, but she's stronger than he is, carrying him farther into the water against his will. He can feel the water creeping up his chest, the sea burning his skin beneath his pyjamas, knowing that all he needs is one good push and he can save himself. He can be his own hero.

They sort by families, he's told. Macleod means obedience. Hufflepuff. Macleod means ambition. Slytherin. The hat touches his head and shouts Ravenclaw and his eyes dart towards Neil in yellow and black, the sprig of juniper pinned to the lapel of his school robes. Seas do làrach. He imagines the letter that will be written to Kyleakin as he descends the steps and finds a seat at the right table, both an only child and one of ten.

His family expands.

He can hear his heart pounding in his ears. Andy tries to kick his legs, kick her, get momentum, get away. "You're going home," she tells him. Her eyes look black in the night, as does the water at his throat. He wraps his arms around her, trying to push her head beneath the water, to climb over her. He wants to yell, but no sound comes from his mouth.

Water is at his nose. tàcharan he hears her whisper, but he hasn't learnt this word yet.

He inhales.

He thinks for a moment that she might let him go, but she pulls him down with her. He needs him to turn this page.

He inhales.

It's 2014.