I'm going to stray from canon, so if you are someone who doesn't like to see changes, be warned~

2011

The sky was dark, the air was whistling, and the wind hurled against the windows, causing them to rattle as the thunder rolled by. Pedestrians ran for shelter from the oncoming storm, whilst people who were already inside the safety of solid cement stared out, or simply went on about their own business. Trees were bent down and debris were thrown about in the air, as Callum kept his head bent low and ran wherever his instinct led him. In a matter of a few minutes, he was in front of an old, beaten down warehouse and he hurried his pace to get inside.

It was only when he was fully in did he suddenly realise that he was no longer inside a warehouse. At least, the freshly painted walls adorned with pictures of different animals or brightly coloured flowers, didn't give such an impression. Indeed, he knew exactly what it was, for there was only one place he knew about that could magically change from a warehouse into something else.

He sighed softly as he brushed his hair with his fingers, causing droplets of water to rain down on the ground. He had not intended to visit this place anytime soon, and yet here he was – purely by chance. Wasn't it also by chance that he had found it in the first place?

For a second he hovered by the doorway, unable to decide whether to get inside or stay here, waiting for the storm to end. The decision was made for him however, when a particularly loud thunder boomed in the sky, lighting up the surroundings and momentarily making it feel like it was daytime. Shutting the door hastily, he turned on his heels and walked down the narrow corridor, glancing briefly at the walls on either side of him where etched were the names of all those who had given their lives in the war.

He reached a large, brightly lit hallway at the end of the corridor. Last time he was here, it was nearly empty, but now it was buzzing with an incessant chatter emanating from the numerous people crowded there. There were children as young as toddlers, and men and women who seemed to be in their middle ages. High shelves lined the walls, and on one side there were magical objects on display, which gave a flitting impression to Callum of a museum. Some of the people observed the objects with great interest, while others sat at tables and read books.

He lingered awkwardly in the middle of the hall. The people there seemed to be familiar with each other, and he felt awfully out of place. With hesitant steps, he moved over to one of the shelves and pulled a book out at random, before coming to sit at a table in one shadowy corner, out of sight of everyone else, but with himself being able to observe his surroundings with ease.

At one end of the hall, there was a staircase, and some children were running up and down, playing chase. As he flitted his eyes over everything around him, he realised that not everyone here was a squib. It was more obvious in the case of the adults, who seemed very enthusiastic about displaying their magic skills to non magic people, but when he looked closely, he could differentiate the children who were raised by wizards, as opposed to those who didn't grow up in a magical environment. Wizarding children tended to wear brighter and more extravagant clothes, though none wore the robes that Callum had seen when he had visited Diagon Alley all those years ago.

The more he watched his surroundings, the more he seemed to notice. The squib children didn't seem as resentful toward the wizards and witches, as he had been when he had first found out that Harry was a wizard. Indeed, they seemed over the moon as they sat huddled together on the floor and read books, most of them being larger than the readers themselves. He also noticed that some of the children were wearing regular clothes that one usually wears at home.

A frown appeared on his face, but before he could put much thought into it, someone came up and sat down across from him, giving him a curious look. Callum turned away and looked at the new arrival.

He was a teenage boy, who couldn't have been more than seventeen, with bright ginger hair curtaining his face in unruly strands, and a very curious looking earring on his left ear shaped like a horn. Callum offered him a smile. "Hello."

"I haven't seen you here before," the boy said promptly. "Are you new?"

"I've been here only once," he answered. "And that was maybe two years back."

"You're a squib, aren't you?" the boy asked. "Why don't you come here often? This place is good. You get to know about the wizarding world, and you get to meet new people. It's really interesting. Learning about a world you can never be a part of. But I can tell these people are working very hard – the creators of this place, and the other wizards who visit here often – to make us squibs feel at home. I always felt that I was a terrible disappointment to my parents, but I feel warmly welcome here. I appreciate their effort, you know? It's a big change they're making."

Callum would have loved to participate in the conversation, but it seemed like the boy only required a listener. He spoke, continually, not stopping to see if he was actually listening, but Callum didn't mind. He was already quite tired from his work, and he was content with just sitting there and letting the words drift randomly into his mind. He opened the book he had picked up – it was a text book, titled How Potions and Herbology Go Hand in Hand – and began to look through it, more interested in the pictures than on the words printed in old, faded ink. The boy didn't notice that he wasn't paying attention, but Callum still allowed his ears to hear snippets of what he was talking about, in case he asked him a question.

"Oh, I gotta go now," Callum jerked up as the boy thudded his palm lightly on the table. "I'm in charge of looking after the younger ones. See you later."

He only had time to give him a pressed lipped smile, before he rose to his feet and jogged away, disappearing amidst a horde of seven to eight year old children. Callum turned to the book again, attempting to read, when someone tapped him on his shoulder.

He turned around but saw no one. Frowning slightly, he returned to the book, before giving a violent jump as he saw someone sitting in front of him. While his brain tried to recover from the shock, he tried to register in his mind that the man in front of him looked awfully familiar. A second later, he recognised the mop of messy black hair and the round glasses, accompanied by the same smile he had been so used to, years back.

"Harry!" he exclaimed, his voice traced with a mixture of shock, surprise and happiness. Simultaneously, they stood up and offered their hands to each other, shaking them in a very formal manner, though Harry placed his other hand over his shoulder a second later and pulled him into a brief hug.

"Callum," he said with a small laugh as he pulled away. "It's so good to see you. I'm – I didn't expect it at all. How are you doing?"

Callum rubbed the back of his head in mild embarrassment, stuffing his other hand in the pocket of his jeans. "I'm doing great," he muttered with a smile. "What about you?"

The corner of his pale lips suddenly tugged into a smirk. "I'm good. You?"

"Fantastic. You?"

Harry began to laugh.

Colour rose to his cheeks as Callum suddenly realised what Harry was doing, and giving him a playful glare, he crossed his arms before his chest. "Shut up."

"Okay, I'm sorry," Harry apologised, though he continued to laugh. "Are you hungry? Let's eat something."

"Uh, I actually have to go home," Callum attempted to move away, thinking up a possible excuse, but Harry caught his arms before he could get any further.

"It's chaos outside, how will you go?" He began to guide Callum gently out of the hall. "I'll apparate you home if it gets late. I won't let you avoid me anymore."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Callum said with a shaky laugh which only solidified Harry's accusation. But he didn't answer and instead led him through a door he hadn't notice before, and into a spacious kitchen, where laid out in the middle was a long table. His jaw dropped a couple of inches as he stepped foot inside and his eyes fell over the sight before him.

About twenty small creatures were scurrying around the kitchen, wearing filthy pieces of clothing and carrying dishes and trays in their hands. They looked like creatures straight out of fairy tale books, with sallow skin, bat like ears and large, tearful eyes. One of them wrenched himself away from the crowd and trotted over to them, bowing low before Harry. He looked very old, with wrinkled skin that seemed to be over a hundred years old, and when he straightened up, he didn't seem very different from when he was bowing, his back having bent considerably due to old age.

"What can Kreacher do for you, Master Harry?" he said in a low, wheezy voice.

"Can you make some dinner for the two of us?" Harry asked softly, as though speaking to a child. When the creature nodded and left, he turned to Callum again, continuing where he had left off, completely oblivious to the immense shock he felt. "Don't think I haven't noticed anything," he said in a scolding tone. "You only told me you were going to Ireland the day before you left, and you didn't leave me any address or phone number to contact you. Then you came here and met Hermione but you didn't feel the need to let me know."

Kreacher returned with a tray of food in his hands, which, after thanking him, Harry took and deposited on the table, gesturing Callum to join him. With his head reeling with Harry's words and confusion and plenty of other things, he sat down beside him and stared down at his food blankly.

"What are those things?" he finally managed to ask, tipping his head up to gesture toward the small creatures who continued to work enthusiastically in the kitchen. Harry slapped his hand over his forehead.

"I completely forgot you don't know them," he said with a sigh. "They are house elves. They do domestic work."

"Why don't you buy them some new clothes?" Callum asked, staring at the numerous house elves with a mixture of amazement and sympathy. "They look filthy."

Harry suddenly shifted to face him and smiled. "See, these are the things you would know if you visited often. You'll come here again," he opened his mouth to argue but Harry interrupted him, "I want you to come here again. We have a lot to catch up on."

Callum sighed in defeat and returned to his dinner. He was pleasantly surprised at how good it tasted, much better than anything he remembered eating. He quickly immersed himself in the food, and finished eating it in only a few minutes, before realising that Harry was only halfway through.

After one of the house elves had come and taken his plate away, he leaned forward and dropped his head on his arms, which he laid atop the table. He suddenly felt young again – about fifteen or sixteen – and snippets of flashbacks of the time he had spent with Harry began to play in his mind, each memory detached from the others, forming no fixed pattern, but together forming a series of images that created a beautiful picture of Callum's childhood, something that had made him into who he was, something that defined him as a person, for indeed, Harry had played a tremendous role in shaping him up, and a smile appeared on his face as he played through each memory, his heart fluttering with nostalgia and happiness.

He saw himself and Harry sitting on the floor of his bedroom, eating scones and drinking tea, he saw Four attempting to chew Harry's hair, and himself drawing patterns and lines on Harry's naked arm, he saw the jokes they had cracked, the silly games they had played, the kisses they had shared under the indigo sky, he saw the feel of Harry's skin next to his, and with an abruptness, Callum realised that he didn't feel the nostalgia in a bad way. He didn't regret breaking up with Harry. Even though it had broken him to do so, he knew he had made the right decision, and he knew both were happy this way.

He had been avoiding Harry, he was right. He was afraid that he might regret his decision if he looked once more into his emerald green eyes, if Harry said one more word to him. But he was wrong. He didn't regret it at all, and indeed, as he tilted his head up to look at Harry, who was still busily eating his dinner, he saw the happiness in him, he saw the wedding ring carved around his fourth finger, he saw the lightning scar on his forehead partially covered by his hair that signified a past he had left behind, he saw the success and the satisfaction and the joy of living a life he loved, and Callum was happy.

Harry noticed him staring, and a faint blush crept up his cheeks. He took a few large gulps of his food to finish it quickly, then pushed the plate away. "Let's go outside," he said with a smile. "It's really noisy in here."

As the left the building and walked into the garden, Callum was surprised to see the place as dry as though there hadn't been a storm only minutes earlier. A light breeze was blowing, bringing along with it the fresh scent of wet soil that usually accompanied heavy rain. He sniffed deeply, taking in the aroma of nature, something he had learnt to love with his time spent with Aiden.

They walked over to the porch and sat down. The moon hung high above them, casting bluish lights occasionally interrupted by the grey clouds that sailed through the sky. None of them spoke, and remained lost in their own thoughts.

"So, how's it like being an auror?" Callum asked several minutes later, plucking the grass from the ground and ripping them apart. He remembered Harry mentioning that he wanted to be an auror – people who caught dark wizards – and the idea has always seemed very fascinating to him. Harry's answer, however, took him by quite a shock.

"I'm not an auror actually," he said. His voice was low, almost like a whisper that drifted away with the breeze and dispersed into nothingness. It was amazing how the change of atmosphere had changed thee moods too. "I mean I was. But I retired."

"You retired?" Callum asked in confusion. "But you're not that old."

A bubble of laughter slipped past Harry's lips. "No, I didn't mean it that way. I mean I quit being an auror, and became a teacher instead. I teach Defence Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts. It was my favourite subject, and you do remember about Dumbledore's Army, don't you? I taught a number of students DADA because our teacher wouldn't? Well, I enjoyed it, and I got tired of working at the Ministry, so I am a teacher now."

Callum found himself smiling. The idea of Harry being a teacher was quite endearing, and he took some time to imagine Professor Potter teaching a group of students how to defend themselves from potential Dark wizards. The thought somehow made him happy.

"What is it like," he asked, shifting so that he faced Harry, "being famous and teaching a group of teenagers? Don't they bother you with questions?"

"Oh, they do," Harry answered fondly. "I pretend to get angry but I answer all of their questions. But they don't always ask about me, though. They sometimes ask me about Ginny and the Holyhead Harpies. I can talk all day then."

Harry had a faraway, dreamy look on his face as he said this, but Callum stared at him blankly. "I'm sorry, but what the hell is a Holyhead Harpy?"

The wizard began to laugh suddenly. "I'm sorry, my bad. Ginny is my wife," he explained, "and she plays in the national quidditch team Holyhead Harpies. She's quite well-known, and it's refreshing to not be in the spotlight for a while."

Callum nodded understandingly. Before he could say something though, a child called out from somewhere inside the building, before the sound of light footsteps reached their ears and a five year old boy ran up to them, sitting down on Harry's lap. Even in the dim light of the moon, he could tell that it was Harry's son, from the dark raven hair on his head that stuck up in all directions, just like Harry's did. He looked up at his father with teary eyes and pouted, "James told me I need to get used to living here because I'm a squib."

Harry laughed lightly, bringing his hand up and attempting to tame his hair. "He also said that you would grow an orange tree out of your ears and nose when you swallowed an orange seed. Did that happen?"

The boy shook his head, though Callum could tell he wasn't fully convinced. "I told you you don't have to believe everything he says."

As the child continued to pout in his lap, Harry looked up and smiled at Callum. "This is my son, Remus."

Callum glanced at Harry as he remembered the man, Remus Lupin, who had visited his house a couple of times to drop Harry off. Harry gave a sad smile upon his questioning look, and Callum turned to Remus again.

"You have a beautiful name."

The pout dissolved from his face to be replaced with a shy smile. "I know. But I like my middle name more."

"Which is?"

"Rubeus," he answered promptly, sounding extremely proud. "I was named after a half giant."

"Half giant?" Callum gave a quizzical look to Harry, who chuckled.

"I'll tell you everything. You will come here again, won't you?"

Callum took a moment to ponder over it. Finally, he answered his question, causing a smile to cross over Harry's face.

"Of course."

_/_/_/

i'm sorry but i absolutely hate the name albus severus potter.

btw if you haven't seen the tumblr post about harry becoming dada teacher, you totally should.

do you guys want another chapter with callum and aiden?