CW: Torture.

Felix has run contingencies, plans with Duusu until his mind settles. He's planned for this day extensively - his position as the Peacock holder has never been a secret - and damn that grandstanding impulse, driven by the desire to fix everything and only making it worse in the process - and so of course, when whatever they've facing decides to target one of them, it will most likely be him.

He's prepared, it's a quick trick. He doesn't even need to give Duusu an order because they've practiced. The Miraculous and his Amok, off to Marinette or Kagami, whichever is safest to approach even as Noe's hand closes around his throat.

His head slams against the stone wall as Noe's hand comes up empty in searching him. The man shares some of Chloe's look, but even Chloe has never had that much malice in her eyes. "Where is it?"

Felix says nothing, stares at him resolutely. He's shaken, roughly, and then backhanded hard enough that he tastes blood.

"Felix!" Adrien twists in the hands of the bodyguards, and Felix winces - he's run a lot of plans, but having Adrien with him was not something he considered.

The distance between them has grown since his Uncle's death, and while he hates it, he thought perhaps it was safer for his brother to stay far away from him.

Of course, when this happens, Adrien has to be close. "Does he have it?" Noe demands, hand tightening.

"He has nothing to do with this." Except that he does, except that his brother is as much as a product of the Peacock as he is.

Noe smirks, the cold basement they've been dragged to - stupid, stupid - reminds him of his uncle's lair. "Doesn't he? He's Gabriel's son, after all."

He tries not to look at Adrien, but it's hard. He needs to know what his brother's face is doing - and how close they edge to the disaster they've all been trying to avoid. "Break his legs." Noe orders. Felix can't hit him with his hands in cuffs, but he tries to struggle anyway. "No!"

"Ah, see? Your harm you don't care about, but that useless sentiment." Noe laughs above him, throwing him to the ground and kneeling on the back as the bodyguards pin Adrien down - one of them comes back with a crowbar and Felix makes a sound, not quite a scream, a bit more animal.

"Stop!" Felix screams.

"Where is it? Tell me, and I might spare him." Noe pulls his head back, forcing him to watch.

Adrien puts up more of a fight than he expects - one of the guards has a bloody face, but it's seven on one and Adrien can't win against them.

Felix locks his jaw, resolute. He loves his brother, but it's so much more than them at stake if this crazy man gets the Peacock. Adrien catches his eye for half a second, and while he looks -s scared - there's something so resolute and understanding in his face. Felix still can't stop the scream when the blow falls, unable to look away. *~*

They're chained to the wall, which seems like overkill. Hands, feet, collars thick and cold around their necks. Adrien is limp in his, face bloody, leg bending in the wrong place. Felix isn't sure if someone hit him hard enough to knock him out - or if he'd passed out from the pain.

He knows Noe had taken to kicking him before they finished with Adrien, and that he'd been knocked out.

"This would be a great time to reveal your plan." Adrien croaked softly, barely lifting his head.

"How's your head?" He asked, reflexive.

"I don't think I'm concussed, but. It's hard to focus." Adrien lets his head drop. "Plan?"

"What makes you so sure I have a plan for this?" He testes the restraints, focusing on finding a weakness. "You always have a plan." "Not for getting jumped in a parking garage." He sighs, resting his head against the wall. "Duusu will get help."

Adrien lifts his head. "Why send him away? You could have transformed?"

Because if Noe had his Amok, the keys to everything would be in his hands. He couldn't risk it. "The Peacock is one of the most dangerous Miraculous, Adrien. I can't risk it falling into someone else's hands." He turns his head with a grimace. "Sorry for getting you into this."

Adrien laughs, a sharp, gravely sound that ends in a wet cough. "You didn't." "I did. They wouldn't have touched you without me." "Hm." Adrien smiles, his teeth are bloody and his eyes are practically luminous in the darkness. "I guess of the pair of us, I'm just better at keeping secrets." Felix frowns. "What do you mean?"

"Nothing." Adrien hums. "Do you think you can tell me what they meant? About me being Gabriel's son?"

Felix hesitates, and Adrien smiles softly, sad.

"Well, maybe after this." Adrien whispers, just as something goes through the restraints on his hands and pops them open. "You got the cameras, right?"

"What do you take me for?" The Kwami - the KWAMI - asks his brother, tail twitching behind him. Felix's hands drop to his lap, shock rendering him mute. "If I transform - will this?" Adrien indicates his leg. "It'll hurt. But you've worked through worse." The Kwami informs him gently. "You'll feel it."

"As long as we get out of here, that's all that matters. I don't get the impression they intend to let us go." Adrien says softly. "Plagg, transform me."

"You-!" Felix squeaks.

I hadn’t thought about this before, but it makes sense. After all, both Severus and Petunia are two people who carry an enormous emotional weight for Harry, but they are also two people who not only affect him emotionally in a negative way, but whom he experiences as a constant challenge, each in their own way, yet sharing a common denominator: they are authority figures he cannot stand, whom he challenges, but to whom he simultaneously feels subjected. From this perspective, it makes sense that he might adopt certain mannerisms or even strategies he sees in them, because if they represent something that can stop him, something that can draw a line and put a full stop to him, then it means that, unconsciously, he understands that they hold a certain power. In the same unconscious way, he may reproduce traits of theirs that make him feel the sense of security he sees projected in them when they exercise power over him.

In fact, it is quite common that when (loosely speaking) a child has deeply authoritarian parents, even if they reject and despise them, they end up reproducing many of the attitudes they themselves once considered negative, because they see them as a form of defense. Those parents used those attitudes to attack them, so the child unconsciously reproduces them because, in some way, it has been ingrained in them that these are powerful behaviors, behaviors that can be used to attack or defend oneself. Petunia and Severus are not his parents, not by any means, but the rest of the adults in Harry’s life are always extremely permissive with him, and although these two are terribly toxic authority figures, the truth is that they are authority figures, figures he can associate with power.

Of course, this is a very psychological and free interpretation, right? But from that perspective, it could make sense. Often, when we see that something works on us to keep us in line, we end up reproducing it, because if it worked against us, we unconsciously understand that it will work against others.

This is not me defending the Dursleys, or the abuse Harry suffered at their hands. It is me defending Dumbledore a tad bit.

So. We have one freshly orphaned baby war hero, minus the blood wards. What to do with him? Chain of custody is:

Father's family. All dead.

Mother's family. We can infer that Harry's maternal grandparents are dead, since we only hear about them in the past tense. Petunia exists, has money and a stable home, as well as a child Harry's age. She is willing, after a bit of emotional blackmail, to do this task.

Godparents. A god mother is never mentioned, but the godfather has just been arrested after being found on a blown up street laughing about how he "killed them". He should really have gotten a trial, but this is the wizarding world we're talking about. Due process gets suspended in times of war and while the Ministry can't prove Voldemort is dead, they can make a swift example of Sirius Black.

Moving on from those who have a legal right to be Harry's guardians, let's address some alternatives that get thrown around. I love a good au as much as the next person but Dumbledore would have to do a lot of legal hand waving to get any of these people custody:

Remus. This is...such a bad idea. Remus does not have the stability needed to raise Harry. With access to the Potter vaults this might be do-able (solving Remus' issues with steady employment and possibly access to the wolfsbane potion, if it had been invented by 1981) except for the massive amounts of self loathing Remus feels for himself. He is also grieving James and Peter at this point (and Lily, though I subscribe to the book depiction of them not really being friends more than the movie implication that they were besties, because it's more interesting to me personally) as well as the secondary grief over Sirius' betrayal and how he felt he should have prevented it (he had believed Sirius to be the spy already).

Snape. This man should not be allowed near kids ever and it would mess with his ability to return to spy work (the only reason they won the second war)

McGonagall. Cute, but she is old enough that if she had ever wanted babies of her own she would have had them already. While content to be a teacher, I don't think she was at all suited to be a mother and she knew it. Also, she had her hands full with being a Professor and Head of House.

The Weasleys. I do think Harry should have gotten to go live with them after the first book, but his only connection to them comes from his friendship with Ron. Also, same issue with the finances as Remus.

Any other OOTP member or wizarding family that wasn't openly on Voldemort's side. Well, Dumbledore couldn't be sure anyone was really on his side. This was fresh off Sirius' apparent betrayal, after all.

He trusted Hagrid to deliver Harry (we're not even going to bothing to discuss how badly Hagrid raising a child would have gone) and to pick Harry up years later. He trusted McGonagall to know where Harry was hidden. He couldn't trust anyone else. He also didn't want Harry to grow up surrounded by people who knew him as the Boy Who Lived--not because he had some master plan of manipulating Harry later on (Dumbledore didn't believe in the prophecy personally, only Voldemort did, nor did he know about the horcrux at that time) but because growing up in the spotlight is bad for kids. Also, he didn't want Harry to get murdered by the Death Eaters still roaming around.

The TLDR of that post and this response is: "godfather" is not an official legal position, it is a religious term with some non-religious connotations in the present day. It does not confer upon the holder any custodial rights unless those rights are codified in a will. Which does not exist in HP canon for Lily and James Potter (or indeed anyone except, ironically, Sirius and Dumbledore).

And Sirius, bless him, doesn't use the limited time he has to set the record straight to tell anyone about the Secret-Keeper switch (more on that later), though he does use it to argue and then allow Harry to go with Hagrid.

I'll try to politely address your points under a read-more since I rambled:

Someone asked me what Kris' headband would be in a human au

No worries, I really love answering stuff like this!

First I think I'd like to make a list of characters who count as parental figures to Harry within the canon, or nearly parental figures. For me, this list would include Petunia, Vernon, Molly, Arthur, Sirius, Lupin, and Dumbledore.

Petunia & Vernon are obviously parental figures in the sense that they have legal custody of Harry and "raised" him, and they're just as obviously the worst on this list. They neglected him, emotionally and verbally abused him, physically abused him, encouraged a weird hatred between him and Dudley, etc. Dumbledore even says in book 6, and I'm inclined to agree, that their treatment of the kids damaged Dudley as well even if it's in an entirely different way. Just really terrible all around.

Sirius is Harry's godfather and generally a good person in Harry's life. For the most part, Sirius is supportive of Harry and helps him to the best of his ability. He probably would have been able to do more if Dumbledore had allowed Sirius out of Grimmauld Place as well, but of course he had to stay there and mentally fester.

(I want to add that I've experienced a version of cabin fever and fully believe that this was part of what Sirius was experiencing, therefore I'm inclined to be really lenient on Sirius for some of his less-than-stellar behavior near the end of his life. If you haven't gone through it (though many did during the pandemic) it can be difficult to understand, but it seriously does feel like being stuck in some sort of asylum. It’s not an excuse but it’s a reason..)

Two outliers for me are Remus and Dumbledore. Remus was a good adult figure to Harry for the most part, but he was never really that present in his life either— partially out of circumstance, partially out of choice. He’s more like a favorite but distant uncle. Dumbledore also is more of a grandfather figure than an actual parent. He never seemed to want to take up that mantle either. He often served as a good source of comfort and advise for Harry & I think Harry saw him as that kind of figure even if he didn’t put that language to it. But like Remus, Dumbledore was distant and didn’t tell Harry a LOT of stuff. I was just thinking earlier today about how insane it rlly is that they both came from Godric’s Hollow and he doesn’t even think to mention that…

I think Molly and Arthur are kind of Harry’s perfect parental figures. They say multiple times that they care for Harry as they do their own children & it’s not just talk. They aren’t perfect parents overall, but they’re extremely kind, caring, supportive people who provide Harry with the love he’d always wanted. I think that level of perceived perfection actually makes Harry less able to view them as HIS parents, though. Could just be me, but I think Harry inherently views that level of unconditional love as something that couldn’t possibly be directed at him, either because he feels he doesn’t deserve it or because it just seems like an impossibility. You see this a bit in his dynamic w/ Ron & Hermione too, where Harry often seems like he’s just waiting for the moment they stop caring about him (& he’s learned from living with the Dursleys that clinging isn’t how you experience love so he’s become a disorganized-avoidant attached person).

I’ll touch on Hagrid and Snape briefly because I’m sure ppl would want to hear it. I’ve never seen Hagrid as a parental figure to Harry (which is funny because he’s one of the only ppl the books actually call out as potentially being one). Hagrid is an adult who is very capable & has a good head on his shoulders, you might even say he’s nurturing, but Hagrid is consistently viewed as a friend on a similar level as Ron & Hermione. Bc for all Hagrid’s good points, he’s also not as mature or “well put together” as many of the other ppl I’ve listed