Lost Boy 02

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Lost Boy

Part the Second

Regulus Black sat down next to Harry and set his Potions book next to him.  “Got it.”

“How could you have forgotten we have Double Potions?”

“Wishful thinking,” Regulus muttered, glaring at the book.  “At least Sirius isn’t in the N.E.W.T. level class so he hasn’t been ‘collected’ yet.”

“No, he’s not in the Slug Club,” Harry agreed, taking a sip of his tea. 

They both looked over at the Gryffindor table where Sirius Black was holding court with his friends.  According to Aunt Euphemia, Sirius had been a friend of James’s before James had come down with plague over Christmas his first year.  Harry wondered if the friendship would have lasted.  Sirius Black was a horrible prankster and Harry didn’t believe his dad had a mean streak, unlike Sirius.

“Chin up,” Harry murmured when he noticed Maia Gaunt entering the Great Hall.

Regulus immediately sat up straighter and pushed his book into his bag.  He tried to straighten his hair without it being obvious, but Harry thought he failed.

“Good morning, Hartwig, good morning, Regulus,” Maia greeted as she sat down opposite them.  “What do you have this morning?”

“Er,” Regulus began, but Harry poked him in the ribs.  “Double Potions.”  Regulus smiled winningly at her. 

She nodded.  “O.W.L. year is hard, but you have to stick with it.  Hartwig has it in his blood, but you have to stick it out, Regulus.”

Regulus had stars in his eyes.  “Oh,” (Harry had poked him again) “I get solid marks.”

“You need more than solid marks,” Maia chided.  “You need E’s to get into the N.E.W.T. level class.”  She picked up her tea and looked over at it to her two friends.  “Where’s Apricot?”

“She’s not with you?” Harry asked, glancing down the table.  “You do share a dorm.  Malfoy is here.”

“Selwyn must be with Barty again,” Regulus suggested.  “They’re going to get married.”

“We can’t all get married to each other,” Maia laughed, buttering her toast.  “Poor Hartwig will be left out.”  She took a bite and stared right at Regulus.

Regulus’s brain clearly took several moments to catch up.  “Oh—oh.”  He practically tipped over his morning pumpkin juice.  Harry caught it for him, smirking.  “No, I suppose poor Hartwig would be left out.”

“I’ll find myself a girl,” Harry promised airily, waving a half-eaten sausage in the air.  The idea sickened him a little, but he tried not to let it show.  “There must be one somewhere.”

“There’s always Evans,” Maia teased, mentioning the Head Girl, and Harry pulled a face.  He knew that Uncle Fleamont swore his mother must be a Prewett, but he did remember from his time at the Dursleys that his mother was named ‘Lily’—and Evans was named ‘Lily’—and she had auburn hair and green eyes, not that her hair curled at all unlike his.  Her eyes were also much lighter than his, not that he’d been checking.

Maia erupted into giggles when she saw the look on his face.  “You should see yourself!”  Her shoulders shook with laughter.  “No, we know you would never lower yourself to a common Mudblood,” Maia soothed, reaching out and touching the sleeve of his wrist.  She was wearing a vined ring, after all.

Regulus looked very much like he wished Maia would touch his wrist.

Harry felt kind of sorry for him.

Lowering himself to a Muggleborn was kind of the problem, though.  Harry half-suspected he was a halfblood.  He remembered the Dursleys.  They had definitely been Muggles and they hadn’t taken him in out of the kindness of their hearts.  They had been stuck with him.  He had been a duty and a necessity, which supported the theory that his mother was a Muggleborn—born from Muggles with a Muggle sister.

He fought the urge to look over his shoulder at the Gryffindor table.

It was getting more—morally ambiguous—because Harry didn’t approve of Muggles and Muggle influences.  Uncle Fleamont and Aunt Euphemia didn’t have any Muggleborn friends and tried not to mix with halfbloods.  Uncle Fleamont was very conscious of the fact that he was a third generation pureblood.  Aunt Euphemia was a Flint and had a long pureblood heritage, which Uncle Fleamont felt very keenly.

Slytherin House also didn’t have any Muggleborns in it.

There was the odd halfblood like Severus Snape in seventh year, but he was respected for his skill in potions.  It was even rumored that he was being courted by the Dark Lord.  (Harry had immunity from house politics as Maia’s friend.  Everyone knew she was the Dark Lord’s niece and as her friend, everyone guessed where his allegiances lay and didn’t dare to ask him for proof in fear of retribution.)

Maia had even invited him Muggle-baiting this Christmas.  Harry wasn’t entirely sure Aunt Euphemia would approve (she was firmly against violence), but he did so want to go and be with his friends.  Harry hated being left out of anything, afraid of being left behind.  He didn’t like being a Lost Boy.

Harry knew he only had Aunt Euphemia and Uncle Fleamont’s full attention because their son, James, (his father,) was in a coma and would probably never waken.

“Oh, she’s looking over here,” Regulus noticed, ducking his head.  “You’re both Prefects.  She might find a reason to come over.”

That was the problem with Lily Evans.  She always found a reason to speak to Harry.  She sent him an owl about patrol schedules at least three times a month—as if he didn’t get the schedule in their weekly prefect meetings.

The bell went off.

“Oh, we’re saved,” Maia breathed out as she stood with her bag.  “I’m off to Ancient Runes.  I’ll see you boys later.”

However, Harry wasn’t saved.  He was halfway out the Great Hall when he felt a hand on his arm and he turned to see Evans.  Searching her green eyes and wondering if they were the same shade as his, Harry pulled his bag further up his shoulder.

“Evans,” he greeted.  “I have double potions.”

“Oh,” she said, her voice light and pleasant.  “Just wanted to make sure you got my owl.”

“From last week?” he asked, somewhat confused.

“Yes.”  She pushed some hair behind her ear.  She really should wear it up.  All purebloods wore their hair up, but then again, Evans wasn’t a pureblood.  That meant she could get all girly on Harry and fiddle with her hair.

“Yeah, Evans,” he told her.  “Gotta go!”  He shrugged his shoulders and held up his hands, as if to say, “What do you want from me?” before turning and hurrying after Regulus who was fortunately waiting at the doors for him.

“Scheduling again?”

“She wanted to know if I got her owl.”  Harry rolled his eyes.

“Why won’t she get a fucking clue?” Regulus asked.  “Can’t she tell you’re not interested?”

“Do you think I can get Snape to talk to her on my behalf?” he wondered.  Everyone knew that even though Snape was a blood purist (despite being a halfblood), he’d known Evans from before Hogwarts.  When they were still first and second years, rumor had it, they used to do their schoolwork in the library together.  They’d grown apart, but they were still apparently friendly.

(And, if rumor was to be believed, Snape was still sweet on Evans, even though he was a Death Eater and she—well—was a Muggleborn.)

Regulus shrugged.  “It’s worth a shot.”

Double Potions went well, but it always did.  Slughorn loved Harry.  He loved that his guardians were the Potters even more.  He liked collecting people.  He’d collected Harry the year before even though he never collected anyone younger than fifth year, usually.

Charms was after lunch, and then they were free until dinner. 

That’s when Harry went searching for Snape.  He was with some of the other Death Eaters, if rumor was to be believed, and Harry squared his shoulders as he entered the tight knit group.  He fortunately had credibility in this crowd as Maia’s best friend.  They were all secretly terrified he’d report badly of them to the Dark Lord, as if Harry had actually met him before.

“Snape,” he greeted, noticing how greasy his hair was.  “I need you to talk to Evans for me.”  It was better to just come out and say it.

“Oh?” he asked, clearly surprised.  “Can’t you talk to her yourself?  You are a Prefect.”

“That’s the problem.  She owls me constantly and talks to me.  It’s an open secret among the prefects that she fancies me.”  He fought the urge to pull his hand through his hair.  He’d always kept it to at least his shoulders since he’d willed it to shorten since before his first year.  “I want her to stop.”  His eyes connected with Snape’s black gaze.  “I’m going to hex her next time she sends me an owl with a patrol schedule I already have.”

Snape looked decidedly uncomfortable.  “I see the problem.”

“I hope you do.  They say you knew her before you came to Hogwarts.  I’m hoping she’ll listen to you.”

“I don’t pretend to have sway as I might have when we were children, but she will at least lend me her ear,” Snape drawled.  “I will attempt to take care of your problem.”

That, however, wasn’t good enough.  Harry wanted it all to stop.  “You will take care of my problem, Snape,” he told him outright.  If Harry supposedly knew the Dark Lord, he might as well use his influence in Slytherin House.  “No one wants the Head Girl to end up in the hospital wing.”

The group of Death Eaters shifted at his colder tone.

“No,” Snape agreed carefully.  “Consider it done.”

Harry made sure not to thank him.  He didn’t want to appear weak.  Nodding once, he turned and left the group.

Going up to the fireplace where Maia and Regulus were sitting, he took a seat and leaned his head back and breathed slowly out from between his teeth.

“What was that about?” Maia asked.

“I told Snape to take care of Evans for me.  Everyone thinks that we’re the Dark Lord’s favorites.  I might have used our street cred to get what I wanted.”

Maia glanced up with her ocean blue eyes.  “You are naturally Uncle Marvolo’s favorites,” she told him.  “He knows how much you four mean to me.”  Her gaze flicked to Regulus.  “Especially the two of you.”

“Does he know I’m a Lost Boy?” Harry asked, staring up at the ceiling before turning his attention back to Maia. 

“I told him,” Maia informed him carefully.  “He was intrigued.”

“Intrigued,” Harry repeated.  “That’s better than ‘disapproving.’”

“Decidedly better,” Regulus agreed.  “I was intrigued when you told me.  I mean, where do you come from?  Are the Potters going to brew a hereditary potion for you now that you’re fifteen?”

“They mentioned it when I was eleven,” Harry agreed, careful.  He was afraid it would show that he was a halfblood, that Lily Evans really was his mother.  “I don’t know if they’re still planning it.”

“I want to be there,” Maia told him decidedly.  “I think we should both be there.”

“What if we don’t like what it says?”

“The worst it can say is that your mother is a Muggle,” Maia reasoned.  “You’re too handsome to have Muggle blood, so that’s hardly a likelihood, is it?”

Harry laughed, though it sounded a little strained even to his ears. 

There was a wizarding theory that the better looking you were, the purer your blood.  Harry wasn’t sure how true it was.  He’d never exactly put it to the test.  However, Rookwood was as ugly as anything and he was a pureblood.

Harry closed his eyes, believing that most of his problems were fading like the mist over the Black Lake.

How wrong he was.

After the next Prefect meeting, Evans held him back.  He almost groaned.

Maia squeezed his hand familially as she left.  Evans definitely noticed.

“Severus spoke to me,” she told him, her arms crossed.  The fingers of her left hand were tapping her right elbow.  Harry did that.  It was a habit he’d had since he was a child.  He could never seem to break it no matter how often Aunt Euphemia told him not to fidget.  “Are you going with Gaunt?”

The question came at him like a bludger.

“What?”

“Are you going with Gaunt?”  Well, no, he wasn’t going with Maia.  He hoped very much that Maia would soon be going with Regulus, but Evans didn’t need to know that.

“That’s none of your business,” he told her outright.

“It is my business if it disrupts your Prefect duties.”  She was looking self-righteous now.

“We both know,” Harry told her evenly, “that that isn’t the case.  You’re angry because you fancy me and I don’t fancy you back.”

She blushed scarlet.  It was clear that he had hit a nerve.

Evans cleared her throat and looked away.  “We can handle this like adult wizards,” she suggested.

“Good.  I don’t fancy you.  My duties are fine.  Could you please stop owling me?”  Harry looked at her imploringly. 

Evans looked embarrassed.

“I’m a Slytherin and a fifth year.  You don’t want me,” Harry told her somewhat kindly, praying that Lily Evans wasn’t his mother because this was utterly surreal. 

She was now looking away from him again.  Her fingers were still tapping her elbow.  “Are you saying you won’t consider it because I’m a Gryffindor?”  Her voice tremored just a little bit.  “Or are you saying you won’t consider it because I’m a Muggleborn?”

“Yes,” he answered simply, wanting to give her a reason she could grasp.

Evans nodded jerkily.  She reached up and dried tears off her cheek.  “Thank you, Hartwig.  I appreciate your honesty.”

Harry didn’t want to see her cry, but he wouldn’t stay now that they understood one another.  He picked up his bag that he had set down and quietly left the room.  He could hear Evans crying softly to herself.

Maia was waiting for him outside the classroom.  “Well?”

“She asked me if I wouldn’t go with her because she was a Gryffindor or a Muggleborn—and I said, ‘yes.’”

Maia gasped.  “How horrible for you.”  She touched his arm briefly in sympathy.  “I’d hate to actually have to come out and say it.”

“She might also half think that we’re going.”  He shrugged.  “She accused me of it anyway.”

Smiling, Maia shrugged.  “I could do worse.”

“I’m sure you could do better than a Lost Boy.”

“You were found,” Maia assured him.  “The Potters found you.”

“Yes,” he agreed, thinking of Fleamont and Euphemia for a moment.  They were well into their one hundred and seventies.  He sometimes feared he’d get an owl and find that one or both of them had passed on. 

He wondered if that is why he never had grandparents growing up.

Harry wondered if he should confront Snape again and give him a talking to, but decided against it.  He had gotten rid of Evans for him.  There had just been a hiccough along the way.

What he hadn’t realized is that Sirius Black was sweet on Lily Evans and Sirius Black didn’t like seeing Evans cry.  It seemed she didn’t tell him why she was crying, only that it was Harry’s fault. 

Sirius confronted Harry that Saturday on his way back from the library, shoving him up against a wall, his face snarling at him as if he were a rabid dog.  “What is this I hear from Evans?”

“What?” Harry squeaked, holding his books to his chest.  He tried to keep his way out of Sirius Black’s orbit.

“She’s been crying.”

“I can’t help that, mate.”

“She said you made her cry.”

Harry rolled his eyes.

Sirius put his wand up against Harry’s temple.  “What was that again, Potter?  What have you and your slimy Slytherins been doing to Gryffindor girls?”

“Nothing,” he answered honestly.  “She was sending me owls and talking to me.  I asked her to stop and she—she wanted to go with me.  Obviously, the feeling was not mutual.”

Sirius looked shocked.  “A Gryffindor Head Girl wanted to go with a little insignificant worm like you—?”

“Yes, it bewilders the mind,” Harry agreed.  He breathed through his nose.  “I tried to turn her down gently…”

This got Sirius’s hackles up again.  “What’s wrong with her?”

“What?” Harry squawked, unbelieving that he was having this conversation.

“I said,” Sirius answered, his long hair heavy around his shoulders, “what’s wrong with Evans?”

“Nothing’s wrong with her,” Harry began to explain carefully, other than the fact that she was a Muggleborn and she might be his mum, “I’m just not interested.”

Sirius looked at him carefully through his gray eyes.  “If you said anything derogatory—”

“Anything derogatory she said herself,” Harry assured, wanting to fidget when Sirius’s grip finally loosened, and he was able to put both his feet back on the ground.  “She’s the one who suggested I didn’t want to go with her because she was a Muggleborn.”

“You Slytherins,” Sirius accused.  “You’re so narrow minded.  Your cousin James was in Gryffindor.”

“My cousin James caught plague and can’t wake up,” Harry shot back angrily.  “I think I have more of a claim on him than you do.”

Sirius looked shocked for a moment, but then shrugged his shoulders.  “Be that as it may, he cared more about pranks than blood politics.”

“He knew his father was only third generation.  Believe me, he cared.”  Harry readjusted his tie.  “If there’s nothing else.”

Sirius made a movement with his wand to show that Harry could now go.  Harry was grateful that this whole bit with Lily Evans seemed to be over.

However, it wasn’t.

Someone had splashed it all over the school.

“You and Evans?” someone asked on his way to Arithmancy.  “Is it true?”

“A Potter with a Mudblood!  Unheard of!”

“Potter’s going with the Head Girl!  It’s to get out of all the detentions he’s earned sneaking around the dungeons.”

“The Dark Lord must not be pleased.”

“Where did these rumors come from?” Harry demanded Barty Crouch Jr. when they were standing outside Charms with Regulus.

“I would guess Evans is putting them out to pressure you,” Barty sighed.  “It’s what I would do.  Everyone thinks you’re going, so you might as well have the benefits of it.”

“Positively Slytherin of her,” Regulus agreed as he shoved through his bag for a quill.  He was always forgetting something.

“You’re going to have to cut her direct to stem the rumors,” Barty suggested.  “How you’re going to do that will be a little tricky.”

“You could find a girlfriend,” Regulus piped in as he pulled out a bent quill.  “There’s Millie.  She’s nice.”

Harry had no idea who Millie even was.

“Camilla Flint is a third year,” Barty Crouch Jr. put in.

“Still nice,” Regulus argued.

Harry rolled his eyes.  His grandmother Euphemia Potter was born a Flint.  Millie must be a relative of some sort.

The rumors persisted.  The owls started up as well. 

He went to Snape with a pile of them.  “I trust you’ve heard the rumors.”

“Yes.  Congratulations.  Evans is very beautiful—”

Harry threw down Evans’s letters.  “If I found out this was your idea—”

Snape hesitated.

“It was your idea.”

“I only told her what I would do in her situation.”

“Well, now I have rumors about me.”  He took a seat across from Snape.  “I told you to take care of this.”

“I did,” Snape ground out, his black eyes shining.  “For her.  I want to keep Lily safe in the coming conflict.  You can raise her up and keep her safe.  You can hopefully convince her that fighting for Dumbledore—because that is what she wants to do—is not the best of plans.  You can keep her neutral.”  He went back to the parchment in front of him.

“You play a dangerous game, Severus Snape.”

“I know.  I could not do it for her, but you could.  You’ll like her.  She’s intelligent.  She has a sense of humor.  She’s beautiful.  I know the Potters are only third generation and this will set you back to first generation, but trust me, she’s worth it.”

Harry stared at him.

He was going to see if he could get some of the other Death Eaters to mess with Severus a little bit on his behalf.

“Well?” Maia asked later.

“He wants to save Evans from Dumbledore and he thinks I’m the way to do it.”

“Clever.  Slytherin of him.”  She looked up at him with her ocean blue eyes.  “What do you want to do about it?  Regulus mentioned Millie Flint.”

“I—er—”  Harry felt the back of his neck heat up.

“It’s like that, then.”

“Like what?” Harry asked, staring at his friend.

She put her book aside and stared into his green eyes.  “Hartwig,” she told him carefully.  “You are the Potter heir, but you never should have been.  It should have been James.”

“There’s always Uncle Charlus,” Harry argued.

Maia waved her hand.  “You don’t want to go with girls at all, do you?” Harry’s face heated up again.  He was glad he didn’t have freckles.  “You fancy wizards.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  It just proves interesting because you have to produce heirs.”

“Aunt Euphemia is working on a potion,” he admitted carefully.  Then he cleared his throat.

Maia’s eyebrows rose.  “Really?”

“Really,” Harry agreed, looking away.  “She started last year.” 

It was called the Gnascum Potion.  It specifically interacted with a male metamorphmagus skillset and allowed him to produce a womb.  It was still in its early stages, but it might be ready by the time Harry finished Hogwarts.  A couple years out, at the latest.

Maia reached out and squeezed his hand.  “Oh, Hartwig, I’m so pleased for you.  Is there anyone here at Hogwarts?”

“Not particularly,” he answered truthfully.  He glanced around the common room.  He had ended up in a closet on the fifth floor with a Hufflepuff last month, but that seemed to be a one time occurrence, more’s the pity.

Harry looked back at his friend.  “Not a word to the others.”

“Not a word,” she agreed with a small smile.  “We’ll sort out this Evans problem.”

“If only it were that easy.”

Maia was the one who spoke to the other Death Eaters.  Severus Snape went missing for two days and ended up in the Hospital Wing with several broken bones and spell damage.  It was a job well done although Harry was a little worried the Death Eaters had gone a bit too far.

Evans came and found him in the Great Hall.

“Potter!” she called, and he turned around on his way to the Slytherin table.  She came up to him and began whispering, “Severus said Death Eaters did that to him.”

“Well, what do you expect?” he asked her.  “He angered one of the closest chums of the Dark Lord’s niece.”

“Niece?”

Harry rolled his eyes.  “You know nothing of pureblood politics.”  He turned to go, but she held fast.

“Potter—Hartwig.”

Harry did not care for her saying his name.  He shuddered his eyes blue for the barest of moments and didn’t even bother to turn around.

“You must see how good we would be together.”

“Good?” he asked her over his shoulder.  “We’re never going to be together.”  He pulled his arm from her grip. 

“Hartwig!”

He walked away from her.  He could hear her following him and the touch of her hand on his shoulder, but he just kept on walking.  Harry was aware how the entire Great Hall was watching them. 

“Hartwig, I’m speaking to you!”

He paused and looked over his shoulder.  “I’m not talking to you, Evans,” he told her plainly back and went to take a seat at the Slytherin table with Maia and Regulus.

Regulus was staring daggers at Evans.  “Stop harassing your Prefects!” he told Evans coldly from where he was sitting, and his voice reverberated throughout the hall.  “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

She started and paled. 

Harry took a piece of steak pie and poured himself a cup of pumpkin juice, not looking up.

He was aware of Evans hovering there, but then she fled back to the Gryffindor table.

The Great Hall chatter slowly began to pick up and became a buzzing in Harry’s ears.  He turned to look at Regulus who was sitting smugly across from him.  Apricot seemed to have found her way back to the Slytherin table.

“I think that taught her a lesson.”

“Undoubtedly,” Maia agreed, taking a bite of her meal.  “If she didn’t get the message from that, she’ll never see reason.”

“We can always send the Death Eaters to her.”  This was Regulus.

Maia considered it for a long moment.

Harry took her in.

“We’ll hold that in reserve.”

Harry glanced over at Gryffindor Table and saw that Evans was crying again.  Great.  Sirius Black was going to come looking for him again.  He couldn’t accuse Harry of calling Evans a Muggleborn again.  He’d barely said a word to her this time.

At least he had winter holidays to look forward to.  They couldn’t come fast enough.