Lost Boy 05

<<

Index

>>

Lost Boy

Part the Fifth

Severus Snape was sitting on a trunk in the Evans attic.  “Are you sure you want to do this?” he checked.  It was rather cold in the attic, as it was winter in Cokeworth.  Still, they had to meet somewhere where they wouldn’t be overheard, and this was the best option. 

“Yes,” Lily said determinedly.  “I know we said years ago it didn’t matter, but Hartwig won’t even look at me because I’m a Muggleborn.  If we can prove that I’m not—if we can somehow even prove that I’m a pureblood, he’ll have to reconsider.”

Severus ground his teeth.  “I did try.”

“Yes,” Lily agreed, coming up to him and taking his hands.  “And I thank you for that.”

“You need to go in wizarding robes.”

“Yes,” Lily agreed.  “I’ve borrowed a pair from a girl in Hufflepuff.  We’re all set there.”

“Don’t forget to put your hair up.”

“Like a pureblood, yes,” Lily agreed.

“You’ve got the adoption certificate?” Severus checked.

“Yes.”  Lily indicated her bag.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come?”

“No,” Lily decided.  “Best to do this on my own.”  She took a deep breath and looked around the poky attic.  “I wouldn’t want you to witness my disappointment.”

“Lily,” Severus said carefully, waiting until Lily looked up at him.  “He’s not worth all this trouble.”

The smallest hint of tears came into Lily’s eyes.  “Oh, Severus, but he is.”

The next day, Lily woke up early and put on the deep green robes she had borrowed.  She put her hair up in a twist and put on the barest hint of make up and lipstick, making herself presentable.  She took her bag, double checking that the adoption certificate was inside, and she left the house.

She was anxious the entire train ride, but she made it to London in good time, and even had time to spare once she arrived at the Ministry.  She could have Apparated, but she wanted time to think, but her mind was a fog the entire time.

The Office of Public Inquiry was on the third floor.  The lifts were uncomfortable as she had to share it with twelve other wizards and five other owls, but she made it out without getting any owl droppings on her robes, and she found the little office tucked in a corner.

“Mr. Tankard?” she asked, knocking on the door and poking her head in.

“Ah, yes, my eleven o’clock,” a tall wizard with longish black hair and black eyes greeted her.  “Come in, come in.  Miss—” He looked at his appointment book.  “Miss Evans.  Yes, the adoption certificate.”

She came and sat down in the only chair that wasn’t piled up with papers.

“Now,” Mr. Tankard said, clearing off a portion of his desk.  “Let’s see this piece of paper.”

Lily took out her bag and unfolded the piece of paper. 

“It says only ‘Baby Girl,’ but I believe that’s me,” she explained, handing it over.  “You can see my adopted parents’ names—’Stephen’ and ‘Rose Evans’.”

“Yes, yes,” he agreed, tapping it several times.  It glowed red and then purple.  “It’s Muggle.”  He handed it back.  “I can tell nothing from it.  I can’t even tell you if it’s legal.”

Lily deflated.

However, Tankard was taking out a piece of parchment and setting it across his desk.  “If you would give me your finger, Miss Evans.”

Confused, she held out her right hand, and he pricked her fourth finger.  She squeaked, but he indicated that she should give him her wand.  He pressed her wand to her finger and then asked her to press it onto the parchment.

At first, she was just pressing the wand to the parchment.  Then the blood began to sink into the parchment and words began to form. 

“You may take it back,” Tankard instructed her.

The words “Lily June Evans” formed and then, a line up which branched up to read “wizard” and “witch.”

“Ah,” Tankard told her.  “You’re at least a halfblood.  You have wizarding parents.”

She leaned forward and stared at the parchment.  “I do?”

“Yes,” he agreed, waving his wand over the parchment, which glowed gold.  “I’m afraid I can tell you no more than that.  I suggest you inquire of Mr. and Mrs. Evans or the adoption broker.  You can try to hire a potioneer to brew a hereditary potion, but I believe there are only two potioneers this side of the Atlantic who are capable, and they do not take public commissions.”

“Who are they?” Lily asked carefully.

“Fleamont and Euphemia Potter.”

Her stomach sank.  They sounded like they were related to Hartwig.  She swallowed.

“Is there anything else I can do?”

“You can apply to The Wicked Stepmother.  They can tell you if you are six generations, but not who your parents are.”  He was now wrapping up the parchment and securing it with the ribbon, handing it over to her.  “Congratulations, Miss Evans.”

“Thank you,” she murmured, taking the parchment and the adoption certificate.  She stood and slowly made her way out again.

She was in a daze as she left.

She didn’t even notice she had Apparated back to Cokeworth.

The first person she sought out was Severus.  She showed him the hereditary parchment.

“Wizards then,” Severus murmured.  “They could be anyone.”

“Why would they give me up?”  Lily was desperate.

“We’ll never know unless we find them.”

“We’ll never find them unless we can get the Potters to brew a hereditary potion.”

Severus snorted.  “Unlikely.  Even if they were disposed toward you, and they’re not, they don’t take public commissions.  It’s well known.  They’re rumored to even have turned down the Dark Lord—and they faced no retribution.”

Lily shivered.  “Then what am I going to do?”

“Go to The Wicked Stepmother,” Snape suggested.  “If you prove yourself sixth generation, you can put an ad in the The Daily Prophet, and if you’re claimed, blood matching potions can be used.”

“Blood matching potions?”

“Yes.  If you and, say, your supposed father perform a blood matching potion, it will say if you’re related closely or far away or not at all.  Someone must be missing you.  You’re a Lost Boy.”

Lily looked at him oddly.

“A wizard child who is lost—a Lost Boy.  It doesn’t matter if you’re a witch or a wizard.  Potter is famously a Lost Boy.”

“He is?”

“Oh yes.  No one knows who his parents are.  We just know that he’s a Potter, even though he looks nothing like them.”  He crossed his arms.  “You should go now.  I’ll escort you.  I can’t get in, but I know where it is.”  He picked up his cloak.  “Come on.  Do you have a couple of galleons for tea in case you get in?”

“Yes.”

“Good.  You’re not dressed for it, but hopefully they’ll forgive you.”

Lily looked at her robes.  They were perfectly acceptable.

Severus just snorted.

They Apparated to Diagon Alley, which was deserted.  The Takeover was well and on its way.  Everyone was afraid and no one dared congregate in public.  Severus led her down toward Knockturn Alley, down quite a ways, to where there was a crushed door and a little sign hanging that read, The Wicked Stepmother.

“Severus, are you sure?”

“I’m quite sure,” he assured her.  He opened up the door and let her in.

The inside of the establishment was nothing like its presentation on the street.  The rafters were high and polished oak boards made up the flooring.  A podium was inset with a little wizard behind them.

“No halfbloods!” he called, but Severus just approached.

“Mademoiselle,” he informed the wizard, “has an adoption certificate, and proof that both of her parents are wizards.  We seek to know how esteemed her lineage is before we hire a law wizard to find her parents.”  He looked at Lily who produced her Muggle adoption certificate and her hereditary parchment.

The maître d’ looked over it and then down at Lily.  “You do have the Prewett look about you.”

Lily tried not to squeak in surprise.  She remembered the Prewett brothers who had been a few years ahead of her in Gryffindor.  They did have auburn hair but brown eyes, as she remembered it. 

“Come then, Mademoiselle,” he told her, coming out from behind the podium and indicating a wooden cone that was at an angle.  “If you would place your wand inside it.”

She glanced at Severus but did as she was told.

The wand was barely inside the cone when it immediately started turning counterclockwise.  It turned faster and faster, so quickly that Lily could barely tell it was moving at all except for the whirring sound and the fact that there was an imperfection in the wood that she could follow with her eyes.  Faster and faster it went until her wand was spit out and it clattered to the floor.  Confused, Lily picked it up and looked over at the cone that was spitting out a tickertape that the little wizard was reading.  “Black Card!” he shouted, astonished.  “Right this way, my dear, right this way.”  He took Lily carefully by the arm and showed her through to the floo. 

Severus tried to follow but the magic buffeted him away.

The maître d’ threw floo powder into the fire and shouted, “Riddle House!” and Lily appeared in a room with a desk, a man with auburn hair and ocean blue eyes staring at her confusion.  Across the desk, Hartwig Potter was standing, looking at her in equal confusion.

“Black card!” the little wizard declared as he came through.  “This young Lost Boy is a black card!”

Lily looked around her in confusion.  “Hartwig?”

“Evans,” he answered carefully, glancing at the man with ocean blue eyes—and no nose.

“This is Lily Evans?” the man with no nose asked Hartwig.

“Yes.”

“I see the problem.”  He stood smoothly and took Lily’s left hand and lifted it to just beneath his lips and let it hover before releasing it.  “Miss Evans, you are most welcome.”

“Thank you,” she murmured, careful not to stare at him too closely.  “Hartwig, I’m six generations.”

“I’m afraid,” the man with no nose told her gently, “that Mr. Potter’s affections are engaged elsewhere.”

Lily felt struck.  “Hartwig.”

“Hartwig,” the man commanded.

Hartwig came to himself, bowed, and left the room.

The man with no nose took her in.  “We don’t need Mr. Potter confusing matters.”  He offered her the seat across from his desk and, uncertain of the situation, she sat down.  “Lily Evans, I take it, is not your wizarding name.”

“No.”

“I think I know what it is.”

She looked at him in confusion.

“Stephegenia Black, but I can’t prove it as of yet.”  He held out his hand and, still uncertain of the entire situation, Lily handed over the hereditary parchment. 

He unraveled it and took it in.  “Very satisfactory.”  He gave it back.  “Yes, I would posit that you are the missing Stephegenia Black.  I will go see Alphard Black and inquire what happened to his daughter and we’ll go from there.”

“As in Sirius Black?” she asked a little carefully.

“Yes.  His mother’s younger brother.”  He folded his hands.  “But forgive me, Black Card, for not introducing myself.  You are the second black card to be alive in Britain to date.  I am the first.”

She blinked.  “What does it mean?  A black card?”

“The Wicked Stepmother measures the darkness of a witch’s or wizard’s magic.  The darker the magic, the darker the card.  A black card means the blackest of magic.  It is no surprise if you yourself are a Black.”  He took her in.  “However, you look quite like a Prewett.”

“You are the second person to tell me that today,” she admitted, looking about the room.  A painting of Stonehenge was behind the Black Card’s desk.  “So one black card to another, why I am here?”

“I wanted to meet you.”

She nodded.  “Why was Hartwig Potter here?”

“He made a request of me.”

“Are you that important?”

“Some may say so.”

That wasn’t an answer at all.  Her mind flitted back to Hartwig.

“You need to forget about him, my dear.  Monsieur Hartwig was asking me to arrange his marriage for him.”

Lily looked up into the black card’s ocean blue eyes.  She had seen those eyes somewhere before.  “Who are you?”

He smiled at her charmingly, which was surprising given that he had no nose.  “I am a Lost Boy, much like yourself.”

“Do all Lost Boys have black cards?”

“No,” this black card answered.  “Hartwig Potter’s is only a brilliant silver.  Perfectly respectable, but his father was a Potter, after all.”  He tapped his left hand fingers against the desk and took her in.  “He’s not worth your time.”

“Hartwig?”

“He’s a schoolboy.”

“You know nothing about it—”

“I know more than you can possibly imagine,” he told her flat out, his blue eyes hardening.  “I know that as a Mudblood you’ve been hounding him even though he’s been begging you to stop for well over a month and a half.  I know you’ve been so desperate that you’ve gone and gotten a hereditary potion done on yourself because you’ve known you’re not good enough for him.  You need to take those feelings and channel them into a constructive task and not into a silly crush on a stupid schoolboy.  You’re Head Girl.  You’re supposed to be intelligent.”

Lily was silent, staring down at her ragged fingernails.  She had been biting them for days in worry.

“Are you hungry?” the black card asked her carefully.  “It’s well past lunch.”

Lily hadn’t even noticed.  “I don’t suppose I am.”

“If you’re sure,” he checked.

“I’m sure.”

“I’ll have the maître d’ owl your membership card to you.  You can take the floo home from here.  I’ll go talk to Alphard Black.  I’ll be in touch.”

“You still haven’t even told me who you are.”

“I’m your friend.”

Lily just picked at a hang nail.  Carefully, she admitted, “I live with Muggles.  I don’t have a floo.”

“Then I’ll have someone take you to an Apparition point,” he told her as kindly as he could seem to manage.  “If you’d like something to eat before you go, have your escort take you to the kitchens.  I’m sure I’m startling to look upon if you’re not used to me.”  He reached out and touched his wand to a black globe beside his desk.  Not a moment later, the door to the study opened and a young man with brown hair and brown eyes entered.

“My lord?”

“See to it thatMiss Evans is fed and watered if she so desires and then take her to an Apparition point.  She is to be treated like an honored guest.”

“Of course, my lord.”

My lord.  Lily hadn’t heard of a wizarding lord.  She wasn’t sure if the wizarding world had them.

She got up carefully and mumbled her goodbyes and walked out of the study, letting the wizard close the door behind her.  “Is Hartwig Potter still here?” she asked.

“I think he’s with Lady Maia,” her escort told her as he led her down the hallway.  “Regulus Black may also be here.  I think I saw one or two other Slytherin students here as well.  You are not from Slytherin House, I think.  I don’t recognize you from my time there.”

“No,” she agreed.  “I’m Head Girl and a Gryffindor.”

“Well, you are certainly brave for coming here,” her escort agreed wryly.  “The Dark Lord has one or two other Gryffindor servants.  You are not the first.”

Lily paused and looked at her escort.  This was the Dark Lord’s house then?  The Dark Lord was helping her find her father?  Hartwig was on speaking terms with the Dark Lord?

“The kitchens are this way.”

Lily came back to herself and let herself be led away.

When they approached the kitchens, she heard voices.  She slowed down slightly, but her escort put his hand at the small of her back and ushered her forward.  When they entered she saw bright lights and several faces.

She picked out Hartwig’s immediately.  He was sitting with Regulus Black and Barty Crouch Jr.

They immediately quieted.

“You-Know-Who said I could have lunch,” she explained into the silence.

Immediately there was the budging of chairs and the elves had placed a seat for her.  It seemed they were having salmon with maple syrup.  Certainly not children’s food.  Lily picked at her food carefully and the taste exploded on her tongue.

Crouch was looking at her.  “Great, isn’t it?  The Dark Lord keeps the best kitchen.”

“I love it when I get to have dinner here,” Black agreed, taking a long sip of his elven wine.  “Mother doesn’t keep a table like the Dark Lord.”

“I will never say anything against Aunt Euphemia,” Hartwig protested with a laugh when Black ribbed him.

Her escort took a chair and poured himself a glass of ale the house elves brought him.

“All’s good, ‘Bastan?” Hartwig asked.

“I can’t complain.”  He smacked his lips playfully.  “What is this I hear about?  You’re trying to steal my sister-in-law’s sister’s fiancé.”

Hartwig blushed red.  Lily looked at him closely.  “I make no comment!”

Black laughed into his fish.  “He’s doing it to my own cousin!  My best friend!”

‘Bastan turned to Lily.  “There are no secrets at Riddle House.  Not of the gossiping nature.  We can keep a grudge or a raid as secret as a ghostless grave, but a good romantic triangle, never!”  He cheered to Hartwig.  “I never liked Narcissa.”

Hartwig took a bite of his salmon.  “No comment.”

The friends dissolved into laughter and Lily just watched on in confusion.  These were Death Eaters, weren’t they?—and they were behaving like schoolgirls pulling each other’s pigtails. 

When she was finished, she tried to get Hartwig alone, but Black hauled him away. 

“Don’t owl him,” Black warned her.  “I know all your little Mudblood heart lives for is owling Hartwig, but you need to stop.  Just because you got in and out of Headquarters without being hexed, doesn’t give you permission to indiscriminately continue to owl our friend.  He’s a sixth generation.”

“I’m a sixth—”

“Keep dreaming!” Crouch told her, pushing Hartwig and Black forward.  “You’re a sixth generation nothing.”

She huffed.

When she was alone with ‘Bastan, he took a good look at her.  “You must forgive us purebloods.  We’re a rather insular crowd.  When they see your magic, which I’m sure impressed the Dark Lord, they will become respectful.”  He took the last dreg of his ale.  “Shall we find you that Apparition point or would you like to linger by the fire,Miss Evans?”

She shook her head.  “No, I’m ready.”

They walked out of the manor house and Lily saw that half the garden had been torn up. 

“Oh,” ‘Bastan told her.  “Lady Maia tore up all the lilies.  She said she did it in solidarity with Hartwig Potter.  I didn’t quite get the story.”

Lily paled.  She didn’t realize he actually hated her.

He noticed her pallor and he started.  He turned to the garden and then back at her.  “Oh, Miss Evans—”

“No, no, it’s—”  She blinked back tears.  She turned and walked down the path. 

When they reached the garden gate, they veered off to the left to a clump of trees and then to a little clearing. 

“Here it is.”

“Thank you,” Lily said, “Mr.—”

“Lestrange,” her escort told her.  “Rabastan Lestrange.”

She looked at him oddly.  “Thank you, anyway.”  Turning on her heel, she Apparated back to Cokeworth. 

Her first bit of business was to find Severus.  He was in their usual meeting spot, by the swings, where she had first laid eyes on him.

“That wizard,” she told me, “took me to see the Dark Lord.”

“You’ve seen the Dark Lord?”  Severus sounded definitely worried.

“Pretty sure I have.”  Lily breathed out through her teeth.  “He doesn’t have a nose of all things.”

“N-no,” Severus agreed.  “He doesn’t.”  He looked down at the ground.  “Are you all right?  Did your Wicked Stepmother membership protect you?”

“Yes.  He wants to help me find my parents.  He thinks he knows who my father is.”

“Who?”

“Alphard Black.”

Severus looked up, shocked.

“I know.  He seemed so certain.  It seems like his daughter Stephegenia has been missing for years.  The years match up or something.”  She shrugged.  “I saw Hartwig.”

“What did he say?”

“I told him I was sixth generation, he said it didn’t matter, the Dark Lord said Hartwig was in the room with him to arrange his marriage to someone else.  When I was in the kitchens, everyone was going on about how Hartwig was stealing Regulus Black’s cousin’s fiancée.”  Her pale green eyes were wide.  “It was completely surreal.”

“I wonder who she is.”

“They never mentioned her name,” Lily admitted.  “If I knew I could—”

“What?  Hex her?” Severus suggested.  “She’s probably from an old pureblood family with a large dowry and connections to Death Eaters.”

“Probably,” Lily admitted morosely.  “I could be from an old family.”

“Well, you are if you are a Black,” Severus agreed, toeing a rock with his foot.  “You don’t need Potter if you’re a Black.”

Lily was slightly confused.  “What do you mean I don’t need Hartwig?”

“That’s the only reason why I supported the idea of the two of you being together.  He could protect you.  If you’re this missing Black—you don’t need protection.  Your family can offer you protection.”

“But I want Hartwig.”

“But why?” Severus asked, a little desperately.  “What does he have that I haven’t?”

Lily’s face softened.  “Sev, you have been my friend since we were children—”

“I don’t want to be just your friend—” He told her harshly.

“I know,” she told him softly.

His face crumpled.  “It’s like that then.”

She didn’t answer him. 

He kicked the rock.  “What if I were friends with Lady Maia?  What if I had the Dark Lord’s favor?”

“I don’t care that Hartwig is friends with Maia Gaunt.  I wish he weren’t.  And, honestly, I wish he didn’t have You-Know-Who’s ear.  I wish he would come and fight with us and Dumbledore.  For the Light.  I wish you would come over to the Light.”

“That’s not possible.  You know it’s not, Lily.”

“Houses do not determine—”

“They determine more than you think they do, Lily,” he argued back.  “I’ve always hated Muggles because of my dad, and that was certainly a consideration for why I was sorted into Slytherin even though I’m only a halfblood.”

“Sev, don’t say that.”  She reached for his arm.

He pulled away.  “You’re living in a dreamland.  Tell me you wouldn’t be neutral if Dumbledore hadn’t whispered sweet nothings in your ear—and he only does that with Gryffindors.  He doesn’t do that with Hufflepuffs or Ravenclaws and he certainly doesn’t do it with Slytherins!”  He stood up angrily.  “You need to watch your back.  The Dark Lord now knows who you are.  He thinks you’re a Black and despite Sirius Black being sorted into Gryffindor, the Blacks are a dark family and they fully support the Dark Lord.  He will try to get his hooks into you.  Furthermore, you’re a black card.  Don’t think I don’t know what that means.  As soon as the maître d’ found out he delivered you to the Dark Lord on a silver platter.”

“Severus.”

“You know I’m telling you the truth,” he whispered harshly into the glade.  “You’re sixth generation now.  What about your Muggleborn friends?  Are you going to cut them off now?”

“No—I—”  She paused.

“You have to think about it a little bit, don’t you?” Severus told her snidely.  “You might even have to think about me.  I have a Muggle father after all.”

“Severus, I would never abandon you,” she pleaded, reaching for him.

“No, probably not,” he conceded, looking down at her.  “I’m a Death Eater, after all,” and with that he walked back toward Spinner’s End.