Excentryke's Musings

Lost Boy

Part the Ninth

Harry entered the Prefect compartment and found Maia already waiting for him.  She looked at him coyly.  “I saw Lucius on the platform.”

“So what if you did?  He brought me this morning.”

“And Madam Potter let him?” she wondered aloud.  “Very bold.”

“We rub together very nicely, Lucius and I,” he told her firmly. 

They waited for the rest of the Prefects to arrive, Evans being one of the last.  She was wearing wizarding robes in pale green to match her eyes.  They were surprisingly in fashion.  The Head Boy, Trevor Avery, called them to order.  “We’re passing out the schedules for the rest of January and February.  If you have to switch, you are responsible for that.—Yes, Kelsy, we took Quidditch schedules into account.”

Evans cleared her throat.  “We’re also passing out the schedule for the train ride.—And one other thing.  It will be announced in The Daily Prophet, but I was adopted by Muggles.  I have been recovered by my wizarding father.  My name is now legally ‘Stephagenia Black.’”

Everyone began talking at once. 

Harry and Maia exchanged a look.  “Regulus didn’t say a thing.”

“Does he know?” Harry whispered back.

“Order!” Avery called, shooting up sparks into the compartment.  “Evans, er, Black, please continue.”

“I will still answer to ‘Evans.’  I realize many of you have known me for years.  Owls will still get to me for a month or two, but you should really start addressing owls to me as ‘Stephagenia Black.’  The Old Magic is at work.”  She looked around and stared directly into Harry’s eyes.  “If there are any problems, not questions, but problems, you can always see me or Avery.  That will be all.”

Harry dropped her gaze and turned back to Maia.  He hadn’t told her that the maître d’ from The Wicked Stepmother had come through the floo at Riddle House saying that Evans was a black card.  He was going to let the Dark Lord tell her.  It seemed that he hadn’t.

He looked down at the schedule and saw that he was on at one o’clock.  He got up to go but Evans grabbed his sleeve and held him back.  He looked up at her with a question in his eyes, but he didn’t protest.

Maia waited at the doors, but he waved her on.

When they were alone, Harry turned to her and said, “Congratulations, Evans.  You’re Sacred Twenty-Eight.”

“I unfortunately know what that means now,” she admitted.  Taking a deep breath, she gave him a small smile.  “I know it will take time for you to see me differently, but I’m not a Muggleborn anymore.” 

She held up her left hand and Harry saw her gold vined ring.  He had to hold in a sigh.

“I’m with someone now, Evans—Black.”

“Yes, you’re trying to steal Regulus Black’s cousin’s fiancée.  I think that means you’re trying to steal my cousin’s fiancée.”

“I’ve already stolen him.”

She looked confused.

“Read The Prophet tomorrow,” he told her.  “But congratulations.  I know how important it is to find your family.  I took the hereditary potion last week and I finally knew who my mother was.  It was—momentous.  I didn’t know I was a pureblood.”  He gave her a small, private smile.

“I know your aunt and uncle don’t take private commissions—”

“No, they don’t.  You know who your parents are.  You don’t need it.”

“I’d like confirmation—”

“As you said, they don’t take private commissions.  Anyway, they’ve been working on this one potion for over a year now.  They don’t have time to brew anything else.  I better get back.”  His earthy green eyes looked into her grass green gaze and he walked out of the compartment.

Maia was fortunately waiting for him along with Barty Crouch Jr., who was a Ravenclaw Prefect.  “Let me guess.  Now that she’s a pureblood—”

“Exactly.”

“Does she ever give up?”

“No,” Harry sighed, thinking that if Evans ever knew that she was his mother, she’d be horrified.  Absolutely horrified.

They went and found the compartment with Regulus and Apricot Selwyn in it.

“Why didn’t you tell me Evans was your cousin?” Maia immediately asked.

Regulus looked horror struck.  “Evans is Stephagenia?”  He swallowed.  “Mother said something about Stephagenia being recovered, that she’d been living as a Muggleborn, but she never mentioned a name.  Are you sure?”

“I’m absolutely sure.  She just announced it to the Prefect compartment.”  Maia sat down next to him.  “She doesn’t even look like a Black.”

“No,” Regulus agreed, looking thoughtful.  “Hang on, let me go find Sirius.  He went to go visit Stephagenia.”

He got up, but Maia immediately followed and Harry, not wanting to be left out and with a sense of morbid curiosity, fell into step.

They went down the train, looking for the seventh year Gryffindors.  Unfortunately, Sirius Black was sitting with Lily Evans—er, Stephagenia Black.  Regulus went in and asked him to come out, but he only barked a laugh.

“I’m not going to come out for a Slytherin like you!”

Regulus seemed to look between his brother and Evans.  “Well, is it true then?  Is Evans Stephagenia?”

Harry saw Sirius wrap an arm around Evans’s shoulders, but she immediately gasped, looking down at her hand, and untangled herself.  Sirius looked over at her apologetically, but then turned to Regulus resolutely.  “Of course she is.  I went over to Uncle Alphard’s myself.  I told you that you could come, but you weren’t interested.  You wanted to go Muggle bait with that one.”  He gestured to Maia.

“I’m going with Maia Gaunt,” Regulus informed his brother.

“Well, that’s your business,” Sirius answered, “and I’m sure Mother is pleased, but I could really care less.”  He flung red sparks from the tips of his fingers.  “Go find another compartment, Little Slytherin.  There’s no place for you here.”

Regulus just glared at him, but he did leave.  They’d gotten the confirmation they’d wanted.

“She’s a black card,” Harry told them all when they were back in their compartment.  “She came through the floo when I was talking to the Dark Lord, and apparently she has a black card.”

“Evans?” Apricot gasped.  “That can’t be possible.”

Maia looked thoughtful.  “Uncle Marvolo did say that he had found someone interesting.  Perhaps he was talking about her black card.”

“But he doesn’t want Evans for the cause,” Barty Jr. insisted, looking sure of himself.  “She’s pure Dumbledore’s creature.  She couldn’t be more Gryffindor.”

“But what if she could be turned?”  Regulus wondered.  “Sirius was turned.”

“When he was eleven,” Harry argued.  “Evans is a seventh year.”

“A kidnapped seventh year,” Regulus argued.  “That does something to you.  Surely.”

Harry thought for a moment.  His time with the Dursleys had certainly affected him.  Perhaps it had affected his mother as well. 

“I’ll never get used to calling her ‘Black’,” Regulus was now saying.

“You don’t have to call her ‘Black,’” Apricot told him.  “She’s your cousin.  You get to call her by her name.  Stepha—Stepha—whatsit?”

“Stephagenia,” Harry answered for the compartment.  He had the name up on his wall after all.  “Her name is Stephagenia.”

Regulus looked at him a little oddly but didn’t comment. 

The train continued onward to Hogwarts and Harry changed into his Hogwarts robes when they got close.  Lucius wouldn’t be able to fly into his room each night.  There would be four other sleeping boys in the dorm and Scotland was too far from Wiltshire.

Evans made the front page of The Daily Prophet.  Lost Boys were rarely found once a generation, but she was the second in a five year period.  There was a summary of her accomplishments at Hogwarts, a brief history of her time with the Evanses, and a profile on Alphard and Elnora Black.  The photograph was a portrait of her in buttery yellow lace wizarding robes, her hair done elegantly on her head, and a brilliant smile on her face.

Lucius and Harry were in the Society Pages.  There was an inset of Narcissa Black.  Harry was confirmed as the paramour of bachelor Lucius Malfoy along with rumors of Lucius’s broken engagement with Narcissa. 

“At least you’re not a homewrecker,” Maia told him as she folded back the page.  “This is very favorable.”

“The Prophet loves young love and scandal,” Regulus agreed.  “This is both.”

“Isn’t it just?”  Maia’s dark blue eyes flashed at Harry.  “The Blacks aren’t going to be happy with you.”

“No, I expect not,” Harry agreed.  He turned back to his breakfast.

As it was Sunday, they didn’t have class so everyone was congregating in the dungeons.  It was snowing rather heavily and there was an icy wind, so there was no chance to fly or even go outside as they were all trapped.  A few students went to the library, but almost everyone had finished their homework, so there was really no point.

Harry looked over at the Death Eaters and wondered.  “How does he mark them?”

“A tattoo.  On their right forearm,” Maia replied. 

“I can’t imagine Evans being a Death Eater even though she’s a black card,” Harry mused, not really liking the idea of his mother as a follower of the Dark Lord.  He’d prefer if she stayed out of the conflict.  “It just doesn’t seem to fit.”

“No,” Regulus agreed.  “She’s Dumbledore’s pet.”

Harry looked up.  “Is he recruiting?”

Regulus snorted.  “According to my brother.”

Harry didn’t like the sound of that either.  He didn’t like this war at all.  He wondered if it was still going on when he was a child at the Dursleys’s.  He was isolated in the Muggle world, but for all he knew, the Dark Lord ruled wizarding Britain.  For all he knew, the Dark Lord had lost.  For all he knew, the war was still going on.

It could have been going on for decades.

Maybe his parents hadn’t died in a car crash after all.  Maybe it had been the war.  That was a sobering thought.

He played wizarding chess with Burke and managed to actually win a match but quickly lost the rematch. 

The wind continued to howl.

January slipped into February and Harry unfortunately had to see Evans at Prefect meetings.  She was now wearing her hair up in pureblood styles.  At least she wasn’t playing with it every chance she got. 

Then, in February, he saw her with Sirius Black in Hogsmeade.

“Are they holding hands?”

“They can’t hold hands,” Maia informed him carefully from where they were in Honeydukes, picking up sugar quills.  Knowing Regulus, he would mistake a sugar quill for an actual quill and ink it up during class only to get a nasty surprise.  “She wears a vined ring.”

“They’re really close together.”

“You’re obsessed with Lily Evans,” Maia observed.

“I am not!”

“You are so,” she told him back, going over to the blood pops.

Harry squinted his eyes and looked over at the two Black cousins.  They were definitely friendly. 

“Regulus!” Harry urged.  “What is your brother playing at?  He’s with Evans and not his little friends!”  Sirius Black had two sycophant friends, one who always looked sickly and a fat pudgy little wizard who was probably a Muggleborn.

“They’re both in Gryffindor.  Aren’t you glad she’s not following you around?”

“That’s not the point!”  He quickly ducked behind a stand of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavored Beans.  Sirius Black had just looked over his shoulder in their general direction. 

Harry could not have his mother marrying Sirius Black straight out of Hogwarts.  She needed to be available so when his father miraculously woke up, they could be married and Harry could be born.  Somehow this had to happen.  It was 1978 and they needed to be married by 1979 so Harry could be born in July of 1980.  He was running out of time.

“Then what is the point?”

Harry wasn’t listening.  He was too busy craning his neck to look over at Black and Evans. 

Maia kept him from leaving directly after him, reminding him that he had to pay for what was in his basket.  Harry had barely paid attention to what he’d thrown in it while he was spying.  Sifting through everything, he loaded up on candy and then went out into the streets of Hogsmeade, but he’d lost them.

Maia and Regulus had a date at Madam Puddifoot’s, so Harry separated from them just before lunch.  He hoped they wouldn’t be so involved in each other that they wouldn’t notice if Sirius Black and Evans actually showed up.

“There you are,” Lucius purred when Harry slipped into a seat beside him at the Three Broomsticks.

Harry turned to him and smiled.  “Miss me?”

“You have no idea,” Lucius promised as he entwined his gloved fingers with Harry’s.  “You look beautiful.”

Harry blushed.  “I look chilled from the cold.”

“You always look beautiful to me,” Lucius promised, leaning closer.  His eyes were so silver that Harry could easily get lost in them.  “Sweetheart.”

At that moment, Madam Rosmerta came with their two butterbeers and she set them down carefully.  “I have my very own scandal in my pub!” she declared.

“Rosmerta,” Lucius greeted wryly.  “So nice to see you after so long.”

She smirked at him.  “So wonderful to see you again as well, Mr. Malfoy.  Cheese board?” she asked, “Or would you like meat as well?”

Lucius looked over at Harry.

“Meat,” Harry answered, “along with the cheese, thank you.”

“Right you are, Mr. Potter,” she answered with a wink.  “Always nice to have the quality in my pub.”

Harry stared after her.

“Rosmerta knows how to keep her silence.  She caught me with another student my seventh year and she never breathed a word,” Lucius told him as he took a sip of his butterbeer.

“Who was it?”

“No one important.  He’s married now and expecting his first child.”

Harry pondered this and was glad this wouldn’t have to be his fate.  He was determined it wouldn’t be Lucius’s either.  He leaned forward and breathed in Lucius’s air before leaning back again.  It was never a kiss, they couldn’t kiss in public, but it was an intimacy.

Lucius gave him a small smile.

Their cheese and meat platter came.

“Thank you, Rosmerta.”  Lucius turned to Harry.  “Where are your friends?”

“Regulus took Maia to Madam Puddifoot’s.”

“Dreadful place,” Lucius commented.  “It will be done up in hearts and cupids.”

Harry took a piece of cheese and bread.  “You much prefer The Wicked Stepmother and The White Witch,” Harry observed.

“I do enjoy the acramantula eggs,” Lucius agreed.  His silver eyes shone darkly.  “It’s a shame there’s an import levy on them.”

“Surely you can get them here in Britain—” Harry thought and then he noticed a flash of white blonde hair somewhere behind Lucius.  Aloysia Malfoy was hovering a couple of tables away, looking uncertain.  “How long has it been since you’ve seen your sister?”

“Which one?” Lucius asked, confused. 

Harry nodded in Aloysia’s direction.  Lucius turned and his face softened.  “Als.”

She came forward carefully and greeted Lucius with a hug.  “I’m so sorry for interrupting, but I wanted to say, ‘hello.’  Father’s forbidden me from writing.”

“I thought there was something of the sort,” Lucius noted wryly.  “You know you don’t have to do everything he tells you.”

“I don’t have access to my dowry,” she explained carefully, glancing over at Harry.  “I applied to Mother, but she said it was only until I turned seventeen or married.”  She looked over at Harry.  “Hello, Hartwig.”

“Aloysia,” he greeted with a smile.  “Would you like some cheese?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

“If Hartwig doesn’t mind,” Lucius agreed, making a signal to Madam Rosmerta.

A third butterbeer readily appeared and Aloysia sat down with them. 

“We should just tell Mr. Malfoy that the Dark Lord fully supports our relationship,” Harry suggested off hand, causing Aloysia and Lucius to stare at him.

“He does?” Aloysia breathed.

“Yes,” Harry took a long sip of his butterbeer.  “I got his permission over Christmas.  You know Maia is my closest friend.  I’d never make such a personal choice without checking.”  That was laying it on a bit thick, but he was making a point.  “I checked with Aunt Euphemia as well—”  He grinned cheekily at Lucius.

Lucius looked like he wanted to kiss him. 

“Well, I’ll just have to mention this to Father.”

“There are some benefits to being favored,” Harry noted casually.  Of course, the Dark Lord hadn’t asked him anything yet having to do with his metamorphmagus skills, but it was only a matter of time. 

Aloysia took a hesitant breath.  “Father says I might not have to marry the Dark Lord.”

Harry almost choked on his piece of ham.  Mr. Malfoy was going to marry Aloysia off to the Dark Lord?  Was he mad?  “What?”

“There’s been something of a plan since Aloysia was quite young,” Lucius explained, placing his hand over Harry’s.  He turned back to his younger sister.  “Why?”

“Apparently someone else has caught his eye.  Apparently an alliance with our father is not his highest priority although they’ve been talking about it since they’ve been at Hogwarts together.”

Harry paused.  Whispering, “Your father and the Dark Lord went to Hogwarts together?  And he wanted to marry Aloysia?  Isn’t he a little old?”

“Your own aunt and uncle are nearing two hundred.”

“Lucius, they’re both nearing two hundred,” Harry argued.  “They don’t have a fifty year age gap.  They also both have noses.”

Aloysia shivered.  Harry stared at her.  “You can’t let her go through with this, Lucius.”

“It seems like I might not have to do anything to prevent a match,” Lucius told him, “if someone else has caught the Dark Lord’s eye.  Father will be angry.  He should have married Madeleine to the Dark Lord when he had the chance.”

“She refused,” Aloysia seemed to be reminding him.

Harry hoped Aloysia would be given such an option.

“Who is it?” he wondered aloud.

He heard a bark of a laugh and turned to see Sirius Black walking in with Evans on his arm.  A sinking feeling churned in his stomach.  Evans had a black card.  Certainly that intrigued the Dark Lord and she was now a Black, a member of one of the preeminent families of England and Wales.  Only a Malfoy could possibly better a Black as a marriage prospect.  A Black—and a black card—and a Lost Boy—would certainly prove a trophy wife.

But she was with Sirius—surely that meant something. 

They smiled at each other and Sirius helped Evans into a chair.  He called out to Madam Rosmerta who was bringing them two butterbeers.

Lucius’s eyes seemed to be following his.  “You have a thought.”

“A thought I do not like,” he admitted carefully.  He turned back to Lucius and Aloysia, forcing a smile.  “How is Roman?  When does he come to Hogwarts?”

The rest of the afternoon passed in a haze of butterbeer and candy.  Lucius walked them up to the school gates and said his private goodbyes to Harry off the beaten path, kissing him slowly. 

“I’ve missed that,” Lucius admitted.

“You could always fly north.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

Harry kissed him again. 

As Aloysia and Harry climbed the rest of the path to Hogwarts, Aloysia took his arm and whispered, “You must convince the Dark Lord that he likes his new prospect more than a Malfoy alliance.”  Unfortunately, that was the last thing Harry wanted to do.

“Madeleine got to say ‘no.’”

“Madeleine left him at the altar.  It was a scandal,” she admitted in a whisper.  “She’s disinherited.  Father and Mother won’t talk to her.  Lucius doesn’t speak to her.  They even took Lux away from her minutes after she was born as punishment.—The Dark Lord is even said to have been more handsome then.  Father threatened to put me under the Imperius Curse if I even considered doing the same.”

Harry’s heart went out to her, but could he sacrifice his mother?  But she was with Sirius Black, wasn’t she?  He had to find out.

“Regulus,” he said later that night, sitting down on the arm of his chair as Regulus searched for a quill that’s tip hadn’t broken off.  “I have a question about your cousin.”

“Yes, Narcissa did send Malfoy a Howler,” he confirmed.

Harry looked at him utterly confused.

“Narcissa sent Lucius a Howler?”

“It was a pretty bad one, too, from what I heard.  She timed it so he would be at the Ministry for Magic.  It was heard by half the Wizengamot.”

Lucius hadn’t even mentioned it and it hadn’t made it into The Prophet.  Harry would have to write tonight and ask him about it.  Why hadn’t Lucius told him?

“It’s not that,” Harry dismissed, despite wanting to continue the conversation.  “Is your brother going with Evans?”

“Stephagenia?” Regulus asked, going back into his bag and searching, taking out a broken bottle of ink, his hand covered in black liquid.  His books would be absolutely covered.  “Dragon’s blood!”

Harry whipped out his wand.  “Evanesco!—Think, Regulus.”

Regulus was now wiping his clean hands off on his robes.  “How am I supposed to keep track of my brother?  He doesn’t even talk to me.  Do you expect Stephagenia to talk to me when we’ve never had a proper conversation?”

Harry deflated.  Clapping Regulus on the shoulder, he cast his eyes around the dungeon.  He found the cluster of Death Eaters.  Snape was not among them. 

“Where’s Snape?” he asked Rookwood.

“Black bothering you again?”

“The Head Girl,” Irkmire clarified.  “Not your friend and not the Gryffindor.”  He paused.  “The other Gryffindor.”  She sighed.  “There are too many Blacks.”

Harry shrugged.  “I just need Snape for a tick.  Where is he?”

“Brewing a potion?” Lavinia Smail suggested.  “Isn’t that what he always does?”

Well, that wasn’t remotely helpful. 

He wasn’t able to grab Snape until breakfast the next morning.  “What is it this time?” Snape asked, his nose greasy and in a book.  “Stephagenia has had the bad sense to get involved with that Gryffindor instead of being obsessed with you.”

“So she is going with Sirius Black?” Harry checked.  “I want to make sure she’s off me.”

“That article in The Prophet made her see the light.  She also has a new pen pal who assured her that your attachment to Malfoy was serious in nature.  He was kind enough to explain the nature of paramours in pureblood culture.”  Snape rolled his eyes.  “As if the rest of us wizards have time for affairs of the heart.  We’re too busy working for a living.”

“The pen pal doesn’t have a black card, does he?” Harry checked, slightly worried.  He thought he heard a rumor over Christmas that the Dark Lord had a black card.

Snape looked at him oddly.  “How did you know that?”

Harry’s stomach sank.  Evans’s new pen pal was the Dark Lord then.  She was going with Sirius Black but she was in contact with the most dangerous wizard in England.  The days were also ticking to the time when Harry might disappear into nonexistence.  Or a separate timeline was about to be created and he would never be born.

How was he going to get Evans to stop her correspondence?

“Did you know your uncle is corresponding with Stephagenia Black?” Harry brought up to Maia carefully a couple of days later when they were both sitting by the fire.  Regulus had run down to the dormitory to get parchment that hadn’t been crushed by his Potions textbook.  “He’s set aside Aloysia Malfoy.”

“How could you possibly know that?  I don’t even know that.”

“Aloysia told me the second part.  I figured out the first.  Do you really want her as your ‘mother’?  I know the Dark Lord is like a father to you.”

“When Aloysia marries Uncle Marvolo, she’ll be a sister to me, not a mother,” Maia explained, turning a page of her textbook, although it started the next chapter. 

“Do you want Stephagenia as a sister?” Harry asked carefully.

“—No.”

“Don’t you think we should do something about it?”

“We’ll never dissuade Uncle Marvolo once his mind is made up.”

“Then we must strengthen the relationship between Sirius Black and Stephagenia.”  His dark green eyes met her ocean blue gaze.  It wasn’t the best plan, but it was the only one he had, given that his dad was in a magical coma.

“We have no influence over them.”

“I have influence over her,” Harry reminded Maia.  “Or do you think she just fell out of love with me as easy as turning a match into a needle?” 

“No, I don’t suppose so,” Maia agreed with a smirk.