Lost Boy 12

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Lost Boy

Part the Twelfth

The Dark Lord summoned Harry the second day of summer holidays.

“The lady plays coy,” he told Harry in his high voice.

They were in his study.  The large windows looked out to the garden, which was in full bloom.  There were no lilies, just as Maia had promised.  Harry wondered what the Dark Lord thought about that, if he was sentimental at all.

“You mean Stephagenia.  You know she is my mother.”

“Your father is not going to wake up, boy.  Surely you want to see your mother in a position of importance and leisure.”

No, no that is not what he wanted.  He couldn’t say that, however. 

“She has this idea that marrying me could prove useful to the other side.  I want you to play this up to her.”

“You realize she knows I would never say that,” he told the Dark Lord carefully.

“That is why you are going to go to Molly Prewett’s wedding and posing as another guest.  Charm Stephagenia, dance with Stephagenia, and impress on Stephagenia how poorly the war effort is going.  Pose as a Prewett if you have to.  You won’t have to change much about yourself. 

“Do we have an invitation?” Harry asked and the Dark Lord reached into his desk. 

“Sirius Black is taking Stephagenia.  You have to get him away from her.  I hate that whelp of a boy.”

Well, Harry hated the whelp of a wizard as well, but for completely different reasons.  Sirius Black had a habit of slamming Harry up against walls whenever Lily Evans took to crying, which was more often than not lately.

Harry looked down at the invitation.  It was next week.  He’d have to perfect a new look by then.  “Consider it done.”  He bowed and exited. 

He breathed out as he rested on the other side of the door.  Now he had to go over to Number Twelve Grimmauld Place.  Maia and Regulus wanted to go Muggle baiting, which was the last thing he wanted to do.

He stopped by Potter Abbey and got changed into jeans and a button down shirt, putting his hair up in a comb.  Looking into a mirror, he stared into his eyes.  He flicked them a brown.  There, that looked more like a Prewett.  He flicked them back.

“Hartwig!” Maia greeted, coming up to him and air kissing his cheek.  “Have you heard?  Sirius proposed to Stephagenia.”

Harry grimaced.  Great.  Now the Dark Lord was going to get more desperate.  “Hadn’t,” he admitted.  “How do we feel about this?”

“Considering she won’t talk to Regulus,” Maia told him, linking arms with him, “we have no idea.  You know her the best.”

“She was constantly foisting herself upon me,” he reminded his friend.  “‘I love you.  I want you, Hartwig.  What’s wrong with me?’”

“I think I liked her better when she was a Mudblood,” Regulus sighed when they came into the Tapestry Room.  “All I hear about is her perfections when Sirius is even here.  Mother goes on about what a great match it is.”

“What does Mr. Black think?” Harry asked, genuinely confused.

“No idea,” Regulus admitted.  “He’s too busy getting strange laws passed in the Wizengamot.  ‘Wombed persons’?  What’s a ‘wombed person’?”

“Guess we’re just going to have to find out,” Maia soothed.  “Now, where are we going?”

Where they ended up going was a Muggle park.  They took a picnic and Maia and Regulus enjoyed tripping up Muggles who went riding along on bicycles and melting children’s ice cream.  Harry pointed his wand in various directions when Maia was looking in his direction, but didn’t cast a single spell.  Regulus kicked him at one point, and he ended up letting a little dog chase a conjured butterfly.

“You’re no fun,” Maia pouted when they came back.  “Not one scraped knee from you, Hartwig.”

“I had a scraped knee!” he defended, thinking of the dog’s master who he’d accidentally sent chasing after his pet.

“Did not,” she argued, staring at him hard.  “One would think you were soft.”

“Hardly soft,” Regulus argued, patting him on the back.  “We were just too wrapped up in each other to notice what Hartwig was doing.”  He winked at Harry.

“Too true,” Harry agreed with him.  “You were giggling at every spell Regulus pulled.  You missed when I had that man walk into a low hanging branch.”

“Did you?” Maia asked in genuine curiosity.  “Did leaves get stuck in his hair?”

“A twig,” Harry lied.  “It might have fallen out.”

“Too bad,” she sighed.  “I hate it when Muggles manage to pull themselves together.”  Her pretty blue eyes shone in delight, and it made Harry’s stomach roil.  He didn’t understand how he could be so unlike his friends.  How he couldn’t seem to hurt anyone.  What was wrong with him?  Why was he a lamb, as Lucius called him?

He went back to Potter Abbey sullen that evening and crawled into bed early.

He awoke to feel warm fingers carding through his hair.

“Hush, my darling,” Lucius cooed as he moved closer.  “You seem exhausted.”

Harry groaned.  “We went Muggle baiting.”  He snuggled closer into Lucius.

Lucius pulled Harry into his arms.  “It’s over now,” Lucius promised, leaning down and kissing the side of Harry’s head.  “It’s all over now.”

“Until the next time,” Harry argued, “and the time after that.”

“True,” Lucius murmured.  “But we cannot help that.”

Harry sighed and clung harder onto Lucius.  He just wanted to stay like this forever, safe and warm in Lucius’s arms.

“I’m still at the cottage,” Lucius was telling him some time later.  “I’d like you to come over Saturday, just the two of us.  I’d like to show you the place that is to be your home in a few years, sooner, if you’d like to come.”

“I can’t come Saturday.  The Dark Lord wants me to infiltrate a wedding.”

“Why ever would he want you to do that?” Lucius wondered aloud.

“The Dark Lord has his reasons,” Harry feinted, looking up into Lucius’s silver gaze.  “You know I promised to use my abilities for him if he changed the law for us.  I can come Sunday.”

“Come Sunday, then, after church.  The law is changed and it is time for us to be together.”

“The potion won’t be ready—”

“But the law is ready—”

“But I don’t have a womb yet—”

“You don’t have a womb—?”

“No,” Harry murmured, sitting up and pushing the covers off himself.  “I can’t grow a womb without the potion.”

“I thought the potion was to help you conceive.”

“It will, by growing me a womb.”

Lucius thought and pondered a moment.  “You won’t be sixteen until the end of July anyway,” he murmured.  “That was the earliest you could have been married.”

“Lucius—” Harry apologized.

“It is my mistake.  I misunderstood,” Lucius assured him, leaning forward for a kiss.  “I knew we had to wait for the potion.  I just didn’t understand the specifics.”

They breathed in each other’s air for a long moment. 

“How much longer does Mrs. Potter think it will take?”

“Another year, maybe two.”

“Another year,” Lucius repeated, clearly thinking.  “Still, I should like you to come and see the cottage.  It is to be your home.”

“Shall I fly there?” Harry asked with a small smile.

“If you like,” Lucius murmured.  “I can show you how to get there with a compass.”

“What’s the cottage called?”

“Oak’s Breath.”

“What a peculiar name.”

“The cottage is built in the middle of an oak grove,” Lucius explained, leaning down to kiss his ear, which tickled a little.  “It’s very idyllic.  There’s a spot a mile west of the cottage where we can play Quidditch.”

“We still need to play our pick up match,” Harry reminded him.

“You have Burke and Black,” Lucius agreed, “for your team, and I’ll get Bellatrix and Rabastan.”

“Two chasers and a keeper,” Harry agreed.  “Two more players and we can have a seeker.”

“I’m sure we can think of something,” Lucius breathed as he leaned in to kiss Harry full on the lips, catching Harry’s sigh.  Lucius leaned into the kiss and pressed Harry back into the pillow, the sheets swallowing them up whole.

By the time Saturday came, Harry had a whole new look.  His hair was ginger instead of auburn, wavy instead of a mass of curls.  He had it shortened to just beneath his ears, a little scraggly, but still good looking, his fringe coming into his eyes if he didn’t brush it over his eyebrows.  His eyes were flicked a deep chestnut.  His entire face was rounder, his cheekbones lowered a bit, his jawline less defined, his nose a little rounder, a little flattened.  He had his ears poke out just a bit more.  He lost three inches in height and even had Erky take out some of James’s old robes and lengthen them so that they would fit, giving a little out in the shoulder as well. 

He took the invitation down and grabbed his broom, deciding to fly out the window instead of running into his grandparents and having to answer questions. 

Taking out his magical compass, he tapped it with his wand and gave the address.  The arrow pointed to the southwest.

Hopping on his broom, he took off to the sky.

Harry loved the feeling of flying on a broom and didn’t mind the hour and a half flight to elsewhere in Devon.  When he got there, there was a mass of fairy lights and sparkles, a large tent in the back.  Harry went to the cloakroom, giving over his broom and getting a number back, before finding a place to sit.

It wasn’t hard finding Evans in the crowd.  She was very prettily dressed in a set of buttery lace robes with a hat on her head, Sirius Black noticeably on her arm.  He’d only have to get her alone.

That was noticeably done when the dancing broke out.

Evans was passed from Black to the Prewett brothers and back to Black, and Harry took his chance and tapped Black on the shoulder.

“Another Prewett for Stephagenia?” he asked with what he hoped was a winning smile on his face.  He hadn’t given himself perfect teeth as he didn’t want to look too much like a paper pin up.

“Right,” Black said, looking between him and Evans.  “Which one are you, then?”

“August Prewett.  Fifth year Hufflepuff.”

“Don’t recognize you.”  However, Black obligingly passed over Evans. 

Fortunately, Euphemia had taught him how to dance.

“I don’t think I remember seeing you around Hogwarts,” Evans greeted, stepping into the dance. Someone had obviously bothered to teach her over the past couple of months.  “Hufflepuff, you say?”

“Hufflepuff is easy to overlook,” Harry admitted, knowing how true that was.  He didn’t know more than a handful of wizards by sight in Hufflepuff.  “Cousin Alphard wrote Dad all about you, though.  None of us could believe it!” 

He switched partners and got a middle aged witch he’d never seen before.  She grinned at him.  Harry smiled pleasantly back.

When he and Evans got back together, Harry made his move.  “Dad is worried,” he admitted.  “We think I’m going to be made Prefect, but Dad thinks Dumbledore is using it as a recruiting ground.  He doesn’t want me getting caught up in the war as it’s going so badly.  You were Head Girl—what’s your opinion?”

She took a deep breath and looked at him hard.

“Rumors like that have made it into Hufflepuff?” she asked.

“Well, Cousins Gideon and Fabian were in Gryffindor,” he confessed, feeding her information the Dark Lord had told him.  “They’ve joined something called ‘The Order of the Phoenix’, whatever that is.”

She took a step out of the dance and Harry followed her.  Making her way to the refreshments table, she got two glasses of fairy fizz and then found them a table. 

“It is difficult,” she told him carefully, taking a sip of her drink.  “Everyone’s pulling you from every which side.”

“Are the Blacks pulling at you, too?” he asked her, genuinely concerned.

“That’s neither here nor there.  The war is heating up.”  She looked into his brown eyes.  “You’ve got to choose a side, August.”

“Well, which side are you choosing?  Do you think I should choose one?  I’m only fifteen in August.”

“Fifteen is plenty old enough,” she told him, looking over her shoulder and making a signal.  “Don’t let your dad talk you out of it.  You’ve got to hold firm.  Be your own wizard.”  She finished her drink and stood up just as the final chords to the dance ended.  “Nice talking to you, August.  Thanks for the dance.”

Well, it seems like Evans had chosen.  She’d chosen Dumbledore which means she was either going to marry Sirius or she was going to spy for him on the Dark Lord.

Quickly, Harry grabbed her hand, entwined their fingers, and pulled her back into her seat.  She looked down at their hands in shock and looked into his eyes.  He flicked them earthy green.

“I don’t like Black, in fact, I hate him,” Harry told her, changing his voice to its usual timber, “but I don’t think you should be the Dark Lord’s bride, whatever he orders me to convince you of.”

She stared at him. 

“But I think you should take two brooms and fly to Gretna Green tonight.  You’re over seventeen.  You can do it.  I’m sure your father will forgive you unless he’s in the Dark Lord’s pocket.”

“Hartwig?” she breathed, leaning forward.

He flattened his ears, raised his cheekbones, and defined his jaw just the smallest bit to give her a hint of what he normally looked like.  She gasped.

“Hartwig, you shouldn’t be here.”

“Why not?  Molly Prewett’s my cousin, too.”

Evans didn’t look like she knew what to say to that.

“Just get out of here,” he begged, “before it’s too late.  Blame your Muggle upbringing, your Gryffindor placement.  Say you had to marry a wizard with a nose.  Anything.  He’s been left at the altar by his best friend’s daughter already, so no one can blame you for not accepting a marriage proposal.”

“This is not—”

“Look, if I had it my way, my dad would wake up and you’d marry him this summer, and I’d be born in two years,” he breathed out harshly, “but frankly that’s not going to happen.  Go and give me half brothers and sisters that I’ll never know.  Go and be happy, away from the Dark Lord and spying games.  If you have to fight, fight, but at least know that you’re not compromising yourself.”

She looked down at her fingers.  She was picking at her thumb.

“Stephagenia, please.”

“Fine,” she agreed.  “I’ll take Sirius and go tonight.”

“Better do it now.  I’m sure you can steal some brooms from the robe check.  See, you’re practically already dressed in white.”

She looked at him oddly.  “Witches wear blue for their wedding robes.”  It was true.  Molly Prewett had worn baby blue robes when she had married Arthur Weasley.

“Well, you were raised by Muggles,” Harry reminded her.  “Or you could call yourself trend setting.”  He leaned back and changed fully back into August Prewett.  “Please do as I say before you’re trapped in a living nightmare, Mother.”

She startled.  It was the first time he had ever called her ‘mother.’  It would hopefully be the last.

He got up and walked away.

About a half hour later he saw her whispering with Sirius Black and not long afterward, they were headed back toward the house.  He didn’t see them after that. 

He flew home several hours after the bride and groom had left on their honeymoon, shortly after the party had broken up, sliding into his window.  He was careful on the ride home to change his features back to his usual ones, though not adjusting his height because he didn’t want to tear the robes off of his body.  When he got in, he took off the robes and felt his bones slide back into place.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you do that before,” Lucius remarked from the bed.

Harry turned.

“I decidedly like you better this way.”

Harry smiled.

“Mission accomplished?”

“My mission, not the Dark Lord’s—if all went well.”

“What did my lamb do?” Lucius asked rhetorically as Harry climbed into bed. 

“Well, I might have convinced Stephagenia Black to run off with her cousin to Gretna Green.”

“Why in God’s name would you ever do that?” Lucius asked with a bit of a laugh.  “I thought you hated Sirius Black, unless you somehow convinced Regulus to give up Maia Gaunt.”

“No, it was Sirius,” Harry confirmed.  “I wanted to keep her away from the Dark Lord.”

“Very dangerous.  A wedding won’t keep her away from the Dark Lord,” Lucius mused, “though this doesn’t bode well for Aloysia.”

“And for that I am sorry,” Harry told Lucius sincerely, taking his face in his hands and staring into Lucius’s silver gaze.  “I would like nothing more than for Aloysia to be free of the Dark Lord and his attentions, it’s just—”

Lucius looked at him.  “Won’t you explain it to me?”

“I can’t,” Harry told him carefully, “not until my eighteenth birthday.”

“What’s so important about your eighteenth birthday?” Lucius asked, reaching up and combing his fingers through Harry’s long curls.

“That’s when it all began—or when it all ends.”  He looked off to the side, clearly thinking.  Sometimes he wondered if he would fade from existence on July 31, 1980, or if he would wake up in his cupboard and this all would have been a dream. 

“My darling, come back to me,” Lucius whispered in his ear.

Harry’s green eyes flicked back to Lucius’s adoring gaze.  “I will tell you everything when I can, Lucius, I promise.”

“As long as you can one day tell me when you are able,” Lucius murmured, leaning in for a kiss.  “I shall have to be contented.”

But Harry wanted Lucius more than contented.  He wanted him happy.

The next day Harry went to the local Anglo Catholic church with Aunt Euphemia and Uncle Fleamont.  Aunt Euphemia had never missed a Sunday in her life except when James was hovering between life and death with plague.  She had only stepped back into the church again when the healers had assured her that nothing more could be done.

Harry had never gone to church with the Dursleys.  They were general believers but they were C-and-E Christians.  They only went on Christmas and Easter.  Harry had to come along because they didn’t want to leave him alone in the house.  They were afraid of what disaster they might come back to.

Every Sunday Harry prayed for his father’s health and this Sunday he prayed that his mother was safely in Scotland.  He didn’t know how he felt about his mother marrying a different man, but he knew he would have to come to terms with the idea.  It was now a reality and not just a far off possibility.

After lunch, Harry got back on his broom, picked up his magical compass, and flew to Oak’s Breath in Wiltshire.  The ride wasn’t that long and he made it well in time for tea.

The cottage was indeed in a little glade surrounded by ancient oaks and had a thatched roof and white washed walls.

“It’s not much,” Lucius apologized as he let Harry in through the front door.  “It’s one main room on the ground floor, then one bedroom up on the first.  We could never raise a family here—”  But Harry just kissed him.  He didn’t care how rustic the cottage was.  All that he cared about was that it was Lucius’s home and he had aired it out and set out tea for him. 

They sat down together with an earthenware pot and a blend of Earl Grey. 

“I was thinking of adding on,” Lucius told him.  “Another side room that could be the Master Bedroom and then we could section off the first floor into two bedrooms for two children, your heir and mine.  Of course, if we have girls we’ll need more than two children.  The girls will have to share as will the boys.  That is, assuming my father lives for a very long time and still hasn’t forgiven me.”

“You forget that Fleamont and Euphemia fully support us.  We can always live at Potter Abbey.”

“I would never presume,” Lucius began, but Harry touched his hand and gave him a warm smile.

“You’re to be my husband.  We can start out here, but once we have a family, we can move back into Potter Abbey.  And when my aunt and uncle pass on, the house will be mine anyway.”

“Of course,” Lucius agreed, giving him a soft smile.  “And your cousin’s there.”

“And James is there, yes,” Harry whispered.

The rest of the afternoon was spent exploring every inch and nook of the small cottage and then lazing in bed, exchanging soft kisses.  At first, Harry was confused why Lucius was playing with the folds of his robes until he pushed them aside and lay kisses on the wide plains of Harry’s stomach.  Harry gasped and threw his head back, unused to such sensations, but glorying in them all the same.  Lucius pushed Harry’s robes off his shoulders until he was running his hands down Harry’s neck and down his chest, tugging on the light chest hair there, and lightly kissing his neck.

Harry left shortly before dinner, not wanting to fly in the dark, and with one last final kiss he took off into the afternoon sky.

When he got back to Potter Abbey it was to find that a letter had arrived by floo.

It was from Evans.

Hartwig, My name has changed.  I am now Madam Stephagenia Black.  I suppose the joke is on the world, as my husband would say. S.

It was done then. 

When the Dark Lord found out, he came to Potter Abbey somehow breaking through the floo invitation.  Fleamont was off in his study, puffing his pipe, and Euphemia was down in the Potions lab working on the Gnascum Potion.  Harry was up in his room, trimming the twigs in his broom tail. 

“What is this?” the Dark Lord asked from his bedroom door.  He held out a letter.

Harry immediately stood and bowed, knowing he was in trouble.  “Is it from Stephagenia?” he asked.

“Yes,” the Dark Lord hissed, coming through.  “Black Card,” he read.  “I find I cannot be your wife.  Please don’t take this as a personal rejection as it is not meant as one.  I find that I still love Hartwig Potter and in the absence of him, I have turned to another close relative of mine, Sirius Black, for comfort.  I hope you understand.  Although it is naïve of me to think so, I hope we can still have tea together on occasion, one black card to another.  Yours, Stephagenia Black.  Well?”

“I got a similar message.  She only mentioned the marriage—”  He trailed off, looking off toward his hereditary parchment.  He wondered if it had changed at all since Evans’s marriage. 

“Is that all you have to say?”

Harry had a great deal to say, but he wasn’t going to say it.  He knew better than that.

The Dark Lord stared at him with Maia’s ocean blue eyes.  Picking up his wand, he aimed it at Harry and whispered, “Crucio!”  The most intensifying pain wracked Harry’s body and he fell on the floor, gasping, his entire body on fire.  He couldn’t think through all the pain, it was all so excruciating.  Then, just as quickly as it had started, it had ended, and the Dark Lord had gone.

Harry lay on the floor gasping.

It was done, then.