Lost Boy 13

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Lost Boy

Part the Thirteenth

Evans came back to Hogwarts married and took the school by storm.  Everyone wanted to know everything, from the dress, to the short honeymoon, to how it felt, and Harry just watched it all in bemusement.

“Why do you look so pleased with yourself?” Maia asked.

“Oh, I just played cupid,” he answered in jest.

“As if you would ever play—Was this to get her off your back?”

Harry smiled and shrugged.  Maia hit him with a rolled up Witch Weekly.  “Why you little snake!  I knew you had this in mind, but did you actually put this in her head?”

“I can be very persuasive when I want to be.”

Maia looked back at the happy couple in the Great Hall.  “Christ’s blood, he’s gone mad or something.”  However, she seemed secretly impressed.  “This also explains Uncle Marvolo’s bad mood the last few days of hols.”

“Yes,” Harry rubbed the back of his neck.  “He was certain to come and tell me of his opinion.”

Maia reached forward in worry.  “He didn’t—hurt you, did he?”

Harry grimaced.

“Why he—”

Regulus barged in with two half-bent quills in his hand.  “I found some!” he declared.  “All is right in the world.  What are we talking about?”

Maia pasted on a smile.  “Your new sister-in-law.”

Making a face, Regulus admitted, “Sirius can’t shut up about how he’s the luckiest wizard in Christendom.  He and Stephagenia, though, have gone to live at Black’s Hole.”

“Is that one of the lesser Black properties?”

“Yes.  It’s a cottage in Godric’s Hollow.”

Harry looked surprised.  “I live in Godric’s Hollow.”

“I guess you’re neighbors, then,” Regulus told him apologetically.  “You try to get rid of Stephagenia, but she keeps on coming back like a bad Point Me spell.”

Harry just hoped that Evans didn’t get any ideas about coming and visiting him.

Of course, this meant that Ol’ Sluggy had a reason to ‘collect’ Sirius now, as the husband of his favorite seventh year pupil.  They were all put through the ordeal of having dinner with Sirius at the Slug Club, who made sure to have his arm draping off of Evans all night.  The production was sickening to Harry.

His mother was being treated like an object.  Furthermore, she didn’t seem to mind.

He tipped his head to the side, and he hid behind a tapestry on the way out.  Grabbing her when she dawdled on the way out, he blew light on the end of his wand.

“What was that?” she asked.

“Stephagenia, is everything okay?”

“Okay?” she murmured.  “Yes, everything is fine.”

“He’s showing you off like a prized crup.”

“I am a crup.”  She seemed completely serious. 

Harry just stared at her.  “You think of yourself as a crup?”

“Look, you wanted me to marry him—” she argued a little angrily.

“Yes,” he agreed, “but he isn’t treating you right.”

She crossed her arms.  “He’s treating me just fine.”

“Is that how the Blacks treat each other?” Harry asked, a little confused.  “He barely let you speak at dinner.”

“Sirius just likes being the center of attention.”

“It’s more than that—”

The tapestry was suddenly flung up and they were met by the angry visage of Sirius Black.  “You lost, Potter.  Give it up.”  He held out his hand and Evans took it.  “No secret communications with my wife.”

“She’s her own person, you know,” he argued for form’s sake.

“If you made her cry—”

“I know, I know, you’ll shove me against a wall again,” Harry agreed unenthusiastically.  “You should let her speak for herself.  She has a voice.”

“She doesn’t need to speak for herself.  She has a husband now.”

Harry just stared at him.  Is this really the man he’d sold his mother in marriage to?  Is this how some of the old families worked?  Harry was certainly glad the Potters weren’t like this, and Lucius didn’t seem to be like this either.

Trudging out from behind the tapestry, Harry shared a look with Evans and promptly disappeared down the hallway.  It was only a short walk from Slughorn’s office to the dungeons. 

Regulus hadn’t waited for him, which was fine, and Harry found his friend smushed into a large armchair with Maia Gaunt.  They were just within the bounds of propriety.

“Well doesn’t this look cozy?” Harry asked. 

“You were glaring at my brother all night,” Regulus remarked.  “Don’t like how he treats his wife?”

“You would never treat Maia like that.”

“That’s because I care about what Maia has to say,” Regulus told him.  “Sirius obviously could care less about Stephagenia’s opinions.  Odd, since all he talked about was how sweet her voice was.  How clever she was.  You’d think he’d want to hear her talk more often.”

“Maybe he’s hoarding her voice for himself,” Maia posited, looking between the two of them.  “Have you ever thought of that?”

“Who hoards a voice?”

“Wizards who stopper it up,” Maia answered realistically.  “If Sirius is that jealous of her, he could store her voice somewhere where only he can hear it.”

Harry felt his face go ashen.

Maia glanced up at him again, clearly confused.  “What do you care?  You’re well and truly free of her now.  She can’t pursue you any longer.  She’s married.  She wears a vined ring.  You wear a vined ring.  Everything is neatly arranged, if I do say so myself.”

Harry wanted to answer her, but he knew he couldn’t. 

He couldn’t come out and say, “I traveled from the future and Stephagenia Black is my mother.”  That would cause havoc.  That would create too many questions. 

Sighing, he sat down in an empty armchair and stared into the fire grate, hoping the dancing flames would grant him the answer to his dilemma.  Of course, it didn’t.  He just sat there all night being mesmerized by the fire until it was time to crawl downstairs to the dormitory and go to sleep.  He looked at the picture of Lucius he had beside his bed and smiled. 

Harry spent the rest of the year watching Evans and Black covertly while studying for the O.W.L.s. 

It was the night before his final exam that he got an owl from Euphemia.

James had woken up.

He stared at it.

They had gambled and they had gambled wrong.

Not sure what he should tell Evans, he took his History of Magic exam, being sure to keep the names straight in all of the Goblin Wars, and then went outside with Maia, Regulus, Barty, and Apricot to relax.

The giant squid was in fine form, basking on the beach of the Black Lake.

“I got this letter,” Harry told his friends carefully, “last night.”

“And you didn’t tell us?” Maia exclaimed.

Regulus was throwing a broken quill into his bag.  He had somehow snapped it ten minutes before time was up in their exam.

“Too busy studying,” Apricot moaned, covering her eyes with her arm.  “I never want to think about Ogden the Oddball ever again!”

Regulus laughed a little hysterically.

“I didn’t want to distract anyone.  I was distracted myself,” Harry told them all, taking it out and looking it over again.  “I half think Aunt Euphemia should have waited until this evening to write.”

“Well,” Barty exclaimed, emphasizing the word, “it can’t be that serious.”

“As serious as it gets.”

Harry heard a bark of a laugh from across the lake and saw Sirius Black running his fingers through Evans’s hair.  The sight sickened him.

“It seems,” he began, taking a deep breath, “that my cousin James woke up.”

“What?” Maia screeched, reaching for the letter.

Regulus was immediately on his feet and Barty sat up so quickly he dislodged Apricot who was lying half-next to him. 

“He can’t be awake!”

“How did it happen?”

“Was it a potion the Potters brewed?”

“No,” Harry answered the last question, “they’ve been brewing another potion for nearly two years now.  Apparently they had motion alarms on the room since the last time I snuck in over March, and—and—he just got up and got confused as to what he was doing in new robes and boots!”

He looked down at the letter.

Apparently, James thought that he was still in first year and was wondering when the train back to Hogwarts was.  They had to explain to him carefully that he had caught plague and that he was now eighteen years old and should have been set to graduate that June.  He was well over seven years behind in his schooling.  He was an eleven year old trapped in an adult body.

“Is he the heir again?” Maia asked a little desperately.  “How horrible for you!”

“I—I don’t know.”  Harry hadn’t even thought about it.

As James’s oldest son, Harry should be the heir of the heir, but James never legally would marry Stephagenia Black, which would make Harry illegitimate, or semi-illegitimate.  Maybe he was off the hook.  Maybe he would only have to bear heirs for the Malfoy name.  That bore some thinking about.

“You must find out,” Maia was now saying, taking the letter and looking it over.  “Why does she sign it, ‘your grandmother’?”

“They’re well into their hundred and seventies,” Barty explained away, taking the letter and perusing it.  “Is he cured of plague?”

“He must be,” Maia decided for him, looking up at Harry speculatively.  “He wouldn’t be alive otherwise.”

True, there was that.  The body wouldn’t have been able to sustain itself even with magic if James still had plague.  He was probably all pasty white and grey from the barest of nourishment over the past seven years.

“What does it mean, ‘We’ve only told James that you’re a Lost Boy and not your exact connection to the family’?” Barty asked, looking up from the letter.

“I took a hereditary potion.  My connection to the Potters is rather complicated,” Harry admitted, taking the letter back.  He folded it up and put it back in his bag.  “It’s a bit of a twisted line for me to be heir instead of Charlus Potter.”

“Well,” Barty decided, glancing adoringly over at Apricot Selwyn.  “This is certainly interesting.  I trust we’re all to keep mum?”

“Until it gets announced in The Prophet,” Harry informed them all.  “I only told you because I’m probably going to be going back to Potter Abbey early on family business.  I didn’t want you to think either my aunt or my uncle had died.”

“No,” Regulus agreed.  “This is much better news.—I wonder how my brother will take it when he finds out.”

Harry grimaced.  Harry hoped he didn’t find out for a very long time.

His trunks were all packed later that week and he flooed out of Slughorn’s office to Potter Abbey.  His Uncle Fleamont was there to greet him, pipe in hand, Erky there to take his trunk.

“Where’s James?” Harry asked, a little nervous.

“Out flying with your aunt watching.  You’re welcome to go out or wait for him.  I think he’s a bit nervous about meeting you as well.  He’s had a lot to take in.”

“I can only imagine,” Harry agreed, going out toward the back and looking at the small dot in the sky that must be James.  “How long has he been out there?”

“Well over three hours.  It took a good day to convince Euphemia to let him do it, she was afraid he’d break his neck, but James really is a capable flyer.”  He looked out the window fondly.  “We’re thinking of getting him private tutors until we can advance him to O.W.L. year, or perhaps to N.E.W.T. level.  We don’t want him learning with little children.”

“No,” Harry agreed.  “That might be for the best.  All of his friends have grown up anyway.”

“That Sirius Black is now married to your mother,” Fleamont puffed.  “How horribly this has all worked out.”  He shook his head, disgruntled.  “What a right mess this has all turned out to be.”

“I haven’t told her yet.”

“It might be better not to tell her.”

“She already knows she’s my mother and James is my father.”

“That might have been a mistake.”

“I was trying to keep her away from the Dark Lord.  She wanted to become a spy against him for Dumbledore,” Harry explained carefully.  “She’s Dumbledore’s pet and the Black Family’s precious lost daughter.  She’s an asset to both sides.”

“Not married to Sirius Black, she’s not,” Fleamont pointed out.  “This is a right difficult position.”

“The point is for James not to know until he’s ready.”

The little dot, high in the sky, flew down and landed on the ground next to Euphemia.  It seemed like James had been called in.

“Here goes nothing,” Harry murmured.  “Perhaps I shouldn’t be caught staring out the window.”

“Where would you rather meet him?  At tea?” Fleamont laughed.  “No, you’re probably right.”

Harry didn’t wait until tea.  He went upstairs and waited until he heard James moving about his room.  He went over and knocked on the door, hearing James call, “Come in, Mum.  I haven’t succumbed to plague again.”

“It’s not Euphemia,” he answered, coming in.  The room had been picked up, all the magazines piled up on the desk, all the clothes resigned to a drawer somewhere.  He noticed there were several shopping bags, probably for James’s new wardrobe.  “I’m your cousin, Hartwig.”

James blinked at him with hazel eyes.  Then he broke out in a smile.  “Mum told me you sneak into my room to tell me about what’s going on.  That’s why she had the motion detection spell on me.”

“Yes,” Harry answered, relaxing into a smile.  “You’re my older cousin.  I didn’t want the world to pass you by.”

“Well,” James told him, pulling out the chair for him at the desk.  “I’m afraid I can’t remember any of it.  I wish I were informed about 1978 but it’s a bit of a mystery.”

“I’m sure Aunt Euphemia can get you backlogs of The Daily Prophet,” Harry suggested as he sat down.

James sprawled on the bed.  “Oh, yes,” he agreed.  “But that just tells me what’s going on in England.  Not what’s going on at Hogwarts.”

“Well, everyone just took their O.W.L.s in my year and the N.E.W.T.s in yours,” Harry informed him.  “We’ll be awaiting our results at the beginning of August.”

Whistling, James’s hazel eyes flashed with regret.  “To think, I’m finished with Hogwarts and yet I’ve barely even started.  Mum said you were in Slytherin like her.  Do you know anything about my friends?  Sirius Black?  Remus Lupin?  Peter Pettigrew?”

“I’m friends with Regulus Black,” Harry told James carefully, toeing the carpet with his shoe.  “He and Sirius don’t really get along.”  He paused, “but Sirius Black just married his cousin, Stephagenia.”

“He married his—cousin?”  James pulled a face.

“Yes,” Harry agreed.  “His cousin.”

“His parents are cousins.   He always said he was never going to go that way.”

“Well, he went that way,” Harry half-apologized.  He had, after all, convinced Evans.

James seemed to ponder a moment.  “Does he still pull pranks?”

“Horrible ones,” Harry agreed.  “He once got a suit of armor to swing its rapier at me.  I was nearly skewered.  I ended up in the Hospital Wing for a week with a punctured arm.”

James’s smile seemed forced.  “He did that?”

“—Yes.”

“To my little cousin?”

“Er—yes.”

James sat up on the bed.  “He knew you were my little cousin?”

“Yes?”  Harry was uncertain where this conversation was going.

“I’ll be having a chat once I’m cleared by the Healers.  That’s just—not the form.”  James was shaking his head.  “I’m sure moving armor is hilarious, but puncturing my little cousin’s arm?”  He tsked.  “Unacceptable.”

“I am in Slytherin,” Harry explained carefully, leaning over the side of the chair.

“So?” James asked, clearly confused.

Harry blinked.  He hadn’t been expecting that.

“What’s this Stephagenia like?” James asked in curiosity.  “I don’t remember Sirius mentioning her.”  His hazel eyes looked wide with curiosity.

“She was the Muggleborn Lily Evans,” Harry explained.  “She’s a Lost Boy like me.  She was mad on me for the longest while, but I convinced her otherwise.  I’m—I’m Lucius Malfoy’s paramour.  We’re getting married actually.”

James’s eyebrows rose.  “That’s allowed now.”

“Not really.  There’s a special clause in the marriage law I intend to take advantage of.”

James shook his head, his messy hair falling into his eyes.  Harry noticed he had new glasses from the ones that were always beside his bed.  These had black rectangular frames.  “Must be some clause.”

Harry didn’t really answer.  He just kept on soaking his dad in.  His dad was actually awake and breathing—and talking.  It was absolutely surreal.

“Mum said you had been named the Potter heir.”

“Er—yeah.”

“How was that possible?  Shouldn’t it have gone to Uncle Charlus?  How are you in the direct line?”

“It’s rather complicated,” Harry admitted, rubbing the back of his neck.  “I’m sure it will all get sorted with the goblins.”

James just looked at him carefully.  “I don’t mean to displace you—”

“No, you’re Euphemia and Fleamont’s son.  I completely understand.”  And Harry did.  James had fallen ill his first year, an only child, and woke up an adult wizard, his entire life upside down, with a new heir now in place. 

“You don’t even look like a Potter.”

“My grandmother was a Prewett,” Harry explained. 

“Ah.”  James seemed to accept that at least.  “I look a bit like Mum.  She’s a Flint.”

“Yes,” Harry agreed.  “Euphemia is like the mother I never had.”

James’s eyes flashed, clearly not liking that. 

“She’s your mother,” Harry quickly put in.  “I know that.”

James looked at Harry carefully.  Seemingly satisfied, he got up off the bed.  “Well, I’m getting private tutors over the summer.  I don’t suppose we’ll be seeing each other much outside of meals.”

“We can always go flying,” Harry suggested, standing now, too.  “Lucius and I have been talking about putting together a pick up game of Quidditch.  If we add you, we just need one more player for two chasers, a keeper, and a seeker.”

James looked interested.  “I play chaser.”

“Great,” Harry agreed.  “Regulus can be the other chaser, and I have Burke for Keeper.  He’s just graduating seventh year and was our Quidditch Captain.  I play Seeker.”

Looking Harry over, James agreed, “You have the build for it, though you’re quite tall.”

Yes, Harry was a good four inches taller than James.  He clearly got it from his mother’s side.  The Blacks were rather tall.  Lucius was even shorter than him by two inches. 

“Euphemia thinks I might still be growing,” he admitted.  “I’m nearly sixteen, though.”

James’s eyes widened.  “Hard to say.”

Harry shrugged.

He wrote a note to Lucius saying that he was home from Hogwarts for family reasons and that he would leave his window open in case Lucius fancied a midnight flight.  He stayed up watching Fleamont play wizarding chess with James, teaching him the finer points, only going upstairs well past eleven. 

Drifting off to sleep, he thought he heard the window creak, and he opened his eyes to the feel of Lucius’s fingers in his hair.  “What’s happened, Hartwig?”

Harry smiled up at him and reached up for a soft kiss.  “James woke up.”

“Your cousin who’s been sleeping the Living Death?”

“Yes,” Harry agreed.  “He just—woke up.  The healers don’t know what to make of it.”  He wrapped an arm around Lucius’s waist.  “Fleamont and Euphemia are overjoyed.  They have their son back.”

“You are their son, too,” Lucius assured him.  “There will be adjustments, but you will not be forgotten.”

“I will no longer be the Potter heir.”

“Surely that will be better,” Lucius murmured.  “You won’t have all those responsibilities on your young shoulders.  You were not born to it like some of us are.  It was thrust on your shoulders not six months ago.”

“True,” Harry agreed.  “I had gotten used to the idea, though.”

“My poor lamb,” Lucius cooed.  “At least it will fall to James to produce heirs.  We need now only worry about Malfoy children.”

Harry nodded his head against Lucius’s shoulder. 

“We won’t have to pick and choose which one is which.  That was always going to be horrible.”

“You might have an auburn haired Malfoy heir,” Harry apologized.

“I care not,” Lucius confirmed for him.  “As long as he is made of you and me.”

Harry breathed out into the night.  “I’m not sure James likes me being here.”

“You’re new.  He woke up and expected everything to be the same, but several years have passed.  His reflection has even changed.”

“I remember what that feels like,” Harry mused.  “When I came, I looked like my Potter father.  I took a metamorphmagus potion to reveal my true form, and I came out like this.  I kept on double checking my reflection in the windows.”  He smiled privately to himself.  “Sometimes I still can’t believe it.”

“Hush now,” Lucius soothed.  “You are who you are supposed to be.”

“Did you know they called me ‘Harry’ before I came here?  I didn’t even know my name was ‘Hartwig.’”

“Harry,” Lucius mused.  “Such a common name.  It certainly does not suit you.”

“No.  No, I don’t think it does.”

“Do you think Madam Potter will have less time to devote to the Gnascum Potion now that James is awake?” Lucius asked carefully.

“She has never been derelict to her projects,” Harry responded just as carefully.

“She has other priorities now.”

“Yes,” Harry agreed.  “James needs to be taken care of.—Hopefully it will still be ready by the time I graduate Hogwarts if not a year or two afterward.  You’ll be, what?  Twenty-six?  Twenty-eight?”

“Still young enough to father children,” Lucius decided. 

“And I’ll be old enough,” Harry agreed.  “I wouldn’t want to be so young that I’m still a child myself.”

“True,” Lucius agreed, running his fingers through Harry’s auburn curls.  “I still look forward to a time when we will begin our family, however.”

“Hopefully by then Mr. Malfoy will have forgiven you.”

Lucius’s mouth thinned.  “Not even the Dark Lord’s endorsement can get him to change his mind.  It is quite—astonishing.”

“He must have his mind very much made up.”

“To his detriment.”  He paused.  “Narcissa is already engaged to another wizard.”

“Who?” Harry asked, pushing himself up so he could look into Lucius’s silver gaze.

“Augustus Rookwood.  He’s an Unspeakable and another Death Eater.”

“Doesn’t he have a son at Hogwarts?  Adolphus or something?”

“Yes,” Lucius agreed.  “She would be his second wife.  His first died from spell damage.  Most unusual circumstances.”

“Well,” Harry murmured.  “That is certainly a step down.”

Lucius chuckled.  “A step or two down indeed.”

“I myself have won the prize.”  He leaned down to kiss Lucius.

“I’m a prize, am I?” 

“Most certainly.  But you decided on me—or did I decide on you?”

Lucius settled back against the pillows.  “I think it was very much a mutual decision.  We saw each other outside that pub in Little Hangleton and we took notice of each other.”

“And then Maia decided my ankle needed to be sprained—”

“And I was happy to carry you home,” Lucius agreed with a small smile.  “We must send her flowers on our wedding day.”

“Yes,” Harry agreed.  “Not lilies.  Anything but lilies.”

“I did notice she pulled them all out of the garden.”

“She did it in solidarity with me because Stephagenia Black—then Lily Evans—was chasing me at Hogwarts.”

“Lilies are the Dark Lord’s favorite.  Always have been,” Lucius mused.  “Everyone knows it.  If you die in his service, he leaves a lily on your grave at the one year anniversary.”

“How peculiar.”

“Yes.  Where is he going to get his lilies now that Lady Maia has pulled them all up?” Lucius asked seriously.

“Where indeed?” Harry murmured.