Lost Boy 14

<<

Index

>>

Lost Boy

Part the Fourteenth

Harry watched James those first few days back.  He talked energetically, he flew his broom, and the first of his tutors came, a Mr. Anthorpe.  James had two hours of revisionist magic in the morning and two hours in the afternoon.  Then, halfway through June, they moved on to second semester magic.

Maia wrote regularly wanting updates, but Harry was afraid it would get back to the Dark Lord, so he always only made vague references to the situation.

Then the Hogwarts Express returned to London, and with it all the students.

Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew descended upon Potter Abbey the first week and congregated in James’s room. 

Harry wasn’t proud of himself for listening in, but he didn’t trust Sirius Black especially when James showed up drunk for dinner one night.

Euphemia was livid.  “Who was it?  The Black Boy?”

James was sniggering into his fruit salad.

Harry already knew the answer.  Euphemia had got the right of it.

Taking out her wand, Euphemia cast a sobering charm on him.  James immediately shivered and steam came out of his ears.

“I hope you’re uncomfortable, young man.”

“Very uncomfortable,” James agreed.

“So, was it the Black Boy?” Euphemia asked.

“He brought firewhiskey.”

Euphemia dropped her cutlery.  “He brought what?”  She blinked and turned to Harry.  “Did you know any of this?”

“You know my opinion of Sirius Black,” he placated.  “We’re barely on speaking terms.”

Euphemia harrumphed.  Picking up her cutlery, she looked at James.  “You are not to see that boy again, without your cousin chaperoning.”  James opened his mouth to object.  “My word is final.”

Harry deflated.  The last thing he wanted was more Sirius Black in his life.

“Sirius doesn’t like Hartwig.”

Harry took a bite of asparagus.  “Hartwig doesn’t like Black,” Harry put in for form.  He looked at Euphemia pleadingly, but she was having none of it.

“My word is final.”  She looked over at Fleamont who was puffing his pipe.

“Listen to your mother” was all he said.  He was no help.

That was how Harry ended up in the Black’s Hole in Godric’s Hollow.  He was escorting James there and Black was griping about his presence.

“You’re the one who gave him firewhiskey,” Harry complained.  “He just woke up from Living Death and you gave him firewhiskey.”  He poked Black hard in the chest.  “What were you thinking?” 

“I was thinking he needed to live a little.”

“Well, nice going, Black, now we’re stuck with each other.”  Harry crossed his arms and started tapping his left fingers on his right elbow.

Black looked at him for a long moment.  “Stephagenia does that.”

“Steph does what?” Harry asked.

Shaking his head, Black muttered, “Never mind.”  He looked over at James who was in the kitchen with Evans. 

Harry wasn’t sure he liked them talking.  He didn’t know what Evans would say.  If she knew what was good for her, she’d keep her mouth shut.  James didn’t need to be overwhelmed to know that his best friend’s wife was supposed to be his wife… and that his cousin Hartwig was actually his son from the future.

“It is difficult,” Evans was now saying as James was carrying a tray of cups out into the Living Room for her, “being a Muggleborn and then being a Black heiress.  I’m used to doing everything the Muggle way.  Magic is beautiful, fantastic, but—”

“Stephagenia is learning our ways,” Black interrupted, lifting his wand and the tray lifted from James’s hands.  “You don’t need to carry that, James.  Steph knows that.”

She shrugged.  “As I said, Muggle for more than eleven years of my life.”

“Uncle Alphard has taken the Muggles to court,” Black was telling them proudly as they all sat around the coffee table.  Black had enchanted the teapot to pour for them. 

Harry absently wondered what blend of tea Evans was serving.  He assumed it would be Black’s favorite.  He was eroding her opinions.  She could barely get a word in edgewise.

“It was a legal Muggle adopti—”

“But they should have known better,” Black said decidedly.  “The whole thing was obvious.  No milk, Steph?”

“It’s Earl Grey.”

He looked at her reproachfully.

Getting up, she walked toward the kitchen, but he just raised his wand and the milk came flying out past her. 

This was certainly turning out to be an unhappy marriage if it wasn’t already. 

Harry could tell that Black was trying to break Evans’s spirit, intentionally or not.

When Black and James went out with their brooms, Harry’s feet still firmly on the ground, he turned to the window where Evans was doing the dishes without magic, and he said to her, rather than asked, “You can’t be happy.  Did he treat you like this while you were going?”

“No,” she admitted.  “I expected as much from You-Know-Who, but not from Sirius Black.”  Evans scrubbed a teacup, rinsed it, and then set it in a drying rack.

“You better not let him see you do that.”

“What he doesn’t know, won’t hurt him.”  Her grass green eyes looked up in amusement.  “James woke up.”

“Yes.”

“He wasn’t supposed to.”

“No.  He’s still very much an eleven-year-old.  Your husband gave him firewhiskey.”

He heard china clink in the sink.  Looking over, he saw Evans gazing back at him. 

“He did?”

“Why do you think I’m here chaperoning?”

“By Christ’s blood!” Evans swore.  “He doesn’t know when he’s gone too far.”

Harry looked over her worryingly.  “You sound like you’re talking from experience.”

“It’s only been a couple of months,” she admitted carefully, “and I’m only telling you this because James is awake, but I’m considering a wizarding divorce.”

“But you’ll never be able to marry again.  Neither of you.”

“Not if you’re still wearing a vined ring,” Evans answered carefully, finishing the dishes and taking off her yellow rubber gloves.

Harry turned toward her and just stared at her.  “That’s dark magic.”

“I’m a black card.”

“Yes, but—”

“But what?”

“Do you want to marry James that badly?  All he cares about is Quidditch and pranks!  He can’t hold a glass of firewhiskey.”

“As much as I care about you, Hartwig,” she admitted, coming up to the window and folding the shudders open more fully, “I’m not looking forward to watching my son grow into a man I’m physically attracted to.”

Harry tensed but then relaxed.  There was a certain logic to that.

“I’m not sure you traveled through time.  You could have traveled dimensions.”

“Dimension travel?” he asked, considering it for the first time.

“Yes.  In your world, was James Potter ever suffering through a Living Death?”

“Not to my knowledge,” he answered.  “Then again, the Dursleys never would have told me.”

She nodded, looking up into the sky.  “If it is time travel, you’ve changed too much anyway.  Your very presence here shifted the timeline to such an extent that your birth has been completely eradicated from this timeline.  It can’t happen.  Even if I did divorce Sirius, who is to say that I could take off this ring in time to marry James Potter in a year and conceive a son by October 1979?  Who is to say he would have his best friend’s wife?”

“Do you honestly think they will stay best friends?  Do you think Sirius won’t get bored?”

Evans’s eyes squinted up toward the sun.  “You do have a point.  My husband is nothing if not fickle.”

He sighed.  “I’m sorry, Stephagenia.”

She shook her head, shading her eyes.  “There’s nothing to be sorry for.  It was a gamble, just the wrong one.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Move back to my father’s house.  Sirius will have to accept that.  File for divorce.  We’ll keep it quiet.  My name won’t change so no one will know.”

“And then your ring?”

“I thought You-Know-Who would help me with that.”

“The Dark Lord will expect you in his bed,” Harry told her plainly.

“He can’t.  He wears a vined ring himself.”

Harry took in a deep breath.  They were almost back to where they had started.  “Will you go tonight?”

“I will go now,” she told him.  “I’m already packed.  Tell Sirius that I’ve gone out.”

He glanced behind him.  “You want me to be the one to tell him?”

“Have I ever asked anything of you?”  Her grass green eyes flashed. 

Their eyes connected, mother to son.

“No, no, I don’t supposed you have.”

She nodded.  Reaching out, she clasped his hand and then she was gone. 

Harry waited for another three hours while James and Black flew in the sky.  When they finally flew down, windswept and happy, Black asked, “Where’s Stephagenia?”

“She said she had to go out,” Harry answered, shrugging.  “It was a little while ago.”

“Did she say anything about dinner?”

What a stupid thing to say, though it was half five.

“No,” Harry answered.  “I suppose she’ll be back by then.  I better get James home to Euphemia.  You know how she worries about him.  She hardly likes to let him out of her sight.”

“No, stay,” Black implored, putting his arm over James’s shoulders.  Black was quite a bit taller than James, having the Black height.

They made quite the pair.  They both had black hair.  James’s was shaggy and was cut short at the ears, his eyes a hazel, wearing glasses.  Black’s was a mass of curls like Harry’s, coming down to his shoulders, his eyes a dull grey, his face open and laughing, quite a bit taller, though not quite as tall as Harry.

“No, come on, James,” Harry said, motioning toward the floo.  “You know I promised your mother I’d have you home by five, and it’s quite past that.  She’ll be going spare.”

James looked slightly worried.

“Jamesie—” Black tried.

James worried.

“Don’t,” Harry warned.  “I have the discretion to tell Aunt Euphemia you didn’t cooperate, Black.  You already got James drunk last time you were over.  I can cancel these visits all together if you don’t obey the rules.”

Black looked put out.  Harry doubted he had ever paid attention to anyone’s set of rules.

“Come on, Sirius, I must be going,” James tried, ducking under his arm.  “I don’t want to make Mum worried.”

“She’s just your mother—”

“Euphemia is ‘just’ nothing,” Harry told Black coldly.  “I know you don’t care for Madam Black, but some of us have caring guardians.”

“Sure, sure,” Black placated.  “I’ll see you later, Jamesie.”  He reached out and ruffled James’s hair, making it messier than it already had been from flying. 

Harry led him toward the floo and threw in some powder, turning the flames green.  He pushed James in first so that Black couldn’t delay him any further.  He then stepped up to Black and whispered, “You shouldn’t clip a bird’s wings.  You’ll find she’ll be able to fly away when you’re not looking after all.”

“What are you talking about?” Black’s grey eyes looked dangerous.

“I don’t think Madam Stephagenia Black is coming home tonight,” Harry told him carefully, wanting to see his reaction.  “Don’t worry, she didn’t come to me.  I wouldn’t take her.  But you shouldn’t smother a witch.”

“Smother?”

“You barely let her speak!” Harry argued, “or didn’t you notice?”

Black grabbed him by the robes, which was typical, and shoved him against the floo.  “Where did she go?”

“Where do you think she would go?” Harry asked him rhetorically.  “She’s your wife.  Surely you would know.”

A look of horror came over Black’s face.  “That Prewett cousin.” 

Well, that was an option Harry hadn’t even considered.  Slapping Black on the arm with the little movement he still had, Harry gave him a grimace.  “There you have it.  Go floo to the Prewetts.”

Black released him and took more floo powder, flooing out of there, leaving Harry in a cold cottage.  Harry immediately stepped into the green flames after him, going instead to Potter Abbey.

The scandal didn’t break in the papers, which meant that they had managed to maintain it.

Harry, however, did tell Euphemia. 

“She’s leaving him after a matter of months?  A divorce makes a vined ring useless, and a witch becomes unable to touch anyone for the rest of her life.”

She was working on the Gnascum Potion in her private potions lab, which was now a sickening yellow color. 

“Evans wants to remove it—”

“What, does she want to marry James?  He’s a little young.”

“No.  She doesn’t want to give birth to a son she’s attracted to.”

“Very reasonable,” Euphemia agreed, stirring slowly counterclockwise.  “Why does she want to do it, then?”

“It probably has something to do with the Dark Lord,” Harry answered carefully.  “With Stephagenia, it always comes back to the Dark Lord.—or to me.  It’s a toss up.”

“He’ll have to remove his vined ring, too, if he has one.”

“Oh, he has one,” Harry told her.  “It’s simpler even than mine.”

She hummed in the back of her throat.  “How fascinating.  The more I learn about the Dark Lord, the more I realize I don’t know about him.”

“He might like it that way.”  Harry honestly didn’t know.

Harry received a note from Evans a week before his birthday.  She had officially filed.  She would once again be Stephagenia Black.  She would get to retain the title ‘Madam’ as she had been married, so to everyone who didn’t know the specifics, it would be as if nothing had changed.

James wasn’t permitted to see Black because of the scandal. 

Instead, Remus Lupin came over and Harry was charged to check his pockets for firewhiskey and fairy fizz before he was let up to James’s room.

“Don’t worry,” Lupin told him, “I know why you have to do it.”

Harry found an odd bit of old parchment.  “What’s this?”

“A gift,” Lupin told him.  “Something we came up with.”  He took it and tapped it with his wand and said, “I solemnly swear I am up to no good.”  The parchment became soaked with ink lines of what appeared to be a map.

“Is this Hogwarts?”

“Yes.  And you can see right here that Mrs. Norris is patrolling the third floor corridor.”  Harry stared and saw that Mrs. Norris did, indeed, seem to be on the third floor corridor. 

“Brilliant!” Harry enthused.  “James, though, may not be going back to Hogwarts until his N.E.W.T. levels.”

“Then it will keep,” Lupin told him, taking it back.  “James certainly has a marauding spirit.”

Harry looked at him oddly.  “I feel that means more than its simple definition.”

“Perhaps it does.  Perhaps it doesn’t.”  Lupin gave him a worn smile.  “Mischief Managed.”  He tapped the parchment again and it wiped itself clean.  “All better.”

Harry stared at him. 

Leading him up into James’s room, he knocked on the door and heard a scurrying of feet.  The door opened and James’s red face appeared.

Harry blinked.  “Everything okay?”

“Everything’s great.”

“Well, Lupin’s here.”

James glanced over his shoulder and then opened the door to let Lupin in.

Harry looked at his father suspiciously.

What was there to sneak around in the house?  It begged reason.

“I’ll leave you to it.”

It was Lucius who brought it up one night close to Harry’s birthday. 

Harry had left his window open and Lucius had flown in as was his wont.  Lucius leaned over and kissed him long and slow and Harry buried his hand in Lucius’s short hair.

“James’s window is open,” Lucius told him.

“His window is open?”

“I had to doublecheck where I was coming,” Lucius told him, basting a kiss against Harry’s cheekbone.  “I almost flew in the wrong one.”

Harry laughed.  “Do you think he likes the night air?”

“Or do you think he’s flying somewhere?” Lucius asked, drawing his hair down Harry’s neck and down his sternum over his sleeping shirt.  “He has a broom, does he not?”

“Uncle Fleamont said he would get him a Cleansweep 150 if he completed his second year curriculum by the time I went back to Hogwarts.”  Harry leaned his head back against the pillow.  “A little—” (Lucius lifted his shirt and left a kiss on his navel) “—bit of incentive.”

“I need to give you a little bit of incentive,” Lucius declared as he raked Harry’s shirt up.  “I think as soon as you turn sixteen, we should become officially engaged even if you don’t have a womb yet.  We can start a bit of speculation.”  He kissed Harry’s stomach again.

Harry sat up and looked down at Lucius who was sprawled over Harry’s legs.  “What would that look like?”

Lucius left another kiss and then splayed his hand over Harry’s stomach, looking up.  “Well,” he said carefully.  “When a wizard marries a witch—”

“Yes—”

“He gives her an engagement ring that gets sung at the base of her vined ring.  If she’s not a pureblood, it goes on the fourth finger instead of the third.”

“Like a Muggle,” Harry agreed.  “Are you saying you want to give me an engagement ring?”

“Not a diamond per se,” Lucius told him quickly.  “You’re not a woman.”

“But a ring of some kind, something that would be recognizable.”

“Just so.”

“How are we going to prove it to The Pumpkin Carriage?” Harry asked quite seriously.

Lucius lifted himself up, his hand still splayed on Harry’s stomach as he reached up with his other hand and combed Harry’s hair behind his right ear.  “I might have told Alexandros Greengrass that I intended to wed a ‘wombed person.’”

Harry’s breath caught.  “He must know we’re together.  It was all over the papers last January.”

“Just so,” Lucius agreed.  “If we go to him, he may need minimal proof—”  He leaned down and kissed Harry’s unresponsive lips.  “If you maybe flick your eyes brown for him, he may make his own conclusions.  We can make him take an Unbreakable Vow not to reveal anything of your abilities.”

“Will he do it?”

“He will if he wants our continued patronage.”  Lucius’s silver gaze stared into Harry’s eyes.  “The Malfoys are very,” (kiss) “good,” (another kiss) “customers.”  He claimed Harry’s lips decadently. 

“Everyone will know then, or they will guess that I have a womb.”

Lucius leaned away slightly.  “They were going to guess anyway, especially when you become round with children.”

“True,” Harry agreed, “but I thought I would go into seclusion so as not to become a spectacle.”

Lucius ran his fingers through Harry’s long curls.  “Then I get to keep you all to myself,” he murmured.  “How I should like that.—I should so like to have an official claim on you.”

“Possessive,” Harry murmured with a glint in his dark green eyes.  He leaned up and nuzzled Lucius’s nose.  “I’m sorry I cannot marry you the day after my sixteenth birthday.”

“An engagement is enough,” Lucius promised.  “An engagement is more than enough, my lamb.”  He leaned in for another kiss.

They were wrapped in each other’s arms, hours later, when James flew into the window. 

Lucius immediately waved his wand and the window slammed shut and locked behind James.  Harry sat up and flicked the lights on with his fingers in a show of wandless magic.  He blinked and looked at the boy who should have been his father.

“James,” he greeted.  “You’ve been out flying at,” he looked over at the clock, “three in the morning.  Euphemia won’t be pleased.”

“Y-you have a w-wizard in your b-b-bed,” James stammered.

“I do,” Harry agreed as he swung his feet onto the floor and came up to James and took his broom.  “Euphemia suspects.”  He glanced over at Lucius.  “It seems you’re not the only one who got the rooms confused.”

“No, it appears not.”  He sat up and began to put on his boots.  “Shall I leave the Potter cousins to each other?”

“I think that will be best,” Harry agreed.

James was a bright red and was staring at his shoes.

Lucius came up to Harry holding his own Cleensweap.  “Hartwig, darling,” he murmured, leaning up and kissing Harry.  “I’ll see you at your birthday celebrations.”

“I’ll see you then,” Harry agreed. 

“It was a pleasure to see you looking so well, Mr. Potter,” Lucius said to James before he flicked the windows open and flew out into the moonless sky.  He had a small lantern hanging off his broom handle to better light his way.

“I don’t know how you got around without a lamp,” Harry pointed out as he closed the window.  He ran a hand down his face.  “There’s no reason Aunt Euphemia or Uncle Fleamont have to know anything about this,” he promised.  “You’re my cousin.  Just tell me you weren’t getting drunk with Sirius Black.”

“No,” James promised quickly, reaching out as if to stop Harry from turning away.  “No, I haven’t seen Sirius for over a week.”

“Well, then, what was so important that Aunt Euphemia couldn’t know about it?”  Fleamont might have been the wizard of the household, but Harry (and James, he suspected) knew that Euphemia held the wand in the relationship.

“I-I went to see if Stephagenia was all right.”

This had Harry whipping around.  “You went to see Stephagenia?” he asked.  “And she let you?”

“Why, yes.”  James said this as if it should be obvious.  “She didn’t like me back in first year, but she doesn’t mind me now.  We both are wary of Sirius and his pranks.—And I remember she used to speak a mile a minute, and Sirius doesn’t let her say a word.  I don’t like wizards who treat their witches that way.”

“No,” Harry agreed.  “Neither do I.”  He drew a deep breath.  “Black doesn’t know you go to see his wife, does he?”

“This was the first time,” James promised.

“You should be careful,” Harry warned.  “Black has a mean streak.  A nasty mean streak.”

James grimaced.  “I read some of his owls to Stephagenia.  She let me.  I could tell he’s not the nicest wizard.—He-he’s changed over the years.  I hope I wouldn’t have been friends with him if I’d never succumbed to plague.”

Harry reached out and squeezed James’s shoulder.  “I hope so, too.”

“Anyway, this is the only way that I could see her without the Blacks knowing,” James tried to explain.  “As long as her dad doesn’t know, her uncle Orion wouldn’t know, and so Sirius wouldn’t know.”

That made a certain amount of sense.

“And the other day?  With Lupin?  What was that all about?”

“I was writing to Millie Flint,” James admitted, flushing again.  “I didn’t want anyone to see my owl.”

Millie Flint?  How did he know about Millie Flint?  She must have written in kinship and they must have started a correspondence.  It was the only explanation.

“Warn me the next time you want to see Stephagenia,” Harry asked.  “There’s a lot of history between herself and the Potters.”

“She-She told me,” James admitted, fiddling with his sleeve.  “She told me she was in love with you.”

Harry paled.

“She said you never fancied her back,” James put in hastily.  “But she said you were always the one.”  He huffed a laugh and rubbed the back of his neck.  “Witches are so sentimental.”

“I’d noticed,” Harry agreed.  “I had hoped that was all over and done with, but I guess it never will be.”

James looked slightly uncomfortable.  “Dad said I’m fifth generation.  He said he found out his ancestor was a squib so I might even be a sixth generation.  Do you think we can go to The Wicked Stepmother tomorrow or the next day?”

The request surprised Harry, though he supposed it shouldn’t have.  He knew how important blood purity meant to Fleamont.  It only made sense that James would feel it keenly. 

“Of course we can go tomorrow.  I’ll take you, and if you get a card, we can have tea.”

James looked up happily.  “Do you think I’ll get in?”

“I hope so,” Harry agreed.  “You should have the opportunity to take Millie Flint to tea, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” James agreed carefully.  “I know she’s only a fourth year, and I’m eighteen, but I remember being not even twelve.”

Harry reached out for James again, squeezing his arm.  “No one will blame your slightly distorted perceptions.  If her father has no objections, I certainly will have none.—Now, go to bed.  I’ll give you your broom in the morning.”

James looked like he was about to object, but Harry gave him a hard look.

“I won’t tell Euphemia,” he promised.

James deflated.

Then, surprisingly, he stepped forward and hugged Harry.  Harry, after a moment’s surprise, hugged his father back.  If there were tears in his eyes, no one saw in the darkness.