Lost Boy 16

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Lost Boy

Part the Sixteenth

Lily was unsure of her welcome when she flooed into Riddle House.  She only remembered the address because that is what the maître d’ had shouted out when he had brought her here when she had first got her black card.

She came out to a study with a painting of Stonehenge on the wall.  No one was there.

Carefully, she walked out and looked about her.  It was a well appointed room.  The black orb was sitting on the desk, but she didn’t know how to work it.

She walked over to the window and looked out of it and not two minutes later, the doors opened.  Turning, she saw You-Know-Who walk in.  He paused, looking at her.

“Stephagenia.”  His voice was careful.

“I’m getting a divorce,” she told him straight out.  “I’ve met with the law wizards.  They tell me there hasn’t been one in six hundred years, but consanguinity is grounds.”

You-Know-Who paused and then turned and closed the doors behind him.  “Why do you come and tell me this?”

“I thought you’d like to gloat over my mistake,” she suggested.  Lily turned more fully into the room.  “I’m not going to delude myself.  You probably would have been more controlling than Sirius.  It would have been worse, so I suppose I am lucky, but—”

He swiftly took several steps across the room and lifted up his hand, letting it hover over her cheek.  “Oh, Stephagenia, how you torture me.  I should kill your husband so your ring will free you.”

“You can do that?” she asked a little hopefully despite her better judgment.  She shouldn’t wish people dead, but she didn’t want to be held to a marriage she wanted to completely discard. 

“Would you like me to do that?” he asked, his dark blue eyes boring into her grass green gaze.

“I shouldn’t,” she answered truthfully.  Tipping her head back, she swallowed carefully.  “I don’t pretend you love me.”

“But I want you.  Surely that is better.”  He dropped his hand and turned toward the desk.  “Are you staying with your father or are you seeking sanctuary?”

“I am staying with Wizard Father,” she told him.  “That is probably best.”

“If you say so,” he agreed.  “You are always welcome here, Stephagenia.”

“Thank you.”

“How long will your divorce take?”

“Until Christmas,” she answered.  “Maybe a little longer.”

He nodded.  “It will be easier to just kill him.”

“We are at war,” she murmured.  “That assumes he will get into a conflict.”

“There is no love lost for your husband.”  His dark blue gaze flashed at her.

“You weren’t married to him.  You were not forced and degraded—” She sighed.  “He is not a kind man.”  She shivered.

You-Know-Who watched her closely.  “The Blacks are not known for their kindness.” 

“I am a Black.”

“You are not kind,” he remarked.  “If you were, you would not have written me that letter.”

She looked over at him quickly, but he was staring in another direction.  “What happened to your nose?”

“A ritual,” he told her, not bothering to sugarcoat his words.  “Why, do you not like it?”

“No.  I doubt any woman would.”

“No woman liked me when I had a nose,” he answered.

“I doubt that was true.”  Lily was picking at her manicured thumbnail again.  It really was a bad habit.  She could never seem to break it.  “Well, you’ve seen me.  You know where to find me.”

“Yes, I do, Stephagenia,” he agreed.  He looked at her now.  “Have you decided what you will do with your life?”

“I’m going to Merlin’s Castle.  They’ve offered me a place.”

He nodded.  “Very suitable.  The term begins October the first, am I correct?”

“Yes,” she agreed, walking toward the floo.  “I suppose I’ll see you when I see you.”

“Stephagenia—”

She paused.

“I will kill your husband for you.  We’re not going to remove that ring on your finger.  It scrapes off the skin down to the bone.  It takes incredibly dark magic.”

Lily swallowed.  “I didn’t actually mean—”

“But I actually meant it.  You can run and hide behind Dumbledore’s robes if you have to, but I will kill Sirius Black.  Keep this divorce a secret.  I would not have it get out.”

“You would not have me stop it altogether?”

“No,” You-Know-Who answered.  “I would not have him think he has a claim on you.  You do not belong to him anymore.”

She turned and walked over to the desk.  “You will not hurt Hartwig.”

“Is it likely he will get in between me and Sirius Black?”

“I doubt it.  He was there when I ran away.  He covered for me.”  She looked down at her thumbnail again.  She’d need another manicure.  There was nothing for it.  Looking up at You-Know-Who, she caught his ocean blue gaze.  “You must recognize he’s my son.”

“He is my favorite,” You-Know-Who qualified.

She searched his gaze and then nodded.  “That is good enough as much as I don’t like it.  Then again, he doesn’t like the idea of the two of us.”

“I know.  He went so far as marrying you off to the Black boy.  Look how well that turned out.”

“Do you think we’ll be any greater of a success?”

“Everything I do is a success, Stephagenia.  Even the Takeover, although it is taking much longer than expected.”

“You will give me the immunity that you promised me so that if it goes badly for you, I have my protection.”

You-Know-Who waved a hand.  “Of course, Stephagenia.  I am not careless with my things, unlike Sirius Black.”

She stared at him—hard.  “I am not a thing.”

“No,” he agreed.  “You’re a witch.  I fully recognize that.”

He did not break her gaze.

Lily nodded and then turned back to the floo.  “Do I get to know your name?”

“You’ve never heard Maia say it?” he asked.

“I’m not in Slytherin.”

“No, no, of course not.”

She put her hand on the mantle and turned, eyebrow raised.

“Marvolo.”

“Marvolo,” she repeated and then in a flicker of green, she was gone.

Her father was beside himself.  “Stephagenia,” he said when she came back.  “Where have you been?”

“Nowhere,” she told him.  “I come and go as I please.”

“You’re divorcing your husband.  You cannot come and go and you please.”

She huffed.  “No one knows about that, though Sirius is bound to tell someone.”

“The boy has pride,” her Wizard Father argued.  “He will tell no one.”

Her grass green eyes flashed at him.  “I’ve been married to him.  I think I know him better than anyone.”

Alphard tiredly took a seat.  “You elope with the boy and then this.  You’re far too impetuous, Stephagenia.”

“Perhaps I am impetuous,” she agreed, coming to sit with him.  “But I am a Black.  I cannot help how I am made.  Sirius is impetuous, isn’t he?”

“That is not a good excuse.”

“It is the only excuse that I have,” she answered, thinking to herself what had happened.  She could not admit to her father what had transpired.  How Sirius—she wouldn’t think on it. 

“Stephagenia, if you would only tell me.  Was he cruel?”

In a way, he was cruel, she thought to herself.

“Was he ungallant?”

“Sirius is hardly gallant,” she answered with a laugh.

Wizard Father looked unhappy at this.  “I should beat my whelp of a nephew to a pulp.”

“I don’t think anyone in his family knows about this.  If you beat him to a pulp, Aunt Walburga and Uncle Orion will know.”

Alphard grimaced.  That was clearly the last thing he wanted to have happen.

“You are ruined, Stephagenia.”

“I won’t be ruined forever,” she said cryptically.

He blinked at her.  “You’re practically a divorced woman.”

“Practically is not in actuality.”

“You cannot mean for this to be a maneuver in your marriage.”  No, no she could not.  She looked at her wizard father.  She was fond of him to a certain extent.

“How is your lawsuit going against the Evans’s?”

He looked surprised.  “They’re in Azkaban.”

She stilled.  There were rumors the Dementors kept Azkaban, and they were said to be horrible creatures.  “Even Petunia?”

“Especially Petunia.”

This had her thinking for a moment.  She sighed and ran the back of her hand against her forehead.  “If you think that’s best.”  She honestly didn’t know what was best.  “Did they know they had stolen me?”

“They suspected when you got your letter.”

Well, suspicion was nine tenths of the law in wizarding England.  Look at who got thrown into Azkaban for being a Death Eaters.  The Fawleys were even under suspicion. 

“The problem with all of this is I’ve lost my best friend,” she concluded.  She couldn’t tell Severus.  She couldn’t admit anything to Severus.  He was lost to her and now Sirius, who had been with her through every step of her reclaiming was lost to her now, too.  “I’m talking to a boy who just woke up from the Living Death.”

“James Potter, yes.  You have an affinity for Potters.”

“Don’t I ever?” she asked no one in particular.  She thought about Hartwig Potter and her decision to change the timeline irrevocably by not giving birth to him in July 1980.  She had time to change her mind, of course, but not as You-Know-Who’s wife.

Making that decision, she was changing the entire future.

She looked over at her Wizard Father who had ordered tea.

What a terribly English thing to do.

“I don’t know why you’re here and not with your husband,” Morag McDougal noted when she came over to help Lily pack up her books for Merlin’s Castle. 

“All of my things are here.  I never moved them,” she explained away. 

Morag McDougal was a very pretty Muggleborn witch with deep chestnut brown hair and startling blue eyes.  She had been in Gryffindor with Lily and they had shared a dorm for a full seven years.

“I still can’t believe you married him,” Morag mused.

“Why?” Lily asked genuinely asked.

“You nearly killed me fifth year when you caught us snogging.”

“Oh.”  Lily had genuinely forgotten about that.  It had been rather shocking.  “Sirius is a bit of a rake, isn’t he?”  She smiled at her friend.  “He still doesn’t wear a vined ring.”

“He always said it was pureblood claptrap.”

Lily was beginning to feel the same way.  “You know pureblood wizards don’t wear wedding rings.  We witches just wear engagement rings.”  She looked down at her left hand.  Because they had eloped, she wasn’t even wearing that.  She understood the process was painful. 

“Well, he is dreamy,” Morag told her, swooning a bit herself.  “We all wanted to be the one Sirius Black chose in the end.”

Well, she was welcome to him once Lily was finished with him.  She didn’t say any of this of course, just gave her the approximation of a smile.  “You’ll find the right wizard.”

“Or Muggle,” Morag suggested.

Lily turned to her and gasped.  “Mary, Mary, quite contrary.  What aren’t you telling me?”

“Only there is this man back home, David.  He asked me out.”

Lily screamed and threw a bunch of papers in the air.  “Who is this David?”

“David is from Glasgow, like me.  He’s been on television for the BBC.  Small roles, only.  An episode of Doctor Who.”

Lily’s eyes went wide.  Even she knew what a big deal getting on an episode of Doctor Who was. 

“He is so wonderful.  He took me out to the pub and then we went dancing.  He asked me how I liked being home and what I was going to do now that I was home from college, and I said I was going to London, and he said he’d look me up there.”  Morag was blushing now and playing with the end of her braid.

“Oh, Mor!” Lily sighed, hugging her friend.  “I’m so pleased for you.  You must bring me along some time so I can meet him.”

“Bring Sirius,” Morag suggested.

Lily made a face.  “Not Sirius.  He’d just put Zonko’s firecrackers down David’s trousers.”  She grimaced.  “We don’t need him.”

Hesitating, Morag asked, “How’s it going to be a double date?  I already told you how you’re married.”

That did prove a problem.  Lily’s mind turned to Hartwig.  Would he do this for her?  Or could she coerce rather simple minded James?  “I’ll think of something,” she promised Morag.  “Everything will be fine.”

They went back to packing Lily’s bags, a tension between the friends.

She decided it was better not to ask Hartwig, so she wrote James.  She explained the problem and asked if she would pretend to be her husband.  “Morag is such an old friend,” she scribbled.  “This Muggle means so much to her.”

She wasn’t expecting the response given that James had been in Gryffindor.  “Dad doesn’t like us to associate with Muggles or Muggleborns.  I’m just sixth generation and Dad feels it keenly as he thought for so many years he was only third generation.  I wouldn’t know what to say to a Muggle.  What’s the BBC?”

There was nothing for it.  She had to see James.

Taking a parchment out of his tome, she borrowed Bellatrix’s broom and flew to Devon at night and tried to find his bedroom.  She found a window open and alighted in the room.

The lights flashed open and she was looking face to face with Hartwig.

The windows slammed shut and a wizard she knew very well to be Lucius Malfoy sat up from his reclining position on the bed and looked at her, hard.  “Madam Black,” he greeted.  “What are you doing secreting into young virgins’ rooms?”

“Virgins?” she asked, until she realized he was referring to James and Hartwig.  “Hartwig, what are you doing with a wizard in your bed?”

“What do you care?” he asked, getting out of his bed, casually, his hair wonderfully mussed.

“You know exactly why I care,” she told him firmly, glancing over at Malfoy, who was much older than both of them.

“Lucius is my fiancé.”  Hartwig said this as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“No, he’s not,” Lily refuted.

Hartwig held up his left hand.  He was wearing an emerald ring beneath his vined ring.  Lily squinted at it. 

“I assure you that I am.”  Malfoy grinned at her.

Lily wanted to do nothing more than hex the grin off his face.

“Stephagenia,” Hartwig called, causing her to look away from the wizard her was defiling her son’s bed.  “Why were you sneaking into James’s room?”

“He won’t pose as my boyfriend on a double date.”

Hartwig blinked.  He glanced over to the side of his bed where Lily knew he kept his family tree.  “You didn’t tell him, did you?”

“No,” she told him, although she had tried.  “I was asking him as a favor.  Morag told her boyfriend David I was married, and I can’t very well show up with Sirius.”

“Why,” Malfoy drawled, “although I’m going to regret asking this, can you not show up with your husband, Madam Black?”  He was leaning up against his elbows taking her in.  “He is, after all, your husband.”

She glared at him.

Hartwig glanced over at Malfoy, then turned his attention back at Lily.  “And why won’t James pose as your husband?  Some sense of loyalty to Sirius?”

“No,” she answered.  “Or if that’s it, he hasn’t said.  He said he won’t consort with Muggles.”

Malfoy snorted.  “This David is a Muggle.  Of course Potter won’t consort with a Muggle.  He’s sixth generation.  What do you take him for?”

“I consort with Muggleborns, Mr. Malfoy,” she shot back.

“You, Madam, are a Lost Boy.  You thought you were a Muggleborn.  You really should stop and get with the quality.”  He blinked at her slowly.  He turned to Hartwig.  “This cousin of yours has sense.”

“Hartwig—” Lily begged.

“What do you want me to do about it?”  He shrugged his shoulders.  “James has spoken.  You really shouldn’t be going out with single wizards at this time.  It will cause a scandal.”

“What do I care for a scandal?”

“You’ll care when your face is splashed across The Daily Prophet,” Hartwig informed her.  “Of course, you’re causing one just by breathing.”

“Sirius—”

“I know, I covered for you, didn’t I?”  Hartwig glanced at Malfoy who was clearly just watching now.

“Why is he in your bed?”

“The same reason you’re not in Black’s,” Hartwig answered flippantly.  “Love.”

She reared back.  “I don’t have to like it.”

“I know.  You don’t have to like it, Stephagenia.  You just have to keep quiet.  I’m keeping quiet for you—are you going to keep quiet for me?” 

She bit her lip and looked between the two of them.  She really didn’t like it.  The problem was, she didn’t like it because she wanted to be the witch in Hartwig’s bed.  She didn’t not like it because Hartwig was her son.

Her emotions were so jumbled and confused that she hated it and wanted to pull out her hair and scream.

Unfortunately, her hair was perfectly coiffed on the top of her head.  She hated pureblood fashion sometimes.  Why was Hartwig allowed to wear his hair down in curls over his shoulders while she had to pin hers on top of her head?  It beggared reason. 

She breathed out through her nose.  “I would never hurt you, Hartwig.  I thought you knew that by now.”

“Good,” he agreed.  “Stay away from James’s windows and we won’t have a problem.  I haven’t stopped your correspondence but a word to Aunt Euphemia and I easily could.  James has plenty of friends.  He doesn’t need your complicated friendship.”

She turned to go, but then she turned back into the room.  “You should know that Sirius Black has a price on his head.  Marvolo wants him dead so he can marry me.”

“Marvolo, is he?” Malfoy asked in open curiosity.  “How fascinating.”

Lily ignored him.  “I’d keep James away from him.”

“They’re already not allowed to see each other,” Hartwig assured her.  “He’s a bad influence.  A very bad influence and a cruel prankster at that, although I could have told anyone that before this summer.”

“I could have told them that after this Easter,” Lily agreed wisely, picking up Bellatrix’s broom.  She looked out the window and didn’t fancy the ride back to London but there was nothing for it.  Lighting the broom lamp, she flew out the window, wondering exactly what it was she had left behind her.

James did come to tea a few days later when his studies would allow it.

“I understood you flew in the wrong window.  I did that myself.”

“Hartwig said he’s engaged to Lucius Malfoy.  My cousin Bellatrix assured me it’s the truth.”

“Yes, they’re getting married,” James agreed, his hazel eyes peeking out from behind his glasses.  “No one’s quite explained it to me, but I know it’s happening sometime after Hogwarts.”

“It is peculiar,” Lily agreed.  “He was supposed to marry my cousin Narcissa.”

“Which one’s that?”

“Uncle Cygnus’s youngest girl.  Bellatrix’s younger sister.  Uncle Cygnus is Wizard Father’s younger brother.”

“How is she related to Sirius?”

“There are three siblings.  Sirius’s mother Walburga, then my father Alphard, then Cygnus, Narcissa’s father.”

“Huh,” James said, putting down his teacup.  “Wizarding trees are so complicated.  I haven’t done what you wanted me to.—in Hartwig’s room.”

“I don’t expect you to do it yet.  You don’t know the magic.”  She smiled at him kindly.

“The thing is,” he asked, leaning back, “if what you say is true, why did you marry Sirius?”

“It was a horrible mistake,” she told him blankly.  “I was going to keep close to You-Know-Who and spy on him.  Hartwig didn’t like it.  He wanted to get me away from it.  I was going with Sirius, so he urged me to marry him.  I’ve never been able to deny Hartwig anything.”

“See, you say something like that, and you get this look in your eye.”  He leaned forward.  “And it makes me think you fancy Hartwig, when you’re suggesting—”

“It’s terribly complicated, isn’t it?”

“What you’re suggesting is sick.”

“Perhaps you should go look at the family tree.  I can sneak in with you.”

James’s eyes flashed at her dangerously.  “I’m not sneaking you in anywhere.  Hartwig is my cousin.  I would never betray him.  Potters don’t betray their blood.”

She sighed.  “Is that why you won’t go with me on that double date?”

“You forget you’re already married.”

“Getting a divorce,” she reminded him—

“—but still married,” he put in.  “I wouldn’t know what to say to a Muggle even if I wanted to go.  Father also wouldn’t like it.”

“Do you do everything your father tells you to do?”

“Not everything,” James admitted, “but when it comes to blood purity, then definitely.  I will never understand why Sirius says he would have married you even if you were still the Muggleborn Lily Evans.  It makes no sense.”

“You won’t be marrying me when I’m divorced then,” Lily teased.

“Decidedly not.  I’m going with Millie Flint.”

This shocked Lily.  “She’s Sacred Twenty-Eight, and a fourth year.”

“Well, I can only do second year magic,” he reasoned.  “It’s not that far off.  And what if she’s Sacred Twenty-Eight?  So is my mother.”

“Is she?”

“She’s a Flint.”

Lily was silent.  “How closely are you and Millie related?”

“We’re third cousins,” he admitted.  “Hardly anything to get worked up about although the look of disgust on your face says differently.  Your own uncle and aunt are cousins.  You married your first cousin.”

“And look what a mistake that was.”

“That was a mistake because Sirius is Sirius, not because Sirius is a Black.  We both know the difference.”  He poured himself another cup of tea although he didn’t touch it afterward.  It seemed he didn’t know the magic of how to control a teapot yet.  Perhaps that was third or fourth year magic.  Lily didn’t know.

“He acted like a Black.”

“Does your father treat you like Sirius does?” James asked. 

Lily didn’t have an answer to that.  Her Wizard Father certainly didn’t treat her the same way.  She wouldn’t have sought sanctuary with him if he had.

She breathed in deeply through her nose.  “Well, whatever the case, it should be over by Christmas.”

James looked over at her.  “Is that the timeline they gave you?”

“Yes.  Christmas.  The New Year at the latest.”

“It will be short and sweet then.”

After he flooed out, Lily felt trapped in the small flat. 

She stayed for a few hours at her magical needlework that she had learned over Easter before she had eloped with Sirius.  She found it rather relaxing.  She was working on her trousseau even though she was already married.  She supposed, now, it was for her marriage to Marvolo.

An owl arrived.

She took the letter from it and recognized Marvolo’s hand.  It simply read, “Tonight.”

It would happen tonight then.  She should stay away from Godric’s Hollow and should certainly stay inside.  He would probably come and get her later to stage the scene.  The aurors would want to speak to her.  She’d have to give a convincing act of being upset.

She could always pretend she was numb.  That would surely be easier.  Numbness, then.  She would be numb and horrified.

Wizard Father came back that evening and they sat down to dinner.  Her father prayed over the meal and they broke bread together.  She had little appetite, but she did have a glass of elven wine so that she would not be impaired later. 

She didn’t get undressed when she went to bed.  She was wearing her light green robes.  Her slippers were tucked under her bed.  Lulu was curled up on the pillow next to her.  Lily would have to remember to bring her.

Sirius hadn’t liked Lulu.  He complained that she always got in the way.

Never trust a man who didn’t like your cat.  Someone had told her that.  She should have paid attention.

She closed her eyes, prepared to be awakened again.  She slipped into a restless sleep, unknowing that Hartwig was the one who would infiltrate the little cottage at Godric’s Hollow.