Notes:
-Since Shoto's mother's name hasn't been officially revealed yet, I'll be improvising.
-Shoto's mother is part of the House of Black AU
-I am also shifting the timeline up, so that the events of BNHA and HP meet up during the twenty-first century, starting around the time the manga started serializing.
"I'm sorry...What?"
The words spilled out of her lips before she could stop herself.
The goblin in front of her lowered his eyeglasses and looked up at Harry with a look that could only be described as a mix of subtle frustration, incredulousness, and, "Really? This girl is the one that saved the Wizarding World?"
To be completely honest, she couldn't believe it either.
It hadn't even been a half a year yet.
The Battle of Hogwarts were a mere five months ago, but to Harry someone could've crammed a whole lifetime in there. In that small period of five months, she felt as if she barely had time to sleep or eat. It was one trial after another; if it wasn't, then Harry was with the remaining Aurors to round up the rest of the Death Eaters who tried to flee and to put all of their sorry asses in Azkaban. Then, to top off the unrest, Harry helped with the effort to rebuild Hogwarts. She even remembered celebrating her eighteenth birthday up in the new Astronomy Tower after a long day of helping McGonagall spell some of the broken desks back together.
Harry had finally received the first breather that she had in awhile, and she decided that she would do the right thing and go to Gringotts to clear up any business that she had with the bank.
Merlin, if Hermione could see her now. (But the witch was happily back at the new and improved Hogwarts to finish her schooling.)
So here she was, standing on her toes to try and look over the tall desk on a nice and sunny September day.
The goblin said nothing, and instead sighed and shuffled through the multiple yellowed papers that lay neatly stacked beside him. He finally took one out from the towering stack and held it in front of him, adjusting the glasses on his crooked, pointed nose and began to read again.
"'The last will and testament of Sirius Black: I, Sirius Black, of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, freely declare that this is my last will and testament,'" The goblin stopped reading and looked down at her again. "But of course, Miss Potter, hopefully you understand that with the wizard's pure-blood line being horribly inbred, what I am about to tell you about the will of Sirius Black is that the riches that you have inherited has grown since his death two years ago..."
As the goblin droned on about the political and financial machinations that he had already force fed her hours ago, Harry started to get restless in her spot. She had already received a long talk about how books or papers that even mentioned her name had to add a drop of money into her already growing fortune. Along with the hours that had passed by, she had learned that she had inherited multiple Potter properties; and Harry swore to Merlin, that if she had to hear all of this again she would pull her hair out.
"'I hereby leave all possessions belonging to the House of Black as well as my personal possessions to my goddaughter, Harriet James Potter—'"
"I already know about all of this!" she finally said, exasperated, slamming both hands on the polished wooden desk. Instead of stopping, the goblin just looked exasperated with her and curtly continued.
"'Except—'" Here the goblin gave her a pointed look. "'—for the small jewelry box, placed inside one of my locked drawers in the bedroom I owned as a teenager, which rightfully belongs to my favorite cousin, Lyra Black.'"
There.
That was the part that got her head swirling like a fortune teller's ball. Frankly, Harry didn't think much about Sirius' death other than right after the moment he was pushed into the veil, but that was because she didn't have enough time to. It was either throwing around lessons with Dumbledore, or dealing with Voldemort personally. The there was the aftermath to deal with, and her poor godfather was pushed into the very back of her mind. A sudden wash of sadness fell over her again, and she lowered her eyes to gaze at the polished tile floors.
She didn't even know Sirius had a favorite cousin, an alleged Lyra Black that she has never heard of. As far as she knew, his favorite was Andromeda Tonks, grandmother of her sweet baby godson, Teddy. Yet, now that she thought about it, buried deep within her memory was the image of her standing underneath the sprawling Black Family Tree.
"Andromeda was one of my favourite cousins. No, Andromeda's not on here either, look—"
"—One of—"
Harry's eyebrows knit.
"Did she—did Lyra ever pick it up? Does she know?"
"No," the gobin said, voice disinterested as he fixed his glasses perched on his nose again, eyes falling back down on the yellowed papers, "and I doubt she ever will. There were no signs of her ever stepping into this building for the past twenty-three years. We keep track of wizardkind and have records on them and their accounts, but it is not up to us to contact them." He raised an eyebrow and said this with a matter-of-fact tone, "That is not part of the job description."
Harry pressed her lips together and let out a discreet sign. Now what? If she was never going to pick up her inheritance, how was Harry supposed to meet this person, a favorite cousin that no one has ever told her about? Harry didn't know where to start, or even where to begin to think. How come no one told her? Did Sirus only talk to her about things that were related to her mission? Or anything that reminded him of her father, James? Did she really know her godfather at all?
"...I can, however, tell you one thing…" the goblin's gravelly voice spoke out again, breaking her from her thoughts. Harry looked up again, and green eyes met with coal black head on. He lowered the glasses and leaned in, and the next few words seemed to be merely a whisper.
"Lyra Black is in fact, alive."
An exhale escaped her lips.
Slowly, a plan started to wrap itself in her mind like bandages, and the fogginess started to clear. A resolve was made, and Harry made up her mind.
Secretive or not, Sirius Black was her beloved godfather, and it was only right that she would do this last thing for him.
Harry Potter would deliver this jewelry box herself.
"...Is there any way for me to find her?" Harry asked slowly, almost as if she was afraid to ask.
"I think the best thing for you to do is to find any remaining members from the House of Black and ask them personally," the goblin said, almost dismissively.
A family member? Harry tilted her head almost indignantly. Everyone was either dead, and all of the distantly linked were rotting away in Azkaban. Andromeda was currently sick, which was why Teddy was currently under her care, and Harry wouldn't have the heart to go ahead and bother the woman. What family member? How was it possible that this plan was already this difficult and she hadn't even started yet?
"A family member?" she asked, voicing her thoughts. "But who can I possibly ask?"
The goblin gave her yet another exasperated look for what could've been the twentieth time that afternoon.
"The Malfoys, Miss Potter," he answered. "The Malfoys."
"Potter," that snippy voice suddenly said, pulling in all of the sound in the the empty, vast manor. Harry's head snapped toward the source, and green eyes got a good look at the back of Draco Malfoy's blond head. "I know that my mother had invited you out for tea in our home, but never in a million years did I think that you would have actually accepted it."
Harry ceased her walking, and the footsteps that previously echoed stopped.
"You know, Malfoy, if you had only invited me out of common courtesy, I can take my jacket and be on my way," she said, pointing to the large entrance at the front of the manor with her thumb.
He clicked his tongue, and turned his head to face her halfway.
"Don't be dumb, Potter, but I know that must be incredibly hard for you." Harry gritted her teeth at that insult. "An invite from my mother is an invite, no matter how reluctantly...my father and I may take it." Draco stopped walking and spun around to face her fully. "So you might as well stay." At that, he swiftly turned around and started walking again.
She pressed her lips together into a firm line, but she couldn't will her legs to move until a minute later.
Several months ago, Harry was asked to appear at yet another trial, but the moment she broke the wax and pulled the letter out, the first few letters almost made her stop completely.
It was for the entire Malfoy family.
Harry stayed and pondered the letter for weeks, wondering whether or not she should actually come to the trial. She disliked the Malfoys extremely strongly, but that dislike just barely reached the fine line that was hatred. She hated what they did to Luna, to Ollivander; she hated what happened to them during the skirmish that took place in this very house, and she hated the bullying that Draco wasn't above. Yet, in the end, she didn't hate them.
She had saved Draco when the Fiendfyre had gotten out of control, and in return Narcissa had saved her life by declaring the Girl-Who-Lived as dead in the Forbidden Forest. In the last minute, they had switched sides, and Harry clearly remembered Draco throwing her wand to her and running over to the "light" side the moment she declared herself as alive. At that time Harry felt like she shouldn't have her personal feelings interfere with a lawful trial.
However, somehow, in the end, Harry managed to drag herself to the courtrooms just in time, and managed to clear their name with their defection.
Harry's presence alone was enough to get Hermione and Ron to instantly follow her and agree to the Malfoy's innocence, followed by the rest of Dumbledore's Army and the Order.
It was because of her that the Malfoys narrowly missed a lifetime in Azkaban.
Once everyone cleared from the courtrooms, and Harry's conscious was lifted off of her back by repaying this debt that she felt like she owed, Harry was stopped by Narcissa herself.
Lucius was walking away with an arm over Draco's shoulders, and Harry had let her eyes momentarily wander to the pair.
"Harriet Potter," Narcissa had called out after her, almost tentatively, before she apologized and thanked Harry wholeheartedly for what she had just done. Harry remembered flusteredly accepting their thanks and apologies, before awkwardly adding in the fact that she went by the name Harry, not Harriet.
Narcissa gave her a small smile, and said, "Alright then...Miss Potter...As a sign of my thanks, I'd like to extend an invite to have tea together with my family one day, any date at any time that you please."
Harry had nodded dumbly and accepted only out of sheer politeness, retelling Hermione and Ron later with a, firm "I don't want to take a step back in Malfoy Manor even if my life depended on it," but yet here she was. It had taken a lot of courage for her to put her quill to paper to write out a single letter to the Malfoys. Surprisingly, their reply was quick to arrive, and the next thing she knew, she was here.
They swiftly crossed the drawing room, and Harry allowed her wide eyes to slowly skim over the handsome manor. The place was dimly lit, but the floor to ceiling windows brought in a soft light that glinted against the diamond chandeliers and the marble walls. The room was lavishly decorated with large, life-sized portraits that hung high and ornate detailing carved on the walls. Their furniture was plush, and the household ornaments that were scattered throughout the room was almost cluttered, but artistically so.
She was surprised, Harry expected to be haunted by dark images of the manor, the flash of the chandelier falling on all of them, or sounds of Hermione screaming for help. While these memories did resurface, they only left a deep pit in her stomach, and that was a pill that Harry would be able to swallow for the time being. The Malfoys did a good job of cleaning up, after all. Everything was spick and span like how she imagined it would be before the war, and they replaced or repaired the items that the Golden Trio broke; almost as if that period of her life never existed. Harry lifted her eyes from a small lamp placed on the table, and looked up at the back of Draco.
This was the first good look that Harry had gotten at Malfoy in a while, she realized. She doubted that the split second that he ran at her in the middle of the courtyard counted as a "good look," nor was the flash of his profile during his trial, only to be whisked away by his father's hand. Draco walked at a steady pace, and Harry had no problem quickly catching up with him again, letting that view of his smooth, tailored suit come closer. Green orbs trailed to the back of his head, watching as the sunlight hit the pale, platinum locks like sunlight hitting snow. His cheeks were fuller, she realized, his face not as gaunt and some of those deep eye bags lightened. Color returned to his face and his hair looked healthier.
But his eyes were still haunted, as well as hers, a feature that would never change with the trials of time.
Malfoy stopped in front of a pair of large glass doors, adorned by pale, white curtains, and smoothly unlocked it with a wave of his hand. He turned the knob and a warm breeze blew through the room, picking up the ends of the curtains like soft waves. Draco made a lazy gesture that told her to go outside while he held the door for her, and Harry slowly stepped into their garden.
The air was warmer out here, and fresh, green grass stretched for as far as the eye could see. A few feet away a rounded outdoor metal table was set up with three matching chairs. Walking forward, Draco made his way to an empty seat, and Harry pulled out the chair across from him. The moment she sat down, a house-elf popped in and quickly set down a steaming kettle, followed by three tea cups, plates, and a three-tier cake stand. As Draco helped himself to a fluffy pastry, Harry let her eyes drift to their vast garden.
Trimmed hedges formed a low maze, adorned carefully with dots of color from flowers, and darker greens from the other forms of plant life. In the middle was a clean, paved white walkway that led to a large, flowing fountain and the walkway moved further into taller maze walls. Her eyes narrowed when she saw some movement, and the moment when she was able to pinpoint what it was, she let out a soft scoff.
"The people at school were right," she said, turning to the Slytherin with a slight teasing grin. "You do have peacocks of all things." Draco stopped mid-bite and raised an elegant eyebrow at her statement.
"Is that all you came here to say—?"
"Miss Potter, I'm terribly sorry I'm late," another voice spoke up and Draco instantly quieted himself. Narcissa Malfoy walked forward with a small smile, flattening down her day dress with smooth strokes of her hand before she crossed the space between them and took a seat next to Draco. "My husband has business to attend to today, so he can't make it. I'm sure he's very apologetic."
Both Harry and Draco deadpanned at that obvious lie. They were pretty sure that Lucis purposely planned it so that he was busy today. It wasn't everyday that you were going to have tea with the person who put you in prison, but Harry quickly shoved that thought aside.
"Mrs. Malfoy," Harry greeted, remembering only a second later to return the manners with a faltering smile.
"I'm glad you accepted my invitation," she said, meeting her eyes before picking up the tea kettle. "Tea?"
"Yes please," Harry said, unsure if she even had the choice. She just hoped that she wasn't poisoned.
"Cream or sugar?" the matriarch asked after pouring out three cups.
"No thanks…"
"Two—" the only male said.
"I know, Draco," his mother said gently, "you like your tea with two sugars." She gave Harry her cup and immediately the warmth started to spread throughout her fingers. For a while, they stayed like that, admiring the peacocks and the beauty of the garden before the click of the ceramic against the metal table sounded. The sun seemed to be working to melt the previously cold feelings that they had towards each other, but to no avail. Draco had just put his empty cup back down and turned all of his attention to Harry again.
"Alright then, Potter, my mother's here now, so you can drop the pleasantries and go out with whatever you have to say," Draco said, his voice sharp. His mother looked at him surprised.
"Draco—!" she almost chided.
"Actually, Draco's right," Harry quickly broke in, glad that she had found an opening to slip this in the conversation. "I do have something to ask you."
"Ah...I see…" Narcissa gave her a forced grin. "Why then, ask away, Miss Potter."
Harry swallowed and wondered how she should go about this.
"I was at Gringotts the other day," Harry started out, feeling like her throat was uncharacteristically dry, "and I was looking into the will that Sirius left me, and he gave me the entire Black fortune and all of their possessions...except for one thing…"
"Typical Potter," Draco almost scoffed with a roll of his eye over his second cup of tea, "always getting everything without even trying—"
"It was left to a Lyra Black," Harry quickly cut him off. In the instant that she said the name, Narcissa's shoulders visibly stiffened, and although Draco's expressions told her that he didn't recognize that name either, he noticed his mother's reaction as well. Narcissa made no move to say anything, so Harry continued. "But I've never heard of that name before. No one ever mentioned her, and I didn't see her name on the family tree either…"
"Yes…Well..." Narcissa, eventually said, looking as if she had just swallowed a lemon. She put her cup down. "Squibs tend to not show up on the Black Family Tree." Narcissa raised her eyes past her long lashes to look Harry right in the eye. The next few words were spoken as if it was the worst thing Narcissa Malfoy could ever say. "And...Lyra Black had...a Quirk." Harry's eyes widened at this new information.
Harry was glad that she wasn't drinking or eating anything at that point, because she would have surely spit it out or choked on it from massive shock. A gasp escaped her lips and her eyes went wide.
"A-A Quirk?!" she asked, ignoring the fact that Draco spoke at the same time she did, with just the same amount of shock.
She knew about Quirks. Harry grew up with the fact that she was "Quirkless," shamed and tossed aside for being different than everyone else, but once she discovered magic, she believed that she had found something better. It was a tradeoff at the time, everyone knew that it was impossible to have both a Quirk and magic. However, the deeper she got into the Wizarding World and its pure-blood hierarchy, she discovered just how taboo the whole subject was, stemming from the idea that somehow muggles managed to steal away with wizards' powers and use them for themselves. Their hatred for muggles only grew stronger after the appearance of Quirks.
"I guess it's only expected that Sirius left something for her," Narcissa went on to say, the last sentence nothing but a spur of words as the woman tried to speed along the topic. "They were always the outsiders of the family, so they fit together…Him...with his Gryffindor and Blood-Traitor mentality, and her, with that...that ability." The last word was merely a whisper, yet Narcissa continued, maybe out of her proudness. Something from that Slytherin nature of hers compelled her to speak her mind on a topic she felt strongly about. "She was two years younger than me, and two years older than Sirius, but I remember the day she was born. A child with pure white hair who went on to control ice—Of course, Sirius loved it. Every family gathering that we had, they would keep to themselves, and Sirius always asked her to make little ice sculptures for him..." Narcissa's eyes darkened as these buried memories suddenly resurfaced after twenty-three years.
"I-I still don't understand," the Gryffindor finally spoke after she gained control over her voice again.
"What isn't there to understand, Potter?" Draco finally spoke, finally jumping in on the conversation now that it landed on a topic that he understood. However, his expression twisted. "Eighty percent of the world's population has Quirks, and twenty percent of them don't. We as wizards take up ten percent of that twenty. Out of our entire population...only point-five percent of that are Squibs...and in the past fifty years…all over the world..." His eyes narrowed over his teacup. "Only eight Squibs with Quirks were reported."
Harry stopped for a while, staring at Malfoy with an unreadable expression before the image of the horrors that must've been placed upon Lyra appeared in her mind. She wondered how Draco knew all of this, but then she remembered that if it weren't for Hermione, Draco would've been top student of their year.
Narcissa waited for her son to finish before she spoke again.
"Lyra was married off…" Narcissa paused to test the taste of the words on her tongue. "To a muggle man with a Quirk as well."
This almost shocked her more than the last fact.
The idea that the Blacks would give up a daughter to a muggle man, let alone a muggle man with a Quirk boggled her mind. It seemed to unlikely that a proud, pure-blood family like them would even willingly speak to "that type."
"A-A muggle man?" Where should Harry even start? "But—?"
"He was the one who came to her parents," Narcissa said, cutting Harry off before she even had a chance to suggest that the Blacks were to one who stepped forward. "He came to them with the proposition of money and power...and they took it." The blonde raised her cup of now-cold tea to her lips. "Lyra Black was married off at the age of seventeen to a muggle she didn't even know..." The woman paused, a flash of something dark appearing in her eyes. "Not even one year later...Sirius ran away from home."
"But how would he even find her—?" Harry tried to protest, turning to Draco.
"Just because the muggles don't know about us, that doesn't mean that we're completely invisible either. We are counted during the world's census, and we take up about 700,000,000 of the world's population. However…" Cold blue eyes bore into her form and Harry glared back at the Slytherin male. "All Quirks have to be recorded, muggle or Squib. It was an agreement between the Minister and the muggle Prime Minister when Quirks just started appearing, Article eighty, section nineteen or something…That muggle must've seeked her out that way."
"And you guys agreed?" Harry asked, overwhelmed with the information that was just passed to her. She turned her head back and forth from mother to son. "You all gave Lyra to this man...even with your...beliefs…?"
Narcissa looked irritated that Harry would even ask such a thing.
"It was up to her parents whether or not they would agree to the marriage, not up to the family as a whole." Her eyes narrowed and she shook her head disapprovingly. "Even to us, her father was a detestable man, married into the family for the name and the money. He was a heavy drinker and an excessive gambler, he probably gave her away at the name of any price. He died due to alcohol poisoning a mere five years after he gave her away, and his wife perished due to dragon pox ten years ago…"
"Do you know where to find her?" Harry finally asked, her voice steely.
"All I know is that she is in Japan, and that she changed her name to fit in with the culture, but Merlin knows that I never bothered to learn what it was…" At this Narcissa stood up and dusted off her dress. With an invisible gesture, house-elves appeared and immediately started to whisk away the tableware and clean up after them. Narcissa looked down at Harry with dark eyes. "...So I wish you the best of luck on your search, Miss Potter. That's enough questions for today. It's getting late, so you should get going soon."
Harry caught the hint and immediately stood up, pushing back her metal chair. Swallowing hard even though her head was fogged over, Harry inclined her head.
"Thank you for the tea, Mrs. Malfoy, it was lovely," she said forcefully, only out of sheer politeness and manners that was hammered into her head by Aunt Petunia.
"Draco, please show her the door," the matriarch said, looking at her son. The two made eye contact, and Draco immediately pushed himself off his chair, stepping forward with a prompt wave of his arm.
"Come on, Potter."
The two made it towards the double doors before Harry stopped and turned.
"I just want to know one more thing," Harry said firmly, eyes meeting with Narcissa's. "You pure-bloods are proud, and I know that no amount of money would ever meet up to your pride. So my only question is...why did the Blacks give her away?"
Harry almost thought that she didn't hear her, with her back to her and her head low. After a long pause with no one speaking or willing to move, the matriarch spoke up.
"It's true that the Blacks hated muggles, and they hated those with Quirks..." Narcissa turned her head to stare at Harry's stern face. "But I think...they hated Lyra Black more."