Chapter 10

Burning

"I am leaving." He said in a firm booming voice. The doors to the dining room slammed shut behind him. All of the children jumped, the parents looked at him wide eyed. Ginny dropped her face onto her folded arms and tried to stem her tears. Arthur stood and took it on himself to talk some sense into him.

"Harry, where are you going to go? Be realistic, you can't leave here when you can barely move for that vow. There is no word where he could possibly be. The head of MLE told you that you couldn't be involved, the case is too personal. Even King told you that." He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers.

"I don't care. When I decided to do something, the pain in my chest ebbed a little. I will not sit here. I will find him. He is my godson, more than that, he is my SON. It has been a week. You cannot, the ministry cannot, stop me from finding him. I am the co-head of the specialized auror squad. I have the experience, I have the ability and I am going."

"Harry what will you do if you find him? You cannot harm the wizards that took him, you will end up in Azkaban." Daniel said level headedly as he patted his wife's back soothingly.

"Then you lot better find a damn good defense while I am gone." Harry said seriously.

"I am going with you." Ron said as he stood and turned to Hermione who was clutching Rose in her lap. "I have to go, you understand don't you. I will come home. You have to stay with Rosie. Do not leave her."

"I can't let you two go alone." She whimpered, rocking herself and the baby.

"And I can't let what happened to Tonks and Teddy happen to you too. You will stay." He said, the tone in his voice leaving no room for question. She bowed her head as he kissed her and the baby. "We leaving now?" he directed to Harry.

Harry nodded. "Yup, we can stop and grab our travel packs from the ministry and go from there." He muttered as he watched Ginny stand, lifting Albus into her arms and taking James by the hand.

She walked up to him, no questions in her eyes at all, only fierce understanding and determination. She handed him the baby and he placed a kiss on his head before nuzzling into his soft hair. He handed him back and lifted James into his arms, hugging him closely.

"Daddy is going away for a bit." He said to the little boy, watching Ginny's tears slip down her face. He hadn't left for more than a week since the mission that left him unconscious for weeks.

"Daddy bye?" James asked, his head tilted to the side. "Jamie bye." He said nodding his little head.

"Nope, Jamie is staying to take care of mummy and Albie. Daddy is going to go get Teddy."

"YAY get Tettie. Tettie come home to Jamie."

Harry smiled and kissed his little head before kissing Ginny.

"I will bring him home." He said fervently against her lips.

"Yourself too?" her voice quavered.

He pulled back and looked into her chocolatey brown eyes. "I will certainly try."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o

"What's amatter kid? Why's your hair not some crazy color?" Yaxley growled over the plate of food infront of him, taking in the scraggly blonde curls, hazy gray eyes and drawn face.

Teddy flinched and looked down at his hands. He didn't like Mr. Evan. He was going to be here for the next little while because of the full moon. Teddy was scared of him, much more than he was of Shane.

"Itwontchange." He muttered, trying not to cry. Mr. Evan had very little tolerance for crying.

"Speak clearly boy. I don't have times for gibber jabber." He huffed.

Shane laid a callused hand on Teddy's quivering shoulder, trying to reassure him, it merely made Teddy sick to his stomach. More so than he always seemed to be these days.

"It won't change. It hasn't changed in more than a week. I can't make it work." Teddy replied softly.

"Why won't it change?" Yaxley asked no one in particular, knowing the kid was too young to know and believing that Shane was about as dim as a box of bezoars. "Hmmmm, strange, I haven't seen you be able to really control it since you got here. Not like your mum could at any rate. Seems that your emotions control it mostly. Wonder what changed?" he muttered as he pulled a roll of parchment over to himself.

"May-May I be excused?" the small voice shook.

Shane nodded his head towards the bedroom kept for the boy, he ran off into it instantly, leaving most of the food on his plate.

"He didn't eat his food." Evan said in irritation.

"He is just a kid, he doesn't like French food. He isn't used to it. And he keeps saying his stomach hurts." Shane replied, looking down at his own plate.

"Well he's going to be in France until I get my hands on his Godfather so I suggest he learns to like it before he starves to death." The older man growled.

0o0o0o0o0o0o

"Ted, Ted wake up!" Shane said nervously. The boy was thrashing about on the bed crying out, obviously in pain. His sandy blonde curls were chin length and sticking to his face with sweat, Shane tried to push them back so he could get a better look at him.

Teddy was clenching his stomach groaning and whimpering before suddenly sitting up, eyes wide and leaning over the edge of the bed, getting sick all over his captor.

0o0o0o0o0o

"Draco I need your help. I have been searching for three weeks. I am no closer to finding him than I was the day he disappeared. The only thing I know for sure is that Yaxley is behind it. I have questioned all of the old crowd. There is no question about it, he is behind all of it. Or at least that is what I have been told after using veritiserum. No one knows where he is. I need your help."

Draco looked at him from under hooded eyes. He didn't think he had ever actually seen Harry Potter beg for anything. Not even after the war. He had watched him go through trial after trial. Harry had tried to keep Lucius out of prison. It was futile and Lucius would spend the rest of his life there, but still, he had tried.

He was the only reason Draco himself had not gone to Azkaban, he testified on his behalf, and his mother's. He supposed this was the least he could do for him, after all, what if it had been his own son that was taken?

"All I know, is that he has a place, it is on one of the beaches in France. Very secluded, tons of wards, it is nigh impossible to penetrate. That is the only place that is his that I know of that isn't listed in his family's holdings. I doubt he disclosed its whereabouts to any that was not in Voldemort's inner circle." Draco sighed heavily.

"France?" Harry repeated.

"France." Draco confirmed as Harry and Ron disappeared with a pop.

0o0o0o0o

Harry wandered another of the beaches in France, hoping to sense a ward or something, Ron walked silently beside him, they had been in France for a week and three days and nothing. He looked up at the new moon and sighed. It had been more than a month since Teddy disappeared.

Harry rubbed his knuckles against his chest, it burned idly. It had lessened since arriving in France but often twinged painfully, causing him to hiss in a breath or even nearly be sick once or twice.

"Come on little man, I just need a sign, just anything. Tell me where you are." He muttered as he rubbed at the burning.

0o0o0o0o

A week and a few days had passed since the full moon and the child was deteriorating rapidly. He had lost a significant amount of weight. His face was all hollows and shadows, his hair was limp and he had been sleeping most of the time. He only woke in spurts the last two days and while he was awake he would cry and moan over his stomach.

This time was different. Shane heard him screaming in the middle of the night and ran into the room. Teddy was on his knees beside his camp bed in nothing but his underpants, screaming and grabbing at his chest.

"Stop! Stop!" he screamed, ripping at the skin, leaving fingernail scratches across it.

"What's wrong?" Shane asked frantically, trying to hold Teddy's hands down.

"It burns, inside. It burns! Make it stop! Please!" he shrieked again before vomiting and passing out into Shane's arms.

That was it, enough, he couldn't force the kid through this anymore. Evan had gone a few nights after the moon, he wasn't here to stop him this time. He vanished the vomit and used a spell to clean the two of them up. And then lifted him, wrapping him in a blanket, before turning on the spot.

0o0o0o0o

"I am really sorry to disturb you. I know you aren't on duty but you are the only one I could think of. I have no idea what could be wrong with him." The nursemaid said in rapid French.

She nodded and followed her into the patient's room. Glancing over briefly at the sleeping child and then back to the nervous looking man standing against the wall.

"You are his father?" she asked.

To her surprise he answered in English. "Yes, he is my son, uhm, Connor, his name is Connor." He muttered.

"His age?" she asked, reverting to her native English lilt and checking the chart.

"Er…uhm 8?" he replied, his hands fidgeting.

She looked up at him questioningly. It was obvious that he didn't know the answer to the question.

"Okay…and what is going on with Connor?" she asked, looking back to the notes taken by the urgent care healer earlier, before the boy was placed on her ward.

"He wakes up screaming that his chest is burning, and he keeps getting ill. I think he has a fever but I can't tell, I was never good at medical spell you see. He is also able to change his appearance at will and he can't do it anymore. It just went away. Just, help him please. He is obviously in pain."

She nodded her head and walked over to inspect the small form. Her breath caught in her throat when she took in the matted blonde curls and the sunken in face. She ran a hand over his cheek before turning quickly.

"I am going to need you to wait in the closed family room. Policy you understand." She said swiftly. The man only waivered for a brief moment before going to a closed ward. She looked at the nurse that stood by her side with raised eyebrows. "You are to lock that door and call an auror to guard it, immediately, and preferably without his notice." She said as she bent over the boy, softly caressing his tangled, sweaty hair. She pointed her want at him. "Ennervate."

His eyes fluttered open and filled with tears before he let out a bone chilling scream and began grasping at the hospital gown covering his now shaking body. "It burns!" he cried pitifully.

She placed her hands on either side of his face, taking in the fearful, agonized stormy gray eyes. Eyes she had seen look just like this after full moons, after funerals, and the last time she actually saw the love of her life. "Shhhhhh it is okay little love, it will all be alright." She crooned as she wiped tears from his cheeks.

He looked at her for a long moment before he breathed ever so quietly, "Rileigh." And he slumped over in her arms as she shot a silvery patronus out of the door.