"I don't understand." Dora said entering the room.

Harry was being examined by an scandalized Andromeda in his room while the rest had moved to the living room. Dora had just started bathing when the whole thing started and had to go back finish. Ted and Ezekiel were sitting on the couch waiting for their return.

"The Queen gave a command and Harry, being the Heir of an Ancient and Most Noble House, has to obey them under death penalty." Ezekiel explained.

"I don't understand either." Ted said. "Harry isn't an Heir yet, as far as I can tell, how come the Queen was able to give him a Royal Command?"

"Oh, Harry dear." Ezekiel mockingly imitated the monarch. "England is in dire need of your services, We are in great need of your assistance. Will you help us?"

"Why yes, her Royal Highness." He changed to a nasally tone.

"Very well! Oh, it would be better if you keep this conversation secret. Not a word you understand?"

"Yes, your Highness! I promise you, Your Highness!"

"And that's it?" Dora asked surprised.

"Well." Ted replied. "It's not an official acceptance of his inheritance by any means but if Ezekiel is right and Harry did gave his word..."

"Harry is almost as screwed as I am." Ezekiel finished, resting his head on his hand. "I need to get him out of that deal fast."

"Can you do that? Go against the Crown like that?" Dora asked concerned.

"I'm afraid that's not something I can share."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because you're an Auror, dear." Ted replied. "And I'm his law-wizard, by law we're bound to report any crimes we see and you're required to arrest the criminals unless your superiors tells you otherwise. Am I wrong, Ezekiel?"

"Well Ted, that's a very accurate description of a completely hypothetical predicament."

They remained silent until Andromeda came down.

"Well, I guess Ezekiel was right." She said as she took a bottle of a cupboard and served herself a rather large glass of whiskey. "That has to be a, what you called it?"

"Royal Command."

"Right, that." Andromeda replied as she took a large sip.

"How's Harry?" Ted asked.

"His throat is fine now." Andromeda explained. "I gave him something for the pain and the swelling . He's sleeping but he'll have to go to Gringotts to get fully fixed."

"Good, I need to have his core checked too. What about his arms?"

It seemed that nobody was aware of that as the entire room temperature dropped when he mentioned it.

"I had no idea."

"We though he needed some time alone."

"He started using long sleeves."

All three of them started excusing themselves bu Ezekiel shut the off raising his hand.

"Don't bother, none of you were in any state to see anything." He said but he saw that they still felt guilty. "I just want to know if you healed them."

"They won't get infected." Andromeda replied. "But they'll leave a scar, I'm far too tired to remove them."

"Don't worry about that." Ezekiel shrug it off. "I'll take him to Gringotts tomorrow and have him fixed. Besides, I need him to think about what he planned to do."

"Ezekiel, what are you going to do to that boy?" Andromeda asked concerned.

"Well, given all the things I'm gonna have to do to get him out of this mess I'd say... not much really."

"Ezekiel." Ted warned him.

"The boy needs to learn." Ezekiel replied sternly.

"Learn what?"

"That he matters." Ezekiel replied finishing up the conversation. "Now, you said you received summoning from the Queen. How did you managed to fool her for so long?"

"Actually, the summoning were for you to bring Harry for tea." Andromeda replied.

"Harry has been meeting with the Queen alone?" Ezekiel asked worried.

"They didn't let anybody enter with him." Dora replied. "We tried to enter with him and explain things to her but the guards just popped up their guns. We didn't even raised our voices, just said 'Hi' and out they came with high power rifles. It took a full month before she started asking for you. By then Mum finally was allowed in and explained what happened."

"Again, sorry for Scotland." Andromeda said.

"Did Harry ever said what happened in those meetings?" Ezekiel continued as if he hadn't heard her.

"No." All three replied at the same time.

"Very well." Ezekiel sighted. "I'll take the couch for the night so if no one has anything to say then, I wish you all goodnight."

Harry woke up dizzy, the sun had yet to rise. A habit Aunt Petunia had forced unto him after deciding cooking to be below her. Given the appetite her husband and son had developed, specially the latter, Harry had found himself cooking entire feasts of which he himself tasted very little, if not any at all. Yet this wasn't the only reason he had awaken. It was the unnerving feeling that he was being watched, followed by the soft breathing that turned his fear in certainty.

"I know you're awake." Ezekiel's voice sounded. "We need to talk."

Harry's response was to turn away from the voice and lay in fetal position. Ezekiel walked up to the bed and laid down looking at the ceiling with his fingers entwined on his stomach.

"How are you feeling?" Ezekiel asked but Harry remained silent. "Nobody blames you for what happened, You know that, right?" Harry hugged his knees against his chest. "I don't blame you." Ezekiel continued. "And neither should you."

"Please stop." Harry finally asked softly.

"Why? It wasn't your fault. I'm fine now."

"They said you died."

"Well... they were wrong."

"Why aren't you mad at me? I threw you into a wall, you were in a hospital for months..."

"And then you became a royal crying depressed mess that no child should ever be..." Ezekiel replied.

"No I didn't." Harry's muffled through the pillow.

"Crying silently. I mean. People cry when they are sad, hurt and need help. When they cry silently, it's because they just can't stop. I know a bit about that. Just as I know why you thought of doing what you did." Ezekiel sighted softly. "It does get better, Harry. Life, I mean. It's a complete fucking mess, you never really know what you're doing and when you do...well, for all it is, it's worth living it." Ezekiel said but Harry remained silent. Ezekiel looked to his side, examining Harry's back for a few moments. "Harry, I want to make a deal with you. I want to get you out of the Crown's clutches."

"I wanted to help people, the Qu-."

"Stop." Ezekiel interrupted him. "I need you to think this one very carefully, Harry. If the Queen told you, asked you or ordered you not to say anything, I need you to stop talking right now. There might be a way for us to speak about this, if that's what they ordered you. Please nod if you understand." Harry nodded. "Okay. I need to iron out a few details, there might be some complications but I can and will get you out of here. That I can promise, but it'll all be meaningless if you try this again. I'll put my neck on the line for you, wanna know why?" Harry remained immobile for what seemed like an eternity until he finally nodded again. "Because I care about you, because I don't think you're a freak and neither does anybody else. And just so you know, all the other people in this house care about you just as much as I do. From the moment you set foot in this house, everyone here cared about you. Trust me if anybody here - and I do mean anybody - didn't wanted you here, you'd already be gone. In this family we don't do things halfway, as far as we see it, you are a Tonks." Ezekiel took a deep breath before continuing. "I know you think you're worthless, that somehow you deserve all the things that happened to you. You aren't and you don't. No matter what that voice in the back of your head says, it lies. It's just a lie that you believe because those people repeated it to you for so long that you actually believe it. They didn't do it because they're better than you, they didn't do it because you're lower than them. It's because you're different. Different from Andi, Ted and Dora. Even from me."

"Because I'm a freak."

"Different." Ezekiel repeated. "Not better, not worst. Different, a whole new kind of different but different nonetheless. That doesn't mean anything unless you choose to. You can see yourself as a freak. You can see yourself as a monster. You can see yourself as Harry Potter. It's your choice and yours alone. Who and what you are, what you want and feel, those are yours and nobody else's.

Right now you have another choice to make - and I hate myself for making you choose - but in the end it's the only choice that matters. To be or not to be. You can choose to endure the trials that will come, the pain and sorrow that everyone faces and do something so ridiculous, stupid and courageous it might just work. You can hope. You can hope for a brighter tomorrow, to laugh so hard that you'll cry. You can hope to love and be loved in return and to one day meet someone who'll turn your world around all over again in ways you don't even dream of.

Or you can take the other route, to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing, end them. To die—to sleep, no more; and by a sleep to say you end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. To let somebody else bear the whips and scorns of time. It's a perfectly valid option mind you, specially for the likes of us that have endured that what other people only dread and turn away to numb themselves with shallow pleasures. Unlike me, your death will be permanent. But this option comes with a single requirement: look closely into your heart, to really examine your life and ask yourself a question. You need to be completely cold and rational, otherwise it's meaningless. 'Is there truly no way my life can improve?' You need to check every angle and in the end, be realistic. But you'll have to consider one more thing, just for me. You'll have to think what this will do to everyone who's ever known you. Everyone who's ever loved you. Those close to you, those who cherish you like Dora, Ted and Andi and ask one more question. 'Why would you do that to them?'."

Ezekiel's head turned to Harry, who was now completely silent.

"You don't have to answer now Harry, but I'm afraid there is a deadline. It's almost five in the morning and the sun will rise in three hours. If by the time Andromeda comes to wake you up you've decided that your life is indeed doomed. If the answer is truly No... if in the end you're convinced that nothing you could possibly do will matter... I'll help you with that too."

Andromeda woke up earlier than the rest of her family. As a mother and a health professional she had developed that habit over the years. Specially after Nymphadora's birth her sleep had almost disappeared, a sad consequence of not being able to recognize your own child's cries. Andromeda simply woke up every time she heard a noise and in this case, it was he door on Ezekiel's old door creaking open that had awaken her. She swiftly got up from her bed and peeked at the corridor and was surprised to see her son leaving the room discreetly. She gasped surprised when Ezekiel turned around as if he knew she was there. Or perhaps, she thought, it was the Magic that had told him.

Andromeda knew that Ezekiel had broken one of the cardinal rules of his House his by speaking to her, let alone the subject of the Black Magic. It was both a shame and a relief that Orion wasn't there to explain just what that thing was. Personally, she preferred to live the rest of her life in doubt than to have him back. Then again, Orion had managed to obtain a kind of immortality of his own. His sinister will lived on, perfectly embodied by the young man in front of Andromeda. The young man that she loved as her own, who had claimed the power behind the power in England. No, he had done something else. He was the one behind the power that would handle England from the shadows. It almost felt like watching the beginning of one of those James Bond movies that Ted was so fond of. Except they had the front seat for the evil mastermind's didn't matter if the endgame was a noble one, Andromeda could see it in Ezekiel's eyes - were those eyes in the end, his? - the gears of his mind turning. Andromeda had no doubt of Ezekiel's ingenuity, a plan was taking form in his mind. Harry Potter would be protected. That fact had become as truthful as the sun rising in the morning. It was the steps Ezekiel would take in order to ensure it. Yet despite all that, despite the shiver travelling trough her spine when their eyes meet, she found her fears dissipating as quickly as they came. Ezekiel, her son, was a good man and she trusted him. Which is why she didn't turned around when he waved silently at her, she waved back and went to get ready for the day and met him in the kitchen.

Then he explained to her what had transpired between him and Harry.

"Why?" Was the only thing she managed to ask.

"There was no other way." Ezekiel said brewing tea.

"Do you have any idea what you just proposed to him?"

"A choice, something he never had before. A single choice, one that I hope he'll continue making for a long time just like you and I do even if we don't realize it. I just hope he understands it like I did when you talked to me when I was a kid."

"What on earth are you talking about?" Andromeda asked shocked

"After I realized everything I was told was a lie." Ezekiel replied as he snapped his fingers making two mugs on the counter float to him. "When my entire world crashed and burned, remember what you told me?" Andromeda tilted her head in confusion and Ezekiel smiled softly. "It does get better."

"I've almost forgotten about that..." Andromeda replied.

"I can't blame you for that, it was pretty late as far as I recall." Ezekiel shrugged. "Still, had to make some adjustments to it but I do think Harry will take the first step to what I hope for is a good life."

"You think Harry will make a good choice?"

"Well...no." Ezekiel replied with a thoughtful face as he sat at the kitchen table with their drinks. " Think isn't the right word, I guess believe is more appropriate. I believe in Harry Potter."

"Ezekiel, he's just an eight year old."

"And look what he has done already!" Ezekiel mused. "Given what we know about Harry, I can say he's simply admirable. He reminds me of you in a way."

"How could I ever be like Harry Potter?"

"He was raised basically alone, surrounded by some of the worst people that could ever be. People who reminded him every single day he wasn't wanted nor welcome into the only family he had ever known. He was a stranger to them right from the start, discovering every day how strange he was." Ezekiel studied Andromeda's uncomfortable face before continuing. "And yet, somehow he has the courage, the gall to hope. He should be a small ball of hate. He should want to tear the world apart for what happened to him. Yet, ever since I've spoken to him all I see is someone with an astonishing ability to love and that just wants to be loved in return. Sounds remarkably like someone I know, wouldn't you agree?"

"Be that as it may." Andromeda replied blushing. "You told him you'd kill him if he asked you."

"Yes. If Harry is going to choose life then I believed he should also contemplate the other option." Ezekiel replied sipping his tea, his face sifted in contempt while he put down the mug and snapped his fingers. This time one of the cabinets showing dishes and glasses much to his confusion. "Where's the sugar?"

"Try the other one, Dora sometimes puts the sugar bowl there." Andromeda gestured a cabinet on another wall, contemplating Ezekiel's response. Ezekiel walked towards the cabinet cursing under his breath. "So you're manipulating Harry into doing what you want."

"Of course not!" Ezekiel scoffed sitting back into his chair while adding sugar to his drink. "I gave him my word and you know the value of the word from a Lord of a House such as mine."

"Ezekiel!"

"I believe in Harry Potter." Andromeda could feel his eyes piercing hers trough his sunglasses. "I believe in his courage, in his kindness. I believe that despite everything he has endured, there will be happiness in his life. I believe in Harry Potter as much as I believe in Andromeda Tonks."

Any reply she could've give died on her lips as the sounds of footsteps coming from the stairs. Their behavior changed so fast no one would be able to tell that just a few seconds ago they were having a discussion. By the time Harry appeared in the kitchen, all he found was Ezekiel and Andromeda sipping tea and talking amicably.

"Harry, you're up early. " Ezekiel greeted him as he entered the room. "Andi here was going to wake you up in half an hour, I think."

"It's okay." Harry replied softly. "I don't need her to wake me up."

"Oh, it's not a bother Harry." Andromeda assured him. "I wake up earlier than everyone here. How are you feeling dear?"

"I'm good, thanks." Harry smiled at her. "Sorry I scared you."

"It's alright, Harry." Andromeda said as she got up from her chair and hugged him. "I'm just happy you're okay."

"How was your night, Harry?" Ezekiel asked when the hug ended, still sitting at the table while sipping his tea.

"It was fine." Harry replied calmly.

"Would you like to wash your face, clear your mind?"

"No." Harry replied confident.

"Are you sure?"

"Ezekiel" Andromeda began but Harry interrupted her.

"Yes." Harry nodded serious. "I'm sure."

"Very well. "Ezekiel said as he placed his wand on the table. "Andi, would you give us a minute? Harry and I need to discuss something real quick."

"I don't think."

"It's fine, Andi." Ezekiel assured her. "Please, give us the room."

Andromeda looked at Ezekiel for a moment. Ezekiel is a good man, this much she knew. She knew it, she believed it deep in her heart. Sighing as she left the kitchen, not sure what would happen, Andromeda walked to the living room and sat on one of the couches. She wasn't sure how long she waited. It might been seconds or an hour but when Ezekiel finally called her back she felt surprisingly calm. Her calmness didn't shook when she entered the kitchen and found Ezekiel and Harry checking the refrigerator.

"Ah, Andi." Ezekiel welcomed her back. "Sorry for making you leave. Harry had something to say to me and I promised to respect his privacy. He also has the most unique way to prepare beans that I've ever heard. Would you like to try it us?"

She didn't bother answering them, instead just walking over and helped them to prepare their breakfast. Her calmness didn't waver, not even when the rest of the family came down. Ted and Dora tried their best to avoid the issues from last night but eventually they all apologized to Harry.

It was just as Harry and Dora left to prepare for Gringotts that she finally realized she'd been played. Snorting to herself, Andromeda got up from the couch and went back into the kitchen where Ezekiel was washing the dishes. He was finishing the glasses when he noticed her leaning next to him.

"There's a reason why cliches came to be cliches." Ezekiel whispered.

"Because they work" Andromeda whispered back. "You played the whole thing, didn't you? You knew Harry would be listening."

"He's always listening. Growing up in that house, he had to."

"And what about your promise to him?"

"Andi." Ezekiel replied focusing a bit too much on one of the glasses. "You know I've done things. You met the Queen, she must've said something."

"You know I don't think any less of you for that. She's the one who gave the order, you had to obey."

"Still, I'm not proud of what I've done. Well, I am in a way. I'm good at it, great even. It's just every time I go, I feel as if a small part of me stays there and then time goes by and, there's less of me. Even if sometimes I'm willing to leave that part of me there." Ezekiel replied cleaning the glass for a tenth time. "But when I saw Harry like that, I don't know. I just had this feeling that if I let him do that or if I left him to the Crown, that would be it. That would be the moment I'd have truly lost myself." Andromeda placed her hand on his shoulder trying to comfort him. "So yes, I played him. Perhaps I went too far but I wasn't lying. He truly is like you in a lot of ways. Figured if this is the only time I'll ever make a difference, might as well make sure there's somebody out there like you. Merlin knows good people are in short supply these days. Not many people would look at someone like me - even before the Black Magic - and think of giving me a chance."

"You're not a bad man, Ezekiel." Andromeda replied.

"Oh, Andi." Ezekiel sighted drying his hands and hugging her. "Please don't change."

They separated as the rest of the family reunited near the front door. As their readied their coats, the familiar roar of Ezekiel's car could be hear much to Harry's delight and Andromeda's dismay. Leaving the house he made a mental list of the things he had to do.

1 - Take Harry to Gringotts and have him checked.

2 - Kill the Goblin King.

3 - Buy some new clothes.

He should be done by lunch.

I don't own Harry Potter, all characters except OC belong to J. K. Rowling.