Happy Friday (or super early Saturday since it's a bit after midnight again-The epilogue will still go up today too though!)! These chapters are a fair bit funky because I didn't have as much time as I had with the others to go over (and honestly, I didn't go over the other much either, just enough to repuzzle and add writing). These chapters are almost all new writing so I hope you like them! This first one is the only one that really has anything from the original draft but even then, it has a hell of a lot more. Thank you to everyone who reviewed, I love hearing what you guys have to think, and for everyone reading: I am so glad you're here!
Love Always,
Adrien
Disclaimer: Sadly, still not my sandbox; this is just my sand castle in J. K. Rowling's sandbox.
Chapter Thirteen: Happy Endings are Hard to Come By
(But We're ThreeSteps Closer Thanks to the Goblin Nation
...and That Basilisk Fang Second Year)
March
Sirius
"Why would he do it, Remus?" Sirius murmurs, his head resting against his mate's shoulder, as he and Remus wait for their pups.
There was so much more to unpack from his Gringotts visit but his brother's actions were all he could honestly think about.
"I know it's not what you want to hear but we might never know. Unless there's something he left behind in the house, we may never know where your brother's head was the day he died. All we can do is be thankful that his decision to reinstate you has made it that much easier to clear your name…As head of house and two seats of Wizengamot due to both being Head of House Black and being the blood guardian of the scion of House Potter, you have the right to call for a retrial. Even if you had killed Pettigrew, you could claim it as justified because you were claiming blood retribution, something our daughter is going to throw a fit over if she doesn't know about it already or something she already has a plan of combatting after she graduates if she does already know about it. Considering you didn't kill anyone, however, your trial will literally be open and shut."
"I'll be free," Sirius whispers in disbelief, collapsing onto the couch next to his mate.
"You'll be free," Remus confirms, wrapping his arm around the other man and kissing the top of his head.
Before Sirius can say anything else, the door to Remus's private quarters opens.
"Is everything ok?" Hermione asks, the smile dropping from her lips as soon as she see both Sirius and Remus's faces.
"Yes and no…" Sirius sighs, running his fingers through his already disheveled hair as his eyes rove over both of his pups.
Hermione looks like she wants to ask a million and one questions, like Harry's hand on her knee is the only thing keeping her from bouncing out of her seat with worry.
Harry is entirely too still, his eyes sharp as they stay trained on Sirius and Remus, like he's waiting for the absolute worst of the worst.
Considering the stories he'd heard about Harry and Hermione's first two years, and knowing they got up to more than he'd heard based on his own experience, Sirius could blame either of his pups for their reactions. He just didn't know where to start or what to start with.
A familiar tap to the back of his hand, twice to bring him back to the present like Remus had started doing their first year when he had realized exactly how much his friend got lost in his thoughts (particularly during class time), brings his gaze to his mate.
There's another moment of silence and Sirius decides that the beginning is the best place.
"Earlier this week, I got a letter from Gringotts that requested my immediate presence…I thought that they might have some more questions for me, maybe some leads on their investigation into Harry's case…I didn't realize that they had simply called me because they had answers…to almost everything…"
"I don't know how much you know about the Goblin Nation but in essence, Goblins are very proud beings who cherish children above all else and they took the fact that part of Harry's mishandling as a baby had happened in their bank as a personal affront…So they tore into every miniscule avenue of both the Potter and Black holdings…"
"Like they told us when we had your parents' will read, Harry, Dumbledore used his power in the Wizagmont to seal your parents' will until your reentrance into the magical world at age eleven and assigned himself to be your magical guardian…What he did with his power as your magical guardian is honestly worrying on more than just monetary levels, Harry…The first thing he did after becoming your magical guardian was fire the account manager who had been with your family for the past four generations of Potters. He then went to hire his own account manager to take on the Potter accounts as well as the Dumbledore accounts…which would have been disrespectful in general but not entirely outlandish…However, Dumbledore's account manager immediately began helping Dumbledore funnel any money they could touch from the Potter accounts into Dumbledore's personal vault. Luckily, the majority of the Potter vaults can't be touched until you reach the age of majority but he still had complete control of your trust vault which refills to 100,000 Galleons each year on your birthday. Since October of 1981, Dumbledore has taken nearly 1,400,000. They gave me the exact number but it was so close to the total number of Galleons you would have received over the past fourteen years had you emptied your vault every year that I just rounded up. Every year on the 30th of July, Dumbledore withdraws the remaining Galleons in your vault. Your first recorded personal withdrawal happened after your 11th birthday where Hagrid helped you take out what you needed for wizarding supplies, which ended up being a fair bit more than you needed. Since then Mrs. Weasley has gone with you every time and you have taken out even less each time. Your total amount of withdrawals from your account have been less than 5,000 Galleons."
Harry's entire body had stiffened throughout the conversation, his knuckles turning white as his grip on Hermione's knee tightened, but he looked like he wanted to say something so Sirius paused.
The Marauder knew Harry's grip had to have been hurting Hermione but her face showed only her concern for her best friend and boyfriend.
"Did…did Mrs. Weasley or Hagrid know?" Harry eventually asked, his voice cracking.
"From what the Goblins found, no. Because Bill Weasley is under contract with them and was unable to refuse the assignment, they sent him undercover with a Goblin instrument called a Truthfinder to discover the Weasley's involvement. From what he found, Dumbledore told Mrs. Weasley that you had asked him to keep your key once you came back into the wizarding world because you had never had freedom with money and you didn't want to overextend your vault on accident. Mrs. Weasley only ever had your vault key for the single day of shopping she took you on each year. Dumbledore also attempted to pay Mrs. Weasley from his own vault after draining your account each year, presumably for the care her family gave you in the summer months, but she never accepted the payment. Hagrid only ever had your key that first day and when one of the Goblins found him for questioning, the Truthfinder discovered that he had been given the same story as Mrs. Weasley."
Both Harry and Hermione's bodies relaxed and that and, for the first time, Sirius realized exactly how much the Weasley family truly meant to his pups. They truly loved the redheaded brood with their whole hearts and it would have broken them to have been betrayed by that family.
"From what the Goblins were able to find, Dumbledore and the account manager were the only two involved in the money laundering. The account manager has been dealt with according to Goblin bylaws and Gringotts is recording everything that has been found for Dumbledore's eventual date in court. Either their own or under the Wizagmont. Whichever you decide to bring him under, Harry. They want you to have a choice in the matter."
Harry nods sharply to that, his eyes gleaming with fury toward the man they had all assumed would always put Harry's best interest first.
"Who will be taking care of the Potter accounts now?" Hermione asks the practical question.
"That is undecided at the moment, though the original Potter manager has moved countries of residence at this point," Sirius replies.
"I would like Griphook to take them on if he were willing," Harry states with a certainty Sirius had only ever seen on his godson's face a handful of times since getting reacquainted with him, all of which had either included Hermione herself or the safety of any of the people Harry carried about.
Sirius nodded then continued on with the information those at Gringotts had given him, "While examining Dumbledore's vaults for anything of Harry's, they discovered a Horcrux."
The horror that immediately contorted Hermione's face told Sirius she knew exactly what that was, though how she knew worried the older Marauder more than a little bit, but the confusion on Harry's face showed that he had no idea what a Horcrux was.
"A Horcrux is essentially a piece of someone's soul that has been stripped from their natural being and placed somewhere else for safekeeping. It has been illegal to make one for centuries and their existence has been scrubbed from almost every tome. But, as you might have noticed, pureblooded families are all about preserving their history…which means texts talking about Horcruxes still exists…and many dark witches and wizards see them as the ultimate way to reach immortality; however, few actually because it requires you to literally shatter the centerpiece of your being which is both mentally painful because you have to participate in treacherous acts to create that kind of breakage and physically painful in the feeling your soul shatter has as much chance of killing you as it does creating a Horcrux."
"It was Voldemort's Horcrux, wasn't it?" Harry asks, his voice more tired than any teen's had a right to be.
"Yes…And the Goblins were able to track down two more in their bank. It is against their policies to hold living beings in their bank, which each Horcrux is in a manner of speaking, so they didn't have to ask permission to enter the vaults to retrieve them. Their Curse Breakers have destroyed them and are currently tracking down the other four Horcruxes they have detected out in the world because they take keeping that sort of magic in their bank as a personal slight against the Goblin Nation…"
"But they also found a copy of a prophecy in Dumbledore's vault that the Goblins think pertains to you, Harry, so they would like to meet with you before they destroy the last of Voldemort's Horcruxes…" Sirius trails off, wondering if he should continue because this is a lot of information and he really doesn't want to overload his pups anymore than he clearly has.
As if reading his thoughts, Hermione asks, "What about the good news? You said there was good news too…unless there's more bad?"
"No, that was all the bad…at least that we're aware of at the moment…The rest can wait if you two need a break though."
Hermione's eyes meet Harry's and they hold an entire conversation in the span of a second, both breaking away with sharp nods as they turn their attention back to Sirius.
"Let's just get it all over with," Harry states.
Sirius nods and continues on, "The good news is that my younger brother, Regulus, made helping Draco and calling for my own trial an easy obstacle to overcome. When I was going into my sixth year at Hogwarts, I was blasted off the Black family tree…literally if you two remember the tapestry at Grimmauld Place…Because I was disowned, the title of Lord Black fell onto Regulus…However, Regulus died in December 1979. No one knows how or why, the only reason I even know what day he died is because it shows on that damned tapestry…But according to Gringotts, before he died, he reinstated me into the Black family tree and abdicated his claim to the Lord Black title. Which means that I am Lord Black and I have the right to demand my own trial as well as dissolve any marriages with a bridal contract that are currently active in the Black family tree and to claim someone of my bloodline to be my heir as long as I have no other blood heir of my own. We just have to figure out when it would be best to do that."
Hermione
"Where's your head at, Mione? You've been your trapped-in-your-own-thoughts kind of quiet since Sirius told us about the Horcruxes," Harry murmurs, rubbing his hand in slow circles on Hermione's back.
She really shouldn't stay with him as much as she did but he kept the dreams away in a way that not even Draco's help with either of the mind magics could (because to learn Legilimency, you also had to learn Occlumency).
"You remember how I started looking into soul bonds and Dark Magic, trying to figure out a way to get you, me, and Draco safe?" Hermione whispers in response after a long moment of silence.
"Yeah?"
"I…I found a lot of information on the...Horcruxes Sirius was talking about when I was researching back then…"
Harry doesn't push her, he waits patiently for her to struggle through her thought process.
"It isn't normal for an item, even a cursed or enchanted item, like that damned diary from second year to leave the kind of after effects that it has on Ginny let alone continually possess her or to drain her life force in a near successful attempt at resurrection or scream while basically bleeding ink upon destruction like it did…I think that was a Horcrux…And your reaction to that journal, the way your scar ached every time you were near it…The constant pain your were in around Quirrel our first year...Those dreams you have about that damned snake and the creepy Voldemort baby…The fact that you got that damned scar because you survived one of the most vile, if not the most vile, spells in the world…One that no one before you had ever survived…Harry, I think you might be a Horcrux."
She isn't sure when she'd started crying but by the time she finished her explanation, Harry's skin underneath her cheek was slick with her tears.
There is a long silence where Hermione almost thinks that Harry has fallen asleep, though she isn't sure how he could've fallen asleep after hearing something like that.
"How are we going to deal with it?" Harry eventually breaks the silence.
"I don't know," she whispers back, another tear slipping down her cheek.
She hated not knowing, not having any idea how to figure something out. Her brain had been the only thing she could rely on for years and the fact that she couldn't figure this out broke her heart. Her brain had protected her from the memories of what happened to her as a child, her brain had helped save both her life and the life of her soul mate, her brain had helped keep her alive in that horrible house and it had led to her escape from that same horror. The fact that it couldn't help her now terrified her.
"We'll figure this out together. You aren't alone anymore, love. We aren't alone. And we never will be again."
He'd said it to her before, multiple times, but this is the first time she thinks that maybe he's right. This is the first time she actually believes the words coming out of his mouth. Maybe it was because he actually sounded like he believed himself this time instead of it sounding like he was trying to convince himself as well as her. Maybe he had changed. Or maybe she was finally willing to accept the words as they were. Maybe she was the one who had changed.
"I love you, Harry." It was the only thing she knew for certain at this point.
"More than anything, Hermione." And she believed him like she always had.
The rest of their night is spent in silence and at some point, Hermione finds herself drifting into a fitful sleep…only to be ripped out of it unexpectedly.
"No, no, no. Please! Don't!" Harry yells, thrashing his arms and legs.
"Harry, Harry, wake up!" Hermione tries to wake him from his nightmare, shaking his shoulders when he doesn't respond to her voice.
He continues thrashing and Hermione own panic begins rising.
Straddling her boyfriend's waist, Hermione locks his legs with her feet and his arms with her hands.
"HARRY! WAKE UP!"
"Mione?"
Harry gasps, his breath ragged once his eyes snap open and his thrashing pauses.
"It's like I'm him, Mione. Every time. It's like I'm the one hurting them."
Harry's gasps for breath turn into sobs as he clings to Hermione.
"I don't want to be him."
Hermione rubs his back in the same way he had earlier that evening, her own tears streaming down her cheeks because as much as she wants to help Harry, because this is more support for where her thoughts had gone earlier and this can't go on. It isn't normal.
They just need help figuring everything out.
For now though, what they needed was sleep.
"You aren't him. You will never be him. Above all else, you are good, Harry." Hermione whispers over and over as she rubs her best friend's back until both of them fall back asleep.
Sirius
"How are we going to do this?" Hermione asks, her voice as unwavering as her gaze as she grips Harry's hand on the worn out couch across from Sirius and Remus in the current DADA living quarters.
"I don't know," Sirius admits, his voice just as even. As much as he wished he could give his pups an answer, he can't right now and he refuses to lie to them. They'd both had more than enough of that bullshit for a lifetime. "But we can figure it out together."
Hermione shares a quick look with Sirius's godson before Harry speaks their next piece. "If we're going to do this together, I think there's some things you ought to know about our first two years at Hogwarts and some of what happened with me before Hogwarts."
Sirius's gaze slips to Remus's as the werewolf takes Sirius's hand in a bone-grinding grip.
Just how much more had their pups gone through before they'd gotten into the picture?
How much more would they have gone through had Sirius and Remus not shown up when they had?
