This chapter was initially, as typical with me, put up in a bit of a rush, and the characters
got more than a little out of control. I hope this revision fixes things. Thanks to all,
especially TiaRa'Hu and Anti-Fleur, for their advice. CC)
No one spoke for a long time after that. Starling and Lecter watched Harry closely, waited
for his response to their announcement.
For his part, Harry didn't know what to say. He didn't know if he could say anything.
Hannibal Lecter.
Hannibal Lecter.
Hannibal Lecter!
Even the wizarding world knew about Dr. Lecter, the genius murderer and cannibal. It
was popularly assumed that he was an untrained wizard-gone-wrong, for no mere
Muggle, it was felt, could have pulled off his brilliantly hideous crimes. Even the
American wizarding authorities, which had been secretly trying to aid the FBI, found him
nearly as hard as Voldemort himself to track. And here he was, Harry's guardian.
Harry suppressed the urge to scream.
It was Clarice who broke the shroud-like silence. "Well, he hasn't tried to kill us yet, so
that must be a good sign," she said, a small smile on her face.
Another long silence.
The woman Harry had known as Lucy Stellanova looked him straight in the eye, her sky-
blue eyes meeting his emerald green ones. "Want to know how we came to be here? And
why Dr. Lecter is no longer the man he once was?"
It was tough to do, but Harry made himself speak. "Yes, please."
Starling relaxed her somewhat tautly-held body. "For starters, aside from our names and
my not being from Kentucky, everything else we told you was true. We just left out a
whole bunch of stuff. Dr. Lecter can tell you about that."
The man who Harry had known as "Dr. Reader" took the hint. "I suppose I should start
with my childhood. I was born in 1938 in Lithuania..."
It was a grim story.
Dr. Lecter was the son of a Lithuanian count whose title went back hundreds of years. His
mother was herself highborn Italian, of the Visconti family. They were rich and happy --
until their home was caught up in the crossfire of World War Two. When Hannibal was
six, his home was destroyed, and his parents killed, by German mortar fire as the Nazis
fled. A small band of German deserters came, rounded up the orphaned children of the
area, and started to eat them one by one, once the food ran out that February of 1945.
Hannibal's younger sister, his beloved Mischa, was among the victims, and Hannibal
himself would have soon followed had not Allied troops rooted out the Nazi deserters.
His early experiences had made him nihilistic -- he didn't believe in God, for instance, or
at least not a just God; a just God would not have let scum like the deserters torture, kill
and eat children. Rejecting the concept of a just God forced him to develop his own
version of morality, which for many years was tinged with the bloody satiation of his
own dark urges; he rationalized his crimes with the excuse that his predations were
insignificant compared to Jehovah's, whose sense of cruel irony and wanton malice was
beyond measure.
He had found his way to America, received his medical degrees, and built a reputation as
a brilliant, if unorthodox, practitioner, a man of high learning, exquisite taste, and sharp
tongue, which he often unleashed on those of his fellow doctors who were less than
competent.
And he had, secretly, killed over twenty people.
The law finally caught up with him when he made a slip-up: his last victim, a wealthy
child molester named Mason Verger, clung to life, maimed and crippled. Dr. Lecter was
caught and imprisoned.
Eight years into his imprisonment, Jack Crawford, head of the FBI's Behavioral Science
unit, sent Clarice Starling to interview him. The twenty-five-year-old Starling was the
most promising of Crawford's recruits for the class of 1988. She managed to pierce Dr.
Lecter's armor, and got him to offer her information and advice. But Paul Krendler,
Starling's immediate supervisor, stepped in and manhandled the investigation, giving Dr.
Lecter the chance to escape -- which he did, killing several more persons in the process.
Some months after Lecter's escape, the very married Krendler started letting Starling
know, with increasing fervor, that he wanted her to have sex with him. Starling refused,
and her career promptly nosedived, until it found its nadir in the aftermath of a botched
drug raid. The raid would have gone far worse if not for Clarice's quick thinking -- and
shooting -- but the politicially well-connected desk jockey Krendler wanted her broken.
Dr. Lecter, however, came to her rescue, snatching her from her Virginia home hours
before Krendler could have her cashiered and arrested.
At this point, Dr. Lecter paused and smiled; he apparently was reliving his triumph over
the boorish Krendler. Harry took advantage of the lull to ask a question: "Why did you
save Clarice, Doctor?"
The self-confessed murderer of dozens smiled ruefully. "For several reasons, not all of
which were apparent to me at the time," he said. "The first was that Clarice was, and is,
one of the finest people I have ever met. The world is simply a better place with her in it.
The second has to do with what a famous Muggle author named Hannah Arendt called
'the banality of evil.' She used the phrase to describe how normal humans could do such
horrible things as help Hitler build and run the death camps, but I also see another
meaning to those words." He leaned forward in his chair, his eyes meeting Harry's full-
on. "I used to find some glamour, some stylishness, in my predations. I thought I was
being so dashing and clever and cute. But I eventually came to the realization that such
things as murder were, in fact, quite banal, and most murderers themselves, far from
being glamourous and superior persons, were in fact among the most inferior people one
can imagine. The Ted Bundys and Juan Coronas of this world are losers, not winners;
they chose to resort to crime because they were inferior, not superior, people."
"And the third reason?" Harry asked, holding Dr. Lecter in his gaze.
"Oh, that was one I didn't admit to myself, or Clarice, for the longest time." The doctor
glanced over at Starling, and smiled. "I had fallen in love with Special Agent Starling.
But I was not going to force myself on her. I would help her escape from Krendler, set
her up with a new identity, and give her the option of working with me in a London clinic
as my assistant, but I would not force myself upon her. It was a very happy day for me
when she, of her own free will, let me know that she welcomed and encouraged my
attentions." Lecter and Clarice gazed at each other, their faces reflecting a shared
contentment.
Clarice took up the story. "We both decided that our clinic should specialize in caring for
children. We did this partly because of the suffering we both had endured as children, and
also as a way to sublimate our own desire to have children, a desire which we never dared
fulfill." She paused. "Never, that is, until you came along, Harry."
Clarice held out her hands to Harry; he was surprised to see them trembling. "Harry, I
want you to know that -- that we care about you more than you realize," she said, her
voice breaking. "Both Hannibal and I... we want you to be happy, safe and free, and we
want you to know that we care about you... but if you don't want to stay here with us..." She
paused again, trying to get herself back under control; a tear made its way down her
softly curved cheek. "...that's OK, too. We'll let Mrs. Figg know that she can come for
you."
Harry looked at the faces of his guardians: Dr. Lecter's, solemn and quiet; Clarice's, sad-
eyed but determined to do as Harry wished, even if it ripped her heart out. He knew
somehow, just as "Dr. Reader" had told him in the restaurant carpark those many weeks
ago -- weeks that seemed like lifetimes, so much had happened during them -- that he had
nothing to fear from either of them.
He balanced what he had heard of Lecter and Starling, versus what he had seen of them
personally: The miraculous curings of the Longbottoms, their many kindnesses towards
the wizarding world, and their own treatment of him -- which was never anything less
than kind, patient and affectionate.
And he made a decision, then and there.
"I'm staying, Clarice," he said, hugging her to him fiercely, holding her as she sobbed
tears of relief and happiness.
He felt Dr. Lecter's arms envelop both of them, and, though the doctor did not cry as
Clarice did, he could feel the doctor's whole body shake as the three of them held each
other in an unbreakable embrace.
"That settles it, then," said Dr. Lecter, releasing them from his arms. "We are a family."
"Addams Family?" laughed Clarice through her tears.
Harry pulled back from her, studying her with a mock-critical eye. "Well, you're about
the right height for Morticia, but the hair's all wrong," he said. "And Dr. Lecter doesn't
have any exploding train sets or cigars."
The doctor smiled. "Pyrotechnics was never my department, Harry." His face grew
solemn once again. "However, before, Jack Crawford gets here, we should let you know,
in detail, what I did. I want you to make your decisions with your eyes open, and in full
possession of the facts -- Crawford will be regaling you with the goriest ones, in any
event."
Harry nodded. "I understand. Though it's not Mr. Crawford that I'm worried about, right
now."
Dr. Lecter's eyebrows went up. "What worries you, Harry?"
Harry's gaze took in both of his guardians. "Ron, Fred and George wouldn't mind too
much -- in fact Fred and George would think it was pretty cool, they have warped senses
of humour." He smiled ruefully, and Dr. Lecter and Clarice shared his smile; they had
both already been at the receiving end of some of the Weasley twins' more innovative
pranks. "But Sirius is going to have a fit, if he ever finds out."