It was in the Daily Prophet in huge black letters: BOY WHO LIVED VANISHED.
Ron's father sat down, picked up his tea, opened the paper, and said something foul. The twins sniggered.
"Perhaps you ought to just go to the office," said his mother. She said nothing about the cursing.
"Yes, yes," his father said and scanned the paper, scalded his chest with the tea, and leapt up. "Right, I'd better go, I'll be off, right, right."
Ron said, "Why aren't we allowed to say that?"
"Shush!" his mother said, and picked up the paper.
In Fudge's office representatives of several Departments were panicking together. Arthur looked at them glumly and nodded to Kingsley, who was walking in with a large file in his arms and a young woman carrying a wand at his side. "Hello, Kingsley. Heard the news?"
"First thing this morning. Have you met Materea? Arthur Weasley, this is Materea Foster."
"How'd'ye do," Materea blurted out cheerily, and pushed past Arthur to edge toward Fudge at his desk, with Dumbledore along side.
"Come along, Arthur," Kingsley said with a sort of amused inkling in his eye.
"Just GONE," sobbed Mrs. Figg at Dumbledore's side, "Vanished, poor little thing . . ."
"They'd been EXPERTLY Obliviated, Minister!" the young Auror across the desk prattled earnestly.
Fudge was ignoring him to gobble at Dumbledore. "I thought you had people watching the boy! The public will have my head!"
Dumbledore looked up at Kingsley. "Ahh, have you found something in your files for us, my boy?"
"Of course, headmaster. Err, I've also found--"
"Foster, Materea Foster," exclaimed the young woman. "I'm in the Department of Magical Youth. One of the field workers. Incidentally, Minister, i don't suppose you and Dumbledore have gone over our list of at risk children yet?"
Fudge blinked at her. "Err, I don't believe--"
She pulled a roll of parchment from her sleeve. "Another copy for you, sir." She handed it to him and fumbled in the round file case in Kingsley's arms.
"Young lady," Fudge began hotly, "now is not really the time for your department's petty concerns over Muggleborn children having a hard time at Hogwarts! Don't you understand? The Ministry has lost the Boy Who lived! WE've mislaid--"
"Ach-dot-Jay-dot Potter, formerly in custody of the Muggle Family Dursely, Taken into care due to injury, isolation, and malnutrition," Materea read from the file. "That was who you wanted, sir?"
The room was quiet.
"Oh thank gods," FUdge sighed, and slumped in his chair. "Yes, yes, thank you my dear." He looked at Dumbledore. "See Albus? Nothing to worry about."
"Where is the boy?" Dumbledore asked Materea quietly. She glanced at him and smiled.
"Headmaster! I don't suppose you've thought twice about our suggestion certain young wizards stay at Hogwarts over the holidays?"
"Where is Mister Potter, Materea?" he asked again.
"He's entered the custody of the wizard who reported his case three months ago, Headmaster," she replied, gathering her files. "Lucius Malfoy brought Harry to my attention, and took him in."
Again the room went quiet, as Materea left.
"Burn burn burn," Draco sang with glee as he and Harry tossed the last few books on the pile. "Harry. cheer up, we'll have your tower all cleared out in half an hour."
Harry poked him. "They won't let us touch anything in half the house, you don't think it's funny they'll let us burn the contents of a room?"
Draco poked him back, harder. "Not when it's your room. They're so scared you won't ask for anything they'd let us light fire to the great hall at this point."
Which was sort of true. Narcissa was always asking Harry if he was hungry or cold or bored or did he like that carpet maybe she ought to change it was it thick enough, and Lucius took them both for a walk or a flight or riding or sat with them in the library drinking port and giving them heavily spiced hot cider every night. Dudley got nowhere nearly as much attention from either parent, and although Draco seemed to think it normal, Harry was a little in awe of the sheer attentiveness of the Malfoys. Draco was Narcissa's most important task,and she'd drop anything for him or Harry if they came into the house soaked or scratched or sore.
"Besides," Draco said, poking an old diary deeper into their impressive heap, "what do they need old diaries or dirty portraits for anyway? Mother was probably looking for a reason to redecorate that room."
She was, at that point, firmly ensconced and having the house elves levitate things to the ground for the boys to throw on the pile.
"I hope your room doesn't wind up terrible," Draco said, shading his eyes with one hand as he looked up at the tower Harry had shyly asked his parents if he could occupy two days ago. "What if she uses pink wall paper? or roses and cat pictures?"
"She WOULDN'T, " Harry shuddered. "You're mad."
"Perhaps you'd like it," Draco said thoughtfully. "After all, you used to cry like a girl in your sleep."
Harry glared and might quite cheerfully have flung himself at Draco, if not for the cough behind them. They turned to look at the tall white haired wizard, sitting comfortably on their garden bench.
"I wonder," he said politely, "If one of you might ask your mother if I might stay for lunch?"
Narcissa examined her table carefully and looked at Lucius with deep worry in her eyes. He smiled at her and sat at the head of the table. "Headmaster? Shall we?"
Dumbledore sat opposite the two boys as Narcissa settled herself at the end of the table. She smiled at her husband.
His mother would have preferred he marry Bellatrix, older, more beautiful, wiser, less silly and slim and preoccupied with house and table and fashion. Bellatrix would have gotten him into the Ministry and slain his enemies with a bite from her tongue and thrown magnificent parties with his associates, where the house elves would have served his least favourite foods.
Narcissa smiled at him and said, "Do you like onion soup, Headmaster? Draco and Lucius adore it, and Harry and I are learning to enjoy it, aren't we dear?"
No, Narcissa was too silent and shy in company and unambitious, his mother was right. All she wanted was a comfortable home and a well set table and to take care of her family. Lucius smiled back. "It's quite a sacrifice on their part, Albus. We must have it every other meal, Cissy, dear."
"I'm not tired of it yet, and neither is Harry," Draco asserted. "Are you, father?"
"I enjoy every meal your mother serves," Lucius said thoughtfully. He ate his soup quietly as Dumbledore complimented his wife and buttered a paper thin slice of bread.
"You have a new addition to your family, though, I see, and of course Draco was very young when we first met. I must make the acquaintance of your boys, Lucius."
"I'm Draco, and that's Harry," Draco informed him instantly. "We're nine but I'm almost ten and I'm older."
"I see," Dumbledore said. "You'll be at my school soon, then?" He raised a spoonful of soup to his lips.
"Yes and We'll be in Slytherin--"
"And we'll play Quidditch!" Harry blushed when Dumbledore looked at him. He stirred his soup.
"Which positions, my boy?" Dumbledore had quite the knack of not letting his beard or mustache get soiled with soup, Lucius noticed.
"Seeker and Chaser," Harry mumbled. Draco pinched him, presumably for the interruption.
"Draco," his mother said warningly, and he subsided. Harry poked him. "Harry! We have a guest!"
Dumbledore was smiling. "And what are you doing to prepare for school when not playing Quidditch?"
"I had a tutor before," Draco said thoughtfully. "Father, will we have a tutor again?"
"Yes, in a month or so, I don't see why not."
"We thought the boys ought to holiday together, to settle in," Narcissa explained nervously. "Just for a month or so."
"And then we'll have Master Erudition," Draco told Harry. "You'll like it. You learn math and essays and Latin and things."
"All day?" Harry asked.
"No, in the mornings." Draco let a house elf take his soup and took a sandwich for himself, which he split with Harry. "In the afternoon we'll ride with Mother, or fly, or whatever we like. Like now."
"Sagicious Erudition?" Dumbledore nodded to Narcissa. "A good choice. I'd like to have the man at Hogwarts."
She flushed with pleasure. "Thank you Headmaster. Would you like a scone?"
He accepted and passed the plate to Lucius, who filled Harry and Draco's empty plates.
"We're full!" Draco protested around a mouth full of sandwich.
"Eat a scone and you can go to the garden," Lucius told him. Draco eyed the scone warily.
"We're having a bonfire," he told Dumbledore. "Loads of people are coming. Millie and Pansy and Greg and lots of people Harry's never met."
"They cleared out our Tower for Harry," Lucius explained. "It was occupied by a former colleague, an old student of your's."
"Yes, I saw the wreckage in the garden." Dumbledore sipped his tea. "You are lucky boys. It should make quite a blaze for your parents friends and associates."
"We're only having people our age," Harry said, puzzled.
"Yes it will and we're going NOW," draco said firmly, and pulled Harry from the room.
Dumbledore examined a plate of pastries and delicately transferred two biscuits to his own. "You do set quite a table, Narcissa."
"Thank you, Headmaster," she rose. "You must excuse me. The boys will need my help."
Dumbledore ate a biscuit and Lucius regarded him.
"You most certainly have declared yourself, Mister Malfoy. Tell me, when did you find him?"
"I followed Black's Motorcycle that night," Lucius told him. "he and peter and switched; Pettigrew was the Secret Keeper. Pettigrew lead Voldemort to his death. I hoped to find the rat."
"And instead you were lead to the child." Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "Why not kill him then? He was an infant in the care of Muggles."
"I couldn't. I could not cross the line of their property, not then. Your protection on the boy worked at that point."
"Just so," DUmbledore mused. "But later?"
"They beat the boy, did you know that?" Lucius sipped his tea. "I went by often. He had bruises, was neglected. Later was put to work."
"When did you find you could breach the protection?"
"Perhaps his seventh birthday. He was crying. . ." They'd given Draco a pony and a party and let him eat cake and put him to bed late. And Harry had gone hungry and unnoticed and made himself a mud pie in the garden, which he'd sung himself happy birthday over.
"And you went to comfort him," Dumbledore surmised. "Well well."
"Yes. You'll find it hard to take him away, Dumbledore. He knows me as his first comfort, the first to care for him."
"When did Narcissa meet him?"
"Only a few months later."
And she cried and cried that night over his poor little face, cried and cried. Silly Cissa, his mother used to say, silly and shy and so sensitive she used to cry over her History of Magic homework, over the fires and blood and the torture.
"So you two took him on," Dumbledore said. "Brought him toys and soothed his hurts . . ."
"Yes." For almost two years. Lucius doesn't even really care about the Muggles. They attacked what they didn't understand. Of course he'd crush them if he could, he make sure no child could be so badly damaged again, but he doesn't care about them.
For nine years he slouched in the shadows and watched and watched and it has all narrowed down for him. The muggles aren't lesser than he is, they have a very real power over the most helpless wizards, the children who don't know who they are.
Tonight the old Death Eaters will come and watch as Lucius burns the bits and pieces the Dark Lord left behind. They will see that he has decided that's not the way, not the way to fight them.
Maybe Crabbe will come after and ask for explanation, in his slow ponderous way. Maybe Goyle or Parkinson as well, Flint and Bulstrode and others. They will come and he will explain what he has seen.
The Muggles will never come again the way they did. They have disbelieved, they have put away wizards and witches and things in the dark. there won't be torches or racks or drownings.
There will be cupboards and beatings. Children will go hungry and be cold and cry in the dark. Parents will disbelieve and laugh and some will torture, some will speak of the devil and hold little girls heads under holy water. Boys will be sent to school and priests.
Lucius will not have it. He had a son and now he has two boys and he will keep them safe.
"I see," said Dumbledore, and brushed a crumb from his beard. "Well, Lucius, you have taken on quite a task. Harry will need a lot of care and attention."
"I have plenty of time these days," Lucius says, and smiles. Dumbledore does see. "Actually, Dumbledore, I am planning to start a . . . committee. A group to help the Department of Magical Youth out."
"They are quite terribly under-staffed," Dumbledore agreed comfortably. "You must let me knw if Hogwarts can be of help."