When Nightmares Are a Good Thing
By Rhiane Raine
Chapter 23: Ecstatically Terse Reactions
"What?" Harry sputtered disbelievingly.
This didn't make any sense to him whatsoever.
"Y-you actually don't mind being related to me?"
The arms that were wound so tightly around his neck slackened a bit before sliding down and pushing gently on his shoulders, forcing him to look Dumbledore in the eyes.
"I am very proud of this discovery, Harry. I regret that I never knew of it all of these years." Dumbledore lifted Harry's chin with two of his fingers, most likely to ensure that Harry could see the twinkling blue eyes that lit up his wizened face. With a perceptive guess, he said "You've been thinking that we knew all along and simply didn't want you?"
Slowly, Harry nodded his head, still yet amazed at Dumbledore's insightfulness. He never had allowed himself to think of the possibility that maybe Dumbledore didn't know. After what had happened in June –Harry, better than anyone- should have known that the man was very much capable of making mistakes. Several times throughout his years at Hogwarts Harry had uncovered old secrets that the Headmaster had not known about. It should really not have come as a shock to learn that Dumbledore hadn't known of their relation.
A moment passed between them in thoughtful silence.
"I believe," Dumbledore considered aloud, "we now have a task at hand that we must complete together."
After mulling Dumbledore's words through his current thoughts, he finally made sense out of what the man was saying but still was confused at the intent. He cursed himself for not paying better attention as he had no idea where Dumbledore was going with this.
"Ah, do not worry. It is not a difficult mission, more of a delight, really… We must tell this news to your Grandmother."
His previous apprehension creeped back in slowly, freezing Harry's insides like a looming late night fog.
Dumbledore's twinkling blue eyes considered Harry for a moment before he suggested fetching Professor McGonagall by himself.
"Right," Harry answered. "I'll, uh, wait right here."
With a knowing smile that annoyed him slightly, Dumbledore left the room and closed the door behind him.
The numbness that he was feeling spread further throughout his body as Harry waited in anxious anticipation. Once again horrifying scenarios and emotions were regarded as he nervously waited for Dumbledore and McGonagall to arrive.
Finally, just as Harry was taking into account that McGonagall might prefer to not be told that she had a grandson- one that was almost sorted into Slytherin at that- footsteps sounded in the hallway.
The door opened softly admitting his Grandparents entrance into his room. When the door was closed Harry discreetly flicked a finger re-issuing the room's privacy charm that he had become rather adept at using lately. Unfortunately for him, McGonagall immediately sensed the spell and looked to her husband.
"Albus, what exactly is so important that you deemed it necessary to cast your strongest domesticus secretio spell?" Her face showed no unusual emotions but Harry could tell that she was truly intrigued and baffled simply by the way she forgot to address 'Albus' as 'Headmaster' or even as 'Dumbledore'. Also, McGonagall usually nodded to Harry in acknowledgment of his presence.
"I assure you Minerva, that while the impending conversation does require such measures of privacy, it was not I who cast them."
McGonagall sighed in exasperation, "Then who did, as it was most certainly not me!"
Dumbledore twinkled in amusement. "Well, the answer to that would have to be Harry as he is the only other person present in the room."
"Harry?" McGonagall looked over to where Harry stood awkwardly. "Surely you are joking Dumbledore."
"Alas, I am not. It seems that our young Mr. Potter has picked up a few new tricks this summer."
"Then we should be expecting an owl from the Ministry any moment!" McGonagall cried in annoyance. "Honestly, Albus. It was hard enough on you last year to help keep Fudge in line. Do you really think you should be encouraging opportunities for Harry to get expelled?"
"Ah, but you will find, as did Harry, that the Ministry cannot detect wandless magic."
"Wandless?" McGonagall gasped, looking at Harry in slight awe.
"Err, it was an accident?" Harry uncertainly answered in hopes of stalling a lecture on magic use during the summer.
Dumbledore chuckled at the exchange. "Yes, well, enough of that. We have much to discuss. Where to start? Ah, yes, the beginning. Minerva, I assure you that you will understand where this is going but it will make much more sense for everyone if we tell the beginning first. You may have to help me explain a bit of this to Harry."
It seemed that, as odd as his head of house found the situation, she trusted Dumbledore- her husband- enough to go along quietly with only a raised eyebrow and a slightly confused expression.
For his part, Harry took a seat in his desk chair while Dumbledore and McGonagall seated themselves at the foot of his bed.
"When I first graduated from Hogwarts," Dumbledore began, "I held a few various jobs. It wasn't until after the time of Grindenwald that I began teaching at Hogwarts.
"During the hard times I found the courage to let Minerva know of my feelings for her. We married less than a year after Grindenwald's defeat."
It amazed Harry at how quickly the tension returned to his chest at seeing Dumbledore embrace her lightly with an arm. He averted his eyes in favor of his shoelaces.
"So," Harry choked out, "What happened next?"
McGonagall glanced at her husband. Receiving an encouraging nod, she turned back to Harry, a demure smile playing on her thin lips.
"Well, we were married. Albus worked at the school while I continued to help my father out by working at his shop in Diagon Alley. He died about forty years ago. The store went to my older brother. Of course, by then Albus had been made Deputy Headmaster. For a few years I continued to work at the store until Albus convinced me to take over as transfiguration teacher so that… well, we'd be closer together that way. Then when Armando Dippet passed away, Albus was made Headmaster and he named me his deputy. That's the way it has remained, with our marriage a secret to all but a select necessary few."
Dumbledore smiled eagerly at him as he squeezed his wife's shoulder.
"Yes. Now that you know the back story, let's move on to the whole point. Minerva's anxious enough, I can tell." he chuckled immediately after his statement at the calmly raised eyebrow that she quirked at hearing her husband insist that she was anything but patient.
Instead of remaining quiet the entire time, Harry decided to speak up and help guide the conversation along. "So… being married, did you ever have any children?" It was funny how he hadn't been embarrassed to ask yet his cheeks flamed afterwards at the idea that he had just indirectly inquired about his professor's- his GRANDPARENT'S! - sex lives.
"We certainly tried," Dumbledore replied immediately (Harry suspected his quick answer was in sensitivity to his wife's and his own embarrassment on the situation), "but it seemed that we were having problems conceiving. Almost forty years ago we finally succeeded. That was a large contributing factor to her coming to Hogwarts. Everything was well until the actual birth."
It seemed very weird to be discussing his mother's birth, especially since he still hadn't quite gotten used to the idea that she was the product of two of his professors. Harry risked a glance at McGonagall to see her feelings on the matter. It seemed that the past still weighed very heavily on her as she had closed her eyes and turned her head to the side. Her sadness Harry perceived as guilt but was at a loss as to why she would feel guilty for the death of her daughter. It wasn't as if she had strangled Lily or anything. Through, Harry brightened a bit at the thought that maybe some of her grief would be alleviated when told the truth.
"- when our child was born it was one of the happiest moments of my life. She was so small and beautiful…" Dumbledore spoke in a wistfully quiet voice. Harry had never seen Dumbledore exhibit so many normal emotions and decided it made a nice change to see his stoically professional teachers displaying feelings.
Timidly, Harry roused the next piece of the puzzle, afraid of causing more painful memories. It was only when he remembered that their pain was only partly justified as their daughter did indeed survive that he found courage to break the silence.
"So it was a she?"
"Yes," Dumbledore smiled. "She was a she with my hair and her mother's eyes. It seemed she was having complication with breathing. The mediwitch, a trusted friend of ours, took the baby to perform a few diagnostic spells in order to find out why she couldn't breathe… when she brought back our child it was too late, she had died."
A sniff came from McGonagall alerting Harry to how painful the idea of her daughter's death must be for her.
"But that can't be right, Professor's. Whose baby was it that they returned to you?" Harry's face twisted in confusion. "If she took your daughter away from your eyesight," he said looking directly into Dumbledore's eyes, "then the child she brought back must not have been yours. She couldn't have been…"
"Do not try to make me feel any better on this subject, Mr. Potter. It has already happened and I do not appreciate you trying to instill unfounded hope in me and further yet-"
"No, Minerva, Harry's right. See, we have discovered something. A very large secret, I might say." He turned from his wife and his eyes twinkled mischievously at Harry. "I think perhaps we should allow her to find out the same way we did, how about it?"
Harry grinned in spite of himself. "I think that would be in order. Accio genial potion!"
The potion came zooming from across the room and into his hands as Dumbledore conjured the parchment.
"It's the genial potion, Professor McGonagall. All you have to do is-"
"Yes, yes, Potter, I remember how the potion works but what I would like to know is why you are in possession of such a potion and why you think it prudent for me to take it." McGonagall said sternly, her lips forming a very thin line and her eyes narrowing.
Harry swallowed. "Well, you see, I was studying and came across it this summer. I got curious and so I brewed a batch and took it. I wondered if I had made it right as the results I got were… shocking. The Headmaster took it shortly before we asked you to join us and... well, he got the same odd results so-"
"You wish to see if I get weird results? Why, Albus, did we have to explain our most personal secret just for me to test a potion? Wouldn't Severus be a better choice than I would?"
"Minerva, please. Do you trust us enough to believe that everything will make sense once you use the potion?"
His transfiguration professor gave an exaggerated sigh as she reached for the almost empty phial of potion. She didn't look at either of them as she conjured her own sleek dagger and pricked a tiny cut on the tip of a slender finger. She tipped the last remaining bit of potion over the droplets of blood that she had painted the parchment with. Instantly, the colorful lines appeared, connecting the now visible names to each other in many different directions. Harry watched the scrawlish handwriting until every name had been written and connected. He glanced up to see his professor straighten her glasses as she peered closely at the names of her family. Over her shoulder Dumbledore approached, Harry assumed he wanted to be ready to provide comfort. The pit of his stomach was jumbled once again. Sweat formed on his palms and he could feel his heart hammering inside his chest. The moment of truth was on him. How would McGonagall take the news?
A cry pierced his thoughts. He looked away from his trainers in time to see McGonagall drop the parchment and dagger. She turned to Dumbledore, a look of pure shock controlling her face. Never before had Harry seen her look quite that surprised. There had been a few times, such as the time he, Ron, and Hermione had told her in first year that they knew the philosopher's stone was about to be stolen but nothing could top the present look of astonishment.
"Albus?"
Dumbledore merely nodded and opened his arms to her. She uncharacteristically dove into them, crying and shaking with the tears. Guilt plagued Harry instantly at having his relation to them cause such pain to his Grandmother. There was no explanation for it. Silently, so not to disturb them, Harry banished the dagger and replaced the phial in his trunk. He laid the parchment down on his desk next to Dumbledore's. Quietly he tip toed to the door and whispered the spell to unlock the door. He had just opened the door and was about to leave when a hand on his shoulder stopped him. He turned around and was instantly accosted. Arms wrapped around him tightly, so tightly that his breath was expelled from his chest along with an undignified "-urhg!-" that was muffled by a shoulder.
A chuckle came from somewhere to his side. Harry heard the door click shut again as he was pulled back into the room, still yet being hugged tightly. A hand was rubbing small comforting circles on his back, guiding him to sit on the edge of his bed. A good idea, too, it seemed that another moment longer and Harry's legs would have given out on him.
"Minerva, let him breathe, please. It would be a shame to have to allow Poppy to intervene only moments after finding out that we have a grandson."
Harry looked up to see a smile playing on Dumbledore's lips. McGonagall gave him a coy smile as she released her grip on him and gave him a bit of space. She swiped at her eyes and straightened her glasses professionally, though it did not make Harry forget how she had been crying only a few moments before.
"Well, Harry, how do you feel about having a grandfather and a grandmother?"
Harry choked. He stared as he began to realize that this was what was true. He did have grandparents who seemed to genuinely want him. "I think it's brilliant, if you'll have me. I mean-"
McGonagall gave him a piercing look. "Potter- I mean Harry, what in Hogwarts name do mean 'If we'll have you'? You do realize that we spent most of our married lives trying our hardest to have a child. Now that we know that we did indeed succeed, we couldn't be prouder of the child that we brought into the world- and of the child she helped bring into the world. Harry… you are something that we have always wanted and to know that you are indirectly ours…" here McGonagall started to cry again. "I couldn't have picked a better young man to discover blood relations between if I had been allowed to choose. Ever since you were born, Albus and I had hoped to be seen by you as a pair of adopted grandparents. I loved you mother as if she were my own."
Then, as if to add to the most uncharacteristic display of personalities that day, she snorted. "Well, it makes sense now to know that she was my own but…the point is, Mister Po- Harry that I am proud of you and have loved you since before you were born. I am simply ecstatic of this discovery."
In Harry's books, ecstatic was the way Ron had sang with glee when Malfoy had been transfigured into a ferret during their fourth year by Mad Eye Moody/Barty Crouch Jr. The smile and tears that shone on his normally stern professor's face was not ecstasy but joy. Then again, for the terse witch, this probably was her being ecstatic.
The next day at breakfast he received some very curious looks from the other inhabitants of Headquarters. Hermione gave him many admonishing looks that showed how disapproving she was for him having been so rude at dinner the night before but Harry was not very worried about it. In fact Dumbledore had waved off his apology saying that he did not blame him for his reaction one bit.
He had gone to bed quite late last night. There were so many things to talk about that him and his grandparents (he was beginning to really enjoy calling them that) had stayed up quite late discussing the various reasons why Lily had been pronounced dead. The most likely event that they were able to come up with was that somehow the mediwitch accidentally switched their child with someone else's. There were still a few things that didn't make sense to them but Dumbledore promised to contact their mediwitch in order to retrieve the full version of what had happened after Lily had left their sights.
For the most part, their relationship was currently a secret until his grandparents were able to learn the full truth on what had occurred. They had all agreed that they should wait to reveal the secret to those they trusted after gathering the facts. Harry knew Hermione well enough to know that they would require more information to satisfy her curiosity.
He ate his breakfast and took his completely unnecessary nutrient potion before he retreated to the drawing room where he was determined to start picking up his exercising habits. He locked the doors and put up a semi strong silencing ward. His push ups and sit ups made his muscles scream in agony yet he decided to add more to his work load. He transfigured a plain, hard, uncomfortable looking chair into a humongous punching bag. He approached the big black bag and poked at it experimentally. The bag, as heavy as it was, wobbled over to one side and threatened to fall on its side. Harry shook his head. No, this wouldn't do. He transfigured the bag back into a chair and looked around the room. An idea came to him and he set about making it work.
Ten minutes later he stood back and admired his work. He had installed a sturdy hook to the ceiling of the drawing room. All he had to do was transfigure the chair every day and then levitate it up to the hook where the punching bag would dangle allowing Harry to have his go at it. The next thing that Harry decided to do was to find a way to obtain a weight bench like Dudley had. Obviously he could not go out and purchase one or build one to leave in the room because anyone to come across it… or could he? With that thought in mind, Harry transfigured and conjured parts and weights to link together by permanent sticking charms. The product was a crude weight bench that he could shrink and hide everyday. Smiling, Harry started his routine over again to make up for the time he had lost being ill.
When he was though with his exercises and weights, Harry could not believe the amount of sweat that he'd built up. He shrugged his shirt off and walked up to the large punching bag. With a decisive flick of his wrist the bag changed from black- as was its true color- to a violent shade of red. Yes, that was much better. Harry found it much easier to take his aggressions out on a red punching bag than he would have an ordinary color. Red was the color of Voldemort's eyes. He swung a wild uppercut at the bag that put a lot of pressure on his wrist upon impact. Wincing at the tension in his wrist, Harry decided that it might be best to wear some sort of wrap or glove.
By mind morning Harry was completely knackered but knew there wasn't much more he could do so he packed away his training "equipment" and unlocked the door. He quickly did cleansing charm on himself to remove the sweat from body before he put his shirt back on.
We wandered back to the sitting room where he found Ron and Ginny immersed in a challenging game of wizard's chess. Hermione, who had a large text in her lap, looked up at Harry as she turned a page. Harry nodded at her as he picked up the extra book that she had set next to her on the sofa and opened it. It seemed that there was a quiet agreement amongst them not to push Harry into speaking of his newest mystery. After the last secret, Harry was sure that even he would be wary of such secluded information as well. Though this time, the secret was a good one. He had grandparents and knowing that he finally had what he'd been wanting all along gave him a new resolve in his struggle against the prophecy. He had a family.