Chapter 09
Harry woke up the next day feeling relieved of a great burden. He had never noticed before how much the years he had lived with the Dursleys were still haunting him. Last night Narcissa had held him in her arms while he cried and spilled his whole life to her, every hateful word, every abuse, every chore, every bruise, his cupboard, his clothes, Harry hunting, not having birthdays nor Christmas, everything, even the things he though to be to small to be told before.
And she held him the whole time.
It was like finally having a mother after all this time. Not that he never had been hugged before, he had. Mrs. Weasley, before everything happened, always hugged him on King's Cross on the way to and from school... and every summer when he was allowed to go to the Burrow, but last night, Narcissa hugged him for hours while he cried, comforted him, tucked him in bed and kissed him good night, like a real mother did.
Still, he was a bit embarrassed to have cried like he did and vowed to apologize as soon as possible. Making up his mind, Harry started the long and embarrassing process of getting out of bed with his huge belly. At moments like this he could swear that, no matter how many times his doctor had reassured him he was only carrying one baby, that he was about to give birth to at least half a dozen babies all at once.
Finally with just a bit of effort, Harry made into the bathroom and started to prepare himself for the day.
"I'm beginning to behave like a Malfoy," smiled Harry to his reflection in the mirror, "It didn't use to take me this long in the morning... Merlin, I'm married to Draco... I'M A MALFOY... wow, it took almost a year to sink in! Snape will never let me live this down if he ever finds out it took this long for the other shoe to drop."
Laughing at his own silliness, Harry went back to the bedroom and chose an outfit. His good mood lasted until he arrived at the morning room where his family was already having breakfast. A very somber group greeted him that morning.
"What happened? Is Draco alright? Did anyone get hurt? Why..." Harry blurted out.
"Harry! Calm down," interrupted Lucius putting one hand at the young man's shoulder, "We are just talking about yesterday's events... among a few other things."
"What other things?" Harry narrowed his eyes noticing how the others seemed uncomfortable. "What is it?"
"Well," started Sirius, "you know how we took your trunk to Grimmauld Place because everything in there had already been replaced and the real personal stuff..." Sirius didn't want to say 'destroyed' and depress his godson so he let the sentence unfinished but Harry understood and nodded.
"Yes, it's not like I'll have any use for Hogwarts school robes anytime soon, is it?" joked Harry. It was true, when they decided to do the home school thing they had bought all the books, parchment, quills, ink and everything else they could possibly need. And since there was no need for Harry to get emotional going over his old stuff, especially this far along in the pregnancy, they decided that his old stuff would be either donated to charity like Sirius had already done with most of it or kept away from Harry's eyes until he decided it was time to deal with it. No place was more out of site than Grimmauld Place, so the trunk was taken there.
"Harry, dear, have a seat," said Narcissa patting the chair beside her, "We... Well, Remus and Sirius discovered a few spells on the trunk."
"Spells? What spells?" asked Harry worried.
"Now, Harry, listen to me. You have to remain calm for us to have this conversation. Can you do that?" said Remus, "Stressing over this won't be good for you nor the baby."
"Just tell me." Demanded Harry with clenched teeth.
"We found a few tracking charms on random items and on the trunk itself." Sirius said carefully.
"Oh, I was kind of expecting that" Harry relaxed but noticed the strange expressions on the faces around the table, "was there anything else?"
"Hum..." Lucius cleared his throat before continuing with a smirk, "Apparently you are still both hated and loved by the wizarding world again."
Harry raised an eyebrow in a silent question.
"The tracking spells were a given, Dumbledore would never let go so easy but..." Lucius was almost laughing now and Harry noticed Sirius turning a deep shade of red. "Well, there were a few jinxes, which was also expected, some of your ex-schoolmates are firm believers in the same doctrine their parents profess."
"yes..." Harry urged him to continue, but Remus was the one to do it.
"You see, Sirius here, decided to check your stuff himself but he started to use some very specific spells to find tracking spells and jinxes...(chuckles) but completely forgot to check for anything else and... (laughter) and..." and Remus finally lost the battle and started to laugh so hard he couldn't continue.
"What happened?"
"Well, apparently some fifth year Hufflepuff is very found of you and decided to make you like her just as well and placed a few... extremely creative charms over some of your possessions" helped Lucius barely hiding his amusement, by his side Narcissa was giggling behind a napkin. Harry was finding this whole situation all too amusing even if he did not know what had happen yet, especially since Sirius was turning a deeper shade of red by the minute.
"Alright, alright," his godfather finally had enough and got up from the table, "you all had your fun. This is all very funny, ha ha. We don't have to talk about it anymore. Harry, it's time for your lessons. Come on, let's get going. We have a lot to do today and..." Sirius was half way dragging Harry out of the room before Harry could say anything. The others were of no help since they were now laughing openly at the man's antics.
"Wait, Sirius, I haven't had breakfast yet. Wait." Harry resisted his godfather the best he could having to also take into consideration the extra weight of his belly... plus there was no way in hell he would leave this room without knowing what had made his godfather so uncomfortable and got the others laughing so hard at the same time. "I have to eat, doctor's orders. Remember?"
"You are not letting me off the hook on this one, are you?" Sirius said sighed loudly.
"Uh... nope."
"Not even if I ask nicely?" Sirius batted his eyelashes pretending to flirt with Harry.
"Uh... nope." Harry was having way too much fun with this and Sirius knew it was a lost battle.
"Ok... so I wrote a few bad poems and made Kreacher deliver them dressed up as a cupid. No biggie..."
Whatever Sirius was planning to say next was muffled by a roar of laughter by all of the others present in the room. The picture of Kreacher dressed like a cupid running after a poor oblivious Hufflepuff trying to deliver love poems proved to be just a bit much for their attempts of composure. Harry had to sit down in order not to fall on the floor in fits of laughter.
Sirius, with all the dignity he could muster, left the room mumbling about crazy cousins, deranged werewolves and ungrateful godsons who showed no appreciation for a poor man's suffering. It only made the ones in the morning room laugh harder.
Once they all managed to calm down and resume taking their breakfast, Narcissa turned to Harry with a happy glint in her eyes.
"And how are you feeling this morning, my dear?" she asked sweetly, "I trust you had a good night of rest?"
"Yes, mother." Harry answered smiling, "Thank you for your patience last night. I'm sorry I was such a bother."
"Never, darling, you are never a bother," Narcissa petted Harry's hand reassuring, "but there is something we should talk about." She looked at Lucius asking for his assistance. They had talked this morning and decided that perhaps a little public humiliation was in order before the real torture began. They had sometime before Voldemort got his hands on the Dursleys.
Flashback
Lucius aparated to Riddle Manor where Voldemort was hiding and plotting. Lucius bowed to the snakelike creature and waited to be acknowledged. His only problem now was to find a way to deliver the Dursleys to Voldemort since they moved... with the money he had provided them.
"Well, I remember where the fat idiot works, I very much doubt he will have changed jobs along with his place of residence... yes, that might work." Lucius thought about this for a few more minutes until Voldemort brought Lucius back to reality.
"Yessss, Luciusss."
"My lord. I was at Hogwarts today where Sirius Black went to collect Potter's trunk."
"I know, Luciussss, you told me that before. Do you believe me to feeble minded I would have forgotten already? Hummm?" hissed Voldemort.
"No, my lord. It's just that something occurred to me while I was there." A cold shiver run through Lucius while he reconsidered the cleverness of his plans.
"Tell me, Luciussss, what issss ssso important to bring you hhhhere thisss time of the night?"
"His family, my lord."
"Proceed"
"The boy has left everything behind, but he is very attached to his family, especially now that he has lost all his friends." Lucius added quickly, "Black might be hard to find because of the magic wards protecting him, but his muggle family, even with their house protected, has to work, attend school and go through their everyday business. Those places are probably unprotected, with a little bit of digging I'm sure we can come up with the information we need to capture those muggles and deliver a hard blow on the boy."
"Your plan has merit, Luciusss." Voldemort pondered for a few seconds, "you may proceed. Find me those muggles. It's past time to get better acquainted with the last living relatives of our dear boy-who-lived."
Lucius flooed back home to inform Narcissa that his plans were already underway, but he was not satisfied. Sure, the dark lord would cause them pain and probably even kill them and he would help, but something else was missing.
Suddenly, Lucius knew what it was. Harry's revenge, that was what. Harry needed to know that justice had been done and he would never agree with the delivery of the muggles to Voldemort. Something would have to be done about it and Narcissa and him would figure out how to go about that.
End of flashback
"Harry," started Lucius getting the young man's attention, he could see apprehension in those big emerald eyes, "we have been talking and..." the fear in Harry's eyes was almost overwhelming, there was no way he could go through this without reinforcements.
"Jirby!" a small popping sound indicated the arrival of the little house-elf.
"Yes, Master Lucius, sir. How may Jirby serv?"
"Tell Mr. Black we need him here." As the elf disappeared Lucius turned back to Harry. Lupin was also intrigued about what was going on. He could tell that Harry was getting more and more nervous but he couldn't notice anything on Lucius or Narcissa that could be translated as a threat. They smelled normal, if not a bit... sad?
"What is going on?" he and Sirius asked almost at the same time. Sirius sat next to Harry and looked around to the grave faces in the room, "Whatever it was, I didn't do it?"
His little joke was able to diffuse some of the tension, but Lucius wanted to get over the problem as fast as he could.
"No. It's not anything you did, Sirius. Although I'm sure you did something. This is something that should have been done long ago but only now came to our attention." Lucius sat back at the table and looked Harry strait in the eyes. "Harry, what you told Narcissa last night is very serious and something must be done about it."
"No, please," Harry was almost panicking, "It's done and over with. I'm not going back there and there is nothing else they can do to hurt me. Let's just forget about it."
"No. It was a crime, Harry." Said Narcissa taking Harry's hand in to hers and noticing how cold it was, "What they did was wrong and we have to inform the authorities."
"What? Who did what? What are you talking about?" asked Sirius jumping out of his chair and kneeling next to Harry, taking his free hand in to his. "Who wronged you, puppy? Your friends at school, something new came up?"
"No, just let it drop. Please. It's not important anymore. It's ancient history." Begged Harry.
"Harry," Remus called using his most soothing voice, "If you still get upset about it, it's not over and it's not past. It's here and if hurts you we will deal with it. What is it?"
"It's... it's just..." Harry couldn't go on. He buried his face in Narcissa's shoulder and started to cry.
"It's ok, dear. Everything will work out in the end. You're with your family now. We'll take care of you." Narcissa said rubbing small circles on Harry's back.
"What is going on, Lucius?" Sirius asked completely lost at his godson's reaction.
"Last night, after Harry received that blasted list from the Ministry stating all that was lost he had a minor breakdown and talked to Narcissa about his childhood."
Remus knew what was coming, he placed a hand on Sirius arm to make sure the hot headed animagus would not do anything rushed.
"And then what? What happened? Why is he like that?" Sirius acknowledge his friend's presence and did his best to rein over his famous temper.
"Harry had a... very difficult childhood. Some of the things his... those muggles did are punishable both in the wizarding as well as in the muggle world, and we think he should go, at the very least, to the muggle authorities and make sure they pay for what they did."
"The authorities?" Harry asked weakly, "you're not going to take matters in to your own hands or make me do something?"
"No. No dear. Nothing like that," Narcissa assured him, "but you deserve justice. We are not making you seek out revenge and wallow in rage. It won't be good for you or the baby, but making sure they are brought before justice, even muggle justice, will help you heal. Look how much they still affect you. You're freezing, shaking and crying just because we mentioned the subject."
"You all think its best to prosecute them with the law?"
Sirius was seething. He wanted to go out the door and bring justice to the Dursleys with his own hands and massive use of violence, but he understood that it would help Harry a lot more to see them punished for what they did without the guilt for their early demise. And the boy would feel guilty if anything happened to them on his account.
"Yes, Harry," Sirius sighed, "It's the best thing to do." He could feel Remus petting him on his shoulder, letting him know he had said the right thing and took some comfort in that.
"Ok, them. I'll talk to... who should I talk to?"
"I'll call a muggle policeman I know. He will tell me what to do." Offered Remus.
"I'll call my lawyer." Added Lucius, "we'll make sure you don't have to go through anything that is not absolutely necessary."
"Thank you," Harry tried to get up but felt dizzy and had to sit down again, "I don't feel so good."
"I'll call Redwood," said Remus stepping out of the room to make the floo call.
"What is wrong with him?" asked Sirius nervously.
"He just had a bit too much excitement in the past few hours," informed Narcissa, "He needs to lay down for a bit. I'll help him to his rooms. Lucius, darling, could you send us some tea, please?"
Narcissa helped Harry return to his room slowly and tucked him back in to bed, sitting by his side to keep him company until the healer arrive. As they left the morning room, Sirius turned to Lucius.
"Once this justice mumbo jumbo is done, I'll do some punishing of my own. Don't try to stop me."
"I won't," said Lucius matter-of-factly, "but I do advise you to hurry with your plans because someone else might be planning the same thing... for different reasons."
"What are you talking about?"
"Oh, it's just that I might have let slip to the dark lord that Harry's muggle family might be easier to find and that maybe using them to send the boy-who-lived a message would be a good idea."
"Why, cousin. That was a horrible thing to happen." Sirius couldn't keep an evil smile of his face.
"Completely accidental, I tell you." The smirk on Lucius' face would have put cats to shame.
"I have no doubt... but what if Harry finds out?"
"We'll know when the bodies will be discovered, we'll just make sure he doesn't read the papers for a few days. He'll only find out after the baby's birth when he is well out of danger... if he ever finds out." And with that the two men agree to never mention the subject again. Some of the things you do for your family are better left unsaid, no matter how necessary or justifiable they are.