When the boys went to bed after their long day at Gringotts, the adults convened in the family parlor to go over Hadrian's inheritance test and full medical scan. They were less concerned over the sheer number of Houses Hadrian was now Lord or Heir to, but noticed on his that his estimated power had jumped from 147 to 188, moving him from Warlock to Sorcerer rank. That was an enormous shift for a child to make in just a few hours, and none of them could even recall a child having sorcerer ranking before any sort of magical boosts. Most wixen only gained 50-100 power levels over the course of their lifetime, so to see a 31 level jump from a block was astounding. But their true focus was his medical scan. Narcissa had received permission from Grand Master Healer Elvux to take a copy of the scan with her to study. The two males sat on either side of her on a comfortable sofa to review the shocking results.
"These all look rather normal for a newborn or toddler," Narcissa commented as she read over the first entries for the second time that day. "Diaper rash, sore gums from teething, bumps and bruises learning to walk, this is all normal. The Potters, however you may feel about them my dear Severus, were clearly good parents."
"I can see that, Cissa," the potion master deadpanned.
"But here," Lucius pointed to the entry on December 21, 1981, "a spike in his magic. Not ambient magic, his magic actually began circulating a year and a half before nearly all other wixen children. I have never heard of anyone's magic beginning to circulate prior to the age of 2, and he's a full six months younger!"
"I know," Narcissa said. "I've seen two- and three-year-olds come in with their magic circulating due to an injury or life altering event which causes it to happen early, but never this young."
"And through the blocks Albus placed," Severus remarked.
"Indeed. But was it his power or his treatment which caused the early onset?" Lucius questioned his wife.
"Both," Narcissa stated decisively. "He was blood adopted the day he was born. There were Lammas cast wards performed on his home when he was one day old. His three parents performed the Blood Protection Ritual on August 2nd. That's three powerful magics used within the first three days of his life. And then the Fidelius Ritual, for which he was present a few months after his first birthday with Dumbledore participating. Then he was impacted with magic from the Dark Lord a week later. The Dark Lord and Dumbledore were the two most powerful wixen alive at the time. Of course after that, there's an immense upheaval, the death of his biological parents, and the spontaneous severance of his parental bonds. His third parent and godfather was imprisoned in Azkaban, and while the bond wasn't severed, no magic can reach from Azkaban, so there was nothing little Hadrian could latch onto to enable him to resolve his broken bonds. As much as it pains me to say, the blocks placed by Dumbledore could have helped Hadrian in that the lower magical power probably muted the pain from his severed bonds, preventing him from losing his mind. Then a placement in a purely muggle environment where there was no ambient magic to help sustain him? There was nothing for him to draw on anywhere except what he already had. You can clearly see leading up to the solstice the higher number of incidents of diaper rash, cold, the beginnings of malnutrition, and other early child abuse and neglect indicators. It appears that the Solstice merely gave Hadrian the boost he needed to get his own magic circulating for his needed healing."
"I certainly hold no love for James Potter, but no magical child should go through what his child did. This merely confirms our speculations based on what we saw at his residence," Severus commented.
"I need to know what else he endured. Our account managers are requesting Goblin justice for the Dursleys, afraid the Wizengamot will do nothing under the leadership of Dumbledore. Our limited knowledge made me inclined to agree, but before we do, I want to know the full extent of his suffering so it may be heaped upon the heads of his tormentors," Lucius said with a bloodthirsty glint in his eye. He needed to avenge Hadrian, he could feel it in his core.
Narcissa continued reading the diagnostic parchment. "All things considered, his toddler years were not too remarkable. Mainly bumps and bruises consistent with minor chores, but the occasional broken bones which show no sign of treatment other than his magic are concerning. No wonder Healer Elvux said we'd be vanishing bones…" she trailed off as she continued reading.
"Merlin and Morgana!" Narcissa cursed. "He was being beaten!"
Severus yanked the parchment away from his lady love and began to scan it for himself. He found it when Harry was nearly five.
"He was beaten with a belt," Severus whispered in horror. "And it looks like they started beating him in general as I see a large number of black eyes and bruises or abrasions consistent with shielding oneself from physical blows. Far more than could be accounted for with the occasional schoolyard bully or tussle between boys."
This time it was Lucius grabbing the parchment out of the hands of his dearest friend to confirm for himself. His stomach dropped at the evidence of all that young Hadrian had suffered before they had been able to retrieve him. He growled as he read line after line showing injury from chores far beyond the usual capabilities of such a young child, malnourishment and lack of care, beatings and broken bones.
"We will give them over to the goblins at the earliest possible moment," Lucius ground out, teeth gritted, a growl still humming in his throat. He was positively livid that a child, that Hadrian had been treated in this manner. Their little Hadrian's magic was clearly the only thing keeping him alive in that Merlin forsaken place. He was being pushed to protect Hadrian, right the wrongs done to him, seek vengeance against his foes. He wasn't entirely sure why the feeling was so strong, but the boy was adorable, and he had become family. And nothing was more important to a Malfoy than family.
October 1990Why were they doing this? Lucius and Severus had come to the middle of Merlin-knows-where to a small muggle town called Little Hangleton. It was rather cool and rainy, so their cloaks had been spelled for warmth and water repelling.
"Why are we doing this?" Severus voiced Lucius' thought aloud.
"Because we want to gather the remainder of the Dark Lord's horcruxes. No one can be allowed to find his method of immortality, and we cannot allow him to be resurrected," Lucius responded curtly. He was not enjoying this outing in the slightest. The Goblins had provided a portkey to the Gaunt House when Lucius had noted its presence in Hadrian's property portfolio. They were hoping to find a clue to another Horcrux.
They walked the small perimeter of the dilapidated property, and seeing and feeling nothing had decamped to the patch of dirt in front of the door. "The Gaunt House" was a misnomer as far as Lucius was concerned. This weathered, leaning, door-hanging-off-its-hinges thing was most certainly not a house. It was a shack.
"Can you see anything?" Severus questioned his friend before they touched the door.
"The Lord's magic," Lucius responded. It's older than I would have expected, but it's everywhere. Repelling charms, compulsions, attack spells, defensive wards, it's got a little of everything as far as I can tell."
"Lovely," the dark haired main deadpanned.
They both began twirling their wands, and flashes of different colored light accompanied their movements. Some wordless, some murmured, some wandless, some light, some grey, and some dark. They worked for well over an hour to be able to safely touch the door and enter the nearly falling apart shack. When they finally dismantled all the protections on the building itself, they opened the door and Lucius activated his aura sight again to ensure they could actually enter the house safely. There were more wards and spells present on the floor, in the walls, and hovering in the air as if waiting for the correct set of circumstances to activate.
Both wands began moving again, and a further 45 minutes was required to make it safe to enter the extremely shabby room. Broken and rotting furniture, dust, and the various blown in detritus of many years had accumulated on the floor. They vanished the mess, Lucius seeing no magic in any of it, and had to hastily shield themselves as they had apparently missed a curse that required activation. That small mishap finished, Lucius activated his Aura sight again and located a faint glow in the middle of the floor. He cast all the detection charms he knew at the spot, setting off another missed curse, and they finally decided it was safe enough to proceed. Severus pulled out a muggle crowbar to begin prying up the few boards covering the section of floor Lucius indicated the glow was emanating from. Once the boards were up, they looked into the space underneath cautiously. The sight of an intricately carved box, untouched by the ravages of time greeted their tired eyes. Severus reached out and Lucius yanked his arm back unceremoniously.
"It's a compulsion, there's another curse," he said tersely. Severus nodded once in thanks.
A few more detection spells from the darker side of things had pinpointed the curse as one that would seep into the mind, changing one's thoughts of friends and family to enemies and rivals. A second layer after the first was dispelled was to make one particularly violent if questioned about anything surrounding the shack, changes in behavior, and some other unknown things they didn't want to waste time trying to decipher. Once Lucius deemed the box clear, Severus braced himself against any further compulsions, ensuring his occlumency shields were raised to their maximum, and opened the box. A rough black stone sat in a rather ugly chunky gold setting, the sign of the Deathly Hallows just barely visible in the center of the stone, and only noticeable to them because of Hadrian and that anything with regard to the Peverells was emblazoned with it.
"Do you think it's the stone?" Severus asked Lucius.
"I have no idea," the blonde gentleman replied, "But Hadrian will know."
Lucius removed the compulsion to put the ring on and Severus dispelled the Dark necrosis curse which had no counter once attached to living skin. They shuddered at the death awaiting anyone unfortunate enough to put the ring on without first removing that particular curse. Leaving the shack, they dropped the ring, box and all into a warded box made of Heart Stone which Griphook had provided, left the property, and apparated to Gringotts to have the horrid thing locked up in the Merlin Family Vault with Hufflepuff's cup.
Saturday, December 27th, 1990Having finished all his healing, except the final month of regular nutrition potions, Hadrian had been allowed down to the Merlin vault in November to inspect the ring Lucius and Severus brought back and confirmed that he thought it was in fact the Resurrection Stone. He could feel the Horcrux in the ring, but thought that perhaps the stone could be separated from it without causing a problem. Griphook, Gornuk, Narcissa, Severus, and Lucius were sceptical. So rather than risk anyone's health or sanity, they decided to leave the Resurrection stone for now, it was not as if Hadrian had any of the other Hallows, so he still wouldn't be able to see if there was anything in the Peverell Family Vault.
Having recently been in the presence of two horcruxes, the second and fourth as they had been told by the goblins, Hadrian was beginning to recognize the feeling. While he couldn't feel the one in himself, it had been with him nearly as long as he could remember after all, he could feel the magic radiating from the others, the way it moved and interacted with any magic coming into contact with itself. That's why he was shocked to feel something very similar, though stronger than even the ring, when walking by an apparently empty portion of the Malfoy Library one sunny afternoon.
"LUCIUS!" he yelled as he ran through the manor, looking for the blonde lord. "LUCIUS!"
He ran for the man's study, knowing the high powered silencing wards would deafen the man to all external sounds, except a direct knock. He knew he was lucky Narcissa hadn't heard or seen him running pell mell through the manor. He paused for a few moments to gather himself and catch his breath before knocking on the door.
"Enter," Lucius' voice was heard from inside.
"Lucius," Hadrian said as he entered the rather masculine room. Leather chairs and a sofa sat around a heavy ebony table, and Lucius' ebony desk inlaid with silver and lighter woods to form the Malfoy crest took a place of pride with an imposing ebony and leather chair across from an immaculately tiled fireplace with onyx tiles and silver fire irons. The smell was all male and Harry nearly staggered at the force of Lucius' accumulated magic in the room.
"What can I help you with, Hadrian," Lucius asked, rising and gesturing Hadrian to a comfortable leather armchair across from the massive desk.
"I felt something in the library," Hadrian stated baldly.
"Felt something?" Lucius parroted, unsure what to make of the statement.
"Like the ring or the cup, only stronger," Hadrian indicated his topic.
An eloquent eyebrow rose at his pronouncement.
"You are certain?" Lucius confirmed.
"Yes," the small raven replied.
"Let me call Severus," Lucius began, "and we shall go and see what you felt."
Hadrian nodded, and Lucius stepped over to the fireplace and knelt to make his call. They were lucky it was the winter holidays for Hogwarts and Severus was at his home in Spinner's End. He hated it there, but kept it as his legacy from his mother. Narcissa was partial to one of the Prince properties, a lovely little chalet in France, but they rarely got to go there, so he mainly stayed at Malfoy Manor when he wasn't at home or at Hogwarts. He had returned to Spinner's End just two days prior in preparation for a potions ingredient gathering trip. He was leaving the next day, so it really was good timing.
"Severus Prince, Spinner's End," Lucius called out and then stuck his head in the flames. Hadrian couldn't hear any of the conversation, but soon enough Lucius was standing up and stepping back to allow Severus entry to his study.
Severus stepped out of the fireplace and waved his wand to remove the ashes and soot before asking Hadrian to explain the feeling again.
"It felt just the cup and ring, only stronger. I think the goblins are right about it being half every time. If the ring was the second, what I felt has to be the first. The power is so much larger than any of the others, I nearly couldn't resist it!" Hadrian said in a rush.
Severus looked over at Lucius, "Did the Dark Lord ever give you anything to protect for him?"
"No," Lucius responded. "But that's not to say he didn't ask my father to keep something, and I just never knew about it."
"Your father was one of his followers as well?" Hadrian asked.
"He was indeed," Lucius replied as they walked the halls of the manor, returning to the library. "They were in school together at Hogwarts, and such grand ideals Thomas had. Magical orphanages, rights for sentient magical creatures, tightening the Statute of Secrecy to protect our world from muggles, enforced wixen tradition in Hogwarts, the ability to practice any type of magic without fear of persecution or prosecution."
Hadrian had heard much of Riddle's ideals and thought them very good. He had seen first-hand what muggles would do when presenting with something outside their idea of "normal." He knew his situation was likely extreme, but human nature was human nature and when a human was presented with something it didn't understand, it tried to remove the thing. Hadrian didn't want any other children to go through what he had. And being a light-grey-dark magically gifted wixen himself, Hadrian wanted to be able to practice all types of magic. He'd never be able to use all his gifts otherwise!
They had returned to the library and Hadrian was guiding them along a spot on the back wall which was apparently empty. Severus and Lucius couldn't feel anything odd, so Lucius activated his aura sight and slapped his hands over his eyes almost immediately at the brightness of the magic concealing...whatever it was concealing. Severus reached into his robe and immediately withdrew a headache relief potion, unstoppered it, and passed the vial to his friend. Lucius knocked it back like a muggle shot, and groaned in relief.
"Thank you, Severus," he said.
"I made the potion taste better, remember? You didn't have to drink it like it would kill you if you tasted it," Severus said with a fake sneer. "I didn't work those potions over to be stronger and taste better for my Grand Mastery so blithering idiots like you would continue to take them like poison. They work even better if you just drink them normally you know."
Lucius chucked, "Of course, my friend, however could I have forgotten."
Hadrian rolled his eyes fondly as soon as the two men started bickering, remembering Severus working non-stop during vacations to finish his Grand Mastery. Hadrian knew for his first project Severus had created a set of standardized pregnancy support potions-similar to the ones he made for Narcissa-for those who had trouble getting and staying pregnant. He had created a concussion relief potion along with improving the quality and performance of a number of other existing healing potions while also improving the taste which led to better and more consistent usage as his second project. For his Mastery project, he had created the Wolfsbane potion, which allowed a werewolf to keep its human mind during the transformation. He built on that project for his Grand Mastery, perfecting the formula which made the werewolf become a general animagus form. This allowed for wolves to be free from the forced transformation, and though many still elected to transform at the full moon, it was no longer painful or debilitating. He had just finished his projects the previous year, submitted them this past spring, received his Grand Master's Commendation at Yule, and was currently waiting to announce his place as Britain's Grand Master Potioneer for Hadrian and Draco's first year at Hogwarts.
Lucius was shaking his head as he very carefully reactivated his aura sight to view the wards over the empty area. He dispelled the ones he could, called out the ones he recognized but Severus would need to dispel, and tried to give any information he could for the ones he didn't recognize. Once he finished his part, he and Severus cast every detection spell they knew at the empty space which was starting to shimmer now that some of the wards had been removed. Once Severus cast all the counters he could, and Lucius could only see a few ward lines remaining, Hadrian stepped forward, gently pushing the two men out of the way, laid his hands on the space, focused his magic and pushed. Lucius watched as the remaining wards fell like blocks pushed over by a toddler. As they fell a section of the library shelving was revealed.
Hadrian stepped forward unerringly and pointed, "It's that one."
He was indicating a smallish, black leather book that looked like a diary. Lucius pulled Hadrian back out of the way and checked with his aura sight. Seeing nothing, he stepped back to allow Severus to cast his detection charms. Severus cast, and finding nothing, stepped back in turn to allow Hadrian to retrieve the book. Hadrian shuddered as he reached out, feeling the magic of the book reaching out to him. He heard Severus through a long tunnel, calling for Lucius to summon the warded box for the book. He assumed Lucius had indeed summoned the box, for as his arm dropped holding the book, it bumped against something, causing him to release his grip.
Hadrian shook his head trying to get rid of the feel of the magic that had washed over him as he handled the book, and sent a grateful look at both men when Lucius snapped the box shut as soon as his hand was clear. The goblin warders had done their job well and no magic escaped the small black box. They all trekked back to Lucius' office and he stuck his head in the fire a second time, this time speaking to Gornuk about delivering another horcrux to the Merlin Family Vault. He pulled his head out, grabbed the box, and went through fire, coming back not 10 minutes later saying Griphook had deposited it in the vault.