Chapter 20 – Summer's Dobby.
When everyone had settled down, the next day began as normal as a normal day should with breakfast. Everyone was eating in companionable silence as the last day played before their eyes – some dreaded what they would see next while others were excited.
Hadriana made sure to let Teddy eat something, and Sirius too with a smile on their faces while they talked to the others of these times. Though, younger Sirius and Regulus looked like they were in their own little world of catching up to what was happening in their lives.
When everyone was finished with their food, they settled down like they had yesterday and began to watch.
The movie started like any other movie, with an opening. It opened with houses, upon houses, all looking the same as the last before it finally stopped focusing on one house.
Soon it zoomed in, in on Hadriana Potter who was sitting studying her potion text for next year thinking very hard that it was wonderful that she had managed to bribe her relatives to leave her alone.
Along with her book on potions, there was her own photo album where she was looking at a picture of her and her friends. "Why haven't they written to me?" she whispered and went back to her book – it was interesting to read about the different options and their uses.
*You just want to make use of them! * Mumbled Sirius.
*So, what! * Hadriana said and heard him laugh and that right there was a treat.
*Oh, really? * Smirked Sirius through the bond, again on this day things were starting easy for them.
*Yeah…* Hadriana told him, kissing his cheek fondly, as Teddy closed his eyes in embarrassment.
Hedwig was sitting in her cage, looking sadly at the window.
"You know that I can't let you out!" Hadriana told her familiar, as she screeched almost waking up the whole house. However, she quieted down after a while. Even if she lived with them in silence, they still managed to make her life difficult.
"Great, Muggles!" Lucius sneered out loud suddenly.
"At least you have a bedroom and can be alone!" Alice sighed with a smile.
"That was something, at least," Hadriana told them, with a shrug of her shoulders.
Now Petunia could be seen putting together a cake when Hadriana was walking into the kitchen, trying to ignore them while she took an apple, before walking back to her room and trying not to roll her eyes at them when Vernon said.
"We are having some people over, so, please stay out of our way!" "And get a handle on those bloody birds of yours, you will be locked in your room for the rest of your summer," Vernon told her strictly.
"Yes, Uncle Vernon," Hadriana said, nothing more could be said because if she did things would become worse.
"Those relatives of yours are really something!" Orion smiled, as he watched Hadriana and his son holding one another as they were watching the movie of their life.
"That's right, and I was used to it!" Hadriana said and leaned into Sirius's chest back to find comfort in his arms.
While this was going on young Sirius and Regulus were nodding along, maybe their relationship with their father could be repaired, but their mother not so much.
Hadriana was doing a lot to not retaliate, as they continued to just oversee their own fault in how they were raising their son and even her. "Then it's good that none of my friends has sent any letters." She muttered while thinking of a good reason to get away from them.
"Who would want to be friends with you?" Dudley asked confused, even laughing at the notion of someone even wanting to be friends with the freak.
"I should think that you'd be a little more grateful. We've raised you since you were a baby, give you the food of our table, even let you have Dudley's second bedroom, purely out of the goodness of our hearts." Vernon told her, stroking his moustache.
Everyone was staring at the screen in shocked disgust, because how could someone say that to their niece? They all were starting to realise that there will always be someone out there that could be the worst of humanity.
Lily Evans was fuming, Hadriana may not be her child and she may not have the same mother's instinct as Hadriana had with Teddy, but no one should be treated like her future sister was treating a twelve-year-old girl. "SECOND BEDROOM!" she yelled startling everyone sitting beside her.
Hadriana winched, she hated yelling – especially if people yelled because of her and turned her face into the crock of Sirius's neck. It had always helped her with the loudness of a room whenever she became sensitive to the sounds around her. Sirius held her close, while holding gently running his fingers through her hair, and kissed her forehead, he hated when Hadriana became overly sensitive to sounds because there was nothing, he could do about it, and he felt guilty whenever he couldn't comfort her in the past.
"How many bedrooms do they have?" asked James calmly, maybe too calm, but he could see that Hadriana weren't quite comfortable with people's loudness.
Teddy was just watching everything going on around her like a silent ghost, and he loved that, his parents knew it too, it made him observant, and he was really beginning to like his uncle James slash grandfather. He liked him because he could somewhat understand his mother and looked like her could be someone that would understand the things no one could see.
*Do you want to answer that? or shall I? * Sirius asked her gently, letting her decide how she would like to get the answer out there.
*Please can you do it, can't tackle it right now! * Hadriana groaned, *Can you ask Pomfray if there is a headache reliever potion I can take? *
"Of course!" He said in her ear.
Hadriana breathed out relieved that she wouldn't do this conversation.
"Four bedrooms," Sirius told them, knowing that she wouldn't want to have them all worry too much. "Pomfrey?" he asked quickly before someone could scream what they thought about it.
"Yes?" Pomfrey said curiously what he wanted.
"Do you have any potion for headaches laying around here, and what can she take as she's pregnant?" Sirius asked, and the last part was because he worried about if it would harm their growing child.
"Yeah, I have. Let me go and get it!" Pomfrey said and stood up and quickly walked to the cupboard in her office.
James had been about to scream about what he had thought about those pigs when their older friend had asked this, and it was good because now he knew. Still, he couldn't believe that something like that could happen, that no one knew and seeing Sirius be that loving towards someone was quite unfamiliar to him, but he loved it. Calming immediately down, by having Lily beside of him and seeing the growing headache happening with their daughter he decided to not say anything at all because everyone looked like they were outraged by it.
Pomfrey handed the potion over to Sirius with firm instructions, "One mouthful of this, should do it. You must be careful that she won't overdo it, and by that, I mean, if she needs more this day – it must be when it has gone five hours."
Sirius nodded and listened to what the Pomfrey had to say about the potion, "Did you hear this, love?"
Hadriana hummed and kept her head up to take it and the headache went away at once, "Thanks!" she said mutedly towards her favourite person in Hogwarts.
"You're welcome, dear!" Pomfray said, and with a smile, she went back to her seat – it always warmed her to see that she could help someone.
In it all, there was one question that remained, "What did they do with the other one?" the question was asked by Narcissa of all people. "The other room I mean! I'm assuming that those horrid relatives of yours shared a room, your 'cousin' had two rooms. What of the other?" she shrugged, knowing that whatever she would say would get the others to stop up and look at her.
Hadriana laid her hand on Sirius's thigh, to say that it was alright for her to continue it, "It was a guest room of sorts, for when Vernon's sister came to visit."
"Perhaps, it will be best if we continue watching…" Luna said ominously before everyone could start yelling again, they needed to continue it sometime.
Hadriana and Sirius breathed out relieved, they did not want to have another discussion over the whole thing again.
"Miss, Lovegood is right, let's continue!" Dumbledore said finally after everything.
"No one asked you!" "Be quiet!" Lily and James said with narrow eyes at the headmaster.
With that everyone's eyes turned back towards the screen.
"Not now, bobbins, it's for when the Masons arrive," Petunia told her son with a smile that shone brightly, pushing Dudley's hand away from the cake when he tried to reach for it.
Hadriana couldn't help but roll her eyes at her little cousin and wonder how she could be related to him.
"Which could come any minute now!" Vernon said with practised patience, that Hadriana thought she would never see.
""Now! Let's go over our schedule once again, shall we?" "Petunia when the Masons arrive, you'll be…`"
Every pureblood in the room dropped their jaws at hearing this, someone that planned a meeting in such detail was someone they would never make a deal with. "Where they friend or business partners?" Lucius Malfoy asked a little bit curious.
"They don't have friends!" Hadriana told him, wondering what it was about.
"What a mess, they can't have been bright if they couldn't see through the charade!" he said.
"Humm, I think they did. They humoured my relatives, I think, I'm not sure!" Hadriana said out loud with a smirk.
"In the lounge, waiting to welcome them graciously into out home!" Petunia said with a smile, and with a small bow.
"This is just so precious… I mean horrendously brilliant!" Evan Rosier muttered horrified by why he was seeing, though, he was trying to hold his laughter.
"Good, and Dudley, you will be…" Vernon said trying him.
"I'll be waiting to open the door," Dudley said smiling like he had accomplished something noteworthy.
"Excellent! and you?" Vernon said with a sneer towards Hadriana who was watching them like she could not believe that they were doing something so… banal.
"I'll be in my room, like always. Making no noise. Pretending that I don't exist!" Hadriana smiled sassily.
"To right, you will! With any luck, this could well enough be the day I make the biggest deal of my career, and you will not mess it up for me!" Vernon told her, glaring at the girl.
Hadriana headed up stares without rolling her eyes at them, and while she heard the silent laughter from downstairs, she wondered what the heck was happening. There was an elf jumping up and down on her bed. she looked at the creature in confusion, *Sirius, what kind of creature is this? * She asked, while quickly projecting a picture carefully through the bond.
*That my dear, is a house elf – someone that serves a family, and by the look of it a pureblood one. * Muttered Sirius angrily.
Hadriana had never heard him like that before, and that made her see that things were about to be a lot more complicated this year at school because something tells her that this one creature will bother her for the year. By how excited the elf was being, as he jumped up and down on her bed creating a ruckus.
"Hadriana Potter. What an honour it is!" the creature said with a bow of his small head.
Hadriana quickly closed the door to her room, minimizing the noise. "I'm sorry, but who are you?"
"Dobby, miss, Dobby the house elf!"
"Not to be rude, or anything but this isn't a great moment to for me to have a house elf in my bedroom," Hadriana told him, trying her best to remain politely interested.
"Oh yes, miss, Dobby understands. It's just that Doby has come to tell you… It's a difficult miss. Dobby wonders where to begin!"
"Why don't you sit down?" Hadriana offered kindly, knowing at once that it was bad to say something like this, but she had a weird feeling that she was being watched by someone.
"Do not laugh at me! It's not my fault that no one had told me what a house elf was." Hadriana pouted, still weirded out by the whole ordeal.
"How?" Someone from the Ravenclaw table piped up.
"If someone doesn't tell us, we, we who are coming from the muggle world won't know unless someone tells us." Hermione was the one who answered this question, and that made people of this time wonder what else doesn't the muggleborns know of their world.
"S-sit down?" Dobby asked, quite in shock before he began to sob loudly.
Hadriana groaned, frustrated in herself and the elf that was making things a lot more difficult for her to remain invisible to that downstairs. Running her fingers frustrated through her long hair, she tried to make it right, though, she soon realized it made it worse. "Dobby, hush. I didn't mean to offend you or anything."
Dobby wailed loudly at it, though, it stopped up for a while, "offend Dobby? Dobby has heard of your greatness before, miss, but never has he been asked to sit down by a witch, like an equal."
Hadriana couldn't help herself, it was sad to see someone like this and she wished to know more about these creatures, if she knew, she would have done something a lot better than what she was doing right now. "You can't have met, many decent witches then!" she told him softly, standing up more relaxed her green eyes losing their sparkle by thinking that it was nothing she could do.
"You are so adorable!" Marlene gushed, and sighed at the adorable picture Lily's kid was making on the screen in front of them.
Everyone groaned at this, but they had to agree, the girl was exceptionally pretty.
Dobby turned around and started to hit his head against the dresser it became so loud that everyone downstairs could hear it. "Bad Dobby!" Dobby muttered.
Hadriana groaned, she knew that everything was going to be extra difficult from now on, hearing the slowness from downstairs made her believe that something would happen, soon. "Dobby stop!"
"Bad Dobby!"
"Dobby stop! Please, Dobby! Stop!" Hadriana pleaded with him, closing her eyes as she now knew for sure that someone downstairs knew that something was going on.
"Bad Dobby! Bad Dobby!"
"Please be quiet," Hadriana ordered him swiftly, and he finally stopped looking quite dizzy. "Are you alright?" Taking a seat at the feet of her bed.
"Dobby had to punish himself, miss. Dobby almost spoke ill of his family miss!" Dobby told her standing by the closet.
"Your family?" Hadriana inquired about who they were.
"The wizard family Dobby serves miss. Dobby is bound to serve one family forever. If they ever knew Dobby was here… Oh! But Dobby had to come. Dobby has to protect Hadriana Potter. To warn her. Hadriana Potter must not return to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this year."
"Sorry, but why must he protect you and what from? Hogwarts is the only safe place in the world!" Someone said, and everyone turned their heads to him like he was crazy and hadn't watched the last movie.
"Where have you been, we have practically established that when it comes down to it, Hogwarts aren't that safe!" Ted Tonks said confused over how the guy hadn't gotten anything of it through his maybe thick skull.
"We have?" the guy asked confused, "oh that's right, I fell asleep!" the now-named Stephan said sheepishly from the Gryffindor table.
A collective few people's heads slapped themselves when they heard this and turned their heads back to the screen.
"There is a plot. A plot to make the most terrible things happen." The elf continued worrying his long and thin fingers together.
"What terrible things… Who's plotting them, Dobby?" Inquired Hadriana of him.
"Oh, he… can't… say."
"Okay, I understand you can't say," Hadriana said, but that didn't stop Dobby from punishing himself. As he jumped up on her desk, grabbing the nearest lamp, and started beating himself with it. Hadriana had a look of horror in her eyes at seeing someone doing that to themselves, and she closed her eyes knowing that soon her uncle would have enough of the noise this room is making.
"Dobby! Dobby put the lamp down!"
The scene cut down to show the living room where the Masons were being entertained, and Vernon was trying his best to get them to ignore the sounds happening.
Then the scene cuts back to show that Hadriana had once again stopped the elf by practically wrestling him for the lamp, it was then she heard footsteps making her pull the lamp from the elf's grasp and pushed him into her closet. "Keep quiet and be there!" it was done right before Vernon barged into her room furious and purple.
"What in the devil are you doing up here!" Vernon practically screamed or tried to scream when he whispered.
"I-I was just…" Hadriana was at a loss for words, because how could she explain herself as she tried to keep the elf in the closet?
"You just ruined the punch line to my Japanese golfer joke!" hissed Vernon.
"Sorry!" Hadriana said, trying not to let it show that something was wrong or that she couldn't believe that he was using that same old joke.
"One more sound, and you'll wish, you never been born, girl." Vernon threatened, pointing a large finger at her face.
"If he lays a finger on you, I'll kill him!" James said wryly because he knew he couldn't do anything yet, and there was nothing he could do to elevate what the woman who was sitting with her own family had gone through in her past.
"Thank you!" Hadriana muttered to her father, thankful for him and that he was more understanding than what she had heard about her father while growing up.
"And fix that door!" he hissed and walked out again going down to his guests.
"Yes, sir." Hadriana breathed relieved that he had walked back down to the others, when she heard him downstairs, she opened the door to her wardrobe, and Dobby jumped out with something black on his head.
Hadriana groaned, it was one of her bra and quickly took it off him throwing it back in her closet and looked at the little elf irritation showing clearly in her eyes at what the creature was doing.
"See, that is why I have to go back! I don't belong here. I belong in the wizarding world, at Hogwarts. It's the only place I have friends." She told him.
"Friends who don't even write to Hadriana Potter?" Dobby asked, looking somewhat sheepishly at her.
"Hang on! How do you know my friends haven't been writing to me?"
"Now Hadriana Potter mustn't be angry with Dobby. Dobby hoped if Hadriana Potter thought her friends had forgotten about her, Hadriana Potter, might not want to return to school, miss." Dobby said, reaching into his dirty clothes and pulling out a large stack of letters.
That pissed Hadriana off and gave Dobby a stern glint. "Give me those… NOW!"
Dobby stuffed the letters back into his clothes, before darting out of the room, avoiding Hadriana completely as she tried to dive for him.
Hadriana managed to stop herself from running after him downstairs, knowing that it would make it difficult, especially more difficult as she hadn't forgotten what had happened.
"You at least stopped yourself from making them angry!" Remus said after a while, he hadn't said much, but he was a little bit insecure in his place in all of this. Things were changing drastically, but he just loved his friends, and life had a way of showing who your friends want to be after school though he wondered where his older self was.
"Like that helped any!" Hadriana snorted, quite put out by what had happened even when she hadn't been downstairs to see what that elf had done.
While Hadriana busied herself with making herself ready for bed, downstairs there was a ruckus. Dobby was shown making himself invisible and hoovered the cake from the kitchen counter and towards the head of Mrs Mason before it fell on her head.
Younger Sirius couldn't help but give laugh about it, even though he knew that this incident had done something that no one would tell them about.
Vernon stopped talking to look and wonder about what happened and how it could have been done, their freak of a niece was upstairs.
Upstairs, Hadriana was closing her eyes and she could feel that the atmosphere was different and wondered what would happen.
The next day, Hadriana watched her uncle standing by her window, drilling literal bars on the outside of her window. Dudley and Petunia watched quite fascinated by what he was doing, and all Hadriana could do was be relieved that he hadn't taken away her trunk, and her stuff.
Hadriana watched what was happening with a detached look on her face, and a purple bruise on her cheek, with a sigh, she went back to her book.
*Oh, darling. * Sirius closed his eyes, burrowing his nose in her hair as the last part was shown. *This was something you were worried about. *
*Yeah…* Hadriana whispered and turned back again to his warm arms and when Teddy hugged her from her other side, she let the tears fall.
*You needn't have been. * He said, and made them all more comfortable, by laying back on the couch with her and Teddy side by side on top of him, while spelling the couch wider and longer so that they could watch it while laying down on it.
*I know, but I was supposed to be this strong girl and I didn't want you to worry, so I learned to keep it out of my mind! * Hadriana revealed this to him with a kiss by his heart.
Younger Sirius also wanted to give her comfort but knew it would be unwelcome right now at the same time, he was envious of their relationship because he wanted that unconditional love. So, he focused back on what Regulus was saying.
"We need to protect the future, right?" Regulus asked his brother, who he knew was far away in his thoughts.
"Yeah, we do. Do you see mother and father?" Younger Sirius questioned suddenly as he got a glint of them in the corner of his eyes.
"Do you think that father finally can think away from mother?" Regulus questioned the question, knowing that it would be a hard sell.
"We are allowed to hope." Was all that Younger Sirius telling his brother?
There was someone else that wanted an answer, "Where'd you get that scratch?" Remus asked quietly, and at that everyone became quiet. There was a lot of anger hidden behind the voice.
Lily and James blinked in confusion suddenly remembering what they had seen and hitting themselves for not taking it up themselves.
Hadriana only snuggled closer to Sirius's warm embrace not wanting to talk about it, because she couldn't lie to them, and even if that right there was a long time ago, she still could remember it happening to her like it was yesterday. The only reason why she was okay with it being asked was because of Sirius, and he knew it. Teddy laid his head on his mother's stomach knowingly not wanting to hear what was being discussed. Seeing this, Hadriana laid her hand on his head, running her fingers through his dirty blond hair in an attempt to minimize what was being said.
"Lay it to rest!" Sirius told them with a hiss, even then there were many people who wanted to hear what had happened.
Everyone nodded concurring that it wasn't the time for that heavy of a conversation, as they looked at Hadriana and Teddy, who was snuggled up to Sirius.
The only one that didn't seem to care about this whole thing was Professor Dumbledore, that looked like he was planning something.
Hadriana couldn't believe her uncle, though, it wasn't that surprising what he was saying to her through the window.
"You're never going back to that school. You're never going to see those freaky friends of yours. Never!" Vernon yelled glaring at her through the window glass.
All she could do was shake her head, sooner or later someone would come looking, and they could not keep her in her room all the time.
Time went by quickly in her little room, she managed to do her homework, after all. Soon it was her birthday, and it was night-time when Hadriana woke up as she heard a loud noise outside of her window. Getting up, she slowly peered out through her awful pink curtains, and there she noticed two flying headlights coming quickly towards her.
Squinting her eyes, she couldn't believe it, the flying car stopped at her window, and there they were, Ron and his twin brothers Fred and George.
There was many cheers rolling out over the hall, some forgot the conversation they had been having while others knew that things would not easily be forgotten.
"Hiya, Hadriana!" Ron greeted her happily.
Hadriana smiled, "Ron… Fred, George… What are you all doing here?"
"Rescuing you of course… Now come on get your trunk and your stuff." Ron told her.
Hadriana dressed quickly and packed everything as quickly as she could taking her trunk towards her window.
"You better stand back. Let's go!" Ron said, attaching a hook to one of the bars on her window.
Seeing this, Hadriana took a few steps back, as George began to drive away, completely tearing of the bars, causing a loud noise to erupt, waking everyone up instantly.
Immediately grabbing her trunk, giving it to Fred who was standing in the car to take it off her, and thereafter Hedwig's cage, when the door suddenly banged open. "Potter!" her uncle screamed.
"Dad what's going on?" her cousin could be heard asking her father.
Hadriana quickly crammed into the flying car, relieved when they quickly flew of thought it was fun to see her uncle running to catch up and therefore crashing down on Petunia's precious rose bushes.
There was silence across the room, again.
James could feel a rant coming along, but there was much more than everything he had believed. How was he able to keep quiet, he did not know. but at the same time, James knew that it wouldn't be at all appreciated to scream.
"We have you know, lets go home to our house," George told them as they flew invisibly towards where they were living.
Hadriana smiled and breathed relieved that someone had cared at all.
"By the way, Hadri. Happy birthday!" said Ron, congratulating her along with Fred and George. None of them could quite believe what they had just done and what had happened.
"Best gift, ever?" Laughed Ron with a smirk, knowing walking into a very embarrassing trap.
"Well from you anyway!" Hadriana smirked, looking up from where she was laying on Sirius's chest towards her oldest friend.
"Whose present was better than mine?" Ron demanded wickedly, getting hit by Hermione that quietly snickered at their banter.
"You. Last year." Hadriana whispered and wiggled her eyebrow at Sirius.
Sirius couldn't help but give a loud bark of laughter remembering what they had done. "Your daughter has quite the dirty mind!" Sirius told the know shocked young parents of his wife and gave them a smirk of happiness.
Everyone besides Lily and James gave a snicker at hearing this, while those two looked at them like they didn't know what they should say to it.
Ron and Draco laughed at the outrage and the laughter going through the room at hearing this.
"Yeah, Yeah, laugh it up!" James pouted, who would want to hear about their grown-up daughter's sex life? not him, that's what!