Hybrid Legacy

Chapter 4

"Mummy, guess what I saw today?" asked Michaela excitedly, bouncing in her chair slightly.

"Professor Dumbledore's phoenix?" asked Harry, smiling at his daughter's enthusiasm.

"We saw him, too, but we saw Grandpa Remi as a girl. He was pretty, but he looks much better as a boy," she said seriously. "Dublydore has a ball that lets him see diff'rent parts of the school, and we saw Grandpa Remi turn into Grandma Remi."

"Wow, I bet that was interesting," Harry replied, trying his hardest to keep a straight face. "Did you see who did that to him?"

"No, but whoever did it is really cool," said Liam, eagerly adding his opinion.

"Why do you say that?" asked Harry, smirking at Liam's statement.

"'Cause Dublydore says gender transfigration was really hard," said Liam excitedly.

"Have you told daddy what you did today?" Harry asked with an impish smile. Both twins shook their heads and ran to Draco to tell him about their day. The twins immediately regaled their daddy with the details of their day, mostly their opinions about Moony's gender challenged moments.

The Great Hall doors suddenly opened and in walked a black-cloaked figure. The new arrival calmly walked up to the High Table, nodded a greeting to Dumbledore, and sat in the seat between Harry and Severus.

"Hello, Lucius," said Harry quietly. He knew exactly who the cloaked figure was because he smelled a lot like Draco.

"Draco owled me to inform me that you and the twins would be staying at Hogwarts with him until end of term," said Lucius, removing the hood of his cloak and ignoring the gasps of surprise from the students. Lucius had finally been appointed Minister of Magic three years after the fall of Voldemort. "Have you gotten any more letters?"

"Do you honestly think Draco would be taking such extreme measures if I hadn't?" asked Harry wryly. "No wait, scratch that. He would still do this, wouldn't he?"

"He does take the twins' and your safety very seriously," said Lucius drolly. "Better to be safe than sorry, though." He stared at Harry for a moment and suddenly smirked gleefully. "He also firecalled me to tell me about the prank you pulled on Remi today."

"It wasn't a prank," said Harry calmly. "It was downright torture for him. Of course, he's obviously been spending too much time with you. Otherwise, he would have remembered the trouble you encountered when shoving me into the spotlight."

"At least my humiliation was more private," muttered Lucius, glaring balefully at the elf. "I still haven't forgiven you for that, I hope you know."

"You'll get over it eventually," said Harry dismissively. "Now is there any particular reason you neglected to mention the threatening letters to Severus?"

"I got distracted," he muttered guiltily.

"Uh huh, I noticed that," said Harry dryly, rolling his eyes at Lucius. "I guess it's a good thing that I had my own talk with Remus and Severus then."

An owl came swooping into the Great Hall. It circled the hall several times before landing in front of Harry. Seeing an unfamiliar envelope, Harry tentatively untied the parchment from around the owl's leg and fed the animal a piece of bacon. Harry took a deep breath and opened the letter.

You worthless animal, I will get you for what you did to Ginny. Be prepared to die. I will rid the world of freaks like you.

Harry's face paled at the epitaphs written on the parchment. He knew exactly who had sent this letter. Ron hadn't even bothered to disguise his writing in any way. He picked up the envelope and a photo fell out. The photo depicted Harry, Liam, and Michaela leaving the Magical Menagerie. At the physical evidence that Ron was indeed stalking them, Harry flinched and paled even more.

"Harry, what does it say?" asked Draco, rushing towards his ashen mate. He snatched the note out of Harry's hand and read the missive, his face darkening in anger every second that passed. "I will destroy that bastard once and for all," he snarled viciously, glaring at the damning parchment. "How dare he threaten my family like this?"

"Draco, love, calm down. You're scaring the twins," said Harry, running a soothing hand across the blonde's back.

Draco glanced towards the twins and saw them burrowing into Lucius' arms. "Liam, Michaela, why don't you go with Dumbledore and Minerva for a little while? I need to talk with your mummy and grandfathers."

"Okay, daddy," they whispered tearfully. They'd never seen their daddy that angry before, and it scared them. They walked over to Dumbledore and grasped his hand tightly, letting him lead them from the room docilely.

Severus plucked the letter out of Draco's hand and examined the words and the writing. After a few moments consideration, he snarled and handed the letter to Lucius. "Do you still have the first two letters?" he asked Harry quietly. Harry nodded. "Can you bring them to my quarters? I have some potions that can determine whether the handwriting has been disguised. I also have a potion that can tell who wrote the letter if they touched the parchment with their bare hand."

"We'll be there in twenty minutes," snarled Draco, pulling Harry from his seat and dragging him from the room. Draco dragged Harry all the way to his office, where he had the last letter stashed, and then dragged him down to Severus' quarters.

Once they had reconvened in the Potion's Master's office, Severus took both letters and two phials of potion and set to work. He took the green potion and dropped two drops of the liquid onto each piece of parchment. Seconds later he just hummed and grabbed the red potion. He also dropped two drops of this potion onto the parchment.

"Well, the potion didn't detect any spells to disguise the handwriting," said Severus, looking at the results on the parchment. "Unfortunately, Harry, the letters were written by two separate people. The second potion did detect who had written the last letter. As you have already guessed, Ron wrote the last threat. I couldn't find any trace of the person who wrote the first two letters."

"Great, so old Voldie wasn't enough of a pain in the arse. Now I have two people stalking me?" growled Harry irritably, wings bursting from his back and wrapping around his body protectively. "I just can't get rid of those creeps, can I? I mean, good grief, I destroy one and two more take his place."

"It could be worse," said Severus.

"Really? How?" snapped Harry, glaring at Severus.

"They both could be trying to kill you. Ron's the only one who seems to want to actually kill you. The other stalker wants to get rid of Draco so that he can possess you as his own."

"Real comforting, Snape," snarled Harry viciously. "Now I just have to find the threat against Draco. And for your information, it is worse." Severus raised an eyebrow in question. "In case you hadn't noticed, both stalkers threatened my children."

"How did you come up with that?" asked Severus curiously.

"Ron said, 'I will rid the world of freaks like you.' Considering the fact that I gave birth to the twins, and they already have some of the same abilities I do, do you not see the potential for danger?"

"I see your point. What about the other stalker?" asked Severus.

"That stalker seems to lump the twins in with me, and he claims I am a pollutant," said Draco quietly. "We are essentially keeping him from acquiring Harry."

"We'll find them Draco. You know we won't let anything happen to Harry or the twins," said Lucius soothingly. "Remus has already left the castle in search of clues to Weasley's whereabouts."

"Why don't you go get the twins and go to bed? We'll let you know if Remus finds anything," said Severus.

Draco nodded and walked to the door. Harry walked over to Severus and pulled the startled man into a quick hug. "Thank you, Sev." He then walked to Lucius and repeated his actions. With one last wave, Harry and Draco left the room to collect their children.

DHDH

Harry and Draco reached the Gargoyle, and Harry groaned. "We forgot to ask Albus for the password. Oh well, here goes. Blood pops.. ice mice.. chocolate frogs.. canary cream.. ton-tongue toffee. Heh, figures," he muttered as the Gargoyle sprang to life, revealing the winding staircase to Dumbledore's office.

They climbed the staircase and knocked on the door. At the quiet 'come in' they entered the room and froze. Albus was sitting at his desk with rainbow coloured hair and there were bubbles flying all throughout the room.

"What in the world happened, Albus?" asked Harry incredulously. All he could do was stare at his surroundings in utter disbelief. That is, until he noticed the absence of his children. "And where the hell are my children?"

"The children are spending the night with Minerva and are probably already asleep. They did look exhausted when they left an hour ago. As to what happened here, that would be.. your children. Liam decided that he was bored and chased Fawkes around the room. Sometime during the chase, he managed to find some Drooble's best and you see the result. Now Michaela, on the other hand, has an impressive grasp of magic. She decided that my hair was too boring and determined that rainbow colours would suit me best. I still don't know how she got a hold of my wand," said Albus resignedly. There was a reason he was headmaster to a school that opened its doors to people eleven to eighteen years old. He wasn't at all accustomed to toddlers or infants.

"Well, we'll just visit Minerva then. Good night, Albus," said Harry, walking quickly to the door with Draco close on his heels. It was all they could do to hold back the laughter until they were once again in the corridor. As soon as the Gargoyle was once again guarding the passage to Dumbledore's office, peals of laughter escaped the Malfoys.

"That's the first time I've ever seen him at such a loss," snickered Harry, holding his stomach as the laughter finally died down.

"It is too funny to see him beaten by two four year olds," said Draco, smiling widely at the thought that his children could run such circles around the great wizard.

They finally got their laughter completely under control and went to visit Minerva. She was still awake, but she was dressed in her nightgown and robe. She led them to the room the twins were sleeping in and offered to let them spend the night. They kissed the sleeping twins softly on the forehead and thanked Minerva for letting them stay.

DHDH

"I couldn't find Ron. Every trail I found was just a dead end," said Remus, storming into the room and flopping on the couch between Severus and Lucius. "The clerk at Magical Menagerie remembered seeing a young redheaded man, but he didn't see him leave. No one else in Diagon Alley remembers seeing him at all. He's become adept at being elusive."

"They'll just have to stay here or at the Manor until the little bugger is caught then," said Lucius calmly. If he ever got his hands on that Weasley brat, he'd be sure to torture the little demon properly. Nobody hurt his family and lived to tell the tale.

"I don't think Harry will agree to that," said Remus quietly. "You know how he is. He doesn't run from anything, and you want to ask him to hide until the threat is over? Do you not remember what he did to Draco during the battle with Voldemort? He cast a sleep spell on him and pushed him under a table. I just don't see Harry meekly following that plan."

"Then he'll have to follow it not so meekly. I know several ways to bind a person, and if push comes to shove, that's exactly what I'll do," said Lucius.

Remus stared at Lucius in shock and jumped when Severus burst into laughter. "Oh, I'd like to see the winged wonder trussed up like a chicken. That would be just too funny," snickered Severus.

"The winged wonder?" asked Remus, arching his eyebrows questioningly.

"I heard him refer to us as the Olden Trio, so I decided to come up with a nickname for him, especially since we all know how much he hates nicknames," said Severus wickedly.

"That's not entirely accurate, Sev. Draco calls him elf all the time, and that doesn't bother him," Remus pointed out.

"Yes, but winged wonder sounds a lot like Boy Wonder, Golden Boy, etc., and he detests those monikers," said Severus, smirking at Remus' look of comprehension.

"I want to be there when you say that to his face, Sev. Lucius and I have both suffered for intentionally and unintentionally focusing public attention on him. I guess now it's your turn," said Remus gleefully. He couldn't wait for Sev to open his big mouth and see Harry retaliate.

"Well, I for one am tired and am going to bed. Anyone want to join me?" asked Lucius.

Remus and Severus both immediately stood and followed the blonde into the bedroom.