Chapter Five – The Child and The Dinner Party

Harry woke up the next morning to the sound of chirping birds outside his window. It was as bright and crisp a morning as the one before. He got up and went about his daybreak routine before heading down to the kitchen to have his cup of morning coffee with toast. He scanned the morning edition of the Daily Prophet that was placed before him on the kitchen table; there was nothing worth reading. He thought of the day to come and how he would have to tidy up the place before his guests arrive tonight.

He was excited for this day for a change. After-all, it isn't every day when you get to have dinner with the latest genius scapegoat of the Daily Prophet. He was still amazed at the fact that this young wizard had managed to track down and single-handedly defeat the dark wizard Harry had been chasing from afar for almost three years. Of course, he, Harry, had defeated a far more dangerous wizard at a much younger age. Nevertheless, he had done it with the help and guidance of Albus Dumbledore, not to mention the prophecy, and a heap load of luck with a certain Elder Wand. There was certainly something special about this van Helmont character.

Harry was also looking forward to hearing Teddy's stories from the Auror Academy. He still remembered the intense training programme from his own experience almost nineteen years ago. He did get an accelerated course, however, due to both the fact that he had already had much more practical experience in the field than most Aurors and the fact that the Ministry needed as many new Aurors as they could get and fast. The war had taken the lives and abilities of many of them and left the department virtually empty. He finished his toast and sipped his coffee with a sad smile.

Harry jumped as he heard the bell ring at the front of the house. He got up quickly, wondering who could be at his door this early on a Saturday morning. When he opened the front door, he saw the dishevelled face of Dean Thomas standing on his doorstep.

'Grab a jacket, you need to come with me,' said Dean with no introduction.

'What…' started Harry.

'A witch, Laura Madley, has been murdered,' said Dean, 'but that's not all of it. You've got to come see this.'

'What's going on?' asked Ginny who appeared at the other end of the hallway, looking still half asleep.

Harry turned to her 'Ginny, get the house ready. I'll be back in a few hours.' He grabbed his coat from the closet by the entrance and walked into the cool morning air with Dean.

'We're gonna have to disapparate to Chudley, Harry. I don't think we'll be seen since it's Saturday morning and we can't waste any time with Floo Powder or Portkeys,' said Dean as he grabbed Harry's hand. The familiar feeling of suffocation and disorientation – as if squeezed through a tight tube – had swept upon Harry.

They reappeared a moment later at the entrance to a medium-sized village. Dean motioned Harry with his head toward the street ahead. The urgency in the voice and the fast-paced walk of the Head Auror made Harry feel rather concerned. He had not been Head of The Department of Magical Law Enforcement for very long by then. Before, Harry had been the Head of the Auror Office. After he got promoted, Dean Thomas took his place as Head Auror.

'She was found at four in the morning by her friend who came knocking. Just in her home right around this corner. I have to warn you, Harry, you're not gonna like this…' said Dean nervously.

And with an awful, gut-punching feeling Harry realised what he was talking about. Right above a modest little house, blazing in the morning sun, was no other than the Dark Mark. The Mark with which Lord Voldemort's Death Eaters had used to commemorate their crime scenes had not been seen in nineteen years. What was it doing here at the sleepy, semi-wizarding village of Chudley?

'Couldn't it be some crazy sympathiser? Or someone that's just trying to scare people?' inquired Harry.

'Oh, there's more. Madley was still alive when she was found. Our advising healer says she's probably been given Veritaserum laced with some sort of a slow poison. Go on in then, her friend can tell you the rest once our scribe is done with her statement…'

Harry entered the small house. There was nothing unusual about it, except for the dead body of a woman, about his age, in the middle of the sitting room. Harry looked around the place but could not find anything that may have been related to her death. The murderer, whoever they were, did not leave any physical trace behind them. One of the Aurors came in to let him know the witness was ready. Harry stepped back outside to speak with the distraught looking woman who stood crying in the middle of a group of Aurors.

'Hey there, Harry Potter, Head of The Department of Magical Law Enforcement,' he introduced himself. 'Do you think you could answer a couple of questions for me, Ms….?'

'Don't you recognise me, Harry? Vane. Romilda Vane,' she sniffed.

'Oh, I'm sorry Romilda, it's been a few years… Can you please tell me what happened here?' he asked as gently as he could.

'Well, I live right across the street from here and… *sniff* I was woken up by a loud racket that came from Laura's house and… *sniff* *sniff* I went outside and saw it …' she began to cry again.

Harry gave her a minute to regain her bearing and proceeded to ask: 'And what did you do then?'

'I ran inside and I – I found her on the floor shaking like mad and I… *sniff* I tried asking her what was wrong, but she wouldn't stop repeating the same thing over and over and over again…'

'What was she saying?' Harry asked. But Romilda had her hands over her face at that point. Harry could not make out what she was saying.

'Romilda please, I need to know what she said to you… This is extremely important. We have to catch whoever did this to her…'

She lowered her hands and stared at Harry, her face puffed and drenched with tears. 'She – she grabbed me and… *sniff* she kept saying "The Lost Child is at Hogwarts; The Child will ascend beyond the father; The Child of the Dark Lord will rise to take back the Wizarding World."'

Harry had spent most of his morning at the crime scene. What a mess, he thought as he continued to write his report. And the Daily Prophet was all over it too, wonderful, just great. Reporters arrived several minutes after he'd finished questioning Romilda Vane. He tried to get her away from the flashing and babbling mob of mouths and cameras, but the damage was done. She had told the reporters about Madley's – for lack of a better expression – prophecy of the Lost Child of the Dark Lord.

Harry still had trouble believing it was real. Voldemort never showed any indication that he was romantically interested in women. Or men for that matter. Or anything really. Could he have actually…? Harry shuddered at the awful image that had appeared in his mind. No, this must be some sort of charade, a scare-tactic of some new dark wizard. But then again, only Voldemort's inner circle knew how to conjure the Dark Mark. He had Dean send Aurors to every ex-Death Eater that got released from Azkaban for providing information about their colleagues back in the day. The problem was that most of them had moved away from their jurisdiction. The Carrows, Goyles, and Notts had all moved to North America. None of them had set foot in Britain or Ireland ever since. Travers had escaped (most likely) to Australia before he could be captured and has not surfaced since either. They hadn't dared release any of the more serious offenders, even if they did give them whereabouts and names, for obvious reasons. All the ex-Death Eaters in Azkaban were still very much in there this morning, nobody was missing. This left the Malfoys. They were acquitted after the Battle of Hogwarts on Harry's recommendation since they had exhibited a change of heart before Voldemort's downfall. Narcissa had even lied to help Harry during the battle. It was possible, however, if slimy old Lucius Malfoy had heard a rumour about a secret successor to Voldemort, and Madley had some information about them, he could potentially pay her a visit. However, when the Aurors came knocking at Malfoy Manor they had discovered an old, frail, and senile man who could barely comprehend his surroundings. Lucius' son, Draco, was another possible candidate. Though Harry had disliked him since their time in school, he couldn't believe Draco would bother to murder anyone for the child of his old master. Draco and his mother were not the most enthusiastic Death Eaters after-all. Nevertheless, he had established a task force to look further into any of Voldemort's old crew who were out of Azkaban.

Then there was the issue of age. Voldemort's kid would have had to have been conceived sometime between June of 1995 and May of 1998. This would make them eighteen years old at the very least. They could obviously be lying about their true age and somehow fool the various magical safeguards of Hogwarts. It was plausible, they would just require a lot of assistance. This was nonetheless helpful since Harry knew they were looking for someone in either their fifth, sixth, or seventh year of school who may look slightly old for their age. He would maybe have Neville investigate the matter. He thought they would do better managing it discreetly rather than waltz a whole brigade of Aurors into Hogwarts and start questioning every single student at the school.

Harry finished writing his report and reached for a fresh parchment. He was going to write to Neville. He will have to get Athena to – or better yet, he thought as he crumpled the piece of parchment in his hand, he can go there himself and talk to Neville personally. He'll have to do it tomorrow. It was already late, and he had to get back home for dinner. He got up from his desk chair and proceeded to check his watch. Twenty past six o'clock. He hurried out of the office, Beth will take care of all the paperwork and its various destinations when she gets here on Monday, he thought to himself. When he got to the Atrium, he ran into a horde of Daily Prophet reporters which blocked his way to the fireplaces.

'Potter what do you know so far?'

'Hey Harry, over here, what was the Dark Mark doing over this woman's house?'

'Who did it? Do you have any leads?!'

'Mr Potter what do you think the rumours about the Lost Child mean? Are they true?'

'Is You Know Who back again?'

'Potter! Potter! Right here, do you reckon one of the remaining Death Eaters is responsible for this?! Have you looked into the Malfoys?'

'No comments so far. We will issue a statement tomorrow morning,' yelled Harry at the crowd while pushing his way through to the fireplace nearest to him. He managed to eventually make his way to it and catch one last glimpse of the crowd behind him. Those pesky reporters would be the death of me, he thought as he was swept in the warm embrace of the green flames.

He climbed out of his kitchen fireplace a moment later. Two men were sitting at the table. One of them – the younger of the two – was his godson Teddy Lupin. Teddy was talking to another young wizard with dark green eyes, closely trimmed beard, and auburn hair. They both stopped conversing and looked at Harry when he arrived. Erasmus van Helmont got up from his chair and greeted Harry with a handshake.

'Nice to meet you again Mr Potter, your wife was kind enough to let me sit here while we waited for you. I'm afraid she's gone upstairs to call your daughter over.'

'Please, call me Harry,' he replied as he motioned the young man to sit back down.

'Anything new on the Madley case?' asked Teddy.

'Not really. We know she lived alone with no family or friends that we know of. Her neighbours described her as "weird and a bit looney,"' replied Harry as he sat down next to van Helmont.

'She must've known something about this "Lost Child" though?'

'We think she may have been a seer and that whoever did this to her had tried to force a sort of prophecy from her to maybe figure out the Child's whereabouts or see if she knew more than she was letting on at first. This couldn't have been a cover-up murder since they wouldn't have bothered with the Veritaserum-poison cocktail or torturing her, they would've just quickly killed her off.'

'Dreadful business…' said van Helmont with a sigh.

Ginny had entered the kitchen at that moment with Lily at her side. 'Bad day, eh?' she said sympathetically.

'Horrible,' said Harry as he turned to look absent-mindedly at Kreacher who was at the far end of the kitchen preparing a large dish of Shepherd's Pie and Yorkshire Pudding.

Ron and Hermione arrived several minutes later. Harry reiterated all the case's details and his theories to them as they sat down at the table with everyone else. Kreacher began serving them the delicious smelling dinner. It was at that moment that Harry realised he hadn't eaten anything since the morning.

'It's got to be Travers,' said Ron with a mouth full of pie. 'We don't know for sure he's in Australia and he's the only Death Eater we couldn't keep track of.'

'But how would he find out about the Child's existence?' said Hermione.

'Maybe Voldemort told him back in the day.'

'And then he just sat there waiting for nineteen years? It doesn't make any sense.'

'I personally think,' said van Helmont to everyone's surprise as he had not commented about the topic until then, 'that whoever it was didn't know about the Child's existence until very recently. Otherwise, they wouldn't have tried to squeeze it out of poor Miss Madley. But somebody knew something, Miss Madley certainly did, and I bet you somebody else had known about the existence of the Child and had told the murderer recently. It could have been Travers, it could have been any other ex-Death Eater, but I would also investigate any British or Irish person who had recently travelled to their known locations and may have been in contact with them. They could've let out some rumour they had heard over here slip and caused some of Voldemort's old crew to come looking. By the way, did Miss Madley have any unique school friends that you know of? Anyone that may have confided in her during her youth?'

'Well, she was born in nineteen eighty-three, three years younger than me. That would make her far too old for any child of Voldemort to both befriend her at school and also be a student there right now,' replied Harry.

'Was it necessarily a student? Have you looked into any of the staff at Hogwarts? Maybe the Child is not actually a child anymore?' said van Helmont.

This hit Harry like a tonne of bricks. He hadn't thought about this possibility. The Child could be biding their time, slowly and quietly recruiting a silent army of brand-new Death Eaters to wreak revenge on Harry and his friends and on the Wizarding World.

'But, assuming they were conceived before Hallowe'en of nineteen eighty-one, this could make them anywhere between thirty-six and well over fifty!' said Teddy with a slight panic in his voice.

'Yes, but it also considerably narrows down the list of suspects,' said van Helmont reassuringly.

Harry's mind was racing, could one of the new Professors at Hogwarts, someone who might be teaching his sons, be the secret child of his nemesis? Could it be one of his own teachers? He had to find out more about this before anything else could happen.

'Well, enough about this now,' said Ginny impatiently. 'Teddy, how's your training coming along?'

'It's going okay, I think. We're studying for the Concealment and Disguise exam right now and that should be a breeze,' he said, quickly looking at Lily and changing his nose into a large hooked one and sprouting a bushy moustache. Lily laughed out loud.

'I remember they confiscated my Invisibility Cloak for that,' interjected Harry with a smile, 'old Josiah Smith didn't trust me not to use it.'

'Yeah, he can be really strict sometimes, but I think I'll manage,' said Teddy.

'I'm sure you'll do absolutely great,' said Harry. 'And if you don't, I'll have a serious chat with Mr Smith.'

Teddy laughed somewhat nervously and turned back to his pie. They ate in silence for a moment before Hermione asked, 'What about you, Mr van Helmont, have you got any plans now that you're back home?'

'Oh, that awkward surname,' he replied with a wave of his hand, 'you can call me Erasmus, or Rasmi, that's what my mates call me. Yeah, I do have some plans actually. I've been working on my next invention. You see, I've always found owl-based communication rather cumbersome and inefficient. I recently learned that muggles don't use their post that much anymore for writing letters. They instead use their little "mobile-phone" devices to send messages to each other using a clever technology they call "texting". Well, I figured we could employ some sort of magical equivalent, since muggle electronics don't work too well in magical environments.'

He pulled a small silvery metal tablet out of his pocket and showed it to everyone at the table. There was a piece of blank parchment imbedded into it on one side.

'This,' he pointed at the small tablet, 'is a Nuntillud. It's embedded with a modified and exponentiated Protean Charm, Vanishing Charm, and a few other tweaks of my own invention.'

He pulled out another tablet, identical to the first one and handed it to Teddy.

'Now, to use it you simply need a quill or a pencil – have you got any? I seem to have forgotten mine… oh well,' he turned his fork into a quill and proceeded to write on the little piece of parchment. 'All you've got to do is write down the name of the person you wish to contact at the top right here,' he wrote down "Edward Lupin" at the very top of the parchment and then "Hi Teddy how was your day?" below it. A second later, the device in Teddy's hand showed the same exact text with "Erasmus van Helmont" at the top. He handed Teddy his quill and motioned his head to encourage him to have a go. Teddy wrote down "Hi there Rasmi" and a second later the same writing appeared on Rasmi's tablet with "Edward Lupin" right above it.

'Wow,' said Teddy in astonishment, 'that's bloody neat!'

'Yeah,' said Rasmi with a smile, 'it works pretty much everywhere too. I can send messages at an instant all the way to Japan and America if I want. All you have to do to get rid of it is vanish it with your wand like that,' he demonstrated a short flick of his wand and the text had vanished leaving the parchment blank and clean again.

'This is excellent!' called Hermione.

'Brilliant' said Harry.

'Mate if you're looking for investors, I mean, I'm the co-owner of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, we can arrange something I'm sure,' said Ron in amazement.

'That's actually not a bad idea. I am looking for investors at the moment, though I'm still trying to get it through the Magical Patents Office at the Ministry. I will be trying to form my own company if it takes off. Old Slughorn had already put me in touch with a few potential investors. I have to say, being a member of The Slug Club wasn't as much of a waste of time as it seemed at the time,' said Rasmi.

'I bet he loved you, didn't he?' said Harry.

'He did take a liking to me,' answered Rasmi a little embarrassed, 'though, sadly, he didn't approve of my various rule-breaking experiments.'

Harry chuckled. There was something that reminded him both of his son James' mischievousness and of Dumbledore's serene brilliance in the young man next to him.

They finished their dinner and had decided to go upstairs for some tea in the drawing room on the first floor. Harry had gone to make sure that Lily was ready for bed and when he came back into the sitting room, he heard Rasmi talking to Hermione.

'I would love to do it. And all I ask in return is that, if you could, see to it that my Nuntillud patent goes smoothly through the Magical Patents Office.'

'I'm sure we can arrange that. If you could please send me a list of some ideas by the end of the month? We are in terrible need of some new ones I'm afraid,' replied Hermione.

'Sure.'

'So,' said Harry as he sat back down next to Ginny, 'what was that article in the Daily Prophet all about?' he asked Rasmi in a casual tone.

'Oh, that stupid piece? A pile of rubbish, for the most part. I mean to suggest that I had a hand in Alex's death… I am giving most of my revenue from the Amarous patent to Alex's family, and that Braithwaite woman – might as well call her Skeeter junior – suggests that I murdered my friend for the money,' he said indignantly.

'But how did you do Mortedigne and that other guy in then?' asked Ron.

'That I'm afraid,' said Rasmi with a sad tone in his voice, 'I can't tell. I promised a long time ago that I would not share this information. I'm sorry.'

Harry did not know what to make of it. There was a certain air of sadness and mystery in Rasmi's face as he went quiet. Was this some type of dark magic?

'Did Rose write to you from school yet Hermione?' asked Ginny in an attempt to shift the conversation to a brighter subject.

'Oh, yes she's settling in nicely. Already made a few friends; Seamus Finnigan's son Connor and Anthony Goldstein's son Joshua. She said Albus is now friends with Scorpius Malfoy? Is that true?' said Hermione.

'Yes, it seems so. I don't know much about him really. But he can't be like his dad if Albus thinks he's okay,' said Ginny.

'Well, as long as I don't have to meet up with Malfoy Senior and his ever-expanding forehead, I'm okay with it,' said Ron. 'Really ironic though, when you think about it. I mean, what are the chances?'

'I know, of all the kids he could have made friends with he had to pick Malfoy's kid…' said Harry with a drop of unintentional bitterness in his voice.

'Well, think about it,' said Hermione, 'they are both sort of outsiders. Albus never felt comfortable with all the attention he was getting, being your son can't be easy, Harry, and he is much shyer and more reserved than James is. And Scorpius, well, he was raised in a family that isn't really exceedingly popular these days and he must have gotten the complete opposite sort of attention to Albus. When you think about it like that, it makes sense that they would be drawn to each other in that way.'

'Come off it,' said Ron, 'Al is not an outsider, he's the son of the most popular wizard in the world! His cousins always include him in everything! We give him presents on every holiday and he's never been alone in his life!'

'That's exactly the problem though! He's always been living in the limelight, everyone's got such high expectations of him, it could discourage anyone to be honest.'

'Maybe,' said Harry. 'Or maybe Scorpius is just a nice boy, I don't know.'

'Anyway, it's getting late, and we need to see your parents early tomorrow, Ron, so we should get going,' said Hermione with a glance at her husband.

'I'll be leaving too then,' said Rasmi as he got up, 'it's been lovely tonight really, my compliments to Kreacher. Write to me if you need anything, will you? Number fifty-five Diagon Alley, apartment four.'

'Teddy, would you like to stay the night?' asked Ginny.

'No, I better get going too, gotta study hard for my exams.'

They all descended the stairs in a group. As they were saying their goodbyes at the front door, Ron whispered to Harry 'Exciting times huh? Our kids at Hogwarts, new magic being invented, and now this Lost Child in the mix… I envy your job sometimes Harry.'

You wouldn't if you actually had to do it, thought Harry as he shook his hand. He would get up early tomorrow and go to Neville. He had decided he had to get to the bottom of this and soon.