Chapter 11: Bridging Gaps From the Past Part 1

Upon hearing the news of what happened Narcissa retreated to Emily's room to spend the night with the little girl. Draco didn't want Emily left alone, and Narcissa did not know what to say to her own daughter. Draco wanted to make his mother talked to Uriel but at the moment he didn't even know what to say.

He went with Ginny and his sister to her room and there the three of them stayed. Uri was curled up on her bed with her head in Ginny's lap, Draco sitting next to Ginny. The redhead was stroking her pseudo sister's hair, while Draco held his sisters hand and rubbed her back. She hadn't stopped crying since they had returned and she refused any and all potions or draughts not wanting to be calm or wanting to sleep.

A few hours later Uriel had cried herself out and fallen asleep. Neither Draco nor Ginny wanted to leave her so they talked in hushed voices, trying to make sense of this all.

"I can't believe it," Ginny said, wiping away a few stray tears. "They were such nice people."

"Potter probably went looking for Uri to try and win her back, or take his revenge and when he found Claude and Annette he decided to take it out on them instead. He figured that would hurt her the most."

"He really has gone round the bend," Ginny whispered.

"You have no idea," came Blaise's voice from Uriel's fireplace. "Harry Potter is more fucked up than any of us even realize."

"Blaise what did you find?" Draco asked, trying not to disturb his sister's uneasy rest.

"You will have to see it to believe me, I cannot even believe he went this far."

"Well tell us where to meet you and we'll be there." Draco told his friend.

"Not right now," Blaise replied. "I can't share this evidence with anyone just yet. The Auror's are still wiping memories and cleaning up the scene here. Besides neither of you should leave her tonight, neither of you should leave the manor tonight. I can't say anymore, but I'll be over tomorrow, and whatever you do stay in France, no one need go back to Malfoy Manor. I am afraid that Potter might know more than we expected."

Draco looked from Blaise back to Ginny, increasingly worried that the jig was about to be up. That he, and the people he considered to be his family were in danger.

"Just keep us posted Blaise," Draco told him before his head disappeared from the fireplace.

Carefully the two situated themselves so they were more comfortable, but so they didn't leave Uriel's side. Ginny fell asleep first, on Draco's shoulder. The blond man stayed awake for another hour or two; brooding, thinking, trying to work any of their problems out. It seemed like so much was standing between his happily ever after with Ginny and Emily. He still didn't know what to say to Uri, he still wasn't sure what it felt like to really lose someone. The only person he had lost was Lucius and after all that his father had put him through he wasn't shedding too many tears over him. He couldn't remember losing Uri; he had been too young; the only loss he had gone through was losing Ginny. That loss hadn't even come close to what his sister was feeling; he knew that, he couldn't even imagine how much his sister must be hurting. Claude and Annette Van Alan had been the most fundamentally decent people he had ever met. They could have been resentful that their only child, their pride and joy was choosing to live with her biological family, but when they had met Draco they had welcomed him into their family. Even if he wasn't with Uri they had told him he was welcome. On a business trip with Blaise one time they had been passing through Marseilles and Draco and stopped by to say hello. Annette had ended up convincing Draco and Blaise to stay for dinner and to spend the night there.

Draco reached up and found that a few tears were sticking in his eyes. Uriel's parents had been warmer than his own parents had been. They had treated him like he was just as much their child as Uri was. The first time Claude had met him, after they had talked for a while, he had clapped Draco on the back and called him son, which had woken up parts of Draco's heart that had been lying dormant for so long. While he was thinking, and worrying somehow Draco had fallen asleep. The next morning he woke up and called Patch to him. Without waking the still sleeping Ginny and Uriel he told his house elf to bring them all breakfast in bed. Carefully Draco slipped out of the death grip his sister had on his hand, even in sleep, and went to go check on Emily.

He entered the room where Ginny and her daughter had been staying and the first thing he noticed was that his mother was sitting in one of the wingback chairs near the fire, wide awake. He walked over to Emily; thankfully the little redhead was still fast asleep. Draco kissed her on the forehead and moved over to where his mother was sitting, calmly sipping her morning tea.

"Did you sleep at all mother?" Draco asked.

Narcissa nodded her head no, tight lipped and looking a little drawn.

"Is your sister awake yet?" Narcissa finally asked him.

"She wasn't awake when I left the room, neither was Ginny. I have Patches making us all some breakfast and then I came to check on you and Emily. Would you like me to send Uri to you when she wakes up?"

"No thank you Draco, that won't be necessary, I do not want to see Uriel right now."

Draco was shocked at his mother's cavalier disregard for his sister's hurt and suffering. He pointed his wand at Emily and cast a silencing spell, he was losing his patience with his mother and if he got angry he didn't want the little girl to be disturbed.

"You do not want to see her?" Draco asked, wanting to be sure he had heard his mother correctly. "I don't think you have a choice Mother."

"What do you expect me to say Draco?" Narcissa asked her son. "Do you want me to go and tell her how sorry I am? To cry and tell her that we'll all miss them?"

"Your not sorry?" Draco was getting angrier by the second.

Narcissa was silent for longer than Draco thought.

"No," she finally spoke. "I'm not sorry. Of course their death is a horrible thing and I never would have wished for it, but now things can be as they always should have been. Uriel can be a true Malfoy, the person she was born to be."

"How dare you!" Draco rounded on his mother. "She stopped being a true Malfoy when your bastard of a husband tore her away from you and me and stuck her in an orphanage in France. Two of the kindest, most caring, most decent people found that scared little girl, who didn't fully understand why her own father didn't want her, why her mother hadn't come to rescue her, and why she wasn't allowed to be Uriel Malfoy anymore. They raised her as their own child, and they loved her more than words."

Narcissa was looking down at her teacup, and Draco knew that she was feeling ashamed, and she should be.

"Then she got her owl from Hogwarts, did you know that Mother?" Draco asked. "Dumbledore somehow knew about her and extended her an invitation to Hogwarts and she turned it down, once again because of your husband, our father. So when Beauxbatons owled her she went there. Her parents, Muggles of all people, sent her to school. They raised her to be magically inclined, they could have said no when they found out what she was. They didn't, they listened to her story and they accepted her, why can't you Mother? For almost eighteen years you didn't have her, you didn't know her, you held onto the memory of her, and when she came back, that is what you treated her like. Instead of getting to know who she is now, and moving forward, you have been trapped trying to relive all the years that you missed. You have ignored the fact that she isn't Uriel Allegra Malfoy and never will be again, she is Uriel Allegra Van Alan Malfoy and you don't know that person."

"What do you want from me Draco?" Narcissa asked, close to tears.

"If you don't know what to do at this point mother," Draco sighed. "I can't help you."

"Draco," Ginny burst through the door to her room. "Blaise is here, and he needs to talk to us."

"Now," Blaise insisted walking through the door as well. "This cannot wait."

"Where is Uri?" Draco asked still only concerned for his sister.

"She's still asleep," Ginny told him trying to put his mind at ease just a little.

"Well I'll leave you three to talk," Narcissa said beginning to exit the room.

"No, Narcissa," Blaise told her in a voice that left no room for argument. "You need to hear this too."

They relocated to the sitting room outside Uri's room, just incase she woke up; Draco didn't want to be far.

"What I am about to tell you is horrible, and sickening, if there was any way to save any of you from hearing this I would. Harry didn't kill Claude and Annette."

"What are you talking about?" Draco asked. "The message on the door, what about that? If Potter didn't kill them who did"

"The Ministry has created a new spell that allows them to take the last memory out of anyone's mind, be they magic or Muggle. We looked at Claude and Annette's final moments and found their murderer." Blaise replied. "It's Teddy Lupin."

"What?" Ginny, Draco and Narcissa asked in unison.

"Draco, remember how you noticed that the scorch marks on the wall weren't made by a wand but by raw magic? That was Teddy's magic, Potter used him to get revenge on Uriel."

"No," Ginny shook her head. "This isn't possible, Teddy is Harry's Godson, Teddy is my Godson. He is just like his parents he wouldn't hurt anyone… ever. He is only a few years older than Emily, this is not possible…not Teddy."

"The Werewolf and Metamorphmagus' child?" Narcissa sniffed.

"Mother," Draco hissed. "He is my cousin, he is your great nephew. Maybe if you had let go of the issues between you and Aunt Andromeda a long time ago you would care."

Narcissa lowered her head again and said no more.

"But why would Teddy go along with this?" Draco wondered, a little sad that he knew nothing about these estranged members of his family. "Why would he murder two innocent Muggles, especially after what his parents died fighting for."

Ginny sat down, overwhelmed by all of this and tried to explain things to the others in the room. "Teddy has no idea who murdered his parents. Andromeda doesn't want to tell him the truth until he is older. He knows that his parents were killed in the war fighting for the cause they believed in, but that's it. Harry could have told him anything he wanted to get Teddy angry and then he would have what he wanted."

"So you think Potter told Teddy that Claude and Annette killed his parents?" Draco seemed a little skeptical.

"That isn't the only thing," Blaise continued. "There were trace amounts of an Unforgiveable still lingering in the air. The Ministry believes that it was the Imperius curse."

"Well that means that Teddy might not have done it of his own free will," Ginny spoke again, looking for anything that could keep the poor little boy out of this.

"Think about it," Draco continued. "That is the only way that Teddy could have done it. An eight year old can't control his raw magic; Potter got him angry and then put him under the Imperius curse so he could use that raw magic the way he wanted it used."

"And then it would look like Potter's hands were clean," Blaise chimed in, thinking hard. "He probably didn't expect this to be so well investigted either. He figured a random Muggle-born witch's parents wouldn't be too high on the Ministry's chain of concern."

"That's only because he still is in the dark where we need him to be in the dark the most," Draco reminded his friend. "But if he wanted to keep his hands clean, why leave the note?"

"If there is one thing Harry can't resist, it's the final taunt," Ginny told them. "You, Draco, were the only person to ever beat him in that area. Harry lives to have the last word, and the message on the door was just that."

"Well he has just sealed his fate hasn't he," Draco said.

"We need to protect Teddy," Ginny told them still worried about the boy's future and how he would be punished for a crime he didn't really commit. "This isn't his fault."

Draco put an arm around Ginny. "I know it's not his fault, but what can we do?"

"Dromeda," came Narcissa's reply. "We'll go see my sister. It is after all her grandson that is in the middle of this mess. We will all have to keep him out of this and Andromeda needs to know what happened so she can help."

"Mother?" Draco could hear the tears in her voice.

"This is all I can do Draco," she told her son, tears beginning to fall. "For eighteen years I missed her life. I wasn't there to hold her when she cried, or help her when she fell, I wasn't there for any of it. Now after most of her life apart from me I finally have the chance to hold my little girl while she cries and try and help her through this tough time and I just don't know how. Your right Draco, I don't know her. I have been looking at her for the seven years she has been back in our lives as if she is still that five year old girl she was when I last saw her. "

Draco had walked over and sunk down in front of his mother while she had been talking. He took both of her hands in his and tried to comfort her.

"Draco, please, let me at least try to talk to my sister. She was one of the few people who knew about Uriel." Narcissa told him.

"I didn't know that mother, you told me that you didn't tell anyone." Draco looked confused.

"Well, when her daughter was born Andromeda owled me. Then when I knew that I was going to have a girl I reached out to her, and we talked for the first time about how we missed each other, and how wonderful it would be to raise our daughters together."

Ginny felt horrible, both of the former Black women had lost a daughter in one way or another. Narcissa had gotten her daughter back, Andromeda had not.

"I think it's a good idea," Ginny stood up and put a hand on Narcissa's shoulder. "Andromeda will help us, I know she will."

Blaise said that would stay at the manor in case Uriel woke up, and to watch Emily. Draco, Narcissa, and Ginny all raised their wands and apparated away. They found themselves outside the Tonks house, somewhere Ginny knew well. Narcissa walked up to the door and knocked on it, knowing that it was now or never.

"Who is it?" came Andromeda's voice from inside.

"Dromeda," Narcissa responded. "I think it's time we talked.

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I decided to make this two parts! I know everyone is ready to kill me now, bringing Teddy into this. Harry really has gone insane. Love my readers and followers, and if you love me leave me a review!