TA DA! After a very long wait here it is…

Chapter 12: Bridging Gaps From the Past Part 2

Draco and Ginny, a few moments after Narcissa had knocked at her estranged sister's door, found themselves in the middle of an odd truce. The four were sitting in Andromeda's living room, sipping tea while the two sisters avoided each other's eyes and tried to wait for the other to speak first.

"So," Andromeda finally began. "How was Bella's funeral, or ceremony or whatever they had for her Cissy? I would have gone, but… something came up."

"I didn't go to Bella's funeral," Narcissa responded calmly. "After all of the insanity she dragged myself and Draco into she deserved what she got. I didn't go, but I have done some dancing on her grave."

"Oh you should have owled me, I would have joined you," Andromeda responded taking another sip of her tea. "But this is the first time we've spoken in nearly twenty five years so I shouldn't really be surprised-"

"I was wrong Dromeda," Narcissa cut her off. "Is that what you want to hear? I was wrong about you, about Ted, about Nymphadora, about it all. I know what it's like to lose a daughter."

"How would you know that?" Andromeda asked.

"I told you I was having a little girl, and after that we had a falling out again…"

"Is that the way you remember it?" Andromeda was loosing her patience. "Because I remember Lucius and Bella telling you that unless you wanted to be branded a blood traitor and cast out with me, you were never to speak to me again. I also remember Bella telling me to forget that you two were my sisters and to live my life the way I had chosen. That's what I did Narcissa."

"I know I've hurt you, I'm sorry, but I am trying," Narcissa begged getting more and more emotional. "I am trying for both our sakes, I am trying for all the years that I stood by and did nothing. I let my monster of a husband, who I thought was worth loosing my sister over, take my first born and only daughter away from me."

The room was silent.

"You never wondered Dromeda," Narcissa began. "You never wondered why your daughter never wrote home from school asking about a cousin she never heard about?"

"I always assumed that she was being schooled at home, or was sent to another school," Andromdea replied.

"She was sent away to another school," Narcissa shot back. "She was sent to Beauxbatons by the two Muggles that adopted her."

"Narcissa…" Andromeda began.

"No, let me get this out," the younger sister begged. "It only gets harder and harder for me to say. Lucius didn't like the effect that Uriel had on Draco. He thought their great love for each other, their special bond as brother and sister would weaken him. So he took her away, told her she wasn't a Malfoy anymore, and left her alone with those horrible memories in an orphanage in France. Two Muggles found her and adopted her. They raised her like she was their own and when she got an owl from Beauxbatons they sent her to school there. Draco found her while he was still in Hogwarts, and then after the war, when Draco told his father he had found his sister Lucius really lost his mind. I left him that night and my daughter came back to me. I was blessed enough to get my little girl back after she lived her life without me. You lost your daughter after living your whole life with her."

"We always were a little too similar," Andromeda responded, a little emotion in her voice. "I'm so sorry Sissy."

"I'm sorry too Dromeda," Narcissa rose to her feet.

The two former Black sisters embraced, and Draco and Ginny couldn't help but smile. Draco knew this was something his mother had wanted and needed.

"I can't believe that Lucius would do such a thing to his own child," Andromeda still couldn't wrap her head around the idea.

"He thought that to love was weak," Draco finally spoke. "But he was wrong. You don't have to break apart to love someone, but you do give anyone you love a part of yourself. A piece of you goes into every person who has ever touched your life, unbidden or not. To live without that many pieces of yourself takes huge amounts of strength, so to love isn't weakness; to love is the definition of strength."

All three of the women in the room just looked at him.

"He was always more of a Black than a Malfoy, wasn't he?" Andromeda asked.

"I've made plenty of mistakes in my life," Draco told his aunt. "I tried to go back and fix them for a long time, and then one day I finally figured out that I should be working on who I am going to be not trying to fix who I was. So I changed, and now I think I am a much better person than I ever was."

"You are," Ginny assured him, taking his hand.

"Ginny," Andromeda looked at the redhead. "Is there something you need to tell me?"

Ginny sighed and launched into the whole story. Narcissa and Andromeda listening with rapt attention to the tale that, to Ginny at least, had been told a thousand times.

"Harry Potter has gone mad," Andromeda agreed. "I can't believe he would hurt you Ginny, or even think of hurting Emily, that poor little girl."

"That isn't even the worst part Aunt Andromeda," Draco took a breath steeling himself. "He has brought Teddy into it."

"What on earth are you talking about Draco?" Andromeda asked, her guard automatically going back up.

"Well," Ginny tried to explain. "To help me get free of Harry, Uriel went to a bar and using her old name of Allegra Van Alan she flirted with Harry until she was able to give him some Veritserum and get him to confess to what he had been doing. Well Harry must have remembered who Uri was and he decided to take out his anger."

"You still haven't explained what this has to do with Teddy."

"Where was Teddy last night Dromeda?" Narcissa asked.

"He was with me all day and then…Harry picked him up for dinner." She didn't seem to want to admit it.

"His magical signature was found at the Van Alan house, all over it, but there were also traces of the Imperius curse so we think he might have been under Harry's influence," Draco explained as his Aunt began to panic. "We need you and Teddy to come to France with us, so we can figure out if Teddy is really responsible and so that we can protect him."

Andromeda knew what she had to do and walked away, coming back a few minutes later with a sleepy Teddy in her arms.

"Aunt Ginny?" Teddy asked, clearly confused. "What are you doing here?"

Ginny knelt down next to him, "Teddy you are going to come with me, and your cousin Draco and your Aunt Narcissa, and your going to go and see Emily too, you and Emily always have fun."

"But why?" the little boy asked.

"We just need to figure out a few things buddy," Draco knelt down as well. "Hi Teddy, I'm Draco. I'm sorry we haven't met before now, but you're my cousin."

Draco held out his hand and the little boy shook it. Everyone knew that they couldn't delay especially because Harry could be back soon and Teddy would of course want to go with him which is something that none of them could allow. Narcissa threw some Floo powder into the fire and sent Andromeda and Teddy along to the manor first, Ginny, Draco and Narcissa following in due course.

When they arrived back in France Ginny took Teddy to play with Emily under the watchful eye of Patches and Snuffles who were under strict orders to protect the children no matter what. Draco went to his sister's room to fetch her and Blaise. When Uriel entered the room, Andromeda gasped.

"What?" Narcissa asked her sister.

"If her hair was pink, or purple or some other odd color she could be Nymphadora, even with the blonde hair they look so much alike."

"I'm sorry Aunt Andromeda," Uriel walked up to her and took her Aunt's hand. "I didn't mean to upset you."

Andromeda just shook her head, trying to tell the girl that it wasn't her fault. Uriel could tell that Andromeda was going to try and say something else, so she just held up her hand, they had much more important things to talk about.

"Mrs. Tonks, I'm Blaise Zabini, I'm both Draco and Ginny's lawyer; I'll need to know exactly what happened last night from the time Harry Potter picked Teddy up till when he came home."

"Well," the eldest Black sister started. "Harry came over around seven, he and I talked for a little while and he left with Teddy at around seven thirty. He said that they were going to go to dinner, and maybe the zoo, or a movie."

"Teddy loves Muggle things," Andromeda informed the room, as if she was trying to defend her grandson. "Harry didn't come home until around nine thirty or ten o clock. Teddy was asleep in his arms when they arrived, but that happens a lot so I didn't think much of it. Now he was probably asleep because the Imperius curse had drained him."

Narcissa put a comforting arm around her sister as she began to cry again.

"Uri what time did your mother call?" Blaise asked, feeling horrible that she had to rehash all of this.

The blonde whipped her phone out and checked. "Mama called at 8:07."

"We arrived at the Van Alan household no later than 8:15 and both Claude and Anette were dead already. The Auror's said that they had not been dead long. So Harry had to take Teddy straight to France. I hate to ask Mrs. Tonks, but can we look at Teddy's memory?" Blaise wondered.

Andromeda looked hesitant for a moment or two.

"Aunt Andromeda, if he really was under the Imperius curse he will have no memory of what he did. We will be the only ones to know, I promise you."

"And what if he did do it?" she asked, afraid of the answer.

"We will take the memory and use it along with the rest of our pensieve defense against Harry Potter and then we will wipe his memory." Blaise spoke again. "None of us blame Teddy for what happened, he is just another pawn in Harry Potter's twisted game, but we do need him to help put the monster away."

The room was still for a moment or two.

"Let me go, and get the memory from him," Andromeda requested. "I don't want to alarm him and all of us standing over him trying to extract one memory will only make him wonder what is going on."

She exited the room leaving the rest of them in silence. Uriel looked down at her hands, Narcissa still hadn't been able to look her daughter in the eye and offer her any solace or words of love and comfort. Ginny slipped her hand into Draco's and squeezed. They were both very grateful that they had each other and that they had been able to comfort Uri when she had needed them most. It was then that something occurred to Ginny.

"Draco, do you think tomorrow we can go and see my parents?"

Draco was a little taken aback by her request. He hadn't really thought about revealing their relationship to the Weasley clan until after Harry Potter had been dealt with. He could, however, understand why Ginny wanted to go and see her parents. After everything that had happened to his family, his sister, his mother, of course she would want to reach out to her family who had always loved and supported her.

"We can do whatever you want Gin," Draco told her smiling and giving her a kiss.

She smiled back at him as Andromeda entered the room again with a vial of glowing liquid that was her grandsons memory. Blaise waved his wand a few times so that the memory was in the pensieve but it would show up on the wall for all of them to see.

"I don't know if I can…do this," Uriel said getting to her feet, tears already in her eyes.

Blaise took her hand and sat her down next to him. "I think you need to see this. You have to face this Uri but don't worry I'm right here for you."

She sat back down not letting go of Blaise's hand. He waved his wand again and the memory began. There was Harry Potter plan as day telling the young boy they were going to play a game.

"Now Teddy listen to me," Harry spoke to him. "The people inside that house are bad people. They are the reason your mum and dad are dead, they are bad people. They want to take you away from your grandmother, they want to take you away from me. I know you don't want that Teddy."

"They killed my mum and dad?" Teddy asked tears in his eyes, his magical signature starting to grow more powerful by the second.

As the tears began to blur the little boys eyes they saw Harry Potter raise his wand and mutter Imperio.

The assembled company of people watched in shock at what happened next. Harry controlling Teddy from a far, busting the door of the house open, firing powerful killing curses and other damaging spells at Claude and Anette, and finally having the little boy levitate them to Uriel's room, leave them dead on her bed, and write the taunting message in their blood. After that the memory was vague and had some holes in it, which they all knew was an effect of coming off of the Imperius curse.

Blaise stopped the memory, Uriel still had a deathgrip on his hand but she had made it through the memory. He was proud of her but he knew that it had been hard.

"I can't believe that Harry would do that," Andromeda was stunned. "Harry loves Teddy, and after everything Remus and Dora went through, why would he want to do that?"

"He has lost his mind," Ginny tried to explain. "He loved me once, and then he treated me like his punching bag, he would have done the same to his own daughter if I had given him the chance. He isn't capable of love anymore."

"He didn't even get Teddy angry, he reached deeper than that," Draco was stunned as well. "He used the boy's despair, and despair when mingled with raw magic is ten times more destructive than anger could ever be."

"Mrs. Tonks, may I keep this for our defense?" Blaise asked. "It will be the only way to defend Teddy's innocence."

Andromeda nodded.

"Dromeda, you and Teddy should stay here until the trial is over. We need to keep you both safe."

"Why aren't we all staying at the Manor?" the elder sister wondered. "This is one of the finest Black homes, but the Manor is much roomier."

"There was a break in at the Manor," Draco explained. "It could have only been done by an Auror, no one else could have ever gotten through our protective wards."

"Do you think it was Harry?" Dromeda looked fearful.

"Yes, we do," Draco saw no point in lying. "That's why we've all been staying here. No one outside of this room knows about this house."

"Dromeda, please stay here," Narcissa all but begged. "I couldn't bear to lose you…again."

Andromeda hugged her younger sister to her, "Oh Cissy, of course I'll stay here, you won't lose me I promise. I should get Teddy to bed now."

Narcissa summoned Patches, "Take my sister and her son to a room near mine Patches."

Andromeda bid the room goodnight and went up to get Teddy ready for bed.

The room was silent as Narcissa was once again lost for words.

"I think I'll go to bed," Uriel rose to her feet. "Goodnight everyone."

"I'll walk you to your room Uri, and then I'll be off as well." Blaise got to his feet as well. "I'll be here for breakfast early tomorrow morning. Tomorrow we will all go over the procedures, some of the questions you may be asked, and how this trial is going to proceed. When the press finds out you've been living here for the past four months Gin, it will be an uproar."

Ginny and Draco nodded, and Uriel left, Blaise close behind her. Draco looked over at Narcissa who still hadn't spoken to her daughter. He walked over to his mother losing his patience again.

"You have to talk to her! Just look at her mother, I don't understand how you can deal with this torture, she is your daughter."

"I just can't right now Draco, today has been hard for all of us." Narcissa got up and left without another word.

Ginny hugged Draco from behind. "Just give her time, she will come around, it's hard to see your child in such a state. I'm sure she is torn between letting Uri fight her own battles and trying to protect her for the rest of her life."

Draco sighed. "Do you want to owl your parents before we go to bed?"

Ginny nodded and she penned a quick note to her parents. Draco then summoned his owl and they sent it off. They both went up to Ginny's room where Emily was already asleep. Ginny climbed into bed with her daughter and Draco sat in one of the armchairs. They fell asleep there and the next morning they were woken by Patches who bore a letter from the Weasley's. Ginny opened it and read in silence.

"They want us to come by today," Ginny finally looked up at him.

"I'm glad," Draco told her standing behind her pitting his hands on her shoulders. "It will be good for you and Emily to see and talk to your parents."

Ginny looked up at him. "They want you to come too."

"They what?"

"I had to tell them where I was staying Draco."

"And they didn't freak out?" he was shocked.

"They haven't spoken to me in months, Harry has no idea where I am, I think they are just relieved that Emily and I are okay. Will you come with me?"

Draco leaned down and kissed her. "Of course I will."

A few hours passed and before Draco knew it they were in front of the Weasley house. Molly Weasley appeared and Emily went running, squealing happily into her grandmother's arms. It made Draco smile to see the bond that the family had even after all of this.

"Emily, why don't you run inside, your Uncle George was just enjoying some of my fresh cookies, and he and Grampa are waiting to see you."

The little girl went running off into the house.

"How is George, Mum?" Ginny asked.

"He has had a bad spell, been having a lot of nightmares, and the potions aren't helping. He's all but moved back into the Burrow."

"I'm Glad," Ginny responded. "I know how much you and dad worry about him."

"We worry about you too Ginny," Molly admitted. "Your father and I are sorry, immensely so for not listening to you. When Harry came to us asking questions we asked a few of our own, and when he didn't answer we knew that you were telling the truth."

Draco resisted the urge to be angry at Molly and Arthur, he knew that denial was a powerful thing, but he still couldn't believe they would hold Potter over their own daughter.

"We're going to trial in less than a week Mum."

"Trial?" Molly asked.

"We need to get him some help, weather that puts him behind bars, or in a mental hospital, or what have you, he needs help, but he won't get it unless forced. I also don't want to be married to him any longer and his pride, and need to keep up appearance won't let him let me go. I need to be free Mum."

"We'll be there no matter what," Molly assured her, pulling her daughter close.

When Molly pulled away from Ginny she turned to look at Draco.

"My daughter has told me of what you have done for her, and for Emily, and my family will be forever grateful for that. You are welcome here Draco, and you are welcome in this family."

Draco let the women pull him into an embrace. When her arms encircled him he was reminded of Anette and how warm and welcoming she had always been. It made his own mother's ice-cold veneer even icier. He didn't want to leave Ginny, especially because they had a lot to talk about with the Weasley's, but he knew that it was time for Narcissa to face her own daughter.

He followed Ginny and Molly into the house content, at least for a few hours, to live in this small but warm and happy world. So much of the past was on its way to being mended, but the biggest step was yet to come. Tomorrow he and Blaise would be leading the Auror's to arrest Harry Potter, but it was too beautiful a day to worry about that. He had the women he loved and a darling little girl he adored waiting for him, and he thought they had waited long enough.

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Hello my faithful readers! I'm so sorry for the long wait, I kept trying to get this chapter to write itself but it would not listen to me. I made it a little longer to try and whet your appetites because the next chapter will only be harder. I also assumed that because Harry is Teddy's Godfather that Ginny is his Godmother, but I know that might not be right. The next chapter is Narcissa and Uriel's reconciliation, Harry's arrest, and the start of the trial, I'm also going to try and squeeze some D/G fluff and love in there too. Please leave me some love so I can get through the next chapter. You all are my reason for writing and I love you!