Chapter Five
Granger-Malfoy-Nott Townhouse
Hermione
"Knock, knock," Hermione called as she opened Scorpius' bedroom door. "Albus?"
"Hey Hermione," Albus responded. He was sitting against the headboard with a pillow over his lap as though he was expecting her, which he probably was.
Hermione sat on the edge of the bed. "Albus, can we talk for a bit?"
"Yeah, I'd like that."
"I read the letter from your mum and I want you to know that nothing in that was okay for her to say to you. Those things were abusive and cruel. And regardless of if you and Scorpius work out as a couple, I want you to know that you will always and forever be welcome in this house and that I consider you part of our family."
"I really appreciate that." Albus' lip wobbled and Hermione fought the urge to hold him because she still had more to say.
"That message wasn't just cruel. It was illegal under the Magical Child Protection law the Wizengamot passed last year. The law didn't only prohibit magical or physical violence or neglect; Humiliation, verbal abuse, and degradation were outlawed as well. So what I'm saying is that there will probably be an investigation and you won't have to go home while that happens, although they may want you to stay with a family member."
"Not Grandma Molly. She's just as bad," Albus begged.
"There has to be someone in the Weasley family that isn't being unkind to you," Hermione pleaded, desperate not to write off the entire clan.
"I got a couple other owls today. Uncle George told me to come by the shop and I could have a free pick of prank supplies to get Rose back for being a slimy little toad. His words, not mine. At the Burrow, Uncle Percy tried to distract everyone by announcing that he was gay and he's moved in with Mr. Flint." Albus gestured to the other letters on Scorpius' bedside table.
"Marcus and Percy?" Hermione laughed. "Why am I not surprised? And did he send you an owl?"
"Y-yeah. He and Mr. Flint invited Scorpius and I to come to dinner over spring hols." Hermione nodded, already aware that Marcus was the Auror that handled abuse claims. If her husband was as efficient as usual, Marcus would probably be here along with their family's solicitor and the Ministry's child advocate, Luna Longbottom, by the time she was finished talking with Albus.
"That's really wonderful. I'm sure they'll have all sorts of great advice for the two of you." Hermione smiled.
"And Victoire wrote. Aunt Fleur is beside herself and is apparently calling Aunt Lavender so many foul things in French that Vic can't keep track. Uncle Bill apparently got into an argument with both Uncle Ron and Grandma over the floo and she thinks that they may have gotten uninvited from the Burrow for Sunday brunch for the foreseeable future."
Hermione took a breath, pleased to know that the Weasleys that she liked weren't keen to see their little black sheep mistreated. "See Albus, you do have support from your family."
"Yeah, but dad could barely look at me after Rose told everyone. He must be so disgusted."
"Oh kiddo, I don't think that's what's going on at all with your dad. You forget that once upon a time, I knew him better than anyone." Albus looked at her desperate for reassurance. "Your dad is having a really hard time with people treating you like this. That's why he left you here – because even though he and I aren't friends anymore, he knew that I would keep you safe."
Albus clutched the pillow to his chest. "Do you really think so?"
"His name wasn't on that letter, was it? When your mother speaks to you like that does she ever do it in front of your dad?" Hermione was making a leap that this letter wasn't the first time Ginny had verbally abused Albus like this, and when Albus shook his head she knew she was right. It made her want to vomit. She attempted to keep her face as neutral as possible. This was about Albus not her.
"Never when Dad's around and rarely in front of James because he always sticks up for me, but she does it in front of Lily all the time." Hermione recalled all of Molly's cruelty to the twins and Fleur that Ginny had learned at her knee and scowled.
"Has anyone else seen her talk to you like that?" Hermione asked, desperately attempting to keep the fury from her face. She didn't want to scare Albus.
"Well, Teddy came over one time when she was in the middle of yelling at me. Dad had taken James and Lily to see Uncle Ron play quidditch and I didn't want to go, so Mum had to stay home with me. She was so mad. She called me a pathetic excuse for a Weasley." Albus' lip trembled. "Teddy ended up babysitting me and Mum joined everyone else at the game."
Hermione froze. Theo and Draco had both quoted their father's as saying almost the same thing to them when they were boys. She reached out and squeezed his shoulder reassuringly.
"Albus, I need you to know that you're wonderful and that everyone in this house loves you." Hermione could hear the tears that she was trying to choke back in her own voice.
Albus wiped at his own tears. "I know Hermione."
Hogwarts
Harry
His office at Hogwarts was always a peaceful place where Harry could be alone with his thoughts. Right now though, his thoughts were a nightmarish jumble. The night before classes resumed he was usually productive and efficient, but tonight he wasn't feeling like he knew what he ought to be doing. The lesson planning that usually came so easily to him seemed far too complicated for his disordered brain.
Percy threw open the door to the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor's office and without preamble burst out with "Tell me that you didn't know Ginny was abusing Albus."
"What?" Harry said in shock, standing up.
Percy looked frantic. "Harry. You're like a brother to me and I only have maybe ten minutes. I shouldn't even be here. I got a heads up and I came straight here because I just can't believe that you would be a party to this."
Harry choked out, "Is this about Ginny telling Lavender it was okay to sell the story to the Prophet?"
"Did she do that too? Good Godric. No, she wrote Albus a vile, hateful letter and apparently has been verbally abusing him in private for a long time. The Child Advocate and the Aurors are taking Albus' statement now. I'll be honest with you Harry, it really doesn't look good." Percy handed over a stack of papers. "If you don't want to lose custody of your children, you need to file for separation from Ginny immediately and you probably need to get a solicitor. Be honest with the Auror when he arrives. This is going to get very ugly. I've got to go. The Aurors will be here soon and I can't be here when they arrive."
Percy made for the door.
"Percy!" Harry called after him. "Thank you."
Defective. Poof.
What else had Ginny been calling Albus behind his back? What else had Harry been willfully ignoring? That he and the children spent months of the year at Hogwarts away from her seemed like no excuse for him choosing not to see what was going on.
His heart hurt. Had he just been pretending so hard that everything was perfect that he hadn't seen how wrong things were?
...
Another knock at his office door brought the Headmistress escorting a huge hulking Auror that Harry recognized. "Potter," McGonagall said curtly. "Auror Flint is here to speak with you. When you are finished I'm going to need you to come to my office."
"Flint," Harry greeted. The huge man sat across from him. Harry noticed that he'd had his teeth done. It was still difficult to imagine him in a relationship with Percy. They seemed to be polar opposites, but the same could be said of Hermione and Malfoy and they seemed happy enough. Nott was just as swotty as Hermione had always been. It wasn't Harry's concern anyway, especially right now.
"Mr. Potter. Let's get this started, shall we?" Marcus Flint pushed a letter in front of him. "Do you recognize this handwriting?"
Harry's eyes traced over the words before him, completely familiar with the curves and dots of the letters.
I knew that I should never have let you spend time at that harlot's house.
She always thought she was too good for us and now that's what you think too isn't it?
Even writing the word makes me physically ill.
Your grandmother is positively ill over all this you know.
"This is my wife's writing," Harry confirmed as he slid the letter back across the desk.
"Were you aware that she was engaging in verbal abuse and humiliation of your younger son?"
"I became aware the day the article was published but not to this extent," Harry admitted, gesturing to the letter. "She referred to him as several pejoratives over breakfast and admitted to being behind the article in the Daily Prophet publicising his personal attachments. I was horrified and ended up spending a few days away from her in London with James, my eldest son."
Flint nodded, making notes in a little book that he had with him. "She was responsible for the Daily Prophet article?"
Uncomfortable, Harry still nodded, remembering Percy's advice. "She told me she gave Lavender permission to sell the information to the paper. She did not confer with me before giving this permission."
"You would not have consented?" The auror continued to make notes.
"Godric, no!" Harry looked at Flint in shock. "I spent too much of my childhood with my private business in the public eye. I don't want that for my children."
"And you weren't aware that your wife regularly sent your son letters at Hogwarts designed to cause him emotional suffering?"
Harry blanched. He'd thought everything was fine at Hogwarts. It made him heartsick that Albus had never come to him. He thought back to his own Hogwarts days and how Molly had regularly sent letters to the twins and Ron that were humiliating, even Ginny on occasion. Had the warning signs of this been there that long? He wiped at the tears that ran over and tried to stay focused on what Marcus Flint was saying to him.
"I'll take that as a no, then." Flint made more notes. "Have you ever humiliated, verbally abused, neglected, or struck your children, Mr. Potter?"
"No! Never." Harry shook his head. "The relatives who raised me were physically abusive and neglectful. I would never do that to my own children."
"What?" Marcus' head flew up in shock. "Your family? That certainly wasn't in your biography."
Harry shook his head. "It was left out at my request. My Muggle aunt and uncle were… afraid of magic," Harry admitted. "It made them violent and cruel. I was treated like a house elf. I would never allow such a thing to happen to my own children, though it appears that I have. The whole thing with Albus and the young Mr. Malfoy-Nott came to light because of a fight at the Burrow between Rose, my niece, Albus, and James. Rose became violent with the boys and I was immediately concerned as my own cousin was violent with me when I was a child. I separated my children from my niece at which time my sons immediately floo'd to the Malfoy-Nott residence."
"Do you have a good relationship with the Malfoy-Notts?" Flint asked, his gaze sharp.
"Hermione and I fell out a number of years ago." Harry frowned. "At Ginny's insistence actually, but I never worry about the safety and well-being of my children when they visit them. Albus actually has his own room there with how inseparable he and their son are. James is apparently dating their eldest daughter."
Flint nodded and made some more notes. Harry wondered what he was writing. "The Department will be issuing a protective order for Albus. Your wife won't be allowed to contact him during the investigation. There will actually be a number of restrictions on her, I'll be sending you a copy of the document that she'll also be sent. Your youngest child is at Hogwarts, correct?"
"Yes, she's a first year student. She's in Ravenclaw." Harry's mind whirled. He admittedly wasn't particularly familiar with the new child protection law with the exception of the reporting requirements for Hogwarts professors. He was unfortunately very familiar with the form he had to complete even though it had only been a short time that the law had been fully in effect. He just never thought that the law would impact his own family.
"Good. We'd rather not have the trauma of removing the children from your home. Mrs. Potter will be taken to the DMLE for questioning under Veritaserum tomorrow after the Hogwarts Express departs."
Harry couldn't help but feel as though the bottom of his world had fallen out, but this was the right thing to do. He couldn't lose his children and he couldn't allow them to be treated the way the Dursleys had treated him as a child. He'd do whatever it took to keep his children safe going forward, since it appeared that so far he'd been doing a shit job of that.
...
The Headmistress' office was more or less the same as it had been except for the charmed curtains over Dumbledore's portrait. Harry had once found this troubling but now considered it to be normal. He sat there in silence, waiting for the headmistress to address the elephant in the room.
"Professor Potter, I hate to say this but if you don't file for separation from Mrs. Potter, I can't have you working around children." Her expression was stern and brooked no argument.
Harry nodded, trying not to cry as McGonagall called him by his professional title rather than Harry as she had for a decade.
"I understand and I've already completed the separation paperwork and given it to Auror Flint. He'll be filing it in the morning and then copies will go into the investigative file and will be owled to Gin."
McGonagall's eyebrows rose in surprise, but she looked pleased.
"I admit that I did it so that I wouldn't lose custody of my own children, but it makes sense that you wouldn't be able to have me in my position with allegations like this at play." Harry leaned his head back and looked at the ceiling. "This whole thing is so fucked." Harry was momentarily shocked at himself for cursing in the present company, but he didn't apologise.
"I think," the headmistress began, "that we could both use a drink." She stood and poured two glasses of firewhiskey from the bottle she kept behind one of the thick books behind her desk. She handed him a tumbler as she sat back across from him. "Harry, did you really have no idea how bad it was?"
Removing his glasses to wipe them, he shook his head. "But did I really? Or was I just choosing not to see?"