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Chapter 14

Harry and Fleur were in the library, supposedly to practice Harry's French language ability, but it had quickly devolved into the two of them practicing their French kissing ability instead. Unfortunately, as much fun as the last hour had been, it was interrupted by a knock on the door. Fleur and Harry quickly straightened their clothes, and while Fleur was fixing her hair Harry went and opened the door to see who was interrupting them. Any ire that he may have felt was instantly quashed, Hermione was clutching a copy of the Daily Prophet in her hand and extremely distraught. Seeing how emotional she was, Harry instantly wrapped her in a hug. "Hermione, what's happened?"

"Harry…it's Mr. Weasley," she replied as she handed Harry the newspaper. Even before he read it, he felt a lump of ice settle in his stomach. Sure, Harry may not be close friends with Ron after their argument in their third year, but he and Ron now got on as well as he did with Dean or Seamus. However, the rest of the Weasleys he felt much closer to, he considered the twins as some of his closest friends and he would never forget the summer he spent at their home after his first year at Hogwarts. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had taken him in and treated him like one of the family. The paper was open to the obituaries, and it was a small article about Mr. Weasley's funeral the day before. Harry quickly read that Mr. Weasley was found dead in the Ministry of Magic, the victim of a highly venomous snake bite. Harry realised both that Voldemort had a deadly venomous snake and that the delays at the Ministry the day Fleur had arrived was the death of someone Harry liked.

Fleur realised that it was someone that Harry and Hermione knew who had died and came over, her hair looking a little neater than when Harry had left her, and she pulled them both into a hug and asked, "Who was he?" When Hermione told her it was Fred and George's father, she instantly understood. She had never met Mr Weasley, but she knew that Harry had spent some time at his house before they had met. They sat there for a while and Harry told Fleur about the man he knew, and then he and Hermione wrote a letter to the twins and their family expressing how sorry they were for the loss.

-ϟϟϟ-

New year came and went. Harry, Hermione, and Fleur didn't go to the Grangers' dental association New Years party this year due to playing host to Dudley and Daphne. Technically, as a member of his house Harry could have left Tracey there, but he didn't feel right leaving her behind while going out to party. Also, in his capacity as Warlock Potter he had received an invitation to a New Years party hosted by the Malfoys. Either it was an obligation to invite Harry as a Warlock, or it was a trap of some kind. Either way, Harry returned the invitation to them with a polite letter declining the invitation and warning them about the potential danger of hosting such a party when a group of terrorists were active again. It gave Harry a thrill to insult Malfoy like that while being incredibly polite and making it sound like he was concerned for the safety of the man's guests. More importantly, though, Harry wasn't going to just walk right into a snake pit for no reason.

In addition, Harry finally did what the voice in his head had been nagging him to do and went for a full checkup at St Mungo's on the third of January. Hermione and Fleur had wanted to come, but to keep it from being a crowd it was eventually agreed that it would just be Harry and Sirius. It was almost eleven when the two of them talked to a rather bored-looking welcome witch who gave them a stack of forms to fill out while they waited.

"So Harry, how are things with you and your girls?" Sirius asked as he filled out what he knew of Harry's dad's medical history.

Harry blushed at the question. He had never really talked to Sirius about his relationship before, probably because Harry nearly always had Hermione or Fleur with him around his godfather, and when he didn't he would normally draw Sirius into talking about his dad. "Everything's fine."

Sirius wasn't having that. "Just fine? You have two beautiful and driven girls, Harry, and your relationship is just fine?"

Harry purposely didn't look at his godfather. "What do you want me to say? Long distance with Fleur is causing some friction? Well of course it is, we all wish we could be together more. The mirrors help but it's not really enough. Do you want me to say I'm jealous that Hermione and Fleur are able to take their relationship to the physical level while I can't be with Fleur like that yet? Fine, I'm a little jealous. And Fleur is jealous of the time Hermione and I get with each other. We know what our issues are and we know they are temporary. We also know we are solid. None of us want to back out of our relationship. We just wish that we could be together now without all the waiting and the rules getting in the way."

Sirius was a little taken aback by his godson's little speech, and in the end all he could think of to say was, "Well I'm here if you ever want to talk about it."

Harry flashed his godfather a small smile. "I know Sirius, but Hermione, Fleur and I talk about this stuff a lot over the mirrors. Hermione said something about emotional intimacy being even more important when physical intimacy isn't possible. I don't understand it all, but Fleur agreed with her and it seems to work." Then Harry had an idea to flip it on his godfather. "My relationship is fine. I'm not the one who hasn't been on a date for over a year. What about you Sirius, isn't it time you started looking for someone?" Harry needled his godfather.

Sirius knew exactly what Harry was doing and just gave Harry a short laugh. "Nice try Harry. But I'm glad you're doing okay. It's important that you talk with Fleur and Hermione, and I'm glad you're doing that, but if you ever need to talk to someone else, know I'll keep whatever you say between us." He ruffled Harry's hair as a nurse called for him.

Harry walked into an examination room and found a healer in lime green robes waiting for him. "OK Mr. Potter, if you can just sit there on the examination table for me. Now, it says on my chart that you want a full examination with an emphasis on checking your scar, is that right?" she asked.

"Yeah, I have never had a full checkup and I have pains in my scar. I have begun to suspect it's infected with dark magic," Harry replied.

"Okay, well let's take a look at the rest of you first." Harry spent the next hour being poked, prodded, scanned, and anything else the healer could think of. He even had to give samples of pretty much every fluid his body produced, which was embarrassing as hell. All the time Harry had to answer questions. Some were not so bad, like diet and exercise, but others such as whether he was sexually active were more embarising, and Harry answered them all honestly, knowing that if he didn't it could screw with the results.

Before they got to Harry's scar, there were a few things found by the healer she wanted to improve. Apparently his bone density wasn't quite what she would like (except the bones in his arm that had been regrown with Skele-gro, those were fine). His internal organs were a little damaged due to his poor diet growing up. The healer had paled a little when she found what was left of the scar Harry had gotten when Bellatrix LeStrange had tried to carve the Dark Mark into his torso. The scar was faded now and barely noticeable, but still showed up to investigations. Harry was prescribed a couple of weekly potions to take for the bone density and to bring up the functionality of his internal organs.

Then came the examination of Harry's magical core. She had Harry lay back on the table and cast a spell, and three glowing balls of light floated over Harry. The healer stared at them in shock; it took Harry a few moments to notice that the healer wasn't doing anything because he was distracted by the pretty lights and was watching them rather than his healer. It was only when he heard her say, "How are there three?" that he looked over.

"Why, what does each ball of light mean?" he asked.

The healer shifted her gaze to Harry and said. "Mr. Potter, each sphere indicates a magical core. Somehow, you have three magical cores.

Harry was shocked by that and looked closer at the balls of light. Two were large and relatively similar in size, and one was about one-tenth the size of the other two. How could he have three different magical cores? Then he placed something together with what the shade of his mother told him, that she came from Voldemort's wand and had bound itself to Lily's magic that was in him.

Everyone had thought that it was just an unknown protection spell she had cast with accidental magic. But what if it was more than that? What if, in the moment his mother died, her magical core had latched onto him, a soulless ball of energy that kept trying to fulfil his mother's dying wish to keep Harry safe from Voldemort? His mother's actual magical core, protecting him? Harry debated whether or not he should tell the healer his suspicion. He really didn't know the woman, so how could he trust her? But she was a healer, and from what Harry understood they took an Unbreakable vow to keep their patients confidential information private.

The healer must have noticed his indecision because she gave him a stern look and said, "Mr. Potter, I know that it can be hard to talk about some things, but you need to consider, will keeping what you know from me speed up this exam or slow it down? I have other patients to see, and if you're going to be difficult then I'm better off sending you home until you are ready to cooperate. My time is better spent helping those who are committed to improving their health. I will remind you that all licenced healers who work in Britain take a vow to guard their patients' confidential information, so make your choice."

The sternness of the healer cut through Harry's misplaced worry and he told the woman about the protection he had from his mother and how the shade of his mother produced by Voldemort's wand during Priori Incantatem had merged with that magic, and how the shade of his mother would talk to him in his dreams. As Harry spoke, the healer kept glancing at the balls of light that were slowly circling each other as they floated over Harry. "Honestly Mr. Potter,, if I hadn't seen the evidence of multiple magical cores first, I just would have stunned you and taken you to a mind healer. But I must make sure you understand something. You are aware that the shade is not your mother, right? It's just a magical construct made in her likeness."

Harry nodded sadly. "I know. And so does she. She's like a magical painting right? Not real, but still a comfort to talk to."

"That's actually a pretty good and healthy way to look at it. Plenty of people would start to think of the shade as being alive and try to do weird rituals to give it a body of its own, but it would never work. Now, let's try and work out what exactly is going on, shall we?" She had Harry cast a few spells to see how that affected the cores, and discovered that Harry was only drawing from the one core. Because of that, the healer was able to see which of the three cores was Harry's, and when they learned that they were able to see a pattern in the movement of the orbs. Harry's orb was one of the larger two, and the other large one was constantly moving to keep the small one away from Harry. That had Harry and the healer jump to the same conclusion: the smaller orb was somehow connected to Voldemort's killing curse. The healer told Harry about how very little was known about how the killing curse actually killed. It was over so quickly that it was impossible to study. That had frightened Harry a little. Was Voldemort's killing curse from when he was a baby still trying to kill him? Would Hermione or Fleur walk into a room one day and just find him lying there dead?

Eventually, the healer did learn that the third core was centered around Harry's forehead scar. That confirmed to both of them that the third core was somehow connected to Voldemort, and it let the healer analyse the magic of the third core, which was filled with dark magic. The healer tried a few standard cleansing spells, but she rightly didn't have much hope of that working. "Dark magic is difficult to remove even under perfect conditions, there is almost always something left behind. It's what keeps healers from being able to heal our patents to one hundred percent. That's the biggest reason why magical people have scars. Without dark magic contamination, we can heal skin, reattach limbs, and even regrow some organs without leaving a single mark. But one drop of dark magic, and even a paper cut will leave a scar." The healer sounded bitter as she explained.

The cleaning spells did nothing but irritate the small magical core, which in turn gave Harry a massive headache so bad that just light was making it worse and he felt like he was going to throw up. The healer decided that any more tests would only hurt Harry and said she was going to do some research into how to get as much of the dark magic out of him as she possibly could. In the meantime, he was given a prescription for the potions they had already found he needed and he was sent back out to Sirius and to go home.

Fleur and Hermione were all over Harry when he and Sirius Apparated back home. Everyone was eager to hear what the healer had said, but his wonderful girlfriends could see that he wasn't up to playing twenty questions. Hermione had recognised his explanation of his headache as a migraine, so she and Fleur pulled Harry up to his room and darkened the windows and turned off all the lights. He couldn't say he felt good in the dark room, but he definitely felt less bad. The two girls laid down quietly on each side of Harry and took one of his hands each without snuggling up to him, just a quiet and simple reminder that they were both there for him.

-ϟϟϟ-

As the end of the Christmas break approached, all the students currently staying in Harry's house spent the last couple of days focusing on getting their homework finished. Even Dudley was sitting in the library with them working on his G.C.S.E. work in almost complete silence. Apart from a few courtesies, he had barely said anything to anyone since Christmas. Harry thought that Dudley had finally realised how much he had screwed up, as all that was left for him now was to finish his year at Smeltings. Then, it would be the foster care system and either sixth form in a free school or a free trade college for him. Not that Harry had any sympathy for him, he had given his cousin a chance but Dudley had proven he was nothing but the bullying thug Harry knew him to be. Harry was washing his hands of the boy, and he didn't feel bad about it at all. It was getting towards evening and they were definitely thinking about calling it for the day. Tracey was dropping hints about a mug of Dobby's amazing hot chocolate when Sirius came bursting into the room. "We have a problem, you need to come see this for yourself." And with that he led them down the spiral stairs to the family room. They all followed him as he crossed the magically expanded room to join the adults looking out the front windows.

Harry's eyes widened, but before he could say anything the shout of "Mum! Dad!" from Dudley had him springing into action before his cousin could do anything. Harry knew what Dudley was going to because it's exactly what he would do in the same situation. He caught Dudley just as he was turning to run for the front door to greet the two family members that they had all believed to be dead. "Ge' off me, my parents are outside!" Dudley shouted as he tried to shove Harry off.

Sirius and Dan were also helping hold Dudley back and Harry tried to reason with him. "Dudley, those people in the robes standing with your parents are probably the people who kidnapped them. If you go out there, they will probably torture and kill you." He had seen at least six people standing around in thick dark robes, each also wearing dark cloaks with their hoods up. If he could see six, then it was a good bet that there were more he couldn't see. Charms to make yourself functionally invisible were really easy, they were even covered as part of N.E.W.T.s classes if you continue with D.A.D.A.

Sirius hit Dudley with a full body bind and caught him before he fell face first into the floor. As Sirius levitated him over to one of the sofas he said, "I'm sorry, but Harry is right. If you go out there, at best you become another hostage before they kill you. We will do what we can for your parents but we aren't going to just go charging out there."

"We need help," Tracey said, looking down at the robed figures. "Has anyone called the aurors?"

"The floo has been blocked and there are anti-Apparition wards up," Sirius explained. " I checked that before I came to get you.

"It was the same when he killed my parents. Mum tried to Apparate, she tried to use a Portkey, and she tried to open a window to fly away on a broom while Dad bought us time. None of it worked," Harry said in a cold and unattached way. "However, I have a way out. I can Apparate through wards, so I'm going to Side-Along everyone to somewhere safe." He didn't hesitate to grab Dan and Emma and take them to the headmistress's office at Hogwarts. It was strongly warned so it was safe, it was close by so it wouldn't take Harry too much effort to make the multiple trips.

The three appeared in the empty office and the paintings started to go nuts. Harry didn't stop, though, he simply let go of Dan and Emma and popped back to the house.

"Harry, it's the full moon tonight, you don't think this could be a werewolf attack, do you?" Hermione asked. Harry quickly ran the dates through his head, it was the 5th today and…Hermione was right, it was a full moon tonight.

"Can my uncle and aunt be turned? I mean they're mundane, don't you need magic for the curse to use?" he asked as he looked out of the window again at his chained-up aunt and uncle. Neither of them looked healthy.

"They can be turned, the curse itself has enough magic. But without regular healer intervention, the curse burns them out quite quickly after three to six full moons, 12 at the absolute best. Their bodies can't take the abuse of the constant transformations, they usually die mid-transformation," she replied, turning to look outside again.

Harry grabbed Ms. Richards and Dudley and made another trip to the headmistress's office. He was moving hìs mundane family away first because he knew they would be the most defenceless if anything were to happen. When he arrived back at the school, Dan and Emma were arguing with a few of the paintings that had apparently decided to take offence to their presence. The paintings shouted and grumbled about even more people turning up, but again Harry didn't stop to say anything and just brought Daphne and Tracey through. This time, he did stay around long enough to tell Tracey to Floo call the D.M.L.E. and to report the attack in Hogsmeade. Then he was gone and back again with his girlfriends, and despite the fatigue he was starting to feel from so many trips with passengers he went back for Sirius.

Sirius was still standing by the window watching what was going on outside when he returned. Harry went and stood next to him and looked at what he was looking at. "I told Tracey to call the D.M.L.E. Do you really think they would have turned my aunt and uncle? Why bother?" Harry could see they were still just standing there, so he didn't feel overly pressed for time and stopped for a moment to recover a little.

"Maybe they think you'll try to save them?" Sirius suggested, phrased as a question asking if that was what Harry intended to try.

"No, I sent Voldemort a letter pointing out the old articles in the Prophet. He knows exactly what I think of those people."

"You sent him a letter?" Sirius asked, surprised. Harry just shrugged. They looked out of the window for almost a minute before Sirius got a worried look and asked. "Harry, would the wards stop your aunt and uncle from getting in here?"

Harry realised he didn't know. The wards were based around family, and as Vernon and Petunia were the uncle and aunt of the Warlock of the House, it was entirely possible the wards would let them in. Harry also knew there wasn't a specific werewolf ward on the property with the amount of time Remus spent here. It all clicked into place then, they had turned his aunt and uncle and were going to shove them into Harry's home with all ways out blocked. They wanted Harry and his family to be trapped in a house with two monsters.

They hadn't, however, counted on Harry's ability to bypass their lockdown, though he did realise there was someone he almost forgot about, and bringing Sirius with him he ran up to the owlery to get Hedwig. Harry's animagus form was public knowledge, there was no way they left a way for him to fly out, which meant that Hedwig would be simply trapped. He wasn't going to lose his girl to his aunt and uncle; they had hurt her enough already. Hedwig wasn't happy about not being able to fly by herself, but Harry was able to get her to fly down and settle on his arm without too much effort.

There were a bunch of cracks outside, and both Harry and Sirius looked out of the owlery windows to see a bunch of red robed aurors advancing on the people in cloaks. Harry was surprised that they had gotten here so quickly, even given that he and Sirius had been here a few minutes Harry expected that Tracey would still be giving her report to whomever it was taking the Floo calls to the D.M.L.E. Other residents must have called them, it was the main reason why even during the blood war Hogsmeade was mostly considered safe. The aurors were always called quickly, and they tended to show up fast and in force. There had to be at least twenty red-robed law enforcement wizards down there. Unfortunately, time waited for no one, and as the aurors approached the full moon hung complete in the eastern sky. Harry watched in grim curiosity, like seeing a train wreck and not being able to look away. Someone had to have planned this, the timing was too perfect. Harry watched as his aunt and uncle transformed and turned on the auror that was nearest them. The auror was able to get away by firming a few curses and stumbling back, but not before Vernon was able to bite his arm.

Harry pulled out his wand intending to go and help but before he could take even a step towards the stairs he felt Sirius's hand grip the shoulder of his clothes tightly. "Where do you think you're going? Those are professionals out there. Your job is to take us to where it is you dropped everyone else." His godfather's tone was firm in a way that Harry had yet to experience from his godfather, and Harry realised he was right. He needed to get to Hermione and Fleur, they would be worried about him. He made sure he had a tight hold on both Sirius and Hedwig and popped them to Professor McGonagall's office. Upon arrival, he was instantly tackled by both Hermione and Fleur, who sandwiched him in a hug between them and started to demand what had taken him so long. It was clear from their tone that, even though Harry hadn't been longer than five minutes, the two loves of his life had been incredibly worried about him.

"Sorry, I had to get Hedwig, and while we were in the owlery we could see the aurors turning up." Harry explained. He saw that someone had freed Dudley from his body bind and he was looking out the window towards the village. "Dudley, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon have been turned into werewolves. Sirius and I saw them transform."

Dudley didn't say anything, but Harry could see he was clenching and unclenching his fists. Harry was going to say more, but before he could the door to the office opened and in strode Professor McGonagall. She was not at all surprised to find people in her office, Harry suspected that one of the portraits had run off to inform her, however, she was rather understandably demanding answers about their presence.

A/n

I just realised at the end that I revealed that Mrs. Weasley is a widow and had Harry push Sirius to find someone in the same chapter. Just to head off anyone who is thinking I'm pushing towards a Sirius/Molly pairing, no. Just no.