Author's Note: Hi and welcome to another chapter. If you're looking for some great reading, look at "Lightning Lord" by VashonBeader or "Changing the Balance of Power" by Old-Crow. Both authors put a bit of sass in their writing that's so much fun. Well, this chapter isn't much fun, but I hope you enjoy anyway. MNF
Chapter 12:
Questions
The cacophony of goblin noises swirled around Harry, and he wasn't sure what to think or feel or honestly, he wasn't sure what just happened. All that was grounding him in that moment was Sirius's arm around him and Hermione's arm through his.
"Sirius, what just happened?"
"Dumbledore was sentenced and taken away to the mines. It is often a foregone conclusion when someone is caught thieving at Gringotts. He was shown mercy in the end, however."
"What mercy?" Harry quickly asked. "They're binding his magic. Didn't cousin Andi find bindings on my magic? She said it was bad. I don't understand?" Harry was beginning to feel the world spin around him. Something important happened and he didn't get it and he hated it when that occurred.
"Harry," Sirius called his name while taking both of his shoulders in his hands and kneeling before him. "Harry, you're starting to have a panic attack and we can't pull our wands to help you. Listen to my voice and come back."
"You're doing well, Siri, just keep talking to him like that," Andi coached.
"Harry, I'm here, you're not alone," Hermione said calmly from next to him, her hand stroking his.
"Come on, Harry, we will head home, and I'll explain it all to you," Sirius said again. He continued in this vein for another few minutes. Slowly the world began to stop spinning around Harry. His heart slowed down, and he started to make out Sirius's face, the pressure of his godfather's hands on his shoulders and Hermione next to him. The nausea abated and his breathing became slower.
"Sirius?" Harry asked puzzled.
"You had a panic attack," Sirius said, coming to sit next to him. "How often do you have them?"
"I, er," Harry looked to Hermione.
"He has at least a few a year," Hermione said. "Sometimes he remembers things, or if the nightmares are worse than usual. Neville can tell you more about that. This last year was the best, I think having Professor Lupin to talk to helped him."
"Why didn't you tell me? I don't remember having –"
"Dumbledore told us not to talk about them unless you brought it up," she added with a sigh. "Stupid, I know."
"Not stupid," Sirius said to the girl. "You had no reason to believe the headm, er, Albus had anything but the best intentions towards Harry. If you're feeling well enough, I think we should take the portkey Portkey the goblins have offered us and head home. Andi wants to check you out." It was the first time Harry looked around and was surprised to find the three of them alone.
"Where did everyone go?" Harry asked.
"I suppose the goblins went back to work," Sirius said. "The Hogwarts crowd needed to get back, as did the Ministry people. Andi and Ted are at the new house with Remus, awaiting us."
"Yeah, let's go home. You can explain everything I'm not understanding while we eat; Andi can poke and prod me and then I'm going to take a nap."
The trio landed hard on the ground of Harry and Sirius's new home. Sirius helped keep Harry upright, although Hermione seemed to do well for herself, until she bent over and was sick on the grass.
"Don't feel bad," Harry told her, "I did the same thing the first few times I Portkeyed with Sirius. The nausea passes quickly."
"Thanks," she said, taking her wand out and cleaning the mess up.
"That reminds me, your underage magical usage passes are in the home office. Amelia dropped them off earlier," Sirius said.
"I don't remember her being here." Harry said.
"It was very early this morning, there was a lot to talk about. We were quiet as to not disturb you and the potions Remus had plied you with to sleep," Sirius hastily replied. "She left before breakfast to get a few things done before she needed to be at Gringotts.
"Oh, so are you back together?" Harry asked with his eyebrow raised. Sirius had been making the same facial feature whenever he asked Harry about Hermione.
"We are, but we're keeping it quiet for now," the older man said with a blush. "Enough of that, we have much to discuss. Hermione your parents are at their practice today, but they will be joining us for supper. I hope that you'll spend the day with us. You're welcome to be part of the conversation Harry and I will have, if he agrees of course, or you may peruse the non-lethal areas of the library."
"There are lethal places in your library?" Hermione asked, flabbergasted.
"Think Monster book of Monsters on steroids," Harry said. "Some of them have poisons on the covers or in the ink. Sirius is literally smelling them out and moving them around. Just stay away from the books in cages."
"You've put books in cages?" Hermione was indignant.
"For you protection. Come along, I want out of these robes. Hermione, why don't you go and change and return when you're comfortably dressed. I'm certain Remus will have started lunch for us," Sirius directed. "Harry, comfortable but respectable please. Muggle clothing is fine but have a set of flyaway robes at the ready, should we get unexpected company regarding this morning." Harry nodded and the men parted way from Hermione.
Twenty minutes later they were all redressed, three sets of over-robes hung on the coatrack just inside the office. Hermione was respectfully dressed in a blue skirt and pretty, floral top. Harry was surprised, as she didn't have any stockings or socks on. He'd never seen her lower leg. He felt oddly at seeing it. He didn't know if he liked it. Remus had to hide a chuckle. James was a leg man, too. Lunch was a fish stew with a creamy base, lots of vegetables and crusty rolls from a nearby bakery. Andi and Ted sat with the quartet and the meal flowed comfortably. As they neared the end, Sirius spoke up a bit louder.
"So, Harry, you had questions before your panic attack, do you want to discuss them now?" Sirius asked.
"They're going to bind HIS magic," Harry said without saying Dumbledore, "but I thought that was a bad thing. I mean, when Andi found that one dad put on me still there, I thought she was going to scream. Won't there be bad things that will happen to him if his magic is gone?"
"Harry, he's working in the goblin mines," Remus said, "he's in an inner circle of hell already. You are right, however, that taking his magic will do horrible things to him. Witches and wizards' bodies use magic to repair the normal damage that living does. Look at Sirius, his hair should have gone grey from the lack of washing and general poor health he had while in Azkaban, but as he's begun getting better, and repeatedly washing, conditioning, primping, plumping, prettying –"
"Enough about my hair, Remus," Sirius interrupted.
"Anyway, you notice he doesn't have any grey hair. His magic has repaired it. I tend to age faster than the average wizard because of the amount of magic my transformations require."
"Okay, so Proff, er, HE will age quickly to his non-magical age of…how old is he?" Hermione asked.
"I believe he's one-hundred-twenty-five," Sirius said. "Mother kept records of powerful purebloods, it didn't matter if they were light or not. It's always about the marriage match."
"Your family was obsessed," Harry muttered.
"You've no idea."
"At one-hundred-twenty-five, he will die quickly," Hermione pointed out. "That is well past a human lifespan."
"It is," Andi said. "The goblins will bury him in the mines. I doubt there will be a state funeral or anything. How could someone who was so good and did so much good really be so evil at heart?"
"I'm not sure evil is the right word there, Andi," Sirius corrected. "He was obsessed with the greater good. He gave up his best friend to it. I think he assumed everyone would be willing to make an equal sacrifice. The problem was, he wasn't giving people choices. I wouldn't have picked to spend twelve years in Azkaban, but I would have given up my life to care for Harry. You weren't even able to be given a choice, your parents were taken from you when you couldn't understand." Sirius suddenly became very quiet and still.
"So that's it then," Harry said. "I have everything of mine back. The Weasleys and Dursleys are being punished in their own ways and I get to live with Sirius, and eventually Madame Bones and Susan. Remus, you are staying with us, right, I need another guy here."
"What am I?" Sirius asked.
"Oh, you're all googly eyed in love, Sirius. I need someone who understands women. I might have questions," Harry said with a wry smile.
"I can't believe how the tables have turned," Remus said before laughing.
Andi conducted her tests and was happy with the healing Harry had already undergone. She was going to pull off the remaining bits of the binding James had put on Harry as a baby.
"Wait, we need to make entrances though that wall over there, so the ground floor is cohesive," Sirius said. "His magic will be a tad wonky after you do that."
"Fine, let's all work on it together," Andi conceded. "What about the first floor?"
"It's so disgusting up there, we need to keep the walls up," Harry said. Everyone laughed but didn't disagree.
Ted, Remus, Sirius, and Harry quickly had the walls down, and rough doorways in place. Hermione and Andi did some of the trimming-out work, but there was more that would need to be done at a later date and keeping the decorating changes they wanted in mind.
Harry stood in the middle of the nearly empty front reception room and Andi swirled her wand in an intricate pattern. There was a moderately loud pop and she declared the last of the binding on Harry disposed of.
"Harry cast a simple spell," Andi directed him. "Make the curtains float up or light the end of your wand." It had been a while since she'd been a first year and couldn't quite place what spells were taught in which years.
Harry lit his wand.
The brightness of the light he created could have been used if one of the lighthouses along the shoreline had gone out.
"Stop, Harry. Turn it off," Andi said, taking another set of readings. "This can't be possible. Remus, did they teach you the Hepsinger Educational Ratings Spell?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Take Harry's Hepsinger reading, please?" Remus duplicated Andi's wand movements.
"That's, er," he muttered. "One-hundred-seventy-two?"
"Same as what I got," Andi said.
"What does that mean?" Harry asked.
"Harry, it means your exceptionally powerful. I'm at one-hundred-thirty-two, or I was when I was in my twenties. Your dad was in the high one-twenties and your mum was up closer to one-forty," Sirius explained.."
"I'm at one-hundred-eight. You have to be above fifty to attend Hogwarts, although it's not uncommon for students to double their numbers while at school," Andi explained.
"Dumbledore was rumoured to be at one-hundred-eighty-something and Grindelwald was close to two-hundred when they were younger," Sirius said. "You are thirteen and that level…well, your raw power might be dangerous. It also means you will be one of the most powerful wizards of your age."
"What do you mean? I don't want this," Harry said, looking between his father and the rest of the family. "I just want a normal life. Sirius, I don't want to be powerful. I don't want the responsibility. Just let me have a normal life." Harry fell into his father and began to weep. Sirius gently lowered his child to the floor and held him close.
"We will give you the most normal life possible, Harry. I promise," Sirius vowed while he rocked Harry. Harry was unaware of how he was being held, or the looks of pity on the faces of those assembled. Remus gently turned Hermione around and through to the library. The werewolf was sure Harry wasn't going to want his friend to see him like this.
"What's going to happen next, Professor Lupin?" she asked once they were behind their own closed door.
"I don't know, but if anyone can find information about training a powerful wizard, it will be Sirius. His family was, well, they were obsessed with magical power. His family was losing their power – probably because they insisted on couples from a very small gene pool – and they did not appreciate Sirius's belief that the newly magical were the truly powerful ones," Remus explained.
"What do you mean?"
"Sirius observed that Muggle Muggle-born witches and wizards often had great ease accessing their magic and had baseline Hepsinger scores higher than the purebloods. A good example of this is Harry's mum, Lily. She came to school much like yourself – powerful already and quick to pick up skills. The Potters were generally a powerful bunch, but they saw nothing wrong with marrying for love not through arranged marriages to consolidate wealth or political influence. It served them well, and the culmination of their practice is an exceptionally magical son. Now I understand why James bound his magic."
"But we were just talking about how binding magic is going to kill Dumbledore. I'm confused."
"It's only going to bring about the former headmaster's end because his magic has been propping up his physical body. Harry was summoning toys when he was only a few months old. He brought the cat into his play yard at nine months and tried to bring Sirius' motorbike into the house on his first birthday. I'm quite certain Sirius did his reading then, and Lily and James did the binding to keep Harry safe from himself. That they weren't here to unbind him was the flaw in their plan."
"Do you think there are any books here on the Hepsinger Scale?" Hermione asked, causing Remus to smile.
"There are in fact a few."
Back in the reception room, Andi spelled a potion into Harry, and he eventually calmed down and fell into a fitful sleep. Ted levitated Harry onto the sofa and a brought the armchair over to keep an eye on the boy while his wife and her cousin talked.
"Is he going to be okay?" Sirius asked.
"Physically, yes; emotionally, I'm not sure. I think Harry suppressed every feeling to protect himself while growing up. Now he doesn't know what to do with them. He needs to see a mind healer as soon as we can get him in. I have a few friends who do this sort of work with adolescents, I'll see who is available. Two of them work in the Muggle world, although they both went to Hogwarts. Neither made the cut to train at St Mungo's so they went to Muggle Uni and are degreed that way. I can prescribe any potions they think will work, but as long as I know what is given to Harry, I can work with Muggle medicines too." Andi's mind was working overtime.
"And, the magic? I'm going to need to warn Mini and the staff at Hogwarts. He could cause problems. Also, I don't want the Death Eaters who escaped prison to know just how powerful he is. It would put a target on his back."
"Siri, you might want to consider homeschooling Harry for a while –"
"He loves Hogwarts. He'd have to give up Quidditch and –"
"That's true, but Harry would be safe." At Andi's words, Sirius quieted. He wanted Harry to know he was safe. The boy deserved to feel that for the first time.
"School only just let out. Remus and I can work with him for a while before we'd need to discuss his private tutoring," Sirius stated, turning his head to look at his boy. "Thanks for your help, Andi. I owe you."
"No, you don't. We're family and with the reinstatement to the Black family and access to my dowery and the family funds I should have been receiving all along, I'm quite rich."
"Good. I'm happy to spread the wealth around."
