Chapter 30
The morning sun shone brightly through the thin, open windows of McGonagall's office. A cool, fair breeze wound lazily through the room, ruffling papers held trapped underneath a paperweight in the shape of a cat. The sky was a clear, cornflower blue. Spring had sprung.
Harry had an odd feeling – as if such serious matters as what he was discussing should only be shared in the darkest hours of the night. He felt as if these conversations were usually held in hushed tones, a mouth's expression twisted and exaggerated in sputtering candlelight. But the air was open and light today – his voice carried clearly across the small room, crowded with familiar faces. McGonagall. Ginny. Teddy. Ron. Hermione. And Dumbledore, the closest thing to Dumbledore he could ever get at least, listening intently from the small gilded frame on the wall.
Hermione sighed heavily as Harry finished his recount of the night's events. Ron patted her shoulder affectionately. There was a heavy sort of silence in the air, but the question was clear enough it didn't need to be spoken. Again?
When Harry had entered the forbidden forest all those years ago, for what he thought was the final time, he had held a snitch in his hand that had been engraved with the words "I open at the close." But there was no close, not really. Not in the wizarding world.
"Do you know anything about Isidre's family?" Ginny asked, finally breaking the silence. Harry shook his head. "Nothing but their names. Their first names, that is. Isidre is the boy, as you know. His father is Amon. The mother is Ariadna. And Jessica Williams, they called her Neus in that field. The last name is unplottable, unspeakable." "Impossible!" Exclaimed McGonagall.
"Ah." Spoke a voice from the wall. Harry turned to hear what Dumbledore had to say. But it wasn't Dumbledore who had spoken. It was the portrait of Phineas Nigellus. "Headmaster" Harry acknowledged with a nod. "As a representative of the Slytherin house, and of course as one of the last honorable members of one of the most prominent pure blood families in history…" Harry noticed Ron roll his eyes out of the corner of his eye and prayed Phineas had not seen and taken offence. "Yes, Phineas?" Dumbledore asked, cutting him off mid-sentence. Phineas shot Dumbledore an angry look from his own handsome frame but got to his point: "as I was saying, I feel as if it is my duty to inform you that… it is, indeed, ah, possible."
"Theoretically possible, Phineas, or has it already been done?" Dumbledore spoke gravely. Phineas hummed and hawed but did not speak. "I think you can take that as a yes" Ron muttered. Hermione shook her head. She'd cut her hair short in the years since Hogwarts, but even now it still had a slightly wild quality about it. "It just doesn't make any sense" Hermione said, "pureblood families are notoriously proud. Their last names are everything to them. Why would they make their legacy unplottable?"
Several voices in the portraits on the wall spoke up at once, but it was the voice at the door that broke through the din and silenced the room. "I can tell you why." Harry turned in surprise.
"Malfoy" sneered Ron "get out." The tall, pale man in the doorway didn't move. He was staring directly at Harry. "I said get out" Ron said, raising his voice, but Harry quieted him with an upheld hand.
"I've been trying to reach you" Malfoy said. Harry nodded. He knew that Malfoy had sent at least two owls since Albus had been suspended. Frankly, Harry had ignored them. He hadn't wanted to speak to Malfoy about their son's behaviour. Yes, Harry had spoken in defence of Malfoy at his ministry hearing after the war. But no, that didn't mean that Harry had forgotten everything that had happened between him and the blond boy standing on the opposite side of the room. He had not wanted to swap parenting advice with Draco, or to engage in any meaningful conversation. Harry had meant what he said to Albus – forgiveness doesn't have to be absolute.
"Well Potter, since you can't be bothered to read a letter, and since my own son was found off school property yesterday, narrowly avoiding what I hear was the single biggest security breach the ministry has seen since – Well, I've decided I can no longer be polite about it." Malfoy's voice did not fall back into the familiar drawl that it had when they were schoolboys, but Harry recognized the hint of condescension in his tone.
"Spit it out, Malfoy" Ginny said, scooting her chair an inch away farther away from him. Malfoy looked briefly at Ginny with cool indifference. "On platform nine and three quarters" Malfoy said after a slight pause, gathering his thoughts and speaking carefully, "my… father… said something rather unusual. Do you remember, Potter?"
Harry flushed. He remembered. Well, now he remembered. The interaction had slipped his mind, with so many other things happening that day. He had been focused on the chestnut angle by then. "He said… he said that Elle looked familiar" Harry recalled. Malfoy nodded curtly. "I admit that I looked into the matter after that day. It was a very strange thing to say. Before we speak, I have to ask. Are the rumors true? Is there a boy as well?" Harry nodded, while internally noting that the auror department needed a refresher course on the word 'confidential'.
Malfoy's thin mouth twisted into a frown. Hermione conjured Malfoy a chair, gesturing for him to sit, but the tall man chose to stay standing, just beyond the doorway. "Purebloods keep their secrets, as I'm sure you're well aware. This family is one of those secrets. It's funny, before Tom Riddle, they use to be called "the unmentionable family" sometimes. That got dropped after the first war. A bit too similar to 'he-who-shall-not-be-named' I suppose. What did the boy call himself, at Hogwarts?" Malfoy asked McGonagall. The old lady cleared her throat. "Clockwise was the family name registered."
Malfoy raised an eyebrow. Phineas Nigellus gave a snort from behind McGonagall, before quickly regaining composure. "You were saying?" Harry prompted. Malfoy turned back to him, his icy eyes fixing on Harry as he spoke "The Clockwise family is a cursed pureblood family. They made their name unplottable so there could never be a written record of their curse – it's been so long, the story has gotten so twisted, that no one knows the truth anymore. Some call it a curse. Some call it a blood curse. Some believe it's just a prophecy that hangs above their head, unlikely to ever come true. But the gist of it is, there was a terrible betrayal in the family, centuries ago. The girl, in her dying breath, either cursed or prophesied, the end of the family line.
When the tree again bears mirrored fruit
When the face is split again to sun and moon
No matter how the blood is dilute
A drop will crumble the rune
The father will pay for his sins
The true heir will rise again
The father should fear his twins
From their heir "?" shall be slain
It's assumed the last line should hold the family name."
There was silence, as the group processed Malfoy's story. Finally, Harry spoke hesitantly. This was a lot of information to process. "This story, is it well known?" Malfoy shook his head. "This family, they had a lot of money, once. They only fraternized with the purest of pure blood families. Even my father is unsure of the wording of the final line – it's entirely possible it's completely or partially made up. There is no written record, and it's easy to lose words or twist meanings in oral histories. The gist is that the family would be destroyed by the birth of twins. I know they took that part seriously, because it's rumoured that they supressed the possibility of twins being born by dark magic for centuries. But it made it very difficult for even one baby to be born, by the end. The current heir, I believe he was born when his father was very old. I think they started taking multiple wives about three generations ago, to increase their chances of conceiving."
Ginny shivered in disgust. Harry fought the urge to do the same. Ron spoke up: "Okay, so twins are dangerous or whatever. But Elle and Isidre, Harry, correct me if I'm wrong, are not twins, are they? They have different mothers." Malfoy shrugged, but Hermione squeaked. Harry looked to her. "Harry" Hermione asked, her voice strained "did you say that the moms… did you say they were twins?" Harry nodded "but Hermione, they married into the family. That much was clear in the field." Hermione shook her head impatiently "Harry did you say they were identical twins?" Harry shrugged "they looked enough alike that they fooled Elle, in the fireplace. So, I guess so, yeah" Hermione squeaked again.
"Spit it out!" Ron said, shaking her lightly. "They could be twins, genetically speaking at least…" Hermione said. Several confused eyes landed on Hermione, demanding she elaborate. "Honestly! Hogwarts really needs a basic science lesson in the curriculum, muggle studies is not enough…" "The point, Hermione?" Harry asked, pre-emptively cutting the tangent short. "My point is that Elle and Isidre have the same father, and their mothers are identical twins. Genetically, they're full siblings! Fraternal twins are also just genetically siblings, only conceived at the same time. If Elle and Isidre were born around the same time, they'd be twins, essentially."
"Bloody hell" Ron said, breaking the shocked silence "that's brilliant." Harry sat back in his chair. His eyes met Ginny's and he knew she saw the pain and panic in his eyes. A child of prophecy. How familiar.
Harry was brought out of his thoughts by a calm voice calling out "Thank you, Mr. Malfoy." He looked up. Of course, Dumbledore was the only one to notice Draco heading out the door. Draco turned, but did not meet the headmaster's painted eyes. Instead, he nodded once to Harry, and disappeared down the winding spiral staircase.
The conversation would go on for hours. The entire group would pick apart each section of the prophecy. They would go over every detail they knew about Elle, Isidre, and the investigation. Ron and Ginny would get into a very heated debate on whether or not the centaur's warning of "noontime knows this" was related to the prophecy (Ginny insisting it was, Ron insisting that centaurs make up half the things they say to sound mysterious). The argument ended with no consensus reached.
Harry found himself glad that they had started their meeting in the morning, because it was well past dinner by the time the group stood up to leave. Truly, nothing much had been learnt since Malfoy had left. Harry was tired and hungry, but something kept him back from the group filing out the door. McGonagall caught him looking back to the wall behind her desk and nodded, discreetly following the rest of the group out the door.
Ginny stopped short when she noticed that Harry wasn't behind her anymore. "I just want to talk to Dumbledore" Harry murmured softly. Ginny looked at him intensely, and Harry remembered that that was the exact excuse he'd given, the night he'd disappeared to chase the ghost of Chester Edevane. "Wait for me, outside the door" he added, blushing. Ginny's brown eyes softened, and she nodded, slipping out and shutting the door softly behind her.
"Harry" the old man said, smiling sadly as he tipped his crooked hat in greeting. Harry pulled a chair up so that he could look the portrait of Dumbledore in the eye. The painter had been talented, but it wasn't the same. The twinkle was lost in his eyes. Still, even without the twinkle, it was close enough for tonight.
"Why is it happening again?" Harry asked, vulnerability creeping into his voice "what is wrong with me, with my family, that we've ended up back here!" Dumbledore was quiet. "There is a saying, in the muggle world. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Magic goes both ways. Dark and light. Not opposites. Two sides of the same coin. Sometimes that coin is flipped in the air, and the fate of the world hangs in the balance. Of course, it's not chance that calls out heads or tails. At least, not completely."
Harry felt very, very tired. "I didn't throw this coin. Not this time." Dumbledore chuckled softly. "You never threw the coin, Harry. You are the coin. We are all the coin. Perfect balance is never found in a freefall. Perfect balance is never found in life."
"My son" Harry said, after a while. He wasn't sure if he was asking a question. Dumbledore chuckled softly again. "He reminds me of you." Harry nodded. That was the crux of it. It always would be.