...I'm alive.
Not gonna lie, I forgot to catch this series up to Ao3, then never wrote anything else past the chapters I had up there (which are 9) and promptly forgot my email and password for that account.
Finally found the patience to test all of my emails and figure it out again though, so I'll be posting the chapters I have up on Ao3 and may actually end up writing more if my muse decides to cooperate.
August 1st, 1988
The approaching footsteps that grabbed his attention were quick, too quick for someone simply walking. Hadn't he told his son enough times not to run in the hallways? Lucius sighed and stood and moved just as the footsteps stopped at his door, opening it before his son could.
"What have I said about running?" He raised one brow down at his son, who was still in his blue pyjamas filled with golden snitches buzzing about.
"Not to do it" Draco answered with an apologetic look, but seemed to forget it an instant later as he raised his hand to show off a piece of white paper that did not look like parchment, "Harry Potter wrote again! Well, not Harry Potter, his guardian wants to talk to you and mother! We'll get to meet Harry Potter!"
"Does he?" Lucius took the letter from his son's hand, glancing at the white piece of paper quite unlike the parchment they used to send their own letters.
How… muggle.
He turned back to his desk, sitting down to regard the letter properly, only then noticing his son's continued presence.
"Do dress yourself properly before leaving the bedroom, Draco" He instructed and the boy left with a sigh, probably realizing he was not about to declare an impromptu visit to Mr Potter due to a mere letter.
Unfolding the piece of muggle paper, he began reading.
Dear Mr and Mrs Malfoy,
I have recently acquired custody of Mr Potter, who says never before to have received this sort of correspondence in his life. Given your son claims his owl could not possibly be mistaken, I suppose some sort of explanation would not be amiss as to the motivation behind Mr Malfoy's request for Mr Potter's place of residence and request for a meeting with a child who has no idea of who you are.
Yours truly,
Michael Wright, Mr Potter's concerned guardian.
Lucius took a deep breath and put down the letter, a myriad of thoughts swirling in his mind at once. No one in the Wizarding World knew quite where their supposed saviour was hiding, only that it was safe and supposedly in a recluse magical family. Rumours did fly around about adventures no child could possibly be living due to the most likely unsanctioned books that popped up here and there, but those were dismissed by anyone with some amount of sense. If he was staying with muggles, it would explain his continued absence from the spotlight.
"Dobby" he called after a moment, watching the creature pop into existence in front of his desk "Do tell Narcissa to come down to my office" he ordered and turned back to the letter, dismissing the elf.
They had plans to make, which would hopefully result in better standing for their name and house.
August 7th, 1988
The days preceding the scheduled meeting with the Malfoy family were unusually unproductive, causing Michael an endless amount of frustration. Of course, most matters related to Harry personally were quickly resolved once the temporary guardianship papers came through, which meant the boy had been thoroughly checked out at a hospital as well as by an optometrist - which resulted in an eating regimen and a visit to an optician for a new pair of glasses respectively - and was successfully enrolled in Sandwood for the term after the summer break. The matter of the child's biological parents, on the other hand, was a complete mystery.
Lily Jocelyn Potter née Evans had a birth certificate as well as a consistent address history that led him to find her primary school, but from the moment she turned eleven, there was little record of her. Eight years later, a marriage certificate had been filed to one James Fleamont Potter, whom Michael could find nothing about in England. There was no registry of a post-marital address nor a single word of their death in any papers he could get his hands on, let alone a will to be read. It was, all in all, quite unusual and off-putting. A reluctant call to Petunia Dursley merely revealed the child to have been dropped on their doorstep without so much as a by your leave, which did nothing to justify their treatment and only aggravated his befuddled state.
The Malfoy family was another curious subject, given they were clearly extant and yet there was little to be found on any member of the family they had exchanged letters with. In fact, the most he could find were property deeds belonging to people he might loosely assume belonged to the family. It was as if, for all intents and purposes, they did not exist. This realization was vexing, to say the least.
When Friday came, Michael had very little to go on in regard to the meeting he was about to step into. The exchange of letters had increased once Draco Malfoy's father reached out to schedule a meeting, likely once his son relayed Michael's letter to his parents, but had remained a distant and formal thing, not unlike those he exchanged with potential clients. The meeting had been scheduled for three o'clock, and Sarah had announced he was expected in the meeting room only a few minutes before that. Harry was left in his office, given he wasn't sure what would come of it, which left him to enter through the glass doors on his own and feeling distinctively unprepared.
"I hope you haven't been waiting long," he said as he stepped into the room, eyes finally falling upon his guests, a man and a woman standing by the wooden table, both sporting unusually pale blond coloured hair.
The man - whom he assumed to be Lucius according to their correspondence - had hair as long as his wife's, reaching far past his shoulders, and wore a tailcoat suit more suited to a few decades past. His expression was one Michael had seen many times before from across the courtroom, with hidden disdain and a sense of superiority, fitting when matched with his pointed features and hinting at a habit of looking down his nose at others.
The woman had a more pleasant expression, if still familiar in an entirely different way due to the calculating glint behind her eyes. Her hair was up in an elegant top knot, hardly looking as if anything was keeping it up, and her dress was also more reminiscent of the last century than anything modern, but simple and muted enough not to call for a ridiculous amount of attention.
"Not at all" her reaction to his greeting was a polite, close-lipped smile, while her husband remained quiet.
"Thank you for agreeing to meet me here," he added, closing the door behind himself "I don't believe we've been introduced, I'm Michael Wright" he extended a hand to the woman, who was standing closest to him.
"Narcissa Malfoy," she placed her hand in his, but clearly not for a handshake. Unfazed, he raised it to his lips, bowing only slightly, before straightening himself again.
"A pleasure," he assured her "Lucius Malfoy, I presume?"
"Indeed" the man nodded, not seeming inclined to offer his hand, so Michael didn't bother holding his own out to shake.
"Make yourselves comfortable, please" he motioned to the chairs and walked to the opposite side of the desk, facing them as he usually does his clients for witness preparation "Now, as I mentioned in my letter, Mr Potter has recently come into my custody and had never before received the number of letters that reached him on his birthday. You claim to know the reason for it?"
"I don't claim-"
"Is your guardianship legally verifiable?" Mrs Malfoy interrupted her husband, looking conflicted, though he doubted she often let her emotions show as transparently and no doubt wanted him to notice this in particular.
"Yes, his relatives were quite happy to sign every document" he answered, his distaste probably showing at the mention of the Dursleys.
"You surely don't mean to tell him…?" Mr Malfoy turned to his wife, expression and tone hardly changing, and yet Michael's years in court have taught him to read people like books, making it easy to tell the man does not agree with whatever course of action his wife has decided on.
"He is Mr Potter's guardian, surely he has the right to know" She argued, both acting as if he isn't sitting a few feet away.
"He is a muggle, Potter should be living with his own kind," Mr Malfoy refuted, and Michael frowns at the term.
"Whatever a muggle may be, I was able to read your son's letter" he pointed out, remembering their son's use of the word in his last letter to Harry, whatever it meant, caring little for having interrupted the argument.
Both pause for a moment before turning their eyes back towards him.
"Quite right you are" Mrs Malfoy settled on answering, quieting her husband's incoming protest with a look "The first thing you need to know, of course, is that magic is real"
"Can you prove it?" Was Michael's instinctive response, sidestepping disbelief almost by default, with no idea of what prompted him to do so.
"Of course" she placed her hands over the table, shifting her wrist, and suddenly a stick slid out of the long sleeve of her dress and into her waiting hand.
With a discreet movement, she pointed it at a resting cup of water in between them and promptly turned it into a vase, the glass seamlessly transforming into what Michael assumed to be porcelain. It held familiar blue patterns on its surface, reminding him of vases he had seen decorating the Li household - that of another of his clients - at the times he went over for business dinners.
He blinked once, then twice, and followed it up by reaching out to touch the vase. It was solid and smooth and filled with the same water as the cup, he realized after tapping on it. He huffed in surprise when, after another flick of the stick he could only assume to be a wand, the vase returned to the previous form of a glass cup.
"...well then, magic is real" he stated unnecessarily.
Somehow, it didn't feel like an unexpected revelation.
It felt like a piece of an incomplete puzzle being found.
It felt the same way it felt to have Harry in his life: as the way it should be.
"That's it?" Mr Malfoy asked, sounding incredulous even as his expression revealed very little.
"Well, I can hardly refute obvious evidence" Michael raised one brow "should I be doubting you?"
"Not at all" Mrs Malfoy seemed to get over her surprise quickly "It's simply an unexpected reaction, but appreciated. The next thing you need to know is that there is an entire magical society hidden from the eyes of those who can't practice it, and Mr Potter is quite a public figure in it…"
What followed was an almost unbelievable tale of dark lords and magical warfare, with such unimaginable details it could be nothing but the truth, if a slightly biased one given he had no other sides to corroborate their story. The idea of an entire magical society did sound preposterous, and yet would explain the lack of records of these people's existence. The idea of a grown wizard, dark as he may have been, going after a single child did seem ridiculous, what threat could a one-year-old pose to a so-called dark lord? He voiced his question but received no answers, only able to listen and attempt to assimilate the fact that his ward was famous for outliving his parents and thus regarded as the saviour of this hidden magical world.
The tone of the tale changed once Michael began asking about further details of this hidden society, such as government - apparently, they were still under the purview of her majesty the queen but with a treaty of non-interference except due to certain key emergencies - and schooling - Hogwarts was an unusual name for a school - and especially where to obtain more information about them, which led to directions to Diagon Alley, a magical shopping district seemingly hidden in plain sight.
"I will need some time" Michael announced at a lull in the conversation
"Of course, it's understandable" Mrs Malfoy assured him "I don't suppose you'd allow us to meet Mr Potter?"
"Not yet" He stood, ignoring Mr Malfoy's hint of a sneer "Thank you for this meeting, there's certainly a lot to think about"
"It was our pleasure" Mrs Malfoy assured with a sharp smile "I would like for us to keep in touch, I'm sure you'll have more questions"
"I don't suppose you have a telephone?" Michael asked, earning a slightly derisive and a confused look each from Mr and Mrs Malfoy respectively "Well, arrangements can be made until Harry has an owl of his own"
They parted ways before Mr Malfoy could manage to get another word in.
No words were exchanged between the platinum-haired couple as they left the building, walking down a block before slipping into an alley and disappearing from view. Only once they appeared in their apparition room, under the protection of their own wards, did Narcissa turn to her husband with an openly unsatisfied look.
"You are often more polite when dealing with civilized people, muggles or not" She pointed out, not quite understanding her husband's behaviour at the meeting.
They've long since worked with muggles when necessary, wizards were a dying breed after all, no matter how the ministry chose to paint their diminishing numbers. Lucius had always been distantly polite, even charming if the situation called for it, which is what made his recent demeanour slightly out of character.
"Harry Potter cannot be raised by a muggle!" Her husband exclaimed, walking out of the room and into the foyer with a frustrated gait.
"Is he, though? Your spellwork doesn't tend to fail" She pointed out, following after him in more measured steps.
"He could have had the child read it to him, and a squib raising the Boy-Who-Lived is hardly any better" He rebutted, moving toward the stairs and clearly leading the way to his office.
"What would you have us do? Take him ourselves?" Narcissa barely refrained from rolling her eyes "the ministry would make a spectacle of the whole thing, and Dumbledore would hardly let matters lie when hearing a 'dark' family hopes to adopt the light's little hero"
"You do have a point," Lucius admitted with a sigh, breaking his stride halfway through the corridor "at least this way we can exert some influence over Mr Potter's introduction to the wizarding world, I suppose."
"Don't make it sound so political, he's only a child" Narcissa huffed out an annoyed breath, walking past her husband with a shake of her head "and besides, he's family."