Chapter 9: Clarity

Bern, Switzerland

Sirius frowned as he laid on his fur draped chaise lounge in his suite in Bern. By all accounts he was doing much better since he had been admitted a few weeks ago. He certainly looked better. He had new teeth, he had gained a some weight and muscle mass back, and his skin color was no longer the shade of Azkaban death and he got a much needed haircut. But mentally he was still a wreck.

He still couldn't get over the fact that his mind essentially had been more or less been obliviated and altered by someone having him believe a reality that wasn't his own. And worse, he knew the culprit had likely been one of friends.

Or thought to be friends.

He inwardly wished Lily was alive so he could curse her now. What had she done to him and Bella? And their child.

A part of him had wondered if little Harry was his. It seemed preposterous, but at the same time he knew Lily had offered herself as a surrogate at one point to him.

Only Bella was pregnant.

The last time he remembered her before she became…well, whatever it was she was now she was five months pregnant with their baby. And then, poof everything changed. She was Voldemort's crazy lieutenant and he was back to being James's righthand man and being a reckless idiot.

He shook his head in disdain thinking of all the boneheaded mistakes he had made, how much impulse control he lacked. He had left little Harry with Hagrid.

His own son.

No, there was no way little Harry was his. Based on his healing training he now clearly knew that was impossible no matter what Lily had done. Bless the poor boy's soul.

It was false hope.

Besides, it didn't matter, little Harry was gone.

But James was infertile it made no sense…he didn't remember seeing or hearing that Lily pregnant until she was in the middle of her second trimester either.

Like Bella had been.

He grimaced thinking about his wife what she had become. He still didn't understand the how and if they were even married…he knew neither of their parents were happy with them for not having an heir and wanted to void the contract.

They wouldn't let them though.

Fitting, considering they both forced them to sign the marriage contract in the first place.

He still remembered how Bella shook from the first few months they were together. How he had hated her, even though she had about as much choice in the matter as he did.

It wasn't until they lost their first child that he realized that they were stuck in this mess together and that he started to tolerate her then to care for her, and then loved her.

He never thought he'd say that about her. But the Bella he loved wasn't the Bella she was now.

He sighed heavily as he took the sip of tonic he was given instead of the fire whisky he wanted to have. As much as he hated the stuff, it probably was better for him. He needed the clarity. He needed to figure out what his life was now.

A part of him didn't want to go back to Britain after his treatment ended. He had essentially nothing there after he had found out what had happened to little Harry.

That had hurt a lot.

He had failed the boy. When he had first heard the news he had been given a dreamless sleep potion. He felt like his heart had been wrenched out of him. The mind healers he had been talking to here said he was probably conflating the boy with his and Bella's child. It made sense, he probably had done that from the beginning, wanting that little boy to be his.

But he wasn't.

And even if it was, did it matter at this point?

Harry like every other good thing in his life was gone.


"How long must I stay in bed, Aunt Narcissa? The boy asked.

He was doing better admittedly. A lot better.

The ritual had taken to say the least, Narcissa thought as she looked at the child. He was the spitting image of her cousin, but it was very evident that Bella was his mother too. His eyes were shaped like hers rather than Sirius', his mouth pouted out like hers as well, some of his mannerisms were pure Bella. It was sort of hard to believe they thought they were going to lose him a few days ago.

His numbers had improved rapidly and finally the organ damage had been repaired. He still had to regrow his right leg, but he was in far better condition than he was earlier that week.

The ritual had been worth it, even though it had taken a lot out of all of them. Her hair was proof of that. It was back to the dark shade it had been when she was born. She still felt her bond with Lucius, but no matter how many coloring spells she hit it with it stayed black.

At first, she grimaced at what she had been trying to hide for all those years but…

In a way she felt oddly like herself, even though Draco gaped at her when she finally was able to come home and later told her she wasn't a Malfoy anymore.

Her relationship with her son was still not the best.

Lucius had been paying mediator, but she was so sick of his little shit attitude he had been giving both of them and how he was acting at school.

She had been concentrating most of her effort on getting her nephew to where he could live that she hadn't addressed some of the disturbing things she heard about her son during the fall term.

Like trying to manipulate a death in the school to get a broomstick. As far as she was concerned, they were not going to get him the Nimbus 2001 that they had originally been planning on getting him at the end of the school year unless his grades and attitude improved. She had half a mind to take his current Nimbus and strip it down in front of him with how he was acting.

She didn't know when he had become such a spoiled little brat. Yes, she knew that she and Lucius spoiled him, but they never taught him to be cruel. She still was horrified about the names he had called the Granger girl before she was assaulted.

She frowned thinking about how the girl was there with her nephew that night. She could've very easily died as well, and yet her son had been there calling her "mudblood" and "Baldy".

It was so unbecoming, and she had told him as much which partially lead them to their fight. He tried to defend himself by saying at least he wasn't the one throwing spells at her that turned her into a rat.

Yes, calling someone a name wasn't the same as cursing someone, but it was still traumatizing. As far as Lucius knew the girl had been moved to St. Mungo's and that her parents weren't releasing anymore information at this time. The girl's mother also wasn't a muggle, but a squib.

That made all the difference in the potential consequences for the school since Granger's mother had legal rights in the wizarding world and she wasn't happy. Not that Narcissa could blame her, she wouldn't be happy either.

Lucius seemed like he was beyond done with being a school governor at this point. It was not the easy job he thought it would be. And it wasn't as prestigious as it would've been a few months ago either with incident after incident occurring at the school. There were new things dubbed "gates" every other week it seemed. Apparently, some of the halfbloods on the board had heard the term used in the muggle news and it had spread around to label each incident, even Rita was using it now Narcissa had to admit it was catchy even though muggles of all things had coined it.

It didn't help that there was a new scandal. The Defense Against the Dark Arts professor hastily decided to resign in the middle of the year as well without even notice.

So, Lucius hadn't exactly been at home that much to deal with her son either. Instead, he was currently at home being watched by the house elves and was supposed to be doing his homework even though she knew he wanted to go to Vincent Crabbe's house to go flying. Not going to happen.

Harry on the other hand didn't seem to have any issues studying, though to be fair the boy really couldn't move around much until recently and he still had a leg that needed to be healed.

Go figure, Bella would have the child that would behave.

"Hopefully, regrowing your right leg won't take that long." She said even though she knew it was going to be a process like everything else. Though his healing time had improved rapidly since the ritual had taken effect. It really was quite amazing how much more responsive he was now that he was rid of the tainted blood the mudblood had tried to push through his system.

She could wring Lily Potter's neck. Her memories involving the woman had been clearer. She had definitely been up to something with the way she had been clinging onto Sirius right before everything had changed. You'd almost think she was specializing in fertility rather than mind healing.

Mind healing more like mind raping, Narcissa thought.

She hadn't brought that theory up to her sister yet. She knew Andromeda didn't like it when she trashed Potter, but the evidence pointed that way.

She wondered if she should go to Bern and visit Sirius.

A part of her wanted to, but another part of her was a coward, and there was another part of her that didn't want to share Harry with him even though he was her son. She didn't know why. If Siri was himself, he deserved to be with his son. Maybe it was just that she had spent a decade thinking he was the same egotistical jerk he had been at seventeen, not the cousin she had grown to love like a big brother.

She had told herself she had to be here anyway for Harry until his leg was fixed and he got stable. At some point she was going to have to introduce him to Draco, and she didn't know how that was going to go.

She didn't want her son around her nephew now. Not when he was acting like a bully.

Narcissa wondered if he had bullied Harry before the accident. She had heard about that incident during flying class. Though, Draco had been morose at the service the school had had for her nephew before the break.

Narcissa frowned thinking about how the school had to have a funeral for him, but couldn't as much do a welfare check on him at Petunia Dursley's house. She was still glad that Andi decided to release that information in her report for St. Mungo's.

She knew the ministry had been planning on prosecuting the Dursleys in part to try to settle some of the pushback that had been going on due to her nephew's "death". As far as she was concerned it served them right. It was their fault that Harry was in this bed right now. Theirs and Albus Dumbledore's.


Emma Granger hated Albus Dumbledore with every fiber on her being. The man had tried to act like the kind grandfather type, but it was his fault that her little girl was lost right now.

She frowned as she sat in Hermione's room.

It seemed almost silly calling it her room, since Hermione was still in a cage as a rat.

Dan had briefly visited before going back to the surgery to keep it open, but Emma had been here every day. Admittedly, it almost seemed pointless being here. The staff wanted to do a wait and see approach to see if maybe her daughter would relax enough to somehow be aware that she a little girl and not a rat, but it was quickly growing old in Emma's book. It also didn't help that they weren't doing anything else on her cuts other than to reapply a charm that kept the infection from getting worse.

She had demanded that she talk to the head doctor—or healer—on the ward today because she was that disgusted with them.

She knew they wouldn't give her the time of day being that she was a squib, but it was still better than the attention they gave Dan as a muggle. Somehow if you didn't have magic you were an idiot.

She'd tell them who was an idiot: her brother.

Inwardly, she grimaced thinking of Petey. She hated rats in part because of him and look at what her daughter had been turned into. It made her shudder.

And then to find out the rat bastard had been alive for all these years and couldn't even attend Mum's funeral and had been sleeping in a boys dorm for years.

Fucking typical.

He may have been her brother, but even though she knew he was a creep. She didn't understand how he had friends.

That was how she recognized the name Potter. He had been one of Peter's friends along with Black and him.

Him being Hermione's biological father.

She frowned thinking of Remus Lupin. She had tried to put his name out of her head years ago when she realized he was not coming back.

Emma shouldn't have been surprised. The man had always been a little bit flighty, timid. Sometimes she worried that Hermione inherited her timidness rather than her own brazenness.

It was her who pursued Remus. It was odd she had fallen for one of Petey's friends, but he wasn't like the others. He wasn't loud and didn't make crude jokes the entire time he was over. Instead, he was quiet and liked to read almost as much as her.

They had quietly been with each other for several years, until one day he was just gone. She didn't think much of it because Remus would come and go often, he did odd jobs in all different parts of the continent, but then he never came back. And she worried because usually he would write and Petey seemed awfully smug about the whole thing.

She often wondered if he killed him. She wouldn't put it past him, especially knowing what she knew now.

Emma had never really had too much time to think about it though, not with finding out she was pregnant. She kept living for her child. Eventually she met Dan and settled. He was a good provider for Hermione and loved her, treated her like his own. It wasn't the same, but she was happy enough.

She tried to keep herself from gagging as she looked at her daughter. She hated rats. She tried to keep reminding herself that that was her little girl, but she couldn't rationalize that the creature that was gorging down corn all day was her daughter.

Hermione would've been horrified, Emma thought. She was in that stage where she was all about losing fifteen pounds. She shook her head looking at her baby girl, "You're perfect. Don't let anyone else tell you otherwise."

How she wished her daughter had written to her during those few weeks when she had been fucking tortured.

She had half a mind to sue that school if she could figure out how fucking wizarding lawyers worked. Maybe she should ask the rat bastard since he was in hot water right now for killing his best friend amongst other deeds.

Another reason he may have done Remus in, he apparently had no problem with killing James. And sending Sirius to that hellish wizard prison.

She wouldn't do that though, contact Petey. She wanted nothing to do with him.

"Dr. Granger?" She turned around to see a woman looking at her. She had dark curly hair and grey eyes and looked like she was around her age. She reminded her a little bit of someone, but Emma couldn't pinpoint who.

"I'm Healer Tonks," The woman said. "I'm going to be overseeing your daughter's case."

"Please tell me you are going to fucking do something other than this stupid wait and see approach that's been going on for the past week." Emma said, "Because it's not working. The longer she's a rat the less likely she's going to be my Hermione again."

"I understand," Healer Tonks said. "I looked at the notes from the observation and from the mediwitch at Hogwarts and Hermione has a couple of injuries that aren't healing."

"Probably because she hasn't been given any fucking antibiotics." Emma stated. "I never understood how your kind practice medicine."

"Are you a muggle doctor?" The woman asked.

"Dentist," Emma said then explaining, "I'm a muggle tooth doctor. So is Hermione's father."

"I will look at the tail and see if there is anything else we can do. I can understand not trying another reversal spell if it's not healing based off of general principles of transfiguration, but we still should be at least attempting to treat the wound." She paused for a moment, "The notes says you're a squib. Pettigrew?"

"I take it you're familiar with the rat bastard."

"He may have caused my cousin to spend a decade in prison."

"I knew you looked familiar," She said. "Black was your cousin. That guy at least had enough common sense to dump my brother for a while that is.

"So, she isn't a muggle born then," Healer Tonks said.

" No. Her father isn't a muggle either. Her biological one at least."

"Oh," Andromeda said. "Who is he?"

"Remus Lupin. He is not involved."

The woman looked surprised if but for a second. "So, she's a halfblood then."

"I guess," Emma said with a shrug. "I can't remember if Remus's mum was a muggleborn or what. His dad was a pureblood. My parents were both purebloods but they had me who was a squib and Peter whose biggest magical feat was turning into a rat so he could hide in a boys dormitory for ten years, so excuse me if I'm not that impressed with magical blood status."

"Normally, I'm not one to talk about it either, but there are some magical blood disorders and other ailments purebloods and some halfbloods get depending on genetics."

"Are you saying you think my daughter has some sort of disorder that's keeping her like this?"

"I'm not saying anything, it's just a possibility. It could be possibly stress or stress may have triggered a latent condition. As mentioned, your brother can turn into a rat, correct?"

She nodded. "Though I don't know how he did that. Peter was rubbish at magic. Surprise he wasn't born a squib too. Hermione though was just brilliant. Yes, brilliant, my little girl."

She felt stupid talking to a rat, but she had to try. Her daughter had to be there somewhere.

"I'm going to have run some blood tests and have a specialist look at them," Healer Tonks said, "I also may see if we can get a mind healer to help your daughter as well. If we are able to reach her, she is going to need help. I was there the night of the troll and I heard what happened."

"You were there that night?"

The woman nodded. "I was working on one of the children who didn't survive. She came out relatively unscathed, but what she witnessed…"

"The school didn't even tell us about it," Emma said. "And they didn't even tell us about this until several days later. Dan and I were in Austria when they contacted us. I want to sue but I have no idea…I'm sorry, that is none of your concern."

"My husband is a magical solicitor," The woman said.

"What?"

"You said you were looking for a lawyer. Well, my husband's one in the magical world."

"Give me his card," Emma said she wanted them to pay. Because no one, no one, hurt her little girl.


Chapter 10 Preview: Narcissa is up in arms with Draco and has a new patient and Sirius requests to speak to family.