AN: This is sort of part two of the last chapter, but I really felt like it was it's own sort of thing. The next chapter should be a little longer.
Chapter 19: No One Mourns the Wicked
His mother was dead.
That was what his aunt was so upset about.
That was why he had to end his mirror call with his dad.
He honestly didn't know how he was supposed to feel. He had never met the woman and yet…it was his mum.
He had never seen his pictures until last night when he mentioned it to his aunt.
She had showed him a picture of her as a girl. She looked like him, he thought. He always heard that from his aunts and his dad. But he could now actually see it. He had her eyes, and his lips looked like his too. Yes, he took after his dad a lot, but he also looked like his mum. And now she was dead.
They were all in the room when his dad had called him back to tell him. His father looked….well, even worse than he had when he had talked to him earlier. They didn't say much about how she died, and he had a feeling they didn't want him to ask. And he didn't. What was the point, she was dead.
What he was surprised about was that there would be no funeral. At least not right away.
"Shouldn't we mourn her?" He asked.
"Of course," Aunt Narcissa said. "Of course, it's just now's not the time, sweetheart."
"I don't understand. She died. We should have a funeral."
"I want to be there when we mourn her, Harry." Sirius said. "I owe your mother that."
He just nodded. It made sense but….it still felt wrong.
His aunt later told him that she was hoping he could see his father in the next couple of weeks or so. It didn't matter. She was gone.
He'd never have his family.
It seemed so silly that for a fleeting minute he thought maybe, just maybe, they could be together but…well, his mother was dead.
"I'll have her remains interned in the family crypt," Narcissa told Sirius after Harry left.
"There wasn't much left was there?"
"No, I don't think so." She said. "I…Lucius hasn't told me much. I told him to see if he could sue the ministry for everything they got."
"Cissy," he said.
"They need to pay," she said. "I don't know what they were thinking."
"Amelia was trying to work with us," Sirius pointed out.
"By having Petunia pretty much beat her to death." Narcissa said. "Come on, Siri, you know having that muggle in the cell was Bones's sick version of revenge."
He grimaced. "I…I just can't."
She knew he was on a lot of calming droughts right now and probably really couldn't. It was amazing he had maintained enough to contact Harry.
"Please let me have Lucius handle this, Siri."
"It won't bring her back."
No, it wouldn't. But it for sure would make her feel better.
She still wasn't sure what happened. Yes, they gave Dursley an extra dose of the potion but when they had run on autopsy on her scant remains it showed he had been given an excessive amount even for a muggle. Something had happened. Someone had wanted Bellatrix dead.
Lucius assured her it was being looked into.
"I want Amelia's head on a platter for this." She snapped.
"Cissy,"
"That was my sister," she said. "I know Rita is referencing that stupid muggle movie with her death, but she was still my sister, and she didn't deserve what happened to her. And neither did her family."
"I'll take the ministry for what it's worth," he said. "But Bella and I did sign an agreement with them."
"Lucius,"
"It was a blood contract, Cissy."
He hadn't really spoken much to her about it since, not that she expected him to. She didn't even want to talk to him about it. Telling Harry probably had to be one of the hardest things she ever had to do.
And they had to lie to him about the funeral.
True, Sirius would want to be there but no one else would. She was infamous in Britian.
She frowned. She never knew how she'd tell Harry that aspect of his mother or his father.
She knew it was bound to come up, but the boy had been dealing with a lot.
She just felt so…so…bad.
Bella had wanted him so much yet never had a chance to be a mother. First because of the Potter bitch and then because of whatever that bitch had done do her to contort her into what she became.
"I'll watch over him, Bella," She said, "For that I promise."
Bern, Switzerland
When Remus Lupin visited Sirius Black at the resort the man was recovering at, he had not expected the man to be in the state he was.
Yes, he had known what had happened to Sirius or roughly what happened to him, but for the most part Sirius did not seem like a man who had been in Azkaban for ten years.
That was in sharp contrast to today. The healers had warned him as much before he entered the room.
"Healer Black is not in a good place," One of the mediwitches said. "He has just lost his wife."
Remus had seen the papers and grimaced as he saw the picture of a woman that bore very little resemblance to the Bellatrix Black he once knew.
He thought of Sirius's wife who was one of the few people in their class who could give him a run for his money in Defense Against the Dark Arts. She had him when it came to curses and counter curses, but he always beat her when it came to dark creatures. He knew she mostly focused on the aspects of the subject that benefited dueling.
It was hard to believe that woman because one of the dark lord's worse lieutenants.
But a lot had happened since he left that he did not know about.
He never had an urge to check in either odd as it sounded.
Forget about your life there
That had always been ingrained in him. He frowned wondering why. After hanging out with Sirius and catching up the past couple of days, he remembered he very much had a life in Britain. Yes, his monthly problem made employment an issue but….he still had friends there.
And he had missed so much. The birth of Sirius and Bella's son. The death of the Potters.
He wondered if he would've known about what Lily had done. He still couldn't believe it when Sirius had explained what had happened.
Yet, at the same time….he knew Lily was always a woman who got what she wanted.
He admired her tenacious side. Usually. But she could be almost as ruthless as her former best friend, Severus, when she wanted to be. Remus remembered her taking credit for an idea he had in Charms class that resulted in Flitwick offering her not him an apprenticeship that later she only kept for a year before moving on to healing.
Mind magic.
She and Severus were always practicing their occlumency on each other. He remembered James being disgusted by it in the library not knowing even what they were doing at first. It was Sirius who figured it out.
"They're practicing occlumency," He rolled his eyes. "All the old families already know it. Surprise yours doesn't, Jaime."
"Oh, that," he said. "It's not a surprise I didn't know what they were doing. I never could get the hang of it. Dad said I was a lost cause. Could never clear my mind. Not that it's the end of the world it means I have emotions."
Sirius rolled his eyes, "I have emotions and I can do occlumency just fine."
"Yes, but you're a Black. Your sort of required to do that sort of thing."
Grant it, taking someone's idea to get an apprenticeship wasn't the exact same thing as stealing a baby, but it showed that Lily wasn't the angel James had always made her out to be.
He couldn't help but roll his eyes at his poor deceased friend's view of his wife. Lily could never do wrong in James' eyes even though he was pretty sure she helped Snivellus with lots of those pranks. He was just as sure James never knew that Lily and Snivellus had dated once upon a time even though it was quite obvious.
He never knew why Lily couldn't admit to as much either. Everyone knew she and Snape were friends. Including James, like he'd be mad that they went out for a bit in fifth year.
At least he was pretty sure it was fifth year.
However, thinking about when or when she didn't date Snivellus now didn't matter really. Not when the woman had been dead for ten years.
"I'm doing better."
He rolled his eyes. "Sure, you are."
"Sev, don't argue with me."
"You were in a coma for over ten years, Lily. I almost lost you."
She had heard that over and over the past few weeks. She kept hearing how fragile she was and she was quite sick of it.
She told him as much but then he'd given her a sleeping potion. She knew he was doing his best to heal her, but for Merlin's sake. Let her be already.
"Yes, ten years. What's happened in ten years like to my son." She snapped.
She was sure he would ignore her again. He always seemed to about Harry. She didn't understand why he couldn't just tell her okay unless he wasn't.
She wasn't stupid after all. He of all people should know this.
"Lily, not this again."
"I want to see him, Sev." She said, "Even you said I was doing better."
"Doing better is not the same as you're in a condition to deal with something stressful." Severus glared at her.
He hadn't exactly gotten better looking with age—shame. If anything he looked worse. He may have grown into his body, but that didn't mean his nose had grown into his face. Or that he had learned to wash his hair or bathed it seemed. Though she had never exactly loved him for his looks. She wondered if love was even the word.
She had thought it was once upon a time until he called her that word back in fifth year. She had eventually gotten over it, or as over it as you could be, but that point she in James' orbit.
James had things that Severus never would. Family wealth, status. The sort of things that would provide her a life full of stability. While Severus was willing to devote himself to someone who wished to exterminate her kind.
Yet, still….yet, still like moths to a flame.
They sought each other out. Even during her marriage to James. It helped they shared similar interests in potions and mind magics and dark curses.
James was never the brightest in any of those despite being headboy.
James never suspected.
He really was quite dense.
It was to her advantage in all aspects of her life until he got himself hit with an infertility curse.
Withering curse, Lily thought with a scowl.
Ruined her chances forever of having his baby. To have access to his vaults even after he left this Earth.
It was one of many reasons she decided to do what she did. She had thought briefly about having a child with Severus and trying to pass it off as James, but she couldn't do that to Sev. She couldn't do that to James. And as far as she was concerned, she saved Harry.
That woman…that woman was not fit to raise a child. And Sirius was so reckless.
After what he tried to do to Sev during their fifth year…
No, it was just. She did what was needed to be done to provide her son with a proper life. Besides, someone had to be a test subject for the ministry—even though that was never documented.
"Lily," he said. "Are you okay?"
"Okay as could be for a woman whose been in a coma for ten years and can't feel their legs."
Severus frowned. "Well, hopefully, that will be taken care of in a few weeks."
"I want to know about my son, Sev."
He shook his head as he grabbed something from the table.
A copy of The Daily Prophet.
She knew he got it, but he'd never let her read it first. For whatever reason she didn't know why. Sometimes he'd give them to her after he finished them and sometimes, he threw them away. She occasionally liked doing the crossword, at least it helped pass the time away better than the dry reading material he gave her.
Like she cared that much about Potions.
Yes, she may have been a prodigy in them, but she wasn't a Ravenclaw for Merlin's sake. She only liked to read about them when they served a purpose.
She inwardly smirked the last time she had read some interesting notes of Sev's notes that had ended up helping her out in a lot of ways. Or that he ever knew.
Ugh, Sev seemed to have gotten boring in the decade that they had been apart.
He laughed when she pointed that out.
"I've probably became boring. I actually got a mastery in Potions. I'm nowhere near as good as you, but I am renowned in my own field."
Yeah, he probably wasn't near as good if a potion mistress as her. She had improved those Potions he had started. Tweaked them a couple of times once for her own uses and once to advance her own career. Not that it was near the amount of money James's family had. That was the problem when working for the ministry and St. Mungo's.
"Renowned, fancy smancy, Sev. And yet you still live here."
Here being Spinnner's End. She knew he hated the place. Much like she hated being the girl from Cokeworth. It had taken her years to lose the accent though it occasionally slipped in like now especially since she had been ill.
How she hated that accent. She had spent years watching the muggle news just to lose it.
He frowned, "It's means to an end besides…"
"Besides?"
He shook his head. "Never you mind."
There was only so long she was going to put with this crap. As soon as she was able to, she was going to take control of the situation. Until then, she would bid her time and try to figure out what the hell Sev was keeping from her.
He looked at her not knowing what she was thinking, "You may find this edition interesting?"
"Oh?"
He handed her the paper and she couldn't help but smirk: Bellatrix Black was dead.
And better yet, everyone still knew her as Bellatrix Lestrange. Yes, those modifications she made to those potions were still working all these years later. She was truly a genius.
Chapter 20 Preview: A deal is finalized and someone or someones find themselves suspended.