Chapter Text
Argus sends his resignation letter with a stamp instead of an owl. There is a post office box that will deliver to the wizarding world, if you know the right number. He writes his resignation on printer paper, not parchment. He inks it using a ballpoint pen instead of a feather. It feels sensible. He posts it then walks back inside his small flat in Brixton, feeling all at once relieved and unsettled.
He built a life for himself brick by brick in the wizarding world. He hated every moment of it – the dreams of one day having magic himself that were crushed every day, the students that mocked him, the passive kindness of a headmaster that never extended toward true support. He hated that being allowed to hold a job and work was considered a mercy. It felt as if he was only allowed to feel gratitude, even as he was worked to the bone and given little pay. But still, it was his life. Sending the resignation blows down the entire brick house he built. He ends everything he's ever known with nothing more than a pen, a piece of paper, and a stamp.
“I’m never going back,” he says softly. Mrs. Norris winds around his legs. Outside one of his windows, he sees signs of the first snow. A lone car passes on the street. He hears the sound of his furnace clicking on and brews himself a cup of tea using the kettle and a sensible English Breakfast teabag, not a child or house elf in sight. He adds one sugar cube from a tin and milk from his refrigerator. He sips the tea, slowly. The furnace clicks off, sensing the flat is warm enough. A small smile makes its way onto his face. “I’m never going back.”
***
Breaking News - Bellatrix Lestrange and other Death Eaters Escape from Azkaban
December 19
Rita Skeeter
In a brazen escape, Bellatrix Lestrange, Antonin Dolohov, and Augustus Rookwood assaulted six aurors, snatching their wands and casting Unforgivables before making a dramatic escape.
The injured aurors, Gawain Robards and Alastor Moody, were first treated at a local ministry clinic before being transferred to St. Mungo’s for further treatment. The other four aurors were murdered in the escape. Their names were: Cerberus Langarm, Savage Brown, Cormac O’Brien, and Aesop Sharp.
The incident occurred at approximately 2 AM earlier this morning. Details of how the prisoners escaped are unclear at this time. They were assisted by two other assailants. Alastor Moody alleges one of the assailants was Peter Pettigrew, a man previously thought dead. After Sirius Black’s exoneration two years ago, the revelation that Pettigrew lives is upsetting, but not surprising. Recall dear readers that Pettigrew is responsible for betraying the Potter family to the dark lord. The other assailant was not identified. Moody and Robards agreed it was a tall, thin man, with red eyes.
The only man with red eyes that has an interest in former death eaters has a name too terrible for me to write.
The ministry has launched an extensive manhunt, increasing patrols and sending a delegation of dementors to Hogwarts as it is possible that Harry Potter will become a target.
Uncomfortable questions remain in how mass murders escaped the most secure wizarding prison, who exactly aided them, and how safe we are.
The main question I am left with is one I had hoped to never ask: has You-Know-Who returned, and if he has, can The Boy Who Lived save us again?
***
“Merlin,” Draco murmurs, setting down the Daily Prophet. All around them, the great hall is erupting into chaos. “He’s really back.”
Harry feels like he will throw up. “What am I supposed to even do? I’m twelve. I don’t know how I helped the first time!” He feels helpless. He doesn’t know the depth of all that Voldemort did, but he knows that it was bad. He knows Bellatrix Lestrange is evil. The escaped convicts killed five highly trained, adult aurors. How is Harry supposed to do better than they did?
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Hermione says. She is pale and there’s a light sheen of sweat on her forehead. “This Skeeter lady is insane. She probably thinks it will sell better if she calls you out.”
Ron looks ashen. He says, in a thin voice, “Antonin Dolohov murdered my uncles.”
Harry hasn’t spent a lot of time thinking about the wizarding war. His parents died before he ever knew them and he never met them. He wasn’t raised by people who missed them. He understands the loss a little better now because Remus and Sirius talk about his dad, sometimes. But Harry looks at Ron and thinks that the war was a very scary thing indeed. Whole families were torn apart. Harry’s family was torn apart, even if the only family he knows has Grandpa Maurice, Remus, and Sirius, and they’re all still here. But in another world, he would have had parents. And Harry will never get to live in that world, because a war and Voldemort stole it from him.
“This is madness,” Draco says.
It feels like Hogwarts has gone mad too – students are screaming and crying. Lisa Turpin shouts, “We’re all going to die!” Gemma Farley at the Slytherin table is quietly telling students to “say nothing. You owe them nothing,” as a few Hufflepuffs scream that “Slytherins are probably rejoicing, murderers the bunch of them!”
“Shut it, you lot!” Cedric Diggory, a Hufflepuff Harry admires and knows because he plays Quidditch, thunders at his housemates.
“WE NEED TO FIGHT!” Oliver Wood roars. “WE NEED TO FIGHT YOU-KNOW-WHO!”
“I want to go home,” Cho Chang cries. There is chaos at every table. Every house is coming unglued.
“Do you reckon Harry could defeat you-know-who?” Harry hears something like that coming at him from each corner of the hall. He feels like he can’t catch his breath.
“Harry, are you okay?” He hears Hermione ask, as though she is underwater. Or maybe he’s underwater.
“Potter will save us,” he hears someone say with confidence.
“Potter will die in two seconds,” he hears someone else say.
“I’d take the under,” another person responds.
“Potter will end this,” “Potter, will fight him,” “Potter is no match.”
There’s screaming. It’s so loud and so hard to inhale. “Are you alright?” He hears again, even further away. He stands abruptly, and runs out of the great hall. He’s not thinking anything other than he needs to get away. He sees Dumbledore stand up at the front of the room from the corner of his eye, but he does not slow down.
“HARRY!” He hears someone scream.
He does not stop even as he skids into the hallways, and he keeps running, past the portraits and past the staircases. He runs out onto the quidditch pitch and collapses to his knees. It is freezing out. He can see the tips of grass frosting over with ice. He can see his breath come out in white puffs, each one rapidly after the other.
He doesn’t feel the cold. He hears a ringing in his ears as he tries to catch his breath. It feels like he’s dying. He feels horrified. “What’s wrong with me?” He thinks.
He startles when he sees two polished black shoes appear in his line of vision. He flinches at the touch of a hand on his back.
“You are having a panic attack,” comes Professor Snape’s calm and measured voice. “I am sure it feels very frightening, Harry. Focus on the sound of my voice. You can hear it, can’t you? Maybe you can also hear the whistling of the wind in the trees. Can you hear that?”
Harry can’t breathe. He can’t think. He doesn’t know.
“My voice, Harry,” Professor Snape repeats. “I am speaking to you about the wind. It is a tedious subject. I do not generally endeavor to speak of the weather. Can you hear the sound of my voice, boring though the topic may be?”
Harry nods, realizing he can. Something about the pure disdain dripping from Professor Snape’s tone as he speaks of the wind is calming.
“That is good. What can you see? The sky, perhaps? The moon?”
Harry tries to think of what he can see. He inhales and feels his lungs expand. He exhales. “I see your shoes,” he says, softly.
Snape chuckles, lightly. “My shoes? I suppose you are looking down.”
Harry feels a little better, but his heart still beats at what feels like a kilometer a second. He raises his eyes and sees Snape crouched down by his side. “I’m sorry,” he says, feeling all at once embarrassed. “I don’t know why I… well.”
Snape says, “I get them too sometimes. Sometimes the stress in our minds feels so great our bodies decide to join in on the experience. It is nothing to be ashamed of.”
Harry feels like that is decidedly not true, but doesn’t have the energy to argue about how he is too old to be running out of breakfast in full view of all his classmates. “If you say so.”
Professor Snape stands up and offers Harry a hand. “I assure you, any child would be more concerning if they did not react to this morning’s news.”
Harry takes the hand and stands, slowly. He doesn’t want to talk about today’s news. The ‘panic attack,’ though embarrassing, feels like a safer topic. “I felt like I was dying. Like I was having a heart attack and I couldn’t breathe.”
“Sadly, that is normal.”
“I wish it wasn’t,” Harry mutters.
They walk back towards the castle in companionable silence, the frosted grass crunching softly under foot. Harry feels a chill creep onto his neck, and the ice on the ground grows.
“That’s odd,” he says.
Snape looks down at him, “What is?”
“Just started feeling cold all of a sudden.”
“Hmm,” Snape says. His brows furrow. “Merlin.”
Several things happen all at the same time. Snape pushes Harry behind him abruptly and draws his wand. A being with skeletal hands and a dark hood descends from the sky.
Harry hears a high, cold laugh. A woman screams, “Take me instead.” The cold spreads and then Harry is tipping backwards and falling towards the grass.
“EXPECTO PATRONUM!”
As his eyes close, he sees a flash of silver.
***
Winter holidays are subdued and strange. For one thing, Draco is not going home. He rides the train in the car with Harry, Hermione, and Ron. Harry is pale. He got caught out by some dementors and was in the hospital wing overnight. He's been pale ever since. All the hubbub around the Azkaban breakout hasn’t really died down either. It can't, not with the dementors drifting around Hogwarts because the ministry supposes that Harry is a target. And of course, Harry responds especially badly to them even if they are there, theoretically, for his protection. It would be hard to be Harry, Draco thinks.
Draco gets to the platform and is picked up by Harry’s grandfather – Marius Black. A squib.
Harry smiles huge and wide and runs full tilt at Marius as soon as he sees him. Draco hasn’t seen Harry smile in days. Harry crashes into the man, and Marius holds him as if Harry is the most precious diamond in all the world. “I missed you,” the man murmurs. He speaks like Draco’s mother speaks, softly and full of adoration for his child.
“I missed you more,” Harry mumbles into Marius’ chest.
“Don’t be silly, dearest. This is not a competition. We shall have to admit we simply both care for each other.”
“I suppose,” Harry says. He pulls back but looks younger all of a sudden. His cheeks are fuller and his eyes are brighter. Draco is struck with the uncomfortable feeling that he would not have the same reaction to his father. He remembers Grandfather Abraxas somewhat, and the man was colder than ice. He made Draco stand up straight and cared little for him on an emotional level. It was always, “How is your magic progressing? Your manners are lacking.” Draco was frightened of him. Neither his father nor grandfather would have ever said “I care about you,” as simply as Marius just told Harry. Marius said it like it was as easy as breathing. Draco didn’t know men could say something like that.
It’s because he’s a squib. It is out of order for a child of magical parents to be born without magic. Anything he says will be out of order too. He is nothing.
Marius makes eye contact with Draco, and smiles invitingly. “Hello there,” Marius says to him. He looks kind, and old. Draco sneers internally. The man in front of him has no magic. His father pushed him out during the last yule ball. He is as worthless as a muggle. “Are you ready to go?”
“I am prepared to journey to your domicile.”
Harry glances at him, askance. “Why are you so formal?”
Because I’m uncomfortable and my mother always told me to be polite when I am the most uncomfortable, Draco thinks but does not say. Because your grandfather is a squib from my family and is a dark spot in our history and reflects poorly on all of us and I hate him for it, Draco also does not say.
“I always communicate in this manner,” is what he actually utters.
“Suuure,” Harry responds. “Sure you do.”
“Sod off, Potter.”
Harry grins. He seems so happy, standing on the platform with Draco and Marius. “That’s the Malfoy I know and love.”
Draco feels punched in the gut. “Know and Love.” The easy affection from a male acquaintance friend is just here – out in the open.
“I say ‘off we pop’ then,” Marius determines. “Let’s go boys.”
Marius grabs Draco’s trolley from him and begins pushing it. Draco makes a half aborted motion to take it back. “That is my trolly, Mr. Black.”
“Call me Granda Marius, dear. We’re family after all.”
Harry pushes his own trolley and says, “You’re a guest for the holidays. Expect to do as little work as possible. Guests get special privileges.”
Draco has never been an overnight guest anywhere. Perhaps that is the etiquette. “Don’t your houselves carry things for you?”
Harry laughs. “Houselves? Your liege, I am afraid we have none.”
Draco stops walking, abruptly. “NO HOUSELVES? Who does the cooking? The dish washing? Who does your laundry?”
They exit the platform and walk into muggle London. Draco stares in confusion as people walk all around him. They look normal. They wear clothing like the muggleborns wear on the weekends. There are no robes, just trousers and skirts.
They all seem like people, and normal people.
Marius walks a little faster and Draco runs to keep up. “Remus does the best cooking, but I can microwave TV dinners. We all rinse dishes and the dishwasher does the majority of the washing. The laundry Sirius handles, but we use the machine.”
“What kind of machine?” Draco asks.
Harry laughs. “A laundry machine, silly.”
Draco feels out of step. “What’s that?”
“We’ll show you,” Harry says with confidence. “You’ll love it.”
Draco isn’t so certain. They walk past all the train platforms and into an area where there are strange looking carriages without any horses. Just passenger carts with wheels. Draco lets out a relaxed exhale. Muggles are so silly, he decides. They must think they need to push carriages themselves and don’t know they ought to have horses draw them. The trolleys are loaded into a luggage compartment, Marius calls a ‘boot.’
“Which one of you boys wants the front seat?” He asks.
Harry pushes Draco to the front right door of the carriage. “Normally I’d say, ‘I bags the front seat,’ but since it’s Draco’s first time in the car, it’s all for him.”
“Good lad, Harry,” Marius responds, as if being proud out loud of a child is an appropriate thing from a male relative.
Draco gingerly sits down in the leather seat of the carriage and looks on in confusion as Marius gets in beside him and behind a wheel.
“Is Harry going to push us the whole way there?” He asks, concerned.
Marius leans over and ruffles Draco’s hair. “No, dear. The car can push itself.”
Harry opens the door behind Draco and gets in. Marius puts a key into a small hole by the wheel and turns it. The carriage makes a small sputtering sound and then begins to role, indeed by itself.
Draco tries to fix his hair. “How’s it doing that?”
Marius gets a maniacal gleam in his eye, “Gasoline and engines. When we get home I can teach you combustion.”
Draco sits up straighter, “I am sure there is nothing muggles study that I do not already know.”
Harry laughs loudly in the back. “Yeah sure, man. Bet you know all about fusion and how the sun works, eh?”
Draco sniffs. “The sun works because it is warm.”
Marius says, in a gentle tone, “It does, yes. Do you know why the sun is warm?”
“Because it’s the sun,” Draco says, definitively.
“Surely it’s not because the hydrogen is converting to helium and releasing energy in the process,” Harry says, in a sarcastic tone of voice, as if he said something ridiculous in plain English.
“I am not sure you are using real words,” Draco responds.
Marius makes a turn and then sighs, “Harry, don’t be rude. Draco, if you are open to it, there are some things I should love to study with you.”
“Again, you should know there is nothing I will not already know.”
Marius shrugs, slightly. “Maybe so,” he concedes. “But you may be surprised.”
"Unlikely."
They lapse into easy silence as the English countryside rolls by.
***
The first few days living at Harry’s house are hard for Draco. He and Harry need to share a room, and he is on a small mattress that rolls and can be folded up and fit in a closet. There is no magic anywhere. The water doesn’t boil itself, it needs to be plugged into the wall. It uses electricity.
Harry and Marius are unstoppable in teaching Draco things about the muggle world and he feels like his head is going to explode with everything he’s learned about fusion, combustion, and alternating current.
He thought he knew everything there was to know about muggles – that they are stupid, ugly, and inferior – but he has been hit with the uncomfortable feeling that he was wrong.
Harry shows him how to run a load of laundry and Draco treats the whole thing as if he is being kidnapped, but when he puts in the detergent and then presses the button, and all the clothes start spinning, he admits he feels accomplished.
Hours later, the clothes are done, but they are wet. They do smell nice. “What am I supposed to do with wet clothing?” He asks Harry.
Harry takes a handful of the clothes. “Hang them up to dry, of course!” And Harry brings Draco to the clothes line outside on the balcony and helps him hang up the clothes. It’s tedious work. It helps Draco keep his mind off the fact he won’t see his dad for Yule break and won’t see his mum until boxing day.
“This is stupid,” he complains while hanging up clothing with Harry. Why don’t muggles have spells to dry everything instantly?”
“They don’t have magic at all,” Harry says, without judgment. “And we, or er, they, make all these inventions so they can get by just well. Isn’t that a beautiful thing?”
Draco shakes his head, “No.”
Harry says nothing, but the silence is loud and uncomfortable. Draco concedes, “Well, the washing machine is cool, I guess.”
“There are dryers, you know. Machines that dry the clothes.”
Draco explodes, “Then why don’t you have one?”
Harry says, “It’s just not a thing, really. They have more in America.”
“That’s dumb. America is worse than Britain. I’m offended that they have better machines than us.”
“They don’t. Get this, I heard they boil their water on the stoves mostly. Like, they barely know about electric kettles over there.”
Draco nods, satisfied. “That makes sense. Silly Americans probably would make a worse cup of tea in more time than any muggle here in Britain.”
“Absolutely.”
Something occurs to Draco, "Hey, why am I helping with your chores? I thought I was a guest!"
Harry shrugs. "You were. But now, you're family."
And that feels warm and upsetting, all at the same time.
Some things about the muggle house aren’t so different from Malfoy Manor, really. Obviously, everything is much smaller and less expensive, but the showers are the same, they just have more knobs. The floors are floors. The walls are walls. The chairs are just like normal chairs. The electric lights are even better than candles, though Draco hates to say it out loud.
The best part of being home with Harry is undoubtedly Sirius. When Draco first saw him, he felt so relieved. A Black relative and a wizard!
He shyly introduced himself and called Sirius, “Mr. Black,” but the man wearing a leather jacket with hair that looked so long and cool gave Draco a half smile and said, “please, Draco, call me ‘uncle Sirius.’”
Sometimes, when Harry and Marius are studying something or the other, Sirius will take Draco out on his motorbike. “These are the best muggle inventions,” Draco shouts into Sirius’ ear when they’re speeding along.
“These and condoms!” Sirius shouts back.
“What are condoms?”
“I’ll tell you when you’re older,” Sirius responds.
The two of them hang out loads and Draco decides he wants to be just like Sirius when he grows up, only richer, blonder, and a Slytherin.
Draco isn’t sure what to make of Remus, but the man is pleasant enough and makes Harry happy. He cooks amazing chicken and steak and likes studying just as much as Marius.
When Christmas comes and Harry is already downstairs, Draco decides it is hard to be without without his parents. He cries in the morning alone in the room before going downstairs. Harry is sipping hot chocolate in his pajamas and sitting in the living room by the tree. Draco tries to put a smile on his face, but just feels desolate being without his parents on the day.
“Where’s Marius?” He asks Harry, not seeing the man anywhere. Remus and Sirius sleep in sometimes, but never Marius.
“Picking someone up,” Harry says, mysteriously. “They should be home any minute. Want to play Egyptian rat slap?”
Draco loves Egyptian Rat Slap even more than Gobstones, but he refuses to let on about it in any official capacity. He has appearances to upkeep. The card game has no magic but the stakes feel so much higher than they do in Gobstones.
Draco cracks his knuckles. “Always. You’re going down.”
The two of them are sitting on the floor in a long face off with two kings on either side when the front door opens. Harry’s back is to the door, but Draco is in full view of it. Marius comes through first and then it’s –
“MUM!” Draco is up in a blink and running towards her and she’s running to him and she catches him about the waist and pulls him close.
She smells of rose and gold and love. “Darling, happy Christmas.”
“You came!”
“Of course I did. Had to sneak away to do it, but there was no way I was going to celebrate Yule without my family.”
“We are so happy to have you,” Marius says.
They all settle on the sofa and his mum produces iced cookies on a polished silver platter from her mokeskin pouch. “These are Draco’s favorite holiday cookies. Cardamom is the special ingredient.”
Harry grabs one and bites into it, and grins. “This is great, Mrs. Malfoy.”
“Please call me ‘Aunt Narcissa,’” his mum requests, “we are all spending the holiday together, after all.”
Remus and Sirius come down the stairs not long after, and look delighted to see Narcissa. The group of them make Christmas together and Draco loves every second of it. They all laugh and talk and his mum not only brought cookies in her pouch, but also magical Christmas crackers, and gifts for everyone. The day is filled with laughter and warmth from the fire, and there is no one telling Draco to sit up straight.
At the end of the night, Marius says, “I’ll bunk with Harry tonight. My room is ready for you both,” so Draco and his mum go the master bedroom and pile together into Marius’ large bed. Draco hasn’t shared a bed with his mum in ages.
He feels little, all of a sudden. He feels like there is nothing better than mothers, even if he should be too old for such thoughts. “Thank you for being here,” he says.
“There is nothing I would not do to spend happy time with you, love.”
The day has been so beautiful but there is someone missing. The warmth and joy gives Draco the courage to ask hard questions. “Why can’t I see dad this break? You said you would tell me. Is it because of the dark lord?”
His mum lets out a sad sound. “The dark lord has returned, that is correct. That is only part of it, though. Truthfully, I do not believe your father is a good person. I do not trust him with you.”
Draco sits up, shocked. “You don’t trust him with me? Why not?”
His mum sits up as well. “I brought something to explain everything, but I was thinking I would show you tomorrow. These are not happy things.”
Draco feels his heartbeat speeding up. “No, I want to know now. I don’t want to keep having it put off. I don’t want to wait.”
His mum gives him a sad smile. “Very well.” She pulls out a full sized pensieve from her pouch, then puts her wand against her temple. A silver strand goes from her head into the pensieve.
“Come along, darling,” she says. “There’s someone you need to meet.”
Draco leans his head over the basin and finds himself with his mum in a small room. He recognizes the scene from the window as Malfoy Manor’s grounds but he’s never seen the room. There is a small girl with blonde hair and silver eyes sitting on the bed swinging her legs and humming. She looks a lot like Draco.
She’s adorable, Draco thinks. He is stuck with a strong feeling that she is family. The door the room opens and his mother walks in, but she is younger than Draco ever remembers her being.
“Lyra, darling,” she says, and the girl, Lyra, gets off the bed and runs to her.
“MUM! You came back!”
Draco states, surprised and trying to understand what he’s seeing. “Is this real?” He asks, haltingly.
His mum, the mum with him watching and not the one in the memory, stares at Lyra. She is crying, softly. “It is a real memory.”
“I have…” Draco trails off, confused. “I have a younger sister?”
His mum shakes her head. “No. No. Lyra was born before you.”
Draco is even more confused. “I have… an older sister? Where is she?” All at once, Draco pushes away from his mother to watch Lyra more closely. She has good posture and a kind face and Draco loves her immediately. He spent so long wishing and wishing for a sibling. He would have taken a younger sibling, but deep down, he’s always wanted an older brother or sister who would take him under their wing and be there to cheer him on. Every wish he’s made is coming true now. Every moment he felt jealous of his friends for having siblings is foolish now. He has an older sister. She is better than everyone else, he can tell just from this one memory. “Is she in France? Can we go get her?”
His mum comes and hugs him tight. It mirrors the way the memory version of her is hugging the girl, Lyra. “We can’t.” Draco can feel that his mum is crying harder now, she is shaking all around him.
“We can’t? Why not? We can go get her…”
“She was born without magic,” his mum says. “A squib.”
Draco understands, then. His sister is a squib, like Marius. Marius isn’t so bad. “That’s no problem,” he tells his mum, comfortingly. He pats her back in reassurance. “Muggles are actually very smart. They know about fusion and combustion and electricity. They have laundry machines and kettles that plug into the wall that make great tea. I am sure we can track her down and give her all her memories of her family back, and then just get some things added to the house to make it easier on her.”
Draco sees it so clearly. His older sister probably had her memories wiped when she was eleven and was cast out into the muggle world like Marius. Once they find her, they can just install electricity at the manor and then there’s no reason she won’t be able to be just as independent and happy as Marius. It’ll be great fun. “She’ll love Granda Marius too! They’ll be such great friends.”
If anything, his mum only cries harder. “She’s not in the muggle world, darling. She’s not in this world at all.”
Draco struggles with the words. “Where else could she be? Mars?”
His mum pulls back and stares at Lyra once more with what can only be described as longing. She is quiet as the scene continues and the girl brings a drawing of a puppy and shows it to the memory version of Lyra and Draco’s mother.
It’s amazing. She’s amazing, Draco decides.
The memory mother and the mother standing next to Draco say at the same time, “What a beautiful drawing, love.”
Draco’s sense of unease grows as his mum makes a move as if to try and hug the memory of Lyra and then catches herself. She wipes a tear and makes a truly horrible face, as if swallowing her tears, before she turns back to Draco. “We can’t find her because she was murdered.”
Draco feels everything he built up in just a few moments – the relief of not being an only child, the excitement of meeting his sibling, the love he grew so quickly and strongly – shatter.
“No,” he says softly. “She can’t be. I – I love her.”