[From Samhain to the Solstice[: Fruit of the Golden Tree, PG-13, gen, 2/3

[lomonaaeren]

Part One.

Title: Fruit of the Golden Tree (2/3)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Mentions of Fleamont/Euphemia and James/Lily, otherwise gen
Content Notes: Angst, AU in that Fleamont Potter lives, manipulative Dumbledore, violence, mentioned past character deaths, minor character deaths, ruthless Fleamont
Wordcount: This part 3600
Rating: PG-13
Summary: AU. Thanks to the desperate actions of his wife, Fleamont Potter survived his dragonpox. Now he finds himself awake again in a world where all the members of his family are supposedly dead—except that the Potter family tree tells him that his grandson lives yet. Fleamont sets out on a search for his grandson, and then a quest to keep him safe once he’s found him.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “From Samhain to the Solstice” fics being posted between Halloween and the Solstice. It’s for Hot-tempered-chan, who gave me the prompt of Fleamont living, Dumbledore having told the world that Harry died with his parents, and Fleamont knowing otherwise because of an artifact similar to the Black family tapestry. This is the first of three parts to be posted over the next few days.

Thank you for all the reviews!

Part Two

“You know that Albus will be looking for you.”

Fleamont kept his attention on the wards he was weaving painstakingly around the whole of the grand receiving hall of Potter Place. “He doesn’t know I’m alive. He’ll take at least a while to find me and Harry. And by the time Harry goes to Hogwarts, I’ll have protected him.”

“How?”

“Blood protection, building on the kind that his mother left to guard him.” Fleamont stopped for a moment and leaned against the wall, and not only in exhaustion. The wards drained magic from him directly into the stone, and it began to softly hum and glow with strength. Now the walls would stand no matter what force was brought to bear on them. “It’ll make sure that no one can so much as touch him without his permission, and prevent certain kinds of magic from affecting him at all.”

Snape was silent for some time, staring at the converted bed in the corner where Harry rested. He was so small that Fleamont had thought about using a child’s cot, but Harry had said he wasn’t a baby. “I didn’t know that her child had survived.”

Fleamont nodded. “You thought she was all gone from the world.”

“The way I snapped…”

Fleamont only shook his head. “I would have killed them, too. Just more slowly.” Snape had left traps for the uncle, embedded in the walls, before they Apparated away. They would only act when their child was out of the house, and wouldn’t touch him at all. “But it means that you can’t go back to Hogwarts, doesn’t it?”

Snape nodded slowly. “There are too many ways that Albus has to trace my magic.”

“You’re welcome to stay here under the wards, if you’d like,” Fleamont offered. “You helped me get my grandson back, and I owe you a debt.”

Snape made a long, considering noise. Then he shook his head. “I’ll take the potions recipe and journal you promised me, and then leave. I was teaching at Hogwarts under the impression that Voldemort might return someday and I’d have to be a spy when he did. I had nothing else left to live for. I was trying to redeem myself.”

“Now?”

“I have rather fucked over my redemption.”

Fleamont Summoned the notes he’d taken on Euphemia’s version of the Draught of Living Death and the journal he’d promised Snape. “Here’s your payment. I hope that you live a longer and happier life elsewhere than you would here.”

Snape was silent for a moment, turning over the book and parchment in his hands, instead of leaving right away as Fleamont had thought he might. “Could I—return and see the child?” he asked in a low voice.

“A few times a year, perhaps,” Fleamont said after due consideration. “Send me lots of advance notice, or the wards will kill you.”

Snape nodded and then went to stand over the bed and stare down at Harry. Fleamont didn’t interrupt his private farewell, but returned his attention to reinforcing the wards.

By the time Fleamont stood up and moved over to check on his grandson again, Snape was gone. Fleamont sat down by the bed and stroked the soft ball of Harry’s messy hair.

“No one is going to hurt you again,” he whispered. “I swear by blood and stone.”

*

“Grand!”

Fleamont smiled as he crouched down next to Harry on the path that led up to the front door of Potter Place. Harry had tried out “Grandfather” and “Grandpa” and even “Fleamont,” and then settled on “Grand.”

Fleamont didn’t mind. James had called his Euphemia’s relatives names he made up, too. And if Fleamont wanted to cast his memory back an embarrassing number of years, he could remember calling a particular great-aunt who delighted him with her sweets and her hugs “Maewae” for no apparent reason.

“Look at the snake!”

It wasn’t a snake. It was a worm. Fleamont laughed a little. What fascinated him more than the mistake was that Harry didn’t seem to be afraid of it. “It’s a worm, Harry. But what would you do if you found a real snake?”

“Talk to it!”

“Talk to it?” Fleamont blinked. He’d expected maybe “keep it as a pet,” because Harry was going to fit right into Gryffindor and would never do something so babyish as show fear of a snake, but talking to it?

“Sure! I talked with snakes at the bad place all the time.” Harry refused to call the Dursleys’ house anything but the “bad place,” and Fleamont wasn’t actually much in the mood to discourage him. “It’s easy. I just think of a snake and then I say—”

The next words that emerged from his mouth were in a hiss. Fleamont stared at him. James had been pretty good at imitating animal noises, but he knew right away that Harry hadn’t inherited that talent.

This was Parseltongue, pure and simple.

“See?” Harry looked up with a proud smile which wilted when he saw the expression on Fleamont’s face. “Grand?” He was already tucking his elbows and legs in as if he was going to run, his eyes huge.

Damn those Muggles and the mark they left on Harry. Fleamont scooped Harry up and held him against him. “You’re not going to get punished, Harry. I promise. No matter what the Muggles might have told you.”

“But you looked—you looked like you were about to say the word ‘freak’ or something.”

I have to control my expressions better. Spending a month alone while he tried to figure out where Harry was hadn’t been any better for Fleamont than spending that month with Muggles had been for Harry. He sighed and tightened his arms around Harry. “I promise,” he whispered while a lark rose and sang nearby, “I’m never going to be angry at you for doing your magic, Harry. I was startled, that’s all.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s called Parseltongue, the ability to speak to snakes,” Fleamont explained carefully. “It’s a very rare gift. But it is a gift, Harry. I never want you to think it isn’t.”

“All right.” Harry looked at him with big, puzzled eyes, and Fleamont wasn’t surprised by the next question. “There are people who don’t think it’s a gift?”

Fleamont tightened his hold on his grandson. “There are some. But you don’t have to listen to them. Did you listen to Muggles who told you that you were a freak?”

“Sometimes. But not all the time.”

Fleamont nodded. “I know how hard it is not to listen to them. But you don’t need to listen to people who flinch when they hear Parseltongue, all right? You can say whatever you want in it. You can do whatever you want.”

Harry settled down slowly against him. Fleamont knew Harry still didn’t completely believe him, but he got better with each day that passed where he wasn’t starved or punished or pushed into a cupboard. (Those times when he looked into his grandson’s eyes, Fleamont had less than zero regret about Snape’s decision to kill them, or his own decision to let Snape do it).

“I can do whatever I want,” Harry repeated.

“Because you’re my grandson. And a Potter. And I love you.”

Harry beamed up at him. Fleamont happily accepted the boy’s hug, and tried not to let his eyes linger on that damnable scar in the center of his forehead.

No Potter in living memory had ever been a Parselmouth, and it was the kind of gift that usually only carried down by blood. Fleamont knew what he would be spending his time researching this weekend.

*

“Grand?”

Fleamont straightened up slowly. He wanted to keep on hunching with his head pressed to his knees and his arms wrapped around it, but he knew how frightening it must be for Harry to see his grandfather that way. “Come in, Harry.” He managed a smile and a little nonchalant leaning back in his chair, to show that everything was normal.

Harry, though, wasn’t the sort of spoiled or ignorant child who could be fooled by that pretense. He made slow steps into the big study—Fleamont thought it was because it was immaculate, like most of the Muggles’ house—and carefully reached out and put his hand on Fleamont’s arm. “What is it?”

Fleamont helplessly gathered the boy close, his head bowed. He knew now why Voldemort had seemed to disintegrate that night, and why Dumbledore might have chosen to hide the boy away instead of telling people he’d survived—not that Fleamont would ever appreciate or applaud that decision.

Horcruxes. Magical gifts could pass along with shards of soul. Most of the cases in the Potter library were animals who had suddenly begun to display human-like intelligence, cravings, or behavior in the wake of being made into a Horcrux. It wasn’t unknown, only rare and desperately dangerous.

Harry was a living Horcrux. The books seemed to indicate there was no way to get rid of a shard of soul, short of killing the being that bore it.

But Fleamont didn’t accept that. He was a Potter. He was a Potions genius. He could come up with solutions like this to trickier problems.

He was going to save the little boy who looked up at him with big green eyes and smiled and called him “Grand” and giggled when the house-elves handed him strawberries for his porridge. Fleamont was hardly about to accept less.

*

Fleamont stared at the grey walls looming in front of him as the boat sailed closer to the island. This wasn’t the brightest idea he’d ever had, despite the illusions that protected his face and wand. He reassured himself, again, that no one except Snape had any idea he was even alive, and Snape’s own crimes against the Muggles would keep him from speaking out.

And it wasn’t like Albus could organize an overt search for Harry. He had to keep it discreet since he’d told everyone Harry was dead.

That doesn’t make this a brilliant idea, all the same, Fleamont thought, as he stepped carefully out on the crunchy, stony shore of Azkaban Island.

The Auror who had brought him glanced sharply at him when Fleamont hesitated. “You wanted a look at the traitor? Then come this way.”

Fleamont nodded and followed him. Apparently the Aurors took bribes to bring people to see certain famous—or notorious—prisoners. The visitors could taunt or spit on or kick those prisoners, as long as they didn’t leave visible injuries that had to be explained to the prison wardens. And as long as they didn’t crumple in the presence of Dementors, Fleamont supposed.

Fleamont had come to see Sirius Black. He had studied the reports of events from that night, and he thought there was a chance—a small one—that the man was innocent. If he was, then Fleamont intended to free him and have Sirius help him search for the real culprit, who might likewise have a chance of being alive.

If Sirius was guilty, then he was still going to help Fleamont. Just not the way he might prefer to.

They wound further and further into the bowels of the prison, and Fleamont kept up a stoic face when Dementors sailed by. They were tolerable when they weren’t specifically interested in you. At least, the mental disciplines he had learned from books in the Potter library when he was young helped them feel that way.

“There’s the bastard.”

Fleamont halted in front of the man and stared. Sirius was tattered. That was the only word Fleamont could think of, and it didn’t just come from his ragged clothes. His hair hung in clumps around his head, his skin seemed to be flaking off, and even his nails looked as if they were peeling. He turned and looked at Fleamont without a trace of recognition.

Fleamont swallowed. This is the boy Euphemia and I took in. This is James’s best friend.

“No Dark Mark?” he asked, pretending to disappointment, as he glanced at Sirius’s left arm where it had slid out of his sleeve.

The Auror snorted. “You don’t know that much about his trial, did you? Several people testified that You-Know-Who didn’t Mark all his followers. The super-secret and important ones, he didn’t. It doesn’t prove anything. Black is still a Death Eater.”

Fleamont bared his teeth before he could stop himself. It was true that Voldemort hadn’t Marked all his followers, but what the Auror had said was exactly the wrong way around. Only the truly trusted ones received the Mark, and the others had to prove themselves worthy of it.

Then again, given that the information on the Marks had come from the mouth of Lucius Malfoy, Fleamont thought the Ministry had deeper problems.

“You’ll leave me alone to do what I need to do?” Fleamont glanced at the Auror.

He received a dark smile in return. “As far as I’m concerned, the bastard deserves it for betraying his best friends,” the Auror said, and then turned and walked away up the corridor with loud, obvious sounds.

Fleamont took a deep breath and looked back at Sirius. The man was focusing on him now, but he didn’t seem curious or interested about why someone would come here to visit him. He only stared and picked at his nails, stared and picked.

Fleamont took a deep breath and lifted his wand. The spell he had come to cast did qualify as a curse, but he never would have done it if he didn’t think that Sirius would prefer to have his name cleared if he was innocent.

No, Fleamont, be honest. You never would have done this if Harry wasn’t a Horcrux. But as it is, anything can be justified.

“Tempus muto.”

The spell rolled slowly, sluggishly over the cell, making great ripples pass through the darkened air. Fleamont clutched his wand and stood tensely, his eyes locked on Sirius. The man was paying him a little more attention now, but he still didn’t seem to think that anyone would be here to do something besides gape.

Then he abruptly threw back his head and screamed.

Fleamont winced. The spell had taken Sirius right back to that dreadful night, and he would speak and react as though the memory was the reality. He watched Sirius spring to his feet and reach out, clawing at the air.

“James! Lily!”

Fleamont braced himself. He had known he would have to listen to at least part of his son and daughter-in-law’s deaths when he chose this spell. He locked away the memories of James’s laughter and Lily’s sweet eyes and watched.

“Peter! Where—” Sirius spun around and sank to his knees. “Harry,” he whispered. “Harry lived. I don’t know how, but he’s alive.”

Fleamont’s fingers tightened on his wand until he almost wanted it to splinter. That proved that there might be another reason Sirius had gone straight to Azkaban without a trial. Dumbledore had told everyone he could find that Harry had died with his parents. Someone who knew otherwise had to be silenced.

I might be attributing ulterior motives to someone innocent, though. There’s no sign yet that Sirius himself is innocent.

Then the first dry sob broke free, and Fleamont knew.

He listened as Sirius keened and cursed the name of Peter Pettigrew, and blamed himself, the kind of ranting that had probably fooled the Aurors. But if they had listened long enough, they would have known that Sirius blamed himself for the suggestion to switch Secret-Keepers. Sirius leaped to his feet and charged at the far wall of his cell as if he would run after Pettigrew there, too, ranting that he would find the rat and murder him.

Fleamont waved his wand and broke the spell. Sirius stood where he was, trembling, then pivoted around and stared at him with more liveliness in his face than before.

“Who are you?” he demanded in a harsh whisper.

“Someone you knew, once,” Fleamont said, and broke the illusion above his eyes, enough to reveal how much they were like James’s. Sirius reeled back against the wall of the cell. Fleamont replaced the illusion and hushed him as best as he could. “If you want to get out of here and come with me, for fuck’s sake be quiet.”

Sirius nodded and said nothing, only watching as Fleamont examined the enchantment on the bars. He smiled a moment later. The spells were too powerful to attack directly, but they were anchored in the metal of the bars themselves. Destroy the bars, and they would also break.

He pulled one of the potions vials he’d brought from his pocket and carefully dribbled the powerful acid around the base of the nearest two bars. A soft hiss later, and they were pitted and bubbling. Fleamont had to use the potion three more times before he could yank the bars free, but that didn’t matter. No guards were coming, since he hadn’t actually used magic to break the bars.

Sirius moved towards him, walking as if in a dream. Then he cowered and whimpered. Fleamont felt the cold a moment later, and faced the Dementors that were coming towards him along the corridor.

There was no time for subtlety now. Fleamont concentrated on the memory of Harry calling him “Grand’ for the first time, and whipped his wand forwards. “Expecto Patronum!”

His hedgehog blossomed into being and rolled towards the Dementors in a spiky ball. They promptly halted, and Fleamont moved slowly down the corridor, tugging Sirius with him. Sirius wouldn’t stop whimpering, so Fleamont had to Stun him and drape another illusion over him before they went past the guards.

But at last they were on the boat that would take them from Azkaban back to the mainland, and Fleamont could breathe.

*

“You—believe me?”

Fleamont blinked at Sirius. They’d spent a lot of time in the past two days discussing things, for the short stretches of time that Sirius could stay awake before he passed out in exhaustion and when he wasn’t busy devouring all the food Fleamont’s house-elves could cook. Sirius had taken the existence of Harry in stride, Fleamont’s survival, and even the fact that they would need to fight the Headmaster Sirius had spent years looking up to as a leader.

But it seemed he was rendered speechless mostly by the fact that Fleamont believed in his innocence and that Peter Pettigrew was the real criminal.

“Yes.” Fleamont pushed another steaming cup of tea towards Sirius. They were sitting in the sun-splashed kitchen of Potter Place, with drawings of flowers on the walls that Euphemia had done. Fleamont missed her more than ever when he looked at them. Harry was still asleep. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“I—I tried to tell them right after they’d arrested me and when they were still yelling at me about betraying Lily and James. They didn’t listen.” Sirius stared into his tea and then slurped down most of the cup.

“They probably thought you were just trying to cast blame on the dead.” Fleamont knuckled sleep out of his eyes. “Now. Listen. Do you think that you could tell me enough about Pettigrew and his Animagus form to let me find him? There are potions that will track someone if you have a clear enough mental picture of them, but I have no idea what his rat form looks like.”

“Yes.” Sirius stared at him, or mostly through him, the way he had since Fleamont had pulled him out of Azkaban. “What are you going to do when you’ve caught him?”

Fleamont met his eyes, and waited until he was sure Sirius was actually seeing the Potters’ kitchen instead of the ghosts of his past. “I’m going to sacrifice him in a blood ritual that will get rid of the Horcrux inside Harry and let me construct inviolable protections for Harry by the time he has to venture outside the wards.”

Sirius opened his mouth and left it open. Fleamont sipped his tea and waited. There was every chance that Sirius wouldn’t agree to let him do this, in which case Fleamont was going to lie.

It had to be done. Fleamont wouldn’t tolerate a threat to his grandson existing, whether that was Pettigrew or the Horcrux.

“You—you’re pretty different than I thought you were, Mr. Potter,” Sirius muttered, wiping at his mouth.

Fleamont sighed. Sirius utterly refused to address him by his first name. Then again, since for Sirius time had largely frozen when he went to Azkaban, Fleamont supposed that made sense. “But you’ll help?”

Sirius swallowed air and then cackled viciously, a sound that Fleamont remembered hearing several times the summer after they’d all but adopted him. “Yes. Merlin, yes. I’ve wanted to kill Peter since I figured out what he did.” He hesitated. “It does mean that I can’t be declared innocent, though, right? Since we’re going to kill the man we’d need to turn in to prove me innocent.”

“Memories are useful,” Fleamont said. “We don’t need his testimony if we have your memories of the switch in Secret-Keepers taking place. And we can produce his body. The corpse showing up fresh years after you were supposed to have blown it to pieces is going to be a form of proof they can’t ignore.”

Sirius scratched the shaggy stubble on his neck, frowning. “What are you going to sacrifice in the ritual if not his body?”

“His soul,” Fleamont said, and turned around to smile at Harry as he finally stumbled into the kitchen, yawning. “Good morning, Harry. What would you like to eat?”