[Songs of Summer]: Growing Up Grimmauld, 3/5

[lomonaaeren]

“Who were the Death Eaters?’

Walburga came to the front of her portrait and stared. It didn’t help. The filthy child stood staring up at her, and had asked the question.

“You dare?” Walburga said slowly. “You dare to ask me about Death Eaters?”

“Yeah. I heard someone mention them, and I don’t know who they are. And the house doesn’t know much about current events. It didn’t even know that I’d supposedly defeated a Dark Lord, but I don’t think I did. I think my mum did.”

The child, who was apparently the Boy-Who-Lived Walburga had heard so much about before she died, wrinkled his nose. “Or maybe my dad. It’s not like I remember the night when I was a baby and Voldemort came.”

“DO NOT CALL HIM THAT!”

“Oh, right, the goblins said that some people were scared of his name. But I didn’t think you would be. You’re dead.”

“It is a matter of respect.” Walburga leaned towards the shelf painted in front of her, enraged. Since when did Harry Potter live in her house? How had he found his way here, the son of a Mudblood and a blood traitor? “You call him the Dark Lord! Or at least You-Know-Who if you are not one of the people who reveres him.”

“I’m not. I just want to know who Death Eaters are.”

Walburga calmed herself. She had a rare chance to change things now, she thought. She could make the child so deeply afraid that he would never fight when the Dark Lord returned. And he would return, Walburga was certain of that. The Dark Lord had cheated death. He would be back, and his child nemesis should run from him like a dog.

“The Death Eaters were the followers of the Dark Lord,” she said, watching the boy carefully. His eyes widened. “They were the ones who carried out his will and swore to support his purpose.”

“What was his purpose?”

Walburga leaned forwards, and the filth came right up to her portrait as if he thought she was going to whisper a secret to him. Good. It would make the impact when he heard what she had to say stronger.

“TO DESTROY FILTH LIKE YOU!”

The boy jumped back, and spent a moment rubbing his ear. But to Walburga’s disappointment, he wasn’t more hurt than that. He just looked up at her, cocking his head like the dog she’d compared him to.

“But why? What did anyone ever do to him?”

“He was the purest of the pure,” Walburga snapped. “Slytherin’s Heir, the greatest son of the line! If you tell me that you haven’t read about Salazar Slytherin in any of the books that you’ve stolen from my family, boy—”

“Our family.”

Walburga stopped, feeling as though someone had kicked a trunk into her chest. “What?” she whispered.

“Our family.” The boy stepped back up to the portrait, frowning at her. “The house said that because I’m Sirius Black’s godson, I’m part of the Black family. It brought me here and made a room for me. It said that I belong here. It gave me books and helped me learn potions and it tells me when food from the garden is no good to eat. I belong here.”

“We are pure! You do not belong here!”

“Tell that to the house.”

Walburga had paid little attention to Grimmauld Place since she had died. The wall held her portrait, the silence around her had been sacrosanct and unbroken until the Potter boy had arrived, and the house held its secrets. That was all she needed.

But now she turned and spoke to the wall in Latin, which she had learned as a first tongue because it was the purest language, and which the boy should have no knowledge of. “Why did you bring him here?”

The wall struggled for a moment, and then a face formed that Walburga had never seen before. She despised it instantly. It looked like a giant’s face, with the heavy eyebrows and the malformed jaw.

“I brought the child because he is the future of the family,” the wall said in Latin. “The only one left, with everyone else dead or disowned or in prison.”

“There is Narcissa and her son! They are pure!”

“They have never come here…since you passed. And their allegiance is…to the Malfoy family. I must have a child whose allegiance is to the House of Black.”

“Choose someone else!”

“There is no other child with a connection to the Black family,” the wall said in English, and the great head shook from side to side. Walburga was disgusted to see that it had chosen green eyes, Potter’s shade. “What future the House of Black has lies with Harry Potter now. Resign yourself to it, or not.” And the face melted back into the wall.

“Since you’re Sirius Black’s mum, does that make you my granny?”

Walburga stared at the filthy child with her mouth open. He grinned back at her, unrepentant.

Then Walburga found her voice. “TRAITOR! BLOOD TRAITOR IN THE HOUSE OF MY ANCESTORS! LEAVE!”

“The house doesn’t want me to leave,” the boy said, and widened his eyes. “And if I did, I’m not sure where I would go.” He let his lip tremble in a show that might have worked on his Mudblood mother, but would never work on Walburga, a woman who knew what it was to raise children the proper way.

“LEAVE! BE MURDERED!”

“Your threats aren’t very creative,” the insufferable Potter child said in a sulky voice before he turned and walked up the stairs. Walburga used the magic in her portrait to pull the curtains in front of it shut, shaken to the bone.

This was the filth Sirius had chosen to become godfather to?

When he had ended up in prison, she had been proud of him at long last. He had made the right decision, had joined the right side, although nearly too late and without managing to escape the way Regulus had. Then again, neither had Bellatrix. And Regulus was dead and Sirius was alive. Walburga had gone to her death thinking that alive was better than dead, that Sirius might have the chance to break free and serve the Dark Lord again someday.

But this. This.

It undid all the good Sirius had done with his killing of Muggles and a lesser, weaker wizard, with his betrayal of the Potters. Walburga did not know how to recover from it.

She would have to hope, after all, that the Dark Lord did not return before Sirius died in Azkaban and somewhat hid the shambles her son had made of the Black family.

*

Arabella leaned forwards and pulled one of her curtains slowly aside. She could just see the front door of the Dursleys’ house, thanks to the enchanted telescope Albus had been kind enough to lend her.

Even though she had reported to Albus that Harry was just going through a shy phase and wanted to stay inside all the time, the fact that she hadn’t seen him or any of the Dursleys in weeks was starting to concern her.

Why would they all be staying inside? Did they think that wizards and witches were watching them?

Well, Arabella would just have to go over and prove she was no witch.

It took her a while to find regular shoes instead of her slippers, and longer to make sure that none of her cats could slip outside when she opened the door. But finally she was ready, and made her way towards the Dursleys’ house, carrying a batch of biscuits she had baked yesterday.

When she knocked on the door, she was surprised to hear what sounded like ordinary footsteps coming towards it. Dudley always thumped.

“Yes? Can we help you?”

Arabella stared at the tall, lanky woman in the doorway, utterly surprised. Other than her height and neck, she had no resemblance to Petunia Dursley. She had dark brown skin and beautiful braided hair and a smile that seemed sincere if a touch impatient. Had Petunia hired a housekeeper?

“I was looking for the Dursleys,” Arabella said, mumbling without meaning to. “Petunia and Vernon. And their dear boys, Dudley and Harry.” She lifted the biscuits as an excuse.

“Oh, yes. They’ve moved. Although I thought they had only one son?” The woman blinked and shook her head. “Like as not I was mistaken. We didn’t meet their one boy more than once, after all.”

Arabella felt as though a Dementor had reached out and stroked her spine. “The one son was Harry?”

“Oh, no, Dudley. Blond and—and pink?” The woman seemed to be refraining from saying a lot. “I never did meet Harry. But I’m sure that he went with the rest of his family, wherever they went.” The woman shrugged. “Now, was there something else I could help you with?”

“Well—of course you can take the biscuits if you want.” Arabella would be just as glad to get rid of them. Their weight would slow her down when she had to practically run home to Floo Albus.

“That’s very kind of you,” the woman said, and accepted the biscuits and made some small talk that Arabella escaped as soon as she could. She did make sure not to actually run, though, at least not until she was on Wisteria Walk.

Then she hurried in and slammed the door behind her. She tossed the Floo powder that she kept for emergencies into the fire and cried, “Headmaster’s office!”

She didn’t know where Harry had gone, but surely Albus, with all his many powers and international contacts, could find him.

*

Harry grinned as he slapped the pieces of bread together. A rabbit and tomato sandwich might not sound that good, but to someone who had spent a lot of time starving in a cupboard under the stairs, it was as delicious as everything else he had made since coming home.

“Child.”

Harry started and turned around when the heavy wooden face formed behind him. “Sir,” he said, because the face did look more like a man’s than a woman’s. He stood to attention, since he knew the house wouldn’t have used this unless it really needed to speak with him. The face just tired it out too much.

“You—there is a wand in the house,” said the face in its slow, grinding voice. “I have found it. I will lend it to you.”

“Thank you, sir!” Harry had read enough now to know that wands didn’t work for everyone who tried them, but he could at least see if this one would let him cast a few simple spells.

“And I have found something else.”

The wooden floor shifted in front of Harry the way the shelves in the library did when the house was shoving a book at him. Harry bent over, and blinked as a platform seemed to lift from the direction of the cellar. There was a golden locket lying on it.

Normally, Harry would have reached for it at once. The house had given him some other jewelry, and Harry wore it sometimes. It was nice to admire even if he didn’t want to wear most of it.

But this was foul. Harry staggered back. It felt as though a terrible odor was wafting off it. He covered his mouth and coughed and gagged, feeling his appetite die.

“What is that?”

“It is…a thing that a son of our house brought home years ago.” The house seemed to be drooping, the great green eyes closing. “He gave it—to his elf—and it was—left behind when the—elf went to another house. We believe—the elf tried to destroy it and—could not, so left—it behind to escape the reminder of broken orders.”

Harry stared at the locket. He could easily believe that an elf, or anyone else, would want to get away from it just because it stank. “What am I supposed to do with it?”

“Find a way to destroy it.”

“How? If it’s been here for years and even a house-elf couldn’t destroy it—”

“We will lend you our strength when—the time is right. Kreacher never asked for that.” The house spoke in a lively voice for just a minute, and then its eyebrows drooped again and its eyes completely shut. “But first—find a potion to dissolve the gold.”

Then the face melted back into the walls, and Harry had to sit there and stare at a locket he definitely did not want to touch.

Well. He supposed living in Grimmauld Place had some bad points and wasn’t all wonderful, but he was going to live with it. He was just going to pick up the locket with a glove he’d found in the potions lab and take it somewhere else first. No need to lie in the middle of the kitchen floor.

And also, he was going to finish his sandwich.

*

Petunia sighed as she gave Dudley another sweet. He popped it into his mouth and sulked.

New Zealand wasn’t everything she had thought it would be.

Dudley had trouble making friends. The weather was different. Vernon had had to tone down some of the wise advice he had been offering at his job, because it was going to get him sacked. The house was smaller.

But at least, Petunia consoled herself as she gave another of the imported chocolates to Dudley, the freaks were not going to find them.

*

Albus closed his eyes as the very nice, but definitely non-Dursley, Muggle woman living in Number Four Privet Drive shut the door in his face. He had had time for a quick skim of her thoughts, and she knew nothing about Harry. Petunia and Vernon, when they sold the house, had never mentioned their nephew.

Oh, Harry. Where are you? Has a Death Eater already captured you? Why did you run away?

He turned and walked slowly back to the center of the pavement. He had a spell to cast that should reveal Harry’s whereabouts, but he couldn’t cast it in front of any Muggles, of course.

When he had reached a little side path that led towards Arabella’s house, he turned around and gestured sharply with his wand. The air filled with a set of gold and silver fireworks that would be invisible to anyone in the neighborhood not magical themselves. The light streamed away towards the houses on either side of Privet Drive.

No result there, of course, but Albus hadn’t expected one. It was only a necessary first step. He stood still as the fireworks circled and circled, dived around each other and shone. A pool of light spread further around him.

The pool went further and further, and seemed to have no end.

Albus narrowed his eyes. Perhaps this was of a piece with the instrument in his office that insisted Harry was happy and at home? Some wizard had enticed Harry away from his relatives rather than Harry running on his own?

Then there was a moment when Albus felt a connection, felt the light tug and pull on him—

And it failed. Albus staggered a step from the suddenness of it. Then he stared down at the Elder Wand, which was thrumming sulkily.

It felt as though his spell had met the edge of a ward and dissipated. But where in magical Britain were wards powerful enough to defeat the Elder Wand?

Albus would have guessed that a Death Eater had taken Harry, but they did not have wards powerful enough to turn back his spell, not even Malfoy Manor. And if he was mistaken and a Death Eater did have wards that strong, he could not imagine they would have kept it secret. They would have flaunted their possession of the Boy-Who-Lived and gloated in Albus’s face about how much political support they could gain.

Besides, what was he to make of the instrument in his office that said Harry was someplace he felt at home? There had been no faltering or break in that sense, and if he had been kidnapped, surely he would have had at least a day or two when he felt frightened and convinced that his kidnappers’ house was dangerous to him.

Unless they have him under Imperius.

Albus grimaced in distaste. It was the sort of thing he could see a man like Lucius Malfoy doing, repugnant as it was.

At the moment, however, the only ones who could answer questions about Harry were the Dursleys. Albus turned on one heel and Apparated, committed to beginning the effort to track them down.

*

Harry waved Regulus’s wand, and the air in front of him turned bright as he called, “Lumos!”

It still wasn’t exactly the kind of light that the books said it should be, hovering right by the tip of the wand. But Harry had faith that he would manage it in the end.

Clapping distracted him. “Well done, child!”

Harry turned around and walked over to a portrait frame outside the library that had always been empty. Now it contained an older man in fine robes, with streaks of silver in his dark hair. He looked like some of the other portraits around the house, so Harry thought he was probably a Black by blood rather than someone who had married into the family.

(Then again, there weren’t a lot of portraits up of people who had married into the family. The house didn’t seem to like them. Or perhaps they hadn’t wanted them hung).

“Thanks, sir. Who are you?”

“My name is Phineas Nigellus Black, at your service.” The man made a little bow. “And I know your name is Harry Potter.”

“It’s the scar, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes. But also the fact that the story of your fame has spread far and wide, as you were the only survivor of the Killing Curse there has ever been.”

“Yes, the goblins said something about that,” Harry said, and ignored the distaste in Phineas’s expression. Other wizards and witches could think something was wrong with goblins or living with Muggles or whatever. It didn’t mean Harry had to copy them. “But who spread the story? It’s not like I remember that night.”

“Why, I heard it first from the Headmaster of Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore.”

“Oh, the Albus man in Diagon Alley was him?”

“What Albus man?”

Harry told the story of the Albus man and Tom the barkeep in Diagon Alley. Phineas frowned harder and harder, and shook his head when Harry was done. Harry thought he was about to say that the Albus man wasn’t the Headmaster after all, but Phineas surprised him.

“I told Albus that doing exactly what he likes would come back to bite him in the arse someday,” Phineas muttered. Harry gasped a little at the worse “arse,” but the portrait took no notice. “And here you are. Not safely tucked away in the Muggle world where he thought you were, but in the house of my ancestors learning magic.”

“Are you going to tell him?” Harry blurted. He felt stupid now. He’d known from what Phineas said that the man could talk to Albus, but he hadn’t even thought twice about telling his story.

“I should,” Phineas said, musing. “The portraits of past Headmasters and Headmistresses are bound to obey the current one.”

“Please don’t!”

Phineas leaned forwards and studied Harry for a long moment. Then he said, “But it’s different for me, because the portrait of me was placed in this house before it was hung in Albus’s office. I have the choice that the others don’t when their primary portraits are within Hogwarts’s walls. And I want some reassurance.”

“What reassurance?” That sounded like Phineas wanted to make a trade. That was all right with Harry. After living in the house and doing what it said in return for having food and a bedroom and books and clothes, Harry was familiar with the concept.

“Do you promise that you will do your best to resurrect the future of this family and this house? Not just leave it behind when you go to Hogwarts?”

Harry stood upright and put his hands behind his back. That sounded like the kind of promise he had made a few times to the house when the face prompted him to do it. It wasn’t any different, anyway, since Phineas was part of the family.

“I promise,” he said earnestly.

“You will not abandon the Black family for the Potter family?”

“I promise.” Then Harry hesitated. “Does that mean I can’t use the Potter vaults? Or call myself Potter? I think that people will be expecting to hear me called Potter when I go to Hogwarts, no matter where I live.”

“No, you can still use the name Potter.” Phineas’s voice was serious, but his mouth was twitching a little. “It merely means that you will consider the family Black at least as important as the family Potter, instead of only calling yourself your father’s name and forsaking us.”

“How could I forsake you?” Harry cried. “You gave me everything!”

“Very good, child. Now, do you promise to reach out to other members of our family and bring them back in as you can?”

“Er. Even the dead ones?”

“Of course not the dead ones! The ones who are dead are here in portraits and reasonable or not—or completely unreachable. But you should reach out to Andromeda Tonks, the cousin of your godfather, who was disowned for marrying a Muggleborn.” Phineas sighed. “I hate to say that she is your only choice, but she’s at least your best one. I don’t even know if my grandson Arcturus is alive anymore. He’s a recluse if he is. But you could still try to reach him.”

“Can I just send a letter?”

“Of course, but why wouldn’t you want to meet them in person?”

“Because they would say I’m a little kid and try to take me back to the Muggles I was living with, who won’t even let me practice magic.”

Phineas paused and then nodded. “A good point. So perhaps you should write to her not saying where you are, and simply saying that you’re interested in the connection you have through your godfather.”

“Even though he’s in prison?”

“You need more details about that.” Phineas waved an irritated hand. “We all need more information about that. I know the house doesn’t know much, and you’re not going to get an unbiased rendition from Walburga.”

“Maybe the goblins would tell me?”

“Must you speak to them?”

“Why not?”

“They are—not human. They are creatures.”

“So’s the house.”

Phineas seemed to struggle with that for a moment. Harry watched him obediently. He was interesting and kind of funny, but he also seemed to think that everyone except a wizard was worthless. And maybe everyone except a wizard of the Black family.

“Very well,” Phineas finally snapped. “Ask them if you must. I suppose they might be able to tell you more current information about the status of some of our family than most. Especially if it pertains to money.”

Harry ignored those last words. Sometimes he had heard Uncle Vernon talk about money like that. It was supposed to be low-class to worry about it, but it was also very important, and Harry thought it was the same with Phineas.

He would be upset if someone was trying to take the gold from his portrait frame.

“What about my godfather?”

“What about him?”

“Should I try to free him from prison?”

For a long moment, Phineas stared at him incredulously. Harry stared back. He raised his eyebrows a little and said nothing, waiting for the portrait to tell him what he should do about Sirius one way or the other.

“Of course not!” Phineas finally said. All but exploded, really. He still couldn’t yell as loudly as Uncle Vernon or Walburga, though. “That would draw attention to you, and the last thing this house and family need is attention! We must be able to grow in peace!”

Harry thought that was kind of weird, if Phineas also wanted him to restore the family’s reputation, but he nodded obediently. “I could send an owl to Andromeda Tonks?” He was proud of knowing about owls, which he had read about in books the house had shoved at him.

“Yes. That would be a good idea.”

Harry smiled at the portrait and walked away. Honestly, the trade he had with Phineas was a good one. He would get to keep doing exactly what he wanted to do, and he would be safe from the Albus man knowing where he was.

Harry didn’t think he wanted the Albus man knowing where he was.

Comments

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> A rabbit and tomato sandwich might not sound that good, <<

I'd eat that.

>> “You—there is a wand in the house,” said the face in its slow, grinding voice. “I have found it. I will lend it to you.” <<

Yay, progress!

>> But you should reach out to Andromeda Tonks, the cousin of your godfather, who was disowned for marrying a Muggleborn.” <<

That could be fun.

>> “So’s the house.” <<

I love that house. :D