lomonaaeren

“Who’s that at the door, Lils?”

Lily smiled over her shoulder as she went to answer it. It seemed that James’s voice improved every time he spoke, and his hearing, which she hadn’t even realized had been damaged by the poison, was doing much the same thing. “I don’t know, but I’ll likely invite them in.”

“Good.”

Lily continued to smile so hard her cheeks hurt as she opened the door of their quarters. James welcomed visitors now, where he once would have tried to dodge them, and that was the most wonderful thing she could think of.

Her joy dimmed a little when she saw Albus on the opposite side of the door, standing with his hands clenched in front of him and his eyes lowered. Lily paused and cleared her throat. “Is—something wrong?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so. Can I come in?”

Lily took a deep breath and then nodded. “Of course. Let me just…” She looked around, but there really wasn’t much clutter, only a few pieces of parchment on the table and a few of Patrick’s toys sprawled on the carpet in a corner. “You can have a seat wherever you like, of course,” she added, and cast a few Cleaning Charms on the chairs just to make sure.

“Thank you, my dear.”

Albus took the chair nearest the fireplace, almost huddling there, as if the cold of the highlands had reached his bones. Lily swallowed and turned to make some tea. Albus almost never showed his age, or made any gesture that referenced it. She knew that he considered that unwise and less inspiring than being the strong leader people needed.

For him to do it now…

Lily shook her head and bustled around with the tea service. When she gave a cup to Albus, she briefly touched his hand, and it felt cold enough that he probably did need the fire. She swallowed and retreated to sit down.

“Lils?”

Lily startled. She’d almost forgotten that she hadn’t actually announced Albus’s arrival to James, although he probably would have recognized the voice. “It’s Albus, dear,” she called over her shoulder, aware her voice was strained. “Do you want me to bring you out?”

“Please.”

Lily stood and went in to attend to James with a nervous smile over her shoulder. James was struggling to get out of bed, setting his feet down while swearing softly under his breath. She hurried to his side.

“No, Lily. Please. I’ve got to get used to walking on my own. I know that the Healers said I was supposed to lie down all the time, but they also said that I would never regain my sight or voice.”

That was true enough. Lily forced herself to stand back and squeeze her hands together as James staggered to his feet, still swearing. She did manage to force a little smile, too, and whisper, “Your language, Prongs.”

James flashed a shadow of his old grin at her. “I think Albus has heard worse. And he’s not either of our professors now.” Carefully, he steered himself out of the bedroom, leaning heavily on the walls for a moment.

Albus glanced up as they came into the room, and some of the strain around his mouth and eyes eased. “James. It’s good to see you up and about.”

“I agree with you,” James said cheerfully, and settled into the chair opposite Albus. “Now, what it is that you want to talk about?”

“Harry is Voldemort’s apprentice.”

Lily gripped the back of James’s chair, glad that she’d come close enough to do that before she fell. James, meanwhile, reached back and grabbed her wrist so tightly that she thought she’d carry a bruise for the rest of the week.

“No,” Lily whispered.

“I’m sorry. I have undeniable proof that it is. I called Harry to my office to talk to him, and he danced around the subject, but he also said that Victorinus Nott is his guardian. So I’ll pursue freeing Harry from Voldemort that way.”

“How could Nott be his guardian?”

Albus just shook his head at the disgust in Lily’s voice and settled back in his chair. “I’m sure there was some underhanded means of setting it up, but I don’t actually know what it is. There’s only one thing I can think of that might get Harry free of his grip.”

“Do we—can we hope?” Lily whispered. “Or do we have to accept that Harry is gone forever from us now?”

Albus’s eyes were gentle as he looked at her. “I was coming to advise you to give up on him. That is, on claiming him as your son. I will of course fight to free him from Voldemort and Nott. That much, I owe him.”

“You do?” James cut in, leaning forwards with his elbows braced on his legs. Lily hated to see the pain cut across his face and chase away all the joy he’d felt up until this point, but it seemed to be inevitable. “Why would you be implicated in this? If anything, it’s what we did.”

Lily leaned down and held James’s hand. James leaned his head against her arm for a moment. At least they had each other, Lily thought. And there was no chance the poison would reverse and take James from her, in an analogue of the way the magic had taken Harry. At least they had that.

Albus sighed. “I know more about magical theory than any students of mine could have. I should have realized that the disownment you planned was—a disownment. That the magic would combine in that way.”

“Even though no one had ever heard of anything like that before?” Lily asked.

Albus held her eyes and nodded. “Even then.”

“All right,” Lily said, and swallowed back arguments that would only waste time. She knew that particular set to Albus’s jaw. Not even Minerva had been able to turn him aside when he looked like that in the days of the war. “So what are you going to do?”

“Challenge Nott to a duel.”

“Excuse me?”

Lily and James both said it at the same moment, and traded slightly embarrassed glances. Lily turned back in time to see a wistful look in Albus’s eyes. She blinked. It was the first time she wondered whether the Headmaster might have cause to envy them, if only because he didn’t have a husband.

“He can’t refuse me,” Albus said calmly. “And I will of course ensure that the stake will be Harry’s guardianship.”

“Why can’t he refuse you?”

“I intend to call upon the dueling rules that say he cannot, which no pureblood would willingly violate.”

Lily wasn’t sure about that, but then, Albus knew more about it than she did—and more than James, if his faint frown was any indication. She leaned against his shoulder and listened to Albus as he started speaking about his plans for the future, and what he would do when he won custody of Harry.

Will Harry understand that we only want the best for him, even if we can never reveal that we’re his parents?

Lily sighed. She would have to give up the fantasy of being in Harry’s life, it seemed. But maybe they could wish him well from a distance.

Maybe Albus would even let them visit.

*

“Thank you for coming to Hogsmeade to meet me, Mr. Nott.”

“You did make it sound urgent.”

Harry nodded as he walked beside Victorinus down an alley that ran behind the Three Broomsticks and led to one of the more hidden Apparition points in the magical village. “Dumbledore called me to his office and tried to make me admit my relationship with the Dark Lord. When I told him that you were my guardian, he looked as though he were about to do something drastic.”

“Did he.”

Harry looked sideways at Victorinus. He sounded like he wanted to gut something. Harry was just as glad that Theo hadn’t inherited all of his father’s traits.

“Yes. And that was why I wanted to make sure that we performed the binding in stone that you talked about in your letters, before he gets a chance.”

Victorinus cackled like a raven with a bone in its throat. “I do enjoy violating Albus’s sense of how the world should go.” He made a gesture with his hand, and Harry obediently turned around and faced him.

Victorinus studied him for a long moment. It was quiet in the alley, the only light the dimmed sun from behind the clouds. Harry waited.

“You know that it is an honor few Mudbloods have earned?” Victorinus finally whispered.

Harry matched him stare for stare. “Good that I’m not a Mudblood, then.”

“Theo did not tell me that you had claimed any other bloodline.”

Harry rolled his eyes before he thought about it. He would have frozen a few months ago. This was the man he was depending on to keep him safe from any machinations that Dumbledore or the Potters or anyone else might pull. Surely he would be upset about Harry’s disrespect, and Harry would have to bow and cringe and grovel his way back into Victorinus’s good graces.

But now, Harry knew his value. He knew his worth. If the Dark Lord didn’t spurn him as an apprentice, there was no reason that Victorinus should regret performing the binding in stone with Harry.

Particularly since his son is bloody courting me.

Victorinus still continued to stare at him for a long moment, and he had an intimidating stare. But Harry thought of the way the Dark Lord looked, and he calmly held Victorinus’s gaze, and then the man laughed like a raven again and held out his hand.

Harry didn’t hesitate to put his own in it.

“The binding in stone,” Victorinus said with a nod, and took a number of flat grey stones from his pocket.

No, not a number, Harry thought, as he watched Victorinus crouch to lay them on the ground. Seven, and each with a hole in the middle. They formed a circle around Harry. When Victorinus straightened and snapped his fingers, the stones began to glow, and then to link to one another with delicate blue lines of light.

“I perform the binding in stone,” Victorinus whispered. “I claim this boy for my family. Not in name. Not in blood. But in magic, and the magic of the earth that lies beneath the bones of all we do.”

Harry felt a wrenching sensation in his chest. He stood still and kept his face expressionless, the way the Dark Lord had told him he must when he proposed the binding in stone to Victorinus. The magic danced through him and then out in front of him, and the blue lines turned red.

“I claim this child who has no name he wishes to forsake.” Victorinus glanced at Harry.

“I have no name, in truth,” Harry said, strongly. Grayson was only a convenient fiction, he thought. In truth, his name probably ought to have been Evans, like the name of Aunt Petunia’s sister, but she’d gone by the note her sister left, and—

And the world spun, dizzily, for a long moment, a whirlpool in front of him, a cascading blur of light and motion so powerful that Harry thought he would throw up—

And steadied. And was done.

Harry stood upright and looked at Victorinus, who was on his knees, shaking. When it went on and on, and the shaking didn’t stop, Harry bent over and let his hand hover above the man’s shoulder. “Are you all right, sir?”

“Yes.” Victorinus straightened and stared at Harry for a long moment. “Whoever cast a spell on you to keep someone from recognizing your pureblood heritage used too strong of one.”

Harry blinked. “So the binding failed?”

“No, it took.” Victorinus glanced to where the stones he’d put around Harry had cracked and turned into dust that had drifted into the corners of the alley. “You are rooted in our family and cannot be removed.”

Harry smiled. It was all he’d wanted. Changing his name to Nott, if it ever happened, could take place after he had decided to accept Theo’s courtship all the way to the end. And even then, Draco might have something to say about forsaking the name Malfoy, so it might never take place.

It would prevent Harry from being removed from Victorinus’s custody, and anyone who challenged that would see what would occur.

“You don’t know what pureblood line you’re descended from?”

Harry looked up and studied Victorinus, who was studying him. “No, sir. The note that my mother left with my aunt said that she’d had an affair with a Muggle man. And my mother was a Muggle as well.”

“That seems like—a convenient fiction.”

Harry shrugged as if he hadn’t been thinking the same about the name Grayson. “Well, sir, I don’t know anything else to tell you. The note talked a little about my parents and gave my name as Harry Grayson. That was all.”

“Hmmm.”

Victorinus went on looking at him. Harry looked serenely back. If Victorinus was convinced that Harry was too powerful for a Muggleborn and his magic needed to come from some pureblood family, well, Harry would let him live with that delusion. It mattered little as long as Harry still had permission to court Theo.

If Victorinus let that get in the way of Harry’s courtship, he would hurt.

Victorinus looked at Harry’s eyes and seemed to consider his possible actions for a long moment. Then he shrugged. “It is true that you don’t look like any pureblood I know, from hair color to bone structure.”

If that was supposed to be an insult, it was easy for Harry to let melt off his shoulders. He gave Victorinus a meaningless smile and walked with him towards the Apparition point. The train would be leaving soon, and he wanted to share a compartment with Theo and Draco and talk about their next strategy.

And he was curious to see if Dumbledore would act quickly, or keep his own counsel.

Harry knew which one he hoped for.

*

“My father could have performed the binding in stone on you.”

“Would he have?”

Draco paused.

Harry, leaning back against the seat opposite Draco, continued to look at him with a patient expression and folded arms, Draco’s least favorite expression on him. Harry was handsome no matter what his mood, but this kind of look meant that he thought Draco’s mood was just petulance.

“Well,” Draco muttered, “my mother could have.”

“She’s not a blood Malfoy,” Theo pointed out. He was leaning back against his own seat, and Draco looked away before his eyes were drawn into contemplating Theo’s long limbs and sharp chin. “She would have to bind Harry to the Black family, and we all know that Sirius Black would probably try to take advantage of that.”

Draco slumped back and sighed. He knew that his father was out of favor with the Dark Lord, but not all the reasons why, and also that his mother had taken command of some of the ways that the family acted, but not all of them. It was a huge disruption to the comfortable way that he had grown up.

And it meant that he’d had to leave it to Victorinus Nott to bind Harry.

Draco looked at Harry, laughing about one of the first-year Ravenclaws who’d had a tantrum over marks on the train earlier, and reminded himself that the binding didn’t change Harry’s last name or his courtships or his personality or anything important like that. It just gave Harry, literally, a place to stand if someone tried to take him out of Victorinus’s custody. And it formalized the arrangement, in a way, with magic that was older than the Ministry.

It didn’t need to be with the Malfoy family.

And Draco really ought to be past the process where he spent every moment questioning his value to Harry and Theo.

Theo reached out abruptly, caught hold of Draco’s hand, and tugged on it. “You look as though you need someone to lean against while you confess all your brooding thoughts,” he said, and pulled Draco over to his seat before Draco could object.

“I’m not brooding,” Draco snapped. His breath caught in his throat at how strong Theo was.

“Good, then this will just be a nice rest period,” Theo said, and tucked Draco under his arm.

Draco rolled his eyes and laid his head on his courted’s shoulder. He sneaked a glance at Harry, but Harry was watching them in supreme contentment, and just winked when Draco shot him that look. Then he removed a thick scroll from a pocket and started skimming over it, his forehead wrinkled.

“Something he wanted you to learn?” Draco asked.

“Yeah.” Harry didn’t even look up.

Draco wondered what it would be like to have a mentor as overwhelming and demanding as the Dark Lord, then pushed the thought away with a shudder. Even though he liked a few school subjects enough to possibly enter an apprenticeship in them after Hogwarts, he wouldn’t want a Dark Arts one like Harry had.

Or a Potions apprenticeship either, for that matter. Draco was good at them, but he didn’t have the focused discipline that Harry did.

“Relax,” Theo whispered into his ear.

“What?” Draco twisted back to look at Theo, as much as he could when he was so close.

“I can feel your thoughts racing, your breath getting quicker.” Theo’s hand strayed down Draco’s chest, which made Draco choke a little. “Just relax. Go to sleep if you want. Talk to me if you want to stay awake.”

Draco nodded and closed his eyes, hoping Theo wouldn’t somehow also sense how overwhelmed he was. So much had happened in the last few days. Harry’s anxiety over the Dark Lord possibly rejecting him. The Dark Lord’s duel with Dumbledore. Dumbledore calling Harry to his office. The hasty arrangement with Victorinus for the binding of stone.

Even if those things had mostly concerned Harry, Draco thought he deserved to relax and think about them.