Chapter Text
“Oh, dear Merlin…” Pansy moaned. “They’re the Gryffindors of the dragon world.”
“Pretty much.” Harry snorted. “But this little one will never give up on you. They’ll never leave you. And as they can apparate, no-one can force them to, either.”
“And it’s a portkey, too.” Draco reminded her. “Set it for somewhere you consider safe, and no matter where you are, your dragon will get you to safety.”
“What its name?”
“It’s your Gryffindor dragon, Pansy, you name it.” Harry huffed.
“Mao-Mao.”
~~~
29th October 2000
Seeing Dudley Dursley standing outside his shop, when he returned from lunch, startled Harry. He took a few moments to study his cousin, as there had been some significant changes.
Gone was the flabby body. Dudley stood tall, comfortable in his own skin. Skin, that was no longer pasty-white, but was now a soft, warm, peaches and cream complexion. He also wore a suit that was common among the Soterian males, irrespective of species. A suit that was neat, well fitted and understated, and as Harry was wearing one almost identical, he knew that it had come from McGill’s. A definite step up in Dudley’s wardrobe.
Harry opened the door and nodded to Dudley, before stepping back and letting the other man through.
“Harry...” Dudley spoke quietly.
“Big D.”
“Not anymore.” Dudley shook his head.
“Have a seat.” Harry gestured to the seating alcove. “And tell me what brings you here, today.”
Dudley sat and fidgeted for a moment, before he reached in his jacket, drawing out a long slender item.
A wand.
“That’s a wand…” Harry said, slowly.
“Lumos.” Dudley whispered, and the wand’s tip began to glow.
“You just…” Harry’s jaw fell. “You just… Magic… You just cast magic.” He finally got his words together.
“I did.” Dudley nodded. “I’m not very good at it yet. I’m getting better, though.”
“You’re magical…?” Harry asked. “You’re magical!” He leapt to his feet and when Dudley stood with him, engulfed his cousin in the best Weasley™ Hug he was capable of.
“Should I be concerned?” A third person spoke. “At finding my soon-to-be-husband, hugging some unknown man?”
“Draco!” Harry let go of Dudley and spun to face Draco. “Come meet my cousin. Dudley, this is Draco Black, we’re officially betrothed, as of yesterday. Draco, this is Dudley, my cousin, who it turns out is magical, after all.” He turned back to Dudley. “How did that come about?”
Dudley snorted and shook Draco’s hand, before sitting down, again. “So, story time, huh?” Laughing when Harry nodded. “Right, so… You know how mum and dad were waffling back and forth between ‘possible daughter-in-law – good’ and ‘magic – bad’?” Harry nodded. “Yeah, well they came down on the ‘magic – bad’ side, when I decided to move here. Apparently, the daughter-in-law would have won out, if I’d stayed in Britain, but I didn’t. I came here. Dad gave me an ultimation, stay or never come back. I’m not sure that I’ll miss him. Them. Mum was worse, when I hesitated, she went right off. Made anything she spat at you, seem like she was singing your praises.”
“Whoa…” Harry exclaimed quietly.
“John… John Perks is Sally’s father.” Dudley clarified. “John helped me get set up. The establishment payment went into buying block of land and building a house on it. Then I had to find a job. The only thing I knew was beating up people. Now, I do it for a living at the sports centre in Catherine.” He grimaced. “Sort of. I help them train, physical fitness. After hours, because I’m studying at Ceridwen’s, sports medicine and medi-wizardry. During the assessments they do, to determine exactly how much medi-wizardry I can potentially do, they discovered that I have a magical core. It’s not all that unusual to find undeveloped cores, in muggles that have muggleborns in the family. More study found that it wasn’t undeveloped, but tied up in binds. Lots of binds. Dozens of them. All of them small, individually insignificant, but together, they block over ninety-eight percent of my core.”
“Can they fix it?” Harry leant forward, clutching at Draco’s hand.
“Yeah, but they can only remove one every other full moon.” Dudley frowned. “Something to do with avoiding convergences on internal ley-lines and chanels…?” He shook his head. “It made no sense to me then and still doesn’t, but I don’t need to know the why, just the how. They isolate a bind, in ritual, and with my explicit permission, they remove it using runic surgery. Which is wicked to watch. I want to learn how to do that. Healer Ammolite says that when I finish my medi-wizardry training, she’ll take me as an apprentice.”
“Merlin…” Draco exclaimed, almost silently.
“Yeah, that was Healer Dobson’s reaction, too.” Dudley laughed. “So, the binds are slowly being removed. But my core is stunted, not massively, but… stunted. My children’s won’t be, though. So, there’s that.”
“Lord…” Harry whispered.
“Ammolite went to Surrey and tested both mum and dad.” Dudley went on. “Dad’s a squib, has a core, but it’s so small, there’s no magic for him. Mum, on the other hand…”
“Oh, no…” Harry covered his mouth.
“Yeah.” Dudley nodded. “Mum should have gone to Hogwarts, the year before Aunt Lily. But someone decided that wasn’t going to happen.”
“Dumbledore.” Harry stated.
“Dumbledore.” Dudley nodded. “Mum wasn’t happy, demanded her core be removed. Which Ammolite was more than happy to do. On the spot.”
“Ritual without a ritual chamber?” Draco gasped. “Oh, wow. Ammolite really had it in for her, didn’t she?”
“Oh, yes…” Dudley grinned. “Then turned to me and told me that as I was the oldest living member of the Evans family, the oldest magical, living member that is, I was eligible to claim Head of House for the House of Evans. I did and I changed my name, from Dudley Vernon Dursley to Hedley Vincent Evans. Not the same, but close enough that I still react when I hear it. And Hedley is plant orientated, which Sally and I plan to make an Evans Family Tradition.” Harry could hear the capital letter for the last two words.
“Welcome to the joys of being a Head of House.” Harry huffed. “It’s a nightmare.”
“Head of House, to two.” Dud- Hedley snorted. “You and me. Yeah, that’s a real nightmare.”
~~~
22nd December 2000
The Malfoy Yule Ball was everything Harry expected it to be. Posh, elegant and stilted. But for Draco, he persevered.
“You look as uncomfortable as I feel, Potter.” Blaise Zabini said, offering his hand.
“Probably worse, then.” Harry shook said hand and continued to watch Draco dance with his mother.
“My Lord Black?” A quiet voice come from the opposite side to Zabini, that had that young man tensing.
“Ah, Bellatrix Lysandra.” Harry greeted the witch calmly, which in turn calmed Zabini. “I see you brought Aoede with you.”
“I never go anywhere without her.” Bellatrix answered, her hand raised to stroke the bird's chest. “She is the most glorious gift, my Lord. You have my eternal gratitude for her.”
“You are a Daughter of my House, Bellatrix.” Harry chided gently. “It is only right that I give gifts, that reflect the value I place on that.”
“My thanks, anyway, my Lord.”
“Bella, darling, come dance with me.” Rodolphus Lestrange held out a hand and Bellatrix curtsied to Harry before taking Rodolphus’ hand.
“She still creeps me out.” Zabini whispered.
“Same.” Harry replied. “But I can play nice. Draco is teaching me, so I have incentive.”
Zabini snorted. “Is that what it’s called?”
“In polite society, yes.” Harry glanced sideways. “In the privacy of our own homes? You don’t get to know that.”
Zabini laughed. “Yeah, you’ll do fine.” He shook his head and wandered away.
“Dance with me?” Draco suddenly appeared in front of Harry.
“You did put impervious charms on the toes of your shoes, didn’t you?” Harry asked, as he took Draco’s hand.
~~~
2nd January 2001
“We’ve finally tracked down every squib or muggleborn that has been born since Dumbledore graduated from Hogwarts.” Ragnok told Harry and Voldemort. “More than eighty percent of them have some type of interference that bears his magical signature. Unravelling his web is going to take another twenty-odd years. Mostly due to the fact that to do it any faster, risks core fractures. And if that happens, it can trigger implosions which will be noticeable to the muggles.”
“He’s been… tampering… with people, for that long?” Harry asked.
“Yes…” Ragnok sighed. “Every Gryffindor and Slytherin bore his taint. Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, far less.”
“Yes, he tended to ignore them.” Voldemort nodded, slowly.
“Unless they came from a powerful house,” Harry corrected, “like Susan Bones or Zacharias Smith.”
“True…” Voldemort agreed.
“Many that came to Hogwarts as muggleborns,” Ragnok went on, “weren’t actually muggleborn. Most of them had squib parents, or parents that had bound cores. Many that were sent away, due to being squibs, likewise, had bound cores.”
“It’s a nightmare…” Harry whispered.
“Like I said,” Ragnok sighed, “we are working on resolving the matter, but it’s going to take time. The good news is that we’ve identified every living person with a core, no matter how undeveloped it may be. This allows us to locate them and, in some cases, we are offering them the opportunity to emigrate to Soteria. In some cases, we are able to put them in contact with their magical family. However, that raises issues, due to said magical family casting them out. Some are accepting, some aren’t. Some are happy to have magic, some aren’t. Some want their cores unbound, some want them stripped.”
“Complicated.” Harry grunted.
“Very.” Ragnok nodded.
“Better you than me.” Harry shook his head, earning a snort from Voldemort. “What? My cousin, who I thought was just a greedy bully, is actually a wizard, that ate to try and feed a core that was so heavily bound, it’s a wonder he could stand up straight.”
“Ah…” Voldemort grunted. “You’re not the only one to discover lost family. I have two half-siblings. Both magical.”
“Your… father’s… children…?” Harry asked, fairly confident that they weren’t his mother’s kids.
“Yes.” Voldemort nodded. “I have magical ancestors on both sides. Predominantly squibs on my father’s, but there were Riddles that attended Hogwarts. Dumbledore might have removed them from the school’s records, but he couldn’t from the Ministry’s. My father and his father were squibs, but my grandfather’s brother was a teacher at Hogwarts, when Dumbledore was a student.”
“Whoa…” Harry exhaled. “But he wanted you to be isolated, so he removed all traces from them, that you could access.” It wasn’t a question.
“Correct.” Voldemort nodded.
“So, now what?” Harry asked.
“Now, gentlemen,” Ragnok answered, “your part in this is done. Your Treaty will still stand, but these amendments will give each person we treat, the right to choose, which way they go. Britain or Soteria.” He gestured first to Voldemort and then to Harry. “Your involvement in the clean-up is negligible and will only happen when and if we request it. For now? Return to you lives and live them, knowing that Dumbledore’s webs are being unravelled.” He snorted. “He’d be rolling in his grave, if we’d allowed him one.”
Harry still didn’t know what had happened to Dumbledore, Molly, Ginny and Hermione, and he really wasn’t all that interested in finding out. But it sparked a thought.
“Whatever happened to Hermione Granger’s parents?” Harry asked. “She said, she’d sent them to Australia, with new memories.”
“She lied.” Voldemort stated. “She obliviated them of the last eighteen years of their lives. I sent my followers to fetch them in, in an attempt to locate her and through her, you. Finding what she’d done to them, infuriated me. She’d obliviated them, and left them. Walked away and left them to their fates. Not a single protection on either of them. I set about recovering their memories, and like Ragnok says, it takes time. You’d sent her to me, before I finished. It was the sight of her, that finally connected the last of their memories and they were not happy. Mrs Granger was Dumbledore’s daughter, he’d captured her squib mother and used her as a breeding sow. Eleven children she bore and only one was capable of passing on a magical core, the rest were disposed of. Mr Granger’s history was quite similar, only his magical ancestor was a reluctant Grindelwald.”
“He was breeding them to get a magical child…” Harry whispered.
“And he got her.” Voldemort nodded. “Then turned her into his accomplice. His apprentice.”
“And paid for it, with his life.” Ragnok added.
“Thank Merlin for Ronald Weasley’s bladder.” Harry huffed a laugh.
“Indeed.” Voldemort nodded.
“And with that gentlemen? We are done.” Ragnok laid his hands on the table.
“We are.” Voldemort nodded, again. “Fare thee well, Ragnok, Director of Gringotts.” The wizard stood and left the room.
“Anything I need to do?” Harry asked.
“Go home to you family, Harry.” Ragnok waved him off.
Harry landed outside his gate and sighed. This was his home.
“You coming in, or not?” Draco called from the door.
And that was his soon-to-be-husband.
So, not what Dumbledore wanted. And Harry was good with that.
“Yes, love, I’m coming.”
~~~