Family Matters

Jason told Tim and Hari to meet him at the Room of Requirement, or Rory as Tim liked to call it.

“What’s this about, Jason? I’m trying to steal Nott’s Ancient Runes textbook, and this was the perfect time to strike,” Tim pouted as he walked into the room.

“You can borrow mine—this is like the fifth incident with Nott. Do you have a crush on him or something?”

“I don’t know, I just like watching him squirm,” Tim shrugged.

“We’ll have a talk about this later. Right now, it’s about Hari.”

“What about me?” Hari asked, walking into the room, which looked vastly different than before. It had a giant pool structure, the rest of the room resembling a beautiful Greek structure with aquatic creatures moving about the walls.

“I believe I found out the trick to your egg! You did bring it, right?” Jason’s grin was wide.

Hari pulled the monstrous thing out of his bag and tossed it at Jason, having faith he’d catch it.

Jason caught it with ease, tossing it from hand to hand. “Roy sent me a book about aquatic creatures. Did you know Sirens can’t sing above water?” Jason threw the egg over his shoulder into the pool. “Let’s go see if we’re right.”

Jason stripped down to his boxers before jumping in. Tim and Hari shared a look before shrugging and following suit. As their heads were submerged, Jason opened the egg, and a gorgeous song played for the group.

“Come seek us where our voices sound,

We cannot sing above the ground,

An hour long you'll have to look,

To recover what we took.”

Hari swam up to the top, not able to hold his breath any longer, but he kept one ear in the water to finish hearing the rest of the song.

“An hour long you'll have to look

To recover what we took

Your times half gone so tarry not

Lest what you seek stays here to rot.”

The brothers came up from the water, “So we just have to have Hari swim to the Siren home and collect what they took?” Tim said, “That’s easy, especially if we can get Roy to modify one of our portable breathers. Or maybe Kaldur.”

Hari grimaced, “Not so easy, I can’t swim.”

Both the Waynes looked at Hari, he was standing in the shallow end, “We can fix that.” The grin that spread on the faces of his brothers was sinster, and Tim added his own flare by rubbing his hands together. 

Hari took one look at both their faces, “I'm afraid.”

“You should be.” 

--

True to his fear, Tim and Jason took shifts improving Hari’s swimming skills and ability to breathe underwater. Occasionally, their friends would join in. Luna was especially curious, but had an easier time since Sirius would give her the basics with minor corrections from the Waynes. Hari was improving greatly under their tutelage, now able to swim 500 ft freestyle in just a week.

Draco lounged on the pool deck next to them, reading a book Hermione had gifted him. “Darling?”

Hermione paused in her laps, moving closer to where Draco was laying. “Yes?”

“What color are you wearing to the ball?” Draco absentmindedly asked, “And have you picked out any jewels?”

Hermione blushed, “No, no jewels, and I’m wearing a green dress—more emerald than green, I’d say.”

“Very good. I’ll bring you some jewels I’d like to see you wear, if that’s alright.” Draco glanced at her.

“Yes, love, that’s fine.” Hermione leaned up, half out of the water. Draco smiled as he leaned over and kissed her. “Now back to your swimming.”

Luna threw the ball she was using to play with Padfoot deeper into the pool. “Hari, can I go with you?”

Hari was lounging back on the steps as Tim fed him more potions to gain his stamina back quicker. “Of course! I’d enjoy being your date to the Yule Ball.”

“I’ll be wearing purple.”

“Wonderful! Should I send you jewels too?” Hari joked, making Draco throw a shoe at his head. “Ouch!”

“No, thank you. But I would like one of those flower wrist things I see in muggle movies,” Luna smiled thankfully at Hari.

“Corsage. It’s called a corsage, Luna,” Jason remarked. “Come on, Hari, time for another round.”

“Do you even know how far into the lake this is?” Hari whined. His lungs ached with all the practice and magic that had been happening.

“When I swam it from the edge, it was about forty-five minutes, without them putting obstacles in my way,” Tim stated matter-of-factly.“The Grindylows really slowed me down.”

“I have to fight underwater too?” Hari groaned. This sucked.

“You’re right. Tomorrow we’ll practice throwing spells underwater,” Jason smirked. “Good idea, Tim.”

“I am known for those,” Tim smiled, before Hari picked him up by his shirt and tossed him in the pool.

“Did that make you feel better?” Jason crossed his arms.

Hari smiled, “Of course it did.”

“You’re learning to roughhouse. I’ve never been more proud. Now run, if you don’t want Tim to get you.”

“What?”

Tim had silently swam under the water until he was close enough to stand on his feet. He shot up like a shark from the ocean. “Wingardium Leviosa!”

Hari felt himself begin to float until he was in the middle of the pool. “Fuck.”

Draco whined about the water splashing on his book.

---

James hummed as Lily and Regulus told him about the DADA lesson he missed. Hari was in the pool again, this time at the deep end practicing underwater spells, essentially going through the motions and having the intention but not speaking the spell.

“What made Barty go completely bonkers, anyway? He was a fair-minded Ravenclaw if I recall correctly,” James asked.

Regulus snorted at his love. “Darling, Arty was a wild mind trapped by his father, like most of my generation. His father was livid that he wasn’t in Slytherin like the family before them. He didn’t see it as what it was—Arty was a genius, but we saw him. My snakes and I always invited him to our sneak abouts. That’s when we realized he was a core-user. Do you know how smart or powerful you need to be to do that?”

Lily smiled as Regulus began to gush about one of his best friends.

“If you’re smart, you have precision but can’t hold it for long; if you’re powerful, it’s like a natural disaster that breaks anything in its way.” Lily gently stroked Regulus’s arm to get him back on topic to Barty, or Arty as he apparently used to call him.

Reggie picked up her hand and kissed it. “Thank you, Love. Anyway, Arty was enamored with Evie—sorry, Evan Rosier—and the feeling was mutual. The two went from strangers to best friends to dating in like a three-week span. It was incredible. When you’re meant to be, it happens. Anyway, skipping a lot of the school drama, Evie was forced to participate in the Dark Lord's regime. Evie isn’t a talented in Occlumency in any form, so Voldy found out he really didn’t want to be there, but he needed purebloods for his cause. Not as insane as you think, that wicked thing. So he agreed that Evie could take the smaller stuff, things that wouldn’t damage his psyche if he and his lover performed an experiment for him.”

James leaned in, enthralled by the story. “What experiment?”

Reggie gave a wistful smile. “Create a child.”

“A child?”

“As you heard, Slytherin has their own little library downstairs. Albus never thought to take it out, thinking nothing of what was there, I suppose. We have ancient texts that documented same-sex couples having children, but one of the vital areas was pure, untainted love. Hence why he didn’t want Evie becoming psychologically damaged. If they could produce a child, it was more for his regime to stand on same-sex pureblood couples reproducing. He was surprisingly pro-gay. But you know who wasn’t?”

“Albus? Malfoys? Uhhh, Evan’s dad?” James spouted.

“Barty Crouch.” Reggie had a little too smug a smile. “Pandora Lovegood, beautiful woman, my best girlfriend for years, and also a fellow Ravenclaw, would pretend to date Arty when she and Xenophilius Malfoy were on a break or swinging. When Bart found out his son was dabbling with a Rosier gentleman, he lost his mind. It took us a few weeks to realize Arty was Imperios'd.”

Lily gasped. “He did that to his own son?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time. Arty was like his core, wild and free. The only thing that tethered him was Evie. He told me once that while he was like the wind, he could feel Evie’s—it was like water, holding him down, letting him be free but with slower movements.”

“Wouldn’t that be a hurricane?” James asked, picturing water hanging onto air.

“If they were angry, yes. More than anything, they wanted to travel the world, see their friends, and be left alone.”

“So they did this experiment?” Lily asked, pulling this very romantic telling back to the point.

“Right, yes. So they tried for a child. And they succeeded. A wonderful little girl, with light brown hair like when Arty was a child and wonderful dark hazel eyes. Her name was Liesolotte Pandora Rosier, after the two most important women in their lives. We called her Lottie.” Tears welled in Reggie’s eyes. “I wasn’t around for her birth, nor were any of my other friends. But from the other in-betweeners around Rosier Manor, they were elated, doting, and it only lasted a few months. Evie was killed by Alastor Moody, next to his daughter’s crib, only four months after her birth.” Magic flared off the Black Heir for a moment.

“Alastor always told us he found him in a raid and pursued him...” James’s brows furrowed. “Why did he lie?”

“That man is a horrid liar. I’ll trust in-betweeners over a living person any day,” Reg’s voice was cold. “Arty came home to a dead lover and a burned crib. It’s no wonder he lost his mind after. Probably joined Snake-face just so he could have a chance to kill Alastor.”

Lily began to pace on the pool floor. “So to boil it down, Arty, as you call him, never wanted to join, only did so after his child and lover died, to get revenge? He was rumored to be in the inner circle the whole time. But if his lover was in the inner circle and they were performing magic together, it would make sense that others would see him hanging around. And Voldy could capitalize on having another pureblood hanging around, slowly spreading his influence unintentionally. Did he visit the Longbottoms like Karkaroff said he did?”

“Karkaroff?” James questioned. “You went to the trial?”

“You visited Sirius; I went to the courts. We had our own hobbies.”

Regulus shook his head. “It wouldn’t have been him. Months leading up to the birth, both Evie and Arty would need to be near the cauldron to place their magic inside, then after, they were caring for a newborn, that they weren't sure the needs for. A magically combined child no one had solid intel of how much magic she needed to be sustained or if that was just during the incubation process. Flat-face knew that. The inner circle knew that they were to be left alone for at least two years. When I was alive, they were planning on moving to France, in the Malfoy Villa once she was six months old.”

“So Voldy had an extremely powerful, intelligent wizard who just lost everything that was tethering him, with a desire to get revenge on one of the Order’s best duelists. And he wasn’t running rampant, causing destruction in his wake. That means Voldy probably wanted him for a singular event, the one that would help both of them get revenge. An attack on Alastor Moody.” James pondered out loud.

“It still sounds so off to me. Everyone said he stayed in that manor for days, not moving from Evie’s body until... oh god.” Reggie held his mouth. “What if he was Imperios'd again? He had no energy to move forward. What if someone had been controlling him?”

“Who would do such a thing?”

“Someone who wanted to become the Minister of Magic.”

"That's cruel. No father would do such a thing," James shook his head.

Regulus jumped up from his seat. "Think about it, Jamie. He hated his son—a gay Ravenclaw hanging around Voldemort. He catches wind that his son is so depressed he hasn't moved from the rotting corpse of his lover. He could stroll right in, Imperious him, have him join the regime, and when everyone goes to trial, they'll rat him out. He looks superior because not even his son is above the law. The man that captured Sirius Black, traitor to the Potters, sent to Azkaban without a trial. Who upheld the law so dutifully his son was rotting in a prison. Who else would people want as Minister of Magic?"

Lily's magic flared. "Why is it that our generation is torn apart by grotesque men trying to be number one?"

"Maybe the gods hate us?" James held his firecracker, pondering all the death and spiderweb plans everyone made at the expense of others.

Reggie watched Hari as he shot spells underwater with Jason. "Better question: why do our sons survive the unlivable? How are they so resilient and powerful. Jason doesn't inherit any of that from me. And Loves Hari's magic is growing stronger by the day, you were might wizards but not what they are shaping out to be."

Lily bit her lip, James held her tighter, and Regulus pondered as they listened to the living world. Unsure of the future ahead.