Chapter 21
Time skip, brought to you by Hadrian being cute as hell
Hadrian just turned one year old. Neither of his parents could believe it, to them he was just born and now they were standing in the ballroom greeting guests who were coming to celebrate.
The ballroom was decorated in greens and blues with huge realistic snake illusions floating around the room with the occasional mythical animal in the mix. The gift table was covered in gifts in various shapes and sizes, all screened for harmful magic of course. And the food table was covered in foods appealing to the adult wizards around as well as the little ones crawling and toddling around.
The birthday boy himself was playing, in the play corner they had set up, as he had gotten tired of standing with his parents and greeting people so Tom put him down to let him play. As soon as Hadrian was put down he, of course, started removing his tie that matched his little suit perfectly and reached for his basilisk to remove the tie it was wearing as well. When he was finally free of his tie and had freed his stuffie as well Hadrian reached a hand up with the ties towards Tom while smiling innocently. Tom rolled his eyes good naturedly and took the ties before saying bye and going back to entertaining the guests. After Tom left Hadrian had started playing, his basilisk in one hand and floating stuffies above his head.
After the first time, the sight of Hadrian floating his toys around and pulling them towards himself, he started to do it more frequently and now it was rare that somebody didn’t run into floating stuffies in the corridors at least once a day. His favourites to float being his stuffed snakes, though never the basilisk as the stuffie rarely leaves his hand, and his mythical animal stuffies that Pandora had gotten him a few months ago.
Soon all the guests had arrived and were mingling around and letting the children play. They didn’t do anything too big as Hadrian was turning only one and it wasn’t safe with the order getting suspiciously quiet lately. So the only people invited were their families, their inner circle and followers who had children around the same age as Hadrian.
While looking around the party Tom was thinking about how he himself had grown up alone in the orphanage. He was glad that Hadrian wouldn’t have to grow up without friends and support, and from the looks of it he was already making friends. Looking at the play area, he saw most children sitting in the middle of the toys and babbling to each other. From what he could see almost everyone had brought their kids, he could see the Greengrass heiress Daphne, Draco, Crabbe and Goyle kids, the Nott heir Theodore and the Parkinson’s daughter Pansy, there were a few more children he didn’t know the names of but as Hadrian wasn’t paying attention to them he wouldn’t have to know who they were for now.
Tom had also invited the Zabinis with their son as he and Lucrezia get along very well but Lord Zabini had just died from a tragic accident and they had decided to decline the invitation to mourn.
Seeing as everything was going smoothly Tom decided to go searching for Regulus. After looking around for a bit he discovered his husband sitting with Pandora at one of the tables near the children and looking excited, though nobody else looking would be able to tell.
“Yes, I would love to! And congratulations! ” Tom heard Regulus, who was fully smiling by now, saying as he neared them. “What are we congratulating them for love?” Inquired Tom, wanting to know the reason his husband was so happy. “Oh, love I didn’t see you there” Turned Regulus and grabbed his hand to squeeze it before letting go and turning back towards Pandora and her husband Xenophilius “Pandora just shared some wonderful news” Continued Regulus while gesturing towards the woman.
Taking the signal Pandora shared the news “Xeno and I are expecting, we found out a week ago and we are 3 months along” Happiness was radiating off of the pair and Tom couldn’t help but be happy for them and offer them his own congratulations “Congratulations dear, you two will make wonderful parents. If you need anything please don’t be afraid to let us know”
Tom was about to continue when there was commotion around the play area and he saw someone trying to take Hadrian’s basilisk from him. Quickly excusing themselves Tom and Regulus made his way towards their son, concerned about what was happening. Swiftly analysing the situation Tom stormed towards the man now holding his son’s favourite stuffie while Regulus went to their crying son, who was starting to make other children fly around in his distress.
“That isn’t yours” Tom informed the man gesturing towards the toy “I suggest you return it” Continued Tom while barely containing his anger as he didn’t want to scare the children. “Yeah well snakes scare my daughter so I decided to get rid of it” Said the unknown sneering man, that was when Tom noticed a woman with a similar sneer standing behind the man while holding a pudgy crying little girl. Now looking around he discovered that almost all the snake illusions were vanished as well. Clearly the pair didn’t recognise who they were talking to as he wasn’t wearing his glamour.
Silently summoning the basilisk from the man and handing it back to his son who was in Regulus’ arms next to him “Who are you to take my son’s toy from him?” Tom asked calmly though anyone with eyes could feel the fury radiating from him. “Lord McNair, the dark lord invited me and you are?” Said the man arrogantly, not even bothering to explain further. Both Tom and Regulus were furious, some low death eater comes to their son’s birthday party, doesn’t recognise the hosts, disrupts the party and tries to steal from their son on his birthday.
That was unforgivable.
In his anger Tom let his eyes burn red and hiss along his words like he would in his glamour. “You come to my house, to my son’s party that I invited you to and you decide to bully him and take his things” Hissed Tom to the now pale man, McNair now understood who he was talking to and rightfully terrified as it was notorious how protective of his new family the dark lord was. “Did you consider not coming if your daughter was ‘so afraid of snakes’ since this IS the Slytherin manor after all?” Said Regulus while side-eyeing the little girl who was trying to reach for one of the only snake illusions left to pet it.
The man and the woman were both pale faced and shaking, everybody was looking towards them and judging their actions. And if that wasn’t enough they had angered the dark lord and his family. They were doomed and they knew it.
“Darcy!” The elf appeared with a pop “Yes master Black, what is you needing?” Hearing his name and now knowing for sure who they were dealing with the McNairs paled further and started loudly apologising. “Can you take lord McNair to the cells and show lady McNair and her daughter to the exit please. They interrupted the little Prince’s party you see and tried to take his basilisk” Requested Regulus while smiling viciously. Hearing that Darcy answered “They dared to harm little Master, that is not allowed. Darcy shall do as master asked” With that the elf popped away with lord McNair before returning and glaring viciously at lady McNair “Follow me” And lead her and her daughter away towards the floo.
Wanting to get everyone to enjoy the celebrations once more, Tom took out his wand and made a colourful show of making new snake illusions to replace the destroyed ones and said with a loud voice “Now that this is solved, everyone return to the party”
After getting his toy back Hadrian had calmed down and was looking at his parents curiously. While everyone was looking terrified of the pair, Hadrian was looking at his parents in awe, despite being only a year old he wanted to be just like his “Dada! Papa!”
Everyone had just turned around when they heard Hadrian’s first words.
Tom snatched Hadrian from a stunned Regulus before the other could recover from his shock and asked him “Can you say it again baby?” Not understanding the commotion Hadrian looked at Tom and patted his cheek “Dada!” before reaching towards Regulus and squealing “Papa!”. Both Regulus and Tom hugged him tight and kissed his cheeks, both smiling from ear to ear. Everybody around them was cheering the birthday boy along.
Hadrian didn’t understand what was happening but he liked seeing his Dada and Papa happy so he started giggling and repeating it “Dada, Papa, Dada, Papa…”
The rest of the party went smoothly with Hadrian repeating his new words every once in a while when he wanted attention, it worked every time. After the cake was eaten and guests were sent home they sat down in the main living room and let Hadrian open all his presents.
He got enough toys to make them give him an entire room just for toys, enough candy for a lifetime, and a few more special presents: Antares gave him a toy broom with ‘My favourite nephew-your favourite uncle’ engraved into it much to Regulus’ delight and amusement, Barty had gotten him a snake plushie that was almost 3 metres long and had ‘little Prince’ stitched into it, Nagini really liked it as it looked like her, while Evan had gotten him a magical book that showed him illusions of whatever was happening in the book. They were competing for the favourite uncle title with all three being convinced that they were the favourite.
By bedtime the family of three was exhausted, Hadrian was asleep the moment they put him down into his crib and they themselves were asleep soon after laying down.
As the night came around, wrapping the world in a gentle embrace of darkness. Stars began to shine, each one a distant, glimmering gem scattered across the vast, inky canvas of the sky. The moon cast its white glow over the landscape, painting everything in shades of blue and silver.
Regulus kept tossing and turning, unable to fully sleep even though he was exhausted. He couldn’t help but feel like something was very wrong but he couldn’t figure out what. Tom was sleeping peacefully next to him and Hadrian was in the next room also sleeping.
Since he couldn’t get any sleep he decided to go check on Hadrian to make sure he was sleeping alright. Slowly rising from the bed and making sure not to wake his husband, Regulus slowly moved out of the room.
The hallway was quiet, even the portraits were sleeping. As silently as possible he moved towards his son’s door across the hall. Turning for the knob, Regulus opened the door.
The window was open, why was the window open, he was sure it was closed when they left earlier. Seeing it, Regulus quickly pushed the door fully open and rushed towards the crib trying to not fall over the toys on the way.
The crib was empty.
His son was gone.