The Silence of Minerva McGonogall
They returned home only a few hours after leaving the restaurant with two very sleepy children. Draco, being eleven, tried to claim that he wasn’t tired but was seen curled up fast asleep on the couch not half an hour later when the Deputy Headmistress asked for permission to step through the floo. She had to take a double take when she saw the two blonde children in the room, one on the sofa and one on her colleagues lap, but was overjoyed when she realised who the second child was.
“Oh Severus! I’m so glad you have him back” Severus sent her a small smile.
“So am I Minerva, so am I“ Minerva could have cried then and there. She had only seen that expression on Severus’ face once before and that was when Hadrian was first born and he was telling them in the staff meeting all about his little boy.
“Ma’am, did you know?” Minerva was brought out of her musing by a small soft voice coming from the direction she had been staring at.
“Call me Minnie, please. And did I know what?” By this point both Lucius and Narcissa had come back into the room after putting all of their purchases away.
“Did you know I was Harry Potter?” The young boy asked again. He was clearly fighting sleep, all the adults could see. Purging ones self takes a physical toll on the body, and lord knows how tired his body was after being aged up so many years, but no adult had the heart to tell him to go to sleep, after all he deserved to know way more than the rest of them.
“I did, Hadrian. I was under a spell to prevent me from saying where you were when you were taken. Albus made sure anyone who had been told could not say anything at all. So I decided I would send Severus to collect you, knowing that he wouldn’t have your key and you would need to confirm your identity to be given a new one. I just wanted you to be home with your parents. I can only apologise for how long it has taken”
“Why not any earlier?” Came the broken reply, surprisingly this time by the recently just woken up Draco Malfoy. “You watched as my father shut down and cried at nearly everything that reminded him of his baby boy. You could have brought him back earlier!”
There was not a dry eye in the room, not that the adults would admit it in the future. Non of them like being deemed as weak. Hadrian wasn’t even sure why he was crying. He did not remember ever living with these people, he just knew that they were familiar and in the last ten hours or so that he had known them they had treated them miles better than his relatives had. Well, muggles, he realised he couldn’t exactly call them his relatives anymore. He did realise as well that he was probably crying because everyone else was and he was six years old and exhausted. He remembered Dudley at this age and he was an emotional wreck.
“I couldn’t. If I had taken him and brought him home to you Albus would have known and charged your parents and I with kidnapping. He could of claimed that your parents had blood adopted Harry Potter and that’s why he looked like a Malfoy and after the war nobody would have even thought to have done an inheritance test. He would have had me and your parents thrown into Azkaban and then you would have had no parents and your brother would never have known he wasn’t Hadrian.
He would have lived as Harry Potter until his core drained him of all his magic, and from the glamours on him he most likely wouldn’t have survived till his eighteenth birthday. Albus only needs Harry Potter to fulfil the Prophecy but without a Harry Potter he believes our world will be doomed. He is so mad that I think he has forgotten that he created the blasted prophecy and created Harry Potter.” Minerva replied tearily.
“What do you mean created Harry Potter?” Lucius questioned, they already knew that the prophecy was fake but weren’t aware of this part at all.
“I mean, James and Lily Potter were expecting a little girl when they died. But Lily died before she could give birth.”
“You don’t mention that the Dark Lord killed them. Why?” Narcissa was curious, she had never seen the Deputy Headmistress in this kind of light before.
“Oh well that’s quite simple really. When Tom Riddle was just about to graduate Hogwarts, Dumbledore broke his mind by informing him that the only way to become powerful was to create horcruxes. Instead of him becoming powerful it merely fractured his mind, making him vulnerable and easy to manipulate. Dumbledore then told him that if he was to succeed in his plans to make the wizarding world safe he would need to kill Harry Potter. So instead of going on to be the Minister of Magic he became the supposed Dark Lord.”
“So how did the Dark Lord die then?” Lucius questioned.
“He didn’t. He has been stuck in wraith form in Albania for eleven years. He is currently possessing Professor Quirrell now Serverus, who Albus has made the Défense Against the Dark Arts professor now,” She sent an apologetic smile to Severus knowing how much he wanted that job, “Albus tried to kill him himself but was not strong enough and did not destroy all his Horcruxes before attempting it so it changed him into the wraith.”
Hadrian had not spoken since the beginning of the conversation. He was trying to listen to what everyone was saying but it was quite difficult with how tired he was. However he needed to ask one last question before he was welcomed into the arms of Morpheus.
“We will be bringing him back to human form though wont we mama?” Sending a smile to every single face in the room, especially Narcissa who had not been called that by Hadrian yet.
“Of course my sweet child.” With that in mind, Hadrian finally slipped into a deep sleep which he would most likely be in until the late hours of the next day.
Across the nation from Wiltshire the Malfoy family were unaware of the actions of the one and only Headmaster of Hogwarts. Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore was having a tantrum that all toddlers would be jealous of. He could not believe that Minerva had gone behind his back and sent Severus to collect the Potter child. Yes, she oversaw all the muggle borns before they arrive at the school. But Harry Potter was his. Everyone involved knew that. Hell, even the public knew that. And now he had no idea where the boy was. He certainly had not returned home to his relatives. Arabella Figg had told him that much. He knew that he would have to get in contact with Severus in the morning to see what he did with the boy.
Unbeknownst to Albus Dumbledore, he had been speaking out loud and every single portrait that resided in his office knew what his plans were. And unbeknownst to Dumbledore, they had known his plans since the very start of his Harry Potter charade. But now they knew that Hadrian had been found by his real family, having been alerted by Phineas Black, who had a very small forgotten portrait in the main living room of Malfoy Manor which he used to constantly check if they had brought home their youngest boy yet. And now that they had, well, Dumbledore’s plans held no more weight.
One good thing did arrive from Albus Dumbledore’s anger. He was so caught up in the Harry Potter saving the world fiasco that he had forgotten that Harry Potter didn’t exist.