Augusta Longbottom II
Figuring out what to do with Hadrian during the school days when neither Severus nor Lucius could look after him had surprisingly been relatively easy. Hadrian loved Andromeda and she loved Hadrian just as equally and had told them multiple times that she would absolutely love to look after “the little cherub” for however long they needed her too. Hadrian had also rejoiced at playing with children his own age.
After graduating from Hogwarts and suffering through the first war, Andromeda had decided to set up a day care for wizarding children, which any wizarding child could attend from the age of four to the age of eleven, where they would graduate and either go to Hogwarts or one of the other magical schools around the globe.
It also meant that Severus and Lucius could now plan a meeting with Dowager Longbottom to explain why their son had been kidnapped and disguised as Harry Potter. Luckily Dowager Longbottom was free during the week and had accepted their invitation to meet. They had chosen Diagon Alley as their location for their meeting and had booked a room at the Leaky Cauldron to have the conversation in a private setting that hopefully wouldn’t get back to the Headmaster.
“Dowager Longbottom, thank you for coming to meet with us.” Lucius began, “I’m sure you have a lot of questions so why don’t we get those out of the way first and then we can fill in the blanks afterwards?”
“Yes that sounds great Lord Malfoy, I suppose my first questions would be how is little Hadrian doing now? It has been a few months since the incident in summer and then obviously the incident with the troll.”
“Hadrian is doing really well actually, we have decided to send him to Andromeda Tonks during the days when both me and Lucius are busy so he will get a bit of a wizarding education but also can’t get lost and find any more things that Albus has deemed appropriate to leave unattended in a school full of children.”
“Well that’s good. I hate to ask such a broad question but I don’t really know how to simplify it down into smaller less broad questions. How did Hadrian end up being the Potter boy?”
“Ah yes, I understand how that couldn’t be simplified.” Severus answered.
“Yes Dowager Longbottom –“, “Augusta please.”, “Augusta, Severus was requested by Minerva McGonagall to go and pick the Potter child up from his relatives and take him to Diagon Alley to buy his school things. Upon reaching the muggles household Severus was informed that the muggles had gone on holiday a few days before.”
“After apperating back to my home, Minerva informed me that Albus had tasked Hagrid with picking him up and taking him to Diagon Alley.”
“Hagrid!?” Augusta exclaimed, “He chose to introduce a boy, ignorant of the Wizarding world, by sending a half giant who can’t even do magic!?”
“Yes exactly. And when I told Hagrid that I had been tasked by Minerva to take the round he refused saying that Albus had told him to do it so he would be fulfilling his order essentially and then refused to give me the boys vault key because Albus wanted it back after the trip to Diagon.” Severus continued.
“Isn’t that illegal?” Augusta questioned, looking towards confirmation. Being a pureblood herself she was aware of the laws around vault keys but she still wanted to make sure.
“Yes, very much so. If Harry was aware and had asked Albus to look after his vault key until he was of age then it would be fine but seeing as Harry had no knowledge of the Wizarding World is cause for a stint in Azkaban.”
“Okay so I assume Severus that you requested a new key from the bank?”
“Yes, I requested a new key and the Goblins took us through to the office so the Harrys identity could be confirmed. Obviously the wards surrounding the offices dropped the glamour that harry had on him revealing our Hadrian. After doing an inheritance test we got him purged.”
“So what happened to Harry Potter then?”
“Ah, this is where it gets interesting. When we brought Hadrian home we invited Minerva so we could ask her if she knew what happened and she fortunately did. She informed us that first of all, Lily Potter was still pregnant when she died, her child had not been born yet and that the child she was expecting was actually a girl. So Harry Potter never existed. Albus created a persona of Harry Potter, we don’t know why, we also don’t know why he kidnapped Hadrian five years after the war ended. But what we do know is that the Dark Lord was influenced by Albus Dumbledore.”
“What are you on about?” Augusta was very strongly part of the Light side. She was getting wary of the potentially being manipulated by the two men in front of her who had made it very clear in the last war that they were on a complete opposite side to her.
“You don’t need to be afraid of us Augusta. We aren’t trying to manipulate you or anything. We are simply explaining what Minerva told us. She said that Albus informed Tom Riddle when he was graduating that the only way to have power was to create Horcruxes. She also told us that the prophecy was fake. I suggest if you are wary of the credibility of our knowledge that you schedule a meeting with Minerva in the near future so she can explain more.” Lucius stated, knowing that it was exactly what the witch in front of him was thinking.
“I meant no offence Lord Malfoy, I simply would need to verify your claims with someone who is not a member of the dark side. I know that all this side stuff is stupid and most people with sound minds don’t follow the stereotype anymore but you are talking about the homicidal maniac who was the leader of the dark side who killed hundreds of people.”
“We understand Augusta, you don’t have to worry. We were aware already that you would need to clarify our information with Minerva.”
“Thankyou. I best be getting off to St. Mungo’s, visiting hours are nearly over and I don’t want to miss my boy.”
“Of course. Please owl if you have any other questions. I think it goes without saying that it would need to be discreet so that nobody else could get their hands on it. As you might be aware we are trying to keep this information away from the public with one a select few knowing.” Lucius replied.
Augusta agreed before disappearing through the floo, she had a lot to think about it.