Chapter 4
Severus paced himself slowly, leaning sideways so that his son could reach his hand as the pair made their unsteady way to the playroom. Tom had called a meeting with Regulus Black, Augustus Rookwood, Antonin Dolohov, Thorfinn Rowle, Theodorus Nott, Evan Rosier senior and junior, Atticus Selwyn, Ateros Greengrass and Lucius Malfoy. Greengrass, Nott and Malfoy all brought their children to play with Harry, and the toddler was very excited to see his friends again. They were there to discuss the change in leadership in the Wizengamot and some of the policies that they wanted to push through to pull the British magical world into the twentieth century. The first order of business would be revamping the curriculum at Hogwarts. Before that, though, they had to repeal the current laws restricting magic that had outlawed many of the core classes that used to be taught at the school.
Hawthorne entered the nursery to cheers from his playmates, with Draco pulling himself to his feet, using the sofa the children were near, and eagerly staggering to his friend. He was nearly successful in making his way across the room; he fell forward just as he reached the little brunet and took his buddy to the floor with him. The pair giggled madly as they started wrestling around where they lay. “What am I going to do with the two of you?” the child’s father lamented as he made his careful way to the sofa, skirting around the toys, detritus and children strewn about the floor. Though the nanny elves were on hand to keep an eye on things, Severus refused to take his eyes off of his son; afraid, though he didn’t know why, that Hawthorne would suddenly disappear.
“The Weasleys and Prewetts have seats on the Wizengamot,” Reggie remarked thoughtfully. “Tom discovered that Albus has been using the Potter money to pay them for their support. No doubt he’s trying to keep them in his back pocket by way of gratitude for his ‘generosity’. I did see Lord Weasley’s and Dowager Prewett’s faces when we discussed the fate of the last Potter heir, and the pity turned to anger and disbelief when Dumbledore refused to approve the measures we wanted to put into place to protect abused magical children.”
“Perhaps someone should let slip that the Weasleys are receiving funds from the Potter accounts,” Theodorus suggested with a sly smile. “If Arthur and Muriel were shocked and dismayed by the callous indifference of their ‘Leader of the Light’, they might be swayed to our side of the aisle if they found out that their hero was stealing from an orphaned child who had been killed for the old man’s ‘greater good’.”
“That’s a really good idea, Theodorus,” Riddle praised proudly. “If we can get them on our side, then perhaps Macmillan, Fawley, Abbott and Longbottom would follow along, taking even more power away from Dumbledore. If we can get a nearly clean sweep of support from that legislative body, then pushing forward our goals for our world would be infinitely easier. We’d be able to keep that old man out of meetings and finally improve the lives of the Dark practitioners as well as the Light.”
“That would only leave Doge and Crouch fully on board with the headmaster’s agenda,” Ateros Greengrass murmured with a malicious smile. “Bones would always remain neutral, but she votes her conscience. Her brother and sister-in-law provide a lot of support when she has questions about some of the legislation that’s put before the Wizengamot, but they leave the final decision up to her. It’s just lucky for us that Antonin and Thorfinn were at the Bones' residence when that attack occurred, as it provided ample proof that our people weren’t responsible or involved in the assault.”
“It’s just too bad that the perpetrators escaped before they could be arrested,” Tom added angrily. “It would have been proof positive that Dumbledore’s been the one to incite all the civil unrest we’ve been experiencing since I returned to the British Isles, just before I began to recruit magicals willing to stand up for what’s right, instead of blindly following along with what’s easy.”
“So how do we want to handle the Weasleys?” Reggie asked, disrupting the introspective silence.
“Well,” Lucius finally spoke up, “I could always have Narcissa invite Arthur and Molly over for tea. They could bring along their younger children to play with Hawthorne and Draco, and we could speak to Molly and Arthur about what Dumbledore has been doing. Arthur is related to my wife through his mother, Cedrella, so it wouldn’t be too far out of the norm for her to invite them to the manor.”
“What about the fact that she’s considered a blood traitor?” Thorfinn asked curiously. “I know that the Blacks pride themselves on their pure blood, so I can’t see Narcissa’s family being very welcoming.”
“It’s only Reggie’s branch of the Black tree that has a problem with Septimus Weasley,” Lucius clarified softly. “Yes, Septimus is a bit enthusiastic about muggles, but he’s also been the one to educate us on their advances and the dangers they pose. He pointed out, very accurately, that in order to understand the motivations of your neighbor, you must first know him. It’s been his information and research that has encouraged the Wizengamot to pass stricter laws about muggle-baiting, as well as tighten the Statute of Secrecy. Dumbledore, of course, wants us to all sit around the campfire, singing songs of togetherness and love, but with the way that the mundanes attack each other over skin color or different religious ideologies, we’d never be safe just hanging out with them.”
“I came from a muggle orphanage during World War II, and I can tell you that the way I was abused when I had accidental magic incidents has made me quite wary of them,” Tom contributed with a frown. “I was subjected to exorcisms to try and drive the ‘demons’ out, and I was beaten by the matron under the mistaken idea that she could get rid of the strangeness that way. I was kicked around and pushed around by the other orphans, and when my uncontrolled magic lashed out at them, I was subjected to torture under the guise of ‘discipline’.
“The bombs that fell on London during that time, as well as the horrific diseases that spread like wildfire through the foundling home, had me so terrified for my life that those feelings crippled me long into my adulthood. It wasn’t until I found my forever in Severus that I was finally able to start putting those horrible memories behind me. If Septimus Weasley’s information is used to protect our world better, then he will always have my full support, as will anyone in his family that needs it.”
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Sirius stared out through the bars of his cell, wondering how his life turned out this way. Albus Dumbledore had met with him before he was to go to Hogwarts, and they talked long into the afternoon about the plans the headmaster had for the boy. Albus needed someone to get close to the Potter heir; to befriend him and guide him in the direction of the Light. Fleamont Potter and his wife, Euphemia Potter née Avery, were a rather dark Grey couple, and they’d raised their son to be neutral in politics and magic. Fleamont wasn’t afraid of any branch of wizardry, be it Light, Neutral or Dark, and had taught his son all branches of legal magic before Albus Dumbledore gained power and honor in the magical world and started campaigning to outlaw the more emotionally intensive spells and rituals.
This created a bit of a conundrum for Dumbledore; he wanted to use the political might of the Potter line to continue to push the wizarding world in the direction he’d wanted it to go. He also wanted to open their borders to the muggles so that, later on down the line he could push to have the mundanes ‘re-educated’ to become the bonded servants and slaves to the more superior magical race. So he figured to try and ‘recruit’ the future Black Lord to turn James Potter away from the neutral, dark Grey path he was currently following, and to the Light, where the boy’s will and personality could be subsumed into the Greater Good.
Sirius, at the time, had been all for gaining such a rich, influential ally as James Potter, and he also saw it as a way to escape his family, once the Potters were convinced that Sirius Black was nothing like the rest of his relatives. He would be able to use the Potters as a means to escape the oppressive Darkness that his parents exuded. It would also give him freedom from his mother’s ‘training’, which equated to the crucio every time Sirius messed up in his pureblood lessons. So he readily agreed to be Dumbledore’s way into the Potter family, and during those years in school, James became the brother that Sirius always wanted. Both boys were arrogant, entitled arseholes who ruled the school with a pranking fist. No one could escape their shenanigans, but the worst of their tricks were reserved for the Slytherins, and especially Severus Snape.
Sirius spied weakness almost instantly in the rail-thin boy with a long, hooked nose, and it was upon ‘Snivellus’ that they focused most of their attentions. Remus Lupin, who had lived with lycanthropy since he was five, latched on to Black and Potter almost desperately, grateful for the protections of two prominent pureblood families. Though he didn’t actually partake in the ‘fun’, he bore mute witness to the cruelties; too timid to say anything for fear of alienating the only support system he had in the school. Black sighed as he thought about the night that James and Lily Potter had died.
Dumbledore’s power and popularity were waning; the defeat of Grindelwald was thirty five years earlier, and that Dark Lord was beginning to fade from the public’s memory. So Albus decided to create a new Dark Lord against whom he could fight, using a ‘prophecy child’ to be the catalyst for the war. Riddle had been silent upon his return from the Far East, with only the occasional reports of recruitment to signal that he was doing anything at all. With no adversary against whom to fight, the old man was growing desperate. So, in what he thought would be a brilliant move, he had Sirius, Remus, and Pettigrew polyjuice themselves into the three Lestranges. Remus was Rodolphus, Peter was Rabastan and Sirius played Bellatrix. They broke into the cottage and fired off spells, unaware that James didn’t even have his wand. The Potters were under a fidelius, with Albus as the secret-keeper. Naturally their best friends would be let in on the secret, which gave them access to the occupants unhindered.
The battle in the downstairs room was one-sided; James never had a chance. Pettigrew was selected to go up to the nursery and kill Lily, thereby leaving the orphaned Potter heir as the lone survivor and ‘chosen one’. After the supposed attack went down, the three fled the scene, with Remus port-keying to the prearranged safe house. Pettigrew and Black never made it. They stopped in a nearby muggle village and Peter, in a brief show of intelligent self-preservation, turned on his best friend and fired off a stupefy. Black retaliated, and a brief fight ensued. It was when a stray spell hit a gas main and blew up half the village that things got desperate. Casting a confundus charm at his former best friend to slow him down, Peter transformed into his rat animagus and escaped in the sewers, leaving Black behind to be arrested when he couldn’t explain how or why twelve muggles had been killed in the blast.
The animagus shook his head to try and rid it of the unwanted images as he came back to the here and now. The dementors had stopped patrolling his level on the orders of the Chief Warlock, which was a great relief to Sirius. Black sent up a silent acknowledgement and thanks to Dumbledore, unaware that it was his own brother who gave him that temporary peace. I don’t know how I ended up here, but I blame Dumbledore for it, he thought angrily, not realizing how hypocritical his thinking was. Not sure why I followed his lead for so long, but that ends now. If there’s any way I can nail his arse to the wall, I hope the opportunity comes my way real soon.