Prologue
It was just 3 months after his birthday when it happened. There was never a good time for these things to happen, but with Harry being a - nearly - average five year old, on Halloween night was certainly a bad time for it.
He had been allowed to trick-or-treat with Dudley that year. This hadn't been something he expected, because the year before he'd been left with old Mrs. Figg, but when she came down sick that very morning, the Dursleys had no better choices. And that was how Harry Potter found himself thoroughly lost and alone and scared out of his wits in a small neighborhood of Surrey, surrounded by frights that jumped out at him and people that thought it funny to tease and terrify a poor little child.
He had just wandered a short distance behind Dudley and Petunia, and his Aunt had apparently not been paying the best attention…. The next thing he knew, he could see nothing but unfamiliar faces and frightening costumes. And then something far more sinister happened, and he was grabbed from behind, feeling like he was sucked into a wormhole by his bellybutton. And all went black.
***
“Can you believe it? Just wandering around! On tonight of all nights!”
“I don't think you should have brought him here, Severus. There must be some explanation. If anyone found out-”
“Damn them all! He- he has Lily's eyes, Lucius, and he looks so like her when we were young… And Albus lied about him. We were all told that he was left in responsible hands and was treated as well as any pureblood heir deserved, and I found him crying in a bush in Surrey of all places!”
There was a pause and then a sigh, before a woman spoke.
“Lucius… he's been very obviously abused and malnourished. Even just the preliminary scans I ran were… disheartening at best. I know this boy is… not the most welcome among our circles at the moment. But no magical child can be allowed to live in such a state because of muggles.”
Harry blinked his eyes open in time to see the blonde woman above him sneer at the thought of such. What a muggle was, he didn't know, and who were these people anyways? He was laying on what felt like a cloud, though, and was so, so warm that… he couldn't bring himself to be scared at all. Which was another new experience, when thinking of the tones of voice these adults were using. Usually that tone meant a whipping, but these people… He could see the prettiest lights coming from them, and they were so comforting, and this soft soft bed was so warm. The boy found himself smiling up at them and blinking slowly.
“He's awake.” The blonde woman sighed in relief and smiled softly at the boy, though Lucius could see the pain in her eyes as she ran a hand through the abused boy's hair. “Harry, darling, my name is Narcissa. You can call me Aunt Cissa. How are you feeling, dear?”
Harry frowned and wrinkled his nose. “I don't know who you are, and Aunt Petunia says not to talk to strangers… but I don't think you're a stranger if you know my name, right? I only just learned my name when I started school anyways. Does that mean you aren't a stranger?” He looked between the three of them, blinking curiously as he sat up. He didn't know where he was or how he had gotten there, and all he really remembers just before that was the squeezing feeling of being tugged through a tube by his belly button. It had not been pleasant. But everything here had been so far, and he even felt like his sore back and bum were not quite as sore as they had been. They weren't sore at all, now that he thought about it. That was a new and nice feeling for him. He felt more inclined to talk to the sparkly people the longer be spent with them.
Narcissa looked to Lucius, who could see her heart breaking for the kid, and they both knew there was no going back now. Even Severus, as he watched the boy more, felt his cold heart thawing towards him. He stepped forward now. “No, Harry, we aren't strangers. I was… A very dear friend of your mother's. My name is Severus. And I found you tonight when you were crying. Can you tell me why you were alone and crying, Harry?”
He watched the boy fidget and felt anger at Petunia renew itself inside him. As well as anger at Dumbledore, for that matter. How could he have let the man have his way on things? Why had he trusted Hagrid with Harry instead of taking him himself? But the child seemed to feel the stares of the trio on him, even with his gaze firmly on his fidgeting hands, and he eventually responded.
“I was Trix and Treatsing with Dudley… but I got lost… and people s-scared me…” he mumbled most of it, and his breathing hitched at the end as he remembered the ghouls and goblins he'd encountered. The reasons for his crying, of course. It wasn't that he wanted to go back to his Aunt and Uncle. He was scared of Vernon, and Aunt Petunia didn't feed him very much, and they didn't have the beautiful glows that seemed to emanate from the people here… But he had been alone and scared. It was natural for a child.
Lucius decided it was time for him to step in when the small boy began to whimper, and he tipped Harry's chin up gently, slowing his movements when the boy noticeably flinched. He frowned at that reflex, and then smoothed out his face as he brought the child's head up so they were making eye contact. Letting out a soothing pulse of magic, Lucius crept into the mindscape of the young Potter.
He had seen a lot in his time, but he had never seen treatment of a child in the manner that this one had seen since age two. Mistreatment of a magical child in such a way would earn you death when you were as unlucky as to inflict it upon a child of the Dark. He was distracted before his own thoughts could bleed through in anger, though, by the way the child saw them. He was seeing their magical cores, it would appear, Lucius’s being a grey-blue glow, Severus having a rather rusty orange, and Narcissa having a slightly smaller core of silver with pink flecks. How odd it was to see them, and he pulled out of the boy's head slowly, blinking and finding himself smiling at the small child. The ravenette tilted his head slightly when their minds were separated and seemed to pout a bit.
“Why did you leave? You have a nice mind. It's calm. Even when Uncle Vernon was yelling…” he frowned more at that thought but then looked back to at the confused faces with a smile. “Can we do it again? It was nice to not be scared of him!” He piped up and seemed rather excited, even as the faces went from puzzled to incredulous.
“No, Harry, I don't think we should do that again today.” Narcissa started, smiling softly at the now petulant child. “But would you like to maybe stay here for a little while? You could meet our son Draco in the morning.” She didn't know how to tell the boy that he was never ever going to see those people again. So she thought starting with just one day at a time would help.
And one day lead to two, and then a week, and Uncle Severus was showing both boys how to carefully store potion ingredients, and Narcissa was whispering healing magic over scraped knees, and Harry's nightmares faded, and Draco was being a big tough brother when Goyle or Crabb would get annoyed and pushed Harry down, leading to some rather rough fights that Draco won with vigor. And they grew. And they learned politics together, reading the newspaper with Lucius, and how to keep themselves alive even without magic from Narcissa, and how to cook with Severus. And they grew some more. And they had tutors and friendships developed and alliances were made. And they grew some more. Until he came when Draco's 11th birthday was but a week away. And it changed everything.