There's something to be said about the kind of day you're having when you bargain with a conniving businessman with a Death-Eater sympathising background, only to pop away and appear before the outer gates of the greatest military authority in the nation. Each of them deserved their own preparation, and if I had an option, I'd have put them on separate days. But when the Director of the DMLE gives you a private appointment, you don't miss it. Especially when the duration of said meeting is ten minutes.
Nope. Not joking there. I had gotten a letter from Susan, inviting me to the Bones Manor, citing that I'd get ten minutes off the record with the DMLE Director.
Hence, this.
The portkey dropped me in front of a pair of giant gates on a winding road, with thick oak forests on both sides. It's the kind of place where the nearest neighbour is too far away to hear your scream. As soon as I appeared, half a dozen hit-wizards in full tactical gear and dragonhide armour accosted me, their wands pointed at vital points of my body, while one of them approached me, spine rigid, shoulders squared, and manners relaxed with the lean athleticism of youth and weather-beaten edges of experience.
"Can I help you, sir?"
He didn't even bother with a friendly smile or the kowtowing reserved for noblemen.
Impressive.
"Oak wands," I commented, observing the wands pointed at me. "English oak demands partners of strength, courage and fidelity. All strong points for a Hit-wizard in charge of protection. Guarding a house surrounded by oak forests. Someone sure loves the symmetry."
The man shrugged. "Can I help you?"
Sigh. "I'm here to visit the DMLE Director."
"Do you have an appointment?"
I handed over the letter. The man took it, and passed it into what looked like a letterbox, before the letter came out on the other side with a nice 'Ding!'. Confirmed, he gave me a nod.
But the wands did not move away.
Instead the man pulled out a small vial from the pocket and uncorked it.
"Your name?"
"Harry James Potter."
"Your palm, please."
"Why?"
"This is the Thief's Downfall, sir. We need to confirm you are you, and not some imposter under polyjuice. Security protocols I'm afraid."
Shrugging, I extended my hand. The guard poured a single drop on my palm, and nothing happened. Then he took out another vial and a remembrall of all things and handed me the latter.
"Elixir 7," he clarified. "I'm going to ask you to ingest one drop sir while holding the remembrall. We need to test if you are under any form of compulsion or memory-alterations."
I blinked. "And you do this with every guest?"
"Standard protocol, sir," said the man. "Madam Bones entertains very few guests. You can deny taking this, but then we'd have to deny you entrance. Alternatively, you can set up an appointment directly at DMLE offices."
What a load of crap. If I resisted, it'd automatically raise red flags and they'd be all over me before I could say unfair. Amelia Bones, it seemed, was a paranoid bitch. But just because you were paranoid didn't mean there wasn't a wand in the shadows pointing at your face. The DMLE Director might answer to the Minister of Magic, but unlike the latter, hers was a position obtained by sheer diligence, skill and past actions. Meeting her was probably like meeting the Army-General and President's Military Advisor merged in one.
"Alright," I said. "I consent."
The guard poured a single drop of the elixir, and I felt it burn my tongue for like two seconds and then gone.
The remembrall showed no changes.
That's lucky.
"SAFE!" The guard stated, and the wands went down. The gates opened and —-
The fuck?
All this time, I was standing on a winding road surrounded by forests with nothing but a pair of giant gates before me. Now? I had Susan Bones standing in front of him, in a tight fit black dress and high heels, standing on the same winding road, surrounded by orchards leading to one of the oldest and grandest manors in England.
"Warwick Castle?" I murmured. "The Bones live in Warwick Castle?"
Susan smirked. "Someone knows their national history."
I blinked, zooming her out and focussing on the castle before me. An Anglo-Saxon fortification, this place was built by Norman the Conqueror back in the eleventh century, though back then it was the original wooden motte-and-bailey kind. But then the Beaumont family rebuilt it in stone a century later, sturdy enough to survive the Hundred-Years-War that followed.
The kind of trivia you can recall if you have Eidetic Memory.
"I thought this place was, you know, under muggle supervision."
Susan looked at me like I had grown a second head.
"What?"
"Potter, this castle has been ours since the twelfth century. Why would the muggles have it?"
I blinked again. I was doing that a lot. "Wait. What?"
Susan cocked her head. "Yes. One of our ancestors, William Neville Bones, forced the widow of the First Earl of Warwick into surrendering control of the castle, added wards and made it unplottable. Muggles know it was destroyed during the invasion of King Henry IX and we've allowed that discrepancy to remain that way."
"...Oh."
Guess not everything was the same here as my old world. But if that's the case, I wondered what else was different.
"Come on, in. You don't want to be late."
I followed Susan down the winding road, feeling a subtle pressure all around me, allowing us to cross the entire distance faster than was normally possible. I didn't need to be a magical sensor to feel the sheer number of wards and traps sprawled around this entire territory.
"Guess the Bones like being prepared for an attack. The sheer amount of wards around this place rivals Hogwarts."
Susan gave a small snort. "One can only have as much preparation as they have foresight. We're an Ancient and Noble family you know, known for producing many premier wardmasters over the centuries. It's in our blood."
"I see."
"How's Penelope doing?"
I shrugged. "I put her in a research position with good pay and accommodation. So far, I haven't heard any negatives."
"How much are you paying her?" She asked, but there was a strange affliction in her voice that I couldn't place.
"Two hundred."
"Sickles?"
"Galleons."
She came to a sudden stop, and whirled around, meeting my eyes. "You're paying her, a muggleborn, two hundred galleons?"
I shrugged again. "She's a researcher, and her credentials are worth it. If I had to hire a pureblood, I'd imagine they'd accept nothing less."
Susan narrowed her eyes slightly, as if judging me. After two anxious seconds, she relaxed. "You're right. In a fair world, she'd be working as a spellcrafter or something. Aunt Amelia was so annoyed when she turned down her offer. We could really use someone of her talents."
"Yeah I know, Boneyard Warding."
She arched an eyebrow. "Stalking much?"
"You noticed that just now?"
Susan rolled her eyes and led me past the gun towers and the iron gates, with the raised gardens and bulwarks. I wondered if I was missing out on something by choosing to live in a magically enhanced apartment instead of something like this.
"Two people in just this? How do you manage?"
Susan chortled. "We used to be a lot more. We had like… eighteen members before the first war. And that's not counting the staff. Our entire family was assassinated in a prolonged attack by the Dark Lord himself. I only got lucky because an elf saved me and hid me in a secret chamber under the earth. Since then it's only been me and my aunt."
I tsked. "Sorry to hear that."
"It's okay," she said with a quick nod. "Just reminding you that you're not the only orphan whose family was decimated by the war."
She didn't need to. I had had Dobby purchase me books detailing the statistics of the previous war. It wouldn't be wrong to say that Voldemort and his Death Eaters more than halved the population within a decade. The cold statistic was enough to remind me just how powerful my opposition was.
"It's unfair," I said. "But the only thing fairly granted to everyone is an unfair reality. You got your Aunt and a fucking big castle to live on. I became the Boy-Who-Lived and settled for living with magic-hating relatives."
That made Susan blink. "Your relatives—"
"Hate magic. Well, hated. Past. I don't live with them now. Got an apartment and everything this summer."
"Yes," she said, with an inscrutable expression. "I remember."
"Though, I wonder what Potter Manor was like," I said wistfully.
"It was just like ours," said Susan without missing a step, "well, a little compact. Your ancestors didn't believe in open spaces very much. There were, like, eleven towers surrounding the main castle, all of them used as working and living units for the staff."
"Staff?"
"I thought you had caught up to your family history," said Susan, arching a brow. "The Potters were craftsmen, potioneers, enchanters. You had the entire manufacturing setup within the castle wards."
"You sound like you've been there."
"Yes."
She gave me an eerie smile and then turned around. "This way." We passed through a granite-tiled foyer with a massive chandelier hanging above, passed through the tall double doors, a staircase to the right that ascended to the next level opening into an ornate hallway that disappeared from view as I followed her into a deep room with a few couches and a massive fireplace that would be at home in Hogwarts.
"Come, sit. Aunt Amelia will be here shortly. Can I get you anything?"
"Something to drink?"
Susan tossed her hair over one shoulder and sniffed. "What's your pleasure? Aunt Amelia is very strict about the drinking age, so I can offer you some firewhiskey but it's mostly water. Optionally, you could drink some water. And if none of that suits you, I think there's some water."
"I'll have the water."
Susan smirked.
Five minutes later, Amelia Bones entered the hall. She was tall, with gorgeous, red hair that fell to her waist in a shining curtain, timelessly lovely features and dark eyes smouldering with quiet calculation as she stalked towards me. She could've fit right in the role of Amazon Queen, given her straight shoulders and quiet charisma. From the books, I had imagined her to be an old woman, no different from McGonagall. Instead I found someone in her mid-thirties, and in her physical prime thanks to the slower ageing of witches and wizards. She had risen to the top through sheer competence, but looking slightly older probably had its benefits. As I got a closer look, she reminded me of Narcissa in many ways, and her exact opposite in others. While Narcissa could be compared to the fae, poisonously lovely and supernaturally alluring, Amelia Bones was akin to an ageless valkyrie, strong, swift and tough with a kind of steady, inevitable confidence that said that walls would be well advised to stay out of their way.
"Lord Potter," she said quietly. I'd need a high-speed camera to take in the details of her smile, but at least it was there. She nodded to me as I rose to meet her, then at Susan before taking a seat on the couch next to her.
I waited in the pregnant silence, and then she said. "Were you aware, Mr. Potter, that I was among the listed guardians supposed to take you in, after your parents' demise in 1981?"
Barely controlling my surprise from that bit of news, I met her eyes. I could understand the canon events, since JKR had never discussed anything about Harry's parentage or possible wills to be executed after their demise, not that it kept fanfiction writers away from that bit. But in this world where everything was far more competent, controlled and by far, dangerous, I couldn't see how Albus Dumbledore could have just ignored a will and landed me at the Dursleys in a fruit basket with a letter.
"I…"
"I was," she confirmed before I could even finish structuring my thoughts. "Granted, Sirius Black held first priority." I watched as her lips twisted in venom at the mention of that name, like it was the vilest curse she could imagine, "however, disaster had struck my family around two months prior to that, and I was reduced to a single woman taking care of my niece and managing duty as an Auror on the battlefield. It was a full-time job, and I didn't feel confident to add more duties to my shoulders. Plus, you were the Boy-Who-Lived, and a high-profile candidate. My house had already been infiltrated once, and… I couldn't find it within myself to risk your life."
My throat constricted. "I… I see. I didn't know that. Did you know my parents well?"
Her left eye glistened. "I did."
And that was that.
Susan's familiarity with my family home, and that odd expression she wore when talking about them now made a lot of sense in retrospect. In a different life, Harry Potter would have grown up with Susan Bones. Instead, he had been a stranger to her during the last three years at Hogwarts.
I wondered if that was part of the reason behind her caustic reaction to me.
I turned towards Susan, who quickly avoided my gaze.
Weird.
"I'm not certain how much worse that would've turned out, Madam Bones," I admitted pensively. "As I was just telling Susan earlier, I ended up living with my magic-hating relatives. I might not have been hunted by dark wizards, but it wasn't a bed of roses either. Before Hagrid came along with my Hogwarts letter, I knew my parents were drunkards that died in a car accident, and my name was Freak."
"...what?"
Neither her voice nor expression betrayed the torrent of rage that I saw beneath those eyes. I could see a raging fire within those orbs, held back by her ironclad will.
"It's past. I came into my family fortune this summer and took charge of things. I admit I haven't been very thorough with my own history, but it's an ongoing study."
"I've heard," her lips curled. "News of your… enterprises have reached my ears."
That, in my humble opinion, could mean all kinds of bad. "Investigating me, have we?"
Amelia smiled. Sweetness and bitterness in one. "Standard protocol. Regardless of your ancestry, you're a bit of an unknown to me. Too much close association with Albus Dumbledore, a man famous for playing his cards too close to his chest. Too many strange rumours coming out of Hogwarts, burning a Professor, obliviating another and of course, the recent debacle with the dementors."
"I told them I don't do autographs, but they wouldn't listen. One of them even came up to kiss me. Talk about lack of restraint."
She let out a quiet little murmur of sound that was too relaxed to be a chuckle. "There is also your engaging summer. Taking up your family mantle, entering business, appointing a rather sharp person as your personal secretary and making waves. Add in the interest in Susan and from what I've heard, a more than platonic familiarity with her friend Hannah…"
I cleared my throat."Right. Profile complete. Gotcha. Did you find anything troubling?"
"If I did, I wouldn't have welcomed you here. On the other hand, if there was nothing interesting, I wouldn't either."
"Striking the right balance," I said, clapping my hands. "That's me."
Susan rolled her eyes.
"My niece tells me that you wanted to meet me in professional capacity, yet maintain things off the record. I admit the dichotomy of your request is… confusing and interesting at the same time."
"It'll make sense as soon as we get to it."
"So long as you do it in ten minutes," she murmured.
I cocked my head. "No Madam Bones. Ten minutes for me to say my piece. For you, it might take several hours to process the ramifications. Days even."
She arched her brow and stood up. "In that case, please follow me to my office. Tempus Fugit, as they say."
So saying she turned around and left towards the right. I glanced at Susan and stood up.
"Tempus Fugit."
And followed suit.
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