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Children of the Sun	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 12412 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
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The next chapter in my Children of the Sun series, and the third of my July Celebration fics for this year. This takes place slightly before and then after "Unafraid of Toil."
Chains of Gold
“I want you to read this.”
Narcissa raised one eyebrow and reached for the letter. Lucius was staring at the far wall, and he usually didn’t do that except sometimes when letters came from the Ministry announcing a sweep of the house for Dark objects and he was plotting how to hide them. This was from Draco.
Narcissa skimmed the first few lines, and began to understand what her husband was talking about.
“He mentions Harry Potter five times in these three sentences alone,” she murmured, and pinned the parchment to the table with a slim nail. Next to her, her silver snow leopard, Venus, lifted her head and snaked it around to the side to see the letter as well. “And—Potter has a golden familiar? Surely not.”
“Would our son mistake bronze for gold? Or any other color?”
“I do not think he would,” Narcissa said. “But you know as well as I that not even the Dark Lord had a golden familiar. Would the boy who defeated him really be more powerful?”
Lucius sighed. Hecate, his silver wyvern, who was looming over the table as usual, tried to steal a bite of the sliced fruit in the middle of the table, which would make her vomit later; wyverns were only supposed to eat meat and poison. Lucius absently wrapped his arm around Hecate’s neck and dragged her back. “Perhaps that is how he defeated him.”
“Perhaps.”
Narcissa was wise enough to know that part of the reason she didn’t want to admit that Potter could have a golden familiar was because Lucius had chosen to follow the Dark Lord. That he might have picked a man who was less powerful than a one-year-old baby…
It would entail rethinking and redoing on a scale that Narcissa was not comfortable with.
“What should we do in the short term?”
Venus’s purr redoubled, probably because she could feel Narcissa’s uncertainty through their bond. Narcissa smoothed her chin and moved her head aside when she truly did nothing else. “Write back, of course. And see what Draco says about Potter in his future letters. If he seems on his way to being unduly influenced by him, then we can do something about it.”
Lucius nodded, his eyes flat with determination. Narcissa suspected he was trying to keep Draco from falling into the same trap he had, following a man who was not worthy.
Narcissa would be just as pleased if her son never followed anyone. Golden familiars were rare enough that they essentially didn’t count in the hierarchy. Draco, with his silver miniature dragon, could excel at whatever he wanted, and achieve whatever position he wanted.
As long as he did not let himself be bound by chains of loyalty too young.
*
“How many references to Potter in this particular letter?” Narcissa asked, looking up from lunch. Venus, stomach full of meat, dozed on the floor next to her. She was grateful for it. And she would try to remain calm this time, so as not to stir up her familiar.
No matter what the letter said.
“Only two.” Lucius read further down into it, and then sat up abruptly and made a motion with his mouth that Narcissa suspected would have been a swear word without her present. Narcissa frowned and sat up further. She would forgive Lucius that mistake only because they were in the oak-paneled luncheon room instead of in public.
“What is it?”
“Draco writes that…that Harry Potter is a Parselmouth.” Lucius’s voice was faint, and he reached out as if he needed, for once, to feel the support of Hecate’s rough scales beneath his fingers instead of restraining her.
Hecate immediately nuzzled up to him, while Narcissa sat still. She understood the reason for Lucius’s shock. A Parselmouth could speak to any reptilian familiar and, if not actually control it, at least strongly persuade it.
Lucius and Draco both had to beware. Narcissa did not, since Venus was feline, but she hardly liked seeing her family so vulnerable.
“What do you intend to do about it? And how does Draco seem to feel about it?”
“I don’t know yet. And he says—he says that Potter doesn’t think it’s anything special. And he doesn’t think he’s anything special, either. He doesn’t really understand the hierarchy.” Narcissa was sure that Lucius must have had time to read the whole of the letter by now, but he kept letting his eyes return to individual lines as if he didn’t understand the impact of the whole. “He was raised by Muggles. That must be it.”
“But when a naïve child is introduced into a world that thinks him so special…”
“He must be different than Draco in more ways than simply who raised him, Narcissa.”
Narcissa could only shake her head. It was not only Draco. She could imagine many children liking their place at the top of the hierarchy. If the world had treated them badly—if they had only a copper or a tin familiar—then they would perhaps decide to ignore everyone above them, but not when they held the power.
Yet she knew Draco wouldn’t have mistaken the signs of wanting power, not after they had so carefully trained the knowledge into him. And for now, she had to trust her son, since she didn’t have the opportunity of observing Potter for herself.
“We’ll write a bland, encouraging letter back for now,” she said, and found herself reaching down to smooth a hand over Venus’s head after all, tracing the runes shaved into the fur at the base of her snow leopard’s neck. “And I think that I might have to arrange a visit to Hogwarts.”
Lucius gave her a faint smile. “The Board of Governors has a meeting there next week. Would you like to come along?”
Narcissa half-bowed to him from her chair, pleased that they understood each other so well. “I would indeed.”
*
Narcissa stood in the entrance of the Great Hall, shrouded in a Disillusionment Charm, along with Venus. If she stood to one side—and waited until after the beginning of the lunch rush, which she’d done—there was little chance of someone running into her and revealing her presence to the students.
And the professors. They were, of course, the greater concern.
Potter was easily visible at the Hufflepuff table. He was late, and so Narcissa did get to see him arrive. She saw the way that people trained in the hierarchy shifted, humans and familiars alike, trying to place him in a seat at the center. Potter had laughed at them and taken a place at the end of a bench instead, speaking with all sorts of people, including a bushy-haired Ravenclaw and what was unmistakably a Weasley, now and then dropping a hand to feed something to his golden anaconda.
Draco wasn’t mistaken after all.
Narcissa spent some time carefully investigating the other Hufflepuffs seated around Potter. There was a Longbottom—probably—clutching a familiar that glowed silver, although it also looked like a frog, and a tall, strikingly handsome boy with a bronze leopard at his side. Venus growled a little as she sighted them. Narcissa stroked her back.
Dumbledore began to pay more attention to her corner of the entrance than she liked, and Narcissa withdrew slowly. But she did manage to glance over at the Slytherin table, too, and see her son.
And the lack of worship in his eyes reassured her. He did look over and smile at Potter, but he spent a lot of time talking to his friends, too, and patiently correcting the lapses of manners in those walking hulks he felt protective of, Crabbe and Goyle, and preventing their tin polecat and adder, respectively, from snatching food off the table.
Narcissa turned on her heel and left, well-satisfied.
*
“He does respect Potter. But he’s not his slave.”
Lucius nodded slowly and flicked the paper in front of him. “The Prophet has finally realized there’s someone in the world with a golden familiar who’s not Dumbledore.”
Narcissa picked up the paper and studied the article. It had a blurred photograph of Potter and his snake—whose name was apparently Golden—and a babble of the same information that she’d found out by standing in the Great Hall yesterday. She shook her head. “As long as Draco isn’t too loyal to him, what should our next step be?”
Lucius touched her hand with his own. His eyes were shining.
“I do wonder what a naïve boy who only has his friends and his familiar to depend on might do for a mentor who approached him and was kind to him.”
“I wonder, too,” Narcissa said, with a smile, and picked up his hand to kiss it.
At her side, Venus purred.
*
staar: Yes, Harry will change a lot of things, some by not even trying.
Djaddict: Thank you!
moodysavage: Thank you!
Golden's eyes actually do change color. It's fairly common for golden familiars to change something (Fawkes changes the colors of his feathers to mimic fire at times) in hue.
Jan: I don't know if everyone else would have stood up for Neville, but luckily Harry does.
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Children of the Sun