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Returning to Sanity	By : AchillesTheGeek Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 31212 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter books or films, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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1. A Shadow Returns
Wednesday December 23, 1998

Draco Malfoy-Potter was worried.

If asked, he would have vociferously denied it, of course. He was, after all, a Malfoy. Well alright, a Malfoy-Potter, now. But that just strengthened the point: here he was in his bed, in his home, the son of loving parents, the husband of an amazing man. Why should he worry?

But said amazing man who currently was not in the bed, and given how cold it was, hadn’t been for a while. He thought back through the events of yesterday, the Winter Solstice, so much more important to Purebloods than those Muggle notions of ‘the holidays’ or ‘Winterval’ or whatever it was fashionable to call it nowadays. At least this time had been called ‘Christmas’ for hundreds of years. Whatever, yesterday had been the Solstice. And of course there had been the burning of the Yule log, as always. He was a bit surprised that Theo Nott, his cousin Andreas, and a new boy called Adam had been there; Yule had always been a family-only occasion. Still, things were changing, and the Notts had been delightful and fitted in well.

By contrast, he was worried about his Harry, who had seemed strangely out of it all day. Oh, his husband had been pleasant enough, and engaging, and sweet. But there was something going on. Something Harry wasn’t telling. Now, Harry had had plenty of secrets when they got married; but that had been fine, and they had worked through them. But new secrets? Draco was finding that hard to take. Especially given all the angst Harry had shown before about secrets. No, it wasn’t good. And anyway, whatever Harry was going through, Draco wanted to be there for him. Not pushed to the side, like he felt now.

Casting a Tempus, Draco was shocked to find that it was already close to lunch-time. His mother was not one to let people lie long abed, he should have been called before now. This was two days in a row where he had been allowed to lie in bed undisturbed. Even more unusual, Harry had not woken him when he got up, nor was there anything to acknowledge him: Harry usually left a rose on the bedside, when he was feeling sweet, or a cup of tea, when he was feeling practical.

But today there was nothing. What was going on?

Well, he told himself, you’re not going to get anywhere by fretting.

“Dippy!” he called as he started to get ready for the day. “Tea please!”

ooOOoo

Godfrey Nott was rather the worse for wear.

It had been quite a couple of days. To start with, the pure-blood faction had been horrified at the goings-on at the Ceremony of the Woods. What the hell was Narcissa Malfoy thinking? Mud-bloods! A half-giant! Squibs! And not only those, but actual Muggles! At a pureblood ceremony! He was sure that many dead ancestors, quite a few of them Blacks and Malfoys, would be turning in their graves. His group had all agreed that it was a travesty; they had repaired to the Nott’s mansion after the event, and drunk rather a lot of rather nice wine, followed by altogether too much firewhisky.

They had all stayed for the Solstice celebration; Godfrey was actually rather glad of the company. The two Notts generally celebrated alone, and this was the only time of the year he ever thought about his son Andreas. With company, swelled now to nearly thirty strong, he had managed to put maudlin thoughts about what might have been, had Andreas not been a squib, aside in order to play the perfect host, one more wining and dining his guests before they all went their separate ways a long time after midnight.

Something Must Definitely Be Done, he thought now, as he sat at what, given the lateness of the hour, must be regarded as the luncheon, rather than breakfast, table. He picked up what was now yesterday’s Daily Prophet – he had been too busy with his guests to consider it before now - and leafed through it idly. The usual rubbish… and then a collection of photographs of the Ceremony. He scanned them closely, to make sure he was not in them. He didn’t want anyone to imagine he approved of the travesty.

That face … he was sure … but it couldn’t be …

But it was. His son Andreas’s photograph was there in the Daily Prophet for all to see.

A cold feeling gripped him in the pit of his stomach as he read Rita Skeeter’s breezy prose underneath the picture.

“And just who, I ask myself, was the rather gorgeous squib seen in the company of Theodore Nott, organizing the Woods and setting up the different tents? He is a new face to the Daily Prophet. Our readers will remember that Mr Nott and his charming wife Pansy, née Parkinson, have emigrated to South Africa; perhaps our tall, dark, handsome stranger is a friend from there? We certainly hope to see him again soon ...”

Rita might well wish to see him again soon, but Godfrey never wanted to see that face again. And then a thought struck him.

What if he found Adam?

It didn’t bear thinking about.

“Messalina!” he called.

ooOOoo

Harry Malfoy-Potter was on edge.

He was still coming to terms with the very strange conversations he had had on the Solstice. A lot of things had fallen into place. Despite Sirius’s dire statements, he had found his last chat quite … well, not pleasant, not really, but not disagreeable, either. For most of his life, people had left him out of things he really should have known about; now, for once, he seemed to have been filled in on just about everything. He now knew just exactly what the mordant was; and how the enchantment worked that had made the last few months much smoother than they might have been; and even, rather to his chagrin, just how it was that he had done so well on his NEWT exams. That one, at least, he did not intend to discuss with … well, anyone, really, though he didn’t like keeping secrets. He’d have to tell Draco, of course. He supposed he could tell Minerva; it wasn’t exactly cheating, as such, after all. But at the same time, there was no way on Earth he was going to tell Hermione. He may be a Gryffindor, but he did have some sense of self-preservation.

But he had also become very aware of the remaining hurdles to overcome. The Death-Eaters were now a spent force, he knew that; but their main original power base, the pure-bloods themselves, were still there. They still needed to work on getting, and keeping, true justice; for, now that the enchantment had all but lifted, a strong, charismatic leader could easily galvanize them into action.

Knowing this fact had made him very agitated during the Solstice. While neither Messalina nor Godfrey Nott really fitted that description, he had seen them at the Ceremony of the Woods, surrounded by like-minded purebloods. Tinder waiting for a spark.

Moreover, he had heard the story of how she had treated her son from someone who seemed to know far more than anyone living; and so he was very glad that Lucius and Andreas had removed Adam from the Orphanage. He had not been able to fully relax on that front until they had got the two safely out of the country. They were now safely back in their little enclave in South Africa, and he was pretty sure they would be well protected.

He knew well enough, though, that that wasn’t the end of it. Trouble was coming, that was clear. Part of him knew it still had to come, and wanted to meet it head-on; part of him wanted to hunker down, take his family away from it all, and let it blow over.

But that really wasn’t an option. He had never run from a fight; and anyway, once they started doing so, they’d never stop. No, he had to let things play out. And somehow, he had to keep those he loved safe.

It was a sharp edge he found himself on.

ooOOoo

Petunia Evans was agitated.

Her mother had a saying: “by the pricking of my thumbs, something evil this way comes”.

Petunia Dursley, not being prone to flights of fancy, had regarded this as a primitive sort of superstition. It was just like her sister having magic: even if there was any truth in it, it was definitely not the sort of thing that normal people had anything to do with.

Petunia Evans, on the other hand, was finding it hard to ignore. Her thumbs were indeed pricking, quite painfully. She spent the afternoon in a state of agitation, flinching whenever there was any unexplained noise. She had been on edge ever since Lucius Malfoy had arrived two days ago in a state of excitement and drawn her lovely temporary lodger Andreas Adams aside. The man had then rushed off and packed, and the two had left all in a rush, much to Petunia’s dismay. She very much liked the man; she had hoped that perhaps they could grow to be something more than mere lodger and landlady. But from the rather garbled phone call she had just received, it seemed that he had been reunited with a long-lost son that day and, having spent yesterday at Malfoy Manor, the two had rushed back to South Africa today.

Petunia was no fool. If Lucius Malfoy was involved, something big was going on. And her little family – she definitely included Megan Llewellyn in that now – was involved, that could well mean that trouble might come calling here. The thought fairly terrified her.

She had thought that she was hiding her concern well, but it became clear at tea-time that this was not the case.

“Are you expecting someone?” Megan asked as she watched Petunia anxiously scanning the front door and beyond every few minutes, her casual tone belying the serious look in her eye.

“No,” Petunia replied, looking around. “Why, is someone …”

But before she could finish the sentence there came a rap at the door. Though the word ‘rap’ hardly did the noise in question justice; it was more on the scale of a small-scale artillery barrage. A rather alarming noise. And one that, much to her chagrin, Petunia recognised instantly. There could, surely, only be one person who could make a door vibrate like that. Her hands flung up to her face.

“Marge!” she whispered in shock.

“Come on, open up, I know you’re in there!” came a stentorian bellow from the front door, and Megan Llewellyn, acting on auto-pilot, got out of her seat and was at the door before Petunia or Dudley could react.

ooOOoo

Marge Dursley was becoming increasingly frustrated.

After wasting the whole of yesterday morning at Little Whinging Police Station, she now had her first concrete lead; she had at once rushed to Smeltings, where, despite the bloody-mindedness of the staff, and the nonsense they sprouted about ‘privacy acts’ and the like – Marge couldn’t care less, after all everyone knew where she lived, so it was only fair for her to know where they did -- the sheer force of her personality had resulted in an address for her nephew.

In Swansea.

In Wales.

Marge Dursley hated Wales. It was full of all these strange people who couldn’t speak English properly. And it was a long way away. Still, she knew her duty as an aunt.

On leaving Smeltings she decided it was too late to go down that day, so had returned home. Now, Wednesday morning, she rose early, jumped into her car and drove down to Swansea straight away. As she drove, as was her wont, she spoke her thoughts out loud to her beloved bull-dog, Ripper, who sat in his own special harness at her side.

“Dudley Potter indeed!” she fumed, remembering what the policemen had told her. From the sound of it, these freaks had corrupted her dear nephew.

“Ruff!” Ripper answered, sensing her outrage and feeling the need to share it.

“Petunia was always hinting about there being more to the story than met the eye,” Marge continued. “St Brutus’s obviously did no good to that Potter brat. Can’t have used the cane enough, that’s all I can think. Those fools at Smeltings say she’s living with Dudley in Swansea, Ripper. Can’t imagine why they’d want to go to such a god-forsaken place, away from decent folk.”

Continuing on in this vein, Marge did not detour on her journey, travelling straight down the M4 motorway into West Wales. But what with traffic, and the inevitable roadworks, and the even more inevitable snow, and it being Winter and all, it was well and truly dark by the time she arrived.

The house she wound up at did not meet her expectations at all. Oh, it was nice enough; but not really the sort of place that was good enough for her dear Dudley. Or Vernon. Come to think of it, no-one had mentioned Vernon at all today; as that thought crossed her mind, she became even more concerned, and more livid, than before. Something was going on. Something had been kept from her; and she was determined to get to the bottom of it.

She got out of her car and stormed up the path, coming to a stop only because the front door barred her passage.

“Come on, open up, I know you’re in there!” she bellowed. A few seconds later, the door was opened by a young lady she did not know, and Marge had a momentary twinge of shock: she couldn’t have the wrong house, surely?

“Petunia?” she bellowed.

“Hello,” the unknown girl said, apparently not intimidated in the least by the large woman in front of her. “I’m Megan Llewellyn. And who might you be?”

Marge’s eyes nearly popped out of her head at what she immediately dubbed ‘the unmitigated effrontery of this slip of a girl’ in her head. Fortunately for both Marge’s temper and Megan’s health, they were interrupted by Dudley, who had heard the single word that Marge had uttered.

“Aunt Marge!” he called, racing to the front door. He wasn’t about to leave his girl – hopefully soon, his girlfriend – unchaperoned with his scary aunt. “Do come in. Let me introduce the delightful Megan Llewellyn, my housemate.”

“Hmm,” Marge hummed, just a little mollified as she was lead into the front room. But only a very little, after all.

“Now, what’s this I hear about you being a Potter?”

ooOOoo

Messalina Nott was beside herself with rage.

Skeeter’s article had just about given her an aneurysm. She had visited the Orphanage at once to make sure of her grandson and had come away grinding her teeth. She had found Johan Ries quite unpleasant to deal with. Indeed, as she thought about it, she decided that he was, perhaps, no more pleasant to deal with than he had been all those years ago. It appeared that he had not mellowed with age.

It did not occur to her that the first time she had met him, she had rather unceremoniously dumped her grandson on him, demanding that he be brought up as a proper pureblood, and that this may well have been the cause of his obvious antipathy. This was altogether too much self-awareness for her very opinionated mind. No, she had left little “Tony Adams” there and, as far as she was concerned, that was where he should be, or adopted by a good pureblood family as she had stipulated in the Conditions of Adoption memorandum that she had written. Not taken by Lucius Malfoy and her blasted squib of a son. She had shouted and shrieked that this Andreas Adams was a fraud and an impostor; but she knew it was a lie, and Ries knew it was a lie, and all she had got for her troubles was being thrown out of the orphanage bodily and being told not to return. Ever.

She had, of course, vented her rage at her husband as soon as she returned home. Godfrey, knowing that the best way forward was to distract his wife, handed her a letter that had just arrived while she was so unsuccessfully visiting the Orphanage.

“Ah!” she said, her eyes lighting up as she opened the envelope and skimmed the signature at the bottom, “Zebulon Smith! I wonder what he has for us.”

Godfrey watched as an evil smirk broke out on his wife’s face. Smith, he knew, was one of her favourite informants; rather odd, really, as he worked in the Muggle world, in something called a Pleece station (or something like that). A strange place for a pureblood; but he seemed to gather quite a lot of interesting information. Lucius Malfoy, it turned out, had several rather interesting Muggle business ventures; and lately, they seemed to have dovetailed with the people they now knew were Harry Potter’s (he refused to say ‘Malfoy-Potter’; to join the Malfoy name with that of a half-blood was simply scandalous) Muggle relatives. Muggle relatives who had seemingly disappeared of the face of the Earth some months ago, a fact that their little pureblood circle found most intriguing. Finding them, they were certain, would lead to useful dirt on Potter, something that was in very short supply at the moment.

And they needed dirt. Potter had played the Magical Establishment brilliantly, he had to admit. Begrudgingly. He longed to take Potter, and the Malfoys, down a peg or too. It was quite clear that violence was no longer a useful avenue, a fact that rather agreed with his own prejudices; Godfrey was what he would call ‘a man of peace’, and hated the thought of vulgar fisticuffs. Yes, ‘peace-loving’, he called it. Other people called it ‘cowardice’, though not to his face.

“Any good?” he asked, seeing that Messalina had finished reading.

“Very good,” she replied. “Zebulon has found Potter’s cousin. It seems that his aunt was looking for him.”

Godfrey looked confused. His aunt? Surely Potter’s aunt would know where his cousin, her son, was?

“Um,” he asked, “whose aunt?”

“Dudbey, or whatever his name is,” she replied, consulting the letter. “Ah, here it is. Dudley. Harry’s cousin. He has an aunt, his father’s sister. Name of Marge Dursley. Zebulon says she’s simply frightful. But she also dotes on Dudley, and has unearthed his address. It was, it turned out, in the records where Zebulon works; though he didn’t let her know that. Wanted to see how far she’d go. Apparently, she went off to the school Dumpy used to go to. Zeb says they’ll probably tell her. She’s on her way now.”

“And Zebulon has told us?” Godfrey asked, his tone deceptively cool.

“Indeed,” his wife said, her eyes twinkling. “What do you think, dear? Shall we pay them a call?”

ooOOoo

Harry Malfoy-Potter was suddenly overcome with anxiety.

The Malfoys and Malfoy-Potters, still at Malfoy Manor, had just finished dinner and were now lounging in the drawing room when Harry emitted a muffled cry as he felt a wave of emotion go through him.

“Harry? Are you all right?” Draco asked as three rather fearful pairs of eyes turned to him.

But Harry did not answer him; instead, he looked at Lucius.

“Dudley and Petunia,” he said through gritted teeth.

All the colour drained from Lucius’s face.

“I’ll go at once,” he said, and suited action to word as he leapt up at once and apparated away.

For a second, no-one reacted. This was so unusual, so unheard of, that Lucius Malfoy would just leave without explanation, that the composure of both Narcissa and Draco simply cracked, and they sat in their seats, visibly stunned.

Any other time, Harry would have been beside himself with laughter at the sight. But Harry did not see it. Draco was the first to notice that his husband had gone into some sort of trance.

“Dippy!” he called, and the small house-elf appeared at once.

“How can Dippy be helping Master Draco?” she asked.

He considered this briefly. What was going on? Had Harry had some sort of vision? Premonition? Was it something to do with whatever had happened on the night between the Ceremony of the Woods and the Solstice? And just what was that, anyway? Harry had not said a thing about it, but he was sure something had happened. Something big, apparently. And it seemed that he was being left out.

He wanted answers. But right now, he wasn’t going to get any. There was really only one thing to do.

“Help me get Harry to bed,” he replied.

ooOOoo

Zebulon Smith was watchful.

He was pleased as punch that the Notts had taken up his information, and were planning to storm the little house in Swansea; but he had urged caution. He did not believe that they were unprotected, so had demanded that they survey the area first.

And so it was that he, together with Messalina Nott and Jack Corner, hidden under strong concealment charms, were sitting on a bench opposite the house that Potter’s cousin and aunt lived in. They watched as that horrible Marge Dursley entered. They listened as they heard her screeching, hardly even needing the listening charms that they had placed discreetly on the front door.

And then, all of a sudden, the noise stopped. A moment later, the front door opened, and Marge Dursley walked out, got into her car, and sped off. At the front door, two people stood.

“Thank you for your help tonight, Miss Llewellyn” Lucius Malfoy said.

“No problem,” Megan replied. “Thank you for coming.”

“Oh, I’m sure you could have handled her,” Lucius replied gallantly.

“I’m glad I didn’t have to,” Megan replied sincerely. “And thank you for strengthening our wards. Would you care to stay for a coffee or something?”

“No thank you,” the patrician replied. “I think I’m a bit ramped up after that shouting match. I might go and do some work at the office.”

With that, they made their farewells and Lucius, after checking for any Muggles, apparated away.

Jack Corner snorted.

“Anybody want to guess what alcohol Lucius will be working on?” he asked derisively.

“Yes, but hang on,” Zebulon pointed out. “He’ll be all alone. And after that little excitement, no doubt not expecting anything. Do we know where his office is?”

Messalina Nott’s nasty grin was all the answer he needed.

ooOOoo

Lucius Malfoy was rather pleased with himself.

It had been a busy couple of days, he thought to himself happily as he swirled the brandy in his glass.

Home had been frantic: the Ceremony of the Woods and the burning of the Yule log had occupied Narcissa’s mind excessively, and an obsessed Narcissa was a dangerous person to be near. He had, as always, borne the brunt of her mania; not that he minded. His wife may be a Black at heart, but she was unquestionably his Black. He loved her Black heart with all his heart, and really, all he had had to do was step out of the way and pay the bills.

He had had rather more to do with the difficult game being played with the Notts. It had taken rather a lot of fancy footwork: unregistered international port-keys were hard to come by. But Lucius Malfoy was a past master of obtaining such things, and Andreas and Adam were now safely out of the country and well away from the Purebloods who had spurned them in the first place.

Which thought naturally brought his thoughts to the sour bunch he had observed at the Ceremony of the Woods. Top of that list, of course, was Andreas’s mother, Messalina Nott, one of his least-favourite people in the world. Her sister Dolores Umbridge had been marginally worse, but only because Umbridge had gone into the Ministry while Messalina had got married to Godfrey Nott. Nott was a bit spineless, in Lucius’s not particularly humble opinion; but he had managed to curb the wilder excesses of his wife. The only person who had had any such effect on Dolores was Fudge, simply because the woman practically worshipped him. Not that he had really dampened her at all, of course; merely spurred her to greater acts of cruelty.

He was well aware that it was only a matter of time before that lot tried something. He wondered just how long it would be, and who would strike the first blow. Jack Corner, perhaps, he had not been pleased at his son being practically sent down from Hogwarts. To be sure, Michael had got over it, from what he had heard from Harry and Draco. Though he suspected the boy may well be using his brains and making a virtue of necessity. But the father was far too vindictive and spiteful to learn such diplomacy from his son.

Or perhaps the Smiths. There were all sorts of ne’er-do-wells in that family, for all their claim to be descended from Helga Hufflepuff. Thanks to Robin Banks’ work, one of the Smiths, he knew, was at work in the Muggle police department. A pureblood in a Muggle job. Very suspicious.

Or perhaps …

But here, Lucius’s ruminations were cut short. The glass in his hand suddenly shattered, bathing him with brandy and shards of glass as he turned to see a most unwelcome visitor step out of the shadows.

“Good evening, Lucius,” a voice said, dripping in malice, and then his world faded to black.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Sorry for the long delay. Real life got very hairy. Again.

Grateful thanks as always to the wonderful Bicky Monster for helpful suggestions.

Thanks: To all who are following and commenting!
Please please review; and do stop by facebook and let me know what you think!
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