Use Any Means
Part 5
Quiet reigned as everyone exited the carriage and filed into the house. Cadwaladr still carried Harry, who hadn't so much as stirred since he fell asleep. They took off cloaks and jackets in the entrance hall cloakroom, handing them off to a young man who looked like he'd dressed rather hastily, before exiting through a beautifully carved wooden screen into…the actual entrance hall.
They were led quickly across a long gallery, into a smaller anteroom, and then into a library, which was likely supposed to be cozy. It could still seat a regiment and someone had let a woodcarver go mad on the shelves. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves covered every wall, except the one with the bay window and exceptional view of the gardens, and stood in rows through half the room. The other half of the room held a small sofa and several armchairs but only one large study table.
Cadwaladr laid Harry down carefully in the window seat of the bay window and gestured the rest of them into the chairs. Ron and Hermione claimed the small sofa, leaving the rest with the armchairs on either side of it.
"I'll see about some tea." With one last look at Harry, he went back out the door.
"Well, this isn't awkward at all." Mrs. Granger commented lightly as she took one of the armchairs. "It isn't every day you're swept into a different world entirely by someone you've never met before. And out a back entrance, too! I've always wanted to be whisked out a back entrance."
"Teddy, I'm sorry. I should have made sure…but Hermione always seemed to just know and…" Molly stopped with a sigh, plumping down in a chair.
"Don't worry one bit," Teddy replied firmly. "You've been a good friend to us and Malcolm and I could use an adventure. Don't want to get fusty."
Malcolm snorted as Teddy got him to sit in the next seat over. "My dear, you have never once in your life been fusty."
"I leave all that to you." Teddy grinned at him. "Now, does anyone think Harry might wake up if we talk above a whisper?"
"It would take a lot to wake him before tomorrow dinnertime." Ron looked back at his friend. "He hasn't slept much the past few years."
"Hermione told us." Malcolm looked grave. "I know you thought this was a good thing, Ron, but is it, really? For Harry, I mean. From what Hermione's said he isn't used to…this." He gestured, taking in everything from the carved shelving to the clearly antique furniture.
"Little Whinging is…well, Mum wouldn't like hearing what I thought of it." Ron stopped to think, toying with a tassel on a pillow. "Harry needs someone who'll make him a priority. I knew Hagrid wouldn't throw him into it alone, because Hagrid is even more rabid about keeping Harry safe than…than Professor Snape…er, when Hagrid remembers Harry's got to be kept safe, that is."
He and Hermione shuddered together, remembering the hippogryph and the acromantula colony.
"I didn't reckon it would be his House Prime, though."
"What is a House Prime?" Teddy leaned forward in her chair. "Mal and Hermione and I scoured Flourish and Blott's for anything on society and culture, but they had nothing. And now we're hearing about Houses and all of it."
"You'd have more luck at Hatchard's on this side." Molly explained. "The old families, like the Blacks, have branched quite a bit. One side came from Egypt a very long time ago and the other from Wales with the Tudors. They maintained the Welsh link better than the Egyptian one, and slowly the Welsh House of Du became House Prime for the English branch. The head of the House Prime can step in…well, it's a bit like a Regency. Harry isn't old enough to really be the head here, so Mr. Du has stepped in to take the responsibility and to teach him what he needs to know."
"So this Welsh part of the family can decide they don't like how things are being done and…step in to handle it themselves?" Malcolm asked.
"Yes. They have primacy. It's in the family charter, I expect. My birth house, Prewett, doesn't have a House Prime and I think our charter would be a great deal simpler. The Blacks are…well…it's a bit complicated." Molly tried to remain polite about their host's family.
"Would they be a lot like Queen Victoria's family, then?" Teddy kept her voice light. "Married into every important family in the magical world?"
"Oh, yes, in England, at least. They're an--"
"And here you are coming in like a thief in the night, his poor new young grace covered in blood of all things and unconscious which I will get to the bottom of mark my words, not even ringing the bell, leaving young Donald to run himself back to my study so I'd know even though it meant abandoning the door, and then marching yourself down to the kitchen to ask about tea trays for six and two of them are fifteen when we barely have any baking done! Never in all my days have I seen such harum-scarum nonsense, Mr. Du, I'll tell you that plain. I know young gentlemen can be high-spirited, but that is the outside of enough! If you need anything you're to ring the bell. Otherwise, why would we employ forty people?" An impressive scold sounding from the hallway cut Molly off. "And while we're still trying to open the house properly!"
Cadwaladr Du backed into the room, hands out before him, in supplication or to fend off further words no one quite knew, followed by a tall woman with a tray bobbing behind her. Her dark hair, no doubt pulled back so severely to show she wouldn't countenance any nonsense, had come a bit loose from the pins and jaunty curls fell about her thin face. In all other ways, though, she looked as buttoned up as one could be. She wore her neckline high and boned and her skirts long. Long, tight sleeves buttoned at her wrists.
"Mrs. Harris?" Molly choked out, one hand over her mouth.
Teddy and Mal watched in expectant delight while Hermione and Ron whispered together on one of the sofas.
"Because you came rushing in from Wales, and I understand the emergency with his new young grace just putting on the ring today and you only just getting a letter about it, but to hear that the house must be open and ready to receive guests only this morning and oh by the way I'll need the berlin ready in fifteen minutes and then to be bringing guests in when we haven't even got the covers off the furniture fully or the beds aired or fires lit and is that his new young grace on the window seat like a discarded sweater when he ought to be in the sickroom?"
"Mrs. Harris, is that you?" Molly stood and advanced a bit.
"Oh, Mrs. Weasley, how lovely to see you again. I didn't know you were one of the guests. That puts a different complexion on it, I own." Mrs. Harris turned to her, bustling with the tea tray. "Little Agnes is right behind me with the rest of the tea things and Donald has the urn so you'll have tea all afternoon and I will not be calling it a samovar. It was an urn for my mother and it's an urn for me. Such a to do in the house today, I can assure you. Will you pour?"
"Yes, of course." Molly smiled at her. "We came with Harry, er, His Grace. He's friends with my youngest boy, Ronald, and Dr. and Dr. Granger's daughter, Hermione."
"Two in the family, fancy that! I'm sure you're all very welcome. If you need anything, please ring the bell. It upsets Cook very much if anyone goes bursting into the kitchen like a rackety child." The last she directed at Cadwaladr, who had the good grace to apologize.
"I am sorry, Mrs. Harris. It's been such a jumbled sort of day. We'll ring the bell if we need anything, I promise you." A sincerely charming smile put Mrs. Harris in better spirits as she left, harassing Little Agnes about clinking cups.
Mrs. Harris' idea of barely having anything baked apparently included two kinds of cake, four kinds of sandwich, biscuits, three different savories, and enough sliced bread and fresh butter to supply Gryffindor tower. A steaming tea urn (set on a side table by Donald, who looked just as rumpled as he had in the entrance hall), a teapot for the table, a pitcher of iced water, and a pitcher of lemonade completed the spread. She'd also managed to open the windows to the back garden, put a proper blanket over 'his poor new young grace', and remove Harry's shoes before she left, taking the shoes with her and making a clucking noise over them.
"Well, I wasn't expecting Mrs. Harris to take on quite so volubly. Please help yourselves. We won't stand in ceremony and I expect half of you are hungry as wolves." The same charming smile directed at the room had everyone circulating about the table.
Mrs. Weasley poured tea for everyone, handing cups around and exhorting Ron to please leave some bread and butter for everyone. Hermione held her teacup, staring down into the depths of it and frowning.
"Could anyone tell me where Mr. Potter was before this? Andromeda…I believe it's Tonks now, yes? Wrote me to let me know what had happened and that Mr. Potter--"
"Please just call him Harry!" Hermione couldn't hold back. "He's always said he's 'just Harry' even when he's doing the most ridiculous things and if he wakes and we're not here and you only call him Mr. Potter…I know it's to be polite but he'll never tell you to call him by his name."
"He's like that." Ron backed her up. "If he feels like you don't want him, you might never see him again in a house this size. He, er, had a difficult year." Delicacy didn't come naturally to Ron. "We all did." He reached over and squeezed Hermione's hand.
"Harry, then." Cadwaladr's voice gentled. "She wrote that Harry would need a guardian and I was the only option. Who had him before?"
"His mum's family." Ron answered flatly. "He doesn't like to talk about it. Don't know why anyone cared now. They didn't seem to before. Well, Sirius did, but people didn't tend to listen to him much."
"Before occlumency, you mean?" Hermione slanted a glance at Ron.
"Before…oh that…" he trailed off, not wanting to swear in front of his mother.
"What has occlumency to do with the price of tea in Birmingham? And why was it being taught to a child?" Cadwaladr demanded.
"Er, Dumbledore--no Hermione I'm not calling him Professor because we aren't in school--wanted Harry to learn to help with…the visions from, er, Voldem--"
"That name shall not be used in this house, please." Cadwaladr interrupted. "The taboo may still be active."
"The ta…" Hermione trailed off, eyes wide. "What does it do?"
"It gives…him your location so that anyone foolish enough to use that ridiculous name is eradicated."
"But, the Headmaster says that fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself!" Hermione objected. "People have been…students have been using it. I…at home."
"Yes, when you're the one the chap with the taboo is afraid of it seems a wonderful phrase. In this case it's more of a reasonable precaution undertaken by sensible people. Now, I understand that Harry was somehow having visions?"
"They started…they started after the end of the Tri-Wiz." Ron hoped Harry wouldn't view this as betraying his secrets. "When…he came back. When he was really happy about something Harry's scar would hurt and sometimes he'd let Harry see what they were doing. Only then his scar would bleed…like today, but not as much."
"That doesn't sound like a vision, dear. Are you sure?" Molly asked. "I don't think I was paying enough attention at the time."
"Well, that's what happened! I should know. I sat up with him enough nights and then with dad…Dumbledore said they were visions." Ron managed a rather thick reply.
"I shall take it up with the headmaster." Cadwaladr decided forbiddingly. "And it was after these lessons that someone decided Harry should be moved?"
"I don't know what Hagrid knows, but he didn't want Harry going back to his aunt and I think it came from Professor Snape. Harry let it slip, once, that the Professor had seen something he didn't really want seen." Hermione picked up the narrative. "He just wouldn't tell me what it was and Professor Snape tends to do things quietly."
"So, you believe this Professor saw something in Harry's memories that prompted him to act?" Cadwaladr wished he'd had the foresight to get himself a notebook and a pencil. Or perhaps request a flow chart.
"Or he said something and Hagrid put two and two together? I don't know. Maybe Hagrid just saw his chance. We've all wanted him out of there for ages."
"Malcolm and I offered to take him in since he'd grown up in the non-magical world, but the headmaster said he was safer where he was." Teddy let Hermione catch her breath and compose herself.
"We've asked the same, time and again." Mrs. Weasley agreed. "He's such a dear boy."
"Why…" Cadwaladr pinched the bridge of his nose. "Why is the headmaster of his school interfering in his placement? Has he done this for any other war orphan?"
"I would imagine that in the confusion of Halloween night, he was asked to get Harry somewhere safe. I don't know that James or Lily thought to make a will. They were so young still." Molly frowned, thinking. "But it is standard to test a child's lineage to see if any surprises pop up. He ought to have been sent to Arcturus Black's care, since Sirius adopted him."
"So he has, aside from one summer and one Christmas holiday, been with his mother's people? And you believe they've treated him poorly?"
"They have treated him poorly!" Hermione stood suddenly to pace behind the sofa. "He's the smallest in our year, and it isn't as if his parents were short; his clothing is a disgrace and he's been wearing the same grubby flannel since he was eleven and it still doesn't fit properly; he comes back to us skinnier every September than he was in June; and he's said several times that they'd only be sad he didn't die after some…some adventure, most of which were terrifying! It isn't a question of believing, at all! He got sent a toothpick taped to an index card for Christmas, one year." She gripped the back of the sofa and breathed hard, wincing at the pull against her scars. "And I'm not trying to be rude, but it's been a bloody awful year on top of a lot of bloody awful years. I'm so tired of people not believing us."
Ron got up and went to her, let her hide her face against his shoulder while he propped his chin on her hair. She breathed deeply, regrouping before she let everything she'd kept behind her teeth for years go.
"He's always had some pretty awful nightmares, Mr. Du, even in first year before anything happened." Ron spoke quietly. "My parents and Hermione's have always believed us, but to everyone else he's Harry Potter. Who would let Harry Potter be mistreated?"
"I think I misspoke, Miss Granger. I do believe you when you tell me he's been poorly treated. You and Mr. Weasley would be best placed to know. I suppose I'm trying to get some picture of what his life has been like up until now."
"Well," Ron answered. "He was alone, getting onto the platform; his relatives hate magic and especially hate him for having it; his school things get locked up as soon as he steps through the door for the summer holiday; his shoes are usually taped together because his cousin wore them out first; and he's either loved or hated at school and, well, in public. Oh, and he doesn't have any privacy at all and the Prophet keeps publishing rubbish about him when he hasn't even spoken to any reporter. That's about how it's been."
