Chapter Text
Hogwarts, 2007
Wrapped in her tartan shawl, Minerva McGonagall, headmistress, sipped at her hot chocolate as she perused the Book of Admittance. How many Muggleborns would they be expecting in the coming years? There had been an increasing number of such students after the war. Magic’s way of making up for all the wix lost. They would need to be eased into the wizarding community. It was shocking how ill-prepared most Muggleborn students were for magical life. Few adapted as well as Granger did. Even Dennis Creevey and Dean Thomas had chosen to return to the Muggle world in the end. Even half-bloods raised Muggle often floundered. Two to three years of preparatory school was recommended based on the latest ICW educational studies prior to formal education. Magical Britain was well behind the times.
The staid Scotswoman suddenly froze. That could not be right.
Scorpius Malfoy, Azkaban
She checked the book again and flipped forward a few years for good measure.
Cygnus Malfoy, Azkaban.
Lyra Malfoy, Azkaban.
Delphinus Malfoy, Azkaban.
Four children each born about a year apart with their home listed as Azkaban. Both Malfoy men were sentenced to Azkaban after the war despite Harry’s best efforts to plead clemency for his schoolmate. Life without parole for the senior Malfoy, a minimum of fifteen years for his son. The family’s matriarch had crumbled from the strain despite being acquitted of all charges. She was now a resident of the Janus Thickey ward, lost in her own little dream-world and unable to care for herself. Potter had kindly paid for her medical bills as the Malfoy vaults had been seized for war reparations. There should be no other Malfoys in Britain, much less in Azkaban. The families of the guards did not live on the island and the prison was strictly segregated. Surely any births among the inmates would be reported and suitable foster families found. Were there more? Most children’s names were written down only in their eighth or ninth year.
The Ministry must be informed. A prison was no place for any child to be raised. Despite the late hour, the headmistress Floo-called the Minister of Magic and fellow Order veteran.
Even without the Dementors, Azkaban was a hellish place. Freezing cold most of the year, meagre rations, and cruel guards. And the magic suppression shackles and wards. His fellow prisoners mostly left him alone now – too used up for their tastes. How long had it been? He only kept track of the passing of time by the growth of the children now nestled up to him for warmth.
The youngest two were so small. Shouldn’t Corvus be walking already? The family had to supplement their rations by trapping any birds unwary enough to alight near their window. They might get lucky. There was never enough food to go round. Another was on the way. He did not know if he would lose this one too, like little Carina. He had carried her little corpse around, half-mad with grief until Father coaxed him to surrender her tiny body for burial in an unmarked grave outside the walls.
Uncle Rab warned him Father had been thrown in Solitary again – those dank cells deep below the walls where no light ever reached. Uncle Rab was an unlikely ally. Uncle Roddy was too far gone to be safe. Aunt Bella’s death had tipped him over the edge. On good days, he would help watch the children in the shower yard, thinking they were his. During one of his mad fits, he had yanked poor Cygnus’ arm out of its socket. Uncle Rab had popped it back, but that arm had been weak since. Cassie was barely skin and bones after her latest illness. Her health was frail. Delphinus’ eyes troubled him. Instead of being entranced by stars his father would point out to him through that tiny window, he would trace the stones of their cell mutely. He also noticed it was Lyra who would guide her brother by the hand whenever they left their cell. Lyra fractured her wrist once falling during a scrum. It healed badly as they did not trust the healer assigned to the Death Eaters’ block. The children were quiet. They learned early on silence was safety. Attention meant pain.
Scorpius was shooting up despite the scant food. They could no longer hide him from the current healer’s unwanted attentions. Was he eight or nine now? They had gained and lost allies over the years. Old Nott died of a heart attack after a being hit by a guard’s Stunner. They simply left him in the prison yard for an hour while the healer finished his meal. Stan Shunpike and Marcus Flint had both promised to get word out when they were paroled. As did Gareth Greengrass when he was transferred out of the block. They were never heard from again. No letters were received from their families or friends Outside. They were allowed to write letters for the prison to send out, but no replies ever came. There was a kind healer who had obtained extra blankets, food rations and medicine for them. She promised to help, then she was gone was well. In her place was the healer with the hungry eyes who watched the children too closely. The Malfoys had long given up on promises.
He was too weak. He could no longer protect his children. A tear slipped down his cheek. Rookwood was banging his mug against the bars, a warning. Someone was coming. Someone who might mean the children harm. Scorpius leapt up. Gaunt and pale, his eyes a luminous green in the dark. Of all his siblings, only his eldest did not inherit the silver-grey eyes of the Blacks and Malfoys. He always wondered about who sired his offspring, but he would not pursue it too far so long it would offer them protection. There lay madness. Rookwood had taught the boy to fight the best he could under the noses of the guards. Perhaps he believed Scorpius his? Just as Rab was convinced Lyra was his child? Perhaps they would continue caring for the children should…
More shouts as the inmates were roused from their sleep. He shoved the younger children and the blankets into the small gap between their stone bed and the cold floor. He would have to leave the older ones in the open and pray they were not the targets of this late-night visit.
Susan Bones was now the Director of the Department for Magical Law Enforcement. She had earned the right to sit where her dear Auntie once did through her wits and dogged hard work. She was as tough as they came and the Aurors respected her for it. Harry watched with undisguised pride as she cast a patronus badger before requesting her selected team do the same. She had only managed a silvery mist back in her fifth year. Harry grinned as his Prongsy almost bowled over Zabini and Boot.
An alarm had gone off at Azkaban. Bones had assembled a team to swoop down on the island after repeated attempts to contact them had failed. Head Auror Potter was always the choice to lead such a risky mission. Terry Boot, Sophie Roper, Seamus Finnegan, and Blaise Zabini made up the rest of the team. It was unlikely that the Dementors have returned to the island after deserting it during the war, but one could never be too sure. Everyone on the team must be capable of producing and maintaining a corporeal patronus.
“Susan, perhaps you should remain…”
“Oh tosh, Harry… I am coming with you. I have been meaning to visit Azkaban over some irregularities uncovered,” Susan chewed her lower lip. After settling into her new post, she had uncovered some shocking allegations over how the prison was run – irregularities that were overlooked in the zealous roundup and crackdown on those aligned with Voldemort a decade back. Almost all the Death Eaters had been accounted for, imprisoned or dead. Michael Corner’s team had cornered and killed Greyback like the rabid beast he was in Wales after a hunt that lasted for close to a decade. Operation Wolfskin was shut.
Harry never found the time to visit Azkaban. He could not bear facing the place where his godfather had been held for a dozen years, slowly being driven mad by the Dementors. It irked him that neither Malfoy ever replied to Narcissa’s letters, or his. Visitors were allowed to only the non-Death Eater towers, Saviour of magical Britain or not. Governor Brown had waggled his finger disapprovingly at him as if he were a naughty boy. Perhaps it would have helped if Narcissa had received some form of reassurance from her son. After three years of silence, Narcissa finally cracked. The once-proud witch was found wandering about Diagon Alley calling for her son and harassing any blond boy who bore the slightest resemblance to Draco Malfoy.
“Portkey at the ready,” Roper ordered and held out the beach towel. Everyone held on to it “Three, two, one.”
Harry felt the familiar whirl of portkey travel grab him. He clutched his wand.
“Steady now. Whoa, what happened here?” Seamus shouted.
Everyone drew their wands. Smoke was billowing from one of the prison buildings. The infamous Death Eater tower. The Aurors warily approached the gaping hole where the wall had been blasted out. Prison staff from the other towers were crowded cautiously around the hole. They parted to allow Potter’s team access while Director Bones demanded they called the governor. Bodies were strewn over the floor of the ruined infirmary. A few were still groaning. Healers from the other blocks were called to treat the wounded. The healer assigned to the partially destroyed block was among the dead.
A small figure was hunched up on the examination cot, silently sobbing and fearfully studying the newcomers through green eyes. A child. Painfully thin, in a ragged too-large prison shirt and clutching the blanket over his bare lower half. Untidy dark hair framed a haunted face. A rumpled pair of pants lay on the floor. Seeing the brandished wands, the child flinched.
“Accidental magic… Shields up!” the Head Auror managed to warn his team and cast a wandless shield as another wave of raw power rolled off the terrified child. Why was there a child in the prison? And why the infamous Death Eater tower? The force battering his shield waned. Harry sheathed his wand. The child scooted off the bed and scrambled to the corner of the room, ignoring the broken glass cutting into his skin.
“Hi, my name’s Harry. We are here to help…” Harry stooped to the boy’s level. A boy. He could see the genitals the boy was too scared to hide now.
Harry wordlessly summoned the child’s pants and Scroungified it for good measure. The child needed a good bath and feed, maybe not in that order. He handed it to the boy who promptly snatched it from him and pulled it on, tying it with a scrap of rope at the waist. Harry winced at the darkening bruises on those thin hips. Harry would like to heal those cuts and scrapes, but the sight of a wand spooked the child.
“What’s your name?”
The boy glared at Harry in silence.
“Please let us help…” Harry pleaded. Whatever went down in that room leading to that magical outburst could not be good. A scared little boy who had no business being on the island.
“P-Potter?” A finger shyly traced the faded lightning bolt scar on his forehead. The boy hesitantly took Harry’s hand and started tugging him towards the door. Harry could hear a heated exchange between the newly arrived prison governor and Susan Bones. The Puff was fearful when furious.
Limping, the boy led the way through dark corridors and up a flight of stairs. Cells. All occupied by inmates that seemed little more than huddles of bones and rags behind the bars. The stench was repulsive - overflowing buckets and unwashed bodies. Getting rid of the Dementors was meant to make the conditions more humane… Little seemed to have changed.
Finally, the child halted in front of a cell where an occupant was laid out on the floor. Petrificus Totalus. Around him were more ragged children, shaking him and softly calling for their papa.
“Oh feathers…” Harry murmured and cast a Finite before sending Prongsy to Bones and his team. A powerfully cast Alohomora not only unlocked the door. It shattered the lock off. The boy buried his hands and face in Harry’s side at the commotion while the other children scrambled away to the shadowed recesses of the cell.
Draco Malfoy was stick-thin, except for his slightly rounded belly. His eyes were unblinking and unseeing although his bony chest rose and fell with tortured rasping breaths. Even under scars and grime, Harry could recognize his old schoolboy rival.