Disclaimer: I do not own the original canon nor am I making any profit from writing this piece. All works are accredited to their original authors, performers, and producers while this piece is mine. No copyright infringement is intended. I acknowledge that all views and opinions expressed herein are merely my interpretations of the characters and situations found within the original canon and may not reflect the views and opinions of the original author(s), producer(s), and/or other people.
Warning: This story may contain material that is not suitable for all audiences and may offend some readers.
Crossover Information: This story is a crossover of the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling and the television show Sanctuary. There is minor crossover with the BBC show Sherlock which is based upon the Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, but nothing plot-relevant at this time, just premise-relevant.
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Legacies of Blood
Part 01: Brilliance
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"Nothing is more deceptive than an obvious fact."
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
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Hermione Granger had grown up knowing that she was special in a way that set her aside from her peers. Aside from the fact that she had three parents instead of everyone else's two, she saw things. Actually, it was more than simply seeing things. It would be better to say that she noticed things because it was always more than what she saw. It was smells and sounds and the feel of things. Her Mummy would tell her stories of a long-ago grandfather who could do the same and who had the same problems that Hermione had sometimes. He was a brilliant man, a genius ahead of his time, but just like Hermione, he couldn't stop learning. The brief periods of not doing something always spurned him onward to some new experiment or endeavor, even if it was dangerous and ill-thought out, like Hermione's attempt to recreate Daedalus' wings when she was six, never mind that somehow Hermione had bounced after jumping off the roof of their house.
As if that was not enough of a difference, Hermione learned much faster than other children her age. Her Mama said that Hermione was an autodidact with eidetic recall. Daddy called her brilliant, just like Mummy. Mummy said that genius ran in their blood. In the end, it meant that Hermione had to go to a special school for children like her. Even there, she outstripped her peers. Hermione wasn't supposed to know about the discussions that her parents had every year about pulling her from the school and just hiring tutors, but she did. Every time, they ended up deciding that Hermione needed to be with other children, even if she didn't seem to get along with them much. Attending the school did give her the opportunity to observe other children and applying her gleamed knowledge to her interactions with her cousins did help even if they still seemed like alien creatures to Hermione.
Hermione understood that her family was just as special as she was. It had been explained to her very early on that having two mothers and a father at the same time was unusual, even in the circles in which her father's family traveled, thanks to Grammy's holding of their family seat. Aristocrats were even weirder than other children. Mama's family was strange as well, not that Hermione had ever met any of them. They had disowned Mama not long after she had decided to stay with Mummy after they left university. Mama was the normal one, which has always confused Hermione, because Mama was so very different than everyone else that Hermione had ever met—so much more than anyone else, it seemed at times. The only member of Mummy's family that Hermione had ever met was Uncle John. Uncle John went to uni with Daddy and they served together, but Uncle John didn't leave when Daddy did. Mama said he was an adrenaline junkie, but Hermione knew that he had the same thirst she had when things got boring and the constantly changing situations he found in the service fed his need.
Hermione also understood that her specialness also made her different. She was clever enough to note that even the other genii who went to her school were able to relate to each other. She noted the same among the other children of aristocrats and her cousins (despite the fact that there was so many of them in only one household). While Mama was simply brilliant, there was still a lot of things which Hermione could do which Emmy Granger could not, such as making things move on their own or fix themselves when there were not even big enough pieces to glue back together. It did not escape Hermione's notice that her family, especially her parents, went out of their way to keep the seemingly-magical abilities secret. Even before she understood the why, she had understood that this was something which needed to be done.
She was nine when she noticed that there was someone watching her as she played in the park. It was not obvious to anyone else. In fact, if Hermione had been a more normal child, she may not have noticed him at all. It was not always the same person, though they all had the same look to them, as if they had all come from the same organization. They didn't stand out like the bumblers who popped into existence the one time that she made the school bully swell up by telling him he was full of shit (thankfully, they had corrected Hermione's unintentional use of magic as the boy had been swelling with literal fecal matter and that would have been just nasty). These new watchers looked almost normal. In many respects, they were normal, except Hermione always sensed something off about them, beyond the fact that they seemed abnormally intent on observer her.
It was not until her normal watcher was joined by him, that Hermione began to understand. He looked so much like he had in the tin-plates they had of him. There were also parts of him that Hermione could see echoed in Mummy and Uncle John. This new person, despite how impossible it seemed, had to be James Watson. He didn't look any older than her parents, but that fact did not dissuade Hermione that he had to be her great-grandfather.
With the imperial nature of brilliant children, Hermione immediately approached him where he sat beside the other man on a bench. While the watcher squirmed in his seat nervously, the two Watsons observed each other, taking in little details from each other and communicating in the same. They could not go into depth—there really was no way to talk about what the Sanctuary Network was or how Hermione knew that there was magic in the world. What they could tell each other was that for the first time in a very long time, neither of them were alone; finally, there was another who was like them. There was another who understood the driving need to know and how hard it could be when the world seemed to be too much. The moment ended when Hermione threw her arms around James' neck and hugged with all her considerable worth. It took a moment for James to react—it had been so long since he had been around a child, not since his own children were young—but eventually he returned her embrace.
"Grandfather," Hermione whispered into his ear and to James, she sounded so much like his dearly-missed Mary that he had to choke back a sob. The girl tucked her forehead against his neck as she pressed closer. When she repeated the appellative, she sounded more like Helen, and that steadied his emotions more than anything. While Mary had long since passed on from this world, Helen was still alive, doubly so, and the memory of his fellow Sanctuary Head held less pain.
"Oh, my child," James replied, holding her even tighter, "oh, my dear brilliant child." He glanced up then to see a small group headed his way. His quick eye noted the similarities they bore to the surveillance photographs in the file that his assistant had given him when making his report. He smiled. Maybe it was time to reconnect with his family, even if only the youngest showed any sign of his abnormal blood. Helen was not the only one suffering from loneliness, after all.
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Harry Potter knew from an early age that he was different from his family and the other denizens of Little Whinging. He was so different that he was abnormal, a true freak. Out of the goodness of their hearts, his family took him in when he was left on their doorstep after his parents' death. Aunt Petunia refused to speak about what exactly happened to them, but Harry got the impression that whatever had happened was because of him. The only things Harry knew for sure about how he came to reside at Number Four Privet Drive was that his parents had died, someone connected to them had left him literally on the Dursleys' doorstep, and that the Dursleys were all the family he had left.
Living with the Dursleys was unpleasant. Harry knew that he shouldn't have the memory that he does and more than once he wished he could be just like the other children who couldn't remember things for longer than a few days at best. It was horrible to be able to remember every nasty thing his family said about and to him and every single time he had been punished. It was even worse to remember what he had before being brought to them, even if those memories were fuzzy like looking through a haze. (The earliest memories of the Dursleys had a similar haze; Harry learned later that this was due to the difference in how the brain creates memories as it develops.)
Whereas the Dursleys were as pleasant as a rash and as intelligent as Aunt Marge's beloved bulldogs, his family from before was filled with laughter and light. Paddy would change into a large dog and let Harry tug on his ears and tail while Moony would read to him whatever book he had with him at the time and was always warm and smelled like chocolate. Daddy liked to toss him into air before catching him and tickling him. Petey was quieter, but he liked to play with the sorter and the puzzles with Harry, which none of the other men were keen to do.
He loved all of them, but most of all, he loved Mummy. Mummy was the most beautiful woman there could ever be—much, much prettier than Aunt Petunia. She had hair like fire, all reds, oranges, and golds—and her eyes were exactly like Harry's, dark emerald. He could remember her singing to him in a strange language and the wash of her magic as she soothed him to sleep, tucking him in with a comfort spell so that he would never be too hot or too cold. He could remember her waving her wand to do chores or to make the shadows dance like marionettes for his entertainment. She would sweep him into her arms and they would dance to the music which she kept playing at all times—everything from Persian to Celtic to rock and roll. The Marauders were great, but Mummy was brilliant, and if there was one specific thing which Privet Drive lacked, it was brilliance.
Harry knew that he was different, but he was never more thankful for it than when Aunt Petunia was forced to let him go to school with Dudley. The other children were better than Dudley when it came to some things (being able to count to twenty with their shoes on, for one thing), but they were still boring. The teacher was almost worse, with her sickly sweet attitude that she thought fooled people into thinking that she just had a love of peppermint tea rather than peppermint schnapps. Harry spent most of his free time in the Reading Nook looking for something more entertaining than See Spot Run while his cousin bonded with a weasely-looking character who shared Dudley's misfortune when it came to names. As if Polkiss was not a bad enough name, this boy had been named Piers of all things. Alternative form of Peter or not, it sounded like a dock. Some people just should not be allowed to name their children because they clearly didn't think before doing so.
When the time for recess came, the teacher rounded up her charges and released them upon the unsuspecting playground. Harry watched his classmates tearing across the asphalt to the play equipment or the containers of balls with a bored expression. Maybe he could goad Dudley into chasing him again? The beachball had at least one new ally—perhaps even three if those other two malcontents were willing to join the future terrorists of Surrey brigade. Dudley was more than stupid enough to think that the strength of numbers would be enough to overpower Harry. Harry was in the mood for a hunting game, even if both Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had warned him about funny business at school. Harry sighed as he decided that the five minutes of fun probably was not worth the days of pain and weeks of hunger that would result from the punishments he would receive for playing rough with his cousin. Instead, the tiny boy sneaked back into the building to explore.
An hour later, the teachers found him in the back section of the library. He had found the room early on in his exploration and had become engrossed in the number of books which were available. Unlike the tiny classroom library which had held only beginner books, the school library had books for all primary grades in both fiction and nonfiction forms. Harry had found several to interest him along with finding a reading nook with beanbags and squishy chairs. Engrossed in his reading, he had failed to note the time passing until a harried sectary had called out to that she had found him.
Thankfully, his excursion (and the resulting interrogation as to its cause) had brought to light the fact that Harry was different than other children his age. The school counselor had taken Harry into his office before proceeding to ask a lot of questions on varying topics. There were questions about everything that Harry had ever read and many subjects which Harry had just begun to learn about thanks to Aunt Petunia having recently bought the educational books for Dudley (who had just sent them to his spare bedroom before demanding a new toy robot). That conversation had turned into one about his life with the Dursleys which was strange because no one had really cared before about why he had so many chores or wore his cousin's old clothes despite them hanging off his much smaller body.
After the school counselor had finished asking his questions, he took Harry to the school nurse who proceeded to poke, prod, and measure him. It was thoroughly unpleasant and at points, Harry was tempted to bite the infuriating woman who kept tisking over his bony frame. Biting fell under funny business, however, and Harry knew that his aunt and uncle would not be any more pleased with him biting the school nurse than they would be if he tricked Dudley into a fight. When a county-worker arrived, Harry politely answered all her questions as well. It was just as unpleasant as the nurse's tests as the woman wanted to know all about his chores and any punishments that he earned. Harry wished that he was back in the counselor's stuffy office. At least his questions were interesting.
It was not long after the arrival of the caseworker with her dozens of questions about the Dursleys that Harry began to suspect something was off about his day. The adults were acting peculiar, almost like it was important how he was treated. Harry already knew that he was not treated like other children his age was, but he had already gathered that his different treatment was because he was different. Other children—even the adults—couldn't do the things he could and disregarding the Dursley preference for violence of any variety, most people did not respond to things with the desire to rip into flesh. Yes, Harry had a lot more rules than Dudley did, with more negative consequences to match, but Aunt Petunia made it perfectly clear that this difference was necessary because of Harry's freakishness. Did these people not realize this?
Unfortunately, every attempt Harry made to correct this lapse was met with increasing irritation from the caseworker. On the other hand, she sent him back to the school counselor. When the counselor seemed to be having similar difficulties understanding what Harry was trying to explain, Harry gave up and proceeded to read through the man's small bookshelf. The counselor made a few more attempts to continue the caseworker's discussion but for the most part he just watched as Harry read his books on psychology with the help of the dictionary from the bottommost shelf. The rest of the afternoon was spent in blessed near-silence.
The return of the caseworker at dismissal annoyed Harry even more than the interrogation did. Though watching Aunt Petunia stammer through answering a similar set of questions amused him until he realized that she was making it seem like he was a liar. If his punishments and workload was necessary because of his freakishness, then it was acceptable and Aunt Petunia had no reason to lie about it all. Why wasn't she explaining to the nosy caseworker about his freakishness? It was in that moment when Harry realized that there was a reason the adults had reacted the way they had—and just as quickly, the pain of it set in.
The Dursleys weren't doing what they did because of necessity like they had always told him. They were doing it because it was what they wanted to do. Which meant that what the caseworker and the counselor had tried to explain had to be true—that everyone deserved to have a bedroom and food and playtime and that no one should be beaten for asking questions or fighting back or needing to go to the bathroom or being smart. Harry stood beside the counselor, a man who he had ignored for most of the afternoon in irritation, and watched as the woman who raised him talked with the caseworker at a frantic pace about how he always lied and exaggerated and had an active imagination. He almost whimpered when he noticed that the caseworker's hard face had begun to lose some of its suspicious hardness because that meant that the lies were being believed.
He hugged himself like he did whenever he woke up in the middle of the night from a dream about the red-haired lady. It hurt to think about everything now that he knew it shouldn't be this way. It hurt to breathe and his eyes stung in a way that would earn him a smack because freaks weren't allowed to cry—but was he really a freak even? That is what the Dursleys—Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon, and Aunt Marge—always called him to justify everything they did and said to him. All of his rules were based upon the fact that he was a freak. If he wasn't a freak, did the rules still apply?
The pain gave way to panic as the bottom fell out of his world. The air began to crackle around him and his hair raised up like the hackles of a dog. The panic spiked even higher because this was another of his freakish abilities and those weren't supposed to happen anywhere but especially not where others could see. The panic just made static in the air even worse. As arcs of purplish-blue electricity jumped from his tiny frame to strike at the ground, the crowd around them dove and ran away. Harry tried to focus on pulling the energy back inside of him. That was what he had to do whenever he had gotten upset at home, but with this new kind of energy, it wasn't working. He couldn't even breathe anymore despite his frequent pants for air and the lightning was still getting worse. Oh, God, what if he exploded? Would it be like that time Dudley had insisted that Harry microwave a sausage or would it be more like when a sauce boiled too quickly?
With cracks like the sound Uncle Vernon always made with his belt before he started one of Harry's beatings, several people suddenly appeared in the front yard of Alfred Bushman Elementary. Harry was only barely aware of them. They immediately froze the running crowd mid-stride before moving to contain the magical disturbance which had set off their alarms. To the agents of the Accidental Magic Reversal squad, this was just a standard incident of a muggleborn's magic reacting to the stress of a first day of school. It was so common that there was a rumor going around that muggleborns and their parents were going to be told about magic as soon as the Register noted them so that the muggleborns could be given rudimentary training to control themselves like the magically-raised children were. It was an old rumor, though, so no one put much stock into it.
Having dealt with the crowd, the squad moved on to the kid who was causing the problem. They surrounded the boy with shields designed to contain magic to a specific area. Knowing better than to cast a spell into a magical field generated by a panicking child, they instead sent in the person whose turn it was on the rotation. A quick stupefy from a wand against the neck or other area of exposed skin and the kid would sleep long enough for them to alter the memories of the muggles. Then they would wake the kid and alter his memories. Some thought it wasn't fair, but it was what was needed to maintain the Statute of Secrecy. It was above their paygrade to question well-established policy.
They weren't expecting the Chief Warlock to show up when they were halfway through with the muggles. They also were not expecting to find themselves explaining why the kid was watching them work. The latter was because the kid should still be knocked out by the spell. All five members of the squad trembled as the trademark twinkle faded from the eyes of Albus Dumbledore as they stammered their answers to his questions. All the while, the boy watched them, as if mentally recording every action they made. It was finally decided that Dumbledore himself would be the one to alter the kid's memory.
"I'm sorry, my dear boy," Dumbledore told Harry as he raised his wand to aim the spell, "but certain things must stay the way they currently are. Maybe someday you will understand that this is for the Greater Good. Oblivate!"