Call Me Home
Prologue
Selena Rivers sighed deeply as she stepped through the fireplace in a burst of emerald flame, worn out by her long day working at the American Ministry. It had been several years since the cataclysm had changed the face of the world but the effort of rebuilding was still ongoing. Selena thought she ought to count herself lucky, whilst America had been devastated quite badly by the events there was no doubt that Europe had suffered the worst, seeing as the enigmatic Lord of Shadows had been standing upon the fabled Astronomy Tower of Hogwarts when he invoked the damnation that came close to destroying the world.
She was lucky that she lived in one of the inland states, had she lived near the coast there was a very real chance that she and her son would both be listed as casualties of the series of magically induced tsunami's that had struck the eastern seaboard back then. She sighed, wondering what her fate would have been had she been in Britain at the time of the cataclysm.
She paused in her musings, seemingly drawn to one of the few picture frames that were not devoted to pictures of her eleven year old son, a picture of four children sitting side by side on the grass outside a towering home which was no doubt held up by magic. A memory from her what she now viewed as a past life was triggered, idly she remembered how fond she had once been off spending time at The Burrow.
She wondered if the family home was still standing.
But it was the three boys who sat beside the girl who had once been her that drew her attention. They had once been her brothers, during the life when she had been known as Lily Luna Potter, before she had been forced to flee the country for fear of her unborn son's life. She glossed over the one whose hair was turquoise blue who sat furthest to the right; he was the strongest and most resilient of her former brothers. She felt a pang of longing that she had not seen him in so many years but she knew that Teddy would be ok.
Teddy would always be ok.
Her eyes were drawn however to the two boys sitting on either side of her, their arms lazily slung over her shoulders as they nestled their baby sister between them. There were bright smiles of all three faces; she wondered when last they had smiled so cheerfully. Of the three Potters only one remained and from what she had heard, in gossip magazines and on the wizard wireless, she knew that the last had become a ghost of himself.
What had they become beneath the stain of time?
A lost one, long since fled; a second dead at the hands of the third. The Potter children; were they not a tale to make grown men weep like squalling infants. What of their parents, or more specifically her mother – for Selena had no father; Lily had had one, but he had been a monster and Selena thus refused to carry him with her into this life. Let him stay rotting in his cell in Azkaban for what he did, for tearing their family apart and breaking them all to pieces so tiny it had taken years for her to rebuild.
She hoped that her mother was doing well but once again the media had shown the truth in pictures, and Selena had wept to see her mother so wan and shattered. Then again what could she expect, Ginevra had lost a son, seen another commit fratricide whilst her daughter was as good as dead to her.
She shook her head sadly at the thoughts before making her way to her neighbour's apartment, knocking thrice before it swung open to reveal a plump, elderly woman who was also her landlady. A few pleasantries were exchanged before she collected her son from the old lady's care, the woman was glad to watch Ryan while Selena was at work. Marsha, that was her name, claimed it gave her someone to dote on now that all her children had children of their own and lived in other states.
As usual, her heart gave a painful spasm when she saw her son. She couldn't help it, he looked so much like his father that there were days when she wanted to tear out her heart and memories so she wouldn't have to feel the pain that accompanied her past. She had been expected to return as soon as the world was made safe for her and her son, as soon as her bigoted father had been dealt with so that he and his band of followers couldn't do her son any harm.
But she found that she couldn't, not when going home meant she would have to confront the graves of her brother and nephew – the nephew nobody had ever known, another crime to lay at her father's feet – not when going home meant she would have to speak to James. She knew he had done what he did to save the world but how could she look into his eyes without thinking of Albus, whose life's blood no doubt still stained James' palms. She had promised herself she would return when she was strong enough to deal with the anguish that would surely come.
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, she had never considered herself strong enough to go home.
Taking their leave of Marsha, she hugged her son tightly, ignoring his muffled protests as his face was squeezed into her shoulder by the force of her embrace. He was used to her hugs, although he often now complained that he was a big boy and didn't need such strong displays of motherly affection. He would cease making the argument when Selena spoke to him at length and told him that he was the only person in the world that she had left to love.
Orion Draco Potter-Malfoy, or Ryan Drake Rivers as his forged birth certificate read knew all about his father and uncles because Selena had decided on a policy of honesty with her son. She didn't want him to think that his father was a deadbeat who had abandoned them but she had also selfishly used her brother's actions to make him sympathetic as to why they couldn't go back to her former home now that the dust had cleared. She hadn't wanted him to think that she was keeping him away from his father either.
His actual birth records had been sealed as part of the arrangements made by her brother when he had first helped her flee Britain which she was duly grateful for. She didn't know if Ryan's father was still looking for them, but had he be been doing so the name Orion Malfoy wasn't exactly common now was it?
Ryan Rivers on the other hand was very nondescript.
She was just serving dinner when a tapping on the window caught her attention and her breath caught in her throat as Ryan flung open the window to permit the messenger bird entry. Her heart thudding in her chest, she snatched the letter and tore it open while hoping it was a mistake and not really what she thought it was.
Because every envelop in the world is watermarked with a badger, an eagle, a lion and a snake, a snide voice in her head whispered. She chewed her lip as her eyes flitted over the address; Ryan was looking at her most curiously now. She snapped and gestured at his spaghetti, instantly feeling guilty at the wounded look in his eyes.
She knew it was coming but her heart still sank as she read the folded parchment that she had extricated from the envelope.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Headmistress: Professor Rose Hermione Zabini
(Grand Sorceress of the Outcast's; honorary member of the Wizengamot; Order of Merlin, Third Class)
Dear Mr Potter-Malfoy
We are pleased to inform you . . .
(*)(*)(*)
Scorpius Malfoy woke that morning with a heavy heart, his eyes cracking open as the first rays of dawn shone through his bedroom window, illuminating his tangled sheets with their warm glow. He sighed as he rose, moving gently so as not to disturb his girlfriend who still lay caught in peaceful dreams that only night could bring. He had been with her for a year now, after his brother Hugo had sat him down and told him in no uncertain terms that whilst it was admirable that he was still so devoted to Lily, who nobody in the family had seen for the past eleven years it was time for him to move on because he was still young, not yet thirty, and he needed to stop clinging to the notion that Lily would be coming home.
They didn't even know if she was alive, the cataclysm had killed so many people worldwide that the chances were both she and his son – the son he had never known – had perished when the tsunami's had struck America. Scorpius knew that his entire family had thought this about him, that he was wasting away, but until Hugo nobody had been so frank with him.
He had both loved and hated his brother in that moment, loved him because he was his brother who was only looking out for him and hated him for being right. Because it had been over a decade now and every fibre of his being told him she would never be coming home. He had agreed to date again only because Hugo had brought up how he was becoming like Cassiopeia, their sister who still lived in mourning for her husband who had been manipulated by the darkness into trying to destroy the world.
He didn't love Adrianna, but he liked her and believed that maybe someday he would come to love her. His parents, Astoria and Draco, had been an arranged match and they had had years of happiness before their eventual divorce – a divorce which had only taken place because they both had decided that they would rather be truly in love than just happy.
He had already been in love so therefore it only made sense that now he make a match with a woman for the sole purpose of being happy. And he knew that he could be happy if he tried, so he was trying with Adrianna Zabini; who was also his sister-in-law because her brother (one of his best friends) Delphin had married his half-sister Rose.
His other reason for dating again was that he wanted what his siblings had. Hugo and Francesca had just had their first child, a young girl named Alexandria – Hugo hadn't wanted to continue the Black Family tradition and name his son after a constellation. His cousin Katherine Avery, married to another of his best friends, Xavier, had two sons of her own: Matthew and Riley. Kat had also been a surrogate for Rose and Delphin, who now had twin girls: Violet and Syrena.
It was what he wanted, he wanted a family but most of all he wanted a child. True, he already had a son but Lily had taken Orion before he had been born and both had fled to escape her father's wrath. She could have come home at any time in the past six years though, seeing as how Harry Potter and his greatest lieutenant Ronald Weasley were both incarcerated in the Black Cells of Azkaban. But she had remained abroad, possibly dead, but Scorpius would like to think that he would feel it if his son had passed from the world of the living.
He had often contemplated travelling to America to find them but had never been able to do so. Britain was still so badly scarred by the cataclysm and he, as the head of Malfoy Holdings, was crucial in the restoration effort. At the same time it felt like a betrayal to leave the land of his best friend's grave, it was what kept him here. Loyalty to Albus' ambition, even though he was now dead and gone ensured that Scorpius remained dutifully dedicated to continuing his cause.
He slid open his desk drawer and retrieved a well-worn photograph, a baby with eyes of copper fire and a shock of platinum blonde hair waving fat fists at the camera and his heart gave a pang.
His boy, his son, he would be old enough to start Hogwarts this year . . .
He closed his eyes, he had grown to adore children over the years, having basically been a father figure to his niece Aurora, who was now six years old. It hurt to look at Aurora sometimes, to see her mother's beauty reflected in her father's obsidian hair and emerald eyes. Her eyes now.
He often wondered how his nephew Leo would have looked had he not been slain in the womb. Then again, he would rather not know. He had seen his nephew only once, an illusion of what he would have looked like through polyjuice and malice – it had been what had driven Albus to insanity and broken his sister to the verge of suicide. The only thing that had stayed Cassiopeia's razor blade had been her daughter; Aurora was the only person that kept his sister alive these days.
He looked at the picture again, another thought occurring to him as he stared at the giggling baby who had just stuffed his fist into his drooling mouth. Orion would have been the eldest, Leo would have been just a few years younger and off an age with Matthew.
How many potential friendships had been destroyed because of Harry Potter's inability to let go of his bigoted past. How many of his generation had been scarred? His sister for one, his brother-in-law James another – James had been forced to murder his own brother, Scorpius pitied, respected and loathed him for it.
Because Albus had been more than his brother-in-law and the father of his niece, Albus had been his best friend and not a day went by when he did not feel the emptiness from having lost somebody who he had been so close too. He remembered Hugo telling him what Francesca had told him when Claire Williams had been murdered.
"The people who love you never leave you, you never get over, you just have to learn to move on."
How fucking true was that?
So Scorpius stood at his desk, watching the sun rise whilst fingering the picture of his son, he loved the night and the dawn. But he hated what came after the sun rose, he hated the day because then he had to live . . .
Live in a world without the woman he loved, the son he had never met and the man who had become his brother before becoming a God.
(*)(*)(*)
A ghostly hand, pale and gossamer rose from the still waters of the Black Lake. Slowly, as if cautious and clumsy, the spirit rose broke the surface and stood on the edge of the shoreline, feeling the light of the sun for the first time in years.
She was not a Shadow who had been raised and corrupted by a dark magic, she was purer. A soul who had returned to the world of the living by her own choice, she was a Daemon, the counterpart of a Shadow.
For where their silhouettes where dark as night and their eyes red as blood, she held herself with the same beauty she had had in life. Despite her skin glowing with an ethereal white glow, despite the cresting waves of celestial light that made her seem translucent there was no mistaking her ruby tresses and emerald green eyes.
She was less than human, lacking physical presence, and yet she was more than any mere ghost.
Her grandson had, in his insanity, torn a thousand Shadows from the World of the Dead and then released them onto the world when he had died. Whilst many had been pulled back behind the Veil, there were still a few that had clung to their perverted semblance of life. She was just thankful that Tom Riddle was not amongst those who had been strong enough to remain tethered to the world.
Even though the world was still healing from the wounds wrought by her grandson, wounds that had only been incurred because of her own son, she knew that mankind was resilient. There were over six billion people on the planet, an abundance of life still existing even though millions had died in the wake of The Lord of Shadows.
But evil was also resilient and it was gaining a foothold in the world.
Because when Albus had gone insane and raised the legion of Shadows to fester within his heart, he had unknowingly damaged the Seals cast upon The Doors of Death.
And if Lily Evans Potter –who had been sent back to atone for the sins of her descendants – did not find a way to stop The Dark Lady, she knew that the entire world may soon descend into blood, shadow and fire.
A/N
Well hello again my dear readers, I hope you're enjoying the sequel to "The Good Son" so far. This story takes place six years after the events of "The Good Son" but runs compliant with the epilogue.
Please bear in mind that the concepts of life and death, love and hate, forgiveness and in some cases the afterlife all play heavily on the series. I hope this does not offend any of you.
I hope you all enjoy this story which will be about ten-fifteen chapters.
Remember to leave me your thoughts in a review; I want to see what you think of this new arc of the story.