The Boy Who Lived

Stupid Bloody Letter

June crept into July and nothing much changed. That is, Harry was stressed (and frustrated) and his magic was haywire and he still felt restless with the repeated pull to Godric's Hollow. The two main contributors to his stress were Fucking Finch-Fletchley and Draco. Though Pansy Parkinson suddenly stepped in as a strong third contender to turn his life into a shitfest.

Justin was being non-forthcoming in his promises of more information: 'they won't tell me anything, I don't think they trust me...' he'd whinge. Harry knew he hadn't left his house. After tracking him for two months, it could be categorically concluded that the man was incredibly boring. And no matter how much prodding they did into his history, it came up with nothing. No affiliations, no suggestions of nefarious connections, nothing. He was an upper-class Muggleborn with no connections in the Wizarding World before he went to Hogwarts. But Harry knew that from school. Even his bank account was clean, nothing usual beyond his monthly wage, the usual bills and weekly shopping, occasional purchases for himself but nothing unusual, and 500 Galleons being set aside as savings into a tax-free overseas bank account every month, the equivalent amount of £2500 from his Muggle trust fund also went into the same account. Not illegal in itself even if some considered it underhand. It was enough to sow doubts and suggest that perhaps he'd been telling the truth. Though Bill Weasley had promised to do some further digging.

The situation with Draco also stayed frustratingly stagnant. At least they didn't talk about sex again but they still shared a bed once or twice a week, he met Harry after his runs when he got soaked, door handles fell off regularly. Kreacher had acquired the new job of frequently repairing door handles, plasterwork, and occasional pieces of furniture which Harry's magic had a habit of destroying when they were in close proximity for any length of time. Both were ardently ignoring that situation and Harry was just going for longer and longer runs.

Kreacher, in comparison to Harry's tormented soul, was horrendously happy. He taken to singing as he set the table. Singing... Harry let it slide. And as he sat at the head of the table with Draco to his right and Teddy on his left and took a sip of the chilled white wine, savouring the refreshing delicacy with his dinner, he became certain that Kreacher was also delving into a hidden Black wine cellar and producing the best wine for Draco because he was sure it was never this good when it was just him.

Then July brought another complication into his life in the form of a letter just before his twenty-second birthday. And that was when Harry had Pansy Parkinson distinctly adding to his stress.

On Monday, 28th July 2002, three days before Harry's twenty-second birthday, Harry had sighed heavily as he surveyed his overflowing in-tray with distaste.

He disliked Monday mornings intensely.

He absentmindedly scratched Hercules's ear as the dog rested his head on Harry's knee under his desk. Considering Hercules had been a runt, he had grown considerably in the past few months and was now surprisingly large, it meant there wasn't room for the enormous, clumsy puppy in the footwell, but it had started when Hercules was tiny and neither of them seemed to have grown out of the habit.

He glared at the paperwork. For a few weeks, he'd a growing suspicion that Raquel, was to blame and she waited until he left on Friday evenings and then dumped all the stuff she hadn't dealt with back in his in-tray. Harry's mistrust had grown sufficiently for him to set up a surveillance spell before the weekend. Sure enough, when he checked that morning, his suspicions were confirmed. That meant giving her yet another warning. Still, this was strike three.

Bloody Raquel...

He lifted a pile of internal memos and post from his in-tray to start the tedious job of sifting through it. When he pulled the first letter out of its envelope, he got a shock of his life. He received a letter from the Department of Genealogy in the Ministry of Magic that read: