The Necromancer

Chapter 13

Once seated behind his desk in the library, Harry wrote down the prophecy word for word. Then he brushed his thumb across his amulet and in moments his family appeared around him.

Before Harry could even start to explain what had just happened, Auntie Eustice cleared her throat and gave Harry a rather disappointed look. “Since you forgot to assign someone to spy on Voldemort yesterday before you so suddenly dismissed us, I have taken up that particular job myself. You’re welcome.”

“Oh?” Lily floated over to Auntie Eustice. “What did you see? What did Voldemort do?”

Auntie Eustice took a moment to gaze around the circle of family, making sure she had everyone’s undivided attention. “I saw a man who is very tall, and very handsome. Really, quite sophisticated.” Auntie Eustice ignored Lily’s loud noise of disbelief. “And he has a library! Not in the Muggle mansion he’s staying at, though he has an interesting collection of books there as well. I followed him to his private home, a lovely cottage somewhere in the countryside, magically expanded on the inside, of course, and with one of the most amazing libraries I have ever seen. Truly magnificent.”

“Yes, yes,” Patroclus said with an impatient wave of his hand. “But what did Voldemort actually do?”

“Went back to his Muggle mansion with a few books and started reading a most fascinating treatise on the use of rhodium in alchemy, which you must procure, nephew, because the author just got to the point after a hundred pages of tedious research and your summoning made me miss it.” Auntie Eustice gave Harry a flinty look.

Patroclus ran both hands down his face while heaving a deep sigh. Meanwhile, Dorea and Charis seemed mostly amused while Lily appeared close to blowing up right in Auntie Eustice’s face.

“Dumbledore showed me the prophecy,” Harry blurted, because he had no desire to sit through his family’s usual bickering while there were real problems to be solved. He couldn’t give two shits what Voldemort had done that day, though the library did sound intriguing.

“What prophecy?” Euphemia asked with a confused curve of her eyebrows. Most others had similar looks on their faces.

Most, but not all.

James and Lily looked utterly resigned as they floated closer to Harry’s desk.

“You knew?” Harry asked quietly, unsure how he was supposed to feel about this. Apparently he wasn’t the only one keeping secrets.

“Harry,” Lily said with a sigh as she gave her son a pleading look. “You were so young when we first told you about Voldemort and the wizarding war.”

“And later you had all that nasty business with Rylan,” James added with a shrug while offering Harry a sympathetic smile. “And once you started rebuilding Sildar and it seemed that you’d be spending the rest of your life there it hardly mattered anymore.”

“All right.” Harry nodded few times, letting all that sink in. He could understand his parents’ reasoning. It amused him that in some ways their reasoning was similar to his own reasoning of keeping V’s origins a secret.

“Besides,” Lily added. “Dumbledore only ever told us the first few lines of the prophecy, and they were so vague we were never even sure if they applied to you.” Lily glanced down, smile slipping off her face. “Though I suppose Voldemort believed it enough to come after us.”