MetaFic

Scene 13.0

1 Jan 1992

“Bye, Harry, Seamus,” Hermione said as she headed to the floo connection in the living room.  “It was nice to meet you, Cat.”  She smiled brightly, but Cat offered only a half-wave and a borderline pout, which had Seamus nudging Harry in the ribs.

“Bye, Hermione,” Harry replied.  “See you on the train.” 

She had barely vanished in a flash of flames and a wisp of smoke when Cat rounded on Seamus and Harry.  “She’s the one that spends all her time with Michael?”

Seamus shrugged while Harry eyed Cat with a good deal of caution.  Her jealousy had been readily apparent ever since Hermione had arrived, though it was unclear what precisely she was jealous of.  “She’s in Ravenclaw, so we don’t really know who she spends her time with,” he offered in what he thought was a reasonable tone.

“She didn’t seem so close to him tonight,” Cat bit out. 

Before Harry or Seamus could say anything in return, Aoife and Darius came up from the cellar, having returned most of the New Year’s Eve party materials to storage while Neville, Michael, Ron, and Hermione left.  The adults glanced around at the remaining chaos from the afternoon’s get-together and exchanged a glance before shaking their heads for a moment.

“Seamus, Cat, you two run on and clean up the mess, would you?” Darius’ voice ended their frozen conversation.  “We need to talk to Harry in the kitchen for a bit.”

Harry shrugged at Seamus’ arched eyebrow and ignored Cat’s now-blatant pout.  She had been quite clingy over the holidays; enough so that he had almost enjoyed the solitude of his Aunt’s house.  

When he followed his Foster father into the kitchen, Aoife shut the door firmly behind them and then used her wand to cast several spells.  Such precautions were unusual enough that Harry knew they were going to discuss something serious.  The only problem was that he had no idea what he had done to warrant such a conversation.

“Harry,” Aoife said as she sat down, “since you said you’d probably stay at the castle during the Easter hols, we need to talk to you about this summer.”

“Oh,” he said in reply, feeling a bit of depression coming on.  He disliked thinking about what would happen.  “You mean when the Fosterage ends, right?”

“Yes,” Darius said, sliding a scroll across the table to rest in front of Harry.  “We’ve shown you this before, but if you want to look at it again, feel free.  I’m sorry to say that the parts that are obscured to all of us will remain that way until the contract is terminated on the first of July.”

Harry idly pulled the scroll closer and unrolled it.  While most of it was boiler-plate phrasing he had read several times, entire sections of the document were magically protected by fuzzy grey blobs.  “And you still can’t tell me any more details than I already know?  Not even the name of the family that set this up?”

“Not really, Harry. I’m sorry,” Aoife said.  “The contract binds us just as much as it binds you, so we can’t talk about those portions without the leave of the others.  I’ve told you before that you’ll be well cared for after you leave us, and we hope you’ll have friends there.  The most important thing is what we’ve said all along – we will always be here for you, and you will always have a place with us.  We want to see you as often as we can, and it’s not like Seamus or Cat will stop wanting to spend their free time with you just because you’re not living here.”

“Yeah,” Harry said, letting the scroll roll back together and leaving it on the table.  “I know that, I guess.  I just wish this was my real home, you know?  That I didn’t have to go to my bloody-minded Aunt and this contract said I could stay here all the time.”  He knew he was thinking in dangerous territory, as the specific restrictions on what he considered ‘home’ and ‘family’ had been drilled into him many, many times even though he had never been given a good reason for that.

“You know we feel the same, Harry,” Darius said while briefly placing a gentle hand on Harry’s shoulder.  “Until you’re legally an adult, however, we all have to play along with the hand we’ve been given.”

“Yeah, I understand that.”  Harry shrugged briefly.  “You said before that you can’t explain to me the why of it all, or what’s obscured.  I guess I just have to wait to find out the details.”

“Sometimes the details are important, and sometimes they aren’t,” Darius said after a long moment.  “I’m not sure I care about the details, really.  I mostly just want to be sure you’ll be happy and safe.”

“I still don’t see why everyone’s so concerned about safety,” Harry replied.  “I’ve been safe here the whole time, and nothing’s happened at Hogwarts other than that Quidditch accident.”

“Maybe,” Darius said, which caused Aoife to inhale sharply.  Harry looked at his Foster mum, recognizing the signs that there was something more going on than he had been told about.  “The school may think it was just an accident, Harry, and all the indicators point that way.  But it’s a bit of a coincidence it happened to you, isn’t it?”

“Well,” Harry said slowly, drawing it out to give himself time to think.  “It wasn’t like I was there by myself, or that I was even the first or last person on the stairs.  And no one else was around, so . . . Look, I know we’ve talked about my being careful in public and cautious about other people.  That’s fine. But I really do think it was just an accident.”

Darius shrugged, and Aoife drew Harry’s attention with a nod.  “It probably was,” she said.  “That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t remember it if other things start to happen, though, does it?”

“No, of course not,” Harry agreed.  “I’m just saying that I haven’t seen anyone or anything out to get me.  Well, other than this contract business,” he said while poking the scroll on the table.

“If it helps any,” Aoife said after a moment, “I don’t think the others involved were very happy, either.  I had the impression they were also being forced to do something they didn’t want to do.”

Harry decided to finally ask the question he had never been given a clear answer on.  “Since I’ll soon be living somewhere else, can you finally tell me why I really have to call Aunt Petunia’s place home and visit her?  I’d much rather not, though you’ve heard me say that before.” 

Darius waved briefly at Aoife, handing off the entire conversation to her.  Harry knew his Foster father tended to do that when obscure bits of magic were involved in something, and this confirmation of the odd situation was completely expected. 

For her part, Aoife looked uncomfortable discussing the topic yet again.  “Well,” she began, “you know that we had very little choice in honoring the request for the Fosterage Contract.  It was very clear to us when we were contacted that there were other contracts operating on the other parties involved.  That’s why I think they weren’t very happy with being forced into something, either.  But you know that we’ve said we are very happy to have you, we just didn’t want to be forced, right?”

Harry nodded.  They had told him for years that while the circumstances were out of their control and made things hard at first, they could not be happier than with him living there. 

“One thing about contracts that involve magic is that the intent can be more important than the actual words.  In this case, the contracts hinge on what ‘home’ means, and there are very serious and dangerous repercussions if you ever think of anyplace other than your Aunt’s house as ‘home’ before you’re an adult.  The power of the contracts is based primarily on how you feel, Harry, and then it’s transferred to where you think of as ‘home’ in a literal sense of magical energy.  You have to go there to affect the transfer.”

“Okay,” Harry replied, having had suspicions about some of these issues for a while.  “That’s not entirely surprising, I suppose.  I just don’t understand why she wanted me to keep thinking of her place as home, rather than letting me go completely.  It’s not like she wants me there any more than I want to be there.”

“I’m sorry, Harry,” Aoife said for what had to be the millionth time.  “That’s something we don’t understand, either.  We both wish you didn’t have to go back there, and we wish that you could call this house your real home.  But the terms of the contract are based on the definitions, so no matter how much all of us may dislike your real ‘home,’ we were required to raise you to think of it that way.”

“I expect,” Darius said into the resulting silence, “that most if not all of the remaining secrets will be explained this summer.  But Aoife and I both know that there are, or there were, things even they don’t know – the ones who arranged the contracts to us – and whether those details will also somehow come out, well . . . only time will tell.”

Harry sighed, rolling the scroll back and forth between his hands.  “Given how well things have turned out while staying here, I can always hope everything turns out equally well for the next bit, right?”

Aoife smiled tightly for a moment before taking Harry’s hand in hers.  “I think if you give them a chance, you’ll find another happy family to be a part of.  But if you’re willing, we would be very happy to continue celebrating birthdays and holidays together.”

Harry understood that the melancholy he felt when thinking about the impending change in his life was affecting Aoife and Darius as well, so he squeezed her hand in reply.  “I’d like that, truly.”  He then smiled wickedly for a moment before he said, “And it’s not like you’ll let me escape Cat so easily, or else she’ll take her jealousy out on you, too.”