Chapter 6 of 30
Telling Chris
“They seemed nice enough. Of course we knew that already. James and Lily told us.”
“Humph, nice,” came the snort from the bed.
Remus turned around and eyed his partner who was sulking, because there was no better way to put it, with his arms crossed over his chest, his legs firmly and straightly planted in front of him, his back resting rigidly on the backboard and a scowl on his face that reminded him of a toddler who was told to share his favorite toy. He finished straightening his pajama top and closed the closet’s door. He walked towards the bed and got on it slowly laying down next to Sirius. Turned on his side, elbow resting on the mattress and head on his hand and smiled cheekily at Sirius.
“Problems Padfoot?”
“None whatsoever. I’m very thrilled to meet Chris’s nice and not on the run parents. Wohoo!”
“You’re jealous!” Remus smiled.
“Absolutely not!”
“Chris adores you.”
“Yeah, wait till he meets his World War Hero, former angel dad,” Sirius snorted.
“You’re a war hero too, besides. This isn’t a competition,” Remus said calmly.
Sirius shrugged uncomfortable, “I know, s’ just- we were going to be a family you know? Before Peter got away- and now they’re here, and they can be his family and there is nothing stopping them from, and what if he just leaves with them and we never hear from him again-“
Remus stopped Sirius rambling with a gentle hand on his arm. He gently tugged Sirius’s hand out of the deadlock it was in and squeezed it.
“He won’t Padfoot. He loves you, he adores you and he loves the Wizarding world. We’ll just have to share him. But believe me, Chris’s heart is more than big enough for all of us.”
Sirius looked morosely at his hand and hoped he wasn’t going to lose his godson just when he got him back.
“Oh, and we have problems. Olivia defended Chris but there are some of our students that don’t believe her at all and think he cheated,” Wyatt told his parents the next morning in their quarters. He had been pulled to the celebration with the rest of the Magic School students and by the time he had gone back to the tower Chris had already gone to his room. So all Wyatt had to go by was his feelings which had ranged from fear to annoyance.
Leo sighed and rubbed his temple from the couch he was sitting on, “We couldn’t expect all of them to believe. They are kids after all.”
“Hey! I take offense to that?” Wyatt cried and crossed his arm scowling down at his father.
“Really? If it had been any other Hogwarts’ student other than Chris, would you believe him?”
Wyatt fidgeted a little and tried to say yes but conceded in the end dropping down on an armchair that faced the couch his parents were on.
“The only reason Olivia believes him is because she is an Empath,” Leo stated simply. He knew Chris would have a tough time. This morning at breakfast the rumors were still running wild and even though Leo and Piper stalled all they could they did not see Chris coming down. They did see his friend Hermione coming and picking up some breakfast to go and shooting a dark look towards their other friend Ron.
“What was up with Hermione and Ron this morning?” he asked Wyatt.
Wyatt looked at them sadly, “I heard Ron and Chris fought last night. Ron doesn’t believe him either.” Leo sighed. Chris was going to need his friends more than ever now. This fight could not have come at a worse moment. “When are we telling him?” Wyatt asked.
“Remus contacted us,” Piper explained skipping the part where she almost had a heart attack when Remus’s head showed up in the fireplace. “He managed to contact Dumbledore and say Sirius wants to talk to Chris personally about this whole Goblet business and in private. They’re coming later today and using something called the Room of Requirements. Remus gave us instructions, we’re supposed to meet them there. But we have to be careful, make sure Dumbledore isn’t there more than ever. I did not like how he didn’t even try to consider getting Chris out of the tournament.”
“But once he knows,” Wyatt asked. “Then you can take over and get him out of the Tournament right?”
Leo and Piper looked at Wyatt’s eager face sadly and Leo shook his head, “Not without killing him. He’ll have to compete.”
“What? But he is a minor! Mom!” Wyatt turned to his mother so she could just go and stop this nonsense but Piper had tears in her eyes when she shook her head and explained about the Unbreakable Vow. Wyatt looked astounded. Never in his life had his parents not managed to save them. Wyatt still had that firm belief that his parents were capable of anything, no matter what. But that wasn’t true, was it? Back when Chris was born they hadn’t been able to take on the Elders and the Cleaners together and now, all the power in the world couldn’t prevent Chris from competing.
Chris had avoided the student population for most of the morning. First by getting up later than most and then by staying by the lake with Hermione. He had written Sirius the letter Hermione had insisted on him writing and was about to go to the owlery to post it when the weirdest thing in the world happened. A Patronus, that looked an awful lot like Padfoot, intercepted his way to the owlery and said, yes, to Chris’s utter amazement the Patronus spoke, with Remus voice, to meet him later that afternoon in a place called the Room of Requirements, giving him precise explanation of how to get there. Chris made a note to ask Remus to teach him that Patronus trick. So, figuring Remus and Sirius must have already read the papers, Chris stored his letter away, hoping they’d believe him.
After getting over their shock over the talking Patronus, Hermione asked Chris if he wanted to go back to the Tower. Going back to the Tower and meeting people’s elation over having a Gryffindor champion or disgruntlement over his alleged cheating had not been appealing to him. He especially did not want to be around Ron. He was pretty hurt by Ron’s attitude. He thought Ron had known him well enough to know he’d never want to attract that kind of attention to himself, but apparently he didn’t.
But, when Hermione brought up the Tower it did also remind Chris of something else. Something he’d been curious since last night. So instead he told Hermione he’d meet her at lunch and went looking for someone else, who he found in the library not much later. He approached the table she was sitting at cautiously. She had seemed nice, and she didn’t seem to hate him, but better safe than sorry.
“Hi,” Chris approached Olivia awkwardly. “Can I ask you something?”
“I’m not mad at you,” she assured him looking up from the book she was reading.
“No, it’s not that. You said you’re an Empath, that you can feel what we feel.”
“Yes.”
Chris nodded and bit his lip. He looked around. “I think I can too. But I didn’t know before, you know, what that meant. I just thought everyone could do that.”
Olivia frowned, “Not everyone. But I thought that after centuries of focusing your magic in other ways Wizards didn’t develop active powers that way anymore. That you needed spell casting and wands to focus.”
“Well, sometimes we do accidental magic,” Chris shrugged.
“Yeah, but that’s before you learn to control your magic,” she bit her lip. “You know what. We better ask Leo.”
“Uh?’
“The Headmaster.”
“You call him by his first name?” Chris looked properly scandalized, “That’s disrespectful!”
Olivia shrugged, “Each culture has their own way to measure respect. Leo doesn’t mind.”
“I couldn’t call Professor Dumbledore by his first name to his face,” Chris said aghast as Olivia took his hand and steered him away.
Leo stared at Olivia and Chris and didn’t know what to say. For one he really didn’t want to lie to his son when he knew that later today he could explain exactly why Chris had active powers and two, he couldn’t stop the guilty feeling ripping his gut. Chris was an Empath, he had been an Empath all along and now Future Chris’s insistence on the sisters taking the empathy blocking potion made enormous sense, but Leo never took it. All along his son had known exactly how he felt. But that’s the problem, he hadn’t felt that way towards his son, he had felt that way towards a mysterious stranger’s whose motives he didn’t know and who was such an easy target for the anger he was feeling at himself for ruining his own marriage. And it had taken finding out he was his son, and seeing rage in his own son’s eyes directed at him for him to do the required soul searching he needed to understand his own feelings.
He could only hope his son had also felt the love and pride he had for him.
Chris squirmed in his seat and Leo realized he was obviously confused at what he was feeling from Leo. Could he recognize the feeling? From what Remus said he hadn’t had much love in his life. Was he capable of knowing that what Piper and Leo felt for him was love?
“You are sure you can feel what everyone else is feeling?” he asked.
“Not everyone. I never got anything from Dumbledore or Snape, and now that I think about it from Moody either. Oh, and your wife too. She’s weird…er no offense…I mean, I get a feeling of familiarity, a presence that I’ve felt before but I don’t know what she is feeling.”
That made sense, the presence would be Chris half-Elder’s sensing powers, “Piper takes an empathy blocking potion regularly. One of her sisters is an Empath, and a butty one at that. So to avoid murder and massacre between the sisters they’ve taken the potion ever since she developed her powers.”
Chris nodded but continued staring at him as if he had all the answers in the world.
“Have you had many problems with it?” Leo asked.
Chris shook his head, “No, I guess I learned to not let them overwhelm me when I was smaller,” and he had to, because there would be no back talking at the Dursleys, which happened a few times when Chris didn’t have control of it and he channeled his Uncle’s anger and hate. That’s two feelings he learned to distinguish early on. “I just wanted to understand why I have it if no one else in the Wizarding world does. I thought it was common, but then again I thought being a parselmouth was too,” he finished in a mutter.
Leo was stumped, he couldn’t explain to Chris that there was nothing different with him, after all it was normal for him to develop active powers since he was the child of a Wiccan witch, but he couldn’t do that exactly now.
“Oh, and if there was a way to block it out completely, I’d love that,” Chris added and Leo smiled, finally an answer he could give.
“There is,” and he saw Olivia nod. “Olivia has developed her power recently so she hasn’t learned how to yet but my sister-in-law, who actually was the one coaching Olivia can help you. I’ll talk to her.”
Chris nodded happily and thanked Leo profusely. Leo couldn’t help the nice feeling of being able to help his son. He just hoped that in a few hours that gratefulness didn’t turn into hate.
“I heard Mrs. Halliwell had to defend Potter,” Malfoy sneered loudly as Chris and Hermione were crossing the doors of the Great Hall after lunch, not even caring that Wyatt was in hearing distance, just a little way behind Chris. Wyatt had managed to sit next to Chris and Hermione and had struck a random conversation with them. He hadn’t wanted to seem like a stalker so he just asked a random question. What’s Quidditch? That had Chris talking his ear off and Hermione tuning out and tutting every now and then. That also had Chris stealing melancholic glances towards the other end of the table where Ron was seated. Wyatt just let Chris talk, and after hearing what Quidditch was made a note to keep that knowledge from Piper as long as possible, especially since Chris offered to take Wyatt out flying if he wanted to. No, his mom better stay out of the loop or Wyatt would never see the sky up close. He could just imagine it and was practically drooling in anticipation.
He heard Hermione mutter to Chris, “Ignore it,” and force him to keep going.
“I do feel sorry for people who have absolutely no one in the world who cares for them that they have to resort to werewolves and blood-traitor-“
This was just too much apparently because Chris abruptly turned around and if not for Wyatt’s fast reflexes and him and Hermione holding him back Malfoy would be sporting a black eye now.
“Remus is worth a hundred times what you are Malfoy!” he growled but Wyatt and Hermione pulled him backwards until they were outside the Great Hall and Chris walked at an enormous speed towards the stairs. Hermione and Wyatt ran after him.
“He just wanted to rile you up,” Hermione tried to calm him down as they arrived on the first floor.
“Yeah, but he didn’t lie did he?” Chris said bitterly. He looked at Wyatt and Wyatt thought he’d tell him to mind his own business when he suddenly asked, “What’s it like to have parents? To have someone to take care of you when you need? I never knew. I never had someone.”
Wyatt’s heart constricted but he said softly, “Sometimes the people who love us can’t be next to us but that doesn’t mean they don’t worry. That they don’t care. I’m sure you have someone. They just can’t be with you.”
Wyatt was talking about his parents but Chris had nodded knowingly and Wyatt figured he must be thinking of Sirius.
“Will you stop pacing? You’ll ruin my carpet and I don’t have the money to buy another one,” Remus grumbled rubbing his temple. It had been like that all morning, since that owl came with the Daily Prophet and its headline.
“Hogwarts with two Champions!”
Sirius had ranted at Dumbledore’s inefficiency. At how he had promised he’d taken every measure to protect Chris and had failed and how he’d just yank Chris from school and be done with it. They were scheduled for a long talk with Dumbledore before they met Chris. That was in about half an hour. Remus would floo with his dog to Hogwarts.
That had been arranged that morning. It was now two o’clock and ever since that morning Sirius had paced and ranted. Remus had given up a while ago and had dropped on the armchair tiredly just watching Sirius. It wasn’t that he wasn’t just as terrified as Sirius. He wasn’t stupid, this was obviously either Voldemort’s doing or some Death Eater who wanted to prove themselves. But considering the dream Chris had at the beginning of the summer he was putting his money on Voldemort. He just didn’t think getting worked up was of any use.
Sirius glared at Remus, he didn’t want to be calm like Remus had been telling him to do. Didn’t Remus see it? It would be extremely easy to kill Chris on one of the tasks and chalk it up as an accident. And if his worry wasn’t enough he also had to tell Chris about being adopted! Now that was a conversation he didn’t even know how to begin! It would have been completely different if Sirius had been allowed to raise Chris. Then he would have had time to prepare Chris. He would have told him from the beginning all about having had two sets of parents. But now, now Chris had been told his whole life that he was James and Lily’s son and he had to go and tell him otherwise.
He rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hand, and sighed. It wouldn’t help that they were going to have to explain why everyone said he looked so much like James. He didn’t. Not more than Sirius did. But as a baby James and Lily had started saying that so no one would be suspicious. And then, with the passing of time, the absence of James and the certainty that his son looked just like him, people just probably started replacing James’ features with Chris’s in their mind. Never seeing past the messy black hair and the glasses.
“Is it time yet?” he asked for the hundredth time. Remus didn’t deign him with an answer this time. He just received a glare.
“But you didn’t hear him?” Piper said sadly and she looked down at her hands. She had seen the confrontation between Chris and Malfoy and had followed Chris, Hermione and Wyatt from a little distance, unseen. Leo looked at his wife who was dejectedly seated in the coffee table of the living room of their guest quarters. He kneeled down and took her hands.
“We didn’t know. We thought he was being taken care of.”
He understood what she felt, he’d give anything to erase whatever hardship Chris had gone through but at the same time he knew they hadn’t had another option. If they hadn’t acted the Cleaners would have erased Chris.
“Sirius and Remus will be here shortly and then we’ll talk to him. I thought- I thought maybe it would be best if they talked with him first.”
Piper looked up startled, “But we have to explain-“
“We will,” Leo tried to calm her. “But I thought better of it and, this won’t be easy for him. He needs to be free to express his fears, anger-yes Piper, there’s a chance he will be angry. He is a fourteen year old boy who has been neglected when he had a loving family and it might take a while for him to understand why we left him there-“
“We didn’t know,” she whispered.
“And we’ll tell him that, but it’s not fair to him to force this. We need to do this gently and like it or not Remus and Sirius are the ones who he will be most comfortable with.”
Piper bit her lip and nodded. Leo smiled sadly and kissed her forehead.
“I’ll go tell them.”
“Tell them we’ll be here, if Chris wants to talk to us. We’ll be here,” she said frantically.
“We will. I’ll tell them,” he squeezed her hand one more time before he left.
Chris hugged Sirius like his life depended on it and Sirius hugged him back.
“Look at you? Did you grow since the last time I saw you?” Sirius made a face getting on the tip of his toes and exaggerating the motion of measuring down, “Nope, still a midget.”
Chris chuckled and then bit his lips nervously. He had followed Remus instructions to the letter and found them in the Room of Requirements. The room looked oddly like the Gryffindor common room. He chanced a look at Remus. Chris couldn’t feel any anger from them but they were exuding nervousness and fear.
“I didn’t put my name in the Goblet,” Chris blurted out.
“We know Chris. We’ve already talked with Dumbledore,” Sirius said calmly even though he was feeling anything but. And talked might have been an understatement. He had yelled at Dumbledore. A lot. “Unfortunately there’s nothing we can do to get you out of the Tournament, but that doesn’t mean we won’t help you.”
Chris nodded nervously. At least they weren’t angry, and he already knew that, “Yeah, Mr. Wyatt said so. He didn’t seem to like it either.”
Remus sat next to Sirius and asked, “He didn’t?”
“No,” Chris shook his head, “It was weird, he and his wife, all the other Heads were accusing me and fighting with Dumbledore, but they were actually defending me,” he shrugged. “It was nice, different.”
Sirius and Remus exchanged looks. Sirius licked his lips and said, “Actually Chris, the Halliwells are the reason we’re here.”
“What? But they seemed nice,” Chris asked shocked. “Don’t tell me they’re out to get me too!”
“They are, I mean they aren’t,” Remus stumbled in his answer, “They are not out to get you and they are nice,” he took a deep breath and assured Chris. “It’s- it’s-“
“They’re your parents,” Sirius blurted out unable to take the tension anymore. “They asked Lily and James to adopt you to protect you from the Elders who wanted to erase you.”
Chris stood up abruptly and shrieked: “WHAT?”