Chapter 80: Guests?(Read this chapter before the previous one)

A.N.: GUYS I POSTED THE WRONG CHAPTER YESTERDAY. DAMN!!! WHY DID ANYONE NOT SAY THAT SOMETHING WAS FISHY. That was chapter 81. This chapter 80. Check the ending of chapter 79 before reading this.

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I stood in front of Esmée as she looked at the Nyxie in fascination.

Haah, this is going to be easy. Afterall, it is very easy to make a good impression on kids. Even though Dumbledore is quite pathetic and sometimes evil, that doesn't mean you can't learn anything useful from him.

Bending down in front of Esmée, I pinched her cheeks lightly.

"Esmée, do you want to try touching her?"

Esmée had nodded her head.

"Then, call me big brother and we'll play with the dragon together." I smiled.

Esmée looked at the dragon, then at me. "Big Brudh-uh." She said, at once.

Cuteness meter 200% !!!!

I patted her head. "Verryyy good. I'm your brother. Do you know what brothers do? They play with their sister and make her happy!" Kids with no siblings often feel lonely with no one to play with. So, I think she'll be happy to know that now she has someone to play with. Anyways, she wouldn't happen to have any friends right now, would she?

With that, I taught her how to pet Nyxie. Nyxie always enjoys attention. And this is the first time I've allowed her to interact with people other than Dora. So, similar to how Esmée was curious about Nyxie, Nyxie also looked at Esmée like she was looking at a rare animal to play with. Thus, I couldn't tell who was playing with whom. Anyway, upto now, Nyxie has only shown aggressiveness against Dora and Andrea.

Half an hour later, I was running around in the greenery of the estate with Esmée on my shoulder, chasing Nyxie, who was flying just out of our reach. And Esmée smiled and laugh for the first time in my presence. Too bad she was on my shoulders, so I couldn't actually see her.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Camille and Durant watching the scene warmly. Camille shed wiped the tears from the corner of her eyes. And wait—is that a smile I see on Durant's face!? Damn, so he can smile as well.

I'm glad things seem to have worked out. I would have left silently if my presence was unwelcome... I'm not that desperate. But seeing them overreacting to the letter, I decided to just roll with.

We played for about an hour more. Surprisingly, the one who seemed to be enjoying the playing was, in fact, Nyxie. She is, after all, a baby. And I felt very guilty for not being able to play with her enough before at Hogwarts. I also always had to be careful not to let Dumbledore see her so we didn't get much time to play.

Not long after, Camille called us back.

"What? We're having guests?" I was a bit startled to hear that, but now that I think about it, it was nothing out of the ordinary. It was, after all, a fine Sunday afternoon. They obviously had their plans. "Mrs. Martin, I sincerely apologise for suddenly intruding upon you on such a fine Sunday morning. I shall make myself scarce for the duration of the visiting of guests." I said in formal french exaggeratedly. I was actually feeling a bit awkward, so I just made a joke out if it.

Camille pulled my cheeks. "First of all, it's not guests. They're more like family friends. Their elder daughter is learning dueling from your dad and their younger daughter is best friends with Esmée. They're of same age. And you, young man are going no-where. We're going to introduce you as our first born son to the magical France anyway. Don't you act like a stranger. You are family! You always were." She said said, as she put her hand on my cheek.

I was moved. I don't know why or how, but Camille never once doubted me from the beginning. But Durant on the other hand,

I need to be careful of him. He's still wary of me. And this is not me being paranoid. I have ample evidence. I don't want him having any suspicions about my identity.

So, playing Esmée was actually me calling timeout to think everything through before I take my next steps. I'm not so carefree as to totally start playing around without actually making everything smooth.

I smiled at Camille, then looked at Durant. "Father, do we have a few minutes before the they arrive?"

Seeing him nod, I remembered he was still under silencing charm!

"..."

He's totally a henpecked husband, isn't he?

But right now, there was a serious issue to be addressed.

"Can you apparate us to Place Cachée? Near Gringotts?" I asked, as I put my arm out for him to take us there.

I have been avoiding eye contact with him for a while now. Yeah, he had tried to read my mind. Just a very subtle brushing on the surface, to read my surface thoughts. I don't think he's suspicious, per se, but it's more like he's trying to reassure himself by just confirming that I'm real. At that time, I'd sent some ideal thoughts to him since suddenly breaking eye contact would be suspicious and my solid mind shields even more. After that, I acted naturally but made it look like I was scared of him, hence not looking directly at him.

He's the head of Auror department, so it's understandable that he'd find even ordinary things suspicious. His point of view about me would be something like this:

If I'm not real, than that would mean that I'm under polyjuice AND I've somehow bypassed the wards. But really, if the kidnappers had the real me's body, then they could do some ritual to grant another person the immunity from wards through my blood. Just theoretically. The rituals are lost and those were also quite risky.

So, I can, 'theoretically' be a fake. The only thing that can't be faked, is the Gringotts blood test, that test not only tests your blood, but the magic in your blood, along with a few obscure properties that remain in your blood even if you've replaced your blood with someone's else's blood through rituals.

Voldemort wouldn't have been a Potter even after he replaced his blood with Harry's.

Blood isn't just erythrocytes, leukocytes, and the thrombocytes. That's just the limit of what muggles can see.

But the thing with that Gringotts test is that, the kidnappers could have just dripped the blood into the machine directly from the real body, and then I, the imoster, polyjuiced the myself, performed the ritual, and brought the paper with me.

So, since it's theoretically a possibility— except such rituals are lost—but, since there's a possibility, I can't blame him for trying make sure that I was real. Afterall, it is — a matter of family.

With a soft *crack* we sunk into space and emerged right in front of GFF—Gringotts French Franchise.

He can apparate from inside the wards since he has admin level privileges.

"Why are we here?" Asked Durant.

"Oh, you're allowed to speak now?" I asked, though I didn't answer his question and just walked into Gringotts.

All suspicions would be gone once I do the test. The only one would be, that I'm under imperius. But I know that my Auror dad has already crossed that possiblity, since— *complicated, those who don't wanna, just skip*

[That possiblity is already crossed since, the things I've been doing are far too complicated to be done in just a few order of the imperius curse. That means, that the one who casted the spell has to be in a close range to keep giving me orders, but the wards would block anyone without the right blood.

What if the other person has gone through the ritual of blood to bypass the wards? What if the imposter was also there in the manor, under invisibility? How did Durant cross that possiblity?

It's in Auror training, trusty me, I know since I helped Dora a lot. The solution to this is quite simple. And Durant used the same method. When I was in the manor, I 'felt' the magic of a Presence Detection charm, Homenum Revelio being casted. I felt it because it scanned my presence and I can sense magic. It obviously wouldn't have been able to detect any other disillusioned or invisibility cloaked presence near me since there was none.]

Thus, I only have to show him the test live, and we're cool.

We reached the teller and he ask,

"Yes?"

"I'd like another blood inheritance test."

"Another 100 Bezant."

"Take it from the Martin vault."

The goblin looked at Durant for confirmation.

"..."

Durant looked at me with a complicated expression.

"What? You don't have enough money? Just nod your head and we'll be out of here in 5 minutes! I need another one and it can't be duplicated and I don't have money." I said, giving him an out.

In the end, Durant sighed and paid the Bezants.

Money wasn't the issue for both of us.

***

As we apparated directly into the sitting room of our manion.

"Oh finally! You're here! Where did you two go? You guys are just in time, they'll be here anytime." Asked Camille as gave orders to a house elf.

HOUSE ELF??? DAMN! how did I forget to calculate house elves?!

"Mom? How come the house elves didn't my presence?"

"Hmm? Why would they? They're bonded to us. Not the manor wards."

I sighed at my good luck. That's how they detected Harry's presence last time. They were bonded to the manor's wards.

"So, who's coming?"

"It's the Delacours. They're a prominent family in France. They're very nice people."

"...."

.... What did she just say?

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now read chapter 81.

After this blunder, I really can't bring myself to ask for powerstones •́ ‿ ,•̀

chapter 82,83,84,85 on pátreon.