chapter 9

Harry felt like his head had barely hit the pillow when he awoke to find bright sunlight streaming through the open curtains that hung in front of the large window of the bedroom that he had been shown to the night before.

"Ah, the young sir is up then," said a voice.

Harry rolled over onto his side and saw a House Elf standing next to his bed. Judging by the voice and slighter build, Harry guessed that this House Elf was female, though it wasn't exactly easy to tell with the little beings.

"Mistress Amelia requests that you join her downstairs in the kitchen. She wishes to speak with you," said the Elf.

"Is it alright if I get cleaned up a bit first?" asked Harry.

"Certainly, sir," replied the Elf "I shall inform the Mistress, but please don't be keeping her waiting too long, sir."

And with that the Elf vanished with a pop.

Harry threw back the covers of the bed and swung his legs out onto the wooden floor. He sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, rubbing his eyes wearily, before getting to his feet and making his way over to the en suite bathroom.

Inside the fixtures were all made of an exquisite white marble. Unfortunately there was no shower. Harry had noted this at the Weasley family home, The Burrow, as well. It was the same at Hogwarts. It seemed that the magical community had failed to advance as far as the shower yet. Seeing as he did not have the time for a bath, Harry settled for filling the large wash basin with hot water. After a quick scrub down he dried himself off, got dressed, made a doomed-to-failure attempt to do something with his hair to make it look tidy, and then headed out of his room.

On the staircase leading down to the ground floor, he noticed something that made him pause. The wall beside the staircase was painted in a colour that some might say was called burgundy, whereas others would call it maroon. On the wall there hung dozens, perhaps even hundreds of portrait frames that Harry simply had not taken notice of on his way upstairs the previous evening. He supposed that his tiredness had something to do with it. Also given how just about every corridor and staircase in Hogwarts was decorated with portraits, he had just come to not pay too much attention to the things over time.

As he was walking down the staircase, Harry stopped every so often to take in one portrait or another. It turned out that they all appeared to be members of the Bones family, both born into the line and married into it. Each painting had a small golden plaque, into which were engraved the name, date of birth and date of death of each family member. There was a one of a grim faced man with a short white beard and moustache named Henry Bones, dated to have lived between 949 and 1034. It seemed that the Bones family had a long history, dating to before the time William the Conqueror had led the Norman Conquest against Anglo-Saxon England. In fact, this guy was born before Hogwarts School was even founded *.

Harry moved along the line and saw a couple more names. He was particularly surprised by 'Elizabeth Bones (née Potter) 973 – 1067.' From that he guessed that his own family had a long history as well. It would have been nice to have known that sooner.

Further along the lines he noticed that the Black family had also married into the Bones family, as had the Abbotts, the Longbottoms, the McKinnons and the Meadowes. All very old families, it seemed, and all of whom, if Harry had remembered correctly, had each suffered great losses at the hands of Lord Voldemort and his followers. So much for the supposed value of wizarding blood.

Remembering that Madam Bones was waiting for him, Harry tore his eyes away from the portraits and continued on downstairs. He would definitely be studying those portraits some more during his time here.

In the kitchen Harry found Madam Bones sitting at the table, taking tea with another woman. Although he had never met this woman in his life, as far as he could remember anyway, something about the shape of her face and her blond hair was immediately recognisable to him. Given that he was in the Bones family manor house, and given that Susan Bones was a close friend of Hannah Abbott, and given how much this woman resembled Hannah, Harry immediately assumed that this woman was Hannah's mother.

He was right too.

"Ah, Harry," said Madam Bones "I'd like to introduce you to Sarah Abbott. She's a healer with the Auror department."

Harry took the healer's hand and bowed respectfully "A pleasure to meet you, Healer Abbott."

The woman laughed "Actually we have met before, Master Potter, though you will probably not remember it."

Harry raised a questioning eyebrow "You knew my parents?"

"Yes, I was a friend of your mother's at school. When she went into labour with you, the whole thing had to be kept as quiet as possible, and your mother insisted that I be there, even though I was only just a couple of weeks into my second year of training and had yet to learn anything of delivering babies."

As if sensing the question that Harry wanted to ask this woman, Madam Bones said "We were just discussing Sarah's absence from your life while you were growing up. It seems that Albus Dumbledore's manipulations run far deeper than we have previously had reason to suspect."

"Is that so?" Harry questioned, tilting his head to the side with an expression of curiosity.

"Yes," replied Healer Abbott "following your placement with your mother's wretched sister, myself and several others tried repeatedly to gain custody of you. Given how most of the Wizengamot was tied up in Death Eater trials, we continuously failed to get our case heard properly. In the end when we finally did get a proper case, Dumbledore pulled some strings to get his way and got us banned from seeing you. Well, except in an official capacity, which is why I am here today."

Harry blinked and asked "Excuse me?"

Madam Bones smiled at him and said "Harry, Healer Abbott has been unable to contact you due to a Wizengamot ruling. All methods of contacting you are closed.

Any letter sent by you by owl delivery would not make it as the owl would simply become disoriented, and a letter send through the muggle postal system would simply get lost in the system and never make it to you. Trying to speak to you on one of those telephone things the muggles use would only result in the both of you hearing nothing but a continuous and high-pitched whistling sound. In fact were she to be standing right next to you on Platform 9 ¾, she would completely fail to recognise your presence. The only way she could possibly contact you would be in her official capacity as healer, and only then if it was deemed required."

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