8 Abandoned

She found them loitering around the table, their smiles pronounced as they walked up to greet her. They were sporting tanned skin, sun-bleached hair, and sunny attire. It clashed wildly with the decor of their sitting room.

It reminded Dorea of the muggle tourists that she had seen when Charlus had taken her to Spain for their anniversary.

Unusually, when faced with her son and daughter-in-law, Dorea was not as conflicted as she thought she would have been. Perhaps she had gone too far forward in her plans for her to be concerned, it would certainly be useless at this point.

She had already finalised the paperwork and ensured everything would go off without a hitch. The only path available was forward. Not that Dorea would prefer it any other way.

"So you're finally back," Dorea said blandly.

James and Lily looked at one another, confusedly. They had expected a warmer welcome, but ignored Dorea's attitude and filed it off as one of her moods.

"Erm, yeah," James smiled. "Well, kind of."

"Kind of?", Dorea arched her eyebrow.

"Actually we arrived two days ago, but the Portkey was set to trigger rather late in the evening, and we thought you would like your sleep." Her son continued. "And then, well, Moony and Padfoot had sort of kidnapped me."

"He doesn't mean in the vague sense of coercion, by the way." Lily groused. "They quite literally tied him up!"

Dorea stared at them emptily, a cold glare of barely hidden disdain on her face as she submerged them in silence. James, familiar as he was with his mother's temper, stood tensely. He felt himself shrinking under the weight of her disappointment, angry at himself for not knowing why she was angry, and at her for not telling him already.

'Charlus was right, Hadrian is just a second thought to them now.'

"D-dorea?", Lily stammered hesitantly. "Is something the matter?"

The corners of her lips turned upwards slightly as she smiled for the first time and said. "No, Lily. I'm just frankly a little embarrassed to tell you that there was no reason for the both of you to come here today."

"What?", James and Lily recoiled.

"It is precisely as I said. Whether you had intended to come here two days ago, or now - it makes no difference. What you came here for, is gone."

James' mouth opened, slack from confusion, before anger wrestled its way forwards. "What happened to Harry?"

His voice emerged with a mask of assertiveness, but the slight wobble as he said his son's name did nothing to reinforce it.

"There is no Harry Potter." Dorea said bluntly. "Korby."

The suit-wearing house-elf popped in, holding pieces of paper in his hand. Dorea took hold of the documents, and passed them to the increasingly angry parents.

"Hadrian Black, not Hadrian Potter. Charlus and I are now listed as his guardians."

James grabbed hold of the papers, his fist squeezing and ripping through them slightly as he stared down at his mother. His face wanted to turn red, but with the tan - he ended up looking more orange than anything.

"Why?", he hissed out. "Why would you do this?"

Lily seized the papers forcefully from his hand, and began reading through them as quickly as she could. Droplets of tears impaired her vision, and the quicker she blinked - the more of her tears began spilling onto the parchment.

"Dorea?", Lily whispered as her hands began to tremble. "Why?"

"For my grandson. The young boy who will undoubtedly grow up to become a fine young man, but not before questioning why he always came second. And not before trying to understand why his parents were unable to take him on trips with his brother. Or why he was born without magic, and deemed inferior to his brother for it."

"We would never-!", The redhead roared as she threw the parchment on the ground.

"Or…!", The Black matriarch yelled back, interrupting Lily's tirade. "Why his parents thought to wait two days before retrieving him, when they could not even wait for the next morning before choosing to abandon him for a holiday!"

Dorea's indifferent expression cracked, leaving a murderous look on her face. The disposition unique to the Black Family, a trait that added to their fearsome reputation - and it was clear to see why. Dorea was unyielding as she looked at them. Her breath heaved slightly as she quickly flicked her wand at the parchment, burning it to ash before vanishing it.

Her intent was clear.

"You…", Lily murmured, her eyes glued to where the parchment had been. "We won't let you do this. I won't let you steal my son from me, Dorea."

"Lady Black, not Dorea", the older woman replied austerely. "And I never stole him, Lily. You gave him away."

"That's utter rubbish!"

Dorea scoffed. "Is it really? You didn't even think to arrange your little outing so that the specialist would come to you instead! This whole thing could have been postponed or delayed had you done so! Even worse, you waited nearly two days before notifying us of your arrival. James might have been, 'kidnapped', but where were you, Lily?"

Lily faltered.

"I told her that I wanted to be there when we got Harry," James said despondently.

He looked angry at himself, but oddly enough - it wasn't to the extent of what Dorea had imagined he would be. She had seen how vicious James could be at times. Dorea blamed that on herself, her mannerisms had been imbued into her as a daughter of the Black family. How could it not influence the way her son acted? She had raised the boy.

Though this…it felt as though James had already come to terms with it. She had to wonder how long his mind would have toiled over this situation - inevitable as it was, to get his bearings back so quickly.

She glanced at her daughter-in-law, her hair was red - and her face too, if not for the hint of bronze in her skin.

"There is nothing you can do about this, Lily," Dorea said quickly, as she saw lily propped for a rebuttal. "The legalities of what we did were flimsy at best - but considering Charlus' status as Head of House Potter, a house that you have willingly joined, family matters are deferred to him. My own status as Head of House Black means that attempting anything will be impossible."

"We are his guardians!"

"Were, Lily." The older woman quipped back. "When you left Hadrian with us, we became his guardians. The Head of House is always appointed as so, in the absence of the parent. It is their job to find them lodging, offer proper care, or remove them from harmful situations."

Lily slumped. Her head hung low, and her shoulders shook slightly.

As if cold water was thrown over Dorea, her temper ceased almost instantly. "You're not a bad mother Lily. Merlin, you haven't even been given the chance to try, but Hadrian deserves better. If it were any other situation, I'd imagine Hadrian would have had the best childhood under your care." She walked over to her, putting her hands on her shoulders to comfort her. "You must understand, you have far too many responsibilities now. You're the guardian to the Boy-Who-lived-"

The redhead scoffed bitterly. "I don't care about that."

"Oh, yes you do. The fate of the world rests on that boy's shoulders, how could you not?", Dorea lifted Lily's chin to look at her. Her eyes were red from irritation, and tears had streamed down her face. Her beautiful, green eyes were submerged in tears. Eyes that reminded her so much of the boy she had taken under her care, and fallen in love with within such a short time.

"He has no magic. Will he go to a Muggle school? Will you be able to protect him when he's there? What about when the Dark Lord returns?" Lily shook her head, she didn't want to hear those horrid things. "You're in denial, Lily. Hadrian now has the backing of the Potter and Black families. He's in a better place now, here - with us."

For a while, it looked as though she was close to agreeing. Then, her face twisted and contorted into one of rage. Burning anger took over her as she grabbed Dorea's wrist.

"No.", Lily sneered. "I know what you're doing, and know this Dorea - I will fight this every bit of the way."

She turned around, and began walking to the fireplace. Lily didn't even wait for James to follow her, but he did anyway.

Dorea sighed as she watched the pair run off. She had hoped that they would simply see how futile it would be - but she had underestimated their stubbornness.

Legally, there was no chance of them pursuing the issue. She supposed that's why James had gone mute, he had understood the angle she was going for. He had read the Family Charter himself, back when he first found out Lily was pregnant.

He knew there was nothing he could do. They couldn't even threaten bringing to the Wizengamot either, the nature of James and Lily's absence would have to be disclosed. Which was something that Dumbledore and his company definitely did not want others to know. Truly, James and Lily had been outmaneuvered.

Not that Dorea thought of it like that. To her, it was a mercy, for both Hadrian and his parents.

He would grow up without having known neglect, and they wouldn't have to make the choice of giving Hadrian away. To James and Lily, it would have been more comforting to believe that their child had been stolen by Charlus and Dorea, rather than face the fact that they were considering giving him up.

She knew better than them, enough to understand that their anger was theatrical in nature. Their actions differed from what they spoke of.

It was clear that this 'trip' happened because they wanted to warm Charlus and Dorea up to the idea of looking after Hadrian. The fact that they showed up in the middle of the night, when Charlus and Dorea wouldn't have had the heart to turn them away, supported it greatly.

But it meant nothing now.

They had nothing to worry about. They knew that he would be safe and looked after, spoiled even. That was much better than the treatment most Squibs received, and what was Hadrian if not a supposed Squib?