Tales From The River House: Birds, Bees, Snakes and Lesson In Hiding

[sam_storyteller]

Title: The Birds, The Bees, And The Snakes
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Harry discovers sexual education.
Warnings: None.

Also available at AO3.

THE BIRDS, THE BEES, AND THE SNAKES

Bethany Vaughan had a lot of theories about the two men living on the outskirts of Betwys Beddau, where she had been born and raised. It was a small town, and bred a large number of gossips, but Bethany was an oddity -- she didn't gossip, she didn't want to marry a farmer, and she'd already decided she was going to University. So, despite both subtle and unsubtle needling on the topic of the two men by the older people of the town who had nothing better to do, she kept her thoughts on Remus Lupin and Sirius Black to herself. It wasn't easy; she was the closest to them of anyone in town, because she was Harry Potter's babysitter.

Harry was universally adored by the adults of Betwys Beddau; somehow, probably through hints Mr. Black had dropped, they'd gathered the information that he was an orphan, that his godfather had only recently been able to get custody of him, and that he'd been brought out here to have a healthy upbringing away from the big cities, along with help from Mr. Black's cousin Mr. Lupin. Bethany had her own ideas about the reason two thirtysomething bachelors would be raising an adopted child together, but what consenting adults did on their own time -- and while they paid her to watch their child -- was really no business of hers. Besides, she liked them; Mr. Black was a smiling, easygoing man, and Mr. Lupin always asked after her mum when they met in town, and often slipped her a discount on the music magazines she bought from the bookshop where he worked.

She liked Harry too; he was a well-behaved child when he came to stay with her. Mr. Black insisted that he stay the night with her rather than have her come to their house, which she'd never seen, but he paid double the usual going rate and Harry was never very difficult. So, when she saw possible problems arising, she decided for Harry's own good to have a word with Mr. Black when he came to pick Harry up that morning.

"Thank you, Bethany," he said, as Harry gathered up his backpack and clung to his arm, beaming up at Bethany. "No trouble, I hope?"

"None at all. We made collages," Bethany said, indicating the rolled-up bit of paper clenched in one of Harry's hands. "Could I have a quick word with you, Mr. Black?"

Mr. Black frowned but nodded, giving Harry a gentle push. "Run out to the bikes, Harry, and get your helmet on," he said, and Harry dashed out the door. "Is there a problem, Bethany?"

She twisted her fingers together. She'd rehearsed this speech, but it was much harder with Mr. Black standing there, handsome and imposing and somehow larger than life.

"I'm a bit worried about Harry, sir," she said. "He, er...he's been telling me things..."

"Things?" the man asked, suddenly alert, like a hound on a scent.

"Yes, he...I know all boys have a bit of an active imagination, but he's been...telling me that snakes are telling him things," she said worriedly. "His pet snake, you know, that goes with him everywhere."

Relief washed over her when Mr. Black broke into a broad grin.

"Well, all boys do have imaginary friends and that," he said reassuringly. "He doesn't always get on with lads his own age, you know how it is with precocious youngsters. Probably imagines his little snake talks. Quite the fantasy life, eh?"

"It's more the way he said it," Bethany pressed on, not quite convinced. "As if it was something he didn't mean to tell me, as if it were a secret."

"Perhaps the snake told him not to tell," Mr. Black said, and the amusement in his voice cleared away the last of her concerns. Of course that was it; children were secretive sometimes. Well, that solved one problem anyhow, and the other one was something she'd had to broach to quite a few parents, so the words came easier.

"He also, er, he's been asking about sex," she said, and Mr. Black snorted. "I mean, I'm fairly certain he knows some basics, you know how children pick these things up, but we saw a picture of a sheep with a little lamb, and he was sort of asking about how the lambs...get there, and all."

"I see," said Mr. Black gravely -- taking it much better than many parents of her acquaintance. "What did you tell him?"

"I changed the subject."

"Ha! Well done. Not really in your job profile, is it?" Mr. Black agreed. "Thank you for telling me -- I'll handle it. Had to come up sooner or later," he added.

"Thank you, Mr. Black," she said. "Most people are a lot less understanding."

"I imagine so," he said, counting out her payment and adding a few extra pounds with a wink. "Thanks, Bethany."

She watched from the window as he helped his godson up onto the bicycle, then climbed on his own. They rode off at a sedate pace, Harry still wobbling a little, Mr. Black riding behind him to watch in case he fell.

Such a nice man, Mr. Black, so even-tempered and normal.

***

Remus was settled in a corner of the big, deep living-room sofa when they returned, curled up under a blanket and nursing a cup of hot tea. Since coming to Betwys Beddau, where Harry could safely be left under another's supervision one night a month, his recoveries from the full moon had been faster; there was a large open space just the other side of the river where Moony and Padfoot could run wild. Harry was happy to have Remus up and about sooner, and Sirius doubly glad that Remus didn't wake torn and bleeding anymore.

"Hallo Harry," he said softly, and Harry climbed up onto the arm of the sofa, a little too old now to join Remus in an undignified snuggle as he used to. "How was Bethany's house?"

"Fine," Harry said, unrolling his collage to show it off. Remus looked suitably impressed, while Sirius shucked his jacket and hung up Harry's bicycle helmet. "Did Bethany want to talk to you about me mentioning Snake?" he turned to ask Sirius, who was unlacing his boots. "I didn't mean to tell her he talks to me, but Snake said something really funny," he said to Remus.

"I told her it was just your active imagination," Sirius said. "You have to be careful about that, Harry."

"I am!" Harry said, injured. "It was just the once."

"All right, well, there's no harm done," Sirius grinned as he moved into the kitchen. "Remus, how's your tea?"

"Still hot," Remus called, sipping it and winking at Harry. "So, what're your plans for this lovely Sunday?" he asked Harry.

"Reading to you," Harry said promptly.

"You're a good lad, Harry, but it's a nice cool day out -- sure you don't want to go fishing with Padfoot?"

Harry shook his head and went to one of the bookshelves on the opposite wall. "Then what would you do?" he asked.

"Oh, sleep and read," Remus replied. "Honestly, Harry, if you want to go out -- "

"No, s'okay, I think it's going to rain," Harry said, scanning the books. "I like reading to you. You explain the hard parts. Do you want Kipling or something gothic?"

"Knows your tastes," Sirius murmured, carrying a mug of tea into the living room and settling into the other corner of the couch. "Something gothic, I think, Harry. Somewhere in the red bookshelf in our room there's a copy of The Picture of Dorian Grey, we'll see if it's to your liking."

Harry nodded and left the room, accepting Sirius' hair-ruffling as he went.

"I do worry that he spends too much time with books sometimes," Remus murmured.

"Worry about me instead," Sirius said urgently. "Bethany said Harry's been asking about -- sex and things."

Remus grinned at him. "Well, you said when it was time you'd be the one to give the birds and bees to him, in case he got ideas from me."

"I'm surprised he hasn't got ideas from both of us already," Sirius answered.

"Not to mention your choice in reading materials."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oscar Wilde, Sirius?"

Sirius opened his mouth to reply, but Harry arrived back, flopping onto the couch between them. "What's this about then?" he asked, regarding the cover curiously.

"It's about a Muggle with a magic painting," Sirius answered, because Remus had closed his eyes and was looking slightly exhausted. "Maybe we should read it later..."

"No, it's all right," Remus said, eyes still closed. "It's about a Muggle who never gets old, Harry; everything that happens to him shows in the portrait instead of on his face."

Sirius thought he understood the sudden fatigue, hearing Remus summarise the book. It was a tradition among the noble houses of the Wizarding world to have such a portrait done; it wasn't quite as effective as Dorian Grey's, but they did slow the aging process considerably. And Remus, though still young, was already showing grey in his hair and fine lines in his face.

After a minute of silence, Remus smiled and opened his eyes. "I'm all right, Sirius. You won't mind if I sleep a bit while you read, will you, Harry?"

"I never do," Harry answered, opening the book. "Do you want me to read the preface too?"

"That's the best part," Remus answered, and Harry settled himself crosslegged, book open on his lap, to read.

"The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things..."

***

Remus dozed off around halfway through the first chapter, and Sirius reached over to gently close the book once he was sure the other man was asleep. Harry set the book aside and looked up at him, thoughtfully.

"There's something you have to tell me, huh?" he said, and Sirius grinned.

"Perceptive kid, you are," he said. "It's nothing bad or serious, just something we have to talk about."

"Okay," Harry said, turning on the couch to face him. Sirius turned likewise, crossing his legs, a larger, blue-eyed version of Harry. Harry laughed a little.

"Bethany says you were asking her where lambs come from," Sirius said.

"Sort of," Harry agreed. "I know a bit of it."

"Oh?"

"Well, some of the boys at school talk about it," Harry said, suddenly blushing furiously. Sirius, just as embarrassed, nodded. "And I just thought Bethany might know."

"You think I don't?" Sirius asked, surprised.

"No, but..." Harry squirmed a bit. "You're my dad...I mean, just as good as."

Sirius nodded. "Remus too?"

"I thought maybe I shouldn't be asking about it. The teachers at school looked upset when I talked about snakes laying eggs..."

Sirius tousled his hair. "You can ask us anything, Harry, I promise we'll never be angry."

"Oh, okay." Harry nodded. "So are you going to tell me about it?"

"Yes I am," Sirius said, then paused. "Er. This may take a while."

"That's fine," Harry said encouragingly. Haltingly, Sirius began to sketch out quite a lot about sex -- at least, the biological side -- at least, the heterosexual biological side...

This had been much easier when he was a child. Though of course walking in on Narcissa and Walden McNair in the greenhouse is not the ideal way to discover how things were done. Nor was a rambling forty-minute monologue on the sins of the flesh from his father, when Sirius was caught at age fourteen studying certain woodcuts in some of the older, naughtier books in the library.

He finished outlining the reproductive process, in a somewhat stammered fashion, and added a few sentences on respecting young women and how one ought to wait until one felt one was ready. He found this somewhat ironic, given his own checkered past, but Harry took it all in with those intelligent green eyes.

"Er...do you have any questions?" he said, watching as Harry almost visibly digested the information. "Was anything unclear?"

"No..." Harry said slowly. "I knew a bunch of that from the snakes."

"You did?"

"Yeah, but I thought maybe humans did it differently. Cos...when a man and a woman get married he doesn't dig a big hole for her in the back garden."

Sirius fought slightly hysterical laughter.

"No, that's very true," he agreed.

"And girls don't lay eggs."

"No. Well....no." Sirius decided that he would buy Harry a biology textbook that might explain the particulars better.

"Okay." Harry rested his elbows on his knees, and propped his chin in them. "So what about you and Remus?"

Sirius froze.

"What about us?" he asked.

"How do you do it?"

"Do what, Harry?"

"What a man and a woman do," Harry said. "You aren't a man and a woman but you sleep together and stuff, right? He kisses you sometimes."

Sirius felt the blush returning. He thought they'd been cautious enough that Harry wouldn't be curious; clearly he was wrong.

"And you take care of him when he's sick," Harry said, jerking his head at where Remus slept on, behind him. "And he looks after you when you're sick."

"Yes, but -- "

"And he'd be mad if you kissed a girl, right? You got mad when that girl was making eyes at him in the bookshop."

"Well, all right..."

"And you do sex stuff, right?" Harry asked.

"You haven't seen that, have you?" Sirius said, voice cracking.

"No, but it makes sense," Harry answered. Sirius glanced at Remus, willing him to wake up and intervene. "So how do you do it with all boy parts?"

Sirius could hear Remus' sly murmur in his head. Any number of enjoyable ways...

"Er..." Sirius said, stalling for time. "There's more to understand about it than just how it happens, really. The biology I mean. It's got to do with...well, how you choose who you love, or...or how it chooses you...we'll get you a book about it, how's that?"

"Okay," Harry said agreeably. "I don't think the library has books about that, though. Jamie Meredith would have found it by now. He's found most of the books with naked pictures in them."

"You might want to keep your distance from Jamie Meredith," Sirius said slowly.

"Yeah, he's not really interested in real books," Harry agreed. "Sirius?"

"Yes?"

"Remus loves you, right?"

Sirius grinned. Here, he was on firm ground. "Yeah, he does."

"He told you so and all?"

"Yes."

"And you love him?"

"Yes I do, Harry."

"And you told him?"

Sirius bit his lip and wondered if, in all the time they'd spent together, he ever had actually said it. Just for no reason, just because it was true.

"Yes he has," Remus said quietly from behind Harry. Both of them turned to look at him, but he had already shifted his shoulders and rolled a bit, curling deeper into the blanket, and seemed to be asleep again.

"Good," Harry said decidedly. "Can I have a sandwich now? It's nearly lunchtime."

Sirius laughed, and followed him into the kitchen to make sandwiches, fingers lingering affectionately on Remus' shoulder as they passed.

END

Author's Endnote: The idea of Dorian Grey-style portraits being done in the Wizarding World is actually Heidi's, used with permission.

***

Title: A Lesson In Hiding
Rating: PG
Summary: Draco knows how to hide.
Warnings: Strong themes of child abuse/neglect.

Also available at AO3.

A LESSON IN HIDING

It would be a fallacy to say that the Malfoy ancestral home was obsessively clean; in the upstairs levels of the mansion dust covered the white sheets, which covered all the furniture. The kitchen and the small suite of rooms occupied by Narcissa and her son, however, were cleaned on a daily basis by the house-elves, giving them an almost sterile, scrubbed appearance.

Draco privately thought that the cleaning had driven a number of them nuts, since one could only polish freshly-polished silver so many times, but they were on the whole a good sort. They never narked on him without being told to by his mum -- and at that point, as she was the mistress of the house, it was unavoidable that they should tell the truth, so he never blamed them. They often brought him sweets or biscuits on the sly to make up for it; an entire black market trade in marzipan went on in the Malfoy household, as it was Draco's favourite, and there was a complicated chain of communication used to bring it into his hands.

Despite the house-elves' best efforts, Draco was a small, thin child, which in his mind was a good thing: it meant he could squeeze himself into the shadows of the hallway pilaster-columns, behind flowerpots, through holes in the garden hedges. Smallness was essential to Draco's existence, because the smaller you were, the better you could hide from Narcissa.

Considered objectively -- and Draco did a lot of objective considering -- Narcissa was not a bad mother. She kept him reasonably well-fed, clean, and neatly dressed. He had two excellent if somewhat dull tutors. But he knew she wasn't like other mums. Other mums didn't scream in the hallways when something wasn't precisely as they wanted it. Other mums had people to tea. Other mums didn't curse their husband's name on a regular basis. Other mums took their own sons out to Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade or to museums and libraries. He knew they did. He'd read books.

Draco never went out unless his tutors took him. He knew Narcissa did go out, because he saw her leaving and returning, but she never acknowledged him unless she could help it, or unless he'd done something wrong. Taking him on trips or to go shopping was utterly out of the question.

When he was younger, Draco occasionally did something wrong simply to make sure she still knew he existed. Usually he realised the foolhardiness of this about three minutes after he'd done it. It was one of the many reasons Draco had identified and prepared several hiding places in every room of the house, for when Narcissa began screaming.

He also had places into which he couldn't fit -- or, after a growth spurt in his ninth year, could no longer fit -- and he used those to hide his belongings. They were things he didn't want Narcissa to see, or anything she might take away from him. There was an envelope of newspaper clippings about nothing in particular, just interesting stories he'd saved; a funny-shaped bottle he'd nicked from the kitchen; a picture of his father he'd found while exploring the upper rooms one day, when he'd cajoled one of the house-elves into unlocking the door at the top of the stairs which led to the rest of the house.

The problem was the photograph, he thought, as he gazed down from the ceiling at Narcissa, who was tearing the kitchen apart. If she'd found any of the other things she would have been furious that he was bringing filthy rubbish into the house, but finding a photograph of Lucius had put her into a frothing rage.

Draco kept carefully out of view, not just of his mother but of the house-elves, so that they couldn't tell on him if she demanded to know where he was. He'd discovered the high cross-beams in the shadowy ceiling a while ago, and knew he couldn't be seen if he kept to the south end of the room.

Clearly this called for some fast thinking. She was going to ask the house-elves, and then she was going to find all the places he kept stuff. He couldn't let that happen. This wasn't childish caprice; this was defending his territory.

He slipped off the upper-beams and down onto the lower ones; from there he dangled by his fingers until he got a toe-hold on the edge of the hatch that passed between the kitchen and the dining room. He slipped through it, landing lightly, and made for the hallway, arriving there a split second before Narcissa did. She shrieked when she saw him, and the full wrath of his mother descended on his head.

"Keeping this in our house!" she screamed, shaking him by his arm. "How dare you defy me! This for your deceit!" she added, ripping the photograph in half. Draco felt something inside him crumble, but if he was to save himself and his sanity, he knew he couldn't show it. There would be other photographs, and he had memorised every line and shadow of his father's face in that one, every expression and movement the magical photo showed.

"Sorry, mum," he whispered when she released him. She shook the pieces of the torn image in his face.

"Disobedient, wicked boy!" she shouted. "The house-elves say you've hidden things all over! In every room!"

"Dobby cannot disobey the mistress, Master Draco!" Dobby wailed in the background.

"A conspiracy! Under my nose! Well, this stops now." Narcissa fixed him with a hateful glare. "Either you can tell me yourself and save a whipping, or I'll ask the house-elves. And you know they won't lie for you, Draco."

Draco studied his shoes. "I'll tell you," he said softly. She jerked him into the dining room.

"Under the table," he murmured, and she found a packet of sweets underneath the table, attached with tape. "Behind the planter." A book he'd particularly liked, stashed where he himself could still fit, in case he got bored while hiding. "That's all here."

Narcissa shot a swift glance at the house-elves, who were now following them around like peculiar chicks after a hen. "Is he lying?" she demanded. They shook their heads woefully.

They continued on through every room in the house: kitchen, den, bathroom, schoolroom, bedroom, even Narcissa's work-room, where she kept her correspondences and files he wasn't allowed to see, though he never hid anything there anyway. He showed her the trick cabinet in the kitchen, the loose floorboard in his bedroom, the hidden ledge on the inside of the schoolroom closet, the cranny in the candelabra that you couldn't see except from below. She didn't bother with the sheet-covered rooms, except the library, since as far as she knew they were all under lock and key the house-elf Mendy kept in the pocket of her tea-towel dress.

When they finally returned to the corridor, Draco was trembling, and Narcissa had left behind a trail of destroyed treasures that the house-elves had quietly and efficiently cleaned up as they went, terror and pity in their eyes.

"That's every room," she said, and Draco suppressed a small breath of relief. "You are a wicked, deceitful child, and you will be punished, Draco. Go to your room. You," she said, turning to the house-elves, "assisted him in this trickery. All of you are to boil your hands."

"Don't -- it's not their fault," Draco said, but Narcissa gripped him by the arm and thrust him into his bedroom, slamming the door after her. Draco stared at the door, wondering if he could even try to help the house-elves, but he knew it was hopeless.

There wasn't a trace of any of his hiding places. The loose floorboard had been fixed permanently to its fellows with a flick of Narcissa's wand, and the draperies on the bed removed. The bed itself had been lowered to the floor, so that there was no space underneath it. And that wasn't even his punishment. His punishment was still to come.

Draco knelt and slid his hand across the formerly-loose floorboard. He felt like crying, but he was too tired to bother. Instead, he slumped back against the footboard of the bed and closed his eyes.

The ruse had worked.

Complete honesty had its place, after all.

Well. Complete honesty after a fashion.

Draco knew that he looked at the world differently than other people did; it had earned him strange looks from his mother and her rare visitors in the past, and his tutors were constantly trying to understand how he came up with some of the ideas he did. He'd finally stopped voicing them, because clearly they only caused trouble. He had been writing them down, and had kept them where they would be safe -- Narcissa had not found his private book, not yet.

Every room in the house, she'd said, but she hadn't even asked him about the hallway.

Nobody ever thought about hallways properly, really.

And in fact the hiding places in the hallway were not all that difficult to discern. Behind a curtain that hid an old ancestral painting that nobody ever looked at, there were a few books he loved dearly; and then, near the stairs that led up to the locked door --

He was sure his mum must know about the cupboard under the stairs; there were strange trunks stored in it, and someone had to have put them there. True, the door was disguised as a panel, but it wasn't all that well hidden. That was why he'd chosen it. Tucked just inside the door, between a trunk reading HOGWARTS - L. A. MALFOY on it and the wall, he kept his private book, and three little toy soldiers he'd found, which he thought might have been his father's. Certainly Narcissa didn't approve of such things.

If they think you've given them everything, he thought, if they think they've crushed you, they won't ask you for the one thing you've kept back.

He'd creep out of his bedroom tonight, unless Narcissa locked him in, and remember to write that in his private book.

Comments

[shinzuku.livejournal.com]

That was good.