Warnings: Dialogue-heavy. Only roughly edited.
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“Mrs. Hudson?” Harry said as he entered the tiny kitchen.
The woman nodded with a polite smile.
“Born as Miss Sophia Lestrange?”
The woman, Mrs. Hudson gasped and her teacup shattered as it fell to the floor. "Oh!" She flinched as she looked down at the broken cup. "Forgive me. It's just been..."
"Mrs. Hudson?" The blond man who had opened the main door for him before rushed into the kitchen, eyes narrowed and shoulders tense as he looked between Mrs. Hudson and Harry.
"I just had a clumsy moment, John," Mrs. Hudson said and leaned down to grab that broken pieces.
"Why don't you let me clean that up for you?" John said and moved forward even as the black-haired man, who'd been on the staircase, entered the kitchen and sat at the small dining table.
Harry cleared his throat awkwardly. “If you want me to leave...”
“No,” Mrs. Hudson said immediately. “If you know my birth name then you must be here for something important. Now, what did you say your name was?”
“I'm Harry Potter and...”
"Oh my!" Mrs. Hudson raised a hand and covered her mouth
Harry glanced at her and noticed the look in her eyes as she stared at him. It was a familiar mix of awe, gratefulness and oddly enough some guilt and fear.
The black-haired man immediately narrowed his eyes and looked at Harry, his blue eyes scrutinizing every inch with an oddly concentrated look.
Mrs. Hudson placed a hand on the man's shoulder. "Sherlock dear, why don't you have a biscuit?"
Sherlock, the black-haired man, frowned at the woman. But John pushed the man to stand and move towards the kitchen counter with a pointed look.
“Please have a seat, Mr. Potter.” Mrs. Hudson pointed to the chair that Sherlock had just vacated. "Never thought I'd hear anyone call me by that name again." Mrs. Hudson sat down opposite him. "And I never thought that I'd have you standing here in my kitchen."
"You know who I am," Harry said a bit unnecessarily.
Mrs. Hudson smiled at him. "I don't know all the details. But I know the jist of things."
Harry nodded in understanding. "I've come here to meet you because of your family. In particular your two younger Lestrange cousins...”
Mrs. Hudson snorted. “Mr. Potter, I was disowned when I turned eleven when I dashed all their hopes by not getting that ever so important letter.” Mrs. Hudson grinned but her eyes looked brittle and tired. “Best thing that ever happened to me.”
Harry smiled at her. “I don't doubt that.”
Mrs. Hudson fiddled with her sleeve for a moment. Then she took a deep breath. "Look at me. Interrupting you with my past instead of letting you explain why you've come here."
“I'm not sure if you knew what your cousins were involved in during...” He paused as John came forward and placed two cups of tea on the table.
“I had my suspicions.” Mrs. Hudson pulled her teacup with slightly shaky hands. “I moved to America for a while.”
“I've spent the past few years looking into the lives of your cousins and their... associates, connecting them to numerous unsolved crimes and cold cases. It was slow work. But the more I searched, the more victims I found. Even though I'm nowhere near done with my investigation, I felt like I enough pull to have the Lestrage property liquidated and distributed amongst the family of those victims.”
“As restitutionary damages or something like that?”
“Something like that.” Harry nodded. “And since the Lestranges were dead, it would have been a simple matter of filing appropriate paperwork and badgering a few officials.”
“There shouldn't be a problem. The Lestranges are dead! And I'm not a Lestrange, Mr. Potter.”
“Not by name. But according the archaic rules, you're the current owner of their property and wealth because you have Lestrange blood.”
“Give it away,” she interrupted him. “I don't want any of their horrid money.”
“If only things were that simple.” Harry glanced down at the untouched tea in his cup. “The Lestranges... people won't be willing to settle things quietly. Not with them. Not after they find out the number of crimes connected to them.”
“How bad is it?” She asked in almost a whisper.
Harry frowned and bit his lip. “People consider the name Lestrange as synonymous with inhumane monsters.”
One of the men by the kitchen counter -John, Harry noticed out of the corner of his eye- made an almost angered sound of protest.
Mrs. Hudson nodded and pushed her own untouched tea away.
“You're not surprised.”
“Mr. Potter, even though it's been years since I saw my… family. I'll never forget their disposition to cruelty and violence.” Mrs. Hudson said, “After all, they were disappointed in me being a failure. And they weren't shy in letting me know it.”
Harry glanced at her in horror as he understood the meaning behind her words.
“Think nothing of it.” She waved her hand through the air in fake nonchalance. “It's all in the past.”
But Harry couldn't ignore that. “Mrs. Hudson, if they tortured you...”
“Tortured?” John yelped out.
Harry turned and found both men staring at Mrs. Hudson with a variety of emotions- confusion, shock, horror, disbelief and some slight rage.
Mrs. Hudson shrugged. “It was years ago. Just before I was disowned.”
“Did you at least get proper treatment?” Harry asked. “Damage at such a young age would have left a lot of damage.”
Before Mrs. Hudson could reply, Sherlock said, “I highly doubt she did. She has a lot of stiffness when she moves. She complains about joint pain and muscle twitches. And I know that she keeps a bottle of pain killers with her at all times. Before now, I always assumed it was just ageing. But from the look on your face, Mr. Potter, I'd say those are possible symptoms from whatever torture techniques her... family used.”
“Yes, there's no doubt,” Harry said, pulled a notebook from inside his jacket and scribbled in it. “I'll have a specialist visit you for a proper check-up.”
“That's not necessary. I don't have the money for...”
“I can pay,” Sherlock said firmly.
John nodded beside him. “I have some money saved up too.”
Harry smiled softly. “That won't be necessary. I'll make sure it won't be necessary for you to pay for treatment you deserve.”
“Mr. Potter, you can't... I don't...”
“You'll find Mrs. Hudson, that I can,” Harry said simply. “This is something that I can actually do without being hindered by red-tape.”
“Then,” she said after a few minutes, “can you tell me when they did?”
Harry glanced at the other two men in the tiny kitchen.
“It's all right. No point in hiding things from them if I'm going to be dragged into the thick of things from what you said earlier.”
Harry took a deep breath, debating if he should tell her the true list of the Lestranges' crimes he'd work out. It was her terrified but determined eyes that made the decision for him. “Rabastan Lestrange. Twenty seven known counts of...”
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Random note: Chose the name Sophia based on this.
I sort of love and hate this piece.
Hate that it's so dialogue heavy! And hate the potential for angst about Mrs. Hudson's past. Hate Sherlock's silence too.
But I love the potential for drama and danger in this. Like when the wizards/victim's families find out that there is a living Lestrange- who's a squib, they'd consider her an easy target for revenge. So yeah...
Seriously though, the dialogue is just crazy... and weird to me because Sherlock isn't dominating the conversation here. I suppose if I ever managed to expand this- then he'd definitely do that.
Polar
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