A Dementor's Kiss - Phan

The Pureblood

She gathered herself briefly. "We agreed that we'd tell you as soon as we thought you were ready, but if not then age ten. No later." She was forcing her words out between the ugly sobs and Dan's dad was reaching round Dan's back to rub her shoulder. His own eyes were sparkling with moisture and he was very still and very quiet. "But things got in the way," she continued, her voice barely a whisper. "And then suddenly you had your Hogwarts letter. That was so much for you to take in, we couldn't throw something else on top of that. You needed our support, as your parents. You needed to feel secure because you were going through such changes, you know?

"And then we barely saw you. We couldn't tell you by letter, but when you were home we wanted every minute spent together to be a happy one.

"And then, after that, we had to pull you out of school. We'd already let you down so much. Then you were back and unhappy and then, in contrast, you were suddenly so happy that we couldn't bear it. We didn't want to ruin your glory days. We'd never seen you so happy. We were making excuses."

"McGonagall wrote to you?" Dan asked quietly.

Dan's father nodded.

"That means they were probably wizards." Dan said. His tone was emotionless. He didn't know how he felt. It hadn't even begun to sink in, and for now he didn't really feel anything.

"We know," Dan's dad said slowly, "But not for definite. Your professor said that she hadn't looked into it any further than their school records, and would not do anything else unless you asked her to. In case you didn't want to know. But there was no reason for her to know you were adopted if they weren't."

"They were. That's why she wrote. I asked her a question, and she said she thought she knew the answer. She wouldn't have told you to tell me unless it had been the answer." Dan felt suddenly very cold and pulled both his parents closer.

"What question?" His dad asked.

"It's, okay well I told you I'm in Slytherin house yeah? Well, the founder of that house was, racist I guess." Dan was speaking slowly as he tried to formulate sentences. "He believed that true magic was passed down through generations of magical families. That it couldn't come from muggles, not really good proper magic at least. So there's this, um, spell that decides what house you're in – it's not a person – and it put me in Slytherin. But that didn't add up because he, the racist guy, would never have picked a muggleborn for his house. Does that make sense?"

"I guess so," his dad said with a sniff. "Christ. I can't believe we didn't tell you earlier. What kind of people are we?"

"You're my parents." Dan said simply.

His mum wailed suddenly like a banshee and it took Dan and his dad a good five minutes to calm her down.

"I mean it, though," Dan said, his voice muffled as his mum cradled him again. "You're my parents. This is just like, god I really don't know, finding out that I was kidnapped when I was younger and taken on some wild adventure and now I have to decide if I'm going to find out what happened and stuff. Your parents are whoever love you and raise you and whoever you turn to when you need someone. That's you. It always will be. Not even a question about it, you're not my adoptive parents or my legal guardians or whatever you're my actual real life parents and I love you so much even if you were procrastinating idiots about telling me this."

His mum sobbed by way of an answer. Then she spoke. "Don't say that yet. Not yet. Wait until you know everything and we've found out everything. We were so selfish, Dan. We wanted a child so bad."

"How old is my brother?" Dan asked. What did she mean?

"He was ten when we met him." Dan's dad said softly.