The Necromancer

Chapter 29

Since V wasn’t giving him any useful answers, just a lot of dramatics, Harry decided to summon his family. He had neglected them over the past weeks and he knew it. But the whole unexpected truce, and dare he say it, friendship with Voldemort had upset the family dynamics more than any other thing in Harry’s long life had done before and he’d felt a little out of depth dealing with it, so he’d just avoided it instead.

But truthfully, Harry missed his family. So he brushed his thumb across his amulet and at once all of his closest family members appeared before him.

“What are those?” Harry asked, gesturing wildly to the weird skeleton horses.

“Ah,” Lily said with a bright smile. “They’re thestrals. Magical creatures associated with death. Only those who have seen someone die can see thestrals.”

“They look fearsome,” Euphemia added pointedly. “But they really are quite gentle creatures. You can even ride them after they’ve been trained.”

“They eat carrion, for the most part,” Lily said, but Harry hardly heard her because he got stuck on the idea of riding a winged skeleton horse, which was just an amazingly awesome idea.

“Yeah, carrion, all right,” Harry said absently. “But where did they come from?”

“Have you been using necromancy lately?” Charis asked with a arched brow while giving Harry a sharp look.

Harry shrugged. “When don’t I use necromancy, honestly?”

Charis rolled her eyes. “I mean, have you been using it out in the open instead of inside your well-warded castle? Somewhere the thestrals might have sensed it?”

“Actually,” Harry said slowly, when he remembered the defences he’d put up recently. “I did. I made a bunker with slumbering inferi inside, as protection against intruders.”

“There you go,” Charis said with a satisfied nod. “According to some obscure texts I once read in the Black family library, thestrals are always drawn to death magics.”

“These might even be the Hogwarts herd,” Fleamont mused as he looked between several of the others. “Wild thestrals are very skittish and avoid people as a rule. These seem very well socialized.”

“Then Hogwarts won’t have any beasts to pull the carriages,” Dorea said with a sharp laugh, looking far too amused by that idea. “The students will have to walk from Hogsmeade station. Or Dumbledore will have to pull the carriages himself.”

“Speaking of Dumbledore,” Charis said, drawing everyone’s attention to her at once, since she was the official spy keeping an eye on the headmaster. “One of the Weasley children apparently works for Gringotts and he informed Dumbledore through the floo that you had emptied the Potter and Black vaults, Harry.” Charis paused while Harry gave her a confused look. “Dumbledore was very upset at that bit of news. Demanded that the Weasley boy find out what had been said between you and the goblin chief. And later he blew up his own bookcase in anger at the idea of you taking your gold and leaving Britain.”

“Why would the old man care what I do with my Gringotts vaults?” Harry asked, genuinely baffled why Dumbledore would react in such a way.

“Oh no,” James said, expression shifting from a heavy frown to an almost anxious look with wide eyes and raised eyebrows. “Oh no, he wouldn’t.”