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Chapter Text

31st October 1981
Godric's Hollow, Exmoor.

An explosion shattered the peaceful night sky over the village of Godric's Hollow, a harbinger of great personal tragedy and profound national joy, a pit of despair and a beacon of hope.

At the epicentre of the blast a house lay open to the elements a scene of devastation with half of its upper floor strewn across the neighbouring street a maelstrom of disorientation and debris. The windows of the surrounding muggles' houses shattered at the energy let loose, glass flung from there frames like shrapnel, wards on the wizarding houses fared better as they rocked and rippled with an aurora only visible to those with the ability of arcane perception. The townsfolk, shocked, rattled from whatever activity they were partaking in began to panic. This wasn’t the first strange event the Exmoor village had witnessed over the last eleven years and each though the pulsing of energy though their wards ment this attack was directed specifically at them.

Of the eight beings stood on the property not less than five minutes ago only one had been left truly alive.

Watching the events that lead up to this unfold a small man with thinning hair and an unassuming appearance had stood lookout from the shadows across the street. Above the din of shouting he could see the green light that filled the cramped hallway, it lit the pram pushed against the wall, it made the bannisters glow like lightning rods, and James Potter fell like a marionette whose strings were cut...

Time seemed to slow down and the air hung still as the realisation of the weight of his betrayal struck home. Emotionally it would begin to hang over him like an anchor dragging at the frayed edges of his soul, the encounter proving the pivot about which his entire life turned.
He had irrevocably stuck a dagger at the heart of his friendships, lured by the fleeting feeling of power and for personal gain. Somehow the torture endures, out of earshot the lightshow continues illuminating the window of the front bedroom, a single flash followed by a pause and the beginnings of another.

Suddenly lifted from his feet he’s thrown, tumbling around the cobblestone street at some point striking his head off the curb during the chaos he's left laying in the gutter for thirty seconds as he recovers his senses. Gingerly he flexes his arms and pushes himself up, almost faltering at the mid way point as his arms shake under the strain and almost falter. He gets to his feet and brushes bits of dust and brick from his robe before turning back to the house and taking in the sight in front of him. Ears still ringing he hits his temple with the flat of his palm, the focus returning slightly only to replace the ring with the sound of a caterwauil alarm.

He takes two steps towards the house to investigate the cause of the commotion before stopping and staring towards the stars as the low hum of an engine getting closer pierces the tranquillity of a serene night sky. Focusing on the unknown point, the urgency of the situation overwhelmed him, a sense of overwhelming panic setting in before a soft whisper to himself “Shit!” and with a ‘Crack!’ he disappeared into thin air.

A roof tile hangs off the roof visible through the gaping hole in the front bedroom of the house precariously teetering directly above the head of the boy at the centre of tonight's momentous events. Of the four entities standing in the corner of the room, one, Emotion, turns to Fortune and exclaims “Can you do nothing for the boy! If he's killed at this stage by a tile after centuries of waiting it’s just incompetence on our part.”

“There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be.” Fate extols exacerbated at the people whose company she's being forced to put up with.

The man in black looking out of place among his peers with a long unwieldy scythe in his right hand gives up staring at the tile and turns to Fate shouting “I’ve already had to listen to John Lennon at his own death. I won't listen to you quote him in one that doesn’t bloody involve him. Can somebody fucking do something! I was hoping I wouldn’t have to touch the child for decades, never mind straight away.”

A quite muttering could still be heard coming from the side as Death starred at a well used children's toy that played animal noises if you pushed a button as the tile finally slid of the roof falling at an unnatural angle onto it and a rooster crowing noise whispered into the night “One of the most annoying deaths I’ve done, stood in the street and I couldn't tell if Yoko was screaming in shock at the body or if she was singing. He was just annoying, couldn't get over the fact he’d been shot despite having a hole in him. Told him it’s exactly what he gets for telling people to imagine a world with no war in it, used to be half my job a few centuries ago wars were. Battlefields are much more interesting than lounging about waiting in hospitals!”

As his rant reaches a crescendo a guttural lament can be heard coming from below in the hallway startling the child out of his stupor into tears that are quickly followed by the loud footfall of a man running upstairs bounding two with each stride.

Had the door not already been blown off its hinges, now resting against the far wall in splinters from the explosion, the man clad in aurors robes would have shattered it with the force of his entrance. Yet, he abruptly halted, taking a moment to absorb the scene unfolding before him.

As the shaggy-haired man stands almost catatonic with grief, the child's cries gradually weaken, eventually ceasing altogether as he topples forward against the railings of the crib. The minor cuts and the sizable gash on his forehead finally take their toll, causing him to lose consciousness due to blood loss.

Shaken by the possibility of further tragedy he bursts into action with well drilled training finally taking over from shock, rapidly shouting ‘Episkey!’ pointing his wand at every cut he can see and frowning when the wound on the forehead refuses to close followed by a half dozen diagnostic charms that leave him at a complete loss.

At this, Emotion, still standing watching this scene play out in the corner of the room looks at Death and complains “Can you not take the intruder from the boy?”

Death points a black velvet glove overlain with hand bones at the boy's head before taking an hourglass out of his pocket turning it in his hand seven times then lamenting “The fragment slips from my grasp, I continue to be cheated of a soul, even if just a fragment promised to my embrace.”

Emotion, getting visibly more upset, turns to a glare and says “If you're incapable of ferrying a soul to the other side, what is the point of you?”.

The others couldn’t help but think they always had been incapable of understanding one another, their roles too dissimilar and their goals in other tasks too often competing. It’s why they didn't have Yule or New Year parties, every time they got together it just devolved into arguing.

The shaggy man finally giving up the boy’s forehead as beyond his ability pulls a vial out of his robe pocket forcing it into the child before casting ‘Ferula’, bandages suddenly leaping from thin air quickly wrap around the wound. After quickly taking in his surroundings again the man leans over and scoops the child's body into his arms before beginning to move towards the hall.

Stumbling carefully over the broken furniture and plaster littering the hallway the man tried his best to keep the infant from seeing the body that lay there, to preserve the last of his innocence, whispering that he’ll keep him safe.

As he approaches the porch the sound of approaching crashing in the garden can be heard over the wails of a caterwauled siren echoing into the night.

‘Sirius!’

‘Hagrid!’

Sirius lowered his wand from the imposing tall figure whose frame rose slightly above the well maintained ten foot hedge at the back of the garden and was rapidly approaching the step onto the porch with a large pink umbrella pointed directly between Sirius' eyes.

“What are you doing here Hagrid?” Sirius had immediately dismissed Hagrid as a threat; the gentle soul's loyalty was unimpeachable but while Hagrid was the best person in the world to help in a bar fight he wasn’t much use in a duel due to his unfinished education in wanded magic.

“Dumbledore sent me. Told me to take Harry to him until it’s safe…” as his bushy eyebrows shifted in rapid succession as he took in the scene around him conveying a wide range of emotions.

“I'll protect him, Hagrid. No matter what. I owe that to James and Lily.” Sirius said softly before he steeled himself and picked up more confidence as he spoke “I’m taking him to Frank and Alice's place like Lily planned.”

Hagrid slowly lowered his umbrella, hand shaking violently as he did it. Sirius was caught imagining just how many litres of adrenaline it would take to do that to the man. The two started to move down the path towards the gate into the street.

"Dumbledore told me Harry's gotta go see him. Says he needs a check-up to make sure he's alright. Can't trust St Mungo's; he reckons it's been infiltrated."

Sirius was torn, it was a sensible enough thing to say he already knew the wound on Harry's head was a curse wound that could cause untold problems. If it was beyond his ability to heal it was almost certainly above Franks too, the both of them only had auror training first aid, Harry needed a healer.

Hagrid peering up and down the street stepped towards the motorbike and sidecar parked haphazardly half on the footpath half on the road in front of the house before looking back towards Sirius nodding “Coasts clear.”

Stepping into the street, Sirius' gaze was drawn away by a smattering of blood on the curb of the footpath opposite.“Hagrid, hold Harry a second.” gently passing him off to the other man then pulling a thin brass cylinder from his inside pocket into his hand before unscrewing the top quarter off, striding over the street and prodding it with the item.

Sirius took one final look at the pair, a combined sense of urgency, rage and grief so palpable that Emotion could tell even Fate and Fortune would see it, could feel the magic pulsing around them before shouting “Take the bike Hagrid I won’t be needing it, make sure Harry’s alright” apparating away with a loud crack.

“Why do we even have prophecies when everyone is free to ignore them? I thought the boy was to be raised by the Grim. An entire realm meant to bow to our embrace and they just ignore it even when the biggest fool of the lot of us spends her time dropping multiple prophecies and cryptic hints.” Death growled, his voice raised even further. “Sometimes it’s bloody hard to tell between a slither of divinity and an unemployed bohemian poet. They cracked the enigma machine but can’t decipher your spiel!”

Fate always despaired that everyone assumed the nature of prophecy was written in stone, despite feeling as if she was repeating herself she couldn’t contain the lesson about her inability to directly get involved and influence “Prophecy is not a guarantee, there is no destiny or she would be talking to us now complaining like the rest of you! I cannot railroad the boy to achieve what we wish, only provide him a few paths of opportunity to achieve it. He cannot be good if we can never fear him becoming wicked.”

“It was already a fool's hope that the boy would make the decisions required at every fork in the road, that his heart not be corrupted by the journey. Never mind making the most of any potential ability he might have.”

“It hasn’t even been an hour and I fear with how the other players have already started to move against us, the number of paths that lead to the child's victory are already reduced, the opportunity is getting away from our grasp.”

Fortune, usually considered annoyingly jovial by most of the company surrounding her, especially Death who she often provided mortals lucky escapes from let go of a long held sigh “It’s a fool's gambit, even I cannot guarantee rolling six’s every time the die is cast and the starting hand we’ve been dealt doesn’t leave much to work with.”

“One of the reasons we’re all here is because one of the fools keeps using people's lives as if they’re pieces on a chess board instead of being empathetic and just. Now you two are using terminology that makes it seem like you're falling into the same traps. Treating lives like they’re just part of some grand game.” Emotion snapped back.

Death had had enough of being lectured too and couldn’t hold the sarcastic retort “I thought you were supposed to be the gentle and loving one and here you are snapping at us like an angry Kelpie.”

“Anger is an emotion, it's just not as strong as love and at the minute I’m pissed with the lot of you.”

Fortune suddenly struck with a moment of inspiration that might salvage the situation slightly saw this as her opportunity to slink off and quietly enact her plan without the rest of them bumbling about and ruining it, turning on her heels and walking briskly off towards the nearest alley.

Fate mused that she had always known she would be around at the end of the world because she was immortal despite not actually being alive and that meant she didn’t have any alternative in the matter. Still she hoped that as much as it was inevitable that it was all a long way off. Thankfully Time and Space had not got themselves involved watching over Harry so things might not be as dire as she feared but they always had been illusive, only keeping themselves for company, they could be watching quietly from further afield.

In a moment of introspection they all quietly and separately came to an agreement that they’d been building to this point for the better part of a millennium, a few centuries of gradual decline clearly visible behind them.

The royal line had barely survived the violence leading up to the Norman Conquest; its number of heirs reduced from dozens to a couple. The death of Henry the firsts heir William Adelin along with three hundred of the country's flower in the drunken debacle of the White Ship disaster of 1180 saw the breaking of magics blessing of the line of Arthurs successors leaving the country to anarchy. The nation's hopes proverbially drown along with its nobility in the English Channel, dashed upon rocks in a turbulent sea not even a long wizarding lifetime past the death of the last of the founders, the strength of magic gradually fading along with its memory it’s muggle heirs making do as best they could.

Chapter Text

31st October 1981

Godric's Hollow, Exmoor.

Fortune found herself standing outside the most unique looking building in the village, a converted bungalow with a tower of wood nestled in its centre three stories tall, a sturdy oak door painted in vibrant red marking its entrance.

Disconcertingly some of the occupants were looking into the street directly at her in puzzlement, she wasn’t sure if this meant they could see her, the thought that they could was mildly troubling. Maybe they could, it was Shamhain, the day the veil between the realms of the living, the departed and the divine was at its thinnest, the reason she had to act tonight before the opportunity was lost.

She strode through the closed door, this was the second building she would be breaking into tonight, and she felt the wards inspect her. A poltergeist ward that usually prevented the spirits tampering with mail studied her with some degree of bafflement. She was almost a spirit so the inspection didn’t surprise her but she was also a slither of divinity and warders just don’t account for that sort of thing, even the masters. It felt her intentions were evident, she planned mischief, possibly even a complete debacle, but had been granted permission to pass by Lady Magic herself. Fortune liked to think of it as significant upheaval but came away from the encounter glad that magic had approved of her deviation from the agreed plan.

She entered the tower hoping it contained what she was searching for, pairs of glowing eyes watching from two dozen crevices inlaid into the walls. Coming to the first box she stared at the occupant then tilting her head and craning her neck in a variety of awkward poses tried to peek under it without success “Move! Bloody owls!”.

The owl looked at her indignantly, ruffled its feathers and hooted a retort. ‘Hoot, hoot, hoooo’. 

It was hard not to think they really could see her now so decided it was best to ask for their help rather than continue making them agitated “Are any of you sitting on a clutch? I have a task from magic you could help with.”

The loud bark of an owl came from one story up ‘Berk!’ and Fortune climbed the stairs towards its source. Upon reaching the landing at the top of the stairs, she twisted her neck to look around, responding to another bark from behind and approaching the alcove it came from.

Not being used to conversation with animals even if they were slightly magical in nature, Fortune started with an ice breaker,‘Would you believe this is the first time I’ve talked to an owl?’. Only to be met with a hoarse shriek as the owl tilted its head back towards the roof of its nook.

She stared at the owl, lifting an eyebrow giving it the eye while shrugging her shoulders. “Okay, not a fan of small talk.” In many ways she liked its confidence and candour thinking it boded well if it carried to the offspring,  “A boy being watched by Magic herselfs parents were killed by Voldemort tonight in the village. While we had a plan to protect the boy over the coming years it's already gone wrong.” The owl tilted its head in response considering what it had just been told so Fortune just continued on “If I could use my influence on one of your eggs it might save the boy's life. If you do choose to help however it will come at a cost, to alter the soul of the egg I'll have to make use of those in the rest of the clutch and they will wither.”  

The owl tiled its head further to the side, its eyes darting about lost in thought as it considered the proposition.

Fortune had started to get impatient around forty seconds into the wait but kept her gaze fixed on the owl. Thirty seconds later just as she was beginning to lose hope the owl straightened up, stared her in the eyes for two seconds, nodded and hopped a half step over to the side exposing five cream coloured eggs.

“Thank you!” Fortune gave a nod back.

Fortune took another half step towards the alcove and raised her hand over the clutch feeling outwards sensing at the weave for traces of luck before making a decision. Picking up one of the eggs she placed it into her left hand then began to pluck at one of the strands of the tapestry that holds the universe together with her right.

With each pluck there were consequences, the delicate balance of the cosmos in danger of unravelling, the effect of each alteration causing ripples of uncertainty to expand from its source. 

Fortune looked over her work so far, the weave of the tapestry, smiling as she noticed the day of its creation, the thinness of the veil strengthened the endowment the souls imparted. She took the final strand, seamlessly attaching it to another before looking up back towards the owl. “This is our Rubicon.” Placing the egg back into the nest the two look on, witnesses as it begins to faintly shake.

1st November
Hogwarts Castle, Cairngorm National Park

Sat in an ornate mahogany chair with a hand resting on his chin while staring at a series of instruments usually hidden in the corner of his room but now proudly on display in the centre of his office Albus Dumbledore was feeling restless. He pulled his pocket watch out of his robe and checked it for the hundredth time tonight, it had just gone four in the morning, less than two minutes since the last time he looked at it, the idea of sleep a distant memory. 

Hagrid was taking much longer to get back to Hogwarts than he expected. He watched the tool that told him Harry was alive, whirring with trepidation should anything untoward happen to them. Albus Dumbledore was considered by many to be the most capable wizard alive and yet as he waited he felt utterly powerless.

He’d expected an attack on the Potter’s, in many ways he’d hoped for it despite his best attempts to prevent it. To his shame after hearing a prophecy two years previously a part of him saw it as salvation after a decade containing nothing but bad news.

When he heard the monitors he’d placed on the Potter’s house begin to go off jogging his memory of the house he knew Lily was dead as she’d cast the Fidelius charm over the property that had prevented them working. 

He’d moved quickly, much more spritely than you would expect for a man who had just entered his tenth decade to the back of his office to read the trackers, tracers and checkers he’d placed on the family before they had gone into hiding fearing for their own safety.

Studying the instruments had left Dumbledore confused; he had thought if Voldemort had attacked Harry would die, that the child's sacrifice would kill Voldemort along with him. Yet, the instrument that told him Harry was alive was still giving off steam after the two beside it went silent. He had watched as the column of steam began to stutter in fits and bursts instead of exiting the vessel as a constant stream before sending a message to Hagrid to check on the child, take him if he was still there. He dragged the instruments across the room and began sending a half dozen other messages to more important players in an attempt to gather information.

Five minutes later a spectral white Alsatian dog had leapt into the room before talking in a gruff Scottish man's voice “Lily and James are dead, witnesses say it was Voldemort himself. The entire house has blown up, bits of it across the street. Didn’t see Voldemort come out after it. We went in and couldn't make head nor tail of it. We think he’s dead, no body left and he definitely cast two killing curses in the room, had his magical signature all over it. The only two witnesses who didn’t run said Sirius and Hagrid turned up, had an argument before Sirius ran off and Hagrid took Harry. Not sure I believe that, can’t see how he’d survive the blast. Best get down here, have a look for yourself.”

The ward in the hallway tripped as it told him who was approaching. “Come in Hagrid”.

Hagrid opened the door and stormed into the room. Ablus looked up from the instruments, noticing the bundle he was carrying with one arm protectively against his chest, “Hagrid, what kept you?”.

“I ‘ad ter change the route and take a detour ‘roun Glasgow after we nearly got hit by fireworks comin’ o’er Liverpool.” he almost bellowed obviously having got close enough they had affected his hearing, Harry almost stirring at the noise before Dumbledore waved his wand to rectify it.

“The route Hagrid? How did you get back? It took you less than five minutes to get there but hours to come back”

Hagrid quieter than before but still louder than the average person replied quickly “Sirius lent me thon bike he has, din want ter put ‘em thru’ usin’ a portkey, even I don’ like those.” 

Dumbledore wondered at that, stroking his beard again in thought about Sirius actions for a fraction of a second before asking him to put Harry down on a thin baby mattress he conjured from air on his desk. 

Dumbledore saw the ragged lightning bolt shaped scar on the child's forehead and began casting every diagnostic spell he could think off, occasionally books would fly off library shelves towards him opening as they travelled before he peered into them and cast another spell. That he could do this while simultaneously grilling Hagrid for every detail of what he’d found was undoubtedly impressive.

Eventually as time stretched on he gave a final flurry of rapid spells before slumping back into his chair in defeat and rubbed at his temples. “I can’t fix this Hagrid.” As he pointed at the child's head.

“Should we get the matron?”

“No, the boy’s been hit with the killing curse and survived it. Hagrid, it’s unprecedented. Poppy couldn’t fix this.” He sighed, “I don’t think anyone could fix this. Some dark curses leave a mark. There are none darker.”

The silence stretched out between them, Hagrid began to cry as he talked about James and Lily, Dumbledore lay in thought before coming round as Hagrid asked “Who’ll take ter’ lad in?”  

A plan formed for every eventuality as he’d waited on Hagrids arrival, he looked across the table, “Hagrid, take the boy to his Aunt and Uncles. Quick, follow, I’ll walk with you to the bike. It’s the best place for him.”

The two talked about what was to happen and where he was to go as they walked the halls and finally approached the motorbike before Dumbledore pulled his wand out of his sleeve and came to the crux of the conversation "Hagrid, for your safety and the childs you can't remember most of what you've seen since leaving Godrics Hollow tonight. They will come for both of you if I don't." Looking down at the wand Hagrid frowned and took on a grim expression before giving a firm nod and immediately he was struck with a sudden red flash, “Stupefy ” his body went rigid and eyes began to roll. In the dark with only the backlight of the motorcycle headlamp he approached as Hagrid lay on his back sprawled on the ground and began his work, " Confundus, Obliviate, Envenrate”. 

Dumbledore left for the ministry knowing he had just over half a day to enact his political schemes before Hagrid would finish a trip he would have no knowledge of back to Godric's Hollow and then a further trip on to Privet Drive. Half a day to take advantage of the chaos. Half a day to steer the country away from the rocks.

1st November
Ministry of Magic, Whitehall.

Dumbledore was approached by a person wearing a black cape over there robes, hood raised distorting their face rendering them unrecognisable as he stepped off the lift onto level nine of the ministry to be led into the Department of Mysteries (DOM).

He tried to look through the haze, to lock onto their eyes “I’m here to see Croaker”.

“You’re to follow me. Croaker doesn’t take anything to do with them. Sometimes says we should get rid of the lot of them.” 

Dumbledore followed trailing a few paces behind. The guide opened a door gesturing for him to go first. “Room you enter is random unless you're an unspeakable. Have to let you go first or we could end up anywhere.”

The two entered into a hall filled roof to floor as far as the eye could see with shelves packed with thousands of glass orbs each the size of a tennis ball, some emanating a faint white glow others a pale grey tint.

They walked until they found the orb they’d come for still faintly glowing white, etched in the brass plaque attached to the wooden cradle holding the ball was inscribed S.P.T to A.P.W.B.D, Dark Lord and (?) Harry Potter.

“Who added the section about Harry Potter?” 

“Me and four other colleagues did, we came in last night after hearing the news and debated it. We can’t see it being about anyone else after what happened.”

"Aren't the prophecies contents in the hall supposed to be a state secret? I'm suprised so many people knew about it to come in."

"Yes, and we work for the arm of the state that deals with them. If the prophecy hadn't been spoken to you then on the Wizengmot or not you wouldn't be allowed to learn it existed. We can’t actually talk about the details of the prophecy with anyone but yourself, Sybil, Mr Potter, the dark lord or that has level P.1.AB or above unspeakable clearance.”

“Ah yes, slipped my mind, apologies. Any particularly interesting points brought up in the discussion?”  

“It was very lively. Not very often a prophecy gets that sort of interest around here considering how woolly most in the department think the entire branch of magic is. Even rarer that we come to any consensus on what any of these say. The two things we could agree on is that it is definitely about Mr Potter and that it’s a self fulfilling prophecy.”

“Does the department have any working theories on how the boy survived a killing curse? With what, all things considered, is only a scratch?”

“Only wild guesses, nothing definitive. After Auror Moody hinted at it and you confirmed it last night it’s the most interesting and widely speculated about topic I’ve heard off since I started working here. We've even put it to the ICW and they spread it around the other magical nations, shouldn't be possible. Only known case in history so far as we can tell. Some of the theories are so wild they might get printed in the Quibbler, everything from him being a shape shifting horned serpent animagus who hypnotised Voldemort to divine providence. The most popular theory is Lady Potter doing some sort of  runic sacrifice ritual if what the neighbours heard is correct. Some of the reporters have given up even attempting to figure it out and are calling him ‘The-boy-who-lived’, I think it’s going to catch on, already people in here calling him it.”

“Thank you for your time, I’ll have to go try and find the minister, see what the feeling is upstairs.” 

He rapped the door to the minister of magic's office and went to open the door just as she was opening it to leave, an elderly brunette lady in smart black robes over a muggle pants suit who looks like shes approaching her retirement, a large opal pendant necklace coming from her neck exited. “Minister Bagnold, I thought I’d catch you early.”  

She began walking towards the lift, “Never left Albus, attacks have been happening so often recently that I started keeping a change of clothes in the office. Thank god it’s all over now. A few months from now and we wade through the last of the tidal wave of shit we’ve been under the last few years I can be drinking Ogdens finest on a tropical beach somewhere.'' 

Dumbeldore waited until a ministerial aide who’d come running with a folder handing it to the minister shouting about an arrested Death Eater claiming he’d been imperiused had finished his rant before speaking. “Are the Lords meeting to discuss it? Your aide seems rather worked up about something that seems quite likely.”

The minister stopped walking for a second and peered over her glasses at Albus before beginning again, “There's an emergency session of the Wizingmot at half seven, most of the lords aren’t happy about being dragged out of their beds so early, most of them were out celebrating a bit too much last night and I think some of them might have been commiserating. Did you not get the notice that was owlled?”

“No, here on other business this morning but assumed it would be the case. Any news on Black?” 

“Arcturus is still ill, the healers think it’s degenerative, lost his marbles slightly but it comes and goes. Why?”

“No, I was referring to young Sirius Black.”

“What of him?”

“I have it under good authority that he was the Potter secret keeper, that he was seen at the scene last night before getting into an argument with Hagrid and fleeing. It’s imperative that he’s caught.”

Minister Bagnold turned to the nearest aide rushing through the hallways and snapped “Get me Barty! Immediately! Tell him if he’s not here in two minutes I’ll rearrange his bones in alphabetical order.”

“Millicent I don’t think there's any need for that sort of threat, even in jest.”

“Albus it’s not your place to say who I can threaten under my own Ministry. Sometimes I feel like nothing would ever get done here if I didn’t hold people at wand point occasionally. I’m pretty sure if some of them were left to their own devices they’d be writing legislation for a new European gobstone league or spend a decade discussing the thickness of cauldrons instead of anything worth the public paying their taxes for.

A stern looking man with thinning hair and a large moustache swooped into the hall and approached them, “Minister, Warlock Dumbeldore” nodding respectfully at each in turn.

Minister Bagnold began walking again as soon as he arrived, “No need for the formalities Barty, Albus is going to explain to you what he just discussed with me about Sirius Black.”

Dumbledore repeated what he’d said earlier adding, “He has to be sent to Azkaban for this, it's beyond the pale and the public will demand blood or our heads.”

Bartimus Crouch had a gleam of joy in his eyes, “He has a point minister. Sirius is a trained Auror, one of the best, if he’s turned and went off the rails he’ll be incredibly dangerous.'' Nobody hated a traitor more, a blank cheque to bring him in was like waving a red rag in front of a bull.

“Any means necessary Barty, the longer he’s loose the longer the public think we’re all as woefully incompetent as I know we are. Send a message for Lady Crouch to represent you today. I imagine whatever happens today will be so important that our great-great grandchildren will no doubt read about it in class and discuss how we made such bollocks of it. History is rarely kind, full of folk that think they could of done better only because they have the benefit of hindsight.”

He looked at her and laughed with genuine mirth before spinning on his heels, striding off in the opposite direction, leaving the two to continue down the hall. “Time to put on my mask Albus.” Millicent whispered as they stepped into the chamber; it was a cacophony of noise.

Chapter Text

2nd November 1981
Beyond the Mist, Ulthuan.

Noise could be heard from outside the door to the hall, a shouted command to stop followed by a short pause, the whispered sound of low voices conversing quickly.

The doors burst open, revealing a figure walking at pace into the hall, a tall and graceful physique with high cheekbones and sharp jawline dressed in a deep blue robe head covered with an elaborate matching wizards hat.

The dining hall is vast, with high vaulted ceilings supported by majestic carved pillars adorned with intricate carvings, embellished with frescoes and tapestries that depict scenes of mythology, history, and valour. Shields and banners bearing the symbols of noble houses and heraldic insignias are proudly displayed along the walls.

In the heart of the hall, a finely crafted, long rectangular table of oak dominates the space. Positioned at its head is a woman of remarkable beauty, seated in a majestic chair adorned with enchanting runes and symbols of power. Her hair, flowing as dark as midnight, frames a face with mesmerising brown eyes that exude an unmistakable air of authority. Draped in elegant, flowing robes and adorned with symbolic jewellery, her posture and demeanour convey an undeniable presence.

At his approach she looks up from cutting at the pheasant infront of her. “Loremaster, I do not normally allow such interruptions during meals. I hope for your sake the reason for this interruption is serious enough to justify it.”

“My Lady an owl has arrived through the Mare Caligo Gap bearing news from one of our operatives.”

“What news?"

“Our chosen champion has fallen. Reliable information on how this has occurred is sparse but we are confident this much is accurate.”

The Lady's fingers clenched tightly around an opulent goblet before in a fit of rage and a swift, forceful motion launching it across the room tracing a brief but chaotic arc, spraying garnet coloured liquid along its path.“It has been 328 years since the War of the Four Kingdoms, 328 years since our last attempt, 328 years of waiting, of biding our time, manipulating from the shadows. Not since the Glorious Revolution have we even come so close to the opportune moment to strike. Generations of this family have lived and perished without bringing our enemy to bear. We cannot sit idle for all of eternity!”

“We cannot move until the conditions are correct my lady, the second loss broke us a third would only diminish us further.”

“Then we shall endeavour quickly to create the correct conditions.” 

“You believe we shall get the opportunity to manoeuvre someone to fill his role? 

“It is fortunate master Teclis through our manipulations that failsafes were put in place. His ideals drew many sycophants and in time one will become disillusioned with the stalemate and seek to restore him.”

“Should we pause all subterfuge operations until such a time so we don’t expose ourselves?” 

The Lady sets down her cutlery, her meal half finished, before excusing herself from the chair and beginning to move towards the window. The window itself is grand in scale, allowing light to cascade into the chamber while providing a strategic vantage point over the castle grounds. Adorned with ornate stone carvings that tell silent tales of the skilled craftsmen who shaped them.

“Pause all field activity involving magical operatives to retain manpower for future use. Continue Irish and foreign activities with our mundane forces, if they can strike at political targets outwith that area allow them to do so. It’s imperative we keep the muggles distracted, should they be allowed to discover us our plans will become untenable, the rate of their advance outstrips our own. Attempt to get as many subversive influences close to centres of power to stall legislation that could oppose our goals as possible.”

“It will be done my lady, however I believe our diversionary operation to create conflict in the Falklands may be too advanced to shelve.”

She sighed, the muggles having their gaze fixed half a world away and unable to influence any planned power grab was one of there more devious plans. “So be it” she whispered as he turned to leave.

She looks out gazing at a distant basilica that stands atop an acropolis—a part of the city long since abandoned, now partially collapsed and beginning to exhibit the ravages of time. It is an edifice she still cannot enter, its stone resilient against all thrown against it except entropy. Weathering and gravity gradually laying it low. From this distance, one can still discern the sun catching the inscription lettered in gold on the stone architrave directly over the entrance columns: 'HIC IACET SEPVLTVS ARTVRIVS IN INSVLA AVALONIA.'

Mon 21st December 1981
Godric's Hollow, Exmoor.

The night was auspicious even if the owl was unaware of its importance, its significance evident by the amount of names it had been given. 21st of December, the Winter Solstice, Yule, Saturnalia, Modranicht or Alban Arthan each rendition agreeing the day was sacred, a spiritually significant time. Celebrated as the longest night, the turning point with the promise of returning warmth, the triumph of light over darkness, the overturning of social norms and hierarchies.

The young owl had been drawing compliments from the postal workers for the last seven weeks, beautiful and majestic were regularly being bandied about. Its distinctive soft and pristine snowy-white plumage is a striking contrast from the dull brown and greys in the rest of the owlery. Large golden-yellow eyes that convey striking intelligence, some of the postmasters swore that she understood them. 

She’d spent most of her life with a sense of wanderlust, unusual for such a young creature, usually the realm of jaded adults, a slight tug at the back of her mind telling her she needed to travel east was present from the moment she was born. She couldn’t do anything about it, when she hatched she was too small, incapable of flight. Her first attempt at flying had not gone well, at five weeks old she’d flung herself out of the nest where she flew like a brick and landed in a graceless heap on the ground.

It was while she was scrambling around to right herself, undignified on the floor and wondering just how she’d get back to her mothers nook that she decided that it would be best if she put in some more practice before travelling east. So she kept trying, a fear of falling unable to deter her from the joy of flight. Fortunately in the first week of failures a postmaster was always at hand to help her back to her nest, unable to help themselves cooing and whispering words of encouragement.

Now with two more weeks of practice as the sun dipped below the horizon on the shortest day and the owlery became covered in shadow she sat perched near the edge of her cosy nook, her heart a flutter with anticipation.

Her parents were perched across from her atop a large wooden beam in the building's rafters eagerly awaiting the landmark event with a degree of trepidation. The elder owls watched on with a sense of pride, their hoots now a symphony of encouragement, a rite of passage bearing the weight of generations awaiting the initiate flying the coop. 

She took a deep breath and a tentative hop to the precipice of the nook and unfurling her wings. She began with a gentle flap before growing confidence, increasing her effort, wings moving at pace, beginning to feel resistance and lift. With a leap of faith she jumped into the unknown encouraged by the embrace of the air.

At first, her flight was uncertain, her wings awkward and unsure. But as the parliament's encouragement grew louder, she felt a surge of determination. With each beat of her wings, the young owl rose higher, her heart swelling with exhilaration and exertion in equal measure.

With relative ease she’d reached one of the owlery exits before landing to take in a newly discovered expanse beyond the safety of the home, the place she’d known all her life. With keen eyes showing the way she spread her wings, embracing the vastness of the night, soaring into the unknown. Her heart raced, and the wind whispered secrets in her ears. She navigated with newfound grace, weaving through moonlit clouds with relative ease, her winged silhouette streaking across the boundless expanse of the sky. 

The landscape changed beneath her on a journey beyond the ability of other fledglings. The rugged landscapes of Exmoor give way to rolling fields and quaint market towns each with its own charm and history. As she approached the outskirts of London the scenery shifted dramatically, blinding city lights marking its approach, open expanses giving rise to a metropolis in action.

Wizarding postal owls were slightly faster than truly wild owls, imbued with magic that enhanced speed and endurance. It was a necessity for communication, bred into them after a particularly surly wizard in the 6th century was invited to dinner only to arrive after the last of the wine had been taken, an event he found utterly unacceptable. As such the young owl made good time arriving in Surrey not long before morning perching on top of a lamppost as she got her bearings.

As she neared her goal a peculiar disorientation gripped her, the tug at the back of her brain faltered at an unforeseen obstacle. Unknown to all but Dumbledore the blood wards enacted after placing Harry with his Aunt and Uncle provided a source of ancient and potent protective enchantments, woven into the very fabric of the air, masking the usually reliable connection between wizard and owl, a barrier to entry until given permission to pass.

Confused but undeterred, she flew in circles, gradually reducing in area, hooting softly as if calling out. Her efforts met only with an unsettling silence. The once familiar pull of her target seemed to have vanished as she bounced off the protective cocoon of the extensive blood wards, momentarily sent into a spiralling dive.

She sought a higher vantage point, hoping to pierce through the magical veil that concealed her target from her. The night sky bore witness to a determined owl, her snowy feathers illuminated by the glow of the moon, tirelessly attempting to breach the mystical barriers.

As the night wore on, her efforts persisted, embodying a sense of unwavering curiosity. Yet, the blood wards held firm, veiling her goal from her perception. The pull, while strong, became directionless, yielded to the formidable protections surrounding the child.

Dawn began to break, the lights of the city flicked off and she landed for rest; exhausted and disheartened, temporarily abandoning the search.

Chapter Text

13th September 1985
Little Whinging, Surrey.

Harry was having an awful month, he was used to being punished for things he didn’t quite understand. How can any five year old make sense of the world without an adult to guide them? When the only adults he knew in life were actively trying to hinder him, what hope did he have of making sense of the world around him? 

Initially he hadn't known what he was doing occasionally was odd, every five year old and even some adults believe their experience is the standard, the average, the norm, lived experience they call it, it was moral philosophy he wasn’t ready for. A five year old who couldn’t remember the last time he experienced empathy and whose relatives would never embrace human diversity didn’t have the tools to realise people could be different quite yet. 

Eighteen days before the start of Primary School he’d been told to take the bin bags out of the kitchen to the big blue black bin that was kept outside the garage because his aunt, Petunia didn’t want it cluttering up the kitchen. This was a normal occurrence, Petunia a thin horsey looking woman would have called herself ‘houseproud’, others would have called the house sterile and devoid of personality. Petunia would have called herself attentive, others would have said she was nosy. Petunia would have classified herself as cultured, others would have told her she was keeping up appearances; one of the neighbours even called her Hyacinth Bucket behind her back and came up with an entire BAFTA winning TV Show about it half a decade later.

When she’d asked him to put the bin bags out it was pouring with rain and Harry had asked if he could wait until it stopped. His uncle Vernon, a stout man with a beefy neck and bushy moustache, had worried the boy might get used to standing up for himself if he didn’t stamp this out immediately. ‘Good British weather’ he’d said to him just as it turned into solid balls of hail and he pushed him out the door. Stood in the porch Harry really didn’t feel like getting wet or pelted but he closed his eyes and braced himself opening them only to find the bin right beside himself. Elated, he put the bag in the bin and turned round only to find Uncle Vernon standing in the doorway, a shade of purple not common in nature and radiating anger, a scowl on his face, eyes following him as if he was dangerous. Vernon stuck his head into the street and looked to the sides to see if the neighbours were watching. Satisfying himself they weren’t he lifted Harry off his feet grabbing him by the scruff of his neck, bellowing, tossing him into the cupboard under the stairs as he walked down the hall before sliding the deadbolt across, locking him in.

Harry hated his cupboard, it made him feel trapped, it made him feel lonely. It was often dark because Uncle Vernon would sometimes take the light bulb for punishment and it was dusty. The only thing that enjoyed living there were the spiders. It made him long for a sense of freedom.

At the same time Harry Loved his cupboard, it was safe, nobody ever attacked him in the cupboard, if he was in the cupboard he wasn’t doing chores. Sometimes he could read books about being anywhere else but the Dursleys. Occasionally, when the living room door was left open he could watch TV through the vent, he always tried to leave the door open. Sometimes he was sure the living room door would move if he wanted it too so he could see, this summer Star Wars had been on one afternoon and his Cousin Dudley thought he’d broken it and that it was stuck because he couldn’t move it. 

Worried with the start of school approaching, the Dursleys had made Harry stay in the cupboard until the start of term in an attempt to squash his ‘Freakishness’ as they called it. It had been his longest punishment yet, there’d be worse in the years to come. It was the first punishment we’re he'd been purposefully starved, something that became more common, eventually he learned to hide food and ration for these occasions.

Before starting Petunia had been worried people would notice the boy's condition and it would show her in a bad light. The worst thing imaginable was a blow to her reputation so she set off for a meeting with the staff to spin a tale to prevent that happening. A tale of a troubled child born to two unemployed alcoholics who crashed a car killing themselves and four members of an upstanding family with them. She told them how the boy was angry, lazy and violent, how he lied so often he could never be trusted.

This view became cemented in the teachers minds the first time his name was called on the roll, Harry hadn’t known his name, he thought he was called ‘boy’ so when it came up he waited in silence for someone else to call ‘here’. The teacher only looked up and stared at him and kept waiting in a standoff that earned him a wrap on the knuckles from a ruler before being shouted at and made to stand outside the classroom door. Teachers being teachers she gossiped in the break room at lunch about the boy and the opinion spread.

During the fist lunch Harry had got picked before Dudley for football in the playground, the other kids had thought he was too overweight to be good at it, an unbiased observer would have told them they were right. Harry was ecstatic, he loved football, Match of the Day was his favourite program through the slit every saturday night. Dudley had quickly set about making sure this never happened again threatening the other children and Harry. By wednesday Harry had given up spending time outside with the other kids and had taken to hiding in the library away from Dudley and his new gang of friends. 

The Librarian was the only person who liked Harry, he didn’t know it but it was because she was the only person who worked at the school who ate all her lunches outside the staff room so she’d judged him based on her interactions with the boy without any preconceptions or bias unlike all the teachers that followed.

After spending seven school days there consecutively and burning his way through the entire catalogue of Dr Suess she got worried for the boy. So, thinking he was just bookish but not wanting him to become a recluse cut off from his peers she kicked him out of the library for the day thinking it was to his benefit and that she was helping him form lifelong interpersonal skills. 

While trying to sneak across the playground without being seen Harry heard a voice he didn’t recognise shout his name from a few metres away and turned in the direction it came from.

Harry found himself standing in a corner of the playground out of sight from the teachers obscured by a brick wall surrounded by Dudley and his gang of three bullies trying their best to look intimidating.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Two weeks ago an owl had felt a small push of Harry's accidental magic along her tug coming from outside the blood wards for the first time in four years.

She’d travelled towards where she thought her objective was trying to narrow her search when it suddenly cut out again. After failing to find her purpose last time she was agitated, thinking she’d missed her chance. Fortunately this cycle continued for the next fortnight, the tug reduced her search area repeatedly but with no more pulses of accidental magic to guide her in like a missile guided by radar. Sat in a tree overlooking a herd of children she could feel her goal was in her eyeline and was just waiting to feel the final ping of accidental magic to pinpoint her target when she felt it. The boy in front of her with the messy black hair and green eyes, afraid, had touched on his magic to make himself look slightly bigger, like a startled cat caught by a dog in a blocked alleyway raising its hackles. She took off, flying fast and low, swooping just over the other children before landing on his head as a feeling of euphoria overtake her before being rejected, failing just before it fully took it’s embrace.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Dudley had spent lunchtime roughing up a few of the primary one students, hoping to find the few that still had some change left for the school tuck shop. The operation was very lucrative, with his own money on top of the other students this was fuelling a massive supply of sweets, a new time of plenty and he had plans to make it continue for years to come. 

Out of the corner of his eye he saw his cousin walking across the playground and decided it made for a more enjoyable target, it’d been a few days since he’d beat him up and that was far too long. Knowing he wouldn’t be able to catch up to Harry if he didn’t want to be caught he told one of his new friends Piers to run after him and hold him up.

After shouting at him he’d seen Harry stop walking and was rushing to close the distance, to spring the trap. As he made it to within two strides of his cousin a big white owl flew just over him and landed on Harry, turning its head so it’s body faced away while its head faced Dudley. 

Dudley knew odd things sometimes happened around Harry, he remembered the time his mum tried to feed him a bar of soap as punishment and it went on fire in her hand or when his dad had shouted at him before boiling water in the kettle only for vinegar to come out. Despite all that even he thought having an owl land on you then glowing a faint copper colour was odd. 

Anything that was strange, that wasn’t ordinary he felt an irrational hatred for and often that was because he was afraid of it. Everything he’d just seen made his fight or flight response kick in and for Dudley when that happened the fight always won. He balled up his fist putting as much power as he could behind it and throwing a punch. He saw Harry tense and a slight silver tinge to his skin, not enough time to stop the connection with his jaw.

His hand shattered, the sound of pops and snaps ringing out and a feeling of intense pain radiating from it. It was worse than the time he hadn’t been allowed to take his friend's older brother's NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) home after visiting and he’d punched the wall in anger. 

Seconds later the first teacher showed up and Dudley saw the look of victory in Harry's eyes turn to defeat as his gang lied telling them how the entire thing was his fault and he realised how much trouble he was in.

After the fight on the playground his aunt and uncle had been apoplectic with rage when they had arrived at the hospital. They’d hid it well while talking to the teacher who’d accompanied Dudley and dragged Harry with her was present, but the moment they were away from scrutiny life hadn’t been pleasant. When Dudley had mentioned an owl had been involved in the entire affair a knowing look passed between the two elder Dusleys who held a hushed conversation before rounding on the boy and screaming accusations at Harry. Reaching the car to find the owl perched on the roof of the car waiting for them had only made the berating worse and turn physical for the first time before he was bundled into the car and drove off.

When the owl had the audacity to follow them home, sitting in the tree in the middle of the Dursleys garden Vernon had decided it was mocking him, vowing to take action and that no ‘freakish owl!’ would be living near his family. Initially he’d tried shoo’ing it out of the tree with little success, gradually moving onto throwing a sheds worth of items into the tree then in a peak of rage removing his shoes and tossing them too the last missing the owl by at least a foot knocking Dudleys old Hula Hoop back out of the tree. Muttering to himself he’d shuffled in his socks down the hall towards the telephone while flicking his way through the yellow pages, slamming it on a  small table pointing his finger at one of the advertisements and crowing with glee.

The tree surgeon arrived the following Saturday, the name seemed quite misleading because it was clear that the goals of this operation in no way envisioned the tree coming out of this in a healthy state. In fact it was clear by the time the second chainsaw came out of the lorry that tree surgeon was just a fancy way of saying lumberjack. Within minutes the owl's home for the last week had been destroyed, Vernon couldn’t help having a small grin of satisfaction as he watched what was left of the tree be swallowed into the woodchipper spraying out like confetti at a party of his making.

Unfortunately for the Dursleys this had the opposite of the desired effect: the owl watching the tree be felled from a spot on the roof, simply deciding to move into the next best location in the neighbours garden which only brought extra attention when it was spotted. The street now almost permanently sported an encampment of bird watchers after the word of an endangered owl rarely seen in the UK and even then only seen in the Highlands of Scotland spread. Vernon hated the twitchers, ‘oddball perverts’ he called them, hiding in their camouflage tents with long lens cameras taking photos. ‘Probably taking photos through the windows while they were in the nip’ he’d made a production of shouting while gesturing his hands. Petunia had her head turned slightly towards him, occasionally nodding at his rant while surveying the street through a small gap in the blinds.

28th November 1985
Little Whinging, Surrey.

The doorbell rang as Vernon was walking down the stairs and he resigned himself to answering it, a short man with long but thinning hair turning his neck so he faces the door as it opens “Hello can I use your loo?”. He was torn between wanting to chew the man out and knowing if he refused the man would only go to neighbours perhaps mentioning how impolite he’d been. The one thing Vernon Dursley couldn’t abide was feeling as though others didn’t respect him, he couldn’t be seen to lose face with the neighbours and being rude was a quick path to animosity so he let him in. Petunia craned her neck around the living room door watching the man as he scaled the stairs tutting loudly as she saw what was left of the man's hair drawn into a ponytail. They both blamed the boy and Vernon vowed to put an end to it, hustling himself out the door only to return from the shops three hours later with a new air rifle.

Harry had been let outside of the house while not at school for the first time since the incident, Uncle Vernon claiming the grass in the front garden needed to be cut while secretly wanting to make sure the boy watched the bird die.

They’d been standing in the garden for forty five minutes, dozens of empty boxes of ammo pellets littering the ground around his uncle. Every shot, even when lined up perfectly deflected away from the bird at the last second only serving to further enrage him, Harry thought he heard him mutter ‘bloody magic’ under his breath like a mantra thinking he couldn’t hear.

Just as he had started shearing the hedge a van skidded to a stop at the end of the path with RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) emblazoned across the side. Harry was pretty sure the car was still moving when a tall man with a pointed nose so beak-like in later years it’d be the thing he laughed about most when retelling the story got out and made his way to Vernon bellowing. “What on earth do you think you're bloody doing!. Blood Snowy Owl in England! It’s almost unheard of! Vulnerable endangered bird! You're bloody shooting at it!”

Vernon had the good sense to drop the air rifle when he heard a car enter the cul-de-sac and try to kick it behind the hedge nearer to Harry but he’d been caught in the act and couldn’t palm it off.  As the argument between the two men continued he’d told Harry to wait inside before coming back in when it had started to get dark out and locking him back in the cupboard without speaking a word.

A letter with a court summons came three days later, Vernon would complain, waxing lyrical about the fine and ‘bloody owls!’ for years, his rage was only compounded by stolen glances of the owl interacting with the boy every time he was outside.

22nd July 1989
Little Whinging, Surrey.

Harry had been hiding in the garden, sitting cross legged reading Redwall in his nook between the shed and the hedge, a spot he’d found out after some testing you couldn’t see from the house unless you were looking out Dudley's second bedroom window. His owl was perched in his messy black hair sleeping, his constant companion for the last four years, he could always sense where the owl was when it was nearby. Even during punishments secluded in the cupboard he could feel through the comfort of the connection even though it often felt fuzzy that he had at least one friend. 

He’d named the owl Robert or Bob for short because he bobbed his head about when he walked, he’d been five when he did it, how was he supposed to sex an owl? He still thought it was a boy, the librarian had been unable to help when he finally managed to convince the owl she was safe to approach. The little owl gave a bark of indignation every time she was called the name but Harry just didn’t understand and thought she was answering him back. 

The owl suddenly startled peering into the hearing the rustling of the hedge as a grass snake poked its head out to bask in the summer sun only a few metres away. The sudden movement had drawn Harry's attention away from the book and he jumped up in fright, limbs scrambling, shouting,“ Bloody hell! Scared the life out of me!.”

The little snake was now just as shocked only hearing rumours hissed from mother to egg of two legs who spoke the tongue, “Speaker?” Only for the two legs to begin spinning around, giving a couple of hops trying to find where the noise was coming from obviously confused so the snake repeated itself “Speaker?”

Harry had checked for the noise, unable to see who was speaking he jumped up disturbing the owl who hadn’t been expecting it to see if it was the neighbour from over the hedge. After a second hop where he saw nobody nearby he decided it was the wind playing with his imagination, running wild after spending the day reading about talking animals in his book when he heard it again… ” Are you saying that? ” The boy inquired tentatively looking down towards the snake, voice low at the ridiculousness of the question.

Unknown to both, Petunia, ever inquisitive, had rushed to the window as soon as she heard the beginnings of strange noises emanating from the garden, dropping Vernons ironed work shirts she’d been putting into the wardrobe in the rush. Intuitively feeling a strangeness that she disagreed with to her very core. Seeing the boy and a snake apparently in conversation had terrified her, a new level of depravity in the boy's freakishness that she knew needed immediately quashed before the neighbours saw. She began to move, as quickly as she could towards the garden collecting a brush that permanently sat outside the back door as she burst into the garden.

Harry heard her before he saw her and turned his head away from the snake just to see her round the corner at speed, screeching “What are you doing!” She swung the brush at the snake like she was playing a round of golf. It would have struck the creature if Harry hadn’t reflexively kicked out at the brush, clipping it enough to deflect it as it swung, missing only by a few centimetres. 

She rounded on Harry “What are you doing!”

“I was just trying to stop you hurting it.”

 Petunia swung the brush at Harry repeatedly “Freak, what were you doing? What if the neighbours saw you doing those strange things!?”.

 After being clipped in the crossfire the owl was livid and gave a loud bark drawing Petunia's attention. Petunia, knowing that the owl represented everything she despised and worked up into a fit of anger after the snake's escape, launched the brush with the skill of an olympic javelin thrower at the creature but it never made contact.

Harry after receiving a few scrapes and welts from the brush had been worked into a rage, a rage at the violence directed at animals he felt he had to protect, a rage at the violence directed at him, a rage at the unfairness of life. He couldn’t contain it any more and when Petunia threw the javelin he was terrified at how injured his best friend would get and closed his eyes.

“STOP DOING IT!”

Harry opened his eyes again only to be confronted with the brush floating in mid air ten centimetres in front of its target. Harry looked at it for three seconds then it fell vertically like a brick, a dull thud as it hit the grass.

Petunia grabbed him by the arm pulling him, dragging him back towards the house while glaring at the owl. She thought about how she and her husband had tried their best for most of the last decade and been unable to stomp it out. No matter the punishment no matter how severe they’d been unable to make it stop. In many ways each incident just got stronger and stranger than the last.

It was in that moment dragging him between the house and the patio doors she came to the realisation that she had to get rid of him at the first opportunity, that he wasn’t safe, he could talk to snakes, she’d seen what he was doing, it was unnatural, freakish. 

She couldn’t help thinking maybe it would be best to let them get at him, they took her sister, stole her from her family for nine months a year and then they lost her to another world she just didn’t understand. Maybe they could take her son, it’s not like she wanted him, the reminder of the scale of her loss. If she let them they’d be free of him most of the year and then be done with him, safer, happier.  

Finally having made it through the kitchen boy behind her being dragged at such a pace he’s struggling to keep his footing the pair made it to the living room. She pushed the boy down on the settee gritting herself to a conversation she’d previously promised she would never allow. Harry knew it was serious, he was usually only allowed on the living room furniture if a guest was over to keep up appearances usually being made to leave the room or if he was lucky watch TV sitting on the floor. Standing in front of the boy Petunia stared down her nose at him for what felt like a lifetime debating if she should follow through on her decision before letting out a raggedy breath and beginning to speak “Harry, your mother, she didn’t die in a car crash…”

Chapter Text

29th May 1993
Chamber of Secrets, Hogwarts.

Harry stood in the dark peering down a very long dimly lit corridor with an only slightly less dim greenish glow visible in the distance, the muffled sounds of Ron’s voice and a scraping noise he could only assume was him trying to clear a path emanating from the rockfall behind him.

He considered stopping and helping clear a path, he knew that a Basilisk was down here and who knows what other monsters were lurking in the dark. It would definitely have been easier to tackle with help and the sudden loneliness of his situation had him more nervous than he cared for. His thoughts turned to Ginny, she had been down here too long already and if she still could be saved then the longer she was down here the more danger she was in.

Steeling himself he took a tentative step forward, the subsequent steps coming slightly easier to the preceding steps as fear was replaced with anticipation and resignation. He pressed on slowly, surrounded by the gloom the only noise the slow drips of water and his own ragged breaths his heart beating faster the as he approached end of the corridor until he stood where it opened up into the larger vaulted chamber where despite his best efforts his steps began to echo of the walls. He peered about the chamber ready to close his eyes at the slightest bit of movement the Basilisk could be hidden in any shadowy corner.

A few details about the vast chamber immediately stood out, a number of support pillars supporting the ceiling leaving a large open space at its centre; he could just make out frescos on the walls and ceiling. A number of large statues surrounded the room at the edges set into recesses, the most striking of which was a somewhat lifelike painted statue on the back wall just over one hundred metres in front of him as high as the chamber itself. Harry had to crane his neck up to look into the giant bearded face above him, an imposing figure with dark flowing hair and sharp angular features, eyes a piercing and calculating green.

At the statue's feet was a slightly raised dais where he could see the silhouette of a small black robed figure with flaming red hair laying face down, an arm sprawled hanging down the steps. “Ginny!” Harry shouted, sprinting to her and bounding up the three steps in one leap before dropping to his knees beside her.

“Don’t be dead! Please don’t be dead!” as he flung his wand to the floor to grab her shoulders and turn it over the momentum causing it to roll a short distance away. Her face was white as marble and just as cold her eyes closed and her head dropped limply so she wasn’t petrified.

He panicked, sure she was dead... ‘Ginny, please wake up,’ he muttered repeatedly as he shook her desperately. Ginny’s head lolled hopelessly from side to side and he turned his head pressing his ear to her chest then hovering it in front of mouth picking out the faint sound of shallow but steady breaths.

“She won’t wake up.” A soft voice spoke coming from his right.

Harry spun recognising the voice, “Tom?”

He nodded, “I’ve been expecting you Mr Potter” he said in a sardonic tone as he stared into Harry's eyes.

"What d’you mean, she won’t wake?" he replied desperately with a sudden feeling of unease washing over him under Tom's glare. ‘She’s not dead, I can hear her breathing."

"She’s still alive. But only just."

Harry stared at him, Tom Riddle had been at Hogwarts fifty years ago, yet here he stood, a weird, misty light shining about him, not a day older than sixteen, slightly translucent with a silver sheen. Then he noticed it, a small silver cord stretching out from Riddle's back until it hit a black leatherbound book, a diary, the same diary Harry had found in Myrtle's bathroom months before. He had no idea what was happening and began to hoist Ginny up instinctively knowing to keep her where she lay was to keep her in danger. She was half off the floor when he remembered he was a wizard and there were easier ways to carry someone he began casting glances about for his wand.

He looked up. Riddle was still watching him and pulled his hand from behind his back twirling Harry’s wand between his long fingers with a smile at the edges of his mouth.

“I’ve waited a long time for this, Harry Potter,’ said Riddle. ‘For the chance to see you. To speak to you.”

Harry was baffled, unable to piece together the clues but he understood that whatever had been happening this year Tom was at the centre of it. Between the menacing voice, the cold disregard for Ginny's predicament and lack of urgency to leave the chamber it was clear he was the villain of the piece. Harry knew enough to play for time and hope his luck held out, at the very least that way he might understand exactly what was actually happening before he died.

Tom began to monologue about his own genius, Harry only half paying attention and giving witty jibes and pointed questions where he felt necessary. Tom explained how Ginny has poured her heart out to him, how he’d managed to blame Hagrid for the previous opening of the chamber, how he’d led Ginny to open the Chamber against her will, how she’d fought against his will for a time and how he was surprised the person who piqued his interest had picked up the diary after Ginny threw it away before he began asking rhetorical questions about how a talentless baby defeated a dark lord.

“Why do you care?” said Harry slowly. “Voldemort was after your time.” Fists clenched by his side.

“Voldemort,” said Riddle softly, “is my past, present and future, Harry Potter.”

He pulled Harry’s wand from his pocket and began to trace it through the air, writing three shimmering words: TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE

Then he waved the wand once, and the letters of his name began slowly rearranged themselves: I AM LORD VOLDEMORT

“You see?” he whispered. “It was a name I was already using at Hogwarts, to my most intimate friends only, of course. You think I was going to use my filthy Muggle father’s name forever? I, in whose veins runs the blood of Salazar Slytherin himself, through my mother’s side?”

“You think I would keep the name of a foul, common Muggle, who abandoned me even before I was born, just because he found out his wife was a witch? No, Harry. I fashioned myself a new name, a name I knew wizards everywhere would one day fear to speak, when I had become the greatest sorcerer in the world!”

Harry gave a huff “You’re not, I’ve seen you. You're a wreck! Defeated by a muggleborn and a baby, terrified of Dumbledore.”

“Dumbledore! Dumbledore has been driven from this castle by the memory of me!”

“He’s not as gone as you might think!” Harry retorted. He was speaking at random, hoping to scare Riddle into a temporary retreat, wishing rather than believing it to be true.

Harry heard a musical chime in the far distance barely audible over Tom talking “I will show you fear!” Riddle turned towards the statue and began to hiss in parseltongue ‘Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four.’

The jaw of the statue began to slowly drop a loud scraping noise coming from behind that Harry knew could only be the Basilisk.

Harry wanted to set Ginny down but he knew he had to get away quickly so he mostly dropped her before he turned and began to run away from the statue into the depths of the chamber towards what looked like a glowing ray of sunlight as the melody of an uplifting melody made up of lilting trills and whistles steadily increased in volume.

Then the source became clear, a bird the size of a swan, a golden tint to an otherwise deep red hurtled into the chamber directly over Harry's head dropping a tattered rag into his path that hit Harry square in the chest before falling into his hand as the bird kept going in the direction of the statue. Harry continued on a few strides towards the chamber exit before he ducked behind one of the support pillars near its centre.

Riddle began to shout “This is what Dumbledore sends his defender! A songbird and an old hat! Do you feel brave, Harry Potter? Do you feel safe now?”

Harry didn’t answer, not quite comprehending what Riddle was talking about and before he had time to properly inspect it, a tear opened up in the fabric.

“Ahhh Mr Potter, well met, slightly less auspicious circumstances than the last time we had a chat.” The hat said softly.

It was difficult to shout using parseltongue but Harry felt that the “Kill him.” order Riddle was telling the snake was as close as you could come.

The Basilisk was moving towards Harry, he could hear its heavy body slithering ponderously across the dusty floor.

Harry began to respond looking down at the hat in his hands “Eh… Hi.” only to be cut off as a high pitch stuttered hiss followed wild thrashing then a low pained bass note could be heard coming from a few dozen metres beyond the pillar he'd hidden behind.

“No!” Harry heard Riddle surprising Harry that he had managed to scream in parseltongue and wondering what it was about he dared not to peek around his column. “Leave the bird! Leave the bird! The boy is behind you! You can still smell him! Kill him!”

“Ah, I believe that noise means my friend has succeeded in phase one of our cunning plan. If you could put me on Mr Potter. Quickly now. ”

Harry shoved the hat on his head and began running for the next column with his eyes closed as the basilisk's tail hit the one he’d been hidden behind only seconds before causing it to fail and sending debris through the chamber.

‘No need for that you can't see where you're going and it’ll get us both killed’ the hat gave off in his head.

Harry couldn’t help a thought of indignation about the massive basilisk chasing him crossing his mind.

‘Indeed I did see that, however as I said phase one was a success and that means the big flobberworm should be blind now’

Harry peered around the column's edge. He could see the vast, bloody eye sockets, see the mouth stretching wide, wide enough to swallow him whole, lined with fangs long as his sword, thin, glittering, venomous ... It lunged blindly. Harry dodged and it hit the column. It lunged again.

Deciding discretion was the better part of valour Harry dusted himself off and started running again only to have a purple spell catch him completely off guard and only miss him by inches before splashing off the back wall as he made it to the next column.

As he dashed between the supports Harry couldn’t help curse himself that he’d let go of his wand.

‘Interesting that you should say that with only this foe and a shadow of another to defeat.’ The hat quipped.

‘Only he says… as if beating it and whatever Voldemort is at the minute to death with my fists is a walk in the park’

The blinded serpent swayed, confused. The Phoenix circled its head, piping his eerie song, diving in before jabbing here and there at the Basilisk’s scaly nose as the blood continued pouring from its ruined eyes leaving a slick gripless floor behind it.

‘I don’t think you’ll escape by punching your way out of this.’

‘Are you just here to witness my death or can you help?’

‘Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it.’

The floor vibrated as the basilisk crashed into another column, the impact, coupled with his already shaky footing on the uneven rubble strewn ground and his nerves causing him to stumble backwards out of the way of a falling bit of masonry.

‘Please…Help me!’ Harry thought, his eyes screwed tight under the Hat.

There was no answering voice. Instead, the Hat contracted, as though an invisible hand was squeezing it very tightly. Something very hard and heavy thudded onto the top of Harry’s head, almost knocking him out. Stars winking in front of his eyes, he grabbed the top of the Hat to pull it off and felt something long and hard beneath it. A gleaming silver sword had appeared inside the Hat, its handle glittering in the low light as it caught the ruby the size of a chicken egg inlaid in the pommel.

“You could have done that from the start you know!” Harry muttered but unable to hide his glee and jammed the hat on again.

‘Probably’

The basilisk swung at Harry as he ducked under its body and darted behind an alcove with a statue along one of the side walls before realising he was trapped the basilisk between him and the open room. The basilisk hit the statue toppling it over its forked tongue lashed Harry’s side. He raised the sword in both his hands as the basilisk lunged forward again.

This time its aim was true. Harry threw his whole weight behind the sword and drove it to the hilt into the roof of the serpent’s mouth. But as warm blood drenched Harry’s arms, he felt a searing pain just above his elbow. One long, poisonous fang was sinking deeper and deeper into his arm and it splintered as the Basilisk keeled over sideways and fell, twitching, to the floor. Harry slid down the wall crumpling on his knees. He gripped the fang that was spreading poison through his body and wrenched it out of his arm. But he knew it was too late as the chamber was dissolving in a whirl of dull colour. A patch of scarlet swam past and Harry heard a soft clatter of claws beside him.

“Thanks, you were brilliant,” Harry said to the bird. “You were brilliant…” as he trailed off, unable to muster the energy to continue he felt the bird lay its beautiful head on the spot where the serpent’s fang had pierced him. He could hear echoing footsteps and then a dark shadow moved in front of him.

“You’re dead, Harry Potter,” said Riddle’s voice above him. “Dead. Even Dumbledore’s pet chicken knows it. Do you see what he’s doing, Potter? He’s crying.”

Harry blinked. The phoenix's head slid in and out of focus. Thick, pearly tears were trickling down the glossy feather.

“I’m going to sit here and enjoy watching you die, Harry Potter. Take your time. I’m in no hurry.”

Harry felt drowsy. Everything around him seemed to be spinning.

“So ends the famous Harry Potter,” said Riddle’s distant voice. “Alone in the Chamber of Secrets, forsaken by his friends, defeated at last by the Dark Lord he so unwisely challenged. You’ll be back with your dear Mudblood mother soon, Harry. She gave her life to buy you twelve years of borrowed time, but Lord Voldemort got you in the end, as you knew he must.”

If this is dying, thought Harry, it’s not so bad. Even the pain was leaving him. But he wasn’t entirely sure he was dying. Instead of going black, the Chamber seemed to be coming back into focus which was surprising considering his glasses had fallen off in the scuffle. Harry gave his head a little shake and there was Fawkes, still resting his head on Harry’s arm. A pearly patch of tears was shining all around the wound – except that there was no wound, there was only a silver patch of skin with its ragged edges a contrast to his normal skin surrounding it.

“Get away!” said Riddle’s voice suddenly. “Get away from him! I said, get away, you ruddy bird!”

Harry raised his head. Riddle was pointing Harry’s wand at Fawkes; there was a bang like a gun and Fawkes took flight again in a whirl of gold and scarlet. “Phoenix tears…” said Riddle quietly, Harry didn’t think he was supposed to hear him but his voice echoed low in the chamber while staring at Harry’s arm. “Of course... healing powers... I forgot…” He looked into Harry’s face. “But it makes no difference. In fact, I prefer it this way. Just you and me, Harry Potter... you and me…” He raised the wand.

In a rush of wings the sound of flapping cut across the one sided conversation as the phoenix soared back overhead then Harry felt a slap as something fell into his lap. A large black leather bound diary. For a split second, both Harry and Riddle, wand still raised, stared at it.

Then, without thinking, without considering, as though he had meant to do it all along, Harry seized the Basilisk fang on the floor next to him and plunged it straight into the heart of the book. There was a long, dreadful, piercing scream. Ink spurted out of the diary in torrents, streaming over Harry’s hands, flooding the floor.

Riddle was writhing and twisting, screaming and flailing as he became increasingly translucent, Harry still on his knees watching in grim fascination until he had gone.

Harry’s wand fell to the floor with a clatter and there was silence. Silence except for the steady drip, drip of ink still oozing from the diary. The Basilisk venom had burned a sizzling hole right through it. Shaking all over, Harry's head was spinning as though he’d just travelled miles by Floo powder.

Then as he was still on his knees the silence was broken. “A Gryffindor indeed. I’ll admit to being wrong about you. The legacy of the founders weighs heavily on those who dare to tread in their wake.”

Harry panting as he collected his bearings sighed before saying between heavy breaths “What's that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t think this will be the last adventure you get embroiled in Mr Potter”. The hat sounded almost giddy.

“Just what I need, more danger”

“Yes you have quite the penchants for getting into scrapes. To think that just before you were sorted I was complaining to the elves that dust my shelf how boring most of the last decade has been”. The hat continued rattling on, attempting to breathe some levity into the situation.

Harry picked himself off the floor hoping to extricate himself from the conversation, fairly certain it was starting to give him a headache and looked up at Ginny's body slowly stirring on the dais turning his back to the hat and taking two tentative steps towards it before tumbling forwards as everything went black he fell hard onto the stone and tasted blood. Moments after he lost conciousness a wail screamed into the darkness and his scar began to leak a dark pungent tar like ooze.

Chapter Text

29th May 1993
Chamber of Secrets, Hogwarts.

Ginny groaned as she began to stir, face against a cold stone floor she began to pick out the sound of birdsong nearby in the background unable to fully take it in.

“Mrs Weasley! Mrs Weasley! You must wake up Mrs Weasley!”

Suddenly taking in the noise she remembered coming into the chamber and sat bolt upright. “Tom?” She called out apprehensively into the darkness before her eyes adjusted to the faint green glow.

“Not quite. Hurry, we have to depart quickly, come.”

Ginny's bemused eyes finally took in the room as they travelled from the huge form of the dead Basilisk, its damaged eyes rolled back into its head and onto Harry face down beside the creature's head, his robes and the floor soaked in blood. The headmaster's phoenix stood beside him head to the floor looking at his face with concern and giving a trill. She gave an anguished squeal and dashed towards him.

“Harry – oh, Harry – I tried to tell you at b-breakfast, but I c-couldn’t say it in front of Percy.” She put all her weight into flipping him over noticing a slick tar like substance across the top half of his head.

“The situation is dire Mrs Weasley” A noise came from beside her.

Ginny noticed the black diary in Harry's left hand and finally saw the sorting hat a few strides behind him flattened under the hilt of a goblin wrought sword.

“I s-swear I d-didn’t mean to – R-Riddle made me, he t-took me over – and – how did you kill that – that thing? W-where’s Riddle? The last thing I r-remember is him coming out of the diary.” She stuttered at the hat.

“It’s all right Mrs Weasley, Riddle has been seen off with extreme prejudice. Quickly, take me and grip Mr Potter as best you can.”

“I’m going to be expelled!” Ginny wept, as she picked up the hat the sword clattering to the ground again while her hand gripped at harry's torso “I’ve looked forward to coming to Hogwarts ever since B-Bill came and n-now I’ll have to leave and – w-what’ll Mum and Dad say?”

The bird landed on her shoulder unexpectedly starling her and as she began to call out in shock she disappeared in a ball of flame.

29th May 1993
Hospital Wing, Hogwarts.

Poppy Pomfrey walked the ward of the hospital wing gazing over the half a dozen petrified students and took in her obviously frightened student assistant whipping the brow of one of the long term patients as she thought about the shock of the events of the last school year.

She had been a student the last time the chamber had been opened, she had never believed the ministry's version of events but once the attacks stopped she’d only thought of it occasionally in passing. This year had brought those events back to the forefront of her mind, she’d gone over every detail she could remember, she’d discussed it to death with Minerva and Pomona, she’d seen the Acromantula webs in the forest with them when Hagrid had mentioned what he was expelled for. She had no idea what could be responsible.

The sound of a roaring fire and bright flash suddenly filled the room at knee level near the doors, the glare forcing her to look to the side instead of directly at it. The glare dissipated quickly as the girl thought missing jumped in fear shouting “Bloody Hell!”

She was brought out of her temporary stupor as she saw what the girl was holding onto in her hand. signs of uncontrolled magic arcing, giving off small almost unperceivable flashes of blue and green with a slight smell of ozone over a stronger smell of necrotic flesh. She was on the move.

“Marigold help me with this!” she said into the room and the assistant shook themself into action.

“What on earth happened to you?.” She said as she grabbed the girl looking into her eyes and noting she wasn’t in immediate trouble. She turned to the boy and began levitating him, leading them both in the direction of the beds.

She set Harry on a bed before sitting Ginny on the one beside it before turning to him, the assistant having caught up immediately took over looking after Ginny.

Ginny's mouth flapped and eventually she stammered out “I, I don’t really know, I, I was unconscious… So was he when I woke up.”

“Basilisk Poppy!” came from the end of the bed, the sorting hat gripped in the talons of Fawx who’d taken up roost on the wooden panel at the foot of the bed and continued to sing softly.

“What!?” she turned her head from the diagnostic spells she was casting. In her wildest imagination she’d never thought a basilisk was a possibility. She could see the assistant in the corner of her eye staring at the sorting hat mouth agape.

“The boy was bitten by a basilisk, saving the girl. Although I’ll defer to your expertise, I don't think it’s what's causing his current predicament.”

“You think being bitten by a Basilisk isn’t his biggest problem… Are you delusional!?”

“No. But I am a hat, albeit a rather talented one, not a Medi Witch.”

The bedside table suddenly had a chunk blown out of it as a bolt of magic arched out of Harry and struck it, sending a splinter into the wall. Poppy began doing more diagnostics, summoning two crystals of quartz and placing a stick charm on them before attaching them to Harry, one on his forehead another in the hand of his wand arm; she hoped it would absorb at least some of the uncontrolled magic rolling of him. The sorting hat continued telling her what it knew as she worked Ginny and the student having ducked behind the far side of her bed watching on.

She could tell it was omitting details by odd gaps in the narrative but she knew from years treating battle wounds for Albus it was often better not to pry.

As the sorting hat finally came to how Harry collapsed just as Ginny woke up the first quartz crystal Madam Pomfrey had placed exploded, relatively gently as far as explosions go more of a pop than a bang and Fawx flashed out of the room dropping him on the floor.

Poppy healed the small scratches it had made on Harry's hand and pondered a course of action. She tried to ‘Sterilito‘ some of the black tar on his head only for it to have no effect and the diagnostics gave her no reading that she could make sense of from the substance.

“I never! Been calling him a chicken all day sarcastically only for him to chicken out at the first sign of an explosion.” The hat huffed from the ground.

Poppy had come to a decision, with the headmaster still out of the castle this was outside her experience she needed to collaborate with other healers or this could spiral even further out of control.

She turned to the Hufflepuff crouched beside Ginny, “Mrs Brightwater, I leave the patients in your hands, when I go through the floo call Professor McGonagall once I’ve left and tell her what you can, the address is Transfiguration Office.” She levitated Harry to the floo as quickly as she could watching for any discharge before turning back to the two students when she was infront of the fireplace “Once she's here, run and gather the other two assistants and bring them here until I return”, throwing an arm full of green powder at the fire she bellowed “Emergency, St Mungos!” .

29th May 1993
Chamber of Secrets, Hogwarts.

Ron heard the sound of crashes suddenly stop as he began crawling through the gap he’d made for himself in the rockfall leaving the professor behind. Never thinking about his own safety, he rushed up the corridor towards the dim light, stumbling twice as some bones gave way under foot in the darkness, getting his robes sodden in a puddle he quickly made it to the main chamber only to be greeted by rubble and silence.

Beginning to look about the room and wandering about crouched down being as silent as he could but kicking up stone rubble echoing as it bounced along the floor he finally came upon the basilisk but unable to see any sign of Harry. He closed his eyes and ducked behind a fallen column pressed against the floor behind it listening intently.

After almost two minutes in this position and hearing nothing but the drip of water or his own heartbeat a lack of patience common to all pre teens gripped him. He decided to chance a look and poked his head above the rubble. The snake was entirely still, eerily so.

Something wasn’t right, even more not right than a bloody basilisk being hidden under the school and the imminent death of his sister… probably him and Harry too.

He took another peek and continued to look for half a minute. The snake still didn’t move an inch, he had absolutely no clue what was happening. He decided to lob a cobble of masonry at it, throwing it underarm so it would arch up and give him time to duck back down before hitting its target. ‘Thump’ the cobble hit the snake before ‘Thunk, clatter, clatter’ as it bounced off and hit the floor skidding across it and he still didn’t hear anything from the snake.

He peeked up again daring to creep closer inching forward until he was an arm's length from the monster and stuck out his arm giving it a stiff prod and darting back a few steps. Again he heard no sign of movement and turned mid jog to look back.This was definitely not what he was expecting to happen when he finally got through the rubble.

He walked over to it and gave the snake a swift boot, as much power put into it as he could and it lay motionless. Confused about the entire situation he walked towards its head seeing a floor slick with blood, a toppled statue and sword he finally rounded the head and saw the snake was definitely dead, blood still dripping out of its mouth onto the floor.

“Thank Merlin for that” he whispered to nobody, the thing was massive, if it wasn’t already dead he’d have had no chance. “Harry!” he shouted, no reply. “Harry!”. “Harry, where are you!” a foreboding feeling coming over him.

“Bloody Hell” he saw Harry's wand on the floor and picked it up before walking over to the sword and trying to collect it too only to find it was practically glued to the floor, he tried again with no success and gave it up as a bad job before lifting and pocketing a black diary he recognised somewhat but couldn’t place. It had obviously been involved somehow and having it to look at later might help him get to the bottom of whatever had happened here… he decided he’d press in deeper to see if he could find the other two.

“Ginny! Ginny!” only the echoes of his own voice as a reply. He searched for ten minutes finding nothing, no secret entrances, no more tunnels, no hidden rooms and no clues either of the two people he knew had come down here. He wondered if Harry had missed him in the dark getting out of here like ships passing in the night.

He decided to make his way out of the chamber, Ginny wasn’t here so there was no point staying. Then he realised he didn't know how to get out, he couldn’t scale an almost vertical pipe. “I’m not going to be able to get out of here without help” he thought aloud to himself kicking a stone in frustration as he said it.

A flash brightened the room from behind him seconds later, throwing his shadow against the wall “Bloody Hell!” he jumped ducking behind a broken column not daring to look back at his last thought about how he was definitely done for.

A soft trill filled the air and he looked up at a phoenix perched on top of the column he was hidden behind staring down at him. “Eh hello…” He whispered “Scared the life out of me mate.” He continued to chat to the phoenix for reassurance looking up from his position on the ground. “You haven’t seen anyone else down here have you? Or know how to get out since you got in?” The phoenix just tilted its head, staring at him inquisitively before it hopped down and grabbed his robe at his chest and flamed out of the chamber.

29th May 1993
Transfiguration office, Hogwarts.

Dumbledore had only arrived at the castle minutes before and brought himself to the deputy's office to discuss the happenings in the castle, his hand rubbing his face in nervous tension as Minerva tried in vain to console Mrs Weasley's parents.

Finally he leaned back and stared at the wall wondering how it came to this his calm facade finally starting to show cracks, how was Tom influencing the castle when Fawx flashed into the room dropping a ginger haired body near the door at knee height and he feared the worst as it hit the floor.

“Bloody hell!” the body moaned, which was definitely a good sign. It was unlikely to say that if it was dead.

For a moment, there was silence as Ron lay on the floor blocking the doorway, covered in muck, slime and a small amount of blood.

Then there was a scream. ‘Ronald!’ It was Mrs Weasley, who had been sitting crying in front of the fire. She leapt to her feet, closely followed by Mr Weasley, and both of them flung themselves on their son lifting him off the floor. Professor McGonagall was taking great, steadying gasps, clutching her chest as Fawkes went gilded across the room and settled on Dumbledore’s shoulder.

“Ronald, we thought you were dead. What happened?! Where are the others!?” Mrs Weasley continued on before holding him out at arms length after a few minutes then eventually letting him go.

For ten minutes he spoke into the rapt silence: he told them about Harry hearing the disembodied voice, how Hermione had finally realised that he was hearing a Basilisk in the pipes; how he and Harry had followed the spiders into the Forest, that Aragog had told them where the last victim of the Basilisk had died; how Harry had guessed that Moaning Myrtle had been the victim, and that the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets might be in her bathroom, Jumping into the unknown shoot, the backfiring memory charm.

“Oh, Professor Lockhart is still down there…” He trailed off, glancing up at Dumbledore looking for suggestions. Dumbledore looked at Fawx who flared out of the room for another trip into the chamber.

“Very well,” Professor McGonagall prompted him, “So you made it into the chamber – breaking a hundred school rules into pieces along the way, I might add – but what on earth happened down there.”

Ron pressed on, he had just finished everything that happened to him from the chamber up until Fawx's arrival when the whoosh of the floo went off to his left.

“Oh. Professor Dumbledore, we didn't realise you were back. Madam Pomfrey told me to call Professor McGonagall. Ginny Weasley and Harry Potter arrived here injured…”

Dumbledore cut across her “Step back Mrs Brightwater were coming through” as he scurried quickly to the fireplace and stepped through followed by the rest of the room's occupants in quick succession.

“I notice Mr Potter seems to have been misplaced again…” Albus began as he looked at an empty bed covered in blood that looked to be giving off steam and a low hissing noise only for his voice to be drowned out by Mrs Weasley.

“Ginny! You’re alive! You're both Alive!” She wailed holding the girl who looked abashed at her father who joined the embrace.

“Sir” Marigold Brightwater said, drawing Dumbledore's and McGonagall's attention away from the reunion. “Madam Pomfrey had to step out with Mr Potter to St mungos…” She trailed off under there combined gaze. “The… eh, sorting hat told us… well it claimed he’s been bitten by a basilisk.”

“I didn’t claim it. I told you that's what happened!” A noise came from the floor. “Nice of you all to finally join us.” It continued on.

Minerva bent down and picked the hat up and went to question it when Mrs Brightwater finished what she was saying “I have to go and collect the other assistant healers and bring them here if you could hold down the fort for a few minutes.”

“Quite right Mrs Marigold, 20 points to Hufflepuff for continuing on amongst the chaos.” he watched as she started towards the door.

“What do you mean by being bitten by a basilisk!” Minerva finally stuttered.

“Well, I mean a Basilisk got its teeth in him.” The hat gave back. “To think we talked for so long about maybe putting you in Ravenclaw.”

Fawx flamed back into the room putting a stop to any argument and dropped Professor Lockhart who stumbled “Where am I? That was almost like magic.”

Deciding that he didn’t need any more interruptions and that Lockhart would have been a hindrance even had his mind not been addled he decided to treat the patient, stunning him in front of a silenced crowd and moving him to an empty bed.

“Now Alric, if you could tell us what you know and ignore all interruptions that would be much appreciated.” Albus said looking over his glasses at the hat slightly more used to it’s eccentricities than the other occupants of the room simultaneously casting diagnostic charms at the stricken professor.

The Hat began to regale its story for the third time today. Giving slightly more flare and as much Thespian talent into the telling as it could as this was the audience that would disseminate the tale and it was one for the history books.

29th May 1993
Hufflepuff Common Room, Hogwarts.

Marigold Brightwater opened the common room door only for every occupant to immediately turn and face her. A wall of questions quickly followed but nothing could be discerned as they talked on top of eachother.

Waving her hands in a shushing motion she stepped into the room as it quieted down. A seventh year prefect spoke up, “What's going on out there?”

She looked around the room not quite sure if she believed what she’d heard and if telling anyone would just start a wild rumour that wouldn’t be able to be stopped. After a few moments of silence she decided it was better to just tell them what she’d been told than her wild guesses at what could actually have happened.

“Well… Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley came back into the Hospital Wing covered in blood with Dumbledore's Phoenix.” She paused, unsure if the next part was even possible, there hadn’t been a basilisk sighting in the British Isles in centuries. “The sorting hat says he killed a basilisk with a sword saving her but it bit him in the process. He’s been sent to St Mungos.”

The room erupted.

Chapter Text

29th May 1993
St Mungos, London.

Andromeda Tonks arrived in the break room having finally cleaned a stubborn bit of blood from under her fingernails and off her lime green robes. As she sat she took a glance at the clock on the wall and noticed she was only 40 minutes late for lunch, which was significantly less late than normal for a day spent as the consultant healer on the accidents and emergencies ward when the emergency floo alarm went off for the fourth time that day.

She rushed the short distance down the hallway between the break room and the arrivals room, a rapid click clack of shoes following behind her. Pushing through the door she came upon a scene of complete disarray, the room was thick with a haze of green powder hanging in the air beginning to settle out on some of the flat surfaces, the fire roaring in a high green and blue flame, a smell of putrefaction filling the room. She saw shards of the floo powder pot at her feet before picking out Madam Pomfrey the Hogwarts healer through the fog bent over coughing beside a patient floating at waist height whose magic was in a dangerous state of flux. She took a step towards them sneezing as she did so. Poppy straightened up at the noise and accio’d a bed against the far wall towards herself.

As she reached the patient she took him in, at first seeing only a young boy with a pale face hidden behind a mop of unruly dark hair and a large dark stain on his forehead, rolling down his right cheek.

“Harry?” She whispered mostly to herself but Poppy picked up on it.

“Yes, now let's get him in a bed.” Poppy brought her out of what was going to be a moment of contemplation before it had a chance to really begin.

As they settled him into the bed a snap like a tightly wound band finally releasing echoed in the room, adding the smell of more ozone to what was already a room filled with sensory overload.

The victim of the unrestrained magical release fortunately was a pillow, a hole straight through both an indentation into the headboard and scorch mark visible at the base of it. “That boy causes me more problems than the rest of the school combined.” Poppy muttered to herself as she watched the smouldering hole slowly expand. She waved her wand with an incantation and the smouldering stopped.

“What on earth happened to him to get like this?”

“I was told that he was bitten by a basilisk. Although the sorting hat seems to think that's not what's causing this.”

She began with a slightly sarcastic tone as she cast the diagnostics used for creature induced injuries “Well it’s nice to know the seven years it took us to get accredited were well spent…” and had been about to pass comment about how she’d always wanted a shoe for a lawyer but trailed off as she started to look at the results.

The reading she got back somewhat made sense, but only if one of the readings had shown up individually and you ignored 40% of the diagnostic as noise, even if it would have been outlandishly absurd. The tests given to prospective healers during their final year of training designed to get aspirants lost into a tangle of indecipherable esoteric magic you’ll never encounter in your working career seemed almost quaint in their simplicity by comparison.

As it was, the parts that could be discerned were an impenetrable tangle of mostly nonsense punctuated with some of the most extreme contradictory and mutually exclusive magical side effects. Ignoring some records of treated bone breaks, bone density and growth problems from malnutrition Harry showed incredibly strong anti-poison, incredibly strong poison as well as strong indicators of a recent magical parasite attack. His magic seemed to be expanding suddenly at a rapid rate as if he’d done two years of magical maturation in an afternoon and his body was failing at containing it, his core leaking huge amounts of energy in constant waves punctuated with spikes of uncontrolled magic occasionally posing genuine risk to himself, his magic, them and the room.

Andromeda paused for a second to look into the boy's face. For all that he was on the edge of death or squibbing, he looked incredibly peaceful. He looked like a younger James had fallen asleep on the sofa in front of the fire after getting covered in dirt playing in the forest behind great aunt Doeas home.

Poppy looked at the diagnostic reading, looked at Andromeda and then pulled out her wand muttering ‘Sonorus’ “EMERGENCY! ADDITIONAL SUPPORT NEEDED! EMERGENCY!’ ‘Quietus’.

Andromeda fell back into her training and began following procedure for similar cases, pushing a faint pulse of her magic into a rune on the headboard that brought up duelling wards around the edges of the mattress then looked at him worried.

“They’ll hold… as much unrestrained magic as there is; he's still far too young for it to pose a containment risk. Use one of the private wards. Three doors down on the left.”

Poppy only nodded in answer and the two witches began to push as two other healers entered the room barging through the door only for one of them to stop dead in the doorway blocking them leaving the room then he pointed “Thats Harry Potter”.

“Observational skills haven’t dulled since you left Hogwarts Mr Spellwell, now hurry up and push.” Poppy snapped.

When they pushed him into the hallway they were met with the noise of startled whispers from the portraits that lined the hallway, caught in low conversations as news travelled in advance of the overhead snippet of Spellwell’s outburst, following them between frames craning their necks for a better view of events. As they made there way Andromeda noticed where some partially dried blood on the outside of Harry’s skin was rubbing against the bed sheets, causing it to effervesce and giving off a thin utterly unique tangy smelling green smoke where it made contact. She was fairly certain it had been doing that since he arrived and she just hadn’t seen it through all the floo powder filling the arrival room. She pushed harder, feeling the strain in her arms as she manoeuvred the bed around a sharp corner and into the room a fifth person filing in behind them at a jog.

“Has he been given anything?” a medi-witch started to take notes only for Poppy to hand her a file of parchment.

“He’s had one blood replenishing potion, beyond that I’m stumped.” Madam Pomrey explained what she knew to the others as Andromeda stayed at his bedside, long pauses of deliberation punctuated by moments of rapid wand movements and incantation.

"We’re lucky he even made it this far." The witch reading the file broke in, no mistaking the worry in her tone.

Andromeda gave a shake of her head, “I don’t think it’s as bad as we’re thinking, if the Basilisk venom was going to kill him it already would have. It’s too corrosive to slowly kill him and his kidney and liver function look better than fine, if it had damaged those we might have had some long term problems. I’ve never read anything about tests of phoenix tears and basilisk venom reacting, both are so rare that there's a chance it’s never happened before.”

She pointed at one of the medi-witches, “Violett, go to the reference room find anything you can about phoenix tears experiments and any information at all about basilisk's then bring it back here. I can’t imagine you'll find much anyway. We might need to put a call out anyway and we'll probably have to make that decision soon.”

“I was more worried about whatever effect it’s having on his core. I've seen dozens of cases of Core Integrity Collapse, but the diagnostic tests used for any of the usual and even unusual causes of it aren’t picking up anything amiss.” Poppy said slightly exacerbated, “I’ve already tried a temporary blanket wrap, precision patch and the Leszczynski technique. When all three didn’t take, I came here.” She trailed off, looking around the room for any ideas .

The remaining medi witch put a hand on her chin before saying “Should we give him a temporary damping potion? Nullshade would probably work best, let him keep some magic so other potions still work.”

“Not yet, until we find out the cause we can’t know if this isn’t his magic fighting back against it. Until we know we have to assume it might cause more damage than it prevents.” Andromeda gave with an air of authority that left little doubt she had seniority in the room and was ultimately responsible for the final say in any course of action.

Spellwell tried to speak in a carefree demeanour but couldn't hide that what he was saying had some modicum of truth behind it, “We need to think of something, if Harry Potter squibs while we're in the room the country will tear us apart. Is there a reason nobody has cleaned that gunk off his face?”

“Well, that sludge is a complete mystery but what I do know is that there's still some of it coming out of his head and Sterilito doesn’t work on it…”

Andromeda gasped sharply with sudden revelation “Vitae Revelio!” The sludge glowed a menacing luminescent purplish black. “Sterilito doesn’t work on living, or I suppose in this case looking at the response, dead animals.”

Spellwell looked at her with a glimmer of inquisitiveness in his eyes before turning his head to the room “Has anyone ever seen it before? I spent months on the magical parasites ward and I’ve never seen anything like this.” only to be met with a chorus of no’s.

He continued on “If the basilisk venom isn’t killing him do you think the hat was right and this is what's doing the damage?”

Andromeda conjured a glass jar before carefully beginning to use a switching spell, replacing the air inside the jar for the rancid substance. When Harry's head was finally clean and filling the jar mostly full she handed it off to Poppy. “Keep cleaning his head until it stops, I wouldn’t touch it or let any of it get around the room until we know what it is.”

As she moved to the door a Junior Healer interrupted her, “Where will you be? He’s still critical.”

“We’re out of our depth, I’m going to floo call the Unspeakables.”

3rd June 1993
St Mungos, London.

Harry blinked awake, disorientated and groggy; he took in a sterile smell in the air and the taste of something slightly metallic in his mouth. As he tried to comprehend his surroundings - bright, lit by crystal bubbles full of candles that floated up on the ceiling looking like giant soapbuds, light bouncing off white walls, a number of whirring metal instruments he’d never seen before gave the impression somewhat of Dumbledore's office. He thought he heard the noise of a tinkling bell go off and rolled his body towards it hoping to find its source. Instead he found himself facing a sleeping woman who looked like she was in her 30’s with long black hair sat upright in a plush chair beside his bed, a mound of envelopes and wrapping paper behind her. He noticed the lime green robes she was wearing had a badge with a crossed wand and bone just as she started to stir.

Just as he was about to open his mouth to ask where he was, the door opened and a red cloaked figure with pink hair poked their head around the door frame, “Is he up?” Then they paused, seeing him and breaking into a wide smile only to be joined by another floating red robed head poking around the doorframe from the other side. “Sorry, we heard the notification alarm go off. I couldn’t stop her in time.”

“Yes, he’s up.” came the response from beside him “Nymphadora” An exacerbated gasp came from near the door, “go make yourself useful somewhere that isn’t in this room while I check him over.”

“Fine, but I’ll be back once I’ve told Bones though.” she said before the door closed, cutting off the sound of a heavy tut half way through.

Harry opened his mouth to talk as the woman turned to him, raising a hand to quiet him, “Well you’ve been introduced to my daughter Nymphadora already but I’m healer Andromeda Tonks, I actually knew your parents quite well Harry” she added rapidly skirting the issue for now “and you’re in the emergency ward of St Mungos Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries in London.”

Harry could see she intended to keep talking but couldn’t contain himself any longer “Are Ginny and Ron okay?!” he blurted out.

“Madam Pomfrey mentioned a girl that was there when you were in the Chamber and that she's well but I’m afraid I don’t know who Ron is. The Daily Prophet hasn’t reported any deaths so I would assume he’s alive.”Andromeda said with a wry smile.

“Oh…Well that's good!” he said with a deep sigh and fell back onto his pillows. Harry's mood improved at the news, the furrows of worry on his face falling away and adopting a more lively tone. “How long have I been here?”

“Five days.”

Harry whistled, “New record.”

She gave a weak smile “More than a few people will be glad to hear you’re up Harry” said softly, her eyes slightly glazed and voice dripping in emotion. “I’m glad to see you up.” she finished before wiping her eyes with her sleeve then composing herself again.

It was a rather odd sensation for Harry to be having a stilted and slightly awkward conversation with an adult he didn’t know, or adult full stop if he was being honest with himself, especially one who was obviously worried about him. He wanted to ask about Hermione and the others, about Riddle, about the diary, about how he got here but he had no idea how much the healer knew about all what was happening in Hogwarts.

“You're the most popular patient I’ve ever had," she said gesturing behind her at the stack of boxes wrapped in gift paper. “Dozens of people popping their heads in, Dumbledore and Madam Pomfrey have been coming by three times a day. Albus told me that one Mrs Granger has petitioned him no less than 11 times to be moved to an adjoining room.” Andromeda looked at him, raising an eyebrow.

“She's up! Can I see her?!” he rose off his pillows again in excitement.

“I’ll see what we can do but you're in here for a relatively long haul , probably be a few weeks until your magic has properly settled and we want to keep you in until then, you probably won’t be back at Hogwarts for any of the last few weeks of term.”

“Weeks?” he said with an increasing look of panic as he thought about how bored he’d get trapped in the hospital room.

“Harry, you almost died.” She didn’t want to mention that they were actually fairly uncertain that he hadn’t been technically dead at one point. “We had to call in the department of mysteries to stop you becoming a squib. It was 16 hours before it was safe for anyone else to be in the same room as you.”

“I got better though!” he whined, not quite sure who the Department of Mysteries were or why that was serious “I’ll go crazy sitting here for that long” huffing and hitting his arms on the quilt cover.

“Healers orders.” he was told in a stern authoritative voice that brokered no argument “Plus, I suspect you’ll be having a stream of never ending visitors over the next few days to keep you entertained… and I'll bring some books.”

“So what was wrong with me?” he asked tentatively, raising an eyebrow.

“Would you believe that being the first person to survive a basilisk bite had some medical repercussions?”

“I suppose that makes sense.” he said with more than a hint of sarcasm. “But I felt okay after that…”

“Unfortunately some of what happened to you leaked out of the hospital.” She grabbed a newspaper out from a nearby table that had been hiding behind a small stack of chocolate frog boxes and handed it to him.

He stared at the headline ‘Boy-Who-Lived-Again! Harry Potter duels Basilisk, saves school!’

‘More running and luck than a duel.’ he thought to himself and put the paper down on a side table not wanting to read any more, or at least to save it for later when the inevitable boredom of a hospital stay set in.

Andromeda took it as an opportunity to explain what had happened once he arrived both narratively and medically. Doing her best to explain the complicated medical jargon to a teenager while omitting some details she knew the unspeakables had questioned her about and swore her to secrecy on while getting Harry to answer some questions she had only been able to guess at the answers too while he was unconscious.

Harry perked up as she came to one part of the story “My scars gone?”

“It’s not gone, most dark curse scars are difficult to fully heal.” For a moment she had wanted to comment that nobody else had ever survived that particular curse either and that he was a complete medical anomaly but thought it better to carry on, “However, it is better than it was. You can still see it but it’s just a bit of normal scar tissue now, Poppy said it used to be red and inflamed.” She used a summoning charm on a mirror from across the room and let harry peer into it in wonder running his finger along the outline of what was left of the scar.

In the future Harry would never be able to explain why he did it but he opened up a bit to the woman, telling her something he’d only told Hermione before. “When I was young, I used to love my scar, it made me different when I thought I was just ordinary. But I didn’t know how I’d got it back then. I didn’t find out until I got my hogwarts letter,” Andromeda took an audible deep breath but he just continued “when I found out how I’d got it, and then people kept looking at it instead of me so I grew to hate it. I just want to be normal…” There were a few seconds of silence before Andromeda started talking again.

Eventually she finished and they both sat through another stretch of awkward silence for a minute or so, each letting the new information settle in. Harry looked up and eyed her inquisitively “Why was your daughter guarding the door?”

“She’s an auror, sort of a magical version of a cross between a detective and policeman. They had to start guard duty on rotation after some reporters found out you were here and tried to storm the atrium.” She didn’t mention the hospitalised receptionist after some parcels had been delivered with shrinking solution, bulgeye potion, bloodroot poison and amortentia.

Not knowing how to respond he nodded and shrugged before sitting in the longest awkward silence to pass between them so far, Andromeda spent the latter half it wondering when he would notice he didn’t have his glasses on when he broke the silence again. “Will you get in trouble for falling asleep at work?”

“I should be fine.” She raised her eyebrow, Harry thought she’d have winked if she wasn’t too formal to do so “I’ve been hiding in here for the last three days and the Chief Healer knows better than to try and make me leave.”

Harry was shocked, a “Why?” came out quiet and breathy.

“Because you have nobody else, and Jamie would never have left if it was my Nymphadora.”

“How well did you know my parents?” He couldn’t hide the excitement in his voice, he’d never heard anyone use a nickname for either of his parents.

Andromeda gave a conspiratorial smile “I knew James since he was a few months old. Your grandmother Dorea was my favourite great aunt.”

Harry launched into a flurry of questions.

Chapter Text

4th June 1993
St Mungos, London.

Harry had a quick look up from a copy of last week's Witch Weekly a mediwitch had given him from the break room to try and pass the time until Andromeda could hopefully bring something to read he was actually interested in and looked at the clock. His visitors had only left 16 minutes ago and it already felt like a lifetime ago, his thoughts turning to Andromeda again. Harry had already decided he liked her, and Nymphadora who’d been convinced after much cajoling and arguing with her mother to let him call her ‘Dora’ instead of Tonks was one of the most interesting people he’d ever met, even if she did take great fun in teasing him.

Harry was interrupted in his thoughts by a soft knock at the door echoing through the room, the door opening before he could answer and call for whoever was there to come in. The figure of Albus Dumbledore stepped into the room, his bright blue hat held under the crook of his armpit, his eyes scanning the room with a spark of anticipation before offering Harry a small smile.

“Headmaster”

“I’m told you had quite the adventure Harry.” visible mirth on his face as he let out a small deliberate groan and settled into the visitors chair beside the bed. In spite of this show of age Harry could feel the air shift slightly at the intensity of the presence of Dumbledore's magic, something that he’d never felt around any younger wizard no matter how much younger and more spritely. Although Harry did think that he didn’t know that many adult wizards so it might be more common than he thought.

Harry fidgeted with the edge of his quilt cover under his gaze, “Professor, it just sort of… happened. I swear I didn’t mean to this time; You were gone and Ginny had disappeared and, well, you know how things go for me." His eyes met Dumbledore’s, searching for a sign that he was disappointed in him.

Dumbledore just beamed at him “Yes, Alric as well as the young Mr and Mrs Weasley have already told me most of the details. From there telling it would seem the most fitting punishment would be to present you and Mr Weasley an award for Special Awards for Services to the School.” Allowing a small gap for effect his expression changed and he was left displaying a playful mischievous twinkle in his eyes, “However, I thought I’d come and get your version of events. Fill in the gaps before making any final decisions on the issue.”

Harry finally relaxed, releasing some nervous tension in his body language before scrunching his face up again in confusion “Alric?”

“He always is disappointed that so few students think to ask him his name, and no doubt Mrs Granger would be disappointed that you’ve not read ‘Hogwarts: A History’ despite her repeated recommendations.”

Albus left a significant pause hoping Harry would puzzle out the riddle himself. Just as he was about to continue Harry looked up “The Sorting Hat sir?”

“Yes, one of the ghosts tells me Godric would have thought it quite rude, almost disrespectful not to name something you could hold a conversation with.” Sensing that the topic was getting away from them and the possibility of being interrupted by those he’d rather keep unappraised increased as time went on he asked Harry to tell him his version of events.

Harry started, he told him about Dobby warning him of danger before the start of the year, hearing voices coming from inside the walls, Hagrid mentioning offhandedly about dead roosters, how Hermione had realised the creature was a basilisk just before she was attacked and finding the note, Hagrid mentioning to follow the spiders during his arrest, Aaragog telling him and Ron about the last victim and about discovering the chamber.

“You’d think Myrtle would have noticed a basilisk appearing in there a few times over the year considering she spends all her time in the bathroom refusing to leave her toilet” Harry broke in his finger tapping his chin.

“Another side road that is best not to travel down Harry, but it wouldn’t be unkind to say death has not suited Mrs Warren and she’s not quite the astute and discerning Ravenclaw she was in life.”

Harry carried on, telling Dumbledore about how he and Ron got separated, meeting Tom, Tom’s monologue and reveal as Lord Voldemort, Fawx's sudden arrival, the battle in the chamber, the death of the basilisk and his miraculous survival, the defeat of Tom and then feeling like he was getting a headache before ultimately collapsing.

Dumbledore rocked back into the chair, his hands steepled and fingers wiggling in a repeating wave pattern as he thought adding some gravitas to his demeanour before saying in a low voice “It is interesting…as my sources tell me Voldemort is currently hiding in the Albanian woods. Perhaps even Dark Lords require a Mediterranean holiday after decades of plotting evil.” He looked pleased with his own joke.

“Sir it was the Diary Riddle wrote when he was sixteen…” Harry burst out in explanation.

“Yes. Mr Weasley showed me a diary he found in the chamber once he finally made his way past the rockfall. A brilliant if terrifying piece of magic, especially at such a young age.” he said softly. “Of course, he was probably the most brilliant student Hogwarts has seen in centuries.”

“Very few people know that Lord Voldemort was once called Tom Riddle.” Harry couldn’t help but show his curiosity when hearing this. “I taught him myself about fifty years ago during my time as Hogwarts transfiguration professor. He was a natural talent. Combined with a relentless curiosity that made him one of the brightest minds in the field. Most of the other staff at the time had even loftier assessments than myself; it was clear to everyone that his future prospects were limitless. Only for him to fall into a menial job far below his ability after leaving the school then disappear completely only a few short years later.” Dumbledore sighed taking his glasses off and rubbing them on his robe before putting them back on, “Of course I know now that he travelled far and wide, sank deeply into the Dark Arts, consorted with the very worst of our kind then underwent so many dangerous magical transformations that when he resurfaced as Lord Voldemort, he was unrecognisable. Hardly anyone connected Lord Voldemort with the clever, handsome boy who was once Head Boy.”

“Professor Dumbledore.. Riddle said I’m like him. A strange likeness, he said...”

“Did he, now?” said Dumbledore, looking thoughtfully at Harry from under his thick silver eyebrows. “And what do you think, Harry?”

“I don’t think I’m like him!” said Harry, more loudly than he’d intended. “I mean, I’m… I’m in Gryffindor, I’m...” But he fell silent, a lurking doubt resurfacing in his mind.

“Professor,” he started again after a moment. “The Sorting Hat told me I’d… I’d have done well in Slytherin. Everyone thought I was Slytherin’s heir for a while… because, because I can speak Parseltongue…”

“You could speak Parseltongue, Harry,” said Dumbledore calmly, “because Lord Voldemort - who is the last remaining descendant of Salazar Slytherin - can speak Parseltongue. Unless I’m much mistaken, he transferred some of his own powers to you the night he gave you that scar.
Not something he intended to do, I’m sure...”

“Harry, you are very different from Tom Riddle.” Dumbledore peered at Harry with a more serious expression and tone to his voice than his usual grandfatherly demeanour. “You’re courageous Harry, stepping into the path of danger without hesitation for those you care for and sometimes even for those you do not is not something that some of the many brave witches and wizards I’ve encountered would jump into with such relish. If I may be so rude as to say so, your sense of self preservation is sorely lacking in comparison to Tom who’s greatest fear was death and would not have risked his own safety for his friends had he had any.”

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” Harry sat motionless in his chair, a feeling of reassurance at what he’d been told

The thought about risking himself for people who weren’t friends or even friendly made Harry's thoughts drift, “What happened to Professor Lockhart?”

“He got out of the chamber. In fact he’s just down the Hall in the Janus Thickery ward, a few gobstones short of a game currently. Someone to visit and investigate once the boredom of being trapped in the hospital sets in no doubt.” He gave Harrys a knowing look.

Privately Harry couldn’t think that there was no amount of boredom that could overcome how much he didn’t want to spend any time with the man.

“All the other victims of Slytherin’s monster are awake and Madam Pomfrey has even seen fit to let some of them leave the hospital wing. I’m told she ran out of calming draught when one of them managed to get their hands on the newspaper from the day before they woke up and saw the headline.” A smile returned to Dumbledore's face.

“Many wanted to meet and thank you, and I suppose I should be grateful too, I’m quite sure if you hadn’t acted I'd be enjoying the horrors of an early retirement and Hagrid's fate doesn’t bare thinking about.” he took a bag of sherbet lemons out of his pocket and popped on in his mouth before proffering the bag to Harry who accepted.

“Speaking of the paper Harry…” Dumbledore paused for a second, wary of his wording, worried about unduly causing worry. “It would be - inadvisable to let the public know about Voldemort's involvement. If they suspected he was alive, the true believers, those who felt marginalised by society who think they could use him to gain power. They would flock to his banner…”

Harry looked down at his bed in trepidation before raising his head and looking directly into Dumbledore's eyes and nodding “Okay sir.”

Dumbledore slapped his thighs with his hands “Right, I have a few meetings to attend, another Defence teacher to find, however I was wondering if I could get your permission to take a look at your scar before I leave. Give an old man some peace of mind.”

“Yes professor,” Harry nodded, “although I think everyone in the hospital has had a look at it the last few days.”

Dumbledore did a series of wand movements that Harry had come to recognise over dozen or so checks he received in the last 24 hours before a few flurries and a brief incantation over his scar that Harry didn’t recognise. Harry thought he saw a brief moment of victory at whatever information he’d gathered from it as Dumbledore's composure momentarily broke before he regained it only a couple of seconds later.

“Harry I would like to do an experiment”, ‘Serpensortia’ a small conjured grass snake appeared in Dumbledore's left hand. “Could you try and speak to the creature”.

Harry nodded before looking at the snake and concentrating, the snake turning to face him in expectation. ‘Hello, can you understand me?’

‘Speaker!’ The little snake hissed back before suddenly disappearing.

Harry felt a slight sense of loss as it disappeared and tilted his head up to look at Dumbledore who had a look of genuine surprise that Harry had never seen on him before.

Sensing Harry's curiosity he broke the silence “That was quite surprising Harry.” he pulled his hand through his beard a half dozen times lost in thought. ‘Maybe it’s innate’ Albus thought, ‘that he’s a mirror of him, similar but the complete reverse. After all, while magical traits often run in bloodlines they can appear spontaneously as well. They’d heard stories about the chaos a muggleborn metamorphmagus had made for a week that almost collapsed the statute of secrecy in Indonesia during 1988.’

“Sir, what's surprising? What were you expecting to happen with the snake? What's made my scar go away?”

“Nothing Harry, nothing. Never worry! You’ll soon be better and we can get you out of here. Get home and enjoy some of your summer at your Aunts.”

Harry couldn’t help but frown, as much as he hated being laid up in a hospital bed talking to Andromeda or Dora was far better than being at his relatives.

“Sir, I don't think I’ve ever enjoyed any time spent living with my relatives...” Harry said quietly.

“Harry your mother was Petunia's sister too, I’m sure when she finds out you’ve stood up to her murderer and prevailed, yet again might I add, she’ll be beaming with pride.”

“Proud? Sir, all those times I could have died and I didn’t manage it they’ll be furious. They’ll be even worse if they find out I had to be removed from school because my magic was so unstable it wasn’t safe for other wizards to be around too.”

Dumbledore ignored his protests “Before I go, you need to return this to Professor McGonagal by the end of the month.” He handed Harry an envelope before hurriedly making his way out of the room.

~~~~~~

Harry heard the muffled sound of voices from outside his door just before it opened and Andromeda walked in leaving the door open so he could see a tall brown haired woman wearing a monocle with an authoritative voice talking to a man with a wooden peg leg and visible scars across his face with a madly spinning eyeball. “I’m just pointing out Moody that some would say you're a very senior aurour to be posted on guard duty.”

“Switched shifts with the person who was supposed to be on duty, Amelia…”

The woman, Amelia, levelled a stare at him and he spoke into the pause “Just making sure my apprentice hasn’t been picking up any bad habits from the less competent the week she’s been here. Couldn’t have her standing about here forgetting all her training. That it coincides with you meeting Potter just happens to be very serendipitous.” He grinned.

“Yes, I’m sure it’s quite the coincidence the first time you wound up here is the day I’m here for meeting no one else was supposed to know about beforehand.” She said pointedly while looking at Tonks who had a slightly guilty look on her face before she broke into a slight smile and waved for them to follow as she finally walked into the room.

She started talking as she kept taking strides over to his bed with her hand out “Hello, Mr Potter I’m Amelia Bones head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.”

“Erm, hello, I’m Harry.” He shook her hand.

The man Amelia had called Moody's eye was moving but Harry could only see the whites of it, then he turned suddenly. Spinning about he pointed his wand towards an empty space in the corner of the room, “You can come out now or I can stun you both.” Nymphadora followed his motion pointing her wand in the same direction but with an obvious look of confusion seeing only a blank wall.

“Should have known.” Two people appeared in black cloaks, hoods drawn and faces obscured by something that was like a blur Harry had seen occasionally on TV shows when they didn’t want to show someone's face. “Should never have pointed you in the direction of that eye Alistair.” The one that had been speaking lowered his hood his face becoming visible as he did before putting his hand out and walking towards Harry. “I’m director Croaker, head of the unspeakable department.” He pointed at the other unspeakable. “You can’t know their name, against department policy. He was the cursebreaker called to help your treatment.”

Harry was surprised at the lack of reaction from the other adults at the appearance of two strangers in the room followed by their wincing at being told the Unspeakable who’d helped him was a cursebreaker and tried his best to appear nonchalant but failed. “H…Harry.” he stuttered.

Amelia was holding the bridge of her nose muttering to herself phrases like “Operational Security”,“Terrible”,“Waiting disaster.”

Everyone had started conjuring themselves somewhere to sit when one of the two Unspeakables whipped out what looked like a small stone baptismal font covered in weird markings scratched into the bowl from under his cloak before he tapped it with his wand and it expanded in size until it was slightly over a metre in diameter.

“Oh good, that’ll make things easier.” was all Amelia said as she nodded at it before turning again to face Harry.

“Harry, I'm here to find out what happened last week at Hogwarts. There have been some rumours that the Department wants to investigate.”

Harry swallowed nervously “Am I in trouble?”

Amelia looked at him out of her monocled eye not answering his question, “Last week I received a letter from my niece claiming you’d fought and killed a basilisk. I had been about to ignore it as ridiculous, the Hogwarts rumour mill gone wild until reports of you being here suffering serious injuries including acute poisoning surfaced.”

“Niece?”

“Susan Bones.”

Harry gulped nervously again, Susan had been one of the people actively avoiding him in the halls after Justin had been petrified.

She withdrew a piece of parchment and quill from inside her robe, “I had been about to question you about exactly what happened, Susan says you saved everyone in the school.” Harry couldn’t help being caught off guard with surprise at hearing that. “We can’t get to the crime scene and we’ve only two second hand reports of the area and who witnessed the basilisk's corpse…” She nodded in director Croaker's direction.

“Mr Potter, do you know what a pensive is?” He pointed at the odd font in front of him.

“Ermmm. No.” Harry let out a long drawl as he shook his head.

“It shows you your memories back to you or any others you let view it in third person at roughly the same speed they happened. Absurdly expensive but incredibly handy. Only a few in the country. Not technically admissible as evidence in court because of the ubiquity of memory charms but more than enough for this.” He pulled his wand out and stood up pointing it at Harry who just stared at it worriedly. He assumed if he was in any real danger that Dora or Andromeda would be outraged but they hadn’t moved.

“Close your eyes and think of the memory of whatever happened from the start until the end. Try and include any relevant information then nod when you’ve done it.”

Harry nodded after half a minute thinking back on the details as the side of his head began to feel slightly light, like he was falling out of bed in that direction.

He opened his eyes to see Coraker putting a silvery thread on the tip of his wand into a glass vial.

Andromeda put a comforting hand on his shoulder, her and Amelia noticed that he jumped slightly as she did it. “Harry, we're going to watch your memory, you can join if you want.”
Harry shook his head again and she lifted her hand off his shoulder before patting it twice and giving a reassuring smile. “We’ll talk about what happens after.”

The adults began moving to the font and dipped their fingers into a clear liquid in expectation. Croaker looked around to make sure they were all ready, dropping the memory into the bowl, the liquid turning silver and the adults stilled.

Harry wasn’t sure if he was terrified or fascinated but he looked at the clock and thought it’d be at least two hours. He’d included one or two other memories but started the main event with Aaragog and now he thought about it he could probably have trimmed that off. Two hours of nervous expectation.

Eventually he caught Tonks' turn to look at him, mouth open and flapping as she thought of something to say in his peripheral vision. As he moved his head to look at her he noticed Amelia, Croaker and the Unknown Unspeakable talking in hushed tones over the top of the pensive. The two Tonks slipped down into their seats again stunned, staring at Harry like he was a spectacle in a zoo.

“That house elf, it was a Black house elf. The one Narcissa was lent for life as part of her wedding dowry.” He faintly overheard Andromeda saying to Nymphadora while Moody stood in front of him giving Harry an appraising look, “You’d make a mighty fine Aurour lad. Good instincts like your father… Although I never had to tell him how stupid it was to let his wand out of his hand when you're in danger.” The other three began making their way towards their seats. “When you get out of here go get yourself a new wand holster… or grab one out of your vaults.”

Harry had been about to ask what he meant when Croaker spoke, “I need everyone to give a vow that they won’t speak about anything seen or spoken about in this room today between lunch and dinner with anyone not present unless myself, Amelia or Harry gives permission.” Dora had been about to question him but he raised his hand “I’m giving you the illusion of choice but if you refuse I’ll obliviate you until you forget so much you don’t remember how to chew food.”

Amelia had never seen the usually sarcastic and irritable Croaker so serious which unsettled her almost as much as the revelations so far. She couldn’t help but feel a foreboding that worse was to come.

Andromeda grimaced and gave the vow, the others following. When they were done Amelia looked at Harry and began to speak, “Mr Potter you are very much in the opposite of trouble. How you got out of that… If I’d put every aurour we have down there we’d have lost dozens.” she tapped her quill off the bottom of her chin. “We’ll have to redact all the Voldemort parts but I imagine once you sell the corpse and people see the size of it Fudge will try to give you an Order of Merlin.”

Harry grimaced noticeably so Amelia turned to the room, “Not too often I come out of an investigation with more questions than I did before we started. Any thoughts?” then looked around the circle.

Moody blew out some air “I remember Tom. Graduated a year below me. Brilliant. Incredibly bright. Went missing not long after he graduated if memory serves me right. Always thought he’d managed to get himself killed.”

“If only we’d been so lucky.” Amelia sighed.

“It’s not the first time I’ve seen him.” Harry spoke up.

“What do you mean?”

Harry launched into an explanation about Quirrell and the Philosopher's Stone. Croaker and Amelia had asked him to stop after a few seconds and repeat himself when they’d set up Dicta-Quills.

“What is happening in that castle!” A visibly irate Andromeda blustered at the end, her calm demeanour starting to break.

After a few seconds as she calmed Croaker nodded at the unknown unspeakable who began to speak. “Unfortunately Mr Potter you’re going to have to sit this part of the conversation out.” Harry frowned and began complaining that it was hardly fair he did all the fighting but the unspeakable just carried on and waved his wand putting the adults behind a bluish red shield Harry couldn’t hear any sound coming from.

Behind the shield Croaker continued “We believe we have an idea how he survived after that night in 1981. It’s why we made you all take the vow, think of it as a state secret. Are any of you aware of what a horcrux is?” Andromeda gasped and put a hand up to cover her mouth in shock while the rest shook their heads or said no. “A horcurx is a vessel created by a ritual that ends with a premeditated murder that tears the soul in half before hiding the torn half outside the body in a vessel or phylactery.”

“And how does that keep him alive?” Amelia asked.

“It makes the individual impossible to kill as long as the Horcrux remains intact as part of their soul still remains anchored to this plane even if their body is destroyed. Although there are massive downsides, it should have weakened him but the battle reports during the war don’t seem to indicate that.” Amelia had a grim look on her face as she remembered any battle he turned up too. Often when they were winning, he appeared turning the battle and leaving devastation behind him. “but it does explain why he became so unstable towards the end of the war. I imagine he was ignorant of the effects or he wouldn’t have bothered.”

“Why wouldn’t he have bothered? What's a bit of madness to that psychopath when immortality is the prize?”

“It doesn’t grant immortality, there’s a reason you’ve never met a 4000 year old Egyptian despite them creating the practice. However… I doubt he knew that before he made them. The soul is finite, the only exception we know to this is ghosts who can’t touch this plane, the individual parts will still eventually wear thin and he’d die of natural causes. Doesn’t help us though if he manages to become embodied again, he could live another century or more. If he was to discover a method of immortality, the combination… well it’s a truly terrifying prospect. Mr Potter has already indicated he’s made a play for the philosophers stone without any of us having the faintest idea, if he’d succeeded it would have been a disaster that doesn’t bare thinking about.”

Tonks who’d been waiting for him to end finally spoke up “Them?”

Croaker's seriousness broke slightly and he reverted to his usual sarcasm, “Yes, them. Shame you picked brawling in alleyways instead of my department.”

Amelia looked up from her notes ignoring the attempted poaching of one of her best new auror candidates “How can you be so sure?”

“Because the diary he used isn’t the only Horcrux we know about.” He pulled out a jar of sludge.

Andromeda let out another gasp of shock, Dora thought she’d seen that face more today than she had in the last decade combined, “But that came out of Harry the day he arrived here!”

Croaker nodded, “Yes, we call it Soul Ichor, unknown to magic before last week and it has only reinforced our view that Mr Potter is the single most interesting person alive to the Department. We speculate that it was his intention to create a Horcrux using Harry’s death and this was an unintended consequence of the curses failure. It contained, from our guess between zero and 5% of Voldemort's soul.”

“How though. He’s had that for over a decade. It should have been able to possess him when he was younger.” Andromeda’s rearing as part of the House of Black giving her a firmer understanding than Amelia or Moody in the uncommon and esoteric intricacies of the Dark Arts.

“All we’ve been able to do is speculate.” The unknown unspeakable took over from Croaker “We think it has something to do with whatever his mother did that let him survive a decade ago. We had wanted a bit of his blood to study as reinvestigating the cottage yielded no new evidence, but between the venom and tears we couldn't get any good readings to review. The one thing we can say confidently is that the combination likely weakened the horcrux enough so that Harry could fight it off. The boy has been embroiled in a battle for his own mind since he was 15 months old. I’m pretty sure Albus could cast an imperious at him and he’d shrug it off like a leaf hitting off a building in a storm.”

The gravity of the situation settled in and the circle was quiet until the healer in Andromeda kicked in “Will it have any lasting effect on him?”

“No, but again we have some theories, the effort put into fighting the horcrux likely required the continuous use of part of his magic which should be freed up for casting now. The sudden expansion is probably the main cause of what made his core so unstable… I’ve no evidence to back this up it’s purely theoretical but there's a chance he absorbed whatever magic it was using to sustain itself too which would be a further if very small boost however I’m less certain of that.” He had left out his and Croaker's private speculation that Voldemort had bolstered the power he’d lost from the creation of the horcruxes by syphoning small amounts of power from his marked followers. They’d learnt more about the dark mark in a week from the Soul Ichor than they had in two decades of previous study. They were hoping they could make estimations of how many marked followers he’d had at his fall from some assumed parameters in conjunction with testing Harry's magic once it settled again.

Andromeda turned at hearing a tapping at the window, the conversation continuing on around her as she noticed Harry laying on his bed pointing at his chest then the owl so she pointed her wand at it and opened the window.

She followed the owl as it glided across the room landing on his chest, a golden glow began to light up the room stopping the conversation and drawing everyone's attention. Eventually as the light gradually got brighter the adults all had to turn their heads slightly to avoid looking directly at it. Moody kept his magical eye on the spectacle only able to pick out what looked like an irate owl cuffing Harry around the head with her wings as he covered his head with his arms through the glare.

Moody slapped Nymphadora on the back hard enough that she rocked forward slightly on her chair before he threw back his head and laughed “Full of surprises that boy!”

Chapter Text

12th June 1993
St Mungo's, London.

Harry was laying on his hospital bed, he’d been locked in a staring contest with his owl for the last few minutes, both incredibly stubborn and unwilling to concede any ground. They’d been locked in a battle about her name since he’d found out she was a girl and he got a feeling of annoyance through the new familiar bond they’d formed every time he called her Robert. After his initial confusion at the new link he could feel a nebulous and tenuous connection that simultaneously felt like the thoughts were coming from both outside and inside his head at the same time. The more he tried to pinpoint it the more his head hurt and less he understood it.

In spite of a brief explanation by one of the unspeakables before they left and reading some books Andromeda had managed to bring him about Familiar bonds it hadn’t shed any further light on how the bond occurred, how the connection worked or what effects it had as they all seemed to vary depending on the bonded.

So far he could only describe it as feeling broad moods and that was enough to tell him how much she disliked being called Robert. So they’d spent the last two hours unable to get the bird to respond positively to any of the new names he had chosen, the owl seemed less than impressed. Admittedly unimpressed was better than the violent reprimand he got when he decided that if his owl was a she then she could be Roberta not Robert.

He got a sense of what he thought was profound annoyance, although maybe it was impatience coming across the new link between him and his familiar.

"Don't give me that look! It’s not like I’m not trying!" Harrys pointed his finger at her voice growing louder as the owl fluttered its wings in protest.

“Stop being so haughty, if you keep it up I’m going to call you something boring like Feathers or Snowy.”

The owl jumped on the book between them he was reading name ideas out of and stomped her talon on it like an annoyed teen.

“It’s not my fault you can’t read the names I’m pointing out.”

The owl turned its back, pretending to ignore him entirely.

Andromeda who’d been watching from the chair beside his bed burst out laughing drawing scowls from both. “Maybe we’ve been looking in the wrong place and instead of books about famous familiars we should be looking at Queens of England the way she carries on?”

The owl only tilted its head sideways staring at Andromeda. Harry couldn’t help but feel victimised, if he’d said it the owl would have never let him get away with the audacity of gently mocking her.

Harry stroked his chin contemplating what she’d said “Her owlness does deserve a very regal name.”

“Here.” She pulled ‘A History of Magic’ out of a bag and handed it to him. “If Binns is still as interesting as he was when I was a student I’m sure you could do with looking over it again anyway.”

“Yeah, he sucks all the fun out of History.” Harry said as he started leafing through the book. “You'd think it’d be harder to make Goblin rebellions and wizard battles boring. I actually enjoyed Muggle history but I’m awful at Wizard history.” Harry whined. “We spent ages in Primary school learning about Romans and Normans…Binns hasn’t mentioned any of that. We haven’t even talked about Merlin once and then fail that part of the exam.”

“Well if you want to know a secret most of the people I grew up with had tutors for it. Come to think of it, I honestly don’t know how he hasn’t been replaced, there's 70 years of wizards knowing he’s not teaching the subject well.”

“HARRY!” a noise came from behind them causing Andromeda to jump and start to move her hand towards her wand pocket. Simultaneously a fuzzy brown blur zipped at speed from the door and slammed into Harry, pulling him into a hug before he could make sense of what was happening.

Harry could only mumble a question, his face pressed into her shoulder and being tightly squeezed into her “Hermione?”

Realising Harry wasn’t in immediate danger of being murdered, Andromeda suddenly got worried he might accidentally release some of his still slightly unstable magic at the shock and how hard he was being squeezed. “Watch, his magic’s still not entirely stable yet!” Andromeda warned pulling the girl away from Harry by the back of her collar. “I suppose I should ask how you got past the guard?”

Realising there was an adult in the room Hermione launched into an explanation at speed “Hi! I’m Hermione Granger.” She stuck out her hand towards Andromeda but kept looking directly at Harry “They let me in. I had permission from Dumbledore. I’m sorry if I almost made your magic act out.” Harry was pretty sure she’d said it all without breathing and Andromeda had definitely missed bits of it.

Andromeda looked over her head at Harry and raised an eyebrow at him before taking her hand “I’m Healer Andromeda Tonks…”

Harry interrupted her “She's my second cousin on my grans side!”

Andromeda kept going in spite of the sudden look of shock on the girl's face. “It’s nice to put a name to a face, Harrys said a lot about you over the last few days. Just be careful and try not to touch him, he only had one outburst yesterday which is a massive improvement but if he gets too excited he might accidentally lash out and we’d need to drain him.”

Hermione bit her lip and gave a curt nod. “I’m glad you're okay Harry, I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Probably stay out of trouble?” he said softly.

“Sounds terribly boring.” Harry couldn’t help busting out laughing at her reply which made Hermione beam at him.

“I’m glad it didn’t manage to kill any of us…” before quickly adding ”It would have been nice if it got Snape first though.”

“Professor Snape Harry.”

“He’s worse than Binns” Harry said while looking at Andromeda “I’m fairly sure I’ve learnt more in the last few days asking questions about what makes the potions I’m getting taste so bad than two years with him. He might be teaching the Slytherins to be awful though and I suppose he’s good at that.”

“Nymphadora said much the same I had to tutor her during summers. I think if she didn’t know me she’d have thought all Slytherins were evil too.

Hermione quickly deduced the meaning of what had just been said “So a second cousin?” She faced Harry but threw a suspicious glance over her shoulder clearly wanting to know where this woman had just appeared from.

“Oh don’t worry, her family are all Slytherins and they hate her for marrying a muggleborn.” Harry winced realising he probably shouldn’t have said that while she was in the room but one of the potions had made his head light and he’d lost some of his filter.

Andromeda raised her hand over her mouth to hide a gentle laugh. Under normal circumstances the harsh reminder would have been cruel but she knew Harry was being far less reserved than usual as a side effect of some of his medication.

Harry tried to save the situation “And it turns out Malfoy is my second cousin once removed.” Hermione's eyes got wide and she let out a gasp “So since the rest of my relatives were already awful and finding that out made it worse I’ve decided to stick to the one who might be even slightly sad if the basilisk had done me in.”

Hermione went to hug him again, Harry never talked about his family. She’d assumed they didn’t get along because of how reserved he was about mentioning them but hearing they were awful was the closest he’d come to telling her what life with them was like. Andromeda reached out and stopped her before she could, still worried about his unstable core but gave them both a rueful smile as she suspected what had gone unsaid and wanted to hug the child too.

Hermione looked at Andromeda and surprised her with a series of rapid questions “How did you make Harry revise History of Magic? I tried to make him do that for two years and only got some groans in response? What's your secret? Can you teach me?”

Harry couldn’t help laughing “That's what you took away from that?”

“It’s very important information!”

“I’ll have you know I’m looking for a new name for Mrs Potter.” He said while pointing at the owl who was standing at the bottom of his bed.

“OH! I went to the Library and read about it once I got your letter. A familiar bond! It’s so exciting I need you to tell me everything!” Suddenly she had a muggle notebook and a pen in her hand. Harry wasn’t quite sure where it’d come from since she didn’t have a bag with her.

“Well…everyone says once she landed on me I glowed with a golden halo, although I didn’t see that. I’m not sure if that was because I couldn’t see it or I was too distracted because I was being assaulted.” He gave his owl a glare who just puffed up her chest.

“Don’t worry, I know sometimes he deserves it.” Hermione whispered conspiratorially before putting her hand out which the owl nibbled on affectionately before she started stroking her chest feathers.

Harry gave a look of indignation before paling slightly at the thought of what would happen if they permanently teamed up to scold him when he did something rash or stepped out of line. Then he was glad that Ron wasn’t here to laugh at him after seeing how terrified he was of getting a bollocking from his own familiar.

“The Unspeakable who was here said people don’t usually glow gold because the bond builds gradually and they weren’t really sure why I glowed. They think it was because more of my magic was freed up after the basilisk bite it was being blocked before somehow and it just sort of happened all at once.” Hermione tapped her pen on her hand staring off in thought.

“Do they know why it was being blocked?”

“No idea, I think they knew but they didn’t tell me. Whatever made my scar go away probably made it go away too though.”

“I wouldn’t recommend being bit by a basilisk as a cure to you or your friends.” Andromeda chipped in.

“Because it all happened at once it’s sort of hard to tell what changes are because of my magic being weird, whatever my scar was doing to my head and what's the familiar thing.” Harry’s face was scrunched up in concentration as he tried to put it all in words. “My head is sort of clearer, it’s easier to pay attention to things for longer but I think that's the scar thing. The magic is weird, they told me not to use it but I tried to reach for it like you would when you do a lumos.”

Andromeda gave him a critical look but thought better of saying anything as truthfully she’d expected a teenager told to stop doing magic to be inquisitive and do something much more rash which could set back his release by days. Nymphadora would have treated it like a new toy to be played with at his age.

“It felt like falling into a blender instead of touching a stream like it normally does. But since feathers over here landed on me I’ve had all these feelings that are in my head but not? Like I’m playing pictionary somewhere else at the same time but half the drawings are covered up as well… I think she's trying to communicate with me using it but I don’t really know. I think sometimes I can feel her mood too but it might just be because she looks angry when I call her a name she doesn’t like.”

Hermione finished writing a few seconds after Harry stopped speaking then began to ramble. “When I was reading about them they said every bond was different, but that just makes it more exciting! It said Merlin had the most ever recorded at five and one of his was an owl… but it was a Tawny Owl. It said owls bond with people who are wise but require direction…” She paused, staring at Harry obviously deciding if she should continue “Ron laughed a lot when I told him that, something about being thick as mash sometimes. Seamus overheard and said ‘sometimes you're a buck eejit’ we had to get it translated by one of the other Irish kids. But it’s so exciting!” she repeated with exuberance again, “People are lucky to just have one and usually if they do find one they don’t get it so young. I was going to ask mum for a pet over the summer to try and test it out.”

“So how did you end up here? You said Dumbledore let you come, is he here too?”

“Well, I overheard Neville in the common room telling Fay that he was going to St Mungo's to visit his mum because it was her birthday.”

Harry had no clue who Fay was but jumped in interrupting her “So you pestered him until he broke and brought you with him?”

“No. I asked politely…” Harry didn’t think she sounded very polite as she said that to him. “We sent a letter to his Gran asking if I could come and Professor McGonagall gave me permission as well… They were very accommodating once they knew it was to see you.”

“I’ve never really thought about why Neville lives with his gran, he’s never mentioned how that happened, I always just assumed his parents were like mine.” Harry said wistfully.

Andromeda had a sombre expression that the two children missed.

“I asked but he got nervous and started to stammer, I felt bad for him so I didn’t press. He’ll tell us when he wants too.”

The three continued in conversation for another few minutes before there was a rap at the door. It swung open revealing a stern faced tall but thin woman who looked to be in her late 40’s. Since Witches lived longer than muggles Harry would hazard a guess she was older than she looked, she wore expensive looking robes and a hat topped with some sort of bird. She took in the room before her eyes fell on Andromeda who stiffened.

Behind her from roughly the level of her upper back Neville Longbottom's head peeked out looking into the room and smiled at Harry.

“Neville, good to see you. Come to save me before I get a lecture about missing my potions homework from Hermione?”

Neville let off a wry laugh and Augusta closed her eyes, took what looked like a steadying breath before stepping into the room, walking toward Andromeda and shaking hands. Harry couldn’t hear Hermione and Neville talking but he thought that Andromeda looked slightly nervous and the conversation was obviously strained which was odd as she always seemed so poised when anyone other than himself and Dora were about.

“Madam Bones came and asked us all about the Basilisk when we woke up in the hospital wing.” He overheard Hermione say. “She was angry but not at us, just that it had happened. Susan told me she was sorry about how they treated you all year too Harry.”

Harry had been about to reply when Neville's Grandmother turned to him “Mr Potter, it’s nice to see you again.” Harry couldn’t remember meeting her before outside of a glimpse at King Cross earlier in the year. “Neville's talked about you quite a bit. You sound as headstrong as any Potter I’ve met but every bit as tenacious as your mother.” Harry just shook the hand that was pointed at him slightly awkwardly, he noticed Andromeda seemed to think better of telling Madam Longbottom off for touching him while Neville had turned slightly red and was looking at his shoes.

“It’s nice that someone finally appreciates that I wasn't being reckless.” Harry quipped drawing a smile from the stern woman.

“You’ve set a fair few Kneazles among the Diricawls. Board of governors in chaos about how much they under-reacted and the minister is under spellfire after you accidentally shone a light on some of his incompetence arresting the gamekeeper without trial. Fudge is scrambling for some good press and the only question is if your Order of Merlin is first class or if Lucius and his supporters get their way and it’s a second class.”

Harry shifted awkwardly and his face immediately turned a shade of pink that would rival a Weasley. “I don’t want any fuss” he mused “Honestly I’d rather everyone just forgot about it.”

“Harry, it’s okay to accept some recognition every now and then. You saved lives, you killed a calamity class 5x Magical Beast to do it and you did it alone.” Andromeda sounded slightly exasperated that they were having this conversation again. She was determined that she would make sure he didn’t feel so worthless or undeserving of praise.

“But I didn’t do it alone, Fawx and the Sorting Hat were actually useful I just sort of flailed about.” He waved his hands about in a flapping motion.

“Yes but I’m sure it was some incredibly brave flailing…” Andromeda's eyes lit up with mirth at her own wit as she looked at him “Flailing with noble intentions of saving others at your own risk and that's what they want to honour.”

“It just feels a bit much.” he muttered under his breath but loud enough everyone in the room heard.

Augusta was eyeing him critically before giving an approving nod in Andromeda's direction. “A Potter indeed. You remind me of your Grandfather after the Grindelwald war, performing feats the rest of us would baulk at then writing them off as frivolities that didn’t need to be discussed.” Harry noticed Neville out of the corner of his eye looking towards his feet even harder as Madam Longbottom said it.

“Actually Mr Potter if you want my advice you should probably give an interview soon, or at least let the paper follow into the chamber of secrets when they collect the carcass.”

Harry had a look of bewildered betrayal at this new and what he thought was terrible idea. He looked to Hermione for some support only to feel even worse when he noticed she’d nodded her head at the idea.

“Harry.” she looked nervous as she said it “Everyone at Hogwarts as well as the paper are talking about rumours about what happened anyway…” before she’d got as far as saying if he talked to them it may curb their excess Harry broke in unable to contain how annoyed he was any longer.

“But if I talk to them they’ll only talk about me more! I want to be just Harry, I just want to be left alone! I barely walk through the hall without being followed by stares and whispers as it is.” He got softer spoken as he reached the end of his venting seeing sympathetic looks from the others in the room.

Andromeda began to speak and Harry turned away from Hermione to face her. “Harry, you’re one of the very few global wizarding celebrities, and arguably the most famous of all.”

“I can’t be the most famous. I haven't done anything.” he snapped.

“I know you're famous for what's probably the worst thing to ever happen to you.” She reached out for his hand before stopping herself. “But being the only person to survive the killing curse is something that will be written and speculated about for centuries.” She powered on through Harry's obviously appalled look. “They might not recognise you in Peru or Kenya but they’ll have heard of your name. Only Albus and one or two others would even compete and most people in Britain have met Dumbledore before so he doesn’t hold the same mystique. The media will print stories about you because they sell, speculation or not and if you’re a recluse they’ll not treat you well. You have to steer them towards what you can live with them talking about by giving them some crumbs.”

Madam Longbottom gave Andy an approving look “Slytherin indeed Mrs Tonks.” then turned to Harry “Although if I may add a different perspective. Show them a basilisk you weren’t afraid to rush into facing and it’ll show them you’re not to be trifled with or you might come rushing to face them.”

Harry grimaced, staring at the scar near his elbow pensively while running a finger around its edges.

Hermione couldn’t contain herself any more and flounced down, seating herself on the bottom of his bed and narrowing her eyes at him in an almost predatory stare “Spill! I have ways of getting information Potter, don’t make me use them!”

Harry began telling his slightly redacted tale about the basilisk, again, as much as he wished it was the last time he knew it wouldn’t be. It got gasps where there should be gasps and indignation where he thought there should be. “Coward in the same ward as my Frank” he thought he heard Madam Longbottom whisper at one point after he talked about Lockhart obliviating himself. He finished in a flurry about what it felt like as the venom began to take effect, the burning feeling followed by the numbness as the phoenix cried into it.

“S-Sounds like you could have used me stopping you rushing off again this year” Neville offered, causing Hermione to wince slightly.

Harry gave a nervous laugh “Andromeda says I need a babysitter.”

“Well I’m rarely wrong” Andromeda started in a haughty tone before becoming more serious, “It does make me feel slightly better that between the venom and the tears you’re probably immune to venoms and poisons now. Should work even better than your ring; they generally only work against the common and easily treatable ones.”

Harry had a baffled look on his face “What ring?”

“The heir ring, they normally have some common protective enchantments.”

“What heir ring?” his temper started to flare with increasing exacerbation.

Andromeda took on a serious expression “Harry has nobody ever told you about the Potters history or your rights?”

“I know my dad was from an old pureblood family” he had a faint pleading look as if silently asking for understanding. He could hear Augusta muttering to herself that it was a disgrace while Andromeda just looked slack jawed, Hermione shrugged at him not following what was happening either. It was Neville who spoke into the shocked pause.

“I-I did wonder why you never brought up the House of Potter.” then he spoke quieter as if afraid to say it and looked abashed at his grandmother who had her back turned to him “Or the…the alliance”

“You haven’t told him about the Alliance?” Augusta wheeled on Neville.

Neville's eyes widened as he looked at her and he shook his head wilting slightly under Augusta's stern gaze “I-I Thought he knew… e-everyone knows.”

Harry thought Hermione looked confused too and if she hadn’t known something then it definitely wasn’t something everyone knew. He gave an exasperated sigh as he thought about just how much he didn’t know about himself, his family or the wizarding world, “Don’t worry Neville, people assume I know everything all the time because I’m Harry Potter and that means I must know.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you grew up with muggles until Hermione told me on the way here... you never mention where you live.” Neville's gaze was glued to his toes now with slightly flushed cheeks.

Neville's gran turned towards Harry and spoke stiffly “The Longbottom - Potter alliance has lasted from 1373, it’s the oldest formal wizarding alliance between houses that remains in force worldwide. It started as a treaty of perpetual friendship and mutual aid during a war with France and Spain over the Portuguese succession, it set the relationship between the houses and influenced the politics of the nation for centuries.” She was seething in anger, he could tell she was becoming more incensed the longer she spoke. “The houses have never been on opposing sides in any conflict since.”

Harry was stunned, into the silence the mechanical alarm clock beside his bed exploded sending Hermione diving off the bed and Neville ducking down behind it on the other side, his magic started sparking slightly turning some of the air in the room into ozone.

Andromeda jumped up off her chair and accio’d a couple of quartz crystals before pushing them towards him “Too much stress, here hold these.” she gave him a soft look “The Potters are more important than you realise, we'll talk about it later and get you sorted out at Gringotts in a few weeks.” she looked up at Augusta who was in a semi silent rage muttering retribution and commupances to herself.

“Augusta I have an idea what else you want to mention to him but he’s not ready.” she waved her hands at the room implying he’ll level it if the conversation continued on its current course.

“Fine. Fine.” It was clear she didn’t think it was fine. “But eventually he has to know and I want to know why he clearly doesn’t know. We’ve all been told he was being trained.”

Andromeda was tight lipped and just nodded back at her. She'd thought he was being trained too and it suddenly made a few other queries she’d had make sense. Harry was leaning back into his pillows baffled at what he was supposed to be being trained in and trying to rain in how annoyed he was at only getting some half answers again.

They sat slightly awkwardly before Hermione started the conversation again. “Professor McGonagall asked if I could get the subjects you picked while I’m here. She said the headmaster gave you her letter.”

“Oh. Yeah” he pointed his elbow to a note on his bedside table, his hands still full.

Hermione brushed off some bits of clock that had fallen on top of it and picked it up before looking at it.

“Divination and Care?” he could hear a slightly questioning tone as she said it.

“Ron said they were easier than the others.”

He was expecting Hermione to huff, what he wasn’t expecting was Andromeda to launch in “Absolutely not Harry, if I let you coast through Hogwarts Lilly would be livid. She’d have had your hide for even implying you were even thinking about not giving your education your best.”

Andromeda looked at the rest of the room before apologising in advance for being rude and waving her arm to put up a temporary charm that prevented eavesdropping then leaning in close to him. “Harry over the last few days you’ve told a half dozen people Voldemort isn’t dead. If I didn’t sit here and tell you you’ve to do better I’d be doing you a disservice. Your parents died defending you and you’ll have to learn how to defend yourself to the best of your ability. When we go to Gringotts we’ll see if any of their reports are in the vault… your parents were brilliant. James and my cousin might have messed about but they didn’t slack off and I’ll show you what you should be capable of if you apply yourself.” She waved her finger at him trying to appear stern. “You will not get below an Exceeds-Expectations. An Acceptable is no longer acceptable.” Then leaned back and lowered the charm.

Hermione couldn’t help wondering what had just been discussed, she’d seen Harry angry and sometimes when she told him he’d been ridiculous he looked very mildly flustered but she’d never seen him look shamed.

“What are you two doing?” he finally said while eyeing Neville

Neville had started to speak “Dvi…” but Augusta spoke over him while giving him a withering look “Runes and Care of Magical Creatures”. Neville baulked slightly while looking at her before tentatively saying “I’m doing Runes and Magical Creatures Harry…”. Harry couldn’t help noticing Hermione was covering her mouth with her hand to hide she was trying not to laugh.

“What about you then?” he said, poking her in the arm trying to make her giggle and drawing a raised eyebrow as well as some muttering from Andromeda ‘Unstable core Harry’.

“Oh, I’m doing all of them”

“Is that as awful an idea as I think it is?” Harry said, an open ended question to everyone in the room.

“That's for Hermione and her guardian to discuss Harry.” Andromeda reproached him but he did notice she didn’t seem keen on the idea. “Although Miss Granger that is quite the course load and I would advise you that you’ll gain very little from Muggle Studies. My Husband is muggleborn and sat the exam without going to class and obtained what he called an easy O. Something I would recommend to both you and Harry. Another thing we can discuss after and send your response when you finally manage to name your owl Harry.”

“So in a few months. She's very hard to please.” he joked, earning an angry squawk from the owl who had been standing on top of the history book peering at pictures occasionally flipping the pages over as well as an affectionate smile from Hermione.

At that moment Andromedas husband Edward ‘Ted’ Tonks came through the door back first using his bum to nudge it open and semi sat on the handle because his hands were full “I got Chinese! I didn’t know what you like Harry so I just bought a mix.” he shuffled backwards into the room before turning around. “Oh Guests.” Andromeda was very noticeably wincing.

“Edward” Augusta said politely after she put out her hand for him then realised he couldn’t take it before breaking into small talk for a half a minute and declaring. “Well, we’ll take our leave and let you have your supper.” Harry thought it sounded semi questioning what they were eating actually qualified as food and that if her nose was any more wrinkled it may actually permanently crease. “It’s been enlightening but we should be going.” She made some further polite conversation and a quick attempt to gather Neville who was incredibly interested to hear how Ted managed to get foreign food sent all the way from China and had to be told it was common in muggle London as well as trying to cajole a very obviously reluctant to leave Hermione.

Just as they’d made their way towards the door Nymphadora opened it looking down at something in her hand and talking loudly into the room “Britain's most eligible bachelor! Are you sure you didn’t take Lockhart out to get the title Harry." She turned the magazine round and held it up at the same time as she looked up, showing a candid photo of Harry in his school uniform on the Hogwarts grounds and the magical equivalent of a photoshopped sword in his hand ‘Witch Weekly’ written in large font at the top of the page. “Oh, guests.” she stuttered out as she saw the rest of the room, her mother with her forehead resting on the palm of her hand muttering what she was sure were curses.

Chapter Text

22nd June 1993

St Mungos, London

Harrys owl had finally agreed to a name for herself the night before after weeks of argument. It’d perhaps be more accurate to say she’d finally chosen her own name last night. After spurning every name he suggested she'd chosen her own name by pointing her talon at her favourite picture in ‘A History of Magic’ and making a racket to get his attention when he’d begged her to decide on one because he had letters to send to Ron and McGonagall in the morning. 

He peered at the photo she was pointing at and started to read the caption below it ‘Hedwig, an Anglicisation of King Jadwiga of Poland from 1384 to 1399’. Harry thought it was incredibly odd that she’d been crowned as King and not Queen despite being a woman but thought bringing it up with the owl would just end up with him being squawked at. Andromeda had made a joke about a regal name and clearly the owl had run with it… Queen consort just wasn’t good enough. The owl wanted to rule in her own right and it was an entirely fitting name in his opinion. One of the mediwitches had pointed out that King Hedwig was named after a distant relative St Hedwig of Silesia, the patron saint of orphans. Neither had been able to decide if that was prophetic or pure unadulterated chance. 

“Want to take these letters to McGonagall and Ron” he waved them in her face. “Or are you not up to it after sitting about for a month being pampered?” Hedwig got all haughty and stuck her leg out while giving him a pointed stare. “Oh! Just because you're a familiar now you thought you could get out of taking the post?” Only for her to start playfully nibbling on his hand to try and get them until he was giggling at her antics the feeling across the bond was almost like bottled exuberance waiting to be let loose.

Andromeda let herself into the room, Ted trailing behind her as he was standing by the window with his arm sticking out of it into the street. Hedwig flapping on his arm getting some lift before she took off wheeling in the air until she was facing north and headed towards Scotland.

Harry turned around to face the noise behind him. Ted tried to bring some levity to the situation as he settled into his preferred chair “That's quite the big step considering it took us days to convince her she didn’t need to go with you to the toilet only a fortnight ago. Does this mean you two finally came up with a name?”

“She decided she’d let me call her Hedwig without beating me up for it.” He joked.

“Where's she off too?” Andromeda asked while still staring out the window in thought about the upcoming conversation she was really here to start.

“She’s off with letters for Ron and McGonagall about picking O.W.L subjects.”

“Did you go for Arithmancy as well?” 

Harry nodded “Yeah, I did. It seemed dead useful after going through those books Dora lent me. I actually finished with the runes books she left me too if she wants them back.” He turned, picking up two books from his bedside table and profering them towards Andromeda who accepted it and put it into a bag it shouldn’t have been able to fit in.

Harry pointed at it and said “Expansion runes?”

“I didn’t make it myself but I imagine so… probably with a healthy dose of charms too.”

“See dead useful. I didn’t even know things like that existed before last week.”

“How do you feel with Hedwig away?” Andromeda said with a touch of concern. Normally a person would be okay to be without their familiar for a week or two at a time but she’d quickly come to realise nothing about Harry was normal. 

“I can’t explain it but I can sort of feel that she's okay and that makes me feel okay. Some of the thoughts she keeps sending me are; well, they're odd.”

“Well it would be odd if an owl thought exactly like you do Harry.”

“I suppose… a lot of them are about rats so it might just be about food. For the last week she keeps alternating between a person then a rat sometimes for 30 seconds at a time.”

Ted chuckled to himself before saying “Surprised she’s not constantly peppering you with visions of bacon.” drawing that portion of the conversation to close.

Andromeda used the pause that followed to steer the conversation and gently ease into her real concerns. She’d spent hours playing the upcoming conversation over in her head during the last few weeks to the point she dreaded being alone with her own thoughts in the shower. “Harry, me and the rest of the healers have decided you’ve improved enough to be released.” Harry looked at her eyes widening, Andromeda couldn’t tell if it was in fear or resignation. She’d already tried to bring up the abuse she assumed he’d suffered at the Dursleys but either out of embarrassment or pride he’d deflected and the most she’d got was vague remarks about cupboards and a belt. She knew pushing him too far, too fast would only drive a wedge in any foundation of trust they were building and it might take months for him to open up fully to her. Poppy Pomfrey had shown her reams of parchment records of her secretly giving him malnutrition potions but them not being effective, presumably being negated by the parasitic soul leeching of him. Dozens of untreated old fractures she’d fixed while he was unconscious during one of his frequent visits which is why what she was building to saying left a very bitter taste in her mouth. “Me and Ted already talked with Albus yesterday and wanted to discuss where you’ll be staying for the summer. Ted’s been preparing the paperwork to get custody for the last few weeks but well…”

As Andromeda flattered her voice beginning to crack Ted took up the slack to spare her having to say it. “We’ve kicked a hornets nest, Harry. If we make any further approaches in the ministry through official channels we think the Malfoys will make a political move and try to take custody themselves. I heard a rumour on Tuesday from some of my legal contacts in the DMLE and Amelia confirmed that they’ve had their solicitor begin preparing some documentation. With Andy being cast out of the Blacks and disinherited, Narcissa, Draco’s mother, would have an almost airtight case for a better claim of your guardianship.”

The way Harry looked at Andromeda almost broke her heart into pieces, he stared at her almost catatonic before deflating and staring at his balled up fists. “So I’ve to go back to the Dursleys or I’ll end up tortured by the Malfoys?”

Ted kept talking, it was ridiculous that he had a better bedside manner than hers despite years of being a healer, she was so angry that she wanted to burn the world at the injustice of it all. “We’re not certain yet, we’ve still got a few options we’re going to try but… it looks likely. Our only good option at the minute is to take you to the Goblins and see if they can find any paperwork to get you away from the Dursleys and the Malfoys. But if that doesn’t turn up anything decisive...” He trailed off leaving the obvious conclusion unsaid.

Harry's anger finally won out “How could I even end up with the Malfoys?! They tried to kill Ginny!.”

“He must be spending a fortune to keep getting away with it, he tried to kill me at least twice during the war.” Ted grumbled, leaning back on his chair and staring at the ceiling.

Andromeda put her hand on Harry's forearm hoping to calm him down slightly “When we met Dumbledore yesterday we asked him how you ended up at the Dursleys. Initially it was only supposed to be until the will was resolved and to see what the post war settlement would be but the Chief Warlock at the time was Silvanius Selwyn. His son was found to be a death eater a week or two later and he was voted out shortly after the scandal but by then he’d already sealed your parents will. It’s actually that incident drove Albus to take the position; he'd been trying to avoid taking it or the minister's position for decades.”

“Could Dumbledore not just bloody unseal it then!?” Harry was clearly exasperated by the entire thing. He didn’t even really know what politics was and he already hated it.

“Harry, believe me I’m every bit as livid about this as you are but pureblood politics can all be a bit…” Ted Took a second or two trying to find the right world that wasn’t just a string of incoherent swearing. “baffling. Sometimes it’s all a bit medieval and the legal code hasn’t been cleaned up the way muggle law codes have. The Chief Warlock can seal a document unilaterally if they deem it a security risk, but to unseal it requires either the 50 year classification period lapsing or a vote by the Wizengmot to unseal it. We think it was sealed because after the war ended and with everything that happened in the aftermath those who followed the Dark Lord thought with the obvious guardians unavailable that if they could ignore the will they might be able to get my grandfather Pollux guardianship since he was your grandmother's brother. Needless to say if that happened we wouldn’t be having this conversation as he’d have made sure you met a tragic accident so Dumbledore kept you where you were and hid you at the least bad option.”

“Least bad option.” Harry huffed and crossed his arms,“Shouldn’t the lawyer who wrote it have a copy or something? Uncle Vernon had to do his will with a solicitor that time the doctor told him his cholesterol was so high his blood was basically butter.” as he looked at Andromeda hopefully.

“Harry, the lawyers the Potter’s used were attacked in Diagon Alley and then the place put to the torch. It wasn’t very safe to be involved with trials at the time. Albus mentioned he asked the goblins too since they normally end up involved with inheritances and have copies. They said he didn’t have the authority to see the will and those that did were unavailable.”

“Makes sense with Max, Sirius and Marlene all being out of the picture and the way the ministry treats Remus.” Ted mumbled with his hand pinching the top ridge of his nose.

Andromeda continued speaking over Ted only giving a nod in his direction and rolling of the eyes to acknowledge him. “So the plan is to take you to Gringotts later today and hope you have the authority. I don’t want to get your hopes up too much though there's a good chance they won’t let you near it until you're 17.”

“Why would Gringotts have copies anyway?”

“A concession that they got in a peace treaty after a rebellion to be a neutral arbitrator. You probably slept through Binns talking about it from the way you complain about him” Andromeda waved her hand in a flippant way as her and Ted stood up and waved Harry to follow them to the bank. “Suited wizards because they didn’t trust their political enemies on the Wizengmot to deal with inheritances. I don’t know if you know this Harry but Gringotts is more than just a bank; the Gringott Horde lives in Underholt Scraefham beneath the vaults. They’re quite tight-lipped about numbers but there's supposed to be a dozen or more clans and they advertise most of the services they offer to wizards like smithing, curse breaking and gambling through the bank rather than separately. Now come on, get ready, we’ll be waiting just outside.”

22nd June 1993 

Gringotts, London

Harry found himself being hustled into an office that had ‘Account Manager Skarsnik’ written in black lettering on a copper plate attached to the door at what he assumed was head height for a goblin around the height of his armpit. 

He thought the one doing the hustling was angry but the one behind the desk when they entered the room had looked absolutely irate at him. “You claim to be Harry Potter?” The Goblin took its monocle off before setting down some parchment and peering over the desk at him with something between a grin and a sneer that made Harry shift in his seat feeling slightly uncomfortable. “It may surprise you to know that one Mr H.J Potter has been ignoring Gringotts missives for the last 11 years which has led some in the bank, for example his account manager, to be less than pleased with him.”

Harry's face scrunched up at the statement and he looked towards Andromeda. Andromeda just looked at him stoically, he thought she’d started acting differently since she came into the bank, formal in a way she hadn’t been at the hospital. Eventually Andromeda waved her hand in a motion that told him to get on with it. “But I don’t get letters?” he eventually said to everyone as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

The goblin held up his hand to stop a confused Ted responding. He tapped his other hand with its long bony finger off the desk for a second or two before responding. “Is that so? There are very few things that would prevent a Gringotts owl reaching its destination and they are not typically something a child is capable of.”

Andromeda raised an eyebrow in thought and spoke softly “Harry, did you never get anything from me and Ted? Or any fan mail?”

Harry blanched with incredulity, “Fan mail!? No. Why would anyone send me fanmail?”

“Harry, you keep underestimating just how famous you are. She might kill me and you if you ever bring it up in conversation but Nymphadora used to send you fan letters asking about your adventures in the Potter books. Ted and I used to send you birthday and Christmas cards. We definitely weren’t the only ones, there should be mountains of mail meant for you somewhere.”

Skarsnik started speaking again “Mr Potter you should have received letters regarding quarterly financial summaries, an end of year financial and tax summary in addition to more than a dozen bequeathments. This does not account for the request for you to take up your rights. Are you claiming you’ve never once received a Gringotts owl?”

“Ermm…. Yes. Only Hagrid, Hermione and Hogwarts send me stuff.” Then he tapped his finger on his chin staring down at the corner of the desk in contemplation before quietly saying. “Although a house elf stole some of there letters and supposedly all of Ron’s letters”

“Do you believe this House Elf has stolen other mail you were supposed to be the recipient of?”

“No?” Harry replied with no surety in his voice. “I think he only stole them last year because he didn’t want me to fight the basilisk at Hogwarts.”

Skarsnik tapped a crystal on his desk before speaking into it in gobbledygook that set the adults noticeably on edge then rubbing his monocle with a cloth. Harry felt like he was trying his best to look like a stereotype of a Bond villain. “Yes, the basilisk. Another mystery Gringotts has tried to get in contact with you regarding. However, we will deal with one mystery at a time.” before he looked up towards the door which opened just as he ended his speech.

Three goblins stepped inside two guards carrying halebards and another goblin in a muggle suit who began talking to Skarsnik in gobbledygook who pointed at Harry. The goblin pulled a crystal out of his pocket then began waving it about Harry about 20cm off his skin then turning to Skarsnik again nodding and having another short conversation as he handed across a piece of parchment which had appeared from air in front of him. The three left as suddenly as they entered and had only been in the room at most 90 seconds. Harry saw Andromeda relax slightly and Ted turned in his seat watching as the Goblin guards stomped out.

Skarsnik looked at the paper before handing it towards Ted who took it and began reading it to himself as Harry and Andromeda watched expectantly. “A DMLE Mail redirection ward. Why would he have a DMLE ward placed on him?”

“Gringotts is currently investigating that question, Mr Tonks. Indeed, many of the senior staff at the bank, including myself, are likely to be rather annoyed once they find out exactly what's happened.” Skarsnik replied.

“I thought in the event of a mail redirection ward placed by the Ministry that Gringotts receive a notification from the Goblin Liaison Office? I remember reading Sirius', it’s usually only for the duration of Azkaban sentences.”

 “I can assure you we received no such missive. As the Potter account manager I’ve read and re-read every document relating to Mr H.J Potter the bank is in possession of.” 

“Is that a good thing?” Harry questioned and Andromeda gave him a quick nod.

Skarsnik smirked which Harry thought was the closest he’d come to smiling. “It means Mr Potter that you have not earned Gringotts ire or my personal wroth.” He turned in his chair before pulling out a bowl, a small slightly blue transparent crystal and some vials out of a cabinet behind his desk, setting them in front of him before placing a piece of parchment into the bowl and pouring an iridescent green, blue and red liquid out of one of the vials on top of it. He then held the very small crystal out to Harry “Now, Mr Potter if you could push some of your magic into the beorhtstan.” 

Harry looked at Andromeda confused so she pointed at the crystal and started to explain. “It’s for the inheritance test Harry. Beorhtstan’s a gemstone that you can push your magic into, they’re rare and fairly expensive. They need a sample to test your family magic.” She said the last bit questioningly while looking at Skarsnik who nodded in agreement. “It’s old English for bright or shiny stone, it should change colour to represent your magic when you fill it.”

“Erm… how do I push magic into it?” He felt like he was asking a silly question but he was out of his depth.

“When Arcturus had me tested I was told to use the feeling like you're doing a simple spell like a lumos and instead of a wand push it through your hand. Best to hold it against your chest instead of at arm's length like a spell while you do it. You might have to force it until you get older when feeling your magic gets easier.”

After two attempts a warm, sweaty and slightly wobbly Harry held a multi-colored stone that glowed in a swirl of colours that Andromeda raised a confused eyebrow at. 

Skarsnik began giving instructions again, “Excellent, now place it in the bowl.” Harry dropped it with a soft plop then stared at the potion expectantly until Skarsnik coughed and he looked up to see him holding a knife. “Now place seven drops of blood in the bowl.”

Harry baulked slightly but Andromeda spoke up again. “They have something to test your magic but they need something to test your blood as well.” Harry stared at the knife then steeled himself and held his hand over the bowl before cutting across his hand surprised when it hadn’t hurt at all then healed itself as soon as the seventh drop of blood fell into the bowl. For some reason nobody but Harry thought that was out of the ordinary so he just accepted it and moved on.

“And now we wait.” Andromeda provided running commentary to Harry as nothing continued to happen for thirty seconds apart from Ted mentioning that he’d never seen alchemy in practice before. Eventually Skarsnik stopped staring at his pocket watch and pulled the parchment out of the bowl. 

He took a quick look at the paper before pointedly staring at Harry and asking “Are you sure you're comfortable with those accompanying you knowing this information or would you like to read this in private? Much of this is as I expected having performed the same test on your father and grandfather. It represents some of the deepest held secrets of House Potter.”

Harry thought about it for only a millisecond before nodding “No it’s fine if they stay”. Skarsnik who had obviously put more thought into how important and how dangerous information can be handed across two sheets of paper and asked Ted and Andromeda to sign an agreement that they would not be able to talk about the results of the inheritance test without Mr Potter's explicit permission. After that was taken care of Skarsnik made four copies of the inheritance parchment then slid three across the table before turning to file the original.

Harry heard a shocked gasp from Andromeda and he was almost sure he heard Ted mutter “Fuck me.” despite his insistence for years afterwards that he didn’t. He picked his sheet up and began to read.

Gringotts Inheritance Test Recipient: Harry James Potter

Heir Apparent

• Heir Apparent to the Ancient and Noble House of Potter.
• Heir Apparent to the Honourable House of Fleamont.

Heir Designate

• Heir Designate to the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black.

Tasked Heir

• Tasked Heir of the Most Ancient and Founding House of Gryffindor.

Untested Heir

• Untested Heir of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Peverell. 

Untestable Son

• Untestable Son of the Most Ancient and Founding House of Slytherin.

Harry put the page down again after re-reading it twice. “What does that mean?”

The goblin smirked for only the second time since Harry entered the room “It means you are indeed Harry Potter as you claimed so you won’t be put on trial for attempted fraud of this establishment. It also means that the 1500 Galleons fee for the inheritance test will be drawn from your existing accounts.” Harry was starting to get the impression goblins were incredibly formal,  liked money, liked to make you feel uncomfortable and liked to threaten violence. Like a slightly more restrained and calculating Uncle Vernon.

Andromeda finally came out of the slight daze that she’d been in for the last minute. Ted had leaned over Harry and was patting her on the shoulder reassuringly before shaking her gently when he got no response. “You’re heir Black.” She choked slightly as she said it. “How can you be heir Black? Why would Acturus do that?” then she smiled and said softly and gleefully “Narcissa is going to be so annoyed!” giggling slightly. It was so different to the Andromeda that Harry had got to know in the last month that it shocked him slightly.

“Indeed one of a handful of surprises even to myself.” Skarsnik hit the crystal on his desk and had another conversation in gobbledygook though it.

Harry's mood was wildly swinging, excited that he belonged, he was a Potter and it looked like he really was a Gryffindor even if he had no clue what the task thing was about. Then he vacillated and turned pensive, thoughts about the Chamber of Secrets and the sorting hat telling him he could be great. “But what does this mean? I don’t know who half these names even are. Does this mean I was Slytherin's Heir?” 

Just as Harry finished, another set of three goblins came into the room leaving three boxes on the desk and retreated with one of the parchment copies of his inheritance test.

Skarsnik began speaking “Yes, one of the aforementioned suprises not present on previous Potters tests. Likely a result of something in your mothers ancestry.” Another shocked gasp came from Andromeda and he was almost certain this time Ted had muttered “Fucking Hell”. “I cannot comment on the specifics and potential heirs to the houses that require a task or trial are far from common, it’s even less common, unprecedented even, that they complete them. However I can say that ‘Untestable son’ has been encountered by the bank previously and it is suspected that it happens where the individual runs afoul of the family charter in some capacity.”

Harry spoke over him “Family charter?”, Andromeda wistfully replied, “Think of it as the official rules or the ideals of the family. If you break them there's usually some repercussions”

“So I broke the family rules? Is that because I killed his snake?”

“I’d suspect its because you're not a pureblood.” Ted chipped in.

“Oh… But that’s why I’m a parselmouth?”

Andromeda took up the conversation again. “Probably, being disowned by the family, or in this case ineligible to be lord doesn’t mean you can’t inherit the family magic or in this case inheritable abilities.”

“Speaking from experience there dear?” Ted smiled at her and got a grin in response that Harry thought was quite similar to the goblins earlier.

“What about the others? Who are the Fleamonts’ and Peverells?”

Skarsnik glanced at something on the wall behind the shelves to his left before speaking. “Fleamont was your great great grandmother's maiden name and your great grandfather's given name. If I may Mr Potter I would recommend to you what I recommended to your grandfather. As an honourable family they hold no political office and you should merge the accounts once you reach your majority at seventeen.”

“Honourable house?”

“We can talk about the minutiae of wizarding Houses later Harry” Andromeda whispered to him and made a motion for Skarsnik to continue. 

“The Peverells’ and Gryffindors’ on the other hand have been mainstays on Potter inheritance tests since this establishment opened. However, the order is reversed from my previous experiences, both your father and grandfather were tasked heirs of Peverell and untested heirs of Gryffindor. Another mystery to which I can provide no enlightenment. No doubt they were aware of the first Peverell condition but I am not. It matters little to Gringotts other than as a curiosity, you cannot claim the ring or have access to the vaults; it does not alter your circumstances.” At this he opened and slid three boxes across the table. “The house heir rings Mr Potter.”

“Do I just pop them on or do I have to do something?”

“We'll start with the Potter ring.” He pushed one slightly further out than the rest towards Harry. “When you put it on the totem of the family magic will judge you. Should it find you worthy you will in this instance become head of the family.”

Harry put his hand into the box and picked up the ring. Andromeda would later explain that it was a signet ring made of platinum inlaid with red beryl but all he saw was the crest of a rampant golden griffon on a red background. He popped it on and it felt like a cold shudder passed through his spine before something familiar and warm pressed against him from every direction before lessening its grip. An image of a griffon the same height as himself staring into his eyes passing judgement went through his head and he reached out to touch it but found only air as if this was just a figment of his imagination despite how real it felt. Up until this point he hadn’t thought to question what Skarsnik had meant by Totem of the family magic and now he felt silly about it. Then as quickly as it had started the room returned to normal and Ted was holding his shoulders as he stumbled slightly. “Woahh.” he muttered and Andromeda smiled at him with a hint of pride in her demeanor.

“Now that you have been judged and accepted by the heir ring Mr Potter, if we hurry with the next two we can settle down and discuss what I’m sure you’ll find some rather interesting Potter business.”

Harry picked up the next ring of platinum and ruby inlay with an orangey red flower that looked slightly like an orchid on a green background. He thought it was slightly gaudy compared to the Potter ring, the colours clashing slightly then quickly popped it on. He felt the press of the magic much more slight than the previous and it quickly passed. He looked down at his hand curiously and asked “Is that it?” 

“The Fleamonts’ are a much less prestigious family than the Potters. Less history, less legacy, less endowment, no totem of the family magic.” Skarsnik answered what had been a rhetorical question. 

Andromeda passed him the next box with a slight look of worry on her face. “It’s made of mithril and the dark gems musgravite” she said as she handed it across. The crest was a shield of three ravens below a sword arm on a sea of stars. When he put it on it felt like he'd had a bucket of ice cubes poured on his head and he shivered slightly, the press of the magic felt stifling, slightly oppressive even. Then his vision darkened and a pair of red eyes peered through the mirk and he froze in their glare. After a second or two a large dog-like animal stepped forward towards him menacingly until it was just millimeters away from his face before it licked him then retreated slightly before fading away.

Andromeda had held him up this time and was staring into his eyes. “Did you see the grim?”

“The dog thing?” he asked back.

“So that's a yes.” She deadpanned before smiling widely and pushing him down into his seat again.

Skarsnik grinned again while looking at Andromeda. “I do believe Mr Malfoy will be rather annoyed by what's occurred here today. I’ll send a missive to Gloomclaw the Black account manager so he can pass on the relevant information before you leave today.”

Harry added annoying wizards to the list of things goblins might like then looked at Ted who encouraged him to ask what they’d prepared before visiting the bank while Andromeda simmered excitedly in her seat. “Account Manager Skarsnik, as Heir Potter can I enquire if Gringotts is in possession of a copy of my parents wills.” 

Skarnsik pulled open a drawer on his desk and began to monologue. “As heir Potter you are entitled to become executor of the will left in possession of the Goblin Nation as stipulated in the document and as such not subjected to the unilateral sealing by the previous Chief Warlock.” He copied the document three times and handed them across the desk upside down before staring at Ted with the widest grin yet on his face, “There is no law that makes it an offense to hand this countersigned document bearing the Gringotts seal to anyone outside these walls once opened. Like for example Wizarding Child Services or the DMLE.” This obviously meant more to Ted than it did to Harry. He continued “This is the copy that went into effect should both have perished within a short timeframe and supersedes the copies in event of individual deaths.”

Harry picked up the copy nearest to him and started to read.

Last Will and Testament of James Charlus Potter & Lily Potter

We, James Charlus Potter & Lily Potter, of Godric's Hollow, being of sound mind and disposing memory, hereby declare this to be our last will and testament, revoking all previous wills and codicils made by us.

We have one living child Harry James Potter born on the 31st July 1980.

We appoint Sirius Orion Black III of Chelsea, London or any subsequent Regent or Heir of the Potter Line by blood or by magic to be the executor of this will.

To Sirius Orion Black III we leave the contents of Gringotts vault 34182. We also leave 100 bags of Spratt Dog Food Treats to be used on the rare occasion you're a good boy.

To Remus John Lupin we leave a value of 50,000 Galleons. We also leave our secret stash of snacks hidden in the back of the pantry, speak the password and find your treasure.

To Peter Andrew Pettigrew our bequest is conditional upon receipt of a legal affidavit from Blackstone & Gavel Writs and Solicitors by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and any subsequent investigation pertaining to. 

• Case 1; We leave a value of 5,000 galleons, the rights and deeds to the property known as ‘Little Paws Lodge’.
• Case 2; As per case one.
• Case 3; We leave a value of 30 pieces of silver.

To Marlene Florence McKinnon we leave a value of 5,000 galleons. We also leave a lifetime supply of Sleekeazy Hair Potion in the hope you come to your senses and decide a perm only belongs in old photographs showing poor teenage decisions. 

To Frank Harkon Agustus Longbottom, we leave a value of 5,000 galleons with the provision that it is only used for the purchase of classic brooms. Hopefully Alice won’t murder you for frittering away your inheritance on ‘two hundred year old planks that can barely stay in the air any more’ if it comes as a gift from someone who’s already dead.

To Alice Edith Longbottom we leave a value of 5,000 galleons with the provision that it is only to be used for the purchase of additions of your choosing to the DMLE Aurour Library. Teach them to keep their limbs better than Moody.

To Minerva Constance McGonagall we leave copies of ‘Art of Alteration’ and 'Shifting Shapes: Transfiguration in Battle’ by Godric Gryffindor, leased so long as you shall live at a rate of one knut per century. As fond as I am of a lark, they are entailed to the Potter Library so it is outwith my ability to gift. Use them well, turn Voldermort into a newt for us.

To Master Filius Flitwick, it struck us as we sat down to write this that we are unaware if you have a middle name and it is our deepest wish that you have secretly been holding out on us calling you something suitably impressive such as BathedinBlood or Smashmouth. We leave you ‘Symphonie des Enchantements’ by Elanor Potter and a selection of Lily Potter's charms mastery notes in the hope there's a way to banish the aforementioned newt into the sun.

To Edgar Wulfric Alexander Bones IV we leave the stewardship and profits derived therefrom of any woods, forests, groves and glades associated with the property known as ‘Stinchcomb Castle Ruins’ until such time as Heir Potter assumes all duties. 

To Amelia Josephine Bones we leave a foot long branch of English Oak to throw at your enemies when you find yourself accidentally without a wand in battle again. May it save your life in a time of great need. We Also leave four skins of 8 x 6 ft Hebredian Black dragon hide to make sets of armour from; in case the  aforementioned stick proves defective or you lose it too.

To Andromeda Cassiopeia Tonks we leave a value of 25,000 galleons to be used in lieu of the dowry you forfeited following your heart. 

To Maximillian Hardwin Potter we leave the regency of House Potter under the terms set out in the Potter Family Charter and a stipend to the value of 10,000 galleons per year until the heir comes of age. May the family magic protect you all from any foes.

To Our Son Harry James Potter we leave all our remaining earthly possessions; the family legacy, inheritances, vaults and properties pertaining to. We also leave you with love and affection from beyond the veil and the greatest hope that in spite of initial sorrow your life is filled with laughter and joy.

In Adversis Virtus Viget

Guardian List

• Maximillian Potter - Regent Potter.
• Sirius Black - Godfather.
• Marlene McKinnon - Godmother.
• Frank Longbottom - Formal Alliance.
• Edgar Bones - Informal Alliance.
• Andromeda Tonks - Second Cousin.
• Samuel Evans - Grandparent.

Harry heard Ted whispering over him with Andromeda once he got about half way through about how he would go to Amelia as soon as they were done while she takes him to the vaults for whatever he needs.

Once he got to the end everyone was looking at him expectantly.

“Who is Maximillian Hardwin Potter?” he tapped the parchment with the back of his hand in a slapping motion.

Andromeda's smile dropped a little as she looked at him then she counted off on her fingers for a second before replying. “He was your fathers third cousin once removed. Slightly older than your father but they were close, he lived at the house closest to your grandparents, the two plots backed onto one another. He was a Potter through the male line so I assume he had access to the family magic.”

Harry was afraid to ask but he felt he had too. “You keep saying ‘was’.”

Andromeda sighed deeply, sorrowfully and slightly angry that Harry hadn’t been aware of the scale of his loss. “He was killed. About two months before your parents. Death eaters attacked the house, killing him, his wife and the two children.”

“Oh.” Harry whispered slightly ashamed that only a few moments ago that he’d been angry that this person had never come to save him from the Dursleys.

Ted broke the silence that followed after and smiled at him. “On the bright side I’m sure you noticed that once I show this to Wizarding Child Services we should be able to stop the Malfoys getting their hands on you! The spare room has been ready for a decade but I think you might want to paint over the baby blue on the walls once you get settled in. It'll be nice to have an annoying little brother to help me keep Doras ego in check.”

Harry beamed at him but was broken out of it when Andromeda and Skarsniks' whispered conversation changed into her shouting. “You what!”

Ted's face turned glum and he knew exactly what was being discussed before he spoke to Andromeda. “Yes, the affidavit points to what we always thought. I take it you didn’t get the significance of the thirty pieces of silver?” Andromeda and Skarsnik both looked at him blankly but Ted seemed to expect that. “No, I didn’t think you would. It’s a sort of universal symbol of betrayal among large parts of the muggle world.” Ted wasn’t getting into another fruitless explanation of muggle religion with a baffled Andromeda again, this wasn’t the time for it.

“Is it enough evidence to get him acquitted?”

“No but I'll raise it with Amelia when I meet with her.”

Andromeda sagged into her chair slightly.

Skarsnik looked at his pocket watch again before speaking quickly, evidently wanting to bypass this conversation and start talking about something that would begin making him money again. “Gringotts will begin the probate process, notices will be delivered to all concerned parties regarding a public reading set for 5 days hence before beginning distribution of bequeathments. The process for the noble houses has been extremely streamlined over the centuries and as the sole descendent it should be completed within the fortnight.” 

“These are your account details and balances that are within your authority to have access or partial access too as head of house for two families and heir of another.” He handed Harry a piece of parchment that he began to read and shocked Harry so much that he wanted to ask another half dozen questions but Skarsnik just kept talking. Ted who was reading the parchment over his shoulder definitely muttered “Fuck me” this time. He’d said it right in Harry's ear.

Ancient and Noble House of Potter Vaults

*Partial Access. Unable to make monetary withdrawals until reaching the age of majority.

A further value of 226,104 Galleons 3 Sickles and 18 Knuts have been bequeathed to Gringotts listing one Harry James Potter as the primary beneficiary and are currently unassociated with an account.

Honourable House of Fleamont

*Partial Access. Unable to make monetary withdrawals until reaching the age of majority.

Ancient and Most Noble House of Black Vaults

“If I may give some advice Mr Potter. You and your advisors should check your vaults for any deeds or legal documentation of business interests that may have been lost during the attacks on both the family lawyer and accountants during 1981. Gringotts account managers do not hold deeds or involve ourselves in financial transactions regarding property not within the borders of the Goblin Nation due to existing treaties with the Ministry so that is outside my purview. Nor do we necessarily have access to all of our clients' shares or business contracts, although I would be willing to recommend myself as custodian of such going forward.”

“Now let's discuss the sale and procurement of the Basilisk carcass you’ve just acquired, Mr Potter.” He grinned again at the surprised look on Harry's face.

23rd June 1993 

Great Hall, Hogwarts.

Ronald Weasley looked up and put his arm protectively over a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon while eying the white owl that had just landed in front of him and stuck it’s leg out in his direction before barking at him.

“Alright but you can take that bacon over there” He pointed his finger at Neville's plate and took the letter from her “I’m not giving up my breakfast as easily as Harry does.” Ron had just started letting his guard down, letter in hand, as she hopped towards Neville when an eagle owl with a Gringotts livery on its breast landed in front of him and stuck its leg out in his general direction.

The owl bit him in the hand hard as he put his hand down to take the letter drawing a tiny bit of blood. “Ow! The bloody hell was that for?” and noticed the owl had stuck its leg out towards him again. “I’m not falling for that again.” He huffed and leaned back slightly away from the owl while sucking on his hand to stop the bleeding.

Neville looked up at the commotion, eyes narrowed in thought as he gave Hedwig two rashers of bacon and took in the second owl for a few seconds before saying. “Can you read the name on the ID band without taking it?.” 

“Yeah, sure. I can try as long as this maniac doesn’t try and gouge my eyes out for it while I’m bent down.” A finger pointed directly in the owl's face who just nodded before warily bending down to read the ID band on the outside of the note. Ron’s face scrunched up with some confusion as he read it since it didn’t match anyone he knew in Gryffindor then called out loudly “Who’s Peter Petigrew?” drawing attention over from the staff table. Hedwig tilted her head to the side at the question before taking two long hops across the table until she stood beside the owl and leered down at Ron's pet which had just started scrambling for cover under a bowl  in front of Ron. Then after a moment's contemplation she struck, knocking the bowl over spilling some fruit that rolled across the table while pinning the rat with one of her talons and tore at its back left leg. Within seconds the great hall had turned into a scene of absolute panic, students scrambling, teachers rushing to the scene as a screaming man suddenly appeared on top of the table holding both hands to the back of his leg at his ruined tendon rolling in pain, an excited owl pecking at his side.

Chapter Text

23rd June 1993
Gringotts, London

Thirteen Goblins were crowded around an almost circular table, King Gringott VI sat on a slightly flattened edge that could be assumed to be the head of the table and denoted his status as not quite an equal. Behind them the room was packed with guards, scribes, aides and serving staff all standing or shuffling around in relative silence while those at the table debated boisterously among themselves when a knock was heard from the door.

The king spoke to the door guards. “Bring them in.”

Two Goblins entered leading the Hogwarts charms Professor Filius Flitwick who while he had been expecting a meeting with a Goblin high in the Hordes structure was trying to hold in his shock at the gathering he’d been summoned to attend.

An aide ran over to him, directing him to his place directly across from the king stood behind and to the left of one of the seated Clan Chiefs then handed him a sheet of parchment “Master Filius, if you read this then observe until called to speak.” He began to read, stopping only when he noticed movement at the edge of the room behind the King.

King Gringott VI waved two fingers at a different aide who had just come back into the room with a sheet of parchment leading an elderly female goblin bearing the markings of a Shaman of the Kinfolk. “Account manager Skarsnik performed an inheritance test yesterday afternoon on the Heir of House Potter. We would ask for your opinion.”

The Shaman took the sheet from the aide and quickly deduced what was being discussed, “You believe the boy is the one that the ‘Gloomspite Number Seven’ prophecy speaks of?”

“That is what we are debating.”

She bore her neck in the air, a goblin gesture of deference by making themselves vulnerable. “For all that he has seen and been marked by death and for all that he is a potential heir of Blodfagfolm’s line he is no Pendragon. It has long been thought the prophecy spoke of the Heir to Camelot.”

“If I was to inform you that in conjunction with the change in status of the Gryffindor Heirship the boy is the subject of a number of prophecy orbs within the Wizards Hall of Prophecies?”

She paused in thought rescanning the document. She knew the details of the Wizard prophecies contents would be unknown to them so it only raised more questions than it did provide additional information to help base an informed opinion on.

“While subjects of Wizard prophecies can have great influences on the history of The Nation that does not make it a foregone conclusion. The child is likely important; he has already affected the weave greatly and could do so again, even if I do not think he himself is the one that Gloomspite spoke of. He may be a harbinger but I say that with no absolute conviction.”

There was quiet as everyone digested this opinion before one of the Clan Chiefs broke the silence with a shout. “The enemy were shattered in the last attempt. They won’t come in our lifetimes.” There was some light tapping on the table in agreement before he shouted the last sentence of his speech. “We leap at shadows! They haven't been seen in three and a half centuries and we cower at the thought of them.” This split the room, receiving more tapping at the table from some and loose objects lobbed in anger at calling them cowards from others.

“That's because they are biding their time! Building their strength!” One Goblin shouted before slightly lowering his tone once he realised he had everyone's attention. “The Wizards barely remember them, they’ve somehow successfully removed themselves from their history and clouded their memories. The enemy could strike at any moment of their choosing and the wizards would be caught flat footed.”

An intelligent looking goblin with a pair of small spectacles looked up from the book he was making notes in. “Are they truly our enemies? Before she enthralled them we had few issues with them. If we could strike at her heirs we wouldn’t have to fear them attacking.”

A fully armoured Goblin jumped up kicking his chair over as he did in his excitement “To strike at her heirs we would have to wade through thousands of them in any case! A Goblin should not abandon tactics for sentimentality!” The Clan Chiefs slapped their hands off the table in agreement.

“Should we at least involve the House Elves? They know the threat more than any other. Their loss was the most profound.”

“They can’t be trusted, we cannot be certain they won’t be turned!” He shouted jesticulating wildly as he pulled a dagger from inside his gauntlet out and  began waiving it about. “Letting a potential enemy into our council leaves a potential dagger at our back.” then stabbed the table with his dagger for effect.

“They’re a shadow of what they were in any case.” Another said getting nods from all the attendees. “They diminish in ability with each passing year.” getting more nods and ‘Ayes’ from around the table. “Their help would be welcome but it would be marginal.” Some of the more goblin supremacist members slapped their chest at this. “They long ago lost the ability to dictate the direction of a war, the binding of the oath’s weakened to the point the of snapping. I’d only trust Goblin spears at my side!.” The members pounded any cups that hadn’t already been thrown off the table in agreement.

A goblin threw an egg into the centre of the table where it smashed down as he began to speak, unveiling a small bird who started wobbling around the table squawking “Fool! Your pride would see us fall alone rather than survive with others.” The statement divided the room again with equal table slaps and consternation, the goblin they were replying to threw the bird back at them.

“We would be better approaching the dwarves. They won’t forgive them no matter their culpability.” The spectacled goblin spoke, raising a number of angry shouts and a thrown ceramic mug shattered off a hand of one of his guards that was stuck in front of his face to protect him.

“The dwarves do not forgive anyone! They hold their grudges dearer than their lives!” One shouted to a chorus of slaps on the table in agreement and a disconcerting guaff, guaff sound that was a Goblins hearty laugh.

“You’re a fool to think they will aid us.” The goblin who’d had his cup deflected now tossed his mailed helm at him while he spoke which the other had to duck under to avoid causing it to strike an unsuspecting aide behind him. “They still hold a grudge against us no matter how many centuries it’s been since the battles for Karak Seolfor Pyke. They will not aid either side unless the other is foolish enough to attack them first.”

While this type of spirited debate that many would call veiled threats and chaotic shouting was common in a debate among goblins the King was finally done listening to prattle about topics that had been discussed to death. “Enough! We did not come here to discuss the House Elves or stubbornness of Dwarves. We came here to discuss the Potter child.”

“There is no need to discuss the boy! If they didn’t attack during the 1890 Rebellion or the last Blood War they won’t attack now!” The goblin who’d spoken with similar sentiment earlier repeated.

The king jumped up again after slamming a fist on the table and shouted “Hold your tongue, Ironclaw you’ve said your piece!” quieting the room. Then the King lowered himself into his seat again while talking at a more conversational level. ”Plus, that was no rebellion, that was a skirmish caused by Ragnoks band of malcontent rabble. It is no rebellion unless I raise my banner.”

A goblin wearing a mithril chain with an open book hanging from the central link denoting him as chief historian of his clan in addition to his role as chief that had yet to enter the debate finally lent forward. “The Potters were one of the Houses at the forefront of defending against the 1639 to 1653 assault. The boy must have found the sword. If it was indeed the sword used to slay the basilisk, that is a task worthy of the sword's loyalty.”

“But he has not and cannot claim the ring. He is no Godric Blodfagfolm.” another responded.

“Gryffindor did not become Blodfagfolm until he was a man.” he retorted before leaning back in his chair and with a sense of finality eyed the room as if to dare any to challenge what he’d said.

One of the older clan leaders spoke “Should we not take a hand in attempting to train the boy as a contingency? It costs us nothing to prepare but it could cost us everything should we wait for confirmation.”

The Goblins all slapped their hands on the table as if all in agreement and all turned their heads to Professor Flitwick who was still standing at one end of the table with the two guards having not been given permission to sit. As a half goblin Filius didn’t belong to a clan, him being legally allowed to carry a wand caused some animosity and as a result he was not taught the entirety of the folktales or history passed down by the kin. ‘A wizard to goblins, a goblin to wizards and not quite belonging to either’ he often joked about the situation. As a result while some of the details of what had been discussed eluded him, he had picked up enough of the conversation to follow the discussion.

Filius was quiet for a second or two then began to speak. “A direct approach would not have the results you hope for, Albus and the ministry would both prevent The Nation from approaching the boy for direct training. Albus, while he means well, fears anything he does not have control over. The ministry fears the boy as a potential rallying point for any that oppose them, especially the threat of the muggleborn and half blood majority who their laws discriminate against. They would see Goblins training him as a direct threat to their political order.”

The king nodded slowly in agreement, writing a note down about what Filius had said on parchment in front of him. “What would you suggest Master Flitwick?”

Flitwick was quieter for much longer this time as he thought, the room silent in anticipation. “Mr Potter attended a duelling club under the supervision of the Hogwarts staff during the previous school year. The club folded due to the lack of competent staff; however if I was to sponsor the club again in the upcoming term I believe Mr Potter would attend.”

One of the clan leaders spoke up. “If the threat is imminent this is unlikely to be sufficient.” This drew another round of hands being slapped on the table in agreement but the lack of raised voices boded well.

Filius agreed and said as much. “I agree. The boy already has some minor talent if encounters in the corridor are to be believed and the requisite sharp reflexes. Once a member it wouldn’t be difficult to declare him a potential talent and ask if he would like to compete on the tournament scene. At that point as a former world champion none would consider private tuition suspicious.”

The king looked around the table at the clan heads to see all were tapping their index and ring finger on the table. “The Kinmeet considers your advice sage Master Flitwick. See it done to the best of your ability. Whatever resources you require, The Nation shall make available to you. However, I fear no one boy, no matter how competent he becomes, can win a war alone.”

The king then began talking to the guard on his left. “Guard take him to the tellers hall and send one of the legal scribes. Tell them they are needed to prepare the documents that require signing.” He looked at the professor again saying with the tone of an obvious dismissal “Master Flitwick, you'll receive the legal paperwork within the next 48 hours. The initial boon for your service will be determined on the 1st August 1994.”

Filius was quickly led through the doors of the council chambers and into the tellers hall. The guard gave a curt respectful nod and bumped his halberd twice off the floor before leaving him to travel as he wished. Filius gave a respectful balling of his fist held in front of his chest back and began to walk to the floo.

Finally back at the castle he tried thinking of excuses for his tardiness, his regimented daily itinerary was a thing of legend and playful jokes among the staff, being twenty minutes late was unheard of in three decades of teaching. Instead as he approached the entrance to the Great Hall there was the wail of childrens scream and a tide of students rushing towards him as he saw red flashes and the shouting of staff.

He rushed against the flow of people having to use magic to part the crowd or be lost in the mass as even most of the children towered above his diminutive height. As the second best wand in the castle it would do him a dishonour to not lend it in the event of any danger. The crowd thinned out and he noticed a number of the braver or nosier students still at their tables or in motion moving towards the comotion, accidentally getting in the way of the teachers whilst trying to help. He clocked Minerva at the Gryffindor table which had more students milling around it than the other house's did. All wands were pointed at a body sprawled on the table, a few still firing the occasional stunning spell despite the state of the recipient. An owl was furiously pecking at its side while another owl in Gringotts livery was sprawled over the table stunned, likely caught in the crossfire. “STOP! THE NEXT PERSON THAT FIRES A STUNNING SPELL WILL SPEND THE NEXT WEEK CLEANING EVERY TOILET IN THIS CASTLE BY HAND!”

The spellfire petered out almost immediately but one or two were still sent after this announcement and Minerva turned to the last students who fired, “Weasleys!” She eyed Fred and George before eyeing her next victim “McClaggen! Stand outside my office until I collect you. If I find you can’t follow that instruction either, you'll still be in those toilets a month from now.” McClaggen paled while the twins just shrugged, it was only two days until the Hogwarts Express left.

Minerva took a few seconds to inspect the man laying on the table whispering to herself ‘It can’t be.’ before looking up and seeing Filius. “Filius, go to the floo and get Madam Bones. Tell her Peter Pettigrew is unconscious on top of the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall and she should bring medical staff." Filius wondered if he’d survive what looked like being hit with at least forty stunning spells even if most of the students were not capable of fully powering them yet.

As he was leaving he heard her talking to a patronus of a housecat, the volume receding as he jogged to the floo. ‘Albus, I’m afraid you’ll have to cut your politicking short you’re needed at the castle.’

23rd June 1993
Tonks Residence, London

Harry had woken up to the sound of Dora tripping in the hall in front of his door and quickly made his way downstairs to the kitchen where Andromda and Dora were both pottering about making breakfast while Ted was at the table reading the muggle paper. Dora waved at him with a piece of toast in her mouth as she stumbled about trying not to fall over as she put her auror robes on.

Andromeda spoke first “Harry take a seat, there's toast and nutella or croissants.”

Harry stared at the croissant with curiosity before shrugging and picking it up and tentatively nibbling a corner.

“You should have seen your father haggling with the Goblins. If you asked me how much a basilisk was worth I could have told you a significant amount but it was shocking how much more than a dragon it’s probably worth. 6% commision for rendering and selling it he managed to knock them down too from 15.” Andromeda was talking to Dora as she buttered some sandwiches who in turn was just eyeing Harry like he was the universe's biggest mystery and sliding into her seat.

“Did thinking about how you're going to spend all those basilisk galleons on a new broom keep you up all night squirt?” She winked at him as she finished but noticed he still did look tired.

“No.” Harry said a bit exasperated “I tried to look at the stuff I was left with and didn’t really understand any of it.”

“Don’t worry Harry I’m sure dad will help you figure out if you own a quidditch club or have El Dorado packed in your vault. Won’t you dad?!”

Ted looked up from his paper “We’ll probably start with the family charters today.” he eyed Harry out of the corner of his eye, “I’m sure Harry would rather know about how the Potters conduct themselves than how many knuts they left in a goblin cave.”

“Right, well you two enjoy that. Mum, did the Blacks have an old scrap of parchment that told them all to act like maniacs? Or were they just awful all on their own?”

Andromeda gave a sigh before responding. “I suppose Harry will have to read that too since he's the heir. It’s a convoluted mess of strikethroughs and edits as the lords kept editing it as they become more extreme in their blood purity views the further you get from The Statute. To be honest I’m surprised there wasn’t anything in it about disinheriting any halfbloods, there are definitely some lines about marrying a pureblood in it. Arcturus mentioned it in the letter about my disinheritance, how he wished he didn’t have to do it but that he’d have to abdicate in favour of my uncle if he didn’t.”

Harry's eyes bulged in shock “I’m not going to end up married to Pansy Parkinson am I?”

“Well, there are provisions to change it but well I won’t lie to you and say that's easy. If you kick Narcissa out once you turn seventeen then with everyone dead or in prison it should be possible as you’d be the only Black left with a vote. You’d have the supermajority, you’d be paterfamilias and the Lord which would mean you meet the Lord clauses as well as having no heir thereby negating any heir clauses. Under normal circumstances changing a family charter is made difficult on purpose, otherwise there's no point having one if it can be changed on a whim.”

“Well that was quite the ride, nightmare existence shackled to Mrs Parkinson too being free to flirt with any witch you like within a two minutes.” Dora laughed.

Harry let out the breath he was holding and was half way through complaining about Pansys’ terrible personality when he suddenly blanked and stared into space over Ted’s left shoulder for a few moments before coming back to himself. Dora was waving a hand in front of his face and calling his name with some concern. “Something weird just happened with Hedwig. She feels safe or at least she's not hurt but she’s really angry, I think she's having a fight, she’s too far away to get more than that.”

Andromeda frowned “Well at least she's safe, this might just be a common thing for owls rather than something we should worry about. It could just be how it feels when she's hunting rather than being fed owl pellets, she’s been inside for a month, I imagine she probably jumped at the opportunity to hunt.”

“Right well, as much as I’ve enjoyed the amount we’ve talked about owls over the last month and am incredibly keen for more owl chat I’ve to get to the ministry by quarter to eight. If I don’t Moody will have me doing laps because ‘If you’re not 15 minutes early your late.’ The man needs hobbies outside work, I’d get him a golf club for christmas if I didn’t think he’d only use it to literally and figuratively beat trainees into shape.” She shook her head and ruffled Harry’s hair as she got up to leave “I get off shift at three I’ll bring us some Floreans ice cream back.”

“I should leave too. I've to be at the hospital for eight as well.” Andromeda got up to follow Nymphadora to the floo taking a piece of toast with her as she talked to Harry and Ted over her shoulder. “I’m collecting the blank wand we need for the Myrridin Index on the way home. I think if we do it officially through the hospital it would leak to the Prophet and that's the last thing we want.”

Harry had absolutely no clue what a Myrridin Index was but just nodded, a lot had been happening he didn’t know about so he just added it to a mental list he was taking to look up later.

Ted looked up conspiratorially immediately after they left. “We’ll start at ten, Harry, we need to keep up to date with the morning cartoons.”

Harry and Ted were involved in a post cartoon sword fight with some pretend wooden swords Ted had conjured when Harry heard the floo flare up in the living room followed by a hurried shout of “Dad!?”

“Dining room Dora!” Ted called back as he vanished the swords and sat down pretending to look at Harry's paperwork. They could hear some quick shuffling through the house which got louder as it got closer until a slightly out of breath Nyphadora stood leaning on the doorframe.“Dad. You need to come into the Ministry. They found Pettigrew alive in Hogwarts, they’re calling Sirius into the ministry cells for questioning.”

Ted jumped up to his feet again “Alive! Wait, Hogwarts… what on earth's he doing there of all places?”

“What do you mean ‘Alive’” Dora pointed at him accusationally “You and mum both thought Sirius was innocent.”

Ted looked like a deer caught in headlights “We didn't think he was a Death Eater Dora. He was definitely capable of avenging the Potters if he thought Pettigrew sold them out. Pettigrew being alive means he probably didn’t do any of it.”

Dora gave him a menacing look and he turned to Harry. “I had hoped to have a few weeks to build a case, look over his case files for any inconsistencies before submitting to the DMLE and Wizingemot. Pettigrew being caught alive should make a retrial a certainty but it poses some risks and I won’t get time to prepare as much as I’d like.” He ran a hand over his jaw.

“Pettigrews in a cell, what risk could he pose?”

“Not Pettigrew Dora. Lucius thinks Draco is the Black heir, if he thinks Sirius might get out and endanger that he’ll try his best to bribe his way to a guilty verdict or make sure Sirius doesn’t survive to trial.”

Dora was lost in thought for a few seconds then looked at Harry. “Squirt, Hedwig is currently in custody too. Technically it’s provisional charges of assault and grievous bodily harm of an Order of Merlin winner. But really it’s because familiars are in a weird legal position of both being a person and non person legally so they can’t be treated as an item of evidence.”

“Is she hurt? Will she be okay? I knew something was happening with her earlier.” Harry quickly rattled off, obviously worried.

“Harry she’s in her own cell with a minder on guard and the bulk of Amelia’s personal owl treat supplies in with her. She’s living like royalty compared to the birdcage.”

Harry still looked worried. “Is there a chance once the former death eaters find out it’s my owl they’ll do their best to get her put down for being violent just to get back at me?”

Dora winced. Nobody on the scene had thought about that as a possibility. “I’ll keep an eye on her and dad will try and get her released into our custody as soon as he can. Once we explain that to Amelia she should quietly push it through while everyones distracted.”

Nymphadora turned and started to walk away again. “Dad, come on there's loads to do!”

“Dora we can’t just leave Harry.”

She stopped walking. “Should we tell mum, family emergency, tell her she needs to come back home?”

“No, no, don’t tell your mother. She’d never just come and sit about the house waiting. She'd either end up so anxious all day she might accidentally kill someone at work by not paying attention or so angry that she comes down to the DMLE and kills someone who tries to stop her seeing him. Either way there's a trail of bodies that not even I can argue her out of prison time. We’ll leave a note for her.”

“She might kill us for not telling her immediately and we’ll be the trail of bodies.” Nymphadora joked but Ted only ‘mhmm’d’ in agreement and thought that he hoped she got caught up in the excitement when she found out that she overlooked it or he might be spending a week sleeping on the sofa.

Ted put a hand on Harry's shoulder “You’re friendly with the Weasleys, would you be okay staying with them until tonight?” Nymphadora had been ‘friendly’ with Charlie Weasley so he had met the parents occasionally despite Dora trying to make sure they never crossed paths.

Harry never got a chance to respond before Nympahdora started talking, “He can’t, Arthur and Molly are in the DMLE for questioning.”

Ted turned around looking shocked, “Why on Earth are they there?”

“Dad there's no time for this, we have to get down there soon then I can fill you in.”

“Right, right. I’ll ask Ophelia, she should be at home on a weekday.” He looked at Harry again. “Harry, grab some of the deeds and financial documents. Don’t bring the charter or final account numbers, they're private but Ophelia should be able to distract you by helping with the rest. Don’t bring any of the Black details either, we don't want that getting out, and make sure only the Potter ring is visible. I’ll just make sure she can take you.”

Ted left the room and Harry was left to pick up some documents with Dora’s help until Ted returned. “Ophelia said she’d love to take him for the day.”

Harry was quickly led to the fireplace as Ted and Dora talked about the case and he tried his best to eavesdrop, hearing that Pettigrew had Voldemort's wand on him when he was caught then found himself bundled through the floo. He fell out of the fireplace on the other side and found himself in a large room full of antique furniture staring up at an elegant woman with blonde hair who had one hand over her mouth trying to stifle a laugh before she reached out a hand to help him off the floor “Hello, Harry it’s nice to finally meet you.”

Harry let himself be helped up “I still haven’t really got used to that” he replied slightly embarrassed. “Ted never actually mentioned where I was going; it was all a bit of a rush.”

“Ophelia Greengrass. You’re at Verdant Hall in Warwickshire. Andromeda and I were friends at Hogwarts.” she put her hand out and Harry shook it nervously “He wasn’t quite clear what had happened with me either. I did make out you had some paperwork you wanted help with and that you can warn me what we can expect in tomorrow's Daily Prophet. We can go to the Family dining room and set ourselves up there.” She made to move but paused when she noticed Harry hadn’t followed.

“Ermmm. Could I borrow an owl first? I want to send Hermione a letter about everything but mine’s been arrested.”

Ophelia was slightly thrown by the question, a look of confusion breaking through on her face for a moment or two before she composed herself again. “Of course, follow me to the family dining room. We can stop at the owlery on the way.” She started to walk and this time Harry followed with a slightly awed look on his face as he took in the opulent hallway which was like something from a period drama of the regency period Aunt Petunia watched on TV except the stately individuals in picture frames were moving between frames pretending they weren't trying to eavesdrop after the rumours of an arrest quickly spread as a wave of gossip about the house. Ophelia made to speak again “Is your owl often getting itself in trouble?”

“All the time!” Harry threw up his arms a little exacerbated and slightly worried. “Dora said she assaulted an Order of Merlin winner but she’s not in trouble for it because he’d been arrested too and she’s just been taken for evidence.”

Ophelia's mask almost slipped again and she began to run through the sitting Order of Merlin winners in her head trying to think which could have been arrested and why. Dumbledore was unlikely, the ICW were meeting in Geneva this week and he was performing his Supreme Mugwump duties, Newt Scarmander was in Asia according to an article she’d read a few days ago chasing after Gliding Tree Tigers, Damocles Belby had been at a native American skinwalker colony for over a year researching ways to improve his wolfsbane potion. Fudge was a possibility, he had given himself an O.M 1st Class controversially and was heavily involved in corruption and bribery at the ministry but if they’d started arresting people for that there’d be an empty building by morning. Lockhart seemed the most likely contender but last she’d heard he was still in St Mungo’s and unlikely to recover to see trial for the basilisk debacle.Then again Harry had been there until a day or two ago.

They walked in silence until they entered the owlery Ophelia still lost in thought. “There's parchment and ink on the table.” She watched him begin writing hoping he’d mention more but as he worked silently she decided it was best to just ask what he knew. “Do you know which Order winner your owl assaulted?”

“Peter Pettigrew” Harry said nonchalantly, still concentrating on his letter.

Ophelia's eyebrows rose, shocked at the answer and it took a second or two for the information to register properly “Pettigrew. Are you sure? Pettigrew died. Died over a decade ago.”

“That's what Ted thought too but Dora said he was arrested in the Great Hall during breakfast after Hedwig beat him up a little.”

Ophelia was trying her best to keep herself together. Basilisks and long thought dead war heroes were not the type of things that should be turning up at a school. In her day it was only the annual scandal involving the Defense teacher or the odd particularly unpleasant and wayward student you had to watch out for. "Right then, follow me and we'll sit down in the dinning room before the shock makes my knees give way and we end up sitting on the floor."

Chapter Text

23rd June 1993

Verdant Hall, Warwickshire

Harry and Ophelia continued on through the house, watched all the way by curious paintings gossiping about the recently overheard conversation before they settled down in the family dining room, a smaller, more intimate dining room in comparison to the formal dining room. Harry felt using ‘small’ in the name was very misleading. It was twice the size of the Tonks modestly sized dining room. “Where would you like to start?”

Harry held up a leather satchel of documents in his left hand while making his Potter signet ring visible for the first time by focusing on turning off the invisibility charm that had been active since he left Gringotts. “I don’t understand any of them.”

“I’m assuming that's Andromedas doing? Daphne had mentioned that she hadn’t seen you wearing the ring at school. We did speculate as to why. Of course we did think you may have just not made it visible.”

“Who's Daphne?” Harry asked.

“She'll be devastated to hear that you said that.” He heard Ophelia say softly before saying the next sentence louder.  “Daphne's the eldest of my two daughters. She’s actually a Slytherin in your year at Hogwarts.” 

“Oh. I don’t really talk to the Slytherins... and last week Hermione was talking about a Gryffindor in our year, Fay Dunbar, I'd never heard of before.” He quickly added at the end.

“I know sometimes it’s difficult to talk to students in other houses, Gryffindor and Slytherin more than most, there's a lot of history in the rivalry. I graduated from Hogwarts as the final few years of the war happened around us. What had been a sporting and academic rivalry when I started was quickly turning into mock battles in the halls. I hear there hasn't been much in the way of reconciliation since the war ended despite what some of us may wish.”  

Harry kept to himself that personally he thought Snape being so biased and generally disagreeable to any non Slytherin’s was probably preventing anyone from being overly friendly with them. It definitely didn’t help that by protecting them from the consequences of the worst of their behaviour the most bigoted of them almost seemed encouraged to act terribly. He decided to change the topic instead of voice his opinion. “Erm yeah. Anyway, I didn’t know anything about the Houses, that they were important, that I was part of one or that there were rings. Andy and Ted took me to Gringotts yesterday to get it. Although we haven’t had time for them to explain it all.” he gave a slight sigh and frown at the end.

Ophelia couldn’t help but feel that was odd, he should have been brought up and taught about his position from the cradle but she decided it was best not to discuss the issue as his body language implied he found the entire thing new, strange and overwhelming. “Well, since this is all new to you, how about while you put the papers out I explain the basics about what the ring represents. What do you know about the Wizengamot? I’ll try to give you the most important details you're missing without getting bogged down in minutia.”

Harry started putting the papers about his bequeathments out on the table while he answered. “Andromeda said it’s like the House of Lords. I've heard of them but I don’t really know what they do. Ted said it wasn’t really and was more like the House of Commons if all the MP’s were still Lords. I know what an MP is, sort of, Uncle Vernon complained about ours all the time.”

“Well before the Wizengamot there was the Wizards Council which was founded by Merlin Emrys and King Uther Pendragon. Originally it was made up of the Knights of the round table and the Hogwarts founders who are all extinct houses, as well as the six Ancient and Most Noble Houses. They mostly gave advice to the monarch on magical affairs, fought battles for the king against other wizards and voted on legislation that affected only the magical population. Over time occasionally a family would be added to the council. Mostly for military valor, political favours, wealth, or services rendered to the nation. To compensate the original Wizards council houses were given one additional vote for two votes total while the new additions only got one vote. These thirteen additional houses that are remaining became the Ancient and Noble houses. The Potters were one of those houses. Then in 1688 there was the Glorious Revolution, William of Orange took the UK throne after being invited by Parliament and the Wizards Council, overthrowing his father in law Charles II. As monarch, William signed into legislation the Bill of Rights Act but got dragged into the Jacobite Rebellions, Wars in Ireland and the Nine Years War before the separate Wizards Rights Act could be introduced. In the next few years during the instability around these wars multiple wizards were killed in xenophobic attacks. Then, during 1692 during the worst attack thirty wizards and witches were killed at the Glencoe massacre in Scotland which caused a panic. The entire line of MacDonald wizards and witches were killed during the massacre. With the Salem Witch trials happening at the same time in America it only added to people’s fear. Many of the  influential members on the Council were demanding that we should hide ourselves away from the muggles, others disagreed and it became an international topic of debate. Eventually it was decided that we should institute the Statute of Secrecy and go into hiding across the British Empire... Any questions Harry?”     

“Why do we not get taught any of this in history?”

Ophelia laughed, “Binns has failed entire generations of wizards at this stage. Everyone I know had tutors for history and the founding of the Wizengamot is among the most important lessons they start with.”

Harry frowned, “Andromeda said the same thing about tutors.” He was thinking he would probably have to bring that up with Andy again but that it would be much better if he just learned it in the class rather than spending twice the time learning the same subject. “Erm, you haven’t actually mentioned the Wizengamot yet.” he pointed out.

“No, I suppose I haven’t. Now, after the British Empire went into hiding the German states, Dutch and Portuguese followed within the next two weeks. There were already more than a few wizarding communities around the world that had already segregated themselves, in some instances for centuries and over the next decade every wizarding nation followed ratifying the Statute.”

“So is that why Ireland is part of Wizarding Britain but isn’t part of the Uk in the muggle world?”

“Not entirely, that's actually because of the extent of the boundaries of Avalon’s magic set by Merlin and inherited by Uther Pendragon's technical successors on the throne, but that's an entire other lesson. Some of its economics too; there are just over 3,500 Irish Wizards to Wizarding Britain and Ireland's combined 48,500. It is why some muggle borders don’t match Wizarding borders. Transylvania, Prussia, Bavaria, The Two Sicilies and Sardinia Piedmont haven’t existed in the muggle world in over a century. Obviously we’ve had our own wars that have shifted borders since the statute, especially after Grindelwald.” She paused in case Harry had any questions again but continued on when he didn’t say anything. “Now, after the statute it was decided too few families had a say in governance so the Wizards Council was reformed in 1707. It was done as an addendum to the muggles Acts Of Union that combined the Kingdom of Scotland and Kingdom of England into The United Kingdom of Great Britain and turned the Wizards Council into the Wizengamot with a new Ministry of Magic which initially was headed by a Cabinet Minister. Seventy three new houses were added to the roll call, although of those only thirty six still survive. These became the Noble Houses and were given one vote each with the previously existing members of the Wizards Council getting another additional vote. Later it was decided to give heads of department and Order of Merlin winners a seat with one vote each as well. Although in the case of both of those they can’t appoint a proxy in their place but have to turn up in person for votes.” She stopped with an air of finality, watching Harry nod along in understanding.

“So how many votes are there in total at the minute?”

“Technically eighty-nine but it varies. With you claiming the Potter ring you can appoint a proxy and that's an additional two votes as there was no declared regent to sit in the seat… which is unusual now I come to think of it.” She added noticing Harry's face scrunched up in concentration before a look of understanding where his mouth formed an ‘O’ which was interesting. Clearly he knew something about how that came about that she was unaware of. “The Head of the Unspeakables tends not to vote, Newt Scarmander is usually out of the country which means he can appoint a proxy for his Scamander seat but not his Order of Merlin seat and it sounds like Lockhart won’t be voting again.”

“How do you know…” Harry started when from the doorway to his left he saw a young girl with long brown hair and pale skin out of the corner of his eye running towards him while making an excited high pitch ‘Skweee’ noise. She stopped in front of him and stuck her hand out pointing so that her finger was only a few centimeters from his chest practically vibrating with excitement. She rattled off a sequence of short sharp sentences in a nervous rush, “Your Harry Potter! Mum, why didn’t you say Harry Potter was here! Merlin - it's really you! Did you really kill a Basilisk?! Why are you here!? Would you sign my book!?”

Harry was caught completely off guard by the entire encounter but was spared awkwardly trying to think of what to reply when the girl finished her sentence turned on her heel and bolted out of the room the way she came shouting “Wait there!” as she left.

Ophelia sighed before softly speaking to herself “Those lessons in etiquette really are a waste of everyone's time.” then turned to Harry, “I don’t know if you picked up what she was saying in that ramble but that was Astoria, my youngest daughter, she starts Hogwarts next year. Went through an entire phase where we couldn’t separate her from a stuffed Hippogriff toy when she was six after that Harry Potter and the Hungry hippogriff book came out. I think she even sent a letter with a drawing of one.” Privately she had thought Astoria had never really forgiven him for not getting a reply after that letter so she was surprised by how excited she’d got. Then again if there was one thing Astoria had it was boundless enthusiasm. When she was feeling well she was vivacious, bouncing through life like a niffler in a jewelry shop.

She thought Harry looked nervous, “I never got any letters. We only found out yesterday that I’ve a ward that stops them. Ted and the goblin seemed to think it was a whole big thing.” 

Ophelia guessed at what he meant by that, ‘A whole big thing’ must be some muggle or youth mannerism she wasn’t aware of. Needless to say not receiving his mail wasn’t the first oddity she’d noticed him bring up since he’d arrived at the manor. There were starting to be so many so quickly that she’d began to stop questioning the hows and whys instead just replying “I suppose you’d have been inundated without it.” 

“Yeah.” Harry said grimly before they both began leafing through some of the paperwork that he’d spread out in front of him. 

Harry and Ophelia had spent over five hours looking through documents while Astoria interrogated him about Hogwarts. Interestingly he found out he couldn’t speak about the sorting hat in front of Astoria, Ophelia had explained while she was out of the room that it was a charm nobody had an explanation for that prevented it being talked about to anyone who hadn’t been sorted themselves. Harry had just accepted it, often magic was odd and baffling, sometimes it was exhilarating and wondrous, very occasionally it was rational and sensible. This firmly fell in category one. After that she’d drifted into asking him hypotheticals like “Would you rather fight one hippogriff sized owl or twenty owl sized hippogriffs?” or trying to tell embarrassing stories about her sister before Ophelia stopped her.

Harry had enjoyed her antics which broke up some of the more depressing information on some of the documents, especially when she asked “Why is it called eleven instead of Onety-one or oneteen?” which her mother had tried to explain was something to do with the old German language and Babylonians knuckles meaning they had a base twelve counting system. 

They had started with the bequeathment documents as Ted had told him earlier that they were important to close out as soon as possible because the ministry would take a cut in inheritance tax. While he’d heard Skarsnik mention that people had left him money now that they were going through them and he wasn’t being distracted by everything else happening that day, the amount had shocked him. The 59 people who’d willed him money had left him a total of 226,104 Galleons 3 Sickles and 18 Knuts, Ophelia after checking the list of surnames had explained they were mostly in the immediate aftermath of the wars end from muggleborns with permanent and deteriorating injuries who’d lost their families during the war and had no relatives left to leave it too. She even recognised some of the surnames from particularly shocking and violent attacks during the war but decided not to bring up the grisly details with Harry. Harry for his part had decided he was going to put all of it in the Fleamont heir account because there were slightly less rules and stipulations about spending money from that account than the older houses he’d inherited. He planned to merge the accounts with the Potter accounts when he was seventeen anyway.

He’d found out that the 160,000 Galleons in the Potter heir account was made up of an initial endowment of 50,000 G when he was born and an additional 10,000 G per annum whereas the Fleamont account had an initial endowment of 10,000 G and received 2,000 G per annum. Ophelia had to step in and explain some of the fancy terminology, that annum was just a fancy Latin way of saying year, and an endowment which could mean multiple different things but in this case meant an initial gift. He’d have to read through the information on the Black heir account when he got back to the Tonks house. He found out that under normal circumstances an heir would only receive the yearly stipend until they reached twenty-one at which point they would be expected to have invested the money in business, used it to get themselves started in life, possibly by purchasing a house if none of the family properties were available, pay for a mastery etc. Ophelia had told him in detail that it was supposed to last him decades, possibly even a century in normal circumstances because of the extended length of wizarding lifespans. She’d immediately followed that up by briefly explaining that in his case it didn’t matter as much as he’d come into his full inheritance at seventeen.

Ophelia had been incredibly impressed by the idea of his Educational Trust Vault, using phrases like, “This is an absolutely splendid idea!” and “I can’t believe this isn’t more common, I must tell Cyrus about setting up something similar.” He didn’t understand what made it so special but had found out that at the birth of each member of House Potter 25,000 G was set aside in a separate account for their education and an automatic application for admittance sent to Hogwarts, with the 14,000 G for the full seven years of School fees taken from the account immediately. He didn’t know why he got that as well as his heir account and when he’d asked Ophelia had just looked at him confused and said “Because you're the heir.” as if that was a full explanation of the reasoning.

He’d been warned by Ted earlier while they were watching cartoons that magical deeds listed the properties condition and that while he didn’t know any of the details it was unlikely any of them were habitable. In spite of that Harry had got annoyed as they read through them and ended up in a thoroughly rotten mood for half an hour. The cottage Voldemort had attacked in Godric's Hollow was in the best condition of all of them and he knew from talking to Andromeda in hospital that half the roof was missing and an entire wall on the second floor had collapsed.

• Stincolmb Castle, Plot B - Potter, Stincolmb.

Legal Condition: Entailed. General Condition: Ruin.

• Potterwood House, Cotswolds. 

Legal Condition: Entailed. General Condition:Ruin.

• Potterbrook House, Cotswolds.

Legal Condition: Entailed. General Condition: Ruin.

• Potter Dowager Cottage, Godrics Hollow. 

Legal Condition: Entailed. General Condition: Partial Ruin.

• 19-20 Horizont Alley, London.  

Legal Condition: Fee Simple. General Condition: Ruin.

Thumbing through the documents had led to no information on Plot A of what they’d started referring to as Potter Castle. Astroia had speculated that it had fallen into a sinkhole or that someone had spilled a potion which made it float away. He’d jokingly asked how a castle could float away when Astoria vehemently told him it absolutely could, that it had happened to Jack Spratt of the Noble House Spratt who had to grow then climb a greater titan beanstalk sometimes called a ‘magic beanstalk’ to get back in only to find out the giant that had been unconscious in the dungeon had escaped. On hearing the surname Ophelia pointed out to Harry that the current Warlock Spratt’s third son Thomas was a Ravenclaw in his year at Hogwarts. Harry had never even heard the name before and was beginning to realise he really needed to get to know the people in his year better.

He had hoped the Fleamont properties would be in a better condition but was only left disappointed again as he looked at each of the deed titles.

• Fleamont House, Banchory. 

Legal Condition: Entailed. General Condition: Ruin.

• Folio ID BN32426/820, Banchory. 

Legal Condition: Fee Simple. General Condition: 20 Acres, Active Let.

• Folio ID BN32426/821, Banchory. 

Legal Condition: Fee Simple. General Condition: 18 Acres, Active Let.

The Folio ID’s confused him but Ophelia had pointed out that he was getting a rental income from muggles for that land so it would have had to be registered with the muggle Land Registry for tax reasons and that they gave every plot of land in the country a code. He’d had to ask what ‘Fee Simple’ meant and been told that it was legal terminology that there were no conditions of ownership, he owned it outright and could sell it to whoever he liked as opposed to the entailed properties which belonged to the family estate that could only be inherited by the heir and couldn’t be sold or divided.

When they’d moved onto some of the financial documents Harry had become even more upset after seeing the dozen or so failed Potter businesses. All of the Potter majority owned businesses had closed due to bankruptcy between the death of his grandfather and four months after the Halloween that ended the war. Ophelia had tried to gently explain that during the war the Potters were some of Voldemort’s main opposition both politically and in skirmishes against his Death Eaters and as a consequence the family businesses had been targeted ruthlessly. Some of the attacks happened immediately after the end of the war; a half dozen of the arrested Death Eaters were caught while attacking Potter businesses in the days that followed Voldemort's defeat. The House Elf Placement Company she’d mentioned as being a real shame, that it had been set up by his grandmother on Horizont Alley before being destroyed by fiendfyre along with the house elves a few days after the Potter manor house was attacked. Supposedly it had been a proper crisis with the fire spreading uncontrolled along the alley while the aurors who responded to put out the flames had been ambushed and cut down by Death Eaters on their arrival.

The only things currently bringing money into his accounts were some royalties and a five percent stake in the Sleakeasy Potions Company which he’d found out from Andromeda after the will reading mentioned it his great-grandfather had founded then sold. Ophelia had found it extremely strange that she couldn’t find any information on royalties from the Harry Potter Adventure novels and he’d jotted it down in his notes to mention to Ted. House Fleamonts income was from another five percent stake in Sleakeasy but without the royalties the Potters got from the company in addition to the muggle rental income.

Astoria of all people had explained about wizarding royalties lasting 70 years after the death of the inventor. She’d complained that her dad had been talking about it every breakfast for months recently and that it was ruining her mornings because one the Greengrasses held was about to run out. After questioning a painting of Ophelia’s father-in-law in the main entrance hall  for information they found out that Fleamont Potter had died in 1972 which meant the Potters would make a 10% royalty on any Sleakeasy Hair Potion sold worldwide until 2042.

The find of the day in Harry’s opinion, more important than any of the properties, more important than the bequeathments of money, had been his parents O.W.L results. His mum had been every bit as brilliant as he’d been told with 4O*’s in Charms, Potions, Runes and Arithmancy and an O in everything else apart from Care of Magical Creatures and Herbology where she only got an EE. Ophelia had seemed incredibly impressed and pointed out to Harry the note attached to it saying it was the highest average results by a single student since 1943. His dads hadn’t quite been as good but were still much better than his 1st year results, an O* in Transfiguration, O’s in Charms, DADA, Runes and Care of Magical Creatures with an EE in everything else. They hadn’t been able to find their N.E.W.T results, he supposed they were in one of the other binders left at the Tonks home. 

It was just after 4 O’clock when a tired and emotionally battered Harry heard a high pitch chime go off. Ophelia perked up and began to leave the room while telling him to gather his things that would be Andromeda flooring her to pick him up and that Astoria could bring him there when he’s done. 

As Astoria and Harry approached the floo reception room he could hear murmured conversation in the hallway gradually growing louder until the door opened and he saw Ophelia and Andromeda engrossed in dialogue. Andromeda's expression seemed understated, Harry noticed she seemed slightly subdued and was continually flexing then clenching her right fist. He hadn’t understood it for what it truly was, the cold detached gleam of a strategist who’s unshakable conviction had just been vindicated and left only righteous indignation in its wake.

Her expression brightened as she turned to face him with the hint of a smile as he entered the room, “You were right, you’re a magnet for mayhem. To think we’d hoped the trail of disruption would slow down once we got you away from the Dursleys.”

“I’m worried it’ll never stop.” he sarcastically muttered for effect making sure it was loud enough that everyone heard drawing an inquisitive look from Astoria and wry grins from the older two witches.

“Right then, let's get you home so we can find out if we need to go down there throw our names about and hex half the DMLE.” 

“Ted told me that you weren’t allowed to kill anyone in the DMLE because it wouldn’t help Sirus.”

“Did he now, and what else did you two conspire about? Was this before or after you and Ted decided not to tell me immediately about Sirius?”

Harry looked at her wide eyed realising he’d been led into a trap and she just gave a small laugh at his panic.

“I’ll go first, thank you for minding him, Ophelia. I’ll try and tell you what I can about what's happening although no doubt Cyrus will find out about a lot of it as quickly as I do.”

She eyed Harry out of the corner of her eye as she replied, “It was a delight Andy, everyone needs to have everything they assumed was true over the past two decades shaken to their core once in a while.”  

Andromeda was the first to leave and as Harry made to follow Ophelia motioning for him to pause a second before calling for a house elf who she had a short conversation with then handed over a small bit of parchment and it popped off again. 

“Harry, there was a joke once in pureblood circles that to be Head of House Potter was to be Britain's most famous cat herder.” Harry looked at her confused as the house elf returned, giving Ophelia a book which she immediately passed to him. A thick tome with gold lettering inscribed into the leather cover ‘House Potter: From Antiquity to the Norman Conquest’. “You can borrow this. It won’t be a complete history. Every house has their own secrets that don’t make the general histories and the Potters were among the most secretive. I imagine you lost all that heritage when the manor was destroyed but I thought that would at least give you a window into where you came from. If you finish it there's another two Potter books in the series although they were written in 1900 so there's nothing beyond that.”

“Thanks.” Harry said breathlessly as he stared at the book and Ophelia guided him to the fireplace.

Chapter Text

23rd June 1993

Tonks House, Uppminster London

Nymphadora came through the fireplace just before nine, looking utterly exhausted. A low, incoherent grumble, one that sounded suspiciously like it involved dinner coming from her, before she collapsed into the sofa with a sigh. She was slowly swallowed by the cushions, only making the mumbling more incoherent.

Harry was fairly sure she’d used her metamorphmagus ability to become more squishy if that was even possible as she was moulding into the cushions far better than he ever could.

Andromeda ignored all talk of dinner and set her book on the coffee table before springing a well prepared trap “You’re home late, dear. Busy day?”

Dora looked up suddenly in Harry's direction, tiredness momentarily forgotten, her eyes were wide with a mixture of disbelief and a tiny bit of fear at what her mothers reaction would be. She started mouthing words at him in an exaggerated almost theatrical manner, ‘Did you not tell her?’ an accusation that he’d committed a deep personal betrayal by leaving her as the one to explain. 

Andromeda looked at her calmly  and began speaking with perfect diction but the tone was condescending as if speaking to a child.“Tell me what Dora, that the man my cousin supposedly murdered was found very much alive? That my daughter was part of the team of arresting aurours? That he was being moved to the DMLE holding cells for questioning? Perhaps that my husband was going to the DMLE to act as my favourite cousin's legal representative in light of new evidence? You can only imagine my surprise when out of the blue an aurour came into work and asked if I could provide them with Peter Pettigrew’s hospital records as he was at the ministry requiring immediate medical attention.”

“It was dads idea not to tell you.” Dora shouted, tactically cutting across what she suspected was only the beginning of a long well practised rant at her expense.

“Nymphadora Tonks you know as well as I do that you stopped listening to your father when he told you to do something that you didn’t want to do when you were thirteen years old!”

“It’s DMLE policy for aurours not to comment to the public on active investigations.”

Andromeda gave a sharp retort. “As if you didn’t spend every dinner last week talking about Mudungus Fletcher being found with an entire shop's worth of stolen muggle women's clothes when he was arrested.”

“Mother…” Dora gasped as if the two couldn’t be compared. “He was selling pink shellsuits in Knockturn Alley. It would have been a bigger crime not to inform you about that. Just imagine how funny it would be if Caractacus Burke or a hag had bought one without knowing what it was.” 

Over the next hour Tonks slowly leaked some of the details, much to everyone's exasperation she obviously reveled in spinning the tale out. For each extra tidbit of information she gave out they had a further discussion of potential repercussions and how it might affect either Sirius or them. She started with how Pettigrew was discovered after a Gringotts mail owl tried to deliver an invitation to Harry’s parents' will reading. Andromeda explained to Harry in great legal detail why this meant they’d probably have to read the will in the Wizengamot as evidence and the repercussions that might have. Then they talked about how he’d been hiding as a rat animagus posing as a Weasley family pet for the last decade. Tonks brought up that it was an obvious weakness in the schools ward scheme likely to cause a flood of complaints when it goes public in the paper tomorrow, especially so soon after the basilisk news had already lowered trust in Hogwarts. Andromeda mentioned her personal thoughts that it might be difficult to implement as particularly talented Transfiguration N.E.W.T students were often encouraged to begin the first steps of the transformation’s requirements in the hope they may eventually be able to complete the process.

Dora couldn’t help smiling between the odd bout of snickering when talking about how Hewdig got involved and then arrested. Acting it out with animated gestures and changing her appearance between characters like she was a hero in a play. That she just so happened to be nearby stealing bacon of Neville Longbottom when the Gringotts owl arrived. How she’d ended up knocking over plates and cutlery to get at Pettigrew to start a brawl. How she’d hamstrung Pettigrew on top of the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall while students fired stunning spells into the fight and if it was up to her she’d get an Order of Merlin for it. Andromeda was particularly pleased at discovering Pettigrew had been found with Voldemort's wand in his robe pocket during the arrest, Amelia having recognised it immediately from a battle that had seen four aurours killed.

It was almost half ten by the time Ted finally arrived carrying Hedwig under one arm and a briefcase in the other.

“Hedwig!” Harry shouted as he stood up in excitement and Ted loosened his grip on her so she could flutter across the room hitting into Harrys chest bowling him backwards until he was sat back in the chair. He started whispering at her admonishing her for getting into trouble and telling her how much she worried him. In return she was clearly looking at him as if she knew what she was doing and wasn’t apologising for it.

Ted walked towards one of the free chairs and dropped his briefcase on the floor with a dull thud. “Sorry I’m so late. The Ministry is a madhouse.” He sat down taking a deep sigh that Harry noted sounded exactly like Dora's earlier.

Everyone in the room watched him in expectation as he leaned back into the chair with his eyes closed. After this went on for a few seconds Andromeda gave a dry cough to get his attention. 

Ted opened his eyes again at the noise, quickly noticing the entire room's attention being directed at him. “Oh, right.” He bent down and opened his brief case to take some documents out and began to speak in a lightheated, dry and tongue in cheek manner. “I suppose it was too much to hope you were all here just to wish me home and you weren’t all waiting around the floo so we could gossip about what happened at work today?” 

Andromeda was first to reply “Ted, I love you.” Dora, hearing this, looked at Harry making a yuck face pointing a finger into her mouth as if she was making herself sick and using her metamorphmagus ability to turn her skin a slightly sickly green colour. Harry absolutely loved it and wondered if there was a charm that could do something similar. ”But you come home from work at least five days a week. It’s been at least a decade since I’ve been involved in a Black family murder trial. I forgot how exciting following the plot twists could be. I almost feel nostalgic.”

Ted huffed out a laugh “We’ll we can only hope it’s the last, after today I don’t think I can handle the stress of another. We’ll start with the simple things first.” Ted turned to Harry and began holding out one of the documents he’d pulled from the brief case in his direction. “I found out why Harry doesn’t get any post.” 

Dora groaned. “Oh he’s drawing it out to tease us.”

“Dramitic build up Dora!” Ted whispered loud enough that they could all hear. He began speaking at a normal volume "Unsurprisingly Harry It would appear that after defeating You-Know-Who you were very popular. The obliviators spent an entire day on the 2nd November trying to remove memories from a not insignificant part of the population of Surrey after 584 owls arrived on Privet Drive that morning. Supposedly it almost made the local news before someone managed to get their hands on the tape just before air.”

“That doesn’t explain why everyone was unaware of the fact he couldn’t receive mail though” Andromeda pointed out.

“Amelia had no idea either. She sent a cadet to do some sleuthing for it while myself and the prosecution got some of the Sirius evidence files brought from the archive.The paperwork was there with the obliviators name in evidence for application with Crouch and Bagnolds names countersigned on the documents. It seems like it just fell through the cracks during the chaos at the end of the war. With the Potter barristers having been killed they were unaware of who they should notify on our side and by the time everything calmed down again after the trials it’d been forgotten about that the goblins hadn’t been informed.”

“Mhhm” Andromeda gave a firm indication of disapproval while picking up her tea and taking a sip. “And Sirius?”

“Where to even start? The entire thing is a political maelstrom. I managed to convince Amelia that it was in her best interest to fast track the trial after telling her my worries about what might happen if we give Lucius time to plot.”

“How long do you have to prep?” Dora asked.

Ted held up two fingers as he talked without looking up. “Two days.”

“Two days! I mean it’s ludicrous to have a trial of this magnitude so quickly.” Andromeda sounded less than pleased at the administrative ineptitude surrounding the entire event before becoming pensive. “Athlough I suppose every day he spends in the ministry increases the odds we only get a corpse back.”

Ted watched his wife for a few seconds in contemplation over what he planned to reply while flipping through documents before sighing deeply and beginning to talk. “It’s worse than you think, Andy. The only reason Amelia was able to agree to have the trial so soon is because Fudge was pressuring her for it to happen immediately in a closed door session without any legal defence.”

“Why would he do that? Isn't that what we want, a quick trial?” Harry asked slightly confused about why the minister would want that and why Ted had made it sound like a bad thing.

As everyone turned their heads to look at him it was obvious that they’d all forgotten he was still in the room not being used to him being in the house yet and being so quiet. “Fudge, the current Minister of Magic was the first obliviator on the scene for Sirius' arrest. His entire political reputation is rooted in the case. Fudge thinks if he can rush the trial it will keep the political fallout to a minimum and if there is no defence or if the defence isn’t given time to prepare a defence they’ll be able to make at least one charge stick to Sirius to keep him imprisoned. Despite finding Pettigrew alive he still believes Sirius was secret keeper to your parents murder and responsible for the murder of the twelve muggles. Pettigrew is only being tried for being an animagus and illegal entry into both Hogwarts and the Weasley home despite Amelia's protests. Sirius is only being retried on the charge of the murdering Pettigrew as things stand. That's beyond the issue of Malfoy being Fudge’s main financial backer and currently sitting in the Black seat which he would see any release of Sirius as a threat too. It would impede his ability to pass legislation too if he was freed, Sirius during his Hogwarts years was known for being more progressive in outlook than Fudge’s current ministry, never mind in comparison to Lucius."

“Oh.” Harry murmured.

“Fortunately I’d been looking at the case over the last two weeks so we’re not in as bad a position as they suspect. It also helps that Hedwig will be required as a witness and as your familiar that gets you into the room and we can spring an ambush to completely throw the Wizengamot off balance.”

“Is this ambush something I would suspect?” Andromeda asked him.

“A level of political machination that would make a Slytherin weep.” Ted looked very proud  between the smirk and coy wink he gave his wife, he was almost crowing at whatever he had up his sleeve. “I need you to take tomorrow off dear and I’ll give you a list of some things that need to be accomplished. I need you both to visit Gringotts again. Harry, we'll sit down after dinner for a few hours. We’ll have to prepare you for your role in the plot as well as how to answer some questions you might be asked. Dora, if you can get assigned to guard the door to the cells, do it for as long as possible.”

Harry took this as an opportunity to bring up what had been annoying him for the last few hours before he got sent to bed for the night. “Dora, you promised you’d get me ice cream earlier. Which pocket are you hiding it in?"

25th June 1993

Ministry of Magic, Whitehall, London

Harry fell out of the floo onto the polished dark wood floors of the Ministry of Magic blushing as he looked up to find a smirking Ted looking down at him with Hedwig's cage in one hand and the other outstretched taking his arm to help him off the floor just as the floo went again behind him allowing Andromeda through with a whoosh.

As the three of them strode through the building Harry took in his surroundings, ranks of dark stone fireplaces with bronze gilding were set in alcoves which lined the walls, each giving off a flickering ethereal green light broken by the movement of the occasional wizard coming through in a sudden flare of green and roar of noise. They reached the end of the vestibule of fireplaces where the space opened up into a cavernous atrium bustling with activity.

Dora had told him last night that before the statute of secrecy the building was on the surface, that it was made to match the other London buildings of the British state before being hidden underground and replaced with the current shabby rundown street. Harry thought the vast domed portland stone roof gave it the same look as St Paul's Cathedral and the Palace of Whitehall that he’d seen when Uncle Vernon watched the news. The centre of the room was dominated by a large golden statue of a centaur, a goblin, and a house-elf, each looking up towards a wizard and a witch, all of them giving off a fountain of water into the moat-like pool that surrounded its base. Ted noticed where he was looking “Like an authoritarian Trevi fountain.” he muttered as he put a hand on his shoulder to guide him while pointing where they were headed with the other. “See the gap in the fence? The security desks for visitors are there.” Harry nodded after noticing a small queue at an opening in the gilded fence that prevented entry to a series of lifts shooting off at speed in a variety of directions most of which weren’t vertical. 

As they waited in the queue Harry could feel the eyes of passing witches and wizards, the hushed whispers and speculation as they clamoured for a glimpse. "Is that Potter?", “Can’t be Potter there's no scar.”, “He’s adorable, do you think I could set him up with our Olivia?”, “Says he killed a Basilisk with a sword, absolutely barmy if you ask me.”, “You read the paper, he’s so brave. I don’t think the entire DMLE together could take on a Basalisk.”,”Parseltounge, dark magic that.” Harry hated it and Andromeda noticed. "Almost there, Harry. Just keep your head up." Her voice was clear, contrasting sharply with Harry's low nervous energy and frantic heartbeat. 

They entered the lift with two other people and a half dozen origami birds floating about seven feet off the ground. Ted noticed the inquisitive look he was giving them and whispered at him. “They carry the inter departmental notes. They say they got rid of the owls because the place ended up covered in bird excrement but personally I think it’s because the department heads don’t like having employees who are more competent than them.” The joke disarmed Harry from how nervous he was feeling slightly.

When they got out of the lift they were met by a tall, bald, black man wearing a plum red robe with a deep baritone voice. He stood blocking the lift preventing them from exiting and gave Harry a once over, sizing him up while trying not to be obvious about it but didn’t introduce himself. “Mr Tonks, Mrs Tonks, the trial is being held on the Wizengamot floor not in the courtrooms. Last minute change at the direction of the minister.” As he finished he stepped into the lift joining them and pushed a button for the second floor.

As the lift started going up Ted and the man made small chat, he mentioned that Aurour Tonks had informed him they might be unaware of the location change. Once the door opened the man went straight ahead through a set of large double doors made of oak, Andromeda went to the right walking towards a door labeled ‘Public Gallery’. Ted had to reach out and take Harry by the shoulder to stop him following her like a lost puppy and guided Harry into a room on the left hand side.

Amelia Bones had been waiting for them to arrive and called “Law Wizard Tonks.” as soon as the barest hint of them passed through the door. She was cleaning a monocle attached to a chain around her neck with a monogrammed handkerchief. “Harry it’s good to see you again as well, has he explained the procedure to you?”

Harry nodded solemnly. “We spent a few hours last night going over it.”

“Good, good. Now you’ll both be seated in a holding booth just through the door until called to the floor as either the defence or as witness. Once you’ve given your evidence you can return to the booth or move to the public gallery. Understood?” Harry assumed this was all for his benefit and Ted already knew from experience how this worked so he nodded again and Hedwig bobbed her head in understanding too. She shuffled them through the door and they took their seats.

They moved through the door into the booth and he immediately picked out the bright red hair of a gaggle of Weasleys. Arthur, Percy and Ron were all sat furthest from the door they just entered with Neville in the middle separating him and Ted from them. He squinted at Ron who was the furthest away of everyone and was trying to mouth something at him he couldn’t quite work out what though. Eventually Neville finished explaining something to Ted who passed the information on like a game of Chinese whispers, “They’re all witnesses for the Pettigrew trial.”

With that clarified and any further conversation being too awkward to have without shouting over people he turned to look at the room. It was a large semi circular amphitheatre, the seats were arranged in tiers with a main chair bearing an embossed coat of arms in the headrest each with a smaller chair behind and to the right. They all had what appeared to be an area of mahogany surrounded by green leather on the right hand side he supposed was used if you needed something to write something while being more open on the left hand side. Some seats seemed to be surrounded by a slightly grey hew as if in a slight hazy fog while others were slightly darker again as if they were sitting in the shade. At the front and centre of the room were two lecterns that looked like they belonged in the room as it was of the same design and a third smaller lectern to their right which made of a light pine clashing with the rest of the room, a chair on a podium made of stone was being levitated into the room by a man who sweating slightly at the effort before it was sat down to its left.

Not every seat in the amphitheater was filled, he thought it seemed half empty, the summons for court cases never names the defendant so he thought some may not have heard or realised the magnitude of what was happening today. Some were likely overseas or had previous engagements they couldn’t call off. However later when he found out how many seats lacked sitting lords he would reminisce that there were much fewer gaps in the seats than there usually were. The Potter seat in the centre left of the third row had neither the grey or shadowed colour despite being empty for the last 15 years. 

As he continued watching the room he turned noticing Ted looking at the seats and writing down a tally on the back of a scrap of paper. There were three large categories Traditionalist, Neutral and Progressive that he’d further broken down into factions within that group. P Dumbledore with a ? beside it, P Bones NG, N Greengrass NG, N Boot ?, N Smith ?, T Sallow G, T Malfoy G. Harry watched curiously as Ted finished his tally and grimaced.

A voice called out “Order! Order!” and he looked up at the noise to see Dumbledore stood behind the central lectern as members rushed to find their seats and the gallery quietened. As the last sat down he spoke again reading from a piece of parchment, “The Wizengamot has been convened today, the 25th of June 1993, under the right of recall outside the parliamentary calendar per the special session legislation at the purview of the Minister, Cornelius Fudge and his Ministry. As the session has been called pertaining to criminal law cases the agenda does not follow subsequent to the previous session and allows for no new legislation to be tabled or discussed. The Chief Warlock shall preside in the role of Lord Chief Justice.” Dumbledore looked up from the parchment at the Wizengamot seats and the only noise that could be heard was scribbling from the scribe in the front row and some reporters in the balconies that made up the public galleries which were completely full.

“The Chief Warlock tables no new notices. Minister, does the Ministry wish to table any new notices?”

Harry knew very little about fashion but thought Minister Fudge’s green bowler hat looked slightly ridiculous with the plum red Wizengamot robes he was wearing.  “The Ministry has no new notices it wishes to table at this time.”

Dumbledore spoke again. “Do the members wish to table any notices?”

Ted nudged Harry with his elbow and Harry swallowed nervously before beginning to speak ”I, Harry James Potter, wish to table a notice.”

Dumbledore looked over his glasses at Harry and after a few moments realised he was in plum red robes bearing the Potter crest on the left breast. The room was silent as people began to comprehend who had spoken and the likely reason why. Then a whisper began to break out in the gallery until Dumbledore replied quietening them “Please exit the booth and take the floor Mr Potter. As you are below the age of majority your guardian may accompany you.”

An aurour opened the door of the booth and he nervously wobbled towards it under the room's gaze before steeling himself and finding his feet as Ted placed a reassuring hand on his back guiding him from the booth. As he approached the lectern Dumbledore motioned with one hand in a broad sweeping gesture, “The floor is yours Mr Potter”.

Harry looked up, picking out Andromeda in the gallery and swallowed nervously again before talking in the practiced tone they’d spend half of yesterday perfecting. “I, Harry James Potter, Heir apparent to the Ancient and Noble House of Potter.” The flash of a camera bulb went off in the gallery distracting him slightly and he blinked heavily. “Claim my hereditary seat per the Wizengamot charter as head of my house. I present the Heirs signet ring as my proof of lineage and worth for the role.”

Willing the Potter ring to appear he held his hand out toward Dumbledore who used a hand to lower his glasses and study the ring. The court scribe had left his seat and walked over beside Dumbledore to view the ring himself, speaking in the Chief Warlock's ear and giving a stiff nod of ascent before moving back to his seat. 

“This petition is accepted. Per the Revised Winzengamot Charter Acts of 1707 the minimum age of eligibility for all new appointments for life peerages to sit their seat in their own right is twenty one years. Does House Potter wish to nominate a proxy to act in your stead until such a time?”

“House Potter wishes to nominate Mrs Andromeda Tonks to the position of Proxy until further notice.” The room broke out in murmuring and the Wizengamot passed notes between themselves as Andromeda was led from the Gallery to the House Potter seat.

Andromeda already had the proxy ring on which he’d given her last night when they discussed the plan. After the court Scribe viewed the ring and as she was being seated Dumbledore spoke to Harry quietly so that only the front row would have been capable of hearing. “Harry, you may be excused back to the booth.” 

Ted nudged Harry again. “I, Harry James Potter, wish to table a second notice.”

The minister was jesticulating animatedly at Harry as he whispered to the toad-like woman seated beside him. The Chief Warlock raised his eyebrow at Fudge's decorum without bringing attention to it.

“The floor is yours Mr Potter”. He said again, although this time it sounded slightly apprehensive. As one of the relatively rare moments he had no inkling of what might happen during the next few minutes he was obviously worried it might lead to disaster.

 “I, Harry James Potter, Heir designate to the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black.” The flash of a camera bulb went off again but this time it was joined by a chorus of raised voices from the entire Wizengamot.

The minister was stuttering loudly while the woman that was sat beside him was shouting “Proposterous!” The loudest voice of all heard clearly above the others was that of Lucius Malfoy who stood up in the second row asking “What is the meaning of this!?”.

Harry continued on, raising his voice in an unsuccessful attempt to be heard over those from the Traditionalists and Ministry heckling in the crowd. “Claim the hereditary house seat per the Wizengamot charter under the direction of the Lord of House Black. I present the Heirs signet ring as my proof of lineage and worth for the role. In addition I present this notiorised document bearing the seal of Lord Black providing instruction to appoint a proxy in his stead.”

“Order! Order!” Dumbledore said with his wand pointed to his neck in a sonorous charm so he could be heard above the noise. 

The room eventually settled and Malfoy took the opportunity to speak “I oppose this appointment.”

“On what grounds do you wish to oppose?” Dumbledore spoke as Ted was handing him and the court scribe a bundle of documents which Fudge and the woman beside him were trying to steal out of his hands..

“There is currently no sitting Lord Black. There has been no Lord Black since the death of the late Lord Arcturus Black just over two years ago. My son is the only available heir neither incarcerated or disinherited." Malfoy spoke while looking directly at the Minister.

Ted took the opportunity to reply, there were too many variables from this point onwards so last night they’d planned for Ted to take the lead at some unspecified point. “If I may, your son's claim is through his last common ancestor with the late Lord Arcturus Black, one Lord Phineus Nigelus Black. Harry Potter through his grandmother Dorea Potter nee Black claims common descent through the same man. As do members of the houses Weasley, Longbottom and Crouch” He added at the end as a barb to goad Malfoy.

“Male preference agnatic-patralineal primogeniture clearly leaves my son as the legal heir through his grandfather on the main cadet branch!” Malfoy snapped off in a strained voice full of exacerbation.

Ted pointed at Harry's hand “And yet Lord Black proclaimed him Heir Designate. Mr Potter has claimed and wears the Heir ring, the family magic has accepted him.” It was clear that most of the room hadn’t heard the second part of Harry's speech over the noise opposition to it had generated and missed that he was wearing the ring. There was a great deal of interest as people leaned forward squinting to view the ring despite the distance. Some clearly thought it was likely a forgery.

The court scribe asked permission to perform a spell on the ring at a stern looking man to his rights prompting which Ted accepted. The scribe cast a silent spell Harry didn’t recognise, it was always mildly disconcerting when people performed magic on you without explaining what it was beforehand, especially because it caused the tip of the scribe's wand to light up green. The scribe nodded to the Chief Warlock in confirmation once it was completed. This entire process had drew a blustering panicked noise from the Minister that betrayed his fragile grip on a world he desperately wanted to control. “Who is this Lord Black? I was present at the reading of Arcturus Black’s will and no such appointment was made!”.

Ted spoke in a clear loud voice “Lord Sirius Orion Black III” a flash of a bulb went off again and a series of shouts kicked off over a background rumble of murmuring.

A voice from a pale elderly wizard in the 5th row could be heard over the noise “A convicted criminal imprisoned for greater than twelve months is unable to claim the Lord's ring of their house,” he flicked through a few pages of notes as he spoke before reading off the end of the sentence. “per the Disqualification Act of 1221.” 

Harry thought Ted’s plan of going to the courtroom and causing chaos before the trials even began so loud they couldn't ignore it was working quite well. With the gasps and mutters of the house and the gallery as each side spoke it was almost like watching a game of tennis where the opposing side kept hitting it back at you and the crowd only got more excited the longer the rally went. What was also clear was most watching had a team they wanted to win, few were impartial.

Ted had told him about buying a beorhstan for Sirius to use, about taking it and a vial of his blood to get tested by the Goblin’s to confirm he was definitely Lord Black as he suspected after they discussed him not getting a trial. 

The main issue he came up against at this point was the Goblins will only allow a house ring to be claimed if the recipient was there in person to do so. Ted and Sirius between them had decided on using a loophole. Ted had explained the plan to him and Andromeda asking Harry to put the heir’s ring into a ring box to prevent it injuring Ted if he touched it by accident while he sneaked it into the DMLE holding cells to present it to Sirius. As Lord once Sirius wore it, family magic would then automatically replace it with the station that represents his rightful place in the succession, swapping the heirs ring with the lord's ring from the vault.

Ted smiled, he’d steered them down a narrow path and they’d ended up exactly where he wanted them. “Then it stands to reason as he bears the Lord's ring that Lord Black has not been convicted of a crime.” The room was monetarily silent. Harry noticed one of the people sat in the Ministry seats in the front row towards the left lost composure slightly and slid down on his seat before regaining it and straightening. As if he’d thought about hiding under the table then decided against it. He stood out with his long handlebar mustache that curled at the ends. Harry thought he looked like an Edwardian WWI officer and had the taut hollowed out expression of someone who had witnessed too much to match.

Before another chorus of shouting could start in earnest Dumbledore said authoritatively. “This petition is accepted. Per the Revised Winzengamot Charter Acts of 1707 the minimum age of eligibility for all new appointments for life peerages to sit their seat in their own right is twenty one years. Does Heir Black wish to nominate a proxy to act in your stead?”

“Lord Black instructs me to nominate Mrs Andromeda Tonks to the position of Proxy until further notice.” Andromeda stood from the House Potter seat and made her way toward the house Black seat as Lucius Malfoy sneered at her while moving to seat himself in an empty seat in the row behind. Fudge was leant forward on his seat, elbow resting on the small writing desk to its side pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers.

Harry began to move to the booth again but Ted left a parting blow before following. “If I may. I am not a member of this body but as House Black's legal representative in the matter I would petition that a review of Lucius Malfoy's appointment to the House of Blacks Wizengamot seat be undertaken as it appears the correct procedure is unlikely to have been followed.” This was met by another chorus of furious whispering in the gallery and a flash of the camera bulb in the gallery. 

Ted knew no supporting documents had been supplied either on the floor or with the Wizengamot Administration Services. Malfoy's ascension had been signed off by Betram Padgett in the Administration Services Department two days before he took early retirement a full eight years earlier than his government pension would begin paying out. The entire affair stank of corruption even if Ted didn’t expect anything to come of an investigation he hoped it might reduce the Malfoy coffers to make it disappear.

Once they were seated back in the booth Dumbledore calmly spoke as if nothing eventful had just happened. “Do any other members wish to table any notices?” He waited a few seconds looking at the assembled Lords then up towards the gallery over the top of his glasses. “No? Then I cede the floor to Minister Cornelius Fudge.” He shuffled his papers and sat on the seat at his lectern.

Harry absentmindedly listened to Fudge telling the Wizengamot the purpose of the emergency session but was more interested in watching the reaction of the Lords at the news of the dual trials and that Sirius was only being retrieved from Azkaban reguarding the murder of Peter Pettigrew not the other events surrounding the end of the war. Ted was doing much the same but writing notes about their reactions. 

Eventually Fudge finished the preamble. “Bring in the accused.”

The oak doors of the Wizengamot chamber swung open and his godfather entered the room wearing chains between his two hands being led towards the stone chair by two Aurours. He looked emaciated and haggard, his cheek bones prominent under taut pale skin.  He was settled into the seat with an arm on each armrest and immediately further sets of chains appeared wrapping around him and tying him firmly in position. 

"Sirius Orion Black," Minister Fudge boomed, his voice echoing with self-importance, "you stand before this esteemed body, guilty of acts of unimaginable depravity..."

Ted, who was still in the booth with Harry as he hadn’t been called to the floor to act as the defence yet stood and began to speak over Fudge. “Chief Warlock, a point of order. My client, Lord Black, has never been found guilty of any of the crimes of which he has been accused. For the minister to label him such is libelous.”

Fudge spoke before Dumbledore could respond, tone sharp with annoyance and face reddining slightly as he spoke. “The guilt of Sirius Black is an accepted fact! His betrayal has made him known widely as one of the greatest villains of a generation. I will not permit the farce of a trial for his other crimes.”

Ted stood and held up a document, a scrap of vellum covered in dozens of wax seals at its base. “I would like to read to you a copy of this document ratified by the wizards council in 1215 that pertains to the rights of any Lord of the land to habeas corpus.”

Dumbledore nodded at him, “Permission granted Mr Tonks, take the floor”. The toad-like woman sitting in the government benches towards the centre looked to be seething at this.

Ted made his way out of the booth and began to speak “Magna Carta, Clause 39, No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or disseised of his freehold, or liberties, or free customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him nor send upon him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.” Ted began pointing at some of the seals of the Ancient and Most Noble Houses along the bottom of the document. “Is this not the Longbottom seal? Is this not the Pucey seal? Greengrass seal, Nott seal, Black Seal and Selwyn seal. Should I continue?” He finished while pointing at more seals of the Ancient and Noble Houses below those he read out and waving the document side to side as the eyes of those sitting in front of him followed it.

Malfoy spoke “This is a matter for a later date, if the trial for those specific items are not on the agenda they cannot be undertaken today and must wait for the next session.”

Lord Collingwood in the fifth row replied with a wide toothy grin while staring unblinkingly at the back of Malfoy's head in a cross between unadulterated joy and seething hatred. “We are fortunate then that the agenda we all have in front of us reads only ‘Black trial’. Indeed it is interesting that Sirius Black went to Azkaban without trial yet a number of potential death eaters with significant amounts of witness evidence corroborating their involvement in a spate of attacks avoided Azkaban claiming the imperius curse without trial.” Neville, noticing Harry's questioning look at the man, slid him a note not long after he’d finished speaking explaining that one of his sons, a brother in law, a nephew and two nieces had died in the war and their murderers were never discovered. Lord Collingwood had a personal vendetta against those that had claimed the imperious defence ever since.

“End this farce and stop wasting our time.” Adrianoploe Pucey, a clearly irritable old man who was one of the few older than Dumbledore in the room shouted. “I can see from here the boy is wearing the Black Lord ring and it has been decades since I’ve been able to see well. The rest of you must be blind to ignore it and prattle on skirting the issue like it’s up for debate. If the boy has not had a trial, the boy gets a trial and there's little the minister can do about it.”

Harry only knew the Pucey name from a chaser on the Slytherin quidditch team which he supposed must be why both Dumbledore and Ted seemed slightly shocked at who’d spoken too. Later after some of the lessons he’d receive over the summer with Sirius and Andromeda he’d realise how much stock the Ancient houses in the conservative but not the ‘Death Eater, kill the muggleborn’ faction of the Traditionalist faction put in honouring tradition and how effectively Ted had backed the Wizengamot into a corner by waving Magna Carta at them. 

Dumbledore spoke over the whispering this outburst had caused. “Order! Order! Quite right Lord Pucey. As Chief Warlock it is one of my tasks that this body follows procedure.” He turned to the accused before speaking. “Sirius Black you stand accused of the murder of twelve muggles, accessory to murder of James and Lilly Potter, accessory to the attempted murder of Harry Potter, attempted murder of Peter Pettigrew and illegal membership of the organisation known as ‘Death Eaters’. How do you plead?”

“Not guilty on all counts. I demand my right to trial held under veritasium.” Sirius croaked out causing another round of commotion as the room realised he was unlikely to demand that unless he was innocent.

Harry thought Dumbledore was slightly shocked momentarily but he recovered quickly before speaking. “Very well. I yield the floor to Madam Amelia Bones for the trial of Lord SIrius Black pertaining to the events surrounding the end of the last war.” Fudge left the floor and stormed back towards his seat in the front row at his dismissal.

Amelia walked to the second lectern and began to read using some cards as a reference. “In my legal role as head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement I would like to make the Wizengamot aware that a search of DMLE records returned no evidence or transcript of a trial and preceding conviction of Sirius Orion Black. Department files pertaining to the case  consist of two documents. Document one the notice of obliviation form OC.3M which indicates the obliviation of 31 muggles under the Statute of Secrecy Act with no memories submitted in evidence or official questioning undertaken prior to obliviation signed by the first responder Junior Minister Cornelius Fudge of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. Document two is a notice of temporary incarceration under the 1977 Special Powers Act - Defence Regulation 18B countersigned by Minister Milicent Bagnold, Chief Warlock Silvanius Selwyn & Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement Bartemius Crouch. Furthermore, while this legislation allowed for detainment of a suspect for the duration of the conflict, it contains a provision that a trial of the accused must be held within 90 days of the conflict's resolution. Currently this amounts to 4165 days accrued over the legislations limit.”

“A further search for misplaced evidence yielded Sirius Orion Black III’s wand which was found misfiled with the records of a commercial litigation case against Sirius Orion Black II in 1899. The wand remained untested since being taken into evidence. Prior Incantum undertaken yesterday indicates the last spell performed using the wand occurred on the 1st November 1981. The wands last spells in order from 17:00 on the 31st October are Revenerate, Valetudo, Homino Revlum, Revenerate, Valetudo, Valetudo Episkey, Fruela, Vestigium Via; An aurour apparition tracing spell, Homino Revlum, Vestigium Via, Homino Revlum, Vestigium Via, Homino Revlum, Stupefy, Stupefy, Protego Maxima.” The monocle dropped from her eye indicating she was finished reading.

“None of those are lethal offensive spells.” A confused looking man in the ministry benches said half questioningly.

Madam Bones gave him a withering look and only a short curt reply, “Correct”. A murmur of conversation went around the room at the revelation. Amelia used this commotion to discreetly ask one of the on-duty Aurors to administer Sirius with three drops of Veritaserum and cast the wards. Once the ward around the accused's chair had been raised—a ward designed to block sound from entering the warded space and prevent the Wizengamot from questioning the accused on extraneous matters while under the serum's influence—she began speaking again.

What followed was a relatively quick series of questions that laid out Sirius’s version of events that halloween and the days that followed. A tale that started with Sirius's growing feeling of unease that led him to check Pettigrew's house but finding it abandoned with no signs of struggle. Of making his way to the Potters only to find bits of the house’s roof and bedroom wall strewn across the street. Of finding James’s body in the hallway without his wand and then hearing Harry crying upstairs, of finding Lilly’s body sprawled in front of Harry and an empty robe that must have belonged to Voldemort covering the floor like a rug that radiated a feeling of malice. He described the failed attempts to heal Harry and then encountering Hagrid as he left the property but discovered blood in the street as they were set to leave. How he tested the blood using a Sanguiscope; a Black family heirloom he often used in Auror investigations that tested blood for magical signatures and how he recognised it, he spent seven years living in the same room as Peter he was certain it matched.

Then the tale of the chase all led to the confrontation in Tottenham Court with Sirius being hit unexpectedly with a confundus charm during Peter’s monologue about betrayal before he used a blasting curse, severing his finger in the confusion and using his animagus ability to escape into the sewers. It ended with Sirius explaining that the last he remembered was he was sat crying in the street before waking up in Azkaban the next morning.

The entire account gave Harry the feeling that his stomach was being used as a skipping rope, it was only made worse by a series of camera flashes that went off directed at him during the questioning when Sirus spoke about finding his parents bodies and the shock of finding him alive but injured.

Harry thought that was probably enough evidence but was surprised when a Lord he later found out from Neville was called DeSpencer questioned the entire event pointing out that as Heir Black Sirius would have been taught occlumency and might be able to beat the veritasium potion.

Ted quickly retorted that a decade of Dementor exposure would have left those defences in a paltry state at best, certainly not good enough to beat veratasium which required meticulous concentration and generally took years of study to create suitably prepared defences. In spite of that it looked like many considered DeSpencers opinion to have some merit.

Amelia called on Ted again, “Mr Tonks, you have some documents you wish to submit into evidence?”

Ted passed a handful of pages to Amelia who shuffled them slightly looking at each before settling down to read them out again. “I have here in my hand the copy of James and Lily Potter's Last Will and Testament previously held in trust by Gringotts Bank, claimed by the Heir of House Potter and submitted by his legal representative. I have permission to read the sections lacking redaction the defense feels are relevant.” She looked up to see if any members would comment, she thought it was an even chance someone would speak out wanting it to be read in full. When the room remained deathly quiet in anticipation after a few seconds she read out the sections on Pettigrew and Sirius as well as the section on guardians which listed Sirius having to explain the significance of the thirty pieces of silver in muggle culture to a room of predominantly purebloods.  

Lord Greengrass raised his wand, one of the few to follow decorum instead of just calling out during the entire trial, the tip lit in a whitish blue hue, “Is there a similar significance to the Little Paws Lodge property bequeathed?” 

Ted opened his briefcase, “I have here along with a note of authentication from Gringotts the property known as Little Paws Lodge.” He set a hamster cage on the floor in front of Amelia who was struggling not to laugh. “We believe it to be a joke directed at Pettigrew's animagus capabilities and partially corroborating Sirius' account of events.”

“This corroborates nothing but Pettigrews talent at transfiguration!” A voice shouted from the balcony.

“Order! Order! Quite in the Gallery” Dumbledore called out at the interruption. 

Amelia followed with her own commands, “If security could eject the perpetrator.” She waited until the sounds of shuffling and pushing ended as the heckler only partially cooperated making for the exit as extravagantly as possible until an Aurour that Harry noticed had purple hair but didn’t look like Dora usually does stunned and levitated him out the doors. Once he was ejected Amelia stared at the Minister as she spoke, “As the prosecution has no corroborating evidence to submit and there is evidently significant doubt in some quarters regarding Lord Blacks guilt I use my prerogative as Head of the DMLE to call on both the previously ascertained witness testimony in conjunction with the questioning of a recently acquired witness before proceeding to a vote of judgement. Cornelius Fudge would you prefer to go first or after Mr Pettigrew?” She was allowing him a faint prospect of preserving his dignity, she was just undecided if he was intelligent enough to see how the trial was going so far to abandon his financial backer for at least today. If he played his cards wrong here she thought the extent of his incompetence that night being exposed might collapse the government.

To her surprise he answered immediately but with a nervous shaky voice. “Seco… I will go second if it is still required.” Amelia couldn’t help but think the only thing he was good at was spotting an escape route. Ted would joke with her for years afterwards  that he was like a rat up a drainpipe at the beginning of a storm.

There was a commotion as Sirius was removed from the accused seat, incacuroused onto a summoned chair and checked that he was restrained to it tightly before being levitated to the side of the room with two Aurours pointing wands at him constantly. 

Once that had been done Amelia turned and looked to one of the Aurours guarding the doors. “Peter Pettigrew is called as a hostile witness to the chair of judgement for questioning regarding the events surrounding the deaths of the Potters and subsequent events.”

The chamber doors creaked open admitting a pale stooped figure, his already sparse hair was matted and his eyes darted frantically around the room. He shuffled forward, chained between two grim-faced Aurors and his body language gave signs of trepidation in front of the chair until the aurours pressed him into it and the chains wrapped his body.

Amnelia asked Pettigrew if he was willing to have vertasium administered during his questioning which he refused.

Amelia repeated her position that Pettigrew had been a hostile witness during interrogation over the previous two days and called a vote for him to be treated as such and for veritasium to be administered before proceeding with questioning.

Much to her surprise it passed on a thin margin of forty seven to forty three winning the centrists bar some of centre right Boot faction, what wasn’t to her surprise is that both the Malfoy and Sallow led factions of the Traditionalists opposed its use.

Once the result was obtained Pettigrew thrashed feebly against his chains as an auror quickly administered the serum. His eyes glazed over, becoming vacant and distant.

Pettigrew's forced confession began. His high-pitched voice, devoid of will, recounted the sickening tale: to being the true spy for Voldemort, how he’d gave information resulting in the deaths of half a dozen people including the Prewit twins and the McKinnons, how he'd begged to be the Potters Secret Keeper and how he'd delivered the information about the Potters to Voldemort. He even admitted to leading Death Eaters through the wards at Potterwood House to kill his grandparents while they were ill with Dragon Pox which shocked everyone. He admitted to framing Sirius, to the detonation of the street at Tottenham Court which killed a dozen muggles before ending on how he severed his own finger to complete the elaborate charade knowing the Auror force and ministry were both too corrupt and incompetent at the time to solve the case accurately.

Each forced admission was a fresh blow to the Wizengamot that exposed layers of Ministry incompetence. Fudge looked as though he might faint, while Amelia Bones's face hardened when Auror incompetence was talked about despite only being a newly promoted auror at the time, she knew there were likely multiple people in her office who were Voldemort sympathisers.

Of particular interest to many was his years masquerading as a rat, especially those spent within the walls of Hogwarts. One wizard in the gallery had shouted “So he was hiding under Dumbledore's nose this entire time!?” loudly enough that he had to be ejected. Ted watched the  storm of emotions on members of the Wizengamot who had been close to the Potters, Madam Longbottom's fury could almost be felt across the room, the quill she’d been holding at the beginning of the session had been torn into shreds and lay on her desk as confetti.

Amelia waved a hand toward Sirius, “In light of that testimony I use my discretion as head of Department for the DMLE to drop all charges levied at Lord Sirius Orion Black III.” Harry was surprised that himself, Neville, Ron and Hedwig had somehow all avoided being called to be questioned. He supposed what Ted had called ‘Baffle with bullshit then strike with confidence’ had worked so well they weren’t needed. Tonks was going to be livid she’d been telling him how much she was looking forward to the absurdity of Fudge trying to question an owl.”I also call on the Wizengamot to pass judgement on the following charges against Peter Pettigrew…” She continued on reading a series of charges, pausing between each to allow the voting to be counted. Once it had been completed she conferred with Dumbledore for just under a minute, if it hadn’t been delayed a decade Harry might have called justice swift.

Dumbledore read the sentences, a number of camera flashes going off in quick succession as he did so. “For the conspiracy to commit murder of Lord Charlus Potter the sentence is life imprisonment in Azkaban. For the conspiracy to commit murder of Lady Dorea Potter the sentence is life imprisonment in Azkaban. For the conspiracy to commit murder of Lord James Charlus Potter the sentence is life imprisonment in Azkaban. For conspiracy to commit murder of Harry James Potter the sentence is life imprisonment in Azkaban. For conspiracy to commit murder of Lady Lily Potter the sentence is life imprisonment in Azkaban.  For conspiracy to commit murder of Marelen McKinnon the sentence is life imprisonment in Azkaban. For conspiracy to commit murder of Gideon Prewitt the sentence is life imprisonment in Azkaban. For conspiracy to commit murder of Fabian Prewitt the sentence is life imprisonment in Azkaban. For the murder of twelve muggles, the sentence is twenty years per victim. All terms will be served consecutively.”

As the sentence was finished being read the Aurors moved forward quickly, their faces grim. Pettigrew thrashed, pleaded and begged as they approached then let out a terrified shriek as they dragged him towards the door, his protests dissolving into guttural sobs. The heavy doors slammed shut behind him, Harry watched the scene numb and unaware of anything else happening in the room from the wall of noise being made by most of its inhabitants to both Neville and Hedwig gently nudging him to get his attention. It wasn’t until Ted approached guiding Sirius and whispered in his ear that he was broken out of it “Follow me, we can try and get out of this mad house without the media or other members swarming us if we leave quickly.”