What If… Harry Potter

Harry Potter was finally victorious! He had done it! His confrontation was witnessed by the entire school and the remaining defenders. They had seen Tom Riddle felled by his own rebounded curse and his lifeless body lay among the debris.

The Elder Wand felt odd in his left hand, as if it wasn't in the right place. That was weird and Harry didn't like feeling that, so he tucked Draco Malfoy's wand into his back pocket and put the Elder Wand into his right hand. He felt power surge through him and golden sparks shot out the end of the wand.

This gained everyone's attention, even those that were mourning their losses, and they all saw the bright runic circle that appeared below Harry. Before anyone could think to say anything or warn him, he whole body stiffened up and he screamed in pain as he started to dissolve from the top of his head down to his feet. They all watched, too shocked to move, as the hero of their world was slowly disintegrated.

*

“Something's happening! I think it actually worked!” A young redheaded woman's voice exclaimed and she pointed at the summoning circle that started to glow.

“Seventh time's the charm.” A snarky voice added.

“Hush, Sev!” She responded and lightly slapped his arm. “I've only temporarily forgiven you for what you said. Don't push it.”

“I'm sorry, Lily.” Severus Snape said with a soft voice.

Lily Evans leaned over and gave him a quick hug. “It's okay. I know you've been pushed around by those prigs in Slytherin and forced to act a certain way.”

“Geez, stop milking it.” James Potter said. “You're in Slytherin. Boo hoo.”

“You hush, too!” Lily said with a glare.

“Don't get angry at us. If we weren't here, you wouldn't have enough people for this.” Sirius Black said and crossed his arms.

“It was too fascinating to refuse.” Remus Lupin said. “I barely felt the pull on my magic.”

“That was a little scary.” Peter Pettigrew said and pointed at the glowing circle. “Look! Are those soles of shoes forming?”

The group of seven people, Lily, Severus, James, Sirius, Remus, Peter, and a quiet Alice MacMillan, watched as the person wearing old and dirty muggle clothes seemed to form and grow out of the circle. It was not happening like the ritual had said it would and Lily was the only one who wondered why... then the person's throat and mouth formed and they started screaming.

All of them jumped back from the edge of the circle and Severus, James, and Sirius whipped out their wands to point at whomever it was.

“DON'T ATTACK HIM!” Lily yelled and they flinched.

Only James and Severus lowered their wands.

“Lils...” Sirius started to say.

“Drop it or I drop you.” Lily warned him and her wand was pointed right at his face.

Sirius put up his hands in surrender and she nodded.

A few seconds later, they all looked back at the summoning circle and caught their breath. A skinny copy of James Potter stood there, only he had deep green eyes that looked very familiar. They also looked haunted and he seemed to be petrified. At least the screaming had stopped.

“What's wrong with him?” Alice asked. She regretted showing up when her older boyfriend Frank had backed out at the last minute and Severus had been called to replace him.

“I don't know.” Lily said and stepped forward to reach for him.

“NO!” “DON'T!” Severus and James yelled at the same time and reached for her to pull her back.

Lily's hand touched the hand of the James clone and there was a bright flash of light that blinded everyone briefly, then there was the sound of a body hitting the floor. When they blinked their eyes to clear them of the flash residue, the others saw Lily had collapsed on top of the person they had summoned.

“LILY!” They all yelled and knelt on the floor around her and touched her or shook her slightly.

“I'm... fine.” Lily whispered. “I just... don't know what... so tired.”

“I think she's suffering from magical exhaustion.” Remus diagnosed.

“I think that's why... it didn't work right. Not enough... magic offered.” Lily said and tried to not move too much. “We all should have touched him at the end and not just me.”

Both James and Severus looked guilty, because they hadn't offered much magic at all.

“He could have drained her.” Remus added, a little sternly.

“No, not... not him. The ritual. It needed to finish and he needed magic to move.” Lily whispered.

“Gin.” A voice they never heard before said and then they were all shocked when the James clone hugged Lily and kissed her like they were alone. Lily, being a little out of it at the time, had no problems going along with it and hugged him right back.

“That's it, Lils! Get some tongue in there!” Sirius cheered them on.

“Shut it!” James and Severus said at the same time.

“Oh, right. Sorry, James.” Sirius said, contritely.

“Are they even breathing?” Alice asked, curiously.

Apparently not, because they broke the kiss and took long shuddering breaths, then blushed deeply when they realized they didn't know who it was they had just been kissing.

“Who are you?” Lily and the James clone asked at the same time. “I asked you first!”

Alice couldn't stop her giggle at them matching their words and neither of them letting the other out of the tight hug they were in. “Maybe we should all lay down and have a talk about what just happened?”

Lily blushed again, because she had been really comfortable on top of the James clone and hadn't wanted to move. She had never felt so close to someone else before and she didn't want to give that feeling up. It was almost instinctual and her emotions warred with her actions as she reluctantly let him go before she climbed off of him and stood up. She ignored the very nice bulge she had felt, too.

The James clone stood up as well and covered himself with his free hand, making both Alice and Lily glance down. When Lily looked back up, that was when she realized why they had fit together so well. Unlike the real James, his clone was almost exactly her height and wasn't a head taller than her.

“Oi! Why do you have Dumbledore's wand?” James asked with squinted eyes and raised his wand again.

“No!” Lily gasped.

“Expelliarmus!” The James clone said and everyone was shocked when the wands of Severus, James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter jumped from their hands and clattered to the floor at the clone's feet.

“You idiot!” Lily reached over and slapped James across the face with a loud crack, which shocked everyone again. “We just brought him here and he hasn't recovered yet! What the hell do you think you're doing threatening him?”

“Lils...” James rubbed his red cheek.

“Don't you dare Lils me!” Lily spat. “You always jump to conclusions and then shove your foot in your mouth when you try to explain how you made a mistake! You do it over and over and I'm sick of it!”

They all took a step back from her as she ranted, even her friend Alice. Lily on a rampage was not someone to ever mess with. The James clone put a hand on her shoulder and Lily's angry face immediately disappeared and she turned to smile at him.

“Thank you for defending me.” The clone said in a soft voice.

“It's no problem. It's our fault you're here...” Lily started to say.

“Nuh uh! You asked us for help with this.” Sirius corrected her.

Lily blushed a little. “I guess I should to tell you that it was my idea to call for help.”

The James clone looked confused. “You... you only called for help?”

Lily nodded, as did the others. “You-Know-Who has been gathering followers for a while and becoming more powerful. We're starting our seventh year at Hogwarts in a few weeks and this was the last full moon of the summer. It was the best time to try the contact ritual to see if we could find someone that defeated him and could tell us how.”

The James clone's face went through several emotions before he sighed. “You didn't know you were kidnapping me.”

“Kidnapping?!?” Lily gasped. “We'd never...”

“Lils.” Alice interrupted her. “He's standing right there.”

Lily blushed again and walked over to the table nearby and came back with several sheets of parchment. “That wasn't supposed to happen. The ritual didn't say anything about bringing the help here.” She said as she handed him the stack. “All it says is it makes a contact with what you desire most and it will respond to your wishes.”

The James clone spent several minutes looking over the parchment with intense concentration. “After looking at all of that, I have only one thing to say.”

Lily looked excited, the guys looked ready to hear a verbal beatdown, and Alice looked normal.

“I have no bloody clue what any of that means.” The clone said with a smile.

The guys all looked shocked with their mouths hanging open and Alice laughed.

“I told you it was too complicated for anyone that didn't take Advanced Runes, Lils.” Alice said. “Even Remus had trouble with it and he's supposed to be a bigger bookworm than you.”

Lily blushed again and accepted the parchment papers back and hugged them to her chest.

“She's the smartest girl in our year.” James bragged.

“She's the smartest girl in the whole school.” Severus corrected.

The James clone gave them each a searching look before he focused on Lily. “Can you tell me where I am and how to send me back?”

“You can't go back yet!” Lily gasped. “You haven't told us anything about You-Know-Who!”

The clone's eyes went to Severus and not James, then went back to Lily. “What year is this?”

“What kind of stupid question is that?” James asked and Sirius and Peter nodded. “Everyone knows it's 1977.”

The clone looked a little sick. “You... you mean...” He stopped talking and took several steps back and leaned against the nearby wall when his legs gave out instead of falling onto his back. He slid down and ended up sitting on the floor.

“What is it?” Lily asked and darted over to him. “What's wrong?”

The clone looked at her and his eyes almost glowed, because his look was so intense. “I was... it was... where I came from. It was 1998.”

They all gasped, even Severus.

“N-n-no, it... it can't be.” Lily whispered, her face pale, and she knelt as she started shuffling through her papers. She went through the Arithmancy calculations and then over the rune sequences. Alice knelt beside her and they both went over it. Remus soon joined them and after about ten minutes, Lily sucked in a sharp breath. She pointed to it to Remus and his own face paled.

“I'm sorry.” Lily whispered and lifted her eyes to lock onto the James clone. “I carried the two in the multiplication equation instead of cancelling it in the division of the runes.”

“What does that mean?” James, Sirius, and the clone asked.

“It added an unexpected factor to the ritual coordinates. The aspect of time.” Remus said. “It's also not supposed to be factored into it, which is why it didn't work.”

“But, it did work.” Peter said.

“No, actually. It didn't.” Lily said. “The ritual failed, just like the other six times.”

“But... that doesn't make sense.” James said with a frown.

“It does when... when my desperation for it work made my magic force it.” Lily said, her face red with yet another blush. “I wanted it so badly that...” She sighed and reached out to touch the clone's arm. “It really is all my fault and I'm sorry.”

The clone looked deep into her eyes. “Would that explain why I feel so connected to you?”

“You feel it, too?” Lily asked and he nodded.

Alice reached over and put her hand on the clone's face. “I don't feel any different.”

“I think that last touch to free him made the connection.” Remus guessed.

James and Severus looked a little upset about that.

Lily moved Alice's hand away and she sat down beside the clone. He put his arm over her shoulders automatically and she leaned into him, then they both let out a happy sigh at how good it felt.

“That... could be a problem.” Alice said and James and Severus nodded.

“We need to figure out how to... no, wait.” Lily said and turned her head to look at the James clone. “What's your name?”

“It's Harry.” The clone said.

“Harry, we can't just leave you here and we can't use the ritual as it is, because it doesn't actually work. Since I pretty much wished for you and used the ritual circle as a conduit, there's no way that trying to wish you away is going to work.” Lily explained.

Harry took a deep breath and let it out. “Because you still desperately want me here?”

Lily blushed. “Yes, I do. It might have been a mistake that brought you here... a huge mistake... but, now that you're here, there's so much you can tell me!”

James coughed loudly.

“Us. Tell us.” Lily corrected.

Harry took another deep breath. “You're going to start working on the ritual to send me back, right?”

Lily nodded. “I've already started composing rune sequences in my head. The Arithmancy kicked my arse last time and it took me months to work through...” She trailed off and blushed. “...I almost worked through it. I'll fix it and then work backwards to see if it can be reversed.”

“Then... until you can do that, I'll put my trust in you.” Harry said and then seemed to remember something and smiled. “My life is in your hands from now on, so please take care of me.”

Lily blushed, because she felt both flattered and embarrassed that someone she just met would trust her that much. The thing was, she really wanted to. This James clone... Harry... was so much better than the real one. Not that James wasn't real, he was just so arrogant and full of himself that being around him was irritating.

“Yes, this is definitely a problem.” Alice whispered as she looked at her friend falling for the new guy that she summoned from somewhere else.

There was a light rumbling growl from somewhere and Harry's face went red. “Just ignore that.”

Lily's smile disappeared and her eyes squinted. “When was the last time you ate?”

“I dunno.” Harry said with a shrug. “A few days or so.”

Everyone sucked in a sharp breath, even Severus.

“Then we need to get you something to eat immediately.” Lily said and started to stand, then realized she didn't want his arm to move from around her shoulders, so she reached up to hold onto his hand to keep it there. “Come on. We need to get you to my house and I'll whip something up.”

Harry looked reluctant for a few seconds, then nodded and started to stand. It was a little awkward until Lily put her arm around his waist to steady herself. They got to their feet and Lily leaned against him and it felt natural for the both of them.

“We'll call the Knight Bus and we'll be at my house in a few minutes.” Lily said.

“What about the mess?” Alice asked, trying to distract her from running off with her new beau.

Lily took out her wand and swished it over the stone floor where the chalk drawings, melted candles, and items of sacrifice had been. It all vanished and you couldn't tell anything had happened there. It surprised everyone else, except for Harry, whom smiled and nodded at the display of magic. Lily blushed again and they left the small outbuilding behind an old abandoned farmhouse.

The others trailed behind them with two of them wearing matching scowls, James and Severus.

*

Harry was kind of in a daze as he rode the Knight Bus with a beautiful girl under his arm. Things felt so right with her there and he didn't want to admit to himself who she really was, despite the overwhelming evidence that she was Lily Potter, no Lily Evans, because his dad was right there on another couch.

He knew intellectually that it shouldn't be possible, since if she really was who she was, then he would never be born... which meant there would be no way for him to be there to cause himself to not be born. It hurt his head as he thought about that. How did he always get himself into these kinds of situations?

Should he tell her? Would it make her recoil in horror to know who he was?

Was Harry still who he was going to be, since he was there now and could stop that whole horrible life from happening in the first place? Did he have that right? Could he end his own existence without consequences? Would him never being born stop everything from happening in the future? Would there even be a prophecy if he was never born to fulfill it?

That thought made his mind come to a stuttering halt. When Riddle died in the future, could it have not been by his hand, as the prophecy stated? It was the monster's own curse that killed him, so maybe coming back in time mean that he had to do it right.

He had to kill him all over again and he wondered if things were the same now as they would be in the future. Would the horcuxes even be where they were supposed to be or did Harry have to wait for years to get them?

“Cokeworth, main street.” The older man announced as the Knight Bus came to a screeching stop.

Harry, being an old hand using the crazy transportation, had already braced for the stop and caught Lily in a full hug before she could tumble off of the couch or slam into the front window.

“Th-thank you, Harry.” Lily said, her face red again.

“Anytime.” Harry said and stood before he walked her over to the door and stepped off the triple-decker bus. He kept his arm over her shoulders, because she hadn't let his hand go ever since he had put it there.

Surprisingly, Harry didn't think she was being demanding or controlling by acting like that. Possessive, that was the word he was looking for, and he didn't mind it at all. Technically, he was hers in every sense of the word anyway. It seemed to comfort something inside of him when he realized he had always wanted someone to be like that with.

Harry kept his eye on the greasy-haired teenager that followed them off of the bus. He thought about confronting him and slipped the Elder Wand into his hand, then chose to ignore that instinct. He knew that would annoy Snape more than accusing him would, so he kept ignoring him and would keep doing so, as long as that scowl stayed on the Slytherin's face.

The funny thing was, Harry's previous thoughts of the man he had come to respect, were fading away. It was almost like those memories he watched of Snape had been fabricated to get an emotional response from him. Now that Harry wasn't in a life-and-death situation, he could see through the manipulations and the lies as he remembered being bullied and mentally tortured for six years by the greasy git.

Was it fair to hold the future against people like that? Probably not, unless they proved they were going to end up that way. By the fidgeting of Peter every time Harry had looked at him on the bus, he knew the rat was a complete coward and would fold as soon as Voldemort approached him to betray his friends.

Snape walked off in another direction when they approached a particular street, which didn't make Harry relax at all. He knew the man... teenager... could easily double back to keep an eye on them. Well, on Lily, since she was whom he was obsessed with.

That was another thing. If Snape was eventually the spy in Voldemort's camp, didn't he know that Peter was the spy in the Order? They were both marked, weren't they? You had to be loyal and volunteer to get that mark, which included murder or rape. It made Harry wonder which of them did which crime, or if they did both to get rid of the evidence.

“This is it.” Lily said and took Harry out of his thoughts and he hid his wand out of sight. She turned to look at him with another blush. “I need to warn you about my sister. She... well, she...”

Harry nodded in understanding, because he knew Petunia very well. “Do you want to go in first?”

Lily looked conflicted and glanced at his arm over her shoulders and then at his face.

“Can we fit through the door like this?” Harry asked with a slight smirk.

Lily let out a snort and a giggle. “If we walk in sideways like a crab.”

“That's a yes, then.” Harry said, teasingly.

Lily laughed. “No, we can't. I'll go first.” She said and lifted his arm over her head, gave it a longing look, then changed her grip and laced her fingers with his to hold his hand. She beamed a smile at figuring out a compromise and opened the front door to lead him inside.

As soon as Lily stepped over the threshold, a harsh voice spoke from close by. “Mom! The freak is home and brought another freak with her!”

Harry felt an upsurge of emotions at her shrill tone and being called a freak again. “Shut up, you horrible shrew!”

Both Lily and Petunia jumped at the pure venom in his voice.

“If you can't keep a civil tongue in your mouth when your wonderful sister was nice enough to invite someone over, to offer them the first bit of food they've eaten all week, then keep your filthy mouth shut!” Harry nearly shouted. “No one wants to hear what you think! No! One!”

“What's going on in here?” A pretty redheaded woman entered the living room.

“Lily brought a crazy freak home!” Petunia shouted as she pointed at Harry.

“SHUT UP!” Harry yelled and they all winced. A pulse of magic flowed out from him and Petunia's mouth snapped shut with a loud clack and then her lips sealed together.

Lily stared at her sister and then turned her head to look at Harry. His angry face didn't scare her, though. She wasn't sure why his show of magical power didn't affect her, even with them holding hands. It was also the first time she had seen anyone have a bout of accidental magic as a teenager.

There was a light crack from outside and Harry let Lily's hand go to whip around and knelt as he shot a stunning spell at whomever had appeared behind him. A woman wearing Auror robes collapsed to the ground and her wand clattered to the pavement.

“Harry, no!” Lily gasped and reached for his shoulder.

Harry easily avoided her hand and darted over to the Auror to pick up her wand and checked her. She was fine, so he cast a notice-me-not and muggle repellent charms on the area before he searched her pockets for identification. He pulled out a badge in her front pocket and saw the name on it.

“A. Bones.” Harry said and put the badge back, then he emptied her other pockets. There were pieces of parchment, ink, quills, and a portkey.

“Harry, what are you doing?” Lily asked and walked over to stand beside him.

“Making sure she's who she is supposed to be.” Harry said and put everything back where h had taken them from. “Stand back. She's not going to be happy when I wake her.”

Lily gave him an incredulous look, then she sighed and stepped back behind him.

Harry gave her a warm smile and a nod, which made her blush, because she knew he appreciated her accepting his advice without argument. He looked at the woman on the ground and decided that brandishing the Elder Wand might get the same reaction as when James had seen it. He switched it with Draco's old wand in his pocket and pointed it at her.

“Ennervate.” Harry whispered.

The woman sucked in a sharp breath and her angry eyes locked onto the wand pointed at her. “You're under arrest for attacking an Auror!”

“I was merely defending myself from someone apparating directly behind me without warning, Madam Bones.” Harry said and she frowned. “Or is it standard policy to apparate right on top of a house's front step without checking for protective wards first?”

Amelia blushed slightly and didn't respond.

Harry smiled at getting his point across and handed her wand back, handle first. “I apologize for reacting so quickly. I won't apologize for using a stunning spell.”

Amelia understood what he meant and accepted her wand back, then she accepted the open hand he offered to help her up. “I'll be sure to warn the Auror Department about being more cautious.”

Harry smiled at her. “You should also go in pairs when entering an unknown situation and stand at least six feet apart. If anything happens, or you stumble across a death eater attack on a muggle home, one or both of you can apparate back out to call for backup.”

Amelia looked a little surprised by the suggestion. “I will let my boss know.”

Harry nodded and stepped aside to see Lily's bright and quite happy smile. “This is the home of Lily Evans and her family. There was a... verbal altercation... and I'm sorry that my emotions ran wild and got away from me.”

Amelia looked at the happy Lily, then she leaned in to look through the doorway and saw a terrified teenager being comforted by a shorter older woman. “What happened?” She asked and took out her parchment, ink, and a quill.

Harry told her what happened, word for word. He didn't downplay his own culpability or the blame. He even admitted that he grew up being called a freak by his hate-filled aunt and when Petunia had called him that again, he reacted.

“Why did her calling you names make you react so violently?” Amelia asked.

Harry opened his mouth to answer, then closed it to think about it. He went over what had happened before the final battle, where he had died and met the spirit of Professor Dumbledore, and saw that the horcrux in his head was sent on to the next great adventure and he had to go back to finish things instead of moving on himself. He immediately made the connection that he resented that.

The horcrux had blocked off so much of his emotions for most of his life that Harry had gone from apathetic and accepting things to impassioned as he fought to save everyone, then he was brought here to do it all again.

Amelia saw his face go through several emotions and waited for him to speak. She knew he was coming to some kind of surprising conclusion and she didn't want to interrupt him.

Harry finally understood why he was being emotional. “I had just finished fighting in a desperate battle. As soon as it was over, or I thought it was over, I came here and realized the battle was far from over and I have to do it all again. I lost so much... friends... family... and I'm angry about that. I didn't realize it until just now.”

“Oh, Harry!” Lily said and hugged him tightly. “I'm so sorry!”

Harry hugged her and rested his chin on her shoulder.

Amelia let them have their moment before she spoke. “Do I need to call the magic reversal squad?”

Harry shook his head and let Lily go. “I think a simple Finite should cancel the effect. I wasn't using a wand at the time.”

Amelia nodded and made note of it. “That you're of age should make this go away. I'll file the paperwork with the department to make sure this infraction doesn't go on Miss Evans' record, even though she is the only registered magical in this part of the neighborhood. I just need your full name to fill it out.”

Harry stiffened slightly and looked a little nervous, then he took a deep breath and let it out. He had already changed things and he was still here, so changing it a lot more shouldn't affect him too much.

“I do have a full name and I don't know if it would be relevant to tell you, since it's not in your records anyway.” Harry said and Lily caught her breath.

Amelia gave him a pointed look. “What fake name are you going to give me instead?”

Harry couldn't stop his chuckle. “It's not really fake. Or won't be. I just need to go to Gringotts to confirm it.”

“That's not how it usually works.” Amelia told him.

“This isn't a usual situation.” Harry said. “My name will be Harry Ignotius Peverell.”

Only Amelia reacted and her hands went a little slack. “You can't be serious.”

Harry smiled a crooked smile. “I'm the last descendent of the three brothers.” He wasn't lying, either. Voldemort was also a descendent; but, he had almost none of his original soul left.

Amelia shook herself and wrote it down. “Do you have any proof of that?”

Harry didn't want to show her the wand or the invisibility cloak, so he raised his eyebrows at her. “Are you really asking me to reveal family secrets?”

Amelia caught her breath and blushed, then she shook her head. She made several more notes and cast the drying spell on the ink and rolled up the parchment. “I expect you to contact me as soon as you get the confirmation of your identity.” She said and saw Lily's glare. “So I can finish my report and file the paperwork.”

“I can do that.” Harry said and Amelia put her things away. “Have a good day, Madam Bones.”

Amelia paused to give him another pointed look. “That's twice you've called me madam, Mr. Peverell. Why is that?”

Harry blinked his eyes at her for a moment and realized he just screwed up. This Amelia hadn't had her entire family wiped out and became the matriarch of the Bones estate with only her niece Susan as the Bones heiress.

“I'm sorry, I thought that was what you called an unmarried woman.” Harry said. “Miss or madam.”

Amelia accepted that with a nod. “Stick with miss if you don't see a ring. Madam would mean head of the family or the one in control of said family.”

Harry smiled and nodded back. “Thanks. I'll try to keep it straight from now on.”

Amelia gave him another nod, nodded at Lily, and started to walk away.

“Miss Bones! A notice-me-not and muggle repellent charms might be a good idea!” Harry said, a little loudly. Because he had cast them already on the area, no one else noticed.

Amelia winced slightly at being reminded of that and cast the two spells on herself, then she walked down the street to a safe distance and turned back to face them. Harry nodded and waved, so she smiled and apparated away.

Once he couldn't see her anymore, Harry decided to cast the same protections he and Hermione always cast around their campsite to hide them and their magic use, making sure to cast that one first. Lily watched him, completely fascinated as he cast new magic spells that she had no clue existed. Harry saw her excited face when he was finished and nodded to her, silently agreeing to teach her.

“Undo what you did to my daughter, please.” The redheaded woman ordered as soon as they stepped back inside the house. She had her arms around a quietly sobbing Petunia.

“As long as she understands that it will happen again if she insults us.” Harry said and felt Lily take his hand. “I'll be doing it intentionally from now on as well. It won't be an accident because I was upset.”

“She'll be quiet.” The woman promised and her grip on Petunia's arms tightened.

Harry pointed his wand at Petunia. “Finite.”

Petunia's mouth didn't unseal and she started to panic and cry harder.

Harry sighed and switched wands and cast it again. “Finite.”

Petunia's lips unsealed and her jaw opened. She let out a loud sob and held onto her mother tightly. The woman gave Harry and Lily a bit of a glare and led her daughter away.

“I'm sorry about what happened.” Harry said and switched wands again.

Lily sighed and gave him a sad smile. “Things could have gone a little better, that's true.”

Harry did not comment that it was Petunia acting like a bitch that set things off, since Lily knew that.

“Come into the kitchen and I'll make some sandwiches.” Lily said and led him by the hand and went in a different direction to her mother. They arrived in a nice kitchen that looked like a typical kitchen and wasn't anything special.

Harry didn't sit when she indicated and went to the counter with her. They gathered ingredients from the refrigerator and the pantry and built several very nice sandwiches together. By the time they were done and added a handful of potato chips to the sides of their plates, they were in great moods again and sat down at the kitchen table.

Silence settled as they ate and Lily took her time as she visually examined his face. The more she looked at him, the more she could tell that he wasn't James Potter's clone. He was very close; but, that was mostly because of the hair. The glasses were different, his nose wasn't as prominent, and his cheekbones were more rounded, if a bit thinner than they should be.

Lily silently resolved to fatten him up to see what he should look like and started to plan in the back of her head about slipping him extra food and maybe sending an owl to Madam Pomfrey about what to do with someone that was borderline starving themselves.

When they finished eating, Lily was only slightly surprised that Harry helped without being asked. Her mind immediately started to wonder how he was raised that made him act completely differently than every other young man she had ever met. Even the overly polite Remus ignored some of the obvious things that should be helped with, probably because of the influence of Sirius and James.

“Thanks, Harry.” Lily said as she washed the two plates and he grabbed a dish towel to dry them.

“The food was delicious. Cleaning up afterwards was the least I could do.” Harry said and put the two plates back where they came from.

Lily had to smile at that, because no one else she ever met was that conscientious. “It's getting late.”

Harry's eyes widened slightly. “Oh, damn. I forgot I don't have anywhere to sleep! I need to get to Gringotts right away and try to get a loan or something to stay at the Leaky Cauldron.”

Lily reached out and grabbed his arm before he ran off. “Relax, Harry. I meant that we need to do up the couch for you to sleep on. Gringotts is probably closed to wizards right now, anyway.”

Harry blinked his eyes at her. “What do you mean it's closed to wizards?”

Lily smirked at him. “You don't think hags, vampires, and other nighttime creatures risk their lives in the daytime, just to do some banking, do you?”

Harry's mouth dropped open in shock and Lily laughed.

“Come on. The extra blankets and things are in the hall closet and I'll show you where the downstairs bathroom is.” Lily said and took his hand again and led him around the first floor of the house.

She showed him the things he needed to see and then shooed him into the bathroom with a bathrobe so she could do up his temporary bed. She hadn't mentioned his smell the entire time they had been so close together, mostly because she was sure he would be embarrassed if he knew she could smell him.

The thing was, Lily didn't mind his sweaty smell and she wasn't sure why. When James had finished Quidditch practice or a game and tried to show off to her, she hated touching his sweat-soaked clothes and being near his sharp musky smell. His sweaty damp hair also turned her off, because it reminded her of her friend Severus.

Neither of them were high on her priority list for dating, not that there wasn't anyone else trying to get her attention. She just didn't see the point of it while she was studying so hard. She had her friends and she had her school work, so there wasn't a whole lot of room for her to date anyone. Just as she finished putting the pillow down under the thin blanket and above the sheet, Harry stepped out of the bathroom.

Lily stood up and started to smile at him, then froze at the sight of Harry drying his hair with a towel and his bare and his well-defined muscular chest as it moved enticingly. He had tied the robe around his waist to stop any accidental slippage from showing, since the thin robe provided little protection to his nakedness. His clothes needed washing after weeks of only using cleaning spells and they stunk.

“Thanks for letting me stay here.” Harry said, completely oblivious to the very turned on young woman in the room with him. “I promise to pay you back for this and the food as soon as I can get some money.”

Lily couldn't tear her eyes away from him. He had a slim body; but, he obviously had stayed in shape and looked more like a swimmer's build than any kind of bodybuilder. If he added more meat onto his bones, she was sure that he would be drop dead gorgeous and all the girls would be throwing themselves at him.

Harry finished with his hair and wiped at his ears and then under his arms and down his sides, then whipped the end of the towel out and caught it with his other hand and then did several swipes of his back to catch the run-off from his previously wet hair. He had no clue that he was completely turning on the girl intensely watching him without even trying.

Lily licked her lips at the eye-candy he was giving her and she felt herself get wet. She wasn't sure if it was the casualness or his ignorance of how good he looked that was turning her on more. In reality, it didn't matter, because he got her motor running and she really liked it. That he wasn't rubbing his sexiness in her face like that arrogant jerk named James Potter did, made it all the better.

When Harry tried to step by her, Lily couldn't stop herself as she slipped her arms around his neck and pulled him in to give him a very sensual snogging that put every other snog to shame, even the one they had shared earlier.

They both felt it when Little Harry made an appearance and the tied up robe wasn't much defense to stop the prominence from showing, which was why Harry had tied it around his waist. If he had worn it normally, Lily would have had it rubbing up against her abdomen and that would have been much more embarrassing. For Harry. Lily would have loved to see what was poking her so nicely.

They broke the kiss and they both blushed from how good it felt. Lily wanted to do more, a lot more, and she forced herself to not reach down to dig inside that damn robe that was in her way. Harry blushed, because this girl was supposed to be his mother, well would be in about four years. No, should be. He was changing things by just being there.

After a kiss like that, Harry wasn't sure if he should care if he was ever born. He had never felt so many swirling emotions from any other kiss he had, which was saying something. His record of fantastic kisses was at a whopping number of two, and both of them were with the girl he just kissed.

“G-g-goodnight.” Lily stammered and gave him another quick kiss before she quickly walked away.

“Night.” Harry whispered at her retreating form and watched her walk up the stairs. He hadn't realized Lily wore denim jeans so tight that they showed off all of her curves and he couldn't tear his gaze away from her arse until she had disappeared at the top of the stairs.

It was such a weird experience that Harry was distracted as he absently brought his clothes to the laundry room and set them to wash after removing his wands from the pockets. He walked back to the living room, took off the robe and exposed himself completely, then climbed under the blanket to lay down.

Harry never saw the narrow eyes of Lily's sister at the top of the stairs on the other side of the hallway or her angry jealous look.

*

The next morning, Harry was up first, like always, and he slipped on the robe and went to the laundry room. He tossed just his wet boxers into the dryer and ran them through a quick cycle to dry them first and put them on under the robe. He added the rest of his clothes to be dried properly, including the towel and face cloth he had used the night before, and went to the kitchen to start making breakfast.

After rummaging through the cupboards the night before to make sandwiches, he had seen the things he needed to make a proper English breakfast. He would be paying for the food as soon as he could, so he didn't feel guilty about using up a few of their things, like the last of the eggs and the milk, after he made sure there was enough set aside for tea. He didn't want them going without the essentials because he wanted to get fancy with breakfast.

Just as he finished plating everything up and getting the tea off the stove after steeping properly, a man entered the kitchen and frowned at Harry puttering around the kitchen.

“Good morning, Mr. Evans.” Harry said as soon as he saw the man. “Your daughter Lily let me stay the night, so I prepared breakfast as a thank you. As soon as I get some money, I'll reimburse you for everything I've used, including the couch last night.”

This was apparently the right thing to say, because the man nodded and sat at the head of the table. Harry wasn't an idiot and prepped a cup of tea for him and silently motioned to each thing to add to it. The man nodded or shook his head for each thing as he ate and Harry stirred the tea and set it at the best spot to grab without disturbing the meal.

The mother entered at that point after observing the interaction, and sat beside her husband. She wasn't surprised when Harry did the same procedure with her and she had to hide her smile at how easily the young man had put them at ease after what happened yesterday. She had been upset for hours afterwards on Petunia's behalf, then she thought about it.

It was Petunia's fault for angering him and then that magical policewoman had shown up and cleared the whole thing up. The young man was allowed to cast magic and hadn't broken any laws, so he was only given a warning and let off. It gave her a more potent perspective about wizarding society and she had shared her opinion with her husband.

He had grunted and didn't speak at the time, so she expected this morning would have been a bit of a fight, either verbally or physically. Seeing Lily's friend dressed in her frilly robe had kind of set the mood to be lighthearted, though. His thinner body let him pull off the look, too. She just hoped he was wearing something under... yes, he was. Boxers.

Harry pulled the robe closed as he sat at the far end of the table and his face was red as he dug into the food. Lily's mother had to clamp her mouth shut for several moments to not laugh at how demure he looked and she glanced at her husband. He looked to be fighting off a good laugh, too.

“Good morning!” Lily said as she breezed into the kitchen wearing pyjamas. She went to her father and kissed his cheek, went to her mother and did the same, then she sat beside Harry and gave him a cheek kiss, too. “You didn't have to make breakfast, Harry.”

“I wanted to keep busy as I dried my clothes, so it wasn't a bother.” Harry said.

Lily tasted a forkful of scrambled eggs and caught her breath.

“Warming charms.” Harry whispered as an explanation.

Lily nodded and tried to hide her surprise at the simple and versatile use of a charm she only ever used on herself or her clothing when it was chilly. Using it on food had never occurred to her and she kept glancing at Harry and wondered what else he knew and could teach her.

A sullen looking Petunia entered the kitchen and scowled at Harry and sat. She looked at the food and her eyes narrowed at the extravagant breakfast that her mother rarely served, because it was a waste of food if everyone didn't eat everything as soon as it was cooked. Eating it cold ruined the taste.

Since the others at the table were already eating, Petunia knew hers would be that way. She sighed and stood with the plate and went to the garbage.

“What are you doing?!?” Lily exclaimed.

“It's cold, so I'm tossing it. I'll have toast or something.” Petunia said and tipped it, only for the food to stay where it was. “Wh-what is this freakishness?”

Their mother sighed. “I assume it's part of the warming charm.”

Harry shook his head. “It's a sticking charm. Sausages tend to roll off the plate if you're not careful moving them around. I learned a long time ago to never spill any food.”

Lily knew there was a lot more to that than what he admitted, because she saw the dark look on Harry's face as he tried to not look at Petunia.

“I'm not eating this freak food!” Petunia spat and dropped the entire plate into the trash with a clunk.

“Petunia.” Her father's voice said in an even tone. Even though he hadn't raised his voice, everyone but Harry winced. “Please take that plate out of the trash and put it in the sink.”

Petunia looked disgusted as she reached into the trash can and dug out the plate. No one spoke or moved as she managed to get it out, only a few other things had stuck to it. There was also a small piece of it missing.

Her disgust changed to embarrassment as she stood there and didn't know what to do. Her father told her to put the plate in the sink. Since the plate was broken, it should be put in the trash. It was quite the problem for her and she was confused.

To everyone's surprise, Harry stood and walked over to her. He took the plate from her and held it over the trash as he took out his wand from the robe's pocket. “Finite.” He said and the food slid off into the trash. “Accio broken plate pieces.”

Several shards and things flew out and he easily caught them on the plate.

“Reparo.” Harry said and the pieces of ceramic snapped to the missing part and then it looked like a normal plate and hadn't just been broken. “Scorgify.” He said and cleaned it, then handed the plate back to Petunia. He didn't say anything else and went back to the table and sat down to finish eating.

No one moved or said anything and Harry put his dirty dishes in the sink and set it up to wash the others, nodded to Lily, and left the kitchen. The Evans Family stayed silent until they heard the dryer cut out and the timer buzzed.

“I'll do the dishes later.” Lily said and stood, then bent back down to shove as much of her remaining breakfast into her mouth. She left the kitchen with her mouth stuffed and desperately chewed it to swallow it as quickly as possible.

Petunia looked at the doorway for a few seconds, then very slowly put the plate into the soapy water of the sink and left the kitchen without eating.

Her mother took a sip of her tea, which was delicious, and glanced at her husband. He had started eating again and quickly finished the food. He stood and put his dishes in the sink before going back to the table. He gave his wife a peck on the lips and left the house to go to work, all without saying a word.

She looked at the kitchen doorway that had several quiet people pass through it that morning, and picked up her fork again to spear one of the sausages. It really did stay stuck until you pulled it from the plate and she nibbled on it. She would never openly admit that it was cooked perfectly or that she could never match the quality.

It was one of the reasons why she almost never prepared a full English breakfast for the entire family. It was too much work for so little reward, and they almost never appreciated the effort anyway. Until today. Petunia's reaction was more in line with how it usually went, so Harry's slight alterations had changed how they all perceived breakfast.

Now she wondered how she was going to talk to her daughter about her behavior and being unreasonable about everything. It hadn't been so bad with just her and Lily having their little fights, since sisters always had them. She didn't realize that Petunia resented Lily so much because she could do magic and felt that all magic should be hated.

Again, Harry's casual use of magic had shown them that it could do small things that would help a lot more than any of them ever thought. The restriction of not being allowed to do magic at home when out of school, had denied them all of those benefits for the last six years.

She couldn't stop her mind going over all the things that she and her family had broken over the years and how easy it would have been to have magic fix it immediately. She finished off the food and added her dishes to the soapy water and wondered if he used magic to cook the food.

When she glanced at the drying pans and cooking utensils on the rack beside the sink, she knew he hadn't. She sighed softly and dug her hands into the water and started washing the dishes. Doing them wasn't the chore that her daughters thought it was, especially when you had something to think about. It kept you busy as your mind worked and was almost relaxing.

She added the dishes to the drying rack and still hadn't come up with a safe way to approach Petunia, so she sighed again and went to the laundry room to get started on the washing. She stopped in the doorway, because the two baskets of dirty clothes had been sorted and the washing machine already had the first load in.

At least he's handy to have around. She thought and went back to the living room, turned on the television, and curled up on the couch as she snuggled into the nice-smelling pillow. She drifted off to sleep as she waited for the buzzer to switch the wet load into the dryer and to add the next load of clothing to be washed.

*

Lily had caught Harry as he was gathering his clothes and brought him up to her room to change. She hadn't asked him to wait for her to go first, either. She gathered her clothes and gave him a sheepish look and then smiled as she pulled off her pyjama top.

Harry's mouth dropped open and he stared at seeing a girl's naked breasts. Like every boy ever, he had seen pictures in the dorm room, thanks to Seamus and Dean and their girly magazines. For the first time in his life, he reacted to seeing them and his boxers tent-poled.

Lily glanced down at the nearly instant reaction and felt quite proud. Her breasts weren't the largest in her year and they weren't the smallest, either. She didn't bother looking back up at what she knew would be his blushing face, because she decided to not tease him and slipped on her bra.

When she turned around and pulled her pyjama pants down, she softly giggled at the odd choking sound she heard. Her panties had been a little bold for wearing at night and she hadn't sweated under her blanket, so her shower hadn't been ruined. That was fortunate, because she now had a captured audience whose eyes were almost burning through her as she pulled on her jeans.

They were a lighter color than the ones she wore yesterday, so you could really see how well they fit. Unfortunately, when she pulled them up, her panties had bunched up a little. She sighed and had to wiggle them down to her thighs and then bent over slightly as she used her fingertips to work the thin cloth of her panties out of her butt crack.

When it was settled right, Lily pulled her jeans back up and hummed at the much better fit. She pulled on a nice blouse and buttoned it up to three-quarters and left it like that, so she could let it billow out at certain times to give Harry a teasing glimpse occasionally.

A boy's fascination with breasts wasn't easy to understand, except for the fact that they could be used to catch their attention, and she wanted Harry's attention. Even though he had just seen her bare breasts, she hoped that he would want to see more of them.

After Lily was fully dressed, had used an elastic around her wrist to hold her wand, and had brushed her long red hair to make it look good for going outside, she turned towards Harry and gave him a beaming smile. It was then she realized Harry had been so stunned by her actions that he hadn't been able to do more than stare at her the entire time with his mouth hanging open.

Lily couldn't stop her laugh and walked over to him, her hips swaying. Harry looked like a deer caught in a car's headlights and she reached down to untie the robe and slid it off of his shoulders. She had to take his bundle of clothes from him to put on her bed and she pulled the robe the rest of the way off.

Harry moved automatically as she handed him his socks and he put them on while standing. Lily was impressed with his balance and handed him his pants. She didn't ask him why they were two sizes too large or why they had a piece of rope for a belt. His large undershirt was next, as was the long sleeved t-shirt.

It would be a little warm for him this time of year; but, Lily knew he wouldn't leave anything behind. She also didn't ask him what he had in that little pouch that hung around his neck. It wasn't her business and if he wanted her to know, he would tell her about it.

When Harry was finally dressed, Lily dug through the robe and handed him both of his wands. Harry tucked them away up his sleeves and Lily understood why he was wearing long sleeves now. She grabbed his hand and picked up her small purse before she led him out of her room and down the stairs.

They didn't see or hear anyone else, except for the washer and dryer working, so Lily took him outside and down the street. In a secluded spot, she took out her wand and summoned the Knight Bus.

Harry didn't ask her where they were going, because he was still working through what had just happened. He had seen... he saw everything... and he couldn't fight his hard-on or could get it to go away. The pleased look on Lily's face also gave him a reason to not try too hard to do that.

“Gringotts.” Lily said and paid for two fares to London and sat down with Harry on the closest couch.

Harry put an arm over her and automatically cast a sticking charm on the floor to secure their seat. Since they were at the front, the back of the couch would take most of the beatings from the other passengers and couches.

A hair-raising ride later, they entered the Leaky Cauldron. Lily said hello to a young Tom the Barman and went out the back with Harry. Lily opened the way and they walked down the alley to the bank. Harry was kind of rubbernecking as he looked at the restored alley, then remembered this one hadn't suffered massive attacks from death eaters in the second wizarding war.

Harry's mind almost stuttered to a stop when he realized this was when the first wizarding war was just heating up. He could stop all of those families being massacred if he took the initiative and started to fight against the death eaters. His first big task was the horcruxes and he would need to do some research on them. Was his future knowledge of any use this far back in time?

They entered the goblin bank and Lily brought him all the way across the large main room and over to the small desk marked 'Inheritances'. Harry kind of stared at it, because that desk was not there in the future.

“Greetings, master goblin.” Lily said and nodded her head. She smiled and kept her lips together, because she didn't want to insult him or cause him to snarl back for showing teeth as a challenge to his bravery.

The goblin gave her a pointed look and smiled back. “What can we do for you, Miss Evans?”

“You remembered me?” Lily asked, surprised.

“You visited here two years ago for an inheritance check.” The goblin said and didn't tell her that once she had given them a drop of her blood, they had added her into the identification wards and every goblin could check to see who she was. It was also a trick to entice new clients into opening a vault and using their services more often.

Lily tried to not blush or be flattered for being remembered after so long. She had been disappointed that she wasn't a long-lost member of an extinct family line or inherited a secret vault filled with gold. It had made the goblin laugh when she admitted that, then he told her that everyone that came in for testing had felt the same way, and she didn't have to be embarrassed.

“My friend Harry wants to check if he has any secret inheritances.” Lily said and took out her coin purse.

“Five galleons.” The goblin said and Lily paid for it.

Harry looked a little guilty as he spoke up for the first time. “I'd like to have privacy for this.”

Both Lily and the goblin gave him surprised looks.

“I'm sure there won't be any surprises.” Harry said. “I just don't want everyone else knowing my family business.”

Lily couldn't stop from feeling hurt that Harry didn't want her to know.

Harry gave her hand a squeeze. “Don't think like that. I plan on telling you everything, even if it's just me registering my name officially.”

“That's the next desk over.” The goblin said and didn't elaborate. He stood up and his height didn't change from when he was sitting down. “Miss Evans, you can wait over there.” He said and pointed before he looked at Harry. “This way.”

Harry nodded and let Lily's hand go, gave her his best smile, and followed the goblin down a hallway and into a small room. A sore fingertip and three drops of blood later, Harry watched as his family tree grew from the seeds of his blood. The special parchment kept unrolling as more and more branches grew from his name and created his family tree.

It seemed to slow down when it reached the top of the tree at the Peverell family, then it grew down from the canopy and filled in all the people that had been born from them. Even the goblin had been entranced by the thing as it grew and grew, branches withering as families and descendants died out, then the side branch reached the Gaunt family.

It ended at Thomas Marvolo Riddle and the name was partially greyed out and wasn't a full black like the others, which meant he was technically alive but was barely recognized as a family member. The goblin spent several minutes writing it all out, noting the names of families all along the branches that had no other descendants, cousins, or relations.

“I have both good news and bad news.” The goblin said and handed him the list of 'dead' family names. “You can claim any of these names as your own, since you shouldn't exist.”

Harry accepted the list and was glad that Peverell was at the top. “What's the bad news?”

“All of the families you could claim an inheritance with have died out. After a hundred years, any arrears are claimed by the bank and items or heirlooms sold off to cover any fees and expenses. All loans are called in as well and recovered by seizing property and selling it off to recover as much gold as possible.”

Harry sighed and tried to not feel disappointed. “Is there anything left? From any of it?”

The goblin shook his head. “All related vaults have been closed. Any families that still have living members have primary rights to their family vaults and items.”

Harry sat back on the chair and thought about what he heard. “Wait, you said that I shouldn't exist!”

“Caught that, did you?” The goblin chuckled. “The two people listed as your parents are actually younger than you and your magic doesn't match theirs.”

Harry blinked his eyes in confusion. “Excuse me?”

The goblin took out a piece of parchment and made a circle with a quill and ink. “This is Lily Evans.” He drew a line and a circle at the end. “This is her magic signature embedded in her blood.”

Harry nodded as he followed along.

He drew a triangle and a line with a smaller triangle on it. “This is James Potter and his magic.” The goblin drew a large circle and drew a large triangle around it. “Their magic combines in a child and makes this.”

Harry tried his best to not shout in surprise at the example. It was two parts of the hallows! That couldn't be a coincidence!

“This is your magic signature.” The goblin said and drew the same symbol again, only this time he drew a line from the top of the triangle and bisected the circle perfectly. “As you can see, it is similar and yet very different.”

Harry's mouth wouldn't work at seeing the mark of the deathly hallows as his magic signature.

“This is proof that you are not from this world, since this line shouldn't exist.” The goblin drew half a line in the triangle that was James and the bottom half of the line in the circle that was Lily. “This is what is needed to produce a child with your signature.”

Harry stared and stared at it, lost in his shock. Not only had the goblin showed him that the hallows had been involved in whatever happened to him, he also told him that this Lily Evans couldn't be his mother. Harry wasn't only back in time like he thought, he was in a completely different world.

“Are you all right?” The goblin asked.

“I... I...” Harry shook his head to try and reboot his brain. He couldn't afford to not have his wits about him, especially now that he knew he was in a different world than his own. “I'm going to be fine, master goblin.”

The goblin gave him a pointed look for several seconds, then shrugged and lit the parchment examples on fire and they burned up to nothing. He picked up the large family tree and gave it a quick look, then he waved his hand and a copy appeared.

Harry accepted the copy and rolled it up tightly to put into his moleskin pouch. It wouldn't fit, so he had to take out his invisibility cloak and put that into his pocket and the parchment fit into the pouch.

“Use the list to choose your name.” The goblin said and stood up from behind the desk.

Harry stood and followed him out with the list in his hand. “Before we go out, can you check something for me?”

The goblin stopped and Harry handed him his vault key. He took it and closely examined it, let out a grunt, and waved his hand over it. It glowed gold for a second and didn't change. He handed the key back and Harry put it back into his moleskin pouch.

“Further proof that you are not from here. That is a valid key to a vault that doesn't exist and the magic signature has your line through it.” The goblin said.

Harry nodded and opened the door for the goblin.

The creature grunted at him in thanks and they went back down the hallway to the main area. He pointed at the right desk for Harry to change his name and went back to his own. Lily practically teleported from the waiting area to Harry's side and her mind raced with so many questions that she didn't know what to ask first.

Harry recognized that look, because it was so similar to Hermione's. “In a bit.” He whispered and turned to the goblin at the desk. “Master goblin, I want to register under an ancient family name.”

The goblin gave him a searching look before he held a hand out. Harry handed him the list of family names and the goblin took several minutes to read them all. Like the other goblin, he made note of them all, since they were all extinct and none of them had active vaults anymore.

“What family name will you be registering under?” The goblin asked and handed the list back.

“The top one, Peverell. My name is Harry Ignotius Peverell.” Harry said.

“That will be one galleon.” The goblin said and quickly filled out the form. “A copy will be filed with the Ministry of Magic by noon today.”

Harry assumed the goblin didn't need his real name in order to change it, not realizing he had been keyed into the wards already and he already knew it. Lily handed over the coin without a word.

“Will you be opening a vault with us?” The goblin asked and handed him a copy of the completed form.

“Not yet. I need to make some galleons first.” Harry said, not really knowing how to do that.

The goblin gave him a pointed look. “Depending on the number of galleons, reopening a defaulted account could benefit you more than starting a new one.”

Lily caught her breath, because goblins didn't offer financial advice like that. The Peverell family must have held a lot of weight with them for him to speak up.

Harry also looked surprised before he schooled his face and nodded. “I'll keep it in mind.”

The goblin nodded back. “New accounts are the next desk and Accounts Recoverable is the desk after that.”

Harry nodded again and took Lily's hand to lead her out of the bank. When they were outside, Lily took a deep breath to start asking questions.

“Not yet.” Harry said and they walked in silence all the way down the alley to the exit, went through the Leaky Cauldron, and stepped out onto Charring Cross Road. They didn't leave the little notice-me-not bubble around the front of the pub and leaned against the wall. “Go ahead.”

“What was all of that?” Lily asked. She had gone with a general question instead of a specific one, like why he didn't have any money like he said he would.

Harry took a deep breath as well and let it out. Instead of answering, he handed her the list of dead family names. “I could have picked any of those names, because they're extinct with no other accepted members left.”

Lily devoured the list like it was going to be on a test later. “Then why...”

“After a set amount of time, all the vaults were closed, fees and loans reclaimed, and heirlooms and properties seized and sold to cover everything.” Harry said. “There's nothing left to claim.”

Lily was shocked. “Not even from Peverell? It's one of the oldest names if it's at the top of the list.”

“It was probably one of the first ones closed.” Harry said with a sigh. “Like you heard, the prestige the bank would get for reopening an old vault would increase their reputation.”

“And yours.” Lily said, now knowing why the goblin offered that particular advice.

“I also found out that...” Harry paused and turned to look at her. “I'm not from this world.”

Lily's eyes widened. “I thought... you were shocked by the date...”

“Yeah.” Harry whispered. “I thought you dragged me back in time to years before I was born.”

“That... that shouldn't be possible.” Lily whispered back and hugged the parchment.

“I figured that. It was really confusing for me to eventually figure out that I was meeting people that have been dead for a long time. I was scared to say anything because it might change the future.” Harry said and Lily looked pale.

“How... how long...” Lily asked in a whisper.

“From when I left, about 16 years for a few of you, one a couple years ago, and three just recently.” Harry told her.

Lily felt faint and the list slipped from her hands as she grabbed onto Harry tightly. Everyone she knew was supposed to be dead?

“It was such a relief to find out I'm in another world and none of that will ever happen.” Harry said with a happy voice and turned Lily in his arms to look deep into her eyes. “Do you get it? You are not the Lily I barely heard anything about when I was young. Your friends aren't the ones people rarely talked about as I grew up. None of what I've seen and heard about you all will ever come to pass.”

Lily slowly started to realize what he meant. “Because... because I wished for you to help me.”

Harry beamed a smile at her and Lily's heart fluttered. “You wanted help and your magic latched onto me and brought me here.” He said and realized it was true. “I came across time and dimensions for you, Lily Evans.”

Lily almost fainted when she heard that, because she realized it was true, too. “Harry.” She breathed, then pulled him away from the wall to deeply kiss him. Harry accepted the kiss, knowing she wasn't the girl that would eventually become his mother. They were two different people, especially with him there to change things.

Harry wasn't going to let events happen the same way, now that he knew for a fact that he could interfere and it wouldn't erase him from existence. Lily slid a hand down to grip his butt and Harry moaned into her mouth, which gave Lily such a thrill and a feeling of power that she wanted to stay that way forever.

Lily moaned as well when one of Harry's hands slid down to grip her arse and gave her several squeezes and caresses. She wasn't sure why she was suddenly okay with having a guy grope her when she had reacted violently after James and Severus had tried to get frisky with her. Maybe it was because it was her choice and she wanted him to touch her? She had been the one to start snogging him, after all.

About ten minutes later, they ended the snogging session and neither of them were blushing. They had gained a lot of confidence about themselves after their revelations and they both knew that the other definitely wanted to have their attention. They also really liked having that attention.

“What... what are we going to do now?” Lily asked, sexily.

Harry couldn't stop his smirk at her suggestive tone, even though he had never heard anything like that directed at him before. “I need to keep my word to you and your father to pay you back.”

Lily blinked her eyes at him for several seconds. “How are you going to do that? All those vaults have defaulted and closed.”

“I need to think about it.” Harry said and leaned against the wall as he pulled her in against his body. He absently summoned the dropped sheet and stuffed it into his moleskin pouch.

Lily easily fit into his embrace without having to adjust herself, which proved she was meant to be there. She stayed quiet as she watched various thoughts go across Harry's face. She knew he was thinking furiously about how to make money quickly and she wondered what he would come up with, considering he wasn't from this world.

Harry's slightly vacant gaze focused on her face and he smiled. “Would one of the clothing shops in Diagon Alley pay for some unprocessed Acromantula silk?”

Lily caught her breath. “H-Harry, you... you can't... that's dangerous! Acromantula are man-eaters!”

Harry chuckled. “Relax, Lily. I know where an entire colony of them are. We can skim around the outskirts, well outside their claimed territory, and safely harvest some of the outer clumps and warning strips. They'll never know we were there.”

Lily was stunned. She never would have thought of doing that, not in a million years, and then she realized what he said. “W-w-we?”

Harry smiled warmly. “I doubt you will let me leave your sight so soon after a kiss like that.”

“Damn right!” Lily groused and then blushed at admitting that.

Harry chuckled. “Summon the Knight Bus and we can head there right now. It's daytime, so the spiders are going to be nesting and tending to their brood for hours yet.”

Lily didn't move from where she was snuggled against him and held her wand out like she was hailing a taxi. About thirty seconds later, the Knight Bus appeared at the end of the street with a crack and drove over to stop in front of the Leaky Cauldron. Lily reluctantly let Harry go and gave him a longing look, then climbed onto the bus and paid the two fees.

Harry told them to go to Hogsmeade and he braced Lily in the front seat again. She didn't shy away from his protection and used his closeness to tease him a little and nibbled on his earlobe. Harry had to fight to not moan for her, which seemed to urge Lily on to do more to try and get a reaction out of him.

By the time they arrived in Hogsmeade nearly fifteen minutes later, Harry had a hickey and a set of teeth marks on his neck. He was also sporting an erection and a very bright red face, because he couldn't keep his moans to himself. Lily looked very pleased as she led him off of the bus and waved to the conductor before the Knight Bus sped away down the lane and disappeared with a crack.

“Where to now?” Lily asked.

Harry pulled her into his embrace and Lily almost melted into him, because they fit so well together. He twisted them with a crack and they appeared in a small clearing that was deep inside the Forbidden Forest.

“In my world, this was where Hagrid kept his giant little brother that was twice his height.” Harry explained and stepped back as he took one of her hands. “The closest edge of the Acromantula nest is a few hundred feet in that direction.”

Lily hadn't heard anything he said, because she had been completely distracted by what Harry had just done. “You... you just... you apparated with me! That was side-along apparition!”

Harry nodded and started to walk into the forest.

“How am I not sick? That's the very first time I've apparated and the guides all say that you have to apparate several times to get used to it before you don't feel nauseous!”

Harry smiled and led her through the trees. “What they don't tell you is that if you are more careful about using your magic and ensure your passenger is completely protected, the squeezing feeling is severely lessened on the both of you.”

Lily soaked that explanation up and was quiet for a few minutes, then she sucked in a sharp breath when she realized something. “You know how to apparate!”

Harry chuckled. “Yes, I do. I learned it by necessity from a friend of mine while we dealt with something important for nearly a year.”

Lily digested that almost immediately. “You were fighting and needed a fast way to escape!”

Harry turned his head back briefly to smile at her for guessing correctly. “It took a few encounters to figure it out, after my friend had taken myself and another... friend... along a bunch of times.”

Lily heard the hesitation and didn't ask for clarification. She had her own experiences with friends that weren't friends for a while and knew exactly how Harry felt. “Will you tell me what happened?”

“I said I'd tell you, I just need time to get through it myself.” Harry said. “It was... a very long year.”

Lily stopped walking and pulled on his hand. Harry felt the tug and let it pull him back around and he turned to face her. She gave him a piercing look and then softly kissed him for several minutes.

“I know it just happened for you, so I won't push.” Lily whispered with a soft voice. “When you're ready, I'll be here for you to tell me everything.”

Harry gave her a searching look and didn't see any deceit, so he nodded. Lily smiled at him and motioned to the forest with her free hand, so he turned back around and led her deeper into the forest.

They soon came across several loose strands of spider silk and Lily watched as Harry showed how smart he was by casting an immobilization spell on the silk, the leaves, and the trees. Once he did that, he started to cast a weak summoning charm on the silk in the area. It didn't take long to gather quite the large bundle and Lily temporarily transfigured a pile of leaves into a large canvas bag.

It was easy to squeeze a lot of silk into the thing and they moved along the edge of the area and Harry repeated the procedure to gather a significant pile of silk. Since none of it was clumped together or had the smaller spiders in it, the silk webbing didn't have to be fumigated or cleaned.

When they figured they had enough for a nice payout with three full canvas bags, Harry and Lily retreated back through the trees and returned to the small clearing that they had apparated into. They didn't leave from where they had been, because they didn't want to alert any Acromantula that might have been nearby to hear the crack of apparition or the feeling of the air being displaced.

Harry hugged Lily and the large bags between them and apparated them back to the end of the lane at Hogsmeade. Lily summoned the Knight Bus again and they rode it back to London and the Leaky Cauldron. They entered Diagon Alley and Lily debated between several of the clothing stores, then decided the higher end store was a better choice and could deal with raw materials better.

The owner of Twilfitt and Tattings was delighted to receive several fairly large bundles of virgin Acromantula silk that he could play with and work into both cloth and thread. He paid a very nice price for it and agreed to pay the same amount in a week for another delivery. Harry and Lily left the shop in a great mood and with a bag full of galleons.

Harry split the money with Lily, despite her protests, and then he paid her for everything she had spent on his behalf. Lily didn't protest that and added it to her share. They went to the bank and Harry converted a good portion of his galleons into muggle currency and then they left the alley to return to her house.

He tried to convince her that he should stay at the Leaky Cauldron, because he didn't want to impose on her and her family, and Lily was having none of it. His own admission that he had crossed time and dimensions for her, had fully convinced Lily that Harry was hers and she wasn't going to let him get away from her. Not now and not ever. Harry had blushed at her words and he didn't try to argue any more when faced with her resolve.

They had been gone for quite some time, so when they arrived home, Lily was given the third degree by her mother. It wasn't quite an interrogation, especially when she had finally made Lily admit that nothing had happened between her and Harry besides kissing. They had only gone for a walk in the woods and forgot about keeping track of time and they hadn't done anything shameful.

When her mother reminded them about needing a few things to make supper, Harry immediately offered to go shopping for them to replace what he used. The three of them quickly made up a list of what was needed for the house and Harry and Lily left to go buy everything. It had surprised her mother at how eager he was and that he refused the money she offered to pay for it.

Harry and Lily had a great time at the grocery store as they carried on. They picked up everything their mother needed and a few things Harry needed to make a meal or two. When he described them, Lily couldn't stop her mouth from watering, because the food sounded delicious and she could easily convince her parents to let Harry cook. His breakfast was enough proof to let him try a main meal at least once.

While they were on their way back to Lily's house and carrying several bulging bags of groceries, Lily realized something important. Her eyes went right to Harry as they walked and Harry stopped talking about the proper way to make gravy from drippings.

“What is it?” Harry asked her worried face.

“School.” Lily responded. “School is starting in a few weeks and we missed the cut-off date to register you.”

Harry frowned as he thought about that. “School? I never even thought about that. Not until I returned to take care of...” He stopped himself before he said the name. He couldn't remember when Voldemort had made the name taboo the first time, so saying it nonchalantly would endanger whomever he was with.

Lily tilted her head slightly. “What do you mean, you never thought about it? Didn't you go to Hogwarts?”

“I finished my sixth year and had to leave to go on a... quest of sorts.” Harry hedged. “I never went back to attend my seventh year and only returned to help defend the castle when it was attacked.”

Lily's eyes widened at the admission and she really wanted to ask him what else happened.

“I can't explain more, not without possibly putting you and your family in danger.” Harry said, not lying at all. If they knew some of the things he did, they really would be in danger.

Lily could tell he wasn't lying, not with his face showing his emotions so freely. “I said I wouldn't push for more. You know I'm just curious.”

Harry smiled at her and they walked the rest of the way to her house in silence. He almost lost track of time as he thought about the first and easiest horcrux to look for. “Is there a curse on the Defense Against the Dark Arts position?”

“Yes. We've had a new teacher every year for several years.” Lily said.

Harry knew then that Tom Riddle had already visited Hogwarts after becoming Voldemort. He had applied for the teaching position and cursed it when Dumbledore refused to give it to him. Harry had also figured out that he also hid Ravenclaw's Diadem inside the Room of Requirement at the same time.

“You've figured something out.” Lily said. Since it wasn't a question, Harry didn't answer.

“Do you think you can send an owl to Madam McGonagall for me?” Harry asked. “When we gather another bundle of silk next week, I'll have enough for this year's supplies for Hogwarts and to buy some wizarding robes.”

Lily barely stopped herself from looking down at what he was wearing. “You need some normal clothes, too. One outfit is not going to be enough to wear all year.”

Harry opened his mouth to say he wasn't staying all year and only needed access to the castle, then his mind started going over everything that happened to him. The revelation about why he was here and not back where he came from, and mourning the deaths of the people he knew, gave him the ridiculous idea that he might not want to go back.

Here, he was Harry Peverell and not Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived. He wasn't famous and he wasn't hounded by people to hurry up and save them all the time. That was when he realized it was his job here as well, only there was no pressure to get it done as soon as possible. No one knew what he knew, no one knew what he could do, and no one was in a position to stop him.

A smile started to grow on his face and Harry turned his head to show it to Lily. She blushed when she saw it and didn't care what caused it. She liked it and that was all she cared about.

They arrived back at the house and Lily's mother was surprised the two teens had bought so much and helped them put everything away. Again she offered to pay for it and Harry refused, even if his funds had taken a significant hit with the large purchase. He was also going to share in it, so paying for it was the right thing to do.

Lily's mother couldn't deny his reasoning and accepted it, then tried to shoo him and Lily out of the kitchen so she could start supper. Harry offered to help to make it go faster, and she thought about it. After a few minutes, she agreed and Lily sat at the kitchen table and watched as her surprised mother had a good time cooking a meal with a relative stranger.

How is he not getting in her way? Lily asked herself as Harry practically danced around the kitchen and did all the little things that always annoyed her about preparing a meal for so many people.

Her mother seemed to have the same opinion, because she had a huge smile on her face by the time they added the roast to the oven with all the trimmings and then prepped the dessert to cool in the refrigerator.

This time when her mother shooed Harry out of the kitchen, it was with a hug and a well-deserved thank you. Lily and Harry had some time to waste before it would be ready, so Lily took him up to her room and shut the door. It had a lock and she clicked it, then she looked a little determined.

Harry wasn't sure what she was going to do, until she stepped close to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. Lily gave him an intense look and then did her best to snog him senseless. Harry didn't mind at all.

*

Minerva McGonagall stared at the request from one of her favorite students and didn't know how to handle it. On one hand, Lily Evans had never asked her for anything like it before. On the other hand, it was a week after the cut-off date to officially register and qualify for ministry funding. Lily's excuse that Mr. Peverell only just now became available to attend, was a weak one.

She sighed and looked over the school's roster and counted the number of students she had in each house. Her mind automatically thinking that she could use another Griffindor to balance the four terrors she already had in that dorm room and they wouldn't be outnumbered by the other houses.

It was another ten minutes before Minerva made her decision and took out a registration form, back-dated it to the new student's birthday of July 31, the day before the cut-off date, and added Mr. Peverell to the student's roll-call. She added his name onto the first year list to be sorted and thought about skipping that, then shrugged. Since he was already a Griffindor, it would be announced to the whole school.

*

“I really don't want a medical check-up.” Harry said as Lily dragged him out of the house.

“Harry, you are way too thin. I've been shoving food down your throat for a week and you haven't gained an ounce of fat.” Lily said and summoned the Knight Bus. She didn't have to remind him that she had been quite diligent in checking him over, since that had only been a recent game they started playing.

It kind of surprised her that Harry blushed more than she did as they tried exploring each other with their clothes on. It also let her know that Harry appreciated it when he was allowed to see her without clothes and then touch her. He was so careful about not hurting her that it was endearing and a little maddening.

Harry's gentle groping of her breasts and his tender kisses made Lily feel very loved and also frustrated, because she wanted him to suck hard on her nipples and maybe pinch them a little. A bit more stimulation would get her off quicker, she was sure. He was a bit too nice to do that right off the bat.

When they eventually progressed their game and Lily would be confident enough to remove her panties, she would do to him what she wanted him to do to her, since Harry apparently needed an example to follow. For some reason, she didn't think his attitude was wrong, he just never had anyone to do things with or really had the motivation.

Harry had been too busy trying to fight and survive the war to even think about girls. That revelation had shocked Lily to her core. She was mentally begging for details about the little things that Harry let slip while they talked about other things, which had her concentrating intensely as they talked.

An odd comment about starving not being new to him, or living on the run was almost normal for him, or dealing with crazy house elves, had her mind filling in all the things he didn't say. A lack of real food, being hunted by death eaters and something called snatchers, and wondering what a house elf was and what they did to be classed as being crazy.

The Knight Bus dropped them off in London and Lily took him into St. Mungo's. It didn't take them long to be seen, since it was early in the day and the more prolific cases of magic going wrong usually happened in the afternoons and evenings.

The healer, thinking he would be an easy visit, was blown out of the water after he cast his diagnostic spell on Harry. He cast it again and it gave the same results, so he had to leave and brought in three other healers. They cast their spells and the results were the same, which made them huddle in the corner of the room and talk furiously.

After five minutes, they broke like from a football huddle and spread out. They took up supporting positions for the first healer and the man looked nervous.

“Mister Peverell, this might be an odd question to ask.” The man said. “Why are you still alive?”

Harry wasn't sure what he was talking about, then he realized what he meant and spoke without thinking. “Oh, you detected the killing curse.”

Lily gasped and slapped a hand over her mouth, the shock clear on her face.

Harry cursed at himself for admitting it so casually, since the healers all looked shocked as well. Since he already let the cat out of the bag, he might as well go all in. “I've survived it twice, so it's not a big deal.”

Two of the healers fainted, one man and one woman, and Lily joined them. The other three healers looked like Christmas had arrived early.

Harry sighed and laid back on the examination table. “Please be gentle.”

They weren't.

*

Lily was pale when she returned three days later to pick Harry up. The healer had given her a parchment with all of Harry's injuries, broken bones, ailments, and conditions. The worst part was the intense potions regiment he would need to undergo for several weeks to correct everything. It was going to be really expensive and neither of them had the galleons to afford it.

Thankfully, they had received Minerva's owl last week that confirmed Harry's acceptance. Since he was enrolled in school, he could get the potions from the hospital wing at Hogwarts instead. That was what the medical report was for and Lily carefully stored it in her purse before she entered Harry's room.

Lily stopped dead when she saw Harry laying on the examination bed wearing only his boxers. Her eyes were so wide that they would have fallen out if they hadn't been attached.

“I know. I'm a mess.” Harry said and ran a hand over his short cropped hair. They had to shear it off to correct the badly healed fractured skull that had been caused by Petunia's frying pan when he was a child, not to mention the various falls where he hit his head and several bludgers to the face and head from Quidditch.

On the positive side, the dark magic in his scar was gone and they had easily healed and remove it. They also corrected his eyesight with a slight shrinking charm to the length of his eye to correct his nearsightedness. It had been his glasses that had given him his terrible eyesight, because his eyes were straining all the time from the wrong prescription and caused headaches.

Lily did not think he was a mess. Not at all. In fact, she thought this cleaned up Harry was drop dead gorgeous and the change had stunned her. With those big bulky glasses out of the way, his bright emerald green eyes almost glittered in the light. The weird bird's nest hair that was so similar to James Potter's, was now gone and gave him a roguish look, as if he was a local street thug.

Yes. Oh, yes. Yes, yes, yes. Lily definitely liked this new Harry. She liked him a lot.

“Lily? Why are you looking at me like that?” Harry asked when he finally noticed her hungry look.

Lily almost couldn't tear her gaze away from his body. She had been attracted to him before; but, this was on a whole different level. The healers had already started to treat Harry's malnourishment and his Quidditch-toned body was really standing out now, thanks to becoming more healthy.

“I'm sorry, Harry. I'm just...” Lily licked her lips. “...adjusting to your new look.”

Harry sighed, because he misunderstood what she was implying. “I'm sure it won't take long for me to grow my hair back out and...”

“NO!” Lily gasped and then blushed. “You... um... don't have to worry about that, Harry. I'm sure that I... that you will like having it this way for a while.”

Harry chose to not ask her what she meant and stood up on the floor to go to the closet. He pulled out his clothes and dressed, ignored the disappointed sigh he heard behind him, and checked to make sure he had everything. He had given his moleskin bag to Lily for safe keeping and looked at her. He saw that she was wearing it around her neck and he felt his heart beating faster, for some reason.

Surprisingly, he didn't feel like asking for it back, even though it had the things he cherished most inside. The shard of Sirius' broken mirror, the Maurauder's Map, the two halves of the snitch that the stone came from, the fake locket, and his broken Holly and Phoenix Feather wand. The cloak and his wands he had kept close by while he was being treated, just in case.

They left the room and went to the receptionist desk and talked to the Welcome Witch. Harry paid for his treatment and that pretty much drained his available funds. This didn't depress him, though. He felt better than ever and thought it was money well spent.

The thing was, Harry somehow knew that he wouldn't have received as good of a treatment if he was still back where he came from. Voldemort's indiscriminate killing had devastated the wizarding population and the quality of everything had dropped, including medical treatments and especially potions. Snape had ruined almost two decades of students and made them hate brewing potions.

Lily summoned the Knight Bus and they rode it back to a street near her house. She couldn't stop her hands from roaming over his arm and back as they sat together and Harry protected her like he always did. She didn't see it as him trying to control her, either. As soon as she wasn't in danger, he gave her as much space as she wanted. She just didn't want that space anymore.

“It's a good thing school is starting soon. Twilfitt and Tattings has more than enough silk and they won't buy any more for a while.” Harry said as they stepped off of the Knight Bus. They also didn't want to make the webbing less valuable by trying to sell it to other shops.

“We don't have much left after buying our school supplies, which my parents were really grateful for not having to pay themselves.” Lily said and cuddled into Harry's side as they walked down the street.

Harry's arm fit perfectly over her shoulders and he was only an inch taller than her after getting most of his bones regrown. Lily's worries that he would tower over her like James did, were dispelled.

“I think it's because converting muggle money to galleons seems to cost a lot more than just keeping things as galleons. It takes a lot more work outside of the wizarding world to make the same amount of money inside of it.” Harry said, his words more profound than he realized.

Lily barely had to think about that and agreed, since their two jaunts into the Forbidden Forest had earned them two bags of galleons that would have taken months of work on the muggle side to earn and convert, as her father could easily confirm.

Harry had to move his arm from Lily's shoulders as they entered the house. They kicked off their shoes by the door and heard a gasp. They turned to look and saw the back of Petunia's head as she ran from the room and up the stairs.

“What was that about?” Lily asked, concerned.

“Maybe it was me?” Harry asked and ran a hand over his short cropped hair.

Lily turned to him and tried to not blush at how sexy that move made him look. His muscles really stood out when he did that and his short hair made your eyes focus on his face and his dreamy eyes.

“She wasn't scared, if that's what you're thinking.” Lily admitted and blushed anyway. “It was probably just the differences since the last time she saw you.”

Harry could only nod and followed her into the kitchen. They had to drop off the potions he had to take for the next few days, since they had to be taken with meals. When they entered the kitchen, another gasp was heard and they turned to see Lily's mother standing near the sink and she stared at Harry with wide eyes.

“I think you're going to get that reaction a lot from now on.” Lily whispered and brought him over to her mother. “Mum? We need to claim the small cabinet beside the pantry until we go to school.”

Her mother nodded and didn't do anything else. The cookbook and stirring spoon in her hands had been forgotten.

Harry sighed and took the spoon as he glanced at the open cookbook and saw the recipe for making the batter to cover chicken legs. He had made it a bunch of times for his relatives, so he went to the counter and quickly finished adding in the spices and stirred them into the flour mixture.

Lily put the potions away and joined her mother as she stared at Harry working, because watching a guy that knew how to cook, was just as sexy as having him looking so yummy. And he did look yummy. Harry must have gained ten to fifteen pounds over the last few days and those pounds definitely went to the best spots.

Neither she nor her mother protested when Harry crushed up some crackers to add to the flour mixture and they watched as he added a handful of the mixture to a plastic sandwich bag. They didn't ask what he was doing and kept watching as he made a bowl with an egg wash and some milk.

Harry picked up an individual chicken leg and dunked it in the egg mixture bowl to cover it, then he put it in the sandwich bag and shook it to cover it in the spicy flour and cracker mixture. It was a completely novel way to do things, since Lily and her mother usually just tossed them all into the big bowl of flour and spices to cover them all at once.

“Are you frying them or oven baking them?” Harry asked.

Both Lily and her mother jumped slightly, beacuse it had been almost completely silent in the kitchen until Harry spoke.

“Oven baking.” Lily's mother said.

Harry nodded and pulled out the drawer below the oven and took out a large cookie sheet and turned the oven on to preheat it, then opened the cabinet beside the oven and took out a roll of wax paper.

Lily and her mother stared as he easily measured out the right size to cover the sheet, as if he was baking cookies, and then he put the chicken leg at the top corner. For the next ten minutes, Harry did each chicken leg and added more spicy flour to the sandwich bag as it kept getting used. Since there was a lot in the big bowl, they wondered why he was doing that.

When the last of the chicken legs was placed on the cookie sheet, the oven dinged, which surprised Lily and her mother. Harry had timed it perfectly!

Harry set the timer and placed the cookie sheet in the oven, then he washed his hands in the sink and opened the cabinet beside the oven again and took out the plastic rap. He wrapped it over the bowl of spicy flour and put it in the refrigerator, then tossed the dirty sandwich bag.

“Why did you do that?” Lily couldn't help asking. Her curiosity had been too strong to ignore.

“The original mix isn't contaminated, so it won't go bad.” Harry said and turned on one of the top burners on the oven and put a small frying pan on it with a drop of butter. “It can be used again if you have more chicken to season, or you can use it on something else. Pork and lamb chops usually come out really nice.”

Lily and her mother were stunned. They had never thought of doing that and had always tossed out the mixture, since it was contaminated with raw chicken and they didn't want anyone getting sick.

“Personally, I think fish cutlets come out the best. They should be deep-fried, though.” Harry said and dumped the remaining egg and milk mixture into the hot pan and let it cook. He thought about chopping up some mushrooms with an onion and peppers to make an omelette, then did just that.

It only took a minute and he added them on top of the cooking egg mixture and used a spatula to crush them down, then picked up the pan and flipped the omelette with a deft movement and put it back on the heat. He cleaned up the counter as he waited for it to finish cooking and washed his hands again, then went back to the oven and checked the omelette.

Harry nodded and went to the upper cabinet with the dishes and took down three small plates. He went back to the frying pan and did another deft movement to half flip the omelette and it folded in half perfectly, then he used the spatula to cut it into three. He dished the pieces on the three small plates and grabbed a pinch of parsley and sprinkled it onto each of them.

He turned off the top burner and put the frying pan aside, then picked up two of the plates to place on the counter in front of Lily and her mother. He added a fork to each of them and then to the last plate, which he mysteriously placed on the far end of the kitchen table and went back to the stove.

Lily and her mother exchanged looks, then dug into the omelette offering. It had come out really well, especially for such a quick improvisation. It was just enough to stave off their hunger for a little while as supper cooked, which meant it was perfect as a quick snack.

Harry hummed happily as he washed the dishes that were in the sink and the frying pan was only wiped out with a paper towel and hung up. He had noticed that it was new and hadn't been seasoned properly, so it needed a few good frying sessions before it would be perfect for getting the best tastes out of things.

The only time a good frying pan had to be completely washed was when anything burned or stuck to it. That ruined the taste and you would have to start over. It should also never be scrubbed with anything abrasive because that would ruin the coating it had to protect the food you cooked in it.

“I'm keeping you.” Lily suddenly said and brought her small plate over to the sink.

Harry looked surprised for a moment, then his face went red as he blushed.

Lily kissed his cheek for being so cute and walked over to the snack cupboard. She grabbed a bag of cookies for Harry to eat and came back, took his hand, and led him from the kitchen. Neither of them looked at the empty plate on the kitchen table or wondered who had eaten that piece of omelette.

Lily's mother stood there and silently agreed with her daughter. Harry had easily taken over a task she usually wasn't fussy about doing and he did it quicker and better than she ever could. It never would have occurred to her to do it the way he did it and the chicken legs came out so much better than hers ever did.

Maybe I should ask him to come back to cook the potatoes? Lily's mother thought as she took her plate and the one Petunia had used, and went to the sink to quickly wash them. He even did the lunch dishes and he just got out of the hospital!

She hummed happily as she dried the dishes and wondered if Harry would accept Lily's offer. He was of age in the wizarding world, so it was technically his decision. Would he want to move in? Would her husband allow that? Would Harry stay on the couch or would they share Lily's room?

She couldn't stop her girlish giggle at the thought of how awkward that would be for Harry, considering how he had been acting since they had met. He was such a nice boy that he might faint if Lily suggested they sleep in the same bed.

Oh, the scandal! Lily's mother thought and kept giggling as she put the dishes away.

The chicken legs came out of the oven cooked to perfection. They were crispy and delicious.

*

Over the next few days, Harry ate like a starving man. The potions had pretty much given him a voracious appetite and enhanced his metabolism to convert as much nutrition as possible to heal his body. It was actually impressive with how much he managed to eat.

Even Lily's father appreciated how much Harry was bulking up and started to look normal, instead of the rail thinness he had arrived with. He was also impressed with the magic Harry had used all over the house fixing things, cleaning things, and even changing a few things. He knew his daughter could do the same things, since her eyes practically devoured the spells her boyfriend used.

The last thing Harry did before leaving for the train was renew the hiding and protective spells that he had cast around Lily's home. She was right there with him, like always, and she memorized his wand swishes and flicks as he cast the spells. He couldn't teach them to her until they were at school, since she wasn't allowed to do magic in a muggle area.

“Thanks a lot for this.” Lily said when he finished.

“It's the least I can do.” Harry said and put his wand up his sleeve. He had used the Elder Wand this time and he knew the enchantments and charms would last for months, probably until Christmas break. He would renew them then, too.

“The least? Suuure.” Lily said as she rolled her eyes and Harry chuckled. “Come on. You can shrink our trunks and we can get to the station early and meet up with Alice.”

Harry went with her inside the house and did that. The trunk was a little more expensive to allow the shrinking charm and it was worth it, because they no longer had to drag the large heavy things all the way to King's Cross Station in London. They easily fit into their front pocket, even the tight jeans Lily wore.

She had taken to teasing him a lot the last few days, usually with brushing up against him and letting him get a feel of her. He wasn't sure why it seemed sexier when she had some clothing on, though. He still hadn't seen all of her, because she said she wasn't ready to go all the way yet. It was almost scary what that implied, since Harry had never done anything like it before and had no clue what to do.

Lily pretty much felt the same way and didn't want to rush things, even if her body really really really wanted to rush things and feel his muscles as he embraced her and then shoved... she blushed and quickly pushed those thoughts aside. Getting horny now was not going to make the long train ride to Hogwarts pass faster.

They rode the Knight Bus to the street beside the train station and walked inside. Lily had been through there over twenty times in six years, so she held Harry's hand and led him right over to the barrier to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. Harry slowed down and stopped walking, which brought her to a stop, too.

“Do you think any of the muggleborns or muggle-raised might miss the train because they can't find the entrance?” Harry asked her.

Lily blinked her eyes at his question. She had been approached by Professor McGonagall herself and was specifically told how to get on the platform. It was in the acceptance letter, too.

“Does Hagrid ever go meet any students?” Harry asked instead of waiting for an answer.

“H-Hagrid? Ha ha! N-never! He's not a professor and he's not allowed to do magic. How in the world would he ever convince anyone to follow him anywhere?” Lily asked and laughed. “He's over eleven feet tall and almost as wide! He'd terrify normal people and break the Statute of Secrecy by just standing there in plain sight! Ha hahaha!”

Harry was stunned. He never realized that. Not once. Hagrid was... in all respects... a very big man. A half-giant, actually. He thought back to when Hagrid picked him up and how everyone that saw the large man had seemed to clear a path, especially on the subway, and Harry hadn't given it a second thought. He had been so relieved to get away from the Dursleys that he didn't question anything.

“Come... come on. Alice should be here already.” Lily said, still softly laughing, and led him through the barrier. She didn't see the pensive look on Harry's face as he thought about how things could have been different. If someone else... anyone else... had shown up to take him shopping for school supplies.

They quickly found her in the second train car and Alice let out an odd sound when she saw Harry, like a gasp and a sucked in breath at the same time.

“I have a boyfriend. I have a boyfriend. I have a boyfriend.” Alice chanted under her breath.

Lily sat beside her and gave her a hug. “We can hear you, you know.”

Alice ignored that and stared at Harry as he sat across from them. “What happened?”

“St. Mungo's.” Harry said and didn't elaborate. His clothing also fit him well and wasn't three sizes too big to hide how thin he was, or used to be. He actually filled out his jeans and his long-sleeved t-shirt and felt a weird kind of confidence that he never felt before.

Alice gave him two long slow blinks and then turned her head to look at Lily. “Explain, please.”

Lily giggled and leaned in and started to whisper about it.

Harry wisely chose to ignore them as the two friends chatted excitedly. He looked out through the window at the station and wondered who else was young enough to still be in their seventh year. Snape was a death eater in the future. Was he one already? What about Pettigrew? Did Snape approach him or was it one of the others? Yaxley? Nott? Mulciber? Avery?

As if summoned by Harry's thoughts, a group of darkly dressed young men entered the platform together. It was clear that they were a close-knit group and they split apart to show Snape was right there with them. He was dressed the same way and his face was angry.

Harry didn't fight his instincts as he slipped his wand into his hand. He couldn't hear what was said, just that it made Snape nod and the greasy-haired git strode onto the train as if he owned it, drawing his own wand as he did so. The group turned and left the way they came, their obligation to one of their own was done.

“Angry grump incoming.” Harry warned Lily and Alice.

“Grump?” Lily asked and looked confused for a second, then her eyes widened.

The compartment door slammed open and Snape stormed in, breathing heavy. “You left me behind!”

“Depulso.” Harry whispered.

The two girls screamed as Snape was magically shoved back out through the still open door and across the aisle. He hit the opposite wall and was very lucky that it wasn't a window, because he would have gone right through it.

Harry slowly stood and walked over to the door. “Never yell like that and threaten Lily with a wand again. Ever.”

“YOU!” Snape snarled.

“Me.” Harry responded calmly. “She forgave you for what you've said and done; but, I haven't.”

“Harry...” Lily started to defend her friend.

“You are not required to keep track of everyone and make sure they get to the train at the same time as you, Lily.” Harry said without looking away from Snape's angry face. “Is she, Snape?”

“I don't care about everyone else!” Snape spat. “She was supposed to...”

“Lily Evans is her own person and can make her own decisions. She isn't supposed to do anything.” Harry interrupted his tirade before it could start. “If you wanted to come here with her, why didn't you tell her yesterday, or the day before, or at any time at all that you wanted to travel with her?”

Snape snapped his mouth shut and glared at him.

“You didn't do that because you are a petty and self-indulgent worm that doesn't bother considering other people's feelings, only your own.” Harry goaded and then thought of a good way to reveal Snape's actual feelings. “How dare Lily have a life without involving you in it! With another guy no less! She's yours and no one else can have her!”

“That's right! She's mine!” Snape said, triumphantly. “You and Potter need to be disposed of! No one else should even look at...” His voice trailed off after he heard two gasps from behind Harry.

Harry smiled slightly and stepped back into the compartment. “I'm glad that we could clear the air. Thanks for stopping by.” He said and shut the compartment's sliding door, then locked it with a spell and pulled down the shade over the door's window.

Harry lost the smile and sat down across from Lily and Alice again, only to see two shocked faces. With a nearly silent sigh, he moved over to their seat and eased Alice aside just enough to squeeze in between them and sat. He put an arm over each of their shoulders and made sure his wand could still point at the door as he hugged them. Both girls cuddled in and shivered slightly.

“I'm sorry you had to see that.” Harry said, honestly.

“His face. Did you see his face?” Alice asked in a whisper. “He looked mad. Crazed.”

Lily nodded and hugged Harry tightly. “You don't think...”

“I do.” Harry said, knowing she was going to ask about Snape being a death eater and he didn't want her saying it out loud. “I think his friendship with you has taken a dark turn.” He said, diplomatically.

Both girls shivered again. Even just implying it had them scared and Harry rubbed their shoulders to try and soothe them. Lily and Alice let out soft sighs and rested their heads on his shoulders. While they sat there and waited for the rest of the students to arrive and for the train to depart, the compartment door rattled a few times every ten minutes or so.

The girls exchanged concerned looks each time and didn't say anything or tried to let Harry go. As far as they were concerned, they needed to be left alone for a little while and didn't want to talk to anyone. It wasn't until the rain whistle blew that Lily let out a resigned sigh and she stood as she reached for the compartment door's window and pulled the shade to let it snap up to the top of the window.

“You don't have to.” Alice said, knowingly.

“It's better to get it over with.” Lily said. “They've no doubt run across Sev already.”

Alice sighed this time and reluctantly let Harry go. “I miss having Frank to hug whenever I need it.”

Harry gave her a questioning look and she blushed.

“You're going to need your wand arm free again when they show up.” Alice said as an explanation.

Harry gave her a warm smile and put his arms around her and gave her a brief hug. “Good points. Both of them.” He said and let her go, then moved to the other bench seat and kept his wand in his hand.

“You don't have to.” Lily told him, repeating Alice's words.

“I know you can take care of yourself.” Harry reassured her and Lily nodded. “It's just that there's three and a half of them...”

Alice giggled nervously. “I think Peter's shortness is countered by how tall Remus is.”

“He really is tall, isn't he?” Lily asked.

“He's also a prefect and he's not doing his job at all.” Harry said.

Both Lily and Alice looked surprised.

“He even helps them plan and execute their pranks. A person in authority shouldn't do that.” Harry said and both girls had to nod in agreement. “It's too bad McGonagall doesn't do her job, either.”

“Excuse me?” Lily asked with a frown.

Harry heard the sudden harshness in her voice and held in his sigh. “What does she give them? A detention? A few point deductions?” He asked and Lily nodded. “Does that discourage them? Stop them? Does it do anything at all?”

Lily opened her mouth to say it did, then she thought about it. She thought about everything she had seen and heard about over the last six years and she couldn't deny Harry's accusations. They had been caught doing some despicable pranks and one of her favorite teachers barely gave them a slap on the wrist. In fact, both she and the headmaster seemed to encourage them going after Slytherin.

“You see it now, too?” Harry asked and Lily gave him a pointed look. “It's a set-up. The classic Griffindor - Slytherin rivalry could easily be stopped if any teacher stepped forward and stopped it. No one does. They can't defy their bosses and ostracize themselves from their co-workers, because the headmaster and deputy headmistress both want it to continue.”

Lily couldn't deny that reasoning. It made too much sense. Bullying was rampant at school and she had to defend herself a lot, just because she was a muggleborn and nearly everyone thought she wasn't good enough to be there.

The door rattled and Harry, Lily, and Alice saw James Potter and his friends trying to get in. Harry gave a look to Lily and she nodded, so he flicked his wand and cast a Finite at the door to cancel the locking charm.

The door immediately slid aside and slammed into the holder with a loud bang. The girls jumped, as did Peter. James and Sirius winced at the loud sound and Remus flinched so hard that his teeth clacked together.

“Did you have to do that?” Lily asked with a little anger in her voice.

James sighed as he and Sirius stepped inside. “It was an accident.”

Lily gave him an award winning glare as she crossed her arms. “That sounds like a surprisingly familiar excuse that you use all the time to explain your mistakes.”

James opened his mouth to defend himself, then remembered she had said the same thing after he tried to attack the guy they had summoned. He had done it without thinking first and he couldn't keep saying the same thing, even if it was true. He hadn't meant to pull so hard on the door. It was stuck and he wanted to get into the compartment with the girl he fancied.

Stupid door. James thought and tried to not glare at the thing that was at fault.

Lily saw his eyes shifting and huffed. “You're still not going to admit it was your own fault and you're going to blame something else? Again?”

“The door was stuck...” James started to say.

“The door was locked.” Lily said, frostily. She didn't have to say he was an idiot, because the tone of her voice implied it. “If you had knocked instead of barging in, you wouldn't have embarrassed yourself or your friends.”

Ouch. That had to hurt. Harry thought as James winced. He wasn't sure why he wasn't more sympathetic about it, since it was technically his fault they were having a falling out. Then again, he really liked Lily and didn't see why he would have to step aside again to let others to be happy.

That brought Harry's thoughts to a screeching halt. Why did he suddenly regret not making a play for Hermione? Yes, she was pretty and smart; but, she was like a sister to him and... again, his thoughts screeched to a stop. How the hell did he know what a sister was supposed to act like? He was an orphan.

The only family Harry had of a similar age was his fat whale of a cousin that bullied him for fourteen years. That is, until he saved his cousin's life and Dudley left him alone after that. A few civil words and a handshake didn't erase all of that torture and abuse. How could it? He never said he was sorry. All Dudley said was that he wasn't a waste of space.

“How many times do I have to tell you that I wouldn't go out with you if you were the last boy on Earth?” Lily almost yelled. “How many times? HOW MANY?!?”

Harry was shaken out of his thoughts and saw Lily standing nose to nose with the idiot that was his father in another world. He realized he had missed a bunch of conversation between them and decided that now was the time to step in. He had to do it before Lily's temper ran away from her and she did something James would regret.

“That's enough.” Harry said and concentrated on his magic as he slowly stood.

Every eye inside and outside the compartment watched as he rose from his seat and they all felt... something. It wasn't a pressure or anything. It was just like something heavy was in the air.

“I want to let Lily handle her own battles, since she doesn't need my help.” Harry said and saw Lily's approving smile. He turned his head to look right at James. “But, you are unnecessarily antagonizing her when you know... not think, know... that she has refused every single one of your poor attempts to beg her to give you some of her precious time.”

James frowned at him. “I'm not begging. I'm being persistent. She just has to realize that I'm the best bloke for her and...”

“Who the bloody hell do you think you are to decide who's the best bloke for me?!?” Lily almost screeched as she interrupted the arrogant fool.

Harry put a gentle hand on her shoulder. Lily made a growling sound before she closed her mouth and stepped back, which moved her away from James and Harry's hand. The hate-filled look in Lily's eyes should have burned James to a crisp, because it was so filled with heat. Everyone could see it and James ignored it, because he knew she would come around eventually.

“How can you be such an idiot, James?” Harry asked and James scowled at him, as did his friends. He looked at Remus. “What's the school motto?”

“Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus. Never tickle a sleeping dragon.” Remus recited and translated while still looking angry.

“Exactly.” Harry said and looked back at James, whom was still scowling at him. “No, no. Not me.” He said and motioned to Lily. “I've only known her for several weeks, which have been some of the best weeks of my life...”

Lily blushed and looked both embarrassed and happy.

“...and one of the first things I learned about her was to never, ever, ever, get Lily Evans angry at me. No matter the reason, working her up into a frenzy is the biggest mistake anyone could ever make.” Harry said, as if imparting the secrets of the universe.

Both Lily and Alice nodded.

“Your constant pestering, stupid pranks, and outright ignoring her valid opinion of you as an arrogant toerag, is not only tickling her nose, you're poking her in the eye.” Harry said, his voice even.

“What did you just call me?” James asked as he reached for his wand.

Harry's hand snapped up instantly and his wand was pointed right between James' very wide eyes. “Tell me, James. With all the wealth of the Potter Family behind you, all that influence and prestige, what exactly have you done to help anyone but yourself?”

“He took me in.” Sirius said right away.

Harry didn't divert his eyes from James. “Did he?”

“Yeah. I ran away from home this summer and he let me stay at his place.” Sirius said.

“I think you've forgotten it was Euphemia that invited you to stay when she learned you were homeless. She also bought you clothes and your school things when your mother disowned you from the family.” Harry said and Sirius looked guilty.

“How did you know that?” James asked, his wide eyes now squinting at Harry.

“Are you asking me to discuss the details of Black Family business in public, Mister Potter?” Harry asked formally and deflected attention, because he definitely couldn't tell them that it was Sirius himself that told him about it almost two years ago during Christmas break when they talked about their mutually horrible home lives.

Someone cursed under their breath and Harry was sure it was Sirius, because he would know best about invoking family business. Sure enough, Sirius reached up and put a hand on James' shoulder and pulled him back.

“He's right. We can't ask him how he knows without swearing everyone to secrecy.” Sirius said.

James let his scowl fade and his face went blank. “He can't stick his nose into other people's business and think he can get away with it.”

“You mean like you do?” Harry asked and the scowl was back on James' face. “There's an old muggle saying. People that live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.”

“What's that mean?” James asked.

“It means that you shouldn't hate people for doing the same things you do, you hypocrite!” Lily spat.

“I've never done that!” James exclaimed.

“Severus Snape.” Alice, Harry, and Remus said at the same time.

James opened and closed his mouth a couple of times and couldn't come up with a valid defense. He really was just like Snape in his pursuit of Lily. Pranking Snape was to keep him away from the girl he liked, which Snape tried to do right back, only more viciously. He only failed because James had Sirius, Remus, and Peter to back him up and always came out on top.

Now that he was thinking about it, James started to realize that was why Lily reacted badly every time he and Snape got into it. It didn't matter if she was around at the time or not. She always heard about it and she verbally gave him hell for it afterwards. Every single time.

“But... but he... he's a slimy snake.” James said, his voice unsure.

“Yes, he is. He was sneaky and secretive because his drunk father beat him at home. What other house would he go into?” Lily asked and ignored the pale faces on James and his friends. “Can you guess who's been picking on him and hounding him since first year, just because he was my friend and wanted him to stay away from me?”

James looked guilty now.

“You never once left him alone, no matter how many times I yelled at you to stop! Not once!” Lily started to rant and Harry held out his free hand. She sighed and uncrossed her arms to take his. “Thanks, Harry.”

“Anytime.” Harry said and lowered his wand. “I think you need to leave Lily alone. She's not some prize to be fought over and won. She's a smart and beautiful woman that can make her own choices. She doesn't need someone hounding her constantly, while pretending to be her friend, just so they can hound her constantly.”

“Maybe if you grow up some, she might think about talking to you again.” Alice offered.

Lily didn't say she would or she wouldn't. It was too raw right now for her to say anything.

James glanced down at the clasped hands between Harry and Lily. “I see how it is.”

“No, you don't.” Harry said.

James frowned at him and pointed at their hands.

“Defending someone you love when she needs you to, is completely different than fighting over her.” Harry explained.

Lily blushed hard and her hand gripped his. “H-Harry...”

James couldn't take that lying down. “Harry Peverell! I challenge you for the right to...”

Harry let his wand go and his fist snapped forward and slammed into James' face. The crack of bone breaking was loud in the crowded compartment and James dropped to the floor with a look of shock on his face and a hand over his bleeding nose.

“You didn't hear a word I said, did you?” Harry asked him and had to let Lily's hand go to bend down and pick up his wand. “I am not a rival you need to overcome. I am not an obstacle that you need to go over to get to her. I am in no way standing between you and Lily.” He levelled his wand at James' face. “The only thing stopping you, is yourself.” He said and let them all digest that for a moment. “Episky!”

Another loud snap of bone made them all wince.

“ARGH!” James cried out in pain as his nose was fixed.

“Tergeo.” Harry said and vanished the blood. “If you don't stop poking the dragon, I won't step in next time to stop her.”

“Her?!?” Peter gasped in surprise.

“Lily is the most brilliant witch of her age with tops marks in everything, especially Charms and Transfiguration. Do you really think she can't easily handle someone that has more arrogance than brains? His friend that chases every skirt that passes by like a dog? His two gutless cowards?”

Both Lily and Alice gasped at those last words.

“Excuse me?” Remus asked, his face angry. “I'm no coward!”

“You're supposed to be a Prefect and look after the rest of your house. Have you done anything at all to help the younger students since their first year? Have you stopped your friends from pranking them? No, you haven't.” Harry said and looked at Peter, whom scurried back and hid behind Remus in the corridor. He didn't have to say anything, because everyone knew he was a coward already.

“Harry, you... you're being mean.” Lily said.

Harry sighed and nodded. “I am and I'm sorry. Ever since I came here...” He stopped talking and turned to face her.

Lily stepped close and wrapped her arms around his neck to look deep into his eyes.

“I've always held back what I was feeling. For years and years, it was beaten into me that I was never good enough. I never had any friends until I was eleven and went to school. I made two. One was my best friend for almost seven years. The other was a friend for most of that, when it benefited him, and always left when the going got tough and he was pissed at me for no reason.”

“Oh, Harry.” Lily whispered and softly kissed him.

“I'm not sure why I'm suddenly feeling like I don't have to keep things bottled up anymore. I feel lots of regrets, I feel ashamed and stupid for some of the things I've done, and... and I...” Harry stammered.

“I know. I know how you feel.” Lily whispered. “I love you, too.”

Harry felt like his heart was bursting with it and leaned in to kiss her deeply. He wanted her to feel how he felt and he let his lips and his tongue do their best to show her. They both moaned and seemed to melt into each other's arms as they made out, right in front of everyone, and they didn't care who saw.

When they eventually broke the kiss, they weren't blushing, because they weren't embarrassed about showing each other how they felt. They pulled their arms away from each other and noticed that it was only them and Alice in the compartment.

“When did they leave?” Harry asked her.

“No idea.” Alice said, her face red and her lips were slightly red and plump from biting them. “I wish Frank would kiss me like that.”

Lily giggled and sat beside her friend. “Do you want me to tell you the secret?”

“Oh, yes. Please.” Alice begged.

Harry sat across from them and tried to not laugh as Lily whispered in her friend's ear about how to get her boyfriend to kiss her the same way. You tell them you loved them and then let that love flow.

No one bothered them for the rest of the train ride. They would never know that most of the train car's occupants had seen or heard the whole thing and word had spread throughout the rest of the train. No one could mess with Lily Evans or her new boyfriend, Harry Peverell.

*

Harry was a little surprised when Professor McGonagall politely asked him to stand with the first years when they were brought in. He should have refused, mostly because every single person in the Great Hall were looking at him as he towered over the first years. A few of them were even laughing and not even trying to hide it.

It was no surprise that it was James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter that spearheaded it. Harry knew it was just the beginning of them trying to get back a him for what happened on the train. He wasn't going to put up with their antics, though. The first prank played against him or Lily would be vengefully reciprocated.

Harry had to wait until all of the first years were sorted, so he had stood there the entire time and was ridiculed for most of it. When his name was finally called and they all learned he was a Peverell, the chatter actually increased as he approached the tiny stool that the much smaller first years could easily sit on.

Instead of humiliating himself like the students expected, Harry picked up the sorting hat and took out his wand. He concentrated on what he wanted and waved his wand at the stool. To everyone's shock, the small wooden stool swirled around for a few seconds and then expanded to become a very nice dining room chair, stiff backed and with a cushion. Harry sat down with pride and put the sorting hat on.

A light chuckle entered Harry's head. Nice one, Mister Potter.

Thanks. Harry thought back. I'm sorry about you having to sort me again, since I know it's never been done before. When I wrote to Professor McGonagall, I told her I was a Griffindor.

The hat chuckled again. I know. The sneaky professor wanted there to be no doubt about it and wants everyone to know you were officially going to be in her house.

Harry barely held in his own laugh. Of course she did. That's quite bold of her.

Indeed. The hat thought. Hmm. I can see a lot of things happened where you're from. Some of them great, most of them terrible.

Harry didn't have to point out that was exactly what Ollivander had expected of him when he bought his Holly and Phoenix Feather wand. The hat could see it all, anyway.

You might want to give your first wand a Reparo charm with the Elder Wand. It's the most powerful wand in the world, remember? The hat asked him.

Harry jerked slightly, because he hadn't thought of trying anything like that. Wow. Thanks!

The hat chuckled once more. You would have come up with it on your own when you started doing classwork with Mister Malfoy's old wand, since it's only barely compatible with you.

Harry mentally nodded. He was having some of the same problems Neville had while using his father's wand. They weren't well matched and it was a struggle to push enough magic through the wand to get it to work properly all the time.

Well, I think I've made them all wait long enough. Since I trust my own decisions, I won't doubt my counterpart in your world. The hat thought to him. You really would have done well in Slytherin, you know. It added with one last chuckle. “Better be... Griffindor!”

Most of the Griffindors applauded, especially Lily. Harry stood up and handed the hat to a smiling Minerva, whom then flicked her eyes at the nice chair. He smiled back and used his wand to cancel the transfiguration and the thing swirled for a second in the opposite direction and it returned to the small stood that it used to be.

Harry walked over to the Griffindor table and up to near the end of it beside the door and sat next to Lily, where she had saved him a seat between her and Alice. The mean look on the faces of James and his friends did not bode well... for them. Harry was so far beyond taking any shite from immature idiots that it wasn't funny.

“You almost had a hat stall.” Lily whispered and slid her arm around his waist, out of sight of everyone but those closest to where she sat.

Harry shook his head slightly. “The hat was having a bit of a laugh as he made you all wait to hear his important decision. It's the only real fun he gets to have, apparently.”

Both Alice and Lily softly laughed as Headmaster Dumbledore made the normal announcements and then food appeared on all of the tables. Harry drooled a little as all of his favorite foods appeared around him and he wondered if it was done that way on purpose.

As Harry added food to his plate, his thought of gravy had a gravy boat appear within arm's reach and he smiled as he grabbed it and poured gravy over his mashed potatoes and pork chops. He softly whispered his thanks to the house elves and promised to visit as soon as he could. A small slice of treacle tart appeared on his plate and gave him the perfect counter to his turnips and carrots.

“Thanks again. I'll definitely share a few recipes with you.” Harry barely breathed the words and started eating. He didn't hear anything as he imagined the house elves squealing and cheering about learning something new to cook.

The meal passed by fairly quickly, according to Harry's stomach, because it had consumed a lot of food that seemed to impress a few people. Alice's eyes were wide and Remus seemed to take a few extra sniffs when other people weren't looking.

He probably thinks I'm a werewolf, too. Harry thought and tried to not smirk at him. I wonder if I smell similar enough to James to confuse him?

Albus dismissed them and Lily slowly stood. She didn't say anything as she took Harry's hand and helped him stand, too. Alice joined them and they left the Great Hall with the others. When they were at the top of the main staircase, Lily pulled on Harry's hand and they broke off from the others.

Lily led them through several different passages and up a few stairwells to step out through a tapestry that was down the hallway from the Griffindor common room. She looked a little proud about that and led them to the portrait of the Fat Lady.

“Griffindor's Pride.” Lily said and the portrait opened.

“Is that the password?” Harry asked.

“No, that's what Prefects say when they want to override the one everyone else uses.” Lily said.

“You're a prefect?” Harry asked, surprised.

“No.” Lily said and blushed a little. “I was offered the Head Girl position.”

Harry immediately caught on to what she meant. “You didn't accept?”

Lily shook her head and brought him over to the noticeboard to show him the current password, then led him over to the boy's stairwell.

“Why didn't you?” Harry couldn't help asking.

“She asked who the Head Boy was going to be.” Alice said with a straight face. “James Potter.”

Harry almost tripped on the stairs. “You're kidding!”

“I wish I was.” Lily said with a sigh. “He was too irresponsible and bullheaded to make Prefect in fifth year, which was why Remus was given it. He's the responsible one out of all of them.”

“Why didn't they make him Head Boy?” Harry asked.

“I have no idea. Him I could have tolerated.” Lily said and stopped at the first landing. “This is the seventh year's dormitory.”

Harry nodded and opened the door with his free hand. The three of them entered and saw three trunks at the ends of three of the beds, with four of the beds clumped together and the fifth bed off to the side and kind of out of the way.

“Why does it look like this?” Alice asked, confused.

“I think some jerk arranged it.” Lily said, her voice low. “He's staying in the Head Boy's room at the top of the staircase and still claimed a bed here in the normal dorm.”

Harry didn't say what he wanted to say as he walked over to the lone bed. “I'll have to set up some protections.”

Lily sat down on his bed and Alice sat next to her. “I can help if you want.”

“Why would I need the help of the most brilliant witch of her age that knows the four other people in this dorm the best?” Harry asked, teasingly.

“Prat.” Lily said with a smile and Alice laughed.

Harry took out his trunk and cancelled the shrinking charm on it. Both Alice and Lily helped him put his things away, then the three of them cast charms and spells on everything to protect them from most of the common things that the marauders usually pranked people with. Repelling and impervious charms were liberally used.

With the three of them working, it was done quickly and they left the room. They made it to the common room just in time to meet everyone else arriving at the tower. At the head of the group was James Potter and he scowled when he saw Harry and Lily there holding hands at the bottom of the stairs.

“Where's your Head Girl badge, Lily?” James asked. “I get why you didn't show up at the train meeting...”

“I'm not Head Girl.” Lily cut him off. “I don't have it.”

“Wait, it wasn't a mistake?” Marlene MacKinnon asked, clearly surprised.

“What wasn't?” A few people asked.

“I was sent the badge two weeks ago.” Marlene said.

“It didn't come with your Hogwarts letter?” Someone else asked.

Marlene shook her head. “That's why I thought it was a mistake. Lily is supposed to be Head Girl.”

“I refused the position and sent it back to Professor McGonagall.” Lily said.

“WHY?” Everyone loudly asked, especially James.

Lily pointed right at James Potter's angry face. “I've suffered for six years of that idiot pranking me and my friends and he had the gall to ask me out afterwards, as if seeing my friends suffer was a bloody turn-on. Every! Single! Time!”

A few people winced as she emphasized those last three words.

“I enjoyed the breaks that my duties and patrolling the corridors at night gave me, because it kept me far away from him and his stupidity. I absolutely refuse to intentionally spend any time with him and we all know he would have Prefect meetings in his Head Boy suite specifically to have me there all alone.”

James looked even angrier at being accused like that, because a lot of the people around them were nodding and agreeing with it. He would never admit that was exactly his plan to get her alone more often and to work on making himself look more favorable and desirable in her eyes. How else was he supposed to win her heart?

“Look at his face at being caught, everyone.” Lily said and everyone did.

Some of the girls gasped and the guys looked surprised and then looked away.

“How dare you slander...” James started to say.

“It's not slander if it's the truth.” Harry said and cut off his rant. “Everyone knows you've been hounding Lily for years. Everyone knows she has always said no. Everyone knows.”

All of the girls nodded and some of the guys did as well, while the rest chose to keep looking away.

James glared at him. “This is all because of you! It's your fault she's saying these things!”

Harry laughed and it surprised everyone. “After everything, you still won't accept responsibility?” He asked and James stayed silent. “All right. I might as well tell you all the truth.”

“Harry, no!” Lily gasped.

Harry leaned in to give her cheek a kiss. “It's okay, Lily. I've got this.”

Lily looked from Harry to James, only to see boiling anger on the latter's face. She nodded.

“Lily brought me here specifically save her and her friends from the upcoming war. Since I haven't done that yet, all of these revelations are coming from her own brilliant mind.” Harry said and Lily blushed. “She's choosing for herself what she wants and she's literally telling you that it's not you.”

James thought about pulling is wand and noticed Harry already had his in his hand by his leg. “This isn't over, Peverell.”

“Yes, it is. You just don't want to admit that someone with a brain actually told you no and told you why. Is it really so shocking that she doesn't like an arrogant braggart? Someone who bullies others all the time and ruined her friendship with her childhood friend? Someone that ostracized her from most of the school, because everyone assumed she was Potter's Girl, since that's what you've been telling everyone?”

James couldn't refute it, since he had done exactly that. He even had his friends spread the word, too.

“I think I'll ask everyone here to watch you and your friends. If Lily somehow has a complete change of heart and starts liking you and dating you, we'll all know you slipped her a love potion or something.”

“How dare you accuse...” James started to say.

“The only thing that could change hatred to love is magic.” Harry said, confidently. He knew personally that would be the only way, thanks to the prophecy. “Your words are hollow and only your actions can prove how you really feel.”

All of the girls nodded, Lily and Alice included.

“What have you done to her since you've met? You've put her down, put her friends down, and bullied and harassed everyone around her.” Harry said. “How in the world does that show her you love her for who she is? That you love spending time with her? That you care about how she feels? That all you want is for her to be happy?”

James's face lost the angry look.

“Please, just leave me alone.” Lily pleaded. “I don't love you and I barely even like you. I've known you for six years. In all that time, I sincerely doubt you've learned anything at all about me.”

“That's not true.” James said.

Lily's eyes almost lit up at finally proving herself right. “What's my favorite color?”

“Lilac.” Harry said immediately. “Both the color and the smell.”

Lily smiled and gripped his hand tighter. “My favorite meal?”

“Trick question. You love chicken and pasta in many forms, as long as it has the right sauce.” Harry said. “Spaghetti and meatballs are a close third and fourth, as long as the meatballs are spicy and the sauce is tangy.”

Lily's smile grew as she turned to look at Harry. “My favorite clothes?”

“Also a trick question. It depends on the day. The best I can come up with is you like denim jeans when you want to go out and be comfortable and track pants with a large t-shirt or sweater when you want to relax.” Harry responded.

Lily stepped close and leaned against him. “My favorite book?”

“Charms for the Ages by Ingelbert Humperwink, third edition.” Harry said and smiled as he put his free arm around her waist. “On the muggle side, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne.”

“What turns me on?” Lily asked and put her free arm around his neck.

“Getting homework done immediately, studying under a tree, snuggling on the couch, and being honest.” Harry answered.

“What scares me the most?” Lily asked and looked deep into his eyes.

“That you won't be there for your family when they need you.” Harry whispered.

Lily now knew that Harry had learned more about her in only a few weeks than anyone else in her entire life, and mentally added that huge turn on to her list. “What... what's my life's ambition?”

“Charms mistress first, then to settle down with two or three children and a nice house with a picket fence and a little garden on the side.” Harry said, describing the cottage in Godric's Hollow.

“Oh, Harry! I love you so much!” Lily exclaimed and kissed him deeply, right there in front of the entire Griffindor House.

Complete and utter silence fell as everyone watched the two of them making out like they weren't giving everyone a lesson on how to really kiss someone. The girls felt envy, because no one had ever kissed them like that before. Most of the guys were trying to figure out how Harry was using his tongue to make a girl moan like that.

The silence was broken when James stomped his way across the room and up the stairs. He had been thoroughly trounced verbally and everyone knew that he didn't really care at all about Lily since he couldn't answer a single question about her. Only her boyfriend had answered everything and he seemed to really care about her. That just pissed James off.

His three friends followed him up the stairs and they entered the seventh year dorms. James walked over to where the four beds were and he sat down on the one that didn't have a trunk. His friends surrounded him and said words of encouragement.

James barely heard them as his mind whirled. Where was Harry Peverell's bed and trunk? He wanted to mess them up. He wanted to mess Harry up, too. That would have to wait, though. Attacking him right away would make James seem petty. He would get his revenge soon, though. No one makes a fool of James Fleamont Potter and gets away with it.

Meanwhile, downstairs in the common room, the Prefects finally remembered to tell the first years about the House rules and about classes and taking them to breakfast in the morning. The male Prefect led the boys up the stairs on the boy's side and the female Prefect led the girls up the stairs on the girl's side.

Lily and Harry broke the kiss when they heard the sound of sixteen sets of shoes tromping up the stairs. Lily was blushing only a little, and that was only because there were still a bunch of people staring at them.

“You're such a lucky witch, Lily.” Marlene said and a bunch of the girls nodded. “We should head up, though. It's almost curfew.”

Lily nodded and eased her tight hold on Harry's neck. “Goodnight, Harry.”

“Goodnight, Lily.” Harry said and gave her a quick kiss. “Meet you here to head down to breakfast in the morning?”

Lily smiled and nodded again, then she reached up and took off the moleskin pouch she had been holding for him and hung it over his neck. “I think you need this back.”

Harry pulled her in and gave her another kiss as a thank you.

“We'll never get to bed if you keep that up.” Alice said and took Lily's hand to lead her away, only to stop because Lily still held onto Harry's hand. Lily blushed and slowly unlaced her fingers from Harry's, because she really didn't want to let him go. She could see in his eyes that he didn't want to let her go, either.

Harry watched them go up the stairs and thought about heading up himself, only he was sure the guys were waiting for him. He walked over to the corner of the room and sat down on an armchair and silenced the area and put up a privacy spell. He took out the Marauder's Map from the pouch to activate it and checked it. Sure enough, the four guys were positioned around the entryway to the dorms.

I'm not going to fall for a blatant ambush after everything I've been through. Harry thought and checked the corridor and then the entire seventh floor of the castle. No one was out and about, so he slipped on his invisibility cloak and left the privacy spells on the chair.

Harry waited until no one was looking and left the common room and went over to the right corridor. He checked the map again and no one was around, so he walked back and forth three times and the door appeared for the Room of Lost Things. He let out the breath he didn't realize he was holding and opened the door.

Inside was just like it had been the last time he was there, except it was missing the roaring living flames of death. Harry sighed with relief that it was all still here and he spent ten minutes walking to where he knew Ravenclaw's Diadem was in his world. The vanishing cabinet wasn't there as a landmark, so it took him a bit longer to find the right spot.

There on a dresser was the bust, the grey wig, and the diadem nestled on top of it. Harry could feel it was tainted by a soul piece and it wasn't affecting him. When he tucked the map into his moleskin pouch, he suddenly recalled the sorting hat's words. He dug out his broken wand that barely hung together with a frayed phoenix feather and set it on the dresser before he pulled the Elder Wand from his sleeve.

Harry concentrated on it and his feelings to fix it to become like new. “Reparo!”

The wand unbent and the two halves slid together, then it glowed as the wood knitted back together and all the little nicks and scratches disappeared. Harry put the Elder Wand back up his sleeve and picked up his old wand. He felt the warmth and remembered how good it felt to have his matched wand again as wind flowed around him and gold sparks flew out the end.

“Bloody brilliant.” Harry said and took out Draco's old wand from his other sleeve and tucked it into his sock. It would become his back-up wand and he would use the Holly and Phoenix Feather for classes and the Elder Wand for everything else.

With the broken wand and his invisibility cloak out of the moleskin pouch, there was just enough room for the diadem to fit. Harry summoned a cloth and wrapped the diadem up in it and put it into the pouch. All he had to do now was figure out how to destroy the thing. Despite knowing only basilisk venom and Fiendfyre could destroy a horcrux, he wasn't worried.

Harry Potter had a plan. He just had to deal with four idiots first.

*

Lily was pretty much interrogated by the girls in their dorm until late at night. She wasn't really friends with any of them besides Alice. Marlene was more like an acquaintance, since she occasionally dated Sirius. Her excuse that it was to stop them from pranking her, was a weak one. She loved dark haired bad boys and the other girls in the dorm knew it.

She woke up early in the morning and quickly washed herself and dressed in her best uniform. She wanted Harry drooling over her, even though her uniform was only a slightly better quality than what the other girls wore. She had splurged a little and she didn't feel guilty about it, because it was for Harry. The lacy underthings were also a splurge that she was sure his roaming hands would like.

Lily and Alice were almost huddled together as they descended the stairs to the common room. They wondered how Harry had fared against James and his friends last night, because they were both sure that they would try something against him. For some reason, Lily wasn't worried about it.

“Good morning.” Harry's chipper voice greeted them.

“Good morning.” Lily said and gave him a quick hug and a peck on the lips. “What happened?”

Harry grinned at her and motioned to the exit. “If they have the guts to come to breakfast without visiting the hospital wing to get it sorted out first, you might see it soon.”

Lily couldn't stop her laugh as they walked over to the portrait and left the common room. “They tried to prank you, didn't they?”

“They tried to ambush me when I went to bed last night and I wasn't having it.” Harry said and offered his arms to both of them when they were in the hallway. “May I escort you to the Great Hall?”

“Thank you, kind sir.” Lily and Alice said at the same time and then giggled like little girls. They both took his offered elbows and the three of them walked down the hallway to the stairs.

*

“I'm going to kill him for this.” James growled as he laid down on the hospital bed. The others were laid out in a similar fashion and had a long and quite phallic-like protrusion sprouting from the tops of their heads.

A 28 year old Madam Pomfrey tutted at him. “This is clearly the result of a reflected spell, Mister Potter.”

“How do you know that?” Remus asked and the others hissed at him. “Right. Sorry. We don't know what happened. We woke up like this.”

Madam Pomfrey held in her laugh at that. “A basic diagnostic spell can determine the kind of magic used. Since I cannot detect any foreign magic on any of you, it means you are suffering from your own spells.”

“Oh. That makes sense.” Remus said. “Thank you for the explanation, Madam Pomfrey.”

Madam Pomfrey had to smile at his inquisitive nature. “I can point you to a particular book in the library and you can look it up for yourself later.”

Remus smiled back and nodded. His protrusion was a bit bigger than the others and when it wagged, it gave his nod a bit more force and he groaned at the extra strain on his neck.

Madam Pomfrey barely held in her laugh again. She wondered if they realized that what was showing was identical to what they had between their legs when they were erect. Her eyes roamed over her first patients of the year and she mentally catalogued them by size. Average for Sirius, slightly above average for James, well above average for Remus, and pathetically under average for little Peter.

Little Peter has a little peter! Madam Pomfrey quickly turned away and muffled her laugh with a cough. When she composed herself, she realized she now had a hard decision to make. Did she want them to embarrass themselves before she fixed their little problem? She also needed to get a handle on her penis puns. They were surprisingly easy to come up with.

*

“Why are they wearing top hats?” Alice asked halfway through breakfast when James and his friends entered the Great Hall.

Harry snorted and slapped a hand over his mouth to stop his laugh from escaping.

“Harry.” Lily gave him a pointed look.

It took Harry a moment to control himself. “Just... have Marlene take off the one Sirius has. She's the closest.”

Lily looked a few seats down the table and Marlene gave her a firm nod. Just as the four boys carefully sat down, as if trying to not knock off their hats, Marlene's hand darted out and pulled off the top hat Sirius wore.

“Hey! Don't...” Sirius started to say as everyone started laughing. “Bloody hell.”

“Language.” Lily said and stared at the thing on his head, then her eyes widened.

“Sweet Merlin.” Marlene whispered and blushed.

“What is it?” Alice asked and looked from Marlene's red face to Sirius' head and his red face. “Oh. Ohhh. I get it.”

“What is it?” A younger girl asked.

“Ha ha!” A Slytherin two tables away laughed and pointed. “It's his wanker!” He had been hit by that spell last year and it took months for the rumors to die down, so he revelled in embarrassing them right back.

Suddenly, the other three top hats had been snatched by people from the nearby tables. A lot of laughter came from everyone, especially seeing the size of Peter's, and quite a few interested looks went Remus' way. He was too embarrassed to notice, though.

“Accio top hats.” Harry said as he brandished his wand and the four hats flew to him. He caught them and walked over to Remus to hand him the biggest one. “Sticking charm.” He said and tapped the brim to apply the charm.

Remus nodded and accepted the hat. He put it on and heard a few girls make disappointed sounds.

Harry tapped each brim before he handed one to Sirius, one to Peter, and the last to James. James grabbed it and shoved it onto his head a little too hard. It slid down more than it was supposed to and hit the tender protrusion.

“AGH!” James yelped and tried to yank the hat back off. It wouldn't move. “I'm going to get you for this, Peverell!”

Harry gave him a disappointed look that was eerily like Dumbledore's. “You did this to yourself, Potter. I was being nice and only reflected your own spell back at you.” He said and leaned slightly over the table. “I won't be so nice if you and your friends try to attack me again.”

“Mister Peverell, that will be ten points from Griffindor for threatening another student.” Minerva McGonagall said as she walked over to them.

“So, him threatening me several times doesn't count, does it?” Harry asked her.

“I didn't hear him threatening you.” Minerva said as she pursed her lips.

Harry gave her the same disappointed look. “Is that how you treat all new Griffindors? Ignore them until they choose to fight back against their bullies and then punish them for it?”

“That will be another ten points and a detention tonight for disrespecting a teacher, Mister Potter.”

“I ask to serve it with Filius Flitwick, since he is at least completely unbiased and treats everyone equally negligently.” Harry said, recalling how all the teachers acted during his time at school. He really was disappointed that McGonagall was just as biased in this world.

A lot of sucked in breaths and sounds of disbelief came from everyone, even Lily.

Minerva frowned at him. “Make that fifty points and a week of detentions for your disrespect.”

“Will you be making me write lines?” Harry asked and she nodded. “Will you do it with a blood quill so that the lessons sink in?”

More gasps came from more people, Minerva included.

Harry raised his hand and wiped off the make-up Lily had taught him to use to cover up his cursed scar that the healers couldn't remove. “I've already learned the lesson to not tell lies.”

Minerva's eyes went to his hand and the deeply cut scar that spelled exactly that. “Oh, Merlin.”

“I hope that's a no.” Harry said and walked around her to return to his seat. “At least now everyone knows to never come to you when they have a problem. You'll never listen and won't help them deal with it.”

Minerva opened and closed her mouth several times and didn't say anything.

“When do you pass out the class schedules? I want to know how much free time I'll have to study.”

Minerva stood there for several seconds before she shook herself and reached into her robes to take out the schedules. She moved down the table and handed out the ones to the first years, then worked her way up the table.

“Harry, why did you do that?” Lily asked.

“I just wanted to point out that she's not doing her job in such a blatant way that no one could ignore that she's not doing her job.” Harry said.

Lily sighed and rubbed her face with her hands.

“If she was only our Head of House and wanted to keep it quiet, that's one thing. Unfortunately, she's the Deputy Headmistress and she's responsible for all of the students in the school. If she's not looking after her own Griffindors properly, what isn't she doing for the rest of the students?”

That statement got everyone talking and almost none of it was good. Minerva's frown as she reached the seventh years and handed Harry's schedule to him, promised that he was going to get a solid chewing out during his detention tonight. He had been yelled at by the best yellers, so he knew he wasn't going to be bothered by it.

Harry looked at his schedule and saw his first class was blank, as was his second. He didn't have anything until the class right before lunch, which was Charms, and then nothing for the rest of the day. The other days matched, so he had a lot of free time. A lot of free time. Harry glanced at Lily's schedule and she had Ancient Runes for the first two classes today, then Charms with him, and Arithmancy for two classes this afternoon.

“I'm glad I asked to borrow your coursework from the first six years.” Harry whispered to her as breakfast came to an end.

“Why? What...” Lily's eyes widened when she saw his schedule, because Harry only had a single subject for a single class each day before lunch and that was it. Charms, Transfiguration, Potions, Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Herbology. Compared to hers, his was practically empty.

“I dropped Astronomy, History of Magic, and Care of Magical Creatures. I only have a small background in both Arithmancy and Ancient Runes, so I wasn't allowed to take them.” Harry explained as they left the Great Hall and walked with Lily towards the Ancient Runes classroom.

“Where do you think you're going, Peverell?” James' harsh voice asked.

“Away from you. Where else would I go?” Harry quipped and kept walking as a few students softly laughed.

“You're not in her class!” Peter shouted, trying to get a safe dig in on the new popular kid.

“That's because Lily is in a class of her own and I feel honored to be by her side.” Harry said, twisting what Peter meant.

The girls walking in the hallway made appreciative sounds and Lily blushed at the compliment. They reached the right classroom and Harry took Lily's hand and kissed the back of it, so he wouldn't embarrass her in front of the teacher.

“I'll pick you up here right after class and we can walk to Charms together.” Harry promised.

Lily's blush deepened. “Sure, Harry.”

Harry couldn't resist saying what he did next. “Don't worry, Lily. I'm going to study hard and I'll catch up to you eventually. I won't let you leave me behind.”

Lily felt a little faint. “H-Harry...”

“Have fun in class.” Harry said and let her hand go. “Alice, Marlene.”

“Harry.” The two girls said and they all watched as he walked away.

“We'll be back here, too.” James said. He did not say it to Remus and was looking at Lily.

“I don't care.” Lily huffed and took Alice's hand and entered the classroom.

James did his best to not respond to her dismissal, even though he wanted to yell at her for it. “Let's go, guys. Peverell should be right down the hallway.”

Remus didn't say anything and entered the classroom with the other students. He hadn't had the chance to look up what Pomfrey told him about or what shield spell Peverell had used to reflect their jinxes. He wanted, no he needed to know that spell. He suspected James was going to get vicious with the pranks this year and he wanted to be ready for the retaliation.

*

Harry was wearing his invisibility cloak as he dug out the absolutely huge stacks of Lily's Hogwarts essays, assignments, and tests. He found what he thought was the easiest to catch up with, Arithmancy, since it was mostly maths. He also took out the books Lily had. He offered to buy them from her and she refused to sell them and let him borrow them for as long as he wanted instead.

He chuckled at that polite fiction, because she had pretty much given them to him. He set the others back into his trunk and locked and sealed it again. He set the protective spells once more and shrunk the parchment papers and books to stuff into his pocket. It was just in time, because James, Sirius, and Peter barged into the dorm room with wands drawn.

“Dammit, he's not here!” James spat and stomped over to his bed and fell onto it. He hissed when his top hat was jostled. “Get this thing off of me!”

Sirius sighed and waved his wand at it. “Finite.”

The top hat popped right off and James reached up to rub his sore spot. He hissed again when he touched it.

It was quiet as James carefully probed the thing on the top of his head.

“James, I don't think we should bother him anymore.” Sirius suddenly said.

“What?!?” James gasped and squinted his eyes at his friend.

“He countered us easily and he... he knows things he shouldn't.” Sirius said. “No one else we know at school has invoked family secrets.”

James made a frustrated sound. “I doubt he knew what it meant.”

Sirius sat beside his friend. “James, you've heard the Peverell name before, haven't you?”

“Yeah, who hasn't?” James asked. “What's that got to do with anything?”

Sirius sighed. “I know you know better than that.”

James frowned at him. “Look, just because he's an old family...”

“He can claim membership in any of the families in our society. Including yours and mine.” Sirius said and James' eyes widened. “Yeah, you're getting it. His resemblance to you isn't just coincidence.”

James shot to his feet and ran from the room. Sirius and Peter exchanged looks, then ran after him. Harry couldn't resist and silenced his feet as he followed them. He was pretty sure he knew what James was going to check. When he arrived at the top of the stairs and the Head Boy suite, James was sighing as he hugged the invisibility cloak he had dug out of his trunk... and then it crumbled into dust.

“NO!” James gasped and tried to grab onto it, which made it spread out and dissipate faster.

Harry didn't stick around and ran down the stairs. He knew they would be searching for him and he didn't want to be anywhere near Griffindor Tower when they went for the Marauder's Map to look for him. If he had known bringing his own cloak so close would do that, he might have stayed away. That is, until he realized something very important.

The invisibility cloak he owned took precedence and destroyed the copy, even though he wasn't from this world. Would that mean if he was close enough, the Elder Wand would crumble as well? What would that mean for the Resurrection Stone? His version was back in the Forbidden Forest in his world and he thought if he wasn't in possession of it, it wouldn't count.

Maybe... maybe it did? Harry asked himself. Was that why Dumbledore gave me the choice to go back when I died? It wasn't the horcrux at all, was it? Was it just an easy excuse so Dumbledore didn't have to explain anything? Was it because I owned all three Deathly Hallows at the same time?

Harry stopped jogging in the hallway beside the library, because he realized that he was the fabled Master of Death. He had to silence himself as he laughed, almost hysterically. Becoming the Master of Death had given him the ability to be brought to another world to stop another Voldemort that had split his soul and defied Death. Apparently, Death did not like being denied one bit.

With that thought, Harry knew what he had to do. He took off the cloak and walked from the library to the front doors of the castle and made his way down to Hagrid's hut. He had to check to see if the half-giant had roosters for his chickens. The coops were fairly large, being expanded on the inside, and Harry found the roosters inside a charmed silent pen.

“Immobulus.” Harry said as he used the Elder Wand and all of the roosters froze stiff. He could tell that they were all freaking out and that was perfect. He transfigured a rock into a nice tray and then shrunk each of the roosters and placed them onto it with sticking charms. Their eyes were darting all over the place and Harry knew that as soon as he freed them, they were going to crow their heads off.

Harry checked his version of the map and nodded. The hallways were still clear and no one seemed to be searching for him. He carried the tray back into the school and went right to the second floor bathroom.

“Who are you?!?” The ghost of Moaning Myrtle gasped when she saw him.

“Hi, Myrtle! I'm Harry Peverell and I'm here to kill the thing that killed you.” Harry said and the ghost looked stunned. “You can follow me and see for yourself if you want.”

That shook Myrtle out of her stunned state. “You... you're really asking me to go with you?”

“Yep! I figure this is your bathroom, so it's only polite to ask.” Harry said.

“Really?” Myrtle asked. “Really really? You're not trying to trick me, are you?”

Harry chuckled and pointed to inside the tray. “I even brought shrunken roosters to kill the basilisk.”

Myrtle gasped, her eyes wide, and fainted.

Harry stared at her as she laid down in the air and floated there. “Wait a second! How can you faint? You're a ghost!”

Myrtle opened one eye to look at him and then giggled and cackled a laugh as she righted herself.

“Hardy-har-har. Very funny.” Harry rolled his eyes and walked over to the sink. “You already know about the thing, don't you?”

“I've been floating around here for forty years, Harry. Of course I know about it.” Myrtle said and followed him. “I didn't know it was called a basilisk, though.”

“Yeah, it kills instantly with a look.” Harry said and concentrated on the sink as he hissed. “Open.”

“You talked like Tom did when he was here a few years ago.” Myrtle said and Harry turned from the open hole to stare at her again. “You should ask for lights and stairs, too. Tom hissed a lot more than you did and they appeared.”

Harry took a deep breath and sighed, because he had been an idiot back in his own world. Of course Voldemort wouldn't want to slide down filthy sewer pipes. “Stairs. Lights.” He hissed and they appeared. Then he had a neat idea. “Hand rail. Carpet.” He hissed and they appeared. He had one more idea and hissed. “Clean. Scourgify.”

That did the trick and the thing now looked like a normal stairwell and didn't stink of stale water.

“Thanks, Myrtle.” Harry said and smiled at her briefly, then schooled his face. “Stay behind me, okay? Just in case the thing woke up and is moving around.” He said and started to go down the stairs.

Moaning Myrtle giggled. “Is the big brave Griffindor worried about little old Ravenclaw me?”

“One of my good friends was a Ravenclaw. I was too ignorant to realize what she was going through at the time and didn't know how to stop it, because the professors don't care about the students and I had no one to report it to.” Harry said and tried to not think about that too much. He would only make himself angry about his own treatment over the years by his peers and he couldn't bias himself about the current students. Not without proof, anyway.

A cold ghostly hand touched his shoulder and Harry shivered. “Thank you, Harry.”

“You're welcome.” Harry said warmly, knowing Myrtle was genuine in her thanks.

The odd pair went down the stairs for a while and soon reached the bottom. There were no bones or anything, so that meant the basilisk hadn't been up recently and fed. There was no shed skin in the next intersection, either. They went to the chamber door and Harry whispered a warning to Myrtle again. She giggled at him and put her head through the metal door.

“Myrtle!” Harry harshly whispered, trying to be quiet.

“You're all clear, Harry.” Myrtle told him when she pulled her head back. She saw the concern on his face and she blushed. “I'm sorry. I thought it was safer for me to check than for you to die needlessly.”

Harry sighed. “That only makes me feel a little better about you risking your afterlife for me.”

Myrtle smiled. “In that case, if you die, you can always share my toilet. I have some spare room in the u-bend you can use.”

Harry couldn't stop his bark of laughter, because that was almost exactly what his Myrtle said to him when he went down to the Chamber of Secrets. He turned to the door and hissed. “Open.”

The door clicked loudly several times as several locks disengaged. Harry pulled it open and cautiously went inside. The door hadn't been silent at all and he cursed himself for not silencing the thing first. The two of them entered and Myrtle was right. No one had been here in years and it showed. The place was a mess. Mould and green mildew covered nearly everything and it stank.

Harry knew the statue's mouth opened to release the snake when the password was spoken, so he put the tray down and spent about ten minutes seeing if he could pry it open enough to put the tray inside. If he didn't have to release the basilisk, he didn't want to. He had no luck, however.

“Speak to me, Salazar Slytherin. Greatest of the Hogwarts four.” Harry hissed and waited for the mouth to start opening, then he unstuck the roosters and dumped tray into the mouth, as if feeding the statue. He quickly cancelled the shrinking and immobilization charms, too. “Speak to me, Salazar Slytherin. Greatest of the Hogwarts four.” He hissed to try and get the statue to close the mouth. It worked!

“COCK-A-DOODle-dooooo!” The roosters started crowing as the mouth shut and cut off all sound.

“How long should we wait?” Myrtle asked.

“No idea.” Harry said and used a cleaning spell on the floor before he sat down. “Let's wait for half an hour and check. The roosters should be calm by then.”

Myrtle floated down to kind of lay against him. “You know, this is my very first date.”

Harry tried to not shiver from the cold she was giving off as he thought about that. “I guess it is.” He said and chuckled. “I hope Lily won't be angry about it.”

“Ooo, drama! I love causing drama!” Myrtle giggled and cackled. “A handsome student falls head over heels for a brainy ghost! Check the Daily Prophet for details! Hee hee hee!”

Harry laughed, too. He figured ghosts had to get their entertainment somehow. He never once wondered how the immaterial ghost was actually touching him.

Half an hour later, Harry opened the statue and saw the roosters were spread out all over the place, pecking at the ground, the walls, and the fifty-five foot long and quite dead basilisk. It was slightly smaller than the one he had defeated when he was twelve. Since he was almost 20 years in the past, that made sense. It also explained not having a shed skin out in the tunnels yet.

Both Harry and Myrtle searched around, only to find an empty study that had been cleaned out, except for a cheap wood desk and chair with nothing else but empty shelves. They found several dried out skins that were much smaller than the snake in the back of its lair and Harry transfigured the cheap chair into a canvas bag and stuffed the skins into it. Twilfitt would pay a great price for them.

Harry then spent an hour chasing down the damn roosters, giving Moaning Myrtle a merry old time on their date. She giggled and cackled as she watched Harry trying and mostly failing to hunt the things down. She eventually took mercy on him and lightly touched the last few to make them shiver and angrily cluck at her, which distracted them from running long enough for Harry to stun them.

With the roosters finally caught, immobilized, and shrunk, Harry used an empty vial and milked a bit of venom from the basilisk. They left the basilisk's lair and Harry said the password to close the statue's mouth. He also set some protection charms to hide the statue, just in case someone else found their way down here.

Harry did the same with the chamber door when it closed and locked, just in case, and walked up the stairs with Myrtle floating behind him.

“Thanks for keeping me company today, Myrtle.” Harry said and felt her cold hand on his shoulder again. He didn't mind the cold and wondered if he was somehow getting used to it.

“I had fun, Harry.” Myrtle said and then giggled. “I won't tell anyone about the Great Chicken Chase of 77! I swear!”

Harry laughed and shrugged. “Now that I've dealt with the thing, it doesn't matter.”

“Oh? I can tell the other ghosts about what happened?” Myrtle asked. “You don't mind?”

Harry shook his head. “I doubt anyone would believe you, especially the other ghosts.”

Myrtle didn't tell him that the ghosts would be the first to believe her, not the last. “Thanks, Harry.”

Harry came to a stop at the top of the stairs and hissed for them to go away, turned off the lights, removed the hand rail, and then closed the entrance. The sink slid back into place and he cast the same protections on the sink to hide it and no one would notice it.

“I'll see you later, Myrtle.” Harry said and left with the tray of tiny roosters.

As soon as the door to the bathroom closed, Myrtle zoomed off through the wall to tell as many ghosts as she could about what happened. New gossip spread through the castle like Fiendfyre and she wanted them to hear it from her. She had a date. Her, the ghost of Myrtle Warren... and he didn't die at the end! It was shocking!

*

Lily stepped out of the Ancient Runes classroom and smiled warmly at seeing Harry leaning against the wall across the hallway. She walked over to him and hadn't noticed James, Sirius, and Peter were just off to the side. She took Harry's hand and heard a sucked in breath and a curse.

“Notice-me-not?” Lily asked as her smile became a grin.

“You broke it. What do you think?” Harry asked back.

“I think she's proud that you can't hide from her.” Alice said from beside her friend. “I didn't see you at all.”

Harry chuckled and nodded toward the stairs. The three of them started to walk and James stepped out to block the hallway. Before he could say anything to them, Harry swiped his wand at him and James was pushed aside and pressed into the wall.

“The rats in the castle are getting bigger and more annoying. Someone should call Filch and Mrs. Norris up here to take care of it.” Harry said and the other students laughed as they passed by.

“Asshole!” James spat when the pressure disappeared.

“James...” Remus started to say.

“We're getting him tonight, if it's the last thing we do.” James said, his voice full of venom.

Remus and Sirius sighed and followed James to their Charms class with Peter trailing behind. They were a team and they would do everything together, even if it meant pissing off someone they knew had dealt with Voldemort.

Unlike other years, the professor didn't give them a rundown of what he would be teaching this year and put them right to work. Charms was only a normal length class, so Flitwick only showed the class the Bubble-Head Charm once and set them to work on it as he gave the background for it. Since it was their seventh year, they had to cast it silently as well.

Harry, having years of experience with it, since he had learned of it back in his fourth year during the second task of the Triwizard Tournament, easily cast the spell on himself and made a perfectly formed bubble of air around his head.

“Oh! Well done, Mister Peverell. Look everyone, Mister Peverell succeeded on the first try!” Flitwick praised Harry. “Ten points to Griffindor.”

“That's a start on getting back all the points he lost us this morning.” James commented loudly.

Lily turned around with her wand pointed at him. “Shut it!”

Harry's hand snapped out and grabbed her wrist to point her wand at the ceiling. A small crack sounded and a bit of dust fell to the floor. “Remember, your wand reacts to your intention.”

Lily gave him a pointed look. “I intended to hurt him.”

Several other students laughed under their breaths and James glared at them.

“I know.” Harry said and slowly turned her around to face the front of the classroom. “Let him rant and rave about me being docked all those points from an empty counter. It just shows everyone how limited his thinking is.”

Everyone in the class gave Harry a surprised look, even Lily.

“The counters can't go into the negatives. I could have lost a thousand points this morning and it wouldn't have mattered.” Harry explained and let her wrist go. “Do you want me to explain how I cast the Bubble-Head Charm?”

Lily nodded and tried to not blush as Harry hugged her with one arm and leaned in to whisper in her ear. He stayed there for about ten minutes as he explained and Lily was surprised at how good of a teacher Harry was. When he leaned back and nodded to her, Lily did the proper wand motions as she kept what she wanted to happen in her mind, then cast the spell on herself.

It was just as perfect as Harry's was and earned their House another ten points. It also earned Harry a quick kiss and a promise to do a bit more exploring tonight. Harry somehow knew she did not mean walking around the castle and he couldn't stop smiling.

“Teach me, too.” Alice whispered from the other side of Lily.

Lily smirked at her best friend and they switched seats. She had to hold a hand over her mouth while she watched Alice blush bright red as Harry hugged her and gave her the same lesson for ten minutes. Lily saw Alice rubbing her thighs together when Harry was done and didn't say anything to distract her friend.

Alice took several deep breaths to calm down and fought off her blush, then she put a determined look on her face as she concentrated and cast the spell. It was almost perfect and only had a slight wobble on the top. She cancelled it when Harry whispered that and Alice cast it again. This time it was perfect.

“Well done, Mister Peverell! Take another ten points for successfully teaching two other students this difficult charm.” Flitwick said.

“Me next!” Several Griffindor girls said and raised their hands. Harry smiled and motioned to Marlene at the next desk to switch seats with Alice. He ignored Sirius softly cursing at him and gave her the same lesson. It was only an hour class, so he couldn't teach more than another two girls before the bell rang. All of them got it by their second casting.

Flitwick couldn't have been more pleased with the outcome and gave Harry another fifteen points, or five points for each girl. If Harry kept that up, they would be done with this spell next week and he could move on to the more difficult spells, like the advanced cleaning spell Evanesco or the copying spell Geminio.

*

Harry was off all afternoon and he debated rushing off to handle another horcrux, then decided he didn't need to do it right away. He still had the diadem in his moleskin pouch and he would need privacy to take care of it, so he let it be for now.

The library was the best option for studying, since it was quiet and everyone else was in class. The first year of Arithmancy was surprisingly easy for Harry to read through. The books were not enough on their own to give him a good background, which meant all of Lily's work was invaluable to his studying.

Harry wasn't going to get through four years of it in a single afternoon, though. Just writing everything out would take a week or more and that was only if he didn't study anything else. Lily was a prolific note taker and Harry appreciated it. He met her after class and did the same trick he did that morning as he waited in the hallway.

Lily made a beeline right to him and broke the notice-me-not again, making James and his friends curse at being avoided again. Remus just looked constipated as he kept his mouth shut.

“Harry, you can't expect him to turn on his friends for a relative stranger.” Lily said as they walked by the group. “You barely talked to anyone else except Alice.”

“I know, I know. Doing what's easy is much easier than doing what's right. But, we all know if he did try to stop them, they would turn on him and treat him like they treat the Slytherins.” Harry said loud enough to carry. “No one deserves that... except for some of the Slytherins. Death Eaters don't deserve mercy.”

Lily and Harry walked down a different hallway to find an empty classroom to spend the next two classes they had off to help Harry study. Alice went with them and they didn't object. However, they did warn her that they might get a little frisky later. Alice was okay with that. She didn't tell them that she was curious enough to see what Lily had talked to her about when they had privacy.

The trio started with Arithmancy and Harry told them he had an easy time of it and he had gone through a month of Lily's work already. Both Lily and Alice tested him on that for their first off-period and Harry surprised the both of them, because he only had a little experience with the subject previously and he already knew a lot.

They switched subjects when the bell rang and Ancient Runes couldn't be done the same way, since Harry would have to memorize three different runic alphabets and their basic meanings before they could start teaching him the coursework. He wouldn't understand anything if they tried to just dive in without any preparation.

So, that meant they had an entire class of just hanging out, which quickly became a snogging session and some light petting between Harry and Lily. It soon became some heavy petting when Lily remembered promising Harry a reward for teaching her the Bubble-Head Charm so quickly that morning. It had been so easy to cast the spell after he explained it that Lily had been really turned on at the time.

Alice watched with surprise when Lily's top and bra came off, then she had to hold her legs together when Harry dove for her breasts and he had a lot of fun playing with them and then getting Lily off using his hand between her legs. Alice was slightly disappointed that Lily hadn't taken Harry's underwear off when she started jerking on him... until he was about to blow and Lily yanked them down and took him in her mouth.

Harry groaned and Lily moaned as she swallowed everything. She didn't stop, though. Now that she had crossed that line, she didn't want to stop and she didn't. Harry almost continually moaned as Lily pretty much had her way with him and got him off again. She looked quite proud of herself, too.

It took a few minutes before Harry recovered enough to give Lily a hungry look. “Your turn.”

A mattress seemed to appear out of nowhere and Lily laid down on it and took off her panties. Harry finally saw what Lily had been too nervous about showing off until now and he muttered how pretty she was, then his tongue was inside of her. She screamed her head off and Harry made her orgasm, over and over. His tongue was magic!

They ignored the bell that ended classes for the day and kept going, then Lily decided she couldn't lay there and let Harry give her all the fun. She moved down and took him into her mouth again, which spurred Harry on to get her off even more. The fight was on and they completely forgot that they had a captive audience right there.

Alice got off a few times, too. She really, really did. She was so tempted by what they were doing that she inched closer as they kept going and eventually reached the spot right beside them and saw the desire on Lily's face. She wanted someone to look at her like that and to have the same look on her own face, so she leaned in and kissed her.

Lily moaned and made out with her best friend, then they were sharing Harry's erection and took turns sucking him off. Alice felt her underwear disappearing and then she was in heaven as someone licked her down there. She almost lost herself at how good it felt and she was sure she did a few things she only dreamed about with both her best friend and her best friend's boyfriend.

Lily was so pretty, Harry was really handsome, and they loved each other. Alice needed to feel what that felt like at least once. And she did. She felt it a lot. She also licked everything on the both of them as the other two had sex for the first time. Surprisingly, Lily barely noticed losing her virginity and then she professed undying love for Harry when he said he hadn't had sex before, either.

Things were kind of blurry after that. At one point Alice had her best friend Lily above her and she felt something boiling hot and large swipe against her opening, so she spread her legs to invite Harry in and kissed the beautiful girl above her. She moaned when the steel-hard thing plunged inside of her.

Alice was really glad she wasn't a virgin, because she was sure there was no way it would have fit otherwise. Harry wasn't as long as Frank; but, he was a lot thicker around and filled her up in the most wonderful way. It was the best sex she had ever had, because Harry constantly rubbed that wonderful spot inside of her and she was snogging her best friend that she secretly loved for years.

Lily really was her best friend to let her be a part of her first time with Harry. The absolute best.

The three of them lay exhausted on the mattress when it was over. Both Lily and Alice snuggled into Harry's sides and their hands lightly roamed over his body, as if they were trying to reassure themselves that it really happened.

“Did that actually happen?” Harry asked as he voiced their thoughts. His arms hugged the two girls he had sex with and his brain was finally catching up to what they did.

“I hope so, because that was the most wonderful thing that's ever happened to me.” Lily said and kissed his pectoral muscle. “I love you more than I can say and now we both know it for a fact.”

Harry nodded. “It's like... you filled up a spot inside that... I didn't realize was empty? It needed to be filled and you fit perfectly.”

“That's exactly how I feel, too.” Lily said and propped herself up on an elbow. Her eyes roamed over Harry's face and locked onto Alice's face. “I also didn't realize I had much deeper feelings for a certain short brunette and wouldn't object to sharing things with her.”

Alice blushed. “I... well... I've loved you for years. I just... I mean... I thought it was normal, you know? I'm supposed to love and be close to my best friend.”

Lily blushed as well. “Me, too. I thought... I have a sister and she's been a horrible bitch to me ever since I was eleven. When I met you and we hit it off right away, I thought that was the way it was supposed to be with a sister I loved very much.”

“Petunia's jealous that you can do magic and she can't. Because she's not a witch, she chose to hate everything that's magical, including you.” Harry said and Lily's mouth opened in surprise. “There's nothing you can do about it, either.”

Lily sighed and laid back down. “I thought after I turned seventeen over the summer, I could show her how great magic was and how much it could help her and my family, except that never happened. I received a notice within minutes of casting my first spell at home.”

“The Ministry of Magic should have broken the trace on you on your birthday, since you're of age.” Harry said and took in a sharp breath when he realized something.

“What is it?” Alice asked.

“It's been bugging me why an Auror showed up when I did magic at Lily's and I just figured it out. Lily is still registered in school. As long as she's a student, the trace remains active and it doesn't matter how old she is.” Harry explained. “If she does magic in a muggle neighborhood, they can track it.”

Lily sighed again. “That does make sense.”

Alice nodded in agreement and didn't want to move or get up. She was both sore and comfortable, which felt weird and wonderful at the same time. She somehow knew that Harry and Lily felt the same way, so the three of them laid there for quite some time to recover from the best sex any of them ever had.

“I have a kind of stupid question and I'm sorry if it is.” Harry said and both girls lifted their heads to look at him. “Does what we did mean I'm dating you both now?”

Alice gasped in shock and put a hand over her mouth. “I completely forgot about Frank!”

Both Lily and Harry stared at her for a few seconds, then Lily giggled. She tried to hold it in and it didn't work. She started laughing and Harry did, too. The two of them laughed pretty hard and Alice, being full of endorphins and afterglow, joined in.

“Harry... and I... shagged Frank right out of your head! Ha hahaha!” Lily laughed and laughed.

Alice agreed that it really was funny and the three of them laughed for a long time.

They eventually calmed down and Alice sighed. “I'll send him a letter and tell him what happened. I'm not going to lie about it or never tell him.”

Lily reached over Harry and put a hand on Alice's face. “It's up to you, Alice. I know what a great thing you have with Frank and I don't know if you should throw it away after one absolutely fantastic shag.”

Alice turned her head and kissed Lily's palm. “You just told me why I can't settle for Frank anymore. I don't want to hurt him; but, I'm not going to be able to walk straight for a day or two and it's because of Harry, not him.”

Lily smiled. “I'll help you write it out to let him down easy. Merlin knows I have tons of practice.”

Alice snorted and laughed, which was why Lily said that. She had turned down dozens of guys.

Lily laughed too as she tried to cover up her groan and sat up. A good soreness was still soreness. “We need to get dressed and head back to the common room.”

Harry grabbed her arm and pulled her back down. Lily sighed with relief and snuggled back into his side.

“So, we're staying here for a while?” Alice asked, not really objecting.

“I can get us back safely after curfew, so don't worry about that.” Harry said. “We missed supper, too.”

A tray appeared on the desk with several sandwiches and cups of pumpkin juice.

“Thank you.” Harry said to the air.

Alice did the honors and served them, which Harry and Lily thanked her for. The three of them laid there and ate, then Harry sighed and reminded them that he had detention to go to. He left them there after giving Lily a kiss on the lips and Alice a kiss on the cheek. He needed to work up to giving her more than that and he felt that Alice also needed some time to get used to it, too.

After three hours of writing lines under Professor McGonagall's watchful eye, Harry returned to the abandoned classroom and saw that Lily and Alice were still there relaxing, only they had pillows, a blanket, and a change of clothes for themselves and him.

Harry hugged them both and the three of them changed into their sleepwear when they felt tired. Their activities that evening had caught up to them and they cuddled back together. He used the blanket to cover them and the three of them went right to sleep.

Since Harry didn't return to his dorm room at curfew, James and his friends were left with no one to ambush and get revenge on. James went to bed angry, Sirius with worry, Remus with relief, and Peter with fear. He never wanted to get on the bad side of James. He was really scary when he was angry.

*

Transfiguration class the next day before lunch was quite informative, because for the next month, they would be working on the Animagus transformation. Professor McGonagall warned them that it was very rare for anyone to actually have an animal transformation, which was why they would only have a brief time to work on it.

Anyone that did find that they had the potential for it, she would work with outside of class to practice their transformation. Harry wasn't sure if he should feel disappointed or not about that. With only a single class each week for five weeks, that seemed like a very short time indeed.

Harry concentrated on the professor's lesson and description of what to do, like meditation exercises and clearing his mind. He almost laughed at that, because he remembered Snape telling him the exact same thing for his lessons on Occlumency without actually teaching him how to do those things.

Suddenly, Harry stiffened and his eyes widened. He felt his magic flow up his arm from the Elder Wand and into his head, then it seeped into his brain. It was a weird feeling, to say the least. He had never felt anything like it before and as his magic settled, the world faded away and he retreated into his mind.

The room that formed around him was a complete mess. It took him a few minutes to realize it was a locker room that was full of snitches, bludgers, quaffles, brooms, pieces of equipment, and uniform jerseys. The piles were waist high and there were a lot of things to go through.

Harry sighed and reached down for a snitch and he instantly lived getting a hug from Hermione and she kissed his cheek. The mix of emotions was startling, too. He stared at the thing in his hand and wondered if he could... and he lived it instantly again. A rack of shelves formed at the side of the room and Harry levitated the snitch into the top spot, his most precious memory of his best friend.

Another snitch and it was him, Ron, and Hermione sitting in front of the fire and laughing over Hermione saying Ron had the emotional range of a teaspoon. Harry laughed and put it right next to the other snitch. He started having a lot of fun as he picked up each snitch to sort them and put them on the shelves in order of importance.

Harry moved on to the bludgers and those were his bad memories and hit just as hard. Dementors, the basilisk, Aragog in the Forbidden Forest, and on and on it went. They were put on the bottom shelf by the floor. The brooms were his memories of flying, so there wasn't many of them and they went into the broom cupboard. The other balls had different kinds of memories, too.

The jerseys had people's names on them and each of them was a memory he had of them. He sorted them by date and the numbers appeared by their name and the jerseys floated over to the very long hanging closet. With a thought, they changed colors to mark their importance. Not surprisingly, Hermione's jerseys were right at the front of the closet and took up a lot of space.

Harry spent endless hours as he sorted through everything and the locker room expanded as he did so. He wasn't sure how he knew how to cast the undetectable extension charm, then his fingers brushed against a galleon that was under the jersey he was reaching for. He instantly remembered watching Hermione practising and muttering what to do to cast it.

Once Harry knew that galleons were spell memories, hundreds of galleons seemed to bubble up from the floor and pushed the remaining equipment and jerseys aside. He didn't sigh at the sight, even though there were a lot of them. Instead, he felt excited and coin slots formed beside the rack of Quidditch helmets that represented his memories of protecting people.

The coin slots were divided by category, Charms, Transfiguration, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Herbology, and Miscellaneous. DaDa was the biggest by far. It was no wonder he was considered the best in the subject. With another thought, the coins sorted themselves by year into seven rows and he finally saw exactly how many seventh year spells he knew.

Harry had to add an eighth row for the advanced spells that weren't taught in school, like the Patronus charm. It had an empty slot beside it and he realized he never learned the messenger version of the spell. He needed to ask someone about teaching him that.

“Mister Peverell!” Professor McGonagall's shrill voice shook the room.

Harry instinctually forced himself to wake up and was back in the Transfiguration classroom. It was a bit jarring, because in his mind, he had been busy for at least twelve hours as he was sorting things, yet only a few minutes had passed.

“Yes, professor?” Harry asked, as if he hadn't been shaken out of his meditation.

Minerva gave him a very good glare and Harry easily ignored it. “I asked you if you were actually meditating or where you just sleeping?”

Harry was sure that he shouldn't lie, especially if he was going to ask her about the Patronus charm variant. “Honestly? I was meditating and became distracted, because it wasn't about being an animagus.”

“No? Then what were you meditating about?” Minerva asked, trying to catch him out.

Now Harry didn't feel like being completely honest and chose to not tell her he was sorting through his memories. “The Patronus charm, professor. I realized I was missing an important part of it and wondered who I could ask to teach me the message component.”

Minerva's eyebrows rose and the entire class stopped making noise to stare at them. “You can cast the Patronus charm?”

“Yes, professor.” Harry said, not boasting at all.

Minerva really wanted to catch him out for lying so blatantly and her lips thinned. “That's quite the claim, Mister Peverell. Would you mind giving me a demonstration?”

Harry knew she was going to ask that. “Of course not, professor.”

Everyone watched as he stood up and took out his Holly and Phoenix Feather wand. Harry thought about being dramatic about it, then remembered being with Lily and Alice the night before and the memory almost burned to be used to power the spell. His decision made, he took a duelling pose and then stepped forward as he whipped his wand towards the front of the classroom.

“Expectooooo Patrooooonum!” Harry shouted and poured love and magic through his wand.

The entire class gasped when the room lit up and a silvery horse shape with wings shot out the end of Harry's wand. It immediately grew to full size and finished forming as it cantered around the classroom, its bat-like wings flapping as if it wanted to take off, and it filled the room with an overwhelming feeling of love and affection.

All of the girls moaned and all the guys were awed by the sight. Minerva's shaky hand reached out and the thin horse nuzzled into her hand. She sucked in a sharp breath as she pet its head, because she was really touching it and realized it was a corporeal Patronus. She was nearly overcome with the intensity of the love coming from it, too.

Luckily, they were all staring at the Patronus and no one had seen Harry's shocked face at the change. His patronus was supposed to be a huge male deer with antlers and now it was a thestral. Harry took several deep breaths and schooled his face before anyone looked at him. Now he really had to research the spell or ask someone about how or why it would change.

“You can end the spell, Mister Peverell.” Minerva said, even though she didn't want him to. It was a magnificent piece of spellwork and the sheer strength of it made her heart flutter. She didn't want Harry to become exhausted, however. “With that spectacular example as a reminder, it's usually a Patronus a person can cast that is an indication of their animagus transformation.”

The rest of the class was stunned when Minerva cast the spell and a silvery tabby cat formed. It ran around the classroom and back to her and sat down. She awed them when she transformed into her animagus form and she and the Patronus looked identical as they sat there. The cat Patronus faded away and the professor changed back.

“Mister Peverell, we will have a discussion about this spell during your detention this evening.” Minerva said.

“Yes, professor.” Harry said and sat down. He had a lot to think about in the meantime, too.

Harry's Patronus used to be a stag, so if he had become an animagus back then, he might have become a stag like his father. That was when it hit him. He was no longer in awe of his father or wanted to grow up to be like him, not after meeting his counterpart here. The guy was an arrogant jerk and a horrible bully, and he really did treat Snape like the memory he had seen in Snape's pensieve.

Of course, Harry was also the Master of Death. Having his Patronus be a thestral, a portent of death, made a lot of sense. The problem was, if his animagus was the same, most of the class and probably most of the school would not be able to see him. He had to hold in his laugh at that. He could transform and walk around in plain sight and only those that have seen and understood death would see him.

“I want you all to read the three chapters in the book about the animagus procedure and practice meditation in the evenings before going to bed.” Minerva told them. “Most of you will fall asleep for the first few times and that's perfectly normal. We will work on it next class.”

The bell rang and everyone packed up their things. The look on Lily's face was a mix of desire and need, and Harry knew it was about teaching her the spell and not visiting a broom cupboard for another snogging session.

As soon as they were out in the hallway, Lily grabbed his hand. “You are teaching me that spell.”

Harry had the perfect response to her demand and couldn't resist teasing her about it. “It's not part of the school's authorized curriculum.”

Lily let out a cute little growl that made Alice laugh under her breath. “I. Don't. Care.”

Harry winked at Alice and Lily growled again. “Fine, fine. We can meet up after classes and before supper. We can start the theory lesson then.”

Lily beamed a smile at him and kissed his cheek. “You're the best, Harry!”

The three of them ignored the angry sounds James made behind them.

*

Minerva McGonagall would never admit that it was a delight to each her latest student. She was very happy that she had fudged his late registration to fix it and let him attend this year, too. He had learned the messenger component of the Patronus spell after only half an hour of instruction and she felt proud of her newest Lion Cub when she heard his clear and not garbled voice coming from the thestral Patronus.

They moved on to the animagus transformation and she walked Harry through the proper meditation technique and to search for his inner animal. As Minerva had suggested, looking for his Patronus connection and following that to his animal representation, made it a lot easier.

Minerva was about to tell him that he was doing extremely well and that their lesson was done for the evening, when she caught her breath and watched as Harry's sitting form slowly morphed and grew. The wings came out first and then his face started to change. She was too shocked to stop his progress and was worried that he had no experience changing back and forth and might be stuck that way.

After two quite long minutes, a perfectly formed thestral stood there and nuzzled her hand, just like the Patronus had that morning. Minerva pet the head and it neighed at her, flapped its wings, and then sighed. It sat on its hind end and then slowly reversed the transformation. Another long two minutes later, Harry Peverell sat there with an odd expression on his face.

“You don't look particularly happy that you've succeeded beyond all expectations, Mister Peverell.” Minerva said, with some consternation. “It usually takes three to six months of extensive practice and control to use the animagus transformation so fluidly.”

Harry sighed again. “I'm sorry, professor. It's just... I thought it would be harder.”

“Excuse me?” Minerva asked, surprised.

“I've been spending some time during my off classes today meditating. Once I had your techniques sorted and memorized, I could easily go through them without having to think about it.” Harry said and saw her confusion. “I essentially got out of my own way and let the magic guide me. I wasn't worried about failing, because I trusted the magic to make it happen. It did.”

Minerva was shocked. She had never met anyone that would give themselves over to their magic like that. It was both foolish and brave, which seemed to define the main traits of a Griffindor, now that she was thinking about it.

Harry stood up and stretched, then he gathered up his things. “Thank you for your help, professor.”

Minerva watched him walk to the door of the classroom to leave. “Mister Peverell, I suggest...”

“I'll only tell Lily and Alice, professor.” Harry promised. “I doubt I can show them, considering the nature of thestrals. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.” Minerva said and sat there for a while after he left. She wondered how he knew about their natures if he didn't take Care of Magical Creatures. They were not taught until seventh year, because of the stigma around them.

*

Lily and Alice were only a little disappointed that they couldn't see Harry's animagus transformation the next morning before breakfast. It was almost funny that he could walk around the crowded Entrance Hall with them and no one could see him as the winged horse he had become.

When Harry changed back to go into the Great Hall, only a couple of the Griffindors noticed him appearing out of nowhere. Thankfully, none of them were the Marauders and they didn't assume he was using the invisibility cloak.

“Here comes Professor McGonagall.” Alice whispered the warning as the trio sat down to eat.

“Mister Peverell.” Minerva said with her normal stern face and handed him a slip of parchment. “This is an appointment this afternoon at the Ministry of Magic to register your animagus form and the directions on how to get there.”

A bunch of shocked sounds came from all around them and four of them stood out, because three of them thought they were the only ones to achieve the feat of becoming animals and the fourth thought only his friends could do it.

“Thank you for giving me permission to leave the school grounds for something so important, professor.” Harry said and read the time and put the piece of parchment into his pocket.

Minerva's stern expression softened and she smiled slightly. “You're welcome, Mister Peverell. It's best to get the legalities out of the way as soon as possible. The fines and prison time for getting caught and not being registered are quite hefty.”

Harry barely held in his laugh when he heard several distressed sounds a few seats away. “I appreciate the warning, professor.” He said and felt the need to tease her. Why he felt this was okay lately wasn't something he was conscious of. “I'll try and not dawdle too much outside the castle before coming back to spend time with you tonight...”

A collective gasp came from everyone around them and both Lily and Alice looked surprised.

“...at detention.” Harry finished with a big grin on his face.

Lily whacked him hard on the side of the head and everyone started laughing.

Minerva looked exasperated and also amused. “I believe you should prepare yourself, Mister Peverell. I will be working you quite hard tonight.”

Another collective gasp came from everyone around them. Minerva stood there with a smirk on her face for a few seconds, schooled her face to become her normal stern expression, and walked back towards the head table.

“Bloody hell, she actually teased me back.” Harry whispered in surprise.

“Language!” Minerva and Lily said at the same time, making Alice and the other girls laugh.

“Right. Sorry.” Harry said sheepishly and started eating.

Everyone that had been listening or watching took the hint and returned to their food as well.

After a while, Lily gave Harry a searching look. “Don't forget to study my potions notes before the last class this morning.”

Harry nodded. “I'm heading to the library right after I walk you two to class.”

Lily smiled and went back to eating.

“When are you leaving for your appointment?” Alice asked.

“Right after Potions class and before lunch. If I'm lucky, the Knight Bus can drop me off at the Ministry of Magic with plenty of time to make it to my appointment.” Harry explained. “I just hope there isn't a fee for doing it.”

“There shouldn't be. You're still a student, after all.” Lily said and Alice nodded.

“I never thought of that. Anything school-related should be covered by Ministry subsidization.” Harry said and then wondered if that existed where he came from. As far as he knew, school fees were taken directly from his vault. He couldn't help thinking that was something Minister Fudge implemented to line his pockets with the subsidization and forced students to pay their own tuition.

Harry walked them to class after breakfast and spent the next two classes reading Lily's impressive notes. She had a lot of tips and tricks to help brewing and Harry admired how smart she was to figure things out like that, since she was a muggleborn and had no previous knowledge of potions.

When Harry met Lily and Alice to walk them to the Newt Potions class, he whispered how impressed he was with Lily's work and kissed her cheek. Lily blushed and hugged him tightly until they entered the classroom. They started brewing right away and Professor Slughorn taught them a few things about the volatile ingredients and what to never do with them.

Harry had an easy time with the Viritaserum potion, even though he usually hated potions. His sixth year and using the Half-Blood Prince's book had given him different insights that helped him a lot, especially when combined with Lily's knowledge. He and Lily were the only ones to finish their potions and they were a clear liquid and smelled right.

Professor Slughorn praised the both of them and extended an invitation for them to attend his next Slug Club party that weekend. Both Lily and Harry politely refused, for different reasons. Lily because she had given up the Head Girl position and wasn't a Prefect anymore. Harry because he knew that Slughorn helped create Voldemort and never told anyone about the horcruxes.

They both did up a vial to pass in and Harry sneaked a vial for himself before emptying his cauldron, because they weren't allowed to keep the restricted and regulated potion for themselves. Lily didn't question him about it and only gave him a pointed look. Harry just smiled and didn't say anything.

They left class and Lily took Harry's hand. Alice walked on Harry's other side and Harry offered his hand to her, too. Alice was surprised at the offer, because it was his wand hand, then she blushed and accepted it. Lily beamed a smile at them both and they walked across the castle to the Entrance Hall.

“Good luck.” Lily said and gave Harry a kiss on the lips.

“Thanks.” Harry said and turned to Alice. “Alice...”

Alice pulled him down and gave him a kiss on the lips, too. “Don't make us wait too long.”

Harry smiled warmly and nodded. Lily and Alice watched him leave through the castle's front doors and then turned around, only to see a bunch of shocked looks, especially on the faces of the four Marauders.

Instead of making a comment about how loving and irresistible Harry was, Lily took Alice's hand and walked around the four boys and into the Great Hall. She was feeling particularly hungry right now and she was sure the gossiping was going to be loud after that public display between Alice and Harry.

“Are you sure you're okay with this?” Lily asked her in a whisper as they sat down beside each other.

Alice nodded. “I've been thinking about it ever since... well, how can I not think about it? I was almost immediately jealous of what you two have, because I wanted to have it with Frank... and then I realized Frank either can't or won't open up to me like Harry has to you.”

“Alice...” Lily started to say that Harry hadn't opened up completely.

“Harry has no problem showing you how much he loves you, Lily. It touched me deep in my heart to see how much you love him right back. You're both getting lost in each other and I realized I wanted to get lost, too.” Alice said and looked into her friend's eyes. “I told you that you're my best friend and that I've loved you for years. There's no way that I'm letting you leave me behind!”

Lily saw and heard her sincerity and blushed, glanced around to see if anyone was looking, then leaned in to give Alice a quick kiss. “I love you, too.”

Alice fought off her blush as she smiled at Lily proving she was a Griffindor and doing that in public. The two best friends started eating and hoped their boyfriend had an easy time while out of the castle.

*

Harry didn't take the Knight Bus like he said he would. Not yet, anyway. He went into Hogsmeade and went to the Three Broomsticks instead. He entered the pub and took out a silver sickle to toss to Madam Rosmerta. Her hand darted out and caught it, as if she was a professional seeker going for the snitch.

“I'm flooing to the Ministry of Magic.” Harry told her.

“You can use the floo for the rest of the year for this.” Rosmerta said and dropped the coin into her cleavage.

Harry chuckled and used a pinch of floo powder in the fireplace. “Ministry of Magic, Atrium.”

He swirled around in the flames and reached out at the last second to grab the side of the grate and caught himself before he flopped out onto his face or slid out on his back. He carefully stepped out and no one really noticed him. Since he had come out of a fireplace and hadn't entered through the muggle entrance, he didn't have to go through the security check.

Harry joined the throng of people moving towards the elevators and passed the throng of people leaving. They were obviously going to and returning from different lunchtimes, which was perfect. He went to the right floor and entered the registration office, took a number from the desk and sat, even though he was the only person there.

His number was called fifteen minutes later and he went to the clerk's desk. She filled out his information, that he was a student at Hogwarts, marked the school subsidization option, and asked what his animagus form was. She didn't believe him when he changed, because she couldn't see it and thought he only disillusioned himself.

Another twenty minutes of waiting later, an older gentleman that Harry remembered from his Owls examination, Mister Tofty, came in and applauded his transformation. He explained that it was very rare for anyone to have a magical animal as an animagus form and that his name would have a spot of prominence in history for it.

Harry didn't believe that at all, thanked the man for his help, and left the office with a copy of his registration form. He went back to the Atrium and stopped at the row of fireplaces and stepped aside to stay out of the way.

One of the security wizards saw him and approached. “Is there a problem here?”

Harry forced himself to chuckle to try and make the alert man less suspicious. “I'm trying to figure out if it's better to floo back to Hogsmeade and then sneak away from school for the rest of the afternoon or if I should leave through the muggle entrance and take the Knight Bus instead.”

The man gave Harry a look for a moment and then chuckled himself. He pulled out a ten pound note and handed it to him. “There's a nice bistro a block from the muggle exit. Have a sub sandwich and a drink on me.”

Harry stared at the money and then at his face. “Seriously?”

The security man chuckled. “I was a kid once, too. Skipping school is a tradition every kid needs to do at least once.”

Harry gave him a huge smile. “Thanks. Thanks a lot.”

“Anytime, kid.” He said and motioned towards the exit. “I'll walk you out.”

Harry went with him and they chatted about why he was there. Harry showed him McGonagall's note and he looked impressed. When they reached the entrance, the security guy pulled him off to the side and asked to see it. Harry warned him he might not see it and the man nodded, then Harry transformed.

The man whistled and lightly pet the thestral's mane and poked his wings, then stepped back. “Damn, kid. That really is impressive.” He said and let Harry change back before he walked him over to the phone booth exit. “Make sure you order extra pastrami on your sandwich. Thestrals love meat.”

Harry laughed. “Yes, sir. Thank you.”

The man waved as Harry stepped into the phone booth and it rose up to the exit. Harry waved back and waited for the ride to end. He stepped out onto the street and no one was around, so he walked anound the block and found the bistro. The sandwich was delicious, as was the extra meat, and Harry left with a full belly and a smile on his face.

A quick ride on the Knight Bus dropped Harry off at a deserted road near the coastline. Surprisingly, the conductor didn't warn him that there was nothing around and the Knight Bus zoomed away. Harry walked over to the small path he knew was there and made his way down to the water. As luck would have it, the tide was out and he didn't have to swim to get to the cave entrance.

Harry picked up a sharp rock and poked his thumb for a drop of blood, then used the stone and touched it to the entrance. It worked and the opening appeared, so he put the rock into his pocket. He entered and followed along the edge of the underground lake until he reached the right spot, then picked up the chain and used the Elder Wand to tap it, just like Dumbledore did in his world.

The chain pulled and piled up on the walkway and the boat came up out of the water, completely dry. Harry piled the chain inside the boat and stepped in as well, then tapped the bow. It was a quick trip across the water to the small island in the center and he stepped out of the boat. He knew the locket had to be there in the basin of nightmare potion, because Regulus was still in school and might not be a Death Eater yet.

Harry took the rock out of his pocket and transfigured it into a bucket, then took out a bronze knut coin and transfigured it into a cup. For the next fifteen minutes, Harry scooped out the potion and dumped it into the bucket instead of drinking it. If he had thought of it before, he could have brought a length of hose instead. It would have emptied the basin in only a minute or two.

The potion was eventually down low enough for Harry to scoop the locket up with the cup and he could feel that it was the horcrux. He was very tempted to deal with it right here, except that he was sure Voldemort would show up if he did. This was his most secured hiding place, after all.

Harry took out the fake locket from his moleskin pouch and put it into the basin, then carefully poured the bucket of potion back into the basin. He cancelled the transfigurations on the goblet and bucket so both reverted to a knut and a sharp rock. He pocketed both and put the real locket into his moleskin pouch. Another boat ride back to the shore and he made his way back to the entrance.

A poke at his thumb with the sharp rock and another drop of blood let Harry out. He sighed at successfully getting through that and not activating the lake full of Inferi like last time, since he didn't know the fire spell that Dumbledore had used. He walked back up the path and to the cliff face, then over to the road. He thought about taking the Knight Bus again, then counted his money.

Harry only had a bit more than enough for one more ride, so he was going to have to apparate to his next destination. It took a few minutes of meditation for Harry to dig up the memory of Bob Ogden going to the Gaunt shack in Little Hangleton. Once he had it and the best place to apparate to, Harry twisted on the spot and a light crack sounded. He disappeared from there and reappeared right where Bob was in the memory.

This was the most dangerous part of Harry's hunt, at this time anyway. There was a slim chance that Voldemort was staying in the Riddle Family mansion and Harry would be right there and he had two of the horcruxes on him. After a few minutes of hiding in the bushes and nothing happening, Harry carefully made his way down the dirt road and he was surprised that he didn't feel any protective spells or wards.

Harry felt something when he was close enough. The missing piece of his power. He didn't rush, though. Like he told Lily, he wasn't an idiot. He walked around the property and cast the same protective spells he put on the campsites back during his horcrux hunt, so that no one would look or notice what he was doing. He even added in sound cancelling, because he was going to make a lot of noise.

Instead of approaching the house to see if anything was going to appear to defend the ring horcrux, Harry pointed the Elder Wand at the shack from fifty feet away. “Bombarda Maxima!”

*WHAABOOOM!*

There was suddenly no more shack and splinters of wood rained down across the property.

“Accio Resurrection Stone.” Harry said and the ring popped up into the air and flew over to him. He levitated a rock to block it before it hit him and both fell to the ground. The rock was a bit darker in color now, too. “Finite Incantatem.”

The ring glowed and the setting popped, which ejected the stone from the ring. Harry couldn't tell if the withering curse had been dispelled or not, or if it was on the band or the stone, so he levitated both into his moleskin pouch and would deal with them later. He was sure Lily would be able to help him find a detection spell to check them.

Harry walked around the property again and cancelled his spells hiding everything. When it was clear, he walked back up the dirt road to where he had appeared and apparated back to the road near the cave. The Knight Bus was summoned and Harry paid to go to Hogsmeade. He made it back inside the castle just in time for his detention with Professor McGonagall.

Minerva didn't look happy until he produced the completed registration form and the receipt from the sandwich be ate. Harry didn't even have to say he walked around to work it off, because she assumed he walked around London for a while after reading the address for the bistro.

She hadn't lied earlier, either. She worked Harry pretty hard writing lines that copied out the techniques and lessons for their next few classes. He accepted her explanation that he still needed them, even if he already transformed. He would also need to practice doing it, too. Minerva could change in three seconds and she expected him to become half that proficient by Yule break. Harry agreed to try.

That night, Lily and Alice led him to their usual empty classroom that now had an actual bed inside. The three of them changed out of their school robes and climbed into bed for a bit of fun before they tried to go to sleep. They would never know how frustrated they were making James by not returning to the common room until well after curfew.

As Harry lay there on the bed with two happy girls cuddled to his sides, he thought about why Lily had been willing to allow someone else into their lives. Alice was her best friend and as she said, Lily was okay with sharing a lot with her, and that apparently included him as well. It made Harry wonder if his own best friend would have done the same thing.

Visions of Hermione between him and Ron flashed through his mind and their nickname of the Golden Trio took on new meaning with Hermione sandwiched between them and both of them inside her at the same time. Harry couldn't stop his chuckle and Lily and Alice sat up to look at him with piercing glares and he let his laughter trail off.

“What exactly is so funny about what we just did?” Lily asked, pointedly.

Harry wisely chose to not tell her about his thoughts of having sex with another girl. “I just realized we could be called the Golden Trio of Griffindor and everyone is going to be envious of us.”

Lily and Alice immediately blushed at the compliment, started kissing him, then the three of them had sex again. They cuddled up afterwards and Lily and Alice felt happier about everything and Harry was relieved his distraction had worked. He needed to be more careful about his stray thoughts in the future.

*

The rest of the week passed by and Harry continued to study Lily's coursework on the subjects he didn't have much experience in. He was doing really well, especially with Arithmancy, since it was mostly maths mixed with Astrology to make predictions and to map out spell components. It was an interesting field of study and Lily was ecstatic that Harry was trying to catch up to her... and succeeding.

Alice was amused that Lily convinced her to reward Harry for his work with things they were going to do to him anyway. They didn't tell Harry that, though. Motivation was needed for some of the lessons, because they were sometimes boring to the point of putting people to sleep. Keeping Harry awake was important and they took their jobs seriously. Plus, it was really fun.

Harry never denied them, either. He reciprocated their rewards in equal measure and he helped them with their own homework and lessons. He really pulled on his year of experience teaching his illegal group in the DA, or Defence Association, as he gave Lily and Alice insights and tips for both classwork and spellcasting.

The week of detentions ended Friday night and Minerva really was impressed with Harry's work ethic. He had also earned more than double the docked points back that he had technically lost at the first of the week and he had regained the respect of the rest of the Griffindors, besides the Marauders. James still had a firm grip on their loyalty.

*

It wasn't surprising that as the days wore on, Lily and Alice fell deeper in love with Harry. He was such a nice guy and he tried his best to make them happy, which made them even happier, just because he saw them as a priority and not a distraction.

At lunch one Saturday, Harry remembered to ask Lily about detection spells and she didn't know any. Remus was nearby and he overheard, so he wrote the name of the reference book Madam Pomfrey had told him about onto a piece of parchment. When lunch was over, he followed his friends and discreetly dropped the parchment onto Lily's plate as he walked by.

Lily, being the smart witch she was, snatched it up and hid it from everyone except her two best friends. The trio left the Great Hall and went right to the library with the new information. They didn't take long finding the book and all three of them huddled together to read through it. Each of them found something inside that interested them and they devoured the book for the rest of the afternoon, taking notes and copying out the spells.

Harry found one for items and another specifically for dark curses, which would help him immensely. He wasn't sure if he wanted to tell Lily and Alice about his extracurricular activities, though. He knew he had two more horcruxes to gather, the diary and Hufflepuff's Cup. The problem was, did Voldemort trust his inner circle enough to hand them over, or did he still have them sequestered somewhere?

That was when Harry decided he was being selfish and was falling into the same pattern as Albus Dumbledore, whom believed that only he should have certain knowledge and would dole it out when it was necessary and not when it was actually needed. With that in mind, Harry led Lily and Alice to their classroom and renewed the protective charms to secure it.

After that, Alice learned the spell she wanted and detected six tracking charms and two listening charms on Lily and her things and ten tracking charms on Harry. Lily gasped and quickly learned the spells she wanted and cast them on herself and her friends, only to find large doses of Loyalty and Love Potions in all three of them.

It was quite the shocking discovery, especially for Harry. He had barely started to ask how to deal with them when Lily called for a Hogwarts House Elf and asked for a potions setup and her potions ingredients kit from her trunk. The elf delivered both only a minute later and Lily wrote down who the potions were keyed to for the three of them.

“Thank you, Hoppy.” Lily said with sincerity and the elf bowed and popped away.

Alice and Harry joined in to help prepare the ingredients as Lily asked for them and she brewed up a very powerful Purging Potion focused on harmful effects. She warned them that they would be on the toilet for at least an hour, especially considering how prevalent the potions inside them were. With luck, since it was only traces, they would be sitting and not throwing up.

Harry and Alice accepted the warning and when the potion was ready, the three of them filled a vial each and went to the closest bathroom. Unfortunately, Lily had underestimated how powerful the purging was going to be, to everyone's dismay.

Two and a half hours later, a severely dehydrated Harry stumbled out of the stall and conjured a cup to get water from the sink. He drank greedily for several minutes, until his stomach was bloated, and he enlarged the cup and filled it before handing it under the door of the next stall.

“Thank you.” Lily groaned and greedily sucked it down.

Harry made another cup and filled it to give to Alice.

“Th-thank you.” Alice groaned and sipped hers. She knew she couldn't replenish her fluids as quickly as her friends, because she was so much smaller than them.

“That was... years... years of potions exposure.” Lily said and tried to not doze off after such an intense experience. Her body was exhausted and she was trying to get a handle on how she felt.

“When... when are we going to kill them?” Alice asked and rubbed her belly, because she couldn't rub the spot she really wanted to rub.

“As soon as we figure out how we won't get caught and sent to Azkaban for murder.” Lily responded right away.

Harry leaned against the sink and regretted that he couldn't do the same to the people dosing him. Albus Dumbledore, Ron Weasley, Ginny Weasley, and obviously Molly Weasley and Snape. It explained why Snape could get away with treating him like garbage and Harry never once called him out on it. It also explained why Harry saw Molly as a mother figure and Dumbledore as a grandfather figure.

Ron's behavior made a lot of sense now, because he could do whatever he wanted and neither Harry nor Hermione ever kicked him to the curb for it. They always accepted him back and he never apologized, because he knew that they were potioned up to the gills and couldn't refuse him, even after everything he had done.

Harry felt a surge of hate so strong that black sparks shot out of the Elder Wand and he didn't stop them. How dare those bloody bastards do that to him! As if his life wasn't screwed up enough, they had to mess up his emotions like that? It was no wonder why he had been so confused about his sudden attraction to Ginny. They barely ever talked and suddenly he was jealous of her boyfriends? It was ridiculous.

“Hoppy.” Harry said and the house elf popped in. “I need three Pepper-Up potions from the hospital wing, three of my own nutrition potions, and three washing basins with soap, towels, and a change of clothes for each of us.”

The house elf looked excited at all the extra work. “Hoppy bees doing that right away, sirs!” He said and popped away.

“Thanks again, Harry.” Lily said.

“I'd do a lot more if any of us were feeling up to it.” Harry said and sat down against the wall.

“I want you to hold me and tell me everything is going to be all right.” Alice said.

“It will be.” Harry said and sighed. “I need the Pepper-Up before I can move enough to open the stall door to reach you.”

“I hope you don't mind if it's a little smelly in here.” Alice said and giggled, halfheartedly.

Lily made a snort sound and barked a laugh. “I think my nose broke about fifteen minutes in, because I can't smell anything anymore.”

Harry laughed and had to agree. It was so prevalent that you couldn't really tell how stinky it was.

The elf popped back in with the potions Harry asked for and then disappeared again.

Harry handed the Pepper-Ups to the girls and drank his own. Steam came out of his ears and he felt a lot better about everything, even getting revenge on the people that had potioned Lily and Alice. No one hurt his girls and gets away with it. He gave them the nutrition potion next and drank his own.

The elf popped in with a rack with three clothing outfits on it, towels, facecloths, and three washing basins. He slid one into Lily's stall and one into Alice's, and placed Harry's in front of him, then handed them all the towels and facecloths.

“If'n you bees needing anything else, just calls for Hoppy.” The happy elf said and popped away.

“Bless him.” Alice said and started washing up. She really, really needed it.

“Try to not be too rough cleaning yourself down there.” Lily warned them as she started, too.

“Ow, ow. This sucks so bad.” Alice said as she winced and tears rolled down her cheeks.

“I'm sorry.” Lily said sincerely and tenderly washed herself with the soapy cloth. “I can't reduce the strength of the potion, because if it was weaker, it might not work as well and we'd still have our minds and bodies working against us with traces of the potions in us.”

“I'm not complaining.” Harry said and washed himself, more used to extreme pain than either of the girls. “I'm imagining paying it back ten-fold to those that deserve it.”

Lily made a sound of approval. “Ten-fold sounds a little light. I was thinking a hundred-fold.”

“At least.” Alice said and tried to not whimper as she washed herself. “They made me cry.”

“That's completely unforgivable. A thousand-fold it is.” Harry promised. “We can start with Amortentia keyed to each of them in pairs and let them suffer for a week, then give them Purging potions. I want to see them suffer from both conditions and watch the aftermath.”

Both Lily and Alice felt their hearts flutter at his proclamation. They didn't know he could be so vicious and they didn't realize how much of a turn on it was when it was on their behalf. He was doing it for them and that gave him the Knight in Shining Armor mystique. What girl didn't want a brave knight to save them when they needed it?

The three of them eventually finished up and Harry dressed in his replacement outfit and handed Lily and Alice theirs. He didn't offer to help, because this was not the time for that kind of thing. None of them were in the mood for it and they needed time to recover.

Harry called for Hoppy and asked him to clean up the mess, which made the elf really happy. Lily took Harry's and Alice's hands and led them back to their classroom. Since they didn't want to even think about sitting down for a very long time, the three of them carefully laid down on the bed.

“I have something important to tell you both and now isn't the time to do it, because we're too angry about everything and it might set you off even more.” Harry said and both girls started ranting about it. “You see? I only mentioned it and you're not in any state to accept it or to help.”

Lily's mouth snapped shut and she glared at him.

“He's right, Lily. I'm so angry that I'm not thinking straight.” Alice said and put a hand on her best friend's arm. “All I want to do is go out there and curse and hex them until they stop breathing.”

Lily glared at her for a few seconds, then sighed and laid back down. “Why? Why would they do it?”

“Control.” Harry said and neither girl denied it. “The problem is, even if we had solid proof, we're muggleborn, muggle-raised, and half-bloods. We don't qualify as having the same rights and privileges as the purebloods, which is exactly how they like it and will never change it.”

Lily made that cute growl sound that both Harry and Alice liked. “Bloody bastards.”

“We'll get them.” Harry said and carefully put an arm around their shoulders to pull them in close. “It's going to take a few days to...” His voice trailed off and then he chuckled. “Hoppy?”

The house elf popped in and looked happy. “Youse bees calling Hoppy?”

“We need hairs from Albus Dumbledore, James Potter, Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, Remus Lupin, and Severus Snape by tomorrow. Make sure they are actually their hairs and you need to be discreet and sneaky. If you need to learn a detection spell, here's the book they're in.” Harry handed over the piece of paper Remus had given them.

Hoppy looked ecstatic. “Hoppy bees doing it and having funs, too!” He exclaimed and popped away.

Harry had to laugh at his enthusiasm. “He's just as excited to help as Dobby was.”

“Dobby?” Lily asked. She hadn't heard Harry mention a house elf before.

Harry smiled, sadly. “He was the best elf friend I ever had. He sacrificed himself to save me and my friends. If it wasn't for him, we never would have won the war.”

“Can you tell us about him?” Lily asked and snuggled in. She definitely needed the distraction, because she was in no shape to go out and tear apart the people she really hated, even if she desperately wanted to enact her revenge right away.

“It's a weird story.” Harry said and took a deep breath. “It all started in the summer before my second year at Hogwarts. A house elf I didn't know popped into my room and admitted to stealing my mail to keep me safe from the danger coming to the school...”

Lily and Alice listened attentively as Harry told the 'Tale of Dobby the House Elf'.

They weren't the only ones. Hoppy had sent another elf to listen in while he was busy, just in case the students needed anything else. The female elf named Bibby was enraptured as she heard about the bravest house elf to ever exist. She swore on her mother's name that if she ever had a male child herself, she would named him Dobby in Dobby's honor.

*

Lily brewed Amortentia the next day and Harry and Alice helped. When it was ready, Hoppy popped in with vials of the hairs and they were marked. After a long discussion, they wanted to ensure that each of the jerks would get exactly what they deserved. James and Sirius would be dosed for each other, Peter and Severus would be matched, and Remus and Albus Dumbledore would be paired.

They again agreed that it would only be for a week and then they would be purged, as long as everyone during that week saw the pairings and knew for a fact that they were together. That was essential. When the potions were removed and they realized what had happened, their horrified expressions would be shared with everyone.

During breakfast the next morning, Lily, Harry, and Alice performed perfect switching spells with the target goblets and each of them were properly dosed. Since Lily hadn't diluted the Amortentia like the instructions warned her, the effects were immediate and hilarious.

James and Sirius turned to each other, with almost literal hearts in their eyes, and professed their secret love for each other and kissed right on the mouth. Dead silence settled in the whole Great Hall as everyone started to look over and noticed them, then Peter stood up and locked gazes with Severus Snape.

The Slytherins started booing and a few looked sick as the two walked towards each other and proclaimed their devotion to the Dark Lord and each other, then they started snogging.

“I did not expect that.” Harry whispered to Lily as he switched the drinks back to hide the evidence. He had been wondering how he was going to find out about where Voldemort was and both Snape and Pettigrew had just outed themselves as Death Eater supporters.

Albus Dumbledore stood and everyone thought he was going to put a stop to the outrageous shows of public affection that quite a lot of the students found sickening, because of how backwards the wizarding world was. Instead of calling for them to cease and desist, Albus strode around the head table and walked over to Remus.

“I can't hide how I feel about you anymore, Remus my boy.” Albus said, lovingly.

A few of the girls that had been interested in Remus, were repulsed when he stood and embraced Albus to lock lips together. One girl threw up and almost everyone turned away from the disgusting scene. It wasn't only because they were both men, it was because Albus was over a hundred years older than his young lover. A hundred years!

“Maybe a week is too long to make everyone else suffer.” Alice whispered from Harry's other side.

“Yeah, I never thought of that side of our revenge.” Lily whispered back. She shuddered and looked away from James and Sirius using tongues as they snogged like there was no tomorrow.

“I'll have the purging potions delivered tonight and marked as gifts from their loves.” Harry whispered and the two girls nodded. He vanished the residue of the potions and quickly finished eating.

The three of them left the Great Hall and Harry walked them to class before going to the library. He had more studying to do and he wanted to keep his promise to Lily. Letting her and Alice in on some of his secrets could wait until tonight. He also had to work out how to kidnap Peter to interrogate him. Trying to get Snape alone was an exercise in futility, assuming Harry didn't ask Lily to help.

No, that was too risky. Harry would get the rat alone and would find out what he needed to know.

*

Everyone avoided looking over at James and Sirius during Charms class, mostly because they didn't want to see the sad looks on the faces of Peter and Remus. They were away from their loves and it hurt them to be separated for so long.

“We're avoiding the Great Hall for lunch and supper.” Harry whispered to the girls and they nodded.

*

“Take it like the dog you are!” James exclaimed as he buggered his best friend.

“OoooOOOO!” Sirius howled and arched his back as his hair was pulled.

Harry almost threw up when he heard them and was thankful that he had put on the invisibility cloak before he went back to the seventh year dorm room to try and capture Peter. He immediately turned around and walked back out, grateful that he hadn't seen anything. He resolved to get the rat hiding in the corner later. Much, much later.

*

The purging potions were delivered that night before curfew and they were addressed to each recipient with the names of their loves. Unfortunately, it was far too late to mitigate everyone's horrific nightmares about seeing the half-naked headmaster and Remus as they stumbled out of the broom closet right next to the Great Hall before supper.

People will be talking about it for years. Years!

The next morning's breakfast was a somber affair, because everyone was reeling over what happened. Severus Snape ended up in the hospital wing, because he had a lot more than just Amortentia in his system. His own brewing, his experiments, and Voldemort's little loyalty additions combined with the Death Eaters, had messed him up completely.

Peter Pettigrew was a shadow of his former self as he sat at the table, nearly catatonic. Remus wasn't much better. He was white as a sheet and kept mumbling about needing endless cleaning spells. To everyone's surprise, James and Sirius seemed almost completely unaffected, except for them having a difficult time sitting down.

The only positive thing that came from it all was the Marauders never once looked at Lily or Harry with hatred, annoyance, or had plans to get back at them. Without James pushing the others, none of them had the motivation or the desire to help him pursue Lily, not that it ever worked.

After breakfast, Harry walked Lily and Alice to class and then went to their classroom. He had meditation to practice and exercises for his animagus transformation to work through. It was during his meditation and sorting his miscellaneous memories that he stumbled across his conversation with Mad Eye Moody about all the people that died during the first wizarding war.

Harry concentrated on the names like Bones, MacMillan, McKinnon, Potter, Prewett, Moody, Meadows, and a few others, most of which were members of the original Order of the Phoenix. It made Harry wonder who was the spy that told Voldemort and his Death Eaters all those names, because they had to get their addresses somehow and wiped out their families.

With that remembered information, Harry came out of his meditation and quickly wrote down the fairly long list of twenty-two families, some large in numbers and quite prominent in wizarding society. He penned letters to each of them with warnings to be careful and included a list of spells and protections to add to their properties.

On a whim, Harry also included a list of the death eaters he knew or suspected. That was a fairly long list, too. He had to include parents of the death eaters from his world as well, just in case, because most of the ones he knew had only graduated from Hogwarts within the last few years on this world and Voldemort had followers for several decades already.

Harry made copies of the letters and the lists and bundled them together. He would head to the owlery and send them off as soon as possible, because his knowledge was solely dependent on knowing it happened where he came from and he didn't have any dates for the slaughter of those families. It was one of the main regrets he had that History of Magic was taught by a ghost and he never learned anything.

There wasn't much else Harry could do, except maybe address a few of the letters to specific people, like Amelia Bones for the Bones family, instead of just sending a general letter. A few spells and corrections later, Harry gathered up his large bundle of letters and went to the owlery. Thankfully, he had brought enough bribes for the owls and they all enthusiastically took his letters and flew off at their best speed.

On the way back to the Griffindor Tower, Harry checked the map and found Peter in the dorm room. He was alone, so Harry took several shortcuts to get through the castle and back to the seventh floor and the Griffindor common room. He didn't bother with the cloak and ran up the stairs to the first landing, dove through the open door of the dorm, and rolled over to flick his wand at Peter and stunned him.

Peter never had a chance to react and fell to the floor, unconscious. Harry shut and secured the dorm room's door and went to his trunk to dig out the vial of veritaserum. He also grabbed a dicta-quill and parchment.

The next hour was very enlightening for Harry in how depraved Peter was. The man had lied in his world about Voldemort coercing him with threats to join the death eaters. Peter enjoyed how they hunted down, captured, and raped muggles and muggleborn, because he had no other way of getting a woman on his own. Everyone thought he was weak and pathetic and he had to prove that he wasn't.

Harry was disgusted by the confession. He thought Peter's friends meant something to him and they were only a means to keep himself protected at school. Hiding in plain sight was is motto and becoming a rat animagus really was a reflection of him and his behavior. Peter was a stinking rat and always had been.

After telling Harry what he needed to know, who all the death eaters were and the last known location of Voldemort, Peter said he would be getting his Dark Mark that summer. That cinched it for Harry. He let Peter go, to the young man's surprise, and Peter changed into a rat and ran for it.

Harry immobilized him and then cast the Imperio curse on him. Since Peter was currently a rat, it didn't count, because casting an Unforgivable was only an automatic prison sentence if it was cast on a human. Harry told him exactly what to do and then told him to never become a rat ever again and to change back to human.

Peter changed back and signed the confession, made a copy of it, and left the dorm room with the confession in his hand. He had been ordered to leave the castle through the tunnel to Honeydukes and to use the floo in the Three Broomsticks to go to the Ministry of Magic and the DMLE to hand them his confession and surrender to Amelia Bones if she was there.

A tracking charm let Harry follow Peter all the way to the Three Broomsticks and then he disappeared. With a little luck, Peter would be swept up by the strict Barty Crouch and he would find out his son is already involved with Bellatrix Black and the Lestranges.

Harry wasn't sure what he should be feeling about Bellatrix and Narcissa not being married to their husbands yet. Would his early intervention stop them from becoming who they were in his world? Did he just save Bellatrix before she went mad or was he already too late? There was no real way to tell until it was reported in the newspaper.

With a shrug, Harry went to meet with Lily and Alice. He had a meal to share with them and then he would finally share some of his secrets. He had been holding onto them a lot longer than he should have and he didn't want to hide what he was doing anymore. If anything happened to him, who would take up his task?

*

Lily was stunned into silence, even though she wanted to rant and rave. Harry was... he would be... he could have been... her mind screeched to a halt and she remembered one specific phrase that Harry said after he had met with the goblins. This was not his world. His visible relief at the time had confused her and now she knew what he meant.

For some reason, despite her utter shock her counterpart had married that pillock Potter, she wasn't disgusted by the knowledge that Harry was Lily Potter's son. Was it because she loved him so much and she could easily dismiss that he should have been her son in the future? Did they already have a connection and that was how she wished him here?

“Your ears are smoking.” Alice whispered with a giggle.

Lily let out a long and exaggerated sigh. “Give me a minute to deal with this, Alice.”

“You've been quiet for twenty-six minutes already.” Alice teased and poked her cheek with a fingertip. “Harry's already explained to me who you might have been if he hadn't come here and interfered. It's not that complicated.”

“Alice...”

“Lily, if what you did affected him in the future, Harry would have disappeared the instant you chose to never get together with James.” Alice said and dropped her hand to take Lily's. “Don't forget. You were still on the potions when you made that choice, because your feelings for Harry were that strong.”

Lily took a deep breath and let it out. “I know. That's what's bothering me.”

“Why?”

“I summoned the person I wished for. The person I needed the most.” Lily said in a soft voice.

Alice knew what she meant. “Your son.”

“A son that grew up without me. One that had a horrible home life with my bitch of a sister and then was treated like trash by everyone... and he sacrificed himself to save them anyway.”

Alice hugged her and Lily started crying. The two of them stayed there for another ten minutes before Lily calmed down and Alice helped her clean up, then dropped the privacy spells.

“I'm sorry.” Harry said as soon as he could hear them again.

“You have nothing to be sorry for, Harry.” Lily said and stood up from the couch. She walked over to him and she saw uncertainty in his eyes until she hugged and kissed him. “I love you and no matter what you say, I always will.”

Harry looked relieved. “I'm glad, because there's more.”

“You better sit down again. It looks like you have another heavy thing to drop on us.” Alice said.

They walked over to the couch and Harry sat beside her and Lily sat on his other side.

“I need to tell you about how we dealt with Tom Riddle on my world.” Harry said.

“Tom Riddle?” Lily and Alice asked.

Harry smiled. “That's his real name. Tom Marvolo Riddle, Junior.”

Alice and Lily blinked their eyes at him several times.

“I didn't find that out until I was twelve and had to fight a giant basilisk...” Harry started and then told them all about his Hogwarts years, finding out Voldemort's secrets, and then dealing with his horcruxes and then ending Voldemort for good.

Both Lily and Alice were stunned. How could anyone, especially an under-trained sixth year, bring an end to the darkest Dark Lord of the century? With a lot of help and a ton of luck, apparently.

“Then... then what... how are you going to deal with him now?” Lily asked.

“I have the Diadem, the ring, and the locket. All that's left at the moment are Hufflepuff's Cup and the diary.” Harry said. “He won't find his familiar until the 90s and make it one then.”

Lily caught her breath. “He didn't know you were one! He thought he was strengthening the ritual by making a sixth horcrux to have a seven part soul and instead he magically drained himself because he ended up with an eight part soul!”

“Technically.” Harry said and Lily's eyebrows rose. “I had already destroyed the diary by the time he made Nagini a horcrux, which meant there were still seven pieces.”

Lily opened her mouth to refute it, then sighed. “No, you're right. It would still have the same integrity, even though it should have been one too many pieces.”

Alice nodded in agreement. “It's going to take us a long time to hunt them down and...”

Harry chuckled. “I caught Peter and used viritaserum to make him confess.” He said and took out the copy of the written confession from his pocket. “He's probably in DMLE custody right now and singing like a canary.”

Alice and Lily exchanged pointed looks.

“How does that help us?” Lily asked.

“He also has this.” Harry said and showed them the list of death eater names.

“Oh.” Lily said and read them. “Oh, Merlin.”

“Wow.” Alice whispered. “That is a lot of names.”

“All pureblood families, too. It's either going to be a huge thing...” Harry prompted.

“...or it's going to disappear and nothing will change.” Lily finished for him.

“Hope for the best and plan for the worst.” Harry said and put the parchment papers away.

Both girls leaned into his sides and Harry hugged them close.

“Mansion raids?” Alice asked.

“Planning mansion raids.” Lily corrected.

Harry gave each of them a kiss on the lips. “I knew I could count on you. Thank you.”

“We love you, Harry. Of course you can count on us.” Alice said and then blushed.

Harry turned his head to smile at her. “I love you, too.”

Alice kept blushing and kissed him again, then the three of them laid down on the couch and cuddled together. Planning could wait for a little while and then they could deal with the horcruxes Harry had.

*

Things worked out even better than Harry expected with Peter Pettigrew turning himself in with his confession. It set the current strict ministry against the rising darkness and everyone he mentioned was investigated.

Unfortunately, because of their snail's pace investigating the cases, Voldemort and his followers continued their attacks unimpeded. Fortunately, because of Harry's warning letters, more than half of them believed him and had prepared for the attacks. They fought hard in some cases, like with the Bones and Potter families, and the death eaters were soundly defeated and arrested.

The Dark Faction in the Wizengamut hadn't passed the bill to make it illegal to subject purebloods to the use of viritaserum, so all of them were questioned and pointed fingers at their supporters. Friends, family, spies, informants, conspiracies, and plans were revealed, as was Voldemort's hiding place at Abraxas Malfoy's home.

Needless to say, this turn of events cost Voldemort nearly all of his current death eaters and all of his financial support. Several death eaters had escaped from justice and fled the country and wouldn't be found for several years. The Wizengamut was gutted of most of its influential members and paved the way for the Light Side to take complete control.

A third of the Ministry of Magic's employees were also arrested and lost their jobs, and a lot of them went to prison. Some paid hefty bribes to be pardoned and were let go, just like some of the death eaters.

To most people's shock, Tom Marvolo Riddle Junior stood trial for his crimes under the fake name of Lord Voldemort. Since he was a half-blood and had no prominent family backing, he was subjected to viritaserum and it had no effect. Three purging potions and six hours later, he was exhausted when he succumbed to the truth serum and admitted to all of his crimes.

Tom did not voluntarily offer up the knowledge of his horcruxes, though. No one asked him a direct question about them and he avoided revealing his biggest secret. As far as he knew, no one else knew he had gone so far down the path to immortality. He was found guilty on all counts.

Albus Dumbledore tried to protest the death sentence to give Tom a chance to repent. It was rejected and the headmaster was warned to not interfere. Voldemort was tossed through the veil as he screamed that they couldn't do that to him and he would be back. Albus was worried about that and started to investigate on his own.

With the main trials over, in order to pay for the massive fines and compensation to the victims of their crimes when the vaults didn't have enough, the goblins seized the properties of each convicted death eater and their contents checked for curses and sold off.

This was fortuitous, because the diary was found in the Malfoy Manor and Hufflepuff's Cup was found in the Lestrange Manor. Both were dealt with by cursebreakers, since they dealt with horcruxes all over Egypt during their tomb raiding expeditions, and the last two horcruxes were removed.

The cup was melted down for the gold, since it was no longer magical, and the normal diary was tossed in a fireplace and burned up. Harry had long ago dealt with the other three horcruxes and that meant only one thing.

It was the final end to Voldemort.

*

The night before the Yule break where almost everyone left the castle for the holidays, Harry stood on top of the Astronomy Tower and used Hermione's custom spell she made during his fourth year for the third task of the Triwizard Tournament.

“Point Me Tom's Diary.” Harry said and cast it.

The Elder Wand spun in a slow circle on his palm and didn't stop.

“Are you sure the spell works?” Lily asked.

“Point me the woman I love.” Harry said.

The wand slowly spun and pointed to Lily, then it moved and pointed at Alice, then it shimmied back and forth between the two women. Both Lily and Alice blushed, because they didn't realize they needed a magical confirmation that Harry really did love them and now they had it.

“Point Me Hufflepuff's Cup.” Harry said and the wand did a slow spin and kept spinning.

“Maybe it's out of range or something?” Alice asked, even if she didn't believe it.

“Point Me the moon.” Harry said and the wand spun and stopped when it pointed to the crescent moon. He looked at Alice with a crooked smile. “I'd say it's not the range.”

“Prat.” Alice said and lightly slapped his other arm.

Lily softly laughed. “Go ahead, Harry. Ask the most important question.”

Harry nodded and concentrated hard on his wand. “Point Me Voldemort's Horcruxes.”

The three of them watched the wand spin slowly and held their breaths... and then wand kept spinning. They let out their breaths with sighs of relief and Harry cancelled the spell and put the Elder Wand away.

“I'm glad that worked.” Lily said and hugged Harry. “All we have to do now is hunt down the people that bribed their way out of serving prison time.”

“Hunt them down?” Harrry asked as he hugged her back.

“Of course. How else are we going to ruin them with Amortentia potions?” Lily asked, innocently.

“I think we created a monster.” Alice said with a giggle and hugged them both.

“Yes, we. It's us against the world.” Lily said and kissed Harry and then kissed Alice. “Let them tremble in fear of what we're going to do!”

“Definitely a monster.” Harry joked and the three of them laughed as they walked over to the door and went down the stairs.

*

Less than a year later, all of the remaining death eaters and Voldemort sympathizers had paired up and were in love with each other. They had even left their wives and families to live together. It didn't take long before the pureblood movement came to a complete halt, because the general wizarding public started associating pureblood tradition with being deviants to their way of life.

Since no more children were being born from the purebloods and their arranged and usually loveless marriages, the practice was soon abandoned and everyone was encouraged to find love for themselves. Of course, same sex couples were heavily discouraged, because they didn't want their society to die off within a few generations.

In fact, some of the legislators used Harry Peverell and his two wives as a prime example. It was soon passed into law that multiple marriages were legal and that inheritance tests would be conducted when more than a single child was birthed. With different family names available within their family trees, it would be up to the parents what last name their children had.

*

Nineteen years later, the number of family names that had been dredged up from the bowels of history, had pretty much exploded. The first years being welcomed to Hogwarts was close to a hundred kids, most of which had different surnames, even if they were from the same family. It gave sibling rivalry new meaning as they fought over who had the best name.

Off to the side of the platform, an older man stood there with his two beautiful wives and the three of them ushered their seven children of various ages towards the train. Kisses and hugs were shared liberally, especially with the twin eleven year old girls that looked just like Lily. Despite the long ago accepted naming procedure, both girls had the same last name of Evans.

“Make sure you take care of each other and owl us tomorrow.” Harry said and gave each of them a kiss on the forehead. “If anyone bugs you about being twins and having the same name, kick their butts and make fun of them.”

“Daaaad!” Both girls whined.

Lily laughed and pushed her husband out of the way. “Don't mind him. He thinks he's funny.” She said and knelt to hug them and kiss their cheeks. “Your brothers and sisters will keep an eye out for you both. No matter what house you end up in, they'll be there for you.”

“Thanks mum.” Both girls said and hugged her back.

Alice handed them their shrunken trunks and then kissed and hugged them. “Be safe and have fun.”

“We will, mummy.” Both girls said.

The three proud parents watched their two youngest board the train and greeted their friends.

“Were we ever that small?” Lily asked and waved when the girls looked over.

“Alice still is.” Harry joked and both of his wives smacked him. “What? I love that no matter what, you're this cute little thing that loves me back, even when I'm an idiot.”

Alice giggled. “Which is nearly all the time when we're not around.”

Lily laughed. “He left himself wide open for that one.”

The three of them moved back towards the public fireplaces to return home. As they walked, they waved and greeted all of the people they knew. Just before Harry stepped into the floo, he caught sight of James Potter and his husband Sirius Black. Both had paid mistresses and a male child each that looked just like them.

Who could have known that a prank would have such long-lasting repercussions? Harry asked himself and then laughed as he went through the floo, because he remembered that Remus Dumbledore still taught as the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor and mentored a young werewolf that absolutely adored him for the opportunity.

“What took you so long?” Lily asked and led Harry and Alice into the potions lab.

“I saw them just before coming through.” Harry said and both women knew who he meant. None of them had spoken to each other since they graduated and they were all happy to never speak again.

The best part about the whole thing was that the wizarding world had become the exact thing that Harry had always wanted as he grew up. He was 'Just Harry'. He would never be known as the savior of the wizarding world, even though he was. In both worlds.

Lily's research on how to send him back was stored away and never looked at again.