Note:All characters/places in this fanfic are owned by J.K. Rowling. Sadly, I have no claim to them whatsoever.
Updated on 5/26/2016
Chapter One
"Woah!" Amazement lit up Harry Potter's face as he tried to look at everything all at once. The shops surrounding Diagon Alley were the weirdest looking buildings the boy had ever seen and he wondered briefly why no muggles had stumbles across this place. People lined the sides of the streets with some even crowding the middle of the road. Children raced from store to store and asking their parents for this or that.
"Welcome to Diagon Alley, Harry!" Hagrid puffed up his chest proudly and then began walking.
"This place is amazing." Harry tried to look at each shop, noting all of the bizarre items that were being sold. One shop held what looked like wands, while another had cats, owls, rats, and frogs in it's display case. The boy heard what sounded like a screeching owl in the pet shop, but his attention was quickly drawn away by the crowd of children all peering through the window of a store called 'Quality Quidditch Supplies'. Harry briefly wondered what 'quidditch' was. After a while, he turned back to the staring children. Coming to stand right behind the crowd, Harry found what they were looking at: a broom with the words Nimbus 2000 written on the handle in gold script.
"It's quite a broom, isn't it?" A voice spoke from behind Harry, making him jump.
"Yes, I suppose it is." The boy turned to see a very tall man wearing a threadbare tan trench coat hugging his broad shoulders. He looked to be about 30 with a smattering of tiny scars on his left cheek. Harry looked into the man's eyes, watching as they turned a luminous yellow. He returned the boy's gaze, smirking slightly.
"Hello, I'm Remus." The man spoke finally, holding out his hand for Harry to shake.
"Harry. It's nice to meet you." The boy quickly shook the man's offered hand, thinking that he had a case of deja vu. This man seemed eerily familiar, but Harry spoke nothing of it.
"Harry! There you are. Are you ready to go see your vault?" Hagrid's voice rang out from behind Harry, scaring the boy for a second time.
"Hullo Hagrid. Sorry, I got a bit distracted." Harry looked at the man again, hesitant to leave. " Yes, I'm ready."
"Good. Nice to see you again, Remus." Hagrid nodded curtly to the man standing beside Harry.
"Hagrid." Remus smiled softly down at Harry, his eyes like the sun."Harry, It was a great pleasure to see you. I hope we will see each other very soon." With that, the yellow eyed man turned on his heel and walked away, leaving a very confused Harry trying to figure out what he meant.
"C'mon Harry. Let's go see what you've got waiting for you at Gringotts." Hagrid spoke to the boy beside him, knocking Harry out of his thoughts. The pair headed down the sidewalk towards the overly large building at the head of Diagon Alley.
"Hagrid, who was that man just a couple of minutes ago?" Harry looked up to see Hagrid flustered at the question.
Hagrid let out a sigh."I guess you'll know soon enough." He didn't really know how to explain this predicament to the boy, so he thought avoiding it until Harry could talk to the headmaster was the best option.
"So this is the Bank?" Harry stood at the base of Gringotts looking overwhelmed.
"This is the main branch, but they have other branches all over the world." Hagrid explained while the doors opened on their own. Gringotts looked even bigger on the inside. Mean looking little men waddled around everywhere.
"Best accountants in the world, but you don't want to get on their bad side. Nasty creatures, Goblins." whispered Hagrid. The odd looking pair made their way to what looked like the front desk where a smug looking goblin sat, reading something resembling a newspaper, but with moving pictures. Upon closer inspection, Harry saw himself along with Hagrid walking out of the Leaky Caldron. Why, the boy wondered, am I on the front page?
"Young Harry Potter wishes to make a withdraw from his family's vault." Hagrid told the goblin who was eyeing the pair warily.
"Do you have the key?" The Goblin's voice sounded like sandpaper, scratchy and unpleasant.
"It's here somewhere-" Hagrid dug through the inside of his jacket,"Ah. Yes, here it is." It looked tiny compared to Hagrid's huge hands, but Harry could see a 'P' scripted on the top of the old fashioned key.
"Follow me, please." A smaller goblin appeared beside Harry and motioned for him to follow.
"Go on, Harry. I've got some business of my own to attend to. Just do what the goblin says and you'll be alright." Hagrid then resumed talking to the head goblin.
"Follow me, please." The goblin spoke again, but this time he was more insistent.
"Er-Right." They walked slowly around the front desk and towards what Harry assumed to be the back of the bank. A large door with something resembling a keypad, only with a big hole in the middle materialized in front of the goblin.
"Hand Please." Harry held out his hand. The goblin produced a small sliver of a knife and promptly slit a small cut on the pad of the boy's thumb. He then held out a little vile to catch the blood falling.
"Ow! What was that for?" The boy cradled his injured hand to his chest and glared menacingly at the ugly goblin.
"Testing. Must make sure you're a Potter."
Ah. That makes sense, I suppose, Harry mused to himself.
"Key Please." The goblin held out his shriveled hand expectantly, and then curled his fingers around the key once Harry placed it in his palm.
"Stand back please." Hobbling up to the door of the vault, the goblin poured the blood in the hole by the door then stuck the key in after it. It was like someone flipped a switch. The door started moving on its own, a snake danced around a phoenix, then slithered down the door. Click. The vault was now open.
"Enter Please." Harry couldn't get his feet to work. The vault was so bright it hurt his eyes. Gold littered every available surface, with a nicknack here or there. Necklaces and jewelry were scattered throughout the gold. However, none of this really caught Harry's attention. In the middle of all of the treasure was a lone picture. Two men and a woman stood together, and it was obvious from the way the men held the woman that they all loved each other. The people in the picture were smiling brightly, and then the woman would turn her head and kiss both of the men once on the cheek. Harry's mother would kiss the men on the cheek. Harry's father would smile down at her. The other man-Remus- would look at the couple lovingly, then kiss his Mum's head softly.
Harry's Mother.
Harry's Father.
Remus.
The light dimmed after that, and Harry fell face first onto the floor, out cold.
"-have to tell him." Harry woke slowly, almost like he was coming out of a fog. His head hurt along with a small twinge in his left arm. There was a voice that sounded eerily familiar, but the boy didn't know where he'd heard it before.
"Later. Shh. He's awake." All of the noise instantly quieted at the hushed voice. Gradually, as if he was stuck in mud, Harry sat up. Instantly, stone walls and dim lights greeted him, along with several faces the boy wasn't familiar with; however, two of them were familiar: Remus and Hagrid.
"Hello, Harry. I'm glad to see you're awake." Harry zoned in on the speaker. He was an old man with an all white beard as long as his belly. His eyes twinkled and his lips turned up in a smile.
"Right. And you are?" Questioned Harry. The boy was completely confused as to why all of these people were here. He was also felt really strange.
"I, my dear boy, am Dumbledore. My job is headmaster at Hogwarts and I oversee most things in the wizarding world." The man-Dumbledore-stated and looked at Harry with concern.
"I brought our potions master, Snape, to help with the nasty concussion you gave yourself. Also with us is Lucius Malfoy and Remus, who I'm told you've already met." Snape, a greasy haired man who wore a long black robe, glared at Harry. The headmaster gave the Remus and Snape both a disapproving look, then turned back to the boy. "Lucius was with me when I got notified of the accident."
"It's nice to meet you; although, I guess the circumstances could have been quite a bit better." Lucius Malfoy held out his hand to Harry, and they shook. The man had long white hair and a runner's body, but what really held Harry's attention was his eyes. They were a light grey with little flecks of green in them surrounded by pale lashes.
"Hullo. It's nice to meet you as well." Harry murmured, transfixed by the man's eyes. He stood up from the bench he had been sitting on, and turned to the Headmaster once more. "You've explained why everyone is here except for one, but he's the only one I'm really curious about. I want to know why there's a picture of my Mum, Dad, and Him. I don't really understand anything that's going on!" Harry huffed and pointed an accusing finger at Remus, who looked like he was about to cry.
"Harry, since there's no other way, I think it would be better to let Remus explain the predicament." Dumbledore declared gently.
Remus slumped onto the bench where Harry had been sitting earlier and began his whole explanation.
"James, Lily, and I, along with Sirius and Peter, were the best of friends. We all did everything together. However, your parents and I were closer than the others. You would never see any of us without another. James and I were friends first, but then we met Lily. She was the most beautiful person I had ever met. James thought so, too. We had endless fights over who would ask her on a date, or who would bring her flowers. Mind you, we were only 12, as you are now." Remus took a deep breath and continued
."Finally, I think Lily got tired of always seeing us fighting, and told us we could both ask her out...As long as we did it together. We both thought she was crazy for suggesting such a thing, but It was the only solution we could find. In the following days, James and I planned a spectacular first date, complete with candles and a picnic." Remus smiled softly at the memory, a tear sliding down his cheek.
"We asked her out a week later. Sirius thought we were crazy, and Peter said she would never say yes to anything so outrageous. But, we had luck on our side that night I think, and she said 'yes'. After that, we would go out together, but James and I would still fight occasionally over who we thought Lily liked better. On the night of our final fight, we both said some awful and hateful words, and we might have even threw some hexes at each other." Remus glanced at Dumbledore guiltily, but the headmaster just chuckled.
"Lily tried to break the fight up, but by that time, too many things had already been said. Weeks went by before we talked to each other again. Finally, I think James got tired of hearing Lily nag him, so he came to apologise. I wasn't very accepting of the apology until James told me why he was so determined to have Lily to himself. I can still remember the exact words he said,'Remus, I'm just so scared of losing you. You're my best mate. If I don't have her, and you leave, I'll be alone.' I know it doesn't seem like much, but coming from James, it was what amounted to a declaration of love. After that, we all grew closer together, and eventually, we all got married. In secret of course." Remus stopped at Harry's sharp intake of breath, but went on.
"I didn't know Lily had given birth, or that I was one of the fathers until after I had been sent to Azkaban for their murders. I had been on an assignment for the Ministry of Magic for a little over eleven months. Letters could be owled of course, but they were checked before being given to the person receiving them. I told Lily and James that I would send letters every few days, but the letters never said anything hinting at our relationship because in the wizarding world, at that time, anything like we had was not just frowned upon, but almost completely unheard of. I didn't want anyone to think there was something wrong with James or Lily, so I hid our relationship from the members of my team." Tears streamed down Remus' face. He looked over at Harry apologetically.
"It wasn't until I got back to our home that I heard about what had happened, but Aurors had been sent to pick me up already. I didn't even get a chance to see you. By the time evidence had been found that it was He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, and not me, you were already ten years old. I've been jumping through every legal hoop you could possibly think of to finally get to bring you back home where you belong. I know that you probably don't want anything to do with me, or hear anything else from me, but I really do love you, and I hope that you will move in with me. I know that school starts tomorrow, so you don't have to give me an answer now, but please use the semester to think about it, and just give me an answer by holiday break. I really hope you'll join me Harry." Remus looked so positively broken in that moment. He had tears dripping down his face, just like Harry.
"I-I-I can't. I-" Harry sobbed. He didn't realize he had started running until he had made it well out of the room and down the hall. Finally, after what seemed like forever, he came upon an unlocked room. The boy crept inside and locked the door behind him. He leaned against it and slid down to the floor, wrapping his arms around his knees. He didn't realize there was someone else in the room with him until he heard the voice speak in front of him.
"How did you find this room?"