In the north-western part of Switzerland lay a small city of around 180'000 inhabitants – at first glance it seemed like a perfectly normal, mediocrely big European city: It had an old town centre with beautiful houses, a market square, open coffee houses, restaurants, and more than enough fashion shops. In summer Basel was a busy city – the inhabitants got out, sat next to the minster church, where a big palatinate sat enthroned over the Rhine, Basel's main river, or simply swam in the Rhine and then relaxed at its board.
However Basel was not normal, in reality it was a very rich and very influential city, much more influential than you thought when visiting it for the first time. In fact, proportional to its size, Basel was probably one of the richest and most powerful cities in the world. When in 1529 Basel was one of the first cities to go through with the reformation, it attracted many a powerful family from the still catholic Bourgogne and Habsburg, who then in turn settled in Basel and stayed there for the next 500 years, keeping the money and the power in the city until today. Those families would later found two huge pharma enterprises, the Novartis and the Roche, and donate a vast majority of their money to support the city and its cultural institutions. Only Amsterdam held more museums per inhabitant than Basel nowadays, and more than 95% of these museums either belonged to or were financed by one of those families. And yet those families would never want anything back for the money they gave and would rather not even be known for having such power and influence. And they succeeded well with that – outside Basel not many people knew the Sarasin family, or the Merian, the Vischer, the Geigy, the Oeri and the La-Roche – understatement was their motto: "We do not have, we do not give. And if we give, we do not tell."
It was the motto Harry Potter had grown up with, as Lucas used to say: 'Me het nyd, me git nyd, und wenn me git, denn sait me nyd." Which was essentially the same thing. In Basel German. Lucas was Lucas Sarasin of course, head of the Sarasin family, which had played host to Harry, his mother and his two honorary uncles since the day they had to flee from the United Kingdom.
When Harry had been one year old, the darkest wizard of the last few centuries, who had given himself the name Lord Voldemort, had come to kill Harry's parents and Harry himself – however Harry's father James, who had been an exceptional duellist himself, had managed to hold Voldemort at bay for the three critical minutes it had taken Lily, Harry's mother, to break down the anti-apparation wards Voldemort had set up. While devastated at hearing her husband fall, Lily had done what had needed to be done: taken Harry, apparated out of the house, approached her husband's best friends Sirius Black and Remus Lupin and fled out of the country. They had approached Lily's best friend from school time: Monique Sarasin, née Burckhardt – another one of those influential Basel families. Monique had without problems managed to convince her husband Lucas to play hosts to the Potters as long as they had to be in exile. When Lily, Sirius and Remus had started to seriously consider staying in Switzerland, the head of House Sarasin had sold them one of his properties on the minster hill – a beautiful large mansion with a big terrace garden holding a magnificent view over the Rhine and the city.
Meanwhile in Britain things got worse at first: Voldemort took over the ministry and after five years made his first and last attempt to take Hogwarts. It was the first and heaviest loss Voldemort and his men, the so-called Death Eaters, had to suffer – two thirds of the Death Eaters died in the battle, as Hogwart's headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, whom many saw as the greatest wizard of the time, lured his former student into a trap, which nearly cost Voldemort his life. While failing to finish off Voldemort, the trap did its job as it took away Eaters any form of organization the Death Eaters had, as they heavily depended on their leader. Voldemort's grip on Britain had started to loosen from that battle on – especially as Dumbledore had managed to use his political momentum to place Amelia Bones as Minister of Magic. She proved to be a very tough opponent to Voldemort, cleansed her staff from Death Eaters and started a zero tolerance policy in the ministry. Arms were checked regularly, department head bureaus were warded to only let unimperiused people enter and checked the magical signature of everyone entering, making polyjuice ineffective. While at first it had been a heavy power play, now, four years later, the Death Eaters were nothing more but a terrorist organization, if a very dangerous and very influential one.
Harry on the other hand had grown up in Basel, making friends in muggle primary school, learning not only all about Switzerland's geography and politics, but also how to use logic and mathematic formulas to solve problems, received proper training in the arts, cooking, and sports – which were all subjects at school. From the age of 7 on he went to judo training and had advanced to junior national team level by the age of 9. As school was held in German in Switzerland, Harry had grown up bilingual – English from home and German from school and his friends – additionally to that French course had started from third grade on – he never really managed to get the grip on that particular language though.
Now, Harry sat in the window frame of the large dining hall, looking down at the Rhine, which lay about 40 metres below him. It reflected the light of the full moon a thousand times and not for the first time Harry was thankful he didn't have to endure the same pain Moony went through every month.
"Still awake?" his mother's soft voice carried to him from the other side of the hall. "You know you should be asleep Harry! It's ten thirty already."
Harry turned and shrugged his shoulders helplessly "I tried, mom, I just can't sleep – what with Moony and –"
"- you going to Hogwarts tomorrow." Lily finished for him. She slowly crossed the room and sat down next to him "It's nice here. I like Basel – I think I could stay here forever. It's so peaceful."
Harry nodded. "Well, who says you can't? We bought the house here from Monique and Lucas – it's well enough to settle."
Lily smiled. "I know – I just, well I just don't know what I will do once the war in Britain is over. I grew up there, you know, just like you grew up here."
Harry leaned his head against his mother, now feeling somewhat drowsy anyway. It always was like this when they talked because he couldn't sleep. "I know, mom, I know. I love you."
Lily smiled and kissed his forehead "I love you too Harry."
"What do you think, mom? Will I get sorted into Gryffindor?"
Lily smiled – if she was honest with herself she rather thought her son would end up in Ravenclaw but – "It's not important where you end up, honey! The houses are overrated anyway."
"But I want to become a Gryffindor! Just like Dumbledore!"
Lily grinned ruefully – she never had told her son that Dumbledore wasn't so infallible like he thought. Of course he meant well, and he was undoubtable a very strong wizard who stood for the light – but then again he had the tendency to be so secretive and manipulative it was frustrating – you couldn't be Supreme Mugwump and Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot otherwise.
"I think you should become a Slytherin" Sirius' voice behind the two of them said as he put his hands on Lily's shoulders "You do have all the qualities and Merlin knows, that house could use a capable and great wizard again."
Lily beamed up at her late husband's best friend. Ever since Sirius had found out about his brother Regulus dying for being a traitor to Voldemort's cause he had become much more open-minded about the house of the Snake. Of course Peter Pettigrew, a Gryffindor, betraying and more or less killing James had already opened his eyes, that Hogwarts houses said nothing about if a person was good or bad. "We will see!"
Unbeknownst do Lily it was also seeing Harry talk to a snake in the Basel zoo, which made quite the impression on Sirius: he thought it was badass as hell and swore himself to buy Harry a cobra as soon as he could away with it in front of Lily. His goal was to help his Godson to get as many girls as possible in Hogwarts after all, and the bad boy image a pet cobra gave, was pretty irreplaceable. Also there were so many good puns he would have to teach Harry once he was thirteen or fourteen.
"Are you nervous, pup?" Sirius asked his Godson.
Harry shook his head and grinned "Not really – more like … really, really, really looking forward to it, you know?"
Sirius laughed "Which is usually called nervous."
Harry stuck out his tongue "Yeah, but not nervous nervous, but like good nervous!"
Sirius grinned. "You know, you will kick their –"
"Siri!" Lily reprimanded "Not in front of Harry!"
Sirius held up his hands in surrender "Alright, alright – he will still kick'em though!"
Lily suppressed a grin and shook her head "I really don't know why I let you live here, Siri!"
"Perhaps, because he sleeps in your bed every second night?" Harry piped up and grinned in the gobsmacked face of his Godfather and his mother. He had wanted to confront them long ago – now was the perfect opportunity though. "What, you didn't really think I wouldn't realize it, did you?"
Sirius coughed and his mother was somewhat red in her face. "You see –"
But Harry simply stood up with the grin of an eleven year old who just found out about someone liking someone else. "Padfoot and Muuuum, sitting in a treeee …"
"Why you, little!" Sirius made a mock threatening step forward and leaned in to catch his Godson, who simply made a roll between his Godfather's legs though and made kissy faces at the two of them.
"Oh come on – I had judo lessons since I was six, you don't really think you can catch me, do you?" Harry grinned then yelped and run around the table as Sirius chased him around it, carefully never quite catching up to the young boy.
Five minutes later Harry was exhausted and Sirius caught him anyway. "What do you propose we make with this insolent child? Can we give it away, Lils?"
Lily grinned and tickled Harry's sides who squirmed but didn't quite have the power to do anything about it anymore though. "Naah – let's put him in bed – he seems as if his little stunt powered him out."
Sirius smiled "Indeed – let's put him into bed, so we can go to bed too."
"Siri! Only because he knows -"
Sirius grinned "I never said the same bed!"
Lily flushed "Right – well … let's get him to bed."
Harry smiled against his Godfather's chest. He was happy his mother and Sirius were in love – his father had certainly been a good person, but he wouldn't have wanted his mother to be alone, he was sure. At least that was what Remus had said when Harry had asked him why his mum had never married again, if she perhaps thought his Dad would be sad in heaven.
Five minutes later Harry was deep asleep and dreamt of new friends, the train his mother had told him about, and a beautiful old castle somewhere in the Highlands of Scotland.