Meeting Your Maker (Literally) Chapter 1 No Such Thing As Coincidence
The Trio could hear footsteps pounding down the corridor toward them. They exchanged panicked looks.
"What now?" Ron whispered.
They stared at each other a moment longer before Hermione's eyes lit up.
"Harry! The cloak!" Hermione gasped.
Harry reached into his pocket and yanked his Invisibility Cloak out, and threw it over the three of them.
"Our feet!" Hermione whispered harshly.
Ron quickly pulled out his wand and rapped it sharply on each of their heads, causing the Disillusionment Charm to wash over them, disguising their feet.
"Corner." Harry muttered as the footsteps got louder.
They shuffled quickly and silently into the nearest corner, which happened to be right behind the door.
They realized their mistake when the aforementioned door flew open, and promptly whacked Ron in the nose.
"Bloody fu-" His shout was cut off by Hermione slapping her hand over his mouth, but the damage had been done.
"Show yourselves." A man with carefully combed hair, that still managed to stick up in the back, ordered. "We know you are in here. There are spells for that kind of thing, you know." His eyes scanned the room, finally landing on the corner they stood in. Hermione shuffled farther back into the corner, and a smirk came over the man's face.
"How, I wonder, did you manage to hide everything from view but your feet? You obviously Disillusioned them, but where is everything else?" He had a curious gleam in his brown eyes, and he glanced at the men around him. "You are all dismissed. I can take it from here."
The men, who the Trio assumed were Aurors, looked at each other, shrugged and trooped out the doors. Ron was speechless. How could these men just leave this man to fend for himself to an unknown enemy? Who trained them? Ron and Harry weren't yet Aurors, but were steadily making their way there. They had started training the week before and already knew you never left another Auror alone with an unknown enemy.
"Look. If you'd just come out from under that cloak, that would make this a lot easier." The man sounded battered and beaten down. Harry sympathized. He also thought he knew the man. He looked awfully familiar.
"Please."
Harry reached up and slowly pulled the Invisibility Cloak off their bodies, earning a shocked look from Hermione, and a resigned look from Ron.
"James?" The man exclaimed, shocked. He squinted, moving closer. "Not James. Who are you and why do you look like my son?"
Hermione's eyes grew wide, and Ron froze.
"Who are you?"
Harry couldn't move. The man's gaze- his grandfather's- was boring into him, holding him in place.
"Answer me."
"Harry."
He turned sharply towards his name, towards Hermione, who had just uttered his name like it wasn't a damning 'Admitted To Saint Mungos' declaration.
"Tell him or I will." Her eyes pleaded with him, and suddenly he flashed back to their actual fifth year, in Umbridge's office, and fake tears.
"Hermione..." Harry pleaded. "Please..."
"Hermione, don't." Ron warned.
"I can't. I have to." She turned to the man. "We came looking for information on our parents. We-" She swallowed. "We never knew them. We thought maybe the Ministry would have some inforamtion, but we didn't think they'd just give it out to three minors."
"So your next solution was breaking in?" The man looked doubtful.
"Well yes... I realize now it wasn't a very bright decision."
Ron held back a snort. He thought back to the last time they broke into the Ministry, and how well that had turned out.
"Alright. You say you're all... siblings?" He eyed Hermione's hair next to Ron's, the various complexions, nothing about any of them saything they were related except for the way they held themselves. The one boy standing slightly in front of the girl, as if he were ready to jump in front of her and protect her with his life. The other stood close to her back, his hand brushing hers, the other near his pocket, as if ready to draw his wand at a moments notice to defend the other two. And the girl. She looked completely at ease in between these two wizards who looked as if they would give their lives for her.
Not that he saw any reason why three children would look so... battle hardened. The black haired boy... he had that look in his eyes. The look that said he had seen and experienced things that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
The girl shifted in front of the ginger boy, and his fingers snagged her wrist.
"Yes sir. These are my brothers."
Harry glanced sideways at Hermione, and saw the small smile on her face as she said those words, and felt a rush of affection for the two people standing next to him.
"Alright. Let's say I believe you. What are your names?"
"Um..." Hermione glanced between the two boys and seemed to realize neither of them were going to speak. "My name is Hermione. Hermione Granger. This... is Harry... Granger." Harry smiled and shrugged his shoulders a bit when Hermione gestured to him. "And this is Ronald Granger." Hermione said Ron's 'name' with considerably more confidence than she had said Harry's, and he wondered if she ever wrote in the margins of her notes.
The tips of Ron's ears turned a light pink, and Harry had to stifle a snort.
"Well Hermione, Harry, and Ron. My name is Charlus Potter and I would like to take you home with me."
Hermione inhaled sharply.
"Sir, there is really no need." Harry said. "We live in an orphanage, and surely they have noticed we are missing by now. We should be going." He grabbed Ron and Hermione's hands and started to pull them toward the door when Charlus spoke again.
"Nonsense. My wife, Dorea, and I have plenty of room at our house, and I know my son wouldn't mind a few more friends. I won't have you staying at an orphanage when I can do something about it." He had a soft smile on his face. A fatherly smile. Harry had thought he was past the point in his life where he wanted a father.
The yearning in his heart said differently.
"But sir. You don't even know us, we could-"
"Okay." Harry cut Hermione off, and she gave him an incredulous look.
"Wonderful. Come with me to my office, and we can floo over."
"Harry, we can't go with him, we don't even know him." Hermione whispered to him as the trecked to the lift.
"Hermione, we don't have much of a choice. Besides," Harry glanced at Charlus and lowered his voice even further. "He's my grandfather. My father's father. I just met my grandfather for the first time in my life, and you don't want me to go with him?" His eyes pleaded with her to understand, and she did. She really did.
But this was a risk she wasn't willing to take.
"Harry. Your father will be there. James Potter. How are you going to explain the resemblance?" Her tone was slightly triumphant, like she had finally gotten him to understand that he was asking them to take a stupid risk.
She was wrong.
"I don't know, Hermione. I suppose they'll just think it is a coincidence." Harry shrugged his shoulders, and moved past her to walk beside Charlus.
"So, Mister Potter." He started, swinging his arms at his sides. "You said you have a son? That is our age?"
"Well, if you are fifteen, which you look about to be, yes. His name is James." Charlus smiled slightly at the thought of his son, and the yearning in Harry's heart grew.
He shook himself. This had to stop. This wasn't his family, his family died a long time ago. Harry couldn't look at these people that way, because that road is one that leads to heartache.
"Does he go to school?" Hermione asked from the other side of Charlus, as they stepped into the lift. Harry looked at her strangely, but she just gave him her patented "Just go with it, I know what I'm doing" look, as the grills clanged shut.
"Yes, he does. James goes to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I'm going to assume you three don't go there?" Charlus looked around at the three of them, and they all shook their heads.
"Then where did you go? You can't broken into the Ministry of Magic with absolutely no training."
Harry and Ron stared at Hermione, willing her to have come up with a cover story for this, because the two of them were drawing blanks.
"Oh of course not." Hermione said with a small smile. "We actually home schooled ourselves."
"Really?" The surprise in Charlus voice was palpable. "I've never actually heard of children schooling themselves. And it being effective."
"Yes, well, growing up in a muggle orphanage didn't exactly give us the chance for schooling. We each got letters on our birthday for Hogwarts, of course. But we didn't have any money, nor would our caregiver, Mrs. Hal, let us go seeing as we helped a lot with the younger children." Hermione cast her eyes to the floor, and the boys hastily did the same in case Charlus looked at them.
"That is... horrible. She denied you education so she could have free labor?" Hermione nodded, and wiped her hand under her eyes. Ron put his arm around her and Harry grabbed her hand, showing that they were there and she didn't have to "cry" anymore for Charlus.
"I'm alright, guys, really." Hermione looked at both of them, a small smile on her face. Her eyes held smug triumph, and dared them to do better than her.
"If you don't mind my asking, if you didn't have any money, how did you get the supplies to train yourselves?" Charlus turned a critical eye on the three of them, as if expecting them to say they stole it.
"Oh well, for books and things, we just went to the Wizarding Library in Diagon Alley. We didn't even have to check anything out, we just brought paper and copied relevant information." Ron said, tossing a smug look to Hermione, who was trying very hard to hide her surprise.
"Yeah, and for wands, we just went out and did small jobs in the muggle world that paid us, and then traded the muggle money for galleons." Harry smiled, looking at Ron and Hermione. Hermione smiled back, but Ron just rolled his eyes.
"I see. Well, I must say I am very impressed with the three of you. You have shown responsablity at a young age, when few adult wizards and witches could have shown the same." Charlus patted each of them on the back as the grills slide open and they stepped out.
"My office is just up here." Charlus pointed, as the Trio looked around. Something about this area looked familiar to Harry.
"Here we are." Charlus had stopped in front of a door marked with the words "Head of Magical Law Enforcement."
Harry, Ron, and Hermione just stared wide eyed at the door.
Charlus looked at the Trio for a moment, before pushing open the door and stepping inside. They followed him to the fireplace, where he took up a jar of sparkling gray dust. Charlus scooped out a handful, before realizing something.
"None of you have ever used the floo before have you?" He questioned. They shook their heads and he sighed. "Very well. I'll go first and tell my wife you're coming, then I'l come back to help you through. Just sit down, I'll be back in a moment." Once they nodded, he tossed in the floo powder, stepped into the flames and shouted, "Potter Manor!" before swirling off.
"Harry!" Hermione gasped out.
"I know, Hermione." Harry sat down in a chair in front of the desk.
"You're gr-" She cut herself off, glancing around the office. "You're, you know, is the Head of Magical Law Enforcement?"
"I know, Hermione, I know."
"What have you gotten us into?"
"Well, I didn't exactly know he would be the one to find us, did I? And I wouldn't have gotten us into anything, if you two hadn't have come."
"Oh please. Like you would actually have done this without us." Ron sat in the chair behind the desk, and looked as if he were contemplating putting his feet up on it. Hermione looked like she completely agreed with Ron, and stood with her arms crossed over her chest.
"Of course I would have done this without you, I don't need your help with every thing I do. In fact I would have preferred it if you stayed back, because then I wouldn't have to worry-" Harry cut off abruptly as green flames roared to life in the fireplace, and Charlus stepped out.
"Everything is ready. Now, Harry. If you would step up to the fireplace, please." Charlus gestured, and Harry obliged. "Right. You just take a handful of floo powder," Here he held out the jar to Harry and he took a handful like instructed. "Good. Now, toss it in the fireplace and step in."
Harry looked over at his grandfather like he was crazy, very much like he remembered doing to Mrs. Weasley when she instructed him the same.
Charlus chuckled. "You'll be fine, trust me." Harry tossed the powder in, and the flames burst into the farmilliar emerald of floo travel, and he stepped in. The flames tickled about his knees.
"Now, just say 'Potter Manor' and you'll be off." Charlus nodded encouragingly, and Harry swallowed.
One.
Two.
Three!
"Potter Manor!" He shouted, and the office was gone in a blur of green flame, and he was spinning, spinning, catching glimpses of Wizarding households connected to the Floo Network, and then he was tumbling out of the fireplace onto an ornate rug.
"Alright there, dear?"
Harry looked up and was confronted with the smiling face of his grandmother.
She looked nothing like he pictured she would, all dark reddish-brown hair and typical Black grey eyes.
"You might want to get off the rug, your siblings will be through in a moment." Dorea Potter smiled kindly at him, and as if on cue, Ron fell through the fireplace and landed on top of Harry.
"Ugh, Ron, get off you weigh a ton, what have you been eating, rocks?" Harry groaned from underneath of him.
Ron laughed. "Remember the fish? Might as well have been eating rocks." He stood up and helped a laughing Harry to his feet.
"Don't let 'Mione hear you say that." Harry grinned at his friend as the fireplace roared again, spitting out Hermione. The boys caught her before she hit the floor, and she smiled gratefully at them.
"Thanks. Don't let Hermione hear you say what?" She glanced innocently from boy to boy, both of which had frozen, staring at each other.
The fireplace roared to life and Charlus stepped neatly out of the flames. "Well. I believe it's time for lunch."
The boys sagged with relief, and Dorea hid her smile behind her hand.
Hermione stepped up to Ron and Harry and murmured so Dorea and Charlus couldn't hear, "I'm going to get whatever it was out eventually. Better fess up now."
Ron's ears burned and Harry smiled innocently, before they all followed Dorea and Charlus into a kitchen bustling with House Elves. Someone was already sitting at the table, leaning over a piece of parchment scribbling furiously.
"Dear, put that away. We have guests." Dorea lightly scolded the boy, and he slid the parchment off the table into a small bag before looking up.
He scanned over the trio before his eyes landing on Harry, who was currently gazing intently at the floor.
"Hi," He started and Harry's head shot up, locking eyes with him. "I'm James."
Stay tuned for chapter 2 on wednesday! Happy reading!
Glove
