Thanx for the reviews!

Redwoodx: I actually was going to have Harry have a little sister, but I changed my mind. However, he will have "cousins" and not Dudley. Hehe.

Yeah, I know it's moving fast. I'm gonna try to slow it down.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, JK Rowling does.

Also, its going to change perspective a lot in this story. From Hermione to Harry to Lily to James.

And in this story: Harry is older than Hermione by almost 2 months. It's set in 2011.

Chapter Two

New World

Lily told Hermione all that was happening in their world. "Well, about seventeen years ago, a man named Lord Voldemort overthrew the Minister for Magic Millicent Bagnold, and took control of the Magical government. His followers, the Death Eaters, are the cause of the green light murders. They were the ones that attacked you. All of the wizards and witches and magical creatures that are opposed to him are in hiding, like us. There was this school called Hogwarts, where children would go when they turned eleven and learn to harness their powers. However, when Voldemort came into power, he shut it down. My Harry wasn't able to go. And you weren't either. You didn't get your letter, therefore you didn't know you were a witch. But some of the families kept on teaching their children in secret. The Weasleys did. The Longbottoms did. The Bones did. We did. James started training Harry before he could barely stand or hold up a wand. But he's a good fighter." Her son blushed. He didn't like being talked about.

"So, you're like...a resistance?" Hermione asked.

"Basically, yes," Lily agreed.

"So, those are your wands?" she gestured to their sticks.

"Yes, we'll be needing to go and see Ollivander to get you one. That is, of course, if you want one."

Hermione shrugged. "If you say it's who I am, I guess I will accept it. Who's Ollivander?"

"Ollivander is a wandmaker. He escaped right when he got news that Voldemort had taken power. He knew they would come for him. He's hidden safely away from Voldemort and the Death Eaters," Lily explained. "We'll go and get you a wand this week maybe, if you want."

Hermione smiled and nodded.

"Where are your parents, Hermione?" James asked.

"Oh, they're dead," she said solemnly. "They were murdered by Death Eaters-you call them-last year as they closed up their practice. They were dentists. I've been trying to get a job for a year now and there's been no luck. I couldn't keep my parents' house, so I had to sell it, and moved into the apartment. My inheritance went quickly to keeping up the rent. I even sold their practice. I sold anything I could. But I could never make enough money to live off of. I wanted to go to university, but I didn't have enough money."

"I'm really sorry," they all said.

She nodded, feeling tired again and she laid her head back against the head rest. Maybe she should take a small bit of information in a day. Everything was going too fast. Her head hurt again. Harry started staring at her as she closed her eyes.

He found her quite interesting. She was very beautiful. She had long, light brown locks that fell to the top of her chest. Her brown eyes sparkled like his favorite chocolate candy bar. Her rosy lips looked very kissable. She had a small frame and a lithe body. Harry was very attracted to her. Oh, yes, he was. He had seen many girls his age, but was never attracted to them as he was to Hermione. She intrigued him.

Lily smiled as she saw her son staring at their new house mate. He wasn't staring at her because she was new, like the new girl in school. Lily knew that look. She found it cute that her son liked her. When Harry saw his mother smiling at him, he blushed and turned around to face the front, as he was in the passenger seat.


When they got back to the Potter Manor, they unloaded all of Hermione's belongings. Harry, Lily, and James wouldn't let her carry anything in except her cat. They were happy to do this. Happy to help her out. After all she went through.

"I'll carry that," Hermione said reaching for the last box. Harry, however, beat her to it, grabbing it and holding it tightly. Not letting her take it from him.

"Don't worry about it, Hermione," he said softly. He turned and went inside.

Hermione fumed, angry with him. She wondered if she made a mistake coming here. She was imposing in on a young family and their lifestyle. They've been nothing but nice to her and here she was moving her belongings in. She thought about when she was ten years old and she had been in bed sick all day. Her mother forbade her to get out of the bed. However, there was a book she had wanted that was on the shelf, but she knew she shouldn't defy her Mum. She even crawled on her hands and knees to the edge of her bed and reached for it, even though it was across the room. Suddenly, the book had slid out from its spot on the bookshelf and floated into her hands. She had been a little scared, but still happy she had her book. Her mother was angry as she thought her ill daughter had gotten out of the bed. Hermione had tried to explain, but her Mum would have nothing of it.

Now she knew the explanation of it. Lily walked outside when Hermione didn't come in. "Hermione! Come inside!" The teenager sighed and walked into the manor to begin the rest of her life.

She was put in the room she had woken up in earlier that day. It was the perfect size for her. Three times as big as her room in her apartment. Her boxes were already in there. Harry walked into her room and asked her, "Would you like a tour of the house?"

She nodded and said, "Yes, if you don't mind." He took her around the manor, showing her every room in the house. Her favorite room, she found out, was the library. There were thousands upon thousands of books. Harry had told her he and his mother were avid readers and that she could read any book she wanted. Hermione took a few on the history of magic and about magic for her to read before she got a wand. It turned out that his room was right next to hers and that if she needed anything, he was right next door.

"W-would you like some help?" he asked as they got back to her room.

"Yes, could you resize everything for me?"

He smiled and complied, taking everything out from the boxes and enlarging them. All of the large belongings, like the couch and her bed, they kept small and put them in a safe place, as she didn't need them anymore. Hermione placed Crookshanks' bed against the wall to the right of her new bed.

Hermione thanked him as he left when she told him she could take it from there, and began to unpack, placing her clothes in drawers in the dresser and on hangers in the walk-in closet. She put all of her shampoos and toiletries in her own bathroom. She still could not believe all that had happened in a matter of hours. She had a new home with company. She had never lived with anyone else but her parents. Especially not complete strangers. Yet, she felt like she had been knowing this small family her whole life. She felt a strong energy emitting from them. It made her feel safe and comforted. When Hermione had finished unpacking, she went downstairs in search of Lily or James or Harry. It was about lunchtime now and she hadn't had anything to eat since the night before. She then realized that she had moved out of her apartment in the wee hours of the morning. She wondered if the Potters had slept at all.

She could hear noises from the dining room. Voices and clinking of silverware. She heard what sounded like jars being pushed across the table. "Oh, Harry, go get Hermione. Tell her it's time for lunch."

"Yes, Mum." Hermione heard someone getting up from the table. She stood frozen on the bottom step as Harry walked out of the dining room. He looked up to the white marble staircase and stopped himself as he saw her.

"Oh, hey, erm..." He blushed and ran his hand through his untidy, black hair nervously, staring at the ground. "...It's time for lunch."

"Okay, thank you," she said and followed him into the dining room. 'Why is he so nervous?' she thought to herself. The dining room was so beautiful. It had a long, wooden table that sat twelve people. Five chairs on each side and one on each end. Hermione wondered why they needed such a large table and so many chairs. They were only a family of three. James sat at the head of the table, his back to a window. Lily was sitting on her husbands left and her son across from her. On the table was sandwich bread, lunch meats; jars of mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard; lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, onions, and crisps.

Hermione sat in the empty chair next to Harry and he gave her a plate. "Thank you." He flashed her a smile back. Hermione began to make her sandwich the way she liked it. Lily took a bite of hers and asked her, "So, did you get everything unpacked?"

Hermione nodded, "Yes, ma'am, Mrs. Potter. Harry was kind enough to enlarge my belongings for me."

"First rule in this house, Hermione: my name is 'Lily' and this is 'James'. None of this 'Mr. and Mrs. Potter' crap," she said making everyone laugh. Suddenly, Hermione saw something move out of the corner of her eye. She looked up at the painting above the fireplace. She didn't know why she didn't see it before when Harry was showing her around. But the painting of the older couple was moving. "Th-the painting's moving!" she exclaimed pointing at it.

Lily smiled at her. "All magical portraits and photographs move. The portraits, however, are the only ones that can talk."

"'Talk'?" Hermione repeated.

"Yes, that painting up there are my parents," James spoke up. "Charlus and Dorea Potter. They died when I was twenty, right after Harry was born." He spoke to his parents. "Mum, Dad, meet our new house guest, Hermione Granger."

Hermione could see that James and Harry had gotten their pitch-black hair from Charlus Potter, however, it was graying a bit. He had brown eyes and wore strange clothes. His wife, Dorea, had dark, graying hair, and blue eyes. Her dress was a beautiful maroon color and fit lovely on her. They both smiled at her.

"Hello, welcome to the family, Hermione. I'm Charlus and this is my wife, Dorea," the elder man said.

"Pleasure to meet you, Hermione," Dorea said sweetly.

Hermione was still in shock of seeing the painting talking to her. She was glad when Lily spoke for her. "She's a Muggle-Born, we've concluded. She has never seen a moving or talking painting before."

"Oh, yes, it is quite something, isn't it?" Dorea asked rhetorically.

"Harry, you staying out of trouble?" Charlus asked his grandson, who nodded and said, "Yes, Grandpa, when I can. I went on my first auror mission last night. That's how I saved Hermione."

"Good on you, son!"

Suddenly, Dorea gasped as if she remembered something. "Oh! We need to speak to Minerva. She had wanted to talk to us about something. We'll see you later."

"Okay, goodbye!" the three Potters said as the two elder Potters left from the painting.

"Where'd they go?" Hermione asked.

"To see Minerva McGonagall. She used to be the Headmistress at Hogwarts before Voldemort took over. You see, Charlus and Dorea were close friends with her and she has an identical portrait of them in her home. They can move from painting to painting, just as long as someone has one," Lily explained. She looked at her husband. "I wonder what Minerva wants to talk to them about." James just shrugged and they continued to eat.


After lunch, Lily and Hermione went outside to lay in the beautiful spring sun, while James and Harry worked on rebuilding the storage shed that was outside. James' grandfather had built it and it was falling apart. The two women just watched them as they sat on the two-seater swing that was hanging from a big tree limb. Crookshanks was on his mistress' lap. James was a little angry at his wife. Since she was a Muggle-Born, she was used to doing labor without magic. She made him rebuild the shed without his wand. Nor Harry's.

Harry didn't mind the hard labor. It gave him time to think. To daydream. Harry James Potter was half of his mother and half of his father. Like his father, he loved to play Quidditch with him and his uncles. He was an excellent duelist. He loved to help his father play pranks on his mother and uncles and aunts. Most recently, he was attracted to a Muggle-Born.

However, he had a few more traits passed down from his mother. Like his mother, he loved to read and learn. His mind was always reeling and moving. Daydreaming. His imagination soaring high. He loved nature and the outdoors like his mother did. He didn't mind doing things by hand and not by wand. When he was younger, he used to help his mother wash the dishes. She would clean them in the sink and he would dry them and put them in their respective cupboards. He grew up in a world full of magic, while his mother grew up in a Muggle world, where there was no magic. He was always intrigued by his mother's adoptive world. He was glad his mother had several Muggle mechanisms in their home, like the television, or a DVD player, and films. Harry guessed he was actually more like his mother than his father.

The two men had finally removed all of the pieces of the old shed and put them in the rubbish pile. They had all of the lumber for the new shed ready to built. They just needed to figure out where everything went. Lily and Hermione were very amused by both of the men as they stood there puzzled a bit. "Harry, can you go and get the toolbox? It's by Hermione, next to the swing."

"Sure, Dad." The eighteen-year-old shyly walked over to his mother and Hermione on the swing and he bent down and picked up the toolbox that was on the ground next to Hermione's feet. He nervously looked at her a gave her a goofy grin. Then, he turned and walked back to his Dad and gave him the toolbox.

Hermione decided to ask Lily about her son, who was constantly glancing at her. But before she could open her mouth, Lily answered her unasked question, "Don't worry about Harry, dear. You see, since we are in hiding, we only see our friends maybe once or twice a year. We still communicate, but never see each other. Just our close friends do we see every day. But they live very close to us. So, therefore, Harry doesn't have any friends. You're the first friend he's ever had."

Hermione wanted to cry at how depressing that was. Harry was deprived of friends because an evil dictator had taken power. She had a few friends when she was in primary school, but never stayed friends with them. She smiled at Harry when he glanced at her again. He smiled back and their gazes were locked for a while.

"Harry, can you hand me a nail?" James' voice came from behind a wooden board. Harry, however, couldn't removed his gaze from Hermione's. He was locked on. Hooked. Entranced.

"Harry!" He still didn't hear.

"HARRY!" He jumped and looked at his father. "Pay attention, son!" The Potter patriarch chuckled a bit, so that his son knew that he didn't mean to shout like that.

He blushed again and focused on helping his father. "Sorry, Dad." He rushed a nail over to him.

Hoot! Hermione looked up and saw an owl flying overhead with something in its beak. It looked like an envelope. That was strange. 'Don't owls sleep in the daytime?' she thought to herself. Like it found its master, the barn owl landed on the arm of the swing next to Lily. "Hello, Athena. Have you a letter for me from Tonks and Remus?" Lily took the envelope from the owl and said to Hermione, "This is one way we communicate with our friends. We send letters by owl. The owls are charmed so that only trustworthy people can see them because owls can be intercepted and we wouldn't want the wrong people reading them." She opened the letter and read it. She smiled, "James! Remus, Tonks, Sirius, and Lyra are coming to dinner tomorrow night to meet Hermione."

"Yes!" James fist pumped into the air.

At her name, Hermione looked up at the older woman. "Meet me?"

"Yes, of course. You are a part of our family now, right?"

"I guess," she whispered thoughtfully staring into space.


The next night was the big dinner. Hermione was getting butterflies. She took a shower and dressed in a nice outfit. She wore a short dress that had a white skirt with black lines going around it. The hem stopped just before her knee. The top was a light gray and was sleeveless. The whole dress was made of tweed. She wore matching gray high-heels with it. It was the nicest thing she owned. Her mother had given it to her on her seventeenth birthday before she died. It was her favorite outfit but she never got to wear it. She pulled half of her hair up and put a hair-slide to hold to back. She let some loose tendrils frame her face.

She put on some perfume and sighed as she looked in the mirror. Then, the doorbell rang. A few minutes later, there was a knock on her door. "Hermione...?" she heard from the other side of it. She recognized the voice.

She walked over and opened the door, her heels clacking on the wooden floor, smiling a bit at who it was. Harry dropped his jaw as he looked at her. Hermione thought he looked rather cute in his black slacks, his oxford shirt tucked into his pants, and his red tie around his neck. He wore black, dressy shoes with his outfit.

"Erm...my uncles, aunts, and cousins are here. You can come down when you're ready," he blushed as she caught him practically drooling over her. The eighteen-year-old girl nodded and said, "Okay." She followed him down the stairs into the foyer where they heard a multitude of voices, including children's voices, coming from the sitting room. They walked into the sitting room and there were seven new faces all sitting in chairs and couchs. They all stood up, except the children, when Harry and Hermione came in.

"Hermione, this is my Uncle Sirius; Aunt Lyra; their son, Orion; my Uncle Remus; my Aunt Nymphadora Tonks-but she prefers 'Tonks'-and their children, Teddy and Sophie. Everyone, this is Hermione Granger," Harry introduced.

"Hello, it's lovely to meet you," Hermione said and they all responded the same.

"Harry!" The little girl called Sophie, who looked to be about four or five years old, ran up to her older cousin. She was wearing a red and white plaid dress with white stockings and black ballet flats. A red bow was in her hair.

"Hey, Sophie!" Harry grinned and kissed the little girl's cheek. She had dirty blonde hair and blue eyes. She was very cute. Her brother, Teddy, looked to be about seven or eight. He had sandy blonde hair and the same blue eyes. However, Hermione noticed his hair changed frequently. She shook her head mentally, trying to get used to this magic thing. Orion was around the same age as Teddy. He had dark black hair-darker than Harry's-and blue eyes, as well.

"You are seeing my godson?" Sirius asked with a wink of his eye at the both of them, making them blush.

"No, we're just friends, Uncle Sirius," Harry said with a small smile on his face averting his face from meeting anyone else's.

"Yeah, uh-huh, sure," Sirius said not believing them one bit walking past them towards the dining room. "Shall we eat?" he grinned at everyone. Harry put Sophie on the ground and she ran to the dining room to find a spot. Teddy and Sophie sat in between their parents. Harry and Hermione were seated next to each other opposite the fireplace, with the former next to his father. James was at the head of the table. Lily was at the opposite. Next to Hermione was Lyra and then Sirius and Orion.

Hermione looked up at the painting and saw that James' parents were still not back. Lily had waved her wand and the food that she had cooked in the kitchen immediately appeared on the table in front of them. Once again, Hermione flinched a bit, causing Harry to give her an amused smile.

"So, Hermione, do you have any questions about our world?" Tonks asked her as they began eating their steak and kidney pie.

Hermione swallowed her bite and asked her, "Can you really turn into animals?" She had read earlier that day that wizards and witches could turn into animals.

They all looked at each other with a grin on their faces. Sirius wiped his mouth and stood up. He went to an open space in the dining room and all of a sudden, he morphed into a black dog. Hermione widened her eyes and gasped. Everyone chuckled, amused as he transformed back into a human and sat back down.

"Can I turn into an animal?" Hermione asked them.

"Yes, you can. Any wizard or witch can. Harry's actually going to start training in two weeks. We'll let you train with him," Lily said.

Hermione smiled, thinking of what training with Harry would be like.


Later that night, Hermione lay in her bed reading more about magic and spells. She found the Cruciatus Curse to be too painful to read about, so she skipped that part and would come back to it at a later time.

She heard a knock on her door. "Come in," she called and the door opened. Harry stood there smiling at her in a pair of blue and whie plaid pajama pants and plain navy blue tee shirt. "Hey, Harry," she replied smiling back at him closing her book and putting it on her bedside table.

He kept her door open and came over and sat in the chair next to her bed. "How are you?"

"I'm fine. Trying to get used to all of...this." She gestured with her hands around her.

"It will get better. Most wizards and witches are kind of oblivious to what goes on in the Muggle world, as well."

"I never knew about magic or wizards or witches. I thought they were just in books. I never even guessed what I was doing was even magic. I just called it mind tricks," Hermione said in disbelief.

"Mum can sense magic. That's how she knew you were a Muggle-Born. She was in shock when she sensed yours."

"Why? Is there something wrong with me?"

Harry looked at her with a serious expression on his face. "You're very powerful, Hermione. Your magic is so extreme Mum said it equals mine. We have almost ten times the magic in our blood than most magicfolk. Magic doesn't run out, but everyone has a level of power."

"'Equal'?" she repeated.

"Yes."

She processed this in her head. Harry had fought those Death Eaters when he had saved her two days ago. She had been on the brink of unconsciousness, but she had seen the power and magic that came out of him. He was powerful. She was to equal him? She couldn't believe it. She laid her head down on her pillow, faced Harry.

"Get some sleep, Hermione. We are to go to Diagon Alley tomorrow," he said with another smile. "Goodnight."

He stood up and left the room, shutting the door.

"Goodnight, Harry," she said back but he was already gone.


Well, there's chapter 2. Hoped you liked it!

I know its moving fast, but I can't help it!

Next chapter: Diagon Alley

Pleez review!

DREWHHR