And here is another chapter! I have cut some stuff out of this chapter and will post it a bit more in the fourth chapter so the next one might be longer. I hope to get two more chapters posted before I go back to uni but please keep that in mind.
Disclaimer-Nothing is mine just certain characters in this story.
If there are any continuity issues in this chapter I apologise.
Please Read and Review.
And They Lived
Chapter 3-Against All Enemies
As Calla and Harry go to Diagon Alley they meet a strange man noted as the wandmaker Olivander and another boy by the moniker of Draco Malfoy. Two days later they go to board the train to Hogwarts.
Chapters Covered-Diagon Alley and a bit of Platform 9 ¾
Harry was waiting in the Leaky Cauldron tapping his foot impatiently. His Dad was reading the Daily Prophet and scoffing at some anti-werewolf legislation that some woman called Umbridge was proposing. His mother was sipping her tea and reading one of her muggle books. Harry knew it wasn't a wizards book because there were no moving pictures. He had no idea who this Jane Austen was but his mother was smiling as she re-read all the battered book.
They were waiting for Uncle Sirius, Auntie Marlene and Calla and had been waiting for an hour. Harry was feeling impatient. They were in Diagon Alley. They were going to get wands for Merlin's sake and his godfather couldn't be on time? Honestly how was this his life? Uncle Remus was not coming with them but he had, had a rather nasty full moon and had to stay at home for the weekend which Harry supposed more than a good enough excuse. Calla however had none.
Just when he decided that he was going to ask his father if he could go on without them (serves Calla right) the fireplace exploded in green and Calla Black came out scowling clad in what had once been a clean green skirt and red jumper her boots clacking on the flagstones, her dark hair loose out of the two plats it was in and her face smudged with soot.
"Mother and father are coming" she said sitting down next to Harry. "They had a row this morning and then of course they had to go into the bedroom to make up though why they had to do that I don't know. Either way I don't want to wait anymore" She eyed Harry's Dad for a second.
"Sure I cannot move in with you Uncle James? Otherwise I think I shall go quite mad, like Azkaban mad"
Harry's Dad laughed and then turned the corner of his paper folding it in two.
"No sorry kiddo. House is already full with Harry in and anyway, you'll be going to Hogwarts soon"
The floo network turned green again and Auntie Marlene climbed out followed by Uncle Sirius who were both shooting the other dark looks and brushing soot off themselves.
"Calla I told you not to do the floo network without me" Auntie Marlene said waving her wand. Calla instantly became clean again.
Calla opened her mouth probably to reply (Uncle Sirius always did say Cal had been given her mother's temper at birth) but Uncle Sirius gave a small cough and she fell silent turning to scowl at a passing goblin who bared his teeth back.
"Lets go" Mum said and Harry jumped up. He was getting a wand.
It almost made up for the lack of broomstick.
Almost.
He swallowed bitterly at that as they exited the pub and entered the alley. This was not the first time he had been there. He had seen the rows upon rows of shops with their gleaming windows before and this time was no exception. All over there were children with their parents getting Hogwarts stuff. They had left theirs to the last week of term because both his Dad and his Uncle had to work hard not only to catch the remaining Death Eaters that were on the run but also because they were both spending more time than usual trying to oppose the new werewolf legislation that had the financial backing of Lucius Malfoy whoever he was.
After a quick spin around Gringotts in which Harry felt slightly sick afterwards and two trips to two different vaults they were back outside in the sunshine. He noticed that both Calla and Auntie Marlene looked very pale. Calla he knew was not a fan of dark enclosed spaces and he suspected his Aunt might have been involved in dark spaces during the war but he was never given a straight answer to any questions that were asked about the first war and what his parents did to bring the wrath of Voldemort (as Harry had taken to calling him—his Dad did after all) down upon them all.
It was then that Harry realised his mother was one of the best people in the world. Perhaps realising how impatient her son was she smiled. "James why don't you and Sirius take the kids to get their wands and Marlene and I will handle anything else. We can meet in Flourish and Blotts when were done and Calla can get her library together"
Calla grinned and Harry noted that when his kind of cousin grinned, and really meant it, it lit up her whole face. He noticed his Aunt Marlene shoot a grateful look to his mum. She looked like she needed to sit down Harry thought. One quick round of kisses between the grown ups and they were gone the four of them going down the street until they got to the dark shop with golden painted letters that Harry had never been in. After all—how many wizards needed to replace their wands in their lifetimes?
There was a tinkling sound of a bell and then Harry saw loads of boxes packed around the walls. There were more wands here than anyone could sell in their lifetime and he wondered why Mr Olivander did not stop when he had made enough.
But whatever Harry was thinking ended quickly when there was the sound of a moving ladder and the strangest man he had ever met came into view.
He didn't even have to look at Calla to see her eyebrows were raised in surprise. He could feel them from where he was standing.
Sirius and James had taken a seat next to the door on two spindly chairs that looked as if they had not been replaced since the shop had first been opened. Olivander had taken measurements of both their children and then had decided to start with Calla who was now trying out her first wand. Considering his daughter made one half of the shelf collapse Sirius supposed that wasn't the one.
"Are you alright?" he asked James who had a rather pensive look on his face. His best friend shrugged.
"I think it just hit me how quiet the house is going to be when they go" he whispered and Sirius nodded. He too had been wondering just how he and Marlene were going to live without Calla. They had never really had time to be in relationship before her. They had been academic rivals all through years six and seven at school, fighters in the Order, passionate lovers and then they had been parents. Hell they had been broken up when Marlene had lost her whole family, been tortured while pregnant and had been thought dead by some idiot Death Eater (properly a kid) and had the presence of mind to try to get herself to St Mungo's got it wrong midway and had ended up in one piece on the doorstep of a horrified and surprised Molly Weasley. They had gotten back together in the aftermath of that but they had never discussed some of the bigger questions like marriage. Instead they had muddled along both in war and in peace.
Then there had been a pregnancy and Calla and for eleven years that had been their day to day lives.
It wasn't that he didn't love Marlene because he did. It was that he didn't know how to go back to the kids they had been before the war. Where they had been inseparable and desperate for each other.
But to be fair he thought that perhaps James had the same problem not that they talked about the war. Even now talking out Peter, suspecting Remus and what they had both nearly lost was still too painful.
James sighed again. "Any news" he muttered out of the corner of his mouth. "The lead in Leeds?"
Sirius shook his head. "No. Dead end. But he's out there somewhere James. And I know it"
James nodded his jaw tense. There was another unspoken secret between the three of them, him James and Remus that they did not let their families know about and that was the fact that they were still looking for Peter. What they were going to do with him when they caught up with him Sirius didn't know but as Remus pointed out they had to actually find him first before they could do anything.
"Yes" came a thin cry next to them and Sirius was pulled out of his thoughts to see his daughter dancing around the room joy in her face with a wand in her hand. It was moments like that he thought watching her, that were worth the pain and the guilt and the overbearing need sometimes to keep Calla safe and locked away from where the world could hurt her. Oh sometimes he thought he was going to have a heart attack on account of how much he loved her.
Calla smiled at him. "Thirteen inches, cherrywood with dragon heartstring" she said jumping around "Long, elegant and good—not unlike myself—for charms and transfiguration"
"Excellent" Sirius said taking the wand to look it over. It was smooth and darker than his own wand and longer than Marlene's and it had a nice feel to it. The handle was carved with circles around the edge. Calla was holding a flower crown that she had apparently conjured out of thin air and she placed it atop her head as Sirius passed the wand back to her.
So engaged was he with his daughter becoming a real wizard after only seven tries with a wand he didn't realise Harry was still going.
"Tricky" Mr Olivander breathed looking delighted and he all but scampered back to the back of the room. James rolled his eyes.
"It would have to be you son wouldn't it?" he said grinning.
And then Mr Olivander came back with a pensive look on his face and a wand in his fingers and Sirius felt James stiffen next to him.
"It would have to be my son wouldn't it" James muttered as they walked back up the street wands in hand. Sirius couldn't blame him for looking annoyed. Had it been his daughter whose wand had been a brother or sister of Voldemort he wouldn't have been pleased either.
"And all that crap about him being great" James hissed as the kids ran up ahead of them.
Sirius shook his head knowing what his friend was thinking and knowing it to be not true in the slightest. This was a conversation you needed Remus for he thought sighing.
"You and I both know that, that's not what he meant. He's too like Dumbledore, cryptical to the last word. He probably meant the magic he was capable of was good and considering what he did in the time he did it in he might have a point"
James scowled. "Lily is going to love this" he said as they entered the bookshop.
It was of course insanity. Books and children and people clustered around the tills. He lost sight of Calla who went straight into the shelves like a niffler on the hunt for gold. Harry eventually went off to look at books about quidditch and he, Marlene, James and Lily were left in a corner.
James was right. Lily was not best pleased by the wand either.
Calla was just about to pick up a copy of 'A Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts' when she felt someone bump into her.
"Sorry" the other girl said picking up her books. "It's mad in here isn't it? So much to read though. My father is making me stop at five extra books but it's like choosing weather or not to spare my arms and legs" she spoke rather fast and she was wearing an old green jumper and pleated skirt. She had very bushy brown hair and her teeth were a bit longer than necessary.
"Yes" Calla said. She was unsure what to say so she decided with the truth. "I am sure I am going to be teased by my family but all I want to do is get some reading done before I get there. I don't want to be behind"
"Do you have magical parents?" the girl asked her head tilted to the side. Calla nodded.
"I don't. My parents are dentist. They work on mug…muggle's teeth" she elaborated. "I don't think I'll know anything, I didn't know I had magic until a few months ago"
"Oh don't worry about that" Calla said pleased she could answer some questions. "Were not allowed wands until we go to Hogwarts and a lot of magic is wand based. Everyone will be starting from scratch"
The girl looked incredibly relieved at that and then smiled. Calla smiled too.
"Do you have brothers and sisters at Hogwarts?" she asked. Calla shook her head.
"Only child."
"Me too." The girl interrupted looking thrilled. "Do you know how we are to get onto the platform? I don't know"
Calla nodded when there was a drawling voice behind her.
"Muggleborns"
She turned and rolled her eyes. It was Draco Malfoy. Calla knew him because she suspected that she was related to him in some way despite her father being disowned 'ten times over before breakfast' as he would say.
"Go home Malfoy" she said scathingly.
Draco Malfoy slammed his book shut and then dropped it on the floor.
"Blood Traitors and Muggle Borns" he said looking Calla up and down. "Why my mother wants me at Hogwarts I will never know"
And then he was gone.
"Rude" the girl said watching him. "Friend of yours?"
"More like the family you cannot get rid of" Calla said and got a nod of understanding in return.
"Cal" came a voice behind her and she turned to see her Dad coming towards her brushing his hair out of his eyes. She shot the girl a look because all girls seemed to come over rather faint when her Dad did that but the girl didn't look remotely bothered.
"What did ferret junior want? Did he upset you?"
"Nothing and no" Calla said. "Dad this is…er…"
"Hermione Granger" the girl answered promptly.
"Yeah, she's muggleborn and she wondering how to get onto the platform at King's Cross"
Her Dad beamed at them both and then began to explain steering them towards the shop doorway and to where Hermione's parents were standing by the door looking around in wonder. Hermione looked happier and she turned with her books in her hand to walk to the counter. Calla smiled at her.
"Perhaps we shall meet up on the train?" the other girl said and Calla paused. "I'd like that" she said finding it to be true. Hermione smiled and Calla smiled back.
She turned back to see her Dad beaming at her.
"What?" she asked handing him her books.
"Nothing" he said finally. "It's just good to see you smile"
Dad's Calla thought, were a very strange people.
It was strange to think that years ago it had been her standing there on the platform having no clue what was going on or what was going to happen. Back then she had been young and foolish and full of the naïve hope that she could mend things with her sister. That Slytherin was the best house out of the Hogwarts four and Severus and she were going to be friends forever.
Lily could only hope that her old friend was still enough of a man not to take his anger out on James and Sirius on their children but considering she had seen the Dark Mark tattooed on his arm she didn't think so.
Harry had ran and found Ron Weasley who was with his brothers and his sister and Neville Longbottom was also in their little group stroking a toad while his grandmother was in conversation with James. Lily felt a hot flash of both anger and pain as she usually did when she looked at Neville Longbottom. Alice and Frank had both been in their year, had been both in James and Lily's dorms and they had been at each other's wedding, each other's houses, in the order. It made her sick when she thought about what had happened.
Augusta had more backbone Lily thought that most of the Ministry combined.
She didn't say anything as she felt James hand in hers. This was the moment she had waited for that they had both waited for. That she and James had gone into hiding for. To see Harry off to school one day and wave him goodbye. She caught Marlene's expression and noted that her best friend was looking rather bright in her eyes. She had to look away.
The moment had been ruined however by James telling her the night before she was to send her son to school that Gringotts had been broken into. The Philosopher's Stone was something she had long believed to be a myth but if what James had told her was true then someone was after it.
But as James had also told her the only man that they could trust to lead the fight against darkness was Dumbledore. As long as he was in charge of Hogwarts and therefore in charge of the stone then she was content to let her son go there.
There was a pause where she stood there gripping her husband's arm lost in the same memories she knew he was.
Calla and Harry were back in their line of sight and Lily hugged her son goodbye. He curled into her side like he had done when he was a baby and then he hugged James who buried his face into the dark hair so they were almost alike in those few seconds.
Calla hugged both Marlene and Sirius dithering a bit longer with her Dad than anyone else. Both of them hugged Remus who had been standing there slightly bemused by the hugs that he was getting (Lily's already battered heart took another beating at that) and then the two of them were climbing onto the train, Ron Weasley and Neville Longbottom in tow. And then they were moving.
It was too fast, for Lily, for James for any of them who had hugged their children close and tried to imagine a world where they could survive.
She felt James hand slip around her waist though weather or not that was for her or for him she didn't know.
"He'll be alright" Lily said to her husband as she blinked back the tears that came when her son disappeared from sight to the great big world.
"I know" was all James said.
Lily wanted so desperately to believe him. She clutched him just a little bit harder and she pressed her face into his shoulder. She was aware of Sirius and Remus and Marlene standing there next to her.
She could not help but feel that there was some terrible forlornness in saying goodbye to her son but Lily supposed that she had at least been able to do that when so many people she had known had not. Oh there had been so many people Alice and Frank just the tip of the tower.
No. Lily was going to choose hope in this moment. Regardless of what James said or believed she was going to choose hope. She was going to believe that her son, her goddaughter, her whole world was going to have a good year at Hogwarts. A perfectly normal, Voldemort free one.
(Oh how very wrong she was)
And there is the third chapter. I hope you all enjoy and I will try and update as soon as I can. Next chapter will finish chapters such as The Journey from Platform 9 3/4, The Sorting Hat and a little bit of The Potions Master (but just a little of the chapter)
Next Chapter-Calla meets a friend on the train but the boys dont like her. McGonagall is surprised and world weary at the thought of teaching another Black and Potter. The Sorting Hat sorts and Snape is furious and more than a little in pain.
