Disclaimer: I am merely playing with other people's creations, I don't own the game/book/anime/TV-show I am borrowing from, nor am I making any money with this. I am writing for fun and practice, as fan-fiction to be shared with others if I feel like it.

Chapter 3: Tides Turn

Years passed in relative peace for young Harry and Lily Evans. Harry proved to be his mother's son, showing a keen mind that his mother encouraged him to develop further, while Lily attended mundane classes to complete a degree. Lily's focus was always on Harry and with their finances secure thanks to the Potter family fortunes, it was mostly something to satisfy the desire for new knowledge that drove her to those evening classes, as well as it being an extra measure of 'camouflage' in the mundane world.

Harry spent many hours after his school day with a good book, whether mundane or magical, it was his choice. Harry learned a fair bit of spell theory but Lily did not want to teach him the practical magic till he was at least ten, and his core had began to stabilize. Besides, she wanted him to enjoy being a kid while he could, spending part of the day outside riding the waves. Lily had come to enjoy sunbathing and swimming as well, developing a nice tan and drawing the eyes of several men when visiting a public beach, but she wasn't there to flirt around but watch Harry around others.

They travelled on different parts of the world, seeing both mundane and magical sights, collecting copies of old texts and reasonably trusted translations. With the right spells languages were fairly quick and easy to learn, allowing them to travel at ease. All the while, Lily kept alert for any signs of surprise but after a few years it had began to seem there was no death eaters on their trail, and people had left them alone, or at least not made the connection between Lily Potter that most of the world thought dead, and Lily Evans, despite it being her maiden name. Similarly nobody seemed to see Harry Potter from beneath the name of Harry Evans.

The little fantasy tales of Harry being a messy-haired youth with glasses and a scar on his forehead had her shaking her head when she first ran into them, and a quickly scribed letter later she heard back from her contact in Britain that the public had been in shock when the Potter proxy actually took action about the rampant use of the Potter name in fictional stories without the family permission. Dumbledore had tried to soothe things over but the end result was clear. The author lost every galleon he made writing the tales, and more, and got warned that the next time they made up stories about a Heir of the Most Ancient and Noble they would lose more than their galleons.

Lily thought it was a little petty at the time, but at the same time reminded herself that they were writing lies about her Harry, and she definitely wasn't going to allow that to continue. Unfortunately she had to work through her proxy because she did not trust Dumbledore at all. His actions in trying to encourage people to be more lenient with the Death Eaters at the trials after the war had left her stumped. The so called 'Leader of the Light' spat on the sacrifice of several brave Aurors that gave their lives to capture the vile bastards for questioning by denying veritaserum even when confronted by several witnesses identifying the attackers openly.

International Confederation of Wizards had finally thrown Dumbledore out after seeing the sham-trials the country was carrying out, and though many families like the Malfoys escaped punishment in Britain, the other nations publically announced that any death-eaters captured on their soil would be executed as terrorists, calling them outlaws with no protection of law given they had not respected the rights of others before either.

All in all, Lily had a feeling that the other nations were doing a lot better when Dumbledore's grasp on power was so weakened, but unfortunately Dumbledore had grasped even tighter on Wizengamot and Hogwarts in turns. Even going as far as claiming that they would all see young Harry in a couple of short years when he'd arrive to Hogwarts for his first year. Lily grimaced at that thought. There was no way she would let Harry go there, not while Dumbledore was alive and breathing.

==== Tides Turn ====

July 31st, 1991

Harry woke up with a yawn, pulling himself up from his bed feeling his whole body aching slightly. Yesterday's practice had been a tough one, and though Harry knew that his mom wanted him to do well he wondered if she was going a little too far fearing he would get hurt without her around him every moment. His body ached because the training that involved both physical exercise and casting spells nearly to exhaustion, leaving him tired enough to fall asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow.

Slipping out of the bed he headed to shower and get ready for the day, while Lily was cooking a meal downstairs. A knife chopped the vegetables on its own while Lily was taking a tray of baked goods out of the oven, a smirk playing on her lips. It wasn't every day a boy turned eleven, and his friends would show up in a few hours. The letters were waiting in a neat stack nearby, ready for his perusal. She had left the Hogwarts letter among them after casually removing the tracking charms from the letter before bringing it back from the Gringotts where their mail had been redirected. Within Gringotts' walls such charms were of little use, and as she never brought it outside Gringotts with the tracking spell still active, the sender would have no help from it in trying to guess where in the world Harry Potter was.

Appropriately, the letter listed a number in Gringotts internal system, rather than an address. No country, no street address, and definitely not a house number. This should have the headmaster growling in frustration, she thought to herself with a smirk. The other letters likewise included the number, but they had not included tracking charms or anything such, though a few of them were sealed by magic so that they would only open to the right person, being impervious to attempts by anyone else to open or destroy them.

"Morning mom," Harry said while walking downstairs his hair wet and brushed back, already dressed for the guests.

"Good morning, and happy birthday. I got a few letters for you, do you want them now or after we've had the guests over?" Lily smiled while making a gesture at the stack of letters, seeing Harry's gaze follow along she moved to pick them up and set them down before her son.

"I think I'd like to see where to go, and then enjoy the day." Harry smiled while opening the first letter, from Hogwarts. Reading it through quietly, he shook his head slightly while setting it down and sighing. "It seems that Mister Dumbledore is so sure I am going to arrive at Hogwarts that he isn't inviting me, he is telling me I have been accepted and they are expecting me to reply by the end of the day."

Taking up the letter after he offered it to her Lily frowned, there was no real compulsions on the letter but given that there were no letters from Beauxbatons or Durmstrang it seemed Dumbledore still had the European countries believing that Harry had already agreed to come to Hogwarts and it was his only option. Unfortunately for Dumbledore convincing one region didn't stop the others from trying.

Reading through the stack of letters Harry set several of them aside, setting down a few piles before finishing his reading and seeming to sit there thinking about it. As Lily stepped over with two breakfast plates to put one before him and one before herself, Harry kept looking over a set of four letters rather thoughtfully. Out of twenty letters, only four seemed to be of real interest then.

"Salem Institute in the United States sounds like a cool place to go, they teach mundane subjects in shortened form alongside the magical subjects, so it would be fairly easy to pass off as mundane after graduating from that school while having a good focus on magical subjects over all. The Nganga School in Africa seems to provide a variety of interesting lessons and the sheer size of their gardens and creature pens would make herbology and creature care classes there pretty interesting." He drew a breath, thinking about things a moment before continuing again.

"Youkai Academy in Japan would offer an environment of several different races put together to learn how to act human with plenty of mundane classes as well as a good variety of other classes like the magical subjects. Could be interesting place to make friends." He smiled slightly, but shook his head faintly at the time.

"Haven Academy on a mundane-warded Island near New Zealand seems to offer a wide variety of classes including some mundane subjects as well, and there's a lot of non-humans around to learn from. I think that Haven is the place I should attend then."

Harry finally nod his head and smiled up at Lily who smiled in turn and took up the letters to look them through. After a short moment she nodded her head in approval, chuckling. "Well then, it seems you have a confirmation letter to write, and then we'll see about your birthday party. We'll do the shopping later this evening." As she considered Harry's choice, Lily felt a bit sad that her son was going to be leaving home for most of the year soon, but she took comfort at least it was far from Dumbledore's malevolent reach.

==== Tides Turn ====

Albus Dumbledore was not having a good day. Losing his position at the International Confederation of Wizards was an unpleasant turn of events that cut off a lot of his political power, and the Wizengamot had been in an uproar about how ungrateful the other nations were. At least the Wizengamot had not blamed him for losing the position, seeing as they considered it being a matter of ICW trying to influence the British politics, something which they felt should not happen.

Nonetheless, it had been a frustrating decade for him, with more and more pressure being pushed on his shoulders about his redeemed death eater Severus Snape teaching potions at Hogwarts. Really, the people got upset because Severus was a strict teacher, could they not see the positive change the man was showing, how his change from killing to teaching was making the dark haired man a better person. Dumbledore felt annoyed at times how blind people could be to his attempts to pursue the Greater Good.

Resting back in his chair he stared at the damnable envelope before him. The enchanted quill should have given him an address, or at least a country to start looking around in, but instead it gave a number for Gringotts' internal systems, and that left him in an awkward position. His attempts to work with a few displeased goblins that wanted to improve their lot in life had not borne fruit, the bribes he had quietly slipped them had lead them to try and find out about the Potter accounts, only to be caught and their heads decorating spikes outside of the Gringotts a few days later.

The goblins had not officially declared him a persona non-grata, but he was having a lot of trouble getting the goblins to co-operate with him at all, and they had informed the ministry that due to a few previous misunderstandings it would be best if Dumbledore was not sent to deal with them in any capacity of the Wizengamot given that they considered the man untrustworthy. That had certainly raised a few eyebrows and when the Daily Prophet ran an article about it he found himself facing a fair share of unpleasant inquiries about it.

The Potter proxy was unwilling to discuss where the young Heir was, and outright laughed at his claim to have been designated as the guardian, the argument ending with her shoving an authorization letter from Lily Potter herself into his face, dated the same day she and James had died. The damn muggleborn had dared to throw a wrench into his plans, if Lily wasn't already dead Dumbledore would have been tempted to kill her himself. Yet magic he had used to seek out Lily Potter gave no signs of finding her. Either Lily was dead or she was no longer a Potter, and it was far more likely that the woman was dead.

Sighing wearily and shaking his head, Dumbledore quietly mourned his now lost plans, having to rely on the hope that Harry Potter would come to Hogwarts, but after being spirited away the way he had, and hidden from Dumbledore for all these years, it was unlikely that his guardian would relinquish the boy to come to Hogwarts. Dumbledore would have to make quiet inquiries in other schools to find out if the boy was receiving an education elsewhere if he didn't show up, but unfortunately beyond Europe his influence was practically none. The Americans in particular seemed to regard him as a senile old man.

Sending Fawkes after the boy had only lead to a sulking, badly beaten phoenix that refused to give any answers. From what Dumbledore could figure out the boy had a rather powerful phoenix ward around him, and so his bound slave could not find the boy, despite the fact few people would ward against such a light creature, but then again if whoever took the boy knew that Dumbledore had a Phoenix it had admittedly been a good precaution to take.

Seeing as the ward the phoenix had ran into had almost forced it to go through a burning day Dumbledore was willing to let his companion rest for now and recover. The power behind the wards had to be remarkable, and phoenix wards were quite uncommon. Perhaps she could track the boy down by inquiring about who had acquired such wards. Unless the person had warded the boy's location themselves, it was quite likely the bank would have some information. Unfortunately, the goblins weren't too keen to tell him anything right now.

Then again, he could always ask Arthur Weasley for that, he was a trusted man and a ministry official so such an inquiry from him should be acceptable, with the right money exchanging hands and not inquiring on any particular clients but simply asking about if such wards had been needed anywhere. On a second thought, he wondered if doing so would reveal a little too much about his attempts. The information to be gained could be of use, but at the same time he would expose a fair share with what he was inquiring, and someone could connect the dots and see what he was up to.

While he did honestly believe he had a duty to search for young Harry, the Wizengamot was ruling in favor of the proxy after her reassurance that the Potter heir was fine, something that the proxy had offered proof of to Amelia Bones, under oath that not a word of it would pass to another person unless Madame Bones thought the boy was at risk. Given that both the proxy and Madame Bones were both trained in occlumency and could detect his subtle probes he wasn't going to risk trying to unearth that information, he would most assuredly fail and such invasion of privacy might be brushed off with some that worshipped the ground he walked upon but these two would bury him for daring to even attempt that.

Oh things would have been so much easier if he could have only gotten his hands on those proxies, perhaps given them to a loyal person who he could trust to vote the way he chose. Deagalus Diggle would surely have deserved a place in the Wizengamot and with such important seat, he would have owed Dumbledore that much more, and cemented the wizard's allegiance to him. Damn that muggleborn schemer, Lily Potter was the root of all headaches for Dumbledore.

==== Tides Turn ====

Cleaning up the livingroom after his guests had left, Harry could hear his mother humming while washing the dishes. He was eager to do his shopping for the Haven Academy, but at the same time he felt a little intimidated by the thought of leaving everyone he was familiar with and meeting people he had never seen before. Yet at the same time he was relishing the opportunity to be on his own. It was a strange bit of worrying and feeling eager for the possibilities ahead.

Lily in turn was smiling quietly as she thought about how things were going. Harry would do his shopping, and spend the rest of the month no doubt practicing the bits of magic he would try out the first year. Given how he had excelled with theory, she was sure that within a month's time she'd be able to help him get over the little worries that often troubled the young casters before they began to build up their confidence. She would help him on his way, and when he'd leave to go find his own path Lily would be able to stand proud at having prepared her son to face the world to the best of her abilities.

As for her own preparations, their home at the isles was a small, peaceful beach-front property but it was still mostly protected by the fact their enemies weren't sure where they were living. The preparations to start with the Hidden Island project of hers were done, she had the different concepts mapped out and had been considering the use of strengthening elixirs for a while. They would give her the necessary power to start the project, but they boosted her magic momentarily at the cost of losing her magic to a similar length of time she would spend recovering.

She would not want her son to witness her feeling as powerless as a squib, but with the several months he would be at the academy she would be able to lay down the groundwork. When her son was old enough, she had a feeling he could do the job even without strengthening elixirs, but she wanted to at least get the basic stone isle ready in case they would have to abandon their current home.

"Mom, I'm done with the cleaning!" Hearing Harry's voice Lily smiled and looked up at him, drying her hands in a towel and nodding approvingly. Though magic could do little chores faster at times, she didn't mind getting her hands a little dirty now and then, it helped keep her grounded after all. Using magic for every problem would just make the world seem like nails and magic her hammer. Better to have surprises in store, and what better way than to do a fair share of things without magic and keep in mind that sometimes a magical solution wasn't the right one.

"Already? My, you've really been working fast. Someone's eager to go get himself a wand isn't he?" Her teasing tone full of mirth. The blush on his cheeks was adorable and she kissed his forehead gently before nodding. Moving to pick up her bag, she guided Harry with her to the nearby floo and picked a bit of the powder from the box. Raising her arm in the air, she threw the powder down while calling out their destination, and a step forth brought them to the magical alley in their area of the world.

==== Tides Turn ====

Andromeda Tonks leaned back with a satisfied sigh leaving her lips as she rested back in her chair. The look of Madame Umbridge trembling in rage trying to hold her wrath inside was always funny. Her attempt to have all purebloods receive a 20% discount on all goods in the Diagon alley and charging extra from half-bloods and especially from muggleborns had been thrown out with Andromeda's fierce resistance, adding to the voices of Alice Longbottom.

Fudge kept trying to moderate things but with the amount of time they had to spend stomping down the vile ideas Madame Umbridge tried to bring up to court, they had unfortunately not been able to stop all the ideas that Lucius Malfoy had managed to slip in here and there. How that vile man had survived the war and managed to claim imperious she could not understand, but bribes were certainly behind the change in opinion. Given the amount of evidence though, there had to have been something else too.

Still, towards the end of the war the Lestrange family and the Notts had been destroyed entirely. The Black family had swallowed up the votes and seats that Lestrange family held, while the Nott votes had landed in the hands of the Greengrass family who were staying notably neutral on most things, even if they were considered Dark by their preference to stick to the old ways. They were traditionalists but they were not purists, so Andromeda didn't think badly of them.

Dumbledore was the main reason why things weren't going well in her opinion. His 'forgive and forget' policy seemed stupid enough that Andromeda wanted to hit her head against the wall repeatedly most of the time, but had decided a good bottle of firewhiskey was a better medicine. She had felt more than a few attempts at legilimency on her person already and called him out in the Wizengamot on it. When the man boldly claimed he did no such thing she had rounded up driving him in a corner for trying to paint her as a liar, a claim that had gotten the Longbottom family to stand by her.

It had been enough to push the man back on some of his 'fine ideas' but not enough to get him thrown out. Nonetheless, those death-eaters that had not been killed on duty had been released, much to her disgust. For a while they even tried to charge Alastor Moody with murder of fine upstanding citizens, but when she and a few others called for lawyer's pensive of the night, nobody had sided with the late Lestrange family or offered any sympathies. Their madness and cruelty was readily apparent, and most people actually applauded Alastor for using a cutting curse to remove Bella's head from her shoulders.

Dumbledore's insistence on trying to gain support to having Harry Potter sought out and brought to his care had been shattered when Madame Bones had demanded the Potter will be brought up and unsealed if he brought the matter up even one more time, after having it thrown out year after year. No matter how the old man could try, he couldn't get even half the votes and he'd need two thirds to even bring the idea to a serious debate.

Potter had a proper proxy and a guardian, and in Andromeda's mind Dumbledore's attempts were nothing short of criminal. She had accepted her position as the Potter proxy before things came to a grim end, and had been slamming down the old man's attempts ever since. These days she felt she had to fight the old man more than she had to fight the 'former death eaters'. Of course, the reason for that might be apparent after two death-eaters that showed up on her doorstep to try and torture her turned up dead at Ted Tonk's wand point.

Dumbledore had tried to push for the man to be tried but the Wizengamot respected the Potter proxy and her husband more than they respected Malfoy's accomplices, Grabbe and Goyle Senior. Of course, given that the two had ignored warning ward and stunning ward on a private property that had been triggered by the intent to cause harm, and had been trying to set the house on fire, their deaths in full death-eater regalia had made the imperious defense shaky.

Dumbledore had used that to try and insist they needed his protection as did the young Potter, but a few floo calls with Amelia Bones had set things into an interesting position where she, Alice Longbottom and Amelia Bones held their own power block opposing Dumbledore in most of his schemes but mainly voting for what they believed best for the wizarding world. They were not a major block but they had considerable number of votes behind their esteemed families.

One of their quick moves had been to prevent Dumbledore from assuming proxy of the House Black votes, and stopping Lucius Malfoy from doing the same. They had pointed out that the Heir Black still lived and the goblins confirmed he had not lost his position, and his named proxy had been killed in the war but he had certainly not named either of those two men. The bitter struggles over that had taken well over three years before the initiatives to bring Sirius Black out of Azkaban for a trial to settle the matter had come up, after the revelation he had never received a trial. Suddenly, there was a rush to drop the case and seal the matter, leaving Sirius into his cell.

Andromeda could smell a rat in this, and she had been working with her two companions to uncover the truth. There was obviously more going on than they were being told. She kept writing to Lily while being amused at the antics the wizards got up to, seeming to consider Lily dead because only Harry might have survived, a lie perpetrated by Dumbledore to build up the myth of boy-who-lived.

Of course, that myth was known but also largely debunked by the fact the proxy ruined the book deals, and the merchandising attempts had been taxed so heavily by the goblins the ones that tried that had lost more money than they had even made with their sales, forcing them to quit it practically immediately.

She had been trying to find out the whole truth but Lily was very wary about what she was willing to say, other than the fact Dumbledore was at fault, and that Andromeda was on the right track. Lily had even sent her a memory of Sirius telling them to take Pettigrew as their secret keeper, but without proof it was hard to do anything, though she had shown it to Amelia.

They had moved Sirius quietly from the worst part of Azkaban to the minimum security, and let the guards know their life depended on the man's survival as well. There had been a few assassination attempts. None that could be tracked back to Malfoy, but his attempts to get his own son elected as Black Heir through Narcissa was clear enough.

Nonetheless, they kept pushing for a trial but they needed better evidence, Lily's memory was not enough by itself what with Dumbledore standing behind the conviction, and the ministry officials taking such credit of throwing him in the cell and then throwing away the key. It was obvious they'd sooner have the man murdered, or accidentally kissed, than admit to their own mistake. That was why they had taken slow steps in preparing for his release, but the man was growing in strength, and being informed once more about the state of the world.

Now, Dumbledore had been trying to relieve everyone's concerns about the boy-who-lived by claiming that the boy's parents had wanted him to come to Hogwarts and set everything up including a trust fund before Harry became an orphan, and that the letter would surely help them find the boy and bring him back amongst his peers. That had been the old man's hope, and perhaps in his arrogance, his honest belief. Lily didn't leave such obvious mistakes in her path though. That path had been blocked with goblin-grade shutters, and getting the goblins to reveal banking secrets was going to be a task that would cost more time and money than the old man had, if it was even possible in the first place.

Looking quietly at the portrait on her desk of her sweet Nymphadora, Andromeda silently shook her head in frustration at how her child refused to accept her name. She insisted on being called Tonks, seeming to think her name was shameful. Being named after the first witch that dared to seize control of the family seat and present the family in the Wizengamot should have been an honor in her opinion, and Nymphadora was certainly a bright witch, not to mention her talent in metamorphosis.

Of course, Andromeda felt that it was going to have to be accepted as part of a teenager rebelling against their parents, but she genuinely hoped she would let it go eventually. Feeling her husband's hands stroke on her shoulders massaging on them she let out a long sigh in relaxation. Perhaps it had been long enough day by now. Perhaps it was time to get some rest. In a month's time, she was sure Dumbledore would be speaking loudly in the Wizengamot for the need to bring the Potter back home to Britain. Perhaps even appealing to the ICW for the boy to be brought back. Not that it would help the old man much, the ICW had taken a dim view of how things had gone on in Britain.

Of course, the fact that a few of Lucius Malfoy's acquintances had been caught in France on a stroll with long black cloaks and fanciful white masks hadn't helped Dumbledore one bit. The French had stunned the duo, interrogated them, and executed them despite British ministry's complaints. After the two death eaters voluntarily confessed several crimes including treason against the British government they had been decapitated and their heads returned to their own ministry, their bodies turned to ashes and thrown into the sea.

Good riddance to bad rubbish, she thought to herself while turning to kiss her Teddy, following her husband to bed.

End Chapter

Long time since I last posted, I've been keeping busy and having a variety of wild ideas. I keep putting most of them aside but some have been interesting enough for me to write 1 chapter of something else, and another chapter of something else the next day. I finally got back to this, and about time I'll admit.

I got my Overlord story to post to when I get the proper inspiration flowing for that, but again, I post on my own schedule not anyone else's.

Ten years have passed and Harry's school life is about to start, I wanted to write mostly on Harry, but then again thought about writing about what else has been going on. Not as humorous this time around I fear.