Harry sat in the living room watching his parent's scurry around the room like a couple of angry worker bees. They were both clearly agitated at the thought of going somewhere to meet with Professor Snape. Harry couldn't help but smirk! The snarky potions master did seem to have that kind of effect on most people. Surprisingly enough though, Harry was almost excited to see the man again. After having viewed his memories he felt as though he could understand him in a way he had previously never thought possible.
Harry did, however, wonder why the man would possibly want to meet with him and his parents. It really didn't make any sense. His mother had mentioned that Professor Snape had been adamant that he was to come with them. Why? Harry didn't know, but he knew it wouldn't be too terribly long until he got his answer. Harry soon began listening to his parents, finding himself intrigued by everything they had to say.
"Did you talk to Sirius?" Lily asked.
"Yes Lily! I talked to Sirius he knows that we are going to meet an old friend of yours and he says he will be watching for Harry in case we feel the need to send him via portkey to his home."
"You didn't tell him who the old friend is did you?" Lily asked him worriedly.
"Hmph. Of course not! If I had told him who we were meeting he would likely end up doing something stupid. That is the last thing we need right now."
"That's great I have turned this bracelet into an active portkey. All that we will really need to do is cast a spell at it and Harry will immediately portkey to Sirius' place." Lily stated.
James took the bracelet from her hand and quickly placed it securely on Harry's wrist. "Here you go little buddy keep this safe for me okay."
"K," Harry said.
Harry could tell that his parent's clearly were not sure of Professor Snape's intentions. He would have fully predicted his dad's skepticism, but his mom's was almost surprising considering all that he knew about their friendship.
"Alright little one it's time to go. Your mother would like to get to your Aunt's house a little early just to make sure she gets out of the house before her old friend arrives."
Harry just nodded and let his dad lift him up into his arms. It was only 1 o'clock they still had another hour before Professor Snape had said to meet him. Harry had thought that he would never return to private drive ever again. He just hoped that these next couple of hours would truly be the last time he had to see that house. Unfortunately though, with his luck that wouldn't likely be the case.
"All right Lil's let's go, we'll take the invisibility cloak with us and apparate a couple of blocks from your sisters house. We can walk to her place from there. That way she can't complain about us not looking like muggles."
James, Lily, and Harry got under the invisibility cloak and apparated away. They arrived at the park not far from the Dursley's residence. James, and Lily quickly made their way to an area that could provide them with at least some covering.
James looked around the area before quickly removing the invisibility clock. "Do you remember where we need to go from here Lily?"
"Yes! I remember it's not all that far from here just follow me." She said as they walked together toward the street sign marked Private Drive. "It's just a few houses down." Lily said." We are searching for number 4." James spotted number 4 almost immediately, even though most of the houses in this neighborhood all looked very similar. It was clear that whoever lived at number 4 strove for perfection
The garden was lush with several different kinds of flowers all sorted in their rightful place by color.
The couple along with their son Harry walked up to the front porch and rang the doorbell. Harry could hear the familiar sound of aunt Patunia's feet rushing about the house. He rolled his eyes, there was no doubt in his mind that she was doing a last minute dusting of the mantle. A mantle she had no doubt dusted a good five or six times already. That was just aunt Petunia for you.
The door instantly flew open.
"Well, don't just stand there get inside. We wouldn't want the neighbors to see!"
As soon as the Potter's had walked past the threshold of Aunt Petunia's home Aunt Patunia shot her head out the front door. Harry sighed. She was no doubt looking to see which of the neighbors if any had noticed the individuals who had just walked through her front door.
"Oh yes Tuney! Let's hope none of the neighbors noticed that your sister has come for a visit." Harry could hear the hurt that was laced in his mother's voice. Harry's anger rose slightly when he heard his mother. Aunt Petunia's words had often hurt him as well, but overtime Harry had been able to replace the hurt with amusement over Aunt Petunia's predictable reactions to the crazy things that happened at Private Drive. This however, was different this time she had hurt his mother's feeling. A surge of protectiveness flowed though Harry, and before he knew it He could see one of Dudley's picture frames flying at Aunt Petunia's head.
Uhoh! He thought although he had been angry he hadn't meant to do that at all! Thankfully, his father notice and quickly sent the picture frame back to the rightful spot before Aunt Petunia could even register what had happened. Harry couldn't help but feel grateful that his parents were here right now. He knew if that had happened at any other time his Aunt would have immediately thrown him into the cupboard. That was about the last place he really wanted to be right now.
Aunt Petunia rushed over to the mantle in order to pick up the picture frame. Why did you use your thing on Dudley's picture?
"It's nothing I thought it looked a little crooked so I decided to straighten it a little bit."
Great cover dad! Harry thought.
"Oh yes I guess it does look a little better than it did before." "Well, I suppose I better get Dudley and go before that horrible man shows up. Please whatever you do try not to destroy the house."
With that Petunia ran up the stairs with an exuberance Harry could never really remember seeing before.
"Tell me again why we're here trying to protect that woman from the likes of Snape."
Lily slapped him hard on the shoulder. "Because she is my sister and I will always care about her no matter how mean she might be."
Petunia came down the stairs holding a screaming Dudley in her arms. She walked to the cupboard under the stairs and pulled out a stroller and what was clearly Dudley's enormous baby bag. Harry was absolutely certain that it had to hold more than his trunk had his first year at Hogwarts. He wasn't sure how she intended to drag the thing around.
"Petunia, he heard his mother say! Why don't you let me put a light weight charm on that bag? I could even shrink it a bit for you if you would like. That would make it so much easier to carry it around."
Aunt Petunia's faced scrunched up in a slight scowl as if to say she thought anything might be better than letting Lily do what she had suggested.
Then to Harry's surprise his Aunt said some words he thought he would never in his life hear come out of her mouth. "Okay, use your magic I haven't the slightest idea how I will ever be able to carry this thing around otherwise." "It won't shrink any of Dudley's things to will it."
"Of course not! All of Dudleys things will remain exactly how they were before you put them in the bag." His mother reassured. With that she put a feather light charm on the bag, and shrunk it to half the size it had been before.
"Thank you Lily!" Petunia said. She said it with such force Harry knew she was clearly saying this with the upmost reluctance. However, the fact that she had said thankyou at all was far more impressive than Harry really cared to admit. He was sure he wouldn't see an occasion such as this one anytime soon.
With that Petunia put Dudley in the stroller grabbed the diaper bag and headed out the door saying "Dudley and I will be out for the next 3 hours. When we get back I better not see anyone in my house."
"We should be long gone by then." Harry's mother told her. Though he was certain she wasn't entirely sure of that herself.
The Potter's did not have to wait long before they heard a loud pop coming from inside the kitchen.
"It's him lets go see what this is all about." "Stay behind me." James said.
James quickly took out his wand and walked in front of his wife and son.
He slowly opened the kitchen door only to see Severus unloading a pensive from his carpet bag.
"Potter, I would say it's nice to see you alive yet again, but if I did as much I would be lying. "
James could feel Lily step along beside him.
Severus looked up and stared for what seemed like an eternity. When James Potter had first walked into the room it had really no effect on him. He and his son had looked so much alike that Severus could easily fool himself into believing that he was merely having a conversation with Harry Potter. But now for the first time in years Severus was starring into the eyes of his childhood friend. She was alive and well. She had yet to be harmed by his own horrible mistake.
His breath caught in his throat and tears began to form in Snapes dark eyes.
"Lily!" The name finally came out of his mouth "It's so good to see you again!"
"What do you want Snape?" Potter said to him this time with a hint of venom lacing his voice.
Severus just ignored him his attention quickly diverted to the small bundle located in Lily's arms.
Severus held up his wand and shot a spell at the boy before anyone had a chance to really react to it.
"What spell did you just cast on my son?" James asked raising his wand and pointing it directly at Professor Snape's head
When the spell had hit Harry he could feel his mouth and tongue loosened a bit from what it had been just moments earlier. Wanting to defend Professor Snape he began to try and let his dad know that he had not in any way shape or form been hurt by the spell. Yet, to his shock, and extreme excitement the following words just seemed to come spilling out of his mouth.
"Its okay dad I'm fine!"
Harry squealed in delight after the words tumbled out of his mouth. Lily very nearly dropped her baby and James turned his eyes and stared wide eyed at his son.
"How did you do that, and why did you do that? James asked.
I need the boy to be able to talk! Snape exclaimed.
"Snape's voice suddenly rose in anger. "That son of yours doesn't know how to think before he acts." Harry found it ironic that Snape was talking to James yet seemingly glaring at him at the exact same time. "Why the boy chose to come back to this body in this time is completely beyond me." Even if he had managed to actually change something he had to have known that his communication skills would be too poor to give out a proper warning. Any changes that you may have been able to make Mr. Potter; now Snape was clearly talking right at him and it was becoming more than a little bit unnerving. Could have very well resulted in a worse scenario for the wizarding world at large. As it is even with a good set of communication skills and a sound knowledge base we are going to have an extremely hard time making sure that we don't change things in such a way to make them far worse.
Harry acted as though he did not really hear much of what Professor Snape had just said to him.
"Are you the same Professor Snape that Nagini bit?" He said quite surprised by Professor Snape's little lecture.
Snape gave an exasperated sigh! "Yes, Mr. Potter 5 points to Gryffindor for great deductive reasoning. I was in the Shrieking Shack when the Dark Lord had his little pet snake bite me!" Unfortunately, I must have been alive for a bit longer than you because I arrived at the mythical kings cross area shortly after you left. Professor Dumbledore informed me of your ridiculous plan, and now I am here trying to pick up the pieces from your lack of thought.
"Did you just give me points?" Harry asked.
"No, Mr. Potter, I am not a Professor and you are not a student that makes it impossible for me to give or take away points. I was merely being sarcastic."
James and Lily for their part just seemed to stand listening in complete shock.
James was the first to catch his breath long enough to say something.
Could someone please just tell us what is going on.
"To cut a long story short Mr. Potter your one year old son has the mind of a 17 year old boy. He then turned to look at Harry's Mom. "Lily, would it be okay if I took Harry I need to view all his memories from this last year."
"Why do you need to view his memories from this past year?" James asked defensively.
"Because professor Dumbledore sent him on a mission last year, and I need to know what it was so that we can go about completing the task before October 31st comes around." Snape explained.
"You will not cast another spell on my son. If you need memories let me do it."
"Be my guest." Snape replied!
James took Harry carefully from Lily and brought him over to the pensive. Wisps of memory seemed to make it from Harry's forehead to the pensive at his side.
As soon as the memories were in the pensive Snape jumped in to the swirling mass ready to see exactly what he would have to face.
Thank you to everyone for the great reviews! They have been very encouraging. I have gone through and edited the story as best I know how. I'm sorry but I have never been the best at grammar usage. Part of the reason I decided to start writing this story was in the hope's of writing in order to improve on my grammar. So if there are any grammar fanatics out there who would like to become a Beta for this story please let me know!