Chapter 3: So three sevens equals...?
Harry didn't know what to think when Dumbledore simply let the strangers into the one place he was supposed to be safe, but he figured he had his reasons.
Ron seemed to think so as well, but Hermione had thinned her lips in disapproval and all three of them were utterly confused. Following the two strangers into the dining room (that Harry had yet to have been in seeing as the meeting had been taking place there), he caught his first proper look at them.
The man was…well, basically him. He would have suspected a polyjuice potion if it wasn't for the fact that his nose was a bit longer and his mouth not quite right, and that was not even counting the hazel eyes instead of the familiar green, or the taller build. His expression was fond, wise, cheeky and respectful all at once, if that was even possible. Harry knew he'd never had an expression like that one, and he didn't think he could ever manage it even if he tried.
The woman was, in one word, beautiful. There were some people on the planet that were unfairly gifted, and it would suffice to say that the red-haired, fair-skinned, jade-eyed, rose-cheeked and other-synonymous-hyphenated-words-ed woman was by far exhibit A of 'life isn't fair.' Yet there was a sweetness to her face and a grin in her eyes that turned her from someone to envy into someone to love and be loved by.
When people had told him that his mum was loved by all those who had the fortune of meeting her, a part of him thought it was just exaggeration.
He was dead wrong.
…not, of course, that he believed this was his mum. No, the dead couldn't come back to life. It just didn't happen.
"So, why here? What's wrong with the old place?" asked the man, that had claimed he was James Potter (and Harry was so angry at this man who thought he could impersonate his father and have the audacity to pretend that that was okay—)
Dumbledore answered him with the same conversational tone that the man addressed him with. "Too much bad news delivered there after the last war. I felt a change of scenery was in order."
The man snorted. "The real reason this time please." he said. It was a statement, not a request, and Harry marvelled at how the man didn't even seem to care that he was speaking to Albus Dumbledore like that.
"Come now, would I lie?" asked Dumbledore almost playfully. Harry and Ron exchanged a look of surprise.
"Yes." said the man.
"Enough. What is your deal? You can't just—just waltz in here without the slightest bit of remorse and expect me to just let you pretend you're James!" yelled Sirius. Harry had never seen him so angry before, not even when he'd yelled at Wormtail in the Shrieking Shack.
"Fair enough. What would you have me do to prove to you that I am James?" he said matter-of-factly, like as if he had all the time in the world.
"THERE IS NOTHING YOU COULD DO! THE DEAD DON'T COME BACK!"
Harry didn't know why he kept quiet, but he—for some reason (there was something there that wasn't him, but was him at the same time) he waited to see how this would play out.
Except the woman was staring at him with her impossibly green eyes.
"Harry?" she said quietly. Her voice carried.
The man stopped looking carefree and found him with his eyes.
They just looked at each other, two imposters and the Boy-Who-Lived. The man's eyes filled with tears, and the spell was broken.
"The last time I saw you, you were giggling about pretty colours and trying to get out of bedtime." he said with a watery smile.
"Oh Harry…you're far too skinny." said the woman, and that more than anything else that had been said all night, proved to him that this was his mother.
"Mum?" Harry whispered, his voice hitching.
"Yes Harry?" she said, just as quietly.
"You're…real."
"I'd like to think so." She said, chuckling with a very slight amount of hysteria.
"Stop it. Just—stop."
Remus looked about ready to either breakdown or strangle someone.
He looked at the man. "Who was the secret keeper?"
The man looked confused. "For where?"
"You know exactly where, or you would if you were James."
"Peter." he said after thinking about it for a few seconds.
"What's Voldemort's best nickname?"
The man's lip twitched. "King of Broccoli and other Assorted Green Vegetables."
"Why?"
"Harry hates them, and seeing how he's Harry, he's always right." The man said it with such conviction that…well, Harry almost believed him. But it was so much harder to believe this man was his father than it was to believe this woman was his mother.
He knew logically that if one was not an imposter, the other one wasn't likely to be, but his heart had yet to accept it.
"Prongs?" said Sirius, not as though he believed it was him, but rather as though he was testing something.
"Yes Mr Padfoot?" he asked calmly.
"Why do you not like this house?" Sirius asked, and it seemed as though it was the last question he needed answered before he made up his mind about the man in front of him, for better or for worse.
"Because it makes you miserable." he said simply.
Lupin let out a strangled sob and Sirius slowly walked up to him, his expression giving nothing away.
He leaned down, and Harry could make out a suspicious shine in his eyes before Sirius hugged the man like he was drowning at sea and this man—James—was his anchor.
Sirius' shoulders shook and the hug tightened. The man—James—simply let it happen, as though he knew exactly what Harry's godfather needed.
And James did. Sirius was his best friend and his brother in all but blood. Sirius also had as many issues as Witch Weekly, and considering that gossip magazine had been in print since 1256, that was saying a lot.
Sirius told James everything and vice versa. So when his Sirius looked like he was about to die if this was a lie, well. James would allow that hug. Besides, he liked hugs.
He supposed it all began with his childhood. His parents loved him, but being as old as they were, they slept a lot more and retired to bed really early (he blamed them for his insane sleep cycle as well by the way. Just putting it out there) and weren't the sort to show much physical affection barring a ruffling of the hair or the occasional peck on the forehead.
When he got to Hogwarts and became friends with the two most guilt and issues-ridden of the entire year (Peter was by far the most normal of the four of them), his need for hugs had been sated quite well.
James Potter was said to do absolutely anything for his friends, asking for nothing in return. That was a lie; he took his payment in sneaky hugs and the occasional hair ruffle. But no one really minded.
After a minute or two however, he decided enough manly sentiment had been indulged. Pulling away, and pretending not to notice the water on Sirius' face, James looked at Lily.
There was something, he thought smugly as Lily gently nudged Harry towards him, quite satisfying about having your wife know exactly what you're thinking with just a look in their general direction. It made for all sorts of brilliant mock-fights in front of the neighbours.
Bathilda never quite forgave them after they threatened to file for a divorce because James never did the dishes and Lily never changed Harry's nappy after three in the evening.
Walking tentatively towards him, Harry (spitting image of him, it was like looking in a mirror!) looked at him with barely suppressed apprehension.
James drank in everything there was about the boy standing in front of him, from his scruffy shoes to his baggy shirt, his messy hair and impossibly green eyes, his lanky build and his ten-sizes-too-big jeans.
The scar on his forehead, thin and lightning-bolt shaped and eye-catching.
James had to make a concentrated effort to look away, shoving away the hundreds of explanations for it that his mind had cooked up. After all, he'd never seen it before and he hadn't seen his son for fourteen years; it was understandable that Harry would have gotten into fights over the years.
Sirius was hovering over them, not daring to back away for fear that James might disappear at any given moment, but James didn't mind and neither, it seemed, did Harry.
Everyone else was divided on whether to believe that these two dead people were actually real, considering it defied all the laws of Magic and Muggles, but they were more open to the idea after Sirius had accepted James as himself.
"How do you do Mr Potter?" asked James with an extra layer of poshness to his accent.
Harry blinked at him, before giving him a small smile and mumbling "Alright."
"Come Harry, that won't do!" cried Lily dramatically. "You must have more to say than 'alright', it isn't everyday your parents come back from the grave after fourteen years!"
"Exactly, fourteen is such an odd number to have come back after, although it is a multiple of seven and there are two of us, so really, I suppose arithmancically, it isn't too farfetched." pronounced James.
"That's not how arithmancy works!" burst out Hermione, before covering her hands with her mouth when everyone's attention fixed upon her.
Harry would have felt sorry for her, if his mind hadn't been reeling with information overload.
"Of all the things wrong with that sentence, you would pick up on that to find fault with." said Ron in a fond exasperated tone.
Hermione shot him an annoyed look before trying to stutter out an apology.
"Albus, you don't really believe them, do you? It must be a lie, to let our guard down." said Shacklebolt.
"The dead don't come back." said Mad-Eye with such conviction that even Sirius, who had been so sure that it really was James, began to doubt himself.
"That is true," said Lupin, "but then, this is James. I don't think he ever quite accepted that anything was impossible."
"And Lily." said Lily, with a tone of long-suffering, as though she was used to being left out of casual stereotyping.
"Not Lily." said Sirius with a renewed conviction. "Lily wouldn't break a rule if she could help it."
"Too true my canine friend, too true." said James.
Lily pouted and rolled her eyes at Harry as though expecting him to share her exasperation with the men in her life.
"How are you back?" he asked, but the moment he said it, Harry wished he could take it back; he didn't want to somehow be told that it was impossible—he'd already accepted that they were his parents come back to life.
James frowned lightly as Lily looked at him expectantly. Actually, now that Harry was looking, he noticed that not only were Sirius and Remus expectantly waiting for him to conjure an answer, but that Dumbledore was as well.
It was mind-boggling.
"Well," began James, "The thing about magic is that it is far too unpredictable to properly understand."
Shifting into a more comfortable position, James urged all the onlookers to take a seat, and they all did. Harry marvelled at how everyone was subconsciously following his orders, as though he'd been giving them for years and they'd always followed him.
Once all of them (Lily did a quick head count and realised with a start that there were more than thirty people present) were seated, some having to conjure chairs, James started talking, addressing no one in particular.
"Magic has sometimes been thought to have a will of its own, and it's supported by the confirmed hypothesis that magic is dictated by intent. The principles of hereditation do not apply to magic (as evidenced by squibs and muggleborns, no offence to anyone present) and so it has been postulated that magic is actually a semi-sentient energy."
He had lost about half the people in the room with that explanation, but Hermione, Harry and (surprisingly enough) Ron had managed to keep up just fine.
"Basically," James tried to summarise, "Magic has a will of its own. Magic took us out of this world, and it is very likely it can bring us back."
Silence met this assertion. "What?" asked Tonks, confused.
James turned to her. "Today is August the second, 2/8/1995. If you've taken arithmancy at OWL you'll have touched upon the significance of that date, but it really goes into it at NEWT. The fact of the matter is, that today is the 77th septennial inauguration of the ascension of Morgana."
"Three sevens!" cried Hermione, and Ron paled. Harry sat there, completely lost.
"Precisely." said James. Majority of the people in the room seemed to have a look of dawning comprehension on their faces, but Harry was just as confused as Lily, and he was glad for that. At least he wasn't the only one, and he knew second-hand that Lily was far from stupid.
"Okay James, not that I'm not glad you took arithmancy at NEWT and seem to think that everyone else did as well, but I'm utterly lost. In plain English please?" she said pleasantly.
"Seven," replied Sirius, "is a magical number. It holds power; seven years of age is when you're most likely to perform your strongest act of accidental magic, seventeen is when a wizards' magic matures fully, there are seven sins, seven virtues, seven ingredients in the polyjuice potion, seven—"
"I think she gets it Sirius." said Lupin, cutting Sirius off.
"Also, three sevens." continued James. "Three leafed clover, three muses, three times (past, present, future)…I'd go on but I'm sure you get the picture."
"Putting both three and seven in the same event makes it even more potent, and if today marks the 77th septennial inauguration of the ascension of Morgana, then—well, anything's possible." said Hermione with awe in her voice.
"Exactly, but all you need to know is that, if a really strong, pure, unadulterated and desperate wish was made tonight, it would probably come true. But if you know it'll come true, it won't." finished James. He then waited for everyone to absorb the information while watching his son with a fond look on his face.
It felt so odd to see a one year old sitting in front of him as a fifteen year old with a thoughtful look on his face, and yet James felt it should have been stranger—it wasn't though. Neither James nor Lily felt that it was wrong to treat fifteen year old Harry like as if they'd never missed a single birthday.
It must be one of those unexplainable parent things.
"A sound explanation; the date had completely slipped my mind." said Dumbledore with a small smile.
James shot him an amused glance. "That's why you have younger people as your mind slaves—we do all the difficult bits and you powerwalk through it like as if you'd known all along."
They shared a secret smile and Harry figured that he could relax; he still didn't understand the explanation, but if Dumbledore (and, it seemed, Mad-Eye) gave it a stamp of approval, then Harry had no objections.
"Now that that's been cleared up, why has the Order HQ been relocated to the foulest quarters in Greater London?" asked Lily.
"An interesting story, I'm sure." said James, quirking an eyebrow at Dumbledore.
"Unfortunately, I have business to attend to, but I would dearly love to answer that." said Dumbledore with genuine regret. "However, I am certain that your friends can fill you in just as well. I will return as soon as I am able."
As if coming out of a trance, several of the audience rose from their seats and hurriedly made excuses as they left one by one, throwing imperceptible glances at the two very-much-alive Potters.
Dumbledore strode out the door, took off his pointed hat and said, "By your leave."
Inclining his head, he turned around and departed. The house was suddenly very quiet, with only the Weasleys, Hermione, Sirius, Lupin, Tonks and the Potters left. Harry noticed with a sinking feeling that, in all that time, Dumbledore had not made eye contact with him even once.
But he hardly had any time to dwell on that, not after the revelation he'd had today.
It was a few days late in coming, but this was by far the best birthday present he'd ever had—for the first time in his memory, Harry was truly home.
As the Dursleys made their way home, Vernon grumbling irritably about the hoax they'd fallen for, they felt that something was—off.
Stepping into their home, they noticed the door was slightly ajar and felt frightened. As one, they searched frantically in every corner for something amiss, but there was something different in the air; it felt a bit…heavier.
Finding out that Harry was no longer there wasn't too much of a surprise after finding an envelope in the kitchen telling them that their lot had taken him back into their freakish world.
But what Dumbledore did find surprising, after he'd stepped into his office after a very emotionally-draining day, was that the crystalline artefact that turned red when there was a blood protection active at Number Four Privet Drive, was back to its ordinary shade of brown.
What had happened?
Well, here's another chapter! Happy New Year everyone! Send a review my way if you get the chance, yeah? Constructive criticism much appreciated.