The Mother Who Lived
Chapter 7: Family

Lilly Potter felt an odd combination of happiness and deep sadness as she watched the group of children playing together in the garden of Potter Manor. Happiness because today was her son's fifth birthday and he was as happy and carefree as a five-year-old ought to be, surrounded by his friends, just enjoying life. He was unburdened by the responsibilities heaped upon adults, uncaring about the evils that lurked in the shadows. She loved seeing him like this, just happy. It made her happy, too.

There was also sadness, of course. Because as she watched this gaggle of five-year-olds playing, she was all too aware that there were far too few corresponding adults in the room. Almost four years since she had lost James, but she still felt his absence. Neville was even worse off than Harry, seeing as neither Alice nor Frank were here. Augusta was doing her best, Lilly knew, but she carried the burden of her own grief wherever she went. Draco was missing a father as well (though she doubted scum like the elder Malfoy would ever been deserving of the name), the closest thing he had was his uncle Sirius (technically his second degree cousin, yes, but he called him uncle). The only intact family present was the Grangers, who were thankfully untouched by the war that had pretty much cut the wizarding population of Britain in half.

"Those look like some pretty heavy thoughts," Sirius said, walking up next to her and putting an arm around her.

The two of them had just kind of happened. They had spent a lot of time together, even more now that they were working in secret to uncover a bunch of cursed magical objects in order to prevent Voldemort's resurrection. She trusted him unreservedly, he was her best friend. He had never pushed, but had also started being more and more open with his feelings (not that he had ever been able to hide them well).

She hadn't lied to Alice back when she had told her friend that she wasn't ready yet. She hadn't been ready for a long time. But then, one day, without really noticing, that had changed. She couldn't really say what the date had been, it had passed her by. But one day sometime after that Sirius had stayed the night and they had fallen asleep together on the couch, just holding each other. Things had progressed from there in a way that felt entirely natural without any large declarations or outrageous gestures. No one had really been surprised. In fact Moony had been the one to win the betting pool that had been going on behind their backs.

"Just thinking of absent friends," she replied, leaning into Sirius. "People who should be here."

"Frank and Alice would be really proud of the job Augusta is doing with Neville," he said. "And unsurprisingly Harry is a really great kid." Looking at the boy in question playing some kind of wizarding game against Hermione (and losing badly as usual), he added "and what do you know, a Potter boy snuggling up with a scarily smart muggleborn girl. Does that by any chance remind you of something, Lils?"

She playfully swatted at his arm, but smiled. It used to be that any reminder of James brought her to tears, but over the years the pain had started to fade. She would never stop loving him, would never forget him, but he was gone. She remembered the good times now, not the painful ones, and was ready to move on with the rest of her life. Slowly.

"Speaking of doing a good job, you've really come through for Draco," she said, looking at the blonde boy. He was the spitting image of his father at that age, she knew, but the happy and carefree smile on his face was not something she could ever imagine seeing on Lucius.

"Narcissa has done most of the heavy lifting there," Sirius said. "It took her some time to start functioning without a man telling her what to do, but she is doing a great job now."

Lilly nodded. Narcissa Malfoy had been the epitome of what wizarding society considered a proper pureblood wife. Meek, obedient, only concerned with doing whatever needed doing for her family. Had Lucius remained free, Lilly had no doubt she would have been a mere shadow at his side and poor little Draco would probably have turned into a carbon copy of his father. As things stood, though, Narcissa had been forced to stand on her own, both as a parent and as head of House Malfoy, diminished as it might be. It had done wonders for the woman. She and Lilly would probably never be friends, but they could be civil with each other for extended periods of time. A far cry from the woman who had repeatedly called her a mudblood in the past.

The fireplace in the room chimed and in a burst of green flames the face of Albus Dumbledore appeared.

"Albus, this is a surprise," Lilly said, walking over.

"I am very sorry for disturbing your family time, Lilly, but I was wondering whether you and Sirius could make time to come over to my office. It concerns our runes project."

Lilly nodded, nothing showing on her face. As far as anyone else knew she and Albus were working on a project together to create a new kind of runic array that would protect people's homes from attack. Rumor went that Lilly had used runes to defeat and destroy Lord Voldemort, after all, so it was easy to believe. It was even true, to an extent, as Lilly and Albus were, in fact, working to adapt the life shield ritual Lilly had created into a useful form that could protect someone without someone else having to die for it.

When Albus called about the runes project, though, he was actually referring to their ongoing hunt for Voldemort's Horcruxes.

"We'll be right over," Lilly said.


"I have a new lead on a possible Horcrux," Albus said, coming straight to the point. "As you know I've been backtracking Tom Riddle's history and, given that a Horcrux needs an act of murder to be created, looking for any suspicious deaths in his wake. I believe I have found one that qualifies."

Dumbledore went on to show them several pensieve memories he had gathered. They had already learned that Tom Riddle was the son of a muggle father, Tom Riddle Senior, but the identity of his mother had been a bit tougher to determine. By now they knew she had been Merope Gaunt. The Gaunts had claimed to be descended from Salazaar Slytherin himself, but their House had long fallen to ruin and their line was now extinct.

They watched the memories of Morfin Gaunt, Merope's younger brother and sole surviving member of the family at the time, be arrested for the murder of three muggles, said muggles being Tom Riddle Senior and his parents, who had lived nearby. Albus directed their attention to the fact that Morfin had, in earlier memories, always worn the Gaunt family ring, the sole remaining heirloom of their House. During his arrest, however, the ring had not been found. Morfin had, in fact, ranted quite a bit about his precious ring being lost.

"So out of the blue Morfin Gaunt decides to kill the paternal family of his nephew Tom," Lilly summarized, "and somehow loses the family ring, all at the same time as Tom was out of Hogwarts for the summer."

Albus nodded. "Sadly Morfin Gaunt died in Azkaban only a short time later. The case seemed very straight-forward, so no one thought to check his memories for magical modifications."

"You think Tom killed his father and paternal grandparents," Sirius said, "and used their deaths to turn the Gaunt ring into a Horcrux."

"Quite so, yes. The locket was Salazaar Slytherin's, of whom Tom is a distant descendant. It would make sense that he would use other family heirlooms. From what I have been able to gather, Tom was obsessed with emphasizing the magical side of his heritage and equally obsessed with destroying all traces of his muggle side. Using the ring and killing the Riddle's would accomplish both in one swoop."

Sirius nodded, agreeing. "It would make sense. Having grown up in a muggle orphanage would only have strengthened his hatred for all things muggle. He would try and sever all ties with it."

The discussion went on for some time and they ended up making a plan to investigate the sole remaining Gaunt property, a decrepit old house, and the abandoned Riddle manor for traces of the Gaunt ring. At the same time, though, Lilly couldn't stop a second train of thoughts from going through her head.


It had been a successful day overall. Investigating the Gaunt home (which barely deserved the name, truth be told) had in fact yielded them their second Horcrux. The Gaunt ring had been hidden under the floorboards, protected by numerous defenses, as well as a lethal curse on the ring itself. Thankfully their combined prowess had been enough to stop any of them from succumbing to the compulsion on the ring, because putting it on would have been a death sentence. So now they had two of the six anchors that tied Voldemort to this world. Just four more to go.

Lilly had pleaded exhaustion, leaving Sirius and Albus to deal with the ring. But instead of going back to Potter Manor, she had instead headed out to a small house on Privet Drive in Little Whinging. For years the idea of visiting here had never even entered her thoughts, but deliberating about Tom Riddle, who had done his best to completely rid himself of any and all connections with the muggle world, had gotten her thinking about her own reasons for divorcing herself from her past.

Oh, she wasn't worried that she would somehow repeat the history of Riddle or some such nonsense. Mostly she was thinking about Harry and, to a lesser degree, of herself. There was nothing left of the Potter side of her family. Her husband was gone, his parents having passed on before him. But her family was still there in the form of her sister. A sister with a husband and a son. And while her last encounter with her sister had been anything but amicable, didn't she owe it to Harry and herself to at least try and reconnect with the family they had remaining?

Gathering her Griffindor courage, she walked up to the front door and rang the doorbell.

The woman who opened the door could not have looked more different than Lilly if she had tried (and odds were she had). A stranger would have been hard-pressed to recognize the two of them as sisters. Everything from the way they looked, dressed, stood, and acted was completely different. Petunia Dursley nee Evans stilled in shock as she recognized the visitor on her doorstep, her eyes widening.

"Lilly?" she whispered, as if unable to believe it.

"Hi sis," she replied, forcing a smile on her lips. "Long time no see."

END (Chapter 7)