Ok! Long Author's Note!

Points of divergence:

*JK Rowling has said that Lily Evans-Potter was pregnant with the Potters' second child when she was murdered.*

Now, to me, I think that Lily didn't know or hadn't fully admitted this to herself when she chose to sacrifice herself, as if she had known she would have felt an obligation to tell her husband, who would have changed the plan.

Seriously, James Potter strikes me as the overprotective-mother-hen type when his wife was pregnant, given the supposed low birth rate of magicals.

So, James' mother-henning pushes the Potters' demises back a year.

*Lily Evans-Potter strikes me as a fierce sort of woman.*

She maintained her friendship with Severus, despite his deplorable behavior, and refused to bow to societal stereotypes. She also kept reaching for her sister, despite Petunia's cruelty towards her.

While I do like a good fic that bashes her, I also love it when her character is explored and stretched.

I don't think that Lily ever fell in love with James romantically- I think he finally realized his feelings for Sirius once the Black moved in with the Potters and he freaked out because he was the last of the younger Potter generation and he knew he was 'supposed' to get married.

Once he came back to school and she saw his turmoil, (she'd always known he was gay- boys, honestly!) and she, herself, was still reeling from her own broken heart- they bonded. (Because why would she be so intensely angry at Severus and refuse to allow him to apologize otherwise? Hell hath no fury!)

Eventually they came to love each other as siblings, and to protect them both, (as there was an insane madman who wanted to kill witches like her on principle, and James did need an Heir), they agreed to marry.

Eventually, Sirius and James worked through their issues, and Sirius' image was simply a 'cover', because of narrow-mindedness. Really, people see and gossip about what they want when you give them the proper amount of cues.

Also, think for a moment about how fixated Sirius is on James in cannon. To me, that can be interpreted as a lover-complex, and the intense grief and irrational decisions upon seeing James and Lily dead makes a lot more sense to me in that context as well.

*Lily's birthday is Jan 30, 1960. She was 21, when she died in cannon.*

By her birthday, she was among the older of her year group- so when she graduated from Hogwarts in 1978, she was already eighteen. I believe that she and James married so quickly in order to keep her safe and to prevent her from having to go back to the muggle world, as he parents were deceased at that point. (In my headcannon.)

*Lily was allowed other lovers as long as no one saw her.*

Because magic is involved, and James can adopt his children while she's still pregnant, giving them his Family Magic. (I'm being lazy and borrowing a ritual from one of my other fics, but don't worry- I'm not going to be that lazy with this entire story!).

Side bonus: They are also Sirius' kids, that way.

*No one- not Remus or Pettigrew or the Headmaster, knew about their little 'arrangement'.*

They had no reason to suspect that the Headmaster would understand. (Remember his relationship with Grindelwald was mostly known to a select few of the older generation and that was it.)

Also, they were in the middle of a war, not only did their personal struggles seem insignificant, they seemed like unneeded distractions.

So three people knew: Lily, James, and Sirius.

This is ridiculously long, but I just wanted to state those things upfront before I got complaints.

*A 'generation' is usually thought of as about twenty years.*

I am assuming that even when the lifespan of an average person was about thirty years, magicals still were living to about a hundred. Assuming a son took over for his father in his twenties and ruled until his son was in his twenties- I am assuming that on average, a magical generation is closer to thirty-five or forty years.

'Most Ancient' inspires BC dates to me. Magicals have wards and preservation charms- surely they have a few records of their families last that far, even if they have switched names a few times?

*Please don't complain about my name adjustments.*

I know that Harry is Harry, but giving him slightly different names between fics helps me keep my headcannons straight.

If you don't like this, please don't leave reviews about how you can't read the story because I made him 'Hadrian' or how I'm a terrible human being for altering Harry in any way.

I own nothing, this is the child's sandbox of the writing world- if you want greatness, go read the books/manga.

(I really don't mean to sound bitchy, either. Sorry about that!)

If you're still with me, please enjoy!

Recoil

Summary: Sometimes, life comes back around in the most unexpected of ways.

James Potter had been chasing Lily Evans since he'd first seen her take down a prat twice her size with just a few words and a toss of her flame-bright hair.

She was everything he'd ever been told that the future 93rd Lady of the Most Ancient and Most Noble House of Potter should be.

Unfortunately…..

James flicked a quick glance over at Sirius and felt himself flush before he quickly focused back on what Professor McGonagall was saying.

It was going to be a long year.

Lily sighed quietly to herself as she tried to not think about the look on Severus' face when she'd had Petunia turn him away.

It wasn't that she didn't love him…..

The Evans' youngest daughter fought against the sting of tears as she tried to focus on what Professor McGonagall was saying.

Petunia might be nasty and hateful, but she was all that Lily had left after that ghastly plane crash that had killed their parents. The Evans parents had gone on holiday to the Canary Islands as a gift to themselves for their thirtieth anniversary, and had never returned.

Now, with graduation looming at the end of this year and only her sister to fall back on and Severus-

Lily swallowed harshly and forced herself to focus.

She'd be fine. She was an Evans.

Lily and James smiled at each other as the member of the Clergy finished the Ceremony.

It had been tough- getting the traditional reading of the banns done and everything- but Lily had wanted an official wedding performed by the Church of England, like all of her family before her, and she'd gotten it.

She threw her arms around James as he scooped her up and carried her out, Sirius' laughter ringing in her ears.

Today was a good day.

It had been just after a particularly brutal raid by the Death Eaters.

Lily had been lost, confused, and generally out of sorts. James had been taking comfort with Sirius and she had wanted to find her own company for the evening.

She'd found him at a bar, drinking by himself in a corner booth.

He'd been a steady, unrelenting presence. Impossibly firm and unyielding in her world that seemed to be crumbling at the edges.

There had been an intense amount of alcohol, but she honestly probably would have overlooked the issue until the next morning anyways.

She hadn't realized that he was just sixteen until the next morning.

When her head had cleared and she'd come back to herself and she'd realized just slept with a sixteen year old, (never mind that she was just nineteen herself), she'd babbled out apologies and fled.

Lily, James, and Sirius had planned for her getting pregnant from a man besides her husband.

The ritual used was actually called 'Sarah's Lament', named after Abraham's wife who had her handmaiden bear him a son.

It had no direct relation to that particular event, but had been developed for families who needed an Heir and, for one reason or another, couldn't have one the old fashioned way. The ritual was designed to 'add' instead of simply 'overwrite' in an effort to not have to use it successively and propagate the underlying issue. It is also largely responsible for how the Purebloods had managed to keep themselves from inbreeding their population to death or making Squibs out of all of them long before the number of 'muggle born' exploded.

It's also why, when rituals began to be heavily restricted after the rise of the Dark Lord Delano, (a Dark Lord who hailed from the modern-day Netherlands area and terrorized the magical populations in the early eighteenth century), the number of Squibs began to rise.

Of course, they were cast out by their families as by the Statute they couldn't be allowed to stay in the magical world beyond fifteen, and there was very little tolerance for Statute violations in that age. Consequently, about thirty –or-so years later, the number of 'muggle born' students receiving letters for Hogwarts at eleven skyrocketed, creating an entirely new problem for the Staff.

Muggle born students were allowed to attend Hogwarts, but they had always made up less than a quarter of the student population. However, as the eighteenth century wore on and the nineteenth century dawned, tensions began to rise as the number of Purebloods dwindled and the number of muggle born skyrocketed. The resulting shifts in the working class were felt by the Lords and Ladies, and they did not enjoy being told that their long-held traditions were barbaric or outdated by usurpers; especially as the majority of the workforce began to rest on the shoulders of people who viewed magic as a tool as opposed to a way of life.

However, none of that truly mattered to Lily, James, and Sirius. The Ritual would allow them to 'add' James and Sirius to Lily's child while they were still developing. In the end, this would have the same effect as if James or Sirius actually had fathered the child, those Sirius as the 'second' contributor, took on a more maternal role, as opposed to James' paternal contribution.

This resulted in no small amount of teasing of the Dog Animagus, at one point earning him a pink apron decorated with nauseatingly cheery hearts that said 'just call me Mama'.

Lily nearly threw herself into early labor, she laughed so hard.

Xavi 'Harry' James-Sirius Potter was born on July 31, 1980.

Thankfully, he looked enough like her and James to avoid questions being asked.

(Lily could see his progenitor in him, though. None of them had felt comfortable with entirely writing the man out of Harry's life, so they had allowed for the first name. 'Harry' was just a misconception they allowed to exist, as they had no desire to explain where 'Xavi' came from.)

Sirius, nonetheless, was hopelessly in love with the little boy.

There was a Prophecy, according to the Headmaster. About their baby or one other.

The Potters went into hiding and were under the Fidelus Charm when Harry was just under eight-months-old.

Kawahira. That's what he'd said his name was, anyway.

He'd been….strangely intense; for all that his presence seemed to radiate lack-of-enthusiasm.

She'd met him at the library to begin with, and after a few coffee dates, she'd found herself admitting her situation to him.

Kawahira had seemed to be relatively accepting, actually. She'd expected disgust or disbelief, personally.

When she'd found herself pregnant, she'd told him of her intention to have her husband and his lover adopt the baby, and Kawahira had been strangely fine with such a thing.

What an intriguing man.

Lisiana Madeline Black-Potter was born on April 3, 1982.

(Lily had figured that Kawahira was Asian, and Lisianthus were a flower- so she'd tried to combine the two concepts to make a name she'd liked. Technically, the flowers were native to Texas and Mexico, but it was the best she had managed to come up with and it sounded pretty.)

Sirius had given her his last name, in the same way some children sometimes used their grandmothers' maiden names for their middle names. He was no longer Heir Black, but should something happen to Xavi, Lisiana wouldn't be put up for sale like cattle since the Black name was attached to her.

(Sometimes the Old Laws were a curse in this day and age, regardless of how well intentioned they might have been at one point in time.)

It was highly amusing for Lily to watch two grown men act like complete buffoons for the entertainment of two small children.

Xavi was just under two-and-a-half, and Lisa was a bubbly five-month-old when Sirius had been captured.

He hadn't betrayed the Potters, but he'd barely managed to escape and was terrified that next time he might end up giving out the information by force.

Sirius had begged them to change to someone else, and they chose Peter.

(It was the wrong choice.)

Lily Potter had had a lot of time to plan for the worst.

She heard crashes downstairs, and a few tears slipped out of her eyes as she whispered her last words to her children.

She also slipped two necklaces onto them and knew that in a few moments, those necklaces would only be able to opened or removed by her two precious babies.

The door blew open.

Lily Potter whirled to greet her death with ruthless resolve.

(It was the right choice.)

Sirius was mad with grief.

James, his James was dead and Lily- sweet, wonderful Lily who had married James just to keep their secret-

Sirius ran towards the Nursery and was relieved to see his children safe, but a new wave of agony tore through him at the sight of his sister-love's sightless eyes.

There was a roar of tormented anguish that echoed through the destroyed Nursery.

Peter would pay. Sirius swore as he held his children close and murmured reassurances to them, handing them off to Hagrid and loaning the friendly- magic resistant, highly formidable- Half-Giant his motor bike to get his children to Poppy for medical treatment.

(It was the wrong choice.)

Petunia Dursley screamed when she opened the door and found her niece and nephew on the doorstep.

Harry Potter was a strange seven-year-old.

He had a temper, for one.

His Aunt and Uncle had tried to beat him down, but the more they pushed the more he pushed back. It had come to the point where he had manifested strange fire that had dissolved the door to the cupboard.

They had tried to intimidate him or Lis extra hard after that, but Harry had made sure to stay one step ahead.

(For all that he struggled in school, he was smart.

So what if he slept in class? He had to stay awake to make sure that Uncle Vernon didn't get the bright idea to drug him and lock him in the basement again. The man had only tried that once, but it had been enough of a scare to make Harry distrustful on principle.)

Lis was more thoughtful and quiet. Actually she rarely ever spoke, relying mostly on head-tilts and eyebrow-quirks, but even she seemed strangely detached from the Durselys and the thought of them being 'family'.

So it was, that Harry was sitting propped against the wall in the smallest bedroom, idly playing with the locket that he'd had for forever. Lis was drawing on some 'recovered' paper with some 'recovered' supplies in front of him, and the say was pretty quiet.

(The Dursleys generally left them alone nowadays save for the spurts of time where they went stupid and forgot the general pecking order. Not that Harry was ever anything less than vigilant.)

Harry was startled when the locket 'clicked' open quietly.

What the-?

Harry- or Xavi- was really happy that he wasn't Dudley-stupid right about now.

Of course, his mother had been brilliant and there was magic in the world, so could he truly be anything less than extraordinary?

Apparently, he and Lis both had four parents. They had their mother- Lily; their Da- James; their Dad- Sirius Black- who was either dead or MIA; and then they had their respective 'progenitors'.

Xavi's was a man named Xanxus from Italy, and Lis' was a man named Kawahira.

Mum had even included drawings of the men- apparently she'd been something of an artist. He had called Lis over and had explained- as best as he could to the four-year-old- about who the people in the pictures were. Thankfully, Mum had included pictured of her and Da as well.

As he put Lis to bed that night and prowled around to check the perimeter, Xavi tried to let the information fully sink in.

Eventually, he came to the conclusion that it beat the hell out of only having the Durselys as family.

Now Xavi just needed a plan.

Trying to learn a foreign language sucked.

This is for Lis and Mum and Da and Dad. Xavi told himself as he tried to breathe through the temper tantrum that wanted to erupt. He was tired, cranky, and hungry- but he knew it was just going to get harder from here on out, so he took control of his temper and started sounding his way through the book again.

Xavi was eight and Lis was five when he decided to take her and run.

Uncle Vernon had been acting increasingly shifty and Aunt Petunia had been sniffing about 'those freaks coming to fix their mess'.

The young Potter hadn't wanted to know what his horrid relatives had planned.

He had known, intellectually, that street life was going to be hard, but it was both harder and easier than he anticipated.

Harder, because they no longer had a steady place to sleep and no access to school. Easier, because Xavi was already used to watching over Lis when she slept and fighting for the barest scrap of respect.

Xavi knew that their fathers might not want anything to do with them, but at least it gave them a goal.

"Italy, Lis?" He asked his baby sister as he crouched down in front of her and tied her shoes for her.

Lis shrugged. I don't care.

"Italy it is then." Xavi muttered as he tried to think of a way to get here without getting caught and sent back to the Dursleys.

In the end it was an interesting tale of ferry rides, clever stow-awaying, and quick thinking that helped them cross the English Channel and France.

Xavi also learned how to read maps, what a franc was, and how to curse in French.

The biggest boon that had allowed them to slip into Italy was that school had recently let out and there were people everywhere. So it was just a matter of looking like they belonged.

Which was easier said than done, considering their lack of proper facilities and all.

Still, when they arrived in Turin, Italy, Xavi felt accomplished.

As they stared at the people milling about and the wide blue sky above them Xavi allowed himself a single moment to relish in his victory of making it to Italy without getting caught before he slipped back into survival mode.

"Ok, so we need to find somewhere to sleep and a way to keep learning. We'll end up dumber than Dudley if we quit school now." Xavi muttered to himself.

Lis shot him a thoroughly disgusted look. Hell, no.

Surprisingly it wasn't hard to find a place for them to stay- they found an old church that was run by a group of sisters who seemed entirely happy to help out the children of Italia's streets.

The siblings didn't stay there every night, but they did stop by often. Sister Cristiana and Sister Federica were delightful ladies, despite their Order being small and it being just the two of them most of the time.

Xavi and Lis also made sure to assist with whatever chores they could- though Xavi would restrict how much he allowed Lis to do. He had also found- much to his consternation- that although she still didn't really like to talk, Lis loved to sing.

Sister Federica, especially, delighted in teaching Lis old Hymns and worship songs, so that is how the children refined their Italian.

When the school year rolled around, Xavi was shocked that the sisters had gotten them enrolled in a local public school.

He was suspicious, of course, but they hadn't actually done anything except show him and Lis kindness. They also hadn't called the Policia or reported them as runaways.

"Thank you, Sister Cristiana, Sister Federica." He told them seriously on the first day of classes.

"Sometimes," Sister Federica said thoughtfully, reaching out to ruffle his hair and then hugging Lis. "Our paths are harder than we'd like them to be, but they pay off in the end."

Xavi would never forget her words.

Despite the fights and bullying and his general surliness, Xavi made the top five in his class rankings.

(He still wasn't ever going to apologize to that Matteo jerk for punching his lights out when the jackass had made Lis cry. Xavi didn't care who the little punk was related to.)

Lis' sixth birthday came and the sisters had to take a journey to meet up with others of the Order in Rome.

Since the children were on holiday, the sisters decided to take Xavi and Lis with them.

Tivoli was just outside of Rome, and being in Varia territory it was fairly well-behaved from an underworld perspective.

However, occasionally someone stupid came in and decided that the Varia were just a myth and tried to take over.

Which was what was happening, and why Squalo was here busting heads instead of back at HQ trying to find a way to unfreeze his damn Boss.

The Sword Emperor grunted as he impaled another idiot and was a bit peeved when he looked around and realized that he was fresh out of prey.

Shrugging nonchalantly, the Varia Commander wiped his blade off on one of the idiot's shirts and whipped out his phone to call for a clean-up crew.

The line had just been picked up, "Squ-squ?" Came Lussuria's voice. "Did you take care of them already?"

But Squalo wasn't listening, his phone was nearly cracking under the strain that he was putting it under.

"Squ-squ?" Came Lussuria's voice again. There was a few moments of silence before, "Squalo?"

"Lussuria." Squalo forced out through his suddenly tight throat, "Get me surveillance footage for about a quarter of a mile away from my current position, to the west. Last hour too. It's not- VOI!"

"Superbi!" Lussuria voice was uncharacteristically sharp.

"I'm feeling Wrath Flames, dammit! Like Xanxus' but not quite. They don't have the edge that his does and I don't fucking know why!" Squalo roared as his feet finally unfroze themselves and he started running in the direction he could feel the Flames originating from, snapping his phone shut as he did.

Lussuria was Varia Quality, he'd get the damn picture.

They'd been walking down the street in Tivoli when they'd been attacked.

Xavi hadn't even considered hiding his strange powers from the Sisters when their and Lis' lives were on the line. He'd shoved Lis towards them and launched himself towards the attackers without pause.

He took a glancing bullet to the shoulder, and a knife wound to the thigh that was pretty nasty, but he'd live.

It wasn't until it was all over that he'd turned and looked at the Sisters and he'd realized that-

They could be like the Dursleys and they could hate him and Lis and-

"We need to get moving before someone comes for them." Sister Federica told him calmly as she gently steered him away from the scene.

"Don't you- I mean-" Xavi stumbled over his words.

Sister Cristiana gave him a singularly unimpressed look. "Child, we are but servants in this wonderful world. Who are we to judge those who the Creator has made by His own hand?"

"I think I might have killed that one guy!" Xavi burst out wildly. "I-"

"Defended the innocent." Sister Federica told him stoutly as she and Sister Cristiana guided them back into the crowds and shielded the children with their bodies. "The world is not so black and white, dear. You shouldn't judge yourself too harshly. The fact that you acknowledge that you ended another life and feel sorrow means that you are not a degenerate."

Lis reached out and grabbed a hold of Xavi's hand, and it wasn't until then that he got it.

He hadn't just randomly attacked and killed somebody- he'd defended his family.

(Xavi was still pretty sure he was going to have nightmares though. He'd never lost control of his Flame-magic that badly before.)

Squalo burst onto the scene and scowled heavily at the downed bodies and milling nuisances at the mouth of the side street.

The downed idiots were from the same group he'd been hunting, and of the five of them, two of them were dead.

The Varia Rain would recognize that Flame Pattern anywhere, even if it was a little different.

His phone rang. "What?"

"Bad news, Squ-squ!" Lussuria's voice was tight over the phone. "That side street's Varia surveillance was taken out about three hours ago, closest I can get you is a three block radius."

Squalo cursed. Fluently. "VOI! Do it! Whoever it is has Wrath Flames for sure!"

Lussuria's breath caught, "Is it-?"

"No, way too soft to be Boss." Squalo assured the Varia Sun. "But maybe a sibling?"

"Squ-squ, Boss was an entirely healthy male before he was frozen, and even he went through a period of time where he was jumping beds." Lussuria's voice was wry.

"Really?"

Lussuria's voice sounded amused, "Yeah, he settled down really abruptly about a year before the Cradle Affair, but for a while before that it was pretty bad."

"Wow." Squalo said in befuddlement. "I just have a hard time picturing our hard-ass Boss as a bed jumper."

"You would." Lussuria was definitely amused now.

"VOI! The fuck is that supposed to mean you damn ookama?"

"Nothing, dear~! I'll get to work on that surveillance triangulation!" Lussuria sang brightly as he hung up.

*May 1977 – Two Boeing 747s collide over the Canary Islands, killing everyone onboard both planes.

Please leave a review on your way out!