Rosewood Hall: Christmas 1996
Harry sat back smiling as he looked at the gifts he had got this year. For now it was strictly close family so Ron, Ginny, Luna and Neville were not there. Charlus was here as James was going to spend his Christmas with a bottle and Charlus wanted nothing to do with that. Lily was here clad in a winter gown of emerald velvet that brought out her stunning beauty. Petunia had taken Lily shopping and found two dresses at Selfridges (not Harrods as she preferred Selfridges in London), one in the Emerald Green Lily looked amazing in and one in dark blue for Petunia. They were altered a bit to get them perfectly fit and now both women looked stunning in the long sleeved long dresses.
Harry was in suit and tie, as were all the men, dressing informal was not allowed, who knew who could pop in. That was a downside to being rich and living in an ancient hall. That and Charlus was viewed as the main hero of the hour though he tried to give credit to Harry whenever he could. He had so many, many questions for Harry, and he wanted to ask them but was not sure if Harry would be offended or not. He decided to be Gryffindor about it and just do it.
"Harry you are not Slytherin, yet you are as sneaky as one, how is that you have so much political clout?"
"That is a good question." Harry said, "well, before I started our first year, mum and dad wanted me to be ready to walk all over the magical world. Dad, well he goes into Gringotts and does his best business man can we talk routine which the goblins loved and one test later I am found to be the heir to the Evans line though mother here. This was a minor house but an ancient one, which was why mother was able to marry so high, she was born to muggles but at one point they were related to this line from squibs. So I inherit the line and used this to my advantage at Hogwarts."
"What you need to know is we raised Harry and Dudley to be powerhouses from a young age, yes it was part to get back at you lot, the Potters." Petunia said, "but I truly do love Harry and wanted the very best for him. So I drilled both boys in how to make connections, on how to be polite and everything such as that."
"I drill them on knowing your audience." Vernon said, "which is why early in my career you could find me with bigots looking like I was having fun to get sales. Later I decided to work with the foreigners and found more money that way."
"So when I entered Hogwarts and got sorted to Ravenclaw I knew I had to act smart but not too smart, I had to be humble, which I was until they got to know me. The same with the other houses, yes I work with Slytherin, it took time and a lot of work to get some of them to trust me. But when they heard I wanted to help the magical world and build it back to greatness, they were all in."
"Who helped you the most to get the muggleborn to safety?" Charlus asked.
"Parents of prominent families, only a few dark families and fools refused to see that our world was about to change, and these families wanted to be on the right side. I contacted them through their children, I am still surprised that they would want to talk to one such as I, but I do have an ancient family to back me, and come from wealth, that dose help, even if it is in the muggle world."
"In the meantime I have wasted my fame." Charlus said looking upset.
"No, no not at all, I worked in the shadows, but you, you can get the reforms and such passed, you were not an idiot in school, how you handled Draco from the first, well that was amazing, he never could get one up on you and best part? Even Snape never did really hate you."
"Really, well the way he treated me, he is…"
"A good teacher, he has very feel injuries a year and has had no fatalities as a professor." Lily said, "even Slughorn had fatalities, you know how Severus starts you all off with the boil cure potion?" Slughorn was not that way, he wanted more flashy and Severus doesn't do that, he does not have enough time to do a lot of lecture and the directions on the board will get you the very best potion if you follow them. I think he highlighted to take the potion off the flames before one puts in the quills."
"Yes he did, but he picked on me first class!"
"You should have known the answers, we have gone over that." Lily replied, "he is a good man, a very good man, I invited him today but he has a shift at St. Mungos."
"Okay, mum you made reforms, perhaps, you could teach me?" Charlus asked, "I need all the help I can get."
"We all can help." Dudley said, "I mean I am a muggle and all."
"Both worlds are going to have to work together." Charlus replied, "if the magical is to survive."
Charlus nodded and wished he and Harry had been raised together, that his father had been noble enough to do what was right not what was easy. Easy was sending Harry away, easy was hiding away with Charlus and a barely there Lily. Charlus could have grown up with his brother and perhaps he could have dealt with seeing his mother in the state she was in, make it more bearable. He got up and realized he needed to go somewhere. Lily rose concern on her face.
"I need to go to St. Mungos." Charlus said, "Neville, he is all alone, his parents."
"We can go with you." Lily said, "if you wish."
"We will be here when you get back, Harry you want to go?" Petunia asked.
"Yea, yea I would." Harry said.
"Be back for tea." Vernon said, "there will be treacle tart if Dudley has not ate it all."
"Dad that was not funny!" Dudley protested getting his dad to laugh.
"Just teasing son, I know you would not do that."
Harry grinned and went with Charlus to the floo, they called out St. Mungos and came out to the lobby of the hospital, which was quite, the ER would not be as Harry well knew. St. Mungos had been moved, Sirius had sold all of Grimmauld Square which he owned after clearing out the old townhome. Now St. Mungos had all the room they needed for everything including a state of the art emergency room that looked a lot like a muggle ER with everyone in scrubs, but there were wands and such all around and very little operations or the like going on there. In fact aside from the wand and potion based healing it was very hard to tell this was a magical hospital at all.
There were floors covered in linoleum, hand rails all along the walls, windows that looked out over the park from the long wide halls, large ward rooms. There were X-Ray machines (these worked far better than trying to find a break or other things with a wand), CT and MRI scanners too. There were operating theaters for cases that could not be cared for by magical means and so on. The Janus Thickly ward was for those with mental disorders of all kinds, from those that needed short term treatment to those that needed long term treatment to permanent treatment. It was to the permanent treatment ward that Harry and Charlus went. It was set up with different levels of security, those violent cases were locked away far away from everyone else. Cases like the Longbottoms had their own room and it was a nice room. Two comfortable beds sat on each side of the room and a table set with flowers that Alice tended to as best she could sat between them. Sitting talking to them was Neville.
"Can we come in?" Charlus asked.
"Yea, sure, but why are you here?" Neville replied.
"I was an ass, for so many years my mum was in a walking sort of coma, she was able to do everything for herself but she was not there, I never offered you comfort, I was scared and ashamed and well she is well now, but I messed up in not being the friend I needed to be." Charlus replied.
"I want to get them out of here, they don't need this, with a little help they can be cared for in a home, I don't, I don't think the magic is doing them good."
"You think a non-magical setting would be better?" Harry asked.
"Yea, I do, I mean I don't know any place to send them though." Neville replied.
"I do, my mum would not mind, there is a cottage on the estate I grew up on, and I know a squib who would love to take care of them, if that is okay." Harry said.
"Yea? That would be amazing, please I would like that." Neville said smiling, "mum needs more space for her flowers, she is so good with the."
"We can have greenhouses added, so that she can grow year round." Harry replied.
"Are you with your dad?" Neville asked Charlus.
"No, and really growing up he was never really there for me, even Sirius wanted him to be there but he was not, my mum has done more since she woke fully than he ever did. I mean I love him but he was always gone and mum, well she could not do much, I was alone accept for Sirius who never judged dad but thought he should have been there more for me. He really was more of a father for me." Charlus said, "I will take up the Potter and Fleamont titles and pass them on, but he never really was a father to me, guess I never really realized that until now."
"I will talk to mum and dad and see what they say. Harry replied.
Potter Hall: Same Day
James was not getting drunk, he had not had one drink at all. Instead he was seated thinking on how much of a failure he was in his life. When he had found Lily hurt he was scared at her state, that she would not fully wake and was more automation than his dear sweet Lily. He had made the ancient choice to send Harry away to safety, Petunia had told him that she thought that he wanted Harry abused and so to spite him she had raised him well, at first. But then she fell in love with him and he became her baby boy, she loved him as her own son and he was, James never could get him back now. James had not even really been there for Charlus either and now, now he was going to loose everything.
"Come one James, this is why things are not going well, every time something goes wrong in your life you go and hide from it." Sirius said walking into the room and finding a full bottle of fire-whisky and not a drop drunk, "huh, not getting drunk, that is a good sign."
"Yea, well I messed up my whole life, Lily wants a divorce, I will not fight it." James said, "she will get Danger Cove, she loves that place and I will give her half my vault, Charlus will become Lord Potter and Fleamont on majority."
"You are not going to beg her to come back? You love her."
"Yes I do, but I hurt her, I hurt her badly, I hurt our son, I need to do the right thing now." James said, "I will give her whatever she wants that I can now."
Sirius knew what James needed now, he drug him out of the hall and took him home. He put James in front of a Christmas feast and had him eat. After that he had him take up a quill and parchment and write four letters, if he was going to make amends he was going to do it right and apologize and mean it and there were several people who needed to hear it no matter how many times he had to say it.
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
So there you go, Christmas time and it's Harry's Evan name that is getting him places. Charlus is growing up, but remember these are teen boys that have to do a lot of growing up and they are. Yes, Frank and Alice will be living on the grounds of Rosewood Hall. Yes James is going to do everything in his power to stop hurting people, he is not bad and I am not trying to bash him, he is just doing what so many, many people do when things go wrong, he is hiding from it and running, and his hiding and running has caused so much pain.
Anyway, do review please!
