"Master Potter sirs needs to be getting up nows"

Harry opened his eyes and let out a yelp. "Dobby!" he said looking at the house elf sitting on his chest. He looked around the room, it was still dark, the only light was coming from the ball of flames that the Dobby was holding in the palm of his left hand. "What time is it? And please, don't sit on my chest"

"It is 6am sirs, and Dobby is sitting on your chest because yous would not be waking up. Dobby stood beside your bed and asked ever so politely. But master Harry Potter sir is not be waking. Dobby was not knowing what to do"

"Why are you waking me at 6am? It is still dark" Harry gestured to the darkness around them.

"Oh no sirs" Dobby waved his hand and the curtains were pulled back. The early morning sunlight flooded the room making Harry quickly close his eyes and pull the bedcovers over his face.

"Ok, it is not still dark, but why are you waking me so early?" he groaned from under the covers.

"Because you asked me too. You said today is a very important days, sir. Has Master Harry been forgetting?" Dobby said jumping off Harry's chest onto the floor.

Harry experienced a moment of panic. Had he forgotten someone's birthday? Oh no! Was it Daphne's birthday? He was in so much trouble. Wait a minute, there were no birthdays in the summer holidays except for his and Neville's. Pulling the covers down again, and wincing at the sunlight, he sat up and looked at Dobby. The summer holidays, the first day. Of course, Dobby's first day.

"Yes, you are quite correct, Dobby. A very important day indeed. Let me get cleaned up and we will head down for breakfast" Harry made a detour on the way to his bathroom and stopped by Hedwig's perch by the window where his beautiful snowy owl was asleep. She must have had a big night judging by all the bits of mice she had dropped onto her tray under the perch. Now that they were home, he would be able to spend time with her, free from the draconian rules of Hogwarts that restricted their time together. No owls in the dorms was just unfair. Rats, toads, and even pixies were allowed, but not owls.

Leaving Hedwig to sleep Harry made his way to the bathroom. He looked in the mirror checking the scars on his face, they were healing nicely. Then he noticed his hair. His hair! What the hell had happened to his hair. Gone was the long sleek hair that he had carefully cultivated, and in its place was … was.. well he couldn't find a fitting adjective to describe it. It was shorter and sticking up all over the place. He ran a brush through it. It made no difference.

Grumbling he took a long shower, ensuring to wash his hair properly. Jumping out of the shower he quickly dried his hair and tried again. If anything, it was worse.

"Dobby!" he yelled watching as the elf appeared "Did someone do something to my hair whilst I was a sleep?"

Dobby shook his head "Dobby saw no one enter Master Harry's room, sir. Dobby was outside the door all night" Dobby added looking sheepish "Dobby was eager to be starting work for Master Harry"

Harry went back it to bedroom and grabbed his wand. He cast a finite incantatem at his hair. He looked to Dobby who just shook his head.

"Dammit. I don't suppose you could do a quick check for spells or potions could you?" he asked Dobby.

Dobby nodded enthusiastically and waved his hand across Harry's hair, before his ears drooped and he shook his head.

"Well this is just great" he mumbled to himself while trying to tie it back, it refused to cooperate. Giving up on it he put on the training gear that Dobby had laid out for him he headed down stairs for breakfast.


"Going for a new look there Harry?" Roxanne asked him as he sat down at the table "It suits you. You look less serious."

"Sirius!" Harry exclaimed "I'll kill him" Harry jumped from his chair and ran to the floo. His godfather must have done this to him last night when he had been over for dinner to welcome them back from Hogwarts. The summer prank war had started early.

"Padfoot, get your mangy hide over here" he yelled as the floo connected. He briefly saw Sirius' face with a look of surprise at seeing his godson so early in the morning, before Harry disconnected the floo and stalked back to the breakfast table.

In his absence, Daphne had arrived and was seated eating a slice of toast and jam. She looked up and saw Harry, or more accurately, she saw Harry's hair. "Oh my" she said before giving it an appraising look. "I like it" she said honestly. It really did suit him, she thought.

"Really?" Harry asked. Daphne was looking at him funny. Daphne's face got a slight bit of colour as she nodded.

"Woah!" Tori said as she walked into the dining room and stopped in her tracks "Potter the bad boy. All you need is a dragon hide jacket and a racing broom to complete the look. He slays one basilisk, gets his face in the paper, and the next thing you know he has a complete makeover"

Roxanne and Daphne started laughing at Tori's antics.

"Settle down" Cyrus said as he sat down. He gave Harry and appraising look, shrugged and started on his breakfast.

"Well seeing you are all here. Dobby!" he called out. Dobby appeared with a very quiet crack.

"I would like to introduce you to Dobby" he said.

"Yes, we know him dear" Roxanne said "He has been living here for the past few weeks. Toby has been instructing him"

"Yes, I know that" Harry replied "But today is a special day. Today is the day that Dobby starts working here."

He stood up straight and gave Dobby a formal bow "Dobby, I thank you for taking up the position as my personal elf. I hope your time here is happy and rewarding."

He turned to the rest of the family "This is Dobby, a free elf"

They stood and welcomed Dobby formally. Dobby was almost in tears but was holding it together. Then Roxanne came around the table and knelt in front of him. "For however long you decide to be here, you are now part of the family"

This was enough to push Dobby over the edge, he burst into tears and had to be rescued by Toby who gently lead him away to the privacy of the kitchen where he could compose himself.

"That went as well as could be expected" Harry said walking back to his seat. "The poor little guy has had a tough life up till now."

Hearing the floo in the other room, Harry drew his wand and turned towards the door, surprising Sirius who had just walked in and was about to help himself to breakfast.

"What have you done, Fleabag" he asked Sirius at the end of his wand.

"I have done many things Harry, but most of it not for delicate ears. But in my defence, I am single again" Sirius replied reaching for the coffee.

"I don't want to hear about your degenerate bachelor lifestyle, I want to know what you have done to my hair" Harry was getting mad now.

Sirius looked up and noticed Harry's hair for the first time. He started laughing.

Harry was just about to hex him when Roxanne intervened "No hexing at the breakfast table" she admonished Harry before turning to Sirius. "Sirius, what did you do to Harry's hair?"

Sirius put his hands up in the air "I did nothing" he answered Roxanne before turning to Harry.

"There comes a time in every young wizard's life when his body starts to change. His voice changes, he starts thinking about girls, and his body starts to grow hair in strange places" Sirius said, straining to keep a straight face.

Harry growled at him.

Cyrus could barely stop the laugh that escaped his mouth. "Sorry Harry, but that is funny."

Harry turned on him, "I will have no problem hexing you as well, you know" He turned back to his godfather who took pity on him.

"The curse of the Potter men I'm afraid Harry. And I mean that literally. I asked your father about it. His hair was always messy, never grew any longer, and always sort of stuck out everywhere, like..." he shrugged "well like that I guess" he pointed to Harry's hair.

"He said that generations ago one of your ancestors upset a witch somehow, the Potter charm obviously. And so, she cursed him, but not just him, the entire Potter line on the male side. Ever since, just as puberty strikes, so does the hair curse. Your father tried everything to no avail. On the plus side you will never need another haircut or have to worry about combing it. For the rest of your life, that" he gestured towards Harry's hair again "is the hair you will have"

Harry groaned, of course there is a curse, as if puberty wasn't going to be bad enough. He turned back to his breakfast. First day of holidays and things were not going great.


"Can I talk to you both?" Harry approached Roxanne and Cyrus later that morning. "Somewhere private" he added.

Harry lead them to the war room, shutting and locking the door behind them. They took seats around the table.

"What is it Harry?" Roxanne asked.

Harry took a deep breath. "I want to find out more about my parents, well my whole family for that matter."

"Of course, Harry" Cyrus said "How can we help?"

Harry looked confused "You're not upset?" He looked from Cyrus to Roxanne.

"Oh Harry, of course we are not upset, we have been waiting for you to ask for a little while now" Roxanne smiled at him "Is that why you have not asked before, you thought we might get upset?"

"It is just that you have been so good to me, I didn't want to seem, I don't know, ungrateful or something" he shrugged.

"We took you into our family because you were the son of our friends. We promised that if anything happened to them, we would look after you" Cyrus answered him "They promised to do the same for Daphne if something happened to us"

"I have to say I didn't expect you to be so much trouble though." Cyrus laughed

"And we also didn't expect you to become so dear to us" Roxanne smiled at him.


"What do you think they are talking about in there" Tori asked Daphne. They were standing outside the war room door that was resisting all their attempts to eavesdrop.

"I don't know, Harry looked pretty serious" Daphne replied.

"Harry looked pretty hot, is what he looked" Tori replied "You better watch out Daph, he will need a beater's bat to keep the hordes of girls away now."

"Tori, don't even" Daphne warned.

"It is amazing how changing one thing makes all the difference. Don't get me wrong, he had that whole pureblood thing working for him, but now…"

"Tori I swear I will hex you" Daphne interrupted her and drew her wand.

Astoria laughed at her older sister and raced down the hallway. It was always wiser to get as far away from Daphne as you could when she got that look in her eyes.


"Sirius will be able to tell you more about your father's school days than we can, we moved in different circles." Cyrus said "They were very close James and Sirius were. But you need to ask him, he has been holding back on the number of stories he tells you, not sure how you felt about it. You have to remember it was very hard for him losing his best friend. Then being sent to Azkaban for their deaths. He would love to tell you more."

"Your mum on the other hand, well we used to be in a study group with her from third year on. Your mum was friends with Severus from before Hogwarts, so that is how I got invited to join." Roxanne said "Cyrus was there as the groups' muscle. By third year he was already scary with a wand in his hand, part of the attraction." She smiled at Cyrus.

"I was also in the top 10 of the year across all subjects too, that is why I was invited to join." Cyrus pointed out "Ravenclaw remember"

Harry laughed, he loved the byplay between Roxanne and Cyrus. Or should that be mum and dad? It got confusing.

Roxanne ignored Cyrus's outburst "We were quite the diverse group, much like you and Daphne have put together. The other benefit was we were protected to a degree from a lot of the pranking your father and his friends inflicted on everyone. Your father really had a thing for your mum and so didn't want to get on her bad side."

"It didn't stop them picking on Severus though" Cyrus added with a frown "We tried to shield him from it the best we could, but they still got him occasionally."

"They were bullying him?" Harry asked, his eyes narrowing. He didn't like bullies.

"Yes and no." Cyrus explained "Severus could more than handle himself, but there was always the four of them" he shrugged. "He and your father had some epic fights. They both liked your mum you see"

"What!?" Harry exclaimed

"Yes, they were both vying for her affections" Roxanne said "Until Severus and your mum had a falling out. He changed you see, almost overnight it seemed. This was the cause of their falling out. He started acting completely out of character."

"We never could figure out why he changed so much. He took the end of their friendship badly and went on a downward spiral for a long time" Roxanne looked sad.

Harry thought about that, he glanced up at Professor Snape's name on the Enemy Tree tapestry, one of the names he wanted to follow up ever since he first saw it there. All his dealings with the Professor so far had been open and honest, even helpful. But then there was the cryptic advice about friendship that he had offered Neville and himself. Yes, thought Harry, the time for that conversation was coming soon.

"On a brighter note" Cyrus said seeing the serious look on Harry's face "With Malfoy out of the way we can put pressure on the ministry to get your parents Will unsealed, meaning we can get a grant of probate to execute your parents' wishes. Finally, you will be able to have access to your parent's personal items."

"Really?" Harry asked hopefully. He had so little physical mementos of them. Malfoy's Ministry minions had blocked all their attempts to get the will unsealed.

"Yes, and when you turn thirteen in a few weeks you will have access to your first trust vault, which unlike your school vault, should have more than just gold in it." Cyrus said. "I don't know what the Potter traditions are, but older families usually have items to help a young wizard on his way to maturity. It could be a piece of property maybe, a racing broom, anything really. Each family is different. It is meant to celebrate a coming of age sort of thing, not in a legal sense, more a physical sense. The onset of puberty, the transition from boy to man." Cyrus watched Harry blush at the mention of puberty, it could be time for The Talk. He certainly wasn't going to let Sirius give it to Harry.

"So, between Sirius and ourselves" Roxanne said "We can cover a large part of your parent's lives, if you want us to"

"I would really like that" said Harry

Cyrus stood up "Ok sorted. Now if there was nothing else it should be getting on with your training."

"Well, there was something else, it is about us being a family. You know that I look to you both as being my parents" Harry stopped, he didn't know how to put into words what he wanted to say, it was pretty embarrassing. He even blushed again.

Roxanne looked at him fidgeting in his chair. Oh, she thought, realising what was concerning him. "Harry" she started "You know we love you as if you were our own?" Harry nodded without looking up. Roxanne continued "We are your family, and I know you have been struggling with this for a while. We have never discussed this in all these years and we should have. We would love it if you called us mum and dad, but we understand if you felt it would diminish Lily and James in anyway. You are a Potter as Cyrus said."

Harry looked even more embarrassed. He sighed and took a deep breath. "I would love to call you mum and dad, it is how I think of you anyway, having never got the chance to know my parents. But it's not that, it's just..." he stopped for a moment before blurting out "If I call you mum and dad, that doesn't make Daphne my sister, does it?"

"Oh" said Roxanne and Cyrus in unison as it dawned on them why Harry was asking that.


Daphne walked into the training room looking for Harry. She didn't know what he had talked about, but her mum and dad just smirked when she asked, so maybe it wasn't too bad.

Harry was standing in front of one of the mirrors pulling at his hair trying to flatten it out.

She walked up to him and slipped her hand in his, revelling in the tiny thrill she got when they held hands.

She leaned across and whispered in his ear "I really do like your hair like that"

"You do?" Harry asked turning to face her

"Very much so" she replied.

They stood there holding hands looking at each other.

"I really like you Daphne" Harry whispered.

"I really like you too Harry" Daphne replied.

Harry leaned forward and gave her a gentle kiss.