So! Let's get this waggon on the road. This is the next-to-last chapter of Visitation.

Enjoy reading! :D

Indemnification

The last thing Harry saw just before James grabbed onto him was how the reporter struggled to pull one shoe out of a puddle of mud, before the world swirled around them and whizzed them back to Grimmauld Place.

A loud crack announced the return of father and son. Hair hopelessly dishevelled and unlikely to be untangled until the next shower, both Potter men scurried through the door and into the hallway.

"Did you see how she nearly fell over when she got stuck with her heel?" James wheezed out a bark of laughter and wiped away his tears. "Priceless. Absolutely priceless."

"Serves her about right," Harry snickered. Both his and his father's shoes were caked with mud and he hurriedly toed them off. A trail of footprints led from the front door to where they were standing.

"I still can't wrap my head around that every newspaper and magazine has their reporters set on you," James shook his head, a wicked gleam in his hazel eyes.

"It's really not all that fun if you're the one they are running after. Literally," the younger Potter winced as James moved through the hallway to put his broom into the broom closet, dragging dirt all over the floor. "They can get really annoying. I'm sure mum told you about my fourth and fifth year, with Rita Skeeter and the general Daily Prophet fiasco?"

That was what he and his friend had moved on to calling it. The Daily Prophet Fiasco meant the months-long chivvy of multiple reporters, including the Minister of Magic himself, and one fifteen year old boy who didn't have the means to really do anything about it. If he had been there, James thought dejectedly, the Prophet wouldn't have dared to print anything bad about his son – be it true or false

The Potters were one of the few still remaining wizarding family the whole law system was built upon. They were needed whenever the court called in the Wizengamot, as every ancient wizarding family, including the Potters, held one chair each. That being said, James wouldn't have had it if the Ministry went against his son, his heir. He hated talking or even thinking like that, but that was how the world worked – people with power and a famous name could do anything they wanted. It depended solely on the Minister whether he or she allowed it or not.

Fudge, being Fudge, had been one that had allowed, hell, even welcomed it. Lucius Malfoy especially had been allowed to do literally anything. He had bribed the Minister right in the heart of the bloody Ministry and nobody had given a crap. He couldn't help himself but get annoyed whenever he thought of that dunderhead of a politician. He himself had never really been big in politics, nor had he been interested, but his father had always been a very active part of the counsel of the Minister. Said counsel had consisted of the heads of all pureblood families still remaining in Britain.

It had been one of those things that James had despised – the disgusting fact that, just because of their blood status, some people had had more power than others. It had nothing to do with knowledge, wit, talent or magical prowess. All you needed was a piece of old, preferrably yellowed and brittle parchment which told everyone daring to read it that the owner of said parchment was better than everybody else.

Yuck.

He had been disappointed when he had found out that his father was a part of this – that he had been a living proof that this centuries-old inferiority complex was still as up-to-date as when Merlin had read about it in the papers.

Fleamont Potter, however, had used his influence to keep the more radical and darker families at bay, or so he had tried. James, being the heir of the Honourable and Most Ancient House of Potter, had always been expected to fill in his father's spot once the latter had died. The Potters had prided themselves to work from the background, the shadows even, never in the forefront of anybody's mind, and therefore rarely the target of any a Dark wizard who had ever existed. It was a legit strategy; a strategy that had been ceremoniously thrown out of the window as one certain Divination teacher applicant Sibyll Trelawney had made it her unconscious mission to set an insane man loose on his son.

James watched his son frown at the floor worriedly, as the door behind him opened and his second favourite person came into his view.

"Lily!"

He grinned widely and moved to kiss her on the cheek before he noticed her glare. Slowly, he took a step back towards the front door, hands still awkwardly outstretched and lips puckered.

"Lily?"

His grin faltered slightly as he saw her green eyes narrow dangerously. He knew that look. He had done something wrong and she was just waiting for him to drop yet another and considerably larger brick to trip over.

He could have kissed Hermione straight on the mouth as the young witch squeezed past the very annoyed redhead, successfully making her lose her focus on him, and gasp. "Oh no, guys, couldn't you have left your shoes outside? I didn't need you to drag a whole Quidditch pitch worth of mud into the house. For Merlin's sake, was that really necessary?"

Simultaneously, both Harry and James' eyes widened and their faces took on suspiciously innocent looks. Both women were met by two pairs of eyes in full-on puppy dog-eye mode.

Lily looked from the pair of son and husband, to the young witch standing next to her and back to her two boys, and started laughing.

"It's so obvious that the two of you are related," she rolled her eyes good-heartedly and ushered Harry into the living room. "You," she pointed accusingly at James, who had been just about to follow them through the hallway, "will take off your shoes first and mop up all the chaos you two have created in here."

With a flick of her red hair and a flirtatious wink in his direction, she followed Harry into the lounge.

James stood in the middle of the hallway and looked around himself dejectedly. He hated cleaning Muggle style. Scratch that, he hated cleaning. Full stop. He struggled out of his boots and cautiously set them next to his sons' to keep as many clumps of dirt on there as possible.

What he wouldn't give to have his magic right now. Of course, he wouldn't use his wand to clean up this mess. No, he wouldn't want to endanger Harry even more than they already had, unknowingly, but still. Thinking back, he couldn't really think of a time he had really protected his son, and that scared him like nothing else did.

Of course, there had been the occasional fall off the couch or little Harry trying to fly off the changing table – toddler Harry's choice of words – but for the most part he had not succeeded. By being in the Order, he had endangered his family. Of course, it had been the right thing, and he would do it again without even thinking about it twice, but the father in him shied away from the thought. And then, of course, the whole trusting-the-wrong-friend thing. Lily had voted for Sirius, Dumbledore had voted for Sirius, Sirius had voted for Sirius, yet he had declared their votes null and had gone for the less obvious choice, getting himself and the love of his life killed and his son hurt. The latter immediately sent his thoughts to the worst failure of him being a father – Halloween 31st 1981.

How stupid could you be to forget to pick up your wand when you figure out that the monster wanting your son dead was standing right outside your front door with the sole intention of killing what you swore to protect with your life?!

So, no. He would have cleaned all this mess up the Muggle way even if his lovely wife hadn't told him to. Anything to protect his boy! Anything.

Which let him to another thought – the ritual. By now, Hermione and Lily must have managed to get the spell sorted in order to cut the bond sucking the life out of Harry. Which was a good thing. Yes, it was a good thing. At least James told himself so constantly. The more one repeated a lie, the more likely it was that one also believed said lie. But no, it might not have been a good thing as is, but it was the right thing.

He hadn't been able to protect his son from Lord Voldemort, but he sure as hell would protect him from himself! He loved him more than his life. If he, James Potter, would be doomed to spend the rest of eternity chained to his cottage in Godric's Hollow, then so be it. As long as Harry was happy and healthy, he'd stay in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom for all he cared.

Hermione watched as the twenty-one year old wizard slowly stood up and froze. He had a contemplating look on his face that made him look older than he was. There was something in the way his brows drew together and the corners of his mouth turned down that slightly unsettled her. He looked too much like Harry. Whenever Harry looked like that, his thoughts were on their way of going down a very dark road. She didn't like it. The hollow feeling she had grown so accustomed to during their time in the tent was creeping back.

"You know what?" she asked rhetorically, successfully pulling both herself as well as her boyfriend's father out of their misery, "I'll just..."

She quickly waved her wand and vanished the mud from the hallway. Warmth filled her body as she saw a smile light up James' face. "Way quicker that way. Also, Lily and I have something to tell you two and I'd rather not wait any longer."

"Lead the way, Miss Granger."

"What took you so long?" Lily turned around on the couch where she was sitting next to Harry and eyed the two newcommers who had just entered the living room. "Nevermind," she added hastily as James opened his mouth. "Sit down, James, Hermione and I have something to tell you two."

James walked over to the couch and took his wife's place next to their son. Harry looked from his mother to his girlfriend to his father. The former two stood in front of them, the latter looked equally as apprehensive as he felt.

"We found out what the problem was," they said at the same time.

James and Harry blinked.

"Well," Hermione blushed slightly and shrugged. "I didn't find out what went wrong, but Lily did. Do you want to explain it or should I explain it?"

Lily shrugged. "I don't mind either way. Go for it."

"Okay," Hermione cleared her throat and Harry could see the signs of an impending speech. "I'll just start at the beginning. When Harry told me that he was seeing his mum, I knew that something wasn't how it was supposed to be. It's never a good sign to see someone who is dead and hasn't decided to haunt a particular place as a ghost. As we all know, you and Lily," she nodded at James, "have neither turned into ghosts nor have you moved on.

I have done some research on it and, actually, it is quite uncommon. Usually, people stay behind as ghosts if they have stuff to do or simply cannot let go of the mortal world. You, however, did something in between. You accepted your death instantly, as you have had to think of that possibility before, so you were prepared, more or less," she quickly added as she saw Lily wince.

"That being said, the full acceptance of death and how death happened makes it pretty much impossible to stay on earth as a ghost, yet you didn't move on. As I mentioned before, there are only certain reasons why souls don't move on, one being that something or someone did them wrong and they need to see it to the end. This is, what I think, happened to you.

Yet not really."

Harry blinked. "What?"

Hermione ran a jittery hand through her mane of long brown hair and scratched her chin. "Stay with me here, okay? So," she said and slowly started to walk back and forth in front of the coffee table. Lily, having understood rather quickly that this would take a while, had sat down some time ago.

"The thing I thought keeping you tethered to Godric's Hollow was, at first, Harry. You felt horror at what had happened, guilt of how you died and hadn't been able to save your son, and then uncertainy and pure panic because you didn't know whether Harry would survive. But he did survive, so that reason couldn't have been the cause of you being trapped in a sort of limbo between the worlds.

Then, I thought, it might have been the cause of your deaths, meaning Pettigrew. Yet, Pettigrew died last year and you are still here. I also thought about the possibility that you wanted to make sure that Harry was happy."

At that, said wizard blushed bright crimson, much to the amusement of his parents, who quickly turned back to Hermione. James' hand calmingly rested on Harry's back.

"I believe Harry when he says that he is happy, so that couldn't have been the reason either. But then," she stopped walking and turned to the young married couple sitting across from her, "I remembered something else."

Hermione's victorious smile turned sad as she saw the two of them comprehend what she had come up with – and she knew it was the truth. It pained her to say it. Harry's eyes were big as he watched her intently and, at that moment, she cursed her ever-present need to solve a riddle that presented itself.

"We wanted to make sure that you knew we are sorry for everything. We wanted you to know that we will always be there for you, that we love you and that we are so very proud of you, sweetheart."

Lily's words filled the room as Hermione just stood there and didn't know what to do. She couldn't do anything but watch as Harry's eyes filled with tears. Lily got up off the settee and knelt before him. Her elbows rested on his knees as her small hands pulled his trembling ones away from his wet face. James rubbed his hand in circles over Harry's back, comforting him without having to say anything.

As Harry looked up, the first thing he saw were his mothers eyes, filled with so much love and tenderness that his breath caught in his throat. His dad's warm hand rubbed soothing circles over his tense muscles, loosening them without even trying. It was weird, Harry thought absentmindedly, as his tears slowly stopped falling. Parental love was something he had always tried to imagine but could never manage. Feeling this now, being here, seated in between his mother and father was something he would never forget. He thanked everyone who listened for this moment with his parents, for all the memories they made over the last couple of days. It wasn't enough to fully let go of years worth of heartache and loneliness, but it was a very good start.

Sniffling softly, Harry smiled at Hermione. He didn't bother hiding his tears from her. He wouldn't hide anything from that wonderful woman. "Sorry," he mumbled and squeezed his mother's hand. "Please continue."

Hermione smiled lovingly at him before she thought back to what she was about to say.

"So this is most likely the reason why you two haven't been able to move on. Now, binding Harry's magic to both of you, however," Hermione faltered and took a deep breath, "is hopefully something we can reverse."

Hesitating for a few seconds, she finally turned around and walked over to a set of drawers next to an old grandfather clock. Harry hadn't noticed the thick book lying there before Hermione came back and held the book up for them to see the title page.

"This is the book I used for the instructions of the ritual. As you can see," she gently wiggled the book back and forth, "it is quite an old book. I've found it in den Black library after having looked through what must have been like dozens of books. It had the ritual I had been looking for, one that promised to accompish everything I had in mind. So I looked up everything about it. I wanted to make absolutely sure that we would be doing this right and that nothing went wrong.

As you all know," she shrugged and winced, abashed, "it didn't really work out as planned. It actually did what it told me it would, but there were a few consequences that I had not foreseen. This is where Lily comes in. Earlier this morning, I've told her how I've gone about this research and she immediately found my error."

Hermione handed the book over to Harry and James, who balanced it on his lap and allowed his son to open it.

"As you can see, it was published during the late 16th century. I wasn't aware that the age of a spell, or ritual in this case, had any consequences on how to work it and how it came out, but, as it turns out, it does have a huge influence on the outcome. So, what Lily and I did during the last couple of hours while you were out there braving the storm on a broomstick was to modify the ritual to what it should have looked like before we have used it.

Now, having altered the things that have changed since the 16th century, the ritual should work as described. Since we have already used this ritual and are now trying to remidy what was screwed up, Lily did her magic and wrote a counter-ritual. It is surprisingly simple to follow, as we will leave out all of the creepy stuff with pieces of animals and such and simply focus on the blood magic itself.

Once we have said the spell and done everything correctly, James and Lily should vanish and be pulled back to Godric's Hollow by their Death Bond."

It's really happening, isn't it? They'll leave. I still don't want them to leave.

I hope you liked this one and are looking forward to the last chapter! I am currently busy writing it (the file is open and waiting as I type this) and it's just over halfway done.

Until next time - see ya!