If you would like copies of this full fic with book context along with the other seven, please PM me.

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"Hey Mum, what's this?"

Harry hadn't meant to go snooping through, well his own baby room, but he'd spotted it on the little bookshelf in there and something about the title had caught his eye.

Lily took the book curiously and smiled as she read out, "The Tales of Beedle The Bard? Oh that's just a bunch of children novels sweetie. It was a gift from Dumbledore at your baby shower. Your father insists these were stories everybody grew up reading, though honestly I've never gotten around to hearing them myself." She ended with a little grimace, once again reminded that her son hadn't grown up with this either. She glanced around her house, feeling the echoing silence, the unnaturalness from all that they were doing. The pressing weight of what they kept reading was dragging her boys down, and it was beginning to worry her greatly. She smiled and curled her hand tighter around the thin spine as she said, "how about we read this for a while? Just as a little break?"

"Okay," Harry said at once with a huge smile. "I'll go ask the others."

The other three boys said yes at once as well, all of them knew they just needed a break, so they tucked into their spots. Lily even kept her infant cradled in her arms, for once in a very long time not having to worry at all about him hearing of any bad things going on around him for these tales were surely ones he'd continue to hear long into his life.

Harry first offered the book to his mum, considering it was her 'turn,' but she shook her head with a careful look at him. "We're taking a break for you dear, it'll do you some good to be the one reading this, so you can start."

Harry shrugged as he stared at the first title. That feeling hadn't yet left, he could feel some significance to something in here but it had no relation to this story. Still, he had no reason to protest as he began with The Wizard and the Hopping Pot.

"Can we skip this one," Sirius rolled his eyes, "honestly this one of all of them has the most idiotic bits."

"It's a children's story Sirius, I thought it would be the one thing you could grasp," Remus said lightly, not at all hiding his sarcasm.

Sirius was likely to say a snappy retort back, but Harry had too much practice by now cutting the lot of them off.

"Muggles can't really be that daft," James rolled his eyes, feeling as if he were five years old again and his own parents were telling these stories, and he'd said the same thing to them then. "Surely they know it's magic."

"Maybe in this fable they're all really dim," Remus offered, "hence why I said Sirius would fit right in."

Sirius twitched like he was going to start smothering Remus soon, but Harry was still smiling slightly and ignoring them at the same time.

Sirius made the loudest disapproving noise, and for a moment Harry wanted to laugh he was being so silly over a kids story, but then he realized Sirius really had grown up hearing this so much. It must not be fun for him to hear it being trivialized when he now believed something wholly otherwise. Still, Harry was honestly glad Sirius was still participating, considering everything he'd heard about his future recently, he treasured even the tiniest gesture from his godfather sharing his opinion.

Harry couldn't help but wonder at this already, why not just get rid of the cauldron if he had no further use for it? Though he supposed questioning this made no more sense than when he'd laughed at his family poking at all of his past decisions.

"Rude," Lily tisked.

"Honestly I may not have been any more pleasant though," Sirius couldn't help but wheedle at her with a smirk even if he didn't mean it. "Who comes over to someones house at night for something like that? Much more of a lunch request."

"You're an idiot," Lily happily reminded him as if he'd forgotten.

Harry couldn't help a startled laugh in surprise in picturing such a thing on a cauldron, and to his surprise the infant in Lily's lap proceeded to do the same. Harry scratched awkwardly at the back of his neck even while everyone else just laughed louder for this.

"That's quite an ornery object just over some warts," Remus couldn't help but crack again, "probably what would happen if I tried to transfigure Sirius."

"It's also impossible to get rid of, remember that bit," Sirius said with a challenging brow.

"Do all of these villagers just have no care for what hour they're popping in," James couldn't help but agree with Sirius on that one. "Surely that father set visiting hours."

"Honestly you two," Lily rolled her eyes at both of them now.

"Well he's got a point on that one," Sirius said just to annoy Lily now. It finally worked, instead of her giving him that look he could hardly stand to see for this future he kept hearing about, he finally got a proper scowl out of her.

"No snappy retort for that eh?" Lily muttered in disgust as she clutched her infant tighter to her. It didn't matter this was a simple story, she didn't like the idea considering all she knew of his future to come.

Sirius didn't bother to respond, that would never be funny, and he couldn't find anyone's heart so cold as to not help with that. Even now if Dudley or Malfoy the infant had needed something Sirius knew he wouldn't have turned away.

Harry couldn't help reading all of this in a way he never could manage with his own life. It was a carefree, cheerful little sing song voice he was using with the slightest hint of a smile even through all of these woes. For once he felt no impending misery, doom, or any bad feelings. He was just spending time with his family, going along with some little children's tale, and it was easier than ever just to imagine many nights to come, forever if he wanted, always spent like this.

"Does it really count if you're forced to do the good deed?" Remus asked with honest curiosity about this moral quandary.

"Half credit?" James answered with a shrug, not really thinking about it much at all considering it was hard to imagine no matter how much proof there was to the contrary just how many people would go on ignoring these problems without a pot around to be reminded of them.

"To make sure he didn't back out probably," Sirius chuckled.

"The pot couldn't cure that, why was it braying?" Harry stopped in surprise.

"The magic of the pot knew he could help the problem, not the brew itself could," Lily corrected.

"You ever wonder if the first man had to learn the same lesson?" James asked in bemusement. "He started off the same way as his son and learned better?"

"The story would get repetitive if it ended with this wizard having a son to learn the same thing over and over," Lily shrugged.

"Anybody else ever find it sad the bloke had to be forced to do a good thing?" Remus sniffed. "I feel like that ruins the moral of the story, he should have simply done the good deeds to begin with and then faced some other obstacle."

"Well then you write the next children book," Sirius rolled his eyes at him.

"Can you imagine all the good we could do, if we really could help Muggles out with our magic?" James gave a wistful smile. "We wouldn't have to hide from them, we really could help in just the simplest ways."

"I know dear," Lily agreed smiling sweetly down at her infant who was finally gurgling happily at the brightened mood.

"Hey, there's more in here," Harry said in surprise, "Dumbledore put notes in."

"What?" James asked in surprise, but Harry was already reading.

"Err, cool, I guess," Remus blinked in surprise.

"A taste?" Sirius scoffed at this generalizing. "He drowned in it until he gave in, I'm pretty sure that's torture."

"Dumbledore just tries to put a good spin on everything," James muttered, quickly waving Harry on, he didn't want to think about his headmaster right now.

"More like is harassed out of him," Remus couldn't help but agree with Sirius on this one.

"Got to love the mans sense of humor anyways," Lily couldn't help a slight smile.

Harry couldn't help the sympathy that washed through him hearing of this, scantly remembering his History of Magic lessons and knew this to be true didn't make it feel better to remember.

"Oh, so he comments on all of them," Remus said with his head cocked to the side. "Wonder if he does that to all of his books in his study."

"Guess it kind of makes sense, can't keep all your thoughts in a pensive so he puts them down as he thinks of them," James shrugged in agreement.

Harry and Lily winced in surprise, never having asked Nick for details, while the Marauders knew of these scant aspects and simply frowned in pity for someone they'd considered a passing friend in school for all his help when they asked of it.

Lily shivered and held her infant that much closer to her, remembering his little fit the last time they'd gone to visit the McKinnons and how he'd made his bottle appear in his hands even if it had still been empty. That would have been impossible to explain to a Muggle, the idea that mothers had lost their infants because a child just didn't know better yet...what the Dursleys had done to Harry probably was a close approximation if death hadn't been the answer in all cases.

"I'll say," James ruffled up his brow, "I never heard of such a thing."

"You're parents read you the original version though, this one," Remus agreed. "I can easily imagine someone much more like Malfoy's parents giving off that tale."

"I'm surprised you knew this version then Sirius," Lily agreed.

"My parents didn't read me children's stories," Sirius rolled his eyes heavily at her assumption. "I hunted some stuff down on my own in our family library and wherever we visited. I came across this version in my Uncle Alphard's supply of books. He had both copies of the story and one other ludicrous one, but you know, he was a historian who had a copy of everything on hand. All three are so dull I really think he could have cleared out this space."

Lily just raised a brow at him though, not having missed the fact he'd openly admitted to wanting to learn and study in his youth and so honestly kicking herself for ever in her own school years falling for his lazy attitude.

James scoffed deeply in disgust at such a thing, tightening his arm around his own beloved wife and as always incapable of understanding a word of that nonsense.

"Why am I not surprised the Malfoy line traces all the way back to every one of them being the same way," Remus scoffed.

"Makes you wonder why they bother to procreate rather than just making copies of themselves, oh wait," Sirius rolled his eyes.

Harry couldn't help his brows rising at having to say all of this, about any other person. He'd never for a second considered himself more than a muggle just because he could do magic. Why then could this thought actually cross someones mind?

"Doesn't think much of himself," Sirius said deadpan.

"You two have that in common," Remus still had his fun.

"Urgh, alright, I'll take this tosh over hers any day!" Sirius retched at the idea of her retellings.

Harry just looked at him with bemusement before finishing curiously.

Lily ruffled up her brows in thought. This little story was honestly harmless and not nearly as bad as all that, but even so, she could half see the woman's point in wanting to keep such gory details away from children. Still though, to imply they should never be around it was ridiculous, or the children would just grow up in ignorance and that could be just as damaging.

"That's it, I'm off sweets for a week because of that sentence alone," James crinkled his nose.

"Oh it gets worse," Sirius promised, "do yourself a favor Prongs and never read the actual work, you'll be trying to remove your eyes before the first page."

"Advice heeded," James promised.

"Oh no!" Remus groaned, already trying to plug up his ears. "Dumbledore knew we were going to read these, he's actively trying to torture us now!"

Sirius reached over and popped his fingers back out, holding his wrist firmly and stating, "you need more sugar in your life Moony, and if I have to suffer through hearing this again so do you."

Remus gave him an exaggerated hurt look while Harry read out with a look of deep disgust.

"Alright, you made your point!" James protested as he wondered what the best spell was to remove his tongue from the layer of sweeties he'd just been forced to ingest.

"It's over, just one bit left," Harry promised, smiling just slightly at the lot of them again messing around with each other like always, meeting his mums eyes and the two silently laughing at their behavior he hoped would never end.

"The proper response," Sirius agreed.

"Is that what you did to your Uncles copy?" Remus asked with honest hope.

"Oh no, I force fed it to his owl, who proceeded to try taking my nose off," Sirius shrugged. "Honestly I deserved that one, and then I had to repair the bloody thing with something called tape when my Uncle caught me. Bloody useless stuff, reparo charm would have fixed it in a second, and why's it invisible?"

"Keep going Harry, or we'll be here all year explaining this stuff," Lily managed around her continued chuckles.

"That bit was over," Harry told as he tried to pass it on while still smiling for once.