Sorting out life…

00000

They all stood around the cup as James looked at Amelia. She had the small vial of basilisk's venom with her which she took out and gave to him. Only three drops, that's how much was left of the venom and even that was super rare. It was surprising what being at a high ministerial position could get you. If Fudge ever found out how far Amelia and James had gone to get their hands on this little vial of basilisk's venom they both would lose their jobs in an instant, not to mention they would also serve time.

That is why this whole operation was off-the-books in the first place. Those who had agreed to help them both in this crusade knew completely about the risks they were taking and so they had earned both James and Amelia's trust.

"Just one drop," Amelia said.

"Like I've never done it before," James said as he opened the vial and could already feel the venom's corrosive stench hit his nostrils. Basilisk's venom was one of the most potent things in the magical world and also very, very rare. A single drop of it could be diluted to a million times of its volume and even then it was so poisonous that it could kill someone in an instant. It was also one of the primary ingredients in many life saving potions which made it ever so more demanding and while the diluted venom was available by law for only healing centers, the actual, pure venom was almost impossible to get. Add to the fact that basilisks were an endangered species because of their constant hunt for their magically resistant scales and venom.

One couldn't get their hands on any of the things that were harvested off of a basilisk in today's time unless they knew the right people and had connections at right places. In simple words it meant them buying it off of the magical black market which is what Amelia and James had done.

Sirius was with them as well. Although not an auror or any ministry official per say he had enough connections to help them get the venom because of his family history. It was shocking to see how one drop of it had destroyed the first horcrux on which they had tried it.

"Everyone ready?" James said looking around. "Alright, have your ears covered like all times and three, two, one…" he put one drop of the venom on the golden cup before running back to a safe distance like everyone else and now they just had to wait. It normally took about thirty seconds to a minute for the venom to start eating through the object and hence, destroy the piece of soul that was inside it.

At about forty or so seconds the cup began to jump in its place wildly before it cracked and the familiar goo-like thing emerged from it followed by an ear-shattering scream that filled the air as the goo turned to black smoke in an instant before dissipating away along with the scream.

The cup lay on the ground with a noticeable crack going all the way from its brim to the handle as one of the aurors named by the name of Marcus Fletcher – a distant relative of Mundungus Fletcher – walked forward and checked the cup to make sure that they'd gotten rid of the horcrux. They all cheered once it was confirmed.

"Now all that's left is the ring," Amelia said as James nodded in agreement. "I think it's about time we stopped playing around. What do you think?" she asked looking at him.

"Are you saying what I think you are saying?" James asked.

Amelia nodded before looking at the rest of the aurors and Sirius. "Everyone," she said having their attention, "contact your connections. We are moving forward with a full-on attack on Voldemort."

They all looked at her as Sirius walked over to Amelia and James. "Are you sure?" he asked.

"We can't find the ring and who's to say whether Voldemort has made his sixth horcrux already," she said. "Looking around for the ring without any clues will take us nowhere. It's better that we find out where Voldemort is hiding. Once we confirm his location we lead a full-on attack on him with whatever auror-force we've got and take him down once and for all."

"Do you think it'll work?" asked James. "I mean taking him head-on wouldn't be something that most aurors will agree to go forth with."

"It's their job," Amelia said before walking away as James and Sirius watched her go before and then looked at each other.

00000

It had been a week since Harry had been to Hogwarts and classes were going normally, or rather better than the last time he was here in his previous life. With no stuttering faculty member housing Voldemort inside his body Harry was feeling much better already.

Remus was undoubtedly the second favourite professor amongst the students after Filius Flitwick…just like last time. Everyone liked the charms professor, even the Slytherins and that was saying something.

Remus had asked Harry if he needed a head start in his lessons like a few other students by joining his evening classes. Harry had respectfully declined as he planned on progressing on his own.

He had already started to spend at least two hours every day in the room of requirement, practicing on his magic. It was tiring and it often left him exhausted which is why he did it before dinner so that he could rest afterwards during night time.

During the first few days it took a toll on him as Harry found it hard to stay awake in his classes or even wake up in the morning due to the tiredness. He knew that using too much magic had a physical impact on the body as his ached almost everywhere. Luckily he caught some sleep in the history class where even most other students joined him. However, he didn't get so lucky in transfiguration and potions classes where he once unwillingly dozed off for a few minutes and earned a two-evening detention from McGonagall and over a hundred points knocked off of Gryffindor on the same day. The latter made him be the subject of everyone's glares in Gryffindor for a whole week.

But his practice started to show result as Harry felt his control on magic improve along with his accuracy and stamina. He had the room create moving targets which he could now hit with about seventy to eighty percent accuracy. He still had a long way to go if he was to compare his dueling skills to some of the death eaters that he knew from past life like Lucius Malfoy, Rodolphus and Bellatrix Lestrange. The latter was completely crazy. Harry imagined if he could come up to Bella's level of dueling then he could take down almost anyone. It wasn't exactly her skills though but rather the ability of being unpredictable.

Other than keeping himself busy with his magical practice he had been approached by Ron many times who tried to befriend him. Harry had to push him away each time with some lame excuse as he didn't want to associate himself with the red-head this time. Now that he thought about it Ron had barely helped him and Hermione in his past life. He left them by themselves during their horcrux hunt over a stupid reason. Because of him Harry barely passed his exams and tests. If it wasn't for Hermione Harry was sure he'd have failed in his subjects because of how Ron kept distracting him with magical chess, exploding snaps and other non-productive things.

This time Harry was only friends with Susan as of now who he would meet whenever they shared a class together or during break times. Other than her Harry didn't actually have any friends. He was steering away from Ron. Dean and Seamus kept to themselves, often indulged in the gossips of the rumor mill of Hogwarts – something that Harry had no interest in associating himself with. Then there was Draco of whom Harry was not sure himself mostly because Draco was being alienated by everyone in Gryffindor and Harry also wanted to tread carefully around that boy.

That left Neville who had been acting weirdly around Harry since the beginning as if he hated something about him which Harry couldn't put a finger on why.

And so in the end Harry got the opportunity to talk to Hermione during one of their classes which the Gryffindor shared with Ravenclaw and it was only because McGonagall had partnered him with her. From what Harry had noticed about Hermione was that she didn't appear to have made friends with anyone in her house and he actually felt sad about her for that.

He remembered how she had once told him that she didn't have any friends in her muggle school before coming to Hogwarts and that was because of how she always kept herself busy with the books. As it turned out books were what she turned to when she couldn't make any friends and slowly she started to like them and became the Hermione Harry had first met on the train.

Seeing her sit away from the rest of her housemates Harry couldn't help but think about how Luna sat like that at the Ravenclaw table. Her house mates had made her an outcast and Hermione's future in that house looked the same. And so it was that during one of the transfiguration classes Harry decided to befriend her. He couldn't remember when she had tried to jeopardize his life in his past life. The one time that he had hated her was when she had reported to McGonagall about his broom which Harry had gotten from Sirius but she had only done so because she cared for his safety as Harry had later realized.

No, she had always been there for him. She had always looked out for him and unlike Ron she had berated him whenever he had wasted his time and hadn't studied. No, Hermione had never betrayed him.

Following his first time partnering with her in the transfiguration class, Harry had asked McGonagall to partner him up with Hermione every time after that. McGonagall of course agreed because she looked at it as a type of inter-house relationship build-up and Harry used that opportunity to become friends with Hermione and soon enough they had started to spend their free time together either studying or roam around the castle along with Susan and her Hufflepuff friends Trevor Boots and Su Li.

He could see Hermione's happiness now that she had friends. She, Susan and Su got along really well and that was enough for Harry. Also, Harry had another friend in the name of Trevor although he seemed like a reserved guy who didn't like much company with himself and Harry respected that as he, too, sometimes felt in his previous life that people would leave him be.

To Harry a lot had happened in the first week. He had to get accustomed to a new life where almost everything was different…in a manner of speaking. He had made some new and some old friends, set up an environment to sharpen his magical skills in the room of requirement and his latest did had him sneak into the restricted section of the library one time during lunch to make copies of all the news events that had happened in the last decade. He had found the news records and made copies of as many of them as he could, starting from the day after the night his parents were supposed to be murdered by Voldemort.

It was difficult as he kept looking behind him throughout the time just in case madam Pince – the librarian – decided to drop on him. Luckily she hadn't but Harry had realized that sneaking around without the map or the invisibility cloak would be difficult not that he didn't already know about it

In his first and only attempt as of yet Harry had made copies of news from the last three months after that fateful night and reading through a few of them he found out about Lucius Malfoy who was serving a life sentence in Azkaban. Apparently the aurors had found a cursed item in his home, something which the news didn't disclose as to what it was, and had arrested him for that. He was later found guilty of being a death eater as well after he was subjected to veritaserum during his trial in front of the Wizengamot.

Harry wondered whether Lucius' absence was the reason why Draco was different this time. He knew that Draco didn't grow up in a loving home. His father wanted more from the boy while his mother's love for her son probably fell short. Nearing the end of his previous life Harry could see that Draco had started to break apart emotionally. Seeing Draco break down that night when he pointed his wand at Dumbledore on the astronomy tower had forced Harry to feel bad for the Slytherin for the first time. Maybe that's why he saved Draco later on during the battle of Hogwarts, from falling into the mountain of fire inside the room of requirement.

He wondered how much Draco would've changed in his past life if Harry had managed to defeat Voldemort. Now that he shared a dorm with the blond boy Harry decided to test how different this Malfoy was from the last one. Maybe his alliance could turn out to be beneficial. Besides, if Harry befriended Malfoy then at least Ron would stop bothering him seeing how much the red head hated Draco.

00000

Lily found James in the office room of their place. He saw her come in and closed the file he was looking at. She came around and hugged him from behind as James sighed, putting his hand on her.

"Is Grace asleep?" he asked.

"Soundly," Lily replied. "How did it go today?"

"Like always," he said. "Amelia has decided to conduct an official search for Voldemort." He saw Lily look at him with a little bit of shock and worry. "She's right though. We can't find the ring. We have no idea where it might be. Only he knows that and he won't tell us unless we find him and force it out of him."

"It's not as easy as it sounds," she said.

"Yeah? Tell me something I don't know," James said sounding tired.

"Come to bed?" Lily said lightly massaging his shoulders as James slumped into his chair.

"Give me ten minutes?" James said. Lily nodded before leaving him in the office. Once she was gone James opened the file again and looked at the two pieces of paper. They were both letters. One of them was from Harry which James and Lily had received a week ago. Harry had written to them about getting sorted into Gryffindor and other things a student found when they first went to Hogwarts.

The other letter was the one which James and Lily had received from a mysterious sender ten years ago, informing them about Voldemort's horcruxes and James had noticed something weird about them – a similarity.

They both had the same handwriting.

James couldn't believe it as he looked at the identical handwritings in both those letters. It seemed impossible but it was also right in front of his eyes. He had even used a spell which the aurors used to find the similarities between two or more things when relating to evidences they found at crime scenes and it told James that the handwritings in both the letters were identical.

At first he thought that this might be a coincidence but being a senior investigative auror James also had the skills of detailed observation and he had noticed a change in his son's behavior on the day Harry had left for Hogwarts. He had disregarded it thinking that Harry was being that way because he was leaving for school for the first time but now that he looked at the letters…He closed the file and rubbed the bridge of his nose. No, he was just over thinking this.

However, James desperately wanted to know who had written to them ten years ago about Voldemort's horcruxes along with the fact that they needed to steer clear from Dumbledore because he knew about Peter being a death eater.

As it turned out James and Lily had received two letters that night – one which talked about the horcruxes, a copy of which was also received by Amelia and the other talked about Peter being a death eater with Dumbledore knowing about it. When James and Lily found Peter's body the next day on the street of Godric's Hollow, the first thing that they saw was the exposed dark mark on Peter's arm and James' mind went straight to the letter which he and Lily had received the previous night. For a moment James forgot to breathe as he looked at his dead friend whom he had made responsible for keeping his family safe.

It was Dumbledore's idea to change their secret keeper from Sirius to Peter and as per the letter Dumbledore knew about Peter being a death eater. At first James wouldn't have believed it but seeing that the letter was right about Peter he had started to doubt Dumbledore now, too. He didn't know how he felt about Dumbledore knowing about Peter's secret and still suggesting that they made him their secret keeper. Whatever James felt it wasn't anything good towards the old wizard. He had trusted that man like he was a saint. He was Dumbledore for Merlin's sake, the defeater of Grindelwald and the leader of light! And he knew about Peter and did nothing about it? Instead he had convinced James and Lily to make that man their secret keeper…when they were hiding from Voldemort?

James had started to doubt the old wizard's motives after that day and as he thought about it more and more he started to find flaws in the way Dumbledore liked to work – like those times the Order conducted secret raids on death eater hideouts. Dumbledore would tell the Order members to never use any lethal spells which was exactly the opposite of what the death eaters used on anyone who attacked them. As it turned out the Order took more permanent damage because of it. Any time an Order member fell on the field they died while the death eaters that the Order knocked out were woken up by their death eater buddies in a flick of a second.

Some Order members had tried to question Dumbledore about his fighting methods and all that old man would say was that if they killed the death eaters then they wouldn't be any different from them. He preached about how people should get second chances so that they could become better people by learning from their mistakes. However, those death eaters that got out…they became even more dangerous to the society. Dumbledore had been proven wrong again and again. However, James, Lily and others continued to trust him because he was Dumbledore.

Well, not anymore.

The letters were right about Peter being a death eater and Voldemort making horcruxes. This meant that they were right about Dumbledore too. However, seeing that it was Dumbledore James knew that he couldn't just go up to the old wizard and blame him of endangering his family knowingly.

No, if Dumbledore knowingly endangered his family then he'd have done so after a tremendous amount of thinking. James didn't know why Dumbledore would endanger his family but one thing that he knew about that old wizard it was that Dumbledore was a calculative man who planned for things and people sometimes months and years in advance. He was like a seer without the ability of foretelling a prophecy. His ability to presume the possible outcomes was that good.

If this was all true then it made Dumbledore even more dangerous than Voldemort because everyone knew of Voldemort's motives – ridding the world of muggles, muggleborns and half-blood magicals. No, Dumbledore was more dangerous because if he was, nobody knew about his motives for being bad.

James was a clever man. He knew that if there was a chance that Dumbledore wasn't who he let everyone to believe then it really changed everything. If that was the case then James knew that distancing himself and his family away from that man would actually be a good start for now. He couldn't just tell everyone that Dumbledore was a bad person. No one would believe him. People would instead call James a death eater.

No, James knew he needed to be careful about it as for the first time in his life he had felt scared of the old man.

00000

Thanks for reading…