Joe's Note: This chapter definitely didn't exist in the original 2008 version or most of the versions thereafter. The first scene was added in a 2018 update to help fill in the large gap in time between two existing scenes - because honestly, with a household as large as the Potters', you can't expect me to believe nothing was going on for that length of time - while the second is an adaptation of a scene that's existed in every version of the story so far. Just with a much smaller population this time around given that Harry doesn't have the freedom to just invite a pile of people over to his house to meet him, even if he does have Altaira's name to lean on as a backup. Hell, given that Altaira is just as socially isolated as he is in this version, leaning on her name does about as much as leaning on the Malfoy name in books six and seven of canon...
Dedications & Thanks: To Nicholas, Alexander, Howard, MJ, Daniel, Christopher, Marc, Ziryo, Elliot, Crusifikz70, Timothy, Leigh, Jason, Chris, George, Koby, Ken, Thyatira, William, Wil, Invernos, Jack, Pat, Warren, Chris, Mitch, and Jess for sponsoring me on , and making it easier for me to spend more of my time writing.

August 4, 2006
Great Room
Potter Manor
Fowey, Cornwall, England, United Kingdom

"You've been teaching our children magic."

"You have no proof of that."

"I stuck my head in to ask about dinner the other day and saw you teaching them cosmetic charms."

"Lies and slander."

Lifting her head, Lily took in the angelic expression on Narcissa's face for a few second before rolling her eyes and returning her cheek to its resting spot on her paramour's chest. "I feel like I'm passively encouraging what you're doing by not trying harder to stop you, which would make me a hypocrite… but whatever. I'd rather you do it here where I can fix things if something goes wrong than have you taking Harry and Tara back to Malfoy Manor for these lessons of yours. Just don't let James find out. Or the twins, who would probably tell him. I don't need a lecture about how flaunting the law makes you a terrible role model who I shouldn't be allowing near our children."

Narcissa chuckled lowly at that, sending vibrations through Lily's cheek as she ran a hand through the redhead's hair. "If he only knew. There are so much worse reasons that I'm a terrible role model who shouldn't be allowed near his children. The fact that I've shagged his wife in almost every room of this manor, for instance." Pausing, she tapped on the back of Lily's head until the younger woman looked back up at her once more. "And really? I'd appreciate some credit where credit is due. What you walked in on was me demonstrating various cosmetic charms on Harriet so that she knows what she can ask Tara to do for her in the future if she so chooses. After figuring out how to intentionally trigger Harry's change into Harriet."

To be perfectly honest? Lily wasn't much more terribly enthused about that idea even if it did involve her girlfriend demonstrating magic rather than properly teaching it to her son. Namely because she was quite happy to have a son and two daughters as opposed to three daughters. That, and... "You're calling her Harriet. How uninspired."

"I can give her an astronomy name if you want."

"Like hell you are. If anything, we're calling her Dahlia."

"What a perfectly terrible name for a lovely young woman like Alshaina. Shay for short." Narcissa let out another titter of laughter at the face Lily made in response to the name; the redhead decided then and there that if they had a child of their own someday - or bought a pet smart enough to respond to its own name - Narcissa would be forbidden to name it. "Before you ask, it requires Harry to cast at least one powerful spell to trigger the change, and how long he stays a girl depends on how much magic he channels before taking a break. Less powerful spells chained together or holding spells like the Wand-Lighting Charm for a long period of time aren't enough to do it on their own but can extend a change."

That actually was good to know, if for no other reason than that it would help Lily hide Harry's new… condition… from James for as long as humanly possible. Given the opinions he'd aired when Sirius had told him about the Roberts child who started attending Hogwarts with Harry and Tara back in their first year, it was undoubtedly for the best. "I'll keep that in mind for when Harry is seventeen and can legally cast magic around the manor, because it shouldn't be a problem until then. Hint hint." Narcissa raised her hands in surrender and Lily lowered her head back down to rest on the taller woman's chest. "Just out of curiosity, have you noticed anything weird about Harry lately?"

"Weirder than him turning into a girl when he uses too much magic, you mean?"

"Obviously."

"He seems to be... I don't know, a lot calmer than he used to be. More mature. More focused. More thoughtful. I've seen him in the kitchen with you now and then and you told me he even made a full breakfast for the family at one point; he never would have been that considerate and giving before his accident even if he knew how to be. He's dating Tara now, which I never thought would happen. Obviously those two are the only ones who can put up with each other but before the cognivore got involved, it was a decidedly one-sided infatuation on my daughter's part. Not that Harry ever seemed to be interested in anyone else, mind you. He just came across as too selfish and self-centered to actually care about someone else enough to be in a relationship with them." Narcissa trailed off, gently petting Lily's hair in silence for a minute or two as she furrowed her brow in thought. Then she perked up and continued. "Oh! The other day, he cast an advanced cosmetic charm by himself. I was going to show him the Curling Charm but he managed the all-purpose Styling Charm on himself before I could even finish explaining things to him."

While normally Lily would have laughed off most anything that had to do with cosmetic charms - one of the few areas of magic that she had willingly turned a blind eye toward learning - that was actually the exact sort of thing that she was looking for at the moment. Because it went hand-in-hand with his sudden culinary expertise in terms of things that shouldn't have been happening when it came to her son. She'd gotten ahold of St. Mungo's the other day and inquired about other victims of cognivore attacks. Out of the perilous few who survived and eventually regained consciousness? Not a one of them reported new and unexpected knowledge popping up in their heads, nor did most of them report holes in their memories apart from the time that they'd spent unconscious. Which meant that either Harry was an aberration who should probably be studied... or something else was going on. But at the same time, Lily was hesitant to attribute that bout of strangeness to the same source as the newest bout of strangeness in her son's life: his new wand. After all, the personality changes and cooking had started before they'd bought Thrúd's wand for him, and she somehow doubted that a long dead Norse woman would have known anything about Latin-based cosmetic charms.

For now, though, there wasn't much that she could do. Maybe Harry had picked up that one charm from one of the girls at school casting it in the common room rather than getting put together in her own dorm room. Unlikely, but possible. And maybe he'd picked up enough of a foundation from watching Lily and the elves in the kitchen that he'd been able to start cooking for himself and learn as he went. Or maybe she was just making excuses for him and the truth was something far less ordinary and much more sinister. She had no way of knowing and - short of confronting him directly with what seemed to be paranoid suspicions - no way of finding out. So at least for the time being, she decided to table the discussion, nuzzling her cheek against Narcissa's collarbone as she tried to clear her mind and relax. "Have I told you lately that I love the way you smell?"

Narcissa was silent for so long that Lily opened her eyes, peering up at her paramour to see if she'd fallen asleep. Instead, she found Narcissa staring down at her with a bemused expression. "Not lately, no. As a matter of fact? I'm pretty sure that you've never once told me that in the entire time we've known each other. I'm not wearing any perfume today, so… what exactly do I smell like?"

"Vanilla. Flowers. Ash. But that's not what I mean. It's not the actual smell so much as how the smell of you makes me feel. When I'm around you, I feel… safe. Secure. Loved. Like I'm home." Lily craned her neck, planting soft kisses over Narcissa's cheek and then to the corner of her mouth, only to go still as she caught a very particular scent wafting off the dark-haired woman. Turning her head, she inhaled deeply even as she poked Narcissa in the ribs, forcing her to exhale. "…you also smell like dark chocolate and peppers. Have you been eating the Mayan chocolate that you bought me as an anniversary gift?"

Blushing faintly, Narcissa looked away from Lily's accusing gaze. "It's all your fault. I didn't even like chocolate until you nagged me to try a bit of that stuff."

"Oh, for the love… can't you eat chocolate that wasn't a gift to me? Your gift to me?"

"I'll buy you more?"

August 18, 2006
Games Room
Potter Manor
Fowey, Cornwall, England, United Kingdom

"So let me get this straight… all this was your idea?"

"Yes."

"You made the tea and scones all by yourself?"

"Actually they're not scones, they're Cornish splits, but yes."

"But you're a boy."

"Most of the time, yeah." Harry facepalmed at Altaira's retort, sighing as the other three girls in the room shot him confused looks. "Well I mean, if we're holding you to wizarding standards, you're really not the most masculine wizard. You cook regularly, which is still an unnecessarily gendered task in our society. I think that's what your mother called it, right? And you can cast a mean Styling Charm. So I'm just saying... you're only mostly a boy if you want to look at it from a wizarding point of view."

Nice save, Altaira. Not. Harry rolled his eyes as he straightened back up and reached forward to pick up one of the plates on the table. Serving himself, he brought the split up to his mouth and took a large bite out of it. "Fine. I'll eat one first and when it doesn't kill me, you'll know that the food is safe to eat."

Su let out a little snicker at that and reached in to pick up one of the splits for herself, placing it on her plate and tearing a piece off to pop it into her mouth. "I trust you, Harry. I'm sure that if you were trying to kill us, it'd be something properly Slytherin like poisoned tea that you'd already taken the antidote for or something." As she chewed slowly and swallowed, Daphne and Tracey's eyes bounced back and forth between Harry and Su nervously. "That was a joke."

Shaking her head, Altaira raised her cup to her mouth and took a long pull from it before leaning against Harry's left side. "Sweet Merlin, it's just tea. Lady Grey, if you want to be really picky about it; Mother brought it back with her from a vacation and got Lady Potter addicted to it. You two are jumpier than the aurors that come to my house on business. Harry's telling the truth; the only things his sisters Jasmine and Rose are good for in the kitchen are fetching things and washing dishes. He learned how to cook out of necessity if nothing else. Really well, it turns out. I let him make me snacks all the time when I'm over here, since he's more creative than your average house elf."

"Sorry for thinking that this is a little strange and all." Daphne slowly raised her cup to her mouth and took a sip of her tea. When she didn't immediately start choking or foaming at the mouth or anything, Tracey took that as her cue to try some as well and soon both girls were sipping away as Su munched on her split. "It's not like we really interacted at school or anything, but... well, that's pretty much exactly why you didn't seem like the afternoon tea party type. Much less preparing it for us."

"Well to be absolutely fair, there isn't exactly a student kitchen or anything at Hogwarts so you never would have known if I was even if we'd been friends before this, now would you?" Harry raised an eyebrow until Daphne nodded to concede the point before taking another bite out of his split. It wasn't exactly dry per se, but it definitely needed a little something. Grabbing a knife, he spread a bit of strawberry jam over the remainder of his split before garnishing it with a dollop of clotted cream. "As for the cooking thing in general... like Altaira said, my sisters are hopeless in the kitchen. If I let things continue as they were, I would have had to eat burnt and other nasty food all the time. It seemed like a much more Slytherin thing to do to take over for them so that I'd have better food on my table. Also, it allows me to have some degree of control over what gets served in the house."

Tracey let out a soft giggle at that, elbowing her half-sister in the side as she glanced over at her. "That's definitely a very Slytherin thing to do. Considering how much Daphne complains about the food at home, I'm surprised that she hasn't volunteered to learn how to cook for the same reason yet."

Letting out an indignant sniff, Daphne turned up her nose as the mahogany-haired girl. "I would never cook. That's what house elves are for. House elves and half-blood sisters who actually need to have domestic skills if they want a guy to marry them."

Altaira chuckled at that, reaching down to intertwine her hand with Harry's before giving it a gentle squeeze. "Thank Merlin I don't have to worry about that, huh? Between you and the number of house elves our two families own, I'll never have to worry about going hungry."

"Okay, are you still claiming that you're just friends or what?" Su leaned forward to gesture across Harry at their conjoined hands. "Because I'm willing to give you a pass on sharing a bed and stuff because that's not necessarily a relationship thing but sitting here holding hands is pushing it for me."

Glancing down at where his hand was entangled with Altaira's, Harry let out a soft chuckle as he turned to look at Su. "Really? The hand-holding thing is a bigger deal to you than the shared bed? Your brain works in odd and mysterious ways, Su. But no. Altaira got tired of beating around the bush for all these years and asked me out when we got home from Diagon Alley the day we saw you. We're officially dating now."

Su raised a piece of split in salute before popping it into her mouth. Chewing and swallowing, she looked from Harry to Altaira and back before nodding approvingly. "I'm sure that your parents are thrilled to have one of their children dating someone normal enough. Especially since both of your sisters are still dating Jackie Broughton."

That was definitely a reference that went over his head - especially since he knew exactly who his sisters were currently dating - and so Harry turned to Altaira in askance. The smaller girl bit back a snort of laughter before miming a punch. "One of the few muggle sports that wizards actually pay attention to is boxing, because it's a socially acceptable excuse to cheer as two muggles beat the ever living shite out of each other. Jack Broughton is a famous boxer who actually helped develop the rules for boxing matches that are still used today. Hermione picked up that unflattering nickname before she even actually made it to Hogwarts because she punched Longbottom in the face and knocked out two of his baby teeth. Six years later, she's still prone to settling things with her fists instead of magic... hence Jackie Broughton."

Furrowing her brow in confusion, Su studied Harry uncertainly. "I've heard you call her that to her face before. How do you not know-"

"I, uh, didn't exactly walk away from the battle in the Department of Mysteries unscathed." Pulling his hand out of Altaira's, Harry rolled up the sleeves on his shirt to display the scars left behind by the cognivores. "It did a number on my memories. Took some stuff out, put some new stuff in, and jumbled a lot of what was left. Ask Altaira; I remembered Hermione but I didn't know she was a Slytherin or that she was dating my sisters."

Tracey and Daphne exchanged looks and then the blonde decided to ask what they were evidently both thinking. "Is that why we're here? Whatever reason you had for being a loner all these years, you can't remember it anymore and so now you want to make friends with people?" Daphne's forehead scrunched up in confusion as she considered that. "Doesn't really explain why us, but it would explain the tea party in general."

After fixing the sleeves on his shirt, Harry gestured to his left. "It's simple, really. We ran into Su at Diagon Alley and she seemed willing to be friendly toward us, so we decided to invite her." Then Harry gestured to Daphne. "You were a bit more difficult of a decision: you've never been our friend but at least unlike Pansy and Millicent, you're not directly opposed to us. So we figured that we'd try our luck and invite you. And Tracey... well, she's your sister. It'd be rude to invite one of you and not the other one, especially since we're all in the same age and Tracey has just as much potential to be a friend as you do. Possibly more, since she hasn't spent the last few years being disgusted by me being a terrible Slytherin."

Daphne let out a burble of laughter at that, setting her cup down on the table between them as she nodded. "You're not wrong. Although as long as you're willing to have us here, I think I'm going to take advantage of it to satisfy a curiosity that I've never found a polite way to. Altaira. You're either on crutches or Harry's back most of the time. What exactly is your story?"

"Oh, you could have asked me at any time. It's not really a secret or something that I mind talking about." Altaira raised her arm and extended it, making Harry cringe as her elbow flexed backward further than should have been possible. "According to Lily, it's a disease that she's seen plenty of witches and wizards with but we tend to just ignore it and let our magic compensate enough to give us passable quality of life. Muggles don't have that luxury, so they actually have ways of dealing with it. It's called Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, specifically the hypermobile type. Basically it means that my joints are more likely to pop part way or completely out of place than a normal person, I'm super bendy, and there's faulty connective tissue in the joints throughout my body. What that means for me is that my knees to a shit job of supporting me, so I need the crutches to get around if I don't want to be in excruciating pain. Well, the crutches or Harry."

Daphne swallowed audibly as Altaira wrapped her right hand around her left wrist and stretched, her arm contorting strangely again. "Oh. Well that all seems very... gross."

Snickering, Altaira released her arm and wrapped it around Harry's shoulders as she leaned forward, lowering her voice conspiratorially. "Just wait until Harry and I start having sex. I've been researching some tantric spells that might actually make me walk better by the time we're done and... well, the Karma Sutra isn't going to have ideas creative enough for how bendy I am."

In the midst of taking a sip of tea, Harry abruptly sprayed it all over the table and the rest of the food that he'd prepared.

"We really should talk about your son."

"This is your idea of good post-coital conversation?"

"Lily, with how randy you've been lately, most of our conversations are post-coital conversations." Leaning down, Narcissa left one more bite mark on the left side of Lily's neck before rolling off onto the bed beside the redhead. "Harry is getting weirder and weirder. It was okay when it was just the cooking and the occasional random spell that he shouldn't know how to cast but does. But… well, look at today. He organized, cooked for, and is hosting a tea party for my daughter and other girls their age."

Sitting up with a grimace, Lily leaned over and retrieved her wand off of the bedside table. While Narcissa wouldn't stand for her removing all of the bite marks and bruises that now littered her pale skin, there was one in particular that twinged uncomfortably each time she moved her head. The redhead whispered the incantation for the healing charm, sighing in relief as the pain faded, and then looked back over her shoulder at Narcissa. "To be honest, that's not as troubling as some of what I've pulled from the nanny ward on the house. He's been casting. Flagrantly. And a few of the spells, the nanny ward can't make heads or tails of. He cast some sort of mind arts spell on your daughter the day we got back from Diagon Alley, the likes of which I've never seen and can't find in any of my books on the subject."

Narcissa's expression abruptly grew considerably more serious even as she made a pulling motion with her left hand, utilizing the sole piece of wandless magic that she was marginally proficient at to pull Lily back down onto the mattress beside her. "Since when does Harry know anything about the mind arts to begin with?"

"I've been thinking about teaching him occlumency for years because he's in Snape's house but never got around to even broaching the basics with him. In theory, he shouldn't know anything about them."

"In reality, he's casting them on my daughter."

"So now we're on the same page, then." Lily debated trying to sit back up before deciding against it; just because she was used to the sensation of being yanked around and pulled through the air by her paramour's magic didn't mean she was a fan of it. Curling up against Narcissa's side, Lily threw an arm across the taller woman's stomach. "I'd almost be willing to ignore the personality changes; obviously the cognivore put his brain through a blender but apart from that, he's growing up. He's allowed to change and mature. But when I find out that he's casting unknown magic on your daughter, that's where I stop being tolerant. With that said... what are we going to do about it? Should we bring James in? He's around so little that he probably hasn't noticed anything, but-"

Narcissa tugged gently on Lily's hair, making the redhead look up at the older witch. "Looking at the facts, there's only two reasonable explanations for what's happening. One: someone took advantage of Harry's state in the Department of Mysteries and cast the Imperius on him. Or second and even more disturbing: the Death Eaters captured your son at the Ministry and this is a Death Eater who took his place. Why someone would do either, I have no idea, but here we are. You're the brightest witch of your generation, and I'm no slouch with a wand. We don't need your husband to deal with this. The two of us can confront 'Harry' ourselves and deal with things. Stun him, bind him, and interrogate him. Depending on what he says, that's when we'll talk to your husband or our niece."

While it seemed equal parts crude and violent to Lily, it was hard to argue with due to the fact that she couldn't come up with anything better. James had an overnight shift tonight, so he'd be gone. Lucius likewise was out of the picture; he was out of the country at the moment on another business trip, and had taken Draco with him. The twins and Dora could sleep through a giant attack. Letting out a deep sigh, Lily nodded. As much as she didn't want to, she agreed with Narcissa's assessment of the situation and therefore this had to be done. "All right. Go home tonight and come back at half four in the morning. Whenever Altaira's not here to sleep on him, he goes for a run at five. We can lay in wait for him and nab him on his way out the door." Narcissa thought about that for a few seconds before nodding her assent, and then Lily gave voice to the nagging worry in the back of her mind. "And if we're wrong and it really is Harry? Not that it looks very likely, mind you, but I'm just saying… what if? Because we should probably have a contingency plan ready just in case, or he's going to tell James and things are going to get really awkward really fast."

"…I'm not too bad at obliviation?"