14 September 1986—Gringotts Bank Albion

"First thing first—we need a dead body." Those were Skullpiercer's opening words to Rita, Pandora, and Xeno after they had gathered in the Gringotts conference room early the next day.

It had taken an hour for Skullpiercer to reply to Pandora's patronus, but when he did, things moved quickly. A team of healers were rushed to the Lovegood house to treat both Harry's and Gilly's most immediate injuries. Harry was placed into a coma so they could transport him to Gringotts without causing pain, and then kept in that coma while they worked to correct five years worth of damage to his body. It would be a long process, they assured Rita, who accompanied Harry, wary to leave his side even for a moment.

Gilly, meanwhile, was treated for magical exhaustion and told to rest—much to his consternation. The goblins had plans in place to help the remaining Potter elves recover from their magical depletion until Harry himself was strong enough to use his family magic to restore them.

Early in the morning on the next day, Pandora and Xeno left Luna in the care of Pipi and one of the younger goblin healers, Gruigs, and headed to Gringotts. When they reached Skullpiercer's conference room, Rita was already there, all three eager to learn…

"What?!" the trio cried at once.

"Let me back up," Skullpiercer added with a toothy grin that was halfway between a smirk and a difficult poo face. "Last night, right after you contacted me, my biggest worry—and yours, no doubt—was that the Dursleys would wake up this morning, discover Harry was gone, and spread this information to our common enemies. To this end, I sent a team into their home—do not ask how we were able to get in—and altered the memories of the three Dursleys so that they would believe Harry was staying at a friend's house for the next few days. That story won't last long, so we need to move quickly."

"So you already have a plan in place?" Pandora asked.

"I've had several plans in place since our meeting a few days ago, but I was hoping to bring a few others into the fold before we went over our options and decided on a way forward. However, the Potter elf's actions last night have changed things. Yes, I would have preferred to remove Harry at a time of our choosing, but Gilly has forced our hand. Now, as I see it, we have only one way forward."

"We can't blame Gilly, though," Rita began to say but was quickly interrupted by the goblin.

"And I don't, actually. He was doing what all of us were wishing to do—to spare Harry any further harm and get him badly needed help. His timing wasn't the greatest, but his actions were noble and should be commended. As well, since he's a Potter elf, his magic is tied to Harry's, meaning the blood ward was a non-issue. I'm guessing that's why you invited him to your house last night in the first place."

"It was Luna's idea, actually," Rita added, smiling. "She told me the Potter elves would keep Harry safe."

"And they have indeed. Now, for my plan. The first part is simple: heal Harry. The boy, as you know, is with our healers, and he will be there for a while. As expected, his injuries were extensive, and magic, while powerful, can only heal so quickly. So we will not wake him until he has recovered both physically and magically. We are repairing his physical injuries now, and when those are healed, we will move on to check for any blocks, compulsions, and curses that I'm almost certain have been placed upon him. That includes the curse that Ms Skeeter spotted in his Sól rune scar. The process to remove all those things is quite painful, so we will not revive him until he is fully healed and free of any outside influences. My healers are estimating that this might take three, possibly four weeks.

"Now, he will be a very frightened boy when he wakes up. He has no idea who any of us are, and I'm sure seeing us goblins will terrify a boy who has no knowledge of the magical world. To that end, I would suggest Miss Luna be there when we revive him. I think her calming presence will help ease the boy into our world in the gentlest way possible."

Pandora and Xeno smile. "That sounds perfect," Pandora said, "and she'll be thrilled."

"Good. In the meantime, we need to deal with the consequences of last night. We could simply leave his disappearance from the Dursleys as a mystery, but doing that will put all of Dumbledore's attention on Harry, and if word gets out that the Boy-Who-Lived is missing, the whole world will be searching for him. If that's the case, the chances of someone tracing Harry back to us are high.

"That's why, as I said before, we need a dead body—or, more specifically, a lifeless golem body that will resemble Harry in every way, right down to the scars and bruises and broken bones. I cannot give you all the details, as it is a Gringotts secret, but our enchanters can create an identical copy of Harry's body that will remain intact in stasis and will decay naturally when out of stasis. We can even add in additional injuries inflicted on the body that would point directly to Vernon Dursley as the cause of his death."

"You can do that?" Xeno asked, alarmed at the power these goblins can wield.

"We already have."

"That's amazing," Rita said, "but what happens when the Dursleys discover the body? They'll panic and hide it, right? They'll bury it in the woods somewhere so no one finds out."

Skullpiercer nodded. "And that's exactly what we want them to do."

"What!?" all three cried at once.

"What about punishing the Dursleys? What about punishing Dumbledore?" Pandora cried, her hands balled into fists. "Are we letting them all get away scot free?"

"For a time, yes. But!…" He held up his hands to quieten their outcry. "But not forever. Remember, we have a sick boy here at Gringotts. His safety and security are our first priority—remember?"

Rita and Pandora nodded.

"As soon as the world finds out about the death of Harry Potter, an investigation will begin, and one thing the aurors will do when they begin to investigate is search for magical signatures in and around the Durseley's home. And what will they find there?"

Rita face went white, for she figured it out at once. "They'll find me, the wards I put up, the monitoring spells I created, all of it. I'll be a suspect."

"Oh my god," Pandora said. "What kind of Ravenclaw am I? I never thought of that."

Skullpiercer frowned. "Magical signatures decay over time, however, so if we allow the Dursleys to get away with it for now, if we allow Dumbledore to believe that his wards are holding and Harry is secure, then we can bide our time until those traces disappear, until Harry is fully healed, and until we can create a new identity and a new life for the young boy.

"And that leads me to the Tonks." A knock sounded from the door. "Ah, right on time. Come in!"

Andromeda Tonks née Black and Ted Tonks entered the room wearing simple, customary black robes. Andromeda looked at the group gathered together and smiled wide when she saw Pandora. "Panny!" she cried, reaching down to hug her friend.

"So good to see you, Andi," Pandora replied. Andi then eyed both Xeno and Rita and gave short, polite but sincere nods to both of them and proceeded to sit down on the opposite end of the table from Rita. Ted, meanwhile, gladly shook hands with all four of them, reserving his heartiest handshake for Skullpiercer himself.

"Thank you for coming on such short notice, Mr and Mrs Tonks."

"It's our pleasure," Ted replied pleasantly. "Now, I gather there's been some development regarding Harry Potter?"

It took about an hour to relay to the Tonks the entire chain of events that led to this meeting. When the tale was finished, Ted and Andi looked at one another and held a silent conversation.

After a nod from Ted, Andi spoke for the two of them. "We are as angry at the Dursleys and Dumbledore as the rest of you, but right now we only care about Harry. The Blacks have been nearly annihilated from existence over the past decade. The older generation is all dead, as is Regulus. Sirius and Bella are in Azkaban. What's left? Me, a disowned daughter, my own daughter Nymphadora who is just as disowned as I am, my bitch sister Cissa Malfoy and her spawn Draco, and Harry—the future Lord Black. So thank you thank you thank you Pandora, Xeno, and…Rita for finding the poor boy and for rescuing him, no matter how it happend. It means everything."

The three returned the gratitude, and then Skullpiercer continued. "Now we have to decide what should happen to Harry once he has recovered from his injuries. Ted?"

"All right," Ted said with the ease of a man used to talking about difficult topics. "We need to keep Harry safe until he is of age. On the one hand, that means finding him a new, loving family, and on the other, that means making sure that family is far away from Dumbledore's prying eyes."

"That's why it can't be Ted and I," Andi said, sadly. "We'd love to take him in. He's family, after all. But if we suddenly show up with a Barry Black who looks an awful lot like a certain Harry Potter, then we're not fooling anyone. Plus, while I'm officially not part of the Black family any more, Cissa is, so even if we keep Harry's real identity a secret, she'll push hard to adopt a member of the Black family, and she'll probably succeed. Granted, that takes care of Dumbledore's influence, but then he's growing up surrounded by Death Eaters, which is worse."

"Mostly," Rita muttered to herself.

"And as far as I know," Ted continued, "Harry has no other living family on either his mother's or father's sides—save for the Dursleys, of course."

Skullpiercer said, "There are no other Potters. There are distant relations on Lily's side, but all of them are muggles, which would not be ideal given the strange reactions Harry seems to elicit from muggles. So the short answer is, no."

"We could look for another magical family here in Britain," Pandora speculated, "one not readily aligned with either Dumbledore or the Death Eaters. Or we could find a family outside the UK—perhaps in France or Germany or America—who would be willing to take him in. That would get him far away from all the chaos here and could even keep him away from Dumbledore permanently if he attends Beauxbatons or Seirína or Ilvermorny. I know Xeno and Rita have plenty of contacts all over Europe, and Rita worked in the US for a spell, I believe."

Not a bad idea. Plus—"We do have some time until Harry is healed," Rita said. "We could all make some enquiries and…"

"But what about you three?" Andi says, talking over Rita. "You all seem to care deeply for the boy, and we know what good parents you have all been to Luna. Could you see yourselves taking him in, even adopting him?"

"And by adopt, I'm thinking blood adoption," Ted said. "That would change his appearance and give whatever cover story we come up with some legitimacy. That way we ensure he is as safe from outside interference as we can possibly make him."

Rita looked at Xeno and Pandora. Everything with Harry's rescue had happened so quickly that the three had not had any time to process it, much less contemplate where Harry would go after he was healed. But why does my heart feel so full when I think of being his mum?

"I don't think we can answer you right now about adopting Harry," Rita said, and Xeno and Pandora nodded. "We need to talk about it privately first. But one question: won't blood adoption invalidate his inheritance, if he's no longer a Potter or a Black?" Rita asked.

"Unless his entire identity changes and the Potter name is removed by Lady Magic herself," Skullpiercer said, "Harry's inheritance will not change even if he gains one, two, or even three additional parents. Even if his name is changed to Perry Lovegood or Ajax Skeeter or Hero Costaros, he'll still be Heir Potter and Heir Black—but no one outside this room will know that until Harry is of age and can take the titles for himself. At that point, Harry will be able to decide for himself who he wants to be, and if he chooses to return to his original name, then that would be his choice."

"But any inheritance information or blood adoption documentation would be housed in Gringotts," Ted chimed in. "The Ministry can't access this information without causing another war. Now, I have connections in the Ministry that will help me create a new identity for him, complete with a reasonable backstory, so that when the fake Harry Potter body is found and Harry is pronounced dead, there will already be a Perry Lovegood or whatever his name will be happily living his life, and no one will think any different."

"That's why," Andi added, "the more we can change his name and his appearance, the easier it'll be to keep him safe."

Xeno laughed. "Hell, if we really want to transform him into someone Dumbledore will never notice, we should just transform him into a girl. Call her Leda, say she was born in Greece to one of Rita's relatives, was orphaned and abandoned until Rita, in all her generosity, took her in and adopted her with the help of her loving friends the Lovegoods."

Xeno continued to giggle until he noticed the rest were silent and looking at Rita, whose hands were shaking, whose breath was hitching, and whose eyes were as wide as saucers and boring down on him.

"H-h-how did you know about Leda?" she asked.

"Wait, what?! What do you mean?" Xeno asked, utterly baffled.

Rita took a deep breath and then another. What does this mean? Then she said, "My cousin Elpi Costaros died a year ago in Athens. Her only child was a beautiful little girl who was born around the same time as Harry. The girl was living with her grandmother, my great-aunt, but about a month ago she was hit by a muggle car outside the magical district and died. Her name was Leda. I was supposed to go to her funeral, but I couldn't get away. It tore me up inside not to be able to say goodbye to such a sweet girl."

Everyone was stunned, even Skullpiercer. No one said anything as they processed whether that was a coincidence or not.

It was Ted who finally crawled out from under the shock to say, "You know, it's not the worst idea."

Pandora looked puzzled. "What? Make Harry a girl? A Greek girl who probably doesn't speak English?"

"I didn't say it was the best idea. I said it's not the worst."

"Is that even possible?" Andi asked.

Skullpiercer said, "To change Harry's sex? Absolutely. Will we do it? Absolutely not—not when he's a child, not without his blessing, and not without the consent of our mind healers."

Suddenly, the door opened and Healer Gruigs appeared, followed by Luna. "Apologies, sir," Gruigs said, "but Miss Luna insisted on coming. She said this couldn't wait."

Luna skipped over to her mother and father, who wrapped her up in a hug. The girl, however, kept her glazed eyes fixed on Rita.

"What is it, sweetie?" Rita asked.

"Hari is a girl," Luna declared. "She's always been a girl, but Lady Magic changed her, and now she's going to chang her back. Lady Magic protects her own."

Luna then smiled and looked around at all the adults as if seeing them for the first time. Unperturbed, she turned to Skullpiercer and asked, "Do you have any juice?"