A/N 1: This is the second chapter in this story. It will likely take me around a month to re-write chapter three. I hope that you are enjoying the changes that I have made in this story, please leave me a review with your thoughts.

A/N 2: please be aware that despite re-writing this story, there has been no editing or beta'ing and so there may be errors that I will be unlikely to pick up on for another year 😊 If you spot any of such problems, let me know and I will see to correcting these problems.

Chapter Two: Wizarding Saviour

Only thirty minutes after tragedy struck the Potter family, an unusually tall man with long curly, brown hair and beard, arrived on the grounds of what was once a homely cottage. Following the sound of crying, the man carefully moved through the destroyed house and over the bodies of James and Lily Potter until he came to Haydon.

Carefully, he picked up the baby into his large, shovel sized hands, and by consequence he also picked up the bag Lily had placed by her son. Not wanting the crying infant to grow cold, the man wrapped them both in the blanket that had been lying in the crib.

The stranger had just stepped outside the cottage when his attention was drawn to a rumble drawing closer from above. The rumble signalled the approach of a triumph motorcycle, which landed harshly on the ground.

Sat straddling the bike was a young man of equal age to the couple who now lay dead. He had perfectly styled shoulder length black hair, framing his face tanned. Arched eyebrows and forward curled fringes framed grey eyes. High cheek bones and a strong square jaw indicated that this young man was of aristocratic and well-bread stock. His clothing however, was rough and ragged – torn jeans, a band T and leather jacket.

The new man's eyes had been clouded with grief and pain when he landed his bike on the front lawn, until he sported the bundle whimpering in the first man's arms, and that broken grief was replaced by hope.

Hastily the man climbed from his bike. "Hagrid!" he called in a soft baritone that had a silken quality to it. "James," he whispered with a cracked voice when he saw the dead body of his best friend – his brother – lying in the hallway to the cottage.

"Sirius," Hagrid greeted in turn, his eyes shadowed in sadness.

"What are you doing here?" Sirius demanded to know.

As godfather he spent so much time at the cottage that he knew for a fact that Hagrid had never visited this home; if the wards were still active, Hagrid would not have been able to step foot on the property. The fact that Hagrid had beat him to the house was suspicious – he had been on the way to the cottage when he felt the bond that he shared with Haydon flare, and the only reason he hadn't apparated to the property was because he didn't want to leave a magical trail for the Death Eater's tailing him to follow. A decision he was regretting already. With the wards falling, and Hagrid's presence, Sirius should have been greeted by a Auror and Hit-Wizard response team – not by a half giant game keeper who wasn't allowed to carry a wand, no matter how much he like Hagrid, this situation was wrong.

"Why do you have, Harry?"

Haydon's whimpering quietened at the sound of Sirius' voice, his body squirming as he tried to twist and look for his Uncle Padfoot.

"Dumbledore sent me when he was alerted to James and Lily's death," Hagrid explained sadly. "I'm to take Harry to a safe place, where Dumbledore is waiting for him."

"I'll take him there," Sirius said at once, his hands itching to reach out and take his godson. "I need to talk to Dumbledore; I'm Harry's godfather, and James and Lily assigned me custody should anything happen to them." he chocked on the names of his friends, but marched on.

"I'm sorry, Sirius." Hagrid sifted Haydon closer to his body in a protective gesture. "But I have been told not to tell anyone where I'm taking him. It's safer that way." Hagrid finished apologetically.

Sirius stared at Hagrid assessing – turning the full weight of his gaze on the friendly half-giant in a way that he had never done before. When he had first met Hagrid at Hogwarts, he hadn't even considered mistrusting him – not even Dumbledore had gone without mistrust at first. But his actions this night, arriving alone before any response team, was causing suspicion to wiggle at the back of his mind. Despite his doubt, there was one thing Sirius still knew for certain – Hagrid would not allow harm to Haydon.

Reaching out a trembling hand, Sirius gentle stocked Haydon's head, calming the whimpering and wrestles baby. Arguing, and fighting, with Hagrid would endanger Haydon since the other man wouldn't willing handle the baby over since he was following the orders of his idol: Albus Dumbledore. No matter where Hagrid took Haydon – be that Hogwarts or the homes of one of the Orders – Sirius would be able to track him down using the godfather bond that claimed Haydon as his own, and take custody of him. In the meantime, he had something he needed to do - a threat that needed to be taken care off.

"Take my bike," Sirius decided.

He would be hunting a wizard who would try Apparating away and his bike would just get in the way. Haydon was too young to safely Apparate or Portkey outside of an emergency, and the Floo would still be down in the house if this attack had been like others which had happened since the war started. Which meant, the safest way for Hagrid to get to his destination with Haydon, would be by his bike. A secondary effect of taking his bike meant that Haydon would likely end up lulled to sleep as he had always been when Sirius took him for a flight.

"Be careful Hagrid, don't stop until you reach your destination. Tell Dumbledore that I'll be at Hogwarts by nightfall tomorrow. For now, I have a traitor to track down." Sirius said grimly.

"That be a relief. I was supposed to use the pubs' Floo but I don't know where that be." Hagrid admitted, following Sirius to the bike.

After a quick run through, to remind Hagrid how to fly the bike as he had taught the man many months before, Sirius reminded Hagrid to keep the invisibility and notice me not setting on – they didn't need to add a secrecy breach to the list of things that had gone wrong.

"I'll look after him, Sirius." Hagrid promised moments before he kicked the stand closed and took off.

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Despite the notoriety of the Potter family, the Aurors and Hit-Wizards never arrived on scene to investigate – simple taking the words of Albus Dumbledore as gospel. It wouldn't be until the hype of Voldemort's death died down that they would think to send anyone to the cottage, and in the meantime, the non-magical residence of Godric Hallows had acted.

Godric Hallows had formed around the home of Dentrik Gryffindor, the knight who had fathered Godric Gryffindor. When Dentrik had been alive, the village had consisted only of the Cottage home and several farming homes. But when Godric became the master of the house, he was a young teen who had only met Salazar Slytherin at that point in his life. Within five years, he had become a renowned knight and begun the construction of Hogwarts alongside his fellow founder. With the promise of protection that Godric's name brought, families moved to live near his home and so the village formed.

The origin of the village had been mostly lost and forgotten over time, beyond the knowledge that the cottage was the second centre of the village – the old building around which everything else had been built. Those who brought homes in the village also knew that the land they lived on, the land their farmers tended, still belonged to the family who owned that Cottage – the family of lions.

So it was, when the village woke on the dawn of November to discover that first home destroyed and the parents within dead. They hadn't even known that the cottage was currently occupied, but as they moved through the cottage, they were horrified to discover that a child was missing – the child of their villages founding family.

The church, the second centre of the village and the second oldest building, took custody of the parent's bodies while the villages came together to restore the cottage to its understated glory – as it had always been. They cleared the rubble of fallen brick and tile, they removed the burnt-out sections of the back walls, and the specialist masonry of the town directed the rebuilding of what had been destroyed so that the damage could not be easily identifiable. As the outer work was being done, another team of villages was going through the house – putting into boxes everything they came across, including carefully wrapped photo-graphs which informed them the nursery had not been empty at the time of this tragedy.

They did all of this, because the people of the village had faith that the little boy in the photograph was alive, and that he would return to them one day. And when that day came, he would not return to a destroyed cottage and rotted memento's, he would return to a home and carefully stored and preserved memories. This was a village that had always, and would always, remember who it was they owed their safety to and the safety of their forefathers, and they would honour that.

By the time the Ministry of Magic pulled itself together, the cottage looked untouched from the tragedy that had struck it and the bodies of Lily and James Potter had been interred in the graveyard – alongside many generations of James Potter's family. The Minister of Magic, attempting to placate the public, decided to turn the Potter Cottage into a memorial and ordered the building to be sealed and preserved in its current form before the Goblin's could move in and seal the cottage against anyone not of Potter blood.

The goblins managed to move in time to take what the villages had boxed up and move it to a Contingency Bank Vault that Lord Charlus Fleamont Potter had put into place before his death. Charlus had lived through two non-magical wars and he had been one of Five Lords who had stood against Grindelwald to keep the European out of their country. So, when he saw signs of a new war starting, he had put into place protections for his family's future – Potters were always targets because they always stood between the dark and innocents. With his brother dead, and only one son, Charlus' knew that his families future relied on James Potter surviving and his future children living to adulthood. So, in the event that his son died fighting – as Charlus knew well that his son would do upon graduating Hogwarts – he had put in place insurances for future minors of his house.

The Contingency Bank Vault to store the possession of a house before the goblins sealed the house and a Trust vault for that minor to use for any financial reasons would default to their control upon the death of their parents – no matter their age or guardian position. Charlus had also assigned the goblins autonomy to act to ensure that all Potter properties and investments did not suffer or languish without an of-age member of the house. It also ensured that theft could not occur of unmonitored Potter vaults.

When the Cottage was sealed by the ministry, the goblins were furious, but there was nothing they could do to get back what had been stolen from them or the Potter family. Although Lord Charlus had given them autonomy to guard the Potter possessions it did not give them authority to act outside of the boarders of their bank. With James Potter dead, and Sirius Black or Alice Longbottom not taking authority of Haydon Potter and therefore regency of the house, there was nothing they could do except file a complain against the Ministry – a complaint which would be completely ignored.

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It was approaching mid-night of the fourth of November when the peaceful quite of a little street in Surry, Privet Drive, was broken by the appearance of an old man on the street corner. The street was dark, only street lamps lighting the footpath that lined the road; not a single light was on in the houses, for all the residences of the street was asleep.

Besides the old man, only a tabby car remained awake at such an hour – sat stiffly on a low guardian wall as she had been doing all day. The tabby cat had been sat, watching and waiting until now. as the old man strode down the road, taking out street lights as he went, the tail of the tabby cat swished and its eyes narrowed in focus.

Nothing like this old man had been seen on Privet Drive before. He was tall, thin and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard which were both long enough to be tucked neatly into his belt. His blue eyes were light, bright and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles. His nose was long, crooked at the end and the bridge as though someone had broken it twice. But it was not just his age or physical characteristics that set this man apart, it was unusual wardrobe. He was wearing long robes, a purple cloak which swept the ground and high healed buckled boots.

This man was Albus Dumbledore and he was here to place an orphaned child with the guardian's that he had picked out, disregarding all wishes and wills of the parents. The monster who had started the war was dead, but those who would hunt the child down for revenge was still out their and he needed to protect the child until he was old enough to return to the world of magic.

Between meetings with the ministry and his other duties that he had to attend, Dumbledore had been coming to this quite little street and setting up protection wards and it was finally time to activate those wards and place young Haydon somewhere where he could not be found or targeted by anyone.

He had discovered the blood wards that Lily Potter had created around her son, and he fixed those wards to the residence of 4 Privet Drive were Lily's blood sister lived. Around the blood wards, Dumbledore had also added monitoring wards so that he would know if Haydon was endangered by outside influences; another that was keyed to the Dark Mark to ensure that no one bearing the link to Voldemort would be able to get within five miles of the residence, and finally a keyed noticed-me-note ward which would prevent any non-magicals not aware of magic from noticing the magical outburst that were inevitable.

All the wards he had set up were tied to a device back in his office which would make a noise if one of his alerts were triggered or had fallen. The only thing he had yet to do was anchor the wards to young Haydon's magical signature to ensure that they would remain standing as long as he called the residence his home.

But, before Hagrid arrived with Haydon, he had a stern and unbending Deputy to convince that this was the best cause of action. He'd already gotten the ministry to assign him magical guardianship of the young hero, but his old student wasn't as easily convinced.

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Petunia Dursley, daughter of Jasmine Rose Evens and Harold John Evens; older sister of Lily Evens. She had wanted to be a ballerina but had been forced to settle with community college because her parents couldn't afford to send her to an arts school. From community college, Petunia went to university and studied accounting and business which was where she met her future husband Vernon Dursley who had been a business major playing on the university's rugby team in his spare time. Petunia had ended up tutoring Vernon during their first year in university, and by the time they graduated three years later, they were engaged to be married.

Vernon Frank Dursley went from university to a position in Grunning's Drilling company, where he worked his way up. He felt he needed to move up the company quickly because Petunia had discovered she was pregnant three weeks before their graduation, which led to them getting hastily married before she started to show.

On April 13th, 1977 Petunia gave birth to her first and only child: Dudley Vernon Dursley. Petunia had wanted to use a flowers name, but none of the suggests she had given sat right with her husband who felt that he should have a 'good, strong name'. In the end, they compromised since Dudley stemmed from 'Dudda's Meadow'.

Petunia had long since been jealous of her younger sister, who she felt got everything – the looks, the privet school, magic and their parent's attention. Being married to a successful business man and having a son made Petunia feel better than her sister – she even reached out and established contact for the first time as Lily graduated from her 'freak school'. Only to discover that Lily was dating a rich kid from old money. Their newly re-established relationship deteriorated rapidly not long after her sister's wedding in 1978.

So, waking up on the fifth of November, 1981, Petunia was shocked to discover a baby left on her doorstep with nothing but a blanket, a bag with a weeks' worth of diapers and some clothes, and a letter.

The letter explained how her sister and her husband had been murdered, leaving their son orphaned. The baby was being left with her because of some protection or something that had been put around her home without her permission. The boy needed to stay with her family, under her roof, until it turned seventeen. There was a promise in the letter stating that no freak would interfere or interact with their lives until the boy was eleven and received his letter to that freak school.

But that promise meant nothing when she would be forced to keep the freak under her roof, with her son, for the next near two decades. Despite her hatred for the idea, the protection stated in the letter would keep her family safe from other freaks – her parents had already been murdered by them, she wouldn't let her son be taken as well.

Vernon hadn't been happy with the idea, but he understood the benefits of keeping the child, if it meant his wife and son were kept safe.

Old word count: 4,051

New word count: 3,082