Hello everyone!

I'm back with another story. I'm been toying over in for a long time and I've finally decided to write it.

The updates may be very irregular, so please bear with me and do keep the reviews constructive.

And, I don't own Harry Potter. J K Rowling does.


CHAPTER 1

The Introduction

Lily Potter's eyes were red from crying, but her lips wore a lovely smile as she folded up the heavily charmed, long piece of parchment and put it in a nearby envelope along with three photographs carrying the same charms as the page. It was a prompt decision that she made.

It wouldn't most probably be needed and in the coming years she would probably laugh at her paranoia, but Lily wasn't taking any chances. There was a possibility that she would die and she knew that she would before she let Voldemort anywhere near her children.

Her most beloved children - a set of triplets, Ethan the eldest, followed by Blaire and then Harry - were born on the thirty first of July. Lily used to spend hours together watching, with amazement, their unity, how they constantly looked after each other in their own baby ways. Lily could only hope that this continued.

Both boys had red curly hair, while Blaire's was jet black, but she had Lily's eyes just like Harry. Ethan had James's hazel ones.

Just a week ago, Lily had never been more upset in her life. The day Albus Dumbledore arrived with the news that Voldemort was after her boys, was probably the worst day of her life and she was sure there were more terrible days lurking around the corner.

True they had been living under the Fidelius ever since her triplets were born, but neither Lily nor James had any idea why Dumbledore asked them to do so. They were made aware of the reason only once the babies turned one.

Lily and James named Remus Lupin as Ethan's godfather, Sirius Black as Harry's and Severus Snape as Blaire's, and though James was not in favour of Snape being his daughter's godfather, he said nothing. Lily knew that Severus had joined the Death Eaters but was in reality working as a spy for Dumbledore. She knew that Remus was working undercover amongst the werewolves. That left only Sirius, which is why James and Lily chose Sirius to be Ethan's, Blaire's and Harry's guardian should something happen to them.

It was the previous day that Lily came up with this particular idea - writing a letter to their children that would reach them in case she and James died. The letter was charmed to remain hidden until they turned eleven and would appear to them at six o'clock in the evening of their eleventh birthday. Lily had also placed three copies of a photograph in the envelope, so that each of them would have one to keep with them.

The picture was of James and Lily sitting close to each other with their eleven month old babies in their laps, all wrapped in a warm hug. Everyone was happy. With one final look at the now sealed envelope, she charmed it too and then, it disappeared into thin air.

The days went on and somewhere towards the end of October, an agitated Sirius switched Secret Keepers to Peter Pettigrew without the knowledge of anyone outside.

As Voldemort came forth to the nursery after killing James, Lily knew what she had to do. She died, bearing in mind and soul that she was dying for her three children and so, when Voldemort turned and sought out Harry Potter from the three innocent defenseless babes and commanded his wand to send out his most favoured curse, it rebounded on him, leaving Harry with nothing but a mark, a cursed scar and the Potter triplets, a fame that would go down in history.

Rubeus Hagrid didn't allow Sirius to take the three living Potters, but reassured him that they would be in safe hands and he wrapped them together in a bundle of blankets and placed them in a basket and took them on the motorcycle that Sirius gave him and sped off to meet Dumbledore in Surrey, where after a a brief argument with Minerva McGonagall, Dumbledore left the three babies at the Dursleys' doorstep with his own letter, explaining the circumstances.

Would the Dursleys accept those three was a question.

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Petunia Dursley woke up the next morning with a soft smile on her ugly face. Nothing could ruin her perfect life or so she thought as she set about her morning duties. Knowing it was a bit early, but eagerly wanting to reprimand the milkman for being late, she moved towards her front door deciding to wait outside for her bottle of milk. Her voice was one thing she adored about herself and using it to lash out at someone, rightfully deserving it or (usually) not, was her favourite timepass...Apart from gossiping, of course.

Humming happily to herself, she opened the door and got the shock of her life. There, sleeping in a rather large basket, were three babies!

What could a woman like her do?... She screamed.

It was this piercing, exaggerated scream that woke up Vernon Dursley along with their baby, Dudley, the whole neighbourhood and the three orphans at the doorstep.

The sleepy-eyed neighbours began opening their bedroom windows to poke their long noses out to try and get a sniff of the scent of new gossip, but Petunia Dursley collected herself just enough to realize the complications of this gossip. She quickly lifted up the rather heavy basket and hurried inside with it, kicking her front door shut as quietly as possible.

It was then that she realized that her dearest treasure, her Duddy Dumpling was crying for her attention.

Her husband came running down at that moment his arms full off their wailing son.

"What wrong, Petunia dear?" he asked and then his eyes fell on the three babies that would change his perfect life forever.

His son's crying set Ethan, Blaire and Harry off and the chaos began giving Petunia a headache.

"Oh Vernon!" she moaned as she took her 'little' baby from him. "I found these three on our doorstep!"

"Whose are they?" he yelled over the four crying children.

"I do not know. I brought them in because the neighbours would see and had that happened,' she shuddered, 'the scandal would be unbearable!"

Vernon said angrily, "The gall of it all. Who did this?"

"I wouldn't know, Vernon." Petunia said in distress as she turned to look at them again.

Then her sharp eyes caught something tucked away in the corner of the basket. On a closer look, she recognized it to be an envelope.

She passed her still bawling baby back to his father and retrieved the envelope and ripped open the fold, pulling out, with two long finger nails, a thick, neatly folded piece of paper. The wretched, miserable excuse of a letter informed her that her sister and that dratted Potter were dead, that the three waifs were their children and that they were to be well cared for.

The letter also told them that Lily had died saving her children resulting in one of the boys from saving their world from a crisis and he and his siblings had earned a huge sum of money that would be delivered in parts to them in cash every month for their upbringing.

Looking into the envelope again, Petunia found a folded wad of pounds that was enough to sensibly raise three children.

The letter also spoke of a magic, set off by Lily, giving her family a strong protection for the next sixteen years only if she accepted the three children into her home. Once the brats began to attend that freaky school, they would have to return just once a year to keep the protection in place.

By this time all four babies had calmed down. She relayed the contents of the letter to Vernon, whose small eyes glinted greedily.

He cleared his throat and said in a conspiratorial voice, "I don't think we should use this money on these brats. They will be nothing but trouble and this house isn't an orphanage.

"Once they learn how to walk and understand, they'll have to work for us in return for our generosity and for the perfect life that we're sacrificing. We can use the extra money on Dudley. Our little man needs all the help he can get! These three aren't worth the trouble, and besides, we will need the money...It isn't so easy to feed and bathe three children without a considerable number of backaches."

Petunia loved agreeing with her husband's 'brilliant' ideas. She liked this one, but she found a flaw.

"Vernon dear, what's going to happen when they become eleven? I mean, I don't want them going to that wreched school."

Vernon smirked and said, "Not to worry, dear. We're going to simply have to suppress that abnormal ability of theirs...How difficult will it be to keep them as miserable as possible?"

"Not too difficult, but will it work?"

"Oh, yes! That'll do the trick. Just wait and see. Besides, we don't even want them here, they wouldn't dare to complain."

There was silence as Petunia thought over it. She heard the milkman arriving with the milk and she sighed. No matter, she would have many more chances to lash her tongue now that she had three little urchins under her roof.

She looked up at her husband and gave him a sickeningly sweet smile, "Wonderful, Vernon. Now we just need to figure out where to put them."

"In Dudley's room?"

"Definitely not! I don't want them contaminating my little angel!"

Vernon passed Dudley back to Petunia, rubbed his hands and lifted the basket none too gently. "I'll figure that out dear, don't worry. Let's just feed Dudley for now, and stuff them up with some mush and that's it."

To Petunia's relief, the three babies ate without any fuss. She gave each of them a quick wash and plopped them back into their basket.

That afternoon, Vernon came home with a couple of carpenters who measured the distance between the stairs and the ground and, before nightfall, had a cheap cupboard made, large enough to fit three children in until they became eleven. Then, when they outgrew it, they would have to sleep on a mat in the kitchen. And that was that.

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Ten years passed and Ethan, Blaire and Harry grew in the cruelest of environments at Privet Drive, wearing Dudley's old clothes, locked away in that dark, small cupboard, or at least, that was what the Dursley's thought. However, the children of Lily and James had to inherit at least one of their parents brains if not both.

It was when they were eight, that a frustrated Harry made a bright ball of white light appear. The light ball floated on the roof of their cupboard lighting up every corner of the small space. The Dursley's would have gotten wild had they seen this, 'abnormality' as they called it, so the children wisely kept this away from them.

On that same day, Ethan realised that they could touch this ball with their bare hands without getting burnt. They also learnt that the minute the ball was covered with even the flimsiest bit of cloth, it would stop giving light, plunging the cupboard in darkness. When it was taken out of it's confinement, it would fill the cupboard with light again.

Therefore, every night hence before they went to sleep or whenever they heard approaching footsteps, they would push this ball into an old bag .

The ball helped Blaire read the books that she used to 'borrow' from Dudley's large, unused library. It also helped her darn and patch their clothes up whenever necessary using the thread and needle that Mrs. Figg, their neighbour gave her.

With that light, Ethan was able to develop his skills in drawing and painting with the old paper and paints and crayons that Dudley didn't require (he never painted, so Ethan had them for himself so long as the Dursleys remained unaware). Once the Dursleys realised Ethan liked art, they'd ban him from doing so. They loved keeping the triplets as unhappy as possible.

Harry loved tinkering with things. And apart from the many things he had been able to do, he made a sort of a fan that ran with a very rough but brilliant mechanism similar to that of a hand centrifuge machine. One of them had to turn the handle around in order to get it to work. That helped keep them cool down during the sweltering hot days.

The fan couldn't be seen by any of the Dursleys, or anyone else for that matter, when they visited their cupboard. The three knew that Ethan had something to do with it, but the poor boy had no idea what he'd done. Then once, they were a little slow in hiding the ball before Uncle Vernon banged open their cupboard. But he couldn't see the light and again, Ethan told his siblings that somehow he was responsibe for that.

Ethan, Blaire and Harry didn't know how Harry made that ball of light appear, or how Ethan made the incriminating evidence invisible to the Dursleys, or how, when they were really hungry Blaire made a huge packet of Dudley's most hated whole-wheat biscuits float in through their locked cupboard door, but weird things always happened around all three of them.

Harry had a problem with his right leg causing him to suffer the worst of the bullying from the Dursleys. The muscles of his leg were weak and refused to support him, ever since he could remember. His aunt said it was something to do with him being the runt on the lot. But it was because Harry was the best at cooking among the triplets that his aunt bought him a very cheap leg brace to help him move around.

The support made the skin of Harry's leg very itchy and irritable. And this was why, Harry had to wear it over his large trousers making him a laughing stock. Blaire and Ethan used to feel terrible, but Harry told them not to worry about it. The jeering didn't hurt his feelings anyway. Harry was happy just knowing that he had two someones looking out for him.

Blaire's cooking was the most despicable of the three leading to Aunt Petunia banning her from entering the kitchen. Aunt Petunia hated Blaire's hair and, whenever she felt like it, she'd take a pair of scissors and cut it short with one chop. The next morning, her hair would be back to normal - wavy and long to reach just below her waist.

This occurred so often, that when she returned to the cupboard with irregularly cut hair, Ethan or Harry would casually say, "Oh, she cut it shorter this time."

"I know." Blaire would always reply with a mixture of anxiety and irritation. "How bad is it?"

"Not too bad. Anyway, once it's grown back tomorrow, just stay out of her way."

"I will." Blaire would say and then roll her eyes. "One would think she'd get used to it already."

Then one of the boys would say, "She's too old to change. Don't worry about it."

Ethan, along with Harry, used to be subjected to bullying by Dudley and his gang of idiotic friends. If one thought about it logically, Harry should have suffered the brunt of the bullying, but Ethan, being the older, loyal brother that he was always intervened, causing him to endure the worst of it.

Harry would feel horrible, but no amount of wheedling or begging could get Ethan to stand aside.

On the day they turned eight, Ethan couldn't explain, but he, very unknowingly, let the gang be stung by an 'invisible' bee on their behinds as soon as their started their bullying. This happened everytime hence and, though both boys and, unfortunately, Blaire too were locked in their cupboard as punishment each time, the gang soon learnt to leave the brothers alone.

Once when Ethan wanted to go to the bathroom badly during the middle of his class before their break, he somehow made the school break bell ring.

When Miss Grisly, a teacher at school, once humiliated Blaire, she somehow stuck the seat of the teacher's chair firmly to Miss Grisly's behind for the entire day and nothing that anyone did could get the teacher unstuck. She had to attend the rest of her classes waddling like a duck.

Once when Aunt Petunia tried to force one of Dudley's old sweaters on Harry, he managed to shrink it so that it could only fit a small puppet. He also turned Miss Grisly's wig blue when she tried her luck at humiliating him. And though they still hadn't discovered what was happening the teacher left all of them alone.

The Dursleys hated this bizarreness and whenever Ethan, Blaire or Harry did something weird, they would take great pleasure in locking all three up in their cupboard.

Unlike, Blaire and Harry, Ethan didn't give in to temper. He was the calming agent of their little team. And though he wasn't able to think as fast as his siblings, he loved them both dearly. He loved to picture moments on paper, and since a camera was totally out of question, he used his pencil and paper and mind. Blaire and Harry could never make their sketches half as good as his.

Blaire was a quick thinker, but she was a quicker learner and she loved studying. She lost her temper as quickly as she learnt, but her anger would go away as soon as it came, however the weird happenings around her happened just as quickly.

Harry loved to observe things. His eyes were sharp enough to take in the smallest detail of everything they fell on. He was as humble as Ethan and Blaire, but he had a knack of getting them and himself out of trouble whenever the need arised (usually, he was the one to get them into trouble in the first place). He had a scar on his head that was shaped like lightning and he had an excellent memory that was admired by his brother and sister.

The teachers at their school, except Miss Grisly, of course, praised the three, but the Dursley's hated it. This didn't stop them from outshining everyone in school, in their own special ways - for Blaire, it was studying; for Ethan, painting; and Harry, creating.

Ethan often said that Miss Grisly was most probably Aunt Petunia in disguise. She was tall and angular after all.

It didn't take the triplets long to figure out that there was strength in unity - Harry could never recall any moment in which they fought with one another. It was this bond that helped them overcome many bad times and phobias, be it Ethan's fear of small spaces, or Blaire's fear of the dark, or Harry's fear of loud noises.

Their unity was more enforced by a strange ability to talk to each other through their minds. They decided to call this activity 'Mind chatting' amongst themselves. This was the ability they realised they had when they were nine. Harry's leg brace had given way once when he was returning from a neighbour with a heavy basket of apples for Aunt Petunia.

Harry was stuck on the road on the exact spot where he had fallen and the apples rolled everywhere. It was beginning to get dark and poor boy couldn't move without aid. His desperate thought after a long time of waiting was, "Blaire, Ethan, where are you?"

"Huh, Harry?" two voices said in his head.

Harry tried his luck again, his heart pounding, "Yeah, it's me!"

"What's happening?" asked Ethan.

"How can I hear your voices in my head?" Blaire cried.

"I don't know!" Harry willed his mind to say.

"Are you alright, Harry?" Ethan asked levelheadedly.

"No, I'm not, Ethan. The brace and my leg have both given way. I'm near the alley in Magnolia Crescent. Please hurry!"

"We're on our way, Harry." Blaire said.

From that moment on, Ethan had insisted that they enhance that skill. They realized that they could Mindchat to each other only when they wished to. They couldn't however talk personally to only one person. All three had to be involved for this to happen. This helped them converse when they were supposed to be silent or when they were away from each other.

No one knew how they were able to Mindchat but they didn't dare bring up the topic with their relatives. It probably had something to do with them being triplets but Ethan, Blaire and Harry couldn't find another set of triplets to confirm it.

Dudley and his gang kept all the other children away from them preventing them from making friends. But the three siblings didn't need friends, they had each other. And all in all, the Potter triplets were a rather companionable lot.

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Severus Snape was a gloomy wizard, who was denied almost everything he wanted.

When he wanted to be away from his father, he was denied.

When all he wanted was Lily, he was denied.

When he wanted her to be safe, he was denied.

When he wanted to die after her death, he was denied.

When he wanted the custody of his goddaughter and her brothers, he was denied.

When he wanted to check up on them, he was denied.

When he wanted to have nothing to do with the brats he taught Potions to, he was denied, again.

And now when all he wanted was to read a new edition of a Potions Journal, he was denied... specifically by a loud urgent knocking on the door that led to his office.

Severus let out an irritated sigh and said "Come in!" as he shut his journal with a snap.

Minerva McGonagall entered with three envelopes in her hand, lines of worry on her forehead and her lips, clamped into the thinnest of lines. Something wasn't right, but short tempered Severus didn't want to be worried about it.

"Severus, I need you to do something for me."

"Obviously, Minerva." Severus said slightly annoyed. "You wouldn't have come otherwise."

Minerva sighed and wearly settled down in the chair opposite Severus and got straight to the point.

"Ten years ago, Severus, I asked Dumbledore to place the Potter children in your hands and I'm sure you did the same."

Severus sat up straighter and nodded carefully, not knowing where this conversation was heading to.

"Do you know where they were placed?" Minerva asked him.

"I do not."

"They were left with Lily's sister's family, the Dursleys."

"What!" Severus barked caught flat-footed.

He jumped out of his chair, planted his hands on the desk and looked almost murderously at Minerva.

This certainly wasn't what he had expected.

Petunia, Lily's petty-minded sister, was given the responsibility of raising three of the Wizarding World's most famous children! One of them was his sweet little goddaughter! His sweet little goddaughter and her little red-headed brothers.

Severus was going to strangle Dumbledore.

"Why wasn't I told about this earlier?" he snapped at her.

Minerva didn't flinch at the look Severus gave her, instead, she delicately arched her eye-brow, "Probably no one before me, plucked up the courage to see what your reaction would be?"

Severus wearily sat back in his chair, buried his head in his hands and leaned forward keeping his elbows on the desk, his mind reeling.

Petunia had been blinded by her own jealousy. Severus remembered the times Lily cried after hearing so many of her sister's scathing remarks. She was utterly unbearable then.

Petunia had never been an ideal sister to Lily, and now, Severus doubted she would be an ideal aunt to Ethan, Blaire and Harry Potter. And the stupid overweight oaf she called her husband was definitely not someone who would try and help soothe the sting of the situation.

Probably encourage it or even be the one to decide how to make it hurt more. Severus thought bitterly.

"H-how are they, Minerva?"

"I do not know, Severus." Minerva said gently. "But by the looks of their address, I don't think they doing very well."

Severus looked up sharply, "What do you mean?"

Minerva looked furtively around her and cast a a few wards around the office. This act itself made Severus's sense of dread heighten.

She said, "Before, I go on, I want to make this clear...Dumbledore knows nothing of what's going on at the moment. I will tell him, eventually, but only once I know that it's too late for him to do anything."

"I understand. What's wrong?"

"Take a look at the address on the envelopes, Severus."

She offered all three envelopes to him and he picked up, Ethan's letter, then he looked at Harry's and finally Blaire's. He could believe it, "They sleep in a-"

"-cupboard under the stairs? Yes."

Severus just looked at the addresses on the envelopes for a while and he barely registered Minerva say, "I do not want to inform Albus about this at the moment."

Severus frowned at her. "You said that earlier. But why not? If I were you, I'd have given him a piece of my mind!"

Minerva smiled sadly. "I thought you were a Slytherin."

Severus was beyond irritated. "Why does that have to come into this picture?"

"Dumbledore has obviously kept the triplets there for a reason. I've wheedled it out of him a long ago, probably two months after he left them there. Lily evoked an ancient form of magic when she died putting up an effective shield that protected her children against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

"Dumbledore improvised from there, placing a powerful protection on those three that would last until they turned seventeen. However, that charm could be activated and kept effective if and only if the three Potters shared a home with someone sharing their mother's blood and her sister was the only living person who did.

"If we move the children from that place, they will no longer be protected, and Dumbledore may interfere and probably worsen the situation, but," Minerva paused thoughtfully, "if we see to it that they're happy there, that their relatives don't harm them anymore, if we can find a way in which they can be separated from their relatives yet live under the same roof and probably see to it that our arrangements cannot be reversed, and then unleash our anger on the headmaster-"

"Our?" Severus interrupted her.

"Of course." Minerva said crisply. "I know you want to have a part in this."

Severus's scowl disappeared just as soon as it came when he thought of the cupboard. "Are the Dursley's having trouble with their finances?"

"Oh no. They seemed quite well to do the last time I saw them. And Dumbledore has been giving giving them a substantial amount of money to look after three children -"

"Which they're probably using for their own personal benefits." Severus shouted angrily. He suppressed a shudder as he thought of the three children locked away in a cupboard. "Minerva, what are you waiting for? Let's go."

She frowned at his tone and said, "Patience, Severus. I have a plan."

"And, what might that be?" Severus couldn't help but growl.

"Nothing too complicated, that is for you at least, but we will need Filius's help too. And since July the thirty-first is the day I have no Muggleborns to see too, we will take action on that day."

"Would you care to elaborate, Minerva?"

"Will you cooperate, Severus?"

Severus couldn't say no, could he? Lily died for those triplets and he had already made the mistake of abandoning them. Well it wasn't his fault, but their well being had been his responsibility ever since Black betrayed them and Lupin got cold feet. Severus felt guilt swirling up from his stomach and into his chest.

He huffed and said, "Of course I will."

And he was going to make up for it no matter what.

tbc...