Chapter 18 Explanations

When class was over, Harry hurried up to Miss MacLeod's desk. She looked up at him and smiled "Well if it isn't our young bridegroom."

"Yeah, right..very funny" Harry responded, with a lopsided grin on his face.

With an expression of mocked indignanty on her face "Why Mr. Potter, I would think you would show your teachers more respect" she began to smile again as Harry rolled his eyes. "Why don't we sit over here, I have the distinct feeling this is going to take a while. Would you like any tea?"

After they had gotten their cups of tea Harry and MacLeod sat down on one of the small sofas in her classroom. Harry was trying to think of how to begin, he still had so many questions about what had happened in Hogsmeade.

"Earth to Harry, come in Harry." MacLeod had concerned look on her face. "You know, your mother and I spent a lot of time in this classroom. Almost as much time in class as in detention."

"My mother got detention? I had always heard she was a great student, everyone told me my dad was the troublemaker." Harry seemed surprised.

"She was an excellent student, and the best friend I ever had. We just had a bad habit of getting into trouble when we were together." MacLeod said thoughtfully "She and I used to drive everyone crazy, the teachers, your father, our friends. We had this strange bond from the moment we met. We understood each other completely. We were finishing each others sentences by the end of the first week."

"So you did know my mother, Remus said you two were close." Harry was ecstatic, finally, someone who could really tell him about his mother. "Why did you to get into so much trouble then?"

"Well, after your mother and I realized how much alike we were, we decided to put things to a test. First with your father and his friends. No wait. Actually it was Remus that started that one..."

Harry gave her a quizzical look "Remus?"

"My very first day here as a student, your friend Remus talked me into playing a prank on your father, with Lily's help of course." Cat laughed to herself remembering it "After that, anything went. James didn't exactly appreciate being the first victim. Although he did take full advantage of things later."

"Okay, I'm lost. Advantage of what things?" he was dying with curiosity now, he had never heard of his mother playing pranks on his father.

"Didn't Albus tell you? Lily and I were practically twins, we were even born on the same day, August 21, both Leos" she was smiling broadly now "and your father, being the practical joker that he was, lost no time in using that to his advantage, much to the confusion and dismay of everyone at Hogwarts."

"Is that how you got detention? For playing pranks on Trelawney?"

"No, Madame Trelawney....well lets just say she and I did not see eye to eye on many things. Your mother had been her favourite student before I came, but after we started keeping company....well Trelawney had it in her head that I had 'corrupted' your mother with my heathen ways. I had shown her the way other people used magic and divination and even healing. Apparently some people around here considered that 'forbidden' knowledge. Trelawney and Morano especially."

"Morano, who is that? I don't think I've ever heard of him." Harry said.

"Not him, her. Madame Morano, the former potions teacher. She never thought I should have been allowed into Hogwarts, but that's another story for another day... So tell me Mr. Potter, you said you had some specific questions for me?"

"What else can you tell me about my mother, I mean besides being a good student and her and my dad loving each other?" Harry asked excitedly

"Lily was an amazing person, she could be the sweetest, kindest person you could ever hope to meet, just never get her mad. She had a righteous temper, and protective..... never pick on anyone she cared about. I still remember her knocking Lucius Malfoy out cold when the rotter hit James with a sleeping curse of some sort. Remus, Sirius and Peter were trying to pick up James without getting hit themselves, but Lily had had enough, she walked right up to Malfoy and sucker punched him, right in the jaw, he went down like a sack of potatoes. It was truly classic, your mother was the tower hero for a week." Cat was shaking her head, laughing as she remembered the incident.

"I wish someone would do that to Draco" sighed Harry "He's probably worse than his father."

"For heaven's sake I hope not. Lucius Malfoy was always a cruel manipulative person, I can't believe someone would actually bear him a child. Yuck!" she actually shivered at the thought of it.

Harry was laughing now "That pretty much sums him up. Yuck!"

"But I was wondering." Harry asked "If you and my mother were that close,.....I don't suppose you're my godmother. Are you?"

"Not exactly Harry." she was smiling affectionately "I was forced to leave shortly before the end of my 6th year. I never even got to attend Lily and James' wedding. But I do remember her talking about it, and having a family, she had her whole life planned out. Actually I think she had mine planned out too, she was forever setting me up with one of your father's friends." MacLeod seemed to become depressed suddenly "She had it all set, we would be each other's maid of honour, and live next to each other after we were married." MacLeod's eyes began to fog over. "Do you know your mother was picking out matching wedding gowns for us, poor James, he didn't really understand it at all."

His father's friends,..... Harry wanted to ask her so badly about Sirius, but he had promised Remus he wouldn't, and it already looked like she was ready to cry. So he quickly changed the subject. "What exactly happened at Hogsmeade? I know you said that it had to do with your family and the Sidhe and all, but you never really explained why."

"That's a hard one Harry. My people aren't exactly given to simple explanations. First of all, and this is very important, you have nothing to fear from Mac Lir, he would never truly hurt you, just be polite to him and understand that he is more powerful than you or I can comprehend, but he loves us like his own children. In many ways he considers himself our 'protector'. I know it doesn't make sense to you right now, but trust me, it will." Taking a another deep breath Cat continued "Do you remember when we were talking with Remus yesterday and I told you my clan had 'taken him in' trying to help him? Well needless to say, Lily didn't escape their attention for long. My family took her in as though she was one of us, literally as if she were my sister, she was 'bonded' to my clan."

"So my mother was a Sidhe too?" it was to much for Harry to process.

"No Harry, but she was accepted by us, as one of us. She could literally go anywhere and do anything that we could, and she loved it, she loved having that sort of freedom. The ministry has many issues with my kind, one of them being our complete lack of respect for outside authority. They can't control us, or our ways, that frightens them. They realized that if people ever understood that they could do what we do, that was the end of them, no need for politicians and bureaucrats. So they labelled my people as dangerous and our knowledge as evil and forbidden, telling people that if they tried to learn it, it would either kill them or drive them insane." MacLeod spoke mournfully "and people believed them, that's the part that hurts. We became this race of half ghosts who live to kill, its just not right, we aren't like that at all. We are the Sidhe, children of DeDannan, not some sort of soulless monsters."

Harry could hear the pain in her voice, the more he was hearing about the MOM the less he liked it. He didn't want to upset her anymore, but he felt he needed to ask her one more thing, he deserved to know.... "After my parents died, why didn't you come?"

Cat looked at Harry as if her heart were breaking "I wanted to, I even tried to take you from those beastly muggles you were left with. But they stopped me, they said you would never be safe with me, that Voldemort would find you, or that being part of my clan would destroy you....." her tears were flowing freely "I couldn't convince them to listen, my clan accepted your mother as my sister, by clan law you were my responsibility, but they wouldn't have it. I tried to fight them, but Albus and my father decided that I should let you go. My father told me the clan would not support me in this, that you had other relatives to care for you, and to be without clan,.... its to be lost to the world. I'm sorry Harry, I should have defied them, its not right that you had to grow up without the security of a mother, of a true family. I hope you can forgive me."

Harry was crying himself, he understood what she meant about being lost, he was wiping away his tears with the back of his sleeve. She had wanted to raise him, to make him part of her family "How could the ministry say that? Why would they say that, they must have known how close you were to my mother."

"They knew Harry, that's one of the things that frightened them so much. Lily walked into my clan one day and within the week she could perform our magic, she was doing things that wizards with the Order of Merlin would be hard pressed to do. It scared them to death, if a young girl like her could learn our ways so quickly....."she just sighed sadly, then taking his hand in hers she looked in his eyes and explained "Harry the thing that makes my magic so different than what you learn here is simply our philosophy of life. We understand the interconnectedness of things. Everything is connected, you, me, the stones making this castle, everything. Nothing is truly separate and apart from anything else. I can 'open' myself to this power, it allows me to do things that some people consider impossible, and that terrifies them. That's how I got into trouble here, if no one bothered to tell me that I couldn't do it, I just assumed I could, and so I did. Got into an awful lot of trouble over that sort of thing."

"Is that why Professor Dumbledore and your father wouldn't allow you to take me?" he sniffled.

"I don't really know what their reasons were Harry. No one could ever explain them to me in detail, at least not that I could understand. I only relented when they both promised that I would be sent for when you needed me most." MacLeod explained. "But my father and Albus, they know things that the rest of us don't. I had to believe that everything happens for a reason, that in the end there would be some justification for what had happened."

"So let me see if I understand this so far. Even though they wouldn't let you raise me, Mac Lir thought I was your son because your family adopted my mom, and your family came from his family, so I'm part of his family too? And then they told you they would get you when I needed you most, and your here now."

"That's as close as were gonna get to it today sweetie." she said as she handed Harry a handkerchief and hugged him.....

As Harry gathered his books and prepared to leave for DADA, Miss MacLeod looked deeply into his eyes again, speaking affectionately "I can tell you something else about you mother. She would be so proud of you, you've grown to be quite the young gentleman, and I see a lot of James in you as well. They both loved you more than anything else in this world Harry. Never ever forget that."