Chapter 11
(Female speaking)-Snake - Demeter
(Younger Male Speaking)-Dragon - Dionysus
(Older Male Speaking)-Phoenix - Ares
'Harry mind thinking to his guardians'
'Other people thinking'

The ride from number four, Privet Drive to the police station took no more than fifteen or twenty minutes, but to Harry it seemed to take an eternity. Even though he knew that no one could see his guardians without their permission, he was still worried that someone might at lest suspect something.

Subconsciously, Harry rubbed the lightning bolt scar on his head, both to remind himself of who he was, the Boy-Who-Lived the savoir of the both wizard and muggels alike, and as a safety measure; the scar reminded him that he could never be a normal person, that he literally had the weight of the world in his hands. Those thoughts made his heart beat just a little bit faster, his palms damp, and his mouth dry.

Taking in a shallow and shaky breath, Harry stared out the cop car's passenger window. He watched as the snow slowly fell from the sky and onto the already whitened ground; he watched with both curiosity and slight bewilderment as houses and neighborhoods passed him by. He had never seen any other houses than the ones near Petunia and Vernon's house, and they were all the same. Here the house actually had personalities. The lawns weren't neatly cut to perfection (at least, what Harry could see of them under the snow), the bushes weren't styled the same, the houses weren't clones, and different trees could be seen in every yard. The sight of the winter wonderland seemed to calm him a bit, and the warm feeling of his guardians' bodies pressed against his own calmed him farther. No matter what happened today, he would always have them near by.

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Officer Eric Goodwater looked over at the young teen sitting next to him. He looked smaller than most boys his age; heck, he was damn well bloody half their size. Of course, he knew why that was.

His mind played back what he saw in that cupboard. How one human being could treat another like that he would never understand; Eric had seen a lot of horrors in his life, but this was just one of the worst. Shuddering, he looked over at the boy. Harry he said his name was. Harry Potter. He hadn't heard of him, which was odd considering he had heard of the Dursleys. Their son seemed to get too much trouble to avoid knowing the Dursleys.

He looked back at the Potter child. Other than his obvious malnutrition, he was quite a striking teen. His messy black hair and green eyes would make him the attention of any girl's affection when he grew older. Clearing his throat, Eric looked back at the child. "Harry," he called.

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"Harry." Harry was startled out of his mind speech with his guardians by the officer Goodwater.

"Yes?" Harry glanced at Goodwater before looking out the car window again. If he had watched his human companion, he would have seen that he was moving more slowly than was the norm. Instead, he watched the snow as it slowly passed by. Slowly…slower...then it stopped. Startled, Harry jerked out of his slight day dreaming to look around him. Everything was frozen in time; Officer Goodwater was motionless, reaching for him with one hand and his other still on the steering wheel. Frantically, he searched for his guardians, only to find them absent. Harry threw off his seat belt and stumbled out of the car, falling onto his back in the process. The snow he was watching before was now frozen in mid-air. Against the gray background of the sky it was both beautiful and haunting.

Tentatively getting to his feet, he looked around his surroundings. Two children were paused in a snowball fight, and a bird was about to take off in flight. He could even see the rays of sunlight that were frozen in time. Hesitating, Harry reached out and touched one of the frozen snow drops, which promptly exploded in a light of ice, water, and frost, causing the surrounding snow drops to explode and halt in the air. They made no noise as they exploded, but their display was loud and busy. Gasping, Harry walked away from the tiny snow bombs.

'Demeter, Dionysus, Ares! Please, where are you?' Harry walked around a world frozen in time, pushing tiny snowflakes aside and displacing the sunlight in a strange way. 'Demeter, Dionysus, Ares! I need you!' There was only an eerie that seemed to suffocate him. Starting to panic, Harry ran. He didn't know where he was going; all he knew was that something was most certainly wrong. So…he ran. He didn't know what to do, or where he was going, he just knew that he had to run from something. Or maybe it was to somewhere...

Harry stopped running when it felt as if his chest was about to burst. He bent over and clutched his side where a stitch was making it painful to breath and waited to catch his breath. When he was ready to run again, he heard it…crying--a baby's cry. Looking around for the source of the cry, he saw a house with light shining brightly through the windows. The house looked familiar…so familiar. His feet moved of their own accord, and as he got closer to the house and the crying got louder, a heavy ball of dread started fill his stomach. It wasn't until his nose was practically pressed against the window that he realized that the crying had stopped. He couldn't move from the spot as he watched the scene in front of him unfold.

In the middle of a soft buttercup yellow room was a soft gold and red baby crib. The animated animals moving on the side of the crib told him this was a wizard family. He looked around the room; there were toys and books discarded around the carpet, which was a soft, thick blue color. Above the cradle was a dragon, snake, and a phoenix flying and moving, powered by magic. Every once and a while he would see little baby hands reach for them. Harry was startled out of his musings when he heard talking beyond the door.

"NO! No, James, we can't let him take him!" Female crying could be heard through the door, adult crying followed by deep wreathing sobs. "Shhhhh, love, we won't let him, he is our son, not some weapon to be trained." The male voice comforted the female.

"But-" it was the female voice again, "he said…he said it wasn't our decision. That he was going to take-" here the women fell into sobs again. Harry could hear the man comfort his wife.

"Don't worry, love, we will do whatever it takes to keep him from taking Harry. Our son will grow up loved and wanted."

Harry felt his heart skip a beat and quicken when he heard his name. He wanted to move away, to run, but his traitorous feet stood fast in place and so he watched.

The child in the cradle started to cry, and with the tears the objects in the room started to move. The books exploded, and the toys that weren't already moving on their own started to move and play with each other. The walls turned from yellow to blue and the cradle became a giant green, silver, and gold teddy bear. In the lap of the bear was the baby who created the bear, a child with messy black hair and eyes as green as spring emeralds.

Harry could feel his chest tighten and his breath shorten as he watched the scene through the window. He was both dreading and anticipating the arrival of the child's parents. He watched as the door flew open and a woman with flame colored hair and eyes the same as the child ran into the room. Harry held his breath as he watched his mom run to his baby self.

She was beautiful; she was taller then he expected, and she wore muggle clothes--sweat pants and a silver gray tank top. She wore her hair in a pony tail with the exception of a few strands of hair that had escaped and now framed her face. Harry didn't notice that he was crying, but tears fell down his face and down his neck, staining the collar of his shirt. He placed his left hand against the window, and whimpered "Mum."

There she was. His mom, just a few meters away. He watched as his mom picked up the baby Harry and soothed him, and a deep pain stabbed him in the chest. He would never know what it would feel like to have his mom hug him. The walls in the room turned back to their normal buttercup yellow, but the toys continued to play and the crib remained a teddy bear.

"Did it happen again?" Harry and Lilly simultaneously looked toward the door of the nursery, where there stood a man with night black hair that fell to his shoulders in curls. He stood taller than Lily, and his eyes twinkled a Hershey chocolate color. He had gold wire-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, his lips were curved upward in a smile, and he had well-defined muscles that indicated some form of physical training. Like his wife, he wore muggle clothes--sweats and a black shirt that said "I wear the pants in this family…Just don't tell my wife that." Harry gave a watery smile and placed his right hand on the window, "Dad..," his voice came out cracked.

He watched as his dad walked to his mother and embraced her from behind and played peek-a-boo with baby Harry.

"James, I don't want my son to become a weapon." Lily glanced down at her sleeping son, who had eyes identical to her own; she ran her hand through the little patch of black hair on top of his head, and tiny black strands curled around her fingers. She smiled sadly down at the child in her arms.

"He won't, Love, he won't. I will make sure of that." James hugged his wife closer to him, "Lily I want you to consider something for me."

"Yes, darling?" Some fear escaped into her voice.

"If we die--and don't deny that it is a possibility--if we die, and Harry is somehow still alive, would you consider letting him be raised in the Potter Mansion? The elves can care for him, God knows they will smother him with love, and…" around here James voice seemed to break, "and our portraits can be there for him…they're--they're not us, but I would like him to have some…something to remember us by."

Lily laid baby Harry back onto the giant teddy bear that immediately wrapped its large fluffy arms around the child. She turned to her husband and hugged him, her tears streaming down her face and staining the front of his shirt. "That sounds like a wonderful idea," a hiccup laugh escaped her before she said, "but I thought that you would have wanted Sirius to have guardianship of him."

James placed his chin on top of his wife's head and took in her scent. "Oh, yes I most definitely want Sirius to be there as he grows up. Who else would pass on the great Marauders work? All our hard work and joking would have been for nothing!"

Neither of them laughed, though. Instead, they thought of the possibility of their son growing up without them.

Harry could only watch as his parents' embraced, too stunned to do or say anything. His attention was pulled away from his parents when a third voice entered the scene.

"My friends, please do not be angered by my sudden intrusion." All three of them, Harry, Lilly, and James, jerked and looked toward the door. There stood one Albus Dumbledore, and behind him stood one Peter Pettigrew. Lily intently went to baby Harry and picked him up; she cradled him close to her, unwilling to have ether of the threats near her precious son. James took a defensive stance in front of his wife and son, his wand drawn and pointed at them.

"Dumbledore!" James said with a sneer on his face.