Disclaimer – I don't own Harry Potter. It belongs to J.K Rowling.
Harry ushered his parents into the Common Room. They had some trouble getting past the portrait of the Fat Lady.
"Dragon blood!" Harry said confidently to the guardian of the Common Room.
"Is that James Potter and Lily Evans?" she gasped.
"Wonderful to see you again." James said wryly with a small bow. The Fat Lady turned pink and beamed at James.
"Vi! Violet!" The Fat Lady called to her friend. Immediately, Violet joined her friend and waved cheerfully at James and Lily.
"Oh, Lily, you married James, congratulations!" Vi chirped. Lily smiled back as James possessively wrapped an arm around Lily's waist.
"Thanks, Vi. It's great to see you again."
"Dragon blood!" Harry said louder and firmer.
"The old Head Boy and Girl! Never thought I'd see you two again!" The Fat Lady gushed. James smiled chivalrously and cleared his throat.
"And as much as a delight it is to meet again, would you please admit us to your fine establishment?" James asked. The Fat Lady blushed pink and swung open.
"As you wish!" The three humans (and dog) hurried into the Common Room.
"Sorry bout that Harry." James apologized.
"It's all right Dad." They seated themselves and Sirius immediately turned back. Shaking back his mane of hair, he stretched languidly on a chair. James looked around with a look of satisfaction. Sirius followed his gaze.
"Just like old times, right mate?"
"All you need are the adoring fans!" Lily teased, a spark of merriment in her emerald eyes.
"And what good times they were!" Sirius injected.
"Except when you four made my life miserable!" Lily protested with a laugh. James pulled her onto his lap and gave her a peck on the cheek. Harry shuddered, realizing she was talking about the Marauders. He studied the group. One was a wrongly accused murdered, one had contributed to a murder and betrayed his friends, and the present two had died protecting loved ones. One had even scarified his life for his friends. In fact, the two present (and honorary member) were...delicately put...deceased.
"But we never put it against you personally." James argued.
"Too right!" Sirius interrupted half angrily, half amused. "Every time we planned a prank on you or one that would reflect the Prefect's ability to control the situation, James grew a conscience. It took a great deal of hexing and head butting to get him to agree!" Sirius boasted. "You were the worst thing that happened to the Marauders!" Sirius accused. James shot Sirius an angry look.
"But the best thing that ever happened to me." He put in crossly, overriding Sirius.
"You've gone soft. You sicken me, Prongs!" Sirius said in a disgusted voice. Lily smiled prettily at Sirius and then at James. The three finally realized Harry was sitting there, listening happily to the babble of voices. The fire crackled merrily upon the scene of reunion.
"Harry, I want you to tell me everything." Lily said firmly, but kindly. Harry nodded, then froze.
"Wait...aren't you supposed to be...looking down on me? Watching over me?" Harry asked, confused. The three adults exchanged glances.
"Harry, I'm not exactly sure. We don't really...remember death. I think...while we're, up there," Sirius glanced somewhat apprehensively at the ceiling, "that we're watching. But we're not supposed to remember it down here. In fact, we shouldn't even be here, so I guess fairs fair." Sirius told him. Harry nodded stupidly.
"Harry, I know we've got a week, but I desperately want to know everything. Anything you can think of! We've got sixteen years to cover, so if you'd like to start now!" Lily hinted eagerly.
"Okay Mum." Lily positively beamed at hearing the word 'mum' uttered.
"After you...after Voldemort...after Dumbledore found out what had happened, he decided to leave me with the Dursleys." Harry began.
"The Dursleys!" James shouted, scrambling to his feet. Lily spilled out of his lap, narrowly avoiding being whacked by a coffee table.
"Yes, the Dursleys." Someone other than Harry answered. Four heads turned to see McGonagall swiftly approaching.
"Professor!" Lily exclaimed, leaping to her feet. McGonagall smiled softly.
"Lily Potter! Oh dear girl!" she said softly, allowing Lily to wrap her in a tight hug.
"Are you one of Harry's teachers?" Lily asked enthusiastically.
"Yes I am. Though the son of James Potter and godchild of Sirius Black, not to mention your son Lily, needs no great help to excel in Transfiguration." McGonagall said wryly. Sirius grinned lazily and sprawled (if possible) further in his seat. James smirked proudly and straightened.
"That's my boy!" James injected, ruffling Harry's already ruffled hair.
"I understand that the four of you need time alone. So the Common Room is yours. And to save Sirius effort from transforming, we're not allowing the students admission. They won't get in trouble if they don't have their supplies. But this is a bit more important." Minerva said, sounding choked up.
"Thank you." Lily said softly. Minerva smiled weakly and waved her away, then exited through the portrait hole. The second it was shut, James whirled on Sirius.
"SHE KNOWS?!" he shouted.
"Yeah." Sirius admitted sheepishly.
"WHAT? I DIE SO YOU GO AND TELL THE WORLD THE SECRETS OF THE MARAUDERS?!" James thundered.
"She's in the Order of the Phoenix! And certain events...last year...they called for it!" Sirius protested in defense of his good...er...defendable name.
"James! Shut up and let Harry explain!" Lily snapped. James sank back down.
"Oh, er...right."
"I've been living with the Dursley's since I was a baby. They haven't been exactly, uh, wonderful years, but they've been okay." Harry explained. Lily's eyes flashed with rage.
"That witch! I'll kill Petunia!" she snarled. The three men visibly receded, as Lily stood up, grinding a nearby knick knack in her hands. "That stupid cow will rue the day she ever mistreated my son! And her pathetic, whale of a son will wish he'd never been so poorly conceived by his joke of human being parents!" Lily snarled, the object she'd been holding snapped and the pieces fell to the ground. The snap caught Lily's attention, and she sat back down quickly, smoothing her hair. "Go ahead and continue Harry."
"Right. Right." It took Harry a few minutes to collect his thoughts. "When I turned eleven, I started receiving letters. But Uncle Vernon would take them away before I saw them. He tried to stop the letters from reaching me, but Dumbledore managed to find a messenger. Hagrid personally brought me my wizarding letter. It came as a shock, but it was still the best thing I'd ever heard. Hagrid was a bit upset when he found out the Dursleys never told me I was a wizard, and who you two were,"
"Am I chops liver?" Sirius asked indignantly from a reclined pose on the couch. James raised his wand at Sirius's face and turned expectantly to Harry. Sirius promptly shut his mouth and gazed meaningfully at Harry.
"Okay...so when Hagrid found out that the Dursley's never told me, he gave Dudley a pig's tail."
"He gave Dudley a pig's tail?" Lily asked, clearly torn between disapproval and encouragement. James hooted with laughter.
"He gave that grub of a boy a tail? I'll have to buy him a dragon for that!" James laughed.
"He already had one, and it caused too much trouble." Harry replied crossly.
"He had a dragon?"
"Yeah, he won it in a pub, but one of the Slytherins in my year saw it, so we gave it to one of the Weasley brothers, who's a dragon keep in Romania." Harry's explanation was met with blank looks. "Anyway, on the train to Hogwarts I met Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Ron's really cool; we hit it off right away. Hermione...well, she's really smart, kind of a know it all. Ron and I...well, we get by. Ron and I are in the same year, and we both got sorted to Gryffindor, so we stayed friends. During our flying lessons, this evil Slytherin, Draco Malfoy, stole a Remembrall from Neville Longbottom,
"Longbottom!" James cut in. The three adults exchanged sorrowed glances.
"The same." Harry replied, knowing that they thought of Neville's poor parents in St. Mungo's. "Anyway, Malfoy's a Pureblood and thinks he's the best wizard ever. So when Neville got hurt, the professor took him inside, and told us no one was to fly while she was gone. But Malfoy hopped on his broom and flew up. I went after him, and ended up catching the Remembrall. Professor McGonagall saw me, and I thought my Hogwarts career was over before it began," Harry admitted, "but she put me on the Quidditch team as Seeker."
"Seeker!" James crowed proudly.
"Yeah, takes after you, mate. Big head and all. Only lost, what, one match?" Sirius drawled lazily.
"I think so." Harry admitted proudly.
"You must have been the youngest House player in...what? How long?"
"A century." Harry said, barely able to fight the urge to rumple his hair. "At the first match, I was really nervous but,"
"Wait!" Lily interrupted. Everyone stared at her expectantly. "Where does Hermione enter?"
"Oh! I forgot! It was on Halloween, at the feast. We were all eating, and Quirrell," a hot flash of rage bolted through Harry's veins, "the Dark Arts teachers ran in shouting about a troll in the dungeon. Everyone was supposed to go back to their dorms, but we had heard that Hermione was crying in the bathrooms,"
"Why?" Lily asked. Sirius and James glanced somewhat impatiently at her.
"Ron had been talking about her, saying she had no friends because she's an insufferable know it all, and Hermione overheard. It was...kind of true. So Ron and I went to get her, but accidentally locked her in the loo with the troll. We went in to get her and helped her defeat the troll. After that, we became inseparable, which is pretty often, unless two of us are fighting. Back to the Quidditch game. Halfway through the game,"
"What were you riding?" James asked, with a dreamy expression on his face.
"Nimbus 2000." Harry answered with an easy grin.
"Nice."
"Definitely. Halfway through the game, the broom starts bucking, trying to throw me off." Lily gasped audibly, and James leaned forward, his muscles tightening. "Hermione thought Snape,"
"SNAPE?!" James roared, leaping to his feet.
"SNAPE?" Lily shouted.
"Tell me about it." Sirius muttered grimly.
"He teaches Potions." Harry said quietly.
"Sounds just like Snivellus, to hex my son!" James snapped. "I'm going to snap his puny little arms, and then his puny little neck, all before he can raise his stupid wand!" James snapped.
"Dad! Calm down! Let me finish!" Harry ordered. Lily and James both obliged. "Hermione set fire to Snape's robes,"
"I like Hermione." James said loudly.
"And Snape knocked over a bunch of teachers, Quirrell and a few other ones. I got back on the broom and we ended up winning the game." James straightened proudly. "Anyway, Malfoy challenged me to a duel. It was set at midnight, and Ron was my second. So we snuck out, but Hermione followed us, and so did Neville, who'd gotten locked out of the room accidentally. Malfoy set us up in the end, and we ran from Filch, the janitor." Sirius and James nodded understandingly. "We ended up in this room that Dumbledore had told us to stay out of, unless we wanted to die a terrible death."
"Sounds like him." James remarked wryly.
"There was a three headed dog. We escaped, and the next day we asked Hagrid about it. He kind of let it slip, that he owned the dog, and that it was named Fluffy. Oh yeah, and Hagrid had taken me shopping for supplies. At Gringott's, after stopping at my vault, he stopped at one of Dumbledore's, and took out something wrapped in brown paper. I found out later that the next day, someone tried to break into that vault. The dog, Fluffy was guarding something, we knew cause Hermione noticed it was standing on a trap door. So it was," Lily gasped again.
"Dumbledore was letting that dog guard the package!"
"Astounding wit you have there Lily." Sirius said amiably. Lily smiled.
"We did a lot of research, and thanks to a slip of Hagrid's, we found out that the dog was guarding the Sorcerer's Stone. (A/N – Philosopher's Stone, if you're British. I have the British version, thanks to my dad's trip to Scotland.) On Christmas, Dumbledore gave me your Invisibility Cloak." Harry told James with a grin.
"We had some fun times with that thing, didn't we, Prongs?"
"Course we did, Padfoot. I was the leader."
"Again with the big head."
"Big head? I don't have to tell you about big heads mate,"
"Enough!" Lily said loudly, causing the two men to jump and stare sheepishly.
"Sorry." They said in unison.
"Er...okay. After that, we found out Snape was trying to steal it, or so we thought. I saw him corner Quirrell and demand to know the secrets to get to it." James's jaw tightened and Sirius's hands curled into fists. "I also found out that someone tried to drink unicorn blood. See, when we gave the dragon to Charlie Weasley, Malfoy had found out and told McGonagall we were wandering after hours. We all got in trouble, even Malfoy, and our detention was to go into the Forbidden Forest with Hagrid and find whatever was hurting the unicorn. We split up, and I went with Malfoy and Fang. We found the thing, and it was hooded in a black cloak, and was drinking the blood of a dead unicorn. Malfoy ran, but I didn't. The thing came at me, and I didn't know what to do, but a centaur saved me. The other centaurs were angry when they found out, but Hagrid collected me. When we found out Snape was going to steal it, we tried to warn Dumbledore, but he was gone. So we told McGonagall, but she didn't believe us. So Ron, Hermione and I went to Fluffy and played the flute Hagrid gave me for Christmas."
"How'd you know to do that?" Sirius asked. The other two were so wrapped in the story and impending danger for their son, they'd never even noticed the question.
"Hagrid let it slip accidentally." Harry answered with a grin. "We got down, and found Snape ahead of us. We had a bunch of problems to get through. There was a door, and the keys were flying. There was a broom, and I managed to get the right one and get us through. Then there was a giant chessboard that we had to play through. It was just like wizard's chess and we had to leave Ron behind. Next, there were a bunch of potions and two fires, one to go back, one to go forward, and some of the bottles were poison, and some wine. Hermione figured out the riddle, and went back for help, while I went through. Then to my surprise, I found Quirrell in front of the Mirror or Erised. I'd seen the mirror before, and Dumbledore had explained it. Turns out, Quirrell, who always wore a turban, was sheltering the remains of Voldemort on the back of his head." The audience visibly cringed. "In the mirror, I saw the stone in my pocket, and suddenly it was there. Voldemort told Quirrell to take it from me, he knew what I had seen. But every time Quirrell tried to touch me, he'd burn himself. Then, I fainted. When I woke up I was in the hospital wing. Dumbledore came back when he found out what was going on. Quirrell died in the chamber, but Voldemort fled. Turns out Dumbledore had done the mirror thing, only someone who wanted to find the stone but not use it, could find it. And then, I got better, so did Ron and Hermione, and went back to the Dursley's." The tale of the first year was over. The four people in the Common Room stood and stretched.
"How about some refreshments before we continue?" Lily asked. Everyone readily agreed and hurried to a table that James conjured.
HOPE THIS UPDATE WAS ENOUGH TO KEEP YOU ALL GOING! SORRY IF YOU GET BORED, BUT I'D LIKE TO DO THIS ALL SO...YEAH...I HOPE YOU ENJOY IT! SORRY IF I JUMBLED THINGS OR CONFUSED THEM OR GOT THEM OUT OF ORDER. PLEASE REVIEW! CONSTRUCTIVE CRITISCISM (OR ANY CRITISCISM BUT THE MEAN KIND) AND APPRECIATION ARE ALWAYS WELCOME HEARTILY! I'LL TRY AND UPDATE MORE SOON!