Chapter 24

Christmas Miracles abound(2).

09:58 pm 24th December, Living Room, Law's Household.

Judy took a deep breath and then said, "Fuck it!" startling the others, she got up from where she was and headed to the kitchen and opened up the top most shelf at the end of the row usually it was locked tightly and only sher had the key, for it contained the whole and sole stock of their household's liquor, of course it had to be locked, couldn't risk the kids getting into it, she took out a bottle of their finest bourbon, then she grabbed a pack of milk, and finding with 6 glasses on a tray she headed back to the living room where everyone was seated, then she poured the liquor for herself, her husband and her daughter in law, while her son, Charlie, and Harry got milk.

As everyone took their glasses and started sipping on their drinks, looking Harry in the eyes Judy began, "So our little Artie is a wizard?"

Harry simply nodded in confirmation.

Judy too nodded to that, twice, and then she asked him in a mix of curiosity and concern, "How did you track her down? And what did you mean by Healed her and disabled her abductors?"

"I tracked her down via a spell that lets me track anyone if I know them and have some of their biological sample, like hair from a comb, the injuries she had suffered, like I previously stated a minor concussion and a small break in the skin on her temple where she had been hit to be knocked down, as for disabling her abductors was concerned I simply used a stunning spell on them, like the name implies it stunned them, they're likely to remain so for at least next twelve hours or until someone undoes my spell, quite simple if you know what you're doing."

With some doubt tinging her curious voice Alex asked, "So you knew what you were doing?"

Harry simply nodded.

Meanwhile Richard who had been frowning posed a question of his own, though he had reached a close enough conclusion he wanted some confirmation, "I get that you tracked her with the hair, but how did you go to her so fast and get back too at that? Also why didn't you approach us? We could've done something to help!"

"I Apparated at her location, which is a wizarding technique to instantaneously travel from one place to another, and then I Teleported us back here at the entrance, I didn't approach you as not only were we short on time with the possible worst case scenarios but also the possibilities that you would try to get the non-magical authorities involved in it would be a major complication."

Both of his points, however hard to swallow, were correct, but the fact that two of their children were in danger or potential danger today didn't sit well with them, then all of a sudden Alex frown and then he asked about something he had observed in the previous answer from the boy, "Why did you use the words Apparate and Teleport? I mean I know very little of this magic stuff and understand even less, but I know people, also you're the kind of person who doesn't change his terms for things just because.., you did it for a reason, so why?"

"Two two of them are different techniques, Apparition relies on Terra-Kinetic energy produced by the tectonic plates of the earth's crust as a navigation system, especially when going yo an unfamiliar place, meanwhile Teleportation uses the Meta-Physical energy present in the environment, And it is possible to Apparate to a place you haven't visited before, while you can't use Teleportation for the same, also while quicker Apparation exerts a high amount of stress on the body and mind, which for someone who had suffered a concussion could be dangerous."

Everyone was touched and they came to a simple single conclusion, that Harry for all of his deficits, cared for their well being.

Then Alex asked another question that occurred to him, "Will our Artie also be able to do all this stuff by the time he's your age?"

"That is quite unpredictable, but the most likely probability is negative, I am as my uncle used to put it, a Freak, my abilities are considered to be prodigious and monstrous, an ordinary magical child my age wouldn't be able to Apparate on purpose, any probable Apparation would be instinctual borne in the face of danger."

All of them were not a little shocked and horrified when they read this, Freak, they had always assumed that the quiet little boy was simply eccentric, they had never bothered to look into his life before he came to live with them, simply having assumed that he had lived with a loving family, but now their assumptions were being destroyed by a single word in a sentence which shook them to the core, and what happened after that was something of a spectacle out of a coming-of-age show, as both Charlie and Alex hugged him tightly, and as one said "You're not a freak! / You're anything but a freak or monster!"

If asked none except Harry would be able to tell which of the two ladies moved towards him first.

The other three members were still stunned by the revelations brought to light, Alex was frowning, Judy had her hands clasped on her mouth as she let out a strangled sob, while Richard gritted his teeth and balled up his fists, all of them blaming themselves for making naive assumptions.

Slowly both the women let him out of their embrace, and then Richard in a slow voice said, "As the old adage goes, All's well that ends well, everyone had a long and stressful day I'd reckon it's about time to head to our beds?"

Harry took the old man's words at face value, and headed to bed, meanwhile the others understood what he was saying, Yes, they had questions, and more would churn out as they learned but now was nor the time nor the occasion to ask him, and then the face value too as they were tired, and then they headed back to their beds, their minds filled with questions of all sorts.

=0=0=0=0=0=

12:12 am 25th December, The Burrow, Devon, England.

Ginny's eye twitched as she stared at the clock in her room , the fact that the poor watch wasn't in fault here made her feel a bit guilty, then she slowly closed her eyes and took a deep breath as she realised the ridiculousness of her current situation, she was feeling emotions about an object that she wasn't event attached to, it was redirection at its finest, but really her anxiety was getting the better of her, she had been told by her teacher to get ready in her training clothes as he would be coming around to take her somewhere for a special bout of training.

He said that he would arrive by 30 minutes past the midnight, but time seemingly dragged itself at a pace slower than a snail's, and it irritated her to no end, then once again she took another deep breath and started to meditate, the next thing she knew was someone's hand gripping her left shoulder, the newly rooting instincts kicked in and her hnd was gripping the perpetrator's arm tight enough to snap bones, but as soon as her eyes shot opened her grip slackened and her eyes became impossibly wider as she stared into a pair of emerald eyes.

And then everything went dark.

=0=0=0=0=0=

05:43 am unnamed Cave, Hogsmeade.

All three of its current occupants were at an impasse, two of them had nothing to say, one due to indifference and apathy, the other due to guilt and self hatred, their meditator kept looking from the former to the latter and kept sighing, after a 5th repeat he took a deep breath and then said, "You know for being the smart ones, both of you are morons."

Both of the aforementioned and newly titled morons turned to him, the former curiously as his head was tilted toward the right while the latter stared at the animagus indignantly, "Y'know we are here today so that we can bury the hatchet between the two of you and team you up, but we can't do that if neither of you communicate and stare at each other like the morons you are!." Sirius ranted, his voice growing louder and louder with each word, thankfully being restricted only to the cave by the privacy wards set down by Harry.

Before the indignant werewolf could muster up a reply, his nephew in all but blood floated a writing pad in the face of the clearly ridiculous animagus, "You speak of burying the hatchet between us but that is impossible as no such disagreement between us to be buried, and as you have stated previously little more than a month ago, communicative and social skills are not my forte, then how am I supposed to rectify that in such a short span of time?"

The dogman gave his godson a deadpan look and then said "First off your learning capabilities are off the chart, even if it isn't your forte it shouldn't be that hard, secondly you can't improve it if you don't practice, and right now is a good opportunity as you do have a test subject, and a guide." he punctuated the sentence by waxing in the werewolf's direction for the former and himself for the latter.

Then without giving them a chance to reply he continued, "and the fact that you two morons think you don't have a hatchet is what makes you both morons, you both disagree on quite a few things without even realizing it and unless you talk it through we can't make any progress here."

Here the Werewolf bit out, "And what exactly is this disagreement that you speak of?"

"That you both have nothing to do with each other and are better off as loners." the white sheep of the Black family stated in an unusually calm manner,

At that Remus blinked.

But before he could respond Harry once again floated his writing pad in front of the dogman and wrote down "But it is true." and those words were like a punch to the gut for the weathered werewolf, while he had been meaning to make amends with the young man, he never found a chance to do so, especially since Halloween, the boy would show up for the classes, scribble something in his notebooks, and the moment the classes were finished he would always be the first to leave, almost like he was sneaking in and out, his speed and short stature madit quite hard to keep track of him, the only relief was the fact he was behaving very much similarly with the rest of the staff, and even Mcgonagall whom Harry obeyed, relatively speaking, was on the receiving end of this attitude.

And from what they heard from her she had tried to confront the boy in regards to his attitude, and she learned that a project he had been working on failed dramatically, which was why he was busy trying to fix it, but the details were something unknown to all of them.

A part of the whole faculty understood what it was like to have their hard work destroyed, quite a few were masters in their fields and to get those masteries they had to proverb their abilities, and they too had suffered not a few failures, especially people like Vector, Snape, Filius, and Dumbledore.

Though their reactions to their own failures had been quite restrained, again relatively speaking, also there was the matter of fact that the boy was far younger and inexperienced, as such impatience was almost a predetermined necessity which was the sole reason why Mcgonagall had asked the staff to let her be the one who would handle this mess, after all there was a good reason why they had kept the boy around in Hogwarts despite the fact that he could most probably already take his OWLS and NEWTS at the same time, while his academia and magical prowess were quite high his social and common senses were quite underdeveloped, something they assumed came to him because he didn't have to face the kind of challenges his peers did, and the believed he would get better at by keeping him around those who were less fortunate than him, which was also why none of the teachers had sponsored him.

Remus was forcefully dragged back to reality as Sirius clicked his tongue and tsked, then loudly claimed "No you morons, haven't you heard? United we stand, Divided we fall." For a moment he was almost dragged down the memory lane to relive their OWLS when he quoted John Dickinson's famous words to encourage his friends, but shaking his head he focused back on the situation at hand and said "that doesn't necessarily apply to our situation".

In turn the dogman simply raised an eyebrow, the "how so" being clearly communicated with a single facial gesture.

At once both Harry and Remus replied, "Because I would've been a hindrance to him."

Remus looked at Harry with a bewildered look, at least till Harry elaborated.

"Had professor Lupin decided to take me with him after my parents death, I would have hindered him, as it stands his status as a werewolf makes him a social outcast, a child would have been an additional economic and moral burden on his psyche which would be hazardous." and that broke Remus' dented self esteem to pieces, the very idea that a socially disabled child like Harry pitied him was gut wrenching, and the worst was the fact that he couldn't even disagree.

Sirius on the other hand only guffawed, "That's the stupidest thing you've ever said, and that takes some serious effort given your other ideas, now Remus' decision to not look after you, to not even try to reach out to you was an absolutely stupid mistake and for that he got what was coming for him, it being; years worth of misery, but you see it was jut that a mistake, not unlike the one I made when I lost my cool and tried to chase down Peter."

Then without giving them time to reply he continued "While your idea isn't wrong on paper, it's incomplete, Yes, Remmy here cannot get a proper job in the wizarding world and he's always drawn the short end of the stick in life, but you see that's kind of what makes him the best person to look after you, well second best after me, he knows how to deal with the thick and thin, he knows what to do, and as someone who went around as an unsuspected prankster mastermind he is more than resourceful enough."

This was actually an understatement of the truth, as many would say, the reason Remus was sent as the Order's envoy to the neutral werewolves wasn't simply because he was one and unfortunately the only one even civil with them, while he didn't pester the neutrals to join he extended the offer, but also taught them how to live in the non-magical world and have a better life than they did have till that point, it was quite an irony that given how many people he had helped that he himself lived in poor conditions.

And he did as a matter of fact tried to use that point, "Padfood, for all the resourcefulness you've been crediting me with, I've practically lived like a vagabond for the past decade."

Unfortunately for him he had forgotten that the man in front of him was also more resourceful than people thought him to be, and had been raised in a home which while not emotionally fit for a child, any child, did raise him with a sharp wit, so the arrow shot at the dogman was simply shot back, "Yes and it was not for a lack of opportunity but of motivation, motivation you would've had if Harry had been with you those years, because I know for a fact that Harry's unca' Mooey would die before he knowingly and willingly made him suffer."

It was a point that Remus couldn't help but accept as his eyes became moist from the memories of the days he used to babysit Harry.

Then looking at both of them Sirius continued, "Y'know ever since Lily became pregnant she had a lot of free time, since all of her time that she devoted to help the Order with war efforts was cut down by 2/3rds just like with Alice and Paige as they were immediately taken off from active duty."

Remus blinked at this sudden change of topic and asked, "what of it?"

Smiling widely Sirius replied, "Well she had instead decided to use that time to try and help you for your furry little problem."

Remus for his part simply froze, his mind being overwhelmed as he remembered the way Lily had questioned his lycanthropic symptoms during that time, and that was a major factor why he had thought that he was unwanted around the baby Potter, at least till the mam Potter tore him a new one while his friends watched the scene with not a little amusement, but he had never thought this was the reason for the questions, and that made him feel a spectrum of emotions that he couldn't deal with right now.

Harry for his part simply nodded and removed a pouch from his pocket and from that he removed a light brow notebook, just like the werewolf's hair color, and Remus recognised it for the intended gestures, Lily was quite like that they showed more with their actions than words, though the latter also weren't much less by any stretch.

Now Sirius had a full blown Marauder smirk on his face as he not so innocently suggested, "So how about honoring her legacy by trying to achieve what she wanted to, I have full faith that both of you together would be able to do it."

Harry tilted his head towards right and then after a few moments of Harry-izing this idea he nodded for his part and then looked at Remus for a response.

The werewolf for his part gave a small nod with quite some wariness within it, he wasn't worried that this would lead to some world destroying disaster, but he knew of his parents tendency to be thorough, and feared what their child, who was quite clearly more academically achieved than his parents would put him through - he didn't think of something sinister like being strapped to a table and being bisected to be studied, but more among the line of poking and prodding him, more specifically while he was Moony - but also another part of his mind jumped at the chance to bond with his cub, his nephew in all but blood.

Also the part of his brain that was all things Marauder, started thinking up painful and embarrassing things that Sririus would be subjected to.

A/n : Thanks for reading, A few things happened IRL which set back this chapter by three weeks, so if you're annoyed with the delay? Well tough, but again those who read it thus far thanks a lot, hopefully see ya soon.