Chapter 4

Friday has finally dawned upon the castle at Hogwarts, her morning class went by as it normally would. The excitement of Minerva's tardiness and meeting with a clumsy Hufflepuff quickly fell into the background for more interesting gossip around the school. Minerva happened to be waiting for the aforementioned Hufflepuff, but her mind was back at her muggle house with Harry. The small altercation with the headmaster yesterday was more exhausting than she thought, she was hoping for one more quiet evening before the weekend began; however, unexpectedly, Harry was a ball of energy when she arrived back from school, her quiet evening was quickly cast to the side. This by no means was seen as a negative to Minerva. It was the most she has ever gotten to speak to the boy. He was going on and on about his new school and everything he saw, he talked about the walk to the park and playing pirates with Mac, and he also mentioned that Mac gave him a different surprise on their walk back from the park. Minerva's lips stood no chance of staying straight, the memory was currently her favorite of him.

As Minerva approached the front door of her newly purchased muggle home, she could hear the voice of her ward. She gave a small smile, Harry sounded so happy and excited, she was amazed at how fast the boy has come around while spending time with Malcolm. As she entered the house, the talking ceased, Harry and Mac were in the living room so they could see the front door as it opened. It took Harry a second to comprehend who entered the house, but he saw that it was just his Aunt Minnie.

"Aunt Minnie. Aunt Minnie. Mac and I did so much today. I got to go to my new school, it was smaller than the one I went to before, but I liked it way more. I sat in with my new class and I could answer all the questions. Even the one that I haven't been taught yet!" He rushed through that in one breath so he needed to take a small break before continuing. "Oh, and before that Mac and I went to the park, we walked the whole way too. It wasn't too far but when we got there, I got to go down the slides, and Mac and I got to play as pirates on a ship. Then when we were done, Mac took me somewhere for a surprise

Minerva smiled and nodded through Harry's description of his day. She knew that her brother planned on going to the park before they headed off to the school, but she was never told about any surprises.

"What sort of surprise did Mac give you sweetie?"

She asked simply, she wasn't expecting the following interaction.

"Well, um you see…" Harry takes a small glance over to Mac, who just smiles and winks at the boy. Harry gains a small smirk over his face and looks back up at his Aunt Minnie mischievously, "It's a secret, I'm not allowed to tell you." He looked back towards Mac and giggle before running back towards his bedroom.

Minerva looked at her brother who just gave a small smirk accompanied by a shrug as he stood up out of the chair, he was in. "You know Min, a good pirate just has to keep his secrets." He smirked and gave his sister a hug. "Just to let you know, his favorite flavor of ice cream is strawberry." He teased his sister while giving away his pirate secrets. Minerva wasn't put out about the ice cream and was quite amused by her brother's cheerful expression. Minerva gestured towards the kitchen and they both made their way there to take a seat at the table.

"So, how did everything at the school go? Is the headteacher aware of Harry's circumstances?" Minerva wanted Harry's transition into his new school to be as easy as possible on him, so she had Malcolm give a somewhat true explanation of the loss of his parents and the abuse from his previous guardians. Malcolm was quick to assure Minerva that he took care of everything and that she had nothing to worry about. A worried Minerva can be a scary Minerva and he did not want to be on the wrong side of that.

Minerva was interrupted from her musings from a knock on her office door. Today, the guest she was expecting was just the one who walked in through the door. The 4th year Hufflepuff smiled and seemed to be quite amused with her appearance today. The metamorphmagus had long, straight, black hair that reached the center of her back, and also, she had piercing green eyes, that was actually very close to the color of Harry's. Minerva shared Ms. Tonks's amusement and opted to tease her a bit about the small mistakes she made.

"I would say, Ms. Tonks, you should be able to pass off as a relative to young Harry, but to be more accurate you would need to make your hair much messier and eye color to resemble that of an emerald," Minerva smirked at her student and transfigured a spare quill on her desk into an emerald that matched Harry's eye color quite perfectly. The girl changed her eye color with ease, but without reference for the hair, she made her hair stick out all over the place. Minerva gave a small burst of laughter which caught the Hufflepuff extremely off guard.

While stifling her pit of laughter Minerva said, "Now that, is just about perfect. The hair is a magnificent rendition of his own." She let off one last bout of laughter as she gestured Tonks to a seat in front of her. Tonks, like most of the students, was a little intimidated by the Deputy Head Mistress. She didn't think her teacher was mean, but her class was definitely one you did not mess around in. So as Tonks was seeing her teacher in a new light, she was not too sure how to act. She really wanted to meet Harry Potter, so she was trying to come off as super serious for her extra tuition. Laughter from the sternest teacher in the school erased her serious demeanor quite quickly.

The two enjoyed a quick lunch, having a non-structured conversation over human transfiguration. Minerva found out that Ms. Tonks had her morphs under control 90 percent of the time, but when strong emotions come out, she loses all control. Minerva went on to explain the concept of occlumency, it would allow Ms. Tonks to have better control of her mind so that even if she is worked up, she would be able to subconsciously control her ability.

The lunch did not last as long as the young Tonks wanted it to, but she was happy with all she had been told. Minerva gave her some tips on meditating and said that it will help with learning occlumency immensely. Minerva said that she would have some pictures taken of Harry over the weekend and promised that she would make copies for the Tonks family. She also asked if the younger Tonks could relay a message to her parents about talking with Madam Bones, the head of the DMLE.

Overall, both participants enjoyed the meeting, it was a breath of fresh air for Minerva. She was glad that someone would be able to act as a sibling for Harry. Minerva was going to make sure that he would have a proper family; after everything that was done to him, she knew he deserved it more than anyone.

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After dinner, Mac decided to introduce Harry to some muggle board games that he used to play in his teens. They started out with Monopoly and it was going well until Harry started getting confused. He had a hard time managing his properties at the same time as his money, on top of always having to pay Mac for staying at his properties, it was just too many things at once. Harry knew what checkers was, but he had never heard of chess. He thought that it would be like checkers, but it ended up being very different. They ended up playing checkers for a little while, Harry and Mac would each win about the same number of games. They were about to start a new game but paused when Aunt Minnie opened the front door.

Harry's eyes lit up, although he hasn't got to spend much time with his new Aunt, he liked her quite a bit. She was the one who brought him here, the one that saved him from the prison in which he used to live. He ran over and threw his arms around her legs. He wasn't used to giving hugs, but he knew that it was what kids did when their mum or dad got home from work. The time spent with Malcolm has greatly improved Harry's shyness inside the house. It was like Harry has lived there his whole life, the two adults already treated him so nicely, when they had only met a few days ago. Last night after his Aunt Minnie got home, she told Harry some stories about his parents when they attended the school that she taught at. Minerva had to tweak things so that it would seem like it was in the muggle world. It wasn't so much as to say she was lying to him, but she definitely left out a lot of specifics that she had no way of explaining.

Minera eventually reciprocated the hug, by picking Harry up off the ground and placing him on her hip. "Well hello Harry, how was your day?" Minerva asked as she walked over to an armchair in the room. Minerva secretly charmed the furniture so that it would be a bit more comfortable to lounge in. Harry had told her that his day was good and he politely returned the question back to her.

"My day was good as well, I had a nice discussion with one of my students, she is a cousin of yours and is hoping to get to meet you soon." She smiled; she could see the wonder in his eyes when she said this. "She is about 7 years older than you, but she hopes that she can be somewhat of a big sister for you. How does that sound?" Harry thought that it sounded great, he didn't know that he had any family outside of the Dursleys, and to find out that his cousin wanted to be his big sister made his smile wider than he thought it could go.

"Wow, a big sister?" He asked for himself to hear. "Are you sure she wants to meet me? I never even knew I had any other relatives." Harry's face was filled with joy, he trusted that this new sister had to be nice if his Aunt Minnie was saying so. Minerva answered his questions along with some new ones. He asked what her name was and was told that his sister preferred to be called by her last name. This confused Harry a bit, so Minerva told him that when they first met, Harry could ask why she didn't use her first name.

After the roulette of questions from Harry, he talked about how he has been playing board games with Mac. Minerva could recognize Monopoly and checkers since they were both still left out. He said that they were about to start a new game called 'Cluedo' and that she should play as Miss Scarlet. Malcolm gave a small laugh about how accurate Harry's guess was. He knew that Harry had no idea about his sister's house colors, but it all just worked out too well.

Harry had decided to be Mr. Green after his aunt recommended it, she did this because of his eyes of course. It was hard not to see all the green the boy had in his eyes; his mothers were the same way. Mac chose Mrs. White much to Harry's amusement and with the help from the two adults, they were able to play a full game together. Minerva watched Harry as he was trying to keep a poker face. She thought that it was the cutest thing, she would need to get access to a pensieve, so that she could get a picture of him desperately attempting to hide what he knew.

Eventually, Minerva correctly guessed that Mrs. Peacock did it in the ballroom, with the rope. The three of them enjoyed playing the game together and a lot of laughter consumed the three the entire time. When Harry asked for a snack, Minerva thought that conjuring up some strawberry ice cream for Harry would give her some brownie points with him. She thought it would be okay if he was spoiled every once in a while. The ice cream was a big hit and Harry quite literally jumped for joy. While Harry was eating, the siblings were discussing how the weekend would go.

"I have let the other professors and my students know that, while I may not be there over the weekends anymore, I can be available in case of an emergency. I was thinking that Harry may enjoy shopping for his school supplies and I planned to take him tomorrow morning; however, I do not think I am ready to venture out into the muggle world on my own yet. Are you available to join us?" Minerva asked her brother in hushed tones.

The younger brother didn't mind at all actually, he didn't have a problem traveling back and forth because Minerva insisted, he used the FLOO. He also thought that it might be funny to watch his witch sister inside a muggle department store. He readily accepted and said that he would be back at the usual time in the morning. Mac gave Harry a big hug goodbye and said that he would be back again tomorrow. Harry spent the rest of the evening getting his Aunt Minnie acquainted with all of Harry's favorite toys. Minerva knew all the different toys, but having Harry explain each one, telling her all of their names and who they were friends with, was a great reason to look over all of them again.

When it was finally time to put Harry to bed, he asked if she could read him one of the bedtime stories from the book he and Mac had been reading. Everything was so domestic and Harry was so happy, she thought that taking Harry from those people was the best decision she has ever made. About halfway through the reading, she heard Harry's breathing slow and even out, she turned off the bedside lamp and gave Harry a kiss on the scar he was given that horrible night. As she reached the door, she took a glance over at Harry's now sleeping form and thought of her two good friends. Minerva was going to cherish the child just as they would, that's what he deserved.

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As Minerva retired to her quarters within the house, she was surprised to see that someone has already attempted to get ahold of her. While she was still at the school, she had asked for Filius' expertise in charms to notify her when someone has requested to speak with her. It had only been about three hours since she returned to her new home, so she was desperate in trying to figure out what could have happened since then. She decided she would return to her office momentarily to figure out just what went wrong so quickly.

She came through the FLOO and into her office to the sound of a soft knock on her door. She was wearing a muggle outfit, the thought of changing into a set of robes completely slipped her mind. She sat down at her desk and opened the door with a silent charm. Apparently, the person on the other side was a bit too close and the door conked them on the head. When she saw who it was, there was no surprise, she also gave a small smirk to the embarrassed Hufflepuff.

"Ms. Tonks, I do believe I informed you of the start of my absence at lunch today. Is this something important or did you simply forget?" Minerva wasn't particularly upset to see her; she was lucky that Harry just fell asleep or she probably would have been. The younger girl walked in, her nose was scrunched up, rubbing a red mark on her forehead.

"Yea-, well no, Yes, I knew you weren't going to be here, no I didn't forget professor, it's just you asked me to get ahold of my parents and I did and they said that they could speak tonight because that would be best for them." Tonks pushed through her embarrassment even though she was making a go at confusing her teacher as she spoke. Minerva let her gather herself completely before she responded.

"Thank you, Ms. Tonks, are you quite alright?" She gave a small smile to her student and asked her to relay what the message between her and her mother was. It made sense that they would want to talk tonight, Andromeda had a few heavy days of work schedule to make up for her random leave from work. Minerva stood up and beckoned her student to follow her, when they made it to the fireplace she said, "Harry has just fallen asleep, I believe you and your mother would enjoy seeing him?"

Tonks watched her teacher step through the FLOO and once she realized that she was going to see the Harry Potter, she rushed in. She ran right into the bosom of her teacher, apparently, the teacher foresaw the rush through coming and was prepared to make sure she did not have another bout of clumsiness.

"If you would call your parents from my FLOO, I will pull them through, I would like to keep my location private for now, I hope you understand." The younger girl did understand and went on to complete the task given to her.

When the two elder Tonks' were pulled through the fireplace, they took sight of a well-put-together muggle study. They both found it quite odd to see the stern professor in a muggle house with muggle clothing. They quickly dusted themselves off and followed Minerva over to a small sitting area. Minerva silently summoned refreshments and began talking to her guests.

"Hello again you two, thanks for understanding my desire to keep this house a secret. I thought it would be safer to do so."

Ted Tonks spoke for his family, "Oh it's no worries, we can see the necessity of it. We wanted to know if you were sure about contacting Madam Bones, we know that she was quite perturbed about the situation with Sirius, but that was before she became the head of the DMLE. I think we need to approach her with caution." He said calmly, his tone was that of a seasoned solicitor. Minerva could make sense of this, she wanted to take extreme caution around everything 'Harry' related.

"I agree, I don't want any unwanted attention to my situation, but I think she can be trusted. She was always sweet to Sirius' antics during school and she is too honorable to be a part of the corruption that's taken over the ministry." They discussed some of the details and figured out their course of action. Minerva was not happy with what they decided on, but she knew that it would be the quickest and safest way to start the process of saving Sirius. She went over to the FLOO and contacted the director on her personal line. The strong-willed witch was convinced to join her former teacher and was swiftly pulled into her home.

Amelia Bones must have taught her stern expression from Minerva herself. She may have been small in stature, but she always seemed to be the tallest in the room with how she carried herself. She was weary when the teacher would not say where she was located and at the sight of others, she discreetly took her wand.

"Minerva, I would appreciate it if you would explain what is really going on here, I am not happy with the amount of information you decided to keep from me." Her tone cut the air, she looked at all the members of the room and was shocked to see a Hogwarts student among them. She knew the Tonks' of course but be able to leave from the school is not common for those not in their 7th year.

"Amelia, I promise everything is quite alright, we just wanted to discuss a rather sensitive topic with you. Please have a seat." Minerva gestured to the chair adjacent to hers and the shorter woman sat down. "We want to see Sirius Black have a proper trial, we have the physical proof that he is innocent and want real justice for him. Before we can show you this, you need to know that this is highly confidential and must not be told to anybody besides us and Brunnot, the advisor to the Potter family estate." The two stared at each other, a silent battle of wills between them; however, Amelia's curiosity was piqued when the Potter family was mentioned.

"How does this involve the Potter family? Dumbledore has kept any knowledge of the whereabouts of the child close-lipped." The question was almost rhetorical, the faces that the rest of the room shared gave it away instantly. Her former teacher stood up and gestured to the rest of the group to follow her. She walked down the dimly lit hallway to Harry's room, she fully opened the half-closed door and let her companions look for themselves. Despite the Tonks' knowledge that Harry was here, they still showed a large amount of surprise, an equal amount in which Madam Bones shared. Minerva crept into the room and muttered a charm that would keep Harry in a deep sleep before she turned on the lights.

"I have become Harry's magical guardian as of this past Tuesday, we know that Sirius was named Harry's godfather and we are going to use the blood from the two of them to prove Sirius' innocence." Minerva saw that the Tonks family was able to calm down from the surprise, they didn't say anything but instead came to get a closer look. Amelia stared at the child, the savior of the wizarding world, her stoic demeanor changed greatly at the sight of him. She went on to ask Minerva a few questions about how she became his guardian before taking a closer look herself.

The group cooed over the sleeping child for some time before Minerva collected the blood sample and provided it to Madam Bones. The head of the DMLE assured that she would keep everything hush-hush and secure a blood sample from Sirius. The group all made their goodbyes and each FLOO'd back to their previous dwellings. It had gotten quite late by the time everyone had left, so Minerva went straight to her bed to rest for the exciting morning.

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The trip to the department store went almost perfectly, Harry excitedly picked out all his supplies, he mentioned that he never got any of his own, so he wanted to get at least one of everything he could ever need. The problem occurred when Minerva went to pay for everything, she started digging into her bottomless purse and pulled out a handful of galleons before her brother could step in. He teased her mercilessly the entire car ride home, much to Harry's confusion. They had just about finished unpacking when they heard a knock at the door.

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Hermione Granger was not as excited as she would have been if she knew they were introducing themselves to the Potters. She would behave properly of course, she wasn't disappointed in visiting new neighbors, she had hoped they might have a son or daughter her age that she could become friends with. She woke up early, as usual, and joined her parents at the breakfast table.

"Bonjour ma Chérie." Greeted Laurie. She was seated at the high table in the kitchen. On the weekends, her husband it the one who cooks breakfast, so she was helping herself while he finished cleaning everything up.

"Bonjour Maman!" Hermione greeted happily. "Good morning daddy!" She finished as she took her seat at the table.

Richard Granger took the time to walk over and hug his daughter and give her a kiss on the top of her head. Richard loved his girls, would do anything for them, that's why he insisted that he and his wife took the weekends off from their practice. He grinned when his daughter placed a kiss on his cheek. He and his wife talked over when they would visit the new neighbors and both agreed to go just before lunchtime. The house where they are going is a bit too far to walk to, but everyone inside the gated community considered each other neighbors.

The family enjoyed each other's company as they ate the hearty breakfast. Richard informed Hermione of when they would be visiting the new neighbors but besides that, they all ate in comfortable silence. After Hermione had finished eating, she returned to her room to prepare for the day, she chose an outfit, one that was nice, but not too nice. She grabbed the book that she was currently reading and headed back downstairs. It was a chilly morning; the fall weather has started hitting in full force. Hermione decided to read in the living room today, her house had multiple good spots to read, but on the weekends, she typically gravitates to the living room to join her parents. Her parents came into the room and began discussing something surrounding their practice while Hermione read quietly. Hermione didn't know how long she was reading before her parents informed her of the time.

"Honey, we're about to drive over to see the new neighbors, do you need to use the restroom before we go?" Richard asked, he was curious in who bought the new house, it was not on the market for very long and the purchase seemed to come out of nowhere. Hermione answered in the negative and the Granger family made their way to the car for the short drive.

Hermione was rather quiet all morning, the drive was about the same until she noticed her dad drive past the Richardson's former house. "Dad, you just drove right past the house, did you forget where we were going?"

"Huh? Are you sure honey, I don't remember passing it?" Richard checked the rearview mirror and saw his daughter fixing him with the same face his wife has when he patronizes her. "I'll just pull over here and we can walk the way down." So, they did just that. Hermione held hand with her parents as they retreated down the road. When they were approaching the house, Hermione thought that her parents were going to walk right past it until she pointed it out. They put their confusion down to them not visiting the Richardson's very much, but Hermione was not totally convinced.

They approached the door of the house and Richard gave the door a nice knock, it was only a few seconds until they were met by one of the new occupants of the home.

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Minerva was unsure who could be knocking at the door, she had placed wards around the house that would act as notice-me-not charms would, she didn't want to use too many wards to where it would cause suspicion. This told her that someone magical was at her door, she grabbed her wand out of the bottomless purse and tucked it discreetly into her sleeve. Her brother was helping Harry get all his supplies situated and organized in his room. Carefully, Minerva opened the door. She didn't recognize any of the people before her, they were a small family of 3. They were dressed perfectly muggle and decided to play it safe by acting the muggle part herself.

"Hello, may I ask what it is you needed, I don't believe we are acquainted?" Minerva was cautious, she could tell that at least one of them was magical but not who that was. The family responded to her, introducing themselves.

"Hello, I'm Richard Granger and this is my wife and daughter, Laurie and Hermione. We saw that the Richardson's house got sold within the neighborhood and we just wanted to introduce ourselves." Minerva was not adept at passive legilimency and could only attempt it if she could use her wand. They haven't given anything away to make them seem like a threat so she decided to respond in kind. She took each of the parent's hands and returned the greeting, she quickly discovered the magical among them, just from the touch of the two adults.

She relaxed slightly and said, "It is a pleasure to meet you, my name is Minerva, Minerva McGonagall and yes, we finished moving in late Tuesday, it was a rather swift move, but it went quite well." She cast a small smile to the child and from her experience as a teacher, could tell that she wanted to ask a question. "Is there something you wanted to ask Hermione?" She saw the little muggle-born witch nibble on her bottom lip, her parents looked at her expectantly and Minerva waited for the child to answer.

"Well yes actually, you see there was a new boy that visited my class on Thursday and pretty much all of the students at my school live in the community, so I wanted to know if you were related to a Harry Potter? He was the new boy you see." Minerva had to hide her expression, this was very unexpected, it seemed like the parents were unsure of who the boy was, based on the sympathetic look they gave Minerva, they didn't think there was much of a chance for the boy to be here.

"You met Harry, did you?" Minerva saw the little witch light up. "We actually just returned from buying all of his supplies. Why don't you take a step inside and I will grab him really quick?" She didn't drop her cautious guard completely but she was sure she could handle herself if an underage muggle-born was here on less than good intentions. She left down the hallway that connected to the living room, to peer into Harry's room. She saw that the boys had finished organizing everything and that they had started marking Harry's name on it all.

"Harry? Would you please join me in the living room, you have some guests here for you?" Harry stiffened up. Minerva gave him a small smile and showed him her hand, she was trying to tell Harry that he would be safe with her. He joined his aunt but tucked behind her leg to hide some of himself. Harry recognized the poufy-haired girl as soon as he reached the room.

"Harry, this is the Granger family. Hermione said that she met you in class." She looked down at him with a pleasant smile. She could tell that he recognized the girl but it did not help giving him any courage. He raised his head and met the eyes and exuberant smile of the smartest girl in his new class.

He greeted the family politely, even if it was a tad on the quiet side. "Hello, it's nice to meet you. My name is Harry." He put his head back down and shifted further behind his aunt. The male Granger again spoke for his family.

"It is nice to meet you too Harry, you must have left a big impression on our Hermione, she asked her mother and me if we knew if any Potters have moved into the neighborhood, and here you are." He gave the shy boy a smile, the boy looked up at him and gave a slight smile before averting his gaze. "She was really hoping that the two of you could become friends, she said that you were the only other person to get one of the harder questions right."

Harry was shocked, nobody his age has ever wanted to be his friend before. He really didn't think any of his classmates were going to remember him by the time he joined them after the break. He glanced at the poufy-haired girl first, then looked to her father and simply asked, "Really?" His classmate seemed to think she could now answer for herself.

"Yes, really! I would love to be your friend, we can the harder questions together all the time!" Hermione's excitement wavered, when she asked in a much more sedated tone, "That is if you would want to be my friend?" Harry did really want to have a friend his own age, he only just got his first friend a few days ago. He thought she seemed nice and thought it funny that both of their hairs were all crazy. He gathered all the courage he could, looked Hermione in the eye, and nodded at her with a huge grin plastered on his face.

End Chapter 4

AN: I may have rushed this one a bit, while I do plan on covering a bunch of different points in Harry and Hermione's childhoods, I do want this to be focused on Hogwarts, My passing of time and I think a lot of the sentence structure is lacking. I think I like my plans for freeing Sirius and how he will become included in Harry's life. Please criticize what you think is bad, I really don't mind and it would help me improve. I imagine probably two chapters of childhood and worldbuilding until I reach their first year at Hogwarts. Thanks for reading.

L