As usual, I own nothing but this story.

JohnMonty - Oh, believe me, she will until the Third and penultimate task. I'd gotten bored of the heists, and I realised she was a teenager who'd like to have fun even if she is, and this is how the real Harry should behave, as a teen with adult responsibilities.

Ann Jinn - Thank you. When I began this series and the others I've written and will write, I couldn't help but think the real Harry was a wimp.

Please enjoy and feel free to let me know what you think.

The Hell of Fourth Year.

Lily sighed with relief as she finished packing the boxes, and she put away her wand, relieved that she was a witch and she didn't need to waste physical energy on anything although she did sometimes do things by hand; she knew it confused the hell out of James and Jason, but as a muggle-born, and someone who had it pointed out to her magic made people lazy in both mind and in body, Lily had needed to find some degree of balance.

She was fed up with the impending move back to Britain, fed up with the stress, the mind-bending irritation that came out with it. It was truly bad enough when you were moving from, say, Glasgow to the South coast of Britain, but when you looked at it from the Potter's situation you couldn't even touch how stressful it was. She had never liked moves; the first time it had happened, when she and her family (she was hesitant to even think of Petunia as her sister now she knew the other woman's bitterness had transferred itself to an innocent baby girl, only seeing Charlotte as a weapon to use against her 'dead' memory) had moved from Cokeworth when her parents had been offered better jobs somewhere else, her only feeling had been sadness she would be moving away from Severus before the bastard showed his true colours in her fifth year at school, but when she had seen what her new home had to offer her, Lily had seen the benefits.

But the move away from Britain in the final months of the First Wizarding War had been difficult; getting the few possessions she and James had wanted to take with them wasn't a problem, at the same time Dumbledore had provided them with contacts and had made moving from Britain easy when he had suggested it to them, even though they now realised Dumbledore had ulterior motives for providing them with contacts for getting them to move to this part of the world.

A grimace drifted over Lily's features as she thought about how Dumbledore had essentially manipulated them into leaving Britain. He had been subtle about it, but as soon as he had suggested they could leave Britain, move to a different country somewhere, it had been compelling for Lily and James. They had both had enough of Magical Britain, even James who had lived in the magical world his entire life, living in Magical Britain, had friends in the community before Charlotte's 'so-called death' even though it was now obvious Dumbledore had his own agenda where they, Sirius and Peter, but most especially Charlotte were concerned. They had assumed if they had left matters in Dumbledore's hands, things would be better.

They had no idea what had happened in the unholy mess they had learnt about when they'd learnt Charlotte was still alive.

Sirius had been sent to Azkaban for betraying them to Voldemort?

It made no sense, and in a way Lily was thankful they had moved even if she knew it had condemned their eldest daughter to a life of hell, and when they got back they would find Sirius and discover what the hell was going on. Thinking of Sirius made Lily frown, she and James had a lot of questions for Charlotte's supposed godfather and when they revealed to the imbecile they were alive, he had better make the explanations phenomenally good. If he or that idiot werewolf didn't then she would have two new pelts to make carpets from.

But what had been very difficult for her and James had moved here all of those years ago, and one of the reasons why they hadn't had children for a good few years, was because they had been left reeling by their belief Charlotte was dead. And all the time she was alive. The revelation of Charlotte's survival had shaken both her and James, and it had been the main reason why she and James had spent all this time making arrangements for getting back to Britain. They had bought a lot of things over the years, and right now all of their furniture and other possessions were just things to Lily.

Lily and James had visited their home country over the last few months, hoping to find a place where they could move into; neither of the Potter parents was that picky with where they went, they didn't care if they had to move into a flat, a house, into the country, in a city, or a town, and they didn't give a damn if they moved to Wales or Scotland, so long as they were in a better position to meet Charlotte and make up for everything that had happened to her…

If indeed it was possible.

Lily sat down heavily in one of the nearest chairs, rubbing her face tiredly. She hated to feel uncertain, but she couldn't help it. She and James were hoping to meet Charlotte, but after they had seen those memories - it never failed to amaze her the magical world showed its capacities to destroy lives, or cause mental pain, especially the Light although now she was rethinking her views on the two main camps in Magical Britain, seeing them as infantile and pathetic - they had needed to step back and rethink their ideas.

They had been hoping when they reached Charlotte, their reunion would go smoothly over a few rough patches, but after they had seen those memories they realised their foolishness.

Charlotte was nothing like Jason; they'd had their son a good few years after they'd believed Charlotte was killed, the latest in a long line of senseless murders at the hands at a psychotic cult run by a psychopath lashing out at the world and murdering anyone who looked at him strangely because he wanted power and the way he was going, it had been likely Voldemort wouldn't have stopped until every last living thing on Earth was wiped out.

Jason had been born in a time where Voldemort was believed to have died, and when they had moved, they had swiftly learnt the Dark Lord of Britain had been isolated by Europe itself, the European countries had learnt from the mess with Grindelwald, unlike Britain, sadly enough. The former Dark Lord had been charismatic, and his rise to power and his reign of terror had sent shockwaves throughout the world, and many witches and wizards had been left debating if Grindelwald was right about the Statute of Secrecy. Even many muggleborns, Lily among them, had wondered if the Dark Lord was right.

That was nothing compared to what the rest of the world, especially Europe had done. They had come up with means of stopping Dark Lords from gaining footholds even if they knew many of their peoples would share the same ideals as those Dark Lords. Europe itself had isolated, no - quarantined Britain from the rest of the world, and many other countries had followed the example here, in this part of the world, they knew Voldemort had raised a number of concerns, but he hadn't yet been a threat, which would have given them plenty of time to come up with tactics of fighting the bastard - they had raised him in a way Lily now regretted.

Okay, granted, they'd been left reeling with Charlotte's loss, but it wasn't until Jason was ten years old, Lily realised they had raised him as a slightly spoilt child, a sheltered child who wasn't really aware of the realities of the world, tempered by the fact Lily and James both trained him to the best of their ability. At the same time, he had become a fan of popular culture, which wasn't a bad thing, but he had narrow ideas of what made somebody into a hero. And he did not and probably would never see his older sister that way.

It was sad, but in Jason's mind, a hero was not somebody who hurt others and while Lily shared some of his views, she had to see things from Charlotte's perspective. In any case, she was not a hero, just a girl who was trying to survive in a harsh world while everyone around her was telling her to do this and to do that. In many ways she had made the same mistakes Charlus and Dorea had made with James, they'd both been older than average parents when they'd finally succeeded with having James, and Dorea couldn't bear any more children in order to make James a more tempered child. Lily and James had decided to wait for a few years before they had another child, they had just wanted Jason to be more mature before they tried for another baby.

But it was likely when they did have a child again, she and James would need to train them up so they would be safe always. They had believed they had lost one of their children to Voldemort and his sick cult, they were not going to lose another child.

Thinking of Jason led Lily to one of her bigger headaches.

Her son wasn't happy about the move. Not only were they moving away from all of his friends, but they were moving back to their home country, a place they had been trying to avoid for years. Lily wasn't looking forward to it either, especially since they were going to be reunited with Charlotte, and considering how violent she had been during the Tournament, nobody could blame them. Hell, even Lily couldn't blame her own daughter for her actions and what she'd been doing. She was lashing out at everyone who crossed her, although many of them had deserved it; Lily had cheered when Charlotte had gone for Dumbledore. The old bastard deserved it. Lily remembered the times the old man had poked his nose into her own relationship with Petunia, trying to tell her to forgive her sister, but Lily had refused.

But now she knew why Dumbledore had gone to so much trouble to try to make her forgive her sister, he wanted a nice little home for Charlotte only it would never have worked either way. Petunia and Vernon had both been warped by their own bigoted hatred, Petunia was nothing more than a woman obsessed with envying other people while never once bothering to better herself when she'd had so many chances, and Vernon was an arrogant, narrow-minded bastard.

Charlotte had been abused and hurt, her beautiful, innocent and sweet daughter, had been beaten, forced to work as a slave while Petunia, Vernon, and Dudley lived like kings in their own little world. Petunia and Vernon would have been overjoyed especially her bitter bitch of a sister who would have loved the thought of lauding it over her, Lily. When Lily realised what had been happening, she had nearly destroyed the supporting wall of the house. Why the hell hadn't she cursed Petunia so badly the woman would have grown the fuck up? What had happened to Charlotte was down to her, because of her mistakes.

But did Jason understand any of that? No, he didn't. He only saw Charlotte as competition in a contest which made no sense, and after everything she had witnessed Charlotte do so far during the Tournament, Lily was worried Jason was going to say or do something and Charlotte would retaliate.

She hoped it didn't happen. She wanted her children to get along, at the same time she wanted the spectres of Dumbledore and Voldemort out of their lives so then Charlotte would recover better.

For a moment Lily wondered what would happen if the magical world discovered their survival after believing they were dead for years and what would happen with Dumbledore, but she didn't want to think about it, especially since she knew how much of a wily old bird Dumbledore really was, and how much of a politician he was. He had decades of political experience, and he could spin anything he wanted; Dumbledore might have lost a lot of his clout recently, but he knew how to win over a crowd. Knowing him, if he wanted to, Dumbledore could make it look like she and her husband had left Charlotte to her fate, and he'd do it.

For the Greater Good. She hated the phrase, she had heard it spoken more than once by Dumbledore during the time she'd spent in the Order of the Phoenix, and yet the old bastard had never once explained what the Greater Good was. But now she was starting to get the idea the Greater Good was Dumbledore's own gain, and knowing him he'd have an answer for everything

Fuck, I hate politics, Lily groaned to herself, rubbing her forehead, inwardly knowing if the old goat did spin some stupid story, how the Potters had abandoned their daughter, and there would be so little she or James could do about it.

She didn't want to deal with Dumbledore again, especially since the old man was seemingly so obsessed with Charlotte - she remembered how interested Dumbledore had been in her daughter when Charlotte had been a baby, and she knew that fucking prophecy had a great deal to do with that interest, but what made it worse was Dumbledore had frequently told her and James and Alice and Frank their children would be needed in the fight against Voldemort.

Both she and Alice didn't like that. In their minds, the war was their concern, not their children's, and it made them both worried the old wizard expected the war to continue, on and on for centuries, until their great-grandchildren if they had any had known nothing but suffering because of Voldemort.

And Dumbledore seemed to want it to happen. It was like he wanted pain and misery to occur so then he could appear as a hero. She hoped that was not the case, but she had the nasty suspicion that it was so. Lily only hoped the old wizard didn't say or do anything stupid in this case, but all he seemed to be doing was pushing Charlotte to her breaking point. Unless of course she had already been broken too badly, if her actions during the Tournament were any indication, but Lily hoped she and James could do something that would mend the damage.

XXX

It was around dinner the Potters got into a conversation about the move.

"How's the food?" Lily asked. They were having homemade pizza; Lily despised fast-food, especially since she'd had a bout of food poisoning and found a piece of a human finger in her fries, and she'd had nightmares about it since enough to never ever want to have any fast food again.

James chuckled affectionately at his wife, although he knew full well what she was doing. "How's your pizza?" He countered after swallowing a mouthful of succulent pepperoni, pepper, mushroom, onion, cheese and tomato sauce, getting some around the edge of his mouth.

"Fantastic," Lily replied, and she was about to turn to Jason in order to ask him something in order to soften the blow that was coming, but her son was not fooled.

"Look, if we're gonna be talking about the move, can we just get on with it?" Jason snapped. Outwardly he resembled his father in appearance, although he took after his mother in the length of his messy hair, and he had inherited her eye colour. Unfortunately, because of what they'd gone through, he was more arrogant than James had ever been. And it made conversations like this harder for Lily to cope, which was one of the reasons why James stepped in.

The cheerful dispositions of Lily and James vanished instantly at his tone. "We're moving at the end of the week," Lily might have been a Dementor for all the warmth she generated with that statement, "so we've got to get packing."

Jason was instantly protesting. "What?! That's not fair!"

"Why?" Lily leaned forward, her eyes narrowed as she glared at Jason.

Jason missed or ignored the danger signs. "I have to say goodbye to my friends-!"

"You've had plenty of time to say goodbye," Lily pointed out, glaring at him as she slowly lost her patience with him.

Something about Jason's manner made James realise something as he stared at his son. "Jason, you have told people we're moving, right?"

Jason's sullen expression gave him his answer.

"You haven't told anyone?" Lily couldn't believe it. "Why not? Did you really think you were exempt from the move? I can tell you, you are coming with us!"

"But I don't want to go!" Jason shouted.

"DON'T YOU DARE SHOUT AT ME!" Lily screamed, losing completely with him. But instead of backing down, Jason came back at her although a part of him knew he was going to be getting it from his parents for some time.

"I don't see why we're going back for your precious Charlotte!" Jason sneered at the name.

"She's your sister," James interrupted, his voice low as he glared at his son, openly displeased with him. "She needs us!"

The sneer on Jason's face made James wonder if their son had been replaced with a Malfoy who had taken some excellent polyjuice potion. "She needs-!"

But Lily and James would never hear what their daughter needed because suddenly everything went black….

Standing over the bodies in the nicely appointed dining room, three men wearing long wizarding robes of a vivid white colour trimmed in grey and black stood over them. They had been in the house for some time, cloaked with disillusionment charms to render themselves invisible, and they had managed to find a way in by using Jason's hair for bypassing the blood-based wards put up around the house for the Potter's protection.

The leader of the group looked down at the bodies thoughtfully before he turned to the others. "Get them out of here," he ordered, "and pack up their things. We will make it look like they've moved, as planned."

"Understood," one of the others said.

It would take some time, but when they had finished their work it would appear to the estate agency the Potters had moved back home to Britain ahead of schedule, and they had.

Just not in the way they'd had in mind. It was to make certain that every single loophole was tied up quietly.

It was better than outright kidnapping them and leaving anything suspicious behind in their wake.