Chapter Nine: Take me back to your time

Lily held the crying Ron in her arms, rubbing and patting his shoulder trying to comfort him but in reality she was shocked. What did the boy mean by she won't see her son grow old? Does that mean that they will be separated or something else happened? She was afraid to ask Ron now as he was crying hard.

Ron was crying on Lily's shoulders, he tried hard to control it but he really couldn't. He imagined how Molly would have felt if she knew that her children were going to be orphans, he imagined how Hermione would have felt if she knew that her children were going to be orphans and as a matter of fact how would he feel about that. It was a big question.

"Ron, please tell me." Lily literally begged him.

Ron wiped his tears and cleared his throat. "After Voldemort knew your secret hiding, he came after you. Harry was one year old when that happened. When Voldemort entered your house, James asked you to take Harry upstairs so that he can face Voldemort. You know James didn't even have his wand with him." Ron began to cry again. He was talking about a father who tried to defend his family from a powerful without wand in hand. But still the love for his family made to do it. "James, James." Ron said hoping Lily would understand.

"It's alright." Lily said but in reality she too had tears in her eyes and was thinking how stupid she was to defy James all these days.

"Voldemort killed James and came after you and Harry. He asked you to stand aside so that he could kill Harry." Lily interrupted him and asked."Why didn't he kill me?" "I will come back to that later. You refused to stand back and tried to protect Harry but you were no match for him. And then he turned back to Harry but something weird happened. He was not able to kill Harry." Ron was breathing heavily now.

''Why was he not able to?" Lily was curious.

"Because of your love he couldn't kill Harry. A mother's love is the most powerful magic in the world. That protected Harry and the magic backfired, banishing Voldemort. He was not dead but he just vanished." Ron waited for Lily's reaction but she was stunned. Ron put his hand on her shoulder and shook her slowly."Mrs. Potter."

"I am sorry, please continue."

"After that Harry went on to live with your sister and his husband."

"What? With Petunia and Vernon?" Lily screamed.

"Calm down, Mrs. Potter. Dumbledore had his reasons to send Harry to live with them."

"Whatever the reason might be, they are horrible people. How did they treat him?"

"Worst, they bullied him. They had a son named Dudley who was about Harry's age. He gave Harry a hard time, torturing him a lot and they gave his oversized clothes to Harry. He was really unhappy there but Petunia had your blood, so your blood protected Harry from Voldemort till he was of his age, Dumbledore made Harry stay with them. Harry could have easily lived with any wizard and witch's house but Dumbledore wanted to protect him. Dumbledore too died protecting Harry. There are a lot of people who died so that Harry could finish off Voldemort." Ron said wiping off his tears. It all came back to him, the war, people being tortured, people dying, Fred dying. "There are a lot people who lost their loved ones, I lost my brother, Harry lost his parents and his godfather." Lily interrupted him and asked who his godfather was. "Sirius Black." Ron whispered.

"I knew it." Lily said. Even though she had tears in her eyes, she was smiling. It was good to know that at least Sirius was there during his childhood. "Why didn't Sirius bring up Harry?" Lily asked him.

Ron looked up at her and said slowly. "When Sirius said to change your secret keeper to Peter, only you, James, Peter and he knew it. After Voldemort killed you guys, Sirius went mad and chased Peter, the double crossing rat accused Sirius of double crossing the Potters, killed twelve muggles and cut his right index finger and turned into a rat. Everyone thought that Sirius had murdered Peter along with the twelve muggles, even Dumbledore and Remus believed so because they didn't know you have changed your secret keeper. Sirius spend twelve years in Azkaban for the crime that he didn't commit. Peter disguised as a rat and lived with my family for twelve years. He too in died during the second year and so did Remus."

Lily was shaking right now, that was a lot of information to process in short span of time. "That means Harry didn't grow up with anyone from the magical community." She whispered barely audible to Ron.

"No, only on his eleventh birthday he knew that he was a wizard. Till then he though you guys died in a car crash." Ron said holding Lily's shoulders and patting them.

"Take me back to your time." Lily muttered.