Harry couldn't help his smile as he glanced around the tent where his family was looking over the stolen books and various magical items, trying to find any last crumbs of useful information in the stacks of stolen books before he loaded his saved game for his second attempt. He'd gotten to know his parents and Sirius a bit more over the last two weeks they'd spent pouring over the stolen books and records.
His father had a warped and mostly amusing sense of humor as did his mother, though hers was a bit more refined and less geared toward pranks. "Has anyone found anything Earth shattering?"
James looked up from the book he was reading. "Does a new charm for mind controlling slugs count?"
Harry snorted. "Let's go with no. We can always catch it the next time around if we have to."
Lily looked at Harry sadly. "In that case, you should probably reset things before something goes wrong with your time loop and we're stuck with the statute of secrecy being ripped apart."
Harry blushed in embarrassment. "It's not like I knew there was a television crew filming a live story at the time…"
Sirius laughed. "It was rather amusing watching Fudge running around with his head cut off."
"Don't worry, I'll share the memories you shared after I reset the loop. I'll even share some of the crap he did in my world so you can understand why I hate him."
Lily sighed. "You might as well reset things…"
Harry reached up, touched his nose, said, "Load game." and found himself outside of their tent where he'd saved the game.
Sirius pulled his hood up. "Let's head to Diagon alley before I change my mind."
Harry shook his head. "Give me a second, I just loaded the save game."
Sirius blinked. "Save game?"
"It's what I call my time loops," Harry explained.
"What happened?" Sirius asked curiously.
"I might have shattered the statute of secrecy by unleashing a dragon on London," Harry admitted.
Sirius stared at Harry's green eyes which was really the only part of Harry that he could see because of his charmed outfit. "Where did you find a dragon?"
"Chained up under Gringotts," Harry admitted.
"Did you manage to steal anything useful?"
Harry reached up and took his mask off and stuck it in his inventory so that Sirius could see his face. "Various old family books and magical items that we spent the last two weeks combing through for interesting spells that weren't horribly dark."
"Did you find the cup?" Sirius asked hopefully.
"Right where it should be in Bellatrix's vault."
"Fantastic, let's go explain things to Lily then we can review what you found out and figure out how to get the cup without unleashing a dragon on London." Sirius wasn't really a fan of the statute of secrecy as he didn't think wizards had the right to modify memories because of lazy wizards, but he wanted a bit more information on the fallout before he suggested that they do something as potentially world changing as shatter it into little pieces.
"Sounds good. I've got some memories to share from the time loop." Harry turned and headed back into the tent to face what he was sure was going to be a rather loud conversation.
Lily looked up from her book as a mostly invisible Harry and Sirius walked back into the tent. "Is there a reason you're wearing disillusioned clothes Harry?"
Harry nodded his head. "Yep, Sirius said we should rob Gringotts."
Sirius sputtered, "Harry!"
Lily raised her eyebrows. "Even he isn't that crazy, what's going on?"
Harry snickered at the look on Sirius's face. "I have the ability to set up time loops, basically I can start a time loop then reset it to the instant I created the time loop."
"Let's assume for a second that you're not playing a practical joke, do you have any proof?"
"I called a coin toss twenty times for Sirius the first time around using my time loops." Harry opened his inventory and pulled out his pensieve. "I can show you a bunch of memories from the two weeks I spent in the loop. We worked on learning spells and stealing goblin secrets."
Lily frowned as she considered Harry's statement for a couple of seconds then sighed as she realized that this was a bit too much trouble for James to go to for a prank... probably. "Let's start with a couple of memories and we'll go from there once I'm sure this isn't one of James' stupid pranks."
Harry laughed as he walked over to the table and set the large bowl down then pulled his wand out of his inventory. "Don't worry, this isn't a prank. I'm not much of a prankster, I grew up with the Dursleys."
Lily scowled as she thought about her sister and her sister's husband. "That should have never happened."
Sirius shook his head. "I can't believe I didn't kill them the last time around."
"I'm fairly sure you weren't thinking straight after over a decade in prison with the dementors." Harry pulled out the memory that the Lily from the loop had left the current Lily. "The other Lily left a memory for you."
"If this is a prank, you're grounded until you graduate," Lily stated firmly.
Harry shook his head. "Don't worry, if I prank you, it will be something fun and harmless not something crazy."
"Just as long as you realize that I'll prank you back," Lily replied then walked over and looked at the memory in the bowl.
Sirius looked at Harry. "Did my future self leave me with any messages?"
"Just a couple of memories of various people running around like headless chickens after the dragon was recorded on live television and rebroadcast to the world."
Sirius shook his head. "I still can't believe it was that easy to bring everything crashing down."
Harry smirked. "The prime minister was rather angry about the war against Voldemort putting his citizens at risk and the Ministry's inability or unwillingness to deal with the problem. Without the dragon getting loose he probably wouldn't have been able to do anything about it, I know he didn't the last time around."
Sirius could see how having a dragon flying over London in the middle of the day would cause a lot of problems for the ministry. "Still, the obliviators should have been able to explain it away as a mass hallucination."
"They probably would have if the prime minister hadn't had a dozen muggle born witches and wizards in his cabinet that worked for him keep the ministry from forcing the issue. Tens of thousands of people had seen the dragon with their own eyes and hundreds of thousands had seen it on live television then millions as it was rebroadcast to the world. Not to mention the obliviators were already massively overworked with the sheer number of parties when people found out Voldemort was missing. The ministry probably could have still spun it as a hocus except that the prime minister shared the whole ugly truth about the wizarding world on live television in a press conference with a couple of masked wizards to help put the nail in the coffin."
"And with the dragon… that would be enough," Sirius realized.
"Not to mention a bunch of unhappy muggleborn witches and wizards came out of the woodwork in masks and started tossing up semi permanent glowing lights and various other spells around the world to prove the existence of magic."
Sirius shook his head. "How bad was the backlash against the magical world?"
Harry shrugged. "The prime minister did a decent job painting the average magical citizens as normal people with magic, dealing with a corrupt government but there are enough idiots in the world that a backlash was pretty much assured."
"I'd rather avoid revealing the wizarding world at least until we've had a chance to clean up the ministry."
"Cleaning up the ministry is on my to do list," Harry assured him.
Lily pulled her head away from the pensieve. "I can't believe you actually broke into the bank."
Harry scowled as he thought about the goblins. "I needed to make sure the cup was in Bellatrix's vault. Besides, Griphook tried to kill me the last time around and the goblins tried to rob me blind after I defeated Voldemort because I had to break into a vault to kill Voldemort."
"Wizards haven't treated the goblins all that well either," she pointed out.
Harry snorted. "I don't care. I made a deal in good faith with Griphook to get the cup. While I will admit that I missed the detail about getting out of the bank in the actual deal, we'd talked about how to get out of the bank so it was reasonable to assume it was included. The moment I had the cup he grabbed the sword and left my friends and I to die in the vault even knowing that I hadn't destroyed the cup yet nor the rest of Voldemort's horcruxes. So, yeah no, I don't have a problem with stealing everything I can from the greedy little monsters including secrets on how to make goblin silver and galleons."
Sirius spoke up, "You do realize most of them are taller than you are, right?"
"Currently."
Lily asked, "What else did you learn?"
"I'll start making a list." Harry figured writing it down would be easier in the long run.
0o0o0
Harry looked away from the stack of notes on the 'living' room table his dictation quill had scribed and over at one of his mothers. "Everything is sort of blurring together."
Lily looked up from reading one of the pages of notes that Harry had dictated about his adventure in Gringotts. "In that case, maybe it's time to change directions for a bit, we've been at this for three days."
"We should go after some of the other Horcruxes," Sirius suggested as he walked into the tent's living room from outside.
Harry turned and looked at Sirius, "Any luck getting the locket?"
"It's dealt with. My father was disturbingly helpful after I explained about Regulus's death and the reason for it. I don't think I've ever heard him tell my mother to stuff it before, it was almost worth going back to that house." Sirius shivered. "We apparated to the coast and my father torched the locket with fiendfyre, Kreature was disturbingly happy."
"Good, that just leaves the diadem in Hogwarts, the ring, the diary in Malfoy's manor and the cup in the vault."
"Getting access to the diary should be easier after Malfoy goes to prison," Lily mused.
The other Lily set the page of notes she'd been reading down and looked at Harry. "I wouldn't mind trying to unravel the curses on the ring if a certain someone would tell us where it is."
"Sure, let me just set up a time loop and I'll tell you." Harry reached up and touched his nose. "Save game."
"Game Saved."
Harry let his arm drop back to his side. "It's under a shack. I have a feeling this might take a couple of tries before we get it right."
"Any reason that we can't just torch the shack with fiendfyre?" Sirius asked as he walked over and sat down in a chair.
"I want the stone in the ring, it belonged to a many, many times great uncle on Dad's side and it can be used to talk to the dead."
Sirius raised an eyebrow. "You're talking about the resurrection stone?"
"It doesn't actually bring people back from the dead, but yeah," Harry agreed.
"You mean it's not just a myth?" Sirius asked in disbelief.
"Part myth part amazing craftsmanship is my guess. Three brothers, one stone that can talk to the dead, one legendary wand and one cloak that never wore out over the centuries, sound familiar?"
Sirius rubbed his face. "How the hell did we miss that?"
Lily looked at Sirius curiously. "What are you talking about?"
"James's cloak, it was his father's cloak and his father's cloak before him and so on… I figured it was just rather impressive craftsmanship or that they just kept replacing the cloak or touching it up now and then."
"It is, Dumbledore has the wand, Dad has the cloak and the stone is buried under a shack with a death curse on the ring," Harry assured her.
"Dumbledore has the elder wand?" Lily asked, just to be sure she was hearing him right.
Harry grinned. "He took it from Grindelwald after their duel. I would have stolen a copy in the tutorial if I could have figured out a way to get Dumbledore to the house."
Lily shook her head bemusedly. "Now what?"
"Considering I didn't tell you where it is, I'm going to recreate my time loop then we'll go see what we can find out." Harry touched his nose and saved his game again.
"Game saved."
0o0o0
Lily put her ear plugs in then lit the stick of dynamite she'd 'borrowed' from a muggle construction company and tossed it through the shack's window and ran for it. Normally, she wouldn't have been this reckless, but Albus had placed a couple of detection charms around the shack and any magic alerted him. Normally she wouldn't care if Albus knew she was hunting down Horcruxes but in his particular case, with this particular item, Albus had gotten himself cursed a couple of times in previous loops much to Harry's frustration. She ran behind the cart they'd 'borrowed' from further down the road. It wasn't great cover but she didn't want to use magic unless they had to.
Sirius waited for the explosion to light the evening up then took his silenced earplugs out. "That was fun," He stood up and looked at the destruction with a grin on his face.
Lily pulled her earplugs out and stuck them in one of her pockets. "You're the one with dragonhide gloves."
Sirius picked up his long pry bar and made his way over to the ruined shack. He slammed the pry bar into the rotting floorboard where Harry had shown him a memory of the box resting then ripped the boards up so that he could use the end of the bar to hook the handle of the box. He didn't want to touch the box even with his gloves until they did more spell work and he didn't want to do the spell work here. He carefully walked back over to the cart with the box as far away from him as possible.
Lily shook her head . "If I didn't know you weren't being paranoid, I'd call you paranoid."
"Let's get the cart out of here before someone comes to investigate the noise," Sirius said as he dropped the box and crowbar in the back of the cart then grabbed the handles in front of the cart and started pulling it further down the road.
"Hopefully this works," Lily muttered as she helped him with the cart
Sirius snorted as they hauled the cart down the road back to where they'd 'borrowed' it from. "If we can move the box to a secure location, Harry can start another loop and we can work on the box without Albus showing up to 'help'."
"That brings up another question, do we tell Albus about the Horcrux in Hogwarts or do we just sneak in and grab it?" Lily asked.
"Considering the sheer number of ways into Hogwarts, I'm inclined to just sneak in and steal it, that way we don't have to explain how we know what we know until after Voldemort is completely gone," Sirius replied thoughtfully.
Lily shook her head, "I'd rather not have him looking at Harry too closely."
"Yeah, he might try to obliviate Harry so that he can grow up normal or something stupid like that," he pointed out.
Lily scowled as she thought of anyone hurting her son. "If he tries, I'll kill him."
"It shouldn't come to that. He has a lot on his mind right now with all of the trials." Sirius pulled the cart back into place where they'd grabbed it from then walked around to the back of the cart and looked at the box. He picked up the pry bar then used the tip to pick up the box by the handle and move it to the ground. He wedged the pry bar into the crack between the lid and the box and twisted.
Lily frowned slightly as she watched the tip of the pry bar turn black and crumble as the lid was forced open. "Nasty."
Sirius dropped the pry bar as the curse quickly traveled up the shaft. "Yeah, I'm starting to think that Riddle didn't trust people."
Lily smirked. "I don't think he did either."
Sirius pulled a pair of metal tongs out of his expanded belt pouch and used them to reach in and grab the ring resting 'innocently' in the box. "I feel like I'm back in potions waiting for something to explode."
"The only reason one of your potions would have exploded was because you put something in it to make it explode." Lily pulled out her wand and used it to turn the box into slag so that it wouldn't curse any innocent muggles that happened to find it.
"Back to the tent?"
"Remember that patch of brambles about a mile away from the tent?" Lily asked with amusement.
"You mean the one with a very narrow area without brambles?" Sirius laughed softly.
"That's the one. Give me ten seconds then follow me." Lily apparated to the 'safe' area in the patch of brambles then lit her wand and slipped through the opening and out on the trail being careful to avoid the thorns. She turned and smiled as Sirius appeared. "We should probably move the camp."
Sirius carefully made his way out of the brambles holding the ring as far away from him as he could using the tongs. "Probably," he agreed with a shrug.
"I was thinking about Severus and Peter." Lily increased the light coming from her wand as she walked down the trail toward camp.
"What about them?" Sirius asked as he followed Lily.
"I was thinking about coming out with a story about how Severus and Peter sold Voldemort down the river, to make sure that Albus can never hire Severus, as the Death Eaters would make it impossible for him to take any public position without getting killed. Plus, I actually like Peter's parents, and they don't need to know that the war broke him, so him dying before his treachery comes to light is acceptable."
"So you'd make them heroes?" Sirius asked in disbelief.
"Dead ones," she agreed. "Severus made his own choices regardless of his horrible homelife, and Peter… I still don't know what the hell happened there. Maybe Voldemort obliviated the hell out of him or put him under a curse or something. I'd really like to find out more before I toss him to the wolves. Snape however, tried to make a deal with Voldemort so he could save me, not making any effort to save my husband or child, which his actions put in danger in the first place,
so I want him locked up or dead. If we come out with a story about how Snape sold out the Death Eaters then they'll be gunning for him so even if he stays out of prison he'll have a very limited shelf life."
"Never piss off a redhead," Sirius muttered as they walked down the path back toward the tent.
"What was that?" Lily asked with amusement as she'd heard exactly what he'd muttered.
"Nothing, I was just thinking about ways that we can spin things," he lied.
"What do you mean?" Lily asked curiously.
"If we spin Peter as a hero that tragically died destroying Voldemort then nothing stops us from locking him in a rat cage for a couple of years."
Lily snorted. "Let's figure out how guilty he is before we throw him under the bridge, but I like the idea I came up with for how to deal with Severus. I don't want him anywhere near Hogwarts or children, any children, ever."
"I don't either." Sirius fell silent as they walked through the woods.
0o0o0
Lily grumbled as they got closer to the door that lead into the Chamber of Secrets, "I can't believe I let you talk me into sneaking down here."
"Do we have a plan if the basilisk is loose?" James asked cautiously.
Harry glanced down at James from his spot on his mother's shoulders. "If I die the loop resets; if you get turned to stone, I'll reset the loop." He glanced over at the sleeping rooster Sirius was holding. "We have a sleeping rooster, I'll call the basilisk forth while we have our eyes closed, then we shake the rooster awake and the basilisk dies, simple and much easier than the last time around."
James held up one of his family's goblin made blades. "At which point we stab the creature so our weapons can destroy Voldemort's horcruxes?"
"That's the plan." Harry focused on the door and hissed, "Open."
Lily kept her off hand on Harry's ankle and her right hand on her wand as the door opened revealing the so called Chamber of Secrets. "Let's get this over with."
Harry almost felt sorry for the sleeping basilisk when he woke it up and called it forth only for Sirius to wake the rooster up which let out a cry and killed the beast. "Killing it with a sword was more impressive."
Lily opened her eyes and and looked at the massive snake in horrified awe. "Seeing it in a pensieve just isn't the same."
James opened his eyes and stared at the basilisk in disbelief. "Damn…"
Sirius laughed. "And I killed it, that should be good for getting some tail."
"No one will believe you." Harry snickered at the look of disappointment on Sirius's face.
Sirius mock pouted. "Don't ruin the moment."
James walked over and worked on carefully propping open the beast's mouth with so they could stab into its venom sacks and coat their collection of goblin forged blades, hopefully without getting any of it on them considering how toxic it was.
Harry opened his inventory and pulled out one of the goblin forged chalices that they'd brought to store some of the venom in for future use. He was just glad that his inventory would keep everything fresh until they could find a use for it or a buyer. "Let's carefully grab what we need then we can sneak up and grab the diadem."
James couldn't help the smile on his face as he worked. 'If this works, Voldemort will be dead and we'll have most of his supporters in prison by Christmas.'
0o0o0
Harry floated over the tent's living room end table where half of the Peverell family ring was sitting innocently or not so innocently. Sirius had used one of the daggers and a hammer to cut the ring in half as they didn't want to damage the stone. "The stone looks intact so I think we're in business."
"Good, now get back over here and set up a loop so that we can keep testing things," Lily replied.
Harry flew back over to where his mother was standing and touched his nose. "Save game."
"Game saved."
"The loop is set up," he reported.
Lily pointed at the ring with her wand and flicked then twisted it causing the gold to 'melt' off of the stone.
Harry blinked. "Where did you learn that?"
"On one of my trips to the restricted section to look up spells for a transfiguration project. It was used in the old days to refine metal to an acceptable level. They'd just crush the rocks containing the ore then use the spell while focusing on the metal and the precious metal bits would liquefy so they could collect them."
"Why don't they teach that at Hogwarts?" Harry asked in frustration.
"Lack of interest for the most part. The goal of education is to teach you the skills you need to teach yourself or at least that was how it was explained to me."
"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard … but I guess I just sort of skated through last time…" Harry trailed off rather embarrassed that he'd slacked off as much as he had the last time around.
"The last time around you had to deal with a rather large number of distractions. I'm sure you'll do better this time around," Lily replied firmly.
He quickly reassured his mother, "Of course, I'm planning on keeping up with Hermione this time." He was looking forward to seeing how many scholastic records he could break while having loads of fun this time.
"Good. Hopefully you won't have to worry about Snape and Trelawney this time around."
"I think I'd quit if I had to put up with him again and I'm not planning on taking Divination so I shouldn't have to deal with Trelawney. If I can figure out a way to get Binns to move on I'm going to, preferably before I start school," Harry mused thoughtfully.
"Best of luck, I hated that class." Lily smiled at Harry in a conspiratorial manner. "Don't tell your father but I used earplugs and a dictation quill. It was easier to just read the textbook during class and the notes later than try to pay attention to Binns."
Harry laughed as he pictured his mother pretending to pay attention while people fell asleep around her. "That's not a bad idea."
Lily turned and looked at the stone sitting innocently on the table. "Who are you going to call first?"
"I'm not sure, I have the names of several dead goblin smiths and a couple of historical figures that were supposed to have some interesting tricks that I wouldn't mind talking to. Do you have anyone that you'd want to talk to?" he asked curiously.
Lily considered the question for a couple of seconds before replying, "Not really, I was fairly young when my grandparents died and Mum and Dad are on a world tour so I don't think the stone will help."
"They've alive? Aunt Petunia said they were dead," Harry sputtered.
Lily snorted. "Right because she's the most trustworthy person in the world. It's possible they died in your original timeline, but it's much more likely that Petunia just didn't want to talk about them and someone reported you dead with the attack. They reacted rather poorly to her deciding to marry a fat loudmouthed bigot, words were exchanged and Petunia stormed off."
"If they're alive, why did I get stuck with Petunia?" Harry asked in disbelief.
"I'm not sure. It might have been because of the anti tracking bracelets we charmed for them kept the ministry from tracking them down or maybe Albus just lost his goddamned marbles and decided that placing you with Petunia would work out. How the hell he'd come to that conclusion, I have no idea."
Harry took a breath then let it out as he realized that it didn't matter, his parents were alive and he'd never put up with living with the Dursleys a second time. "On that cheerful note, I think I'm going to update the time loop and we can test the stone on some goblin smiths and try to figure out where we need to start for turning silver into goblin silver."
"We have to start somewhere." Lily was hoping they'd be able to recover a fair number of secrets using the stone.
Harry touched his nose. "Save game."
"Game saved."
"The new loop is set up, go ahead and pick up the stone."
Lily walked over and carefully touched the stone. It felt cool to the touch but other than that no different than most stones. She pulled her finger back from the stone and examined it. "It looks the same and doesn't hurt which probably means that we removed all of the curses on it."
Harry sighed in relief. He'd had enough of watching his mother die even if he could just reset things by loading his saved game, but she insisted on testing for curses herself rather than let him try it. "In that case, give it a whirl."
Lily turned the stone three times and focused on calling Ignotus Peverell.
A remarkably solid ghost like figure with wild black hair and black robes appeared after the third twist. "Ah, my brother's stone."
"Please don't take this the wrong way but is the story true?" Lily asked curiously.
Ignotus smiled in a knowing and slightly mischievous way at the toddler and witch. "I presume you are talking about the tale of the so called Deathly Hallows?"
"I'm guessing by your response that the story isn't true?" she guessed.
"Not as such. While the cloak, wand and stone exist, they are merely exceptionally crafted magical items that took on a bit of a legend. I blame my older brother, he couldn't keep his mouth shut when he got drunk and loved to brag."
"Is that how he died?"
Ignotus glanced at Harry then back at Lily. "Nah, he died in bed at a hundred and fifty with a couple of muggle girls."
Lily shook her head. "Does that mean that Cadmus didn't kill himself?"
"Ah, nah he transfigured a body and faked his death after moving most of his inventions to a different town. A couple too many close calls with people trying to steal the stone for one reason or another," he explained.
Harry asked, "Do you have any tricks that you can share?"
Ignotus grinned. "I was hoping that you'd ask. Tell you what, if you tell me how you came to have several copies of my cloak, I'd be more than willing to teach a descendant magic."
"When I first got sent back I might have been in an alternate world." He wasn't sure how else to explain being stuck in a videogame to someone that had been born in the middle ages. "I managed to grab a copy of my parents and the cloak and then things shifted and I was back with my parents. I grabbed another copy of the cloak... and long story short I ended up with several cloaks and an extra set of my parents and godfather."
Ignotus laughed. "Interesting, any idea how you came back in time?"
"No, the last thing I remember was getting hit by a bus, a large horseless carriage," he explained.
"I'm dead, not stupid. I know what a bus is, we can peek into the real world in various situations and on various days. How much do they cover enchanting at Hogwarts?" he asked.
"They cover charms…" Harry trailed off with a shrug.
"Blah, I don't mean the crap that fades in a couple of months or years, I mean stuff that will last centuries or thousands of years if you're good," he said firmly.
Other than his cloak, various parts of Hogwarts, the Arch of Death and artifacts from the founders, Harry couldn't think of too many things that had that sort of lifespan. "Dumbledore created a magical item that captures light and restores it, but most of what we learned in Hogwarts only lasts a couple of years at most."
Ignotus shook his head and said, "In that case, let's start from the beginning."
"How long can you stay?" Lily asked.
"As long as I need to."
"The stories said it caused the ghosts pain to stay."
"Eh, yet another thing the stories got both right and wrong. Then again I shouldn't have expected much from that hack bard. Cadmus called his lost love for weeks on end before she got tired of him not living his life and told him that he was causing her heartache by not moving on. Our situation isn't even close to the same. You're here to learn a skill. Once you get the basics down, you shouldn't have to call me other than the occasional project or to give me updates on your progress. In other words, don't worry about it," he assured her.
"That's good to know," Lily admitted.
Harry asked, "Where do we start?"
"Do you have a wand you can comfortably use?" Ignotus asked.
"Every wand I have is rather large," Harry admitted.
"In that case, we'll start with crafting wands. I'm not an expert like my brother, but few people are or ever were to tell you the truth. Your mother can help."
Lily nodded her agreement. "I'd be happy to."
Harry listened intently as Ignotus launched into a spirited explanation of wand crafting.
