Author's Note: I edited this, nothing major changed, what more do you want from me?

Rose Bevans, or rather as she was now, Lily Evans Potter, first became aware of her return to the land of the conscious and aware, when she began to perceive her own harsh rasping breath. The next thing she noticed was just how sore she was. Every bit of her body ached, which considering that she couldn't recall just what had caused this at that moment, was concerning. Thus, as people were want to do when they found themselves in such a situation she cast her mind back in the hopes of figuring out just what multi-ton monstrosity had run them over.

Now had this been a case of one too many beers fogging her recollection of the night before, she might have actually struggled to remember the cause — that was assuming she could remember it at all. However, instead she found her mind suddenly flooded with memories and thoughts as the gates crashed open.

She couldn't help it in the face of the torrent of images, many of them conflicting and contradictory, she felt the panic begin to rise. Now, many people might have experienced a moment or two where they find themselves wondering if what they are seeing is real, particularly if they have recently imbibed too much alcohol or some other substance. However, very few people had the distinct misfortune to find themselves with close to sixteen years of memories which were apparently both true and untrue at the same time. So as her mind screamed, that it couldn't all be real, it seized upon something, the moments prior to its recent loss of consciousness.

Lily remembered...her son? No, that couldn't be right, her son was dead. Wasn't he? She could have sworn that he was, and yet she could clearly remember him in her kitchen, with a girl she did not recognize. Just how she knew he was her son she couldn't quite say. After all her child, at least according to the memories she could recall, had been lost as an infant. And yet that was who he had to be, no one else could look so much like James...

She had to know, had to know if he was real! Had to know if she remembered correctly. Had to know which of all her conflicting memories were fact.

Her eyes cracked open, the faint light of the room around her blistering her headache addled brain. Still, she recognized this place...She was in her room. At least that's what she believed this place was, and-

She could hear the murmur of voices in the distance. One, a familiar hum she would know anywhere, the one she could swear belonged to her daughter. And another, similar in tone and pitch, but not in cadence, one she did not recognize. She listened to the two voices murmur for a moment before they were interrupted by a slower deeper bass, a male voice.

Kate, that was her daughter's name...She was certain of that at least. Her daughter was real, if nothing else. Surely Kate could tell her what was real? She groaned and rolled onto her side before sitting up, swaying precariously. She had to know…

She staggered upright and stumbled forward catching herself on the doorframe to her bedroom. Her legs were struggling to support her weight right then, but she managed to badger them into cooperating inasmuch as they could.

Lily staggered further into the hall and the voices slowly became clearer as she ventured onward. "So, how'd you get a Snowy Owl in England anyways? They're not exactly native to the Isles if I remember correctly…" inquired the voice of her daughter.

"Dunno, first time I saw her Hagrid-er, that's a friend of mine, was standing outside Ollivander's with her in a cage for me…" Lily could practically hear the head scratching consternation in the male's voice as she sagged against a wall to catch her breath. Why was this so difficult?

There was a pause. "What about Crookshanks, that was the cat's name wasn't it? A Kneazle mix right, did you get him from a breeder Hermione?" Kate asked, clearly desperate to strike up some kind of conversation.

There was a low chuckle from the room down the hall. "Actually no, I got him from the pet store in Diagon Alley...he walked right up to me, seemed to know I was meant to take him."

The male snorted in amusement. "You keep saying that, I still think he just recognized you wouldn't punt him across the room if he got too close like everyone else he'd met."

There was an offended huff and indrawn breath as Lily finally staggered into the room and slumped against the doorframe. There, in her kitchen, were three teenagers. Two female, sitting at the table, the first who was facing her, she recognized in relief as Kate. The second, a girl perhaps a year or two at the most older than her daughter, with somewhat bushy brown hair and serious eyes. And finally, standing at the stove working over something which was filling the room with a delicious aroma was a boy, his back to her.

But even as her eyes fell on him she felt a sense of familiarity. A mop of unruly black hair she'd have known anywhere atop his head...

Whatever the serious brunette had been about to say was halted when Kate spotted her standing in the doorway and raised a hand to stop the girl across from her, smiling brightly in relief. "Mom!"

The exclamation drew the attention of the others. The girl, Hermione, that was the name Kate had used in the conversation she'd overheard, turned to look at her. Lily hardly noticed, her attention fixed upon the boy who turned at Kate's voice.

He-looked so much like James, and yet he was different too... Slightly different features though she doubted anyone who hadn't been intimately familiar with James would have noticed. But his eyes, a startling green, the same shade as those she saw in the mirror every morning.

Lily drew a deep rattling breath and pointed a shaking finger at the one she knew had to be her son. "Harry?" She breathed, "Is that really you?"

He stared at her, his eyes inscrutable for a time before he spoke. "Mum…"'

She felt tears begin to form in her eyes as the reality of it set in. "I-it's real then? It's really you?"

He turned a moment, dropping the pan on the stove with clatter before stepping back towards her. Lily for her part staggered part way across the room, her feet drawing her unconsciously toward her child.

The weakness growing in her limbs saw her stumbling, she would have hit the ground had Harry not reached forward in time to catch her by the shoulders. He held her at arm's length as he looked her over.

It was a long moment as his eyes searched her, "It's me mum, I-I can't believe you're here…" he admitted thickly.

"Harry-" She lunged forward grasping him tightly to her chest in a desperate hug, afraid that he'd vanish before her eyes. At first, though she failed to notice this, he was uncertain. Still she clung to him, and after a few moments he began to ease, allowing his arms to go around her, and she wept. "My boy-My son is alive…."

—

Voldemort, Dark Lord of the British Isles seethed. He hated to abandon his stronghold, had hoped to avoid it if possible, one of the many hoped for benefits of killing Amelia Bones. The other candidates for Minister were so much more…predictable than she was. Most were either too corrupt or too wrapped up in notions of pureblood supremacy to ever find him where he sheltered at Malfoy Manor.

But Bones wouldn't let such notions as pureblood privilege stop her, nor could she be bought off with gold as Fudge could.

With the capture and upcoming interrogations of the Carrow twins she had forced his hand. He and his followers could no longer remain at Malfoy Manor. Not that those two would remain a threat to his causes security for long…

Still, the longer they remained here, and the longer the Carrows remained alive and in custody, the greater the chance of them being discovered was.

His faithful Death Eaters were scouring the manor house now for anything that might be of value. After all Narcissa and her whelp wouldn't be using any of it. No, he had matters arranged. Should the Aurors raid Malfoy Manor they would be left here to reap what Lucius' failure had sown. And should the Aurors not find them in time…

He shrugged mentally, then their deaths would be punishment for Lucius' failure in their own right.

He cared very little if he alienated his primary financier in all this. The Malfoy's were not the only wealthy pureblood supremacists in Great Britain, the others within his ranks would pick up the slack. There was no shortage of opulent estates and strongholds within which he and his followers could shelter. It merely…irked him, that his followers seemed to be so incompetent.

None of the new bloods he had been assured were worthy additions to the ranks had made it through the raid on the Bones residence. Those not killed had no knowledge of note of Death Eater operations, so he had little fear in that regard.

However it certainly seemed that many of Great Britain's Pureblooded scions were worthless when it came to completing their apportioned task. It was so hard to find good help these days…

He stifled what amusement he felt at that thought. These fools who called themselves his followers…all truly believed he cared for their nonsensical and self destructive traditions and culture, when nothing could be further from the truth. He only cared for power, and in the end he would have it. So why had he courted their favour so? It was simple, in Great Britain, they held the wealth, power, and influence he needed to secure his own dominance. Nothing more, nothing less.

That in the end more of these inbred fools would die than even their mudblood and half-blood counterparts amused him to no end. Though he was not so blind as to believe such a state of affairs could last forever. No, when the purebloods had expended themselves in this conflict he would find new, and hopefully more capable allies, and his enemies would be powerless to stop him.

He looked around what had at one time been his throne room, barely sparing the bound and gagged Malfoy wife and scion a glance. It would do no good to terry over long here. He looked to his lieutenant. "Dear Bellatrix…" He purred.

She quivered in anticipation from where she knelt expectantly before him. "Yes, my Lord?"

"I require your mark."

She immediately tore the sleeve from her shirt and proffered her forearm to him. He wasted no time, drawing his wand and pressing it to her mark. She didn't even flinch, not blinking as her mark burned on her forearm, and he immediately felt the flow of magic entering his veins and smiled.

It wasn't a commonly known capability of the Dark Mark, but on occasions in which he found himself in need, he could draw upon the magic of his followers through the black tattoo affixed to their forearm.

In this case? He was drawing the magic out of the incarcerated Carrow failures and into himself.

Had they been kept in Azkaban, or even shielded from interrogation, perhaps he would still have had sufficient use for them in times to come. However…instead it had come to this.

A magical body, was nothing without it's magic, so accustomed to that primordial force within itself it could not survive without it should it flee. Thus, should he draw all the magic out of a captured follower such as he did now…

He smiled vindictively as he felt the flow of power slacken then halt altogether as the sources died. Madam Bones would no doubt be furious when she woke tomorrow, for without those two, what need of a meeting of the Wizengamot was there?

He stretched slightly enjoying the last gift of his erstwhile comrades before gesturing for Bellatrix to rise. "Come Bella, it is time to leave I think. Perhaps our next abode will be more permanent than this one?"

He swept out of the building, his followers trailing behind him, all the while Draco and Narcissa struggled against their bonds in vain.

—

Kate stepped forward uncertainly as her mother embraced her brother, it was good that she remembered him, that meant the ritual had worked...at least in part. The questions which now dominated her thoughts was, did her mother remember her? And what would she do if she didn't? "Ummmm, mom? I hate to interrupt, but uh-you remember me too right?" She ventured worriedly.

Lily turned her eyes on her daughter and smiled tearfully at her, extending an inviting hand out towards her. "Of course, Katie, come here," she ordered before drawing a relieved Kate into the embrace alongside Harry.

Perhaps it was the way in which she staggered a little as her daughter lunged forward to hug her, but Harry seemed to notice then just how unsteady his mother was. "Come on, let's all take a seat. Mum's a bit wobbly right now."

Once seated Lily stared disbelievingly at her two children seated side by side next to her, finally shaking her head muzzily. "I don't understand. How is this all possible?" It made no sense…

Hermione chuckled ruefully, smiling a bit thinly at them. "That is something I'm sure we'd all like to know the details of, but the short version is that you were under some sort of memory charm. Harry showing up-well it caused a conflict with the charm and you passed out. We took you to that Inuit healer your daughter recommended and she managed to sort you out. Umm-I suppose I should introduce myself? I'm Hermione Granger, I'm Harry's friend..."

Lily murmured a greeting before getting back to the task at hand.

She shook her head, a memory charm...Who, and more importantly, why? She could think of people capable of the act, but not of a particular motive for any of them...And it had come into conflict when she'd seen Harry? Very strange.

She saw the questioning look she was receiving from her son across the table, and sought to explain what she was feeling. "It's just all so unbelievable isn't it? You, here now…and the memory charm."

Her daughter, seemed to be handling everything better than her at least, and was smiling at her long lost sibling. "How did you even find us out here? You didn't know we were here correct?"

Harry shook his head, in a negative to Kate's question, then looked questioningly to Hermione. Lily couldn't help but wonder at how often her son seemed to defer or seek the support of his friend. Just how close were these two? There was so much about her son's life she didn't know...

The girl shrugged, and he turned back to face Lily, his green eyes meeting hers. "That's…a long story. I'm more than willing to tell it, but it might help a bit if—if you told me your side of things first mum."

She nodded slowly, he undoubtedly didn't know everything that had happened that night all those years ago. It was a reasonable request. Besides it might help her figure out what had happened herself. "I assume that it will all come back to that night with you too, the memory charm must have been cast around then…" She queried, then paused thinking, trying to decide where to start.

She thought back. "When…'He' showed up that night, my husband...James, went to stall him. The hope was that I could get to you and we could flee. But James was killed, and I was basically trapped upstairs with you…" She paused, her eyes going distant as she struggled to remember. "Looking back now, I wonder if I could have done things differently. I had been researching a protective spell which had the potential to block the killing curse if charged highly enough. It wasn't prepared yet, so I did everything I could in what little time was available. I did the incantation pouring everything I had into it…and I carved that rune into your forehead."

Harry's hand was going to his forehead before he stopped it, looking surprised. Lily couldn't hide her own surprise. "You didn't know?" She hadn't been able to remember that detail until recently, but it should have been obvious to anyone competent.

Her son shook his head, "No, I was always told it was from the curse he fired at me."

Lily's brow furrowed and she considered him. Someone had been feeding him inaccurate information. That could mean any number of things. It could be that whomever he had discussed the matter with was largely ignorant of runecrafting...or had been deliberately misleading him. "Who told you that? It should have been fairly obvious to any adult who'd passed their Runes NEWT just what that symbol was."

"Dumbledore…" Harry muttered, his tone a mixture of a question and curse which had her worried.

She grimaced uncertainly, Dumbledore...Her old headmaster, the old man should have known that. He was an alchemist, runes were used extensively in the preparation of such things... "Yeah, well no…it's not from a curse, it was me, trying to anchor the protections to you as best I could in the time I had left." She shook her head refocusing on her fragmentary memories. "It was just after I'd finished, I think, you were crying? Who could blame you after I cut your forehead like that... he found us. He broke into the room and I begged him not to kill you…"

Here she paused, noticing the way her son blanched, his hand clenching spasmodically before he shared a look with his friend. Hermione, such a strange name, unusual even for the wizarding world.

"I know." Harry admitted seeing her questioning stare.

Her headache was fairly pounding now. "How could you know…"

"I remember it whenever Dementors come near me," her son admitted looking almost ashamed as he stared at his hands.

That made her blink in surprise. "When have you been near those monsters?" she demanded. Dementors were not common creatures, especially outside of Britain. However within that nation which had once been her home they were supposed to be tightly regulated. When they weren't being walled up to contain them, like they'd taken to doing in the last war. It was true you couldn't kill a Dementor by using force of arms or magic, but you could starve them to death. Too long without feeding and they faded away just like anything else. She'd have assumed they were all destroyed after 'his' destruction.

"Later, I promise," Harry said sitting up again running his hand back through his hair, in a way which was disconcertingly similar to the way her husband, James, used to.

She nodded her acceptance, she did after all have a story to finish telling. Memories to finish sorting... "'He' hit me with something. At the time I thought it was the killing curse, the light was green, but…I woke up later. You…were gone." She choked out remembering now, her panic at seeing his empty crib. "James was gone too, but an old man, someone familiar - Dumbledore? Was there…" She fought to regain control of herself, and so missed the odd expressions which briefly flickered across the two British teenagers' faces.

"He told me…" she continued after taking a shuddering breath thinking back. "That my husband and child were dead. That...James, would need to be prepared for burial, but that…you were too badly—well, that there was barely anything left of you. I remember thinking he looked so sad, the old man, and he told me that he thought I should leave, that the war was over, The killer—You-Know-Who I suppose now, was dead thanks to my actions, but that things had come at a terrible cost for me. He promised to see to burying you and my husband. I agreed, I felt so…I'd just lost everything, or I thought I had? You, my husband, my home…I wanted to die, I wanted to leave. After all what was left for me at the time?" she asked a touch scornfully as more memories clicked into place. "My sister who hated me with every fibre of her being? James' old friends, the Marauders? Remus wasn't so close considering we thought him a possible traitor...and Peter...Peter betrayed us." She hissed that last part. "I never cared to know what had happened to my husband's old friends….I couldn't remember them...why? Sirius-Remus, they would have stood by me surely? Why didn't I think of them?"

The other's shared a loaded look. Harry explained a bit. "Whoever charmed you seemed to want you to leave. If you would have stayed for Remus and...Sirius, that would have gotten in the way." She noted the hitch in his voice when he mentioned Sirius, and how he seemed to sink into a reflective mood.

Harry sighed noisily, as his thoughts strayed and his eyes filled with pain. "I'm afraid Sirius is not — with us — any longer." His mother flinched, the roller coaster ride her emotions were on today was giving her whiplash. Harry sagged and Hermione laid a hand on his shoulder and he reached up to squeeze it in thanks before looking back to his mother. "Continue with your story, I'll tell you in a bit." He murmured.

She nodded sadly, she remembered Sirius now...Though not as well as Harry obviously had. Clearly the wound was still raw for him, it must have happened recently. She still felt tears welling in her eyes and had to wipe them away before continuing. Sirius had been a good and loyal friend...To hear that he was gone? "I came here not long after, it was the furthest property from England that I knew about. I had your sister, almost didn't survive it…For a long time I could barely get myself up in the morning, but taking care of her helped me through it."

Harry nodded gratefully to the girl he now knew as his sister, something which he had not yet had time to truly accept. She merely shrugged sheepishly back at him, thinking that she hadn't really done anything.

"I didn't like thinking of Britain, and avoided hearing about it when I could, something which I now regret. Perhaps if I had seen pictures of you-maybe that would have jogged me out of it? Maybe...I have some dealings with a local Inuit Medicine Woman, and I train Kate myself as best I can when we get time, I could have sent her to Ilvermony, she didn't want to go…It's not so bad up here, well…once you get used to the cold and man eating predators."

She and Kate shared a tired chuckle at some old shared joke. Something familiar. "There's more of course, lots of little things, but that's about the sum of my end of things. Lots of little stories that you'll want to hear I hope... I just—I'm so sorry, I don't know why, but I couldn't stay after that night, that memory charm- I never wanted to look back. But if I had—"

Her son raised a hand to stall her. "It's okay, I wish it could have been different too, but we're here now."

"It's also very possible given the memory charm that you couldn't have done anything except what was suggested…" Hermione noted sympathetically. Lily couldn't know it but she was remembering the feeling of being out of control when the imposter put their defence class under imperius in fourth year.

She nodded her thanks tiredly. "Can you please tell me now…Your side of things I mean. Maybe then some of this will start to make sense?"

He nodded easily. "I don't know a lot, and a lot of what I do know looks to be wrong, just based on what you've told me." He admitted, before continuing at her confused expression. "I think I'll start by giving you what I know of the things that led up to events that evening," he decided.

She nodded and he began to recite what he could recall. "Sometime in the months previous to that, Dumbledore had been interviewing a candidate for a job opening at Hogwarts. Specifically for the position of teaching Divination."

Lily snorted a touch scornfully at that, and received a small smile in return, he nodded his head to Hermione. "That's about how Hermione and I think of that subject as well. Anyways, while he was taking this interview, the applicant — who's quite frankly a fraud otherwise — slipped into an actual vision, the kind that gets recorded by the hall of prophecy at the Ministry."

She nodded understanding, she too was aware of that little known corner of the government. He pressed on. "She made a prediction about someone who would be able to defeat Voldemort. This normally would have been good news, except that a Death Eater had managed to overhear part of the interview, which Dumbledore had been conducting at the local tavern. The Death Eater got thrown out, but not before he'd heard a portion of the prophecy, basically all he got was the part about someone who was going to be born, who would defeat the Dark Lord, someone who was born as the seventh month died. Born to those who had defied the Dark Lord three times."

She grimaced, shutting her eyes in anguish realizing just what he was saying. "You?"

He nodded once she opened her eyes again. "Yes, or at the time it could have also meant Neville Longbottom."

Lily sagged as the implications of that hit home. "Ah, and both of our families were under threat from Voldemort and went into hiding. We were told by-Dumbledore that an agent he had among the enemy told him that we were being targeted as an example against those who would resist him."

Harry nodded slowly, clearly wondering why Dumbledore hadn't simply told them about the Prophecy. "Yes, but it was the rest of the Prophecy, the part he didn't hear, which was important. Apparently the Dark Lord would somehow mark the child as his equal, that he'd have a power the Dark Lord knew not, and that either he or the Dark Lord would have to die before the other could live. Dumbledore, he told me that my scar was his way of marking me, a lie apparently." He growled, then cut himself off with an irritable gesture. "Either way when he came to our home, he died. I was told that I was protected by the love you used to fuel the shield…"

"Love?" Lily blurted confused.

He smiled knowingly. "I'd actually taken some solace from that until recently, that you'd loved me enough that it could stop even Avada Kedavra from touching me."

His mother shook her head sorrowfully. "I do love you that much Harry, I swear, even though I do not truly know you anymore, I'll always love you with everything I have. But, as far as I know it was not that which fuelled my spell. I know of no method by which a spell can be fuelled by love. That was one of the things the Department of Mysteries studied, not little old me."

Harry nodded, smiling slightly at her calm yet casual assertion that she loved him. That was perhaps the only time in his memory when someone had said that. "I suspect now that that too must have been a lie on Dumbledore's part. He tried to convince me that it was my capacity for love and giving of myself which is the power the Dark Lord knows not." He shrugged, ignoring her skeptical expression, something he knew was more directed at Dumbledore's claims than at him.

Kate snickered. "What, did he expect you to hug the Dark Lord to death?"

Harry shrugged. "I hope not. Regardless, I was told you died that night, along with Dad protecting me from evil. I was later told that Voldemort had only been disembodied, not killed outright, which I have to say appears to indeed be true."

"If you don't mind me asking…" she began tenuously, waiting for his signal before pressing on. "Where were you all these years? Who took care of you? Was it with Sirius? I don't know who else in our will was left alive at the end of it all, assuming he couldn't take you."

"Will?" Harry asked, nonplussed.

She nodded slowly. "Yes, if I were reported dead, then the will must have been carried out surely?"

He considered her, his eyes unreadable, his expression inscrutable. "Who did you list to take care of me?"

She sighed, thinking back, it felt both like an eternity and an instant had passed since that previous life thanks to the charm. "Sirius was the primary, though from your tone I'd say you didn't end up with him...Then were Alice and Frank Longbottom…."

Harry cringed explaining. "They were captured and tortured by Bellatrix Lestrange around the time we were attacked. They're…not in any condition to be raising anyone. Neville has been brought up by his grandmother."

She couldn't help but grieve for the fate of her friends, so long forgotten, but pressed on. "Then was Remus…we were fairly sure by then he wasn't a traitor." Harry just frowned, adding to her concern so she pressed on. "Then was the Tonks family." Here Harry blinked in surprise instead, but she pressed on, there was only one left on the list anyways... "Last was Amelia Bones, my husband's old coworker... At which point if none of the others had lived she was to take you out of the country by whatever means which were available and hidden."

Harry chuckled before sighing wearily. "Remus, is alive and well though he never received care of me. The Tonkses are alive and kicking too, Nymphadora, who I recommend you never call by her first name…"

This time it was her turn to chuckle. That, she remembered. It was funny the things which came back easily while other fragments fought her tooth and nail to remain hidden. "Even back then she hated that name."

Harry smiled genuinely but briefly at the thought. "She's a riot to be around. Didn't end up with them or Bones though. Which is ironic seeing as its Madam Bones who helped me get out of Britain unnoticed."

"Then who?" she asked, almost dreading the answer.

"Your sister."

She gasped, "They put you with Petunia and that bastard whale of a husband of hers?"

Her ire was momentarily diverted when Kate snorted in amusement. The girl winced at her mother's glare. Hermione was looking none too pleased either.

Kate raised her hands placatingly "Sorry, sorry. It's just that description was kinda funny."

Lily grimaced, thinking of the memories she had of the man. "Yes, well there's certainly nothing funny about Vernon Dursley."

Harry snorted indelicately. "I'd have to agree with that. However, I'm told it was because of your relation to her that the, well…the 'Blood Wards' for lack of a better term would remain active so long as I made my home with someone of your bloodline." He shrugged. "Again, a lie. One which I can only speculate as to the reason to."

She snarled, furious and heartbroken at the same time, tears which were equal parts fury and pain ran down her face. "I cannot imagine you had an easy life, if you were forced to live with her family all these years."

"No, I admit I did not. But…I don't want you to worry about what it was like, we should—" But she cut him off with an angry shake of her head.

"No, I should know. I want to know what the old man-What, Albus Bloody Dumbledore subjected you to for all these years! I want to know what my dear sister did with my son, I deserve to know what Dumbledore caused you to suffer for another one of his damned schemes!" She said plainly.

He considered her, likely deciding how to react to taking instructions from a woman who was basically a stranger. But he just sighed and slumped back in his chair watching her carefully over the table. "I don't talk about it. Hermione could vouch for that…So this will be the first time I've spoke of some of this…" He waited for her nod of acknowledgement. "Are you familiar with Number 4 Privet Drive?"

She hesitated trying to remember before the memories came, that little suburb was where her sister had decided to call home. A place barely a step up from a tenement really but which had all the pomposity of a walled estate.

He nodded considering her. "I was left on their doorstep with a note from Dumbledore. I don't know why they agreed to take me in, seeing as they clearly despised everything about me and who I am…" He grumbled. "I lived in the closet under the stairs for years…."

"What!" Hermione shouted, causing them all to start, and Lily felt her own hands start to shake, it was unclear whether it was from rage or anguish at this point. Kate appeared to be too shocked for words, a rare occurrence as anyone who knew her could tell you. He shrugged, and pressed on despite protesting sounds from his friend. "I was told that you and dad had died in a car accident, the result of him being a drunkard."

"They told you what?" Lily hissed. That it was a falsehood was insulting enough, James had always been careful to remain in control of his faculties hating the feeling of being out of control. But that they had said this to the child of people believed deceased…It was unconscionable.

Again her son ploughed on. "I didn't actually know my name wasn't freak, boy or 'you little bastard' until I went to primary school. I did speak to a teacher once you know, but nothing ever came of it…I honestly don't know why."

As he didn't seem prepared to stop and talk about any of this in detail his friend reached out and grasped his hand in her own, giving comfort despite his inability to discuss it all further.

"I never was fed all that much, or treated all that well, but whenever I suffered a bout of accidental magic I'd be locked in the closet after my beating without food for a couple days. One day everything changed. Letters started coming from Hogwarts though the Dursleys tried to stop me from going. When the letters became unbearable for them, they took us into hiding at some shack out at sea…Say Hermione do you know if the school supply letters can reach us here?"

The girl appeared surprised at the change of direction then shook her head. "No, the spell that tracks students for those letters only reaches to the edge of the isles. It took a great deal of power to cast that spell in the first place and the New World hadn't been rediscovered yet when it was made."

He nodded, seeming relieved. "Hagrid came for me then, broke into the shack, scared the crap out of the Dursleys let me tell you…spelled Dudley with a pig's tail. That really pissed them off…Explains the next summer I suppose. Either way, he introduced me to the wizarding world. He even got me my familiar. Hedwig, first friend I had besides Hagrid himself I suppose. You know, it's funny, I still think of Hagrid as a friend despite it all. I think he's just too damn loyal for his own good, and Dumbledore used that to his own benefit."

Lily nodded absently at that, she too had fond memories of the half-giant. It was true what Harry said, Hagrid was a simple man who worshipped the ground Dumbledore walked on.

Harry shrugged that off. "I got my wand, which ironically was in some ways my first experience with Voldemort." He saw his mother's querying expression. "My wand bears the brother core to his own."

She hummed, the enchanter in her intrigued by the concept, even as the mother in her was horrified. "That…could have some interesting complications."

He chuckled, actually seeming vaguely pleased. "It does, but we can come back to that later. I returned to the Dursleys after that for a bit, before I got shipped off to school. They seemed resigned to the fact I was going at that point." He sighed, an almost happy sound as he recalled that time. "It really was the start of a whole new life for me. Hogwarts I mean…Now?" He shook his head. "I can't help but wonder if Dumbledore set it all up from the beginning…"

Lily frowned, but continued reluctantly. Her memories of the headmaster did not match his actions. "I'll admit, Dumbledore has been a part of many things that leave me wondering about his true motives now..." She thought about just the things they had spoken of in the last few minutes. She wondered how many of his past actions were not so benign as they seemed. He was there that night...why would he tell her Harry was dead if he was not? There were just too many questions arising. She wanted answers…

Elsewhere, across the world in the British Ministry of Magic's DMLE holding cells, jailer Doniker was having a bad day. He'd left not ten minutes before…okay, maybe twenty minutes, if he was being honest with himself, to grab the food for the prisoners from the kitchens. He'd stopped off at the canteen for a drink or three along the way.

Now, he hadn't been expecting excitement and joy at the prospect of the gruel that passed for food. But usually prisoners would at least acknowledge your presence when you brought them something to fill that hole in their bellies. So he became a bit concerned when his announcement that supper was served met with silence.

A quick check in their cell, and a lot of screaming and throwing up later, and he managed to report to his superiors that the pair sharing a cell in the basement were dead. Very Dead, dried out and mummified with their faces locked in a rictus of horror, dead.

It turned out that this stomach turning change in routine was just the beginning of his bad day. Apparently, his bosses wanted to know why he'd decided to leave the cell block unguarded, against protocol. And apparently they were less than satisfied with his burbled excuses. Soon enough Jailer Doniker was just Doniker, as he was unemployed. Why couldn't a bloke catch a break?

—-

Lily smiled, one of the first genuine ones she'd managed for a while. Her worries about Dumbledore could wait a bit, she could take time to think on it, for the moment she'd prefer to hear about her son's life, and he'd given her a good opening. "I know what you mean about Hogwarts though, it was the same for me too."

Harry chuckled and jerked a thumb at Hermione, "I made my first friends my own age on the train, I met Hermione there..." he smiled fondly at his friend. "Though we didn't really become close until that Halloween. We did both get selected for Gryffindor though."

Lily laughed at that, a surprising, happy sound which shocked even her. "Of course you were. I can't see anything taking the Gryffindor out of a child of mine and my-James'."

He smiled, ignoring the slight hitch at his father's name. "Things were…different at Hogwarts. I had friends, for the first time I could recall, and for the most part people seemed nice enough. I had a few enemies naturally."

She hummed agreement. "Death Eater spawn I assume?"

Harry grimaced. "Yeah, and Snape."

Lily blinked surprise at that, her old friends name bringing with it a myriad of memories, good and bad. "Severus? What's he doing teaching at Hogwarts? He hates being around children!"

Harry snorted, "Trust me we've noticed. He teaches potions, hates my guts…apparently I'm arrogant just like my father."

She sighed shaking her head, "Severus and your father had a highly…unpleasant relationship." She admitted. "Basically your father tormented Severus until I put a stop to it…He never did forgive James."

Here Harry interrupted her. "I know, I saw some memories of it. Apparently he's taking out his grudge on him against me."

Lily shook her head sadly, remembering how her childhood friend had always had been…touchy. He held onto grudges like they were his sole link to sanity. She changed subjects, they could address that further later, along with everything else. "So, what happened that Halloween that helped you two become friends?"

Hermione spoke up here, "He saved my life."

Whatever answers Lily had been expecting, that had not been among them. Hermione explained, chattering happily, despite the topic. "I wasn't terribly popular back then. I'm still not I suppose…I was-am, a bit of a know-it-all, a bookworm, you can imagine how well that went over with some of my fellow students."

Lily nodded sadly. Indeed she did know, she remembered times like that in her own youth, children could be cruel.

"Ronald Weasley, who was hanging around Harry a lot said something which really hurt my feelings. I hid in the nearest bathroom and cried for hours, I was considering quitting Hogwarts if I'm being perfectly honest…"

Harry sighed, shaking his head while giving his friend a one armed hug before taking back the reins. "That was when Professor Quirrell, our Defence professor of the year, ran into the great hall and started screaming about a troll that had made it into the castle."

"A troll?" Lily asked confused. "How'd the bloody thing get past the wards?"

Her son grimaced. "Quirrell let it in himself, it turns out," Harry noted dryly. "Anyways, he said the troll was in the dungeons. The teachers all raced off to face it, and instructed the prefects to take us all back to our dormitories…"

Lily gave him a questioning look. "That makes no sense, the Slytherin and Hufflepuff dormitories are in the dungeons."

Harry nodded agreeably. "I know, Dumbledore does that sort of thing a lot. Whenever there's danger about, he has everyone walk around with a prefect. As if that's going to do anything against some of the things which have been around the school lately. Anyways, I remembered that Hermione didn't know about the troll and went looking for her." He rolled his eyes. "Except, naturally the troll wasn't where Quirrell had said it was. And naturally it had found and cornered Hermione."

She sighed, and leaned forward to rest her head on the table a moment before sitting up again. Her headache was making a resurgence. "Please tell me you didn't try to take on a troll by yourself." She could see the answer in his embarrassed expression and groaned.

Hermione for her part appeared amused at his discomfort. "Actually, he jumped on its back and stuck his wand up its nose."

Kate barked a startled laugh, while Lily fought the urge to scream in frustration. Harry took to carrying on the story. "I'd forced Ron to come along, which is a good thing because he managed to drop the thing's club on its head and knocked it out."

"And there you go, friendship formed!" Hermione noted happily.

"Not the only dangerous thing in the castle that year." Harry noted absently.

His mother shook her head, somehow that didn't comfort her. "Do I even want to know?

Harry considered her. "If you want to know exactly the six kinds of hell Dumbledore has allowed me to go through the last few years…then yeah, kinda."

Lily groaned.

OLD Temporal Knight Psuedo-AN: So this chapter gave us a bit of trouble but we got there in the end. Trying to get the balance between Lily remembering things yet still having leftover issues with a long term, deep memory charm were difficult. Hopefully we've managed to strike the middle ground well enough to keep it both realistic and enjoyable!

Recommendation(s) for the week: Death's Pride and Darkened Paths by Paladeus. RIP Paladeus, who has sadly passed beyond the veil.