Disclaimer: ...
Hey guys! So this is the chapter that more of our canon characters finally make an appearance (werewolves anyone?) and we get to see (my version) what exactly happened in Godric's Hollow, so yeah, I hope you guys like reading it as much as I liked writing it!
Read, Review, and Enjoy,
Stars.
And for a while things were cold;
They were scared down in their homes.
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines.
But she and her furry friends
Took down the queen bee and her men
And that's how the story goes,
The story of the beast with those four dirty paws.
~Dirty Paws, Of Monsters and Men
The first thing Harry noticed about the Leaky Cauldron was that it was very accurately named, as there did seem to be leaks everywhere. He held tightly onto his Godmother's hand as she walked towards the bar. The bartender smiled at her,
"Ah, Miss. Danilynn! Usual, I presume?" She laughed a little and shook her head,
"No, no drinking today, Tom, sobriety is important at the moment. I'm looking for Remus. You wouldn't happen to know where the wolf is, would you?" The man, Tom, laughed,
"As a matter of fact, he's renting a room upstairs, and I do believe that he's here right now. 7B."
"Thanks, Tom. Come on, sweetie." Harry was gently pulled along by Dany until he heard someone say,
"Good God. It's Harry Potter." Tom dropped the glass he was drying and the entire room went silent.
"Danilynn Charlotte. Why do you have Harry Potter with you?"
"He's my Godson, Tom. Lily and James left it up to me to protect and raise him, and that's my intention. If you have a problem with that, we'll talk later." Tom nodded and Harry couldn't help but notice that the last part of his Godmother's words were hanging in the room almost as a veiled threat, implying that everything but talking would be going on. Dany guided him from the room and Harry could feel everyone watching him as they left. They climbed the stars until they reached a black door with paint peeling off it that looked very much like every other door in the Leaky Cauldron. Dany knocked loudly, and highly impatiently.
"Remus. Remus John Lupin. You open this door or I swear to whatever God there may be, I'll knock it over." Moments later a man in tattered clothing and a serious case of bed head opened the door, rubbing his eyes,
"Bloody Hell, woman. No wonder you and Sirius got on so well, neither of you has an ounce of patience." The man, presumably named Remus John Lupin, muttered as he finally looked at the woman in his doorway, and the boy holding her hand.
"Oh…oh, Dany. It's—it's him, isn't it?" She nodded.
"I picked him up from Petunia this morning. Harry, say hello to Remus. He is one of my best friends and was a close friend of your mom and dad, as well." Harry looked up at the man and smiled,
"Hello." Remus crouched down and said,
"Hey Harry. It's been a long time. Gosh, you're eight now, am I right?" Harry nodded rather shyly, "You look just like your dad, you know? Just like James." Harry swelled with pride at being compared to his father, "Why don't you both come in and we'll all talk?" Harry looked pleadingly at Dany, who laughed a little and said,
"Of course, Remus, we didn't come find you for nothing after all." Harry trailed Dany as they walked in and she soon sat on the floor. Harry followed suit, clinging to his Godmother, and Remus rummaged through his belongings.
"Harry, have you ever seen your parents?"
"N—No, sir."
"Oh, please call me Remus, or Moony, that's what your dad called me after all, and come here and you can see them. I have lots and lots of pictures of them both." Harry abandoned Dany's hand and rushed over to where Moony had a thick, leather bound book in his hands. Harry took the book carefully and opened it to a picture of four boys laughing. To his surprise the pictures were moving.
"Magic pictures." Dany said from her position on the other side of the room.
Remus pointed to one of the boys and said, "That's your dad, James. That's me. And that's our friend Peter." Remus pointed to a boy with glasses and a shock of black hair, a boy that was clearly a younger version of the man in front of him, and a pudgy boy who was rather shorter than the others.
"Who's that?" Harry pointed to the fourth boy, who also had black hair. He was laughing and shoved Harry's dad out of the frame jokingly. James came back and promptly pushed the other boy over.
"That's the man who kill—"
"Remus." Dany warned from across the room.
"Oh come on, Danilynn, he killed them!" Dany stood up and Harry slowly backed into a corner.
"He did not. You should be ashamed of yourself for being so willing to think so poorly of someone who would have died for you."
"The Ministry—" Remus started by Dany didn't let him finish. Something had changed in her.
"The Ministry didn't even give him a trial."
"The Minister himself arrested him!"
"I'm shocked at you, Remus. Those people hate your kind and you're going to stand here and defend them for arresting my husband? Lily and James, not to mention your parents, would be so disappointed."
"He's a Death Eater!" A vase in the corner shattered with no apparent outside influence. Glass tinkled to the ground in the corner.
"No, he's not! I came to you for help, Remus. And you wouldn't give it to me."
"We are not going there now. If Sirius wasn't the secret keeper than who was?" Dany fell silent for a moment,
"I don't know anymore. I used to, but I don't anymore. That night, I told Harry and buried it in his memory to protect all of us, but I erased the name from my own memory."
"Convenient, wouldn't you say?" Dany looked like she was going to rip out Remus' throat.
"It's coming back, the memory." Harry finally spoke and the looks on both adults' faces said quite clearly they had forgotten he was there, "I'll remember the name soon."
"Dumbledore can get the name from him. That's why I came here. I need you to get in contact with him." Remus sighed.
"Fine. Fine. I'll Floo call him." Moony walked over to the fireplace and took a handful of sandy stuff and threw it into the fireplace, "Albus, a word if you don't mind?" for a moment nothing happened, but then soon a figure emerged from the fireplace. A wizened old man with a beard tucked into his belt and half-moon glasses stepped out of the fireplace and Harry was pretty sure that he was going to wake up from this dream any moment. This had to be a dream. People just didn't appear in fireplaces. Dany bent down and whispered,
"Magic."
"Remus, a pleasure as always. Danilynn Black, it has been a long time, hasn't it?" Dany nodded slowly.
"Seven years, to be exact. I trust you know who this is, Albus." The old man nodded knowingly and said,
"Of course. What is the reason you called me here for?"
"Danilynn claims she placed the name of the secret keeper in Harry's mind the night Lily and James were killed in Godric's Hollow. I want to know if you could extract the name from him. He says that the memory is coming back, but it could be years before a name becomes intelligible."
"I can try. Danilynn is a powerful witch Remus, I may not be able to override her spell."
"It wasn't my best, given the, erm, time crunch of Voldemort coming up the stairs to murder one of my best friends and Godson." Dany muttered from the corner, eyeing Remus with a look of borderline disgust on her pretty face, standing in contrast with her bright silver-blonde hair. Albus approached Harry and said calmly,
"Hello Harry, my name is Professor Dumbledore and I am here to help you get your memory back. Is that okay with you?" Harry nodded and the Professor held out a hand that Harry hesitantly took, "Ready? I'm just going to project your memory onto this room so we can all see it." Harry nodded again and for a moment nothing happened, but then suddenly, the room changed.
They were in a living room. Harry recognized his dad from the picture, and supposed the baby must be him. James was putting puffs of colored smoke into the air for baby Harry to try to catch in his baby fists. Suddenly, a young man and woman appeared from another room, in stark contrast of each other. The man had dark hair off-setting the woman's silvery locks; the woman had gentle blue eyes contrasting with the man's more shadowed eyes. The woman was short, the man tall. But 18-year-old Danilynn and Sirius held hands. A woman with bright red hair followed them into the room. Harry heard Remus mutter "Lily". They were laughing; all four of them, at Baby Harry's antics and Lily bent down to scoop up her son and take him to bed. Dany left with her best friend, leaving James and Sirius in the living room.
However, the memory followed Harry and so both the men vanished from the view of the memory. Dany was sitting in a rocking chair as Lily changed Harry's diaper.
"What was that?" Lily abruptly asked her friend.
"I didn't hear anything, Lils…"
"I have Mom ears, Dany, they're never wrong." The blonde didn't seem to believe her friend but consented,
"I'll go shout down to the boys. Sirius! Ja—" Just then Sirius came barging into the room, covering her mouth.
"He's here." Lily wheeled around and placed Harry in his crib.
"What? Padfoot, where's James? Where is my husband?" Sirius shook his head slowly,
"He made me come up here. He made me swear that if I had a choice to save him or you, I would pick you, Lils. You have to go. Get Harry and come with us." Lily shook her head,
"No. I'm done running. Sirius, leave. You need to go, now. Everyone will think you're the secret keeper. You'll be found guilty if you stay. Azkaban isn't a good place to be. Go." Sirius hugged Lily and kissed his wife and Apparated out of the house, "Dany, put the Secret-Keeper's name in his head. Tell him and let it reappear when it's safe. The world should know. Sirius will be targeted for something he didn't do, and I apologize in advance for the hard years to come that are our fault. I love you, sissy."
Just as she finished speaking, the door opened to reveal Voldemort, a face no one in the room had seen in almost a decade. Dany ran over to the crib as Lily bargained for her son's life.
"Harry, we love you. Your mom and dad, Sirius and I, we all love you. The secret keeper's name is—" a flash of green light filled the room and Lily screamed. Dany fired a jet of light at Voldemort, "—Peter Pettigrew." The last living human in the house sent a killing curse at Voldemort as a desperate hope and vanished, her hair flashing in the light, trusting Lily's sacrifice to protect Harry, leaving only a whisper of the last word ever spoken in that house with good intention, "obliviate". Voldemort laughed and created another flash of green light, but this time there was a spectacular bang that accompanied it, then the memory ended with the sound of baby Harry screaming.