A/N: It's big... no more comments.

Thinking back, Sirius mused as he stood in the Quidditch pitch watching a bunch of Gryffindor and Hufflepuff first-years fly around on school brooms tossing around a few quaffles, it had been a pretty busy week. A very crappy one, actually, when one counted Dumbledore's death, Harry and Ginny's need to plot a fake breakup and their heavily unpleasant visit to the Dursleys a couple of days before. At least, he had to admit, he'd gotten to meet little Quinn, which had been pretty great. He could only hope the kid wouldn't be completely messed up because of her parents' asinine behaviour towards her.

Lately, he'd found himself thinking of the little girl from time to time, especially since Petunia still hadn't given a response to their protection proposal…. And if she didn't respond soon or decided, for some completely stupid reason, to refuse, he wouldn't think twice before showing up in Privet Drive again and maybe even persuade her and her oaf of a husband to rethink their position using not-so-nice ways for that purpose. Not unforgivables – no, not those since Merlin knew they disgusted him almost as much as those who used them. But he wouldn't put a little blackmail behind him – he wondered what Petunia would say if he shared with her that little theory he had concerning young Quinn's parentage. He wondered what she would say if he promised to spread the rumour among her neighbours like a spattergroit outburst.

Honestly, it wasn't that he really cared if Petunia and Vernon were protected or not (except he was aware they should, for Harry's sake) but he wouldn't let them endanger that little girl's life over their hatred of magic. It only seemed right he'd step up for Quinn when he could so well relate to a crappy life under the roof of a crappy pair of parents.

Sighing, he made an effort to clear his mind of the distracting thoughts and turned his attention back to the first years. Checking his wrist-watch, he noted it was still thirty minutes before the class was to finish. That was actually his last class of the year with that half of the first years.

While initially it had been planned that the school-year would last other two-weeks, until the last week of June, the end of it had been anticipated by a week at the parents' insistence. And, although they had insisted on more than a week of anticipation, that had been all they'd managed to get out of McGonagall. Things were bad for Hogwarts: several students had been pulled from the school already and Sirius could only imagine how many wouldn't be coming back in the following year…

He shook his head, noting his thoughts kept driving him away and figured that if he spent the next half-hour of the class drifting away from it, some kid might end up doing something stupid without him noticing and get hurt. All things considered, maybe finishing it early and giving them those extra minutes to enjoy the great near-summer day on their own might be a good idea.

"Alright, troop, feet back on the ground," he shouted at all the kids. "I'm setting you free earlier."

There were cheers from some, mainly the least successful in the class, and groans from most of the flight enthusiasts – maybe he'd make up to the latter ones and let them fly a little another day if they wanted to.

He cleared his throat before speaking to the group of young kids in front of him and warning them against trying too complicated stuff with their brooms over the summer at the risk of breaking their necks – "Your house-teams might use you next year or the other and it would be a shame if you weren't… available." –, he declared the last flying class of the year over and told the kids to scram.

Then, with all of them gone, Sirius started his usual post-class routine involving stocking the Quaffles and the broomsticks back in their respective supplies closets, which kept him busy enough not to notice that a few minutes later he wasn't alone in the pitch anymore.

"Hi, Daddy," he heard his oldest daughter's voice saying behind him before he turned to see her approach as she gave him a smile.

He grinned back at her. "Hello, Izzybel. What do I owe the honour of your visit? Weren't you supposed to be in class or something?"

She shook her head. "Free period. As of this week at least. Now it was supposed to be a DADA class actually but, well, you know what happened…"

Sirius nodded, understanding what she meant. After Snape had killed Dumbledore and escaped last weekend, McGonagall hadn't bothered to replace him since all exams had been already taken and there was little time of classes ahead of them until the end of the school year, thus turning all of the class-slots initially occupied by DADA into free periods.

"So you decided to pay a visit to your beloved father," Sirius told his daughter, reaching for his heart in a fake sentimental fashion. "That's sweet, love."

"Only because I was," she declared as she approached him. "I was actually doing a transfiguration assignment with Luna near here – she insisted that doing it outside under the sun would stimulate out intellect or something of that sort – and then when we were finished she went to feed the Thestrals. I had to pass that since it's a bit… odd watching food being eaten by creatures I can't actually see. Then, I saw the first years coming from this way, which made me figure you'd be here and I'd pay you a visit."

"Well, I'd say you figured well," he told her, wrapping an arm around her when she reached him. "We haven't had much time to talk lately, have we, Izzy?"

She shook her head. "It's been a rough week. In understand."

He nodded solemnly. "Tell you what, help me finish putting away this equipment and I'm all yours for the next twenty or so minutes."

"Hum, twenty minutes putting up with you… too long," she joked.

Sirius narrowed his eyes. "Little brat, aren't you?"

She laughed but actually reached for a couple of broomsticks lying on the floor to help her father. They worked quickly as a team as, barely five minutes later, both were already sitting on the third row of the empty Quidditch Pitch's bleachers.

"So, how's your little act going these days?" he asked his daughter.

There was a story behind that question, obviously. After Harry and Ginny's fake breakup a few things had needed to be settled to make the whole thing believable. One of them had been deciding how their common friends who knew about the truth – Ron, Hermione and Izzy – would react to the alleged split up. While Hermione was to remain strictly neutral through the whole thing in her usual diplomatic fashion, Ron was supposed to give both Harry and Ginny a cold shoulder for a few days (as to let everyone believe he was conflicted between which side to take) before resuming his usual interaction with both while avoiding the fact that there had been a relationship to begin with. Izzy was another story, though – she was to play the faithfully protective friend taking Ginny's side against her 'bastard of an ex-boyfriend', never mind he was as good as her brother.

Izzy grinned. "Awfully fun. Mostly I've got to give Harry silent treatment and cold glares but it's worth it when I get to call him a jerk or an idiot – to his face, half the time. You should see him when I do it sometimes – it's like he's just wondering if I'm enjoying this."

"Which you are, obviously," Sirius said, chuckling. "I'll admit it's an accurate reaction, though: you girls can be feral when you stick together against a bloke. So, I take it everyone is believing it?"

"I think Luna is a bit suspicious," Izzy pointed out. "She just… knows things sometimes. About what people feel and hide. She wouldn't tell anyone, though. But aside from her, practically everyone's fallen for it. McLaggen even asked Ginny out yesterday in front of everyone in the Common Room."

Sirius gave her a disbelieving look. "Are you kidding? She's barely been 'single' for four days. That's just… bad. What did Harry say?"

"Nothing, really, or he'd ruin the whole act," she told him. "He looked capable of stabbing that git to death with the quill he was holding, though. Hard to believe even McLaggen is that thick. Ginny refused it, obviously and called him an insensitive prick for hitting on her 'so soon after her longest-term relationship had ended'. Do you want to know what he did next?"

"Sulked for the rest of the day?"

"He waited for her to storm out and then pulled me aside to ask me out."

Sirius's eyes narrowed to slits. "The nerve of that little bastard…"

For once, Izzy couldn't bring herself for scolding her father over insulting a boy for asking her out, mostly because she'd done the same herself. "Needless to say I refused it too. He seemed to be pretty set on getting a date, though, since he asked Hermione afterwards and then Lavender too."

"Oh, that's just…" He'd had his way with girls and had never dropped that low or even considered to do so. "Well, all I can say is that you and Ginny – and Hermione too, I have to assume – couldn't have made a better choice when you told that dimwit to go lump it."

"Well, Lavender can't say the same…" Izzy mumbled

Sirius shrugged. "Where's our favourite redhead, anyway? You said you were just studying with Luna earlier but you and Ginny have been attached at the hip lately…"

"Oh, she just needed some time alone to wallow," she told her father, who seemed confused. "Or at least that's what she's letting everyone believe."

He grinned, then. "Meeting young Harry somewhere, isn't she? I know he had a free period too."

Izzy nodded. "That's right. They're taking turns at using the invisibility cloak to sneak around. This is Ginny's turn – she's meeting him at the boathouse now."

"Hum, the boathouse. Nice place. A bit wet for my taste but still nice," he commented. "Tends to be occupied, though."

She shook her head. "Not today. Hermione got the idea of spreading the rumour that someone had blown three pounds' worth of dung-bombs in there yesterday so nobody would feel tempted to show up there and run straight into them. If anyone's brave enough to try and get there, there are still a bunch of alarm charms set to warn Harry and Ginny that someone is coming."

"Merlin, you people cover all basis, don't you?"

"We can be pretty efficient with plans when we want to," she said proudly.

That made Sirius recall something. "Speaking of plans, there's something I've been meaning to ask you for a while. How the hell did you get your hands on so much Felix Felicis?"

"Oh…" she mumbled. "Well, we sort of stole it from Slughorn's stash."

Sirius looked surprised. "Slughorn's actual stash? The one with all the weird codes?"

"You've been to Slughorn's stash before?"

"Well, yeah," he declared like it was obvious. "I was a Marauder and he was our teacher with all those really great potions stashed in his office. Just put two and two together."

"You tried to get your hands on the potions," she guessed.

"Bingo. We never managed to get through the codes, though, and weren't about to feed someone a potion that could easily be some sort of poison," her father told her. "How did you figure out which was the Felix?"

"We were lucky," Izzy said. "Slughorn was labelling a few vials just before we got into his office and we managed to decode what his codes meant. Honestly, I doubt we would have made it if Ginny and Hermione hadn't taken Harry's Felix Felicis before we tried to steal the rest."

"Wait, Hermione helped you steal it?" Sirius asked in disbelief.

"It was a life or death situation," Izzy pointed out. "I suppose that puts it in moral grey area even for Hermione…"

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Well, has Slughorn noted the potion was missing?"

"I don't think so but if he ever does, he can't really blame us for using it to help our side in a battle. Slughorn can be a bit annoying sometimes but he's a good guy at the end of the day," she said.

Her father shrugged. "I suppose he's not bad. Well, look, maybe this comes a bit late but I think you should know that what you guys did for us during the battle was pretty amazing. The Felix, trying to help holding the lines… even the Order is impressed. But try not to let this jumping-into-a-battle thing become a habit or else you'll scare the living daylights out of your mom and me. We can only take so many scares a lifetime…"

Izzy sighed. "The most I can do is promise that I'll try – the DA wasn't just something we did to spend time, Dad, and if my friends need me to fight for them, that's what I'll do."

He wanted to ask her not to, to just stay behind, safe, but he knew that would be hypocrite at the very least – after all, he wouldn't stay behind. If he had already acknowledged all the roughness, the difficulties that were ahead of Harry and accepted that he was grown enough to fight them, he couldn't deny the fact that his daughter had grown up into a fighter too. It was a matter of survival now. "I supposed that will have to do," he accepted.

She nodded and then made an effort to change the topic of the conversation. "So, where's Mom anyway? I usually run into her in the hallways between classes but I haven't seen her all morning."

"Well, that's because she's elbow-deep in exams to grade. The classes are ending next week and the students need to leave knowing their grades, so she needs to deliver them to McGonagall next Wednesday at the latest." he said, groaning. "Guess no one will be seeing much of her until then. Don't take it personally."

"Oh, well, at least the ministry is in charge of the OWLs and NEWTs," Izzy pointed out. "That makes it about less a hundred for her to worry about."

"She'd pull her own hair with the stress if that wasn't the case. Thank Merlin I don't have to worry about exams in my job description – can you imagine me sitting at a desk grading a pile of tests?"

"Definitely not. In fact, if you did have any sort of test-grading thing to worry about, you probably would just pay Moony to do it for you."

Sirius looked thoughtful for a moment before nodding. "Yeah, that wouldn't be such a bad idea," he recognized. Moony had always been the one to handle the bureaucracy with that endless patience of his. What were friends like him for?

"Well, well, well, brother, look what we've found here. Two Blacks for the price of one," they heard an all-too-familiar voice saying from a distance – they didn't even need to look to be sure it was one of the twins speaking. And where one was, the other ought to be close, which was just the case.

The two red-heads with strictly identical features and grins approached their seats in a strolling pace like they were just taking a walk. Seemed like an odd coincidence that just when he'd been thinking of Remus, his bosses appeared out of thin air, so to speak, Sirius thought.

"And what are you two doing here?" he asked as the two sat down on the row of seats below theirs. "Decided skipping your NEWTs wasn't such a good idea? Well, you're sort of a little too late if you want to take them now."

One of the twins made a face at that, which denied it on its own. "NEWTs." He felt himself shivering at the very thought. "We'd rather eat a pound of doxy eggs each that putting ourselves through those, wouldn't we, Fred?"

"Make that half," his twin suggested. "I heard McLaggen ate a pound of them last year and spent a week in the Hospital Wing puking everything he ate for the first three days. NEWTs seem a bit mild in comparison."

Sirius snorted and turned to his daughter. "Once again, I have to refer that you've made a wise choice when you refused to go out with that… young man."

George raised his eyebrows, froning. "That git McLaggen asked you out?"

Izzy rolled her eyes. "Me and Ginny and Hermione again – those doxy eggs must have messed up his brains if he actually thought she'd give him another chance after that god-awful date last Christmas – and then Lavender, who actually said 'yes'. Not sure which one I should feel sorrier for," she admitted. "Maybe Seamus Finnigan since he actually likes her and was planning to ask her out himself from what Neville told me."

"Finnigan's a good bloke but he's always had a questionable sense of taste," Fred commented, shaking his head pitifully. "Maybe Lav-Lav going out with McLaggen was for the best."

"Maybe. But you still haven't told us what you're doing here at Hogwarts," Izzy pointed out.

"Suspicious, aren't you, Isabelle?" George asked. "You wouldn't believe us if we told you we'd came by just for the pleasure of your company, which we're so fond of, would you?"

"Not for one second," she told him easily.

He reached for his heart. "Oh, the lack of faith… it kills me."

"We're actually here in Order Business," Fred stated.

Sirius raised an eyebrow. "Order business?"

"Yes. Hogwarts watch, remember?" he stated. "Mad-Eye suggested at the meeting last Monday that there should always be at least an extra member of the Order at Hogwarts, ready to intervene in case something weird or suspicious happened. You actually don't remember that part?"

"Probably dozed through it or something," he mumbled. "Honestly, it's hard to keep my attention in what Mad-Eye says through an Order meeting after he always starts up with a bloody lecture. At some point it just starts to sound like blah, blah, grave danger, blah, blah, constant vigilance… After a while it's just white noise until someone else speaks."

"Well," George started, "Mad-Eye was supposed to be the one coming today but we heard Dad saying yesterday that he wouldn't be able to make it 'cause old Dung Fletcher, the little bastard, has been selling bogus protection charms at Diagon Alley again and Mad-Eye is the only one who can keep him in line."

"The only one who scares him enough, at least," Fred added. "So, we very selflessly offered to cover for him since today is our weekly day of rest."

"I thought Mondays were your weekly day of rest. Today is a Friday," Izzy stated.

"All the same," Fred told her. "Our bosses are pretty great blokes."

"They definitely have a soft spot for us – let us close the shop whenever we want to, pay us tones," George added jokingly. "Plus, Fridays are the quietest days of business at the shop, according to Remus's statistics."

"Good old Moony does statistics now?" Sirius asked with a laugh.

"And charts too," Fred informed them. "I didn't even know there was a charm for that stuff but apparently… unless he does them by hand, which would have to mean Tonks isn't keeping him occupied enough these days."

"Doubt it," his twin mumbled, chuckling. "But leaving his charts aside, since we were around and all seems to be fine here at Hogwarts, we figured we'd swing by the pitch for old times' sake."

"Hoping to get your hands on a broom, a beater's bat and a bludger too, maybe?" Sirius suggested, grinning. "Well, in about…" he checked his watch "… ten minutes I'll be off to the Great Hall having lunch and maybe the supplies closet will conveniently be left unlocked – my mind's not the same as it used to be. I can only hope that if someone gets their hands on the supplies, they'll make an effort not to be seen and to not destroy them."

"So noted," Fred replied, his expression already plotting.

"Anyway," George said. "We'd been hoping to spend a little time with Gin-Gin too. We had a few prank-related plans for her to use on young Harry."

There was a pause after that statement, during which Izzy and Sirius simply stared at both twins with uncomfortable looks on their faces. "Hum… guys," Sirius started said hesitantly. "I'm feeling a bit awkward here but… didn't anyone tell you that…?"

"That the breakup is as real as Rita Skeeter's stories?" Fred asked. "Sure they did. Better liars than we gave them credit for, hum, George?"

"Much better," he agreed.

Sirius looked at them sceptically. "Alright, as much as I'm all for pranking, which you're very well-aware of, I've got to ask: you want Ginny to prank my godson because…"

"Simple," George stated. "As it happens, we have a very deep belief that any breakup involving Ginny slapping a bloke in public would have to be bad enough to send her in a vindictive rampage. One ought to keep appearances and make it happen."

"Oh, that's bogus and you know it," Izzy accused. "You two just want to prank somebody."

His look of revolt was mirrored by his brother. "We most certainly… do," Fred stated in an appalled tone that clearly didn't match the admission. "So, where's Ginny, after all?"

"Around," she said vaguely.

George narrowed his eyes. "Around being where exactly?"

Izzy's eyes narrowed in return. "None of your business street. That would be near Stop asking questions road."

"Hum, hostile," Fred told his twin, thoughtfully. "No doubt she knows where Ginny is and doesn't want to share."

"And if she doesn't want to share, it means Ginny mustn't want it shared either," George agreed as the two of them observed Izzy like she was some sort of lab rat. "Well, now I'm even more curious. We can get it out of her, don't you think?"

"As easily as me getting a snog out of Angelina," Fred agreed.

"Oh, okay, talk about me like I'm not sitting right here. That's nice," Izzy mumbled in annoyance as they kept staring at her very quietly like they could see right through her. At some point, she got a bit freaked out by their stares, considering Fred and George were mad geniuses of sorts under their constantly festive outside layer. "What are you doing?" Faced with no response, she turned to her father and gripped his arm nervously. "Daddy, what are they doing?"

Sirius shrugged. "I have no idea," he said, half-grinning as he patted her hand absently. "But I really want to find out. Just sit tight and let them do their thing, love."

"But…"

"Think I got it," Fred said suddenly, the staring finished and a plotting look back on his face as he scratched his chin. "Ginny's somewhere sneaking around with Harry, hum?"

This time, Izzy was the one staring – if one knew about Harry and Ginny's arrangement, it wouldn't be so hard to reach that conclusion but doing it so quickly and after acting all weird was just… plain bizarre. "What…? How…?"

"Easy," George said. "If you don't want us to know about Ginny's whereabouts, that has to mean she's doing something you don't think she'd want us to stick our butts into. Seeing as we're probably the most liberal people you'll know what it comes to rule-breaking…"

Sirius cleared his throat, a bit offended at his words.

"… barring your Dad, of course," the redhead added quickly, "it had to be something that we'd find just perfect to use against her as mocking material."

"Such as walking in on her snogging a black-haired git with a well-know scar on his forehead," Fred finished. "Too bad for her that that is exactly what we're planning to do. Only thing we need to find out is where she is."

"Which I'm not telling you," Izzy said, determined.

"We'll give you endless credit in our shop if you change your mind," George offered.

"Tempting," Sirius mumbled to his daughter. "But not worth ratting your best friend over. Ginny's got a mean bat-bogey hex and she'd not afraid to use it on you."

Izzy nodded. "Forget it," she told the twins.

"Come on. A little hint of where she is won't hurt anyone. We even already know it's no use looking inside the castle," Fred said, trying to keep the conniving tone from his voice.

She shrugged. "Still plenty of ground for you to cover out he…" She paused suddenly. "Wait a minute, how do you know they're not inside the castle?"

"We didn't," George said casually as he grinned in triumph. "Now we do. That clears about half the places we had in mind."

"Damn it!" she cursed at herself under her breath.

"Genius," Sirius said, chuckling, which had his daughter giving him an annoyed look. "What? I'm just saying… I wouldn't have thought of that myself."

"So, out here where would a pair of lovebirds go to fool around?" Fred wondered, once again, acting like he and George were the only ones there. "Hagrid's Hut?"

George shook his head. "It's still damaged from the battle. It was set on fire, remember?"

"Right… The Greenhouses, then?"

"Too much carnivorous plants around. Gin-Gin wouldn't want Harry to lose a chunk of his skinny arse over a snog."

"Alright. Then how about the owlery?"

"Too dirty," Sirius told them. "It's just impossible to snog in peace without ending up with own poop all over. Believe me, I know."

"Daddy!" Izzy said in disbelief, startling her father. "You're on our side. You're not supposed to help them!"

"Oh, sorry," he mumbled apologetically, turning to the twins. "Feel free to go on."

Fred shrugged then. "I can't think of where else. One of the courtyards would be too public. I guess that leaves… what? The Forest, some supply closet here at the pitch or the boathouse."

Izzy tried to hide a finch when she heard the redhead saying the last location but was unsuccessful, since George clearly caught it.

"Jackpot! Boathouse it is," he said with a grin.

"Wait a minute," she protested. "I didn't…"

"Might as well have with that flinch," George replied before turning to Sirius. "One would think your daughter would have a much better poker face, Marauder genes and all."

Sirius sighed. "Takes after her mother. Mia was always very honest." He clicked his tongue and shook his head in a disapproving fashion.

"Well, looks like we've got irritation to cause somewhere else," Fred said, getting up from his seat.

George nodded solemnly. "Indeed, brother, indeed," he said as he got up too. Then, he turned to Izzy and winked. "A pleasure getting information from you, Iz."

"More like stealing it!" she shouted as the two walked away from them, annoyingly triumphant. She looked at her father, then, and huffed. "Sometimes I just can't believe those two."

Sirius snorted. "If they'd been born twenty or so years earlier, there would have been six Marauders instead of four."

"Hey, you're not helping! They've just tricked me into giving away my best friend," she complained. "She's gonna kill me"

He chuckled and wrapped one arm around his daughter, kissing the top of her head. "Don't worry, love. I'll serve as a witness that you tried as hard as you could to keep yourself from spilling the beans. They were just too good for you." He stood up and offered her a hand. "Now, how about you let your wonderful Dad walk you to the Great Hall for lunch? I'm hoping your mom will be out of her deep-exam-grading mode by now or else I'll have to intervene with force."

Izzy chuckled as she took his hand. "Yeah, I would like to see that."

Boathouse – several minutes earlier

Even though it was colder in there than on the outside and the air smelled of water, the boathouse had always been a popular place for people to come and snog every now and then. It was one of those Hogwarts customary things like crossing the lake towards the school on a boat when entering it for the first year, laughing through at least three jokes from the talking statue of a hog on the sixth floor to get luck for an exam or simply avoiding Filch.

Other thing about the boathouse was that it tended to offer quite a dose of privacy, being far away from everywhere else, as long as nobody was planning to use it as a snog-spot. And thanks to Hermione's dungbomb rumour it was likely the most avoided place in the whole school, leaving it all for Harry and Ginny alone.

Yet, unlike their friends' beliefs, snogging hadn't been what had brought them there. Mostly, at least.

"Do you need me to do it for you?" Ginny asked, looking at the shrunken cardboard box resting on the wooden floor between them as they sat in an attic area of the boathouse, side by side with a bunch of hoisted up boats almost touching the battered ceiling. "Change the box back to its normal size, I mean."

"No, I can do it," he said, his eyes fixed on the little box. "I just need…"

"Another moment?" his girlfriend asked, receiving a nod in return.

The decision of opening the box Petunia had sent to him with Ginny had been pretty much automatic when Sirius had given it to him in the previous day. He could easily do it alone – that was a fact. After all, it was just a box with things that had belonged to his mom, not a creature for him to wrestle. But all the memories contained in it, he was sure, would bring feelings. A hurricane of them. And having Ginny around always made it easier for him to deal with feelings of all sorts. Merlin knew he could really use 'easy' these days.

"Harry, if you want to talk before opening it, I'm here to listen," she said softly, reaching for his hand.

He shook his head. "It's okay, it's just… the memories that must be in this box. From my mom. Aunt Mia always told me all she could and gave me all she had from my parents and, don't take me wrong, it's great to learn anything about them but in the end, after I meddle though the memories of them, it always feels like something is missing from it all. I get to see, hear memories about them… but they're never really mine, are they? I was never there to witness them."

Ginny was a quiet for a few moment. Her parents had always been right there with her – making memories hadn't been a problem at all, sometimes even a bother than they were around all the time. Thinking back, it made her feel a bit bad in comparison. Harry hadn't been alone – that was a fact. He'd had Mia and then Sirius. He'd had Izzy and Lulu too. A family. But she could understand that there must be a call for his own blood, to know the parents who'd made him, loved him and died for him. She stood up and moved from sitting opposite him to sitting right by his side – she had a feeling he could use the closeness, after all. "Don't you remember anything at all about them? You know, from when you were very little?"

"I remember the things the Dementors made me see," Harry informed her.

Might as well not, Ginny thought. Watching his own mother being killed, his father sacrificing for both… that was just… unimaginable. "That's all?"

"I… there are a few other things. I'm not sure if they're memories or just… dreams or ztuff I made up in my head," he said, looking down.

"Tell me," she requested.

He sighed. "I remember my father playing with me – he made bubbles, soap bubbles with his wand so I'd try to catch them," he told her, his lips curling a bit. "And then I remember my mom telling me stories. I could be mixing it up – it could be Aunt Mia. She also read stories to me every night, sometimes three or four of them because I wouldn't fall asleep. But in those… memories I think I was sitting on her lap and clutching a strand of red hair. I think I did that a lot, clutch her hair. I liked the colour." He looked at Ginny. "It was darker than yours and it always smelled of… honey and herbal tea. That's what I remember – it's not really clear, mostly I just remember the feelings."

Ginny pursed her lips, telling herself she wouldn't cry. His words had really touched her inside but she wasn't a weepy girl. If she burst into tears, Harry would end up feeling all awkward and, Merlin, so would she. So, as much as her eyes burned, tears where to remain wherever they can from because she wasn't Cho bloody Chang! Determined to keep her eyes dry, she cleared her throat, placing one hand on his shoulder. "Well, that's… that's already more than nothing, Harry. And either those are real memories or not, you need to accept that they are memories for you. Don't start discarding them just because you figure they may be dreams. Even dreams like those need to have a bit of truth attached. Trust me."

He bit his lower lip but managed to give her a little smile when he turned his face to hers. "Let's open this, then?" He reached for his wand and tapped it on the box as he said Finite Incantatem, removing the reducing charm Sirius had placed on it two days before.

The box was bigger than he'd imagined, he noted. With a sigh, he pulled it a bit closer and opened it. It was full right up to the top and over everything else rested a small and old-looking rag doll – that sort that a parent made for a child.

"Aw, that's sweet," Ginny said, picking it up with a smile. She couldn't help noticing that whoever had made the doll had sewed bring green eyes on it, practically the same colour as Harry's, and given it dark red hair made of knitting yarn arranged in pigtails. It was a miniature Lily. "I had one of these too. Mom made it for me when I was two – it was the only doll I did like. I still have it in my bedroom. There, take it," she told her boyfriend, handing the doll to him.

Even though he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with a doll – he was a guy, after all –, he felt something good as he held it in his hands. His mother had played with that doll as a child, so long ago. He turned to Ginny and noted she was looking at him with a smile. "What?"

"Nothing," she said, trying to cover the smile. "You just looked cute. So, what are you going to do with the doll?"

"I'm not sure," he mumbled, looking down at its dusty face with all the red hair on top. He wondered if Ginny's also resembled her owner. That made something occur to him. "You should keep it."

Ginny looked surprised. "Me? Harry, it's your mother's doll. I can't take it."

He shook his head. "Yes, you can. I'm a guy – I have no idea what to do with a doll. For mw, this one is a memory, a really good and special memory. But it will still be a memory if you're holding it for me. Besides, I suppose it will keep good company to your own rag doll too. I want you to keep it – honestly, you'll take better care of it than I ever would. Here," he said, handing it to her.

With a sigh, she took it. It meant more for her than she could say that he'd given her something that had belonged to his late mother… She smiled at him, then and reached to place a kiss on his cheek. "Thank you," she said. "I'll take good care of it for you."

"I know," he said, reaching for the box once again to see what had been under the doll. There were several books in there, from known Muggle titles to others with dates like '1973-1975' marked on them, as well as a photograph frame and what seemed to be a couple of shoeboxes. "Help me going through this, would you?" he asked Ginny. "We don't have much time before lunch, I think."

She nodded and reached for the box too, removing the shoeboxes to see what was in them.

Meanwhile, Harry removed the frame first and had to smile when he saw it showed a moving picture with very familiar faces on it – his parents along with much younger versions Sirius and Mia. They were wearing Hogwarts winter cloaks as they stood on the snowy ground and waved at the camera. It must have been taken in their seventh year, seeing as they seemed to be couples already. That one he knew what to do with: he'd put it in his bedroom when he returned home. His parents and godparents together, all of whom had taken – and some still took – a great part in making him become what he was… the good parts, at least.

"These are all photographs of your mother," Ginny told him as she held a handful of them in her hands, having taken them from one of the shoeboxes. "They look like they were removed from family albums. Some still have bits of tape glued to their backs," she said, handing him the handful to him.

There were pictures of Lily in all ages: toddler, child, teenager, even as a young adult. Some with her family, others with friends and a few alone. It seemed like Petunia Dursley had gone through a large effort to get rid of her sister's presence even in family albums, Harry thought disdainfully. He placed them back on the box carefully, vowing to go through all of them another day.

"Oh, letters," Ginny said as she opened the other shoebox and grabbed a pile of envelopes tied with a piece of yarn. "All from your mother to her sister. All unopened," she said as she went through them. "Oh, this one is fancier than the others… " she said, pulling a gold one of the letters from the pile. "I think it's a wedding invitation."

She passed the envelope to Harry and he ripped it open, noting immediately that Ginny was right.

You are cordially invited to celebrate

the wedding of

LILY GRACE EVANS

and

JAMES CHRISTOPHER POTTER

On Saturday afternoon

the 4th of August 1979

at four o'clock

The text written on the delicate white paper was followed by details of where the wedding was to take place and a request for an answer. On the back of it, his mother's handwriting personally told Tuney, whom he assumed to be Petunia, she missed her and practically begged for her to come to the wedding.

"There are five more envelopes like that one in this other pile," Ginny told him in a sadened tone. "Lily must have sent the invitations loads of times."

"Yeah, but Petunia never bothered go," Harry said dryly, putting the envelope down and reaching back for the cardboard box. He'd seen the pictures of his parents' wedding loads of times and Petunia Dursley wasn't anywhere t be seen. He didn't even want to think of that woman as his aunt – there were dozens of letters in that shoebox and none was opened. She'd ignored his mother like she'd ignored him and he didn't even want to think of how much it had hurt to her being rejected by her own sister because of being a witch…

Apparently, according to Sirius had told him she was doing the same with her seven-year-old daughter. A witch too. Strangely, he could think of that girl as his cousin even though he'd never met her – maybe it was because he felt sympathetic for her…

He picked up a few of the books from the larger box, mostly the ones with the dates, and it didn't take them long to realize what they were. Diaries. All ranging from childhood to young-adulthood. Lily Potter's thoughts and feelings in written form.

"What's wrong?" Ginny asked, noting how pensive he'd become all of a sudden.

"These are her journals," he said, showing her the books.

"Really?" She reached for one of them and quickly went though a few pages. "You're right, they are. 1977…" she read on the spine of that one. "Your parents started dating in their seven year, didn't they? That must have been this year. This is great, Harry. Imagine all the stuff you can learn about them by reading this!"

He seemed tempted… almost eager to do so. But he was also conflicted. "I dunno… those are diaries, Ginny. Those things are supposed to be private… Maybe she wouldn't want me to mess with them." He wished he'd known her enough to guess what she'd think of it.

"Yes, she would," Ginny told him. "She'd want you to read them, Harry."

"How can you be sure of that?"

He sighed and swallowed hard. "Because if I had a son and died too early for him to form any memory of me, I'd be proud if he cared enough to try and get to know me, even if it was just through the words I'd written on a book," she explained. "I have a feeling your mother would have felt the same way."

There was momentary pause during which Harry's conflict seemed to ease slightly but he still didn't look quite convinced.

Ginny sighed. "Tell you what. We just have a few minutes before we have to get to lunch. How about we just put all this stuff back in the box and go back to it another day? You don't have to read anything today or decide if you even want to."

Harry nodded – yes, that was a good choice. One could only take so many discoveries a day, after all… "You're right, let's leave this for another day," he agreed, reaching for the books and putting them back inside the box as Ginny returned the letters to the shoeboxes by her side. "After all, we have all summer…" he stopped himself midsentence, recalling that wasn't really true. Sometimes he just forgot his plans for the following year. "I mean, at least until August to deal with this."

His girlfriend nodded quietly as she put the shoeboxes in the cardboard box again and the rag doll in her own book bag. "When are you going to tell Sirius and Mia about it?" she asked without looking at him.

"Soon," he said while closing the box and reducing it again so he could shove it into his bag. "When I return to London… I'm not letting them find out through someone else. It would hurt them."

Ginny nodded. "It would. I think they'll understand if you tell them, though… It was a long-time coming. Part of them must be ready for this like I was." Just as part of them would never be at the same time like she wasn't…

Suddenly, Harry felt his watch vibrating, the alert for someone approaching the boathouse, and looked at Ginny in alarm. "Someone's coming!" he told her.

She got up with a jolt and approached a window-like opening that there was on the wall – thankfully, it oversaw the main path to the castle and she quickly spotted who was approaching when she peaked through it.

"It's Fred and George," she said in annoyance. "What are they doing here?"

"Oh, thank Merlin it's them," Harry said, relaxing since they already knew the truth.

"Thank Merlin my arse!" she said, walking away from the window. "They had that plotting look on their face – I could see it miles away. I'll bet anything that if they're coming, they know we're here and are planning something. And they're damn wrong if they think I'll let them." She reached for her wand and started murmuring an unknown charm at the same time she pointed it all over the room.

"What's that spell?"

"Oh, just something Bill thought me a few years ago. Apparently, the Egyptians used this in the pyramids to scare people away from important or sacred chambers," she said.

"What? Like a curse?" Harry asked, alarmed.

"Not really. I won't hurt them – physically. They're my brothers, after all," she said, putting the wand back in her pocket and approaching her boyfriend. "It might traumatize them a bit, though. I've been meaning to use it on the twins for a while – Bill knew better than to teach it to them. Stretch your legs, will you?"

He raised an eyebrow at her but did so. "Gin, what are you doing?"

She reached down and sat straight on his lap, giving him a smile. "Creating an illusion." And with that said, she reached for his face and kissed him.

Harry almost choked in disbelief in the beginning at what she was doing but was just too weak to resist her. Still, he couldn't help wondering about what she was planning. Her brothers were coming and all she did was starting to snog him? What sort of plan was that?

When he heard the sound of steps down on the lower level, he pulled away. "Gin, what are you…?" he whispered.

"Shh," she murmured. "Just trust me. Now be a good boy and snog me, Potter."

She seemed way too confident to be wrong and he had to comply, if not for any other reason, because he was curious about what she was planning. Soon, he could hear someone climbing up one of the old ladders but this time tried not to pay it attention, which wasn't that hard with Ginny's lips moving so wonderfully against his…

But suddenly, three or four seconds later, he heard someone letting out what seemed to be a horrified scream. "Ahh! Holy hell!"

This time, Ginny was the one pulling away and turning to face one of her brothers, who was looking at them with wide eyes a very pale face.

She glared almost murderously. "Out of here, you little rascal. Out, out, out!" she said, forcing her voice into a squeaky yet strict tone – it didn't sound like her at all.

"Ye… yes, Madam. I'm so sorry…" the other redhead said in a tone that was completely unlike him or his twin. He was positively revolted, his face taking a green turn as he made his way down the ladder as fast as he could.

"Hey watch it, Fred! What are you screaming about? What's going on up there?" they heard George saying at the bottom of the ladder.

"Nothing you'd ever want to see. Let's just get the hell out of here!"

George's voice became enraged, then. "Are they doing the nasty stuff up there? Oh, I'll murder Potter myself, never mind we like him at all…"

Harry visibly paled and Ginny just covered her mouth to keep the laughter from being heard.

"No! It's not even Harry and Ginny. Izzy tricked us!" Fred said.

"What? But I saw her flinching when we suggested they were at the boathouse!" the other twin replied as his voice became more and more distant. "It was a clear tell-sign!"

"Well, apparently she does have a good poker face, after all!" That was the last thing they heard from them.

Ginny snorted, knowing they were out of earshot again, as she used her wand to de-activate the charm. "Bloody prick had it coming. Too bad George didn't have a chance to come up too…"

"Ginny, what did you do?" Harry asked in disbelief. "Why did he say it wasn't us?"

"Because it wasn't us he saw. That charm I used creates illusions. Very realistic and even scary ones. I just made it seem for anyone who entered this boathouse at that moment that two of us were not actually the two of us."

He raised an eyebrow exactly. "And who exactly were we, then?"

"Filch and Madam Pince," she said casually. "Snogging. I tried to make it seem like they had less clothes on but I can't tell if it worked…"

Harry looked horrified too. "Dear Merlin, Ginny! That's… that's sickening."

"I know!" she said, bursting into laughter. "Five galleons says Fred is going to beg George to obliviate him! It was brilliant!"

Harry tried really hard not to laugh but was unsuccessful. "That was cruel, Gin. Bloody brilliant, yes, but still cruel. Remind me not to provoke you. Ever."

"That's right, Potter, better start learning it now," she said, still laughing before she took a calming breath. "Alright, I should stop laughing. It just makes it sound mean."

Harry nodded. "Yeah, it wouldn't be fair for Fred if we just laughed like this at his expense," he agreed, trying to remain serious too.

Ginny's lower lip trembled as she recalled the whole scene again and couldn't help herself from trying to picture it from her brother's side. She looked at Harry and saw there were almost tears on his eyes from trying so hard not to crack up.

"Maybe just a little more?" she managed to say.

And with that, the two of them cracked into a massive burst of laughter again.

While Ginny and Harry experienced a great deal of amusement inside the boathouse, Sirius and Izzy made their way up to the castle, talking about little Alex and Mary's late achievements.

They were taking the usual path, which passed near the lake before turning into a fork that could either take them to the gates or lead them up to the castle. Yet, before they could take a turn to the latter Sirius stopped on his tracks as he noticed at a distance some sort of commotion taking place by the school gates between the aurors stationed there and someone outside.

"What's going on?" Izzy asked.

Her father shrugged. "No idea," he told her. "Why don't you just head up to the castle while I go check? I'll walk you to lunch another day, alright?"

"But I want to see what's happening!" she protested.

"It's probably just some angry parents standing out there pestering the Aurors," he told her.

"Yeah, right, you wouldn't be sending me away if you thought it was just that," Izzy replied in annoyance.

"Izzy, please," he pleaded.

She huffed. "Fine," she said. "But at least promise you'll tell me about it later."

He nodded. "I promise I will," he told her.

Still slightly annoyed, Izzy huffed again as she let go of his arm and made her way towards the castle. By the time she was already about a hundred yards away, Sirius turned back to the gates and made his way to them.

He could hear the angry shouting at a distance and, the closer to the gates, the more he realized it most definitely wasn't an angry-parent situation but maybe an even more annoying one instead… Midway through the path, he did understand exactly what was going on, though he spent a few seconds trying to convince himself that was simply impossible.

Because how in Merlin's name could Vernon Dursley be standing at the gates of Hogwarts yelling at the Aurors without being affected by the school's Muggle-repelling charms?

A/N: Well, I've got my computer back from repair... only it wasn't repaired because the sound card is doomed for good. Lucky me *sarcastic tone* Aside from my luck, this huge-chapter (8700 words!) syndrome seems to be chronic... Good for you, bad for my hours of sleep... I hope you liked the chapter. I was really going to cut it in a half but since I'd promised to open the box... Feedback is welcome! Review!