Here's that long one I promised! PLEASE REVIEW!
Edited: June 5, 2012
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2 years later
"Bye Fred, Bye James! May you have a calm 2nd year that doesn't involve exploding toilets!" Yelled George as the train left Platform 9 ¾.
"You too Roxy and all the other kids who are related to us on that train!" exclaimed Angelina. She was far too tired to try and remember all the kids on the train that they were sending off.
The entire Potter/Weasley clan was currently watching the Hogwarts Express zoom off. It was tradition to have everyone there to see all of the nieces/nephews/grandchildren off on his or her first year. This usually resulted in them going every year due to the growing number of children. Two years ago they went to see Dominique and Molly off, last year they went to see James, Fred, and Lucy, and this year it was Roxy.
Albus sighed…why couldn't he just go now? He had no idea how he would be able to wait another YEAR before he went to Hogwarts…was it even possible? He looked over and saw Rose with a familiar look on her face. She frowned at the ground, thinking. She was the same age as Albus and longed to go to Hogwarts just as much as he did. I mean, who wouldn't want to! Hogwarts was a legend and it sounded especially fun when a letter was sent home every week naming a new rule James and Fred had broken.
"Don't worry Al, you've waited 10 years…what harm is another one going to do?" said Harry Potter, ruffling his son's messy hair.
Albus shrugged his shoulders and followed his mom and a sleepy Lily back through the barrier. Her head was resting on Harry's shoulder as he carried her back to the muggle world. Albus smiled. He really loved his family and he would always be able to say who his favorite sister was.
When he told this to James, he said it was probably because Fire Top was his only sister. The thing he loved the most about his little sister was her hair. It wasn't that bright Weasley hair that hurt your eyes, but a softer shade that was slightly darker. Harry had told him that Lily had the same shade of hair as her namesake. Albus liked that a lot.
After navigating their way out of the large station, the families said their good byes and latched onto their children, quickly apparating home. Albus felt that all too familiar tugging sensation and opened his eyes to see their little cottage in Godric's Hollow. The house was a lot bigger on the inside then it looked, but that was expected in most wizard homes.
At this time of year, Ginny's gorgeous flowerbeds were in full bloom. The scent of lilies caught his attention and the village people spending the day wandering were staring at the beautiful rose bushes as they walked by.
Ginny Weasley discovered the wonders of muggle gardening a few months after Harry and her inhabited the house in Godric's Hallow. It took her mind off of the world and made her happy. She was known to put her feeling and memories into her flowers…almost literally.
Ginny's magical signature tends to run off onto the flowers while she works on them. If you were to look carefully you would notice that around May, the flowers looked especially sad and fragile (the anniversary of the Battle at Hogwarts), but around September they were in full bloom and strong (When she was preparing to send her kids off to school and would soon get her long needed break). They also tend to perk up whenever she walks by. The flowers were everywhere along the side of the house and scattered across the year. It made the home look bright and sunny no matter what time of day it was.
The Potter household was wonderful…almost as wonderful as the Burrow. It magically expanded depending on the number of people present and thanks to their kind house elf, Mary Lou, it was always in top condition.
It was the second most visited house in the family because it was one of the only ones big enough to fit everyone. The Potter/Weasley clan was considerately larger than most and could easily be identified by the famous mix of orange and messy black hair. New rooms popped up when needed and old ones re-appeared when asked to do so. Everyone in the Weasley family had their own room in the cottage whether they liked it or not.
The family of six (Currently 4 with James and Teddy missing) trekked into the house and collapsed in the living room. The morning of September first was always chaotic and drained the energy out of all involved.
Lily fell asleep instantly on the couch and Al decided he would rest his head for a moment. He slowly closed his eyes and started to drift off when he heard his father start to talk to his mum. Al's curiosity got the better of him as it usually did. He woke up quickly, but kept his eyes closed…just in case they didn't want him to hear.
"Wow…Nnext year Al will be going to Hogwarts…crazy huh?" Albus assumed his dad was running his hand through his hair like he usually did when he was thinking.
"Yep, and before we know it our Fire Top will be leaving too." Said Ginny sadly, with a sniffle.
"Well, I'm going to put some stuff in the pensieve if you don't mind…my thoughts are rather mixed up at the moment." He replied.
"Okay, should I move the kids to their beds?"
"No, just leave them there"
"Hope you feel better soon!" Ginny called after him as he walked up the stairs.
She then got up and walked outside to tend her flowers. This left Albus to his thoughts, which like his father's, were quite mixed up. The pensieve? The memory of his sad father who was troubled with nightmares came back into his head. Al remembered over hearing his Aunt and Uncle's conversation and promising himself he would find out what was going on.
He sat up slowly and put his head in his hands. A promise was a promise. He stood and walked up the stair avoiding the ones that creaked. He had been trained by James to be sneaky. This meant that they had created a map of all the stairs that made noise and memorized. Once it had been imprinted into their minds, they evidence was destroyed (meaning they had thrown it in the fire place).
He walked up to his father's door and pressed his ear to it. He heard silence and nothing but.
Before he could move out of the way, the door swung open to reveal his father grinning down at him.
"Hello Al, having a nice day?" he said casually, trying not to laugh. Albus just stared back with wide eyes and Harry chuckled.
"Sorry son, my door will always have a silencing charm on it" he got up and walked back down the stairs, still laughing.
The thought crossed Harry's mind that Albus would still try and go into his room, but he waved the thought away. Anything in there that would do him harm was well hidden. Might as well let the boy explore.
Al poked his head around the frame of his father's door looking for anything that would stop him from going in.
When he saw nothing he walked in and decided to start his search for the mysterious pensieve in the bathroom. He opened cupboards and drawers only to find extra toilet paper and shampoo as expected. He looked behind the shower curtain to see the bathtub scorched as usual with James and Fred's names spelled out in permanent ink on the sides.
Last summer James and Fred used the bathtub as base. Albus's parents never used it so they thought the idea was foolproof. They wrote their names in it to declare that it was theirs and theirs only. Later that week they were trying out some of Uncle George's prototypes and it left a nasty mark on the side. Both imprints refused to be removed no matter how many times Ginny tried to hex them off.
Albus smiled at the memory and got back to searching his mum and dad's closet. He looked under every shoe and behind every hanger to no avail. He even looked into the old secret compartment James had found a few years back. It was hidden behind his dad's auror uniforms and Harry had taken everything out of it when he realized James knew it was there.
The last place he searched was under his father's bed. It was such an obvious hiding spot that Al thought that it might just be there. It wasn't. He slumped down in defeat at the foot of his parent's dresser.
Running his fingers along the knobs and cracks Albus got lost in thought. It had been his grandfather's and was salvaged from the destroyed house that was a few streets down from the one the Potters currently lived in. The dresser really was neat. It was a beautiful dark brown mahogany with stenciled vines and leaves that grew with the weather. In the spring the vine grew dark, tiny flowers and in the winter all of the leaves on it shriveled up and fell to the bottom.
As he traced one of the vines with his finger, he came to a spot that was noticeably jagged. He pushed his glasses up on his nose and looked at it closely. He made out 3, small, words. The three most important. The words moved with the growing vines and he followed them with his eyes and pondered their meanings.
The three most important what? Several things popped into his head. Hermione, Ron, and Ginny were the first one. He spoke the names out loud and nothing happened. He kept thinking. Clearly it meant something and was accompanied with some sort of code.
"Ummm…James, Sirius, and Remus?" he said out loud with question in his voice. Still, nothing happened.
At that point here was only one more thing he could think of.
"James, Albus, and Lily" he whispered out loud. He heard a faint "click", but besides that, nothing happened. Albus was terribly close and tried again.
"James Sirius, Albus Severus, and Lily Luna," he spoke.
He knew he found what he needed when a small compartment popped open. He lifted up the drawer and it floated to where he was standing. He looked inside and saw many things. It seemed like the drawer was holding more then it should, but that was magic for you.
What first caught his attention was a small gold snitch, this snitch was different then ones he had seen before though. It was opened up at the middle and on the sides were the words "I open at the close". He shrugged and set it back down on the bed.
A large fang caught his eye next, he decided not to touch it just incase it wasn't safe. He also saw the Marauder's Map that his father had confiscated from James during his first year after he used it to set Professor McGonagall's office on fire (accidentally). At the very bottom of the drawer was the thing he had secretly been hoping to find. It was just as he remembered it, shallow and silver. There was only one difference this time. It was filled with a strange silver-blue substance that looked like a cross between a solid and a liquid. On the surface he saw frozen pictures floating around. Most of them were of his father and seemed to range from all different times.
He let his curiosity get the best of him and he hesitantly touched one of the pictures. It was the one were his father looked the youngest.
As he touched it he found himself falling down into the room shown in the pensieve. Luckily, Albus knew what pensieves did so he wasn't too startled.
He looked around. The room was spacious and empty except for a man in a turban and a large mirror sitting next to him. Albus looked behind him and saw an eleven-year-old Harry Potter running towards him. Al knew that it was his father because it looked exactly like he did, but it obviously wasn't him. He had the same messy black hair and emerald green eyes.
He saw his father run up to the man in the turban with an extremely confused look on his face. He watched as the man declared that it was him who tried to steal some kind of stone and Harry's expression changed.
He then saw his dad look into the mirror in front of him. Being in a memory, Albus saw what Harry was looking at. The reflection portrayed a young boy wizard dropping a red stone into his pocket. The stone came into reality and Albus saw it drop into his dad's pocket.
The man slowly unfurled his turban to reveal the face of a man who was surely Lord Voldemort. Albus breathed in deeply. This was definitely a shock. His father was about to face the darkest wizard of his time and he was only eleven. Things were starting to make some sense.
The worst part was that he could do nothing to help because he was just watching a memory. His insides squirmed with a feeling of want. He wanted to help so much that he could barley look. No wonder his Aunt Hermione was in a state of distress when she discovered what his father was going through. The scene before Albus gave him the chills. If anyone was a true Gryffindor, it was Harry Potter and Al realized that then.
Another surprise came when he saw that the Professor wasn't able to touch Harry. He felt sick to his stomach, but watched the professor turned to ash and the spirit of the Dark Lord vanish right as Harry passed out dropping the precious stone on his way down.
The last thing Albus saw in that particular memory was his namesake run in and levitate Harry out of the room.
Al expected to be thrown back into the real world, but was quite shocked when he found himself once again hurtling into a different memory.