A/N: Hi! I'm updating early, I couldn't wait. I'll try to update weekly (if not more often)
Thanks for the people who favourited and alerted this!

I need a beta for this, anyone interested?

Chapter 2

Harry had no clue what was going on. First that strange woman appearing in the Great Hall and yelled at Dumbledore, and now he was being called to his office? He'd asked professor McGonagall, but, as he should have expected, she said that was between the headmaster and him. So, he'd followed her in silence to the headmaster's office, and went in alone, after she'd given the password. He suddenly felt inexplicably nervous. He hadn't done anything wrong that he could recall, and the only other reason he could think of that Dumbledore would want to see him was because of something involving either Sirius Black or Voldemort.

As he arrived at the door to the office, he heard quiet talking that stopped abruptly as he raised his hand to knock.

"Come in, Harry," Dumbledore's voice floated through the door before he could bring his hand down.

Harry walked in. "How do you do that?" he asked, a little exasperated. He couldn't recall anyone ever having to knock on the professor's door; he always invited them in before they had a chance to.

"Please don't answer that," a voice came from the most floral armchair in the office, and it sounded decidedly like a – rather feminine – groan. "If he's anything like his father, he'll take that as a challenge," the woman finished.

Stepping closer, Harry could make out her shape curled up on the couch, and recognised her as the woman from the Great Hall.

"You knew my father?" he asked eagerly, quickly sitting down in the chair next to the woman.

She smiled wryly. "You could say that."

"Harry, I'd like you to meet Emma Potter, your aunt," Dumbledore said, interrupting anything the youth might've said.

His aunt? But he only had one aunt, and this woman was most certainly not Petunia Dursley. 'He said Potter, though, so she must be my father's sister, but that's impossible, he had no siblings as far as I know,' he thought. "I don't have an aunt other than aunt Petunia," he said intelligently. The woman's face turned angry again, but she wasn't looking at him. 'Good thing too, she looks almost as frightening as Mrs Weasley does when she's angry.'

Dumbledore lowered his head, as if in shame. "That's where you are wrong, Harry. I simply instructed no one to tell you about her, to spare you the pain. And it was a little known fact that James had a little sister," he explained.

"He didn't even know about me! I was prepared for 'but I thought you were dead', not this!" the woman – Emma – shouted. "I can't believe no one's even mentioned my name!" Harry could tell she was hurt, and felt a strange need to comfort her. 'She's family after all.'

"Why don't you tell him the story, you know it better than I at any rate," the headmaster said, soothing the woman with those words – though only slightly.

She glared at him for another second, before turning back to Harry with a grin. "Let's start at the beginning, shall we? Hello, my name is Emmeline Johanna Potter, and if you ever laugh at my name or call me that, I will hang you upside-down for a week," she said conversationally. "I was born five years after my precious prat of a brother and we'll skip over my rather boring pureblood youth, and fast-forward to my first year at Hogwarts. The reason not many people remember James Potter having a little sister was because after that year, my parents, your grandparents, pulled me out of school and-"

"What were their names?" he asked suddenly. He hadn't even realized he'd said something until she stopped talking to stare at him.

"Harold and Katherine… how come you didn't know that?" she asked, looking at him strangely.

He shrugged, a little defensive. "No one ever told me," he answered truthfully.

Emma's face turned suddenly sour and she turned towards the headmaster again. Holding out an accusing finger, as if she wanted nothing more than to poke him – really hard – she glared at him. "You and I are going to have a long talk after I get reacquainted with my nephew."

Dumbledore held up his hands in surrender, and looked strangely sincere in doing so.

"Now where was I?" she mumbled, turning in her seat again. She seemed to change moods a lot.

"They pulled you out of Hogwarts?" Harry supplied.

Her eyes brightened. "Right! They pulled me out of school and had a private teacher come to our house and educate me – our house was unplottable, so it was probably one of the safest places in Britain. James was sixteen at the time, and a real arrogant ass, if you'll forgive the language. Don't get me wrong, he was the most wonderful brother in the world, but the way he acted around other people, I could tell. Plus, I did have a year at Hogwarts to see the destruction some of his pranks could wreak. Anyway, he improved a lot during that year. I think it was partly because of the increasingly dangerous war, and partly because of Lily, your mother. She refused to go out with him, even though he kept asking for about a year, and he wasn't used to rejection. The year after that, his seventh, he finally convinced her to go, and they became a couple. That's when I got to know her. She was the sweetest, smartest, and most short-tempered person you could imagine, and I still don't get how my adoring, idiot brother managed to snag her."

"Were they happy?" Harry couldn't help but ask.

Emma smiled and reached over to squeeze his arm gently. "Yes, for four years they were really happy, and then they had you, and the boys and me had to declare them officially the happiest people in the universe." She smiled softly, her eyes far away as she recalled the memory. "You should have seen James' face, he couldn't stop grinning for at least two weeks after he heard the news."

"Who's the boys?" Harry interjected again. He hoped she didn't mind him asking questions, but judging by the sad smile on her face, she didn't. "Remus, Peter, and… Sirius. I guess you've heard all about that by now. The funny thing is, I had the biggest crush on Sirius back then, I thought he was amazing. I didn't want to believe it when Remus told me what he'd done. You have to understand, though, Harry, seeing them together nearly every day… they were closer than brothers, and I even got jealous sometimes. I still can't believe it, even after all these years. And then Peter a martyr? Never would've pegged him for it… Oh, darn it, I'm sitting here telling the saddest story in my book, I'm sorry, Harry," she apologised, her face perfectly matching her words.

"No, it's fine. It's nice hearing it from someone who actually knew them, since professor Lupin won't talk about it…"

She perked up. "Remus is here?"

"You missed him? He was sitting at the teacher's table," Harry replied.

Emma smiled sheepishly. "I was a little busy shouting at a certain headmaster."

And then she went on to tell him about the year before the tragedy happened, including all the stories about Sirius. Harry was a little surprised to hear that Alice Longbottom had been his mother's best friend, since he'd heard virtually nothing about his mother before this. After she ran out of stories, Dumbledore suggested Harry show her around the castle, and aunt and nephew decided to play a game of twenty-questions.

"So how about your friends?" she asked her ninth question.

Harry smiled, as they walked across the third floor corridor. "Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, they're the best. Ron knows everything there is to know about Quidditch, and has never lost a fair game of chess, and Hermione's probably the smartest person I know, though she can be a little…"

"Overly studious?" Emma supplied, grinning at him.

"Yeah, I know she means well, and she's a great friend, but it can get a bit much sometimes."

"I understand, your mother got that way sometimes. Not often, mind you, but she took her studies seriously. But when she had you, she quit her education to stay home with you. She wanted to be a medi-witch."

"Why did you fake your death? Or rather, why didn't you actually do it?" he asked his tenth. They had already covered the fact that she had three questions ago.

She took a deep breath and seemed to think about it for a second. "I thought about it, but I – like Dumbledore, and a lot of our allies back then – didn't believe Voldemort had actually died the night you defeated him. By the way, I do believe you now hold the record of youngest person ever to defeat a Dark Lord. Anyway, I believed he'd come back some day, and I'd be damned if I let my entire family's sacrifice be in vain. I faked my death because neither evil, nor good would look for a dead man – or woman in this case. I didn't spend my twelve years idly, Harry, I've been studying, learning everything I can to better protect myself. Plus, even though I was sorted into Gryffindor, I was a coward Harry; when faced with the choice, I just couldn't do it."

Harry remained silent for a while and absently pulled aside a tapestry and went up the hidden staircase.

Emma raised an eyebrow. "Impressive, I don't think James knew about this one," she commented, following him up.

He glanced over at her nervously. "Oh, it's just on this map I have."

Emma smiled at him. "If this is the map I think it is, it has a low level telepathy field, Harry, the boys added that because they were too lazy to physically change it every time they found something new. It just picked it up from your brain, that way it can keep growing. It's also how it knows who to insult when you don't know how to handle the map, and how."

Harry stared at her in wonder. "How did you know about the map?"

She laughed outright this time. "I have my resources," I said with a grin.

His hand drifting down to the pocket of his jumper where it was most likely folded up, but it was almost as if he didn't realize he was doing it.

"Have you never asked Remus about your father? They were friends, you know," she asked curiously as they emerged from the staircase, apparently thought a wall.

"I don't think he's had that much time to talk lately, he's been looking sick," Harry said, but he couldn't quite keep the bitter tone out of his voice.

"I'll have to pay him a visit too, then, but we've strayed off topic. I've thought of a tenth question."

She asked him about the family he currently lived with, and went into a five-minute rant when she heard his stories, and a well-aimed hex made a nearby suit of armour explode. Harrymanaged to calm her down by making her focus on their game. He asked her about some of the things his father and his friends liked to do. She told him all about his father's pranking history.

Harry noticed that though her voice would sometimes grow bitter or sad when talking about Black, the picture she presented didn't match at all with the screaming and scowling picture of him he'd seen of him in the paper, and even less with what he'd done. Harry also asked why Emma had thought he had died, to which she replied that Dumbledore had told her that because he was afraid that she might steal Harry away, or try to fight for custody, which would negate the protections he'd placed around him.

Eventually, they got to the entrance to the Gryffindor tower – where Sir Cadogan now resided – and Harry said the password so they could both get in. A glance at his watch told him it was way past curfew. When he entered he was ambushed by a bushy haired girl first, the rest of Gryffindor second.

"Are you alright?"

"Who was she?"

"Did you meet her?"

"Is she an auror come to look for Black?"

"Who was she?"

"Did she fight Dumbledore?"

"She can answer questions herself, thank-you-very-much," Emma said angrily, glaring at the crowd in general. "And shouldn't you all be in bed? It's past midnight, or should I call for professor McGonagall?"

Most of the crowd dispersed towards the dormitories, though there were some stragglers, and some who even tried to hide.

Emma ignored them, though, and plumped down into one of the seats near the fire. She sighed blissfully and sank into it a little deeper. "I love being an adult. You can order kids around and they will – mostly – do what you tell them. Plus, I don't think I've ever sat in one of these chairs before. Ickle firsties usually don't get that privilege."

Harry joined her, followed by a red-haired boy and a bushy-haired girl. She regarded them for a second. "So you must be chess wonder extraordinaire Ron Weasley, and you are 'smartest-person-I-know Hermione Granger? Nice to meet you," she said cheerfully, jumping up, and extending a hand. "My name is Emma Potter, Harry's long-lost-and-thought-to-be-dead aunt." A few gasps sounded from the stragglers, but Emma paid them no heed. It was bound to come out sometime, seeing as she was going to try to get custody over Harry back. 'First have to get myself declared alive again, though, and knowing our system, that might take a while…' she thought to herself.

Redhead and bushy-girl stared open-mouthed at me. "It's a really nice impression of Venus flytraps you're doing, but you might want to close up, I think I can see your lunch from here."

The girl recovered first. "But how can that be? I thought Harry didn't have any family left, aside from the Dursleys."

I smiled. "Let's just say I was a pretty well guarded secret. But I'm sure Harry will give you a much better explanation. I just wanted to get in here to protect my nephew from the bombardment of questions he had to face, and to see the inside of this room again, it's been nearly twenty years after all."

She looked around the room again, taking in all the impressions, before turning back to the trio, one of which still looked rather dumbfounded, one confused, and another amused as hell. "I'll see you in the morning, Harry, sleep tight," she said, and, repressing the urge to crush the thirteen-year-old to her and giving him a kiss on his forehead, she turned on her heel and climbed out of the portrait hole. She could just hear the girl's – Hermione's – shrill voice demanding a better explanation. But Emma had other things on her mind now, she had a certain professor to find, she had a feeling she knew what he was teaching…

A/N: Forgot to do the disclaimer, so here it is: Harry Potter's not mine (otherwise Sirius wouldn't have died!), and some of the dialogue and descriptions were shamelessly copied from my fiend Mary's copy of 'The prisoner of Azkaban'.
Oh, and all mistakes are mine, since I don't have a beta yet.

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