Chapter 3
Frowning at the parchment, Lily tweaked her Arithmancy numbers, adjusting the internal matrix of her new spell. Hopefully, with this alteration, it would stop spitting out excess energy when channeled.
The woman stood and held the spell design up, aiming it towards the far wall. She then tapped the parchment in a rotating pattern with her wand, arranging her magical energy appropriately.
"Ostende mihi, sanguinem sanguine meo," she intoned, releasing the parchment and letting it fall to the floor. In its place, a shimmering copy of the spell matrix remained, the lines glowing gold and the symbols in silver. With a final swirl of her wand, Lily sent the whole lot onto the stone wall, where it morphed into a circular shape. In the center of the spell, an image formed: Harry and Neville playing outside on the lawn with Sirius in his dog form.
Smiling, Lily ended the spell, satisfied that it was finally working properly. This one had taken her a few months to put together, whereas the smaller charms she usually created would only require a couple weeks of intensive effort.
With Harry approaching his fourth birthday, though, the woman wanted to make sure she had a way to always check and see what he was up to. Sirius had been blatantly encouraging the boy's mischievous streak, to Lily's irritation, and it was always a flip of the coin whether he went by Padfoot or Moony's example when told to behave.
"Hello? Any half-mad witches down here?" Frank suddenly stuck his head in through the doorway.
"Not half-mad, I'm afraid, but certainly full-mad." Grinning, Lily tucked her wand back in its holster and went to greet the man. "Harry and Nev are out back with Sirius."
"Ah, good, I thought this house was much too quiet. Had me a bit worried at first, I'll admit." The two of them stepped back out of Lily's workroom, heading through the kitchen to the back door. Outside the secluded cottage, sundown was swiftly approaching, and dinnertime with it.
"Anything new from the Auror office?" Lily asked casually, waving to Padfoot in order to get his attention. The dog saw her, transformed, and then Sirius gleefully snatched up the two boys in order to carry them back towards the house on his shoulders.
"There is, actually. Tomorrow's Daily Prophet is going to predominantly feature the tale of the capture of the Lestrange brothers, Rodolphus and Rabastan, courtesy of Aurors Alastor Moody and Alice Longbottom."
"Really? The both of them?!"
"Mm-hm, though Bellatrix and Crouch Jr. are still at large. Still, the brothers are to be tried immediately and sentenced for the attack on and torture of Arthur and Molly Weasley."
"Good. I'm glad that family will finally have at least some of their justice." It had been a horrible shock years before to the magical community when it was discovered that the small group of Death Eaters had gone and attacked an innocent family (one with only the barest of connections to the Order of the Phoenix), looking for information on Voldemort's death. While the seven Weasley children escaped mostly unharmed, their parents were not so lucky. "Have Gideon and Fabian been told yet?"
"That's what Alice is up to right now since I volunteered to come get Neville. Speaking of-!" Frank grinned when his son ran up to him, babbling at a hundred miles an hour about what games and adventures they'd played that day.
"Merlin's beard, Longbottom, what have you been feeding that kid?" Sirius groaned as he also set Harry on the ground, letting the second boy run to his mother as well. "I tried to get these two tuckered out for dinner, but they gave me the runaround instead!"
"That happens," the other man said dryly, tickling his son's side as he did so. "You should see the struggles we go through at bedtime."
"Think I'll pass, thanks."
"See, now? Padfoot is capable of learning self-preservation tactics," Lily teased. Sirius responded by poking his tongue out at her, which caused Harry to giggle.
"Speaking of dinner, would you all care to join us?"
"Well now, Frank, I think that depends - is your utterly intimidating mother going to be present as well? Because I'm convinced that woman hates my guts."
"Don't be silly, Sirius, it's only your family she despises." Frank said with a wink. "And no, she's visiting my uncle this week."
"In that case, I for one would love to accept your invitation. Lily?"
"Ah, why not. I've finished with my spell-tinkering today."
"Oh? Something else you're going to patent and publish in Witch Weekly?"
"Patent, certainly, but I might just keep this one among our circle. It's a scrying spell to seek out the caster's intended blood relative."
Both men made an ah sound, nodding as their friend's foresight once again made itself known. If there was one thing Lily was good at, it was thinking ahead, especially where Harry was concerned.
-CE-
For Harry's seventh birthday, Lily reluctantly allowed Sirius to get the boy a top of the line broomstick. Not only did she then make the mistake of allowing him to ride it all day during and after the small party, but compounded that error by giving Minerva the chance to witness his aerial acrobatics.
"The lad's a natural, Lily!" The grey haired witch gushed, watching Harry spin above them with awe and glee. "He's inherited all of James' talent and more!"
Frowning, Lily cast a sideways look at her old mentor. "...You know you aren't allowed to put him on your Quidditch team until after he starts at Hogwarts, right?"
Minerva just made a dismissive gesture, never taking her eyes off the seven year old.
"And that he might not even be in Gryffindor for you to take advantage of his talent?"
At that, the Transfiguration Mistress turned an incredulous eye onto the younger woman. "Whyever wouldn't he be in Gryffindor, my girl?"
"Well, you and I have both noticed he loves the study projects I give him. Maybe he'll be in Ravenclaw."
"He may love to work on your assignments, Lily, but you and I both know Harry doesn't always concern himself with knowing the right answer when it comes to his muggle school."
"I'm also getting him to look ahead and plan for different contingencies, Minerva. That might be enough to land him in Slytherin."
"With the boy's natural boldness? I think not. You might turn him into a strategist, my dear, but a snake that does not alone make."
"What about Hufflepuff?"
"Now you're just grasping at straws." Minerva smiled, looking back to the sky, and where Harry was easily out-flying both Sirius and Frank. "No, Lily, I'm quite confident your son will be in the House of Lions, just like his parents, where he's meant to be. And I can't wait to see how well he does on the Quidditch Pitch."
"Hm. Just don't count your dragons before they hatch." Even with her reality check for the older witch, though, Lily had to admit that Harry's natural skill and enjoyment of flying was significant. But whether he agreed to be on his school House's Quidditch team or not remained to be seen.
-CE-
Not long after they each turned ten, Lily, Alice and Frank sat their boys down for a long-awaited explanation. They started with their roles in the Order of the Phoenix, striking back at Voldemort's forces where and when they could during the war. Then came the prophecy made by Sybil Trelawney, how there was the potential for either Harry or Neville to fit its requirements, and the knowledge that at least part of the verse had reached the Dark Lord's ears.
"We all went into hiding after that, to keep the both of you safe," Lily said softly. "Frank and Alice found an abandoned property they bought and fixed up, while Professor Dumbledore gave James and I his old family home in Godric's Hollow. Both locations were placed under the Fidelius Charm, to ensure absolute secrecy."
"Your Gran was our Secret Keeper, Neville." Frank spoke up. "We knew without a doubt that the stubborn old woman would die before revealing where we were hiding." The boy straightened up with pride in his grandmother, a lady who normally intimidated him into silence.
"We were going to go with your Uncle Sirius, Harry, but he insisted on switching at the last minute - said that he'd be too obvious, that the Death Eaters would target him first in order to get the secret. So, we decided to chose another man who'd been one of the Marauders: Peter Pettigrew."
"Wormtail," Harry guessed. "I remember Uncle Remus mentioning him once."
"That's right. Except... Wormtail betrayed us. He'd been a spy for Voldemort all along." Forcing her voice to remain steady, Lily explained the rest of what had happened, about Peter waiting until a night the Potters would be alone before he left to give the information to his Master. Harry's eyes got a bit watery during the description of his father's final stand, but then sharpened with pride as his mum described how she blew Voldemort to smithereens. "Some of the shrapnel managed to nick us both, my love, that's where my shoulder scars and the ones on your cheek came from."
"Is that why you two never go to Diagon Alley with us?" Neville suddenly asked. "Because people might recognize you?"
"That's almost right, Nev; after that night, most of the wizarding world assumed that Harry and I had died along with Voldemort. And I've been just fine with leaving them in dark." She had, a few years later, been badgered into sending a letter to Dumbledore, letting the man know she and Harry had survived, but not giving him any more information than that. Minerva told her a couple of days afterward that the Headmaster had been quite shocked upon attempting to inform his Deputy of the news, only to be told she already knew.
"But, when I go to Hogwarts..."
"Our secret will be revealed." Lily finished her son's thought with a small smile. "It's going to mean quite a few changes for us, Harry, but we'll be just fine. We have, after all, the best extended family anyone could ask for."
And they did, too: Sirius, Remus, Alice, Frank, Neville, Minerva, even the Dursleys, on the annual trips Lily and Harry made to visit them. Being quite large for his age, Dudley would often be picked on at school, and so grew delighted when his cousin was around and could help use small bouts of magic to mess with the bullies. Lily sincerely hoped that Harry's relationship with Dudley would be far more relaxed and cordial than her own had been with Petunia as girls.
She was brought back to the present moment when her son hopped up off the sofa and moved to hug her as tightly as he could.
"Love you, Mum."
"And I love you, Harry, with all my heart.
A/N: Gonna be six updates today, seven if I can whip out a new Wild chapter by tonight. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!