Chapter 3: Torture
Harry woke with a start. Where am I? He thought.
He looked around his surroundings. He was in a very small room with no doors or windows that was made completely made out of stone. In fact, he was the only thing in the room. Then he heard a 'pop'; he turned around to see who it was and gasped.
Standing there was Lord Voldemort.
The Dark Lord did not say anything and just stared at Harry in hatred. Harry's scar began to burn. There was another 'pop'. This time there was a Death Eater with a Dementor.
But Harry no longer heard the voices of his parents that he had heard three years ago.
He now heard and felt all the pain and hurt that had come to him in the last five years. The pain of finding out how his parents had really died… in the Forbidden Forest, with Voldemort after him... facing Quirrel by the Mirror of Erased... crashing into the Whopping Willow... the bludger knocking him out and him losing the bones in his arm. Facing Tom Riddle in the Chamber of Secrets. Hearing the voices of his parents at their death in his third year. Falling from his broomstick. Knowing that he couldn't live with Sirius. The Dark Mark at the World Cup. His name being pulled out of the Goblet of Fire, making him lose Ron's friendship. Being burned by a dragon. And the Third task - the worst memory he saw.
Cedric dead.
Voldemort back.
The Cruciatus curse.
Mad Eye Moody really being Barty Crouch Jr., a Death Eater.
All of these images running through his mind over and over again until he was about to pass out. At that moment, he would have been free of those thoughts; Voldemort took the Death Eater and Dementor away.
Later he was fed a bread crust and given a sip of water. He was left to wallow in the painful memories that had just flashed into his mind.
The next day Voldemort came back and pulled out his wand.
"Crucio!"
Voldemort preformed the curse until Harry was barely awake and left. Again, Harry was fed the same, as he had been the night before. This treatment continued through the next couple of days.
Until one day, when Harry was not sure how many days had gone by, he spoke.
"Why?" was all he asked.
Voldemort replied with his voice full of malice. "Because you did not die when I wanted you dead. You lived. Now you are paying for living. But you will die, but first you must feel pain." With that there was a 'pop' and Voldemort was gone.
~*0o0o0o0o0o0*~
James and Lily were sitting in the kitchen looking like zombies. Harry had been gone for almost two weeks now. Gone, but not forgotten. Dumbledore had assigned no less then fifty people to find him. There was no trace of him anywhere and everybody was beginning of losing hope. Lily and James barely ate anything, talked to anybody, or slept at night. All they could think about was the pain their son might be in or worse the death that had come to him.
They were both now beyond tears and could not cry anymore after days of crying. Either one of them would have given anything to have their son back.
If it had been offered, they would die in his place.
Ron and Hermione were not doing much better; now back at school all they could think about was their friend. They both fell behind in their studies. Ron had lost all interest in
Quidditch.
In fact, the whole school had fallen under a depression. No one laughed.
No one practiced Quidditch. Even the teachers were somewhat dazed.
Professor McGonnagal actually broke out in tears one class and had to be lead out of the classroom by Dumbledore. Only the Slytherin's continued to be cheerful. Professor
Snape was being a little sympathetic towards the other houses, but that is only because he knew what happened to people captured by Voldemort and not just killed right away.
Harry meanwhile was getting worse and worse everyday. There was not one place on his body that was not bruised or bleeding. All he wanted was to die.
On the dawn of his fifteenth night in captivity Wormtail came to him.
"You saved my life; I must now return the favor, though My Lord will be very displeased. You see, he planned to torture you a day for every year you have lived, and then kill you. But I will return you to your home. My Lord does not know where you live."
He picked up Harry, who was very light, and disapparated to Lily and James' house. He took Harry up to his room and put him in his bed and with a 'pop' he was gone again.
Lily couldn't sleep. She had had a horrible dream about Harry being tortured to death. All of a sudden she felt as though someone needed her. The person that needed her was someplace close. Lily got out of bed carefully not waking James. James never slept well and was now getting sleep that he needed.
Lily started wandering around the house. She stopped abruptly in front of her son's door, which had been closed because she and James couldn't bear going past there. As she walked into the room she saw a lump on the bed. Curious she walked up to the bed and was both horrified and happy at what or more who she saw.
She yelled at the top of her lungs for James. James waking ran to her and was very surprised to see she was in Harry's room. He ran into the room and like his wife he was horrified and happy at the same time. He ran to where the limp body of his son was. Lily was sobbing. James was scared to ask.
"Is he alive?" James asked her in barely more then a whisper.
"I am not getting a pulse," she sobbed. "But he feels warm and not cold like dead people usually do." James couldn't think of anything to do. All he could do was stand there and look at his son. Sirius walked into the room. He had heard Lily shout earlier and had been looking all over for her.
"What are you two doing..." he stopped in mid-sentence as he saw Harry lying on the bed. "Is he...?"
"We don't know" came James' voice.
"We have to get him to the hospital" Sirius said thinking quickly. "I will apparate with him and your two take the floo network. I don't want you two to try apparating. " With that Sirius was gone with a 'pop'.
When he got to the emergency room the lady at the counter screamed. "Sir-Sirius Black" she stuttered. Sirius rolled his eyes.
"I was proved innocent a week ago, remember? Anyway it doesn't matter who I am, this boy needs attention right now!" Now she took a look at the boy in Sirius' arms.
"Oh my..." she pressed a red button on the desk and a doctor came running out of the door behind the desk. The doctor took Harry away at once and rushed him off to go be looked at. Lily and James came out through the fireplace.
"You two wait here for word on Harry, I have to go alert Dumbledore." Sirius left. The lady behind the counter gasped again when she saw Lily and James and helped them into seats.
~*0o0o0o0o0o0*~
"Jelly Beans!"
Sirius ran up the stairs to Dumbledore's office. Dumbledore looked up quickly as Sirius ran into the room. "We...found...him" Sirius gasped out of air from running so quickly.
"Where did you find him?" Dumbledore asked sharply. "We found him in his room; doesn't look to good. In the ER now. Critical condition. Must get back to Lily and James now." With that he left the room to run back to Hogsmeade.
Dumbledore hit a button on his desk. "Minerva, will you please tell Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger to come to my office at once."
"Certainly, Headmaster" He sighed and waited for the two friends to come. Ron and Hermione ran into the office.
"Professor, Hermione and I want to help look for Harry, he is our best friend and we are not doing anything much in school right now, and we want to help."
"That will not be necessary Mr. Weasley."
Hardly daring to believe Hermione whispered, "You found him?"
"Yes indeed, at this very moment he is in the ER in critical condition. I thought you two might want to go there and wait for him to come out." They both nodded their heads as he said that. "I would also like it if you two would be so kind as to inform your house of what's going on before you leave." They nodded again and left.
Dumbledore got out his quill and parchment to inform the search parties that they no longer needed to search. Meanwhile Ron and Hermione ran back to the common room. It was packed with Gryffindors, since it was break and no one felt like going outside.
Hermione stood up on a table to share the news, Ron was in too much shock to do anything but plumb down in a chair by his brothers.
"Could I have everyone's attention please?" What little noise that was in the common room stopped, everyone looked at Hermione. "Ron and I have just been told that Harry Potter has been found."
The room erupted in cheers.
Hermione held up her hand for silence. "He is also in critical condition in the ER right now." With those words the room got silent again. "Ron and I are going to the hospital shortly and will owl any changes to Ginny and she will tell then to you."
The room remained quiet, most people wishing they could go to the hospital too.
Ron and Hermione packed a few belongings and went to Dumbledore's office to receive instructions on how they would get to the hospital.
~*0o0o0o0o0o0*~
"Mr. and Mrs. Potter?" The doctor came out into the waiting area. They both stood up at the same time. "Your son is still in critical condition but he should make it through." There was two sighs of relief from the couple. "He had a few broken ribs, a broken leg and arm. He is also suffering from dehydration and malnutrition. Now what happened to Harry to cause these injuries?"
It was obvious that this doctor didn't read the newspaper.
"He was captured by Lord Voldemort." James said quietly. "You-Know-Who? Only one person has ever survived him!" Then realization dawned on him. "That is THE Harry Potter in there? That means you two… wait aren't you two dead?"
"It is a long story doctor, when can we see our son?" James asked the doctor.
"Right now if you want he just got out of the OR, and is resting he has not woken up yet."
Lily and James ran into the room where their son was.
Ron and Hermione arrived in the hospital just as Lily and James had gone to see their son. Ron was about to call out to them when Hermione shushed him. "They need time alone with Harry." Ron nodded in understanding. The lady behind the counter came up to them.
"Who are you, and why are you here?" she asked them rudely.
Hermione responded saying "We are Harry Potter's best friends; we are going to sit here until more news is received about how he is doing."
"R-Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger?" she asked just as stunned as she had been with Sirius, Lily, and James.
"How did you know who we are?" Ron demanded. She simply picked up a book titled The Adventures of Harry Potter and his Friends. She handed the book to them. They started flipping through the pages; there were pictures of them and information about Hermione and Ron as well as Harry. Hermione groaned.
"Harry is not going to like more publicity." But Ron was pleased. "
Can't you see? Now we're famous too!" Hermione just scoffed.
Later, Dumbledore came to wait with them as did Sirius and Remus. The lady behind the counter was quite overwhelmed - she wasn't used to having so many famous people in the waiting room in one day!
~*0o0o0o0o0o0*~
Harry blinked his eyes a couple of times. Where was he? He no longer saw stone all around him and this room had light in it. In fact everything was white. And he no longer felt pain.
"Am I dead?" He asked aloud. Lily and James ran over to him.
"No you're not dead, thank God! You're alive… you have been asleep for a week!" Lily told him.
"Where am I?" This time James replied.
"In a wizard hospital."
"Why?"
"Don't you remember what happened to you?" All of a sudden all the memories from those long days came back to him, and he started to cry. Lily rushed to give him a big hug.
"It's okay now baby, its okay, your safe, your mums here, its okay." She told him while still holding him in her arms. Dumbledore came into the room.
"Glad to see you awake, Harry. I know a lot of people who are anxious to see you.
But I am afraid that I am going to have to ask you some painful questions know, it is important to know where you were and what happened to you." Harry shuddered at the thought and hid protectively behind his mother. It took a while to convince him to come out from behind Lily, but he finally did. He told them his story. All three of them were horrified at what had happened to him.
"The last thing I remember is being picked up by Pettigrew." Harry finished.
"I am going to kill him! He called himself our friend!" James yelled. Lily had to go calm him down.
After about a week, Harry got well enough to stand and walk around. He returned to Hogwarts.
Lily had tried to convince him to stay home another week, but he refused. He told her that he needed to study for his O.W.L's before he missed so much school that he would have to repeat 5th year. Finally, with much persuasion, she let him go and here he was.
That evening when he walked into the common room he saw that there was a huge party for him. Everything was going great until Fred reminded him that they would have to play Slytherin for the house cup in a mere 4 weeks. Harry ran to McGonagall's office to book the field in any possible time for the next four weeks. Then he returned to the common room and went to bed with the party still raging on through the night.
The next morning (Saturday) Harry woke the team at 5:00 AM to start training. They all grumbled about how lack of sleep would cause them to not play well and how Harry was turning into a mini Wood as they walked down to the pitch. Harry just told them that they had lost 3 weeks of training with him gone and that they needed to start now.
In the air thirty minutes later, Harry felt great to be back on his broom. As he watched the team warm-up he spotted a figure that looked very familiar in the distance. Harry told the team that he would be back soon and flew toward the figure.
James was pleased to see that his son had the team out so early.
"Dad, what are you doing here?" Harry asked him.
"Well, I asked Professor Dumbledore to inform me of when your next practice was, assuming that it would not be for another couple of weeks. But no, I have a crazy son who wanted to have a Quidditch practice at five in the morning on the day after he gets back from the hospital. You're lucky I didn't tell your mother, she would have had a fit!" James told him with a smile on his face.
"So why are you here?"
"Oh, you will see soon, just assemble that team of yours. I want to have a talk with them."
Harry flew off and got his team on the ground. James approached.
"Mr. Potter, could you talk some sense into Harry? We had a wonderful party for him last night that ran until two in the morning and here only three hours later, he made us get up and start practicing!" complained George.
"Oh, he is better then I was; I got the team up at four!" James told them. There was a lot of muttering about 'like father like son' and 'they're both crazy!'
"Now I was told that Malfoy gave the Slytherin team new brooms when his son got on the team. Now that I hate both Slytherin and the Malfoy's just as much even more then you do, I got you these." From a long black box in that had been invisible, he pulled out seven brand-new Firebolt 5's and handed them out. The team was in awe. All Harry could do was grin. They would win the Quiddich Cup for sure this year!
"Dad, thank you for the brooms. I really like them, but we only have five hours to train today and we have already lost one of them so we need to get going!" The team thanked Mr. Potter and took off.
Four hours later, they were hot, dirty, and tired. As they walked out of the locker room after getting changed, Harry asked them to slow down. He made them stand there for five minutes so that the Slytherin team would see them as they were leaving.
"Potter, I booked the field, get off now!" "Malfoy,
"With joy. We just finished anyway; we just wanted to stick around a little so we could show you the new gift that the team got from my father." Right after he said this the team held up their brooms, each with their name etched in gold on the broom. The Slytherins couldn't say anything. They just stood there stunned.
Ron took out a camera and snapped a couple of pictures of them, before the team walked off nearly in hysterics from laughing. "You'll have to send that one to my father, Ron; he would love to see it!" Harry told Ron through his laughter.
~*0o0o0o0o0o0*~
The next four weeks were all studying and Quidditch for Harry. He was working the team really hard. They had practice three times during the school week from five to nine and on the week-end five in the morning to noon. With their new brooms the team played wonderfully and Harry had very little criticism. Any time he wasn't playing Quidditch, eating, sleeping, or going to class, Harry studied with Hermione in the library.
Once he had caught up with his classes he continued to study and now was even farther ahead then Hermione. He was now top of his class in every subject but divination.
Even in potions, Snape couldn't deny that Harry's potions were the best. Plus a little threat from James about pictures of Snape in a dress helped Harry a lot.
A week before the big game, practices were increased by an hour or even sometimes two. Harry wanted to be extra sure that they won the game.
The day of the game Harry woke up very early. He went down to the common room and started going over the plays that the team had been practiced. Finally it was time to go out on the pitch. Lee Jordan started commentating right away with comments about the
Gryffindor's brooms. As Harry did a lope around the field he saw his parents in the stands, waving at him. He shook hands with Malfoy and the game began.
Within five minutes the chasers had scored five goals. Five minutes later Harry caught the snitch.
During the minutes between the catching of the snitch there had been six more goals scored by the chasers. The score was 260 to 0. Harry was very pleased to except the
Quidditch Cup from Dumbledore. James and Lily came and congratulated him with big smiles.
"He is even better then you are James." Lily teased. The party that night was great. Everyone participated. There were even some Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs smuggled in the Gryffindor common room. Even Hermione put down her books to celebrate.
At 2:30 McGonagall came in, told everyone to go to bed and yelled at the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs for being in the Gryffindor common room.
Harry decided to have Quidditch try-offs for next years team, because he wanted the help of the team members that were leaving. They needed beaters and chasers. Ginny Wesley, Seamus Finnegan, and surprisingly Hermione were the new chasers. Dean and Lavender were the new beaters.
The O.W.L.'s came and passed.
At the end of the year they got the results from them. Harry had gotten the highest amount of O.W.L's, five more then Hermione.
In what seemed like seconds it was time to go home.
On the train ride home Harry told his friends about what he and his father were going to do to the Dursley's. James was going to pick Harry up and they were going to go on a 'father son bonding trip' as Lily put it. James was supposed to tell the Dursley's that
Harry did not need to stay with them again and he 'forgot'.
When he got to the train station, there was Uncle Vernon there to pick him up. There was a silent ride to the house. Harry went straight to his room and made sure everything was in order for the 'surprise'.
The next morning Harry announced that a friend would be coming by to see him. His aunt and uncle were furious, Dudley was just scared. At 11:00 AM sharp, Prongs came barreling through the door and stood by Harry. Uncle Vernon just laughed when he saw the animal.
"That is your friend, boy? You are going to be locked into your bedroom for the rest of the summer. Oh, and don't plan on eating for a long time." He took Harry from the middle and started heaving him up the stairs.
This was not what Harry and James had planned.
James had never been so angry in his life. No one should be treated like that! He transformed into his normal self and held his wand against Uncle Vernon's back.
"Put my son down, NOW!" Vernon held tight on to Harry as if his life depended on his grip. But he did whip around. He was so shocked when he saw James that he dropped Harry quickly.
"Y-your dead!" he stuttered.
"Unfortunately for you I am not." He raised his wand high. What he did to Vernon though, was unexpected. He turned his hair purple - to match his face - and then his skin pink. He made his eyes yellow and his ears red. "For fifteen days you will stay like that. For every year you mis-treated my son. Don't worry though it will wear off then. My wife will probably be by sometime to fix you up before then. I expect you to treat her with curtsey. Or I will be back." With that he gapped Harry by the hand and left with a 'pop'.
"That was great dad! The look on his face was priceless!" Harry told James a little too loudly because Lily heard.
"The look on whose face?" James gulped. Lily was a very nice person. But when she was mad, you wanted to get out of her way. And she headed straight towards James. "The look on who's face?" she repeating.
In a small voice James said "Your brother-in-law's." Lily left at once; she was scared at what James might do to him, because James' temper was just as bad as hers.
When she returned Harry said, "I think I will send an owl to Ron now." And left quickly left. When he came back downstairs he saw his parents making out. "Eww" he said. They stopped at once. Whenever Lily and James had a fight it ended in a passionate kiss. In fact Harry had been born nine months later then a big fight between his parents.
~*0o0o0o0o0o0*~
A week after Harry had gotten home the nightmares began. He kept seeing awful images of Voldemort torturing and killing Muggles. Harry knew those were tortures from the past because of the style of clothing and the way the houses were designed. As an old habit Harry decided to write Sirius. In his letter he told Sirius about everything that had happened in his dreams, even if some of the parts were weird. The problem with Harry's dreams was he couldn't hear anything. He didn't know what they were saying or why
Voldemort was torturing the people he was.
Three days after Harry had written his letter, Sirius came running into his room.
"Harry, are you okay? I was so worried when I received your letter." Harry sat Sirius down and explained everything that happened in his dreams.
"And I don't know what they are supposed to mean." Harry concluded. Sirius looked like he was just as confused as Harry.
"I will write Dumbledore and ask him about your dreams; maybe he will know what they mean. Meanwhile, why didn't you tell your parents about these dreams?"
"My parents? Oh yes them, well I don't think that they would understand. You have been the one there, and you understand more of what I am going through. Also I have always gone to you if I have a problem. You were like a father to me when I didn't have one. You were the person I felt like was a role model for me. You would have died and still would die for your best friends before you would let them get hurt." At Harry's words, Sirius felt touched. He was happy that his godson trusted him that much. He gave
Harry a big hug.
Little to the knowledge of Harry and Sirius James was standing right outside of the door during the conversation.
James was very upset. He didn't think he could ever be this angry with Sirius. He was also very disappointed in Harry. Why didn't he tell Lily or himself about the nightmares?
They had been told what had happened to Harry in all his years in school. He was beginning to wish that what happened in Harry's third year hadn't. The he, James, would have been Harry's first role model - the person that Harry confided in.
James walked down to the kitchen where Lily had had lunch set up for them from the house- elves.
"Ah James, there you are, will you go get Harry and tell him that lunch is ready." James just sat down and said nothing. As he began to chew his lunch Lily got worried.
James always loves to go get Harry, what is wrong?
"Well, if you don't want to I guess I will." She went up to Harry's room and was surprised to see that Sirius was there tickling him.
"Ok, ok" Harry laughed. "I will tell them." Sirius, satisfied with himself, let Harry get up. Then he noticed Lily had walked into the room.
"Good afternoon Lily. How are you doing?"
"I'm doing just fine, thank you Sirius. It is time for lunch. You can join us if you want, Sirius."
"No, that's ok I need to leave now anyway, see you later Harry." Sirius left with a 'pop'.
"Well coming downstairs or what?" Lily asked Harry.
"I'm coming" he said and followed her to the kitchen.
They sat and ate lunch in silence. Finally Harry got the courage to speak.
"Mum, dad I need to tell you something." They both looked at him in interest to show that they were listening.
Harry told them about his nightmares. Lily was horrified that this had been happening to her baby. She ran over and hugged Harry. James just sat still; he was still hurt at what Harry had told Sirius earlier.
"Mum, you are suffocating me." He said in a choked sort-of way. Lily let go of him. "Dad, want to go play Quidditch in the back yard?" James cheered up right away. He loved to play Quidditch with anybody, anywhere, any time. He summoned their brooms and went outside to play. Lily just sighed.
Boys.
She would have gladly joined them because she loved Quidditch just as much as James, but she knew that the two boys needed to bond, and flying was the perfect way. She walked outside to watch them. She had to break the news some way and the only way she could was to tell them well they were happy, so that they wouldn't get to upset.
"Harry! James!" she called up to them. They flew towards her. "The Dursley's are coming over for dinner."
"WHAT" Harry asked horrified. He nearly fell of his broom in shock.
"You heard me, now I want you two to be nice to them. I don't want any repeats of what happened the last time you were with them." Harry and James cracked into identical grins as they though of the last time they had seen Vernon.
"What time are they coming over?"
"They will be here in an hour." At this Harry did fall of his broom. James caught him in mid-air so that he wouldn't hit the ground.
"Thanks, dad" he told him.
"You two get inside and get cleaned up, Quidditch make you very dirty. I want to make a good impression on them."
James and Harry snorted in laughter at that.
"How can we make a good impression if they already hate us?" Harry asked her. Lily just scoffed and walked away.
"We better do what she wants." James sighed.
They went into the house and got ready for dinner.
Far too soon it was time for the Dursley's to come. Lily greeted her sister with a hug that Petunia stiffly returned.
Vernon and Dudley were to busy looking around at that magnificent house. Lily showed them into the dining room, where laid out was their finest china. Lily had decided that the house-elves should bring in the food and not make it magically appear, because that might scare the Dursley's. Either way would have scared them, because when Petunia saw the house-elves she screamed.
It took awhile to calm her down, but finally she did. When they went to eat, they found that half the food on the table was gone. Dudley had eaten all of that food in the 10 minutes it took to calm his mother down.
James was not pleased.
"How did you ever get anything to eat with that cousin of yours around, you must have starved!" he whispered to Harry. Harry thought it was better not to say anything about the fact that he had starved. But James understood what his silence meant and was very angry. Harry dragged him out of the room, before James could explode. "We will go get more food from the elves." Was the excuse Harry used to get James out of the room.
"They starved you! How dare they! I should..."
"Dad, calm down, Mum would be really mad if you do anything to them. And plus they only really starved me once. But Ron and his brothers came and rescued me from them, so I am fine." Those words did not calm James down at all. They just made him even more mad at them. Harry told James to sit down and he would be right back.
Harry went to the kitchens where the house-elves were and requested more food. He went back to his father who was still fuming and told him that they better get back to the dining room or there wouldn't be any food left. When they returned Lily smiled thankfully at Harry.
The rest of dinner was awkward, partly because James was throwing angry glares at\ the Dursley's and they were quite scared of him.
"Why don't you go show Dudley your room Harry?" Lily told him after dinner. Harry rolled his eyes and told Dudley to follow him. As they were walking (or in Dudley's case, waddling) up to Harry's room Dudley got up enough courage to ask Harry a question.
"What were those things that came in with the food?"
"They are called house-elves. They are like our servants; they cook and clean for us."
"Oh"
"This is my room." Dudley stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Harry's room. He looked around at all the Quidditch stuff he had and the moving pictures of Harry and his friends. Harry smiled as he saw his favorite picture, the one that Ron took of the
Slytherin team.
"Are those all your friends?" Dudley asked looking at the pictures.
"Almost, only the people in this picture are not my friends, they are my worst enemies."
"They don't look very happy."
"They aren't we had just showed them the best brooms you can get, our whole team had them."
"Team?"
"Quidditch team, it is a sport that we play on brooms."
"How?"
"I guess the only way for you to understand is to show you." Harry sighed as he got out his boom. Mum is not going to like me flying in the house… Harry thought as he mounted his broom. He started zooming around the room. Dudley was amazed.
"Could I try?" he asked timidly. Harry was little nervous about letting Dudley on the best broom in the Wizarding world.
"One second" he said and got out of his Firebolt. If Dudley was going to ride a broom, it would be better if he broke Harry's old broom. Harry showed him how to mount the broom. Dudley managed to get on the broom without breaking it.
All in all Dudley was a bad flyer. He crashed into a few wall and the ceiling but finally got the hang of it.
Everything was going well until Lily came into the room.
"HARRY JAMES POTTER GET DOWN RIGHT THIS SECOND! HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU NOT TO FLY IN THE HOUSE! AND WITH YOUR COUSIN!" Harry didn't think that he had ever seen his mother so mad. He did exactly what his mother told him to do.
He helped Dudley dismount.
"Dudley, it is time for you to go home." She said in a nicer voice. She glared at Harry. To be honest, Harry was terrified.
"I think I will just go say goodbye then."
"You most certainly will not. You will stay right here and I will get your father to talk to you." Harry gulped, would his fathers temper be worst?
James came upstairs when his wife called. He put on a stern face when Lily told him what happened. Lily, pleased, left to go say goodbye to the Dursley's. James kept the stern face on for about a minute and then burst out laughing.
"You should see the look on your face!" James was still laughing. Harry relaxed.
"I have never seen her so mad." He admitted.
"Yeah, she has a pretty bad temper, it goes with her hair. I used to get in trouble doing the same thing. But I hear you got your cousin up in the air - that must have been a great picture."
"He wanted to try. I have no idea why. I always thought that he hated wizards just as much as his parents." James frowned.
"I want you to tell me everything that ever happened to you." Harry didn't really want to. He knew his fathers temper. But he also knew his father would be even madder if Harry didn't tell him.
"Well then I guess I should start with the cupboard under the stairs. So you remember seeing it?"
"Yes"
"I lived in there until I was eleven."
James was speechless. How could anyone do that to his son?
"Go on"
Harry went on to explain all the weird things that had happened to him. Ending up on the school roof, dying his teachers hair blue, dreams about flying motorcycles. When he got to the snake, James realized his son was a parselmouth. He had been told that before, but really hadn't really registered it.
James was very upset when he heard about before Harry's second year; that they had locked him in his room and barely fed him anything. He was horrified that Harry had gotten so upset that he lost his temper that he lost control of his powers.
"What did your aunt say that made you so upset you lost control of your powers?"
"Well, she said that you and mum were good for nothing and were drunk when you died."
"When you are murdered you won't be drunk."
"For years they told me that you died in a car crash."
"A CAR CRASH, A CAR CRASH COULDN'T KILL YOUR MOTHER AND ME!"
"That was exactly what Hagrid said when he came and got me from them."
James couldn't believe it. Harry didn't know how his parents had 'died' until he was eleven. He almost could feel his pain.
"Well after I blew up Aunt Marge I ran away in a fury, and that was the first time I saw Sirius."
"Really, what did he say?"
"Nothing, he was in dog form. I didn't know it was him though, and for some time that year I thought he was a Grim because he kept showing up to see me."
Just like now, thought James.
When Harry got to the Tri-wizard tournament he found it hard to continue about the end of the third task. He told how both Lily and James had come out of the wand. James now understood why Harry thought that Lily and he wouldn't understand, because they didn't. They had gotten a revised timeline of events from Dumbledore but now James knew what Harry had felt about everything. His son had spent his whole life being lied to, tricked, and betrayed by some of the people he had trusted the most. Now more then ever James wished he could have been there for Harry when he was going through all this. Like right now Harry looked on the verge of tears because of what had happened in his fourth year.
Or was he?
Harry was in a lot of pain. He had forgotten to watch the time. Now he had yet another explanation to go through. He only had to deal with it for another 15 minutes and it would be over, that is until tomorrow.
"Harry, what is wrong?"
"Fifteen minutes...explain then." Harry huffed. James watched him helplessly for fifteen minutes as Harry withered in pain. When the minutes were over James was very concerned. How long had this been happing to him?
"Explain NOW!" James yelled.
"Well Hermione said it was-"
"Hermione? That is how long this been happening?"
"Since I a week before I started school again." Harry said as quietly as he could.
"Why?" was all that James could get out.
"Well, I had Hermione do some research for me and she thinks it's a reaction to the curse Voldemort put on me. But Ron doesn't think so - he thinks that I am just stressed out."
"Ron knows too?"
"Yeah, I needed him to do a silencing charm on me at first because I screamed a lot."
"S-screamed…" James had not expected this at all.
"It happens everyday at 9:00 and lasts until 9:15. Then it stops." James couldn't say anything. He wished that he had known earlier… then he would have done something about it.
"You can't do anything about it, Hermione and I spent a lot of time looking for some way to cure it. We spent a lot of time in the Library between that and…" Oh no, another secret revealed.
"Between that and WHAT?" asked James asked sternly. Harry knew it was no use, he couldn't get himself out of this.
"Well we umm, we were doing what you did when you were in school."
"And what is that?" James tried to think of the things that he done in school, hoping
Harry hadn't done any of them.
"Webecameillegalanimagus."
"What was that?"
"We became illegal animagus." He said more boldly this time.
"Really?" Harry just nodded.
"How long did it take you? What do you turn into?"
"It took us all of last year. And I turn into..."
AN- Again, my amazingly bored friend decided to fix this fanfic, for God-knows what reason, and out of respect for her, I'm posting her lovely work.