Before James was a huge golden lion. On its forehead, there was a stripe
that looked like lighting. Its eyes were brilliantly green. James was
very impressed. Unfortunately Lily happened to walk in the room at this
time to see a lion and her husband standing in Harry's room and Harry no
where in sight. Lily was very smart and knew right away that the lion was
Harry. For the second time that day she was livid.
"How could you let him do that James?" her eyes full of rage.
"I didn't, he did it on his own, in only a year! It took Sirius and I three years to figure out how to!" James was very pleased with Harry. Harry thought it would be better if he stayed in lion form for the time being.
"Harry change back, now." Lily ordered him. The lion shook its head. "Harry" she said warningly. Harry shook his head again. "I will just have to force you to reveal yourself then." She pulled out her wand. Harry changed back before she could do anything to him.
"How many people know that you can do that?"
"Four"
"Who are those four?"
"Ron, Hermione, You, and Dad."
"So you dragged Ron and Hermione into this to, what do they turn into?"
"Hermione turns into a barn owl, whose feathers are the same color as her hair and Ron turns into a fox that's fur is the color of his hair."
"Do their parents know?"
"No, don't tell them, they would kill me if you told their parents!"
"Come on Lil, let him have some fun. He has had less then I did. Of course he doesn't have Sirius there to egg him on."
Lily caved; she couldn't believe that she was being such a pushover. "Speaking of Ron and Hermione can I invite them over for a couple weeks? They have always taken me in over the holidays, when I didn't have a place to go." Harry pleaded giving them puppy eyes.
"Of course you can have them over. I will owl their parents formally inviting them over. Actually we can invite their families over for the first three days and then only Hermione and Ron can stay." Lily was very excited. She loved having house parties and it had been forever since she had been able to plan. James rolled his eyes.
"We better leave your mother to her planning, once she gets started there is no way to stop her." Lily just ignored him. The next day she called Harry into her study.
"How many Weasley's are there?"
"Well there is Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Charlie, Bill, Percy, George, Fred, Ron, and Ginny." Lily had gotten happier as he kept on naming names.
"And the Granger's?"
"Mr. and Mrs. Granger, Hermione and her little sister Sarah."
"That is all?" Lily was disappointed.
"We could invite Sirius and Remus too, if you wanted and your friends Jenny, Margaret, and Diana."
"You are defiantly my son, did you know that?"
Harry was very pleased to hear this, everybody always said that he was exactly like his father, but he felt he also had a lot of his mother in him. "I can't believe that will only fill up seventeen of our rooms, we have room for 25. Help me chose, which room for which person. The room across from mine should be for Hermione, and the one beside mine should be Ron's. Oh and those joining room down the hallway should be Fred and George's."
They continued like that for an hour and a half. James walked into the room with out them noticing. He smiled. It looked as though Harry and Lily had finally bonded.
"Oh no, another planner in this family, I think that one is plenty." Harry and Lily looked up.
"Ah, James we were just finished planning the activities for the three days. I think we will need to extend the pool will you do the honors? Harry and I will start decorating the rooms according to the persons personality."
Just then Hedwig swooped into the room. "It is from Hermione! Her sister got her letter from Hogwarts! She will be transferring from a different private school in London."
"That is great honey, but we need to start getting ready for our guests. Send Hedwig to the Weasleys and I will send Jade (Lily's owl) to the Grangers. Then we will start with Hermione's room. James will you get a hold of Sirius, Remus, Jenny, Margaret, and Diana?" She didn't even wait for his response; she just took off to go get Jade.
The next few hours were spent getting ready for their guests. In Hermione's room they put books that she might not have found yet. In Ron's they painted bright orange and hung up Chudley Cannon's posters. House elves could be seen putting sheets on beds and cleaning all over the house.
"Now Mum, we better tell Hermione that our house-elves have sick leave and we will pay them if they want to be paid. We should also give them new uniforms that look less like pillow cases, because other wise she will have a fit." Harry warned his mother.
"We will have to keep her out of the kitchens or she will try to convince them that they need to be paid, and have breaks at Hogwarts it made us leave the kitchens, she upset them so much."
"Don't worry, I have always felt the same way. I even tried to start my own club and made all my friends join." Harry rolled his eyes.
"You will get along with her wonderfully, she did the same thing. She made me secretary and Ron treasurer."
"Ah James was my treasurer, Margaret my secretary, Jenny my co-president, and Sirius my vice-president. He was sad that he was dating me during that time." She laughed at the memory. She couldn't wait to really get to know Hermione, who Harry talked so much about.
At eleven everyone arrived the next day. Everyone was amazed at the size of the house. "Molly, how great to see you again!" Lily was excited to see an old friend.
"You two knew each other in school?" Harry asked he never knew that.
"Sort-of Molly was a 7th year when I was a 1st year, she was the prefect that showed us the way to our dorms." Lily smiled remembering that night.
"Yes what a difficult group you were with a certain bunch of boys that kept trying to sneak off." Mrs. Weasley said eyeing James, Sirius, and James.
"Who us, no! We were prefect angels!" Sirius said innocently.
"I better show you to your rooms Ron, Hermione." Harry started to lead them up to their rooms, when he saw them trying to drag their bags. He laughed.
"Don't worry about your bags they will be carried up for you." When Hermione saw her room she was amazed.
"Harry this is perfect! Look there is even a bed for Crookshanks!" Ron and Harry left Hermione to explore her room. Ron loved his room especially the candy that had been put out for him.
"Your house is great Harry!" Ron told him. "Thank you Ron, you should have seen the look on my face when I first saw
it! And then my first saw the house-elves."
"House-elves?!? Hermione is going to have a fit!!" "No, they were offered pay if they wanted it and even clothes. They all refused."
Just then Hermione walked in the room. "So, did you ask your dad how to add things to the Maunders Map?"
"No not yet, would you like to come with me to ask?"
"Sure." The trio went to go find James. They found him talking with Sirius, Remus, Mr. Weasley, and Mr. Granger. Harry grabbed James' hand and starting pulling him away from the group saying "I need to borrow my father." Harry pulled him into his room, where Hermione and Ron were waiting.
"So what is this about?"
"We want to know how to add things to the Maunders Map." James smiled. "So you found more secret passages did you? I hope you are breaking a lot of school rules to find them." James eyes were sparkling.
"Oh, we did." Harry assured him.
"Good now hand me the map." Harry heisted before giving him the map. James tapped the map and said "This is Prongs and I wish to add more mischief to this map." The map showed all of Hogwarts.
"Now all you need to do is take out a quill and trace where the new secret passages are."
"Thank you dad." Harry said to them, and waited for him to leave. James pouted.
"Fine then don't let me see where they are." And stomped of. Harry, Ron and Hermione spent the next couple of hours talking about the passages that they had discovered, and what mischief they would create this year. Lily came into the room.
"Look at you three you are as bad as James and the rest were when they were in school!"
Harry grinned evilly "Worse".
"It is time for dinner."
In the dining room everyone was crowed around a huge table. Once again, Lily had their best china out. They had decided that the food would appear magically. The food was wonderful as it was always. Dinner at the Potter's was a little different. For drinks, you had to order what you wanted to your glass. Without his mother noticing Ron ordered several glasses of beer. It appeared, though that Ron did not handle alcohol well. He started to try to kiss Hermione and flirt with her a lot. He also kept slapping Harry on the back and saying random things. But trouble didn't come until he started talking very loud asking for the waiter to bring more wine and such. Mrs. Weasley heard him talking, in fact everybody did. Almost everybody laughed at him. The only ones that didn't was Mrs. Weasley and Percy. Percy couldn't believe that Ron would act so foolishly in front of a very important part of society, Mr. Potter. Ron's mum was about ready to explode on him. Harry seeing what was about to happen and being a good friend grabbed Ron's arm and led him out of the room. Then he took him to the kitchens to get him some Somber Potion. Seconds after taking it, Ron stopped giggling like he had before.
"Harry what happened? Why are we here?"
"Remember how you told me you were going to try some beer at dinner tonight?"
Ron nodded. "Well, you had a little more then what you could handle." Harry told him what he had said and did. Ron went white.
"Mum, knows I was drunk?" Harry nodded again.
"Can I borrow your invisibility cloak?"
"Sure, it is hung up in my closet." Ron ran upstairs as quick as he could. Harry returned to the dining room. Mrs. Weasley looked very angry that her son had not returned. Lily stood up at the end of dinner and told everyone that the adults were to go to the living room and drink coffee and the kids to the game room to hang out and play games. Sirius tried to get into the kids room, but Lily had charmed it so no one over 25 could go into the room. Because Harry knew that Ron's mother wouldn't be able to find him in this room, he went upstairs and got him.
Everybody was having a great time so far at the Potters. Fred and George were making cracks at Ron for getting drunk. The adults had fun remembering all the silly things they had done in school. James went over to Sirius and Remus and they were talking quietly in the corner. James was telling them about Harry's question about the Marauders Map. "So do you want to steal the map and see the new secret passages that they found?" Sirius and Remus grinned; it was like being back at school. They stole the map and hid in the corner again. "I solemnly swear I am up to no good." But instead of showing the school words started to appear. "Mr. Tucktail is glad that you are up to no good and encourages you to keep it up. Ms. Nighteyes would like you to make sure you cautious in your mischief so you don't get caught when you are up to no good. And Mr. Swiftail would like to wish you the best of luck in your trouble making." "Look at that, they changed the password! How did they figure out how?" James was amazed that they could figure out how to. "Where did they get their nicknames?" Sirius wondered out loud. "The same way we did. But they did it better then we did. They figured out how to do it in only one year!" "No way, James! It took us three? And there were four of us working on it! What do they turn into?" "A lion, a fox, and an owl." "We have to talk to them, first of all how could they get all the ingredients all in one year? It took us forever to get all of them, some of them are very rare." Remus said amazed. The trio set out to find the kids. James removed the charm over the door and took Harry's, Ron's, and Hermione's hands and led them out of the room. He took them to Harry's study and sat them down as Sirius and Remus came in.
"What did you change the password to?" James demanded of them.
"Password, password to what? What do you need the password for?" Harry asked them innocently.
"Potter, don't try that, I invented the innocent look and voice." Sirius said harshly.
"I am very disappointed in you; I didn't give you that map back so that you could make it so that we couldn't see it anymore." Remus was trying the guilt trip but it wasn't working.
"Oh, but we would enjoy seeing you try to get into the map" said Ron, smiling. James grabbed the map and said "I am Mr. Prongs show me your map." He demanded to the piece of parchment. Once again writing appeared on it. "Mr. Tucktail would like to ask Mr. Prongs to kindly mind his own business.
Ms. Nighteyes would like to add that prying into other people's affairs is not a good habit, and could get you in trouble Mr. Prongs. Mr. Swiftail will now say goodbye to Mr. Prongs and beg him to find some other use of his time then messing with things that are clearly not his." Harry, Ron and Hermione burst out laughing. James scowled.
"At least it was nicer to you then it was to Snape." Remus told him. "I had to do my best to keep from laughing when I saw what it said to him. And then I had to take it away from Harry." Remus was not very comforting. Harry took the map from his father and muttered something no one could hear and handed it back to him. On the top there was now colored writing saying "Mr. Tucktail, Ms. Nighteyes, and Mr. Swiftail present the new and improved Marauders Map." James saw a much more colorful and confusing map then what the original had had.
"You three alone discovered seven new passages out of the school and what looks like fifteen more tunnels around the school itself! How long did this take you?"
"Well we started half way through fourth year." Ron told him.
"We improved it a lot, now you can get information about each person you see on the map by tapping their figure and saying the magic words."
Hermione told them. "And by the color of the dot it tells you what house each person should be in, was in, and is in. The figure also is in the shape of the form the person is in. Animals also appear on the map." Harry told them. "So as you can see the younger generation is smarter and better at magic then the old, because that is just the beginning of what this map can do" Harry snickered.
The 'old' generation couldn't think of anything else to say. The 'young' generation slapped hand for stumping the adults. They walked away laughing and complimenting each other, leaving James, Sirius, and Remus speechless. As they were walking down the hallway to their room they heard a shrill voice behind them. "RONALD WEASLEY!!!!! COME HERE RIGHT NOW!!!" Ron froze.
"Good luck mate." Harry muttered to him as Ron walked head down towards his mother.
An hour later Harry popped into Ron's room and asked him how it went. Ron was shocked to see him and asked him where he came from.
"There are secret passages all over the house, you can look in on any room, Dad doesn't even know yet."
"Oh, ok."
"So how did it go?"
"Oh she grounded me when I get home and said if I drink anymore that she would take away my permission slip to Hogsmeade." He said glumly.
"Well, it could be worst, anyway goodnight."
"Night!"
Harry was not wake up happily the next morning. He was covered in honey. He looked around it was a mess! At the end of the bed was James laughing his head of at Harry.
"So what was all this about being smarter and better at magic? Oh and by the way your friends got it too. I believe that Sirius used melted butter on Ron and Remus used melted chocolate on Hermione." With that he left the room laughing. Harry took a shower, it took forever to get the honey of his skin. He, Ron, and Hermione went down it breakfast all in terrible moods. They would get their revenge. That day everyone was supposed to relax. There were light snacks set out all day. People swam, played Quiddich, and played games. Harry, Ron and Hermione spent their day planning their revenge. First they in listed Fred and George to help them. Charlie was also going to help them. That night they slipped the sleeping potion into the after dinner coffee of James, Sirius, and Remus to insure that they would sleep very soundly. They also put some in Lily's because they didn't want her to wake her up when they were in James' room. At six the next morning they took out the cans of silly string that Fred and George had helped them make, it would stain their skin the color of the string and it wouldn't come off for a week. They each went to the room of the person they wanted revenge on. Everyone was amused to see that three grown men came down with their skin dyed pink, blue, and purple. Especially because they didn't even notice it until everyone laughed at them. The next days were spent getting revenge. Even when everyone but Ron, Hermione, Sirius, and Remus had left the pranks continued. This summer was by far Harry's best.
One night James asked the three what he was dieing to ask.
"How did you get all the ingredients for the potion in a year, when that was what was the hardest thing was for us to get?" James was surprised when Harry blushed,
"Well" Ron began "No one could deny giving us ingredients when they would help the famous Harry Potter."
Harry blushed even more. "That wasn't all that helped. Hermione cast some convincing spells on some of the shopkeepers, and Ron got some of them from his brother in Romania. So we are just more resourceful then you were." Harry told them. "I still can't believe that you managed all that in a year, found all the secret passages, and got the three top marks in your year." James said still amazed they could do all that in a year. "And with all the Quiddich practice you had, there just wasn't time for everything!" The trio grinned evilly. They knew perfectly well how they had gotten more 'time'.
"James, I believe your child is more of a trouble maker then you and maybe even more then Sirius, because he never gets caught it seems." Remus told James. Sirius was confused, he had rarely been caught breaking rules, but as far as they knew Harry hadn't gotten into any trouble in the last year at school.
"How do you do it? I mean it takes a lot not to be caught, or seen, or heard you must be something that makes it so you can't be!" Sirius demanded. "We have the smartest kids in the school in our group; you only had one of the smartest." Ron told him. "We have ways to do things and friends in high places."
"What friends?" Remus demanded. "Snape is always out to get you and so is Draco Malfoy, how you keep out of trouble so easily. I mean it is wrong, if you break the rules you have to pay for it at one point. Dumbledore must have caught you or somebody! It isn't fair; we were caught all the time!" Remus was very angry.
"Well you only had my father in your group, and I am a mix of him and my mother. We also have employed the help of Ron's twin brothers, and Hermione's influence on the teachers. I am assuming that mum hasn't told you all the sneaky things she did school without being caught." Harry informed his father and his friends. James rounded on Lily.
"You never did anything bad in school you were a goody-two shoes. Is our son telling me that you broke rules in school, like us?"
"Worse I just got away with it, didn't you wonder why Harry changes into a lion instead of a stag, you things like that are genetic. Or did you not do your research when you were in school?" James was stunned. He never knew that Lily had become an angimus in school or that she broke any rules for that matter. Everyone had thought they were opposites but in fact they hadn't been at all. He was also upset at the fact that his son who had just met Lily found out a side of her that he had never seen. Now he knew that despite what people said, Harry had a lot of Lily in him. All too soon it was time to go to Diagon Alley for school supplies. Harry sighed as he picked up his new book for divination. He really needed to drop that class, because Professor Trewlany was still pred.icting his death more and more. Harry turned to Ron. "So how do you think I will die this year?" James was alarmed die? Why would Harry ask a question like that? Before Ron could answer he asked him "Why would you be dieing this year?" Harry rolled his eyes.
"Every year in Divination Trewlany likes to predict my death, you would be surprised how many ways that she is coming up for me to die, you would think that she would have ran out of ideas by now."
Hermione tutted "You should have dropped that class ages ago, and taken up something more useful like."
"Athermancy" All three said at the same time. Ron and Harry laughed while Hermione scowled. James understood they had heard the lecture about Divination many times. They continued their shopping, that took the whole of the day. When they returned to the Potter's the house-elves packed their things for them, much to Hermione's disapproval. As the boarded the train Harry found it hard to say goodbye to his parents because now he was truly close to them. Halfway through the trip an unwelcome came into Harry's compartment. "So Potter glad to have Mummy and Daddy back? Well don't worry they won't be around much longer." Harry lunged at Malfoy. Ron had to pull Harry of him. Hermione put a vanishing spell on them as Ron helped Harry off the floor.
"You really shouldn't be fighting Harry; you will be in trouble before you even get to school." Hermione scolded him. Harry was shaking in fury.
"We will get him back this year, I swear we will, we know that secret passage way into the Slythrine common room and we are going to use it this year, no more little pranks we will get them bad this year."
Ron and Hermione didn't know what to say, they had never seen Harry so mad and didn't know what to do. When they arrived at school, the feast was wonderful like always. Harry, Ron, and Hermione led the first years to the dorms. At 4:00 the next morning Ron and Hermione were woken up, much to their disgust and dragged into the Chamber of Secrets. The trio had totally re-done the chamber and decorated it in Gryffindor colors. It had plush scarlet sofas and chairs with a golden carpet. They had covered the statue of Slythrine with a huge Gryffindor flag.
"What do you want Harry?" Ron asked sleepily.
"We're going to get back at Malfoy and the Slythrines. Harry told them his plan and they grinned, "Do you think you can handle it?" Harry asked them. They nodded. They covered the Slythrine common room with Gryffindor colors but that wasn't the end of what they did. Everyone laughed when they saw the Slythrines at breakfast. Harry, Ron, and Hermione had dyed the Slythrines skin scarlet and their hair gold. If their skin hadn't already been red it would have been it otherwise. Harry took out his camera and snapped a lot of picture of red and gold people in Slythrine robes. Snape was livid for the curse had been put on everybody in the Slythrine house including the teachers. Dumbledore was chuckling to himself. Harry made sure to get a picture of Snape for his dad, Sirius, and Remus they would love to see it. Thinking about Sirius, made Harry realize that he was at the teachers table. After breakfast Harry ran to go talk to him.
"What are you doing here?"
"Hello to you to. I am the new DADA teacher."
"What happened to Mrs. Figg?"
"She retired at the end of last year."
"Oh"
"That was brilliant by the way, I don't know how you did it, and their
common room too!"
"Do what?" Harry asked innocently.
"Potter, once again don't try that on me, I created it. I also want to know how you managed it without waking anyone up."
"Do what?" Harry repeated himself.
"I will catch you this year Potter, you cannot get away with causing mayhem and not getting in trouble, it just isn't fair." With that, Sirius left. Harry laughed, they couldn't be caught, and so he wasn't worried about it and headed off to his first class. The next few weeks went smoothly for Harry and his friends, they were playing more pranks then they had ever and they still had not been caught. Harry had started Quiddich practice and everything was going great. James had sent Harry more Firebolt Fives for the new member of the team. They were by far the best team. Harry was getting top marks in all of his classes when all of a sudden he stopped showing up for them. Everyone was very concerned for him. Without him knowing, Lily and James were called to the school. Harry was called to Dumbledore's office and was shocked that his parents were there.
"Now we have been hearing you have been skipping class and." James had started sternly and stopped abruptly. Harry had doubled over in pain and was on the floor shaking in pain. When he stopped his eyes remained closed. Lily was kneeled by his side. Harry lay there like dead, not moving. James scooped him up in his arms and carried Harry to the hospital on the way there he ran into Sirius.
"James nice to.. Harry! What happened is he."
James told Sirius to go get Dumbledore right away and that there wasn't time for questions. Sirius did what he was told. They got Harry the Hospital Wing and were relived to see that Harry was alive, just knocked out. When Dumbledore came Lily and James told him what happened. "Sirius go find Ron and Hermione the password to the Gryffindor common room is honey suckle." Sirius came back with Harry's two friends. When they saw him they were scared. "Did happen so badly that he passed out?" Hermione asked the adults. Dumbledore got very stern. "Hermione, has his spasms happened often?"
"Well, of course, he said he told you about them."
"Ms. Granger if I had known that this had been happening I would have done something about it. Is this why he has not been showing up to class?" Hermione nodded, she felt terrible.
"He used to have them only once a night for fifteen minutes and then it started to get longer. Eventually it started to happen every hour. Every time he was able to fight it off, until now."
"Did he say if he saw anything when he had these spasms?" "He never said afterward he was yelling things like 'let go of me' and go away' and when we asked him about it later he didn't respond." Hermione told them.
"If we ever brought it up later he would change the subject." Ron added. "Dumbledore what is wrong with him will he be ok?" Lily asked Dumbledore very worried about her son.
"I believe that when he was being tortured by Voldemort that some of Voldemort's soul was put into him. Just the tiniest bit. That is why he had those spasms once a night because that was the time that Voldemort was most angry. Voldemort must have found a way to get all the way inside Harry's mind and torture him. Now Harry has used all of his energy so that he can no longer stay conscious while fighting Voldemort out of his brain." Dumbledore looked very somber as he said this. Lily gave a sob as she looked at her son. All she or James wanted was for him to be awake. For two months Harry slept their, every once in a while he would get bruises or start to bleed, which Madame Pomphrey would cure right away. One night right after Lily and James had left the ward Harry woke up. He felt wonderful! He had finally gotten Voldemort out of his mind and body and it hadn't taken that long! He looked out the window and saw that it was very late. He wondered why he was in the hospital wing when he felt so great! So Harry decided to go up to his dormitory and sleep some so that he could be ready for classes tomorrow.
The next morning was total chaos. Harry Potter had been discovered gone from the hospital wing. Everyone was in shock. They wanted to know who had taken Harry and where he was. Dumbledore thinking that a dangerous person could be around sent everyone to their common room while the teachers conducted a search of the school to see if they could find Harry. No one thought of looking for him in his own bed where he was currently asleep. Two hours later McGonnagal told the Gryffindors that Harry had not been found but the teachers were searching the school a second time just to make sure that they hadn't missed him or some clue to his whereabouts. The entire common room was depressed. Why would anyone take Harry from his hospital wing bed?
Harry was very surprised when he looked at the clock. 11:30! He groaned. He was late for class. Why hadn't Ron woken him up? Just then Ron himself came into the room with a very depressed look on his face. All he wanted was his best friend back.
"What's wrong Ron? You look like someone has died or something. And why didn't you wake me up, we are already late for class!" Harry asked him. Ron was in total shock. He ran over to Harry and gave him a big hug. "It is great to see you mate! Why are you out of the hospital wing? You should be resting, get off your feet!" Harry laughed at Ron. "But I feel great! Why should I be resting? I haven't been gone for more then a day!"
"What do you mean? You have been out for two months several times we thought that you were going to die! And then this morning you disappeared from the hospital wing and you put your mother in hysterics! Everyone has been so worried that you had left us forever!" Ron was on the verge of tears. But what he had said took a while for Harry to get through his head. 'Two months! That felt only like a day!'
"I better go find my mother then!" Harry ran from the room. So he wouldn't be seen he transformed into a lion and snuck out of the common room. No one noticed but Hermione who thought that she was seeing things. To make sure that it was just her imagination she turned into an owl and followed. Sure enough there was a great lion running through the corridors of the school it seemed that it was looking for some one or something. Hermione quickly became herself and called out to Harry. Harry turned around and went to go talk to Hermione. They went pretty through the same exchange that Harry and Ron had just gone through when Sirius showed up behind Hermione.
"Hermione, I expected better of you! There could be someone dangerous out and here you are in the hallway talking to...HARRY! Where have you been we all have been worried sick about you!"
"I need to find mum, Ron said she went into hysterics when I was found missing from the hospital wing."
"She is in Dumbledore's office, and Ron was right she did go into hysterics, but she will be better when she sees you. They all ran to Dumbledore's office Sirius said the password. When they entered the room they saw Lily on the floor in tears with James trying to coax her into a chair. As soon as he saw her Harry rushed over to his mother.
"Mum, it is ok, I am fine! Look at me I feel great!" Lily slowly looked up; was it really him?
"Harry!" She jumped up and hugged her son; she never thought that she would see him up and walking again! James also went over and hugged his son. Hermione took out a camera from no where and snapped a picture of the happy family while wiping tears from her eyes. When Harry saw the flash he remembered something. He broke apart from his parents and took out a roll of pictures from his robes. He whispered in James' ear "Our best prank yet!" And showed him the picture of the Slythrine Common Room, the Slythrines, and last but not least the picture of Snape all sporting Gryffindor colors. James looked at the picture in amazement.
"You did this to them?" Harry nodded and grinned.
"Malfoy insulted you and mum, so I got him back, big time!"
James began to laugh very hard. Sirius hearing his laughter came over to see what James was laughing about. When he saw the pictures he laughed too.
"You should have been there when it happened, James. The whole of Slythrine house was livid!"
"I can't believe you managed that Harry! The whole house and Snape!" Sirius glared at Harry. "You did do it then, didn't you? And you still won't tell me how!"
James looked confused. "Of course he did it, no one but my son could pull such a wonderful prank!"
"That is what I thought to, I talked to Harry later and he pulled that innocent act on me."
"Sorry Professor!" Harry exclaimed. Sirius looked stunned; he had never heard Harry call him that, not even in class!
"You couldn't very well expect that I would tell a teacher that I pulled such a prank! That would be like going to see Dumbledore saying 'Will you please expel me or give me detention!'"
Then Sirius realized why Harry had not told him, of course! "I just want to know where your head quarters is." James told Harry. "I could tell you, but there is no way you would be able to get into it, unless you have hidden talents, which I don't think you do. Only I can say the password. Not even Ron or Hermione can get in without me!"
"So son, then where is this place that no one can get into but you?" James asked him smiling. In a whisper Harry said "The Chamber of Secrets" Not for the first time that day James was in complete shock.
"But Slythrine built that, and you are not the heir of Slythrine!" "I know. If it is ok with mum I could show it to you now."
James went and begged for Lily to let them. Lily agreed, but did not want to come this go round. So Harry and Hermione led them to the 'Out of Order' girl's bathroom. On the way there they ran into Ron and told him where they were going. When they passed Moaning Myrtle the said 'hi' and went to the sink in front of her stall. Harry looked at the snake and said something in Parseltounge that know one else could understand. James and Sirius were very surprised when they saw the entrance. Harry, Ron, and Hermione had replaced the tunnel and there was now a moving staircase like the one in Dumbledore's office. They descended down and led onto the gold and red railings. When James and Sirius saw the room, they were very impressed. "Like what you have done with the place, Harry. What is that big flag covering?"
"Slythrine" Harry said nastily. "We didn't like looking at his ugly face." Harry, Ron, and Hermione showed them around the Chamber. It had a full kitchen in it, all of Hermione's books (so a small library) and many secret compartments with jokes and gags that they could pull tricks on other people. The Harry led James to his favorite part of the whole room. There was a gallery of pictures of the pranks that Harry, Ron, and Hermione had pulled over the last couple of years. James looked around and called Sirius over to come look at the pictures. Sirius started laughing when he saw all of the pranks they had pulled. Included on the wall were pictures of the last summer and what the trio had done to Sirius, Remus, and James.
"I think your son has pulled more pranks in the last two years then we did in the whole seven years that we were here!" Sirius told James. James frowned.
"You three simply do not have enough time to pull all of these pranks, practice Quiddich, and have the top three marks in your grade!" A very frustrated James told his son. Harry smiled.
"Should we tell them, Ron, Hermione?" They nodded. "You two better sit down for this. It is a long story and these sofas have comforting charms on them, thanks to Hermione." Everyone sat down and looked at Harry expectedly.
"Well as you know Hermione, Ron, and I are the smartest people in this school right now. We knew that we wouldn't have time to pull the pranks we wanted to, or study as much as we needed to, or practice as much as we could. So we came up with a plan. There is one part of this chamber we have not shown you. It is a secret room behind that Gryffindor flag. See we already changed the face of Slythrine to the face of Gryffindor before we put up the flag. In the room we created a time vortex. It took several months to get it to work, but we got it. It enables us to go back in time. But only the people you travel back in time with can hear or see you. So we repeat hours that have already happened pulling pranks of people and getting extra study time in. That is how the Slythrines did not hear us when we got them. That time we only went back a couple of minutes to get them." Harry looked up after telling the story. It looked as if his father and Sirius were completely lost for words. Harry grinned at Ron and Hermione. They grinned back, they all knew how clever they were. They thought they were the smartest students that had ever been at Hogwarts. Finally Sirius found some words. "You were able to create a time vortex! That is very advanced magic! Not even Dumbledore himself can create one I have seen him try! Only one wizard has ever been able to make one! And it took him a couple of years to figure it out! We must tell Dumbledore!"
"NO!" All three yelled at once. "If Dumbledore knew what we have been doing he would expel us for sure! We have broken about a hundred school rules! The smallest the boys being in the girl's bathroom!" Hermione had panicked.
"Mum and Dad would kill me if I get expelled! Harry and I have already used up all of our chances for not being expelled!" Ron to was not happy at Sirius' suggestion.
"And he will make us stop using it! And know that we pulled all those pranks!" Harry was just as upset as his friends.
"I do not think that Dumbledore would expel the three best students that Hogwarts has ever seen! We must tell him you have made an invention of the world! You have managed to do something that only one other person has ever done!" James was very excited. His son! His son had done a great thing that would be remembered at only 16! He would be famous, and so would his friends! As though reading his thoughts Harry said "But we are already famous. Me for what I did when I was one. Ron and Hermione for the adventures that we have had in school! We don't need any more fame until we are all on the national Quiddich team!"
"Harry!" Ron and Hermione shouted at him. "We said we weren't going to say anything until we started training this summer!" Hermione screamed at him.
"I'm sorry it just slipped out, I forgot; remember I have been gone for two months!"
"The national Quiddich team! seen. We will play for them in our seventh year, we have already signed the contract for the next three years." Ron informed them.
"That is something we defiantly have to tell Dumbledore! You three aren't even out of school yet and you are going to play for England!" James was even more excited.
"And we got accepted early to the best Wizardering College around." Hermione added. James fainted.
He was waken up to the sound of people arguing.
"No Sirius you cannot tell Dumbledore about any of this! When we told you we trusted you to keep our secret, if you do not Ron knows some you three are going to train with England!"
Ron shrugged his shoulders. "They were at all of our games last year and at the try-outs for the new team. I am going to play first-string keeper, Hermione first string chaser, and Harry first-string seeker. They said since Bulgaria used Krum that they would scout at Hogwarts. They said we were the best players they had ever good memory charms, because we cannot let this leak out to anybody!" Harry was yelling at Sirius. James knowing what would happen if Harry knew he was awake did an invisibility spell on himself and left. Dumbledore had to know what was going on and he knew that if he didn't escape now that they might hold him there too. When James left the Chamber he ran up to Dumbledore's office making himself visible again on the way up. He went in and told Dumbledore and Lily everything he knew. They were quite pleased.
Still in the Chamber Sirius was still in a shouting match with Harry. "You have to tell him, it is his right to know what goes on in this school and what his students have done! It is very important that you tell him!" "No we will get expelled for sure if you told! You have to promise." Suddenly Ron interrupted. "Where is your father, Harry?" Harry looked over to the sofa that James had been lying on.
"Oh no he has gone to tell Dumbledore! What will we do now?" "Maybe if we hurry we can catch him before he tells." Hermione said. So they all ran out of the chamber to find James. When they did find him, it was to late. Harry was livid. How could his father betray his trust like that? Hermione and Ron calmed down after they were told that they would not be punished or expelled, but Harry did not. He had never been this angry at anyone but Aunt Marge or Voldemort before. So before he exploded something, Harry ran from the office. Ron and Hermione looked after him wondering why he was so mad, because neither one of them had ever seen Harry so mad. James ran after Harry but it was too late, Harry had disappeared into one of his secret passages and out of sight. James did not understand why Harry was so mad. He was not in trouble so why worry? James was only in the castle for another couple of days in which Harry refused to talk to him or even acknowledge that he was there. He was pretty much the same with Sirius except he would talk to him when he needed to, like during class. James left the castle with a very heavy heart. He still didn't understand why Harry wouldn't talk to him and Sirius only when necessary.
Through out the next couple of weeks before Christmas break James sent Harry many owls. Harry didn't respond to any of them. When Lily wrote Harry, Harry always answered in lengthy letters. Harry even went so far as to refuse to ride the broomstick that James had bought him. He rode his old Firebolt during practices. Lily was very concerned about both Harry and James; this was not good for their relationship. They barely knew each other and couldn't afford to fight. When Christmas break rolled around Lily made James go pick Harry up from the train station. Harry was not pleased. He did not want to ever speak to his father again. The trip home was an awkward one. No matter what James said he couldn't get Harry to talk to him. When they got to the house Harry went straight up to his room after greeting Lily. The week before Christmas Lily and James didn't see much of Harry at all. Harry had the house-elves bring his meals to his room. One day James went to Harry's study where Harry was doing his homework. "Son we need to talk." James told him. Harry just ignored him.
"I don't even know why you are mad at me!' James said sadly. At this Harry blew up.
"You don't know why I am mad!!!! How could you not? I told you a secret that I didn't have to tell you! I told you about everything, so that you and I could be closer!!!! About Quiddich, about College!!!! I wanted you to be apart of my life!!! But no, the second after I told you wanted to go find Dumbledore and tell him everything! And you did!!!! I thought that for once in my life there could be a parent-like person that I could truly trust and tell my entire secret to without telling anyone else!!! I didn't even feel that way about Sirius; he always went and told Dumbledore too! The one time I thought I could trust you, you went and told!!! And now you say that you don't understand why I am mad!!!" Harry had screamed very loudly at James. After finishing his speech, Harry ran out of the room. James just sat still. He had never thought about what happened that way. He didn't know that Harry had wanted to keep that secret so badly.
About after a half-hour of sitting in the study thinking, Lily came in to check on him.
"Sweetie, are you ok? I heard Harry yelling, what was that all about?"
"I betrayed his trust, just like every other adult that he has ever come across. He trusted me enough to show me his secret. I betrayed that trust. He has been lied to and deceived his whole life by everybody he has ever cared about. I swore that I wouldn't, but I did. I am just as bad as all those other people."
"James, you are not as bad as those other people. You were doing what you thought was best for your son. It was only natural for Harry to rebel your decision, remember when we were teenagers?"
"Yes but when we were teenagers we hadn't lost our parents for most of our lives, been abused by muggles, and faced a dark lord four times. His life has been awful. He has always been alone, and has always had to stick up for himself with no help from others. He has also had to see a friend die right before his eyes! Right there, and he couldn't do anything about it." Lily did not know how to respond to this. She knew that her son had been through a lot of pain but never thought of it affecting him afterwards. He must be incredibly strong inside, she thought, to be able to see a friend die without going into severe depression. She knew that she would not have been able to do it.
"I better go apologize for what I did to him. I want him to be able to trust me, but I am not sure that he will be able to." James said and then he left the room. When he got to Harry's room he saw Harry lying on his bed breathing heavily. James went and sat beside him.
"I didn't know that you felt so strongly about your secrets." James told him honestly.
"Well now you do." Harry replied bitterly. He knew what was going to happen. They would start talking and Harry would feel guilty and forgive his father, even though he did not want to. So they began talking. Harry was right just as he was about to say that he forgave James he cried out in pain. Without wanting to, Harry was pulled into a dream world. He saw two people being tortured by Voldemort. They looked terrified. Eventfully they were tortured to death. Harry was awaken with a start. . "Harry, Harry!!!" Harry awoke with a start. James was calling out to him. When James saw that Harry's eyes were opened he asked "Harry are you ok?"
Harry was about to say something and then passed out again from the pain in his scar. Later he told James what had happened in his dream. They checked the news and sure enough Voldemort had tortured a couple to death.
Harry was devastated. He hated to see people get hurt, unless it was Malfoy or Snape. James and Lily were trying to comfort him. It was not helping it was just making Harry feel worse. They were about to give up when Harry got an idea that would make him feel better. "What if we invited Remus over for Christmas!" He suggested. Lily was willing to anything to make Harry feel better. She also invited Sirius, even though Harry would not be happy about it.
Harry was very happy the day that Remus came. Harry was still not happy with Sirius. When Sirius walked in the door he did not get his usual greeting from Harry. He took that to mean that Harry was still mad at him. This was very frustrating for Sirius. He had tried everything nothing seemed to work. Even though Harry had forgiven James, he still did not trust and didn't talk to him much at all.
To get James back for the Christmas before Harry woke up at four in the morning. He used the secret passageway to sneak into his parents' room. So at 4:10 AM James was woken by water being dumped on him by what seemed to be an invisible person. At 4:15 Remus was awoken the same way and five minutes later so was Sirius. Once they were all up they were chasing an invisible Harry around the house. James was finally able to pull the cloak off. So then everyone was running around the house yelling and shouting at each other. When Harry got out of breath he just went into one of his secret passages and let himself catch his breath. Then ha appeared again and the chasing continued. This led to nearly an hour and a half of chasing Harry around the house yelling. Naturally this woke Lily up. In the end Lily ended up putting a silencing charm on the four men or should we say boys. The James pulled out his wand and tried to curse her but no words would come out of his mouth. Lily let Harry out of the curse first just to annoy James who was silently pleading with her. Harry was laughing his head off when Sirius and Remus snuck up behind him and dumped a bucket full of water on his head.
"Hey dad, I found a way to flatten out hair!" Harry told James. Harry pulled out two cans of the silly string from the summer and started sparing Sirius and Remus. After another half hour they finished playing around and laughing. So they went to go open presents. Harry was amazed at the amount of presents he had, it was even more then last year. He decided in the end that his father and Sirius were trying to buy his trust back, because compassion didn't seem to work.
"Harry your real present is out front." James told him. Harry ran outside to see what it was. He was in absolute shock, there before him was a corvette. It was black with silver steaks down the side. Harry had gotten his drivers license over the summer.
"That is for the National Quiddich team and College." James whispered to him. But it was not quite enough Remus' eyes went wide.
"The National Quiddich team, College!" Harry sighed. Here we go again. Before James could explain, Harry asked if he could go for a drive. James said sure. Since it was Christmas morning there were not many cars out on the streets and highways. Harry drove all the way over to Ron's house that was an hour and a half away. When he arrived Mrs. Weasley was the first person to come out of the house. She was very surprised to see Harry, this early in the morning on Christmas.
"Harry, dear it is nice to see you." She said to him.
"Hello Mrs. Weasley, sorry to bother you on Christmas but I would like to invite you and your family for dinner tonight." He would call his parents later on and tell them, because he knew that his mother would be very happy to have people over.
"We would be happy to come, would you like to come in?" As a response Harry walked in. Ron was surprised to see him. "Harry, good to see you mate, what are you doing here?" "Oh, I invited your family to dinner tonight. I want to show you my Christmas present. He took Ron outside and showed him his new car. "So what do think?"
"Why did your parents but you that?" "Well you know how I was so mad at my dad and Sirius. Well that kept trying to reach me my words. But they gave up, so I think they are trying to buy me back. To bad it won't work." Harry said grimly. "Harry give it a rest, you really should give them another chance. I mean they are your father and god-father."
"I think I will some time, just not yet. I can't believe they did that. So I will not tell them any more secrets for awhile. Could I use the telephone your father bought when you wanted to call me before our third year?" "Sure." Ron knew that the discussion was over.
Harry was right, Lily was very happy to have the Weasleys over to dinner. Harry and Ron decided to drive back; everyone else would apperate or use floo powder.
"I don't even think it is right to sit in this car. Cars like this are just meant for looking at not driving." Ron told Harry.
"I know, I felt the same way." Harry replied as they started leaving the Burrow.
When they got back to Harry's house a couple hours later (they had stopped at a fast food place on the way.) Remus looked at them in new eyes. "James told me what you have done I can't believe you three could do that!" Harry ignored him, ran up to his bedroom, and put on his invisibility cloak. James groaned when he saw Harry run past him. "Here we go again, thanks a lot Moony." He left to go find Harry.
James spent a lot of time looking for Harry, but it was no use. Ron who knew perfectly well where Harry was hiding was pumped for information several times, but he never said anything. When it was dinnertime Ron went and got Harry from his hiding spot and told him it was time for dinner. At dinner James tried to engage Harry in conversation, but Harry refused to even sit near him. Everyone had a great time at dinner except James. He was completely miserable despite all of Sirius' attempts to make him feel better. Harry noticed this but did not care. His father had once again betrayed his trust after promising not to. Straight after dessert Harry ran back up to his hiding place. Little did Harry know that James had slipped some truth potion into Ron's drink. Ron was staying the night. So James went into Ron's room to question him.
"Where is Harry hiding?" "In the walls."
"How?" "Secret passageways in the walls it goes to every room in the house."
"How do you get in?"
"Harry has a password to get in."
"What is it?"
"I don't know."
James cursed. Harry smiled as he watched through the walls. Hermione had said that it wouldn't work to have a password like that, but it did. Ron woke up from his trans.
"Why did you do that to me Mr. Potter? "Because I wanted to talk to my son, but you didn't know the password to his hiding place." Ron smiled. For once it had been him and Harry who had been right, not Hermione.
"We were right, Harry. This is one of the first times that Hermione was wrong."
"I am not Harry, I am James remember? Why do you think that I am Harry?"
"I don't."
"Then why did you call me Harry?"
"I didn't I called Harry Harry."
"But Harry isn't here."
"I know that."
Suddenly it dawned on James. Harry could have kicked Ron. James ran to Harry's room. "I don't know." He said. The wall opened up.
Harry put on his invisibility cloak and came out into Ron's room. He was running through the hallways looking behind him to see if anyone was following him when he ran straight into Sirius.
"Well if it isn't invisible boy. "
"How could you let him do that James?" her eyes full of rage.
"I didn't, he did it on his own, in only a year! It took Sirius and I three years to figure out how to!" James was very pleased with Harry. Harry thought it would be better if he stayed in lion form for the time being.
"Harry change back, now." Lily ordered him. The lion shook its head. "Harry" she said warningly. Harry shook his head again. "I will just have to force you to reveal yourself then." She pulled out her wand. Harry changed back before she could do anything to him.
"How many people know that you can do that?"
"Four"
"Who are those four?"
"Ron, Hermione, You, and Dad."
"So you dragged Ron and Hermione into this to, what do they turn into?"
"Hermione turns into a barn owl, whose feathers are the same color as her hair and Ron turns into a fox that's fur is the color of his hair."
"Do their parents know?"
"No, don't tell them, they would kill me if you told their parents!"
"Come on Lil, let him have some fun. He has had less then I did. Of course he doesn't have Sirius there to egg him on."
Lily caved; she couldn't believe that she was being such a pushover. "Speaking of Ron and Hermione can I invite them over for a couple weeks? They have always taken me in over the holidays, when I didn't have a place to go." Harry pleaded giving them puppy eyes.
"Of course you can have them over. I will owl their parents formally inviting them over. Actually we can invite their families over for the first three days and then only Hermione and Ron can stay." Lily was very excited. She loved having house parties and it had been forever since she had been able to plan. James rolled his eyes.
"We better leave your mother to her planning, once she gets started there is no way to stop her." Lily just ignored him. The next day she called Harry into her study.
"How many Weasley's are there?"
"Well there is Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Charlie, Bill, Percy, George, Fred, Ron, and Ginny." Lily had gotten happier as he kept on naming names.
"And the Granger's?"
"Mr. and Mrs. Granger, Hermione and her little sister Sarah."
"That is all?" Lily was disappointed.
"We could invite Sirius and Remus too, if you wanted and your friends Jenny, Margaret, and Diana."
"You are defiantly my son, did you know that?"
Harry was very pleased to hear this, everybody always said that he was exactly like his father, but he felt he also had a lot of his mother in him. "I can't believe that will only fill up seventeen of our rooms, we have room for 25. Help me chose, which room for which person. The room across from mine should be for Hermione, and the one beside mine should be Ron's. Oh and those joining room down the hallway should be Fred and George's."
They continued like that for an hour and a half. James walked into the room with out them noticing. He smiled. It looked as though Harry and Lily had finally bonded.
"Oh no, another planner in this family, I think that one is plenty." Harry and Lily looked up.
"Ah, James we were just finished planning the activities for the three days. I think we will need to extend the pool will you do the honors? Harry and I will start decorating the rooms according to the persons personality."
Just then Hedwig swooped into the room. "It is from Hermione! Her sister got her letter from Hogwarts! She will be transferring from a different private school in London."
"That is great honey, but we need to start getting ready for our guests. Send Hedwig to the Weasleys and I will send Jade (Lily's owl) to the Grangers. Then we will start with Hermione's room. James will you get a hold of Sirius, Remus, Jenny, Margaret, and Diana?" She didn't even wait for his response; she just took off to go get Jade.
The next few hours were spent getting ready for their guests. In Hermione's room they put books that she might not have found yet. In Ron's they painted bright orange and hung up Chudley Cannon's posters. House elves could be seen putting sheets on beds and cleaning all over the house.
"Now Mum, we better tell Hermione that our house-elves have sick leave and we will pay them if they want to be paid. We should also give them new uniforms that look less like pillow cases, because other wise she will have a fit." Harry warned his mother.
"We will have to keep her out of the kitchens or she will try to convince them that they need to be paid, and have breaks at Hogwarts it made us leave the kitchens, she upset them so much."
"Don't worry, I have always felt the same way. I even tried to start my own club and made all my friends join." Harry rolled his eyes.
"You will get along with her wonderfully, she did the same thing. She made me secretary and Ron treasurer."
"Ah James was my treasurer, Margaret my secretary, Jenny my co-president, and Sirius my vice-president. He was sad that he was dating me during that time." She laughed at the memory. She couldn't wait to really get to know Hermione, who Harry talked so much about.
At eleven everyone arrived the next day. Everyone was amazed at the size of the house. "Molly, how great to see you again!" Lily was excited to see an old friend.
"You two knew each other in school?" Harry asked he never knew that.
"Sort-of Molly was a 7th year when I was a 1st year, she was the prefect that showed us the way to our dorms." Lily smiled remembering that night.
"Yes what a difficult group you were with a certain bunch of boys that kept trying to sneak off." Mrs. Weasley said eyeing James, Sirius, and James.
"Who us, no! We were prefect angels!" Sirius said innocently.
"I better show you to your rooms Ron, Hermione." Harry started to lead them up to their rooms, when he saw them trying to drag their bags. He laughed.
"Don't worry about your bags they will be carried up for you." When Hermione saw her room she was amazed.
"Harry this is perfect! Look there is even a bed for Crookshanks!" Ron and Harry left Hermione to explore her room. Ron loved his room especially the candy that had been put out for him.
"Your house is great Harry!" Ron told him. "Thank you Ron, you should have seen the look on my face when I first saw
it! And then my first saw the house-elves."
"House-elves?!? Hermione is going to have a fit!!" "No, they were offered pay if they wanted it and even clothes. They all refused."
Just then Hermione walked in the room. "So, did you ask your dad how to add things to the Maunders Map?"
"No not yet, would you like to come with me to ask?"
"Sure." The trio went to go find James. They found him talking with Sirius, Remus, Mr. Weasley, and Mr. Granger. Harry grabbed James' hand and starting pulling him away from the group saying "I need to borrow my father." Harry pulled him into his room, where Hermione and Ron were waiting.
"So what is this about?"
"We want to know how to add things to the Maunders Map." James smiled. "So you found more secret passages did you? I hope you are breaking a lot of school rules to find them." James eyes were sparkling.
"Oh, we did." Harry assured him.
"Good now hand me the map." Harry heisted before giving him the map. James tapped the map and said "This is Prongs and I wish to add more mischief to this map." The map showed all of Hogwarts.
"Now all you need to do is take out a quill and trace where the new secret passages are."
"Thank you dad." Harry said to them, and waited for him to leave. James pouted.
"Fine then don't let me see where they are." And stomped of. Harry, Ron and Hermione spent the next couple of hours talking about the passages that they had discovered, and what mischief they would create this year. Lily came into the room.
"Look at you three you are as bad as James and the rest were when they were in school!"
Harry grinned evilly "Worse".
"It is time for dinner."
In the dining room everyone was crowed around a huge table. Once again, Lily had their best china out. They had decided that the food would appear magically. The food was wonderful as it was always. Dinner at the Potter's was a little different. For drinks, you had to order what you wanted to your glass. Without his mother noticing Ron ordered several glasses of beer. It appeared, though that Ron did not handle alcohol well. He started to try to kiss Hermione and flirt with her a lot. He also kept slapping Harry on the back and saying random things. But trouble didn't come until he started talking very loud asking for the waiter to bring more wine and such. Mrs. Weasley heard him talking, in fact everybody did. Almost everybody laughed at him. The only ones that didn't was Mrs. Weasley and Percy. Percy couldn't believe that Ron would act so foolishly in front of a very important part of society, Mr. Potter. Ron's mum was about ready to explode on him. Harry seeing what was about to happen and being a good friend grabbed Ron's arm and led him out of the room. Then he took him to the kitchens to get him some Somber Potion. Seconds after taking it, Ron stopped giggling like he had before.
"Harry what happened? Why are we here?"
"Remember how you told me you were going to try some beer at dinner tonight?"
Ron nodded. "Well, you had a little more then what you could handle." Harry told him what he had said and did. Ron went white.
"Mum, knows I was drunk?" Harry nodded again.
"Can I borrow your invisibility cloak?"
"Sure, it is hung up in my closet." Ron ran upstairs as quick as he could. Harry returned to the dining room. Mrs. Weasley looked very angry that her son had not returned. Lily stood up at the end of dinner and told everyone that the adults were to go to the living room and drink coffee and the kids to the game room to hang out and play games. Sirius tried to get into the kids room, but Lily had charmed it so no one over 25 could go into the room. Because Harry knew that Ron's mother wouldn't be able to find him in this room, he went upstairs and got him.
Everybody was having a great time so far at the Potters. Fred and George were making cracks at Ron for getting drunk. The adults had fun remembering all the silly things they had done in school. James went over to Sirius and Remus and they were talking quietly in the corner. James was telling them about Harry's question about the Marauders Map. "So do you want to steal the map and see the new secret passages that they found?" Sirius and Remus grinned; it was like being back at school. They stole the map and hid in the corner again. "I solemnly swear I am up to no good." But instead of showing the school words started to appear. "Mr. Tucktail is glad that you are up to no good and encourages you to keep it up. Ms. Nighteyes would like you to make sure you cautious in your mischief so you don't get caught when you are up to no good. And Mr. Swiftail would like to wish you the best of luck in your trouble making." "Look at that, they changed the password! How did they figure out how?" James was amazed that they could figure out how to. "Where did they get their nicknames?" Sirius wondered out loud. "The same way we did. But they did it better then we did. They figured out how to do it in only one year!" "No way, James! It took us three? And there were four of us working on it! What do they turn into?" "A lion, a fox, and an owl." "We have to talk to them, first of all how could they get all the ingredients all in one year? It took us forever to get all of them, some of them are very rare." Remus said amazed. The trio set out to find the kids. James removed the charm over the door and took Harry's, Ron's, and Hermione's hands and led them out of the room. He took them to Harry's study and sat them down as Sirius and Remus came in.
"What did you change the password to?" James demanded of them.
"Password, password to what? What do you need the password for?" Harry asked them innocently.
"Potter, don't try that, I invented the innocent look and voice." Sirius said harshly.
"I am very disappointed in you; I didn't give you that map back so that you could make it so that we couldn't see it anymore." Remus was trying the guilt trip but it wasn't working.
"Oh, but we would enjoy seeing you try to get into the map" said Ron, smiling. James grabbed the map and said "I am Mr. Prongs show me your map." He demanded to the piece of parchment. Once again writing appeared on it. "Mr. Tucktail would like to ask Mr. Prongs to kindly mind his own business.
Ms. Nighteyes would like to add that prying into other people's affairs is not a good habit, and could get you in trouble Mr. Prongs. Mr. Swiftail will now say goodbye to Mr. Prongs and beg him to find some other use of his time then messing with things that are clearly not his." Harry, Ron and Hermione burst out laughing. James scowled.
"At least it was nicer to you then it was to Snape." Remus told him. "I had to do my best to keep from laughing when I saw what it said to him. And then I had to take it away from Harry." Remus was not very comforting. Harry took the map from his father and muttered something no one could hear and handed it back to him. On the top there was now colored writing saying "Mr. Tucktail, Ms. Nighteyes, and Mr. Swiftail present the new and improved Marauders Map." James saw a much more colorful and confusing map then what the original had had.
"You three alone discovered seven new passages out of the school and what looks like fifteen more tunnels around the school itself! How long did this take you?"
"Well we started half way through fourth year." Ron told him.
"We improved it a lot, now you can get information about each person you see on the map by tapping their figure and saying the magic words."
Hermione told them. "And by the color of the dot it tells you what house each person should be in, was in, and is in. The figure also is in the shape of the form the person is in. Animals also appear on the map." Harry told them. "So as you can see the younger generation is smarter and better at magic then the old, because that is just the beginning of what this map can do" Harry snickered.
The 'old' generation couldn't think of anything else to say. The 'young' generation slapped hand for stumping the adults. They walked away laughing and complimenting each other, leaving James, Sirius, and Remus speechless. As they were walking down the hallway to their room they heard a shrill voice behind them. "RONALD WEASLEY!!!!! COME HERE RIGHT NOW!!!" Ron froze.
"Good luck mate." Harry muttered to him as Ron walked head down towards his mother.
An hour later Harry popped into Ron's room and asked him how it went. Ron was shocked to see him and asked him where he came from.
"There are secret passages all over the house, you can look in on any room, Dad doesn't even know yet."
"Oh, ok."
"So how did it go?"
"Oh she grounded me when I get home and said if I drink anymore that she would take away my permission slip to Hogsmeade." He said glumly.
"Well, it could be worst, anyway goodnight."
"Night!"
Harry was not wake up happily the next morning. He was covered in honey. He looked around it was a mess! At the end of the bed was James laughing his head of at Harry.
"So what was all this about being smarter and better at magic? Oh and by the way your friends got it too. I believe that Sirius used melted butter on Ron and Remus used melted chocolate on Hermione." With that he left the room laughing. Harry took a shower, it took forever to get the honey of his skin. He, Ron, and Hermione went down it breakfast all in terrible moods. They would get their revenge. That day everyone was supposed to relax. There were light snacks set out all day. People swam, played Quiddich, and played games. Harry, Ron and Hermione spent their day planning their revenge. First they in listed Fred and George to help them. Charlie was also going to help them. That night they slipped the sleeping potion into the after dinner coffee of James, Sirius, and Remus to insure that they would sleep very soundly. They also put some in Lily's because they didn't want her to wake her up when they were in James' room. At six the next morning they took out the cans of silly string that Fred and George had helped them make, it would stain their skin the color of the string and it wouldn't come off for a week. They each went to the room of the person they wanted revenge on. Everyone was amused to see that three grown men came down with their skin dyed pink, blue, and purple. Especially because they didn't even notice it until everyone laughed at them. The next days were spent getting revenge. Even when everyone but Ron, Hermione, Sirius, and Remus had left the pranks continued. This summer was by far Harry's best.
One night James asked the three what he was dieing to ask.
"How did you get all the ingredients for the potion in a year, when that was what was the hardest thing was for us to get?" James was surprised when Harry blushed,
"Well" Ron began "No one could deny giving us ingredients when they would help the famous Harry Potter."
Harry blushed even more. "That wasn't all that helped. Hermione cast some convincing spells on some of the shopkeepers, and Ron got some of them from his brother in Romania. So we are just more resourceful then you were." Harry told them. "I still can't believe that you managed all that in a year, found all the secret passages, and got the three top marks in your year." James said still amazed they could do all that in a year. "And with all the Quiddich practice you had, there just wasn't time for everything!" The trio grinned evilly. They knew perfectly well how they had gotten more 'time'.
"James, I believe your child is more of a trouble maker then you and maybe even more then Sirius, because he never gets caught it seems." Remus told James. Sirius was confused, he had rarely been caught breaking rules, but as far as they knew Harry hadn't gotten into any trouble in the last year at school.
"How do you do it? I mean it takes a lot not to be caught, or seen, or heard you must be something that makes it so you can't be!" Sirius demanded. "We have the smartest kids in the school in our group; you only had one of the smartest." Ron told him. "We have ways to do things and friends in high places."
"What friends?" Remus demanded. "Snape is always out to get you and so is Draco Malfoy, how you keep out of trouble so easily. I mean it is wrong, if you break the rules you have to pay for it at one point. Dumbledore must have caught you or somebody! It isn't fair; we were caught all the time!" Remus was very angry.
"Well you only had my father in your group, and I am a mix of him and my mother. We also have employed the help of Ron's twin brothers, and Hermione's influence on the teachers. I am assuming that mum hasn't told you all the sneaky things she did school without being caught." Harry informed his father and his friends. James rounded on Lily.
"You never did anything bad in school you were a goody-two shoes. Is our son telling me that you broke rules in school, like us?"
"Worse I just got away with it, didn't you wonder why Harry changes into a lion instead of a stag, you things like that are genetic. Or did you not do your research when you were in school?" James was stunned. He never knew that Lily had become an angimus in school or that she broke any rules for that matter. Everyone had thought they were opposites but in fact they hadn't been at all. He was also upset at the fact that his son who had just met Lily found out a side of her that he had never seen. Now he knew that despite what people said, Harry had a lot of Lily in him. All too soon it was time to go to Diagon Alley for school supplies. Harry sighed as he picked up his new book for divination. He really needed to drop that class, because Professor Trewlany was still pred.icting his death more and more. Harry turned to Ron. "So how do you think I will die this year?" James was alarmed die? Why would Harry ask a question like that? Before Ron could answer he asked him "Why would you be dieing this year?" Harry rolled his eyes.
"Every year in Divination Trewlany likes to predict my death, you would be surprised how many ways that she is coming up for me to die, you would think that she would have ran out of ideas by now."
Hermione tutted "You should have dropped that class ages ago, and taken up something more useful like."
"Athermancy" All three said at the same time. Ron and Harry laughed while Hermione scowled. James understood they had heard the lecture about Divination many times. They continued their shopping, that took the whole of the day. When they returned to the Potter's the house-elves packed their things for them, much to Hermione's disapproval. As the boarded the train Harry found it hard to say goodbye to his parents because now he was truly close to them. Halfway through the trip an unwelcome came into Harry's compartment. "So Potter glad to have Mummy and Daddy back? Well don't worry they won't be around much longer." Harry lunged at Malfoy. Ron had to pull Harry of him. Hermione put a vanishing spell on them as Ron helped Harry off the floor.
"You really shouldn't be fighting Harry; you will be in trouble before you even get to school." Hermione scolded him. Harry was shaking in fury.
"We will get him back this year, I swear we will, we know that secret passage way into the Slythrine common room and we are going to use it this year, no more little pranks we will get them bad this year."
Ron and Hermione didn't know what to say, they had never seen Harry so mad and didn't know what to do. When they arrived at school, the feast was wonderful like always. Harry, Ron, and Hermione led the first years to the dorms. At 4:00 the next morning Ron and Hermione were woken up, much to their disgust and dragged into the Chamber of Secrets. The trio had totally re-done the chamber and decorated it in Gryffindor colors. It had plush scarlet sofas and chairs with a golden carpet. They had covered the statue of Slythrine with a huge Gryffindor flag.
"What do you want Harry?" Ron asked sleepily.
"We're going to get back at Malfoy and the Slythrines. Harry told them his plan and they grinned, "Do you think you can handle it?" Harry asked them. They nodded. They covered the Slythrine common room with Gryffindor colors but that wasn't the end of what they did. Everyone laughed when they saw the Slythrines at breakfast. Harry, Ron, and Hermione had dyed the Slythrines skin scarlet and their hair gold. If their skin hadn't already been red it would have been it otherwise. Harry took out his camera and snapped a lot of picture of red and gold people in Slythrine robes. Snape was livid for the curse had been put on everybody in the Slythrine house including the teachers. Dumbledore was chuckling to himself. Harry made sure to get a picture of Snape for his dad, Sirius, and Remus they would love to see it. Thinking about Sirius, made Harry realize that he was at the teachers table. After breakfast Harry ran to go talk to him.
"What are you doing here?"
"Hello to you to. I am the new DADA teacher."
"What happened to Mrs. Figg?"
"She retired at the end of last year."
"Oh"
"That was brilliant by the way, I don't know how you did it, and their
common room too!"
"Do what?" Harry asked innocently.
"Potter, once again don't try that on me, I created it. I also want to know how you managed it without waking anyone up."
"Do what?" Harry repeated himself.
"I will catch you this year Potter, you cannot get away with causing mayhem and not getting in trouble, it just isn't fair." With that, Sirius left. Harry laughed, they couldn't be caught, and so he wasn't worried about it and headed off to his first class. The next few weeks went smoothly for Harry and his friends, they were playing more pranks then they had ever and they still had not been caught. Harry had started Quiddich practice and everything was going great. James had sent Harry more Firebolt Fives for the new member of the team. They were by far the best team. Harry was getting top marks in all of his classes when all of a sudden he stopped showing up for them. Everyone was very concerned for him. Without him knowing, Lily and James were called to the school. Harry was called to Dumbledore's office and was shocked that his parents were there.
"Now we have been hearing you have been skipping class and." James had started sternly and stopped abruptly. Harry had doubled over in pain and was on the floor shaking in pain. When he stopped his eyes remained closed. Lily was kneeled by his side. Harry lay there like dead, not moving. James scooped him up in his arms and carried Harry to the hospital on the way there he ran into Sirius.
"James nice to.. Harry! What happened is he."
James told Sirius to go get Dumbledore right away and that there wasn't time for questions. Sirius did what he was told. They got Harry the Hospital Wing and were relived to see that Harry was alive, just knocked out. When Dumbledore came Lily and James told him what happened. "Sirius go find Ron and Hermione the password to the Gryffindor common room is honey suckle." Sirius came back with Harry's two friends. When they saw him they were scared. "Did happen so badly that he passed out?" Hermione asked the adults. Dumbledore got very stern. "Hermione, has his spasms happened often?"
"Well, of course, he said he told you about them."
"Ms. Granger if I had known that this had been happening I would have done something about it. Is this why he has not been showing up to class?" Hermione nodded, she felt terrible.
"He used to have them only once a night for fifteen minutes and then it started to get longer. Eventually it started to happen every hour. Every time he was able to fight it off, until now."
"Did he say if he saw anything when he had these spasms?" "He never said afterward he was yelling things like 'let go of me' and go away' and when we asked him about it later he didn't respond." Hermione told them.
"If we ever brought it up later he would change the subject." Ron added. "Dumbledore what is wrong with him will he be ok?" Lily asked Dumbledore very worried about her son.
"I believe that when he was being tortured by Voldemort that some of Voldemort's soul was put into him. Just the tiniest bit. That is why he had those spasms once a night because that was the time that Voldemort was most angry. Voldemort must have found a way to get all the way inside Harry's mind and torture him. Now Harry has used all of his energy so that he can no longer stay conscious while fighting Voldemort out of his brain." Dumbledore looked very somber as he said this. Lily gave a sob as she looked at her son. All she or James wanted was for him to be awake. For two months Harry slept their, every once in a while he would get bruises or start to bleed, which Madame Pomphrey would cure right away. One night right after Lily and James had left the ward Harry woke up. He felt wonderful! He had finally gotten Voldemort out of his mind and body and it hadn't taken that long! He looked out the window and saw that it was very late. He wondered why he was in the hospital wing when he felt so great! So Harry decided to go up to his dormitory and sleep some so that he could be ready for classes tomorrow.
The next morning was total chaos. Harry Potter had been discovered gone from the hospital wing. Everyone was in shock. They wanted to know who had taken Harry and where he was. Dumbledore thinking that a dangerous person could be around sent everyone to their common room while the teachers conducted a search of the school to see if they could find Harry. No one thought of looking for him in his own bed where he was currently asleep. Two hours later McGonnagal told the Gryffindors that Harry had not been found but the teachers were searching the school a second time just to make sure that they hadn't missed him or some clue to his whereabouts. The entire common room was depressed. Why would anyone take Harry from his hospital wing bed?
Harry was very surprised when he looked at the clock. 11:30! He groaned. He was late for class. Why hadn't Ron woken him up? Just then Ron himself came into the room with a very depressed look on his face. All he wanted was his best friend back.
"What's wrong Ron? You look like someone has died or something. And why didn't you wake me up, we are already late for class!" Harry asked him. Ron was in total shock. He ran over to Harry and gave him a big hug. "It is great to see you mate! Why are you out of the hospital wing? You should be resting, get off your feet!" Harry laughed at Ron. "But I feel great! Why should I be resting? I haven't been gone for more then a day!"
"What do you mean? You have been out for two months several times we thought that you were going to die! And then this morning you disappeared from the hospital wing and you put your mother in hysterics! Everyone has been so worried that you had left us forever!" Ron was on the verge of tears. But what he had said took a while for Harry to get through his head. 'Two months! That felt only like a day!'
"I better go find my mother then!" Harry ran from the room. So he wouldn't be seen he transformed into a lion and snuck out of the common room. No one noticed but Hermione who thought that she was seeing things. To make sure that it was just her imagination she turned into an owl and followed. Sure enough there was a great lion running through the corridors of the school it seemed that it was looking for some one or something. Hermione quickly became herself and called out to Harry. Harry turned around and went to go talk to Hermione. They went pretty through the same exchange that Harry and Ron had just gone through when Sirius showed up behind Hermione.
"Hermione, I expected better of you! There could be someone dangerous out and here you are in the hallway talking to...HARRY! Where have you been we all have been worried sick about you!"
"I need to find mum, Ron said she went into hysterics when I was found missing from the hospital wing."
"She is in Dumbledore's office, and Ron was right she did go into hysterics, but she will be better when she sees you. They all ran to Dumbledore's office Sirius said the password. When they entered the room they saw Lily on the floor in tears with James trying to coax her into a chair. As soon as he saw her Harry rushed over to his mother.
"Mum, it is ok, I am fine! Look at me I feel great!" Lily slowly looked up; was it really him?
"Harry!" She jumped up and hugged her son; she never thought that she would see him up and walking again! James also went over and hugged his son. Hermione took out a camera from no where and snapped a picture of the happy family while wiping tears from her eyes. When Harry saw the flash he remembered something. He broke apart from his parents and took out a roll of pictures from his robes. He whispered in James' ear "Our best prank yet!" And showed him the picture of the Slythrine Common Room, the Slythrines, and last but not least the picture of Snape all sporting Gryffindor colors. James looked at the picture in amazement.
"You did this to them?" Harry nodded and grinned.
"Malfoy insulted you and mum, so I got him back, big time!"
James began to laugh very hard. Sirius hearing his laughter came over to see what James was laughing about. When he saw the pictures he laughed too.
"You should have been there when it happened, James. The whole of Slythrine house was livid!"
"I can't believe you managed that Harry! The whole house and Snape!" Sirius glared at Harry. "You did do it then, didn't you? And you still won't tell me how!"
James looked confused. "Of course he did it, no one but my son could pull such a wonderful prank!"
"That is what I thought to, I talked to Harry later and he pulled that innocent act on me."
"Sorry Professor!" Harry exclaimed. Sirius looked stunned; he had never heard Harry call him that, not even in class!
"You couldn't very well expect that I would tell a teacher that I pulled such a prank! That would be like going to see Dumbledore saying 'Will you please expel me or give me detention!'"
Then Sirius realized why Harry had not told him, of course! "I just want to know where your head quarters is." James told Harry. "I could tell you, but there is no way you would be able to get into it, unless you have hidden talents, which I don't think you do. Only I can say the password. Not even Ron or Hermione can get in without me!"
"So son, then where is this place that no one can get into but you?" James asked him smiling. In a whisper Harry said "The Chamber of Secrets" Not for the first time that day James was in complete shock.
"But Slythrine built that, and you are not the heir of Slythrine!" "I know. If it is ok with mum I could show it to you now."
James went and begged for Lily to let them. Lily agreed, but did not want to come this go round. So Harry and Hermione led them to the 'Out of Order' girl's bathroom. On the way there they ran into Ron and told him where they were going. When they passed Moaning Myrtle the said 'hi' and went to the sink in front of her stall. Harry looked at the snake and said something in Parseltounge that know one else could understand. James and Sirius were very surprised when they saw the entrance. Harry, Ron, and Hermione had replaced the tunnel and there was now a moving staircase like the one in Dumbledore's office. They descended down and led onto the gold and red railings. When James and Sirius saw the room, they were very impressed. "Like what you have done with the place, Harry. What is that big flag covering?"
"Slythrine" Harry said nastily. "We didn't like looking at his ugly face." Harry, Ron, and Hermione showed them around the Chamber. It had a full kitchen in it, all of Hermione's books (so a small library) and many secret compartments with jokes and gags that they could pull tricks on other people. The Harry led James to his favorite part of the whole room. There was a gallery of pictures of the pranks that Harry, Ron, and Hermione had pulled over the last couple of years. James looked around and called Sirius over to come look at the pictures. Sirius started laughing when he saw all of the pranks they had pulled. Included on the wall were pictures of the last summer and what the trio had done to Sirius, Remus, and James.
"I think your son has pulled more pranks in the last two years then we did in the whole seven years that we were here!" Sirius told James. James frowned.
"You three simply do not have enough time to pull all of these pranks, practice Quiddich, and have the top three marks in your grade!" A very frustrated James told his son. Harry smiled.
"Should we tell them, Ron, Hermione?" They nodded. "You two better sit down for this. It is a long story and these sofas have comforting charms on them, thanks to Hermione." Everyone sat down and looked at Harry expectedly.
"Well as you know Hermione, Ron, and I are the smartest people in this school right now. We knew that we wouldn't have time to pull the pranks we wanted to, or study as much as we needed to, or practice as much as we could. So we came up with a plan. There is one part of this chamber we have not shown you. It is a secret room behind that Gryffindor flag. See we already changed the face of Slythrine to the face of Gryffindor before we put up the flag. In the room we created a time vortex. It took several months to get it to work, but we got it. It enables us to go back in time. But only the people you travel back in time with can hear or see you. So we repeat hours that have already happened pulling pranks of people and getting extra study time in. That is how the Slythrines did not hear us when we got them. That time we only went back a couple of minutes to get them." Harry looked up after telling the story. It looked as if his father and Sirius were completely lost for words. Harry grinned at Ron and Hermione. They grinned back, they all knew how clever they were. They thought they were the smartest students that had ever been at Hogwarts. Finally Sirius found some words. "You were able to create a time vortex! That is very advanced magic! Not even Dumbledore himself can create one I have seen him try! Only one wizard has ever been able to make one! And it took him a couple of years to figure it out! We must tell Dumbledore!"
"NO!" All three yelled at once. "If Dumbledore knew what we have been doing he would expel us for sure! We have broken about a hundred school rules! The smallest the boys being in the girl's bathroom!" Hermione had panicked.
"Mum and Dad would kill me if I get expelled! Harry and I have already used up all of our chances for not being expelled!" Ron to was not happy at Sirius' suggestion.
"And he will make us stop using it! And know that we pulled all those pranks!" Harry was just as upset as his friends.
"I do not think that Dumbledore would expel the three best students that Hogwarts has ever seen! We must tell him you have made an invention of the world! You have managed to do something that only one other person has ever done!" James was very excited. His son! His son had done a great thing that would be remembered at only 16! He would be famous, and so would his friends! As though reading his thoughts Harry said "But we are already famous. Me for what I did when I was one. Ron and Hermione for the adventures that we have had in school! We don't need any more fame until we are all on the national Quiddich team!"
"Harry!" Ron and Hermione shouted at him. "We said we weren't going to say anything until we started training this summer!" Hermione screamed at him.
"I'm sorry it just slipped out, I forgot; remember I have been gone for two months!"
"The national Quiddich team! seen. We will play for them in our seventh year, we have already signed the contract for the next three years." Ron informed them.
"That is something we defiantly have to tell Dumbledore! You three aren't even out of school yet and you are going to play for England!" James was even more excited.
"And we got accepted early to the best Wizardering College around." Hermione added. James fainted.
He was waken up to the sound of people arguing.
"No Sirius you cannot tell Dumbledore about any of this! When we told you we trusted you to keep our secret, if you do not Ron knows some you three are going to train with England!"
Ron shrugged his shoulders. "They were at all of our games last year and at the try-outs for the new team. I am going to play first-string keeper, Hermione first string chaser, and Harry first-string seeker. They said since Bulgaria used Krum that they would scout at Hogwarts. They said we were the best players they had ever good memory charms, because we cannot let this leak out to anybody!" Harry was yelling at Sirius. James knowing what would happen if Harry knew he was awake did an invisibility spell on himself and left. Dumbledore had to know what was going on and he knew that if he didn't escape now that they might hold him there too. When James left the Chamber he ran up to Dumbledore's office making himself visible again on the way up. He went in and told Dumbledore and Lily everything he knew. They were quite pleased.
Still in the Chamber Sirius was still in a shouting match with Harry. "You have to tell him, it is his right to know what goes on in this school and what his students have done! It is very important that you tell him!" "No we will get expelled for sure if you told! You have to promise." Suddenly Ron interrupted. "Where is your father, Harry?" Harry looked over to the sofa that James had been lying on.
"Oh no he has gone to tell Dumbledore! What will we do now?" "Maybe if we hurry we can catch him before he tells." Hermione said. So they all ran out of the chamber to find James. When they did find him, it was to late. Harry was livid. How could his father betray his trust like that? Hermione and Ron calmed down after they were told that they would not be punished or expelled, but Harry did not. He had never been this angry at anyone but Aunt Marge or Voldemort before. So before he exploded something, Harry ran from the office. Ron and Hermione looked after him wondering why he was so mad, because neither one of them had ever seen Harry so mad. James ran after Harry but it was too late, Harry had disappeared into one of his secret passages and out of sight. James did not understand why Harry was so mad. He was not in trouble so why worry? James was only in the castle for another couple of days in which Harry refused to talk to him or even acknowledge that he was there. He was pretty much the same with Sirius except he would talk to him when he needed to, like during class. James left the castle with a very heavy heart. He still didn't understand why Harry wouldn't talk to him and Sirius only when necessary.
Through out the next couple of weeks before Christmas break James sent Harry many owls. Harry didn't respond to any of them. When Lily wrote Harry, Harry always answered in lengthy letters. Harry even went so far as to refuse to ride the broomstick that James had bought him. He rode his old Firebolt during practices. Lily was very concerned about both Harry and James; this was not good for their relationship. They barely knew each other and couldn't afford to fight. When Christmas break rolled around Lily made James go pick Harry up from the train station. Harry was not pleased. He did not want to ever speak to his father again. The trip home was an awkward one. No matter what James said he couldn't get Harry to talk to him. When they got to the house Harry went straight up to his room after greeting Lily. The week before Christmas Lily and James didn't see much of Harry at all. Harry had the house-elves bring his meals to his room. One day James went to Harry's study where Harry was doing his homework. "Son we need to talk." James told him. Harry just ignored him.
"I don't even know why you are mad at me!' James said sadly. At this Harry blew up.
"You don't know why I am mad!!!! How could you not? I told you a secret that I didn't have to tell you! I told you about everything, so that you and I could be closer!!!! About Quiddich, about College!!!! I wanted you to be apart of my life!!! But no, the second after I told you wanted to go find Dumbledore and tell him everything! And you did!!!! I thought that for once in my life there could be a parent-like person that I could truly trust and tell my entire secret to without telling anyone else!!! I didn't even feel that way about Sirius; he always went and told Dumbledore too! The one time I thought I could trust you, you went and told!!! And now you say that you don't understand why I am mad!!!" Harry had screamed very loudly at James. After finishing his speech, Harry ran out of the room. James just sat still. He had never thought about what happened that way. He didn't know that Harry had wanted to keep that secret so badly.
About after a half-hour of sitting in the study thinking, Lily came in to check on him.
"Sweetie, are you ok? I heard Harry yelling, what was that all about?"
"I betrayed his trust, just like every other adult that he has ever come across. He trusted me enough to show me his secret. I betrayed that trust. He has been lied to and deceived his whole life by everybody he has ever cared about. I swore that I wouldn't, but I did. I am just as bad as all those other people."
"James, you are not as bad as those other people. You were doing what you thought was best for your son. It was only natural for Harry to rebel your decision, remember when we were teenagers?"
"Yes but when we were teenagers we hadn't lost our parents for most of our lives, been abused by muggles, and faced a dark lord four times. His life has been awful. He has always been alone, and has always had to stick up for himself with no help from others. He has also had to see a friend die right before his eyes! Right there, and he couldn't do anything about it." Lily did not know how to respond to this. She knew that her son had been through a lot of pain but never thought of it affecting him afterwards. He must be incredibly strong inside, she thought, to be able to see a friend die without going into severe depression. She knew that she would not have been able to do it.
"I better go apologize for what I did to him. I want him to be able to trust me, but I am not sure that he will be able to." James said and then he left the room. When he got to Harry's room he saw Harry lying on his bed breathing heavily. James went and sat beside him.
"I didn't know that you felt so strongly about your secrets." James told him honestly.
"Well now you do." Harry replied bitterly. He knew what was going to happen. They would start talking and Harry would feel guilty and forgive his father, even though he did not want to. So they began talking. Harry was right just as he was about to say that he forgave James he cried out in pain. Without wanting to, Harry was pulled into a dream world. He saw two people being tortured by Voldemort. They looked terrified. Eventfully they were tortured to death. Harry was awaken with a start. . "Harry, Harry!!!" Harry awoke with a start. James was calling out to him. When James saw that Harry's eyes were opened he asked "Harry are you ok?"
Harry was about to say something and then passed out again from the pain in his scar. Later he told James what had happened in his dream. They checked the news and sure enough Voldemort had tortured a couple to death.
Harry was devastated. He hated to see people get hurt, unless it was Malfoy or Snape. James and Lily were trying to comfort him. It was not helping it was just making Harry feel worse. They were about to give up when Harry got an idea that would make him feel better. "What if we invited Remus over for Christmas!" He suggested. Lily was willing to anything to make Harry feel better. She also invited Sirius, even though Harry would not be happy about it.
Harry was very happy the day that Remus came. Harry was still not happy with Sirius. When Sirius walked in the door he did not get his usual greeting from Harry. He took that to mean that Harry was still mad at him. This was very frustrating for Sirius. He had tried everything nothing seemed to work. Even though Harry had forgiven James, he still did not trust and didn't talk to him much at all.
To get James back for the Christmas before Harry woke up at four in the morning. He used the secret passageway to sneak into his parents' room. So at 4:10 AM James was woken by water being dumped on him by what seemed to be an invisible person. At 4:15 Remus was awoken the same way and five minutes later so was Sirius. Once they were all up they were chasing an invisible Harry around the house. James was finally able to pull the cloak off. So then everyone was running around the house yelling and shouting at each other. When Harry got out of breath he just went into one of his secret passages and let himself catch his breath. Then ha appeared again and the chasing continued. This led to nearly an hour and a half of chasing Harry around the house yelling. Naturally this woke Lily up. In the end Lily ended up putting a silencing charm on the four men or should we say boys. The James pulled out his wand and tried to curse her but no words would come out of his mouth. Lily let Harry out of the curse first just to annoy James who was silently pleading with her. Harry was laughing his head off when Sirius and Remus snuck up behind him and dumped a bucket full of water on his head.
"Hey dad, I found a way to flatten out hair!" Harry told James. Harry pulled out two cans of the silly string from the summer and started sparing Sirius and Remus. After another half hour they finished playing around and laughing. So they went to go open presents. Harry was amazed at the amount of presents he had, it was even more then last year. He decided in the end that his father and Sirius were trying to buy his trust back, because compassion didn't seem to work.
"Harry your real present is out front." James told him. Harry ran outside to see what it was. He was in absolute shock, there before him was a corvette. It was black with silver steaks down the side. Harry had gotten his drivers license over the summer.
"That is for the National Quiddich team and College." James whispered to him. But it was not quite enough Remus' eyes went wide.
"The National Quiddich team, College!" Harry sighed. Here we go again. Before James could explain, Harry asked if he could go for a drive. James said sure. Since it was Christmas morning there were not many cars out on the streets and highways. Harry drove all the way over to Ron's house that was an hour and a half away. When he arrived Mrs. Weasley was the first person to come out of the house. She was very surprised to see Harry, this early in the morning on Christmas.
"Harry, dear it is nice to see you." She said to him.
"Hello Mrs. Weasley, sorry to bother you on Christmas but I would like to invite you and your family for dinner tonight." He would call his parents later on and tell them, because he knew that his mother would be very happy to have people over.
"We would be happy to come, would you like to come in?" As a response Harry walked in. Ron was surprised to see him. "Harry, good to see you mate, what are you doing here?" "Oh, I invited your family to dinner tonight. I want to show you my Christmas present. He took Ron outside and showed him his new car. "So what do think?"
"Why did your parents but you that?" "Well you know how I was so mad at my dad and Sirius. Well that kept trying to reach me my words. But they gave up, so I think they are trying to buy me back. To bad it won't work." Harry said grimly. "Harry give it a rest, you really should give them another chance. I mean they are your father and god-father."
"I think I will some time, just not yet. I can't believe they did that. So I will not tell them any more secrets for awhile. Could I use the telephone your father bought when you wanted to call me before our third year?" "Sure." Ron knew that the discussion was over.
Harry was right, Lily was very happy to have the Weasleys over to dinner. Harry and Ron decided to drive back; everyone else would apperate or use floo powder.
"I don't even think it is right to sit in this car. Cars like this are just meant for looking at not driving." Ron told Harry.
"I know, I felt the same way." Harry replied as they started leaving the Burrow.
When they got back to Harry's house a couple hours later (they had stopped at a fast food place on the way.) Remus looked at them in new eyes. "James told me what you have done I can't believe you three could do that!" Harry ignored him, ran up to his bedroom, and put on his invisibility cloak. James groaned when he saw Harry run past him. "Here we go again, thanks a lot Moony." He left to go find Harry.
James spent a lot of time looking for Harry, but it was no use. Ron who knew perfectly well where Harry was hiding was pumped for information several times, but he never said anything. When it was dinnertime Ron went and got Harry from his hiding spot and told him it was time for dinner. At dinner James tried to engage Harry in conversation, but Harry refused to even sit near him. Everyone had a great time at dinner except James. He was completely miserable despite all of Sirius' attempts to make him feel better. Harry noticed this but did not care. His father had once again betrayed his trust after promising not to. Straight after dessert Harry ran back up to his hiding place. Little did Harry know that James had slipped some truth potion into Ron's drink. Ron was staying the night. So James went into Ron's room to question him.
"Where is Harry hiding?" "In the walls."
"How?" "Secret passageways in the walls it goes to every room in the house."
"How do you get in?"
"Harry has a password to get in."
"What is it?"
"I don't know."
James cursed. Harry smiled as he watched through the walls. Hermione had said that it wouldn't work to have a password like that, but it did. Ron woke up from his trans.
"Why did you do that to me Mr. Potter? "Because I wanted to talk to my son, but you didn't know the password to his hiding place." Ron smiled. For once it had been him and Harry who had been right, not Hermione.
"We were right, Harry. This is one of the first times that Hermione was wrong."
"I am not Harry, I am James remember? Why do you think that I am Harry?"
"I don't."
"Then why did you call me Harry?"
"I didn't I called Harry Harry."
"But Harry isn't here."
"I know that."
Suddenly it dawned on James. Harry could have kicked Ron. James ran to Harry's room. "I don't know." He said. The wall opened up.
Harry put on his invisibility cloak and came out into Ron's room. He was running through the hallways looking behind him to see if anyone was following him when he ran straight into Sirius.
"Well if it isn't invisible boy. "