The next day was undoubtedly the best Harry had ever experienced in Privet Drive. Uncle Vernon actually spoke to Harry like he was a person not a piece of property. Probably due to the fact that Harry had proven that he was not someone to be bullied or taken lightly. The Dursleys and Harry ate three peaceful meals with each other and Dudley volunteered to clean up after each one so Harry could use the time to study or write to his friends.
The next morning Harry woke up a little later than normal but was excited about the day's planned trip. Looking at his watch he was startled to find that it was already past nine. Harry leaped out of bed and dressed quickly, he knew that Dudley was supposed to go to London to shop for supplies for school. He thought that his aunt and uncle would have both gone with Dudley so he would have to cook for himself and clean up before Lupin arrived. When he got downstairs he was surprised to find Aunt Petunia sitting at the kitchen table drinking a cup of tea.
"Good morning Harry" she greeted him. "Morning Aunt Petunia" Harry mumbled. He was still a little sleepy. While his relationship with his family had vastly improved, he still missed Ginny terribly. He was starting to wonder if he had done the right thing breaking up with her. Part of him felt better knowing that she wouldn't have to face Voldemort, and therefore should be at least a little safer than he was. But the sixteen year old part of his mind felt like he was tearing himself in two.
"Are you hungry?" Aunt Petunia asked, "I can fix something up that you can take with you pretty quickly" she said with a smile.
"Thanks a lot Aunt Petunia" Harry said returning the smile and waking up a little more. Ten minutes later Aunt Petunia set a homemade breakfast sandwich loaded with his favorites: eggs, cheese, ham and potatoes. Almost at the same time the doorbell rang. Harry picked up his sandwich and headed to the door followed by his aunt.
"Mr. Lupin?" Petunia asked timidly after Harry had invited Lupin into the house.
"Yes, Mrs. Dursley" Lupin said looking at her with a mild look of curiosity.
"I... I'm sorry for how my husband treated you the other day… and I'm sorry that I haven't ever recognized you before." Petunia said quietly her gaze falling to the floor.
"Mrs. Dursley you are not responsible for your husband's actions. And as for not recognizing me, I wouldn't have expected you to, it has been a long time and everyone you knew called me by my old school nickname."
"I should have remembered you from when Lily introduced us. I never thought I would forget the face of a man named Mooney" she said with a sad smile, "and please call me Petunia, you were far to close to Lily and James not to."
"It must have been a very strange nickname for someone who doesn't understand it." Lupin said.
For the first time since Lupin arrived Petunia smiled, "Mr. Lupin, Harry explained last night about the nicknames referring to the animal forms you transformed into. I just don't understand how they got Mooney from a wolf."
Lupin started slightly, "How do you know that I can transform into a wolf?" he asked quietly.
"Lily warned me because she was afraid I might come to see them and she didn't want me to be frightened when I saw a wolf in their house watching over my nephew." Petunia said.
Petunia watched Lupin closely hoping she hadn't said too much. Not that she had to worry, because Lupin laughed and said, "I should have known that. Lily was always watching out for all of us. Please feel free to call me Remus or Mooney, and to answer your question I was the only Marauder to not have choice in my transformations. You see I am a werewolf" he said smiling at her. "I transform into a wolf with the full moon, thankfully we now have a potion that allows me to become just a wolf rather than the true monster you have probably heard about."
"So that's what that smoking stuff was she always had at the house around the full moon." Petunia exclaimed.
"Yes, I'm sure Lily wanted you to know where they kept in case I showed up. If I don't take it I become a very dangerous animal." said Lupin with a shudder. Petunia quickly realized that this was making Lupin uncomfortable and apologized for bringing it up. "Don't worry about it." Lupin said reassuringly. "In fact, I'm surprised Lily didn't tell you about it before. She really should have" he said thoughtfully, "anyway, I'm used to telling people about it now and I must say you took the news better than most."
Petunia just smiled, "Well, when you live with Harry Potter for seventeen years the unusual and unexpected become mundane and ordinary don't they?" she said.
"I guess so," Lupin replied smiling, "same thing happened around James and Lily." All three laughed for a few minutes before Lupin became serious again.
"Harry I'd like you to grab your dad's cloak just in case before we leave." "Yes sir, I need to grab a few more things too. I'll be back in minute" Harry said and disappeared upstairs leaving Lupin and Petunia alone in the living room.
"Um... Remus, Harry will be safe today won't he?" Petunia asked, "I don't mean to be rude but, well I've always worried about him and I don't know what's waiting out there for him."
Lupin smiled, "I understand Petunia, I'll make Harry wear James's invisibility cloak until I know we're safe."
"James had an invisibility cloak?" Petunia asked astounded, "Lily told me once that they existed but were really rare, guess she never got around to telling me James owned one."
"It's the best I've ever seen Petunia, When Harry puts it on no one I know of can tell where he is magical or not." Lupin assured her.
"But, Lily and James aren't buried at Godric's Hollow are they?" Aunt Petunia asked confused.
"No they're buried in the garden at Potter Manor. I know because I buried them, but Harry wants to go back to where all this started for him. I think he'll find some very useful things there" he said. "Did you know that there are still things left in what's left of that house that no one can remove?" he asked.
"No, I didn't. Why wouldn't you or Dumbledore or Sirius be able to remove them? James and Lily trusted you three more than anyone." Petunia was still so confused, the magical world was still new to her and she had a hard time making sense of a lot of things like this.
"No these are items that were meant for Harry, so I think only a blood relative would be able to remove them" said Lupin as Harry appeared with the cloak and his photo album containing photos of his parents.
"Well Harry, let's go. We should be gone all day I think Petunia. I'll make sure Harry gets a couple of good meals so don't worry about waiting supper for him" Lupin said as they moved to the door.
"Okay, well be careful Harry and good luck. I hope you find what you need" Petunia said hugging Harry and then half pushing him out the door.
"Bye Aunt Petunia and thanks for everything" Harry said following Lupin down the walk. Harry and Lupin walked about a half a block to the shade of a grove of trees that shielded them from view.
"This will work fine Harry, grab my arm" Lupin said holding out his arm. Harry grabbed Lupin's arm tightly and hung on for dear life as the force of apparition tried to rip it from his hand. When Harry could breathe and see again, he looked around at the small village they had suddenly appeared in. It had the look of a peaceful village where the most exciting thing that happened all year was the neighbors dog having a litter of puppies. Harry could see why his parents had chosen to hide here. It was the last place he would have looked for two powerful wizards. Harry followed Lupin along the dusty main road just taking in the town and feeling both excited and slightly nervous. He didn't know how he would handle seeing the house or the graves but he knew he had to deal with these because Voldemort would not hesitate to show them to him if he couldn't. They walked about halfway through the village before Lupin turned off on a small lane that almost didn't exist anymore. The grass had grown up on the lane to the point that Harry began to worry that Lupin had forgotten why they were there. Lupin seemed to sense this because he turned his head and smiled at Harry while continuing to lead down the barely visible lane. "Don't worry Harry, James charmed the lane to look this way right after he and your mom moved in. He didn't want it to be easy to find the house, even for the muggles. The nicer people found them anyway but your dad was a lot like you. He had to protect his family and couldn't stand to not do something, even if it was unnecessary. Your mom threatened to hex him if he didn't let her clear this up a bit, but he never would."
Harry was about to say something when he saw the house, or rather, the ruins. The four outer walls still stood but the roof was badly burned, and the two rear corner eaves were gone. The house looked like it had been abandoned after a fire.
Lupin came up behind Harry and put his arm around Harry's shoulders. "You gonna be okay Harry?" he asked.
"Yeah, I knew that Dad and Mum fought him pretty hard. I guess I just didn't realize that they would have practically destroyed the house" Harry said in a depressed voice. He walked slowly to the house and froze right in front of a window.
"What's wrong Harry?" Lupin asked.
"I don't know I feel a kind of… tingling in my fingers" Harry answered. "Oh, you're feeling the magic traces leftover from the fight. That window looks into the study where your dad fought He…"
Harry cut Lupin off saying, "Call him Tom, Remus, it makes conversation easier."
Lupin smiled. Not only had Harry not called him Professor for the first time, his suggestion of calling Voldemort Tom indicated that he knew that Voldemort was afraid of being called by his muggle name Tom Riddle.
"Right, that kind of a duel will leave a stronger imprint than most magic" Lupin explained. So that's how Dumbledore knew,Harry thought to himself remembering how Dumbledore found things in the cave where the fake horcrux was hidden by "feeling for magic". Harry nodded lost in his own thoughts and moved on along the front of the house toward the front door. The front door was still on the hinges but the lock mechanism had melted, this gave Harry some reassurance that Voldemort had forced his way into the house. The interior of the house was strangely clean. Granted there were huge holes in the wall between entryway and the study, the stairway looked a little worse for wear, and most of the furniture could use some repair. But, all in all, it didn't look too bad. Harry didn't cry, to his surprise, he just looked around and took it all in. He vaguely remembered this house, or at least he recognized the feeling of home that he felt here.
"I'll be out back if you need me Harry" Lupin said bringing Harry out of his thoughts. Harry nodded and watched him walk through the kitchen and out the back door. He spent a good deal of time walking around the house and looking under the piles of rubble for anything that could help him. In the study he found a wand that looked a lot like his own and he felt the tingling sensation again while standing on top of a set of floorboards that looked slightly different from the rest. Pocketing the wand he squatted down and began to pry up the floorboards. Underneath he found a small silver belt with an ornate "R.R." on the buckle. He had and idea that this might be the Ravenclaw horcrux but decided to wait until he could talk to Hermione before trying to destroy it. He didn't find anything else on the ground floor, so he went upstairs and quickly found himself in what had been the nursery. This time he did cry... he sat down against the far wall staring at the small wand lying directly in front of the overturned crib pointing at the door. Now he understood why the wand in his pocket looked so similar to his own, it was his father's. The small wand on the floor of this room was his mother's, and it lay exactly where she had dropped it when she died. Harry allowed himself to grieve for about ten minutes before forcing himself to continue with his search. He found a few things of interest but nothing earth shattering.
He jumped about a foot when Lupin appeared in the doorway behind him asking, "Where's Lily's wand?"
"Good Lord Remus!" Harry gasped clutching his chest. "Don't do that to me, I took Mum and Dad's wands" Harry said calming down. "I thought they might be useful later, and I just wanted a piece of them with me."
Harry breathed a sigh of contentment. "Okay, I think I'm done here then" Harry said, "Just out of curiosity, why did it bother you that Mum's wand had been moved?" Harry asked. "It's obvious that you've been here a fair few times before. I would have thought that you of all people would put them into something for safekeeping.
"Oh, that just surprised me Harry. You see I stop by every now and then to check on the place and remember my best friends" Lupin said as he and Harry left the nursery. Lupin steered Harry down the hall instead of the stairs. "I've tried several times to move the wands but couldn't touch them. I guess you're Mum and Dad enchanted them to pass directly to you after their death." Lupin fell silent after this looking past Harry at the room he had led him to. Harry gave Lupin a quizzical look and turned to follow his gaze.
The room had been a sitting room. Only two pieces of furniture were in it, a large overstuffed armchair and a small side table holding a couple of books and a small picture of Sirius and Harry's parents. "Your mum loved this room Harry," Lupin said, "She used this room to nurse you." Normally this statement would have caused a nearly seventeen-year-old boy to blush, but Harry was no normal teen. He walked reverently into the room and, after lovingly caressing the armchair, sat down. He closed his eyes and thought of his mum sitting in this chair looking out of the window over her garden holding a sleeping Harry.
"Well, I wondered if you'd ever show up." Harry's eyes snapped open as he leaped from the chair drawing his wand. "No! I didn't mean to startle you Harry, please sit down and put away your wand." Harry's eyes stopped searching the room as the passed the framed picture. His mind had finally caught up and recognized his mother's voice. He sat down again and stared at what he now realized was a pocket sized portrait of his parents and godfather. "There now, that's better" Lily said kindly.
"Sorry" Harry said breathlessly, "I was just sitting here thinking of you when you started talking." "These days I get really nervous when someone surprises me." Harry told the portrait. All three people in the portrait laughed quietly.
"I told you Lily, that's twice now that our son has cost you." His father told her still laughing.
"Yes, he's grown up far more mature than I hoped for considering how immature his father was. Harry and Lupin both laughed at that, while his father just blushed slightly. "Now, about you Harry, what brings you here besides Remus?" Lily asked her son.
Harry couldn't believe his ears. "I needed to see where this all started, and I wanted to visit your graves before I set out to kill Voldemort" Harry told her in an astonished voice. He didn't worry about the name as his parents had been an auror and an unspeakable he didn't think it would bother them.
So he was shocked when all three people screamed, "Mooney!!" James was the one to finish this outburst. "Why in the name of Merlin doesn't Harry know where we are buried? YOU DID THE BURYING!!!" Lupin had come around the back of the chair to face the portrait.
"Because Lily's sister forbid me to tell him until he was of age." Remus answered simply. He then went on to explain exactly how Harry had grown up not even knowing he was a wizard much less anything about his parents. James was incensed, Harry quite thought that if he had been in a portrait in Privet drive then no one would have slept that night. As it was he looked ready to jump out of the frame and break something. Sirius was only a shade calmer as he had known about this from the few conversations he and Harry had shared while he was alive. Only Lily was calm, and it was she that calmed the others.
"You must understand, she believed the only way to protect Harry was to hide him from the magical world. If Harry had known about us and our world she could never have held him in the Muggle world and so safe." She explained. "Not that I agree with her Harry or approve of how you were treated. I only hope you understand why she did it Harry."
"Oh I do Mum." Harry answered quickly, "We had a long talk about it when I got home from school day before yesterday. I still don't like it, but in their situation it makes sense. I probably would have done the same thing." Lily smiled at him and raised her arms to hug him only to remember that she was a portrait. "Besides, I'm not all that sure it was her idea to begin with" Harry said, "the night I got back from school she tried not to lock up my school stuff and Uncle Vernon got mad and nearly broke her jaw."
Lily's eyes flashed. "Don't worry mum, I took care of her after I dealt with Uncle Vernon" Harry said.
"How did you do that?" James and Remus were the ones to ask that one.
"No big deal, just tripped him into the mantle then finished the job with a right cross" Harry said grinning, "Being beat up a lot growing up does have its advantages."
James, Sirius, and Remus were fuming but Lily just looked sad. "I had hoped he would have stopped that after Dudley was born," She said sadly, "This isn't the first time Harry. He used to beat her regularly whenever she wanted to see me. She used to sneak over a couple times a month and I always had to vanish bruises and heal wounds."
James put a comforting arm around her and said, "I assume you found our wands Harry."
"Yes" Harry said "they were right where you dropped them nearly seventeen years ago. I think" he said.
"Very good, your mum and I wanted you to have them."
Harry had spent the whole conversation waiting to ask a single question. "Um, Dad?" he asked
"What son?" James answered. "If your not buried here than where are your graves?" James and Lily smiled at him. "Where else but your true home, Potter Manor." James told him. "We had Moony there; promise to move the bodies to a nice spot in the garden behind the house if we died. And he bloody well better have done it." James glared over Harry's shoulder at Remus.
"Never fear Prongs old friend," Lupin answered calmly "I kept my promise within hours of your death. I buried you under that magnificent mahogany tree; I buried Lily three feet to the left." James and Lily nodded at him.
Harry noticed that they both seemed to be tearing up. "Where do I find Potter Manor, then?" he asked.
"Your estate, Harry, sits on forty nine acres south of London in a town known as Lymington. It's about twenty kilometers south of Southampton; the estate is right on the coast on the south edge of the town. I'm sure Remus will be more than willing to take you there whenever you wish."
"Of course I will Harry, but it's getting late and I'm sure that there are other areas you'll want to look at before the sun goes down." Lupin said smiling at him, "I'll take the portrait with us so you can have it at the Dursley's.
"Thanks Remus," Harry said with a smile; "and you're right I do have other things to do now."
Just before Lupin slipped the portrait into his bag Lily called out, "Be sure to stop by the master bedroom here before you leave Harry. There are a few things in the closets I think you'll like. At least I hope they're still there." Harry and Lupin did go to his parents' bedroom next, and in the closets he found all of their clothes perfectly preserved. Lupin promised Harry that he would move the clothes wherever Harry wanted after Harry commented that most of his mother's clothes looked to be about Ginny's size. Harry stopped dead in the room as the pain of Ginny's memory washed over him.
"Yes, they are about the same size," said Lupin, "and speaking of Ginny I think you're being a bit trollish about the whole thing."
Harry's head spun around as if he had been slapped. He hadn't told Lupin about his breakup. "What are you talking about?" he asked trying not to give away how badly he was hurting.
"Oh come on Harry, I've been to the Burrow several times. Ginny looks like death warmed over. She doesn't eat well, she doesn't sleep well, heck Harry she doesn't even act like herself anymore. Most obvious case of a broken heart I've seen in a long time." Lupin paused to take a few breaths and chuckle at Harry's shocked expression. "Only you could have done that to her Harry, so why did you break the relationship that you need most?"
"What do you mean the relationship I need most?" Harry asked in a shaky voice.
"Harry the kind of love that you and Ginny shared is the most powerful emotion known to man. Men have murdered, stolen and lied to win a woman's heart. Men have also been known to commit suicide rather than face a life without the woman they love. Your protection from Voldemort comes from your mother's sacrifice of love, but it is your love of Ron and Hermione that had given you the strength to fight him in the past. You love Ginny far more than Ron, Hermione, me, the rest of the Weasley family, and possibly all the pieces of your family combined. Only a troll could ignore the power of that kind of love Harry." Harry looked at Lupin as if the whole world had stopped spinning and all of life's mysteries had just been explained to him.
"That was a bit harsh don't you think Moony?" came James' voice from Lupin's bag.
"James I seem to remember calling you a troll for waiting so long to ask out Lily in about fourth year," Lupin said calmly to his bag.
Harry laughed at this, especially since there was no answer to Lupin's statement. "Well, I guess I do take after my Dad," he said with a smile. "But I must say Moony," Harry emphasized Lupin's nickname, "you're one to talk. Last time I checked you hadn't asked Tonks out yet."
"Touché" Lupin said.
They both laughed as Harry began to search the closets. After a few minutes he found a box shoved into the back corner of his father's closet. He opened it to reveal several pictures of him with his parents and a few of the more advances spell books that his father had used while going through Auror training. Lupin shrunk the box and set in his bag as Harry led the way into the back yard.
Lupin showed Harry the small padded room under the house that he had been staring at earlier. It was full of soft yet durable things like tires, leather strips, etc. He explained that James and Lily had built this room for him to come and transform at their house. "It was perfect," he said, "they always left a huge pile of raw meat for me and made sure I had things to bite and chew on, other than myself. And I got to spend the worst times of my life with my best friends. I even spent a fair amount of time watching you while you slept." Harry smiled at the thought of his parent's providing for Lupin while he transformed into a wolf. The rest of the back yard was mostly dead but Harry could tell where his mother's garden had been. As the sun set Lupin suggested that they get back. Harry agreed that he had done what he came to do and grabbed Lupin's arm. Moment's later he found himself looking at the worried face of Aunt Petunia in the garden of Number four Privet Drive.