History Isn't Always Boring

When they were back in the common room Caly had made up her mind. She wanted to know the whole story. She wanted to know exactly why Al, Rose and Scorpius were famous and she wanted to know it today. She was tired of not understanding the stares that they got, or in Scorpius' case glares. The question was how to broach the subject tactfully. They did their homework in the library because Al had muttered something about annoying class mates. It then struck Caly she didn't know anyone else in her house. She'd heard their names on the register but she didn't know who they were. The only other person she knew was Peter Finch-Fletchly and Atticus McMillan, but Caly didn't count the last one.

"ALBUS!" The excited shout deafened them the moment they re-entered the common room. A small boy with mousey hair ran up to him.

"We've never been properly introduced. My name is Martin Creevy, we met at the memorial service."

"Yeah." Al said uncomfortably "Your brother is my brother's best mate." Martin's face fell slightly at the fact Al knew his brother but he perked up immediately.

"Would you like to come and sit with me, Al, your cousin is welcome too. My dad speaks about your parents all the time. All about Dumbledore's army and everything."

"Oi, Martin!" Another shout came up but this was angry. "Leave Al alone." A boy who looked like Martin but bigger came striding over "How you doing?"

"Fine."

"If he bugs you just tell me."

"Er, yeah I will." The boy turned to go but then Al shouted. "Hey! Why haven't you pranked yet?" The boy tapped his nose and returned to his seat by James. "That was Colin, I was telling you about him earlier." Caly and Scorpius nodded. Martin had scurried off, clearly intimidated by his older brother. Caly opened her mouth to speak but then a pair of twins wondered over. They were very different from Lorcan and Lysander but still seemed to be in perfect sync with each other.

"Hey-"

"Al." They said.

"Hi, Kyle, Finn."

"To bad we-"

"Don't share a dorm." They spoke perfectly with each other and it confused her.

"Yeah, too bad." Al echoed.

"We'll be-"

"Seeing you-"

"Then-"

"Very soon." And then they left. Once they left they revealed another boy who had been standing behind them.

"Declan!" Rose and Al exclaimed.

"Hey guys. Hogwarts is so cool isn't it."

"Yeah." They stood in awkward silence till Declan said.

"I'd better go find the twins." And he left too. They wended their way over to some armchairs without anymore interruptions and flopped into them.

"Was Martin the annoying class mate you referred to earlier?" asked Rose.

"Yeah. He's way too enthusiastic."

"So who exactly were those people?" Caly asked, once again feeling left out by the wizarding world.

"All children of our parents old friends." said Rose casually.

"Martin and his older brother Colin our the sons of Denis Creevy, he married a muggle called Mary I think."

"Marie." corrected Rose.

"Yeah that's right. Apparently Denis' older brother Colin, hence Colins name, idolised my dad at school. Kyle and Finn are Dean Thomas' sons."

"He wrote our History of Magic textbook." Interjected Rose.

"Thanks, Rose. He shared a dorm with mine and Rose's dads, as did Declan's dad Seamus Finnigan. Thant's how we know them."

"And over there are the rest of the first years." said Scorpius pointing to a huddle.

"The kid with brown curly hair is Daniel Morden and the one with brown hair and blue eyes is Michael Stone, they're both muggle born and share our dorm. The pale boy is Jean-Paul Blanc. He's French and doesn't speak much English, he share's our dorm too. We don't know anything about his parents. "

"So that." Scorpius finished. "Is Philip East." He pointed to last boy in the huddle.

"He's muggle born, too." Al added. "Declan mentioned him earlier. Poor boy, he ends up with a roomful of nutters. But I like our dorm, no one stares." Scorpius nodded in agreement. Caly took a deep breath and then asked the big question.

"Why does everyone stare at you?" There was a pause when Rose, Al and Scorpius all looked at each other.

"It's kind of a long story." said Scorpius finally.

"Yeah really long." Rose said

"But I want to know, I kinda need to know if I'm gonna be friends with you guys."

"She as a point." Al said seriously. He shifted to face Caly. "This is going to be one hell of a tale." He took a deep breathe and collected his thoughts. "It all starts, I guess, with the Gaunts and the Riddles in Little Hangleton. Now the Gaunts were a pure bloodist, muggle hating family. They were a really old family descendent from Salazar Slytherin himself and proud of it. However the family squandered their money and by the time of the last generation of Gaunts they were living in poverty. Mavolo Gaunt was the father and he had a son Morphin and a daughter Merope. Now the Riddle family were rich muggles. Tom Riddle Snr.'s father was the squire of the village."

"How come he was Tom Riddle Snr. if he didn't have children?"

"'Cause he didn't have a kid yet and it's easier to refer to him as Tome Riddle Snr. Now don't interrupt it's long enough as it is. Where was I, oh right yeah, Merope had fallen in love with Riddle Snr. but of course he didn't know she existed and her family knew nothing of this. Now at one point Morphin attacked Tom Snr. and he was summoned to a hearing but he didn't go quietly, him and his father put up a fight and they were both tried and sent to Azkaban. Azkaban is the wizard prison." Albus added quickly, correctly guessing Caly's next question. "This left Merope alone in the house and one day she and Tom Snr ran off together. We don't know how but my dad reckons she used a love potion. When her dad was released from Azkaban he returned to find his daughter gone, run off with the squires, muggle son. He died shortly after. Nothing is known after that for a while but then Merope turns up penniless in London and Tom Snr is back in his house with his parents talking about enchantments and what not."

"Why?"

"Well, this is just a guess, my dad thinks that Merope, for some reason, stopped giving the potion, maybe because she thought he might actually love her by now but most probably she expected him to stay for the baby."

"Baby?"

"Yeah she was pregnant but he didn't stay he left and didn't give her a second thought. Now Merope had only one thing of value and that was an old locket, a family heirloom that was supposedly Slytherin's. She took it to a shop for artefact, Borgin and Burkes, and tried to sell it to them. At first Burke didn't really believe it was Slytherin's but he checked and it was. This made it near priceless but instead he gave her 10 galleons." Caly's mouth dropped open.

"Heartless man."

"Too right. Anyway Merope had the baby had a muggle orphanage and named the baby Tom Marvolo Riddle, she dies pretty soon after that so they kept the baby. Fast forward 11 years and Dumbledore comes to give Tom his Hogwarts letter. He finds out that Tom is a quiet, strange friendless boy who frightens the other children. He has much more control over his abilities than most young wizards and already uses it to hurt others. He takes trophies from those that he's victimised and he can talk to snakes. He doesn't think his mother is a witch because she succumbed to death." Al paused and looked very seriously at Caly. "That might seem irrelevant but trust me it'll come back. He came to Hogwarts and he was sorted into Slytherin, he was a quiet, talented, good looking boy. In Slytherin house he gathered followers of sorts and they became the first of the Death Eaters."

"The what?"

"You'll understand later. In his fifth year at Hogwarts he was a prefect and he received the award for special services to the school for 'catching' the person who opened the Chamber of Secrets."

"The Chamber of what? And what do you mean by 'catching'?"

"You'll understand later." Caly rolled her eyes. "Around the time of his sixth year he had searched all the school records and could find no trace of a Tom Riddle and it was then, my father thinks, he dropped the name Tom Riddle and assumed the title Lord Voldermort." He paused again and looked at Caly.

"Am I supposed to react to that?"

"Oh right sorry. However he did find out about the Gaunts and so he went to the old house. He met Morphin and from him learnt about the Riddles. He went over to their manor house and murdered his father and grandparents, he modified his uncles memory so it looked like he did it and stole another old heirloom, a ring with the Peverll coat of arms." Caly sat stunned. She couldn't speak so Al continued. "He returned to Hogwarts and then he asked Professor Slughorn about horcruxes."

"About what?"

"Just wait a second. Professor Slughorn is the type that hugely favours students, he does this because they have talent, ambition or are well connected. You'll see in a couple of lessons. Tom was one of his favourite students which is why Tom asked him, unfortunately Slughorn answered him. He told Tom that a horcrux is when a wizard has taken a piece of their soul and concealed it in an object. One does this by killing, killing is an act against nature and therefore rips the soul in two. The wizard then contains it in an object. This way they cannot truly die if something happens to them because a part of their soul lives on. Riddle thought making seven would make him stronger, he wanted to make seven Horcruxes."

"Christ." Caly said softly. The others gave her curious expressions. "Muggle expression."

"Anyways, after Hogwarts Riddle went to work at Borgin and Burkes. He helped them acquire objects to sell. This wasn't his first choice job, he wanted to teach at Hogwarts but Dippet, the Headmaster at the time, said he was too young at 18 and should come back in a year or two. After a while at working at Borgin and Burkes he came across Hebzibah Smith. She was a descendent of Hufflepuff and she had a cup that was Hufflepuffs and she had the locket that was his mothers. Some time after he discovered this Hebzibah was found dead and the cup and the locket gone. Their house elf Hockey was blamed because she remembered putting something in the tea that wasn't sugar but Riddle had modified her memory. I can't remember how long after that he went back to Hogwarts and reapplied for the defence against the dark arts job but Dumbledore turned him down. Now the timeline from here on is not so good but I know he started taking over, gathering followers; mainly Slytherins. People who wanted power came to him, he promised dementors and werewolves prey and the giants a place in society, so to speak.

Now I kind of need to tell another story but I'll keep this short. It's the story of the grandparents I never met. Lily Evans, as she was then, was muggle born and didn't know anything about magic until she met Severus Snape. He told her all about magic, they were the same age and they became best friends but from that moment on Snape loved Lily. They went to Hogwarts and Lily was in Gryffindor and Snape was in Slytherin but they were still friends. Now my granddad James Potter had a group of friends, I told you about, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. James loved Lily from the moment he saw her too but she thought he was an arrogant git, and he was a little bit. James hated Snape. Also James was this popular talented Quidditch star everyone loved. Remus was a werewolf so the planted the whomping willow over a secret passage to the shrieking shack so he could transform there. He didn't tell James, Sirius or Peter though but James and Sirius figured it out for themselves, as did Snape. Instead of ditching him as a friend they became animagi because werewolves are only a danger to humans."

"Ani-what?"

"Animagi are wizards who can turn into animals."

"Wicked."

"Yeah, they managed it in fifth year. James became a stag, Sirius a dog and Peter a rat. In fifth year, one time when James and Sirius were picking on Snape when Lily came to his rescue but he called he a mudblood, they were never friends again. By seventh year James was a little less arrogant and he and Lily went out. However Voldermort, Riddle, whatever you want to call him, was taking over everywhere. James, Lily, Sirius, Remus and Peter joined the Order of the Phoenix. It was the anti-Voldermort movement set up by Dumbledore. Snape was a death eater but one day he over heard an old Professor here called Tralawney giving a prophecy. It said that the one who could destroy Voldermort was nearly about to be born, he'd be born to parents who had evaded Voldermort three times. It also said that Riddle would mark him as his equal and he'd have powers that Voldermort didn't but Snape didn't hear that bit because he'd run off to tell Riddle that. Now the prophecy referred to two people; my dad and Professor Longbottom. His parents were the aurors Frank and Alice Longbottom. Riddle decided however to go after my dad; Harry Potter. When Snape found out that Voldermort was hunting Lily's son he switched sides and became a spy for Dumbledore. However the order had a rat too, someone close to the Potters. They were placed under the fidelius charm. It's basically the location of their house was stored inside the secret keeper, so you could only go in/see it if the secret keeper told you. They selected Sirius and then less than a week after they'd gone into hiding Riddle turned up. He killed James and told Lily he'd let her live if she stepped aside and let him kill dad but Lily wouldn't move, she died to try and save him. Then Voldermort turned his wand and cast the killing curse on dad but it rebounded on Voldermort, he was destroyed, and all my dad got was a lightning shaped scar. Everyone thought Sirius had betrayed the Potters and Peter came to track in down. He shouted for all the muggles to hear how Sirius had betrayed Lily and James. Then apparently Sirius blew up the street, killing 12 muggles and Peter. The biggest bit they could find was a finger. Hagird took my dad out of the ruined house and flew him to his aunt and uncles. Dumbledore left him on the doorstep with a letter explaining what had happened. He didn't remember any of it happening but from then on my dad was

Harry Potter, the boy-who-lived."

Al talked for another hour at least. He detailed the adventures that his father had at Hogwarts. How he saved the philosophers, killed a basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets whilst discovering Riddle had opened it and framed Hagrid and saving Ginny, Al's mum, who had been possessed by Riddle, used a time turner to save his godfather, competed in the tri-wizard, saw Voldermorts re-birth and escaped, came in and out of the department of mysteries alive the only people to do that who weren't unspeakables, how he witnessed Dumbledore's death and how he went on a near year long journey to destroy the remaining Horcruxes, how he sacrificed himself for all the people in Hogwarts and ultimately defeating Voldermort. He explained how Peter Pettigrew had betrayed his friends and tricked everyone. How so many had lost their lives. How his father had been the master of death. All the time accompanied by his best friends Ron and Hermione, Rose's parents. To say Caly was awe struck was an understatement. No wonder people stared. Blimey. She was speechless, Scorpius was grinning at her as she struggled to find words.

"Well, I guess, history isn't always boring." They all burst out laughing and crept up the stairs to their dormitories.