I don't own Harry Potter. But I would like to say I really, really want to. Like really badly.

Chapter 5: I'd Really Rather Not…

(Harridan is now Hadrian. Thanks for the heads up!)

Lily Potter was waiting for her son to start explaining. It was not often she felt both worry, extreme anger, and mild annoyance all at once. That house elf really had some nerve. Not letting her see and hold Emily. Her own baby!

She told Hokey to get Harry because of what the stupid new elf kept saying. "Master Harry told Tizzy to take care of Master Harry's Emmy. Tizzy is not letting Master Harry's Emmy near stranger!" She popped away after that.

Lily had gotten so angry and almost immediately just as sad. She remembered how James had acted the night before. So cold and indifferent towards her and Emily. She felt so abandoned. All alone in the world. With no Emily to hold or Harry to talk to, Henry was never one to show his mother love, and James was off not caring much about her at all.

These thoughts brought her to tears and she began to cry. Not long after she heard Harry come in asking about why she called for him. She looked at his concerned face and thought of how mature he was for someone so young. 'It's odd really. Kind of like he's a little man.'

Then the confusion and anger came back. Voicing her questions and demands she was met with what she thought to be guilty silence from Harry. She was now out of patience. But before she could go off Harry had spoken. She was stunned.

Scene Break

Harry had a tough choice to make. He didn't know his mother to well because the last time he knew her she was a terrible person in his opinion. To him she loved no one who couldn't get her what she wanted in life. But he had come to realized that it was James who was at the root of the problem.

But faced with her questions of Dobby and Tizzy he came to a new realization. She was smart. Too smart. Sooner or later his mother would ask the questions he didn't want to answer. And if she did, if she was as relentless in getting the answers she wanted as she was in his past, he might as well give up everything.

He knew all too well that he was, in her eyes as of this moment, her little boy. A child. A fear he'd never felt before was in the pit of his stomach. 'What if she rejects me? As childish as that sounds, it's a real possibility.'

It was sad that he didn't know Lily's extenuating circumstances or else he'd have known that it was almost a physical impossibility for Lily to reject Harry after the time they've spent together. Before his rebirth Harry wasn't really loved from the beginning do Lily focused so much love and time on Henry that Harry wasn't one of her vital connections.

Unsurprisingly, her fractured psyche is the reason behind her swift mood swings. It lessens her hold on her emotions and practically forces them onto her sleeve. When she gets angry she's livid but can just as easily get sad out of concern.

Back to his thoughts he came to a decision. A really very hard decision that completely sucked in his opinion. 'She might kill me but she probably won't. Maybe' "We need to talk about…things"

She raised an eyebrow at this. "And just what things do we need to talk about?" She was still angry but kept her voice low so she didn't wake Emily. 'Thank you Emily. Angry and loud would not be good.'

"I am not who you think I am." 'Please let this not be a mistake.' Most traces of anger gone from her face she sat up confused. Harry spoke out again. "Muffliato." A strong silencing charm engulfed the room.

"Wh- Harry did you-" "Just let me finish. I would never had told you this had you not proven yourself completely terrifying when angry and also stubborn as hell." "Hadrian James, language!" He winced. 'Damn it! How does she do that?'

"This is a very sad story that I will not tell twice. Ask as many questions as you can now because I doubt I'll answer them later." He began the story of his life. It was shorter than you'd expect but very informative so Lily had few questions to ask.

"So, what do you think?"

Scene Break

Xenophilius and Pandora were in the kitchen talking. Luna had gone to bed earlier that night. Pandora was saddened at the turn of events. The healers had told her that the more severe burns on her body wouldn't be fully healed for a long time.

She was a woman who was passionate about her potion making. The burns she had limited the use of her hands and thus prevented her from making potions. Xenophilius, who was very much attuned to his wife, knew what she was feeling.

He has spent the last week trying to cheer her up and bring back her usual happy self but all to no avail. Pandora could recognize his efforts and felt grateful her husband was trying but it was hard. To never do what you love for such a long time, if ever again would depress anybody.

However, unknown to her, it wouldn't be long before her troubles were over. She merely needed to wait a few more months and her problems would be gone. This would be the result of Luna's hard work.

But for now The Quibbler would have a new reporter on its payroll.

Scene Break

Luna Lovegood was one of many seers in her family. The only difference between them and her was that she actively see the various outcomes and separate the ones that may happen and the ones that will happen.

Doing so has allowed her to prevent many catastrophes in the year that she's been seeing these futures. Normally a two year old, even by magical standards, should have nowhere near the intelligence she has. However most two year olds are not Luna Lovegood.

The futures she sees influence her constantly. Her knowledge, her personality, her ability to understand and comprehend. All of these are no less than that of a fully grown witch or wizard. She has been in a constant state of learning since birth and has come out on top because of it.

However she is not the only seer to be born with this gift. Most seers, assumed to just be smarter than the average child their age, as children are more intelligent than others would be. But as one would expect from such an advanced seer, not that anyone knows she is, she is beyond others.

The only way to accurately describe her situation is to compare it with Harry's. While Harry has come back to the past, his past, with knowledge of his future Luna never left but has knowledge of multiple futures both possible and definite.

Scene Break

A week and a half had gone by after Harry and Lily talked. It was not a good week. Actually it was pretty bad. Lily had withdrawn into herself. Aside from taking care of Emily and the occasional trip to Diagon Alley she didn't do much else. Harry felt he was to blame.

He told her the full extent of his life up until about a month ago. His past life, his suspicions of James, and even his possible plans for the future. He felt responsible for her behaving this way. Many times he was tempted to go up to her and beg for her forgiveness. But he just couldn't bring himself to do so.

He had never been so vulnerable before. So insecure about another person's opinion of him. The days of his past where he had spent every waking minute of his life surrounded by so many people yet still so alone left their marks on him. The fear of rejection after acceptance was crippling.

One day he decided to just go for it. He was a grown man after all. He needed to deal with it as such.

"Mum?" Silence. They were alone in the study; Tizzy had just put Emily down for a nap.. Lily had just gotten back from Ollivander's, from her apprenticeship, and James and Henry went to see James' gambling buddies. "I'm sorry. I know you're angry at me for lying. You probably don't even want to look at me. But I didn't choose this. I was sent back. For what reason I don't know. But…"

He didn't know what to say after that. It was a deafening silence that followed his apology. He was about to say something again when she got up. Harry watched as Lily crossed the room and stood in front of him. He waited for the slap, the yelling and cursing, the crying.

A hug. Lily had kneeled down and given him a hug. "Don't you dare apologize to me. Not to me or anyone else. And I'm not mad at you Harry. I'm ashamed of myself. Ashamed of what I- she did to you. How I could have turned into that I'll never know. But I am sorry you had to go through that. I can't do much to fix it, but I can still be your mother. Grown man in a child's body or not."

Harry didn't know what to say. So he said nothing and just hugged her back; and they stayed like that for a while.

Lily was the first to speak. "So, James is actually…that bad." Harry looked across the room. "Yes. He ruined this family with his gambling. We lost everything. I've tried to save us with my knowledge of what companies succeed in the future but, now I'm thinking we should abandon ship."

"What do you mean?" Lily could accept that James would lead them to a life with shallow pockets. He was a big gambler no matter how many times she tried to get him to stop. And lately he's been started to drink too.

"I mean, we need to shed ourselves of the Potter name. Or at the very least you do. I know for a fact that James doesn't check with Gringotts too often. Even then it's just to withdraw more money. If he continues down this set path then we have until my second year of Hogwarts until the Potter family fortune runs dry." Harry wasn't done.

"But if we keep putting in money to make sure he doesn't ever need to do a serious looksee through the Potter business' then we can last until my fifth year. It can be done rather easily. Pretty good for a month worth of planning and effort if I do say so myself." Harry had to catch his breath. That was kind of a mouthful.

Lily was thinking and it was several minutes before she said anything. "What if we open a new vault? A new family vault. One where only you and I have access. I think my love for James is all but gone now so I have few problems with screwing the git over."

Harry smiled and laughed. Genius! How did he not think of that? "That's perfect. I say Ms. Evans you are quite the Slytherin, aren't you?" Lily laughed and ruffled his hair. 'This is good. Great, even. Better than I could have possibly hoped for. James is going down and me and mum will be better off because of it.' Things were looking up.

Scene Break

Luna tied the note to her family owl Grover. "Take this to Harry, Grover. This is your most important mission yet. Do hurry back." Grover hooted with duty and flew off as fast as his little wings could carry him.

"And now we wait. Hopefully he's one of the nicer Harrys. Some of him are just plain rude." To the average person Luna was talking to herself. To those who understood, Luna was talking to herself.

Scene Break

Harry woke up with a smile on his face. Today was the day. His birthday had come and he was now eleven. His Hogwarts letter should be here soon. 'Today is the day our years of hard work comes to fruition.' He looked out of his bedroom window.

'So much has happened these last few years it's amazing. So many changes made all for one purpose. Our purpose. Mum and her sister getting together and working out their issues, Emily growing up into who she should have been after all, James and Henry being kicked to the curb. Mum is still rather upset about Henry. He's become so arrogant and entitled.'

A disappointed sigh left him. 'I tried to change him but he's too set in his ways. I'm sorry to say he's a lost cause. James. That manipulative bastard. If only I'd tried to help sooner. Maybe I could have done something. Or maybe I'm just blaming James for my failure...I don't know.'

"Hadrian James Potter! You had better be down here in one minute if you want any of the cake I made!" 'Mum's show voice.' After years of Lily and Harry working together and plotting the course of events they had developed several ways of alerting the other to various situations.

When Lily scolded him in a loud Molly Weasley-esque manner there were people present. When she called him Hadrian she was either playing the role of angry mother or actually angry with him. It's hard to tell if you're not used to her temper.

"Coming mum!" 'Here we go.' Hurrying down the stairs he walked into a room with many recognizable faces, and hair. From across the room he could see a mass of redheads spread out around the room.

Harry had made himself friends with the Weasley family simply because he liked them. Well, most of them. Percy was rough around the edges but once you got past that then he was a pretty cool guy. Loyalty was something Harry required of his friends above all other things. He learned that lesson the hard way in a previous life that he tries not to dwell on.

Molly, loud as she was, always had Harry's interests at heart. Commenting on how skinny he was and needed to eat more, talking to him about the dangers of flying on a broom. She was kind of like a mum away from mum. 'Not necessarily a bad thing' he once thought.

Arthur was, to his understanding, the opposite of Molly. He was always calm and collected. A very warm and caring person who was passionate about what he did. Muggles always interested Harry as well. And when he lived among them during his years on the run he learned a lot.

These past few years he had been actively talking to Arthur, anonymously of course, about Muggles and their current ways of life. Having an ill-informed Head of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office was not really helping anyone. It was one of his side projects that he and Lily took turns on.

Fred and George Weasley were, in Harry's opinion, worth being friendly with. Despite their pranks and seemingly non-committal personalities, they were intelligent and very reliable young men. When you were with them, they were with you and Harry respected them.

Harry had met Bill and Charlie Weasley a handful of times in the past but they always gave him a good vibe. He found them to be rather friendly with everybody. He would keep an eye out for them if possible.

Ron, however, had been the one Weasley he could not stand. Even when he barely knew Ron in his other life he always seemed so shallow. Now that he's met him, he can honestly say that Ron is shallow. He didn't see them being friends in the meantime, if ever.

And finally, Ginny. Ginny was exactly as he remembered her being; sans the fanatical interest in his brother the 'Boy-Who-Lived'. It had taken a lot longer than he would have liked to rid her of the notion that Henry was anything more than he is. After that he had gotten to know her and found that he regretted not knowing her before. Or at the very least not acknowledging her advances. That was one mistake he wouldn't make again.

Moving on, he saw the Malfoys. He didn't know much about the Malfoys personally last time. Only what others said about them. Luckily he had met Draco early on in his life so they grew to be rather close. The only thing he knew about Draco was that he grew up to be rather bigoted. And considering who his father is and how he acts, that is rather surprising. Ex death eater sure, but he has come to regret those days so old Draco's behavior was still a mystery to Harry.

Narcissa was one of the few people who scared him. Not because she was more powerful but because she had what he calls 'The Look'. He didn't know how they had developed it, but the women in his life each managed to develop one. Molly, Lily, Narcissa, Bellatrix, Andromeda. All of them. 'It's one of the mysteries of life' Harry would think to himself as he would often receive one for one reason or another. His only hope was that Emily didn't develop one.

Andromeda, Ted, and Nymphadora couldn't make it to the party because of a prior engagement with a family member from Ted's side of the family. Harry didn't blame them but Henry sure did. He made his displeasure known in the form of a rather hurtful howler to Nymphadora. But that is a story for a later date because right now:

""Happy Birthday Henry! Happy Birthday Harry!"" Right now it's time for cake.

Scene Break

The cake had been eaten, the guests had left, and all the leftover food had been packed and put away. Not even seven o'clock yet and a sudden tapping on the window had drawn Harry's attention. His mother was washing dishes, his father passed out on the couch, and his brother absorbed in his gifts. He received the letter and recognized the writing.

"Hogwarts letters are here!" 'Now it begins.' Lily walked in the room and the two shared a look. Nodding, Harry opened the letter and feigned his surprise.