Chapter 11

Harry sat down at the rustic table in the dusty basement kitchen, V remaining steadfast on his shoulder, while Sirius sat down opposite him and Remus rummaged around to get some tea started. Snape parked himself against the wall beside the door, face obscured by a curtain of black hair but his eyes as sharp as ever. Lily hovered beside him, had been sticking to him like a burr ever since the previous night. James floated beside Harry while staring at his old friends with the biggest, looniest grin on his face. The rest of Harry's family was keeping an eye on some of the bigger players in the wizarding world, because Harry wanted to know what was happening around him in detail.

He'd sent both Auntie Eustice and Charis to spy on Dumbledore. Harry didn't trust that man one bit, no matter his parents had always spoken well of him. That old man had been far too ecstatic to see Harry suddenly returned.

While he wouldn't admit it out loud anytime soon, Harry was glad his parents were with him, had been with him the entire day, because even though Harry had heard all about the wizarding world for his entire life, he was feeling a little out of sorts suddenly finding himself stuck in it.

Santika was his home, and while Harry was genuinely curious about the wizarding world and he was certain he would enjoy spending some time in it, he did miss his home, especially because he wasn't sure if he could ever return there. Or even if he should.

"So where were you?" Remus asked as he served them all hot cups of tea. All except Snape, who declined Remus' offer with a sneer and simply returned to silently staring at Harry. "Are the stories of you living in a different world really true?" Remus sat down opposite Harry and gave him a mild smile and a curious look.

Harry sipped his tea, after he quietly ran his magic through it to search for potions, because no matter these were his parents' old friends, Harry wasn't a fool. "I grew up in Santika. Attended a school for sorcery there."

Over the years Harry had learned that the best ways to communicate with strangers was to tell them as little as possible while still giving the appearance of answering all of their questions truthfully. Harry liked to think he'd gotten quite good at it.

"That must have been a shock, to find yourself in a different world all of a sudden," Remus asked while Sirius just kept staring at Harry with a slight frown, as if he couldn't quite believe that the man sitting opposite him was really the son of his deceased best friend.

Harry shrugged and sipped more tea. "It really wasn't. The Dursleys kept me in a closet and starved me, so moving to a magical school where I had a warm bed and three meals a day was a vast improvement." Harry narrowed his eyes as he stared from Remus to Sirius and back a few times. "I really would like to know how I ended up with my mother's non-magical family while I'm sure you were supposed to look after me."

A pained grimace appeared on Sirius' face. "It's all my fault. I buggered it up." And with slumped shoulders, Sirius buried his face in his trembling hands.

Gently, Harry extended his magic to brush against the other men's souls, to get a feel for them. Remus, as expected had a dual soul. They were still one whole, but with two distinct halves. Snape's soul was whole, but had a bitter feel to it, with a touch of darkness.

And Sirius' soul was a brittle thing, frayed all around the edges as though many creatures had been nibbling on it for years and years.

"That night, I went after Wormtail. Gave you to Hagrid," Sirius muttered, not meeting Harry's eyes with his own, gaze firmly fixated on the table between them. "I'm sorry."

"I told you!" Lily yelled across the kitchen. "I told you, James, that Sirius was far too immature to be Harry's godfather, but did you listen?"

James was staring down at Sirius with an utterly disappointed look on his face. "Damn it, Padfoot. I had expected better of you."

"I told you!" Lily said one last time, just to get her point across.

"What happened next?" Harry asked when it seemed Sirius needed some gentle pressure to keep talking. "Why did you never come for me then?"

"Wormtail lured me into a trap," Sirius said in a hoarse voice. "Blew up the street and disappeared down the sewers. They believed I was the secret-keeper, tossed me into Azkaban, skipped the trial and threw away the key."

It took everything Harry had to not show surprise on his face at that revelation. Officially, Harry had no clue what Azkaban really was, of course, but he was shocked to learn his godfather had been in prison.

"I told you!" Lily yelled again, arms firmly crossed as she glared at her husband from across the kitchen. "I told you we should have written and filed a will, in which we documented who the real secret-keeper was, but no, you insisted that writing it down anywhere at all was much too risky."

James had his head bent and pinched the bridge of his hose while slowly shaking his head. "How the hell did that all go to shit so fast?" he mumbled while Harry kept his own face a blank mask. Thank fuck he'd had many years of experience of not reacting in public to what his invisible family was saying around him.

"What's Azkaban?" Harry asked, because it was something he should be asking to keep up the charade of his ignorance.

"A magical prison," Remus explained delicately while Sirius shuddered beside him. "It's guarded by dementors, foul creatures that cause misery and can suck out a person's soul."

"I didn't do it!" Sirius said as he whipped his head up and glared at Harry with a feral kind of urgency. "I swear it, Harry, I didn't betray your parents."

"No one ever told me you did, so it is of no matter to me," Harry replied with a smile and an easy shrug. Beside him James snorted in amusement at how Harry worded that particular piece of truth without giving anything away. "So they let you out of that prison now?"

Sirius shook his head, face scrunched up in a grimace again. "I escaped, after I learned Wormtail was hiding at Hogwarts. But that scum got away and I'm still on the run."

Harry blinked, while his parents both inhaled sharp, disbelieving breaths. Sirius was still a fugitive, wanted for crimes he didn't commit. Harry knew that at the first opportunity he was going to discuss this with his family, see how they could exonerate Sirius and give him his freedom back officially.

A rather stifling silence followed and Remus broke it after a few minutes by offering Harry a sympathetic smile. "You were pulled here unexpectantly, weren't you? Did you have any friends you left behind? Maybe a girlfriend?"

A wave of grief washed over Harry as he remembered his children. Once Harry had started rebuilding Sildar, he never considered starting a family of his own even though he encouraged others to do so. But a few years after the first families had returned to the island, Harry had been travelling on the mainland, searching for more magical people. He'd felt particularly lonely that evening as he found himself in an inn that served cheap yet excellent wine. There he met a beautiful young woman named Mal, with long, black hair, dark skin and green eyes, and Harry had been in his cups enough that he didn't even mind that Mal expected a few coins for her company. Harry spent the night in her bed, fucked her three times, and went on his way the next morning, never realizing he'd completely forgotten to use any contraceptive charms.

When he returned to that town some five years later, he came across a young boy who was the spitting image of himself, save for the darker skin, and who stole apples from a cart by floating them towards his hiding spot in a nearby alley.

That's how Harry learned he had a son, a boy of four named Bildar, and he moved both the kid and Mal to Sildar, where he set them up in a house near his own and Mal started a market garden to earn some coins as she looked after her son, while Harry made sure they lacked for nothing.

Both Harry and Mal were independent souls, liked their privacy and their freedom, and while they got along great they never lived together and were never exclusive in their relationship. James called them 'friends with benefits', and that seemed a good enough description.

Both Harry and Mal enjoyed having a child together so much that Harry fathered three more children with her, all girls. Jontar came soon after Mal moved to Sildar, and five years later the twins Roydir and Rindyll followed.

And Harry enjoyed raising his kids and teaching them magic, and whenever he was away, travelling the mainland, he left a few family members behind to teach the kids wizarding magic, just like they'd done with Harry all those years ago. James and Lily were doting grandparents, happy to help wherever they could.

And as his kids grew up they'd given Harry a whopping 23 grandchildren. People were encouraged to have large families on Sildar, to grow the magical population. And since the available healthcare was free and of excellent quality, the jobs were plentiful and the food was abundant, most babies born on the island made it to adulthood and went on to have many children of their own.

Harry had lost count of the number of great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren he had. Seriously, he'd stopped counting when the number topped 150.

Mal had been gone for many years now, and even Bildar and Jontar were already dead, and Roydir and Rindyll were beyond old and frail and wouldn't be long for the world of the living.

Harry missed them, but knew that once they died he could talk to them as much as he liked, so he could bear the grief that filled him.

Blinking, Harry looked around the room, realizing that he'd silently been reminiscing much too long on his loved ones. He offered Remus a weak smile and said, "I had a girlfriend once. She died. I'd rather not talk about it."

"How old are you?" Sirius asked while Remus lowered his head in understanding.

"Apparently I'm at least twice as old as I should be," Harry supplied with a crooked grin. He wasn't going to tell these men his true age, since he did not trust them enough to divulge any of his secrets, especially when those secrets included so much dark magic and death.

Harry was well aware that his magic of choice, necromancy, was highly illegal in the wizarding world. This bothered him, but he hadn't had the time yet to really consider what to do about it.

"How curious," Remus said with a thoughtful nod. "That time can flow so differently."

"I didn't even know it flowed differently in Santika," Harry agreed with a genial smile. "Until I came here and everyone expected me to be fourteen."

Another few minutes of silence followed as they all finished their tea. It was extraordinarily weird to see the people Harry had heard stories about since he was a kid, in the flesh. Remus seemed a lot more closed and cautious than his fictional counterpart suggested, and Sirius a lot more broken.

Snape, though, seemed a lot like the version Harry had always heard about, and it amused him to no end to see his father scowl in the man's direction every now and then. Harry wasn't sure yet what to make of the man. He knew Snape had sided with Voldemort in the past, but given that he was a free man today and even employed at Hogwarts, there was obviously more going on than Harry knew. Of course, Harry was determined to find out everything about Severus Snape and had assigned his mother to spy on him from now on, much to his father's chagrin.

Hopefully James would be happy to stick with Sirius and Remus from now on, to see what was really going on with those two behind closed doors.

"We knew your parents," Sirius finally said, and then realized he'd rather stated the obvious. "I mean, we could tell you about them."

Nodding, Harry gave his godfather a grateful smile. "I would be happy to listen." And he would be happy to hear about his parents' life from an outsider. Who knew what kind of dirt Sirius and Remus had on James and Lily that his parents had carefully kept from their son all these years? "I do have some early memories of them. James and Lily Potter. They seemed like wonderful, loving parents."

"Aww," Lily crooned while looking at Harry with stars in her eyes. Meanwhile, James snorted and gently smacked Harry on the back of his head in an affectionate gesture with a non-corporal hand, causing V to startle and flap his wings a few times.

"Oh yes," Remus agreed quickly. "They loved you very much, Harry."

"They were amazing friends," Sirius added with a solemn nod. "Light wizards through and through. Always ready to stand against the dark."

Harry frowned, even though perhaps he shouldn't, but he couldn't help himself. But perhaps he could spin his supposed ignorance in a way that might help him find a solution for the magical conundrum he found himself stuck with. "Is this a problem here?" Harry asked with a curious tilt of his head. "Dark magic?"

"Of course!" Sirius said at once, sitting up straighter in his chair and giving Harry a challenging look as though daring him to disagree. "Decent witches and wizards avoid dark magic at all costs, as they should."

Pointedly looking around, Harry waved around the kitchen with a nonchalant gesture. "Yet this house is filled to the brim with dark magic and you seem to live here."

"It was my parents' house," Sirius said with a sulk. "Wretched people."

"He's dark," Harry said with an amused little smile as he gestured at Snape still lurking near the door.

"Well, Snivellus is a wretched person, too, isn't he?" Sirius firmly crossed his arms, leaning back in his chair while Remus sighed in irritation beside him.

Snape didn't rise to the bait Sirius had just thrown out but instead kept staring at Harry. "You seem to know an awful lot about dark magic, if you can identify it so easily in others," Snape said, voice silky smooth.

"In Santika we made no difference between light and dark magic," Harry explained easily, figuring it was best to get that information out there as soon as possible because it would be impossible for him to hide he was in essence a dark wizard once he started using magic around other people. "We were taught both, we used both in our daily lives, and it worked well for our society. Some sorcerers naturally lean more to one or the other, but everyone was taught at least the basics of both."

"There are those here that advocate for such an approach as well," Remus said while Sirius was staring at Harry in obvious shock.

"Yeah, dark wizards, Moony!" Sirius gave his friend an utterly betrayed look.

"And grey wizards," Remus supplied in an utterly neutral tone. "And even a few light wizards."

"All good, all good," V cawed from Harry's shoulder. V had been surprisingly silent until that moment, but Harry suspected it might be because V was anxious to find out what had happened to his original soul. So far the only thing they'd learned was that Voldemort was dead, had died that night when he'd murdered James and Lily, but that was all they knew.

Yet Harry knew Voldemort couldn't be dead, because he had a piece of his soul sitting on his shoulder right at that moment.

Another mystery to solve.

"No, it's not all good," Sirius snarled at an unrepentant V. "Dark wizards have almost destroyed our society and murdered our friends."

"All of them?" Harry challenged his godfather gently. "Was it all dark wizards who did that?"

"No," Remus answered for his friend when all Sirius did was scowl in response.

"Perhaps it is time to wrap up this conversation," Snape said as he stepped away from the wall. "So you can continue your political debate another time, when I don't have to suffer through it."

"Nobody invited you here, Snivellus," Sirius snarled, and Remus quickly placed a calming hand on his friend's shoulder.

"I do have lots of things to do, still," Harry agreed easily as he pushed his chair back and got up with a quiet groan. Being forced through an interdimensional portal had been quite painful and a persistent ache still lingered in his muscles. "Get my home set up so I can sleep in my own bed tonight for starters."

"Of course." Remus rose as well while Sirius sat sulking in his chair, staring at the opposite wall with a blank gaze. Harry suspected the dementors had done a lot of damage to Sirius' soul, if the fraying edges were any indication. Harry might be able to heal it with a ritual of sorts, but given Sirius' attitude against dark magic Harry wasn't sure if he should even suggest such a thing. A ritual like that was soul magic, one of the darkest kinds of magic there was.

"We hope you'll visit again soon, Harry." Remus accompanied them up the stairs and opened the front door for them.

"I will. I might get an owl, so I can send you some letters." Harry offered his parents' friend a genuine smile before heading out the dark hallway into the daylight. "I'll see you soon."

"Goodbye, Harry." And with that Remus closed the door and Harry followed Snape down the street.

"I know you are keeping secrets," Snape said in a quiet yet penetrating voice the moment they crossed the street.

Harry glanced to the side and offered Snape a terribly amused smile. "Of course I'm keeping secrets. Just like you are. We've barely met, after all, and we've had very little time to get to know each other. I don't know what you expect of me, but two strangers keeping secrets when they first meet seems like the standard setting for all human interaction."

Blinking, Snape whipped his head around and glared at Harry, seemingly unsure if Harry was making fun of him or not. Harry wasn't, not really, but Snape didn't seem to agree with that and smacked his hand down on Harry's shoulder and apparated them to the Hogwarts gates as roughly as he probably could.

Thankfully Harry had been apparating his entire life and was used to it, so he stayed on his feet, even if V flapped his wings in annoyance. "Weak wizard, weak wizard," V cawed while narrowing his beady eyes at Snape, who simply ignored the bird even if his jaws clenched a time or two at being so openly insulted.

Snape said nothing at all as he marched through the gates and away from Harry, apparently done with playing chaperone for the day. Harry didn't mind. He planned on finding Keket and setting up his home in the forest so he could have some privacy and come up with some plans with his family.

"Potter!" Moody came clunking towards him across the lawn, apparently having been lying in wait, Patroclus floating by his side. Patroclus had worked with Moody when Moody had been an eager new Auror while Patroclus served as the Head of Magical Law Enforcement before his retirement, and thus Harry's great-grandfather had volunteered to spy on his former colleague.

"Lad," Moody said as he reached Harry, sounding slightly out of breath. "Do you have time for a chat now? This lack of security bothers me, that children can be snatched away like you've been."

"Sure," Harry said because he could tell by the frown on Patroclus' face that something very interesting was going on.

"That man is not Alastor Moody," Patroclus said while Harry followed Moody to the castle. "I saw him fill his hipflask with Polyjuice potion and he takes a sip every hour on the dot. I don't know who he really is yet, but I will find out."

While keeping his expression under control, Harry couldn't help the sharp flash of excitement that rushed through him. He never had been able to resist a good mystery and apparently there were plenty of those to be found in the wizarding world.

Perhaps coming here hadn't been such a curse after all. Life in Santika had become a little…stale of late. Sildar was established and thriving, any conflicts internally and externally had long been dealt with and the people closest to Harry were old and dying. Here there were plenty of mysteries to solve and plots to uncover, and Harry clung to that notion so the grief at having lost his home would hopefully lessen sooner rather than later.

While they entered the castle, Harry subtly sent out his magic and brushed it against Moody's soul. What he found was a fairly young, eager soul, but obviously touched by dark magic.

Definitely not Alastor Moody. Even Harry knew, through the many stories his parents had told him of the Order of the Phoenix, that Moody was a staunch supporter and practitioner of the light.

Ugh. Harry was already growing tired of that silly divide. Even having to consider it in his own head seemed like too much trouble. Why couldn't people just accept magic in all its amazing facets instead of squabbling over the details?

Not-Moody led Harry to his office, which was cramped and full of spinning artifacts.

"Got to have eyes in the back of my head in my profession, lad," Moody said as they took seats around his desk. "Got to stay ahead of the enemy."

Harry nodded his understanding but otherwise remained quiet, while V turned this way or that on his shoulder to observe all the shiny trinkets around the office.

"So, you said this morning that the ritual that took you from us has been destroyed?" Moody said, his artificial eye briefly spinning before it focused on Harry.

"Yes, I burned the scrolls myself and I never read any of them, so that knowledge is gone for good."

"Excellent!" Moody's scarred face broke out into a wide grin. "And there are none that might try again in the future to make such a ritual?"

Harry shrugged. "I'm not a psychic, so I cannot predict the future, but the one who invented the ritual in the first place is dead."

Moody chuckled at that, artificial eye spinning again. "How are you settling in then, lad?"

It was obvious to Harry that this Not-Moody was buttering up to him, trying to become his friend. Seeing as Harry had no clue who he really was, he didn't feel very inclined to play along. Then again, if he acted the part of lost little lamb he might learn more about the mystery wizard sitting across from him.

Sighing, Harry shook his head, as though already very tired with his current circumstances. "It's been overwhelming, to tell you the truth." Perhaps Harry should throw out a little bait for his opponent. "I just learned that people make a big fuss about dark magic, see it as something evil." Harry looked up at Moody with wide, questioning eyes. "In Santika we never divided magic up like that. We learned magic, dark and light, and that was that."

Moody's expression tightened in a very peculiar way, as though he wanted to grin but simultaneously tried to look very serious. "Aye, in this world most people believe those two shouldn't mix." Moody leaned forward a little, staring at Harry over his desk. "Let me tell you a secret, lad. In my line of work you either learn that's a bunch of codswallop, or you don't make it for very long."

Patroclus snorted in obvious disagreement from the corner where he was floating.

"Truly?" Harry said with an eager little smile. "So there are people like me here, too?"

"Good, good," V cawed from his shoulder, and Harry could tell from his tone that he found the whole conversation entirely amusing.

"Maybe I'll introduce you to a few of them sometime." Moody slowly rose up from his chair. "It's time for lunch, though. You can join us in the Great Hall."

"I am getting hungry," Harry said as he too got up. It had been more than a few hours since he'd had breakfast in his guest room, so he was ready for a good meal.

The Great Hall was full of buzzing children, who all immediately fell silent as Harry entered. The girl Harry had met that morning, something Granger, waved at him and Harry nodded back at her in greeting.

Dumbledore rose from his seat, smile almost blinding as he waved Harry over. Harry had little choice but to sit down beside Dumbledore at the long teacher's table, since the headmaster had apparently been saving him a seat.

"Ugly hat, ugly hat," V cawed while glaring at the purple hat with silver stars Dumbledore was wearing. Beside them, Flitwick choked on his tea, while Harry sighed.

"You did warn me the bird was a troublemaker," Dumbledore said with a good-natured chuckle.

"Oh, you have no idea," Harry said, keeping his expression as one of polite amusement, but internally he was cracking up. "Veles is not one to keep his opinion to himself."

"Some might argue that's a perfectly fine trait," Dumbledore said pleasantly as he reached for a bowl of roast potatoes. "Did you have a productive morning?"

"Certainly," Harry said vaguely, not sure yet how much to tell Dumbledore about anything. "I particularly enjoyed my visit to the bookshop. In Santika, books are something of a rarity."

Dumbledore seemed genuinely shocked to hear that and he stared at Harry in surprise. "Then I must arrange for someone to show you the library here at Hogwarts."

"My chaperone already mentioned the library, so yes, I'd be happy to visit it sometime soon." And that is how Harry spent his meal beside Dumbledore, making polite small-talk while enjoying a fine lunch while a couple hundred kids stared at him non-stop.

V sat on Harry's arm and helped himself to whatever he liked from Harry's plate, as he usually did, but he otherwise kept quiet. Harry wondered what he was thinking about being back at Hogwarts. He knew V had always loved the castle, once upon a time when he'd been part of a whole person.

When the meal was finished and people started leaving the hall, Dumbledore turned to Harry with narrowed eyes. "Harry, might I trouble you to join me in my office now? There are a few important issues I want to talk to you about."

Harry inhaled a deep breath and then offered Dumbledore an apologetic smile. "Could we perhaps have this meeting tomorrow morning, perhaps after breakfast? I have had an eventful day already, and I would like to seek out Keket and see about setting up my home now."

"Of course, of course," Dumbledore agreed quickly. "You have had quite a shock, I understand. I will see you tomorrow after breakfast then."

As Harry left the hall there were quite a few students who seemed to want to talk to him, but Harry rushed past them while only offering them polite smiles. Thankfully he made it out of the castle without anyone stopping him, and when he reached the edge of the forest he already found Keket waiting for him.

"Did you find us a good spot?" Harry asked as he stroked her across her head.

Keket rumbled in agreement and loped off. Harry followed her, enjoying a nice stroll after his meal, while V took the time to stretch his wings as he soared between the trees.

The spot Keket had selected was lovely. A little meadow, surrounded by tall trees but with plenty of natural light, not that far from a gentle brook. Harry looked around, sending out his magic to get a feel for the place, and then he started applying wards all around the meadow. Snape's tales of giant spiders didn't sit that well with him, so powerful wards it was.

After the site had been prepared, Harry opened his satchel and summoned the box he kept his home in. It had taken a few decades to perfect this kind of magic, but Harry was now able to shrink his entire home and keep it safely in a box with him at all times, and then enlarging it whenever he had need of it.

And thus, like a pop-up tent, Harry arranged his home, a small castle these days, inside the meadow. It was a structure Harry had created for himself, piece by piece, inspired by all the stories of Hogwarts he'd heard from his family. Of course, now that he'd seen the real Hogwarts, Harry knew that his home was but a tiny interpretation of the real thing, but he still found it an utterly comfortable abode.

The moment Harry opened the oak doors, Igor was there to greet him with his customary, "Eurgh."

Igor was Harry's first successful foray into creating the walking dead. Or as Lily and his family insisted, making an inferius. Igor was a reanimated body without a soul, who was still capable of simple thought and was therefore also capable of following simple commands.

Igor was in essence Harry's undead butler. The body was one of a young man with a terminal disease which promised a drawn-out, painful death, who'd offered Harry the use of his body in return for a quick, painless death, which Harry had granted him by way of the killing curse.

It was Lily who had suggested Harry name him Igor, but why, Harry hadn't a clue.

"Can you get me some wine?" Harry asked his butler as he handed him his cloak while V flew inside the castle and circled around the entryway. After Keket slipped inside, Igor closed the door and Harry strolled through the stone corridor to the sitting room on the right while Keket followed the same route but then on the ceiling. He needed to think and organize his thoughts and set some priorities for what needed to be done.

Already he had a couple of mysteries to solve and that didn't even include the blasted tournament he was supposed to take part in. He needed to study that, too.

Before Harry could sit down on the couch in front of the fireplace, there was a knock on the door. Harry stood frozen for a second while he saw Igor shuffle through the corridor to answer it. Harry rushed after him, not sure if he wanted anyone in the wizarding world to see his undead butler just yet.

But Igor was quicker than he looked and had opened the door before Harry reached him. "Eurgh?"

Something Granger and two boys stood on his doorstep, gaping up at Igor with wide eyes.

"Thank you, you can go," Harry said, shouldering Igor to the side and looking down at the kids with an impatient smile. "Can I help you?"

Something Granger swallowed thickly before finding her voice. "Was that man alright? He looked a little…grey."

Harry shrugged, as though he'd never even noticed the unusual complexion of his butler. "He's fine, I'm sure. Look, kids, I've had an eventful morning and I need a few hours to myself right now, so I'd appreciate it if you stated your case quickly."

The blond boy gulped and took a step closer, holding out something made of cloth that shimmered in the sunlight. "We followed you, sorry about that. We used the invisibility cloak Professor Dumbledore gave me in my first year. He told us it belonged to you, that your dad had left it with him, but that I could have it." The boy ducked his head while he briefly glanced down at his shoes. "It's a Potter heirloom, though, so it belongs to you."

Harry stared with wide eyes at the invisibility cloak the boy held out to him. How often hadn't he heard his father talk about it in his many stories about Hogwarts?

"Thank you," Harry finally managed to say in a rather thick voice. He gently accepted the cloak from the boy. "What was your name, kid?"

"I'm Neville Longbottom, Sir." The boy gestured to his two companions. "This is Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley."

"Hi," Ron Weasley said with a little wave. "You should have been in our year. I mean, if you were your real age. I mean, if you hadn't been kidnapped." Ron snapped his mouth shut and seemed to regret ever having learned the ability to speak.

Chuckling, Harry took in the kids while he caressed the cloak in his hands. He considered inviting the kids in, even if it was only to see how much information he could get out of them about Hogwarts and the upcoming tournament. But before Harry could do so, Patroclus came flying through the wall.

"Call the family, Harry. I have news that cannot wait!"

Harry gave the kids a quick smile. "My thanks, truly. This means a lot. How about you come back some other time and I'll invite you in."

"Okay, we'll do that." Neville was the first to turn around, while Hermione took a few more seconds to crane her neck and try to see inside the castle, while Ron's face had taken blushing to a whole new level while he seemed to regret many of his recent life choices.

Nodding one last time at the kids, Harry closed the door and immediately brushed his thumb across his amulet and seconds later his whole family was gathered around him in the entranceway. V came flying from the sitting room, curious to see what was going on.

Patroclus stared at Harry with an intense gaze. "Voldemort isn't dead. I saw him with my own eyes when I followed the Moody imposter just now, who I believe may be the son of Bartemius Crouch. At least he looked like the spitting image of a younger version of him once the Polyjuice potion wore off."

Harry swallowed before inhaling a deep breath. Now that was a twist he hadn't seen coming. V cawed a few times as he landed on Harry's shoulder while around them his family muttered urgently amongst themselves.

"Hey," James yelped suddenly, startling just about everyone. "Is that my invisibility cloak?"