A/N - As always, HJP is the unfortunate child of JKR, poor sod, having to wind up as he did…

Chapter 4 - Could Have Gone Better

Minerva, Lily and Amelia rushed to the Hogwarts infirmary as fast as they could. They were met by Poppy Pomfrey who directed them to a pair of beds hidden behind a screen. One held a crying Hermione Granger, the other a comatose Harry Potter. The young witch was clearly in distress, exacerbated by the fact that her front teeth, already larger than average, now looked like fangs which almost reached the bottom of her chin.

"I've cast the finite to stop the charm from growing them, but Miss Granger won't be able to speak until I've cast a densarto to shrink her teeth back. I won't know for sure what happened until I've done that. Mr Potter isn't saying much."

"What's wrong with Harry?" asked Lily, barely keeping composure. "We've been here less than 24 hours and already he's in the infirmary."

"As best as I can ascertain at the moment, he has a concussion. I can't see any evidence of a curse or hex knocking him out, but I am still running checks. I don't want to wake him until I've completed them, and as Mr Potter is unconscious, I am afraid he takes priority over Miss Granger."

Lily couldn't wait. She grabbed a mirror and handed it to Hermione. "I can cast the charm to shrink your teeth again if you trust me to do it?" Hermione nodded. "Keep looking in the mirror and tell me when your teeth are back to normal, understand?" Another nod. "Densarto!" The charm took hold and Hermione's teeth started to shrink. Hermione kept a close eye and when her teeth were a bit smaller than they had been before they were made to grow, indicated to Lily that she was happy with the results. Lily ended the spell and looked at the still upset young woman. "Happy enough with that?" A third shy nod indicated the positive. "Can you tell me what happened?" Lily's voice was soft and comforting.

"We… we… we were going to the library and we ran into Draco Malfoy."

"Hmmm. Malfoy, huh." Lily's comment was met with a small nervous laugh. "Hmmm?"

"I'm sorry, it's just that when I told Harry who he was, that was the exact same reaction that he gave…"

Harry and Hermione were walking through the corridor toward the library with Hermione pointing out some of the more interesting sights on the way. They were getting close when a trio in green trimmed robes stopped them.

"Well well well, if it's isn't the boy who died… Or should that be the liar who lived."

Harry looked at Hermione and raised an eyebrow. The look was enough for Hermione to pick up on the question. "He's Draco Malfoy and his shadows there are Crabbe and Goyle."

"Hmmm. Malfoy, huh."

"Don't pretend you don't know who I am, Potter." Malfot spat the last word like it was a curse.

"I know the family name, I've heard of your death eater dad, but you? Why would I be interested in you?"

"There are wizarding families, Potter, and then there are proper wizarding families. The Malfoys are the latter, the likes of you and that over there are very much the former."

Harry just laughed. He glanced over at Hermione. "I can't believe people are still trotting out that garbage. My mum is a first generation witch and the smartest person I've ever known." He looked back at Malfoy. "The sooner idiots like you recognise that the only thing that matters is the ability to control your magic and the inherent power you have, the sooner the magical community can start to overcome the problems it has."

Malfoy snorted. "Of course you are more interested in mudbloods like this bitch, seeing as you come from another fucking mudblood."

Harry growled and took a step toward Malfoy, eyes blazing. "You know, you are the second prick to insult my friend here but the first one stupid enough to have a go at my family. Given that this is supposed to be one of the world's best magical schools from what I've seen, the student body has a higher than expected proportion of wankers."

"Time for you to find out just how good I am, blood traitor!" As Malfoy whipped out his wand, Harry's was already in his hand. "MACTASSES!" Such was his haste to cast, the bludgeoning hex was underpowered and poorly aimed, something Harry wasn't long in pointing out.

"What was that?" he taunted as his wand whipped around. "Reditus!" With a flick he sent the hex back at Malfoy who just managed to jump out of the way in time.

Switching tactics he flicked his wand at Hermione who was watching open mouthed at the rapid escalation to a duel. She barely heard the blonde shout "Densaugeo!" The girl was just too slow in moving out of the way and the curse hit her. As before however, the curse was underpowered so rather than grow rapidly, her teeth started to creep out and slowly but inexorably stretched out of her mouth.

Harry saw the curse hit her and with a roar fired a barrage of spells at the overwhelmed Slytherin. "Depulso! Flipendo! Incarcerus! Expelleramus! STUPEFY!" The last curse slammed into Malfoy knocking him clean out. "Arsehole!" He shouted. He turned to look at Hermione, his attention absolute on the distressed girl. He never noticed the meaty fist which struck him from behind, knocking him to the floor where he passed out.

Having seen his sneak attack from behind bear fruit, Goyle considered having another kick at the prone wizard, but was pulled away by Crabbe and told to help the other boy drag Malfoy away.

"I'm so sorry" whimpered Hermione.

Lily looked confused. "What are you sorry for sweetie, none of this was your fault."

"I just stood there and watched, I didn't even get out of the way of the curse that Mafoy hit me with. If I had moved, Harry wouldn't have been focused on me and he…" The rest was lost in a sob. "He called me his friend, and then I let this happen. He'll be angry with me."

Lily's heart went out to the girl. After what Minerva had said she knew that the young witch didn't have a lot of friends. "Harry will be angry when he wakes up, but not with you. He will be angry with himself. Harry has had a lot of training, a lot of training. He should know better than to forget his situational awareness. He should know better than to lose focus on what's around him. Getting sucker-punched by a coward from behind because he forgot the coward was there is on him, not on you."

"Miss Granger, how did you and Harry come to arrive in the infirmary?" The police officer in Amelia was coming out to play.

"I was still just able to speak before my teeth got too big, so I was able to levitate Harry's clothes which allowed me to pull him along with me to here. Just in time too, I was less than a quarter of the way here they had grown too big for me to say anything."

Lily smiled at the young witch. "Thank you for that. Some quick thinking."

As the two were talking, the headmaster arrived in the infirmary, the trademark twinkle absent from his eyes. He saw the look on the faces of the three women. The look of anger on them all temporarily made him forget that there were actually three, and not two. He was about to speak before doing a double take at the Head of the DMLE being there.

"Madam Bones, this is an unexpected surprise. Surely a contretemps between some students does not merit the involvement of your august office?"

"That's not why I'm here Dumbledore, although given the explanation that Miss Granger there has given us, I'd like to know what you plan to do about the situation, especially given that we have what is essentially a visitor to the school who was verbally and then physically assaulted."

"I am afraid that you have me at a disadvantage Madam, I arrived after Miss Granger provided that information."

Hermione found herself repeating the tale, which was no less upsetting than the first time.

"Thank you Miss Granger, and I apologise for asking you to repeat yourself. You are certain that Mr Malfoy cast the first curse?" Hermione managed to look offended at the question, causing Dumbledore to smile. "I apologise if that is perceived as a slight against your word, Miss Granger." He turned to his deputy head. "Minerva, when you are done here please come to my office, and bring Severus with you."

Dumbledore questioned Madam Pomfrey regarding Harry's prognosis and then turned his attention to Amelia. "May I ask why you have graced us with your presence, Madam Bones?"

Amelia gave Dumbledore the same look she had given Minerva McGonagall earlier. "Oh I don't know, I mean having three people long thought of as being dead turning up at the castle is pretty much a daily occurrence."

Minerva quickly picked up that Amelia wasn't for letting on to too many people that she actually already knew that the Potters were alive. Amelia wasn't done though. "I will give you the benefit of the doubt and presume that you were going to let the Ministry know?"

Dumbledore nodded. "As I am sure you will understand, things here have been somewhat frenetic since yesterday. As James Potter pointed out, word of their return would have spread throughout the wizarding world very quickly, even had I been inclined to do so, which I was not, I could not have prevented such."

The look Amelia gave Dumbledore was a searching one. "I believe you. Seriously though, we can't have students like Malfoy over there going around spreading that kind of hate. I believe your Beauxbatons champion is part Veela, what happens when someone insults her or her heritage? Mr Potter's response was mostly proportionate, can you imagine that say, Viktor Krum would be the same were someone to insult him to the same degree?"

"I am inclined to agree, and whilst I accept that Mr Potter's response could have been more severe, I trust, Mrs Potter you will counsel him to act with restraint?"

Lily looked at the headmaster. "I'll remind him that he is, as Amelia said, a visitor, but I'm not going to give him a hard time for defending himself. Or defending a friend." Out of the corner of her eye she saw Hermione flinch slightly at the designation of friend. 'I'm going to have to have a word with that girl' she thought.

Dumbledore nodded slowly. "I shall do my level best to ensure that lessons are learned by all sides, Mrs Potter." He softened his tone. "I am aware that James has left the castle, I presume to acquire such items as you will need for day to day living. Can I ask that when he returns we arrange another discussion?"

Lily nodded. "Probably a good idea, I want Minerva and Amelia there too, if they have time." Both witches nodded. Dumbledore looked momentarily pained, but also nodded his assent.

"Please call for Scotty, the headmaster's elf, when James returns to let me know what time to expect you." WIth a nod and a swish of his brightly coloured robes he departed. After a brief conversation, Amelia and Minerva also departed, the former to return to her office at the DMLE with an instruction for Minerva to floo her when the meeting was to take place, whilst the Gryffindor head herself had things she needed to do. This left Hermione and Lily sitting beside the still comatose Harry.

"Harry relies heavily on instinct" Lily started, apropos of nothing at all. "It's something we've encouraged. Don't get me wrong, he's been taught to be disciplined, he has been taught to use his brain, he's a smart boy, much more so than he tends to let on, but we have encouraged him to use that discipline and intellect to let his instincts come through."

Lily leaned forward and run her fingers through his eternally messy hair. "I saw him in the great hall this morning, I was going to speak to Minerva. I saw him look around and then make a beeline in your direction. That was his instinct driving him. Harry can be equally complex and simple. He has core values that we have instilled in him over the years, he hates bullies, he hates duplicity, he does have an annoying tendency to see things in black and white. He has been brought up to say what's on his mind, which he does. Whether that's a good or a bad thing can be open to debate sometimes. He's unerringly honest. We have been honest with him, he knows what can happen when people are dishonest. He hasn't had a lot of friends growing up, not his own age. If he's called you a friend, please let him be one?" Lily's voice was thick with emotion as she spoke. She knew that for all the love and support that she, James and others have showered Harry in since their enforced departure, he had still had a hard life.

Hermione's eyes kept flicking between Harry and his mother. "Why would he want to be friends with me? I mean we've only spoken for about 30-40 minutes, don't get me wrong I enjoyed every minute, but when Malfoy's hex hit me it was like something snapped inside him. I've never seen anyone cast so quickly, so accurately and so powerfully. The stunner that he hit Malfoy with sent him flying."

Lily smiled. "He's had some very good defence instructors over the years. I'll actually need to get in touch with one of them to let him know what happened. But that's Harry. Like I said, he hates bullies, he treats everyone the same unless they give him reason not to. When you piss Harry off, all hell can be let loose. One of his instructors called him Harry Hellfire when he lets his anger surge. That's one of the unfortunate things he has inherited from both of us. I'm aware of my temper, James is just as bad. Harry has a double dose. He's far better than we are at keeping it under control, but if it's brought to bear… 'Cry havok and let slip the dogs of war'".

Hermione's eyes widened at the quote from Shakespeare. Lily smiled and with a small laugh said "muggle born too, remember. Even after I got my Hogwarts letter, I kept reading stuff like Shakespeare, Marlowe, Tolkein, Pratchett. So are you named after the Shakespearean or Grecian Hermione?"

"A bit of both. My dad is a history buff, especially ancient Greece, mum is the Shakespeare fan. Dad wanted a classical name when I was born, mum wanted a Shakesperean one, so they found a common theme and named me Hermione. I love having a 'strange' name, even if there is only a small proportion of people who can pronounce it correctly without help!"

"I was 20 when I found out I was pregnant with this bundle of trouble, 21 when he made his appearance. I wish I'd spent more time thinking of a name, but James was adamant when he saw the baby that he was a Harry. Had I thought more I'd have pushed for something else, but it's too late now!"

The two women continued to talk as they waited for Harry to recover. Eventually Hermione had to excuse herself, several cups of coffee were making their presence known and she needed to visit the ladies. Of course, as luck would have it, almost immediately after she had temporarily left the infirmary, Harry decided that he would return to the land of the conscious. A pained groan was the first indication that Harry had returned.

"My head is killing me" he moaned as he opened his eyes. Looking to the side, green eyes met green as Harry saw his mother.

"I'm not surprised, you have a concussion after getting that punch. Whether it was the punch or the hitting the ground that caused it we don't know but now that you are awake Madam Pomfrey can give you a potion which will help."

Harry nodded and then groaned again as another wave of pain and nausea swept through him. "Still, lesson learned huh?" Harry looked at his mother and just grunted. Her words however sparked his memory.

"Hermione!" Pain and nausea or not, he sat up and looked at his mother. "How is she?" A look signalling a different kind of pain crossed his face. "Arghhhh. So much for making a friend. I mean she'd been talking to me for quarter of an hour and I go and get her hexed. She's not going to want anything to do with me now, and know what, I can't blame her. I should have known better and just walked away but once that pri… erm… prat insulted her the gloves were off, when he insulted you too the red mist came down. I need to tell her, I'm sorry at least, if she'll even let me do that, if she doesn't I will see if someone can pass on a message, although…"

He was stopped by the sound of a throat being cleared behind him. He spun round to see the girl in question standing there. "I think she will let you say sorry, but she also doesn't think that you need to."

"But you got hit by a curse because of…"

Hermione cut him off again. "Malfoy has been horrid to me since first year, every time I beat him in a test, a quiz, I'm first to answer a question, whatever, he takes as a personal insult. I've long since learned to tune it out, but this morning, for the first time, someone else stood up for me. I mean Neville has told him to shut up, as have Susan and Padma but you were the first person to take direct action. I may not be fond of such a physical response, but I appreciate the sentiment and appreciate that you stood up for your mother and me."

"I'm sorry anyway. I understand if you want to keep your distance."

"I still owe you a trip to the library" she responded with a shy smile. "It would be remiss of me not to follow up on that."

Harry smiled back, his eyes drawn to her mouth. She spotted what he was looking at and rapidly closed her mouth. "Smaller?" was all he asked. An abashed nod was the only response. Harry smiled and shrugged. "There was nothing wrong before if you ask me I thought you were… I mean… erm… anyway no-one did ask me, so if you are happy that's all that counts."

Harry completely missed his mother trying not to laugh as he got tongue tied in his clumsy attempts to compliment the girl. For her part Hermione had blushed furiously and then smiled again. She knew that others may make a comment about her smaller teeth, something she had been self-conscious about since she was old enough to register that they were bigger than the normal, but hearing Harry say that all that mattered was her own opinion, not anyone else's helped cement her opinion that should Harry continue to offer friendship, she would certainly take him up on it.

The moment was broken by the sound of the infirmary door flying open and a less than impressed James Potter storming his way in.

"Lily, Harry… What the actual fuck…"

"JAMES POTTER." Lily's voice was loud, her tone harsh. "Keep your language to yourself, especially in front of our guest!"

James' focus was such that he hadn't even noticed Hermione sitting beside his son's bed. "Ah. My apologies miss. You didn't need to hear that. As you may have guessed, I'm James Potter, Harry's father."

"Hello Mr Potter, I'm Hermione Granger."

"A pleasure to meet you Hermione. I see the pup here has managed to lead you astray already. Now, would someone care to bring me up to speed?"

Harry and Hermione recounted their tale, with Lily throwing in Dumbledore's involvement at the end. James interjected with further questions and by the time they got to the end the Potter patriach asked "so where is this Malfoy now?"

"I'd imagine he's back in the Slytherin dungeon. It was a hefty stunner he was hit with, so I'd imagine he'll be sore even after he was renervated."

"Hmmm. I will certainly be bringing this up with the headmaster."

"Amelia has already mentioned it."

"Good, but I'm still having my two knuts worth Lils. Hermione, I am sorry beyond words that you got caught up in any of this, and want to thank you for not only helping Harry, but standing by him." Both teens flashed red at this. "I hope we will get a chance to know you better! Lils, I'm going back to the room, I'll let Amelia and Minerva know that I'm back. I presume that Harry will be here for the night?"

Lily shrugged "I don't know, I'll need to find Poppy and ask her." She looked over at Hermione. "Would you be a dear and see if Madam Pomfrey is around?" Hermione nodded and scooted off to the healer's office.

James looked at his son. "How many times have we told to to stay focused?"

Harry looked abashed but met his father's gaze. "I know it was my fault, I'm not trying to pass off my mistakes, I own this. It could have left Hermione exposed to danger, I don't need a lecture to tell me that."

"Enough. We can discuss this when we are all back to the rooms, Harry will have been going through what went wrong, but we can debrief later."

Harry asked the one question he wanted to know. "Did you tell the other two?"

His father nodded. "Of course I did!"

Harry blanched. "What did they say?"

"Guess!"

Fortunately for Harry, it was at that point that Hermione and Poppy Pomfrey returned. Hermione took that as her cue to leave. Lily thanked her again for her help. "Assuming Harry gets out tomorrow, would you like to come up to the rooms we are using? I'd like to get to know you a bit better, and I'm sure Harry would appreciate the company."

Hermione blushed again but said yes. With a shy smile at the boy in question, she trotted off.

Poppy completed her scans and confirmed the concussion, handing Harry a selection of potions and an instruction to stay in the infirmary overnight, but all going well he should be released the following morning.

After a few more minutes, the elder Potters left their son to the soporific effects of one of the potions and returned to the head students' suite.

James flumped down on the sofa. "Fucking Malfoy. I might have guessed. The shitty apple doesn't fall far from the fucknugget tree there."

"Is there any need!" Lily's exasperated tone at her husband's industrial language was more than familiar to him. Not that it caused much of a difference.

"In this respect, yes. If this arsehole is anything like the other goat-botherers he's going to be a problem."

"He's not likely to be the only one." Lily told James about the confrontation Harry had with the youngest Weasley boy, or at least as much as Minerva could tell her. She had meant to ask Harry about it, but never had the chance.

"I completely forgot there would be a horde of Weasleys here at this point in time. Fuck. That's another complication we don't fucking need. The girl will be here too?"

"She has a name, James. It's not her fault that Arthur tried to barter her off. How much of that was his idea and how much was driven by his wife I'm still not sure about all these years later. You of all people should know about not visiting the sins of the father on the children."

"Point taken, but from what you've said, the youngest boy…"

"I know, but Harry will be able to deal with that. I mean part of the reason the Weasley's wanted the binding was to boost their family status, magically as well as politically and financially. The portion of your share of Sleekeazy's alone that they wanted would have changed their lives."

"I know, I know. He's not yet 15 and he has more raw power than me, I'm not worried about that, but we saw today, lack of focus. It's one thing in a lesson or a drill, but in the real world…"

He didn't get any further thanks to a knock at the door. It was Minerva McGonagall. Amelia had flooed through - it was time to meet with the Headmaster.

The two Potters used the time it took to walk to Dumbledore's office to fill Minerva in on Harry's condition. Amelia was already waiting at the gargoyle which rolled away without a password to grant the foursome access.

Four empty chairs awaited them as the aged headmaster bade them welcome. James didn't waste any time.

"What's happening to the Malfoy boy?"

"He has lost house points, 50 to be exact, and will complete two weeks of detentions, the same punishment has been given Mr Goyle who struck your son. In the interests of honesty, I will admit that I had to force my will upon Severus to make these punishments stick. I would also say that were Harry a student here, he would be subject to similar, albeit slightly more lenient punishment.

James grunted. "Fair enough I suppose."

"Both boys have also been warned as to their future behaviour."

"And how often has that kind of warning had any effect?" James knew he was speaking from experience, as did Dumbledore.

"Almost never" said the older wizard evenly. "But, I believe we have other issues to discuss tonight."

Amelia took up the mantle of spokesperson. "Firstly, when did you steal Harry's blood?"

Lily added her own comments. "I'd remind you Albus that anything less than full honesty will result in a permanent parting of the ways not just for James and I, but Harry, Amelia and others. If you lie to us then trust me, I will have no hesitation in leaving you to deal with Voldemort, prophecy or no."

Dumbledore nodded his acceptance. "I took the blood whilst you were still in St Mungos. I recognised the possibility that Harry may be the child of prophecy, one of two possibilities. The other child, the one the prophecy passed by was born the previous day. I had already secured some blood from him for the same purpose."

"A pair of fucking newborns, Dumbledore, how fucking dark have you become…"

The headmaster blanched at James' words. "I promise you James, all of you, my intentions were never dark. I admit my methods were what could be considered grey, but it was done for the.."

He was stopped by James glare. "If you start trotting out the 'greater good' bullshit again, I'm out and this is over. You don't think I haven't found out where the phrase comes from?"

It was Dumbledore's greatest regret - he had fallen for, and fallen sway to, a nascent dark wizard, Gellert Grindelwald. The passions of youth and joy of the forbidden had coursed through them both, they became lovers and spoke of vague but immersive plans to take over the wizarding world and once done, bring the non magical world under their heel. Albus thought they were the idle musings of young lovers, but when he realised that Gindelwald was serious he attempted to persuade him away from the dark path he was traversing. He failed. That failure led to the two major confrontations in the life of Albus Dumbledore. The first was a three-way duel with him, his brother Aberforth and Ginrdelwald which resulted in the death of the youngest Dumbledore, Ariana. The second was the battle, bordering on the apocalyptic which saw Grindelwald's defeat. Albus had only ever discussed this once, a long time ago and there was only one other person on earth who knew the whole story.

"It's no secret." Dumbledore kept his voice flat.

"I know it all. As does Lily, as does Amelia. Minerva, I'm not pulling an Albus and keeping information to myself, I promise, but I guess the Headmaster still commands a modicum of respect, so I will let him decide how much of the story to tell you."

"How?"

"Not important at this point in time, we have our sources. Long story short, your time of keeping secrets ends now. It's that or you are on your own, you do your thing, we do ours and who knows how many people die as a result."

"You will know the prophecy only mentioned 'the dark lord', it never expressly named Voldemort. Looking back over your actions Albus, some of them are pretty dark…" Amelia's voicing of the accusation shocked Dumbeldore and Minerva both.

"Amelia, I know the headmaster has made mistakes, but really!" Minerva's voice was shrill.

"Let's look at things objectively" continued Amelia. "Stealing the blood of children and making what is at best a borderline dark artefact. Taking a death eater into the school, giving him a job and even a head of house position based on nothing more than a claim of penance, persuading the Potters to change their secret keeper away from Sirius to Pettigrew, we now have the apparent confounding of an ancient artefact which very few wizards could achieve, maybe one or two in the country. Let's not forget who made the visit to Voldemort on his eleventh birthday."

"Amelia! As Minerva said, I confess I have erred…"

James interjected. "Why did you convince us to change secret keeper to the rat?"

"I was certain that either Sirius Black or Remus Lupin would be turned. You know the history of the Black family, Arcturus ruled that clan with a rod of iron, despite Sirius' escape to your family, he was still a Black at heart and still susceptible to the influence of Arcturus. I petitioned for Lupin to be allowed entry to Hogwarts as I wanted to see how a werewolf could integrate into wizarding society. I feared that the packs would be turned, I wanted a werewolf representative to show them another way. I always knew Peter was weak, I will confess to being surprised at three powerful students accepting him. In my arrogance, I presumed that his weaknesses would see him looked over by the forces of the dark, just as I looked him over for the longest time."

Lily looked at the headmaster. "I'll believe you, what you say makes sense. Why didn't you tell us the full prophecy?"

"Prophecy by its very nature is inexact, often it can only be fully understood once it has been brought to fruition. I wanted time to better understand the potential interpretations before I shared the detail. I presume that you have become aware of the contents of it in your absence?"

James shrugged. "No point having contacts if you aren't going to use them. Slughorn taught me that if nothing else."

Lily lowered the temperature in the room with her next sentence. "We also know who told Voldemort. You have no idea how hard it was for me to persuade people not to kill Snape, Albus. They only agreed to leave him out of deference to me, and I only fought that battle in memory of the boy I grew up with. Harry has said he wants to take all the classes he can, potions included."

Dumbledore sighed. "I will take steps to ensure that Severus does not single out Harry for any antagonistic treatment."

"You fucking better." The tone of James' voice made the 'or else' part of the sentence unnecessary.

Amelia was next. "Why is there still an arrest warrant for Black? You knew he wasn't the secret keeper."

"I genuinely believed Black had turned on Pettigrew or had used dark means to get Pettigrew to somehow betray the secret and then eliminated him to cover his tracks."

"Oh, Pettigrew betrayed the fucking secret all right." The venom in James voice had not abated after all these years.

"Additionally, the investigation which was brought to the Wizengamot, cursory as it was could only ever be incomplete - it was believed the bodies found at the site were yours, there was no sign of Harry, everyone, myself included, assumed the worst. I am starting to realise why Amelia has pushed for a further investigation."

For her part, Amelia just shrugged. James took up things again. "All this reminiscing is one thing but let's put our gobstones on the table. None of us believe that Voldemort is gone. We've had people doing research, we had someone in Albania a few years ago chasing down a lead, that went cold but we think there's more going to be coming up soon. We also think we know how it is that Voldemort isn't dead."

"James I do not believe that this is the time for…"

"BULLSHIT DUMBLEDORE." James was not inclined to let the old wizard off the hook. Dumbledore had been as open and honest as James could remember, he was going to strike whilst the iron is hot. "Voldemort delved deep into the dark arts, didn't he?"

Dumbledore took a second to think, suddenly looking all of his hundred plus years. "Yes."

"He made Horcruxes." Amelia spoke up, Dumbledore's head snapping in her direction at the mention of the word.

"How did you…" he started before realising, too late, that he had just confirmed Amelia's words.

Lily stopped the old man's thoughts dead in their tracks with her next statement.

"Because we have one of them."