"Is that the kind of thing that you're looking for?" Lady Harfang wearily asked, looking a little bit like a weight had been lift off of her shoulders.
"A-ah, yes, thank you, that's—that's very helpful" Lily nodded, looking a little shellshocked at all of the information thrown at them, all at once. Well, She thought, We DID ask for ANY information that they have, so I guess that's on us.
Lady Harfang pinned her with a narrow-eyed look. "Now you"
"Excuse me?" Lily asked, taken aback by the sudden intensity.
"You explain your side" She extrapolated, pointing a prettily-painted but gnarled finger at the redhead. "What do you know about Tom Riddle? How did you find out about him? And what has he got to do with this Jean-child of yours? Outside of the war, of course"
The redhead nodded to the book lain out on the tabletop. "The diary"
"Ah, of course, the all important diary" She sighed, leaning back in her chair.
"From what we have been able to translate, Jean must've found all of this out in her own time, before coming back here" Lily explained as she leant her elbows against the tabletop, causing Lady Augustus to scrunch up her nose in disgust at the blatantly disrespectful table manners. "Of course, all of this would've been history to her, so that might've made it just that little bit easier"
Lady Harfang smiled teasingly, "Yes, I s'pose it would've" She smiled, gesturing for them to continue. "As you were saying?"
"Er, right, well, it sounds like Tom Riddle does have a…sort of vision for our world, that much appears to be true" Lily continued, her lips pulled downwards into an unimpressed frown. "But it's not a world that I would ever want to live in"
"Well, of course you wouldn't!" Headmaster Black chortled from the background, "The princeling is taking care of your kind! Why—"
Lily turned to James with barely contained ire; her eye twitching something fierce. It seemed that she had finally reached her limit with the old-fashioned headmaster. "—Can you put him away, please?" She grit out through clenched teeth, eyes promising death if her husband did not comply.
James hurried to do as she instructed and not-too-gently shoved the portrait back into the pocket from whence it came. "Yes, absolutely! Whatever you say dear!" He chirped, barely containing the militaristic salute that had once been a joke, much to the bemusement of the married witches who quietly commented about him being "whipped". Lily still found it endlessly amusing that she had somehow Pavlov'd him and the Marauders into such a reaction.
"Anyway" Lily sighed in relief as tension easily bled from her shoulders. "Where was I?"
"Riddle's vision?" Ted prompted, sparing James a knowing and sympathetic look; like he was a brother-in-arms.
"Oh yes!" The redhead perked up before she settled back in her seat, arms crossed across her chest. "His so-called 'vision' for our world causes—get this—not one, but two wars" She continued, using finger quotes around the word, 'vision'. "The second, of which, Jean, Harry, Nymphadora and Neville fought in as children alongside their peers"
"Our children…?" Lady Augustus breathed in despair, as her gaze darted over to the door where the sounds of joyous play could be heard.
"We're not sure of the specifics of the Second Wizarding War as, understandable, Jean was more preoccupied with surviving rather than writing in her diary" James continued, softly. "But, based on what we can read, it sounds horrible"
"Second Wizarding War?" Andromeda choked out, "He lives that long?"
"Yes" James nodded.
"How?"
"He did great things—terrible, yes—but great"
"Looking at this" Ted gestured to the pages of the diary which had travelled down towards the two matriarchs. "It sounds like the Second Wizarding War was—is?—much the same as this one—I s'pose you'd call it the First Wizarding War?—but without any of the restraints or stipulations that he has now. Is that right?"
"Yes" James swallowed, "He gathered prominent families, of whom he dubbed 'Death Eaters' as he has done in this time, and Dumbledore mounted a resistance with his Order of the Phoenix"
"The initials 'HP' and 'TMR' pop up a lot in this book; usually in conjunction" Lady Augustus mused as she peered over her sister's shoulder. "Would we be correct in assuming 'HP' is your son, Hardwin Potter II?"
"That's what it looks like" James nodded, sadly. "And considering that damned prophecy that's been floating around…"
Lady Augustus' face darkened at the mention of the prophecy. "The one that caused my son and his wife to…?"
"Yes"
"…It almost sounds like your son was being raised for slaughter; like a childish martyr of some kind" Ted quietly noted; it was almost like he was afraid to be speak in a tone loud enough to break the sombre atmosphere. "Would he have done the same to Neville, had they decided that he was the prophesied Chosen One?"
"I—I can only presume so" He replied, equally as quiet.
"So—so, what Frank and Alice did—what happened to them—it—it saved their son?" Ted asked, hopefully.
"That's what I like to think"
"Well, that and knowing Alice, she wouldn't have taken shit from anyone" Lily added. "Let alone Death Eaters threatening her son. I think that's why Frank likes her"
"Mmhm, yes" Lady Harfang's lips twitched upwards at the corners at the anecdote about her nephew and niece-in-law. "What's that muggle saying about sons marrying their mothers?"
"Do you…mean the story of Oedipus?" Lily puzzled.
"No, no, nothing so crass" Lady Harfang shook her head, "Ah, nevermind"
"Wait, do you mean when men marry women that remind them of their mothers?"
"Mmhm, that sounds about right"
"Oh, okay then"
"Back on track" Andromeda interjected, quickly cutting through the tender atmosphere. "Where are you in all of this?" She puzzled, brow raised in question. "You'll have to forgive me for saying this, but Potters—Gryffindors, in particular—don't exactly take things laying down. So, do you honestly expect us to believe that you're just going to hide away for the rest of time?"
"Quite frankly, Andy" James sighed heavily. "I would love nothing more than to break free of the confines of the manor. But going by that sighting in Godric's Hollow in '81 and the infuriating prophecy, not to mention how ruthless Dumbledore had been in trying to pull us back into the fold, we can only presume that…well…let's just say that I don't think we were s'posed to leave that cottage at all"
"I wouldn't put it past Dumbledore" Lady Augustus huffed, irritably. "Man could sell boots to a snake, and make it think that it was its idea, all along. I'm glad to know that you've seen sense and left his little club"
"Well, about that—"
"—Potter! You're not actually thinking of rejoining are you?" Lady Augustus gasped, aghast.
"What? No!" James balked in retort as he got a little hot under the collar.
"Because if you were, then why come to us at all? Why ask about Tom Riddle or You-Know-Who, or whatever he's going by these days? If you're just gonna run away again—"
"—Hey! Excuse you! We did not run away!" James retorted, face growing red. "We hid, on Dumbledore's suggestion—"
"—Oh, like that's any better!" Lady Augustus scoffed. "If Dumbledore told you to jump, you'd ask how high—!"
"—I could say the same thing about you, Lady!"
"That is out of line, young man—!"
"—Ahem!" Lily not-so-subtly cleared her throat, interjecting herself both someone started to throw spells across the table, or worse. "Dumbledore's many, many flaws aside, Tom Riddle is currently the man of the hour and he is unhinged, I'm sure that we can all agree on that"
Only muttered grumbles answered her, but both parties settled back into their seats without much more fanfare. Both Lady Augustus and James bore expressions of sourpuss faces, but they relented nonetheless, for which the redhead was endlessly grateful as she tried to soothe any ruffled feathers.
"I mean, to harm any helpless muggles and hunt innocent children for sport?" She continued, "What else would he be?"
"A wraith?" Andromeda joked, halfheartedly.
Lily shook her head, "Actually, we think he might be a homunculus"
"A h-homunculus?! You can't be serious!" Lady Harfang damn-near choked on her pipe, the rage (at whom, she didn't know) was quite clear for all to see.
"Afraid so" James replied, sombrely.
"Please—for the love of Kieran—what makes you so sure?" Lady Augustus murmured, her eyes wide in surprise.
The subject matter aside, she could—quite honestly say—that the number of times her elder sister had raised her voice in such a manner, could be counted on the one hand. Typically, her anger was the quiet kind; icy and controlled. The fact that she had been reduced to such outward expressing shouts was shocking to say the least, and a far better indication of how serious the situation was, than anything else the Potters could have provided to prove their point. At least, she thought so.
"Jean's notes—" Said Lily.
Andromeda quirked a brow. "—The one's you can't translate?"
"Mm, it sounds like Riddle has made several horcruxes over the years, in order to prevent his eventual death. Which is highly likely why he went so far off of his rocker"
"Horcruxes" She gasped, looking ill. "As—as in plural?!"
"Yes, as in, plural; at least four or five, or so we believe" The bespectacled wizard nodded, pushing his glasses further up his nose as he leant across the table and flipped to the appropriate page. "See, here? Jean's written them out nice and succinctly for us. 'TMRD?' That's Riddle's diary; apparently, it's the first one he'd made. The 'GR' appears to be referring to the Gaunt signet ring, which we know thanks to that little doodle on the side. 'SL' is Slytherin's locket; Merlin knows how he got his hand son that. 'HC' is Hufflepuff's cup and 'RD' is Ravenclaw's lost diadem, which apparently found"
"There's two more listed here" Lady Augustus noted. "HP' and 'FN"
"Yes, but if you note the dates, they appear to have yet to be created"
Lady Harfang quirked a brow at the Potters. "One of them appears to be your son"
"And we are forever grateful that we moved" Lily replied, relief clear in her tone. "Because I do not want to know what would've happened had we stayed in Godric's Hollow, or what would've happened had we still been in the cottage when You-Know-Who was spotted there. And I, most certainly, don't want to know what would've happened had we encountered him in the cottage"
"…Is that why you moved?" Andromeda asked, softly.
"It was part of it" James replied, straightening his shirt.
"And the…other part?" Andromeda prompted.
"We…we had our…suspicions about the security of our Secret Keeper" Lily replied whilst James growled low in his throat, a sour expression on his face. "From what we've heard, his infiltration missions are getting more and more heavy-handed than we'd first thought, and we were worried about what that might mean for us if he—God-forbid—had gotten captured or worse"
"Ah, I see" She nodded, briefly recalling the bounty that had been placed upon the head of the Pettigrew boy who had been MIA for a time. He'd been close to Potter and his friends, if she recalled right. "And what of your boy? Any signs of such a curse?"
"Not yet, thankfully" James smiled, "But according to the diary, Jean went to school with Harry—or will go to school?—Anyway, he was known as 'The Boy who Lived' for some reason and, by her account, hated it. Our son seemed to have an…unnatural connection to Riddle; thanks to whatever happened that Halloween night. And as such, two things happened: he could speak parseltongue and he had moments of being able to see into Riddle's mind; see through his eyes, gauge his feelings and so on. But Harry—our Harry—has shown no such signs of this, so we are hopeful that nothing like that has yet occurred"
"From what Headmaster Black has told us, Jean, Harry and their friend, Ronald Weasley—Arthur's second youngest—hunted the horcruxes at Dumbledore's request" Lily explained. "Apparently Harry was instructed to not be involved with the Order of the Phoenix, despite being the Dark Lord's prize—'cause that makes perfect fucking sense—so your description of a lamb to slaughter? Not that far off"
"What we're saying is that, to hear—let alone read—about it was quite horrible. I couldn't imagine living through it"
"It sounds like it was an absolute bloody mess, if I'm honest"
Both of the Potters wore expressions of fallen, ashen faces; looking every one of their respective twenty-three years. James leant back in his chair, whilst Lily breathed heavily into her hands; each one of them trying their best to regain their composure. Not that anyone could blame them. Time travel, a witch from the future and the possible cursing of their child by a madman bound to this plane by not one, but four-to-five cursed objects. Well, it was lot for anyone to take in. Honestly, if it wasn't common knowledge that you couldn't coerce a magical portrait to lie or if they hadn't shown them Neville's wedding invitation from thirty years in the future, then their confidants would've likely believed it to be an elaborate hoax instead of the mad truth that it was.
And what utter madness it was.