The thunderstorm had started last night, and showed no signs of stopping. Hours of black clouds and pouring rain, and Harry was still crying in fear of the thunder and lightning.

It was a bad morning, full of depressed silences and waves of stress. James was dreading their afternoon visit to Fallow Hall; the medieval mansion which housed his grandfather and great-uncle, two old men who had always made it so hard for James to see them as good people.

James sat on the sofa, bent over his knees, rubbing his face with his hands. Lily and Remus were both standing, Remus against the mantelpiece and Lily near the window with their wailing son, attempting to finally desensitise him to the storm.

"Andromeda was probably exaggerating," said James, continuing the debate they'd been having all morning. "I don't know of anyone who's left the country."

"Does Andromeda strike you as the type to exaggerate?" asked Remus. "You work with Aurors, Prongs. You only know warriors. Fearless people. Two of my colleagues have taken their families abroad."

Remus' immersive perspective of the wizarding world was useful, and valuable. James trusted Remus' judgment more than anyone's. It was not that he doubted Remus when he spoke of the fleeing families, it was that the subject scared him. Hearing of wizards here and there sneaking away from Britain was ominously harmless, like the first few pebbles skipping down a mountain before a landslide follows.

"It feels like we're letting her win," said James.

"It wouldn't be letting her win," replied Lily. "It would be... a strategy to stop her from getting to us. From getting to Harry."

"I'm with Lily, Prong," said Remus. "Bellatrix has been following people home from the Ministry. If she followed either one of us, we'd be leading her to Harry. It would be foolish to endanger him by staying here."

James turned to Lily "Why don't you take Harry abroad while I stay here and look for Bellatrix?"

Lily rolled her eyes. "For God's sake, I'm not leaving you."

James grimaced. "Then I'll have to leave the Auror programme..."

"You won't," Remus assured him. "If you stay within Europe, there are arrangements for international commutes. You won't miss a thing."

"Come with us, Remus," said Lily. "If it's as dangerous here as you say, and you'd be able to commute to work, you should leave too."

Remus looked uncertain. "I think it's better for me to stay and... you know... stand my ground."

James sat up in alarm. "So you think it's cowardly to leave?!"

"No, James. If Lestrange wanted to kill me, my wife and my son, I'd have already left by now. But I don't. If I stay here, I'll be a barrier between her and you."

"Don't say that, Remus," said Lily sadly. She came to sit beside James on the sofa. He looked at her, and saw that she wore an expression close to something like pity.

She put her hand on his knee. "It'll be like a holiday."

"For how long?"

Lily shrugged. "Until she's caught."

James swallowed. "What if she never gets caught?"

Lily continued to look at him in pity, unable to come up with an answer.

"She will be," replied Remus in her place. "For now, our priority is doing what's best for Harry."

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

With the rain cascading down, Fallow Hall looked just as it did in James' memories: foggy and abstract, with just the vastness of the place, the grey stone walls and terracotta tile roof cutting through the ambiguity of recollection. Fallow Hall was a strange shape. It coiled around its entrance- a hazardous minefield of slippery and uneven slates. James gripped Lily's waist as they walked towards the medieval front door.

Harry, who was fond of buttons and levers and things to pull and press and turn, was not strong enough to pull the black rope of the doorbell. James had to do it, and he cringed at the dramatic gong that rang from inside.

They stood there, soaking. Their brooms grew heavy and slimy in the rain. James rang the doorbell again. They waited some more.

Through habit and nostalgia, James walked round the protruding entrance section and peered into the little corner space where he used to sit with his mother, when they'd wait for the fossilised old men who lived inside to answer the door. James loved this secluded section. He and his mother used to sit on the bench there and look at the stone face that was attached to the wall: a man's face, with a shocked expression, who used to spout water into the bird bath below him in the summer months. This man, who James and his mother used to call "Water Man", was not spouting water today. He'd turned green with lichen, and looked soulless. It was a strange thing to think of a stone face. A soulless statue. But he looked less alive. More like a statue. Less like a friend.

There was a clang on the other side of the door, and it slowly creaked open.

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

Phineas Black was an extroverted extrovert. Often flamboyant and loud. Today, however, he was subdued. Sitting in his armchair, looking between James, Lily and his glass of scotch. But he still possessed the omnipotent tension in his posture and expression that made James tense himself. It had the same effect on Lily, too. James envied Harry for his obliviousness. He was happy, playing on the rug in front of them with the wooden toy dragons Phineas had placed in front of him minutes ago.

They had been sat in silence ever since the first introductions.

The grandfather clock in the hall, which had been ticking slowly since before James was born, emphasised the lack of conversation.

"Somebody, please, talk," Phineas begged finally. "You're the first company I've had in months whose brain hasn't turned into pâté."

Phineas, James and Lily all glanced at Cygnus, who was sat in a shadowed corner, not moving, not even looking. Probably not hearing. James would've thought his grandfather was dead had he not sipped his own scotch occasionally. His conscious mind was elsewhere.

"How long has it been since you saw James, Sir?" Lily asked Phineas, smiling in false pleasantry.

Phineas inhaled. "Six years," he replied. He looked at James. "His mother's funeral."

James turned to Lily and spoke with deliberate volume. "Uncle Phineas didn't attend my father's funeral. Nor did Grandfather."

"Of course I didn't..." said Phineas without shame. "Your father was a wart."

James did not reply.

"Change of subject!" Phineas announced. "Congratulations on your imminent birth!"

Lily smiled and put a hand on her belly. "Not so imminent, actually." She looked up at him. "Do you have children, Sir?"

Phineas shook his head vigorously. "Life spared me from the misery of wife and child, thank Merlin."

Strange, thought James. Uncle Phineas was thankful for a life unconfined by marriage and children, but lived out his days locked away in a dark mansion, inebriated, with a mute brother. What a bizarre compensation.

"Ooh, James," Phineas sat up. "I have a surprise for you..."

James raised an eyebrow.

Phineas stood, and walked to the door of the living room and leaned his head out. "BODKIN!"

James' eyes widened. "Bodkin?"

Moments later, the house elf that had kept James company as a child padded into the room. "Yes, Sir?"

James was winded by Bodkin's degeneration. In just a few years, his face had gone from childlike to wrinkled. His voice was gravelly.

Phineas gestured with his arm to James.

Bodkin's face lit up. "Master James!"

Before James could respond, Phineas spoke. "It is 'Mister Potter' now, Bod. James is a married man now. This is his family!"

Bodkin gazed in amazement at Lily, her stomach, and Harry. "Master James has lived well since our last words!"

"It's Mister Potter, Bodkin! And he and his family need nourishment. Could you prepare some dinner? No soft cheese, please."

"Certainly, Sir!" said the house elf. He gave James a giddy grin before walking away.

James watched the spot where Bodkin had stood, dumbfounded.

"How did you find him?" asked Lily on his behalf.

"He found me!" Phineas replied. "James freed him when his father died, so he looked to me for employment! He didn't know anyone else, poor creature. Charlus and Dorea had very few friends..."

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

Fallow Hall was as impressive as it was embarrassing. On the way to the dining room they were lead through more halls and corridors of dusty black panelling and fading mahogany furniture, but James knew that the doors leading to other rooms were propped wide open on purpose. Phineas was showing off his prized artefacts, and Lily was taking the bait.

James' mother used to call Fallow Hall "The Crypt". Phineas kept hundreds of dead stuffed animals (or pieces of them) in glass cabinets all around his house. He had more savoury collections of course: old coins, pages of old spell books, shreds of middle-eastern flying carpets... but his main obsession was with dead creatures. Throughout the house were display cases of bees and beetles of different sizes nailed onto boards, dragons' teeth, shed skins of desert snakes and molars of woolly mammoths. In the dining room itself, where they were lead for lunch, dozens of phoenixes and other exotic birds were stuffed and bent into life-like positions, their beaks painted bright colours and their talons nailed onto posts. Rodents were frozen in hunting positions. A shiny-coated hippogryff with wide eyes and long lashes played its wings at the alligator beside it, whose jaws were screwed open in a threatening hiss. Behind the head of the table, where Phineas sat, was a full-grown polar bear. Teeth bared, claws out, standing as tall as the room itself, nevertheless still cold and lifeless. Full of stuffing.

They ate. Bodkin brought our pink cuts of beef, buttery potatoes, peppery salad and batons of carrot and cucumber. James squirmed in discomfort each time Bodkin re-entered the room struggling with a large dish of food. Each time he left, he left un-thanked.

Would his mother be disappointed, watching him dine with Phineas Black? His father certainly would.

Phineas and Lily talked of Bellatrix, and James was so sick of hearing her name that he couldn't bear to listen. In fact, he was the only one who noticed his grandfather, Cygnus, shuffle into the room like a lost cow, still clutching his glass of scotch. When he sat down, and his chair squeaked, Phineas finally looked at him.

"Ah, good idea, Brother! Bodkin, more scotch please!"

By the time plates were cleared and drinks were being sipped, Phineas had been watching Lily curiously for some time. Lily kept her eyes on her drink, or on Harry, or she pretended to admire the dead animals around them.

James ignored him too.

"Ginger..." Phineas said finally.

Lily looked at him. "Me?"

He continued to study her. "Dorea had ginger hair, too. Did you know?"

"I did."

Phineas turned to Harry. "He'll marry a ginger girl too, you wait and see. A mudblood too, I'd expect. That's how it goes, as they say..."

James stared at Phineas. "Did you just-"

"I did," Phineas said with theatrical expression. "Mudblood, mudblood, mudblood! In my day, the term was used ironically."

"Well, it's used as a rather cruel insult these days," replied Lily coolly.

"So I've heard..." Phineas stood, and walked over to the only piece of wall not hidden by a glass display case. He turned a key which James hadn't noticed was sticking out of the panelling. A little compartment opened, and Phineas pulled out a pack of cigars.

"Can I tempt you, James?"

"No."

Phineas shrugged, and reached into his trouser pocket for some matches.

"Did you ever meet Dorea, Lily?"

"Unfortunately not."

"She was nothing like you."

Phineas struck a match and lit his cigar. He breathed it in, and watched the smoke leave his mouth.

"I imagine she was a better woman than I could ever be."

James made a move to hold her hand, but was surprised to hear Phineas start to giggle.

The hall echoed with his high-pitched noise.

"Oh, darling. She's nothing to aspire to."

James, for some reason, conjured a mental image of his mother falling down the stairs.

"That's a little insensitive..." said Lily, glancing at James. "...and from what I've heard, she was a brilliant woman."

"She was nice," Phineas conceded, scrunching his face up at the word. "She was fun... for a time..." he looked at James and pointed his cigar in his direction. "He'll tell you. She was pleasant until her sociopath husband mashed her into a paste."

"How would you know?" asked James, astonished at his own calm. "You never saw her."

"Because she was insufferable!"

James rolled his eyes. "You're just as spiteful as I remember."

"Why shouldn't I be? Look at me. Rattling around in this mouldy old ruin with this useless skin-bag for company..." Phineas kicked the leg of the chair Cygnus was sitting on. James saw his grandfather flinch.

"That's not anyone's fault but your own," said James. "You were a coward to shut yourself up in here at the first sign of war. If you're that bored, throw a handful of floo powder in the fireplace and get out of the house."

"Oh, please..." Phineas grimaced. "I'm finished with the wizarding world. All the gossip and shifting eyes and dont-talk-to-her and watch-where-he-goes... we live in a paranoid world. It's exhausting. And do you know who's to blame?"

Phineas looked down at his brother. "Your son's wretched granddaughter."

Lily looked confusedly at James, although her interest in the conversation was waning. She was itching to leave.

"The Black family are nothing, thanks to her. Blame your grandfather. He let his bastard son grow mean and greedy. No wonder he grew up to produce some of the worst vermin ever to set food in the wizarding world. You know who I miss?" Phineas leaned down so that his face was inches from Cygnus' ear. "Violetta..."

James bit his lip and tensed through the swirl of sadness in his stomach.

Shocking the three animate people in the room, Cygnus Black scraped his chair back and stood up.

The three other adults watched in shock as he took his scotch glass, downed the last of the drink, and shuffled out of the room.

The name alone was too profound to be bandied about. James hadn't heard his grandmother's name in years. It conjured images of the bright blue-eyed lady, her soft grey hair embellished with small white rosebuds, her white robes billowing in the breeze as she waved her wand like a conductor's stick toward the trees, leading the birds in a choir song.

"Who's Violetta?" asked Lily, her curiosity just surfacing.

"My grandmother," James replied. "My mother's mother."

"The scandalised second wife..." explained Phineas with lengthy melodrama. "She saw what had happened to my brother's awful son and ensured her daughter never succumbed to it."

Phineas sat down in the chair that his brother had just vacated. He sat slowly and purposefully, which James saw as instruction for he and Lily to sit back down. They did not, and Phineas realised that they wouldn't.

He looked at Lily sadly. "She had red hair, too," he told her. "Muggle friends. Party fever. Obsessed over little Dorea."

"She was lovely," James told Lily. He turned back to Phineas. "You're right. She kept the meanness of your family out of my mother."

Phineas smiled nastily. "She made your mother weak."

He stood again, but remained behind his chair. "I suppose she did the world a favour, molly-coddling Dorea. She wouldn't have married your father otherwise." Phineas gestured towards Harry, who was now safely in Lily's arms. "Keep spawning little Potters, and keep them away from this disgusting tribe. Don't let them become like my brother's incestuous cluster. Soon enough, the Black blood will drain from the wizarding world like the fluid from a mother after birth."

James could have dived into some spiel about what family means, and how Harry would be raised differently, and where goodness and loyalty came from. But he kept it to himself, and instead lead Lily and Harry out of the house without another word. He knew he did not need these people. Harry would be better off without them. He felt sad for Lily. Her own family was failing her expectations for togetherness. Hopefully she'd be able to settle for the jumbled-up odd family they'd constructed themselves.

"Your great-Uncle is a weapons-grade arsehole," Lily murmured to him as they walked back across the courtyard, dragging their damp broomsticks which they'd left in the doorway.

He smiled. "We're not coming back here," he promised her.

They began to mount their brooms, but stopped. Just outside the courtyard, on the grass, stood Cygnus. He was staring out at something, his back towards them.

James and Lily exchanged a concerned look.

"Grandfather?" James called. "Cygnus? You should go back inside..."

"James..." Lily whispered, touching his arm. "Look at what he's staring at."

James dismounted his broom and stepped forward, squinting.

Cygnus's gaze was towards a large oak tree in the near distance. James didn't find this remotely significant, until he noticed what was underneath it. Dozens of deer, huddled together, keeping try under the oak tree.

James stared in confusion. "Since when did Uncle Phineas keep deer?"

He had spoken at a quiet level, but somehow Cygnus heard. He turned slowly, and looked at him.

"Daft boy..." he said, startling James with the gruff voice he had only heard once or twice in his life. "They've always been here..."

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

Rufus Scrimgeour, Alastor Moody, Etta Gamble and Isabelle Sommier stood in the Minister's office, watching solemnly as Milicent Bagnold rubbed her temples in anguish.

"This is ridiculous..." she said at last. "the war is over. How can there still be this much... this much..."

"Shit?" Moody finished for her. "Ripple effect."

Scrimgeour cleared his throat delicately. "We believe Bellatrix Lestrange has friends... who are helping her. Or even doing these deeds for her. Her husband told us she's mad as a dog, so-"

"Let's not lead with what that imbecile has to say," said Bagnold wearily. "From now on, we assume that she's just as dangerous as before."

Scrimgeour nodded, embarrassed.

A witness and survivor of the incident had submitted his memories to the Aurors. They were playing out in a cloud of smoke in the centre of the room, which everyone was doing their best to ignore.

The Minister lifted her head to watch the memories play over again. They were silent, mercifully.

She turned to Isabelle. "I take it you've already sent a secret message to your fiancé about this."

"No," said Isabelle. "But I'll have to tell him. He'd never forgive me if I didn't."

Bagnold rolled her eyes and nodded. "Fine. What about the Potters?"

"I'll tell them too."

"Do what you want, they'll find out soon enough. I mean what shall we do with them?"

The others looked around at each other in confusion.

Bagnold rolled her eyes again. "Where should we send them?"

"Send them?" echoed Scrimgeour.

"They're not safe here," Bagnold explained, as though it were obvious.

"Nor is anyone else..." replied Isabelle. "Why should the Potters be sent away?"

"They're a target for Lestrange. They're a danger to anyone close to them. They have to go."

"Forgive me for being obtuse, Minister," interjected Moody sarcastically, "but if Lestrange is as bloodthirsty as we think she is, and she has the contacts we think she does, what's stopping her from following the Potters to Europe or Australia or the bloody moon?"

"Well, for one, she's mad..."

"You just told us to ignore that fact, Minister."

"Sorry, Minister," Isabelle began again. "but Lestrange is targeting loads of people. We can see that!" She pointed to the memory playing out in the smoke. "Yet we're not telling all those people to go! We should be protecting those who really need protecting!"

Bagnold gave Isabelle an inquisitive look.

"Pardon me, Minister," Etta Gamble spoke for the first time in the meeting. "But I agree with... what's your name?"

Isabelle raised an eyebrow. "Isabelle Sommier."

"Right. I agree with her. The Potters defeated You-Know-Who. They'll be fine without our nannying."

The minister suddenly stood. "Everybody out."

The room hesitated, then slowly the people made their way to the door.

"Not you, Isabelle."

The others gave Isabelle a pitying and jealous look, before leaving her alone with Bagnold.

When the door sealed shut, Bagnold sighed and walked over to the observation window.

"Minister..." Isabelle continued with a little more calm. "Surely you can see how bad it would look if we protected the Potters? The guards were bad enough, now you want to hide them?"

Bagnold turned and looked at her. "What I find peculiar, Isabelle, is that you seem very keen on keeping your fiancé's friends in the firing line. Why is that?"

Isabelle blinked in surprise. "I... that's not what I'm saying. I'm talking about the special treatment they're receiving over everyone else."

"Don't you like the Potters?"

"Of course I do," said Isabelle. "They're just... a bit..."

"A bit what?"

"I don't know..." sighed Isabelle. "Being around them, it's like... it feels like You-Know-Who is with us. In their eyes, or something. It's... uncomfortable. But they're not bad people. I like them. Sirius loves them."

"They endanger him."

Isabelle lowered her gaze. "I know."

"By default, they endanger you too."

"I know."

Bagnold seemed torn over something for a moment. Then, she made her way over to a small painting in the corner of the room. She placed her hand on the corner of it, and the painting fell away like a silk curtain. Where the painting had been was a small, black iron vault in the wall.

"I'm going to show you something very important and very secret, Isabelle," said Bagnold, taking her wand out of her cloak. "This is something you must keep to yourself. You'll see why."

She waved her wand and the vault creaked open. Inside were a number of papers piled up messily. Bagnold pulled out one from the middle of the pile and held it out to Isabelle.

"You won't tell anyone," Bagnold told her. "Your job depends on it."

Intrigued and a little nervous, Isabelle took the paper and scanned it. Within seconds, her eyes widened in shock.

"Minister..." she whispered. "This is..." she looked up at the Minister, appalled. "You agreed to this?!"

"My predecessor did. I carried it on."

"Minister, if anyone found out..."

"Chaos, yes, yes, I'm aware. That's why nobody is going to find out." She took the paper back from Isabelle and stuffed it back inside the vault. "Go and tell Mr Black and the Potters about their friend." She closed the vault, waved her wand and the painting reappeared in front of the now-locked and concealed vault. "I'm sure they'll want to get to St. Mungo's before it's full of reporters."

oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo

A/N: Thankyou for reading again.

Please be aware that I began planning this story years ago, when there was no information about James Potter's real family. Only a guessed-at family tree was available, and I used that.

Lots of awful things have happened in the news since I last posted a chapter, so I'd just like to say that I hope you're all safe and happy. It's weird having a reader-base. I wonder who you all are, where you're from, what you're like... and there are so many scary, upsetting, depressing things happening in the world, it's probably likely that at least one of you is hurt. By anything. Send me a message, whoever you are.

N x