Chapter 26: One of us

Harry felt exhausted – not so much from lack of sleep, but rather emotionally drained from his conversation with Sam. He was therefore relieved to find that, after an eventful day, things had mostly returned to what he had started to think of as the Potter household's normal routine.

It was James's day in St Mungo's, but Lily was working from home. Harry had spotted her through the open door to her office, hair tied in a messy bun, glasses low on her nose as she pored over a pile of papers.

Harry's morning was spent with Sam and his Lego constructions. By mid-afternoon, they had taken up most of the sitting room and were putting the finishing touches to a pirate ship when, much to Harry's surprise, Anna shuffled in and plopped herself next to them.

For a little while, she didn't say anything, and simply sat there. She rolled a couple of tiles between her fingers, played with the hem of her dragon t-shirt and, when she thought Harry was too busy to notice, she would sneak a glance at him through her lashes. It took Sam running off to ask Lily to get him a snack for things to change.

As soon as Sam was out of the room, she sat up straight and scooted closer to Harry.

"Hello," he said, uncertain how to proceed.

"Hi," she replied almost shyly, a word that did not quite seem to fit with the little ball of energy Harry had gotten used to over the past few weeks.

She swallowed, delicately placed the tiles she was holding on her bare knees and looked up to Harry with her pale blue eyes, so much like Petunia's. "Are you really like my brother?" she asked quietly.

It was Harry's turn to swallow.

"Well…" He looked towards the kitchen where Lily had been making herself a cup of tea – she was busy listening to Sam who, by the looks of his hand gestures, was describing their plans for a vast Lego pirate cove as soon as they finished the ship. Harry cleared his throat. "In a way, yes. But in another, not quite…"

"Because I was never born in your world?" she said, her tone dejected.

"What?" Harry said, alarmed. "No, I meant because he would've been a completely different person if he'd lived with you here."

Anna thought about that for a moment, absently picking at a scab on her leg. "Do you think," she asked at last, "that there's a world where we both exist?"

"I don't know…" He hesitated. "I'd like to think so though."

Evidently, this had been the right response as Anna beamed at him.

"Do you think, in that world, you'd help me prank Vi?" she asked.

Harry gave a snort of laughter, relieved that they had moved on to lighter topics. "Maybe – or maybe I'd help her prank you," he added with a mischievous smile.

Anna gave an outraged shriek. "So did you play many pranks, like Dad?" She looked at him eagerly, waiting for his response.

"Not really, no…"

"Oh…"

Harry cringed at the disappointment in her voice. Anna looked at the Lego tiles still on her knees and picked them up. She was losing interest…

"But I did help a friend with a dragon, once," Harry said, hoping he didn't sound as desperate as he felt.

Anna paused mid-gesture. "A dragon?" she asked, looking down at the swooping Chinese Fireball on her t-shirt.

"What friend was that?" a new voice demanded from the doorway. Violet stood there, looking at Harry through narrowed eyes.

"Hagrid. You know him, right?" he said, choosing to answer Violet's question first.

"The Hogwarts Groundskeeper?"

"That's him," Harry said. Suddenly, he had the urge to tell them all about himself, for them to know him – the real him – as they would've if he'd really grown up alongside them. "He was my first friend in the magical world. He's the one who brought me my Hogwarts letter – he had to go find me on an island in the middle of nowhere... And he gave me my first owl for my eleventh birthday."

"I got an owl for my eleventh birthday too," Violet said, stepping into the room fully. "Mine's called Wingardium. What's yours?"

"She was called Hedwig."

"But what about the dragon?" Anna interrupted impatiently.

"The dragon… Actually, I have three dragon stories." Talking to anyone else it would've felt like bragging, but Harry had never wanted to impress anyone quite as much as the two girls who could have been his sisters had history been any different.

"Start with the Hagrid one," Violet demanded as she sat down next to Anna.

"Alright. Well, you see, it was always Hagrid's dream to have a dragon…" As Harry told them about Norbert hatching, about Ron's bite, about meeting Charlie Weasley's friends at midnight on the Astronomy Tower, he was gratified to see that neither Anna's blue gaze, nor Violet's hazel eyes deviated once from his face.

Then he told them about the Triwizard Tournament and the First Task.

"You outflew a dragon?"

Harry's head snapped up. Without him noticing, their little group had been joined by Lily and Sam, as well as James and Sirius – and it was the latter who had spoken.

"Wicked," Anna said. "Dad, I bet he's even better at flying than you are!"

"Impossible!" James exclaimed, ruffling her hair.

Anna scowled at him and batted his hand away, before turning back to Harry. "What's your third dragon story?"

"I – um…" Suddenly flustered, Harry felt himself blush under the gaze of his six-person audience. "Well… So I sort of escaped from Gringotts by flying the dragon that keeps the lowest vault."

James snorted. "He says this so casually," he said, nudging Sirius.

"There's a dragon in Gringotts?" Anna said over James's comment. She was almost bouncing with excitement despite being sat down. "Oh can we go see it? Do you think I'll be allowed to come close to it? And maybe to feed it? Please-please-pleasepleasepleasepl…"

Lily leaned forward and placed a hand gently over her daughter's mouth. "A dragon is not a pet, Anna. You don't just go to see them…"

"Actually, you can do just that in the dragon reserve in Wales. They have open days –"

"You're not helping, Sirius," Lily cut him off with a glare.

"A dragon reserve?" Anna all but screeched. "Oh Mum, Dad pleeeeaaaase?"

James and Lily exchanged a weary look.

"We'll see," Lily said eventually standing up and heading to the kitchen, but Anna was not so easily appeased. She clambered up and followed Lily out of the door.

Meanwhile, the room had dissolved into smaller conversations. Sirius was telling Violet and Sam about the way to get past the Gringotts dragon, prompting Violet to protest in the name of dragon welfare. Harry gave a small, melancholy smile thinking of another girl he knew who'd been equally outraged by things that other people simply overlooked.

"And what were you doing exactly, breaking out the Gringotts dragon?" said a quiet voice close to him, making him jump.

He spun around to find that James had made his way across the room to stand next to him.

"It's a long story…" Harry said. And one that he would probably have to tell him if he carried through with his plan to give the Potters the information to defeat Voldemort. He was about to elaborate when Anna came running back into the sitting room.

"Mum says dinner will be ready in ten minutes. I'm sitting next to Harry," she declared, taking hold of Harry's hand.

"What?" Sam cried, hurrying over and taking Harry's other hand. "No, I'm sitting next to Harry."

"How about you each sit on one side of him?" James interrupted smoothly before it could dissolve into a full-on argument.

Anna and Sam considered this for a moment and eventually nodded – and it was thus escorted, that Harry made his way to the Potters' kitchen.

A/N: Happy weekend everyone! As ever, your thoughts on my little story are very much appreciated :)