-8-

Groaning a little, Nala stood up and she wandered back inside the house. She took a shower after making sure the anti-slipping spells were up, and as she washed her body, she gazed down at her belly in wonder. Never in her life had she imagined that she would be a mother, but then she hadn't expected magic to exist.

"It's okay, sweetie," she whispered to her unborn child, "I will never make the same mistakes they did."

Her mind went back to when she had discovered the things Dumbledore and her parents had done to her. It had been decades, but while she had moved on with her life she couldn't just forget about it.

"I will always love and protect you from the evils of the world," she went on, and as she said that, Nala smirked as she considered her secret weapon. The Room of Requirement had shown her the past, the present and the future when she had first gone inside it, and thanks to the Room she had witnessed the whole meeting between Dumbledore and her parents….

-8-

Flashback…

-8-

Harry James Potter (although he was seriously giving a lot of thought to just walking away from his family out of spite for what they'd done to him) stood in the Room of Requirement. Finding the Room so early on after learning about it had been a stroke of good fortune more than it was luck. He had discovered the existence of the Room after meeting with the goblins, but while they had told him of the legendary and almost mythical properties of the chamber, they had made it clear it existed but they didn't know how to find it in the castle.

But the House Elves did.

While Harry hated slavery considering how his own childhood had miserably unfolded, he had a soft spot for the House Elves. Summoning one to come and tell him where the kitchens were and where the Room was was hardly difficult.

For weeks he'd had a hundred different ideas of how to use the Room, but one stood out.

He had to know the truth. Goblin records truly did not lie. His parents were alive. They'd been alive all of this time, and they had been in hiding. Harry didn't know what they had been doing all this time, and he didn't care either. The reason for that? They were happy with their lives; Harry didn't know how or why the goblins would need to have some kind of enchantment for their records to determine the emotional state of their clients, but they did, and the Potters were truly happy.

Harry closed his eyes.

He had been waiting for this moment for weeks, now, and now he was here at last, he was trying to delay the inevitable. A part of him didn't want to know, a part of him didn't want to have visual proof that his parents didn't want him in their lives, that the Dursleys were right.

But he had to see it.

Taking in a deep breath, Harry said clearly, "I want to see my parents and Dumbledore talking about abandoning me."

If he had expected some kind of screen to light up like a cinema or TV screen, he was in for a surprise; all around him, the mirror-like surfaces of the walls of the Room of Requirement made it feel like the room was larger on the inside than the outside and had a slightly warped feel that made it disorientating for him to look at, darkened and then it lit up, showing a beautifully furnished sitting room in a small house.

Harry's parents were there with Dumbledore. To his surprise, Lily was cuddling a baby to her chest. With a shock, he realised it was him. He was looking into the past.

"You want us to do what?" Lily demanded.

"Lily, it's for the best," Dumbledore was saying.

"How can it be for the best?" James snapped.

"No, how can it be for the best?" Lily spat, shooting to her feet, and cuddling her child to her chest. Harry watched on dispassionately, wondering where this so-called maternal instinct was when she and her bastard husband just abandoned him. "Let me get this straight in my head because this is one of those badly thought out schemes of yours; you're telling us you want to use Harry as bait for You-Know-Who because you are saying he is after Harry but you won't say why, and you want us to survive and live."

"Yes."

"What the hell was going through your mind when you came up with this plan?" Lily snapped, her loud voice making baby Harry cry, and while she held him, muttering reassurances to him, James glared at his old headmaster.

"You're telling us to abandon our child for Merlin knows how long, and you won't say how long, while You-Know-Who comes after us. How did you think we would react?" James was beyond furious, but as he watched all of this in confusion, Harry wondered what changed their minds, and he wondered if Dumbledore had done something.

Dumbledore sighed, "As I have told you before, you two are an enormous asset in our fight against V-," he began, but Lily quickly interrupted him.

"DON'T!" Lily screamed, quickly patting her suddenly crying son, who was stunned and terrified by the sudden scream. "How many times do I have to tell you, we are under the Fidellius Charm and the Taboo curse? I don't know if the ward will keep him out!"

"My apologies, my dear girl," Dumbledore said, but Harry didn't see any true sincerity there. "But this is important. If you stay here, then there is a chance you can die-."

"I'd rather die than abandon my son," Lily interrupted angrily. "It's ironic, isn't it?" She went on. "You go on about love, forgiveness, and stuff like that, but when push comes to shove, you show you don't believe it."

Harry frowned, wondering how the hell his parents could have changed their minds so easily. And he was starting to suspect he had used magic on them.

"That's not true, Lily," Dumbledore said calmly, folding his hands. "A member of the Order is a spy. I don't know who, so please…don't ask. But whoever it is, they have given….He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named a great deal of information about the Order, and our operations. And he knows about Harry and Neville."

Harry gasped.

Neville…

Neville Longbottom was a part of this?

How could this be?

Had Dumbledore coerced the Longbottoms into abandoning their child as well?

"What?" This news had snapped Lily out of her anger.

"Are you sure?" James asked.

Dumbledore nodded solemnly, but Harry had a feeling the old wizard was jumping a jig now he had the Potters where he wanted them the most. "Yes. And that's why its important we have more people in the Order surviving. Lily, James, I am not telling you to abandon Harry. My plan is straightforward enough; I want to capture and imprison V-You-Know-Who, and give us the chance to discover what he has done to himself."

Lily was intrigued. "And then deal with it with more time?"

"Correct."

"And Harry?" James whispered.

"He is in even more danger, James," Dumbledore replied solemnly. "At his current age, he is vulnerable. He will not rest until Harry is dead, and he is an exceptionally gifted wizard. It won't be long before he finds a way to get through the Fidellius charm."

"Sirius and Peter won't betray us!" James protested.

"I never said that they would, James," Dumbledore replied evenly, while Harry mentally recalled the names Sirius Black, his so-called godfather and Peter Pettigrew, the wizard and friend of the family who was murdered by Black, but now he had some doubts about that. "And I am not saying or suggesting this will be a long-term plan. I am saying that at some point, Harry will be found, and he will be attacked. And I'm not even suggesting to the pair of you that you abandon your son now, but put him somewhere else and use the book on Blood Magic I gave you to find a way to protect him in the long term, while a doppelgänger like a golem be kept here with you, and function as the bait.

"My plan is when You-Know-Who comes here, he will attack the three of you, and the wizarding world will believe you two are dead, while Harry is the sole survivor. When You-Know-Who returns, the pair of you can return and come out of hiding, but by that time, you should have used the belief that you are both dead to your advantage, and help bring down the Death Eater organisation," Dumbledore outlined his idea, and despite hating it so much, Harry could see some appeal behind it.

But while his parents also seemed taken by it, Lily shook her head. "Wouldn't it be better for Harry to remain with us?" She clung on stubbornly.

"No, I'm afraid not," Dumbledore said regretfully, but Harry didn't believe him. Not one bit.

"Why?"

"For my plan to work, Harry - the real Harry - will have to be in the public eye, and I doubt You-Know-Who will believe for a moment he is truly dead. And if you take him, it's only a matter of time before he finds you again."

"Then let him find us," Lily said stubbornly.

It went on and on like that for hours, with both sides refusing to give in before Dumbledore began offering concessions and promises he would be looked after. At no point was there any mention of the Dursleys.

In the end, Dumbledore was sent away with his tail between his legs. His plans had been foiled, and later the attack went ahead, but Lily and James had decided to use a plan of their own to survive. They would leave golems in their place and they would distract Voldemort from the attack.

In a way, Dumbledore got what he wanted when he arrived. He discovered Lily and James were alive, and Harry had the infamous scar on his forehead, but when they examined the young baby they discovered Harry had a chunk of Voldemort's soul in his forehead, and Dumbledore could not remove it.

Lily and James finally accepted they would have no choice but to send Harry away, and that their son wouldn't be in their lives, they didn't want their son to be tainted by the Dark Lord's soul, so they allowed him to be sent to the Dursleys. Harry finally sat back and realised they had truly abandoned him simply because he had a piece of Voldemort's soul in his head and they didn't want to even try to find a way to get it out.

Harry looked up at what he thought could be the ceiling, but as far as he knew he was hanging upside down and he wouldn't know it. "I'd like to know all about Voldemort."

It was a disturbing history. Lord Voldemort, aka Tom Marvolo Riddle, was born in an orphanage and he had lived through the Second World War. He had discovered his powers early on in his life, and it caused the muggles around him to become fearful of him. Harry watched on, never taking his eyes off of the attempted exorcisms and bullying.

And then…

Harry saw the similarities between himself and Riddle quickly. Like Harry, the same boy he tried to murder and would ironically be placed in a similar environment, Tom discovered his magic and how to use it, and once he had the basics like Harry had, he used it to get revenge on those who oppressed him. Harry remembered only too well how he had used his magic openly against the Dursleys, they had been terrified of him and he knew he had proven them right, to be scared of magic, but it had been worth it in the end.

Deep down, Riddle wanted more.

He wanted to live forever, especially when he learnt about how his mother died. Riddle could not understand why, if his mother loved him as the nurses told him, she would just give up. And two things became deeply rooted in his mind; first, there was a fear of death and a complete disregard towards love while he continued looking for a way to continue practicing his magic.

Harry had done largely the same, but while he had been content with just being left alone, Riddle had gone further. He had tortured the muggles rather than scare them, and he didn't just torture them straight up, he tore at their minds and made them scared to even be within earshot of him. When Dumbledore came to induct Riddle, he listened to the muggles' side rather than his own, but Harry noticed how calculating Dumbledore was.

Riddle was sorted into Slytherin. By that point, he had learnt from some of his mistakes - the biggest was revealing too much of his talents to Dumbledore but he had merely wanted to know if there were others like himself, that he would not be alone. He was a great student, but as the Second World War grew worse, he was one of many muggle-born and muggle-raised students who didn't want to go back, but the wizarding world proved their lack of common sense and allowed them to go home…where they would likely die.

Riddle went back with them, and Harry watched as he sat, frightened, alone, tired and miserable, on the platforms in the deep level Tube stations. It was there Riddle's heart hardened and his desire to become immortal grew. When he returned to Hogwarts, he learnt of the RoR, and from there he learnt about immortality.

And then Harry discovered something shocking. Voldemort had learnt about Horcruxes, yes, but he learnt they didn't work as a ticket for eternal youth, but they could be used as a kind of clone, like a backup. The idea that came to Voldemort was if he died, for good, then a Horcrux version of himself could survive. He didn't like the idea, but he panicked. He unleashed the basilisk contained in the Chamber of Secrets - Harry was astonished that the Founders of the school were so seemingly egotistical they would have chambers, never mind have anything like that in one of them - and it killed several muggle-borns.

From the death of one of them, Riddle created a Horcrux, but something went wrong. He was not himself after that, and he didn't like the feeling. Continuing his research, Riddle realised he had made a massive mistake in creating Horcruxes when there were other forms of immortality which were far better, and less dangerous, like essence transfer.

-8-

Flashback ends.

-8-

Nala stepped out of the shower, and she waved her hands and dried her body before putting on her clothes.