Not for the first time she cursed the fact she slept with that annoying idiot Lily introduced her to. Mostly because the jackass insisted he was wearing protection that night, but obviously hadn't bothered to check that the damn thing was still good first.

There were expiration dates on them for a reason.

Lilac glared at the pregnancy test. This was going to ruin everything, and the last thing she wanted to deal with was some kid.

Lily, when she was told of the news, had been two parts horrified shock and two parts sympathetic. Thank god her favorite cousin had the perfect solution to both their respective problems.

Due to the fact he was such a late-born child and many, many failed prank potions, James was more or less infertile. It had broken Lily's heart because she always wanted to be a mother.

Lilac wanted to enter the military, just not the English one because there were too many sexist bastards in it. She was going to try for the Italian one, because she wanted to make a fresh start.

Which was why Lily suggested a simple, if awkward solution.

Lilac would carry the child to term and give birth, and they would use an old magical ritual meant to adopt children into the family before they were born. Which meant that the child (which was a boy) would become Lily's son on top of being Lilac's.

Lily would be a mother, Lilac would not have to worry about the burden of raising a child when she was trying to make a new life for herself in another country.

So when the boy was born, Lilac held him for a few moments, allowing her eyes to meet his green ones that he inherited from Lily.

"Rayne."

James took little Rayne from Lilac. She couldn't keep him, not if she wanted to keep her dream. And Lily deserved this happiness.

She packed her bag and didn't look back. She couldn't look back.

Twelve years later...

Amber-orange eyes, hidden by color contacts that his aunt insisted he wear because "orange eyes were not normal", watched the potion with intensity.

After the mess with the snake, only a handful of people would even come near him, much less talk. Among them was Ron, who he thought he could trust as his best friend.

Apparently not. Ron had all abandoned him when he realized he could speak snake. He could see it in the red head's eyes, a well hidden fear and loathing of all things "dark".

Hermione was almost as bad, because she was showing all the signs of someone who was very susceptible to peer pressure. All it would take was one wrong move and she'd join the louder side in an unconscious attempt to fit in. Add in her unhealthy fixation on authority figures always being right...

He shook his head. He was getting distracted.

Unlike Ron and Hermione, he had absolutely no illusions of how the world really worked, or how people lied even to themselves.

You had to grow up fast living with bigots like the Dursleys and the hypocrites of Little Whinging. Learning who was trustworthy and who wasn't was the only way he could have survived until now. Fortunately he had an advantage to that end.

He had an internal bullshit detector. It told him when people were lying, especially to themselves.

That's why he pretended to be friends with Ron and Hermione, when in reality he didn't trust them at all.

And lucky him, he did have some allies who understood the need for a private place to brew potions.

Fred and George hadn't swept the fact he had been locked with bars on his window and a cat flap on his door under the rug like Ron had. They had managed to discreetly confront him about it, and he told them the cold truth.

His 'aunt' hated him and her husband was a coward who despised magic to the point they used their own son to try and beat it out of him. After all, children beating each other up wasn't nearly as scandalous as an adult raising their hand against a defenseless child. Vernon would take every chance he had to "discipline" him for barely acceptable faults whenever he could, but mostly it was all Dudley's fault he nearly ended up in the emergency room more than once growing up.

Petunia simply worked him to death and denied him food, all the while delivering a truly vicious and heartless diatribe of how worthless her sister and her husband were before they died.

And now that they knew he couldn't hex them until he was blue in the face without being kicked out of the one place he had thought safe, he knew without a doubt that if he went back to that place he'd never be able to sleep in that house again without keeping one eye open for danger.

Which meant he had to find a new place to stay, immediately, before summer.

He waited for Ron to sleep, which rarely took long even with the help the twins were giving him, and found a potion that traced a person's bloodline and even showed who was still alive.

It was almost done. Now he just needed to add the final ingredient... freely given blood from the one who wished to see their family tree. He carefully cut into his palm, whispering the basic healing spell he found in the library to heal it over once he had enough. Then he unrolled the parchment which was over seven feet long and carefully dipped a quill he would have to dispose of after into the concoction, before laying the tip to the parchment.

It started writing immediately, changing colors to indicate relation, whether they were alive, or if they had been kicked out of the family. He had the book to tell him what each color meant, and he didn't mind losing sleep to find out more about them.

When the quill ran out of 'ink', he looked at the parchment with excitement and trepidation.

And he frowned. One of the colors was off, and it took him ten minutes to find the right page. Not for the first time he cursed the fact that wizards had never heard of indexes and glossaries. It would have made things so much easier.

"Blood adoption?" he whispered to himself.

The names he was familiar with, Lily and James Potter, were the wrong color. And according to the book it meant that they had used an old ritual to blood adopt a child into the family.

It wasn't done often these days, with how much stock the Ministry put in bloodlines and how the pure bloods sneered at anyone who wasn't born into a family naturally, but in the old days it was rather common to adopt talented first gens into the family to make the blood stronger.

According to this, his real father was named Sirius Black, and his mother was Lilac Evans.

He vaguely knew the second name, as Petunia would sneer at him and say he'd grow up to be no better than his second cousin Lilac who had left England to 'go play soldier with a bunch of foreigners' rather than settled down in the role of housewife like Lily and Petunia had.

From what little he had learned of the woman, she was living in Italy and was a high ranking member of the Italian version of the Royal Marines. Other than that, he had nothing to go on, not even a picture.

He looked over the parchment, and outside of some genuine disgust learning he was related to Malfoy of all people, he had nothing to work with.

Late night research into the other people mentioned on the parchment gave him absolutely nothing to go on. Sirius Black had been arrested and thrown into Azkaban with very little, if any mention of a trial for the murder of the Potters among others. Considering how stupid the wizards were, it was entirely possible he never got a fair trial at all.

Everyone else was either too enamored with the whole concept of the "Boy-Who-Lived", or were too repugnant for him to even consider asking for help (like the Malfoys).

Which really left only one option.

He would have to see if his cousin, which according to the parchment was really his mother, would be willing to take him in over the summer.

God, he hoped she was at least open to the idea. He couldn't live another year with the Dursleys.

He went up to the owlry, and as much as he hated to do this, called down a simple barn owl.

Hedwig gave him the most awful look for it too.

"I'm sorry girl. I know you're the cleverest one here, but I need an owl who's more discreet. Besides, I need someone who will listen and not think I'm a monster just because I speak to snakes," he said, stroking her feathers.

Hedwig gave him a reproachful hoot, before sitting on his shoulder and preening his hair like she would a chick.

The barn owl took the letter and flew off, acknowledging his instruction to at least wait for a reply before returning.

Somewhere in Italy...

Lal Mirch was having a shitty day. Not only had that damn idiot she was stuck training not taken the hint and gotten on her nerves, but she had been seeing a bird out of the corner of her eye that had been following her all day.

It was pissing her off.

Finally she had enough and threw open the window of her room, whih was one of the few that had one, and waited.

The second she registered what it was, she started internally swearing.

It was an owl with a letter in it's claws.

She had tried to bury everything to do with her old life as deep as she could, but it looked like her mistake had come home to roost. Either that or Lily told the boy the truth.

She cautiously opened the letter with a stick, and when she was sure it wasn't trapped she read it.

And her fear turned to outright anger and fury the second she read the entire thing.

Not only was her cousin dead, but her son, the boy she had given up knowing he would be loved had been stuck with Petunia of all people.

And from the sounds of it, he was attempting to contact someone he hoped would be better than his current guardians. Someone who wouldn't take out the fact he was a wizard out on him.

He evidently heard something about how Lily might not be his mother, but he wasn't sure whether it was true.

Either way, she'd be damned if she let that complete bitch Petunia take out her jealousy of Lily on her son one more day.

"Stay," she barked at the owl, who straightened up.

She vaguely knew where the Hogwarts Express let out, if only because of Lily.

She wrote a short, if not very informative letter on a scrap parchment and handed it to the owl. The bird took off right away, not even hesitating.

She swore in as many languages as she knew.

She hoped like hell the idiot didn't try to follow her for her abrupt vacation.

What did it say about him, that he was able to see the 'real' reactions of his "friends" when he told them he was heading home for Christmas.

They had seen him send letters through Hedwig, but he was smart enough not to leave his correspondence with his cousin anywhere they could read them, regardless of how annoyed Hermione got, or how suspicious Ron became. It was only because the returned letters were always on muggle paper that kept them from prying too much.

He really hoped he could get some shopping done... he didn't want her to see him in such threadbare clothes like the ones he had been stuck wearing for years.

Getting on the train during Christmas was weird, but honestly it was a relief. Best of all, no one was "brave" enough to share a compartment with him.

Which meant he had peace and quiet. Of a sorts.

He was able to access his vault and exchange some currency to buy a few new clothes before he went to the London Museum.

It felt great wearing something that actually fit that didn't look centuries out of date, even if he didn't have time to get a pair of proper glasses. Even he knew his prescription was very out of date.

He was sitting outside under the eaves of the museum, well out of the rain that was so common in London. Hedwig was on his shoulder, as a way to identify him since he highly doubted Petunia would have sent pictures.

There was a woman with a very grumpy expression not even bothering with an umbrella. Like most native Londoners, she didn't bother with an umbrella at all. She would have gotten wet regardless.

She made a beeline for the museum.

"Bloody hell, I forgot how much I hated English weather," she said with an accent.

He stood up, adjusting his new bag on his shoulder.

She shook herself off a bit, brushing off the worst of the damp. Then she saw him and stared.

"Are you Lilac?" he asked.

"I haven't gone by that name in a very long time. Call me Lal Mirch."

"I'm Harry," he said, holding out his hand. She gave him a firm handshake.

"I don't know about you, but I could use a proper cup of tea to throw off this damn rain."

He walked with her to a cafe near the museum. Hedwig took position outside on a nearby tree. She could tolerate the rain for a while.

"So. How did you find out about me?" asked Lal.

"There's a potion that traces bloodlines. Your name came up before theirs did, along with one other. And aunt Petunia mentioned you, but not in a very good light, once."

Lal snorted derisively.

"Considering what I remember of that twit, I'm not shocked. She was impossible to tolerate even when we were younger. God knows what she would have said to you if she knew the truth," sighed Lal.

"Truth?"

"I take it they died before they could explain things?"

He nodded.

"It's not exactly a good story, and definitely not one I'll explain out in the open. Especially not without some alcohol," said Lal. "But if I knew sooner that you were stuck with her, I would have come a long time ago."

Seeing the hope in his eyes, she hid a wince.

"I'm not proud of what I did, and to be honest it was the best solution we could come up with given the circumstances. But if you're willing, you can stay with me during the summers and holidays."

Lal could feel his penetrating stare, and knew was searching to see if she was telling the truth. It hurt, knowing he even felt the need to do that.

"If you have anything you want to bring, better go get it now."

"Where are we going?"

"I have a home in Italy, though it was something of an 'apology' from your father, once he found out what happened. He took it...well enough."

Sirius had nearly had a heart attack learning he had a son, but when he found out what Lilac had done took it well enough. He could pretend Harry was his godson to protect the truth.

But as a precautionary measure Sirius gave Lilac the Black family home in Italy for her to have. She didn't visit it often, but if something happened it gave her and Harry a safe place to stay and regroup.

Only he could activate the wards on it though, and Lilac was personally keyed into them.

"I don't have a passport."

"You don't need one. I have a port key that goes straight to the house, though the owl will have to come on her own," said Lal.

He went and got his things, having traded in his trunk with something a little more...trustworthy and easier to carry. With a single word he could shrink it and carry it in his pocket, and another enlarged it.

"Meet up with us later, okay Hedwig?"

The owl hooted, and took off flying.

Lal took something out of her pocket. It was an old watch, the kind that didn't require batteries to run.

It was the sort of thing that would work even around heavy magic areas.

She handed him a length of chain and they went to an empty alley.

"Ready?" she asked. He nodded. "Rainy Day."

With a feeling like something hooking onto his navel, they disappeared.