Harry walked into his bedroom followed by Melissa, and with a flick of her wand, she stepped forward and kissed him on the mouth. Harry held her close to his chest, and for a long moment of feeling explosions in their mouths, the two teenagers stepped back and began stripping off their clothes.

An hour later, Harry let out his breath as he stared at the ceiling with Melissa glued to his side.

"What's wrong?" Melissa whispered softly to him. "Are you still dealing with what happened with Holly?"

"It never fails to amaze me how hypocritical people are. Everyone's more than happy to despise merpeople and goblins, but whenever one of them is hurt, they attack the people they think are responsible," Harry shook his head. "I'm tired of hexing people who keep accusing me of hurting or murdering others."

Melissa snorted, "I know what you mean." She didn't like the necessity Harry had needed to use to rescue Holly, but she wished he had left his biological mother down there in the lake. "Has there been much luck in doing something about Dumbledore?"

Harry sighed, "No. Dumbledore's too well-protected. He's got too many friends who have fucked the evidence enough. They've also released a lot of 'proof' of how I killed the merpeople at the bottom of the lake. Okay, I admit I did kill some of them, but they were in the way, forcing me to save the bitch instead of my little sister. They had it coming, and I'm not going to apologise for that."

Melissa was chilled to hear her boyfriend say this, knowing better than most how dark Harry was. She loved him and she loved his protectiveness even if he wasn't one of those guys who took things too far, but she held him comfortingly, knowing a large chunk of his attitude stemmed from his need to protect his sister. She also knew he had done so many things he truly didn't regret in the slightest to protect Holly. She knew some of them, like how he'd tortured his No-Maj relatives to protect her, even kicking out the teeth of one No-Maj boy who grabbed her arm when she was young and left a nasty bruise there.

"Has Fontaine said anything?" She asked.

Harry grimaced at the mention of Fontaine's name, and Melissa realised she probably should not have even said the name of the Ilvermorny Headmaster. "He's more worried about how this will affect Ilvermorny's reputation. While he understands why I did what I did, he wishes I hadn't been so excessive," he replied.

"But Holly's life was in danger. And yours. I don't care what Dumbledore, Fudge, Crouch, or Bagman say, this tournament is dangerous. The dragon proved that. I was worried out of my mind, and so was your aunt, when we watched the second task. We didn't even know what the hell was happening down there," Melissa argued.

"Nobody ever accused people of being smart, Melissa," Harry replied.

"I wish we were back in America. I miss Ilvermorny. The airship's cool, but I prefer the castle," Melissa said.

"I know. Look on the bright side, at least we can discover a large chunk of the mystery of what's going on," Harry replied.

Melissa lifted her head and she sat up. "Yeah, but what do we know? Someone used your blood and the blood of your twin to bind you to the contract, but we don't know why."

"Ah, there's a mystery there," Harry told her solemnly.

"What do you mean?" Melissa asked slowly, knowing she wasn't going to like this.

Harry was silent for a second as he tried to work out the best way he could word this properly without Melissa blowing up on him. "You know how my family didn't trust the British authorities to help with the investigation as Fudge's idea of investigating is to bluster and point fingers?"

"Yeah."

"Well, Uncle Jasper and Issac both employed the Unspeakables after secretly trying to find the Dursley's old house. I gave them the address and tried to give them clear directions of where the Dursleys lived, but I couldn't, which was weird enough and it worried all of us. Even Holly wasn't able to help. But they couldn't get to the house."

"What?"

"I know. I've been asking them for weeks why the hell progress with the investigation was slow, but the reason was they turned to the Unspeakables to help them to crack the mystery. It turns out someone powerful put the Dursley's house under a diluted variant of the unplottable spell and something like the Fidelius; it would stop wizards from locating the Dursleys and even make them forget where they lived to a degree, but it wouldn't affect No-Maj's," Harry explained.

Melissa listened to all of this in surprise. She had been waiting for news about why her boyfriend was suddenly forced to come to Britain after spending so long in the MACUSA, but she hadn't expected him to keep this from her. "Why didn't you tell me?" She demanded, feeling her temper flaring.

Recognising her shift in mood, Harry quickly stopped the outburst. "Because I didn't know myself, Melissa. Holly and I were told nothing for months, and you know how aurors and unspeakable work. Aunt Miranda told me this morning just before lessons. It's been on my mind all day. The Unspeakables were able to uncover the truth a couple of days ago, and they found evidence someone collected dried blood in the cupboard under the stairs."

Melissa knew enough about Harry's upbringing to know he'd lived in the Cupboard before Holly came to him. She knew he had been abused, beaten, punched, slapped, kicked, whipped. She closed her eyes to exorcise the phantom screams out of her mind to focus on other things. "It can't have been your biological parents, Harry; if they'd wanted to get you to come back, they would have found something better, and they've been ignoring you for months."

"Yes," Harry didn't let on but that, in his opinion, was perhaps the best part really. "It wasn't the Ministry either. I don't know for sure, but I don't think they even knew I was at the Dursleys before Holly arrived. And the goblin's discovery of Lord Voldemort's survival after they examined me when I met them could mean he did it. But I don't think he did."

Melissa frowned. She didn't have the same stupid fears about Voldemort the British did, but she knew he had been a very powerful and very dangerous wizard. "He could have tracked you down somehow, and found the blood," she suggested.

"Yeah, but why would he bother going to all the trouble and letting us know he'd been there? Whoever put those spells on Privet Drive was stupidly clever, Mel."

"Stupidly clever?" Melissa asked with a smirk.

"Yeah, a really clever person and yet does something really stupid on a massive scale," Harry explained before he chuckled and realised Melissa was teasing him. Ignoring her giggles he wrapped his arms around her. "Well, we now know who took my blood, I just wish we knew why they wanted me back."

-8-

James found Lily flicking through the photo album again. He sighed. "Looking through that's not going to change anything, Lily," he said softly.

Lily ignored him. She had been doing that a lot recently ever since she'd been pulled out of the lake. She had not been happy with the idea of being a hostage, but she had agreed with Albus to try to make some effort to mend the bridges they'd burnt with Harry and Holly…but it was so late she and James discovered Dumbledore planned to kidnap KIDNAP Holly from America, and then put compulsions of both Harry and on Charlus to make Harry ignore Holly, the little sister he'd taken care of for years while Charlus ignored her and went for Holly.

Even by Dumbledore's standards, the scheme was badly thought through and convoluted.

James had always thought highly of Dumbledore, worshipping the ground the older wizard walked around on, but fortunately, he'd been unsure about the plan and they'd both questioned Dumbledore about his methods and why they had gone to the lengths of actually kidnapping Holly and putting those compulsions on Harry and Charlus to begin with.

Harry had been forced to slaughter a large number of merpeople because the merpeople had tried to stop him from grabbing Holly and getting away from there. Lily didn't like the thought of her son - yes, she still saw him that way despite whatever he or Holly believed - being a killer, but what was done was done.

But she felt James's actions were excessive and more than a bit cruel. James had followed Dumbledore's lead and was now slandering Harry, even calling him a murderer, and Charlus was going out of his way to harass him at Hogwarts.

Lily hadn't done anything. She was still astonished Harry had saved her at all. And now she was facing a choice.

She had never liked the plan she and James came out with to protect themselves; giving Harry away to Petunia and Vernon to raise even though she knew her sister had never gotten out of her stupid jealousy issues and never tried to be better, and abandoning Holly had been one of the worst things they'd done.

But she and James had known for a long time before she'd given birth to Holly they'd have to send her away to keep her safe since Dumbledore told them Voldemort had survived somehow. With luck, when she arrived at Hogwarts everyone would just assume she was not related to them, so Voldemort would see no reason to go after her. They'd planned to not have anything to do with their own daughter. And Harry was a squib, or so they'd assumed at the time, although she later worked out Holly would join the dots about Charlus since she would see him when she arrived, but they would come up with a plan later.

Or so they had assumed at the time.

Deep down Lily was more than aware the plans she and James had come out with were utterly insane and desperate. It was to protect their family. She swore it.

But as she looked down at the photos of herself - utterly exhausted, but smiling in a way that didn't reach her eyes as she knew what she and James would have to do - holding Holly, before going further back and seeing herself with the twins, Lily wondered….if she even deserved to be a parent.

But she could do something, right, something to make this right?