Year 1
Chapter 1
A boy like no other
The sun was rising slowly over the village of Ottery St Catch-pole. It brought light to the small shops and lonely post office that created a circle around a standing statue of an Otter shooting water from it's mouth into a low basin. A few birds nestled, having just woken to start their day and the local post and milk-men were making their rounds as usual.
Now, if you were to visit, the locals would not be hard to find. Just beyond the gathering of little shops, a road to the right would take you further up passed a church yard and beyond to the many houses and cottages that the fair people of this village lived.
These happy little townsfolk so blissful in their quiet existence would be starting their day with a hearty breakfast, talk of the continued warm weather they'd be having and the not so strange things that took place on a day to day basis here.
As a matter of fact. Nothing ever happened in Ottery St Catch-pole. The last bit of excitement was derived of Mrs Eggleton losing her cat for half-an-hour one morning, only to discover that she had locked the poor thing in the toilet by mistake. So little happened that the Police men, fire services and even the local doctors office were often described as "Just for show," due to the lack of need of them.
Yes, the village of Ottery was indeed a quiet and peaceful place. Exactly the type of place one would pick, should they ever desire a comfortable and boring existence.
This, I am happy to say is not where our story starts.
Our story starts on a fine July morning, in the other direction. There are two of course. One, a dirt path that would take you to a fence just near a vast forest space that had a sign which read "Dangerous, do not enter" of which the locals abided by in a manner that suggested such fence and forest did not exist.
The other, a cobble stoned path that was shaded by tall crops, led a winding journey away from the main village. People rarely made there way up this path for it just felt far too long. Here and there small turnings would lead to different dwellings but further up is where we are going. If, unlike the people of Ottery, you made it to the end of this path, you would find a fence that led into the most curious looking garden.
The Post-man who rarely found himself visiting, would be seen approaching this garden with great caution and despite what he would tell his friends in the pub after a long shift, they would laugh and say he was insane. He would often describe the tall hedges, which caused no reason for alarm, that guarded the garden from view. It was in fact the plants that would raise a few eyebrows and lead to people saying "OK Jim, that's enough drink for you, mate!" This garden had many a flower that you might recognise, but the description of plants that were like tentacles that tried to snap at him. Plants that sang odd songs. Plants which floated above the ground and plants that screamed underground and made you feel dizzy if you nudged them, these were the type that got old Jim put back on carrot juice until he sobered up. It was especially the claims of a goblin that lived in the garden that had people doubting his sanity.
There of course was not a goblin in this garden. It was actually a house-elf. With huge bat-like ears, two large green eyes the size of tennis balls, big flappy feet and wearing a pure white towel as a toga, this house-elf was named, Dobby.
And today Dobby was tending to the garden that belonged to his Masters, the Potter family. Gardening was one of Dobbies all time great enjoyments and he had gotten up early to get to work on the tasks that Mrs Potter had set for him. He was humming a jaunty little tune and tending to some Bubotubers that were starting to sap, when he couldn't help thinking what a wonderful, calm and enjoyable life he had. Until...
"DOBBY, HELP!" Cried a voice. It came from inside the Potter's home.
Dobby had lived here for exactly eleven years today and it was indeed a lovely home. Not sitting with the décor of the village, it was more like a house located in a modern suburb. It had a double door garage but no cars or a driveway, the front door was a blazing red with an emblem of a lion which was the door knocker. From the outside it was nothing more than a standard three bedroom house, but had it's own library, potions room a basement, a large living room and when Dobby came hurrying with his little fists balled up ready for action, a large kitchen with all the usual needs of a family and a very long kitchen table.
"I am here Mistress, Dobby is here!" Dobby called out in a panic. A panic that instantly evaporated the moment realised what was happening.
His Mistress, Lily Potter, was stood over the cooker attempting to beat back a large amount of flames that were issuing from the frying pan. The kitchen had filled with smoke which, with a click of his fingers, Dobby made disappear, as well as the fire, in an instant.
"Thank you, Dobby." Lily said, drawing a deep breath and shaking her head. "My wand was just a little out of reach and I'm not entirely sure what happened, but I am certain this cooker wants to kill me."
"Perhaps Dobby should attend to breakfast, Mistress?" Dobby suggested, politely.
Lily looked down at Dobby, noting the slightly over done politeness, knowing full well that the Elf could cook a thousand times better than she ever could. She was a rather beautiful woman was Lily. Fair skin, long red hair and a slender frame. She was wearing a set of green robes that matched her elfin features and dazzling green eyes. The stern look on her face somehow managed to look soft as she gazed at her dutiful servant.
"If I've told you once, I will tell you a thousand times, do not call me, Mistress." She told him sternly.
"Yes, Mistress." Dobby said with a wide, toothy smile. He instantly set to work, clearing away the frying pan that was now destroyed and getting all that was needed for this mornings breakfast. "Will Master Remus be joining us this morning?"
"I should expect so." Lily answered, She was ignoring the use of Mistress and Master as she had little time to argue about the medieval language used in regards to house-elves. Today was something of a special day in the Potter house-hold. She took up her wand which she left sitting on the counter and stowed it away in the waist of her robes. She'd already set the table without much issue and was now working on a particular seat. This seat had red and green ribbons on it and sign in front of the plate which read "Happy Birthday, Harry!"
There were a scattering of presents and a few cards sealed away in envelops. "Presents, food on the way, ah!" Lily smiled and looked from the kitchen to the hall as the front door opened. "Neville, wiped your feet!" For a small boy with a round face, brown hair and a fair amount of baby fat trundled through the Potters front door as if he owned it. He was dressed in a pair of trainers, jeans and a t-shirt which were covered in mud.
"Yes, Mrs Potter!" Neville said nervously, "Sorry, I fell over the venomous tentacular again. Is Harry awake?" He asked, while desperately trying not to get mud on Lily's carpets.
"Yes, tell him to come down, Remus should be here soon and we'll need to leave sharpish." She said, watching the little boy fondly. Neville Longbottom had been Harry's friend since they were old enough to get into trouble, which was at a surprisingly young age. A clumsy, shy, often odd little boy who had a passion for Lily's garden and was always curious about the plants which grew there.
"Yes, Mrs Potter. I'll tell him!" Neville said. Once he was clean enough to enter, he rushed up the stairs just near the front door, his feet thudding loudly. "HARRY!"
"When did I get old enough to be called Mistress and Mrs Potter?" Lily asked herself. She couldn't resist glancing at the nearby mirror to check. "Mrs Potter, really."
"I think some time after you turned thirty, wasn't it?" A kind and slightly teasing voice said. Remus Lupin stood in the doorway of the open house with a wide smile on his face. A pale and sickly looking man, he wore robes of a rather shabby nature, but he looked kind.
"I don't ever recall turning thirty, wolf boy!" Lily snapped, shooting him a dangerously playful look.
"Sure you do, I found you with Hestia Jones in the Spa..." Remus cleared his throat when Lily flashed him a warning stare. "Anyway, saw Neville there, Harry up then?"
"Of course," She rolled her eyes. "I don't think he slept last night. Do you know what Severus sent him for his birthday, without wrapping?"
"I can't imagine." Remus said, letting himself in, closing the door and making his way towards the kitchen. "If I was to guess..."
"The entire set reading list for first year. I don't want to think about what the wall looks like."
And the wall in question was one in which we find Harry Potter staring at. His bedroom was just at the top of the stairs with a sign on the door that had his name. In the corner was a single four-poster bed which had various hangings of Quidditch teams, duelling champions, famous witches and wizards cards who were all powerful and intelligent, his favourite being marked with a circle in the form of Albus Dumbledore, who was one of Harry's heroes. There was a desk with numerous books that were all spread open and marked and drawn on at favourite passages. Bits of parchment, a broom stick in the corner, a large closet of clothes and then a sofa for sitting. Above it, the wall. Harry had drawn, scribbled and stuck different bits of parchment to it and was standing on his bed, looking over it when the bedroom door opened.
"Happy Birthday Ha...what the hell is all that?" Neville gazed wide-eyed and a little intimidated by what he was seeing. Here and there he caught little sentences like "shove a bezoar down their throat" and "Flippendo? Try Stupefy, but learn Protego first," And, "Nothing is getting through the skin of a dragon, so blind it."
"That..." Said Harry, without looking at Neville and pointing to the wall of knowledge, "Is every spell, potion, charm and hex, a first year is supposed to know." He then leapt from the bed with ease and landed on the floor with a grin. "And I've perfected it."
"Have you perfected the art of putting on clothes?" Neville asked casually.
Harry, who was a handsome eleven year old boy with jet black messy hair, green eyes to match his mother and a small, thin frame which made him very fast and agile for a boy of his age, had also not bothered to put on anything more than a t-shirt and some pants this morning. "Clothes, right!"
"You can't have memorized all of it." Neville said in disbelief, though Neville knew this was the indeed the case. Harry had a near compulsive desire to learn absolutely anything and everything he could about magic. And this was the year he was going to put it to the test. "And some of this isn't even in the books we're using." Neville added.
"Like you haven't sucked up all that Herbology stuff into your adorable little noggin." Harry teased, appearing next to Neville fully dressed now. "And Charms, I just know you've already tried to cast that Lumos charm so you don't have to sleep in the dark."
"Shut up, Harry." Neville blushed at the teasing. "But seriously, all of it?"
"All of it." Harry nodded. "Most of it I already knew from Remus and Sev."
"Mental." Neville breathed. "Anything really good?" He then asked with a wide smile.
"That's my wizard from another wand!" Harry said proudly "So far, there is a spell for unlocking doors, Lumos is handy, they don't teach any good hexes in first year, but the leg-locker curse is a good find. Severus wrote two in the book for me though."
"Stupefy and Protego?" Neville asked, looking at where they were highlighted on the wall. "What are those?"
Harry rolled his eyes and patted Neville on the back gently, "Way cooler than your average plant, mate of mine."
"Herbology is useful!" Neville argued.
"So is a shotgun according to my uncle Vernon, but you don't see wizards using them, do you?" Harry continued to tease, "Still," He added, seeing Neville getting flushed, "Stupefy is a strong stunning spell usually taught to 6th year students and Protego creates a shield between the caster and attacker, also a 6th year spell."
"And you can't do them yet because you don't have..." Neville grinned and reached into his back pocket and pulled from it a long stick. "A wand!"
"Something," Harry growled, "That is being corrected today." Harry had been very jealous of Neville for when it was his birthday only a few weeks before, he had been given his father's very own wand. Neville had been quite content to cast small spells in front of Harry as a means of seeing if all the theory the two of them had been practising for most of their short lives had actually been worth it. Harry's jealousy had only grown more and more as Neville was a whole three weeks ahead of him in becoming the greatest wizard of all time. And this simply did not sit well with Harry.
"Nan won't let me go, not after the break in at Gringotts." Neville sighed.
It had been in the papers all week that the wizard bank known as Gringotts had been broken into a week ago. Harry's interest lasted until the reports stopped coming in and the speculation that it had been a very powerful dark wizard that had done it. They had got nothing, which was no surprise to Harry. "You'd be insane to try and steal from goblins." He had said, words that were confirmed only when the Daily Prophet had mentioned there being nothing taken and it being emptied the day before.
"Shame," Harry sighed dreamily, putting his arm around Neville's shoulders. "You will not witness the start of my rise to power."
"You're going to end up in Slytherin if you keep talking like that." Neville warned.
"Never!" Harry gasped in a mock tone. He swept away from Neville and turned to the corner of his room where a wooden sword sat. He took it by the handle and leapt onto his bed, raising it high into the air. "You and I, my dearest and oldest, plant obsessed pal, will end up in the proud house of HUFFLEPUFF!"
"Seriously?" Neville asked, laughing slightly.
"Merlin's beard no." Harry replied, dropping the act and tossing the sword away. "I'd take Ravenclaw as a second, they at least value some brains."
"Which means only I'll be going then?" Neville teased.
"BLASPHEMY!" Harry yelled and leapt off the bed at Neville. The two of them laughed as Harry tackled Neville to the floor and the pair rolled around like a couple of angry trolls fighting over a piece of meat. "I am the smartest most cleverest wizard in the world!"
"Second most!"
"Most!"
"Second!"
Mean while, down in the kitchen.
"Good to see they're in great spirits." Remus chuckled. He was sitting in his usual seat at the breakfast table, listening to the destruction taking place upstairs. "Are you going to tell Harry today?" He asked, directing his attention back to Lily, who was placing plates of food on the table and one in front of him.
"I suppose I can't put it off any longer." She sighed. "But he's been waiting to go to Diagon Alley his whole life. He's not going to understand why they're all looking at him."
"It's going to be fine, Lily." Remus assured her. "Besides, Wormtail will be there as well, he's said as much. "
"Where has he been?" Lily mused, taking her own seat, stopping only to bellow "HARRY, NEVILLE, BREAKFAST!"
"No idea." Remus said, rubbing his right ear. Lily had screamed into it. "The Goblins have him working over time since the break-in. He even called in sick because it was too much for him."
"Work is always too much for him." Lily said darkly.
"Still, he will be best placed to be there today. I will fill in what I can of course but, Peter is the only one who knows. He is the one who got Harry out of..."
"I will deal with it myself." Lily hushed at him and raising a finger to her mouth. The conversation came to a close with a look of finality from Lily. Just at that moment both Harry and Neville had come sprinting down the stairs.
"Happy birthday, Harry!" Lily, Remus and Dobby all said together. And, it was then that the little group gathered round to celebrate. After all, it was not everyday a young man turned eleven.
Diagon Alley. A place of wonderment and retail for all your Wizarding needs. Shops for brooms, potion ingredients, books, robes, owls, you name it they had it and for most of that morning since his arrival, Harry had just one singular, obsessive thought.
"Harry," Lily had said with forced calm, "Please, I love you more than my own life, but if you ask about your wand one more time, I swear I'll strangle you within an inch of yours!"
"OK, OK." Harry huffed, then grinned and said, "So can we get my wand now?"
"GAH!"
"You know it's not as exciting as you might think." Said Peter Pettigrew. Of all of his uncles, Peter was the least favourite of Harry's. He was a short, fat, rat faced little man who often smelled of bad perfume and pipe smoke.
Peter had been in the Leaky Cauldron when Harry, Lily and Remus arrived by floo-powder, nursing a pint of something that smoked heavily at the top and smelled strongly of tar. It had been an extraordinary start to the shopping trip for when they had arrived, almost every eye in the little pub was on Harry. Lily had worried that this might frighten Harry, but non to her surprise, he hadn't noticed the wide-eyed, curious stares that the punters were giving him. He'd simply wanted to get to Diagon Alley as quickly as he possibly could. All morning they had followed Harry's letter from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to the T. Almost as if Lily was purposely keeping Harry from his most desired object. This was actually the case, as she felt he needed to learn a bit more patience.
"Says you." Harry told Peter, sourly. "You've had a wand for about 50 years."
"Hey, if he's over 50 that means I am as well, so show respect to your elders." Remus chimed in with a light chuckle. "I think it's time me and Peter got you, your birthday gift."
"I already gave him his!" Peter objected. Peter was a notoriously cheap individual, which was something of a cheek since Remus barely had the money to feed himself most days. Remus Lupin was a Werewolf and for those who knew, werewolves were not trusted and often feared. Not that Harry ever cared, he adored Remus.
"Oh, yes." Lily said, rolling her eyes. "I'm sure that One silver sickle and pair of socks will do him wonders at Hogwarts." Harry didn't just get the impression, but knew that Peter was also her least favourite of Harry's three uncles which she had chosen for him. He never really understood why she let him hang around so much, pity perhaps, because wasn't a very good wizard.
"Come on," Remus said, grabbing Peter easily by the scruff of the neck. "We'll get him his Owl."
"Owl?" Harry frowned. "I was promised a dragon when I was five, remember?"
Remus simply chuckled and ruffled Harry's already untidy hair, then proceeded to lead Peter down the cobbled path towards the Owl Emporium. Harry, then looked to his mother rather expectantly.
"Let's see." She said, clearly putting on a show as she glanced at the list of school things that were needed. "We've got your cauldron, trunk, Sev got the books, parchment, all your things for Potions, robes, you don't need a broom in your first year, hmm, I think that's all that is left." She teased, looking up to see Harry's face turning a brighter shade of pink, watching him visibly shake on the spot. "I'm hungry, about we just go and get..."
"Mum, I love you and I've never been much of a handful..."
Lily snorted.
"Shut up!" He grinned. "But if I have to throw a tantrum right here in the middle of the street I will do so."
"Well, as I live and breath, Lily Potter!" A great booming voice echoed down the street behind them.
"UUGGHHH!" Harry growled in deep frustration, only to turn and instantly freeze at the sight before him.
For the first time ever, all thoughts of a wand disappeared from Harry's mind as he was now staring at the largest man that he had ever seen. The man must have stood about 8 foot tall or more and was stomping heavily towards them with a big grin that was barely visible for the massive beard and long hair he had. He was dressed in a large moleskin coat and heavy boots, which added to the thudding of his mighty steps.
"Hagrid!" Lily beamed, "What a lovely surprise!" She said, hugging the very large man and almost disappearing as he wrapped his arms around her.
"And this must be young Harry!" The giant boomed, reaching down to ruffle Harry's hair in the same way that Remus had done, only Remus hadn't nearly knocked Harry into a barrel of dragon livers. "Looks just like his dad, he does, got your eyes though. Nice too meet you, Harry!"
"Harry, this Hagrid, he is the gamekeeper at Hogwarts and the most knowledge man around for magical creatures."
"Hello, Sir." Harry said in rather respectful tone. Lily snorted again and gave Harry a little nudge with her elbow.
"Don't act shy, Hagrid is the nicest person you'll ever meet." She told him.
"Making me blush, look at you!" Hagrid said, giving a hearty chuckle. "You all set for Hogwarts then?"
"Oh, yes." Lily said, teasing ever so slightly. "Got everything we need, not a single thing left on the list."
"Mr Hagrid, is there such a thing as a complaints department at Hogwarts for abusive parents who don't let their children have their wand exactly the moment they turn 11?"
"AH HA HA!" Hagrid bellowed. "Just like his dad, he is!"
"Tell me about it." Lily rolled her eyes. "What brings you to Diagon Alley?"
"Oh, just looking for some supplies of me own actually, Dumbledore has given me the job of care of magical creatures, he as."
"Congratulations." Lily beamed. "Professor Hagrid."
Hagrid flushed again.
"Will I get you?" Harry asked, a bit too eagerly. He already liked Hagrid, something about him made Harry feel safe and welcome.
"First years don't get care of magical creatures, I'm afraid." Hagrid told him. "But come down me hut some time and I'll introduce you to a few."
"Great!"
"For you, not the creatures." Lily warned, "He'll probably want to keep one as a pet."
"Ain't nothing wrong with that Lily, magical beasts are as fantastic as they come." Hagrid chuckled. "Well, I best be off, got lots to do. Good to see you Lily, and young Harry, be seeing you at Hogwarts!"
"Bye,Hagrid!" Said Lily.
"Bye!" Harry more enthusiastically. "A care of magical creatures Professor as a contact?" He mused.
"Don't get too excited." Lily warned him, playfully leaning down in case Hagrid heard as he thundered off down the street. "Hagrid doesn't have a normal persons view of what a safe creature is."
"Even better!" Harry grinned. "Now, as I was saying..."
"Fine, we'll get your wand!"
"Woohoo!"
Lily took Harry further down Diagon Alley to a store called Ollivanders. Remus Had told Harry that this is where he would get his wand and no where else. Mr Ollivander was known as the greatest wand-maker in the world and it was proven when Harry did his research. Everyone he knew, and he knew only a few people, and they were all excellent Witches and Wizards, got their wands from this place.
When they entered, it was to the smell of a dusty old library. It had high shelves with hundreds of wands in their boxes. A single seat for sitting and a counter top for taking payment. There wasn't a single person present when they entered, but when Lily pressed the bell that sat on the counter, an old man with yellow eyes and raspy voice slid into view by way of a ladder on wheels and a wide smile on his wrinkled face.
"Ah, I'd been wondering when I'd see you, Mr Potter." The man said with severe enthusiasm. "Seems only yesterday that Miss Potter here was in buying her wand, Hello, Lily."
"A pleasure to see you again, Mr Ollivander." Lily said politely. "You're in for some work here, he's been raving about this moment for, let's see..." She pretended to think, "He started talking when he was two, so, quite a while."
"I see." Mr Ollivander said, nodding wisely and skipping down from the ladder. "Well, as you must know, Mr Potter," The old man said. Lily had left Harry at the counter and gone to sit down, watching closely. "The wand chooses the wizard."
"Yes, I've read all about that. Something to do with the way the cores bring life to the route of the wand and allows them to choose based on the true nature of the person."
Lily laughed softly in the background.
"Quite right." Said Ollivander, clearly very impressed with Harry's foreknowledge, "I think on that merit alone, we should expect great things from you."
Harry beamed. He liked praise. And being the smartest person in the room. Which was hard to do considering the company he kept. It was only around Neville and Peter that he felt really clever. Although, he admitted that Neville was more clever than Peter.
"Now then. Too work!" Ollivander clapped his hands together and started to search the vast shelves. "What shall it be, hmm, let's try...this one!"
Harry was so excited that he was positively vibrating with anticipation for the moment he had been waiting his whole life. Harry took the wand that Ollivander said was made from dragon heart string and very powerful, nothing exciting happened until Ollivander told him to give it a way.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" Harry called out clearly, waving the wand in the way that his school books had instructed him. The desired result of making the change till float did not occur, instead it exploded.
"Nope!" Ollivander said, not phased at all by the result. "A charm is not as simple as waving your wand remember, you've got to calculate and concentrate." He told Harry, searching through the wands once more.
This was not how Harry had expected it. A long time ago, Severus Snape had told Harry that when he found the right wand, sparks would fly from it and sense of power and focus would take hold of him. So far, it only seemed to make him think that he wasn't a wizard. The second wand had caught fire when Harry tried to cast a different spell with it. The second, set the counter on fire, the third almost set Mr Ollivander on fire and in one case, caused Lily's hair to turn grey. Things were getting so dire that Lily had gotten up from her seat to come close, placing her hand on Harry's shoulder.
"Don't worry, sweetheart." She whispered to him. "It's all part of the process." she assured him. This did not calm Harry at all. So many fears and doubts started to cloud his mind. What if after all these years of preparation, reading, practising with a stick, what if all of it was for nothing and he was nothing but a squib? The thought was terrifying.
"I wonder." Ollivander said curiously. He had gone straight to the back of the shop and reached down beneath some dustier looking wands. He slid out a box and walked slowly towards Harry, his eyes flitting between the box and the boy. Harry gulped and he reached out to touch the counter nervously. It was almost as if Ollivander was afraid of the box. "Yes, I do wonder." Mr Ollivander said, reaching into the box and retrieving what looked like just another wand and offered it to Harry.
Nervous, afraid and also determined, Harry reached out and took the wand, holding it tightly. He wasn't sure what he was meant to do in the moment, he tried to think of another spell he had read about but nothing came. And then...
"And there we go!" Lily beamed, standing back to watch as Harry's new wand sparked red and a rush of wind filled the room.
"It's mine?" Harry gasped, staring at the light show before it died away. "My wand?"
"Yes, my love, your wand." Lily assured him, "Thank god." She huffed. She was clearly as worried about it as Harry had been. "Go on, try to cast something."
"Orchideous!" Harry shouted with force, he was still nervous it wouldn't work. And yet, to his surprise and pride, a single lily appeared at the end of his wand and he offered it to his mother.
"My little gentleman." She chuckled, taking the lily and placing it into her hair. "Thank you, Mr Ollivander, how much...Mr Ollivander?"
"Curious." Mr Ollivander said, his eyes wide and staring at Harry. "Curious indeed."
"I'm sorry, Sir." Harry was the one to speak. "What is curious."
"I remember every wand I've ever sold, Mr Potter." Ollivander told him. "Every single one. It is curious that you should be destined for this wand, when it's brother, took your father from us."
Lily gave a small gasp.
"And, who had that wand?" Harry asked, unsure now if he wanted to know the answer.
"He who must not be named."
Harry was well known for being outwardly curious to a point that it often frustrated the people around him. Best know for asking, sometimes, the most in depth and unthinkable questions about a particular subject. However, since leaving Ollivanders, he had found silence in his deep thoughts. It wasn't the nature in which Ollivander had told him that his wand was connected to the most dangerous dark wizard of modern times. It was the reaction from his mother.
Lily had also be quiet since leaving the wand shop. The appearance of Remus and Peter with a snowy white owl had give them a moment of talking about something other than what had just occurred, but the silence quickly returned. It wasn't until they'd decided to go home and that Harry found himself sitting alone in his room while Lily and Dobby prepared his party, that Harry was able to even think about it.
Voldemort. That had been the dark lords name. Harry knew this from Remus. From Severus. From anyone close to him except for Neville and his grandmother, who only referred to Voldemort as, You-know-who. It had always felt silly. Referring to someone like that. How terrifying could someone have been that you were afraid to say their name?
What could a name do to you? It wasn't logical.
Harry had never been told much about the war. It ended one year after he was born and he had read several books on the subject but didn't find it fascinating. The real stories came from Severus Snape. He had told Harry about Voldemort and his followers, had told him how cruel and evil they were. How many families had been murdered, how many people had gone missing, the various battles that had taken place over the years that it lasted. All of them had been fascinating. All of them had seemed terrible and yet each one entertained him. Now, knowing that his own father had been murdered by Voldemort. It had changed something in him.
There was a light knock on Harry's bedroom door which pulled him out of his thoughts.
"Come in." He said, his voice sounding strange as he hadn't spoken in hours.
The door opened slowly and Lily had come in. She gave him a warm smile and Harry tried to return it in kind. Closing the door behind her, she took a deep breath as if preparing to leap off a tall mountain. She stepped into his room and glanced up at his wall of spells and incantations and shook her head with a wry smile. "You get that from him, you know. Your dad?"
"He had a wall?" Harry asked. He was always eager to hear anything about James Potter. Not even his deep thoughts would stop him hearing anything new and good about his dad.
"No," Lily said, "He had room." She chuckled lightly. Looking at Harry she explained. "In our home, our old home where we lived when you were born. He had an entire room dedicated to books and spells and magical objects, the walls were lined with all bits of information and spells. I kept telling him he should write a book but he believed that wizards should be curious. They should never just be handed the answer. That and I think he was just too lazy to do it. He much preferred to live the knowledge instead of write about it."
"Am I really like him?" Harry asked, having always wondered. It wasn't the first time he asked, but now it seemed more important to him than ever.
"Oh yes, not big on duelling though, he was very good but not in the sporting sense." She told him, wandering over and sitting on the bed next to him. She took from her robe pocket a small picture that she always kept with her. It was of Lily and James together. They were about sixteen in the picture and both in school. Lily was in her school robes and James in Quidditch robes. "He played seeker. I think he would be very shocked to hear that his son was not intending to join the Quidditch team one day."
"I'm a terrible flyer." Harry told her, glancing over at the broom in the corner which had fair amount of dust on it. "Remember that time I tried flying over to Neville's and crashed right into Mrs Longbottom?"
"She's still annoyed about that. You were only five." She giggled. "Still, I think no matter what, he would have been very proud of how much you are working to become a first rate wizard. You have the very best of him and your uncles."
"Even Peter?" Harry said, a small hint of teasing.
"Love him or hate, he is the reason you're here."
And Harry felt very much that she was arriving at the topic in which they had been avoiding ever since they'd left Ollivanders. And it was this and nothing more than prompted Harry to ask a question that even he had never thought to really ask.
"How did dad die?"