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Harry woke the next morning to the sound of others moving on the other side of the curtain that surrounded his bed. Groggily, Harry tried to figure out where he was. It looked like his bed in Gryffindor tower — had he gone back to the future? Anxiety swept through him as he sat up and pulled the curtains open. He hadn't had enough time with his father yet.
Harry was relieved to see James looking at him with a grin.
"Shh." James held his finger to his lips before waving Harry over. Quietly, Harry got out of bed and towards James who was tiptoeing towards Sirius's bed. Remus was sitting at his desk, looking up at the two over his book. Sirius was still fast asleep.
Silently, James raised his wand, clearly struggling to hold back laughter before shouting,
"Aguamenti!" Sirius yelped at a jet of water hit him square in the face. James roared with laughter as Sirius fought to escape. Finally, James broke the spell, still laughing as Sirius coughed loudly.
"You prat," Sirius eventually shouted.
"It was time to get up!" James laughed, shooting Harry a grin. Harry smiled back. He didn't think he could be happier.
Suddenly, the dorm to the dorm opened and in walked a thin, beautiful redhead with emerald green eyes. James immediately hid his wand behind his back and stepped away from the spluttering Sirius, trying his best to look like nothing was going on.
"Oh, hello Lily, have you met Harry yet?" James said, gesturing to the shocked boy next to him. Harry had barely thought of meeting his mother, he had been too surprised in meeting all the marauders. But now there she was, standing there.
"No, I haven't." She said hotly. She turned to Harry and her expression softened a little. "Hello, Harry, it's very nice to meet you. I hope Potter hasn't been too awful to live with so far."
James face fell a little at the remark, but he quickly picked himself back up again.
"So, Lils, how can I help you?"
"Don't call me that." She snapped, turning back to James. "You do remember that it's Monday, right?"
"Er, yes."
"And what happens on Mondays?"
"Uhm… We have class?"
"And what happens before class." Lily said, tapping her foot impatiently.
James paused staring at her with a blank face.
"We have our MEETING, James!" Lily shouted throwing her hands up in frustration. "Our scheduled MEETING that we have every single week!"
"Oh, no," James said, looking very sincerely apologetic. "I completely forgot, I'm sorry —"
"I have no idea why Dumbledore picked you to be Head Boy, it's only the second week of classes and you're already behind on your duties." Lily glared. "I don't want to spend this entire year running around after you, cleaning up your messes and making sure you're on time for things. You were given this responsibility, you accepted it, I and everyone else expect you to follow through with it!"
With that, Lily stormed out of the room. Just as she closed the door, she threw it open again.
"You're lucky I'm not going to tell Dumbledore that you were messing around and playing stupid pranks instead of being on time!" She glared before almost leaving again, but stopping once more. "Oh, and nice to meet you Harry, let me know if you need anything, I'd be more than happy to help you." She glared once more before slamming the door.
James quickly ran over to his trunk and threw on his robes. He snatched up his bag, dumped some books into it, and then ran out the door, presumably to the meeting he had forgotten about.
"Feisty one, ain't she?" Sirius remarked with a grin. "That's Evans for you."
"She seemed a little…" Harry started, not sure what to say. He had always imagined his mother to be very kind and sweet.
"Ill-tempered?" Remus offered. Harry nodded slightly. "She's not always like that, she just wants to fulfill her role as Head Girl. Her and James never got along that well either, so it was an interesting choice of Dumbledore's to pair them together. You should meet her again some other time when she isn't flustered, she's actually very kind."
Harry nodded, feeling a little better. How could his parents have ever gotten together if she got so angry? It occurred to Harry that he had always imagined his mother to be like Mrs. Weasley, and perhaps she was: even Mrs. Weasley was known for shouting and getting angry because she cared too much.
After Sirius and Harry had gotten dressed, the three headed down to the Great Hall for breakfast. Remus told Harry all about the professors and classes they would be going to this morning — he had guessed correctly that Harry would be sharing all the same classes with the Marauders. They chatted for a long while, and the topic of careers finally got brought up.
"What do you think you want to do then?" Harry asked, taking another bite of his pancake.
"Well, to be honest, I'm not sure." Remus answered. "I thought about maybe being a Healer or Auror, but if I really think about it I think I'd be happiest as a teacher here." Harry grinned knowingly.
"What about you, Sirius?"
"The world's greatest Quidditch player of course!" Sirius barked triumphantly. "James and I are going to make it to the top!"
James rushed over to the table and began putting food onto his plate quickly.
"How was your meeting?" Remus asked politley.
"It was alright, Evans talked most of the time," James answered as he poured his pumpkin juice. "What were you guys talking about?"
"Careers," Remus began, but Sirius interrupted with a shout:
"Quidditch!"
James face brightened.
"By the way, Harry," James said. "We're holding tryouts for the Quidditch team, you should definitely come."
"Oh yeah," Harry said grinning. "What positions are open?"
"Uhh, one chaser position and seeker." James said. "I might be missing one, I can't remember if Harrison graduated last year or not…"
"Yeah," Sirius snorted. "It's hard to remember because of his awful grades."
"Who's captain this year?" Harry asked.
"Me, of course," James said grinning. "Who else would be best for the job?"
"Er, I'm right here you know." Sirius said with a playful glare.
"Oh right, sorry Padfoot, you know you're second in command." Sirius puffed out his chest proudly.
There first lesson was Potions, much to Sirius's dismay. Sirius had always hated Potions, a list which he recited the entirety of while they walked through the dungeons.
"For starters, we have it with the slimy Slytherins — I don't know if anyone has told you this, but you hate the Slytherins now." Sirius said to Harry.
"So that makes the class even worse than it normally is because that means Snivellus is in that class." Sirius spat out the name is disgust.
"FURTHERMORE — see Remus, I'm utilizing my vocabulary." Remus simply rolled his eyes, but Sirius continued nonetheless.
"Furthermore! Potions is a silly class! Why must we all subject ourselves to this, er, subject."
"Potions is actually really useful, you just don't like it because you're not good at it." Remus pointed out.
"No!" gasped Sirius dramatically. "I could do it if I wanted to, but there are more important things, like Quidditch."
"He's got a point there, Moony." James grinned. "Are you any good at Potions, Harry?"
"No, I'm rubbish." Harry smirked.
"Don't worry, I'm alright at it, we can work together. I usually work with Peter but I don't know if he's even going to be back this year," James said somewhat sadly. "I hope his grandmother gets better soon."
Harry looked away, not wanting them to see the anger that flashed across his face. That stupid rat. His parents lost their lives because of him, and yet here his father was, actually caring about Peter being gone.
When they reached the Potions room, Harry was somewhat surprised to see Slughorn up at the front of the classroom. He should have guessed — Slughorn had told him plenty of times how he had loved having his mother as his student. Sure enough, the first five minutes of class were spent waiting for him to finish his conversation with Lily. When they finished talking, Lily walked past Harry to get to her seat and smiled and waved at him as she past.
"Good morning, class!" Slughorn shouted, getting the attention of all the students.
"Now!" He said, clapping his hands together. "Let me begin by welcoming our newest student, Mr. Harry Williams! Quite the mystery case we've got with him." Slughorn laughed as Harry turned red.
"I'd love to have you for one of my dinner parties sometime, Mr. Williams. Perhaps I can help you gain some of your memory, eh?" Slughorn chuckled again.
"Now, class, I have written the instructions on the board." Slughorn flicked his wand as the blackboards flew up revealing the instructions. "Get to work, come to me if you have any questions, and please read them carefully Mr. Black, we don't need another trip to the hospital wing for anyone."
Across the room there was a snort of laughter, causing Sirius to glare furiously. Harry looked over and saw a young Professor Snape sneering back. His hair was as greasy as ever but he wasn't wearing all black. Instead, he wore the Slytherin uniform with a bright green and silver tie. Color looked very foreign on him.
Harry and James got to work, picking out ingredients from their personal supplies and some of the rarer ones from the cupboard on the far side of the room. While he was walking back, Harry accidentally walked into Snape who had been walking forward while reading his textbook.
"Sorry Prof—" Harry began before he could stop himself, but luckily Snape spoke over him.
"Watch where you're going, Williams." Snape snapped.
"Maybe if you didn't have your big, greasy nose in a book, you wouldn't have walked into him." James quickly retorted. Snape was about to respond when he looked over James's shoulder and saw Lily looking at the group with concern.
"Whatever." Snape grunted, walking past them to the cupboard. James scoffed and walked back to their desk, Harry following close behind.
By the end of the lesson, only Lily and her partner, a girl named Maria Waters, had successfully completed their potion. Slughorn also praised James and Harry for almost finishing, saying if they left it to simmer for another fifteen minutes it would have also finished perfectly.
Unfortunately, Snape, Sirius, and Remus all ended up leaving class early in order to go to the hospital wing, as Sirius had tried to sabotage Snape's potion by placing random ingredients into the Slytherin's cauldron. Remus had noticed, and had run across the room to try and stop him but it was too late. Snape turned around just as Sirius dropping a hand full of ground up dried bat wings. The potion spontaneously exploded, splashing onto the three boys and burning their skin. Frowning, Slughorn had asked Lily and Maria who had already finished to escort the three boys to the infirmary.
James and Harry decided to pick up the Gryffindor's bags — Harry tried to take Severus's as well, but James refused — and they quickly went to the hospital wing. When they arrived, Remus and Sirius were both being told they were allowed to leave, but Snape was still in bed. Harry handed James Lily's bag and gestured to bring it over to her. He did so, and she accepted it politely as Harry handed Maria hers.
"You're the new student, right?" Maria asked, brushing her blonde hair off her shoulder so she could pick up her bag. "Harry, right?"
"Yeah, nice to meet you."
"Nice prank, mate." James said, handing Sirius his bag who was grinning wildly.
"Yeah, did you hear what Thompson said? Snivellus is going to be stuck in here for the rest of the day and will have to come in every day after for the rest of the week! Success!" Sirius said holding up his hand for a high five. James was about to give him one, but stopped when Lily scoffed.
"I hope you're being sarcastic, Potter. Severus could have gotten really hurt." James immediately brought his hand behind his head as if he had been going to ruffle his hair.
"Yeah, yeah, I was." James said seriously. "Really Sirius, you took it too far." Sirius rolled his eyes, knowing why his friend was acting like that.
"Let's not forget that you also got not only yourself injured, but me as well!" Remus remarked as he picked up his bag.
"Yeah, but we're fine now!" Sirius defended himself.
The Gryffindors left the hospital wing and went to their next class.
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Later that night, Harry found himself sitting in the Gryffindor common room by himself, deep in thought. He had had an unbelievable day. He had spent so much time with his father and had even spoken with his mother a few times, things he never thought he'd ever be able to do. But maybe this wasn't real.
What if he was in some kind of Mirror of Erised dream that Voldemort had trapped him in? He couldn't let himself get swept up in this world where is parents were still alive. He couldn't forget the reality he had left, there were people who needed him. His friends were still fighting a war. There was Ron, and… Hermione… Ginny… The entire Weasley family… His Godfather, his teachers, Hagrid… Everyone had relied on him and to them he must have just magically vanished without a trace.
He didn't even know where he was.
"Harry?"
Harry turned around and saw Lily standing on the steps that lead to the girl's tower.
"Oh, hey." Harry said turning back to look at the fire.
"It's getting pretty late," Lily said walking over and sitting across from him. "Can you not sleep?"
"I'm not tired," Harry answered lamely. Really, his mind was to heavy with tangled thoughts.
"How was your first day of classes?" Lily asked genuinely interested.
"It was really good, I really enjoyed it." Apart from being able to spend the day with his parents, he had also experienced a very peaceful day at Hogwarts. During his seventh year in the future or in reality, Hogwarts had been a much gloomier place. There were Aurors stationed on the grounds most of the time, and the news of dark magic and death were constantly pouring in over owls. More than once a student had burst into tears during breakfast after being informed of a relatives capture by Death Eaters or, worse, murder.
"I'm sorry for this morning," Lily broke Harry's thoughts again. "James can just be so frustrating. I know he has so much potential if he would just try harder, you know? If he stopped with those silly pranks… Especially the ones where people get hurt, like today." She laughed.
"You know I actually get worried about the prick sometimes."
Harry grinned. Maybe Lily didn't hate James as much as she let on.
"Are you going to go to Slughorn's dinner party this week?" Lily asked.
"Uhm, I don't know, I'm not really wild about it." Harry answered honestly, making Lily laugh.
"No one is," Lily said. "But sometimes he tells us about the topics he plans to put on our exams so it turns into a quite useful study session. It's a little too early in the year for him to be helpful yet though. You should go a bit later in the year."
Harry nodded, smiling.
"Well, I'm going to get to bed now. Maria had told me she had seen you awake down here and I just wanted to make sure you were alright."
"Oh, I didn't even see her come in." Harry admitted.
"It's fine, she said you looked like you were distracted by something." Lily paused. "Are you thinking about what happened? Have you remembered anything? I don't mean to be nosy, Dumbledore told James and I and the other teachers about your situation. If there's anything that you'd like me to do to help you, let me know."
"Of course," Harry said. Lily smiled before wishing him a good night and heading up the stairs.
Harry looked back into the fire. Maybe he should start spending some time in the library. It was the only place he could think to start looking for an answer. Though Harry couldn't help feeling somewhat hesitant. He couldn't help wishing he had more time with his parents.
"No," Harry muttered shaking his head. His friends were more important.
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See, an extra long chapter for you guys! Now return the favor and review :)