Harry glared in annoyance at the newspaper clutched tightly in his hands, his temper rising as he once again read the interviews that the Daily Prophet had done, which were alternating between calling his father a tyrant and calling him a hero. Harry hated the number of people who were denigrating his father for no other reason than their own ignorant thinking that James Potter was changing too many things about their world too fast. As his eyes continued to dance back and forth, reading the words on the paper, Harry couldn't help but think about his life now.

So much had changed in the past year since his arrival to this world; gone was the scared little boy who would constantly flinch whenever someone tried to hug him, who was constantly afraid that any misstep or wrong word would lead to a brutal beating. In his place now stood a confident and happy boy who loved his life with every fiber of his being and counted every day as a blessing; there was still a part of Harry, it was true, that was constantly afraid that he would be sent back to his own world at any moment, but that part of Harry was growing smaller with each passing day.

Rose had been a tremendous help in making Harry the boy he was now, and for that, Harry was eternally grateful to his elder sister; for the first few months, she had placed an alarm charm on his bed so that whenever his nightmares would come and make him wake with a scream, she would come running and would happily spend the night curled up next to her little brother, despite his protests.

The other boys accepted Rose's sleeping habits without complaint, knowing about the horrors that Harry had lived through, or at least the story that Dumbledore had concocted, at any rate. Finally, after months, when Harry's nightmares began to wane and mercifully come to an end, Rose took the charm off and would only occasionally visit Harry's bed, more for her own peace of mind than his.

As the months rolled by and Harry began to realize that his stay in this world would likely be permanent, he began to take into account his surroundings with a more critical eye, surprised at how different this world was to his own, and yet how similar at the same time. The differences between his Neville Longbottom and this worlds was but one shocking change to Harry; the boy Harry had known could not have been any different to this world's.

Not only was this Neville slimmer, more confident, and far more affable, but this Neville was also far more gifted with magic than the one from Harry's had been. This world's Neville was a member of Professor Flitwick's Dueling Club, which met every Friday, and would always place in the top three during the 'mock battles' that Professor Flitwick would have. Harry had been coerced into joining by Rose and yet had, unfortunately, never been able to rise above the seventh spot, trailing far behind Rose, who always seemed to either take second place or fight tooth and nail with Neville for third.

Another difference in this world was that Percy Weasley, the pedantic rule-obsessed Prefect from Harry's world, didn't exist here; rather, Bill Weasley's twin sister, Percilla, had taken his place in the Weasley family, and was currently working as a chaser for England's National Quidditch team.

Just as in Harry's past world, he and Ron seemed glued together at the hip, and the pair had already gotten a whole slew of detentions from the pranks the pair had performed, much to Lily's despair and James' delight. Even Hermione, to Harry's shock and delight, had joined the pair on the occasional prank and smiled happily as she joined them in detention; soon enough, the three of them were spending every free period together, and together, Ron and Harry had managed to break Hermione of her obsession with following the rules as if they were gospel.

Another shocking difference between Harry's world and this one was the sheer number of students that attended Hogwarts; Harry's dormitory had only held half a dozen boys in Harry's world, but in this one, there was over twenty of them! And double that number of girls! Harry had talked about this with his mother, and Lily had carefully explained that while brutal to the extreme, Voldemort seemed to have gone out of his way to avoid killing magical children, thinking it a waste of future followers that he could rule over; adults were shown no quarter, but children were given a shocking amount of mercy when his Death Eaters would attack, some children even being taken in by Death Eaters and brainwashed into being future followers of the Dark Lord.

These same children had been quickly rescued and returned to their families when the war ended, though some took years to undo the damage to their minds that Voldemort and his ilk had done.

In fact, there were so many students attending Hogwarts that the Quidditch teams were able to not only have a healthy amount of players but also field a reserve team in case a player was injured to the point where, in Harry's world at least, they could no longer go on, the team would be forced to forfeit. Harry had made quite a few enemies when he had 'supposedly' jumped the line in being placed as starter seeker ahead of the reservist, but those angry voices were quickly silenced when they saw the boy play for the first time; Harry was quickly called 'a natural' on the broom and soon was heralded as Gryffindor's greatest seeker to date.

The final thing that differed from Harry's world and this one, which Harry thoroughly enjoyed, was the vast difference in the number of classes at Hogwarts. Due to the small number of students in Harry's world, the number of different classes that students could take was relatively small; there were the basic courses, of course, like Transfiguration, Potions, Charms, etc.

There were also the more advanced classes that third years could sign up for, like Ancient Runes, Muggle Studies, etc; however, that was all there seemed to be in Harry's world, and any other subjects would require the students to go out and seek the knowledge for themselves, or hope that they could gain an apprenticeship with a witch or wizard knowledgeable in said subjects.

Here, the subjects were as vast as the student body, and Harry could hardly wait until his third year so that he could enroll in some of them; the same ones from Harry's old world existed here as well, but there was also a few that Harry knew would make his Hermione snarl with jealous fury if she had been transported here. Spirit magic was the one class that everyone wanted to partake in, where students would learn how to channel and control powerful spirits of nature; Rose was already enrolled in that class and would happily talk for hours about some of the wizards of the past who had learned to control spirits so powerful that they had nearly been worshipped as gods by the Muggles of the past.

However, such magic was also incredibly dangerous, and the students were warned not to try and 'bite off more than they could chew' before they were ready. Professor Donnelly, the one in charge of the class, had made sure to impart just how powerful some spirits could be when he told all his new students how a stupid witch had once tried to summon a spirit beyond her ability to control and caused the magical country of Atlantis to sink beneath the waves as a result.

But that was but one of the classes here at Hogwarts that students could choose from, and there were other far safer classes that students could take; such as Animagus class, Advanced Potions, Elemental Magic, Enchantment, Illusion Magic, Evocation, Ritual Magic, Conjuration, on and on the choices went. Harry was actually worried that he would make a bad choice and miss out on the chance to pursue one of the other wonderful classes that he could take, but Lily had assuaged his fears by stating that he still had plenty of time to decide where he would like to go when the time came.

One thing that stayed the same between Harry's world and this one was that Draco Malfoy and most of Slytherin House were still a bunch of bigots; more than once, Harry had found himself directly in the crosshairs of the younger Malfoy, as the boy sneered at Harry's father 'supposedly' destroying all the traditions that made the Magical World great. Lily Potter's 'Muggle Studies' class had been going on for nearly a year, now; and thanks to James Potter's new law, all Purebloods were required to attend it, much to their consternation.

At first, many of the Pureblood children had dismissed the class as a waste of their time, how could the Muggles have anything that would possibly interest beings of magic. That line of thought had quickly evaporated when Lily had shown those same children the events of World War 1, World War 2, and the Cold War. Suddenly, Muggles weren't an inferior species anymore, and that made the Purebloods afraid; how could they possibly fight against people who could obliterate entire cities with the push of a button! They had thought that the few thousand that had fallen to Grindelwald's army was an atrocious number, but compared to the six million of Nazi Germany? Needless to say, many a Pureblood child had lost their lunch after that class and had spent the next few hours in shocked silence.

In just seven months, Lily Potter's class was well on its way to changing the way that the majority of the Wizarding World thought, which was just what Lily and James wanted to happen. Likewise, the new class being taught to all Muggleborn children and Half-bloods, designed to teach the children about the world they would one day be a part of, was being considered a great success, with many of those same children happily proclaiming how grateful they were that such a class existed to help them learn about their new world.

Many in Hogwarts now viewed Lily and James Potter as revolutionaries who were bringing their world into the twenty-first century, and helping the Wizarding World better understand the new age that they were a part of; far fewer, but no less prevalent, however, viewed the two of them as upstarts who were changing the Wizarding World far too fast for their liking, destroying century-old traditions that were all-but-considered the foundations of their world.

Twice before, Harry had been cornered by members of Slytherin House, who had such thoughts, and been forced to put up a courageous fight as those student tried to hurt James Potter by hurting his son. After the second attack, Rose had all but declared war on the house of the snakes, despite Lily's soothing words to just let the adults handle it, going out of her way to escort her little brother to his classes and attacking anyone that even dared to look at Harry in a way that she considered 'dangerous.'

Rose's interference, however, only seemed to galvanize the Slytherin's attempts at harming James through Harry; and due to how fond of Rose's kid brother, Gryffindor House had become, not just because of what Harry had already suffered, but also because of how nice the boy was to everyone he met, the Lions had rallied around the boy, going out of their way to look out for him whenever Rose couldn't.

This silent war had culminated in a 'final battle' between Slytherin and Gryffindor house on the Quidditch Pitch in what would be famously known as 'The Great Quidditch Battle,' in which more than a hundred students would be given detention. Both houses would lose nearly all of the points that they had gained over the year as a result. After that, Dumbledore finally decided that enough was enough and summoned the entirety of Hogwarts to the Great Hall, where he told the student body, in no ambiguous terms, that the war between Slytherin and Gryffindor must come to an end, that Hogwarts was a place of learning and not a battlefield. The students were meant to be friends, not enemies, and that all they were doing by antagonizing each other was destroying any chance of creating lasting bonds of friendship and perhaps even love.

The Headmaster's words had done very little in terms of reconciliation, but tensions had seemed to ebb, all the same, and Harry no longer seemed to have a perpetual target on his back, though Rose still walked him to class for a few weeks afterward.

These days, however, ever since Voldemort's return, Slytherin's house, and a great many students from the other houses as well, had decided to target Harry and Rose with castigation in lieu of actual physical violence. Their favorite weapon was calling Harry's father a tyrant in the making, repeatedly saying that the new Minister was well on his way to making himself a king and stealing away the Wizengamot's ability to curb James Potter's ever-growing powerbase. Several times, Rose had been drawn into a shouting match, coming close to actually drawing her wand, as she defended her father against such slander, repeatedly telling the Slytherins that her father was only doing what was best for the Wizarding World as a whole, and that once Voldemort was destroyed, her father would return the liberties he had suspended.

This, however, only seemed to give the Pureblood children more ammunition, which they gleefully used to defame the Minister, saying that no man with power would ever willingly give it up. Lily had composed herself rather well when she heard such slander against her husband, calmly and repeatedly denying that James was a tyrant and repeating her daughter's words that when the war was over, James would return rule to the Wizengamot.

As Harry finished reading the newspaper for the second time, he slammed it down on the table, angry tears in his eyes at the way some people were treating his dad; it wasn't fair! Voldemort was trying to destroy their world and Harry's dad was trying to save it, and yet James Potter's good name was being dragged through the mud as a result, it simply wasn't fair!

"You okay, Harry…?" Rose asked from where she sat next to him, placing a calm arm around his shoulders.

"It's not fair!" Harry growled as he wiped his eyes, "Dad's just doing what he thinks is right, and these jerks are saying such horrible things about him!"

"I know, kid…" Rose sighed angrily, "Believe me, I'd like nothing better than to see the whole lot of them defenestrated for their insults…"

"What?" Harry asked, looking over at Rose in confusion,

"It means thrown out of a window," Rose laughed, making Harry grin,

"You know, just cause you use big words doesn't make you smarter than everyone else," Harry joked.

"Yes, it does," Rose replied, sticking her tongue out at him and making him giggle,

"But seriously, kid," Rose continued, "Don't let it bother you, Dad is doing what he must to win this war and sent that bastard to hell where he belongs. All we can do is support him."

"I guess…" Harry replied softly, "It's just hard when the Slytherins are being so mean…"

"I know kid…" Rose replied sadly, "But one day this war will be over, and everyone'll see that everything dad did was necessary."

"I hope so, Rose…"

As the bell rang, signaling the end of breakfast, Harry and Rose quickly grabbed their bags and exited the Great Hall to their first class.

XXXX

Author's Note:

Not the longest chapter I've ever done, but I wanted to push one out before Christmas; the next few chapters will all be Harry centered as I want to get back to my story's main character. I feel like I lost control of my story for a while, and I want to get it back; I am not going to lie; I was actually considering just deleting this story and rewriting it, beginning after the Fudge Duel, but my wife convinced me to finish what I've done so far. I hope you enjoy this chapter, and I wish you all a very Merry Christmas!