The World Beyond

Chapter Seven: 'A Hogsmeade Visit'

A loud thud woke Harry abruptly one Saturday morning from what had been a pleasant dream. As he blinked the sleep from his eyes, all he could remember of the dream was that it involved flying on his Firebolt with Hermione. He shook his head to clear his thoughts and pushed aside his bed curtains to see what had woken him.

Seamus was peering out from the bed next to him, his light hair messy from sleep, and the two boys looked across the room and saw Colin kneeling in front of his trunk, its contents strewn about the floor around him.

"Colin?" Dean asked sleepily as he emerged from the bed next to Colin's. "What are you doing? It's only..." He checked his watch, which sat on his bedside table. "...ten in the morning. On a Saturday. What are you even doing awake?"

With a disgruntled sigh, Colin slammed his trunk closed and sat on top of it. "I can't seem to find the robes I want to wear."

Dean and Seamus both burst into laughter, and Harry cracked a smile as Dean said, "The robes you want to wear? Does it really matter? Robes are robes. Or are you suddenly a girl, or something?"

Colin flushed with embarrassment as Harry got up and helped him to sort his things back out. Together, they refilled his trunk, as Colin muttered, "No, I just wanted to look nice, is that a crime?"

"Colin's got a crush," Dean crowed with delight. "Colin wants to look nice for a girl. Who is it, Colin?"

Colin turned brighter red and flung the lid of his newly refilled trunk closed again and sulked down onto his bed. He jerked the scarlet curtains closed around him, causing the other three boys to laugh even more.

"So who could it be?" Seamus asked Harry and Dean as the three boys began to pull their own robes for the day out of their trunks.

"Padma or Parvati, maybe," Dean suggested. "Or, remember in first year, when he had that thing for Susan Bones? Maybe it's her."

"Will you all shut up!" Colin's muffled voice shouted from inside his bed.

Harry, Dean, and Seamus glanced at each other, and Dean drew his fingers across his mouth, pretending to zip his lips. Harry held back another and grabbed his robes and toothbrush from on top of his trunk. The three boys headed en masse towards the bathroom.

After changing into his plain black robes, Harry found a sink and began to brush his teeth. Dean and Seamus did the same and, just as the three boys were about to leave and head down to breakfast, Neville appeared, fully dressed and hair neatly combed, in the doorway.

"Potter!" he called. Harry turned to look at him. "Just came from a prefect's meeting. McGonagall said to tell you she's decided to allow you to go into Hogsmeade today with the rest of us."

"Really?" Harry said, surprised. He hadn't expected to be able to go to the first Hogsmeade weekend of the year.

Neville snorted. "Really. What, did you forget to have Mummy sign the form for you or something?"

Harry flushed slightly and stammered for a second, then said, "I didn't get the form on time. The, um, owl didn't arrive quickly enough and I wasn't sure, you know, if Professor McGonagall had gotten it back from my... my mum... or not."

"Well, come on then," Seamus said, as he smashed a last bit of hair into place. He grabbed his things and turned from the mirror. "Let's get to breakfast, I'm starving. And we don't want to be late - what if Zonko's sells out?"

Dean followed Seamus out the door, with Harry and Neville bringing up the rear as Colin trudged into the bathroom, navy blue dress robes clutched in his hands. Neville looked confused as the other three stifled another laugh.

"I thought you weren't going to be able to come," Parvati remarked as Harry and Colin handed bottles of butterbeer out to her, Padma, and Hermione.

Harry took a bottle for himself as he slid into a seat next to Padma. "Change of plans. Last minute, changed my mind, that's all."

"Well, I'm glad you came." Parvati smiled at him from her seat next to Hermione. She glared at Colin as he sat down on the other side of Hermione, forcing Parvati to squeeze in by the wall. "Couldn't you pull up a chair?"

"I..." Colin began, blushing faintly.

"Oh, leave him be," Padma chastised. "If there's not enough room over there, come sit with us. Harry's skinnier than Colin, anyway."

Parvati grinned. "You know, I think I will. Shove over," she said to Hermione and Colin, who reluctantly slid off of their bench and allowed Parvati out. She stood up and daintily sat on the bench opposite, right next to Harry. He squeezed in, giving her more room, and Padma rolled her eyes at her sister. "What a second," Parvati said, glancing around the table, "I thought Neville was with us."

Padma rolled her eyes again. "No, not since we got to Hogsmeade. He went off to Zonko's with Fred and George. Something about preparing for something so big the Slytherins wouldn't know what hit them." The whole table laughed at that. "But I guess you were too preoccupied to notice he was missing." She smirked and nodded almost imperceptibly towards Harry.

Hermione caught the glance, and narrowed her eyes slightly at Parvati, but Harry and Colin both looked bewildered at what the girls were talking about.

"Anyway." Parvati glared at her sister. "Enough of that. I was just asking where Neville was, after all. So," she said, picking up her bottle of butterbeer, "how about a toast? To surviving the first month and a half of our fifth year?"

The five clinked their bottles together, each chorusing, "To fifth year." As Harry began to take a sip of his butterbeer, a voice interrupted their group.

"Well, well, well."

Harry glanced over to see Ron standing with Draco, who had his arm slung lazily over Ginny's shoulder. "You know, Potter, if you weren't such an ugly ass, and a Gryffindor, I might congratulate you." Ron glowered down at him.

"Excuse me?" Harry glared back, setting down his drink. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Padma and Colin each reach for their wands and Hermione cower in the corner. Ron's face twisted into a merciless smile as he stepped forward, placed both his hands on the edge of their table, and leaned in towards the group.

"It's quite a broom you have. Or so I hear. A Firebolt, was it? I've never heard of it, and there's not too much I haven't heard of." He snorted disdainfully and continued, "Normally, I would just assume my source - an idiot Hufflepuff - didn't know what they were saying. But the word is, you made Lard-ass Longbottom look even worse than normal. So I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt."

Harry stared up at Ron in disbelief. Colin placed himself in front of Hermione and was pointing his wand shakily at the three Slytherins, who didn't seem bothered by the threat. Padma, and especially Parvati, were both looking very angry.

"What we're really after," Draco said casually, "is your connection. If it's anyone upstanding, we probably know them anyway..."

"More like if they're not upstanding," Padma muttered.

Draco sneered in her direction and continued, "We want this broom model. No way does a Gryffindor need to be the only one to make Longbottom look like an arse." His tone grew more hateful. "You'll tell us where you got that broom. We can make it worth your while, if you want..."

"I don't think I will," Harry sneered back, surprising himself with the disgust and anger he heard in his own voice.

Both Ron and Draco's faces hardened, and Ron reached to jerk Harry out of his seat, probably for a fight. He stopped in mid-movement and Harry glanced over his shoulder to see what Ron had noticed. Professor Riddle was making his way towards them, a butterbeer in hand, with a lopsided smile. "Hello boys and girls!" he said as he approached the group.

"Hello, professor," they chorused back.

"My, my, this is an odd bunch, isn't it? I didn't think Gryffindors and Slytherins spent time together outside of classes!" The professor had a genuinely puzzled expression on his face.

Draco scowled, as if insulted by the mere suggestion. "We don't. We were just leaving."

With that, the three Slytherins turned on their heels and flounced away. Harry smiled to himself. He had never been so happy to see Riddle, and he was beginning to think maybe Hermione was right about him after all. The professor bid the lot of them goodbye and turned to go sit with a group of adults at a booth not far away.

"Wow." Parvati grinned. "I have never, in all my life, been so glad to see a professor."

"You and me both," Colin agreed. "I swear, those Slytherins just get slimier every day."

Harry was about to reply when the words caught in his throat. As he had watched the Slytherins leave, his eyes had caught a table in the center of the restaurant with a crowd of girls sitting at it. He hadn't really paid them any attention at first, but a new girl had appeared at the table, several butterbeers in hand. He thought he could see a Ravenclaw emblem on her robes as she handed the bottles out to a few of the girls around her.

He caught her eye briefly as she turned for a second in his direction. She smiled lightly at him, and then sat down with her friends.

"Harry!" He turned to see Padma waving her hand in front of his face. "Where were you? We were just going to ask..."

"Who is that?" Harry interrupted her.

The others at the table turned en masse to look in the direction he had been staring. He groaned at their complete lack of subtly as Colin asked, "Who is who?"

"That girl." He tried to point without being obvious, but it wasn't working, so he began to describe her. "The red head right there, with her back to us. The one with the sparkling blue eyes."

"How do you know," Padma smirked at him, "that her eyes are 'sparkling blue' if her back is to us?"

Harry flushed. "Well, she looked this way before."

Colin grinned, seizing an opportunity for revenge for the morning's teasing. "Harry's got a crush, Harry's got a crush," he crowed, just a little too loudly. Colin's exclamation had drawn the attention of the table of girls, who were watching as Harry turned bright red. Had he not been so busy quieting Colin, he might have noticed that the redhead in question was smiling at him again.

"Colin!" he hissed. Colin glanced over at the table of girls, then turned back to Harry.

"Sorry," he muttered.

Parvati was scowling, but Padma was grinning at Harry. "You'd be playing a dangerous game there, Harry."

"Why?"

Padma's grin widened. "That's Bonnie Black. Professor's daughter - she's Black's daughter, naturally. From what I hear, he's more strict with his daughters than he is with his students. You wouldn't want to break her heart."

"She's very pretty, though..." Harry murmured, before he even knew he was even saying anything.

His four friends were grinning at him. Colin, especially, looked quite amused. "Go talk to her, then," the other boy advised. "I mean, what is a Hogsmeade weekend for, if not to engender romantic entanglements?"

Padma snorted with laughter. "Engender romantic entanglements?" Colin blushed, and Harry was glad to find that he wasn't the center of attention any longer. His relief proved to be short lived.

Parvati smiled at him. "So, go on, Harry. Get to your engendering!"

"No." Harry shook his head, looking back at Bonnie. He thought she looked familiar, but decided he must have simply passed her in the hallways. "No, I couldn't go talk to her. I don't know her. I wouldn't know what to say."

"Probably just as well, really," Colin said, abruptly changing his opinion.

"Why?"

Colin shrugged. "You wouldn't want to get caught, would you? I mean, her mother works here in Hogsmeade. If she saw you trying to chat up her daughter, it would get back to Professor Black quick as hell, and then it'd be all over for you. It'd be no more Mr. Nice Guy."

Harry tore his eyes from Bonnie and turned back to his table. "Her mother works here in Hogsmeade? Si - Professor Black's wife works here?"

"In the museum," Hermione said, speaking up for the first time in a while. She ducked her head as everyone turned to look at her, but finally said, "She's the curator of the museum."

"Yeah," Colin said with a nod. "I've never actually been in it, but it's supposed to have artifacts from every aspect of wizarding life, from almost any time period you could want. Supposedly, if it's historical, and she doesn't know it, it's not actually true."

Padma nodded. "It's too bad we can't have her teaching History of Magic, instead of that awful Professor Binns."

"Lily prefers working at the museum..." Hermione began, but stopped short when everyone turned to stare at her. "What?" she asked meekly.

"Lily?" Parvati smirked at her. "You're on first name basis with Professor Black's wife? I knew you spent nearly every Hogsmeade weekend at that place, but really! She's your teacher's wife!"

Hermione looked like she was about to defend herself, but before she could say anything, Harry spoke. He had glanced back toward Bonnie Black, squinting to get a good look at her face, but he turned to Hermione and said, "Professor Black's wife is named Lily?"

Hermione nodded slowly. Harry glanced back at the girl. As soon as Hermione had said "Lily", he realized why the Ravenclaw girl looked so familiar. He had pictures of his mother, and had seen her twice - her apparition after the Third Task, and in the Mirror of Erised during his first year - and this Bonnie Black looked almost identical to his mother. His mouth hanging open in surprise, Harry glanced back and forth between Hermione and Bonnie. The other Gryffindors stared at him, confused, as he gathered his thoughts.

"Harry..." Padma began, but he cut her off.

"Is she working now?"

"Who?" Colin asked.

Harry turned back to his friends. "Lil... Mrs... Professor Black's wife. At the museum. Would she be there now?"

They all turned to Hermione, who nodded quickly. "I don't see why she wouldn't be. I mean, she usually is. Unless there's been some new magical artifact discovery, and she's had to go away to it."

"Can we go there?" The prospect of meeting his alternate-universe-mother frightened Harry more than he would ever admit, but he couldn't pass up the chance to find out if it was really her.

"To the museum?" Colin snorted. "On a weekend?"

"What's wrong with it?" Hermione retorted with unusual vigor and Colin immediately looked remorseful. "I'll take you there if you want, Harry."

Parvati's eyes narrowed at Hermione as Harry agreed to go with her. "Well, I'm going, too, then."

Padma looked surprised at her twin. "You? To the museum?"

Parvati glared back at her sister as she, Harry, and Hermione stood up. "I'll have you know, I think it'll be very interesting. There'll be nice things to look at."

"I bet there will be." Padma grinned mischievously at her twin, nodding slightly towards Harry. Parvati rolled her eyes.

"Is anyone else coming?" Harry asked. Padma shook her head no. Colin looked torn, but ultimately came to the decision that he couldn't be bothered to spend the weekend doing anything relating to his studies.

Harry, Hermione, and Parvati left the Three Broomsticks. Bonnie Black grinned at Harry again as he passed, but this time he became flustered and almost tripped over a chair. As Hermione helped him regain his balance, he glanced back and saw Padma trying to engage Colin in conversation. She wasn't having much luck - Colin was watching the trio as they left. When Harry caught his gaze, Colin quickly turned away to face Padma.

The sun was very bright in the sky and Harry squinted as he stepped out onto the main street of the village. He glanced around, not seeing anything vaguely resembling a museum, and wondered where it could possibly be located. Hermione grabbed his arm and pulled him in the proper direction as Parvati hurried after them.

"So," Parvati began, eager to regain Harry's attention, "why are you so interested in Black's wife?"

Hermione scrunched up her nose. "I was wondering that, too."

"I just..." Harry paused, unable to think of a remotely plausible reason for wanting to meet the woman. He was silent for a moment, in thought, as they walked down the busy street.

"Harry?" Parvati's voice brought him back to the present.

"Huh?" He glanced over at her. "Oh, right. It's just... well, I'll tell you later."

Parvati raised her eyebrows. Hermione didn't seem to mind his unwillingness to answer, but he could tell that Parvati wasn't going to let it go. "You'll tell us later? Why don't you tell us now? We were nice enough to bring you here, after all."

"I..." Harry began, but Hermione cut him off.

"There it is," she said, pointing toward a small building. Its haphazard and seemingly impossible nature reminded Harry of the Burrow for a moment - both seemed only structurally possible due to magic - but he ignored the resemblance. As they came closer, something else occurred to him: this museum was located in the exact spot the Shrieking Shack had occupied in his own world.

Harry opened his mouth to point this out, but just before he spoke, he realized that it would be a very stupid thing to say. Still, his mouth was hanging open, so he had to say something, or else look like an idiot. So he read aloud the sigh perched above the door: "Hogsmeade Village Historical Society Museum and Gift Shop."

"Ooh, there's a gift shop?" Parvati squealed.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "We're not here to shop, Parvati. Well?" she turned to Harry. "Are we going to go in?"

"Yeah," he said hoarsely, his mouth dry. With the door only a few feet away, Harry was now confronted with the strangest reality he had faced since arriving in this world: in a matter of minutes, he could be meeting his real mother, in the flesh, for the first time since he was a baby.

"Come on." Hermione was beginning to get impatient. She reached for his arm again and pulled him towards the museum door. Parvati hurried to catch up. Hermione pushed the large wooden door open and the three students made their way inside.

The room Harry found himself in looked very well like it should have taken up the entire space of the building, but he knew full well from his experience of magical buildings that outside appearances could be deceiving. The room had a domed ceiling that was charmed like the Great Hall to show the outside sky. The walls were covered with historical paintings, posters, and maps. A set of double doors on the other side of the circular room presumably led to the exhibits and a solitary desk sat in the center of the room.

A young wizard, about the right age to have recently graduated from Hogwarts, was sitting in the chair behind the desk. He glanced up at the sound of the door opening and hastily shoved something under a pile of papers. He rolled his eyes at the sight of Hermione. Unperturbed, and showing a confidence Harry and Parvati had not yet seen, she marched directly to him.

"Here to see the exhibits?" the wizard asked.

Hermione looked as though she would like to, but Parvati pointed out a sign listing the prices. "Even a student ticket is more than I'd like to spend. How do you find the money to come here all the time?"

The young wizard sighed, clearly bored. "If you're not here for the exhibits, then what are you doing here?"

Parvati looked perturbed at the young man's rudeness. "We'd like to see Mrs. Black, if that's quite all right." Hermione nodded her agreement with this wish. Neither of the girls seemed to notice that Harry was still hanging back near the door.

"Mrs. Black is rather busy, young lady," the wizard admonished, trying to sound superior.

"Well, why don't you just go and check? Clearly you're not busy," Parvati retorted, stabbing her finger done on the open Quidditch magazine he had tried to hide. "Tell her Hermione's here."

With a grunt, the wizard stuffed his magazine into a desk drawer and heaved himself to his feet. He disappeared through a door Harry hadn't seen before.

When he returned, there was a tall, red-haired woman with him. Except for the age difference and her bright green eyes, this woman looked almost exactly like Bonnie Black. Harry staggered back toward the doorway as she approached them. There was no doubt about it; this woman was this world's version of his mother.

"Hermione!" Lily Black said cheerfully. "It's good to see you. I had wondered if you'd be by this weekend."

"It's good to see you, too, Mrs. Black," Hermione replied. At an admonishing glare, she corrected herself, "Lily, I mean."

Parvati snickered, causing Hermione to blush faintly.

"So, what brings you girls by today?" Lily asked with a smile. Hermione and Parvati turned in unison to look back at Harry, still cowering by the door, his mouth gaping open in shock.

"We came with Harry," Parvati explained. "Only, he won't tell us why. But he was ever so eager to meet

you."

Lily glanced questioningly at the two girls, but they could offer her no further answers, so she turned to look at Harry. He was still watching the three of them and didn't seem entirely aware of the fact that he was their topic of conversation. "Harry?" Lily called out. He didn't respond. A confused look on her face, she walked across the room and lightly touched his arm.

He jumped at her touch, and his eyes whirled around to meet hers. His vision was blurred; he realized with a shock that there were tears in his eyes. He had unconsciously been working to keep himself from crying. Lily didn't seem to notice this.

"Harry." Lily smiled at him. "I'm Lily Black, it's very nice to meet you. Your friends said you wanted to see me about something?"

Harry just stared at her, trying to take in everything that was happening all at once. When he didn't respond, Lily spoke again.

"Why don't we all go back to my office?" She turned to the girls, who both nodded and looked equally bewildered by Harry's behavior. Hermione pointed the way to the office and brought Parvati with her as Lily gently took Harry's arm and led him in the same direction.

Though he couldn't remember having ever put any real thought into his expectations, Harry found Lily Black's office exactly as he would have expected his own mother's to look. As he watched the tall redhead settle herself in a chair behind her old-fashioned wooden desk, he had to remind himself repeatedly that this was not his own mother. His mother was dead, and had been for years; this woman was simply another world's version of her. No matter how he much he wanted it, this woman would never be his actual mother.

Harry kept repeating these thoughts in his head as he, Parvati, and Hermione slid into three chairs facing Lily's desk. In many ways, the office looked like it could be a museum exhibit, itself. The furniture was all antique and the walls, though mostly blank, were decorated by two large paintings of historical wizarding events. Though he didn't want to seem as though he was snooping, Harry couldn't help but lean forward and sneak a peek at one photograph on the desk: it was a wizarding snapshot of a much younger Lily and Sirius, hand in hand, and obviously in love.

"Harry!"

The voice jerked Harry out of his thoughts, and he saw Parvati and Hermione staring at him, both looking bewildered. He found, to his embarrassment, that he hadn't been as subtle as he'd hoped in trying to see the photograph. Luckily, Lily didn't seem to mind.

"That's my husband and me," she said, indicating the photograph, "but I suppose the three of you know him already."

Parvati had an odd smile on her face, Harry noticed, and when she spoke, her voice had a dreamy quality. "When was it taken?"

Lily picked up the photograph and studied it for a second. The young Sirius smiled and waved at her. "A few weeks before our wedding, actually. Ages ago now, I suppose."

Harry noticed with some surprise that Hermione's smile mimicked Parvati's. Parvati sighed softly and said, "It all looks so romantic. Who would have ever thought Professor Black could be like that?"

Hermione nodded her agreement to this statement. "Not that he isn't nice. He just seems so... well, so serious."

"That he is," Lily said with a laugh. "In more ways than one. Now," she said, turning to Parvati, "you are, I assume, one of the young Miss Patils?"

"Yes." Parvati nodded. "Didn't I introduce... Oh, no, I guess I didn't. I'm Parvati." Clearly abiding by manners long since drilled into her head, Parvati stuck her hand forward to shake.

Lily set down the photograph and reached across the desk to shake Parvati's hand. "And your sister is Padma, correct?" Parvati nodded. "I know your parents, of course. They were, oh, several years ahead of me at Hogwarts, but we've become friends since. They're very nice people. It's good that there are still some like them left in the ministry these days."

Parvati thanked her, but didn't seem to know what else to say, so Lily turned to Harry.

"Now that I'm familiar with everyone else, we turn to the mysterious Harry. Do you have a last name, Harry?" Lily asked, a kind smile on her face.

Harry sat staring at her. He thought that his mouth might have been gaping slightly open, but he couldn't seem to find the muscles to move it. Hermione turned and looked at him, looking bewildered again. Seeing that he wasn't going to say anything, she answered for him."It's Potter. Harry Potter."

"Potter?" Lily asked. "Really? Any relation to the Quidditch player?"

Harry barely heard the question as he sat across from his would be mother. A million thoughts were flying through his brain. His mother was dead, and this was not her, but he knew that this woman would be the closest he would ever come to meeting his mother, and hadn't he wanted for most of his life to be able to know her? He decided in that instant that, no matter how weird it felt to be talking to this woman, he was not going to let the opportunity pass him by. He had been given a second chance to know his mother and he wasn't going to let it pass him by.

"What?" he croaked out, his voice scratchy from sitting silent for so long.

"I was just asking," Lily repeated, "if you are related to James Potter?"

Harry shook his head. "No. Um, not that I know of, that is. I've never met him or anything."

"All right. Just as well, if you ask me," Lily remarked. Harry barely had a chance to process that comment before she was speaking again. "So, what can I do for the three of you today?"

Hermione and Parvati both turned in their chairs to look at Harry.

Realizing that he was the reason for the visit, Lily also turned to look at Harry, and suddenly he found himself once more unable to talk. He realized he hadn't thought through his plan to meet her. There was no way he could tell her the truth behind the visit, and he couldn't think of any plausible lie. He could almost hear the clock on the wall ticking off the seconds as he searched his mind for something, anything, to say that would sound reasonable.

Parvati looked positively confused while Hermione looked like she thought her new friend might be slightly insane. Lily clearly also picked up on his distress, and appeared much more sympathetic to him than either of the girls.

"Maybe you'd rather we talked alone?" she asked him. "Your friends could go look around the museum for a while, if you'd like the privacy."

"No!" Harry exclaimed, hardly recognizing his own voice. As weird as this situation was, he knew it would get ten times weirder if he was left alone with Lily.

"Okay." Lily was beginning to look just as confused as his friends and a little bit exasperated with him. Harry figured she was probably thinking he was the strangest boy she had ever met; he thought Hermione was probably right if she thought him insane. "Well, take your time, then. Whenever you figure out what you wanted to say to me..."

Harry nodded quickly, thankful for the extra time to organize his thoughts and hoping that he would be able to do so.

"Mrs. Black?" Parvati piped up. Lily turned her attention to the girl. "While Harry is... thinking... could I ask something?"

"Of course."

Parvati reached into a purse that Harry hadn't even noticed she had and pulled out what looked like an assignment notebook. She flipped to a page towards the front and squinted at her own writing, then turned back to Lily. "We have this assignment for History of Magic, an essay on a historical figure. I got Reselda Snape. I know I should do the research on my own, but since we're here anyway, and it doesn't seem like much else is going on, I thought maybe you could at least give me a few pointers?"

"I'll get you started in the right direction, how about that?" Parvati nodded eagerly. "Well, how much do you know about her?"

"Nothing."

Lily nodded. "About what I figured. That Professor Binns always has been useless. But you didn't hear that from me." Parvati nodded and laughed. "Well, Reselda Snape is the lesser known younger sister of Klaudius Snape, whom I'm guessing you've never heard of either?" Parvati shook her head no. "Maybe you'll have heard of him by his nickname: Grindelwald."

"The dark wizard?" Hermione gasped out.

"Indeed," Lily confirmed. "Very few people knew of his real name. Now this all took place a very long time ago, of course. About the same time as the Muggle First World War..."

Harry, whose ears had pricked up at hearing the name Snape, thought that he remembered hearing about the dark wizard Grindelwald in the time period of the Second World War, but passed it off as his not paying close enough attention in History of Magic.

Lily was still speaking, "The Snapes are, of course, a very old wizarding family. They had all been in Slytherin for generations, and I'll allow you to make your own assumptions about that. But Reselda was different. She was sorted into Gryffindor at Hogwarts and apparently disowned by her family because of it. Her brother had a soft spot for her, though, and through their closeness, she learned that he was the Dark Lord. It must have been very hard for her, but she turned against him and it was due mostly to her efforts that good triumphed over evil and Grindelwald was defeated."

"Wow." Parvati looked shocked. "She sold out her own brother? I can't imagine doing that to my sister."

"Nor can I," Lily agreed. "Then again, my sister has never been quite as horrible as Grindelwald. Now," she reached into her desk and pulled out some parchment, ink, and quills. "I'll make you a list of books to look in, if you want?"

Parvati nodded eagerly, and Lily set out to writing the list.

As she handed the piece of parchment to the girl, Harry screwed up his courage and blurted out, "I just thought I might have known you from somewhere."

Lily turned, surprised, to look at Harry. It was almost as though she had forgotten he was even in the room. Hermione and Parvati turned to him, too, and he flushed at the abruptness of his outburst.

"Well, did you?"

"What?"

"Did you know me from somewhere?" Lily asked.

Harry shook his head quickly. "No. No, I'm pretty sure I didn't. I must have had you mistaken for... for someone else."

"That's too bad. You do seem like a nice kid, if a bit quiet. And you know," she contemplated out loud, "I do wonder if you aren't somehow related to that James Potter. I knew him at school; we were in the same house and same year, and you do look an awful lot like him."

Parvati's eyes were the size of saucers. "You knew James Potter?"

"I most certainly did. I met him on the Hogwarts Express my first year. And I can't say it was the most pleasant meeting, either." At the three students' intrigued expressions, Lily continued with a laugh, "I had met a girl, Sally Lewis, earlier on the train ride. We were both sorted into Gryffindor later on and became best friends. But at the time, we were sitting in a compartment, minding our own business, when James Potter and Remus Lupin came bursting in. Now, Sally thought they were both very cute, but I wasn't interested in boys yet, and was rather annoyed at the intrusion. James came striding into our compartment and decided to make himself at home by taking our candy. I thought I would be tough and threaten him with my wand, so he pulled out his wand as well. One thing led to another, and suddenly quite a few Chocolate Frogs exploded over my head. I had to go to the Sorting ceremony covered in sticky chocolaty goo."

Hermione and Parvati both burst out laughing and Harry found himself joining in. Lily smiled, too. Clearly, she had long ago gotten over any lingering resentment over the event.

"I can't believe he would do that," Parvati said. "James Potter is just so dreamy. Sophisticated and gorgeous..."

"And annoying," Lily cut in with a smile. "Trust me. He made it one of his number one goals for our seven years in school to torment me as much as humanly possible."

Parvati shook her head in disbelief. "I just can't believe that. He doesn't seem like that at all."

"Maybe he isn't anymore," Lily conceded. "I haven't seen him in many years, and we are both adults now. Maybe he's changed. In any event, I've long since put old school grudges behind me, and I'd like to think he has, too."

Harry was smiling to himself, thinking of his would be mother and father fighting over candy on the train when the photograph on Lily's desk caught his eye. Young Sirius, a mischievous grin on his face, leaned over and kissed a surprised Young Lily squarely on the mouth.

He felt a sick sensation in his stomach as the Young Sirius turned from his fiancé and grinned out at him. He had done what he promised himself he wouldn't; he had allowed himself to begin to think of this woman as his mother, but she very clearly wasn't. This woman was married to Sirius Black, not James Potter, and had never had a child called Harry.

"I..." he began, pulling himself to his feet. "I've got to go now. It was... it was nice to meet you..."

With a last glance around the room, he let go of the arms of his chair, wobbled a second without the support, and ran from the room. He could feel three sets of eyes staring after him as he pushed open the door and found himself again in the main entry room of the museum.

The young wizard working as receptionist was chatting up a pretty young witch perched on the edge of the desk in front of him. Neither of them took any notice of Harry as he darted quickly across the circular room and heaved himself out of the main entrance doors. The sunlight nearly blinded him for a moment as he stepped outside, but his eyes quickly adjusted and he glanced around the busy Hogsmeade street in front of him. Distressed as he was, he had forgotten that the world was functioning normally for everybody else.

Neville, his arm around a girl Harry didn't recognize, passed in front of the museum and waved towards Harry. Weakly, Harry returned the gesture. He could hear someone walking across the floor of the museum and took off running again before anyone could catch up with him.

He pushed his way through the crowd made up mostly of students as his feet pounded against the ground and took him closer and closer to the edge of the village. He glanced around and saw that he was near the cave where he, Ron, and Hermione had met up with Sirius the year before in his own world. Breathing heavily, he made his way towards the cave, hoping he remembered where it was.

He found that he did and soon found himself at the entrance. He checked inside carefully to make sure it was empty and, finding that it was, crept inside and collapsed against the wall. He tried to catch his breath as tears came to his eyes and he finally let them fall. He had hoped all his life to meet his mother and now he had come as close as he ever would. It was almost as if all his dreams had been burst in one moment; as wonderful as this Lily had been, it was obvious that she wasn't his true mother and never would be. Somehow, in all the madness that his arrival in this world had caused, it had never occurred to him that he might be able to meet this world's version of his parents, and that they would be so obviously different.

He clutched his knees to his chest, hung his head and, for the first time in a very long time, allowed himself to really cry

To be continued...

Scenes from Chapter Eight: 'The First Attack'

- Professor Black shook his head, a smile on his face. "You are a complicated boy, aren't you, Harry?"

"I don't mean to be. It just happens."

"I'm not accusing you," Sirius said with a chuckle. "It just seems that while the rest of us lead our fairly ordinary lives, yours ends up being more believable as the plot of a novel than as reality. Your being here at all is proof of that."

- "... sorry to disturb you, but the Headmistress is away in London, as you know, called to a meeting in the Ministry. We don't know when she'll be back - you know that - but this couldn't wait."

"Calm down, Peter," Sirius said as he stood up and now towered over the frantic man. "Take a deep breath and tell me what's going on."

Pettigrew began to follow these instructions, but only got as far as the deep breath before he was frantic again. "You've got to come now, Professor. I don't think I can explain..."