Magic At Its Deepest

It was dark at Privet Drive, and silent. The only lights burned in the streetlamps that lined the sidewalk; all the other lights had been extinguished, the residents of the street long since retired to their beds.

Had anybody been awake, and looking out of their windows, they would have seen something occur that would most likely cause them to blink, give vent to a peculiar sound, and go to bed thinking they had dreamed the whole thing.

A few dozen feet away from Number Four, there was a shimmer in the air, a blurry haze, reality colliding with dream, and when it was over, there was a woman standing on the sidewalk. She was dressed in unseasonably warm clothing; a dark blue flannel nightgown, a black woolen bathrobe, and a thick pair of socks. Perhaps most unusually, she wore no shoes.

Her reaction to her sudden appearance on Privet Drive would have quite confused any watchers brave enough to stay to witness it; she jumped, visibly startled by her surroundings, and stared at Number Four for a long time, her pretty face twisted slightly in confusion. At length, she shook herself, as if remembering something very important, and ran over to the house, peering into the window for a moment before knocking loudly on the door.

Inside Number Four, a light came on upstairs. The woman stopped knocking for a moment and waited, but she couldn't hear any footsteps, and so she started knocking again, and this time she called a name.

"Petunia! Petunia, it's me! Petunia, come to the door, please!"

Harry Potter paused in front of the front door of Privet Drive, one hand extended to open the door. He knew that voice. He wasn't sure where he'd heard it, but he knew it was familiar to him. He closed his hand around the door handle and twisted it to the right, swung the door open slowly - and froze, his entire body going numb with shock at the sight of the woman on the doorstep. The woman froze too, equally startled, and they stared at each other for a long moment in silence, neither exactly sure what to say.

At length, the woman spoke, her voice shaking again, not from fear, but from confusion. "J-James?" she stammered softly.

Harry's eyes widened, and he stared at her for another moment before he spoke, voice cracking ignobly on the single syllable. "Mum?"

Lily Potter stared at the young man in the doorway of her sister's home, unable to believe what her senses were telling her. At first, she'd thought the boy was her husband - but that was impossible, since James was no longer a teenage boy, and since this boy, unlike James, had green eyes. Her eyes.

Just then, the boy spoke, and Lily's heart stopped. Oh bugger. He'd called her mum. He had her eyes, and he'd called her mum, and yes, this could be Harry, this could be her son, but he was old, and how could that be when she was holding her infant son in her arms scant minutes before, shielding him from Voldemort and begging for his life?

Just then, Lily heard a voice from inside the house, a voice she would recognize anywhere, a voice as familiar to her as her own. "What on earth are you doing, boy? Don't just stand there with the door hanging open!"

Petunia sounded about as pleasant as ever, Lily noted absently as her sister grabbed the door and flung it wide. When she saw her sister, though, her amusement faded, and she felt yet another jolt of shock run through her. Petunia was old. Her face, which had always been rather plain, was lined with wrinkles - they were usually called laugh lines, but Lily knew her sister well enough to doubt that they were made by laughing. Her hair, too, had changed, the bright gold of which she had been so fond liberally sprinkled with silver. Petunia was the elder of the sisters, and it had been several years since they had seen each other, but Lily didn't think Petunia was old enough to have changed -that- much!

Petunia, for her part, seemed just as shocked to see Lily as Lily was to see her. She stared for a minute, her mouth opening and closing soundlessly, unable to speak, wide-eyed and pale - and then began to scream.

Lights came on all over Privet Drive as Petunia's shrill screech echoed through the street. Inside Privet Drive, there were two loud thumps, followed by the sound of running footsteps. Petunia's scream had awakened her husband and son, both of whom were now running down the stairs. Petunia, oblivious to this, continued to scream, not even stopping when her husband reached her side.

"Petunia! Petunia, what on earth has gotten into you?" Vernon demanded, taking her by the shoulders. When he saw the woman on his stoop, however, he understood. The blood drained slowly from his face, and he stared at her in horror for a moment, then grabbed the door and started trying to close it in her face. He was hindered by both the woman and his nephew, who was reaching out for her, yelling 'Mum' at the top of his lungs.

Into this already chaotic scene waddled Dudley, who stared at his parents, his cousin and the stranger in consternation for a moment before coming forward. "Mum? Dad? What's going on?"

At that moment, Petunia, who was likely one of the most selfish creatures on the face of the planet, did something entirely unselfish - she stopped screaming, grabbed her son and pushed him behind her. "Dudley, go back to your room!" she cried, panicked at the thought of this creature, whoever it was, getting its hands on her son. It looked like her sister, and sounded like her sister, but Lily was dead, had been for almost fifteen years, and so it couldn't be - and if it was, she didn't want to know.

"Mum!" Harry screamed again, and the expression on Dudley's face would have been absolutely hilarious had the circumstances not been so grave. "Mum, don't go! Mum, please!"

Lily reached her hand out to Harry, who gave another cry and reached out to her. Their fingers brushed, ever so slightly - and Petunia shrieked again, grabbed her nephew around the waist and hauled him away, seconds before Vernon slammed the door shut. "What are you doing?" Harry yelled at his aunt, trying to drag himself away from her. "That was my mum!"

"Your mother is dead!" Petunia snapped, hauling him further from the door. "Your mother is dead, and good riddance, and you should be thanking me from keeping you from whatever that was that was wearing her face!"

Harry stopped struggling and considered that for a moment. It was true, his mother was dead. He'd seen her die himself, in his memories, whenever he was confronted with a Dementor. Maybe...maybe, for once, Petunia was right. He sagged slightly and nodded once. "Yes, Aunt Petunia. You're right. I'm sorry. Thank you."

Petunia was so shocked by her nephew's capitulation that she dropped him. Before she could say anything, however, he had turned his back on her and walked back up the stairs to his bedroom. Something, or someone, was walking around wearing his mother's face. He knew it was possible to impersonate somebody in such a way, but the only way he knew of was Polyjuice potion, which required a part of the body of the person you were impersonating. Harry didn't want to think about what that might mean, if Polyjuice potion was how whoever was on the doorstep was imitating his mother.

He closed the door to his bedroom and flung himself onto his bed, thinking hard. Sirius Black, his godfather, was currently living with Remus Lupin, who had been a close friend in school, and both men had been very close to his parents. If this person, or thing, was trying to use his mother's face to get to those who had loved her, then he had the horrible feeling that they would be the next to receive a visit.

He had to warn them. He was sure they could defend themselves; Remus Lupin had been an extremely competent teacher, and would probably still be teaching were it not for the rather unfortunate fact that he happened to be a werewolf, and a recent letter from Sirius had disclosed the fact that his godfather had once been an Auror, whose job it had been to apprehend Dark Wizards for interrogation. He would probably still be doing that, if he hadn't been accused of being one. Still, no matter how capable Sirius and Professor Lupin were, Harry knew that it would be a shock to them seeing her face again - after all, it had shocked him, and he had never known his mother in life. He felt it was his duty to warn them about whatever that was, so that when it showed up on their doorstep, they would be prepared.

To that end, he grabbed a piece of parchment and a quill - he had been doing his homework when the knocking began, and had forgotten to hide his supplies - and began to write.

Several minutes later, he put the quill down and reread the letter carefully, making sure the wording was right. Satisfied, he stood up and crossed the room to the birdcage in the corner, where his pet owl, Hedwig, was studying him carefully as if she knew what was happening. "Hullo, girl," he said quietly, and opened her cage. "Take this to Sirius for me, and hurry. It's really important."

Hedwig gave a soft hoot and nipped his finger affectionately as he tied the letter to her leg, then set off out the open window. Harry watched her go, then glanced downward just in time to see the creature wearing his mother's face slip into the bushes, avoiding the sirens and flashing lights making their way down the street. Petunia, it seemed, had called the police. Harry snorted softly, shaking his head. If Petunia thought a Muggle prison could hold whatever that thing was, she was even stupider than he'd thought, and that would be quite a trick.

Sighing, he closed the window and went back to bed. Potions essays waited for no man, and he refused to give Severus Snape any more excuses to hate him, not that Snape needed one. Even as he wrote, however, he couldn't help but think of the expression on the face of whatever that creature had been. It had looked so surprised to see him...and it had called him James. Surely, if it had been trying to impersonate his mother...Harry sighed and shook his head, forcing himself to turn back to his potions essay. His mother was dead, and Dumbledore himself had said that no magic could bring back the dead, and so he resumed writing, ignoring the voice in the back of his head reminding him that Dumbledore had been wrong before.

Outside Privet Drive, Lily looked up at her son's bedroom window, confused and terrified. Though the door had been fully closed, she had still heard every word of the dialogue between her son and her sister. 'Your mother is dead', Petunia had said. That explained how horrified Petunia had seemed to see her, and the shock on her son's face. She was supposed to be dead, and right now they probably thought she was some sort of monster. But she wasn't, or at least she didn't think she was. She certainly didn't remember dying, and she was pretty sure that would be hard to forget. Sighing, she slipped away from the house and began to walk. She would put some space between herself and her sister, and in the morning she would figure out how to get from where she was to where she knew she needed to be, hundreds of miles away. After all, if there was anybody in the world who could tell her what was going on, it was Albus Dumbledore.