What He Never Had

Fury jumped up, bowling over three house elves in the process. She was too small to use her underdeveloped wings, but she could use them to flip over and change directions abruptly.

"Master Potter, Master Potter, may we be seeing the young master?"

"Certainly. This, my little friends, is Harry Potter."

"Harry Potter!"

"Harry Potter!"

Harry pictured Hermione in his mind's eye. She had her face screwed up in an evil, homicidal look. However the house elves looked overjoyed to have a new master. They hopped up and down in excitement, little red robe-like uniforms billowing out.

"It's Master Harry!"

Dad wrapped one of Harry's limp, tiny, hands in his own.

He pointed at the house elves one at a time. "That's Patty. And Lotta, Cookie, Griffy. And that's Grumps," he finished, referring to the one with an enormous nose.

Harry smiled at them, showing his toothless gums.

"I think he is liking us, Master James," Griffy said with enthusiasm.

Lotta's round tennis ball eyes got larger, if possible, and she inquired in a quavering voice, "Can we hold him, Master James?"

Patty and Cookie nodded over her shoulders. It sounded rehearsed.

"Of course!" James laughed, and laid Harry cautiously in their thin arms.

They huddled round. "Thank, you, Master James, we is being very careful of him." The others nodded again.

"Whoa, I'm sleepy," Lily announced. The house elves jumped to attention.

"You will be having a nice nap now, Mistress Lily?" Grumps grabbed her hand.

CRACK!

Suddenly Lily, Harry, and the house elves were all in a spacious bedroom with a

double canopy bed with dark blue drapes.

Everything else in the room was either white or light blue, though it was too dark to see much. They laid Harry down in a crib to the side of the bed and left quietly through the door.

Exhausted from running round all day getting released from the hospital, Lily soon fell asleep.

Harry was annoyed.

'Are these rules, or something,' he wondered. 'When SHE feels cold, I get wrapped up more. When SHE is tired, I have to sleep. What Mum doesn't know, however, is that even though I'm a baby, I have the mind of a teenager, and sometimes, I just don't wanna sleep!'

Harry spent the next half an hour staring at the ceiling.

Suddenly, something moved in the darkness. Harry craned his neck, peeking through the bars of the crib. 'That white splotch is Fury, and the shadow is- Padfoot! I'm rescued!'

Padfoot quickly transformed into Sirius and stood over Harry. Seeing his godson look up at him, he grinned.

"Hi there, Harry."

Harry took a deep breath and opened his mouth as if to wail. Sirius took a quick step back, glancing at Lily's sleeping form on the bed.

Harry giggled, and when Sirius stepped forward again, he grinned widely.

"You did that on purpose!" Sirius whined. "What are you, trying to get me killed?"

He picked up Harry and took him down into a wide hallway, coming upon a grand staircase, which they followed down several stories, then into another wide hall, down a small staircase at the end of that, through a couple strange rooms, then the front hall before reentered the living room. Fury followed at his heels.

He settled down on the sofa, and held Harry at arms length in front of him. Then he looked him in the eyes, and said firmly, "No."

'So that's what this was all about! Well, Sirius isn't going to get away with that!' Harry opened his eyes wide gave Sirius the evil eye, waving his fists angrily.

Sirius's eyes narrowed.

"Nuh- uh! WE asked you first, therefore YOU should have answered, US first!"

Harry waved his firsts in denial.

Sirius laid him down on the sofa.

"YOU should have!"

"No you!"

"Nuh-uh!"

"No!"

"No."

"NO!"

"No WAY!"

Sirius reasoned with the fists.

Harry decided to change tactics. He made his eyes completely round, spread his fingers out and gave Sirius the biggest 'I'm so cute and innocent!' look he could muster.

Sirius gaped at him. "All right, you win. But that's no fair, you cheated!"

Opting that Sirius didn't know how babies should act, Harry shook his head.

He was right. Instead of making a fuss about how Harry understood what he was saying, as any other (sane) person would have, Sirius let out a sigh of frustration, flopped back on the sofa, and threw his head over the armrest.

Just then the door opened, and Samantha strode in.

"SIRIUS! You better not by sleeping on the job while babysitting MY nephew!"

Sirius bolted up. "I'm not. We were arguing."

She glanced at the infant on the sofa. "That's not a very fair argument, is it?" The expression on her face stated clearly that she thought he couldn't win any

other arguments so he had ganged up on someone who couldn't argue back.

"You're right, it isn't, he won." Sirius looked downcast.

"Sirius- that's just sad."

She disappeared through another door, with a kitchen beyond it. Long black hair floated behind her, so straight it looked almost fluid.

Sirius held Harry up next to him. "You're right Harry, she is hot."

'Oh, NOW I see what's going on . . .'

He sighed wistfully. "She's changed so much since we were in school . . ."

He was looking at Harry, so he didn't see Samantha lean into the room slightly.

But Harry did.

Harry laughed silently to himself. 'Sirius has got a cr-uh-sh! Sirius has a cr-uh-sh!'

Patty the House elf skipped merrily in. "Sirius? Mistress Samantha? Master James

is having a meeting with the kind Aurors, and Mistress Lily is sleeping. Hagrid is in the front hall. Should humble Patty be bringing him in here?"

"Hagrid!" Samantha popped out of the kitchen. "Yeah, let him in."

She scooped Harry up spontaneously and dropped into the armchair. "Hey there, little guy. I always knew you were smarter than Sirius."

Harry let out a giggle.

"Hello, evr'one! I brought another gift fer 'Arry!"

Samantha sat up straight.

"What is it?" she asked anxiously.

"Oh, nuttin' to worry 'bout. Look, I got this pretty chain here, in Diagon Alley"

It was a collar, which looked more like a necklace, of large square links attached to square loops of leather. The leather pieces had green gems.

"It's fer Fury. Isn't it pretty? I knew she'd like it, cause it's gold. But it's charmed, too! See, if you put it on her neck the other way round, so the gems are on the

inside, it turns 'er invisible, jus' in case she ain't supposed to be there. It also transfigures anything she ruins and leaves behind, so nobody will get

mad at her. 'Ere ya go, girl."

"So, basically Fury and Harry will be able to get away with just about anything when it comes to her? Niiicccee . . ." Sirius nodded in appreciation.

Samantha pondered this. "Hmmm . . ."

Hagrid placed the item round Fury's neck. She eyed the golden links.

"It's also charmed not t' break." He added.

Fury's shoulders slumped, but then she held her neck up proudly, and the gold links shone in the rays of sunlight coming from the far windows.

And it did look good on her.

"I'll be off then. Give me regards t' Lily and James. See, I stopped by on a mission for Dumbledore. He sent me t' pick up the Mirror of Esired from Beauxbatons, he says he wants it with him."

He walked a way through the front hall, and they could hear his voice echoing back. "Maybe I shouldn'ta said that . . ."

Fury strutted round the room, hopping on the large table, which she walked down as if it were a runway. Her talons gouged into the table, leaving long claw marks.

"Uh, oh," Sirius said.

Samantha looked up. "Hey, isn't that a family heirloom or something?"

There was a flash of light, and in the place of the table was now a shiny, red go-cart, complete with little golden Gryphons painted on the side.

'Er,' Harry thought. 'Oops.'

"Well, all Hagrid told us was that it transfigured when wrecked. We ASSUMED that it would revert to its original state. But I guess not." Sirius said with amusement.

Footsteps echoed in the hall.

"Hide it!" Samantha hissed urgently, and Sirius grabbed it and heaved it over to the sofa in the corner, which he shoved it behind.

Baby Harry suddenly got really sleepy, taking his mind-partner down with him. As he fell asleep, Samantha pulled Sirius into the hall, innocent looks on their faces.

The way they were acting, it sounded as if Dad would blow a fuse if he found the expensive looking heirloom mahogany table missing.

Harry slipped off into dreamland.

****Harry's dream*****

A brunette woman, with several streaks of grey in her hair, lay exhaustedly on a lumpy couch which vaguely resembled a sleeping animal. In her arms was a several month old adorable little infant with red fuzz.

The doorbell rang.

Half a minute later, and skinny little blonde girl came hurtling into the room. "Mummy, there are some strange people at the door and they're asking about

Lily!"

The woman got up and meandered to the front door. "Can I help-"

She stopped in mid sentence; there were two men and one woman at the door. Their faces were blank and unemotional, the features of their faces were even and they wore white robes. The woman's hair was long and dark, and the man had a beard and hair both short and neatly trimmed. The woman with the baby gazed into her eyes, and she felt herself drifting- then everything snapped back in place.

"-you?" She finally finished.

Hadn't the she been standing in the middle before? Why was Lily on her left arm- wasn't she on her right before? The mother was confused, she didn't remember shifting Lily over.

One of the men looked up at her. "You may keep the baby. There is much to be done." He opened her hand, placing something inside of it before closing it.

She opened her hand, examining the item.

"Give this to your daughter, it is a gift. It will come in use later in life."

It was a medallion on a long gold chain; the one Harry's mum had been wearing and was hiding from Fury, because of the gold!

The woman looked up. "WHAT?"

But they were gone.

She shrugged, pocketing the medallion, and walked back in.

"Where were you Mum? What took you so long?" the little girl wondered.

"What do you mean, Petunia? I was only out there for a minute. They just wanted to give Lily a gift."

She sat down on the couch, snuggling with her baby. "Mummy loves you! Yes she does, she does! You're so precious-"

In the background, the small blonde girl watched, her eyes sharp with intelligence- and resentment. Near her feet, something moved, snakelike.