Meet the Parents

Harry woke up the next morning around seven o'clock, neither sleepy nor tired. He had gone to bed very early last evening, so it wasn't very surprising.

He laid in his bed for a while before deciding that it was pointless to try and sleep again. He got up carefully and slowly, not wanting to wake up the other boys in the room. Some sunshine was falling into the room through the closed curtains. Harry headed to the window and pulled open the curtains to let more sunshine into the dorm. It was a beautiful day. There was some morning mist on the grounds and a bright, fresh morning light filled the air. A spider was sitting patiently in a spider-web in the corner of the window and few drops of water on it sparkled in the sun.

The breathtaking view filled his heart with strange feeling of joy. In his situation it was a rather unexpected emotion. There was a duel with an ex-Auror in front of him, his own father, godfather and his best friends thought that he was a coward and a wimp, not to mention the fact that he was out of his time and without the hope of return any time soon. Yet, for no particular reason, he felt reassured.

He heard Ron and other boys fidgeting in their beds. Not thinking about it, he pulled back the curtains, put on some random clothes and went out for a walk.

He wandered around pointlessly and enjoyed the peaceful loneliness. After a whole week of the constant tension and fighting with his father, it was the first time when he could relax.

He didn't really care where he was going and subconsciously he found himself near the Quidditch pitch. He looked up at the goal posts and suddenly an idea struck him. After all, why not? Everybody else wouldn't wake up for at least another two hours, so nobody would see him.

Again without thinking, he ran to the Quidditch changing rooms and grabbed one of the school brooms, which looked relatively new. Soon he was up in the sky, enjoying the beautiful morning and warm wind. He hadn't realized how much he had missed flying, but it would be enough to say that at that moment, he had forgotten about all his troubles, and was feeling nothing more than pure happiness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

While flying, Harry completely lost track of time. When the other boys in his dorm woke up two hours later, he was still on the Quidditch pitch, making crazy dives and loops, which done by anyone less skilled, could easily result in a very dangerous accident.

The first person to notice him was James, who had the bed next to the window. He was in the middle of stretching and yawning, when a fast movement outside caught his eyes. He stared for a long while at Harry, speechless. From the distance he couldn't tell who was on the broom, but it was clear that whoever it was, he was an excellent flier. He had just made a very abrupt turn in front of the stands and for a short while, he hovered next to them. Then, very suddenly, he was flying again. There was something about his way of sitting that suggested that he would be even faster if he only he had a better broom.

Suddenly James gasped and leaped to the window.

"Oh, god! He'll kill himself!" he shouted.

The rest of Marauders also jumped to the window. They all stared at Harry, who had just accomplished a very difficult version of the Wronski feint. They were so absorbed by the view that they didn't notice the horrified look on Ron's face. They also didn't hear that slam of the doors when, dressed in nothing more then his pajamas, he started to run down to the Quidditch pitch, not aware of how comical he looked, determined to get Harry off the broom before he got them into any trouble. The three of them had been warned that if people got suspicious of their cover story, the Ministry could change their decision about letting them to go to Hogwarts and put them into isolation, as they had planned in the beginning. And flying as well as Harry did was certainly not the thing that anyone would expect from a person who was home tutored and had never had an occasion to practice Quidditch.

The Marauders were still gaping at Harry.

"Wow!" said Sirius. "Who's that? I don't recall anyone flying like that here--it looks like you're going to have competition this year, James," he added with a twisted smile.

"Where did this guy learn to fly like that?" James was wondering loudly.

"Maybe that's the new Slytherin seeker--I heard they found someone way better than Henderson and made him swap positions so the new guy could play..." Remus suggested.

"What?" James asked, bewildered. "Where did you hear about that? And why didn't you tell me?"

"You learn different things at the prefect meetings," the blond boy replied with a smirk. "And I forgot to tell you..."

"Forgot...? This is IMPORTANT, Remus. Just look how this guy flies," he added, and turned back to the window again--but to his dismay, the superb flier was nowhere to be seen.

"Right, I guess we'll just have to train more, then." he commented, opening his trunk and sitting heavily on his bed. He bent down and started searching for different clothes.

"You know what, James? It's a wonder you can find anything there, honestly," Remus said with a chuckle, when he saw how messy his things were.

Sirius laughed at that.

"He told me once that he doesn't need more than ten seconds to find anything in there."

"That's true!" James defended himself. "If it wasn't, I wouldn't keep it like this..."

"Is it, Prongs?" Sirius challenged.

"I can prove it! Just name the object you want me to find, and you'll see!" James retorted, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly.

"Fine--let's say--it should be something that's not lying in view--hmm--right, I know. Find the Map. One, two, three..."

While Sirius counted loudly, James started to throw things out of his trunk with amazing speed. Soon, his clothes were strewn all across the room.

"...eight, nine, TEN! You've lost, Jamsie--I should have made a bet with you on that one." He was grinning happily. James didn't reply, though, and he continued his search. Finally, he looked up with a triumphant smile.

"It's not in here. I don't have it, which means I didn't lose. We can have a bet if you want, though..."

"What do you mean it's not there?" Remus asked, sounding a bit irritated. "I'm sure it was you who had it!"

"Look, my trunk is empty, so it can't be there!" James was nervous. "Maybe one of you guys took it."

"I knew that this mess you've got everywhere would sooner or later lead us to some trouble," Remus snapped.

"Check once again, James--I'm sure you had it." Sirius wasn't worried, he very rarely took anything seriously. He had the air of a person who always had a situation under control. So, with the typical self-confidence, he took his towel and headed to the bathroom, sure that his friends would find the Map very soon.

Remus and Peter helped James with the search, and finally they gave up. They couldn't find the precious piece of parchment anywhere.

Then the door of the dorm opened again. Harry and Ron entered, expecting to be flooded with questions about Harry's skills in Quidditch.

They were more than a little relieved to learn that not only had the Marauders not recognized him, but they apparently had some other problem on their hands and hadn't really tried to identify the mysterious flier.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was after breakfast, and Harry and his friends were on their way to the DADA classroom. Ron was still taunting him about the morning incident and Hermione agreed that it was very careless of him to let people see him flying, even if they didn't know it was him. However, they had to stop when they heard hurried footsteps behind them and turned around to discover Lily trying to catch up with them.

"Oh my..." she said, a bit out of breath. "I was calling after you guys, but you didn't hear me..." She looked sympathetically at Harry. "I wanted to be there, you know--it is just so unfair of Lindberg to make you fight like this again..."

Harry smiled, shrugging his shoulders.

"I don't really mind--as long as I can stay in the class--he is right, you know. He has to make sure I don't end up in the Hospital Wing every lesson."

Lily raised her eyebrows at that. She had not been sitting with the trio during the breakfast, but she had seen that they were discussing something and seemed pretty worried, so she assumed that Harry was afraid of the duel ahead of him. She certainly would be. She had wanted to cheer him up a little, and now was taken aback by the fact that he acted as if he was totally unperturbed by the whole situation.

She pondered it for a while, and decided that Harry was probably pretending to be confident to give himself some courage.

Finally, they reached the classroom. Professor Lindberg was already there and acknowledged them with a short nod.

"I see you brought some company, Bradley," he sneered.

"They only walked me here, Professor. If you want us to stay alone, then they'll wait outside," Harry replied calmly.

"No, they can watch if they want to. I don't care, as long as they don't help you in any way." He glanced at them and then turned back to Harry. "How about that? I let them stay, if they give me their wands first."

Harry blinked few times. Lindberg expected him to cheat? He wasn't a Slytherin!

"That's fine with me."

Lily, Hermione and Ron were clearly not happy about the teacher's request, but they didn't really have a choice. They handed him their wands.

"Fine. Let's begin. Take your position, Mr. Bradley. When we are ready, please give the signal to begin, Miss Evans," he ordered and just like before, he waved his wand and made the desks disappear.

Harry stood on the far end of the classroom, in fact in the very same spot where he had been in his first duel. He waited patiently as Professor Lindberg prepared himself.

Finally, they were both ready. They eyed each other while Lily counted to three. On three, both Harry and Lindberg shouted in a perfect unison.

"Expelliarmus!"

The flashes of red light flew through the air and both teacher and student dodged. Harry conjured a shield at the same time--not the primitive Protego--but one of the advanced protective charms which he had found in a textbook that he had read over the summer. A sphere of very bright light surrounded him, not only blinding everybody else in the room, but also preventing him from being hit by two curses send one after the other by his teacher.

Soon the duel started to speed up. It was similar to the one between Hermione and Sirius, only that the spells used this time were much more complicated. Still, neither of the opponents managed to hit the other one.

After some time, Lindberg started to get tired. He wasn't a young boy anymore, and he hadn't participated in a duel for quite a long time. He had to win this fast, otherwise his reactions would get too slow. He started to use less common and old-fashioned hexes, with few very powerful amongst them. It didn't help. Harry knew the counter-curses for some and managed to dodge the others. He had very good reflexes.

But Lindberg was certainly not going to give up. He cast an energy spell on himself and felt relieved when all the tiredness was gone. With his new strength, he managed finally to hit Harry with some curse, causing him to sweat enormously.

Harry's hands were wet and his wand has almost slipped out of his grip. He managed to hold onto it, though. The spell thrown by Lindberg had given him an original idea.

"Glacialli Terra!" he shouted, pointing his wand on the floor on the other end of the classroom. It worked! The floor started changing into extremely slippery ice. Lindberg obviously hadn't expected that, as he lost his balance and fell onto his back. Harry barely managed to disarm him before he fell as well, with the two wands clutched in his hand.

The duel was over, and Harry had won.

It was obvious that after such a spectacular victory, Harry would be accepted in the DADA class. He didn't really feel very proud of himself, though. In fact, when it was over, he felt so exhausted that he barely heard the story which Hermione was making up to explain how Harry could have lost against James and won against the teacher later.

The story was not very far from the truth. Hermione said simply that James looked very much like their father, who had died when they all were young. Harry was still very emotional about that, and so he couldn't attack James.

It took Hermione almost half of the walk back to Gryffindor Tower to convince Lily not to tell anybody about the duel. The redheaded girl couldn't understand why Hermione insisted so much on it, but she eventually promised to keep everything a secret.

To say that Lily was impressed with Harry's performance would be a huge understatement. While she walked with them back to the Gryffindor tower, she glanced at Harry shyly every now and then, and kept repeating that he was simply incredible.

She was still talking like that when they entered the almost-deserted common room, as everybody was outside. Actually, the only people present were the Marauders, who were in the middle of a very heated discussion.

"I remember perfectly well that we put it in your trunk, James!" Remus was visibly enraged, and that was a very rare occurrence.

Harry and Ron exchanged meaningful looks. They had guessed immediately what were other boys talking about. Hermione smirked for a brief moment, but then she turned back to Harry, who sat on the sofa.

"Would you like some chocolate?" Lily asked, concerned. "I'll go and fetch some," she added, not waiting for Harry to answer.

The Marauders stopped quarrelling and watched Ron and Hermione as they fussed over Harry, who was getting better; the sweat had begun to dry off of his clothing. James' eyes bored into Lily's retreating back as she walked up the stairs leading to the girls' dorms, and then turned with a hateful glare to Harry.

"You know what, guys? Let's go and discuss our business somewhere else," he said loudly, leaving the common room in an ostentatious way. The other Marauders followed him, although both Remus and Sirius were not very happy about it.

Remus felt a bit concerned as to the reason why Harry was so tired, and Sirius wanted to stay where Hermione was. They were good friends, though, and so they went after James, pretending that they were as displeased with the unexpected company as their unofficial leader was.

Lily was sitting in her bed and gazing outside the window. The other girls in the dormitory were already asleep. It was so quiet that Lily could clearly hear their calm breathing. Well--maybe calm wasn't exactly the best word, as Hermione and Heather were snoring quite loudly, each of them in her own different rhythm. On top of that, Lea was muttering something in her sleep.

Lily didn't listen to her, though. In fact, she was very deep in thought, trying to make some sense of the events of last few days. Events which mostly were mostly connected to one particular person--Harry Bradley.

First, he lost so pathetically his duel with James. Lily was still unsure how exactly it made her feel--disappointed to some extent, but also truly worried, worried that he was hurt.

Back then, she hadn't noticed that Harry hadn't screamed even once, nor showed any other sign of pain. But now, after the second duel, it suddenly appeared to be quite an important clue, if one wanted to solve the mystery of Harry Bradley.

Yes, the second duel--it was simply unbelievable. Not just because Harry had actually managed to win it--when it came to a confrontation like that, skills were just as important as luck. What truly left her speechless (or rather blabbing incoherently for the next half an hour) were the spells Harry had used. She didn't even recognize half of them! How did Harry, who was home-tutored only by his mother, know such advanced magic? For Lily, it just lacked logic.

But even with that puzzling matter aside, there were some other questions. If the whole story so far was true, then why had Hermione insisted so strongly on keeping the duel a secret?

Harry was considered a coward by quite a lot of the Gryffindors at the moment, and unless he had some other hidden reason, it would be perfectly natural for him to be proud of himself--and to want to change the opinion that others had about him.

So what was really going on? What was the reason behind Hermione's bizarre request? Lily had no idea, but she was pretty sure that there was much more to the three new students than met the eye. And she was going to find out what exactly they were hiding.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Albus Dumbledore was also up late that night, to his own dismay. However, he had just finished his work. He locked the door to his office and activated all the wards, which protected this place when he was out.

Instead of heading to his apartment, though, he suddenly decided to go for a walk and have some time alone--to think. There was a lot going on in Hogwarts, as usual. Teachers and students alike were coming to him with different requests and questions. The board of governors was, just like every year, annoying to no end. Not that he would ever admit it openly, but he simply hated the necessity of explaining his every decision to people who didn't really know what was needed for the school.

There were a lot of things that had yet to be done--if there ever was a person truly fond of his job, it was Albus Dumbledore. And even now, after an exhausting day of dealing with plenty of important issues, he still walked about with his thoughts circling around his job instead of going to bed, as anybody else would do.

Actually, his focus was mostly on the particular three students who had joined Hogwarts' population just that year. Yes...interesting, they certainly were very interesting.

First the girl--he barely knew her, and already he was struck by her impressive intelligence. She had managed to discover without any help that they had traveled back in time. She had gotten absolutely brilliant results in her O.W.L.s--much more than he would ever expect from a student who had probably hadn't touched the textbook for at least two months.

Then came the redheaded one--that is, originally redheaded, as they were all charmed to blond right now. Dumbledore didn't know much about him, but he certainly took a lot after his mother. He had her temper and inability to accept reality if it was not to his liking. That was enough to convince the old headmaster that this boy was a fine wizard. Not to mention how easily, according to Olaf Lindberg, he had won his duel with one of the top Ravenclaw students in his year.

And then finally, the most interesting one of them. This boy, son of James Potter and, if Dumbledore's assumptions were correct, Lily Evans--yes, he was a riddle, and a difficult one to solve, too. The strange scar on his forehead, obviously originating from some strong, dark curse--the unexpected ability to protect his mind from Legilimency--and his huge, huge talent for magic, made obvious after the duel with Olaf. Yes, interesting--he had a few theories about young Harry, and even though he couldn't really check to see whether they were correct or not, he suspected that he had to be close.

He certainly had to be of some sort of importance; there were just too many strange things about Harry. And then his frightening resemblance to Tom--it was nothing about his looks, but more about the lack of trust he had for most of the adults and his special powers--but then, he didn't have Tom's coldness and sense of superiority. He wanted to be close with other people just as badly as the young man who later became known by the name of Lord Voldemort, had tried to avoid them.

He felt a shiver running down his spine. Tom was his biggest failure--biggest and with the most significant consequences. All the deaths and this overwhelming fear that seemed to be hanging over the wizarding world--somehow he knew whose doings stood behind it all, even without any proof.

Once again he felt a shiver. He had the same sort of feeling now, about Harry Potter. There was some reason why this boy had a crucial meaning for their whole society. He was not sure whether it was for good or for worse, but he knew that he had to protect him, protect him from some inexplicable danger lurking in the dark. What kind of danger, he didn't know....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Being as straightforward as she was, Lily wasn't the sort of person who would try to sneak around people she liked. On the first occasion, which came on Sunday just after breakfast, she asked Harry, Ron and Hermione for a minute of private conversation.

They went outside and sat by the lake, since the day was warm and sunny. For a while, they did nothing but enjoyed the fine weather. After some time, Hermione finally asked what Lily wanted to talk about.

Lily, who was lying relaxed on the grass, with her eyes closed and a small smiled plastered to her face, sobered immediately and got to her point without any special introduction. She briefly related to them everything she had been pondering for so long last night and openly asked whether everything they said about themselves was true.

Harry, Ron and Hermione were abashed and just stared at redheaded girl speechlessly for a while. Harry's thoughts were running strange paths at that moment. He didn't know what to say, but part of him was almost relieved at this turn of events. If Lily knew the truth, than there would be one more person who he wouldn't have to lie to about his past and his real feelings. On the other hand, he couldn't predict Lily's reaction. What if she didn't believe him or--even worse--she did and didn't want to have anything to do with Harry afterwards? He was very grateful that she had decided to come and talk openly with them about her doubts instead of investigating the answers or discussing the matter with some of her other friends.

If Lily was at first not fully convinced whether her suspicions were justified, she had no more doubts. The expressions on their faces clearly indicated that they were guilty as charged. Seeing that, she folded her arms on her chest and waited with her eyebrows raised for an answer.

As usually, it was Hermione who spoke in the end.

"Look, Lily--you are right, there are things about us, which you don't know--I guess it wasn't very hard to come to this conclusion after yesterday..." She paused for a moment, and both Harry and Ron could almost see the wheels turning inside of her head. She was obviously not sure what to say yet and how much she should reveal, and tried to gain some time before she came up with suitable explanation.

"The problem is--I don't really know what to say..." she confessed at last. Lily looked slightly annoyed with this as she replied, "How about the truth?"

Hermione winced. "We can't..." she began in a small voice, but before she could continue, Lily interrupted her, shouting with visible anger as her temper got better of her.

"Fine! Just fine with me! I thought you trusted me! I trusted you! I thought we were friends!" She took a deep breath. "But very well! If you don't give a damn about me, then I'm not going to give a damn about you!" The longer she shouted, more furious she got. Harry, Ron and Hermione were surprised by her outburst. They all felt very comfortable around Lily, but calling their relationship a "friendship" just after one week seemed a little bit quick to them.

Before she could do or say anything more, Harry grabbed her hand, looking her straight into eyes.

"You are right, Lily. We shouldn't keep it all from you, but the problem is that for some reason, we have to. We are not the only people that the truth concerns." He tried to speak reasonably, but it clearly didn't appeal to Lily. She stopped shouting, but took her hand out of Harry's grasp.

"And what is so important about you that you can't share it with others? You're just normal teenagers, after all!" she said sarcastically.

Harry was tempted to reply, "No, we're not!" but instead, he spoke calmly.

"Please, don't be angry, Lily. I really can't tell you much--but if you want, I can tell you some parts of it..." he looked at her pleadingly. He just couldn't afford losing her sympathy, now that his father already hated him with all his heart.

"Just promise, you want tell anyone."

"Of course I won't!" Lily said indignantly.

"Good!" he smiled at her warmly. "I guess the first thing I can tell you is that we aren't really siblings..."

"Harry!" Hermione's sudden scream made him break eye contact with his mother. He suddenly realized that Hermione and Ron were assuming that he was about to come up with another story. How wrong they were!

"In fact, we aren't related at all, apart from the fact that we're friends from school. Due to some circumstances, which I really can't reveal, we had to leave our previous school and move here--I can't give you any details, Lily, but trust me, I would like to, if it didn't put my family in danger."

Lily was astonished. It was obvious that she found it hard to believe what Harry had just said.

"Look, you have to believe me!" Harry was not going to give up. "Dumbledore knows about it--he was the one who made most of arrangements..." Lily turned her head few times as she looked at each of them for some time. Then one thought struck her--Harry had to be telling her the truth--or at least some part of it--why else would Hermione try to stop him?

"I believe you," she almost whispered.

"Good!" Harry grinned widely. Hermione also smiled slightly and it looked odd, because her forehead was still frowning. Ron also seemed relieved, but he had to make sure once again that Lily was not going to tell anyone about anything she had just heard. She assured him that no, she had no intention of revealing their secrets to anyone.

They spent rest of the morning together by the lake, explaining some of the details of their situation, but avoiding mentioning anything concerning time-traveling and, of course, hiding their true surnames.

Harry was sure that this morning was going to be one of his happiest memories.