Meet the Parents

After the conversation by the lake, thinks got better for Harry. Being now sure of his mother's sympathy, he was getting less affected by his father and Sirius' obvious contempt towards him.

Not that he didn't care. Oh no, he still desperately wanted to gain their respect and acceptation, only that he didn't really know how. Marauders considered him a coward and cowardice was the worst thing for a Gryffindor to be accused of.

The easiest way to achieve his goal would be revealing the duel he had with Lindberg, but somehow Harry didn't want to do this. It would be truly irresponsible, as he had no guarantee that Marauders would keep it quiet afterwards. And, wanting to continue their education, they simply had to keep the low profile. Coming to think about it, it was quite irresponsible to let Lily watch the duel in the first place. But, of course, he didn't regret that.

Another reason for not telling James about this was that Harry didn't want to be accepted for some stupid duel with some stupid wizard. He got enough of this kind of stuff back home, not to care for this any longer. He hated all the attention he got because he was famous, people sending him love letters only because his picture happened to appear on the front cover of Daily Prophet.

Maybe it wasn't exactly the same thing, but Harry felt that if his father started to like him, because he beaten the teacher, it would be similar. When it came to people he was close with, he wanted to be recognised not for fame or even his accomplishments, but for the person he was underneath all this.

Anyway, he was pretty sure, that even if Marauders started to respect him, it wouldn't change his situation much. James would still hate him, simply because of his friendship with Lily.

The redheaded girl spent even more time with the trio now, not only during the lessons, but also after them and during the meals. They learned together, had fun together and Harry was absolutely happy about this.

They were also occasionally joined by other Gryffindors, mostly Hermione's and Lily's dorm-mates - Alice, Lea and Heather.

Lea was a source of freshest gossip and she was very funny person to be with, even if sometimes a little too loud for Harry's taste. She wanted to be a singer or model when she grew up, so she constantly checked if her hair and make up were okay. Harry and Ron started betting on what hair colour she would wear the next day.

Alice and Heather on the other hand, where mostly talking about quidditch and Ron found a lot of topics to discuss with two girls. Heather was not spending too much time with them though, as she was to busy 'making sure that there wasn't even one broom closet in the school, where she hadn't snogged at least twice' as Lea claimed. Well, certainly she was with her boyfriend most of the time.

Harry and Lily played chess a lot - after all, they started their friendship during that game. Ron usually watched and laughed whenever either of them made some stupid move. He tried to play with almost everybody in Gryffindor - apart from Marauders - and had yet to find a match for himself.

Overall, they were slowly starting to be much more accustomed with their situation. They rarely talked about home, although they missed their families and friends. Whenever something happened that reminded them of someone they left behind, they would suddenly stop smiling and be silent for a while.

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

The lessons during the second week weren't really different from the first week of school.

Transfiguration was exhausting and extremely difficult. They were working on summoning spells, which meant creating a totally new object with magic. The process itself was very similar to vanishing something, only backward. They started with matches, just as in their first year and still, apart from few Ravenclaws, Lily, Hermione, Remus, James and Sirius, no one managed to summon a match for longer than few seconds.

Two handsome Marauders used transfiguration as an occasion to show off. Everything that McGonnagal required them to do, came to them as naturally as if they knew the spells before, which probably was the case. With bored expressions on their faces, they played gobstones by summoning and vanishing them. They also complained few times, that they expected NEWT level class to be more challenging, then spells, which even a first year would do. Peter watched his friends with awe, while Remus was still working on his match.

To Harry's astonishment, McGonnagal seemed oblivious to this and simply let them be. He was also a little disgusted by their behaviour. Hermione, who also had everything right, simply helped Ron and Harry, instead of keeping her nose stuck up in the air. Same applied to Lily, who had currently moved to sit with Alice and corrected her pronunciation of the incantation. Harry wondered, why neither of James nor Sirius tried to help Peter, and in the end Remus did, as soon as he was finished.

Charms followed the similar pattern, only that here Lily and Hermione were usually faster than Marauders. Flitwick was also less patient with their attitude and even substracted some points from Gryffindor for interrupting the lesson.

Probably the biggest comedy were potions. They did literally nothing, and the classes changed into the prank-war between Marauders and certain greasy-haired Slytherin, who was probably the only person in the class trying to work.

Harry, Ron and Hermione were easily the best students in their year, which they found quite amusing. Lily was glad, when they taught her everything they new, even if it was only the OWL level - she still was far behind them.

Harry and Ron would probably be perfectly happy ignoring the subject, but of course Hermione made them work, with a threat, that when they come back, Snape will be more than happy to throw them out from his NEWT-level course, seeing that they knew nothing. So, they produced different concoctions amusing themselves with watching the havoc around them.

Throughout all the lessons, Marauders usually sat at the back of the classroom, to be able to do anything they wanted without teachers noticing. Lily and Hermione preferred to sit in the front, so they were divided by whole classroom length.

It didn't really bother Sirius, who was constantly trying to get Hermione's attention. It started on transfiguration, when Hermione's match suddenly started growing leaves and changed into a miniature of crimson rose. Hermione ignored it though, probably thinking that she made a mistake with her charm and transfigured it back into the match.

Soon enough she learned, that it wasn't her mistake, as strange events started to happen around her more often.

Once a short note appeared, telling her that she was Venus, goddess of beauty, incarnated. Or she found her quill transfigured into a much more beautiful one, bigger and with golden edges. Or a chocolate frog she was about to eat, turned into the real, alive one and started singing 'Kiss me, I'm your prince'.

She was not sure what to make of this. She guessed very quickly, that person responsible for those little tricks was Sirius. Whenever she turned back in her desk after another of small presents appeared, she would see the handsome Marauder casting her flirtatious look or winking at her with a smile.

She was not really sure how to interpret his behaviour, though. If all that Lea Leafdrop said was true, then Sirius was probably trying to bust his ego, by getting the new girl. She wasn't blind, she knew that she was good looking now and she was actually receiving quite a lot of male attention.

Anyway, getting involved with a person, who in reality was twenty years older and, moreover, dead, wasn't one of the things she would do. So she decided to ignore the handsome Marauder, even if he was really sweet. And she didn't tell Ron and Harry about them.

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

On Wednesday morning a sign appeared on the wall in the Gryffindor common room. It was an information about the tryouts for a seeker position in the team.

Harry read it three times and went to breakfast in a very thoughtful mood. He missed quidditch so much and here he had almost no occasion to play or even to fly. Apart from the Saturday morning, he hadn't touched the broom since the beginning of the school year.

Ron asked him what was going on, when he saw his best friend sitting and stirring cold porridge absentmindedly.

'Hello, Harry, anyone home? Knock, knock.' He added, when Harry didn't answer. Few people laughed at that and finally Harry blinked as if he just woke up.

'What?'

'I asked what are you thinking about, bro?'

'Oh... I saw the Quidditch tryout announcement this morning.'

'Oh!' Ron nodded with understanding.

Alice eyes lit up with excitement, when she heard the news.

'Really?' she asked. 'When are they? Tell me?'

'In two weeks, from what I heard.' Lily joined the conversation. 'On Saturday. Going to give it a try?' she asked with a smile.

'Sure!' Alice replied. 'I'd love to be on the team. Can you imagine it, Lily?' she forgot about her food completely and started to recall how she used to dream about being a professional player when she was a kid. 'Not a usual dream for a three year old girl.' She finished with a happy laugh.

Everybody laughed as well and then Pat Parmesano, who was sitting with them this morning, asked:

'Anyone else here is going to try as well?'

Harry shook his head sadly to that. He would love to, but it was impossible. Others did the same and Lily asked with a playful grin:

'And you, Pat?' the fat Italian boy grinned back mischievously and replied:

'Of course. You know, I'm perfectly built for the seeker. The bigger the seeker is, the bigger chance that snitch will be close to him!' A gale of laughter followed the chubby boy's statement. Harry had to admit, that it was a nice trait, which Pat possessed - to be able to laugh from yourself.

Soon the happy mood was interrupted by the arrival of mail. Needless to say, that they didn't get any letters. Who would write to them? Only Hermione, who decided to spend her pocket money on Prophet subscription, was now holding the newspaper.

'Harry! Ron! Oh my, look!' she shouted suddenly, her face pale.

They immediately saw what had caused her sudden anxiety. On the cover of newspaper, there was a large article about the Voldemort's attack. Harry read the text quickly and paled as well. There were several murders previous night and all took place in Hogsmead. Bodies were found in terrible state and there was a two year old child among killed. There was nothing about the Dark Mark though and a name "Deatheaters" wasn't mentioned even once.

Maybe Voldemort is not calling his followers like this yet? Harry wondered.

There were murmurs around the Great Hall - obviously everyone was now reading the news. Harry looked around the table. Most of people had eyes opened wide with terror and looked sickened by the terrible event.

Few students went out and Harry wasn't really sure, whether it was because they were genuinely sick and needed to go to toilet, or because they wanted to write to his parents and assure them they were all right. Probably both.

Suddenly Harry noticed a group of students who actually seemed more like agitated or excited then scared. There were few students in the Slytherin table sitting around Snape and discussing something with a growing heat. Then Harry noticed a younger boy looking very much like Sirius, smiling cruelly. It must be Regulus Black.

Harry subconsciously turned to look at Sirius and he saw the usually relaxed Marauder sitting with clenched fists, his eyes boiling with anger and hate and directed on his brother. James was whispering something to him and suddenly two boys stood up and left The Great Hall. Whatever they were up to, Harry was sure that it had something to do with the article and with the smug expressions of few Slytherins.

James tried to calm down his best friend and followed him out of the Great Hall. Sirius was going so fast that James had to almost run to keep up with him.

"Padfoot! Calm down! You're overreacting!" Sirius turned back so abruptly that James bumped into him.

"Sorry..." he mumbled. Sirius glared at him angrily.

"Overreacting? I'M OVERREACTING?! What would you know about it! YOU have a nice, decent family, Prongs! You don't know what it's like to have parents sending you a letter each month to tell you that you'll be disinherited if you don't support this bloody murderer! You don't have a Slytherin brother who sat there all happy because some people got killed! You don't have a cousin and her fiancée who probably were there, throwing Avada Kedavras left and right! So DON'T tell me that I'm overreacting!"

James took a step back, abashed by Sirius' outburst. He didn't really know how to comfort his friend, but he was sure that if Sirius was enraged like that, nothing good could possibly come of it.

"I'm not saying that nothing happened, but the way you are acting now, you'll probably end killing someone yourself! You can't think properly when you're angry like this, Padfoot!"

Sirius scowled. His eyes were flashing dangerously, and he spoke with a low, cold voice.

"If I could, I would kill the person responsible, James."

James stared at his friend, bewildered. The fact that he used his name instead of his nickname was enough to convince him that Sirius meant what he had said. Yet, to hear him claiming that he would KILL someone, just like that--some of his apprehension had to be visible on his face, because Sirius continued with a sneer.

"Surprised? You shouldn't be. With the upbringing I got, I'm expected to be able to cast a killing curse without blinking an eye."

James groaned inwardly. He thought they were over this!

When Sirius was sorted to Gryffindor instead of Slytherin, James had needed much more time than the others to accept him. His father was an Auror, and he was educated not to trust members of families known to be Dark. Of course, the Black family fit quite nicely into that group.

It was probably the reason why their bond had grown so strong. It took them more than half a year to overcome the prejudices each of them had toward each other, but in the end, they learned to trust and respect each other. As a wise man had once said, true friendship can only be proven in times of misery, and it certainly applied to them.

And it was only few weeks after their relationship had started to be civil when James learned something about Sirius that never ceased to surprise him. Behind the mask of smugness, superiority and high self-esteem, Sirius was scared. He was truly scared that he would turn Dark just as every single member of his family had. He believed that being raised as he was, he was already Dark deep inside. And Sirius hated Dark magic more than anything.

Whenever he did something that he considered Dark, he would be remorseful for days. He would try to tell his friends that he actually was not worth their attention, their kindness. And it took a lot of effort to convince him that it wasn't true. Because Sirius did not trust himself.

James was unhappy to see that the murder in Hogsmeade had thrown his friend back into his old mindset. He looked at him sternly, choosing his words carefully.

"You can't feel responsible for--for what your family approves of. They raised you to believe in this rubbish, but you made your choice and that is enough. And you showed everybody that you truly meant it when you stood up to your mother the way you did! So stop this rant now!" He paused and looked at the other boy hesitantly.

Sirius met his gaze with even more bitterness than before.

"You just don't get it, Prongs, you just don't get it! I don't care what my family approves of or not! But when I see my brother there, smirking as if Christmas came early, then I just--I can't stand it! Bloody hell, they not only approve this "Mudblood-pureblood" rubbish, but also kill for it! So just tell me--tell me why shouldn't I feel murderous?"

The question hung in the air between them. James finally voiced the only thing that came to his mind.

"Well, you don't know for sure if they took part in it..."

"God, James! Of course they did! How would my brother know about everything otherwise?"

"From the Prophet, for example?" James retorted sarcastically.

"Please, James, spare me that. He knew it before the mail came! I was wondering why he was so cheerful the entire morning!"

James looked at him, puzzled.

"No--it doesn't make sense, Padfoot. If he knew before the mail came, then it wasn't your parents or cousins who told him."

Sirius blinked in surprise and then nodded slowly in acknowledgement.

"You're right..." he said thoughtfully. "They wouldn't tell him before the attack; he has too big a mouth to be trusted with secrets--and if he didn't know it because of them, it would've had to have happened before the mail came today. So--who told him? It must have been someone from Hogwarts, Prongs--someone from Hogwarts knew BEFORE!

They looked at each other and the decision was made within the moments. They were certainly going to find out. No more words were needed between the two friends.

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

Harry fought the urge to follow his father and godfather out of the Great Hall. Somehow, when he saw them so distressed, he forgot about all the hard feelings between him and them. It was nice to see them so angry with someone else for a change, but it was even better to know that they were actually bothered by the attacks.

Harry looked after them and than turned back to his housemates. Hermione and Ron were pale and speechless, still affected by the grim news. Lily read the article rapidly, her lips moving slightly.

And for the first time since his birthday, Harry started to think about Voldemort.

Thrown out of his time, he felt oddly safe, because here the Dark Lord knew nothing about him, nothing at all. In year 1976 he was not the Boy Who Lived--he was nobody. And he liked that.

The murders had thrown him out of this blissful illusion. Suddenly, he found himself dreading everything that had yet to come. The killings and terror. His parents' death. Cedric's death. And Sirius...

He looked around with terror in his eyes, and Lily noticed.

"Everything all right, Harry?" she asked in concerned voice.

Harry turned around and gazed at her for a brief moment, until he nodded slowly, comforted by her presence.

Although he wouldn't really admit it, he was more than just happy to have her--his mother--even if she didn't know he was her son. He only hoped that maybe he could build a similar relationship with his father and Sirius.

Hermione and Ron would probably be startled if they learned that Harry didn't want to go back home. Not at all.

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

Hermione played with her quill absentmindedly. It was a DADA lesson and quite an interesting one as well. During the first half, Lindberg had covered ways of protecting oneself from dragons and went through the complicated shields that were impenetrable by dragon fire. Hermione had never heard of them before, so she listened eagerly.

The second part of the lesson, however, was much less involving. Lindberg intended to teach them to duel properly, and different students were taking turns practicing while rest of the class was supposed to look for mistakes. It was rather boring, as the duels were rather slow and very primitive compared to what they did during DA meetings last year.

So, after few minutes of attempting to concentrate, Hermione let her thoughts drift away. She was mostly wondering about how the events in Hogsmeade had affected the students.

The attacks, since they had occurred in such close proximity to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, had a significant influence on the rules at Hogwarts. The Hogsmeade trips were cancelled, and students were forbidden to leave the castle unless accompanied by an adult. It meant that there had to be a teacher present during all the Quidditch practices, and if lesson took place outside, students had to wait for an adult to pick them up from the entrance and walk them to the greenhouses or other places they needed to go.

As if to make the new arrangements even more unbearable, the weather was as beautiful as it could be in the first days of autumn. The sun shone brightly, and leaves had started to turn gold. It was warm and welcoming and every student shared the feeling that it was very unlikely for anything dangerous to happen to them outside.

Yet, of course, they all understood the gravity of situation. They accepted the new regulations without the protest, even if they were very strict. Hermione didn't think it was because everybody was so mature or sensible. The problem was that they were truly scared. More than once during last few days, Hermione had to help Lily calm down some of the younger students, who were reacting hysterically because a letter from their parents had not arrived on time, or because they'd had a bad dream.

Hermione looked out of the window and wondered grimly if it was the same in their time, with Voldemort back to power. Had anyone else been killed? Were people as afraid as they were here?

Suddenly the sharp voice of Professor Lindberg brought her back to reality.

"Miss Bradley! Would you kindly answer my question?"

Hermione stared at the teacher as if she had just noticed him, which wasn't far from the truth.

"Sorry, sir, could you, um--repeat your question?" she stuttered quietly.

"Why should I, Miss Bradley?" He turned to the class in general. "I believe I made it clear that it is essential that you concentrate during this lesson. Miss Evans! Can you repeat my question, so that your friend could answer it?" He demanded with a sneer.

"Professor Lindberg wanted to know what could have saved Helen from Pat's last curse," Lily replied and cast her friend a worried look. It wasn't normal for Hermione to not listen to the teacher.

"Um..." Hermione shifted in her chair uncomfortably. She had no idea, as she hadn't paid any attention to the fight.

"A--dodge?" she guessed.

"Honestly, Miss Bradley! Have you spent entire lesson in a dreamland? Did you even watch the duel?"

Hermione felt her cheeks go red with embarrassment. She shook her head slightly.

"Very well!" She could hear that Lindberg was really angry. "That means detention! I don't really understand how can you have such a careless attitude toward this subject, Miss Bradley, especially since the recent events which certainly showed how important it is to be able to defend yourself. Now, on with the lesson..."

Hermione sat unhappily while Lindberg continued with the analysis of the strong and weak points of Pat Parmesano's and Helen Figlet's (Hufflepuff) dueling technique.

Hermione was rarely criticized by teachers and Lindberg's harsh words had really upset her. She was scribbling angrily in her notebook when suddenly she noticed that nice, straight letters had started to appear on the paper. Sirius!

Yes, maybe... Hermione didn't want to talk about her past or home; she didn't like lying, and knew that less she spoke, the smaller risk of slipping up there was.

What?

For a moment, nothing happened, but than a strange humming noise filled the classroom. Hermione looked around and noticed that it was coming from Snape. The Slytherin boy rose from his desk and started to sing to some strange melody:

"Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, itsy-bitsy, scrabby-dabby-doo!

I never wash my hair, I scare every girl away, only thing I can properly do...."

At first everybody was just staring at Snape, astonished, but the class soon burst out with laughter. Hermione heard Ron giggling madly behind her. Even some of Slytherins smirked viciously.

Lindberg rose and shouted "Finite Incantatem!" Snape stopped singing immediately and fell back into his chair. He was blushing with embarrassment and his fists were clenched.

"Who did that? Tell me at once, or you will all have detention for the rest of the week!" Lindberg's voice was cold with fury. His class had been interrupted for the second time in one day! All the laughs stopped at once and the students started to pretend that they knew nothing and hadn't found the joke amusing at all. Then Sirius stood up and spoke in a relaxed, smug manner.

"I believe it was me, sir." Everybody turned around and stared at the handsome boy, who smirked with his arms folded on his chest.

"Mr. Black! I expected better of you! Detention! For the whole week!" Lindberg was shouting now in uncontrolled rage. Sirius only nodded and sat back down, unperturbed by the teacher's outburst.

The lesson continued and Hermione started to write another note.

You are mad!

You are insane! And do you have to treat Snape like that? I mean, what did he do to you?

What do you mean?

Oh, nothing important, really.

I can tell you if you have to know. I was thinking about fear. And about the attacks. And about the future...

Sort of. It's rather complicated--are you?

Hermione shivered when she read that. Poor Sirius, if he only knew--if he only knew how terrible things were going to happen to him, he wouldn't write that--but, of course, she had to pretend that she knew nothing about the future...

The bell rang and interrupted their conversation. Hermione and Sirius stayed behind, because they had to learn what their detention was. Lindberg only told them to come to his office at eight o'clock in the evening and dismissed them. He obviously didn't want to deal with them any more than he had to, so they left the classroom in a rush.

Ron, Lily and Harry were waiting for Hermione outside, and James stood there as well. Two rather unfriendly groups of teenagers walked in the opposite directions from the classroom, except for when Sirius turned back and waved to Hermione.

"See you in the evening!"