Harry Potter and the Unbreakable Link

Harry's mind seemed to have jammed, then he cried, "Mum!" and would have jumped into her arms had not Hermione grabbed the back of his robes. "What?"

"Harry, what's the chance that that's actually your dead mother? Come on, don't be hasty."

Harry sat back down. Lily didn't look like what he'd thought his mother would look like. She looked too young. He had thought of her as rather like Mrs. Weasley. Lily looked too much like one of those young mothers he had seen advertising nappies on Dudley's TV. Apart from the fact she was dirty and looked tired, of course. Then he remembered that she must be only 38 years old. She was young.

Hermione's voice had broken the silence. Arabella took out her wand and said slightly hoarsely, "Um... I'll just check for dark arts. If you really are Lily, then you'll understand."

Lily swallowed hard and Harry heard her real voice for the first time. Although it sounded rusty and unused, it was a bossy voice, tinged with a bit of irony, "Yes, of course, Arabella. Better get that over with. I quite appreciate your doing it. In fact, I'd think you were a fraud if you didn't take those precautions." She looked gravely around at the people in the room. When her eyes came to rest on Harry she smiled slightly. Her eyes were soft and her gaze was fond. Arabella started doing the anti-dark arts tests. Eventually she shook her head, "It seems that you're all right. But we must be sure... Sirius?"

"Yes?"

"Think of something really really stupid and don't tell us."

Sirius looked completely baffled. "OK, I've thought of something," he said a few seconds later.

"Right, if you are Lily Evans Potter, what's Sirius thinking of?"

Lily laughed a little but it sounded exasperated. She looked at Sirius neutrally with her head on its side, "Sirius...is thinking... what was that delightful word you used... thank-you, how ludicrous Snape would like in a pink tuxedo with red polka dots and matching hair. Charming, Sirius."

"Is that right, Sirius?"

"Spot on, Arabella," Sirius replied shrugging. "Well really, Arabella," said Lily, a twinkle that looked oddly familiar in her eyes, "doing that would have been the first thing I'd have thought of in your situation."

"Well, we didn't all get 117% in our NEWTs!"

"Still smarting about that 99% are you?"

The two women suddenly realised what they had both said. Arabella's face burst into a smile and she threw her arms round Lily's neck.

When they broke apart Sirius cried, "Er, hi Lily."

"Evening, Sirius. Nice to communicate with you other than through miaows."

Harry felt he should say something but his mouth seemed to have dried up. Hermione did the talking for him, "Have you forgotten Harry, Mrs. Potter?" she cried angrily.

Lily looked at Harry and smiled. "Of course not! I imagine this must be quite a shock to you. However, believe me, Harry, I've wanted to talk to you for years." She gave him a hug and kissed the top of his head.

"Hey wait a minute!" said Sirius frowning, "I've got a few questions for you."

"Me too!" added Harry.

"Me three!" Arabella put in with a sharp nod of her head.

Lily sat down on the arm of Harry's chair, with her arm around him, "Yes. I imagine you do have some queries. You want to know a how come I'm not dead, and b why, since I'm alive, I've not shown myself before now."

Sirius muttered something like, "Psychics. Always the same. Showing off what they know."

Lily replied sharply, "You're wrong, Sirius."

"Er..."

"I'm not a psychic."

"Not a psychic? But, but?" This was Arabella.

"No, I'm not."

Sirius laughed hollowly, "So you're saying that Dumbledore, McGonagall, us, Madame Pomfrey and all the people from the Ministry were wrong and you, Mrs. I'm-so-clever-it-hurts Potter is right?"

Lily didn't bat an eyelid, "That's right, Sirius. It's not as if I'm going to be wrong is it?"

"So," said Hermione, "If you're not a psychic, what are you?"

"It's not what I am that's the question, it's who I am. And you know the answer to that question, Hermione."

"Me?"

"No, I mean Sirius' pet goldfish. I'm talking about you, Elvira Voldemort, Hermione Granger whatever you want to be called by. You know. I'm not your cat for nothing."

Hermione fiddled with a frayed piece of her robes and tried to look clueless.

"Let's start on the questions then, shall we?" interrupted Arabella.

Lily sighed, "You want a full explanation, don't you? Well, it's only to be expected. All right, here goes." She coughed, "Have you ever wondered why I'm so different from the rest of my family, not the least being the only witch in a completely muggle family. I traced the tree once. There isn't a single magical person in the Evans family since there was a Squibb in the thirteenth century. So how is it that suddenly I'm born? I'm not trying to be modest here, I'm the cleverest witch to go to Hogwarts since Godric Gryffindor's daughter Marianna."

"What was your family like?" asked Harry who realised that he knew nothing whatsoever about Lily and Petunia's family.

"Well, it was interesting. My father worked in town with a computer company and only came home at the weekends. Petunia and I lived with my mother at her riding school in Sussex."

"A riding school?" asked Harry.

Lily grinned, "I know you're not so fond of horses, but I was never happy out of the saddle."

"She was quite amazing," added Arabella. "I remember seeing her at a show when she was thirteen. She went round a course of jumps over a metre high and then she came first!"

"I loved riding," agreed Lily, "I really did. It was lucky actually that I did, for Mother was very trying. She was very young- she had Petunia when she was about sixteen and she wouldn't let us call her mum. We had to call her Trixy. She behaved like a spoilt teenager for whom life never goes right. She was only interested in her riding school and Petunia and I did all the work. This was all right, for Petunia and I got on fine to start with. Then when she was about twelve or thirteen, she suddenly woke up to the fact that she was a teenager and that she was living on a riding school, that she had no life and that we were to blame for it. She got into terrible rows with her mother. She seemed to think that everyone existed to make her life a misery, that she was doomed to be the scapegoat in everything. She threw tantrums, she threatened to run away and commit suicide, she fell in with the wrong people. Well, you can imagine the rest. Trixy didn't know how to deal with it because she also thought that all the world was against her. In the end it came down to me to do everything. Then I received the letter from Hogwarts. Petunia's attitude towards me changed completely then. She was jealous of me while my father was proud and my mother thought it was 'fun'. I thought Petunia hated me just because I was cleverer and had better chances, but I was wrong. I now see that her hatred of me was because Trixy or my father had told her the truth about me- what I was never told. That I was adopted and that I wasn't Petunia's real sister."

"You weren't Petunia's real sister?" cried Harry, "So I've just spent the last seventeen years of my life living with people who aren't my relations?"

"I'm afraid so, but Dumbledore was right, they were the safest people you could have lived with. And you were just across the road from Arabella's mother."

"But I don't see why you couldn't just have changed back and returned to the wizarding world."

"I knew you were going to ask me that and I hope my answer is sufficient. I'm not trying to excuse myself, but it was physically impossible. My wand was broken, you see. When people die, there wands are broken-"

"But you're not dead!" cried Arabella.

"I'm going about this all wrong, aren't I? OK, I'll continue what happened from my point of view. I went to Hogwarts and almost the first people I met were James Potter and Sirius Black. I met them on the train actually. We shared a compartment. I thought they were good fun and we became friends. At least, we did until the next day. I discovered that James and Sirius liked playing practical jokes and that James thought himself clever. I also thought I was clever and we started a who-can-be-the-best-at-everything. We were still friends to some extent though. In our third year, Dumbledore became headmaster and with him came a new boy, Remus Lupin. It didn't take me long to work out that he was a werewolf and James and Sirius found out soon afterwards."

"You found out before us? You never said!" Sirius looked astonished.

"I also didn't mention that I was so furious at not being included in the animagus scheme.- I found out about that too, that I became an animagus on my own."

Arabella coughed.

"With Arabella's help, I mean."

Sirius groaned, "And we thought we were so clever, and all the time you were one step ahead."

"Naturally." Lily's green eyes twinkled gently, "Anyway, back to the plot. When I was in my fourth year I realised that I could read minds. I won't go into details but it was like a sixth sense. (A/N: Think Lyra in His Dark Materials reading the alethiometer.) It was hard to control in the beginning, but I could use it very well after a few months. That's how we did the dating agency. That was great fun, though I still can't see how people could actually take it seriously. All sorts of people came to see me and they called me a psychic. I read a lot about it and I wasn't convinced, but I didn't see what else it could be. The worst thing was that Trelawney wanted me to do extra Divination. Divination was my worst subject. In the end I through a teacup at her, the old bat!"

Arabella gave her the thumbs up.

Lily continued, "I married James when I was only eighteen and we had you, Harry two years later. You know about James' job. I was training to become a teacher. I specialised in Defence against the Dark Arts and Charms."

"Oh by the way, what happened to Cidilla French, James' friend from work? I liked her," asked Arabella.

"Cidilla? I don't know. I imagine she, her husband with the funny name and her five little daughters are still in hiding from Voldemort."

"They won't be little anymore, Lily," said Sirius.

"No, you're right. They'll be grown up by now. I wonder what happened to them. They all had such sensible names, remember Bella?"

"Yes, if your mother is called Cidilla French, is a spy and teaches German in a muggle school as a cover, and your father has a name that is merely laughable, then you'll be glad to be called Mary or Eleanor or the like."

"I'm not going to talk about happened then. You all know. Peter betrayed us and Voldemort came for us. James was killed and I died to save Harry."

"Excuse me, I thought you're alive," said Sirius.

Lily's arms tightened round Harry, "No, I was killed. I was prepared to die. I thought I really did die. Instead I only fainted it seems. For I woke up what must have been a months later in a coffin!" She shivered, "It's an experience I wouldn't wish on anyone. But I was certainly alive."

Harry cried excitedly, "You found the Epithanos spell!"

"No, Hermione is one up on me there. I was just as mystified as you were. Then something else happened. I managed to get out of the coffin by doing magic without my wand. I know that all wizards can do magic without a wand in exceptional situations but it came so easily to me! I decided I must be thought dead, and I had no idea how long I had been knocked out. I did not know if you were alive, Harry, or not. I did not know what had happened to Voldemort. My first motive was to get in contact with the magical world. I changed into a cat, as I was aware that people wouldn't react very kindly to the appearance of the dead Lily Potter without an explanation of what I was doing. I would be sent straight to Azkaban for being an impostor. I was picked up by some muggles and they kept me as a pet, or perhaps I should say, a prisoner. For eleven years. I'm still surprised that the RSPCA never caught them. And of course I can't do magic in my cat form. It was awful. Then I met a cousin of the family one Christmas and I knew immediately that he was a wizard. I sucked up to him and started to be more bad mannered than I already was to the rest of the family. Eventually they gave me to the cousin as he was the only person who could control me. I went back to a wizarding home and it was bliss! I caught up on all the news of the last twelve years and I discovered that you, Sirius had escaped from Azkaban. That you were supposedly after Harry. I also read the news paper article about the Weasleys and saw the picture with Peter on your shoulder, Ron. That did it- I had to go to Hogwarts! Not only has Hogwarts got the best library in the wizarding world where I could try to find out why I wasn't killed, but Sirius was going to go to Hogwarts, Peter was at Hogwarts and you, Harry was at Hogwarts. I played up to my owner and he was forced to sell me to the pet shop. I waited for someone from Hogwarts to buy me. Eventually you three came in. I apologise for jumping on your head, Ron, but I was just so surprised to see Harry and Peter in the same room. I know I'm going to say the two things that will make you give me everlasting hatred, Harry, but you have grown and you are James' splitting image. You know what happened that year."

"Lily," said Sirius, a slight canine growl in his voice, "if sometime you'd like to get to the point, then that's all right with me."

"I'm afraid it's me who gave you your detention last term, Harry. It's me who has been using the library in the middle of the night and, well, cats sometimes find it hard to clean their feet, especially if I've been outside and I did leave the library rather muddy sometimes."

"Why were you reading about the Unbreakable Link?" asked Ron.

Lily smiled, "Since you know so much about it Hermione, would you like to tell us the three ways that you can survive death?"

Hermione nodded, "Someone can have died for you, you know the counter curse, or your parents had the Unbreakable Link."

"Take a million points, Hermione. Well, no-one died to save me, I had never heard of Epithanos so it only left one option."

"Your parents had the Unbreakable Link?" breathed Harry.

"Yes. It all makes sense, though. If your parents had the Unbreakable Link then you can survive death by force, do magic without a wand and read minds."

Harry had the peculiar impression that Lily was speaking on two levels. It was like when he had read Animal Farm a few years ago. He had thought it was just a story about animals, until Hermione had gone to a lot of trouble and had explained that actually it was about Communism. At one level Lily just seemed to be explaining what the children of parents with the Unbreakable Link could do, but at another, she seemed to be saying something and it was directed at him. "...So basically I'm pretty powerful. Of course it depends on how strong the parents are. My father was exceptionally strong, but my mother wasn't much, so I'm middling. Just imagine if my parents were like Godric Gryffindor's- they had the Unbreakable Link- Simon Gryffindor and Diana Slytherin you know- they were very-"

She paused to take breath and Arabella interrupted, "Please stop gabbling the history lecture, Lily and tell us. Who are your parents?"

"There are only two people it could be, you know Arabella. Professor Albus Dumbledore and Professor Aïda Thompson."

"Dumbledore?!" cried Ron. Harry looked stunned and Hermione looked slightly surprised. Sirius and Arabella exchanged worried glances. Lily continued, "Dumbledore is the only person last century to have the Unbreakable Link. I did some research on it and he had it with a half Italian witch he was very fond of: Aïda Thompson. She had fair hair and green eyes. She looked very like me, in fact."

"I saw a picture of her in a book on teachers. I thought her eyes were a bit like Harry's, but I didn't actually connect her with you because I thought you had red hair," said Hermione.

Lily laughed, "So near but so far!"

Harry frowned, "But how come you were adopted? Surely as Dumbledore's daughter..."

Lily's smile disappeared, "This is of course all speculation. I don't know, but I have a theory that could fit. You all know what happened to Professor Thompson, I suppose?"

Everyone except Harry and Ron nodded.

"Aïda Thompson was the biggest scandal of the 1960s. One fine early September day in the year 1964, Professor Thompson left Hogwarts after having successfully taught Defence Against the Dark Arts for eight years. She was never seen again. On the fifteenth day of May 1965, eight and a half months later, a baby girl was born in a hospital in Penzance. She was named Maria Lily and she had no surname. Two days later Aïda was killed by Avada Kedavra and was washed away in the sea. She was found by the muggle police on a beach near Penzance. Three months later Maria Lily was adopted by a Mr. Hamish Evens who wanted a companion for his five year old daughter, Petunia. The girl's name was changed to Lily Maria. No-one knew why Aïda had disappeared. No-one knew who Lily Maria's parents were. Only Petunia was told by her father when she was older that her sister wasn't her blood sister. Lily Maria never knew."

"Are you telling me that Aïda Thompson, the most kind hearted woman ever, abandoned her daughter in a hospital in Penzance?" cried Arabella angrily.

"I'd like to think it happened differently."

"I still don't get it!" said Harry, "Why couldn't this Aïda Thompson simply have had you at Hogwarts without all the fuss?" Hermione sighed and rolled her eyes, "Boys! You see Harry, she wasn't married to Dumbledore. She was very strongly religious and she was afraid of her having a child when she wasn't married. At least, that's what I think it was," she added hastily.

"Yes, that's what I think too. I also think she didn't tell Dumbledore because she thought he wouldn't love her if he knew."

"You don't think she told Dumbledore?"

"He wouldn't have let her go, I'm sure. I honour her, however. It must have taken her a lot of will to give up her life as she knew it and throw herself into the mercy of the muggle world. She was Voldemort's prime target, you know. If Voldemort could kill her then Dumbledore had his powers halved or more. I think after I was born she felt she could let security loosen a little. I was born; that was the main thing. Voldemort got her then. I don't believe she ever intended to abandon me."

They all stayed silent a minute to pay tribute to Lily's mother, Miss Aïda Thompson. Eventually Hermione asked, "Does Dumbledore know you're his daughter?"

"I don't know. I think sometimes that he does, and sometimes that he doesn't. I shall have to go and see him now."

"He's in conference with McGonagall and Snape at the minute," Sirius said.

"Well, dear old Severus will be pleased to see his old crush."

Harry's jaw almost dropped, "Snape likes you? I thought he hates all Gryffindors!"

"Well, he hates all Gryffindors apart from me. That's one reason why he hated your father so much- because James got the girl and he didn't." She smiled a little sadly and stood up. Then she looked at her watch in fake surprise, "Goodness! Look at the time! Harry, I'm shocked and astonished! Why are you not in bed? To the hospital wing and bed now! All three of you!"

They all stood up, but Harry had to ask just one more question, "Are you immortal then?"

"Lillies never wither," she replied gravely, "quote from the marvellous and nonexistent autobiography of the amazing Lily Potter by Lily Potter. Seriously though, I am not immortal. I'll die of old age, disease, or I'll be run over by a bus. But I cannot commit suicide or be killed by a human hand. Now to bed!"

And at long last, they followed her advice.