Chapter 2: The Birth of Harry Ashworth

"Who are you, and how did you get here?" she demanded.

Harry stared at her in surprise. Before him stood a young, a very young, version of the woman whose suicide he had just witnessed. Violet eyes pierced him with a stare that would have left him incapable of rational thought in his younger years as the wand she leveled at him crackled with barely restrained magical energy. Her dueling stance was good, certainly better than he had expected from a teenage witch, but then again, this was the Bellatrix who would go on to become one of the most feared master duelists in his time.

Now that was a strange concept. His time . Did that mean he was in the past? From her appearance, it certainly seemed that way, because he sure didn't feel any younger. Out of reflex, he reached for his own wand before realizing that he no longer had it. Uh, oh, he thought.

"I said," she repeated slowly, dangerously, " who are you, and how did you get here?"

"I don't know?" he said, spouting the first thing that came to mind.

" Pulsus !"

Hampered in his movement by the heavy chains, Harry was unable to dodge and caught the banishing hex full on in the chest. He flew through the air, wincing in pain as he crashed through a bookshelf. Part of his mind took note that he no longer was in his cell, which was a good thing… something he reconsidered when he barely managed to roll away in time as several hexes splashed against the ground where he'd been lying.

"Look, can't we talk about this?" he began, only to catch a bludgeoning curse in his left shoulder. He could feel and hear the joint snap as it dislocated while he spun with the force of the blow. Apparently not, he thought to himself as he threw himself forward, rolling when he hit the ground on his good shoulder. Glancing around, he realized he was in a vault that looked suspiciously like the Black family vault at Gringotts. The place was lined with shelves and cabinets and drawers. He hastily took cover behind one of them.

"Whoever you are, you just made a big mistake!" Bellatrix shouted. " Reducto !"

The blasting curse blew the cabinet Harry was hiding behind to pieces, and he barely managed to get his back turned to the explosion to protect his face from the high-velocity shrapnel that constituted the remains of the wooden container. The force of the explosion sent him sprawling forward onto the ground.

His hands groped around the floor for something, anything, to use as a weapon as he tried to rise to his feet. His body, already injured from his capture, undernourished, and dehydrated, was hurting. His back was on fire from the wooden splinters that had embedded themselves there as well as from breaking through the shelf, and his left arm hung limply. Footsteps echoed loudly through the vault as she approached his prone form and he knew that unless he did something, and did it now, he was dead.

The fingers of his right hand found a smooth piece of wood. He grasped it and flung himself around to face her. Their eyes met, and he realized what he was holding in his hand as they faced each other. Her, standing over him, wand leveled at his throat. Him, lying on the ground on his back… and a smooth black and silver wand pointed straight at her heart.

"You can't use that," she declared haughtily once the surprise on her face wore off.

"We'll see," he muttered, hoping that she wouldn't call his bluff. He still distinctly remembered Ollivander's warning about never using someone else's wand.

" Incar -" she began, forcing the issue.

Harry closed his eyes, prayed, and hoped that for once he would have luck holding someone else's wand. " Impedimenta !"

A sudden warmth spread through him as he cast the spell, similar to the binding he had undergone with his first holly and Phoenix feather wand, and a jet of red light tore itself loose from the tip of the wand. The body-binding hex didn't quite work the way it was supposed to as Bellatrix cancelled her own spell and brought up a shield, but it gave him the time he needed to roll away from her and behind another cabinet. He muttered a quick transfiguration charm on the chains that bound his wrists and ankles, turning them into paper. He tore them off, then returned his attention to his opponent.

"Damn you," he could hear her swearing. It caused him to smile inwardly. One thing he had learned the hard way during the war was that taunting your opponent in a situation like this was the worst possible thing you could do. It generally gave away your position and your frustration - things the enemy could capitalize on. He held his breath, listening to her footsteps as she walked around, and waited for the perfect moment.

There, he thought. Swinging himself around the cabinet, he raised his wand. " Expelliarmus ! Compescor !"

The two spells hit her in quick succession, faster than she could react. The disarming hex threw her backwards, into the wall, even as her wand went clattering deeper into the vault. The binding hex secured her against the marble rock of the vault wall with an invisible force, but that didn't stop her from struggling.

Muttering a quick thank you to whoever had listened to him and made the wand work and filing that oddity for later reference, he slowly walked over, picking up her wand in the process, until he stood in front of her, an arm's length away.

"Now, could we please start this over?" he asked wearily. He was tired, he was hurt, he was hungry and thirsty, and he was in no mood to deal with anyone at this point.

"Are you kidding me?" she snarled, "you're the one who randomly appeared out of nowhere and attacked me!"

"I did no such thing!" he protested. "If you'll recall, I said 'I don't know', to which you took to blasting me through that shelf over there!" he waved over in the direction of the broken piece of furniture. "That hurt, by the way!"

"Good!" she retorted. "That'll teach you a lesson to attack Bellatrix Black!"

"Black…?" he wondered for a moment, before he realized that she probably hadn't married Rudolphous Lestrange yet. "Look, can we start over?" he asked with a weary sigh.

"No."

"What! Why in Merlin's name not?!"

"Because, you moron, you still have me tied to a wall, unarmed, and defenseless! What's a girl supposed to think in this position?"

Harry considered his options for a moment. He could let her down… but then again, he wouldn't put it past her to make a grab for her wand and renew the battle once he did. If he didn't, he wouldn't get anything out of her. He sighed. Why couldn't things be easy for once? He glanced around, hoping for a divine sign that would tell him what to do. Of course, there was none.

But his eyes came to rest on something very familiar. A black onyx hairpin, four inches long, which was glittering in the light of the vault. "Where did you get that?" he asked, prodding it with his foot. After what had just happened - for him, anyway - there was no way he was touching it.

"None of your business!"

That sounds like Bella, all right, Harry thought in resignation. He decided to take a different approach. If she didn't respond to polite questioning, maybe she would to the threat of force. Not that he ever would resort to actually using force, but he'd come to realize that the threat of it could be quite effective at times, though it always left a bad aftertaste in his mouth.

"Look, your situation isn't looking too good right now," he began.

"Gee, says Mister-I-have-a-dislocated-shoulder-and-can-barely-stand," she shot back defiantly.

"At least I'm the one holding the wand. And if I beat you in this condition, you don't want to know what I'd do to you if I was healed," he snarled, leaning forward and holding the tip of his appropriated wand dangerously close to her throat. "I have had a bad, a very bad day, so I would suggest you don't push me. Now, what did you do with that hairpin, and where did you get it?"

A brief look of guilt crossed her features before she schooled them back into neutral indifference. "I found it in the vault here."

"And?" he prodded.

"I cast a few spells on it. Just to see what it did."

"And?"

"And nothing!" Bellatrix replied haughtily, but there was a hint of frustration in her tone. "It didn't do anything! Not a damn thing!"

Harry signed in frustration, himself. "And you've never seen me before?"

"If I had, I wouldn't have asked who the hell you are, you braindead idiot!"

"I hate talking to you." He really did. Her tongue was just as quick as her wand. Just like Flitwick had told him.

"The feeling's mutual, I assure you!"

"Just answer the goddamn question!"

"I just did, you son of a hobgoblin!"

Harry paused for a moment, before realizing that she had, in fact, answered his question. "Oh." He blinked in embarrassment.

"Look," Bellatrix sighed, apparently getting over her initial anger as her innate curiosity took over. "I just wanted to see what the damn thing did, so I case a few magic detection spells on it. Then one moment I was holding it, and the next, boom, you were standing over there."

Harry frowned and stepped back, trying to work his mind through what he'd just learned and piece together everything he knew. It didn't take long for him to come to at least one conclusion. Here, before him, was a young Bellatrix Black, untouched yet by the insanity that would define much of her later life. She was also still a Black, which meant that Lestrange hadn't entered the stage yet, and while she showed some prowess, she wasn't nearly as good a duelist as she had been during her time with Voldemort. No, it couldn't be… he thought.

"What's the date?" he finally asked her.

"December twentieth," she told him evenly, more intrigued than annoyed now.

"Year?"

Bellatrix's expression of irritation returned, indicating with quite a bit of certainty that she believed he wasn't the brightest fireball in the shamanic repertoire, but she replied anyway. "Nineteen-seventy-five."

Harry worked his jaw for a few moments, unable to produce any coherent sound. He felt like swearing up a storm, but the words wouldn't come to him. There are no words to describe this mess I'm in, he mused absently. Snape was right, I do get myself into heaps of trouble all the time.

"Well…" he started. "That explains where… or rather, when, I came from, and how you're here."

"Care to elaborate? It's my pin, anyway, and you're standing in my vault. Actually, you better let me go first, before I decide I've been nice enough and curse your sorry ass into the next century!"

He smirked. She was in no position to make demands, but he could see the glint of curiosity in her eyes, so similar to the expression in Hermione's eyes whenever she found a riddle she couldn't understand. She probably wouldn't try anything aggressive until she had an explanation, at least. He dismissed the spell and helped her to the floor. She picked up the hairpin and clutched it to her chest, then extended a hand for her wand. He debated returning it to her for a moment, before shrugging and handing it back.

"That… thing," he explained, jabbing a thumb at the pin, "I don't know if it was designed to do that, or if the combination of spells you cast on it set it off by accident, but it's sent me back in time. I saw it… right before I arrived here. Twenty-five years in the future."

"You're crazy."

He chuckled at the fact that she, arguably the most insane witch of the century, was calling someone else crazy. When he continued laughing, the expression on her face turned from amusement and irritation to wide-eyed surprise.

"You're not kidding," she breathed.

"No." Harry shook his head. He eyed her briefly, making sure that she wasn't going to curse him when he had his back turned, then stepped forward towards the wall. She moved away cautiously, but he paid her no mind as he rested his busted shoulder against the wall. This is going to hurt like hell, he thought, before throwing his entire bodyweight forward, against his damaged shoulder. He'd had to do that a few times in the past, and none of them had been pleasant; he let out a brief cry of pain as his shoulder popped back into its socket with a gut-twisting snap.

When he turned around, he found Bellatrix staring at him, her jaw hanging wide open, a look of shock and disgust on her face. "That's… that's disgusting," she uttered.

"It works," he countered rolling his left shoulder as the pain faded somewhat.

"So…" she said slowly as if mulling things over. "You're from twenty-five years in the future?"

"Give or take a few months, yes."

"You didn't plan this trip."

He smirked. "What gave it away? The fact that I didn't know when I was?"

"The fact that you stumbled into the Black family vault like an idiot!"

"Would you people stop calling me that?" he muttered. "It's always idiot this, moron that, imbecile yonder…"

She chose to ignore his ramblings and continued on with a smirk of her own. "Though it seems that travelling to the past has benefitted you. You should be thanking me."

"You didn't even do anything," he retorted.

"Of course I did! I did lots of things to try and activate it! One of them must have worked." She was giddy, he could tell, though she tried to hide it. "This is amazing, I always wondered what it did; the texts didn't say anything specific…"

He blinked, once again briefly reminded of Hermione for a moment, before shaking those thoughts from his head. "You said you did hardly anything to it!"

"I lied." The matter of fact tone brought him up short. Of course, he thought, he should have expected that from her, of all people. It annoyed him anyway. "What did you expect me to do? You had me disarmed and at your mercy, and you were bloody angry! You could've been some crazy maniac who might've murdered me if I didn't answer to your satisfaction! You still might be a crazy maniac who'll murder me anyway! I mean, look at all the blood on your hands!"

"I'm not-" Harry glanced down at his hands, suddenly remembering what had happened just before he'd arrived. He fought down the violent urge to retch and shakily waved the wand to clean the blood off his hands. He'd seen dead bodies before, but somehow, Bella's suicide had shaken him more than he cared to admit… maybe it was the pleading expression in her eyes, asking him to end the pain, or maybe it was the fact that her death, with the instrument of her demise still in his hands, was so… personal. Much, much more personal than any spell.

"Well, if you're not then you better tell me who the hell you are," she demanded, leveling her wand at him again. "Especially since you seem to know who I am."

"Not this again," he muttered, raising his own wand defensively as he overrode his own thoughts. Now was not the time to dwell on her past… future… death. When she didn't do anything, he blinked and glanced over. "What?"

"That's… that's a Black wand," she whispered quietly.

"Yeah, seeing as it came from this vault, I'd assume so," he told her sarcastically.

"Who are you?" she uttered almost reverently. "Black wands are bound to our family; no one outside of it could even touch one without severe harm."

Harry sighed. "Look, we got off on the wrong foot. For your information, significant things happen to that pin of yours in the future. What you did probably had little to do with my arrival here. In any case, I'm not here to harm you, so why don't we start over?" he held out his hand.

Demonstrating remarkable composure, she walked over and took his hand in hers. "Very well. I'm Bellatrix Black."

They shook hands warily. "I'm…" he suddenly realized that if he had traveled to the past, then giving his real name would probably be very, very bad. He already had violated the first rule of time travel that he had learned, way back during his first adventure with a time-turner. "I'm… someone," he finally said. "I don't think it'd be good if I told you or anyone else my real name. It'd royally screw up the future." More than it already is, he added silently.

"If you've travelled twenty-five years into the past, then you're not old enough to be born yet," she replied after looking him over for a moment. Her gaze decidedly made him feel like a slab of meat on the butcher's table. "It's not as if anyone's going to see you, hear your name, and come to the inescapable conclusion that you're their son who'll be born in a few years."

Harry sighed. "It's a bit more complicated than that. I'd prefer not to say my name."

"Well, I can't be going around calling you idiot all the time. It'd get confusing with all the boneheads at school."

"Kill me now," Harry muttered heavenwards.

"I can do that."

"I didn't mean that literally!"

Bellatrix frowned. "Look, just give me your first name. If you want, we can make up a name for you if you're really so concerned about it."

"Fine," Harry sighed in defeat. "It's Harry."

"So, then… Harry Black?" Her eyes glinted with satisfaction at her deduction.

He laughed. "No, actually. How in Merlin's name did you come to that conclusion?"

She pointed at his wand. "Like I said, those wands of our ancestors that are stored here are keyed to our family. If you weren't a Black, it'd have killed you by now. Not to mention the fact that you got past the vault's defenses."

"Interesting point," Harry conceded, silently remembering that he had been named Sirius's heir to the Black fortune and name after his death. Apparently, the magic that bound him to the family transcended time, since the vault clearly recognized him, as did the wand. At least, he hoped this boded well for other matters. "But you're incorrect. I'm not a Black." He debated whether or not he should tell her about inheriting the name.

"Then how?"

"I inherited the name when the last Black died."

Bellatrix blinked in surprise. "Wow. Auntie must've disowned a lot of people, then."

"Something like that," Harry replied, remembering the horrid portrait of Sirius's mother. "Look, I've got to figure out what to do now. There's no point in me trying to return to the future, but I can't parade around here with my real identity."

"I told you, if you want, we can make up a name for you," she offered. "And why wouldn't you want to return to the future? I'm sure we can get that spell to work again."

We, he thought with some amusement. It was an interesting way of phrasing it, as if she'd just assumed they'd be partners in her endeavor. Part of him felt repulsed at the thought of allying himself with Bellatrix, considering the horrors she had committed in the future. Or would commit. He rubbed his temples. Thinking about time travel gave him a headache. "Look," he said, "the future is definitely not a good place right now. There's things here I really ought to do for the benefit of the people in the future. And there is no we in this."

"It's my hairpin, my spell."

"And I don't think you had anything to do with sending me here."

"According to you, the hairpin did, in the future, so my future self must have had something to do with it."

"Look, just leave me alone, okay!"

"Hell no! Do you have any idea what I could do with that kind of magic at my disposal?"

Harry shuddered. "On second thought, give me that damn pin. It's too dangerous."

"No way!"

Harry felt a strong urge to kill her… again, but decided to forego that and began reviewing his options. He was in the past, a past he knew nothing about. He had no contacts, no relatives, no friends and no money. Dumbledore wouldn't even know who he was, and unless he planned on revealing himself to the headmaster, there was nothing he could do about it. Even then, it was unlikely that anyone would believe him. No, he needed help, at least from someone. But Bellatrix? he thought.

She was thinking, too, and figured out a solution before he did. "So… you're the Black heir, right?"

"Yes."

"The sole heir?"

"The one and only."

"All right," she started, "why don't you pick up one of those galleons over there and try walking out of the vault with it. Actually, never mind that. Take that wand, and try walking out of the vault with it."

Harry realized what she was getting at. She wanted proof. He grasped the wand tightly in his hand, holding it where she could see it, and proceeded to the entrance. At his touch, the door opened, unlocked, and he stepped out into the underground tunnel. A goblin in a Gringotts card arched a nonexistent eyebrow at him. He merely smiled, waved him off, and stepped back into the vault.

"Happy?" he said dryly.

"Excellent," she grinned, surprising him. He blinked as he realized she actually had a rather pretty smile. In the future, there always was an underlying cruelty and desire to inflict pain and insanity in any of her expressions that wasn't present now. "I'll make you a deal," she offered. "You load up a few thousand galleons into some bags and take them out for me, and I'll help you out."

"Why don't you just help yourself?" he asked in bewilderment. "I mean, you are in here."

"I'm only here for this," she said, holding up the hairpin. "My grandfather left it for me. Besides, I'm not 'of age' yet to take money without the supervision of the Black family head." With a grin, she added, "which is you."

"So let me get this straight," Harry snorted, trying to conceal a chuckle. "You want my help to rob the Black vault, and in return you'll help me do what, exactly?"

She seemed a little hesitant to define just exactly what she would offer to do for him. "I'll help you get on your feet. You can take a part of that money, and I'll help you find a job. I'll collaborate with you on whatever background you want for yourself, and I can provide you with the contacts to draw up the necessary paperwork-for a price, of course. These papers don't come cheap. But," she intoned, "I also want in on whatever you figure out about the magic of this thing." She gestured towards the pin in her hand.

Harry stared at her for a moment, briefly probing her mind with the limited legilimency he knew. The few seconds he had before she realized what he was doing, forcing him to withdraw from her mind, were enough to determine that the offer, at least, was honest, and that she intended to keep her end of the bargain-for now, at least.

"That wasn't very polite," she told him angrily.

"I had to know if I can trust you," he replied evenly.

They stared at each other for a few moments, before she backed down. "Fine," she acknowledged. "But if you do it again, I'll rip your lungs out, understood?"

"You're welcome to try, Black."

"So, what do you say?" she asked, purposefully choosing to ignore his barb.

He sighed as he weighed his options. "All right."

"Excellent!" Bellatrix chimed happily, grabbing a bag and tossing it to him. "Load up!"

Feeling slightly guilty, Harry loaded several thousand galleons into the sack. Wordlessly, she conjured another sack for Harry and he helped himself to a sizeable amount of gold. "Let's get out of here," Harry said as soon as he was finished.

"My thoughts exactly," Bellatrix replied, shrinking her sack and dropping it into a pocket in her robes. She pulled the hairpin from her robe's sleeve. As she arranged her hair so as to be able to wear it, she nodded toward Harry's acquired wand. "You may as well take that too, but the goblins won't have to ask questions if they don't see you carrying it around. I'm going to wait for a bit before depositing my share."

Harry looked down at the wand he had used to defend himself. The shaft felt like black ash, tipped with silver, though he didn't know what the core was. He didn't really care, either, so long as it worked. "Good point," he said, pocketing it.

They exited the vault, both much richer, and were taken to the lobby by the goblin Harry had seen. Happily, the goblin in question did not comment about Harry's strange appearance, especially not after a galleon was discreetly pressed into his hands.

They soon found themselves in front of Gringotts, at a busy intersection in Diagon Alley. Bellatrix turned to him with a triumphant smirk. "That was a job well done!"

"If you say so," he shrugged.

"Now, we're going to have to come up with a name for you, if you're really intent on not revealing your real one."

"Smith? Maybe Jones?" Harry offered.

Bellatrix snorted in disdain. "Oh please . Give me a break. Where's your creativity? If I'm going to get you connected, you're going to need a more distinguished name. A pureblood name." She eyed him critically. "You are a pureblood, right?"

Harry frowned as he wondered how to answer. "Yes, as far as I know," he replied slowly. Technically, it wasn't a lie. The Potters were an old pureblood family, and while Lily Evans, his mother, had been a Muggle-born, he wasn't entirely sure about the rest of her family. It was a shaky bit of not telling the whole story, but it would have to suffice.

"As far as you know?" Bellatrix echoed.

"What, you have something against being Muggle-born?"

"Not really," she shrugged, "though, everyone else does."

"I see."

"Couldn't I just say that I'm a distant relative of the Blacks?"

Bellatrix shook her head. "You'd never get away with it. Auntie has that pedigree chart at Grimmauld Place. You'd be exposed the instant you opened your mouth."

"Oh," Harry said, mentally reviewing the name of every pureblood family he'd heard of.

"I've got it: Harry Ashworth," Bellatrix announced. "I can work with that."

"Ashworth?" Harry asked. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I can pull it off," Bellatrix told him. "They used to be quite common in England, but they migrated to Australia and New Zealand. There's enough of them over there that none of them would be able to say you aren't an Ashworth, even if you did have the misfortune to meet one or two."

Harry mulled it over quickly. He'd never even heard of an Ashworth, so meeting one by chance seemed unlikely. "All right," he agreed. "I'll be Harry Ashworth."

"Great," Bellatrix said. "Let's get going, Ashworth. I don't have all day."

"Where were we going?" Harry asked.

"Well, Ashworth, you look and smell like a slob," Bellatrix said, breaking it to him kindly-at least for her standards, anyway. "First, we'll get you a room at the Leaky Cauldron to take care of the smell. Then we'll see if there's anything we can do about your looks."

Harry started to protest and tell her that he'd been a prisoner for quite a while, but decided that it would be better to keep any details about the future a secret. No need for her to know who he'd been fighting for -and against - in the future.

A much younger looking Tom the barkeep was able to arrange a room for Harry and he took a half-hour to shower and clean up a bit while Bellatrix waited impatiently. He sputtered in protest when, tired of waiting, she stuck her head into the bathroom and peeked around the shower curtain several times to ask if he was done yet.

After he had finished showering and gotten over his mortification - to which she'd laughed - he had then been hauled him to the shop that would be called Madam Malkin's in the future. At this time, however, it bore the name of Messrs. Malkin & Malkin-Master Tailors. "Must run in the family," Harry muttered to himself.

"What was that?" Bellatrix asked.

"Nothing," Harry told her curtly.

Bellatrix spent the next hour mercilessly giving directions to the tailor who was fitting Harry while thumbing through various fabrics and patterns. Harry did not get to choose what he ended up buying; but luckily, Bellatrix did have some good taste, though it was a little dramatic. At least it beats the taste in clothing she'll develop later in life, he thanked God for small favors. He did not want to end up running around in all black, torn and tattered robes looking like a maniac.

They stopped in at various other shops where Bellatrix insisted that Harry buy different trinkets that no pureblood should be without, though he really didn't understand the point of having a penholder with built-in ink bottle when he used a separate ink bottle to begin with. And a quill that didn't fit the penholder. At one store, they bought a trunk and Harry was grateful for having something to place his purchases in. He also found himself glad that he'd bought a very, very big trunk, because no matter how much they shopped, they kept buying more. So much in fact, that he could practically feel the bag of coins in his pocket getting lighter as he pulled out coin after coin.

Harry and Bellatrix didn't linger long in any of the shops they visited. Harry had heard that girls could spend hours shopping and had even seen it with Ginny back in his time before everything went to hell, but Bellatrix seemed very impatient. Somehow though, they did manage to squeeze in a stop by almost every single store in Diagon Alley, even if Bella just stepped in to grab an owl-order form for Harry's growing collection.

"I don't know what we're going to set you up as," Bellatrix explained as he stuffed the sheets of paper into the trunk. "You'll want to be able to order anything you might need. Did you have a job before your accident?

Seeing where Harry had stuck the latest owl-order form, Bellatrix muttered under her breath, reached in, and uncrumpled the pages, neatly sliding them into a side pocket where they would be safe and out of the way of anything else he might toss in.

"It was sort of in the line of auror work," Harry said vaguely.

"Good luck having that happen again," Bellatrix said. "That would take more identity papers than I think you can afford."

Not if I empty the Black vault, Harry thought dryly, but didn't say anything out loud.

They passed Ollivander's. Harry briefly considered going in to buy his old wand, but he ultimately decided against it. Either Dumbledore or the Ministry would be notified of the wand's purchase and furthermore, it was unlikely that anyone other than Harry would come to purchase it for years to come. It could wait. Not to mention the fact that he would end up running into the brother-wand problem again, which wasn't something he looked forward to. No, maybe for now it would be best to keep the Black wand he'd taken from the vault. It seemed to work reasonably fine, but he'd have to fully check it out before going into battle with it.

They concluded their shopping before long and were walking back to the Leaky Cauldron - well, Bella was walking, occasionally prodding Harry with a long, manicured, fingernail, while Harry was struggling with his trunk. It did have enchantments on it to make the inside bigger and lighter, but there seemed to be a limit on how much weight it would reduce. As it was, he found himself struggling to drag it along. It took a good fifteen minutes before Harry had had enough and shrunk the trunk - remembering to put a weight-enchantment on it - and stuffed it into his pocket, while Bella looked on with an amused smirk that clearly told him she thought him an idiot for not thinking about it earlier.

"Don't say it!" he warned her. She wisely kept silent.

They had almost reached the pub when they ran into trouble, heralded by a loud groan from Harry's companion. She stepped up in front of him and glared.

"What's wrong?" he asked, trying to spot what would cause her to react that way.

"It's the Three Stooges," she muttered darkly, just as Harry spotted the three very familiar figures walking around the corner: Remus Lupin, Sirius Black… and James Potter.

Harry froze at the sight of so many familiar, if younger, people. Remus Lupin had vanished on a top-secret mission for the Order in his time, and had never been heard from again. The werewolf had been presumed killed, but no one knew for sure. Not even Voldemort would answer that question when asked. Sirius, of course, had been killed while dueling his own cousin, Bella, during Harry's fifth year at the Ministry. And then there was James Potter-his father, the man Harry had heard so much about but had never gotten to meet.

Surprisingly, it was James Potter who opened the verbal gun ports the instant he saw Bellatrix. "Getting more manuals on how to torture muggles, Bella?" he asked with a sneer. "If so, you missed your exit. Knockturn Alley is that way."

"Bugger off, Potter," Bellatrix shook her head. "You're not even worth my time. And for your information, I do not torture muggles in my free time. I also don't harass other students, humiliate them, or make them a laughingstock for my own amusement ."

James stepped into her way as she tried to walk past. "You Slytherins don't deserve anything better, anyway. Backstabbing snakes, the lot of you."

Bellatrix arched an eyebrow. "Oh really? And I suppose you Gryffindors are so much better?"

"At least we know the meaning of the word loyalty!"

"Everyone else calls it idiocy," Bellatrix countered. It brought Harry up short. The words were the same as the older Bellatrix had spoken to him, back in the cell.

"I wouldn't expect a Slytherin to understand."

"You don't understand it, yourself, Potter," she replied haughtily. "You spout all this drivel about honor and loyalty and integrity, but you don't have a damn clue as to what it actually means."

James sneered at her. "And you Slytherins do? You don't even know the concept of loyalty."

"At least we have a brain to understand it with!"

"We never got to finish our duel back in DADA last semester," James growled as he stepped forward, drawing his wand from his belt. "How about we finish it now? Or are you scared, Black?"

"In your dreams, Potter," Bellatrix replied evenly, flicking her wrist and catching her wand in one smooth motion.

Harry looked away from his father and realized what was going on. Glancing over at Sirius and Remus, he knew that he couldn't expect any help from that corner - Remus was frozen in shock while Sirius was trying to remind James that they were still subject to the underage magic clause. James wouldn't listen and raised his wand despite Sirius' advice. In response, Bellatrix stepped into her own dueling stance.

Why me? Harry complained to himself as he drew his own wand, flicking it in one smooth motion without uttering a word. Both Bellatrix and James found themselves staring at their empty hands in surprise as their wands flew into the air, arcing gently to land in Harry's outstretched hand. He glared at the two of them, feeling a bit odd that he was actually going to reprimand his own father.

"That's enough, both of you," he said slowly, letting a bit of his annoyance seep into his tone. He had seen enough fighting in his time - fighting that had cost lives, that had been deadly serious. This was just a squabble between two students who didn't know any better and were going way overboard in settling whatever score they had to. He was sick of people needlessly getting hurt. He purposefully walked in between the two and turned full circle, arms crossed over his chest, to look them both in the eye. "Are you through acting like bickering children?"

"Wha-" Bellatrix opened her mouth to protest, only to be cut off when Harry glared at her.

"You call yourself a Slytherin!" he chuckled. "Let me tell you what I've learned about Slytherins in the past, the good ones and the bad ones: they all had one thing in common. They prided themselves on their cunning, their smarts. Subterfuge, cloak and dagger, intelligence," he said, tapping his temple, "that is what they're good at. Charging off into a fight at the first insult is something unbecoming of a Slytherin."

Bellatrix closed her mouth, her eyes wide with surprise at his declaration as she suddenly looked at him in a new light, as the realization dawned on her that despite his seemingly young age - he didn't look much older than someone who had graduated Hogwarts a few years ago, twenty to twenty-two at most, once he'd cleaned up. Realization that he understood, not just the horror stories everyone told of the Slytherins, the derisions and snide remarks, not just the way the dark wizards and most of her family twisted the teachings of Slytherin and the meaning of the house to be backstabbing, treacherous, and self-serving. He understood the real meaning of the house.

"And you!" Harry spun around and leveled a glare on his father, who had by now been restrained by Sirius and Remus. "You call yourself a Gryffindor! She's right, you know - honor, loyalty, integrity, bravery, you understand nothing of these things. You claim honor… your honor is above petty squabbles about practice duels unfinished - when you fight for your life, when you're asked to guard something with your life, when you are entrusted with something that could cause many deaths… that is when you show honor! Doing what's right, even when it's tough, that's what bravery is about, that's where you show your integrity, not when you drivel on about your perceptions of ideology when you know nothing about it!" It took Harry a moment to realize that his voice had risen to almost a shout, and that he had a captive audience around him that was deathly quiet.

Sirius was the first to break the silence, managing to close the jaw he had hanging open in slack-jawed amazement. "Whoa." He turned to his long-time friend. "He's got you there, mate. I told you going out and picking fights with Slytherins is a bad idea. They're not all bad, you know."

"Who the hell are you, anyway?" James demanded as he tried to break free of the grip Sirius had on his arm.

"It doesn't matter," Harry answered quietly, almost softly, realizing how much attention he'd drawn to himself, even as the crowd dispersed. "But you have to understand one thing: what you're doing now… it's childish, and dangerous. You were willing to start a fight in a crowded area, and you are both underage. A lot of people could have gotten hurt, and why? Because you ran into a classmate who happens to be in a different house ? Tell me, do you go around picking fights with any Slytherin you run into?"

When James shrugged defiantly, Harry sighed. "It doesn't matter now. But I really suggest you try to understand what the houses really stand for, before you go around picking fights again." He turned around and handed Bellatrix back her wand, and passed James's to Sirius, who pocketed it with a slight grin.

The sound of soft clapping caused all five of them to turn around. Standing in the shade of a tree, next to Florean Fortescue's ice cream parlor not twenty feet away, was Albus Dumbledore. He was eyeing Harry with an intrigued twinkle in his blue eyes.

"Well said, young man. Well said indeed," the headmaster said as he stepped forward.