Past

"I didn't know you had that much against Snape, Aurelia," Lupin said quietly sitting down.

"I didn't know either," Aurelia replied absently then realized Harry and Chris were staring at her. "Sit down you two."

Chris and Harry came out of their daze, they knew Snape was unfair but the thing just happened was kind of unreal. Chris sat down beside Lupin. Sirius and Harry sat down as well. 

"So will you really talk to Dumbledore?" Harry asked tentatively.

"Yes, I will," Aurelia replied with a small kind smile. "Don't worry."

Harry relaxed and Chris realized Aurelia also loved Harry, maybe like a son. But her love was very different from Mrs. Weasley. While Mrs. Weasley tries to hide and protect the kids, Aurelia wanted to prepare them to face the dangers. 

"I will teach you Occlumency if possible," Aurelia said. "But if I can't then, Chris — you can teach him. You learned it yourself, didn't you?"

Chris nodded.

"Very well," Aurelia nodded, then turned to Lupin and Sirius (who was still staring at her with an awestruck expression). "I think you two owe an explanation to Harry."

Lupin and Sirius exchanged a look then Lupin sighed and Sirius nodded.

"Yeah, that would be nice," Harry said slowly.

"Look, Harry," said Sirius placatingly, "James and Snape — hated each other from the moment they set eyes on each other, it was just one of those things, you can understand that, can't you? I think James was everything Snape wanted to be — he was popular, he was good at Quidditch, good at pretty much everything. And Snape was just this little oddball who was up to his eyes in the Dark Arts and James always hated the Dark Arts."

"Stop sugarcoating it, Sirius," Aurelia warned.

"She is right, Sirius," Lupin said. "Harry deserves to know why his potion teacher hates him." He turned to Harry, "listen, Harry, it's true that we — Peter, Sirius, James and I — did bully Snape."

Harry gaped at him.

"Rather horribly," Aurelia added.

"Yes," Lupin nodded. "And for that, I'm not very much proud of myself. We got carried away and gave him a hard time in school. James was sort of our leader so you understand why Snape hates him so much."

"And James was kind of arrogant idiot, you know," Aurelia said. "But he changed in our seventh year, deflated his head a bit. Only then Lily decided to go out with him."

"Of course he was a bit of an idiot!" said Sirius bracingly. "We were all idiots! Well — not Moony so much," he said fairly, looking at Lupin, but Lupin shook his head.

"Did I ever tell you to lay off Snape?" he said. "Did I ever have the guts to tell you I thought you were out of order?"

"Yeah, well," said Sirius, "you made us feel ashamed of ourselves sometimes. . . . That was something . . ."

"The moral of the story is, Harry, your Dad was a bit of everything Snape said, but that doesn't mean he can go around punishing you for your father," Aurelia said firmly as she noticed Harry's frowning face. "Because deep down he was a good person, just like you, so was Lily. I know, you're just kind like her. No one is perfect Harry, we all do mistakes, we learn from it and that's makes us a fair person."

The kitchen door opened and the entire Weasley family, plus Hermione, Luna and Colin came inside, all looking very happy, with Mr. Weasley walking proudly in their midst dressed in a pair of striped pajamas covered by a mackintosh.

"Cured!" he announced brightly to the kitchen at large. "Completely cured!"

But they noticed the gloomy atmosphere in the kitchen.

"What's going on?" said Mr. Weasley, the smile sliding off his face.

"Nothing special, Arthur, we were just talking about James and Lily," Lupin got to his feet smiling. "So you're cured, that's great news."

"Yes, isn't it?" said Mrs. Weasley, leading her husband forward into a chair. "Healer Smethwyck worked his magic in the end, found an antidote to whatever that snake's got in its fangs, and Arthur's learned his lesson about dabbling in Muggle medicine, haven't you, dear?" she added, rather menacingly.

"Yes, Molly dear," said Mr. Weasley meekly.

Chris and Harry smiled but that didn't fool their friends.

Colin, Luna, and Hermione slid towards them.

"What happened?" Hermione whispered to Harry.

"Later," Harry whispered back. "We will talk later."

Chris again had a funny feeling of intruding in someone's family discussion. First, it was the Weasleys now it was the Potters and Sirius, Lupin and Aurelia. They kind of acted like family which again gave Chris a weird feeling of loneliness. It was weird because she was surrounded by so many people but from inside she was alone. Too much alone. Chris absently stroked her Asian hair accessory (the ones her father had sent) as the dinner continued that night. Chris understood what Hermione must have felt sometimes among these people. Their parents were never going to be part of this world, no matter what. The muggle-borns will fight for this wizarding world but their parents will never know what their kids were doing and it will be for their own good.

That night, after dinner Chris left the kitchen very quickly. Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Luna and Colin were clustered around Harry as he was retelling the Snape story, so Chris took the opportunity and slipped out of the kitchen.

She entered her room, changed into her sleepwear, got to the bed and stared at the patch of starry sky visible through the window.

Chris didn't remember when she fell asleep but after a long time, she was dreaming about her father. Chris saw her father had come to meet her, they were happy but then suddenly out of nowhere, a snake attacked her father. She tried to fight the snake, she even tried to heal Mr. Norton but couldn't. A Healer from St. Mungo's shook his head and said, "you can't save him. We can't save him. He's not a wizard. We're sorry."

Chris started to cry. . .

The dream changed suddenly. . . .

She was standing in the hospital wing of Hogwarts. An old Rowena Ravenclaw was lying on a bed, looking very fragile and ill, and a lady dressed like Madam Pomfrey was fussing over her.

"Please Madam, take some medicines, your illness is getting worse," she said.

"I don't — don't need medication, Josephine," Rowena Ravenclaw said, coughing violently. "Is he — here yet?"

"He is," said the lady Josephine grimly. "He is waiting outside."

"Call him, please," Rowena said.

Lady Josephine nodded and walked out. Chris sat down on a chair beside Rowena Ravenclaw's bed. It has been a long time since Chris had a normal founders dream like this. The dreams are usually about their quarrels.

Chris saw with a jolt of surprise as Lady Josephine walked in with none other than the Bloody Baron. Though at that time he was just Baron, there was no blood in his clothes. 

"Madam Ravenclaw," he bowed. "You summoned me?"

"Yes, I did —" Rowena coughed again then signed Lady Josephine to leave them. 

______________________________

To be continued. . .