Chapter 35: Meeting of the Mothers

Chapter 34: Meeting of the Mothers

"Harry, you can't keep hiding in here forever," Shiva said in a soft voice from the door to Harry's room.

He grunted and moved adding another stabilization rune to his current schematic. "I'm not hiding. I'm working."

"Sure, because everyone works for 14 hours straight. And don't try to tell me you stopped to sleep because the sheets haven't been touched and Dobby is forbidden from coming in here without direct permission." She sighed and grabbed a chair swinging it around to sit down next to him laying a hand on his shoulder. "Harry, you don't have to talk to me, you don't have talk to Fleur, or Tonks, or Hermione. You don't even have to talk to her but you have to at least come out of this room. You have to put down the pencil and come out. At least come and eat."

"Can't stop working," Harry said curtly squinting down at the page.

"Why?" she asked simply.

Harry's pencil froze. A moment later it kept scratching away. "Just can't."

"Not good enough, kid," Shiva said shaking her head and squeezing his shoulder. "Give me a legit reason and I'll leave. Otherwise I'm going to stay right here and be as annoying as I possibly can be until you are tearing that black hair out of your head."

Harry scowled but kept scratching at the diagrams. She started silently counting to ten. She was at nine before he finally spoke again. "If I stop working I have to go out there. If I go out there then I have to talk to her. What the hell am I supposed to say to her?"

"Well you could start with 'hello'. That is the commonly accepted form of introduction after all. This is the most you've said to anyone since she woke up. Fleur was starting to get worried that whatever you did removed the capacity for speech. I think she was only half joking about that," Shiva said.

Harry fixed her with an annoyed stare and turned back to his runes. "Thanks for the help, Shiva," he muttered irritably.

She scowled and leaned back into her chair with her arms crossed. "You think I know what to say? Since Andi and Pomfrey gave her a clean bill of health and left it's basically been brief splurges of conversation followed by the longest, most awkward silences of my life. I wish Hermione had been able to stay. Tonks is making things worse, Fleur is too worried about you and Lily is…well…Kid you're not the only one having a hard time here okay?" Shiva let out a groan and shook her head. "Look, Harry, try to see it from her perspective. As far as she's concerned yesterday you were a toddler who could barely string three words together and now you're a teenager, her husband is dead and she's lost a decade and half. This isn't easy on any of us, kid. You need to talk to your mother."

"I already have a mother," Harry whispered. His voice was so quiet that she almost didn't hear him – he obviously hadn't meant her to. She blinked and struggled to find something to say. Anything would really do for the moment. "Fine," he sighed loudly unknowingly saving her from her floundering. "Fine. Under one condition."

"Name it, kid."

"You stay in the room. I don't think I can do this being alone."

Shiva nodded. "If you're sure…Okay, Harry. Do you want me to ask Fleur and Tonks to leave?"

Harry frowned thinking hard. "I'd almost prefer Daphne to be here honestly. She'd just slap the back of my head and berate me for being a 'typical angst ridden boy'. The girls are going to hover which is just going to make this even harder…can you ask Fleur to go hang out with Hermione for a few hours? Tonks can stay. We might need some laughs at some point."

"Sure, Harry." Shiva stood and gave him a warm smile with a half grin. "If you're not out in the living room in ten minutes though I'm sending Dobby in to drag you out."

Lily Potter was sitting on the floor in Professor Bathsheda Babbling's living room surrounded by papers and notes. Her wand was stuck behind her right ear while a pen was behind her left. Another pen was clutched in her hand as she scribbled more notes and questions onto the list in front of her. Twisting slightly so she could look at the book just to her right, she crossed out the last line and replaced it with the correct information.

Trying to get the crash course on fourteen years worth of progress wasn't nearly as easy as fiction writers made it seem. She was still trying to decide whether or not it was a good thing that the wizarding world as a whole didn't seem to have changed much at all. The Muggles by contrast had taken leaps and bounds while the magicals just sat there and stagnated.

Nothing made any sense – and that could be laid squarely on her own shoulders. If she had bothered to take the time to tell someone other than James about her crazy, desperate, experimental idea then she wouldn't have been in this position to begin with. She should have told Sirius. No. That wouldn't have mattered anyway since apparently he'd been sent to Azkaban. She narrowed her eyes and her lips curled into a snarl as she turned to the left to examine another pile of notes. How had anyone believed that Sirius Black could betray James Potter? The idea was utterly absurd! She could understand Peter and Remus. Remus was a pity party consumed in self-hatred and a werewolf to boot – which already damned him in most eyes. Peter was…Lily sighed. She had never particularly liked Peter, but he really had been a very good friend to James in times past. How he could've jumped ship without even bothering to fight…

Lily uttered a sigh of frustration and blew a strand of hair out of her eyes as she shifted and looked at a different stack of items. Her son was hiding and refusing to speak with her. Her son. Her tiny little boy barely old enough to walk was not a little boy anymore. He was a teenager. A teenager apparently not in the custody of anyone she knew and trusted but under the guardianship of a Hogwarts professor barely older than he was! All because Petunia couldn't look past her jealousy! And because Albus Fucking Dumbledore had a bloody God Complex! When she saw that Headmaster she was going to wrap his white beard around his neck and strangle him with it! Fourteen years! It would have been better to just stay dead at this point!

At least she was still older than Harry. Not by much anymore, but it was something. Her potion/charm/rune combo had worked better than she'd ever anticipated and sent her into stasis while her soul was attached to Harry. This would be a hell of a lot simpler if it had just sent her into an enchanted sleep like it was supposed to. If it had, her body would've kept aging and…well actually it probably wouldn't have been better since Too Many Bloody Names had her buried without even reading the stupid wills so she'd probably have quietly died of dehydration or suffocation.

Still…to be almost 22 physically and mentally while her son was just about to turn 15…this was all kinds of wrong. At least Babbling was only about to be 23 so things weren't as awkward as they could have been. A 23 year old watching out for her teenage son…She would've met him when she was only 19…

"I got him to agree to come out," Babbling – Shiva! It was Shiva! – said as she walked back into the room rubbing her eyes. "Fleur, Harry asked if you could make sure Hermione was okay. If you end up needing any help with setting up the wards around her parents' house and work let me know. I'll probably be busy here for a bit, but we can always ask Bill to take a look. He's supposed to be in the country doing some local jobs. Just don't let Molly Weasley know he's around."

Lily looked up and cocked her head curiously at the Veela girl who gave a sad smile and moved forward to say something quietly to Babbling – Shiva. The French girl gave another nod and a happier smile before hugging the professor, kissing Tonks on the cheek and heading out the door of the flat. Lily suppressed another frustrated scowl. She refused to ask which of the three girls was dating her son. She'd always been observant and that was far too personal of a question to ask someone she barely knew. She'd have originally put good money on the brunette with curly hair but that girl – Hermione according to her notes – had gone home around midnight after her parents called which didn't quite seem like something her son's girlfriend would do in the middle of this crazy situation.

Her next bet had been Tonks, but then she did some math and realized that Tonks would actually only be only a few months younger than Lily herself. Maybe if they had grown up together originally that wouldn't have been much of an issue – especially in the magical world – though as it stood she didn't think it likely that Harry and the girl would have hooked up while he was still this young. Tonks at least had barely changed at all from the adorable little child she remembered. The metamorphmagus was still bubbly, still preferred pink hair and still cracked inappropriate jokes. She'd been a welcome distraction whenever Lily needed a short break from trying to piece together the missing decade and a half.

So Lily was now trying to see whether the French beauty was with Harry. It seemed likely. Not many people would stay over the house of a friend and try to make small talk with his newly re-embodied mother while said friend hid in the other room. Plus the girl had constantly been glancing in Harry's direction which lent further credence to her guess. The main problem there revolved around the overly affectionate way that Fleur had clung to both Tonks and Hermione.

This situation was just so…complicated.

Babbl – Shiva – laid a cup of tea in front of her and fell back, resting against the front of the couch. "You should probably drink something."

"I could use a real drink to be honest," Lily muttered nodding her thanks to the other woman. She took a sip and her eyes widened at the kick.

Shiva smirked. "Figured. Added a bit of rum. Sirius said you used to like that."

Lily smiled back. "Still do. Thanks."

"No problem. Got some in mine too. So…you really don't remember anything?"

"From the past decade I've been tied to Harry? No." Lily grimaced and drained half the tea. "Honestly, it's probably a good thing. You've only told me a quarter of the things that have happened to my son and I already want to find and murder half the people I know. Knew. Arg, this is so bloody strange! I don't even know what tenses to use!"

Bab – SHIVA! – nodded in sympathy. "Well at least you didn't have to hear my horrific attempts at explaining sex to the kid. You'd probably want to kill me too if you had."

Lily's eyebrows rose. "You had to give the Talk to Harry? Petunia didn't – no, of course not, she couldn't even give him a proper bedroom or food why would she bother explaining sex." Yet another thing to put on the To-Do List: ruin Petunia and Vernon's life while ensuring they knew exactly why it was happening. "When did you do that by the way?"

"Um, about three years ago? It was towards the beginning of his second year I think," Shiva said shrugging. "I was rather true to my last name at the time and by the end started well and truly babbling about stuff like anal, bondage and groups. It was…mortifying," she finished with a huge blush and a quiet voice.

Off to the side, Tonks started laughing uproariously as her hair flipped to a bright yellow. "I wondered why he asked about a safe word that first night!"

Lily could only blink and stare at Shiva not even registering what Tonks had said – which was probably a mercy. "You told my twelve year old child about groups during the Sex Talk?"

"Hey, I tried to tell him to go to Pomfrey to get it explained properly!" Shiva muttered. "I was 20. I wasn't exactly planning to have to figure out how to talk about that shite for another decade at least."

Lily groaned wiped a hand across her face grimacing. "Well at least you tried…I suppose I probably wouldn't have done much better either. That was going to be James' job," her brow furrowed and she had to blink away a tear.

"I'm sorry. About your husband," Shiva said softly reaching forward to squeeze Lily's knee.

"Thanks. It's alright," she said hurriedly. "It's just going to hurt for a while. I know to everyone else he died fourteen years ago, but to me it's only been a few nights. I'm going to miss him."

"Yeah. I'd be surprised if you didn't." The women fell into a quiet silence and Lily turned back to her papers. After a few minutes, the sound of footsteps started coming from behind her.

"Not kicking and screaming, Harry Potter Sir! Dobby would've tied up and gagged first to ensure that Great Master Harry Potter Sir does not injure himself as Dobby moves!" a high pitched squeaking voice sounded from the hallway followed by a loud groan.

"Dobby, new ground rule. If you are told to drag someone into a room, don't take it literally. Just pop in, grab them and pop back to wherever you are supposed to take them. And furthermore, only my partners and I can tie each other up. Okay?"

Lily whipped her head around and blinked in wonder at the house elf crossing his arms and huffing in annoyance. "Dobby thinks that Master Harry Potter is objecting too strongly, but Dobby will agree to new rules."

Shiva chortled merrily at the exchange and gave a small salute towards the newcomers. "Thanks for getting him, Dobby. Good to see you getting some air, kid. Tea is on the table. Grab a glass and find a seat."

Lily turned her attention to Harry standing awkwardly at the mouth of the hallway looking utterly lost and terrified. She could see so much of James in him, but his features were so much softer than her late husband. Rounder, livelier, more welcoming. His cheekbones were higher and his ears smaller. His eyes looked just like hers though.

"Err, hi…" Harry said hesitantly running a hand through his hair.

Lily smiled at him in as welcoming a fashion as she could while pushing all of her own panic and doubt to the side. "Hey."

Tonks winced as she watched Harry sit down on the couch across from where Lily had claimed the floor. At least he hadn't seemed to hear their previous conversation, but this was still going to be difficult. She almost got up to move next to him until a small shake of his head had her sitting back down in her armchair off to the side. Tonks wasn't as good at the nonverbal stuff as Hermione was, but she could take a hint. He needed her for moral support and possibly levity to shake things up if they got too serious too fast. She could do that. Probably. Hopefully.

Sure. She'd probably have better luck inviting Snape to a little girl's tea party.

Actually…if that girl was Lily…well that probably wasn't the best metaphor. Tonks snorted to herself and refocused on the conversation.

"I can't believe you're so big, Harry," Lily said softly smiling at him.

Harry ran a hand through his hair again. "Uh, yeah. You can thank Shiva for that. She got me on a good set of nutrient potions before I truly hit my growth spurt so I'm about how tall I should be." Tonks resisted an urge to slap a hand to her face at that.

"That wasn't really what I meant…" Lily said grimacing.

Harry's grimace matched his mother's. "Oh. Yeah, I guess not. So um, you're okay?"

Lily shrugged. "As well as I could be I suppose. Clean bill of health at least! Physically. I'm still trying to sort through a lot of the mental side of things. How are you, Harry? Are you…okay?"

He shrugged and Tonks couldn't really hide her grimace at that. That was his 'Sure, I'm fine. I just got caught in Spain's Running of the Bulls, but I'm fine. Just a few gore marks. They'll heal. No problems.' shrug. "I've been better. It's just a little overwhelming. Between Voldemort, Dumbledore and now you…it's been a long few weeks."

"I can imagine," Lily grunted.

Shiva leaned forward and tried to move the conversation ahead a bit. "So, Lily, you haven't really said just how you survived. Was it a rune thing? If it didn't work right Harry might be able to help with figuring out why. He's a rune savant by the way. I don't know if we mentioned that before…"

"A rune savant? Really?! That's amazing, Harry!" Lily gushed smiling.

Harry blushed a bit and mumbled, "It's not that special. I'm good with runes. Shiva and Bill are pretty good too."

Tonks couldn't stay quiet at that. She and the others had been working far too hard to break him of that annoying habit of putting himself down and not taking credit for things he deserved. "Don't let him fool you. Harry here has dozens of inventions and his own owl order store with plans to get a storefront property next to Fred and George Weasley's joke shop. These earrings were invented by him and modeled after Muggle mobiles. Plus he figured out how to use runes to kill Dementors!"

Harry blushed even harder and muttered something under his breath. Louder he said, "Okay, so I've done some cool stuff. I did also blow up a troll's head with my first invention." Lily's just gaped at him. "It wasn't intentional!" he hurried to say. "I just thought it would daze it for a bit, but the Extravagance Rune Show was a lot more…explosive while it was still incomplete…"

Shiva snorted. "That's one way of putting it. That's actually how he met me. I offered some advice afterwards and taught him some basic safety measures. Thankfully nothing else has blown up that wasn't expected/designed to since then."

"Mostly," Harry said nodding.

" 'Mostly'?" Shiva said in a low, dangerous tone. "Kiiiddd…"

Harry shook his head and held up his hands to ward her off. "It's nothing! I swear! I exploded a tree by accident when I was testing the Yamato Cannon that's it!" Shiva just groaned and shook her head in exasperation.

"Harry, if you blow up your house I'm letting Hermione deal with you," Tonks said laughing. He shuddered at that.

Lily just looked between the three before cracking a small smile. "I think I'm going to need more details about this later. And also about how an 11 year old ran into a troll. For the moment though, you asked about how I survived?" She swept a hand through her hair sending her pen clattering to the floor while her wand stayed put behind her ear. "I tinkered around a bit when I first found out about magic. I really enjoyed Potions, Charms and Ancient Runes. I excelled with the first two though I was rather bad with Runes…I studied and got better, but it's never really going to be my strong suit."

Harry nodded. "I found your notebooks on those. Aunt Petunia had them in a trunk in the attic along with the necklace." Harry clutching briefly at his shirt where the necklace lay before continuing, "I found your introductions to each of them hilarious by the way."

Lily frowned for a moment before her eyes widened at the memory and laughed. "Oh, I forgot about those! Do you still have them? I could show you the areas I combined to make this," she said gesturing to herself, "work."

"No, sorry, Hermione has the one with Charms, Fleur is borrowing the Runes one to help her learn warding and Daphne has been copying some of the Potions book. She was putting together a book with some of the stuff you came up with and adding it to her own work…I could ask her to stop," he offered.

Lily shrugged. "No, don't. I'd like to coauthor it actually if she'd be willing. Have I met Daphne yet?"

Shiva waved her hand in a so-so gesture. "Sorta. She was in the graveyard, but she left with most of the others. She's over here pretty regularly though and when we move into the manor she wants to see the basilisk skeleton so I imagine you can meet her in a day or two."

"I'm sorry, I misheard that. Did you say basilisk skeleton?" Lily asked her eyes wide.

Tonks grinned nodded towards Harry. "Yup, she did. Wonder Boy here killed Salazar Slytherin's thousand year old basilisk with a sword through the skull. Pretty impressive for a twelve year old, huh?"

"Damn near gave me a heart attack after that one," Shiva muttered.

Harry just shrugged. "It attacked Hermione. It had it coming. Daphne helped a lot too."

Lily again looked between all of them incredulously. Finally deciding they weren't having her on she drained her cup dry. "I really am not going to enjoy going over your school years am I?"

"Yeah, not likely," Shiva said laughing. She grabbed Lily's cup and stood to get her a refill. "It's become sort of a running joke that the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher is going to try and kill Harry at some point, generally towards the end of the school year. We're currently three for four. Thanks, Dobby." Shiva sat back down and passed the refilled mug over to a thoroughly shocked Lily.

"Three for four murder attempts?!" Lily asked with her mouth hanging open and her hand shaking slightly.

Harry shrugged. "Well as far I know Remus never tried to kill me. You know I'm almost disappointed that he never turned while around me because then I could claim I had the full set…" Tonks had to bite down on her hand to prevent herself from falling off her chair at that comment.

"Remus? He taught at Hogwarts?"

"Yeah, he was pretty good too. The only one who's come close has been a Death Eater."

Lily gaped for a moment before draining her drink again and muttering, "I am going to slaughter Albus Dumbledore. I am going to rip out his spleen and feed it to him then strangle him with his own beard while cutting his bollocks off…"

"Lily, we'll be sure to take you with us when we go visit him in a few months," Shiva said patting the other woman's knee. "You were saying something about combining things?"

"Right," Lily said groaning and shifting to grab a few papers and laid them out in a line on the floor. Everyone shifted a bit to see it better. "This was what I meant. I created a few new linking charms layered into a potion brew to help it bind with a person's magic. The necklace was in the cauldron during that process to help tie it into the procedure. Then I infused the same set of charms into two anchoring runes, one on each person: the target and the caster – Harry and me. Upon my soul separating from my body, it would be channeled through a rune on the linked necklace that would help bind me to Harry temporarily. The idea was that if my body was left intact and mostly unharmed then I'd be sent into an enchanted deep sleep. All my bodily functions would've dropped so low as to be effectively dead though I would still register as alive to any diagnostic charms. We thought that they could repair any physical damage and then follow the instructions in James' will to have you touch me with the channeling rune and I'd be transferred back over. James kept going on about how I was 'breaking the accepted natural laws of magic left and right' but I didn't pay any attention to it. The Muggle upbringing probably helped there…" she said shrugging.

Tonks raised her hand. "So for the non-academic in the room, what does that mean?"

Lily pointed to Harry's scar. "Basically, Harry's scar served to anchor my soul to him when I died. I was the one who cut the mark into his forehead," she said wincing and wringing her hands briefly. "I'm really sorry about that, Harry…It seemed better to do it on your forehead where it would bleed, but only be superficial rather on your chest or something where I might have actually injured you by accident…I knew it was only a matter of time before we were found and I was rather desperate. I thought, if I could anchor my soul to you while still having a tie to my own body, I'd serve as a…buffer for lack of a better word. It had the wonderful theoretical side effect of rebounding the specific magical signature that had forced me from my body if cast at the same power level or above."

Harry's eyes narrowed as he worked through that explanation while Shiva gasped. "Holy shite…you mean if Voldemort had killed you with a simple piercing spell than anything he sent at Harry stronger than that spell would've rebounded?"

Lilly nodded. "Yes. I was hoping he'd use something that small though I can't say I'm surprised he went for a Killing Curse. Unfortunately, it's a huge power hog so the protection didn't do too much after the first shot. Honestly, it probably worked out for the best. I'm really not sure if my procedure would have actually worked on anything else now that I think about it…"

"Actually it wasn't totally useless after that night. It let me burn him when I touched him First Year," Harry commented. "At least it did until he resurrected properly using my blood. That's weird though…it should've still hurt him going by that…"

Lily frowned. "Yes, it should have still hurt him. The protection was tied into your body through my soul not through blood…"

"Maybe it's because he touched your forehead, Harry?" Tonks said shrugging. That's where the soul shard is mostly concentrated after all. Maybe Lily wasn't able to reach that high after she had bound to you?"

"Makes sense I suppose," Shiva said nodding.

"Soul shard? What soul shard?" Lily asked confused.

Harry looked distinctly uncomfortable. "Can we talk about it later?" Lily looked at him for a few more moments before reluctantly nodding. "Thanks. You were saying that you anchored it to me using my scar? Is that why it looks like a protection rune?"

"Well," Lily said, "it's a Protection twined through a Soul variant and reflected back through a Channeling rune. The Channeling twin is inscribed on the necklace while my Transference one is on my chest above the heart."

Harry frowned. "Necklace?" He pulled out his chain and started looking at the design. "Where?" Lily reached up, flipped it over and held it back towards him pointing at the interlocking letters. Harry's mouth dropped open. "I've worn this since I was ten! How the bloody hell did I miss that!?"

"No one's perfect, Wonder Boy," Tonks said leaning back with a fond shake of her head.

Harry groaned leaning back. "I feel like an idiot for missing that…Do you think this is something we can modify to work without needing someone to sacrifice their life?"

Lily shook her head emphatically. "No. That was a key part of the charm. There's no way to get around that component. Trust me. James…well he got rather…angry about that. He started claiming I was suicidal and only interested in being a martyr when we should be coming up with better ways to fight." She sighed deeply. "We fought a lot in the last year because of it. So no, Harry, I don't think this is something that should be looked into large scale. If I die before you again though, it should reactivate."

Harry, Tonks and Shiva all glared at her. "That," Harry said in a soft voice layered with pain and worry, "is never going to be Plan A."

"Or involved with any plan," Shiva agreed. "Let's take a break guys. We could all use some food I think."

After they had finished lunch, the four returned to the living room with Lily abandoning her nest of papers, books and news articles and moving to sit on the couch instead. Harry and Tonks took the love seat while Shiva perched on the armchair. Lily's brow furrowed for a moment as Tonks' arm draped over Harry's shoulder, but resolved that it was a far less important mystery than anything else going on today. "So, Harry, can you tell me about some of your inventions? Tonks mentioned something about killing Dementors? I didn't that was possible except for locking them up inside a sealed room and just starving them."

Harry's brow furrowed and he let out a small chuckle. "Never thought of that method. I guess that should work if they're actually getting nourishment from us." He shook his head and gave a small wry grin. "My method is a lot different. I actually know of two ways to directly kill them and have done both. The first is somewhat mundane. Stab them with the Sword of Gryffindor. I don't know if that was something innate to the sword, a product of the basilisk venom it's been infused with or if it was just something it's picked up through the centuries but it works like a charm."

Lily blinked. She might as well have just brought the bottle of rum over the rate this day was going. His inventions were supposed to be a safe topic…"You killed a Dementor…with a sword. The sword of Godric Gryffindor?"

Harry just nodded. "Yeah. Well, in fairness, the Dementor was trying to eat my soul at the time. And the second one was trying to eat Hermione's soul so I stabbed it too."

"What am I, chopped liver?" Tonks said with a hand over her heart and face morphing into an exaggerated doe-eyed expression.

"Nym, I didn't save you until after the time jump, remember? That was when we found out that the Silver Spirit kills Dementors too. Only the ones over me and Hermione got the sword." Harry just shook his head in exasperation at the girl.

"Well excuse me for being unconscious for the good bits," Tonks said chortling. "I still need to see that memory by the way. My hero saving my soul would be priceless to watch."

Lily couldn't stay quiet any longer. "Excuse me, I'm starting to feel like a broken record here, but what the hell are you talking about?!"

Harry sighed and considered that. "Dementors mobbed the school when Sirius showed up after escaping Azkaban. Long story short, the core group was caught outside and almost got all of our souls eaten. I panicked, killed a few with the Sword hijacked Hermione's Time Turner and came back to help out refreshed and with a newly finished rune cluster that sent them running for the hills."

That explanation was not remotely sufficient. Lily had opened her mouth to say as such before Shiva beat her to it. "Don't worry about the details. I'll explain later. Harry, tell her about your Silver Spirit."

Harry nodded agreeably. "It's basically just a runic equivalent of a Patronus. Sorta. Partially. Okay not quite. We're not exactly sure just what it is though I can tell you for sure that it has a tiny little piece of the caster imbued within it while it's active. Hurts like freaking hell if it gets forcibly dispelled or absorbed." A quick shudder passed through him before he centered himself again and continued. "Basically I used a Soul rune to link it to the caster so it's a bit weird. We sell them in Potter Runes and the Aurors got a huge discount on them. Amelia says they're required for all Azkaban guards now. Anytime one's active, the Dementors stick far away."

"Right," Lily nodded. Sure, like this made any sense at all. "Any other interesting inventions?" He had to have something that didn't sound like it broke any laws of nature. Not that she was one to talk there…

Harry's face scrunched up for a moment before smiling and holding up his right hand. The pillow next to her flew toward his hand a moment later. Lily's mouth fell open. "You can silently cast before Fifth Year!"

"Well, yeah…a few spells at least. I had to get some intensive training for the Tournament last year," Harry said rubbing a hand through his hair. "That wasn't what I did though. Look!" He held his hand up palm towards her and Lily gazed in confusion at what appeared to be a tattoo on his hand. Wait…

"You have a runic tattoo?" she gasped. "Do you know how dangerous that is?!"

Harry nodded while Shiva groaned. "Yeah. This is just a summoner though. Super simple and it was just the proof of concept one. Daphne's the one who gave me most of them though Shiva has watched over us while we added the rest. I needed the leg up to stay alive. I've only had two problems with them and both were because I was an idiot. Don't ever try to channel while transformed. Bad idea."

Lily slowly counted to ten before giving up. She went to get the rum bottle and returned to her seat. Chuckles quickly came from Tonks while Shiva saluted her. "You lasted longer than I expected," the older woman said in understanding. "This is the easy stuff too." Lily just grimaced at that and waved for Harry to continue.

"So, yeah. I have six tattoos. Seven if you count the windrunners, but those are only useful while I'm Midnight. The summoner you've seen, on the top of that hand I have a Boomstone one. It's like a Muggle boombox though I can increase the volume to extremely high levels. A localized silencing field wraps around the caster so it doesn't affect me. Works kinda like a depth charge underwater and apparently it scares Voldemort since it was the only one he took the time to damage," Harry said gazing down at his hand. A small shrug and he continued on. "My left hand has a Lockpick on the top which is a super version of an alohomora spell and works on almost anything though it does take some time depending on the complexity of the lock. The palm has a Knockback which is basically a scalable bludgeoner."

Harry paused and winced a little as he held up his arms to the side bringing the forearms close but not touching. Tonks visibly squeezed him a bit tighter. "This one wasn't quite my idea, but I'm almost certain I would have come up with it eventually. I call it the Lava Bomb and it's pretty powerful but also dangerous. I can't shut it off once it's active so that's why it's in two pieces. I'm sure it has something to do with an aftereffect of the chimera contamination, but the tattoo does seem to hold whatever the problem was at bay so I'm not really looking into it. I have a lot of other things to prioritize first."

"Chimera contamination, lava…You are certainly your father's son…" Lily grunted. "I'm rather impressed though all the same. What were the last two?"

Harry lifted his shirt to expose a bit of his side and pointed to a small tattoo there. "The Dementor Anchor is the really important one. Shiva finished the design actually. It keeps the bearer from being affected by a Dementor's Kiss and it should also protect them from the soul eating aspect of my sword. So we need to get that tattoo on you within a day or two max."

Lily barely had time to process that before Tonks lightly smacked the back of Harry's head. "Bad Harry. No tattooing anyone until they understand why."

"But – "

"No, Wonder Boy. We humored your paranoia while at school with that one. You can wait a week for Lily to settle in and actually understand before immediately going for the magic ink."

Harry scowled but huffed out a muttered agreement. Lily looked to Shiva for help. The professor snorted and shook her head. "Kid's scared to death his demon sword is going to eat the soul of someone he likes by accident. Honestly I'm more worried about the basilisk venom at this point."

"Anyway," Harry said, "the last one is on my feet. It's basically just a small concussive wave that helps me jump higher and farther as Midnight. I have a lot of other actual rune stones too." Harry smiled and started rapidly listing off several of his products. "Some are prank rune stones that disintegrate after one use. Others last longer. I have a rune that works like a fishing pole though I guess it can be used to imitate Spider-Man too funnily enough. I have another that was designed to help prevent poisoning in potion labs by switching your lungs' contents with clean air, but that one works fantastic for diving also. I have some simple ones just for fun which let you change your hair color. The metahair was actually based off Nym. The freezer is really useful for non-lethal take-downs since it shoots out water that immediately freezes. Can't be used for long though without disintegrating. The reflector lenses on my glasses reflect any spells directed at them. I had robes that did the same, but I'm never speaking about those again."

His eyes lit up and his grin widened even further. "Actually, I just finished designing a different version of those that work using a protego base instead! It still doesn't project past the actual robes but I think I worked out some of the issues with the cloth channeling. They still won't hold up under concentrated fire though I got it to the point where it's just the outer layer that should disintegrate instead of the whole thing. I think the Armor Robes will be a vast improvement over the twins' idea for Shield Hats. I'm also working on a pretty cool thing called the War Gauntlets."

Shiva sat up straighter and opened her mouth to say something. Harry though waved her off and kept going. "Don't worry, Shiva. It's a lot less impressive than it sounds and I haven't even tried to make the prototype yet since it's not complete. I'm combining ideas I got from making the tracekey and the Yamato Cannon into one thing. When it's done, it's going to basically be a super channeler! I'm going to make it into a set of bracers connected behind the back. Any magic that hits one end will be channeled through the design and get emitted out of the other bracer! Defensive and offensive in one! Hence, War Gauntlets," Harry said finishing proudly.

"Huh," Tonks said cocking her head to the side. "That sounds right useful, Harry."

"Right? It'll be so cool! I just need to figure out a few issues. It still has a similar problem to the tracekey but this time it looks like it might bleed magic throughout the channel which would suck. Burns when utilizing it wouldn't be fun at all. So I need to iron things out before I start actually producing it."

Lily couldn't help the huge grin from spreading across her face. "You really do love this topic don't you, Harry?"

He nodded. "I get runes. They're a lot simpler than people – or really anything else – in most ways. It's relaxing and fun. I've gotten a lot better with a wand the past year and a half thanks to Hermione, McGonagall and Flitwick, but runes are always going to be my first thought for things."

"That's wonderful, Harry. I'm really glad you found something you enjoy."

Shiva nodded in agreement. "Yeah, me too. So, not to be a downer or anything, but we should probably figure out what we're going to tell the public about you, Lily. 'I experimented with things using questionable magical combinations' probably isn't the best way to put it considering the current climate."

Harry winced. "Can't we get Fudge fired yet?"

Tonks and Shiva both sadly shook their heads while Lily just looked confused. "Fudge?"

"The Minister for Magic," Tonks said with a sigh. "He's an arse only interested in his chequebook and who is filling his pockets. Plus he's an idiot, a coward and he constantly jumps for the simple, immediate solution instead of actually figuring out the problem and how to fix it. He's on the decline now though at least. A few countries are up in arms about how he handled the farce of a Triwizard Tournament and the Umbitch's repeated murder attempts haven't helped since she was his direct underling. Sadly, the arse still has enough backroom supporters that we can't carry a vote of no-confidence yet. Public reactions are helping us though so while we can't get him kicked out we can at least wring some concessions out of him. The Auror department got a huge budget jump finally, thank god."

"Oh he sounds like so much fun," Lily scowled. Some things never changed. Politics was always rotten to the core. "I agree we probably shouldn't mention exactly what I did. Perhaps we could twist things a bit and just have it as I was in a deep magical stasis while augmenting Harry's natural protections? It's mostly true after all."

Shiva nodded. "I like that. Plus we could say that with the Tournament ended he came to pay respects to you as detailed in his father's will which is also mostly true since that was the original plan. We can even say his touch revived you and just avoid mentioning anything about souls and we should be golden."

Harry nodded. "Works for me. I'll ask Luna to write up an article for it. It can go out at the same time as her Voldemort one. With any luck, the mass questioning will be shifted more to things about him than you."

"Sounds like a plan!" Tonks agreed nodding enthusiastically.

Lily was trying to think of what else to ask when Harry winced and put a hand to his forehead. A few moments later he stood and stretched. "I'm a bit knackered. Think I'm going to go to bed a bit early. Have a nice night everyone."

"Harry," Shiva said quietly stopping him in his tracks. Tonks had already stood and quietly lowered the hand that had been reaching for his back at her words. Lily looked between the three in confusion waiting to see what the issue was. "Kid, what's wrong?"

Harry sighed and shook his head. "It's nothing. Just a headache."

"A headache or a headache?" Tonks asked.

"It just hurts okay," Harry said grimacing. "I had to throw up extra chains and walls, but my defenses are holding. I could see the bulge in the wall before I added the new stuff so while I can't see the door I can see the effects, which is good to know. If Riddle wants to burst his way into my head then he likely will be able to unfortunately, but I'm still pretty sure I can kick him back out relatively quickly. The Horcrux isn't a big deal. I'm just going to have to deal with a headache until we can figure out how to remove it."

"I may not know what a Horcrux is, but that doesn't sound like a minor issue," Lily said softly, uncertain of just what she was referring to.

Harry shrugged. "There's not much we can do about it short of pushing you in front of Voldemort's wand again which isn't happening. I can deal with some pain. I spent years dealing with Dudley and Vernon. This is nothing compared to them."

"We are getting that thing out of you, Harry," Tonks said reaching out and locking onto his arm.

"Yeah. Shiva, can you ask Bill to stop by the Manor tomorrow? When we first met he showed me something the Egyptians used in their tombs dealing with a soul absorption thing. It didn't work, but if I can figure out why then maybe I can modify it to get rid of my hitchhiker." Harry paused and ran a hand through his hair. "I really am tired though. I kinda stayed up…working all night…"

Shiva sighed and nodded. "Go get some sleep, kid. We'll get to the manor tomorrow and I'll have Bill meet us there with his diagram."

Harry smiled back at her and waved goodnight to everyone before heading off up the hallway. Lily watched Tonks exchange a glance with Shiva before bidding the remaining two women goodnight as well and heading for the back hallway.

Lily frowned and turned to Shiva. "Doesn't she have her own flat?"

Shiva laughed and nodded. "Yeah, but you'd never know it. She usually stayed with Sirius while she was helping him clean Grimmauld, but considering how last year went I wouldn't be surprised if she stays with us most nights now. I know you didn't get much sleep last night either. You can take my bed if you want. I'll kip on the couch."

Lily gave the other woman a resigned smile and shook her head. "I'm fine for the moment, thanks. I'd rather not sleep just yet. I feel like I've spent my entire life sleeping and I admit I'm a bit scared that if I go back to sleep then the next time I wake up Harry have will kids."

"I can imagine. Want more alcohol or do you want to start going over some of Harry's schooling in depth?" Shiva asked.

"Both?" Lily replied in a hopeful tone and slight glance towards the refrigerator.

"Both it is!"

Less than half an hour later, Lily needed a break. They had finished going over Harry's first year of school and she was fit to strangle someone. She didn't particularly care who at the moment either. Only the knowledge that her son was still alive and relatively well off a few rooms away kept her pacing the room instead. She would just go check on him for a moment. Just to make sure.

Begging a minute's break from the horror story that masqueraded as Harry Potter's life history, Lily quietly padded down the hall toward his room. She was halfway there when the flush of the loo sounded and Tonks walked into the hall covered only by an oversized t-shirt. The girl waved to Lily and stepped past her. It took a moment for Lily to register that Tonks had her hand on the door to Harry's room, but as soon as she did her eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared.

She stepped forward to snag the Tonks by the arm. "What do you think you are doing?" she said in a quiet, carefully controlled voice.

Tonks looked from Lily's arm to her face. Her eyebrows rose and she waved her free hand towards the door. "Going back to my boyfriend…Considered I'm only half dressed I would think that's rather obvious," Tonks said.

"Boyfriend?" Lily asked her control slipping somewhat. She leaned in to start questioning Tonks thoroughly when a hand fell onto her shoulder from behind and another one gently took her other hand and removed it from Tonks' arm.

"I got this, Tonks," Shiva murmured. "You go get back to Harry."

Tonks shrugged and headed into her son's room while Lily turned to Shiva snarling. "What the bloody hell?! She's – "

Shiva held up a hand and shook her head. "She's his girlfriend and will most likely be Lady Black in a few years. Come on, I'll jump ahead a bit."

Lily's lips stayed curled into an expression Severus would've been proud of, but she followed her host back to the living room. While Shiva whipped out her wand and cast a few privacy charms around the room Lily took to pacing behind the couch breathing hard. When Shiva was done she waved for Lily to ask her question. "What the hell!? He's barely fifteen! She's at least six years older than him! How can you possibly be okay with this? How can you let this happen?! She's taking advantage of him! He's just he just a child! He is not remotely old enough for her to be in his room half naked!" Lily finished her rant glaring.

Shiva shook her head and gave Lily a sad smile. "You haven't been there for his life. I'm sorry, but you don't get to go around berating Harry or his girlfriends until you've gotten a chance to get to know them. You may have given birth to him, but I'm the one who has been raising him for the past four years. So sit down, shut up and listen."

Lily was stopped and gaped at Shiva. This was the first time that the other woman had sounded remotely annoyed and it was enough to get Lily to calm down slightly. Once she had stopped turning over the issue of a barely clad, Tonks for half a second the rest of what Shiva had said sank in and Lily collapsed onto the couch with her head in her hands. "You're right…I don't have the right to say anything," she hiccupped out in a wavering voice. "Please though…help me to understand this? She's…so much older than him…"

"Only because he's still in school," Shiva said sighing. "Any other time period in their lives and you wouldn't give it a second glance. As it is, Tonks had a hell of time deciding this was acceptable." She paused and gathered her thoughts before continuing. "You're wrong on pretty much all accounts, Lily. To start with, Tonks and Harry met at the beginning of his second year at Hogwarts. She made a really shitty situation a heck of alot easier for him when he couldn't get onto the train platform and still massively distrusted anyone over seventeen not named Bathsheda. They've been friends since and he's basically the best thing to ever happen to her. Despite Harry having a hand in convincing her to quit the Aurors that statement includes professionally as well as romantically."

Lily's eyes widened at that revelation, but Shiva kept going before she could ask any questions. "He was the first one to actually take her or her skills seriously and she was the one he trusted to help him look up information about Sirius while everyone thought he was a murdering traitor out for blood. Tonks helped Harry and his friends prove that Sirius was innocent. Almost immediately afterward, he named Harry his Heir."

"His Heir?" Lily gasped. What was that man thinking?!

"Yeah, that was pretty much our reaction as well though Harry didn't get the implications until mid-summer."

Lily's face paled as she thought back over the three girls who had been surrounding Harry almost since she woke up. "Wait…he doesn't have a third title…does he?"

Shiva snorted. "No. Thank god. I doubt the kid could handle three official wives plus three official Consorts. Not that I know many men who could…"

"Then…he's also dating Fleur?"

"Yes," Shiva answered. "But Fleur is the Potter House Consort. Hermione is in line to be Mrs. Potter." Lily's mouth dropped open. "Yeah, crazy huh? It's not often we see multiple marriage these days. In case you're curious, Hermione was first. They've been practically inseparable since the troll incident," Shiva said with a small scowl at the memory of that disaster. "Hermione is actually part of the reason why Tonks and Harry started dating. Girl made a legit list of people she thought would be suitable for his second wife. Three lists actually. Tonks made the top of one of them."

"Lists…of wives…"

Shiva laughed. "Welcome to Hermione's mind. When something is causing a problem, make a list on how to fix it. Girl's amazing and utterly brilliant, but she can be a bit awkward socially. Anyway, Tonks was against it for a while. Everyone could see she had some feelings for Harry, but she was really good at ignoring them. Like you said, the age difference is a bit of problem when one partner has only just hit puberty a few months previous."

"Then why?" Lily asked glanced back down the hall.

"They have a lot in common. Like him, Tonks has had issues with both peers and authority figures. She's been taken advantage of most of her life because of her metamorph powers. Harry was one of the first people outside her family to not care about her abilities and to blatantly state as much. He's only ever cared about how she felt not what she could do. Harry's…not a child, Lily. He may be young, but he's not a child. Your dear sister and her family saw to that quite well. Between the Dursleys and the shite he's dealt with at Hogwarts, Harry's practically more an adult than most of the people I work with. He's certainly more mature than Snape and Filch."

Lily couldn't help the snort of amused agreement at that. "If Severus is half as bad as you've described I can believe it. Still though…"

Shiva nodded. "Something had to give right? It did. Last year, Harry was entered against his will into the Triwizard Tournament. We'll get to the full details later, but for the moment, just know that most of us assumed it was a polite death sentence. So he called Tonks, asked her for help as a former Auror to come and train him. He…very nearly died in the first Task." Shiva shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself for a moment. Lily let out a sympathetic sigh and moved closer to hug the woman briefly.

Once Shiva had gotten herself back under control she smiled her thanks at Lily and continued. "After that Tonks gave up trying to ignore how she felt. Harry and Hermione had already offered to start dating her over the summer and she decided to take them up on that offer. They've been going pretty strong since then. That was about eight or nine months ago. Luna managed to spin an article in the Quibbler about how Tonks was actually upholding Pureblood values by dating Harry and they were both strengthening an Ancient House. It was pretty impressive actually. Got the entire public back on their side instead of vilifying her. They haven't had many issues since then. Actually, as far as I know, Tonks has fought with him less than Hermione."

Lily considered that information and very slowly nodded. "And Fleur?"

Shiva grimaced. "Different story. We went to the Quidditch World Cup last summer. A riot broke out afterwards and Harry and Hermione helped to save her from being raped and possibly killed. Fleur's part Veela and neither were greatly affected by her Allure. Fleur was part of the team that came over for the Tournament from Beauxbatons and they grew from friendly acquaintances to real friends during the year. Fleur's flirted with them most of the year seeing a lot of similarities between her history and Harry and Hermione. She's similar to Tonks that way. Very few real friends due to her nature and abilities and the teens were some of the first to treat her as more than a potential sex toy."

Shiva leaned back and wiped a hand across her face. "Nothing happened as far as I know until after Fleur's sister was used as a hostage in one of the last few Tasks. The girl nearly died and Fleur was almost murdered by one of the Mermen shortly before."

"Mermen? Against Veela?" Lily asked her eyes wide.

"Yeah, that was our reaction as well. Harry saved both their lives – he literally brought Fleur back from the brink. They accepted her into the relationship afterwards. Harry isn't a typical kid. He's…special," Shiva said floundering for an appropriate word. "He could have anyone he wanted, but he's only made any sort of connection with people he well and truly cares about. Lily, Harry isn't being taken advantage of. He isn't being seduced – actually scratch that, he is being seduced. Fleur is a bit of a minx. But it's not happening any faster than all of them are comfortable with and I'm pretty sure they haven't gone all the way yet. At least I hope not. I think Tonks and Fleur both wanted to wait until he was at least fifteen but I try to make it a point not to ask too much about that aspect of the relationship. All four know the contraception charm which was as far as I was willing to get involved. It helps a lot that this thing isn't a harem. We joke about it, but it's really not. All of them are dating each other as much as Harry. If you listen you'll notice they're all very careful to use the term 'partners' most of the time."

Lily leaned back with a deep sigh. She summoned the alcohol bottle from the table and took a long pull. "I'm going to end up being an alcoholic before we're done catching me up," she mumbled.

"Probably. I know Harry's almost caused that reaction in Minerva already so you won't be alone!"

"He's made Minnie drink?" Lily gasped twisting to stare at the woman beside her. "At least now I don't feel so bad. Wow."

"Yeah. That's Harry for you." Shiva smiled and shook her head. "So…Second Year?"

Harry draped an arm around Tonks as she slid back into bed and shifted so he was laying his head on her chest. She smiled and started running one hand idly up and down his back. "Feeling better, Harry?" he heard her ask softly.

"A bit," he replied. "It's just really overwhelming. I don't even know what call her…I can't keep using 'you'…"

Tonks shrugged as best she could. "Well obviously I'm sure she'd love for you to call her 'mum' but I know that'd probably make you uncomfortable for the moment. Maybe stick to 'Lily'? It's a bit weird to call your mother by her first name but…"

"I already a have mum though," Harry said so quietly that Tonks barely heard him.

Her grin widened as she squeezed him. "You do, Harry. Now you have two. You should tell Shiva that by the way. She's probably worried that you're going to leave now that Lily's back in your life."

He shook his head and held her. "It's not going to happen. I'm not leaving anyone I care about."

"Good," Tonks replied. "Harry? Are you seriously okay? You've been backsliding a bit lately."

"What do you mean, backsliding?"

She peered down at him and her hair flipped through several colors before she figured out how to best put it. "You've been more indrawn and less confident. You're acting more like when I first met you. You only started to perk back up again when you started describing your newer ideas and your tattoos. I just want to make sure that you don't start retreating into yourself, Wonder Boy. We've put a lot of work into getting you confident and proud and I'm not about to let you start going all teenage angsty on me now."

Harry chuckled at her teenage angst comment. He considered what she was saying before letting out a small sigh. "Sorry. I didn't mean to start withdrawing. It just something I learned from the Dursleys and it's a hard habit to break when a lot of stuff comes flying at me all at once. Between Voldemort, the prophecy, the Horcrux and now…Lily, it just all got a bit much."

"I understand Harry. We all do. I spoke with Hermione and Fleur during lunch. They're worried too."

He nodded and laid his head back down. "I'll call them and invite them to stay at the manor tomorrow night. You can all proceed to thoroughly remind me of just why I am one of the luckiest men in the country and why I should definitely not be descending into 'teenage angst' on you."

Tonks laughed and shifted a hand to briefly squeeze his bum eliciting an amused grunt from Harry. "Damn, right we will, Wonder Boy. Damn right we will."