Pet Peeve: Every-freaking-one venerates Lily and James Potter as if they would have been the absolute best of parents, the most wonderful people in the world, were more mature than most grandparents with the patience of saints, had the magical ability of Merlin, and the kind hearts of everyone's favorite uncle who brings pockets full of candy to the kids.964Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz45Q0nn6O4
Newsflash: They were human! Therefore not perfect! And actually, as young of parents as they were, they probably would have made a freaking ton of mistakes.
July 15th, 1995. Dursley Residence, Little Whinging, England.
The doorbell sounded. Fourteen year old Harry sighed, and rolled off the lumpy mattress in Dudley's second bedroom and padded downstairs, yawning hugely. The Dursleys were gone to one of precious ickle Dudder's boxing matches, and Harry had been left under strict orders to not miss a parcel delivery that was due around three o'clock in the afternoon. Harry's lip curled in disgust as he thought of the third new Gameboy in a month that was being ordered for Dudley. He was incredibly hard on his things, and even harder on the electronic ones.
"D'ya think they're not home, or they're hiding from us?" came a faint man's voice from just outside the door. The doorbell sounded again, and then took on a chaotic, repeating quality that suggested the ringer had grown impatient and was attempting to will the residents to answer by annoying them with the staccato, shrill whistle.
"I'm coming!" Harry shouted at the door, swiping uselessly at his unruly hair, and yanked the door open just as an equally annoying, staccato knocking began on it. A stocky, black haired man fell through as his knock failed to connect and caught himself on Harry's shoulder bare shoulder, who had forgotten to put on a shirt that morning.
"Do you mind…?" Harry began, then trailed off in shock as the man pulled himself back to his feet and met Harry's eyes. Harry traced every corner and angle of the man's face and took a step back in shock.
"…Dad?" Harry whispered.
A slim, red-headed figure stepped out from behind the man, with huge green eyes welling up with tears as she stared at the Harry. The boy in question staggered another step back, eyes flicking back and forth between the two figures as every conceivable emotion flashed across his face.
"…Mum?"
Harry blinked, and slammed the door in their faces. Immediately, the two outside could hear the sounds of weeping from the inside of the house.
One Day Earlier. Monte Carlo Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas, USA
Beep, beep. Beep, beep. Beep, beep.
James Potter flailed wildly from underneath the covers for the offending alarm clock, barely missing smacking Lily Potter nee Evans as he did so.
"gerrof, James!" she grumbled, and pushed him away sleepily. James realized just too late that he was closer to the edge of the bed than he had realized. With a yell, he fell off the mattress and hit the rug below with a thump. He groaned miserably and clutched at his head and hip alternately.
"Ow, I'm bruised. Ow! My head!" he complained and sat up and peered at Lily miserably. "I'm so hungover." he more whimpered than stated. Lily sat up, wrapped in the sheet and turned on the lamp. Both of them winced at the light. It was past ten in the morning, but the heavy curtains drawn over the windows had kept their room in complete gloom.
"Merlin!" Lily swore under her breath. "I swear that the sun is out to get me. It does this stupid thing where it rises and wakes me up every day." James climbed back onto the bed and turned adoring eyes onto his wife.
"You're so beautiful." he mused. Lily smirked.
"And talented. I won us fifty thousand galleons last night at the card table." James grinned.
"Those poor suckers never knew what hit them. " James grinned as Lily pushed him onto his back and swung a leg over his chest and sat straddling him.
"Wizardborn have horrible poker faces." she mused. James stared up at her, mesmerized by her wide, vivid eyes, and more importantly, the two unencumbered breasts swinging over his face.
"You're so beautiful." he repeated.
"Damn straight!" Lily hopped nimbly off the bed, and then staggered into the wall, clutching her head and moaning. "Jaaaames, where are the hangover potions? My head is splitting." James waved a hand feebly towards their trunks, both of which were open and overflowing with their assorted belongings, all in various states of unwash. Lily eyed the trunks distrustfully.
"Last time I went looking for a hangover potion in your trunk a boggart jumped out in a guise of old Sluggie and roared at me that I'd already used up the entire world's supply of hangover potion." she said, shuddering slightly at the memory and taking a step away from the offending trunk. "I barely got off a Riddikulus in time, and although Slughorn looked hilarious in Minerva's tartan, the memory's still enough to give me shivers." she turned imploring eyes on her husband who sighed heavily and dragged himself out of the bed and over to his trunk. James riffled through, nearly falling into the magically expanded space inside, and eventually stuck one arm out behind him, waving a vial full of light green liquid. Lily grabbed it and knocked it back in one shot.
"Ahhhh," she sighed happily, natural color beginning to return to her face as the potion took effect. She reached out, grabbed James's still waving arm, and yanked him out of the trunk. He emerged, red faced and panting with a pixie hanging onto his eyebrow. It switched to holding a lock of unruly hair and swung around a la rope swing, cackling wildly. James yanked it off, along with its lock of hair, and threw it against the wall, where Lily caught it with a Banishing charm. The shrieking little thing vanished with a pop just before it splattered across the blue paint.
Lily smirked and playfully pretended to blow nonexistent smoke off the tip of her wand and turned to her potion-guzzling spouse.
"Which casino shall we hit tonight?" she asked him, eyes already gleaming at the thought of fleecing yet another batch of unwary muggle and wizard gamblers. James shrugged.
"Y'know, we should probably think about heading back to England soon. The babysitters are probably pretty sick of polyjuice by now; not to mention they're probably close to running out. We only left them a few weeks' worth."
Lily frowned contemplatively. "That's true…" she mused. "And we haven't exactly been keeping track of time. First thing, we should probably check up on the news. Pretty!"
A pop sounded and a tiny elf in a pink dress with a beruffled and bow covered yellow apron appeared in front of her. "Mistress Lily! How can Pretty be serving the lady today?" the elf squeaked, beaming.
Lily smiled. "Hello, Pretty." she greeted the diminutive servant. "Could you fetch us today's Daily Prophet, please?" the elf bowed and disappeared with another small displacement of air. Lily yawned and wandered into the bathroom; and climbed into the shower. James smiled and contemplated dragging himself off the floor, raised his head to start the attempt, and promptly decided to put it off for several more minutes. His vision was still swirling rather uncomfortably from the combination of far too many Peach Schnapps the night before, and days' worth of lack of water in favor of copious alcohol.
The tell tale house elf popping sound heralded the elf's return just as James had staggered to his feet. He bent, wincing at the rushing of blood in his head to take the newspaper from Pretty, but she danced in place, looking nervous, and he missed it on his first swipe.
"Pretty, what's wrong?" he asked, and the elf looked even more apprehensive.
"Pretty thinks Master and Mistress will be displeased by the reporting today…" she trailed off and raised her huge, light brown eyes to meet his. James sighed and patted her on the head.
"I'm sure we'll manage. Thank you for the paper. You're dismissed." Pretty gulped, nodded, and popped away. James groaned and lowered himself into the nearest chair, and opened the paper.
At the Dursleys'
Harry slammed the door and stared, wide-eyed at it. Thoughts raced through his mind tumultuously. Hope warred with the cold, certain knowledge that his parents had died, with even his pale, dementor-inspired memories of his mother falling to a flash of green light reminded him that this was impossible: his parents were dead. These people were some kind of imposters. He took a deep shuddering breath in, and realised as he did so that he had been weeping.
Harry turned and staggered into the kitchen and grabbed the telephone, dialing Herminone's number from memory, surprising himself vaguely at the feat. She answered on the second ring.
"Granger residence, Hermione speaking. The Doctors are both out, may I take a message?" Harry found his spirits cheered just by the classically-Hermione-ish spiel.
"Hi," he began, "it's Harry. Say, I have a question that I've been wondering about for awhile, and thought I'd ask you while the Dursleys were out." There was a slight pause on the other end and he waited for Hermione to process this. Harry never called; he was aware that she'd be running through his motives and calculating the odds that he was actually safe and not calling to be rescued.
"Um, sure, Harry." she finally responded. "What was your question?" Harry sat down on the floor and twirled the phone cord around his finger.
"Oh, I was thinking about Polyjuice and other methods of disguise. Does polyjuice work if you use a hair from someone who's deceased? And are very many people capable of safely transfiguring their features to impersonate someone else?" Hermione answered immediately, a cheerful lilt to her voice as she got to answer a set of very interestingly complex questions.
"Technically it is possible to polyjuice into a deceased person," she began "although it depends on the state of the corpse, how it was killed, and how decomposed it was. If a person was hit by the killing curse, for example, and had no damage on them, it would be safe to polyjuice into them for up to an hour post-mortem, and slightly longer if the body is immediately frozen or submerged in cold water. After that time period, the cellular breakdown will have reached a point where polyjuicing into that person will cause damage, or even death." Here she finally paused for breath. Harry was once again impressed by just how long Hermione could talk on one lung full of air. He wondered if it was an intellectual thing; Flitwick could, and often did, apparently lecture for half an hour on subjects that particularly excited him, without seeming to inhale once. McGonagall could do the same when lecturing rule breakers.
"Transfiguring your facial features is somewhat difficult. People have an innate mental block against damaging themselves: it's why we practice transfiguring one another in class rather than ourselves, and also partially why the Animagus transformation is so difficult. We all innately fear causing irreparable damage to ourselves, and especially our faces, and so it's rare that people Transfigure themselves as a disguise. Another person can do it, of course, although if you're trying to copy a specific person it's highly unlikely that they'll get all the features correct. Usually it's the nose that they get wrong."
Harry once again felt his mind jump into overdrive, going over his so-called parents' features. "Thanks, Hermione." he heard himself say absently. "That about covers what I was curious about."
"Anytime, Harry!" Hermione cheered. "And I have a fascinating book on the subject of mental blocks against greater magical proficiency if you'd like to borrow it."
"Er, not right now, thanks. I have to finish chores before the Dursleys get back now." He could practically hear her nodding and scowling at the thought of the Dursleys, who she despised possibly more than Harry did.
"Good luck, stay safe." she cautioned.
"You too." he set the phone on the receiver and walked back to the door and rested his forehead against it, unaware that on the other side, James was doing the same thing.
Monte Carlo Hotel, USA.
Lily was just squeezing out a handful of her favorite pomegranate body wash into one hand when James's frantic voice caused her to drop the bottle, and spill her palmful of soap.
"Lily! Lily! Lily!" she shut off the water, hearing a note of pure terror in her husband's voice, and reached for her towel.
"What's wrong?" she demanded, sliding on the wet tiles as she dashed back into the bedroom. James was slumped in the chair, horror written on his face, and the Daily Prophet dangling from one hand.
"Lily." he said hoarsely, "How long have we been here?"
She blinked at him. "Can't be more than a week…" she started to muse. "The babysitters would have contacted us if we'd been gone longer than eight days, not to mention there's no way we haven't gambled away the thousand-galleon Daily Prophet draw for this trip. We set up an alert for when the account had emptied, remember? We'll probably run out tonight. Our winnings are going into the main vault so it's not like we're just spending them…."she paused, a horrified look on her face.
"James. Did we set up our winnings to go to the Potter vault, or to the Thousand-Galleon draw vault that we won? James?!" James blinked up at her.
"The draw vault." he said quietly. Lily shrieked.
"I've been winning outrageously, James! We're earning thousands every night! We never would get the alert! How long have we been gone?!"
James held up the front page of the prophet. Lily turned stark white as she read the headline.
Boy-Who-Lies?964Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpaqpNnQAoc
Harry Potter maintains that You-Know-Who has returned. 964Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1XvpDAeNw8
Experts call the teen mentally unstable.
"The…teen?" Lily sat down on the carpet, hard, and raised blank, horrified eyes and met her husband's identical gaze.
At The Dursleys'
Harry opened the door and faced his parents. James was teary, and had one hand lifted to knock again, and Lily was crying silently, one fist pressed against her lips, and the other arm wrapped around his midsection as though she were trying to prevent herself from shattering into pieces. Harry looked back and forth between them.
"Where have you been?" to his horror, Harry felt tears spilling out of his eyes, too. James cleared his throat.
"Can we…come inside?"
"No!" Harry screamed it unintentionally, shocking himself. "Explain!" another sob escaped from Lily's mouth. James swallowed hard and looked as though he'd like to hug or shake his son, but didn't know what action to take, so he did nothing.
"Y'see, we won the Daily Prophet Thousand-Galleon Draw in 1981, and decided to spend it on a quick vacation to Las Vegas. Intercontinental portkeys aren't good for infants so we decided to hire some specialty babysitters…"
Lily jumped in here. "The wards to the house wouldn't be as potent if James and I weren't there, so we left two babysitters with polyjuice so that they'd be genetically identical to us, and thus the wards would retain their original strength. We set an alarm on the vault we won so that when the balance dropped to zero, we'd be reminded to return."
Harry blinked. "Reminded to return? Oh yes, because remembering your toddler is just like needing a reminder to pick up the groceries on the way home!" he was shouting, with tears running down his face, and his nose was beginning to run. Lily reached out a hand to him, but he stepped back.
"Don't touch me." She gulped, and nodded, crying harder.
James took over again. "But we forgot to reroute our winnings to the main vault, and since Lily was winning thousands every night, the alert was never triggered."
"We realised something was wrong when Pretty brought us a Daily Prophet yesterday morning." she explained, regaining more control over her emotions and straightening up. She fixed Harry with a firm, watery green stare. "We don't expect you to forgive us for missing thirteen years of your life, but please come home with us. I can't imagine that you enjoy living with the Dursleys. Honestly, I'm not sure why you're here at all! You were supposed to go to Frank and Alice!" Lily stopped abruptly and looked up at James.
"Er, I suppose we should probably go back to the hotel and get Frank and Alice." James said slowly. "They'll be choked to realise that Neville's grown up without them." 964Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeVH0i7NhVh
Harry lost it.
"Frank and Alice Longbottom were tortured into insanity by Bellatrix Black!" he shrieked, "Neville visits them at Saint Mungos, and Alice gives him gum wrappers, while Frank just rocks back and forth blinking!" James and Lily staggered in unison.
"The babysitters…" Lily said, horrified. "Ours are dead, and the Longbottoms' are insane?" Harry shrieked again, threw his hands in the air, and stalked up the stairs. James and Lily just peered after him. There were several clunks, the sound of something breaking irreparably, and then Harry appeared on the stairs dragging his trunk, with Hedwig perched on his shoulder. She hissed at the newcomers and Harry smirked.
"You're taking me with you." he said, "Although Merlin knows you're the most irresponsible parents ever to walk the face of the planet." James and Lily nodded fiercely and blinked away tears.
"We're so sorry, Harry." James began. Harry whirled on his and stuck a finger under his father's nose.
"You…you…you!" words failed him. "This is why teen pregnancy is a bad idea!" he roared, and stalked off towards Privet Drive, his shell shocked parents trailing after him.
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