Neither Harry nor Neville expected the reception they received at the Ministry. Arriving in the atrium, the pair found themselves surrounded by twenty Ministry Officials each with their wand drawn on them. Harry quickly recovered from the shock and turned to where the Minister stood.
“Minister, I think I have someone you may want to talk to,” Harry said, finding the whole situation amusing.
As one, all twenty wands moved to point at Neville. Looking very scared, Neville dropped his wand and raised his hands. At the sight of this, Harry could not contain his laughter. After several seconds of everyone starring at Harry with confused looks, he was able to get control of himself.
“Sorry, it’s really not funny,” Harry apologized with a snort. At that moment Neville saw the truth behind Harry’s eyes, despite his laughter Neville could see tremendous pain.
“In this suitcase you will find the unregistered Animagus, Peter Pettigrew. He murdered Cedric Diggory, along with several Muggles seventeen years ago, and his greatest crime was betraying his friends to Tom Riddle,” after saying this Harry tossed the suitcase at the Minister’s feet.
Wands began to sag, but no one made to move. “I expect an unmodified memory of every word he utters. In return, no one will contest who brought in a Death Eater in Tom’s inner circle. Let’s go home, Neville,” Harry finished just before disappearing.
As Harry and Neville entered the manor the questions started to fly, but were quickly silenced by Lupin’s shout for quiet. Harry turned to Neville, “Would you explain, I need a moment.”
“Sure, Harry,” his tone betrayed his confidence.
Everyone was stunned as Harry pushed his way past them, leaving the room. Ginny soon followed, not really caring what Neville had to say. As she turned the corner, she saw Harry leave the manor through the two double doors that Harry had told everyone were off limits. She spent several minutes staring at the doors, unsure if she should follow. Finally she decided to follow, and she tried to open the door but they wouldn’t budge.
“Alohomora,” she said, but the doors would not open. In frustration she kicked the door hard, but all she managed to do was break her smallest two toes. “Damn you, Harry, why do you have to be the selfish loner,” Ginny said, her voice filled with anger, and pain. She turned to find someone who could fix her toes.
With every step her foot throbbed and her anger grew. “Whole lot of them think I’m too young. Well I’m not, from all the stories I hear around here they all have gotten in to more danger then I have,” her voice raising with every word, “and most of them were younger then I am now. Why does everyone think I should stay behind? So I don’t get hurt? Bunch of tossers, the bloody lot of them.”
“The lot of who?” Hermione asked, interrupting Ginny’s rant.
“What?” Ginny responded- she hadn’t really heard what she had said.
“I asked, the lot of who?” Hermione returned.
“Oh that, don’t worry about it. I just… Well, it’s Harry, he sulked off on his own again. I hate when he does that, he keeps so much bottled up and makes things harder for him then they need to be,” Ginny said as her anger returned once again.
“He might not be sulking, Ginny. Neville just told us what happened at his aunt’s house and where they went afterwards,” she paused so Ginny’s anger could lessen enough so she could understand what Hermione was about to tell her, “They caught Wormtail and took him to the Ministry.”
Ginny looked stunned at what she had been told, and after she thought things through she punched the wall beside her. Pulling back in pain she was sure she had broken her pinky finger. Despite having an impressive anger, Ginny had never been prone to using violence to relive her anger, she now wished she hadn’t started.
“Ginny?” Hermione asked concerned.
“He is sulking, I could tell it in his eyes. He has gotten better at Occlumency, but he has a long way to go before he can hide from me,” Ginny answered.
“Well, let’s get that hand looked at in case you want to treat Harry like a wall later,” Hermione said with a slight smile.
“I will need my foot looked at as well, so I can catch him.” She returned Hermione’s smile as she hobbled on.
Harry sprinted across the lawn to his childhood home, being driven forward by the swell of emotions that he could no longer restrain. Throwing open the door with a loud crash, he entered. To his surprise Dobby was in the kitchen cleaning.
“What are you doing in here? GET OUT,” screamed Harry.
“Dobby is sorry, mast--” started Dobby, but he was cut short by Harry’s renewed demand to get out. The elf’s tennis-ball-green eyes filled with pain and he disappeared with a crack.
After staring blankly around the kitchen for several minutes, Harry headed in to the dinning room. A large grandfather clock sat against the wall directly to the left as Harry entered the room. On the wall right hand side of the sat a china hutch; the wall opposite the hutch was an open walkway in to the sitting room. Harry barely noticed any of this as directly ahead of him was a huge glass-paned window looking out on an over grown garden.
Quietly, he moved to the window and looking out at the garden. Sitting the cobbled stone path sat a red haired woman in a daisy-covered sundress with matching gardening gloves, singing as she weeded. Every so often she would turn to the small covered bassinet sitting next to her, checking on the sleeping baby it held.
“Lily,” a man’s voice called to her. Harry knew the voice belonged to his father. “It’s time for dinner,” James called.
“Coming, dear,” Lily replied. Getting up and taking off her gloves she carefully picked up the bassinet, heading for the house.
Harry moved from the window, turning toward the sitting room. It was as though Harry was walking in a dream, the world he was seeing had long ago faded in to history. In the sitting room sat his parents, Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew, each laughing and joking. The only one who was not fussing over the baby sitting on the floor was Peter, who seemed uncomfortable around little Harry.
Harry stood there watching has his parents and their friends enjoying each other and the baby on the floor, who was laughing along with them. Soon enough, the laughing baby began to cry. Smiling and cooing over baby Harry, Lily announced that it was well past his bedtime. Singing as she picked him up, she headed up stairs.
Harry, without thought, followed her up the stairs. The last part of the conversation going on down stairs was James saying, “Dumbledore thinks we should go in to hiding.”
Lily continued to sing as she changed Harry, and then taking him from the changing table in his room, she moved across the hall to the room she shared with his father. She moved to the bed and placed a pillow in the middle, where she put the soon to be asleep child. She kept singing as she moved to the bath just off the room where she washed her face and got changed.
Harry heard all of this but he never took his eyes off the baby before him. Lily soon returned and curled up around the pillow, still singing. It was then that Harry had been truly hit by all of the emotions he had been feeling for years. A single tear ran down his cheek. The last thing he heard was Lily whispering, “Sleep little, Harry, for tomorrow you will wake refreshed for a new day.”
Harry had no idea how long he had lain on the floor in his parent’s bedroom, but he felt a calm he had never known before. His heart was light and he didn’t even register that his body was apart from his being. Standing up, Harry noticed that the pillow still sat in the middle of the bed, and the indent of a small child was there as well.
“Welcome home, Harry,” Lily’s voice called out.
Harry turned expecting that his mother would be standing there. To his surprise it was not his mother. Across the hall sitting on the rail of Harry’s baby crib was a Phoenix.
“Fawkes,” Harry said with excitement. He hurried into the other room, but saw that this bird did not belong to his former mentor. The bases of this Phoenix’s feathers were black and faded into a fiery red at their tips.
Reaching up, Harry stroked the bird, and the Phoenix began to sing, the song reminding him of his mother singing to him as a child.
“Mum?” but he knew the answer to that question as soon as he asked. “No, not my mum, but your song and being here,” he paused, “there is a connection between the two of you though. One I think Hermione and some time in the library could help explain,” he laughed thinking of Ron whining about more time in the library.
“I should head back soon,” Harry whispered as the contained to stroke Ignis’s feathers. He did not know how he know the bird’s name, it was as if he always new her name. Turning for Harry’s stroking hand Ignis started to preen her tail feathers. Returning her gaze to Harry she held a feather, and offered it to Harry. He took it unsure what to do with it. Ignis then reached out and took Harry’s wand from the wand holder on his belt.
Harry started to protest, until she offered the wand back to him. When he reached to take back the wand with his empty had, Ignis pulled back the offered wand. Confused, Harry was unsure what to do, then she offered the wand again, but this time she leaned close to the hand that held the feather.
Understanding, Harry took his wand with the hand that held the Phoenix father. He shouted in surprise as the feather and his wand burst in to flame. Instinctively, he dropped it.