“Dungbomb”

A small hand passed dungbombs to a slightly larger hand, which passed the dungbombs to a slightly smaller hand, which placed the dugbombs strategically.

“Filibusters Fireworks.”

The process was repeated with the fireworks.

“Ready?” the girl asked and the two boys nodded. The girl used her wand to ignite the fireworks and yelled, “Run for your lives!”

All three children ran

---

The black haired man paced in front of the two second years and the five-year-old.

“So you three want to convince me that you had nothing to do with the little bomb that exploded in the Charms hallway?”

Three soot covered faces nodded.

“I find that hard to believe. That will be twenty points from Gryffindor, twenty from Hufflepuff, no broom for a week and detention for the three of you,” the man said simply pointing at each of the accused.

The three children’s eyes widened in horror, “But Siri- I mean Sir. You have no proof!”

“I believe Nymphadora that your face says enough.”

“You can’t give Harry a detention he is not even a student,” the freckled boy protested.

“I’m not a student daddy!”

“If you could join Ms. Tonks and Mr. Weasley in this little escapade then you can join them in the punishment,” Sirius said flatly and grabbed Harry’s little hand  and pulled him to his side. “Now say goodbye to your partners in crime. They are going back to their dorms. You’ll see each other tomorrow in detention.”

“Bye Charlie, bye Tonks,” Harry waved miserably as the other two children left. Tonks glanced back and murmured, “Hypocrite.”

“Care to make that two weeks Ms. Tonks?”

“No sir! Thank you sir,” she yelled and ran out.

Sirius pursed his lips, rested a fist on his hip and glared at Harry. Harry just grinned widely back.

xxx

“Where the hell did he get the idea for that?” Tonks asked.

“It was one of our pranks back in the day. But Harry never was a prankster,” Remus said but then looking at Tonks he amended, “Unless goaded to, so there was no harm in telling him,” he finished explaining and flinched at the looks Hestia, Emmeline and Severus were giving him who had all been affected by the Marauder’s prank the first time.

All three of the couples were discussing Harry, the flooded Great Hall after it started really raining inside, the drenched students and Harry’s month long detention.

 “I don’t know what’s gotten into him. I mean he never was a surly teenager. He had never acted out! I thought we had lucked out and now he starts! He’s all moody and drenches everyone in the school,” Sirius cried.

“Maybe he’s been hexed,” Severus pondered.

“What hex could cause this kind of change in behavior?” Remus said thoughtfully.

“Or maybe,” Hestia said with a raised eyebrow, “He is just being normally insecure.”

The three men and Tonks looked at her as if she had grown an extra head.

“Harry has never been an insecure child,” Sirius scoffed.

“Oh honestly, do you work hard at being daft or does it come naturally?” Emmeline sneered. “It’s obvious he is jealous and, as Hestia put it, insecure,” she rolled her eyes and explained, “Look at it from his point of view: you three are suddenly going to have your own children.”

“Harry is ours, there won’t be any difference-“ Remus started but Emmeline said forcibly.

“I said his point of view not yours. I know there won’t be any difference between these children and Harry. I’d hex you all to oblivion if there was.”

“Hormones,” Severus mouthed but cowed at a glare.

“As Emmy was saying, you three not only are having children who will be your own flesh and blood from the start and not through adoption right after Harry turned seventeen and is about to graduate Hogwarts. Right when any guardian’s duty would end. So here he is fretting that you won’t want him anymore since you’re not obligated to care for him and don’t need him anymore because now you have your ‘real’ children,” Hestia explained making quotations motions with her fingers.

“Harry wouldn’t think that,” Sirius huffed. “He knows that he is the most important thing in my life.”

“But he won’t be anymore,” Tonks said finally catching up. “I don’t mean he won’t be on the top of the list Siri,” she explained at his glare “but he won’t be the only one you three have. He will be tied  with these children and maybe he is fretting that he won’t actually tie, that he will be second place and eventually forgotten. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“That is because just like these three imbeciles you are too close to the problem,” Emmeline drawled.

 “Then we go find him and tell him he’s being utterly ridiculous,” Sirius said, starting to stalk away.

“Oh yes, and get the boy on the defensive side,” Emmeline said sarcastically and Sirius stopped. “You can’t act like he is being a naughty child. That will only make him even more insecure if all of a sudden you start lecturing him when up to now you’ve always been more of a best friend. You’ll prove him right.”

“So what do you suggest oh genius one?” Severus glared with his arms crossed.

“Simple, show him through actions that nothing will change,” she said.

“But that’s not true,” Remus said. “Things will change. Not just for us but for Harry. Once he graduates he’ll start whatever he wants to do in life. He’ll probably stay in London or at least move out.”

“What she meant is, things won’t change in your relationship,” Hestia said. “Do things with him like you’ve always done that are about Harry and not the babies. Include him on the stuff about the baby and show him how important he’ll be as an older brother, but also talk to him about stuff that has nothing to do with the babies, things that maybe have only to do with him or even nothing to do with him. Talk about the Chuddley Cannons’ chance at the Cup. I know we’ve all been overwhelmed as of late and may have forgotten that there is more to life then these three children coming, and maybe Harry thinks that because all we’ve been able to think about is this then we won’t need or have time for him anymore. Especially since, as Remus pointed out, he won’t be around so much.”

“Well,” Remus smiled. “He will be with us at Grimmauld Place,” his smile was wiped out at Sirius’ jealous look. “I mean , that will help, to show he is still a very important part of the family and as much our son as these children.”

“Yes,” Emmeline nodded and bit her lips. “I think this might have been bad timing. But I bet Harry’s reluctance to forgive you Sev may have been inflated by the news that you’ll be a father.”

“You mean he may think I don’t care for his love anymore?” Severus said aghast.

“We all have tried to talk to him about you except for you,” Hestia said. “I know we told you to give him space but maybe it’s time to go after him. Show him you’re still here when he is ready to forgive you.”

Severus nodded and his stomach started churning at the thought. He decided he would ask Minerva to be the first teacher to oversee Harry’s detention. There was nothing like a solid hour to talk when Harry had nowhere else to go.

Xxxxxxxx

“Come in,” Severus called from the teacher’s desk. Harry entered at once but stopped abruptly when he saw who the teacher was. He looked back as he was quite sure he had entered the Transfiguration Classroom.

“Your Head of House had other commitments today so I shall oversee your detention. Please take a seat,” he said pointing at the closest desk. Harry did so without uttering a word but didn’t take his eyes off Severus. He had a defiant expression on his face  that didn’t go away.

“Please take your quill and parchment and write this line that is on the board,” Severus said pointing to the line: “The Great Hall is a place for peaceful meals and not for raining.”

“How many times?” Harry asked.

“For an hour,” Severus said simply and went back to grading the papers he had been working on before. Harry stared at him wondering when Severus would breach the elephant in the room but nothing happened. He took his quill and parchment and started. His nerves where starting to grate at the silence but he said nothing. So that was how Severus was going to play? Well then he would not win! His stomach clenched at the iciness of Severus’ lack of acknowledgment.

When the hour was up Severus told Harry to stop writing, and took the parchment. He nodded and said, “Very well.” Harry quickly started putting his things away and was about to get up when Severus held up a hand.

“I have not dismissed you.”

“But I thought the detention was over.”

“It is,” Severus said calmly motioning for Harry to seat back and pulling a chair and sitting down. “But I’m not done with you. I just wanted to get your first detention out of the way so we can talk.”

“I don’t want to-“

“But I do. So you can stay quiet if you want, or not, but I want you to listen.”

Harry crossed his arms and set his jaw in a scowl but said nothing.

“I could tell you about my abusive father and make excuses for my choices but I won’t. I chose to be a Death Eater. I was lured by the promise of power and revenge on the people who had wronged me. I was wrong but in my arrogance I did not see that. I had a very comfortable position you see? I was excellent at potions and the Dark Lord coveted that. He thought me too precious to risk in raids when I could be of more use in the lab. So even though I heard about the raids I did not see them. I could easily fool myself that I was doing nothing wrong. The first time I realized the price my actions were having on the world was when Voldemort decided to interpret the words I had taken to him as a need to kill a baby, and his family. When he said the words “the Potter’s baby” I knew he meant my Lily. For the first time the war touched my doorstep and that was a wakeup call as no other event had been before. Then I stopped and really looked and saw the destruction I had helped cause, Harry. I never said I was innocent. I am guilty of much, including letting you romanticize my role as a spy. When I relayed that prophecy I was thinking only of pleasing the man I considered my mentor. But when my eyes were finally opened I realized he was my master and I was nothing but a slave. Nothing will change what I did. I can’t bring your parents back no matter how much I atone for my sins. I have to live with that and so do you. But nothing will change how I feel for you, not what I did, not what happens next, not anyone. Even if you never forgive me, I’ll forever love you as a son even if you never speak to me again.”

Severus saw the fine trembling of Harry’s jaw but also saw Harry’s determination not to show anything.

“I’ll be waiting for you Harry. No matter how long it takes,” Severus finished and moved his hand forward as to touch Harry’s knees but aborted the movement. “However long you need son,” he finished huskily, getting up and summoning the papers he had been grading. He took one last look at Harry and left the boy to himself.

Once Severus left Harry lost his control and sobbed, bringing up his feet on the chair and burying his head in his knees.

XXXXX

A week had passed and Harry had been in one gory detention after the other. That first day of lines was probably just to fool him. He had spent all the other detentions cleaning parts of the castle the Muggle way that he was sure the house-elves had forgotten about for centuries. Harry wondered if his dads had had the same punishment but he wasn’t about to ask. On Saturday, which thankfully was detention free as McGonagall had stated weekdays for a month, Harry was surprised by Remus showing up at the doors to the now quite dry Great Hall.

“Hey there cub!”

“What are you doing here?”

“Can’t I visit my old home?” Remus asked in mock hurt throwing an arm around Harry. “Now, I managed to convince one very stubborn Sirius Black that he was not allowed to punish you for school infractions, especially school infractions that were inspired by his tales, so even though he still has water in places he never knew he had, he authorized me to take you to the movies.”

“The movies! Really?”

“Yes, since you are of age now you are allowed to leave on weekends as you please. So I thought we could go to London and watch Titanic.”

Harry’s expression quickly changed from astonished to horrified, “TITANIC!”

Remus burst out laughing and wiped his eyes, “Oh, if you could see your face right now. No the main actor is the same but we are going to an action movie, The Man in the Iron Mask.”

“Yes!” Harry said excited.

“So, I saw the trailer and we have ourselves an afternoon of Musketeers and a lot of sword fighting,” Remus said pleased, leading Harry towards Gryffindor tower. “Go put on some Muggle clothes and I expect you’ll want to let your girlfriend know where you are.”

“Okay,” Harry said. “So, will Tonks be meeting us?”

“Nope, it’s just us men today,” Remus shook his head.

Xxx

“So, did you have fun at the movies?” Sirius asked while Harry was polishing the suits of armor.

“Yes,” Harry answered as he scrubbed hard. He had a great time with Remus. They had fun at the movies and Harry was able to tell Remus all he had been doing this term, how things were going with Ginny and even explain the execution of the prank. That had not been easy and he had had to persuade the very reluctant Dobby and Kreacher to do it perfectly. Sirius of course knew this. Remus had been voted to be the one to give Harry a day out that was only about him and Sirius was voted to show Harry how he would be involved with his new siblings. “Professor.”

“I don’t see why we can’t talk while you do your detention, you clean with your hands not your mouth,” Sirius said twirling his wand. “Moony didn’t even invite me!” Sirius pouted.

“You know why you are forbidden of going into Muggle theaters in general,” Harry pointed out.

“Oh, yeah. Look who’s talking “I like to make it really rain in the Great Hall.” So yeah, I misbehaved once, or twice in the movies. But honestly, people are supposed to stay quiet in the movies you know? All I did was silence a few chattering annoying people!”

“DAD! You struck them with a Silencing Charm and then you stuck another couple to their chairs with a Sticking Charm.”

“No one needs to go to the bathroom that often!” Sirius defended himself pouting. Harry snorted. Sirius watched him as he cleaned.

“You know, I’ve missed your visits and our popcorn sessions,” Sirius said.

“Thought you’d be busy,” Harry mumbled.

“I’m never to busy to spend time with my son. No matter how many sons I have,” Sirius added. “You know, people manage more then one quite often. Arthur for instance, he manages seven.”

Harry just shrugged.

“We were thinking of names for your brother and I need your help? Hestia is very intimidating. I need protection. I want to honor Reggie but she thinks that Regulus is a name that will get your brother laughed at.”

“It is,” Harry agreed.

“Hum, Harry, I don’t think you understood quite how you are supposed to help me in the fight, not Hestia.”

“I don’t want a brother that will be scoffed at because of his name. If you name him Regulus I’ll kidnap him and move to Brazil and name him John or the equivalent of John there. Then you’ll never find us and he’ll be able to live a normal, bully-free life.”

“It’s João and you wouldn’t go live faraway from your daddy would you?” Sirius asked in a whiny tone then his eyes got a strange glint in them and he narrowed them and asked, “This was Ginny’s idea wasn’t it?”

Harry looked at Sirius and couldn’t help but laugh. He had to concede, brother or no brother his dad was still insane.

“Besides, Regulus is much better than Cassiopeia!” Sirius protested.

“No one is naming a sibling of mine Cassiopeia!”

“Oh, no? Last time I checked that was on Sev’s list!”

Sirius was pleased to notice that through Harry’s mumblings about loonies in his family  choosing ridiculous names he had not once flinched, or scowled at the mention of Sev. The evening ended with Harry letting Sirius know he would be drafting a list of acceptable names to be discussed.

Xxxxxxx

After the month of detention was over and Harry had yet to approach Severus, Albus decided to call Harry in for a little talk. He had noticed that Harry had passed the stage of rightful anger and was at that stage where he wanted to forgive but did not know how to.

After sipping some tea in silence Harry said quietly. “You want to talk about Uncle Sev.”

“No,” Albus said. “I want to talk about me. I want to tell you a story Harry.”

“What?” Harry asked bewildered. He had been sure he was in for another lecture about forgiving.

“Do you recall how I told you about Arianna’s death?”

Harry nodded solemnly.

“I am about tell you, Harry, a story about me and a young boy named Gellert Grindelwald,” Albus said simply, and Harry’s jaw dropped and stayed down through the whole story of how Grindelwald and Albus met, became friends, studied the Deathly Hallows, how Harry even possessed two, one which Harry had left in his Potter Vault not being comfortable possessing Albus’ wand, and the third had been destroyed and disposed of by Remus.  Albus explained they thought what they were doing was for the Greater Good, how Albus fooled himself that he didn’t know what Grindelwald wanted and how that led to Ariana’s death and Aberforth’s estrangement from Albus.

“The worst mistake of my life is the reason why even though my only brother lives in the same village as I do we only meet when business needs to be taken care of Harry. Don’t let that happen to you and Severus. No one is perfect. We all make mistakes and sometimes these mistakes have horrible consequences, but what separates an evil person from a good one is the ability to learn from those mistakes and Severus learned, in the worst way possible. He did what he could to prevent the fatal outcome of that mistake, he begged me to protect you three-“

“Just my mom,” Harry said and Albus smiled sadly.

“Back then I said the same thing to him but today I know that is not true. The fact that you and James were in danger wasn’t in the forefront of his mind as Lily’s peril was, but Severus never wanted you harmed. He wanted all of you protected, even if he didn’t phrase it well. He did beg for only her life to Voldemort because there he knew he couldn’t ask for anything else and that he was already risking everything by merely asking for her, a Muggleborn witch. Without knowing it, Severus saved your life. Had Voldemort not given your mother a choice, Harry, her protection wouldn’t have been cast by her sacrifice and you would have died. Voldemort only gave her a choice as a gift to one of his favorite servants. I know that does not change what he did, but what he did does not change how he feels about you. He made a mistake, as I once did and as your father once did too that almost cost James, Severus and Remus’ lives. As you see, no one is perfect. Do you hate me too now? Do you hate your father because of his youthful ignorance?”

Harry bit his lips and shook his head. Albus nodded satisfied but did not expect the next question.

“Why did they fight? I heard here and there that Uncle Sev and mom weren’t speaking when she died. Why did they fight?”

Albus sighed. He truly did not think it was his place to tell this story. He had heard it of course, back when it happened from the portraits and afterwards, just after her death during the few times Severus got drunk and was in a self-pity bout. Before Harry entered his life. But he thought that Harry should understand everything to be able to fully forgive.

xxx

Harry was thoroughly pissed off and this time he was angry with his mother. How could she not listen to Sev? How could she just give up on him like that? She could have saved him. He once told Theodore Nott he thought his Uncle never had someone to help him stay away from Voldemort and now he knew why: because Lily Evans just gave up on him. You don’t give up on friends when they need you!

So yes, he called her a horrible name. But who has never called someone they love a horrible name in a fight? He was sorry! And let’s face it; there is nothing more humiliating for a teenage boy than being rescued by a girl!

Harry stalked towards the dungeon and didn’t even knock when he opened the door to Severus’ private lab. He suddenly covered his mouth at the fumes that filled the place and stepped back outside for a gulp of fresh air. Quickly summoning a Bubble Head Charm, he went back inside to see why there were so  many toxic fumes around. His blood froze when he spotted feet next to a cauldron and he rushed to the unconscious person’s side.

Xxx

A/N- Thanks for reading and reviewing.

Thanks SWaddict1986 for betaying.