After a few minutes, Harry was pulled into another memory.
Toddler Harry, maybe a little older than in the memory before, about two and a half years old, climbed up into Severus’ lap, thumb in the mouth and his dragon in the other hand, and asked,
“Daddy, do you fink Santa will bwing a pwesent fow Hawwy?” Severus apparently had to think about that, but eventually asked back,
“Do you think you have been a good boy this year? Always been nice to Mummy, hmm?” This time obviously Harry had to consider it for a while but finally answered sincerely,
“No, not always nice to Mummy, when Mummy was not nice to Hawwy, but Hawwy has been nice to Juia and Daddy; Hawwy a wittle good boy wif year, and Hawwy will be wewy good next year.”
Harry, who as usual had really enjoyed the memory, was horrified to be back in the cold snowy grounds with a head threatening to explode and chattering teeth. ‘Oh no’, he thought, ‘it has begun to snow. I have to head back when I don’t want to spend the next few months in the Hospital wing.’ He slowly tried to get up but gave up because he felt dizzy and rather transformed into Icicle to flash back into his room, where he stayed in his phoenix form and huddled under the blankets on this bed. He remained like this for quite a while, until suddenly his door was flung open and Julia entered the room and came to place a box of chocolate frogs on Harry’s pillow. While Harry lazily moved his head into her direction, the slight movement drew her eyes over to him. She let out a short cry, and Severus, who had heard her, rushed into the room, looking very distressed.
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“Julia, what’s wrong?” Severus asked worriedly, and Julia pointed to Icicle.
“Look, Dad, Harry is here!” Severus looked in Harry’s direction, and a very relieved expression hushed over his face. He automatically extended his hand in front of Icicle’s feet, and soon two warm bird’s feet slowly climbed up his arm until they reached his shoulder. Severus slowly moved his other hand to pet the phoenix before he asked,
“Is everything alright, my son?” The phoenix gave him a short nod and did not protest, when Severus walked out of the room. “Please Julia, fire-call Albus and ask him to announce that Harry is safely home and they can stop the search.” A minute later Dumbledore’s announce could be heard around the castle, and it took only a few more minutes for Lily to rush into their quarters, with Minerva and Marina in tow. Lily visibly relaxed when she saw Harry, but asked sternly,
“Harry, what were you thinking? When you didn’t appear for lunch, everyone started to search the castle for you until now. Where did you go, and why don’t you transform back, so that everyone can talk to you?”
#I am sorry, mom, I did not realize it was so late.#
“Late? It is nearly time for dinner! In fifteen minutes everyone will arrive to have dinner,” Lily said, not being able to hide that she was at least a bit upset. Harry apologized again.
#I am really sorry, mom, I somehow lost track of time; I don’t know why.# Severus was looking inquiringly at Lily, and she translated what Harry had said and ordered him to change back. Severus took Harry over to his room and carefully put him back onto the bed.
“Harry, please change back. If you are afraid of memories, don’t worry, I can give you the potion, please just transform back for me.” He looked pleadingly at Harry who could not resist his father’s glance and changed back to his human form, but he was cold and quickly hid under the pile of blankets on his bed. Severus sat next to him, worriedly eying his son’s shivering form. Sighing he checked on him and urged him to drink two potions, before he said,
“Harry, you may stay here in bed until dinner starts in ten minutes. By then you should feel better and have to join us; alright?” Harry nodded and closed his eyes, only to see the next memory.
Little Harry was sitting in his favourite spot on the sofa, and he was wearing the same clothes as in the memory Harry had seen just before – probably it had to be later the same day?! Harry was watching Lily and Minerva putting ornaments on the Christmas tree. Suddenly Severus joined them and handed Lily a box and, noticing her questioning look, explained,
“I met James at Dumbledore’s office, and he gave me the box. These seem to be ornaments Harry made when you spent Christmas with the Potters.” Lily hurried to open the box and glanced at the ornaments in awe. She took one into her hands and carefully gave it to Severus.
“Look, Severus, he even made one for you!” Severus examined the beautiful golden bauble with an image of his snake on it and handed it over to Minerva who asked bewildered,
“Harry made this? Are you sure? This is very professional transfiguration, and I don’t know anyone who would be able to do this apart from Albus and myself.” At this stage, little Harry had stood up from the sofa and toddled over to the box and had taken one of the baubles in his hands. Lily gasped and said
“Oh no, Harry, don’t break it; please give it to Mummy!” Harry shook his head and countered,
“No, Mummy, dis is Hawwy’s bawl, I want it.” Minerva, who had watched the scene, said,
“Come Harry, sit on the sofa with Granny and show Granny the beautiful bauble, right?” Harry nodded eagerly and toddled over to the sofa, while he was carefully gripping the ornament.
“Wook, Gwanny, a bawdy like Fawkes; dat’s wewy pwetty! Hawwy wants to put Hawwy’s ball to de twee, pwease Gwanny.” Minerva agreed, and Harry very carefully put the ornament with the ice phoenix onto the Christmas tree.
Harry did not have time to relax, as he was thrown from one memory into the next.
Harry was together with his parents, great grandparents and baby sister Julia, unwrapping presents on Christmas day. Harry beamed at the huge teddy bear Santa had given him for Christmas, hugged him fiercely and told him,
“I’ll call you ‘Tapp’.” Then he put him on his favourite seat on the sofa, before he went to fetch ‘his’ phoenix ornament from the Christmas tree in order to show it to his Teddy.
“Look Tapp, let me show you my Christmas ball,” he shouted and ran across the room only to fall over Julia who had been eagerly crawling the floor. Harry crashed onto the floor, his ornament shuttered in many pieces. Everyone was shocked but did not react, waiting for Harry’s reaction. Harry was stunned, so it seemed, but after a few seconds he visibly concentrated on the broken pieces, which moved and put themselves together, so that after about a minute the beautiful bauble was whole again as if it was new. Very carefully, he toddled over to his bear, showed him the bauble and took it back to the tree immediately after.
Harry groaned and wondered if he had to watch the memories of all sixteen Christmas, when he was again pulled into the next.
An about four year old Harry was sitting in the living room next to the Christmas tree, together with Anna and toddler Julia, while their parents were talking in front of the fireplace. Harry was busily opening presents, when Julia came to him with a wrapped present and whined,
“Hawwy, can you open de pwesent fow Juia pwease?” Harry smiled fondly at his little sister and said,
“Sure, Julia, give it to me. Look, it is a book! Wow, another one of the ‘Harry-series’, isn’t it? It is called ‘Harry and the basilisk’ – wow!” Julia’s eyes glanced with joy.
“Hawwy, can you weed de book fow Juia pwease?” Harry laughed and pulled his sister onto his lap and read the book to her, stuttering a bit, but Julia seemed to be happy with her brother’s reading capabilities. Suddenly Anna appeared next to Harry and said,
“Harry, do you know…”
Harry was suddenly pulled out of the memory. He gasped and leaned back into his cushion. What happened? What was Anna going to ask?
“Harry, are you alright?” he heard his mother’s voice near by. He shook his head, because he felt cold and achy, but before he could even open his eyes, he was thrown into the next memory.
A six year old Harry was sitting near a huge Christmas tree in the Great Hall at a children’s table, next to him were his sister Julia and his friend Anna. Their parents and great grandparents were sitting near by at the Head table, and the house tables were full with students and their parents as well as other guests who Harry could identify as members of the Order of the Phoenix. Dumbledore rose to speak.
“Dear students, dear guests. Welcome to our ‘Demise of Voldemort’s 10 year Anniversary Party’ AKA ‘Special Christmas Party 1986’. Exactly ten years ago our own student Harry Pane vanquished the Dark Lord, and since then we have been living in peace – let us keep this up! But now, please tuck in!” Harry frowned – he had not understood anything about what his grandfather had said. After a look at his sister and his friend, who were already eating the delicacies Dobby had brought for them, he started to push around the food on his plate, until Minerva sat in an empty chair next to him and began to feed him. Harry let Minerva do this for a while, before he said in a very upset voice,
“It’s alright, Granny. I am not hungry any more. Who is this Harry Pain, and who is this Lord? Is Harry the one who fought the dragon and the basilisk? And is the lord the one with the red eyes I see in my dreams so often?” Minerva smiled fondly at her great grandson and said,
“Harry, you are a very clever boy, and I am looking forward to the time when you will understand everything!”
Harry groaned, sneezed and lazily opened his eyes. His parents were both sitting on the edge of his bed, watching him worriedly. Severus helped him to sit up and handed him two potions, before he asked,
“Harry, what is wrong? Have you been seeing memories for hours now? Can you tell me what they were about?” Lily nodded and added,
“Do you feel better now, Harry?” Harry sighed and mumbled,
“Lots of memories, all about Christmas. Little bit better now, thanks.”
“Harry, do you want me to give you a Dreamless sleep potion? I think you need it, don’t you?” Harry nodded and gave his father a grateful look, before he gulped down the potion. He was asleep within seconds.
When he woke up, he felt as if he had caught a bad cold the day before. He saw, that his father was sleeping next to him and suddenly felt very happy to have someone who cared enough about him to be there for him all the time, even during the night. While he was still considering waking Severus to ask for a potion, he fell into another new memory.
Harry was much bigger than in the other memories, about fourteen he could guess from the age of Marina, who seemed to be about three years old. All the people, who were staying during the winter holidays – about the same people who were staying this year –, were heading out into the snow. His great grandfather shouted,
“Let the fight begin!” Harry spent a joyful time in the snow, busily throwing snowballs at Julia and Anna, until Lily suddenly yelled,
“Has anybody seen Marina?” In fact, nobody had seen her after they had started the snowball fight, and now a feverish search started, which continued for several hours, until Remus finally found her fast asleep, lying in a kind of crib, which Hagrid had put near his hut to feed animals. Very relieved they stopped the search, and Harry suddenly noticed how cold it really was.
Slowly his foggy mind found its way back into a state of half-consciousness. Far away, he could hear a voice he recognized as Poppy’s saying,
“How could he get such a bad cold? Too bad Pepper-up doesn’t work; you will have to brew the potion you made for him a few years ago, Severus.”
“Harry, can you open your eyes for a moment?” his father’s voice penetrated his ear, and he tried to obey, but he could not open his eyes; instead was drawn into another memory.
Little Harry was about two years old, maybe a little younger. He was lying in the middle of his parents’ bed, his parents on each side of him, cuddling with him, because he had a bad cold. They thought he was asleep, but in fact, he only had his eyes closed, because the light was too bright, and was listening to what his parents were talking. Lily said to Severus in a relieved voice,
“Look at him Severus; he is so tiny and even if he feels unwell, he is such a happy child. However, if he had not changed the future some years ago, I would already be dead and he had to suffer just on his own with my hateful sister, and you would be all alone as well. I am so happy that he managed to change everything.” Severus noticed the tears, which were forming in her eyes, leaned over Harry and kissed his wife fondly, before he said,
“I am glad too, Lily, I love you both very much.” At this moment, Harry slowly opened his eyes and croaked hoarsely,
“Hawwy loves Mummy and Daddy wewwy much, too.”
When he came back to reality, he felt exactly like his smaller version had felt in the memory, but before he even could get a glance of his parents, a new memory overcame him. Harry spent the whole next week in memories. The moments between the memories were too short to talk to someone; until Harry had gathered himself enough to face reality, his break used to be over. Sometimes he noticed someone holding his head up to feed him a potion or chicken broth, but the upcoming memories were too strong to resist.
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The first time Harry was awake for an adequate time to be lucid enough to open his eyes, his mother was sitting next to him, reading something. Harry tried to sit up and said,
“Hi Mom.” Lily was so startled, that she nearly jumped off the bed, and leaned forward to pull Harry into a big hug.
“Good morning Harry! Here, quickly drink this.” She handed him his lemon potion. “Now you should have a few hours without memories. Harry gulped it down, sighed very relieved and said,
“That’s what I needed, thanks.”
“Sorry, but we couldn’t give it to you like the other potions, because Dad insisted that you had to be conscious for this one.”
“Alright, Mom, thank you. Em… what day is it?” Lily sighed. She had been looking forward to the first Christmas after his return for a long time, but…
“Today is the 1st of January, Harry.” Harry nearly jumped.
“WHAT? You mean…? Really?”
At this moment, Severus walked in, saying, “I see. As eloquent as ever; not even the many memories could help with that!” Lily gave him a reproachful look, and Harry glared at his father. Severus sneered at them. “Harry, I know, you have been asleep or otherwise busy with memories for about ten days, but your cold has gone in the meanwhile, and you managed to get around Christmas without buying any Christmas presents; but nevertheless you have many presents waiting for you to open. Then he pulled a phial from his robe and held it to Harry. “Harry, I want you to try this out; I don’t know if it will work however…”
Harry threw a confused glance at his father. “What is it?” Severus smiled and said,
“This is something I have been researching for about eighteen years. If it works as it should, it is a first kind of cure for your immune system. However, it is only the first version, and you have to take it once every day, but if it works, I will try to come up with something you only have to take sporadically. Now, I don’t think it will vanish the problems you have after getting a new memory completely, but it should help with them as well. Anyway, your immune system should work better now, so that your fevers will not get so high, and that you won’t get a cold every time you leave the castle.” Harry smiled gratefully and gulped down the potion.
“Bah…, yuck… Can’t you do something about the taste?” he asked shuddering. His parents laughed.
By the time the other students and teachers returned from their holidays, Harry had taken his new potion for a week and was doing much better. Although he still had to view many memories and still had to fight against headaches accompanied with slight fevers afterwards, the after effects were far from how bad they had been. When school started on Monday morning, Harry went to breakfast to the Great Hall with the intention of starting to fulfil his duties as Assistant to the Transfigurations teacher completely.
“Harry!” he heard Ginny say, when she slipped into the seat next to Harry. “I missed you so much; how are you?” Harry nervously took a glance around and whispered to his girlfriend,
“Ginny, I need to meet you alone. Can you come to my room tonight after Quidditch practise? I want to give you my Christmas present; sorry, I was ill over Christmas; therefore I couldn’t send it.” Ginny smiled lovingly at her boyfriend; after spending two weeks of wondering why he had not sent anything for her, nor for her brother for Christmas, this apology brought a huge relief.
“Of course, Harry, no problem” she said, before Harry was pulled in a talk by Anna, who was sitting at his other side.
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After he spent the whole morning assisting his grandmother to teach younger students Transfiguration, Minerva motioned him to stay for a moment before going to lunch.
“Harry, you seem much better. I guess the potion your father invented helped?” Harry nodded and replied,
“Yes, it helps a lot, and I intend to start assisting with the grading too. I am just not too sure about the afternoon classes, because I will probably get memories in the afternoon. And I also would appreciate if I could do the grading at home.” Minerva watched him thoughtfully for a moment, before she said,
“Alright Harry. What do you think about this? You assist in the morning and take some of the papers to grade with you for the afternoon; and if you are well enough, we will meet after dinner, either at your home or in my office, to talk about it.” Harry thought for a moment, before he replied,
“Alright, Granny, that sounds good. And if I, for some reason, don’t make it for dinner, I will ask Mom or Dad to hand you the parchments; would that be okay?” Minerva smiled at him and said,
“Of course, Harry, don’t worry. If I can help it, I won’t give you things to grade, which I need the next morning. And if I need anything, I know where to find you.” Harry thought for a moment and added,
“The only problem is, that I am still the team captain and have to attend Quidditch practise, if I am able to. At the moment, I am not allowed to attend anyway, but maybe in a few weeks time. Could we meet directly afterwards then?” Minerva nodded and replied,
“Yes, of course; but we can change anything if we need to; no problem.” She gave Harry the pack of parchments she had just collected and added, “This is the first years’ homework; would you mind starting with this?”
“Of course not, Granny, but you can give me more; I’ll probably manage to do another bunch.”
“No, Harry, definitely not; I don’t want you to do more than this; at least not until you are fully recovered. Let’s go down to the Great Hall and see if we still can get some lunch.” Harry nodded and followed his grandmother down the stairs. As soon as Harry sat down at Merlin table and started to load food onto his plate, his mother came over and asked,
“Harry, why are you so late? Is everything okay?” She seemed to be very concerned, and Harry felt sorry for his parents having to worry so much about him. He smiled at Lily and said,
“Yes, Mom, everything is fine. I only had a talk with Granny about how to proceed with afternoon classes, grading etc.” Lily looked appalled and countered,
“Harry, you are not allowed to do any afternoon classes; you have to spend the afternoon in our quarters!” Harry sighed.
“Yes, Mom, I know that. Granny told me the same, and I will do some grading during the afternoon and have a talk with her daily after dinner, either in her office or in my room.” Lily seemed a little relieved and said,
“Alright, Harry; I’ll talk to her and ask her to come to our place in the evening if she doesn’t mind. Now eat your lunch and head back to our quarters with Granddad and Marina please.” Harry sighed and nodded smilingly at his mother. Back into their quarters, Harry proceeded to his own room immediately, which made Marina very upset. However, as Harry didn’t know when the memories would start, he wanted to finish the grading as soon as possible. Unfortunately, Marina could not – or was it more of not wanting to – understand his reasons for not playing with her. About an hour into his grading, he was thrown into the first memory.
An about twelve year old Harry was having Quidditch practise with the Merlin team, and a Gryffindor first year student, Colin Creevy, was taking photographs of him and his team colleagues, when suddenly a mountain troll escaped from the forest directly behind Colin. Harry’s seeker’s eyes spotted him first, and Harry raced to where he saw a Bludger, grabbed it out of the air and flew down to the troll who in the meanwhile had started to attack Coin. Fortunately, when he threw the Bludger at the troll, it hit him in the head, so that the troll dropped down like a stone. Before he could even think about getting up once again, one of the beaters had thrown another Bludger onto the troll, which hit him directly in the face. Colin came away from the troll with only a broken arm, and Harry just had a few broken ribs from his crash into the Bludger, which he happily endured considering the 100 points that Merlin had been awarded for saving an other student’s life.
He left his room to get his strawberry potion, and as Albus instructed him to lie down for a while, he lay down on the sofa, inviting his sister to join him and tell him a story. Needless to say, that he was well entertained, until he felt fit to continue with the grading an hour later. When he was finished, Marina and Harry managed to talk their grandfather into going for a walk around the lake. When they had just surrounded the lake, Harry suddenly remembered something.