Lily aimed her wand at Sirius. “Scourgify. I’m sorry, Sirius; Harry is just having dinner.”
Sirius laughed and said, “Oh, well, I thought having dinner meant ‘eating dinner’ and not practising Quidditch, but maybe things have changed from when I was a baby.”
Harry had just recognized the intruders and shouted happily, “Daddy! Uncy Mooey, Uncy Pafoo!” With a splash, the spinach splattered through the room as he smashed his spoon into the bowl and tried to climb out of his chair.
James just managed to catch the chair together with his son on their way tumbling to the ground. “What are you doing, Harry?” Lily scolded the small boy.
“Oh, don’t scold him, he is so cute,” Remus told her. “Come here to me Harry!”
As fast as his little feet could carry him through the large room, Harry ran over to his Uncy Mooey, however Future-Minerva caught him half way, took him up and looked sternly into his little face. “Harry, do you remember what Aunt Poppy told you? No running around for a few days.” She handed Harry over to her former student.
Remus sat down on a chair and put Harry in a sitting position on his lap, while Minerva told him about the happenings of the arrival of the Potters the day before.
After Twinkle had scourgified all green spots from Harry’s chair, the table and the whole room in general, Minerva sent her to get Severus and Severus, and as soon as they arrived, dinner was served. Harry was sitting on the sofa looking at a book of a wizard story containing many pictures of dragons with great interest until Albus and Past-Minerva returned with Poppy, who checked on Harry and gave him two potions. Minutes later, he was lying on the sofa, tucked into his baby blanket and was fast asleep with his green dragon in the arm.
-----
As soon as dinner was finished, Albus asked everyone to sit around the fireplace for a conversation. When everyone was seated, he called Twinkle and ordered tea and biscuits for everyone. The two Minervas were sitting on either side of Harry, which was a sight for the gods. Seeing that everyone was looking at him expectantly, Severus started to recount his story once more.
When he told them that he had come from the future in order to change the future, Sirius laughed loud and said, “Now, James, that would be something a Marauder should do, wouldn’t it!”
Everyone laughed and Past-Severus sneered, “A pity that none of them had the idea, not to speak of the means to do it.”
With this, Remus spoke up, “Now, Severus, there is no need to become sarcastic; everyone is just acknowledging that you or your older self had a very good idea.”
Severus ignored this and continued to talk. “Can you please stop your nonsense for a moment and listen? It is not just for fun that Minerva and I have taken the risk and come back to the past.”
James nodded his agreement and said, “He is right, Sirius and Remus, this is not a funny story. Please be quiet and listen to what he has to say.”
First, Severus told them about Halloween, and both Sirius and Remus were outright shocked. “Wait,” Sirius interrupted him. “You said they brought Harry to the Dursleys? Why? I am his godfather. They should have brought him to me in the first place.”
Severus snorted and turned to Remus, “Black, be quiet for a moment; Lupin, do you know who Lily’s and James’ Secret Keeper is?”
Remus looked at Severus and frowned before he said in a slightly strange voice, “Sirius.”
Sirius shot up from his chair and shouted, “Do you think I would betray my best friend to Voldemort? Are you crazy?”
“Shut up,” he was reprimanded by Albus immediately, and Severus continued.
“That’s the problem. You didn’t tell anyone, and Lily and James didn’t either. Therefore, everyone thought that you were the traitor and betrayed the Potters to the Dark Lord. Even Albus didn’t know that you had changed with Pettigrew, and that is why Harry was taken to the Dursleys and not to you.”
Sirius stared at Severus with a flabbergasted expression and asked, “So, Harry grew up with the Dursleys? Or did he come to me later, after they found out about the secret keeper?”
Severus sneered and said, “Don’t ask questions, and just let me tell everything. How could they find out about you not being the secret keeper? They couldn’t.” Sirius face turned white, but he kept quiet and Severus continued, “On the next day, Sirius learned what happened and went after Pettigrew. When he found him, he somehow blew the street up and killed thirteen Muggles as well as Pettigrew. At least, that’s what everyone believed including myself.”
Sirius interrupted again and started to shout at Severus, “You are accusing me of murder, Snivellus? How many people did you…”
Sirius suddenly shut up involuntarily, when Albus pulled his wand and threw a silencing charm on him, before he flatly stated, “Now, shut up Sirius. Severus has come to the past to help Harry, Lily and James. However, after talking about your story with Lily, he decided to help you as well. If you are not able to show yourself to be a tiny bit thankful towards someone who took many risks by coming to the past just to help you and your friends, then at least shut up and stop accusing him of anything. Otherwise you may leave.”
Severus sighed and started once again, “As I said, everyone believed it, and you were put into Azkaban without a trial, because even Albus told the Ministry that you had been the Secret Keeper. However, when I told Lily this story, she immediately said that it probably had been the other way round, that Pettigrew blew the street up, cut his finger off and transformed into a rat to get away. I don’t know why I believe her because I remember well the night you tried to kill me during the full moon in our fifth year, but anyway, I believe Lily and have decided to help you in case it will be necessary in the future.”
Past-Severus, who had been quiet so far, nodded his agreement and smirked, “Don’t worry; I will do everything my older self promises to you.”
When Severus continued to speak about Harry’s treatment at the Dursleys, Sirius looked ready to murder someone, but Severus explained that his younger self as well as the younger Albus and Minerva would not let Harry grow up with the Dursleys again. Finally, he showed them the photo of the five-year-old Harry, and Sirius exploded. How dare they doing such things to his precious godson? He jumped up and threw a – quiet – temper tantrum, until Albus threatened to put him under a body bind if he wouldn’t ‘quiet’ down and sit down again immediately.
As soon as Sirius was seated, Severus, who had to try really hard to remain patient with so many interruptions, continued and told them about his plans to prevent Lily and James from being killed.
“That sounds quite realistic I would think,” was Remus’ reaction, while Sirius – without knowing that Albus had cancelled the silencing spell – shouted something about Aurors and unforgivable spells.
Severus only asked coolly, “Do you want your friends and yourself rescued or not? James already promised he would leave the ministry if it were too dangerous for him before he would reveal anything to his fellow Aurors. However, if you prefer to be obliviated, either now or then, we won’t have a problem doing it for you.”
Sirius thought for a while and asked, “Why can’t we just change Secret Keepers once more? Lily and James could just take one of us here as Secret Keeper and nothing would happen.”
Severus frowned and explained, “No, Black, that would solve our problem only partially. You see, when Harry made the curse rebound, it vanished the Dark Lord. I don’t think that he was really gone in fact; however, he was defeated and didn’t show up so far in four years. If he couldn’t get to the Potters now, he would try something else to get to them; therefore he has to be vanquished in order to really save their lives.”
Sirius thought for a moment and finally nodded and said, “All right. You can count on me; I will help you.”
When they finished their lively discussion, it was already three o’clock in the morning, so that James, Sirius and Remus left immediately and everyone else went to bed.
-----
Harry, who had not stirred once on the sofa during the whole evening, was back to full health and fully awake early in the morning. When nobody came to get him out of the annoying cot in spite of his upset crying, he threw such a temper tantrum that he managed to release enough magic to jump over the top rail and into the room and fell down onto the floor with a ‘thud’.
“Owee,” he groaned, but what he saw now let him forget the headache. He had managed to get out of the unwelcome prison. As quickly as the little feet could carry him, he ran over to his Mummy’s room and unsuccessfully tried to climb on her bed. After falling back on the floor three times, he decided on a different method and shouted, “Mummy!”
Lily sat up in her bed immediately, threw an absent glance to the clock, which showed 5:47 and wondered where Harry’s voice had come from, until she noticed her baby lying on the floor next to her bed.
“Harry!” she said astonished. “How did you get out of your cot? Is someone up at this time and took you out?”
Harry put in some effort to get up, finally managed to stand in front of her bed, throwing both arms in the air to be taken up, threw her a big smile and said, “No, Mummy, Hawwy bik, no nee baby cot, Hawwy shupp.”
He jumped? Needless to say that Lily was outright shocked. Harry could not have jumped out of his cot; the rails were much too high for him to be able to jump. The only way he could have jumped out of the bed must have been accidental magic. She pulled Harry up into her bed and gave him a piercing look. “Harry, are you all right? Have you hit your head again? Or does anything else hurt?”
Harry seemed to have decided to ignore her as he lay down, put a thumb into his mouth and closed his eyes. Minutes later, he was fast asleep in his Mummy’s arm. He was still fast asleep when Future-Minerva, Lily and the two Severus had breakfast together.
After breakfast, the two Severus excused themselves to go back to their lab, but Lily insisted,
“I am sorry, Severus, whichever of you, but I would like to discuss something with at least one of you. I know that all of you have already offered to take Harry in, in case Severus doesn’t succeed in rescuing James and me. However, I want to make sure that there won’t be any legal problems. Although you are his second cousin anyway, I would like to make you an additional godfather for Harry, Severus. Would that be all right for you?”
Both Severus threw her an astonished glance, until the older Severus gave Past-Severus a nod and he answered, “Yes of course, Lily; that would be fine with me.”
“All right, thank you, both of you. Then I will ask James tonight to bring the respective papers from the ministry tomorrow in order to get this arranged legally.”
Both gave her a short nod, and Past-Severus already turned to the door, while the older Severus glanced at his watch and asked, “What is wrong with Harry? Is he still asleep? It is already 10 o’clock.”
Lily frowned and went into her room to look after her baby, who was indeed still soundly asleep. She took him up and brought him out into the living room, sitting down with him onto the sofa. Minutes later Poppy arrived apologizing for being so late. Lily sighed and told her what Harry had done in the morning and asked, “Do you think he has hurt himself?”
Poppy frowned and waved her wand over Harry, finally nodding contently. “No, everything is all right. His concussion is a tiny bit worse than yesterday but nonetheless nearly gone. Very well, give him a day more of rest and he will be fine. However, I have to wake him up now to be sure that everything is fine.” She woke Harry up and talked to him in a calming voice. When she asked him what happened this morning and if his head hurt, he told her that he had jumped out of his bed in the morning and that his head hurt from the fall at first, but that it didn’t hurt anymore.
Poppy turned to Lily and said, “For a baby of his age, it is very unusual to show so much magic; he must be an extremely powerful wizard.
-----
Two days later, Harry was finally allowed to run around again, and Albus decided to take him out for a walk around the lake. On Harry’s small feet it took them two hours to arrive back near the Entrance doors, and he was so tired that Albus had to carry him through the castle up to the headmaster’s quarters, while Harry was soundly asleep in Albus’ arms.
In the meantime, Lily concentrated on the guardian papers, which James had brought from the Ministry the evening before. As he had already signed them, Lily only had to fill them out to change their content. She added Severus to the godparents putting him in the first place, while Sirius’ name automatically vanished and reappeared in the second row, the Longbottoms in the third. Under ‘comments’ she added, “Do not – under any circumstances – place my son with my sister Petunia and her husband Vernon Dursley.”
After letting Minerva have a look at the parchment in order to confirm that everything was correct, she signed the parchment and it rolled itself up and disappeared immediately. Early in the afternoon, her copy acknowledged by the Ministry appeared in front of her and she let out a relieved sigh. Everything should be all right now.
Future-Minerva, who had been thinking about the matter while she was watching Lily, suddenly spoke up. “Lily, I have a suggestion; maybe you should make copies of this parchment and leave one with Albus, one with my younger self, one with the younger Severus and one with Poppy.”
Lily gave her a thankful nod and immediately made the copies.
-----
During the next two weeks, they couldn’t do much except to wait for the time to pass. Lily and the two time travellers spent a lot of time with Harry, reading books to him or playing with him either in the Headmaster’s quarters or in the Room of Requirement, which was the optimal place for Harry to rampage. Past-Severus had replaced Professor Slughorn as Potions Master and was eagerly brewing potions for the Hospital Wing as well as for his own customers, while the older Severus spent a lot of time with Harry successfully teaching him to count to twenty in order to give his younger self some space alone in his new lab.
“Now, Harry,” Severus told Harry, “look, here are many cats, can you count them for me?” They had just come to the Room of Requirement, where Harry was sitting on Severus’ lap, looking at a book.
“One,” Harry started to count. “Too, twee, fip…”
“No, Harry, four.”
“Fouw, fip, sik, sebn, ate, nine, ten,” Harry shouted happily. “Uncy Sebby wee boo?”
“You want me to read you the book?” Severus enquired, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah,” Harry cheered. “Ah, no, da dwago boo.”
“The dragon book?” Severus asked, and Harry gave him a pleading look, probably knowing that none of the adults could resist his twinkling green eyes.
Severus read the book to the child, noticing that it was obviously one of Harry’s favourite books as he seemed to know exactly what was coming next. “Now, what do you want to do now?” he asked the child after reading the book three times.
“I fy boo?” Harry suggested.
“Excuse me?” Severus enquired. “Sorry, but I couldn’t understand you.”
“I fy boo!” Harry insisted. Seeing that Severus obviously didn’t understand what he meant – ‘they are all really stupid sometimes,’ he thought – Harry stood in the room and concentrated, whishing for the thing he wanted as he had seen the adults do in that special room. When he opened his eyes again, in front of him were several brooms of different sizes and shapes.
Severus was stunned. ‘Such a concentrated willing magic! My God, Harry must be extremely powerful,’ he thought but was pulled out of his thoughts very quickly when Harry tried to mount one of the brooms. Severus picked up the smallest broom, quickly waved his wand at it to Charm it so that it would only hover a meter above the ground and would only fly very slowly. He also attached a Sticking Charm to the broom, so that Harry couldn’t fall off.
Harry enjoyed flying very much, and when Severus conjured a small Snitch that moved at the same speed as Harry’s broom, the child was over the moon with joy.
-----
They had another meeting with Sirius and Remus in the week before Halloween in which they fixed all final details for the coming activities. Fortunately, this time the conversation went very smoothly and without disturbances from any of the partners. Finally, everything was decided and they could only wait for the time to come.
During the last days before Halloween, Harry had been very whiny, sensing the tense atmosphere. The others could not know that, but Harry felt that everyone was acting strangely, and he feared that something bad was going to occur. However, what could he do? There was nothing he could do to help them, was there? He just didn’t know, because he couldn’t understand the whole commotion at all. On Sunday morning, when Lily told him she would go home together with Severus to prepare breakfast for Daddy, Uncy Sebbus, Uncy Moony and Uncy Pafoo and come back immediately, he burst into tears. Why couldn’t she take him with her? He didn’t know, and all this was too much for his little baby head and it began to ache.
-----
On the morning of October 30th, which fortunately was a Sunday, James, Remus, Sirius, Future-Severus and Peter met for a brunch in Godrics Hollow. Lily had prepared the brunch for them, and when they started to eat, she excused herself, saying she had to floo back to the babysitter, who was taking care of Harry, and returned to Hogwarts immediately.
Shortly after Lily had hurried away, James complained about a stomachache and ran to the bathroom. In the meantime, Sirius questioned Peter.