Oh no!’ Poppy mumbled to herself. ‘What’s wrong with Harry now?’ She quickly pulled her mobile phone out of her pocket and called Severus. “Severus, you have to cancel your lessons for the rest of the day and come to the Hospital wing immediately please.”
A minute later, Severus strode over to Harry’s bed. “What happened?” he asked, not even noticing the baby in Poppy’s arms.
“First of all, congratulations!” Poppy exclaimed, holding out the baby for him to take. “And now I need you to look after your daughter while I check on your son. I don’t know what’s wrong but he obviously has gone into shock.” Only when Severus had taken over his daughter, Poppy realized that all sounds from around Lily could be heard. She quickly cast a Silencing Spell and filled Severus in what had happened and that they were still working on Lily because they couldn’t stop the bleeding.
“And nobody cast a Silencing Spell, so that Harry had to hear everything?” Severus hissed angrily. “Why was he here in the first place?”
Poppy explained how Harry had flashed Lily to the Hospital wing but had been too tired to go anywhere, so that she had made him rest on the next bed. After a thorough check on Harry, Poppy quickly went into her office and returned with a small baby bottle of tea for the baby and a few potions for Harry. “You have to be careful, Severus. Your daughter has inhaled some blood, so it might be that she’ll sick up after drinking a bit. She already threw up immediately after they took her out. So, only let her take small sips please and be prepared to get them back.
Severus made himself and the baby comfortable on the edge of Harry’s bed, trying to make his daughter drink tea instead of thinking about what was happening behind the white curtain, while Poppy tended to Harry. Ten minutes later, one of the Healers approached them. “We stopped the bleeding; she’ll be all right.”
‘Thank God,’ Severus thought, closing his eyes in relief until his daughter pulled him back to the present situation by sicking up a few sips of tea.
-----
Lily slept for a few hours. When she woke up, Poppy was sitting next to her bed. “Is the baby all right?” Lily asked sleepily, remembering what had happened before.
Poppy gave her an encouraging nod and explained that everything was fine before she went to fetch Severus, while she took his place on the edge of Harry’s bed. They had decided that one of them should stay with the unconscious boy and try to speak to him as much as possible. During the rest of the afternoon, Lily struggled trying to feed her daughter, who hadn’t yet recovered from inhaling so much blood. When Lily asked for Harry, Severus only told her that he had overdone himself bringing her to the Hospital wing and was asleep on the bed next to her.
In the evening, however, two of the Healers, who had saved Lily’s life, came to check on her and told her how close she had come to death, which was a huge shock to Lily, especially as the Healers couldn’t give her a reason for what had happened. They could only tell her that it occurred in one in a million births and was likely to occur again after happening once. Severus did his best to calm Lily, who cried and sobbed during the evening until her daughter started to wail and had to be fed. It took three hours until the little girl finally calmed down and went back to sleep, when Severus fetched the teddy bear for her and started the music.
“Ah, thank God for the teddy,” Lily sighed exhaustedly. However, caring for her daughter had been exactly what Lily had needed to change her mood at least a little. “She’s beautiful,” Lily whispered and watched her daughter sleeping in awe.
The little girl looked entirely different from Harry. She had her mother’s red hair and her father’s onyx eyes. As she had been born two weeks before she was supposed to be, she was a tiny bit small but otherwise completely healthy.
As soon as Lily was asleep, Poppy let Harry’s bed hover next to Lily’s and drew the curtains around both. She and Severus took turns sitting between the two beds. Before Poppy returned to her quarters, she apologized to Severus. “Severus, I’m so sorry. It’s my fault that Harry is unconscious.”
“No, it’s not,” Severus replied immediately. “You had to save Lily’s life; you couldn’t care for Harry at that moment. Moreover, he’ll probably be fine in a few hours, don’t you think?”
Poppy gave him a short nod. “I hope so. It is my fault because I forgot to put a Silencing Spell around Lily,” she insisted distressed.
Severus shook his head and handed her a Calming Draught. “No, Poppy. You and Harry saved Lily’s life. You couldn’t do more at the time. Everything is all right. Drink the potion and go to bed. I’m going to stay with them until you come back in the morning,” he ordered his son’s godmother softly before he enlarged Harry’s bed and lay down next to his son.
When Harry finally woke up to his sister’s whining, he was over the moon with joy over his small sister and the fact that his Mummy was all right. “May I hold her? What’s her name?” he asked excitedly.
Lily laughed. “Yes, you may hold her as soon as I’ve finished feeding her, sweetie. And her name is Isabella.”
Harry was very proud when his parents told him how much the musical teddy had helped the baby to calm down. “It was obvious that she recognized the teddy by its music and relaxed as soon as it was turned on,” Severus told his son.
The next weeks passed quickly. Harry tried to help his Mummy as much as he could and soon he became proficient in changing nappies. He just couldn’t wait for his sister to grow and be able to run around the castle with him.
When the summer holidays started, Isabella was already two months old and slowly started to remain awake for certain times during the day. Whenever he knew that she was awake, Harry remained firmly at her side, talking to the baby or reading to her from his children’s books. The little girl absolutely adored her big brother and always gave him the brightest smiles.
Lily sometimes even felt a little jealous deep in her heart in spite of knowing how stupid it was. ‘Harry is adorable, and he’s a little charmer as well,’ she told herself, proudly watching her son trying to feed her daughter some sips of tea from a bottle.
-----
At the end of the holidays, Harry was in for two surprises. Together with Isabella he attended a staff meeting, sitting on the floor and watching his sister, who was feverishly trying to sit up in vain. He looked up confused when the name ‘Neville’ penetrated his ear. Pomona Sprout was just telling her colleagues that Neville Longbottom was going to become her assistant from September 1st onwards. A huge smile covered Harry’s face. He knew Neville, and he adored him. Neville was Luna’s fiancé, and he used to accompany Luna when most of the Hogwarts staff spent one or two weeks of their holidays at the seaside. Neville always talked to Harry about interesting things, and during their recent holiday two weeks ago, Harry had even confided in Neville telling him everything about his computer research. He knew that Neville was normally very quiet and seemed to be well able to keep a secret.
Harry was pulled out of his thoughts when the tiny Professor Flitwick raised his voice. The older teacher announced that he intended to retire from his position as Head of House and suggested Luna as his successor like he had already told his colleagues a few years ago. When Luna hesitantly accepted the position, Harry started clapping his hands, causing everyone to join him. Just as he liked Neville, he also adored Luna. Although all of the teachers were always very nice to Harry and were like a huge family to him, Luna always took time to accompany him to the library, and she was always there for him if he needed to talk with someone. Of course his parents and his godparents as well as his granny were always there for him too, but somehow Luna was very easy to speak to, maybe because she was much closer to his own age.
-----
From the beginning of the new school year onwards, Lily went back to teaching her classes. Lily and Severus had set up playpens in Lily’s and in Severus’ classrooms as well as in Poppy’s office, so that Isabella could stay in either room during lesson times. Lily had carefully weaned her off, so that Harry would be able to feed his sister milk from baby bottles. Harry normally stayed wherever Isabella was during lessons. Fortunately, she was still sleeping a lot during the day, so that he could do his own studies and care for the baby when she was awake. During his private lessons with the different teachers, he always took the little girl with him, having an eye on her all the time.
Recently, Neville had started teaching Harry about Herbology. As assistant teacher he didn’t have to do many lessons and spent a lot of time doing research. Whenever Lily had a free period and could care for her daughter by herself, Harry went down to the greenhouses in order to help Neville with his projects and learn more about herbs that could be used in Healing potions. During Severus’ free periods however, nothing could pull Harry away from the potions lab, where he continued helping his father to research the werewolf potion.
-----
On the November full moon, something strange happened. The werewolf, who had taken potion number 251 in October and was supposed to transform that night, stayed human during the night without taking any potion.
Harry was silently playing with his computer in the living room, while his mother and sister were still asleep after an obviously rough night, when Severus entered the room and told him that there was a huge possibility that they had finally found the long researched cure. However, as there was still a slight chance that it was some kind of coincidence, Severus told Harry sternly not to get his hopes up too much.
During the next four weeks, Harry and Severus were busy brewing many batches of potion 251 for the fifty test persons apart from the many potions they still had to brew for the Ministry every month. However, it would only be on the January full moon that they would finally know if the new potion had worked as it was supposed to work.
After the next full moon at the beginning of December, it was clear that the new potion at least worked as well as the patented potion the Ministry was always feeding the werewolves. Therefore, Severus and Harry agreed with the Minister to replace the older potion with the new potion in order to have only to brew one kind of potion that month. Although Harry was actually brewing at least half of the batches needed, Severus and Harry were very busy with the brewing apart from lessons and everything else.
‘If by chance this potion will be the cure to Lycanthropy it will be a nice surprise for everyone,’ Severus thought, while he worriedly watched his son stirring a potion. Harry was always there helping him in spite of his being only ten years old. ‘Nearly eleven,’ Severus corrected himself. Nevertheless, he had to try to make Harry play more instead of researching and helping his parents all the time. Hopefully, next year when he became a first year student, Harry would become a little more like the Harry he was in his first childhood, doing mischief all day, even if he would upset Severus by playing pranks from time to time.
Harry’s voice pulled Severus out of his musings. Severus couldn’t believe what he had just been thinking about. No, of course he didn’t want Harry to return to his former self. His son was perfect as he was now. However, he would see to it that the child would have a little fun during the holidays. Severus decided to take Harry out to the zoo and to a few museums after Christmas. First they had to finish the potions for the werewolves though.
-----
The day before Christmas was Harry’s eleventh birthday. As the eleventh birthday was a special day in the wizarding world, Lily had thought about something extraordinary. She would have liked to invite Harry’s friends and let them stay overnight. However, as the next day was Christmas day that wasn’t possible, especially as all of Harry’s friends would start attending Hogwarts after the summer, so that they’d be separated from their families for ten months during the school year. However, unbeknownst to Harry, she had invited his five friends for the day before his birthday.
On December 23rd, Luna and Neville took Harry to the Muggle library and afterwards to Diagon Alley for some last minute Christmas shopping. As Luna knew they weren’t supposed to be back before three o’clock in the afternoon, she finally suggested heading to Fortescue’s for an ice cream. Just in time, they arrived back at Hogwarts.
When they entered the Great Hall, Luna and Neville let Harry go ahead, and Harry stopped dead in his tracks. The Great Hall was full of balloons and just as in the previous years the teachers had turned the Hall into a huge playground. Suddenly, from behind the playground toys his friends appeared and stormed over to Harry.
“What…? But…?” Harry stuttered, confused.
“As eloquent as ever,” Severus commented, who had just entered the Hall.
“Your Mum invited us here today and we can stay until tomorrow,” Enid and Angela quickly filled him in.
“Really?” Harry asked, and his eyes started to twinkle happily.
“Yeah, come on, Harry, this is great fun,” Marc and Frank shouted from the top of the slide.
The children played on the playground until it was time for dinner. After the meal, everyone headed outside for a Quidditch match children against adults, which ended in a tie because Harry caught the Snitch exactly when the teachers were 150 points ahead of the children.
After the match, Severus took Harry and his friends down to their quarters, where the house elves prepared hot cocoa, so that everyone could warm up from playing Quidditch in the snow for an hour. Finally, all the children headed into Harry’s room, where Lily had conjured six sleeping bags on the floor. Harry was very excited. Never had one of his friends stayed overnight, and now his friends were all there. Suddenly, he had a splendid idea, and a mischievous smile played on his lips. He reached for his alarm clock and set it to one o’clock in the morning. As soon as Lily and Severus had left his room, he quickly called Dobby and told him about his idea.
The little elf was bouncing up and down with excitement. “Of course, Master Harry, Dobby will see to it. Yous wills have much fun in the night.”
When Harry’s alarm went off in the middle of the night, he quickly got up and woke his friends, trying to be as quiet as possible in order not to alert his mother, who was often awake during the night, feeding his sister. Harry exchanged a few words with Fawkes, and the phoenix flashed four of his friends to Harry’s secret common room while Harry told Evelyn to grab his tail feathers, transformed, and flashed the girl after the others.
His friends looked around excitedly. “Wow, Harry, where are we?” Frank enquired curiously.
Harry explained to his friends where they were and told them that he had so far kept quiet about the house, so that they could meet there anytime, even if they would be sorted into different houses when they entered Hogwarts. His friends already knew about the House system, and so they could understand what it meant to have a secret meeting place just for them.
“Now, let’s have a midnight snack,” Harry suggested, pointing to the table that was full of delicacies the house elves had eagerly prepared for the six children. After eating so much that they thought their bellies were going to burst, Harry took his friends for a walk through the house, showing them the dormitories, the washing rooms, and even the Portrait hole, explaining that everything was very similar to the other houses.
The children, who were all looking forward to becoming Hogwarts students next summer, were very eager to learn everything about Hogwarts and life in the different houses and questioned Harry, until he suddenly noticed that it already was five o’clock in the morning. “Oh my, we have to head back to my room, otherwise my parents will know and we’ll be in so much trouble,” he told the others worriedly and called Fawkes before he transformed into his phoenix form to take one of his friends back.
Fortunately, nobody had noticed their absence from Harry’s room. Normally, Lily often checked in on Harry when she was up with the baby during the night, but with so many children sleeping in Harry’s room she didn’t want to take the risk of waking any of them up and had stayed away. However, when none of the children wanted to get up until ten o’clock and even refused to eat breakfast, Lily became suspicious. And when Harry and Evelyn, who obediently tried to eat a bite at the breakfast table, had to sick up, Severus questioned the other children what they had been doing during the night.
“We had a midnight party in a secret room Harry showed us,” the twins confessed in small voices. “We’re sorry,” they added quickly, seeing the professor’s grim face.
“Oh, I don’t think that’s your fault. I know exactly whose idea that was,” Severus replied sternly.
In the meantime, Poppy had taken Harry and Evelyn to the Hospital wing, given them a potion and told them to lie down for a few minutes until they felt better. When they returned to the Great Hall twenty minutes later, Severus gave Harry a very stern talking to.
“Harry, your friends will be fine here without you for a moment. Please come with me,” he told his son strictly and led him to an empty classroom nearby.
“Harry,” Severus sighed. A thought of how he had wished Harry would turn into a normal, mischief-doing child came up deep in Severus’ head, but he dismissed the thought immediately. “What did you think you were doing, endangering yourself and your friends by going to a room only Fawkes and Dobby can access? Moreover in the middle of the night and without telling anyone?”
Harry threw his father an anxious glance. He could see that Severus was very angry. “I’m sorry, Daddy,” he said quietly, trying to keep the tears at bay. “You know, Daddy, it was the first time that my friends could stay overnight, and I just wanted to do something really special with them,” he tried to explain. “Plus I wanted to show them the room, because… you know… when we get sorted into different Houses, we can’t meet easily, so I thought we could meet in the secret room sometimes. I know I shouldn’t tell you that because you’re a teacher,” he added sheepishly.
Severus gave his son a menacing look. “That hasn’t anything to do with the fact that I’m a teacher but that I’m your father and as such, I’m concerned about you,” he stated firmly. “Even if you’re a Hogwarts student, I’m still your father and would prefer if you don’t keep secrets from me, even if I might not like your decisions and might give you spider points. You already know that sneaking away is worth five spider points.”
“All right,” Harry promised quietly, trying not to think about the spider’s smug look on his Hourglass.
-----
After dinner, Harry’s friends took the Floo Network to return to their families. Harry sat down on a chair in front of the fireplace, very happy after having such a great birthday. He tiredly watched his mother feeding a bottle to his sister, while his father had retreated to his lab for a few minutes to wrap Christmas presents.
Suddenly, in front of Harry’s eyes, the bottle Lily was giving to his sister turned green, and his mother and sister were whisked away instantly. Obviously, Harry had been taken away with them, although he hadn’t felt the distinctive pull behind his navel like he normally had with a Portkey. They appeared in a huge stone room, and three men in dark robes with masks in front of their faces materialized in front of them.
Not exactly knowing how to behave in that situation, Harry quickly cast a very strong wandless Expelliarmus Spell in the direction of the three men, which the men countered easily. His sister, who was sitting on his mother’s lap, very upset about being disturbed in her meal, started to glow in a light blue colour and threw accidental magic at the three men. Instantly, the outfit of the three Death Eaters changed into that of three clowns like the clowns in one of her baby books.
Harry feverishly thought about what to do now, when he was hit by an unknown spell that made his head explode with pain.