“Hurry up, Harry!” Hermione said, eyes gleaming. “I can’t wait to see my parents again.”

Harry was stuffing the sweets he’d bought on the train into his satchel hurriedly. He’d left his trunk at Hogwarts. “You can go ahead, Hermione, if you want.”

“No, I want you to meet Mum and Dad— and they’ll want to meet yours. Come on.”

And when he’d finished she took him by the arm and practically dragged him out of the train.

While they were jumping down onto the platform, something flickered into his mind. Harry wobbled and nearly fell sprawling on the ground— hadn’t he been staying at Hogwarts this year with Ron?

No— that couldn’t be right. Why did he think that? He’d just caught the train back to London with Hermione.

And then he was being introduced to the Grangers, who both smiled warmly at him and said they’d heard a lot about him from Hermione’s letters.

Harry smiled back at them and thought how nice they looked— then a cold unease trickled down his spine. Why was he at Kings Cross Station? The Dursleys hadn’t wanted him to spend Christmas with them in Surrey, not at all. They would have been glad to have him remain at school. But he wasn’t at school, so what was going on?

“Harry,” a deep, unfamiliar voice cried. Harry nearly swung around, but knew it must be for someone else— he shoved down the wish that someone would greet him with such enthusiasm and love in their voice. “Harry, I’ve missed you so much!”

Then to his utmost surprise an arm drew him to someone’s chest; a hand ruffled his hair; and he was— he was— he was being hugged.

His glasses were askew from having collided with someone’s chest, but the person hugging him had deep red robes and a warm embrace. When he was released, ready to explain the hugger’s mistake, he stepped back, adjusted his glasses and looked up only to have his mouth fall open.

“Why d’you look so surprised, Harry? You couldn’t have thought we’d forget and leave you sitting on the platform— our only son, abandoned—”

And James Potter— unmistakably, James Potter, took Harry’s satchel from him and slung an arm around his shoulder. The unruly hair, the glasses, the shape of his face— though the nose was different—

“Well, there was that time you got called in on a case and didn’t pick him up from school—” 

Harry swung round, eyes widening even more. It was— it couldn’t be—

“—I was at a conference in Allemagne and the poor child had to wait for hours while they tried to get hold of you, then Sirius, then they finally called Remy—”

“That was years ago— and I apologised for that, didn’t I, Harry? I grovelled, and abased myself, and vowed that would never happen again—”

Harry laughed incredulously, a bit hysterically.

“See, he’s just glad to see us, Lily. Go give her a hug, don’t you—”

And then Harry somehow was hugging his mother, who had eyes like his, and his nose, and had been dead for years. She was warm and soft and her hair flopped over her shoulders to tickle his nose; she didn’t feel dead.

He squeezed her tighter. She didn’t evaporate, or vanish, or tell him coldly he was mistaken: she just hugged him back and gave him a kiss on the forehead.

“Mum,” he whispered. He could feel pressure building in his eyes— any second now he was going to start crying. “Mum.”

“Oh, Harry,” Lily Potter said. “I’ve missed you too. I’d say the house was a lot quieter without you but your dad took it upon himself to fill any silence you left. He and Uncle Sirius are experimenting again.”

Harry didn’t know who this Uncle Sirius was, but he didn’t particularly care. It was his Mum and Dad who mattered, and they were there and this was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

“Why don’t you introduce me to your friend, Harry,” his mother said as he clung like a limpet to her. “We can have another hug back home, I think everyone’ll get cold standing around. Is this Hermione?”

Harry disengaged himself from the hug extremely reluctantly, and said, “Yes, this is Hermione. She’s brilliant.”

And then his parents— his parents — were introducing themselves to the Grangers, and talking about arranging a visit over the break. Hermione came over to Harry, and gave him a quick squeeze of the hand.

“It’s strange, you don’t think about them when they’re not there,” she said. “But now I’m here it suddenly hit me how much I missed them.”

Harry could only nod.

Lily Potter side-along apparated Harry home, though he didn’t know what it was she had done until he was sprawled on chilly cobbles.

“Side-along apparition really never agrees with you, does it?” she said sympathetically. “It should get better when you’re older— but you won’t believe me because I’ve been telling you that for years.”

It seemed he lived in a nice little cottage, with vines trained up the side of the walls. It looked like a rambling rose near the door— Harry was willing to bet it looked spectacular in summertime.

The rest of the afternoon and evening of that day almost blurred together in a wonderful, warm shimmer for Harry. He’d wanted to notice everything, take everything in and remember it all— but it just kept happening and it almost felt like it was slipping through his fingers like sand. If only it were possible to just pause what was happening so he could collect each moment, but it wasn’t. So Harry found himself upstairs, unpacking  in a bedroom that was obviously his (quidditch posters and bookshelves with some kids books and puzzles and a chocolate frog card collection). And then he was in a cosy living room with the fire crackling, toasting marshmallows beside his Dad while his Mum moaned loudly that she didn’t understand how they could eat the sickeningly sweet things. He heard what his Dad had been doing: funny stories about tripping over a disillusioned burglar in the middle of a different case, about the cake he’d made for someone named Remus’s birthday that he’d forgotten to put any sugar in. His Mum had lots of stories too— about her work as an editor of Potions Today , and some lightly sarcastic-sounding ones about ill-thought-out experiments done by Uncle Sirius and Harry’s Dad.

Harry loved to hear them talk, the way their voices drew him into a family he’d never known. He found himself offering up little anecdotes of his own from Hogwarts.

They made dinner together, Harry grating parmesan cheese for a bolognese sauce, and then ate together on the ground next to the fire once more.

“I’ll clear off the dining table tomorrow,” James promised. “Once I get home from work. It’ll be my last day for the year, Harry, cause I wheedled my way out of any holiday shifts.”

Harry could only grin.

At half-past nine he lay in bed, fingers rubbing the soft blanket covering him. If this was a dream, then maybe going to sleep would make him wake up— and he did not want that. He just wanted it to go on and on... So he tried to keep awake, pinching himself whenever his eyes drifted shut. But by ten o’clock or so sleep had gotten the better of him and he drifted away to dream of mirrors and snitches and melted marshmallows.