Chapter 1
Harry’s family had grown from him and Barty, to Severus, then to Lupin, Andromeda, and Sirius Black.
They squabbled, usually ending up bickering about James Potter, which Papa Barty and Uncle Severus were attacking the character of, while Uncle Mooney and Sirius defended him. Harry didn’t care overall who won which arguments, he took the chance with always at least one of them trying to keep Harry out of the arguments to play around on his broom, or grin ear to ear watching them as he ate Mars Bars, kicking his feet as he listened to their banter start to get heated, then one or another of them would glance at him and watch their tongues. Now and then it was hilarious if they let loose with words they clearly didn’t mean to, then they would freeze up as the other pointed at them accusingly, and Harry took the cue of their shock and horror to repeat whatever was just said. Then he would laugh as immediately following this, whoever the offender was would try to get him to not say it again, usually Papa, while Severus and Sirius tried to hex Papa in punishment for teaching their collective kid a new bad word.
Talking bad about James was one of his favorite pastimes because of this.
Severus had to leave during the school year, go be potions professor while grumbling about again not getting Defense Against The Dark Arts, and Andromeda had her own family to stick to, her husband and her daughter, so she only saw them on holidays as well.
Most of the exploring from there was Papa, Uncle Mooney, and Sirius. They went with him everywhere, exploring ancient sites of magic, to places of power occurring in nature or man made. Natural springs to clear the mind and strengthen Occlumency, getting Harry closer to finding his animagus and helping Papa find his safety in peace of mind once more, the warmth chasing away the cold for he and Sirius both, while Lupin would spit off facts about the areas, how opening the lines to chakras could improve their connection to magic as well. He dressed funny, like the muggles, but exaggerated, where the locals often scoffed about tourists. On full moons, with Severus sending Wolfsbane to calm Lupin's mind, they would go into large fields on nights of full moons, to see the Mooncalves as they danced in the light of the dead of night.
They practiced Harry’s magic control with Nogtails, infestations ruining crops of respectable herbalist specialists, they’d take care of the pig-like infestations, building connections while Harry built his control over his naturally rather overactive magic.
They worked on his attunement with the elements, going to Romania for the Dragon Sanctuaries, teaching Harry a deep respect for the grand magical beasts, Harry earning a scar on his hand where he tried to pet an adolescent dragon using Parseltongue to try and talk to it and quickly found out that was not a thing as it bit and burned him. He got a cool scar from it though.
Travelling through Donner’s Pass in America, he was treated to the awful sight of a Wendigo fighting a Mountain Troll. Sirius’s eyes had sparkled at what they could get for the Wendigo hide if they caught it, but Papa and Uncle Mooney insisted that wasn’t something they wanted Harry to get any closer to. The fierce style of the Mountain Troll had caught his attention though, and with the strength he had been building up hauling around Nagini everywhere, he had a strong urge to talk to the creature and learn the rough rugged fighting style. It was brutish, but in some steps of its fight with the Wendigo, he got some heavy swings in which Harry figured he could practice.
They took advantage of winter and summer holidays that the schools around them would be emptied out, and learned about the histories all over the place.
Koldovstortz was chaotic and very nature driven, Harry’s eyes were completely alight when he had found their Quidditch was with trees in place of brooms underneath them. To twist their magic and infuse it so fully into their every day was amazing. Also hilarious to watch as full trees bashed into each other.
Durmstrang Institute had been highly curious as well. While Harry didn’t understand why blood mattered that they wouldn’t allow Muggleborns to attend, the four story castle blanketed in the snow with the stars twinkling above, hidden from the rest of the world, was indeed gorgeous. He could feel the magic pumping through the walls, and he saw in their library the huge collection, and as he’d gone with his papa, Barty had been surprised seeing how expansive their dark arts collection was, given how anything even remotely dark arts was hidden away in the restricted section under lock and key at Hogwarts.
“But Libraries are to learn, if you aren’t supposed to know about it, why even bother having it?” Harry complained with a huff, while pouring over books about finding your light or dark affinity,
Barty chuckled at that. “Well, the teachers and those on career paths to becoming Aurors and Hit Wizards have to do their research to make sure they’ll pass the bar and know what they’re getting into. Otherwise? They would love to hide that stuff away completely, which is a shame, as there is so much that the light can’t do. Remember, just because something is dark, doesn’t make it evil. Only what you do with it.”
Ilvermorny was fascinating as well. The American school in Massachusetts. To see the bowtruckles that numbered in the hundreds on the snakewood tree, to learn of the Rappaport law that kept students from using their wands outside of school had been rolled back on, while Hogwarts still had similar laws in place monitoring the use of underage magic, Barty and Sirius had gotten the biggest grins on their faces and found Harry a wand while they were in the states. That of red oak, 12 inches, phoenix feather core.
The wand maker was extremely excited, giggling a bit that Harry may find he’s got a temper, but being light footed, adaptable, and great to have at your back in a fight. A knowing glint to the half hag’s eyes as she teased him about the big personality needed to match such a long wand. He was preening a bit as Sirius helped him get a wand holster fitted to his forearm for it, in a leather close to his skin tone as they could get, so if he kept his wand on the underside of his arm, it would appear to be a subtle armband.
Time really had flown by, as Harry took turns with his Papa and his different uncles, his godfather he counted as one of them by now. Ten year old Harry bubbled in laughter as he tripped up Sirius with roots summoned through the earth, as they raced around after each other dueling in the middle of the Scottish Highlands, around Plodda Falls. His godfather was teaching him to use his environment,where to pin down an opponent, send them with a twisted ankle into a dip in the landscaping, using boulders as emergency coverage.
Whenever he got too big of a head over his skill, slashing away at the air between them, Severus would take the next session and completely obliterate Harry, always giving him higher goals to work towards and keep his head level, humble. His previous favor of letting the bashing on his dad go back and forth came to bite him in the butt with Severus wagging his finger at him, declaring he wasn’t going to let him go to school like the little bully he was.
“He had skill, but his arrogance outweighed it many times over. I refuse to let you mimic his crass nature.”
Harry, in his well schooled and clearly too mature to have to worry about such things, responded wisely as the bigger person should, and stuck his tongue out at him. He yelped, giggling as he dodged sideways to Severus sending a stinging hex at him.
It was the summer he should be receiving his letter to Hogwarts any day. He was abuzz with excitement, and his magic responded in kind. It crackled with an energetic longing to belong. He had toured a half dozen other schools, the one that had left him in awe was the Mahoutokoro, a pale nephrite palace on a volcanic island in Japan. It had less capacity for students at any one given time, but they had accolades plenty decorating their walls to show the quality of their schooling. Flying with their Quidditch coach on his visit was an absolute treat. He marvelled at their intense training. How often they had planes flying around, they had to dodge them as well as the bludgers, keeping charms up to not get themselves caught by the muggles. After that visit he practiced with Severus and Sirius throwing jinxes at him midair as well as the bludgers, hoping to play with some of them next summer too and to be up to par. He didn’t know what position he’d go for yet, but he had time to practice. Hogwarts didn’t even allow first years to have brooms so there was no way he was going to be able to get onto any teams.
Despite his disappointment in not being able to take a broom, he was excited to find out what was different at Hogwarts, what treasures it hid. He wanted to explore every square foot of it. Sirius and Uncle Mooney sighed dreamily to his expressions of such, telling him about a map that got taken away from them in their last year that they’d been doing just that, but it felt never ending, like they had so much more to put together on it. They didn’t have the common rooms or dorms mapped out very well for the Ravenclaw or Slytherin houses, only Hufflepuff and Gryffiindor, but they’d found a dozen hidden tunnels all over the school, they couldn’t wait to hear the sorts of trouble he got himself into as well.
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Severus smirked when July 10th, an early Wednesday morning, he handed Harry a letter, thick, yellow parchment, with green ink and a wax seal on it. He passed it over to him as he sipped at his coffee in the Dunbarton home they had been occupying now, a small cottage acquired by muggles for a fetching price that they simply expanded on the inside for their own needs.
Harry sighed out a dramatic whine as he took it. “Man I don’t get the full experience, the owl landing in the middle of the dining room table and all?”
“You’d prefer a bird to a professor, handing you your acceptance letter, in person?” Severus scowled at the boy, who just sneered as scornfully as he could force up, which wasn’t much as he was trying not to laugh with delight at the face his uncle was making.
“With the prices Hogwarts charges? This seal should be inlaid with gold dust.” He huffed out as vocally as possible, throwing himself over the table before he burst into giggles, snatching up the letter happily and opening it, reading through the list. “This is fantastic! Thank you, Uncle Severus, you’re better than a ruffled up owl any day.” He batted his eyelashes at him, earning a slow exhale from the man, probably preparing having to deal with Harry’s antics year round.
“Just remember to call me Professor Snape in the company of other students. It will not do for students like those dreadful Weasley twins to go around asking if their
‘Buddy Severus’ wanted to hang out in Hogsmeade with them.”
Harry giggled as he’d been hearing a lot about the two redheads that spoke for each other and set multiple pranks off that created a few problems for Severus and the other teachers. It was a real problem last year when the twins had glitter bombed a vampire students coffin and hidden it away in the kitchen. He couldn’t wait to see in person what they’d get up to this year. He beamed as he grabbed parchment and started penning his response, handwriting slow and methodical, he froze a bit in thought and looked up to the professor.
“Uncle Sev…It said…Toad, Cat, or Owl…what about Nini? I can’t leave her all year!”
“You can come see her on the holidays. It is important to have familiars with you, and as inseparable as you two are, I’m sure she’s going to be just as pouty without you, but you both will live, perhaps even be able to strengthen your connections over long distances. It’ll be good for you both to be less codependent.”
Harry gasped in mock horror, clutching his chest looking for perhaps a string of pearls. “I say, good sir, that is a wild accusation! Me! Codependent?!”
“You haven’t slept alone in your bed for more than two nights in a row Harry… you should start weening the connection now so it isn’t such an overwhelming feeling without her there. In the meantime…I recommend an owl.”
“Fiiiiine!”
“It will be quite difficult to find a pet with as big of a personality as Harry has.~” Sirius grinned across the table, looking over the list for what books Harry had on his list compared to when they were in school.
“Oi!”
“Indeed it’ll be good for them to be able to fly off, get some room when he gets a big head.” Barty stepped through the kitchen, getting some grits going for his breakfast.
“OI! You’re all being right proper gits now, aren’t you?” Harry cackled at them taking turns nitpicking at him.
“Better not catch you with that sort of language around Hogwarts young man.”
“What? It’s not like I said wanker or tosser.”
“Harry!” Now Remus looked appalled. “Do. NOT. Say words like that in front of poor Professor McGonagall, you’ll give the poor woman a heart condition.”
“Oh come on, Papa calls dad that all the time! Why can’t I use it?” At that, Remus shot Barty a hearty glare, mouthing at him for it being his fault.
“Well…can we at least make a stop before we go get my school supplies?” Harry sighed as he swung his legs, Severus raising a brow at him.
“Pray tell, where would be more pressing to visit before having you google at every odd and end in Diagon Alley?”
“Number Four, Privet Drive.” Harry blinked innocently up to them with the biggest eyes he could muster, and now it was turn for Severus to have his eyes color in actual horror.
“Why would you want to see those awful people, Harry?”
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