Summer Nights
August 1998
The day after their trip to Gringotts as Lords Gryffindor and Slytherin, Neville and Harry had returned to the bank to discuss their individual estates. Earlier in the summer, they’d gone to claim their rings and discuss some initial investments and, in Harry’s case, establish a trust account for Teddy, name his heirs, welcome Andromeda back into the Black family, dissolve Narcissa’s marriage into the Malfoy family, change Narcissa and Draco’s surnames to Black, and spend awhile in the time bubble healing hall.
On this later trip, Neville was speaking to his account managers about options for treatment for his parents; after Harry’s experience in the healing hall, he’d learned that the Goblin healers had some options that may make his parents more comfortable, and, in some cases, even more alert. While Frank and Alice would never be cured, the Goblins’ magic and practices may bring them back to themselves. And, in Neville’s opinion, any improvement was nothing short of a miracle.
Harry, on the other hand, was simply discussing repairs to Raven’s Keep (Black Manor) and Griffin House (Potter Manor). The Keep is a grand manor in central England, located in the Peak District National Park near Sheffield. While the primary line of the Black Family had called Grimmauld Place home for the past few generations, the Keep is where the family initially settled after moving to England from France in the time of Merlin. It’s where Arcturus Black had stayed when he removed himself from society following the initial downfall of Voldemort in 1981. Since Arcturus’ death, the Keep had sat empty. But, thankfully, a small staff of house elves had remained, so the manor was in rather good condition. All Harry had to do was work with Narcissa and Andromeda on making some updates to the décor and making sure the elves were well taken care of.
Griffin House, on the other hand, wasn’t in as great of condition. The name of the house was a slight mystery to Harry. He knew the Potter Family was represented by a stag, given the antlers carved into his ring and his father’s animangus form and his patronus, but for some reason, his ancestor’s had chosen to name their Manor in honor of the mighty griffin. The grounds were rather well kept by the elves and the interior of the manor was in good condition, but the location of the manor and the lack of upkeep on the wards had led to the building’s exterior falling, somewhat, into disarray. Griffin House is located on the Southwest point of England in the Godrevy National Trust on St. Ives Bay. Over the years that the manor sat empty, the wards against weather damage slowly deteriorated and the sea air and salt water caused a good amount of damage. After claiming his ring, Harry was able to visit the manor to take on the wards and repair the damage to the ward scheme but there were still some repairs and general updating that needed to happen.
At this meeting, the goblins were letting Harry know that the repairs had been completed.
After that meeting, Harry and Neville went back to Grimmauld Place and presented their ragtag family with the option to relocate to Griffin House for the last month of summer before they returned to school. With an open floo and the ever-present option of apparition, they’d all be able to visit their families and run final errands before boarding the Hogwarts Express on September 1st, but they’d also have the chance to get out of London, spend time in the sun, and enjoy some peace and quiet before they faced whatever insanity another year of Hogwarts would bring.
So, on Wednesday, 12 August 1998, Harry unlocked the floo and sat in Griffin House’s receiving room with Teddy and Neville as the “permanent” residents of Grimmauld, and now Griffin House, made their way through the flames. Andromeda stepped through first followed by Narcissa, then Draco came through followed closely by Blaise Zabini, then Pansy Parkinson, then Gregory Goyle, then Ron came through with Hermoine on his heels, then finally Theodore Nott stepped into the room. With everyone there, Harry instructed them all to find a room.
Griffin House, while appearing much larger than Grimmauld Place, had a similar amount of space thanks to the use of “magic space” at Grimmauld. Harry wasn’t actually sure how many bedrooms were in the Manor because every time he looked, he could’ve sworn he found a room he’d never seen before. Harry was in the master suite and had converted the attached reading room into a nursery for Teddy. While the house had a dedicated nursery, it wasn’t near the master bedroom and Harry didn’t want that much space between him and his boy. Because the heir was sleeping in a crib, Harry had insisted that Neville take the Heir Suite which was next door to the Master Suite and had a similar layout. Each suite had a bedroom, bathroom, reading room, and sitting room.
Andromeda, Narcissa, and Draco had taken the other rooms on the family floor and Harry had placed Ron and Hermione in the Steward’s Suite which was at the opposite end of the family floor from the Master and Heir Suites.
The manor’s basement held the kitchen, potion lab, dueling room, and some storage while the main floor had the receiving room, formal dining room, ballroom, portrait hall, and conservatory. The family floor was the second floor; this floor also had the entrance to the family-only library which was a section of the library that was accessible only by those with Potter Blood and those who had sworn fealty to the family (like stewards, guards, and generational allies). Right outside the entrance to the family library were the offices of the Lord, Heir, and Steward. The third floor had several guestrooms as well as the main entrance to the library; the fourth floor was much the same but also touted a balcony that looked west over the grounds and the bay. The top floor of the manor held the final floor of the library, a less-formal sitting room, and the entrance to the owlery which sat atop the manor.
With Harry, Teddy, Neville, Andromeda, Narcissa, Draco, Ron, and Hermione on the family floor of Griffin House, Blaise, Greg, Pansy, and Theo were given the run of the third and fourth floors. Even so, they selected rooms next to each other on the third floor and left the remaining rooms for the less permanent members of their rag tag family; their other classmates, Augusta Longbottom, and the remaining Weasleys.
Over the month of August, this group enjoyed the grounds of Griffin House and the access to the bay. They played quidditch, swam in the sea, lit bonfires, told stories, forced themselves to talk about the war, worked to understand each other, and grew stronger as a unit. As the month drew to a close, they headed back to Diagon Alley to get their uniforms and books and then packed up their belongings, closed the manor for the time being, and headed back to Grimmauld Place to be ready to board the Express on September 1st.
* * *
Thursday, 27 August 1998
On the last weekend before they packed up and headed to Hogwarts for their final year, Harry opened the doors of Griffin House to any and every 8th year who wanted to join. In preparation for the invasion of teenagers, Andromeda and Narcissa took Teddy back to Grimmauld Place for the weekend – both to avoid the insanity and to spend some time with Teddy before he joined Harry at Hogwarts. The Weasleys headed back to the Burrow, with Bill and Fleur departing for France to see Fleur’s family and Charlie headed back to Romania with promises to visit soon, and Augusta returned to Longbottom Manor.
Harry, Neville, Draco, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Pansy, Blaise, Greg, and Theo sat in the receiving room while the 8th years, and a select few 7th years, came through the floo. Luna came through first and Ginny quickly dragged her outside to look at some of the creatures that called Griffin House home. After Luna, the Greengrass sisters, Tracey Davis, and Millicent Bulstrode stepped through and were dragged away by Pansy to put their belongings in her room and then explore the grounds. After that came Padma and Parvati Patil, followed closely by Susan Bones and Hannah Abbott who went straight for Hermione, begging to see the library. Then came Seamus, Dean, Anthony Goldstein, Terry Boot, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Ernie MacMillian, and Michael Corner who grabbed Ron, Draco, and Greg and beelined for the quidditch pitch.
Over the next hour, Harry, Neville, Blaise, and Theo welcomed almost their entire class and pointed them in the direction of the guestrooms and then the various groups around the grounds. After the tide slowed, Neville and Blaise made their way out to the grounds while Harry and Theo remained behind.
“Do you think that’s everyone?” Harry asked after the pair had sat in silence for a couple of minutes.
“I think so,” Theo said with a shrug, “I sort of lost track after the Patil sisters.”
“Me too,” Harry said, laughing lightly, “I guess we should join them, what would you like to do?” he asked, standing up and then holding out his hand to help Theo up.
With a blush, Theo reached out, stood up, and then hesitated to drop Harry’s hand. Both boys were so focused on the point of contact and the question of what exactly was happening between them that they didn’t notice when the floo chimed one last time. That is, until they heard a voice Harry never thought he’d hear again asking in a teasing tone, “well, well, well, what do we have here?”
Harry whipped around so quickly it was a miracle he didn’t give himself whiplash.
“Lavender?” he asked, his voice hardly above a whisper.
“I got your letter and thought I’d join the party,” she responded, smiling and trying not to laugh at the shocked look on Harry’s face.
While the two stood there staring at one another, Theo backed out of the room and went to grab the other Gryffindors.
A week prior, when they’d been sending out invites to their classmates, there was a debate over whether to send a note to one Lavender Brown. No one actually knew whether she’d survived and any attempt to contact her had been futile; letters had been sent back unopened and patroni had come back, seemingly unable to find their target. They all knew she’d been attacked by Greyback during the final battle but they’d never seen her body in the Great Hall. No one knew if she’d survived and, if she had, no one knew where she possibly could’ve gone. It hadn’t been the full moon during the battle so they didn’t think she’d turned, but, at the same time, no one knew what powers Greyback had with him allowing his wolf to take over so thoroughly.
A minute later, Theo returned with Neville, Ron, Hermione, Seamus, Dean, Parvati, and Padma. After a moment of shock, Parvati launched herself at her friend and roommate, knocking them both to the ground. Within seconds, the remaining Gryffindors had joined them, leaving Theo and Padma standing on the edge of the room watching the pile of lions in amusement and no small amount of shock.
“Where the fuck have you been?” came Parvati’s voice from the bottom of the heap.
“I’ll tell you as soon as you heathens get off of me,” Lavender responded, laughing.
“NEVER!” chimed a chorus of voices, sending them all into a fit of laughter.
After a few more minutes of hugs, teasing, and tears, the group finally collected themselves and followed Harry into the adjoined sitting room to talk. Ron declared a Gryffindor class meeting, shoving Padma and Theo outside and then directing Harry to seal the doors. He wanted to give Lavender privacy and Lions always protect their Pride.
As soon as the doors were sealed, Ron couldn’t hold his question in any longer, nearly shouting “what happened?” as his patience ran out.
His reaction was so quintessentially “Ron” that they all had to laugh.
“Well,” Lavender started, “no one really knew what powers Greyback had, but somehow his bite carried enough of the Lycanthropic curse that I turned during the June full moon.”
“Not during the May moon?” Hermione asked.
“No, and I’m really not sure why, I was in a lot of pain during the moon, it felt like my bite scar was on fire and like my body wanted to turn but I didn’t. Honestly, actually turning in June was less painful than whatever I went through during the May moon.”
They all shuddered at that, especially Harry, Ron, and Hermione who had witnessed a full werewolf transformation and had seen how painful the transformation truly was, to think that whatever happened to Lavender in May was worse than that was almost unthinkable.
“But how did you get out of Hogwarts during the battle?” Parvati asked, “we all looked for you in the Great Hall and the Hospital Wing and none of us saw you. We’ve been trying to figure it out for the last two months. I know that Hermione threw Greyback off of you after he attacked and then, later, Ron and Neville actually killed him, but none of us knew where you’d disappeared to after Hermione saw you getting attacked.”
Lavender hadn’t known how her classmates had reacted to her attack, she’d blacked out soon after the initial blow Greyback dealt, upon hearing how her friends had responded, she jumped off the couch and threw herself at Hermione and hugged her as fiercely as she could. After a minute, she calmed down enough to tell the rest of the story.
“I woke up in St. Mungo’s a few days after the battle and they told me that I’d shown up in the lobby via portkey. They were able to heal a lot of my injuries, except for Greyback’s initial bite. They told me that they weren’t sure if I’d actually been infected because it wasn’t a full moon but that the bite wouldn’t heal. Their creatures specialist told me that it could either be because the bite was a cursed or magical injury and, therefore, couldn’t be fully healed, or that somehow Greyback had evolved as a wolf enough to infect someone with Lycanthropy outside of the full moon.”
“But how’d you get there by portkey?” Harry asked, “as far as we knew, all of the injured were brought into the school and weren’t portkeyed out until after the battle.”
“Professor Lupin.” Lavender responded.
After a moment of shocked silence, once they realized that Harry wasn’t going to be able to respond to that revelation, Neville asked “could you explain that, please?”
“The healers kept the portkey I arrived with as evidence and a couple of days after I woke up, someone from the Ministry Transportation Office showed up and performed some diagnostic spells on the portkey which showed the magical signature of Remus Lupin. I asked if someone could contact him so I could thank him, and they told me he hadn’t made it through the battle. One of the healers then ran another diagnostic on me that showed a history of injuries and magic performed on me and they found that right after I’d been attacked, a series of healing spells were performed on me with a magical signature that matched the one on the portkey. He saved my life and I’ll never get to thank him.”
With that revelation, the entire group sat in silence. After a couple of minutes, Harry finally spoke up, “Nev, are there mandrakes in the greenhouses here?”
After a second’s thought, Neville understood what, exactly, Harry was asking, “yeah, Haz, there are mandrakes. Also, the woods surrounding Black Manor haven’t been touched by human feet for a decade, let alone 7 days.”
Harry nodded and then said, “right. Right, I’ll ask one of the grounds elves if they’ve seen any Death’s-head Hawk Moths around.”
“Smart,” Neville responded, “we can check the potions lab and see if there are enough crystal phials, if not, we can stop by the apothecary before we board the express. How many will we need?”
Harry paused for a second, counting the people in the room, “we’ll need 8 sets of everything, unless you think others would want to join?”
“If you’re doing it then Draco and Theo will want to and if those two do it, Blaise and Greg will want to and if they do it then Pansy will want to which means Daphne, Tracey, and Millicent will want to as well… and if Parvati is doing it then Padma will want to join and if Ron is doing it, Ginny won’t take no for an answer which means Luna will be right behind and if you, me, and Luna are doing it then Susan will want to which means Hannah and Megan will join too.”
“And” Harry continued, “if Susan, Hannah, and Megan are in then the Hufflepuff boys will want in too and if Padma is in then the other Ravenclaws will want to join … do you remember how many 8th years McGonagall said would be coming back? Should we just make it a class project?”
“She said there would be either 28 or 29, I’m guessing the one in question was Lavender … if we have that plus Ginny and Luna and, probably, Astoria if Daphne is involved, then we’d be at 31, so should we get 35 sets just to be sure?”
“Smart, Nev, go get a preservation box from the lab and collect the leaves and I’ll go talk to the elves.”
With that, the pair stood up and started walking out of the room without so much as a backwards glance toward their entirely bewildered classmates, that is until Hermione called out, “what harebrained scheme are you two dragging us in to now?”
With a truly frightening smirk, Harry turned around a simply responded, “Marauders,” then followed Neville out of the room.
Everyone left turned toward Hermione, who looked like she couldn’t decide whether to be excited or terrified, and Ron who looked exactly like Fred and George had looked as they flew away from Umbridge which was, to put it lightly, deeply concerning.
Finally, Seamus called on his Gryffindor bravery to ask the duo what, exactly, Harry was planning.
With a slightly mad grin, Ron answered his question, “we’re becoming animangi.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Lavender asked.
Hermione, in true Hermione fashion, explained to the group how an animangus in their animal form could not be turned by a werewolf and how a werewolf would be more comfortable during their transformation and during their night as a wolf if they had a pack. She told the story of the Marauders; how Harry’s father and godfather (and the traitor, though no one wanted to talk about him) had become animangi during their 5th year to keep Remus company during the moons and how a stag, a grim, a wolf, and a rat had become a ragtag pack. She talked about how Moony, Remus’ wolf, had claimed Harry as his cub.
She then asked if they all wanted to become animangi, something Harry and Neville had neglected in their plotting. She was met with a resounding yes from her fellow Gryffindors who then split off to find their friends around the manor and send letters to classmates who hadn’t made it for the weekend to ask if they’d like to join.
The only people left in the room were Lavender and Hermione. Lavender was silently crying, looking shocked at the kindness her classmates were showing. With a knowing smile, Hermione grabbed Lavender’s hand and rested her head on her shoulder. The pair sat in silence for awhile until Lavender just whispered, “thank you.”