Meeting Mary
Saturday, 5 September 1998
It was finally the weekend. The first few days of classes had gone well. Everyone was happy to be back at school and was especially happy to be in a Hogwarts that felt safe from both external and internal threats.
After lunch, every single 8th Year along with a select few 7th Years – namely, Ginny Weasley, Luna Lovegood, and Astoria Greengrass – gathered in the common room at the base of the 8th Years Tower.
“Alright,” Harry started, clapping his hands, “this should be everyone,” he said, looking to Hermione for confirmation.
After a quick headcount, she nodded her head.
“Perfect,” he continued, “so, we all know what we’re here for. Tomorrow evening is the full moon. Moon rise is at exactly 7:29, it is incredibly important that you remember that. If anyone would like, we could gather here at 7:00 tomorrow night so we all can do the first step together?”
Everyone nodded, “alright, sounds good, so come back here at 7:00 tomorrow night. We’ll wait to hand out the Mandrake leaves until that point just so no one loses them in the next day. At moonrise exactly, we’ll each place the leaf into our mouths then say the incantation amato, animo, animato, animagus while pointing our wands at our hearts. It’s important that you remember that spell and also remember how to set alarms on your wands or watches, because we will be saying that spell every sunrise and sunset for the next month. After you cast the spell the first time, you can also cast a modified sticking charm to make sure the leaf stays on the roof of your mouth. If it falls out, you have to start over and you have to start the process on the day of the full moon, so you’ll be waiting awhile. Are you all with me so far?”
At everyone’s nod, he continued “we have the rest of the ingredients stored in the potions lab down in the Chamber of Secrets right now. I’m the only person alive who can access the Chamber, including the other founders heirs, so it’s all safe. When the time comes for us to make our potions, we can all enter the lab from an entrance in the dungeon,” he then added, glancing briefly at Ginny, “no one will have to leave the lab and enter the larger part of the Chamber unless they’d like to and they are only allowed to explore that part of the Chamber with me there, most of the passages are activated by parseltongue so without me, it’s pretty much a giant open room with a statute that looks not even a little bit like Salazar Slytherin.
“Anyway,” he said with a shake of his head, “I digress. Back to the point, we’ll all go down to that lab to brew after moon set the morning after the next full moon which is, when?”
“5th October,” Hermione answered, “it’s a Monday.”
“Great, thanks ‘Mione,” Harry said with a grin, “so on Tuesday morning after moon set you’ll say the spell one last time and then you can remove your leaf, though I’d suggest not removing the leaf until we’re down in the lab so you can put it directly into the phial instead of wandering the halls with a soggy leaf.”
“Great advice, Harold, what would we do without you?”
“You know, Draco,” Hermione said conversationally, “sometimes I’d really like to punch you in the face … again.”
“Right,” Draco said, “shutting up now. Continue, Hades.”
Laughing slightly, Harry said, “that should be everything, does anyone have any questions?” When the room was silent, he clapped his hand again and said, with a cheeky grin, “well then, class dismissed.”
* * *
Tuesday, 8 September 1998
A few days had passed. Everyone had gotten the leaf in their mouth at the right time and no one’s sticking charm had failed yet. With the help of wolfsbane, Lavender had been up Monday morning ready to go to class. While the wolfsbane certainly helped, there was still something missing. She had told Harry she hoped that it was a pack and that having a group of animals to run with soon would be exactly what she needed.
Harry found himself hoping that he’d end up being an animal that could keep up with a werewolf. He knew that animagus forms often reflected ones’ patronus, but not always. He was more than happy that his patronus was Prongs, but he didn’t really think that would end up being his animagus. When he thought hard about what his inner animal might be, he usually decided it was some type of canine. Every once in a while, he thought about how it might be neat to fly but more often than not he landed on canine.
Now it was Tuesday evening, they’d been to all their classes and Harry had found himself settling into a routine.
He spent the mornings leaving Teddy with Mimi and heading down to join Luna, Neville, and Susan in the training room. They’d all made a solid amount of progress in only a week. They were still working primarily on footwork but had started introducing the basics of wielding a bladed weapon. In the last half hour of their lessons, they’d started working harder on defensive spellcasting. Harry was already starting to feel stronger, in both body and magic.
He'd then have breakfast in his quarters, either just with Teddy or with both Teddy and Neville. Then they’d go to their classes, after which he’d either go to the library, go for a walk around the grounds, or go back up to the study in his quarters. He’d also been spending more and more time with Theo. It’d only been a week and Harry was nearly at the point of asking the others if they could add Theo to the wards so he could come and go as he pleased.
Today, though, Harry, Neville, and Teddy would be joining Mary for dinner in her quarters.
They’d been ticking their friends off all day, swinging from nervous to excited to wary at a moment’s notice.
It was hard to explain to the group. Most of them had grown up with their parents and had gotten to know their parents’ friends. They’d done childhood lessons together and spent holidays with big groups of people. Even Susan who, like Harry and Neville, hadn’t been able to grow up with her parents, had grown up surrounded by family friends and other children her age.
Harry and Neville had spent their childhoods in isolation. For the first year of their life, they’d been surrounded by friends and family, they’d shared their firsts and been treated as brothers and then, one stupid little prophecy later, they’d been plunged into darkness. They’d been forced apart and then they’d lost their parents, then their parents’ friends, then they’d been shoved in a dark corner until they turned 11.
Of course, over the years, they’d gotten the chance to build a family of their own. They’d fallen back on that brotherly bond that had been forged in infancy, and they’d built up from there. Now, their family was large and full of love.
But getting to know Mary … that was an opportunity to reclaim a piece of that first family they’d known.
Nearly the very last piece.
Frank had been two years older than the others and had shared a room with (and been closest friends with) Kingsley Shacklebolt and the Prewett twins. The twins had died shortly after Neville and Harry were born and Kingsley was a tad busy being Minister to answer the endless questions Neville and Harry had about their parents. He certainly did his best, but they always felt a bit guilty bugging him.
James’ friends had been the Marauders. We all know what happened to them.
Regulus’ friends somehow had an even more depressing ending than the Marauders. Evan and Pandora Rosier. One killed by Moody and the other by her own spell in front of her nine-year-old daughter. Dorcas Meadowes, killed by Voldemort himself after she went on an Achilles level rampage following Marlene’s death. Barty Crouch Jr., held under the Imperius by his own father until what was left of his mind snapped.
The mixed feelings they had about Barty were enough to necessitate at least a year of intense therapy. He’d been part of the group that tortured Frank and Alice into insanity, but if his insane ramblings were to be believed, he hadn’t actually participated. Instead, he’d silenced Neville’s bedroom and comforted him so he wouldn’t have to hear what was happening to his parents. Then, he’d been the second-best DADA professor they’d ever had. Sure, he had entered Harry’s name into a death tournament, but he’d also, in his own … special … way, helped Harry survive. He’d also been the only teacher outside of Sprout who’d actively encouraged Neville’s love of herbology.
Then there was Snape. A close friend of both Lily and Regulus. A man who had somehow dedicated himself to saving Harry’s life while also dedicating himself to making Harry and Neville’s lives a living hell … as if they’d needed any help with that. But, like Barty, there were some mixed feelings. He’d put himself between Harry and danger on more than one occasion, he’d been forced to kill his mentor, and he’d had to watch as his closest friends died one by one, unable to do anything about it. They certainly felt bad for him, but that didn’t quite mean they forgave him for bullying actual children.
Lily and Alice had shared a room and a core friend group. Marlene McKinnon had been killed during the first war and Emmaline Vance during the second. Mary MacDonald was the only one left.
This was the fourth of their parents’ friends they’d had as professor and so far she’d certainly ranked higher than Snape. And, with her readiness to help them with the animagus process, it could be argued she’d started edging out Remus and Barty. If she just made it through the year without trying to kill one of them, she’d be in first place.
Now, Neville and Harry were sitting on the floor of Teddy’s room, talking quietly and playing with children’s toys while Teddy took a nap (though, if anyone asked, they absolutely were not playing with toys made for infants).
“What should we ask her about?” Neville wondered aloud.
“I don’t know,” Harry muttered, “I have so many questions, and I know you do too … but I’m guessing she’ll have a ton of questions for us as well.”
“Good point,” Neville mused, “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“I mean, when she last saw us we were barely older than one, we’d only just started talking, and our favorite pastime was probably, like, throwing toys at each other’s heads. Now, we’re Lords several times over and, not only that, but we played key roles in taking down the most fearsome Dark Lord in modern history. She sorta missed a few things in the middle.”
“I’d argue it was more than a few things, Haz.”
“Whatever, Nev, you know what I mean.”
“Doesn’t mean I can’t make fun of you.”
Instead of responding to that, Harry said “she insinuated that she knew about all of my parents.”
“Yeah,” Neville responded, “she did.”
“I’m getting more and more confused about who knows now and who knew then.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, Narcissa and Andromeda had no clue. Like, none. When we got back from Gringotts after we did the Hogwarts stuff, I found them in Regulus’ room with Kreacher and they’d found some letters he’d saved from James, and they were trying to hide them from me, and I was like why would you hide those? And they were all like oh we didn’t want to skew your view of your parents or something like that which, bad argument, but whatever. So, I said, ‘why would letters from one of my fathers to the other skew my view of my parents?’ and, let me tell you Nev, they were shocked.”
“Seriously?” Neville said, “I thought they’d known either after you went for your inheritance test or, at least, when you came back from the healing hall looking like Regulus with a tan.”
“Mate, they’d both thought it was Sirius.”
“You’re joking.”
“Not even a little,” Harry said, laughing lightly, “though they didn’t think Sirius was, like, actually a parent, they just thought he’d blood adopted me either as a baby or sometime during 4th or 5th year as an added level of protection or to ensure I could be named his heir.”
“But that wouldn’t explain why finally growing and gaining weight brought out features you’d had your whole life that were rather distinctly Black.”
“That’s what I said, neither of them had a good answer. Anyways, then I told them what I’d known at that point about my parents and told them a little more about how Regulus had ended up serving Voldy and all that fun stuff.”
“How’d they react?”
“They were swinging back and forth between joy, righteous fury, and confusion so quickly I thought they were both about to succumb to the Black Madness.”
“Who were they angry with?”
“Everyone.”
“Could you possibly be more specific?”
“Walburga for forcing Regulus into Voldemort’s service, I mean so angry that Kreacher had to hide her portrait to stop them from lighting it on fire, which I wouldn’t have been all that mad at but whatever, Dumbledore for not reading my parents’ wills which named Regulus as my father and listed both Andromeda and Narcissa as potential guardians given my connection to the Blacks, Voldemort for being stupid enough to make Horcruxes. Tom should be happy I killed him because his death wouldn’t have been anywhere near as quick if he’d been left at the mercy of the Black sisters. Then they got mad at Sirius for not telling anyone.”
“How do you feel about that one?”
“Sirius?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m honestly not sure. I know that he knew James and Regulus were together at some point during school, but nothing I’ve found in the journals or wills indicates that he knew they’d reconciled or that I was Regulus’ child. And, even if he did, the twelve years he spent in Azkaban really fucked with his memory. When we were writing letters, he always knew who I was and was a really great father figure but face-to-face, he thought I was James more often than not and it was incredibly difficult to deal with. I don’t blame him for not telling me any of it because I have no way of knowing how his mind was working at that point, I have no confirmation that he knew in the first place, so I have no reason to be angry.”
“That makes sense … but how do you think Mary knows?”
“Well, we know from my mum’s journals that your mum knew so maybe she told Mary as well? Or maybe she just figured it out? Either back then or when she saw me. I mean I probably wouldn’t be using the Black name if it were just that Sirius was my godfather, my use of the name apart from my titles indicates a more personal connection to it, so she could’ve just drawn a conclusion.”
“That makes sense, do you want to ask her?”
“Maybe not right away. We have nearly twenty years of life to catch each other up on and a lot of it is pretty heavy so maybe we just stick to the lighter stuff to start?”
“Good idea, mate.”
“What time is it and what time do we need to be there again?”
“It’s 6:30 and we said we’d be there at 7:00.”
“Alright,” Harry said, pulling himself off the floor and groaning as he stood, “time to get up little man.”
In practiced efficiency, Neville and Harry got Teddy ready to go and headed out of the tower toward Mary’s quarters.
* * *
“Hello boys,” Mary greeted with a warm smile on her face, “right on time, come in, come in!”
“Good evening, Professor MacDonald,” they responded.
“Please,” she waved them off, “call me Mary in private, it’s still strange to be called professor and especially strange to hear it from the two of you.”
“Sounds good, Mary,” Harry said while Neville nodded his acceptance.
“So, is this Teddy?” she asked.
“Yep,” Harry said with a proud smile on his face, “this is Edward Remus Lupin.”
“That is not his full name, Haz.”
“Aww,” Mary cut in before Harry could respond, “you’re still calling him Haz?”
“Yeah,” Neville said looking slightly confused, “I think I’ve been calling him that since 3rd year?”
“Sounds right,” Harry said with a shrug, “and I call him Nev.”
“That’s not new,” Mary informed them, “you’ve been calling each other those names since you could talk. It was what James and Frank called you as well.”
“I guess that explains why it feels so normal,” Harry said with a laugh, “Neville is the only person I know who calls me Haz, it sounds strange when anyone else does it.”
“Anyways,” Mary said smiling at the boys, “what did Neville mean that that wasn’t Teddy’s full name?”
With a slightly shy smile, Harry explained, “well, when his grandmother and I decided I’d be adopting him, she insisted that we add my last name to his full name which I was happy to do because I also named him as the Potter heir, but then she insisted that we give him a family name as a middle name as well. I wanted to use James or Fleamont or literally any other name but before I could even argue she’d filled out the certificate and sild it back to the account manager.”
“So, what’s his full name?” Mary asked again.
“Edward Remus Hadrian Lupin Potter,” Neville responded.
Sending a slight glare toward his brother, Harry turned back to Mary and said, “but no one ever calls him Edward. Even his grandmother and great aunt who insist on using full, proper names call him Teddy.”
“Who was his mother? Minerva mentioned to me that Remus had a son and that he and his wife had died in the final battle, but she never mentioned a name and I forgot to ask.”
“Nymphadora Tonks.” Neville responded.
“Wait,” Mary said.
Knowing what she was getting at, Harry just nodded.
“Are you telling me that Remus married Andromeda Black’s daughter?”
“Yup.” Harry responded, popping the ‘p’.
“As in,” Mary said, looking as if she were trying to reorganize her entire world view, “Andromeda Black, Sirius Black’s favorite cousin.”
“Correct.”
“So,” Mary said, “Remus Lupin married Sirius’ cousin?”
“Right in one, Mary.”
“Do you understand,” she started then cut herself off, looking between the two boys who were just grinning back at her.
“Do we understand that our third year DADA professor was in a long-term relationship with the escaped convict who broke into our dorm with a knife to kill our roommate’s rat who happened to be the real traitor?” Neville said.
Harry continued, “do we understand that said DADA professor then married said escaped convict’s cousin like 6 months after said convict tripped right into the veil of death after being hit by a stunner by his other cousin?”
“And that the cousin who sent the stunner was the one who drove my parents insane?”
“Yeah,” Harry said with a shrug, “we understand –”
“- how absurdly fucked the whole situation is.” Neville finished.
“I have several questions.” Mary deadpanned.
“People usually do when we’re done talking,” Harry said.
“I can imagine,” Mary muttered under her breath before shaking her head and continuing in her normal voice, “let’s leave those questions for later. We obviously have a lot to catch up on and I feel that wasn’t even scratching the surface.”
“You have no idea,” they responded in unison.
Laughing lightly, Mary said, “let’s start with the basics.”
“Sounds good,” Harry said with a nod.
“What would you like to know?” Neville continued.
“Well, let’s start with what your favorite subjects are?”
“Herbology.” Neville answered immediately.
“Defense.” Harry said.
“Very nice,” Mary responded, “how about who your closest friends are? And wait, earlier Neville said, ‘our dorm’ but you two are in different houses?”
“The second question has a shorter answer,” Neville said.
“I was a Gryffindor for most of my Hogwarts career, I only became a Slytherin when I stepped into the Great Hall for the opening feast. As we mentioned in class, we’re Lords Slytherin and Gryffindor and part of that is taking on a responsibility to the school and its students, but more specifically to the students in our own house so Hogwarts decided it’d be best if I was officially in Slytherin House.”
“Also,” Neville continued, “the hat wanted to put him in Slytherin from the get-go but Malfoy was a git on the train, so he begged the hat to put him anywhere else.”
“You talked the hat into putting you in a different house?”
“I’m pretty well known for being stubborn.”
“I can tell,” Mary said with a laugh.
“And for who our closest friends are,” Neville started, “well, we’re pretty close with our roommates from Gryffindor, that’d be Seamus Finnegan, Dean Thomas, and Ron Weasley. They’re all in Transfiguration. Well, actually, all the Gryffindors in our year are in Transfiguration. No one wanted to piss off McGonagall.”
Mary laughed at that before Harry continued, “other than Neville, my two closet friends through school were Ron and then Hermione Granger.”
“The Golden Trio,” Neville said, spreading his hands and pitching his voice so he sounded like he was presenting something incredibly important.
“Shut it, git.”
“They got up to more mischief than anyone I’ve ever met.”
“That’s not possible,” Mary said, “you’ve met the Prewett twins, even if you don’t remember it, and you’ve met all of the Marauders.”
“I’m not kidding. They were worse than the Weasley twins and, from what I’ve heard, Fred and George were worse than Fabian and Gideon.”
“How is this school still standing?”
“Some days, I’m not sure.” Neville responded.
“Oi!” Harry cut in, “we were not that bad.”
“Haz, you took on a troll at 11 –”
“Hermione was 12.”
“Whatever, so there was the troll. Then, at the end of 1st year, they took it upon themselves to stop Voldemort himself from getting the philosopher’s stone. Still don’t know how you pulled that one off. Then, second year was just absurd. The barrier to 9¾ closed so, instead of waiting for adults, Harry and Ron flew Mr. Weasley’s car all the way to school and crashed right into the whomping willow.”
“That wasn’t entirely our fault, Dobby was making my life rather difficult.”
“That’s beside the point,” Neville said, waving Harry off and pointedly ignoring Mary looking at them like they’d lost the plot, “then he revealed to the entire school he was a parselmouth, so everyone thought he was the Heir of Slytherin because, oh yeah this is important context, the Chamber of Secrets had been open and there was a sodding basilisk roaming through the halls. Looking back, it’s actually hilarious because Harry was the Heir of Slytherin and Tom Riddle that was controlling the snake by possessing Ron’s little sister was, according to Salazar himself, not a true Heir of the House.”
“I’m sorry,” Mary interrupted, “Tom Riddle?”
Harry then pulled out his holly wand, you know, for nostalgia’s sake, and spelled out Tom Marvolo Riddle then tapped it, just as the man had done so many years ago, so it shuffled to read I am Lord Voldemort.
“Ah,” Mary said, before realizing why she’d asked, “so Voldemort was possessing Ginny Weasley?”
“Yes,” Neville responded, “that’s actually not the most insane part of this story.”
“I have trouble believing that.” Mary responded.
“Believe it,” Neville said before continuing, “so the basilisk was wandering about and miraculously nobody died, they were all just petrified because they saw the snake’s eyes through a reflection of some sort. Then, Hermione got petrified and Ron and Harry, naturally, went bat shit. They somehow ended up in the forest surrounded by acromantulas and were saved by the flying car that had gone feral and was living in the forest.”
“Do you think the car’s still out there?” Harry interrupted.
“Not the point, Haz,” Neville said, shaking his head, “then, Ginny got taken into the Chamber and those two dipshits decided to take Gilderoy Lockhart with them instead of any one of the several competent professors.”
“He was our best option,” Harry argued, “Ron and I have talked about this and we honestly think the professors either didn’t believe Ginny was down there or were perfectly happy to let it play out because they literally egged Lockhart on, when we got to his office he was preparing to run for the hills so we forced him into the Chamber at wand point because, at the very least, we could use him as a human shield.”
“How old were you, again?” Mary asked.
“Ron had just turned 13 and I was 12.”
“So,” Neville continued, “they go down into the Chamber with Fraudhart and he tries to oblivate them. Luckily, he used Ron’s broken wand, and the spell backfired. He lives down the hall from my parents now. But the force of the spell backfiring caused a cave in, so Harry ended up having to face the basilisk alone. He, again he was 12, killed it with the sword of Gryffindor but got stabbed in the process and is only alive because Fawkes, who was Godric Gryffindor’s familiar, then ended up as Dumbledore’s and has now claimed us, cried on his arm.”
“I’m sorry,” Mary said, “you got stabbed by a basilisk fang?”
Handing Teddy to Neville, Harry rolled up the sleeve of the jumper he was wearing to show Mary the scar, forgetting that he was wearing the fang itself in a holster.
“Harry,” Neville said, “did you forget something?”
Looking down, Harry laughed, “oh yeah!” Then he pulled the fang out of the holster and set it on the coffee table in front of the couch they’d sat down on, pointing he, very helpfully, said “that’s the fang.”
“Why are you walking around with the fang?!” Mary exclaimed.
“Goblins.” Harry shrugged.
Mary, the smart lady she is, looked to Neville for an explanation. Sighing, Neville explained, “we had the Goblins come render the skeleton for parts and when they saw it and viewed Harry’s memory of the event that he’d left with the healers over the summer, they decided to name him Goblin Warrior. They found the fang that had stabbed him still lying on the floor and cleaned it and gilded it and presented it to him as his first weapon.”
“Godric was so hyped,” Harry said with a smile, “he wants me to ask the Goblins about training me to fight with an axe.”
“I still think that’s an insane plan,” Neville said.
“I think it’d be fun,” Harry said with a grin.
“Harry you’re already training in sword fighting, you carry the world’s most powerful wand, and you walk around with two daggers and a literal basilisk fang. Do you really need more weapons?”
“You forgot the scythe.”
“Oh, excuse me. My apologies.”
“I still think I should learn to fight with an axe.”
Deciding he wasn’t going to win this argument, Neville turned back to Mary who looked like she was really hoping any part of this story had been a joke, “back to the Golden Trio being idiots.”
“Tell the short version, Nev, I’m hungry.”
Mary cut in before the boys could start arguing again, “why don’t we call for food and you can keep talking while we eat?”
“Sounds good,” Neville said with a shrug.
After they all had their food, Neville continued, “then third year was the whole thing with Sirius and Pettigrew which is probably a story for another time. Fourth year was when it got really crazy.”
“What do you mean that’s when it got crazy?” Mary demanded.
In lieu of answering, Neville just kept talking, “so first year our DADA teacher was possessed by the wraith of Voldemort, second year we had the fraud that was Lockhart, third year was Remus who was great, fourth year, though,” Neville cut himself off laughing.
“Fourth year,” Harry cut in, “our DADA teacher was Barty Crouch, Jr.”
“There is absolutely no way that Barty was your professor.” Mary said.
“I mean,” Harry conceded, “he was impersonating Alastor Moody the entire year but, yeah, it was Barty.”
“I thought Barty died in Azkaban?”
“Nope,” Harry said, “Papa Crouch broke him out and kept him under the imperius for a decade which he finally snapped out of and then went a little crazy and ended up as our DADA teacher.”
“A little crazy is just such an insane way to describe that year.” Neville said.
When it became obvious Harry wasn’t going to correct himself, Neville turned back to Mary and explained the insanity of 4th year; “so he polyjuiced himself as a famed auror, not just any auror, but the one who killed his boyfriend according to James’ journals. He then entered Harry into a death tournament and got him kidnapped and sent to a random ass graveyard where fucking Pettigrew used him in a ritual to resurrect Voldemort.”
“He also taught me how to throw off the imperius curse and gave you a lot of books on herbology.”
“I’m really not sure that outweighs him entering you into the tournament and then actively trying to kill you when you made it back alive.”
When Harry saw Mary gaping at them, he shrugged and explained, “Barty is so far down the list of people I hate that have tried to kill me that he’s really not worth my time,” as if that was a comforting statement in any way whatsoever.
“Fifth year,” Neville continued, not giving Mary any time to ask questions, “we had a crazy person from the ministry as our DADA professor and she literally tortured Harry in detentions and refused to actually teach us defense, so Harry, Ron, and Hermione started an underground defense club. Then we broke into the ministry to steal a prophecy.”
“That’s when Sirius died,” Harry very helpfully supplied.
“Then 6th year, Harry was in all these secret lessons with Dumbledore where, as it turns out, he was training a 16-year-old for battle without actually training him.”
“We just watched a lot of pensive memories.”
“But,” Neville continued, “while that was going on, the world had also decided they liked Harry again because word got out that he was the Chosen One so he was fending off crazy people left and right. He also spent a lot of that year stalking Draco using the Marauders Map.”
“No one believed me that he was up to something!” Harry exclaimed, “then, guess what, I was right, he was trying to murder Dumbledore!”
“He was the world’s worst murderer, Haz”
“Valid,” Harry said with a shrug.
“Haven’t I seen you hanging out with the Malfoy boy?” Mary asked.
“We’re friends now.” Harry responded.
“There’s more of a story there,” Neville said with a shake of his head, “just know that he was forced into everything and that he’s actually a great person. Also, he and Narcissa both changed their last names to Black.”
“True,” Harry said, “Draco actually changed his whole name. He dropped both his father’s name as his middle name and his father’s surname, now he’s Draco Cygnus Black.”
“Well, I’m glad that he can be himself now,” Mary said.
“Us too,” Neville responded, “but then Dumbledore took Harry to a cave that we’re just not gonna talk about and then Harry and Draco watched Snape kill Dumbledore which was a whole thing that’s also a story for another time.
“Then, 7th year, the school got taken over by Death Eaters and those three went on the run. Harry was undesirable number one which was hilarious. They were gone the whole year and showed up in May and then the battle happened.”
“That’s a lot.” Mary said.
“We also did fun stuff,” Harry said with a shrug.
“Sure.” Neville conceded.
“We did!” Harry argued, “I helped the twins with a lot of their pranks. I mean, I actually gave them the start-up funds for their shop. And this year, no one is trying to kill me so I can get into a little more mischief.”
“That is such a frightening sentence coming from someone with the last name Potter-Black.” Mary said with a shudder, before sitting quietly for a moment, trying to remember where this conversation had started, “so who are your other close friends?”
“Oh yeah,” Harry said, “so we mentioned our roommates and Hermione, we’ve also gotten closer with the other Gryffindor girls, Padma and Lavender. Then Padma’s sister Parvati who’s a Ravenclaw.”
“And over the summer,” Neville added, “we ended up getting really close with the Slytherins in our year.”
“Yeah, after everything, I asked Andromeda to move into Grimmauld with me. We got the place cleaned up and remodeled pretty quickly with Kreacher cooperating, then she asked if we could reach out to Narcissa which I was all for, she saved my life, another story for another time. So Narcissa and Draco moved in and changed their last name to Black and then Draco came to ask me if some of his friends could move in. There were a few who had lost their entire families either in battle or to life sentences in Azkaban, so Pansy Parkinson, Gregory Goyle, and Theo Nott moved in full time. Then Blaise Zabini started spending more and more time at the house and the Greengrass sisters were over a few times a week, and Neville slept there more often than not.”
“We were at Grimmauld most of the summer but spent a week at Potter Manor once it was fixed up. It was really nice to live in a place full of people for once.” Neville said.
“Where’d you two grow up?” Mary asked, not thinking it was a big question, though the look Neville and Harry shared disabused her of that notion pretty quickly, “you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
“No,” Harry sighed, “you should know. Just don’t go trying to kill anyone because everyone responsible is dead and the actual people have disappeared off the face of the Earth as far as we can tell.”
Mary was getting concerned now, “who could you possibly have grown up with?” she asked, “I mean, no one ever would’ve sent you to Lily’s sister, that would just be insane…” she trailed off as she noticed Harry cringing, “no.”
“Yeah,” was all Harry said.
“Alright,” Mary said, trying to quell her murderous rage, “alright, well, I’m sure that wasn’t much fun.”
“You could say that.” Harry muttered.
Deciding that was enough for now, she turned to Neville who said, “I grew up with my gran. She was, is, great, but my great uncles all thought I was a squib and tried to get my magic to come out in harsher and harsher ways.”
Realizing that these two boys had grown up in ways so far from what their parents would’ve wanted, Mary decided that nothing good would come out of this conversation so decided to change the topic, “so, what do you want to do when you grow up?”
They spent the next hour chatting about hopes and dreams, telling jokes, and getting to know each other.
Around 9, Teddy started to get fussy, “I should probably get him to bed,” Harry said, starting to yawn himself, “this was lovely, Mary, we really appreciate it.”
“Yes,” Neville added, “thank you, this was great. We’re really glad you’re here and that we get a chance to know you.”
“Of course, boys,” Mary said, smiling at them, “I hope we can do this again and I’ll see you in class tomorrow morning.”
When both agreed to meeting for dinner again, she led them to the door and called out a goodnight, watching them until they disappeared around the corner before she shut the door and slid down to the floor. With her head in her hands, she let the tears fall down her cheeks.
Tears for two little boys who had been forced to grow up far too quickly. Tears for her friends who weren’t here to watch them grow. Tears for herself; for all the people and time she’d lost.
Once she cried herself out, she got up and started getting ready for bed, reminding herself again and again that she was lucky to at least have this time with Neville and Harry, to get to see Remus’ son grow and watch Harry step into the role of his father. No matter how sad she was and how much she missed her friends, she was filled with joy and pride at the men Neville and Harry had become.