Chapter 25
“Hermione requested that Gringotts send me some memories, one of them was a training memory of paediatric childcare.” Harry shrugged. “She wanted me to be able to care for Teddy, right from the start.”
“Oh.” Tonks thought about that for a moment. “Thanks, Hermione?” She said hesitantly.
“Definitely, thanks, Hermione.” Harry nodded.
“Okay, then…” Tonks nodded. “Thanks be to Hermione.”
~~~
May 31st 2920
Shortly after lunch the wagons pulled to a halt, one by one, alongside the stream, that was just yards from the Junction Mill, that was only a few yards from the actual junction between the North-South Road and the Green Way. They were on the opposite bank from the mill and under the shade of a large grove of cherry trees. Tonks was delighted, when she was told that she could take as many of the new season’s fruit as she could harvest, even if that stripped the trees bare. The moment the ponies were seen to and their camp established, she set everyone to work picking the shiny red fruit. Box after box was shrunk and added to Tonks’ stasis box, all of it waiting for them to have a home base, where she could set up her still.
Dinner that evening was courtesy of Crookshanks, a trio of large fat trout that Harry paired with crispy fried chips and a fresh green salad, with a sharp lemon pudding to follow. All of them ate a little more than they should, so no-one was surprised when there was barely enough scraps to feed the orange kneazle.
The storm that hit late in the evening had Remus chuckling when he saw Fred, Colin and Lavender set up camp in Harry’s wagon. The blonde girl took over Harry’s bunk, while Harry joined Fred and Colin on the floor, and Crookshanks made a space for himself in the middle of the pile of boys.
~~~
June 1st 2920
Morning saw them take the right fork at the signpost that was the junction, between the Green Way and the North-South Roads. Turning right, led them on a more northerly route, towards Bree. Everyone they spoke to, had said that they were only three days from the regional capital.
Three days and they would know… Who was the Hogwarts trained magical living there? Did they know them? Was it someone that they would call family? Or was it just a poor unfortunate victim of Voldy’s war?
Harry listened to the old men that ran the Way Station and planned accordingly. Camping near the Barrow Downs was asking for trouble. Rumours abounded of them being haunted by malevolent spirits, that would torment travellers’ sleep and lead people to their deaths. Something that Harry wanted to avoid, at all costs.
As a result he made sure that the day wasn’t too long and planned that the next wouldn’t be either. This was all in preparation for a long day’s drive on June 3rd past the Downs. Thankfully, it wasn’t going to be as hard a day, as they’d had in Rohan, but it was still going to be a long one.
A short day, over easy terrain might sound like a gentle day’s drive, but the winds from the north were strong and bitterly cold. For the height of summer, the chilly wind was a sharp reminder that they were heading north. By mid-afternoon the winds had dropped making driving a much more pleasant pastime.
~~~
June 2nd 2920
Another short day, this one was halted by Fred, a stand of fallen trees catching his interest. The redhead disappeared into the maze of fallen branches, emerging with buckets of shrunken branches. At one point, he had Harry and Remus come with him to help him shrink a massive elm burr that had to have been well over ten foot across. Dozens of smaller burrs were also harvested and shrunk, not just from elm trees, but larch, oak, cherry and walnut trees, as well.
Fred had spent the last three weeks working on creating his own wood carving charms, as they drove. One would gouge bowl-shapes into a slab of timber, that wasn’t difficult to do, what was difficult was to have the gouged-out piece remain sitting, loose, inside the hollowed-out section. In the end he altered a slicing charm, splicing into it a digging charm and a vegetable peeling charm. The end result was a charm that could be cast on a piece of timber, to create ever diminishing sized bowls, one inside the last.
Over the last few weeks, Fred’s woodwork had gone from basic, to much more intricate and involved. His boxes were becoming more refined and their decoration more ornate. Until he past his Mastery, though, his work would remain timber, only Masters were permitted to add gold or silver gilt to their work and they had to have at least completed an apprenticeship and wear a tarbûn bead for silversmithing.
~~~
June 3rd 2920
Harry switched Dancer for Golly, in front of his shop-cart, at lunch and Onyx and Ebony went into harness for the wagon, while Fred, Colin and Remus, also switched their mares over, placing their strongest pair in harness for the long afternoon’s drive. They wouldn’t stop now, until they reached Bree.
The Barrow Downs felt… wrong…
It was the only word that Harry could use to describe the feeling that emanated from the low hills to the west of the North-South Road. Not even the graveyard at Little Hangleton had felt this bad.
“Nasty that.” Fred muttered as he trotted up to Harry’s cart.
“Yeah…” Harry agreed.
“We’re ready to go.” Fred added. “Give me one minute to get up on the drive-seat and I’m good.”
“Got it.” Harry nodded. “Hustle up, the sooner we move, the sooner we’re beyond it.”
“Yep.” Fred nodded and trotted back to his wagon, practically leaping up onto his drive-seat and giving a beater’s whistle to let Harry know he was ready.
“Move out, ponies!” Harry called and Golly, who had been twitching, eagerly leant into his harness.
The sun was still well above the horizon, albeit shadowed by broken clouds, when the timber ramparts of Bree came into sight and Harry heaved a sigh of relief. Now, all they had to do was find their missing magical person. A quick set of Point-Me spells had Harry turning his wagon west at the crossroads that led east to Bree, north to the Northern Bree-Fields and west to the Southern Bree-Fields and The Shire.
“Harry?” Remus’s wagon was right behind Harry’s and when the brunette had turned left, Remus had exchanged confused looks with his wife.
“Our former student is this way.” Harry called back, relying on Remus remembering his comment of ‘former student’, as it applied to locating possible pickups via Point-Me spells.
“Right.” Remus nodded and waved his understanding.
Within yards the clouds that had been looming, let loose and the rain came down, hard and fast.
“Oh, great.” Harry muttered, to himself. “Just what I need.” He pulled his cloak’s hood up and hunched down, these storms usually blew themselves out in ten or fifteen minutes.
Ten minutes later, Harry pulled Golly to a sharp halt and leapt from the cart, dashing a few yards up the road, to where a heavily loaded cart had slid into the ditches that ran along the road that they were now on.
“Hey?!” Harry called, he could see someone struggling under the rear of the cart. “Are you trapped or just in a bad position?”
“Trapped.” The mud covered person replied.
The pony that was pulling the cart was down on its knees, struggling to stand and the cart’s load was precariously tipped, so close to falling, it wasn’t funny. If it went, the person was going to be buried alive and probably drowned in mud.
“Hold on. Fred! Colin!” Harry yelled back over his shoulder. “The rest of you stay back.” He told Remus, who had Teddy in his arms. “We might need you in a bit, but there’s not enough room for all of us.”
“Got it.” Tonks was the one to reply.
“Fred? Get a hold of that load.” Harry ordered. “Colin? The pony, unhitch him and get him out.” He dropped into the ditch and started flinging handfuls of mud away from what he now realised was a male dwarf. “Hold on, mate. Colin? How we doing?”
“Working on it.” Colin replied. “One side done.”
“Fred?”
“Holding.” The redhead answered.
“Unhitched.” Colin called.
The cart shuddered and for a moment Harry wondered if that was going to be the tipping point. And it was.
“Going!” Fred yelled and jumped off to the side.
Harry leapt forward and covered the trapped dwarf with his own body. Arching over him, trying to keep the bags of grain from drowning both of them. One bag hit Harry’s back, then another and another. Ten of them. One after the other, they fell, pushing Harry and the unknown dwarf into the mud each time one landed, but Harry was stubborn and months of travel had given him a physical strength that only hard work can give. He grit his teeth with each impact and forced himself to rise up, enough that the bag would slide away from the other dwarf, and allow Harry to drag the him up out of the mud and keep him breathing.
“Pony’s clear!” Colin yelled. “Lavender’s got him.”
“Fred? The cart?”
“On it.” Fred grabbed one of the cart’s shafts and Colin was quick to grab the other.
A few more agonisingly long seconds and the cart was pulled off the dwarf and Harry was able to sit him up.
“Gonna need a hand to get the cart out of the ditch.” Fred appeared in front of Harry. “Lavender’s taken the pony back our wagons, she and the others are trying to keep our ponies calm, but Golly’s not happy.”
“Too bad.” Harry huffed.
“You right to help lift the cart back onto the road?” Fred asked Harry and the dwarf. “It’s empty now.”
“Yeah.” Harry grunted. “If I stop now, my bruises are going set like cement.”
“Tell me about it.” The dwarf snorted, causing Fred and Harry to exchange a lightning-fast glance. This dwarf knew what cement was? “And no, I’m probably not, but let’s do it anyway.” The unknown dwarf grunted. Now, that things weren’t so panicked, his voice was familiar, but the mud covering him, obscured any chance of them possibly recognising him.
Was this their missing former student?
A few minutes of heaving and the cart was still firmly entrenched in the mud. And the sun was out, doing its best to dry out the mud that coated pony, cart and the two dwarves.
“Colin?” Harry shook his head. “Harness up Latte and Almond. Get a length of rope and loop it through their traces and back to the cart’s shafts. Back them up as close as you can get them and give us a three count.”
“Got it.” The blonde boy looked like a rat, half drowned in chocolate.
“At least Golly’s settled down, now that he can hear your voice.” Fred snickered.
“Thank God for small mercies.” Harry muttered.
“Amen to that, mate.” The unknown dwarf agreed.
“I’m back.” Colin called. “Lavender had them harnessed, she figured we might need them. Give me a second to tie the rope… and… we’ll be… Right. Good to go.” He was working as he spoke.
“On three.” Harry called.
“On three.” Colin answered.
“One.” Harry called.
“Two.” Colin called.
“Three! Go!” Harry yelled and with the help of the two Draught Cob ponies, the fallen cart was dragged, unwillingly, out of the mud, then out of the ditch.
“Woo-hoo!” Colin yelled, waving his arms around. Neither Almond or Latte even twitched, other than to duck a nose, when one of Colin’s hands got too close.
The dwarf laughed weakly. “Oh, Merlin…” He was almost crying, as Harry and Fred eased him from the ditch.
“Fred give me a hand.” Harry sighed. “Let’s get as much of this grain back on that cart as we can, before the mud swallows it.”
“Thankfully, the mud’s thick, it shouldn’t have gotten through the bags.” The redhead said.
He dropped down into the ditch with Harry and the pair began to manhandle a bag. Within seconds, they knew that they were going to have to team up, just to get one bag free of the sticky mud. With one of them at each end of a bag, they slowly dragged twelve bags of grain out of the mud.
“How many bags did you have?” Harry asked the unknown dwarf.
“Twelve.” Came the answer and it was clear that the incident had taken its toll on the dwarf, he was slumped beside the cart’s wheel, his head resting back against rim.
“Well, good news?” Harry grinned, not realising that the only part of his face that was identifiable as a feature, was his grin. “We got ‘em all.”
“Yay…” The dwarf sighed. “Now I just gotta get ‘em home.”
“How far ’s that?”
The dwarf looked around. “About a quarter mile, that way, little less.” He waved a weak arm, the direction that Harry’s caravan were going.
Harry blinked, that was pretty close to where he was expecting to see their missing former student. “Right.” He nodded. “Colin? Fetch Delilah up. She can pull our friend’s cart to his place. Then we can check his pony over.” Harry looked at the dwarf. “Sound alright to you?”
“That’d be great.” The dwarf replied and Colin trotted off to Harry’s wagon, pony harnesses were kept in hanging boxes at its rear. “Rover’s a good pony, I wouldn’t like to see him hurt.”
“He doesn’t appear to be.” Fred commented. “Just shook up.”
“Some gentle work, on stable ground and he should be right.” Harry added. “But we’ll check him over as best we can.” He and Fred continued to move bags of grain until the load was more stable, then they set about tying it down.
The dwarf wiped off what mud he could and Harry finally saw a pair of bright hazel-blue eyes looking back at him. Eyes that seemed curiously familiar.
“All done.” Colin called a halt to Harry’s distraction. “I hitched his pony alongside Delilah, Harry.”
“Harry?” The dwarf asked.
“Hmm.” Harry nodded. “Let’s get you and your stuff home and we can worry about intros, later.” He suggested.
“Yeah, probably a good idea.” The dwarf nodded. “At least, at home we can wash off the mud and put a face to a name.”
“Cool.” Colin agreed. “Want me to drive Delilah?”
“Please.” Harry said. “Our friend can ride with you and direct you and we’ll follow on.” He paused. “Is there enough room? We’ve got… like… five wagons, two carts and two dozen ponies.”
“Oh, hell, mate…” The dwarf groaned. “The farmyard’s going to be as packed as the Express.”
“Huh.” Harry grunted. “Better the Express than, King’s Cross on the 1st.” He wasn’t really aware of what he was saying and neither was the dwarf, but Fred and Colin looked from one to the other and back, before looking at each other and grinning. Clearly this was their missing former student.
Five minutes later, Harry guided Golly into a large farmyard and through into a small field, before going back and bringing Onyx and Ebony alongside them.
“I got them, Harry.” Colin said. “You get cleaned up before that mud dries into cement.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Their new friend said. “I’ll pump for you, if you pump for me.”
“Deal.” Harry grinned and followed the dwarf across to the trough and the pump above it. “Your place, you first.” He grabbed hold of the pump handle and started the water flowing.
The dwarf dunked his head and used his hands to scrub at the partially dried mud, causing Harry to snort as his hair stood up in different directions, just like his own would soon be doing. Before Harry could register his features, the dwarf had shoved Harry at the trough.
“Your turn, mate.”
Harry took a deep breath and just dunked his whole head and shoulders into the trough, scrubbing with his fingers to loosen the mud and shaking his head to throw off the excess water, before dunking, again. As he rubbed his hands over his face, Harry heard Remus make a startled noise, but before he could look over to see what was responsible, a voice from the farmhouse caught his attention and rendered him breathless.
“James Ralston Potter! What did you do?!” Both Harry and the dwarf turned to the farmhouse and the dwarrowdam there. “James?” She looked from Harry to the dwarf beside him and back. “What in Godric's name…?”
Harry looked at her in shock, while the dwarf suddenly turned to look at Harry.
“Oh, Merlin…” The dwarf gasped.
“What?” Harry turned to look at the dwarf and felt a moment of absolute stillness. “What… on… earth…?” He was looking at himself.
“Uh… not on earth.” The dwarf whispered.
“Yeah, figured that out.” Harry retorted automatically. “What the hell?”
“James…?!” Remus’ voice gasped. “What in hell?”
Remus’ exclamation had Harry gasping in realisation. “… dad…?” He whispered, his eyes wide.
“Dad?” The dwarf asked, his attention diverted from Remus' comment back to Harry.
Harry blinked, then his sense of the irreverent reared its head and showed its Marauder origins. “Hi. I’m Harry… son of James, son of Fleamont. The Boy That Killed Voldemort.” Harry grinned, brightly.
“What?!” The dwarrowdam screeched.
“Sorry, mum.” Harry snorted, seeing his parents was just so surreal, he was running on cruise-control and that meant that his brain-to-mouth filter was de-activated. “Your spell destroyed his body, but the bastard made horcruxes.”
“Oh, for Merlin’s sake…” The dwarrowdam sighed. “All that research wasted.” Then she jerked as she realised who had spoken. “Harry?!”
“Hi, mum…” Harry gave her a hesitant smile.
“James?” Remus asked again. “Prongs?”
James Potter turned towards the wagons and stumbled back a step. “Remus? Is that…? Lils, is that Remus?!”
“Sure looks like it.” Lily Potter held onto the farmhouse’s doorframe, in fear that if she let it go, her legs wouldn’t hold her up.
“Lily… James…” Remus blinked. “I… I…” He handed Teddy to Tonks and practically fell off his wagon, landing on his hands and knees. It took him a few tries to regain his feet, but once upright he staggered over to James and stopped a few feet in front of him. A few glances between Harry and James and Remus was laughing, slightly hysterically, but still laughing.
“Oi, what’s so funny, Moony?” James demanded, then froze, stunned at what he’d said and who he’d said it to. “Moony? Oh my God, Moony.” He staggered towards Remus at the same time as Remus staggered towards him and the two came together in a clash of arms.
Remus had to get himself under control before he could answer. “Hey, Prongs.” He finally forced the words out, as he clung to his wild-haired friend.
“Oh, Merlin…” Lily whispered, again.
“Lily…” Remus gave her a watery smile, over James’ shoulder.
But something had distracted Harry, and given that he was standing in front of his parents? His living parents? That something had to be very damn distracting.
“Padfoot?” Harry’s eyes were firmly focused on the large shaggy dog, that crouched near the door into the barn.
“No, Harry.” James shook his head. “That’s not Padfoot.”
“Uh, yeah… I think it is.” Harry corrected, he’d seen the way the ‘dog’ had flinched when James had said Padfoot.
“No…” James shook his head again, but Harry ignored him and slowly approached the dog.
“You sure you want to stay like that, Sirius?” He asked, quietly, but dog just whined. “Aw, come on. You’re not really going to leave me to deal with mum, dad and Remus, are you?” The ‘dog’ whined and ducked his head, putting a paw over his head. “I’ll introduce you to my godson…” Harry offered and the ‘dog’ looked at him around a paw. “And his mum…” The ‘dog’ sat up a little taller. “Who happens to be your cousin, Tonks…” Harry paused and smirked, as the ‘dog’ yelped, before he continued, “who’s also married to Remus.”
“Harry, shut up!” Remus was bright red. Like James and Lily, he’d fallen silent when Harry started to talk to the ‘dog’.
The ‘dog’s’ head jerked upright and its eyes were wild, as it looked at Remus and James, then at young dwarrowdam behind them. It looked from person to person and back to Harry, before whining, again.
“Right, that’s it.” Harry stood upright. “On your feet, Sirius.” His eyes were narrowed into a glare at the ‘dog’. “I am not hugging a flea-ridden dog.”
The dog leapt to its feet, its hackled raised, and then it stood upright on two legs, morphing into a very grotty dwarf. “I don’t have fleas!” Sirius objected.
“Could have fooled me.” Harry snapped back. “You certainly look dirty enough. I think you were cleaner after escaping Azkaban.”
Sirius looked down at himself and huffed. “Probably was.”
“Sirius!” Remus was still staggering, this time it was backwards, only to be braced by Fred.
“Padfoot?” James’ eyes were wide. “You… all this time…? You hid…?”
“Is that really…?” Sirius asked Harry.
“I think so…” The younger dwarf answerd.
“But they died…” Came the whispered comment.
“Yeah, and you went into the Veil.” Harry replied, sharply.
“Huh.” Sirius grunted. “You sure it’s not polyjuice?”
“Security questions?” Harry offered.
“Yeah, probably best.” Sirius was determinedly not looking at James or Lily. “And that’s really Moony?”
“No, but it is Remus.” Harry grimaced. “Moony didn’t survive whatever was done to us, to get us here.”
“No Moony?” Sirius blinked.
“No Moony.” Harry agreed. “But yes, definitely Remus.”
“Okay…”
“Security question?” Harry asked.
“Yeah…” Sirius grunted.
“Well…?” Harry asked.
Sirius tilted his head as he thought, before a smirk flittered across his face.
“Oh, boy…” Remus muttered.
“Why was I the first one to hold your son?” Sirius looked at James.
“Oi!” James squawked. “You promised you wouldn’t tell anyone about that!”
“I haven’t.” Sirius said. “But you didn’t answer the question.”
“Oh, hell…” Remus took a couple more steps back, pushing Fred behind him, he was fairly sure he knew what was going to happen, any second now…
“You…” James glared at Sirius. “You had turned me into a lemon-yellow poodle. You miserable mangy mutt!” He leapt at the dog animagi and the two fell to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs.
“You tried to have me neutered.” Sirius snapped back.
“You cut one of my antlers off.”
“You made me wear a pink bow on my tail.”
“You put tinsel on my antlers.”
“You dyed me pink and purple.”
“You washed me with glitter shampoo.”
“You-”
“Boys!” Lily snapped. “Enough! Or I’ll hex you both Slytherin green.” Harry, meanwhile, was trying not to laugh at his father and godfather as they rolled in the mud, accusing each other of a myriad of half-forgotten slights.
“Yes, dear.” James leapt to his feet and quickly dragged Sirius to his, the pair dusting each other off before looking at Lily and shuffling their feet.
“Yes, Lily.” Sirius ducked his head and winked at Harry, just like he’d done last Christmas, in Grimmauld Place.
“Oh, I don’t miss that.” Remus sighed. “Not at all.”
“Like you weren’t involved in our pranks, Mr Prefect.” James retorted.
“I didn’t get caught, though, did I?” Remus replied sharply.
“You never got caught.” Sirius grumbled. “McGonagall thought you were an angel.”
“No, she knew I was just as involved, but she couldn’t prove it.” Remus grinned.
“Interesting friends you have there, dear.” Tonks said as she stopped beside her husband, Teddy in her arms.
Remus grinned at them, fondly. “Horrible idiots, the pair of them. You don’t need to know them, Lily’s the one you want to meet. Come on.” He slung an arm around her shoulders and turned her away from the farmyard, towards the house and the kitchen door.
“Oi! No fair!” James yelled and ran over to the house, following them inside.
“Harry Potter.” Sirius stopped in front of Harry and held out his arms.
“Sirius.” Harry stepped forward with a wide grin and enveloped his godfather in his arms. “I missed you.”
“And I missed you, too, so very much…” Sirius said in the quiet voice that he used when his emotions were threatening to choke him. “Introductions?”
“Sure.” Harry grinned. “I’ll introduce you to my chosen family and you can introduce me to yours.”
“Deal.” Sirius smiled and tugged Harry back into his arms. “I dreamt about you…”
Harry blinked at him. “In the Forbidden Forest?”
“Yes.” Sirius nodded towards the house. “They were there, too.”
“Yeah…” Harry nodded weakly.
“You went there, to die. You asked me, if it hurt.” Sirius frowned.
“Quicker than falling asleep. That’s what you said.” Harry answered the unasked question.
“Yes.” Sirius looked at him. “And you’re here, now. In the land of the dead.”
“Ah, no.” Harry shook his head. “Not the land of the dead. This is Middle-Earth.”
Sirius frowned. “Middle-Earth?”
“Tolkien, Hobbit, Lord of the Rings? Any of that familiar?”
“Yes…?” It came out more as a question, than an answer.
“We’re about two miles west of Bree.” Harry commented.
“But… you’re here. And so are they…?”
“Yeah, I know. Not quite sure how, though. Remus spoke to a lady in a garden, then he woke up beside Tonks, just south of Tharbad. We,” Harry gestured to Lavender, Fred and Colin, “think that was some sort of halfway place, between life and death and instead of us up going wherever the dead normally go, we got diverted here.. I was surrounded by white light and I’m sure I heard a someone laugh, right before I landed near a beach in Gondor.”
Sirius blinked. “Yes, I saw something, too, but... I couldn’t tell you what it was.”
“Oi, Pads?!” James yelled from the house. “You gonna bring my son inside, or you gonna stay out in the barn, again?” He seemed a little dumbfounded at what he was asking.
“Humph.” Sirius grunted. “Think we should stay in the barn, just to spite him?”
“Dinner’s ready.” Lily called. “And there’s a treacle tart for desert.”
“…ooh…” Harry grinned. “You’re on your own, Sirius, especially when there’s treacle tart in the offering.” He gave his godfather a smile and headed for the house, before pausing and looking at Fred, Colin and Lavender. “Come on, you three. You heard mum, dinner.”
“Uh, Harry? You sure that meant us, too?” Fred asked, his shoulders hunched with uncertainty.
“If she didn’t mean all of us, she didn’t mean any of us.” Harry’s voice was firm. “We’re a family, the four of us. If my mother or father can’t or won’t accept that… I won’t be staying here.”
“All or nothing, huh?” Sirius asked.
“My chosen family.” Harry nodded.
“Fair enough.” Sirius nodded to the house. “Let’s go and see what they say. If we’re not staying here, there’s a creek about a half mile from here, that has plenty of room for our wagons.” There was no hesitation in adding himself to Harry’s chosen family.
“You’d come with me?” Harry asked, eyes wide and unsure.
Sirius laid a hand on Harry’s shoulder and turned the raven-haired dwarf towards him. “I escaped Azkaban for you, I faced off against dementors for you, I rode a hippogriff for you, I fought DeathEaters for you, I thought I'd died for you. I’m not leaving you again, not if I can help it. If they won’t accept your chosen family, they’re not accepting you. I won’t leave you, not even for them.”
Harry choked back a sob and flung himself into Sirius’ arms and wasn’t a bit surprised when Fred, Lavender and Colin joined him in hugging the Animagus.
“Hey, you lot coming in or not?” James leant on the door, pretending that he hadn’t been eavesdropping.
~~~