Chapter 26
“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 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.
~~~
June 3rd 2920
Harry exchanged a lightning-fast glance with Fred, Lavender and Colin, before shrugging, stomping the excess mud from his boots and entering the house. The kitchen was large and pleasantly warm, the furniture all rich golden yellow pine.
“Are you going to introduce us, sweetheart?” Lily asked, as she stirred a large pot on the edge of the fire.
“Sure.” Harry nodded. He was going to give them a chance, but he’d had Sirius, Fred, Lavender and Colin for far longer than he’d had parents. Hell, he’d had Remus and Tonks longer. “Fred’s the redhead.” The redhead in question, stepped forward and gave James and Lily a smile, even if it was a bit stilted. “Fred’s a Weasley. He and his twin, George, were my generation's version of the Marauders.” He saw the startled look on Fred’s face, but ignored it. “He’s a couple of years older than me, but once McGonagall made me seeker for Gryffindor, the twins and Ron, basically claimed me as theirs.”
Fred nodded and added. “He was Ron’s friend to start with, but by the start of his second year, he was an honorary Weasley.”
“Pretty much.” Harry nodded and grinned. “Next is Lavender,” the blonde girl stepped up beside Fred, “she’s in my year and a Gryffindor, like the rest of us. If there were rumours going around, Lavender knew about them and knew if they were true, usually before anyone else, even those involved.”
“That sounds about right.” Lavender agreed and gave the senior Potters a cautious smile.
“Then there’s Colin.” Harry gestured and the blonde boy came forward. “He started at Hogwarts, the year after Lavender and I. He was a bit of a pest with a camera, for the first few months. Getting petrified stopped that, though.” He ignored the startled faces of his parents, they’d find out about his time at Hogwarts, soon enough.
“I missed over six months of school.” Colin said. “If it hadn’t been for the Headmaster cancelling the end of year exams, I probably would have failed my first year. Thanks be to Hermione, for sending me notes over the summer. I wouldn’t have managed most of my classes in second year, without her help.” He grinned. “And we had Remus for DADA, that year, just to make it harder.”
“You did quite well, Colin.” Remus added. “Maybe not as good as you could have, but still quite well.”
“I didn’t start to really try, until my fourth year and the DA.” Colin screwed up his nose. “Harry’s the best teacher. He just… he understood magic and explained it so us muggleborns could understand what he wanted us to do.”
“He was also powerful enough that us purebloods, respected him.” Lavender frowned. “Or most of us did… Malfoy didn’t respect anyone, so let’s not include him.”
“Nope, he’s not invited.” Fred added.
“Definitely not.” Colin added.
“Good to see the rivalry is still going strong.” James snickered and Lily gave him a smack on the shoulder.
“Hush, you.” She ordered. “Slytherins aren’t that bad.”
“Not all of them, sure.” Harry agreed. “But Malfoy’s a prat. Always has been, even before we started at Hogwarts.” He remembered the blonde’s reaction to Hagrid, as he and Harry had stood in Madam Malkin’s shop.
“Fair enough.” Lily shrugged. “Prats exist in every house.” She gave James a speaking look.
“I grew out of it.” He objected.
“Mostly.” Lily nodded before turning back to the stove and manhandling a pot of stew across to the table. “Someone grab the bread, for me, please?” She nodded to the two loaves of dark bread on the counter.
Colin smiled and fetched the loaves. “Would you like me to slice them?” He asked.
“Oh, that would be lovely, thank you, Colin.” Lily gave the boy a bright smile.
That smile became a wide-eyed stare, when he pulled out his wand and used it to cast a slicing charm on the bread.
“You have a wand…?” James gasped.
Harry smirked. “We have lots of wands.” He paused and tilted his head. “Hmm, Ollivander put the wands together and so far, we have everyone’s wands. Is Ollivander a Seer?”
Lily looked at James and raised a brow. “Well?” She asked.
“Uh…?” James looked at Sirius.
“Don’t think so…” Sirius frowned before blinking. “But… there was something…” He looked over at Remus. “Didn’t Dorcas say something about his mother? Wasn’t she related to the Trelawneys?”
“I…” Remus frowned. “I’m not sure it was his mother, I think it was his grandmother, or maybe great grandmother?”
“But one of them was?” James asked.
“It would explain him knowing which wand was best suited to which kid.” Sirius shrugged.
“It would.” Harry agreed. “And it would also explain how he knew what wands to have Hermione send with me. We’ll go out, after dinner and…” he paused, before leaping to his feet. “Crap, we left the ponies harnessed and hitched to the wagons!” He gave Fred and Colin a wild-eyed look and dashed out of the kitchen, heading for the farmyard.
“Oh shite!” Colin was only a step behind him.
“Whoops.” Fred grimaced and he, Remus, Sirius and James followed them.
Tonks and Lavender exchanged a glance.
“Ouch.” Lavender bared her teeth in a wince. “Golly’s not going to be happy.”
“I don’t think any of them are going to be happy.” Tonks muttered. “We’re usually better at caring for them, than this.”
“I suppose we should give them a hand.” Lavender sighed. “Particularly, as they need to see to Mr Potter’s pony.”
“Rover?” Lily blinked. “Why?”
“Ah…” It was Tonks’ turn to grimace. “There was an incident involving a ditch and your cart.”
“Would that be why James and Harry were coated in mud?”
“Yeah…”
Lily blinked a few more times as she thought about that, then she also climbed to her feet and headed for the farmyard.
Outside, it was a confusion of stressed ponies and people doing what they could to calm them down. Harry was standing with a pretty golden pony, gently rubbing its neck and head, letting the pony lean against him while it settled down. Once the pony was calm, he unhitched the pony from the cart and unharnessed him, before tying him to the cart’s drive-seat. Then, he moved on to unhitching and unharnessing a pair of black ponies from a large covered wagon.
Sirius quietly sidled up to the golden pony and held out a hand for it to sniff at. After a tentative nuzzle, he ran his hand down the sleek neck and back up to a silken ear. In the time that it took Harry and the menfolk to unhitch and unharness nearly a dozen ponies, Sirius and Golly became firm friends.
Colin went out into the paddock and strung up rope to make enclosures for the ponies and, one-by-one, ponies were added to enclosures and feed was dished out for them.
“All done…” Colin slumped back against the feed wagon.
“It’s an effort and a half, after fighting to stop Mr Potter’s cart from going over.” Fred agreed trying to stretch to ease the tension in his shoulders.
“Yeah…” Harry nodded, while James just grunted.
“What happened?” Sirius asked.
“The cart’s wheels had slipped and one had gone off the road and into the ditch.” Lavender answered. “Obviously Mr Potter had-”
“James.” James interrupted. “Call me James. My dad was Mr Potter, not me.”
Lavender tilted her head and looked at him for a few seconds. “James, then.” She agreed. “He’d obviously tried to lift it back up, without unloading but it hadn’t worked.”
“He was trapped under the back of the cart, I think his cloak might have been caught under the wheel.” Harry said.
“It was.” James nodded.
“By the time we got there, the pony was down on his knees and dad was covered in mud.” Harry went on. “Colin saw to getting the pony out, while Fred tried to keep the load stable and I held dad’s head out of the mud.”
“Getting the pony unhitched, unsettled the load.” Fred was the next to explain. “While Colin handed the pony to Lavender, the load shifted and that was the straw that broke the hippogriff’s back. The bags fell on Harry and James, slow enough that Harry was able to push them away from James and keep his head and face out of the mud.” Lily gasped and clutched at James’ arm. “Once the bags were off the cart, Colin and I were able to pull it forward a bit, enough for Harry to get James out from under it. Then, we had to get it up out of the ditch and reload it.”
James smile at Harry. “We weren’t sure if Rover was injured or not, so Harry offered up one of his ponies to pull the cart back here.”
“He’s not got any obvious injuries.” Harry said. “But he’s rubbed the hair off of his knees and scraped his nose. He’s going to feel it, tomorrow. I’ve got some potions that might help, but… Mum? Snape said you were really good at potions? If we give you the recipe and the ingredients, can you make up a few?”
Lily’s brows rose sharply. “How on earth… middle-earth… did you get magical potions’ ingredients, here?”
“I went to the apothecary’s, mum.” Harry said slowly. “Most of them have a few things. I’ve been collecting anything magical, that I came across, since… Ethring? Yeah, Ethring.” He nodded. “Got a pretty decent collection, now, and seeds for later. But potions? Can you brew them?”
“I…” Lily gave up trying to keep up with what had happened to Harry and just answered his question. “Sure, you get me ingredients and a recipe… and I can brew them.”
“Wicked.” Harry grinned. “And then… an explanation?”
“As long as you give us one, too.” James answered, hopefully.
“Yeah, I meant for all of us.” Harry snorted.
“Oh, okay.” James just shook his head. This kid…
The group had settled back into the kitchen and were pouring themselves mugs of tea, while Lily and Fred were preparing potions ingredients.
“So, who first?” Colin asked. “By importance or numbers, or years?”
“Lily and I arrived here…” James frowned as he thought. “Um… late summer… 2902(?), I think…”
“Mid-September 2903.” Lily corrected, without looking away from the alihotsy she was slicing.
“Mid-September 2903.” James repeated. “I remember talking to… someone… I think it was a woman but I’m not certain… I know whoever it was, was very upset about something but I don’t know what…” He shook his head. “Then everything went black and before I could open my eyes, I landed in a puddle of water and barely a second later, Lily landed on me. Knocked the breath right out of me, she did.” He smiled fondly at his wife. “Once we got up, we found that we were on the edge of a wooded area, alongside a gravel road. We had no wands and while I can do a few things wandlessly, it’s kinda limited. We saw smoke, on the other side of the woods, so we walked in that direction. Came to a village, little more than a mill and a couple of buildings, a pub, a baker and a blacksmith’s forge. We asked after some directions and Lily nearly had kittens when she realised, we were in middle-earth. It took me a bit longer to understand what that meant.”
“I had my coin purse on me,” Lily added, “tucked into a pocket, I didn’t even know it was there.”
“Not until we sat down and tried to work out what we had of value.” James said. “Turns out that ʛalleons are gold, each one is nearly an ounce of 9crt gold. And we had Lily’s purse and my Auror emergency kit. A handful of potions, a useless portkey, a broken wand and a small coin pouch. I had twenty ʛalleons but Lily had over a hundred in mixed coin. We were lucky enough to get a ride to Bree, where we changed ʛalleons and §ickles for local coins. Florins, sovereigns and crowns.”
“Between our ʛalleons and §ickles, we ended up with just shy of Ç2000.” Lily said.
“But Ç2000 doesn’t go a long way, when it’s all you have.” James sighed. “We managed to rent this place for a crown a month, but we had to do something to make some sort of income. I’m a Potter, I wasn’t used to having to work for a living.” Lily snorted at him. “Yeah, yeah, I know, spoiled little rich boy.” He sighed. “But like I said, I’m a Potter. So, I decided that if I had to work to feed my family, I was going to be a potter. I spent days making enough bricks to build a kiln, before I could even make an ashtray. And talk about bad…”
Lily laughed. “Bad is an understatement. His early stuff looked like something that Padfoot sat on.”
“Oi!” Sirius objected.
“You sat wherever you felt like it and you didn’t care if you squashed my herbs or flowers.” Lily sent a glare at Sirius.
The Animagus stared back, before shrugging. “Meh, I hated your flowers.”
“I know.” Lily smirked. “Kinda why I grew them.”
“Hmm…” It was Sirius’ turn to glare.
“But soon enough, James improved and he started to sell pieces, mostly plates and bowls.” Lily went on. “I took over the garden, here, and began to lay out a low-walled garden, somewhere I could grow herbs and vegetables, both to eat and sell.”
“It took us a couple of years.” James said. “But eventually, we started to make more than we spent and we began to show a profit. Just the odd florin, to start with, but soon we had replenished our purse and pouch. Since then, we’ve continued to work towards buying a place of our own. We’re not there yet, but we’re getting closer.”
“We could probably buy a house, but it wouldn’t have enough room for my gardens or a pond for James to get clay from.” Lily sighed.
“Hmm…” James hummed his agreement. “And without them, we can’t make enough to live on. And now we’ve been told that our landlord’s died and his son has sold this place, so we have a month to get out…”
“Timing…” Fred muttered to Harry.
“Nice…” Harry whispered back.
“You lot, now.” James gestured broadly in the direction of Harry and the others.
“Right.” Harry grimaced. “Starting with… Sirius giving me to Hagrid…” Harry spent the next three hours explaining to his parents, Sirius, Remus and Tonks, exactly what his life had been like from the moment he woke up on Petunia’s doorstep, right through to seeing James’ cart in danger of tipping, along with everything that had happened to Fred, Lavender, Colin, Remus and Tonks and how they came to be where they were.
“Whoa…” James stared at Harry, amazed at what he’d heard. “That’s…”
“Yeah…” Harry sighed. “And that’s just… my life.”
“Sweetheart?” Lily’s voice was calm and collected. By James, Sirius and Remus’ reactions, she was just a little bit too collected.
“Mum?”
“You said you have wands.”
“Yes, mum.”
“Help me find one that likes me.” Lily smiled sweetly but behind her, Remus and Sirius were beginning to look alarmed. “It seems that I need to teach a few people what happens when they don’t keep their word to a witch.”
Harry bit his lip to avoid laughing. “No, mum.” He shook his head. “I get why they… did what they did. I don’t like it but, I understand their reasoning. Not necessarily going to forgive them, any time soon, but I understand why they thought that way. If they hadn’t, Voldemort would control the British Wizarding World and probably be on target to controlling the entire Wizarding World.”
“That’s not good enough.” Lily’s control slipped and she snarled.
“Maybe not.” Harry shrugged. “But it was me that they used, not you. I get to decide whether they need punishing and to what degree, not you.” Lily narrowed her eyes and stared at Harry, but Harry had faced far worse than a woman, who he wanted to love, but didn’t really know. “My choice, not yours. And neither of them have any idea that I’m here, and until I decide whether they need punishing or not, they won’t know.”
Lily thought that through, before nodding. “Alright, I’ll accept that… for now.”
“Thank you.” Harry gave her a smile.
“But I still want a wand.” Lily sighed. “I miss magic.”
“Same here.” James agreed.
“That I can help you with.” Harry laughed.
“So, if you didn’t know it was us, here…” James asked, “what were you planning to do?”
“Well…” Harry grimaced. “We were going to find out who was here, let them know that we were planning to do and see if they wanted to join us. We’re going to visit the Master of Buckland and possibly the Thain of the Shire. See about buying a property, just this side of the Brandywine River and ask about trading permits for Buckland and the Shire. All of us are at different stages of establishing a business. I’ve my locksmithing beads and have been buying and selling, since less than a week after my arrival. Lavender and Colin have their Jewellers’ beads, they’re working, too, selling mostly pretty but cheap stuff at little markets. Every now and then, they sell something better, usually when we’re in a town. Fred’s working towards a woodcarving Mastery and his stuff sells, all the time. Remus needs time and a space to work in, but he’s going to make paper and books. Tonks also needs a permanent space, you can’t really take a still on the road.”
“That sounds fair.” James said.
“What do you want us to do?” Lily asked.
“Whatever you want to, mum.” Harry said. “I’d like it if you came with us, but that’s up to you and dad.”
“I’m going with Harry.” Sirius said, not looking at James or Lily.
“Like there was ever any doubt.” Remus snorted. “That boy’s had you wrapped around his finger since his first breath.”
Sirius tried to look affronted at the comment, but after a few seconds, he shrugged and nodded. “Yeah, I suppose he has and I don’t see any reason to change that now.”
Harry smiled at Sirius and nudged his shoulder. “You gotta come up with something to make a living at, Sirius.”
“Let me think on that for a bit.” Sirius twisted his mouth in a sign of confusion. “Maybe until we have a semi-permanent home?”
Harry studied the older dwarf. “Alright… You get until a week after we move into our new home, or onto the property, at least.”
“Deal.” Sirius grinned.
“And how big are you planning on this place being?” James asked. “I mean… So far, there’s the four of you, Sirius, Remus and Dora, as well as Lily and I, not to mention… how many ponies we have between us…”
“I was hoping to get something where we could have our own places, sort of…” Harry said. “You know where we are. And mum? You know what that means, what’s coming. Thorin’s coming to visit next summer, he mentioned making custom weapons for us. And when the time comes, I expect that he’ll ask some of us to join the Company that he takes to Erebor. That means, leaving what’s here, at fairly short notice. I figured that we’d make some sort of… I don’t know… some sort of halfway house, a place where dwarves and hobbits can stop for the night, on the way between Bree and Hobbiton, or vice versa. Bring in a few of the braver hobbits from Buckland, to run the place in a couple of years, maybe a dwarf or two. It’ll free us up and give us someone that we can trust to keep the place running, while whoever joins Thorin, goes to Erebor. If we decide to come back, it’ll be here, waiting, if we decide to stay there, we can sell it to whoever’s interested.”
Lily and James blinked a few times and nodded slowly, as they thought that through.
“How big a place are you thinking?” Sirius asked.
“Half a dozen rooms dedicated for hobbits.” Harry answered. “Same for dwarves and Men.”
“Dwarves?” Sirius asked.
“We’re dwarves, Sirius.” Harry said. “Size-wise, we’re pretty much right in the middle between Men and Hobbits. Men are five-foot-six to six-foot-six, hobbits are two-foot-six to four-foot-six-ish and dwarves are four to five-foot, in height.” He went on to explain about beads, crafts, trials, ledgers and what they meant in dwarven culture.
“That would be why dwarves in Bree, barely acknowledge me, then.” James huffed.
“Probably.” Harry nodded.
“Well, shite…” James huffed.
“How do we rectify that?” Lily asked.
Harry screwed up his face as he thought about it. “Best we wait until we have a permanent base and Thorin’s back, we can tell him that you thought I was dead and because of that you cast aside your dwarven heritage while you mourned. But now that I’ve turned up, alive, you can’t find your beads or ledgers and aren’t sure what you’re qualified for, anymore.” He shrugged. “Or something like that, we can work on the details, later.”
“The other idea that Harry and I have been tossing around,” Fred offered tentatively, “was that we actually tell Thorin. The truth. The complete truth, I mean. We’re still a bit iffy on it, but we’d rather give him time to come to grips with it, than spring it on him at Erebor.”
“According Tolkien, he wasn’t really all that stable, mentally, when he finally reached Erebor.” Harry added. “Gold-sickness, Tolkien called it. After fourth year, I thought it sounded more like imperius, but couldn’t figure out who was casting it.”
“There’s a physical version of the imperius that can be cast on an object, which will place anyone that comes in contact with the item, under the curse.” Remus said. “Bill Weasley was telling me about it, the ancient Egyptians liked to use it in their gold vaults to protect them from raiders. An infected person becomes just as protective of the item, or items, as the owner.”
“Huh…” Harry looked at Fred and Lavender. “What do you think?”
“It fits…” Lavender nodded slowly.
“It does.” Lily agreed, then yawned.
“Okay, that’s it for tonight.” Tonks ordered.
“Wands.” Harry corrected.
Tonks frowned. “Wands.” She nodded. “But then bed. You, Fred, Colin and James, you four pushed yourselves with that cart and you’re going to feel it come tomorrow. Tonight, you sleep. Tomorrow, we can sit down and make more detailed plans.”
Harry yawned. “Yeah, okay. Wands, then bed.” He sighed. “Right, mum, dad, Sirius, follow me…” He lead them to his wagon and climbed up the ladder. “Have a seat.” He dug out the stasis box that had the wand storage box in it.
“Got a spare bed, Harry?” Sirius asked.
“Yeah.” Harry nodded. “We’ll bring in the table and lay it on the frame, there, and you can have the bedroll that I got for Teddy. He never used it, always slept in the hanging cradle. Here, mum? Put you hand on here, it’ll bite you, take a sample of blood and pull on your magic. Then, it’ll bring the wand best suited to you, to the top. If you want, you can do it a couple of times, for spare wands.”
Lily smiled at Harry and laid her hand on the box’s shelf and barely twitched when it pricked her finger and drew out a single drop of blood. There was a hum and a clicking sound and the rear of the shelf split into a long crack, before a wand rolled up through the crack and came to a stop beside her hand. She picked up the wand and felt the warm rush of her magic meeting the wand’s core and the two blending together. After looking at the wand for a moment, she lifted her and went through the same process to get a second wand. Then she withdrew her hand and looked at James.
“I might get another one, later, but it can wait for now.” Lily said. “No hurry.”
James and Sirius both went through the same steps, twice, to get a pair of wands.
“This is…” James frowned. “This is my wand. The one that I had at Hogwarts.”
“Great.” Sirius huffed. “Mine’s probably still in the evidence room, in the Ministry.”
“Alright, that’s enough.” Lily cut any further conversation to a halt. “Harry’s nearly asleep, let’s leave him be. We can talk more, in the morning.”
James reluctantly nodded, before running a hand over Harry’s head and giving his son a gentle hug. “Get some sleep, son.”
“Night, dad. Night, mum” Harry smiled and hugged Lily. “See you in the morning.”
“Hey?” Fred popped his head in the door. “Want me to bring in the table, to make a bunk for Sirius? And Lavender’s got the tub set up, you need a bath, Harry, badly.”
“Please.” Harry almost moaned. He grabbed a change of clothes and after throwing a smile at Sirius and his parents, left the wagon.
The last thing he heard, before he sank under the steaming-hot water, in the transfigured copper pot, that they used as a bathtub, was Fred talking to Sirius.
“Give me a hand with this table, Sirius.”
~~~
June 4th 2920
Harry groaned as he tried to roll over, his muscles screaming in protest.
“Harry, sweetheart?” He forced his eyes to open, as his mother’s fingers trailed across his face.
“Mum?” Harry croaked.
“I’ve a potion for you.” Lily said. “Can you sit up, if Sirius helps you?”
“Mph…” Harry grunted and ducked his chin in the barest of nods.
“Alright. Sirius? Help him upright, please.”
“Of course.” Sirius was just outside of Harry’s line of sight, but Harry felt his godfather’s arms slide under and around him and support him as he was eased into a more vertical position.
“Emrgh…” Harry groaned, as his ribs took the screaming up another level.
“Here, Harry, open your mouth.”
Harry felt, rather than saw Lily hold a phial to his lips. He opened his mouth and quickly swallowed the potion, almost praying for it to start working. And within seconds, it did. Starting from his stomach muscles and spreading out from there, Harry could almost feel the tension, as it left each muscle.
“…ooh…” He sighed, in relief.
“Yes, that’s almost exactly the same noise your father made.” Lily chuckled gently.
“And the sound that Fred made, was practically indecent.” Sirius laughed.
“Should have heard what he was like having a bath, before we told him we could hear him.” Lavender snickered from the wagon’s ladder.
“I don’t think I want to know.” Sirius shook his head.
“You should have another hot bath, Harry.” Lily said. “It’ll help the potion work better.”
“Tonks and I will have breakfast almost ready, by then.” Lavender added.
“Bath, then food.” Harry grunted and dragged himself to his feet. “I feel like I’ve been trampled by Buckbeak’s herd.”
By the time Harry sat down to a bowl of hot porridge and a plate of toast, he felt almost human, which as he thought about it, made him snort. He was a dwarf, now, not a human.
“How’s the ponies?” He asked.
“Not too bad.” Lavender replied, as she poured him a mug of tea. “Golly’s decided that Sirius is his new favourite person, how he’s going to work with you, I don’t know. Rover is tender, but while his knees are swollen and hot, there’s no broken skin or infection. Just tenderness. Latte’s pulled a shoe, Remus had to take it off completely, so she’s out until we find a farrier. Other than that? All good.”
Lily leant forward. “Lavender, Remus, Dora, Sirius and I talked, this morning, while we were waiting for you boys to wake up. We talked about you going to Brandyhall, to see the Master of Buckland.”
“We had tried to work out some way, that not all of us went.” Lavender added. “But we just can’t come up with one. Not if we all want trading permits.”
“So…?” Harry sipped his tea.
“So, we all need to go.” Tonks said. “That means, James and Lily need a wagon.”
“Actually, I was thinking about that.” Harry tilted his head. “I don’t think they really do. They’re not going to be going trading, or travelling, to the same degree that we are, so a shop-cart isn’t really needed. Although, dad’s little cart would work just as well for that, if he wanted it to. And as for all their stuff? We can shrink it and store it in a trunk in their cart. Sirius rides with me, in my shop-cart. Dad drives my wagon and everyone else is sorted. We only really need to give Rover time to recover, before we head out.”
“Not just Rover.” Lily objected. “You, Colin, Fred and James need time, too.”
“Yes, mum.” Harry gave his mother a smile. “Never thought I’d say that.”
“Never thought I’d hear it.” Lily’s eyes were glistening.
~~~