First Year, ish
After the announcement at dinner everyone seemed to drop the subject, leaving the rest of the night to be filled with small talk. When Harry finally called it a night he started to regret the decision he made at dinner. He truly had no clue how his parents would react to several things in his past. Eventually, his home life would have had to be brought up, which he was really hoping to avoid. Ron and Hermione were the only people who had a glimpse of what happened inside that house, he figured Fred and George could make an educated guess after what happened in second year. Since then they always hovered over him before the start of term, always watching and asking if there was anything he wanted to do. It was nice for a few days but got old pretty quick.
Harry sat on the edge of his bed, listening to Ron snore always gave him some form of comfort. Ron was safe, always had been, always will be. His obnoxious snores reminded him that he had a home and gave him a calming sense of security. He eventually fell asleep, surprised he didn’t wake up with nightmares during the night.
Harry woke up the next morning buzzing. Sun shone brightly through their window and Ron seemed to have woken up too. After getting dressed they headed down the hallway to see Ginny and Hermione going through the same steps as them. The four of them finally made their way down the stairs and into the kitchen where Mrs. Weasley had set up an enormous amount of food. Most of the adults were in the kitchen already, including Fred, George, and Draco. Harry realized relatively quickly that his godfather was nowhere in sight.
“Morning” Remus greeted as the kids walked into the kitchen. Ron mumbled a good morning back as he sat down to eat. Hermione smiled and returned the greeting while Ginny just sat down and put her head down on the table.
“You Weasleys aren’t much of morning persons are you?” Draco commented with a snicker.
“Yeah? Well you still look like a ferret” Ron snapped back, earning a blush from the blonde and giggles from the rest of the room.
“Where’s Sirius?” Harry asked.
“Still asleep,” Remus responded
“Not for long…” James replied with a sing-songy voice.
“James, what did you do?” Lily asked
“Just wait!” the minute that left James’ mouth there was a very ‘manly’ shriek coming from upstairs. Everyone paused, waiting for more elaboration from James. He looked at the door, waiting for whatever he did to come through the door. Remus had a slight smile, like he knew what was happening but didn’t want to say anything.
“Oh Merlin help us,” Lily mumbled under her breath.
After a minute or so, a very wet Sirius Black came through the door. He smelled sickly sweet, Harry noticed. It was vaguely familiar and Harry couldn’t place it.
“JAMES FLEAMONT POTTER” Sirius bellowed. “PUMPKIN JUICE?!” James had fallen over, off his chair. Laughing hysterically, everyone else seemed to join in. “You know this stuff takes forever to get out, I just washed my hair too.” Sirius said, which only made James laugh harder.
“Are you a wizard or not? Just cast scourgify.” Remus said through his own laughter. Sirius mumbled something before raising his wand to his soiled hair and casting the spell.
The Golden Trio looked at each other after Remus’ comment before simply bursting with laughter. Louder than the rest of the table, drawing attention to themselves.
“Was it something I said?” Remus asked, trying to see what was so funny.
“N-n-no! Well uh- kinda?” Ron said through his laughter, confusing everyone more.
“It was something Ron said to me in our first year,” Hermione elaborated, calming down a bit.
“We’ll tell you guys about it today,” Harry said after finally calming down.
“Oh yeah!” Fred started.
“When will we hear about your valiant tales?” George finished.
“Well, why don’t we start?” Harry suggested.
“Let’s move to the living room then, it’ll be much more comfortable.” Mrs. Weasley said and ushered everyone out of the kitchen into the room next door.
After a few moments everyone settled it, Mr. Weasley conjured up another couch and 4 new bean bags. Harry, Ron, and Hermione took up one of the couches with Harry in the middle. George, Fred, Draco, and Ginny each had their own bean bags. One of the two larger couches had Mr. and Mrs. Weasley with Bill and Fleur. Charlie took up an armchair and the chair next to him was taken up by Tonks. The last couch had James, Lily, and Remus while Sirius opted to sit on the floor, leaning up against the couch.
“Ok, where do I even start?” Harry asked. He meant it as more of a rhetorical question, but James apparently took it as an actual question.
“Start with your home life! I always wanted to know how Sirius would do as a guardian.”
The room got weirdly quiet and it unsettled James and Lily. “Well, uh” Harry started, his hand rubbing the back of his neck. “I didn’t grow up with Sirius.”
“Who did you grow up with then? Remus? Alice and Frank?” James pushed.
“Who are Alice and Frank?” Ron asked, Harry nodded along.
“You don’t know who Alice and Frank are? Alice is your godmother…” Lily stated, she looked down at Sirius and over at Remus for explanation.
“Alice and Frank were tortured to insanity after you two died. There at St. Mungos.” Remus explained.
“What about Neville?” Lily paused, dreading the worst.
“Neville? Oh he’s great. Well as great as you can be when you’re as clumsy as him.” Ron stated.
“His parents are Alice and Frank?” Harry asked. James and Lily nodded their heads. “And no, Remus didn’t raise me, I actually didn’t meet him until third year. Same with Sirius.” The glare the two men got from the Potter’s was so intense it made everyone else in the room shift. “It wasn’t their fault! But uh- I lived, still technically live, with the Dursleys.” Harry finally admitted.
“WHAT?!” Lily screamed.
“Dumbledore was under strict instructions that you were not to be left with them.” James fumed.
“Yeah, well he doesn’t really like to listen much, Merlin knows a lot of our problems would be solved if he did.” Harry said. “Anyway, I don’t want to spend too much time on this, Sirius was in Azkaban until my third year and Remus wasn’t around until then either.”
“Wait Azkaban, why?” James asked Sirius.
“They thought I was your secret keeper, and when I cornered Pettigrew he blew himself up and 13 other muggles. So I got sent to Azkaban without a trial. Anyway, Harry, start from when you got your letter.”
“Ok, but I need you guys to promise not to say anything and just let us roll until we get through all of it. Please, it’ll be alot and the faster we get through it the faster we can answer questions.” Everyone nodded, it seemed relatively reasonable. Draco was a little hesitant, the way Potter sounded and the way his parents reacted made it seem like his relatives weren’t the doting sort. Which is the opposite of what he expected. “Alright, when I got my letter I had no knowledge of the magical world, I just thought I was a freak and weird things happened around me. The first time I actually acknowledged it was magic was when I made the glass on a boa constrictor exhibit at the zoo- which is like a place in the muggle world that holds a bunch of animals so people can look at them- disappear. Dudley was banging on the glass and then poof! It was gone and Dudley fell in, and the glass reappeared.” Everyone laughed at the idea of Dudley being locked in a cage.
“After that I was locked in my room and when I was let back out I saw I had mail addressed to me. Which was new, no one ever wrote to me.”
“Now you have loads of people who write to you!” Ron said.
“I wonder where all your fan mail is”
“We know for a fact Ginny wrote a few letters” Fred and George added in, looking at their younger sister who turned redder than her hair.
“Alright boys, let Harry get back to it.” Mr. Weasley said.
“Uhm, yeah I’m not sure about that. I definitely never got any of that. But once I figured out it was from a place called Hogwarts, Vernon took it from me and burned it. And then he burned every other letter we got from Hogwarts. It wasn’t until it started coming out of the eggs did he finally have us all pack up our things and go to a rock in the middle of the ocean. At midnight on my eleventh birthday, Hagrid quite literally knocked the door down and gave me my letter. I obviously was confused and he explained everything. That's when I learned what actually happened to you guys.” He said looking at his parents. “And when I learned your names, as well as a general idea of what you guys looked like.”
“What do you mean? You didn’t know who your parents were?” Draco asked.
“Nope. The first time I asked, Petunia told me they died in a car accident while driving drunk, swatted me with a frying pan and told me to never ask again.” The room filled with an uncomfortable silence. “I’m fine though! Hagrid explained all of it, I even got him to say Voldemort. But after he gave me my letter and explained everything, he gave Dudley a pigtail and ears after he started eating the cake Hagrid gave me. The next day we went to Diagon Alley and I got all my school supplies.”