Mischief Managed
James and Lily went into work with Sirius the next morning.
"What was she like?" Sirius asked.
"She was a bitch," Lily sniped.
James coughed, "She was, interesting. She didn't give an inch though, she's like Harry."
"Did you ask how she got Harry before I got there?"
Lily sighed, "She said she saw me dead, and she…"
"She said Death told her that if she didn't take Harry he would have a miserable life and be murdered before graduating," James supplied.
"He wouldn't have been miserable with me," Sirius protested.
Lily frowned, "He would have been with my sister."
James made a harsh noise, "He wouldn't have ended up with the Dursleys, we have a million other people who would have taken him in. The Longbottoms for starters."
Lily scowled down at her feet as they walked into the elevator.
"What?" James asked, "You aren't really going to defend your horrid sister and her beastly husband, are you? You saw their son, that boy is the size of a small whale, at least with Natasha our son is healthy."
She looked at him, emerald eyes blazing at the mere mention of the other woman, but what she said was, "Why did Hagrid show up at Godric Hollow that night?"
James blinked at her, and the elevator binged open to their floor.
They stepped out and before James could dredge up an answer, their office burst into applause. People came up to them smile, congratulations on their lips. Alice and Frank hugged all three of them.
Harry Potter was found, Harry Potter was alive.
Kingsley grinned at James, "Going to get serious about your work now, Potter?"
It was a joke, because aside from the hand full of Sirius's bad days, they were known as the three most serious Aurors ever employed. Even Mad-Eye Moody couldn't hold a candle to them. It was one reason why Nymphadora Tonks was training under Sirius and not the ex-Auror.
Amelia Bones shouted at them all, "Get back to work, if you don't have something to do, I will give you something to do."
Lily gave their boss a grateful look as the room dispersed into 'busyness.' She led them to her office, Nymphadora, or Tonks, looked up like a happy puppy when they all approached. Once they were all inside Lily's office James reached to take down their son's wall.
"James, wait."
He sighed, "It's done, Lils, we know where he is. It's over."
"Why was Hagrid there that night?" Lily repeated.
He sighed again, "I don't know, Lils, Albus sent him once he knew the wards were down."
"But why would Dumbledore send him? I'm not questioning that Hagrid's a good man, but why him? Why not the Aurors? For that matter, why didn't Aurors appear before Sirius got there? Why was it just Hagrid?"
"Hagrid is a half giant," Sirius offered, "He has resilience to spells."
"But not against the killing curse," Lily said.
James mind was spinning, and suddenly, issues that he had pushed out of his mind for years were pushing back at him, but he didn't want to acknowledge them. Wasn't it enough that Harry was back and in one piece?
"What are you getting at?" he asked.
Lily sat back against her desk and waved her wand at the board, that flipped back to the one she had been using in the early days of their search. "How did Albus know the Dark Lord had been defeated? How did he know Harry was alive enough to send Hagrid? Where was Hagrid going to take Harry? Why didn't Albus show up himself?"
James stared at the pictures of their ruined home, looked past the pain of years and war and loss and simply looked at the facts.
"Albus thought Sirius was the Secret Keeper," he said softly.
Sirius took the paper from Tonks who was standing big eyed in the corner, and it was he asked the most revealing question, "Why is Harry the Boy Who Lived? We didn't tell anyone he survived the Killing Curse, no one knows you two survived it either."
"You what!?" Tonks exclaimed looking at the Potters with new awe.
James frowned, "We didn't tell anyone, you were the only one who knew and…"
"They were calling Harry the Boy Who Lived that first night," Lily said. "No one should have known, no one should have known Voldemort was dead either. And yet-"
"And yet," James finished darkly, "Albus sent Hagrid to rehome Harry, somehow knowing that we would be dead, Harry would have survived, and that Voldemort would be dead as well."
Tonks was looking at the board too, and she added, "We know Harry had the scar from Bellatrix's account."
Lily growled, actually growled. Neither Bellatrix Black -once Lestrange, nor Barty Crouch Jr.'s accounts had been much good. They had shared only that Harry was alive, had a scar on his forehead and that he was being raised by 'one of them.' They hadn't even gotten a description, which in hindsight would have helped a lot considering that not many people looked like Natasha Romanoff.
Hell, had James had half his wits around him, he would have noticed her if…
"So how did Albus Dumbledore know?" Lily interrupted his train of thought, "How did he know our wards had fallen, that we had all been struck with the killing curse, and that Harry was alive?"
"And how did he not know that you and James were alive?" Sirius added.
"We missed something," James muttered, "How did we not stop to ask this before?"
"Because," Lily mocked, "it's easy to trust the Great Albus Dumbledore."
"Lily," James warned. It wasn't that he now disagreed that Albus really was as untrustworthy as Lily always believed. But.
But Lily hated him. Hated him with a depth and a fury that James simply couldn't understand. He knew it had something to do with her renewed friendship with Snape, but he didn't understand it.
"Lily-Flower," Sirius said, "Why didn't you want Albus to be the Secret Keeper? Why did you always insist it had to be one of us?"
"Because," she snapped, snatching the newspaper from him, "I could always see it in his eyes, whenever someone died in the Order. The means always justified the ends for him. A man like that," she pinned the newspaper on the board, THE BOY WHO LIVED RAISED BY A DEATH EATER? "can't be trusted."
"Lily," James repeated in that same warning tone, "you know you can be the same way."
She shook her head, "If that bastard used our family for bait, you're right in that. I will do everything I have to take that man down. Even if I have to go to Lucius Malfoy to do it."
Tonks sucked in a breath, "My mother isn't going to like that."
Everyone ignored her, and Sirius said, "We can just go ask the old goat."
"And get what? A thousand misdirections?" Lily asked, already in work mode, her mind spinning.
"He's the one who is always saying Voldemort is still alive somewhere, somehow," James said almost desperately, "He wouldn't use us for bait."
She turned on him, hands on hips, "Are you going to help me or not?"
And for the first time ever, James saw only fury and determination, not anguish and desperation in her emerald eyes at the start of a new case. He sighed, "If we are going to the Malfoys, Sirius and Tonks are coming with us."
Tonks looked a little afraid, and James didn't know if she was afraid of her aunt Narcissa or her mother Andromeda.
Sirius on the other had a look of pure evil cross his face, he rubbed his hands together and said, "Hehe, family reunion time."
Yep, James was decided, this was a terrible idea. But then, trading information with Death Eaters might not be as bad as finding out that the head of the Order of the Pheonix was as diabolical as his wife seemed to believe he was.
James thought he had about as much truth as he could handle for a while.
Harry was actually excited about the next day of school. For one, out of all the staff, he felt he knew Professor Flitwick best, and he was one of the only people to get his name right a hundred percent of the time.
"You look happy today," Fleur said.
Harry grinned, "Today, I have Charms."
Padma grinned at him, then said in a sugary-sweet voice, "Oh, and you think you're good at that, do you, Romanoff?"
"I don't think," Harry said, "I know."
Hermione made a face, "You were good with shield Charms but that isn't the same as being in a formal class."
"Want to take bets?" Harry asked.
Hermione shook her head, but on their way to class, the Slytherins were calling out bets that Harry would get blasted somehow.
Draco Malfoy didn't say anything, but his goons shouted out numbers that Harry thought were higher than they probably knew how to count.
Everyone settled into Flickwick's class, "Today," he began, "We will be learning Growing Charms. Now, this charm works only on mundane plants, so that's why Professor Sprout doesn't teach you this one. Before you, is a cup of dirt and in it, a seed. The seed belongs to a common rose plant. Add too much force into the spell and nothing will happen as the seed is tiny and will be turned to dust, not enough power, and the seedling will be small, and miscast, thorns will grow and nothing else. The Latin is Crescerio." And he waved his wand upward, and out his cup grew a beautiful plant, that budded, then bloomed into a beautiful white rose.
Everyone looked at their cup, and when the professor said to begin, several cups went up in smoke.
Hermione's plant was the first to look like a plant, and Padma's was the first to get blossoms.
"What's the matter, Romanoff?" Malfoy asked, "Can't manage without a wand?"
Harry had yet to use his bo staff, and he wouldn't need to for this. His magic had just settled into the seed. Palm facing downward, he gently brought his hand up as if he were tracing up a piece of cloth, the magic and the plant followed the motion, and when he brought his hand up, the red rose bloomed like a flower straight out of the movies. He saw Padma's expression and decided that, yes, Professor Flitwick was his favourite professor.
"Well done," the man himself enthused, he placed another cup down his desk, "Now let's see if you can do it with your staff."
"Staff?" Malfoy asked affronted.
Harry pulled off the wooden bracelet that with a thought and the faintest pulse of magic turned into a staff. He was careful not to hit either Hermione or Padma.
All the students stopped what they were doing to watch.
"You can't use a staff like a wand," someone Harry didn't know said from behind him.
"My dad can use his cane when he wants to," Malfoy said, "it acts like an extension of his wand, but it isn't good for most spells he said."
"Just do what feels natural, Mr. Romanoff," Flitwick instructed.
Harry, not knowing what to do, brought it up of the floor, gathering his energy in it, and like Gandalf the Grey had in the books, brought it down on the floor saying, "Crescerio."
And every cup that had not grown yet grew, every plant that had not bloomed yet bloomed, and every plant that had already bloomed turned into a bush with multiple flowers.
The entire class was rendered silent.
Harry Romanoff, the boy who couldn't perform a single spell without getting blasted off his feet, was good at charms.
Harry smiled, this was his favourite class.
"How was he?" Minerva asked, she sounded concerned, as he came into the Friday teacher's meeting.
Filius grinned, "Quite marvellous, that boy has power."
Severus huffed, "Did he show off like his father?"
Filius smiled fondly, "A bit, that staff of his is quite powerful. I think it would be best if we stick to teaching him spells wandlessly. He has the control to focus and direct his magic, the staff only magnifies that."
Minerva looked annoyed, "I don't know how to teach him the spells wandlessly."
"Did he understand the theory?" Filius asked.
She thought about it, "No, not that I could tell."
"He didn't understand a thing about Potions," Severus said.
"He's a hard worker," Pomona threw in.
"Then it looks like we have much to teach him," Filius said, "but I do believe tutoring will be needed in order for him to succeed. He certainly doesn't lack intelligence or strength."
Professors Vector, Bethshada, and Sinetra nodded at this, but Sinetra said, "From what you have all said, I believe it is only Potions, Herbology, and Transfiguration."
Hagrid nodded, "He kept up just fine in my class."
"Lily and James would be happy to help," Albus said, walking in, "Excuse me for my tardiness."
Filius argued, "I think it would be good for them, but we should also give Mr. Romanoff other options. At the very least wait until next weekend."
"The boy needs help now," Severus said.
"Let him set the pace," Filius advised, "he knows his limits."
"James and Lily-" Albus began.
"Are no longer our students," Filius cut him off, "Mr. Romanoff is."
Albus smiled genially but Filius could see that he wasn't happy.
That was fine, there was a reason Filius never joined his order, the reason why a number the staff hadn't even as they fought in the war.
Harry was going to pester the twins for the secrets, but when they didn't notice him following them, he took on a new tack.
Spying.
Harry was very good at spying, assassinating, no, but spying, he had been doing that since he knew how to walk. Mom called it training, Harry considered it more like unbridled curiosity.
The twins, as it turned out, did there own fair share of sneaking. They seemed to be pulling a prank on their older and younger brothers from what he could understand from their whispered snickering.
It was a pretty straight forward prank, jump out here, they step back here, but what caught his interest was the piece of parchment Fred pulled from his pocket. The same parchment he had spotted before.
George pointed his wand at it and said, "I solemnly swear I'm up to no good."
Harry ducked behind a suit of armour, careful not to brush against the metal.
"They're coming this way," Fred whispered, "Mischief managed."
Harry waited, three minutes later, three boys came down the hall, one a redhead that had to be a relative to the twins, all three boys screamed when something splashed on them.
"Peeves!" the boy shouted and the second boy bemoaned, "These were my good robes!"
They ran off, chasing a poltergeist that had never been there. Harry listened to the twins snicker, his mind turning over like the tumblers of a lock.
Somehow, that parchment had told them who was coming down that hall.
Harry needed that oversized, old piece of parchment. He had only till tomorrow night till his mom scaled the walls.
The castle was huge, he hadn't seen half of it yet. Though he had found a spot they could meet in relative privacy, he needed to know more.
Natasha was pretty sure wizards were cracked in the head. Filius Flitwick hadn't told her how to apparate or where the Aurors office was, but it didn't take long for her batting her eyes at a poor wizard at the bar for the information to be revealed.
The wizard who helped her had leered and told her that a little girl shouldn't try it on her own or might get spliced.
Splicing turned out to be a real thing and the reason why no one would teach her. So, she asked for another way to get to London. A handful of green powder and a step into the flames later, and she was back in London, in a hall massive enough to make even Tony envious.
She imagined this must be what Asgard had looked like, only darker, underground, and well, British. The British sometimes made the Russians seem cheery.
Manoeuvring her way through the crowd, she came to a desk, the man hardly looked at her, and asked blandly, "Wand."
Natasha put her wand on the scale, and the moment she did, she regretted it.
She knew it before the little slip of paper came out and the man rolled his eyes up at her, slowly and fearfully.
"I'll wait," she said drily.
The man gulped and sent- a paper aeroplane out behind him.
They waited together in awkward silence, as he sweated and she chastised herself for the mistake.
"I don't suppose," she said, "I can get that wand back."
He squeaked, and held the wand to his chest, shaking his head.
She frowned, he shouldn't be this afraid of her, she hadn't given him a reason, not yet.
Another minute later a man popped into existence, and asked, "What is it, Munch? Is the paper jammed again?"
'Munch' pointed a shaky finger at her.
The man turned to her, his eyebrows going up at her appearance, he held out his hand, "Well, hello, I'm Auror Frank Longbottom, what brings you to the ministry today?"
Natasha shook his hand, "Natasha Romanoff, and I was looking for the Aurors office."
The man's smile froze on his face when he heard her name. He took his hand back and looked as if he would have wiped it on his robes and taken back the smile.
Munch handed Frank the strip of paper, Frank's eyes snapped up at her, "You have Bellatrix Black's wand?"
He said it in low voice and still, the people around them went quiet. They all looked at her as if she were…
Well, like she was who she really was, it was unnerving.
She had enjoyed the last few years not being the assassin Romanoff, but just Natasha, Harry's mother, Romanoff.
She nodded, hoping like hell she hadn't killed that woman. She killed two of them, but the woman and the boy she had let go, with some minor injuries. But it would be just her luck that the woman had died on her way to the hospital.
"And why did you say you were here?" Frank asked.
"Aurors office."
"Perfect," he said. "Follow me."
Natasha twisted her wrist in the way Harry had taught her and her wand returned to her hand.
Frank, like the police officer that he was, saw it, his shoulder stiffening, but he didn't protest.
He led her into an elevator and asked, "You stole Bellatrix Black's wand?"
"She tried to kill my son," she replied coolly.
"Your son," he repeated under his breath.
When they arrived at the correct floor she was directed to an interrogation room.
Good to know that the wizarding world wasn't that different.
"I'll be back in a minute," Frank lied.
They would make her wait because wizard or 'muggle' they were all human.
Forty-three minutes later, a tall black man came into the room to intimate her, followed by a stone-faced woman, and then a sweet faced woman.
Hours passed.
The only things they got of her that was that yes, indeed, she had stolen Bellatrix Black's wand during an attack, and yes, she was absolutely, Harry Romanoff's mother, and that she 'escaped' with Harry in the attack.
Alice came out of the interrogation room, her sweet smile falling instantly. "She doesn't give an inch."
"We have to let her go," James said.
"James!" Lily exclaimed.
Bones shook her head, "We can get her on the murder of the Lestrangers."
James glared at his boss, "No we can't, it was self defense."
"Why are you defending her?" Lily asked, getting in his face.
James loved his wife, he really did, but to say the last decade or so had taken a toll on their relationship would be like say Bellatrix Black was only slightly crazy.
So James did what any man in his position would do, he taunted, "Why weren't you the first person in that interrogation room?"
"You wouldn't let me," she hissed back.
He shook his head and said tiredly, "Lily, I've never been able to stop you from anything you've wanted to do."
Sirius asked, "Are we missing something?"
James kept his eyes on his wife, and watched her face flush. He hadn't been all that impressed with Natasha's seduction skills, but then, it hadn't been meant for him.
"What's the matter, Lils," he continued in a low voice, "Scared?"
Her eyes seemed to glow for a moment and she stormed into the interrogation room, slamming the door shut behind her.
Bones, Frank, Alice, Kingsley, and Sirius all looked at him. Sirius asked, "What the hell was that?"
James turned to the window to watch, wondering just how far Natasha Romanoff was willing to get the upper hand.
Kingsley said, "We can't let her kill our suspect."
Bones shrugged, "The paperwork wouldn't be that bad."
James sighed, it really didn't help things that the entire wizarding world hated Natasha Romanoff on principle, because he knew, just as well as Lily knew, that the only way to Harry was through her.
And unfortunately, going over her dead body would either have Harry running away or out for their blood.
Lily felt rage, life sustaining, energy providing rage.
Its what kept her going, what got her out of bed in the morning. The idea that some monster had stolen her baby…
She turned to face that monster, and the monster smiled at her warmly, "Hello, Lily."
Lily marched to stand in front of the table, and leaned over it, she spat out the monster's name, "Romanoff."
Natasha's eyes lingered over her face, as if she were looking over a beautiful painting, then her gaze fell lower.
When was the last time James had looked at her like that? Better question, when was the last time she had noticed?
"What the bloody hell are you doing here?" Lily growled, not meaning to swear.
Natasha stretched her body out like a cat, and Lily noticed the swell of the other woman's breasts, her flat stomach, and-
Lily glared, she wasn't attracted to the other woman, but it was weirdly distracting. She had seen women do this to her husband, but directed at her, it was just, well, odd. "What are you doing here?" Her voice had eased and she cursed herself when she saw the uptilt of Natasha's lips.
They were playing a game, and currently, Natasha held all the damned cards. And the bitch fucking knew it.
"Won't you have a seat?" Natasha asked, "I like my eye contact to be," she bit her lower lip, then released it, "less strained."
"Drop the shite," Lily snapped, "what are you doing here?"
Natasha batted her eyes, which was a stupid thing Lily hated when other girls did, but she noticed the colour of the other woman's eyes, and again, it was distracting, and confusing. How did you make someone stop flirting with you?
Simple, you got angry or distant. But Lily was angry and Natasha didn't seem to care, and Lily couldn't afford to be distant.
So she changed the interrogation, "How's Harry?"
Natasha's face lit up, and Lily wanted nothing more to carve out the woman's eyes with a dull, rusted spoon.
"He's having a difficult time adjusting, his first day didn't go well. Wands don't like him much, but his professor, Filius Flitwick, took us to London to see Mr. Olivander."
Finally, a breakthrough. Pleasantly, and through gritted teeth, Lily asked, "And what wand did he get?"
Natasha laughed, the sound was... why the hell wasn't this woman married? "No, the wands hated him. One wand burst into flame. I nearly decked the old man."
Lily hated her stupid accent, "And why would you want to hurt Mr. Olivander?"
"Because the wand he gave Harry striped his hand with lashes."
Anger coursed through her veins, but not for Natasha, "What did you do?"
"There was another wandmaker there, but he was from Nigeria, were apparently wandless magic is far more common. Harry found a bo staff that works nicely for him. He loves it, I doubt he'll ever let it off his person willingly."
Lily blinked, no lies, no apparent half truths, just a straight answer. "Did you steal Bellatrix Black's wand?"
"I won it from her, yes, after hitting her with a chair."
"Did you kill the Lestrange brothers?"
Natasha met her gaze for a long moment, then said clearly, "Yes, I did, they were trying to kill my son."
Lily's voice was tight when she asked, "And why did you come here today?"
"I want to learn how to apparate, I was never a part of the wizarding world, I know as much or less than what Harry knows now."
"Now she talks," Alice grumbled.
"Is she flirting with Lily-Flower?" Sirius asked.
"Yes, she most certainly is," James answered.
Sirius gave him a look, "Do you think it's working?"
Bones answered, "Considering the other red head isn't dead, I think it's safe to say its working."
"James," Sirius said, "are you okay with that?"
He glared at his best friend, his brother, "What do you want me to say?"
Sirius shrugged, "I don't know, if that was a man in their flirting with your wife would you be upset?"
James didn't answer and even Sirius, for once in his shaggy life, didn't push.
Harry 'stumbled' into the twins Saturday morning, and got the parchment through sleight of hand, which turned out to be, after saying the magic words, a complete map with little names of where people were.
Mom was going to love this.
They met where Harry told her to be through a coded message delivered by the snowy owl, Hedwig.
She was an amazing owl.
Mom beat him to the roof, a place on a tower where none of the other windows could see and that wasn't difficult for either of them to climb through.
When mom hugged him, she nearly took the air away from him.
"How was your week?" she asked, pulling back and looking him over for injuries.
"Great! Well, sort of, I mean yesterday was great, Charms class with Professor Flitwick. Astronomy, Runes, and Arithmancy aren't bad, but the rest? I don't know, and I don't like the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor."
"Why?" she asked sharply.
He didn't want to tell her, but it would be worse when she found out, and she always found out, "He used a curse on me in class."
"He did what?" she asked darkly.
"It didn't hurt me, it didn't do anything really, but if my will had been weaker the spell would have allowed him to do anything to me, make me do anything."
"What is the spell called?"
"The Imperius curse, Imperio."
"What did you do to him?"
Harry grinned, "I sent him crashing on his butt."
She smiled back, "That's my boy."
"What about your week?" he asked in turn.
"I met you're birth parents."
Harry went very still, "How did that go?"
"Everyone's breathing," she joked.
"Mom."
She waved his concern away, "They're fine, no custody battle."
"There wouldn't be a battle," Harry said firmly, "I would just leave with you."
She patted his leg, "Give them a chance. I went to the Aurors office today."
He raised his brows, "Did you see them there too?"
She laughed, "Don't look so nervous. Lily Potter taught me how to apparate. I think we are going to be good friends."
Harry narrowed his eyes at her, "If she was nice to you, it's because she wants to get closer to me."
She sighed, "Harry, she's your mother, of course, she wants to get closer to you. Both your parents do, and I can prove it because the let me off the hook for murder charges."
"You are my mothe- wait, did you just say you admitted to murder?"
Mom took his hand in hers, "The Potters aren't the only ones trying to play nice."
"You don't have to play nice with them," he argued.
"Harry, I know you don't think you need them, hell, there are times I don't think you need me anymore, but you are going to have to start letting other people in. Friends, family-"
He opened his mouth to protest.
She shushed him, "Yes, family, maybe your parents will never fill that role, maybe you never see them as your mom and dad, but Harry, they do love you."
"They don't know me," he shot back.
"They don't need to," Natasha said, "that's what makes them family. They want to know you, and you will be better for having known your birth family."
"How do you know that? Would you have wanted to know yours?"
"In a heartbeat."
He looked away, out at the dark ground spread out below them. "What if they are secretly awful people?" he asked.
"What if they're incredible human beings who you wished you had known sooner?" she countered.
"You're my mom-"
"Harry," Natasha stopped him, squeezing his hand, she said, "I will always be your mother, that is non-negotiable. But you can't keep everyone at arm's length and expect to live a full life."
"I like my life," he said.
"You will be attending Hogwarts for the next three years," she stated.
"What!?" he exclaimed, "No, no, you said one or two."
"I changed my mind, unless it proves to be so dangerous I can't protect you, you're staying."
"No."
"Yes," she said with a smile, "I'm your mother, I get to make choices like this. And I think you need to grow some roots. I also believe the Potters are good people."
"Oh, please," Harry said, "those two are hardly a couple and their friends suck."
"You think marital problems mean they're bad people? Bad parents? Son, I've been single for the majority of my life, and you're going to criticize a couple who were murdered, resurrected, and have believed for the last thirteen years that their son was kidnapped by terrorists for having some marital tensions."
He threw up his hands, "I don't know how to do this! I don't know how to let those people in and I don't know that I want to even if a could."
"Well, then, you have three years to figure it out."
"Mom."
She flicked her finger across his nose, "Did you find any secret ways in for me?"
He sighed, knowing he had lost the argument, though the chances that Hogwarts was too dangerous to remain in wasn't gone yet. Pulling out the map, he said, "I solemnly swear I'm up to no good."
"A map!" she exclaimed in delight.
"You have to use magic when you say the words, I guess, you should use your wand. In order to hide the map, you say, mischief managed."
Natasha smiled, and they both knew, that the mischief had only begun.
AN: Reactions, comments, thoughts, ideas, or mischief, please?