Marvelous Return

Clint grabbed the books put them on the table before them keeping the first one to himself, “Well, let’s get on with it then,” he said and tried to open it. Tried being the operative word as the book wouldn’t open, no matter how hard he tugged on the cover. 

When it was obvious it wouldn’t work for him he tossed it to Sirius, after all, he was the only one who could open the bag maybe some enchantment was on the books too. But Sirius didn’t have any luck opening it either. 

“Harry?” Tony suggested and before Sirius could get up to go ask Harry to open the book the journal lightened up from its place next to the books. 

Clint was glad he decided to always keep it in his line of sight. He grabbed it and opened it with ease. 

Oh, so you get my version? Well, I guess I owe the twins then… Do not tell them that! 

Clint read to the others. 

Hi, Dad! 

When they asked who he was addressing he read ahead to see who signed the page. “I think it means Arthur it’s Charlie’s name at the end,” Clint announced and smiled at a beaming Arthur. 

So, here it is, there are rules to reading the books, for some reason my brothers thought I’d be better at making you take it seriously. 

“Might have to do with the dragon handlingis written on the side,” Clint told them. “It’s from one of the twins.” 

“Keep reading the faster we read the better,” Phil instructed. 

Anyhow, here are the rules:

1- Harry is the only one who can open the books - We don’t trust anyone, not even past you as you didn’t live through all the things that made you a team, while you are the same people as we are trying to change the past we can’t forget that it’s future events that will forge the people we know and trust. - As we cannot allow just any body to have access to the knowledge you’ll gain, the only way to protect what little Happy future we all had been to make sure Harry would be the only one with the ability to open the books. - And just putting his hand on the book cover will not work he has to be willing to share the knowledge with you. 

2- Strange and Bill put different curses and conjurations over the books when reading you will be put in a mirror dimension where time will be accelerated as such no matter how long it takes you to read all seven books in the time bubble it will not take more than 2 hours to the outside world. 

3- When in the mirror dimension YOU CANNOT USE MAGIC!!!

“Wow, he actually wrote that all in cap with three exclamation points,” Clint told them and Sirius, Remus, Severus, and Arthur agreed to respect the rule. 

Using magic could shatter the protection as it was built on borrowed powers. And as Bill is used to deal with toddlers Harry asked for him to place a rune on the books use magic against each other, and you forfeit your powers for 24h…

“There is a note saying ‘24 real hours!! Outside the Mirror Dimension!!’” Clint told them, sniggering when the four wizards look half chastised half worried. 

I think that’s all. If I forgot something, I am pretty sure you’ll figure it out. I told you I don’t know why they chose me. 

Though, I would add something. 

Dad, we love you, we miss you, and no matter what you read don’t forget it. We may be the Prewett brothers now, but you were the one who told us to do it, we needed to separate ourself from Ginny, Molly, Ron, and Hermione, and even after you disowned them they wouldn’t stop using the name. After, the wizarding world realized what was happening walking around with the Weasley name was putting us in danger. 

Remus hugged Arthur as the man cried silently not knowing if he should be sad or happy.

Also, Remus, Sirius, Book 3 and part of book 5 are going to be hard to read for you guys but you need to remember Harry went through it all for real and though he forgave you long ago, you brought it upon yourself. 

Professor Snape…

“I think it’s cute, Charlie was 35 or 36 years old when he wrote this,” Sirius said to a glaring Severus, “Yet, they respect you enough to still call you Professor.” 

Professor Snape, the books aren’t kind on you, we hope you can choose your own path and never, ever become a teacher...

“A note says, ‘or after you finally marry and have sex regularly’,” Clint said trying not to laugh, “I think it’s in one of the twins handwriting.” 

Severus glared at Arthur this was all his fault. 

Oh, I forgot rule number 4…

4- in the mirror dimension you won’t be allowed to talk, but you can take notes and talk about the books once out of it. Reading the books took us weeks as we were making comments as we read, you don’t have that kind of time on your hand, the SHIELD agents will be needed elsewhere before the month is over. 

“I was getting worried about the time we would spend on this,” Tony admitted. 

“I was too,” Phil agreed. 

Charlie Prewett. 

“There is one last note but I think it’s Harry’s handwriting,” Clint informed them. 

Keep in mind everything happening away from Hogwarts and not in Hermione's presence or Ron's DO NOT REFLECT REAL FACTS. I would never and have never called my relatives friendly but I never told her how they really were either, she made it up for me to be both a dramatic hero and a lunatic depending on what they needed, from the little sentences I would say here or there.

“Well, that’s comforting,” Tony said grabbing the book and walking out of the room to find the kids. 

-------------------- Two Hours Later --------------

Sirius was pacing and mumbling, Severus was very pale and Clint was worried this had been too much for them. While Remus and Arthur kept muttering, “Nymphadora” and “Percy” respectively, though not for the same reasons. 

“Let’s debrief,” Phil called everyone’s attention to himself. 

“Debrief? Debrief? I am going to Debrief that old man!” Sirius finally cried out, only to let himself fall on the floor mumbling intelligibly. 

“Nymphadora?” Remus cried out surprising everyone. 

“I don’t know what you are complaining about,” Tony told him, “She sounds like a lovely young woman, fun and with a very unusual gift.” 

“She is also 12 years younger than me,” Remus snarled at him. 

“And not your mate,” Severus told him in a barely-there whisper. 

“What?” Remus looked at him incredulously. 

“I agree with Severus,” Clint said and took his notebook from the coffee table. 

“Me too,” Sirius added. 

“How do you know?” Remus asked them. 

“Ragnok said you never met them, but you’ve met Nymphadora plenty already, we babysat her enough for you to know if she was your mate,” Sirius reasoned. 

“Also, if it was as easy as reading the books, I don’t think Ragnok would have kept it to himself as he told us we needed to read them ASAP,” Clint pointed out. 

“My pup!” Sirius whined as he was back on the floor now that his friend wasn’t in distress anymore. Suddenly he jumped up, “I am going to kill that old fool, placing my son with those despicable human beings, then putting him through all those adventures at Hogwarts it is supposed to be one of the safest places on Earth. A troll, a cursed broom, Voldemort!!” Sirius yelled. “Why didn’t he call the Aurors when that little stalker boy got petrified?? Ms. Norris could have been an accident, a spell you are not supposed to use on animals, a prank gone wrong, but they didn’t know what happened to the boy,” Sirius exploded. “Riddle said students were petrified the last time, Dumbledore was there and you are telling me he didn’t think about asking that Myrtle ghost how she died? Two twelve years old put it together!!”

“I have noticed that too,” Severus finally regained some color, Clint secretively thought he was relieved the first thing out of Sirius’ mouth weren’t insults aimed at him. “But then again, he admitted it himself, he had been raising Harry to be self-sacrificing, he needed him to walk to his death,” Severus managed to get it out though everyone could hear his throat closing in on the words. 

“Clint?” Phil inquired, “What did you see?”

“The Horcrux, while we know where they will be at the time, we don’t know if the Hufflepuff cup is already in the vault for example, as Bella was out of Azkaban when that happened,” Clint told them. “What we know is that Harry isn’t one.”

“He isn’t?” Everyone asked him, surprising him, as he didn’t think he would be the only one noticing. 

“It wasn’t on his test and Ragnok seemed aware of everything from the future,” Clint said, “he didn’t even have a leech, and Severus had one in his mark if the Diary could siphon life and magic out of Ginny, I see no reason for the hypothetic Horcrux in Harry not to act the same way.”  

Sirius grabbed the bag and pulled out Harry’s test, Clint was right and he knew it as soon as he saw Sirius’ smile. While Ragnok could have kept it to himself thinking the Cursebreaker would deal with it, it would have appeared on the test. 

“So, you think he got it later?” Sirius asked Clint. 

“There were several moments,” Clint nodded, “The piece from the Diary could have gone into Harry, it could have happened when Harry chased Voldemort from Quirell, when he possessed him at the ministry, or…” Clint stopped and looked at them, trying to assess if they were ready for his theory or not. 

“Or?” Sirius asked eagerly. 

“Or it was never there, Dumbledore needed Harry to die to fulfill his plans, he probably never thought he would survive a second curse,” Clint told them, deciding to keep his more disturbing thoughts for later. 

“That’s not all,” Severus said narrowing his eyes at him. 

“I don’t know if the Horcruxes are real,” Clint admitted with a sigh. 

“What do you mean?” Remus asked. 

“Why did no one else thought about it after it was confirmed he was back? I get that Dumbledore is old and knowledgeable but he isn’t the only one who knows they exist, that potion teacher in Harry’s sixth year knew, Sirius’ brother too,” Clint told them. “I get that the minister didn’t want to believe Harry but you want to tell me no one went to the cemetery to investigate? And they didn’t scan for magic, didn’t find the ring? What about the Diadem, if it was at Hogwarts all this time why didn’t the Headmaster know before that, it seems like a pretty dangerous thing to have lying around and the books say there are wards over the school telling the Headmaster everything.”

Clint let them think it over for five minutes and then moved on, as long as they did not find at least one of the Horcrux they had no way to know which of his theory was the right one, the only thing they knew for sure was that Harry wasn’t one.  

“Hermione, at first read you’d think she wasn’t involved with them until the Troll but I noticed her obsession with Harry when she first met him on the train,” Clint said. 

“I know what you mean,” Tony nodded, “the girl is supposedly smart, but she tells Harry she knows everything about him because she read it on books. She sounded as if he should have read the books so he’d know about himself too, like how he was supposed to act, or talk. How long before the terms starts did she get her letter? She is a No-Maj born, she didn’t know anything about Harry, but yet she went and looked for information about him? Who told her he even existed? I know she said her parents are proud of her being a witch, but no matter how proud they are there are too many things that don’t make sense about her, maybe she had one or two books that mentioned Harry in passing, but then they went and bought her more books about it?” 

“I was thinking about that actually,” Severus said, “So many incidents happen in which she was involved, she was petrified for weeks, but it doesn’t seem like her parents know. They left her at the Leaky Cauldron the day before the train was to leave in their third year before their fifth year she apparently spent the summer at Sirius’ house, she doesn’t go home for the winter holiday after the first year, I mean in their fifth year she said she was going skiing, but she ended up with the Weasley’s at Sirius’ house.”  

“What about the Creevey boy?” Clint said, “I noticed the school year mentioned are coherent but the boy was petrified from November to June in his first year, shouldn’t he have had to do it all over again?” 

“No, the teachers probably visited him in the summer, so he could make up for the lost time,” Arthur explained, “What intrigues me the most about him is his brother, something is going on with that.” 

“Why?” Natasha asked. 

“I have never heard of two muggleborn coming from the same family let alone brothers,” Arthur told her, Remus, Severus, and Sirius shaking their head to agree with him. 

“Lily and Petunia would be more in the norm,” Severus added. 

“The rest is more planning I guess, and research,” Phil said making Clint groan he hated research. 

“Yes,” Sirius said with a deep sigh, “I want to whine some more, but we can change almost everything.” 

“Take out the Dark Lord before Harry gets to Hogwarts and keep Sirius out of Azkaban and none of these books can become real,” Severus pointed out. 

“Then we’ll only have to deal with Dumbledore,” Natasha pointed out. 

“And that is the unknown,” Remus agreed. “While taking out Voldemort immediately is tempting, Dumbeldore seems to keep his focus on him, he is using Harry as a beacon of light and while he plans behind the scene, pushing the Ministry in the direction he wants it to go, we do not know how he would react if we take this away from him.” 

“Yes, I have a feeling he used Harry’s first year to make sure Harry wouldn’t join Voldemort,” Clint said.

“From the start, he pushed him to have friends, to go to Gryffindor when Harry could have done great in any houses, pushing Remus at him but at the same time giving potions and compulsion to keep Remus from him,” Tony added.

“What do you mean?” Remus asked. 

“Did you notice while you were teaching there you were only trying to bond with Harry on the days before the full more or just after? When your instinct as a wolf would be the hardest to ignore? And when the potions would be clensed from your body” Tony asked, but it didn’t seem like Remus noticed at all. 

“So what we let Voldemort posses Quirell?” Sirius asked. 

“No, we take care of him,” Severus announced sternly. “But we don’t tell anyone, and we will need to keep Dumbeldore busy when and if Harry goes to Hogwarts.” 

“Maybe we could suggest a different path to Hermione’s parents too,” Natasha said. “She seemed to be impressed by the education at Beauxbatons why not see if we can send her there?” 

“Or Australia, she said they had family there, I am sure we can find a way to make them move early, it’s not like as dentists they can’t open a practice wherever they go,” Tony offered. 

“Hogwarts is still too dangerous,” Sirius protested, “I’d rather we teach the kids ourselves.”

“They’ll be safe at school, once Voldemort is gone,” Remus assured him. 

“Safe from him maybe, but what about the other kids,” Sirius asked, “They were bullying Luna, and treating Harry either like the second coming of Merlin or the next Dark Lord. Ginny and that Romilda girl can’t be the only one who tried to potion him. And Dumbledore will still be there,” He said spiraling into a frantic panic attack. 

“Okay,” Arthur said as he pushed him onto the couch. “You need to take a deep breath, Sirius, the children are safe in the other room,” Arthur reminded him. “We know what could happen, and we can make sure it doesn’t. Personally, I’d rather Bill and Charlie staid closer to home, but from what we read they wanted to run from Molly and I don’t intend to let her take any part in their lives, so they may stay. See small steps, hoping for the best, but planning for the worst.” 

“How are you going to plan for the worst?” Natasha asked. 

“By doing research on American tribes and giving them to Bill, so he’d want to explore Indians instead of Egyptians, look into reserves and menagerie maybe show Charlie other possible carriers, he could be a Familiar Healer or a Care Teacher,” Arthur said with a shrug. 

“Do not mention that name around Ilvermorny by the way,” Tony told them. 

“What name?” Sirius, Remus, Severus, and Arthur asked. 

“Care of Magical Creatures.” 

“Why?”

“Because at Ilvermorny it is called Care for Magical Beasts, and that’s for a very good reason, Creatures are those you study in DADA, Merpeople, Werewolves, Vampires, Centaurs, Goblins, those who have their own government representative, they do not need Care other than that of a Healer. Beast, on the other hand, are pets sold at the menagerie, or those that Hagrid guy taught them about, Nifflers, Hyppogriffs, Flobberworms,” Tony explained. 

“We are so prejudicial!!” The wizards exclaimed in horror.  

“You didn’t make them name the class this way,” Phil pointed out. 

“But, we are teaching the kids that we are better than creatures, and we need to study and control them,” Sirius said hugging Remus. 

“Speaking about Creatures, I noticed something,” Clint told them, thinking it was time to put a stop to this sensitive subject. 

“What was it?” Severus asked him. 

“Harry wasn’t affected by the Velas, Hermione and Ginny noticed it immediately and seemed furious about it,” Clint told them. "That's probably when he was dosed with the anti-gay potion, and later with the Love-potion when he noticed Cho instead of Ginny." 

“He tried to go to them like the rest of the idiots,” Natasha countered. 

“The first time, but that’s the only time it affected him,” Clint pointed out. “Fleur had absolutely no effect on him.” 

“Or Hermione didn’t put it in the stories because she wanted people to think Harry only had eyes on Ginny,” Arthur supplied. 

“But she humiliated herself by showcasing Ron’s crush on Fleur?” Natasha countered. 

“Plus some of the stories happening in public, at Hogwarts or at the world cup if she wanted to sell the books as non-fiction and make herself look good she couldn’t have people coming out of the woods saying this or that never happened,” Clint added. “I think, as Harry told us, the only things we can’t know for sure are the part Hermione either didn’t witness or those only Hermione, Ron, and Harry were there for.” 

“Like Ginny getting no punishment at the end of her first year?” Phil asked. 

“Yes, like that, we don’t know if she got punished or not, but I bet she didn’t but Harry was,” Natasha told them. 

“How did you figure?” Sirius asked. 

“Well, Dumbledore is like this genuine Grandpa whom everyone looks up to, if he says she deserves no punishment then the matter is settled, the people probably never knew what happened before the books came out because no one was punished at Hogwarts for it, so no rumors to spread,” Clint explained. 

“But?” Remus pushed. 

“Dumbledore has plenty of witnesses that can confirm how Harry didn’t involve Ginny when he told the story, and justify himself that way, he can also say he didn’t punish Ron because the distress over his sister was enough, but he sent everyone away and was left alone with Harry, everything from that point his uncertain, and while she wrote Harry walked out of there, scot-free, I highly doubt it,” Clint finished. 

“He probably threatened the poor kid, even if it was simply telling him he caused enough trouble to the Weasley that year. You’d notice Harry didn’t write to Hermione and Ron that summer, he also as a deeper relationship to Myrtle, later on, one that he did not build with the others around,” Natasha agreed. 

“We can speculate,” Severus said after a minute of silence, “or we can ask Harry.”

Turned out, Clint had been right, Harry had been punished, for breaking the rules and for freeing Dobby, though he refused to tell them how. Only nodding when Sirius who was hugging him tight asked if it happened the other years too.