Happy Families."Hey, Harry!" Called Helene, running round a corner to meet him. "Sorry I'm late." "You're the one that organized this meeting Auntie Lene. Shouldn't you be on time?" Asked Harry with a smile. It was nearing the end of Harry's first year and Helene had sent a messenger to ask him to meet her urgently outside the Gryffindor dorms. "Yep, very very sorry. You know Sev, He has a habit of delaying me for the most important of things... fifth year exams... quidditch finals... the train HOME." "I don't know why you put up with him." Replied Harry. Harry had grown used to his godmother's and his professor's relationship and although it still bothered him he no longer hated Helene for it. "Because I like being delayed. It means I can hurry about like a lunatic trying to catch up with time. Plus he buys good birthday presents." "So what are we here for?" Asked Harry, not interested in anything that had to do with his professor ever being nice. "Somewhere more private Harry." Said Helene. "Walls have ears, as the saying goes." "That was another of Neville's spells gone wrong." Replied Harry, glancing at the stone ears decorationg the walls nearby. Helene walked Harry slowly to the dungeons, avoiding Sir Cadogan the mad knight as she went, and also explaining to Harry that she did need to have a very important talk with him. She led him to an empty dungeon room. "This should be private enough." Helene said to her godson. "Please, sit down." Helene materialised two chairs for them to sit on, and both sat. "So... this important thing... that you have to talk about." Began Harry. "Is it good or bad?" "Rather bad, I'm afraid." Replied Helene. "Rather... very bad." "What could be so bad, concerning us?" Asked Harry. "It had better not have anything to do with Professor... Jerk-Who-I-Really-Don't-Like." "Oh geez. Oh serious crap. Bad bad bad bad bad news." Helene mumbled. "Yep, To do with your Professor Who-Is-Not-A-Jerk-If-You'd-Just-Give-Him-A-Chance." "Well... If it's about Professor Yes-He-Is-A-Jerk-And-Nothing-You-Say-Or-Do-Short-Of-World-Changing-Creation-Magic Which-No-Living-Witch-Or-Wizard-Can-Or-Has-Ever-Or-Will-Ever-Be-Able-To-Do-Can-Change-That-One-True-Fact, then let's hear it already." "Okay, Well... he's... the fact is..." Helene's eyes trailed away as she searched for words. "Y'see, the truth of the matter is is that... Severus... has kinda asked me, that is to say invited me, to stay with him for the summer holidays." Harry couldn't speak, let alone be happy for his guardian. Minutes passed and he wouldn't even look at her. "Ummm... and I kinda said... Well, I said yes." Helene added. "And you can yell at me all you want. It's your right." "I'm not going to yell." Said Harry calmly and coldly. "I'm just going to ask a few questions and then I'm going to yell." "Umm... Ask away?" Prompted Helene. "Question Number One." Said Harry. "Where does said arrangement leave me, Harry Potter, whom you swore to protect?" "Yeah..." Helene rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly and grimaced. "That's the really bad part... it leaves you with the... the the the... leaves you with the Dursleys." "What? Leave's me with the Dursleys!?! Did you even think that I might not be entirely pleased with that arrangement?" Harry was certainly yelling, not calmly asking questions as such now. "Why, Lenie... why?" "Well you certainly wouldn't want to hang around with me and Severus all summer. We'd bore you to death." "But why... why would you say yes?" Harry asked quietly, all the fire, anger and steam had run out of his voice and now it trembled. "Why would you say yes to leaving me with, no, returning me to, the people you rescued me from?" "Love, Harry, love..." Helene was close to crying. "Oh god, I'm so sorry dammit Harry, but this offer, I couldn't refuse. You gave me a reason to live, Harry, and I'm certainly not going to forget that soon." "Love... so you do love him..." Harry said. "Should... should I be happy for you?" "No Harry." Replied Helene. "I can't expect you to be happy for me. You should hate my guts for it." "Not so hard, considering where I'm spending the summer." "Just one summer, Harry." Helene said. "I promise. This summer and then we'll work something else out." "O...okay." Said Harry, broken. "Well, I have to go." Harry stood up and walked out of the room, without saying goodbye. ****** "Hagrid, I don't know how I'm going to survive this summer." Said Harry, ten minutes before the train was due to leave. "Well 'Arry, don't you worry yourself too much abou' that. It'll all come good wi' a little magic." "Magic, Hagrid?" Asked Harry, confused. "But, we're not allowed to use magic during the holidays." "Your Aunt an Uncle don't know that, do they?" ****** "I feel so bad that I couldn't be there to see Harry off." Said Helene, brushing her hair in front of the dressing table mirror. "I should have been there, considering I won't be there for him all summer." "Don't worry, Hagrid will take care of him, just like that time you told me about, when you had that dreadful bout of the flu and Hagrid took Harry to get all his books and see him off the Hogwarts." Said Severus. "And besides, I don't think you can even stand now, you're bound to be a bit wobbly after last night..." Helene turned on him, with a cheeky grin on her face. "C'mere you." She said, getting up and stumbling back over to the bed where Severus was. "This is gonna be one helluva summer." ****** The brakes of the Hogwarts train screamed to a stop at the station. After about twenty seconds children started streaming out of the carriages, emitting exited yells about being back at Hogwarts, and seeing friends again, and I wonder whether that ol' teacher will remember what we did to him last year? Helene looked expectantly at the train, but there was no sign of Harry. Helene had organized with Harry to meet him at the station at Hogwarts, at this specific place. She had even cleared with the teachers that he part from his group and she would take him up to the school. After a few more minutes, it became obvious that Harry wasn't coming to meet her and the train was empty of students, the platform clearing away as well. Helene felt dejected. Maybe Harry had slipped past her. He hated her, she knew it, and it made her stomach turn. Well, if her own godson didn't want to see her, then she wouldn't bother seeing him. Helene turned on her heel and left the platform, her robes sweeping up behind her. ******* ... And a flying car crashed into the whomping willow. Helene didn't know what to say to Harry when she saw him. She didn't think it would be this bad. The Dursleys had locked him up, she knew that, but why hadn't he sent her an owl when he got to the Weasleys. Goodness knows, she had sent him a bundle of letters. She didn't understand. Things were getting darker, and there was only one person she knew who could she some light on this, the darkbringer himself. Sitting in a dungeon alone, Helene prepared some stuff. Two chairs, various wards against posession and damage, a barrier spell, Helene knew she had to have it all. He was going to be mad. She muttered the words under her breath and blew out a candle, and the smoke began to form. Helene didn't know how she summoned, it was just something she could always do. She had always known how to do it. It wasn't so much a gift, as knowledge, because she needed all the help she could get when she summoned. "So, how's stuff then?" Asked the figure, as he formed. It would do well to be noted that at this point his head wasn't fully formed, and he couldn't see into the room. "Are exams over?" "Ahh... er, yes." Said Helene. "They, yes, exams are over." When the figure recieved eyes, they widened in surprise. "Who are you?" "You know me." Said Helene. "Maybe not for a long time..." She pressed a fist to her lips in nervousness. "How long has it been?" There was rising anger. "How long since the last summoning?" "That's a tough one." She said. "How about a little history lesson, to demonstrate?" "That long, then?" "I'll fill you in." Helene said. "Little Lenie finished school, and then comes the rise of the dark lord. Bad things happen... bad..." Helene stops. She is holding back tears. "It wan't me. Honest." Said the figure. "I'm just... not that." "I know." Said Helene. "But it's... it's so hard, like talking to your murderer." "I'm not your murderer." "Close though." She said. "Alright, I was chased by the death eaters." "It wasn't me." "I barely escaped death." "It wan't me." "I escaped...-ish." "That wasn't me, but I'll take credit for the escape." Helene laughed. "I didn't escape for long. The ministry of magic started chasing me." There was silence. "They put me in Azkabaan." "Did they find out about me?" "They didn't search my memories entirely." The figure sighed. "They didn't find out." "They let me go." "A happy ending." "I found my godson." "You have a godson?" "His name is Harry." "Hey... I remember him." Said the figure. "Why do you remember?" Asked Helene. "Why do you remember if it wasn't you?" "Hard to explain." He said. "Part of the magic of the diary." "What diary?" "I was preserved in a diary. A memory, like this one." "Is that why I can summon you?" "You can summon others, can't you?" Said the figure. "No. The diary made me available to others." "Why?" "I am the heir, you know?" "So what?" "The chamber?" "You're going to open it." "-ish." Said the figure. "Not quite me. A little girl." "This year?" "Yes. I remember that." "What else do you remember?" "I remember nothing after the making of the diary, I do not remember ageing, or becoming the dark lord. I remember the events of the diary." "Why do you remember Harry?" "He happened to the diary." "Oh god..." "And... I remember my downfall, because it was told to me." "But Harry, what are you... the diary... whatever, going to do to him." "I remember that he will be fine." "Oh... okay. So he'll stop you?" "Yes." The figure clenched his fists. "He stops me." "Angry?" Asked Helene. "No matter how many times it isn't you, you're still an evil bastard, aren't you?... Aren't you, Tom?" "Sort of." "It's time to go, Tom." "Wait!" Said Tom. "Please, don't send me away. Remember the good times we had? You are... older, but I know you can make yourself younger. I know it." "Those times were memories. You are a memory. And you're the bad guy. I can't be having with bad guys." "But... it wasn't me." Said the figure, but Helene had already re-lit the candle, so the smoke ended, and Tom dissolved. Helene destroyed all evidence. She was glad she hadn't needed the wards. She didn't know why he hadn't been angry. It had been a long time since she summoned him, surely he would have felt abandoned. Memories have power, though. Tom knew she would summon him again. She always would. In some ways... that memory knew more than she did. But now Helene knew that the darkness that year was not going to be absolute darkness. Harry would be fine. She didn't need to worry. Just... needed to patch up relations with him, at least. Done investigating, Helene left the room, and there was nothing to say she had ever been there. (It might be a good idea to explain this magic of Tom. It's not the diary, but because of the magic Helene uses to summon him, he can remember what happened to the diary, even though the real Lord Voldemort can not. Helene summons him from just after Tom preserved himself in the diary. Another way to think of it would be to imagine that Tom preserved himself again, shortly after the diary, and Helene summons this Tom. The most important thing to remember, is that this Tom, while having the memorie of the diary, was not the individual consciousness that did the deed, and Lord Volemort does not share memories with this Tom, past the point where she summons him. Yeah, technically this Tom didn't actually do it, but he was the being, as much as diary-Tom was, that was going to grow up to be the dark lord. However, since Helene has been summoning him since she was aged six, he has considerably changed. Helene is a good influence on the incurably evil.) ******* Harry avoided Helene, so she tried her best to run into him. When she did see him, he wouldn't talk to her. "Go away, Aunt Lene." Eventually, however, she wore him down. "Okay, yes I did have a good time at the burrows." Even further on, it was like they had never had a fight. "Do you use floo powder ever, Aunt Lene. I used floo powder and it was so wierd." Helene wasn't actually one for floo powder. It made her sneeze, and when she sneezed, she tended to catch on fire. It was actually funny, seeing Helene sneeze herself on fire, even funnier when she had a sneezing fit, and other people caught fire. Helene was staying in Severus's rooms now. She was fully moved in. The only thing left for her was to get a job teaching, but she was delaying on that. She has actually had quite a good idea, and was discussing it over dinner. May it be noted that this is a private dinner, with only Severus and Helene. "Hey Sev." Said Helene. "Not many people really like potions, do they?" "No." Replied Severus. "I can't understand it. It's the most important subject of the lot, learning discipline, organization and conscequence." "I reckon muggles would like potions." Said Helene. "I reckon they'd do anything slightly magical if they could." "Well natually, magical people are so much more priveleged." Said Severus. "Think of all the advantages we have..." "So you reckon muggles would like doing potions, even though our folk find it boring?" "What are you getting at?" Asked Severus. "Of course our world is more interesting than theirs, it's common sense." "Why is our world more interesting?" "It just is. Magic is the purpose of life. I don't doubt most muggles have some sort of empty space they try to fill, from the absence of magic." "So muggles would like magic?" "What is the purpose of this, Helene?" "I was just thinking..." Said Helene. "If potions is so boring to wizards, why not teach muggles to do it?" "What?" Asked Severus. "How could you teach them, they're muggles!" "So... That stops them because...?" "They can't do magic. They couldn't learn magic." "But they wouldn't be learning magic." "Well of course they would. You think a love potion isn't magic? You think a truth serum isn't magic? You think brewing a mixture to make yourself fly, isn't magic?" Severus was looking quite harried. "Yes, the potions are magic." Said Helene. "But that's just because they have magical ingredients." "They are magic, Helene." Said Severus. "Muggles can't do magic." "What's so magic about it?" Asked Helene. "Where do you insert the magical talent? I reckon muggles could mix together magical stuff just fine, if trained." "Are you suggesting training muggles to do magic?" "To do potions, not magic." Said Helene. "Harry quotes you, and I believe you said something about no wand waving or incantations. No magic needed by the user." "But training muggles? Letting them into the magic world? They'd want more!" "You said they'd like doing potions, I reckon they could do potions and enjoy it, if it was the closest they could do to magic." "It's ridiculous." "It's interesting. It wouldn't hurt letting them into the magic world. We're allowed into the muggle world." "Because they don't know." "Nonsense. Some of them that wanted to could work mixing potions, and in return they could have access to, or purchase, any entertainment or stuff in the wiziarding world that doesn't require the user to use magic." "I don't like it. You propose I teach muggles the art of potionmaking?" "But it works." Said Helene. "It would work." "It's a stupid idea, Helene." Said Severus. "I don't like it, and that's that." "Fine." Said Helene, getting up. "I'll taking up the idea with someone more rational, seeing as I like the idea and can see the sense in it. I'll talk to Dumbledore." Helene left the table and swept out of the room, slamming the door behind her. "Hmph." Severus snorted quietly to himself. "Muggles are stupid." ******* "An interesting idea, Miss Black." Said Professor Dumbledore, in his office. "Perhaps not quite perfect yet, I think there are some problems that need examining, but I can see the good in this." "Really? You think I could have something here?" Asked Helene. She leant forward, eagerly. "You're not just humouring me, are you?" "You seem keen to involve muggles in the magical world. That is a very noble idea." Said Dumbledore. "My only fears are these; what of the muggles? How would they take such a change? Remember, they do not know of magic's existance. And of course, it may not seem quite that apparent at time, but many witches and wizards fear muggles. I wonder what sort of a reception the muggles would have into the magical world." "Well... yes, It does need planning." Said Helene. "Perhaps only on a small scale first, with choice candidates." "Of course, marvelous." Said Dumbledore. "But I don't think any action soon could be possible. Look at me now, I know you see the future as well as I do. Dark times are approaching, we should not involve the muggles in our affairs just yet. It is not safe." "I... I know." Said Helene. "I know of the dark times to approach..." "And your oracle?" "Let us not speak of him..." Said Helene. "But maybe this could aid us in the times of need." "Hmmm... I think I know the best way around this." Said Dumbledore. "We shall send and owl to the ministry of magic. They, I am sure, will be most interested in your idea. It is the perfect way around something that has separated our people, magic and non-magic, for centuries. Jealousy. It is the perfect way around magic jealousy. At least... any more than there is with squibs." "An owl... to the ministry of magic..." Helene thought on this. "Yes, my dear. They will most certainly assess the idea, and bring it about in due time." Helene smile. "Yes, I like that. Thankyou, Proffessor." Helene stood up to leave, but Dumbledore stopped her. "Ahem... May I ask, who would teach our potion-learning muggles?" Helene laughed as she exited, "I'm working on that one." ******* "Let me rip... tear... kill..." Helene was no parselmouth, but she had studied books about them. It was hard work, but she had learnt some basic parseltongue. She didn't know why anyone hadn't tried literal translation before. "Rip... tear... kill this time." It wasn't music to Helene's ears, but she was confident of the outcome. "I know where the entrance is..." She said to herself. "But I wonder, should I go there. HE won't be there, I know that... but, I wonder." Helene turned around in confusion whe Harry ran past. "Rip... tear... kill..." Came the voice. Helene knew Harry could hear it. "Oo-ee, I've got to get away!" She yelped, and turned and ran in the opposite direction.
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