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SIYE Time:11:37 on 29th March 2024
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The Veil
By Mutt N Feathers

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Category: Post-OotP, Holidays
Characters:Harry/Ginny
Genres: Drama
Warnings: Death
Story is Complete
Rating: PG-13
Reviews: 113
Summary: In the fall of 1996 Harry finds a book about the ancient holidays just before Samhain, or what has become Hallowe'en. Tradition says communication with the dead is possible. Harry enlists Ginny to help him find out if its true.
Hitcount: Story Total: 59027; Chapter Total: 1915
Awards: View Trophy Room




Author's Notes:
Since you're all so kind in reading and reviewing, this is an extra long chapter. Enjoy. MNF




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Chapter 9:
Home Sweet Home

The god left soon after the group arrived at Potter Manor. Harry had never seen a house quite so large — this place dwarfed Grimmauld Place. The first thing he saw his grandmother do was walk into the huge kitchen at the back of the house and put on her apron. Harry was overtaken with a joy he’d never knew — this was his family, doing normal family things.

“Well, the kitchen is well stocked,” she said in her lilting brogue. “Does anyone have a request for supper tonight?”

“Roast beef,” James, Sirius, and Remus all cried in unison from the living room, which had a doorway to the kitchen, too. The men’s action caused Harry, Lily, Andrew, Ginny, and Julia to laugh heartily.

“Roast beef it shall be, then,” Julia announced. “I’m assuming you want Yorkshire, peas and chocolate cake, too?”

“Of course, Mum,” James replied. The trio making their way to the doorway.

“You three haven’t changed a bit, well, at least not on the inside.” Each of them walked over to her and bent to kiss her face.

“Love you, Mum,” James said after his lips brushed her cheek.

“Thanks, Mum,” Sirius said as he planted a strong and lingering kiss to her forehead.

“You’re very kind, Mrs P.” Remus quickly planted his token of affection on her other cheek.

“You boys spoil me,” Julia said. “Remus, dear, please stop it with the Mrs P. It was fine when you were fourteen, but you’re a grown man. If you can’t bring yourself to call me Mum, then please call me Julia. We’re equals in all this.”

“I will, Julia.”

“All of you, out of my kitchen, I need to get to work.”

“Do you want my help?” Lily asked, having often assisted her mother-in-law in the kitchen.

“No, my dear. If I wanted help I could call Issy and she’d do the whole thing, but I like to cook and know that I’ve made something special for the people I love. We’re finally all together, I want to enjoy feeding my family.”

“I know what you mean,” Lily said walking over and putting her arms around the much shorter woman. “I can’t wait to make Harry eggy-bread I wonder if he still likes eggy-bread?”

“He does,” Ginny said, lingering in the doorway. “Watching him devour it is almost as gross as watching my brother, Ron, eat anything. Hermione and I try to avoid them at breakfast.”

“I guess I know what I’m doing tomorrow morning — making waffles and teaching my son some table manners,” Lily said with a dry wit. The three women laughed.

“Speaking of Hermione, I was surprised she wasn’t with him in this little quest the two of you were on. She’s always played such a role in his life.” Julia’s statement made Ginny think about her friend and Harry’s reasons for not including her.

“I think Harry would have included her, but then Ron would have become suspicious about what we were doing and why we didn’t include him, and it would have been more work than Harry desired. Anyway, Hermione follows the rules, sometimes too closely, and what we were doing would have been something she’d be against,” she said.

“So, tell me about this Hermione, is she girlfriend material?” Lily asked, not understanding the emotional underpinnings the girl had for her son. Sadness flirted with Ginny’s face before she pulled her placid look back together. Julia understood and reached for the girl to give her a comforting hand on her shoulder. She’d watched Ginny’s childish hero-worship of ‘The Boy Who Lived’, her admiration for the real Harry who saved her as a girl and their friendship turn to love in the young woman’s heart. Julia was rooting for her grandson and Ginny to find their way to each other.

“With Harry, no way. They’re like sister and brother. Hermione fancies my brother, but he’s too stupid to realize it. Instead, he’s dating a girl with fluff for brains and none of us like her. They’re always somewhere snogging.”

“We had a friend like that, thankfully he grew out of it,” Lily said with a slight grin which then turned sad. “You’ve really had no glimpse of Anwen?”


“Nothing,” Julia said, “which is odd. We’ve had conversations with people who were long dead and those recently in their new after-lives. I know she was coming in from France the day she disappeared, flying on a plane like a Muggle, but she never arrived at the airport. We lost track of her somewhere on that day. Of course, I was rather pre-occupied with my son arriving.”

“When Remus arrived at dinner he said he hadn’t seen her, but he suspected she went straight to Dumbledore.” Lily looked very sad at her mentioning the Headmaster. She’d been close to him just before she died, and now it turned out he was manipulating her. “I don’t understand Dumbledore’s duplicity, Mum. He was always on our side; a strong part of the resistance.”

“I have no doubt in his belief in the movement which produced the Order, I just sometimes think his personal motivation was too strongly in the greater good rather than in anyone’s personal good.” Julia shook her head when she finished her statement and the three women were silent. “Now girls, off with you. Issy can help me with dinner if I should need it. Why don’t you two go somewhere and have a nice chat? I’m sure the boys — I don’t care how old some of them are — are off somewhere making a mess of things.” Lily and Ginny laughed with Julia. “Go, I mean it. I’ve a dinner to prepare.”

The younger women left, and Andrew came in to see his wife. “Are they all out of earshot?” Julia asked.

“They are. I think I’ll go for a stroll? She’ll be surprised to see me all filled out like I am.”

“I’m sure she will be, but one thing I’ve learned about her is that she isn’t easily flabbergasted; consider who it is who she fell in love with. Try and persuade her to come out of hiding.”

“I’ll do my best, my love, but she’s terrified of Tom and rightly so,” Andrew said, taking his hat and overcoat off a peg by the mud room at the back door. “I’ll be home well before we should eat.”

“Safe travels, dear,” Julia said with a peck on his cheek. Andrew left with only the slightest pop to signify he’d Disapparated from the back porch.


*****

Elsewhere in the manor, James was just about finished showing his son around their ancestral home. “Whatever you do, don’t open this door. The ghost of my sixth-great-grandmother is in here, and she went mad from mercury poisoning before she died. She howls and sings horrible drinking songs from the late eighteenth century.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Harry said hesitantly.

“She can’t carry a tune in a bucket,” Sirius rebutted. “She got out once not long after I moved here. Gresh, the house-elf, had accidently not latched the door fully. No one slept for the six days it took us to coax her back into the room. She did, however, show James and me some excellent hiding places.”

“Which the pair of them decided to use when all four of us were here and playing hide, seek and hex,” Remus shared.

“We didn’t really hex you,” James reminded him. “It was Peter who took the brunt of it.”

“We were mad at him,” Sirius interjected. “He did make all of us lose points on our Charms exam that year. It was my only Exceeds Expectation in Charms. Even Mum was shocked I did so poorly.”

“What did he do?” Harry asked as the group made their way from the boarded-up door and back down the rear stairs to James’ bedroom.

“Peter wasn’t particularly talented in magic –” Remus began.

“He would have never made it through his first year without us helping him,” Sirius interrupted, his voice intonating more than a tinge of anger at the rat.

“As I was saying,” Remus glared at Sirius, “he wasn’t skilled at magic. As we progressed through the years and spell work became harder, he needed more assistance.”

The quartet settled on James’ bed, the chairs and settee in the room. James immediately picked up the Quaffle on his bedside table and began tossing it back and forth with Sirius. The conversation continued even as the pair played catch. Harry wanted to join in but said nothing. Sirius watched James for a few tosses, and when he didn’t realise Harry would want to play, he tossed the Quaffle to him. James registered the gesture, and then felt badly that’s he’d not considered it himself.

“The three of us put our heads together and figured out the likely spells which Professor Flitwick would test our ability on. Those were the ones we made sure Peter knew. We guessed five out of six right,” James continued the story.

“As we were in line awaiting our turns, Peter blurts out, ‘You didn’t tell me we’d need to do Banishing Charms, too’,” Sirius said. “We were then wrongly accused of somehow knowing what charms were on the test, and the four of us had to take a separate practical examination.”

“That test contained a charm, the snow removal charm, which was only covered in the text,” Remus finished. “Since I was the only one who read the texts, I was the only one to accomplish the charm.”

“But we didn’t steal the list of charms!” Sirius cried as he missed the Quaffle and it knocked over a plaid lamp behind him. It was at this point that Harry noticed just how much plaid, and the varying colours of the material, that decorated the room.

“You really like plaid, Dad,” Harry muttered. The comment made Sirius and Remus laugh.

“You’ve no idea, Harry. Even as a little kid, he wore a plaid something everywhere,” Sirius said.

“You knew each other before you went to school?” Harry asked, surprised.

“We were seven when I really remember first meeting Sirius,” James answered. “Mum tells us we’d played together before that, but I don’t recall it. We were at somebody’s wedding ceremony. Your cousin, Andi, was keeping an eye on you and Reg and Mum stuck me with the two of you.”

“Best thing Mum ever did,” Sirius said. He had the Quaffle back from where it had fallen and threw it back to his mate.

“It wasn’t long after that when Mum started having Sirius and Regulus over to play. She did our lessons, taught us about plants and animals,” James said with a smile.

“She fed Reg and me, healed our curse burns and bruises Dad gave us,” Sirius added with an edge to his voice. Harry knew about Azkaban and the damage done there, but hadn’t really considered the child abuse his godfather had suffered at such a young age.

“I thought they were twins when they arrived at Hogwarts. It wasn’t until the Sorting Hat that I found out they had different last names,” Remus explained.

“Yup, disgrace of my family, being sorted into Gryffindor. Best thing that could have happened to me,” Sirius said with a faraway look. “We liked this guy from the first,” he said with a tip of his head, “but he was really guarded. Took him six months before he’d go exploring with us at nights.”

“I had to be cautious,” Remus stated. “Dumbledore had put himself in danger by admitting me to school.”

“Yes, and he made sure you remembered that every time he needed you to do something unsavoury for the Order,” Sirius reminded him. “After I fell through the portal last spring, did you go live with the werewolves, like he wanted?”

Remus was hesitant to answer, and Sirius made an annoyed noise. “It wasn’t like that, Sirius. I did go, but it didn’t matter. None of them believed we would be treated fairly.”

“Well, you should be,” Harry interjected. “Lycanthropy always struck Hermione and me that it was like an infection.”

“Yes, and like a Muggle illness, there is a medication that helps,” Remus rebutted. “The Wolfsbane potion does make the nights more bearable.”

“But it’s simply a plaster over a big wound. It doesn’t solve the problem,” Harry stated. “What if it’s like measles or the flu? Muggles have vaccines for those, to prevent you from ever getting the disease. Do you think there might be a way to prevent or even cure your furry little problem if we could study your saliva?”

“You want to examine his spit?” Sirius asked.

“Out of everything he just said, all you got from it was Harry wants Remus’ spit?” James asked. “I remember Lily talking with me about the little scar on her shoulder, and saying it was from a vaccine.”

“That would be smallpox,” Harry said. “It was eradicated by the vaccine, so I never had that shot.”

“Interesting,” Remus said. “Can you imagine letting Lily and Hermione work together on that?” he asked Harry, which caused the younger man to chuckle. Sirius smirked at the idea. Even James blew out a laugh, having seen Hermione as he spied on his son’s life.

“All we’d need is to add Anwen and the brainy trifecta would be — oh, god, Sirius, I’m so sorry.” James looked away from his friend, mentally berating himself for mentioning her.

“It’s okay, Pads,” Sirius said, although the pained look on his face showed it clearly wasn’t. “She was part of our lives, and she would have been brilliant working on this. She always did like a puzzle to solve.” The men were silent for a few moments, even the Quaffle tossing had ended.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me about her?” Harry asked.

“I couldn’t,” Sirius truthfully answered. “Thinking about her hurts. The moment I met her, I knew she was special.” Sirius spoke, but he was in a trance-like state. “She was a spitfire, so smart and daring, but also scared. Through our school years she put up with so much shite from me. The day after your Mum and Dad were supposedly killed, it was to be our wedding day. You were going to be the ring bearer. You even had this tiny set of dress robes that matched your dad’s. We would have been married sixteen years tomorrow…” he trailed off and no one wanted to make him say more.

“You know, the weather is nice enough, how about a little pick-up flying and tossing of the Quaffle?”

“You don’t have to ask me twice if I want to get up on a broom,” Harry said, and the men filed out of the room, down the main stairs and out the back door, passing Julia as they went. There were plenty of brooms to choose from and they were all recently serviced and ready to fly. When Harry asked James about it, he explained it was part of Gresh’s responsibilities.

They played for nearly an hour before Sirius spotted Andrew walking in the woods with someone in a dark green cloak with the hood up. “Who’s with Dad, James?”

“I don’t have any idea. Come on,” he said with a jerk of his arm. The four landed with a clatter, alerting the ladies to the commotion. Julia looked out the window and smiled widely and clapped her hands.

“Come on girls, there’s someone special here.” She was at the backdoor before she’d even finished speaking. Ginny and Lily shrugged at each other and followed. A circle of Potter family and friends greeted Andrew and his guest. Julia, knowing who it was, threw her arms around the person and whispered, “I’m so happy you’ve come here.”

“Who is it Mum?” James asked. Julia stepped away and the person lowered their hood. There were several gasps, but none were greater than Lily’s.

“Oh, my goodness,” the redhead cried, “I never thought I’d see you again.” The two embraced tightly. James followed his wife before he stepped aside. Remus then walked forward and pulled the person to him.

“I didn’t think…how are you here?”

“Mum died a year ago. Long before we’d left, before James and Lily were even married I could see the writing on the wall. I spoke with Mr Potter about having somewhere safe to go, if we should need it. He gave us a place here on the manor grounds. There’s a cabin in the woods, near the fishing pond, I’ve been living there.” Remus kissed his one true love, Eva, in front of everyone which is something he was oft loathed to do.

“Why didn’t you come find me?” he asked when the kiss broke.

“I did, but I was told you were living with the werewolves.”

“I was for a little while, but it didn’t do any good.”

“Oh,” Eva said quietly before kissing him again. “I’m sorry I didn’t try harder to find you.”

“It doesn’t matter, you’re here now.”

“Well, if it wasn’t enough of a celebration before, it’s so much more now. I’m thrilled to have another of my children back home! Come on, everyone inside so we can catch up with Eva.”

Julia led the way into the house, followed by Eva and Remus, who was still holding onto her, and then the rest of the family. No one had noticed that Sirius had gone off, except for Harry and Ginny.

“I’ll go talk to him,” Harry said, starting to walk across the great lawn toward the Quidditch pitch deeper on the property.

“Wait, Harry,” Ginny said as she caught up with him. “Let me, there’s something I need to speak with him about anyway. Go be with your parents and get to know your Aunt Eva.”

“Okay, you sure you can handle him?”

“As long as there isn’t any alcohol, it should be a snap.”

Harry went back inside as Ginny grabbed a broom and took to the air to see how far Sirius had gone.
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