Another AU Harry Potter story, six year old Harry is found on the street by the Grangers after he had his teeth smashed in with a cricket bat.

It won't be sunshine and lollypops for anyone who doesn't do the right thing by Harry.

As usual I'm sticking with the earlier notion that Charlus was Harry's grandfather because I like the name better, and it gives him a direct link to the Black family. Harry's proper name is Henry James, as he's named after his great grandfather, and the Potter family has had a major role in Magical Britain since its origins. Another unusual thing about Harry is that he remembers everything back to when he was a baby almost perfectly, which will prove to be great for some and disastrous for others.

Usual disclaimer, no rights to any HP characters portrayed and this is neither the real world nor a Disney Princess tale, it's gritty fiction.

Roger caught Jean's eye and shook his head in good natured exasperation at the constant stream of questions coming from their daughter in the back seat. Hermione was seven, but while she read and reasoned at a level at least a few years older and talking to her was often like dealing with a young adult, when she got the bit between her teeth and started asking questions like this there was no way to get a word in or shut her up, or so he thought, but just at that moment she interrupted herself by screaming. "Daddy watch out!"

Luckily Roger had excellent reactions because what she was warning him about was the small boy who had just appeared out of thin air in the street, right in front of their car! Roger immediately wrenched the wheel over and stood on the brakes but even so the car only just missed the boy, in fact Roger would have sworn that he saw the baggy, oversized clothes he was wearing touching the side of the car as it skimmed past him.

He and Jean leapt out of the car as soon as it stopped moving to frantically check on the boy, but for the most part he seemed OK…. for the most part, one area where he most definitely wasn't OK was his mouth, because some bastard had smashed all of the little tyke's teeth in, it looked like he'd been hit in the mouth with a club or something. Roger and Jean couldn't understand how he wasn't screaming in pain from what had been done to him, but he was acting as if he was used to that sort of pain, which was chilling in and of itself.

They were only a couple of kilometres away from their dental practice, so they decided that the best thing to do would be to take him straight there, try to do something about his mouth and call the police, because it was fairly obvious that what happened to him was no accident, someone had deliberately hit him in the mouth quite viciously. For all the little tyke only looked four or five at most though, he seemed quite mature and had no trouble understanding what they were asking him, so he just climbed into the back seat beside Hermione when Jean opened the door for him.

Hermione went to say something when the boy climbed in with blood staining the front of his shirt from his ruined mouth but she caught the look from her mother as she was strapping him in and stayed quiet, taking his hand instead. For all her anguish about what had been done to the little boy, Jean noted the fact that he didn't try to take his hand back and in fact actually seemed to like Hermione holding his hand.

At the practice, they cleaned him up so that they could determine just how bad the damage was and what they could do for him. Jean couldn't help it, she burst into tears when they had a good look at what had been done to him, because the only thing that could be done for him would be to remove what was left of his broken teeth and fit him with a complete set of dentures, because he only had a couple of his back teeth left, the rest of them had been smashed out.

Jean almost had a heart attack when a soft voice said. "Please don't cry lady, I didn't mean to upset you, honest!" because that wasn't Roger or Hermione's voice, and there was no way that poor child could have spoken with his mouth smashed up like that.

Roger got almost as much of a shock as Jean did when the boy spoke, so he only just managed to catch her when she turned to look at the boy and fainted clean away. After he'd settled her safely into the chair he turned to the boy himself and froze in shock, because his teeth were perfect now!

Once he'd calmed down, he confirmed the seemingly impossible visible evidence of the reappearing teeth with the boy's permission and his eyes hadn't deceived him, the boy now had a full set of perfect teeth where ten or fifteen minutes ago all of his teeth had been smashed in. At least they had a name for him now, Harry, Harry Potter.

As Harry was trying to explain how his teeth had suddenly reappeared and how he had suddenly appeared in the street right in front of their car, even though he really had no idea himself, a rather strange, haggard looking man burst into their reception area. The man was sniffing the air madly, and he suddenly stopped and whispered "Harry!" joyously, which relieved a little bit of Roger's worries about this lunatic at least because he apparently knew their guest, and if he was reading the man's expression correctly, he had great affection for the boy.

Roger's worry returned when the man pushed past him into the examination room where Harry was, but Harry's happy "Unca Mooey?" gave him a measure of comfort that the boy wasn't in danger from him.

When Jean and Hermione joined them, the man introduced himself as Remus Lupin, a friend of Harry's parents, though he also went by 'Mooney', and 'Unca Mooey" when Harry was little. Roger noted that whenever Hermione was close to the man, he was sniffing at her, and it wasn't long before Roger had had enough and challenged him. "What the hell do you think you're doing, sniffing at my daughter?"

Remus apologised, then hesitated, weighing the Secrecy act against these parents' legitimate need to know what was going on with their daughter, eventually deciding that they would know soon enough and what's more they had a right to know so he looked Roger in the eye. "Do you know that your daughter is Magical?"

That had Roger and Jean staring at him, dumbfounded again, but as Roger opened his mouth to say that that was crazy, Jean shook her head. "No Rog, it's actually the only thing that can properly explain what's been happening with Hermione for years now, you know as well as I do that she's been floating her toys and books across the room when she wanted them and the like..." she paused as she looked at Harry "But how could Harry suddenly appear out of nowhere in front of our car, and miraculously heal himself?"

That required an explanation for Remus, but while he could explain away appearing out of nowhere away as something called apparition, he mused that he'd never heard of children doing it spontaneously like that, and that you needed to really know your destination to apparate to it.

Remus' obvious shock when Harry said that he'd done this… apparition? That morning at school, jumping to the top of a building to get away from Dudley and his friends because they were trying to hurt him, and that he'd seen the park that he appeared outside on the tellie last month told the Grangers that this was a rather special ability the boy had, and they remembered seeing something about a festival at the park as well, now that he mentioned it.

The matter of Harry healing himself was more complicated. Roger had used their camcorder to record the damage done to Harry's mouth because they were certain that he'd need re-constructive surgery to repair that damage, until they had a good look at it and Jean burst into tears because they couldn't see any way that that much damage could be repaired, so they played the tape for Remus.

The way that Remus was growling when he saw what had been done to Harry frightened the hell out of the Grangers, and his explanation that he was a werewolf and the wolf came out when he was as angry as seeing that had made him didn't really do anything to reassure them, but they understood that his anger was directed at whoever did this to Harry, not at them, and instinctively knew that the man wasn't a danger to them. Hearing Harry say that his much bigger, older cousin had done the damage by hitting him in the mouth with a cricket bat at his uncle's urging for being a freak and getting him called out of work to come to the school saw a resurgence of the growling, but Roger was joining in now. The explanation finished with how he'd desperately wanted to be somewhere away from them so that they couldn't hurt him any more, and then he suddenly appeared in the street in front of the Grangers' car.

Harry's explanation that his mouth had suddenly healed itself because he couldn't talk with it broken up the way it was and he wanted the nice lady to stop crying shocked them, but Jean hugged him to within an inch of his life for that. Roger could see that Remus had an idea about this from the musing look he was giving Harry so he asked him if he knew how this miracle had come about.

Remus shook his head thoughtfully. "I don't know for sure, but I am aware of a rather rare magical talent which could explain it, well I can think of two types of magical talent which could have done this but something makes me think that the rarer one is what he used. There's actually someone in Harry's extended family who has this talent and I'd like to talk to her before I say anything about it…. Harry?"

Harry looked at him. "Yes Uncle Mooney?"

"Do you remember ever having unexpectedly changing the way you looked, and not being able to explain it?"

Harry thought about the question. "Does growing my hair back overnight count?"

"It might, what happened?"

"Aunt Petunia cut off all my hair except for a bit at the front that she left to cover up my scar one day because she was angry that my hair was always messy. It looked really awful and I knew that everyone was going to laugh at me when I went to school the next day so I was sent to my cupboard crying, but when I woke up in the morning my hair had all grown back, is that what you meant Uncle Mooney?"

Remus smiled with a gleam in his eye as he answered. "Yes, that is exactly what I meant Harry." He looked at Roger. "With any luck Harry's cousin… she's his third or fourth cousin on his father's side, will have come home from school for the Christmas break so that we can arrange for him to meet with her without others knowing about it. She will hopefully be able to think up some tests to determine whether he has the same talent as her or not, but I also want to talk to her parents about what we can do to protect Harry, because they're about the closest relations he has left after those bastards who did that to him and if I recall correctly, Ted, Nymphadora's father, may also be the Potter family's solicitor."

Roger and Jean hugged each other, relieved that someone was actually looking out for this darling boy, and asked if they could be there to see what happened. This actually worked quite well for Remus' plans, because he wanted Ted and Andi to come and see the tape of what had been done to Harry, so he got their permission to bring the Tonks to the practice and apparated away. It was around here that Roger and Jean suddenly realised that they hadn't contacted the Police as they'd originally planned, but the fact that Harry had miraculously healed himself like that would make it rather difficult to explain, so they decided to wait and discuss it when Remus returned.

Twenty minutes later Remus was back with a couple a little older than the Grangers and their daughter, who was in her early teens. The Grangers didn't miss the fact that Harry apparently recognised and liked these people.

They quickly promised to call Nymphadora Dora to appease her (Roger and Jean were amused by that, but had to admit that they did think it cruel to give a child a name like that), and after fifteen minutes or so Dora pronounced that she was certain that Harry was indeed a metamorphmagus like her. The Tonks were impressed when they heard that Harry had successfully apparated twice that day, and that the second time was to somewhere that he'd only seen on the television, but they were enraged when Roger played the tape to show what had been done to him and heard how his so-called family were treating him.

While Ted was going over the options about what to do with Harry, everyone, the Tonks, the Grangers and Remus alike, were adamant that Harry was never going back to that place.

They were quite certain that the great Albus Dumbledore would soon be searching for Harry, seeing as he was the one who placed Harry with those bastards, but luckily they were nowhere near Little Whinging, where Harry's Aunt and Uncle lived, and other than the automatic record that had been made of Hermione's birth as a Muggleborn witch, the Magical world should know nothing about the Grangers. The Grangers were all happy for Harry to stay with them so he could be kept hidden from Dumbledore and the Magical world, and this would give Ted the space he needed to deal with the legal issues without showing their hand.

They did have to make one visit as soon as possible though, to Gringotts to get the goblins to accept who Harry was, because they'd need both access to the Potter money and the goblins' assistance if they were to beat Dumbledore. They were hoping that Dora would be able to walk Harry through the steps needed to use this metamorph talent change his appearance enough to let him safely get through Diagon Alley without being recognised, as that also had the advantage of being the only type of disguise that wouldn't be stripped away by the goblins' wards when they went past the general banking floor in Gringotts.

The goblins appeared strangely eager to see Harry, to see all of them actually, because they requested that Remus, the Tonks and the Grangers all come with him the following morning. It was agreed that Harry would go with Dora, as a brother and sister who had a distinct resemblance to his mother, Hermione would be going with the Ted and Andi because Ted's hair was close enough to Hermione's for them to be taken as family, while Roger and Jean would go with Remus, as he was the most capable protector if it came to that.

The three groups managed to make it into Gringotts without getting a second look from anyone, but the looks Ted and Andi gave each other when their escort was told to take them directly to Director Gringott's office said that this goblin was someone of great note, though the fact that he shared the bank's name sort of gave that away.

Gringott the Third's office was obviously meant to intimidate and impress, but the imposing goblin seated behind the expansive granite desk was clearly amused by the fact that the young boy had obviously recognised him, and so was looking around with interest rather than fear and awe. Ted and Andi looked at each other again when Gringott respectfully requested Harry to return to his natural appearance, and Ted could see that the Grangers and Remus were getting miffed about being out of the loop so he leant over and whispered. "Director Gringott orders people Roger, he doesn't ask!"

That was when they discovered that goblins had excellent hearing, or at least Gringott did, as he responded to that. "I am expected to be heavy handed with most people to keep up appearances in my position as the Leader of the Goblin Nation of Britain and Director of all the Gringotts Banks Mister Tonks, however Lord Potter… or more accurately Duke Potter, is not most people. As the leaders of the Druids and Wizards Councils, and the Wizengamot up until their role was usurped by Albus Dumbledore in the Nineteen Forties, the Duke's family have been the Fae peoples' protectors and mentors in Britain for over two thousand years, so he is very precious to us. We have asked you all here today to express our gratitude to you for saving him and hopefully make agreements for whatever will be required to keep our young Lord safe and happy, and so that we can ensure that he has the training necessary to keep him safe, and to allow him to assume his proper place in the Magical world when the time comes. We would also like to include Miss Tonks and Miss Granger in this training to ensure their safety, and because I see in them qualities that Lord Potter will need to help him achieve what he must."

Aside from Harry and Hermione, the humans in the room were all staring at Gringott in shock, because even Roger and Jean grasped the importance of what he'd just said, that Harry, this quiet, unassuming little boy they'd discovered the day before, was effectively royalty in the magical world. This in turn begged a question, why had Albus Dumbledore, the self proclaimed 'Leader of the Light', hidden him away from everyone who cared about him with those abusive monsters…. and for that matter, why was he so determined to control him?…. Actually the second question pretty much answered the first, because he'd obviously put him with those animals to make sure that he wouldn't become a threat to the hold he had over the Wizarding world.

When Harry changed into his natural state as Gringott had requested, they saw what a truly frightening sight a furious goblin was, because Gringott's eyes were flashing with rage and he had to make an obvious effort to stop himself reaching for the battleaxe hanging from his chair. He barked some orders in Goblin and Harry was taken away to be properly examined by the goblins' healers.

While Harry was being seen to by the healers, Gringott filled the others in on Harry's background, Remus, Andi and Ted knew parts of this story but even they had trouble grasping the whole story.

"Young Harry's family rose to a position of power among the early Druids of the British Isles two and a half thousand years ago because their bloodlines have been mixed with the Tuath Dé and the Fomoiri, the high elves and the high goblins, this made them much more magically powerful than other Druids so they were accepted as the leaders of the Druids. In the late Sixth Century, their magical bloodline became Noble in Owain mab Urien after Urien Rheged took Morgan Le Fey as his Queen and as their eldest son, Owain became the next King of Rheged. In the Ninth Century, the Kings of Britain bestowed the title of Earl of the county palatine of Hen Ogledd, essentially 'Earl of the Old North', on the Head of the Potter line to solicit the Druids' support in dealing with their enemies. Then, when the title of Duke came into use in Britain in the Fourteenth Century, the Earl of Hen Ogledd's title was commuted to the Duke of Hen Ogledd by Edward the Third in an attempt to bolster good will with Magical Britain, and they have held that title since then. It has remained as a Duchy Palatine, effectively granting them the right to rule Magical Britain as a separate kingdom. The Heads of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Potter have retained the title 'Lord Potter' in common usage, but they are rightfully the rulers of Magical Britain."

Gringott grew angrier then. "Albus Dumbledore somehow confounded Charlus, Harry's grandfather, and wrested control of the Wizengamot from him in the Forties after he supposedly eliminated Gellert Grindelwald…."

He was interrupted at that point by Ted, Andi and Remus demanding to know what he meant by 'supposedly eliminated', because the story of how Dumbledore had killed the Dark Wizard Grindelwald and ended his reign of terror was one of the keystones of the magical world.

"Well for a start, Dumbledore was Grindelwald's lover and partner up until they had a falling out over some minor point of ideology and began throwing curses at each other. Dumbledore's teenage sister was killed by a curse that one of them cast and Grindelwald left after that. Dumbledore still carried a torch for Grindelwald but when the rest of the Magical world became disgusted by his excesses and indiscriminate killing, Dumbledore saw a chance to gain the power and influence he craved, so he went to Grindelwald, saying that he had been wrong and wanted to join him again, then stunned him when his back was turned. He placed compulsions on Grindelwald and everyone else to support the stories of his triumph over the Dark Lord, but he was still obsessed with him so he didn't kill him, he had him locked away in Nurmengard where he could go see him when he wanted to."

He nodded to say the matter was closed with that as they stared at him in shock and continued his story. "Once Dumbledore used the fame and accolades coming to him as the Defeater of Grindelwald to gain control of the Wizengamot, and to a lesser extent the International Confederation of Wizards, he started getting laws put through to shore up his power and discredit anyone who opposed him…." Gringott paused at this point and looked fiercely at them. "One thing that you must never forget is that Dumbledore is a master of Mind Magics! It's the only true strength he has but with the power of the Elder Wand he can control anyone! I wish I could restrict that to humans but unfortunately we've seen proof that he has controlled key goblins as well over the past fifty years to take things that he should not have been able to from the Potters' and others' vaults and holdings..." He growled as he added. "Of course, greed was quite enough to get other goblins and humans to do his bidding, but I have records of everything he has stolen and vow that there will be an accounting when we have the power to defeat him!" With a grim smile he added. "That time has already come for those goblins who willingly aided him."

At that point, the senior healer who had been examining Harry burst into the office and began whispering urgently to Gringott in Goblin. Whatever he said made Gringott go white and bark orders in Goblin that had the senior healing running back out of the office. Seeing Gringott shakily stand and go to a side table to pour himself a stiff drink and down it in one swallow worried them, especially Ted, Andi and Remus, because they didn't want to think about what could have shaken the world's most powerful goblin this badly. Gringott started muttering fiercely in English as he finished his second drink "I will rip that goat raper's heart out for this..." but he suddenly remembered that he had an audience and turned to address them.

"The healers have found an abomination attached to Lord Potter, Riddle…." he stopped to explain at the confusion on their faces "The one you know of as Lord Voldemort is actually Tom Marvolo Riddle, the bastard son of Merope Gaunt, who was the daughter of a degraded inbred Pureblood family and just barely qualified as a witch, and Tom Riddle, the son of the local squire whom she used love potions on to get him to elope with her. She stopped using the potions on him once they were married and she was pregnant, apparently believing that he wouldn't leave her then, but when they wore off he rejected her in disgust and his family had their marriage annulled as soon as he returned home. Riddle's mother died soon after giving birth to him and he was raised in a Muggle orphanage until Dumbledore came to collect him for Hogwarts, as part of his duties as the Deputy Headmaster….. Anyway, when Riddle tried to kill Harry after murdering his parents, apparently some protection that they had placed over Harry lashed out and destroyed Riddle, but he must have already begun the ritual to create a soul anchor because when he was destroyed his soul, or whatever that foul creature had called a soul, split and part of it was attached to Harry, inside that nasty scar on his forehead apparently…."

"I should have identified it myself, but I missed it in all the uncontrolled magic that was rolling off our young Lord. His magical power would have been much less five years ago though, Dumbledore could not have missed it when he left the infant with those Muggles, so he must have intentionally left that dark presence in him. Albus Dumbledore will pay for that! I have instructed the healer to have our people remove the dark presence from Lord Potter before they begin the rest of his healing. It seems that Dumbledore also bound his magic and intellect quite severely, so apparently our young Lord Harry is even brighter and more powerful than he's shown himself to be…. And on top of that abomination and the bindings that Dumbledore put on him, our Lord Potter has apparently been starved, burned and beaten and is showing evidence of numerous broken bones and other injuries, so there will also be an accounting for those animals who had him for five years!"

There was silence in Gringott's office after that, as they were all struggling to accept what they'd heard, even Hermione had an understanding of how horribly her new friend had been treated.

The adults had a round of stiff drinks and then they sat down to begin making arrangements for Harry. They'd discussed this with Harry the night before and the Grangers were happy to have him join their family, because it was agreed that he needed to learn what it was like interact with decent people and be a part of a family, but it wouldn't safe for him to be living in the Magical world as Dumbledore was more likely to find him there. With the Grangers' permission, Gringott dispatched a team to ward their home and practice, taking delight in adding the mirror of one ward that the wizards so loved to use, they had reversed the anti-Muggle ward that prevented Muggles seeing or finding Magical locations to create an anti-Magical ward, so witches and wizards couldn't see or find their home or practice. They also masked any evidence of magic usage within the wards.

As Gringott was all too aware that there were still goblins who would betray the Goblin Nation and Lord Potter for personal gain, the existence of the Grangers' properties and the wards that protected them was further protected by the goblins' equivalent of the fidelius charm so that only Harry, Remus Lupin, the Tonks and those goblins and elves who Gringott had complete trust in could find the place (the elf controls were to prevent Dumbledore or others using elves to get past the controls, even though it was doubtful that they'd think of that). Gringott also had the goblins' version of the floos installed in the Granger and Tonks properties, added strong wards to the Tonks properties and advised the Potter elves that their Lord had been found and was being healed so it was time to wake up Potter Manor. A final security measure implemented for the Grangers was to have all owl mail for them redirected to Gringotts so that no-one could find them through the owls.

They had time to do all of this because Harry was tied up with the goblins' healers for over a week and a half while they took him through the initial intensive recovery processes. Remus was also with the goblin healers for a week, having the damage caused by twenty five years of werewolf transformations addressed, the plan was for him to stay at Potter Manor but they had to wait until Harry was able to authorise that, so until then he'd remain in Gringotts.

One thing that didn't wait for Harry's recovery was the matter of the Dursleys, the ones who had been abusing Harry. Gringott sent a team of goblins to the house to extract every memory that related to Harry from them and retrieve anything and everything that belonged or related to Harry and his family. Along with the letters and mementos that were hidden about the house was some priceless jewellery that Dumbledore must have had taken from the Potter vaults to buy Harry's Aunt's cooperation, so that was added onto Dumbledore's debts.

After seeing the memories that they'd extracted from them, the goblins knew that there was only one order that would come from Gringott, so they killed all three of them, making sure that the parents in particular suffered appropriately, then they staged the scene as an exceedingly sick murder suicide where the fat walrus of a father had tied up and flogged, sexually abused and killed his wife and son before killing himself.

Their names and address were sent to the worst of the Muggle scandal rags with plenty of pictures to ensure that word got around Britain before it could be covered up. Then they went after the husband's sister, who had abused Harry as well, and did a similar thing to her, though it was made to look as though she'd killed herself before her crimes could come out there. It took the Police almost a week to find her body, and by that stage her favourite Bulldog who she kept in the house had eaten well.

Dumbledore didn't realise that anything was wrong until his pet Death Eater came running to show him the scandal sheets. He rushed straight to the Dursley's house, only to find it awash with Police, so all he could do was cast listening charms on them to try and discover what was going on. That didn't alleviate his worries though, because they were talking about the evidence that there had been another boy there, apparently the wife's nephew Harry Potter. There was plenty of evidence to show that this boy had been physically abused at least from the blood stains around the house that didn't match the blood types of the Dursleys, and he'd been kept locked up in the cupboard under the stairs from the 'HARRY'S ROOM' that was scratched above the door on the inside and the thin mattress and blanket in there, there was certainly no sign that he'd been staying in any of the rooms upstairs. From the amount of blood found and the fact that the boy had disappeared, the investigators agreed that it was most likely that he had been killed and his body disposed of a few days before the father murdered his wife and son and then killed himself.

With all of his plans crashing down around him, Dumbledore went back to Hogwarts to reconsider what he was to do, not realising that there was another, bigger, kick in the coit waiting for him. All the while he had been observing the Police at the Dursleys, Magical Britain's biggest and most malicious gossip queen had been observing HIM. Rita Skeeter habitually read all the Muggle scandal sheets in hope of finding dirt on people from the Magical world, and one of the reports of the Dursley murder/suicide had mentioned the name Harry Potter. As the only thing Dumbledore had ever admitted about the whereabouts of the Boy-Who-Lived was the fact that he was hidden in the Muggle world, she had rushed to the house and was poking about in her unregistered animagus form when Dumbledore arrived, so she'd heard everything that Dumbledore had, but she'd also heard what he was muttering to himself and it was all gold! Dumbledore had dumped the Boy-Who-Lived on an abusive Muggle family and then left him to be abused and murdered without doing a thing to protect him! A horrifying picture from the scandal sheet of a boy being abused was of the Dursleys' son, but she wouldn't have any trouble linking that to the Muggle Law Enforcement people's comments about Harry Potter being abused, it wasn't her fault if the readers misinterpreted the manner of abuse the Boy-Who-Lived was subjected to, and for that matter they had no proof that he hadn't been abused that way. Her only worry was how she was going to make sure that she milked this for every knut it was worth…. After all, it wasn't every day that you got expose the Leader of the Light as a sick old bastard who got the Boy-Who-Lived abused and murdered!

The Grangers and the Tonks were disturbed by what they read about the Dursleys fate, not that they thought that they didn't deserve it, but the way it had been done was rather disturbing. They managed to prevent Hermione or Dora seeing any of the reports (though Dora would see Skeeter's expose when it was published in the Daily Prophet), and they were unanimous that Harry wasn't to see them.

Harry finished with the goblin healers a few days before Christmas, which made for a Christmas at the Grangers' that was both joyous and heartbreaking. Seeing Harry's innocent joy at experiencing Christmas warmed their hearts, but the knowledge that it was new to him because this was effectively only his second Christmas as for the last five years he had been locked away in a dark box (after he'd done all the work for the Dursleys' Christmas the last few years) made the adults wish that they could revive the Dursleys and punish them more.

He'd definitely come back from the healers much better than he was before though, he was taller and had filled out into a tall and healthy boy now, much the same size that his father had been at his age according to Gringott, and without the corruption of that dark presence, the bindings and the enchantments that Dumbledore had apparently put on him to make him look just like James Potter, he looked much more like Lily than James. His hair was now a deep auburn, shot through with copper highlights and hanging to his shoulders, as the women had agreed that it needed to be kept long because that was the only way to manage unruly hair like that, and tying it back was the only way to make it neat. Without that thing in his head, that scar had almost disappeared and his eyesight was fine now so those glasses were gone and you could see his gorgeous emerald green eyes….

Andi laughed at Jean as they agreed that Harry was going to be a handful as he grew up, because they could tell that he was going to be gorgeous when he got older so keeping the girls away from him was going to be a lot of work. Jean had to shake her head ruefully in agreement when Andi made a snarky comment about "Especially one girl" because she could see the same thing…. they were only children and had only spent a few days together so far, but everyone could already see the connection between Harry and Hermione, and they both vehemently rejected any inference that they were brother and sister, they were best friends!

By the time they went to see the goblins, Jean and Roger were Auntie Jean and Uncle Rog to Harry, but while he was already close to them he was quite clear that they weren't his Mummy and Daddy, and that wasn't likely to change. They understood that he wasn't rejecting them when Harry explained that he remembered everything back to when he was a baby, so he remembered his Mummy and Daddy and didn't want to forget them, he desperately wanted his new family but he wanted to hang onto his parents too.

While he was explaining how he remembered everything, Harry told them about just what had happened the day his parents were killed, how the bad man came in and his Mummy was trying to protect him right up until he killed her, then he said "You will never stop me boy!", pointed his stick, his… wand? at him and a green light came out of it. Then a bright light flashed out and the bad man started screaming as he turned to dust and fell down, but he got a bad pain in his head too as the bad man fell down. Soon after that he heard someone calling out "Master? What is wrong? Why were you screaming?" and when he came into the room he saw that it was his father's rat faced friend, the one he was supposed to call Uncle Peter but he called Rat and weed on. The rat fell to his knees next to the pile of dust with the bad man's robes and said "Master, what has happened to you?" then picked up the bad man's wand and pointed it at him, but he looked afraid and went over to his Mummy. He was pulling her clothes open and touching her in places only his Daddy was supposed to touch her, but then he got angry because he found that all of her rings and things had disappeared and ran out of the room.

A little while after that Uncle Paddy came in, he was crying when he went to look at Mummy but he covered her up and then came and picked him up, crying and saying "We've lost them Pup, they're gone!" as he carried him downstairs and out of the cottage. They'd just gotten outside when Uncle Hagger landed in the street on Uncle Paddy's bike, he started crying too when he saw Uncle Paddy crying but he said. "Give Harry to me Sirius, Dumbledore said that I have to take him to him!" Uncle Paddy was still crying but he said. "Alright Hagrid, you take him back to Hogwarts and keep him safe for now, but tell Dumbledore that I'll be coming to get him as James and Lily wanted as soon as I've dealt with the Rat."

Uncle Paddy turned into his dog form then and ran off into the woods and Uncle Hagger tucked him into his coat to fly back to the castle. Uncle Albi made Uncle Hagger leave him with him and was waving his wand over him for a while then he said. "You certainly are the child of the prophecy Harry, Tom has marked you with a piece of himself! He was supposed to kill you so that I could finish him off, but now we will have to wait until he returns to physical form. No matter, no-one will find you in the Muggle world with your Aunt and you can stay there until you to come to Hogwarts, by then you should be ready to take your place as the noble sacrifice who paved the way to Tom's downfall at my hand. It is a pity that Sirius will have to take the blame for what happened, but I can't have him interfering with that."

He must have been put to sleep after that because the next thing he remembered was waking up, cold, when his Aunt picked him up from where he'd been left outside their front door and rushing him inside before anyone could see him.

They decided that even with Harry's incredible memory, they shouldn't change his name too much, so with Harry's agreement he became Henry James Evans in the Muggle world. By the time he came home just before Christmas, everything was properly lodged in the system, the Grangers had legally adopted him as Henry Evans and he was enrolled in the same school, the same class, as Hermione. Harry was starting a new life, but it wasn't just him, all their lives were changing.

A/N: Yeah I know, the name's lame sorry, but then that's almost a pre-requisite in the HP world innit? Anyone who's read my HP stories should know by now that they'll be HP/HG because that's the pairing that works the best in my mind. Hopefully this will give me the basis for a different story.