Lily turned towards him, and her triumphant smile fell a bit at his expression. Whatever it was, it was beyond serious.
"With everything that's happened lately, with him being in the paper and probably the talk of Hogwarts… we are going to start receiving inquiries."
Now her mood was sufficiently soured, "They can take their 'inquiries' and shove them up their…"
"Love, I know you don't like certain parts of Magical society and I understand this, really I do, but it doesn't change what is going to happen regardless of our decisions. We need to start thinking about how to respond." He immediately pressed his finger to her lips, somehow knowing that what she was going to say wouldn't be appropriate or productive, "Properly, telling interested parties to bugger off is not going to help anyone, especially our children."
The anger deflated from her body almost instantly, "You're right… and I hate you for it."
"You love me, and you know it."
****
Harriet Potter couldn't sleep. Now that wasn't so strange, unlike her sister there were certainly times in which the raven-haired witch found slumber to be difficult to obtain. Her mind would run wild with ideas and curiosity. Sometimes an event during the day would come back to haunt her and she would overanalyze it until the wee hours.
Sometimes she just would have too much energy and be unable to sleep because of it.
But that wasn't the cause this time. It wasn't because of her sleeping in a different room than usual, or that her sister and newest best friend slept soundly nearby.
No, it was one simple fact that was forcing her to face all sorts of thoughts and feelings. It was the way Hermione had looked at Harry.
Anyone looking at her brother should be cause for such concern. He didn't know about this world, didn't know how women were, didn't know how they thought, how they only wanted one thing, and had yet to truly see how they thought about men.
Hermione was different, of course, but it still brought back memories of another instance earlier in the week. She had been heading towards the bathroom, intent on brushing her teeth, when he had stepped out of the room.
Correction, he had stepped out of the room after taking a shower.
Double correction, he had stepped out of the room after taking a shower and was covered only in a towel.
She shouldn't have looked, tried not to in fact, but couldn't help it. True, they were both children, and he was physically smaller than some of the other boys in their class, but he was wet and almost naked.
Thus, there she was, staring at her pseudo brother and practical twin while he was wrapped up in a towel with nothing underneath. He had excused himself, apologizing if he had interrupted her normal time. Meanwhile she had just… stared, like a pervert fantasizing about her own twin brother.
Harriet had tried for forget about it, to block the image from her mind, but had failed spectacularly. Her hormone laced mind brought the situation back as often as possible. She knew, based on the books she read and general eavesdropping at Hogwarts, that this was the time in which young girls started paying attention to boys but still.
It was almost like looking in a mirror for God's sake.
Having Hermione pay attention to him, in what she could only imagine was the same way, only threw fuel on the fire. Now she found herself justifying the attraction.
If other witches were interested, then clearly it was natural. Why shouldn't she be lusting over someone that everyone else did? It would have been more abnormal if she didn't find him beautiful.
Still, she stared up at the ceiling, sleep eluding due to her troubled mind.
****
A few weeks into the summer and Harry had nearly finished what little homework he had been assigned. It was during one of those quiet periods when a voice called to him from the front room. "Harry, you have a package in the mail."
The declaration gave him pause, but he shrugged it off as he stood, figuring it might be something from one of his friends or maybe even Sirius, whom he had yet to meet. Making his way into the room he noticed his sisters eying the object curiously, while James and Lily were both smiling as if they already knew what it was.
Then, anxiety reared its ugly head as he got a better look at the package.
Green and silver paper covered a rectangular object, one that had no information on the sender, the same as his mysterious Christmas present.
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