Harry Potter and the Magic of Books Part 16 (Patreon)

Anna sighed as she realized that her dad had probably done the stupid and noble thing and destroyed whatever magic item he’d used to send them to wherever they were which meant that he was likely already dead. “I’m not sure, if Dad doesn’t show up in the next couple of minutes, he’s probably gone.”

“Crap.” Beth started crying once she realized that her father was likely gone.

Harry said, “In which case, we’ll be here for you.”

Lily held out her hands. “We won’t let anyone hurt you.”

Anna glanced at Beth then decided that they might as well trust the people as none of the dark wizards had enough imagination or time to come up with a scenario this strange. She stepped forward and hugged Lily. “Thank you.”

Beth sniffled. “I’m sorry… we don’t want to be any trouble.”

James shook his head. “You’re not trouble, you’re family. Even if you came from another world, you’re still a Potter.”

Harry stepped forward and pulled Beth into a hug. “Which means you’re stuck with us.”

Beth asked, “Even if we’re naughty?”

“You’re family.”

Hermione felt a massive spike of guilt as she realized one of the problems with her plan. It made her almost relieved that the book was toast as it meant that they couldn’t repeat their mistake. She wasn’t sorry that she’d helped save or create the girls but she was sorry that she hadn’t figured out a better way to get them here.

Lily used her shirt to wipe the girl’s tears away. “I just realized something, I don’t know your names.”

Anna looked up at Lily. “I’m Anna Lily Potter and my sister is Beth Lily Potter, together we’re Annabeth. I think it was because Dad was worried that he wouldn’t be able to tell us apart or something.”

Beth said, “It’s simple she has a purple hair clip and I’ve got a blue hair clip.”

Sirius asked, “And you never swap them to confuse people?”

Anna tried and failed to look innocent. “Of course not that would be completely unethical.”

Harry gave Beth a light squeeze before letting her go. “Which likely means that they swap whenever they’re carrying out a prank.”

Beth asked, “I don’t suppose you have a magic crystal ball or something that you can use to find our father?”

Hermione said, “We have a magic mirror that might help. It might not though.”

Anna looked at Beth. “We might as well.”

Harry pulled the magic mirror from his bag. “Sure.”

Lily asked, “Can you grab them clothes while you’re at it.”

Beth frowned slightly in confusion. “Are we going somewhere?”

“I just thought you’d be more comfortable if you had clothes,” Lily replied.

“Oh, we only wear clothes when we have to go somewhere fancy,” Anna replied.

James asked, “Don’t you get cold?”

“Nope!” Beth replied.

Anna giggled. “We can play in the snow for hours and hours without getting cold. Dad said it was a bit of family magic in our blood but wouldn’t explain more than that.”

Lily glanced over at Hermione then looked back at the twins. “I see, we still need to get you some for when you leave the house.”

James said, “And robes for Hogwarts.”

Beth asked hesitantly, “Can we still go?”

“Of course you can. The deputy headmistress is a friend, she’ll help us out.”

“Thank you. You’re being really nice about this.”

Harry said, “You’re family. I’m not sure how it worked in your world but I got stuck with my aunt and uncle for a while, they weren’t nice people. I’d always hoped that someone would sweep in and make everything better.”

“Oh.” Anna frowned as she tried to remember anything her father had said about his life before Hogwarts and only came up with fragments. “Dad didn’t talk about his early years much at all. He just said that he spent most of his time training to defeat dark wizards.”

Sarah said, “I know what would make everything better, ice cream. You like ice cream, right?”

Beth nodded. “Of course.”

Sarah held out her hand and conjured two chocolate ice cream cones for the girls. “Here.”

Beth smiled as she accepted her cone and started eating it.

Anna accepted her cone and started licking it playfully with a grin at Sarah and Hermione.

James glanced at Sirius. “Do you want to take the girls shopping? Remus is off talking to some friends and you’re really the only one that can be seen in public right now.”

Beth paused eating her ice cream cone long enough to ask, “Why?”

“We just came back from the dead a couple of days ago, letting the Ministry know that would be problematic.”

“Oh, I don’t think they’d take it well. Dad used to complain about them being stupid a lot of the time.”

Sirius looked over at Hermione, “You’ll help with the clothes part, right?”

Hermione nodded. “Of course. You’d end up dressing them like clowns or in something else weird.”

James said, “Good.”

Harry handed the mirror to Anna. “Just think about your father.”

Anna finished her ice cream cone then focused on her father and smiled when the image briefly showed her father then morphed to show the Harry Potter sitting in front of her. “Okay, can I see other people with this?”

Hermione said, “Of course, just picture them and you’ll see them.”

‘Headmaster Dumbledore.’ Anna smiled slightly as she got an image of the old man in the mirror before she concentrated on her mother. The mirror stayed blank. ‘Weird.’  She focused on her mother’s mother and was a bit surprised that Sarah’s face popped up in the mirror. ‘Okay, that’s interesting.’ She focused on her favorite singer and smiled when she saw a much younger version of her favorite singer in the back of a van being fucked by a guy that looked a lot like the lead guitarist. “Interesting.”

Lily coughed as she looked at the naked teenage girl in the mirror. “Who is that?”

“A singer that I like or she will be.” Anna handed the mirror back to Harry relieved that he actually was her father or at least as close as she was going to get.

Beth pouted, “Aww, I was watching that.” She went back to finishing up her ice cream cone.

Lily shook her head. “We should use the Loliblade and the disguise items, that way we can go shopping for the new clothes we’ll need and we can be seen with Sirius.”

James sighed. “I was hoping to avoid a shopping spree.”

“It’s not like we have clothes or certain supplies either and the girls need just about everything.”

“Fine.”

Anna asked, “Loliblade?”

Harry said, “It’s a magical item that turns adults into thirteen year olds and girls.”

Anna looked at James then back at Harry. “Wait, you’re going to turn your parents into teenage girls?”

Beth giggled. “Awesome.”

James shook his head. “Only until I use the gender swapping belt we have. It’s a bit drastic but it lets us go to Hogwarts and make sure Harry doesn’t get into too much trouble.”

“I don’t know, I might have to run some tests to make sure you’re a healthy girl first.” Lily grinned at James.

“Hmm, in that case this might be a good chance for Harry and the girls to trade some stories while Lily runs her tests,” James replied.

Lily said, “They shouldn’t take more than an hour or so.”

Harry pulled the Loliblade out of his backpack and handed it to Lily. “Have fun Mum.”

Lily laughed as she ‘hauled’ a laughing James up to their bedroom.

Sirius shook his head. “Right, so… where do we start?”

Anna looked at Harry and asked innocently, “Can you teach me how to make a bracelet that turns people into cute girls?”

Harry shook his head. “Sorry, I haven’t actually figured out how to make one yet.”

“Rats.”

Hermione asked, “What are your favorite hobbies?”

Beth looked at Anna then back at Hermione. “You mean other than playing with my sister and practicing magic? Let’s see, probably flying, reading, camping and playing video games.”

Anna shrugged. “I like drawing. What about you?”

Hermione said, “I’m not a big fan of flying but I’m getting better at it. I love reading about things and practicing magic is fun.”

Sirius said, “Creating pranks and playing them on dark wizards and witches that deserve it.”

Beth smiled brightly at Sirius. “Please teach me.”

“I’d be happy to.”

Anna glanced back and forth between Harry and Sarah. “What about you?”

Sarah grinned at the girls. “Combat training and fucking.”

“I think we have a lot in common with everyone,” Beth replied.

Harry said, “I love flying, magic, girls and sneaking around in no particular order.”

Anna looked at Harry as she asked, “Do you have any interesting magic powers?”

“I can change my appearance and talk to animals.”

“That’s neat. I can breathe a cone of cold vapor that’s cold enough to freeze the top layer of water.”

Beth said, “We’re also immune to fire, it’s pretty neat.”

Sirius asked, “You’re immune to fire?”

“Yep, we haven’t tested it against cursed fire or anything but everything else just feels warm.”

“That’s a neat trick.” Sirius made a mental note to ask Hermione how the heck she’d pulled off that particular trick.

Harry said, “I can also pull things out of books and pull people into them to explore new worlds.“

Anna blinked in surprise. “Okay, that’s different.”

Beth asked, “How does it work?”

“I focus on what I want then reach into a book and pull things out with magic. It’s hard to explain exactly why it works or how, I just can.”

Hermione snickered. “You forgot to mention that you can pull magic items and spellbooks out of books.”

Anna shook her head. “Alternate dad, o.p. please nerf.”

Beth giggled as she hugged Anna from behind. “You’re such a geek and please no nerfs.”

Harry frowned slightly. “What?”

“She said you cheat.” Beth grinned as she hugged her twin.

“Ah.” Harry pulled a clothes catalogue out of his backpack. “What type of dresses do you want?”

Anna said, “Either pants or a short skirt I can move in, other than that I don’t care.”

“I vote a short skirt, she looks cute in them,” Beth suggested.

Harry looked through the catalogue until he found a purple silk dress and a blue silk dress in the same style. He reached in and pulled the dresses out. “That should work.”

Anna let Beth go as she stared at the silk dress, “You weren’t joking were you?”

“I wasn’t.” Harry handed the dresses to Beth.

Beth snickered as she pulled the silk dress over her head then adjusted it. “Not bad.”

Harry said, “Thanks.”

Anna smiled as she slipped her hand up Beth’s dress and cupped her sister’s behind. “Easy access.”

Sirius shook his head. “This is going to be a weird year.”

Beth laughed as she handed the blue dress to Anna. “I’m looking forward to school. Learning, magic, sleeping in a dorm, it’s going to be awesome.”

Hermione said, “Let’s just hope we share a dorm.”

Anna grinned as she looked Hermione over. “Let’s hope.” She pulled her dress over her head.

Sarah said, “They still need socks and shoes or at least boots.”

Harry flipped to the boots section. “What size are you?”

Beth shrugged. “No idea, Dad kept using repair and enlarging charms on our favorite boots because we wouldn’t let him replace them.”

Sirius said, “In that case, don’t worry about it, I’ll conjure some that fit. We can stop by the cobbler in the alley for custom boots when we get to Diagon Alley. He pulled out his wand and conjured two pairs of purple and blue socks and boots.

Anna chuckled. “Let’s each take one purple and blue.”

Beth picked up one of each color of socks, “That works for me.”

Sirius smiled as he saw Lily and a female James walk into the living room holding hands. Lily looked even more radiant than he remembered her looking and James looked like a slightly older female copy of Harry with hazel eyes rather than his green eyes. “You should almost stay a girl James.”

James flipped Sirius off. “No thanks.”

Sirius laughed. “No thanks, I’ll leave that for Lily.”

Lily laughed. “I don’t think most of the idiots would survive the first time they hit on him.”

James shook his head. “It might be a fun prank but I like being male a bit too much.”

Anna said, “I don’t know, you’re sort of cute like that Grandpa.”

Beth rolled her eyes. “Don’t mind her, I think she was dropped as a child.”

Harry pulled the gender swapping belt out of his backpack and tossed it to James. “Here.”

James put the belt on and shivered as ‘he’ changed back to a boy. He pulled the belt off and tossed it back to Harry. “We should try to figure out how to create more of those.”

Sirius asked, “Does that mean we’re ready to hit the alley?”

Lily said, “Yes, James sent off a letter to McGonagall which means we’re good to go.”

James said, “We’ll just pick up an extra copy of everything for Remus.”

Anna asked, “Are we flooing there?” as she pulled on her mismatched boots.

Sirius shook his head. “Side along apparition.”

“At least that’s better than the floo.”

Lily frowned slightly. “You don’t like the floo?”

Anna sighed. “Dad hated it, he refused to have it installed and warded the house against it being installed. He considered it a security risk but I’m fairly sure it was just because he had trouble sticking the landing. Thus we really only ever used it a couple of times.”

James said, “Ah, there are a couple of tricks to sticking the landing, we’ll show you once we get it connected.”

“Thanks.”

Lily said, “I’ll grab the twins, Sirius you can take Hermione and James can take Harry and Sarah if that works for everyone.”

Harry shrugged. “Works for me.”

Beth nodded. “Yep.”

Sarah shrank down to her foot tall form and flew up to hand on James’ shoulder. “Ready when you are.”

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0 

Severus Snape glared as he saw Sirius Black walking down the alley like he owned it with two messy haired boys that looked remarkably like James Potter had when he was younger. He was glad that one of his informants had called him when he’d seen Sirius Black in a shop doing some school shopping. His attention was drawn to the red haired girl holding the hand of one of the messy haired boys. She looked nearly identical to a young Lily, it was a bit disturbing and made his heart ache for his dead friend. He pulled his attention off the girl that looked like Lily and over to the two other red haired girls that looked a fair amount like Lily that were holding hands as they walked with a bushy haired brunette. He stalked up to Sirius and stopped in front of him. “Dumbledore wants to talk to you.”

Sirius plastered a look of confusion on his face. “Eh? Okay, great, why are you telling me this and who are you?”

Severus snorted. “You know damned well who I am.”

“Sorry, I can’t say I do,” Sirius lied.

“Black!” Severus bit out as he glared at him.

“Ah, Snivellus, you haven’t aged well at all.”

Severus itched to go for his wand but a crowded alley wasn’t a good place for a duel. He looked at the rest of the children, his gaze lingering on on the girl that looked like Lily. “Polyjuice?”

Sirius snorted. “Not everything is about potions. This is James Charles Potter the second and Harry James Potter.”

“There are more of them?”

“If you must know, Lily had twins. James was hidden with a friend to be kept safe.” He gestured toward Lily, “This is Lily Potter, she’s their cousin along with Anna and Beth Potter.”

Anna and Beth waved at the grumpy man then said, “Pleased to meet you Mr. Snivellus.” at the same time.

Severus snapped. “It’s Severus Snape.”

Sirius snorted. “Right, anyway, you delivered Albus’ message now fuck off.”

Severus glared at Sirius then looked at Lily. “Why does she look like Lily?”

“Maybe because she’s her daughter, you know how she liked her potions. There was a party and Lily knocked up one of James’ American cousins, nine months later and the girl has triplets. Now if you’re done asking questions that are none of your business, we have shopping to do.”

James asked as innocently as he could, “So that’s the great and stupid Snivellus? I was expecting him to be shorter and look more like Gargamel.”

Severus glared at James then looked at Harry who had his mother’s eyes, eyes that Lily also had. “I’ll be watching you.” He turned and stalked off.

Lily whispered as she watched the man that had at one point been a friend stalk off, “He used to be better.”

“A long time ago love.” James doubted the man had ever counted as a good person but arguing about it didn’t really help matters.

Sarah cast a notice me not spell which caused several people to lose interest in them and wander off immediately. She gave the rest of the people a minute or two before they found somewhere else to be.

Harry knew the man was on the list of teachers they wanted dealt with. He glanced at the crowd that was dispersing a bit now that the ‘show’ was over. He whispered, “We could always pull a Petunia on him and erase the last decade and a half from his mind then drop him elsewhere.”

Anna said, “That has my vote.”

Lily thought about the nicer side of Severus that she’d known before things got complicated and he fell into a bad crowd. “I don’t want to excuse the crap he’s done but I don’t see a problem with giving him a better life elsewhere.” She didn’t see a problem erasing his idiot parents or at least offering to give Severus a new life somewhere else.

James asked in a whisper, “How do you plan on capturing him?”

Lily looked at Sarah. “Easy, we wait until after Snape gives his report to Albus and goes home. Unless he’s moved, I know where he lives.”

Harry asked, “How?”

Lily whispered, “We grew up in the same town.”

Sirius glanced around the crowd that was slowly dispersing. “Let’s get back to our shopping so that we can be done at a reasonable hour. We still need to go bed shopping for the twins and make sure the cottage is warded as much as possible.”

James nodded. “Let’s go.”