The dining table at Bones Manor was set up for dinner, but Harry didn't feel much like eating. It was very strange for him, sitting in that house. In some respects it was a very familiar place to him but in other ways it was completely alien. Slowly he had been viewing more and more memories from other people regarding his stay within the house that summer, but there were still gaps.
Naturally everyone providing him with memories was concerning themselves with providing what they thought of as being important first, which was fine by Harry – it made sense to make sure he knew all the important things first, but the gaps in between were disconcerting and this was made worse by the fact that he didn't really know what order events had happened in.
Of course, things were not helped by the fact that he didn't really know the people who were in the house with him. Oh, he knew of them and some he was more familiar with than others, but he didn't know them, even though he knew that he did know them once.
It was strange.
Stranger still was trying to deal with the fact that he had broken up with a girl whom he could not remember ever having a date with, until she provided her own memory of the event. He had been sad earlier, back in St Mungo's when she had told him she was being sent to school in India, but he was sad for the fact that he could not remember her enough to be saddened by her leaving – that had been taken away from him.
It was all so very confusing.
Susan and Hannah had tried their best to cheer him up, but even that was strange. Even though the memories shown to him had proven that he had developed a good friendship with both girls over the summer, that connection just wasn't there anymore. They had gone from being people he knew to being people he knew of.
"Harry, you've been twirling that strand of spaghetti on your fork for the last ten minutes."
He blinked and looked up to see that it was Sarah who had spoken. She, along with everyone else at the dinner table was watching.
"Sorry…" he muttered embarrassedly as set his fork down. "I'm just not all that hungry."
Just then green flames roared into life in the fire place and Amelia stepped out into the kitchen.
"Auntie!" exclaimed Susan, getting out of her seat and going to give her aunt a hug, glad that the woman was home from the Ministry.
"How was your day Amelia?" asked Sarah as one of the House Elves set a place at the dinner table for the owner of the house.
"Trying," replied Amelia, taking her bag off of her shoulder as she took her seat. A plate of spaghetti bolognaise appeared in front of her. "Between our searches of Hogwarts and our questioning of The Order of the Phoenix, the DMLE is stretched entirely too thinly."
Before she started eating she picked her bag up off the floor and opened it up. She pulled out a large collection of books, far too many to fit inside the bag normally, indicating that she had placed an expansion charm on the inside.
"These are yours, Harry," she explained, setting the last book on top of the pile and pushing them over to him.
Harry eyed them curiously and asked "What are they?"
"Property of the Potter family," Amelia replied. "They consist of grimoires written by generations of Potters. They explain much about the history of your family."
Harry frowned and picked the first book up of the pile, asking as he did so "Where did you find these?"
"They were discovered during a search of Dumbledore's office at Hogwarts," explained Amelia. "We don't know why he had them, but at a guess he took them to try and discover exactly what happened when you banished Lord Voldemort as an infant. Much of what happened that night is a complete mystery so it is likely that he was hoping that one of those books would contain some long forgotten piece of magic which your parents used to engineer Voldemort's defeat."
"Sounds about as likely as any other reason…" muttered Harry. "Any reason why he didn't return them to me? Aside from wanting to keep me in the dark about everything, I mean?"
By way of answer Amelia simply shrugged her shoulders.
Harry sighed disappointedly and then opened the book in his hands. Almost immediately his eyes lit up; "Hey, this one was written by my mother."
"It probably contains some of her notes for improving on existing potions and charms," said Sarah. "She got really into that around the start of fifth year."
Harry flipped through the book a few pages and said "Here's one; Draught of Living Death. Let's see… she says to crush the sopophorous bean instead of cutting it as it releases the juices better. Then she says that when stirring, you should add one clockwise stir after seven counter-clockwise stirs as this obtains the clear colour faster."
"I remember your mother working on that one at the start of sixth year." said Sarah.
Amelia leaned forwards and asked "Is it possible that Lily shared her research with anyone?"
"Well, she used to study with Snape, though they had stopped being friends by the time we started sixth year. I suppose it's possible that they had at least discussed possible improvements to that potion before they stopped talking to each other."
Amelia turned to Harry "See if your mother made any additions to the brewing of the Wiggenweld Potion. That's the usual counter to Draught of Living Death but healers have been having trouble waking Dolores Umbridge up from the dose she was given. If Snape brewed it using the methods your mother mentions in that book then the Healers may have to adjust their antidote."
"I don't think it matters if mum ever shared these with Snape herself," Harry commented as he began flipping through the book. "He and Dumbledore have had fourteen years to learn all of her research from this book, and every other Potter book besides."
"Which, by the way, constitutes a massive breach of family protocol," said Edward. "Books such as those should have been placed straight into a vault at Gringotts until Harry was of old enough to receive them."
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