Chapter 10

"Harry!" Six female voices squealed in unison as the door opened and they saw him sitting up in bed. Dora and Hermione reached him first, but it was a close race between the adults to see who could get to the boy they had all grown to love first. While Harry was getting hugged, amid tears of relief that he was okay and scolding looks at the memories of what he had done to get here; Dan and Ted rolled in a cart that was covered by a silver dome. When the dome was lifted, there was for the first time that Harry could remember a birthday cake that was meant for Harry.

Harry didn't know whether to laugh or to cry as he was overwhelmed with feelings for these people who had come to mean so much to him and he to them. They all started singing Happy Birthday to him, and the dam finally burst, as Harry could no longer hold back the tears.

"Harry, what's wrong," Asked Hermione when the song ended.

"I am sure that my parents sang to me on the birthday that I had with them," Harry said while still fighting to stop the tears that were still coming. "But this is the first time that anyone else has ever cared enough to wish me a Happy Birthday. Usually, I just get a beating from Vernon because it is a reminder to them that there is freakishness in the world." These words stirred the women into another round of hugs for the belated birthday boy, and a couple of manly pats on the back and one arm guy hugs from the two adult males.

Hermione was the one who had to break the suddenly somber mood. "We are so sorry that we didn't wish you happy birthday on your actual birthday, but we were planning on having a big celebration at the pizza place in town. In fact, your cake was already there in the fridge before we came to the beach. Then out of the blue, you decided to play hero and went out to save little Susan's life, and the whole thing was forgotten as we watched you head out to what we thought was certain death."

Dora continued, "What you did with that kite and surfboard was the most amazing thing I think any of us had ever seen. Even the hardcore windsurfers were impressed at what you did, and quite a few have asked Dan where they can get kites like that. When you got to her and scooped her up out of the water, everyone cheered, but it didn't take us long to figure out that you couldn't make it back to the beach and that once again had us fearing for your life. It was dad who noticed that you were traveling north while angling in toward land. He took the life guard's radio and was able to let the navy know what was happening. The navy had dispatched a Helo off of one of the ships, which Susan's dad insisted on being on since it was his ship that the Helo was leaving from, and it was going after his daughter."

"When the rescue party reached the area where the two of you were, they noticed that you were not going to make it to the beach. Unfortunately, the prop wash from a Helo, and the foil that was pulling you along just didn't agree with each other. The down force from the propellers pushed the foil down into the water, causing the board you were on to flip over and the two of you kids to go under." Emma was now telling the story. "Ignoring the fact that the Navy divers were ready to go out the other side, Admiral Kevin Wright dove out from the door of the Helo, plunging forty-five feet into the waves below in an attempt to save his little girl. After he hit the water, he frantically swam toward the board that you had somehow righted, and he noticed that Susan was waving at him with a smile on her face while shaking you and telling you to wake up. He got to you both at the same time as the two rescue divers, and little Susan was very upset that she couldn't introduce her new friend to her Daddy. After they rescued the two of you, they flew you to the nearest base which was an RAF base right on the other side of town. After getting you in the hospital, Susan and her dad came to get us and bring us back here. You have been out for two days and we were beginning to get worried about what was going on. Ted and Andi had to call in a friend of theirs to come monitor the situation because all of the machines that they had attached to you kept shorting out and they were becoming suspicious.

Now it was Andi's turn to continue the story. "I called my friend Amy, who was my roommate in school, and had gone on to be a healer. She was able to convince them that you had an excess of bio electricity, possibly caused by a recessive genetic trait or by something like a Portuguese Man-O-War shocking you in the water. She showed them that it was a rare but verifiable medical condition that pops up from time to time. The treatment used to help is a combination of using leads to ground your output to a grounding rod, and rubbing a lotion on your skin that takes away the toxicity of your sweat and allows you to discharge the energy that your body was building up. In reality, what you were discharging was an excessive amount of natural magic that was messing with their machines. Though Amy comes from a pureblood family, she has a brother that was disowned because he is a squib, and he lives in the mundane world. Amy loved her brother so much, that she refused to abandon him and so she has gotten a lot of grief from her family. The reason that she hasn't been disowned herself is that she is the only child they have that has magic. Her brother has taught her the concepts about modern electricity, and it was him that came up with the materials needed to take your excess magic and ground it into an object so that it does not affect the machinery around you."

Andi paused for a moment while a look of sadness passed across her face. She sighed and then continued. "It is truly a shame how bigoted and closed minded Magical society is. What Rob has come up with is revolutionary, and with proper study, would probably lead us to the ability to use technology in high magic areas, and even to eventually even combine technology and magic in a new and amazing way. However, that would force our society to acknowledge that what they derided as inferior, was actually light years ahead of where our society is. Rob works for the Queen's government in a special capacity, and he is the sole reason why Diagon Alley is still hidden from the mundane world. Every building around the magical shopping district has the collectors that he designed, pulling the excess magic from the air so that it doesn't affect the mundane area around it. It is funny that most magicals believe that their world is hidden from the 'muggles, ' yet their primary shopping district is right in the middle of one of the most crowded and technologically advanced cities in the world. If not for Rob's collectors, there would be a huge spot in the middle of the city where nothing electronic would work. I think that would probably tip the muggles off to the fact that there was something going on there, don't you?"

Everyone in the room nodded in agreement, and they were about to continue their discussion when the door began to open again. In through the yet small opening shot a little red haired missile that launched up onto Harry's bed at near ballistic speed, her arms going around Harry's neck as she squealed into his ear. "Hi Harry. I missed you. I wanted you to meet my daddy, but you were sleeping so long that I was afraid that you wouldn't wake up before he had to leave to go back to protecting us on his ship. And I am so sorry Harry, but the ship out in the water was not my daddy's ship like my uncle said, but when my daddy heard that it was me out there in the water, he came to rescue us." Harry was amused and slightly astonished that Susan could say all that in one breath. Her brief pause for breath finished, Susan continued to fire out words with the rapidity of a machine gun. "I am really, really glad you are awake now as my mommy and daddy are here to see you. And later today would be too late as daddy has to get back to his ship because they are leaving to go to some rock named after a girl named Jill Bralter, and daddy says the sea and the Royal Navy wait for no man. Oh, and this is my daddy, he is an admirable in the Navy and has his own carrying group that he is taking to go and play games with the Americans. I have a sand box that I like to play in with my brothers, though daddy says that it is a giant kitty box for our neighborhood. I like playing games in our little pool in the back yard, but daddy says it is not big enough for the games that he is going to sea to play."

By now, Susan's parents had fully entered the room and had joined in with the growing laughter at the statements that their daughter was making. Susan's mom came over to the bed and gave Harry a hug, murmuring the words thank you over and over again. While the Navy taught its officers how to behave in most social situations, one of the areas they neglected was how to sincerely thank the individual who had risked his life to save your only daughter. Admiral Wright was gathering his words together, in preparation of enunciating his gratitude, when he finally caught a glimpse of his daughter's savior. His gasp of recognition drew everyone's attention, as his eyes remained focused on Harry's face.

"You, your Harry Potter!" He stated in shock. "I never thought I would see you again after what happened to your parents. We spent years looking for you, since we knew that your godparents were not taking care of you. We were able to gather enough evidence to prove that your godfather was innocent of the charges that were published in the paper, but when we had people approach the Ministry of Magic to get him a retrial, they all came back with assurances that you were safe and being protected from those who wished to harm you, and that Sirius Black was indeed guilty of the crimes he was accused of."

"How do you know who I am," asked Harry? "And how do you know about what happened to my family and what happened to us? Are you from the same world as they were?"

"I knew your mom back before you were born. I grew up in the same neighborhood, with Lily, Petunia, and some weird kid named Severus who adored Lily because she stood up to his dad. Lily had no fear, always leading us into the local woods for adventures and picnics, and then one day she seemed distant from her sister and me, and six months later, she and Severus left for a boarding school in Scotland, and Petunia was never the same. She felt that Lily had abandoned her and she became very bitter about what she was missing in her life. Not long after that, my father died in a gas explosion and my family moved to my grandparent's farm, so I lost track of Lily and Petunia."

Continuing on with his story, with everyone in the room paying rapt attention; except for Susan, who was busy playing with the buttons on Harry's bed. "It was almost eight years later that I ran into Lily and her new husband James Potter. I was working with a special branch of Her Majesty's government that was dedicated to hunting down and capturing or eradicating domestic terrorists. We were trying to track a group that was in and out like ghosts, leaving death and insanity in their wake. Apparently, our actions had brought us to their attention because we went on a raid which turned out to be a trap. We were trapped inside a small office building, while these people wearing masks and dark robes stood around outside laughing and launching what we thought were rocket propelled grenades and HE rounds with green tracers to see where their fire was going. There were only four of us still alive, when the battle turned because of the arrival of six people. The first thing that alerted us that help had arrived was when all of the dark robes turned pink and then began trying to tie up the people who were wearing them. In hindsight, it was really funny seeing the terrorists fighting their own clothes, but at the time, we were too stunned to really appreciate it. I was sent into further shock when I heard Lily's voice chastise someone named Prongs and Padfoot about goofing off. Then a guy who said his name was Moony slipped into the place we were and with a wave of a stick, the wall in front of us began to rebuild and to make itself thicker."

"I knew at that moment that I had lost my mind, so I felt that it couldn't hurt to ask him what was going on. He looked at me and told me I needed to wait until after the dark moron's troops were gone or put down, and then I could ask Prongs or Bear. He went back to waving his stick around like a conductor, and rocks launched themselves out at the terrorists. Some hit, while others missed, and I thought that he had terrible aim. The ones that missed, all seemed to blur once past them, and then Ravens, Badgers, Lions, and Vipers came out of the dark to attack the ones still standing. One of them got bit in the chest, and suddenly they all just disappeared. Lily and another woman came into our hold out and they both started waving their own sticks at us. Lily was looking over our commander, and after whispering quietly with her friend, she reached into a bag and pulled out a concoction which she made him drink. I watched stunned as the hole in his gut healed over in less than a minute and she turned to the next one that her friend Roo motioned to. All told, she and her friend Roo saved ten of our men that our medic had written off as unrecoverable. When she got to the four of us left mostly unhurt, she was shocked to see me there."

"While she was shocked to see me, I was amazed to see her and what she was doing with her stick, which someone in our group called a wand. After getting a hug in greeting, she introduced me to her husband James and his noble band of idiots, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin. She then introduced me to Frank and Alice Longbottom who rounded out their group. She told us we were lucky that they were nearby and so were able to save us from the dark scum who had attacked us. Frank asked why she was telling me anything since we wouldn't remember what had happened anyway. Major Evers, who was our commanding officer, stood up and asked for a quick word with the leaders of their group. Lily helped me to my feet and dragged me over to where he was urgently talking to Frank and James. Major Evers explained that we were a joint task force put together to battle the terrorists that were killing people in the muggle world. I stood there stunned as I listened to him tell them that the government of Her Majesty knew about the magical world, and because of the corruption of it and the lack of concern for her non-magical subjects, she had commissioned their group to find ways of bringing them to justice in anyway necessary. He was one of the ones put in charge, since he was a squib, and knew a little about their world. I was appalled to find out that we had had wizards and witches on our side helping us, but that the Ministry of Magic had a policy of arresting them if they were caught for breaking some statute and had thrown them into prison somewhere."

"All of Lily's friends were outraged at this, especially since, as Frank put it, their oaths as Lords and employees of the ministry were made to the Queen and to the realm. They were supposed to be protecting those who could not protect themselves, not help them to step into harm's way. Frank asked for names of the magicals who were helping, and then almost blew his top at the first name he was told. He turned to his wife and said I told you so; Wallace would never have helped the Dark Lord or his minions. They said that they gave him a trial, and that they sealed the records because they were still investigating the information that they had gotten from him during questioning. Everyone was shocked at this new information, and then Sirius suggested that we all vacate the area and continue the conversation elsewhere. We all agreed to that, and we took them back to our new headquarters. Once James put up what they told us were Potter family wards around the building, they all relaxed and we were able to discuss what was going on. After a few hours of discussion, Major Evers brought in the other ranking members of our group, and an accord was reached with Lily's group, largely because I told my superiors that Lily was honest and caring, and that James must be honorable since she wouldn't have married him otherwise. James stepped forward and introduced their group to my superiors and myself. He said his code name was Prongs, Lily was Silver, Sirius Black was Padfoot, Remus Lupin was Moony, Frank Longbottom was Bear, and his wife Alice was Roo."

"For the next year, we worked closely with them, developing tactics and weapons that could be used in their world. Our group grew in numbers as they brought us firstborn wizards and witches who were looking to help against Voldemort and his purge of magical Briton of those he felt un-worthy. They would spirit away people they knew were going to be attacked, and we would hide them in plain sight in our world. At one point, we had several hundred of them working for us and helping us to develop technological ways to combat magical attacks. Lily was a genius and she quickly became head of our research department. Her theories on harnessing magic to power technology were beyond anything that anyone had ever seen. She also had the ability to absorb knowledge at an unheard of rate, while being able to then translate it to working knowledge for anything she set her mind to. When she and Alice came in one day and told everyone that they were pregnant, we threw the biggest party we could, happy that even in what we now knew was a genocidal war, life went on. It was a happy time for all of us, and then one day, everything abruptly changed."

"Seven months into their pregnancies, Frank, Alice, James and Lily just stopped coming into work. We sent people to their homes to check on them since we feared the worst, but there was no one living where they were supposed to be. Sirius and Remus came back from a mission that they had been on in Africa, where they were looking for a device that was made to fight evil by the priests in ancient Egypt, and they immediately went to look for James and Lily. They didn't return to us either, and the brass began to worry. We evacuated all the sites that the Potters and Longbottoms knew about, shipping out our magicals to places outside the British Isles to keep them safe. It was a month before I ran into Sirius and he was hanging out with this short bald guy who reminded me of a weasel or a rat. I asked about Remus, James, and Lily and he told me that James and Lily had gone into hiding after baby Harry was born, but that they had been betrayed by someone and had to keep moving to stay alive. When I asked to be introduced to his companion, he told me that the man was Peter Pettigrew, one of their most trusted friends from their days in school."