Chapter 12

"Oh no," shrieked Mrs. Wright! "Where have they gone with my daughter?" Before the echoes of her cry had even faded, Hedwig popped the four children back into the room.

Cries of "Hermione," "Susan," "Dora," and "Harry" split the air and the children were surrounded by their families, all in desperate need of assurance that the children were okay. Confusion reigned as everyone tried to speak out at once, the adults demanding to know where they had been for the minute or so that passed, while the children were all trying to relate their adventure. It was Admiral Wright who silenced everyone with an ear piercing whistle.

Susan had awoke the moment she heard her mommy and daddy's voices call her name, and in her first instance of accidental magic, she launched herself into their arms, clearing the nine feet between them without touching the floor. In their relief at seeing that their daughter was safe, they at first ignored the fact that Susan had gone from laying in Harry's lap asleep, to flying into their arms like a parent seeking missile. After they assured themselves that their daughter was fine and had not come to harm from the crazy bird that had burst into flames and taken their little girl; they both decided that they wanted answers.

"I would like to know what is going on right now, and if I don't get some answers, I will be calling the RMP's to help sort this out." Admiral Wright was a man used to command, and rolling with the changes that combat threw at you, but things had happened today that he knew were impossible, and yet he had seen them with his own eyes. "What was the bird that carried these four away in fire, and what is this bird that brought them back in a burst of fire and snow? And where did they go, since they were not here for at least thirty seconds before they reappeared? Also, and this may be the most important, why are my daughters eyes the same color as Harry's?"

Harry was looking around, and noticed that his friends, and he included little Susan in that group, were all looking to him to answer. It was when he noticed that Andi and Ted had moved subtly to the side so that they were between the Wrights and the door, with each of them holding their wands slightly behind their backs, that helped make up Harry's mind that he needed to take charge of the situation. Making eye contact with Ted and Andi, and giving them a slight shake of his head; he then turned to look at Mr. and Mrs. Wright.

Without taking his eyes off of the Wrights, Harry spoke to Andi. "Aunt Andi, would you please make sure that we are not bothered or interrupted by any of the staff? There is much that we need to tell all of you, and that includes the Wrights, and would be better for all if we were not disturbed." Andi nodded and then waved her wand around, casting the Black family wards that would ensure that the room they were in was forgotten, at least until she cancelled them or they were cracked from the inside.

"First things first, I think that introductions are in order, and not just for the Wrights." Harry continued. "First of all, let me introduce you to Fawkes, the one who carried us out of here so that you all would be safe from me." Fawkes flamed in at hearing his name, flew around the room, and then settled down in Susan's lap, with a song of joy and contentment as she began to fuss over him, ignoring everything else around her. "Next, for all of the adults in the room, this is Hedwig, my companion and the one who has watched over me and repeatedly saved me from the one that Hogwarts calls the dark one." All of the adults who had been present earlier in the summer when Harry had grown out his hair looked at each other in astonishment as they recognized the bird they thought was stuffed and mounted in the study on Downing Street. "Both Fawkes and Hedwig are magical birds called phoenix, and they are to all practical purposes, immortal. And now for the fun part where I really get to blow your mind, Mr. and Mrs. Wright; I know that you know magic is real, but the surprise is that that now your daughter is one of the few who can wield it." Harry's smile disappeared, when Mrs. Wright's eyes rolled up into the back of her head, and only her husband's arms kept her from the floor.

It was Dora who broke the tension when she reached over and slapped the back of Harry's head. "Way to go Harry. You just couldn't be subtle about that bit of information could you? You had to rush in like a rash Gryffindor, with no subtlety at all, and give this poor woman one shock to many. You can't just blurt out that Susan is now magical, and that they need to move to America or Australia to get away from the magical society we have here, and the man who controls it all." At that moment, a squeak emitted from Erica Wright as she had become aware of what Dora was saying about them moving, and she promptly slumped over once again.

"Good job, Dora. You may have put her out for a much longer period than Harry did with your little revelation." Andi chastised her daughter, though there was a hint of laughter in her voice. "May I suggest that we head back to our camp ground and we can have this conversation there? While my wards will keep everyone away, it does not stop the monitors that are set to this room." When everyone agreed with that plan, Abby went in search of the on duty physician to get Harry released to their care.

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It took many hours to explain what had happened to them when they had disappeared from the room at the hospital, and even more to explain that they had been gone for more than two hours when only thirty or so seconds had passed to the ones who stayed behind. It was easier for them to believe once they were given a full tour of the 'tent' that the Tonks's had provided, but it was the questioning of why they needed to leave England that pushed their resolve.

"Why should we leave England, if they won't even inform us that Susan is magic until her eleventh birthday?" Erica Wright asked with an almost pleading tone in her voice. "We will just tell them we are sending her to a school outside of Britain, and they will have to leave us alone, right?"

It was Andi who fielded this latest query from one of the two over whelmed parents. "If it were that easy, than I would encourage you to stay here near your family, but I am afraid that it is much more complicated than that. When little Susan has her first bout of detected accidental magic, they will send a team to investigate her learn all they can about her family and its ties to the muggle world. Once they learn about your husband's occupation, they will report back to the ministry that she may be a possible threat. This will be for two reasons, the first being that with two other siblings, it is unlikely that she will be willing to keep her family at arm's length, and the second, because her father being an Admiral means that he has the power to focus too much scrutiny on their world if anything happens to her. I have seen at least one case in the last few years where the family of a newly revealed witch died in a house fire that was caused by a suposedly faulty gas main exploding at their summer home in the Lake District. The reason I know that it was the work of someone at the ministry, is that not one house in the entire row of houses that theirs was a part of had gas of any kind installed; everything was powered by electricity. Unfortunately for them, the father of the little witch was a member of the Prime Minister's personal staff, and was very politically connected. I was infuriated when I heard how they died, because I worked with her mother and we had stayed in that vacation home of theirs the summer before. It was deemed a tragic accident, but during the last war, the favorite ways to explain deaths from death eater attacks was to obliviate anyone around and then say it was a gas leak. Their stories of gas leak explosions cost Her Royal Majesty's government hundreds of millions of pounds trying to repair gas mains and pipes that had nothing essentially wrong with them."

"Can't I go to the High Command and tell them what is going on?" Admiral Wright asked. "Surely, if my superiors knew, then it would give my family some protection from these people? Surely there is someone who could protect us from them?"

"It is not that simple." Ted answered. "I have run several scans of Susan since the children came back, and I have found something that makes it imperative that you leave Britain as quickly as possible, for all of our sakes. I believe that Susan was born with enough inherent magic to make her register as a squib in our world, a person who can see magic, but cannot use it. Now she not only registers as very powerful for her age and core development, but she also shows up as a Potter." The whole room was stunned in silence, before Andi whipped out her wand to perform her own scan to verify what her husband had just said. The results that she got stunned her, and her knees gave out and she fell back into her seat.

"I demand you explain that last statement, right now. There is no way that I am letting my daughter be taken away from me, to be raised in a barbaric society like the one that you have told us about. I don't care how honorable Harry is, she is my daughter and I will not give her up!" Admiral Wright shouted as he scooped up Susan from the floor, knocking the red and orange bird she was still holding down onto his side where he let out an indignant squawk. He righted himself, and then with a glare at Susan's father, who was now holding an upset and crying toddler, and then Fawkes flashed out of the room. Before Susan could get even more angry with her dad for upsetting the pretty birdy, Fawkes flashed back in and dropped a ratty looking hat on top of Hedwig's head, before trilling in laughter and flying over to land once again in Susan's grasping arms.

Susan giggled in happiness, crooning 'Pwetty birdy, ' over and over as she cuddled her face into Fawkes's feathers. Everyone but the Tonks family was surprised when what looked like a tear in the hat opened and a voice poured out. What caught even the Tonks's off guard was that it was a female voice that came out.

"I am Hogwarts, and I had my friend Fawkes bring me here so that I could help you understand just how dangerous Britain is for Susan, now that magic acknowledges her as a Potter. When the children appeared in my Heart-Stone chamber, they along with Hedwig surrounded Harry with love and friendship when he was going through a crisis. The immense magic that had built up in Harry over the years, along with the fact that Hedwig gave him part of herself to heal him, combined to release a level seven magical wave, and that magic effected everything it touched while I was absorbing most of it. It gave Dora even more control and ability in her gifts, while it corrected a few physical problems that Hermione had and strengthened her magical core. On Susan however, it sought to protect her, since it was Harry's magic and knew he would be unhappy if any harm came to her. As a person without magic, there was no way that she could survive, so it essentially adopted her magically into the Potter family as Harry's sister."

Hogwarts went on in her explanation. "To put the event into perspective, the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius at Pompeii was the result of a level five event caused by the Romans executing the daughter of a Mage from Africa who had no magic herself. The rage of seeing his precious daughter lying there broken on the floor of the arena with the other Christians, while the crowd cheered on the lions, made him release all of his magic at once in his agony and rage; no one survived the cataclysm. There are legends that Atlantis was sunk beneath the waves by a level eight magical event, but there is no proof of that, only supposition. As a baby, Harry destroyed the Dark Lord Voldemort with a level three event that was focused entirely on the person he had just seen attack his mother."

"But she is our daughter," Erica cried, "She is a Wright whether or not she has magic."

"Yes she is, and she always will be your daughter, but magically, she will now and forever be of the line of the Ancient and Noble House of Potter, and someday, her children will have that birthright as well. That is why you will need to take her out of Great Britain. It is for her, and your protection that you must leave. The Potter family is one of the most ancient of the noble families here, or anywhere in Europe. They can be traced back through Rome, Athens, Persia, Babylon, Solomon's Court, to even before the first Pharaohs. Through every empire going back many thousands of years, there has been a Potter in the halls of power, helping to guide the rulers in their reign, unless they turned on their people. If that happened, then the Potter family would move on to another area, and soon the despotic rulers would fall, with a new empire arising, a Potter standing to the right of the throne as an advisor.

In the middle of the 1800's, the Potter family started to die out, from misfortune, attacks, and what seemed at first like accidents. Branch after branch ceased to be, as they were hunted down on every continent by dark lord after wannabe dark lord, until there was just the one line left. Harry's grandparents were murdered while James and Lily were in hiding with Harry, and then on that fateful Halloween Harry became the last survivor of the Potter Clan. Now though, even if Harry dies, the Potter's will live on in the form of your daughter, which here in Europe, puts her in immediate danger." Hogwarts seemed to be saddened that she had to tell them of the danger their daughter was now in because she had gone with Harry.