Harry Potter And The Twists Of Fate by bengpotter31



Summary: What if the fates let Harry's parents live that night he got his scar, plus gave him a younger sister and become friends with the Weasleys, especially Ron earlier. What would be different?
Rating: PG-13 starstarstarstarstar
Categories: Alternate Universe
Characters: None
Genres: None
Warnings: None
Challenges: None
Series: None
Published: 2006.04.18
Updated: 2006.12.24


Harry Potter And The Twists Of Fate by bengpotter31
Chapter 4: Christmas at Potter Manor
Author's Notes:

Chapter 3: Christmas at Potter Manor

In the two weeks leading to the Christmas Holidays, the trio tried to find out who Nicolas Flamel was from books in the library. Unfortunately, since the only time they had was between lessons, they hadn’t found anything.

Flamel wasn’t in Modern Magical History, Great Wizards of the Twentieth Century or Notable Magical Names of Our Time. There were a lot of books to search from. Even Hermione was getting frustrated.

Harry wondered if any of the books in the library of Potter Manor might help. His mum had hundreds of books, both muggle and wizarding, there, collected over the years. Harry and his sister had often spent as much time there as playing outside in the grounds around the Manor. He mentioned that to Ron and Hermione, who were intrigued by the idea. Hermione even suggested asking his mother but Harry balked as Lily was bound to ask the reason why they were searching for him.

“I don’t think that Flamel would be the topic for any homework we have for the holidays, guys,” he told the two. And they had quite an amount assigned to them, especially by Snape and McGonagall.

Soon, the start of the Holidays arrived. Harry and Ron said goodbye to Hermione who was going home to spend the holidays with her muggle parents who were both dentists. The boys, along with the twins and Percy, were going to the Burrow. Harry’s parents and sister would pick him up from there.

When the five boys arrived at the Burrow, Molly greeted them with her usual bone-breaking hug. She asked Harry if he was recovered from his near mishap in the last Quidditch game. Harry just grinned and thanked her for her concern. He greeted Mr. Weasley and Ginny, who he noticed seemed a bit distracted.

He and Ron moved outside to allow Ron to try Harry’s Nimbus 2000. Harry laughed at the aerial stunts Ron tried. Ginny begged him for a go but Ron refused to come down. Finally, Ginny stormed off into the house.

Harry’s parents and sister soon arrived, distracting Ginny’s attention away from Harry’s broom. The Potter elders accepted a dinner invitation from the Weasleys so it was late at night by the time they got home to Potter Manor.

Potter Manor had been the traditional home of the Potter family for generations. Harry had always loved his home. It was a three-floor mansion set in the midst of a five mile wide estate. The front doors were large double doors set with the Potter family crest on each door which opened into an elegant entry way.

From the entry room, a guest would be led into a large living room with several comfortable couches and fluffy chairs, a large stone fireplace with a marble mantle and a television set in one corner. A set of sliding double doors allowed entry to the dining room with its lovely wooden dining table with room for up to twenty people. The kitchen was through a swinging door. Opposite the doors to the dining room was another pair of double doors which led to a medium-sized ballroom. The large library was located beyond the ball room. Another set of glass and wood double sliding doors led from the ballroom to a porch that had a good view of the spacious gardens. An elegant marble staircase led from the Ballroom up to the second floor.

The second floor of the manor contained half a dozen bedrooms. At present, only three rooms were in use; the master bedrooms and the two bedrooms of Harry and Rose. There was also a sitting room at the top of the stairs where several comfortable fluffy chairs were located in front of a large television set and state-of-the-art entertainment system.

The third floor contained a large playroom with both magical and muggle games, a potions lab and a duel practice room. The last two rooms were seldom entered by Harry.


For the first few days of the holidays, Ron was kept busy at the Burrow by chores. Harry spent the first day home telling Rose about Hogwarts but the succeeding days, he spent in the library doing his homework, while surreptitiously looking for references to Nicolas Flamel.

Rose was a bit put out over this lack of attention since they used to play a lot together whenever the Weasleys were not with them. To placate her, Harry allowed her to try his Nimbus 2000 as long as their parents were not around and a house elf, of which four worked for the Potters as free elves, was watching her to make sure she stayed below 30 feet.

On Christmas morning, Harry was awakened by his sister enthusiastically jumping on his bed, obviously excited to open her presents. Harry laughed at her bright spirit and followed her down to their living room where a huge Christmas tree stood.

Their parents were already there, seated on the couch by the fireplace. James and Lily greeted their children with big hugs and warm smiles. Harry enjoyed the warmth and joy being with his family brought.

Rose then went to sit beside the pile of presents at the foot of the tree. She handed each present to the owner, all the while piling her own in a neat stack.

Harry, on the other hand, immediately ripped each of his presents open as soon as he got each one. Lily looked disapprovingly at the mess he was creating while James looked on with amusement.

Harry received a wide assortment of candies and sweets from Ron, a book entitled Catching the elusive: 1001 Seeker strategies from Hermione, a hand carved wooden flute from Hagrid, a pair of ankle high leather boots from Uncle Remus and a leather jacket with the words Best seeker in the World flashing in bright colors on its back from his godfather, Sirius. Harry laughed at this last one and hoped he could wear it to the Burrow.

His parents gave him a dragonhide wand holder while Rose’s present was a red baseball cap with a snitch flying around it. Harry hugged his sister in thanks, saying it would go well with the jacket.

Soon, the Potters flooed over to the Burrow where they would have lunch with the Weasleys. Even Bill and Charlie were home on vacation from their jobs in Egypt and Romania, respectively. Sirius and Remus were also invited. To complete the day, everyone was having Christmas dinner at Potter Manor.

“Any luck, mate, with Flamel?” Ron asked Harry quietly when they were alone, their sisters having gone off together.

“Nope,” Harry replied, “I’ve been through half the books in our library already. Mum’s suspicious already. She caught me looking for him in one of the older books. I told her it was for an assignment for Binns.”

“That should put her off, right?” Ron asked.

“I thought so, too,” Harry replied, “Then I realized two things. One, she’s a Mum and they can usually tell when a secrets being kept from them. And two, Binns only gives homework about Goblin rebellions.”

Ron grimaced, “I guess that would be bad.” Ron knew from his experience over the years of how bad it was to hide things from Mrs. Potter.

After lunch, the boys got together for a pickup Quidditch game. Molly and Lily forced them to allow the girls to play with them.

So, the players were Harry, Ron, Ginny, Rose, Fred, George, Bill and Charlie. They decided to forego one chaser, on beater and the seeker and to divide into two teams by draw. Bill and Charlie were chosen to be captains and the keepers. Bill’s team was composed of Harry and Ron as chasers and Fred as beater. Charlie’s team had Ginny, and Rose as chasers and George as beater. The winning team had to score 100 points.

Harry wasn’t surprised by the flying abilities of the two redheaded girls, but what surprised him was the level of coordination they had in passing the ball, faking and shooting the quaffle toward the hoops. It was only through some fancy flying that Bill managed to block many of their shots.

Twice, Harry had the quaffle tucked under an arm as he raced for a hoop, only to have it knocked loose, first by his sister then by Ginny. Then the girls intercepted several of Ron’s passes to Harry. Even with Harry’s new broom, his team was outscored. The game ended with Charlie’s team winning by 100-80.

“I hope you’re a better seeker than a chaser, Harry,” Ginny laughingly said as she flew around.

“Well, I hope you girls get into Gryffindor next year,” Harry said, “I hate to see you on the Quidditch team of another house, especially Slytherin.”

“Hey!” both girls cried out in indignation.

Soon the Potters left to make the manor ready for their guests. Dinner was, as usual, delicious and well received. After an evening of singing Christmas carols, their guests departed feeling very satisfied. No one mentioned the three extra places at the table, which had always been empty for the past ten years.

Lily always sent an invitation to her sister, Petunia, her husband Vernon Dursley and their son Dudley, who was the same age as Harry, to spend Christmas Dinner with them. However, they never came or even asked how to get to Potter Manor.

Ever since Death Eaters killed Lily and Petunia’s parents during Lily’s seventh year, Petunia refused to have contact with her younger sister, except for her and James’ wedding. Even then, the tension between Vernon and James and the other wizards had been almost unbearable. Yet, Lily tried year after year to reconnect with her only remaining family aside from her husband and children.

Sometimes, Lily wondered what would have happened to her children if she and James had died that night that Voldemort had attacked them. She wondered how her sister would have treated her niece and nephew, who were obviously magical, considering she and Vernon hated anything to do with magic. But, Lily thought, no need to worry about that. After all, her and James’ will specifically stated that, if anything happened to her and James, they wanted Sirius to raise their children, with help from Remus. She couldn’t imagine any reason for that wish not to be followed.

That night, as Harry was getting ready for bed, his father knocked on the frame of his open door, “Can I come in for a while, son?”

Harry grinned, “Sure, Dad. What’s up?” Harry’s eyebrows rose in surprise when his Dad closed the door and put up some spells he recognized as locking and privacy charms. He seemed to be holding a package in his hand.

“Now, son,” James said, “I have another Christmas gift for you. I’m only giving it to you now because I don’t want your mother to know you have it.”

Harry’s eyebrows went even higher.

James smirked, “Don’t worry. It’s not anything dangerous. It’s just something of mine that can help you get around at Hogwarts without being seen.” He handed Harry the package, “Go on, open it.”

Harry ripped the plain brown wrapping off, revealing a silvery flowing bundle of cloth that felt strange, like it was made of water.

“What is it, Dad?” he asked James, fascinated with the gleaming material.

James smiled, “It’s an invisibility cloak.”

Harry’s head snapped up to look at his Dad, “A what?”

“An invisibility cloak,” James answered, “Go on, Harry, try it on.” When Harry had thrown it over his shoulders, James said, “Now look down.”

Harry gasped. His feet were gone. He hurried to the full-length mirror in the door of his wardrobe. His head seemed to be floating in midair, the rest of his body gone. He drew the cloak over his head and his reflection promptly vanished.

Harry removed the cloak and launched himself into the arms of a surprised James, “Thanks, Dad. This is great. Now, Filch won’t be able to see me.”

James chuckled, “Oh no, he won’t. I’ve used this myself many times to evade Hogwarts’ esteemed caretaker. Now, Harry, don’t let your Mum know you have it. Lily made me promise not to let you know of this cloak until you were done with school. But after finding out from the Weasley twins that you may consider restarting the Marauders, I couldn’t help but give you a way to avoid getting caught.”

Harry grinned, “Sure, Dad, Mum won’t find out from me. I’ll keep it hidden at the bottom of my trunk. Can I show it to Ron?”

“Sure, Harry,” James said, “But not here. Wait till you get to Hogwarts.”


The rest of the holidays passed quickly. Ron was able to come over to Potter Manor daily, though he had to go home before dinner. He was a bit annoyed at times, since Ginny usually came over with him to visit Rose.

Harry noticed this and after a few days asked him, “Ron, you seem a bit put out these days when you come over with Ginny.”

“Come on, Harry,” Ron replied, “I don’t like my little sister tagging along everywhere with me.”

“You didn’t used to mind before, Ron. We’ve been doing this for ages now, since we could walk. What’s changed?”

Ron raised an eyebrow in puzzlement, “In case you haven’t notice, Harry, we’re going to Hogwarts now. We’re big boys. We can’t spend time around little girls anymore, especially little sisters.”

“Better not let Rose or Ginny hear you say that, Ron, especially Ginny. You know how her temper is. Good thing she doesn’t have a wand yet. She’d probably hex you into next week.”

Ron’s face flushed which surprised Harry, “Erm, yeah. She’s already got a mean left hook.”

Harry looked over at his friend, smirking, “It seems you’ve gotten more than a punch from her.”

Ron’s face darkened further, “Okay, okay. If you must know, she’s more than punched me when she’s gotten angry. At least once, as far as we know.”

“What do you mean, Ron,” Harry asked.

“Well, my mum thinks she’s done accidental magic when she’s gotten mad,” Ron replied, “Once, when I was six, I was teasing her about a beat-up old doll she was rather fond of. Yeah, yeah, I know,” he said, when Harry frowned, “it’s not really like me to bully others. But, hey, she’s my little sister and I was young then. Anyway, she was getting red and had started to tear up. Before I knew it, there was a flash and I had these huge bogeys shaped something like bats coming out of my nose and attacking my face. I hollered for mum but it took her hours to get rid of them. Afterwards, she and Dad asked her about it and she said she didn’t know what she did but was just so angry at me.”

“Wow,” Harry said, “looks like she invented a spell all her own. Would be great to use that to hex Malfoy. Imagine, bat-shaped bogeys coming out of his nose.”

“Now, that is really an image I’d like to come true,” Ron said, “Anyway, let’s forget about my sister for a moment.” His voice dropped to a whisper and he glanced toward the door of Harry’s room, where they were sitting on Harry’s bed. “Have you had any luck with Flamel?”

Harry sighed, “Nope. Like I said at Christmas, no mention of him yet. There are so many books here I don’t know where to look.”

“Yeah,” Ron said, “I’ve seen your library. Makes me wish that Hermione was here.”

Harry’s eyebrow rose to his hairline.

“Well, she is good at research and all that,” Ron said quickly, “With the three of us here, we could find him faster. Then, we could really enjoy the holidays.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Harry said, “We could even tell Mum we were just showing her the library. She is kind of obsessed over books.”

“You said it. Mental that one when it comes to studying and books,” Ron said, Anyway, how about a game of Exploding snap.”

“You’re on,” Harry said, “After all, we still have a few days left.”


The last days of the Christmas holidays passed quicker than Harry realized. It was the night before he was to go back to Hogwarts and he still was unable to locate any mention of Nicolas Flamel. As Harry was finishing packing, he saw his collection of Chocolate Frog cards scattered on top of his bed. Gathering them, he looked at a few, reading the descriptions of the wizards and witches pictured on them. When he got to the card of Dumbledore, his breath caught as he read the text.

Considered by many the greatest wizard of modern times…..and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel. Professor Dumbledore

That’s it! He thought. He couldn’t wait to tell Ron and Hermione. To think, he had spent all that time in the library when the clue he needed was in his room all along.

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