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Harry stifled a moan as Lily got off of him, his half-erect equipment falling out. Lily was not so quiet, and she faintly groaned in disappointment. She headed off to take a shower, to wash off the sweat and grime and sex that she so enjoyed the night before. Harry quietly got up when he saw the steam from the bathroom flow through the crack underneath the door. He sat on the bed, and thought.

Lily, having had a nice, long, steaming hot shower, breather a sigh of non-vapour infused air as she stepped back into their bedroom. She looked at the expression on Harry's face, and sighed.

"Knut for your thoughts?" Harry turned, and there was Lily, her body looking exceptionally delectable in the tight white towel. Harry shrugged. "Didn't we already talk about this? How you and your father show when you're both bothered by something?" Harry blushed.

"I'm bothered by the fact that I liked what I did last night, and I like what I see now." Lily beamed a bit, but sat down beside him.

"You're a hormonal teenager," she said. "I bet you'll even shag the pug-faced Slytherin girl if you're desperate."

"I can honestly say I would not."

"Look," she said, taking him by the hand. "I now feel for you more strongly than I ever could have anyone else. You mean more to me than just a son, more than just a lover. I both literally and figuratively will die without you. I know part of that may be the ritual, but I don't care, not anymore." She caressed his cheek. "I love you." Those three simple words filled Harry with a warmth he could not be without, and this, he realized, this was love.

"I love you too," he said. "Just wondering... am I still to call you Mum?"

"Sometimes - when it's appropriate. Call me Lily." Lily grinned. "Now that we've got that all sorted out, we need a place to train."

"We?" Harry asked.

"Yes, we. It might be your destiny to kill Voldemort, but that doesn't mean I'm going to let you do it alone."

"So, we need my stuff, we need to train somewhere where Voldemort and Dumbledore both can't find us, and we need to do it soon. How about the Chamber of Secrets?"

Lily wrinkled her nose, not wanting to train among the remains of a blood purist's diary and a sixty-foot killer serpent. "I think we should leave Hogwarts."

"Leave Hogwarts?" Harry asked.

"Yes. We know that Snape can't teach you anything, you've got excellent Transfiguration, Defence and Charms marks, which are my genes coming out by the way, and what exactly is Dumbledore teaching you? I'll teach you everything you need to know for NEWTs, and I am a Charms Mistress, so what do you need to stick around here for? This way, you're learning to fight Voldemort, I'm teaching, not to mention alive, and no one needs to know about our Saturday nights."

"So where do we go? you said it yourself; Dumbledore's taken control of Grimmauld Place, and I don't think Aunt Petunia's going to let us in..."

"Sometimes I just forget how much you don't know. Well, for one, there's Godric's Hollow?"

"Too badly damaged, I think."

"Well, Sirius was supposed to... right. Potter Manor?"

"I have no idea where that is."

Lily sighed. "Marauder Lodge?"

"Nor that. Do I have anywhere more Muggle to go? Where wizards won't think to look?"

"I have a flat in Croydon where I went after Petunia kicked me out. It's under the Fidelis, I think."

"Let's do that, then."

Lily nodded. "That's not a bad plan."

"Well, if you have any ideas, by all means..." Harry offered.

"Instead of just disappearing into the night, we should make a big show about it."

"What do you suggest?"

"First, you should wear something of mine. I know when my parents died, I'd often wear my dad's fleecie or my mum's jacket as a way of keeping them with me. Take the trenchcoat."

Harry smiled. "It'll be a change from Voldemort's stupid cloak."

Lily grinned back. "I also have another idea..."

-----

Albus Dumbledore was not a happy man. Last night, he had had two choices. One, he could have let Lily Potter stay alive, and possibly lose control of his weapon, or two, he could let her die, and have Harry become angry and uncooperative. With a heavy heart, he had chosen his second option. He didn't want to see people die, he wanted to defeat Voldemort. Harry wouldn't understand that anything and everything must be sacrificed to defeat the Dark, and Dumbledore was trying to make sure he did see. So when Harry walked into the Great Hall the day after his mother died looking like a million galleons, Dumbledore knew something was up. He scanned Harry, using experience magical probes, and found multiple Cheering Charms covering Harry like oil on a chip. He cast a silent Finite at Harry, and instantly his demeanour changed. From the happiest man to walk the planet to a dark, sobbing figure covered in a trenchcoat, the one that Lily had been wearing last week. Dumbledore's mood was not improved by this, as he knew that Lily Potter had died once more. Harry slumped into a seat beside Hermione, still sobbing. Ron looked pitifully at him, and even Hermione didn't appear to be too pleased with herself, though she was adversarial during the rest of the past week. Most of the Great Hall was interested in this display, as Harry did not usually show as much emotion. Ginny shook her head sadly, and Neville engaged her in conversation. Dumbledore approached Harry slowly, and put a hand on his shoulder in a poor attempt at sympathy.

"I'm sorry, Harry," he said.

"You're sorry. Why should you be sorry?" Harry spat, letting some genuine rage seep through. "You wanted her to die!"

"Only because she wasn't meant to be alive," the old man said calmly, knowing that this would not help.

"She wasn't meant to die at 21 either!"

"It's more natural if she's dead."

"How is a mass murderer barging into your home, killing you, your husband and attempting to kill your son by any means natural?" Harry yelled. Dumbledore had no answer.

"In any case," Dumbledore said, by way of apology, "here is your trunk; Mundungus Fletcher picked it up from your home last night." This was a lie, of course. Lily had checked Privet Drive a second time after her visit with Remus. Harry grabbed the shrunken trunk from the headmaster's outstretched hand, and sneered at him in a decidedly Slytherin fashion as he walked away. Hermione turned to him.

"I know you're angry, but you shouldn't talk that way to the Headmaster!" she scolded. "For all he's done for you..."

"And just what has he done for me?" Harry asked her. "Hmm? When I was one, he left me in a place where I'd get beat up for the most mundane reasons, like why Vernon's steak wasn't done when he got home, or why Dudley fell down the stairs as he was trying to wake me up. I was forced to sleep in a cupboard, to be a House-Elf for 10 years! All because he refused to let me live with Sirius as I was meant to. When I was eleven, he buggered off, and made me save some stupid rock stuck in a mirror, past a hungry three-headed dog, a plant with murderous ambitions, a killer chess set and a bunch of fire, not to mention the spectre of a Dark Lord at the end. When I was twelve, I was shunned for speaking a language the rest of these idiots can't understand, was told to talk to a massive spider who had no intentions of letting me leave alive, was almost brainwashed by a moron with a wand, and had to fight a great dirty snake, whose master lived inside a book, feeding off Ginny's energy. In my third year, I was chased after by an evil rat, posing as my best friend's pet, and I wouldn't be surprised if any of the boys in our dormitory were molested by the freak, almost eaten by a werewolf, and the I had to go and do it all over again! Not to underplay the assistance my friends gave me, of course. Then that imbecilic Ministry decided to put on the spectacle of the Triwizard Tournament. I had to fight the deadliest dragon, and I was the one who got carved open, providing the blood Voldemort needed to return to this world, not to mention the inside help he had, via one Barty Crouch Junior. Oh, and last year, Umbridge. So what in all has the Headmaster done for me?"

"Er - well, when you put it that way... but he is the Headmaster."

"Oh, piss off," Harry sneered. "You've done nothing other than ignore me and sneer at me all week. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if you believed Malfoy over me." He and stormed away from Gryffindor table. He opened the doors to the Great Hall, and slammed it closed behind him.

Harry Potter grinned, the effects of the Depression Curse no match for the giddiness that accompanied the knowledge that his mother was alive and well, unbeknownst to the 'dunderheads' in the Hall. He ran up the stairs as fast as he could, and reached the Room of Requirement, throwing the door open. Lily looked up at him, and grinned as Harry pulled the shrunken trunk from his pocket and enlarged it. Rummaging inside, he found his Cloak, his Map, and a clean set of clothes, along with all of his school stuff.

"No new clothes," Lily advised. "You're running away, and right now, you don't really care what you're wearing." Harry nodded. "Oh, and keep the trenchcoat. In addition to just looking really good on you, it'll hint that you're missing your dead mother." Harry smiled, but felt a bulge in his pockets. He dug around in them, and pulled out numerous items, including a pocketwatch, a pair of broken sunglasses, a bottle of hand lotion, a diary, which set off warning bells in his head, and a key. He turned to Lily, eyebrows raised.

"A little piece of advice: never throw anything away, Harry." Suddenly, she took the broken sunglasses from his hand and threw them away. She grabbed the jacket and searched the inside pockets for something, her face growing frustrated.

"It's a mistake to clutter one's pockets, Harry," she said wisely. Harry stared oddly at her. "Anyway, we've agreed on where we're going?"

"No," Harry said. "I think that your flat in Croydon would be a good hiding spot. No one will look for a wizard and a witch in a Muggle area, and even if they did think to do so, there's a lot of territory to cover before they hit Croydon from all the way up here in - well, wherever the hell we are in Scotland." Lily nodded. "Dobby!"

"Harry Potter called for Dobby?" the house-elf asked, his eyes alight with a desire to serve.

"We're leaving, Dobby," Harry said determinedly. "You, me, and Mum."

"Dobby stays here until you is reaching your new home, Master Harry." A slight glimmer of irritation dawned on Harry's face upon hearing the word 'Master', but Dobby continued. "When your reach your new home, just call for Dobby and I is be coming right away."

"Thank you, Dobby," said Harry kindly, and as Dobby disappeared, Harry swore he could have a wail of happiness from Dobby. "So are we good?"

"Very good, fantastic, even," Lily confirmed. "Thank you for that, that, and that. Ill see you there," Lily said as she grabbed the Firebolt, Invisibility Cloak and the Marauders' Map, and she took off down the corridor after pecking Harry on the cheek - for luck, she said, and with that, her footsteps indistinguishable from the noises in the castle. Harry placed the two reshrunken trunks in his pocket, and took off in the other direction after sealing the Room of Requirement indefinitely.

Harry crept down the hallways in the commotion. It was almost time for the first lesson of the day, and Harry was using the scramble as cover for his escape. Just as he was leaving through the front door, he was intercepted in the Entrance Hall by Professor Dumbledore.

"And where do you think you are going, Mr Potter?" he asked. Harry didn't bother to turn around.

"I'm leaving," he said.

"I'm sorry, but I cannot allow you to leave. It is too dangerous -"

"What makes you think you have a say in the matter?"

"Because I am your current Wizarding guardian, replacing Sirius Black after his death. I know this period of time has been rough on you, and I believe you are acting rashly. Therefore I am forbidding you to leave this castle." Contrary to Dumbledore's expectations, Harry did not turn, apologize and meekly return to his dormitory. He turned and laughed in the old man's face.

"Yes, you seem to be doing a lot of replacing for Sirius lately. His will for instance. I believe Grimmauld Place at the very least was to be mine, yet I found Kreacher in the kitchens. How intriguing, since I did not order Kreacher here, wouldn't you say, Professor?" Internally, the Professor's mind was in chaos, but he retained an outward look of calm.

"I was keeping it for you, for your 17th birthday," the old man lied. Harry shrugged.

"In any case, it matters not. Kreacher!" The demented house-elf appeared before them, to Dumbledore's shock and dismay. "As the true owner and head of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black, I order you to return to the manor, I order you not to let anyone inside besides myself, and I order you to remove all the unwanted guests, whoever they may be. Now go!" Kreacher, muttering about Mudbloods and blood traitors, reluctantly complied with his demands, and satisfied, Harry turned on his heel and walked from the castle. Dumbledore ran after him.

"You cannot leave! I demand you stay where you are!" But Harry did not stop, and continued on the path towards the front gates.

"You demand, do you? I demand you stay out of my affairs."

In a last act of desperation, Dumbledore shouted "As the rightful Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, I command the school to close the front gates!" With a creak, the golden gates slammed shut, but Harry did not stop moving. Dumbledore ran to catch up to him, Harry reached the gates, and with vampiric grace, Harry leaped up and landed on top of the gates, a good ten feet from the ground. Dumbledore stopped moving in alarm, eyes wide. Harry turned and glared at him.

"There is nothing you can do to stop me from leaving."

"You are walking a Dark and dangerous path," Dumbledore warned. "The same path that Tom Riddle walked. You must not leave the castle walls, for your own safety." Harry merely snorted.

"My own safety. You really must care about my own safety. Every action of yours has contributed to my safety. It amazes me that I am not safely dead yet. And it's funny how you compare me to Tom Riddle... you have played an integral part of turning us into who we are. Goodbye."

"You must stay here!" Dumbledore repeated in desperation. Harry gave the old man a two finger salute, and jumped high in the air once more. At the peak of his jump, Harry Disapparated without the slightest of noises, leaving behind an angry, confused, and awed Headmaster.