A Ring for Christmas

Harry and his group were all sharing a compartment on the train back to London. In a few hours he would be on his way to Tracey's home, where he would be spending his Christmas break. Unfortunately for Rose, she would have to suffer through the presence of their annoying 'step mother' Amy. Of course Amy and mother were two words that him and Rose would never use together.

"So what is everyone going to be doing over the break?" asked Flora.

"I'm not sure." Daphne replied. "However, I am sure it won't be entirely pleasant. Father will likely not be pleased with my friendship and Astoria's relationship with Harry."

"I don't care what father says, he won't change my mind regardless." Astoria said stonily.

"Yes well I am more worried about what comes out of his wand after he says those words." Daphne muttered, but Harry still managed to hear her.

Harry took a moment to think about the problems they were likely to face. His thoughts went to the box of blackmail he had acquired from Filch's office. He remembered seeing a recording of him and another woman who was not his current wife having a good time in very compromising positions. He had a few questions to ask to clarify the time line a bit to figure out if this blackmail would be strong material or not. When he turned back to the conversation, Rose was still commenting on how much 'fun' she was likely to have with Amy hounding her the entire break.

"Hey Daphne." Harry interrupted his sister.

"Yeah?"

"When did your mother and father become betrothed?" he asked.

She took a few moments to try and remember the answer to that. A few seconds later she answered. "Summer before their 6th year. Why?"

'Curious', Harry thought. "If your father becomes too much of a problem, I have some 'material' that may be of interest to you." he said.

"Material?" asked Astoria curiously.

"Yes Tori." he answered. "Lets just say that the Marauder's had more then just a map. I have some..compromising..material against your father from his school days. I won't say now what it is, but I believe I should give your father a Christmas present this year." he said with a grin.

"Too bad Christmas is still a few days off." Daphne said demurely. "I guess we can try to stall him for a few days."

"Perhaps an early present then." Harry decided, not wanting Astoria to get hurt from her father.

After that they fell into companionable silence for the rest of the trip. With just a few minutes before they were due to reach London, Harry pulled Astoria off to the side. "I want you to be careful when you get home." he said taking out a picture from his trunk and sliding it in an envelope, along with a quick note, before giving to her. "Give this to your father when he brings me up in conversation. Tell him it is from me."

"I will, don't worry about me, I have dealt with my fathers temper before and I can handle it." she told him.

"Regardless, I want you to keep your fake galleon on you at all times. If things get to back I want you to promise me you will send me a message and I will be there as quick as I can and take care of it."

She nodded at him. "Ok Harry."

"Promise me, please. It will ease my mind from thinking the worst the entire time."

"If things get too bad, I promise I will let you know." she said as he pulled her close.

"I promise you I will not let your father harm you or your sister. I would hate to have to hurt him, but I would rather it him then you. Okay?" she nodded her head. "Good. Now I won't get to see you for two weeks, so I want a proper goodbye."

Astoria gave him a grin as he lowered his head to give her a quick kiss on her lips before heading back to their compartment a few minutes later to gather her things.

Five minutes later saw Harry and Tracey walking towards her mother and father after saying goodbye to their friends. "It is a pleasure to meet you Mr. Potter. My name is Michael Davis and this is my wife Tiffany." he told the green eyes boy.

"It is a pleasure to meet you both, I have heard much about you from your wonderful daughter." he shook both parents hands, and brushed a small kiss to Tiffany's knuckles.

"It's nice to see our daughter's boyfriend at least has some manners." Tiffany smiled as her and Michael then greeted their daughter.

"We should be off. Have you ever used the floo Mr. Potter." Michael asked him.

"Unfortunately." Harry laughed. "I never can seem to stick the landing."

"Your not the only one Harry." Tiffany chuckled giving her husband a quick glance.

"Yes well," Michael began trying to steer the conversation away from his own troubles with the floo network. "The floo address is Davis Family Home. Once we are there Tracey will show you too the room you will be staying in and take you for a tour."

Later that day, after the tour, Harry, Tracey, and her parents were all sitting in the living room talking, when Michael decided to bring up a few concerns that he had. "Harry, I must say, while I am not totally against you being with my daughter, as I am not much for the quality of ones own blood; I mean my wife is a Muggleborn. However, I do have a few concerns." he stated.

Harry stared at the man, trying to judge the truth in his comments before saying. "Just what might be your concerns Lord Davis." he said purposefully using the mans title.

"Please, just Michael will do. After all, this isn't an inquisition. My main concern is about yours and Tracey's fellow housemates. I know that Slytherin house is more strict then I when it comes to blood purity. I am concerned about any possible retribution against my daughter in the future."

"You do bring a very good point Michael. However, the answers you seek I cannot give you without taking certain protections against my own person. I would love to tell you the reasons as to why your fears are unfounded but I would need a magical oath that you will keep my secrets." Harry said in a no nonsense tone.

Both parents sat quietly, each wondering what the boy could tell them that would require a magical oath. Michael was at first hesitant until his wife gave him the vow. Sighing in defeat he gave his as well. "Very well. I, Michael Andrew Davis, do hereby give a pledge on my magical core to not reveal any secrets one Harry James Potter reveals to me tonight. So mote it be!"

After the expected flash of light letting him know the vow had been accepted Harry began. With two flicks of his wand he had both parents in a full body bind. If you weren't paying close attention you would have missed it. He let them sit for a second to let the message sink in before releasing them from the bind and pocketing his wand. "As you can see Michael, I am not as pathetic as others might have you to believe. Granted my magic was indeed stolen from me and given to my sister. There are other means to gain power in our world."

Tracey moved over to him and set herself in his lap, planting a kiss on his lips while her parents were both watching. She was quite pleased that Harry had managed to leave her father stunned into silence. A feat she had only ever seen once or twice. After a few minutes he finally spoke up. "Incredible!" he said. "As we are under oath, I am curious as to how you managed to gain your magical abilities back."

Harry knew that there was no way either of them could betray his secrets but he still took a moment to decide just how much he wanted to tell them. "While I cannot give away all of my secrets, even if they are safe, I will tell you this much. While the dark lord is gone for now, no he is not dead," Harry lied. He still needed the world to believe Voldemort was alive for when he enacted his next plan. "there are still other pieces of him that were left...shall we say, laying around. Granted he had them hidden very well, he left me...I guess you could call it a road map." he said pointing at his scar. "I was able to use it to perform very small feats of magic. That is until I managed to find bigger pieces of the puzzle and added them to my collection."

"Interesting." was all Michael was able to say, while a thought stuck Harry.

"How would you all like to take a little trip tomorrow and I can show you bit about what I am talking about?" Harry asked. He of course was planning on getting both the ring and the cup over summer break, but if he could get the ring now then all the better.

"A trip? Which one are you planning on getting?" Tracey asked. She was the only one he had told everything too about how he acquired his powers, not even Astoria and Rose knew yet. While the others had a vague idea, she knew which pieces they were and where they were located.

"Planning on getting?" asked Tiffany. "Getting what?"

"I am curious of that myself Harry." Michael added.

"Why I plan on getting another 25% of Voldemort's power of course." Harry said like any child should have known the answer. "And once I have it, my magic will be on par with even Dumbledore himself." Harry couldn't help but let a true smile grace his face at the thought of finally being able to match the old fool in power, even if not in experience just yet. "Just imaging how powerful Voldemort was before his downfall and then think about how I will have 89% of his power by tomorrow's end!"

While slightly intimidated at the thought that what he was saying was possible. Michael also was curious about what he was talking about. The fact that he was the one who would be protecting his little girl at school was the deciding factor. "We don't have anything pressing to take care of tomorrow. Just exactly where do we need to be going?" he asked.

"I am glad you asked. We shall be going to the home of Voldemort's mother, uncle, and grandfather in Little Hangleton."

After breakfast the next morning Harry, while still under the protection of the wards, created the four of them a portkey to just outside the wards of the old Gaunt shack. They all took hold of the short length of rope, and one game of playing 'fishing bait' later, the four landed a few dozen yards from an old and very dilapidated shack.

"I welcome you to the Gaunt Shack, last descendants of Salazar Slytherin himself." Harry said almost as if pretending to be a tour guide.

"Sure is pretty run down to be of the Slytherin line." Tiffany said looking at the place with disgust.

"No kidding." Michael added with a snear. "Pretty hard to believe, considering most of the rich purebloods come from his house, that the Slytherin House had fallen in worse poverty then the Weasley's."

Tracey couldn't help let a snort escape her mouth, while Harry grinned. "Money isn't the only thing the Weasley's are lacking. You can add proper upbringing and class to the list." she laughed.

"While I would normally love to trash talk the Weasley's, we really should get to work as it would be unwise for certain people with long white beards to find out we were here." Harry said, wanting to get this over with and get his hands on the second largest chunk of Voldemort's soul.

"I suppose you are right." Michael said. "Although you will have to walk us through this as we are totally in the dark.

"Very well." Harry replied. "As we are still outside the wards you will have to take the harmful ones down, while I give you the instructions on how to do it. We will leave the non-harmful ones up, that way once we get inside the shack I can take over from there. Mainly because the ring itself has a pretty nasty curse and a compulsion charm to wear it on it. I will personally be handling that one as I wouldn't want to have Tracey pissed at me because you died."

"Sounds like a good plan to me. I am sorry but I forgot to schedule death into my calender for today." he laughed trying to make light of, what to him, was an unknown and certainly a bit of a disconcerting situation.

It took almost a half an hour for Harry to talk Michael through the process of taking down the most dangerous wards surrounding the property. Once they had gotten inside the shack itself, where the wards stopped the monitoring of his wand, it took Harry another fifteen to remove the ones guarding the ring. Once he finally had the last ward down, which took a parselmouth to do it, he slowly levitated the box from the hole in the floor and over to a small and rickety table.

Opening the box he spoke. "This ring is one of two family heirlooms that the Gaunt family had left by the time Voldemort was born. This ring however does not bear the crest of Slytherin as it was passed down through an as of yet unknown, at least to me, family that had been integrated into the Gaunt line. The other is Salazar Slytherin's locket. It is also the only piece left of Voldemort that I do not know it's current location of. I trust you both understand that what you see today stays between us, correct?" the two parents nodded their assent.

The three kept quiet through his little history lesson because as soon as he had finished telling it, he started to mutter something under his breath while pointing his wand at the ring. A few seconds passed and a small brown light gently erupted from the ring as Harry nullified the compulsion charm from the ring. After another three minutes a pitch black light burst forth from the ring signaling that he had managed to successfully remove the curse from the ring as well.

Slowly Harry took the ring out of the box and held it in his palm examining it. He turned the ring over in his hand casually a few times while reminiscing on the history of it. He had to admit that since he had started to acquire Voldemort's Horcruxes he had become more interested in history, and it was a shame that they had a worthless ghost to teach the class. As he was wondering about who could have been the original owner of such an ancient artifact, he jumped and almost screamed when a ghostly figure appeared on the third time he had turned the ring over.

"I see you like many before you have discovered the Resurrection Stone." the strange ghost-like man said.

"Who are you and how did you get here? And what do you mean Resurrection Stone?" asked a confused Harry.

The other three were looking at him confused and a little alarmed. Harry however shushed them when they went to ask him about it. "You have called me, yet you do not know who I am?" the man asked.

"Called you? I was merely examining the ring while thinking about who it could have been to be the original owner of such an old ring." Harry stated.

"It seems you have come across the stone by luck." the man said. "No problems. Anyhow, my name is Cadmus Peverell, I am the original owner of the Resurrection Stone."

"Peverell? That name is familiar." Harry said trying to think of where he had seen the name before. "There is a grave for an Ignotus Peverell in the graveyard where my mother is buried." he finally recalled.

"Yes." Cadmus said with a sad sigh. "He was my younger brother. Him, along with myself and our older brother Antioch were the three most powerful enchanters back in our day. Together we set out to make ourselves masters of death itself, a foolish quest we were on. The items themselves, while powerful, came at a deadly cost. We managed to create three powerful items, each unique in its own abilities. First came the Elder wand. It held magnificent power. The wand was more powerful then any wand that had been in existence.

Of course we didn't stop there. Next we managed to stumble upon the gate to the afterlife and with many years of study managed to transfer some of its power to the Resurrection Stone. The stone was able to call forth people from the afterlife, such as you have done to me. However, we soon learned that it had its limitations and we could not use it to bring people truly from the dead, as I had intended to do with my deceased wife, but you could communicate with them."

All through his speech Harry kept quiet, knowing he was gaining knowledge that perhaps few in the world even knew a piece of. "Last came the Invisibility cloak." he continued. "While they had been in existence long before the creation of ours, they all would fade and become useless after around a decade. Ours however, would never fade and would last forever."

The talk about the original cloaks only lasting around ten years sparked a thought in Harry's mind. "My sister has an invisibility cloak. You say normal ones only last ten years but this one was passed to her from my father, who had received it from his father many years before that."

"Hmm." Cadmus appeared to be in deep thought. "Perhaps you should check the collar for the same mark that lies engraved in the stone. We marked all three items with the mark of the Deathly Hallows. If it indeed has the mark then you may have access to two of our three treasures. I would like to return now however, if it is okay with you? It is rather unpleasant to return to this world for longer then a few minutes." he said looking sad, thinking back on his attempts at being with his dead wife when he still owned the stone.

"Yeah, of course." said Harry. "Umm..How exactly do I send you back?"

"You merely remove the stone from your hand." Cadmus said as he started to disappear once Harry had done so, placing it in his pocket.

"Umm..Harry? Just what hell was that exactly? All we saw was you talking to yourself for the last fifteen minutes." Tracey said, looking only slightly worried.

"I will tell you once get home." Harry said. He wanted to leave before they got caught here. He would absorb the soul piece after he had given them the watered down story of what he had just heard. "Michael, Tiffany would you two do the honor of apparating us back to the house?" Harry asked the two still silent adults. The two adults just nodded their heads and grabbed a hold of the kids and were whisked away back to the confines of the Davis home.

Edited: 11/15/2014

Changes: Grammatical errors fixed.