Vernon and James

That's absolutely true. After all, Veratia and Cassandra always keep things out in the open. Although they only exchange a few words, they never say anything hurtful.

Even someone as sharp-tongued as Cassandra only described Veratia as a "womanizer" and a "shameless woman."

If someone else said that, it would definitely be an insult—but for Veratia, it really is... well...

It's a cat that steals fish.

Veratia herself admits this.

"Don't talk nonsense. What do you mean you're not as good as me and Cassandra?" Veratia said with a smile. "Cassandra and I are best friends, we have a very good relationship."

"Really?" Harry, looking at him with a Lu Yu expression. "I don't believe it."

"Of course it's true." Veratia ruffled Harry's hair. "Have you ever heard the saying? The bond between best friends is like a plastic flower; it may be fake, but it never fades."

"Oh, that's a great relationship." Harry's eyes immediately lit up.

"You still don't believe me?" Veratia snorted.

"I believe you, I believe you, I believe you," Harry said helplessly, raising his hands in surrender.

Watching Lily board the train, Veratia asked again, "Now you know why those two sisters don't get along, right?"

"It seems... well, I don't think they're really at odds yet," Harry said with a shrug. "Let's see what happens after Mom gets on the train. I'm curious to know how she met my dad."

The two of them followed Lily into the Hogwarts Express.

Lily boarded the bus alone first. She was feeling a little down and randomly chose an empty compartment to go inside.

Sitting on the train, Petunia saw her parents waving at her through the window, but she had no idea where they were.

A short while later, the train started moving.

A disheveled boy walked through the cubicle, but after noticing Lily, he walked back backwards like Tom from Tom and Jerry.

"Is anyone here?" he asked.

Lily didn't want to talk, she just shook her head.

A boy with disheveled hair sat down.

Harry recognized his father, James Potter, at a glance. He was thin like Snape, with black, messy hair, but it was clear that he had been well cared for and even pampered since childhood, something Snape clearly lacked.

"Oh, isn't this your dad?" Veratia said, suppressing a laugh. "Looks like he took a liking to Lily the moment he saw her."

Sure enough, ever since James sat down, he started to chat with Lily, intentionally or unintentionally. The awkward conversation was so bad that even Harry, a blockhead, found it hard to listen to.

No, Dad, are you trying to be awkward with this conversation?

A short while later, another young boy walked in from outside, and Harry immediately recognized him as Young Sirius.

"Is anyone here?" he asked.

"Nobody here, buddy." James rubbed his hair and grinned at Sirius, "Come on, sit down."

Within a few minutes, two more little boys walked in: one with tattered clothes, and the other chubby and a bit soft.

It's Lupin as a child, and Peter Pettigrew.

This was the prototype of the Marauders, and Snape's lifelong enemy.

The boys gathered together and quickly found common ground. They sat in the private room making a ruckus. Lily felt that human joys and sorrows were not shared, and she just thought these people were incredibly noisy.

After quite some time, the door to the private room was finally opened again.

It was Snape; he had finally found Lily.

"Lily," he said.

Lily glanced at him, then turned back to look out the window.

She had been crying the whole time.

"I don't want to talk to you," she said, her voice choked with emotion.

"Why?"

"Petunia hates me—because we read Dumbledore's letter."

"So what?"

She gave him a disgusted look.

"She's my older sister!"

"She's just a—" He quickly shut his mouth.

Lily was too busy secretly wiping away her tears to hear what he said.

"But we've set off!" he said, his voice brimming with uncontainable joy. "That's right! We're off to Hogwarts!"

Lily nodded, wiped her eyes, and couldn't help but smile.

"You'd better go to Slytherin," Snape said, feeling encouraged to see Lily happier.

"Slytherin?"

Upon hearing this word, James, who was sitting in the box, finally turned around.

"Who wants to go to Slytherin? I don't want to stay there. What about you?" James asked Sirius, who was sitting leisurely in the opposite seat.

However, Sirius did not laugh.

Yes, why aren't you smiling? Are you just naturally not fond of smiling?

"My whole family is Slytherin," he said expressionlessly.

"My God," James said, "I thought you were pretty great!"

Sirius grinned.

"Maybe I'll break with tradition. If you had to choose, where would you want to go?"

James raised an invisible sword.

"' Gryffindor, where courage lies buried deep within!' Just like my father."

Snape gave a dismissive snort, and James turned to look at him.

"What, you have a problem with that?"

"No," Snape said, but his arrogant chuckle betrayed the opposite meaning, "if you'd rather have muscles than brains—"

"So where do you want to go? Looks like you're not good at either," Sirius suddenly interjected.

James burst into loud laughter, a laugh so malicious that even a fool could hear the sarcasm in it.

The other boys in the box also laughed, especially Peter, who laughed softly.

Lily straightened up, her face flushed, and looked at James with disgust, then at Sirius.

"Let's go, Severus, let's find another private room."

"Oh oh oh oh..."

James and Sirius imitated Lily's haughty voice, and James even tripped Snape as Snape walked by.

"See you later, Snivellus!" a voice shouted, and the door to the private room slammed shut...

"It seems your father..." Veratia opened her mouth, searching for an adjective in her mind for a long time before saying, "... has a real talent for giving people nicknames."

"I'm not as good as him in that respect," Harry said with a shrug. "I've only ever had two nicknames: Draco's ' Drama-K ' and Gellert's ' Niffler-Gellert '."

"Otherwise, how could you have become his son?" Veratia shook her head and sighed. "I can imagine that if you had grown up in your father's family, you would probably have been even more annoying than him."

"Hey!" Harry protested, "That's my dad!"

"Yes, he's also my legal father." Veratia rolled her eyes.

Harry changed the subject, saying, "I think I know now. It should be from this moment that my father has been watching Snape... The memory should end here, right?" He asked, looking at the now completely black screen.

"There's another part," Veratia said.

As soon as she finished speaking, the image turned into a vortex.

They then discovered that they were in Evans family.

Petunia, now an adult, sat in the restaurant, next to a burly man.

It was Uncle Vernon, Harry recognized him—after all, that iconic big face was so easy to spot.

"Your sister?" Vernon asked Aunt Petunia, "When are they arriving?"

"It'll be soon, Vernon," Aunt Petunia said with a forced smile, but as she spoke, her hand holding the watch kept rising, and her eyes kept glancing at it.

Harry whispered to Veratia, "This... should be after they graduate, right? Let me think... Uncle Vernon will still be very thin then, so Dudley and I shouldn't be here yet?"

"It must have been before their wedding," Veratia replied softly. "I heard about this from Lily. She regrets it a lot, regrets not being able to mend the relationship between the sisters."

Harry nodded as if he understood.

A short while later, Lily and James appeared at the Evans family's door.

"Darling," James said somewhat reluctantly, "Why did we come here? I mean... well, we're wizards, we can't possibly have to maintain relationships with Muggle, can we?"

"James! That's my sister and future brother-in-law, after all!" Lily glared at James. "Even though our relationship was terrible before, I still want to mend it—we may be wizards, but we're still human... When you go in later, try to speak as little as possible! Do you hear me?!"

James agreed, but his attitude was somewhat perfunctory.

Harry noticed that James was dressed very casually—compared to his Uncle Vernon, who was always impeccably dressed, James looked like a singer from a rock band.

They went inside and came to Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon.

After introducing themselves, they sat down on either side.

Harry could clearly see the sense of superiority that his Uncle Vernon looked at James, and he could also see the indifference in James's eyes.

However, James's nonchalant attitude was noticed by his Uncle Vernon.

"So, you're Lily's sister's boyfriend?" Uncle Vernon said. "Petunia told me she has a sister, well... a rather strange one. I know it's hard to accept, but I Petunia... How did you get here? What kind of car did you drive?"

James smiled.

"We don't drive, Dursley." James said somewhat casually. "I'm riding the latest Nimbus broom —I suppose you don't know what one is, but that's alright, Muggle can't understand Quidditch Match anyway—"

"Quidditch..." Uncle Vernon grinned, "From what you're saying, you guys play that kind of thing on broomsticks?"

"Yes." James became interested at the mention of Quidditch and began to proudly introduce the Quidditch Vernon.

However, Vernon was not concerned about this; instead, he became interested in the lives of the wizards.

"So what do you usually do for a living? Is it related to Quidditch?" he asked.

"No," James replied.

"I suppose you wizards can't find any decent jobs, can you?" Uncle Vernon began to guess loudly. "I bet you all have to live on unemployment benefits, right? There must be no respectable jobs, otherwise you wouldn't be acting so... dissolute."

"Vernon," Petunia whispered, nudging her Uncle Vernon.

However, Vernon showed no sign of stopping; he was somewhat infuriated by James's arrogant attitude.

He's a man, after all.

"Ha ha."

To Vernon's surprise, James not only wasn't angry, but he actually laughed.

"It seems you don't know the Potter family's strength, Vernon," James said with a chuckle. "But that's understandable, after all, you're a Muggle and don't know the Potter Family's standing in the Magical World —you know what? Magical world's shampoo and other best-selling products like Skele-Gro were developed by the Potter Family. My parents left me an inexhaustible supply of Galleon in Gringotts — Galleon are gold coins, Winky gold, pure gold."

Finally, James added one more sentence.

"Sorry, I forgot you're a Muggle," he said with a hint of mockery. "Muggle don't know what Gringotts is, and of course they can't understand what Galleon are."

Vernon's pink face instantly turned purplish-red. He trembled for a long time before standing up angrily.

At the same time, Petunia stood up with Vernon.

"Looks like you're not here to mend things with me, Lily," Petunia said sarcastically. "You're here to show off to your boyfriend, aren't you? To find superiority over us ordinary folks—look, we're wizards, how amazing we are, you common folk wouldn't understand... But let me tell you, Lily, you're a freak, a complete and utter freak!"

After saying that, Petunia grabbed Vernon, and the two of them rushed out of the Kitchen.

Lily sat in the chair, clearly not yet having reacted.

By the time she realized what had happened, it was too late.

Petunia and Vernon had already left, leaving the two of them sitting in the Kitchen, and the dinner ended on a sour note.

"Why..." Lily's tears streamed down her face. "Why did you do this? Oh, James... didn't I tell you to try your best to bear it?"

"I'm sorry, Lily," James said, still somewhat indignant. "Look what your sister's fiancé was doing! If I had held back then, I wouldn't be a man..."

"It's nothing if he says a few words to you, can't you just put up with it?" Lily looked at James sadly. "He only said a few words to you, why do you have to argue with him over such a trivial matter?"

James opened his mouth, then closed it again in dejection.

He has never yielded, not even to Voldemort.

Moreover, he's an arrogant Muggle.

James noticed that the Muggle had started to act subtly superior ever since the two of them came in.

But for Lily's sake, he still lowered his head.

"I promise you, Lily," he said sadly, "This won't happen again. Next time I see Vernon and Petunia, I'll definitely find a way to mend my relationship with them."

(End of this chapter)