Chapter One: Loss
A/N: And I present to you the first chapter to a fic that I have a feeling is going to become really special to me. It's also my first one, ever. *screeching* This got into my head because I was thinking of making a Marauders Era RP. Since there are already too many, I decided that I would write a fic about a possible version of events that could have happened before wee Harry Potter made his way into the world. I hope that it gets a good response, honestly, because what writer doesn't want that for their work, right? So, obviously, reviews are very much welcomed and will be terribly appreciated. I'm going to try to keep this as accommodating to canon as I can, respectfully. I've got a pretty set idea for what I want from this story and I can tell you now that there aren't going to be many OC's in this and probably a lot of scantily mentioned characters from Harry Potter Wikia. I hope you give it a shot.
Disclaimer: I have not created any of the mentioned characters and they are all brilliance concocted by the wonderful J.K. Rowling, only their portrayal is my doing. I own nothing but the plot and no money is being made from this work. It's all in the name of good fun and feels.
Happy Reading!
Quote for the chapter: "I hate this feeling. Like I'm here, but I'm not. Like someone cares. But they don't. Like I belong somewhere else, anywhere but here, and escape lies just past that snowy window, cool and crisp as the February air." –Ellen Hopkins, Impulse.
J
17th August, 1978, James Potter received the worst news of his life when he'd been least expecting it. The summer before his seventh, and last, year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, after he and Sirius had been huddled in front of the pantry door with the Effy the House Elf. He had been content, craving treacle tart, and completely unsuspecting of the fact that a few minutes later Alastor Moody was give him the news that would change his life.
They were dead. Murdered, gone, cold, in the ground. He didn't cry; not at the funeral, not at the reception when everyone was at the manor giving their condolences, and not even when Marlene dragged him into his closet and tangled her legs and fingers with his. Maybe the worried looks that the boys – except for Sirius, who seemed to understand that he needed space right now – had been shooting him the last 52 hours were justified.
If not the other two places, the last one ought to have done it. After all, James' closet was their safe place. It had been where James had held Marlene close when her mother had died when they had been in second year, where she'd curled around him when Emily Burns had dumped him after he'd caught her cheating, and countless other unfortunate occasions that had just been too vast in number. It was a haven of sorts for them, where they sat without a care for time and in a space where there were no words, where any and all unravelling of whatever needed to be unravelled could be done before facing the rest of the world—just the two of them and a sort of enveloping, warm companionship that was a special brand just for the two of them.
Yet even that hadn't done the trick. The closet hadn't seemed big enough to hold the pieces that would scatter on the ground if James allowed himself to unravel. So, he didn't. He just sat with Marlene and let the sound of their existence fill the darkness, accepting the fact that his parents didn't exist any longer.
It was as if the sadness—the unforgiving, unrelenting grief that was weighing heavy on his chest—was so much, so overwhelming, that he couldn't find any tears within him. It was as if the pain was so excruciating that there were no words for it, no amount of tears that would be able to do it any justice. And slowly, but surely, this sadness consumed James. It threatened to drown him when it had long since pulled him under.
But he didn't cry. He couldn't.
He just sat in his father's study, on the ground and suffocated, curled in on himself, letting the moment Auror Alastor Moody who had been heading the mission his parents had been killed on run through his head. "They went down fighting 'til their last breath," Moody had said, and now his words ran in a loop inside James' head, his solemn-looking face an image stuck. His voice had been sorrowful as he had disclosed the information to James and Sirius, leaving no doubt that it was the truth. They were dead and there was no bringing them back.
The fact that they died doing what they loved to do should have provided some comfort. But it hadn't. Nothing had, not even the liquor cabinet Sirius and he poured down their throats before they even thought to owl Marlene, Remus and Peter. The funeral that was meant to bring some sort of closure – as James had always thought that had been what they were for – didn't do anything of the sort. It felt like one of those things that he was just supposed to do, and another thing that merely solidified the fact that Charles and Dorea Potter were very much dead and six feet under. It didn't make him feel better.
He didn't feel anything but pain and loss of something that couldn't be replaced.
L
Lily had been to one funeral too many. However, that didn't mean that she hadn't been dragged to the Potters' funeral anyway. Her own father's funeral the year before had left Lily with a need to stay from all things concerning death, the memories of how everything seemed to fall apart too much of a burden on her. And still, somehow, Dorcas Meadowes didn't consider that acceptable logic. In her words, "James' parents are not your dad. You can't make this about you, okay? He lost both his parents and I've met Dorea and Charles and they were good people. We're going. You know it's the right thing to do and you'll kick yourself about it later if you don't go and when you realize I'm right. We can even sit in the absolute back the farthest from it all, but we are going. I'm calling Best Mate Code on you, ginger. Pout about it later." And so, resigned, Lily had gone despite her reservations, pout intact.
Best Mate Code was something the girls only called when a situation brooked no argument. And apparently, this was one such situation.
She didn't even like James Potter, but there she was, her eyes glued to the stiff set of his shoulders. Essentially, he was an orphan now, even if the Marauders and McKinnon were family he still had. And so, knowing the pain of losing a parent all too well, Lily let the echoing pang of sympathy she felt for him register and acknowledged it.
She even went up to him to offer her condolences for his loss. It didn't matter that she wasn't particularly fond of him; Lily didn't have to be to know that it sucked when you lost someone you loved as much as a child could love a parent. And where Lily had lost just her father the year before, here James had lost both his parents. She knew how the funeral and everything after it could feel. She couldn't blame him for the robotic way he nodded in acknowledgement. She herself had been in tears just like her mother, wrapped up in her arms and the familiar scent of her skin that had always been the same comforting one forever, falling apart at the seams for god knew how long; definitely not a robotic response. And still, she knew his reaction wasn't out of this world. Rather, she wasn't seeing it for the first time: Petunia had been the same. The same hollow look in her pale blue eyes was the one mirrored in James' hazel ones when they looked at her. He'd never looked like that before, and it made the naturally nurturing part of her – the one Mary and Dorcas teased her about all the time – worry. However, she knew it wasn't her place to say anything so, of course, she didn't. But she still worried, silently so.
When her father, Harry Evans, had passed away – something as clichéd and unquestionable like a heart-attack – he'd left his due scars on the family he'd left behind. It had scarred her mother, and Lily, but most of all, it had left a mark on Petunia, who hadn't been the same since then.
Lily hoped – which was something she hadn't actually ever done where James Potter was concerned unless it was hoping he would stop bugging her – that the mischievous gleam his eyes had always carried, the same one that put her on her guard and left her expecting some sort of trouble, would come back, eventually.
She doubted it would any time soon, despite any hoping on her part.
A/N: Don't forget to leave your opinion and/or some feedback!