Title: Try and Try Again (Or, Time Travel Is Such a Magic Concept)
Summary: The grand moral dilemma of time travel: what would you change? Who would you save and who would you kill? It should have been an easy question, an easy solution, but then again, Lily should have known nothing was ever that easy.
(Lily goes back in time to kill Tom Riddle with no hope for a happy future, but when she overshoots the date, she finds herself falling in love with an America soldier instead.)
Prompt: njchrispatrick's prompt "The 'James' in Harry's name isn't for James Potter. It is for his REAL father, James 'Bucky' Barnes. Lily Potter accidentally got herself flung back in time and... well you can guess what comes next."
Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing, don't you fuckers know that by now? (Sorry, not sorry.) ^_^
Crying would only be counter-productive. It would just get in the way. It was an utterly useless action.
At least, that was what Lily kept telling herself as she entered her workshop and slammed more texts for research down on her table, which was already littered with similar paraphernalia. It most certainly would not make James Potter realize anything – really, what was the point of him knowing that something as silly as a forgotten anniversary, while they were in the middle of a bloody war, had upset her? It was stupid, and crying over it was completely pointless. It would only get in the way of the work that had to be done.
Even if it was their first anniversary. Even if, in all honesty, they both would have welcomed the distraction it would mean.
Bracing her hands on the table top, Lily closed her burning eyes and took several slow, deep breaths in an attempt to calm her mind so she could get to work. This was more important than a forgotten anniversary. Her work could mean the end of the war, if she accomplished it.
Time itself was not something one mucked about with lightly, but they were all more than a little desperate. Dumbledore had agreed that even an option like this should be explored.
Once, when she still attended Muggle schools, she had been party to a debate that she had probably been too young for, and yet it had stuck with her for many years.
What if it was possible to go back in time? What would you do?
She had never gotten to answer that question for herself, because of another child's answer, rattled off with all the seriousness a ten-year-old could muster. It had seemed obvious once that boy had said it, and she had agreed with him, despite how squirmy it had made her stomach feel. If it was possible, then you should do something that counted, right? Something that would make a difference, something that would save people. Even if it meant ending someone else's life.
Since the war began and she had learned of the man behind it all, Lily's mind had gone back time and again to that classroom discussion, and she had wondered. Surely it was possible with magic? To go back in time and kill Tom Riddle before he had the chance to become the Dark Lord – it would save lives. Unlike she had over a child-Hitler, Lily did not flinch from the prospect of killing Voldemort, even if it was before he became Voldemort, even if she would be killing someone who was little more than a child. Because he never really was a child, was he? He had always been a monster, according to Dumbledore, someone she trusted as much as she trusted James. So this was a problem she tackled with determination, not giving up even after months of attempting to figure out how to do it.
She was aware of the consequences of going back in time. With Time-Turners, no wizard had ever been able to change the past to create a new future. To do so had been deemed impossible, but Lily had to try. Impossible just meant it had not been done yet, right?
Even if it destroyed the time stream she currently lived in, even if she could never return to the future for that reason, she had to try. If she could just get the spell right (and ignore the ache of her heart over James Potter and those she would never see again), then she would be able to go back in time, find Tom Riddle, and murder the son of a bitch before he could hurt anyone. So, with her stupid emotions locked firmly away, Lily Evans-Potter cracked open the first of her new research materials and got to work.
Hours later, bleary eyed with exhaustion but too excited to wait, Lily stepped back from the complicated runic circle she had drawn on the floor, looking it over for any mistakes. When she found none, a slow smile lit her face, and the witch laughed aloud before quickly stifling the sound with a hand slapped over her mouth. The rest of the house's occupants had long-since gone to bed, and waking them was not her intention. Only she and Dumbledore knew of her self-assigned mission – the others would try to stop her, deeming the magic too dangerous, the consequences too great.
James would never let her do it, if he knew.
For just a moment, she thought of leaving a note – but it would be as pointless as crying would have been. This future would no longer exist once she went to the past, so there would be no one to leave the note for.
Twisting her wedding ring around her finger, she could only think that it was a good thing that he did not know, before she stepped into the circle, took a deep breath, and cast the spell to take her back in time.
As it turned out, the spell was not quite perfect. It got her close to the date she had intended – June of 1942, before Tom Riddle could create his first Horcrux, before he could kill anyone, but after he had been released from Hogwarts for the year, and therefore would be more accessible. Instead, she had managed to put herself back a little further – October of 1941. It had been distressing at first, to realize this, but what were a few months to wait? A blessing in disguise, time to plan for what she had to do, she told herself.
Except it had slipped her mind (not exactly, but she had not considered it as particularly relevant to her mission, and therefore had not spared much thought for the fact) that in the 1940s, there was a war going on. Where entering the close-knit magical community of Britain without raising suspicion about herself would have been difficult under normal circumstances, trying to do so when every witch and wizard was jumping at shadows, living in fear of the dark wizard Grindelwald? The task was impossible. Hiding in the non-magical world on the other hand…
As soon as she had come to the realization that she would have to make her way through the months as a Muggle would, until she could kill Tom Riddle (at which time, if she was still alive, she would possibly be able to flee to Magical America and start a new life there), Lily was extremely grateful for her heritage. While 1941 was very different from the 1960s, she was more prepared to exist as a Muggle than most of the Order would have been. Still, it was hard. Finding a place to live, getting a job – simple enough tasks in her own time – became something complex when attempted in a city still recovering from the Blitz of six months prior, and still experiencing air strikes on occasion.
By November though, she had found lodging in a boarding house for single women, unmarried or widowed, and was working in a converted factory, manufacturing wingtips for the Submarine Spitfire which were single-seat fighter aircraft popular in the RAF and other Allied forces. It wasn't pleasant work, but Lily could be grateful that her spell had not dropped her back another six months or more – then she would have been dealing with the nightly bombings as well, something she was not sure she could have endured without using magic to protect herself and others. There was too much risk of exposing herself in that scenario.
Knowing that she would never go home, never be with James again... sometimes there was no comfort for that, no matter how safe she thought she was making her friends and family of the future. The other women assumed she was a widow, nearly rightly so – she still wore her wedding ring – so the occasional night where she cried herself to sleep went unquestioned. They were a tight group, those women, and perhaps the only reason she made it through those first few months, Christmas and New Year's, without succumbing to despair.
When the Americans arrived in late January, 1942, Lily could almost bring herself to be as excited as her housemates, who thought the prospect of having men around (young, healthy, strong men) was something to be celebrated. She agreed whole-heartedly that the soldiers were a welcome addition to the war effort, but her heart still ached at the thought of the husband she had left behind. While her new friends flirted for fun and for love, Lily thought it best to keep her distance – she could try to make a new life after she killed Voldemort, if she succeeded.
At least, she had thought that she would not be like them. Falling for the first young man to smile at her and call her pretty, after months of almost exclusively feminine interaction. She was, at least, somewhat right on that count. The man she fell for was not the first to try to coax a date from her, despite the wedding band she never took off – actually, he was probably the first that did not try to ask her out right off the bat.
Maybe that was why she liked him so much. Though in the end, she thought it was more because James Buchanan Barnes – Bucky as she would come to know him – reminded her, in myriad odd ways, of her James. He was full of life, quick to laugh and joke, just as quick to fight if the cause was right. If he had been a wizard born in England, Lily had no doubt he would have been a Gryffindor. There were differences, of course – beyond the physical, though they were both dark haired and tall – but still, she saw so much of one in the other.
When he had introduced himself to her in the later days of March, Lily had no inkling of how much he would come to mean to her, even if she did understand pretty quickly that he was not like the other Americans who had tried to get her attention.
It was her day off from the factory, and she stood outside the house, bundled against the chill London air, waiting for the others to get home. She was thinking about James, Sirius, Remus and Peter, her parents and sister, the Order and everyone she had left behind, even Severus, her insides feeling bruised from the emotional beating such thoughts brought her, when his voice startled her out of them.
"Why the long face, Red?" His tone was jovial, teasing and light, but there was an undercurrent to it, and when she looked into his eyes, there was kindness and understanding already there. As if he knew exactly why, and was already comforting her. "Did someone tell you blue wasn't your color? I can go give him a whack if you want."
"Pardon?" she managed, confused – she was not wearing even a stitch of blue.
He had frowned almost seriously, but Lily had been around her boys too often when they were joking to be fooled by it, with his arms crossed and one finger tapping against his lips as if contemplating her. "Though he might be on to something," he said as if she had not spoken, his eyes skimming her in a way that surprisingly did not leave her indifferent or irritated, as the looks of most American soldiers did – it was a little too considering to be thought of as flirty, and was therefore almost funny instead, as it was meant to be. "You look like the type who'd look best in something sunny."
Lily grew more confused with every word out of his mouth, understanding only beginning to dawn when he snapped his fingers and looked at her with an expression of someone who had just hit on the thought they had been looking for. "I know! You would look best in…"
He leaned a little closer, his grin conspiratorial, and the redheaded witch found herself leaning closer to hear him better as he lowered his voice. "A smile." He snapped back upright, grinning as if he had just provided her with the formula for the Elixir of Life, and Lily, finally catching up on the joke, straightened as well, a startled laugh escaping her.
"I knew it!" he crowed, apparently delighted. "A smile is exactly the look for you, Red." The American continued grinning, and Lily found herself smiling as well, even as she rolled her eyes. "You were great in blue, but boy, do you stun with a smile." He winked, somehow the cheesy words and actions drawing another laugh from her, before he doffed his hat, bowing a little, and introduced himself with all the ease of someone who was used to people liking him, not because he was good at making them, but because he was genuinely likeable.
"Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, ma'am. Most people call me Bucky though." Maybe it was the surprise, but Lily did not even think of the name at the time – just one more thing he had in common with James Potter, she would realize later.
"Lily," she returned, her hand half out to shake before she thought about taking off her mittens, and by then he had already taken it, giving her hand a quick but firm shake instead of trying to kiss her knuckles, an action that endeared him to her far more than she would have thought possible. "Lily Potter."
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Lily – if I may call you Lily?" His unabashed smile said he would, unless she made an issue of it, and the smile that had not faded from her face quirked up a little higher for it. "I'll take that as a yes." And she laughed again, somehow that small interaction setting the tone for the friendship that would develop between them.
After keeping her smiling and laughing for almost five minutes, all with barely a word from her, Bucky had departed with directions for the eatery he had been on his way to, just as her housemates were coming up on the pair. He was full of natural charm as he left, somehow making the quizzical women smile, and his step jauntily declared his high spirits. Lily suffered through an interrogation on the young man good-naturedly that night, and, for the first time since she had arrived in the past, had fallen asleep with a smile on her face.
Their second encounter was almost as coincidental, and while she still wound up laughing a great deal, Lily learned a lot about Sgt. Bucky Barnes, telling him almost as much about herself in the process. From there, the two fell into a comfortable friendship – Bucky was easier to talk to than Severus ever had been, as good a listener as Remus was when he was not wallowing in self-pity. Where the days had dragged by with the dullness and pain of the life she had left behind, they sped by with Bucky.
He managed to make war-torn Muggle London into a magical place, showing her things she had never known were there, things she had never thought of looking for. It was miraculous, almost, the way Bucky made her life so much better just by being part of it. Lily had thought it would take her years to overcome the grief of losing James and everyone else to this mission, sometimes thinking it would be better to die as well when she killed Tom Riddle, if only so she would not have to live with it all. But in just a few short weeks, the American had made her think that maybe life would be worth living again.
It was easy to see how she had fallen for him, in hindsight – he was everything she had needed in that lonely existence (because despite the companionship of the other women, she had felt so very alone). The when of it was harder to pinpoint – it could have been the moment he coaxed the story of her wedding band from her, his eyes so steady and full of comfort when she could not stop the tears; or it could have been the time he took her up inside of Big Ben, to look out on the city blanketed by moonlight, or any of a hundred other moments where he made her feel like he understood her so well, like he knew her very soul.
She knew the moment she realized it though; she would always remember that with perfect clarity. Because that had been the first time he kissed her, the first time he had told her outright that he thought she was beautiful – the first time he told her he had been in love with her since the moment he saw her smile. Lily had known she loved him then – had kissed him back and told him so. That moment was like magic in her memory – bright and marvelous, untouchable.
When she was curled up in her bed that night, she realized that she could make a life for herself in this time, once her mission was complete. She could have love again – she could marry Bucky and live happily with him. She had only had James for a year, but Bucky she would spend a lifetime with. Something, intuition perhaps, told her that he would accept that she was a witch, accept any magical children they had. He rolled with the punches, as they liked to say, she had thought with a smile.
Her happiness lasted another two weeks, before reality intruded and her dream of a 'happily ever after' cracked to reveal the flaws, flaws she cursed herself for not seeing sooner. Bucky had been reassigned and would be heading for the front lines rather than cooling his heels in London, a prospect that had her on edge with fear. It was only 1942 – this bloody war would not be over for another three years, Lily remembered. Three years in which anything could happen to the man she had come to love. She knew only the general summary of the war, not the fate of the individuals who fought, and there was no way she could stop him from going, not if she still wanted to complete her mission.
So she did the only thing she could do – she cast as many spells as she could possibly think of in an attempt to protect him. Charms cast directly on him, runes traced magically on his skin while he slept beside her, enchantments placed on his watch, his dog tags, his clothes. There were times he would catch her at it, but one look at her eyes told him better than to question her strange actions – instead, he would draw her into his arms and hold her, probably imagining what she did was based in superstition.
Bucky did not try to lie to her in the last week they had together, did not try to reassure her that nothing would happen to him – he knew better than to try to give her hope that could so very easily be proved false. He gave her what comfort he could, and on the day he left London, he gave her a ring as a promise – if he came back and if she would have him, he would marry her.
With tears in her eyes – stupid things, such stupid things tears, blurring her vision and making her look and feel so weak – she had pulled off her own wedding band, the one that signified a bond that would never exist now, and cast one last enchantment on it before sliding it onto his pinkie finger. Her voice would not allow her to speak the words, but her own promise was in her eyes – as long as it took, she would wait for him.
One of her housemates gave him a picture of Lily, which he tucked into his pocket, right over his heart. She only wished she could have made it one of the magical pictures of the Wizarding World – so he could see the way her eyes lit up every time he looked at her, so he would really have a piece of her to carry with him, so some part of her could do silly things like blow kisses to him every time he looked at it.
She refused to cry that night, or any night after – Bucky would return to her, and she would get her happily ever after. And while he fought for the freedom of the Muggle world, she would carry out her mission, and kill Lord Voldemort before he ever had the chance to become the most powerful Dark Wizard of all time.
June came, and while Lily would have liked to have been at King's Cross Station as Hogwarts' students departed, she had to work the factory. Certainly, she could have skipped it, but with her new hope lifting her heart, she thought it best to continue her existence as normally as possible. She needed to be able to return to her life when she succeeded, and missing days of work would not help with that.
So instead she waited for her day off, made sure her chores were done quickly, and departed the house with the intention of being back before lights out. She could even walk to the orphanage Riddle would be at, instead of apparating, thanks to the fact that the children had not been moved outside of the city (a fact of horrible negligence, in her opinion, but at least it made her job easier). It would not take long, her task – being an assassin did not sit well with Lily, but it had to be done. Tom Riddle could not be allowed to live.
Once she reached the building, a simple Disillusionment spell allowed her to sneak inside. Thanks to the months she had had to prepare, she already knew which room was Riddle's, and thanks to the ban on underage magic, there were no wards to bypass – really, it would be too easy.
He was not in his room at the time she entered, but her spell would last long enough that she could wait. Some delay was inevitable she thought. It changed nothing (even if it gave her time to think, too much time to think, and concentrating on thoughts of a happy future with Bucky in America was impossible when surrounded by the dreary atmosphere of that place), so she simply settled in to wait, standing in the corner, facing the door, waiting for Riddle.
Less than an hour later, the door opened and there he was. Lily could not say she was not expecting what he looked like, because she was, she had known thanks to a memory Dumbledore had given her, and yet… Looking at him with her own eyes was different from observing him in another's memory. A fifteen year old boy, with all the makings of a handsome man, just a few years younger than herself. For that moment, she wondered, she hesitated, her soft heart cried out against the murder she planned to commit.
As soon as the door clicked closed behind him though, her hesitation vanished, her mouth opened, the words forming on her tongue…
His eyes flicked to the corner where she stood, she would have sworn he saw her – but that was impossible, her spell work had always been perfect, he could not see her – and her will faltered with surprise for a moment, just another moment…
Then everything exploded in a whirl of color and sound, sensation and impression, and then there was nothing.
"Lily? Lily! Please wake up, Lil', please wake up."
James? Was that James's voice? But – no, that was not possible. She had gone back… she had been about to…
Lily shot upright, eyes wide open and darting around, the sight meeting them not making any sense. Her workshop, not as she had left it, and… James, Sirius, and Remus clustered close around her, Peter in the background watching nervously as he always did. It was just an impression, before James clutched her close with a cry of relief, her view blocked by his shoulder and neck.
She could not respond immediately, her shock was too great, but as soon as some semblance of thought formed, James pulled away and kissed her, the thought disintegrating into a confusion of happiness, guilt, anger, and too much surprise. After a moment, she managed to pull back, staring at James, her eyes full of questions, before they flicked again to the other men in the room.
"What–" she paused, her mouth and throat too dry, and swallowed hard before trying again. "What happened?"
Sirius and Remus looked at each other, then back at Peter, but James did not take his eyes off of her, and the sheen of tears was easy to see in them. "We thought we lost you." His voice was just shy of being a broken thing, something that hurt Lily to her core, despite the months that had passed since she last saw him. "When I came in and saw… and after we figured out what had happened…" The expression on his face was raw enough that she nearly flinched from it. "Lily, why would you even try something like that?!"
For a moment, all she could do was stare at him, her mouth opening and closing on explanations uselessly. Her mind was in worse disarray than her workshop was, and that was saying something. Only one thought was clear: she had failed. She had successfully gone back in time, spent months there in fact, and still, she had failed. She did not kill Voldemort. Everything she had been through, all the decisions she had made, everything she had done… all for nothing.
And Bucky… what about Bucky?
To the great surprise of herself and everyone in the room, rather than answering her husband, Lily broke down in tears – which, converse to all her previous thoughts, were quite useful in this situation. At least, it served to make the men scramble, at once giving her space and coddling her for the next several hours, asking no more questions.
She found out later what had happened – how James, after waking to find her gone and the remnants of a spell chalked onto her floor and texts theorizing time travel spells scattered around the room, had contacted his friends, the four of them immediately bending their minds to the task of getting her back – after putting together what they thought had happened. They had used her calculations, intending to pull her back from the same moment she had sent herself to, but they had managed to get the date right, unlike she had – impossible, right? But together they had been able to make that rather incredible map of theirs, so perhaps great feats of magic from them together were not so surprisings.
Why she had done it was obvious when they thought about it, but the wizard-born-and-raised quartet did not know how she had thought of doing it. Changing the past was impossible, even to them, because it violated magical law. It could not be done.
And yet… and yet, she had almost done it. She had almost killed Tom Riddle.
But what was it Bucky liked to say? 'Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand-grenades.' Almost, in this case, counted for nothing. And they would not let her try again. No, they considered it too dangerous, even Dumbledore – one failed attempt was enough. Before she could even recover, they had destroyed her materials, because they all knew the look in her eyes, having seen it too often in the course of this war – that desperate, terrified look, the kind that meant you would do anything, anything at all, to accomplish your ends.
It was weeks before they got the story out of her, and even then, none of them got the whole story. Only James knew the entirety of it, even about Bucky – she would not keep that from her husband, from one of the two men she loved.
Especially when they found out she was pregnant. The timing, of course, was all wrong for it to be James's – something he did not struggle with, much to her surprise. For Lily, it was at once a devastating realization and a wonderful one. James was once more her present and her future, Bucky now her past – but he would be part of her future too, in this child.
She had found out, she and James, after the revelation of all that had happened, what became of Sgt. James Buchanan Barnes. Even knowing that she could not have been with him, nor gone to see him had he been alive – not with the Statute of Secrecy – Lily cried herself to sleep that night. She had hoped that he would have lived, that he would have been happy. James tried to comfort her, but there was a bitterness there, in knowing she cried over a man who she had meant to replace him with, and eventually he had gone to sleep on the couch.
In the morning, she blamed the hormones, blamed being pregnant, and James had accepted that because he loved her, no matter what. Whether she loved someone else too or just him whole-heartedly, he loved her, despite the bitterness.
It helped that Bucky was dead, of course, but neither of them said that.
He was a beautiful little boy. Dark hair, close enough to match James Potter's, and eyes as green as her own – she had almost wished for Bucky's blue-grey, but it was for the best. They had decided to tell no one about this particular consequence of her trip to the past, because it was easier if everyone thought he was James's anyway. If he had the dark and messy hair, if he had his mother's eyes… well, no one would look twice if his other features did not quite match up with her husband's.
When they named him, it was something they had come to a surprisingly easy agreement on. Harry, because they both liked it – and James, because both the men she loved were named James, so the son that one had produced and the other would raise should share the name too. She had not needed to explain to her husband that it was not just naming their baby boy after him – he had understood that by the sadness in her eyes, her hesitation and all the things she left unsaid.
It was about remembering. It was about honoring the other man she had loved. And one day, they would tell their son about his other father – the one she had loved and lost in the grand arena of time.
A/N: I very much like reviews, you know.