Disclaimer: Even more profitless fanwork than usual.
Happy Year of the Snake!
How James Potter Decided Not To Save The World Enough
by nightfall (yes yes I admit it OK it was me)
The place: a ramshackle shack, choked with dust and dried blood. The night: full.
The boy: frothing out of his mind with terror and rage. When the wolf leapt for him, he slashed at it with his wand, sectumsempras and heavy ropes springing out from it. The ropes saved his humanity, and possibly his life, and the curses would give the school nurse a lot of trouble later, but the wolf pawed at his snout and lunged again.
Rinse, repeat. Repeat. Repeat, and the boy with mad, irisless eyes was sweating through his robes with primal, animal terror, and wouldn't run, didn't dare to show his back, and he was tiring.
A young stag bounded between them, menaced them both with his prongs. The boy stared, the wolf paused. The stag had only a small rack so far, no real trouble to a wolf, but the smell was fearless, was friend, and the wolf hesitated. The stag lowered his head and crowded the boy out of the spiderclogged room. He had to push him.
As soon as the door was behind them, the stag shimmered, took on two feet again, slammed himself against the door to bolt it. Smelling only human again, the wolf started slamming himself against the door, too, howling hunger.
"You!" the boy spat, and flung himself at his rescuer, hands clawed.
"Are you mad?" the other one shouted. "That door won't hold long!" But the boy was beyond reason, and, resuming hooves, the stag ran him out of the shack and into the dark forest. The howling followed them, desolate and thwarted.
Butting the boy against a broad tree, the stag took his feet again. "I saved your life," he declared, "you can't ever, ever tell—"
But the boy was already fighting him again, fists and teeth and knees.
The boy was wiry but weedy, sapped with fear, and the other was larger, stronger from trick flying, but he was alone, and unused to fighting alone. It took him what felt like a long, long time to pin the boy to the ground, pin him long enough to pull out a wand and glue him to the ground, body and hands.
Damp and panting, he took his first unhurried breath in what seemed like forever, looked down at the boy he was sitting on. The boy was sobbing with fury, wet and stinking with the sweat of dread and despair, fighting the magic with every tendon.
The stag scratched his human head. "I'm not going to hurt you," he tried, with very little effect. The boy was lost in nightmare, so he tried what he would with his friends when more literal nightmares claimed them. He lay down over the boy, letting his weight drive him down, and just lay there being heavy until they boy quieted. "I swear on my wand you're safe tonight," he said.
Silence. Heartbeat. The rustle of leaves in the wind. Owls in the distance, greeting each other as they came home to their stony nest with packages and letters.
"Do you know where you are?" the stag asked.
Silence. Stony.
"Do you feel the ground under you?"
Silence again, but this time, a listening one.
"Put your fingers in the ground," the stag directed. "Do you feel the earth? The grass? Feel the magic in them coming to meet you?"
Beneath him, the boy's fingers flexed, drove in. He sighed, raising the stag and then melting beneath him, into the earth.
"Do you know where you are?"
Another long silence, and then a whispered, "Britain."
"Can you be a little more specific?" the stag asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Britain north homeI'mhome," the whisper came.
"Uh… okay… can you tell me your name?" he asked dubiously.
"Britain I'm home," the boy whispered into the ground. Then he turned over, the spells binding him melting away, and looked up at the other with whiteless eyes. "Th'art late, horned man," he comments, his voice deep and mild and unhurried.
"Look," the stag tries again, "I saved your life, you owe me. You can't ever tell anyone—"
"The land languishes," the boy tells him, less interrupting than as though the other hadn't spoken. His arms spread along the ground, and heather springs up all around them, growing from nothing to corn-height in instants, drying on the stalk and filling the air with spice, chasing away the last trace of the boy's fear. "The hunt is thine. Wilt consecrate the land?"
"Uh." The stag looked around, looked down, sprang up and back as long legs relaxed open beneath him in the leaf-dappled moonlight. "Uh, what?" he demanded. "Okay, this is not funny."
"She languishes," the boy said, propping himself up on scrawny elbows to stare at the stag in proud disbelief. More heather shoots up where his head and back rise from the ground. It too, dries at the height of its growth. The boy waved a hand up at it, and says in a you-see? tone, "She is withered and corrupt. Wilt not bless thy land?"
The other stared down at his chosen enemy, his rescuee, the thorn in his pride, the fly in the ointment of his courtship, and said, "I, uh, I think I, er, you stay there, I'm going to get a teacher," and fled.
James watched Snape warily for weeks, and not just because he was afraid of what the slimy bastard might tell people about Remus. There was only the usual sort of hatred in the black eyes, though, burning more strongly than ever but without any strangeness. Eventually, he decided it must have been a dream.
When they went back to the Shack to look for Snape's snake-mangled body, he was gone. One more mystery from a man who never gave away more than he could help. They looked for a while, and in the end, did what they could for his memory.
Earlier, in a cave by a stone basin, surrounded by water scoured of Inferii, the phoenix tilted his head and curiously watched the man he'd meant to cry for. It wasn't necessary. Far away, two wands fought, and a creature who had once been human felled himself, withered to dust (brings your roses up a treat).
As the wind took his remains, far away in the sacred cavern a gush of poison blurted from a ravaged throat, pooled on the floor and was washed away. Flesh knitted, and its sallow tones cleared. Teeth straightened and whitened, and black hair didn't clean itself but relaxed to a soft wave. The enormous nose didn't shrink, but the scars of breakages faded away, leaving a more Roman and less crooked beak.
Ffawkes trilled curiously.
The man's mouth fell open, but didn't move again, and the voice that came from it, deep but lilting, genderless, seemed to come also from the walls of the cavern.
It said, "The Land And Its Prince Are One."
The phoenix gave a shrug-like cheep, and settled down in the empty grail to wait for the land to wake.
IDEK OK I'M SORRY no that's a lie I regret nothing. :D
(...shame...)