Prologue
The city was silent, dark, almost gloomy. The sky had reached its deepest blackness, with black clouds hiding all the stars. Rain was in the air.
The bell of a distant church began to toll, and the two men sitting in the living room of their house, knew at once that it was midnight. They didn't care.
They were drinking, talking about each nonsense that came to their mind, and laughing, in the light and heat of the fireplace. What did it matter if it was late?
At first, however, when they had sat down – several hours had passed since then, by now- they had started to talk about all other sort of things, things that worried them, that scared them, and only when it had become too much, they had rescued the last bottle of Firewisky from the sideboard and had started to drink. Things had went downhill from there, but they didn't regret it, because it was far much easier this way.
It seemed an eternity since the last time they had fun.
Another burst of laughter, however, was broke off by a knock on the door, that startled them and made them turn.
Suddenly, they became quite conscious.
Readying their wand – because, yes, those men were wizards and dark times were coming – and standing unsteadily up, they gingerly started for the door.
"Who's there?" asked sharply one of them - the taller and black-haired one.
The voice from the other side of the door came quite feeble: "James," was the simple answer.
The door was opened at once.
"Prongs, what happened?" demanded the first man.
James Potter, called by his friends Prongs, was leaning with a hand on the doorjamb, his untidy jet-black hair even more untidy than usual, and an impassive expression on his pale, hard face. His eyes, though, looked pecuriarly red.
The question had come by itself.
"Can I come in?" was all James said, ignoring his friend words.
"Sure," granted the other.
The third man – with brown hair and grey eyes, and with a lot of scar all over his face – had remained quite till that moment.
"Prongs, what happened?" he repeated then, while they closed the door and went to the living room again.
The newcomer still didn't answer: he merely took a seat on a harmchair and started to stare intently into the fireplace.
His two friends shared a look, a mixture of confusion and concern.
They then started to ask if something was wrong with his children, wife and so on, but James kept silent, and so they decided to wait, at length.
"Can I stay here?" said James presently, not quite meeting their eyes.
The other two shared another look: what was with him?
"What, wasn't your couch good enough?" tried to make fun the other black-haired man, whose name was Sirius, "If you had a fight with Lily..."
"Sirius," warned Remus, the brown-haired.
James pretended not to hear, or at least this is what his friends noticed.
Silence fell once again, a tense and uncomfortable silence, during which Sirius and Remus looked at James, growing more impatient by the time, and James went on looking at the fire.
But then, finally, after what seemed an eternity, their friend, in a weak, dead tone, explained: "Li – Lily kicked me out. Between us...it's over."
Neither of them was expecting this.
N/A Hello, everyone!(?) This is my first Harry Potter fanfiction ever, and the ispiration came from this question "What would have been if James and Lily survived?" and now here it is, my answer :) I hope you like it! (And don't be discouraged by the end of this, it's only the beginning)
Let me know what you think,
Bye,
Daughter of the Lake