Altered Fates

Part One: The Philosopher's Stone

Chapter One: Marauders

It was September 1, 1979 when they first met. The Hogwarts Express was not even ten minutes out of Platform 9 ¾ when James Potter literally bumped into another twelve year old boy with black hair and grey, almost silver eyes. "Whoops, sorry about that," James said as he helped the boy up. "My name's James Potter. What's yours?"

"Black. Sirius Black." Potter paled at that. The Blacks had a very bad reputation among the magical families of Europe. Many of the Blacks were sorted into Slytherin House at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the House that produced the most Dark wizards, and many were strong supporters of the pure-blood movement, a movement led by a Lord Voldemort that would ban all Muggle-born witches and wizards from ever learning magic at their local schools. But before James could pull away, Sirius spoke again. "Wait! I know that my family has a reputation as black as our name, but you could call me the white sheep of the family." Sirius then laughed at his own joke.

James laughed along with him, he always appreciated someone with a good sense of humor, so maybe this guy wouldn't be so bad. "Well, if you are, why don't you come and sit with me? Maybe we could be friends at Hogwarts." They found a compartment with only one other person in it. He had spiky red hair and the bluest eyes either of the boys had ever seen. "Say, do you mind if we sit here?"

"Not at all, I was hoping to meet some people on the train. My name's Eric, Eric Grace."

"My name's James Potter and this is Sirius Black." The duo waited for a reaction, but Eric said nothing. "So, Sirius, what house are you hoping to get sorted into?"

"The house that would make my mother the most upset, Gryffindor. What about you two?"

"Same here," they both said. "From what I've heard, it's the best house," Eric continued.

"From what you've heard?

"Yeah, I'm the first in my family to use magic, as far as we know anyway." They would have kept talking, but another boy knocked on the door and asked to come in. "Sure, the more the merrier, I always say," Eric answered.

This boy had light brown hair and blue eyes, and was extremely pale, as if he'd just had a long illness. "Thanks, my name is Remus Lupin." The rest of the group introduced themselves and by the time the train reached Hogwarts, they had already become fast friends and made an enemy, Severus Snape. They were on bad terms with Snape for two reasons: one, he actually wanted to be in Slytherin, and two, Severus had made fun of Eric when he learned that Eric was Muggle-born (which seemed quite odd to the four friends, considering his best friend was a Muggle-born witch.)

Once they were off the train, they were led into boats by Rubeus Hagrid, the half-giant gamekeeper of Hogwarts. Once they were across the lake, they were met by Professor Minerva McGonagall who gave them a quick speech, got them into a line and led them into the Great Hall. Once they had been brought to a space between the students and the teachers, McGonagall brought out a three-legged stool and set an extremely old hat on it. To the surprise of many, the hat began to sing:

A thousand years ago,

Hogwarts was wrought,

And many different types of students,

To the magic school were brought.

Slytherin preferred the ones,

Who had great ambition.

Ravenclaw accepted those,

With wit worth recognition.

Hufflepuff valued most,

Hard workers and fidelity,

And Gryffindor taught those,

Of courage and chivalry.

Gryffindor took me off his head,

And gave me a mind,

So that when the founders were gone,

I could help pupils find their kind!

McGonagall then called each of them up by name and placed the hat on their heads. "Avery, Thomas." "Slytherin!" "Bagman, Ludovic." "Hufflepuff!" "Black, Sirius." "Gryffindor!" Everyone was shocked at that. The Blacks were notorious for their pureblood fanaticism and were always sorted into Slytherin. "Crouch, Barty Jr." "Hufflepuff!" "Evans, Lily." "Gryffindor!" "Grace, Eric." "Gryffindor!" "Jorkins, Bertha." "Ravenclaw!" "Lupin, Remus." At this, the teachers exchanged glances with each other, most of them worried about how safe it would be for Lupin to be at Hogwarts, although Horace Slughorn was quite curious. He would be, after all, the first student to be a werewolf while at Hogwarts. Too bad he could never join the Slug Club. "Gryffindor!" "Longbottom, Frank." "Ravenclaw!" "Lovegood, Xenophilius." "Ravenclaw!" "Macnair, Walden." "Gryffindor!" "Malfoy, Sarah." "Gryffindor!" Once again, everyone was shocked. Like the Blacks, the Malfoy family had been sorted into Slytherin ever since they arrived in England about two centuries earlier. Why was this girl put into Gryffindor? And why was she dressed in a boys uniform? "Pettigrew, Peter." "Gryffindor!" "Potter, James." "Gryffindor!" "Rickwood, Alan." "Ravenclaw!" "Smith, Alice." "Gryffindor!" "Snape, Severus" "Slytherin!" "Trelawney, Sybil." "Ravenclaw!" "Vector, Shannon." "Hufflepuff!" "Yaxley, Richard." "Ravenclaw!" And with that last name, the sorting ceremony ended. Dumbledore then gave the students a few rules, and warned about a newly planted Whomping Willow before allowing the opening feast to begin. While they were eating, Remus was quite pleased to hear that the golden silverware and dishes were brand new and before they had been silver. As a werewolf, he was quite vulnerable to silver, so the fact that the staff was willing to make such a drastic change made him feel quite welcome.

Within the first two weeks, the foursome had added two more friends to their group: Peter Pettigrew and Sarah Malfoy. It turned out that Sarah was as much of an outcast from her family as Sirius was from his, and that she did her best to do anything that would make her family upset, including not wearing a single stitch of traditional girl clothes. The group of six eventually became known as the Marauders for their great ability with pranks (although no one knew they were the Marauders until their fifth year.) James, Sirius and Sarah loved pulling pranks on Slytherins, especially Severus Snape, and the others would usually go along, but Eric often argued against pranking just one person in the house, unless they were bullies. But when Severus got pulled into a very blood-centric group and started attacking Eric whenever he was alone, he quickly changed his mind. There was the occasional Slytherin that avoided getting hit by the Marauder's pranks, the most common being Sirius' little brother Regulus.

By February of their First Year, the Marauders had discovered that Remus was hiding a secret, he wasn't actually a human. Remus Lupin was actually a werewolf, so the other Marauders decided to scare him into divulging his secret by secretly sending him a single message over and over: Beware the Ides of March. That was significant because the full moon fell on the Ides/15th of March that year. Eventually Remus gave in and told them about his lycanthropy, and to his surprise, the other five wanted to help him somehow. The Marauders eventually decided to become animagi, magicians that turned into animals. Over the next three years, when they weren't doing official schoolwork, practicing Quidditch, or planning/doing pranks, the five Marauders worked on becoming animagi. By their Fourth Year, they had all succeeded. James became a deer, gaining the nickname of Prongs, Sirius became a large black dog (one that was commonly mistaken as a Grim-an omen of death) that everyone called Padfoot. Eric became a dark unicorn and thus was able to keep the nickname of Spike, Peter became Wormtail the rat, and Sarah kept her nickname of Buck when she became a hippogriff. Once they'd succeeded, the five friends joined Remus (Moony) whenever the full moon hit and managed to keep his "furry little problem" under control, which allowed the werewolf to wander the grounds and the neighboring village of Hogsmeade even during the full moon.

But in their Fourth Year, the relationships of the Marauders started to change. James started pulling far more pranks that were targeted at Severus and even started hexing him. When the others asked why, James would just blush and run away. Moony and Buck quickly figured out why: James was jealous of Snape, or more accurately, Snape's relationship with the Muggle-born witch Lily Evans. Prongs had fallen for the young witch, but because of her friendship with Snape, she would never even think of dating him. And Prongs wasn't the only one that had fallen under Venus' spell. Spike and Buck had also fallen in love, but fortunately for them they had fallen for each other, meaning the biggest problem they had was the ribbing they got from their friends.

By their Sixth Year, Eric had officially proposed to Sarah, and she had accepted, much to her parents and older brother's dismay (her older brother being the already-graduated Lucius Malfoy.) As for James and Lily, they had officially started dating in that year after Snape did the worst thing he could have possibly done: he called Lily a Mudblood after they finished their DADA OWLs. After that, his and Lily's relationship was completely destroyed, and James managed to start a relationship with her, after explaining why the Marauders targeted the Slytherins, especially Snape, more often. Also in their Sixth Year, it was revealed that Sirius was being harshly treated by his parents, so he ran to the Potter's home, where Charlus and Dorea quickly blood-adopted him. But the bad news was just getting started for Sirius, as Regulus was forced to join a terrorist group known as the Death Eaters, under the command of the Dark Wizard, Lord Voldemort. The day he heard about it, Sirius got into a bad fight with his brother, and just as he was leaving, Snape caught him and started taunting him and asking questions about Remus. Sirius was so upset over losing Regulus that he turned and yelled "If you're so curious about Remus, why don't you go to the Shrieking Shack and find out yourself?"

"And just how do I do that, Black?"

"There's a knot at the base of the Whomping Willow. Hit that and go into the tunnel underneath the Willow, then you can get inside." Sirius' eyes widened as he realized his mistake and ran off to sulk in the dorm. James found him and asked what was wrong. When Sirius told him, James panicked, as that night was a full moon, and if Snape followed Sirius' instructions, then Snape could die. James ran full out for the Willow, just barely managing to save the Slytherin in time. James was quickly given a Service for the School Award by Headmaster Albus Dumbledore and told never to speak of it again.

By the end of their time at Hogwarts, most of the Marauders had joined Dumbledore's secret society, the Order of the Phoenix. The Order was specifically created for one purpose: the destruction of Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters. In addition to the Marauders, the members of the Order included: Minerva McGonagall, the Head of Gryffindor House at Hogwarts, the famous Auror (Dark Wizard catcher) Alastor Moody, Frank Longbottom and his fiancée Alice Smith, the twin brothers Fabian and Gideon Prewett and several others. The only member of the Marauders to not join the Order was Eric Grace, who had decided to retreat to the Muggle world in order to avoid the war. The young Marauders and their friends thought of themselves as the kings and queens of promise, the ones destined to kill Voldemort. However, by 1988, the Order had suffered several losses, luckily they also had also had reason to celebrate, as all three couples got married. Then, a year after the weddings, all three couples had sons: Nico Grace was born on June 21, Neville Longbottom on July 30, and Harry James Potter on July 31.

It soon became clear, however, that there was at least one spy in the Order, as a friendly informant (one that signed his notes as RAB) just barely managed to warn them of a trap that nearly killed Moody and several others. With a spy in the Order, and Voldemort after the Potters and the Longbottoms, the two couples decided to go into hiding, with both couples going an extra mile and using the Fidelius Charm. Everyone expected the Potters to use Sirius as the Secret Keeper, especially considering how close he was to James, being best man at their wedding and godfather to their young son Harry. All that is, except for Eric Grace. Then, on November 1, 1990, magical England got the best news it had in eleven years: Lord Voldemort had been killed. But the surprising thing was, it wasn't an auror or a member of the Order that killed him, it was young Harry Potter. For reasons unknown to most of Wizarding England, Voldemort went to wipe out the Potter family, but when he tried to kill Harry, his curse turned on him, destroying him. The next night, Sirius Black was accused of killing Peter Pettigrew and a dozen Muggles when Peter confronted him about betraying James and Lily. The Marauders had become victims of themselves, betrayed by one of their own.

In the aftermath of that terrible, glorious night, Harry was sent to live with his only living relatives, Lily's sister Petunia, her husband Vernon Dursley, and their young son, Dudley. (This despite the objections of his godfather, Sirius.) Eric attempted to take Harry and raise him, but Dumbledore prevented it, saying that Eric unfortunately had no legal right taking him in. So, Eric decided to try and prove Sirius' innocence, especially after Bartemius Crouch threw him into Azkaban without a trial. As if to spite his detective skills, Eric was unable to find any evidence of Sirius' innocence, and so wrote down his suspicions in a letter to Nico, with the explicit instructions that it was not to be opened until his fourteenth birthday. A few weeks after Sirius was thrown into Azkaban, Eric heard that the Longbottoms had been tortured to insanity by a group of Death Eaters, including Barty Crouch Jr. and attempted to adopt Neville, but he was once again stopped by Dumbledore, who had already passed Neville to his paternal grandmother. After that, things were quiet in magical England for eleven years . . .