This has been edited, it is not a new chapter.
It's been awhile since I've uploaded a new story. This is a one shot of a larger story I am working on. This is from Sirius's P.O.V. Its meant to be disjointed and somewhat confusing as its first person and I would imagine that after Sirius's stint in Azkaban he'd be a little crazy.
Reviews are welcome. Please enjoy.
Disclaimer: The original ideas are mine, J.K. Rowling owns anything that is recognizable from her books.
Enjoy...
An undisclosed date and time. During the night in at number 12.
Setting my drink down, I sighed and rubbed my face in bone weary exhaustion. It'd been awhile since I'd thought about the 'happier' days and really they'd never been very happy, just been better than now. Thinking about the school years, always made me depressed in a way that made me want to haze away my sorrows in the biggest bottle of whiskey I could get my hands on. I didn't like to think about those days unless they were hazy and I couldn't fully recall everything. If someone were to ask my friend, Remus about they way I acted now versus then, he would more than likely tell them that I just didn't know how to deal with myself after Azkaban. He'd tell them that the 12 years of hell I had suffered had changed me irrevocably. He'd be wrong, but somewhat right as well.
Azkaban had changed me in ways that I would never recover from. I spent 12 years living my absolute worst memories over and over again, barely tempered by the fact that I knew I was innocent. It had been a very small consolation, when I had believed myself responsible for the death of my most precious people. It'd broke my mind into a million pieces and even if I lived to be a hundred, I would never fully heal.
Sighing again, I closed my eyes. My random thought streams turned to my godson. He would be 16 in just a few days and I thank the higher powers he wasn't like James. James had been a nightmare at 16 and it had taken both Lily and I to control his bouts of anger. It was a failing with the Potter line. The men in the family had a tendency to go crazy around puberty and if they didn't have someone to anchor to, there mind and magics would stable out. When James hit puberty, he went more than just a little crazy. When we'd been younger, his mother had warned me of the possibility that the boy I loved more than my own brother would not be the same man I would come to know. She was right, once James hit that line, he went more than a little crazy. Many of the Potter heirs never recovered, I know he'd had a uncle that never got over the rage. At 19, shortly after he married, he killed his young wife and newborn child in a fit of rage. The family moved him to Southern France to a little known villa and confined him their until the day he died. I'd met him only once and only from a distance. James' mother had taken us there when James turned 14, to show us what could happen if he didn't have an anchor. There were reasons why the pure-bloods had marriage contracts when there were young. James had had one to the Lovegood family. Even if the girl would have survived the first war, he would never had married her. James had found his anchor when he was 11, just no one realized it until he was almost 16 and had not gone bat shit insane.
Oh he'd been angry before 16, so angry that he would lash out at any slight provocation. It'd taken everything Lily and I had to keep him under control until the end of out 5th year at Hogwarts. He'd almost killed three people that year. Lily had stopped him from killing Snape, though I think that was only because she'd wanted to do it herself. I never did understand the relationship they had. She never went into detail on it and it was a moot point after we'd humiliated him in front of the entire school and then he'd been stupid enough to insult Lily, James had gotten so angry that he'd tried to rush him right then. But Lily had been livid at the insult. She'd been insulted before, but something about the way Snape had said the word 'mudblood' had gotten under her skin in a way that I had never seen.
If I hadn't of had the reflexes I did then, James would have thrown one of the Potter blood spells that would have literally turned Snape's blood into a mixture of water and dirt. Its where the insult 'mud-blood' originally came from, no one alive knows that anymore...well except for me. I'd held James down and Lily actually cursed him. No one but me had seen the spell cast, but it'd been a nasty one. James was sick for three weeks after that. The next morning, Snape had almost lost his head. It'd been Hogsmead weekend and a stone column had been blasted from a building he'd been walking near. The glass mural came down and if Longbottom hadn't been there, he'd be dead. I almost wish Lily had succeeded.
For awhile I was afraid Harry would be like that, with his poorly contained rage at the way the people he had trusted treated him. Now what worried me most, was the fact that he reminded me entirely too much of his mother. Frankly, that terrified the hell out of me.
Lily had been one of the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. At 11, she had been charming and doll-like. She had an aura of innocence that all adults had fallen for, but the sweet exterior hid who she really was from almost everyone.
Instead of sipping the slightly warmed firewhiskey that would allow me to savor the sweet burn and harsh flavor, I knocked it back like an old pro as I thought about the day we'd first met and our fates had changed and twisted together. I'd once had an old fortune teller tell me, when I was 10, that I was destined to be the best magik user my family had ever seen. My mother had been overly thrilled but disgusted at the thought that the prophecy came from a muggle's mouth. My father and mother assumed that it meant that I would be the Lord Black that would lead the Family into a dark age that had been foretold five hundred years ago. Even at 10, I was already at odds with my family's ideas. I made a promise to myself the day I turned 11 and received my Hogwarts letter. I decided I would be everything my family hated and would be damned to hell before I would lead the family as the new Lord Black. If I had known then, what I knew now, I would have never made such a declaration.
The problem with Black magik was that when a user had the intent and the experience (in my case it was a combination of pure power, will and stupidity), they could create situations that fit their needs. That prophecy that I declared to myself was the beginning of something never thought possible by any Black.
After my first year, I went back to that same park were I had met the old fortune teller. She was waiting there as if she'd come to see me and only me. She'd looked up at me with pale green eyes, and told me: I'm sorry that you met her that day, if it had been just a minute later, the things that will happen now would never have come about. She is not what she seems and yet she is not the one that you should be weary of, though I know you will be. She is only the beginning of something else, a darkness that would never have come about it not for anothers meddling. You made a prophecy shortly after you met me. It will come to pass before you are 21. You will live through hell and you will die young. She'd left after that, leaving me stunned and not quite knowing what she meant. I was only 12 and thought the woman was crazy so I shrugged the incident out of my mind until that day 15 years ago when I stood there in the middle of the street, bodies everywhere, and all I could do was laugh.
If that fateful meeting on the train platform had been delayed by just a minute, I wouldn't have run into Lily until she'd been sorted into Gryffindor and James would have been mine until his parents decided on a wife for him. Instead I had met Lily and Jame at the same moment and everything changed. I knew she'd be trouble, my blood warned me that she was dangerous. I was young and enthralled by the young man I had just met. In him I saw a brother in arms and in Lily I saw competition for his attention. From the moment James set eyes on Lily he was smitten and she knew it. Lily was meant to be his anchor or so I thought.
My thoughts turned around again to go back to Harry. The problem with my stint in Azkaban was that it had completely broke my mind, but it had not only been Azkaban that broke me. I had already been broken several days before I was sent to that hell. Azkaban just made it so that I had I was no longer able to control the way I thought. My thoughts were non-linear. It made me unreliable, but since I no longer saw things the same way, it made it possible for me to piece together things that I would never have connected together. This made me think of Harry again and how heavy handed fate hand been when she had spun his life-thread. I wondered what I should tell him. He'd only ever heard the light-hearted stories of our youth and he'd never heard very much about his mother. In all honesty, not many people had known Lily well enough to tell many stories to her only son. It made me sad in a way. No child should ever have to grow up without there parents love and no matter their faults, they had loved their boy. I briefly thought about not telling Harry, but I knew he would need to know. This would be his 16th year and their were things he would need to know. Harry must have found his anchor, because as far as I could see, he hadn't gone in any unexpected homicidal rages. I wondered who the the young witch or wizard was, but cut that though off. That was a dangerous road to go down.
Which made me think of the oddness that surrounded my godson these past few months. He wasn't the same as he'd been and that made me think of Lily again and made a chill run down my spine.
I should be dead right now. I had felt the cold rattle of Death's breath and I had felt peaceful for the first time in almost 20 years, but then the fire of another had seared through that cold peace. A shadow so hot and cold that it had burnt my shoulder as it froze it. I hadn't let anyone see the delicate hand print that would forever scar my skin. At first glance, it looked like a woman's hand, but I knew better.
James had always been broad and strong in body and after puberty he'd looked like a warrior of old. He'd been intimidating to strangers at first glance, but once you got to know him there was no doubt in anyone's mind that he was both exceedingly dangerous and fiercely loyal. To those he trusted and loved, he was the giant huggable teddy bear every kid wanted, to his enemies he was a man that you feared and pissed your pants when he came out of the shadows.
Lily had been the opposite in almost every way. Her physique was smaller and more delicate. She looked innocent and sweet. In school, it had made people open up to her and trust her in ways they should never have had. At 11, she had already been able to manipulate every one around her like a old pro. It had amused my darker half, the black blood in me. It had terrified the boy in me. She was the boogeyman that parents threaten their children with.
I would never forget the look on James' face when he first saw Lily. It was as if the sun had come up for the first time and the Heavens had opened their gates. I also remember the look on Lily's face. The cold calculating look reminded me so much of my mother, that it made me hate her. That never really went away. She was a demon in the guise of an angel. I knew that she could tear apart the tentative friendship that I had barely created with the young James. I'd been insecure because of my upbringing in a well known dark family. Potter had been a known icon of a light family and Lily was the new girl that made people want to be friends with her. How wrong those first images of our futures had been.
It had been very true, that I was a dark magic user. But it wasn't just dark magic, my Black blood allowed me to use the darker magiks that had been outlawed in the early 1500's. Not many in the modern age even knew what the magiks were. My family had used the dark magiks since before the time of Christendom and those shadows were threaded through out very DNA. Our very blood would forever be coded for darker magiks. There were spells I could never use because of my blood and it had made people hate me in school. My humor had been dark and unforgiving as a child and as I aged, it had become worse. It had almost led to many tragedies for several of my year mates. James had tempered that somewhat, but he had never been light and Lily had been a cruel bitch that we would both love and hate as we neared the end of our school days.
My thoughts broke as I heard a soft knock. I looked up and saw my godson. He looked a lot like James in the face, but he had Lily's petite physique. I grabbed my scarred shoulder in thought as I twitched my lips in an attempt to smile, but gave up when I couldn't. He tilted his head slightly to the left, which was such a Lily-like gesture that I just about threw my damn bottle of firewhiskey at the wall. My mind wasn't a happy place. No wonder Molly was weary around me, she should be, I couldn't even trust myself let alone expect others to trust me.
"Hey, are you okay?" I wanted to shake my head, instead I shifted and pulled the dinning chair next to me away from the table.
"I'm sorry."
He looked so genuinely confused that it made me think of James for a moment. It made me sad that when I saw my godson I could barely see him as him. I kept seeing his parents and I knew that had to hurt him. It also made me think of the day that I had told James every Black secret that there ever been and he in turn told me everything about the Potter line. "For what?"
I sighed, "There are things about your parents that no one will ever tell you willingly. There is only one person left alive that knew your mother as well as I did and he will never openly confess to you. For a long time, I know he truly loved Lily and then she slighted him in such a way that he hates the sound of her very name. I know you have only ever been told simple trinket stories, most likely only stories of the four marauders. Right?"
He furrowed his brows, "Sirius, what are you talking about?"
I held up my hand to placate him, I knew I was confusing him. I had drank quite a bit of the fire whiskey tonight and my mind was more disjointed than usual. "Before I start my story, I want to thank you."
"Th..."
I interrupted him, "There are many excuses you could come up with, but I don't want to hear them. I never wanted to hear them from your mother and I don't want to hear them from you. You saved my life in the department of mysteries and I have the scar to prove it. You have a gift that your father had and it was enhanced by your mother's blood line. I know you sent your shadow to pull me out from the veil and if you hadn't, I would be dead. I don't need to know more than that. I really can't be trusted to know more than that. My mind has never been what you would call stable and Azkaban did me no favors. So I just wanted to say thank you." His face had paled with this bit of news, and I didn't blame his. His 'gift' was something that 'light' wizards would condemn him for. I wish he had someone in the Potter line to explain these things to him, but there wasn't anyone left. He was the last of a long line that had been almost as old as the Blacks. There were no cousins, aunts or uncles left of the main line.
"I want to tell you a story, a story that should never be told, but you need to know. You know that I am a Black and I knew your father and mother and we went to school together along with Snape," He nodded in agreement. "What you don't know is that even though I was disowned from my family, that doesn't mean that I was converted to being a light wizard. That would have been impossible for someone of my back ground. My family is dark, some of them were truly evil, but I am a dark wizard and there are some light spells I will never be able to do, why do I tell you this? I can see the question in your eyes and the worry that you believe I have lost it. I may have by now, but I do know what I am talking about."
Harry tilted his head again and reached for my free hand, "I am worried and I really don't understand what you are telling me or why you are."
I sighed, and shook my hand free to pour another shot. This was much harder than I would have thought. "When I was 11, I met your father for the first time. I did not know who he was and he didn't know who I was. We were just two kids who were scared of their first day of school. For most of the train ride, we talked about things we liked, getting to know each other. But before we had even gotten on the train, we ran into your mother. I didn't like her. Actually no I think I may have even hated her."
I saw the question in Harry's eyes, "It wasn't because she was a muggle born. She terrified me. She had everyone fooled and no one saw what she was or could be, except for me. If she had been born in a pure blood family, she would have been Slytherin, hell at the sorting I still expected to be sorted there. It should have been Slytherin or Ravenclaw, but she went to Gryffindor."
I laughed in dark amusement. I leaned back on my chair, Harry did the same, his eyes held something I couldn't quite place. It wasn't surprise or anger like I would have thought. I think he was amused, that boy was far too much like his mother. It was the same look she always got when everything was playing right into her hands. I wonder what game he was playing, but I suppose that would come later.
"I still believe that she choose to be Gryffindor just to fuck with me. On the train ride, we didn't speak but she had seen the look on my face when I first saw her and she had known that I knew she wasn't what she appeared to be. For the most part, we didn't mess with Lily. She was smart and knew how to get the teachers to see her as nothing more than an innocent muggle born. James kept trying to court her, and I attempted to gather a small group of people around us. In my young mind it was a preemptive strike against the danger I felt from her. Back then, I figured I could use the 'extras' as a buffer between her and James. It was a pity that I didn't take into account that James also had a bit of a darker side in him that I helped bring to the forefront. Don't get me wrong, it would have come out eventually but, I brought it out sooner rather than later. At first, our group was more than just Remus and the rat. There were a couple of 2nd year boys and three first years from our house. After James decided that we should pull pranks, they left our little entourage and it became just the four of us.
"For the most part, I'm not sure what you mother was up to until about our fourth year. James had already completed his animagus transformation and I was almost done with mine. The rat didn't finish his until almost the end of 5th year. James became more serious in his studies at his parents wishes and our fourth year was spent getting our grades up. James' parents were letting me live with them by fourth year. I had runaway from my family after my little brother started school and became a Slytherin. Regulus was the apple of my mother's eyes and I was glad to be out from her piercing glare."
I laughed darkly at the foggy memories, the fire whiskey was doing the trick. The memories were fading away, but as the oldest memories faded, the newer memories became clearer. "People would always say great things about your grandparents. Well let me tell you, they weren't that nice and they were certainly not light wizards."
"Sirius, what are you saying? That my family, the Potters aren't light? I already knew that. My shadows told me..."
"Heh, sorry forgot about that, but not exactly. You don't know what you are. You are a Potter, but more importantly you are an Evans. If you ever feel like giving your aunt a heart attack, have a sit down with her and ask her about the bond between your mother and their grandmother. Don't get me wrong, I respect the hell out of your mother, she knew how to get what she wanted. Hell she was able to work James' parents like an old pro and that wasn't an easy take. Your grandmother was a black by blood. She was a tough old bird and a dark magik user, like all Blacks all, but she'd never met anyone like Lily."
The clock chimed 1 and I heard a shuffle upstairs. I shrugged to myself, it was probably just the bird. "Your mother was highly intelligent. She was charming and beautiful and could manipulate the most skilled player. She used people and discarded them when she was done. I don't know if you know or not, but Snape doesn't hate you because of your father, though that is the excuse he gives everyone. He hates you because of your mother. You look so much like your mother that it scares him. Hell it scares me when I think it about it too much. Lily was a scary bitch."
"Sirius, what the hell are you talking about?" I shrugged and noticed his eyes were glinting in the pale light. He reminded me a bit of me. A scattered memory tried to peak out, but I squashed it back with another shot of firewhiskey.
"I told you we met on the train. We did, but we didn't really talk until after we were all sorted into Gryffindor. I still remember that conversation like it was yesterday;
We were full and sleepy. The older kids were showing us around and told us some of the rules of the house. They would have to tell us again the following night as most of us were not paying attention to any of them.
My new friend James was interesting. Mam had told me that I would be great and all great people needed a right-hand man. I think I had found the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Mam would be pleased but unhappy that my precious person was a male. My little brother would be expected to continue the family line. Mam would still expect me to lead the family into the coming dark age. My magik was telling be that someone special was near by. I was too weary but I knew to be respectful of this new threat. I think it was the girl. She was scary-like boogeyman man scary.
I would write mam about her. Mam would be unhappy that the girl was a mud-blood, but I think it warranted a letter. Mam wouldn't be happy that I was in Gryffindor, but I think I could explain it to her. Mother would be pissed about it. I expect to get a howler from her in the morning. Lord Black would be unhappy, but he usually was with everything about me. When mother had told Lord Black about the prophecy the old muggle had said, they'd been pleased to a point. I suspected that Mother would try to bend it to fit my little brother.
James was going upstairs and I was about to follow him, until that girl grabbed my shoulder. Her eyes were cold green emeralds. A shiver ran down my spine. My blood magik wanted me to rip her apart and my instincts were telling me to run and hide in the nearest closet.
"I don't know who you are, but I you will not stand in my way. If you want to survive the coming years, you will let me do what I must."
It took all my will power to say my next words without fainting, "He's mine, other than that I will allow you to do whatever you desire."
She smiled at me, but it wasn't a nice smile. It reminded me of Lady Alexandra when she was planning with her brother, Lord Black about who they were going to remove next to get what they wanted. "You can have him for now, he'll be mine in the end. You saw the way he looked at me. I also saw the way he looked at you. At the moment you are only boys. In a few years you will men and then what will come will come. You'll meet it in the end as you are a Black and I know your blood."
"You're just a mud-blood..."
She smirked and again I saw the manipulative bitch she was and the force of nature she would become in the future. For a moment I feared for the future, but then my blood told me that everything would work itself out in the end.
"I'm really not, you should look the old phrase up, or better yet, ask your little friend. Just stay out of my way for now and I'll leave you boys alone. Your friend will try to court me. You know it, I know it. I will allow it and not encourage him until he is of age, on one condition."
My jaw dropped, I had been raised in a dark family ruled by men and this little girl was telling ME want SHE would allow. I was a Black damn-it. I wasn't happy, but I would allow it because she was handing me an olive branch. I would have five years to dissuade James. "What?"
"When the time comes, you are to stand out of my way. You do this and you will survive the coming years in one piece and still have a place in his life. I won't close you out like I would be allowed to by all laws of governing magic."
Damn she was good. I was even more weary of her, but now I respected the hell out of her. Didn't mean I had to like her. I took out the pin knife from my robes that my Mam had given me for a birthday present and cut my palm open to allow blood to flow and then held out the knife for her and held my hand forward to be shook.
She smirked and did the same, "You perfect little fool." She didn't explain what she meant by that, but the deal was sealed by blood and magic and there would be no going back.
She let James follow her around and held nothing but disdain for him and his courting efforts. I stayed out of her way and we didn't pull pranks on her, but her little 'friend' was open season. I think she found our pranks on Snape amusing. She never did anything to stop them and according to our deal she could have forced me to stop as it would be 'standing in her way'. I think it helped her in the end.
In Snape, she has a wizard 'friend' that lived near her that was bitter about his life. He was an easy person to manipulate. She used him for his knowledge of pure-bloods and his knowledge of the dark arts and how to dispel the back lash the stronger magics caused to a non-blood magik user.
In the end she used him until he served no other purpose. I believe that he fooled himself into believing that the seemingly sweet girl would fall in love with him and they would eventually marry and rule the world. They probably could have. I believe he still had the delusion that they would live happily ever after, right up to the point where Lily stopped hiding her true nature from him and blatantly tried to kill him. If anyone else had been there to see what I had seen, she would have been tried for attempted murder. As it was, that was the day she finally allowed James to 'see' that she was thinking about him as a future husband. That was the day I realized that Lily had a different agenda than I had originally thought.
Lily had met James' parents the summer before our 4th year. I think she was testing the waters so to speak, the oath we took prevented her from declaring her attentions, but she could still visit 'friends'. Lady Black-Potter, at the time, didn't realize this was the Lily of James' heart. I think she believe in the end that James would choose me as a lover and she'd choose the wife of her son, like it had always been. Most potter heirs had a lover on the side, it was an expected practice by the family. The marriage was for politics. The affairs for affection and the anchoring. Too bad James had other plans.
Our lives were fairly simple until our 5th year. Once I ran away from home, the Potters allowed me into their lives with little fuss, by that time James and I were already as close as we could be without literally sleeping together. His parents warned me not to attempt a sexual relationship of any kind until after he hit magical puberty. That was possibly the hardest thing I had ever done in my life.
We were both young, hormone ridden teenagers that were more than slightly interested in pursuing relationships with one another. In the end we were glad we waited. James hit magical puberty hard and it took everything Lily and I had to control him. During the summer before our 6th year, Lily met James' parents officially. Lady Black-Potter and Lord Potter had chosen a future wife for James. The Lovegood Girl was to be married to James at the end of their 7th year. That summer was the summer that Voldemort came into power. The Lovegood family was one of the first family hit in the raids. Their daughter died and only the son survived. The contract was null and void and James still needed to be married off.
The bonding would settle the more violable parts of the Potter blood magiks. It was why Potters married young and had to re-marry quickly if their partners died. James requested a formal meeting with his parents to present Lily as a possible choice (Really in James' mind she was the only choice.) His parents allowed the meeting and his mother, Lady Black-Potter met with Lily on her own for almost two hours.
I found out later, from Lily herself, what went on in that meeting. Basically Lily told Lady Black-Potter that she was going to marry James and that she had no say in the matter. Well Lady Black-Potter did not like that and tried to curse her and Lily ended up getting the upper hand.
Later that night at dinner with Lord Potter, his wife, son, Lily and myself, Lady Black-Potter informed Lily of mine and James' relationship. I remember spitting out my wine and James had hollered 'MOTHER'. Lord Potter just stared at his wife in shock at her crassness. Lily roared, actually roared in laughter.
"Do you truly believe that I don't know about it? Honestly I have eyes and can see the way they look at each other. If it wasn't for the fact that the Potter line must be continued and his magic tempered by a bonding, I am sure that James and Sirius would have run for the hills years ago. Of course I know they have sex and I will have you know before you ask, I am a virgin and we will be doing the Samhain ritual and bonding in our seventh year. I have already decided it."
James just smiled, if it had been me I would have been pissed at the way Lily had taken charge, but that was one of things James had loved about Lily and honestly I had grown to love that aspect of her personality as well.
After that day, Lady Black-Potter never said another word to her future daughter-in-law. Would not speak to her, no even to curse like I am sure she would have loved to.
Lily lied to James' parents. We did the ritual that year, in our 6th year. James' magic was getting too out of control, he'd been the strongest Potter in 10 generations. Our sexual relationship wasn't cutting it anymore. The night of Samhain, I as the declared Lord Black resided as witness and bonded them together for life. It hurt me more than anything I had ever done. It was as I feared when I had been 11, she was taking him from me, but even through it hurt my heart, my mind knew it was going to save his life.
That was when she did something that was completely unexpected. She allowed me to bond completely to them. It was wonderful and terrifying. I was still afraid she would take him from me.
After that night, they could have spent every night together and I would never have been able to say anything. They didn't. Lily told us nothing had to change. We could still spend time together if we desired. They had an odd relationship. Lily allowed James to show his affection to her and she made a good show of it, but she didn't love him and I think that is why she allowed our relationship. Lily cared for James, but did not love him and she knew I did. It made him happy to know that his precious people could compromise.
That year we bought a house together, James, Lily and I spent the summer together and it was the happiest time of out lives. James' parents were killed that year and everything changed. James got colder and shut Lily and me out. It was what brought us closer together. It changed the dynamics of our relationship. Lily and I banded together to bring James back to being himself. By the end of our seventh year, Lily was pregnant,James was his old self and Lily and I had finally reached an understanding and she finally told me why she called me a 'perfect little fool' when we were 11.
With the bond we made, I had made Lily my family. Any child of hers would be a Potter by blood because of her marriage and a Black by blood because I had made her my blood sister and James' mother was a Black by blood. When Harry was born, he was Harry Black-Evans-Potter. He was the first Lord Black-Potter ever and I no longer needed an heir. By the time my Mother had disowned me, Lord Black was dead and the title had been held in hiatus until I was of age. Mother never had the power to disown me. I full-filled the prophecy of leading the family to a dark age by bonding to Lily the way I did when I was 11 and I was damned to hell by my own words.
I should have been secret keeper, we had tried, but my blood magik had made it impossible. Lily had been beyond displease, but there was nothing we could do about it. Lily wanted Remus to do it, but Dumbledore convinced us that he was too unreliable. It would be better if the Rat was. We did not believe Remus a traitor, but because he was a werewolf, the charm would be too unreliable in his hands. Lily tried the charm with Remus anyway, but because he was a werewolf the magic would not bond properly. Lily had been beyond pissed when she was told about Dumbledore's meddling. I think she knew what would happen. I believe she tried to prevent it in everything she did and it still ended up killing her in the end.
Lily never tried to prevent her own death. Her family gift was to know when she would die. She had always known that she would die young, but she also had foreseen her son's death and did everything in her power to prevent it. She told me only some of what she did to prevent what she considered a disastrous future, which must have been pretty horrible because she had some damn skewed morals in the end.
She succeeded. The mixture of Evans, Black and Potter blood magiks created a magical child stronger than anyone had ever seen. It created a shadow user, a dark magik user and a child with the ability to use the pure form of light magic.
Neither Lily nor I could ever create anything other than a vague mist for a protronus. It was a spell that caused us physical pain when we attempted to cast it. The only times were ever cast the spell was in front of others to keep up pretenses. We were able to conceal the pain through many years practice.
The night James and Lily died, a part of me shattered. I should have taken Harry and hidden from the world until he was ready to take it over, instead I handed my godson to an old friend and took off to hunt and exterminate a rat.
The Aurors caught up to us after the Rat blew the gas main and killed 12 people. I laughed in the middle of the street and couldn't stop because I understood the sadness that Lily held for me. She had never hated me, she pitied me for the way my life would go. She wasn't a true seer but she was the first Evans since the Dark Age to be able to use magic and because of it some of the family gifts woke up. She had incredible luck and the ability to know when things would go wrong. She also had a touch of sight. I didn't realize it until the day I escaped from Azkaban.
She's once told me, before we were civil to one another, that one day I would be the hell hound that would escape from the pits of hell only to enter another hell. At the time I had thought it a slight to my character. The moment the Aurors showed up, I knew it had been a warning.
I was thrown into Azkaban without a trail and escape some 12 years later. I went in search of the baby I no longer knew, but wish I had never given up. Upon seeing my godson for the first time I was immediately reminded of the people I had loved with all my heart, Granted I would always hold some resentment for his mother, but I had loved her all the same. I was still searching for the rat and would have gotten him if not for the unfortunate timing of the full-moon. Poor Remus still blamed himself for that.
In the end though I still failed my friends and the boy I had sworn to protect by not catching the traitor and only exchanging one prison for another.
I finished most of my story when I saw the shocked looked on my godson's face. I was about to continue when a voice spook up and startled the both of us. "Lily had a plan from the moment she picked up her Hogwarts letter. She was cruel and manipulative, but you forget that the people she loved, she loved with all her soul. As is obvious with Harry still living when every law of magic declared he should have died that Halloween 15 years ago."
Harry smiled at the little slip of a girl who had spoken up in his mother's defense. She was wearing full dress robes, which was odd as most people in the house opted for the more casual muggle clothing as it afforded more movement. She was hiding something, I nodded, "True, Lily was all that and more. James too."
"You as well," Harry murmured as the girl shuffled into the room and sat on his lap. He looked startled and looked deeply into her eyes. It reminded me so much of Lily and James I wanted to cry. He seemed to find what he was looking for and leaned back slightly on the rickety chair as he enfolded his arms tightly around her in an almost desperate attempt to protect her, I would have to ask about that in a moment, I had a story to finish.
I looked at my Godson and who I assumed to be his girlfriend. She looked familiar, but was not one of his friends that usually hung around the house, though I think I remember seeing her at the department of mysteries. There was something off about them both. She reminded me of someone I once knew. She must have seen the question on my face as she answered without prompting. "I'm Luna Lovegood." I barked out a laugh. Ironic that Harry would get the Lovegood girl when almost 20 years ago James had been contracted to marry her aunt.
She smiled as if she knew my train of thought. I liked her, she was different. I had an odd thought, I wondered if she could follow my thoughts when I could barely follow my own half the time.
"I could, but where would the fun of that be?" Did I speak aloud?
She smiled and Harry answered the unasked inquiry, "No, she likes to do that. My goddess here likes to read people, though most of the time she says non sequential things to throw people off of what she is truly saying."
"Goddess? Smooth talker like your Dad.
"Your mum was like that before she stopped hiding her mean streak. I think after we moved in together and James' parents were killed, she figured since the world was actively at war, people would expect the smartest witch of our generation to step up to the plate. People just ignored the way she was in a fight. When people found out she was pregnant, then Dumbledore and his merry crew told her that she shouldn't go into the front line. I remember her smirking but people would say she smiled in relief. She told me later that she was right were she wanted to be, she had been wanting to get her hands on some books that she wouldn't have been allowed near unless she was researching. This allowed her to look up some rather obscure rituals that she wouldn't have been allowed near. At that point in time, Dumbledore was trying to find out what old Tommy boy was doing to himself."
I sighed, "I think she found the answer Dumbledore had been looking for because afterward she was weird for days. She was nicer than I'd ever seen her and then she'd done something odd. She went to Alice Longbottom and helped with a ritual that would protect her unborn child. I learned from James that Lily had cried for two days afterward. I'd been on a mission for the order and still to this day have never seen your mother cry. I wish I could have, maybe it would have humanized her for me.
"The day you were born, I found out what she had done from Frank. Frank was grateful for the protection that she had afforded their newborn son, but pissed off at the sacrifice that they would eventually have to make."
"What do you mean?" Harry asked, Luna frowned and then rolled her eyes. Weird girl.
"I'm not sure really. I didn't really understand it, I just knew that eventually someone would die. It was a blood sacrifice that had to be made to some higher magic if the Longbottom child was ever threatened. She did something very similar to you. She called on some very powerful magic that should have never been unleashed. At the best of times, the results are unpredictable and Lily was the first true witch in her family for several generations. When something like that happens, it means that the higher magics had punished her family and they could have done it again. I don't think they did..." I trailed off as I saw the look that Harry and Luna shared.
Luna spoke up and she played with her blond hair, "She was right. People would have expected her to fight and once Harry's parents announce that they were married, she would have been made a target. She played a dangerous game, but she knew what she was doing. The magic she invoked had an added bonus of keeping Harry very safe, but it would require more than just blood sacrifice. Lily must have known that and I think James would have as well. That kind of magic can't be done on a child unless all parties of interest were in agreement." She looked at me and then dropped a bomb shell, "You would have had to agree as well. The relationship that you three shared was complex and magically binding. Harry was as much your child as he was Lily's and James'. Though what really worries me is what else Lily sacrificed for the old magic. Some of the rituals require sacrifice of soul and pain and suffering from a secondary party."
I laughed, I should have been shocked but wasn't. "James would have been the willing sacrifice. He was unarmed when I entered the house. I never did find his wand. Lily would have sacrificed her soul and I was the secondary party. Voldemort was doomed the moment he entered your mother's home. She must have known something no one else did. Though what gets me, is that he should have been utterly destroyed that night. How did he survive?" I murmured to myself.
It was Harry who spoke up, "The only ritual that would have counter acted his death."
I looked at them sharply as Luna cursed. The ritual he was hinting at was an abomination that not even some of the truly vilest Blacks would ever think of doing. The first time I had ever heard of the ritual was from James. He'd been going through his mother's library and had found a book on immortality. It had horrified him. Before he had gone to his mother for an explanation, he had asked me about Horcruxes and if I had ever heard of such a thing. I hadn't, but when James had gone to his mother, I went to Lily. She had frowned and shook her head. She had never heard of them before.
"How do you know about Horcruxes?"
Harry and Luna looked at me and they said as one, "Visions."
"Huh?"
Harry explained, "My visions, the connection I share with Voldemort. It was a link that formed when he tried to kill me to create his seventh horcrux. My mother's sacrifice butchered the spell and instead made me a living horcrux. We suspected for a time that something was off about them and the fact that my magic was wilder than it should have been. We'll have to find them...damn-it this puts a couple kinks into our plan."
I ignored what he was insinuating. I didn't want to know. The firewhiskey was making it harder to string thoughts together. I was ashamed that I had to use such a method, it made me wonder what would have happened if I had never been thrown into Azkaban, if Lily had never found that ritual, if James had never died.
"What is past is past, it can never be changed, but we move forward and change our future." Luna murmured in response to my silence.
I looked at them in sorrow, but for the first time felt a peace I hadn't felt since my near death at the Veil. "The Potters are a very old family, that ends with you. They have never been a Light family, but nor were they declared Dark Magik users. Lily Potter nee Evans was a powerful witch who had the world fooled. James Potter was very much in love with her and at the same time in love with myself. I hated Lily for many years until I realized that she loved James as much as I did. They loved you more than life itself, as evidenced by the fact they gave their lives for you."
Harry smiled as Luna got up, "You forget Sirius, I am a Black as well." He started to leave the room and I leaned back with a smile. He was just as much my son as James' and Lily's. I too would give my life for him. Then with his parting shot, he showed how much his parents son he was. "Oh and I forgot to really introduce Luna earlier. Sirius, I would like you to meet my wife, Luna Potter. She'll be having our baby by the New Year and we want you to be the godfather."
I barked out a deep laugh as they left the room. Yes Harry was Lily's son and that still scared the Hell out of me, but he was James' son as well and that gave me hope for the future. It made me think back to Lily and the one thing I hadn't told Harry tonight, maybe I would here soon, but tonight was not the night.
James was still in the hospital wing. Remus too from the most recent full moon. I was sitting in an overstuffed red chair near the fire. What Lily did today, frightened me on a level that I didn't think was possible. Some part of me had realized she was capable of killing, but I had never pictured her at 15, killing one of her 'friends'. She'd almost succeeded too, if Longbottom hadn't pushed Snape out of the way, he would have been nothing but smashed remains.
It made me wonder when she would feel that I was no longer necessary and get me out of the way. The woman in question, I would never think of her as a girl again, walked through the portrait. She saw me and walked over to me. She waved her wand and static filled the background. A modified version of a spell that Snape had taught her.
"You saw what I did today."
"Yes. I don't care why."
She smiled and it was a real smile, probably one of the first ones I'd ever seen her make. "Lier. I didn't want him dead, not today anyway. I needed a life-debt to form between Severus and Frank for the future. Severus will realize what I did in a couple years and he will want revenge, but he won't get it. If I had really wanted the fool dead, no one would have seen me."
I looked at her and believed her with every fiber of my being. "Why?"
"I'm not a seer, not exactly but I do know things. I can't love him, not like you do, but I will marry him and I will learn to care for him. You won't understand a lot of what I will do, but I want you to know that I have a plan."
"You should have been a Slytherin."
She snorted, "Then I wouldn't be able to do half the things I do now. I would be too closely watched, as a Gryffindor I will be trusted and thanked for things I would have been scorned for. Wizards are idiots.
I snorted, she was right, then again she usually was. "True."
"There is one thing I want you to know and one day you will have to tell my son as I won't be around to do it."
I looked at her as if she had grown a second head. "What the hell are you talking about."
"If we had met at a different time, if you had never made that oath and I had never meddled in things that I shouldn't have, our lives would turn out very different. Instead we deal with the hand fate dealt us. My son will be great, his wife will be powerful and their child an old soul. Once it would have been about their child, but its not anymore. Something changed. You will live when you should have died and my son will rule the world when the old soul wakes. Its always been about our boy. I just didn't realize it until I met you and James. I'm sorry."
She left me there with more questions than I had answers and never spoke about it again. I never brought it back up.
I knocked another shot back and got up with shaky feet. I over did just a bit, but that was okay. My mind was finally falling into a blissful silence. I didn't know how to tell Harry that his wife and child would die sooner than he would have ever wanted and I'm pretty sure his lovely wife knew that she wouldn't survive much longer. They were too young for this shit, then again Lily, James and I had been just as young. Fate was a cruel weaver at times.
I would think of it later, it was time for bed now.
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edited April 1,2012
I had to change some things to match up with the story I will be posting shortly. I'm working on Lily's story right now. Once I have finished with it I will post it and then start with Harry's story, which will mostly likely be a multi-chapter fic.
Reviews are welcome.