"Snuffles!" a very little girl with black hair, and hazel eyes shrieked over, and over, and over again. The dog in the middle of the rug shoved his head under his paws, trying to block out the sound.
A tall man with messy black hair strode into the room with laughter in his hazel eyes. "Come on, Hailey. Bath time." The dog gave the man a grateful look, which he brushed off. "I'm not saving you. I'm saving myself. Lily would have my head if I let my daughter crawl around looking like this."
The dog snuggled back into itself on the rug, and had only just made itself comfortable when a very small someone clambered onto his back. The dog's shaggy black hair made a wonderful blanket for cold fingers, and very soon, the poor mutt found its fur being yanked at.
He yelped, and the baby screamed. A willowy woman with dark red hair hurried into the room. "Sirius!" She exclaimed, "What did you do to Harry?"
The dog threw his paws back over his head.
"Oh, no, mister. None of that. Apologize!" Lily snapped, taking the baby in her arms.
The dog melted into a man. "I'm sorry, Harry." He said hastily.
"Good." Lily said, satisfied. "Come along, darling. Let's go see what happened to your sister!" she tickled the tiny boy's tummy, while walking off again.
The man transformed again into a dog, and collapsed in a pile of shaggy fur.
A blonde man with heavy blue eyes wandered into the room, and flopped down on the floor with the dog.
"Hey, Padfoot." He sighed, leaning comfortably against the dog's furry side. "Nice place for a nap."
The dog sighed heavily in reply, before drifting off to sleep. That would be his last happy memory for a very long time. Hours later, he and the blonde man leaning against him would leave, taking the baby girl with them for an overnight stay. Their long time friend turned desperate enemy would come calling to the Potter residence, and their world would never be the same again.
Sirius would go after Peter in a mad attempt to bring justice on the man who betrayed his best friends. He would be framed, and brought to Azkaban. He would never know that Hailey had survived.
As for Hailey, she would be brought up by Remus as his own. As Hailey Lupin. She would be sent to Hogwarts when it was time; sorted into Gryffindor, and never know that her twin brother was right next to her.
Remus would find himself a teaching job in a small private magic school. He would never again see his old best friends. Hailey's letters from Hogwarts would become his only joy besides recalling old memories, often laced with the poison of regret, which were all that he had left of that wonderful, happy life. Of friends who convinced him that he was worth a second glance; a second thought; a happy memory to be poisoned by death. A friend.
And through it all, the saddest story was Harry's. He would be thrust into a difficult world of betrayal, and abuse. Never taught that he, himself was worth a real friend. A relative that didn't hate him, though one was right next to him the whole time. He'd die at the hands of a master of evil. Not Voldemort; he would grow up to defeat that evil. But rather a force stronger than even the wielder of madness that had murdered his parents. He would die at the hands of bitterness, and resentment towards the world that forced such a burden upon him. He would die slowly, from the inside out. He would die at the hands of his own mind. His own jealousy of a simple life.
And at his funeral, a girl accompanied by a blonde man with heavy blue eyes would lean over his casket and whisper that she loved him in spite of their never meeting. In spite of everything. If only he'd known, perhaps he wouldn't have thought so much about the evil in his world, and more about the innocence, and love in a family bond. In a sister.
The tears of their parents would fall in the form of rain for weeks after that false meeting. Devastated that their children's lives had turned out so differently from what they had expected, Lily and James Potter would eventually turn away from the world, and into the past, where they could recall abundant happy memories. In heaven, they would reminisce, and wait for their little girl to return to them. That same little girl who'd been taken from them so long ago. That same little girl who would not meet her brother, even after death. He was alone, now. Truly, and forever.
Alone.
A/N- A rather depressing little one-shot. I like it!
Dani