He is standing in front of Lily Evans. Her dress robes are a brilliant emerald green, and James wants to tell her how beautiful she looks.

But he doesn't.

He turns around, even though she is screaming for him to come back. His surroundings are pitch-black, and the only light comes from Lily's blazing hair.

"No," James whispers.

"Potter," she says. "James!"

"Go away," he replies.

"Don't be a dolt! Tell me what's wrong!"

"Why don't you ask the Giant Squid?"

But she grabs his hand anyways, and pulls him to the Astronomy Tower. He has been stronger than her since fourth year, but tonight she had superhuman force. Or perhaps he just wants to go with her.

The Marauders are in the Tower. Peter pushes him on top of the window sill, and Remus is holding a rabbit.

"Don't jump yet," Sirius says, "I'll get my motorbike."

But James doesn't want to jump from the Astronomy Tower. It's mad, he tries to say, but his body is acting on its own accord and he falls. His body thrashes in the air, his center of focus constantly changing, and he realizes he left his glasses in the Tower.

He is not afraid of the ground, even though it is speeding towards him at a lethal rate. Nothing can be worse than this fall.

Then the ground turns into the Black Lake, and he plummets through the water deeper than momentum can account for. The full moon shines through the water, and James looks for the rabbit, but realizes that he is underwater. Though his glasses are gone, his vision is perfect.

A bat flies across the light of the moon, and James wants to save it.

He turns around, and his mother's body floats in front of him. He reaches out to drag it up to the surface, but all his hand touches is more water. The body drifts away from him, slowly at first, but then James has to swim as fast as he can to even see it anymore. He opens his mouth to scream, but water fills is lungs quicker than sound can exit. The water is searing hot and heavy, and its burn inflames his insides as he watches her body speed away. The water in his body is on fire, and it's blazing through him. James tries to drink more water to put it out, but this only feeds it. His muscles go limp though James knows he should swim to the surface. The fire is consuming him, and even though James can now see the licks of flames burning his skin, eating his flesh, he is inexplicably heavier, and sinks.

James touches the bottom of the Black Lake, and he calls for his mother, but she doesn't come.

She'll never come again.

"CHARLOTTE!"

James bolted awake, a mix of sweat and tears cascading off his face. His mind was still in the Black Lake, but his body almost automatically reached for his glasses. His bed was a mess of twisted sheets, and the dress robes he had fallen asleep in were wrinkled and stained.

His father's sobs could be heard below him as James jammed his glasses on his face. Harold screamed his wife's name again in grief, and James wasn't shocked by this occurrence, more disturbed by this glasses brought a clear focus on the world, but James missed the dullness of a was sharply real, and reality wasn't something he wanted to cope with.

This grief was all-consuming; he was in a deep hole that he'd never be able to climb out of. It was dark, cold, tiring, and lonely. He felt like he was constantly leaping to try to find a handhold so he could hoist himself up, but all he ended up doing was scratching his fingers down to the bone.

James ran his hands through his hair and swung his legs off the bed. There wouldn't be any more sleep that night.

Standing up, he contemplated going flying to clear his head, but he caught view of himself in the mirror.

His face had always been thin, and his build lankly, but they were now so more than ever. The lack of meals showed. He had fallen asleep in the same dress robes he had worn to the funeral. They hung on him drearily loose, and there were deep purple circles beneath his eyes, and he was faintly reminded of Moony. Only his demon wasn't monthly, his was every moment.

But these details didn't shake him. He had seen them slowly progress since his mother's made him double-take was that his mirror did not capture the top of his head anymore. James had stood in front of the mirror countless times, but he had always been able to clearly see his upper body. And, now, the view had changed.

He had grown taller.

The fact was simple, expected, and would normally be met with a prideful smirk. It was a symbol of aging, of becoming a man. Now, James just saw it as a mark that life went on without Charlotte Potter. This was comforting to some, but James would rather have had everything and everyone stop and notice. He was awe-stuck by the reality that there were people who didn't know that his mother had even existed, let alone had died. This event that was so dreadfully impacting to him, that would change him forever, wasn't relevant at all to the world.

James strode purposefully to the corner of his room, with an air he hadn't had for a while. Picking up his broom that leaned against the wall, he did not make for the door, or even the window, but his dresser.

CRASH.

Everything hit the floor with a single swipe of his broom. Glass shattered, plastic snapped, and the wood floor left dented. A month ago, James would have been appalled that anyone would treat a Nimbus 1700, top-of-the-line broomstick, like that, but now James didn't care. It wasn't important anymore. If his mother hadn't been relevant, what right did a broomstick have to be so?

He drove the handle of the broom into the mirror. The cracks radiated from that center point, destroying the glass, but he wasn't satisfied. James bashed the mirror again, and again, and when it was gone he turned to his desk, the pile of Quidditch magazines, and finally the window.

It was useless, James knew. Destroying all the objects in his room did nothing to solve the problem. But it released the smoldering fury within him, and the desperation of his actions only made them more real. He saw each blow in slow motion. As he battered the window repeatedly, he realized that it wasn't just grief he was expressing.

It was guilt.

Guilt, because he furious at his mother for leaving him, even though it was far beyond her control.

Guilt, because he couldn't be stronger for his father, because he didn't know what his father needed from him.

Guilt, because he wasn't allowed to break like this. He was supposed to be strong, he was supposed to be unshakable. Teenage boys, Marauders, were supposed to be invincible. This had been too rude of a wake-up call.

But mostly it was because, on some level, James had wanted this to happen. He'd been watching his mother die for so long, been in this agony since he was mother had been old, even for a witch, and every sniffle could be 'd been sick of wondering if this cough or that sneeze were just the common cold or something that could rip his mother away from him. He hated himself at that moment,such a drastic turn from his usual arrogance. From his usual ignorance.

"Mate."

James turned. Sirius stood in the doorway, surveying the room. He followed his friend's gaze. Shards of glass littered the floor- there wasn't one inch of the ground that didn't threaten to slash open their bare feet. The dresser was actually overturned, and the desk's contents had been strewn throughout the floor. He felt something warm flow down his arm, and James looked down and saw a small gash oozing blood.

"Even your dad's room isn't this bad," Sirius stated. The pitiful attempt at humor was obliterated by his empty tone.

James hated how the room below him was his father's room, not his parents' room. He wants to punch Sirius for implying that his mother didn't own that room just as much as his father did, but then he realized that his implication was just as true as it was painful.

He laid the broomstick across his desk, and stared back at Sirius. "She's dead," he said, his voice hollow. "She's gone. Mum is dead." They were obvious words, repetitive. But James needed to say them. He crossed the room, somehow managing not to cut himself.

"Yeah," Sirius agreed. "She is." His voice was equally as dead.

"I can't stand this house," James admitted, unable to stop the flow of words. "Every corner reminds me of what used to be here. Dad wakes me up every night reminding me why I couldn't fall asleep, and all he wants is to be alone so he can stare at photos all fucking day. Like that is somehow going to bring her back? Like if he relives everything, it'll be like she's there with us?" The last sentence ended in a sob, and the tears were just as unstoppable as his words had been.

They stared at each other for a moment before embracing each other in unison, and James suddenly thought how ridiculous it was that they hadn't done this before. Both of them had skated around each other, never really letting the other see how broken they really were. Sirius had remained largely silent and stoic, but James had slipped constantly. Both of them had ignored the grief between them until then.

You couldn't keep a façade like that up forever. It had to break. You had to admit you were losing, you had to lay down your cards and own up to them. No matter how many chips were on the line, you had to show your emotions at some point. No one could keep a poker face forever.

James cried on Sirius' shoulder. He was a sixteen year old boy who needed to hold on to someone, who needed advice on how to play his now-losing hand. Luckily, his brother had had similar cards before.

"Tomorrow, we're going back to Hogwarts," Sirius said. "It's better than here, right, Prongs?"

James nodded.