Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all the characters you recognise belong to JK Rowling, I own nothing, please don't sue me.

AN: So here's another chapter, there were a couple of typo's in the last one, so I apologise for that. I had a bit of trouble writing this, but I was really encouraged by my three lovely reviewers: Lexy Granger, Xx-BlueFox-xX and xHeavilyxBrokenx, thank you so much! This chapter should answer some of your questions, and it is a little bit longer than the last, but I'm afraid I'm really hopeless at writing really long ones. Thank you also to everyone who took the time to check this story out, hopefully you'll keep reading.

Chapter 2: Stopping

James Potter couldn't take it anymore. The meaninglessness of everything that surrounded him. He couldn't comprehend how people could possibly go on with their lives oblivious to the havoc that had been reeked on his. How could they chat, and laugh, and do their homework while his life had come to a grinding halt! Couldn't they see the pointlessness of it, didn't they understand that none of it mattered! That nothing mattered now.

He felt so impotent, so completely powerless, and the fury that this invoked churned just below the surface along with his grief, so powerfully that there was room for nothing else. He felt as if he were drowning, sinking slowly and agonizingly into the depths with no strength to fight to the surface, and no hope of help. There was no fight in him, his spirit and every ounce of his will to live had died with them.

So he had stopped. Stopped all the meaningless activities that had filled his days before their deaths, and effectively stopped living. Because how could he go on when they couldn't? How could life possibly go on when they weren't in it? Everybody around him went on as if nothing had happened, but they had died! Nothing should ever be the same! And he was going to make sure that it wasn't, everything in his control would be different, would be worse, because it meant that they had meant something, it meant that their deaths had left the world worse off.

He spent days and sleepless nights roving the castle, his sightless eyes blank, seeing not paintings or suits of armor, but them. Their last minutes, over and over, a horrific, full colour, motion picture that refused to stop playing…… And he didn't want it to.

He could see it all so clearly, every detail, each small movement, each soft sound, and the loud ones as well. He could still feel the confusion, the terror, the rage and the impotence that had been the reactions to what he had witnessed. The memories were still fresh, so fresh, and so overpowering that they seemed to take over his mind and replace every good memory associated with them. Her screams seemed to echo permanently in his head, but he could not recall her laugh. His face would be forever etched onto his brain, a bloody mask of pain and suffering.

And he deserved every single minute of pain that he felt at this memory, because they had suffered so much worse at the hands of the Death Eaters, and he had been powerless to stop it from happening. If he had been stronger, if he had put more effort into learning, if he had focused on the important things while they were alive, instead of seeking instant gratification, instead of being irresponsible…. He would have been able to get out of that room, and they wouldn't have died. It was his fault, and for that he loathed himself.

They had come in the early hours of the morning, those creatures of the night, the death eaters. Wanting to send a message, but not yet brazen enough to do it in broad daylight. And his parents had realized what was going to happen, Moody's motto 'Constant Vigilance', had always applied in their house.

His father had pulled him out of bed, and dragged him bleary eyed down the stairs. Confusion had run rampant inside him, his half asleep brain not yet registering danger with only time to mutter 'wassgoinon', before his father had shoved him unceremoniously through the wall at the back of their small pantry. It was only when the door had closed behind that he realized what was happening. He had been forced into the 'panic room', the room that his father had built in case of an attack. That was when the terror set in.

He knew without a shadow of doubt what his parents had done. This room was impregnable, once closed it would not open for a full 12 hours from the inside, and could not be opened from the outside. His father had built this room for him alone, not for all of their safety as he had led his son to believe. His parents would face the death eaters, and he would be trapped and powerless to help them.

And he had watched as five death eaters and Voldemort himself had breeched the barriers around the house, while he uselessly flung himself at the door of his prison. He had seen his parents fighting a loosing battle as he desperately tried every spell he knew in a futile attempt to get out. And when his parents had been overpowered he had watched as they were tortured. He had stood frozen, watching as Voldemort had used every conceivable method of causing pain on the two people he loved most in the world.

They had forced his father to watch as his mother was slowly driven mad with the cruciatus curse, and then killed with a lazy flick of Voldemort's wand, and tossed aside like a rag doll. His fathers death had been even slower, and this time they had used muggle weapons, until there was no part of him that was not bruised or bleeding, no bone that wasn't broken, and then they had left him, unrecognizable, to bleed to death on the kitchen floor, while James hurled himself from wall to wall, blinded by tears and fury, beating himself bloody as he tried to get out.

The Aurors had found Harold and Elizabeth Potter dead in their home the next day, their son James unconscious on the floor of the pantry.

AN: Please review and tell me what you think, constructive critiscim and suggestions are welcome, especially since writing this was quite tough, and I'm not sure if I did a very good job.