James looked upon the still form of his wife. Her long copper hair was neatly brushed and arrayed around her calm, pale face. Her once bright eyes were now closed and her mouth, so often open in a laugh or jest, was silent. She was clothed in her favorite dress of a bright blue, the kind of blue people associate with the sky or the ocean, but is never actually accomplished by either. She had worn that dress for their thirtieth wedding anniversary. He traced the crow's feet at the corners of her eyes and he remembered how he would tease her and call her an old woman. He leaned down and kissed her forehead, not noticing the tear that fell there.
"I love you Lils, I always have and I always will. I'll see you on the other side."
• • •
James sat upright in his bed, fumbling for his glasses on the table next to him. Shoving them onto his face he jumped out of bed, barely registering his surroundings until he heard a door slam behind him.
"James Potter you get back in that bed this instant," called the voice of Madam Pomfrey from the other end of the hall. Finally realizing he was not in the 6th year boys' dormitory, James took a moment to look around. There were beds lining the sides of the long hall, some with curtains drawn, and others with still figures visible beneath the crisp, white linen bed sheets. He was in the hospital wing then. Wait why am I in the hospital wing, he thought before the events of the previous day came crashing back to him. Sinking back down onto his bed, James raked his fingers through his already messy raven hair, trying to make sense of the memories assaulting his mind.
"There was an attack dear, Death Eaters," Madam Pomfrey told him while handing him a cup filled with a poisonous looking substance. Well she's a pretty young thing, James thought wildly. He stared into the cup, not fully registering why he had a sinking feeling in his stomach before the memories came back to him in full.
Lily lay on the grass in front of him, tears streaming down her face and her mouth open in a silent scream as one of the Death Eaters advanced on them, laughing manically. Remus bleeding in the grass, Elizabeth beside him, seemingly unharmed but not moving. Sirius' arm was limp; the white of his bone could be seen, sticking up out of the skin. Lily, her face stark white and a trickle of blood running from her mouth where she had bitten through her lip trying not to scream. Kneeling, James took her hand in his and checked her wrist for a pulse, it was there but it was faint.
James stood up again, flinging the cup onto his bed and pushing the surprised nurse out of his way. Lily, Sirius, Remus. Lily, Sirius, Remus. Lily, Sirius, Remus, James repeated in his head, running from bed to bed until he saw a familiar mop of black. Sirius, he was safe with Remus lying in the bed next to his. Where was Lily?
"Potter get back here!" yelled the nurse regaining her composure, but James ignored her, searching more frantically now. Tearing back the curtains from one bed he finally found her and stopped moving altogether. She was lying there in the bed, hair arranged neatly around her face, hands folded on her chest. She was dead. Lily Evans, the reason for his existence was dead. He thought to the nightmare he had been having before he woke, how happy he had been it was just a dream, but here it was following him into the waking world. She was dead. A cry tore itself from his mouth and he sank to his knees, fists trembling, tears streaming down his face. Madam Pomfrey stopped behind him, staring at the forlorn boy on his knees in front of her and started cackling. It was high and cold and as James turned to look she changed before his very eyes, she was now the man who had claimed to be Voldemort.
"I told you to join me Potter; I told you I would kill them all. And so I have." James looked around him and realized the beds were now filled with the people he loved: his parents, Sirius, Remus, Peter, even Felicity and Marlene, Elizabeth and Mary. And Lily. She was no longer dead, but her green eyes were open and full of tears, staring into his.
"You did this. You killed us James Potter."
• • •
Felicity woke up to screaming. Looking up she saw someone in the bed across from her being pushed down by the combined efforts of Madam Pomfrey and Professor McGonagall. That was odd, what was James Potter doing in her dormitory, more importantly how did he get into the Slytherin dormitory at all she wondered, before remembering she was not in the Slytherin girls' dormitory. She remembered the attack; she remembered her sister and herself fighting side by side, her sister being hit by a Death Eater and then everything going dark. She sat up slowly, taking care not to move too fast lest she increase her already blinding headache. Bloody hell this is even worse than the hangover I had after last terms beginning of the year party, she thought vaguely.
"You okay there legs?" Felicity turned her head to see Sirius Black occupying the bed next to her. She eyed him appreciatively before assuming an arrogant look and flipping her hair.
"Well I was Black, until I saw your caner self." She smirked, giving her best disdainful Slytherin pureblood face, before laughing. Sirius' straight face lasted a millisecond longer before he too barked out his own dog-like laugh.
"Me? Caner? Like hell I am, if it weren't for you I'd be a straightedge. Never knew what a doobie was till that time fourth year you told me it was a fag. You had a right laugh about that one," Sirius replied, grinning like a Cheshire cat, eyes wandering from her face and down her lean figure. He had always thought her the more attractive of the Ramsey twins. Her hair fell in perfect black ringlets and her olive skin was flawless. Where her sister had huge brown eyes, Felicity's were a captivating blue, so light they almost looked silver. And her lips, they were perfectly full and normally colored blood red. She said she wanted to give the boys something to look at other than her arse. And a very nice arse it is, Sirius thought to himself grinning, before realizing there was something off about her normally wild self. Her face was pinched in pain as she sat on the edge of her bed, and when she went to stand she collapsed before Sirius could even stretch out a hand to steady her.
"Fi!" he yelled, but before he could stand to help her Madame Pomfrey was there, wand in hand, and lifted Felicity back into her bed.
"What's wrong with her?" came a voice from the bed to Felicity's left. Sirius saw Remus looking back at him, his face the same greenish shade it was directly after a full moon.
"She lost quite a bit of blood, she's just a little woozy, nothing a bit of rest can't fix," the nurse said softly before bustling over to Remus, "The same goes to you Mr. Lupin, drink this." Handing him a cup of some steaming liquid and watching to make sure he drank it all, Madam Pomfrey smiled as his eyelids drooped and he sank back into his pillows. A shout from across wing brought Sirius' head around and he saw a mop of messy black hair in the bed across from his, James, he thought. James shouted again and Sirius was out of bed before Madam Pomfrey could utter a word. In a second he was at his brother's bedside, staring at the pale face distorted in fear.
"James, James, JAMES!" Sirius yelled trying to get his friend's attention, to little avail. James looked unseeingly past Sirius as he pulled against the restraints McGonagall and Pomfrey had placed there moments before. James' normally handsome face was white and his messy hair was matted to his head with sweat but to Sirius the worst was his eyes. James was never scared, his hazel eyes always shown with mocking laughter and disdain for those around him. Now though, as Sirius stared into those eyes, he thought he had never seen someone so terrified, and would never again.
"What's wrongwith him Pomfrey?" Sirius barked at the nurse next to him, storm grey eyes darkening by the second in anger and fear. Madame Pomfrey just shook her head before walking toward another bed.
"Fix him you witless cow," Sirius snarled as he followed the witch to the next bed.
"Sirius Black! How dare you use that language with Madame Pomfrey!" McGonagall shrieked at the shaking boy. Sirius strode toward the Professor, stopping inches in front of her and glaring at the slightly shorter witch. A lesser woman would have trembled in fear at the look Sirius was giving her, but McGonagall's lips pressed into a dangerously thin line.
"Sit down Black, this isn't a fight you want to get into," a voice called from one of the beds near the end of the hall. Lily Evans was glaring at Sirius as she raised herself onto her elbows shakily.
"Says you slag," Sirius spat back at Lily ignoring the indignant squeaks from both McGonagall and Pomfrey. Striding toward the bed Lily occupied, he glared into her green eyes, disregarding the flash of fear in them.
"This is your fault Evans. If James hadn't let his guard down to make sure you were okay he wouldn't have been hit with that curse. If it weren't for you, my brother and I would be back in Gryffindor tower by now but instead that curse made him so crazy they had to tie him down. This is all your fault, you stupid cunt," Sirius snarled in her face before sweeping past her bed and out of the hospital wing.
• • •
Peter Pettigrew stared at the canopy of his bed in Gryffindor tower. He didn't think he could ever remember the room being so silent, even on the nights when all the others were sleeping and he lay in bed thinking. There was no sound of deep breathing from Remus' bed, no creak of the bed as Edgar Bones turned over in his sleep, no eerie silence from Sirius' bed where a silencing charm had been cast to protect the others from the sound of his exploits, and no sound of James mumbling quietly in his sleep. No, Peter Pettigrew was utterly alone with his thoughts, and that was the most dangerous of times. Coward, he thought to himself,you couldn't even try to help your friends; you turned the minute you felt danger and you ran. You don't deserve them, you don't deserve Gryffindor. You are worthless; you are nothing but a rat. Peter shook his head violently, trying to make the voice in his head stop. No! I belong here, I am a Gryffindor, I am one of them! Rat, Rat, Rat nothing but a sneaking worthless rat. Peter shook as sobs wracked his frame. He couldn't let himself think those thoughts and he knew it. He knew he was weak and worthless but he couldn't dwell on it. If he did the darkness would take him away again. He feared much, but the darkness was the worst. Every time he fell into it, it became harder and harder to claw his way back. Recently every time he pulled himself back from the edge it came with a cost, cuts and bruises started to decorate his body and they just kept getting worse. He wore long sleeves and pants even on the hottest days of summer and he could no longer go swimming with his friends. Telling anyone was out of the question, he was already the least of the Marauders, and he couldn't show even more weakness. Peter gripped his sheets tightly, hoping to anchor himself in some way to the world. Yet as hard as he held on he could only think one thought as the darker side of him took over his mind. Rat. Rat. Rat. Nothing but a rat.
• • •
The moon isn't out tonight, Remus Lupin thought as he stared out the hospital wing window. It was the middle of the night and yet he couldn't sleep, he couldn't do much of anything in fact. He had tried to think about the events of that evening but he could only remember Elizabeth Ramsey getting hit with a curse and falling to the ground, her limbs at an unnatural angle to her body. As he glanced down the wing toward her bed, all he could see were the closed curtains around the bed and the silhouette of Madame Pomfrey attending to her. Turning his head, he stared dully at the ceiling.
"Lupin, hey Lupin," he heard someone calling from across the aisle. He turned to see Mary MacDonald's large blue eyes staring back at him. He watched as she pulled her waist length blond hair into a ponytail then jumped out of her bed, glancing behind her to make sure Madame Pomfrey hadn't noticed. She turned and put a finger to her lips and motioned for him to get up also.
"What are-"
"Shut up Lupin!" Mary interrupted before he could ask what they were doing. Again she motioned for him to get up and change into the clothes on the table next to his bed. He hadn't noticed that she had already changed into street clothes and he looked at her questioningly, wisely choosing to stay silent this time. She rolled her eyes and motioned again, more violently this time and with a rather rude hand gesture at the end. Sighing, Remus got out of bed quietly and grabbed the clothing on his table. He looked at Mary and raised an eyebrow, smirking slightly when she blushed and rolled her eyes before turning to give him privacy. Changing in a matter of seconds, he quietly walked over to Mary, tapping her shoulder and trying not to laugh when she jumped slightly.
Mary turned and froze, staring at a spot just over Remus' shoulder, wincing at having been caught Remus too turned and froze at the sight of the person behind him. James Potter stood behind them dressed in muggle clothes and looking completely and utterly normal. Remus glanced toward James' bed, making sure he wasn't imaging the person in front of him. Satisfied that the James Potter in front of him was in fact, the real James Potter, Remus grabbed the arm of his friend and pulled him toward the doors at the end of the wing with Mary trailing behind.
"Muffliato," Mary whispered, pointing her wand in the direction of Madam Pomfrey before opening the door and slipping out with the two Marauders. As Mary closed the door behind them, James started walking toward a large tapestry on the opposite on of the hall. Glancing behind at Remus and Mary who had stayed by the doors watching him, he rolled his eyes and motioned for them to follow.