Chapter 3: In Pieces.

"It's rather suspicious, that's all I'm saying." Sirius said in a low voice over dinner, glancing quickly up at the staff table towards Prof. Potter.

"Suspicious? You think having the same thing for dinner two days in a row is a conspiracy of the house elves to make us suffer." James exclaimed.

"Just drop it how many animals are there in the world it's just a coincidence that we both have stag animals in us." James got up and left his dinner behind him as he walked off to the common room, it was bugging him as well he just didn't want to admit it to his friends, because they'll end up wanted to do something drastic and stupid.

"What's bugging you?" Came a voice from the side of the corridor.

"Oh leave me alone Evans" came James reply.

"Well as much as I would usually love to I noticed you seemed a bit out of sorts after the defence lesson, what's wrong? You upset you can't produce a patronus at first try." Lily taunted him.

"Look it's none of your business, and since your little stunt at patrols I'm going to leave you alone. Although speaking as a marauder, that was rather good planning, where did you get the idea from? My influence?" James retorted. Annoyed that she was trying to bug him, but pleased it was her he was talking to.

"Nope, from Professor Potter, he's like a nice you."

"A nice me? What is that meant to mean?"

"He's you inside and out, but not sarcastic and cruel to others."

"I'm not cruel,"

"You are to Severus"

"Well with what he called you last year I think I have every right to be mean to someone who's getting their mark straight after school."

"I don't know about that." Lily replied looking down a bit, she knew he was getting the mark; he did everything but openly admit it to her a few weeks ago. "He keeps trying to apologise for calling me a mudblood." She admitted to James.

"Well sorry isn't good enough if you ask me; it's a horrible thing to pick on someone because of their birth."

"Well it was your fault in the first place, if you hadn't picked on him, and I hadn't defended him he wouldn't have gotten embarrassed, Severus is very self sufficient, he always had to be, he doesn't like anyone to help him."

"That's a bit far fetched Lily, he would have some point shown his true colours and called you that. Don't defend him."

"He would do anything for me though; I just can't trust him much."

"Yeah it's the he would do anything for you that would worry me."

"Why?"

"Would he die for you?"

"Probably."

"Would he kill for you?"

"I…I don't think I like what you're implying."

"I don't either but the truth is Snape is infatuated with you, he would do anything to get his mitts on you, and I bet when he joins the Dark Lord he'll do a deal to get you."

"That's a horrible thing to say."

"Truth hurts Lily" James walked away from her and as soon as he turned a corner he ran all the way to the common room and dove into his bed where he could think things over.

It was probably the only time James had ever walked away from her; she was always the one leaving because of him. She thought he would always persist her and was slightly put out when she realised he didn't, ignoring the feeling she went to the common room to do her homework. She found the common room deserted save for a few first years that finished dinner early and were struggling with some homework. Sighing she went over to the young wizards and started to help them.

"Where's James?" Sirius said as he entered the common room less than 30 minutes later.

"I don't know, he got here before me maybe he's in the dorm?"

Remus just came down from the dorm shaking his head. "Oh the head boy?" one of the first years Lily was tutoring asked. "He came in a few minutes before you did and ran upstairs."

"So how did he get away?"

Sirius seemed to realise. "Oh Remus he's got the cloak, must of used that to slip out. You got the map?" he said as he turned slightly to talk to Remus semi privately away from Lily. Assuming she never cared what happened to James, they thought she'd stopped listening.

"Yeah I got the map I solemnly swear that I am up to no good, let's see he's not in the tower, not at the Quidditch Pitch, he's, um this may not be good," Remus said.

"Oh dear" was all Sirius said.

Lily had to hold in asking what was happening.

"Why would he do that?"

"Must be bothering him more than he let on"

"Else he has a problem with Defence homework, which is unlikely."

"What should we do?"

"He'll kill us if we followed him, we'll wait here and see what happened, and we can't do anything right now." Remus said as he muttered something and put the parchment back in his robes as the two boys sat down near the fire and begun a game of Wizards chess.

'He must be at Prof. Potter's office.' Lily thought, it was the only reasonable theory that came from it. 'What should I do' she thought 'hang on? Why should I care its Potter he can deal with anything' she shook her head and continued with the young students.

In the defence office.

"Mr Potter, what can I do for you? I assume it's nothing to do with the homework?"

"Oh no of course not, that's easy."

"So what's wrong?"

"Why a stag?" James blurted out.

"My patronus?"

James nodded.

Harry desperately tried to keep cool; he had no idea what to say to him.

"Well is there some sort of trouble with the shape it takes?"

"Well sort of yeah but I can't tell you why because you'll tell Prof Dumbledore and ill get in trouble."

"I know you are an illegal animagus if that helps."

"Oh. Damn I'm busted."

Harry started to laugh, "I won't tell on you James if that makes you feel better, I've recently been attempting to become an animagus haven't made much headway too many other things seem to get in the way."

"Oh cool, what animal do you become?"

"A raven, something to do with my love of flying and the black hair, as my girlfriend told me."

"But why is my animagus form a stag and your patronus a stag? That can't be a coincidence."

"James, maybe we are more alike each other than just our surnames and its just the world's way of telling us." Harry laughed a little nervously; he was never that good at 'winging it' as Ron used to say.

"Maybe that's what Lily said about you, she said we were very alike."

"Smart girl she is. I notice you like her a bit."

James blushed; everyone just assumed that he constantly badgered her to go out with him because it was the quickest way for Lily to loose her temper. "Yeah I like her a lot" James admitted it.

"Another thing we have in common then, we act like idiots in front of girls" Harry smiled.

"How did you get your girlfriend to go out with you then?"

"Well it helped that she liked me beforehand and well I sort of kissed her in front of like 50 people including her very recent ex boyfriend and her brothers after she won the quidditch final in my 6th year because she played my position after I was in a detention or banned or something can't remember that bit."

"I don't think I could duplicate the situation." James replied mournfully.

"Definitely without the same results." Harry mused.

"Yeah!" James agreed.

"Be yourself, as hard as it is when there's a pretty girl around, she'll be more impressed with you than all the showing off. That's another thing my girlfriend said to me."

"She's smart"

"She puts up with me that's all I want."

"Do you ever think there's a chance of me and Evans?"

"Start calling her Lily and of course where there's a will there's a way."

"You are so full of optimistic little sayings aren't you?"

"Yes, I had the misfortune to come close to death one time and its amazing how people take so many things for granted. Just the beating of my own heart amazed me. And like my friend Hermione says that if you don't laugh things off you'll just end up crying over them."

"What happened?"

"Someone wanted to kill me, he held many of my friend's sort of hostage and if I didn't come to him they would all die."

"Well that's a bit silly putting so much faith in your heroism, not that many people would actually do that."

"Oh but everyone knows I have a hero complex, I want to be the person to save everyone, not intentionally but I can't sit by and not do something so I walked down to him and every step I took became hard, it's different when you walk into uncertainty but when you know that you are to die its so different, I said goodbye to no one didn't tell anyone my plan, because if I did I didn't think ill be able to make it. I walked past Ginny, my girlfriend. I couldn't say goodbye to her, because if I said anything to her or let her know I was there I would never have left her. Anyway I done it came through in the end and lived to tell the tale."

"You haven't told many people what happened did you? I can see it in your face how fresh the emotions are."

Harry looked up to his father "No I've told no one the full story, my life is a series of woven lies and secrets that I must keep to me and my two closest friends. I would love to tell the tale, because it is actually a really good story, full of lies, deceit, love, despair, neglect all the human emotions and a baddie better than most of the movies" Harry laughed.

James saw how much Harry had actually dealt with over his life as in his short speech he saw so many different emotions expressed over his face.

"What was the hardest point?"

"That's tricky, either watching my godfather die, no there was worse, the worst point in my life was when I walked into a room and saw the last link to my family lying on the floor dead next to his new wife when they had a 2 month old child at home, next to him was a good friend my girlfriends brother actually dead with his whole family crying at him it was too much for me, it was the one time I truly wanted things to be done, to feel no more, to rip my heart from my chest and get rid of the feelings I was having.

But no less than 30 minutes later I had learnt the full truth about my short life and went to walk death row. I believed so solidly that I was about to die, to join my parents, my godfather, the friends I'd lost that the grief that had consumed me not long before was displaced I no longer felt so angry and hurt by death, it was replaced by a sort of desperation not to join them, its hard to explain, and it actually feels like a totally unique situation, and I think I did myself proud, the way I dealt with it, how I managed to die with that much dignity."

"You died?" James cried out.

'Oops' Harry thought 'he never meant that to slip out'

"Yes, but not really, because I was tied to life by the person who was trying to kill me its incredibly complicated and I just about understand it, it's like dying but being given CPR and you live again, I was gone no more than 30 seconds."

"Oh I see, so this is where you got all your experience from, fighting this man who was trying to kill you."

"Yes, and he threw quite a few nasty things our way, some of it was just weird!" Harry said thinking of the Nagini that lived in Bathilda Bagshot when they visited Godric's Hollow.

"So, are you going to fight against the Dark Lord? Because you fought this other guy, and you survived so you can help us right?"

"I'm not sure how long I'll be around I think I'm leaving at the end of the year."

"Where are you going?"

"Home"

"Where's that?"

"Far away. Far enough away that I can be of little use to you."

"What do you live in Australia?"

Harry laughed, "Hmm that's a good idea I should move to Australia."

James sighed, whenever the Professor didn't want to answer a question he avoided it quite successfully as if he'd done this for years.

"Ok I get it, but do you think you could help some of us train to fight again him?"

"Who?"

"Sirius, Remus, Frank, Lily I'm sure, Alice, me of course and there are others who would want to learn."

"I'll think about it but I don't have a problem with that. I'll let you know after the next lesson, and it'll be up to you to recruit the others to this defence class."

"Great." James jumped up. "Well nice talking to you bye." He said as he walked out. He got up to the common room and sat down happily next to Sirius as he helped him play.

A/N: What do you think?