Disclaimer: Don't own Harry Potter.

Quote: At slow speed we all seem focused
In motion we seem wrong
In summer we can taste the rain

I want you to be free
Don't worry about me
And just like the movies
We play out our last scene

Alien Ant Farm - Movies


MIR

ORS

Chapter 2: Innocence Lost

James Potter stormed through the halls of Hogwarts castle, scowling profusely. He'd warned Siberius that if he had to come into this school one more time for Sirius, he'd throttle him. The little shit had a thrill for getting into trouble.

Minerva McGonagall beamed at him as he passed. "Morning, James. On berating duty?"

He nodded grimly. "Unfortunately. When I find him, I'm going to kill him… you wouldn't happen to know what he did?"

"Kicked Mrs. Norris out of a second story window."

James pinched the bridge of his nose. "Of course he did."

She gave a small smirk. "Good luck, James."

He hummed, half listening as he located his daughter, Elizabeth standing on a corridor corner, her arms folded and her skirt too` short for his liking. Her Drubles ever blowing bubblegum snapped at him as she turned to catch his gaze.

"Hey, Effy. You seen SJ anywhere?"

She walked over to hug him, her head resting on his chest for longer than he'd have thought she'd have allowed if her friends were around. She seemed to sag into him, her shoulders relaxing and her arms lazily circling his waist. "Hey, Daddy." She whispered, stepping back an inch. "I've missed you." She announced, awkwardly shifting her right foot so her knee bent inwards a bit, but her hazel eyes kept to his.

"I've missed you too, sweetheart." He slipped his hand into the hair at the back of her head, gently kissing her on the forehead. "Are you alright?"

"Fine," She breathed. "I-"

"Fuck off Gay-Jay; you know that's a lode of bollocks." 'Lips thick Northern brogue cut through her words from around the corner.

She immediately quietened, and averted her eyes to the spot where they were likely to appear at in the next few seconds. Siberius and 'Lip came around the corner, Ste in tow, running his fingers through his strawberry blonde hair, eyes on the ground as the two fought over what appeared to be a girl.

"Siberius."

The kids' eyes shot up in surprise, widening considerably. "Uncle James! What are you doing here?"

"Don't act all innocent, Seb - you know the drill, come on."

"You comin' Effy?" asked 'Lip, looking over his shoulder as he and Ste made they're way off the way James had came.

She held her head high, smirking. "Yeah, come on. Pandora'll have a heart attack if I leave her out in the forest for too long with that lot - you know what she's like."

She walked on a head of them, leading the way without a backwards glance.

James shook his head. There was something going on with that girl he didn't care to try and understand… he turned to Seb. "You!" he pointed. "Come with me. You're in a heap of trouble; you nearly killed that poor cat."

"Oh 'poor cat' my arse, that thing's evil and you know it!"

James didn't let his godson see the small smile forcing its way onto his face at the memories of what they used to do to the little thing. Of course it'd been a kitten then… "Oi, watch out, James!" Seb was suddenly pulling him out of the way and a man with bright green eyes was running past them.

Was that… eyes widening with surprise he turned quickly to look for the man who looked so much like the kid from the mirror, but by the time he'd turned there was no one there, just a long strip of hallway and an open door at the end. It was like he'd vanished into thin air…

"Are you just going to stand there all day, or can we get this over with?"

Turns out being a silent member of the Order of the Phoenix was more trouble than Harry had given it credit for. Having no idea who was alive in this world was hell, obviously his father was, and that, while brilliant was ultimately going to cause a lot of problems. James Potter could not see him, not ever. It would compromise the situation.

He'd gone to Diagon Alley to keep his mind off of it, Gringotts, then Madam Malkins for some new robes, and he'd had to order a bunch of new clothes, seeing as all of his belongings were stuck in the other universe. Luckily he'd had the bottomless pouch containing a direct link to his vault back home so he could get a goblin to transfer everything into a new account here.

He was walking past the Magical Menagerie when a small animal on the other side of the dividing walls caught his eye. Almost completely ginger in colour, but with white paws, and underbelly. It had tiger like darker orange, almost brown markings across the top of its head and down its back. Big, bright blue eyes and a tiny pink nose. He almost laughed at the sheer luck of the situation, walking into the shop itself to get a better look. It was just a kitten, it shouldn't have had such an effect on him, he knew, but all the same…

One of the memories he'd been trying and failing to repress since she died flew to the forefront of his mind and he was forced to remember that weird little ball of fluff that he'd bought for Ginny after they'd moved into their first flat. They were pretty much identical. She'd loved him to bits, named him, ever so thoughtfully 'jellybean' because she'd been eating some when he brought the little thing home. It opened its mouth marginally, showing small but undoubtedly sharp fangs and made the tiniest of whines.

Harry almost jumped out of his skin when the woman that owned the shop appeared behind him. "Can I help you with anything?"

Considering it for barely a second, wanting just one thing that reminded him of home, grounding him just a little bit, he nodded. "How old are these kittens?"

"Only 8 weeks." She smiled. "Which one are you after?"

Crouching down in front of the cage, he stuck the tip of his finger through the gap in the bars. The one he's spotted from the window stretched its neck forward to sniff it, ears back and eyes wide during its inspection. Smiling to himself, he nodded his head in the direction of the one now sitting waiting expectantly at the front, its fluffy chest pushed out self-importantly.

Without hesitation, she unlocked the cage and pulled it out by the scruff of its neck, flipping it over. "It's male, that alright?"

Nodding once, he allowed her to continue with the sale, all the while eyeing the tiny shorthaired thing sitting on the counter top obediently, wondering if he'd made a mistake. Maybe it would make it harder to move on? Shaking his head, he thanked the woman behind the desk and carried the kitten out in a carry case. Sighing with the prospect of having to find his new (or old, depending on the way you looked at it) flat sooner rather than later, he stopped to try and recalibrate.

Staying in a hotel had been nice, but he definitely needed his own space for planning and such. He'd checked out the moment he left this morning, hoping that no one would currently be staying in the flat he and Ginny had had in the next world over, assuming that it even existed, and that he could charm his way into moving in sooner rather than later. Making a mental list of everything that he was going to need to get his hands on, buying or otherwise he turned into an alley way he knew would take him to the streets of muggle London in half the time it would have done the conventional way.

He was fine for the majority of the way through, that was until he came across a hooded man walking in the opposite direction. Not registering him as a threat, they past one another just fine, until the hooded man looked up and saw exactly who he was passing. Or rather, who he thought he was passing.

"Potter!" He grabbed Harry's wrist.

Already on alert, he managed to twist his wrist and grab the man's arm, dropping his bags, and the kitten to the floor, moving his now free hand around to snap it cleanly. As he cried out in alarm, Harry pulled back his sleeve, finding the Dark Mark, bold as the night, wriggling on his forearm. The man fell to his knees, knocking his hood back with the sudden movement.

"Colin!" he called out in surprise. "Colin Creevy?" he dropped the man's arm as if he'd been burned.

Sure enough, 20 year old Colin Creevy nodded. "What of it?" he pulled himself to his feet, gasping in pain as he knocked his broken wrist. He looked up at Harry expectantly. Then his eyes too became wide with shock. "You're not James Potter!"

"No…I'm not." Colin had died fighting for the light, only 18 years old, the night Hogwarts had fallen. He had always been so innocent – how could he be a Death Eater here? The idea was preposterous. "What happened to you?" he asked sadly.

Colin looked taken aback. "Well you broke my wrist, that's what happened to me."

"Sorry." He said in a split second, without hesitation.

Again, he looked surprised. "Why aren't you calling for help, raising the alarm? I mean, your obviously capable enough, why aren't you attacking me? I'm a Death Eater. Unless your one of us… though to be honest, I'm sure the Dark Lord would kill anyone who looked even remotely like James Potter, with the history they have…" He went quiet, wand still slightly raised in his other hand.

He shook his head. "Never you mind." Raising his own wand, he flicked his wrist, watching as Colin recoiled, winced, then squeezed his hand into a fist after Harry had magically clicked it back into place.

"Who are you?"

"It doesn't matter. Just run."

"But-"

"Someone's coming, I suggest you run."

Colin looked behind the stranger to see a familiar man walking down the street towards them. Deciding that he valued his life, he ran in the opposite direction. And Harry watched him go. Still in shock over the revelation that his friend was among the Death Eaters ranks. "Mate, oi, James! Was that Colin Creevy? Why the hell did you let him go? James-!"

Harry found himself face to face once again with a deceased friend. This time in the form of Sirius Black. It physically hurt to look at the alternate version of his godfather. Even though it wasn't really him. How could it be? He looked so young. His grey eyes had that spark of silver in them that he'd seen so often in those photos of him before Azkaban. His godfather was a shell of a man, broken and shattered, beyond repair, having lost everything. But this man standing before him was the Sirius Black. Prankster, Auror… James Potters best friend.

Sirius frowned. "You're not James… but you look so much like him…" he ran his fingers through his hair, craning his neck to try and get a look at where Colin had gone. "Damn! Even still, why the hell would you let him leave? He's wanted across the country!"

Harry shot out of his revere. "What? Why?"

Sirius looked at him like he was stupid. "What do you mean, why? He killed one of his classmates during a Hogsmede trip under the orders of Voldemort. And he's done worse since!"

"Oh…" Colin couldn't kill anyone, could he? He wasn't capable of it.

"'Oh'," He nodded. "Of course." He grabbed Harrys arm at the elbow. "I'm going to need you to come with me."

"Why?" But he was already being dragged into an alley, and he couldn't bring himself to resist his godfather.

Harry found himself thrown into a chair in a dimly lit room deep under the main building of the ministry.

"Sirius, I still don't understand why you brought him here. You can't question someone without the proper grounds to enforce-"

"Just look at him! He was just attacked by someone who mistook him for James Potter. The guy was Colin Creevy. Anyone who sees him would raise the alarm unless they were involved with the Death Eaters. Even if it was just a misunderstanding, he's impersonating an Auror."

There was a long sigh. "Fine. But if you don't get conclusive proof that he's consorting with Death Eaters or anything otherwise within the next 20 minutes, you have to let him go."

The door closed behind him and Sirius Black walked to stand behind the chair opposite Harry. He just stood there and watched, motionless, staring. Harry rolled his eyes. "I've gone along with thus so far, if only because I needed to go to the Ministry anyway, I mean, don't get me wrong – I'm quite happy to sit here and baffle you. But I have things to do."

He was so completely knocked off guard by the fact that his late godfather was standing opposite him, alive and well, that he didn't even think twice about the fact that he had god knows what left back in that alleyway in London.

He cleared his throat. "You look almost exactly like James Potter. The Auror, don't pretend like you don't know who he is."

"Head of the Auror Department, right?"

"Known for being the person in charge of bringing down as many Death Eaters as possible. He's been tracking down Voldemort for years, and he's heavily wanted by the Dark Lord and his followers. It's not the first time someone's been caught impersonating him." He frowned. "What I don't understand, is why you would be mistaken for James by a Death Eater – if you were impersonating him, badly, I might add, he has hazel eyes by the way, it obviously has nothing to do with Voldemort. Who are you?"

"Orion Evans." He said, leaning back in his seat and crossing his arms. "Do you actually have a reason to keep me here? Because if you don't hurry up and get to the point in the next 30 seconds, I'm off."

Sirius ignored him. "How do you know Colin Creevy?"

"We go way back, I used to know him when he was a kid… I didn't know he was a Death Eater until today."

Sirius sat down in the chair and leant across the table to him. "He killed one of his classmates when he was 17. He was after James' daughter under Voldemorts orders and it went wrong, ended up killing one of his mates. You can't live in Britain and NOT know about that, it was everywhere."

Harry closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Why does it have to be bad different." He said to himself. Before Sirius could ask, he shook his head and opened his eyes. "I've been in Bolivia for the past 9 years. I can't remember much from when I was growing up here. But I knew him – and he was a good kid!" Harry shot to his feet and wandered across the room. "What do you want? I haven't got time for this."

"I'll decide what you have and haven't got time for, Evans. What have you done to make yourself look like James Potter?" he demanded.

"Nothing!" He said, louder than he'd intended. "This is me – what I look like, my skin, my face." He pinched his own cheek. "I don't even know who the hell 'James Potter' is. I've never seen the bloke in my life!"

Sirius stood up and cast a few consistent revealing spells, getting annoyed when nothing happened. "This is really you?"

"Yes! I ran in to Creevy, broke his wrist, found out he was a Death Eater then fixed his wrist and told him to run from you because he was my friend once, and I still believe that there's good in him!" Harry spat vehemently. "Now where the hell's that ginger thing?"

Sirius went from furious that he was being yelled at by a delinquent, to confused as to what the hell he was on about. "Ginger… you mean that kitten you had with you?"

"Yes. He's not mine, he's for..." Ginny. The realisation that he'd bought a cat for his dead girlfriend was enough to make him laugh. He shook his head. "Where is he? It's almost five, and I need to go see a man about an apartment. You have no grounds to keep me here. I didn't know he was wanted; I'm not impersonating an Auror. Let me go, before I call Dumbledore."

"Albus Dumbledore? Why would you-"Clarity slowly spread across the older mans confused face. "You're Orion Evans, the new Order member that Dumbledore recruited yesterday." He said, as if everything was all suddenly making sense. "I'm sorry, mate. He did say you looked a bit like…" He took a deep breath. "You know he gave me orders last night to come and find you to recruit you for the Auror Department, if it's something you're interested in. He said you looked like the type who'd get a thrill out of it. I can put you into the training programme if you-"

"I don't need the training programme. Even if I did want to be an Auror, you'd do best to let me skip Auror Academy. It's a waste of time." Harry turned and placed his hand over the locked door, letting his magic seep through his fingertips to unlock the magically bonded door, letting himself out.

"Hey! You can't do that!"

Harry gave him a condescending look. "So stop me." Storming down the halls of the lowest levels of the Ministry, he found his way to the elevator, tapping the button for the Atrium.

Sirius shot in after him. "I- will you at least consider it? There are Order members laced directly through the seams of the Ministry. If you were to do this, he'd trust you a whole lot faster. He wanted me to put you through the Academy, then you could train alongside me. Even if you didn't need to go to the Academy, it's the law to start off as a Trainee."

Harry hesitated. Joining the Aurors would slow him down, but if it'd help Dumbledore trust him faster… "I've already been through the Academy, back in Bolivia. I'd give you the papers, but my house got burned to the ground." He said blankly. "And I'm not signing anything. You want me here, you do it, I need to sort out my apartment. Where's my stuff?"

Sirius walked toward a group of Aurors standing around the reception desk, laughing and cooing at something. A woman Harry immediately noticed as Tonks was sat up on the desk itself, tormenting the little ginger tomcat sitting beside her. Just the sight of her alone made him smile. "Leave the poor thing alone, Nymphadora, it's only a kitten."

Upon recognising him it whined again, unable to meow properly yet. He folded his arms. "Well you're not much of a tomcat are you? Why didn't you fight back?" he said, as if he fully expected it to reply. It whined again. He shook his head. "Jellybean may actually fit this time around." He said, picking it up and putting him back in his carrying case.

A man to his right snorted. "Jellybean? Really?"

Turning to the source of the noise, he found Remus Lupin standing in his Auror uniform beside Tonks. The laws must be different here too… the smile on his face widened into a full blown grin. "My girlfriend named him."

Grabbing his bags, he walked away without another word, only to have Sirius call after him. "Oi! I want to see you here first thing tomorrow morning! You need to pass basic training before we can even accept you onto the force!"

"Yeah, whatever."

He could hear Tonks laughing behind him as he made his way to the Apparation point. "I am so going to enjoy you trying to tame that."

And he was going to enjoy annoying the hell out of Sirius. Though, in all fairness, he was just happy to get to spend some time with his godfather. Maybe Voldemort could wait… for now. Just until he got his bearings, sorted out the Order…

He turned, arriving outside the front door of an office of some sort. Seemed about right. Without knocking, he entered to a portly looking man sat reading a muggle paper. At least some things were the same. Ginny never had got along with their landlord. "I need to rent out number 19." He said, drawing his wand behind his back.

The man dropped his paper to the table, face almost going purple at the sheer rudeness of Harry's actions. "As soon as possible."

"Well young man, I'm afraid that there's more to it than that! There are complicated procedures to go through before we can even consider-"

He flicked his wand behind his back marginally, casting a mild confundus charm. "Tonight alright? I can pay you for the next year in advance first thing."

The man's eyes glazed over slightly as the spell hit, and then diminished, making him think that they'd already gone through all the paperwork. "Yes! I'll show you the way…" he seemed rather exited at the prospect of that much money all at once. Declining the offer to be shown around, Harry made his way into his new-old apartment.

It was exactly the same as it had been when he and Ginny had first rented it, minus all the touches Ginny had brought to it over time. None of their furniture or photographs yet in place… Dropping the bags full of shrunken down clothes, books, potions ingredients, and oddly, maps, onto the sofa, he let the kitten out of the carrier basket and walked over to the large glass windows overlooking London City.

Living here without Ginny was going to be weird, that was for sure.

There was a distinct meow from the other room, and, in seeing that little Jellybean was currently circling his feet; he had to wonder if this apartment was really as unoccupied as he thought. Walking cautiously into the bedroom, wand drawn and at the ready, he was beyond surprised to find a large, fluffy ginger cat with a squashed face sitting up in front of the pillows adorning the double bed. That grin that he'd been unable to keep off of his face when he found Tonks and Remus alive was back again.

"Oh, Crookshanks, you cleaver, cleaver cat!"

A/N: Yeah… I kept giggling while writing this chapter over the notion that Harry has a cat. See my mind made him into a cat lady… which I found quite funny… but, yeah! New chapter, sorry for the delay, I got distracted. But I hope you like the new additions to the plot, and love ikkle Jellybean as much as I do =D Sorry for any mistakes, I don't have a beta, and I'm going out in like five seconds so I have no time to check myself, because I'm not coming back home 'til Monday, and I'm assuming you want this now? Uhuh, thought so…

Next Chapter: Crookshanks – explained. Harrys Auror tests. Tonks' teasing. Remus' suspicions. Some more of Harrys friends show up, Dean Thomas is one of them, just saying. Harry also goes out on his first mission for Dumbledore, and you get to see where Order of the Phoenix HQ ;) Oh, and fighting and bloodshed, you can't forget that bit.