"What time is it?"
The thirty-something-year-old muggle man started as Sirius suddenly turned his full attention on him, not that Sirius could blame him given the events of the last few minutes. It was probably quite unnerving to have a strange man crash a motorcycle in the middle of your street, stand and stare blankly at seemingly nothing a few houses down, and then numbly talk incongruently about random events for a minute before suddenly swinging around and asking for the time.
"Err- Are you-"
"No, I'm currently not OK, but I'm doing much better now than the last time you asked and I really need to know the time, so I can do something crazy. Just… please, can you tell me what time it is?"
"It… It's almost eleven o'clock," the poor man said bewilderedly, and he began to nervously glance around.
Eleven o'clock. The Time-Turner could go back five hours maximum, which would put him at six in the evening, one hour after sundown. That might be cutting it close.
He'd better move quickly then.
"Thank you!" he quickly shot at the man, who startled as Sirius suddenly ran behind the nearest house, pulling the chain of the Time-Turner around his neck as he did so. If this worked, he didn't want to appear in the middle of the street and leave a bunch of trick or treaters as witnesses. Sirius leaned against the old wall of the house he was hidden behind, which was shrouded in shadow, and with surprisingly steady fingers, considering the rollercoaster of emotions he'd gone through in the last few hours, he turned the hourglass five times.
Sirius let out a shaky breath and closed his eyes, before letting go as, around him, the night melted in time.
James Potter sat in the living area of his house at twenty-to-six in the evening of Halloween, 1981, playing with his one-year-old son, Harry, while his wonderful wife, Lily Potter, watched them with a soft smile playing on her lips.
If this were a different, happier world, James knew that they'd be able to go out tonight – maybe to a party with the Marauders, the Prewetts, the McKinnons, the Longbottoms, the Lovegoods, the McGonagalls, and all their other friends. All the children would dress up and play together while the parents watched on, talking among themselves, and tried to make sure they didn't eat too much candy (except for Sirius, who would instead teach them how to sneak it past their parents). They wouldn't have to worry about things like being out after dark, because it would be safe no matter the time. They wouldn't need to wonder if the person beside them was going to sell them out to Death Eaters, because there would be no war to divide loyalties.
But unfortunately, they didn't live in that world, so the Potters would have to stay in hiding. But watching his son as he giggled when he tickled him with a conjured feather, James thought that that was OK, because they were still fighting for that world, and maybe one day they would be able to live in it. Besides, this wasn't so bad. Even though Sirius, Remus and Peter weren't there, James found that he was happy.
Sudden frantic knocking on the door startled James out of his blissful thoughts, and he and Lily exchanged serious glances. Lily came and grabbed Harry and moved over to the stairs, in case she needed to run, while James reached for his wand, eyes on the door and expression wary. Only two people were supposed to be able to access this place, due to the Fidelius charm, but neither of them were supposed to have any contact this early.
"Prongs!? Prongs, it's me!" James blinked at the sound of Sirius' frantic voice, and after glancing once more at Lily, he moved to the door and looked through the spy-hole to see his best friend rapidly rapping on the door, his face urgent and faintly terrified. At seeing that, James was unnerved and wanted nothing more than to let him in, but he managed to restrain himself long enough to ask a security question, just to ensure it was, in fact, Sirius out there, and not some Death Eater ploy.
"What was the name of the ghost who was in love with Remus and kept writing him love poems?" James kept an eye on Sirius and was further alarmed by the way his friend's face melted into utter relief – eyes sliding shut and tension falling away - upon hearing his voice.
"Ingrid," Sirius' voice cracked in, what James was startled to realise was, a sob. He quickly opened the door and, when Sirius just stood there, he pulled his best friend in, signalling to Lily that it was alright.
After closing the door hurriedly, he looked to see Sirius staring at him and trembling slightly, but before he could so much and ask if he was all right, James found himself pulled into a tight embrace by the shorter man. He automatically returned the gesture, though he was now feeling rather panicked about whatever had shaken his friend so badly. His mind was running through horrible possibilities, and he found himself dreading the absence of Peter and Remus more than ever.
Barely a moment since it was initiated, Sirius drew back from the hug, startling James, and his eyes immediately locked onto where Lily was standing with Harry just a few feet away. Sirius seemed almost trance-like as he placed a hand on Lily's shoulder, as if reassuring himself that she was there, and stared down at his godson, cradled in his mother's arms. A moment later he stepped away, releasing a breath and shaking his head while he pressed his fingers into his eyes.
"Sirius?" he called, concerned.
"You're alright, you're all alright," James heard him murmur to himself, and his worry ratcheted.
"Sirius?" he tried again and was rewarded with Sirius' face clearing and becoming serious (no pun intended) as his gaze locked onto his.
"We have to get out of here. Now."
James blinked, "Wait, what? Why?"
"Voldemort's coming. Tonight."
"What do you mean…? But he won't be able to get in, Sirius, there's no counter for the Fidelius, remember?" Lily said sharply and logically.
But Sirius just shook his head, "He won't need one. He knows the Secret. And if he doesn't yet then he will very soon."
James paled at the implications and he let out a sharp breath. "Peter…" If Peter had been captured… James didn't know how long he would be able to hold out.
"-is the traitor, James," Sirius finished his sentence, but not in the way he'd been expecting.
"What!" James wasn't sure whose exclamation was louder, his or Lily's.
"Are you sure?"
"How do you know?"
"Because it fits! I hate it, but it fits and when I got to his flat it was empty, but there were no signs of a struggle, and if I'm wrong it doesn't matter anyway because he'll give up the Secret. It doesn't matter if he tells willingly or under torture; you'll be dead either way." Sirius pulled a fine, golden chain our from under his shirt and James' felt eyes widen and heard Lily sharply inhale at the sight of a Time-Turner gleaming in the light. His eyes snapped back to Sirius as the man spoke again, "Five hours from now and I arrive on the street to see the door off its hinges, a smoking hole in the roof and the bloody Dark Mark in the air."
James forgot about his incredulity about where the hell Sirius had gotten a Time-Turner from in the face of that declaration, as Sirius' shaken state suddenly made a lot more sense. Now that he knew what sort of horror his best friend had just gone through and had travelled back in time to prevent, James no longer doubted the decision to flee the supposed safe-house. One look at Lily and he knew that his wife agreed.
"OK-"
Bang!
James and Sirius whirled at the sound of the door being blasted off its hinges, just in time to see a hooded figure step through the door, before the intruder hissed a spell that sent the both of them crashing into different walls of the house. Upon impact, James cracked his head on a wooden beam, causing darkness to begin swirling through his mind.
He had just enough time to take in Lily's terrified "James!" and see the terrifying visage of Voldemort before he was overcome by unconsciousness.
"James!"
Sirius heard Lily's terrified shout as his back slammed into the wall of the Potter's living room and he felt his heart leap into his throat as he saw his friend's limp body lying in a heap across the room from him. He didn't have time to focus on that, however, as he scrambled to pull his wand out upon landing on the ground.
"Avada kedav-!"
"Crucio!"
Sirius' own casting of the killing curse was cut off as Voldemort sent the torture curse to where he was laying on the floor.
Pain. Pain pain pain. Sirius choked down a scream but was quite able to stop the strangled sound that escaped from him as he writhed on the floor. He heard Lily scream a "No, stop!" but there wasn't anything she could do with Harry in her arms.
After an age, the curse was released, and Sirius lay on the ground, a twitching pile of useless limbs as he listened to Voldemort talk to Lily.
"Step aside, girl."
"No, no, not Harry, not Harry, please."
Shivering and trying desperately to recover so he could give Lily a chance to take Harry and get out, Sirius lifted his head to see what was going on. Immediately he saw his wand lying a few feet away and realised he must have thrown it away when he was hit by the intense torture curse. James hadn't moved from where he had fallen in a boneless heap and Sirius inwardly despaired the fact that he had no idea if his friend and brother in bond was still alive or not. Promising himself that – if he lived long enough – he'd discover Prongs' fate later, Sirius glanced to the left to see the chilling sight of Voldemort, standing in pitch-black robes and wand asunder, backing Lily, who clutched Harry tightly to her chest, into the kitchen.
When she bumped into the counter in the corner next to the sink, Lily quickly turned and placed her son behind her, before turning back to face Voldemort and shielding the baby with her body. Sirius noted distraughtly then that she didn't have her wand on her either.
"The boy has to die," Voldemort's voice was high pitched and smoother than Sirius would have expected.
Lily let out a sob, incessantly shaking her head in denial, "No, no please, no. Take me instead!"
Sirius subtly looked around, taking care not to attract any attention to himself before he was ready to act, though there was little point since the Dark wizard was facing the other direction from him anyway. Desperately trying to think of anything that could make a difference to the length of Lily and Harry's lives, Sirius' eyes landed on an oval scar near his wrist. He stared at it for a second before, for the second time that night, he was filled with hope at a crazy plan.
"If you step aside now, you may live. If your husband is not already dead, I'll leave him alone too. You can live out the rest of your lives if you step aside now."
"He's just a baby! He's innocent to all of this! You don't have to kill him!"
Sirius could tell that Voldemort was running out of patience, so he quickly tried to prepare himself to use the spell that might just save Lily and Harry's lives. It was a long shot, and it was likely that he wouldn't survive even if it did work, but it was the best chance he could give Lily and the pup. And, if he did die, he would just have to hope that he was enough of a distraction to stop Voldemort from killing Lily.
After taking a deep, readying breath, Sirius concentrated on focusing all his magic, all his power, love and feelings of protectiveness, into a scar on his left arm just below his elbow. It was vaguely shaped like a fleur de lis and was one of five similar scars on his arms, another two – like the oval near his wrist – which were on the same arm, while two others were on the right.
"Mmh… Sirius…?" Sirius looked up at the confused mutter, at once joyous that James was still alive and afraid that he would attract Voldemort's attention. Luckily, the self-acclaimed Dark Lord didn't notice James' newly acquired consciousness.
"Last chance; step aside now or die with the boy."
"No! I won't!"
"Very well then."
"Lily!" James cried, finally noticing what was going on in the kitchen, but his call was ineffective against Voldemort's next words, his wand tracing the movement of the killing curse.