Author: CaptainTightPants12

Rating: K

Disclaimer: If I owned Harry Potter, I'd be jetting around the world looking awesome with JK Rowling, making sure that a Marauders movie would get made. And I would definitely dress better. No more buying clothes on Amazon. Actually, I probably would still buy clothes on Amazon. Who am I kidding? I'm more Weasley than Malfoy.

Summary: Harry Potter is given a gift that reveals to him an untold story about where he came from.

Chapter: #10, Once Defiant

As James came to, he felt the bindings on his wrists burning his skin. He looked to his right. He was tied to a wooden post, as were Lily and Sirius. They were just beginning to come to as well. He whispered her name, but she was just beginning to stir as he heard someone approaching from ahead. James looked out and saw that they were in a clearing, Death Eaters forming a semi-circle ahead of them, creating almost like a stage for a show to begin.

And approaching, was a man that James had only ever seen in pictures. Pale white, almost like bone, his looked like skin stretched across a skeleton with cat-like slits for pupils centered upon scarlet eyes. The first thing that James was taken aback by were the snake-like slits where his nostrils and nose ought to have been, but that was quickly replaced by the way his wand dangled between his unnaturally long fingers. He almost likened them to the legs of a spider as the wand seemed to dance between them as he approached. James swallowed roughly.

"You three," he smiled as he took them in. "You three have gotten in my way. Interfered in my plans."

A shout came from James' right as Sirius spoke up, "And it won't be the last time."

Voldemort rushed towards Sirius and almost appeared to plan to bite him on the face but stopped short of it. "I know you, boy. Your parents are very disappointed in your taste in friends, I must tell you. I hear that your younger brother is a much, much better example of what the family Black intends to breed."

"I'm the black sheep in the family," Sirius said defiantly.

Voldemort looked to his left, "And then there's you." He eyed James and slithered his way over to him. "As pure of blood as there ever was, Mr. Potter. And yet you and your family turn away from it? Oh no, that'll never do, James. Your parents have raised you in their image. To be a blood traitor. I've heard that you're quite the wizard though, aren't you? Made a few of my followers look like fools, didn't you?"

"Yeah, well, it's not hard to make a bunch of cowards like your followers look like fools," James clenched his jaw. "Picking on kids in Hogsmeade. Didn't anybody ever tell you to pick on somebody your own size?"

A harsh whisper came his way, "Potter!"

Voldemort turned his attention towards her, "And of course, there's you."

"Don't you touch her," James growled.

He smirked back at James and slinked over to her. He ran his long finger across her cheek and grinned at James, "You mean like this, James?" he cooed. "Does it bother you that I touch her like this? Tell me, what would you do about it?"

He clenched his jaw, "Untie me and find out."

"James!" she shouted.

"Now, now, Miss Evans the Muggle Born…" Voldemort snickered. "Mr. Potter simply is doing what any fine young wizard should be doing. He's trying to stand up for those in need. But I hear that you don't require very much help at all. Head Girl I'm told you are. Brightest witch of your age. How very impressive. Do you let James here fight all of your fights for you? Or is he just particularly riled this evening?"

She looked up at him with contempt, fire in her eyes that could have rivaled the red in his own, "Your compliments are wasted on me. I know you think I'm less than the dirt you'd bury me in, if you gave me that respect at all."

Voldemort grinned, "Oh, I like this one. You've got fight in you."

"If you want to fight anybody, I want first dibs. I've never met a Slytherin I didn't wanna hex, and you're kind of the king of the sniveling little prats," James growled.

He grinned, "You're itching to die, aren't you boy?"

"Well, I'm not going to die strapped to a wooden post, I can tell you that much, your dark lordship. After all, if you're such a great wizard, surely you can take a mere blood traitor student like myself, can't you?" James offered.

Lily struggled against her restraints, "Shut it, Potter!"

Even Sirius was concerned, uncommonly silent. Voldemort left Lily and began to walk back over to James. He looked down at him with amusement. "I was honestly hoping to turn you, Potter. After all, your blood is pure. Your parents may be fools, but the Potters have long been great wizards. You belong on our side, you see. It would be a shame to have to murder you. I know what power lies within your bloodline, don't tell me that it's skipped a generation now. That would be a pity."

"There's only one way to find out," he said steely.

Voldemort leaned in close swiftly, trying to cause James to flinch, but he managed to keep still. "You will beg to join my followers before this night is over."

"I wouldn't hold your breath," James retorted.

With the swish of his wand, James' arms were free. Lily shouted at him, asking him what he was doing. Instead, James looked directly at Sirius and whispered something that she couldn't hear while the Death Eaters and Voldemort were too far away to catch it. Sirius paused for a moment, but then nodded and looked over to where Lily was. She shook her head in confusion, but Sirius looked forward to where James was walking towards the center of the cleaning. He hesitated for a moment and looked back at Lily, who was yelling for him to get back to where they were.

However, James wasn't about to be turned from his path. He knew what he was going to have to do. He knew what was at stake, and James wasn't one to walk away from a fight, especially when he was all that stood between the fight and his friends staying alive. It turned out that all those years of fighting with his little cronies in training was about to pay off. Or at least he hoped that would be the case.

"Are you going to at least give me back my wand? Or would that make it too easy for me to beat you?"

He gestured for one of the Death Eaters to throw James his wand, causing it to roll to his feet.

"Oh Potter, I think I'm going to enjoy this."

Without warning, Voldemort whipped his wand over his head, and a blue light shot out that sent James flying through the air crashing down onto the ground with dirt flying about. The Death Eaters cried while Lily shouted out something that James couldn't quite make out. His ears were currently ringing, and he had to focus on getting himself up and off the ground. He was slow to his feet as he saw Voldemort waiting for him patiently with a smirk on his face as he watched on. James made the mental note that he was going to have to be faster than that.

"I guess nobody ever taught you dueling manners when you went to Hogwarts? You're supposed to bow first."

"Don't worry, I'll remember that next time, Potter," he cackled to himself. "Perhaps I just got excited."

James clenched his jaw, "Don't worry, I know the feeling!"

Slashing his wand left to right and then whipping it upwards to the sky, orange energy erupted from the ground as it began to shake beneath their feet. A long tremor raced towards Voldemort and sent him stumbling back to the ground himself. Enraged, he looked up and raced towards James while shouting,

"Looks like Dumbledore has been training you boys better than he did my classmates!" as he shot a bolt of red energy towards James that he was able to deflect. "Yes, my boy! Your bloodline is showing, Potter!" he cackled as they traded blasts of light and power. "Imagine what we could do together!"

James grunted as he deflected another curse, "This is about as together as I ever plan to be with you!" before firing a hex himself that Voldemort was able to easily deflect.

"We could accomplish such glorious things," Voldemort shot a bolt of yellow light that sent James flying to where Sirius and Lily were still bound to their posts. He looked up at them with a cut slashed across his cheek and trying to catch his breath.

He looked to Lily, "I'm sorry…"

"Prongs! Behind you!" shouted Sirius as James rolled to avoid the curse that nearly got him from behind.

James got back up to his feet, "Thanks, Padfoot!" As he sprinted forward, James held his wand out and a lion erupted from the tip of his wand that leapt towards Voldemort. Fittingly, he countered with a basilisk that quickly coiled itself around the neck of the lion.

"School pride to the bitter end, is it?" laughed Voldemort.

"Everybody knows that a Gryffindor," he grunted as he commanded the lion to stomp on the basilisk, "Will always beat a slimy…" he growled, "…pathetic…" he ripped the wand down, and the lion bit the head off of the snake. "…Slytherin."

Voldemort glared angrily.

"Because we're the good guys," James panted.

He tilted his head to the slide, "Silly James Potter, don't you know that the good guys never win?" He smiled. "Crucio!"

Every inch of his skin erupted with pain unlike anything that James had ever experienced. He couldn't decide whether it was fire or razors or pressure from the boot of a giant, but never in his wildest imagination did he think he would ever feel anything like this. Sirius told him what it had felt like, but this was beyond his ability to describe or comprehend. Voldemort stood over him as he writhed in pain on the ground. He could barely tell that it was him because his eyes were flooded with agony and blinding white lights of pain.

"How does that feel, Potter? Stings a bit, doesn't it?" he finally let up on it and let James breathe for a moment. "Tell me, what say you? Are you still a petulant child? Would you really rather die than join me, James? You know that I'm going to make you suffer when you do. Is that really what you want to happen here tonight? What a shame it would be."

James was still gasping for air. His gaze turned to the posts, and saw they were still there. His eyes lingered on Lily. Slowly, he started to get back to his feet and turned towards Voldemort. "You want to wipe out the muggles. You want to wipe out the muggle-borns. The half-bloods. That's what you want, isn't it?"

A slight confusion on his face, Voldemort looked over him carefully for a moment. "We must purify our world, James. It's the only way for our people to be truly free from those that will never understand what we are, or what power we possess."

Breathing quite heavily, he gripped his wand again. "I will…" he took another breath, and Voldemort looked pleased. "I will never help you hurt the people that I love." He turned and shouted "Incendio!" Two blasts of energy hit the posts that were tied Lily and Sirius.

The Death Eaters rushed towards them, but Voldemort shouted for them to stay back. "They belong to me!" he snarled. "And you, Potter! You will pay for this!" he shouted. "Crucio!"

Lily and Sirius could hear James scream from the woods where Sirius had dragged her. She had intended to rush to where James had been standing, but instead Sirius had thrown her over his shoulder to her rage.

"Let me down! They're going to kill him!"

"He wants us to get away, Evans! We can't go back!"

She screamed, "Put me down! I won't let him die!"

Lily was able to free herself from his grip, and she saw the tears streaming down his face. "I will hate myself forever for not going back, but this is what he wants me to do. I owe him that much."

His screams echoed again, and she sobbed, "We have to go back and save him! You can't let your best friend die alone! I won't let him die alone, Black! I won't! I won't leave him behind again! I won't let people like Avery or Voldemort or anyone else hurt the people I care about! We have to go back!"

"He wanted us to get away. He wants me to protect you."

"I don't need his protection, Black," she growled.

James screamed as he writhed around on the ground, and it was somehow worse than before. Voldemort was laughing as he bellowed and shook in pure agony. "You should not have defied me, Potter!"

The Death Eaters watched on, cheering with glee as their master tortured James Potter. Voldemort stopped to le James lay on the ground in complete exhaustion. His brain felt like it had been put through the blender. He was absolutely lost in this moment. Breathing returned to him after a few beats. Voldemort kneeled down and began to tsk at James.

"Now I must kill you, James. I hope you know that isn't what I wanted for you. I know where your bloodline leads. We would have done amazing things together," he cooed as he lifted his wand over his head. "But I'm afraid, now you must die."

"Expelliarmus!"

A red jet of light hit Voldemort and sent his wand flying away, and when he turned to look, he saw the last thing he ever expected to see standing across the clearing from him. Lily Evans, with her red hair flying in the wind, stood over the bodies of two unconscious Death Eaters with his wand tightly within her grip. Sirius Black stood to her side with a wand of his own.

Lily took a step forward, and she saw far beyond the threatening Death Eaters and looked Voldemort in the eye with a defiant glare. "You will not touch him again."

"Kill them!" Voldemort roared.

A sea of hexes, jinxes, and curses came flying from the Death Eaters, and even in the boldness of her anger, Lily felt a twinge of panic flow through her. She and Sirius prepared themselves for the onslaught, but it never reached them. There was a flash of white light, and Lily turned and saw that they were no longer alone. Albus Dumbledore stood behind them, as well as a dozen other men and women that she had never seen before.

They charged past them, and the fight was on. At least for a few moments anyways. Once Dumbledore had arrived on the scene, Voldemort had scampered to his wand, and then he was gone. His followers did not take long before they followed suit, and Lily sprinted to where James was still laying on the ground. She slid on her knees and grabbed onto his face. He had fallen unconscious, and she gripped the sides of his face as she tried to shake him back into consciousness. "James!"

"He's out cold, Evans," Sirius told her.

Dumbledore stood over them, "He's been ravaged by the Cruciatus Curse. We must get Mr. Potter to Madam Pomfrey."

Lily nodded, "I want to go with him."

He smiled, "But of course, Miss Evans. Perhaps you and Mr. Black can take my arms. I will return you to the Three Broomsticks, you may use the floo powder to return to Hogwarts. Tell Madam Pomfrey everything, I need to finish up here."

They both nodded as they took his arm, and in a moment, they found themselves back at the Three Broomsticks standing face to face with Madam Rosmerta. "Blimey, Albus, you can't just apparate into a woman's bedroom, now can you?" she shouted.

"My apologies, Rosmerta. Miss Evans and Mr. Black need to return Mr. Potter to Hogwarts. I was hoping they may use your fireplace in a pinch? I'm afraid I need to get back."

She blinked and nodded as she led them to the fireplace, "But of course! Of course!"

Within a few moments, they were back at Hogwarts and Madam Pomfrey was tending to James, providing him with some sort of concoction that Lily had no idea about. Sirius assured her that it was fine and that on occasion, he'd be forced to take it. Mostly when he had done something wildly stupid to end up with broken half the bones in his body, but that James was going to be just fine. Lily had asked her how long until James was going to be awake, and she told her that as this was not a common occurrence, she couldn't rightfully say. She did say that she hoped it wouldn't take more than a day or two.

Lily and Sirius had taken turns watching over him over the course of the first day, not that they were alone, of course. Remus visited, as did Peter and Dora. Alice had been running around with her boyfriend Frank and heard about it at the last minute, and spent a few moments with Lily before turning in for the night. Once she was finished with classes, Lily came back to the infirmary to look in on him. She may have been mildly neglecting her duties as Head Girl. Perhaps the longer you run around with James Potter, the less concerned you are about the rules. When she walked through the door, she saw Sirius sitting with his feet across the unconscious legs of James. "Black, do you mind?"

"Yeesh, Evans, I wanted to stretch my legs, do you mind? It's not like he's awake to notice what's happening anyways. Probably keeping him warm," Sirius shrugged.

She sucked in a breath and glared, "You're impossible."

"Chocolate frog?" he asked.

"Do I look like I'm ten?"

He shrugged, "More for me."

"Has he woken up at all?" Sirius shook his head and shrugged. "Did you ask Madam Pomfrey how he's doing?" He shook his head again. "What have you been doing, Sirius?"

He puffed out his cheeks and then let out a loud exhale, "Using my best mate's torturing to get out of transfiguration class. McGonagall was very understanding. I think she thinks we're a bit more than mates, if you catch my drift."

"A lot of people think that, Black," she rolled her eyes.

Sirius shrugged, "He'd easily be the prettiest I've ever had. Makes your constant protests all the more confusing."

"Really?"

"I mean, I'm confused a lot, but that's one of the more confusing things I've encountered at this school, Evans, just saying," he smirked as he popped more candy in his mouth...

Lily rolled her eyes, "Did I mention you were impossible?"

"It might've come up," he nodded.

She opened her potions book and shot him a glare. They exchanged comments here and there for the remainder of the day, but for the most part, they sat in comfortable silence. Although he was a bit of a git, Lily actually found him to be much more tolerable than she had originally thought him to be. His mouth ran like a runaway train, but he deeply cared for his friends and he wasn't as stupid as he looked, for the most part. Remus had always been delightful anyways, so it was no surprise that he was very easy to be around, though Peter gave her a little bit of an uneasy feeling that she couldn't quite place. He was very skittish, and he didn't seem to be as capable or as intelligent as the other three. Still, they cared deeply for him like he was their little runt brother.

In a way, it was kind of sweet, she guessed. Not that she would have ever said any of that to any of them. Outwardly, she was very keen to keep the appearance that she hated them quite a bit, though she had a sinking suspicion that Alice and Dora had been conspiring with Sirius and made this a frequent topic of the three of them. All three of them had used the exact words that James had "turned her." She would never admit such a thing, of course, though it was very clear to all that every waking moment she'd had since they got back had been at the bedside of one James Potter. Dumbledore had come and interviewed both of them the night of the fight.

Although he hadn't been able to track down the Death Eaters that they had fought and let get away, they were able to arrest the two that she and Sirius had knocked unconscious. Fortunately, he was able to recover their wands, however. She was rather fond of hers and wasn't fancying having to pick something less suited to her. There was still one thing that was pressing on her mind though.

"How did you two know?"

Sirius looked up, "Know what?"

Her eyes never left the unconscious James. "How did you two know that help was coming? James said something to you before he fought with Voldemort. You two were stalling until help came. How did you know that Dumbledore was coming?"

He blinked a few times, "Evans, we didn't know anything about that. Them showing up was as much a surprise to me as it was to you."

"Don't be daft, Black. How did you know help was coming?" she asked with narrowed eyes.

Sirius sighed, "All James said to me was that he was going to distract them. He said to try and get free, and get you free, and run. He didn't know help was coming."

"That doesn't… No. That' doesn't make any sense," she shook her head.

"Evans, James sacrificed himself to save the two of us," he shook his head in exasperation.

Lily finally looked up at him, "That's completely ridiculous. Why would he do that?"

He let out a laugh, "You know why."

"No," she whispered. "That doesn't make any sense. Why would he sacrifice himself for me? That's ridiculous. He barely knows me. If anything, he did it to save you. I know he likes me but we're practically strangers."

Sirius gave her a look of pity. "You two? Strangers? You've gotta be kidding me. He knows everything about you. You two are obviously not strangers at all."

Lily looked up, "What?"

"You have been that boy's favorite subject at Hogwarts since the day he saw you on the train. He loves you, Evans. He thinks you walk on water. There's nowhere he wouldn't go for you, and there's nothing he wouldn't do for you. It's the same reason he took on three little mini-Death Eaters for you. He will never let anything happen to you while there's breath in him. He will fight all the way to the bitter end for you. Now if I've done enough fluffing about it, I'm going to go back to our regularly scheduled program of sass, because I'm starting to feel bloody itchy about the whole thing."

She blinked at him for a few moments and then looked down at James, still completely unconscious and sighed.

"You're bloody insane, James Potter."