The Law of Unintented Consequences

Chapter 37

Peter's Chance at Redemption

How the hell did HE get to go back!?

Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling, nor do I own the Harry Potter Series.

A Place Beyond Time

'It is most unfortunate that, despite how well you started, you have managed to fail dismally...'

"Hey! What do you-"

Sirius opened his eyes with a sigh; apparently he had, somehow, lead to the destruction of his time-line, despite how he had managed to protect Lily and James and stop Pettigrew's betrayal from costing them their lives. 'Ugh, stupid Snivellus! I know that he must have been behind it! The time-line went out of whack when he tried to sully James' wife with his filth again...' He then sighed, burying his face in his hands. '...No, even I don't believe that; just like last time, I let my anger towards Snape get the best of me, and this time it didn't cost me my life, but rather an entire world...'

Sighing again, he looked around, finding himself at the Potter Manor he had stayed at after he and his family hat cut ties, until he had found a place of his own that is. 'Funny, even after all these years, I have never found a place that felt more like home than James' Parents' place; that was a place where I could finally feel like, by being a Gryffindor, I wasn't a disgrace, but rather a better person for it, unlike when I lived with MY parents...'

Banishing the still-healing wounds he had received from his parents for the moment, he looked around, wondering what he was supposed to do now. Suddenly he heard an unexpected voice, "Hey, Padfoot! How've you been!?"

Turning, Sirius grinned for a moment at the sight of his old friend, James, but his face then fell as he remembered what must have happened to cause him to be here as well. When Sirius had arrived in the afterlife, he had been informed that James and Lily had already left to go attempt to change the time-line in the past for the better, and couldn't come back until they had died or the time-line had been destroyed. Swallowing, he then said in an almost-whisper, "Hey, Prongs...What are you in here for? Death or failure?"

James looked down at the ground, seeming to have become fascinated with his own feet, then said, "I failed; I went back to the...incident in the Shrieking Shack, and I blew it, royally..."

Sirius frowned, thinking to himself a moment; while he had never been fond of Snape, and couldn't say that he would have been destroyed if he had died, he had truly regretted the fact that Remus might have been outed as a Werewolf, and possibly sent to Azkaban, for Sirius' own stupidity. It wasn't that he truly thought that Snape deserved to die, not anymore, as he had found out from James in the time-line he saved about how Snape had risked his life all the time that he had been a spy, solely because of his love for Lily, but rather that he viewed him as an unpleasant uncle, someone who you dislike to the point that you wouldn't mourn his demise, but not enough that you truly want to cause it. Bringing his mind back from his contemplations, he then said, "Prongs, how could you have possibly blown it worse tha-"

Sirius stopped as he realized the only way that it could have been worse, and James confirmed it by looking miserably at his own feet, saying, "Indeed, I underestimated the necessity of Snape to the time-line, and thought I could prevent some of the future problems of the time-line if I simply removed him, then covered it up. Unfortunately, it backfired completely, causing critical damage to the Order when it came out, and a bloody victory for Voldemort."

James then quietly said, in a voice so low that it was almost a whisper, "Through my own actions, I drove Lily to hate me with a passion that I hope never to see again, and it made me realize that our actions do indeed have consequences, both better and darker than I could have imagined. I could have saved that world, maybe won the girl like in our original time-line or, at the least, done what I should have done ages ago and given up on my bloody rivalry with Snape. He may have said the word that put the kibosh on his friendship with Lily and ended up joining the Death Eaters, but we certainly did our best to drive him to it..."

Sirius looked away, then said, a bit of defiance in his voice, "That may be, but he probably would have ended up joining Voldemort anyway, what with his predisposition to use the Dark Arts and such. I can't say that I am proud of what we did, but he was basically a bad egg in my opinion."

James then said, clearly troubled, "Maybe it would have been inevitable regardless, but we will never know for sure; who knows for sure? Maybe, if we hadn't all but shoved him away from anything resembling the Light side, solely because he had the audacity to be friends with a Gryffindor, he would have chosen differently, maybe staying on the Light side rather than the Dark one."

Sirius thought it over, then said coolly, "You do realize that, if he hadn't gone for the Dark side, the odds would have probably been significantly better than even that he would have gotten Lily long before we all wised up, right?"

James sat down for a bit, looking up into the sky, thinking, then said slowly, "I don't think it would have been that bad, Padfoot, because I can't honestly say I loved Lily for real up until after we started going out, you know? I mean, I certainly fell for her hard and fast once we started going out, but I was only loving the ideal of her until then. I didn't know her well enough to see her faults, or know her bad sides; honestly, half of the reason I kept going after her up until we finally got together was because I didn't want to lose to 'Snivellus'. Heck, when Lily finally gave in, I was halfway to deciding to go after Sabrina Percival!"

At Padfoot's mildly confused expression, James elaborated, "I truely love and I did fall in love with Lily, but it wasn't until after I had managed to break down her barriers and find her faults that I can honestly say I really loved her. In contrast, Snape knew that she was naive, rather prejudiced against the Dark side and overly judgmental, among other things, and he loved her anyway. It wasn't until seventh year that I reached the point that he had clearly reached well before O.W.L.s when it came to understanding her faults and loving her for them. I may hate the guy, but I can't help but think that she would have been just as happy, if not more happy, with him as she ever was with me, dashing good looks or no, and that's why I wouldn't mind it if I had lost to him, because he would have loved her as much as I ever did, perhaps even slightly more."

Sirius still looked like he would prefer to argue the point, so James decided to ask, "By the way, what happened in your time-line? I can't really get much of a look of what is happening in each of them you see..."

Sirius, clearly more comfortable in this topic, although obviously more than a little nervous, then said, "Well, you know how me and Snape get along like Basilisks and roosters, right? Well, when I arrived in your time-line, I managed to save you, Lily and Harry from You-Know-Who, since I managed to gather up about half of the Order to ambush him when he attacked, causing him to die. Needless to say, it made me quite a hero..."

James chuckled, teasing, "Padfoot, you were always a hero, even if the Ministry didn't agree..."

Sirius then continued, laughing a little before sobering up, "Well, afterward, you told me about what Snape had done to protect Lily, and to a lesser extent, you and Harry, and, well, I wanted revenge on him. You see, I partially blamed him for my death, and he hadn't changed in any significant way, to my eyes at least, since he was seventeen, so I convinced you to err...Keep him and Lily apart, even as friends, in spite of what he had done for the three of you, so that he wouldn't 'steal Lily from you'..."

James looked at him reproachfully, and Sirius continued guiltily, "It seemed like a good idea at the time, as it would punish him without causing any real pain to anyone else. Besides, I don't doubt that he would have tried to steal Lily from you if given half a chance, Snape never gave up on trying to regain her friendship; he was one persistant little bugger, and, what with how he had changed sides, was able to get Lily to be friends with him again after a couple of years."

Sirius coughed nervously for a moment, then soldiered on with his tale, "Needless to say, that put a lot of things out of whack; while the odds of Lily divorcing you for Severus were low back before you tried convincing her to leave him in the cold, if she figured out how you had been trying to keep him away, telling her that 'snakes never change colors' and stuff like that, even though you KNEW that he had changed and why...I suspect that the odds of a divorce would have been quite high indeed...Panicking, I, using my political clout, got him kicked out of the Order so that he wouldn't be around Lily or Harry, who he was beginning to influence, as much, then the angel suddenly called me back up, saying that I had failed..."

James sighed as he looked over at his best friend, as he was more than a little disappointed in him for what he had done, but he could understand it; while James had disliked Snape almost as much because he was closer to Lily that he was in the beginning, Sirius had seen him as the symbol of how his parents had acted, and attacked him mainly because he couldn't attack them. 'It might have been wrong to use Snape like that, a punching bag to work out Sirius' frustrations on, but it seemed like a good idea at the time, considering that it was as if we were attacking a Death Eater...'

James then said, "Padfoot, that had to be one of the dumbest ideas I have ever heard from you, and I've heard a lot of 'em; kicking Snape out of the order wouldn't help with that problem, and it only hurt the Order..."

Sirius then muttered sullenly, agreeing mentally, "Whatever..." Then, trying to change the subject, he said curiously, "So, Prongs, how is your little lady doing? I know that you couldn't see much, but I'll bet that you have those poorly-seeing eyes of yours trained on Lily's time-line every second you can. How is she doing?"

Deciding to bring it up again at a later time, James looked forlornly off into the distance, "She isn't 'my' little lady anymore, unfortunately. In the time-line she went to, back when we were fourteen, she fell for Snape, even though she tried dating me; apparently, when I was fourteen, I just wasn't the kind of person she really wanted to date, and Snape managed to make her fall for him somehow..." He then swallowed, trying to hold back tears, "Remember when the two of us were called back? Well, she somehow convinced the angel-guy to use the energy that was keeping her in that world without making her part of it to maintain it, even in its Apocalypse-class scenario."

Sirius, shocked, asked, "W-what would that do?"

James wanted to fire a few hexes wildly, blasting random objects to make himself feel better, but settled for saying slowly, angrily, "She left me, once and for all; even if she WERE to somehow rescue that time-line, she could never come back here, as she is forever bound to that particular world, and its afterlife. The worst part is, her odds of rescuing that time-line...They aren't that good..."

Sirius, curious now, asked, "What did she do that was so wrong? I mean, we either killed Snape or removed him as a spy, but I can't think of anything she could have done that would make the time-line worse..."

James thought for a moment, before saying slowly, "Well, its like this, in order to 'rescue' Snape, Lily got him and Mary Macdonald to become friends, and the two of them eventually started dating when Lily and I did, OK? Then there was some big incident which caused Snape and Mary not to want to be Lily's friends anymore."

Sirius looked at James, confused, then asked, "Why would that be so bad? I mean, Lily and Snape stopped being friends after fifth year anyway, so how bad could it have been?"

James continued by saying, "Its sorta like this: Mary and Snape's worst qualities sorta...feed off of each other; Snape is rather cold-hearted, amoral, and easily angered, while Mary is ruthless, has a bit of a cruel steak, and takes vengeance to an art form. When you put the two of them together, and toss in a furious rage at Dumbledore, you get...very bad things." As Sirius opened his mouth to ask a question, James shushed him and continued, "I don't know WHY they are angry at him, so don't ask, but I do know what they are planning to do, and its pretty bad indeed..."

Sirius then said, laughing humorlessly, "Yeah, I certainly remember how Snape could be when we were in school, and out of it, and Mary was always more than a bit cold-blooded when she got really ticked off, but how bad could it be? I mean, no matter how good they are, I doubt that the two of them could take on Dumbledore, even if he were asleep!"

James nodded his head dismally, replying, "Well, they are creating this organization, something Terranum, out of those Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs who were neutral in our war against Voldemort, until he started killing them off that is. The two of them are making it into a dark mirror of the Order of the Phoenix in many ways; where the Order emphasizes protecting the innocent, courage, faith in one's friends, and mercy, Terranum emphasizes the destruction of the Death Eaters, hatred of one's enemies, and pure, utter ruthlessness."

Sirius thought it over for a few minutes, then said, "Um, I can't say that it is the best sort of policy, but its understandable, and it shouldn't be a problem, at least, not as long as they aren't fighting for the Death Eaters..."

James glanced at his friend, then replied, "Sirius, normally I would agree on you about that, but although they will be fighting the Death Eaters, that doesn't mean that they are our allies; in fact, its quite the opposite...Its one of those 'The enemy of my enemy wants to run me through as well' deals. In all likelihood, they will be the Order's enemy just as much as they are the Death Eaters' enemy; the worst part of it though is that there will be no relevant prophecy, so the only way to stop Voldemort will be sheer force, and we were badly outmatched on that end last time..."

Sirius shivered, remembering how, at times, the Order was outnumbered better than four-to-one, and how, if it weren't for Harry's defeating Voldemort, he probably would have taken over the wizarding world within the year. Silence ensued, then James spoke up, laughing a bit, "Oh, Padfoot, you probably won't believe this, but guess who else was sent back like we were?"

Sirius pondered for a moment, before shrugging, then James said, "Peter Pettigrew was sent back to improve the time-line as well..."

Sirius' eyes widened, then he started shouting...

Author's Note: Now, before everyone starts acting like Sirius, screaming at me, I want to explain something: the angel generally sends back those who could have made a difference for the better, but failed, yet would have prefered to have been better. The way I view Pettigrew is as a man who started off with some bravery, but it was whittled away as time went on, partially because of how even his friends seemed to enjoy putting him down, but mostly because he had grown accustomed to being protected by someone who was tough and strong. In the end, he allowed fear to rule him, which took him into a very dark place indeed, costing him everything.

Based on how his life ended, I think that he would have been capable of far greater things, had he not let fear rule him, like it did with Severus outside of Gryffindor Tower after the events of Snape's Worst Memory. I also suspect that he regretted what he had done and what happened, although I am not as confident about that one. As such, the angel sent him back to see what he could have done differently...

Now then, here is the summary of what has happened to the other time-lines since Chapter 27:

In Remus' time-line, things have changed significantly from canon; with his creation of the Wolfsbane potion, Severus and Lily have been awarded an Order of Merlin, Third Class, which has finally brought Severus the prestige he always wanted. In addition, as he was the only boy of his year NOT actively planning to be a Death Eater, he was made prefect, which put an immediate halt to any bullying of him from James, Sirius and Peter. After all, bullying someone who has the powers of the prosecution, the judge, AND the jury is almost suicidal, as long as you remotely care about detention. On an offtopic, Severus has been brought to the attention of Dumbledore, who plans to use him to bring as much of Slytherin as possible into the 'Light', as his friendships with multiple future Order members all but guarentees that he won't change sides... This time-line is still only a Bright rating however...

In Sirius' time-line, he let his fear and anger towards Severus get the better of him, and it ended up costing the Order their spy in the Death Eaters, which was far more important to that time-line than the lives of Sirius, James and Lily combined. It ended up costing them the war... This time-line was destroyed upon entering Apocalypse...

In Severus' time-line, Lily, who had fallen for Severus hook, line and sinker within about two years of James' death, ran into the same problem as the Lily in this time-line, not knowing how to let Severus know that she is interested without saying it directly which, considering how Severus doesn't want to rock the boat after finally getting her friendship back, put the two of them into a bit of a limbo. This lasted until Harry was about seven years old when Lily, finally getting tired of it, grabbed Severus' head one day, drew it to her own, and kissed him hard, putting the question to him which he gladly answered. They were married about six months later... This time-line is still in Golden Age rating, signifying that it is extremely that it will enter an Apocalypse...

In Peter's time-line, he was brought back to when he was first sorted, this time ending up in Slytherin rather than Gryffindor, where, ironically, he became friends with Severus because, although they hated one another in his original time-line, he wanted an ally in Slytherin who wasn't certain to enter the Death Eaters, and Severus was the only one his age who fit the bill. He and Severus have a surprising amount in common, considering that both have fears that they never overcame in the original time-line, which ended up costing them everything they cared about, Severus' of showing his true heart and Peter's of personal suffering. Because of his friendship with Severus, Peter has had to suffer through the attentions of the Marauders more than once... This time-line is still only a Benign rating...