sirius is the one who finds him.
it's been two hours, maybe three, and the sky has gone dark and pearly outside, thick with colour like a bruise. the bleeding stopped a while ago - or, at the least, if it's still bleeding james can't feel it anymore - but the petrification hasn't worn off.
"oh, shit," sirius says as he throws the cellar door open. "prongs. hey-"
james thinks this would be a great moment to pop up and yell surprise! and have this all have been a great joke. but there's no humour left in him, and no strength, either, so he stays perfectly still, crunched into an unnatural, curled-up position on the ground, half shoved behind a table.
sirius crashes to his knees beside him. "fuck. don't be dead. please don't-" his hands are shaking in a mad sort of way as he raises his wand, outlined in bright light from the doorway. "finite incantatem."
all at once, feeling returns to james' limbs. he scrambles his legs up under himself, hand flying to his ribs. "i'm still bleeding, i think-"
"fuck. FUCK!" sirius shouts to nobody in particular. "lily! remus! i've got him-"
footsteps pound down the steps to the boarded-up wine cellar. the faint, blurry figures of lily and remus crash into the room, and all at once there are too many people around james, too much noise. hands land on his arms. lily grabs his face and holds it like persephone with the pomegranate.
"bloody-" james grunts. "my ribs. he stabbed me with something."
remus has already got bandages on hand. that man is an angel, james thinks faintly, as he tips his head back against the wall, lifting his shirt at the bottom. he'll be repaying remus for everything he's ever done for him for the rest of his life.
sirius grapples the collar of his shirt into his hand. "look at me."
james obeys. sirius' grey eyes are faintly manic in the dim light and they flick over james' face, left to right.
"who got in?" sirius asks intently.
"i bloody well invited him in, didn't i?" james groans, ribs smarting. he meets sirius' eyes again. "it's peter, padfoot. it's peter."
lily lets out a faint, pained sound like a bit of her has just died. remus' hands still over his ribs, painfully stiff. sirius lets go of his lapels and topples back onto the floor.
feverish to get all the words out of him, james pushes onwards. "i saw his arm. think he knew if i died dumbledore would rumble him - he's got some ward that tells him when order members die, right? guess he hoped i'd bleed out slowly. enough time to let him get away." james hacks out a mouthful of blood that's been sitting in his gums for hours.
"oh, fuck," sirius whispers. "and you're sure?"
"he put a knife in my guts, pads, i think i'm pretty sure-"
lily has already sat back on her haunches, face closed off. for a moment, james thinks she's going to start crying, and then she springs to her feet.
"shit!" she yells, and then hurtles off up the stairs. even five months pregnant, she's pretty bloody agile.
"he's still the secret keeper for the diggorys," sirius says, a moment later. "oh, fuck."
"lils is gonna take care of it." james grunts as remus applies pressure. "it's not bad, is it?"
"it won't kill you," remus says in that very weary way of his. he looks up at james and they make eye contact for an electric moment. "but another hour and it might have."
"right," james says. he feels dizzy, like the ground is shaking, like he's going to sway too hard to the right and end up toppling over into another dimension. all his limbs have pins and needles. "i can't feel my arms."
sirius starts massaging one of james' hands absently, staring off at nothing. a very hard, very dark expression has consumed his pale face. when james first saw the mark, he didn't want to believe it, thought it was some silly prank. there's no such disbelief in sirius' eyes.
"hey," james tells him. "pads. pads, don't do anything stupid."
sirius nods, not looking him in the eye.
james reaches up to grab his shirt. "padfoot. sirius. sirius black. look at me."
eventually, sirius turns his eyes to him. "prongs. james. james potter," he murmurs.
"stay here. just for now."
"i wasn't going to-"
"yes, you were." james grips his shirt harder, balling it up in his fist. "don't lie to me, i know you too well for that. stay here, at least for tonight. please? don't run off."
sirius has a long, silent exchange with him. james tries to say with his face, though he still can't feel it, that he needs him here. that if sirius gets himself killed, too, they're all going to fall apart.
sirius' face is all anger. broiling, bubbling, simmering rage. but eventually, he sighs and he nods.
"okay," he whispers. "alright, fine. for tonight."
"are you hurt anywhere else?" remus asks, when he pulls james' shirt back down. "he used a muggle blade, but i don't want to heal it magically, not right now. you're in shock."
"i'm in shock?" james asks faintly.
sirius and remus exchange looks. "you're in shock," sirius confirms, with far less gentle care to the words.
"that sucks," james mutters. he slumps back against the wall.
the silence swells between the three of them. they're all still nineteen - sirius turns twenty in another month - and they're going to die in this war, james realises faintly. they're young and they're going to die.
they've only been fighting in this war for less than two years. their graduation feels aeons away.
"shit," sirius says. "you could have died."
he drags james into a hug. not really a hug. it's desperate and clinging and afraid, and far too forceful to be a hug, more like a body-binding curse or a chokehold.
james clings back. with his free hand, he makes a vague grabbing motion at remus, who folds himself around the outside of their little huddle. all three of them are cold to the touch.
"out of anyone," james says into the hot, humid air between them all. "peter. fucking peter."
"and he ran off when he did it?" remus asks carefully.
james nods. "he tried to obliviate me, first, but he sucks at that sort of magic. and i suck at occlumency, too, but i managed to hold him off. and after that we- we fought. for a while. he won. got me good with that petrifying curse, and rolled me down the stairs to the cellar-"
"you're gonna be black and blue tomorrow," sirius comments, no humour in it.
"yeah." james drags in a deep breath. "and then he put the knife in between my ribs and pulled it out, y'know, like it was nothing, all casual, and then he covered the door up again, and he left. he knew he was rumbled, i think. even if i died. knew the gig was up."
remus breathes in, slow and shaky like he's never done it before. he grips the back of james' shirt very tightly. "you're okay."
"i know."
"everything's okay."
"i know."
"you just have to breathe."
james drags in a tight breath. "sorry. didn't- didn't realise."
sirius lets go, shuffling back onto the floor. he's always been the most graceful of their lot, naturally poised, a lazy sort of elegance to everything he does, but now, that grace is gone. he crosses his legs like a kid in the classroom. there in the dust and broken glass and blood, he looks born anew. like he's never seen the world quite like he sees it now.
"i'm gonna kill him," he mutters.
"but not tonight," james says.
"not tonight," sirius agrees.
pounding on the stairs. lily comes running, almost tripping over herself. when she reaches the bottom, silhouetted by the light, she's breathing heavily.
"amos is dead," she says. "i think peter was... waiting until he knew the game was up. they raided the place half an hour ago. left diggory strung up in the rafters."
james pulls himself to his feet and stumbles to her. lily's face creases into a harsh sob. they collapse against one another, her clutching at him, hands on his back, on his waist, feeling their way over the planes of his shoulders as if to make sure he's still there.
"i'm okay," james promises into her hair. "i swear. i'm okay. i'm just fine."
"i was so worried. when we couldn't find you-"
"i promise everything's fine."
lily pulls back a little so she can wipe his face with her sleeve. "you can't cry," she whispers. "i'll start crying too, and then we'll both be crying-"
she's already in tears, but james ignores that. "sorry," he whispers back. "i'm glad you're here."
"i'm glad you're here," she echoes. then, without looking away from his face. "sirius, don't go anywhere."
"nobody trusts me," sirius tries to joke. it comes out hollow and flat. he's still sitting in the dust. "peter. fucking peter. i..."
he trails off, like he doesn't have words harsh enough to say everything he wants to say.
"we're screwed," he says eventually. "he knows too much-"
"we'll have to move." lily doesn't pull away fully, but she takes a step back, grounding herself against the railing of the stairs. in the cascading lamplight, she's ethereal. "we'll have to relocate, and soon. soon, like, tonight. he knows where your flat is, too, sirius- and the baby-"
"i've got a place," remus offers, crossing to hover beside james. "my dad's old farm. north wales. it's all overgrown now. his family used to rear sheep. there's a farmhouse, peter's never been there."
"we'll need somebody from the order," lily picks up seamlessly. "mcgonagall, maybe. somebody powerful enough to install wards. not a fidelius - not yet, anyway - but protective wards. muddy our trail a little."
"is it connected to the floo network?" sirius asks, pulling himself to his feet. "we'll need some way of contacting the order that doesn't involve owls, too risky."
"apparition," remus offers.
"if you think there won't be anti-apparition wards up around every order member for a year after this, you're dead wrong," sirius rebuts. "we can make another set of mirrors, maybe? it'd be tricky, though. i'd need to get into diagon alley."
james starts to nod along, though none of it is going in. then, the ceiling lurches out from over him and he ends up sitting on the floor, in lily's long shadow, legs crumpled up under him like paper.
alarmed shouts. that's weird. he could have sworn he was standing a minute ago.
vaguely, he registers sirius hauling him up the stairs, arm slung over his shoulder, long, dark hair in his face. he gets a little bit of it in his mouth, which is one part gross, one part funny, but nobody's laughing. they deposit him on the couch and let him tremble there as they run around, packing trunks and invisibly extended backpacks.
the clock over the fireplace ticks closer and closer to midnight. james stares at it and counts his breaths. he's alive. he's alive. he's alive.
at half-past midnight, sirius swings to a stop in front of james, kneeling there and grabbing his face in his hands. "jamie. jamie, look at me."
james obeys. "i don't know what's going on," he says.
"we're gonna get you an anti-shock potion as soon as we're out of here. i promise. petrification for hours like that, it's the devil. but we're gonna fix you right up. marauders' oath," sirius smiles, and then seems to realise what a terrible choice of words that is and shuts his mouth.
james shakes his head. "we're not the marauders anymore. not without him."
sirius lets out a mournful sound. their foreheads find each other. for a while, they breathe the same air. in. out. in. out. just like that.
"the look on his face as he did it," james says. "you wouldn't have believed it, padfoot. scared, but not of me. scared that he wouldn't do it right. scared like i was... a way to survive."
"prongs-"
"i've never had someone look at me like that before. and it was one of us."
sirius bites his lip. "that's war."
"i don't like war, then," james says plaintively.
sirius squeezes his arms painfully tight and james feels his bones creak. "we've gotta go to moony's. okay? we can rest once we're there. i promise."
"they're gonna find us-"
sirius raises his voice. "no chance we can get that potion now, lils?"
lily rushes into the room, looking harried. she gives james a fleeting kiss, a lot of force behind it, like she's scared he'll vanish. "is it bad?"
sirius gestures vaguely up and down james. "if he was white, i think he'd be the colour of one of those fitted sheets."
lily shakes her head apologetically. "i can't afford to take the time to brew it until we get there. but we're ready to go now. come on."
remus shrinks all of their trunks down and shoves them into a duffel bag, because he's the only one who is still put-together enough to do magic. the four of them trek around the house turning off all the lights, locking the doors. checking nooks and crannies and cupboards for anything they might have forgotten. it doesn't feel real. like they're going on a holiday, and eventually, they'll be back in godric's hollow.
once everything is clear, they step out of the front door one by one. lily hugs james' arm against her ribs as they march in a funeral procession to the gate, then out into the street. behind them, sirius and remus exchange low murmurs.
"okay," lily says, once they're off the fidelius'd property. "grab my arm, all of you."
"can you sidealong all of us?" remus asks.
she cracks a small grin. "no. but the two of us can."
the world wrenches itself out from under james and he's flying. then, it crashes back into corporeality.
the four of them are standing with linked arms before a dark farmhouse, broad, lilting fields stretching in every direction, undulating gently into soft, shadowy valleys. by night, remus' family's farm is quiet and beautiful.
"come on inside," lily tells james, hooking her arm through his again. "i'll get to work on that potion. sirius, start on the wards?"
sirius is already on it, walking in a broad circle around the property and muttering incantations that land on james' ears like insects buzzing.
remus follows them in, unlocking the door with one of the keys on his jangling keychain. the light in the entrance hall doesn't work at first, but after remus flicks the switch a few times, it flutters on.
under the light, lily is very sallow, veins bright through her pale skin. remus looks exceptionally tired.
new living room, new couch. james curls up against the armrest and stares at nothing and thinks about death until somebody shoves a potion on him. absently, he drinks it.
the world folds itself back into sharp focus, like a camera with a new lens. sensation solidifies at james' fingertips. his ribs hurt like a bitch.
remus is across the room, methodically unshrinking each of their trunks. lily is standing in front of him, a thin sheen of sweat on her grey forehead, hand soft on his arm. they're in a cozy little living room, brown and white, with an overhead light flickering and golden. outside the tall windows, a dark universe stretches out and out.
"sirius?" james manages to ask. "where-"
"still warding. i'm going to go help him soon. first." lily squeezes onto the sofa beside him and tucks james' head between her arms, fingers stroking through his hair. "just let me do this."
james holds it in for a few seconds and then it hits him in a sharp rush and he's crying into her shoulder, loud and unabashed. they sit there for a long time, the two of them, shaking and sobbing. letting the waves crash down over them.
lily doesn't stop stroking his hair, nimble fingers shuffling through the dark locks. "you're okay. you're alright."
"i know," james says. "peter's not."
neither of them corrects him or tries to moralise. there's no point, not now, when the night has closed in and there's nothing anybody can say to make any of this okay.
after quite some time, as the clock creeps towards two, lily shuffles him out of her arms, clutching his shoulders very tight.
"i'm going to go help remus with the wards," she says. "and then, we need to set up the floo. i'll still be here, okay?"
james nods, shaking less now. he wipes his eyes with his sleeve. "yeah," he says. "yeah, i'll help remus with the stuff."
lily smiles at him. it's fake and it still manages to be the most beautiful thing in the world. then, she stands up and marches out of the front door.
james does help remus, but in an abstract, moral-support sort of way, sitting near him and absently shuffling the occasional belonging into the right pile as remus tries to sort through their stuff. sirius' things are here, too, few as they might be. they must have emptied his flat in london. remus seems to appreciate the company.
two am creeps to three. eventually, james crawls back to the sofa and curls up in a tight ball and closes his eyes. the world fades to black like at the end of a muggle movie.
lily joins him on the couch as dawn rises over north wales. sirius and remus blow up a mattress on the floor and sleep top-and-tail. as grey daylight begins to creep over the horizon, james grabs sirius' hand with one of his own and lily's with the other and watches the light expand.
it's so quiet when none of them are speaking. so silent. no cars, no people, no tv whirring or radiators buzzing. just cold, silent and peaceful, like a vigil or a poorly-attended funeral.
james fades in and out of sleep all morning, dreams haunted by peter's face, by his voice as he told james it had all been for a joke, honest, and he was going to find sirius and prank him tonight. haunted by the fact that he'd believed him at first, and by the time the reality of it had clicked in, peter's wand had been out. haunted by the lingering ache between his ribs that has only now begun to truly set in.
the few times james does wake, the rest of their small, tired lot are dead to the world. remus sleeps on his side, very still and very unobtrusive, and sirius tosses and turns, restless with dreams. lily falls closer to james in the night until she's practically on top of him, soft breathing heating his neck. day takes the sky, but they all need their rest, so james doesn't try to get up. he knows it won't help him to feel any less trapped.
it's close to one pm by the time remus shuffles to his feet, rubbing his eyes with both hands. he turns and meets james' eyes.
"toast?" he mouths.
james nods, shuffling gently out from under lily, whose hand curls down to the floor next to sirius'. he follows remus into the kitchen and closes the door behind him.
"i only had time to bring the essentials," remus says absently, opening the breadbin on the counter and pulling half a loaf of rustic-looking sourdough out onto a chopping board, slicing it thin. "for food, i mean. so we've got butter or jam."
"jam," james says weakly. "y'know. namesake."
"right." remus slides the first slices of bread into a toaster that james vaguely recognises from sirius' old apartment. "are you feeling any better?"
"i'll survive," james says. "my ribs hurt like nothing else."
"i'd almost forgotten." remus ducks around the table and shuffles to his knees in front of james. "can i...?"
james nods. remus pulls up the front of his bloodied shirt and peers at the bandages there. they're still pristine white, nothing having bled through, but they'll need changing soon.
remus shakes his head. "one second," he tells james. "let me get my med kit."
as remus leaves the room, james shuffles his head down onto his arms, breathing deeply, trying to regulate his panic. tries to tell himself that this is how life is from now on. the lingering fear. the bite of pain of a half-healed injury. long looks from your worried friends. achey eyes.
the toast pops out. james doesn't get up to grab it.
eventually, remus returns. he kneels before james again. "you okay?"
"fine," james grunts. he sits back and lifts his shirt again and remus gets to work.
it's a nasty injury. the glance james gets of it in the reflection of the oven looks nasty, anyway, long and jagged like torn paper. remus gives him a blood-clotting potion and then goes in with his wand, teasing the ripped, hanging strips of flesh back into place and siphoning the wound closed gently. he's the best healer they've got, for obvious reasons. his care is exceedingly gentle.
"okay," he says eventually. "i think that's the most i can do without risking your becoming magically overwhelmed. it shouldn't bleed anymore, i don't think, and after a week or so, we can take your bandages off."
he starts reapplying new gauze, new tape bandages. halfway through, he offers james a muggle painkiller, which james takes with water from the sink. daylight streams in over the both of them, not quite clear, fuzzy with a faint cloud cover that makes everything dull and glowy.
when remus is done, he goes into the other room to grab a new shirt, shuffling james into it patiently.
"thanks," james murmurs. "don't know what i'd do without you, moony."
remus smiles faintly, going to rescue the cold toast and heat it back up with his wand. then, he slides it onto a plate, slathers it in blackberry jam and plonks it down in front of james.
"eat," he instructs. "and after, we'll have chocolate."
lily and remus treat him like a china doll in the days following the accident, and sirius lingers exceptionally close, exceedingly paranoid, jumping at every small noise. james busies himself upstairs with peeling the faded wallpaper from the walls upstairs, sirius helping him too, while lily and remus fix up the old fireplace and work on strengthening the wards.
none of them say it, but this place feels like it might end up a more permanent home than they would like.
"which colour d'you reckon we should paint this one, then?" james asks, when they've stripped the first bedroom down. it's the largest, right on the front of the house, facing the sun, overlooking the valleys.
"i dunno." sirius leans against the doorframe. "something bright. i'm shit at this, you should have seen the interior design at grimmauld."
"y'know, i'm sort of glad i never did," james says. "yellow, maybe? like, pale yellow. like a pastel."
"you gonna use magic for that?"
"maybe. i'd like to use real paint, though. so it doesn't fade."
"m'kay," sirius agrees. he pads across the room, socks soft on the wooden floor, to stand next to james at the window. their hands find each other. "glad you're alive."
james huffs out a laugh. "you've said that a few times already."
"i mean it." sirius squeezes. "you don't know what it was like, realising you were missing. running around trying to find you. finding the cellar and... seeing you there. eyes open and blood and..."
he trails off, clearing his throat.
"i'm just glad you're here," he finishes.
"i'm glad you're here, too," james promises. "and i swear i'm okay. you guys treat me like i might break sometimes."
"if wormtail had gotten his way, you would have."
"but he didn't."
sirius nods, not looking much like he means it. "yeah. he didn't."
downstairs, lily and remus seem to have finally gotten the floo working, because when james wanders in that afternoon, green flames are sparking in the grate.
lily grins up at him, soot on her nose. "finally got it."
"took us long enough." remus reaches over to wipe her face with the sleeve of his threadbare sweater. "where first, do you think?"
"hogwarts?" james suggests, kneeling down beside them. "y'know. i'm sure dumbledore is plenty worried about us right now."
lily nods, looking slightly guilty. "who wants to go?"
"i can-" james starts.
"remus?" lily cuts in.
remus nods. "i'll get some shoes on."
"i'm not gonna drop dead," james mutters.
lily plants a kiss in his hair and stokes the green flames with a poker. outside, a flock of migrating birds swoops towards the horizon.
remus' rendezvous with the order goes about as well as can be expected. he almost gets his head blown off by alastor moody, and then he gets thoroughly chewed out by a tense mcgonagall, because the marauders have been missing for days after their last missive, when lily contacted the order to tell them that peter was a double agent on the night everything fell to pieces.
most order members have had to relocate. the dark lord is already on the move again after the attack at the diggorys, and they're preempting his next strike, likely to be in a muggle area by his pattern as he makes his way south across england, nearing london.
"oh," sirius says, half joking, as he stirs a pot of canned soup on the stove that night. "if they go for london, i might never recover. my home city."
"didn't think you were particularly patriotic," remus comments.
"you're one to talk." sirius flicks a droplet of leek and potato soup at him. "this part of the world always smells of sheep shit."
"at least it's not england," james, who grew up in newport, comments. "the things muggle politicians come out with over there, you wouldn't believe it."
"gotta agree with that." lily sits back in her seat at the table, rubbing her belly. "even in the midlands none of us liked londoners much, padfoot."
"hey, at least i grew up somewhere where not everyone's rich," sirius protests. he turns down the heat. "north london isn't so bad. i could've grown up where all the other noble and ancients are. hampshire or oxfordshire or monmouthshire or something."
"then your head would be even bigger!" remus gasps.
sirius smacks him with his wooden spoon. "slice the bread for me?"
"sure," remus says easily. they crowd in beside one another at the counter, bustling around to prepare dinner. james leans over to rest his head on lily's shoulder, breathing in the smell of her hair. outside, night has already started to fall. it's been five days now, since the world ended. it's funny how time moves quick and fluid with grief .
"hey," james says. "at least the order didn't curse moony into oblivion. that's something to be thankful for, right?"
"to my good health," remus says absently. "sirius, you keep stepping on my foot."
"it's to remind you that you're alive," sirius says smartly. "do we have salt and pepper?"
"i got some yesterday," lily says. "cupboard above your head- no. the one to the left. yeah. there."
"thanks." sirius flavours their soup liberally. he dishes up and the four of them sit and make amicable conversation over their food. james stays quiet mostly, enjoying the glow of each of their voices. their small group still feels incomplete, but nothing in the world really feels very complete anymore.
after dinner, sirius and remus step out of the cottage to have a conversation about something. james watches them out of the living room window as they sit on the grass outside next to one another and watch the sky. occasionally they elbow one another a bit. for the most part, their arms don't touch.
"they've got a lot to make up for," lily comments, from his side. she's disinfecting all of her old potion vials one by one.
"they do?" james asks.
"sirius thought…" and lily hesitates. "for a while, he thought remus wasn't… trustworthy."
"he never told me that," james says.
"of course neither of them did." lily replies. "remus didn't trust sirius either, i don't think. it's why they stopped dating in september."
"they stopped dating?"
lily laughs faintly. "yeah. sirius told me." she sighs. "i don't think they wanted to upset you, love. they care about you so much."
"oh." james feels like a bit of an idiot for not having realised. "that's why moony moved out of his apartment." it all makes more sense now.
"thank god they know now, i suppose," lily says. "they can fix things."
"you think so?"
she gestures out of the window. james looks out. through the thick, twilit darkness, he can see sirius has slung an arm around remus' shoulders and they're leaning close together, like they need one another to stay upright. it's the closest he's seen them in months. remus' head is ducked to his chin against the welsh winds.
"i think they'll be alright," she murmurs. "i think we'll all be alright."
james glances up at her. "all of us?" he says.
"all of us," she confirms.
the two of them go out to join them, then, james on sirius' side, lily on remus'. words aren't needed. they watch the sky for a while, the four of them. the wards shimmer a few feet beyond where they sit, distorting the clouds, blurring the horizon. lily rests her head in remus' lap and james lets his and sirius' heads knock together. the darkness makes it hard to see each other and perhaps that's all they need. perhaps they love each other a little too much.
they'll have to start running missions again soon. lily will have to stay here, pregnancy already weighing her down, and james knows somewhere in the bottom of his worn heart that remus is going to end up staying too, because none of them are going to let him go back to the werewolves, not now. sirius and james will find their way back to being partners again, and they'll come close to dying over and over like it's an art form, and the precarious will swing closer and closer each day.
but trusting will be easier now. and maybe they'll all make it.