For QLFC, Round 9
Team: Tutshill Tornados
Position: Keeper
Prompt: Meeting one's doppelgänger (Bad Luck Signs). The most common meaning of seeing your doppelgänger in folklore is that death is impending; even more so if you see them more than once.
Notes: Here, I address one of the most irritating quasi-plotholes of canon — Why did James leave his wand on the table in the living room?
Word count: 1,946
TW: Death
The morning was mild and still. The clock read half-past eight.
Lily, as usual, was already awake. Her side of the bed was cold, and the book she was reading last night was gone.
James sat up, reached for his glasses and glanced at the window, catching movement in the corner of his vision. He stood up slowly, making sure to grab his wand, and walked over to the window.
Nothing. He thought someone had tapped on the glass; it must have been the wind blowing the trees. All he saw was the familiar view of a few hedges and a mound of orange and brown leaves that had drifted down from the ancient oak tree at the back of the house.
The routine was beginning to grate on James; months of being trapped at home in the still, frozen autumn at Godric's Hollow was stifling. Everyone else he knew was contributing to the war effort.
He felt useless.
But, he reminded himself of the prophecy concerning Lord Voldemort and his one-year-old son, Harry.
Even though it would never come to that (Peter would never give them up to Voldemort willingly, that was unthinkable), he and Lily were the last line of defence, and not just for Harry.
When Dumbledore had come to them months ago to divulge the contents of the prophecy and that the three of them needed to go into hiding, he hadn't explained much. And although he and Lily had made it an unspoken rule not to discuss it, they both thought about it.
Every parent wants to think their kid is remarkable, sure, but defeating Voldemort remarkable? Besides, James didn't want to think of his son being put in danger at any age. And he didn't want Harry to have to grow up like this — marked for death, locked away from everyone else and unable to play with kids his own age.
He walked into the small kitchen, looked around, and sighed before fixing himself a cup of tea.
Now that he was mostly awake, the vague irritable feeling had transformed into one of inexplicable worry.
"Da-da!" Harry gurgled happily from his high chair. He was watching and giggling as Lily using her wand to cast a moving dot of light on the wall while the cat hopelessly swatted at it.
"Morning," he said absently and sat down at the table. "Peter hasn't come by yet? He said he would, didn't he..."
Lily extinguished the light and turned towards him. Her eyebrows were drawn tight with worry.
"No," she said. "Haven't seen him."
She did not say, "I'm sure he's fine," because she wasn't. She shouldn't be. Any one of their friends could die at any minute.
James's thoughts instantly went to the same dark place they had been going these past few months.
What if being our Secret-Keeper has put him in danger? What if they're trying to torture it out of them? What if he's dead?
"He's a master at hiding in plain sight, James."
"I know," he said, and with what seemed a herculean effort, he got up and went to go shave in order to regain some sense of control.
Halfway through, as he stared passively at his reflection, something about it changed.
Mirror-James no longer had bits of shaving cream stuck to his face. He looked younger than James, maybe seventeen or eighteen, and the mirror was foggy.
James's hand jerked down when he gasped, and he felt warm blood run down his cheek. The cut stung, but he was too unsettled to notice more than a twinge of pain.
The razor slipped out of his hands and fell to the floor with a dull clatter.
Must be a prank, he thought, trying to calm himself, grabbing onto the sink to anchor himself. He ran his trembling hands down the sides of his trousers to steady them, took a deep breath, and retrieved the razor.
When he looked up, Mirror-James was still staring at him.
He looked upset. James almost wanted to comfort him.
It was a parting gift from Sirius, probably, to annoy him. So he picked up his wand and performed a laundry list of appropriate spells to strip the mirror of any enchantments.
Nothing happened.
James couldn't help but wonder if it was something more sinister. If he should call Lily to have a look.
No. No use getting everyone else worked up, too.
He washed off the shaving cream, ignored Mirror-James, fixed his cut, and went back into the kitchen.
He had to tell Sirius this really wasn't funny.
"Are you alright, James?" said Lily absently. Harry was sitting on the floor and playing with his toys, and she was brewing Polyjuice Potion for the Order. "You're trembling. Did you get enough sleep?"
"I'm fine," he said. Then he glanced towards the window.
"Who's that lurking around the house?"
"Who's who?" asked Lily.
"Him," said James, pointing a finger at the foggy, black-haired outline in the window. He gritted his teeth.
Lily followed his gaze, then shook her head.
"I don't see anyone." She frowned and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Maybe you should go lie down."
Maybe I should.
He couldn't shake the sensation of being stared down by Mirror-James.
He went into the living room, set his wand down on the table and went to stand in front of the bookshelf, running his fingers down the well-worn covers until he reached Bad Luck Signs.
Sighing, he removed it from the shelf, flipped to the index and glanced through the 'T' entries until he reached 'Twins,' then turned to the indicated page and began to read.
A wraith or apparition of a person's twin is known as a doppelgänger. Although there are many interpretations, the most common is that to meet one's double is a sign that—
Someone had ripped the page, meaning the information was lost completely. It didn't matter, anyway. He wasn't superstitious, and Lily was probably right one way or another. He was just tired, and his mind was playing tricks on him. That was all.
By the time that dinner was over, James had resolved to forget all about Mirror-James and was busy amusing Harry by conjuring puffs of coloured smoke (it was an hour past his bedtime, but Lily was occupied with her potion and what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her, as Sirius would say).
He stifled a yawn.
Maybe Lily was right about not sleeping enough. Maybe Mirror-James was just a figment of his exhausted, stressed-out imagination.
Suddenly, there was a knock at the door.
James tensed instantly; Harry, unaffected, continued to try to grab the cloud of orange smoke as it dissipated.
It must be Peter.
But what if it's not?
Come on, Voldemort wouldn't knock.
James shuddered involuntarily.
He'd just walk in.
He decided it was best to investigate. Fight, if need be.
"Harry, stay right here, okay? Stay with the cat, okay?"
"Okay, da-da!"
James couldn't help but grin, and he ruffled his son's hair, eliciting another giggle.
"Who's that?" asked Lily, stepping through the doorway. She looked as shaken as he felt.
"Peter?" James offered, though he wasn't sure if he believed it. "Must be. You said he was coming earlier."
"Must be," Lily repeated. She glanced past James to where Harry was clumsily petting the cat. "It's Harry's bedtime. Yours, too."
It was what remained unsaid that scared him.
If Peter's dead, anyone he's told become Secret Keepers, too. If there's a single betrayer amongst them...
But he trusted his friends. Regardless of their petty squabbles (like Sirius insisting that Remus was a spy for Voldemort — Remus, imagine! Imagine any of them being spies!).
As if someone was forcing him to, James turned his head, gazing at the foggy window.
Mirror-James lifted his hand, then drew, slowly and carefully, a few words.
PUT YOUR WAND DOWN
COME WITH ME
I NEED TO TELL YOU SOMETHING
"Come with you where?"
I'M OUTSIDE
"James?" asked Lily, her hand on his shoulder and her voice low and worried. "James? Who are you talking to?"
He scooped Harry up, despite his protests, and handed him to Lily.
"Nobody, no one, it's fine."
Obeying Mirror-James, he placed his wand on the table, shrugged off Lily's frown, and went out into the hallway, leaving the door slightly ajar in case anything happened.
Maybe Peter was Polyjuiced as him, with some sort of ageing spell or potion on top. But why would James need a decoy and a younger one at that? Why would Peter want to draw attention to himself?
James pulled his sleeve over his hand and wiped at the foggy window to no avail. He put his face to the glass and squinted.
"Prongs?"
He glanced at the white, silvery outline of a stag, then looked shakily back at Lily through the crack in the door.
Nothing, it's nothing. Even Voldemort couldn't break a Fidelius. We're safe here.
Then, Mirror-James was there once more.
"Who are you?" James demanded. "Peter, is that you?"
But it couldn't be Peter. Prongs was his Patronus.
He was trying to speak, to tell James something, but his breath was fogging up the window, and his desperate voice sounded like it was coming through water.
"Who are you?" asked James, louder this time.
The younger James in the window shook his head, eyes shining with tears.
I LOVE YOU
I'M SORRY
Only the thought of breaking the Fidelius was keeping him from going outside to investigate.
HE'S HERE
It was then that the door swung open. James heard the doorknob hit the wall with a dull clatter and spun towards the direction of the front door.
He heard footsteps down the hall. Not Peter's. These were slow, leisurely, confident footsteps. Like those of a tiger stalking a wounded gazelle.
James glanced behind him. Mirror-James was gone, but his warning lingered in the window.
A half-whimper, half-hiccup escaped him as infinite dread washed over him, and James gripped the narrow windowsill to keep the waves from drowning him completely. He thought desperately of the wand in the living room, and there was no point now.
No point now because Peter betrayed them.
But it wasn't time for anger.
He had to save them. He had to warn them, give them time to escape, if it was the last thing he would ever do.
"Lily?" he said, his voice shaky as he locked eyes with her. "Lily, it's him..."
Quiet. Too quiet. She wouldn't hear. And the footsteps were growing closer.
Hopeless, this is hopeless. We're all going to die.
Finally, after a few terrible seconds of gasping in silence, James found his voice.
"Lily, take Harry and go!" he shouted, now that panic was bending to his will. "It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off—"
As Lily tore towards the stairs, his only regret was that he didn't have time to say goodbye.
And every step towards his fate seemed to last a century until there was nothing but green light and the feeble hope that he wasn't going to die for nothing, that Voldemort would find the house empty and Lily and Harry far away, somewhere safe.
Of all the people that came through the house that night, none of them noticed the boy slumped against the wall in the hallway and sobbing as if his heart would break or the silver stag lying next to him.
Harry drew the Invisibility Cloak closer around his shoulders, but the cold wasn't coming from the autumn night air seeping through the ruined ceiling.
Fate is a cruel mistress.
Especially when you're the Master of Death.