Disclaimer: I Don't Own Anything to Do With Harry Potter.
Chapter 2: War Heroes, Betrayers and Memories
Several things took place in the week following the death of Lord Voldemort.
Sunday, November 1st, 1981
While Lily took Harry and got settled into Potter Manor, James and Sirius contacted Remus and started tracking down Peter. They cornered him in a Muggle village where he attacked them and in an attempt to escape blew up a gas main killing 12 Muggles. James, Sirius and Remus were able to shield themselves in time and stun Peter before he could change into his rat form and disappear. Before handing him over they got a written and signed confession from him with the names of several other Death Eaters and the information that one had to willingly take the Dark Mark. This would help with the conviction of several Death Eaters who would try to claim they were Imperioused to serve Lord Voldemort. Unfortunately Lucius Malfoy was able to bribe his way into a lesser sentence and would be out of Azkaban in time to see his son, Draco off to his first year of Hogwarts.
Monday, November 2nd, 1981
When they should've still been out there catching more of the Death Eaters, James and Sirius along with Lily were called into a meeting with Minister Bagnold and Dumbledore.
"This is ridiculous! You want to keep it from the public that Voldemort is still out there?" asked James.
"While I disagree with some of the Minister's reasoning, I do agree that keeping the public in a panicked state is detrimental to our recovery." said Dumbledore.
"What good is recovering when he can just come back and tear it all down?" asked Lily.
"I will not keep our country on a war footing! This war has gone on long enough!" yelled Bagnold.
"The war would've ended a lot sooner had you allowed us Auror's to use lethal spells against the Death Eater's, but no we can't risk ending the Pureblood families that are lining your pockets!" yelled James.
"You better remember who you are talking to, Auror Potter! The decision on this is final! As soon as the Auror teams finish gathering the rest of the Death Eaters we will begin rebuilding our society. There will be no mention of Lord Voldemort continuing to exist and any mention of this will be an act of treason. Tomorrow you and your wife will be with me at a press conference announcing the official end of the war where the two of you will be awarded the Order of Merlin, First Class. Is everything I have said understood?" asked Bagnold.
James took a step toward and raised his hand toward Bagnold.
"James, no! Harry needs you. I need you." said Lily.
"I'm not going to hit her, Lily." said James continuing to step towards Bagnold. "Since I'm still an Auror and employee of this Ministry I'll follow what you've said. I had hoped to never do this, but you should know who you are talking to, Minister."
James made the ring on his finger appear.
"I never wanted to have the responsibility that came with this ring, but I took it on yesterday and am now Lord Potter. Immediately after the press conference tomorrow I am resigning my position as an Auror. Don't worry, Minister, my Allies and I won't do anything treasonous, but know that with the power block I now control in the Wizengamot that your days in this office are numbered." said James.
Tuesday, November 3rd, 1981
"My fellow Witches and Wizards, I am honored to stand before you today and announce that the Dark Lord Voldemort is dead. I'm sure you've all heard the rumors about the attack on Halloween and here with me are Lord James and Lady Lily Potter the defeaters of Lord Voldemort. It is my pleasure to award them both with the Ministry's highest honor, the Order of Merlin, First Class. Moving forward I'd like to lay out some of my plans for the recovery of…" said Bagnold before being interrupted by a Patronus in the shape of a Grizzly Bear coming in.
"We're under attack! Help us please! They're almost through our wards and we can't escape!"
"That's Frank Longbottom's Patronus! Let's go!" yelled James.
James, Sirius and Remus along with several of the Aurors who were in attendance rushed out of the Ministry and Apparated to just outside of Longbottom Manor. The wards were already down and when they got inside they saw Bellatrix Lestrange torturing Frank and Alice while Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange were tearing apart the manor searching for something. They thought they saw another, but he took off running as soon as Rodolphus was taken out and wasn't identified. As she was focusing on cursing Frank and Alice, Bellatrix was quickly stunned. Since they got there as quickly as they did, Frank and Alice would recover and Neville was found in the House Elves quarters aside from the kitchen.
Monday, November 9th, 1981
The following week it was decided that the bulk of the Death Eaters had all been captured and the Aurors were ordered to stand down as the rest had left the country and would probably never be seen again. After helping to save Frank and Alice Longbottom, James made good on what he said and resigned from the Aurors. Sirius did as well.
The trials for the Death Eaters were going quickly with several of them being sentenced at the same time. Some were able to avoid Azkaban by giving names of other Death Eaters. Bartemius Crouch sentenced his own son to life in Azkaban when Igor Karkaroff named him as a Death Eater. He then resigned his position as Head of the D.M.L.E. out of embarrassment.
Monday, July 31st 1989
Over the next eight years things calmed down dramatically both at the Ministry and for Magical Britain as a whole. While James had kept his promise and didn't publicly announce the fact that Voldemort was still out there he also kept his promise about Bagnold's job. When elections came up last year she did not win reelection and an ambitious man by the name of Fudge was brought in. James didn't have any opinion of the man and was waiting to see what kind of Minister he'd be.
While the Wizengamot kept him busy sometimes, James was glad that he'd quit the Aurors as it gave him more time to spend with Lily and Harry. Three years ago they decided to try and have another child and on May 6th, 1983 they welcomed their daughter Iris Caroline Potter into the world. The middle name Caroline was from her grandmother who was one of the few Evans females to not have a flower name. After Iris Lily told James that she was done having children, but one wild night on New Year's Eve 1984 they both forgot the potion and so on August 28th, 1985 they welcomed their second daughter Ivy Dorea Potter into their family. Lily told James that if there were any more accidents that she'd curse his bits off where they couldn't be grown back.
Remus hit some hard times with a lot of Anti-Werewolf legislation that came through after the war was over. James tried to block them, but public opinion swayed a lot of votes and he was unsuccessful more than not. He made Remus agree to move in with them and Sirius and him continued to keep him company during the full moon helped by Lily's invention of the Wolfsbane Potion in 1982.
Sirius however did something that James and Remus never thought he'd do. He grew up. After quitting the Aurors he followed James' lead and claimed his Lordship of House Black. He pursued his ex partner Amelia Bones who was made Head of the D.M.L.E. since he and James resigned along with Alastor Moody demoting himself to a reserve position. They married in June of 1982 and aside from his adopted daughter, Susan they had their first child, a girl they named Jamie Lily Black on August 18th, 1982. Sirius would get his heir on August 27th, 1985 thanks to the same New Year's Eve Party in 1984. They named him Carlisle Edward Black. Every now and then when Sirius was over he'd try to convince James that they needed to merge their families officially and have him sign Harry and Jamie in a marriage contract. That always ended up with him turning into Padfoot and dodging curses that Lily shot at him.
Dumbledore visited them often and updated them regularly on his search for a way to remove the Horcrux from Harry. In addition to Harry's birthday that is why he was here today.
"Grandpa Dumbledore!" yelled Harry as he ran to hug Dumbledore as he stepped out of the floo. Iris followed afterward with Ivy behind her wanting to be picked up.
"Harry, Iris, Ivy. It's not been that long since you've seen him last. Let the man sit down." laughed James.
"Unfortunately I cannot stay long. I just wanted to come here and give young Harry his present and I have some information for you." said Dumbledore.
"Topsy." called James and one of their House Elves popped in. "Will you please take the kids up to the nursery and keep an eye on them?"
"Of course, Master Prongs." said Topsy. James hadn't been able to get the elves to stop calling him master, but was able to convince them to use his Marauder name.
After the kids were gone Lily asked,
"You found something?"
"As you know I've had everyone I could looking for a solution from the Department of Mysteries to several magical species like the Dwarves and the Goblins. I'm sorry to say that there is no way to remove the Horcrux from a living being without killing the host." Lily started crying. "I'm sorry Lily, but the Goblins have a solution that you might consider. While they can't remove the Horcrux they have a ritual that can merge the soul piece with Harry's soul and in essence turn it into a new soul. The new soul would no longer be an anchor for Voldemort as it won't be his soul anymore. Unfortunately Harry's soul wouldn't be the same anymore and at a metaphysical level he wouldn't be Harry anymore. Another side effect of this ritual is that all the memories that Voldemort had up until his death would be absorbed into Harry. Now this might be beneficial…"
"No, absolutely not, Dumbledore. Even with it being a new soul it would still have been created from that evil monster. On top of that with his memories wouldn't we just be creating another Dark Lord?" asked James.
"I don't think we would be, James. You and Lily show Harry all the love, caring and kindness he could ever need. And when I say this soul would be new I mean absolutely new. It wouldn't have evilness from the soul piece that was a part of creating it. And I know it's disturbing that Harry would have the memories of Voldemort, but understand that this would also give him knowledge of all the obscure branches of Magic that Voldemort discovered and learned over the last 36 years since he graduated from Hogwarts. We would also learn the whereabouts of his other Horcruxes." said Dumbledore.
"I can see the benefits, Dumbledore, but Harry wouldn't be Harry anymore and it seems like too high a price. We'll talk it over and give you our answer as soon as we can." said James.
Dumbledore said his goodbyes and flooed back to Hogwarts. Lily was pacing back and forth still crying. James had gotten better with not being a prat, but he still had trouble with dealing with his wife when she was this upset.
"Lils…" started James.
"No." said Lily.
"Lily…" James started again.
"I said no, James!" yelled Lily.
"We have to talk…" James tried.
"There is nothing to talk about! I will not allow our son to die! And that's what our choice means, James! So there's no choice, no discussion on the pros and cons of the ritual, we have to do this! We are going to do this!" said Lily firmly.
James was still worried about turning Harry into a new evil Dark Lord, but he didn't want to see his son die either. It was still a gamble though, but what kind of Marauder would he be if he didn't play against the odds. He knew he was absolutely ok with betting on Lily though.
"Ok, Lily-love. Let's get the kids back down and get ready for Harry's party. Everyone will be here soon and we need to have some happiness now. We'll contact Dumbledore tomorrow and set up an appointment with the Goblins to have the ritual done." said James.
Lily kissed James and cleaned up her face from the tears. 'This will work.' she thought. 'We will save our baby boy.'
Author's Note: I decided to get some more going on this story. I'm hoping that with the different stories I'm working on I'll be able to go from one to the other when I am stuck on how to proceed on any of the stories I'm working on. Please review, favorite and follow and thank you for reading.