Jacob's eyes fluttered open in a panic, his breathing heavy and his whole body covered in sweat. He gasped for breath and threw off the soaked covers of his bed. A bed that was decidedly much too small for his broad shouldered, athletic frame. Or it would have been, if he had possessed that taller, thicker form now. For a brief moment Jacob took in his shorter, weaker, younger body. Despite the loss of his height and hard won muscle, Jacob grinned like a loon as he surveyed his body.
"It worked! It actually worked!" he whooped out, cackling as he threw himself back into his childhood bed.
"It worked" he whispered now, quietly looking in awe at his tiny hands.
"It worked Harry, I'm going to fix everything."
At those whispered words, a rapping came at his door.
"Jacob?" a voice called from just outside his room "Everything ok kiddo?"
Jacob immediately recognised his Fathers voice, a voice he had last heard mere hours ago shouting combat spells as he stayed behind to hold off Voldemort's forces to buy time for Jacob to get to the veil. Tears threatened to spill from his eyes as he truly realized that his Father was here again, whole and without the scars on his body and mind from losing his second son.
A son Jacob hadn't met yet, he realized, and the tears threatening to spill from his eyes instantly receded as events around him started to trigger long dormant memories of this moment. He remembered this morning. He must've been eight or nine, and he'd woken his Father with screams about an hour or two before he should have been up. Screams courtesy of a nightmare he'd been having, a recurring one of being locked in a dark cupboard under the stairs. A cupboard where spiders crawled on his bare skin and his stomach growled in pain as he hid from hideous trolls that would no doubt punish him if he made a single peep.
It hadn't been until he was seventeen and sharing a tent with Harry as they hunted the Dark Lords Horcruxes that he had finally realized those hadn't been dreams, they had been visions. Visions of his own twin brother's thoughts and fears and worries in a home where he was hated and abused and tormented every moment of every day. And he hadn't even known until Harry had finally let loose about his abuse at the hands of his Aunt and Uncle under the influence of Slytherin's locket. It had taken nine years and a cursed, rage inducing amulet targeting his emotionally vulnerable brother for him to fully understand what he had seen. Merlin, Harry had been right. He was a bloody idiot.
"Jacob? Kiddo I'm coming in." His father said, a beat passing before he opened the door to a now stoney silent Jacob staring off into the void of his memories.
"Bud? Everything ok Jakey? I heard screaming, and you look like you just saw a dementor." James said as he sat down on the bed and wrapped an arm around his son, concern clear in his voice and his deep bespectacled eyes.
Jacobs thoughts ran a mile a minute, his mind kicking into overdrive as he thought about how he needed to respond. The first time this had happened, he had told his Father about his dreams. His Dad had been concerned and eventually took him to a mind healer, who had suggested Dreamless Sleep potions, and eventually occlumency training to help with the nightmares. This regimen would have been a perfect thing to give a child at his age if it had indeed just been chronic nightmares, as the doctor had every reason to expect it to be.
But they hadn't been simple nightmares, they'd been the beginning of his magic entwining with Harry's. A normal, if poorly documented part of growing up for magical twins, and the beginnings of an extremely powerful and helpful bond between their magic and souls. A bond that had been stunted, and eventually completely severed by the treatment he received at the hands of a well meaning James Potter. Not this time, though. He and Harry needed every advantage they could get, and he wouldn't lose this one by opening his idiot mouth.
"Oh, um, sorry Dad." he managed sheepishly, an awkward small smile on his young features as he rubbed the back of his head.
"I think I just had a bad nightmare, sorry if I woke you up."
James's shoulders relaxed slightly at those words, scooping Jacob up into his arms and rufflings his already messy hair with a relieved smile.
"Must have been a pretty bad one, to scare my brave little lion. You wanna tell me what made you so scared about it?"
Jacob pretended to pause for a moment and think, screwing his eyes up like kids would when they were thinking extra hard.
"You know what Dad? I can't remember! I'm trying to remember what had me so scared, but it all seems all slippery and smokey now. Maybe something about trolls?"
His Dad nodded easily enough at that answer, seemingly satisfied with a child's explanation of the fickle nature of the mind's ability to remember dreams.
"Well, since you're already up, what's say we get some breakfast, my little marauder?"
This question was asked as James scooped Jacob's body up with both arms and tossed the now shrieking time traveler up onto his shoulder and began to cart him out of his room and down the steps of Potter Manor.
"Ok Dad!" Jacob managed in a bubbly, excited tone. Exposing only an easily excited, devoted eight year old to his father.
On the inside though, he was anything but happy or excited. Right now he was being carried down the stairs of a mansion that would have fit right into any child's dreams, by a Dad who loved and doted on him like there was no tomorrow. Meanwhile, Harry was being dragged from his thin mat under a spider infested cupboard to endure a fresh day in his own personal hell at the hands of his own Aunt and Uncle.
It wasn't right. It had never been right, but now he actually knew exactly what was going on, and he could fix it. Or at least, he could theoretically fix it. He had the knowledge, and certainly the resolve of a war hardened, twenty two year old Jacob Potter. But he had the influence and autonomy of an eight year old. An eight year old "only son" of the Ancient and Noble house of Potter. His house's only expected heir, and perhaps more importantly, the only piece of Lily Potter that his father had left.
To say he was overprotected and limited in his options on where he could go was an understatement.
It was times like these that he cursed his own Gryffindor nature, and wished he had Harry's slytherin cunning to help him think of a plan. Harry could have figured out a solution to get to him if the tables had been reversed. He would have manipulated the abusive muggles who watched him with their own words and ideas, convinced them to leave him just enough time to escape, and then used that truly massive brain of his to find his way to Potter Manor.
That's what he needed to do! Jacob thought as he dug into blueberry pancakes at the massive Potter dining table. He needed to find a way to manipulate someone into letting him go see Harry! Only… Jacob Potter didn't have a manipulative bone in his body. He was charismatic and charming, sure, but he was also honest to a fault and horrible at all that subtle coercion Harry had found so easy.
And besides, he wasn't supposed to even know Harry existed until Dumbledore showed up a few weeks before his eleventh birthday and informed them that Harry's name had been put down on the books at Hogwarts. Boy had his Dad and Uncle Sirius had a hard time explaining how he had a twin he had never even heard of before. It had taken them hours to get him to calm down and….
"Wait, Uncle Sirius!" he cried out in triumph, before slapping both hands over his mouth in embarrassment. He was infinitely grateful his father had left for the Auror office already, and he was alone at the table, except for the house elves of course. But they wouldn't think anything of it.
Even that little outburst didn't curb Jacob's enthusiasm, though. He didn't have to be manipulative with his Godfather! Sirius Black would do nearly anything he asked without question! And with something so important as rescuing Harry, so long as he could come up with a reason for knowing about him, he was certain Padfoot would….
"No, no he wont." Jacob realized, anger bubbling in his gut as his mind latched onto the problem with that particular idea "He knew about Harry. Just like Dad and Dumbledore and Mcgonagal. He knew and he let them abandon Harry just like everybody else, all so their precious "Boy-Who-lived" could grow up safe and happy. Away from his "dangerous" squib brother. Uncle Sirius might love me, hell he might even love Harry, but I can't trust him to act in our best interests here. Not when he's proven his judgment is compromised on this issue."
Jacob's spirits sank as he continued to think out loud, leaving his now empty plate and silverware on the table as he made his way to his room.
"Then what the hell am I supposed to be able to do?!" snarled as he slammed open his bedroom door and kicked a stuffed animal lying on the floor, sending it flying into the wall.
"I can't bloody well get Harry on my own, not right now. And I can't afford to leave him for another three years with those damn muggles. It'll take all I've got in me to help him as he is now, Merlin knows he wasn't in any state for all those shocks and changes when we first went to Hogwarts." Jacob paced his room, mind whirring as he desperately sought a way to rescue his twin from his own private slice of Azkaban.
"Merlin dammit! If only there was a competent adult who would trust me without any damn questions! But no! No, the only competent adults Harry and I ever seem to land ourselves are slimy grudge wielding potions professors, overbearing healers, and werewolves who forget to drink their bloody wolfsbane potions on the Merlin damned full moon!"
And just like that, a lightbulb flickered to life in Jacobs head.
"Of bloody course!" he swore as he face palmed "Moony! He was the only one who argued with Dad and Dumb-Old-Bore about sending Harry off to Moms abusive bint of a sister!"
Jacob's thinking turned internal as he began to pace even more seriously, now that a possible solution had been found to his current problem. He really should have thought of Remus immediately, hadn't he told Jacob years ago that what happened to Harry was why he so rarely saw his Uncle Moony as a child? He hadn't taken too kindly to the thought of his Godson being effectively abandoned with Petunia Dursley of all people, after all. Still, he'd been out voted and out argued.
If Jacob remembered the old werewolf's story right, Moony had actually tried to argue that if James thought it wasn't safe to raise Harry alongside Jacob, then he would take him. Damn the full moon and his stated desire to never have children. Of course his father hadn't taken that well, he'd been frustrated with Moony for not only arguing for a solution that would have put Harry in danger of Remus's condition, but put Remus in danger of Harry's. In the end, James had the final say as Harry's actual father, and Remus had angrily stormed out of the Potters, and Sirius's, lives. He'd only shown up a handful of times on Jacob's birthdays and yearly on Halloween, to mourn Lily's passing.
That lack of contact would make it difficult for Jacob to actually get access to his brother's Godfather, but not impossible. Jacob was confident that while he might not be able to convince a certain doting dogfather to help him rescue a sibling he shouldn't know existed, he could certainly guilt him into flueing him to a visit with an honorary uncle he never got to see.
A mischievous grin spread across Jacobs face as his plan took form in his mind, and he almost jumped in manic joy as it came together. Was it as clever, flawless, or sure to succeed as something Harry would have come up with? Absolutely not. But for a Gryffindor trying his best to approximate sneaky cunning? It wasn't half bad.
A/N
Well that wraps up chapter 2 of A Brothers Second Chance! I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone whose read this story so far, and a special thanks to everyone whose Favorited and Followed. And of course an Extremely special thanks to those of you who have commented! Knowing so many people have enjoyed even just the first chapter enough to keep reading warms my heart.
I also wanted take some time to explain some things about the story that you might want to keep in mind as we go forward. The most important of these is that Jacob Potter is neither a brilliant, ridiculously powerful wizard whose going to solve all of Harry's problems for him behind the scenes. Nor is he omniscient or immune to bias and clouded judgement. He's a scared, scarred kid who was forced to grow up way to fast by a world that needed a savior, and he blames a lot of people for the pain he and his brother have been put through. This, combined with his brash and firey nature can easily lead to Jacob painting a lot of issues and people as Black and White, good and evil. And as we all know, nothing and no one is ever quite that simple. Just keep that in mind as we get background and character introductions from Jacob's perspective, he's not an Unreliable Narrator, but his beliefs and opinions are colored by his own perspective and the information he has access too. So they won't always necessarily be the full truth.
And with that, I leave you until I can uncover yet another ramshackle chapter from the dusty catacombs of my mind. Fair reading friends, until next time!