Title: Saving Grace
Author: shattered
Rating: PG to PG13
Summery: What if James had had a sister, a twin? What if there was more to the Marauders than four boys and a map? What if the Malfoys weren't Voldemort followers by choice, if they were forced? What if that force's name was Starling?
Disclaimer: Do I look like a rich, British, ex-school teacher? I am Not JKR thus I don't own any of these characters except those that are the product of my own mind.
AN: Again un-betaed, sorry. I got two reviews, I'm so thrilled, thank you. I've got so many ideas for this fic and I know that I can't use them all, I mean, hey, this thing has been sitting in my head mutating for about a month. Oh, well. Hope you enjoy. This chapter is dedicated to Roxy Angel, for being my first reviewer and being so enthusiastic.
Saving GraceIt wasn't until they were past the limits of Little Whinging that Harry bothered to ask where they were going, thought the answer he got was not quite what he expected. Apparently they were going clothes shopping… for him. It was something that he had really never experienced. He was looking forward to it immensely.
They spent two whole hours shopping for Harry, a fact that really bothered Sirius, as he had not been allowed into the store, no pets. When they finished they hoped back in the car and headed to a fast food place. They went through the drive thru rather than upset Sirius by going inside and leaving him alone again. They munched their hamburgers while listening to American alternative and punk rock. They were now headed to St. Mungo's.
Harry once again posed the where are we going question when Remus pulled the car off the main road and onto a redbrick street. The answer this time was even more shocking than before. Harry had heard of St. Mungo's, it was the largest wizard's hospital in Britain, one of the largest in Europe. 'Why are we going there?' rang through his head.
He couldn't help it he had to ask. "Why are we going to St. Mungo's?"
"Harry, Sirius and I we realized that you don't know about your other aunt." Remus seemed almost unwilling to answer his question.
"Other aunt, what other aunt?" Harry looked positively bewildered by Remus' response.
"James' sister, Elle, she was your dad's twin. There were seven of us, the four Marauders and the three girls, they weren't official Marauders but they all had nicknames, too. Lily's was Tiger, it was short for Tigerlily, Arabella's was Paws, and Elle's was --"
"Raven, she was called Raven wasn't she?" Harry had a look of dawning comprehension on his face.
"Yes, but how did you know that?" Remus was completely and totally floored, without the actual sinking to the ground that normally comes with the feeling, he was still driving after all. How on Earth had Harry known that?! No one had ever told him of that he was certain.
"She came to me in my dreams last night, told me to trust my instincts and some stuff about being loved."
"Oh my, I guess Sirius and Dumbledore were right, she has been watching." Sirius in the back had perked up when he heard Moony say that he had been right.
"Watching, how can she be watching? What's wrong with her?"
"Okay, beginning, best place to start after all, Sirius, James, and Elle had been friends since childhood, they lived near each other. She was always amazingly accurate with what she said to people and about people. She always seemed to know where people were, what they were doing, what they had been doing, what they were going to do, all sorts of eerie stuff. But even with all that she was still fun, almost as mischievous as James, but she knew when to stop. Elle was amazingly smart, and like James and Padfoot, it was innate, limited studying necessary. She even tied for Head Girl with Tiger, they ended up as co-Head Girls, it was the first time that had ever happened. She was engaged to Siri, still is officially. On your first birthday, at your party even, she was attacked, she managed to get two of them but the third shot a cruse at her right before he Apparated out, she's been unconscious since. We wanted you at least to see her once."
"So how can she be watching?" Harry was still confused on that point.
"According to Dumbledore she's a Seer, a true Seer, and they always react funny to comas, and sleep for that matter." Remus pulled into a parking space near the front. Harry still looked a bit confused as he stepped out of the car.
"So how could she have come to me last night?"
"That I do not have an answer to."
"Damn." And the ex-professor looked down at the raven haired boy with a sympathetic smile, as they approached the front desk.
"Elle Potter's room number, please." The receptionist turned away to a clipboard, wrote down the name waited for an instant and answered.
"Room two ten." She then turned back to the obviously engrossing paperwork littering the desk.
"Thank you." A small nod was all the indication they got that she had heard.
They headed off to the stairs and took them up a single story then found room two hundred and ten. As they stepped into the room Harry got the first real look at the woman who had entered his dream the night before. She looked mildly different, she was much paler and that was weird because she hadn't been truly tan to begin with, and she wore something similar to a hospital gown in the muggle world. She wore a simply cut light blue robe, it appeared to be cotton.
"She's so pale because of the lack of natural light, fourteen years in bed would make anyone lose their tan. Shockingly enough the doctors say that her muscles haven't suffered from atrophy." Remus had obviously been there before.
"She's beautiful, did Dad look a lot like her?" Harry's innocent question almost hurt Remus.
"Yes, he did, Sirius says that there was a time when the only apparent difference was their hair lengths. She found a spell to fix her vision but Lily loved James' glasses so he didn't have her cast it on him."
Remus looked like he was remembering something, and he was. She had come bounding into the Gryffindor common room hugging a huge book to her chest with her glasses in one hand, yelling for James to come see the spell she had just found. He remembered James getting ready to yell at her for her abrupt break in the Marauders' meeting, sans Peter, that they had been having. Most of all he remembered laughing as Padfoot melted into a pile of goo, only to be told off by James being over protective. Then having James get yelled at by Raven saying wasn't she the oldest and who made him her keeper and did he want to see the spell or not? It was at that point that Lily had entered the common room and forbid James' getting rid of his glasses.
"Hey, Remus, are you okay?" Harry's head was tilted as he searched his father's friend's face.
"Yeah, just remembering."
"Oh." And his attention shifted for the werewolf to the woman lying on the bed. "What did you mean by instincts, hun, Aunt Elle? What do you want from me, Lady Raven?" Harry's hand had unknowingly reached out to rest upon his aunt's forehead and an instant later he found that he was not in the hospital room but instead in some sort of garden. He turned his head in an attempt to see everything and it was in this movement that he saw Raven.
This time she was in jeans and a red tee shirt with 'Gryffindor' in proud old English letters arching above a picture of the Gryffindor lion rampant (up in that vertical pose).
"Hey, sweetie." She greeted with a smile and an odd ring to her voice. "And as for your instincts, they've done you well, you've awakened me."
"How? And umm… where are we now?"
"Well, as to how, it has to do with the fact that we're blood relatives, and that we're both heirs of Gryffindor. Your power reacted with mine in such a way that it allowed me to throw off the curse completely." She took a break here as if to think about the rest of the answer she had to give him. She moved to play with a lock of her hair then tucked it behind her ear. "As to where are we, this is another recreation, this time of James favorite garden in Potter Manor."
"Oh. That's cool."
"We'd better get back now, to the real world, Remus and Sirius are looking worried." And back in the realm of the waking they were, Sirius had his nose press into one of Raven's folded hands and Remus had a hand on Harry's arm.
Harry snapped out of it first, he removed his hand from Elle's forehead and leaned down so that he could see his aunt's hand twitch as she slowly awoke from her fourteen year sleep. Sirius shifted his nose from her hand to her check when the movement became apparent to him as well, he so wanted to see the channel blue eyes that he knew lay behind those lashes. Remus too seemed impatient for some bigger response, and he got it when her eyelids started to flutter open.
Sapphire blue eyes focused on each of the three in turn then all of them at once. And a voice that hadn't been heard by physical ears in fourteen years spoke, more like rasped out, one word, just one.
"Hey."
AN: Hey, what do you think of chapter two? Sorry it's shorter than the last one but it had to end there for two very important reasons, fist off I wanted it done today, secondly it felt right to end it there. Please review
Love to all, shattered