A/N: Well here is the ACTUAL Chapter 1. ^_^
Disclaimer: *in creepy Andy Serkis type voice* My precious… they're MINE! They were my birthday present! Oh they only have one master you say? J.K. Rowling? Nooooo!!!!!! My precious is lost!!!!! :(
Chapter 1: Bittersweet
James woke up in a very groggy state of mind and then remembered that he had a few too many glasses of champagne the night before. He stumbled downstairs and to his shock, he saw his wife sitting at the table crying with her head in her hands.
"Lily, honey, what's wrong?" he asked, very worried.
"What's wrong?!?" she thundered. "I've been crying every day now for the past year, and you're just now finding the words to ask me 'What's wrong?' Have you been living in LaLa Land or something? Have you completely forgotten about the Dark Lord and the fact that he is ruthlessly trying to hunt us down?"
"Lily… I," he stammered, as Remus and Sirius walked in, just in time.
Oddly, Remus looked shabby and thin, as if he were sick and hadn't gotten enough to eat in years. Even more strange, he and Sirius didn't seem to be a couple at all. They just looked estranged from one another… and distraught and frightened, amid many other things.
"We still can't find Peter. We can't think of any reason why he would stay gone this long," Remus said in a tired tone.
"What do you think happened to him?" Lily asked, shakily.
"We don't know. I need to talk to James privately," Sirius said and pulled James into the den.
"James, I think Voldemort may have found out that Peter is your Secret Keeper instead of me. Keep on the lookout. He may be coming for you and Lily soon. You know he shows no mercy…" Sirius whispered urgently.
James looked into Sirius' terrified crystal blue eyes and thought he had strayed into a nightmare. Perhaps he was still asleep? What had happened to the perfect life he had only the night before? And hadn't Voldemort been vanquished *years* ago?
"James, man, wake up! You look all confused. Do you understand the enormity of your danger?" Sirius asked, waving a hand in front of James' face.
"Yeah… yeah, I understand. I just need to think, that's all…" James said quietly.
Sirius walked out of the room and James sat down in the same armchair he had sat in the night before. He fingered the rich velvet… and it all suddenly came flooding back to him.
His family was the number one target of Voldemort. The Potters were very wealthy and powerful, but had refused to bow in submission to the Dark Lord, something he wouldn't stand for. Only the year before, Lily's parents had been murdered in warning and her sister had exiled herself. Petunia had been Lily's best friend, but she now blamed Lily and magic for the death of their parents. She had vowed never to let anything magical or abnormal come near her or family ever again.
It was September the fourteenth, in the year nineteen hundred and eighty-one. Remus suffered from Lycanthropy and was shunned by the entire wizarding population. James and the rest of the Marauders had learned how to become Animagi in their fifth year, in order to make Remus' transformations each full moon a bit more bearable. Remus and Sirius had been in a relationship once, but it had quickly ended when Remus was caught in the middle of one of our more terrible pranks on one of our enemies to keep him quiet about Remus' secret condition. The Dark Lord and his forces had constantly hunted Sirius, as it was suspected that he was the Potters' Secret Keeper. Now it seemed that Voldemort had discovered it was actually Peter and their whereabouts would soon be known. His family was in mortal danger.
His perfect life had all been a dream. A very realistic dream… but a dream, nonetheless. He had lived a whole *glorious* lifetime in the twilight of one night.
He was moved out of his trance by the sudden sound of his son crying upstairs.
Lily came down the staircase, trying to comfort the hysterical toddler in her arms.
He was crying, "Mama, Dada… no bye bye!"
"Sshhhh, sshhhh… Mummy and Daddy aren't going anywhere," Lily replied in a soothing voice. James wished on every god he could think of that he could believe her.
He stood in the kitchen doorway and watched them.
//Strange,// he thought. //My one-year-old child even seems to know of the danger looming over our heads, anxious and waiting to strike…//
A/N: Yes, somehow, Harry has some kind of comprehension of what's going on. And I know Voldie probably knew that Peter was the Secret Keeper all along… trust me, it's gonna work out for the plot. I've already written the ending. Now I just have to write the middle… R&R please!