Chapter 6
Sirius returned to the table still dabbing at a wet spot on the front of his robes, where the bulk of the juice had pooled.
They finished breakfast, tension running high between Harry and Sirius, both attempting to hide their unease.
Following breakfast, Dumbledore and Sirius asked Harry to follow them to Sirius's office. Finally, we get to the bottom of this. He thought to himself.
Sirius seated himself behind his desk, Harry and Dumbledore took chairs near to him, and Dumbledore reached inside his robes for a small leather pouch. He held it out to Harry. "Sour?"
Harry blinked. "I – I'm sorry Professor, but what?"
Dumbledore smiled to himself "Sour, Harry. It's a muggle candy that is really quite amazing."
Harry smiled and relaxed into his chair realizing what Dumbledore was up to. He reached in and found a small oddly-shaped hard candy, and popped it into his mouth. The burst of sour made his eyes water slightly, but the initial shock wore off and it tasted quite pleasant.
"Wha…" he managed to get out.
"The company's name is Callard and Bowser; they are purveyors of some of the most shocking muggle candies you can imagine. They even come in the cleverest tins." Dumbledore smiled to Harry and popped one in his mouth.
Sirius looked at them both and relaxed a bit. "Well now that the tension is gone, let's discuss this Harry."
"Your father asked an awful lot of questions I was not ready to answer."
"But you did, didn't you?" Harry said looking at Sirius knowingly.
"Well, perhaps I should start with me finding out it was not you in your bed this morning." He leaned back in his chair, and twirled his wand in his fingers.
That morning:
"James?"
"Well who in the bloody hell did you expect to find in my bed you prat." James Potter reached for a discarded towel on the stone floor. "Stone floor? Padfoot, where in the hell…" His eyes met Sirius for the first time and he fully registered the people around him.
"Sirius? What in the hell happened to you? Lily are you ok?" He looked at Ginny, and froze. "You – you're not Lily." He reached for the wand at the bedside and leveled it at Ginny. "Who are you? Where's my wife? Where is my son?"
"James, calm down a second, and I can answer some of your questions, but please, put Harry's wand down."
Ginny moved forward with her hands out. "Mr. Potter, please listen to Sirius. I – I'm worried about Harry, and we need to get him back."
A knot formed in James's brow and Sirius let out the breath he was holding. He knew the look so well. James was trying to think through something and was having a hard time getting his mind around it. "It's ok James. I'll explain what I can old friend."
Things seemed to click in his mind. His eyes shifted to each person in the room. Finally, they flicked downward to the wand. "Harry's wand?" He looked up at Sirius. "Harry has a wand?"
"All Hogswarts students do Prongs; you've not been out of school that long."
"I'm in Hogwarts aren't I?"
"You were always the quick one." Sirius chuckled. He turned to Seamus. "Finnegan, go get Professor Lupin and hurry."
"Professor? Remus is on staff?" then he took in the robes Sirius was wearing. "And you too! Good lord they must be hard up for instructors. Sirius old man, you must take better care of yourself, you look like you've been in Azkaban since I saw you last." He smiled at his own joke, but caught something in Sirius's eyes.
"Oh god Sirius, no – why would they send you there?" Concern laced his voice as he reached for his friend. "How long Sirius?"
"Twelve years James."
"I'm so sorry Sirius." James pulled Sirius into a warm embrace and held his friend.
The broke apart and a smile broke across James's face. "So tell me about Harry, I want to know everything, like who these people are, and why are they at Hogwarts?"
Sirius smiled warmly, "James he's so much like you at times and other times more like Lily. He plays Quidditch –"
"Well of course he does, Lily has threatened to hex me if I get him a broom before he's ten." James beamed "Between you and I old friend, I already have one coming, it'll be here in seven months." James winked conspiratorially. I was hoping it would be here for his birthday, but an early Christmas present will be fine! Well, you know that already, so how does he like the broom?"
Hermione gasped, and turned away. Ron moved to her.
"What, you don't like Quiddich?" James snorted. "Who's the stuck up-"
"James" Sirius hushed him "I'd like to introduce to you Harry's best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. They've been inseparable since the first year."
"Oh," James said shaking their hands "Well you two know who I am then." He smiled benignly at them.
Ron couldn't help looking puzzled. "I take it you are Harry's father then. You look just like the pic- oof. Hey! What was that for?" Herione's elbow was just extracting itself from his ribs.
"Mr. Potter, it's a pleasure." Hermione fairly beamed charm at him. "Ron can be a bit of a prat at times. He means he hardly recognizes you." She glared sharply at Ron. "We of course have met you before isn't that right Ron?"
"Erm, yeah – of course." He was warily watching her elbow.
Ginny advanced then, clasping his hand in hers. "I'm Ginny Weasley, I'm Harry's girlfriend. It's a real pleasure Mr. Potter."
James grinned. "A better choice I could not have made myself."
"Sirius, I'd like to talk to Dumbledore, can we go see him quickly? I'm not sure how long I have here."
"Sure James, come with me. Ron, tell Professor Lupin to meet us in Professor Dumbledore's office." Sirius opened the door and waved James out.
"What in the bloody hell are trolls doing here?" they hear James exclaim.
The door closed and the Companions let out a weary breath. "Ron you insufferable git! How could you say something like that? He'll become curious, and he mustn't find out anything about the future." Hermione chided him.
"Something he said isn't making sense." Ginny said. "He said he got Harry a broom, but it's too late for his birthday, which is the end of July, in seven months it'll be early for Christmas. So I'm assuming the broom is due to be delivered in November some time."
"After the attack." Ron said quietly. "All I can think about is how things would have been different if Harry's parents had lived. He'd have been brought up properly."
A little less than an hour later, Dumbledore, Remus, Sirius, and James returned to the common room.
"All those people thought I was Harry." He seemed quite dumbfounded. "Harry must be a popular young man in school."
"That is putting it mildly James." Dumbledore said softly. "Your son is a bit of a hero."
"You don't send too many owls home I hope? Lily would kill me if he followed in my footsteps."
Dumbledore looked at James for a long moment and sighed. "No James, I have never had occasion to send you or Lily an owl about Harry."
"So where do we live Sirius?" James asked suddenly.
"Well, that's a bit complicated James." Remus said
"No, Mooney, it's not." James's voice had become soft. "Lily and I are dead, aren't we?"
Remus dropped his wand he had been twisting in his fingers.
"It's all making sense now. You almost had me fooled, but Mr. Weasley there was the key, he'd never seen me before." He pointed to Sirius "You were in Azkaban for twelve years. Why? Where is Peter?" He noticed the pained expression pass over Sirius's face.
"He – he got away James. You convinced me to make him the secret keeper James, I – I was so sure it was Remus who had leaked to Voldemort, so we changed the secret keeper to Peter, who ran right straight to Voldemort and gave him the information. Harry made it out alive with just a scar, and I chased Peter down. He made it look like I had turned to Voldemort, and then used some spell he killed a dozen muggles and cut off his own finger.
"He transformed into a rat and hid out with the Weasley's. They didn't know they kept him as a pet."
Ron shuddered with the memory "It's all true Mr. Potter."
"Harry has been living with the Dursley's under the protection of the Fidelitus all this time."
"When?" James looked at his friend levelly.
"Holloween night." Sirius said sighing heavily.
"This Halloween?" Sirius nodded sadly. He sat down, and took a deep breath. "Tell me what happened."
Remus shuffled forward and sat beside his friend. "Halloween is the full moon James, I couldn't be in Godric's Hallow, so Sirius was staying with you-"
Godric's Hallow – Halloween Noon
"Remus, are you sure about this?" James asked.
"Yes James, for the last time, tonight is the full moon; I can't be around Harry then." He smiled down at the young man trying hard to walk, "and besides, we all know what has to happen tonight."
"Alright Moony, be careful my friend, things are unfortunately progressing on schedule. I'll miss you two, more than anything else, I'll miss my dearest friends." James wrapped an arm around them both.
"It felt like a game, you know?" Sirius said stroking the handlebars of his motorcycle. "Like it was all desperately far in the future, and here we are."
James looked up at his dearest friends. "'It's the choices we make in life…' I think I finally understand Dumbledore."
Sirius snorted. "Oh gods, we are in trouble."
"Look, leave Godric's Hollow James. Take Lily and Harry and run. Dumbledore will give you asylum in Hogwarts if nothing else." Remus pleaded with his friend.
"I can't Moony. If we change anything it could affect everything." James said simply, kicking a rock with his booted toe.
"Dammit James, you can't just give up!" Sirius burst out. "To hell with 'the future' I'll be god damned if I am going to let you and Lily die tonight!"
"You will Sirius; you have to be around for Harry. I – I'm not meant to be there." Tears slid down his face. "Isn't that right my young man?" He was holding Harry now in his arms.
Harry cocked his head sideways. "Da"James choked. "God, I wish he had not done that." He sank to the ground and wept. "Sirius, take Remus, get out of here."
He stood dusting off his pants, picked up Harry and walked into the house leaving his two friends standing there.
Sirius got on the motorcycle, and motioned Remus to join him. "Are you going to let him do this damn fool thing Sirius?"
"Hell no. I'm taking you to the Forbidden Forest, and then I'm coming back here straight away. James and Lily are not facing that bastard alone." Remus looked at his lap thinking.
"What about the future Sirius?"
"Great future, you are hard up and can't get work, and I spent the next twelve years rotting in Azkaban, I can't think of a better future for myself." He glared at Remus "You are getting cold feet, aren't you?"
"Sometimes," Remus said slowly "the right thing to do is the hardest."
Sirius looked at him. "You think we should let this happen? Damn you Remus those three people are my bloody family! No one has ever treated Sirius Black with one tenth the respect Lily and James do! What the hell kind of godfather let's himself be put in Azkaban?"
"Sometimes," Remus repeated "sometimes the hardest thing you can do is to make sure everything is set to rights."
"So you think this is right? It's ok for Harry to be locked in a bloody closet, for you to suffer in poverty always second guessing yourself, and me to get locked in that hell hole? Who says it's the right bloody future anyway? Why can't mine be right where we keep fighting, and find a way to destroy Voldemort once and for all? What in the hell is wrong with that future?"
"Because Sirius Black, it's not the right path." They turned to a woman standing behind them wearing a pale blue cloak, the hood pulled up.
"Who are you? More importantly, what do you know about all this?" Sirius had his wand trained on her.
"Honestly Mr. Black, my name is of no consequence, you neither know of me nor would you or anyone else recognize my name." She walked over to them, and looked at him squarely. "However, the information I have will maintain something. Your friend Mr. Lupin already knows, if Voldemort isn't gravely injured tonight young Mr. Potter will never defeat him." The woman lowered her cloak's hood revealing long black hair, and emerald green eyes, Sirius placed her at twenty and considered her quite attractive.
"Harry's just a baby!" Sirius sputtered.
"You have met an older, far more powerful form of Harry Potter, Mr. Black, and you know it. That Harry Potter is a product of your decisions tonight. Without the tragedy about to unfold tonight in this house, Harry Potter will never learn his true strength and destiny. He will never be able to defeat Tom Riddle, ensuring the peace for generations."
"So what's wrong with my future huh? Where we fight. We know Voldemort is going to be here tonight. We can set a trap, ambush him as he tries to kill Lily and James. Harry can have a normal life dammit!"
She seemed to contemplate this a moment. "Sirius, you don't know what you are asking, do you?" She sighted. "Harry was right; you will need to be shown." She offered her hand to Sirius and Remus. "Now let's see what the next fifteen years are like, if you 'stop' Riddle tonight."
They watched in horror as images flowed before them. War broke out the next day, full-scale war. They had not been strong enough to stop the attack. Lily, having a false sense of security never cast the spell to protect Harry. They fled to Hogwarts and were indeed given asylum, as Sirius had expected. At five Harry watched his mother being brutally beaten and raped by Death Eaters, his father dying in a last ditch effort to protect his son and wife.
Captured, and tortured, Harry eventually snaps, and becomes feral, the Death Eaters laugh, and release him on the world, power surges from Harry make it necessary for them to divert much needed forces from the defense to hunt down and destroy him. He's captured after slaughtering an entire family of wizards. Sirius will one day remember this vision; all of the wizards had red hair.
With that she turned and began to walk away. "Heed the warning gentlemen."
She turned a corner, and neither of them saw her again.
Sirius settled back into the seat of his motorcycle. "Old crone." He looked at Remus "let's get you out of here." He sighed and looked one last time at the house of his friends, and started the motorcycle. Within minutes, the Potter house was a small dot dwindling in the distance.
Hogwarts
James looked into his hands they had been fidgeting with the wand in his hands, Harry's wand. His son was still not talking, nor walking. He crawled and made messes, and yet here he was holding the wand of a very powerful wizard, his son.
Suddenly the wand got hot, he felt it pull, and vanish.
"Oh god, Harry's in trouble." Ron said looking furtively about.
"No, actually, Ron" Remus said staring at the wisp of smoke the only reminder of Harry's wand "he's actually training it on Peter right now. Threatening him with violence, and of the type we all can see in Harry. Peter of course is about to wet himself, and Sirius and I just realized that it wasn't James that we overheard talking to Lily." He glanced up at Ginny and started to laugh.
Sirius looked at Remus, and then to Ginny who was looking even more confused, soon the two friends were out of breath, and Ginny was staring at them indignantly. "What pray tell is so damn funny?"
James smiled at Ginny, "You even have Lil's temper." He stood and whispered in Sirius's ear. Remus relayed the conversation as he remembered it to James in whispers.
"You three are insufferable!" Ginny stormed out of the room, they heard a door slam from the dormitories.
"Well, Harry has a handful now doesn't he?" James said looking in the direction of the dorm rooms. "I'll just go have a chat with her."
"There goes the bravest of all of us." Remus chuckled.
Ron looked quizzically at Remus "Sorry Professor Lupin, but I don't understand."
"Ron my lad, that man would calmly walk into the greatest danger, but if Lily even so much as disapproved of anything we did, that man turned to jelly."
Sirius shook his head sadly. "It's true Ron, that boy's only weakness in the world was Lily until Harry came along. God it must have torn him up inside knowing everything like that."
"So what happened then that's so funny?"
"Well we were downstairs, and young Mr. Potter had just finished filling his nappy, so being the good godfather I am, I was taking him to his mother to change." Sirius smiled.
Remus chuckled "We all came along to tease James because he wouldn't touch a dirty nappy with a four foot pole. Anyhow, we come up the stairs with Peter holding Harry and we hear what we assumed was James telling Lily how much he loved someone named Ginny."
"You can only imagine our shock," Sirius continued "Our friend was telling the mother of his child he was going to marry someone else! Well, so I spout 'I get dibs on what's left of you when Lily's done.' And 'James' turns around reaching for his wand. Turns out it's not James at all, though if he closed his eyes and covered the scar you'd never know the difference."
"So here we three are staring down a very powerful wizard, who is trying to summon his wand, and suddenly there's a crack and a blue flash of light, and there's Harry's wand shooting into his hand."
The two were leaning against one another for support, tears of laughter rolling down their faces.
"What do you mean he's going to marry her?" Ron asked getting bent.
"Well Lily had this way with making men flustered. No doubt Harry didn't realize it until Lily decided to figure out if this Ginny was good enough for her little boy." Sirius said, "its then that Harry threatened Peter, how did it go Remus, 'I saved your miserable, worthless hide once, and if I ever see it again consequences be damned I'll make you pay.' Had quite the lasting effect on Peter I'll tell you."
"I am sure he'll talk to you about it once he's clear on it himself Ron." Hermione said reasonably.
James came back into the common room, a slightly abashed Ginny following him. She occupied a chair near the fire and stared dully into it. James sat down and began writing.
Sirius moved over to him, "I'm sorry old friend, but I have to go. I can feel the pull now. I must write this."
He wrote furiously on the paper, trying to put everything he felt into the short missive to his son. He signed his name to the paper, and there was a brief blurring of the form of James Potter, when he looked up, it was Harry.
"And there you have it." Sirius finished off the story.
Harry sat back in contemplation, and re-read his father's letter again. This was going to take some thought. "I need some time."
Harry walked to his room and lay on his bed; he was looking around the room trying to find a focus point before he lost himself in the swirl of emotion. His eyes lighted on a small cardboard box. He lifted it up, and placed it on his bed.
The box looked no different from when his uncle handed it to him, dusty, and still sealed with spell-o-tape. Using his wand, he broke the seal. Inside was an overlarge envelope, a small stack of books, and a cloth bag about the size of a bag of marbles.
He flipped the envelope over written in a neat handwriting on the front was Case File 34576 Dept. of Magical Law Enforcement. Why hadn't he opened it before now? It had remained sealed all this time. Had he simply been afraid of the contents?
With trembling hands he opened the envelope; a single sheet of parchment stamped with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement contained a rather dry record of the night of October 31st 1980. He looked at the document signed on November 1st 1980 by Alistair Moody.
A silver chain inside held a trio of rings and a locket that Harry first thought was silver, but on closer inspection appeared to be white gold. Silver would have tarnished in all the years in the basement of Privet Drive after all.
The tiny catch on the locket was easy to open, and inside was a muggle picture of himself as a newborn. Harry smiled and held the jewelry in his had while he read Moody's report on the death of his parents.
Setting the envelope and report aside Harry lifted out the first book there was a slight amount of fire damage to the covers, but the books all seemed intact. Each simply had a month and year on the cover.
He opened July, 1979
July 1st, 1979
Lily isn't up to writing, so I'm taking over for her until after the child is born. It appears that everyone's favorite villain has taken to going after not just muggle born and half-breeds, but today he attacked a wizardling couple. Nice people, but they acted a bit funny when we asked them questions about why they were where they were. Like they had something odd to hide. No matter really, Sirius told me later on he thinks that he remembers one of their son's in first year as we left. Remus reckons he could find more about them this weekend. Such an odd group of people too.
Well Dumbledore has asked us to keep track of anything odd we see, and THEY were odd.
(an ink stain obliterates a portion of the text and page here)
Bloody hell! That boy has a lot to answer for! He just broke my latest project by kicking Lily as she was looking at it. Now I'll have to rebuild it tonight.
(a different handwriting, more feminine continues)
If you are reading this, it means your father and I are not here to explain everything to you that we wanted. Don't listen to him about breaking anything; he's just grumpy because I won't let Sirius and James go play on their brooms today. He has to learn to stay home and be a big boy now and then.
We will keep this journal until you are born, then we are packing it away, and starting a new one. We honestly don't know why Dumbledore asked us to do this, but, well it's hard to explain Dumbledore until you meet him. Some times it's as if he knows everything, and other times I have to not think about him being completely barking mad.
At any rate, you are tap dancing on my bladder, and it's making it VERY hard to sit in one place a write. Besides we entered enough for today.
He glanced through the nine journals. One for each month. Each entry was more or less a typical day in the life of James and Lily Potter, several hours later the door to the dorm opened, and Ginny came in.
"Harry, are you ok?" her concern strained her voice. She gasped at the look on his face; he was smiling though tears were flowing freely down his face.
"Look Gin, it's my first nine months." The small journals were laid out before him. "My mum and dad wrote all the time my mum was pregnant."
Ginny picked up on and leafed through it. "Wow Harry, this is amazing. Where did you find this?"
Harry smiled briefly and said "When I left the Dursley's Vernon gave it to me, but I was so excited to come see you that I honestly forgot and stuffed it into my trunk."
He closed the box, and dried his eyes. "Well enough of the past," Ginny heard his voice harden slightly, the soft tones he used with her normally vanishing as he once again took the mantle of leadership on his shoulders. "I need to talk to Sirius, Remus and Dumbledore."
Ginny moved to hold him, at first he was stiff, but the façade cracked, and he molded to her, his head lying on her shoulder, and the tears flowed again.
She lifted her face from his shoulder and smiled. "You don't really need to talk to anyone right now, do we?" desire burned across her eyes.
His breath caught in his throat. "No, I don't suppose there is any reason to leave right away…" their lips met, and they held one another making small talk.
Harry was talking about them again, marriage, kids, and a house. Ginny wondered if they'd ever get to that point.
As they talked Harry noticed the rings and the locket. "Ginny." He noticed she was wearing the jumper her mother made for him last year.
"Yes?" she was looking at him innocently, a small smile twitching at the corners of her lips.
"Would you marry me?" he asked simply.
Ginny's world came to a halt. Her mouth opened but no words could come out.
"Not right now of course," had said "but after all this is over, when we don't have to hide, and worry anymore. We don't need to buy a house, or have children, but I do know that when I think of the future I could not live if you weren't in it."
Fresh tears flooded her eyes. "Harry, why are you asking me this now?"
He looked at her fully. "Well, because I am afraid if I don't ask you, you will think I only want you for sex."
She picked up a sock and threw it at him. "You pig!" she laughed and launched more wadded clothing in his direction.
After a short time, they managed to regain control of themselves; Ginny slid into his arms and kissed him deeply, "Yes Harry Potter, I will marry you one day, when the future is not all about how long until Voldemort finds us. Until then, you just have to deal with the sex."
They heard a noise, Ron was glaring at them. "What sex?"
"Ron, sod off." Ginny laughed lightly and fairly skipped out of the room after kissing Harry on the cheek.
Ron turned to Harry. "Look Ron, it was a joke. Gods man, you think we come in here and shag ourselves silly whenever your back is turned." Well, not every chance anyhow.
Ron seemed to visibly relax. "Well, no not really." He looked back up at his friend. "So what's this about you marrying my sister?"
Harry had been growing tired of this. Ron had been questioning him about every move he made in his relationship with Ginny. Well, one way or another it ends here. He stood and squared off to Ron. "You and I are mates, right Ron?"
Ron nodded slowly watching Harry warily.
"Right, of course we are." Harry began pacing, "so you understand when I need to talk to my best mate about something right?"
Ron nodded again.
"Of course, of course –"Harry stopped dead and turned to face Ron again. "So you'll also understand that there are some things you just don't talk about, right?"
"For example?"
Harry's eyes locked onto Ron's, his eyes shone like green ice, and the tone of his voice was no warmer, "Like anything to do with your sister and me. Period. Am I making myself perfectly clear?"
Ron took a step back the force in Harry's tone and mannerisms required he do one of two things, swing or retreat. Ron could feel Harry's presence. He felt the raw power building drawing from around him, through him. He looked down at his feet. "Yeah, I understand."
He felt Harry's hand drop on to his shoulder, and in a normal voice "Excellent, I'm glad we had this talk Ron." Harry moved past Ron and followed Ginny back into the common room.