A/N: Disclaimer still holds. Imbecile.
Interlude #1: An Explanation of the Sudden Appearance of James Potter and Sirius Black
1978, Diagon Alley
Two hours. Two very short hours before he dies.
James William Potter winces and ruffles his already wild black hair nervously. Two hours before his wife of five months and 29 days kills him.
"Oh, cheer up Prongs!" Sirius Black, best friend and staunch supporter, whaps James on the back in what is supposed to be a brotherly gesture of support. In truth, it knocks the wind out of James and causes him to stumble forward a few paces. "You'll find something soon, don't worry!"
Two hours before his six month anniversary, and Lily C. Evans-Potter discovers that her doting husband has yet to get her an anniversary gift. Two hours before his untimely (and knowing Lils, most likely violent) death.
Sirius shakes his head, adept after all these years at reading the expression on James' face. His friend is contemplating running away and not coming back, in mortal fear of. well, his wife. Voldemort has nothing on Lily Potter.
"I've already been looking for the last three months, straight! And I'm just supposed to all of a sudden find something that I'm just sure that she'll love? Isn't that a bit optimistic, Padfoot?"
Sirius sighs. "Look, James, calm down. Even if you can't find something now, when we get back, just bluff it to the Lady Lily until I get there with an utterly exquisite gift that I'm sure she'll enjoy, okay? Don't stress, old friend, Padfoot's got your back!" And he winks.
James just shakes his head dolefully. He knows the kind of gifts that Sirius is likely to come up with, and he's not waiting with bated breath to see Lily's reaction to whatever Sirius manages to get, if indeed James gets to that stage of desperation.
"Oh, look! Pawn shop!"
James allows Sirius to drag him inside of an old, decrepit wizarding thrift store, shaking his head in vague amusement. The taller man has always delighted in old things, or more specifically, old mechanical-magical hybrid things. And it seems that he has found one in the form of a broken Time-Turner.
"You know you'll never get that to work again," James warns his age-old friend before Sirius has a chance to buy it. "The Ministry wouldn't have allowed it out to public if it could have been fixed by any means possible. Don't even try, Padfoot, remember the last time you got wrapped up in something like this? You were a turtle for five weeks!"
"And who kept poking my shell?" Sirius retorts tartly, absentmindedly, as he continues to inspect his newest toy.
James flushes, and doesn't say anything more.
The proprietor of the store, an elderly witch with graying hair and a skittish disposition, eyes them both warily, suspicious of anyone under the age of ancientness. James glances at her from time to time, disturbed just a bit by her intense brown gaze. He nudges Sirius, nods towards the witch.
"Isn't there something kind of. scary about her?"
Sirius doesn't even look up from the Time-Turner. "Nonsense, Prongs. You're just being overly paranoid again."
"It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you," James quips, grin springing to his lips at his trademark phrase.
Still not looking up, Sirius rolls his eyes.
James leaves his friend to wander around the shop, looking at oddities and ancient relics of times long since past. The pawnshop is really more of an antique store, except for the fact that almost all of its wares are defunct, broken or cracked in some way. He feels out of place here, disrespectful somehow of things long past. He feels like he doesn't belong, which is a feeling that he really isn't used to. He glances again at Sirius, who is still enraptured by the old, broken Time-Turner. He doesn't seem to notice his out-of-placeness.
Maybe it's because Sirius isn't really out of place anywhere.
James sighs again, running fingertips along edges of countertops, feeling for imaginary dust. The scary witch must also be a neat freak, he decides. It's nearly impossible to keep any area of space free of dust, unless said area is a person, and even then, if said person slept for long enough, James is sure that they will quickly acquire a slight layer of the stuff.
He really has to get out of here; the oldness of the air is mugging up his mind. It's getting quite bad, in fact, he thinks that he can actually hear someone screaming-
"Prongs!" Sirius yells from across the room, blue eyes pale in his face, and large too from shock. "Hurry, there's a Death Eater attack outside!"
So, maybe the screaming wasn't in his head after all.
Shaking himself into action, James nods once, sharply, and runs out of the store, Sirius at his heels with the broken Time-Turner dangling from his fingers. The neat-freak, scary witch glares at the retreating, lanky man, but decides against mentioning it. She rather thinks that they're out of earshot anyway, with the rate that they ran out.
James strains his ears for the sounds of screaming, a sound that he is all to familiar with after all his years as an Auror, and before that as one fourth of the Marauders, a group of teenage boys well used to causing mayhem, which of course led to shrieks of all kinds. For all his twenty some years, James Potter is well acquainted with the sounds of screams.
The two men run, pushing their lean bodies to maximum speed. It's taxing, but exhilarating to run like this, so that you can feel your bones straining against skin, and muscle pulling loose. So that the air you gulp in is exhaled just as fast in ragged pants, and your arms are scissoring at your sides, and you feel as if you are faster than the wind itself.
James is made for it, this exhilaration of adrenaline, this feeling of flight. It's part of the reason that he's such a good Quidditch player: few are as at home in the air as he is.
In mere seconds they are at the site of the crime. Six Death Eaters attacking a small sweetshop.
Before tackling them all head-on, James and Sirius exchange grins, dangerous and reckless smiles that speak of trouble ahead and great fun to be had. Familiar smiles from the Hogwarts days, right before they engaged in a particularly clever prank. And they jump in, curses blasting from their wand-tips.
They are in their element and loving every minute of it.
They were trained at the same time as Aurors, and so are used to fighting together against any number of foes. They typically fight back to back, as they do now, moving with each other's actions; letting the flow of the other's back against them direct their movements. Some part of it is instinct, knowing your fighting partner so well that you move in the direction he is about to before he does himself. They cut a swathe through the Death Eaters, annihilating two right off the bat and almost evening out the scale between the forces. They have not graduated top of their classes in both Hogwarts and the Academy for nothing.
"How goes it Padfoot?" James asks breathlessly between curses.
"Not bad, Prongs, not bad at all. Brings me back to those days when it was just me and you and a horde of Slytherins, doesn't it now?" Sirius answers flippantly, tossing off a stunning curse towards a squat Death Eater who moves with a graceless quality that seems oddly familiar.
"Nah," James chuckles. "Slytherins were much tougher than these, much tougher indeed. They actually made me sweat."
"If that's the criteria you're going by, then Lily must be the strongest adversary you've ever come up against," Sirius jokes, moving to the side slightly to avoid a lock-leg curse. It hits James instead, and there is where everything goes wrong.
For James goes down, and the curse that was aimed at him from some other Death Eater hits Sirius instead, and the tall man also falls.
"Great," James grouses. "Just great. Now we're gonna die. I so did not want my last minutes to be in the middle of a dusty street, surrounded by Death Eaters, you know that Padfoot? The only thing right about this scene is that you're here too."
"Oh, so you want me to die, do you?" Sirius mutters acerbically. "Thanks ever so. But you'll not get your wish today, James Potter. We'll get out of this. Somehow."
As if on cue, the Death Eaters, who have been drawing ever closer in a circle, raise their wands in unison and begin to call out random curses, apparently eager to torture their victims some before killing them.
Four hexes hit them simultaneously, Sirius raising his hands in an automatic defensive gesture. The broken Time-Turner dangles from his wand- less hand and a curse strikes it head on. A bright flash of light, and the two Marauders get the strangest sensation that they're falling backwards into a stream of endless light.
"Well, shit," is the last thing James hears before he blacks out.
///
Okay. Lying on something soft, with sort of hard pieces sticking up here and there. Next move would be to open eyes. Come on, open eyes dammit!
///
James Potter opens his dazed eyes, coming slowly into consciousness.
"Will you get off of me now?"
He looks down, into the pissed off, slightly amused eyes of Sirius Black, and flushes.
"Sorry Padfoot," he mutters and rolls over, and off of, his human pillow. "Didn't see you there."
"Yes, well," Sirius grumbles, but picks himself up nevertheless. James does likewise, then frowns.
"Wait a minute. Padfoot, don't you think there's something wrong with this picture?"
"No, really? We're lost in a forest, where once we were in the middle of a city. I don't know how you ever got the idea that there was something wrong here."
"Shut up, and think for a minute. Not two seconds ago, could we stand up? No. What happened to the curses?"
Sirius sends a patient look to his friend. "Prongs, my dear buddy, do shut up before whatever kind deity who has taken pity on us becomes affronted with your attitude and sends the curses back to us full force. All right then? Okay. Let's focus on more important things, shall we? For instance, where are we, and where are our wands?"
James shrugs and wipes some dirt off of his robes. "I dropped mine when I got hit by the leg-locker. You could have warned me, you know! I mean, I was right in the line of fire!"
"Ah, but where's the fun in that?" Sirius asks playfully. "Anyway, we got out of it okay, didn't we? So quit your whining."
James bites back the urge to retort, instead looking around. "Where are we Sirius?"
It's not just a case of not being in the same location that they'd been in not two minutes before. It had something to do with the fact that James couldn't recognize anything at all; he'd never been in these woods before, and as part of his Auror training he'd been taken all over England and the surrounding areas. As an Auror, he had been trained to know the land like he knows Lily's curves: instinctively and immediately.
He doesn't know this land.
Sirius is quiet at the mention of his actual name. It's seldom used when the two are engaged in Auror duties: it always seems safer to stick to code- names, and these are the names that they've had for more than half a decade or so now. They fit, and are more comfortable than the actual name most of the time.
He sheds his playful demeanor and actually looks around, pale eyes questing out landmarks. He is still, all life breathed out of him in a long whoosh. Sirius Orion Black looks ready to take on the world, feral ness emanating about him. He looks ready to kill, and seems quite eager to do so too.
It is times like these that James is reminded why he was so glad to have Sirius as a friend back in first year, when he'd been a scrawny runt with a bigger mouth than any muscle. It's times like these when he's so glad that he's not Sirius' enemy, because he knows that all of Sirius' enemies don't last for very long.
"You're right, James," Sirius nods affirmatively. He understood what James had inferred from his simple question, a lifetime of being each others' best friend giving them a connection that not even Lily could intrude upon. "Wherever we are, it's not in England, or Scotland either, probably. These woods look old and they're pretty widespread. This is an ancient place, and it's full of magic. We should tread carefully here."
"You have no idea how right you are," a low voice chuckles from the lurking shadows of the tall trees.
As one the partners turn to greet the new threat, and come face to face with a wand. Holding it is a man in his late twenties, clad in Death Eater robes, but still unmasked. He smirks viciously, and points his wand at James before either can react. "Imperio."
Like trying to move against a neck high river of mud, James pushes against his mind. He knows that something, or someone, is moving his limbs, his bones. He feels the swishing of air grace his hair, ruffle it, and he can hear a startled grunt and Sirius' pain filled moan. He can hear Sirius saying, "Fight it off Prongs!"
And, oh Merlin, he tries.
But it's so painful, when he tries to regain control, and it's so hard to focus. He keeps forgetting why he wants to cast off the spell, why he's not content to just let it rule him. Because when he doesn't move against the river of mud, when he's not pushing for control, he feels the deepest peace that he's ever felt, deeper than he ever felt when flying through the air, deeper than when he's with Lily.
He feels. an indescribable sensation.
"Fight it off Prongs!"
He wishes he could see what he's doing, but even that much control has been taken from him. He wishes he could know what he's doing to his best friend, at the very least, how much he is hurting Sirius.
He can feel Sirius not fighting back. Remotely, he rages against his oldest friend. Why can't you just beat me off? We both know that you're the stronger, Padfoot! Just knock me out!
But Sirius has always been, and always will be, incredibly over-protective, even of someone that he has been trained with, someone he has seen broken and bloodied countless times. If anything, such encounters only strengthen his resolve to get James through any given situation unscathed.
James almost breaks free of the spell at one point: the caster had gotten smug and lazy, and hadn't put the same force into it that he had before. The pressure had let up, just a bit, and James could walk his way through the mud, could find it in himself to ignore the pain. So he did, and found himself staring at Sirius' bloodied face, his disheveled form and broken arm.
"Padfoot?" James whispers, shocked.
Something hopeful is born in Sirius' eyes, a light in them. "That's right, Jamesie boy, just shake it off." He speaks the same way he did when they were 11 years old together, and James had been terribly afraid of heights. Sirius had been the one to coax the gawky pre-teen on to a broom, and had been the one who stayed up there for hours with the still scared boy. Just hearing that tone again relaxes James immediately.
"I'm sorry Sirius," he tells him, voice cracking.
"Yeah, well, you can be sorry when we get back and have to file the reports. You know, by doing all the triplicate forms."
"Anything," James tells him, remorse glinting across monochrome glasses.
But both men have disregarded the fact that there is a Death Eater with them, a semi-competent one with a wand. Not the best combination.
They hear the Death Eater's outraged squawk, and just before James is sent back to that damned river of mud, he can see the hope in Sirius' eyes, wither, and die. And then he sees no more.
///
The spell is more powerful than before; apparently the Death Eater had become frightened when his Imperio seemed to be wearing off, and so increased the force of intent behind it. James can't even fight against the current anymore, can't even realize that he's hurting his best friend.
The Death Eater chuckles, low in his throat, as he watches the shorter man battle against the taller, stronger looking one, and winning. He, the Death Eater, realizes that the wizard he has chosen to cast Imperio upon normally would never have a chance against the other. But he also realizes that the stronger man is the protective type, the type who never strikes back against a friend, at least not while in his right mind.
The irony of this fight strikes the Death Eater as hilarious, and as he watches it, he laughs and laughs and laughs. The manic, possessed form of James Potter echoes his laughter.
As James slams his fist into Sirius' nose, bloodying and breaking it, he laughs. As James bends, breaks Sirius' arm, he laughs. As James claws Sirius' face, he laughs. As James slams his foot, repeatedly, into Sirius' rib-cage, he laughs.
And as Sirius looks up at James with sorrowing disbelief in his eyes, James laughs. Perhaps it is a mercy that Sirius' body chooses this moment to overload on its sensory modes detecting overwhelming pain and mental anguish. For, Sirius Black knows, he will never forget the sound of that laughter, not as long as he lives.
///
All right. Carrying something, heavy and solid in my arms. Merlin, is it heavy! Okay. Look down; try to figure out what it is. Look down. Come on, Potter, surely it can't be too hard to look the bloody hell down!
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
All right. Voluntary neck movements are seemingly at zero percent functionality. And it seems that that's the way for the rest of me too, though I can feel my legs moving. Right.
It is possible to look ahead, I think. Yes. Bloody hell, there's nothing to see except for a whole lot of nothing. Bloody, bloody hell. Wait - is that a torch? Yes. Yes it is. Okay, walking right past the torch now. Turn head sideways, dammit! Try to look at the walls. Oh, right. No voluntary neck movements.
Okay. If all else fails, try to remember what just happened. Curiously, that's a blank.
All right. So. Today is.. Fucking hell. Lily's going to kill me.
Put that out of your mind, James, m'boy. Focus on remembering. Right.
Shopping with Padfoot for that all-important six-month anniversary gift. The pawnshop, the freaky old woman, and. screams! Right, there was a Death Eater attack! You're on a roll, Potter. There was a Death Eater attack, and something about Padfoot not warning me about a curse before it hit. huh. Sounds just like the bugger. He'd prolly say, 'Where's the fun in warning you before the event has occurred?' or some such shit.
Right. Curses from Death Eaters hitting me, and Padfoot probably laughing all the while. I can deal with that. But what came after?
Dammit. Did someone cast Obliviate on me while I wasn't looking?
Focus, Potter. Focus. Okay. So, being cursed by the Death Eater, being laughed at by Padfoot, what comes next? Falling. Falling into what? Okay, that doesn't matter. Where did I land? On top of something soft, and kind of hard in some places. Right, remember that much. Come on, you can do more, Prongs! What else happened?
A. Forest! That's it, an unfamiliar forest that neither of us recognized. Well. That's odd. We must be really out of the way, then, or else outside of England entirely.
All right. So I've determined that we're in a forest. But. why would a forest have torches? And where's Padfoot? Dammit, did he DITCH me?! Oh, he is so going to get it the next time I see him. The smug bastard, he probably thought it would be some kind of grand joke, take me out to the middle of wilderness and leave me all alone. Though. it IS a good prank. Maybe we should try it on Peter or Remus?
No. No, that can't be right; Padfoot wouldn't ditch me, not like this, not even for a prank. And even if he did, it still doesn't explain just WHY I can't move my own neck, and just why I'm walking without knowing where I'm going, or even what's currently in my arms that is so very heavy.
There must be something more that I'm missing. Something more. Okay, so we're in the forest. The strange, ancient, magic filled forest. What did Padfoot say about it? Something about it being old and widespread and unfamiliar, so most likely not in England. Right. More is coming back now.
So what came next?
Ah, fucking hell. I hate it when this happens. This feeling. this feeling of not knowing, not remembering, of not being in control. It feels familiar. When have I felt this way before? In. Hogwarts? Yes. In Hogwarts, fifth year. The year that You Know Who began to take over everything. The year the Professors decided that it would be best to show us the effects of the Unforgivable Curses, and did so by putting the mildest of them on us, the students, to ensure that we wouldn't try such Dark Magicks on other living beings.
And the mildest of the Unforgivables is. Fuck. I know that there are three of them. Avada Kedavra, that one's hard to forget. It's one of You Know Who's preferred methods of murdering, primarily because there is no known counter-curse or cure for the effects. And the second worst is Aosio. No. Crucio. That's right; that's the one that makes the victim go into convulsions of unbearable pain. It can also kill a person, depending on how long the person has been under the spell. Most don't last longer than a few moments, though to them it feels like centuries. It is one of You Know Who's preferred methods of torture, as He can carefully control the intensity of the Crucioes he casts, and thus ensure that his victim remains on the borderline of death and life, while writhing in agony. And the third.
Fuck.
I should know it. I should, but it's like the knowledge of it is locked up inside of me.
The third Unforgivable, but also the most frequently used, Curse. It's. something to do with slaves. Making someone a slave? But no, that usually involves blood magic. That can't be it. Yes. Yes, it is. The third Unforgivable, it has to do with making someone a willing slave! Making progress, Potter!
It's called. It's called. Imperio. That's right. Imperio.
All right. Figured out what the third Unforgivable Curse is. Now, why did I want to know what it was in the first place? Something to do with fifth year Hogwarts. That's when they taught us all about the Unforgivables. But why would I be thinking about my fifth year? Hmmm.
Huh. I've stopped walking. I wonder, what's going on? And, waitaminute! How come I can't control my own motions? This must have something to do with that third. third. third what? Bloody hell. Okay. What was I just thinking about? The third of what? And, something about slaves?
All right. I can't control my own movements, I can't recover my own thoughts and memories, and Merlin knows I've tried to do both already. This sounds like Imperio, the third Unforgivable Curse we learned about in fifth year at Hogwarts. So. How did I get into a situation where someone could cast Imperio on me? The only time it's ever been cast on me was when Professor Daily did it, to demonstrate how easy it is to become lost in the spell, and how hard it is to resist it.
This has something to do with Padfoot, I just know it. Everything, when the world comes down to it, has something to do with Padfoot. Or rather, Padfoot has something to do with everything. That sounds better.
Focus, Potter. You know this so far: You are under the Imperio Curse, and Padfoot most definitely has something to do with it all. And there is something heavy in your arms, and said arms are starting to really, really ache. Now, how are you going to deal with it? You can't help the Imperio; the only person you know who can fight it off is your wife, and even she can only do it for a few seconds before she succumbs. Hell. This must mean that a Death Eater has control of my body.
I really wish Padfoot would listen to me when I tell him that it's not paranoia if they're really out to get you. Because they're really out to get me.
Get back on the bloody track Prongs. You are currently under the Imperio curse. Don't forget or else you won't remember it again. Just keep on repeating. oh, DAMN. What was I trying to remember? Imperio. Under it now. Right. Okay. And. I'm walking into something. Some kind of cell?
Okay, I feel better now. More in control. What's going on, though? Where are we? What are we doing in some kind of medieval dungeon type room? Wait. I'm remembering some more.
Oh. Oh. OH. Oh, no.
Oh, Padfoot. Sirius. I'm so. I'm so sorry.
My legs feel so weak; they're trembling. Merlin, Padfoot. I hurt you. I hurt YOU. I HURT you.
You look. you look so pale. Oh, God. Please, tell me that's not blood. Merlin, Sirius, I can remember it all now. I can remember every little bit. The pawnshop, the time-turner, the freaky old lady, the Death Eater attack, the weird ride through space, landing on you, ending up in the forest, the fucking bloody Death Eater. The Imperio, and me. me hurting you. God, Siri! You should have just knocked me out. You should have just killed me. You should have. You should have.
Merlin, Padfoot. Mer-fucking-lin.
Oh, please tell me you have a pulse. Please.
Thank Merlin. Blessed be all deities who watch over us, I thank thee for thy aid.
A sound. Foot-falls, maybe. There is a dim outline of a shadow, over by the far corner, and the shadow looks small indeed. A thin, undeniably male, though still young voice, saying, "Hullo." Then, moments later, the voice says, "Oh, fuck."
A/N for those confused: All right then, the whole point of this chapter was to explain how Padfoot and Prongs came to arrive at Harry's little corner of the universe. It was mainly because multiple curses/hexes/etc. hit a broken time turner in Sirius' possession in unison, which did something freaky to the time turner (don't ask what, the whole shebang was just a plot device to get the people I needed to be where I needed them to be), sending both Sirius and James, who was in contact with Sirius at the time, into the future, and also through space. Don't ask how, it was just convenient for it to happen that way, and as I am the writer, I reign supreme. Shaddup little dust monkeys and scornful reviewers. The last little bit of the chapter is a result of writer's block. I couldn't seem to finish the chapter in the same format and style that the beginning of it had been written in. Well, I could. In fact, the whole chapter was written out in that style to begin with. It just seemed so. dull. Lifeless. BORING. So I switched James' first person perspective, and I think it worked out all right, all things considered. Hmm. This chapter is a great deal shorter than the others. Should I maybe name it an interlude? That could work; in fact I will. And if I'm going to start doing interludes, then I should probably write one about what's going on in the wizarding world now that Harry has disappeared, and Snape is out from public view as well (though he never really was in it). Oh, and something from the Godfather Sirius' point of view would be nice too. I'll get on that.
The last little bit was also intentional in its incoherency. I am aware that the way Imperio affected James changed during the chapter. In the beginning, he was aware of what was going on, yet powerless to stop it. In the end, he couldn't seem to gather his scattered mind together enough to realize that he was under the Imperio, not to mention to remember what exactly the Imperio was. Put simply, this is because the Death Eater panicked and put entirely too much force into his curse, causing James to scatter his brain and possibly sustain permanent brain damage. But, as he's really only alive for a few more years in the normal Harry Potterverse, I figured, what the hey? Who's gonna notice if ol' Prongsie goes a bit. funny?
Any more questions, e-mail me, if you must know the answer that badly. I seldom check the review board, so I probably won't see what you want to know, and I make a point not to annoy readers by using up all the space at the bottom of the fic for answers to reviewers. I'll do that at the end of the fanfic, at the very end, mind, on an entirely separate chapter than all the rest, of which no one else has to read except for maybe the too-curious reviewer. Quite.
Interlude #1: An Explanation of the Sudden Appearance of James Potter and Sirius Black
1978, Diagon Alley
Two hours. Two very short hours before he dies.
James William Potter winces and ruffles his already wild black hair nervously. Two hours before his wife of five months and 29 days kills him.
"Oh, cheer up Prongs!" Sirius Black, best friend and staunch supporter, whaps James on the back in what is supposed to be a brotherly gesture of support. In truth, it knocks the wind out of James and causes him to stumble forward a few paces. "You'll find something soon, don't worry!"
Two hours before his six month anniversary, and Lily C. Evans-Potter discovers that her doting husband has yet to get her an anniversary gift. Two hours before his untimely (and knowing Lils, most likely violent) death.
Sirius shakes his head, adept after all these years at reading the expression on James' face. His friend is contemplating running away and not coming back, in mortal fear of. well, his wife. Voldemort has nothing on Lily Potter.
"I've already been looking for the last three months, straight! And I'm just supposed to all of a sudden find something that I'm just sure that she'll love? Isn't that a bit optimistic, Padfoot?"
Sirius sighs. "Look, James, calm down. Even if you can't find something now, when we get back, just bluff it to the Lady Lily until I get there with an utterly exquisite gift that I'm sure she'll enjoy, okay? Don't stress, old friend, Padfoot's got your back!" And he winks.
James just shakes his head dolefully. He knows the kind of gifts that Sirius is likely to come up with, and he's not waiting with bated breath to see Lily's reaction to whatever Sirius manages to get, if indeed James gets to that stage of desperation.
"Oh, look! Pawn shop!"
James allows Sirius to drag him inside of an old, decrepit wizarding thrift store, shaking his head in vague amusement. The taller man has always delighted in old things, or more specifically, old mechanical-magical hybrid things. And it seems that he has found one in the form of a broken Time-Turner.
"You know you'll never get that to work again," James warns his age-old friend before Sirius has a chance to buy it. "The Ministry wouldn't have allowed it out to public if it could have been fixed by any means possible. Don't even try, Padfoot, remember the last time you got wrapped up in something like this? You were a turtle for five weeks!"
"And who kept poking my shell?" Sirius retorts tartly, absentmindedly, as he continues to inspect his newest toy.
James flushes, and doesn't say anything more.
The proprietor of the store, an elderly witch with graying hair and a skittish disposition, eyes them both warily, suspicious of anyone under the age of ancientness. James glances at her from time to time, disturbed just a bit by her intense brown gaze. He nudges Sirius, nods towards the witch.
"Isn't there something kind of. scary about her?"
Sirius doesn't even look up from the Time-Turner. "Nonsense, Prongs. You're just being overly paranoid again."
"It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you," James quips, grin springing to his lips at his trademark phrase.
Still not looking up, Sirius rolls his eyes.
James leaves his friend to wander around the shop, looking at oddities and ancient relics of times long since past. The pawnshop is really more of an antique store, except for the fact that almost all of its wares are defunct, broken or cracked in some way. He feels out of place here, disrespectful somehow of things long past. He feels like he doesn't belong, which is a feeling that he really isn't used to. He glances again at Sirius, who is still enraptured by the old, broken Time-Turner. He doesn't seem to notice his out-of-placeness.
Maybe it's because Sirius isn't really out of place anywhere.
James sighs again, running fingertips along edges of countertops, feeling for imaginary dust. The scary witch must also be a neat freak, he decides. It's nearly impossible to keep any area of space free of dust, unless said area is a person, and even then, if said person slept for long enough, James is sure that they will quickly acquire a slight layer of the stuff.
He really has to get out of here; the oldness of the air is mugging up his mind. It's getting quite bad, in fact, he thinks that he can actually hear someone screaming-
"Prongs!" Sirius yells from across the room, blue eyes pale in his face, and large too from shock. "Hurry, there's a Death Eater attack outside!"
So, maybe the screaming wasn't in his head after all.
Shaking himself into action, James nods once, sharply, and runs out of the store, Sirius at his heels with the broken Time-Turner dangling from his fingers. The neat-freak, scary witch glares at the retreating, lanky man, but decides against mentioning it. She rather thinks that they're out of earshot anyway, with the rate that they ran out.
James strains his ears for the sounds of screaming, a sound that he is all to familiar with after all his years as an Auror, and before that as one fourth of the Marauders, a group of teenage boys well used to causing mayhem, which of course led to shrieks of all kinds. For all his twenty some years, James Potter is well acquainted with the sounds of screams.
The two men run, pushing their lean bodies to maximum speed. It's taxing, but exhilarating to run like this, so that you can feel your bones straining against skin, and muscle pulling loose. So that the air you gulp in is exhaled just as fast in ragged pants, and your arms are scissoring at your sides, and you feel as if you are faster than the wind itself.
James is made for it, this exhilaration of adrenaline, this feeling of flight. It's part of the reason that he's such a good Quidditch player: few are as at home in the air as he is.
In mere seconds they are at the site of the crime. Six Death Eaters attacking a small sweetshop.
Before tackling them all head-on, James and Sirius exchange grins, dangerous and reckless smiles that speak of trouble ahead and great fun to be had. Familiar smiles from the Hogwarts days, right before they engaged in a particularly clever prank. And they jump in, curses blasting from their wand-tips.
They are in their element and loving every minute of it.
They were trained at the same time as Aurors, and so are used to fighting together against any number of foes. They typically fight back to back, as they do now, moving with each other's actions; letting the flow of the other's back against them direct their movements. Some part of it is instinct, knowing your fighting partner so well that you move in the direction he is about to before he does himself. They cut a swathe through the Death Eaters, annihilating two right off the bat and almost evening out the scale between the forces. They have not graduated top of their classes in both Hogwarts and the Academy for nothing.
"How goes it Padfoot?" James asks breathlessly between curses.
"Not bad, Prongs, not bad at all. Brings me back to those days when it was just me and you and a horde of Slytherins, doesn't it now?" Sirius answers flippantly, tossing off a stunning curse towards a squat Death Eater who moves with a graceless quality that seems oddly familiar.
"Nah," James chuckles. "Slytherins were much tougher than these, much tougher indeed. They actually made me sweat."
"If that's the criteria you're going by, then Lily must be the strongest adversary you've ever come up against," Sirius jokes, moving to the side slightly to avoid a lock-leg curse. It hits James instead, and there is where everything goes wrong.
For James goes down, and the curse that was aimed at him from some other Death Eater hits Sirius instead, and the tall man also falls.
"Great," James grouses. "Just great. Now we're gonna die. I so did not want my last minutes to be in the middle of a dusty street, surrounded by Death Eaters, you know that Padfoot? The only thing right about this scene is that you're here too."
"Oh, so you want me to die, do you?" Sirius mutters acerbically. "Thanks ever so. But you'll not get your wish today, James Potter. We'll get out of this. Somehow."
As if on cue, the Death Eaters, who have been drawing ever closer in a circle, raise their wands in unison and begin to call out random curses, apparently eager to torture their victims some before killing them.
Four hexes hit them simultaneously, Sirius raising his hands in an automatic defensive gesture. The broken Time-Turner dangles from his wand- less hand and a curse strikes it head on. A bright flash of light, and the two Marauders get the strangest sensation that they're falling backwards into a stream of endless light.
"Well, shit," is the last thing James hears before he blacks out.
///
Okay. Lying on something soft, with sort of hard pieces sticking up here and there. Next move would be to open eyes. Come on, open eyes dammit!
///
James Potter opens his dazed eyes, coming slowly into consciousness.
"Will you get off of me now?"
He looks down, into the pissed off, slightly amused eyes of Sirius Black, and flushes.
"Sorry Padfoot," he mutters and rolls over, and off of, his human pillow. "Didn't see you there."
"Yes, well," Sirius grumbles, but picks himself up nevertheless. James does likewise, then frowns.
"Wait a minute. Padfoot, don't you think there's something wrong with this picture?"
"No, really? We're lost in a forest, where once we were in the middle of a city. I don't know how you ever got the idea that there was something wrong here."
"Shut up, and think for a minute. Not two seconds ago, could we stand up? No. What happened to the curses?"
Sirius sends a patient look to his friend. "Prongs, my dear buddy, do shut up before whatever kind deity who has taken pity on us becomes affronted with your attitude and sends the curses back to us full force. All right then? Okay. Let's focus on more important things, shall we? For instance, where are we, and where are our wands?"
James shrugs and wipes some dirt off of his robes. "I dropped mine when I got hit by the leg-locker. You could have warned me, you know! I mean, I was right in the line of fire!"
"Ah, but where's the fun in that?" Sirius asks playfully. "Anyway, we got out of it okay, didn't we? So quit your whining."
James bites back the urge to retort, instead looking around. "Where are we Sirius?"
It's not just a case of not being in the same location that they'd been in not two minutes before. It had something to do with the fact that James couldn't recognize anything at all; he'd never been in these woods before, and as part of his Auror training he'd been taken all over England and the surrounding areas. As an Auror, he had been trained to know the land like he knows Lily's curves: instinctively and immediately.
He doesn't know this land.
Sirius is quiet at the mention of his actual name. It's seldom used when the two are engaged in Auror duties: it always seems safer to stick to code- names, and these are the names that they've had for more than half a decade or so now. They fit, and are more comfortable than the actual name most of the time.
He sheds his playful demeanor and actually looks around, pale eyes questing out landmarks. He is still, all life breathed out of him in a long whoosh. Sirius Orion Black looks ready to take on the world, feral ness emanating about him. He looks ready to kill, and seems quite eager to do so too.
It is times like these that James is reminded why he was so glad to have Sirius as a friend back in first year, when he'd been a scrawny runt with a bigger mouth than any muscle. It's times like these when he's so glad that he's not Sirius' enemy, because he knows that all of Sirius' enemies don't last for very long.
"You're right, James," Sirius nods affirmatively. He understood what James had inferred from his simple question, a lifetime of being each others' best friend giving them a connection that not even Lily could intrude upon. "Wherever we are, it's not in England, or Scotland either, probably. These woods look old and they're pretty widespread. This is an ancient place, and it's full of magic. We should tread carefully here."
"You have no idea how right you are," a low voice chuckles from the lurking shadows of the tall trees.
As one the partners turn to greet the new threat, and come face to face with a wand. Holding it is a man in his late twenties, clad in Death Eater robes, but still unmasked. He smirks viciously, and points his wand at James before either can react. "Imperio."
Like trying to move against a neck high river of mud, James pushes against his mind. He knows that something, or someone, is moving his limbs, his bones. He feels the swishing of air grace his hair, ruffle it, and he can hear a startled grunt and Sirius' pain filled moan. He can hear Sirius saying, "Fight it off Prongs!"
And, oh Merlin, he tries.
But it's so painful, when he tries to regain control, and it's so hard to focus. He keeps forgetting why he wants to cast off the spell, why he's not content to just let it rule him. Because when he doesn't move against the river of mud, when he's not pushing for control, he feels the deepest peace that he's ever felt, deeper than he ever felt when flying through the air, deeper than when he's with Lily.
He feels. an indescribable sensation.
"Fight it off Prongs!"
He wishes he could see what he's doing, but even that much control has been taken from him. He wishes he could know what he's doing to his best friend, at the very least, how much he is hurting Sirius.
He can feel Sirius not fighting back. Remotely, he rages against his oldest friend. Why can't you just beat me off? We both know that you're the stronger, Padfoot! Just knock me out!
But Sirius has always been, and always will be, incredibly over-protective, even of someone that he has been trained with, someone he has seen broken and bloodied countless times. If anything, such encounters only strengthen his resolve to get James through any given situation unscathed.
James almost breaks free of the spell at one point: the caster had gotten smug and lazy, and hadn't put the same force into it that he had before. The pressure had let up, just a bit, and James could walk his way through the mud, could find it in himself to ignore the pain. So he did, and found himself staring at Sirius' bloodied face, his disheveled form and broken arm.
"Padfoot?" James whispers, shocked.
Something hopeful is born in Sirius' eyes, a light in them. "That's right, Jamesie boy, just shake it off." He speaks the same way he did when they were 11 years old together, and James had been terribly afraid of heights. Sirius had been the one to coax the gawky pre-teen on to a broom, and had been the one who stayed up there for hours with the still scared boy. Just hearing that tone again relaxes James immediately.
"I'm sorry Sirius," he tells him, voice cracking.
"Yeah, well, you can be sorry when we get back and have to file the reports. You know, by doing all the triplicate forms."
"Anything," James tells him, remorse glinting across monochrome glasses.
But both men have disregarded the fact that there is a Death Eater with them, a semi-competent one with a wand. Not the best combination.
They hear the Death Eater's outraged squawk, and just before James is sent back to that damned river of mud, he can see the hope in Sirius' eyes, wither, and die. And then he sees no more.
///
The spell is more powerful than before; apparently the Death Eater had become frightened when his Imperio seemed to be wearing off, and so increased the force of intent behind it. James can't even fight against the current anymore, can't even realize that he's hurting his best friend.
The Death Eater chuckles, low in his throat, as he watches the shorter man battle against the taller, stronger looking one, and winning. He, the Death Eater, realizes that the wizard he has chosen to cast Imperio upon normally would never have a chance against the other. But he also realizes that the stronger man is the protective type, the type who never strikes back against a friend, at least not while in his right mind.
The irony of this fight strikes the Death Eater as hilarious, and as he watches it, he laughs and laughs and laughs. The manic, possessed form of James Potter echoes his laughter.
As James slams his fist into Sirius' nose, bloodying and breaking it, he laughs. As James bends, breaks Sirius' arm, he laughs. As James claws Sirius' face, he laughs. As James slams his foot, repeatedly, into Sirius' rib-cage, he laughs.
And as Sirius looks up at James with sorrowing disbelief in his eyes, James laughs. Perhaps it is a mercy that Sirius' body chooses this moment to overload on its sensory modes detecting overwhelming pain and mental anguish. For, Sirius Black knows, he will never forget the sound of that laughter, not as long as he lives.
///
All right. Carrying something, heavy and solid in my arms. Merlin, is it heavy! Okay. Look down; try to figure out what it is. Look down. Come on, Potter, surely it can't be too hard to look the bloody hell down!
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
All right. Voluntary neck movements are seemingly at zero percent functionality. And it seems that that's the way for the rest of me too, though I can feel my legs moving. Right.
It is possible to look ahead, I think. Yes. Bloody hell, there's nothing to see except for a whole lot of nothing. Bloody, bloody hell. Wait - is that a torch? Yes. Yes it is. Okay, walking right past the torch now. Turn head sideways, dammit! Try to look at the walls. Oh, right. No voluntary neck movements.
Okay. If all else fails, try to remember what just happened. Curiously, that's a blank.
All right. So. Today is.. Fucking hell. Lily's going to kill me.
Put that out of your mind, James, m'boy. Focus on remembering. Right.
Shopping with Padfoot for that all-important six-month anniversary gift. The pawnshop, the freaky old woman, and. screams! Right, there was a Death Eater attack! You're on a roll, Potter. There was a Death Eater attack, and something about Padfoot not warning me about a curse before it hit. huh. Sounds just like the bugger. He'd prolly say, 'Where's the fun in warning you before the event has occurred?' or some such shit.
Right. Curses from Death Eaters hitting me, and Padfoot probably laughing all the while. I can deal with that. But what came after?
Dammit. Did someone cast Obliviate on me while I wasn't looking?
Focus, Potter. Focus. Okay. So, being cursed by the Death Eater, being laughed at by Padfoot, what comes next? Falling. Falling into what? Okay, that doesn't matter. Where did I land? On top of something soft, and kind of hard in some places. Right, remember that much. Come on, you can do more, Prongs! What else happened?
A. Forest! That's it, an unfamiliar forest that neither of us recognized. Well. That's odd. We must be really out of the way, then, or else outside of England entirely.
All right. So I've determined that we're in a forest. But. why would a forest have torches? And where's Padfoot? Dammit, did he DITCH me?! Oh, he is so going to get it the next time I see him. The smug bastard, he probably thought it would be some kind of grand joke, take me out to the middle of wilderness and leave me all alone. Though. it IS a good prank. Maybe we should try it on Peter or Remus?
No. No, that can't be right; Padfoot wouldn't ditch me, not like this, not even for a prank. And even if he did, it still doesn't explain just WHY I can't move my own neck, and just why I'm walking without knowing where I'm going, or even what's currently in my arms that is so very heavy.
There must be something more that I'm missing. Something more. Okay, so we're in the forest. The strange, ancient, magic filled forest. What did Padfoot say about it? Something about it being old and widespread and unfamiliar, so most likely not in England. Right. More is coming back now.
So what came next?
Ah, fucking hell. I hate it when this happens. This feeling. this feeling of not knowing, not remembering, of not being in control. It feels familiar. When have I felt this way before? In. Hogwarts? Yes. In Hogwarts, fifth year. The year that You Know Who began to take over everything. The year the Professors decided that it would be best to show us the effects of the Unforgivable Curses, and did so by putting the mildest of them on us, the students, to ensure that we wouldn't try such Dark Magicks on other living beings.
And the mildest of the Unforgivables is. Fuck. I know that there are three of them. Avada Kedavra, that one's hard to forget. It's one of You Know Who's preferred methods of murdering, primarily because there is no known counter-curse or cure for the effects. And the second worst is Aosio. No. Crucio. That's right; that's the one that makes the victim go into convulsions of unbearable pain. It can also kill a person, depending on how long the person has been under the spell. Most don't last longer than a few moments, though to them it feels like centuries. It is one of You Know Who's preferred methods of torture, as He can carefully control the intensity of the Crucioes he casts, and thus ensure that his victim remains on the borderline of death and life, while writhing in agony. And the third.
Fuck.
I should know it. I should, but it's like the knowledge of it is locked up inside of me.
The third Unforgivable, but also the most frequently used, Curse. It's. something to do with slaves. Making someone a slave? But no, that usually involves blood magic. That can't be it. Yes. Yes, it is. The third Unforgivable, it has to do with making someone a willing slave! Making progress, Potter!
It's called. It's called. Imperio. That's right. Imperio.
All right. Figured out what the third Unforgivable Curse is. Now, why did I want to know what it was in the first place? Something to do with fifth year Hogwarts. That's when they taught us all about the Unforgivables. But why would I be thinking about my fifth year? Hmmm.
Huh. I've stopped walking. I wonder, what's going on? And, waitaminute! How come I can't control my own motions? This must have something to do with that third. third. third what? Bloody hell. Okay. What was I just thinking about? The third of what? And, something about slaves?
All right. I can't control my own movements, I can't recover my own thoughts and memories, and Merlin knows I've tried to do both already. This sounds like Imperio, the third Unforgivable Curse we learned about in fifth year at Hogwarts. So. How did I get into a situation where someone could cast Imperio on me? The only time it's ever been cast on me was when Professor Daily did it, to demonstrate how easy it is to become lost in the spell, and how hard it is to resist it.
This has something to do with Padfoot, I just know it. Everything, when the world comes down to it, has something to do with Padfoot. Or rather, Padfoot has something to do with everything. That sounds better.
Focus, Potter. You know this so far: You are under the Imperio Curse, and Padfoot most definitely has something to do with it all. And there is something heavy in your arms, and said arms are starting to really, really ache. Now, how are you going to deal with it? You can't help the Imperio; the only person you know who can fight it off is your wife, and even she can only do it for a few seconds before she succumbs. Hell. This must mean that a Death Eater has control of my body.
I really wish Padfoot would listen to me when I tell him that it's not paranoia if they're really out to get you. Because they're really out to get me.
Get back on the bloody track Prongs. You are currently under the Imperio curse. Don't forget or else you won't remember it again. Just keep on repeating. oh, DAMN. What was I trying to remember? Imperio. Under it now. Right. Okay. And. I'm walking into something. Some kind of cell?
Okay, I feel better now. More in control. What's going on, though? Where are we? What are we doing in some kind of medieval dungeon type room? Wait. I'm remembering some more.
Oh. Oh. OH. Oh, no.
Oh, Padfoot. Sirius. I'm so. I'm so sorry.
My legs feel so weak; they're trembling. Merlin, Padfoot. I hurt you. I hurt YOU. I HURT you.
You look. you look so pale. Oh, God. Please, tell me that's not blood. Merlin, Sirius, I can remember it all now. I can remember every little bit. The pawnshop, the time-turner, the freaky old lady, the Death Eater attack, the weird ride through space, landing on you, ending up in the forest, the fucking bloody Death Eater. The Imperio, and me. me hurting you. God, Siri! You should have just knocked me out. You should have just killed me. You should have. You should have.
Merlin, Padfoot. Mer-fucking-lin.
Oh, please tell me you have a pulse. Please.
Thank Merlin. Blessed be all deities who watch over us, I thank thee for thy aid.
A sound. Foot-falls, maybe. There is a dim outline of a shadow, over by the far corner, and the shadow looks small indeed. A thin, undeniably male, though still young voice, saying, "Hullo." Then, moments later, the voice says, "Oh, fuck."
A/N for those confused: All right then, the whole point of this chapter was to explain how Padfoot and Prongs came to arrive at Harry's little corner of the universe. It was mainly because multiple curses/hexes/etc. hit a broken time turner in Sirius' possession in unison, which did something freaky to the time turner (don't ask what, the whole shebang was just a plot device to get the people I needed to be where I needed them to be), sending both Sirius and James, who was in contact with Sirius at the time, into the future, and also through space. Don't ask how, it was just convenient for it to happen that way, and as I am the writer, I reign supreme. Shaddup little dust monkeys and scornful reviewers. The last little bit of the chapter is a result of writer's block. I couldn't seem to finish the chapter in the same format and style that the beginning of it had been written in. Well, I could. In fact, the whole chapter was written out in that style to begin with. It just seemed so. dull. Lifeless. BORING. So I switched James' first person perspective, and I think it worked out all right, all things considered. Hmm. This chapter is a great deal shorter than the others. Should I maybe name it an interlude? That could work; in fact I will. And if I'm going to start doing interludes, then I should probably write one about what's going on in the wizarding world now that Harry has disappeared, and Snape is out from public view as well (though he never really was in it). Oh, and something from the Godfather Sirius' point of view would be nice too. I'll get on that.
The last little bit was also intentional in its incoherency. I am aware that the way Imperio affected James changed during the chapter. In the beginning, he was aware of what was going on, yet powerless to stop it. In the end, he couldn't seem to gather his scattered mind together enough to realize that he was under the Imperio, not to mention to remember what exactly the Imperio was. Put simply, this is because the Death Eater panicked and put entirely too much force into his curse, causing James to scatter his brain and possibly sustain permanent brain damage. But, as he's really only alive for a few more years in the normal Harry Potterverse, I figured, what the hey? Who's gonna notice if ol' Prongsie goes a bit. funny?
Any more questions, e-mail me, if you must know the answer that badly. I seldom check the review board, so I probably won't see what you want to know, and I make a point not to annoy readers by using up all the space at the bottom of the fic for answers to reviewers. I'll do that at the end of the fanfic, at the very end, mind, on an entirely separate chapter than all the rest, of which no one else has to read except for maybe the too-curious reviewer. Quite.
