Disclaimer: They're not mine and they never will be :-(
Three cheers for Ms Rowling!!!
...................................................................
Previously in Meetings of Marauders:
"Yeah," said Fred, "I just wanted you know that I remember. I remember it all."
"Remember all what?" asked Sirius in confusion.
But James understood immediately.
His stomach hit the floor.
"You remember Harry," he said.
………………………………………………
"Yeah," said Fred softly.
Sirius sat up very straight. If he'd been in dog form his ears would have pricked up. "Say what?"
"I remember everything. Going back in time. Meeting you guys at Hogwarts. The world like it was before everything got changed. What I don't know is HOW it got changed. I mean we were being careful. Harry and I both went to bed. I fell asleep and the next thing I know I'm at Grimmald Place and my Dad's dead, so what the hell happened?!"
"Wait a minute," said Sirius shaking his head, "What do you mean you remember?"
"I mean I remember all of it,"
There was a long silence as Sirius let this sink in. Long buried memories of his last year at Hogwarts came bubbling to the surface of his mind.
"But, but everything got changed." Sirius shook his head in confusion, "You got changed. You never remembered before, why now? I mean all that happened years ago."
Sirius glanced sideways at James who looked stricken.
"Because this was the date he was supposed to go back Padfoot," said James. "Look at him, he's the right age." He turned to Fred, "Arthur was still alive? I mean he wasn't supposed to be killed by the death eaters?" he asked softly.
"Dad was alive, yeah," said Fred aggressively, "So was Neville Longbottom, you know that kid that was killed because of that prophesy? Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange are supposed to be in Azkaban. Lupin is supposed to be alive! Harry and Ginny are supposed to exist. What happened?"
"Moony would have lived?" Sirius asked sharply.
"Yes, he would have lived. He wouldn't have been involved in that whole undercover thing. He wouldn't have been tortured to death…"
"Stop!" cried James, his face white as paper.
"What happened?!" Fred demanded.
Sirius glanced at James once more before running a shaking hand through his hair. "We're not exactly sure Fred, calm down a second. Let us think."
"I know it wasn't me. So it must have been Harry. Harry must have done or said something that changed things. Did he do something to Pettigrew? What?"
"No, Peter's fine, he's working for the ministry," said James, not meeting Fred's eyes.
"Why haven't I met him in this version of things? I don't know him at all."
"He's …well, he kind of went his separate way after Hogwarts didn't he. We were kind of cold to him after…well, after we found out what he was going to do. Didn't even get the chance to do it in the end did he?" said Sirius, looking at James again.
James shook his head.
"How did you know what he was going to do? Did Harry tell you? When?"
Sirius once again glanced at James, looking for some sort of indication that they were in this together, that James was just as confused by this as Sirius was. James's eyes were unfocused and moving about rapidly, as though he couldn't collect his horrified thoughts. Sirius noted the strangeness of this then turned to Fred and sighed.
"Look it was a long time ago Fred, it's hard to remember. I mean think about it. Two kids turn up out of nowhere and Dumbledore tells us their from the future. After you disappeared things just went back to normal. Almost like you'd never been there. I mean for a while we tried to piece together how we'd changed things, but sometimes it seemed like your being there at all was just a dream, and we didn't know enough about the future to know what had been changed."
"You knew Harry existed. Why did that change? What happened after I went to sleep. I need to know what you did!"
James winced.
"Alright let me think!" said Sirius, "Alright um, alright. After you went to sleep, Harry decided to leave the castle. He left a note. He um, well he thought it would be best if he just left so he couldn't change the timelines. But when we figured out he'd gone we went after him. Found him over at yours, sneaking out of the house for some reason," he looked at James again. James just nodded, eyes now downcast, "Well anyway, we um, well we.."
"What? Brought him back to the castle?"
"Yeah. But before that. Before that…"
"Sirius flipped," James interjected.
"Well I thought you were going to die!" Sirius snapped.
"Sorry," James murmured.
"Anyway," Sirius continued reluctantly, "I wanted to know how it happened. How to save James, and Harry, well Harry just kind of snapped."
"Snapped?"
"Blurted it all out. About Wormtail, James and Lily, Voldemort disappearing. Why he didn't want to change it."
Fred nodded. "But what then? One of you must have changed something. One of you must have done something to change it."
James's face was a barely controlled mask. His teeth clenched.
Fred watched him for a second, "What did you do?"
"We're not sure," Sirius interjected. "We came back to the castle and went to bed, and in the morning you weren't there. Either of you. You just disappeared. We've known for years that one of us must have done something. I mean nothing happened the way Harry said it would. But we've never known what. What could we have done while we were sleeping that night?"
Suddenly James stood and left the room.
"Prongs!" cried Sirius, and stood to follow. "We'll talk again soon," he said to Fred before running after his friend.
Fred collapsed back on his pillows, furious with both of them.
……………………………………………………
After ten of minutes of searching, Sirius found James in a large store cupboard on the same floor as Fred's room.
The room was large enough for the two men to sit comfortably across from each other. Sirius took a seat and waited for his friend to speak.
James's eyes were moist. He appeared to be putting a great deal of effort into keeping the tears from falling. So much so that he was paralyzed by the task. Eventually he pulled himself together enough to speak.
"It was me Sirius."
"I know."
"Yeah? Since when?"
"Since you broke up with Lily at the age of eighteen you dolt! You think I didn't guess why you did it?"
James let the first of the tears fall. "Do you think Moony knew?"
"I don't know. We never talked about it. You couldn't have known he was going to die James. There was no way you could have . . ."
"I knew someone would die. I knew Voldemort was going to have a longer life."
"James,"
"I'm so sorry!" James blurted out, and the tears began to fall in earnest.
Sirius wrapped his arms around his friend, unsure of what to do now. He wasn't angry at James for doing what he had done. He had done it out of love. Sirius knew had their positions been reversed he probably would have made the same decision.
"I could've died," James whispered, "If it had just been me I could have gone through with it."
"You wanted to save Lily," said Sirius, "I get it James, I get what you did."
"Not just Lily. You. I couldn't let you go to Azkaban Padfoot."
Sirius let his eyes fall closed and hugged his friend tighter.
"I'm sorry," James repeated.
They stayed like that for an hour.
……………………………………………………………………….
Okay, while the last thing I want to do is insult the intelligence of my faithful reviewers, I have to say that I was quite surprised by the number of people who still didn't get what had happened after chapter 23.
I know that I have given enough info and hints in the fic to explain what is going on, because quite a few of you did catch on, including my friend from Uni who not only guessed what had happened but figured out that it was James who had changed it all before this chapter was even written.
Basically, this is what you should know at this stage.
Fred has been thrown forward in time, to his own time in fact, where everything has changed due to Harry's outburst in the forest outside the burrow.
Things we know have changed
1. James broke up with Lily before they had a chance to get married and Harry was never born.
2. Because Harry was never born the war with Voldemort continued on past the point it should have and Remus and Arthur were both killed in the war effort.
3. Ron is now an angry loner with no friends.
4. The prophesy that was supposed to be about Harry was assumed to be about Neville, so Neville was the one who was killed that night, not James and lily.
5. Molly and Arthur decided against bringing yet another child into such a war torn world, so Ginny was never born.
6. The marauders found subtle ways of blowing Wormtail off until he went away and found some new, less outspoken friends, who had no secrets worth Voldemort's attention, so he never became a spy.
7. Fred has memories of both versions of reality and his head nearly exploded because of it.
For those who got the plot, but questioned the logic:
The time paradox - There are many different theories on how time travel might work. I am subscribing to a combination of the theories laid out in the Back to the Future trilogy and The Butterfly Effect. (If you haven't seen these films I recommend them highly.) I, or Dumbledore, will go into more detail on my theory later in the fic. The paradoxical nature of Harry's presence in the past preventing his own birth will be brought up and dealt with. Hopefully to your satisfaction.
ok - hope you like the especially long A/N on this chapter.
Templa - I can't believe how much your last review sounded like a review that I would write. I'm doing Philosophy at Uni right now and I too love Back to the Future. James's reaction was interesting. Glad you picked that up. I've had a brief look at BreiflyDel but the writer that really blew me away was JKLB. She got a really good handle on who these characters are. Especially in "Choosing the head boy", which is unfinished, but a great read.
Ceeti - Relax, I won't leave it like this. There's hope for these characters yet.
KrondorsAngel - Are you a fan of Raymond E Feist? The time paradox will be dealt with soon.
Tekyah Ariel - Yay! Somebody liked the mind expansion idea!
Parrot - All shall be explained in good time.
Mordred - I love chapter 22 too!! It was my favorite to write. As far as Ron goes, I kind of figured he could have turned aggressive for a couple of reasons. 1. He does have a temper, he had it even before he was friends with Harry. He would have punched Malfoy on that first train ride if Scabbers hadn't bitten Goyle first. There have been a few scenes in which either Harry or Hermione have had to hold a furious Ron back from getting into a fight. 2. I figure Ginny and Ron survived having Fred and George for older brothers because they got through it together. Without Ginny around it would just have been Ron having the tricks and pranks pulled on him. I reckon it got to him. Not that the twins actually meant any harm. 3. Growing up in a world at war has got to have detrimental effects on your personality.
Creature of the Black Lagoon - I think it's bungee.
Cheers,
Whiskey
Three cheers for Ms Rowling!!!
...................................................................
Previously in Meetings of Marauders:
"Yeah," said Fred, "I just wanted you know that I remember. I remember it all."
"Remember all what?" asked Sirius in confusion.
But James understood immediately.
His stomach hit the floor.
"You remember Harry," he said.
………………………………………………
"Yeah," said Fred softly.
Sirius sat up very straight. If he'd been in dog form his ears would have pricked up. "Say what?"
"I remember everything. Going back in time. Meeting you guys at Hogwarts. The world like it was before everything got changed. What I don't know is HOW it got changed. I mean we were being careful. Harry and I both went to bed. I fell asleep and the next thing I know I'm at Grimmald Place and my Dad's dead, so what the hell happened?!"
"Wait a minute," said Sirius shaking his head, "What do you mean you remember?"
"I mean I remember all of it,"
There was a long silence as Sirius let this sink in. Long buried memories of his last year at Hogwarts came bubbling to the surface of his mind.
"But, but everything got changed." Sirius shook his head in confusion, "You got changed. You never remembered before, why now? I mean all that happened years ago."
Sirius glanced sideways at James who looked stricken.
"Because this was the date he was supposed to go back Padfoot," said James. "Look at him, he's the right age." He turned to Fred, "Arthur was still alive? I mean he wasn't supposed to be killed by the death eaters?" he asked softly.
"Dad was alive, yeah," said Fred aggressively, "So was Neville Longbottom, you know that kid that was killed because of that prophesy? Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange are supposed to be in Azkaban. Lupin is supposed to be alive! Harry and Ginny are supposed to exist. What happened?"
"Moony would have lived?" Sirius asked sharply.
"Yes, he would have lived. He wouldn't have been involved in that whole undercover thing. He wouldn't have been tortured to death…"
"Stop!" cried James, his face white as paper.
"What happened?!" Fred demanded.
Sirius glanced at James once more before running a shaking hand through his hair. "We're not exactly sure Fred, calm down a second. Let us think."
"I know it wasn't me. So it must have been Harry. Harry must have done or said something that changed things. Did he do something to Pettigrew? What?"
"No, Peter's fine, he's working for the ministry," said James, not meeting Fred's eyes.
"Why haven't I met him in this version of things? I don't know him at all."
"He's …well, he kind of went his separate way after Hogwarts didn't he. We were kind of cold to him after…well, after we found out what he was going to do. Didn't even get the chance to do it in the end did he?" said Sirius, looking at James again.
James shook his head.
"How did you know what he was going to do? Did Harry tell you? When?"
Sirius once again glanced at James, looking for some sort of indication that they were in this together, that James was just as confused by this as Sirius was. James's eyes were unfocused and moving about rapidly, as though he couldn't collect his horrified thoughts. Sirius noted the strangeness of this then turned to Fred and sighed.
"Look it was a long time ago Fred, it's hard to remember. I mean think about it. Two kids turn up out of nowhere and Dumbledore tells us their from the future. After you disappeared things just went back to normal. Almost like you'd never been there. I mean for a while we tried to piece together how we'd changed things, but sometimes it seemed like your being there at all was just a dream, and we didn't know enough about the future to know what had been changed."
"You knew Harry existed. Why did that change? What happened after I went to sleep. I need to know what you did!"
James winced.
"Alright let me think!" said Sirius, "Alright um, alright. After you went to sleep, Harry decided to leave the castle. He left a note. He um, well he thought it would be best if he just left so he couldn't change the timelines. But when we figured out he'd gone we went after him. Found him over at yours, sneaking out of the house for some reason," he looked at James again. James just nodded, eyes now downcast, "Well anyway, we um, well we.."
"What? Brought him back to the castle?"
"Yeah. But before that. Before that…"
"Sirius flipped," James interjected.
"Well I thought you were going to die!" Sirius snapped.
"Sorry," James murmured.
"Anyway," Sirius continued reluctantly, "I wanted to know how it happened. How to save James, and Harry, well Harry just kind of snapped."
"Snapped?"
"Blurted it all out. About Wormtail, James and Lily, Voldemort disappearing. Why he didn't want to change it."
Fred nodded. "But what then? One of you must have changed something. One of you must have done something to change it."
James's face was a barely controlled mask. His teeth clenched.
Fred watched him for a second, "What did you do?"
"We're not sure," Sirius interjected. "We came back to the castle and went to bed, and in the morning you weren't there. Either of you. You just disappeared. We've known for years that one of us must have done something. I mean nothing happened the way Harry said it would. But we've never known what. What could we have done while we were sleeping that night?"
Suddenly James stood and left the room.
"Prongs!" cried Sirius, and stood to follow. "We'll talk again soon," he said to Fred before running after his friend.
Fred collapsed back on his pillows, furious with both of them.
……………………………………………………
After ten of minutes of searching, Sirius found James in a large store cupboard on the same floor as Fred's room.
The room was large enough for the two men to sit comfortably across from each other. Sirius took a seat and waited for his friend to speak.
James's eyes were moist. He appeared to be putting a great deal of effort into keeping the tears from falling. So much so that he was paralyzed by the task. Eventually he pulled himself together enough to speak.
"It was me Sirius."
"I know."
"Yeah? Since when?"
"Since you broke up with Lily at the age of eighteen you dolt! You think I didn't guess why you did it?"
James let the first of the tears fall. "Do you think Moony knew?"
"I don't know. We never talked about it. You couldn't have known he was going to die James. There was no way you could have . . ."
"I knew someone would die. I knew Voldemort was going to have a longer life."
"James,"
"I'm so sorry!" James blurted out, and the tears began to fall in earnest.
Sirius wrapped his arms around his friend, unsure of what to do now. He wasn't angry at James for doing what he had done. He had done it out of love. Sirius knew had their positions been reversed he probably would have made the same decision.
"I could've died," James whispered, "If it had just been me I could have gone through with it."
"You wanted to save Lily," said Sirius, "I get it James, I get what you did."
"Not just Lily. You. I couldn't let you go to Azkaban Padfoot."
Sirius let his eyes fall closed and hugged his friend tighter.
"I'm sorry," James repeated.
They stayed like that for an hour.
……………………………………………………………………….
Okay, while the last thing I want to do is insult the intelligence of my faithful reviewers, I have to say that I was quite surprised by the number of people who still didn't get what had happened after chapter 23.
I know that I have given enough info and hints in the fic to explain what is going on, because quite a few of you did catch on, including my friend from Uni who not only guessed what had happened but figured out that it was James who had changed it all before this chapter was even written.
Basically, this is what you should know at this stage.
Fred has been thrown forward in time, to his own time in fact, where everything has changed due to Harry's outburst in the forest outside the burrow.
Things we know have changed
1. James broke up with Lily before they had a chance to get married and Harry was never born.
2. Because Harry was never born the war with Voldemort continued on past the point it should have and Remus and Arthur were both killed in the war effort.
3. Ron is now an angry loner with no friends.
4. The prophesy that was supposed to be about Harry was assumed to be about Neville, so Neville was the one who was killed that night, not James and lily.
5. Molly and Arthur decided against bringing yet another child into such a war torn world, so Ginny was never born.
6. The marauders found subtle ways of blowing Wormtail off until he went away and found some new, less outspoken friends, who had no secrets worth Voldemort's attention, so he never became a spy.
7. Fred has memories of both versions of reality and his head nearly exploded because of it.
For those who got the plot, but questioned the logic:
The time paradox - There are many different theories on how time travel might work. I am subscribing to a combination of the theories laid out in the Back to the Future trilogy and The Butterfly Effect. (If you haven't seen these films I recommend them highly.) I, or Dumbledore, will go into more detail on my theory later in the fic. The paradoxical nature of Harry's presence in the past preventing his own birth will be brought up and dealt with. Hopefully to your satisfaction.
ok - hope you like the especially long A/N on this chapter.
Templa - I can't believe how much your last review sounded like a review that I would write. I'm doing Philosophy at Uni right now and I too love Back to the Future. James's reaction was interesting. Glad you picked that up. I've had a brief look at BreiflyDel but the writer that really blew me away was JKLB. She got a really good handle on who these characters are. Especially in "Choosing the head boy", which is unfinished, but a great read.
Ceeti - Relax, I won't leave it like this. There's hope for these characters yet.
KrondorsAngel - Are you a fan of Raymond E Feist? The time paradox will be dealt with soon.
Tekyah Ariel - Yay! Somebody liked the mind expansion idea!
Parrot - All shall be explained in good time.
Mordred - I love chapter 22 too!! It was my favorite to write. As far as Ron goes, I kind of figured he could have turned aggressive for a couple of reasons. 1. He does have a temper, he had it even before he was friends with Harry. He would have punched Malfoy on that first train ride if Scabbers hadn't bitten Goyle first. There have been a few scenes in which either Harry or Hermione have had to hold a furious Ron back from getting into a fight. 2. I figure Ginny and Ron survived having Fred and George for older brothers because they got through it together. Without Ginny around it would just have been Ron having the tricks and pranks pulled on him. I reckon it got to him. Not that the twins actually meant any harm. 3. Growing up in a world at war has got to have detrimental effects on your personality.
Creature of the Black Lagoon - I think it's bungee.
Cheers,
Whiskey
