Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or anything else that J.K. Rowling created.

Warning: This story is AU due to the fact that I've ignored book five, The Order of The Phoenix because the end of book four was a much better place to start this fan fiction.

Take Backs

Chapter 4: Fire Juice

By Rhiane Raine

The entire house shook with James's rage.

"HE LEFT HARRY WITH THOSE…THOSE MUGGLES?! HAS HE ANY CLUE WHAT KIND OF PEOPLE THEY ARE?" James's angry shout echoed of the house walls. "Did Lily and I not leave specific instructions that our son's guardianship was to be offered first to Sirius, then Remus, then …well, he's out of the running most definitely, but there's still Alice? Why did he ignore our requests?"

James was already on his edge. He had, all in one day, risen from the dead only to find out that fourteen years had passed along with his wife. His son was practically the most famous wizard alive due to some amazing unknown powers he had shown while defeating Lord Voldemort. His best friend was convicted of murder and had not spent the previous James-free years raising his son, but rotting away in Azkaban. Everything in his world had changed drastically. Harry was currently living with Lily's horrible relatives, who thought scruffiness was a felony.

Thoughts and emotions were swirling around in James's head so fastly that they were lost within him before he could realize what it was that he was feeling. The only one he recognized presently was that he could not allow his son to stay with those muggles any longer. He was angry that Dumbledore had left Harry with them when he knew perfectly well that it was neither his nor Lily's wishes.

Making a sudden decision, James stood up and made a break for the door pulling his wand out as he went. He made it about two steps before he stumbled to the ground confused.

"What the-"

"Trip jinx, James," said Remus, "I used to know you well enough to predict that you would make a rash decision in removing Harry from Petunia and Vernon. I've spent enough time around Harry to hone my abilities in expecting these kinds of choices from him. I don't know if we've told you yet, but Harry is very much like you."

Pride still intact, James smiled sheepishly at Remus and Sirius, the latter was snickering at the fact that James had fallen under the trick jinx, which was one of the oldest spells in the prank book.

He ran his fingers though his messy hair that Lily had admitted to liking its tousled untidiness in seventh year. Lily. His Lily.

"Fine, I'll wait and hear the rest of what you two hobbyhorses have to say," James said in a beaten voice. "Then we'll go pry my son from the jaws of evil!"

Sirius rewarded him with his laugh like a bark as well as a clap on the back. Remus only shook his head in amusement. Though Moony never was one to vocally announce his agreement with their pranks and plans, James knew that he'd always be able to count him in.

"Basically, Dumbledore put Harry there for safety reasons."

"What safety reasons? My son defeated the evil ("JAMES!"). What else could he need protection for?"

"I was getting to that. If you'll shut your kidney pie hole!" stated Remus.

There was silence for a moment in which Sirius shifted in his seat on the couch.

"Yeah, there's a galleon of reasons that we can't take Harry from Dursley's. I've already asked about them. Since I've heard them all recently enough, you won't mind if I go pour us all a drink, right?" Sirius looked from Remus to James.

"Sure, Padfoot. You know where it's at, but don't go overboard." Remus replied in a slightly bored and tired voice, "Get me a Butterbeer would you?"

"Oh, come on Moony! James is alive! You HAVE to celebrate with something a bit stronger!"

"Fine, fine. I take whatever you fix," Remus said, hastening to add, "provided that you haven't added any prank or joke into it."

James felt the grin that he'd been sharing with Padfoot slid right off his face.

"Oh-Kay," Sirius said. He sounded very much like a child who had just been told off and made to apologize against his will.

"Oi, Padfoot! I'll take a fire whiskey laced with pumpkin juice. Remember, fire juice?" James called out to Sirius as he reached the door connecting to the kitchen.

"Do I look like a bloody house elf to you?"

James only grinned.

"Wait. Don't answer that."

Over the next few hours, Remus and Sirius had filled James in on the basics of what had happened over the past fourteen years.

Maybe it was because he had known both of his best friends for ten years, seven of which they had practically lived together, but James felt that Remus and Sirius were still leaving out certain details. For instance, when he had asked about his son and what he did in his free time. Remus had glanced at Sirius as if to ask his opinion on what to say. Sirius had just smiled sadly at the wall opposite him.

It wasn't Padfoot's behavior that really bothered him, oddly enough. His best mate had consumed all the fire whiskey and Butterbeer that Remus could allow him while James was had only drank two glasses of his favorite mix. Not that James really needed more than two fire juices to become inebriated, in the slightest. So he understood that Sirius wasn't quite himself at the time. Sure he was still conversational if a bit intoxicated.

Remus however, had only had a small shot of fire juice and a simple Butterbeer. James knew he was sober enough to know what he was saying or purposely not saying. It was unnerving enough to hear some of the things that had been going on in the world as of late. Even more so to be denied any specific answers about your only child.

"So let me make sure I've understood everything," James began, "I got hit with…some weird curse that made me temporarily dead. Voldemort then killed Lily who died in hopes of saving Harry's life. Voldemort then tried to kill Harry but the curse backfired onto himself. It left a scar shaped like a bolt of lightning on Harry's forehead and made Voldemort's spirit separate from his body.

"Sirius felt that something was wrong and checked on Peter to find that he'd gone. He suspected that Lily and I had been betrayed and came to check on us. He arrived to find the house blown apart with a "dead" me, a dead Lily, an alive Harry, and the "dead" body of Voldemort.

"Before he could decide much, Hagrid came along on direct orders from Dumbledore, who assumed Sirius to be our secret keeper. Harry was taken by Hagrid on Sirius's motorcycle to Vernon and Petunia's where Dumbledore made him live for fourteen years just because Petunia and Lily shared blood?"

"Yes," Remus confirmed.

"Then Sirius, who thought his life was over anyway, went after that rat but got framed for not only mine and Lily's deaths, but for the murder of twelve muggles AND for Peter himself?"

Again, Remus stated, "Yes."

James took a breath. "So now, my son is still living with the muggles under the blood protection in hopes that Voldemort can't murder Harry because he just regained his body in June in the presence of MY son?"

"S' right, Jamesy 'ol boy!" said Sirius, who pounded James on the back as if he were really proud that his friend understood everything. Though it was beyond James how Sirius was still able to comprehend anything that he and Remus had just said while wearing a mixing bowl like a party hat and his shoes on his hands.

"Sirius, I told you that five fire juices and four Butterbeers were too much. See if I ever let you drink in my house again," Remus chastised.

" 'Eep your knickers on, Remmie! I was only celebrat'n the fact that Jamie's alive! I won't do it 'gain. I promise!" Sirius slurred while leaning onto James's shoulder.

Remus sighed and shook his head at the drunken man. Both of the two remaining men who were not completely pissed knew how susceptible Sirius was to alcohol.

Remus stood up after a brief moment and offered his hand to Sirius.

" Wha' ?"

"Don't expect me to do this again, but I'm going to let you sleep in my room tonight."

"Oh, okay."

James watched in confusion as Remus helped a drunken Sirius through one of the doors in the small hallway that was set off to the other half of the house that was divided by the sitting room.

In the moment that Remus was heaving Padfoot to his bedroom, James looked around the cottage that he was now present in. The sofa in which James was sitting on was facing the fire while the kitchen and bedroom walls were parallel to the sitting room. In front of him was the grate and hearth.

It was clearly a shabby four-room house with only the basic kitchen, sitting room, bedroom and bathroom. The furniture looked as if it were quite old. There were long scratches and bits missing from the legs of the coffee table while the sofa and matching chairs were very worn.

In front of James and above the fire was the mantle. On it were the only homey touches to the entire flat.

Standing up, James made his way over to take a closer look at the knickknacks and pictures that were occupying the space above the fire.

A large wooden frame held an old photograph in the very center, making it the main attraction. A young Sirius Black stood tall and handsome next to a more youthful Remus Lupin. Now that James thought about it without the distraction of discovering that he had risen from the dead, he noticed that Remus had indeed gained many lines on his face. The Sirius Black in the picture kept elbowing the young Remus in the picture while he grinned over at him. Sirius's other arm was resting against James's shoulder by its forearm. The James in the wizarding photo was smiling widely at the camera and would drape one of his arms around his best mate from time to time. In all, the three marauders seemed to be very happy with one another and with themselves. If he remembered right, Peter had taken the photo just before graduation, making them all seventeen.

On the right of that picture, set an ancient frame bearing ancient runes that James knew to mean "Pot" which was short for "Potter". In the old family frame was a family consisting of a twenty one year old James and Lily, who was holding an infant Harry.

There they were, his family. Both of them were beaming up at him as well as smiling at the James in the picture with them. Every now and then the photo James would unwrap his arm from Lily's waist to reach around and tickle baby Harry, who would giggle while making no move to get away until Lily swatted James's hand away from the boy sitting in her lap.

James watched as his son snuggled up to his mother while he, James himself would pull the both of them into his own lap. All three of them were smiling broadly back up at him.

A sigh escaped the mouth of James as he remembered the day that picture had been taken. It had been Harry's first birthday that they had celebrated.

To postpone his flooding emotions, James glanced along the wooden mantle and saw an odd photo of himself just to the left of the picture in the center. The border around this depiction looked to be rocks that had been glued together somehow.

The strangest part, however, was not the frame or the messy black-haired kid wearing round glasses, but rather the two teenagers to the left and right of him. On the right side of the boy with messy hair was a boy with bright red hair and freckles. The boy with freckles had a tall gangly look to him. He was wearing a Hogwarts oxford shirt that was very worn for the wear and wrinkled at that. The top few buttons had been undone, his tie loosened, and the cuffs had been rolled up to reveal very freckly forearms. The boy's outer layer of his school uniform was piled carelessly on the free ground next to the side of the teen that was not occupied by the kid in round glasses.

To the left of the boy with messy hair, and glasses was a girl who too had taken off her outer school robe, but unlike the red haired boy, she had folded her's neatly and was using it as a cushion between herself and the grass below her of which she was sitting on. Her legs were drawn up to the side and the knees of which were resting against the thighs of the boy in the middle. In the lap of the girl lay a large thick book, the spine barely visible read "Hogwarts, A History". She had warm brown eyes and a soft tan complexion. A few strands of her brown hair, which was very thick and bushy, would fall into her face every now and again as she kept her head in a downward position so to read the thick tome in her lap.

James blinked. He did not remember either of the two teenagers sitting on either side of himself in that photograph. Why couldn't he remember? It did not make sense. The three people in the picture behaved as if they knew each other very well. Well, well enough to act friendly with one another. But James had not known any girls with bushy brown hair. Neither had he known any freckled boys with red hair.

In the picture the boy with freckles was saying something to the kid in glasses. Both of them laughed very hard, leaning back onto the large tree behind where they were all three sitting. The book girl looked up from her reading at them. She pointed a finger and seemingly scolded them for what had been said but the large smile on her face gave away her opposition. The red-haired boy ribbed the black-haired boy still laughing. Eventually the bushy-haired one joined in. James watched as the girl laid her head against the middle boy's open shoulder as she shook with mirth. She reached around the boy whose shoulder she was borrowing in order to give the other boy a playful shove in the chest.

"James?"

James turned around to see Moony standing in front of the closed door of his own bedroom.

"Who are those two?"

"Who?"

"The red head and the brown-haired girl in the picture with me. I don't remember either of them. The red head looks slightly familiar though. That's got to be my tree by the lake, and I'd know Hogwarts uniforms anywhere…"

Remus chuckled. Startled, James broke his gaze with the intriguing photograph.

"What's so funny? You wouldn't be laughing if you couldn't remember stuff about yourself if it happened to you!"

"Calm down, Prongs. You haven't lost your memory. There is a perfectly good reason why you don't recall the three in that picture." Remus stated coolly.

"No, I know me. It's is the other two I don't remember." James corrected.

"Look closer at yourself, James."

He did. In fact, James picked up the entire frame off of the mantle and sat down with it in on the aged blue couch. He stared down at what still thought to be himself. The messy black hair was the same. The nose…looked smaller. It was not as long as his own nor as strong looking. The glasses were the same that were placed in front of…green eyes?

'Wait a minute!'

Since when did he have eyes so green that they resembled Lily's?

Remus snickered as James snapped his head up, hazel eyes wide with astonishment.

"T-this is H-Harry!?"

"Yes, James. That's Harry, your son."