an: alrighty, people, this is chapter nine. Half of it is told through James's perspective, while the other half is back at Grimmuald Place. This chap was really hard for me write, for some absurd reason, so if it sounds a little forced or unnatural, that's probably because it is. Or it might not, I don't know.
To my oh so wonderful reviewers:
gemini: thanks for reviewing. Although, I'm not sure how mush athena/sirius i can work in, seeing as how they're in two different dimensions
Dante Lewis: you should expect a cameo of James's bro in the next chapter
bluerain627: acteaon is a creep...he is the creepiest of all creeps. Yes, James's bro is with him right now (well, not now, because James is obviously locked up). You can expect him to show up in the next chapter. And as for athena/ sirius develpoments, see my final authors note
Aurora Kapu Black13: thanks for your review. feel free to point out my spelling errors...there are quite a few of them, i kno...
Mithril-Moony: thanks for your reviews...all three of them. lol. see, i did update this story...it just took me awhile
Legolasfanxoxo: sorry, it's impossible to kill actaeon again...though he's going to get what's coming to him eventually
emurez: thanks for your review again. you have your Athena, remus and Harry part of the story at the end (it's longer than the part from james's perspective:))
Brittney: oh, actaeon's gonna pay...have no fear. And Lily is tough. I don't think she'd be half as cool if she weren't
Mark SCHNEEZLE: thanks for your review...it made my day

(wow, that's quite a few people) ENJOI

James rested his head against the cool, damp wall of his cell, desperately trying to clear his mind of the haunting memories that had been plaguing him.

"Breathe, Prongs, breathe," he muttered quietly to himself as he brushed away the tears that had subconsciously started to flow as he relived the memory of his parents' death.

A shudder passed through him and he pulled his thin robe closer around him as he tried to block out the inevitable cold of Azkaban. He wasn't sure how long it had been since Actaeon had ordered his arrest, nor was he sure how long he was going to be stuck here. He wanted to be gone, though, not that it counted for much. Actaeon had the power to keep him in Azkaban for as long as he felt was necessary.

James flinched as some poor soul a few cells away started yelling in his sleep. The sound wasn't unfamiliar to James; his past experiences in Azkaban had taught him that more than most of the prisoners screamed in their sleep, slowly being driven mad by the dementors that terrorized the prison. The dementors had a tendency to drive any hope of happiness or elation right out of the prisoners' minds, letting them succumb to depression, and then to madness. James, however, cluing to his innocence, much like a frightened child clings to their favorite teddy bear, using it to attempt to fight of the madness.

As the yelling faded into quiet sobbing, James began to relax, as much as he could anyway. He stared out the barred window that was in his cell at the dark twilight. He was sick of the dark; even in broad daylight, the light of the sun didn't quite make it to his cell before the dementors drained it. The dark was just as maddening as everything else in Azkaban. Without light to illuminate the darkness of the situation, James was left to sit in his cell and stare at the wall as terrible memories flashed before his eyes.

James closed his eyes and willed his mind to remain clear, something that had never been easy for him. Every time that he started to clear his head, some random thought would appear and ruin his concentration. This time, however, it seemed slightly easier. Instead of trying to clear his mind and stay conscious, he tried to will himself into a dreamless sleep. He hadn't slept well in several nights, and yet he knew that he still need to rest. He laid back and let a cruel, dark oblivion overwhelm him.

"Sit down, James," McGonagall said somberly.

He did as he was told, but was still very confused. McGonagall was never this distraught. Even when he had accidently set fire to her desk in his fourth year, there had still been a glint of amusement in her eyes. Seeing her look so outwardly upset about something worried the fifteen year-old more than anything else.

"What's going on, Professor?" he asked, trying desperately to read the mixed expressions on McGonagall's face.

She sighed and looked at James sadly. "We received this from your parents a short while ago," she said as she handed a letter to James.

James took it warily. He identified the untidy scrawl as his father's, although there seemed to be something wrong with it. The writing was rather jerky, as though it had been written with a trembling hand. He scanned over the letter several times. Each time he did, the same section stood out at him.

I'm sorry, James, I really am, but you need to know: Jared was murdered last night.

Your brother is dead.

The words didn't make sense to him. Jared couldn't be dead. Jared was only in his twenties; people that young didn't die. Jared wasn't allowed to die until after he finally managed to get a date with Lily Evans. Jared couldn't possibly be dead. But his father wouldn't lie to him. His father would never, not in a million years, do something so heartless. It had to be true, but James didn't want to accept it.

He looked up at McGonagall and slowly shook his head. "No," he said aloud. "He can't... Jared can't be..." he couldn't bring himself to say it. To say it would be to admit it. It would somehow make it true.

McGonagall shook her head sadly. "I'm sorry, James, but he is dead."

James' vision swirled and he was no longer in McGonagall's office but in the Gryffindor common room. He was no longer fifteen, but a year older. Sirius sat on a chair across from where he stood, staring at the floor, looking rather ashamed at himself. Things obviously weren't going well for him.

"How could you do something so STUPID?" James snapped at Sirius, not fearing his friend's reaction.

"Prongs, I–"

"There's no excuse for doing something like that!" James snapped again, glad that the common room was empty.

"James, would you just listen to me?" Sirius said, looking up at James, his eyes full of some angry emotion.

"And why should I listen to you, after you did something so – moronic?"

"Because you're my friend, James. You're supposed to hear me out. You're supposed to care," Sirius said quietly.

"I'm not to sure I could call you a friend anymore, Sirius," James said, lowering his voice so that he was quieter, but his voice lost none of its venom. "Of all the stupid things you've done, this has got to top them all. Snape nearly died at the hands of someone who considered you a friend. You basically handed Snape death on a plate! I don't care what he did, no one– NO ONE– deserves that. And did you ever once stop to think about what this would to Remus? If he had killed Snape – he's already blaming himself and he didn't do anything! I can't believe that you would betray his trust in you like that! I don't know you anymore, Sirius. The Sirius I knew would never stoop so low."

Sirius's face fell. It was obvious that the teenager was hurt by his friend's harsh words. "You know what James?" he said, his voice thick with tightly concealed emotion. "I know I did something stupid. I know that I wasn't thinking when I told Snivellus how to get passed the Whomping Willow. I kind of figured that out on my own. It was bad enough having Dumbledore disappointed in me, not to mention having Remus blaming himself for my folly. It was even worse having Athena yell at me, wanting to break up with me after she found out, thinking that I was low and despicable for doing something like this! I honestly didn't need her lecture on top of Dumbldore's, and I don't need yours on top of theirs! I thought that you would at least have some understanding, that you wouldn't feel the need to rub this whole mess in my face! Don't you think I'm having enough people mad at me right now? Did you really think that I needed my best friend right along with them?" Sirius's voice was trembling now. He was having difficulty keeping his emotions, that had seemed to befalling apart all over the place lately, under control.

James looked at Sirius, as though his eyes were boring holes deep into his friend's soul. "My best friend wouldn't have attempted to bring death to another student. I have no best friend, now," he said coldly. He turned away and headed out the portrait hole. And although he could not see Sirius, quite clearly he heard his friend's voice, quietly pleading for James to come back and forgive him for doing something so stupid. Yet, even with Sirius's pleading voice in his ears, he turned his back on Sirius and left the common room.

His vision swirled again, this time taking him to a funeral home were his parents dead bodies were laid out. His parents bodies morphed into the bodies of Gideon and Fabian Prewett, two member's of the Order that he had considered friends. Once more the bodies shifted, this time into the single body of Marlene McKinnon, yet another member of the Order; Marlene had been in the same year and house as him. The funeral home swirled into the sight of a small clearing in the woods were the remains of Benjy Fenwick, an auror and Order member, had been found. James stared in horror at the constantly shifting scenes and bodies. Each time it was exactly as he remembered it, right down to the last detail, to the sounds and smells of the event. He sank to his knees as the images kept changing, taking him to every scene where he had witnessed a death, found a dead body, or mourned at someone's funeral. He couldn't take much more of it. He buried his head in his hands and began to weep.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

Harry was in the dining room, sitting down with his lunch , when Lupin walked in. Other than them, Grimmuald Place was virtually empty. The Weasley's were back at the Burrow, and most members of the Order had somewhere else to be at the current moment.

"Hey Harry," Lupin said, thumping an old leather bound book on the table, sending a cloud of dust into the air. "Have you seen Athena around?"

"Haven't seen her since last night," Harry said. Athena had been staying at Grimmuald Place for the past few weeks. And in those few weeks, Harry had grown rather fond of the strange women. There was just something oddly familiar about her that gave Harry an odd sense of comfort. He suspected that it had to do with the fact that she was the only one of his mother's friends that he had ever met. Athena, he noticed, had lightened the dark mood that had settled of Grimmuald Place. It was rare to see her without a smile, and she was always trying to pull people, even ones she didn't know that well, into conversations. Yet, she was not all smiles, as a few suspected. Athena, as it turned out, was very steadfast in the opinions she had formed over the years. When someone opposed her on something she thought strongly about, her temper had a tendency to rise...quickly. Lupin had assured Harry that occasionally her temper would lead her to violent actions, though that happened rarely.

"That's odd," Lupin said, sitting down in front of the book he had placed down moments before. "She didn't say she was going anywhere."

Harry shrugged and sat down across from Lupin with his lunch. "Why're you looking for her, anyway?" he asked.

"I found an old photo album in one of the rooms. It has a bunch of pictures from school in it. I thought she might want to take a look at some of them," Lupin said absently.

Harry grabbed the book and pulled it toward him. He opened the old album and started flipping pages slowly, taking the time to study the pictures. The first few pages were an assortment of pictures, most of them featuring his father, Sirius, Remus, and Peter; they looked to be about his own age. He studied carefully the young face of Sirius, a handsome face that showed no signs of any cares or preoccupations. He was always smiling and laughing and waving up at him. This was Sirius as he should have been. Harry had the distinct impression that had his parents not been murdered, and had Sirius not been wrongfully thrown in Azkaban for twelve years, than Sirius would be much like the one he saw in the pictures, only more mature. It was impressed upon Harry once again how short Sirius's life really was. He had never gotten the chance to enjoy young adulthood; he had never gotten the chance to really grow up. And now– now he was gone...dead. He really had no chance to enjoy his life. The last fifteen years of his life, he was either imprisoned or on the run from the Ministry. He was miserable for the last fifteen years of his life.

Harry heard a faint pop of someone apparating behind him, but he paid no attention to it. He was still enraptured by the pictures. He suddenly got the distinct impression that whoever had just apparated in was now standing behind him, looking over his shoulder. Once again, he paid the person no heed, quietly eating and turning the pages.

"What're you looking at?" Athena said from behind him. Harry jumped a little, having not expected it to be Athena standing behind him.

"An old photo album," he replied as she sat down next to him.

She pulled the book over to her and flipped through a couple of pages. She looked up at Remus, "What year were we in in these pictures?" she asked.

"Sixth year," he said grinning. "Or at least I'm pretty sure it's sixth."

"What makes you say that?" she asked.

"Oh, just the way we look," he said. "And some of the pictures are obviously developments that occurred during our sixth year."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, there is a picture of the Killer Rubber Ducky in there," Remus said starting to laugh.

"What?" Harry and Athena asked at the same time. Harry had no idea what Remus was talking about. Athena, however, did. She instantly started flipping through the album, searching for the said picture.

"What are you talking about?" Harry asked again when Athena found the picture and busted out laughing.

"We're talking about your father's bad luck omen," Remus said, still laughing. "The Killer Rubber Ducky."

"Huh?" Harry asked, just as Athena asked, "Who bloody took this picture?"

"I'm pretty sure it was Sirius," Remus said. "I think he took it after James threatened to decapitate the duck. He claimed that he wanted a lasting image of it."

Athena started to laugh again. "Would you mind explaining this to me?" Harry asked, still perplexed, over Athena's laughter.

"That's an interesting story, actually," Remus said, having finally stopped laughing completely. "Only I don't know how it begins. Athena could tell you though– once she stops laughing that is."

Athena started taking deep breaths, saying in a strained voice, "I'm okay. I'm okay. Really, I swear, I'm okay."

"You sure about that?" Remus asked skeptically.

Athena glared at him. "Yes, I'm sure." She turned to Harry, before saying, "The Killer Rubber Ducky originated at a quidditch practice at the beginning of our sixth year. It was only a week or so before our first game of the year, and James, for some unknown reason, could not play well...at all. He sucked, he really did. I've never seen him play so bad in my life. Anyway, we take a break from practice, and we're just sitting in the middle of the pitch, as a team, trying to come up with reasons as to why your father couldn't play. Sometime during all this Zachary Vance, our keeper, went into the locker rooms, and when he came out, for some reason he brought a rubber ducky with him. To this day, I have no idea what possessed him to bring the duck with him.

"Anyway, I take one look at it and I turn to James, and say, quite seriously, 'James, I have figured out your problem.' He looked at me and said 'Oh really, what is it, then?' 'You're been haunted by the Killer Rubber Ducky,' I told him. And, oh my gosh, the look he gave me was absolutely priceless. He just stared at me with this look of utter confusion on his face. I then asked him if he had paid attention in Divination at all the previous year, which I knew he hadn't, because that had to be his favorite class to skip. I told him that he must have missed the day we talked about omens, because the Killer Rubber Ducky was a terrible bad luck omen. He started laughing and turned around and saw Zachary standing there, holding this random rubber duck, and he started to laugh harder. We ended up cancelling the rest of practice because he could not stop laughing to save his life," she said, grinning broadly.

"And that's where I come in," Remus said, still chuckling occasionally. "He found us, Sirius, Peter, and I, at dinner and started telling us all about this Killer Rubber Ducky. I started laughing, convinced that James had actually gone mental, but Sirius thought that this was the funniest thing since Pork Day."

"Pork Day?" Harry asked, eye brows raised.

Remus waved his hand dismissively, "That's another story," he claimed. "Anyway, James says that he kept the rubber duck and that it was in our dormitory. Well, Sirius gets this brilliant idea to charm the duck, but he only told me about it. So the next morning we all get up, and as he's getting ready, James looks over at the duck. And the duck, Sirius had charmed it to make this–this noise. I swear it sounded like a cross between a moose and a dying giraffe. Anyway, when your father looked at the duck, Harry, it made this dying-giraffe-moose noise, and it quite honestly scared your father half to death. He nearly jumped two feet off the ground. James just scowled at Sirius, seeing as he was on the floor laughing. However, that wasn't the only thing Sirius did to that rubber duck."

"What'd he do to it?" Harry asked, already starting to laugh as ideas of what could have possibly happened to the rubber duck flashed across his mind.

"Upon Sirius's command, the Killer Rubber Ducky would follow James around the castle. And oddly enough, almost every time one of our pranks went wrong or he got detention, the duck was right there behind him. Eventually, we got to the point where James just started blaming everything on the duck. I believe he once told Professor McGonagall that he didn't do his transfiguration homework because the Killer Rubber Ducky had been 'exercising its wrath'. McGonagall gave him a detention for it, which he also blamed on the duck," Remus said, starting to laugh reminiscently.

"The duck was responsible for every bad thing that happened to him til the day he died," Athena said. "Or at least that's what he claimed. There was this one time, while he was working for the Order, he somehow–not surprisingly– got himself landed in St. Mungo's. The first thing he told us when he woke up was that it was the Killer Rubber Ducky's fault."

Athena kept smiling and she continued turning the pages in the photo album. Occasionally she or Remus would explain the story behind a particular picture to Harry, both of them having a good time recalling the good memories. Athena turned to the next page after relating a story about James's hair being dyed bright pink for over a month. She immediately clapped her hands over one of the pictures, before proceeding to rip the picture out of the book.

"What's that picture of?" Harry wanted to know.

"Nothing," Athena said quickly, folding the picture in half.

"Oh come on, Athena, we've seen enough embarrassing pictures of me," Remus said. "Surely one of you can't hurt."

"Not this one," she said firmly, holding the picture safely out of the way when he tried to snatch it out of her hands. With a determined look she headed into the kitchen.

"What was that about?" Harry asked, confused by the sudden turn of behavior.

"I don't know," Remus said. A faint crease line of thought had formed on his forehead as he tried to reason Athena's behavior. After waiting a few minutes, Remus got up and followed Athena into the kitchen; Harry followed him.

Athena was gone by this time. The picture, however, was still sitting, folded in half, by the stove. Remus picked the picture up and looked at it. Suddenly it became all to clear to him why Athena did not want them to see the picture. "No wonder she acted strangely," he muttered under his breath.

Harry walked up behind Remus and looked that the picture over his shoulder. "Whoah," he said. "Is that...Is that Athena and Sirius...snogging?" he asked, absolutely perplexed.

Remus nodded, turning to face Harry. "Your father must have taken this picture while they weren't paying attention," he said. "He's the only one that would have done something like this."

"Wait, Sirius and Athena used to date?" Harry asked, still as confused as ever.

"Er, yeah. I thought that Athena would have told you," Remus said. "You two talk so often that I figured it must have come up sometime. I didn't realize that you didn't know."

Harry shook his head. "She never said anything about it. When did they start dating?" He asked.

"Around Christmas of our sixth year," Remus said.

"How long did they date?"

"A long time," Remus said, setting the picture down on the counter. "After school, they got really serious for awhile. Their relationship went on hold for a few years when she started playing quidditch professionally for the Fitchburg Finches. But when she took a break from her career, to help out with the Order here, they started seeing each other again. They were actually engaged before Sirius was sent to Azkaban."

"What?" Harry asked, absolutely astonished that he had never known about this.

Remus nodded. "Yeah," he said simply. "Sirius has always loved her, even if he didn't admit it all the time. And I'm pretty sure that Athena felt the same way about him for most of her life– although, I think she convinced herself not too when she thought that Sirius had betrayed your parents."

"I never knew," Harry said, still trying to process all the information.

"Then she must not have wanted you too. Not yet, least ways," Remus said. "Do me a favor and don't mention this to her. Sirius's death has affected her in much the same way as it has effected us. She probably just wants time for wounds to heal before she starts talking about that."

Harry nodded in understanding. Remus left the kitchen, leaving Harry to carefully process all of this new information. In all the years he had known Sirius, it had never occurred to him that Sirius might have had a girlfriend, or rather, a fiancée. The more he thought about it, though, the more it started to make sense to him. Sirius had obviously been the good looking one out of his groups of friends; he had been the devilishly handsome one. It only made sense that girls would be after him. Hadn't Harry seen a girl check him out when he saw Snape's memory last school year? It made perfectly logical sense that he would have found someone he wanted to be with.

But why hadn't Sirius ever mentioned it? Why hadn't Sirius ever bothered to tell him? Leaning back against the counter, Harry trued desperately to figure it all out, before giving up, deciding that when he saw Sirius again, when he died, he's have to remember to ask him.

my final note: first, thanks goes to my good friend whalen, who suggested the Killer Rubber Ducky. Second, thanks to all my reviewers. I got a record of 11 reviews between now and when chapter 8 was published. it was siriusly awesome. To those of you who asked me about Jared (James's older brother) or sirius/athena, I'm am pleased to inform you that I am currently working on another fic (although this one is my top proirity) which is set during the marauder's glory years (lol). In other words, from about year 5 to lily and james's death. In this fic you'd get to see more of Jared and the original development of athena/sirius. As soon as I'm done with this fic, I plan to start posting that one. And, as a side note, I need a title for that fic, so all suggestions are welcome. Now if you'd be so kind to review, I'd much appreciate it.
p.s since I actually know what I'm doing for the next chapter, you should expect it in about two weeks.

Delano