After dinner that night, the hospital wing was quiet, and the moon shone through the windows as it had every night. Jimmy's footsteps padded over to the bed in the main wing again. He sat on the edge and took the hand in his again.
"I have to borrow something of yours. I'll return it safe, don't you mind. You know I will."
The face remained still.
"Nothing against you. But I have to do this. You'd understand, I know."
Jimmy crept out of the room into the hallway outside. He cast a small silence charm, and made his way down the hall.
The Fat Lady peered at him curiously. "Potter?" she asked.
He nodded. He was, after all.
"Pastorini," he said (thank goodness for Hermione wanting him to know he could count on her any time of day or night!), and the Fat Lady slid sideways.
He moved silently through the Gryffindor common room, and up the stairs to the sixth years' dormitory. There was the trunk, just as he remembered, with Ron and the others snoring in their beds. He opened the trunk and riffled through it...there it was. He pulled out the shimmering bundle of fabric, and closed the trunk quietly.
Throwing the cloak around his shoulders, he turned and swirled into invisibility. He crept down to the library, let himself into the restricted section, pulled several books from the shelves, and sat down to a long night of work.
Stars rose, and stars set, and Jimmy read. The stack of books next to him waned and grew, and still Jimmy read. Filch and Mrs. Norris did their rounds, and he stayed perfectly still, and continued reading.
Dawn was breaking as he put the last of the books away. He returned the cloak to Harry's trunk, and slipped back into bed in his little room a few minutes before Pomfrey bustled into the hospital wing to start the new day.
"How are you this morning, Jimmy?" Dumbledore's smiling face peeked around the door frame.
Oh, he looks so tired. Poor boy. Fourteen and carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Harry sometimes looked like that...
"As well as can be expected, I guess, Uncle Albus," Jimmy replied. "Please, join me."
The chairs were full-size now, and Dumbledore sat at the table as Jimmy produced another glass of juice with a wave of his hand.
"My favorite. Thank you."
"You told me once..."
Dumbledore nodded.
"Uncle, I need to ask you a question."
"Go ahead, Jimmy."
"Why not let me live?"
Dumbledore nearly dropped his juice.
"Why not?" Jimmy continued. "I still have weeks left to me. I'm as powerful as he was, maybe even more so, you have said so yourself."
He stood up. Dumbledore's eyes held awe and a little fear as he watched the boy gripping the back of his chair.
"I don't have the scar," Jimmy continued, pulling his hair back to show off his unmarked brow. "Voldemort can't get to me through it. He can't reach me, but I can kill him. Better than Harry can. And I have my power, my magic, he doesn't. And I'll age more quickly, I'll get stronger much sooner than Harry would. I'll be at full strength in weeks...Harry won't reach his peak until years from now, when it could be too late."
He sat back down, and fixed Dumbledore with his gaze.
"I'm your best chance of defeating Voldemort. I'm here now. I won't be for long, but I don't need to be. That's fine with me. Let me do what Harry can't."
"That's what worries me," Dumbledore said. "I don't know that you can."
"But the prophecy said..."
"If that were all that mattered, Jimmy, then I could send Neville after him. But you and I both know that wouldn't work. Harry was marked by Voldemort at Godric's Hollow, and the effects of that are what worry me."
"He can be tracked by Voldemort. I can't."
"Yes, but Harry's scar..." Dumbledore sighed. "I can't be sure just yet, but I suspect that there is much more to that scar than I can confirm now. It's likely to be very important, and I can't risk losing it."
Jimmy stood up abruptly, and rounded the table in two long steps. He dropped to his knees next to Dumbledore, and grasped the older man's hands in his own. The green eyes blazed up at Dumbledore as Jimmy said,
"Uncle...please...don't kill me."
"I have no choice, Jimmy."
"Yes, you do. I can't change what happened to him," he jerked his head toward the door, "but I can change what's going to happen to me. And I don't want to die, not just yet.""
Dumbledore looked Jimmy squarely in the eye.
"I have to do what's best for wizardry. And for that, I need Harry. We all do. That's why you're here, and I have to trust you to do what's best for wizardry as well."
That afternoon, when Jimmy asked to see Hogsmeade, Dumbledore could not deny his request. At this point, Jimmy looked enough like Harry to not arouse suspicion, so there was no danger from him being seen; it would help dispel any rumors circulating about Harry's illness. He was to take Lupin along, just in case.
"In case of what?" Jimmy asked. But he was glad to spend some time with his Uncle Remus, and the two of them made their way to the little town.
Jimmy wanted to buy some presents, and Lupin accompanied him around the various shops. Soon the two of them were laden with packages of all descriptions, all wrapped and addressed to their recipients.
"Uncle, I want you to make sure that everybody gets these after I'm gone," he said, and Lupin had nodded. He had asked the shops to shrink them, but still their arms overflowed by the time they stopped for refreshments.
"Let me take these back to the castle," Lupin said. "Stay here, I'll be right back." And he loaded all of the bags onto his arms and disappeared out the door.
Jimmy found himself alone at a little table he remembered vaguely, nursing a butterbeer (had he ever actually had one, or was that Harry?) and staring off into space. For once, nobody was poking or prodding him or teaching him things he'd never use or telling him how he had to sacrifice everything to Save Harry. He was just a normal guy, in a normal cafe, having a normal moment of spacing out.
So this is what it would have been like, he mused. Harry needed more of this. I needed more of this. But it's not to be, not for either of us. Nothing can be normal for us...well, maybe if Harry can defeat Voldemort, maybe then he can get on with it. That's something I could never have.
If I give up everything now, I give Harry a chance at a normal life someday...
He was so lost in thought that he didn't hear the commotion outside immediately. A scream shattered his reverie.
Lupin's scream.
He ran outside. The street was deserted, the shoppers hidden in stores and alleyways, except for the prone body of Lupin in the middle of the street. A dark shadow stood nearby in a shop door, watching, as a black figure like night flew past the prone body, swooping closer and closer to him...
Dementor! A dementor in Hogsmeade!
Jimmy acted without thinking, without stopping. He ran to stand next to his uncle, who lay unconscious and pale, and faced the floating demon with his arm outstretched. As the figure rounded upon him and began to head his way, Jimmy lifted his hand and thought of his childhood a few short days ago, when everything was simple and all he worried about was how to make Snape like him...and opened his mouth.
"EXPECTO PATRONEM ADME!"
The light erupted from his fingers and filled the street with blinding whiteness, forming a cone just as it had the first time when Lupin showed him the boggart years ago...the dementor floated on the other side of the light, bobbing like a buoy in the sea...Jimmy felt the power grow in his body, not wane, as the Adme grew, and electricity crackled in his hair as he spread his fingers and fixed the dementor with his gaze.
Lupin's eyes opened, and he saw Jimmy standing over him. Then, he saw the dementor. It floated for a bit, then began to move erratically as the spell began to suck its strength. A flapping, rushing sound filled his ears.
After what seemed an eternity, the dementor seemed to have had enough, and flew off over Hogsmeade. Out of the corner of his eye, Lupin saw the dark figure in the doorway flatten itself against the wall as if trying to disappear.
"Uncle, are you well?" Lupin could only nod.
Blue sparks were still leaping among the black spikes of hair as Jimmy turned and spoke.
"Who are you, and what do you want?"
"You...I heard you were injured...comatose...powerless..." The figure shrank away as Lupin began to sit up.
Jimmy helped Lupin to his feet, and turned to face the retreating figure. He stood tall, and called out to the shadow.
"Give my regards to your master, and inform him of what you have seen here today. Tell him that I am not only well, but stronger than ever!"
"I tell you, Albus, I've never been more proud of a student in my life," Remus said later over dinner. Jimmy blushed.
"I have had the best teachers," he said simply.
"And we have had some excellent material in you, Jimmy," Dumbledore returned.
Snape stabbed his fork into a chunk of potato. "Don't let it go to your head, Potter. Your innate ability is undeniable, but it is none of your doing. As much as it pains me to say so, your parents deserve the credit for that. However," he said, regarding the potato on the tines of his fork, "you have become quite accomplished under our tutelage."
Lupin expected Jimmy to frown. Instead, Jimmy stood up, circled around the table to where Snape sat, and hugged him from behind. Snape's expression softened just a tiny bit.
"Gotcha," Jimmy said.
Later that evening, as Jimmy slept in his room for the last time, Lupin and Snape sat by the bed in the hospital wing.
"Tomorrow," Lupin said, brushing the hair back from the pale forehead. The red scar was stark against the white skin. "Tomorrow, it will all be over."
"Over, yes," said Snape. "for him, but not for the rest of us."
They sat in silence for a moment.
"Severus...he cast the Adme."
Severus looked up at him sharply. "He did?"
"Beautifully."
"How did he know about the spell?"
"Albus must have told him how Harry's accident happened. He's old enough to remember the Patronus, but he didn't know about the Adme until just before the accident."
Snape nodded.
"The dementor didn't stand a chance," Lupin continued. "But it was the Patronus itself that surprised me the most. Jimmy's Patronus isn't a stag...it's a phoenix."
The shock in Severus' eyes matched that in Lupin's. There was nothing to say...
"How can we do this, Severus? Trade one life for another? We are playing with these boys' lives..." He looked at the hand lying on the blanket. "I didn't think that this would be so difficult."
"Neither did I, Remus."