See first part for notes about this collection of stories.
Disclaimer: I am but a poor college student. Please don't sue me.
"One's real life is often the life that one does not lead."
i.
Sirius will arrive at any moment.
Relations are still tense between the three of them—but, slowly, things are beginning to change. After all, it is a time of sudden deaths and missing loved ones. In these times, there is no room for grudges.
Yes, Sirius will come soon. He will play with his godson for a while; the boy is mad for him, like everyone else. Then Lily will put Harry to bed, and the three of them will talk.
Sirius will update James and Lily on the outside world. He will fill them in on the war, and share the latest Order news. Perhaps, if he is in a particularly good mood, he will gossip for a while about Remus and Peter and their other former schoolmates.
Lily will make tea. Sirius will smile and accept the cup she offers him, then set it down on the side table and never touch it again.
Sirius will send him glances
(quick hurt resigned)
throughout the evening, and James will ignore them. Lily will hold his hand too tightly.
There will be a long, awkward pause at the end of the night
("You know it can never be the same with us. Is that what you want?")
until eventually Sirius gets to his feet, coughing a bit and claiming he's beat.
It's the same pattern every time.
Only this time, Sirius doesn't come.
James sits up most of the night, shrugging off Lily's pleas to come to bed.
He stares into the fire, watching the flames lick lower and lower. He thinks maybe he ought to throw on a log or two.
Remus taught them how to build a proper fire, once. It was winter; they had sneaked out, attempting to spend the night in the Forbidden Forest. James remembers it seemed a brilliant adventure at the time. It was also bloody cold. Remus coached them for half an hour about twigs and dry wood and creating "a sort of pyramid," until Sirius finally tossed aside his soggy sticks and declared he was not going to freeze his arse off for the sake of some bloody Muggle tradition. They got a fire started pretty quickly after that. The four of them huddled around the heat, shoulder to shoulder, and James rubbed Sirius's frozen hands between his own until they thawed.
Where is Sirius?
Maybe this is some sort of power play. Maybe Sirius is trying to demonstrate that he still has some control over the situation. Maybe he is being jealous
("I am not some second-rate whore to be fucked when you've nothing better to do, James!")
and childish, trying to prove a point.
But, no. Sirius may be hotheaded, but even he would not be so thoughtless. Not in these dark days.
Sometime later, the embers grow cold in the fireplace. James doesn't notice.
Lily finds him in the morning, exhausted and ill with anxiety. She hauls him out of his chair and marches him to the kitchen, plunking him down at the table and telling him he's not to leave the room until he's got some food in him.
She hums as she prepares breakfast, occasionally cooing at Harry, who happily babbles in return. James stares at her back, loose waves of red hair swimming before his eyes.
"He's fine, James," Lily says, pouring the water for tea. "He's probably off in some girl's bed, sleeping off the worst hangover he's ever had. You know Sirius." She tosses him a smile over her shoulder. Her eyes are dark and frightened.
Pads,
Where the fuck are you?
Prongs
His hands are remarkably steady as he ties the parchment to his owl's leg. He opens the window, welcoming the brisk November air, and watches the bird soar off in the direction of Sirius's flat.
It returns hours later, message still tied tight around its leg.
Dumbledore's reply comes within hours.
Come to Hogwarts immediately. Floo directly to my office. I will be waiting.
Dumbledore looks terribly, terribly tired.
"I'm sorry, James."
The world has gone black. Thoughts flash across his mind, sharp against the blur.
He thinks, But I love him.
He thinks, I hope he's dead.
He thinks, Sirius.
That's all he can manage before his stomach wrenches and the world is over.
ii.
James cannot get out of bed today.
("Prongs. Oi, Prongs. I know you're awake, you great git. Now get up and make me breakfast.")
(Lily calls them his Tired Days, for Harry's sake. "Daddy's having one of his Tired Days, darling," she says, steering their son back into the hallway. "We should let him rest."
If she were inclined to be accurate, she would call them his Tired Grieving Sobbing Guilt-Stricken Days. But perhaps Harry is not quite ready for that information.)
He does not think of his family—not of his lovely patient wife, or his bright young son. He does not think of his friends—of Remus, wasting away in the face of the approaching full moon. He does not think of the Order, or of his dead parents, or of himself.
It has been five years since Sirius disappeared, and today James cannot live with that.
Remus will not
(cannot)
tell him what he found that night.
(He says he only intended to check up on Sirius, who had been whining that he was bored and lonely. James wonders at this. He knows that Sirius did not trust Remus, and knows that he never told their friend his new address. He knows, but doesn't ask, and he wonders.)
The most he will say is that Sirius surely put up a fight.
Remus will not speak of the wreckage and destruction he must have found—the blood-streaked dents in the walls, the shattered glass, the splintered wood.
James has seen it many times, the devastation that the Death Eaters leave in their wake
(air heavy with lingering power and desperate ferocity)
and he has nightmares about what Remus does not say.
Some days he regrets never seeing the flat for himself—but most of the time, he is grateful, and he is ashamed for it. Sirius is dead
(please, please)
and the least he deserves is for James to be driven mad with grief.
He does regret that he never got a chance to kill Peter. Peter, the fucking traitorous rat, who found out Sirius was the Secret-Keeper and wasted no time turning him over to Voldemort.
(It makes James sick—that they didn't know, for so long. For years, the murderer cursed and wept and mourned with them. The Marauders grieved together for three years before the rat was revealed.)
In the end, it was Snape who identified Peter as the traitor. Snape, no doubt fresh from Voldemort's lair, with innocent blood still wet on his hands—it was he who told Dumbledore what Peter had done, the price he had paid for Voldemort's favor.
It's been two years since Snape began spying for the Order, and James still trusts him no further than he can hex him. But the man was right about Peter. James can only pray that he is equally truthful about other subjects.
("He's dead. It's been a long time. We—they broke him, but they could never make him talk. The Dark Lord eventually got tired of him. It was useless trying to get information from him, at that point. By the end, he spoke nothing but nonsense.")
Snape. Peter. Sirius.
James lies still in bed, trying desperately not to think. Normal life seems an impossible goal, distant and unthinkable. He is shaken at the mere thought of getting out of bed, of dressing
(tempting stretch of denim across tight flesh, worn jeans riding dangerously low on narrow hips)
and going downstairs and smiling for his loving, waiting family.
He loves them, Lily and Harry—fiercely and without reservation. Lily is everything he ever hoped for in a wife, and more; their son is the light of his life.
But he does not have to wonder whether it was worth the trade—his best friend
("There is no one compares with you…")
for his family. He already knows the answer.
James cannot get out of bed today.
iii.
It is only a dog.
James thinks it over and over again, just a dog only a dog just a dog not not not, but he cannot stop staring at the body lying crumpled in the street.
It is only a dog, filthy and skeletal—a bony black outline against the pavement. From this distance, he cannot discern a breathing pattern. It is probably dead. Merlin only knows where it came from, or how it ended up here.
("I'm sorry. Fuck. I'm a mess. I don't mean to—fuck, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. D'you want me to go?")
It is only a dog—but what if? What if it is alive? What if it needs help? What if it—but, no. It is not.
But what if it was?
Something powerful is breaking in his chest, restless and anguished and hopeful, and he leans against the doorframe and struggles for breath.
("Mrs. Potter—just the face I was hoping to see! Looking lovely as always, of course. Yes, I would love to come in, thank you. James makes a terrible welcoming committee, you know, but he's your son, so I suppose there's hope for him yet.")
And then there is a hand on his shoulder, and a voice. Harry. "Dad? Are you all right?" The boy sounds concerned.
It's all right, Harry, he tries to say, but his mouth is dry. Come, let's go back in the house.
It is only a dog, he tries to say, but the words will not come.
"Dad? Do you need me to get Mum?"
He shakes his head, No. Not Lily. Not yet.
Why does he linger? He is waiting for something—for the dog to move, to stand, to change
(matted black fur melting into bone-white flesh, long brittle limbs, sharp slice of bone against transparent skin)
or disappear. But the dog is only a dog, probably dead. All the waiting in the world won't change that.
And if it did?
What of his family? What of his life? It is not, but if it was—what then? Everything would change. He might give up everything—and for what?
(broken skeleton of a long-lost lover)
(tortured ghost of a ruined man)
(bare echo of a life long abandoned)
Surely he is not willing to pay that price.
"Dad?"
Surely.
The dog shudders, suddenly—a twitch of black fur, barely visible from this distance. The barest jerk of a shaggy head, thudding hard against the pavement. A soft, nearly inaudible sound halfway between a whimper and a whine.
Harry's voice is louder, now, calling to him, but James doesn't hear. He is already running.
