Miss Moony would like to dedicate this chapter to pandas rule the world for being the first reviewer.
Miss Moony would also like to thank supersticiousmonkey89, Georgie Gryffindor, Summer Rain of '89, misstress of the flames, siriuslyaphanatic, kvl, lil lotte, king's-own-knight, wiccan-jessica, Freakstar, shazia Born confused, Catri Howlman-Carthaki spy, female half – breed, Chriss, Fk306 animelover, moonypadfoot, Xandria Nirvana (thrice!), SakuraKino, maliaphire, DreamlikeCheese, Sivaroobini Lupin-Black, Adm. Bones, Lady Lily3, plutobaby494, Mistress of Eternal Night (twice!), The Female Nerd, Serindipity9, paige-rossi-black, Kara Adar and Smittened By Marauders for reviewing.
To Catri Howlman-Carthaki spy: He is, rather, isn't he? Hmm… And as for the disaster, well, you'll see.
To paige-rossi-black: I know; I'm evil.
To misstress of the flames: The title refers to Harry's missing Sirius. Which is the main reason he was sent back in time in the first place.
To king's-own-knight: Probably, but then again, no one from the past actually knows that Harry & co. are time-travellers.
To maliaphire: Harry's picking Sirius all the time because… erm… I don't know. I didn't notice that, actually. Oops.
To DreamlikeCheese: I'm not going to get into an argument about this now, but the general reason is that I really, really can't see H/G working in the long-run, whatever the all-powerful authoress might say about it.
To Serindipity9: H/Hr? I've not had that request for this fic before. But, still, no. The ships are H/L, R/Hr and G/N (see, you do get one of your pairings!).
To The Female Nerd: Erm… still Christmas holidays, and, well, "stuff" is happening, though I can't really elaborate on that right now.
And to everyone who asked "what disaster?", the only answer I have is "read on, and you'll see".
Warnings for character death in this chapter.
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Chapter 17
Janice and Thomas Potter were two of the Ministry's top Aurors. They were both young and intelligent and extremely enthusiastic about their jobs. They were also both a part of the Auror unit that was sent to hold off the Death Eaters who had attacked the Muggle town of Woking in Surrey.
The Ministry was baffled, though: there was very little of interest to Pureblood-elitists in Surrey. In fact, the only reason – that they could see – that Voldemort would launch a raid there would be because it was a predominantly Muggle place. However, there was one witch who lived in the village, with her parents. She was a Hogwarts student, a Gryffindor, in her seventh year.
Her name was Lily Evans.
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Losing one's parents, in the same place, on the same day, to the same person, for the same reason, is something that can forge bonds between even the most hostile of humans. It is something that neither need explain, because they both understand it perfectly. There are no words, only comfort in the knowledge that they are not alone.
After the attack on Woking, Lily Evans and James Potter were both orphans, and, as they were both legal adults, Lily was allowed to choose between fending for herself, staying with her sister, or accepting the invitation that James had issued for her to stay with him, in his inherited house, until it was time to return to school.
Lily spent the rest of Christmas at Godric's Hollow. Surprisingly, she and James managed to find rather a lot of common ground.
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Peter and Remus both found themselves rather disconcerted by this new James. The James who wasn't interested in enthusiastically launching prank after prank on the teachers, or investigating the new Defence professors, or in hexing Slytherins – Snape was a special case, of course.
This James was the James Potter who had won the broken heart of Lily Evans, his One True Love. This James was a lost soul in an ocean of memories and not-memories and flashes of bright green light.
And of course, other than Lily and Sirius, the only friends he had who somewhat understood what he was going through at the moment, everyone was so on edge around him that he had no hope of finding himself again.
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Staring intently at the jar of small spiders on his desk, Harry winced. 'Today,' he said once the class had settled and was looking at him expectantly in complete silence, 'we are going to be studying the Unforgivable Curses.'
A hand raised in the second row. 'May we leave, Professor?' James asked, obviously meaning himself, Lily and Sirius.
Sorry, he said inwardly. Aloud, he answered, 'No, Mr. Potter. This is a subject that you need to know as much was your classmates do. Any other questions?'
No one spoke, so Harry began the lesson, not noticing the curious expression on Remus Lupin's face. He lingered behind after the lesson, though, and approached Harry's desk after the other students had gone.
'Thanks,' he said sincerely.
'For what?'
'For treating him normally. Someone needs to snap him out of this daze, Professor, but everyone's too nervous to try.'
Harry blinked in surprise. 'You're welcome,' he said, and then Remus left.