A/N: Thank you to everybody who has reviewed! All of the encouragement really helps move this along like you wouldn't believe. So keep it up! And happy reading.

When James and Harry got downstairs, Sirius' wand was laying four feet from him and he was frantically tap-dancing. "Prongs," he said breathlessly. "That bird is crazy. Help me out, will you?"

James had half of an urge to let him continue his mambo, but came to the conclusion that he didn't have the time and quickly shot him the countercurse. Sirius stumbled to one side, swearing violently. "Next I see that bloody redhead, I'm going to—"

"Touch her, Padfoot, and I'll have to kill you. You know that." James said breezily. "So what were you doing, mate, that got her so hot?" Honestly, it had been a while since he had seen Lily this mad. It seemed like since the beginning of this year, her irritation with the Marauders was half-feigned, enough that they had something close to an unacknowledged friendship, which (with everyone except Remus) was a step upward even if she still wouldn't go out with him.

"Nothing!" Sirius whined. "I just came over to show Moony and Wormtail him," he gestured to Harry exhaustedly. "And she went batshit and hexed me! Just for being friendly."

Harry shuffled next to him, and James nodded. "Sure she did, Padfoot. Listen, you need to stop going about and shouting to everyone who will listen about Harry. I'm serious. Dumbledore asked us specifically to keep this down, alright?"

"But why?" Sirius asked, and there was nothing but puzzlement in his voice. "Is there something wrong with him?"

"No," Harry responded, sounding almost indignant.

Sirius lifted a muscled arm towards the boy, pointing. "Well, then what happened to your head there, mate?"

Harry didn't immediately answer and they dropped the discussion for a minute as four third-year girls came down the staircase of their dormitories. With furtive glances at Sirius, they giggled, clearly having witnessed his dancing performance earlier. Sirius snarled at them as they passed. Then he turned his attention to James, sobering up quickly when he saw the glimmer of panic in James' face. "Hey, Prongs, what's going on?"

James tried to mask his expression, but with a burst of clarity, Sirius realized that this wasn't just a wacky situation. He looked at Harry's silent form next to James, a sudden shadow at Lily's side and a stark copy of younger James. He couldn't believe he hadn't seen it sooner. Something was actually very…odd about this. And both of his fellow Gryffindors were jumpy. Very jumpy.

"Nothing, Padfoot. It's what we said," James hedged, messing up his hair nervously. "Look, just…stop talking about Harry to everyone, okay? We promised Dumbledore and Lily will freak if I mess this up. And I've really been trying to…" he let his voice wander off, not feeling the need to elaborate and sacrifice his dignity. Sirius knew how he felt about Lily, and he could stuff it if he didn't think that was a good enough reason.

Sirius crossed his arms over his broad chest, unimpressed with James' story, but somehow managing to look less frightening than a petite Lily had done minutes earlier. "Get a grip, Prongs. For the record, your little ginger love is a pretty terrible liar too. I know you aren't telling me something. So spill it or piss off! I'm your best mate! So who is this kid?"

James nearly laughed, because even he didn't know the answer to that. His best mate could tell that something was off, and yet James was blindly going along with this, not able to tell Sirius anything even if he wanted to. He glanced back at Harry, seeking something from him, perhaps reassurance that he was doing the right thing. But Harry looked back at him and he was still just a kid—a foot and a half shorter than him and skinny with rounded cheeks. His innocence was so apparent. And James couldn't ask it of him.

"Padfoot, I'll tell you what I can later. I swear." He finally turned back to Sirius. "But until then, you keep your big, fat mouth shut, you hear?"

Sirius glared for a prolonged moment, but when James didn't back down, he dropped his arms and sighed. "You've got a deal, Prongs. For now."

James remembered when he and Sirius were first-years and sat down for breakfast on their second day at Hogwarts. Sirius got a Howler from his mother (the first of many), and they both leaned in, examining that smoking, blood-red envelope.

"Better open it now," one of the Prewett boys told Sirius. He was eyeing the correspondence cautiously. "If you don't do it right away, it'll be ten times worse."

James thought that Sirius would rip it open right away after hearing that, but he didn't. Instead, he sat it next to his plate of bacon, smoking curling forth from it with more and more gusto until it finally exploded by itself and Sirius' mother's voice was magnified so loudly that James thought his eardrums would shatter. As his mother cursed him for a blood traitor and accused him of disgracing the Black name for being sorted into Gryffindor, Sirius sat at the table, a smirk plastered on his face as he listened to his unhinged mum go on and on. And that was the moment that James first realized that Sirius Black did not get told what to do. He was defiance personified. And there wasn't going to be any holding him off for long about anything, no matter how nicely James asked.

He was getting that headache again…the same one he had gotten just outside Dumbledore's office, when Evans asked Harry if there was anything else that he could tell them. Something wasn't clicking and it should have been.

He couldn't think when he looked at Harry. He couldn't think when he was with Sirius, and Sirius wanted to know. And then Moony and Wormtail would want to know, would ask questions. But James had no answers, and it he couldn't remember the last time he had had to be dishonest with his friends. They had just been through too much.

"You go on ahead," James heard himself say, but the words sounded far away, not within his vicinity. "I left Lily…upstairs. 've gotta go back up and get her."

"Sure mate, whatever." Sirius didn't even make his usual innuendo-laden remark, which meant that he was pissed. But again, that information felt separate, like a limb that had lost its feeling. He would make it up to him later…and Remus, and Peter. James' hand found Harry's shoulder and he was pushing him back up the stairs.

"C'mon…"

The throbbing in his skull had faded by the time he was greeted with the sight of dark red hair spilling over his pillow and a scrunched-up, perfect little nose. He smiled fondly at it for a moment before his mind snapped back on track. "Evans."

She started and her brilliant eyes opened and found him upside-down. There was a faint blush from being found across the bed like that, but she seemed determined not to acknowledge it. "Sorry, got a little dizzy…Sirius?"

"I talked to him and held him off for a little while. Emphasis on 'a little while'." James dropped onto the bed as Lily struggled to her knees. "But listen… we're not going to class."

She immediately sat up, looking aghast. Her eyes ghosted over Harry, standing just in front of them looking a bit worried, before she made eye contact with James again. And that reaction made James even more certain about his decision. "What the bloody hell do you mean, we're not going to class?"

A cocktail of impatience, trepidation, confusion, and utmost certainty was swarming around in his head. She demanded that he explain it to her—but then he knew, he knew that she was reaching the same conclusions that he was. And he didn't know why or how he knew this. But that quiet kid with his face and Evans' eyes was still standing before them and there was a connection between the three of them that James could sense, but he couldn't make sense of. And in that moment, he couldn't explain it to Lily. But he had to get her to go with him.

"Evans, I'm not—can you just trust me for a minute here?" he said. It was the first desperate thought that popped into his head. And she frowned at him.

"Why?" He wasn't expecting that one word to sound so pained, but it did and he would rather have her spitting mad at him than hear her like that. Suddenly, the conversation swerved into a dangerous place. He knew what was implicit in that word: why should I trust you when I never have been able to? Why should I trust you when you've never acted your age and bullied people for as long as I've known you? Why should I trust you when I'm a muggleborn and I really can't trust anyone…not even someone who was supposed to be my best friend?

For the thousandth time since the incident, he dearly wished that he had never set upon Snape that day by the lake. He suspected that he (by extension) had caused Lily more hurt that day than he had at any other time.

And though her pain distracted him, he didn't have the time to mull it over. He had to convince her of what he already knew.

"Look, Evans, if you can't trust me, can you at least trust yourself? Because this makes sense. You were dizzy, Evans. Why? You feel it too, this thing, whatever it is." James put his hand on the bedspread, centimeters from her own and for a second that was all she could concentrate on. "Tell me that you don't."

She didn't say anything, and through her silence, James had his answer. And he looked over at Harry, watching the scene with something like awe, watching them interact. This entire time, ever since they had met this boy, he had been merely watching them. It was the reason that Lily had asked him "why?" in a moment of lost control. There was a timidity to the first-year that James couldn't ignore, but neither could he ignore this insane, nonsensical desire to get out and get away from the headaches and the questions. By some instinct that James didn't know he possessed, he knew it needed to be just the three of them. So he looked at Harry and he didn't smile. "You're going to talk."

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James' vehemence made him nervous, but Harry didn't allow himself to hesitate his answer. "I can't," he said. "I'm sorry."

The frustration in the air was palpable. And Harry wasn't quite sure how this had so quickly gotten out of control (though he wanted to blame James' loud friend, Sirius or Pawfoot or whatever), or what his parental counterparts were reacting to. He knew how he felt, because he already knew who they were. But they didn't know him or understand why they had been appointed responsible for him.

They were just told to do it, and they did. But Harry could figure out by now that James wasn't one to take orders without question or even with question, and both of them were too intelligent not to suspect something. Even if the truth was so unbelievable that they couldn't imagine it.

Lily looked from one to the other, clearly at war with herself on whom to support. Harry's presence seemed to be affecting both of them, and he didn't know how to force that to stop…or how to force his parents' classmates from staring, commenting, and mounting their self-doubt. He didn't understand how Dumbledore thought this was going to work.

"This was a mistake," Harry said finally, glumly. He really had no idea why the mirror had dropped him here with his parents. For one thing, they didn't seem to like each other too much. And Harry's existence in their lives right now was nothing but a terrible inconvenience. There was nothing he could gain by being here with them, especially since he couldn't tell him who he was.

"What was a mistake?" Lily quietly asked. Suddenly, Harry was the object of her intense scrutiny. And he realized with a small stab of irrational betrayal that she was taking James' part.

But his teenage father interjected. "Not yet."

He stood up and opened the trunk at the foot of his bed before pulling out something very new and yet, very familiar to Harry, The beat in his chest tripped faster as his father pulled out the Invisibility Cloak and his mother's eyebrows rose at the sight of it.

"Potter?"

"Feel special, Lilykins," he grinned abruptly at her. "I've been waiting for you to become privy to this one."

Harry could tell that Lily did not particularly like the look on James' face. He could see his father gearing up for this, ready to trust her with something that he hadn't before. Maybe get her into a little trouble. And he saw that Lily could read all of this and the chagrin was creeping into her expression.

And despite his growing unease, Harry found himself grinning at her too.

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"Padfoot, you're daft." Remus was bent over his Potions' text as he broke across Sirius' mutterings with his usual matter-of-fact response. Charms had come and gone and there had been no sign of Lily or James. Sirius, of course, had his ideas about what the two of them were getting up to in favor of class. And surprisingly, it didn't involve shagging in a broom closet.

"What's daft about it?" Sirius hissed, swiping the steam out of his face with a careless hand. "Where else could they be?"

"Isn't Jamesie Junior a first-year exchange student?" Peter put in. "Why would the two of them go off and take him to Hogsmeade? Isn't the point that he be here and get familiar with the school?" Just for that, Sirius decided not to tell Peter that he was completely over-mashing his mandrake root.

"The map would show them." Sirius argued. After Charms, he had slipped back to Gryffindor Tower to retrieve the map, and no dot labeled "Evans" or "Potter" ever manifested. "The map never lies. And Evans…I just asked Mary and Marlene, and neither of them know—"

"We know, Pad…" Remus sighed. "But I really doubt that they're together. Lily has been pretty frustrated with his guard-dog routine, if you haven't noticed. But I'm sure that James will tell us where he's gone when he gets back. It's really unlikely that—"

The tall, thin boy dropped off at Sirius's snappish shushing and looked up to see what had caught his attention. Across the way, a pale, black-eyed boy seemed to be examining his Potion, but Remus noticed the way his eyes kept shifting toward them, and his head angled itself just so.

"Hey, Snivellus," Sirius hissed. "You might wanna mind your business before you start minding other people's. You never know when something's going to blow up in your face." Peter let out a murmur of warning when Sirius' wand came out twisting threateningly in the handsome Gryffindor's hand.

Snape did look over then, and his lip curled at the object aimed at him. And he did take the bait. "Black…resorting to unprovoked, mindless violence… I can't tell you how shocked I am."

Black flashed his eyeteeth, eyeing the Slytherin with a hungry look. Remus took a quick check to the front of the room and saw that Slughorn was casting more and more looks their way. "Sirius…"

"I'd be careful, greaseball," Sirius ignored Moony. "You might hear something you don't like."

Peter was grinning now, anticipating what was to come. And though Remus knew that Sirius would never again pull a stunt like the one that almost got Snape killed, he was also well-aware of the fact that Sirius rarely adhered to the expression "look before you leap".

And Sirius didn't disappoint. "Why, look who's missing today…Potter and Evans. Now why do you think that might be? Hmmm…" While he pretended to ruminate over that, Peter snickered and Snape looked absolutely white with fury.

"You're an idiot, Black. Lily would never—"

"Gentleman, is there a problem?" Slughorn called from the front of the room. Their eyes all shot back to the front and Sirius pocketed his wand. After a disgruntled chorus of "no, sir", Slughorn turned back to his desk and Sirius turned back to Snape, ripping away from Remus' hand touching on his robe. Unfortunately, Slughorn's question had attracted the attention of both Nott and Mulciber, sitting in front of Snape. And they were now leaning over to listen, most likely hopeful that a fight would break out or that they would have opportunity to begin one.

"Oh, so it's Lily still?" Sirius was glaring outright, though his voice had dropped lower. "That's not what you were calling her last year, was it? You slimy son-of-a-bitch."

"Don't talk about things you don't understand, Black. Which is most everything," Snape returned coldly, though he was now flushing.

"I know what you called her. And I saw you almost tearing your ear off to hear what I was saying about where Evans had gone with my best mate."

"Your best mate is a pathetic, sniveling blood traitor," Nott chimed before Snape could.

"And you lot are sad, Death Eater-wannabees," Peter shot back.

"What is going on back there?" Slughorn asked again, this time he was more than suspicious and would shortly be heading this way. Remus rolled his eyes. This wasn't going to end well, but then recently, nothing really ever did.

"Prove it, Pettigrew," Snape sneered. "Funny how this all started because the Gryffindors have such a bloated ego that they assume everybody is trying to hear what they have to say."

"More like you're desperate to make sure that Evans isn't shagging James. That's what you're really afraid of, isn't it, Snivellus?"

There was one solitary beat of silence before an answer came. And it wasn't from Snape. "Why," Mulciber asked, "would any Slytherin be jealous or surprised that Potter is taking up with that filthy, overrated, little slag of a Mudblood?"

The last was said loudly that several of the other Gryffindors whipped around in outrage, Slytherins in interest, but no one was too surprised when Sirius took the bait with an indignant roar, and Remus took a deep, calming breath as three cauldrons of half-concocted potions exploded and drenched the Slytherin end of the room. With many impatient grumblings about "language" and "violence", Slughorn started passing out detentions like they were Chocolate Frogs.

And nobody noticed how Snape's expression had contorted to something like agony. Or the way his hands shook when he received his punishment.

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"Potter, you don't have to keep touching my back and shoving me. I can see perfectly well where we're going. We're walking in a straight line!"

"Just ignore me like you usually do, Evans. I can enjoy myself just fine without your input. And my hands aren't hurting you."

"Well, your big feet are. I swear, I'll be bleeding by the time you get me to whatever illegal place you're taking us to."

Harry groaned, but his parents were too involved in their argument to pay much notice. They had been going at it ever since they had realized how little space they would be afforded with three people (two nearly adults) huddled under the cloak together. James was taking every opportunity afforded to him to touch Lily, and Lily had no qualms about making her displeasure known, but hadn't yet done anything too violent to prevent it.

There was a certain level of dark humor in the idea that though he had come through time and a mirror to meet his parents, they were far too absorbed in the friction of their relationship to pay him much attention.

Maybe if he continued to let them carry on like they currently were, they would forget all about Harry and he could slip away and find the mirror for himself.

But somehow, Harry could not bring himself to do that. Instead, he continued down the passageway his father had directed, wondering where it would lead him.