Note: I'm going by my level of vision for James; which is to say, rather bad. It's what I'll best be able to describe the fuzziness of, and it seems to make the most sense to me.

2nd part: If you haven't clued in that there will be some anomalies, please do me a favour: dunk yourself in a rain-barrel before continuing.

November 12, 1981

One month past the defeat of the dark lord Voldemort, at Godric's Hollow, at roughly seven thirty that evening.

James Potter opened his eyes with a wince as he became aware that he was lying on the stairs in his home. Why he was there was beyond him at the moment, as he hazily looked across the hall and tried to get around the stuffed cotton feeling in his head. Lily usually threatened to make him sleep in the doghouse, despite them lacking one, but never had she threatened with the staircase. And he couldn't get anything to focus properly. Where were his glasses? He moved his arm to the side to see what was around him and gasped sharply. He recognized that feeling in his arm; he'd broken enough bones in Quidditch to recognize it any day of the week. Trying the other arm he found it to be in better condition than his right one, simply stinging like the dickens as he tried to sit up.

Sitting up appeared to be a mistake though, as once he was up there he was swamped with a massive headache. He closed his eyes to wait for it to pass, and then opened them once more when it didn't abate to get as good a look he could at his house.

He immediately noticed something was very wrong. Even the growing dark couldn't hide the distinct mess of the living room as he looked out on it.

All the furniture was clearly damaged. Things were strewn everywhere across the floor, dark shapes that were missing from the shelves on the wall, which now were at odd angles to what they should be. The silhouettes he was used to were all in the wrong spots, or completely wrong shapes. The pale walls had black smirches and starbursts everywhere, and he could smell the faint tang of char. He was shocked, and leaned forward to the railing to catch his balance. He was so tired, he failed to notice it wasn't there any longer and he fell to his knees on the ground that was fortunately close below him, landing on a number of things that proceeded to break and getting something sharp imbedded in his hands and knees.

The pain cleared the fog from his mind, and he came reeling back to what had happened not too long ago that he could remember: Voldemort, the fight, that horrible green light, and the horrid, sick laughter. However, it wasn't memories of Voldemort that had him doubled-over and gasping. It was the memory that it was Peter who was responsible for this, that Peter, the talentless brat he'd befriended, included, and trusted through school and beyond, that that rat had betrayed them. He felt a bitter taste spread through his mouth, and it wasn't going away. He wasn't sure he wanted it to.

James clenched his hands in the glass beneath him, ignoring the bite into his flesh, and the feel of warm blood on his fingers until he heard someone gasp above him. He held very still for a long few moments before he heard a soft whisper of his name in a heart-wrenchingly familiar voice.

"James… That you?"

James began to list the worst curses he knew in his mind over and over again as he turned to look at her. He'd taken so long to simply think and aimlessly ponder why he couldn't see properly and what was feeling so off, and his family had just been attacked by Voldemort, and he couldn't even figure out that both his glasses and his wand were completely missing and his wife and children were in danger.

James choked as he remembered his little boy, and why they'd hidden to begin with. "Lily, it's me. Harry, where's Harry? Merlin, what happened?"

James heard Lily gasp, and she then began to walk slowly down the stairs, speaking. "James, God, I was so scared you were gone… He's not here James, but Rhiannon; she's in my arms. Don't you have your glasses, or your wand?" Her voice caught as she spoke, breaking with relief before she cleared her throat and summoned his wand. James felt the air move over his head as it flew into her grasp, and he got up behind it. He took a step to right and felt what seemed miserably like his glasses frame bend beneath his feet.

"Lils, don't summon my glasses yet. I think I landed on them when I fell off the stairs, and got the lenses in my hands." James admitted bitterly. Lily chuckled.

"And having glass summoned out of your hands is not the exacting process you'd like?"

"No. No, it's not. Is my wand in one piece?" James asked, moving towards her shape. It wasn't too hard to find her, as her red hair still had colour in the dimming light. He stepped up to her side on the stairs, and she handed him his wand. He sighed as he grasped it, a deep sigh of relief. It was fully intact, and not even damaged. It was quite relieving, and he immediately hugged Lily as tightly as he could with only one arm reliably responding to his will. He needed to know she was there, sore and broken as he was or not. Lily returned a similarly one-armed hug, holding their daughter in her arms. James felt a faint sense of confusion rise about the young girl, but he brushed it aside for the moment. "What happened? To Harry." He asked, choking up.

"I don't know, when I woke up, he just wasn't there. But, our sweet little girl was just fine, she wasn't even crying." Lily answered, although her voice changed slightly as she spoke about the girl Rhiannon. She sighed lightly. "What I'm wondering is how we're fine, now. Do you happen to have a memory of that horrifyingly familiar green light before we just now 'woke up'?" James nodded numbly.

"I heard him say it, the Avada Kedavra. He- He was mocking me. I- I was exhausted, and -and… Merlin, I had been hoping so hard that you'd somehow just gotten away, and somehow had survived…" He gave a short, bitter laugh. "And somehow we both got out of this. Somehow." Lily reached up and grabbed him again around the head and pulled his forehead up against hers.

"I have no idea how we are alive James, but I'm not asking that question right now. I'm more worried about what everyone is going to think about us still being living past that – that spell. From him. James, how can that even happen? My head seems to have gotten completely jumbled up from all this, I can't even think straight, and I keep wondering when we had a daughter-" Lily cut herself off short and met James' eyes in shock before they both just stared at the little girl in their arms. She had a small, messy mop of black hair, and she looked older than Harry, but as Lily voiced that she couldn't remember when they had a daughter, they both froze as that information called up a mix of thoughts of blatant confusion, a vague sense of when, and a where. But none of which fit into their personal timeline, as they could remember other events happening at the same times. James slowly reached forward to stroke her hair away from her face, and the girl just smiled blearily, and curled against her mother's chest. Her eyes were a green-hazel, and she had a face very like James' own. James shook his head in confusion.

"She looks a lot like me. I… I can't doubt she's ours. Who knows, maybe it's some – some penance, taking care of her, for our apparent resurrection." James grinned shakily. "Besides, you always wanted a daughter. After we have now apparently woken up from getting hit with the killing curse from Voldemort, are you going to spend too much time wondering about how we acquired a second child? Maybe some cad dropped her in this abandoned building as he no longer wanted her, and it just happened to occur just before we apparently 'came back'." Lily was shaking her head in exasperation, and now she finally just cuffed him behind his ear.

"Alright, alright already. We'll take on the girl, our child or not. Happy?" Lily waited for him to grin at her and she scowled weakly once more. "So now, we have to find Harry and prove we're alive. Shouldn't we be more worried about that, and about Sirius?" The colour drained from James' face, and his face grew stricken.

"Lils, what day is it?" Lily looked at him blankly. "Lily, look! The sun is setting. It was coming on to midnight when Voldemort came and attacked us. It's been at least a day! And I can barely smell anything of burned wood. What can you see?" James nearly demanded, his voice growing hoarse.

Lily glanced around the room, remaining very still as she took in the nearly bare room, with the destroyed furniture and items littered across the floor. However, as she remembered in the room above, there was nothing left there in even half decent condition, and any intact pictures or photographs had been removed. Everything left was also very damp, as though it had been rained on and left there. She idly glanced around again, and then turned back to James. "It's been a while, I'd assume. We're missing some things, and it looks like the remainder has been through a few rainstorms. James, what might have happened?"

"Lily… I have no idea." James idly shook his head, questions chasing each other around in his mind. "Maybe… Maybe we should just go to Sirius' flat. You remember where that is?" Lily looked closely at James' face, reading him as she had many times before. He was in mild shock, clearly, with his eyes almost looking glassy, and he was fighting something. Probably the same something she was struggling with in her own mind.

"James… Yes, I remember." James' face lit up, and he began to speak. Lily overrode him. "But everyone thought he was our secret-keeper, James. If Peter betrayed us, do you think he wouldn't frame Sirius? Sirius was the only other person to know that he was the rat, and don't you go laughing at that. Sirius was the only person who could finger him as the traitor. Think on that, James! Sirius could be dead, in Azkaban, kissed, or just gone. So could Harry; we could be in a world where Voldemort has already won!" The thought of that made bile rise in Lily's throat, but she forced it down. "Have you thought past anything at all here? We don't know that Harry is alive!" Lily choked on her last words, and she had to bite her lip to keep it from trembling. Her voice began to verge on panic, but she took hold of it, and forced calm back into her voice. "Maybe… maybe we should just go to Sirius'. If he is there, we can ask him some questions. If he isn't, we can… we can stay there, if it seems abandoned, or maybe we could go to Remus." Lily's voice just dropped. "Lets just go, James."

James shivered, and gripped Lily's hand in his to pull her close, ignoring the glass biting deeper into his hand. Lily ignored it as well as she placed her head on his shoulder and hugged their daughter between them. "Alright, Lily. We'll go to Sirius, to see if anyone's there. I should have a spare pair of glasses there as well; I'd always break them when I was out with him. We'll clear all this up, okay? We'll keep fighting." Lily nodded with her head still against his shoulder. "This is all so confusing… you think you can apparate with … Rhiannon? I can take her if you need me too …"

Lily stood up straight again, and shook her head, wiping her tears off her face with her free hand. "No, I can do it fine myself. I only had to fetch you there every other day." James laughed palely, and stepped up to kiss her on the forehead, and then to do the same to the small girl she was holding.

"See you at Sirius' flat then?" James asked quietly. Lily swallowed and nodded, and James apparated away. She followed him within moments, and arrived in the dark living room she knew quite well. James wasn't within her sight, and she panicked.

"James? James, are you there?" Lily called. A thud echoed from in the hallway, and then she heard James cuss loudly. "James, where are you? And where are the lights?"

"Give me a minute! It seems no one's been in here for a month or something." The rooms all lit up suddenly, giving light to most everything. "Ah, found them. Owww, Bloody –cursed – Give me a minute, Lily, and I'll get out there to you. I just need to get my glasses on, and to fetch some washcloths. I want my hands clean."

Lily scowled. "And what if someone else moved in, and it's their stuff, and not that of your best friend?" She snapped. James came out of the bedroom and strolled into the living room confidently, despite the cloths draped over his forearm and the blood drying on his hands, and down his knees. He gently touched her face with his fingertips and pecked her on the cheek.

"Because no other idiot would have a picture of my wedding and my son on his bedside table, no other idiot would have left a pair of yellow paw-print boxers lying on his bed when he went to go get himself in trouble. And besides, I did find my glasses here. You think someone new would've left them around?"

Lily scowled. "And the fact that you hid them in the doorframe of his bedroom would've let them find them how?"

James simply raised his eyebrows and dropped into the loveseat by the fireplace, holding out his hands, the washcloths, and a small bowl filled with water. Lily rolled her eyes and set Rhiannon down on the part of the couch spelled so no little children could fall off. She could no longer deny that all of this was Sirius' stuff, and she also knew he owned the place outright, unless someone could prove he was dead. Which he wasn't, of course.

Lily knelt in front of James, and then gently took his hand in hers. There were mostly small shards imbedded in the flesh, and it was an exacting task to get them out, as she wasn't quite so skilled in magic as to want to spell them out. She just wanted to be careful. They remained silent while Lily worked, and Rhiannon just calmly curled up and went to sleep, which, although Lily was sure that was unusual, she was rather grateful for it at the moment. Perhaps the child was tired from whatever force brought her to them, as she could now clearly remember that there was no incident in her life explaining the girl's presence in her personal timeline. That she'd keep the child was no real question in her mind; the little girl was gorgeous, and clearly had no other mother. If she wasn't truly theirs, she was at the least abandoned.

"James? What will we do about Rhiannon?" Lily asked idly, pulling another shard out of his left hand now, the other and his knees already knitting themselves together under a mild healing spell.

"Erg, ah, the little girl? Why do anything about her? She's our child, we know that much, so what's the question?" James responded absently, trying to ignore the pain. "Oww, can't you just vanish it like a normal wizard? You can fish out any pieces you missed after, can't you?"

Lily yanked the next piece out rather brutally, bringing James to almost howl. "I could, but this is more… personal, isn't it? And I just wanted to check your feelings about her, that's all I was asking for." James looked at her reproachfully, but she rather effectively ignored him to work one of the final small pieces out in a gentler manner. A few moments later, she finished. "Well, that's done James. Coalescere. Now then." Lily rocked back on her heels and looked up at James as he rubbed his palms together to check how they felt. He glanced up to give her his attention as she spoke. "It would appear that Sirius is not here, and from what you said, he hasn't been here for a while. That would mean that something very likely happened to him, and that that something was really rather nasty. Now, my question is: whom do we seek out next? It's about nine at night, so most people are getting ready for bed, and I'm sure you noticed the moon outside. It's full, so most common sense would say to not go visit Remus right now." However, Lily had a slight sinking feeling in her stomach as James sat up straight at her mention of that and grinned wickedly. "James-"

"Lily, this is perfect! I can go visit Remus and the introduction will be so much easier to explain this way. He can see me, and then come up with some reasoning himself so we can get past that first whole disbelief issue."

"And he'll very likely consider you some hallucination of his desperate mind in a time of madness." Lily snapped. James was unaffected.

"No, Remus knows to trust his nose as a werewolf, and he'll know my scent in a moment. He can't discount that, and I can leave him a note."

Lily made a sound like an angry cat. "Doesn't he lock himself in his closet in his house every full moon? Wouldn't that make running into him both difficult, and bloody dangerous if you were to let him out?"

"He's got a decent plot of land to run in if he's got some clarity."

"And that clarity usually came from a set of three other people."

"You still don't have your Animagus down, do you Lily?"

"I thought we'd clarified I didn't have the ability, James." Lily's voice was painfully dry.

James winced. "Dang it. Well, fine. We'll go to his house and stay upstairs until morning then. Does that sound better? Then we can help him patch himself up, and work out all that's happened. Is that fine with you, Mrs. Lily Potter?" James snipped. Lily sighed.

"Can't we just stay here James? We can appropriate Sirius' bed if he's not here anymore, and then we can apparate to Lupin's at dawn."

James blinked. "I suppose that's an okay idea." He opened his mouth to continue, but Rhiannon had woken up, and she began to loudly reassert her presence in the unforgettable form of a baby's shrieking voice. Lily and James both winced, then smiled wearily at each other before moving to see if the baby supplies they'd left with Sirius were still there.