Disclaimer: This world and all its characters belong to JK Rowling. I wrote this purely for entertainment purposes, and have no wish to sell, copyright or otherwise claim any of this content.

Remus kept a firm grip on James' wrist as he led him back to the street which would take them to Grimmauld Place. Although they hadn't gone far, there were quite a few muggles on the street, and James had taken enough turns that they couldn't see the park from where they were.

James tugged, trying to free his arm. "You can let go now, Moony. I won't run off again, I swear."

Remus glanced back at him and, deciding he wasn't about to explode anymore, grinned and asked, "You swear, do you?"

James rolled his eyes. "Yes, Moony, I solemnly swear, only I'm not up to no good, I just want you to let go. I'm not a bloody child."

"Language," Remus said automatically, but he let go of James' arm. They continued, and just as they were about to turn onto the main street which would take them to Grimmauld Place, Remus heard the far-off sound of a siren. He stopped, listening intently, and James walked right into him.

"Ow, Moony, what –?"

"Shh!" Remus hissed. He knew it was probably nothing, but since neither James nor Sirius seemed inclined to take Sirius' current criminal status seriously, Remus had felt the need to be extra vigilant to compensate for their lack of attention. He knew he was probably being paranoid, but if those sirens were for Sirius….

"Remus, what is it?" James asked quietly, his hand hovering near his pocket where his wand was and his body tense. A passing muggle gave them an odd look.

Remus shook his head, straining his ears. Then, hearing the whir of a fast moving car coming in their direction, he cursed and took off running, dodging through the startled people crowding the street. "Remus!" James called urgently, starting into a run behind him. "What's wrong?"

"I think the muggles are here for Sirius," Remus called back. The siren blipped again, this time much closer, and Remus knew that James could hear it now. He lengthened his stride, willing his legs to go faster. A small vehicle with flashing lights zoomed past and pulled up beside a clump of people standing near a bus stop. Two figures emerged, shouting instructions, but Remus was still too far away to hear what they were saying.

James drew up so that he was level with Remus, and Remus saw that he had his wand up as well. Although they were both running as fast as they could, Remus couldn't banish the terrible feeling that they were too late. Some of the muggles in the crowd turned and hurried away, and in the space that they cleared Remus could see Sirius backing away from another man, who had a wand pointed at him –

Peter.

The world seemed to slow down, and Remus could do nothing more than watch helplessly as everything seemed to happen at once. He watched as Peter said something, and then his lips quirked into a little smile as his mouth began forming the incantation for a curse. He saw James' eyes widen as he realized what was happening, saw Sirius twist to shelter something – no, someone – who he held in his arms; then Remus' wand was up, pointed at Peter while James shouted something, his own wand up and trained on Sirius –

And then the world exploded, and Remus was thrown backwards by the force of the explosion Peter's spell had caused. For a moment he couldn't see anything, only feel the hard concrete beneath him, and the only sound was the ringing in his ears. Gasping, Remus pushed himself to his feet, his head pounding and his skin burning. Around him, he could hear people screaming. Sirius and Harry! He only made it a few steps before tripping over something and crashing forward onto his wrists. Bloody hell – Then he realized what it was he'd tripped over and spun around, his wand pointed at James who lay stunned on the ground.

"Rennervate." James groaned, and Remus pushed himself back to his feet. There was a shallow crater in the ground where Peter had stood. The concrete around it was cracked and crumbling, and there were several pipes which had been unearthed and were spewing foul water everywhere. Around the edges bodies had been scattered, some struggling to push themselves into an upright position, others not moving at all. Sirius was just inside the crater, his body limp and lifeless, and Remus was about to run over when something else caught his eye.

It was a rat, scurrying towards the pipes at the bottom of the crater. "No," Remus growled. "Petrificus Totalus!"

While in school, Remus, James, Peter and Sirius had, over the course of many stupid mistakes and insults gone wrong, discovered that they were each good at different aspects of spellwork. Sirius, as they had found when he fought Narcissa in second year and dueled with James in later years, was one of the best duelists many people had ever seen. James had shown himself particularly inclined to precision and making things up on the spot, especially in transfiguration. Peter, as they had discovered in sixth year, was the best at powerful charms – whenever they wanted something big for a prank, he would be the one to perform the spell. But Remus had always had the best aim. A crack shot, Lily had told him in sixth year when as a prank he'd turned Frank's hair yellow from across the Great Hall. When he'd asked what it meant, she'd told him it was a muggle term for someone with unnaturally good aim.

The rat froze, falling to the ground as Remus strode towards it. "Homorphus," he said coldly, and the rat began to change back into the man it had been mere moments ago. "Stupify. Incarcerous." He wasn't taking any chances with Lily's murderer.

"Remus!"

Remus turned to see James on his feet, staggering over to the body that lay a few feet away. Assured that Peter Pettigrew would not be moving anytime soon, Remus ran forward and fell on his knees, his wand falling to the ground beside him as he helped James pulled Sirius onto his back. Harry lay in his arms, crying, and Remus wondered for an instant about the muggle band-aid on his forehead before he pulled him from Sirius' limp arms and into his own. James was already casting diagnostic charms with one had while the other groped desperately for a pulse.

"Come on," he said frantically, staring at the glowing bars hovering over the body. "No, I cast a shield!" Seeing something in the diagnostics, he paled and started casting again. Some were spells that Remus recognized as ones they used on him after the full moon, but most he didn't know, and assumed they were ones James had learnt in the Auror program.

Suddenly, there was a loud crack which seemed to come from all directions. Remus jumped, startled, but James didn't even seem to notice. "No," he was murmuring, the word coming between the spells and incantations. "No, no, no, no."

"Lupin?!"

Remus turned to see Mad-Eye striding towards him, wand up. Looking around he saw that there were at least five Aurors surrounding them, all with their wands leveled. Around them the people of Muggle London were struggling to stand, staring wide-eyed at the wizards or simply trying to find family and loved ones who had been caught in the blast. Meanwhile in the distance the sound of more sirens could be heard coming closer. "Wait," Remus said hastily, climbing to his feet. "Don't shoot!"

"James?" It was Alice Longbottom, staring at James – who was still kneeling over Sirius' body – as if she'd seen a ghost.

"Constant vigilance!" Mad-Eye shouted. Cautiously, he approached Remus. "I don't know what's going on, Lupin," he growled, "But right now you are going to do two things. First, you're going to hand over the Potter boy and your wand. Second, you and whoever that is with you are going to come with us to the Ministry, where I hope you've got yourself a damn good explanation for this."

"Alastor!" An Auror Remus didn't recognize called from a few feet away, sounding shocked. "It's Pettigrew!"

"Moony," James called and Remus half turned, wanting to help James but wary of the wand Mad-Eye had trained on him. Their eyes met and Remus saw fear, determination, and trust in James' face. "I'm sorry, I really am." James said quietly, his face pale. "I need to – I'm just doing what I can." His wand flicked up and a thick, swirling wall of dust appeared, blocking him and Sirius from Remus' – and the Aurors' – view.

"NO!" Mad-Eye shouted. Remus threw himself to the ground, holding a sobbing Harry tightly against him as several spells zoomed over his head and straight through the dust wall. The wall collapsed, but James and Sirius were already gone.

Sirius opened his eyes, blinking in the bright light. Pushing himself carefully upright, he looked around, trying to figure out where he was. It appeared to be a large room, with a high ceiling… the Great Hall. But what was he doing at Hogwarts? And if he was at Hogwarts, then where were all the students and teachers? He made his way to the Gryffindor table and sat, tracing a knot in the wood. He didn't know what was going on, but he supposed of all the places he could be the Great Hall wasn't the worst.

Out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of movement. Turning towards the door which led to the foyer, he saw Lily walking towards him, dressed in a loose green shirt and jeans.

"Lily." Sirius watched her warily as she sat on the bench beside him. "What's going on?"

Lily smiled. "Missed you too, Sirius," she teased. "How about a nice to see you, or I'm sorry you're dead?"

Sirius balked. "Am I dead?" he demanded. "No, Lily, I can't be dead, Peter was right there –"

"Sirius," Lily said firmly, placing her small hand on his arm. "Relax. I won't tell you you're fine, because you're not, but you're not dead either. As I understand it, this is a kind of in between place, for people who have a choice." An expression of sadness flickered briefly across her face. "I made my choice before I died, so I never came through here. You, though…." She trailed off, looking around. "By the way, Sirius – where are we?"

"The Great Hall, of course," Sirius said, gesturing around. "Don't you recognize it? We only spent seven years of our lives here."

"Oh." Lily shrugged, her gaze flitting around the room before landing back on Sirius. "Yes, I suppose I would recognize it, but since I'm not really here I don't see what you see."

"What do you mean you're not really here?" Sirius reached out and brushed her arm, then poked her nose. He grinned. "You felt that, didn't you?"

Lily laughed, swatting his hand away. "Of course I did. But I only felt it because you expected me to. Here, we're all just figments of each other's imagination. If you wanted to, you could imagine me gone, and to you I would disappear. You see, to me we're just in this bright light. There's no Great Hall, only you. If I wanted to, I could imagine that we're in Hogsmeade – and that's where we'd be, only to you we'd still be in Hogwarts. Do you see?"

Sirius nodded slowly, then, seeing her mouth curving up and her eyebrows quirking in a way that told him she knew he was lying, he ducked his head and chuckled. "No. No, I don't understand. But I suppose it's not that important. You're here, and I'm … here." He frowned, then cursed. "Oh no, no, Lily! I'm sorry, I'm so sorry – where is he?" Sirius stood and turned, scanning the hall for his godson. Certainly he was here somewhere….

"Where's who?" Lily asked, concerned.

"Harry, he was with me when – I'm sorry, Lily, I tried to protect him –"

"Oh!" Lily reached out and grabbed his hands, making him look at her. "He's okay, Sirius. You saved him. Well." She smiled. "You and James, that is."

"So he's okay?" Sirius asked, relieved. "It's just that I didn't have my wand, and –"

"Yes, he'll be fine. You, on the other hand…. Here." Standing, she took him towards the professor's table, where Sirius realized there was a bowl similar to the pensieve that had once sat in his father's study. "Look."

As soon as the world stopped spinning, James was on his feet, yelling for a healer. Almost immediately one of the on call emergency healers was beside him, casting.

"Sweet Merlin," the healer muttered, reading the diagnostics.

"He's not breathing, and there was an explosion, and I cast a shield charm but I don't – I mean Harry's alright, but he's not, and you have to save him –" James stumbled over the sentences, words and explanations spilling out of his mouth faster than he could form them. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that he should calm down, and that he would only make matters worse if he lost his head. The louder and much more persistent voice, however, was screaming that this was his best friend who hadn't been breathing for two minutes and ten seconds and whose heartbeat was irregular and getting weaker by the second.

"I need some help in here!" the healer called over his shoulder. He flicked his wand in the direction of the entrance before turning back to Sirius, and James saw a red light flash over the doorway. A second later two more healers had rushed in. One knelt down beside Sirius and started waving her wand as well, and the other took James firmly by the arm and, even though he protested, steered him out of the landing area and into a side room.

"Sit." James was pushed into soft but firm seat, and a small vial was shoved into his hand. "Drink this. It's a Calming Draught, it'll help you calm down." James uncorked the vial and tilted his head back, swallowing it in one gulp. Almost instantly a warm feeling spread out from his stomach, and when it reached his head he experienced the familiar effects: the light in the room became softer, the background noise faded from his notice, and the sound of his heart in his ears slowed to a more manageable pace.

"There, that's better, isn't it?" The healer took the vial from him and vanished it with a flick of his wand. "Now, my name is Healer Adams. Can you tell me your name, who you were with and how they sustained their injuries?"

"Right. I'm – " The name Evan Greene died on James' lips. What was he really hiding from, anyway? Not Voldemort – Voldemort was dead. His followers were disbanded, or would be soon, and James knew that he wasn't alone anymore – he had Sirius and Remus, and he knew that they would die before they let anything happen to him or Harry. Besides, it was only a matter of time before someone recognized Sirius, if they hadn't already. In all probability Remus wouldn't be able to tell anything but the truth to Mad-Eye and Dumbledore, who was sure to find his way into the middle of all this. So, swallowing the urge to lie, James told the truth. "I'm James Potter, and that's my best friend, Sirius Black."

The healer's eyes widened, but James was still talking. "Look, I know I'm supposed to be dead and that you all think Sirius is a Death Eater, but that doesn't matter right now. All you need to know is that I'm alive and that Sirius is innocent, and he's hurt. I just lost my wife, Adams, I can't lose my best friend too." Vaguely, James noticed how calm he sounded. He hadn't sounded this calm in weeks, he didn't think, and when he thought about it he decided it was probably the Calming Draught. Potions did weird things to people's minds.

"You realize I'm going to have to report this to the Ministry," Adams said, still looking rather stunned.

James shook his head. "No, don't tell the Ministry, not yet. The moment they hear Sirius is here they'll come storming down and – well, you now, get into everything. Please, just make sure Sirius is all right. Once he's stable, you can tell the Ministry whatever you want."

Adams was silent for a second, then sighed, shaking his head. "I don't know what's come over me. Very well, Mr. Potter. I'll do what I can to keep this quiet. In the meantime, why don't you fill me in on how Mr. Black sustained his injuries, and we'll see what we can do about them."

"Thanks," James said, relieved. "It was an explosion. Sirius was maybe twelve feet from Peter, who cast the spell. I managed to get a shield charm in between them, but it was a very powerful spell and I think my aim may have been off. And Sirius didn't have his wand…. I was knocked back by the blast, and I was a good thirty or forty feet away."

"And do you know if this particular spell was Dark?"

James shook his head. "No, just a really powerful blasting spell." Closing his eyes, James tried to remember what the spell had looked like, and the explosion pattern. "Some version of Expulso, I think."

"Excellent," Adams muttered. He wrote something on a scrap of paper, then tapped it so that it folded itself into a paper bird and flew through a small window at the top of the door. Then he stood. "I'm going to check on Healers Brown and Moon, who are taking care of Mr. Black in the landing area. If you stay here, I'll be back shortly and let you know what I can." With one last warning look that clearly promised trouble if James left, Healer Adams left the room, closing the door softly behind him.

James sat back in his chair, tapping restlessly on the arm and shifting his feet. He knew that the healers at St. Mungo's were the best there were, but he still felt as though everything would go better if he were there. He jumped to his feet and was two steps towards the door before he stopped. No, I'd just be in the way. He turned and dropped into the seat Healer Adams had vacated, staring at the blank walls.

James remembered the last time he'd been in a room like this. It had been two years ago, and he and Gideon Prewet had been patrolling for the Order in Diagon Alley when they were attacked by five Death Eaters. Gideon had caused a distraction while James grabbed their emergency portkey (and it really had been an emergency), and had consequently gotten hit by a particularly nasty cutting spell. As soon as they were out of Diagon Alley, James had Apparated them both to St. Mungo's, where Gideon had been taken into the emergency care unit and James had sat in a room similar to this one until Lily came to find him.

Why aren't there any pictures? James had asked, after she was satisfied he wasn't hurt. Since Lily was training in the hospital and he often passed through after work so they could Apparate home together, he knew that there was rarely a room or hallway that didn't have at least one picture. The conspicuous lack of framed witches and wizards in this room was rather unnerving.

It's for privacy, Lily had answered quietly, holding his hand and occasionally shooting glances at the door. This is where they tell people the bad news.

Now, trying not to stare at the empty walls, James switched from nervously tapping on the arm rest to twirling his wand between his fingers and debating the consequences of using unauthorized magic within the hospital.

Padfoot will be okay, he thought stubbornly. It's not going to be bad news.

"So why did I decide we should be in the Great Hall?" Sirius asked, watching with fascination as the two emergency healers worked over his wrecked body in the pensieve.

Lily shrugged. "Like I said, I don't know too much about it. If I had to say, though …" she paused thoughtfully, then continued. "I'd expect, since you have a decision to make, that you'd decide to be somewhere where an equally important decision was made earlier in your life. For you, I'm guessing it was the Sorting Hat's decision to place you in Gryffindor rather than Slytherin."

"Hmm." Sirius grimaced as one of the healers stuck a needle in his arm. "That's disgusting. And weird. I thought only muggles did stuff like that?"

"It's because you're unresponsive," Lily said authoritatively, and Sirius recognized her Healer voice. "It does seem rather barbaric to most wizards, especially purebloods –" she shot him a look, and he stuck out his tongue at her "– but when you're not conscious enough to swallow and it's an emergency, intravenous methods are considered an acceptable practice now."

Sirius shuddered. "Still." Then, struck by a thought, he laughed. "Imagine if my mother saw, though! First she'd say it was my Gryffindor ways that got me into this situation, and then she'd be horrified that they were using muggle medicine on me. I'm sure she'd rather I die a horrible death than that the 'noble blood of a Black' be contaminated in any way."

Lily smiled, shrugging. "It is effective, though, and it's really not that bad. Muggles have been using it successfully for years. But that's enough, I think." She took his hand again and led him back to where they'd been sitting at the Gryffindor table. "You have a decision to make."

"So what exactly do I have to decide?" Sirius asked slowly. He thought it was pretty obvious – stay or go back – but he wanted to be sure he understood exactly what was being asked of him. He'd always been known as the impulsive one, and usually he was, but in cases like these where there was a lot at stake he liked to know what he was getting into.

"You have two choices," Lily explained. "Your first choice is to go back. You will enter your body again, and continue with your life. It'll be like a second chance. You'll get to be with Harry as he grows up, and you'll be with James and Remus again, if everything works out." Sirius nodded; because James had taken him to St. Mungo's it was likely the Ministry would know soon, if they didn't already, that he was in the hospital. They would probably arrest him again as soon as he was conscious and there was no guarantee that he wouldn't be sent straight back to prison. "Your second choice is to – well, to go on."

When Sirius realized that she was done talking he asked slowly, "What do you mean, 'go on'?"

Lily shrugged again. "That's it, really. There's not much to explain." She glanced back to where the pensieve sat. "Life's wonderful – but it's just the first part. Different people cross over at different times, but everyone goes on eventually. It's nothing to be afraid of, or sorrowful for; it's just the second part of life."

"So how am I supposed to decide, then? Are there rules, or some sort of catch? – Do you have any suggestions?" Sirius asked as an afterthought.

"No. There's no catch, and I'm sorry but I can't help you. This is a decision you have to make for yourself."