For a few moments, both men just stared at each other. Taking in the one sitting in front of them. Sirius, taking in the face that he had not seen for such a long time. Yet, it looked exactly the same has it had last time seen. Not a day older then twenty. And James, taking in a face that had changed so much from when he had last saw it. The eyes had under gone the biggest change. Then, both men seemed to reach the same conclusion in each of their minds. The man sitting in front of him was not his best friend. He was an imposter.
"How did you know that the spell had worn off?" James asked coolly.
"Your eyelids flickered." Sirius answered in a voice just as cool as James'. James just nodded at Sirius response. Neither eyes ever leaving the others face. Looks of loathing were settling into both of their stares.
"Who are you?" Sirius asked finally, breaking the silence that had filled the kitchen. James snorted at Sirius' question.
"You're a dumb one aren't you?" James taunted. "How thick could you be to not know who I am? No, the question is who are you?" Sirius' eyes flashed dangerously.
"Need I remind you that you are hardly in the position to be asking questions?" Sirius growled at him, making a small point of making sure that James saw that he had a wand pointing at him.
"Oh yes. I should fear you cause you have a wand pointed at me. Tell me, if I should be scared of you, why'd you send the witch to fetch me?" James taunted again. He didn't care if any of his tactics got him tortured. He really couldn't bring himself to care about anything. Everyone he cared about was dead. And these fucking death eaters were trying to pose as them. As for their reason why they were posing as them, he wasn't sure yet.
"I did not send her. She went after you on her on accord. And, as I knew that she would have no problem in bring you in, I let her have some fun." Sirius said. "Now, answer my question. Who are you?"
"Why don't you recognize me? I'm the queen of bloody England!" James said in a voice full of sarcasm. Sirius didn't say anything to James remark. Instead, in just pointed his wand at James arm, which was tied tightly to the chair's arm.
Sirius asked James again, "Who are you?" voice flat and even.
"How can you not know? I'm on the bloody top of the "To Kill" list." James said. With a small flick of the wrist, a cut appeared on James bare arm. "That's it? That's all your gonna do to me if I don't answer your questions? Give me a bloody paper cut?" James asked looking from the cut to Sirius, trying not to laugh at this death eaters methods of torture.
"I have a lot of questions. And you have a lot of skin. Well see how many of these, "paper cuts", it takes to completely remove the skin on your arm." Sirius said, calm as can be. "Now, who are you?" He asked for the third time. James still did not answer him, instead he just nodded his head.
"I gotta hand it to ya. This is a very inventive method torture." James said. "I'm sure it will be painful." Anyone who heard him speak would know that he had a death wish. And well, he did. But, he figure that it wouldn't be long before Voldemort showed up and killed him, so why not have some fun with this death eater. Besides, it would be fun to see that witch's reaction when she comes back to find his arm skin deprived.
When James didn't answer yet again, Sirius flicked his writs again, and another cut appeared on James arm.
"Alright. We'll come back to that question." Sirius said, still in a calm voice. "What were you doing in the Potter Family mausoleum?" Sirius asked. James just stared at him. At first he just thought this death eater was just stupid, as so many of them were, but now… These questions were just so dumb. Surly Voldemort would have told his plan to his death eaters. It would be major bragging points. But then, James remembered the spy. If Voldemort had bragged about it, the spy would have told Dumbledore, and they would have gotten him. No one knew that Voldemort hadn't killed him. Oh using this upper hand of information could be fun.
"Alright, alright. I'll tell you." James said. From the look on Sirius' face, he knew that the death eater was skeptical. Who wouldn't be? "My name is James Potter. And I've come back from the dead because I'm so fucking pissed at your "Dark Lord"." James said. Sirius just stared at him.
"What the hell do you mean "my Dark Lord"? Oh and for the crack about being James Potter," with a full slashing movement of his wand, a long gash appeared on James' arm, starting from his elbow and going all the way down to his wrist. Looking up at Sirius, James saw a look of pure loathing and hatred. James opened his mouth to say something to Sirius, but the kitchen door opened and the witch who was posing as Paige walked in.
She stopped and looked at the scene in front of her. Looking from James, bound, and bleeding in the chair, to Sirius with his wand on James, she gathered that Sirius wasn't not true to his word. But she said nothing. It was never good to should weakness between yourself and partner when questioning a death eater. Or anyone for that matter. Walking over to where they were seated she pulled a vial for under her shirt and uncorked in.
"Open your mouth." She said simply to James. When he didn't, she sighed and said "Sirius," And Sirius opened James mouth by magic. James remembered what had happened to him the last time he was a situation like this and struggled to close his mouth. But it was to no avail. All he could do was watch as she poured some of the liquid down his throat.
At once, James felt the effect of veritaserum over take him. During training, Moody had given all of them veritaserum so they would know what to expect. And just what they could tell while under it. It felt a lot like being put under the Imperious curse. All his worries were pushed to the back of his mind. The aches and pains from the cuts and his pervious wounds dimmed. The difference from the imperious and veritaserum, was that you still knew what was going on around you. But you had no control over anything. He saw Paige give a quick glance at Sirius before starting her questioning.
"Who are you?" She said calmly.
"James Harry Potter the Third." James said back in a voice void of emotion. Sirius and Paige were too shocked to find any words. Both just stared at the man who, under veritaserum, just said that he was James Potter. Neither knowing what to think.
"Sirius," Paige said weakly moving toward the door meaning for him to follow her.
"Yea," Sirius said rising and followed her to the door. They didn't leave, both knowing better then to leave him alone. They just didn't want him to hear their discussion.
"Sirius," Paige said in a hushed tone when he reached her. "I've heard a lot of shit from people under veritaserum, and that shit is always true." She said looking at James, who was gazing at them. "But it's not possible." She added. "People can not come back from the dead."
"There is no need to remind me of that Paige. I'm am just as aware of that fact as you are." Sirius hissed at her. Out of everything that could have come from that man's mouth that was the last thing that he expected to hear.
"Then how the fuck do you explain that man's answer?" Paige said has loud as she could while still maintaining a hushed tone.
"I don't know!" Sirius said back in the loudest hushed tone he could. For a few moments they were both silent, trying it figure out what the hell was going on.
"Maybe," Paige started to say, but Sirius, knowing what she was going to say cut her off.
"No. You said yourself that it's not possible. I got it." Sirius said. "Voldemort might have brainwashed him into thinking he's James." Paige just looked at him.
"I don't think that Voldemort would do that. I mean what's the point?" She said looking at James who was still just watching them.
"What's the point? The point is that we would take him in with open arms and let him know all the orders happenings. And, let him be alone with Harry. Then, he'll show his true colors and go back to Voldemort with tons of information and my godson." Sirius said angrily. Paige still looked doubtful.
"Fine then. Ask him things that Voldemort wouldn't be able to drill into his head." She said. Sirius now looked at Paige angrily.
"Do you forget that one of our best friends from Hogwarts is a death eater? Everything I could ask the rat would have told Voldemort about." He said.
"Oh come on. You guys were the brothers of that group. There has to be something that was just between the two of you." Paige tried.
"Fine." Sirius said jerkily. And he turned and walked back to where James was sitting. Paige followed slowly behind him. Sirius retook his seat in front of James. Paige stayed standing just behind Sirius' chair.
"Where did you tell me you were thinking of hiding Lily's ring before you asked her to marry you?" He asked.
"Inside the snitch I used to play with all the time." James said emotionlessly. Sirius was not satisfied with that answer.
"James could have told Peter about it after he propose to Lily." Sirius said to Paige. Turning back to James he said, "Who came up with the idea for the Marauder's Map?" Sirius said.
"Fich gave me and Sirius the idea." James said. "He asked us if we had a map of the school or something and if that was how we were able to get around the school like we could."
Yet again, Sirius wasn't having that answer. He was about to ask another question when Paige leaned down and whispered,
"Ask him something that you know he wouldn't tell anyone already," into Sirius ear.
Sirius didn't say anything of a moment or two, and then he asked a question that he had a hard time getting out.
"What bothered me the most about Regulus' death?" He asked James. James blinked then answered in the still emotionless voice,
"It bothered you that you cared."
Breathing suddenly became hard for Sirius to do. Only James could know that answer. No one else could. He had never once said it out loud that he felt upset that Regulus had died. Or that he was pissed at himself because he cared for Regulus. But he knew that James knew. Because James was always able to tell with Sirius.
"I checked your pulse. I checked. And you were dead." Sirius said, voice completely opposite from James, full of emotion. "YOU WERE DEAD!" Sirius yelled.
"No I wasn't." James replied. "Voldemort never killed me. I don't know what he did to me. One minute, I'm in my house, lying on the floor, the next I'm in a tomb. My tomb." Sirius and Paige were both silent again.
"Why didn't Voldemort kill you?" Paige finally asked him.
"He said he wanted to see what my answer would be if he killed everyone that I cared about." James answered.
"Answer to what?" Paige asked again.
"To becoming a death eater." Things seemed to click in Paige's mind then.
"What happened to all your friends?" She asked. Sirius turned in his seat to look at her, wonder her reason for this question.
"There dead." He said simply.
"Are you sure?" Paige asked him.
"Yes. There is no way they would have lived for this long." He answered.
"Why do you think that?" Sirius asked James.
"Voldemort has been in power for the last fourteen years. He broke through to the muggle world. They all have to be dead. There is no way they could have lived."
"Stupefy." Paige said pointing her wand at James. James head fell onto his shoulders.
"Why did you stun him?" Sirius asked, staring at the stunned form of James. Paige didn't answer him.
"When I was looking for him, I tracked him going into a library, he was looking at old newspapers. Papers about what the muggles thought happened to him and Lily. And to Harry. And their old town, its just became run down, you know? Bad crowds just started moving in and it fell apart. Oh god, seeing the town like that and then reading that paper, he thinks that Voldemort is still in power. He must think that we're death eaters. That why he put up such a fight." Paige said. Sirius said nothing. He just continued to stare at James.
It couldn't be him. He had checked for a pulse when he found James body. He had held James dead body and cried. There had been no pulse. People can't come back from the dead. Merlin himself could not bring people back from the dead. It was imposable. But yet here James was. And it had to be him. But yet it couldn't be him.
"…I guess the question now is how do we get him to believe that we're really us?" Paige had been speaking while Sirius was trying to sort through his thoughts. He only caught the end of what she was saying.
"So you believe that this is James then? Sirius asked her.
"What am I suppose to think Sirius? Please tell me. Cause it the only answer I can come up with." Paige said sounding slightly frantic.
"I don't know." Sirius said lamely. "We should get Dumbledore, or someone."
"Dumbledore wont be able to get out of the castle. Umbridge wont let him out from under her nose." Paige said, taking a seat next to Sirius. Sirius turned his chair so that he wasn't looking at James anymore, but so that he was looking at Paige.
"Well we should get Remus." He said.
"Yes we should. But not right now. I think it would be better if we got full control of the situation before bring more people, other then Dumbledore, in." She said, for the first time that night, voice sounding tired. Looking over at James she said, "I thought you said that you wouldn't do anything to him till I got back."
"I lied." Sirius said simply.
"We should patch him up. Might make him believe us if we heal him." She said.
"If you're being held captive by death eaters what are you going to think if they heal you?" Sirius asked her sounding annoyed.
"I would think that something was up," She sighed. "But still, we should heal him. He's got injuries from me, and then ones from you."
"Then we'll patch you up." Sirius said rising and moving over to James. He lightly taped the longest cut on James arm, and it started to heal. "In that cabinet over there are some healing potions. Can you get them for me?" He asked pointing to the other cut that he had made on James arm and started making it heal as well. Paige rose from her chair and opened the cabinet Sirius had directed her to, and took out some potion bottles.
"I thought you said Snape didn't leave potions here?" She asked while putting some of the potion on James hurt arm and rubbing it in.
"He doesn't. These are Molly's. A mother of seven can make just as good healing potions as any potions "master"." Sirius said. They continued to patch James up in silence till he was healed of all injuries.
"We should put him in a room to sleep in." Paige said looking at the circles under his eyes.
"And leave him alone?" Sirius asked.
"We can set up alarms, and one of us can sit with him." Paige said.
"Alright. We'll take him upstairs." Pointing his wand at James as Paige had done early, Sirius made James float in the air. Sirius led the way out of the kitchen. Paige looked around as they made their way upstairs. She really hated this house, and didn't envy Sirius in the slightest for have to stay here. They brought James to a room that was on the third floor. Paige moved over to the bed turned down the covers so that they could get James under them. Once they had got James into bed Paige cast a smallsleeping charm on him so that he would get some real sleep, and not just lay there in bed stunned.
"You just keep an eye on him for a little bit. I'll inform Dumbledore of what's going on." Sirius said in a low voice so not to wake James.
"How?" Paige asked Sirius in a hushed voice.
"My great-great-granduncle." Sirius said, and he left the room. Once Sirius had left, Paige looked around the room. In was a lot like the rest of the house. Gloomy and dark. She spotted a chair on the other side of the room and walked over to it. She had just reached it when someone grabbed her from behind.
They placed a hand over her mouth, pulled her arms together behind her back, and pulled her wand from the back of her pants where she kept it, all in one movement, and had her wand now jabbing into her throat. She must have put to small of a sleeping charm on him.
"Now," James' voice said from behind her. "Where did the one posing as Sirius go?" He asked. "How about we go find him?" And he started to direct her out of the room. Paige knew much better then to try and fight her way out of James hold. She knew that he could easily snap her neck. So she let him led her out of the room.
James knew he had to act quickly. It seemed that these two were the only death eaters here. For now at least. And he wanted a turn to ask his questions. When they had gotten out of the room, James looked to the left and right. There were on a small landing. To the left, stairs going up, the right, stairs going down.
"Left or right?" James asked Paige. Paige looked both ways, hoping that Sirius would come back from where ever the hell he went. Thinking that maybe he went back to the kitchen she jerked her head to the right, downstairs. James started to push her to the right. They had reached the second landing when they heard voices coming from within one of the rooms. James stopped and listened. So there was more then just the two in the house. He couldn't make out the words that were being said. "How many are in there?" James asked Paige. She just shook her head. Showing that she didn't know. Not caring about what happened to him as long as he got his answers, James blasted the door of the hinges.
Sirius was standing close tothe wall looking at a portrait hang on the wall. He pulled out his wand at the blast but froze when he saw James holding Paige's wand to her throat.
"Drop your wand or I'll blow her head off!" James yelled at Sirius. Sirius did as he was told, looking from James to Paige. "Good. Now for my questions. Who the hell are you?"
"It'sme James. Its Sirius." Sirius said praying that Paige wouldn't get hurt for that answer.
"Don't give me that bullshit!" James yelled. "Let see how many paper cuts will it takes before her skins gone, shall we?" James asked. He pointed the wand at Paige's face and a fresh cut appeared across her cheek. "Again, who are you?" James asked, moving so that his back wasn't facing the door anymore and he was inside the room.
"Sirius Black." Sirius said again, looking at Paige trying to think of away to make James understand before he really hurt her.
"Wrong answer!" James yelled, making another cut on Paige's face. "Alright, how about another question. Who's she?" He asked looking at Paige and then returning his gaze to Sirius.
"She's Paige Summers." Sirius answered. This couldn't continue. James would get bored or angry soon and god onlyknew what he would do to Paige then.
"What the hell is with these wrong answers?" James asked, while making another cut on Paige's face.
"Fine. If you wont take my answers, what about this?" Sirius asked before doing the only thing he could think of. He transformed into Padfoot. Praying that James would remember that each Animagus form is unique, and that no one can double it. No one.James just stared at Padfoot. The dog stood still for a moment, then slowly began to move toward James and Paige. Still James just stared. Paige stared down at the dog as well.
The dog stopped when in reached a spot just in front of Paige and James. The dog whimpered softly at them, and sat down. Paige felt James hold on her loosen, but stayed in his grasp. But when she felt his wand hand drop to the side, she dartedawayand moved off to the side. James didn't seemedto notice. All of his focus was on the dog that sat before him.
"How?" James asked in a voice so quite that, had Sirius not been a dog, it would have gone missed. Sirius transformed back into a man. WatchingJames closely, Sirius took a tentative step closer to him. When James didn't react, Sirius closed the gap between them and grabbed James into a hug. James hugged him back. He couldn't believe it. Sirius wasn't dead. That same thought just ran through James mind as he hugged his best friend, his brother, so tight that he felt as though if he let go, Sirius would disappear. Sirius was alive. He wasalive.Sobs that had been pushed away in the mausoleum could not be denied anymore.
Sirius just hugged James back with just as much force as his sobbed. He didn't mind that James was nearly cutting of his air supply, as he was sure he was doing the same to him. He was really James. He wasreallyback. And for right now, that was all that mattered.
A.N-What do you guys think? Sappy? Please, pleaselet me know. I'm not really all that sure I like how this turned out. So your feedback is really needed. To tell you guys the truth, I would have updated last night, but my best friend blew me off, and needless to say, I was really, really upset. Still am upset.And writing a thing about two best friendsreunitingwasn't something that was gonna make me feel any better.But, do you know what would make me feel better? If I got lots and lots of reviews from you guys. It would really make me smile. And I need some smiles.