"Merlin Prongs, quite the stalker aren't we?"
"Shut up Padfoot, I'm not stalking him. And lower your voice, you'll wake him." James said with his back to his best friend as he stood at the doorway of his son's nursery watching said son sleep through the small crack in the door.
"What are you doing up here anyways? Gotta say my wonderful godson is much more fun when he's awake." Sirius said quietly as he moved closer to James, looking over James' shoulder into the room where a white crib could be seen. And through the rails of the crib what looked like a black shaggy haired stuffed animal could be seen, butthe fact was, thatit wasn't a stuffed animal, it was a sleeping baby.
"I'm…Just watching him." James said to Sirius, still not taking his eyes off his son's head. Like almost all fathers, James loved his child above his own life, and could spent hours just watching his baby boy sleep. But for some reason, Sirius felt there was something different about this time. Sirius felt that there was something different about James.
"What's going on James?" Sirius asked after a few moments of them both just staring at the sleeping Harry. James didn't answer. "Something's up. I can tell, there's no point trying to keep it from me." Again James didn't answer, he just propped one arm up with the other and covered his mouth with a fist.
"Harry fell off the couch the other day." James finally said, moving his fist away from his mouth so his words would come out as more then just a mumble. Had it not been for the fact that Sirius had seen Harry yesterday and he was fine thenand that James wasn't in the room watching Harry even more intently then he was now, Sirius would have been seriously concerned that his godson was still hurt.
"I was playing with him. We were sitting on the couch and I was bouncing him on my knee, and work flooed in to ask me something. So I left Harry sitting on the couch while I just walked over to the fire. I turned my back on him for not even five minutes and he fell. He's fine, got a little burse but it was nothing, I fixed it in a heartbeat. But he just kept crying, and crying. Even after the burse was gone. He stopped after a while but…" James finally said before he trailed off. Sirius nodded slightly, with eyes still on Harry.
"James, you made a mistake. Not even a mistake, it was just an accident," Sirius started to say but stopped when James started to shake his head.
"If I had brought him with me when I went over to the fire place, he never would have cried like that. If I hadn't have left him alone like I did…"James said trailing off, covering his mouth with his fist again.
"James you're gonna have to leave him alone at some point. I mean, think of how much the damn Slytherins' will laugh at him if his dad's flying on the pitch with him during a quidditch match." Sirius said, trying to use a joke to make James understand that all parents have to leave their kids alone at some point.
"You don't get it Sirius, I can't ever leave him again, he needs to be protected… I need to protect him… You just don't understand." James said closing his eyes as he spoke, and in doing so taking his eyes off Harry for the first time since Sirius had arrived.
"Well make me understand." Sirius said softly and firmly at the same time. Opening his eyes, James looked at Sirius very intently. "How am I going to help you protect Harry if I don't know what I'm protecting him from?" Sirius asked, returning his own gaze to Harry's sleeping head, which, as Sirius watched, rolled over.
"After you left yesterday, Lily and I went to Hogwarts to speak with Dumbledore. He owled us asking us to come. And," Jamesbroke offand leaned against the doorframe and just once again stared at Harry. Looking so scared and helpless.
"What did he say?" Sirius asked, started to feel fear of his own start to form.
"He said that this nutter made a prophecy about the person that has the power to stop Voldemort."
"What?" Sirius asked. He couldn't believe it someone could really stop him! If it weren't for the fact that James was clearly unhappy about this news, Sirius would have jumped in the air for joy.
"Yeah. But, problem is, the way the prophecy is worded, it points to two people. No not even people, kids, babies." James said with a snort of mirthless laughter. " One of them, is Alice and Franks boy," James said, trailing of. Sirius gapped at him. Alice and Franks only had a son that was Harry's age. Then, realization slow started to take over Sirius as he watched James stare at Harry.
"And the other one's Harry," Sirius said in a whisper, hoping and praying to every god that had ever been prayed to before that James would say no.
"And the other one's Harry." James confirmed letting his head hit the doorframe he was still leaning on as he spoke. There was silence as Sirius took in the words and there full meaning. His heart rate had speed up to a rate that had to be hazardous to his health. Quickly, he tried to think of something to make this better, something, anything…
"We'll train him. He'll still a childhood, and a great one, but we'll train him how to fight. Voldemort will never know what Harry will be able to do and," Sirius started saying, speaking very fast. But James shook his head sadly.
"That's what I said. But there's more." James stopped and gulped painfully. "It seems that a death eater heard this prophecy, so, Voldemort knows. And cause it paints a very clear picture of who it's talking about, he'll know that it points to Alice and Franks kid and Harry." James said each word sounding like it was costing him every once of strength he had not to break down and cry, or start hexing things and cursing the world for choosing his son. Sirius stared at Harry's peacefully sleeping head. This…it just couldn't be happening. Not to Lily and James. Not to Harry.
"I will not bury my son Sirius." James said, voice full of furious determination that Sirius had never heard in it before. "I wont let him get hurt." James said, voice cracking slightly. "I wont let him get hurt." He said in a whisper that seemed to be more to himself then Sirius. Sirius couldn't take it any more, forcibly he grabbed James shoulders and pulled him into a very tight brotherly hug. James hugged Sirius back tightly.
"I should have told you." Sirius said, watching himself at age 21 pat James' back as James repeated over and over that he wouldn't let Harry get hurt.
"Yes. You should have." James said evenly not taking his eyes off the younger Sirius comfort him.
"I thought that you should hear it all from Harry." Sirius said as a baby started to cry in the other room and Sirius and James broke their hug so James could go and tend to his son.
"What is it all Sirius?" James asked, turning and facing the thirty four year old that had found him inside Dumbledore's pensive.
After trying to calm James down, Paige left him to go and get Sirius as James requested, or demanded more like. While he waited, James looked at the pensive that he had put all his memories into the other night and had just takenhis memories out of. James placed his wand at his temple,and pulled the memory of when he told Sirius about the prophecy. Which was were Sirius had found him.
"Come on, let's get out of here." Sirius said. James who was still watching himself rock Harry to silence, nodded and felt Sirius place a hand on his shoulder. The scene went black and James found himself back in Dumbledore's office. Turning to face Sirius, James repeated his question.
"What is all Sirius?" Sirius sighed and sat down in one of the chairs in front of Dumbledore's desk and placed his head in his hands.
"I still think that it would be better to hear it from Harry rather then me." Sirius said, sounding very grown up.
"Damn it Sirius!" James yelled. "Is it better for me to hear it from the press? What the hell did they mean when they said my son face Voldemort more times then me? Or wait, what was it? As many times as me, that's what one of them shouted! Damn it Sirius tell me!" James yelled throwing his hands up in the air out of frustration.
He had just seen himself say that he would never let his son get hurt, and people were saying that Harry had faced, and fought Voldemort already. It was not possible for him to walk away unhurt from that. He was only fifteen.
"Not counting the night that he attacked your house, Harry has only encountered Voldemort twice." Said Sirius.
"Only! Only twice? Oh well, that's a relief!" James yelled sarcastically. "One of those fucking reporters said that he faced Slytherins' heir and that's Voldemort." James said angrily.
"He fought Tom Riddle, which was who Voldemort was before he became Voldemort." Sirius said, hoping that if he just answered James' questions that it would calm down.
"Where the hell was Dumbledore during all this? Isn't the job of a headmaster to keep the students safe?" James yelled turning his anger toward Dumbledore.
"Harry did all this without him knowing." Sirius said, hoping that it was true, because he would hate for James to kill Dumbledore for knowing and not doing anything. James let out a frustrated cry of anguish and sank into the chair next to Sirius.
"I want to know exactly what happened to my son." James said in a stern whisper after a few moments of silence. "Every mark, every cut that Voldemort left on him I want to know." Sirius looked at James to find hazel eyes staring at him intently.
"You'll have to ask Harry for that information." Sirius told him firmly. "You have to hear this from him. He has to tell you." Sirius went on; slightly impressed by how firmly he was saying it when he wasn't that sure if it was the right thing. Again, James let out a cry of anguish.
"Why didn't he in the first place?" James asked, only slightly annoyed at his son.
"He said that those kind of things just don't roll off the tongue. But he was going to tell you the next time he saw you." Sirius said.
"Which will be now." James said, standing from his seat and making his way toward the door. Sirius jumped up to stop him but both were stopped by Dumbledore walking through the door.
"Hello James. Going some where?" Dumbledore asked calmly as he looked from Sirius to James.
"I'm going to see my son." Said James in such a tone that it was obvious that he would be seeing Harry and he wanted Dumbledore to try and stop him.
"We can't have you walking the hallways James. Think of how students would react upon seeing you. The students still have ten more minutes until curfew." Said Dumbledore pleasantly. James opened his mouth to say that he didn't give an armadillo's ass about the students seeing him and when their curfew was when Dumbledore started speaking again.
"So I suppose it is a good thing that young Harry got to my office when he did." James gaped at Dumbledore. "I shall get him for you, he's just outside the door. He seemed to want to speak with you very much. One might wonder how he knew you were here." Dumbledore said as he opened the door and waved to someone outside that James couldn't see from where he stood. Then, he saw Harry walk into his sight. He looked very pale and nervous. As he walked into the office, his eyes darted from James, to Sirius, then back to James.
"I should have told you before. But, I just…" Harry started to say before he trailed off, looking at the floor. With a sigh, he looked back up and met James gaze.
"Tell me now." James said softly, begging his son to open up to him and tell him every time that James had failed to protect him like he had promised. "Please." James added when Harry didn't say anything. Looking back down at the floor Harry nodded.
"I think you would be more comfortable talking in the sitting room then in here." Dumbledore said, gesturing to the back of his office where the door that leads to his sitting room was. With a quick glance at Dumbledore and then James and Sirius, Harry made his way to the sitting room, staring at his shoes as he walked.
"I must be get to Headquarters for the meeting now. Sirius, will you be joining me?" Dumbledore asked walking over to Fawkes and stroking him while gazing at Sirius.
"Um," Sirius said looking at James to know if James wanted him to leave or stay. When James gave a nodded of the head Sirius said, "Sure. If you need to get me… well I'm sure you remember how to use this." Sirius said handing James a very old mirror that they had used to communicate during separate detentions and what not. James tried to smile but couldn't so he just nodded and took the mirror Sirius gave him and pocketed it. Without another word James followed after Harry.
When he entered the sitting room he took in the walls with all the bookshelves, the windows, now dark, and finally the fireplace where a great fire was lit and the furniture surrounding it. And it was in one of the armchairs that he saw Harry. Walking over silently to the couch James watched his son. He was fiddling with his hands, which were in his lap. It was only when James entered his vision did Harry look up. Harry met James gaze andas James slowly lowered himself onto the couch Harry said,
"I should have told you before." James swallowed, trying to keep his anger out of his voice. He wasn't angry with Harry, and he didn't want Harry to think that he was.
"You should have, but I understand why you didn't. But, please, tell me everything now. What the press said is enough to…And Sirius being so set on me hearing it from you really makes me apprehensive." James said, speaking slowly. Harry nodded.
"I don't know where to start." He said finally in a child like voice.
"You faced Voldemort when you were only eleven?" James asked, hoping that Harry would say, nope, wasn't me. But he hoped in vain.
"I did." Harry said with a nodded. "I guess all that started when Hagrid came to get me from the Dursleys'." Harry started to say, but was stop when James interrupted him.
"The Dursleys? You don't mean, Li- your mum's sister and husband do you?" James asked, eyes widening. He had wondered where Harry had grown up since Sirius was in Azkaban and the Ministry would never let a Werewolf care for a child, but James had just assumed that Harry had grown up in an orphanage.
"Yeah. I've lived with them all my life. Or well, almost all my life." Harry said, correcting himself when he made the mistake of saying that he never lived with his parents.
"Why the hell did you go there?" James asked confused.
He didn't really know that much about the Dursleys, all he knew was they hated Lily, Harry, and him because they were wizards, that Petunia blamed Lily for their parents death, and that they hadn't spoken since the funeral. Lily never really talked about her sister but what she did say gave James enough to greatly dislike her and her husband. Knowing a little of how she use to treat Lily, James had a nasty feeling of how they treated Harry.
"There were my only living relatives." Harry said with a shrug. James desperately wanted to know how they treated his son but there were other things that, at the moment, he was more concerned about.
"We'll go back to that topic alright? Go on with what you were saying about Hagrid." James said, subconsciously sitting on the edge of the couch, leaning close to Harry. Harry nodded, took a deep breath and began speaking again.
Once James had walked away from him, Sirius turned to Dumbledore who smiled softly.
"Just place a hand on Fawkes Sirius." He said calmly. Wordlessly Sirius made his way over to Dumbledore and placed a hand on one of Fawkey's wings. Fawkeys let out one beautiful note and then Dumbledore and Sirius were engulfed in golden flames which felt a lot like the flames when you traveled by Floo. When the flames died down, Sirius found himself in the very crowed kitchen of number 12 Grimmauld Place. Upon seeing Dumbledore, instead of the talking dieing down like it usually did when an Order meeting was about to start, everyone started asking questions.
"Where is he?"
"Why didn't you bring him here?"
"Does Harry know?"
"How the hell is he alive?"
And thing of that nature were yelled out. While everyone was asking Dumbledore questions regarding James, surprisingly, Sirius was able to slip to the side and take a seat next to Paige, who had Remus sitting on her other side.
"Your alive." Paige said, watching Sirius with surprise.
"And back really soon to have filled James in on everything. What did you do? Stun him to deal with later?" Remus asked, leaning over Paige slightly to talk to Sirius.
"No I didn't stun him or tell him anything. Harry took that job." Sirius said, rubbing his face with a hand.
"How did Harry know?" Remus asked, shocked.
"No idea. But he seemed to know that James had heard something , cause he said that he should have told James." Sirius said. Then he moved his gaze to Paige. "Again, did you guys really have to take him out in front of the press?" Sirius askedrepeating the question that he asked a hundred times when Paige had first showed up at Grimmauld Place explaining what had happened and how James wanted to see Sirius.
"Again, we couldn't make a Portkey in front of Fudge." Paige said sounding annoyed.
"Why didn't you Floo?" Sirius asked, again another thing that he had asked repeatedly.
"Merlin it is so good to see you again Sirius, I haven't gotten this want to rip out my hair since," Paige started saying, pulling at her hair but was, luckily in Remus opinion, cut of by Dumbledore raising his hands for silence at the head of the table.
Leaning back in his chair, Remus looked behind Paige's back to see Sirius who was gaping at Paige opened mouthed. Just as he was about to do something to get Sirius to close his mouth Paige spoke, not even looking at Sirius,
"Oh for Merlin's sake, close your damn mouth Sirius."
James and Harry sat in silence for a few minutes as James took in everything that Harry had told him. Sitting with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, James was taking deep breaths and trying to keep a level head about the situation. When he felt he was composed enough to speak, he lift his head and turned to look at Harry. Words failed him though as he looked at his son.
Harry was just sitting there waiting for James to collect himself and make the next move. And as he sat there, James took noticeof the strange mix that Harry seemed to be. His son had the odd mix of seeming like an adult and kid.
The things that he had seen and done all by the time he was eleven made him in most cases more aware then some adults of the horrors this world can hold which made him seem like an adult, and yet, even if it's buried very deep James could see that he was still just a teenager. When realization kicked in that he had been staring at Harry for a few minutes straight not saying anything, James quickly thought of something to say, anything to say to break the tension.
"Snape takes his hatred for me out on you?" Was the question that James finally blurted out. Harry stared for a minute then chuckled a little.
"Yeah, ever since he first looked at me he has saved this look of loathing just for me. And, Professor Lupin I guess. He looks at Sirius like that too come to think of it…" Harry said, rambling slightly. Both what his son said and how he was saying it made James laugh.
"Yeah he would look at them the same way I'm sure." James said. They both laughed a little before James became serious. "I'm going to have to talk to him about that though. That's really low, taking out feelings of hatred for me on you." He said, looking at Harry with sympathy in his eyes. It wasn't fair that his son had to suffer and be miserable because his father and friends were assholes when they were in school. As silence started to over take them again, James spoke up again, still on serious matters.
"So, all that was just in your first year?" He asked, and then sighed before he went on. "Well, lets here second year now."
"Isn't it getting kind of late? I mean, I have classes and stuff tomorrow." Harry said. He did want to get all of his past out of the way with his dad but he alsodid have classes tomorrow and he had already missed a few today.
"I'm sure your teachers will understand." James said sternly, as though he would make them understand if they didn't. "Beside, I heard a lot. So I want to hear it all from you."
"Okay. Well in my second year, me and Ron found the Chamber of Secrets." Harry started.
"The Chamber of Secrets? I thought that was just a myth?" James asked perplexed, breaking the rule he had made with himself of not interrupting Harry while he was telling his story.
"It's real. Before I came back to Hogwarts, this house-elf showed up in my bedroom at the Dursleys and told me that I couldn't go back to Hogwarts. Well, I told him that I would. So to stop me, first he tired to get me into so much trouble with the Dursleys so they wouldn't take me to Kings Cross. But Ron and his brothers came and rescued me in their dad's flying car."
"Flying car?" James asked, again cursing himself inside for interrupting Harry.
"Yeah, their dad's nuts about everything to do with muggles. But, um, oh yeah. So I went to his house and then the house-elf tried to stop me from getting Hogwarts by closing the barrier to platform 9 and ¾ so Ron and me couldn't get through to the train. So, we flew the car to school."
"My son flew a flying car to Hogwarts?" James asked, beaming at Harry with pride. But thenhe changed and he was staring at Harry as though he were crazy. "Do you know what trouble you could have gotten into? How hurt you could have been?"
"Yeah I do know. We were seen by some muggles, and when we got to Hogwarts the engine died and we hit the Whomping Willow." Harry said, looking down at the floor. James eyes widened and he was tempted to grab Harry and look him over for injuries for something that happened three years ago.
"So after we almost got expelled, I started hearing…" Harry started to say but stopped as the thought of what he was hearing and why he was hearing it came to him. What would James think of him being a Parseltongue? Surely he wouldn't think he was evil or anything, right?
"Harry," James said seeing Harry hesitate in his story.
"I started hearing voices in the walls." Harry said bravely, thinking that if James did have a problem with it, then he should find out as soon as he could so that he wouldn't have to lose too much when James pulled away.
"You started hearing voices?" James prompted gently when Harry, again, hesitated.
"Yes. See, well, the night Voldemort gave me my scar, Dumbledore told me that he gave me some of his powers. And one of the things that he gave me was the ability to speak Parseltongue." Harry said, looking at James for a reaction. However James felt about this, Harry wanted to know.
"Voldemort gave you some of his powers?" James asked, sounding slightly lost.
"Yeah, well, Dumbledore said that he put some of himself into me. Or something like that. But I can speak Parseltongue." Harry said, restating that he could speak to serpents in case James missed it.
"Alright I'm gonna need to have a talk with Dumbledore about this. I want to know in full what the hell else happened to you on that night. You can feel when he's around, and he gave you some of his powers…" James said, more to himself then to Harry, but Harry heard anyway. "Alright, go on. So you heard voices in the walls." James, giving Harry back his full attention. Harry gapped at him.
"You, you don't care that I can speak Parseltongue?" Harry asked, shocked and bewildered.
"Why would I? It wasn't something you were born with or wanted to have." James said sounding bewildered like Harry, though for different reasons. Smiling from the thought that James didn't care, Harry went on to explain the rest of the events that had taken place in his second year. After a half an hour, once again, James found himself with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.
"My third year now?" Harry asked in a tired voice. Time did seem to be flying as they had been talking. One thing the room did seem to lack was a clock or anything of the sort; which James realized as he sat up at Harry's question and looked around the room searching for one.
"No Sirius and Remus told me about your third year already. It's getting really late. You should get to bed, we can finish talking tomorrow." James said, bring his gaze back to Harry after he had scanned the whole room for a clock.
He really didn't want to send Harry to bed now, there was still one year unaccounted for. But, James didn't think that it could be any worse then Harry's first and second year, and also he had read in a book when Lily was pregnant that as your child got older it was important to have bed times.
"Well, last year, was kind of a big year." Said Harry, thinking of what Sirius would say if Harry left James once again with out telling him one of the big things.
"Yeah I know it was the Tournament but," James started to say when Harry shook his head. It wasn't that James didn't want to know every detail of Harry's years at Hogwarts, it was quite the opposite in fact, but James really didn't want Harry to be falling asleep in classes tomorrow.
"No its, not about the Tournament. Well, it kind of is, but." Harry stopped and sighed then just figured it was easiest to say it if he just said it. "At the end of the Tournament me and the other Hogwarts champion made the win a draw because we had both helped each other and we both got to the cup. So, we…I deiced that we should take the cup at the same time. But the cup was a Portkey. And it took us to this graveyard. Wormtail and Voldemort were there. And, then, then Wormtail killed Cedric. He tied me up to a tombstone and he made this potion. The potion he made gave Voldemort his body back." Said Harry, flashes of that night passing before his eyes.
"You, you saw… You saw Voldemort get his body back?" James asked shocked and horrified. Sirius and Remus had told James what had become of Voldemort after he tried to kill Harry and there lack of being able to describe to James what exactly Voldemort was made him feel sick inside. Andthe fact that Harry had to be the witness to his rebirth, made him feel even worse inside.
"Wormtail did this right in front of you. Did he hurt you? Tell me! Did he hurt you?" James asked suddenly leaning forward and grabbing Harry's shoulders. This action and the pure hatred that filled James eyes scared Harry. Unable to talk, Harry nodded; watching his father fearfully, wondering if he could reach his wand in time if he needed to.
"How? What did he do to you?" James asked, eyes scanning Harry's body. "I swear to god…" James muttered to himself as he continued searching Harry's body for injury.
"He cut my elbow with a dagger and took my blood and put it into the potion. Voldemort said that he needed my blood cause it would make him stronger." Harry said, pulling up his sleeve to show were the cut had been. There was no mark there now; Madam Pomfrey had healed it in a heartbeat. Never the less, James grabbed Harry's elbow and brought it up to his eye for inspection. Satisfied that Harry's cut was all right James lowered it and finally took in Harry's scared expression. His own expression changed very fast, going from pissed as hell to very worried and upset.
"Oh Merlin Harry I'm so sorry. It's just that," He stopped swallowed and shook his head before going on. "He's hurt my family so much already." He ended finally, looking at Harry with such sorrow in his eyes and Harry nearly instantly relaxed.
"It's alright." Harry said softly, looking at the floor. James took a second to compose himself then said,
"Alright, go on. Tell me everything that happened that night."
A.N- I'm feeling blah about this one. Like pretty much all the chapters I write. Um lets see… I hope that the pensive part wasn't confusing for you guys and… I'm sorry that its kind of short and I hope the you guys feel the emotion in the penisve part becasue that whole thing up about until the Order meeting was written while I was listening to the Goo Goo Dolls Iris over and over again, so I was very emotional while writing it.
Well, guess that's about it…Please, please, please tell me how you feel/ think about this chapter. I love to hear from you! Fill my mailbox!
Till next time!