James rolled over in bed and looked at the clock on his nightstand. The numbers forming 1:36 burned his eyes, the only thing giving off light in the whole room. It had been 1978 for more than an hour and a half.

James's holiday had been pleasant but not exactly thrilling. He was an only child and had no friends away from school, and though he liked being at home with his parents, his days of Christmas break were getting increasingly dull. It had been easy to deal with, though, whenever he thought about what Sirius was having to go through. Clearly bored out his mind or having to do something to distract himself from going insane at his house, Sirius had sent him four letters ever since the beginning of the holiday. The last one had had a tone of unsureness about what the point of writing to him was, and had said only the following:

"Dear Mr. Prongs,

Yes. Well.

I would say that I hope you had a good Christmas, only Im already sure that you did. Even if you think it was just okay, you don't know what you're talking about and how much I'd gladly trade places with you.

Regulus keeps looking over my shoulder to see what I'm writing. God, it's annoying having him at school now, isn't it? At least he's in a different house (big surprise) and as far away from me as possible. He was looking around in my room earlier when I wasn't there. I think he wants to steal some of my presents I got from you and everyone. I wish I could hide them somewhere but my bedroom has close to nothing in it anymore.

Oh, I've kept forgetting to ask you every time Remus isn't around: What's going on with him and that girl Matilda? He seems to be talking to her a lot. Have you had any communication with Lily since school got out? I bet he's opened up to her about it. She probably knows everything.

Write back as soon as you get this. -Padfoot"

James had not heard from Lily since the holidays started, or from anyone else besides Sirius, with the exception of getting all his friends presents sent to him. He had thought about writing to all of his friends but had never gotten around to it.

But he had found himself thinking about Lily an awful lot.

It didn't seem like a long time ago at all that the incident with Snape had, in a strange way of effect, brought out the true nature of their feelings for each other, when they had merely been friends before. Since then he had gotten to know Lily much better. This had included becoming familiar with the more concealed and undelicate but quite likeable things about her, like the way she would put an entire half of a biscuit in her mouth at the same time but still chew it with her mouth closed, and how she wore a surprisingly unfeminine set of plaid pajamas to bed, and how she was so unconscious of herself that she was comfortable hanging around in the common room in her pajamas with the boys sometimes. All of these details about her were comfortable memories he had referred to often when he was bored, and maybe even a little lonely, ever since he had come home for Christmas.

James heard something tap his window. He sat up, yawning, assuming that it was an owl delivering another letter from Sirius, probably asking him why he hadn't written back yet (James had started a fourth response letter but by then had completely run out of things to write to him about). He got out of bed, swearing when he stepped on the hard corner of a gift box on his floor just as the owl tapped louder on his window.

But when James looked out his window, there was no owl outside of it at all. In complete confusion he searched the sky for any movement. Then he looked at the ground and his jaw dropped.

"Good God."

Sirius was in his yard outside waving his arms to get his attention. In the snow beside him were several black rocks he had collected from the front of the house to throw at his window, obviously expecting that James would be asleep and that it would take a lot more than two.

James motioned to him that he would let him in the front door and went downstairs to unlock it. When he opened the door Sirius was standing there shaking with cold, his suitcase beside him.

"Sirius, what the bloody hell?" he tried to say quietly enough to avoid waking up his parents. "Get inside, you look half dead."

"Wait. Open your garage first."

"Why?"

"So I can put my bike in it."

James's facial expression became more shocked, if it was possible. "You brought your motorcycle?"

"How else would I have gotten here?"

"You've got some serious explaining to do, mate. Come on."

They put Sirius's motorcycle inside and then quietly crept into James's room. Sirius had used a warming charm on his clothes for the fly over, but it had only helped so much, so James made sure he was wrapped in many layers of blankets before he started asking about the reason he was here.

"Look, I'm sorry about this," Sirius apologized. "But something completely unexpected happened...I got mad...I just had to get away from there."

"It's alright, I understand. But I don't even get why you went home in the first place anyway."

"Andy," he explained simply. "She made me promise I'd come this time. She said it was important to her. If only I'd known exactly what her plans were."

"What do you mean?" James asked. "What happened?"

Sirius explained the whole story about the nightmarish event at the dinner table, but he left out the part about dismissing himself from his family forever because he didn't want James to think he was asking to stay here. He wasn't sure how he was going to ask that of him if it ended up being his only option.

"Well...what can I say?" James said after hearing the story. "I can't blame you. Wow. So she had to completely sacrifice her family just because she wants to be with this guy? I can't even begin to imagine...I guess I could never understand what your family's like without living in that house myself. Cause I never realized it was that bad." James put his legs up on the bed and hugged them to him, resting his chin on his knees.

Sirius looked to the side at him. "I'm sorry about just barging in like this. But I didn't think about what I would do. I just knew I couldn't stay there."

"I told you, it's fine. My parents wanted you to stay here anyway. I just didn't expect you to show up outside my window."

"No, Prongs, I mean...Never mind. Forget it."

James looked at him confusedly for a moment, and then started talking in a more excited tone that surprised Sirius. "Wait a minute. You're saying...you didn't just leave to get away from them and cool down. You're running away. You didn't just come here for-"

"Don't be ridiculous, I couldn't ask that of your parents."

"But that's why you came here, isn't it?"

"It's just for a while. We're going right back to school anyway, and by the time we graduate I can figure something out."

"Oh, don't be an idiot. Don't you want to move in with me?"

"Of course I'd want to move in with you, but your parents-"

"They'd be more than happy to take you in. They know all about your family. Well, no one knows all about your family. But enough to be quite approving of you running away. And they like you."

Sirius crossed his arms thoughtfully. "Well. Your mom is a damn good cook."

James laughed. "Why didn't we think of this sooner?"

He shrugged. "No kidding. Why didn't my cousin meet Ted Tonks sooner?"

"His name is Ted Tonks? Blimey, I can already tell he's perfect for her."

They stayed up the rest of the night playing a game of Dud, which was humorously pointless with two players, trying to keep their laughs down to a volume that wouldn't wake up James's parents. Then they put blankets on the floor for Sirius to sleep on, lay down to go to bed, and turned out the lights. Just before dozing off James whispered, "Sirius?"

"Yes?" he murmured tiredly.

"Are you...I mean...Are you okay?"

"Of course I'm okay," he said right away as if it was a ridiculous question. "I'm just mad."

But James knew his friend better than that. "Padfoot?"

"What?!" he whispered, obviously exhausted and trying to get to sleep.

"Happy New Year."

"...Oh. You, too."

It was almost 3:00 when they were finally asleep.

"Hendrix!" Sirius demanded, frolicking into James's room the next morning after taking a shower. "Now!"

James had been awake for a few minutes and sat up in bed, yawning. "Isn't it a little early for that?" he asked, looking at his clock.

"So we'll wake the house up with a bang. Come on."

He pulled James out of bed by the arm and they went into the spare room in the house which was used as a combination office and "music room." This room was one of Sirius's favorite things about staying with the Potters. James's dad was a Halfblood, and one with very fine taste, so he had quite a large and varied music collection. Every time Sirius visited he invited himself to play the Doors, the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, and even Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley as loud as it was possible to without getting complaints from the neighbors.

If either of James's parents had not been awake before, they were as soon the house came alive with electric guitar played at full blast at 8:40. Knowing that they were being annoying and could get yelled at extensively by his mother for this seemed to give James a nervous kind of excitement, and he dropped to the floor laughing as Sirius hyperly jumped around the room in a movement almost resembling dancing, flinging water off of his hair that was still wet from his shower. They stayed in the room for a while, afraid to come out because of what they were doing and because neither of James's parents had seen that Sirius was there yet. After a while they heard a banging around of pans in the kitchen that told them Mrs. Potter was making breakfast, and heard Mr. Potter singing along to the music in the shower.

The two went downstairs, hardly having to creep around because the music covered the sound of their footsteps. Jane Potter, a lanky and delicately built but strong-minded woman with dark hair, was at the stove making pancakes. Sirius snuck up behind her and pointed to a big one in the pan, saying, "I get that one."

She smirked. "Hello, Sirius."

His shoulders fell in disappointment. "I was supposed to surprise you. How did you know I was here?"

"Are you kidding? Who in this family would begin the day by playing Jimi Hendrix as an alarm clock?"

"James would if he knew how to make a mate proud."

"So we did wake you up," James inferred, sitting at the table.

"Not your dad, but me," she informed.

"Sorry, Mrs. P," Sirius said, using the shortened name he always called her which wasn't completely informal but still didn't take a long time to say.

"Oh, that's alright. It was kind of an early morning rush. And a pleasant surprise; it's nice to have you here."

"Nice to be here," he told her. "I don't get to spend much time in a house where the old lady wouldn't do the AK on me for what I did this morning."

"Call me an old lady again and that's gonna change," she said, jokingly holding her spatula up to him as if to slap him with it.

"AK?" James questioned, the only one who had caught the senselessness of what Sirius had just said.

"Yeah, as in 'Avada Kedavra,'" Sirius explained. "Sorry, I forget it's only Andy and I who say that."

Eventually James's father came downstairs in his bathrobe and whacked Sirius on the head with a rolled-up newspaper. "So it's you who used up all the hot water. What do you think you're doing with your 'Voodoo Child' wake-up call, huh?"

"Oh, admit it," joked Sirius, who got along with Mr. Potter very well. "You know you loved it. We could hear you singing from the other end of the hall."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said with a hidden smile.

The others all laughed. Mr. Potter turned to his wife, said, "Morning," and kissed the top of her head in greeting before sitting down at the table with the two boys.

Jane and Michael Potter had always represented for Sirius a kind of happiness that was unattainable in his life. They were not a picture-perfect couple by most people's standards, and argued a lot when they thought James and Sirius couldn't hear them. But it was still always obvious that they were madly in love. Compared to what usually went on in Sirius's house, their arguments were loving and affectionate talk.

Mrs. Potter had the magic radio station on, which had a wizard telling the news of an accident involving Apparition that had resulted in a woman stuck two feet from the ground with half of her body inside a building. As she was putting the pancakes on everyone's plates, all of them suddenly became silent as they heard what the wizard on the radio spoke of next.

"...And the frightful subject that has everyone in the magic community concerned: the Death Eaters. All that has been known about these mysterious underground collaborators is that they are a terrorist group trying to bring attention to their ideals that Pureblood wizards and witches are rightfully the dominant members of magic society. It is even possible that what they want is complete isolation from supposedly 'unpure' witches and wizards like Halfbloods and Muggle-borns. The idea that these kinds of people are undeserving of their place in the magic world has been regarded as unprincipled nonsense for the majority of our history, which is what makes the Death Eaters messages so intimidating. Varying in exact words, a written statement is usually left at the scenes of all their attacks demanding cleansing of the government and our society. There are often few or no survivors at the government establishments that the Death Eaters attack, but one thing always marks these scenes as the same: a skull with a serpent slithering through it, left suspended in the air like a foreboding warning.

"But as of late, new information is being uncovered which leads many to suspect that this terrorist group is something much deeper than meets the eye. Many Death Eaters captured by the Ministry have given the name Voldemort as the leader they claim to serve. The Death Eaters show blind and unbreakable loyalty to him, and some even swear that with the help of his followers this Voldemort is going to take over everything and that there is nothing that can be done about it.

"Ministry official Barty Crouch recently said to one of our interviewers, 'Most are viewing these Death Eaters as reformers. But I believe that they aren't interested in changing our views and simply want us to submit to their wishes, whether or by will or by force. The destruction of Ministry workplaces that has made us all notice them is just a warning for what is to come. I think that these Death Eaters are holding something back. They seem to know that they can and will succeed in what they're doing, and it is even possible that these attacks are merely warnings of how capable they will be of destroying us if we get in the way of what they want. Perhaps this Voldemort is their secret weapon; for whoever he is, he must be very powerful for all of these people to be serving him. It is of great importance that this group not be taken lightly. We will make the followers that we have give us the information we can use to crush them before they get close to what their real intentions are.'

"Meanwhile, some are talking about and even volunteering for efforts against Voldemort and his followers. Richard Karlstein, chief Auror at the Ministry of Protection from Dark Arts, and Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts, are among some who are willing to form a group of protectors to infiltrate and destroy the Death Eaters. More information on this will be reported as it is found."

Mrs. Potter started moving again, going to the cupboard and then putting a bottle of maple syrup on the table. "There's your syrup," she said before sitting down. "The butter's out on the counter behind Michael there." There was a moment of awkward silence at the table, but soon they started talking casually again. No one asked Sirius why he was here. He was very grateful.