Author's Note: I didn't incorporate any of the sixth book, although this does take place during Harry's sixth year. However, it takes place in February, so nothing happened yet, thank God. There's only one character in Harry's time that belongs to me, and I just put her here because I cut her story. Now she's on the spin-off.

Sunday, July 31, 2005
Hey look – I'm updating on Harry Potter's birthday! How fitting. Anyway, I'd just like to thank …

Adcohen: thank you for the compliments
Spikesdreamer: well, here's what happens next (the real stuff should be happening soon though – all this was just intro stuff)
Foodisgood: Food is good, lol and thank you for taking the time out of your schedule to review. I appreciate it a lot!
Princessdza: Thanks for reviewing!
Raichuu: longer chapters? Lol that's a lot to ask! Well that last one was only five pages, so I guess so … lol and the first one was what? Two sentences? Haha so okay – this one's a little longer so enjoy!
SBR: well, if you were looking for James, there's more about him than Harry in this chapter so yeah. This should be the final of the intro chapters: the plot stuff should come along soon.

Another note: I leave for France August 3rd, this upcoming Wednesday. I'm probably not going to update before then and I won't be around to update next weekend, and I probably won't have time to do enough editing before the weekend after that comes around … but I'll try.

So here's Chapter Five of Life Swap everyone! Hope you like it – and don't forget to review if you do … or don't haha. Enjoy!

The lights dim, the titles appear, and what's that? Cheering? Just kidding – keep scrolling it's there!

Life Swap
Chapter Five
New Friends
James couldn't believe it. He was dead. Harry didn't have a father. Harry didn't have a mother either. Harry didn't even have a Godfather anymore, because Sirius died too. Thank goodness Moony was still around, because Dumbledore said that Peter disappeared. Poor Peter. It must have been horrible because Dumbledore didn't even want to talk about how it happened.

He was now lying down in the hospital bed, contemplating Harry's life.

Yeah, sure, his kid was awesome. There was no doubt about that. But his life was just so … messed up. The thought of it made one thoroughly depressed.

There were some good things, though. Apparently, Harry could give him a run for his money on the Quidditch field (Harry was captain as well) – and he did own the fastest broom in the world. He still had the Invisibility Cloak. James wondered whether or not Harry had the Marauders' map.

Sighing, James said, "All right. Anything else I need to know? Does he have a girlfriend?"

"No," Dumbledore said. "As far as my knowledge goes, he escorted a Ms. Cho Chang last year. He spends a bit of time with a Ms. Liz Cain but I'm sure it's not anything you should be worried about."

"Oh, okay," James responded. Inwardly, he was glad. He didn't want to be snogging his son's significant other. James grimaced, realizing how fortunate it was that Lily Evans still hated him: that would certainly make Harry uncomfortable as well.

What if Harry met his mother? My future wife, James thought. He turned the thought over in his head. I wonder who my future wife is he thought.

"When we put you in Harry's place," Dumbledore said, with a twinkle in his eyes, "Please try to behave."

"And I don't normally?"

"No, James," Dumbledore said. "And we both know it. You have to be especially careful – Harry's training to be an Auror."

"Really?" James said, bright eyed.

"Yes," Dumbledore said. "Please don't gum it up, James."

"Why would I do that?" James said indignantly, ignoring the fact that Dumbledore had just used the phrase "don't gum it up."

"Severus Snape is one of Harry's teachers."

"What!"

"Please James, control yourself."

"I have to be nice to … "

"Yes," Dumbledore said. "I see there's no curing your feelings of animosity towards him."

"Afraid not, Professor."

"Pity. Thanks to your enmity, Harry suffers much in his teacher-student relationship with Professor Snape, James. And don't forget that he is Harry's teacher."

"Blimey, does he really give Harry such a hard time because of me?"

"Nothing he can't handle. Just be sure that you can handle it."

"Yes, Professor."

They spent another hour going over the names and faces of people Harry knew. James, being a quick learner, got everything almost immediately.

"Now what?" James asked Dumbledore.

"We get you, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny back to school," Dumbledore said.

As Harry walked out of the Hospital wing, his head swam with names of people whose faces he had not seen, and etiquette non-rules of James Potter (cursing people like Severus Snape and some guy named Steve Weiss openly in the halls). Dumbledore had told him a lot and could tell that Harry had a hard time taking it in, but the professor was confident that Harry would learn quick enough to keep up the pretense of being James. Plus, he could always follow what Sirius was doing – even though James was generally the leader.

"The overall rule?" Dumbledore had said. "Keep a certain courtesy towards the typical school rules, but disregard them whenever they seem pointless. Pay attention in class without seeming to do so, and only mock the teachers outside of class. And don't do anything too terribly rash – wouldn't want to get your father in trouble, do you?"

Harry reached the Gryffindor porthole. Taking a second to mess up his untidy hair (another Potter etiquette non-rule) Harry entered the common room.

Harry looked around the room, which looked exactly the same as it had the last time he saw it. Some things never change, Harry thought.

Uncertain of what to do, Harry took a deep breath, grinned widely, and called out, "Hey! Guess who's back!"

Immediately, he was accosted by what seemed to be the Quidditch Team, because they kept calling him "captain." By Dumbledore's descriptions of these people, he had basically put the names with the faces. It was progress.

After the crowd had dispersed, two boys and a girl who looked about his age approached Harry. One of them had a familiarly round face …

"Heya Harry!" said one of the boys.

"Hey … you," Harry said.

The boy tackled him in a bone-crushing hug.

"Really Frank!" the girl said. "You'll give him another concussion!"

"It's not that terrible Alice," Frank said. "Just a fond greeting between friends."

"I wasn't aware it was customary to break your friends' bones," the other boy said.

"Stuff it Gideon," Frank said smiling. "Don't tell me you're not happy to see our Seeker? Just in time to help us win in the match against Hufflepuff, too."

Frank, Alice, and Gideon, Harry thought frantically. I know this … Frank and Alice Longbottom and Gideon Prewett, members of the original Order of the Phoenix. Obviously friends with my father. Shared the same fate as well, he added bitterly.

He smiled at them, gave them a hurried excuse, and rushed off to find Lupin – Remus, Harry corrected himself – Sirius, and Pettigrew. Maybe he would just go by their nicknames – it could be easier.

Harry found them in the dormitory, huddled over the Marauder's Map.

"Hey James!" Sirius said with restrained glee. Obviously, they were planning the next full moon. "Come in! Quick, and shut the door behind you."

Harry joined them and sat on the bed next to Sirius. The three of them had put the bedside table in between two of the four-poster beds so it was centrally located for all of them to look at. It seemed that they were just adding what seemed to be a shortcut from the 4th floor corridor to the grounds beneath the statue of Theodore, the Thickheaded.

"What do you think we should do with this information, James?" Sirius said when they had finished. "I doubt we'll need it once we're out of this place."

"We could sell it," Wormtail said.

"Sell this?" Remus said, questioningly. "And what price would we put on it? This stuff is priceless."

"Yeah," Harry said. "It could turn out that this map could be worth more than all our lives put together. We couldn't take money for this." He said it jokingly, and the others laughed, but they had no idea how serious he was.

"I know!" Sirius said. "We'll leave it behind, for future generations to find."

"And even if it's confiscated," Harry said, "there'd be no way to prove what it really is, right?"

"Yup," Remus said. "After all, it was your idea to make it password protected."

"I wish there was a way it could insult everyone who didn't know the phrase," Sirius said regretfully. "But then, how would it know what to say?"

The door opened slowly and they turned to see who it was. Harry reached out and cleared the map casually. There was a fourth year standing in the doorway.

"Oh," the kid said, rather fearfully. "I was … just looking for my brother."

"He's downstairs, Fabian," Sirius said. "Now go away, we're copying homework."

"Oh okay," Fabian said. "Sorry to bother." The door shut.

Harry marveled at just how powerful his father and his friends were. Now he could see how James became so bigheaded. Hopefully, he would start growing out of it soon.

"Wearing your hair differently, Harry?" Hermione said, as James mussed his hair. He did it instinctively now – he couldn't tell whether he was doing it or not.

"Oh," James said, "Well, I mean, I can never get it tidy, so in for a penny, in for a pound."

"Okay then," Hermione said, giving James a look that said "strange, but okay."

James shoved some pumpkin juice down his throat so she wouldn't ask him any more questions. The morning had not gone smoothly so far. James had woken up in the dormitory and couldn't find anything that he needed in Harry's trunk. It took him a while until he was fully dressed and then he had to wait and pick up whatever books that Ron picked up. Then there was a hullabaloo on the way to breakfast with a bunch of people asking James what had happened at the Ministry a few days ago. It was fortunate that Ron expected James to ignore them all because James had no idea what any of them were talking about. James stared around the Great Hall to get his mind off of things. He realized that many of the students were staring at him and he shifted uncomfortably. Could they tell he wasn't Harry?

"Why is everyone looking at me?" James asked in an undertone.

"What did you expect?" Ron said, turning his head right and left.

"I mean, come on, Harry," Hermione said, frowning. "After what happened, you'd expect people to be curious. And they stare all the time anyway, don't they?" She said it like it was something of an upside. James didn't get it.

The morning post arrived before James could think of a reply. A snowy white owl – Hedwig, he reminded himself – dropped a Daily Prophet in front of him. She landed in front of him and gazed shrewdly at James. He had been about to bite into his toast when he saw that the bird hadn't left yet. She continued to stare.

James sighed. She could probably tell he wasn't Harry. He might as well make peace, though. Hedwig was Harry's owl, and trusted pet. James handed over his toast. Hedwig looked at it disdainfully for a moment and then took it. Still suspicious, she had seemed to accept James, even if she didn't like him much. She flew away.

James left his paper unopened and went back to his pumpkin juice.

"Well if you're not going to be using this," Ron said, with a slightly surprised look on his face, "I'll read it." He took the paper from beside James spoon.

"Sure," James said. He didn't understand why it should matter to Harry anyway. He was a sixteen year old for goodness' sake! Normal sixteen year olds didn't care about current events. Maybe Harry was a nerd. Oh the shame!

"Look Harry," Hermione said. "Umbridge has finally been convicted of Misuse of Government Facilities by setting those Dementors on you last year. She now faces 5 years in prison or a fine of 700 galleons. Serves her right, too. She nearly killed you, and then where would we all be?"

James had no clue what she was talking about, but nodded in agreement and went to his eggs.

"Oh well would you look at this!" Ron said. "There's a whole article devoted to Lupin and how he apprehended that escaped Death Eater – Travers."

"You'd think they wouldn't glorify a werewolf," Hermione said. "But they did. Isn't that wonderful?"

James leaned over and looked at the article over Ron's shoulder. There was Lupin, looking slightly breathless, under the weather, and incredibly modest. Not to mention incredibly old, but that didn't matter to James. He was glad to see a familiar face.

"Look, it's written by Gloria Gill," Hermione said. "Isn't that Charlie's fiancé?"

Ron nodded. "Yes. Very Weasley worthy – especially for Charlie. Should've been there when he told Mum. She cried a waterfall and left a lake on the kitchen table. Charlie came out with his cheeks pinched beet red … "

"Here's another article about you being the Chosen One, Harry," Hermione said. "I wonder how they found out … "

"It's kind of dangerous, isn't it?" Ron said. "If You-Know-Who believes the papers … "

"Then Voldemort," Hermione rolled her eyes as Ron shuddered (she didn't notice how James froze for a moment at the sound of Voldemort's name), "knows that Harry's the only one who can defeat him."

Ron shrugged, tossing the paper back to James. "Nothing we can do about it, I guess."

As Harry's friends went back to their breakfast, James was questioning exactly how much more of Harry's life he could take.

Author's Note: Well, how was it? Review please!