A/N: Thank you for all of the lovely reviews, people! And here it is… The Meeting!
I expect a lot of reviews for this chapter, because it's LONG! (At least for me!) Plus… well… like I said, it's The Meeting of Harry and James!
Plus, I've decided not to rewrite the last chapter. Because I'm lazy. So sue me.
Please read and review!
Plus, there are (kind of) a lot of Alexandra flashbacks in here! (smiles happily—I love that character! Kudos to Clara for making her up!)
A/N 2: "Dialogue," Thoughts or 'Thoughts' (either one, both are used)
Dedication: To naomi.black (who used an anonymous review), my 100th reviewer! Sorry not to have dedicated this to you last chapter, but I was in a hurry and I forgot… but look on the bright side, you get the chapter of The Meeting dedicated to you instead! (And yes, The Meeting is important enough to be put in italics and capitalized. Because I got a lot of "you are cruel, sadistic, and evil" reviews and death threats! Yay! I think…)
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. It's JK Rowling's. So please don't sue me. (Hey, that was a haiku! Hehe.)
Chapter Eight of "Returning to Life" by Morsmordre
James felt as if he were in a dream.
And not the type of dream where he was doing something, or something weird happened. No, he felt as if he were unattached to his body, floating above the scene that panned out in front of him.
Sitting on the bed in the room James had entered was a boy. The boy had messy black hair, brilliantly bright emerald green eyes, glasses, and a jagged scar that was slashed across, near the center of, his forehead.
In other words, if it weren't for his scar and eyes, he would have looked almost exactly like James.
His eyes were still every bit as green as Lily's.
And said green Lily's eyes (on Harry) were widened with shock.
"Harry?" James asked tentatively, taking a step forward.
This appeared to be the wrong thing to do. Harry shrank away, his eyes still wide.
"Harry, it's me. James. Your father."
This appeared to be the wrong thing to say. Harry shook his head. "No," he muttered, his voice croaky.
"No, what?"
"No. You're not my father. My father's dead."
Even though James knew that Harry was only saying this because he didn't know the complete truth, the words still stung like a harsh slap.
"I'm not dead, Harry," James replied, trying to sound gentle. "I'm right here. Alive, too."
Harry shook his head again. "You're not my father," he repeated.
"I am," James answered firmly. "I'm your dad, James Potter, and I'm alive."
Harry frowned slightly, his face still rather pale.
"That's not possible," he muttered. "Dead people don't come back to life."
"That's true," James offered, feeling slightly encouraged. (Just slightly.) They were making a little bit of progress in this department. "But I was never dead. Voldemort just placed me under some sort of spell that put me in a coma, and made everyone think I was dead."
Harry seemed like he was struggling to find words. James noticed that his son hadn't flinched at the use of the name Voldemort.
"That's what Sirius said," Harry finally choked out.
"Well, he's right," James told him. Please believe me… I'm really not lying.
There was another pause. Then Harry blurted out, "Can you change into Prongs?"
James frowned. "What?" he asked, wondering if he had heard Harry correctly. Had Harry really said what he thought he had said…?
"Can you change into Prongs?" Harry repeated.
James's heart soared. So Harry knew about his Animagus form! "Yes," James answered Harry's question.
Harry gave him a defiant look that said quite plainly, Prove it.
James concentrated on his Animagus form. He hadn't tried to change into Prongs in what seemed like forever. But he was positive he could do it.
He heard a small pop, which elicited a gasp from Harry. James looked down and say hooves instead of hands or feet.
Yup, he could still do it.
James—as a stag—looked up at Harry, who was staring down at him. Harry's mouth was opening and closing, as if he was trying to say something, but his throat didn't seem to be working properly.
Prongs leaned forward and nudged Harry's hand. That seemed to break the (almost-)fifteen-year-old boy's stupor. He leaned down and petted the stag's head tentatively and slowly, as if he were in a trance.
Prongs transformed back into James and grabbed Harry's shoulders. Harry flinched but didn't shrug his hands away.
That did it. James pulled his son into a hug and resisted the urge to break down into tears or whatever it was that he wanted to do now. Harry stiffened, but slowly melted into the embrace.
Father and son stayed like that for a long time.
That night, Harry went to sleep with a smile on his face.
Dream
Voldemort was sitting in a high-backed chair in a large room in what clearly was an old, unused manor. Dust was settled in the nooks and crannies of the room.
Cowering in front of the pale man with the long, spindly fingers and the blood-red eyes was another man. This man was short and going bald. He had the look of someone who had once been plump but had lost a lot of weight in a small amount of time. He looked awfully like a rat.
"Wormtail," a voice hissed.
The voice came from the man sitting in the chair (Voldemort). The voice sounded like a snake hissing something menacing. The man dubbed Wormtail seemed to think so too, because he flinched, but nodded frantically nonetheless.
"Yes, my lord?" he squeaked, even sounding like a rat.
The pale, spindly fingers curled around one of the armrests of the chair Voldemort was sitting in. The fingers of the other hand wound themselves around a long thirteen-inch phoenix feather yew wand.
"It has come to my attention," Voldemort continued speaking, "that your dear friend Prongs is alive." He emphasized the nickname "Prongs" and was rewarded with a rather obvious flinch.
"H-How, my lord?" Wormtail asked, shifting nervously from where he was kneeling on the floor.
"Stand up when I speak to you, Wormtail," Voldemort drawled, his fingers twirling his wand around.
"Y-Yes, m-my lord," Wormtail stammered, scrambling to his feet from his position on the floor.
"Repeat what you just said," Voldemort ordered, sounding bored.
"H-How did he come back to life?" Wormtail stuttered out.
Voldemort smiled lazily. "Speak his name, Wormtail. You'll be seeing your dear friend James Potter again, anyway. There is no chance I would allow you to miss meeting him again for the first time in… what is it? Fourteen years?" It was, of course, a rhetorical question. Voldemort was just playing around with Wormtail, and Wormtail knew it. Therefore, he remained silent.
"Isn't it, Wormtail?" Voldemort demanded coldly.
"Y-Yes, my lord."
"You'll be seeing him again. You can express your gratitude to him then, by telling him about how you entered my service, and maybe I shall even give you the honor of killing him."
"W-What are you planning, my lord?"
Blood-red eyes narrowed into slits. "I want you to find and capture James Potter for me and bring him back here. Alive."
End dream
Harry woke up. His scar was threatening to burst his head open, and his throat ached.
"Harry! Harry! Are you alright?"
Harry blinked at the sudden light that flooded the room and squinted his eyes. He could see Ron, Hermione, Sirius, Remus, and his father standing there near the foot of his bed, all of them looking worried.
"You were thrashing about and moaning in your sleep," Ron said, his face pale. His red freckles stood out even more against his unnaturally white skin. "What was that about?"
"Was it a vision?" Hermione asked suddenly.
Harry swallowed a few times before answering. After all, his throat still hurt. "Yes," he finally croaked out.
"What do you mean, vision?" James demanded sharply. "What visions?"
No one really paid him any attention. "You ought to tell Dumbledore. He'll know what to do," Sirius urged.
Harry looked up sharply. "Dumbledore? He's here?"
"Yes," Remus confirmed. "He's right downstairs."
Harry felt his mind spinning. Dumbledore was here, in Order of the Phoenix headquarters? Nobody had ever bothered to tell him. He had only seen Dumbledore once, at the Order meeting that had taken place when Harry had first gotten here, at Grimmauld Place, and it hadn't been just his imagination—Dumbledore had been avoiding eye contact with him the whole time, no matter how hard he tried to get it. In fact, it seemed as if Dumbledore had been avoiding him the whole time since he had gotten here. What was that all about?
"I'll go get him," Remus offered.
Harry shook his head, his mouth going dry again. "No," he muttered. He wasn't sure if he was ready to speak to the old headmaster. Yet, anyway.
Remus looked at him sharply, his intense gaze boring into Harry's, as if prying for answers. Harry avoided eye contact with him, like Dumbledore had been doing with Harry. "Are you sure?"
Harry nodded.
"All right," Remus agreed reluctantly. "Do you want to share what that was about?"
Harry shook his head.
"We'll be here if you need us, mate," Ron said sympathetically, sort of patting Harry on the back awkwardly, before he left the room. Hermione smiled at Harry comfortingly, too, before following. Remus and Sirius left the room as well, but James remained.
"Harry, are you all right?" James asked worriedly.
Harry nodded again. "I'm fine," he muttered, avoiding his father's gaze. He didn't think he was ready to start calling his father "Dad," but "James" didn't seem right either.
"What was that about? What visions were you talking about?"
Harry bit his lip before finally deciding to tell his father the truth. "Sometimes I get visions of what Voldemort's doing, because of this scar." Harry pushed the fringe away and pointed to the jagged lightning bolt scar slashed across his forehead. "When Voldemort gave me the scar, he put a bit of himself in me. At least that's what Dumbledore said. Now we have a mind link. Sometimes I see what he's doing, like what just happened then. I get the visions through dreams."
James looked shocked. Harry couldn't blame him. It wasn't every day you found out that your only son—a son who had grown up in what seemed like a short amount of time to you—had a mind link with one of the darkest wizards ever.
"Harry…" James started speaking.
Harry plowed on. "He was talking to Wormtail." His eyes darkened a bit at the mention of Wormtail's name, and James let out a noise that sounded like a cross between a growl and a snarl. "He was taunting Wormtail about you being alive, and he told Wormtail that he wanted him to capture you for him."
The full meaning of the words seemed to hit the two Potters at the same time. "He knows you're alive," Harry suddenly gasped. "I don't know how, but he knows you're alive. And he's planning to capture you."
Harry had never felt more grateful for a father in his lifetime before.
Life passed on at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. Harry began to get used to having a father, a godfather, a god-wolf, as Sirius and James both joked, a sort of godmother (Anastasia Berkley), and said sort-of godmother's twin sister who happened to be an ex-Death Eater.
Harry sometimes still expected to go to sleep and wake up to find out that his father wasn't really alive, and that it had all just been a very pleasant dream. But he would go downstairs to the Grimmauld Place kitchen and find his father sitting there, reading the Daily Prophet, complimenting Mrs. Weasley on her cooking skills (in which she would just blush), or saying something to annoy Sirius, who had gotten over the fact that his best friend was actually alive rather quickly and was now beginning to act kind of like a teenager—definitely much more carefree than before. Because of Azkaban, and all that. But not by that much.
One day, Sirius, Remus, James, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny were sitting around in one of the many rooms of Grimmauld Place that seemed to hold no purpose except for just to be there (translation: take up space). Bottles of butterbeer littered the glass table in front of the chairs that the seven of them were sitting in, and James and Sirius were telling a story about a particularly spectacular prank that they had pulled in their sixth year, a few days before Halloween.
"And then," James reminisced, still laughing, "Snivellus was covered in the paint!"
Ginny, Ron, James, Sirius, and Harry broke out into laughter again. Hermione and Remus both looked slightly disapproving, but neither of them could stop the slight smile that curled up their lips.
"And then," James continued, still laughing a bit, "Lily shows up and…" he trailed off, all traces of laughter gone from his face.
"James?" Sirius asked, looking rather worried.
"I'm tired," James said shortly. His face had turned rather pale and it was devoid of any obvious emotion. "I'm going to bed. Good night."
"But it's only seven—" Sirius began to object, but stopped talking when Remus shot him a rather obvious look.
"I won't stop you, then. Good night," Sirius said quietly, as James practically fled the room.
There was a short, uncomfortable silence. Then Remus said quietly, "We've had fourteen years to come to terms with Lily's death. James has only had two weeks, and he's not ready to face the fact that Lily's never coming back."
Needless to say, there wasn't much cheerful conversation after that.
Another few days passed. It didn't take Harry long to learn that Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, also known as The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, or Order of the Phoenix headquarters, was the house of a dark wizard.
It wasn't that Sirius was a dark wizard. It was just that, apparently, the Black family had been like the Malfoys—chock full of Slytherins who cared more about blood purity than anything else.
Harry was now examining the Black family tapestry along with Sirius. James, Remus, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Mrs. Weasley, the Weasley twins, Dumbledore, the Berkley sisters, assorted Order members, etc, were all off somewhere else in the large manor-like house doing other things.
"See?" Sirius said darkly, pointing at a few names printed near the bottom of the tapestry. "My cousin Narcissa married Lucius Malfoy and had that git's son."
"You're related to Draco Malfoy," Harry realized, his eyes widening.
His eyes roamed around the rest of the tapestry. Bellatrix Black was connected to Rodolphus Lestrange…
Lestrange… where had he heard that name before?
Suddenly Harry remembered what he had seen in Dumbledore's Pensieve last year… about Bellatrix Lestrange and the Longbottoms…
"And my brother, Regulus Arcturus Black," Sirius continued in an almost gloomy tone of voice, oblivious to Harry's shock and dismay, "was a bloody stupid git—he joined the Death Eaters."
Harry turned to stare at Sirius with wide eyes.
"My cousin Andy—that's Andromeda Black—married a Muggleborn, Ted Tonks, though," Sirius added, plowing on. "They had Nymphadora Tonks—yes, that's the pink-haired Auror who went to pick you up from the Dursleys," Sirius answered Harry's unspoken question. "She was blasted off the tapestry for being a blood traitor… Andy, I mean, not Tonks…"
Harry looked at the space above the fringe of the tapestry, searching for Sirius's name. Next to Regulus Black, Sirius's brother's name, there was a charred burn mark where Sirius's name should have been. It was the same for the space next to Narcissa Black and Bellatrix Black's names.
"Is that what happened to you?"
"Yeah… I ran away from home after fifth year," Sirius muttered, glaring at the tapestry viciously.
"You ran away?"
"Yeah. I couldn't stand it here."
"Sirius, Harry, come down for lunch!" Mrs. Weasley's voice shouted from the downstairs Grimmauld Place kitchen.
Harry ignored her as well as his grumbling stomach. "Where did you go?"
Sirius shrugged and kicked at the wall for no apparent reason. "Your grandparents' house, Potter Manor. They took me in like a second son. Just ask James."
Harry felt a warm glow at the thought of his now-alive father, but diminished it quickly, wanting to hear what Sirius had to say.
It appeared Sirius was done talking, though. He snuck a glance at Harry, then quickly turned away, as if he wanted to say something but wasn't sure if he should say it or not.
"Sirius, Harry, lunch!" Mrs. Weasley's annoyed voice hollered again.
Sirius headed towards the staircase, and Harry followed.
Now that Harry knew for sure that Sirius's blood family had been a bunch of pureblood bigots like the Malfoys were, he would have to expect things like dark objects or dark creatures in wardrobes to pop up or whatever. So he didn't know why he was so shocked when he first met Kreacher, the Blacks' old house elf.
Harry remembered what Ron had told him in second year—that most rich pureblooded families always had at least one house-elf. Like the Malfoys had had Dobby, until Harry had freed Dobby. But yeah, the Malfoys had had a house-elf.
So did Crouch, Harry thought disdainfully. But that wasn't the point here.
The Potters had had house-elves too, Harry had been told. During one of the many days in which Harry had been told stories of his father's childhood and his father's days at Hogwarts as well, he had learned about the Potters' house-elves at Potter Manor. There was Binky, who made a lot of the food James liked all the time, Matty, who had been James's personal caretaker when he had been just a little boy, Skippy, who had been the one to clean James's bedroom for him sometimes, and even more house-elves than that. Harry had delighted in these stories and soaked them all up like a cleaning rag would soak up dirty water.
So he had known that most rich pureblood families would have at least one house-elf. The Blacks should not be an exception. There were even heads of dead house-elves hanging on one of the walls near the entrance hall of Grimmauld Place.
So why was Harry so surprised to meet a live house-elf here in the Black ancestral home?
(Rhetorical question.)
Harry's first encounter with Kreacher was not a particularly pleasant one. Mrs. Weasley had finally gotten over the fact that yes, James was alive, and was now forcing everyone to clean the house. To quote her, "It's filthy, and I won't have it that way." Even James, the newly-returned-from-the-dead, or-sort-of, was not spared from her almost fanatical and unhealthy obsession with making Grimmauld Place resemble something that actually looked like a pleasant place to live in. And believe me, that would be an incredibly hard task to accomplish.
Anna, as Harry had learned to call her, was wearing old robes and leaning on the floor, scrubbing out some of the dirt and grime littered over it. Alexandra, whom Harry couldn't quite bring himself to call Alex yet, no longer looked like Death Eater royalty (Harry still couldn't quite get over the fact that she had been a Death Eater) as she sat beside her sister, also scrubbing vigorously at the floor, a still rather haughty look on her aristocratic features. Sirius, Remus, and James were getting rid of the old things in the room. And Ginny, Mrs. Weasley, Ron, Harry, Ginny, and the Weasley twins were literally tackling the curtains, which had been declared to be filled with doxies… some sort of creature that Harry didn't really understand about. Instead, he opted to help his father, godfather, and… uh, Remus (he couldn't bring himself to call Remus a god-wolf, like Sirius and James had insisted he should—Harry still wasn't sure if they had been joking or not) get rid of the old Black family things.
As he shuffled through boxes and piles of papers and things, occasionally turning to see Mrs. Weasley spray a doxy with some sort of substance that froze them, or to see Fred (or maybe it was George?) stick a doxy in his pocket, "for our joke shop," Fred (or George… whoever it was) mouthed at Harry, winking and giving him a thumbs-up sign to show that all was good and well or something like that.
It was then that a low, raspy voice croaked, "Oh, my poor Mistress, what she would say if she saw all these blood-traitors befouling her ancestral home…"
Harry literally jumped about a foot in the air.
"Kreacher!" Sirius barked.
Harry blinked and turned to see a very old and very ugly house-elf wearing a sort of rag tied around his middle, and nothing else, step out of the shadows. The house-elf glared at them all.
"That's Kreacher, the Blacks' old house-elf," Remus explained in a low voice. "He tends to be on the… dark, eccentric side. He's still completely devoted to Sirius's mother and… well, you saw what her portrait was like. Sirius hates Kreacher."
Harry nodded in understanding. Yes, Sirius's mother seemed like a horrible old hag, and yes, he understood Sirius's relationship with Kreacher—it would probably be like how Dobby felt about the Malfoys, and vice versa.
Still, he couldn't believe how shocked he had been about the house-elf. He had literally jumped, for Merlin's sake.
Before Harry could ponder on any other of his thoughts, Hermione spoke to Kreacher.
"Hello, Kreacher," she greeted the old house-elf rather pleasantly and politely. "How are you?"
Kreacher blinked, and then muttered in a low voice not quite so under his breath, "The Mudblood is talking to Kreacher. Kreacher will pretend he does not hear the Mudblood speaking to him."
"Kreacher!" Sirius snarled.
Kreacher blinked again. "Yes, Master?" he asked in tones of deep disgust, but bowing low at Sirius all the same.
"If you're going to hang around here, you might as well help us clean this house," Sirius snapped.
Kreacher blinked again, twice, before bowing again. "Kreacher does clean. Kreacher has been cleaning all day." Once again, not quite under his breath, he put in, "Kreacher will not take orders from the blood traitor. He refuses to. No, Kreacher serves only his Mistress…"
"Right, you clean," Sirius scoffed skeptically. "If you clean all day, then why is this house so filthy?"
Kreacher said nothing, but you could still hear him muttering things about Mistress, half-bloods, blood traitors, Mudbloods, and half-breeds.
"Right," Sirius decided. Then he raised his voice. "Get out, you stupid house-elf!" he snarled.
Kreacher turned around, shuffling away obediently. "Kreacher will do as Master says…" in a lower tone, he added, "Although Kreacher does not want to serve the blood traitor… Kreacher heard he is a murderer…"
"And I will be a bloody murderer if you don't stop muttering!" Sirius called after him, slamming the door after Kreacher particularly hard. "Stupid house-elf," he muttered not quite under his breath, not unlike Kreacher.
Anna just stared at Sirius through calculating, narrowed eyes.
Alexandra wasn't quite sure what to make of her life anymore.
She had been a perfect pureblood Berkley daughter—she attended their pureblood parties, behaved like a pureblood, and she was completely respectable. She had been planning to grow up, make a respectable pureblood marriage, produce heirs to the line she would marry into, grow old, and die.
Guess what?
Yup, you guessed right… it didn't quite turn out that way.
When she had entered Hogwarts, she had fully expected to be Sorted into Slytherin. She remembered the Sorting Hat's words to her, however, that had been whispered into her ear…
Flashback
"Hmm… this is a tough one… I see plenty of ambition, but no, you don't have uncommon goals, and I also spot plenty of intellect… so where shall I put you?"
'Slytherin,' Alexandra Berkley pleaded to the hat. She was a small eleven-year-old then, with white-blond hair and practically a permanent sneer etched on her face. She had no sneer on her face then, however—just a worried look.
"Yes, Slytherin would be a good place for you…"
'Thank you,' Alexandra thought, feeling relieved. 'So just hurry up and put me there.'
"…but not good enough," the Sorting Hat finished its thought.
'No, Slytherin! Please!'
"However, the intellect portion of your mind weighs out anything else…"
Alexandra shook her head frantically, like she was trying to block out a buzzing noise, or like she was trying to shoo a pesky fly away from her head. 'Please, Slytherin, nowhere else…'
"No, I trust that you will make wise choices and decisions in life. No, the best place for you shall be RAVENCLAW!" the hat shouted this out to the rest of the hall.
Alexandra pulled the Sorting Hat off her head and walked, in the most dignified manner that she could, to the Ravenclaw table, instead of the green-and-silver-clad one that she had expected she would be sitting at. She had never hated anything as much as she hated the Sorting Hat at that moment.
End flashback
"Wise choices and decisions in life," Alex muttered out loud to herself. She rolled her eyes. "That's rubbish. Look where it got me."
She glanced around the room she was currently situated in. It was just another typical room in the Black ancestral home. She still remembered being in Grimmauld Place before, when the Berkleys had been invited to one of the Blacks' respectable pureblood parties…
Flashback
"The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black," Julia Selena Berkley announced to her twin daughters, Anastasia Isabella and Alexandra Katerina. "They are most respectable. Their son, Sirius Black, is your age. He is heir to the Black fortune. Please treat him with respect."
Alex nodded. She would do her mother proud. Anna, however, simply rolled her eyes behind their mother's back when she wasn't looking. Alex could just practically hear her eight-year-old twin sister's thoughts: 'What a load of rubbish. The only words I hear around here nowadays are "pureblood" or "respect." I hate my life sometimes.'
Alex frowned, wondering why her sister was being so rude, but before she could ask, they had entered the room.
The first—and only—thing Alex noticed about the walls were that they were covered with the heads of dead house-elves.
Another rule in Berkley life: Don't ask questions. To put it quite simply, Alex followed Berkley rules. Anna did not.
"Why do they have dead house-elf heads up there on the wall?" Anna asked, looking both curious and repulsed. "That's… repulvise!"
"Repulsive," Mrs. Berkley corrected automatically. "It's repulsive, Anastasia, not… not repulvise, as you said."
"Repulsive, then. Whatever," Anna agreed amiably. "Wait… you never answered my question. What? I mean, what did you say?"
"Don't say 'what,' Anastasia. Say 'excuse me.' "
"Fine then. Excuse me, but what did you say, Mother?"
"I did not answer your question. It was an incredibly rude one, and does not deserve to be answered. Now let us go meet the Black family."
So they did.
There was Andromeda Black, the oldest of the lot. She was a fourteen-year-old who had been Sorted into Ravenclaw.
'I don't want that,' Alex had thought immediately to herself.
Then came Bellatrix, who had recently started her first year of Hogwarts. She was a Slytherin.
Then came Narcissa, the only blonde. She was small, frail, and delicate-looking, with a pointed nose and ice-cold blue eyes—yes, blue eyes, not the trademark Black gray. (Black gray… that sounded strange. Not proper at all, like everything pureblood was supposed to be.)
Then there were the Black brothers—the oldest one was the heir to the Black ancestral home.
Regulus Black was introduced first. He just looked like… a small, afraid boy, and nothing else.
Sirius Black, it turned out, was temporarily unavailable. He was being punished for something he had done to his little brother while babysitting said little brother.
Apparently, after some conversation with Mrs. Black, Mrs. Berkley confirmed that Walburga did not particularly favor her oldest son.
However, Sirius was finally "available." He came down from his room, looking rather disgruntled about something. He had black hair that fell almost elegantly over his cool gray eyes, and he had the pointed, aristocratic, but good-looking face of every other Black in the room.
And he was heir to the Black fortune.
It was then that an eight-year-old Alexandra Katerina Berkley decided she would marry Sirius Black when she grew up.
She kept these thoughts to herself, however. Because it wouldn't be proper nor respectable to share these thoughts and feelings with anyone else.
End flashback
Alex nearly laughed out loud at the thought of her eight-year-old self's naïveté. She would marry Sirius Black, suuuuuuuuuuuuure! And it turned out, in the end, it was Anna who got him. Not that she had really had any feelings for the oldest Black boy or anything. But she had been foolish then. Marry Sirius Black, indeed!
And Sirius Black had been the one to help her, when she knew no one else would have… but unfortunately, it had been too late…
Alex shook her head. She'd better get started at the beginning of the whole affair then, if she was going to spend her time reminiscing…
Flashback
"The Dark Lord does not bode well to Mudbloods and blood traitors," a low voice was saying quietly. The voice had a distinct aristocratic drawl to it. "Are you sure you want to join, even if you are a filthy halfblood yourself, Snape?"
"I would do anything for the Dark Lord," another voice answered. This voice was smooth—but not a nice shiny smooth, more of an oily, greasy, try-to-trust-me-even-though-I'm-untrustworthy smooth. "I shall do anything to prove my worth to him."
"Very well," a new voice joined in. "We shall inform the Dark Lord of your wishes to join him. You shall be… received, shall we say, very soon, if you are approved."
Alex's grip tightened on the doorframe. She had simply been passing by, to get her Charms book, which she was positive she had dropped in this corridor. But she had heard voices, and she had gone investigating…And she had soon realized that it had been a very bad idea…
Suddenly she felt an odd urge. She soon realized with horror that it was the urge to sneeze. She tried to hold it back, but…
"What was that?" the first voice hissed angrily. "Is someone there?"
"I think someone has been listening in to our conversation," Snape—who was in Alex's year, and he was the owner of the untrustworthy oily voice—offered.
Alex tried to creep away quietly, but when the door opened fully, she broke into a full-on run, hoping she wouldn't be caught and/or recognized.
No such luck.
A hand gripped her wrist tightly and jerked her back. Alex whirled around, ready to strike the offender, but another hand reached out and wrapped itself around her other wrist. Using this advantage over her, the Death Eater slammed her against the wall.
"Have you heard everything we said?" he hissed.
The man had pale, cold gray eyes and white-blond hair. It was Lucius Malfoy.
Alex felt fear grip her insides and squeeze hard. She felt as if she was drowning, for some reason, and she would've thought it too, if it weren't for the fact that she was on land. She shook her head numbly.
Malfoy's grip on her wrists tightened. "Do not lie to me," he said. It was a command, an order, and she had no choice but to obey.
Alex nodded resignedly and squeezed her eyes shut, wondering what was to become of her.
"Do you know what we do to eavesdroppers?" the third Death Eater who was not Snape asked rhetorically. He had a scratchy, rough voice and dark-lidded looks. It was Rodolphus Lestrange.
"Please let me go," Alex begged. It was not befitting to a Berkley, but she had to get out of here, and fast…
Lucius Malfoy's hands tightened over her wrists even more. He was practically cutting off her circulation. "Do you know?" he asked in a deadly whisper.
Snape had come up behind them and was giving Alex a cold, calculating look. She glared at him defiantly. If she was going to be injured, then at least she could be injured when she was being brave, even though she was a Ravenclaw, and not a Gryffindor, and therefore about as brave as a clamshell…
"That girl," Snape suddenly spoke up. "She is a Berkley."
"A Berkley, did you say?" Malfoy had finally loosened his grip. Alex felt a wave of relief wash over her—if he had held on any tighter, she would've just about died from blood loss in her hands. He looked at her almost appraisingly. "Well, why didn't you say so?" His eyes narrowed. "But you are not a Slytherin."
"A Ravenclaw," Alex returned. Maybe she wouldn't die today after all. Hmm, that would certainly be a good thing… not dying. Yes, good thing indeed.
"Give her a chance to speak," Snape suggested, never taking his coal-black eyes off her. It was quite a bit unnerving, to say the least.
Alex swallowed. She would lie, and try to play her cards right. And then they would let her go. So she decided to let her brain take over and blurt out the first thing that came to mind:
"I was passing by and I heard you talking. It sounds interesting. I would like to join the Dark Lord's service too."
Alex instantly regretted her decision of letting her brain say whatever the hell it liked. Because she did not like the idea of where this was going.
"You do?" Lucius Malfoy was now staring at Alex intently, too. "Then why did you run?"
"I wanted to stay alive," Alex replied dryly, giving him a hard look. "I don't think I could join anything if I was dead." Then she wanted to smack herself for saying that.
The corners of Malfoy's thin lips curled up. He turned to Rodolphus Lestrange. "We have two people who would like to enter the Dark Lord's service now," he said, passing on the information. "Inform him." Then, to Alex, he said two rather simple words: "You'll do."
End flashback
A spur of the moment decision that she had seriously regretted. No wonder Alex wasn't a Gryffindor, like her sister. She didn't have an ounce of brave blood in her at all.
Which was why she hadn't backed out of the plan. She had convinced herself that being a Death Eater wouldn't be that bad… all she had to do was kiss the hem of some bastard's robes occasionally in meetings and kill Muggles. And keep up her front, so no one would figure it out.
But it wouldn't matter, the killing Muggles part, that is. Because they were only Muggles, right? Not real human beings.
Suuuuure, riiiight…
Flashback
"Are you willing to take the Dark Mark?" Voldemort hissed.
Alex had already met him before, but she still couldn't get over how scary he was. Pale white skin, so bony that his head looked like a skull, blood-red eyes, long, thin fingers… he was bloody scary.
Alex knew that she should back out of the plan now. She would die a hero and go live a nice … er, death in the afterlife or whatever. But she was no Gryffindor. She was a Ravenclaw, and stuck with it.
"Yes."
It hurt like hell when the Dark Mark burned onto her skin. She gritted her teeth to keep from crying out in pain as the skull-and-snake shape showed up onto her creamy white skin on her left wrist. It hurt so much that she wanted to cry.
But she didn't. She never cried.
End flashback
Sure, killing Muggles would be easy… uh-huh… yup… she had just been trying to convince herself. All those years.
Flashback
"Lady, please don't kill me," the small boy begged. He had on bloodstained clothes, from all of the killing that was going on out there. Some of it was his own blood, and some of it wasn't—some of it was other people's—Muggles'—blood. It was a Muggle village massacre, Death Eater style, and Alex was involved.
"Please, don't kill me! I gotta protect my little sister… she's visiting my gramma, and I gotta protect her! Please, lady, I'll do anything…"
Alex stared down at the groveling boy who had thrown himself at her feet. But he didn't seem to just be begging for his own life to be spared. His little sister seemed to be real, and that really did seem to be the reason the Muggle boy didn't want to die. He wanted to protect his little sister from the harsh realities of the big, bad world.
'Too late, kid,' she thought.
The boy was sobbing at her feet. Alex felt trapped.
She felt for him, she really did. She had never thought Muggles would seem so… human. But they did. They were just like wizards, only with a bunch of strange contraptions, and minus the magic.
One thing was for sure… this was much harder than she had originally thought it would be.
"Berkley, are you going to kill the brat or not?" Bellatrix Lestrange, wife of Rodolphus, called out from somewhere else there in the ruined village with a sneer. "Are you going soft?"
Alex bristled at the insult. She couldn't help it. It was in her nature.
"Please, lady…" the Muggle boy sobbed.
Alex looked at Bellatrix, who smiled cruelly, and made a slashing motion with her wand. An old Muggle man let out a moan. Blood was seeping from his head.
Alex looked back down at the boy again. She felt sick, seeing either person—Bellatrix, the boy, or the dying old man.
She made a decision.
'I'm sorry.'
"Avada Kedavra!"
End flashbackAlex had done plenty of hard things in her life. But that had been by far the hardest.
Flashback
Her heart was still beating fast. Her blood was pumping, her face was heated up, and she felt as if she had just run a three-minute-mile. Which, in a way, she kind of had been.
'I have just defied the Dark Lord and I got away with my life. Pettigrew is the traitor. I have just defied the Dark Lord and I got away with my life, and Pettigrew is the traitor, the Order of the Phoenix/Death Eater spy.'
Alex could only think of one thing to sum up her situation: "Bloody hell."
Very improper and un-Berkley-ish. But she didn't give a damn.
'I have to warn them about Pettigrew. He told the Dark Lord' (being a Death Eater for almost four years made her think of him that way) 'where the Potters are living. I have to go warn them. Bloody hell.'
The thought was so ridiculous, she would have laughed, if it weren't for the fact that she could be captured and killed at any moment. And the huge clincher?
She didn't even care.
Let her damn life end, for all she cared. She had nothing to live for. Everyone hated her.
'I want to do at least one good thing before I die. I'm going to go warn them. I'm going to go warn the Potters that the Dark Lord knows where they are—Godric's Hollow—and he's out to get them. Now.'
Bloody sodding hell.
'Let's see… there is not a chance in the seven depths of hell that I'm going to go to the Potters themselves. Lupin, their werewolf friend?…No. My sister would curse me to oblivion—into the next century, and she would even go to the trouble of hexing herself there just so she could kick my Death Eater arse back. That leaves… Sirius Black. Yes, my sister's fiancé. He'll have to do. Hopefully he'll listen…'
Bloody, bloody hell.
She showed up at Sirius Black's flat and pounded on the door as hard as she could. She knew she looked like a mess. And no, she did not care.
The door opened. Sirius stood there, just as good-looking as he had been thirteen years ago. Only now he was more on the "handsome" side than the "cute kid" side.
'How can I think of his bloody looks at a time like this?'
Oh, very easily.
"Alexandra Berkley?" he asked incredulously, staring at her in shock and disbelief.
"Yes, it's me. No, this is not some trick. Here is my wand. I don't have any other weapons on me, and if you don't believe me, you can check. Unless you count deadly information. Deadly information that I will gladly share with you to warn you, if you will bloody let me come in."
He stared at her in shock, and then let her come in.
She explained everything—yes, everything. She told him about the Death Eater conversation involving Snape, Lestrange (the male one), and Malfoy that she had overheard in her seventh year. She told him about her spur-of-the-moment decision, and joining the Death Eaters, and the pleading Muggle boy she had killed, and the fact that she had defied the Death Eaters and the fact that Pettigrew was the traitor. Yes, she spilled her guts out to him. She told him everything. She ended with, "And if you don't believe me, use Veritaserum on me."
There was a long silence after her story was finished.
Sirius had only three words to say: "I believe you." And then, "I'm going to go check on Peter now. Make yourself comfortable. I'll be back." And he left.
Alex had Sirius Black's whole flat to herself. She could do whatever she liked. But all she did was cry. For the first time in four years.
End flashback
Oh yeah, a real pureblood marriage. (Note the sarcasm here.)
A/N: Well… that was a depressing ending.
I honestly didn't mean for it to come out that way. It just… did.
She just wormed her way into the chapter. Alexandra wasn't even supposed to be there. But whatever. She is.
Sorry if the whole Harry/James meeting scene was too emotional, or not emotional enough. Or if it was too rushed. I dunno…
And there really was supposed to be stuff in here about Harry finding the—(claps hand over mouth)… I'll shut up now.
Please review! I want at least…um…twenty-five reviews, OK? Because I'm demanding!
…Yeah…
Well, review! This was the longest chapter yet.
-Morsmordre