AN: A big shout-out to my beta EsmeCarlisle1921 and to Enigmatic Fragment for reviewing. *cough* Maybe other people could review as well... *wink*.

Thanks for the support!

Chapter Two: Loyalty To Friends – No Matter What

(James POV)

"What do you think about all that?" Padfoot sat down in the chair that Dumbledore had been sitting in moments before.

"You mean Dumbledore wanting to turn his back on everything that is happening?" Moony asked, pulling up a chair and joining in on the conversation.

"Dumbledore isn't turning his back on anything!" Lily objected hotly. "If he was he wouldn't have sent Emmeline, Sturgis, and Edgar to reverse Imperious Curses and finding out exactly what You-Kno–"

"Lily! You've dueled Voldemort three times with Prongs and got away! And you still refuse to use his name! Dumbledore uses it!" Padfoot cut her off, but smiled at her. It was obvious he wanted to joke with her.

"That doesn't mean that you should use it Padfoot. He's still a powerful wizard. And I suppose that I got into the habit because everyone else who was using the name You-Know-Who. I've never felt the need to seem bold and arrogant by using a name that everyone fears." Lily hadn't taken it the way he had hoped she would. I reached out and wrapped my arm around her casually, but pulled her close and kissed the top of her head in a reassuring way.

Padfoot opened his mouth and shut it again. He couldn't think of a retort. Finally he replied, "Dumbledore is a brilliant wizard. No one is afraid of using his name. People are just irrational."

"She has a point Padfoot." I said quickly, before she could say anything. "Dumbledore doesn't go around slaughtering the innocent like Voldemort does."

"Even your husband says the name Lils!"

"It's a personal choice Black." Lily said coldly, but immediately smiled.

"Okay, okay. Personally, I think that you should use the name Voldemort."

I walked over to Padfoot and whispered in his ear, "And personally, I think that you shouldn't have attempted to have Snivellus murdered by Moony." The fact her childhood friend had gone through with his plans and become a follower of Voldemort was still an extremely tender subject for Lily. I turned and walked back to where I had been sitting before. Padfoot didn't have a retort for that.

"What do the three of you think is going to happen next?" Moony asked. It was obvious that he was worried about Dumbledore's lack of concern.

"I think that we will just have to play it by ear. There is no way to foretell the future," Lily responded.

Moony nodded absent-mindedly.

"There is Divination..." Padfoot muttered, shooting a look at me. It was evident that he considered it extremely low for me to bring up the near death of Snivellus.

"Fortune-telling using crystal balls, tea leaves, and dream interpretations that an amateur obviously wrote when he had consumed a few too many flagons of Ogden's Old Firewhiskey," Lily laughed. "Surely you don't believe in that Padfoot."

Padfoot laughed, "Regulus does. Drives me mad."

"Dumbledore thinks Divination is important," Moony smiled. "Why else would he have a Divination teacher?"

"Maybe because it's a subject that has always been offered at Hogwarts," I suggested.

Padfoot snorted, "Dumbledore is considering getting rid of the subject of Divination altogether. He doesn't think much about it if he wants to nix it."

Lily was interested in this, "So he is going to fire Professor Gosling then?"

"Nah Lils, didn't you hear that the old oaf foretold the death of one of Voldemort's followers and then was found dead the next day?"

She gasped, "That's awful!"

"That's how it is now. Every man for himself. And if the scallywag was insolent enough to predict something like that..."

"I heard that Dumbledore has been trying to get a new teacher to take Divination for sometime now. Way before Gosling fell on his own sword. Apparently Professor Gosling has had an uneasy feeling for sometime, and guessed that resigning would solve that," Padfoot explained knowledgeably.

"How do you know all this?" Lily demanded. She stared at Padfoot in complete amazement. He usually wasn't the one who knew all of the answers, especially when we were back at Hogwarts. He had been a troublemaker with me, and that had taken up a good portion of his time that he could have devoted to studying like Lily had done.

"Simple. I ask questions," he grinned.

"Are my ears deceiving me? The name Sirius and asking questions in the same sentence?" I smiled warmly at him.

"These are dark times Prongs. Do you blame me? You realize that we need to know as much as possible if we are going to do the impossible."

"Nothing is impossible if James Potter and Sirius Black are involved," Moony joked.

"Too true my friend." I leaned back thoughtfully, running a hand through my messy hair.

I looked around the room. The carpet was a mixture of saffron and a mahogany color that I detested. It looked like something that Lily's sister Petunia had thought would add to the decor in the room. Oddly enough, it sounded exactly like something that she would do. My eyes wandered away from that to look at the tattered Gryffindor banner that I had stolen in my seventh year as a reminder of Hogwarts. It was draped across the span of an entire wall, and clashed harshly with the saffron color in the carpet.

I turned back as Moony started talking again, "I'd give anything for things to be how they used to be..." he murmured. I hardly knew what 'used to be' was. It had seemed so long since we hadn't had something to worry about.

"I would think about what I was saying if I were you," Lily said seriously.

"C'mon Lils, you sound like my mother!" Padfoot sighed, "I don't understand why Dumbledore doesn't use something like a Timeturner and kill Voldemort before he came to have so much power..."

"PADFOOT! You should know that altering the past and the future can have effects that no one can predict!" she looked absolutely astonished.

"She's right," I nodded.

"Prongs, is that all you can do? Agree with your wife?" Padfoot asked.

"I – no! But she is right."

"I realize that. I was thinking out loud..."

"Why make it easier for He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named ("Voldemort!" said Padfoot) to read your mind Padfoot?" asked Moony, "You know what Dumbledore said about him being able to read minds by using Legilimency!"

"Why'd you think I have a plan to learn Occlumency?" Padfoot grinned, "Advanced magic, here I come!"

"I wish you the best of luck," Lily said sarcastically.

"Thanks!"

"Sarcasm..." she rolled her eyes.

"No! Was it really?"

I laughed. It felt amazingly good, to see everyone joking as though they had not a care in the world, as though the world wasn't rapidly crashing down upon us.

We talked and bickered for what seemed like hours.

Eventually Moony thought that it was wise if he left. Although it wasn't the night of a full moon, he was beginning to feel the effects of his 'hairy problem'. Padfoot and I walked him to the door while Lily went upstairs to check on Harry–she thought she had heard him.

Once Moony was gone, Padfoot and I walked back into the living room – where we had been before. Instead of sitting in the same seats we had sat in before, we sat in a corner. We hadn't decided on the seating arrangement, we had just sat there by unspoken agreement. Padfoot lounged on the chair he had chosen to sit in; his leg casually hanging off the edge of one of the arms of the chair so that his back was supported by the opposite arm of the chair. He crossed his leg that wasn't already on the arm of the chair across his other leg. He reminded me of the portrait of the king that was on the fourth floor corridor in Hogwarts next to the portrait of Balderdash the Wary. He might've been attempting to impersonate him, as if he was, he was doing an excellent job.

It was then that I realized Padfoot was being unusually somber. "What is it?" I asked him.

He shrugged. "I guess I agree with Moony. I'm not sure I'd go as far as to say that I'd give anything for things to be the way they used to be, but we're all being turned against each other James!" That was the first time he had used the name 'James' instead of 'Padfoot' in roughly a year. He was being more serious than I had ever seen him. "It's as if we are trapped in an iron cage with no food or water, and we are constantly betrayed by people we know and we are scared by the people who put us in our prison. The next thing they're going to say is 'may the best man win' and then we'll fall on each other to try to save ourselves. The only thing that anyone is going to think about is themselves, and even that won't save them in the end. Only willpower and determination are going to prevail, and even then... The odds are all against us. Unforgivable Curses, mass murders and disappearances. Even within the Order it seems that people are beginning to trust only themselves. No one talks as much as they once did in the meetings. Even when they do talk, it's small talk. Everyone is frightened that their friend has been put under the Imperious Curse. It's impossible to truly tell if anyone has been imperused because either they truly have, or they are not acting normal because they are trying to be cautious in their dealings with their fellow men.

"When is it ever going to stop? The Dark Arts seem to have a firm grip, and I see no way out. What is the point in fighting at this stage? Even Dumbledore sees that."

I listened carefully to everything he had to say. "You're right. No one knows who to trust.. It's mass chaos, and that is exactly what the enemy wants. No matter what we do, that is what the enemy is going to do. They have the upper hand, but I will not go down without a fight. But I will always trust my friends, no matter what they say or do. Because if I don't have my friends, who do I have? No one. Sure, I have myself, and I could isolate myself from the rest of the world easily enough but why? Why would I when I have everything I could want right here? Yeah, it's hard. But who ever said that it would be easy? I have Lily and Harry. I have Moony, Wormtail and you. I have the Order of the Phoenix – an open rebellion against the dark forces.

"It's just like any war. You make sacrifices, but that is the only way to win. Six members of the Order have either lost their lives or have mysteriously disappeared. We can't just turn a blind eye to that. We knew those six people, and we aren't going to let them die in vain. The McKinnon family. Benjy Fenwick. Caradoc Dearborn. Gideon and Fabian Prewett. Dorcas Meadowes. We knew them Sirius. We interacted with most of them on a daily basis.

"You don't turn your back on a friend. It doesn't matter if they are alive or dead. As for Dumbledore, I don't think he is giving in, I think he realizes that we are taking a huge risk, even being a part of the Order. He wants us to take a step back and see the risks we are taking and to see if we really want to continue risking our lives for what we believe in. And if that is what he is doing, I know what my answer will be."

"James, I understand what you are saying, and where you are coming from. You would never turn your back on a friend, but what if that friend turned his back on you? And do you know that is what Dumbledore is doing?"

"If your friend turns his back on you, he made a mistake. That doesn't mean you completely shut him out of your life. What if he is terribly sorry for what he did?"

"What if he is a lying, ignorant, good-for-nothing, bloody traitor?"

"You'll never know his true intentions. You just have to go with your feelings."

He shook his head. We had been over this topic before, and each time Padfoot thought that it was a waste of his time and energy. I stood firm on my beliefs that it was the highest form of deceit, to mistrust and be disloyal to a friend. Padfoot trusted only those who had earned his trust.. "What about my question about Dumbledore. How do you know his intentions?"

"I don't know them. I was just guessing." I grinned, "Now here's an idea for you. Why don't you ask him yourself?"

"He's a very busy man." Padfoot shrugged. "I'm sure he has his reasons."

"Exactly. If we don't trust him, who do we trust?"

That question hung in the air for a few minutes. Both of us knew the answer to the question, but it was as if uttering it would seal our doom.

After two minutes of complete silence, I spoke up, "I guess what it all comes down to is that we have to trust our friends, and if we trust them, hopefully they will trust us."

Padfoot nodded, "Because if someone is your true friend, they won't curse you behind your back." He stopped talking for a moment. "Unless your friend has either been imperused or is really a Death Eater."

We both started to laugh again.

"Yes. If you think like that, then you are so paranoid that I am shocked that you come out of your house at all Padfoot."

"Well, here I am. So it is obvious that I have at least somewhat of a rational mind."

"You? Rational?" I grinned, "Well, I suppose you were – that once."

"Once Potter? No, more like fifty times."

"'Tis a small number compared to my total." I laughed.

"Who told you that you were right? House elves?"

"It's possible. And perhaps the giant squid back at Hogwarts."

"Don't forget Wormtail. He idolized the ground you walked on Prongs." Padfoot grinned at the memory.

"Ah, my good friend Wormy."

"What about your good friend Padfoot?"

I looked at Padfoot and smiled before becoming completely serious. "Padfoot?" I feigned puzzlement, "No, I don't believe I know a Padfoot." I stroked my imaginary beard. "What does he look like?"

"Intelligent bloke, he really is," Padfoot began. "He is about my height. Tall, dark, and handsome. Straight A student, and can change his shape at will. Never once missed a day of class. Stayed inside most of the time and studied. Once helped sneak a werewolf out of the castle."

"Definitely never heard of him." Padfoot howled in laughter. After a few seconds, I joined in.

Just then Lily came back downstairs. "Shh. Both of you. I just got Harry to go to sleep. You'll wake him up with all the noise the two of you are making."

Padfoot looked at me as though I had caused it all, "Yeah Prongs. Shh. My godson is trying to sleep upstairs." He stuck his chest out in a proud fashion. He absolutely loved the fact that he was the godfather of Harry. At every chance he got, he said something about it. And the two of them (Harry and Padfoot) were extremely close. Especially since Padfoot had gotten him a toy broomstick for his birthday a few months before. Harry didn't know that his godfather had given him the gift, much less that it was a gift. He simply enjoyed that Padfoot would chase him around as he glided a foot above the floor. I could only imagine what kind of a relationship they would have when Harry was older.

"My deepest apologies Padfoot. I wasn't aware I was disturbing your godson. I'll be sure to refrain from doing so in the future." I replied in my most solemn voice.

"It's okay. I believe that you truly mean what you say. But if I see it happen again..." he moved his forefinger across his neck and made a noise that sounded like a knife cutting into something.

"Point taken." I nodded at him. "Very intimidating by the way."

"I've been perfecting it over the years," he nodded.

"It's getting late," Lily said to Padfoot. That was his cue that it was time for him to go.

Padfoot stood up and I stood up with him. We walked out of the room and stood next to the front door. I reached out a hand to grab the doorknob, but he stopped me. I looked at him, and hesitated before allowing my hand to fall back to my side.

Now it was Padfoot's turn to hesitate. Then, he enveloped me in a bear hug. I hugged him back. He let go and pulled himself away from me, placing both of his hands on my shoulders. "Loyalty to friends..."

I nodded. "No matter what."

And with that, I opened the door. He walked out of it, but stopped with his hand resting on the door frame. He turned and smiled at me before leaving.