Back in the Netherworld

I manage to get through the portal in time to find that the house is being attacked again.

"Ballocks!" I growl, "Can't a guy get a break?" Pulling out my wand, I start to fire at the encroaching attackers. As this happens, my eyes are scanning the room and I see Lily at the top of the stairs, throwing spells down at the crowd, while James is trying to keep people from coming in.

"There are too many of them," I mutter. Thinking quickly, I open a portal on the floor that the enemy is standing on and activate it. Everyone standing on it is suddenly transported to the middle of the Caribbean. Smirking, I close the portal and start to attack again. Ducking a spell, I notice that all of the people seem to be swarming around a central point and start for it.

Once I reach the middle of the crowd, I'm shocked by what I see. Standing in full battle regalia, a bastard sword in hand, and a calm composure stands none other than Godric Gryffindor.

"Why are you attacking us?" I shout, pitching my voice above the din so he can hear.

Gryffindor raises his eyebrows, "Because, it's as simple as this. It's a fight of good against evil. There is no middle ground. There is no neutrality. And I know you Regulus Black. Right now, you're contemplating keeping neutral so that you can help those people on Earth. The same goes for James and Lily Potter. I just can't have that."

"So you're going to attack us?" I ask, "In what world does that make sense? Wouldn't you want us as allies?"

"If you are neutral than you have knowledge of evil, and I cannot have that," Gryffindor states with a shrug, "If I have to kill a couple of people to finish off the evil in the world, what's the harm?"

I frown, "How Machiavellian of you."

Gryffindor smiles, showing sharp teeth, "I invented Machiavelli."

Instinct takes over, and I place a shield up. Making it as strong as I can, I look around to find that most of the robed nitwits are still attacking the house. A cracking alerts me to the fragility of my shield and I summon my sword. Compared to the huge piece Gryffindor is carrying, mine looks like a pig sticker.

"You think you can swordfight me?" Gryffindor asks, "HA! I am the most accomplished sword fighter in Wizarding history!"

I smirk, "I don't have to be better than you, I just have to be smarter than you."

Gryffindor snarls at this and starts to attack.

The clanging of metal on metal and the sparks of various spells showcase the battle. I find myself comparing Gryffindor to all of the people who I've fought against. I have to admit that he's good, but he's not the best.

"Death has been most unkind to you Gryffindor," I say.

Right before Gryffindor makes his comeback, an explosion sounds from behind. Gryffindor looks at the house, slack-jawed, so I take advantage of that. Sending spell after spell at him, I give Gryffindor no chance to counter my attack, or to even pull up a defense of his own.

I smirk, and cast one last spell, "Inexplicabilis!"

Gryffindor looks at me before opening his mouth, "Aoiehfklna rihakd ljiwnkf."

He blinks, "Toudfnk laincv wihaohf! Vopihwe! Rpankjfw wlkajdlkbei pijfvn!"

"Sorry, something doesn't quite translate there," I say. Smirking, I take off at a run toward the back of what had been the house.

James and Lily are waiting back there, looking a little worse for ware, but at least they're alright.

"So," Lily says, "I think we may want to relocate."

I nod, "Which of you blew up the house?"

"Need you ask."

"No not really."

James grins, "Alright, so where are we going?"

"We can't go to either of the family houses," Lily says, "They're going to be watching them too much."

"So we'll go to ground for a while. Come on, in times like this we want to hit the border of the Netherworld. We should be able to blend in better there," I say.

James and Lily nod, and I take off at a quick walk toward the border. The border of the two hemispheres of the Netherworld is where a lot of people who aren't accepted as light or dark have to live. It's where I would have had to live had I not been Sirius's brother.

Glancing at the sky, I sigh in relief when I see that the day isn't even half over yet. In fact, it's not that close to noon. This is good. Hopefully, we still have time on our side. With the head start, the three of us can be at the border within a couple of hours, provided that Gryffindor doesn't send people after us.

James's POV

"So wait, that was Godric Gryffindor attacking us?" Lily asks again.

Regulus nods, "Yes. He said it was because we were staying neutral in this. He wants the good and evil to come to battle for the last time."

"Right," I snort, "Like this freaking battle just won't be taken up again in a couple of centuries. No matter the outcome, there are always going to be people fighting."

Regulus shrugs and turns down another alley. He knows this place far better than I'd originally anticipated, and I cannot help but wonder at how long it took him to map out these routes and directions.

I frown, thinking of how nice it would be to have a map, but also knowing that it would be highly impractical.

"Stop right there, unless you want to be blown up," A voice sounds from an adjacent alley.

Noticing Lily's tension and Regulus's annoyance, I turn to the voice and raise an eyebrow, "Why would you do something so foolish as that?"

"Because, I'd like to speak with you while that ever so noble wizard is busy looking for you," the man sneers in an almost perfect imitation of Snape. When he steps out of the shadows, I want to roll my eyes, but avoid doing such.

Salazar Slytherin, leader of Slytherins and typical bad guy, is standing before us, a sword on his belt and wand in hand.

"Alright, great. Excellent. Just what we needed," I mutter.

He glares at me, "You may be the quintessential Gryffindor moron, but your companions are not. They might understand the severity of the harsh circumstances which you find yourself more easily than you."

I sigh at the typical insult, but do not give one back. We need him to give his speech and be gone if we wish to start moving sometime during this year.

"I wish to warn you that this war is going to become rather intrusive to all members of the Netherworld. I neither asked for this or wanted this war, however, since it has so graciously stepped to my front door I will meet it," Slytherin says, "As such, I wish for you three to do as you must. Believe me when I say you all are more essential to these worlds than you know. Keep yourselves safe, but more importantly, do not go with Gryffindor. He will only bring you destruction. Farewell to thee, blessed come and blessed leave."

With that, Slytherin leaves.

Blinking, I turn to my companions and frown, "Well that was completely opposite to what I was expecting."

Lily nods, "Yes, but he was informative. And far kinder than he could have been."

I clear my throat and she gives me a look that translates to 'You did kind of deserve it.'

"Yes," Regulus says, watching where the old wizard had left and speaking soft and slow, "that was highly enlightening."

On Earth

Remus, Sirius and Harry had moved to Potter Manor successfully and settled in easy enough. Here they were able to relax more. No worries about being caught by the ministry. No worries about ripping a little boy to pieces on a full moon. No cruel uncle to worry about upsetting. Life was easy.

As such, Harry was dreaming. Not a normal dream. It was as though he was seeing the way things might have been. He saw Hogwarts and all sorts of things that Remus and Sirius had explained, a lot of things Remus had mentioned when talking about when they'd first met, but Harry had been too excited about meeting someone who knew his parents to really say that he hadn't a clue what he was talking about.

He saw a red headed boy, a bushy brown haired girl. Flashes of different things. A three headed dog. A white horse with silver around it. A blood red stone and a man with a long white beard and twinkling eyes also appeared. That's when the dream had fast forwarded so much he had hardly seen anything. A castle, a giant spider, a huge snake, Padfoot, Sirius and Remus with a rat, a flying half bird half horse, a red train, a castle, a dragon, a lake, a maze, and a graveyard that gave Harry such feelings of foreboding that he desperately hoped to avoid it. Things ended up darker after that. Robed people appeared with a man with a white snakelike face. He was in a dark house that looked like it hadn't been lived in for years. A woman in pink appeared, giving rise to an intense feeling of hatred. Sirius appeared, but he was falling behind a veil. At this the dream slowed. Harry ran forward to stop him, help him, to do something, but he couldn't.

"NO!"

Harry looked around crazily, not even noticing that Remus had run in the room.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, NO!"

"Harry? What's wrong? What happened?" Remus asks, concern flashing across his face as he tried to calm the boy. "Was it a nightmare?"

"Sirius! Where's Sirius? Is he ok? Is he alright? He can't go by that veil. He can't!" Harry says, his worry and panic picking up speed, "He has to be alright!"

"Harry, Sirius is fine. He's in the garage working on something. Do you want me to call him up here?" Remus asks.

Harry nods, pulling his knees up under his chin and looking down at the quilt on his bed. Remus starts to stand, but stops when Harry grabs his sleeve. Sighing, Remus sends a patronus to the dog animagus, hoping that he'll hurry and get here before Harry can panic more.

Within moments Sirius is striding in the door, only to have Harry launch himself at him. Sirius catches the boy and gives Remus a curious look. Remus shrugs and watches the duo.

"Harry," Sirius says, getting the boy's attention, "what's got you so worked up? You should be sleeping."

"I had a nightmare. Y-you d-d-died," Harry hiccups, trying to catch his breath

"You know that was just a nightmare right? I'm not going anywhere."

"But it was so real. Just-please don't go by any veils. Don't go by veils that move on their own."

Sirius blinks, "Alright, I won't. Marauders honor."

Harry, understanding that those words meant the highest promise to the two Marauders, nods satisfied. He walks back over to his bed and glances at Remus, "I'm sorry to have bothered you. I'll try not to do it again."

"Harry," Remus says, "If you ever have a nightmare, let us know. It's no bother, and you definitely should not feel sorry about talking to us about them."

Harry nods and snuggles back under his bedding, falling asleep under the careful watch of Sirius and Remus. When they see his breathing even out, they sneak out of the room and Sirius motions for Remus to follow.

"How did Harry know of that veil?" Sirius says.

Remus frowns, "The one that moves on its own? I only have heard of one and it's in the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry."

Sirius nods, "It's a Death Veil. There used to be hundreds of them, Countries and wizard kings found them highly useful, but most of them have been broken or have fallen apart from age. The only reason one is within our Ministry is because the Unspeakables like to examine extremely dangerous things."

Remus nods, "Again, we're left with the question of how Harry knows about it. We never told him."

Sirius frowns, not knowing the answer, and not liking that he didn't know the answer, "Something tells me things are about to go highly amiss."

"Regulus did warn you that the Netherworld was about to go to war."

"True. But can you feel it? There are stirrings going on here as well."

The Marauders share a look, knowing that there was something big coming, and knowing that it was something that no one was prepared for whatsoever.

Hello all! So, this is when I need you all to review. Reason being, is that I have two ideas that I'm pondering about where to go with this. One involves cutting the story off here and continuing in a sequel(this one would get too long otherwise) or if I should write a couple of chapters here to end it. I'm thinking of the sequel, because that would give me more room to play. Anyway, thank you to everyone for reading, reviewing, alerting, and favorite-ing.