Chapter Two

Harry!

James Potter took a shuddering breath. Everything hurt, all over. His glasses were crooked on the bridge of his nose, and his eyesight was fuzzy. He was on the ground; lying where he had waited for Voldemort…Voldemort…no, no! Peter…his teeth ground together. How could he do this? Sell us to Voldemort, his friends! Voldemort…

"Go! Lily, go! Take Harry and run, I'll hold him off! Go!"

Just then, there was the creak of the hinges and a black-cloaked figure stepped into the threshold. One thought crossed his mind.

It was Peter. Peter was the spy.

"Well, well Mr. Potter…so brave you have been, but I do have a job to attend to," Voldemort said, his lipless mouth unfurling into an unmistakable smile.

"Leave my family alone!" James roared. "Expelliarmus!"

"Avada Kedavra!"

Lily…Harry…

There was a blinding flash of green light, and then blackness…

James stood up among the ruins of this house. With a lurch, he saw the remnants of a fireplace…exactly where his fireplace had been. He stared, wide-eyed with grief, looking around the ruins of the house—everything was burnt and charred. Where there used to be stairs to the second story, there was only a cavernous, charred hole opening to the heavens…but that meant…

"NO!" Lily, my dear sweet Lily-flower…Harry, my boy, my sweet, innocent, only son…gone, all gone…

James sat down in the ruins of the old house, and put his head in his hands. Tears made their way down his face, "My boy, Voldemort you sick bastard, what did you do with my son? My dear wife…Voldemort, you'll pay for this…" he muttered, his hands pressed to his face. He was suddenly jarred from his thoughts.

"HARRY! No, no! James! NO!" it was a woman's scream—it was Lily's scream.

"Lily?" James shot to his feet, frantically looking around. He saw, at the top of the mutilated stairs, before they broke off, was a woman with bright red hair that reached her waist, in bright green robes, sobbing.

He scrambled up the stairs to meet her. "LILY!"

She turned around, "James?"

He nodded dimly, grabbing her and taking her into his arms, sobbing unashamedly on her shoulder.

"James," she choked out. Lily buried her head in James' shoulder; the loss of her beautiful baby boy was ripping her heart in two. Her innocent baby boy was dead. She felt her anger rise at Voldemort, at Peter, especially Peter, selling her family out like that…

"My fault, Lily, all my fault, I shouldn't have trusted Peter, I should have taken Voldemort when I had the chance…"

Lily shook her head silently, tears streaming down her face. "Shh, shh don't cry, it's my fault, I should've left when I had the chance…"

Tears were streaming down James' nose as Lily cupped a hand around his cheek. He grabbed her hand, wanting to scream Get away from me! It's my fault, all my fault! Kill me, hate me, yell, something, don't just stand there!

"Come on," he said, feeling a black hole in his chest where his baby boy should've been. "Let's go see Remus, or maybe Sirius. We can't just stand here."

Lily patted herself, feeling her wand in her pocket. She took James' hand in one, and her wand in the other. Lying on the couch, which was covered in dust, was James' wand.

"Where do you think we should go?" he asked Lily quietly.

"Remus' house," she responded. They were both still crying, feeling the loss of their only son. "He's more likely to be home."

A message passed between them:

If another one of their friends was dead, they couldn't take it.

Sirius woke the next morning to a delicate tap, tap, tap on the window. He made his way over, feeling the joy in his heart as he recognized his godson's snowy owl, Hedwig. He untied the message from her leg and gave her cup of water, which gulped down thankfully, waiting for a reply from Sirius.

Dear Sirius,

Thanks for your last letter. The bird was enormous; it could hardly get through my window.

Things are the same as usual here. Dudley's diet isn't going to well. My aunt found him smuggling doughnuts into his room yesterday. They told him they'd have to cut his pocket money if he keeps doing it, so he got really angry and chucked his PlayStation out of the window. That's a sort of computer you can play games on. Bit stupid really, now he hasn't even got Mega-Mutilation Part Three to take his mind off things.

I'm okay, mainly because the Dursleys are terrified you'll turn up and turn them all into bats if I ask you to.

A weird thing happened this morning, though. My scar hurt again. The last was because Voldemort was at Hogwarts. But I don't reckon he can be anywhere near me now, can he? Do you know if curse scars sometimes hurt afterward?

I'll send this with Hedwig when she gets back; she's off hunting at the moment. Say hello to Buckbeak for me.

Harry

P.S. If you want to contact me, I'll be at my friend Ron Weasley's for the rest of the summer. His dad's got us tickets to the Quidditch World Cup!

Sirius snorted. Ah, just like his good old dad…Come on Padfoot, I don't care what your mum says; you have to come to the Cup with us! Sirius was willing to bet that his relatives didn't know he was going to leave until he was gone.

Sirius winced, thinking about how if James and Lily were still alive he would be going to the game with him. That got him thinking—what did he think on Halloween? About his parents' demise? Or did he not even truly know the date?

Pulling out a sheet of parchment from Remus' desk, he wrote,

Dear Harry,

I already up north, don't think you can fool me. Dumbledore's reading the signs even if no one else is. Your scar hurting is not the only strange thing that's been occurring.

Have fun at the World Cup. The last time the Cup was hosted me, Moony, and your dear old dad were sitting in the stands. Your dad actually broke into my house because my lovely mum wouldn't let me go. Your dad said something along the lines of "Sirius Orion Black if you don't find someway to get your ass over to my house for Cup I'm coming to get you anyway!" Anyway, have fun—but I have to ask you something.

What do you think about on Halloween?

That was the night your parents died, and although it is a personal question I thought it would be nice to get it off your chest, and if you want to talk about James and Lily.

Sirius

He gave it to Hedwig, who was tapping her claw impatiently. Sirius chuckled. Hedwig had as much of a personality as Midnight did, James' old snowy owl ("Hey, I've got an idea! We'll make an unoriginal name original by using it in a completely opposite way!"…"You're insane, Prongs." "Thanks, Paddy!").

As Sirius watched Hedwig fly back to her master, he couldn't help but feel something was about to change.

Regulus gasped for air, breathing in only muggy and damp. He was lying on a slippery, rock-like surface, with the jagged edges cutting his back. He tried to remember…there was Kreacher, and the locket…Oh, no! The locket! Did Kreacher get it? He had to! Kreacher couldn't ignore an order…the last thing he remembered—the potion. Regulus had wanted water, and the lake-he shivered, from cold or memories, he didn't know—the bodies in the lake had dragged him under…it didn't matter now, he just had to get out of this cave…summoning the last of his remaining strength, he pushed open the entrance and breathed in the cool, salty sea air for the first time in thirteen years.