Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or its characters.

Chapter 8: Padfoot and Prongs.

"Charles," James Potter whispered in his mirror, Sirius Black right behind him. "Charles Potter", he tried again, and this time, a face appeared in the Mirror. Charles Potter looked at them tiredly, eyes nearly closing sleepily.

"Yes, Dad?" he asked groggily.

James shook his head disapprovingly. "You haven´t slept all night?"

"I – no, I haven't," Charles admitted.

"Charles," James said accusingly. "Tomorrow is the Second Task. You need your sleep."

And then, they were silent.

"Anyway," said Sirius, who had stayed quiet before. "Do you know what you are going to do in the task?"

Charles diverted his eyes from the mirror, and Sirius hit himself on the head. "You don´t know?"

James was looking at him worryingly.

"But you do know what it is about, don´t you?" he asked, hopefully.

Charles nodded his head slowly. "Yes, I do. Or I think so..."

Sirius looked at him and asked, "What´s the clue?"

Charles disappeared for a moment from the mirror, and appeared after a minute with a piece of parchment in his hand.

He cleared his throat, and read it aloud for his Dad and Godfather.

"Come; seek us where no one is around,

You always feel us; we freeze even the ground,

And while you search, keep this in mind,

Follow them right and you will find,

We´ve taken something that you´ll sorely miss,

Be prepared, it´s soul could be kissed,

An hour you have to look,

And find what we took,

But past an hour - the prospect´s black,

Too late, it's gone, it won´t come back."

Then Charles threw away the paper in frustration. "Seriously, Dementors? Is that what is going to be in the Task? Has the world gone mad?" He asked, waving his arms wildly.

"I don´t think it's going to be really dementors," James chuckled at his son´s antics. "It probably will be an illusion or something like that."

"You really think so?" asked Charles hopefully.

Sirius and James nodded, and smiled slightly when Charles breathed in relief, before changing the subject, this time to one even graver.

"The Order has been discussing your participation in the Tournament," started James.

"You did?" Charles asked, "Did you found out who put my name on the cup?"

Sirius shook his head. "No, sorry, pup. We have an idea, obviously, but not the reason."

Charles frowned when they stopped talking. "So, are you telling me, or not?" he asked excitedly.

James sighed. "Charles, we think Voldemort is the one who wants you in, obviously, but we don´t know why he used this...method. You need to be extremely careful, of what you do – and who you trust in."

Charles thought on what his father had said, before a horrible realization grow in his heart. "You think Harry did it, don´t you?"

James shifted guiltily, while Sirius glared at his back.

"I am not saying he did it –"

"No, but you thought it!" Charles exclaimed, his face going red.

"Of course not, son, but –"

"No? You didn´t thought it even for a little moment?" Charles exclaimed, interrupting his father for the second time.

"You don´t understand, Charles –" James tried again.

"No, what I don´t understand is why you don´t like Harry! Do you like me just because I am the boy-who-lived? Is that because it? You know what I know? That I would be at this moment like Harry is, if he had been the one who killed Voldemort" Charles exploded. "Tell me that you wouldn´t."

James said nothing.

"Exactly what I thought." Charles said, and hurt and angry he finished the conversation by powering off the mirror.

"Excellent, James." said Sirius, sarcastically, "Really tactful. Tell the boy you think his brother is the traitor, and that you wouldn´t love him if he wasn't famous."

James hung his head. "I didn´t mean it. Oh, Sirius, I really miss Harry."

Sirius laughed bitterly. "Yeah, you do. As if it was true."

"No, Sirius," James said, lifting his head. Sirius was surprised to see tears in his eyes. "I really do. Lily and I never told anyone about what Dumbledore made us do that day."

Sirius was confused and concerned for his friend. "What did he do?"

"He threatened us. He told us we needed to stop caring for Harry, as it was Charles who needed help." He snorted tearfully when he said help, "Lily and I didn´t want that, and we told him. But he said he would take Harry away, and we would never see him."

James shook his head, the tears finally making their way thought his face. "And so, we did what he wanted. We couldn´t – we didn't want to lose Harry, Sirius. But we did anyway. We failed him – we failed ourselves, and our promise to keep him home and safe."

Sirius placed a hand on James's shoulder. "Why didn´t you tell us?" he whispered, feeling sad as he hadn´t helped his friend.

"Because we couldn't" said a voice behind them, and they turned to see Lily on the doorway. She walked towards her husband, hugging him comfortingly. "We were very lonely and sad when Harry left. We wanted our baby, we wanted to find him, and make it up with him. Bud Dumbledore knew of our wishes, and stopped them. I´ve never felt so afraid in my life." Her voice broke slightly at the end.

But that triggered Sirius´s memory. He had heard Lily say that before. It had been that time, when no-one could find Charles anywhere. He gasped softly as he remembered he had been all the time in Albus Dumbledore´s office.

"I´ve never felt so afraid in my life." Lily had said the moment they knew were Charles was. At the moment, Sirius had thought it was because she was afraid to lose her precious "only" child, but now, he thought she was afraid to lose yet another child.

"That time," Sirius started, "the one in which Charles disappeared –"

Lily nodded slowly. "Yes. That was a warning."

"Oh, Prongs, Lily," Sirius said. "I am so sorry to have thought so badly of you. It's just; you treated Harry so badly... I didn´t know what to think."

"Don't worry Pad. We don´t blame you." James said, and he step aside to hug Sirius. "But, could you please keep an eye in him? On Harry? Please, Sirius, do for us what we can´t."

Sirius agreed. "I will."

.

Charles took a deep breath the next morning before the task. He was still angry at his father because of his assumptions of the tournament and Harry, and all the drama that really made him wishes he were not the boy-who-lived.

"Every champion must come at the third floor immediately." sounded Professor´s McGonagall's voice a few minutes before the task. The rest of the school was to stay at the Great Hall, where the professors had placed an enchantment on the walls – so that the students knew what was happening.

This did not help Charles´s nerves tough, he decided as he arrived to the mentioned floor. He had revised every spell and hex he knew, to pass this test. He had practiced every minute he had, his Patronus; until he were completely sure he had it right- with the help of his brother, obviously. Dean and Seamus were still hesitant to talk to him.

And he was still nervous.

He walked towards the group of people already in there, and saw that in the main corridor was waiting the Headmaster of each school, Professor McGonagall and Professor Dilard. He was really surprised to see them already there.

"Good, we all are here now," said Professor McGonagall when he entered the room. "The task will be explained by Professor Dilard. Now, if you excuse me, I need to go calm my house table."

And she was gone.

"Very well," said Professor Dilard in her usual half-gentle, half-stern voice, "This night, something was taken from you. Something that is very important to you. Now, the task is to find them, and take them safely to this corridor. The first one to come back with his goal is the one who gets the most points."

Cedric Diggory, Fleur Delacour and Victor Krum nodded. Charles followed their way, and agreed too.

"There´s going to enter one champion first," continued Professor Dumbledore. "Since the last time we had the older ones go first, now the younger is to go through the quest before the others."

Everyone looked at Charles, who sighed internally. He must have known this was going to happen!

He straightened his back, and walked to an old classroom his headmaster pointed, and just before entering, he got out his wand.

He started walking cautiously towards the room, the door closing slowly behind him.

"You only have one hour. Be careful" Dilard said, as the doors to the corridor finally closed.

Charles looked at every wall of the room, before getting sight of a big wooden door at the bottom of one of them.

He ran towards it, planning on opening and get to the real task. Imagine his surprise when he was transported to the Shrieking Shack, right after toughing the handle.

"Whoa," he exclaimed, surprised. This wasn´t on the task description!

He continued, though. He got up all the steps to the second floor, his wand at his side.

"Is someone in here?" he asked, and got no answer.

Determined, he went to that room in which he and his friends had caught Peter Pettigrew.

'Maybe there´s something there?' He thought.

He was surprised again when he saw Susan, floating unconscious in the middle of the room, dementors sliding around her.

Oh, how did they dare!

Furious, he thought of the time he had talked with his long-lost brother, as it was one of the most powerful memories he had.

"Expecto Patronum!" he shouted. Silvery, spectral mist emanated from the tip of his wand. He groaned a bit in frustration. He had never been able to form a corporeal Patronus. Everyone had seemed really impressed with his silver mist, but he wasn´t. Harry could form a corporeal one. A wolf Patronus. Why couldn't he, Charles, produce one too?

The Patronus made him feel lighter, and hopeful. The dementors fled way from him. He had no time to ponder why they were not affecting him like always.

Once he was sure the horrible creatures were far away from Susan, he ran to her, and, reached for her hand. He touched her, and she started going down. Once she was down, she opened her eyes.

"Charles?" she asked confused. "What are you doing here? And by the way, were we are?

"Shh," he hushed her, bringing her to her feet, before taking her running through the stairs, the dementors sliding behind them once the not-corporeal Patronus was gone. "We have to get out of here!"

He and Susan ran, and once he was sure he was at the entrance to the corridor to get at the Whomping Willow, he opened, leading Susan trough it. "We´re nearly there!" he told her, panting heavily. He would make sure to do more exercise from now on! "Trust in me!"

They got out of the tunnel, Susan screaming in fear when she saw they were below the Willow. "What are we going to do know?" she asked him fearfully.

"Trust me, Susan!" he exclaimed, and with his wand, he pressed the spot he knew would make the tree stop moving. And so it did. "Now, come on, we have to get there!

The travel through Hogwarts was definitely less eventful. They collapsed on the third floor, where the headmasters wrote the time he had taken.

He restrained himself from asking if the time he had taken from the way to Hogwarts to Hogsmeade was considerated to the final time. Dementors, honestly?

Was Dumbledore in his right mind?

Author Note.

Ok, I know this was supposed to be posted tomorrow.

But I have grave news.

I have been told, by funky chunky vampo monkey, that someone, called Bellatrix P. Lestrange, has posted my story as her own.

I don't know what to do. I can prove its my story. Its my idea. It was my time, the one I wasted. The one I used to do this.

I am scared. I am furious. I am sad.

My hands are trembling as I type this.

Should I countinue updating? Even thought I know she could continue copying my chapters? If you visit the story, its called 'Harry Potter: The Nightmare of Midnight' - I mean, even the summary its the same! I cant believe it! - you will notice, the chapters are the same I had before.

The date of the publish for that story is before mine, and even then, I swear it. ITS MY IDEA!

Now, Im messing with my writting. I can't think straight. I have eraised this sentence like twenty times already, I kept confusing the letters.

Deeply disappointed,

Lily