25 June 1981
Potter's Cottage, Godric's Hollow

Following the dreaded heart-to-heart about the status of the muggleborn, the following days turned towards something a little more lighthearted as Lily all-but-demanded that they try to investigate what was in the little beaded bag. James could only assume that she had been feeling vindictive about the Snitch Jinx which marred her forehead. So, after lunch, the Potter cottage found three quarters of the Marauders, plus one, determinedly staring down at the little beaded bag in the middle of the living room as if it were a bomb of some kind.

Tilly had been charged with watching over the witch whilst Harry occupied himself with the explicably crunchy baby mat Petunia had gifted them during the baby shower at their feet. This left the elder mages to do as they pleased for now. (No other plans had been made, but Remus had been volleying for them to clue in Dumbledore sooner rather than later, whilst James retorted that this was the most excitement they'd had since Harry was born).

"…Just grab the bag, Prongs" Sirius elbowed the bespectacled wizard.

"Why do I have to do it?" James whined.

"Cause it can't be anymore dangerous than a full nappy, can it?"

James scrunched up his face in disgust at the thought of the humdingers that he'd had to deal with in the last year. Since when did babies poop their own body weight? "Nothing is worse than that!"

"Well, then" Remus clapped his hands, "Off ya go!"

James turned to his equally expectant wife. "Lils—!"

"Oh no! I already tried that, remember?" She pointed to her own forehead where the boils were healing up nicely, "Now it's your turn! And hurry up! The day's not getting any younger and something in there might tell us where she came from!"

"…You guys suck" James pouted as he reached for the bag anyhow; his best mates grinning at him as all three ganged up on him.

Thanks to Lily's meddling a couple of days before, the bag still remained blessedly open which meant that no one else had to suffer the fate of the boils; although James was curious about what other things might be spelt out in acne. In any case, they should've probably put it up on a higher shelf because in their moment of distraction Harry, who suddenly found the beaded bag far too interesting to not investigate, was now half swallowed up by a bag no bigger than a grapefruit.

"Ah! Harry!"

After Harry had decided to dive—quite literally—head first into the little beaded bag, he had been removed from the purple cloth and handed off to Tilly's capable hands, before they turned back to the task at hand. "Well" Sirius hummed a little hysterically, shakily running a hand through his dark locks after nearly losing his godson to the neverending folds of the beaded bag. "Least we know it's open"

Remus shared with him a similar grin, baring canine teeth at the wolfhound. "Indeed" He swallowed thickly, "Now, we just need to go through that bag, ourselves"

"And if that gives us nothing" Lily nodded succinctly, continuing on with his point. "We could always try to trace the ID on those wand fragments"

With that half-baked plan in mind, James slowly reached for the beaded bag with trepidation coursing through him. He wasn't sure why he was so jittery about searching through what was in the bag. Perhaps it was due to the curious nature of the mysterious muggleborn's arrival that he found himself wary of her possessions. Also, he didn't particularly feel like sporting a matching pair of pimples like his wife had; although Harry had gone into the bag and had come out unscathed, so perhaps he would be okay.

Silently telling himself off for being afraid of something as innocuous as a beaded bag, the bespectacled man swallowed his nerves as he finally fetched the bag and, with a swift yank, pulled open the drawstrings & tipped out the contents on to the living room floor. It was only thanks to his quidditch reflexes that James was able to avoid any squashed toes as the bag unloaded itself onto their living room floor. None of them were prepared for the absolute avalanche of items that came spewing out from the deceptively small bag.

There seemed to be no end to the out-pouring of items, and absolutely no organisational system that he could see. There was everything from old tomes to canned goods, sweaty quidditch shirts and memoirs. There were bundles of clothes—some too small & some far too large, what looked like a well-loved bottle of dittany, potion phials miraculously unbroken and there even looked to be a portrait submerged beneath the majority of the pile, over there by Sirius' feet. Whomever was in it, was cursing up quiet the storm and the usually foul-mouthed canine seemed taken aback by some of the swears falling from gilded frames. It wasn't until something became clogged in the opening, that the avalanche finally stopped.

Blinking slowly in confusion and shock, Lily puffed out a long breath. "Well" She blinked, "I wasn't expecting that"

"Explains the jinx, though" James hummed, already digging through the pile at his feet. "Look at some of this stuff! Is that a sneakascope?"

"Think it's safe to say that she was on the run" Remus mused as he inspected a particularly pristine can of peaches. "Or at least planning on it. There's enough food here to feed a bear"

"Or Moony" Sirius grinned teasingly from the floor. He received some boxers to the face, for that.

"Okay!" Lily clapped her hands as the two canines dissolved into playful roughhousing. "I think we need to sort everything out into categories to get a better look at it all. Looks like there's some potions in there—however depleted some of them are—clothes can go together, although there appears to be an abdominal wardrobe in here and they all look muggle. Books over there and food, over there"

James nodded absently as he tried to both understand why the muggleborn had so much stuff, and what it was all for. It almost seemed like more than one person had packed their entire life into the tiny bag, and as he inspected the tentpoles of a tent, he found himself wondering if he should've of pushed Lily harder to accept the possibility that something awful had happened to her and the possibility that the girl's family was still looking for her. Still, with the amount of junk sprawled out across their floor, the bespectacled wizard was starting to see what she had meant by "muggleborn on the run"

"—Sweet Circe!" At Lily's sudden exclamation, James' head jerked over to where she stood. Or, at least, where she had been standing. All that was left of her now was the childish excitement plastered across her expression, as her head bobbed about, disconnected from the rest of her body.

"Lils, what are you doing?" Sirius exclaimed at the sight.

Lily turned to face Sirius with a childish grin, baring white teeth as she gleefully chortled; head bobbing disconcertingly as he did so. If James didn't know any better, he would've said the witch was bouncing up & down on her feet in her barely contained joy. But knowing Lily, she probably was; the joy was so palpable that she could practically see her non-existent tail wagging as she bounced about. "It's an invisibility cloak, Paddy!" Lily grinned, "These are super rare!"

Sirius shared a secretive & knowing glance with the other three Marauders as the witch danced about in the cloak, delighting in the disappearing act. Of course, they knew how rare invisibility cloaks were, James had the one he'd inherited from his father, and his father's father; the same one they'd used time & time again during their time at school. It had mostly been used for pranks, late-night snacks runs, full moon madness, and the like.

Still, the appearance of this invisibility cloak gave James pause. There were invisibility cloaks made of demiguise fur & ones charmed to the gills with Disillusionment & Bedazzlement Charms, and then there was the invisibility cloak. The former were only poor imitations of the real thing, because that's what the latter was, the real thing; Death's own cloak of invisibility passed down from father to son, through the Peverell-Potter line. James knew for a fact, that the invisibility cloak—the one that his father had given him—was in his trunk, upstairs. Still, this one looked to be a rather immaculate deep fake, nevertheless.

Fondly rolling his eyes at his wife's antics and shelving that particular thought for a rainy day, James turned back to sorting through the mess with an exaggerated air of parental patience. "Yes, love, and I'm sure that you can play with it later, but maybe we should at least attempt to finish sorting through all of this? Y'know, before Harry wakes up and demands our attention?"

Lily pouted in the face of James' smirk, watching as she slowly removed the cloak from her shoulders and draped it over the back of the closest chair. The childish pout remained even as she plopped herself back on the ground.

"C'me on, Lils!" He chuckled, "This was your idea!"

"Fine, fine, fine" Lily sulked as she pulled the closest item towards her, "Let's just finish sorting through this and then start on the books"

"What's that, you got there, Moony?" James nodded to the cutesy notebook in his hands. It appeared to be a diary of some kind with its brightly coloured & sticker-plastered cover.

"Diary, of some kind" Moony mused aloud, flipping absently through the pages.

"Anything interesting?" Lily curiously inquired as she set down a matching pair of shoes.

"Kinda" Remus shrugged, "The pages keep insulting me, I think. Y'know, like the Map does?"

"The Map?" Sirius stumbled over his feet in an effort to get to the wolf's side. "Really? Lemme see!"

Remus tilted the book in Sirius' direction as he crashed into his shoulder, upon landing. "See?"

"D'madame Granger presentéirt dem här…" Sirius read aloud, face scrunching up in thought as he tried to distinguish the strange words. "Yeah, I can't read this"

"Sounds French" Lily mused, "Jim, you know any French?"

"A little" James hummed, before he sat up a little straighter. "Give it here"

Sirius snatched the book from the wolf's hand and tossed it across the room, with that quidditch arm of his. "Catch!"

"Oof!" He puffed, catching the book to the face and knocking his glasses askew.

"What's it say?" Lily asked, peering over his shoulder as he finally pulled it off of his face and opened it to a random page.

"Uh" James blinked down at the page before him and read aloud, translating the words as best he could:

"Ms Granger presents her compliments to Mr Potter, and begs him to keep his abnormally fuzzy nose out of other people's business.
Mr Weasley would like to register his astonishment that a berk like that, would ever think to snoop through a lady's things.
Mr Potter agrees with Mr Weasley, and would like add that he bids Mr Potter, his adieu"

"Granger? Think that's her?" Lily asked.

"Has to be" Remus shrugged, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"What's with you, Prongsie?" Sirius inquired as the bespectacled wizard fingered the "Potter" name on the page.

"That does say "Potter" right?" He asked, proffering the book to the two canines. "I'm not just going mad?"

"Ah, you've always been a bit mad, mate" Sirius grinned.

"Thanks, Paddy" James deadpanned, tone flatter than paper.

"No problem, mate!" He flashed his fangs as his grin grew wider and all the more teasing.

"Yeah, says "Potter", "Weasley" and "Granger" Remus replied, reclaiming the book. "I'd wager "Granger" is the lil' pup upstairs, considering this says "PROPERTY OF GRANGER" in the cover, and that is most certainly a girl's handwriting. Weasley could be any one of Arthur's pack, and then there's that Potter" He quirked a brow in question at the wizard, "You don't have any first generational cousins, do you?"

James shook his head. "No" Neither of his parents had any siblings and the closest thing he had to a cousin, were the other Pureblooded wizards of his generation.

"Well, do you know her?"

"Nah uh, I told you that"

"Well, she certainly knows you, Jim" Lily interjected.

"Whaddya mean?" He turned towards his wife where she stood with a quidditch shirt in her grasp.

And when he did, he blinked even more dumbly at what he saw.

James blearily registered that it was a Gryffindor quidditch team jersey (not unlike the one she had been wearing when she had arrived). Unlike the first one, this one was clearly a quidditch jersey (he'd worn enough to know what they looked like), with a large "POTTER 07" emblazoned across the back. To her right, Sirius held a similar jersey, only this was larger and bore the name "WEASLEY 01"

Swallowing thickly as he tried to understand and failed to get his thoughts in order, James found himself murmuring a quiet, "I'm not sure I really understand what's going on…"

Sirius shook his head as if trying to dislodge a thought from his brain, "Yeah, me neither, mate. These don't look like the quidditch jerseys I remember. I mean, they could've changed them, of course"

"But—but, I was the last known Potter at Hogwarts!" James interjected, "Before that, it was just Dad! And Harry's nowhere near admission age!"

"Okay, well, we'll put that on the back burner for now" Lily soothed, before turning to the room at a whole. "What about the other names? Weasley & Granger?"

"Well, the only Weasley pup currently there is Arthur's eldest, but he's only in his first year" Remus replied, "The other pups are all far too young for admission"

James turned to him in surprise, "You talked to Arthur, recently?"

"Nah, Molly pulled me in for dinner the last time I went to deliver a message" Remus replied, "She'd made enough food to feed an entire pack, several times over!"

"Ha!" Sirius barked a particularly canine laugh, "Lil' Molly Prewett bullied you into staying for dinner?"

"Have you ever tried to tell a stubborn witch, "No?"

Sirius spared a side-eye towards the redhead sorting through the mess, unawares of what was going on around her, and turned back to the smirking wolf with a pronounced pout on his lips.

"Yeah, that's what I thought!" Remus victoriously smirked, "Besides, the pups are delightful! You should meet the twins, they're like little mirrors of the Prewett twins" His expression turned fond as he spoke of the Weasley twins. "They're little rascals; kept trying to stuff spiders and gnomes into my pockets"

"No, love, you've never mentioned it" Sirius shook his head, "However, maybe it'd be a good idea to write Arthur about this?"

"And what? Enquire as to whether there is any chance someone in the family knew the girl?" Remus ended.

James looked thoughtful, "Perhaps. But it still doesn't explain the inclusion of the Potter jersey, though. It's clearly not Dad's and it's definitely not mine. Besides, the both of us were Chasers, not Seekers. We were both Number Four. Remember? You were my partner in crime, Paddy!"

"That's never really stopped"

"Hey!"

"Oi! Hey! Hey!" Lily clapped her hands, gaining their attention amongst her slightly cleaner end of the pile. "Get back to work! We've still got a shit ton of stuff to go through!"

"Yes, ma'am!" The three mages saluted the witch, before they resumed sorting everything into piles.

It wasn't until some time later, when lunch was on the horizon, that Remus—still frustratingly fascinated with the charmed diary—spoke up again and things came to a full stop once more. "Hey Pads?"

"Yeah?" Sirius looked up from where he had been inspecting a suspiciously familiar dark-coloured tome.

"Isn't this your brother?"

"Lemme see!" Sirius scrambled to his feet and quickly hurried over. No matter how many times the canine denied that he did not care for his younger brother, they all knew he was lying. Especially, right now. Snatching the proffered note found from between the pages of the diary, Sirius cradled the parchment with care. It was yellowed with age, but the words are still delightfully eligible. His eyes ran over the words once, twice, thrice and still Sirius could not comprehend what he was reading. He grew ashen as the words sank in and his hand slowly came up to his mouth in shock, the parchment shaking in his hand.

"…Pads?" James hedged, climbing over the junk in an effort to get to his friend before he collapsed. He looked like his mother had just told him that he had to come back home. "Paddy? Paddy, what's wrong?"

Soon enough, Lily was at his shoulder as Remus had to physically hold up Sirius, 'least he crash to the floor. His legs had gone weak and buckled beneath him. It was strange & worrying to see him so startled, and it rattled both of the Potters to their cores. Quietly, the wolf took the old parchment from Sirius' hands as a piercing wail—something on the verge of both human & canine—fell from his lips, and handed it off to the Potters. James shared a concerned glance with his wife—one that was echoed back in that toxic green gaze of hers—before the two bent over the small piece of parchment and read:

To the Dark Lord,

I know I will be long dead before you ever read this, but I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret. I have stolen the real horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can. I face Death in the hope that when you finally meet your match, you will be mortal once more.

—R.A.B

"Oh, Paddy…!"