Chapter 22: Conversations with friends

James looked at the clock then at Lily who sat, drumming her fingers, opposite him at the kitchen table.

"It's been a couple of hours…" he said.

Lily hummed in response. Her drumming became faster. Finally, James reached across the table and stilled her fingers with the palm of his hand. Lily jumped at the sudden contact, but then she smiled and, turning her hand up towards his, she laced their fingers together.

"I reckon we go look for him," James said. "What do you think?"

She nodded. "He would've come back by now if he'd been able to, I think, so he must be beyond the wards." Then she hesitated.

James sighed. "You want me to call Sirius and Remus, don't you?"

"Only if we're planning to get Harry back here before nightfall. It's rather a lot of ground to cover."

She was right. James knew it. And this was as good an occasion as any to tell them. But the more time passed since Harry's arrival, the bigger the blow-up would be, particularly from Sirius who hated nothing more than being deliberately kept in the dark. So James was in no particular hurry to have that conversation with his two best friends…

"It won't be dark for a good ten hours – should give me plenty of time, right?" James said, fishing around for any excuse.

"James!" Lily admonished, though she knew he was only joking. "Anyway, I think it's time they knew, don't you?" she added gently.

And really, James thought so too.

"Fine," he muttered gloomily. "See you in a bit – if Sirius doesn't kill me when he finds out about the last few weeks…"

Lily snorted. "And you wonder where Vi gets her flair for melodrama from. Go on, you'll be fine!"

As a practice run of sorts, James decided to start with Remus.

Remus had always been the understanding one – and the one less likely to shout when told something he was unhappy with (a priceless personality trait in situations such as these, James thought). Surely telling him would be easier than telling Sirius?

And in a way, James had been right. Remus had graced him with his trademark raised eyebrow – the one that had the strength of a thousand tellings-off – and James knew that, although he wasn't off the hook in terms of providing a bloody good explanation for Harry's presence and why he'd felt the need to keep it from his friends, Remus was willing to let it slide for the time being in favour of the more urgent task of retrieving Harry from beyond the wards.

"Let me put on my shoes and I'll be right over," Remus said.

"No rush," James replied quickly. "I have to fire-call Sirius first and I don't know how long that's going to take, and…"

"… and you'd rather get through the inevitable telling off without any witnesses?"

James gave Remus a sheepish grin. "Something like that, yeah…"

"Ah. Well, that's too bad," Remus replied mildly – but there was a remorseless look in his eyes, and the raised eyebrow was back. "I'm sure Sirius will have many fine points to make, and I want to know what he's already covered so I can leave it out of the little chat we're going to have about this later."

"So much for you being the understanding one," James grumbled.

He glared at Remus who, having just stepped through the Floo, was dusting himself off and settling into his favourite armchair. He had an expression of polite interest on his face. James knew that, for Remus, this was the equivalent of anyone else's avid curiosity.

"Do you want some popcorn before I get the show on the road?" James grouched.

"Maybe later," Remus replied with a flash of a grin, before softening his expression. "Go on, waiting isn't going to make this any easier…"

James sighed but shouted out Sirius's address and stuck his head into the fire.

"Hey, do you have a minute?" he asked when his call was answered.

He'd hoped to sound casual, but from the speed at which Sirius agreed, some of his nervousness must have shown. He squared his shoulders as the flames turned green and spat out his oldest friend onto the hearthrug.

Sirius shook the soot out of his hair.

Then he caught sight of Remus.

"Oh, hey Moons," he said. He sent James a speculative look before perching on the edge of the desk and leaning back. "Fancy seeing you here. So, to what do we owe this little impromptu weekend reunion?"

"Right, so…" James started. He faltered, looked back at Remus and cleared his throat. "So hear me out before you start shouting, alright?"

"Strong start," Remus muttered. "That'll definitely put him in the right frame of mind."

"Shut up Remus," James muttered. He took a deep breath. "Right. Right, so… A little while ago, Sam had a bit of a magical – um… accident, let's say. He ended up calling forth a Harry from an alternate reality, one where Lily and I were killed by Voldemort but where he survived. He's been with us since, and uh – it's been going alright, but today there was a minor misunderstanding, and he ran away. We think he's beyond the wards and I was hoping you might help us look for him."

Sirius blinked. "Hang on," he said slowly. "What? An alternate reality? Is that even a thing?"

"So it would seem," James said.

"And in some of them you died but Harry survived?"

James nodded.

"And somehow a Harry-from-another-world has ended up with you and has been living here for the past few – what is it, days? weeks? months?"

"Don't forget the bit where James conveniently forgot to mention this Harry's existence to us," Remus added from his corner of the room.

"Right, right," Sirius said. "And now you've lost this Harry and need our help to find him?"

"That's pretty much it in a nutshell," James replied, ignoring Remus's comment. "So?"

"So that's why we didn't have our usual Sunday dinner at yours a couple of weeks back – because you didn't want us to find out?" Sirius carried on.

James sighed. "We were still working things out, we didn't want to rush into telling you both about it."

"Oh, but having a perfect stranger staying in your house just because he says he's your son isn't rushing it, I suppose?"

"Actually," James felt the need to clarify, "we cast a parental spell, and he really is our son – physically at least."

But Sirius waved the objection aside. "And you didn't think that, with Bellatrix on the loose –" he paused and looked at James shrewdly. "So that's what was going on that day when you asked me to look after the kids?"

"Yes…"

"This 'Harry' arrived on the day Bella escaped?"

"Yes…"

"And you didn't think maybe there would be some connection?"

"We did," James replied with forced patience. "I gave him the Auror treatment…"

Sirius snorted.

James glared at him. "What? I had the same training as you, you know."

"Yeah, and the last time you actively used it was fifteen years ago. James, you should've called me."

"We've been managing fine. Harry's been –"

But Sirius interrupted. "You're too trusting, and you know it. You and Lily were easy targets on this one," he explained, his reasonable tone grating on James's already frayed nerves. "I mean, haven't you learnt anything from what happened with Vi last year?"

"Oh that's –" James started hotly, intending to say that it was rich telling him off when Sirius had been the one out shopping with Vi when she'd found the diary but Remus, presumably sensing that the conversation was slipping into dangerous territory, cleared his throat and shot his friends a warning look.

James took a deep breath to calm himself and ran a hand through his hair. "Look," he said, turning back to Sirius, "this wasn't some kind of spontaneous decision. We've been very careful. And we've been keeping a close eye on him, believe me."

Sirius snorted again. "Yeah, so close an eye that you seem to have lost him now?"

"Harry was very upset. He'd just admitted to us that he'd never really known us because we'd died when he was a baby and Sam happened to overhear him and panicked –"

"No kidding – I can't see why a five-year-old would worry upon hearing that his parents died," Sirius said sarcastically.

James narrowed his eyes. His patience was really wearing thin. "And when Harry saw that, he panicked and ran off."

"The easy way out," Sirius muttered.

"Sirius, ease off," Remus jumped in before James could say anything.

"Ease off? I don't see why I should – that man is an intruder, someone potentially dangerous – lethal even, if he has anything to do with Bella's crew and –"

A few weeks ago – before this morning even, James wouldn't have felt nearly as riled up by Sirius's little speech as he did now. After all, he'd entertained the same thoughts, worked through the same fears, at the beginning. But so much had changed since…

Still, James forced himself to remember that Sirius only spoke like this because he cared about his wellbeing and that of his family.

"Look," he said at last. "We can discuss the rights and the wrongs of my decisions later. Will you help me find him or not?"

Sirius had grumbled but had agreed. He was still ranting when he'd followed Remus in the direction of the most easterly border of the Potter property and James was quite glad to be heading in the opposite direction lest he end up saying something he might regret.

He followed the drive as it meandered through the woods. Everything was quiet. Birds were singing in the distance, and the rhythmic crunch of the gravel under his feet soon soothed him enough that he was able to focus on his surroundings.

Every few steps, he stopped, called for Harry and cast a Homenum Revelio spell – the widest he could manage reached a maximum of fifty yards on a good day. Despite his worry that Harry may have run further than they had anticipated, it was an oddly calming walk. For the first time in weeks, James found himself alone with his thoughts.

Going back over the past few days, he thought about how weird it had all been. At first, he'd been looking at the boy and imagining what it would be like if it was really Harry. And then, when they'd found out that he really was Harry – just not quite their Harry – he'd found himself almost unable to look away, analysing and memorising his face, the way he moved, the sound of his voice, his slightest expressions that crossed his face, all in search of the boy they'd lost seventeen years ago.

The kid barely spoke. He knew Lily had tried as well, but between them they'd barely gotten any information out of him – until that morning's outburst. James felt his heart go out to the boy. If it had been hard for them to see their little boy all grown into this hardened teenager, what must it have felt like for that same orphaned child to see the life his parents had built for themselves after his death…?

Strangely, the thought that he himself had died in this other world didn't upset James all that much if it had meant that Harry had lived. No, what did upset him was that his sacrifice hadn't been quite enough. He didn't quite know what had made Harry into the boy he was, but an easy, cushioned life was certainly not it.

James ruminated on that thought, still calling out to Harry every once in a while. It was getting to mid-afternoon. Despite the shade from the tree, the heat was starting to press in. He wished he'd had the foresight to bring some water – and possibly a sandwich for Harry when he found him. The kid must be starving…

James was just wondering whether he ought to expand his search rather than staying near the edge of the wards when his spell eventually revealed the presence of a person. Calling out to Harry again, he picked up his pace and followed the spell's lead.

"Hello?" he called. He jogged in the direction that the spell was indicating. "Harry? Is that you?"

Just as James was about to cast another spell, a sharp bell rang from the pocket of his jeans.

"James Potter," came Sirius's voice.

James scrambled to extract the tiny mirror from his back pocket, swearing when he almost dropped it in his haste. When he righted the mirror, Sirius was looking up at him from the palm of his hand with an unreadable expression on his face.

"What's the matter? Did you find him?" James asked, suddenly feeling breathless.

"Trying to make me seasick with your acrobatics?" Sirius groused in response. "Anyway, we found your otherworldly brat."

"Oh, thank Merlin," James whispered.

"Yeah, yeah," Sirius grouched. "Don't thank him, thank me and Remus – we're the ones who had to put up with his rude questions. You know, he's a right little –"

But James was too relieved to listen to much of his friend's complaints. He simply nodded along dumbly as relief coursed through him.

Harry was no longer lost.