o0o0o0o

"Williams!" McGonagall snapped, flicking her wand causing Harry's book to snap in his face. "This is the third time I have had to ask you, now pay attention!"

"Sorry, Professor," Harry murmured, putting his elbow back on the table and his head in his hand.

The painkillers Lily had brewed for him had been very effective at keeping away the burning and stabbing pains in his arm, but they had not been so effective at keeping him awake and alert. It had been almost a week since he had attempted to step into the fire, and since then Harry had spent a great deal of time asleep in his bed while his arm mended.

He hadn't gotten a good look at the burn on the first day because Lily always asked him to turn away or dabbed on the special salve while he was sleeping, but on Sunday, Harry saw for the first time the extent of the damage. The burn on his arm had gone pitch black. It crawled all the way up along his forearm and faded into dark veins that crept even higher up his arm. The wound was soft, and clearly vulnerable.

It was now Thursday, and his skin had gone from black to the palest white he had ever seen. The scar was rough and uneven. Lily continued to put the salve on every morning, afternoon, and evening, but she had admitted that this was the best they could have hoped for.

"Soon, we'll try and stop giving you the pain medication," Lily had said the night before as she slowly wrapped bandages around his arm. "And then we'll have to see how you go from there. This isn't a normal burn, Harry. Even though it looks like its healed, I don't know what other effects that potion you made will have had on you."

"Have you been able to look at it? The potion?" Harry had winced as her grasp tightened around his arm.

"No, Harry, I've actually been pretty preoccupied with taking care of you. After all of this, I don't think I can help you. Morally, I just can't do it."

Harry had missed his Monday classes because every time he stood up he was overcome with waves of dizziness. Lily had become incredibly concerned, but Harry insisted that he had just been laying down for too long. The following morning she tried to keep him in bed, but he refused and attended his classes as normal. Although he didn't see much of Lily that or any of the following days, Remus seemed to be hanging around him more than usual and Harry was sure he knew why.

"Are you feeling ok, Harry?" Remus whispered as McGonagall demonstrated another complex wand motion, causing several buttons to transform into brass chain links and interlock with one another.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Harry muttered. In reality, his arm was beginning to sting under the bandages.

As class ended, everyone filed out into the hallway and began heading towards the Great Hall for lunch. Harry, on the other hand, took a sharp turn left.

"Hey, where are you going? Aren't you hungry?" Remus called, rushing over to Harry's side.

"I'm heading to the Room of Requirement, I'm going to look over our potion more and try and figure out where we went wrong."

"Harry…" Remus sighed. "You haven't even recovered from our last attempt, I don't think you should be experimenting more right now…"

"Every minute I stay here is another minute I'm interfering with the past," Harry whispered, dropping his voice to barely audible levels. "I can't just stay here doing nothing."

"You're not doing nothing, you're recovering," Remus argued. "C'mon, mate, you need to at least eat lunch, even if you insist on working on this more, you need to eat. Lily will notice if you're not in the Great Hall, and you know she's not going to like that."

Harry sighed, shifting the weight of his bag on his shoulder.

"C'mon, Harry," Remus said, taking Harry's bag from him and putting it on his own shoulder, ignoring Harry's protests. "She's spent almost a week doing everything she can to help you. The least you can do is take care of yourself. For her."

Harry paused, then nodded and, together, the two Gryffindors followed the rest of the students to the Great Hall.

o0o0o0o0o

"James, we're going to be late —" Sirius called in frustration.

"Since when do you care if we're late?" James said raising an eyebrow as he, Sirius, and Peter quickly walked to Gryffindor tower.

"I've been late to too many classes, Slughorn swore he'd make me stay behind and scrub everyone's cauldrons if I was late one more time," Sirius groaned and stopped in his tracks. "I'm just going to meet you there, ok? I really can't be late."

James rolled his eyes and motioned for him to go on to Potions. He and Peter continued to speed walk to their dorm. When they got there, James immediately began digging around his side of the room. He threw his bedding to the floor, twisting through the sheets, and then moved to his dresser.

"What are you missing?" Peter asked as James threw clothes out onto the floor.

"My potions book, I just stuck my homework in-between the pages so I can't go to class without it," James said as he flipped his pillows over and checked under his bed. Nothing. He sighed in hurried frustration as he began to shuffle through his trunk — old broken quills, extra pairs of school pants, a few old muggle t-shirts,Quidditch Through the Ages…

"I-Is this it?" Peter said, confusion in his voice. James looked up, a wave of hope coming over him that disappeared just as quickly as it had came.

"No, Peter, have you even opened your own potions book this year? That's clearly not… It…" James trailed off as he walked closer and took the book from Peter's hands. It was a heavy, thick, dark brown book entitled Potions Theory. At the bottom of the cover were curling gold letters that spelt out Charles T. Potter.

James felt like the world was all rushing in on him at once.

"This is my dad's," James breathed. His eyes jumped up to meet Peter's. "Where did you find this?"

Peter pointed to Harry's open trunk. James rushed over and fell to his knees. Quickly, he began sifting through Harry's belongings, shifting scraps of parchment and textbooks around furiously, until something else caught his eye.

"This is my mom's," James felt his face grow warm and he pulled out a beautiful glass jar made from jewel-colored glass. He opened it; inside, there was some emerald floo powder, but only about a fourth of what used to be.

James stood up slowly, his whole body shaking as he held his family's possessions. He turned to Peter who was nervously clasping and unclasping his hands.

"Why does he have my parent's things?" James said, his voice sounding forced and heavy. Before Peter could respond, James quickly set the book and jar in his trunk before whipping his wand and growling an enchantment. The trunk sprang closed and a series of complicated clicks indicated it was locked securely.

"When I get my hands on Williams," James muttered furiously before leaving the dorm room with a bang.

o0o0o0o0o

"Where's James?" Remus asked as Slughorn finished up his instructions for the class and everyone stood up to get their ingredients.

"He left his homework up in our dorm, he went to get it," Sirius explained as he placed his cauldron over the magical flame. "He should be here any mo—"

The potions door slammed open causing everyone in the room to jump and turn. James stood in the doorframe, breathing heavily.

"You," James breathed before taking several steps forward and whipping out his wand.

"You think it's ok to steal from my family?" He roared, raising his wand at Harry. Before Harry could even react, however, James's body suddenly went ridged and he fell to floor. Slughorn quickly scurried forward, looking unsettled.

"What on earth is going on here?"

"I-I really don't know, Professor," Harry said shakily. He stared at his father, who was staring back motionlessly. His own father had just tried to attack him. A pang of pain went up through his arm.

"You stole something from him?"

"No, not at all, I really have no idea what he was talking about."

"I'm going to take Mr. Potter to the Hospital Wing, I think it's best if you head to the Headmaster's office," Slughorn said, furrowing his eyebrows as he waved his wand, causing James's body to relax. He immediately sprang to his feet and began to raise his wand again, but Slughorn clasped his shoulder.

"Don't think I won't do it again, Mr. Potter. Come with me."

"Class is cancelled for the afternoon," Slughorn called as he left with James, who shot Harry a dark look before the door closed behind him. Despite class being cancelled, no one looked happy; everyone was staring at Harry, frozen, as if they too had all been stunned.

"Harry, did you actually steal from James?" Remus breathed. Harry looked at Remus in disbelief.

"No, of course not," he said. He turned and saw Sirius and Lily also staring at him, their eyes wide.

"I didn't steal from him, ok, I have no idea what he was going on about," Harry said angrily. He snatched up his bag and left the room.