ALL RIGHT..... FREAKIN' LJ, LET ME POST CORRECTLY.
(1) Thanks to betas.... comestodecember, brighty18, and (new to the team) vwl. (The stupid LJ user thing isn't working.)
(2) Thanks for hanging with me folks, I know this is long in coming.
(3) I had previous chapters linked, but LJ hates me.... I'll do it soon. If you've forgotten what happened, you'll have to go my page, click on my fic list and look there (I'll get it all linked soon, I hope!)
Part 12 (I hope it posts now)
April 19, 1981
Harry squirms in Catherine’s arms. James watches his mother-in-law coo to his son.
“Such a good boy, aren’t you?” she sweet talks, leaning into Harry’s tiny cheek.
Harry whines, looking desperately at his father before reaching out for James. James sighs. So much for the war not affecting children, he thinks, before walking over and claiming his son from Catherine’s arms.
“Oh, James,” Catherine clucks with false-brightness, while trying to keep her hold on Harry, “I realize he’s your first, but I hardly ever see him-“
“Mum,” Lily interrupts, brushing past the dish-laden table and resting her palm on Harry’s small spine, “Harry doesn’t have a clue who you are-“
Harry’s body relaxes once he is against James’s chest.
“Well he would if you lot brought him by more often. It’s not on, Lily Ellen, not allowing a child to know his grandmum just because it’s inconvenient-“
James feels Harry nuzzle into his father’s brown t-shirt, as if digging for the smell of safety.
“Mum,” Lily starts sternly, “it’s not safe for us to come by-“
James pats his son’s nappied bottom comfortingly.
“Lily, that is absolutely foolishness! I know that you think that you and your friends are of value in this little war, or whatever-“ Catherine would have carried on had Lily not dropped The Daily Prophet on the table before her.
Catherine looks at the photograph slowly. She scans the articles and then, eyes darkening with fear, looks back at her daughter.
“That’s you,” she whispers, pointing to her daughter’s name on a list of ‘Undesirable Persons’ printed on the cover page.
“Yes, Mum,” Lily says gently, touching her mother’s elbow. “We’d have come by if we could. But, damn it, Mum, they’re after us. They’ll do anything to get to Sirius.”
Catherine stares down at the photographs and script and then excuses herself quickly to avoid crying in front of her guests. Lily says nothing, just traces her finger along the edge of the newspaper and leans closer to her husband. Harry sighs a little milky sigh. James feels the tension wane from Harry’s little body.
Catherine refuses to acknowledge the war and their part in it for the rest of the night, but the tone is set. Their dark mood lingers even when they are joined by Lily’s stepfather, sister, and brother-in-law for dinner. James has never minded his in-laws, but he detests Vernon Dursley with a passion. There is something about bigoted people that makes James’s skin crawl.
James tries to ignore Vernon and enjoy himself, but it is simply impossible. Vernon is determined to make himself known, also, James thinks privately, to make himself seem tougher than James.
“What is it you do, exactly, Potter?” Vernon asks, condescendingly.
James grimaces. “Well, before the war, I worked in the Ministry of Defense, training to be an Auror. But now, since the Ministry is defunct, I suppose I’m a solider.”
Vernon sneered, raising his head a fraction of an inch, as if to offer an acknowledgement of the role.
“Yes, well, that’s… something, I suppose. Especially among your sort. I, however, am the top junior sales representative for-“ and the whale-like man launches into a detailed analysis of drills and drill sales. Harry, born with his godfather’s sense of humor, gives a particularly loud and wide yawn. James has to agree. Vernon glares at his nephew, but Greg, Lily’s stepfather, took the break in Vernon’s monolog to hedge a question.
“How bad is it, James?” he asks, fiddling with his napkin.
James pauses. Greg is unfamiliar with magic, more so than the rest of Lily’s family, but his ability to assess a situation is unreasonably precise. He’s unsure of how to proceed; he could give away too much information and worry them sick. He could totally underplay the conflict. Neither option is best, so he defers to Lily, catching her eye and holding it for a long moment. How much of the reality of the situation do they need to know, he wonders. Harry, bless him, offers an answer.
The messy haired boy holds up his spoon as if it is a wand and points it directly at Dudley.
“Nev?” he asks.
Dudley looks confuses and offers a garbled whine. Harry waves his spoon in a more definite attempt at flick and swish at his cousin.
“Nev!” he calls, as if his hopeful attempts will transfigure the fat-faced child into a far more familiar pudgy boy.
Lily clears her throat, and James is aware how near to tears she is when she speaks. “Our friends’ just had their baby murdered. Harry was kidnapped-“
Catherine gives a very appropriate gasp and even Petunia clutches the tablecloth in concern.
“-they’ll stop at nothing. They’re killing Muggles in parks and green grocers and train stations now… I don’t know… I don’t know if it will stop. Four of our friends were killed recently…”
“…No, Lily. Three of our friends were killed-“ James interrupts, anger rising in his voice.
Lily looks at him steadily, her eyes are defiant. “Peter was our friend once-“
“Peter is the reason Neville is dead. He kidnapped Harry. He captured and tortured Sirius. He betrayed us all. He’s no friend of mine,” James snaps, heatedly.
Although their friendship was years in the running, James can find no sympathy for Pettigrew anymore. Peter is a traitor. He deserves the fate that was served to him.
Lily opens her mouth to reply, but then shoves her chair from the table and offers to help start the dishes. She leaves the room without receiving any sort of agreement. Vernon looks amused and flustered at the same time and takes another bite of his chicken. The table lapses into silence until Petunia, in an attempt to restore normal conversation, turns back to her brother-in-law.
“So what are you naming the new baby?” she asks.
James begins to reply, but then wills himself to be silent. He and Lily haven’t had a free second to even consider the baby’s gender, let alone its name. James feels a bit sick suddenly; the war, which has taken so much, has taken this joy from him as well.
April 23, 1981
Lily is still angry at him for the dismal dinner conversation. The house is eerily quiet. Sirius is tickling Harry in the nursery, preparing to put him down for a nap. Lily is out violently weeding the back garden. James sits in his favorite chair, looking out over his lonely yard, when Remus comes into the room.
“Prongs,” Remus begins, and James turns to face him. “I need a favor.”
Hours later, when Lily and Sirius are successfully distracted, he and Remus Apparate to the house that Sirius and Remus have lived in for years. They climb the stairs slowly, moving toward the sickening stench of rot.
“I think we’ll move,” Remus whispers, eyes lingering on the doorway to Neville’s nursery.
“Yeah,” James replies, nodding, “can’t blame you.”
They don’t speak when they grab a hold of Peter’s stiff ankles. The smell is overwhelming, but they levitate the corpse down the steps and out into the back garden. It is like some out-of-body experience, standing in Remus and Sirius’s bedroom, banishing the remains of Remus’s vomit from a corner and annihilating the proof of Remus’s actions. Four years ago, he would have never estimated that he would be part of the clean up crew for one of his best friend’s murders. But then again, he wouldn’t have assumed that he would be a part of many things that are now his current existence.
“Please don’t tell Padfoot that I did this,” Remus whispers, pleadingly. “He knows Peter is dead. That’s enough.”
James follows Remus’s gaze to the photograph of the two lovers on the bedside table.
“He should know.”
“Someday, I promise, I’ll tell him,” Remus replies, staring at his hands.
James nods and they set out.
James and Remus randomly Apparate to a Muggle shop and dump the body in a green plastic wheelie bin that they find behind a Co-Op market. Neither man looks into the bin afterward-- and neither speaks of it again.
April 26, 1981
James knows he should be paying attention. After all, Sirius has asked them, his War Council, as he’s now calling them, to meet with him and advise him on their next attack. They’re gathered around a table at the Eagle and Child, a pub in Oxford that once housed the Inklings, Remus tells them. James runs his fingers over the polished surface of the abused table, noting where the grain of the wood is uneven and warped. James wonders if he could find words engraved into the tabletop from the early drafts of The Lord of the Rings or The Silver Chair.
Tonight, amidst the crowd and smoke of the late night pub goers, they eat salty chips and sip bubbled lagers. James should be enjoying the notion of being out of the house, but he is too distracted. He should be listening to Moody’s endless drone. There is little question in their motives tonight. Spread out before them are the blueprints of the Ministry of Magic, taken from Voldemort’s headquarters on Azkaban island.
They are planning their attack.
Moody is oddly dressed in green suede chaps, a yellow construction vest, and a red velvet bowler. Embarrassed and worried that the older wizard would draw unwanted attention, Lily has forced him to hunker against the far wall. The man seems content to be able to eye the entire crowd of this back room and alternates between tapping the blueprints for emphasis and staring out at the other patrons.
Sirius is chain-smoking, easily on his fifth or sixth cigarette since they’ve arrived. He is absentmindedly watching Moody trace an attack front while bouncing his knee. The table rocks and shakes with his movement making it harder to read the maps and notes, but no one has the nerve or desire to tell him to calm down. James wonders incredulously how this man-a renowned prankster and a self-declared blood traitor-came to be the hope of the entire Wizarding World.
James finds the entire thing ludicrous. This is his brother, for Merlin’s sakes; the lad who still appreciates the fine art of fart jokes and the adolescent joy of a spontaneous snowball fight. How can that sort of person be the salvation of thousands? Compared to Sirius, it’s almost more reasonable to assume that Harry is the Chosen One.
He’s not angry at Sirius. It’s not as if Sirius requested this. He is angry at everything else. He hates what this world has become. In many ways, he hates whom his loved ones have become; who he has become.
James Potter was Head Boy and Head Marauder. He got into trouble and served the detentions for it. He got his girl (after he got on her nerves). James had plans for his career and his friends, he hoped for a little wizarding house with a self-painting fence and creeping roses. He dreamed of birthday parties for his children where their godfathers brought too many sweets and too many jokes. He did not sign up to be an orphaned solider.
And, yet, that is what he’s become.
He looks at the tense faces around the table. It’s almost too much to take, so he takes a long swig of his pint.
Moody reiterates something that must be important. “-and without this strategy we’ll be-“
“No.” Remus’s voice is quiet, but forceful. The occupants of the table all still and look at their friend. Remus’s ability to silence an entire room without raising his voice is one of those Moony things that has always made James envious. He has to do something stupid, like climbing up on a tabletop and waving his arms to gain the attention of a crowd.
“No,” Remus repeats, solemnly, “we can’t take the Ministry until we’ve destroyed the Horocruxes… otherwise it’s all for not.”
Sirius leans back in his chair. He rests his palm over his mouth in frustration.
“How many are there, Moony? Where are they?” he asks, his voice thick from so much smoke.
Remus meets Sirius’s eye and James feels the impending doom of the answer.
“Who knows, Sirius? Voldemort’s a lunatic… who knows…” Remus’s voice drifts off, lost in the din of laughing university students.
“Well,” Lily says, pragmatically, “we have one. There can’t be that many more.”
Sirius tapped his cigarette in the ashtray before him, grinding the ember out as if he could trap their concerns in the same way.
April 28, 1981
It’s late.
James sits at his empty kitchen table staring down a closed, golden locket.
It’s strange to him, that this innocent piece of jewelry contains a living part of his mortal enemy’s soul. That knowledge drives him to dream of extremes: he longs to lunge for a kitchen knife and plunge the blade into the necklace until it screams for mercy; he wishes he could drown it in Harry’s bathwater. But, honestly, he doesn’t know how to destroy this piece of ugly jewelry, so it continues to sit benignly on the table.
The floorboards creak as Sirius enters the kitchen. He’s dressed only in his pajama bottoms, his hair mussed and his neck baring evidence of Remus’s presence. He smiles grimly at James as he moves to the sink and picks a dirty glass at random. James wants to suggest that Sirius is too lazy to retrieve a clean vessel, but it’s too late and they’re in too deep to begin picking stupid fights. He watches Sirius turn the tap, fill the cup, and drink it down without pausing for breath.
He loves Lily.
The kitchen is silent, but James knows he’s heard it, a breathy whisper like a lover cooing in the middle of the night. His eyes travel around the room slowly, looking for the source. His eyes land on Sirius who is staring him down.
“Prongs,” Sirius says hesitantly, “what did you just say?”
James stares at Sirius for a long moment. “I didn’t say anything, Pads. I thought you said something-“
He’s already moving into your home. He’s just that much closer to your wife.
James blinks repeatedly. Sirius mirrors the behavior.
“James,” Sirius begins and his concern is palpable in his tone, “did you hear that?”
James licks his lips.
He has no son of his own anymore. He wants Harry. He wants your life.
“Sirius, what are you hearing-“ James begins, but Sirius is already talking.
“You don’t really believe that about Moony… do you?” Sirius asks quietly, setting the water glass on the counter beside him.
“No one has said anything about Moony,” James asserts, annoyed.
Sirius stares at James levelly before he speaks.
“I heard it suggest that you thought Remus was actually an animal… not a man,” Sirius begins, defensively.
James glares. “No one spoke, Sirius,” he grumbles.
Sirius looks at James without blinking. He then directs his attention to the tabletop. He cocks his head in confusion, then suggests, “When I lived with my parents, some objects talked; old, dark objects. They were innately evil-“
Covering his tracks! He’s lying!
“-they lied in an attempt to turn us against one another. They convinced Reg that I was out to kill him-“
You know this bastard. He would kill… he tried to kill an innocent boy when you were still in school. And he’s killed since then. And he’ll continue to kill to get what he wants…
“-and now we have an object from my house… right… here.”
He wants your life. He’s always wanted to be you, you know. You saw it all through school; he moved into your family’s house, he became your parents’ other son; he did everything you did…
“James… can you hear me?”
Sirius reaches through the haze that seems to be clouding James’s eyes and lifts the locket from the table. He seems to be struggling with it, as if he’s pulling a heavy weight through deep water. He has to use both hands to pick it up and open it.
Once it’s open, the locket emits a high-frequency squeal, which attacks James’s inner-stag. Sirius yells-nearly a Padfootian whine-- and covers his ears with his hands, drawing back from the locket. The necklace falls onto the tabletop and hits with force. James stares, uncomprehendingly, at the dent in the wood under the locket.
In James’s mind, Prongs rears up. He shakes, calling, no, willing, for James to flee in self-defense, but his whole world is distorted. It’s as if the stag is being separated from the wizard. James has a hard time seeing through his mind’s fog.
Somewhere far off, Sirius is yelling in pain, coiling in on himself and hugging his ears. Beyond him, a baby is crying and another man is wailing in pain as well. But all James can hear is the sultry voice that seems to come from nowhere.
You must save your family. You must preserve what you love… because HE will take it. Kill him! Protect your family!
James shakes his head, but he’s overwhelmed with an intense hatred. He swings around and glares at Sirius who is crumpled on the floor. He is still clinging to his ears. A thin stream of blood oozes out of his nose and across his top lip. Sirius, however, seems unaware.
There is a stumbling behind him, but James is entirely focused on the newly-bred hate that swirls in his veins. He grinds his teeth and levels his wand at the man lying on the floor.
“Bastard,” he growls.
Visions swim around his head and he’s not sure if they’re in his mind or if they are actually hanging there, before him, like a cloud of steam.
Sirius and Lily snuggled on the couch reading to Harry. Lily kissing Sirius on the forehead as they wake up in the morning together. Sirius’s hand straying up Lily’s skirt.
“Fucking around with my wife, right under my nose,” James snarls.
James is vaguely aware that someone is calling his name.
“I thought… I thought we were brothers,” James calls, heartbroken. “How could you?”
The high frequency pitch suddenly stops and James’s hate focuses even more. Sirius slumps on the floor, breathing deeply and groans as his hands fall away from his ears.
“James?!”
James turns slowly to the hysterical call of his name. Lily is standing in the doorway, tears flooding down her face; she looks frantic.
“James! James!” she cries, reaching for him, but not moving toward him. “Don’t James! It’s not like that! I love you! Don’t! Please don’t!”
Rage spikes again.
“You are screwing him, aren’t you? You fucking little harlot.” James feels near tears. His emotions spike, alternating around him with hurricane force. He swings his wand back at Sirius and stumbles closer to him.
His arm trembles as he grips his wand tighter.
“Back down, Prongs,” Remus says. James starts at how steady his friend sounds.
Remus is standing, between Lily and James with his wand trained on James’s heart. He’s only in his boxers, and, like Sirius, a drying thread of blood stains his nose and mouth. He’s fierce and solid, a force to be reckoned with.
“He-he and Lily-they’ve betrayed me…” James whimpers, anger and grief warring with his response.
“No they haven’t, Prongs. They’re both faithful. The Horocrux is controlling your mind, James. You need to block it out. You need to win; you have to win,” Remus reassures, his voice even and calm.
James wipes at his eyes with his fist, anger rising again.
“Sirius… Sirius is after my family!” James yells, hysterical.
He rounds on Sirius again and points his wand down at the black haired man. Sirius is lying on his back, eyes now open, staring up at James. He lets his arms fall back, so that his palms lie facing the ceiling.
“You are my family, James,” Sirius whispers and James stumbles backward, muscles shaking and his breath hitching.
“Destroy the Horocrux, James! Destroy it!” Remus commands in a yell, without lowering his wand.
They’re all turning against you! All of them!
James directs his attention back to the table. He raises his wand at the locket. The open locket shudders. From its halves, a gust of wind looses and, with it, the shrill whistle resumes. Remus and Sirius react instantly, gripping their ears and howling in pain. Lily shoves past Remus, who folds at his middle.
As she approaches, the locket produces an eerie green light that waves and splashes across her face.
“Do it, James! Kill it! It’s destroying us! Kill it!” she cries hysterically.
James tears his eyes from the locket to look at his wife. Her eyes stand out against the putrid green glow. He takes in her tear-tracked cheeks and her sleep-crimped hair. She’s standing in their kitchen wearing one of his old Timothy Jarkins and the Witchhazel Band t-shirts and a pair of paisley panties. Her slender legs are covered in gooseflesh and battle scars. She is without her wand.
“JAMES!” she screams, desperate.
Suddenly, the green light molds and forms before their eyes. In the strange light, a skull materializes above her head. The skull’s mouth opens and a snake slithers free of the jaw. James blinks slowly. As if the snake itself is speaking, words form in the light.
Kill the bloodtraitor.
Kill the half-breed.
Kill the Mudblood.
James blinks again. A chant begins in his brain. The words begin slowly and are clearly articulated.
Kill the bloodtraitor. Kill the half-breed. Kill the Mudblood.
The chant grows louder and louder. The green light abandons the kitchen, invading the rest of the house. The shrill, piercing pitch stops, but the heavy light takes its place as torturer. It presses down. James’s limbs feel heavy and his lungs seem to be made of lead.
The chant swirls around the kitchen, gaining speed until the words garble together. They spin around James faster and faster. The locket’s green beam begins destroying the walls of the house. It pours out of the plaster, tearing through it. It levitates Harry and Lily’s cat into the room. Harry’s hands are reaching, terrified, for his mother, but Lily will not look away from James.
The spinning increases. The words scream louder, an ongoing howl of hatred that drowns out all other noise. Somewhere melting into the din, James hears Lily screaming. Remus calls to Sirius. Harry wails. The cat, Polly, yowls.
They’re dying. All of them are dying.
James raises his wand.
“Avada Kedavra.”
Chapter 13