Passover
The last thing James sees before he dies is a flash of green light.
He opens his eyes, scans around the room. It’s all white, almost like he’s on a cloud. The ground, which he is kneeling on, is transparent. Unlike glass, it’s completely clear, no visible signs of being literally anything. James feels the panic rise in his chest as he watches what’s going on below him.
Lily is clutching their baby in her arms, frantically locking the nursery door. James can see it all clearly, every single detail, but he can’t reach out and reach them. He tries and tries and tries as tears fall down his face.
“James?” A voice says, one James held so close to his heart. One he thought he’d never hear again. He whips his head around so fast that his glasses literally fly off his face. He quickly scrambles to grab them and prop them on his face.
He looks up to see his mother, Euphemia, and his father, Fleamont. Both have a greenish tinge to their skins and still look sickly from Dragon Pox, but they are his parents.
“James?” Fleamont says.
James couldn’t believe it. Nothing felt real. His eyes flick down to Lily then back up, then back down, then back up.
“Am I dreaming?” James croaks out, the words scratching at his throat.
“N-no, honey, you’re dead.”
Those words stop James dead in his tracks.
You’re dead.
You are dead.
You. Are. Dead.
James places his hand over where his heart should be, frantically looking for the heartbeat.
It never comes.
“I’m.. I’m dead?” James asks, rising to his feet.
“Y-yes, James, yes.” Fleamont reaches his hand out for James, and oh, how James missed his father.
James doesn’t even feel himself walking, his legs moving on their own. It’s not until he reaches his parents, sees their faces, their eyes, their smiles, that he realizes this is real.
He’s dead.
James Fleamont Potter is dead.
“I.. I don’t understand,” James mumbles, looking down at the transparent ground. He watches as Lily cradles Harry to her chest, whispering for him to be quiet.
“You didn’t think you just.. disappeared when you died, did you?” Fleamont says, finally, finally, placing his hand on James arm. It feels cold, yet warm, it felt the way it did when James held his hand as he passed. James slumped over his father’s dead body, his limp hand still in James’s.
“You’re in Passover, at least, that’s what the others call it,” Effie says, reaching out to cup James’s cheek in her hand. Her touch is cold too. James leans into it. He remembers the feeling of her hand going limp in his as she passed. Fleamont was in the bed next to her, holding her other hand. They refused to separate, even when the healers insisted so they can be treated.
“Passover?” James mumbles, looking down at the ground as Voldemort advances into his house. His house.
“Yes, dear, Passover,” Fleamont says, “there’s quite a lot of perks.”
“James, can I see your wrist?” Effie says, reaching down for her son’s wrist. On it, is a tiny little watch. James has no idea how it got there. James listens as Effie explains what it does. Apparently, this little gadget holds every person he holds dear.
“You see, James, all of your friends pictures and names?” Effie clicks a button and all of his friends show up in front of him on a transparent screen. Each is a picture of the friend and James.
“Click on one,” Fleamont says.
Shaking, James reaches out a hand and presses Sirius Black.
Suddenly, the ground beneath him changes, morphing from Lily’s sobbing to Sirius, humming to himself as he rides his motorcycle to the Potter’s.
Sirius has no idea what he is coming for.
It makes James want to scream, rip his hair out, cry until Sirius can hear him.
But he can’t.
Because James is dead and Sirius isn’t.
James presses the watch to Remus Lupin.
Remus is slumped against his chair in his flat, the flat him and Sirius share. He’s reading a book, slowly sipping on a bottle of scotch.
James feels sick.
How could Remus not know? He’s dead! James is dead!
James scrolls on his watch, looking for one name. One name in specific.
Regulus Black.
You see, Lily and James were never ment to be. Harry, the poor baby, was a complete accident. After the news that Regulus went missing, Lily and James were both a wreck. Lily was good friends with Regulus, them and Remus were in a study group. Don’t tell Sirius.
And James, poor James. James was maddeningly in love with Regulus Black. From the moment they laid eyes on each other, James was gone. Regulus, a first year while James was a second, was just so adorable. Regulus was so scared to be away from home, he clung to Sirius the whole way to Hogwarts. None of the Marauders minded, but Regulus was there.
James knew he was a goner. He fell for the sparkle in Regulus’s eyes when he laughed, the way he scowled when James made jokes, the little freckles on his face that James loved to kiss. James and Regulus were together from 5th year to 7th.
Until Regulus got the Dark Mark.
James, well, honestly, he felt betrayed. His love, his Regulus, got the Dark Mark. James had slammed the door in his face that night, and they haven’t spoke since.
James is still maddeningly inlove with Regulus Black.
So, the day the news came out, him and Lily got so drunk that they couldn’t remember what happened the next day. One thing led to another, James had a lot of built up sexual frustration, and Lily, poor Lily.
Lily had just lost her Mary. Mary wanted to travel the world, go all over the globe, and Lily? She wanted to stay back with her family. So, they broke up, after thousands of tears and kisses, they broke up.
Lily, as well, had so much sexual frustration, that she had sex with a man.
Never again.
The only time she ever had sex with a man, she ended up pregnant. Deciding it was the best for both of them, they moved in together and had a ‘wedding’ or more like a fake wedding to show that Lily wouldn’t be abandoned. Her parents were weird about that kind of stuff. They moved into Godrics Hollow shortly after.
Ding!
A short, rapid ding sounds from James’s watch. Effie looks so upset as she presses on Lily’s name.
James watches as Voldemort kills his wife.
Part of James felt.. happy? He knows it’s ridiculous, and selfish. But he’s happy to know he’s not alone. Maybe that makes him a bad person, maybe not, but it’s how he feels. He feels a rush of relief.
Part of him wishes all of them were dead. Sirius, Remus, Peter, Lily, and Regulus.. oh Regulus.
He wishes he could crawl to Regulus and curl into his arms. Run his fingers through the soft, black hair. Kiss along the soft skin of his neck. Tangle his limbs with Regulus’s until he isn’t sure which one belongs to who.
But he can’t. Because as far as he is aware, Regulus is alive, hiding somewhere. He’s probably on a beach, a margarita in hand, while sitting next to some tall, tan surfer.
Suddenly, Lily is kneeling on the ground next to him, the same spot James was only a few moments ago. She looks sick, in shock, and James can’t blame her. She literally just died. She too, freaks out as she sees the transparent floor, baby Harry crying in his crib, a new lighting shaped scar on his forehead.
James feels his stomach drop as he watches Snape cradle her dead body, muttering apologies. Saying he wants to kill Pettigrew for this.
Why would Snape want to kill-
Oh.
Oh.
It all makes sense to James now, how he was discovered. Peter, his bestfriend. Peter, who he’s known since he was five. Peter, who offered him chocolate frogs every time he was upset. Peter, who wouldn’t hurt a fly.
Peter, is who got him and Lily killed.
James steps back, a shaking hand covering his mouth. It’s not until he feels his mother’s arms around him, her voice whispering soft words into his ear, that he lets out a sob. A real, gut wrenching sob.
Lily looks up at the sound of her husband’s sobs. She rises to her feet and walks into Fleamont’s open arms, sobbing in sync with James.
It takes 10 whole minutes for them to calm down. “Where am I?” Lily sniffles as she pulls back from Fleamont.
“Passover, darling,” Effie says, lifting her hand from James’s arm to gently take Lily’s.
James watch beeps again. He presses the little red exclamation point, barely looking up from his mother’s shoulder.
Sirius Black
James lifts his head from his mother’s shoulder to watch as Peter blasts muggles to death, changing into a rat, and disappearing.
James feels sick.
He watches as Sirius cries as he runs and runs and runs, but after all, you can’t run forever. He watches as the aurors catch up to Sirius, taking him to the ministry. To await a trial he never gets. He can hear the sound of Lily crying again, but his ears are ringing to hard for him to really hear.
Sirius.
His Sirius.
Oh Sirius.
James quickly presses on his watch to Remus, who finds out only an hour later from a call from Mary.
James, who has never seen Remus as a violent person (aside from his furry little problem), watches as he destroys the flat him and Sirius shared. As much as they trusted Remus, they never told him that they switched the secret keeper to Peter. Oh how James regrets that. He watches as Remus smashes photos and plates, throwing Sirius’s clothes into a pile, sobbing onto the floor uncontrollably. He watches as Remus downs drink after drink, drinking until he literally passes out.
Well, fuck, so much can happen in one night.