Halloween, 1981
“Can we wrap this up?” James asked, glancing at his watch and seeing the time hit 9. “Lily’s home alone with Harry, and I’d like to get back.”
“Of course,” Dumbledore said. “I believe we’ve covered everything of importance. We’ll meet again same time next week.”
James stood, heading over to Sirius and Remus as the rest of the Order stood, gathering cloaks and bags and leaving the meeting.
“You guys heading back to the flat?” James asked.
“Yeah, just gonna have a quiet night,” Sirius shrugged. “See if Wormy’s feeling well enough to come over. You heading back to Lily?”
“Yeah,” James nodded. “I should probably get going, I hate leaving them alone.”
“I’m sure everything’s fine,” Remus said, giving James a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “I just talked to Peter this morning, and he seemed fine. Well, as fine as he could be, as sick as he is.”
“Yeah, I know,” James said. “I’ve just got… I’ve got this really bad feeling, you know? Like something horrible’s going to happen.”
“It won’t,” Sirius said confidently. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
“I know,” James sighed. “Well, I’ll see you guys on the second for your birthday, Padfoot. Tell Peter hi for me, if you see him.”
“See you, mate.”
-{}-{}-{}-
James left the Hogwarts grounds and disapparated right outside the gates, appearing instantaneously on the little street in Godric’s Hollow. Covered as he was in the invisibility cloak, he wasn’t worried about the crowd of Muggles seeing him appear out of nowhere. Now that he thought about it, why were there so many Muggles out and about? Even for Halloween, there were an unusual amount of them. He turned towards his house, and immediately saw that everything was not fine.
The front door was hanging off its hinges. The roof had caved in over what James knew to be the nursery. To be Harry’s room. And the Muggles swarming the streets were all staring up at it, meaning they could see it, which meant…
James ripped the cloak off as he sprinted towards the house. He knocked several Muggles aside as he ran, yanking his wand out of his pocket. Fuck the Statute of Secrecy, who gave a damn if the Muggles saw him using magic.
“Lily!” James screamed, as he crossed the threshold. “Lily! Harry?”
Nobody was in the sitting room. Nobody in the dining room, or the kitchen, or the study. James tore up the stairs, still calling Lily’s name desperately.
His and Lily’s room was empty. James turned in the hallway, towards the door to Harry’s room. The door was ajar. Feeling his heart fall right out of his body through the floor, James saw a foot in the doorway.
He stumbled down the hallway. His heart, which had mysteriously returned, was thumping loudly and painfully. He knew what he was about to find, but denied it viciously in his mind. The door creaked as he pushed it open.
A terrible sound, like that of a mortally wounded animal, escaped James as his eyes fell onto Lily’s face. The sound continued as he sank to his knees, staring at the pale, still face of his wife, her eyes wide and unseeing. He glanced once at the crib, then looked away, feeling tears falling thick and fast down his face. He could not bear it… he thought if he looked into that crib and saw Harry, with wide and lifeless eyes like Lily’s, he would go completely mad. He hunched, tears falling, as it felt like someone had ripped his chest open and crushed his heart.
And then it felt as though his heart stopped, when he heard a soft cry issuing from the cradle.
He lurched to his feet towards it faster than he thought possible, stumbling into the side and barely managing to hold himself up as he clung to the rail. Harry, his face tear-streaked like James’, his forehead bleeding, but miraculously, mercifully alive, gazed up at him. Harry’s tears stopped at once, and his hands reached up, making grabbing motions towards James. James scooped his living, breathing son up and held him close to his chest, burying his face in Harry’s hair as he sobbed.
He could hear sirens. Muggle police were on their way, and it wouldn’t do to be found like this. The Order could handle it, or the Ministry… for now, he needed to get out, before he was arrested himself. Still holding Harry close, whispering a promise to return for Lily, James disapparated once again.
-{}-{}-{}-
James appeared with a crack on Sirius’s doorstep, and immediately hammered on the door. He could feel the shock creeping in on him, numbing him as his brain refused to process the image of Lily, lying dead on their son’s bedroom floor.
It was Remus who opened the door, Sirius just behind him.
“James?” Remus asked. “What’s going - oh no…”
James simply looked at them, his face streaked with tears, Harry clutched in his arms, beginning to cry again as blood trickled down his face.
“Lily?” Sirius whispered, staring at James, and all three men felt their hearts shatter as James slowly shook his head.
Sirius put a hand on James’s arm and gently guided him into the flat. James did not seem to be aware of anything that was happening around him, as Sirius sat on the couch beside him and Remus sent a patronus off to Dumbledore.
“Where’s Peter?” James eventually said.
“Doesn’t matter,” Sirius spat, reaching for his wand and making to stand. “He’s gonna be dead by morning.”
“No!” James grabbed Sirius’s wrist, stopping him from standing. “You can’t - you can’t go off after him, Sirius -”
“This is his fault!” Sirius exclaimed. “He needs to pay for it!”
“I’ve told Dumbledore what’s happened,” Remus offered.
“The Order will get him,” James said, panic in his eyes as he refused to let go of Sirius’s arm. “But I - I need you guys here, I can’t do this alone, I don’t know what… I don’t know what to do.”
Tears were falling again. Sirius looked into his best friend’s face, and felt his anger fizzle away.
“Okay,” he said gently. “Okay. I won’t go.
-{}-{}-{}-
It was a good thing James had Sirius and Remus to rely on in the coming weeks. Burying Lily was the hardest thing any of them had ever had to do, and James didn’t think he’d have gotten through it without his two best friends.
The next hardest was convincing the Order not to turn Sirius over to the Ministry. It took a lot of testimony from Remus and James to convince everyone that Peter had secretly been the Secret Keeper. Eventually, once they’d been talking for hours and making virtually no progress, James lost his temper.
“Just grab some Veritaserum, then!” he shouted angrily. “Merlin’s balls, you’d think that I could be trusted to know who I put my life into the hands of, wouldn’t you?”
With the testimony under Veritaserum, Sirius was spared from being sent to Azkaban. By the time that was all over with, Peter had disappeared.
Over the next few months, Sirius and Remus moved back to Potter Manor with James and Harry. James couldn’t bring himself to repair the cottage in Godric’s Hollow, and thought it easier to just move back into his family home. Remus opens a bookshop in the Muggle world, insisting to James that he wanted to earn his keep. Sirius flat out refused to return to work, spending his time instead helping James grieve, and watching over Harry. The pain of losing Lily and Peter’s betrayal never left, but it did lessen over time. James was never exactly the same as he had been before, but he was able to recover enough to promise, to both his son and the memory of his wife, that he would be the best father it was possible to be.