That night
Dying, James finds, feels a lot like waking up.
Not the nice, peaceful kind; the kind following a quiet dream, one with warm lights and colours.
But rather all at once, heart stopping for a second, ears ringing, like taking a breath after drowning for too long.
He opens his eyes to white. That’s all he sees, for a while, and he wonders if he’s become blind. But then, a flash of colour – green – and suddenly he’s standing, head spinning, stumbling on his feet, desperately trying to understand where he is and how he got there.
For a few, blissful moments, he doesn’t remember. But then, it all dawns on him, like a wave, a tsunami of memories and fear and cold.
It was Halloween, he remembers. Godrick’s Hollow had been enlivened by laughter and threats of tricks all evening, war had been put on hold for a few hours, gone were the worry, the dread, the distress – if not forever, for a day.
James and Lily, too, were celebrating. It was Harry’s first real Halloween and James had dressed up as a troll, big, greenish, hairy ears jinxed by Lily in lieu of his actual, slightly protruding ones, making Harry squeal with laughter.
They were eating dessert – a pie, James remembers, apple-flavoured, nothing too fancy, because Lily is a picky eater – when it happened.
It started with a knock on the door, a one-note requiem. There wasn’t supposed to be a knock, is the thing, because nobody but Peter was supposed to know where they were currently hiding, and Peter was on a mission for the Order.
James remembers standing up and catching Lily’s eyes, wide-open sparks of fir green, telling him to stay still, to stay with her, with them – her and baby Harry, hold tight against her chest. He remembers shaking his head, urging her with his gaze to go and hide upstairs, for he had to protect them, for they were all that he loved, all that he held dearest to his heart. He remembers Lily hesitating, Harry wiggling in her arms, whining because she squeezed him too hard – Lily looking at their son, at James, failing to hide her trembling chin as she nodded and ran upstairs. He remembers cautiously walking to the door, looking for his wand on his way – it was supposed to lay on the desk standing in the entrance hall, he knew it was – and the door suddenly bursting open in an explosion of splinters. He remembers dark, viperine orbs, a hissing voice and a flash of green.
He remembers everything going so fast, too fast, and his last feeling being one of powerlessness.
But at least, James thinks, at least Lily and Harry managed to get away.
A flash of green, viperine orbs, so fast, too fast-
James not doing anything, not being able to, hands desperately reaching for an absent wand on a desk, powerless, useless, incapable, not enough-
Please, the air suddenly seems to thin around him, please, make it that they managed to get away, the ground seems to tremble.
There’s something lying on the ground, a few feet away, painfully dark and human-shaped against the whiteness of this place.
Oh. Oh no.
No no no no no nonono-
James hurries to the body’s side, dives to it like he would to a Quaffle – reckless and resolute, and he hurts his knees and he doesn’t care because it would never hurt as much as that thought crossing his mind being true – he needs it to not be, he needs to be wrong, because if he isn’t he-
But of course, he’s not wrong, he never is when it comes to her. He wasn’t wrong when he fell in love back in third year, he wasn’t wrong when he proposed, that one summer night, he wasn’t wrong when he promised her ’til death do us apart – and beyond.
Maybe it is in the curve of her hip, or in the way her legs are curled up, but even in his denial, he knows it’s her. And now that he is leaning over her, spreading a lock of red hair from her tense face, lying to himself isn’t even an option anymore.
She opens her eyes with as gasp as he gently lays her head on his lap, and in a second she’s crawling away from him. Her movements are quick, messy, terrified, they’re pure instinct, she is but a caged lioness, a caught she-wolf.
“Hey, hey, Lily, it’s okay, it’s just me. It’s James, Lily, it’s James.”
Her breathing is heavy, her body on the alert, ready to jump and run, or attack, James isn’t sure, but that’s the beauty of her, her unpredictability and fierce bravery.
Recognition sparkles in her eyes, and she seems to deflate, like those balloons they’d bought for Harry’s birthday, the ones they had charmed to stick to the ceiling.
“James, what- where are we? What are we doing here? What-”
James can see it, the moment the memories flock into her. He can see it, because her eyes, her beautiful, clever eyes, fill with horror and grief.
“Oh. Oh, James…”
Tears run down to her chin, meandering their way between her freckles, reddening her nose, shortening her breath.
James rushes to her side, engulfing her sobbing body in his arms, hiding her face against his chest, where she wouldn’t see his own tears.
But he doesn’t let the moment last.
“Lily? Lily, where’s Harry?”
She stills in his arms. Her sobs quiet, and perhaps that is scarier than anything she could’ve said.
“Lily, I need you to tell me where Harry is, what happened there?”
She slowly raises her head, and that look in her eyes, that fierce look, it’s maybe enough for James to never know fear ever again.
“I- I’m not sure what I did but-” Wrinkles show on her forehead as she frowns, trying to recall everything in detail. “You went to the door, and I took Harry upstairs, in our bedroom, like you wanted me to – I never would have left you by yourself if it wasn’t for Harry, James, I swear, I wouldn’t even be able to bring myself to, I-”
“Hey, hey” James interrupts, cups her face into his palm. Her talking tends to get muddled when she worries. “I know, I know.”
That seems to relieve her a bit, as her next words follow each other way more clearly and calmly.
“I heard him say it. The spell. And your body hitting the floor. I think I died for a second, in that moment, because I swear my heart stopped beating. But I had no time to grieve, not even to hurt, because then I heard him walk up the stairs. And Harry was crying and I was so scared, because I knew he would find us and I didn’t have my wand and I could do nothing but wait. He opened the door – I don’t even know why I closed it, as if that would stop him, as if it would protect us. And he looked at me, and then his eyes found Harry sitting in his crib. I tried to hide him behind me, James, I swear, but he just regarded me as some hindrance he could easily get rid of. I pleaded him to spare Harry, to take me instead, but he didn’t care, he wouldn’t listen, and he raised his wand and-”
Her voice falls still, as do her shaking hands. A memory seems to have found her, one she cannot quite believe, one she struggles to say out loud.
“I could not tell you exactly what happened after that, what I did, because I do not know how I did that, James, I did not even think it possible but-” She looks at him straight in the eye. “He cast the spell, right in Harry’s direction, and suddenly that- that force burst out of me. All I could think was not my son, not my baby, and a stream of magic flowed though me, and gushed in the whole room. And everything seemed to tore apart – time, space, our very souls, magic itself – everything went everywhere, all at once, and then right at me. That’s why his spell hit me, James, me and not Harry, because somehow, that burst of magic deviated the curse and redirected it towards me.”
It’s silent, then. James doesn’t know what to think, what to say, he isn’t even sure if there is anything to say.
“Does- does Harry not being here mean he is still alive?” Lily’s voice should sound hopeful, James thinks, anybody would expect it to be. But, just like James himself, Lily sounds afraid, horrified. Because Harry being alive means he is still in that bedroom, alone, and chances are Voldemort is too. Fuck.
“Did you- did you maybe see what happened to Voldemort? After what you did?”
Lily shakes her head.
“I’m not sure. I think I heard him scream, as if something was being ripped off from him. But I don’t know if he- if he died, or-”
Panic rises within James. He’s not sure how he would react, if Harry were to appear, right now, his tiny body hunched up on this white floor. Because Harry- Harry’s still so young. He just turned one, for fuck’s sake, he’s got so much to see, so much to live. Harry deserves a life, one filled with laughter and love, one James and Lily wished for, fought for, but could barely have. James doesn’t want Harry to appear, right now, on this damned white floor.
But then… Then, at the same time, the thought of having to spend eternity without his son, his baby, is unbearable. The thought of him growing up without his parents, without knowing what his mother smells like or how his father’s laugh sounds like; the thought of not getting to watch him ride his first broom, catch his first Snitch, cast his first spell, make his first steps in Hogwarts, plan his first pranks, get his first detentions, make friends, fall in love, cry, smile, live, live, fucking live without them – it catches James’ breath and he can’t, he can’t, he can’t-
Harry doesn’t appear, not right now, nor in the moments that follow. Lily and James do not speak, just wait for something that never comes, minds filled with questions without answers. Harry doesn’t appear, and they don’t know what to make of it.
“James!”
A sudden voice breaks the trail of thoughts James was slowly losing himself into. He turns to it, more as a reflex than anything else, because he’s been turning to this voice for his whole life, it’s the first voice he remembers, the first one he remembers loving, his favourite voice. He turns to it, not thinking that he shouldn’t be hearing this voice, that it’s been years since he hasn’t heard it.
That’s why he doesn’t react, at first, when his gaze catches his mother’s figure running to him. Because she shouldn’t be, because she’s dead, his mum, dead, killed, not supposed to run towards him.
But then he’s standing, wobbly legs and mouth agape, and then he’s crying “Mum!” and he’s running too.
When he was five, James’ favourite thing in the whole world was to run to his mum, and jump into her arms unprompted. She would always catch him, always, even while in a serious conversation, while cooking, while daydreaming, as if it was second nature to her. It broke his heart, a little, when he turned ten and got too tall and too heavy for his mum to catch him – but then, he was ten, he was mature now, his age got two digits, and mature people did not jump into their mum’s arms unprompted.
James is twenty-one, now, and he’ll be for a while, and his new favourite thing in the whole world might be his mum running to him, and jumping into his arms unprompted.
As he holds her tight, so tight against his chest, and breathes in her sweet smell – a hint of vanilla, a hint of eucalyptus, and something so incredibly her – James thinks that nothing may make sense right now, that the world, his world at least, might’ve fallen apart, that he and Lily may be dead, and Harry may be alone and in grave danger, everything is going to be okay because his mum is here, and when she is, nothing bad can ever happen.
She’s the one to let go, because James couldn’t have, even if he wanted to and, Merlin, he most certainly did not. She gently strokes his cheekbones, lingering a second near his right temple, where he’s got that chickenpox scar in the shape of the sun, and her eyes wander across his face as if, she too, cannot quite believe he’s right there, with her.
“James,” she says again.
“Mum,” he whispers back, and it’s been so long since the last time. The word sounds odd, almost new, despite being the most important one of his life.
“Jamie,” another long-lost voice, one he never would’ve thought he’d hear again.
His dad is standing right beside them, a sad smile adorning his lips, and so much emotions traversing his eyes. And maybe that’s the only thing that could’ve separated James from his mum right now, his dead father waiting for an embrace as well.
Boys at school sometimes mocked him for hugging his father, because they were too old for this kind of stuff, and anyway, hugging your dad is weird. But, well, James’ love language is touch, always has been. He may have refrained as a teen, when other people’s opinions seemed to be the only thing that mattered, but now, as an adult who’s missed his dad, he doesn’t care and holds his father tightly against him, never letting him leave again.
He feels more than he hears Lily approaching as well, and when he turns to her, he can see the way her eyes have watered. There is a sort of shyness to her posture that disconcerts James – those are his parents and this is Lily, the very most important people in his life, how come she is shy? – but then, like a punch in the guts, he remembers how Lily never really got to get to know his parents. They met a couple of times, once for tea, once for dinner, before Euphemia and Fleamont died. They’ve mostly been smiling faces on photographs in their living room to her, and funny memories James would tell during a stroll in the park.
And Lily never really became anything more to his parents than this cute girl from Hogwarts James had a crush on and would never shut up about. She never became that daughter they never had, that wonderful woman who made James so, so happy. She very briefly became the pretty and very polite girl their son dated and whom they were glad to welcome in the family, but she never became family to them.
That hurts James in an entirely new kind of way.
But Euphemia Potter wouldn’t be Euphemia Potter if she didn’t make everyone feel welcome and safe, all with nothing but a smile and caring eyes – she’s got so much love and kindness to share, it’s maybe James’ favourite thing about her, that pure goodness she so willingly offers the world, never expecting anything in return.
“Lily dear, come here honey,” she says, arms already open and waiting for Lily to take refuge in them, and Lily can’t but oblige. And perhaps that heals James’ overflowing pain a little.
But it can’t last, because reality is a bitch, and tonight is a horrible night, a James has so, so many questions.
“Mum?”
“Yes baby?”
“What is this place?”
James doesn’t miss the hesitant gaze his mum sends his father’s way. Well, that’s not reassuring.
“Did the memories not come back to you yet?” Fleamont asks, tentatively, dreading maybe that he’ll have to tell his son that he died.
“Oh, no, no- I mean, yes, they did. We- we do know that we’re dead,” James grimaces at the words. “But, I mean, is that all there is to the afterlife? Where- where is everybody else? Marlene, and Dorcas, the Prewett twins, and Benjy…? And where did you guys come from?”
Sometimes, silences speak louder than words. The awkward pause that follows his questions tells James that the answer is going to hurt.
“You two just arrived in what the people here call The Waiting,” Euphemia finally says. “It’s- actually, nobody’s quite sure what it is, or why this place exists, just that it is some sort of in-between; the connection between life, and death.”
James frowns. He’s always been aware of the different beliefs surrounding what comes next: a peaceful afterlife in which one’s soul retrieves its lost loved ones; a foggy world of insouciance and lightness; an eternity of nothingness. But he never really paid attention, nor did he care – and why should he have? He was barely an adult, at the dawn of his life, and, even in the brisk of war, he’d felt immortal.
“And how do you know this place is not the afterlife?” he interjects. He can see Lily in the corner of his eye; her forehead is creased and she’s biting the insides of her cheeks, which means her brain’s currently spinning at full speed.
“People do not stay here,” Euphemia answers. “At least, not forever. They go, once their waiting is done, and no one knows where they’re headed next.”
“But what do you mean, ‘once their waiting is done’? What could a dead person possibly be waiting for?”
There’s something incredibly sad in his mother’s eyes when she answers next.
“To say a proper good-bye.”
It takes a while, before James understands what she’s trying to say. It takes a while, and suddenly, he feels like he’s dying again.
“No.” He shakes his head, frantic. “No, I refuse, you- you’re not allowed to leave me again, not-” Not when I just got you back, not when I just got used to mum’s voice and dad’s hugs again.
“James, baby, it’s okay,” Euphemia takes his shaking hands in hers. It calms him down, a little, but still, everything is just too much right now, because he just died, and Lily just died, and they don’t know what’s happening to Harry, and he’s going to lose his parents for a second time, and had Voldemort not killed him with the dead curse, this probably would have done the trick.
“We’re not leaving for the afterlife right now,” Fleamont says. “There’s still someone else we have to say good-bye to.”
“Sirius is still down there, baby,” Euphemia clarifies, when James doesn’t answer. “Two souls kept us waiting here. Yours, and his. Our two boys.”
“The love shared must have been strong enough for a link able to catch a soul and hold it back here to be formed,” Fleamont explains. “The souls must have known each other in life to be able to find each other back in death, and only those we loved dearly and lost too soon and too fast, without a good-bye, will be found here.”
“That’s why we will unfortunately never get to meet Harry,” Euphemia says with a sad smile.
“Wait, you know about Harry?” Lily says. James first wonders why she sounds so surprised, and then recalls that his parents had already been gone for a while before Lily even got pregnant. They shouldn’t know about him.
But Euphemia nods. “We get to visit you, sometimes. See what you’re up to.”
James’ brain suddenly goes haywire, and he knows Lily’s does too, because she gasps and catches his hand.
“Does- does that mean we could- check on Harry?” Her voice is trembling, as if she’s not letting herself get overwhelmed with hope.
James’ parents seem to sense their eagerness bordering on madness.
“Harry’s fine,” Euphemia says in a soothing voice. James knows it’s not completely true, because how could he be when his parents just died, and he almost got killed, and he’s all alone in a lifeless house. But if his mother says Harry’s fine, then it’s true enough for him to finally breathe again.
“Marlene and Dorcas are watching over him right now, while we’re welcoming you here,” Fleamont adds. “They promised to come and get us if anything were to happen.”
“Marls is here?” Lily’s voice is but a broken whisper, fragile and vulnerable as a new-born fawn. “Dorcas too?”
“They’re waiting for you.”
And one could think no tears were left to cry, but they’d be wrong, because James can feel his eyes wet, and he knows Lily’s do too.
They need a second to regain their composure, and once James is sure his voice won’t break in a million pieces and fly all over the room, to never be retrieved and whole again, he manages to ask:
“Could we go and see him?”
And Euphemia only nods and takes his hand – he can sense in her grip that she’s fighting tears as well.
James and Lily follow her and Fleamont across the white space. Now that James pays a little more attention, the place kind of looks like a train platform – a purified version of platform 9 ¾, and he has to stop looking too closely or else his head will be overflowed with memories, ones from another lifetime, a happier one, filled with mischief and friendship. And he’s not sure he’s ready to mourn all of it right now.
They arrive in front of a wall. His father crosses it after exchanging a wordless look with his mum. He disappears, it’s magic and familiar, and James is eleven again. He cannot breathe.
“Come on, Jamie,” his mother says with the sweetest voice, and he’s eleven and excited and scared and about to live the happiest years of his life.
It’s Lily who brings him back, with a squeeze of her hand. He looks at her, and her eyes reflect his soul and the turmoil of feelings shattering it. And as always, in his darkest times, she’s the one to bring him comfort.
They walk through the wall, and if his mother and his wife notice the catch in his breath, they do not mention it.
On the other side, the world is louder, and more colourful. There is a sky, a morning sky, mixed with orange and pink, and a freshly mowed grass field. It’s a Quidditch pitch, James realises, dumbstruck.
“Lily! James!”
He barely has time to turn towards the voice calling for them, before a blond blur captures them both in her arms.
He recognises her touch before he does her voice or her smell. He holds her with all he has against him, and it’s surreal, really, that he gets to, again.
“Marlene,” Lily whispers in her hair, with reverence in her voice, and a sad happiness.
They slowly let go of her, only to be embraced by Dorcas, who was standing behind her girlfriend with tears in her eyes.
“Oh, how I wish we didn’t have to see you again so soon,” she says, heavy-hearted.
James doesn’t voice it, but deep down, he wishes the same. He’s happy to see them all – his parents, Marlene and Dorcas, all those familiar faces watching them with sorry smiles – he is, but how he wishes he’d had more time with those left – Sirius, Remus, Peter, Mary, Harry… Harry.
Marlene and Dorcas seem to notice the urgency inhabiting Lily and him both, and lead them towards a shimmering hole in the ground, several feet away. James’ parents are already there, looking into the opaque swirl with worry. Sensing their arrival, they lift their eyes and send a tense smile in their direction.
Noticing their confused faces, Euphemia explains:
“This is The Bridge. It’s our way to the living world. It kind of works like a Pensieve, except that you have to think about the one you’re waiting for and wishing to visit while looking into it for it to work.”
James takes a closer look into the whirling pool. It shines with a billion different colours, luring you to fall into it.
Lily shifts uncomfortably beside him, clearly fighting the same desire to jump into the pool. “So, all we have to do is think about Harry, and we’ll be there? By his side?”
“Exactly.”
James and Lily exchange a long gaze. Lots of things are being said, with that gaze: how afraid they are of what they’re going to find; how confused at this new reality they’ve barely had time to adapt to; how heartbroken because of all those people they lost, and those they found again; how impatient at the prospect of making sure Harry’s okay, that he’s fine, unhurt.
So, they simply nod at each other, and look into The Bridge.
James thinks very hard about his son – it’s not complicated, really, it’s kind of all he’s been able to think about since he woke up here without him. He thinks of his tiny hands and chubby cheeks, of his green eyes (so alike to Lily’s) and dishevelled black hair (this, he got from James).
He doesn’t feel the crossing, but suddenly he’s opening his eyes and he’s home.
It’s still nighttime, here. The moon is lighting the world in a blueish halo, and an owl is hooting somewhere.
Their house looks fine, from the outside. Well, if you ignore the blowed up door, and the flickering light in the entry way.
After a resolute nod at each other, Lily and James enter their house, and yet again James’ chest is crushed by that feeling of familiarity. But he doesn’t let himself be swallowed by the past this time, because Harry is right there, upstairs, waiting for them.
Also, his body laying a few feet away brings him right back there and now, in this reality where he is dead, and forever will be.
Lily starts to shake beside him at the sight, so James takes the lead and pulls her by the hand up the staircase. The steps should creak under their feet, they always did, it used to drive James mad, but now they don’t, and it’s weird that it hurts so much.
Harry’s nursery is the second door to the right, next to the bathroom and across James and Lily’s bedroom. The door is ajar, and a curious white light filters through the thin opening.
It’s Lily who finds the courage to enter first. She doesn’t open the door, just walks through it, and suddenly James is alone in their corridor and he can’t bear it, so he quickly follows.
Inside, there’s chaos. Harry’s changing table is on the floor, the bottle of talcum powder spilled all over the fluffy carpet. The wardrobe is wide open, and empty; all the clothes have been scattered around the room: Harry’s cute lion onesie, his shirt that says I’m a keeper over a drawing of the unmistakable three hooped goal posts, his Gryffindor-coloured socks. The library has also been emptied, books are laying everywhere, with broken spines and folded pages. There is shattered glass on the floor, because of the exploded lightbulb and the broken mirror.
This does not look like a child’s bedroom at all, despite the teddy bears, the wooden figurines and the crying baby sitting in his crib.
Harry’s wailing like James has never seen him wail before. He’s scared, and alone.
But he seems unharmed, and that is enough, right now, for James.
As he walks to his son, James tries his best to ignore the body laying at the foot of the crib.
Lily is already leaning over Harry when he joins her. He can see in her twitching hands that she aches for their son’s touch, to hold him in her arms, to wipe all his tears away and protect him from everything. Like she did, like she’s always done.
“He’s okay,” she murmurs, as if trying to convince herself. “He looks okay to you as well, doesn’t he?”
James only hums, he cannot speak in this room where the love of his life got murdered and his son became the only person to ever survive a killing curse.
Something suddenly dawns on him, and he starts to frenetically search the room.
Voldemort is not here.
As in, not even a dead body.
But if he had survived, why would he have let Harry live?
What the fuck happened here?
There’s noise downstairs. A voice James doesn’t recognize at first, that puts him immediately on the alert. Stupidly, he goes and stands in front of Lily and Harry, as if he could protect them, as if he wasn’t just a ghost – no, not even a ghost… a shape, a memory.
The door to Harry’s nursery suddenly bursts open, and to James’ stupefaction, Severus Snape enters, his shoulders heaving and struggling to breathe. His eyes are wide open and bloodshot, his face white with fear.
His gaze does not fall on Lily, or James – obviously – and not even on crying Harry. No, he only seems to see the body James has been trying so hard to avoid looking at since he came here.
Something breaks, then, on Snape’s face. And if James didn’t hate his bigoted ass, he would’ve felt sorry, because he’s never seen heartbreak quite like this one before. The scream Snape lets out, the desperate dive to the body, the sobbing pleas for it to wake up, to come back to him: it could’ve almost moved him.
“Don’t touch me.”
Lily’s harsh voice makes James startle.
“I don’t want you to touch me. Stop! You don’t have the right to, you lost the right to! Stop touching me, stop!”
But Snape doesn’t stop, because he can’t hear Lily’s frantic pleading, because he can’t see her wild movements urging him to clear off, to get away. But James can. James always could.
When Lily has the impulse to shove Snape off, James is the one to catch and embrace her, to whisper soothing nothings in her ear and gently stroke her hair. He’s the one to decipher her teary words, to make her feel listened to.
“I want him to stop, James,” she cries. “Why won’t he stop?”
Her voice is the one of a thirteen-year-old, who just lost her best friend, and got her heart broken for the very first time. Her voice is the one of a sixteen-year-old, who just got publicly humiliated and insulted by someone she once loved. Her voice is the one of a woman people refuse to listen to, and whose wants and needs have always been put second.
Snape lets go of the body after what feels like an eternity. It takes him another while to compose himself and muster the force to grasp his wand and cast a patronus. James prefers not to dwell on the fact that it very much resembles a doe.
“The Potters hideout is in Godrick’s Hollow,” he says, voice hoarse from crying, and then proceeds to dictate their coordinates. “You-know-who found them but…” His eyes flicker towards Harry, still quietly weeping in his crib. “… the boy is alive.”
The spectral doe slowly nods, then fades away as she jumps out of the room and runs to whoever Snape directed that message to.
It’s quiet now, in the bedroom, save for Harry’s soft whimpers.
James feels on edge again, not knowing who is about to show up. Did Snivellus call fellow Death Eaters to back him up? But then, why would he have referred to their Lord as “You-know-who”? Thousands of unanswered questions drown his mind again, and threaten to make him freak out.
But he doesn’t have to wonder very long. Dumbledore steps into the room a few minutes later, his usual imperturbable face showing, for the first time since James has known him, a little bit of panic. He is followed by Hagrid’s giant silhouette, struggling to find a way to fit through the narrow door.
“Severus,” Dumbledore says, a little breathless. “What happened?”
“She’s dead, Albus… She’s dead, she’s dead, she’s dead…”
“Severus, pull yourself together. I need you to tell me what happened. How did You-know-who find the Potters? Where is he?”
“I don’t know, I don’t-” He takes a deep breath. “I wasn’t there, when it all happened. When I got to the Carrows’, where he’d been hiding, he had already left. He went alone, to kill the child, but-” Snape looks around him, as if only now realizing where they were. There is confusion, and fear written over his features.
“But?” Dumbledore insists. James would thank him, he can barely bear the suspense either.
“The mark,” Snape finally says. “It suddenly started to burn. And now…” He uncovers his arm. “It’s fading.”
“What does it mean, Albus?” Hagrid asks, when Dumbledore has been staying silent for a while.
“He’s dead,” Dumbledore answers, with disbelief in his voice, and a sort of twisted awe. “Voldemort died tonight, in the Potters’ house. And this boy right here,” he looks at Harry, “is the only one who survived.”
The long silence following could’ve almost suffocate James.
“Does- does that mean it’s over? All of it? The war, the fighting?”
“It is far from being over, Rubeus. But I think…” Something flickers in Dumbledore’s eyes, something James can’t pinpoint. “We might start to see the end of it.”
Everything goes really fast, then.
“We need to inform the rest of the Order as quick as we can. The Ministry and the rest of the world will know soon enough. Powerful magic has been cast here, and I wish to look a little further into it on my own. Rubeus, take the child, bring him where you know. Severus, come with me.”
He leaves the room with a rustle of his robes. Severus takes a second to stand up and follow him, not without a last, miserable look at the body.
Panic strikes James as Hagrid approaches Harry and takes him in his arms.
“Hello little one,” he says, voice falsely cheerful. He walks out of the room, slowly rocking Harry to calm him down. “’You ever been on a flying motorcycle?”
Lily and James are swiftly pushed back into motion, and they run after the giant, while frantically screaming at him:
“Where are you taking him? Wait, stop, no, don’t take him, leave him!”
James doesn’t know why they bother; they know they’re not going to be heard. And yet, a desperate, hopeful, foolish part of him still tries to lure Hagrid back, to prevent him from leaving with their baby.
It’s useless.
Helpless, they watch as Hagrid swaddles Harry in a warm blanket, and secures him against his chest. When he is sure the baby won’t fall, he mounts his bike. The sudden roar of the vehicle feels out of place, almost rude.
The motorbike rolls for a couple dozen feet before taking off. And just like that, Hagrid and Harry disappear into the night.
It all went so fast, James can’t really put his mind around it.
Harry’s gone, and they do not know where. It could be somewhere dangerous, somewhere they can’t protect him. The all-consuming fear is back, and so is that feeling of powerlessness.
Lily takes his hand, presses her body against his. James hides his face in her hair, breathes in her presence. Each move is full of grief.
“What now, James?” She doesn’t ask to get an answer, she asks to voice her distress.
“I don’t know, Lily.” And he doesn’t reply to comfort her, he replies to tell her she’s not alone in her despair. “I guess we go back to waiting.”
As soon as the words leave his mouth, he opens his eyes and he’s back, leaning over the shimmering pool which connects the worlds of the living and the dead.
“Welcome back, baby,” Euphemia says, once he’s fully retrieved his senses. She strokes his cheek, tenderly chasing away a tear James didn’t feel falling.
Marlene and Dorcas have gone to Lily, gently embracing her.
“Mum, do you by any chance know where they took Harry?”
Lily raises her head at this. She comes closer, followed by Marlene and Dorcas.
It’s his dad who answers. “They brought him to your sister, Lily.”
Confusion paints itself on her face. “Petunia? But, why-”
“They share the same blood,” Fleamont explains. “And that serves for some of the greatest protection spells.”
“But, shouldn’t he go with Sirius?” James is lost again. “He’s his godfather, that makes him his legal guardian and the logical choice…”
“Tonight… is going to be a complicated night for Sirius.” Everybody grimaces at Euphemia’s words, as if she’s sugarcoating a worse truth. Yet, James can hardly conceive a worse fate for Sirius than what just happened. Sirius cannot handle grief; he won’t bear losing James. What is left to sugarcoat?
James isn’t satisfied with his mother’s answer, but he doesn’t push it. He’ll visit Sirius soon enough.
“I don’t understand,” Lily’s voice suddenly breaks; she is on the verge of tears and that might trigger James’ own again. “I don’t understand how any of this could happen…”
James can feel his parents stiff next to him, and everybody going silent. He looks over at Marlene, who’s squeezing Dorcas’ hand so hard he’s afraid her knuckles might break. It’s fucked up, really, how fast he recognizes the feeling straining their features and wetting their eyes. He’s seen them hurt so much these past few years.
“You’ve- you’ve seen it all happen, haven’t you?”
The sorrow flashing in their eyes is answer enough. And James learns, in this moment, that a heart that doesn’t beat anymore may still break.
“I’m so sorry.” And that doesn’t even begin to encapsulate it all. He’s got so much more to say, but he can’t.
“We are too, baby.” And James senses that his mum, too, tries to say a thousand words with four, but doesn’t quite manage.
“How did Voldemort find us?”
Lily’s question sends a new wave of silence over their little assembly.
It’s bold, right to the point, and devoid of periphrasis. Lily and him have always found it ridiculous, how people dare not speak the name – Voldemort, Voldemort, say it with spite, say it with abhorrence – but he would’ve thought that in death, at last, the name would lose some of its power, that it wouldn’t horrify people down to their very core anymore. But it still does, apparently.
“Mum, dad?”
They don’t want to say it, he can sense it.
“Marls? Dorcas?” Lily tries.
Why do they not want to say it?
“Please.” James is growing desperate, and terrified.
Euphemia sighs, and Fleamont’s shoulders sag. They look defeated. They never could refuse James, he’s always known it, and he admits that he sometimes took advantage of it. He was their miracle baby, after all. That’s why it scares him, how reluctant they look to tell him. Because that only means they think the answer’s going to hurt more than the not-knowing. But James needs to know, or else he’ll go mad.
So he does what he does best. He insists one last time – he knows it’ll be enough for them to crack.
“Can you tell us what happened?”
And they do.
***
Betrayal is a special kind of pain. One James has never experienced, and it’s surprising, really, given how easily he gives out his trust and how openly he wears his heart in his palm. He’s been deceived, sure, and tricked, disappointed, lied to. But never, ever, has he been betrayed.
Maybe that’s why he doesn’t immediately identify the emotion that surges through him as anger.
Peter did it.
Peter. His friend. The adorable eleven-year-old boy with the pink cheeks and the cheeky eyes. That shy young man who always had a joke to tell when you were in need of a laugh and a hand to give out when you were in need of help.
That same Peter ratted them out to the Death Eaters, to Voldemort.
He killed me, James thinks. Ten years of friendship, and he killed me.
And that’s not even the worst part, in the end. Because he could try and understand why Peter would do that. But he killed Lily. And hurt Harry. And that- that’s just unforgivable. That, James won’t ever be able to understand.
James has hated people, before. He’s hated that one shopkeeper, who’d mutter nasty things about his mother when she would go in town for groceries. He’s hated that girl he went to primary school with, Thelma, who stole the Snitch from his children’s Quidditch set and never admitted to it. He’s hated Sirius’ shitty parents with a burning passion. He’s hated Snivellus and his lot, he’s hated their violent slurs and their bigoted ideas. He’s hated Voldemort, and that war he started, which took everything from them.
But the hatred he feels right now, towards Peter, he’s never felt one so strong before. Because he loved Peter, and he trusted him, he trusted him so much he put Lily and Harry’s lives in his hands, and Peter went and betrayed that trust. He went and got them killed.
Harry survived, though, and in the mist of pain and hatred, James manages to find a bit of relief in this fact.
***
They arrest Sirius at dawn, at that beautiful hour where mosaics of oranges and pinks flirt with the deep blues and purples of the nighttime.
He was aimlessly wandering through the debris of the explosion, with a heartbreaking emptiness in his eyes. His clothes are in tatters, his hair covered in soot, his face stained with blood – his, or Peter’s, or the muggles’ who had the bad luck of being there, or maybe everybody’s, maybe James’ and Lily’s and Harry’s too.
He doesn’t fight it, when the aurors immobilise him and press him against the ground. He lets them take his wand, and apparate him into one of those dark cells in the lower floors of the Ministry.
He doesn’t say that he’d been going after Peter Pettigrew, that Peter was the one to cause the explosion, and kill those muggles, that Peter was the spy, and the one who betrayed Lily and James, that he is still alive, and dangerous.
Sirius doesn’t claim his innocence, just lets everything happen around him, looking at all those faces as if he cannot see them. It is as if he’s stuck in that moment, not even an hour ago, when he came to the Potters’ house and found James’ body in the entryway, when right then and there, his heart stopped beating, and his soul withered and turned to ash.
He had come after accomplishing his latest Order mission, as he often did, lately, because coming back to his and Remus’ apartment to find it empty, or worse, to find Remus there, was unbearable. But instead of finding his favourite people gleefully celebrating Halloween around their apple-flavoured pie, he’d been welcomed by a broken door and his best-friend’s dead body.
Despite his troubled breathing, and the silent screams he struggled to contain, he could hear the voices upstairs, voices he knew from Order meetings, from school, from battlefields. They weren’t supposed to be here…
He heard them say it, what happened that night. How Voldemort had killed James – he wanted to die – and then Lily – die die die – and how Harry miraculously survived. But Voldemort wasn’t supposed to know where the Potters were hiding…
Only two people knew. Sirius, because he’d been there, when they’d cast the Fidelius Charm and sealed the secret of their location inside the soul of their Secret Keeper, and…
That’s when Sirius understood. Because only one person could repeat the secret.
That fucking rat.
James could see it, then, in his eyes, that Sirius was about to kill Peter.
He tried to stop him from running straight into an obvious trap, tried to save Sirius from loosing himself. But he couldn’t, because James was fucking incapable and useless and powerless…
Now Sirius is locked away in a cell. Staring into nothingness.
The anger – no, the fury that had overcome him, had drained him, and left him empty. Now he is but a vessel, void of emotion and willpower. Another thing Peter broke.
And James can do nothing but watch, as the world accuses his best-friend of a crime he didn’t commit.
***
They inform Remus around ten a.m.
He was drinking his morning tea. He’d stopped eating altogether a while ago, which was so not like him, but then again, he’d stopped acting like himself for a while now.
He denies it, at first. Because it can’t be true. Because he had seen Sirius, a few hours prior. Granted, it was during an Order meeting, and they hadn’t spoken, because all they had been doing lately was shout, and bite, and hate, so silence had felt like the least painful option. But he had seen Sirius, and Sirius had had the same flame he had always had, this will for justice and righteousness. Sirius loves and protects those he loves – Remus would know, he had once been on the receiving end of such great love – and he loved no one more than he loved the Potters, no one more than he loved James – this, too, Remus would know, because Sirius had always been his first, when he’d always only been Sirius’ second.
So it can’t be true. Because Sirius would never do anything to hurt James. And James and Lily would never die and leave him alone.
Then Remus screams.
His heart breaks four times. Once for James. Once for Lily. Once for Peter. Once for Harry. And then his heart shatters altogether, only once, all for Sirius.
Moody was the one to come and tell him. Maybe it was the right choice, because he keeps his composure, when faced with Remus’ breakdown. Or maybe it was the wrong one, because he leaves Remus alone, because he has a thousand other things to do.
Remus cries, curled up on the floor of his messy apartment. Through the open window, he can hear the clamour of London’s waking streets.
He stops crying, at some point. Lays a little longer, refusing to go back to this reality he despises.
James wishes he could embrace him, tell him the truth about Sirius, tell him he and Lily and okay, and waiting for him.
But he can’t, and watches as Remus gets up, stumbles to the kitchen, takes out a bottle of vodka, and drinks.
***
Dying feels like waking up, James finds, and life, very much like a nightmare.