Peter breathes out the address to the Dark Lord and listens as the not-quite-man gloats and prepares to kill the family of his oldest friend. It had been James who’d looked at the timid Peter and thought, I want this kid to be one of mine. Peter at eleven was shorter than anyone else, he had a stutter and was completely unable to look at anyone other than his mother in the eye. Years later, he’s still short, nervous and anxious, but he stands taller with his friends at his back. Until the war, that is. Then he was cowering again, afraid for his life and even more preoccupied about his mother who didn’t have one chance of surviving against the Dark Lord. Strangely enough, Dumbledore didn’t suggest any protection for her.
Peter doesn’t regret his decision to switch sides. He’s a pureblood, if not a particularly impressive one, and he would be safe if not for the misery his friends had dragged him into. He doesn’t regret it, and yet, as he stands alone in the meeting place the Dark Lord had left him in to kill his oldest friend, Peter wants to do something. He can’t, of course, the Dark Lord’s fury would be set upon him if he tried to interfere and save little Harry, but nothing says James has to die. His friend wouldn’t thank him for it, he’s sure, but maybe he could do that. So armed with a courage and determination he’ll never find again, Peter sends a message with his patronus. He makes sure his voice sounds appropriately wobbly, panicked in the way only a distress signal can be, and he sends it off to his friend.
Peter regrets it instantly after he’s done it. What was he thinking? His friend will kill him when he figures it out. Still, he reassures himself. James might not take the bait. Surely his wife and child are more important to him than the friend who ratted his family out.
But James would always be a better friend than he ever was. He does not hesitate, grabs his wand and steps out of his property. When he apparates to the location Peter sent him, Wormtail is already gone. James looks around and wonders if he’ll find his friend dead somewhere, dread pulling at him, but there is no Dark Mark in the sky and the only thing he does find is a note with a hastily crawled out apology.
James’ eyes widen in horror. He goes back to Godric’s Hollow, heart pounding, but it’s too late. Lily is dead, and his son’s forehead is bleeding. There is no trace of Voldemort anywhere but the potent smell of dark magic and the thick cloud of ashes next to Lily’s body show that things might not have gone like the Dark Lord wanted. At that moment, James doesn’t care. He cradles his son, heals him, and hushes his tears away. He kneels next to his wife and cries silently, trying not to upset Harry. Sirius comes after who knows how long, bearing sweets, spirits, and a grin until he sees the half-destroyed house of his best friend and rushes inside. He catches James and Harry as the man falters in his grief and holds on until his brother has no tears left to spill. He sends a Patronus to Remus, Moody, and Dumbledore with one hand while keeping James close with the other, and doesn’t bother asking what happened there until his best friend finally lets out a shuddering breath and tells him with a broken voice that Peter betrayed them.
“I’ll kill him,” vows Sirius, his expression fierce and the Black Madness closer to the surface than it’s ever been.
Three days later he does just that, and the wizarding world vindicated doesn’t even blame him for it. Aurors are allowed to use deadly force after all, and the fact that he’s only a trainee is swiped under the rug.
When Dumbledore comes to offer his condolences and calls Harry the Boy-Who-Lived for the first time, James hates it but it’s too late. A young woman barely hired by the Daily Prophet flies in as a beetle and comes back to work with a story that will jumpstart her career. Later, James will profess to anyone who would listen that Harry survived thanks to the sacrifice of his wife, who created blood wards for this very purpose, but the damage is done. Harry is a hero, and their family is hounded at all turns. Dumbledore tries to suggest that the wards mean Harry should spend part of the year with his aunt but James laughs in his face.
“I was there when she created them, did you really think she didn’t consider that she might die before me?”
Dumbledore asks for Lily’s research and James gives it to him with a request for the meddling old man to get the fuck out of there. His former headmaster is contrite but not apologetic. He doesn’t send the Potter family cloak and Lily’s notes back until a year after.
James picks up pieces of himself with Sirius and the newly-arrived Remus, who was in France and came back immediately after receiving the news. Sirius and Remus have a much-needed chat about their relationship and the lack of trust in it, but their best friend is now widowed and they know better than not to treasure the love they have for each other. They empty out the house in Godric’s Hollow, bury Lily, and take her ugly cat with them. They buy a cottage in Ottery St Catchpole and ward it to hell and back. They wouldn’t have visitors for years to come.
When Severus Snape sends a letter requesting a meeting, James sees him in Diagon Alley. The first thing he does is punch the man whom he’s gathered shared the prophecy with Voldemort in the face. Snape does not try to dodge. He tells him of his promise to Dumbledore to protect Lily’s son, of the very likely probability that Voldemort didn’t die that night. James listens and nods, before he stands. Snape tenses, expecting another punch. But James just looks at him evenly and says.
“You killed Lily. I’ll never let you forget that. And I won’t let you pretend you’re atoning by protecting my son. You are bound by magic to my family because you owe me your life.”
Harry does not grow up unwanted. He has a loving father, two doting uncles, and a very protective kneazle. He does grow up isolated, his family being incredibly paranoid about his safety, but never lonely. His house is filled with warmth and laughter, and he never knows sorrow beyond his nightmares about that terrible night.
His father is sad sometimes, but when he is he cuddles Harry and throws himself into work the next day. James resigned from the Aurors when they went into hiding, and he does not come back. Instead he steps into the Wizengamot’s courtroom wearing his father’s purple robes and proclaims to anyone who will listen that it is in that room that Voldemort will truly be eradicated. Sirius joins him after the death of Arcturus Black gives him a seat at the table. Together they pass the anti-discrimination laws they’d always dreamt of for Remus, Lily, and the magical creatures who should be allowed rights and the protection to defend them. Remus fears politics but not magic; when Sirius inherits Grimmauld Place and frees Kreacher to find him begging to help him destroy Regulus’ last artefact before he ends his life rather than suffer the dishonor of freedom, Remus pursues the Dark Arts he knows to fight against so well and searches for a ritual to destroy any trace of Voldemort left in this world. Harry is nine when that happens, and the only scar Remus has to show for it is a mark on his left arm from a snakebite Snape has to brew the antidote for.
Harry grows up in a better world, where people expect more than the maintenance of the status quo. Where their heroes don’t just change the world by putting the villains behind bars, but by fixing the system they broke. His every apparition in the wizarding world is met with awe, but no more than that of his father who stood tall and proclaimed that he would never let the evil that killed his wife rise again. And when he sits under a hat to be judged by magic for who he wants to be, he does not tell the artefact that he wants “anything but Slytherin”. He does meet and dislikes Draco Malfoy, but the boy doesn’t pretend their families are anything but political enemies, or that Lucius Malfoy hasn’t lost their battle years ago. He doesn’t remind him of Dudley Dursley, for he has only met him once when James attempted to contact Petunia for Lily’s sake, and the visit was so disastrous it wasn’t spoken of again. Harry doesn’t remember that, he was too young, and he has better Slytherins to think about. He knows the story of Regulus Black, and his godfather’s cousin Andromeda Tonks is one of his favourite people. So Harry doesn’t ask the Sorting Hat to let him avoid wearing green and silver.
Instead he tells it, “I want to be great and I want to be smart, I want to be kind and loyal, to work hard and reach my ambitions, to let myself be creative. But more than that, I want to be strong enough to always stand for what is right.”
And the Sorting Hat has no choice but to yell “GRYFFINDOR!”.
Harry chooses the house of red and gold because cowardice cost him his family, and he wants, like his father and his friends, to be an example of what bravery can be.