Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

James Potter sat cross-legged on the Quidditch pitch.

When he opened his eyes, he recognized the golden hoops and house flags stationed along the perimeter of the bleachers. The sun beat down on his bronzed skin as he stood and craned his neck for any sign of another person, but no. He heard nothing. He saw no one.

He made his way slowly towards the castle, all the while watching vague memories flash before his eyes. Inside his head, there was a constant murmur: Lily, Lily, Lily, it repeated endlessly, Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily, and then a near-silent whisper of Harry.

James entered the castle and his heart sped up inside his chest. Not even on a Hogsmeade weekend did the castle echo so loudly. The suits of armor lining the walls made no move, did not watch James as he crept past, did not creak with weight or sigh with boredom as he made his way further into the hallway. Filch’s stomps did not echo throughout the stony corridors nor was there the faint clicking Mrs. Norris’s claws. The paintings, too, were devoid of their subjects. Pausing outside of the kitchens, James heard no clanging of pots and pans, no water running or food preparing.

Lily’s face sat at the forefront of his mind. She looked at him with her green eyes, her milky, freckled skin, her auburn hair lounging gracefully over her shoulders, but a look of complete terror transformed her features entirely: green eyes wide and dark circles underneath as though they’d taken permanent residence on her face; her skin not only fair but pallid, ghostly white.

The Fat Lady’s portrait swung open at James before he could even marvel at the fact that the Fat Lady was gone. He entered his common room and, aside from the crackling of a fresh fire, only silence met his ears.

He made his way towards the chair closest to the fire, hoping the warmth would ease the chill settling deep into his spine. The eerie silence rang throughout the common room as James worried over his wife.

Chapter Text

The very first thing Lily did was gasp. She inhaled as though she’d been underwater for five minutes, as if she’d been on the verge of unconsciousness if she’d held off for even a second. The second thing Lily did was realize that she rested on her four-poster bed in her Hogwarts dormitory.

As she attempted to regulate her breathing, Lily stared out the window as anxiety formed like tar in the pit of her stomach. Something was horribly, invariably wrong, she felt immediately. The air was utterly still. There were no birds chirping in the trees, none soaring through the skies, and even the Whomping Willow made no noise. The lake’s waters sat deathly still.

Despite shaking legs, Lily stood from her bed and exited the dormitory. She grasped the handrail tightly in both her hands, fearful of her uneasiness, when her eyes rolled over dark hair in the common room.

“James,” she mouthed, though her throat was sore and no sound came out. She cleared her throat, and he jumped. “James!” she said, not only strangled with pain but also emotion as he lunged himself across the room to wrap his arms around her on the staircase -- yet another abnormality, though in the moment it was the least of their worries.

“James,” she repeated hoarsely. “James!”

He smoothed her hair with one hand and held her face with the other, tears openly falling down his cheeks as he kissed her cheeks, her forehead, the top of her head, her lips, over and over again. “Lily,” he forced out finally, a small bubble of laughter making its way out.

“Why are we here?” she whispered, green eyes meeting his hazel. Her arms shook on his shoulders and he took her hands in his own, kissing them, too. “We were at home with Harry. We couldn’t have just… apparated here,” she continued. “We didn’t use a portkey, either.”

James shook his head as he embraced her once again. “I don’t know, Lily. I don’t know where Harry is, either,” he stated, already feeling her open her mouth to ask the question. He led her down the stars and the two sat in the squishy chair by the fire.

“It’s too quiet,” Lily whispered.

He nodded uncomfortably. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it feels like everything has died.”

No sooner did the words leave his mouth when a splash echoed through the window from the lake.

Chapter Text

Sirius saw nothing, but he still felt what was happening. He was falling, down, down, down inside a pitch-black void. He did not immediately hurt, not physically. He did not feel sickly, did not have the constant ache on his skin from his twelve-year stint in the sun-deprived Azkaban. In fact, he felt quite healthy. His hair curled into his face. His features did not rest in a scowl. His fingers were not brittle.

Then, his surroundings changed. Sirius could no longer breathe, for his air had thickened, turned to water. As his body began thrashing, his eyes slowly found light directly above him some ways away. Sheer terror reawoke his instincts, and he began kicking, swimming until he finally broke the surface.

He blinked for almost twenty seconds as he began adjusting to the brilliant sunlight, and then what he saw almost caused him to go back under the water. Panting, he crawled out of the Great Lake -- he gasped for air as he stared at the castle. At Hogwarts.

Sirius turned around, not wanting to believe what was so obvious to him. He needed to get back; he needed to get to Harry, to be there for him, to protect him from Lucius and Bellatrix. From Voldemort. He stared at his reflection in the steadying water as his chest ached with building emotion. The undeniable truth made its way into his head.

He was dead.

He regained the appearance of his twenty-one year old self: yes, thin with the stress of the war, but strong. His hair was cropped to his chin and, even slicked against his head dripping wet, it glistened in the sunlight. His skin returned to the tan he maintained for his seven long years at Hogwarts courtesy of spending every sunlit second on the Quidditch pitch. His eyes were light, not tarnished by the years he spent in Azkaban prison.

His thoughts returned to Harry, but his mind flipped to a picture of James, and Sirius slapped his reflection away and fell backwards onto the grass. He dared assume James, too, was there. They had to be there; if they weren’t here, why was Sirius taken back to Hogwarts at all? The afterlife, it was supposed to be the best memories, and wasn’t everyone’s best memories made here?

He lurched up and struggled to take any steps towards the castle before once more the ache in his body forced him back down. “Harry,” he cried. Harry, still fighting in the Ministry, still struggling to save his friends.

“Take me back!” he screamed to the sky. “Take me back! He needs me!”

Sirius slumped forward as sobs that wracked his body. “Take me back, take me back,” he repeated. He thought of Remus and of Moody, of Tonks and Kingsley and prayed that they took care of Harry for him, who couldn’t protect Harry for James and Lily.

Uneven footsteps crunched the grass underneath them in front of Sirius some ways away, and Sirius looked up when he heard their quiet murmuring.

“Is that… Sirius?” a woman asked.

“It…” trailed off a second voice. “Padfoot?”

Sirius’s eyes snapped to James and James, like he had earlier with Lily, launched himself at his best friend, who still had tears running down his cheeks.

Sirius stared over James’s shoulder at Lily, who smiled tearfully at her friend despite the breaking in her heart. She knew what the broken expression on his face meant. After all, hadn’t she just heard him screaming? Lily still felt a chill deep in her bones that, no matter how close to the fire she got, nor how long she sat out on the sun, would not thaw out.

“Is Harry safe?” she asked her friend as he and James finally broke apart.

Sirius shuddered. “He’s been through a lot,” he told her. “He’s going to go through even more.”

“But will he be safe?” she repeated, wringing her hands together in front of her chest.

“Were we safe?” he countered. “There’s a war, Lily. No one is safe.”

James looked at Sirius and Lily and listened to them before his brows furrowed over his eyes. “What’s a one year old got that’s been a lot?” he asked uncomfortably, and Lily met his eyes sadly.

“Prongs,” Sirius said. “We’re dead.”

Silence rang around them once again as James processed his words.

“‘Dead’?” he repeated. “How are we dead? We were at Godric’s Hollow not even…” but he trailed off, because he could not remember: how long ago had it been? For just a second he’d been so sure it had only been a few minutes, but now that seemed wrong.

“James, it’s been fifteen years since you and Lily…” Sirius stopped, his words catching in his throat. He cleared his throat. “It’s 1996. Harry’s in his fifth year at Hogwarts, and Voldemort’s back.”

“What do you mean, ‘back’?” Lily interrupted.

Sirius stared at James and Lily, at their twenty-one year old faces, and his heart broke for them as he began telling them everything, starting with Sirius’s own plan to change the secret keeper to Peter, to the killing curse backfiring on Harry due to Lily’s sacrifice, to his being imprisoned in Azkaban, Harry being sent to live with Petunia and Vernon (Lily looked venomous when he told them about the state that they kept Harry in), Remus teaching as the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor in Harry’s third year, and then to Harry being entered into the Triwizard Tournament only a year prior and escaping barely alive with Voldemort back at full strength.

His voice began going coarse when he began relaying this last year -- partially because he’d talked ceaselessly for what felt like ages, but also because Harry’s downward turn of emotions was difficult for himself to think about, let alone relay to his parents who did not get to see him grow up.

“God,” James whispered. “I -- I remembered bits and pieces, but I didn’t think any of it added up.”

“And I’ve been horrified since waking up here,” Lily whispered. “And so cold.”

Sirius looked down at his hands. “Remus is still alive,” he told them. “Dumbledore and Remus will keep Harry protected. Moody is with them, too. The original Order is doing everything they can.”

“The Ministry…” James stated. “You say they’re pretending Harry’s…”

Sirius nodded bitterly. “Delusional,” he finished savagely. “And they are. The Order members that are a part of the Ministry have to keep everything under lock and key, even more so than they used to, but they’re not doing less than anyone else. More, in fact, when you think about the Aurors.”

Sirius paced in front of James and Lily, his mind as agitated as his body was exhausted. He’d been fighting for so long, he realized -- his limbs, even in his newly refreshed state, sagged with fatigue.

Slowly, the three made their ways towards the castle, Sirius with his arm around against James’s shoulders for support. They maintained a quiet murmur of a conversation while Lily drifted away, steadily following an uneasiness in her mind. She crept along the Entrance Hall, her feet quietly patting on the stone floor with every step. And then Lily jumped as the sound of furious, incoherent yelling reached her ears.

Chapter Text

James and Sirius, all exhaustion forgotten, bolted towards the Great Hall where Lily began attempting to calm down the unknown woman.

Pink hair had never seemed so irate. The woman stood taller than Lily yet shorter than Sirius, and in her hand she gripped her wand as she fired spell after spell, screaming unintelligible words to the ceiling. Her other free hand pushed her short hair out of her eyes, giving Lily a clear view of the wetness on her cheeks.

The woman screamed as though every sound tore her throat to shreds. She spun and looked around but for every second she processed her surroundings, her face morphed from anger to defeat. Finally, she faced the entrance, where she could only stare at the party, her eyes glazed over.

It was Sirius who first spoke.

“Tonks?”

Her eyes darted to his, and James and Lily watched as Sirius padded towards the unfamiliar witch.

“Tonks,” he repeated, and the witch’s eyes filled with emotion.

“The war,” she whispered. “It’s at Hogwarts. It’s here. Harry -- he’s fighting, but we’re losing him. We’re losing, Sirius, the war…. We…” she continued in disjointed babbling while Sirius embraced her in his arms. He then brought her face to meet his, a nervous something-of-a-smile on his lips.

“This is James,” he said, stretching his arm outwards to point at him, “and this is Lily. Harry’s parents.”

Tonks stared at the pair, her eyes lingering at Lily. She stood, composed herself, and faced her. “I’m Tonks,” she stated, her voice thick. Then, less confident: “How do you deal with it?” she asked.

Lily stared at Tonks with confusion in her eyes as tears slipped down the pink haired woman’s cheeks. “Living without your child,” she explained. She covered her mouth with her hands as Lily, Sirius, and James stared at her.

“Child?” Sirius repeated, and Tonks nodded, chuckles bubbling through her sobs.

“Remus and I’s,” she confirmed.

James’s eyes widened in shock. “Moony’s got a child?”

Tonk turned her blue eyes on his hazel. “Harry’s his godfather.”

From her coat pocket, she pulled a photo of the three of them -- their week old son sleeping peacefully, his hair changing color in time with his breaths, and Remus and Tonks lying on either side of him, hands locked together.

Chapter Text

Remus Lupin came to on the first staircase to the second floor. His wand held firmly in his grasp, he heard laughter coming from the Great Hall. The sound clashed with his last recollection: screaming, yelling, sobbing, and raging in that very same spot in the very same castle -- except this version was clean. The walls stood sturdy and torches lit the corridors in a warm glow. This Hogwarts was his own Hogwarts, he thought, and that laughter… that laughter tugged at his heart. He hadn’t heard it in years. There was a bark-like sound, and he felt his face fall. No -- no, this couldn’t be, he thought. He had a son, a little boy, he had to protect -- he couldn’t be --

But then he heard her voice. Sweet like cherries and deep like her father’s. “ … got mum and Remus, you know…”

“I can’t believe how old he’s gotten!” another voice replied, and Remus nearly fell down the stairs.

Tonks was laughing again: “Thirty-eight is hardly old at all.”

Remus willed one foot in front of the other as he listened to the conversation echo throughout the castle, shutting his eyes and allowing his body to move for him.

“Says the twenty-five year old,” came another voice, and Remus felt his heart jump into his throat.

“Shove off, Black,” Tonks replied. Despite the tar in his stomach, Remus smiled; he could hear her shove her cousin off of a chair.

And finally, Remus was at the entrance, and with her back turned to him sat his wife. Across from her sat none other than Lily Evans and James Potter; beside her, Sirius Black. Remus fell to the ground, covering his eyes with his hands as emotion overcame him.

He did not notice them all get up, but he felt his wife kneel in front of him, and Remus latched onto her, weeping into her chest. “Gone,” he cried, “we’re gone, and Teddy -- he won’t even remember us.”

“Nonsense, Remus,” Tonks told him gently. “You forget who we made Godfather -- and how important remembering his parents is to him.”

Remus shook his head, logic failing to overcome his stress. “We’re dead, Dora. Killed, murdered. Harry is no safer than we are, or were,” he amended, and he lifted his head to gaze at his wife.

“So beautiful,” he whispered, brushing her bangs out of her face, a watery smile on his lips. “Beautiful,” he repeated, brushing his lips against her’s.

Sirius, James, and Lily stared at the couple. Remus was older than James and Lily had ever known him: now twenty-five, Remus’s sandy hair only held a handful of grays, but each of his scars had now disappeared. His eyes, though wet and red, were a cool brown and his skin was tough yet soft, like quality leather. His calloused thumbs rubbed circles on Tonks’s temples.

“Moony,” James called, and his friend’s eyes jumped up to look at him. James smiled gently. “The gang's together again,” he said softly. “What do you say we make the most of it?”