James "Prongs" Potter (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} _cervus_) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} expresslogs, |
James’ first reaction was one of flat-out denial. Peter wouldn’t do that to them. There must have been a mistake. They’d been friends for almost a decade, they’d grown up together – James knew him. He trusted him, clearly, not only with his life but that of his wife and child’s. How could something he believed that completely be wrong? It couldn’t be. He wouldn’t let it be.
But why would she lie? Knowing how much that would hurt him, why would Lily say it if it wasn’t true? James looked into her face as she looked away, reading the familiar features and knowing, with the kind of finality that seemed to fill his whole body, that she was telling the truth. Pete. Of course he’d trusted him – why wouldn’t he? Peter wasn’t the kind of join the Death Eaters. He was too quiet and nervous. No’one would ever have thought they’d pick him as secret keeper. They’d have assumed it was Sirius. Why hadn’t it been Sirius? James felt strangely numb.
Harry had survived. That fact brought some kind of emotion back to James. Relief, full and aching and poisoned with betrayal and guilt. He’d been stupid. So fucking stupid. Why hadn’t he been able to stop it? He couldn’t pick up the details of the story that he should have been questioning. Like how a baby had managed to survive, why Lily had been given a choice. Later he’d think them through, probably obsess over them, but not now. There was only so much room in his head as it spun trying to take it all in.
James turned to look at Lily again – at some point he had chosen staring at the carpet as the preferable option, his hands pressed hard against his mouth. She was wiping away a tear, which had left a shining mark down her cheek, and the sight sent an arrow of pain straight through him. James reached out to take her hand.
“Tell me,” he said, and was surprised to hear he still sounded like himself. It felt like something should have changed. He swallowed hard, hating the catch in his voice when he spoke again. But he couldn't very well stop now, could he? "I want to hear it all."