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Tweak says, "The dude abides."

James "Prongs" Potter (_cervus_) wrote in expresslogs,
@ 2012-02-16 23:29:00

Entry tags:

lily evans, {james potter

Who: James Potter, Lily Evans.
When: Friday 16th, late evening.
Where: Starting in sleeping car 14 and moving up the train.
What: A confused (and festive) new arrival, and a rather sad story.
Rating: Medium. Some language.

Okay.

Okay. Right then.

James managed to move from the spot he'd frozen into. After all, it was a bit of a shock. He'd been in the kitchen, running Harry's dummy under the sink after the baby had managed to chuck it under the sofa, and had turned back to go back into the living room and... now he was on a train. A train that looked worryingly like it was parked at a stop beside a city. It wasn't quite what he'd expected, even after having a madman as his best mate and Death Eaters chasing his family. You did not expect to turn around and be on a train.

James slid his hand to the back pocket of his jeans, carefully, cautiously, as if any moment someone might come bursting through that door. His wand was still there, which was a vague hint maybe this wasn't some kind of plot to drag him away from his family but maybe just... Godric knew. Something else. After all, Death Eaters would have taken his wand, wouldn't they? They couldn't be that stupid. They'd have never made it through childhood otherwise - probably have drowned in a toilet or something.

Ignoring the babbling on his own inner thoughts, James drew his wand, holding it tightly before him as he took a breath and headed out into the corridor. He needed to find Lily. They'd been in the house together. If they - whoever they were - had got him... James refused to let himself finish that thought, swallowing it down along with the wave of panic that kept threatening to sweep up over his head and drown him. Instead he forced himself to start moving down the corridor, looking for a way out, one ear listening out for anything that might be approaching.

Merlin, James thought again. He was on a train... And he was pretty sure he still wearing those damn comedy antlers.

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_cervus_
2012-02-17 11:07 pm UTC (link)

No.

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."

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emerald_eyes
2012-02-17 11:32 pm UTC (link)

Lily wasn’t surprised he wanted to know. She would have wanted to know. Even when Jaime’s stories had been overwhelmingly devastating, she’d wanted to know. Later, she’d regretted hearing some of it, but … at least she knew.

Exhaling softly, she squeezed his hand, gazing down at their linked hands and tangled fingers. “He frames Sirius,” she whispered “The Sirius that’s here … he’s from 1986. He’d been in prison for five years for our murders, James. Murders he didn’t commit. Murders he would have died before letting happen.” She wanted to ask him why, why they hadn’t had Sirius for a secret keeper, but he wouldn’t, of course. Sirius might have been there, but he wouldn’t necessarily know what they’d discussed or how she and James had concluded that Peter was the better option.

She ran her free hand over her cheeks, sniffling once before continuing. “Harry …” She laughed faintly, hoarsely. “Tuney and her husband raised him. It … it was the only person they had left to take him to. His godfather in prison, and … us dead.”

Lily sighed again before she shook her head slightly. She didn’t want to say ‘and it gets worse’ but … it did, didn’t it? “At any rate … when … when Harry survived the killing curse Voldemort cast on him after … after we …” she gestured slightly, tipping her head and not wanting to actually say ‘died’. “It backfired, somehow, and … it didn’t quite kill Voldemort, but it … it put him out of commission for several years after.”

Until he came back, but she guessed she’d see if James had anything to say, or to ask, before she went on. “Everything … I know, I’ve heard second or third hand, and I know there’s a lot missing, but … the facts seem to be the same across the board as far as all the people here from our future are concerned.”

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_cervus_
2012-02-18 09:19 am UTC (link)

Oh buggering hell! James stared at her, eyes wide. "Sirius," he repeated. "They thought Sirius... Are they fucking insane?!" It came out louder and angrier than he'd expected, and he bit down hard on the inside of his mouth to quell the rant that was bubbling in his chest. Sirius would walk through fire for any one of them, they all knew that. Everyone knew that. How could anyone think, even for a moment, that Pads would do that to them? To him?

"Petunia?!" he yelped. "And walrus-face?! Who... I mean... What about Remus?" he snapped. Then remembered, too late, that Remus was a werewolf and probably wouldn't even have been offered the chance to take Harry. James swore again under his breath as, unbidden, an image blossomed in Jhis head. Harry shipped off to Lily's bitch of a sister and her first-class-idiot husband. Sirius curled on his own in some dark, damp cell. Lily and himself... James felt sick. He shut his eyes tight against the waves of alternate anger and nausea and willed his heart to slow as he listened to the rest of what Lily had to say.

So it didn't even get rid of him. For some reason that made it all a hundred times worse. There wasn't even any bloody point to all this happening. James released Lily's grip and buried his face in his hands instead, pressing down until stars exploded behind his eyelids.

"I'll kill him," he muttered. "Wormtail. I'll fucking kill him." He pulled his face up from his hands and looked sharply back at Lily. "But... we know now. When we get back... we can just pick Sirius, right?"

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emerald_eyes
2012-02-18 06:02 pm UTC (link)

Lily didn't say anything when James suggested Remus, knowing he'd catch on as to why that wouldn't have worked. She was also pleased he was on the same page, and she almost hoped, for Peter's sake, that the bastard never showed up here. "He hid," Lily murmured. "As a rat. Faked his death, and let Sirius take the fall for all of it, and hid for ... for years, until Sirius broke out of prison and tracked him down, forced him out."

She exhaled softly. "I want to know what arguments the pair of you made to get me to agree to Peter. There's always been something about him I've never taken to." Which she supposed was neither here nor there. She'd been somehow convinced, and had likely agreed despite her better judgement, and that was that.

"I don't know," she admitted quietly. "That was my plan, when I first heard what happened. That I'd do anything, everything, whatever I had to, to change it. But we don't know for sure ... what happens if we ever get off the train." She hesitated a moment. "There was a passenger, Amy. She was on the train, and then she died ... but a day or so later, a slightly older version of her was back on the train, alive, and ... she didn't recall her first time on the train. It ... some people say it might be a matter of alternate realities, or different incarnations, but ... if we don't remember when we go back ... I'm not sure we can fix it.

"I want to try though. I ... I don't know. Write a note to ourselves and carry it around, and if we ever do go back, even if we don't remember, maybe we'll have the note still."

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_cervus_
2012-02-20 12:12 am UTC (link)

James shook his head a little hopelessly, looking to Lily with an expression that suggested he couldn’t quite think of a proper reason that he might have used to convince her to involve Peter.

“I trust…” He caught himself, and took a shallow breath before continuing. “Trusted Pete. Why wouldn’t I? He never… he was part of us. And you know how everyone knew how close me and Sirius were. If they knew there was a secret keeper, they’d have gone after him straight away.” James paused, collecting his thoughts. “No’one would have suspected we’d use Pete.” He felt a bit bad for saying it, which was insane considering what he’d just heard, but you couldn’t switch off a decade’s worth of friendship and trust like that. Or so he had thought.

He looked around to Lily, then twisted so he was kneeling on the bedcovers in front of her, his feet caught underneath him. He nodded and set his jaw, changing it into a harsh line before he reached out carefully to push a strand of Lily’s rich red hair back behind her ear.

“We’ll figure it out,” he promised her, with a lot more confidence than he really felt. But he had to hold onto some kind of strength. He had to believe they could change that horrible story because otherwise what was the point? James forced himself to give a small smile, leaning forward until his forehead touched briefly against hers. “We always do, right? I’ll tattoo it onto my forehead if I have to.”

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emerald_eyes
2012-02-20 12:32 am UTC (link)

The difference was, of course, that Sirius would have died before giving them up. No matter what they'd done to him. But Lily knew James had to know that as well as she did -- better than she did, really. They'd been friends first, and far longer. "I know," she said softly.

She rested her hands on his shoulders, rubbing them lightly when he knelt in front of her. "We will," she agreed. "Though I think if you're going to have a tattoo, perhaps somewhere a little less obvious would be the better way to go." She did manage to stir up a little smile for him as she lifted one hand, her fingertips caressing lightly over his hair before she made another attempt to smooth it down.

Exhaling softly, she tried to think of something cheerful to tell him, but she wasn't sure there was anything precisely cheerful. They'd stopped, and that was something. They could get off the train and stretch their legs and all of that.

"You'll have to go meet him," she decided. That was pleasant -- the fact that their son was here. "He'll be thrilled. And Sirius as well. Harry's mates that came along with him." She hesitated, but it was bound to come up at some point. "Severus is here, as well. He's ... a bit older than us though." Which was mostly irrelevant, but she honestly wanted to skate right past the topic of Severus Snape just now.

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_cervus_
2012-02-20 01:15 am UTC (link)

"I'll get it on my arse," James replied carelessly, his own smile growing in response to the small one Lily offered him. He was glad she was here. Even with the news she was sharing, he imagined it'd be even harder without her. James let her have another attempt at taming his mad excuse for hair while he once again tried to get his head around the whole 'Peter' thing. And the 'dying' thing. And the 'Sirius' and the 'Harry' thing.

He pulled himself back to the present when she spoke again. Harry wouldn't know him. That thought stuck in his throat painfully as he thought of the little boy he'd left behind less than an hour before. And he really needed to talk to Sirius. Then Snape's name came up and James couldn't hide the unpleasant grimace that suddenly twisted his features. That Death Eater piece of... They'd let bloody anyone on this train, then? That was good to know.

"Improved with age, has he?" he muttered.

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emerald_eyes
2012-02-20 01:27 am UTC (link)

"Lovely. That's the first place I'll check when we get home then," she replied with a lightness she didn't entirely feel. Still, it was something worth looking into ... maybe if they did do something like that, they'd be able to keep the ink on their skin when they were returned home. If they returned home.

For a moment, Lily was silent, gazing down at the bed covers. She didn't know how to explain it, least of all to James. She also didn't know how long she'd be able to keep what she knew from him. She'd always been painfully transparent and she really wasn't a good liar. At all. "It's complicated," she finally said.

She both did and didn't want to get into it. Some of it would have to come out eventually, but she could let it be someone else's story to tell. Parts of it, at any rate. Right now though, she wanted to talk about something else. Anything else.

Lifting her eyes, she gazed into his before she cupped his cheek gently. She ran her thumb lightly along his lower lip. "So, would you like a tour of the train? It's ... fairly empty now. Most everyone's off enjoying the stop."

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_cervus_
2012-02-20 01:45 am UTC (link)

What wasn't she saying? Lily wasn't much of a liar - you could read her like a book half the time. It was one of the things James liked about her. But there was definitely something there that his wife (Was he still allowed to call her that?) was avoiding saying, and although James considered trying to get it out of her, he didn't know how much more he could bear to hear in one more sitting.

Her hand was warm against his cheek, her thumb dragging gently across his lip. James kept his hazel eyes locked with hers for a moment before he nodded slightly. After all, if he was going to be stuck here he supposed he might as well know his way around. And a part of him hoped they'd run into Harry or Sirius, although it sounded like they were both likely to be off... somewhere.

"Okay," he agreed. "In a moment." Then he leaned forward and pressed his lips softly against hers.

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emerald_eyes
2012-02-20 01:58 am UTC (link)

Lily reasoned James knew something was up, and she was glad he didn't push the issue. She would have shared if she'd been pressed to, though right now she'd had more than her fill of complications and tragic stories of a future they hadn't yet lived.

She did laughed softly as he leaned in, though the noise was abbreviated as she returned his kiss tenderly. She rested her hand on his shoulder, squeezing lightly as she eased a little closer to him.

"We'll have to go explore the city as well," she encouraged. She wasn't sure what everyone else's plans were, but she reasoned she had a better chance of keeping James away from Severus if they spent more time off the train than on it. He'd have to meet Jaime, of course, but ... later, after she'd had a chance to talk to her. While she doubted very much Jaime was going to spill secrets, she'd rather it be clear. "And I can tell you about the almost three months that I've been stuck here, and all the wild and crazy adventures we've had."

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