"Here I thought I'd gone mad, and you've been here all along." Sirius hadn't seen James for almost two weeks, and yet it felt like yesterday that he'd been sending Harry's first broomstick via owlpost. For his part, Sirius wore his usual, secondhand Muggle clothes, and he needed a haircut. His long hair was ragged at the ends and looked in need of a good wash. He'd been on business with the Order before the coin had appeared, and well, now he was here. "Lily and Remus, too. Reckon we could have told Dumbledore about this place?"
James was glad when he got the notification that Sirius had shown up, even if all this advanced muggle technology was maddeningly difficult to sort out. "Bit too complicated for that, Pads," he said. He pulled Sirius into a quick, right embrace. Something about Harry being an adult and all these other people and such, everything being hard to take in, and here James was a few days into it all.
Sirius didn't know what to make of this place yet, or of the cause that they'd been enlisted to fight for. It was enough that James was here, unchanged so far as Sirius could tell, and the others, too. "Suppose if it were that easy, Voldemort would have gone for it as well. I don't think they'd want him to save creativity. His lot wouldn't know a creative idea if it rained down on their heads in fire."
At that, James couldn't help but chuckle, slapping his best friend on the shoulder. "Doesn't look like he's around, but there's - don't know how much you've been told, but time's all wonky here. What was the date when you found the coin and came here, huh?"
"How do you mean? They told me enough. We're in Atlantis. They need help." Sirius didn't think he'd ever reject a plea for help except well.. "It's 1981." Sensing something was off here, he added quickly, "August 1981. I just owled Harry his birthday present. You got it, right? Lily said…" He looked at his best friend, uncertain. James looked the same as the last time they'd seen each other, but what did he mean time was wonky?
James held his breath then released it. Same year. Good. "Good," he said. "I mean, I'm from a little further along than you are. It was end of October -" And so fucking much had happened between the day they received Sirius's present for Harry and the moments before James came to Atlantis. "Halloween."
"Halloween?" He hesitated. The war was bad back home, he knew that. But nothing so bad as -- "What did I miss?"
James shook his head. "Nothing," he said, then immediately thought better of it. Sirius could very easily go looking for his "source material" and find out anything he wanted. Even things James hadn't gone looking for yet. "Just - Lily and I had to go into hiding. So did the Longbottoms. You-Know-Who had taken an interest and - well." Was that enough? That was probably enough.
So, Voldemort finally had them, or at least Lily and James, on his radar. Sirius didn't want to follow through on that thought. It was only two months different, and yet had the world shifted that suddenly? "But Dumbledore, he wouldn't let you on your own. You or the Longbottoms, right? And I'm - I'll always be there for you." Surely, that had to count for something.
"We had it all worked out, mate, don't worry," James said, a tight smile on his face.
Of course, in hindsight, James realized his mistake was in trusting Peter rather than Sirius. How else would the attack have happened, the one that he had narrowly avoided by coming to Atlantis. He knew - was pretty damn sure - that he would die. He just didn't want to face that aspect of his reality. Not yet.
"Right." He didn't press the issue further. He didn't need to know what happened Halloween 1981. Not yet. "Well, we're here now. Got to thank that coin for something, right?" He forced lightheartedness into his voice. Atlantis couldn't be worse than home. "And Lily's here, and --- Harry?"
Now James really smiled, and nodded. "Right, Lily, Harry, Remus, now you - we're all here. That's really good, Padfoot. I'm glad you turned up right after I did. I don't know that I'd want to do all this without you." He clapped him on the back again, grinning more widely now. "Wanna go get a drink? This bloke named Thor - he's the actual god of thunder - showed me this place serving really excellent honeyed mead."
"Wouldn't be the same. That's for sure." He grinned, matching James's own expression now. They could do anything, if only they were together. That's how it had always been, and that's how it should always be. He shook off the feeling that maybe that wasn't so, that it all had the potential to change. "The god of thunder? Has this place gone mad? Gods only exist in those Muggle books, the ones with all the pictures."
"That's what I thought too but he's here, in the flesh. I met 'im." He laughed a little. "If there's one thing that I've learned in the few short days that I've been here, it's that this place is completely nutters, but why's that got to be a bad thing?"
"Merlin, that's got to be something, Prongs, meetin' someone who doesn't exist." Sirius looped his arm around James. "So, where's that mead you mentioned?"
"This way," James said, dragging Sirius off down the road.