InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "the north remembers"

James "Prongs" Potter (_cervus_) wrote in snapthread,
@ 2019-03-28 12:19:00

Entry tags:

james potter, remus lupin, sirius black

Who: Moony, Padfoot & Prongs
What: James' arrival
Where: The square
When: After this
Rating: E for emotions??

James took a deep breath and dropped the little metal box down beside him. His head was starting to pound slightly, remnants of the day’s earlier headache starting to take root behind his eyes. He slumped forward a little, spine curving as he rubbed his eyelids beneath his glasses.

Despite the messages continuing to arrive on the machine beside him, he felt utterly lost. One moment he’d been crossing the landing at home, and the next… well, he’d been shivering in this unfamiliar square, fresh air nipping at his skin. The primary emotion, after the momentary disorientation, had been panic. He'd spun around, looking for Lily and the baby, already knowing they wouldn't be there. Fear clawed it's way violently up his throat, dread winding tightly around his chest.

It had taken him a little while to pick up the box on the table, to try pressing the buttons. And then messages had started coming back, filling his head with so much stuff that it was suddenly hard to breathe, let alone think straight. Finding his friends had been an almost painfully huge relief, but even that had eventually left a bitter taste at the back of his mouth. It all felt wrong somehow. Twisted and warped.

Merlin, where were they??

It seemed like an age before he heard someone arrive in the quiet square. James jumped to his feet, his wand suddenly finding it's way to his hand as he peered across the open space, muscles curled tight as a spring across his back.

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lonewolfen
2019-04-02 05:24 pm UTC (link)

The biggest question Remus had on his mind at that moment was when James was coming from. He looked similarly to how he had the last time Remus saw him, but that wasn't telling him all that much. It did, however, cause a sense of dread to pool in the pit of his stomach. Regardless of where he was coming from, Remus didn't think there was any way to avoid telling James the truth about what he knew, and he didn't wan that for his friend. He didn't want him to learn of his fate or of Lily's, or even that little Harry had been sent away. He didn't want to be the one to tell him that his own best mate was the one being held responsible for all of it and currently locked away in Azkaban. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment as the tears had started to creep up on him along with a heaping load of anxiety and despair. Being in this place alone with Sirius, carefully avoiding talking about it all anymore ever since Remus had first told him about it, had made everything a little easier. But that just made bringing it all back up that much more painful. Back home, Remus lived in a constant state of mourning and grief. It all still hurt, but he'd been so immersed in it that he'd forgotten what it was like not to be depressed. Having that reprieve here with Sirius, where he'd even learned to smile again, made it feel like he was being struck in the chest with all that pain all over again.

When James confirmed where he'd come from, the dread came on that much stronger and Remus felt the urge to double over from all of it. So that was it. James was coming from a little over a month from when it all happened. Remus could feel his pulse pounding in his head. It was so loud he wasn't sure he'd be able to hear himself speak. Nevertheless, he tried. He owed it to James. Just like he had to Sirius. And if it could change anything should they manage to get back home, then he needed to know. And maybe, with James coming from just shy of Halloween, he might hold the missing puzzle piece he and Sirius hadn't be able to place. That was something to hope for, anyway.

"As Sirius so eloquently stated, he can call us both old because he's from a couple of years after we finished school, when you lived in that flat where we used to all go up on the roof together to look at the stars." Remus felt so much bittersweet emotion rise up in his throat, which he pushed back down where it settled back in his broken heart. Even just mentioning it, he could picture the four of them up there, talking about their hopes and dreams, cracking jokes and ragging on each other for one thing or another. He could see Sirius lying there, looking wild and beautiful and how sometimes he'd look right at Remus, right into his soul.

The look on James' face, how he must've known that Remus knew more than either of them, haunted him terribly, even more than the pair of glasses resting on his face that weren't cracked like the ones he had in his possession. The very same pair. "And I.. I'm coming from March, my birthday, actually," he'd never mentioned that part before; it hadn't mattered. It was just another day. "March of 82." He took a shaky breath. "The war's over. It's been over for a few months."

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beingsirius
2019-04-04 01:57 am UTC (link)

September of 81. Sirius went a little pale and couldn't decide if he wanted to have a throw up or a cry about it, or maybe both. All these feelings were really getting tiresome and he wasn't at all sure what to do with them. He looked at Remus, frantic, a bit desperate, but then immediately felt badly about it.

It shouldn't have been on Remus to tell this story twice, to relive all of that horror yet another time. But Sirius -- well. He couldn't, not really. His details were secondhand, his resolve wasn't steady or there at all.

"Remus," he said, and there it was again. Unfair.

"Yes, the --it was your birthday? Bloody hell, Moony!" Now probably wasn't the time for chiding, but how dare Sirius not know? They'd touch more on that later, he was sure. "James," he went on, waving the thought away because he simply couldn't right now. "You -- you moved, yeah? To a house. And were laying low?" He paused, feeling selfish when he asked, but he had to know, he had to, and then maybe things would make more sense and they'd have something --well. Not better. It could never, ever be better. But they'd have more to tell James beyond a giant question mark. "Did you have a secret keeper?"

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_cervus_
2019-04-04 09:16 am UTC (link)

The war was over?

But that was good news. Great news! Why was Remus looking like someone had just kicked his pet? James gaped at him, hope momentarily lighting up his face. Moony’s birthday wasn’t that far away, not really. Six months? What had happened? James was generalyl quite a positive person, but if someone had asked him how the war was going, he would have had to admit, painfully, that they were losing. Badly.

“It’s done?” James asked, finally stepping away from Sirius and instead taking an eager step towards the werewolf. “What –“

But then Sirius was speaking, and James’ attention snapped back again. He frowned, taking a moment to catch up. But if Sirius was from when he lived in that gross flat, then of course he wouldn’t know. He wouldn’t know the house. He wouldn’t know his Godson. That thought pulled hard at his chest, and he had to swallow it down.

“Yeah…” the animagus agreed carefully, unsure where this was going. ‘Laying low’ hardly seemed to cover what the last few months had been like. This was probably the most time James had spent in the fresh air in weeks. It was strange, how he’d been complaining about the claustrophobia, the way the walls seemed to press in him. How restless he was. And now all he wanted was to be back there.

The next question caught him. So Remus had told him about the fidelius charm... did that mean it had worked? James narrowed his eyes at Sirius, then glanced at Remus and nodded. “Almost. We haven’t cast the charm yet.”

It was supposed to happen in the next few days, once everyone was back in the right place. It was what he and Sirius had spent hours discussing just this morning, ironing out the details of their plan. James shivered. He didn’t like this. Despite everything; the end of the war and the charm and the rest of it, Sirius and Remus were both acting really weird. Their eyes were too bright, their shoulders too tense and their voices a little too hoarse. There was something cold and heavy settling in his stomach. It took James a moment to realise it was dread. All of a sudden, his already frayed nerves were stretched far too tight.

“Look, what’s going on? You’re being… just tell me.”

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lonewolfen
2019-04-04 06:07 pm UTC (link)

He didn't want to go down this road again. He didn't know if he could. Remus had lived it. He still lived it every Merlin-forsaken day. He had to live with the choices, the consequences, the sheer and utter devastation, and he was alone. Hadn't that been what he'd been taught he always would ultimately be in life as a werewolf? Alone. You can't let anyone close to you, my love, lest you end up hurting them. His mother's sorrow-filled voice for her poor little Remus echoed in his ears at that moment and it just made him feel that much more sick about all of this. No, he wasn't the direct cause of all this, but he did feel indirectly responsible because of all the damn secrets he was forced to keep. If he could hex Albus Dumbledore, he would. But even then, Remus still should've just continued to tell him no. It was his own weak will that got him into the mess he'd found himself in when all of this went ot hell.

He caught himself wallowing in his own misery a bit and forced all of that back down. This wasn't about him. This was about James. It was about James finding out the truth and for god's sake, trying to figure out if there was something they could do should they be taken back home to prevent it.

It was Sirius' voice speaking his name in that pitiful, almost desperate tone that Remus pulled himself together as much as he could to speak again. It shouldn't fall on Sirius' shoulders to tell James. He hadn't even lived it yet. He was too young, still too full of life to have it all ripped away having to retell what Remus had unfortunately had to share with him before.

"It's a lot, James," Remus said, already sorry and it showed in his tone of voice. He wanted to hold Sirius' hand, more than he thought he ever had before. But he kept his fists at his sides. Sirius was going to have to comfort James. He needed to go to him, not stay beside Remus. "I know you aren't sure if you can trust me right now, and I understand why," he said. "But what you need to know is that I'm not.. I wasn't.." It was so much harder to tell James the truth than it had been to tell Sirius. He felt twice as ashamed, twice as guilty, maybe even more than that. "I was undercover, doing work for Dumbledore. He had me running with Greyback's pack. That's why I was missing for so long, and would come back all torn to hell. I couldn't tell you, any of you. It was too dangerous. But Voldemort was rumored to have been recruiting them for his side and Dumbledore needed to know for sure. He knew they'd let me in because of my lineage to Greyback.

"I knew if I told you, you'd both try to stop me or you'd follow me and get yourselves killed. I thought I was protecting you, even if it meant you all stopped trusting me. The problem is, there's a gap where I don't have the information to put everything together that happens between when... and when I..." He trailed off. He felt like he was going to be sick. How was he supposed to say, between when I last saw you alive, and when I had to claim your body from St. Mungo's to have you buried?

"The war ends on Halloween of 81," he said. "Something..happens, I don't know what. Sirius doesn't know because it hasn't happened yet for him. It might even be too soon for you to know. Somehow, the Fidelius charm you cast was broken. Voldemmort found you and he.." There came the tears. "You tried to protect them, Prongs. But he.. You and Lily.. He.." His voice hitched and he had to force a sob down his throat. "He cast the curse on you both. You were downstairs trying to hold him off. Lily was with Harry. She gave her life to protect him after he overpowered you. And then.. something happened, no one really knows how or why. Voldemort tried to kill Harry but the curse deflected back onto him and he vanished. Voldemort's gone, presumably dead. That's why the war ended but.. Jamie I'm so sorry.. I'm so sorry to have to tell you."

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beingsirius
2019-04-07 02:38 am UTC (link)

There it all was again, and Sirius found that of all things, he could not look James in the face while Remus explained to him what had happened. He just-- couldn't. He couldn't really look at Remus either though, because it was hard enough keeping himself together, his tears had sprung again and it blurred out his vision most completely anyway. The dirt had been no good thing to be focusing on anyway.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this," Sirius said, wrecked. "I'm sorry. I'm really sorry."

And it was just -- it was stupid. Because an apology would mean nothing to him, he was sure, if someone told him he'd died. He didn't expect it would be any different for James, particularly when he wasn't the only person. Lily too. And who even knew what would have happened to little Harry -- who wasn't even born yet, in Sirius' world. But of course Sirius loved him anyway, because he was James' kid and that meant he was family.

And he'd have been all alone.

Sirius wasn't sure what to do, not really. Not right now. If anything, even without being shocked over the story and the truths in it, this felt so much worse than the first time he'd heard it. He sneaked a glance over at Remus, rubbing at his eyes the whole time and --just. Well, he didn't know what to do. Hugs felt a little lacking, in terms of plans.

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_cervus_
2019-04-10 10:27 am UTC (link)

It was like being knocked off your broom by a bludger. That was all he could compare it to. The sudden driving of air from his lungs. The reeling, falling sensation. The tunnel vision and sense of sudden horror.

James hadn’t thought he’d die. Not really. Of course, he’d known it was a possibility – maybe more than that - but it was an abstract, far away kind of thing. Everyone died eventually, after all. You just never thought about it.

But Lily.

And Harry.

And they all wanted him to say something. They were both looking so fucking upset, and all James wanted to do was make some joke so that they’d stop. But his head was full of some weird, fuzzy cloud, and all he could think about were the words which were still echoing through his ears. The wall was still behind him, and he was glad because his legs suddenly didn’t feel up to the job of supporting him and this new information.

James sunk down, sitting a little too heavily on the cold brick wall, his attention slipping down to the floor as he did his best to work this out. All at once, his hands felt very cold and his chest was too tight, like someone had tied a rope around his ribs. This didn’t make sense. They had it all planned out – it was all arranged. The charm would be set and they’d stay stuffed in the house for as long as they needed to. It couldn’t be broken, not unless…

Shit.

If Remus was working with Dumbledore, and Sirius was... well, Sirius. Then that only left one person.

Something clicked heavily into place, at exactly the same time as James’ stomach turned over and lurched upwards. Almost too late, he spun around and vomited, his whole body cramping and curling painfully, muscles squeezed way too tight across his chest and back.

Once he was done, James forced himself to look back at Remus and Sirius, dragging the back of his hand across his mouth. He noticed, as if from a long was away, that he was shaking. They didn't know, James realised. They didn't know what he'd done. How stupid he was.

"I.." His voice didn't sound like him. James took a deep breath, which caught in his throat. "Pete. We changed... was it him?"

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lonewolfen
2019-04-11 06:14 pm UTC (link)

It had nearly ripped his heart out of his chest to have to tell Sirius everything that had happened. Remus had barely made it out of that conversation without completely wrecking himself. With James, it was harder. It was so much harder to be telling someone his own fate. What a horrible thing; to tell someone they were going to die. And not just him, but his wife too. His son was left an orphan. And for what? Because some dark wizard wanted to get his way and would kill anyone who dared defy him. It made Remus sick, and had he not already gone through the violent stream of emotions ranging from screaming, crying, isolation and -- just like James, vomiting -- he would've been doing the same thing now. As it was, he was just silently crying. But inside, he felt like he was the murderer.

When James sunk down to the ground, Remus looked at Sirius first, then moved closer to James and knelt by him.

"...What.. Peter? But he--" He stopped, trying to put together what James meant. He supposed he had to get to the next part, too. "James, everyone blamed Sirius for selling your lives to Voldemort because they believed he was your Secret Keeper. Pete, he-- He supposedly went after Sirius but was killed. Allegedly, by Sirius. All anyone could find of him was a finger, along with twelve other Muggles who died in the explosion. The Aurors, they took Sirius away, to Azkaban. When I was able to get away from the pack, to come home, it was too late. No one would listen to me when I said he was innocent. Dumbledore sent Harry away. I don't know where. Somewhere he'd be safe, he said. But... But what did you mean, you changed? What were you saying about Peter?" He chanced reaching out, placing a hand on James' shoulder and Merlin -- the validation of physical touch, to really feel that James was alive and breathing instead of cold and rigid had a whole fresh set of tears spilling down his cheeks.

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beingsirius
2019-04-11 08:58 pm UTC (link)

"Oh, mate," Sirius said when James turned to upend everything in his stomach to the ground instead, and it felt like a weird thing to be saying, like he was only a second away from teasing James for not knowing how to hold his liquor, or for eating something idiotic on a dare instead of what was actually happening here -- a bout of nerves and shock and horror.

It sank in eventually though, even though Sirius felt dangerously close to nervous giggles, even though that made no sense at all. He leaned in closer, hand on James' ankle and then back and then shoulder -- whatever, they were all sort of squirming now. And Remus was there too, and so Sirius put his other hand on the small of his back as they went on talking, more rehash but --

But then something clicked. "He changed secret keepers," he said dully, filling in the blanks with the obvious -- or what was now obvious now that James had said even a little something. "Because I'm too obvious. It was Peter."

Peter who had ratted them out. Peter who had lead evil to the home of their best friends, and who had pinned it on Sirius and let him suffer and rot for a crime he hadn't done, and left Remus with no one at all, and Harry orphaned.

James was in shock and Sirius was going to kill their fourth if he ever did see him again.

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