Chapter Text
They all decided to see mind healers, in the aftermath. They set to work fixing what was broken by years of immortal burden. And something a bit odd happened.
James was still having nightmares. Sirius and Remus bore witness to a few of them. But neither knew what they were about. And while before Peter was taken care of they were formless and deluded by fear Remus had begun to think that these new ones had taken shapes.
One day Remus awoke to find James staring blankly at a wall.
“James? Are you alright?”
He saw James move to turn towards him and he saw James was crying.
“James?”
James reached over and grabbed him and held him close and hugged him like he was desperate and drowning again and Remus heard a simple
“We were wrong”
Before memories flashed before his eyes and he was watching a past James over a series of months become increasingly upset and agitated and then he saw Lily and Harry in the nursery and James follow them in and only James leave. He could see the fear and delusion in James’s face when Peter walked in and tried to calm him down and take the knife from him.
Remus couldn’t move. He couldn’t think. James killed Lily. James killed Harry. James killed his only son.
They killed Peter. They tortured Peter.
He couldn’t believe it. All this time, anger, and insanity and James was the one all along.
James has walked into that nursery and killed his only family because why? Because he was tired or stressed? No no he wouldn’t.
And another memory came to Remus. This time not from James but from his mind. Buried under fervent denial and insanity he was reminded of James drunkenly insisting that Peter was a spy for Voldemort. That he was going to tell The dark lord where his family was and come after his child. That he would never see either of them again.
Remus had dismissed him. He’d reminded him that he could see her in the afterlife and dismissed it. Oh sure he checked it out for himself but nothing came up. It wasn’t like James had actually believed that, had he? It was just a drunken ramble. The longer Remus thought about it the less sure he became. James acted weird after. He had kept rambling about how important it was that Voldemort didn’t kill Harry. That he has to protect his family. That they’ll be immortal this way. That Voldemort won’t be able to kill them or worse.
He remembered that night. He visited that night. He was going to reassure James and tell him everything was going to be alright. But when he saw James on the floor and Peter with a knife-Oh merlin he must have not have known. He probably just showed up.
As Remus slowly started to come to terms with his best friends murder he heard James whisper something else in his ear.
“Obliviate”
—-
James gave up Death for all of them after that. He lost the stone and the cloak in a bet and the wand in the resulting scuffle.
He smirked when they won. Shackles successfully transferred. However the realization sunk in for that poor sod and revenge took its form in a killing curse to James’s back not long after his newly discovered freedom.
And he was okay with that. He could see Lily and Harry again.
—-
They found each other again at an amnesia support group. The war had taken its toll and a fair number were left without memories. Remus and Sirius included. They saw each other and remembered school but not after and went for a pint. And then another. And then another. And they found over the course of this that they quite liked each other and made a pact to at least remember that.