Chapter Text
It was cruel, she knew that.
It was wrong to take his place. To take away his family, his memories, his agency. But to stand by and allow him to lose his life? She could never do that. Polyjuice potion took a long time to brew, and every day was another day that her son and his family could be betrayed. The Fidelius charm wasn't foolproof, was only as strong as the will of James' friends. Voldemort would find them eventually.
She wouldn't let him die. She wouldn't.
Herself, however? There was nothing left for her but this. Her husband was dead – not from the war, but from illness, of all things. The irony of fighting a war, battling to stay alive when even the strongest of wizards could be taken down by dragon pox-
When she closed her eyes he was there, as still and cold as the day he died. Maybe she'd join him soon.
In the end, it was a week before Halloween by the time the potion was ready. James and Lily and their dear, tiny child – her grandson – had been in hiding for months. The plan would be tricky to put into action, but in the end she made contact with her son through Sirius, and a meeting was arranged.
Their home was beautiful. Lily must have decorated it; Merlin knew her son had the most awful taste. Pictures lined the walls – photographs of the family, of Harry and Lily and James and Sirius and Remus and even Peter, who had always struck her as an odd one but who she had welcomed nonetheless. She stood in the warmth of the living room, staring into the orange of the fire until it burned itself onto the back of her retinas and the sound of soft footsteps reached her ears. Stomach churning, the flask sitting heavy in the pocket of her robes, she turned to greet her son.
“Mum!” He wrapped her his arms – strong arms, and where was the scrawny eleven-year-old she had seen off to school all those years ago? - and smiled. She smiled back, tears welling in her eyes as she stepped back to get a good look at him.
Dark circles beneath his eyes, hair dishevelled, a restlessness about him that made her feel twitchy – the war had been rough on James Potter. “Hello, sweetheart.” She glanced around. “Where's Lily?”
His smile widened, eyes lighting up. “Upstairs, with Harry.”
Harry. It felt as though something had lodged itself in her chest. He was just a baby. She had met him only once before James and Lily had gone into hiding, but he was the most perfect child she had seen since the birth of her own. A real person, tiny and helpless. The day he was born he had hardly cried at all, huge green eyes just staring up at them all, pink fingers grasping at his mother's long, red hair.
Why would anyone want to kill a child?
Still, although James would not be here to protect his child, she would. She would defend that child, and his mother, to her dying breath. And if it all worked out, if Voldemort was somehow defeated (and she did not dare to hope, not even in the privacy of her own mind), then she would make sure James was returned.
But until that day, there was work to be done.
One hand slipped into her pocket, fingers closing around her wand as she brought the other hand up to stroke her son's face. Blinking back tears, she moved her hand back to his hair and, with a sharp tug, pulled out a few strands.
“Ow! Merlin, Mum, what was that-”
But her wand was already out, pointed squarely at James' indignant face.
His eyes darkened, and he reached for his wand. “You're not my mother.” She could see the cogs in his mind whirling as he tried to figure it out – Polyjuice potion, the imperius curse maybe? This wasn't really her, surely.
Tears spilled down her cheeks at last. “Not any more,” she whispered. “Obliviate.”
A tropical bird soared off into the bright blue sky, a letter from Sirius Black clutched in its talons. The man himself shook his head as he watched it go. “Must be mad." Owls were the best delivery birds, everyone knew that. A wild tropical bird, well, it was just as likely to drop his letter in the ocean as it was to bring it to Harry. Still, it wasn't like he could just stroll off down to the local post office.
Letter now taken care of, he closed his eyes and settled back in the sand, sun warming his face. It had been too long since he'd felt real sun. Azkaban had been stormy and grey, so cold it seeped into your bones and your very soul. He shuddered.
No. He was free now. The thought warmed him to the core, even with the knowledge that he was still on the run, still guilty of a crime he hadn't committed. It wasn't real freedom, but it was good enough. Better than he had ever hoped for during the long years in Azkaban.
And he had seen Harry again. A smile stretched across his face, muscles that hadn't been used in years aching at the motion. Harry. His godson, the only thing left of Lily and James. He had been so close to having him again, to being able to protect him... The loss stung, but he knew that he would see Harry again, and that letters were enough for now, and that Pettigrew was still out there. Some day he would be truly free.
He opened his eyes and watched the waves lap at the shore. He didn't even know what the island was called – it was tiny, with a population so low that any newcomers were noticed at once. Thankfully, a place so remote had had no contact with wizarding Britain lately, and knew nothing of Sirius' escape. The Ministry of Magic likely thought he was still in the UK, wouldn't have sent word to the rest of the world just yet. He was safe here.
A hand slipped into his pocket, fingers wrapping themselves around the stolen wand to assure himself it was still there. Apparating had been rough, and he had lost himself two fingernails to the attempt, but it could have been far worse.
He stayed there for a while, basking in the warmth, enjoying the gritty feel of the sand beneath him and the cooling sea breeze. Eventually, though, he began to feel restless, like his bones would twitch right out of his skin if he stayed still for too long. Another change that Azkaban had wrought. Would he ever forget it?
Shaking his head clear of such thoughts, Sirius shot to his feet. A walk around the island would do him good. He had been here a few days, and he was beginning to find his way around well – although since the island was no more than three miles from coast to coast, this was no great achievement. Sirius strode away from the water's edge, feet slipping in the sand as he left the beach. He would have done better as Padfoot, but after so much time spent forced into his animagus form he was enjoying the freedom of standing on two feet.
The further inland he got, the more he began to see people. They were friendly enough, smiling at him and greeting him in their language – at least, he hoped whatever they said was a greeting, since he had been repeating it back to them, the words clunky and awkward when he spoke them. He had seen a few beautiful woman, dark hair shining in the sunlight, who had stirred up a little of his old charm. Sadly, there was both the language barrier and the fact that he was a convicted criminal and looked it to keep him from approaching them. Still, it was nice. In Azkaban nothing was beautiful.
The village itself couldn't have housed more than a few hundred people; he knew his presence had been noted, assumed there had been talk, but he had done his best to be friendly and unobtrusive. All he wanted was to be left in peace, although if he was going to be here a while he could probably stand to learn the language. He felt like such a tourist.
He was a little breathless by the time he reached the centre of the village, where the well was. The village itself had modern plumbing, but the well was a quaint remnant of a bygone era that Sirius rather liked. He sat himself down, tried to catch his breath. Merlin, he was so unfit these days. Years of eating almost nothing and sitting in a cell day and night would do that to a man. If James could see him now, clutching the stitch in his side like an old man... The familiar pang of ohGodJamesisgone that knocked the air from his lungs did nothing to help him regain his breath.
Some days he thought the pain of losing his best friends would never go away. Other days, he knew it. Did Harry miss them as much as he did? Was that even possible, to miss anyone as much as Sirius missed James and Lily? He carried the guilt of killing them with him every single day. It pressed on his shoulders, weighing him down, crushed his chest and his spirit and left him alone as the sun set, wishing he could start his life all over.
Sirius glanced up from the dusty ground and tried to shake his head clear. He squinted into the sun, wishing he had thought to sit with his back to it but too lazy to move, and watched the world go by. It was a slow Wednesday – was it Wednesday? It was hard to keep track here – afternoon, with only a few of the older villagers going about their business. The children would be out of school in a few hours and the village would be full of laughter and shrieking and the stampeding of feet, but for now it was quiet, and Sirius was content to sit back and watch.
A flash of messy black hair made Sirius' heart catch in his throat. James. He crushed the hope before it could flare up further. That had been happening ever since he had escaped Azkaban. He saw his friends everywhere. The man with the glasses at the bus stop was James, the flash of red hair in a crowded city was Lily. And then there was Harry. The scrawny teenager with his father's hair and his mother's eyes was enough to break a man's heart. He was a wonder and a nightmare all at once; Sirius couldn't tear his eyes away from Harry but all at once he never wanted to see him again, wanted to forget the Potters had ever existed.
He blinked, rubbed the sun from his eyes, but the man walking across the village square still bore such a striking resemblance to his best friend that it hurt. Although tanned, he was clearly white – he wasn't from here. A pair of glasses framed his eyes, although from this distance he couldn’t tell their colour, and his frame was just like James' – muscular but, he was willing to bet, just a few inches shorter than Sirius himself. His black hair seemed to have a mind of its own, and even as Sirius watched the man reached up and ran his hand through it.
Before he knew what he was doing, Sirius was on his feet, walking towards the man. His hand grabbed the man's arm, seemingly of its own accord, and he heard himself say, “James?” muffled and strange, as if he were listening from underwater.
The man met his gaze, and Sirius found himself reeling as though he had been punched. Ears ringing, he didn't hear the man's confused response; he wouldn't have understood it anyway, and he didn't need it. This was James. He would know him anywhere. Even thirteen years after the man's death, he knew James' face better than his own.
“James,” he choked out. James was clearly alarmed now, trying to pull his arm free, saying something more urgently in that language Sirius didn't understand, fuck, he needed to understand. Before he knew what was happening, there was a wand pointed at him. James' eyes were dark with anger and confusion as he snapped something foreign, the words rolling from his tongue as though it were his first language, but Sirius couldn't stop himself. Tears welled in his eyes. “Prongs,” he said, and could have sworn the man's expression flickered into something – something other, just for a second. “Please. I know it's you, please.”
The man's expression softened at this, and his wand lowered. Still though, he was tense, uncomfortable. He didn't understand, and neither did Sirius. This was James. He knew it. He would know him anywhere. He was older, sure, and more tanned than the James he knew could ever have hoped for in rainy Godric's Hollow, but it was James.
The only question was, for lack of anything more eloquent, what the fuck?
“Who are you?”
The English surprised him, and it shouldn't have. This was James, of course he could speak English. The words were a little awkward, the accent faded, but at his voice Sirius crumbled. Legs shaking too much to support him, Sirius let himself sink to his knees. It was where he belonged, anyway. On the ground at James' feet, begging for his forgiveness, pleading for him to say it wasn't his fault, he hadn't killed Lily, even though they both knew it was, and he had. Tears fell at last and all he could say was, “I'm sorry, James. P-please.”
“I don't-” A hand leapt to his hair, a motion so inherently James that it hurt. “I think you have me confused with someone else. I'm sorry.” The man held out his hand, tried to help Sirius to his feet, but Sirius just stared at it. Was this his punishment? For James to be alive but forever cut off from him, pretending not to know who he was? Had he broken things so beyond repair? Sirius knew he had, had known for thirteen years that there was no redemption for him, but to have it confirmed was still a horror.
“Please, James.” His voice shook, the first sob finally breaking free.
“Look, I don't know who you are. I'm sorry. Maybe you should just- look, come up to my house, have a drink or something. We'll get you sorted out,” said James, placing a hand on Sirius' shoulder that made him shake all the more.
Again, though, his body seemed to move of its own accord, and he found himself rising to his feet. The short trip to James' house didn't feel real. His head swam – oh Merlin, he was going to pass out. He was going to pass out and James would leave him lying on the ground where he belonged and Sirius would wake up alone and he'd never find James ever again and Harry would never meet him and he would have, once again, let down everyone he loved, oh Merlin-
“Now, then.” The man sat down on his sofa, indicated that Sirius should join him. He began to pour out two cups of tea – where had that come from? Had Sirius really been standing numbly in the living room of this small, unfamiliar house for so long? Sinking down onto the sofa, he took the tea that was offered to him and, on autopilot, stirred in two lumps of sugar. “Who is it you think I am? Maybe I can help you find them.”
He really didn't remember. The realisation slapped Sirius in the face. It wasn't James punishing him – and he should have known, James would never be so cruel. James Potter made damn sure you knew when you had let him down, never let you off the hook by just ignoring you. This man had no idea he was James Potter.
“I think,” he said slowly, taking his wand in hand, “you already have.” He didn't raise his wand, though, and the incantation stuck in his throat.
Maybe this wasn't the right thing to do. Reversing a memory charm was a delicate piece of magic, and Sirius was rusty with the most basic of spells. And even if he succeeded – what then? He was bringing James back to a world where his wife was dead and his best friend had spent twelve years in Azkaban after another of his friends had betrayed them. With a choice like that, Sirius would rather have stayed blissfully ignorant.
But then there was Harry.
The boy had been on his mind ever since he'd left the country, and now he was back at the forefront. Harry needed a father. There was no way Sirius could ever face him again, knowing James was alive and he had done nothing to bring the two of them together. And there was no one else to do this. He was alone, on the run, and he couldn't risk bringing Dumbledore here – what if he lost James before he arrived? The headmaster would never believe James was alive, anyway, would think Sirius had lost his mind.
No. It had to be him.
With shaking hands, James Potter staring at him with something like fear, Sirius raised his wand and reversed the memory charm.