From the deepest, darkest depths of my heart I thank yekwah, who searches my stories for my grievous errors and faux passes against grammar everywhere by betaing my stories for me! I also especially thank padfootsgrl for doing that very same thing for this chapter, so that I could put the story out to you as quickly as possible with few errors. (And with betas like this, no errors.) padfootsgrl edited this chapter, and both will edit future chapters, if they are still the incredibly smart, funny, kindhearted young women they seem to be! ;) Both will edit future chapters. Az u cann c, i reely need it!
That night was an uneventful one, where the Marauders simply wasted hours by rampaging through the Forbidden Forest. Sirius had come, but been too late for them to travel farther up some of the mountains, so their planned search for the caves and crevasses had been postponed.
Exhausted and dirty, the four friends each fell into their beds, three of them falling asleep right away.
One, however, did not.
Sirius couldn't help replaying the conversation that had taken place earlier in his head. He couldn't forget the look of intense pain and sadness on Harry's face. Couldn't help remembering the dull edge of Harry's tone, the glazed look in his eyes. What had those eyes seen that had made them so…devastated?
And as he was thinking all of this over, (he had too much adrenaline in his system to actually sleep,) he heard muted cries from Harry's bed…but Harry should've fallen asleep a long time ago, right? He tried to block it out, not wanting another heart-to-heart with Harry because of the awkward emotions involved, until he heard his name.
"Sirius, no!"
Harry knew, as soon as he saw his parents standing there, that he was dreaming again. It was remembering, rather, because he was watching his parents on the last night they had been alive.
His nightmares of Sirius falling through a veil must have been replaced, he supposed, by the realization that he could've changed things, and still could. He could warn them. There was still time.
Now his father was fighting Voldemort. Now his mother was running, and tripping over her skirt. Pleading for her son's life. Dead.
And now was the one other thing he needed changed. The one other thing that could've fixed his life, made it a little easier. Sirius.
He watched as Sirius walked among the rubble, his face crumbling at James's body. He watched his godfather carefully put the pieces of his father's wand by his body. He tried to comfort him as he mourned over Lily, only to have himself ignored. Watched as Sirius picked a baby up from the ruins of the house, and nearly screamed in frustration as Sirius finally carefully handed the baby over and picked up his motorcycle helmet, handing it equally as carefully to Hagrid.
He watched in anger as Sirius disappeared, shouting as loud as he could. Sirius didn't hear him, but he had to say it anyways, to know that he tried.
"Sirius, DON'T GO AFTER PETER!"
It was a lot like Harry was having a prophecy, a vision Sirius thought. The whispered words were too clear, too direct, to be from any nightmare. Harry settled down after he had murmured the warning, shaking but gradually drifting off to sleep.
And Sirius decided, before he slept, that he would take that advice and refrain from going after Peter.
Several days passed, and amazingly, few things changed. In fact, other than a few major pranks, no one was offended, hurt physically, or put into near-death predicaments.
Harry began spending more and more time with Lily, studying and just talking, getting to know her better. He always heard about his dad, and how wonderful his dad was, but his dad reminded him a lot of Ron. A loyal friend, but a little jealous, a bright student, but unwilling to learn. In fact Sirius reminded his of himself, reining James in all the time, as he often had to rein in Ron, and Remus reminded him of Hermione… a little bit. There was no Peter in his group, so he didn't have to worry. It was the only thing that kept him from feeling alone every once in a while, but it was also a danger. He couldn't trust the Marauders to keep his secret, and couldn't risk changing time. He wasn't home, and he needed to remember not to get too comfortable here.
It was difficult though, with everything that was happening. It seemed that while the muggle word had changed quite a bit through time, Hogwarts and it's behavior was always the same. His parent's generation, if anything, was more lucid, and easier to get along with, then his own. No one paid him much attention here, and that was just fine with him. Here was safe.
And the Marauders lived in a way he and his friends had forgotten since their first year. Even then he, Hermione, and Ron had been worrying over what was under the trap door, then wondering how to protect it, and who was after it. The late night discussions had been over the dangers to the school.
If the Marauders had a late night discussion, it was about girls, or Quidditch, or even things as trivial as food. It was like the Marauders had no worries, and no sense of time. Nothing was too rushed, and no boundaries were set to hold them in.
Harry could also see why Severus Snape had never like his father and Sirius. Humiliation was always at the hands of the Marauders, but instead of spreading it generally to the school, they focused it on one Severus Snape.
And pairing James and Snape for potions? A disaster.
"It's simple, Potter, something even you can handle. All you have to do is watch me fix the potion." Snape's oily voice said. Harry looked up at the same time Sirius did, shooting his friend a look to keep him from doing anything stupid. Obeying, Sirius listened.
"Sorry, no can do, Snivellus. My grade depends on my participation, so participate I will." James replied, annoyed. Couldn't Snape find some other way to bother him? "I'm cutting the bat wings."
"What, and risk human fingers in our potion? I'll cut the bat wings." Snape replied. He stopped putting ingredients in when Potter replied with,
"Why Snivellus, you don't have wings, how ever did they manage to find such a big bat?"
He knew that he was knocking over several key ingredients in doing it, but it was worth it to see Potter struggle to breathe. He may not be wonderful at cursing, but he had a grip that could kill.
Sirius said several fowl words and stood, knocking over his stool, and Harry didn't stop him. James hadn't thrown the first punch, so this was in defense.
Sirius tried to levitate Snape off of James, but his grip stayed strong, and instead, James found himself hanging by his neck in the air, feet a few inches off of the ground. Harry silently preformed an advanced charm from the DA, praying that no one would notice with all of the screaming girls watching Hogwarts heartthrob hanging by his neck. The energy he had zapped into Snape made the boy drop James, and James took the opportunity to scramble to his feet and cast a charm on his attacker. The charm must have worked, because Snape went flying upward, and was hanging off of an ingredients hook on the wall, with garlic hanging behind him, by his underwear.
But James wasn't wiling to stop there. Noticing that his father was about to do something he'd regret, especially since Lily was watching, Harry gripped James's shoulder, saying, "Ignore him. He's just as you said, an over-grown bat."
"So I'll make him into one." James replied simply, putting his wand arm out, but Harry gripped his wrist and pulled the hand down.
"No. Don't waste your time."
James gave him and incredulous look, and finally said, "I know you've had a rough life, but don't you have any fun?"
Sirius watched the exchange carefully as Harry said, "Loads. I have Quidditch, the occasional good prank, and midnight excursions, usually to the kitchens, remember? But I don't have to pick on people to enjoy myself."
"But he nearly killed me!" James replied, starting to get angry.
"I know that, and he'll be punished by the headmaster. But you've already gotten him. He's up there, and embarrassed, and you've gotten him off of you. It'd be wrong to pick on him now."
"Why?" Peter asked, from behind James's elbow.
"Because, he's already defenseless. He doesn't have his wand, his feet aren't on the floor, and the slightest move is really going to hurt."
"Yeah, but that's just it." James said, as though explaining it to a child. "It's an easy way to get him back. He can't get to us, and we can't get in trouble, because we were just defending ourselves."
"James, you've defended yourself. You've done a through job of it, and there's nothing wrong with what you just did." Remus said, stepping up. Harry smiled gratefully at him, and continued for Remus, saying,
"But if you attack him now, you'd be worse than him. It'd be like a Death Eater attacking a muggle. They can't defend themselves."
Slowly, looking at Harry and Remus, James lowered his wand. Silently Sirius applauded, suddenly seeing Harry's reasoning, and realizing that this was the reason Remus never had continued with them past the defense point.
"I don't believe this." He heard Peter say. "Are you really going to worship everything he says?"
"He's right, though, Peter." Remus pointed out.
"But Sirius and James have always done this! It's something that doesn't change. Harry's seen us do this before!"
"Not to this extent, or he would've stopped us then, I'm sure." James said, looking at Harry for back up, which Harry quickly gave. He saw Lily smile at him from behind Harry, who was nodding, and grinned back, internally doing cartwheels. Peter was right; everything had been different since Harry's arrival. He liked it.
Peter didn't. As Harry nodded, and Peter noted that everyone was taking his word for it, he decided that he wanted to get power like that over people. No one ever listened to him, and the only people who had ever listened to him, his friends, (even if they had only listened to him to poke fun at him) were now listening to Harry. He would do whatever it took to gain that sort of power over people. It was then that he decided to go to Malfoy. Malfoy was sure to be a Death Eater, a stronger one. So what if he was a little younger? He could get Peter a position as a Death Eater.
What Peter didn't realize was that people didn't listen to Harry because they feared him, like they did because they feared Voldemort. No, they respected him, and sometime respect outweighs fear.
"So what should we do with him?" James asked, still grinning, even though Peter had just stormed out. Lily had smiled at him!
"Well…I don't see why we can't just leave him here. I mean, it was in self defense…" Sirius said hopefully.
"Go after Peter, Sirius." Remus urged, ignoring them. "He looked really upset, and you're the only one who didn't disagree with him."
But Sirius remembered what he had told himself, and remembered the frustration and fear in Harry's voice. Most of all, he remembered Harry words. " Sirius! Don't go after Peter!" They may have been whispered, but they were said, and Sirius would listen to them.
There would come a time when he'd wish he hadn't.
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