an: crammed fic for adriana and shefali's jilytober 2015. the prompt: james and lily (and harry) survive halloween of '81. happy reading!

1982

Saying certain names out loud still hurts, so they don't.

They wake up early. There is a nervous hush tiptoeing across the halls, the kind they thought has gone over the past year, but, well, it is October 31st. It's bound to return. Not to haunt them, not exactly, just remind them maybe. That they're bound to commemorate. That they owe it to their friends. To… Frank and Alice.

Frank and Alice. The water beats down James's bare back and he leans a hand against the tiled wall before him, the other reaching up to massage his nape. He breathes deep, slow breaths through his mouth, watches the rivulets of water chase each other's tails. Thinks, what does it take to wash all the guilt away? Frank and Alice, Frank and Alice…

He steps out of the shower and stares his reflection down in the bathroom mirror. Frank and Alice. Yep. Definitely still stings.

He holds Lily's hand under the table all throughout breakfast, and Lily manages a smirk at his one-handed attempt to eat. It's still dark when they step out. They don't leave Harry. They can't. The old rusty gates appear before them after the apparition haze and he's still asleep in his father's arms, his tiny fists balled up and clutching James's shirt. He looks so calm, their Harry, so content in slumber. James strokes his hair and kisses the top of his head. He's sorry for everything else, he really is. But he's not sorry for Harry being here, safe and close and breathing against his chest.

The graves look new. Augusta, James guesses. Lily stoops down to press a hand over Alice's name, brushing away a stray leaf. They don't say anything. Lily sniffs, and James puts his free arm around her.

The walk back out is better, lighter. Lily's hand is no longer dawn-cold. Harry stirs at the sound of the gates creaking close. For a moment it seems like he's going to cry, but the sun breaks over the horizon, and in awe he watches the light spill onto the dewy graveyard over James's shoulder.

1983

James is asleep, and Lily rolls over to her other side to stare at the window. It's a wider window, and there's a different tree silhouetted against the pitch dark, an unfamiliar picture framed in the night-dimmed white wood. The insects are quieter and the stars are… hmm. Shier. Although it might just be the weather, of course. The lone desk in the room is devoid of her potion books, of her research notes. No Quidditch posters tacked on the walls. No Gryffindor things. The shelves, too. The list goes on and on, a disorderly parade of bullet points going too fast, so fast that even James's quiet breaths from behind her can't catch up and calm her down this time: The floors creak in different places. The staircase is longer, wider—not by much, still nothing to James's family house, but the difference is still stark. There is a patch of mildew in one corner of the kitchen ceiling. The cupboards are empty, two spare rooms are unfurnished, they need new couches, maybe a coffee table, yellow roses in the garden…

She closes her eyes and sighs. For now, she reminds herself. Mostly empty for now. And there's nothing wrong with that! There's nothing wrong with coming here, leaving Godric's Hollow. They need this. She and James and Harry. Godric's Hollow was home, but it was home during the war, and try as they all did to sweep away the remnants of battle from its corners, they remained in the air and taunted to engulf them every time the house got too still, too quiet. Echoes of terrible midnight news lingered, and the constant attacks of… of uncertainty, of terror still—god, the terror. Of being shut up forever. Of getting bloody murdered when they step out. They needed this. This is right. It will be a better home.

A short, stuttering creak cuts through the silence, startling Lily's thoughts. Before she can process that the noise came from the hallway—they've left the door open so they can hear the house, and Harry—their son is in the doorway, frown and furrowed brows visible through the scant dregs of streetlamp spilling in to the room from the window.

Lily raises a hand to beckon him in, but before she can speak, "Hey, mate," says James, without any indication of having been sleeping at all.

She sits up to survey her husband in surprise, but his glass-less squinted eyes are fixed on Harry, who shuffles into the room feet bare and glasses askew and hair a mirror of the same storm on his father's head. He stops on the foot of the bed and says in his tired little voice, "Can I sleep here?"

"Of course," says James, who's sat up now as well. "D'you want us to go to your room then?"

"Daaadddd," groans Harry, and James laughs, and he and Lily scoot to the sides so Harry can cuddle in between them. The pillows are righted and the sheets are pulled up to Harry's chin. His glasses are laid beside James's on the bedside table.

"Okay, I think I can sleep now," says Harry contentedly, closing his eyes already.

They're all silent for a while, James and Lily sort of just staring at each other in the dark over their son, the same content, worried, happy, tired—everything almost-smile fixed on their faces.

James reaches out for Lily's hand, tracing circles against her knuckles with his thumb. Harry shifts a little beneath, mumbles, "All right, mum? Daddy?"

And the other two's almost-smiles crack into full sigh-smiles of relief, an exhale of happiness that they didn't know until now they were warily holding in.

"Yeah, we are."

"Sweet dreams, Harry."

1984

She wakes up late and James is not beside her when she does. Her heart skips a beat, but the panic doesn't last long anymore, and she feels more sure of her steps and the floor and their presence here more than she ever was.

Three years. Three whole years, and it's really, really gone, isn't it?

There are yellow roses on the kitchen table. A cup of coffee charmed to keep warm for a time. A scrawled "Morning! :) –James & Harry" on a scrap of paper, the torn bottom of a receipt for… milk, she finds. And strawberries. She can hear them in the other room where James's window seat project waits almost finished. Harry is laughing. He asks questions, mocks his dad's shabby handiwork, drops the things he's asked to hand.

Roses and coffee and giggles nearby. This is her life now. She skims the flowers, and they feel like drops of sunshine beneath her hand.

1985

"D'you think Moony's okay?" Sirius asks, sat all thoughtful and cross-legged on the counter, and James wonders if he realizes that this isn't the first time he's asked him this. Not even the second time.

"Dunno," says James, feigning distractedness. Good thing it doesn't take much at the moment. He looks at his reference sheet for recipe number three, taped on the wall, barely making out his own handwriting. Cooking without magic is so hassle. But he's in charge of it this year, and—because he's a proud dumbo, an arrogant toerag—he's asked Lily and Harry to get out of the house while he cooks up the greatest dinner of their lives, so that none of Lily's unhelpable interventions or Harry's bouts of endless "taste-testing" ruin it. Yeah, he thinks, because he's ruining it on his own just fine, thank you. "Hey, will you pass me that jar—no, not that—yes. Thanks…"

Silence. James glances at Sirius without moving his head, and is filled with exasperation at the look on his face. "Look, why don't you just owl him?"

"He might still be mad at me," says Sirius, and the immediacy of his response is proof, yet again, of how much he's been thinking about this.

Not that James hasn't been. It's just—Moony needs it. He needs to be away and sulking or whatever right now. But he'll be back. James is sure. And till then there's nothing to do but wait.

"D'you think I shouldn't have said anything?"

James stalls by ticking off two more instructions, probably getting the measurements wrong because his mind's somewhere else, but what the hell. "I don't know."

Sirius rolls his eyes and huffs. "Loads of help, you are." He gets a puff of flour in the face for that. James didn't need to look at him to aim. He smirks when he hears him cough and swear.

And then, while sprinkling salt (that's definitely way too much salt than just the required 'pinch'), James says, "No, I don't think that."

"What?"

"I said," James repeats, abandoning his task on the sink and turning to face Sirius at last, but is distracted by how clean Sirius looks compared to his marinade-smeared apron and his flour-dusted glasses. "You know, you're no better help than Harry around here. At all. At least he doesn't ask stressful questions while I work."

"First of all: you're not working. You're… I don't know, bullshitting this. Second of all," this he says with a hand held up to silence James, who was about to challenge him about the bullshitting bit, "so it does stress you out. I knew it. You were trying to be all cool about it but I knew it."

"Oh, shut up. Of course it stresses me out, Padfoot, you always stress me out. You're an extremely stressful person. But like I said, I don't think it."

"Don't think what?"

"That you shouldn't have said anything. It's good that you told him. It would have been this big wedge between you two. No one would like that."

Sirius frowns. "So you like that he's not talking to us?"

"He talks to me," says James. "And Lily."

Sirius arches a brow at him.

"Fine, I don't like it. But you obviously still feel guilty about ever suspecting him. You're always so… polite. Don't you think we don't notice? And we both know that'd never go away unless he forgives you, which would never happen if he didn't know you had an offense to begin with."

"Yeah, well, now he knows, and he hates us."

"Just you, mate."

"Thank you, Prongs."

"Of course he'd react this way! You did tell him you didn't trust him. That you thought—"

"—I thought he was the spy, yeah. But that was before, you know that."

"Yes, I do."

"Now I know—for sure—that I can trust him with my…"

"Your life?" James prompts, when Sirius leaves the sentence hanging.

"Well, no. I don't know. My motorcycle, maybe."

"Same thing."

"True."

They stare at each other; Sirius drags his gaze away first to pull his 'god I'm so stupid' face. "Why did I have to fucking tell him? It's long over. We're all okay now. I should just have kept it to myself. Forever."

"Stop beating yourself up. You… er, get a point for honesty from me."

"It wasn't even honesty. It wasn't like anyone asked."

"You were drunk. We all were a bit."

"I screwed up."

"Yes, you did."

Sirius looks scandalized. "Wow. You didn't even hesitate."

"I've already made two excuses for you and I'm this close to dumping this casserole over your head," says James. "Let's give him a week. No—three more days. If he still doesn't talk to you then, I'll talk to him. But let him stew for now, yeah?"

Sirius sighs. He doesn't say yes or nod or anything, but James knows when he's resigned. They leave the topic at that and Sirius begins his three-day wait by finally jumping off the counter to help. He briefly surveys James's dish (or what atrocity has become of it), narrows his eyes at the godawful handwriting, and then thumps James on the head. "You forgot number four, master chef," he points out, jabbing a finger on his cheat sheet.

"Oh goddamn it."

1986

Harry goes missing. Sirius picks Remus up from Hogsmeade and they drive to the Potters' on his motorcycle, Sirius barging in before Remus can knock.

"How long does it take you two to change?" Sirius scolds James and Lily, while they all rummage around Harry's usual hiding places, finding nothing. "You got fucking distracted, didn't you? I swear to god—"

"He wishes," snaps Lily. "He was being an idiot, as usual."

"Oh I'm being an idiot—" begins James, but Remus cuts him off.

"You were arguing?" he says, exchanging a look with Sirius and shaking their heads in unison.

They (that is to say Remus) find Harry in the cramped cupboard under the stairs. He fell asleep. with James's invisibility cloak—which he procured without the knowledge or permission of his parents, as it turns out, and honestly Sirius doesn't know whether to be admonitory or proud about that, and is only glad that it's not his business to be either.

"I was only going to scare you," Harry says, looking properly guilty. "But you took so long to come down! So I fell asleep."

"Well, you certainly succeeded," says Remus. "We were all very scared."

"Never ever disappear on us like that again," Lily tells off Harry, but she's hugging him so fiercely, and James is still running his fingers through his hair but is also looking at his wife and son like he's forgotten whatever petty fight took them so bloody long upstairs. As he should, really.

James kisses her long and hard on the doorstep before she leaves to meet some important git for work or some other. Remus is supposed to go back to Hogwarts too now that the problem's solved, and he rolls his eyes from the top step of the porch stairs while he waits for the gross affair to finish. Sirius, who is staying, makes retching noises, making Harry giggle.

Later in the living room, Sirius and Harry swap chocolate frog cards. James is in the kitchen, doing the dishes. In the ensuing late afternoon lull, Harry softly confides to Sirius that while waiting in his nook earlier, before he fell asleep, it occurred to him that his parents might never bother to try and find him anymore.

"Nah, they'll always find you. Did you see them? They were all—" He makes exaggerated expressions of worry. Harry laughs again.

"But I was 'sleep then. What if I wasn't? What if I'm just lost?"

"They'd still find you."

"Even if I have the cloak?"

"Why are you lost and wearing the cloak?"

"Ermmm… I dunno."

Sirius nods solemnly. "Even if you have the cloak."

"Even if it was under Aunt Petunia's stairs?"

Sirius laughs. "Even if you were under my mum's stairs."

Harry grimaces at that. And then, "Uncle Moony found me though," says Harry.

"Does it matter?" says Sirius, rumpling Harry's hair. "He just beat your dad to it. And me. And, well, your mum. But one of us is always going to find you. Oh look—" He raises up a card that just caught his eye, trapping it between index and middle finger and then flicking it neatly towards Harry's pile. "It's your granddad!"

The longer Harry stares at it, the deeper the lines between his eyebrows get. "Why is… erm, my hair's not gonna be like that when I grow up, is it?"

1987

Lily shifts in her seat so she can look Miss Cole square in the eye. Beside her James squeezes her hand, but she doesn't know if he's just being twitchy. "I just don't think anyone could turn someone else's hair entirely blue," explains Lily, "without the other's, er, full participation…"

"And eyebrows," James reminds her, nudging her side.

Lily nods. "And eyebrows, yes. Thank you, James."

"You're welcome, Lily."

Miss Cole looks positively pained from behind her desk, with her lips pursed McGonagall-thin and her beady eyes sinking beneath her frown-lines. She inspects James and Lily and Harry, the last standing beside his seated father and is still glaring at the other boy in contempt. And then there's Kevin, big burly kid who could so easily have been Dudley's twin brother, if not for his hair—and eyebrows—being the most vivid shade of lapis lazuli at the moment. His parents (filthy rich by what they've heard) are not around, and he's accompanied instead by a furious, flustered, really bewildered nanny named (nicknamed?) Baby.

"Kevin says he did it," says Baby, pointing a wrinkly-knuckled finger at Harry. She speaks in a loud spitting hiss that's her attempt at 'keeping quiet' after getting told off so many times for being so bloody loud. "Kevin would never do this to himself—"

"Oh, why not? it looks amazing on him," says James, straight face and amazed concern and all. Harry's glare breaks, but he has the sense to bite down on his lip to keep his laugh in.

Harry doesn't get in too much trouble for it, thank Merlin, mostly for lack of evidence. Lily had a point, and Miss Cole is driven to just conclude that the boys must have agreed to mess around and colour Kevin's hair, and Kevin initially agreed, except now he looks (even more) ridiculous and he's not happy about it. (What happened, really, if anyone wants to know, was that Kevin wanted to give Harry a free haircut, because he thought his classmate 'four-eyes' looked stupid with his 'mop-head'. No one knows why on earth Kevin cares about this. Whether it be for his genuine concern for other people's hair or just his natural royal gitness, between morning break and maths Kevin stole Harry's glasses, cornered him, held him by the collar and loomed triumphantly over him with a pair of scissors—then Harry grappled blindly at his head and his hair was just. Suddenly. All. Blue.)

Harry and Kevin mutter their respective apologies, and Harry glances warily at his parents when Miss Cole asks them to shake hands. Lily nods; James smiles at him, puts a hand around his shoulders and urges them forward. Harry swallows at the glint in Kevin's eye when he takes his small hand in his hammy fingers, ready to retaliate—but then James cocks his head to one side and—Lily couldn't entirely see, standing behind, but she's pretty sure James just gave Kevin the look. Not the glare, he reserves that for equal grounds. It's the look; that calm, icy, smug James Potter look that knows it can't lose. It has made fully grown adversaries waver in the past, so Lily can only imagine how downright terrifying that could be to a seven-year-old.

Kevin drops Harry's hand in barely two seconds. He's out of the office in five.

James glances at Lily to smirk. She rolls her eyes at him—but she can't help smirking right back.

1988

The parlour is crowded, but they find an available table for two in the patio, under the shade of a giant pink umbrella. Halfway through his ice cream (chocolate and raspberry with chopped nuts), Harry adjusts his glasses and opens his mouth to say something, but his Uncle Moony beats him to it: "The answer is no, Harry."

"I wasn't gonna ask again!"

"Alright. What is it then?"

"I was only going to say… that I promise not to tell anyone. I promise. Not even daddy. Or mum!"

Remus laughs. "D'you think they don't know?"

Harry's eyes widen, and he actually drops his spoon in disapproval. "They know what your boggart is? Why won't you tell me?"

"Because I don't want to lie to you. You're a grown up now, as you're so constantly reminding us—and we're friends! But I also don't want to tell you what it is… yet."

"But—"

"Come on now, Harry."

"But now you're missing the list."

"I'm truly sorry about that."

Harry pouts, digs in again, and then, "Okay, what about your Patronus?"

Remus considers this for a moment. "Wolf," he says quietly.

"Cool."

Remus beams at him. "Yeah, cooler than your dad's. And Padfoot's."

"Oh… hmm, I don't know about that. I really like stags… Hey, Uncle Moony."

"Yeah?"

"What about Uncle Padfoot? Does he know? I won't tell him, if you're worried about that."

Remus chuckles, leaning over to wipe chocolate off Harry's nose. "I'm sorry, he knows. Look, how about I take you to Hogwarts next Sunday? I'll take you to the kitchens. That'll make up for being the lame uncle, won't it?"

Harry lightens up. "Really?"

"Yes."

"Yes! Yes, please."

"Alright then."

"Can we go on Saturday?"

"Ah, no. The joke shop's opening on Saturday."

"Oh, yeah…"

Ice cream is finished and the walk home is a quiet, autumn-coloured calm. When the crowd thins in a particular stretch of the road, Harry nudges Remus's side. "Hey, Uncle Moony."

"I really hope you're not going to ask me again."

"I wasn't."

"Go on, then."

Harry grins up at him. "I don't think you're lame."

1989

"You're kidding," says James, reverent and awestruck, and Lily knows she's made the right decision.

"We're not," she replies in sing-song.

"But this is… this is the latest Comet." He runs his hand along the smooth length of the new racing broom, mouth still open in amazement. "How—"

"We all pitched in. Sirius and Remus and—"

"And me!" says Harry, jumping in and hugging what he can reach of James. He's been bursting since the idea came forth, and it's a miracle, really, that he managed to keep the secret in until now. "I pitched in! I broke Mr. Jupiter!"

"You broke Mr. Jupiter?" says James, torn away from his moment at once. "But you've been saving Mr. Jupiter for your broom! And you love Mr. Jupiter!"

"Mum bought me another one. It's a TARDIS bank! It's bigger on the inside. And Uncle Moony said Hogwarts has brooms there I can practice with, dad, and Uncle Padfoot said he'd buy me a broomstick himself once I'm a really, really good flier. And, dad, they said—you're going to play in the World Cup."

"Oh. I… Who said?"

"All of us," says Lily, smirking.

"That's… the World Cup. Huh."

"Yeah!" says Harry, almost yelling now, practically bouncing in excitement. "You're going to play for Puddlemere United, aren't you? I mean, the Wasps are fine, too, but—"

"Easy, Harry," says Lily. Her grin is ear-splitting.

James holds up a hand. "Alright, back up one second—but, Lily, your work—"

"They've given me permission to work on the potions at home. I can use the spare room upstairs—don't worry, Harry and I have it all sorted out. Right, Harry?"

"Yeah, we have." Harry holds up his palm for a high-five, and James grins at them both fondly.

"There's also that Prophet column still going," continues Lily, "and the boys already said Tom can handle the joke shop just fine on his own now. I just thought… you haven't forgotten, have you? I know you always tell me it's okay, but I see you when you play with Harry, and… it's always been your dream. You can now, James. So there you go. Go for it."

James exhales a shuddering sigh of disbelief, overwhelmed. And then, shaking his head at… them, at the feeling of being with them here, now, dear Merlin—he drops the broom and takes his wife's face into his hands. Her lips taste like flying, like winning, like Lily Evans under the beech tree by the lake that very first time, and so, so, so much more—

"Good thing Uncle Padfoot's not here," remarks Harry, righting the broom up from the floor and watching his parents in equal euphoria.

1990

Kingsley Shacklebolt is Minister for Magic, and James doesn't have to (re)practice his Patronus charms, because it's a tall, bushy-eyebrowed auror who leads him down the poorly lit corridor and not a swarm of hooded barbarities who want to suck out his soul. The auror leaves him to the cell second to last on the left, and there's nothing at first, just varying shades of darkness everywhere James turns, the echoing beats of water dripping, the muffled rage of the waves way down below. He thinks he can hear laughter from somewhere near; a cold, high-pitched female giggling, and he considers just walking out because, god, this place is mad. But then there's movement from the corner, behind the bars of course, and then he's in front of him, and James… doesn't know. He wants to punch him.

"Prongs," says Wormtail. No—Peter. His voice is a scratchy whisper, his face is sunken, his hair's a long wispy dead mess. He's thinner than James has ever seen him.

"Shut up," says James, voice low. He feels the urge to back away one step, not expecting Peter to cling on to the bars to see him.

"I'm—what are you—" He's surveying James up and down, hungrily drinking in anything he can from beyond Azkaban. "Prongs, bloody hell, I'm so happy you're here—"

"I said shut up. I didn't come here for you."

Peter looks surprised, then hurt, then his grip on the metal loosens as a maniacal grin starts to spread on his lips. "Clearly, you did. You can't help it. Merlin. I can't believe I almost gave up."

James blinks at him in incredulity. "What?"

"I am sorry, Prongs. I am. And I knew you'd know that, I knew you'd come back for me, but it's been so long—"

James starts to laugh. "Are you insane?"

Peter shuts up.

James looks at him, really looks at him, and the anger threatens to bubble up the surface again. But he holds himself down, keeps his clenched fists on his sides. He takes a deep breath, licks his lips, and then—"We're happy."

"I'm sorry?"

There. That's why he's here. Not to lash out, but to… to drop everything that's been weighing him down. And now that he's said that—he didn't know that's what he was supposed to say, it just sort of came out—he feels like he finally has. His hand slackens. He thinks of his first world league match next month, Sirius and Regulus talking again, Remus in Hogwarts, Lily and Harry brewing potions in the spare room. Idle nights at the town plaza. The joke shop's first anniversary. That time they danced to the Weird Sisters' new song in the rain… "We're happy," he repeats. "Me and Lily and Harry. Sirius. Remus. Everyone left is happy, Pete. Everyone alive."

Peter opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.

"And I don't know if I've forgiven you. Maybe I have, or maybe… I don't know, maybe I just stopped going back. I certainly haven't forgotten, but trust me, I will."

"I'm…" But there's nothing Peter can say now. Maybe he really is sorry, and maybe it'll never be enough, but James doesn't care. And he knows that Peter knows this, sees it on his face, because his former friend cuts his sentence short. "Prongs…"

"I'm done with you," says James. "Goodbye, Wormtail. From all of us."

And he's sure then that he really isn't angry anymore, that he's okay, truly and finally, because the name no longer hurt so much as it did years ago.

The same way, he thinks as he walks down the halls of the most desolate place on earth, feeling so strange to be so… so full of light, in a place like this—the same way Frank and Alice (and Marlene and Dorcas and Benjy and Gideon and Fabian and all the others) haven't stung in a long while.