James was exhausted. It was his turn to take over night duties for Harry, and it was one of his worst nights in a while. Besides a couple feedings and one diaper change, it seemed like Harry just wanted to be held. A part of James wondered if it had anything to do with what happened the previous day, but he shook that thought out his mind quickly. It wasn't an unusual for this to happen. It was simply the timing that made James think of it.

He sighed and looked down at his mini me that he held securely in his arms. Harry's green eyes were locked on his face even as he drained the bottle James was holding to his mouth.

"We are gonna leave you again today with your grandparents, buddy. You have to be good for them, yeah?"

Harry blinked.

"Yeah, yeah, I know how can I say such a thing being a Marauder. It's very simple Hare-Bear, I'm a hypocrite. Do as I say, not as I do and all that. You understand?"

Harry let go of the now empty bottle, and James lifted him up and burped him easily.

"Yes, I knew you would," James said, laying him back into the crook of his arm. He turned towards the door of the nursery only to find his beautiful wife leaning against the doorway.

"Been there long?" he asked, crossing the room quickly to get a morning kiss.

"Long enough to hear you turn traitor on troublemakers everywhere," Lily said, stealing the baby into her own arms and leading the way downstairs.

"Hey! You should be proud about how responsible I turned out to be."

Lily laughed, and a familiar bark of laughter joined in as they entered their kitchen.

"James, responsible?" Sirius laughed, sitting in his usual seat at their round dining table. "And I'm a muggle."

James fake scowled at his brother in all but blood, but secretly he was rather pleased Sirius was up and joking around. When tending to Harry last night, his mind wandered equally to the new people residing in Hogwarts and to Sirius.

Lily set Harry into his swing, and they dug into the meal she made. Pancakes and bacon and eggs lay across the table. As James loaded up his plate, he made note of the purple bags under Sirius's eyes even as he listened intently as him and Lily discussed the news.

"There was a raid in St. Albans last night," Lily was saying. "Fifty muggles dead and two aurors that responded to the scene."

"The ministry is offering free warding consultations for anyone who needs it," Sirius said. "I guess the declining population finally made them think with more than their pockets."

"That does nothing to protect the muggles like in St. Albans though," Lily said, sadly.

"Or help families that can't afford the actual warding work," James said.

"When did the ministry get so useless?" Sirius asked, stabbing into his eggs.

Neither James nor Lily answered. James privately thought the ministry had always been this way. He had grown up with his parent's complaints about the corruption that was slowly spreading through their government. However, he knew Sirius hadn't considered it that way before. With being a rebellious teenager from a dark family, he had a shiny view of the government that he thought would disapprove of his family's leanings. He was still adjusting to the reality that hit him once he graduated and actually started paying attention to the news.

The three finished up their meals with the silence only broken by Harry's babbling. As they were cleaning up, Harry started to cry.

"That'll probably be a nappy change," Lily said as she directed her wand to make the dishes wash themselves.

"I got it," James said, scooping his baby up in his arms.

After getting himself and his son ready, he quickly dropped him off at his parents, and then James, Sirius, and Lily floo into Dumbledore's office.

The Headmaster was sitting at his desk, reading through a large tome intently. When he heard them enter, he marked his place and closed the book.

"Ah, good morning," he said with a smile. "I see you decided to get to know our guests."

"Are you looking into time travel?" Lily asked, leaning forward slightly trying to read the title of the book on his desk.

James smiled. That was his wife. Always so curious, she would forget her manners in her pursuit of knowledge.

"Hm," Dumbledore nodded as he got up. "I'm afraid there isn't much. It's not something any has looked into that much. They've been too afraid of the consequences."

"Well if they mess up can't they just go back and fix their mistake?" Sirius asked as they all walked through the corridors.

"But what if that messes things up further? What if it rips the fabric of the universe with too much traveling? There are many questions like that that can't be answered, and no one wants to be the one to find them," Dumbledore said.

"But also the ministry won't let them," James said. "It's illegal."

"H-Harry said he did it before though," Lily said.

"Yes, that is something we should question him on today," he said, opening up the doors of the hospital wing.

As James stepped into the sterile room, his eyes immediately went to his future son and friend. Harry was sitting, propped up against his pillows. Sirius was sitting in an armchair, his back to them. Harry's head snapped up as their group walked towards his bed, and Sirius spun around tensing as they both watched each of them.

James paused for only a second as his son's intense green eyes found his own hazel ones. The almost greedy way his eyes were taking in his face filled James with a bad feeling. It was almost as if he had never seen his own father before, but that was ridiculous. He probably needed the comfort of his father and mother, James thought firmly to himself as Harry's eyes left him and turned toward Lily. Them from the future wasn't there, and he was missing them, needing their comfort. That must be it. James tried to ignore the pit in his stomach, and sat in one the chairs Dumbledore conjured up.

"I hope you had a restful night," Dumbledore said, smoothing his purple and silver robes out.

Sirius, the time traveling one (James made a mental note to stick to calling him Black or this will start to get even more confusing than it already was), snorted, but other than that him nor Harry made any other attempt at conversation. From the corner of his eye, James could see his Sirius shifting in his seat, but he didn't utter a word. Unusual, but everything about this was. Lily grabbed James's hand, and he relaxed a little.

"Yesterday you mentioned using a time turner before," Dumbledore said.

Harry nodded.

"Can you tell me all your knowledge about time travel?" he asked, undeterred by the boy's silence. "I need to know as much as I can. In this time there isn't much research into it."

The teenager shifted a little, glancing at Black briefly before answering. "I'm not sure how much I can tell you. I didn't really know what I was doing to be honest."

James's lips quirked up, and he heard Sirius stifle a bit of laughter. Black looked sharply at him, and James realized with a jolt, it was the first time he had looked at any of them. He couldn't tell anything from his face though when Black looked away, James noticed a ticking in his jaw.

"Anything you can would be helpful," Dumbledore said.

"Um, well, it was my friend's, Hermione's, time turner. She was taking a lot of classes, and got permission from the ministry to use it for her studies," Harry said.

James raised an eyebrow, and couldn't help but wonder at his son's life. Every aspect of it was a little ridiculous including the friends he had. He smiled. He couldn't help but feel proud at that.

"We went back for three hours. Er . . . we had to hide from our past selves because apparently bad things would happen if we did." Harry's eyes glanced between both Sirius's. "And, um, we had to be back in the same place that we left at the same time." He shrugged his thin shoulders. "That's it really. Nothing bad happened."

"Did you successfully change time?" Lily asked, leaning forward.

Harry jumped, and looked at Lily, his countenance paling. Lily squeezed James's hand. Tight. The smile dropped from James's face. The dread in his stomach came back even as confusion drew down his eyebrows. Black leaned forward and placed a hand on Harry's shoulder. Harry blinked and moved away. Was that tears in his eyes?

"Yeah, we did," he whispered.

"And nothing bad happened?" Dumbledore asked.

Harry shook his head.

"What's this got to do anything about what happened to us?" Black spoke up gruffly.

The Sirius beside James jumped slightly as did Lily. It was as if they had forgotten about the other time traveler. Or they were trying to. James watched as Sirius looked quickly at the floor then Harry then out the window as Black continued talking in his scratchy voice. So different from the Sirius from this time.

"Harry was hit with a spell. No time turners were involved at all," Black continued. "Even in the future time travel isn't regularly done. I've never heard of such a spell, but I can't tell you for sure. It's not like they would ever make such a thing common knowledge."

Dumbledore nodded his head, looking deep in thought.

"So you don't have any ideas on how to send us back?" Black asked.

"I'm afraid not, my boy."

Black hit his chair with his fist. "And what are we going to do until we figure it out? What happens if you never do?"

"Don't be hasty," Dumbledore said, calmly.

"Don't be hasty?" Black raised his voice as he shot up out of his chair. The chair fell backward and clattered loudly as it hit the floor. "Easy for you to say! You aren't the one years in the past with your -"

"Sirius!" Harry shouted. "Shut up!"

Harry turned his intense green eyes stared down at his now silent godfather before turning back to the headmaster. "Thank you but I think you should all leave now. We can decide what to do tomorrow."

"What's going on out here?" Madam Pomphrey asked as she strode out of her office. "This is a room for healing."

"My apologies, my dear, but we are taking our leave"

James stood with him watching as Black righted his chair and sat back in it. He buried his face in his hands. His shoulders were shaking minutely.

Madam Pomphrey started fussing over Harry even as Dumbledore waved his wand to get rid of the chairs. Harry was quietly answering the healer's questions. Lily looked like she was on the verge of tears while Sirius was staring at Black with a hard to read expression on his face. James felt like he knew how he was feeling though. The dread in his stomach felt like lead. The feeling that something was wrong was too strong to ignore now. If everything was alright in the future, there was no way Black should be reacting like that. Right?

James followed the others back to Dumbledore's office in silence. He tried to match up any reason for Black to react like that that didn't involve something bad happening to them. But he couldn't convince himself of it. It wasn't adding up.

Lily was up ahead with Dumbledore chatting quietly. Sirius was hanging back, brooding by the set of his jaw. James slowed his pace so he was in line with Sirius and waited. In no time at all, Sirius started speaking.

"I don't think you or Lily make it, Prongs," he said.

"I know," James said.

There's no point in denying what you already know deep in your heart. That only made it so you can't do anything about the situation. If they had done that when they suspected Remus of being a werewolf, they wouldn't have become Animagus's. Who knows, they might not have kept being friends with Remus at all. And where would they be then? James didn't want to imagine that.

"What are we going to do?" Sirius asked, clutching James's arm tightly.

James kept quiet, looking up ahead to where Dumbledore was opening the passageway to his office. He wouldn't like this. But that's never stopped the Marauders before.

"We are going to take a leaf out of Harry's book. We have to change time."