Sirius didn't die at the Department of Mysteries that day. He almost fell through the Veil, but Remus put a Petrifus Totalus and a Mobilicorpus on him, and he didn't fall in. Harry was so mad at Bellatrix Lestrange for almost killing Sirius that he went after her anyway.

Harry didn't yell at Dumbledore and destroy some of his (as in Dumbledore's) possessions when he went to Dumbledore's office for their usual after-adventure-thingy talk. He learned of the prophecy and everything, and Sirius went back to Grimmauld Place as usual, and Harry went to the Dursleys after the school term ended.

This means that Kreacher will NOT get sent to Hogwarts, because Harry didn't become the master of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, since Sirius didn't die.

Also, Sirius was not pardoned, or freed, or caught or anything. Like I said, he simply went back to Order headquarters after the battle, before Fudge and the Aurors got there.

On a surprisingly cold summer day in Godric's Hollow… read the author's note above if you haven't already. And now on to the real story.

In the small town of Godric's Hollow there was an abandoned house. This house was at the very end of the most deserted street in Godric's Hollow, and said house was falling down. It was a ruined wreck. It was demolished.

No one ever dared to go down the street. Sometimes people came and passed by the street, but everyone knew of the ruins of what once was a nice house there, so no one ever went to check it out.

Sometimes people told stories of the house. They said there was a young couple, named Lily and James Potter, recently wed. They had a beautiful baby boy named Harry, and they were the nicest, most picture-perfect family you could find anywhere.

Lily and James Potter were extremely odd, though. The father always carried a wooden stick in his back pocket—it always stuck out, and when he walked by, people noticed it, and thought it was strange. The mother was a nurse, but no one ever saw her in hospitals nearby.

Lily and James Potter disappeared a little while after their baby boy was born. No one knew where they had gone—it seemed as if they had simply vanished off the face of the earth.

But then one Halloween night, the house where the young couple had lived seemed to have reappeared again. There were flashes of green light, and then an explosion. The dead bodies of Lily and James Potter were found in the ruins of the house. Their baby boy was missing.

It was rumored that an evil person had come and killed the parents, but had somehow been killed himself when he tried to kill the baby boy. Then he had disappeared, but not before blowing up the house.

Some people said that the baby, Harry, had been killed in the explosion. Other people said that some people had come to take him away and raise him somewhere else. It was also rumored that the ghosts of Lily and James Potter wandered around the house and down the street, looking for their baby boy.

Needless to say, no one ever dared to go down that street after hearing that story. So no one would have seen it when, sometime mid-July, when there was a storm, a bolt of lightning cracked down upon the ruins of the house, depositing two unconscious bodies into the demolished home at separate ends (of the home).

These people's names were Lily and James Potter.

James groaned. His whole body ached, as if he had just fallen off his broomstick during a particularly rough Quidditch match. He wondered where he was—he was lying on a very hard surface.

Suddenly the memories came flooding back to James. Voldemort… duel… Lily… Harry…

James forced himself up, ignoring his protesting limbs. He squinted his eyes open, and stared in horror and shock around at his home. It was completely destroyed—he was lying in the ruins.

"Lily!" he called. His voice cracked, as if he had not used it in a long time. "Lily, are you okay? What about Harry?" He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, praying to God for an answer. Please don't let them be dead… please don't let them be dead… please don't let them be dead… please don't let them be dead…

A muffled groan was all that he got as a response. James's heart leapt.

"Lily?" he called again, this time louder and a bit more confidently. "Lily?"

He trudged through the wreckage, carefully not looking at all of their demolished possessions. James glanced at the staircase—it was almost falling down, but it seemed to be sturdy enough.

James climbed up the creaky staircase, occasionally expecting it to fall and take him with it, but it didn't. He stumbled into the room, and saw Lily crumpled on the floor.

"Lily!" James gasped, rushing towards her, none too steadily. "Are you alright?"

Lily let out a weak moan and pushed herself up with great effort. "James," she sobbed, throwing herself into his open arms. "James, Harry's dead. V-Voldemort k-k-killed him." Her teeth chattered.

James felt a pain, like a knife stabbing into his heart. "Wh-what?" he gasped out, hoping he had heard her wrong.

"Harry's dead! Harry, my baby boy, he's dead!" Lily sobbed harder than ever.

"That's not possible," James stammered in shock. "He was alive just a moment ago…"

"It's all Voldemort's fault!" Lily wept. "That bloody bastard killed my child!"

"You… you don't know he's dead," James said frantically, trying to reassure himself as much as he was his wife. "Maybe he's just… around here somewhere, and you missed him… or something…"

"I looked," Lily sobbed. "I looked for him, and I didn't find him. He's gone! It's all Voldemort's fault! I hate him!"

"I hate him too, Lily," James said quietly. Because even though he really wanted to cry, or scream, or shout, or yell, or break something, or whatever, because he just knew Harry was dead, he couldn't. It was like all the emotion had been drained from him, and he was too tired to do anything. Instead, his cool, calm Auror side was taking over.

"How could you just say that?" Lily demanded. "Our son is dead, and you don't seem sad at all! And it's all your fault!"

Lily and James both froze at the same time.

"Oh, James, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to say that. It just slipped out," Lily gasped. "James, I'm sorry."

"You're right," James replied, still in that horribly calm, serious voice. "It is my fault. I didn't protect you or Harry enough."

"James, you tried. That was enough. It's not your fault you couldn't save Harry."

"It is my fault. We should've known Voldemort wouldn't just suspect Sirius and nobody else. We should've known he would've gone after Peter, too. This is all my fault."

"James." Lily stood up rather unsteadily and placed her hands on her husband's shoulders. She looked into his eyes and said quietly, "James, look at me. It isn't your fault. You didn't know. If it's your fault, then it's my fault too."

"It's not," James contradicted, his eyes wide.

"Exactly. It's only Voldemort's fault. Voldemort's and no one else's."

"Voldemort's fault, and no one else's," James repeated. "Voldemort's and no one else's. Voldemort's and…" he trailed off, his eyes growing wide with horror. "Voldemort. Oh God, Lily. He must have tortured and killed Peter to get the information of our whereabouts. And then he'll have killed Sirius and Remus and… Lily, it can't be just after Halloween. It's too warm out. It has to be summer, if not spring. We must've been in comas for who knows how long, and… Everyone's probably dead!"

"You don't know that," Lily argued half-heartedly. "Maybe… maybe Sirius and Remus are both alive. Maybe…"

"But what about your friends, Lily?" James demanded. "What about Karen and Alyssa and Alice?"

"They're not dead," Lily said firmly, but her voice was missing enough conviction to prove to James that she was trying to assure herself of this fact as well. "They… they can't be dead…"

Finally James voiced a reasonable opinion. "We have to see Dumbledore."

"Can… can you Apparate?" Lily asked, seemingly numb from the day's events.

"I… think so." James grabbed on to Lily. "Are you steady enough?"

"Enough for Apparating." Lily sniffed twice. Neither of them seemed to notice the steady downpour of rain that was drenching them head to toe. It wasn't important at this very moment, and all it was was a nuisance, a barely noticeable nuisance.

"Okay, we'll go see Dumbledore," James declared, his Auror side taking over again. He closed his eyes and pictured the destination of the Hogwarts grounds, by the Forbidden Forest, just before the Hogwarts wards ended.

And with a pop, Lily and James Potter disappeared.

Nobody noticed where another bolt of lightning cracked down upon the exact place Lily and James Potter had first been dumped.

Please read and review!

-xAndromedaBlackx-

-chapter edited oct. 6 '08-