His smile was as beautiful a sight as she remembered - and this time the heartache remembrance brought with it was counterbalanced by the joy of having him here before her, if somewhat changed.

"Harry," she whispered again, scarcely able to believe that she was able to once again call his name and see his eyes light up in response.  Yet the happiness she saw in his expression was clouded by tight lines around his eyes, and deep shadows beneath them, not quite hidden by the frames of his glasses.  She cupped his cheeks with her trembling hands and brushed her thumbs gently along his cheekbones, relearning the familiar lines of his face.

One jagged line stood out in particular, even from beneath his dark fringe.

He flinched away from her before her fingertips had more than brushed fleetingly against the scar on his forehead, his entire body tensing visibly.  The smile vanished from his face, and in its place a blank mask was fixed.  Her fingers tingled where they had grazed his forehead.

"Harry?"  James managed to voice tremendous concern in that single word, even as Lily fought to make her thoughts coherent.

"Sorry," Harry apologised stiltedly, after a slight pause.  "I don't like my scar being touched."

Lily cast a rapid glance back at her husband, catching his eyes briefly before turning back to her newly found son.  Deliberately lowering her hands to her sides, she fought the urge to wrap him in a tight embrace and instead settled beside him on the hospital bed.

"I'm sorry, Harry," she half-whispered still, afraid to have frightened him off before she had had a chance to truly know him.  "I didn't mean to upset you - "

"You didn't know," he interrupted swiftly.  "You couldn't know."  His lips once again formed a smile, although guarded and wary as the first one had not been.

"What's so special about that scar?" Simon demanded from the other side of Harry, seeing his mother's furious glance too late to stop his question.  "I mean, I have lots of scars..."  Theo snorted at this, and Lily flicked a warning glare at him before he could do anything more than roll his eyes.

"It's a curse scar," she answered briefly, having recognised the prickly sensation in her fingertips.  "They can be very sensitive..."

Harry stared at her with somber eyes.  She darted another quick look towards James, catching his nervous frown before he could hide it from her.  Aware of her observation, he bit his lip and shook his head slightly - and Lily knew he wouldn't speak now, in front of the boys.

"How'd you get a curse scar?" Simon plowed on with his questioning, oblivious to both his parents' silent conversation and the rapidly increasing tension in his eldest brother's body.

"Simon!  That's enough!"  It was a whiplash response to Harry's reaction - even though she herself was extremely curious to hear how he'd come by that scar - and it managed to silence her youngest son at last.  It did not, however, prevent him from scowling sulkily at his family in general.  Lily wrung her hands while she racked her mind for something to say that wouldn't distress Harry further.

"So, do you have to put up with the brat in your world, too?"

"Theo!" Lily growled at him, somewhat annoyed at his provoking behaviour towards Simon, but also grateful for his breaking what was starting to become an uncomfortable silence.  "Don't be so rude!"  Nevertheless, she turned to Harry quite ready to hear his answer - and to perform damage control if Theo's question proved to evoke a similar response to Simon's.  This time, however, although Harry remained tense the query didn't seem to startle him as much.

"No," he answered, shaking his head in denial.  "My parents were... unable to have anymore children after me."

Theo raised his eyebrow as Simon started to snicker softly, muttering that at least he wasn't the only nonexistent Potter.  Lily temporarily abandoned refereeing the ongoing brotherly feud, and focussed on Harry instead.

"It was a close call here, too," she sighed softly.  "I nearly lost Theo when I was three months along with him, and again when we were attacked...  After that, Simon was something of a miracle."  A rather dubious miracle at times, but a miracle nonetheless.

Lily tore her gaze from Harry for a moment to reflect upon her younger two sons.  Theodore had been her saviour in many respects after Harry died, allowing her to focus on her living child rather than mourn too deeply her dead one.  It had been hard, though, in the years that had followed, especially since it had taken some time before James was able to fully cope with the circumstances and deaths of their son and Sirius.  Eventually it had been Simon who had made James truly smile again with his impish nature, so much like the boy James himself had once been, only with her own red-headed temperament.

Her gaze shifted to her husband once more.  His own eyes were fixed firmly on Harry, and there was a reverence there that she hadn't seen since...

She bit her lip, recalling the words of caution Albus had delivered along with the astonishing news of Harry's arrival.  Remember, he is not of this world.  Whether he stays here or returns to his own home, a price must ultimately be paid.  Lily could only pray that James would not be one of those paying the price - but nor did she wish it upon Harry, either.

Harry was hiding something; she'd been a mother too long to have any doubt of that - or to leave him to shoulder his burden alone.  That curse scar was of great concern to her, for she knew that any curse that could leave such a mark must have been serious indeed, and his sensitivity merely highlighted that fact.  Yet Harry was reluctant to speak of it, and she didn't want to push him too hard, too soon.  She wondered how much of his reticence was simply his personality, and how much was due to their being in one sense strangers, albeit with familiar faces.

An image of a laughing, shiny-eyed baby flashed through her mind, in sharp contrast to the closed-faced young man sitting beside her.  Resolutely, she vowed to uncover what had happened to her Harry in that other world - and if she could, to see him laugh like that again.
 

*** *** ***
 

He awoke from a nightmare of his best friend dying to find his wife missing from their bed.  Trying desperately not to panic, he fumbled on the bedside table for his glasses and wand.  Thus prepared, he made his way stealthily to the baby's room, where he found his son sleeping as peacefully as he and his wife should have been.  Anxiously, he continued on to the bathroom - which proved to be empty - before heading downstairs.  The sitting room and dining room were just as devoid of Lily as the bathroom had been, and he found his stomach clenching nervously at her absence - but a glint of light from the kitchen made him smile in relief at last.

"What have we here?" he murmured softly from the doorway.  Lily was scrutinizing the contents of the refrigerator with great interest.  "A kitchen raid?  And I wasn't invited?"

"Blame your son," she grinned unrepentantly at him, rubbing lightly at the bulge of her belly.  "It was all his idea."

"You're so sure it's a boy again?" he laughed softly, walking forward to wrap his arms around her waist.

"A girl wouldn't be so - "

A loud crash from the front of the house interrupted their conversation, and they stared at each other in horror.  The crashing sound was seemingly repeated from the direction of the back door, and James at last began to move.  Shutting the refrigerator as fast as he could without slamming it, he half-dragged Lily into the walk-in pantry.  He'd barely closed the door before heavy footsteps indicated someone entering the kitchen, then exiting again.  Lily began to struggle in his arms.

"Shh!"

"Let me go!" she hissed at him furiously as he held her back.  "Harry!  I have to get to him - "

"You have another child to worry about," he whispered intensely, one hand over her abdomen to emphasise his point.  "Get to the portkey!  I'll get Harry!"  He peered cautiously around the door into the kitchen and, finding it empty, swiftly ducked out of their hiding place before she could say anything else.

His wand gripped tightly in his hand, he kept low to the ground, scuttling to the doorway to the dining room.  His sight was not fully adjusted to the darkness, but he could make out the shadows of cloaked figures as they stormed into his home, and up the stairs -

"Celario!"  The whispered spell startled him, but he recovered in time to squeeze Lily's free hand quickly before she repeated the concealing charm on herself and disappeared from his sight.  It was a wrench to let her hand go.

Moving as quickly and quietly as he could, he skirted furniture and Death Eaters alike, trading carefully on the stairs lest their creaking give him away.  All it would take to dispel Lily's charm was one solid hit - and with the charm would go his best hope of saving Harry.

Halfway up the stairs, a sudden cry made him spin around and dash back down to the sitting room where Lily lay sprawled at the feet of two of the cloaked and masked figures.  Before either of them could act, James flicked his wand at the footrest behind them, transfiguring it into a rather lively dog that proceeded to snap ferociously at their legs.  As they yelled and kicked at it in surprise, he flipped the small wooden box on the coffee table that held one of their emergency portkeys into Lily's hands.  She fumbled a little as she caught it, the portkey slipping out and immediately transferring her to safety.  The Death Eaters shouted again in dismay, and James dashed back up the stairs as their cohorts came running towards their cries.

By some miracle he managed to avoid colliding with anyone on the stairs themselves, but when he entered Harry's room his luck ran out.  He stumbled backwards momentarily as the Death Eater in question juggled James' squirming, crying son and his wand.  Then instinct kicked in and he snatched Harry out of the Death Eater's arms, sprinting to his room where another portkey lay - only to be cut off by still more of Voldemort's minions.  Too many to face head-on, not with Harry in his arms.

Throwing a few quick curses, he spun on his heels once more, managing to duck and weave his way back to the top of the stairs and start down them - only to find himself gazing down into the eyes of Voldemort himself.

"Going somewhere, my dear James?"

He repressed a shudder as a strange sense of deja-vu swept through him at the sound of that voice, and held his son a little closer to his body.

"That's really quite rude of you, considering all the trouble we went to convincing your dear friend Sirius Black to invite us over."

James felt his entire body freezing over as he remembered the nightmare he had awoken from, less than a quarter of an hour earlier.

"You killed him..."  He was only made aware that he had spoken aloud when the Dark Lord answered him.

"Don't worry - you'll see him again soon enough; your son, too."

James' eyes widened as he watched Voldemort raise his wand.  He knew what was coming - and he wasn't about to go down without a fight.

"Incendio!"

He hadn't really expected it to work, and was mildly surprised to see Voldemort's robes actually catch fire.  Taking full advantage of the confusion of the Death Eaters below as they rushed to smother the flames enveloping their master, he rushed back up the stairs and started firing curses as rapidly as he could at the Death Eaters stationed there.  Two went down, but three more remained, one blasting him back against the wall, dazing him slightly and causing him to drop his wand.

"ENOUGH!"

The Death Eaters fussing at their master's robes scattered.

"AVADA - "

James stumbled back to his feet unthinkingly, turning his body to shield his son from Voldemort even as he tried once more to push his way past the three remaining Death Eaters - only to have them push him back.  He half-spun around, his footing uncertain, leaving him teetering on the top of the stairs as he tried to keep from falling -

"KEDAVRA!"

The green light flooded towards him, and he made quick apologies to Lily for not being able to protect their son -

He fell towards the light - only to be swallowed by darkness...
 
 

It was a shock when he found himself able to open his eyes once more.  It was even more of a shock to find himself staring at a small, dark-haired form lying motionless at the bottom of the stairs, while curses and hexes flew thickly through the air nearby.  A small pool of blood lay by his head.

Ignoring the chaos around him, he scrambled the scant distance across the floor to his son and touched his bloody forehead with tentative fingers.  "Harry?"  There was no response.  He caressed his cheek gently - and froze as he realised just how still his son was.  "Harry?"  He picked him up, searching his small body frantically for a sign of life -

Harry's head lolled unnaturally on his shoulders.

While Aurors and Death Eaters battled fiercely throughout the ruins of his home, James Potter cradled his son's corpse tenderly against his chest, and wept.
 

*** *** ***

Next Chapter: The Gryffindors

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