The robes were ridiculously loose on Harry, especially considering that Simon and Theo had both grown out of them by age fourteen.  Their older brother had definitely taken after their mother as far as height and build went, although it did nothing to diminish his sense of presence.  Simon actually found it rather disconcerting to have to look down into Harry's eyes, even if there were only a couple of inches in difference between their heights.  Hell, even when Harry had been all but naked on his knees in the bathroom, there had been something about him that made his stick-thin midget of a brother appear almost intimidating.  Of course, he'd never admit that aloud.

"So, what position do you play?"

There was the almost predictable pause before the terse reply was heard: "Seeker."

"Theo was Seeker for a couple of years," Simon mused, eyeing both his brothers with a sly grin on his face.

"I prefer playing Chaser," Theo responded, glaring darkly at Simon as though daring him to say otherwise.

"Of course, you do," Simon smirked, flicking his eyes briefly over to Harry before returning his needling gaze to Theo.  "Just like Daddy.  Even to being Captain since your fourth year.  Think he's noticed yet?"

Theo's scowl deepened.  "You'll never make Captain at all, brat."

"Says you!"

Their arrival at the Quidditch Pitch forestalled further retaliation on Simon's part - verbally, at least.  Picking up his Beater's bat opened up a myriad of other possibilities, some of which wouldn't even get him into trouble.

The rest of the team, including the two reserves, were gathered together near the centre of the pitch, broomsticks in hand, while a small crowd of Gryffindors had gathered in the stands to watch.  Simon and Theo had brought their own brooms down from their dormitories, while Ginny Weasley had collected their dad's old broom from the broomshed for Harry to use.  Simon kept one eye on him as he tilted the Nimbus this way and that, then let it hover below his hands, as though it were suspended on strings.  Green eyes caught him mid-stare.

"What do you ride in your own world?" Simon asked curiously.  He received no answer, as Harry returned his attention to the broom, blatantly ignoring the question.

"Alright," Theo called for their attention as he tossed bright blue ribbons to various players.  "Scrimmage match.  Two Chasers and one Beater a side.  Losers shout the next round of Butterbeers.  Harry, you're with Emma, Natalie, Melissa and Ron."  He pointed out each person in turn; the girls smiled, but Ron moaned about being on a girls' team until his sister threatened him with his own bat.  "Neville, Dennis, Simon and Ginny are with me."

Simon rolled his eyes at that last.  As if Theo would ever put his girlfriend on the opposing team.  Turning his eyes to Harry, he grinned in anticipation.  The first rule in the Beaters' Bible was 'Take out the Seeker'.  He fully intended to make good on that rule before the session was over.

Ginny was apparently concerned about his intentions, as he overheard her murmuring to Theo, "Do you really think putting Simon and Harry on opposing teams is a good idea?"

Simon raised his eyebrows at her and smiled innocently.  Theo snorted.

"He'd try anyway.  At least this way the team will get a proper workout."

His girlfriend did not appear to be very impressed with his answer, taking to the air with an annoyed expression as Colin Creevy released the balls into play.

Simon darted forward towards the closest Bludger, sending it zooming in Theo's direction just for good measure.  It missed by a foot, but passed close enough for Chaser to glare irately at his younger brother.

"One more and you can sit on the sidelines next match!" Theo shouted at him.  Simon winced, knowing from experience that his brother would follow through on his threat, and glanced around for his primary target of the day.

His oldest brother was circling slowly far above the pitch, high enough that hitting Bludgers up at him from the level of the rest of the players would be a nuisance.  He was slightly disappointed at that; he'd been hoping for a more interesting strategy from Harry than the basic 'watch and wait'.  However, they had only just started.  There was plenty of time to convince Harry to take a more involved role in the game, and he was going to start right - NOW.

The Bludger went whizzing off his bat, leaving the echoing crack of wood against hard leather far behind.  His estimation had been a little off, though, and it missed Harry by a good three feet.  The Seeker didn't even bother to look around, simply continuing his circling unperturbed.

Simon frowned, but soon had other matters to worry about: Ron had taken advantage of his preoccupation to direct an attack on Theo and Ginny.  Well, on Theo, anyway.  Ron was still a little squeamish about going after his baby sister with a Bludger, which was fine as far as Simon was concerned - more of an advantage for their team in this match.

Theo had the Quaffle firmly in his grasp, but the Bludger was coming at him from a blind angle, and Natalie was in a much better position to snatch a drop than Ginny was.  Simon shot headlong toward Theo, not slowing down as his brother's eyes widened, then narrowed in realisation.  His bat at the ready, Simon whacked the Bludger back at Natalie just before it would have hit Theo's back.  She took the hit in the shoulder as she ducked, and went spinning off to the side.

Glancing around, Simon saw that the other Bludger had taken after Dennis with a vengeance.  Swooping upwards, he redirected its attention to Harry with a solid thwap.  This time the Bludger passed close enough to brush the Seeker's sleeve.  Simon grinned viciously, swerving around to assist the Bludger in returning to its target, and managed to clip the twigs on Harry's broom with the strike, rotating him ninety-odd degrees.

For a brief moment astonishment drove the blankness from Harry's face, then the mask snapped back into place - with one difference.  Intense green eyes now sparked with determination: Simon's challenge had been acknowledged and answered.  The younger boy found himself smiling even as his stomach slowly tied itself into knots.  He was inexplicably reminded of one of his mother's favourite pieces of advice: Be careful what you wish for...

Harry dove straight at him.

... you may get it.

Simon suppressed a yelp as he scrambled to get out of the way, unaccustomed to having a human Bludger set after him with such determination.  Yet when Harry zoomed past him, he kept right on going -

Swearing under his breath, Simon followed at break-neck pace as the Seeker dove at Ginny, who was about to score.  Rounding up the nearest Bludger, he bludgeoned it as hard as he could, trying to hit Harry before he reached Ginny.  The attempt failed miserably, with Harry spiraling to avoid the ball, and both buzzing past Ginny just as she tried to score.  Emma snatched the Quaffle up easily, and darted back down the pitch towards Neville.  Simon tried to shoot a Bludger at her, but Harry flew into his path, hindering his aim until he attacked the irritating Seeker instead rather than waste the shot.  Harry dodged easily to avoid the Bludger, which missed Emma completely as she passed the Quaffle to Natalie, who feinted and scored in spite of Neville's desperate lunge.

"Simon!"

He looked up at Ginny's shout, to see Dennis yet again being persecuted by a Bludger.  Rolling his eyes, he rescued his classmate and fellow trouble-magnet once again from the Bludger's undesired attentions.  He was about to hit it in Harry's direction - when he realised that Harry was in the thick of the Chasers yet again, blocking Ginny repeatedly as she tried to fly back to Melissa's goalposts with the Quaffle.

What caught Simon's attention, however, was the Bludger Ron had just hit at his sister.  He hadn't struck it at anywhere near his maximum strength, and it showed in the speed at which it flew.  Simon grinned, and sent the second Bludger hurtling through the air, colliding with the first Bludger and diverting it towards Harry - at a dramatically increased velocity.

The Seeker had barely a second to avoid a Bludger he shouldn't even be able to see.  Simon's grin broadened in anticipation - then was swallowed by dismay as Harry flattened himself against his broomstick, dipping slightly and letting the Bludger graze past him to strike Theo on his thigh.

The young Beater felt the blood flood his cheeks as his brother glared at him accusingly - after regaining control of his broom.  It wasn't like he'd actually been aiming at Theo this time.

He vented his embarrassment by hitting another Bludger at Harry.  Ron intercepted it, and the two of them shot the Bludgers back and forth through the crowd of Chasers over several exchanges, ending only when Emma moved to score and Simon sent both Bludgers after her in quick succession.  She dodged one only to have Simon send it straight back at her, and passed the Quaffle to Natalie just before taking the hit on her right side.  The second Bludger had somehow been acquired by Harry, who led it towards Neville as though it were a dog on a leash.  The dog managed to bite, too, knocking Neville off-course just as Natalie took her shot.

Simon stared in a combination of annoyance and disbelief as Harry looped lazily upwards.  Seekers just weren't supposed to do things like that.  Maybe they could ruffle the Chasers' feathers now and then, but Bludgers were for Beaters!  Harry had no right to play with his balls!

Glaring fixedly at his oldest brother, he initiated yet another attack, this time throwing everything he had into the blow.  The Bludger went whizzing upwards towards the heedless Seeker, and for one glorious second Simon believed it would hit home hard - then Harry's posture shifted, and Simon simply knew he had seen the Snitch.  Not that merely glimpsing the Snitch would help him escape Simon's Bludger.  The odd position he assumed for his dive, however, did.

Harry was diving feet-first at an incredible speed, with his body lined against his broomstick and his head back against the bristles of his broom's tail instead of where the Bludger transited through thin air.  His eyes were closed, and Simon's gut twisted sharply at the strangely serene expression on his brother's face as he sped past him, even as he wondered how on earth he was planning on following the Snitch without his sight.  Nearby, Dennis was casting his gaze about frantically as he followed Harry down to the ground, but was obviously having no luck.

Harry pulled out of his unusual dive - his knees locking behind the broomstick and forcing it horizontal - low enough that he skimmed the grass with the brush of his broom.  He circled around in a sharp curve before spiralling slowly inwards to halt in the centre of the pitch, his closed fist holding the Snitch raised in the air.

Simon stared.  He hadn't seen the catch, and he'd been watching pretty closely.

"He must have caught it before he dived," Dennis proposed his theory as the team slowly gathered together from around the pitch to hover several metres above Harry.

"Then why bother with the dive?"

"Showing off?  I mean, who dives like that anyway?  It's stupid!"

"A 1700 shouldn't have been able to handle coming out of that dive..."

"It's dangerous!  He couldn't possibly have seen -"

"No, it must have been near the ground, when he swerved around..."

"But I mean, that dive..."

Simon shook his head irritably at the conversation, following Harry with narrowed eyes as dismounted and walked off the pitch, pausing only to hand the Snitch over to Colin.  The Seeker didn't wait for the rest of the team, but started back up to the castle without a single backwards glance.  Looking up, he found Theo and Ginny both looking in the same direction, varying degrees of frustration, admiration and concern in their expressions.

"Well," Simon muttered sourly.  "He may be freakish, but he's definitely a Potter."

Theo glanced sidelong at him, raising one eyebrow.  "Pot.  Kettle."

"Oh, ha ha."

They stared at each other for a long moment before returning to the ground.
 

*** *** ***
 

The room that served as James' office and retreat was in a state of disarray.  That in itself was not particularly unusual, but James was most decidedly not improving matters by digging a multitude of boxes out of storage and tossing through their contents like a niffler scavenging for valuables.

"It has to be here somewhere," he told himself, gazing unhappily around at the pile of journals and notebooks whose pages he'd spent the last several hours flipping through.  There were a considerable number of them, dating from 1983.  Some of their content dated from before that, although he'd discovered that without the memory charms he had subsequently learned so thoroughly, he had great difficulty in accurately recalling his earlier visions as most of them had been readily passed off as dreams or nightmares.

If only he had known then what they really were...

He shook his head, forcing himself to focus on the scroll in front of him.  Regrets served little purpose other than to weigh him down with guilt, and he'd spent more than enough time wallowing in self-pity over the years.

Resolutely, he continued to pore through the rest of the scroll, winding it steadily onwards until he was certain that what he wanted was not there.  Sighing, he tossed it to the side with the rest of the rejected volumes and reached for another, only to find the latest box empty.

Groaning, he buried his face in his hands, rubbing at his eyes.  He knew exactly what Lily would say if she found him here like this.  She'd only agreed to keep from 'tidying up' his room after he'd lost several dozen assignments to her unasked for assistance.  Usually, however, the mess wasn't a problem as far as James was concerned.  Usually, he knew more or less where everything was.  Today was a different story.

The scar on Harry's forehead had triggered a flash of recognition that echoed throughout the depths his mind.  He _knew_ that he had seen it before, besides on his baby son.  Yet there was no trace of it mentioned in fourteen years' worth of journals filled with visions and could-be visions.  It was enough to make his head ache as he wracked his brain for other possibilities, and came up blank.

Sighing, he reached for a new box from his storage unit, restoring it to its original size with a flick of his wand.  He wasn't quite prepared for the avalanche of parchment that poured from the newly restored box.  Rolling his eyes, he bent down to start picking up the mess -

- and stared blankly at the odd picture decorating an account of one of the Goblin Wars in his old History of Magic textbook.

"Hey, James, what's that you're drawing?"

"Oh, just this dream I had."

"A dream?"

"Looks weird.  Is he supposed to be human?"

"I don't know, and it was a pretty weird dream.  I saw myself duelling with him, and there was some pretty intense magic flying around."

"That's you?  You don't have green eyes."

"I know, but I did in the dream."

He shuddered.  Only three people had heard the story behind that picture, and one of them was now dead.

The two figures on the page gazed steadily up at him.  Both had been drawn in black ink, apart from their eyes.  Emerald green eyes beneath an untidy mop of black hair; blood red eyes set deep in a scaly face...

He flipped the page.

"Still going on about that dream, Jamie?"

"No, I had another one.  It was similar, but this time I had a scar, like lightning..."

There.  Again.  Red and emerald testimony of what he'd Seen at thirteen years of age: the red-eyed monster being defeated by a green-eyed James.  Only it wasn't James; wasn't him at all.

And somehow, Voldemort had known.

James stumbled towards the door with the book still in his hands, half-tripping over the jumble of paper and parchment littering the floor, his mind still focussed on red and emerald eyes.

Sirius had known about the drawings.  So had Peter and Remus.  Had they told anyone else?  Had he?

He opened the door and drew breath to call out to Lily, only to have his lungs freeze and his gut twist as waves of nausea swept though him.  He screwed his eyes shut as his sight blurred to blindness, and opened them to a nightmare that he knew was very real.

Distantly, he felt himself slide to the floor as he concentrated on activating the charm that would help him remember what he saw.

Black cloaks - white masks - red eyes -

Remus...

No...
 

*** *** ***

Next chapter: Death Eaters, dinner and Draco.
 

My apologies for Simon's 'balls' line.  The perverted slasher in me just couldn't resist... *snickers*

If you have no idea what Theo was going on about at the end: The pot has no right to call the kettle black when the pot's just as - if not more - soot-stained.  In other words, Simons just as freakish as Harry, in his own way.

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