Do all Things Happen for a Reason?

Lily, James, young Sirius, and young Remus were all following Harry, Ron, Hermione, Old Remus, and old Sirius (who was in Padfoot form, of course) back to the castle after the match. Gryffindor had won of course, but the Marauders were in shock of seeing how well Harry could fly. Remus kept ogling at his older self, unable to understand how he could look so old.

"The way you caught that snitch, Harry, it was absolutely awesome!" Ron was practically dancing his way up to the castle. Beside Moony, Padfoot barked in agreement.

"Thanks guys," said Harry, looking at the ground while his face took on a red tinge.

"Your son is way to shy, James," Sirius said to James.

"He must get it from Lils!" James said, making sure Lily heard him.

"Hey!" she said, turning around to hit him.

"He was just kidding Lils!" Remus said, coming over to try and protect his friend from an angry redhead.

"Yeah, I was just kidding! No need to get angry!" He said, trying to calm her down. She calmed down and they ran to catch up with the others. They were now in the Entrance Hall and Padfoot and Moony were about to head back to Moony's classroom.

"I'll see you kids tomorrow, and don't forget your homework," Moony was saying.

"Homework? Oh No! I totally forgot about it!" said Ron, who was looking at Moony pleadingly.

"Well, I'm sorry Ron, but you did have a whole week to finish it," Moony said, smiling kindly at Ron.

"Don't worry Ron, we'll help you," Harry said. "Won't we Hermione?" Hermione was looking as if making an internal battle with herself.

"He said help, Hermione, not copy," said Ron, as Harry sniggered.

"Oh, all right," she said. "But I didn't know you finished yours Harry. I've never seen you do your homework, and yet you always seem to have it finished. And you get top grades too!"

"Well, you know, I find the time," Harry said mysteriously. Moony chuckled while him and Padfoot went back to their classroom.

"So what juicy information did you two find out tailing your son this morning?" Sirius asked Lily and James.

"He has my invisibility cloak!" James said.

"He does?" asked Remus, interested in the conversation as they entered the common room.

"Yup!" said James, grinning proudly.

"That must mean that he wonders the school at night!" Sirius said. "I wonder if he's a prankster?"

"Of course he is!" said James. "Are you forgetting who his father is? And he's got you guys as uncles!"

"Uncles, eh?" said Remus in amusement. "But we're not blood relatives, Prongs."

"Oh, it doesn't matter!" James waved a hand to dismiss Remus' statement. "You guys are my best friends, so that makes us practically brothers!"

"Thanks James!" Sirius said, while Remus grinned at him.

"I was only stating the truth," James said. The Marauders finally noticed Lily, who had been unusually quiet.

"What's wrong, Lils?" asked Remus, looking at her with concern. Lily looked up and looked into the flames of the common room fire, and then she turned to James.

"We have to tell him," she whispered. "We have to tell him we're here," The Marauders looked shocked.

"Lily," James said, coming over to sit next to her. "We can't. I would love to tell him, but we just can't,"

"Why not?" she retorted. "We don't have to tell anyone else. Just him. Please?"

James looked into her pleading eyes, the eyes he had fallen in love with, and sighed.

"All right," he said. "We'll tell him tonight. He'll probably be the last one in the common room."

"But how, James?" Sirius asked. "How are we supposed to get his attention?"

"I don't know," he replied. "But I'll come up with something."

So later that night when (just as James predicted) Harry was the only one in the common room they set about their plan. (A/N: I'm dieing to put a cliffy! =-D)

James was to write a note to Harry explaining where to look and then put it on the table in front of him. Harry would notice it, pick it up, read it, look over, and be very happy to see them. That was the plan anyway. James had finished the letter and put it on the table. It went as follows:

Harry

Look to your left and you'll see some old friends. We can't explain what's going on here though, so please don't be alarmed or anything when you see us.

The first part of the plan went well. Harry noticed the note, picked it up, read it, and looked over. But it seemed he was more shocked then happy to see them.

"How - how - " Harry stuttered weakly.

"Like it says in the note, we can't explain here, so go get the cloak and then follow us," said Remus.

Harry nodded weakly and then ran to his dorm to get his cloak. When he came back he was still a little shocked, but was getting used to the idea. They headed out of the portrait hole and went to the room that they had slept in the night before. They all sat by the empty fireplace in the cold room.

"It's so cold in here," said Sirius.

"Well, start a fire, idiot!" said James.

"But there's no wood," complained Sirius.

"Are you a bloody wizard, or not, Sirius?" said Lily, getting aggravated.

"Oh yeah! I forgot!" said Sirius. He pointed his wand towards the grate and in a few seconds there was a roaring fire, warming the whole room. "Yea!!!" he cheered. "Call me King of the Flames!" (A/N: For you, Jess =])

"Yeah, well, King of the Flames, your cloak is on fire," Harry pointed out.

"What?" he looked down. "Ahhhhhhh! Get it off! Get it off!" he danced around the room until Remus magicked the fire on Sirius' cloak away. Hysterical laughter from everyone, minus Sirius, followed this.

"You - you should have s-seen your f-face!" James managed to stutter out before dissolving into a fit of laughter again. The laughter died down eventually and Sirius sat down again.

"Now, I suppose, your wondering how we got here?" Harry nodded. "Well, it all started with..."

And half an hour later they were finished with their story. They had told him everything! Everything they heard or saw. Harry sat there in shock.

"Are you alright?" James asked. Harry jumped.

"Yes. Yes, I-I'm fine," he said, but it was obvious he wasn't.

"So, what's it like in Hogwarts now?" said James trying to change the subject. Harry grinned a little.

"It depends on which classes you want to talk about," he said.

"What about Moony's classes? What are they like?" asked Lily.

Sirius and James said, "Yeah!!!"

"Well, it's my favorite class, you're a very good teacher," he said to Remus, who grinned back at him. "You taught me how to do the Patronus Charm. I'm really good at it too. For my age I mean," he added hastily, looking at the disbelieving faces.

"But that's impossible," said Sirius. "Even some full grown wizards have trouble with that spell!"

"I hate to say it Harry, but he's right," said Remus, and there were a lot of nods in agreement.

"Alright, do you want me to prove it to you?" He said smirking.

"Yeah!" said James. "Hold on, what's its form?"

"The thing I feel most protected by," Harry answered simply, standing up, and getting ready to perform the charm.

"Well, duh! But I meant - " James was cut off by Harry.

'You'll see," was all he said before he said the charm. "Expecto Patronum!" A transparent white stag erupted from the end, galloped around the room once, then came back to Harry and disappeared in a wisp of smoke. Harry smirked at the shocked faces. "It's a good thing that wasn't a bet or I would have won."

"Why did you have to learn it anyway?" asked Remus.

"Well, we were fighting Boggarts in DADA and Dementors are my worst fear because," he faltered then continued in a shaky voice, as if remembering some horrible memory. "Because they make a person relive their most horrible memories, and let's just say I have some pretty bad ones."

"You fear, fear?" asked James curiously.

"I guess you could say that. But it's really facing the memories that I fear," he said looking at the floor.

"Are they really that bad?" asked Sirius tentatively.

Harry looked up and nodded, "If- if you only knew how bad they are you would probably pity me beyond belief."

"No we wouldn't! Why don't you tell us?" asked James, wanting to know how to help his son.

'His son' these words were a bit odd to James but he had accepted them from the beginning. He had always wanted children and now he new he would have one. The only problem was that James had the dreaded feeling that he was dead, just like Lily, and that was why everyone was using past tense when speaking about him, and that was also why Harry never seemed to be completely happy. James had seen it in his eyes the very first time they had all seen Harry. He could tell immediately that this boy was no ordinary boy and that he had been through a lot in his life.

"I-I-," he looked as if he was unsure of what to say.

"It's okay Harry," said Lily in a reassuring voice. "If we need a memory charm before we go, we'll go to Dumbledore." The Marauders looked shocked but Harry relaxed slightly.

"O-okay," he said. " Well, you said you heard the argument between me and Malfoy this morning, right?" they nodded. "Then you heard what he said to me about m-Lily?" they nodded again.

"It - it isn't true, is it?" asked Sirius. Harry nodded and went on.

"Anyway, I - I was there when it happened. I was just a baby at the time, but if anyone had to go through that and live they would never forget," he looked as if it took all his willpower to keep talking. "Do you know what the Fidelius Charm is?"

"Oh, yes. My parents had to use it," said James. Sirius, Lily and Remus nodded in agreement.

"Well, you and Lily had to use it as well, and your Secret Keeper was going to be Sirius, but -" he was interrupted by Sirius.

"I didn't betray them, did I!?" he said, clearly horrified at the idea of going over to the Dark Side and betraying his best friends.

"No. No, you didn't. But let me finish," Harry warned. Sirius nodded. "You convinced them to use someone else because you were to much of an obvious choice. Voldemort would go after you immediately, and you were afraid you would let something slip. You switched to Peter because you thought he would be safe. No one would ever think you guys would use Peter. You didn't tell anyone else about the switch, not even Dumbledore, and within twenty-four hours - " he stopped and everyone was watching him dreading the rest of the story. Harry continued in a very shaky whisper, "Within twenty-four hours that rat went strait to Voldemort with the secret," Harry had tears sliding down his face now. "He came to our house and - and killed Mum and Dad , and then tried to kill me," Everyone had tears in there eyes now, but the only people who would let them fall were Lily, James and Harry. Harry fingered the scar on his forehead and continued, "I survived Avada Kedavra somehow and destroyed Voldemort. Sirius knew what had happened and went looking for Peter, but Peter faked his own death and used his Animagi ability to escape, and Sirius was blamed for everything. A lifetime sentence to Azkaban without a trial," Harry finished his story with a sigh. There was a long shocked silence at the end.

"I-if Sirius was sent to Azkaban for life, how can he be out?" James asked, face still tear strained.

"Because he escaped, he's not free. He escaped two years ago," Harry said.

"I escaped?" asked Sirius. "But no one's ever escaped Azkaban!"

"Yes, I know," Harry smiled slightly. "That's why the Minister of Magic is so angry."

"W-who is the Minister of Magic?" asked Lily.

Harry's face darkened, "Cornelius Fudge."

"What!?" James said loudly. "That idiot from Hufflepuff?"

"I suppose so," said Harry. "I don't know what House he was in."

"Is he short, fat, and always wears a bowler hat?" Remus asked. Harry nodded.

"That's him then," said Sirius. "Always did have a grudge against me. But I still don't see how this relates to your bad memories." Everyone (minus Harry) shot Sirius a dirty look because they had already gotten the point and didn't want Harry to tell anymore if he didn't want to.

"Like I said, I was there and if you ever heard your mother screaming like that, you wouldn't forget it in a hurry," said Harry, blinking back tears. Everyone looked shocked at how calmly he had said this. Lily looked slightly sick.

"What about Peter? What happened to him?" asked James, an angry fire burning in his eyes.

"At the moment? I have no idea. The last time I saw him was in June," he said. "That was a pretty bad battle," he added as an after thought.

"No one died, did they?" asked Lily. Harry Nodded.

"One student. A seventh year," he said. "I'm assuming you know Amos Diggory?"

"Wasn't he that conceited jerk who asked me out when I was a first year?" Lily asked looking at James. He nodded. "Gosh, he was like three years older then me!"

"Yes, well, his son was the one who died," said Harry looking at the floor. Everyone in the room gasped.

"Who did you go live with after all that?" asked Remus.

Harry hesitated, "I don't know how you're going to react..."

"It can't be that bad. Not unless you went to live with my sis - " Lily interrupted herself as realization dawned on her. "No. Oh, please say you didn't?!" Harry nodded. "No! When I get my hands on her I'm gonna rip her throat out! What did she do to you?!"

Harry smiled slightly at his mother, "Don't worry about it. I can take care of myself."

"But-"

"Lily! Calm down! It's not like she forced him to be a slave!" Harry snorted and Lily rolled her eyes. James clearly didn't know Lily's sister very well.

"James, you don't know my sister!" Lily said.

"She's got a point, James. Petunia's very...different, from other muggles," said Remus, who had unfortunately met Petunia on several occasions.

"But she wouldn't do that, would she?" James asked looking at Harry. Harry looked slightly uncomfortable. Luckily he was saved from answering when the clock in the room struck midnight.

"Oh, Kat's coming tomorrow, I said I would show her around. I better get back to my dorm," he said quickly, grabbing the Cloak.

"Wait, who's Kat?" asked Remus.

"Is she your girlfriend?" Sirius asked. Harry groaned and Lily and James burst out laughing, because they had heard the conversation earlier.

"No! She's just a friend. A very close friend," said Harry.

"How close?" James asked. Harry groaned and left the room under the invisibility cloak.