Fate

Chapter 42 - Try To Remember

The last few weeks of school flew by for Harry and Ginny, both of them getting more and more memories each day about the life they never knew could exist. Both them and the rest of the time travelers along with Dumbledore decided that the new memories would come when you thought about that certain point in your life. Harry learned a lot about his growing up years with Remus and Sirius by simply trying to remember his cupboard under the stairs. The dark and depressing Dursley years were almost no affect on Harry anymore, now that he had so many good years to cover those old memories up.

Ginny's memories were relatively the same in both timelines, save for one small change. Harry. It seemed Harry had been friends with Ron since they were quite small, but to top that off, Ginny and Harry both had a lot more memories of them playing together when they were small. Harry still had good memories of Ron and Hermione (who he met during his first year), but for some reason Ginny just seemed to be his best friend. Neither of them had quite figured out why yet, but they both hesitated to bring up the subject, neither too keen on remembering the vast difference between their relationship in the old timeline and this new one.

Remus and Sirius both had a lot of changes in their memories, all of them occurring after they had Harry in their care. The first 20 or so years of their life remained unchanged, which they were both grateful for. To top that off, Remus found that he was still romantically attached to Tonks a bit and Sirius proudly announced to the world (while he was drunk) that he was still single and proud of it. Neither them nor Harry had the heart to bring up Arianna or Emily. Dealing too much with the past had weakened their resolve to try and fix it anymore.

The only thing that seemed to not have changed at all was their biggest problem: Voldemort. Harry gathered memories of his school years, piecing together scenes of Voldemort with Quirrll, Tom Riddle in the chamber, Voldemort's resurrection...it was all more or less the exact same. Of course, Harry knew that he still had defeated Voldemort when he was one, thanks to the scar that still graced his forehead, but both Remus and Sirius didn't seem too keen on the idea of going back and remembering that night to see if everything still happened the same. It was the one memory that neither of them wanted to relive, for fear that they would find the pain and loneliness again.

The constant barrage of memories day after day died down during the last week of school, which Harry was grateful for, as he was sick of having headaches day in and out.

The last day of school he was on his way back up to the Common Room when he spotted Sirius in the Entrance Hall, talking and laughing with Ginny, who, it looked like, had just come out of arguing her final grade with Snape (who still seemed much the same as always and refused to talk to anyone about how his "lovely return journey went", as Sirius put it.)

"Harry!" Ginny waved him over and he smiled brighter as he walked up to them.

"Social call?" he asked, smiling up at Sirius. Both Sirius and Remus had been busy the past few weeks, between their firecalls and Owls to Harry, he hadn't seen them much. Dumbledore insisted they weren't doing anything illegal, so Harry let them be. Besides, he was going to see them eventually, as they were his legal guardians.

"Hardly," Sirius replied dryly, gathering Harry into a quick hug, something the two of them had become accustomed to almost naturally since their return. "Remus had to discuss something with Albus and I just thought I'd come and see how my Godson was faring."

"Fancy a walk?" Harry motioned to the inviting doors leading out into the setting sun.

Sirius turned to Ginny. "Oh, no, not me," she backed away, grinning. "I've got an appointment with Hermione to get blackmail information about where she and Ron were last night. Toodles!" Blowing a kiss at Harry she walked back up the stairs where Harry himself was headed only moments ago.

"Quite a girl," Sirius commented, a purposeful look at Harry as they walked out the doors.

"Don't I know," Harry sighed. "Let's not talk about it."

Harry saw Sirius smirk but choose to ignore it and they remained in comfortable silence till they reached the lake.

"Sirius?" Harry asked quietly.

"Humm?"

"Do you think we'll ever really figure out what was changed?" Harry spoke softly in the dying light of day, unwilling to ruin the silence completely.

"We just have to wait for more memories to come, I guess," Sirius relied, shrugging. "But we've filled up so much of our past life with memories....it's hard to figure out what happened and where the change was."

"What about newspapers?" Harry questioned. "Like the ones you showed me in Dumbledore's office. Can't we get a clue from them?"

Sirius sighed. "If we searched long enough and hard enough we could I suppose."

"Harry! Sirius!"

They both turned quickly as an excited Remus Lupin rushed up to them.

"You two," he barely stopped in time to void running them over, "will never believe what memory I just got."

Harry cracked a grin. "The one where Sirius manages to cover you completely in pumpkin pastries?"

"Or the one where Harry found you wand when he was two and turned your desk into an elephant?" Sirius joined in.

Remus managed to at least look slightly embaressed, but he snapped out of it quickly and shook his head. "No..." he paused. "The night Lily and James were killed..."

All three of them went deathly silent, the smiles dropping from Harry and Sirius' faces.

"Remus-"

"Sirius, trust me," Remus emphasized. "I didn't want to think about it either..." Remus' face held more excitement than Harry had ever seen. "Just try to remember, Padfoot," Remus's voice softened. "Think about what happened."

Harry watched carefully as Sirius' expression changed from disbelief, to skepticism and finally...to hope.

Suddenly Sirius shut his eyes tight, raised a hand up to hold his head and Harry held his breath as his Godfather remembered.

----

"No cy, Pafoo...No cy..."

Sirius knelt in the rubble of his best friend's house, tears running down his face as he scooped up little Harry Potter.

"Oh Merlin...Harry, you're alive...Oh, God..." Tears streamed down his face and he brought the small one-year-old into a crushing hug, holding him tightly and having no intention of ever letting him go.

When he finally relaxed a bit, he pulled back enough to get a good look at Harry, still amazed that he was alive. But he started a bit when he saw a large amount of blood streaming down Harry's face. Panicking, he tried to wipe some of it off gently with the sleeve of his robe, quite ignoring Harry's whimpers when the blood slowly evolved into a curious lightning bolt shaped cut across the baby's forehead.

"Harry?" Sirius whispered, glancing down at the oblivious baby who was getting quite fed up with his Godfather ignoring his cries and started whining a bit.

Sirius, though, was too confused at the moment to do much more than hold Harry tighter to him and glance around suspiciously.

"Sirius?"

Sirius turned abruptly, pointing his wand harshly out towards the voice, clinging tightly to Harry with his other arm.

Realizing who it was, though, he quickly lowered the wand, but didn't pocket it.

"Hargid? What are you doing here?"

The massive form of Rubeus Hagrid came out of the shadows, Sirius could see the tears already falling down the half-giant's face.

"Dumbledore sen' me," Hagrid sniffed. "The Pott'r's wards wen' down and Dumbledore was afr'd..." He stopped suddenly, seeing the bundle in Sirius' arms.

"Sirius...is that?"

Sirius reflexively held Harry closer. "Yeah, Harry's alive Hagrid. Don't ask me how because I have no clue, but he's alive."

"So Lily and James...."

Sirius blinked back the tears and looked down, shaking his head.

Hagrid's howls interrupted the ghostly quiet night and Sirius stepped back a bit, wiping his tears away and keeping a hold on Harry and his wand.

"Go back to Dumbledore, Hagrid," Sirius told him forcefully. "Tell him it wasn't me." He continued to back up towards his bike. He had no idea how much Dumbledore knew, but he wasn't going to let Peter get away with this, not this time. "Tell him to find Peter. Tell him we switched."

Hagrid didn't seem to understand any of those directions. "Wha' are you talkin' abou', Sirius? Listen, I've go ter take 'arry. Dumbledore told me to bring back anyone who was alive."

"No!" Sirius said more forcefully. "I'm his Godfather!"

"Sirius, Dumbledore'll make things right. I got me orders.."

"I'm sorry, Hagrid," Sirius regretfully said, finally reaching his motorbike and swinging one leg over. "Don't worry, I'll keep Harry safe. Just remember what I told you to tell Dumbledore."

And without another word, Sirius kicked off on his motorbike, heading towards the last person in the world he knew would believe him.

----

Sirius' eyes snapped open in the middle of the memory and his gaze snapped up to meet Remus'.

Both of them turned to look down at Harry.

"Let's get a pensive," Sirius said, thinking quickly.

He wasn't watching the rest of this without his Godson.

----

Sirius' motorbike hit the ground harder than normal, but Sirius just jumped off instantly, not caring about his bike anymore. He rushed up to the front door of the small cottage, Harry now sleeping fitfully in his arms, the blood dried over his forehead and the scar standing out even more.

Banging on the door loudly with one fist, Sirius cried out, "Remus! REMUS!"

He kept banging frantically for a few moments before finally giving up, kicking the door and swearing loudly. His pounding had woken Harry up and he was now fussing a bit, attracting Sirius' attention.

Turning a bit softer towards the baby, Sirius sat carefully down on Remus' front step, he held Harry out in front of him so that he could see his face. Harry always seemed to stop crying when he could see Sirius' face or James' face. Some keen fascination with their imperfections, no doubt. But Sirius never minded.

With Harry quiet again, he gazed around, mind racking with what his next move would be.

A loud and close howl sounded and Sirius shot to his feet, shaking more with anxiety than fright. His wand was automatically in his hand and he turned around quickly, realizing the howl had come from the house behind him.

Reality hit, and just when Sirius thought he could not feel any more guilty, he did.

His gaze traveled to the bright glowing sphere that hung above the house.

A full moon.

More tears threatened to fall and he pulled Harry towards him, trying to block out the sounds he could now hear coming from the house.

"He locked himself in his cellar..." he whispered, whether to himself or to Harry he didn't know. All he knew was that he had to do something....anything.

He could not make this decision, he could not!

He remembered the times Remus talked to him about his transformations...the pain, the loneliness...the agony. He had hardly seen Remus the past few weeks...was this the first transformation that his friend would have to go through alone since his school days?

But Peter...Peter the rat was out there somewhere. Peter, the man who had betrayed them all, the one who had led Lily and James to their deaths, who had turned....Merlin, Peter was the one who had turned Sirius against Remus. The very thought of Remus being a spy now would have been humorous...If Sirius had not been so afraid.

There, he admitted it to himself, he was afraid.

He was afraid for Remus, being alone the whole night. He was afraid for Harry and what his future held for him. He was afraid of what had happened to Voldemort...where was the bloody coward?...He was afraid of what Dumbledore would believe...Hell, he was afraid of what Remus would believe...

Throughout his life, Sirius knew of one place he could always go when he was in trouble. He had seen people use its walls as a safety from parents to Lord Voldemort.

Trying to block out the howls that still invaded his ears, and quite forgetting his prize bike that lay on the ground only a few feet behind him, Sirius held Harry tight and apparated to safety. To the last chance he had to fix this before it got any worse.

A blink of an eye later, he opened his eyes and looked up at Hogwarts.

----

Harry could hardly believe the events he was seeing.

He stood close to his Godfather as he watched a younger Sirius Black rescue little Harry Potter from the rubble of Number 3 Godric's Hollow.

He saw Sirius deal with the anguish of not being able to help Remus during a full moon and his desperate escape to Hogwarts.

He held Sirius' hand as his Godfather watched his younger self plead his case to Dumbledore, all the while refusing to let go of the baby Harry.

He watched in tears as Sirius went to Remus the next morning, the two friends reuniting after almost a month of separation, only to have the death of their best friend hanging over them.

He watched as Dumbledore fought for Sirius' trial, and the glorious day when Pettigrew was found and Sirius sobbed as he signed the files to become Harry's legal guardian.

He watched as Remus and Sirius went to the Dursley's to pick baby Harry up from his temporary housing.

As the memory finally vanished and Harry found himself standing back in Dumbledore's office.

Without a word, he threw himself into his Godfather's arms, tears running down both their faces.

"You didn't leave me," Harry whispered. "That's what changed...you didn't leave me with Hagrid that night..."

In response Sirius only held him tighter.

"You didn't leave me..." Harry's voice cracked.

Sirius' voice dropped so low that only Harry could hear.

"And I never will, Emeralds...I never will."