Out of the Books

Out of the Books

Chapter 1 - Halloween

October 31^st 1981

It was the night of Halloween in Godrics Hollow and the weather played along with this spooky day. The rain hit the trees, which were planted along the street, and the strong wind made them bow. Every now and then, the area was lit by bright lightening only to seem even darker when the flash was gone. The drumming of the raindrops, the howling of the storm and the rolling thunder created a sinister symphony.

But if you listened very carefully, you could hear a sweet noise, which did not fit in with this autumn storm. From behind a candle-lit window in the small wooden house, which stood lonely at the end of the gravel road, you could hear the soft voice of a woman singing a lullaby. Lily Potter was sitting next to a small cot and was singing her 15months old son Harry to sleep. The boy was smiling contently while he was clutching a stuffed stag, which already looked very used.

Lily finished her song and kissed Harry on the forehead. "Good night, my little one," she said softly and turned around to leave the room.

James Potter was leaning in the doorway, gazing lovingly at his young and beautiful wife. When she looked back at him, he smiled. She went up to him and pulled his head down to her for a slow and leisurely kiss. After a while, they both pulled back and Lily looked at the sleeping baby once more.

"He looks so much like you," she told her husband.

"Well, at least we know that we don't even have to bother about getting his hair trying to lie flat," he grinned.

Then he also went up to his son's bed and planted a kiss on his brow.

Lily and James left the door to the nursery, a crack wide open when they returned downstairs.

"Do you also want some hot chocolate?" James asked when he went into the kitchen.

"Oh, that would be a great idea," she called out of the living room.

The living room in the Potters' house was a cosy room with wooden walls and floor. A large round red and golden carpet covered most of the floor. In the corner, there was a fireplace (which was of course made of stone). In front of the fireplace stood a dark red sofa and next to the sofa, a small couch table, made of cherry wood. On it, there was a bowl with some fruit, some scattered Quidditch magazines and a copy of the Daily Prophet. Behind the sofa, there was a very big cupboard, which included some shelves with many books, porcelain and several wooden handcrafted pieces of art.

After a few minutes, James put two steaming mugs on the small table and joined Lily on the sofa. While he was reaching for a quidditch magazine, she sighed and leaned on to him comfortably. He put his left arm around her shoulder and while he was absent-mindedly tracing circles on her naked arm , he read the magazine in the other hand. Lily relaxed leaning on him and closed her eyes. But after a while, she sat up straight again and looked at him with worry in her brilliant green eyes.

"James, have you heard anything of Peter recently? We haven't seen him in over three weeks."

James shrugged. "I'm sure he has gone into hiding. I mean, nobody knows that he is our secret keeper, so he is not really in danger, but I guess he thought it would be safer," he tried to reassure her.

"But what if they have captured him? We should check on him, just to make sure," she said.

"Yeah, it's probably better," he agreed. "But we shouldn't do it ourselves. I'll ask Sirius tomorrow to see if he is alright. Don't worry."

Lily nodded and sighed. "I'm just so on edge all the time since we have heard about the prophecy."

James put aside the quidditch magazine, which he hadn't really been reading anyway, now and pulled his wife into a kiss again. She opened her mouth under his lips and returned the kiss passionately.

Suddenly, they were interrupted by a popping noise. Both of them stood up very quickly and drew their wands. They both saw the source of simultaneously and gasped.

"Why aren't the two of you sweet together?" said the tall and pale man, who suddenly stood in their living room and pointed his wand at them.

James swallowed hard. "What do you want, Voldemort?" he managed to say with a steady voice.

"I'm pretty sure you know what I want, Potter," he sneered while he looked at the stairs, which led to the second floor of the house. "There was a certain prophecy I have heard of..."

"Lily, go and take Harry, I'll keep him off!" James shouted.

Voldemort threw his head back and let out a very wrong-sounding, high-pitched laugh. "You'll keep me off, Potter?"

Then he looked at James through narrowed eyes. "Crucio!" he cried suddenly.

But James was prepared and jumped out of the way of the curse, knocking over the small couch table. Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see Lily speeding up the stairs.

"Expelliarmus," he shouted now at the dark wizard, who dodged the curse easily and had already pointed his wand at James again crying, "Serpensortia."

A huge snake shot out of his wand and landed a foot away from James. Before he could do anything, the snake attacked and bit him in the left leg.

James gasped in pain, but then he pointed his wand at the snake and coughed out, "Evanesco!" The snake was gone but the pain in his ankle remained.

His left leg started shaking and James broke out in cold sweat. He could tell that the snake must have been poisonous. He tried to put another disarming spell on Voldemort, but missed.

Voldemort grinned at him evilly and cried, "Crucio," again.

With a huge effort, James managed to leap away, but his injured leg could not take the landing, and so he crashed sideways into the bookcase.

He looked up at Voldemort grimly and hatefully, his eyes staring into those evilly glowing red slits, when the dark wizard raised his wand at him a final time.

"Avada Kedavra!" he cried in this terrible high-pitched voice and a bright green flash came speeding towards James.

"I just hope I have given Lily and Harry enough time," was his last thought before the blinding green light reached him, and then he knew nothing.

Upstairs, Lily had just opened the window and cast a cushioning charm on the ground outside so she and Harry would not get hurt jumping out of the window. But the eerie green light that suddenly came from the corridor let her hesitate. Then she heard the sinister laughter again and she felt her heart cramp. She knew that James was dead.

A heavy sob escaped her but then she managed to pull herself together. As fast as she could, she grabbed Harry from his cot and stepped towards the open window. But before she reached it, Voldemort popped out in front of her and blocked the way. She desperately spun around and lunged for the door, but Voldemort had already locked it with a wave of his wand.

She turned around to face him now.

"Give me the boy," he commanded, his red eyes glinting dangerously at her.

She clutched Harry desperately now. "Not Harry, not Harry. Please not Harry!" she pleaded with the dark wizard.

"Stand aside, you silly girl," he snarled at her.

"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead," she cried, now kneeling in front of him.

She could see how Voldemort trained his wand at the small bundle she held in her arms while he formed the words, "Avada Kedavra!"

Another flash of blinding green light shot from his wand towards the boy and his mother. Lily threw herself around, so that she protected Harry with her body and only a second later the curse hit her in the back.

She felt a sharp pain ripping through her whole body and then she was falling through blackness, her head spinning and hurting madly, and finally she felt nothing anymore.

***

Lily was feeling terrible. Her whole body was aching and especially her head was spinning and pounding as if someone was hitting it with a hammer repeatedly. She opened her eyes a crack and saw all kinds of colourful lights dancing before her. Then her ears also seemed to start working again and she became aware of all the deafening noise around her. It took some seconds for her to notice that it was very loud music she heard and that the pounding in her head was in the same rhythm as the floor slightly vibrated to the base.

She groaned and sat up. She realized that she had been sitting at a small round table, her head resting on the slightly sticky surface. A glass with a rest of an amber liquid was standing in front of her next to a plastic jack-o-lantern. The whole room was decorated with plastic pumpkins and bats. Other than the colourful beams of light, which were moving to the rhythm of the music, it was dark and there were no windows in what seemed to be a cellar of a pub. The air was hot and humid and heavy with the smell of cigarette smoke and sweat.

Lily shook her head and groaned as the movement made the pain in her head even more intensive. Ignoring the nausea which was wandering up from her stomach she tried to remember what had happened. One second, she had been on the receiving end of Voldemorts death curse and now she obviously was at some sort of Halloween party?

She put her forehead into her right hand while her right elbow sat on the table. She was feeling so unbelievably tired.

Suddenly, she felt a hand on her shoulder and a voice close to her ear shouted over the loud music, "Are you alright? You look a bit ill."

She looked up and her breath got caught in her throat. A young man with unruly black hair and glasses was looking down at her. She jumped out of her chair and threw her arms around him.

"James, you are alive!" she cried happily, pulled his head down and started kissing him desperately.

The young man went totally stiff as if someone had put the petrificus totalus on him. Finally he sputtered and backed up from her. He stared at her strangely and struggled to regain his composure.

"My name is Jack, not James. And the last time I checked, I wasn't in mortal danger, so yeah, I'm alive," he finally managed to say.

He sounded a little irritated and more than a little confused.

Lily backed up. "No, but you are..." she began, but the total lack of recognition on his face made her stop. "I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else," she mumbled.

Jack nodded. "So and you are...?" he prompted her.

"Hm? Oh, I'm Lil- I'm Liz," she said and smiled uncertainly at him.

Where did that come from? she wondered. Why did I tell him, that my name was Liz?

Then she remembered. Her name was Elizabeth Hamrick and she was a journalist.

Suddenly, her legs felt very weak. She held on to the table for support. Jack caught her upper arm and helped her to get her balance back.

"Well Liz, we better get you home," he said with a concerned look on his face. Lily nodded weakly.

Jack helped her putting her arm around his neck and led her out of the pub while she leaned on him heavily. They both shivered in the cold night air after they had left the pub. Lily's headache was becoming worse every second and she was positively feeling really sick now. She let go of Jack and emptied her stomach on the street.

He looked a bit helplessly at her panting, while she stood shivering with her hands on her knees, and gave her a handkerchief, so that she could wipe her mouth.

"Do you have someone who can take care of you when you get home?" he asked.

She shook her head no, not trusting herself to say anything in case more than words came out of her mouth.

Jack sighed. "Well, then I better take you to my place for the night. I'd hate for you to stay alone in this state."

She nodded again, so Jack hailed a cab for the two of them.

"Idlewind Road 7," he told the taxi driver.

Lily leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. Her head was hurting and spinning and she suppressed a new wave of nausea, which threatened to roll through her again. Why am I not dead? The Killing Curse hit me full force! she thought.

Then she looked at the young man, who was sitting next to her and realization hit her: Of course, Lily Potter is dead! I am Elizabeth Hamrick now. And James Potter is dead as well. He is Jack Whatever-his-Last-Name-Is now. But why do I remember and he doesn't?

Lily shook her head, now totally confused, which turned out to be a bad mistake. She clamped her hand before her mouth and choked, "Could we stop really quick?"

After what seemed like an endless drive and two more stops, they finally reached Idlewind Road. Jack paid the very irritated taxi driver a generous tip and smiled apologetically at him. Then he put his arm around Lily - no Liz! - and helped her up to his appartement. It was up on the third floor of an old brick house. On a band-aide, which was plastered below the door bell, stood "Pearson" in block letters, written with a blue ball pen.

Liz was too tired to look around in the small apartment. Jack showed her the bedroom and told her, he would sleep next door on the couch, in case she needed anything. She just nodded, not really realizing what he was telling her, and dropped into bed falling asleep immediately.

Jack made himself some tea, staring into nothingness, while he drank it slowly. He had a feeling he knew this girl but he couldn't place her. Actually, that was the reason why he had walked up to her at the party at all. He sighed and finished his tea.

Before retiring on the couch for the night, Jack checked to make sure that Liz was alright. She was sleeping peacefully on his bed now and Jack found himself gazing at her face. When her brow was not furrowed and her mouth was not twisted in pain, she looked really beautiful. Her long dark red hair framed her pale, thin face like waves. She even had a small smile playing around her lips now. She must be having pleasant dreams, he thought, smiling to himself.

Then he remembered the way she had looked at him at the party, her eyes full of love and happiness. Jack had had many girlfriends but none had ever looked at him like this. And then she had called him James.

Oh, this James-fellow must be the luckiest guy on earth, to be loved so much by such a pretty girl, he thought wistfully.

He closed the door to the bedroom quietly and went to sleep on the couch.

***

November 1^st 1981

Liz awoke to the beeping noise of a garbage truck going backwards on the road in front of the house. She groaned and turned around in bed, her eyes still closed. There was a dull ache behind her forehead and her mouth was dry. She stretched and squinted through her eye lashes. The bedroom was filled with blue light, which filtered through the closed window curtains. She looked around the unfamiliar room and sat up, trying to remember where she was. Soon images from the last day were beginning to tumble through her head. Voldemort threatening to kill her son and ending up throwing the Killing Curse at her - the Halloween Party - her sickness - James, who was Jack now and had no memory of his former life...

Then she remembered: Jack had taken her home and she was in his bedroom now. The bedroom was very small - it could not be much bigger than eight or nine square metres. Only a large double bed and a cheap pressboard-wardrobe fit in it.

Suddenly, she remembered something else - Harry! After Voldemort had cursed her, she had been unable to protect Harry any longer. Had Voldemort killed him, too? She was almost certain of that. So if Harry was dead, had he also been somehow transported into another life, like her and James? If he was, I will find him, she promised herself.

Having made this decision, she got up determinately and threw a dressing gown around her shoulders, which had been lying on the unused side of the bed, and went to look for the bathroom. The bedroom door led out into a dark and empty corridor. Only three pairs of shoes stood close to the entrance door, one of them her own, and a jacket and a cloak hung on a hook at the wall. Other than the entrance and the bedroom door, there were two more of them. The one to her right stood ajar and she could see Jack moving inside the room behind it. She knocked quietly and went into what seemed like the combination of kitchen, living room and work room. Jack was already dressed and put some blankets away from the couch, where he had slept during the night before.

When he noticed that Liz had entered the room, he turned around and smiled.

"Good morning, are you feeling better?" he asked.

Liz smiled back at him. "Good morning. Yes, I feel much better, thank you. I was going to have a shower."

Jack nodded and showed her the way to the bathroom. "The towels are in that cupboard," he told her.

After Liz had finished her shower and felt refreshed again, she joined Jack in the living room, where he had already fixed some breakfast for the two of them. She sat opposite to him while he put some egg and bacon on both their plates. They were eating in a slightly awkward silence. Finally, Jack cleared his throat and attempted to make conversation with this girl, who spent the night in his apartment, but the only thing he knew about her was her first name.

"So, er - were you alone at that party yesterday?"

"Well, at first I wasn't alone. My co-worker Ashley had persuaded me to accompany her but then she found some guy and went off with him. I wasn't in the mood for a party in the first place, so I just sat there at the table where we met. And you?" she asked, her eyes twinkling, "Whom did you abandon when you rushed to help me?"

"Actually, I wasn't really abandoning someone, rather escaping a former girlfriend of mine. So I guess I should thank you for being sick, as it gave me an excuse to leave the party," he grinned at her.

Liz grinned back. "So what are you doing when you don't bring girls home with you in order to flee from other girls?" she let her eye wander around the room and noticed a large number of books on the shelves and on the desk, close to the window. Nodding her head at them, she asked, "Are you at university?"

"Yeah, I'm studying to become a teacher for P.E. and for physics."

Liz guffawed. James Potter, the nightmare of all teachers, was going to be a teacher himself. Of course he isn't James Potter in this life, a nasty voice in her head reminded her. But her thoughts were interrupted.

"What's so funny about that?" Jack asked, only half pretending that indignant tone in his voice.

Liz blushed a little embarrassed. "I'm sorry. You just remind me of someone very strongly, and I have a very hard time imagining him as a teacher."

Jack looked at her with an unreadable expression. "Is it that James, you mistook me for at the party?" he asked her.

Liz fought the urge to squirm in her seat, but then she just nodded sadly.

Jack, who had, of course, noticed the sadness on her face, put his hand on hers and asked quietly, "What happened?"

Liz swallowed. How could she tell him that he was actually James and that he had been her husband before they both were killed? He would not hesitate for a second to carry her off to St. Mungos - if he even knew what St. Mungos was, that is.

Finally she looked defiantly at him. "He is dead," she said more sharply than she intended to.

Then she took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down. "I - I don't want to talk about it - please," she added more quietly.

Jack was at a loss for words, from her reaction as well as from the information he had just received.

He squeezed her hand gently and cleared his throat. "I'm so sorry Liz," he finally managed to say.

Then he drooped his shoulders and stared down on the plate in front of him. "I really shouldn't have brought it up."

"It's alright. You couldn't know," Lily said softly. Then she looked up in his face. Jack felt her gaze on him and raised his eyes reluctantly so that their eyes locked. A small smile curled Liz's lips now.

"You know, you can't even begin to imagine how much you are like him."