Before the Storm

"Sirius?"

Harry sat up, blinking rapidly to make sure there was not something in his eye. There had to be something wrong with his vision, because the grinning, handsome black-haired boy in front of him most definitely was not real.

Sirius Black did not disappear however, no matter how much Harry blinked. He was still there, looking at Harry like he was spitting milk out of his eyes.

"'Course it's me. Who were you expecting? Lily?" He grabbed Harry's shoulders, forcing him to look him in the eye. In a very sissy voice, he said, "Kiss me quick, big boy. My lips are on fire!"

When he didn't get a response except for more deer-in-headlights like staring, Sirius began to get worried.

"James, what's wrong with you?" he demanded, letting him go. "You look like you've just seen a ghost."

The irony of the statement floated past Harry. Instead, he focused on the name.

"James," he breathed. "You just called me James."

"Well, you see, there's this little thing called a name. You have one. I call you it. It makes things a lot easier than running after you shouting, 'Hey you kid with the stupid gl-' where are you going?"

Before Sirius could finish, Harry jumped to his feet and ran over to the edge of the lake, which had receded several feet from when he had last been there.

Thin clouds that still sprinkled rain on him dimmed the light of the moon, a little sliver of silver, but there was enough light from the castle that Harry could make out his reflection.

Except, of course, it wasn't his.

It almost looked like him. It was him, but with slight mistakes. His forehead was smooth and unmarked and his eyes a pretty hazel instead of green.

He reached toward his reflection with trepidation, afraid that if he let the tip of his finger touch that nose, those eyes, that everything would disappear.

"James?"

Before Harry could touch the water, Sirius came up behind him.

"James, are you all right?" he said softly.

Harry looked over his shoulder at what was supposed to be his very dead godfather, then back at the reflection of his equally dead father.

What was going on?

"Did Lucie hit you with something funny?" Sirius asked, truly concerned.

"Lucie?" replied Harry, looking back at Sirius. "Who's Lucie?"

"The sissy blonde bloke you were dueling," said Sirius, gesturing to a spot to the left. Harry followed his hand.

A few meters away and a little farther back from the shore lay a crumpled figure with long, shining blonde hair. From where Harry was squatting it definitely looked like a girl.

"You hit each other with spells at the same time and were knocked out cold," explained Sirius, watching Harry's gaze.

Lucie...

Feeling a sickening sense of dread churning in his stomach, Harry got up and went over to the lump.

"Draco?"

The unconscious boy did look remarkably like Draco Malfoy. They both had the same lips and nose, and their hair was the same shade of silvery-blonde, but this boy had his hair all the way past his shoulders and his frame was stockier and shorter than Draco's. Also, for all of Draco's fashion sense, Harry had never seen him in skin-tight velveteen breeches and a ruffled shirt.

No, the person at his feet was most definitely Lucius Malfoy.

Could he have done this? He and his father were dueling apparently. Maybe he had cast some sort of spell to make him switch places with his father.

That didn't seem right, though. That did not seem like Lucius's style. It was too sneaky, and didn't make any sense.

Harry jerked as he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"What is wrong with you?" demanded Sirius, appearing next to him. "You're all jittery and weird."

"Lu-Lucius did hit me with something off," said Harry, swallowing hard. "I feel a bit dizzy. I just need to take a nap or something, that's all."

Sirius gave him a look that said quite plainly, "I know you're lying, but I'm going to let you get away with it anyway."

"Do I need to ask you all the usual questions?" he smirked. "Like what year is it?"

"Actually, could you tell me that? It would be very helpful."

Sirius threw back his head and laughed, unaware that Harry was serious.

"Let's go back up," he said. "Moony could probably see what's up with you."

Let's hope not thought Harry glumly.

But as he looked at Sirius's happy face, he felt his worries disappear. He was just being paranoid because every year of his life since age eleven someone had tried to kill him. It didn't mean someone was trying to kill him this time. It was a screw up, that was all, and he might as well enjoy it.

Smiling, he followed Sirius back to the castle.

* * *

Peter Pettigrew was very bored.

James and Sirius had refused to let him watch the duel, their reasons being that it was dangerous, it was raining, and he "bloody couldn't stop wetting himself whenever anyone else did anything even remotely cool." Instead, he ended up in the Gryffindor Common room watching Remus Lupin read, an activity he did an obnoxious amount.

"Is that good?" Peter asked after a while, leaning his face too close to Lupin's for comfort.

"Yes," replied Lupin, nonplussed by the invasion to his bubble.

"Can you read me some of it?"

"No."

"Oh." Peter looked around the room for a moment to try to find something to distract him, then gave up and turned back to Lupin. "Say, Remus, have you got any-"

Lupin held out a square of chocolate before he could finish.

"Thanks," muttered Peter, taking the sweet and chewing on it glumly. He tried to think of something else to say, but was saved the trouble when Sirius and what he thought was James walked in.

"James! Sirius!" he yelped happily, running up to them like an enthusiastic puppy. "How'd it go?"

"Splendidly," said Sirius in a dead tone of voice. He brushed past Peter and dropped into an armchair next to Lupin.

"What happened?" asked Lupin without taking his eyes off the page.

"James turned Lucie into a ferret and fed him to a hungry hippogriff."

"Really?" said Peter excitedly, dropping to the floor at Sirius's feet.

"Sarcasm, Wormtail," replied Sirius, glaring at him. "Sarcasm."

"You're awfully quiet."

It took Harry a moment to realize Lupin was talking to him. He was too busy trying to take in the scene around him, and convince himself he was part of it and not an observer like when he had been in the pensieve.

"Oh, um, I'm just sleepy," he said, sinking down into another armchair.

"Yeah right," scoffed Sirius. "You've been acting funny since I woke you up."

Lupin finally looked up.

"Woke up? Were you knocked out?" he asked.

"Only for a little bit," mumbled Harry. "I'm fine now. Really."

Lupin's blue-gray eyes squinted a bit at him, and Harry swore he could see his nostrils flare out slightly, as though he were sniffing the air. A wave of heat passed over him as he panicked, and only relaxed when Lupin shrugged and went back to his book.

"Oooooo I bet you got him good, James," Peter practically panted, scooting over to Harry's chair and resting his forearms on his knees. Harry instinctively pushed the boy away, the wormy feeling of revulsion squirming in his stomach.

And then he remembered.

"Yeah, um, I did," he said lamely.

He's supposed to be your friend he thought, looking down at the confused, dimwit boy before him. In his pre-Scabbers days, Peter Pettigrew looked disturbingly cherubic, with flushed, fat red cheeks and curly blonde hair. It was only his shining beady eyes that gave away that something might be wrong with him.

He hasn't turned yet Harry continued to think as Peter slowly moved away. You have to pretend. Just...pretend.

"What are you reading, Moony?" asked Sirius casually, oblivious to the fact that something had gone wrong.

"Cursed Fire-breathing Shadow Demons from the Southern Sahara," replied Lupin.

"Ah. It's an upper, then."

"They're very interesting," insisted Moony defensively.

"They're school work," said Sirius, rolling his eyes. He pulled a deck of cards out of his robes and let them leap from his fingers, shuffling themselves and doing an impressive acrobatic display in the process. "Play Egyptian Ratscrew with me."

"Fine," conceded Lupin. He set the book aside and he and Sirius sat down on the floor.

"James?" proposed Sirius, looking up at Harry just as the cards flew neatly back into a perfect deck.

"I'll sit this one out," answered Harry, who did not have the faintest idea what Egyptian Ratscrew was. "I'm pooped."

"Suit yourself."

Harry watched the game intently, trying to figure out what it was about. All he managed to discover was that it involved a lot of slapping, shouting, cursing, and "Goddamn you Remus and your goddamn jacks!"-ing. Pettigrew hovered around them, offering such useful advice as, "Slap it! Slap it! It's a sandwich. Oops, never mind."

"Wormtail, if you don't stop helping me, I'm going to learn how to turn into a cat and eat you," threatened Sirius, slipping two cards under the messy mound in the middle.

"Sorry."

"Can you change your animal forms?" asked Lupin lightly, laying down a card. "I thought it was just an inherent thing."

"I dunno," said Sirius. "James?"

"What?" said Harry.

"Can we change our Animagi forms?"

Ani-what?

Oh, damn.

It felt like Harry had just swallowed a brick, and on an empty stomach too.

He had forgotten about the whole Animagi thing. He did not think it was enough to merely be in his father's body; there had to be some technical part to the transformations, a technical part he knew absolutely nothing about.

Damnit. He knew he should have paid more attention in Transfiguration.

The moon was still a little more than a sliver. He had a week in a half, maybe two at the most until the next full moon. He had a couple options. He could learn how to be an Animagi, which was unlikely to happen, he could confess who he was, which would get him committed in the closed ward at St. Mungo's, or he could go and let himself get eaten by werewolf Lupin, which would just put a damper on the whole affair.

Or he could figure out how to get home.

Damn.

"James?"

Harry was snapped out of his thoughts, the room suddenly coming back into focus. The three Marauders were staring at him.

"Got a Lock-Jaw Hex on you?" asked Sirius, his tone almost joking.

"What?"

"You haven't said anything for three minutes," pointed out Lupin.

"Oh, um, yeah," mumbled Harry. "Actually, I think Malfoy really might have hit me with, erm, a stupid charm or something."

"No kidding," muttered Sirius.

"Do you need anything?" asked Peter.

"No, no, I'll just, erm, walk it off," replied Harry lamely.

"I still can't believe the great James Potter let himself get hexed by a Slytherin," remarked Lupin, shaking his head and putting down another card.

"A little bird distracted me," answered Harry.

Lupin stared, raising an eyebrow and grinning as he slapped the card Sirius had just put down. Incredulous, Sirius lifted Lupin's hand to stare at the two eights sitting on top of the pile.

"How did you do that?"

"Did this bird have red hair?" Lupin asked Harry, ignoring Sirius.

"Didn't even look at the bloody--"

Confused, Harry suddenly realized Lupin was talking about his mother.

"What? Uh..."

"You're not natural," said Sirius, still ranting about the cards.

"Oh really? What was your first clue?" said Lupin, sweeping up the cards. "My witty British charm or the fact that I'm a WEREWOLF?"

Harry managed to smile before another horrible of thoughts from the cornucopia of horrible thoughts that was his evening extinguished it.

Malfoy.

Draco had been with him when the storm had engulfed them. If he was in his father's body, and his father had just been dueling with Lucius Malfoy, could Draco...

Nah. Couldn't be.

* * *

Draco's first thought upon waking was, "Uuuuuggghhh, how much did I drink last night?"

And then he realized the pain that came with every attempted muscle twitch was not the result of underage partying but of something else.

He sat up and blinked his bleary eyes, trying to get a grasp on the situation.

"Potter?" he bleated weakly. Then he remembered that Malfoys don't bleat, weakly or not. "Potter!"

He could feel mud seeping through his robes to his clothes, which made him groan. It's going to cost a fortune to dry-clean these...

Wait a minute.

I don't own skin-tight velveteen breeches.

The more he tried to think, the more the dull throb in the back of his head persisted. Gingerly, he touched it. No blood. With a sigh he ran his fingers through his hair...

...And the extra foot of it that definitely had not been there before.

Unpleasantly puzzled, he forced himself up onto his feet and drunkenly stumbled over to the edge of the lake. As gently as possible, he let himself fall to his hands and knees so he could examine his reflection.

And then, as un-gently as possible, he fainted.

* * *

Draco's first thought upon waking was, "What the bloody hell?"

He was lying in a warm, comfortable bed. Everything seemed white and glowy, and he soon realized it was because he was in the Hogwarts infirmary, and that it was morning. To his addled and surprised mind this made sense.

He just couldn't figure out why Albus Dumbledore was there.

"Wonderful morning, isn't it, Mr. Malfoy?" he said pleasantly, eyes twinkling in their familiar way.

"What's so bloody wonderful about it?" grumbled Draco before remembering that he was talking to the Headmaster. "Erm, I mean--"

"No worries, Mr. Malfoy. I understand many people do not share my sentiments about this particular time of day."

Draco blinked. It wasn't often that he spoke to the Headmaster. In fact, it was never. Dumbledore never really paid him much attention.

Probably because he wasn't Harry.

"What exactly's going on?" he asked.

"Funny thing. I was just about to ask you that," replied Dumbledore.

Blink. Blink.

"Thomas Bones and Amelia Larking found you sleeping next to the lake while they were...er, walking," explained Dumbledore.

"I wasn't asleep."

"Yes, yes, of course." Dumbledore waved his hand in front of his face, like he was trying to disperse some horrible smell. "Now you can imagine the surprise they had, finding one of the school's more...illustrious students snoozing by the lake. They were rather tempted to just leave you there, but their good Samaritan instincts won out and now here you are."

"Um...Oh."

"Now I know this is rather tedious, but since you were wandering school grounds after hours I'm afraid you're going to have to..."

Draco stopped paying attention, however, because he suddenly noticed something behind Dumbledore. He leaned slightly to the side to get a better look.

After five years of loathing him, despising him, glaring angry looks at him across the Great Hall, he had developed a special sense for picking him out of crowds. Even three stories up and inside he could see him, sitting outside by the lake.

"Potter," he hissed under his breath.

"Hm? What? Oh yes, that water stain does look at bit like an otter."

Draco had to shake himself a bit mentally to register what the Headmaster was saying.

"What? Oh, yeah. Damn those...otter stains," he mumbled.

Awkward pause.

"So, can I go, then?" asked Draco at last.

"Of course. There's nothing really wrong with you, so you're free to head on to class."

Class. Right.

Tucking his now obnoxiously long hair behind his ears, Draco pushed aside the blankets and started for the door.

"Oh, and Mr. Malfoy?"

Draco stopped and turned to look back at the Headmaster.

"Don't forget your detention on Friday."

Giving a curt nod he turned back around.

"Oh, one more thing."

Impatient and annoyed, Draco turned around again. Dumbledore was giving him a mysterious, wise, and cheerful look.

"Remember that you are the master of your own actions; no one else is."

Frowning at this odd bit of fortune-cookie advice, Draco once again turned back to the door and went out into the hall.

It wasn't until later that he realized he might have asked Dumbledore about what was happening to him. Even if it wasn't the Malfoy way.

* * *

Harry was skiving off Divination, something even Lupin with his Hermione-like work ethic was willing to do. Instead, he was leaning against a tree by the lake, trying hard not to fall asleep.

He had had an uneasy night, trying to sleep in the same room he had been sleeping in for the better part of five years but with completely different people. The rhythm of breaths, snores, and sleepy murmurs was off, and it had kept him awake.

Sirius was skipping rocks across the water, employing Peter as his rock-finder. Peter was applying himself to the task with an annoying amount of enthusiasm, running around the edge of the lake in search of the flattest rocks. Lupin, not surprisingly, was reading.

"What are you reading now?" Sirius demanded, sitting next to Lupin as Peter went off to get more stones.

"Hogwarts, a History," replied Lupin, turning a page.

Harry couldn't resist letting out a snort.

"What?" asked Lupin, peering at him.

"He's laughing at your choice of reading, you dork," answered Sirius.

"Some of us like to be well informed," shot back Lupin, going back to his reading. "If you had read this before, maybe you wouldn't have tried to Disapparate by the forest and gotten your nose splinched off."

"Hey, they managed to get it back on all right in the end."

The laugh in Harry's throat got cut off as he caught site of a familiar red head...

"Oh not again," groaned Sirius.

"I'm still saying your nose has always been a little off center since."

"Not that." Sirius jerked his thumb over to group of girls that had just come down from the castle, then looked pointedly at Harry. "That."

"Oh."

It took Harry a second to realize both boys were staring at him, and that Peter had come back and was staring at him, too.

He had been too busy staring at Lily Evans.

"Um...what?" he said at last.

"You're doing it again," said Sirius in a sing-song voice.

"Huh?"

"You're staring at Lily like a lackadaisical young spoony," said Lupin. Sirius looked at him.

"What?"

"Like an idiotic wanker."

"Ah."

"I wasn't looking at her like that!" exclaimed Harry, horrified at the Oedipal idea.

"Yes you were," said Sirius. "Just go talk to her; you're James Potter, for crying out loud."

"Doesn't she hate me right now, though?"

"Well, that's what she says," replied Sirius, rolling his eyes. "But c'mon, you know girls."

Harry really didn't, but he thought it wise not to tell Sirius so. It didn't quite strike him as something his father would do.

"Go up to her and say hi," insisted Sirius. "Hit her down with that Potter charm."

Harry felt like doing something halfway between laughing and being sick. Potter charm? Good lord.

"Fine," he said at last.

Trying his best to look cool and feeling like a moron in the process, he strolled over to the group of girls.

"Hi Lil--"

"Piss off, Potter," she replied coolly.

"Right."

He turned right back around and returned to the boys.

"Nice," sniggered Sirius.

"Oh I'm sure she'll come around in the end," said Lupin, looking back down at his reading.

Harry opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by a small rock smacking him in the back of the head.

"OW! Son of a--"

"Potter!" roared an oddly familiar voice.

Peering round his shoulder, Harry called out, "Malfoy?"

An effeminate boy with long blonde hair and muddy smudges across his face shoved Harry's back, forcing him around. Harry faced him, confused. Was this Draco or was this Lucius?

"We really need to talk," snarled the Malfoy.

Sirius strode forward and stood beside Harry.

"Bugger off, Malfoy," he growled.

The boy at first dismissed Sirius, then did a double take and stared.

"Wait a minute, you're dead," he said.

Well, that answered the Draco or Lucius question.

"What?" said Sirius, taken aback.

Draco looked around from boy to boy with an unmistakable look of shock.

"And you're old," he continued, pointing at Lupin. "And..." He looked at

Pettigrew. "You're just ugly."

"Old? I'm a year younger than you!" cried Lupin.

"Sirius, make him stop!" whined Peter.

Sirius took a step towards Malfoy and pushed him so he stumbled a few steps backwards. Before he could fall Sirius grabbed the front of his robes and held him up.

"I don't know what you're problem is, Lucie, but--"

"Sirus!" Harry stepped between the two boys. "Sirius, I'll handle this."

Sirius gave Harry a questioning look.

"Are you sure?"

"Don't worry."

Reluctantly, Sirius let Draco go, shoving him into a tree.

"Fine," he said to Harry. "If you're gone to long, though..." He finished the statement by giving Draco a particularly menacing look before stalking back over to Lupin and Peter.

Harry grabbed a lock of Draco's hair and dragged him to a spot on the other side of the lake where they couldn't be heard by the others, with or without any Extendable Ears-like hearing enhancing devices they might have cooked up. He felt a bit like he was walking a dog.

"Well, I see you got dragged along too," spat Harry, finally letting Draco go. The other boy rubbed his scalp for a second before replying.

"I just want to know what the hell is going on," he said. "And-hey, what happened to your scar?"

Harry sighed.

"I'm in my father's body," he said, "as are you. Somehow we got sent back into time and somehow now we're them."

"That doesn't make any sense," huffed Draco. "I've never heard about any

charm that does that."

"Neither have I," said Harry, "but obviously there is one, or else we wouldn't be here."

"Why would someone even want to do that?" demanded Draco. "So we're our fathers when they were our age. That doesn't do anything."

"It could have been an accident."

Draco sighed and sat down, leaning against a particularly large rock. They remained like that awkwardly for a moment.

"Well, what are you going to do about it?" asked Draco at last.

Harry sputtered.

"What am I going to do about it?" he spluttered. "You're here too. It's not like you couldn't help."

Wait a minute wondered Harry. Am I asking Draco for help?

"Are you asking me for help?" said Draco.

"Um, not exactly," answered Harry. "I just don't like you expecting me to do

everything while you brush your hair."

Draco rolled his eyes, which were now a pure icy blue instead of gray.

"Please," he said. "You're the great Harry Potter. You're suppose to be the one that tries to solve mysteries and save the world while I look handsome and haughty and make glib comments about your constant failure."

"Did you just compliment me or insult me?" asked Harry, blinking.

"The point is," continued Draco, ignoring him, "is that I don't help you. That's not the way it works. That's what your little Potterettes are for."

"Well Hermione and Ron aren't here, in case you haven't notice," snapped Harry, scowling. "And I can't exactly go to them for help." He jerked his head towards the Marauders.

"Fine." Draco stood up and saluted Harry like a drunken soldier. "Wheres d'you wants me, Cap'n?"

"You're going to be a pain in the ass, aren't you?" sighed Harry. He slouched his shoulders in a resigned sort of way.

"Hey, a Malfoy is a Malfoy, whether he's wearing skin-tight velveteen breeches or not."

"Meet me in the library after dinner, then," said Harry. "And...try not to act funny, will you?"

"That will be difficult. My hysterical Malfoy wit is more an inherent thing, really."

Harry just rolled his eyes and walked away.

* * *

"What was that all about?" demanded Sirius when Harry returned.

"Malfoy wanted me to...erm...help him on his homework," answered Harry lamely.

"That seems off," remarked Lupin.

"Er, yeah."

"You're not actually going to help the smelly little ferret, are you?" said Sirius.

"Um, I was thinking I would just go...give him all the wrong answers."

Sirius smiled, leaning back lazily against a tree.

"Good."

Quietly, Harry sat down and let himself fall back so he was lying in the grass. It felt so warm out now, with the sun beating on his face, and the ground was still fragrant from the rainfall. It seemed all so nice and pleasant, and he insisted to himself that everything was going to be fine.

Even though his heart said it wasn't.