Deer to Me

Chapter Ten

To Madame Pomfrey's chagrin and James's pure delight, he was feeling very well enough (or at least his voice had returned enough) for him to be let out of the hospital wing. He wasn't completely well yet, but he kept the stuff that Lily gave him close at hand. He didn't have long to ‘enjoy' his time back in classes however, the term ended two days later.

So here he was, the little blue tub stuck under his nose, his mother's hand-woven quilt wrapped around him, taking up one complete side of the compartment while Sirius and Peter took the other side playing chess. James could hear by the sounds of utter defeat that Sirius was taking a pounding time and time again. Peter may have been a complete bungler at everything else, but he was a genius when it came to chess. Perhaps it was because he wasn't afraid to sacrifice his entire army so that the king would be all right, whereas Sirius and James wanted to at least save the back row. Kinda hard to win against those odds.

His eyes were closed when the compartment door slipped open. He heart Remus's hello, he was back from his prefect duties.

"Sleeping is he?" Remus asked.

"As always," Sirius snorted. "I don't know what Evans did to that little bottle, but he hasn't let it go."

"Probably it's a reminder of her or something," Peter suggested.

"Quite odd if you ask me," Sirius muttered, rubbing his chin in thoughtfulness.

"What is?" Remus asked and James heard the cushions moving as if he was sitting down.

"I was just thinking how adamant Evans was to go visit him, even to the point of sneaking in there."

"Yes, I noticed that too," Remus winced as a particularly brutal knight slaughtered Sirius's pawn.

"Perhaps she doesn't think him so much a git as she lets on," Sirius grinned and directed the next pawn to take the knight. "She was blushing something awful when he took her hand the other day."

"Did he tell either of you what she did?" Peter was nonchalant when he directed a pawn Sirius hadn't noticed to take Sirius's pawn, a rook, and his queen. "Check."

"Damn you Wormtail," Sirius cursed. He stared at the board for a few moments, looking up at Peter's calculating face. He moved to touch his other rook so as to take the offending pawn, and Peter made a sound. Retracting his hand like the rook was on fire, he reached towards a pawn that was also close. Peter made another sound and gave a little shake of his head.

"Uh-uh?" he asked. Peter shook his head. Sirius brought his hand back to his mouth and tapped his nails on his teeth. He surveyed the board and made a sound like something had dawned on him. With a devious little cackle, he moved his king the only way it could go, left.

"Checkmate," Peter moved the pawn into the space where the king had previously been. Remus gave a chuckle.

"Your too trusting, Padfoot."

"You....little..." Sirius was shaking in anger. He lunged over the chessboard and knocked Peter over. The two wrestled for a moment, Sirius going for Peter's neck and Peter squealing like a girl.

"Come on guys!" James whined. "That's really loud!"

"Baby!" Sirius snorted, sitting on Peter. He gave a whimper of pain as Sirius was a lot bigger than he was.

"Maybe we should get Lily to come back. You seemed to make a miraculous recovery the last time," Remus chuckled.

"Yes, dear Prongs. What happened?" Sirius squirmed on top of Peter; he had a bony butt and it was digging into Peter's back.

"She just gave me my Christmas present," he said very ambiguously. Remus and Sirius looked at each other and Peter gave another whimper.

"And it was?" Sirius pressed.

"Very nice. But a little messy. She made me take off my shirt," James smiled. Remus might not have, but Sirius would definitely take it the wrong way. Sure enough Sirius was laughing and hitting him on the shoulder.

"Good going, Prongs!" Sirius was grinning from ear to ear. Peter was still on the ground and whined.

"I'm sure that you didn't..." Remus was more the type to take things with a grain of salt. "I mean, Lily's....James....you didn't-"

"Re-lax, Moonface," James said. "Nothing happened. She brought this stuff in and rubbed it all over my chest. It's a muggle remedy."

"So, she rubbed it on you?" Sirius asked him incredulously.

"Yup," James sat up and stretched. "I was quite surprised myself, but I'm not one to kick a gift horse in the mouth."

"Look," Remus corrected.

"What?" Sirius and James looked around, trying to figure out what Remus was talking about.

"No, the expression is ‘look a gift horse in the mouth.'"

"Well it makes more sense to say, ‘kick,' you know? I mean, what's so bad about looking at something," James shrugged. Remus rolled his eyes.

"Horses aside, why was she being so nice to you?" Sirius asked. "I think she might be warming up to you, Prongs? What's she been saying in the forest?"

"Nothing much," James said. "She hasn't been out there lately. I don't know why."

"I suppose she hasn't complained about it all that much," Remus said quietly. "I never hear the end of it during rounds."

"What?" James asked.

"She loathes the cold," Remus told him. "Absolutely hates it. That's why she didn't go out the other night."

"Well, I'll be..." James thought about this for a moment. "And you didn't think to tell me that?"

Remus shrugged. "Thought you knew."

Later on, they arrived at the station and James was immediately showered in kisses by his mother. She was all a twitter because James had written a pathetic letter to her saying that he was sick and that he really missed her (it always meant that he was off the hook for chores during his stay at home). The only thing he had to was endure the public show of affection and the taunting by Sirius.

Speaking of the old dog, he gave a glare to his own lot who were greeting his little brother Regulus with as much love and affection as the Blacks were famous for, a pat on the back and a curt nod. They looked to Sirius without much affection and made a motion for him to follow them. Sirius waved goodbye to James and grabbed his things, walking towards them with a grim face.

James turned to Remus, but he was already with his own family, his kind-looking mother and stern-looking father, and James knew that they were exactly how they looked. He, himself, was terrified of the older Mr. Lupin.

While James's own father went to retrieve his son's trunk, James looked out for Lily and her family. He'd only seen them in passing before, but now he took a good look at them.

Mr. Evans was a smart-looking man, if not a little rough around the edges. He gave Lily a quick kiss on the forehead and she said something about the state of his hand, for she was looking at it intently. From this far away, James couldn't see exactly what was wrong with them.

Mrs. Evans was a blonde woman with Lily's almond-shaped green eyes. She held herself much like Lily did and gave her daughter a hug, very lovingly. Lily spoke to her about something and they both smiled in laughter.

Next was a little blonde boy who was about two heads shorter than Lily. He lunched at her and she gave him a big hug. It warmed James's heart to see her with him for some reason. Lily stood up and James could see her entire continence change. She was much stiffer when she addressed the last two people.

The first was a woman a few years older than Lily. She was very thin and bony, not beautiful like Lily was, but there was some resemblance. Especially in the way they looked at each other, a perfect combination of restraint and intense dislike. Lily obviously didn't know the other person because the bony woman had to introduce them. The man nodded at her and had a purple face. Lily gave him a small smile-

"Come along, son," Mr. Potter called. He followed his son's line of sight and clapped him on the back. "Still onto that one, are you? Made any progress?"

"Actually, Dad, I have." James took one last look at Lily and left with his parents.

That night, James was sitting in the living room, completely full of his mother's cooking and very satisfied with life. The Christmas tree was rife with gifts, many of which bore his name. His room was untouched and welcoming, as was his bed. The beautiful vixen next door was playing with her three-year-old and he had a nice view when she bent over to pick him up. He was going to go check up on his friends down at the coffee shop down the road (Godric's Hollow was filled with muggles, James was sure that they were the only magical people in the entire town). They were always up for a good afternoon, even if they were muggles. They got into some scrapes just the same as he and Sirius.

He reached over to the table and pulled out his wand. He had turned of age at the beginning of October so he was able to go out and do things with his wand now. It made for a much lazier James as he Summoned his blanket to himself and snuggled with it for a moment before falling into a light sleep.

He jolted out of his sleep by a flash of light and thunder. He looked at the clock and rubbed his eyes, it was past midnight. But it wasn't the thunder that had awoken him, it was the banging on the door in the front door. James sat up and walked to the door, yawning loudly.

"Jim, what's going on?" His father called from the front door.

"Dunno Dad," James said, walking to the door and opening it. He blinked and turned on the light out front. Standing there, drenched in rain and shaking was Sirius. He was pale with patches of red dotting his cheeks. He had his trunk overflowing with his things and he looked at James, his eyes full of disbelief and hurt.

"James, can I stay here for a while?" Sirius asked.

"Sure, mate. What happened?" James said, moving away and letting Sirius walk in. He obviously said the wrong thing because it set Sirius off again. He threw his trunk down and began shaking violently again, but James realized that he was never cold.

"Those....those....those.....stupid...." He couldn't spit the words out as he paced the carpet.

"Sirius, son, why don't you sit down." Mr. Potter was downstairs now, and looking concerned at the angry teen in front of him.

"They wanted me to drop out of school to be a Death Eater!" Sirius exclaimed. James and his father were speechless. For a while the only sound was the pattering rain on the ceiling.

"What?" James said.

"They told me that ‘The Dark Lord has it right' and that I should ‘be taught alongside the right kind of people.' I told them that they can stuff it, in laymen's terms." He cast a cautious glance at Mr. Potter. "I'm never going back there as long as I live."

"Slimy gits," Mr. Potter said. "But you are welcome here as long as you like, you know that."

"I hate them. I hate them all," he said, sitting down and shaking still. "Them and they're stupid pure-blood nonsense."

"Will? James?" Mrs. Potter came out in her dressing gown and rubbed her eyes. "Sirius, what are you doing here? Merlin, you're shivering. Let me go make some tea, James, go fetch him a blanket."

"Yes Mum." James went to the cabinet and grabbed one of his grandmother's hand-sewn quilts and handed it to Sirius. He held it in his lap, but didn't unfold it.

"I'm not cold. I just keep hearing the things that they're saying. My father called me a disgrace and said that maybe my brother would make the name of Black great again. My mother blasted off my name on the family tree and told me that she was going to tell people that I had died, and I should just jump off a cliff because I was good for nothing else."

"Padfoot..." James was speechless. He knew of everything that Sirius had to deal with in his home, having been there once when he was 13 and been thrown out because he was not ‘pure- blood.'

"And what's worse, there was Regulus, smarmy bastard, telling them that he would be better and that he would do everything that I failed, and he would become a Death Eater in my stead. Stupid git, he doesn't realize what the Dark Lord means. He's going to start killing people next. And even if he wasn't, Prongs, I wouldn't even think about any of that. All through the argument, I kept seeing Lily and I wanted to shout at them that muggle-borns are just as good as the rest of us."

"You did the right thing, Padfoot," James said as his parents returned with food and a steaming cup of tea.

"James, go make up the spare bedroom, will you? And take Sirius's things" Mrs. Potter said to her husband. "I'd like to talk with Sirius."

"Sure," James said, getting up and walking upstairs. He was still reeling from that conversation with Sirius. He couldn't understand how family could hate each other so much. He switched on the light in the bedroom and set to making the bed (he was so used to doing things at home without magic that he forgot he could use it). How could his family say those things to him? He tucked the mattress cover over the ends of the mattress and shook his head. Things like that never made sense to James who was raised with the fact that no matter what, people should respect each other (greaseballs who were too into the dark arts didn't apply, but James never categorized him as anything but ‘it').

"Hey Prongs." Sirius walked into the room and sat down on the bed. He looked more tired than James had ever seen him.

"Sorry ‘bout your folks, mate," James smiled half-heartedly.

"Yeah. Bunch of blighters."

"What'd my mum and dad say?"

"Oh, you know, I should still try to make amends with my family, and that they're a bunch of idiots, that was your father-"

"Good ol' Dad," James said with a smile. If he was taught by his mother to love and respect everyone, he was taught by his father to loathe the dark arts.

"But that I could live here if I wanted," Sirius said, looking guilty. "I just....I'm sorry. I didn't know where else to go."

"Good, I've always wanted a brother," James grinned. He honestly couldn't think of anything better than Sirius living with him. This meant that they could cause trouble from waking until sleeping.

"They aren't all that they're cracked up to be, believe me," Sirius laughed.

"Aw, come on. I'm the older one, right? So I get to boss you around?"

"Not likely Prongs."

James noticed that the next morning his mother had gone Christmas shopping and when she returned, the tree was twice as full as it had been before, and all of the new presents bore Sirius's name.