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This Go Around


The owl post arrived while they continued on eating, and James’s heart leaped with excitement when he saw Bubo flapping down through the midst of the owls fluttering about from the ceiling of the Great Hall. He held out his arms for the owl and eagerly untied the letter from ‘round her leg before she’d even properly landed on his shoulder. He was so pleased to see his father’s handwriting on the scroll he’d extracted that he gave Bubo a strip of bacon. He unraveled the scroll and read over the note within - it was just a generic letter, nothing of importance, nothing special, but James swore he would keep it forever, and he read it over several times in a row, clutching it like it was a precious stone. They weren’t captured. They aren’t in danger. And what’s more, Dad’s written me himself, so he must be doing alright. He’s not laying in dirty straw in the dark and mire like he was last time I saw him. James was so relieved.

Suddenly his finger was nipped and he looked down as a bit of blood was drawn to see there was the owl carrying the Daily Prophet, which Remus had already picked up and shaken out to look at. James stuck his finger into his mouth and reached into his robes pocket for one of the sickles he had in his pocket. He slipped one into the owl’s pouch and pulled the finger from his mouth as the owl flew away.

“Anything exciting in there today, Moony?” asked Peter anxiously, looking up from his hash.

“Minchum’s scheduled a ceremony to honor Mad-Eye,” he said, “Now that he’s feeling a bit better.”

James looked up. “Wait. Minchum’s back?”

All three of them turned to look at him.

“Has been, hasn’t he?” said Remus slowly.

“Hit’cha head or something, Prongs?” Sirius asked, a smirk twitching over his lips.

“No - I --”

“All the galleons they gave him are so heavy they’ve dragged his brains down,” Peter joked quietly, smirking into his breakfast.

“Yes, I s’pose that too much attention will do that to a man,” Sirius snickered.

James’s eyes met Remus’s. Remus’s eyebrows etched deeply with concern. James quickly looked away, not wanting to be questioned too much; he laughed, too, and waved it off… He was going to have to get better at pretending he knew what was going on or he was going to be found out - and he didn’t know what would happen if somebody knew what he’d done. He only knew that Dumbledore had very specifically told him not to tell anyone. And so he tried very hard not to look Remus Lupin in the eye for the rest of breakfast… which was a good deal harder than it might normally have been, for Remus never looked away.




The day in Hogsmeade was quite different this go around. For one, there were no errant first years sneaking about in their midst, so there was no Oliver Kent coming running after them. James wasn’t dressed up because he wasn’t on his way to meet Lily Evans at the Three Broomsticks, and Peter wasn’t going to be alone wandering about the village aimlessly.

Quite the opposite, it seemed that Peter was actually sort of fitting in better than he usually did, James thought, especially with Sirius, who kept putting his arm about Peter’s shoulders and high-fiving him when he might have normally given James a high-five, or put his arm about Remus’s shoulders. There was a strange air to it, too, as though there was something between Remus and Sirius that wasn’t being spoken about, but acted a bit like a wedge. The pair of them seemed to be on tenterhooks with one another, and Peter was walking a fine line between them, carefully staying out of whatever it was that was keeping Remus’s eyes from ever meeting Sirius’s and making Sirius talk with a bit of a condescending air whenever he directed conversation in Remus’s direction.

James had sort of hoped that by changing the past, one of the things that might have changed would be the incident with Severus Snape and the Werewolf Prank that Sirius had pulled - if you wanted to call it a prank, that is - but it seemed it had still happened. As had the horrible break up. James noticed that Sirius’s hand was still bare of the ring.

Besides the incident with Snape, though, there seemed that something had gone on the night before - something to do with the party that apparently had happened. Whenever the party came up, it was by way of some comment from Remus about how drunk everyone was and Sirius would snap that he said sorry already - what more do you want, Remus?

James really wished he knew what had gone on. Honestly, from what he was seeing, Remus was being sort of an arsehole about whatever it was that had happened though, which was really unlike Remus Lupin - at least when it was so far from the next full moon (they were only halfway through the moon cycle). Then again, he knew Sirius way too well to believe for even a second that there wasn’t a perfectly reasonable explanation for Remus’s attitude toward Sirius. It was just really hard for James to be angry with Sirius Black knowing that in another timeline, Sirius had willingly thrown himself in front of a jet of green light for him… knowing that Sirius Black was not all talk when he pledged that he would die to save his friends.

They were coming through the center of the village, and Peter was going through the bag of sweets he’d bought at Honeydukes, when Remus let out a strangled cry and went running ahead of them as fast as his awkward gait would allow. Sirius squinted, hopping to see over the heads of all the people around him. “What the fuck is he going off over? Can anybody see?”

“You need stilts, smurf,” James said, smirking.

“Don’t mock me, look for me, you bleeder!” Sirius said, punching James in the arm.

“Dunno mate, it’s some bloke --”

“He’s going mad over a bloke? Who’s the bloke!”

“I dunno!” James said, “How should I know?”

Sirius leaped onto James to try at having a better look and nearly knocked him over instead and Peter stood on his tiptoes, craning his neck to have a see and he said, “Isn’t that Mr. Veigler?”

James had a sudden flashback, a blur of Ned Veigler appearing through the green-flash of the Floo in Malfoy Manor during the throws of the fight… could it be true? Was Ned Veigler finally back from his self-inflicted exile?

Sure enough, when the boys arrived over to where Sirius had gone, they found it had been to greet Ned Veigler out front of the Hogsmeade Inn. “Hiya Ned,” said Sirius, thrusting a hand out to shake Ned’s hand with tight fingers, and Ned smiled and greeted him back. “Where ya been?”

“Been all over, really, but mostly stayed in Iceland,” Ned replied. “Beautiful country - and Remus, you wouldn’t believe the hot water springs there and the wonders they work on tired muscle and bone close to the full moon! It was like bathing in a full tub of warm aconite oils.”

The man looked quite haggard, as though he’d been through quite a lot since they’d last seen him - his hair having grown out and a thick beard hanging from his chin. He looked a good deal more like Hagrid than Ned Veigler. And he had a fresh scar on his cheek - a thick etch across his face that made one of his eyes droop ever so slightly lower than the other, bright pink and deep, splitting his cheek like a parenthesis.

“Is it cold in Iceland?” asked Peter, who always pictured the North Pole when somebody said Iceland.

“It was a bit.”

“What’s in Iceland?” asked James, “Anything exciting?”

“Well, very nice view of the aurora borealis, and - like I said, those hot springs -- ” Veigler replied with a smile, “But really, I was looking into a castle.”

“A castle?” asked Peter, “What sort of castle?”

“A castle which I have purchased,” Veigler said. “Oh it’s a fright, don’t look so excited,” he laughed at the look on Remus’s face. He reached into a pocket on the chest of his jacket and withdrew a photograph, which he turned in his fingers so they could see. It was a castle on a hill, stone with turquoise roofs, parapets pointing up into the sky. “Honestly, it’s a rubbish heap at this point. Looks as though it’s been quite forgotten for sometime. Bought it from a werewolf looking to relocate, happily gave me a grand deal just to get the thing off his hands. Quite a lot of fixing up will be needed before…” he paused. “Before it serves it’s ultimate purpose. Of course some time will pass before then anyhow. I’m actually here to see Albus about that, though.” He tucked the photo into his pocket and held up a sleek black briefcase he had in his hand.

“What is it you intend to do with it?” Sirius asked.

“I intend to open a school… a school for people like me… and you, Remus… people who wouldn’t traditionally be accepted at Hogwarts or Ilvermmorny or Beauxbatons or… you get the picture.” He paused. “Look, I’ve got to run and meet Dumbledore up at the Hog’s Head, but I’d like it if you came along!” Ned smiled at Remus, “You’re sort of the inspiration for the whole thing anyway, I’d rather like for you to be there.”

Remus looked perplexed and excited at the same time. “Really? Yeah! I mean --” he paused, looking at James and Peter (Sirius was a bit behind him, out of view, sure, but Remus made no effort to turn to include him in his range of vision either), “If you lot don’t mind, that is?”

“It sounds very important, you should go!” Peter said, smiling.

James nodded, thinking things might be less tense in the group if Remus left. Plus Rey was the only one giving James suspicious looks whenever he said stupid things. Until he caught up, he’d need to avoid asking dumb questions in front of Remus as much as possible...

Sirius said nothing - he simply started humming. The humming didn’t seem significant until James realized that Remus was wearing a horribly unamused expression. “Alright, Moony?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

Remus flushed, “Yup. See you lot later, then.” And he left.

“Now that we ditched the blasted damp-noodle, let’s go have some real fun!” Sirius said and he grinned and pulled open his book bag to reveal firewhiskey bottles tucked into a set of robes. “Can’t sneak these in past Filch anyway! Gotta bring ‘em through the - er - back way.” He winked and nodded toward the Shrieking Shack. “Let’s go.”

“When did he get those?” Peter asked, looking up at James with confusion.

“Dunno,” James said. And he stared after Remus’s head as he went off over the crowd with Veigler, merrily talking about his counseling session with McGonagall. James sighed, wondering what in bloody hell had happened and if he’d ever properly catch up.

He turned to follow after Sirius and Peter - who’d run off along the alley toward the Shrieking Shack - the very same one that James had run down in his alternate universe version of this day, followed by Lily Evans. As though thinking her name had summonsed her - there she was. Lily herself, passing by the fountain, hand-in-hand with Jasper Odair, whose mouth was curled into a wide smile and was looking at her as though she were the only thing in the entire world that he could see… James stared at her - she was even wearing the same outfit she had on in his alternate world. That courderoy skirt and a mustard-yellow sweater that hugged every curve of her body… He loved that sweater on her, loved it. And she was wearing it for him.

Jealousy twisted James’s stomach into a knot.

And then he saw it.

A glimmer on her wrist, caught by the sun.

The bracelet. The bracelet he’d left in her room at Valentine’s Day.

But that didn’t make sense.

He was with Maryrose in this timeline. He was with Maryrose and therefore he wouldn’t have given the bracelet to Lily. He never even would’ve bought the bracelet. But there was no denying it. He could see it clearly from where he stood.

“PRONGS!” Sirius yelled from down the alley, having paused and turned back to find James wasn’t there, only Peter. “C’mon, you bloody stag, we haven’t got all day!”

So James gripped onto the strap of his bag and ran off down the alley, tearing his eyes away from the sparkling bracelet at Lily’s wrist and hurrying after the two boys as they turned the corner at the end of the street, headed for the Shrieking Shack.