Mirror
Chapter Thirteen~~~Busted
“I can’t…I won’t believe…the future?!” Lily exploded. Then she looked at James “With him? Have a child?!” she folded her arms across her chest, closing her eyes tightly. “But…how else could you know…” she trailed off. Harry felt bad for her, for them all. How would he react if somebody walked into his life and told him they were from the future? He shook his head.
“You must believe me,” he said, desperately. James shook his head.
“There was no other way that you could have known…” Remus muttered. James shook his head again.
“What do you think of all this?” Remus said, looking at Sirius. Sirius shrugged.
“He knew a lot that he couldn’t have known just from spying…and he does look exactly like James and he has Lily’s eyes.”
“I don’t know what to think!” Peter wailed.
“You never do,” Sirius said snidely. “Not unless we tell you what to think.”
“Don’t be nasty, Sirius,” Lily said. She was crying. James went over to comfort her, and she didn’t object.
“Look what you’ve done? And for what purpose?” James roared.
“You were pointing your wands at me, telling me you were going to force it out of me anyways!” Harry yelled indignantly.
“That still remains an option, you know. I don’t know about everybody else, but I still think this is a load of crap. Comes from the future? Like Hell he did!” James yelled, standing up. Then Harry was hit with an idea.
“Let me show you something then,” Harry said. “I’m going to do the Patronus charm, alright? If I do anything else, you can blast my head off.” James nodded, pointing his wand at Harry.
“You can do a Patronus?!” Peter squeaked in amazement. Harry ignored him and raised his wand. He conjured up his happiest memory. It was quite recent. It was standing in Dumbledore’s office, hearing that Sirius was alive. He closed his eyes tightly.
“Expecto Patronum!” Harry yelled, and he could feel everybody holding his breath. He felt something being pulled out of his wand, and he opened his eyes. A huge stag erupted in front of them, cantering around. James stared at it, his eyes wide with amazement.
“It’s…” he began,
“My dad…you,” Harry finished. James lifted his hand to stroke the beast. The stag moved closer to him, but then slowly, as if a breeze had just swept by, it wafted away. James, his eyes watering, looked at Harry.
“You’re my son,” he said, looking at Harry with belief in his eyes.
“’Luke, I am your father,’” Sirius said, grinning. Everybody rolled their eyes at him. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist,” he said sheepishly. Harry grinned. “Now hold on a second, this means that that bloke that came through earlier was telling the truth! He really was…is…me?” Harry nodded. Sirius looked aghast, “That’s what I’m going to look like?!?!” Ginny giggled. “Well, we need to get me out of that place. A whole year! You guys left me in there for a year!”
“We thought you were dead!” Ginny said defensively.
“You don’t look too choked up about it!” Sirius said.
“You have no idea,” Harry muttered, remembering how much pain it had caused him. Sirius noticed his tone and became somber.
“I’m sorry for dying Harry,” he said. Harry looked at him, trying to smile. “Well, let’s get on with it then! If I know me, and hopefully I do, I would not like being cooped up in St. Mungo’s for a year.”
“But, what about Dumbledore? What about the future?” Lily said, standing up and looking terrified. Harry frowned.
“How about we deal with that later, alright?” he said.
“After we find Sirius, will you be able to go home?” Remus asked.
“Well, Dumbledore say’s he might be able too, if Sirius has his mirror. But I’m sure they probably took it away from him, so we might have to make a side trip.” Everybody nodded. James grinned broadly.
“Another adventure for the Marauders, ay?” he said, clapping Peter on the back, who grinned shyly. “When do we leave?”
“Now!” Sirius barked. “I won’t stand to let myself be in that place fore another second!”
“Let’s go then,” Ginny said, smiling also. “Are you up for it, Lily?” Lily, who had been standing awkwardly to the side, looked around at everybody, seeing their eager face. Her gaze stopped on James. She smiled.
“Alright, let’s go. But we could definitely get expelled for this,” she said nervously.
“Does that sound familiar or what?” Ginny murmured to Harry, who laughed, realizing how much she sounded like Hermione. “Ok everybody! Let’s go!” She yelled, people cheered, and they walked to the door. Then, slowly, they started stopping, one by one until everybody was looking at each other. Finally, Peter asked the question they were all thinking:
“How do we get there?”
Harry thought for a minute, and he remembered all ways of Wizard travel, going through which one would work for their desperate need. Then it came to him… “We’ll go by Floo Powder!” Everybody thought this a wonderful idea.
“But how will we get the powder? It’s not like we carry it around in our pockets,” James said. Peter made a funny noise in his throat. They all turned to stare at him. “Peter, don’t tell me you actually carry Floo Powder around in your pockets!”
“No, but I do have some upstairs under my bed,” he said, shuffling his feet. Sirius made an odd cough that sounded very much like ‘nerd’.
“Just go get the powder, Wormtail,” James said, rolling his eyes.
A few minutes later Peter came back down with a large sack in his hands. “Here,” he said, handing the bag to James.
“that still doesn’t help the fact that we don’t have a fireplace to do this in,” Lily pointed out.
“What about the one?” Harry said, pointing at the fire across from them in the Common Room.
“But…there’s fire in that one!” Sirius complained. Lily rolled her eyes, walked over to the fire, and pulled out her wand. She muttered a spell and water came pouring out of the tip of her wand. “Brilliant,” Sirius said, grinning. She laughed.
“has either of you done anything like this at all before?” James asked. Harry and Ginny shook their heads. “Well, at least you’re honest,” James muttered. “Who wants to go first?”
“I’ll go, Harry said, grabbing a handful of powder. He stepped into the fireplace, and threw the powder down.
“St. Mungo’s Hospital!” he yelled. He swirled and rushed down the space between fireplaces. He tried his best to keep his elbows in, but still ended up with a couple of bruises. He lunged out of the fireplace, trying his best to keep his feet. A few people stared at his sloppy landing, but he smiled embarrassedly and waved.
Several minutes later he and the group were puddle in front of the fireplaces.
“Are you people in line for the Fireplaces?” one very old looking man asked.
“Oh, no, sorry go ahead,” Peter said timidly. Harry grinned, but then noticed the custodian staring suspiciously.
“Let’s go,” he muttered, and led them all up to the custodian. He looked extremely bored. “We’re here to see our aunt,” Harry said. The man grunted, and pulled out a long golden rod. Once he was sure they were carrying no weapons, he motioned for them to go on in.
“Which floor is it on?” Sirius whispered, trying to act like a well behaved boy. They had told the custodian they were visiting an aunt, and it would help to look like they knew where they were going. Harry looked at Ginny.
“I reckon they would put him next to where Lockhart and Neville’s parents were, don’t you?” he asked her. She nodded.
“Come on, we know where he might be,” Ginny said quietly. They all followed her. They went up many stories to get to the area where they thought he was. “Quiet everybody,” she warned unnecessarily.
“He should be…right…here,” Harry said, turning the corner. They all stopped dead, staring through the window. Lying on the bed nearest to them was a man, clean shaven, with a nice hair-cut. His expression was of the utmost boredom, but he looked very healthy. He was eating, slowly, and reading a newspaper. Harry felt faint. He was staring at his God-father. The man he had thought to be dead for the last year. He looked at the younger Sirius, and saw that he was in shock too.
“It’s…me,” he said. Harry nodded. Ginny grabbed Harry’s hand, which was shaking. Harry smiled. He smiled a smile that would engulf his entire face. Sirius! He was alive!
“Harry, are you alright?” Lily asked gently, putting her hand on his shoulder. Alright? Alright?! This was the best moment of his life! He ran up to the door and reached for the handle. Everything was going to be alright, his god-father was there. He turned the handle, and was shocked…literally. An electric current zapped his hand away, and a loud, carrying alarm went off. ERG! ERG! ERG! Damn! Harry looked around him. They all were looking terrified. What were they going to do? They heard heavily footfalls.
“Hey! There over here!” a heavy voice called from one side of the hall.
“You there! Freeze!” another voice called from the other side. Harry looked around him; he was surrounded now by big, burly wizards, all pointing their wands at Harry, Ginny, Lily, and the other Marauders.