The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part Two

Sunset at Fingal's Cave

Severus was about to explain more from his point of view, when a sudden flash went through James's mind, and thereby caught Severus's s attention. A beach - a beach strewn with clocks and a particular watch in his hand... the time on it stopped, the face of it blank, but familiar. Familiar in James's mind, familiar in Severus's mind, too, for he had seen that watch - no less than five minutes ago - functional and glowing from Regulus Black's wrist.

"Those clocks," Severus said, looking at James. "Where are they?"

James blinked in surprise. "Excuse me?"

"The clocks in your head."

"Severus, stop looking at his mind!" Lily snapped.

But James was staring at Snape with a mixture of fascination and inquiry. "You can see them?"

"Yes, I can see it. What is that? A memory? Where are they?"

"It's a dream," James admitted. "I've been having it some time now."

Lily looked concerned, "What? What dream? You haven't told me about a dream...?"

"I didn't want to upset you."

"Think about that again," Severus snapped.

Lily walked over and put her hand on James's arm as he closed his eyes and thought hard on the dream, watching it play out in his mind's eye, knowing Severus was watching, too.

"That watch." Severus's words were sharp.

"I always wake up in a panic after picking it up," James explained.

James and Snape made eye contact.

"It's Regulus's watch."

"Regulus's --?" James suddenly saw it in a flash in his memory....

The mediwitch lifting Regulus's arm... yesterday? wait - the mediwitch - Regulus was here - and the heartbeat in the room, it had filled the room - and the witch held Regulus's arm and the watch - the watch was there. She stared at it to keep time as the beats of his heart thumped-thumped-thumped.

"That's a nice watch," she said, writing down the result on a chart.

"Thanks," Regulus said, "My brother gave it to me."

James reacted as though gut-punched, squatting down to keep his knees from giving out, his palm going out against the floor and the other hand catching onto Severus to balance. "Oh no. Oh no, no, no. Oh no."

"James?" Lily gasped and knelt beside him as Severus stood, the image of the waterlogged watch filling his mind as it burned into James's mind in horrible understanding.

"We have to find him," Severus said.

James looked up. "We gotta find the beach."

"A beach?" Lily asked.

"Yeah, the one in my dream."

Lily paused. "A - a beach with... with clocks?"

"Yeah, as many clocks and clock bits as there would normally be rocks or stones," James explained, "Though I reckon that's just symbolic and the actual beach would just have stones and sand and such on the shore."

Lily stared at James, her eyes wide. She'd seen such a beach once...

"Mopsus?" Severus asked.

Lily looked up at him - and he slowly knelt down so he was on level with them, looking at her with worry in his eyes.

"Mopsus?" James asked in a different way, looking from Severus to Lily. "What?"

"When you were --" Lily paused, eyes flickering to Severus, then back to James, "-- in - in Havmork, I -" She could still see the clocks, the spinning gold one so similar to one she had now at home on their mantel, and the watch that Mopsus had opened and prodded along to keep it ticking... She could still see the beach, strewn with rocks, the shore outside of the little house that Mopsus had kept his clocks in. "But I haven't any idea where that was," she said, seeing Severus's comprehension.