by beesinabiscuit on archiveofourown.org
James Potter was pretty sure he was dead.
Now, he’d never been dead before, so he wasn’t 100% sure, but he’d also never stared down at his own body like this before either. It was an odd feeling, looking at his body laying on the floor, eyes closed, glasses askew, and hair fallen back from his face as he…floated? Hovered? Merlin, he was a foot off the ground. And, he looked down at his now-flying-body to confirm, he was see-through. Definitely dead then, he thought, though why am I a ghost? I never particularly wanted to be a ghost. Also, wait, how am I dead?
~
He and Remus had been on a mission for the Order, staking out a home that they suspected was a Death Eater hideout. Their suspicions were confirmed when a group of them apparated in, one at a time, until four of the idiots were crowded in front of the building. That wasn’t what got James’ attention though. What got his attention was the fifth person that was with them, a woman about his age, dressed in muggle clothes and being dragged along by one of the Death Eaters.
“Shit.”
“James, we have to call Sirius, he’ll bring backup,” Remus said, pulling a mirror out of his pocket.
“We don’t have time, Remus, they’re gonna kill her.”
“You don’t know that, James, we have to wait for backup.”
“Yeah, well I’m pretty fucking sure,” James said, pulling his invisibility cloak out of his jacket pocket as their marks went into the building. “And I’m pretty sure that if we wait for backup, it’ll be too late. You call for backup, I’m going in there. If something explodes, be a dear and come help me out, please.” And with that he threw the cloak around himself, hurried across the street and left Remus to call their friends.
The Death Eater hideout was appropriately dingy, decrepit, and sinister. The exterior of the two story home looked like it had been set on fire, and as James pushed a window open and slid into the building, he realized that the interior was just as charming. The room he crept into had a brick fireplace that was falling apart and had a couple of empty frames whose occupants had long since rotted away, hanging on walls that were held up more by mold than by wood at this point.
Charming. Every Death Eater hideout they broke into was disgusting, either because of the building itself, usually damp and moldy, or because it was filled with Death Eaters, who were usually damp and moldy themselves. Or both. 9 times out of 10 it’s both.
A thunk in the room to the left of the one he currently occupied got James moving. He moved out of the doorway, careful to not trod over anything that would make a noise and give him away. Like broken glass. Or a baby. The hallway, blessedly bereft of shards of glass and babies, led to a kitchen, which was filled with the four Death Eaters, their captive, an oven missing its door, a sink, and not much else. James slid through the doorway and inched himself along the wall, closer to the assholes with the dumb little masks.
Gotta get closer to the assholes with the dumb little masks.
The woman they captured was, James’ best guess, 20-25, with brown hair and broken glasses. She was wearing a knit sweater that was once all-white, but was now singed black and stained red. Shit. She’s already dead. She appeared to be at least, her face was covered in scars and burns, and she was laying in a heap at the feet of the four Death Eaters, whose backs were all towards James. She wasn’t moving.
“Well, what are we gonna do with her?” asked the shortest Death Eater.
“We’re going to kill her, idiot,” answered one with a particularly dull-sounding voice.
Not dead, then, thank Merlin.
“Couldn’t we have a little fun first? Where’s the sport?” came a high, shrill voice that James thought he recognized from school, but he couldn’t completely place.
“You know what we do with mudbloods, Yxborn,” said a sneery voice that James recognized immediately. Snape. Shit. And that’s Cynthia Yxborn. Also shit. Cynthia Yxborn had been two years above them at Hogwarts, a Ravenclaw girl whose spellwork sent more Muggleborn students to the Hospital Wing than Mulciber and Avery combined. Oh, and she was raising her wand. SHIT.
He threw his wand up, whipping it at Yates, screamed the first spell he thought of, a frantic “REDUCTO!”, which got Cynthia to turn around, just in time for the spell to fly into her face, shattering her mask and sending her flying backwards into the dull-sounding Death Eater.
“It’s him!” Snape yelled as James sent a Stupefy directly at the chest of the short Death Eater, causing them to drop like a sack, unconscious. He lowered his wand arm and slid silently to his right, moving away from Snape’s cone of vision. I sort of hope I didn’t just kill Cynthia.
“Snivelly, be a pal and check that I didn’t just waste your friend, there, would you?” James said, as Snape threw spells towards a spot five feet to his left. “Missed, by the way.”
“ Accio Invisibility Cloak.”
James stood silent to let Snape’s stupidity wash over him. It felt good. Like a warm shower, almost. James immediately purged all thoughts of Snape and showers out of his mind, continued to circle the room and said “Wow, no one’s thought of that before! You’ve truly figured out how to defeat me.” He threw in a few slow claps for good measure as Snape continued to hex the walls and air. “Not gotten better at dueling then, have you Snape?” A quick nonverbal Expelliarmus! sent Snape’s wand flying across the room and rolling towards his feet. He picked up Snape’s wand, pulled his cloak off his shoulders, and, sticking his cloak back in his pocket, pointed his wand directly at Snape’s hooded head.
“Hey, Snape. On your knees. And take the mask off, Jesus, you look stupid.” Snape slid to his knees, and pulled the mask from his face. His expression was, to put it mildly, murderous. “So…how have you been? Still a bigoted arse?”
“Watch your mouth, Potter.”
“Aw, I missed you too. Now, here’s what we’re going to do. One: I’m not going to kill you, which, you’re welcome. Two: I’m going to take this girl out of here. What’s her name, by the way?”
“The Dark Lord will-”
“Oh, do shut up.” A quick Langlock stopped the rest of Snape’s retort, which James was pretty sure would’ve just been something along the lines of The Dark Lord will have his revenge for this blah blah blah I’m a prick blah blah. “Dead useful, this spell of yours, by the way. Now then-”
He was interrupted by the muggleborn girl, lying behind Snape, coughing up a spurt of blood. “Shit,” James said, lowering his wand to move towards her. Which was a mistake.
Snape grabbed one of the wands of his fallen comrades and wordlessly sent something at James, who, caught off guard, reacted too slowly with a spell of his own. As Snape’s spell hit James, his body toppled backwards, sending his spell flying up into the ceiling. James’ last spell, a quick Expulso, intended for Snape’s slimy little skull, instead blasted a hole through the entire second story of the building.
~
And now here he was. Looking down at his body. The spell didn’t look like the Killing Curse. It wasn’t green. “Snape, what did you do?” he said, turning around to see Snape was gone, presumably having apparated away. Of course. Well at least Remus should be here any second now. He’ll fix this.
It was as if he summoned Remus out of a hat. Remus lunged through the doorway of the ruined kitchen and yelled out a frantic “James?!?”
“Right here, Moony.”
“James? JAMES?” he rushed to James’ body’s side, kneeling down and shaking him by the shoulders.
“Ah yes, sorry about that mate, Snape hit me with something and now I’m, like, floating outside of my body. Not really sure what’s going on.” He reached out to pat his friend on the back, and was disappointed, but unsurprised that his hand simply passed through him. “Hm. This is fine. I’m fine. I’m talking out loud and you can’t hear me, and you also can’t feel me. I’m dead. I’m a ghost.”
Remus felt for a pulse and breathed a sigh of relief. ( Oh thank god, I’m not dead.) He pulled out his wand, pointed it at James’ head, and said “Renneverate.”
“Great idea, Moons. I don’t know why I’m still trying to talk to you. I think I’m just trying not to panic. I think my talking about not panicking will make me panic so I’m going to stop doing that.” James said, now panicking.
Remus frowned as his first spell did nothing and sent another Renneverate into James’ face. “What the hell?”
“WHAT THE HELL? Moony, you gotta wake me up.”
Remus sighed and sat himself down, looking around the room. He saw the Muggleborn girl, the Death Eater who was unconscious next to her, and the other two Death Eaters that James launched across the room. “You should’ve waited, James.”
“They were going to kill her, Remus, I was right.”
Remus stood up, walked over to the girl, checked her pulse, and cast a few healing spells over her body. He walked over to the three unmoving Death Eaters and magically bound their legs and wrists and tossed their wands across the room. Scratch that, he felt Cynthia’s pulse and undid her bindings. Whoops. Sorry, Cynthia, don’t try to do a genocide next time.
“Right. Now then.” He pulled the mirror out of his pocket and said “Sirius Black.”
A few seconds and then, “Remus? I wasn’t able to contact anyone else but I’m apparating over right now.”
“Wait, Sirius, I’ve got a heavily injured witch here and we won’t be able to apparate with her without making her even worse off.”
“Oh, of course, I’ll hook the sidecar up to the bike, then, and we can-”
“And we need to transport James, too.”
“What? James? What happened?”
“I really don’t know, but it’s not good. Just get over here, please.”
James tried not to panic at the sound of his two friends panicking. He was unsuccessful. What am I going to do if they take my body away? Oh gods, what if I’m stuck in this gross house forever? Am I gonna be able to see-. Nope. Don’t think about her, that will just make you panic more. Eager for a distraction, he tried to lie down in his body, but he was pushed back, as if trying to stick two like poles of a magnet together. He continued trying for a few minutes, testing out different entrance angles, each one ending the same way, until he gave up. Great. Great. Great. Amazing. Why can’t I GET BACK IN MY STUPID BODY?
Stopping that thought in its tracks was the sound of a motorcycle engine gradually getting louder. Walking, no floating, over to a window, James saw Sirius Black drop out of the sky on his bike and skid to a halt in front of the house. Sirius leapt off of the motorcycle, sidecar attached, and ran into the house.
“Would’ve been here quicker but I had to practically hex Evans to get her to stay behind,” he said by way of greeting. “She popped into headquarters just as you called me, overheard our conversation and reacted about the way you’d expect.”
Classic Evans, James thought, Always the biggest defender of Muggleborns among all of us.
“Shit, she heard me say James was in trouble, then?”
……What?
“Yeah, she’s worse than she was when he got knocked off his broom in seventh year,” Sirius said, kneeling down next to James’ body now. “And you’re sure he’s not dead? He looks extremely dead.”
“He has a pulse, Padfoot. Also he’s breathing. Idiot.”
“Just checking! Is the girl alright?”
“No, but she’ll be better once we…”
James tuned out the rest of their conversation, all his thoughts revolving around Lily Evans and the fact that she was worried about him. Very worried about him apparently.
Okay, slow down James, literally anyone in the Order would be that worried about you. Just a normal reaction. After all, Lily was one of his best friends, and he would react the same if he heard that something had happened to her. Sure, he was madly in love with her, but that was just a detail . That’s just…quibbling. Unimportant. The point is, literally any member of the order would have to be threatened with a hex to be forced to stay behind while James was in danger. Yeah, Moody would be tearing the neighborhood apart if he knew I was hurt somewhere, James lied, barely even fooling himself and ignoring the very quiet voice in his head that said he definitely wouldn’t. He turned his attention back to his friends, just as Remus said “Okay, you can take her and James back on the bike, right?”
“Yeah, I’ll hook them up. And go slow.”
“Yes, please leave the sound barrier intact with our friend in the sidecar.”
“Moony, I’m shocked you would suggest that I would break the sound barrier while taking care of our dear James.”
“Well-”
“I haven’t been able to get it to go that fast yet.”
“Just…” he laughed. “Idiot. Can you get them in on your own? I’d like to apparate back to headquarters, tell Moony he has some trash to pick up, and hopefully keep Lily from tearing the place up with worry.”
“That’s smart. Yeah, go ahead without me, I won’t take long here.”
“Perfect.” Remus looked next to James’ body for his wand, picking it up and saying “I’ll bring this back with me, alright?”
“Alright, see you Moons.”
“Hurry back, Pads.”
As Remus turned on the spot, starting to Apparate, James said “Shit, no, don’t leave without me!” and reached for his wand, his fingers stretching toward it, brushing through it, and…
He was outside Order headquarters, next to Remus. How…did I just apparate? What is happening to me? Remus moved towards the door, murmuring the various passwords he needed to recite in order to enter the building and quickly sending a patronus off with a message for Moony as to where he could send his aurors. So James swam through the air behind him, still getting the hang of moving like a ghost. Like a ghost, not actually a ghost. He told himself. I refuse to be dead. As Remus opened the door, they were greeted by a voice that James was extremely familiar with, especially at the volume it was currently at.
“-and I swear if anything happened to that idiot I’m going to murder him!” Lily Evans yelled, evidently also not exactly thrilled that James had gotten himself into trouble. Just like Remus. Just like any friend would be , James reminded himself.
“Lil, I’m sure he’s fine, just please put down the knife, I’m not sure chopping vegetables is the best choice for you right now,” came the patient voice of Marlene McKinnon. They must’ve been in the kitchen, so Remus walked down the hallway of the large manor the Order was using as headquarters and into the kitchen. James floated through the doorway himself, extremely eager to see how Lily was doing.
Oh and also Marlene. Not just Lily. Marlene too, of course.
Marlene was seated at one end of the large marble island that sat in the center of the room, wearing a bomber jacket that James would’ve liked to steal if only it would’ve fit him, and also if only he wasn’t incorporeal at the moment. She was holding a newspaper, probably doing a crossword, since that’s all the Prophet was good for these days. Lily stood at the opposite end of the island, hair pulled back into a bun, with a few strands curling around the sides of her face. She was nearly as red in the face as the tomatoes she was chopping up, and the way she was waving a large knife around as she talked was, in a word, unsafe. Her sweater had bits of herb in it, and her jeans were covered in flour.
“Stress cooking again, Lily?” Remus asked, making his presence known.
“Remus Lupin, thank god,” Lily said, rushing forward to greet him.
“Pleasedon’thugmewithakitchenknifeinyourhand,” Remus said, as Lily beared down on him.
“Don’t be a baby, I’ve never actually stabbed anyone,” she said, wrapping her arms around Remus’ torso, squeezing him into one of her famous spine crumbling hugs. “How is he?”
“Lily,” Remus croaked.
“Oh, sorry.” She let him go so he could breath, and went back to her chopping. “How.” Chop. “Is.” Chop. “He?” Chop. Her smile was extremely tight and James was sure that she was about to break the cutting board in half.
“Lily, I don’t know. He’s unconscious and he won’t wake up. He doesn’t seem hurt, or like he was hit with anything, but he just won’t wake up.”
Lily stopped chopping. The knife was placed flat onto the cutting board. “Is Sirius bringing him back?”
“In the sidecar, with the girl they captured.”
“Jesus. He’ll be back soon?”
“I’m sure.”
“Good.” She went back to her tomatoes, and James swam over to her side. She was making something that seemed extremely familiar.
“What are you making, Lily?” he asked.
“What are you making, Lily?” Remus asked. Bless you, Remus Lupin.
“Oh, um,” her face turned red again. “Just some, uh, ravioli and tomato cream.”
“Oh.”
Oh! My favorite!
“Yeah, I, uh, just thought it would be good for dinner.” Lily scraped the tomatoes into a bowl and began crushing them.
Remus and Marlene shared a look that Lily didn’t see and James didn’t understand.
“So,” Remus started.
“So,” Marlene continued.
“So?” Lily questioned.
“Just making James’ favorite meal for no reason?”
“Remus Lupin, I will stab you. You’ll be my first. You’ll take my stabbing virginity.” Lily said, as their two friends, apparently finding that hilarious, laughed.
I don’t think that’s funny, I think that’s rather nice.
Lily ignored their friends and moved to the stove, grabbing a large skillet, melting butter in it, and tossing onions, prosciutto, a bay leaf and some salt into the pan. James followed her and looked over her shoulder as she read a recipe off of a small piece of paper, murmuring something to herself about “stupid, floppy haired, idiots.”
“What recipe is that, Lily” James peered over her shoulder and read the recipe, the handwriting strangely familiar… oh, merlin.
Lily was reading a recipe for Ravioli with Tomato Cream, his mother’s speciality and his favorite meal, clearly written by… Euphemia Potter.
‘ Dear Lily,
Of course you can have the recipe, dear! I’m glad you enjoyed it so much. It was so nice to finally meet you after so many years of James’ talking about you. Here’s the recipe, it’s fairly easy, just be careful with the pasta dough.’
And then the recipe for his favorite meal. His mother would have written this two years ago, sometime after Lily came over for dinner over Christmas break in seventh year. His mother never mentioned that Lily had written, and Lily definitely never said anything about it.
“So Lily,” said Marlene. “Are we having Euphemia’s ravioli because you love ravioli orrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…”
“Do not finish that sentence.”
“rrrrrrrrrr because James loves ravioli.”
“You are a monster,” Lily grumbled, putting sun dried tomatoes, tomato paste, and white wine into the skillet.
“Lily?”
“What, Lupin.”
“Ooh ‘Lupin’, that’s cold,” he said to Marlene. “Now, Lily. Could it be that you are making his favorite meal because you’re worried about him?”
“Of course I’m worried about him, we’re all worried about him,” Lily said, scraping most of the crushed tomatoes into the skillet with more force than was necessary.
James recognized the tone of this conversation. His friends teased him endlessly all throughout school and still picked on him every once in a while about the feelings he had for Lily, and all their conversations sounded very much like, no, exactly like this.
Why would they be…but that would mean…no, there’s no way.
“Yes, babe, we’re all worried about him, of course,” Marlene said, sincerely, but with a smile. “But I didn’t leap up and take refuge in his favorite meal.”
“I am not taking refuge, I just.” A large pot of water was put on to boil. “It just. Ihmaymefingohm.”
“Sorry, what was that last part?” Marlene asked, innocently.
“Itmaysmefinkofhm.”
“So sorry, Lil, didn’t quite catch that.”
“It makes me THINK OF HIM. Jesus , McKinnon, you’re worse than the Unspeakables!”
As Remus and Marlene applauded Lily’s bravery (“Oh, well done, Lily.” “Did that cause you physical pain to say, or are you just that bull-headed?”) and Lily angrily stirred cream and more tomatoes into the sauce, James pondered what she said. She wanted to think…about me…on purpose? Does that mean…
Then, stopping James’ train of thought from puttering along any further, came the sound of a motorbike. Lily practically threw the pan of sauce across the kitchen.
“Remus Lupin, watch this sauce, and when the water boils, dump the raviolis in. Be careful with them, that dough took me ages to get right and it took even longer to put them together so if you break one I will murder you and everyone you care about. Marlene, finish that crossword, you’ve been at it for days.”
“It’s hard .”
“Literally nothing in human history has ever been that hard.” She practically ran out of the kitchen, and James floated along behind her. They moved through the door just as Sirius touched down in front of them.
“Hey Red, thought you might meet me at the door.” He had transfigured his sidecar into a stretcher, and attached another one to the other side of the bike, similar to the Muggle medical evacuation helicopters they had seen in Muggle studies.
“How is he?”
“Still breathing, all vital signs still normal, except he’s not awake.”
“Great. I’ll take him from here.” She didn’t wait for a response, she simply waved her wand and levitated James’ stretcher through the door and up the stairs. She turned to follow it and said “I’m taking him to his bedroom.”
“His bedroom, eh?” Sirius wiggled his eyebrows, until Lily whirled around with a look on her face that reminded James of…Defense O.W.L.s and the Black Lake. Yikes, sorry Padfoot.
“Something to say, Black?”
“Only that I am grateful to you for using your considerable knowledge of healing to help my friend.” His eyebrows no longer waggled suggestively.
“And?”
“And, I have every confidence that you’ll right whatever’s wrong with him.”
“And?”
“And…your hair looks very nice this evening.”
“Thank you. Get her indoors, you can put her in my room. Get Marlene to help with healing her.” And she turned on her heel and went indoors and up the stairs.
“Thanks for getting me home, Sirius.” James said, knowing his friend couldn’t hear him, but knowing he needed to say it nonetheless. And he floated himself through the door, up the stairs, to the left, and into the second door on the right side of the hallway, where he found Lily Evans levitating his body into his bed and then pulling the covers over him. His room didn’t have any decorations, just a bed, a wardrobe, a bedside table, a writing desk, and a chair to sit in at said desk, so Lily summoned that chair over to her, and sat down at James’ bedside.
James floated through the air to hover next to her as she took his glasses off his face and placed them on his bedside table. She put them down and looked at James’ body very closely. “Idiot,” she said.
She turned her chair so that her right side was angled towards the bed, and she stretched her arm out and, James actually gasped at this, a small exhale of disbelief and joy, traced the back of her index and middle finger against his jaw.
“Oh my god wake up, me, wake up, WAKE UP.”
“Just…wake up, James. Wake up.”
She removed her hand and brought it back to her side for a moment before reaching under the covers and pulling out his left arm. What’s she doing? James thought, before she covered his left hand with her right and wrapped her fingers around his palm.
“Wizard God, I will literally give you anything if you put me back in my body right now. You too, Wizard Jesus. Anyone who’s listening please , just get me back in there.”
“You have to wake up because I made your favorite. Do you remember when you had me over seventh year? It was almost Christmas, and your house was filled with so many lights, and your mother made the most delicious meal I’d ever had. She made me wish my mother was Italian, and you know I wouldn’t change anything about my mum. You were so cute (“ I was?” ) and nervous (“ Yeah, I probably was.” ) and I just wanted to…I wanted to so badly but…well…it doesn’t matter. Anyways. I make it whenever I’m really worried, or annoyed, or upset, or…when I really miss you, James. I really miss you right now and I’m worried about you and I’m upset that you got yourself messed up like this.”
“Lily, I’m sorry.” He had never wished for anything harder than he wished to be in his body right now. Just to make her feel better.
“Alright, I’m going to go get you a plate. Maybe you’ll smell it somehow and…I don’t know.” She stood up, paused for a moment, and looked at his face. “That’s silly.”
“It isn’t silly, Lily, you’re brilliant.”
“This is so silly.”
“I don’t think it is.”
“There’s this Muggle fairy tale, James.”
“What are you talking about, Lily.”
“It’s called, um, ‘Sleeping Beauty’.”
“Sounds lovely?”
“This is so silly.”
“Why do you keep…oh Merlin.” Lily Evans was leaning forward, placing her hands onto his chest, and leaning forward and saying something that sounded like “I love you, James.” but he must be having auditory and visual hallucinations right now because she kept leaning forwards until she was pressing her lips to his and…
A tug at his navel, a pop in the air
James opened his eyes. Lily Evans was kissing him. Now he was actually 100% sure he was dead. He brought his hand up to her face to see if he could make physical contact with her and…
Lily opened her eyes at his touch and pulled away. “Oh my god,” she said. “Oh my god. Oh my GOD! That WORKED?”
“We could try again just to make sure.”
“I can’t believe-shut up, James,-I can’t believe… you had me so worried, ” she slapped him on the chest here, earning an “ow” in response. “Don’t ever do that again.”
“To be fair, it wasn’t on purpose , but yes, I will forever be following your every instruction forever, love.”
“Good.”
“Good.” He threw his covers off and stood up in front of her, making sure to leave only six inches or so between them.
“Feeling better, then?”
“Oh, yes, loads, just wait til you hear what happened.”
“Can it wait?”
“It absolutely can.”
When Sirius, Remus, and Marlene looked into the doorway and saw James Potter pull Lily Evans in for a kiss (“Gross,” Sirius had whispered, earning himself two elbows from his two friends) a general feeling of relief washed over the trio. Remus whispered “Well, here’s hoping they have two children.”
“Why two?” Marlene asked.
“Because Sirius will be godfather to the first one, the bastard, and I want to get the second one.”
“Keep peeping and you won’t live to see the first one,” said Lily, charming the door shut in their faces. The sauce had burned. They didn’t really care.