This has been edited and tweaked slightly for a FF competition

This one shot is a thank you to all the readers

Of the original Legacy and After The Sun Rose Series.

Thank you for giving me the courage to find my inner Gryffindor and post my stories.

I am not JKR, though I do bow down to her genius.

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At First Sight

-oo-

The haze was thick in his mind. It was difficult to come out of the side effects of the potion. It was wonderful to be almost normal all the time. To not be a monster for 3 days a month. While this was undoubtedly the most important find of his relatively young life, it did come with unpleasant reactions. While sleeping through the full moon was far more pleasant and less painful than the prior options, the potion made him nearly catatonic. It took several days to shake it off, though his could be said of a normal full moon cycle without the potion as well. At least there was no new scars incurred with his newly chosen path. Yesterday night had been the final night of the moon cycle this month. Now he was just put to shake off the after effects.

While trying to wake up just then he was dizzy, and sleepy, but everything seemed to be slamming around him. There were voices, lots of voices, panicked voices, scared, young voices. Something was going on, his head cleared as he remembered he was headed back to Hogwarts. Back to the last place he remembered being happy. These voices were obviously not happy. They held no hint of youthful jubilance or naivety. They sounded nothing like how he remembered Hogwarts students to be. They were plainly terrified.

The train was still, it was cold. He could feel a familiar draining. The chill seeped bone deep, it shook him to his core, he could only imagine the fear that had settled into the children in the compartment with him. He found his voice as the familiar rattling could be heard in the hall.

"Quiet." He said firmly.

The children around him fell silent at his command. He watched the door slide open and felt the pull of his spirit being sucked to the black robed figure. He could feel the fear swirl around him, his own, and that of the unknown kids.

For a moment he was slightly paralyzed. After all, happy memories were hard to come by these days. It had been twelve years since his last truly happy memory. When they were so few and far between it was much easier to be suffocated by the onslaught of demons in your head.

It wasn't until he heard the sound of someone hitting the floor that he managed to summon enough energy to help. He was a professor, it was his job to help them. He concentrated, summoning up a memory that could produce any happy feelings. The sight of the huge stag prancing through the trees, a little brown rat flitting around a dead log, and the black dog pouncing as if to play brought nearly as much sadness as it brought joy, but it was the happiest he had ever been in his life. It was the embodiment of every happy moment he had in his life. The only time he felt true friendship and loyalty. Or what he had thought was friendship and loyalty. He still held hope that at that point in life, it was true, that it hadn't yet been a lie.

The image was potent enough, it brought to life his silvery patronus. He watched as the very large wolf threw itself at the dementor. Protecting everyone in the compartment from the soul draining effect of the hooded terror that stood in their midst.

"None of us are hiding Sirius Black under our cloaks. No go." He said firmly.

As his head cleared, and the thoughts of despair drained completely from the room, he took a moment to look around at the scared children that were huddled in his carriage. There appeared to be two girls, one who looked on the verge of passing out in her seat, shaking uncontrollably, being held by a red headed boy, who was obviously her brother. And one who was on the floor at the feet of another visibly scared boy, kneeling at the side of a trembling and completely unconscious….

It couldn't be. He had been dead for 12 years. But it was unmistakable. The hair, the nose, the lips…everything…It was James, a very young James…but James none the less. There was no question about it. He had seen a teenaged James unconscious, or injured, so many times that he couldn't have been more certain. Without stopping to register what could possibly be going on, he too dropped to his knees beside his long lost, supposedly dead, best friend. Gripping his shoulders he shook him gently without saying a word.

The young marauder stirred slightly, and the girl next to him finally seemed to breathe.

"Harry. Oh merlin Harry are you alright!"

The boy opened his eyes, and for a moment the startling iridescent green took Remus' breath away completely. Her eyes, Lily's eyes, and James' face, copied exactly, flawless.

The next moment lasted an eternity in his head, though only a second in life. His whole world rocked around him. Harry…This was Harry.

The toothless chubby faced minion flashed before his eyes. The destroyed living room, the gales of giggles as he chased that poor poor cat. The messy tufts of hair that poked up from the day he was born.

The day he and Sirius had tried to make biscuits while babysitting, he remembered the chocolate covered face and teeth. This boy was not James, but this was James' world, Lily's world, Sirius' world, this was at one time his world.

This was the only person he had thought of for the last 12 years, the only link to his past, and his forever lost friends, this was Harry. The son and godson of his very best friends, the boy who survived what his parents couldn't. This was Harry.