Hello! Here is another chapter. It's a little on the shorter side but hopefully the next one will be out soon. Thank you so much for my beta Feyre Archeon and everyone else who has stuck around this long. Your comments and supports are what keeps this story alive. As always, please don't hesitate to let know what y'all think, both good and bad, as well as if you guys have any suggestions for what you want to see moving forward. Thank you again and I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Chapter 8: "Something wasn't right"

Something wasn't right.

James knew it from the moment he set foot in the pensive. He knew it as he strode over to his wife. He knew it even as his arm settled to rest protectively around her.

Something wasn't right.

For one, there was nothing happening. Simply indertiment shapes and misty figures rushing around him in a chaos of shadows.

Then there were the sounds.

Something wasn't right.

There were voices but they were distorted and garbled and James found himself sharing a befuddled look with Sirius over his wife's head.

What was going on here?

"I don't think that Harry meant to put this memory in here…" Remus said softly, apparently noting the confused expression on his friend's features.

How could he not have meant to include a memory? James wondered to himself before all thought was wiped from his mind as the scene sharpened around him into sudden clarity.

Death Eaters materialized around him as he found himself in what could only be called a battle in the most general of terms. It looked more like unrestrained chaos than anything else.

There was none of the semi-organized rules that typically controlled a fight. Rather, spells were cast with little to no thought as to their target, the bright streaks flying wildly around the room, hitting friends and foes alike as people dropped indiscriminately to the ground.

What the hell?

Jame's arm tightened around Lily as he instinctively pulled her out of the way of a nasty looking hex, still struggling to figure out what was happening.

"Sirius…"

James looked on in confusion between his wife and best friend, who still stood beside him, at his wife's soft exclamation only to find Lily looking at something in the entirely opposite direction.

Following her gaze, James found himself struck breathless, unconsciously copying his beloved as his friend's name fell from his lips in shock.

"Sirius..."

The man that James was watching looked nothing like the one that stood beside him. Rather he was a twisted shadow of the person of the man James knew and loved.

Something wasn't right.

The other man's hair was in a state of disrepair beyond what could be explained by the wildness of the battle, his features hollow and gaunt like those of a man much older than he had any right to be.

But it went beyond that, just like Harry's differences went way beyond appearance. Again, this alter-dimensional version of the man he knew so well seemed nothing more than a darkened mockery of who he was meant to be. His eyes were jaded in a way James couldn't even comprehend, his face wrinkled in a way that brought to mind harshness rather than the laughter that should have rested there.

Something wasn't right here.

And yet James could only watch helplessly as the man dueled with reckless abandon, a crazed look dancing in his eyes as he engaged in what could no more be called a duel than this entire situation could be called a battle.

It was a dance with death.

Bellatrix and her cousin's wands nothing more than blurs as they dodged and twirled past spells so powerful James could feel the heat coming from them where he stood, several paces away. Their movements were graceful and yet there was a jaggedness to their actions. A harshness in their slashes and steps that spoke of experiences James could not even bring himself to guess at and was all the more terrifying for it, their bodies still managing to move at a speed that belied all comprehension. They did not even spare the time to check and see whether their spells hit the mark.

Always dancing. Always moving.

As the pair drew ever closer to the dias that stood in the middle of room James suddenly understood what was happening.

Something definitely was not right here.

He knew that arch. Had been hearing rumors of it since his first day at the academy.

The arch of whispers, it was called. Its purpose unknown beyond the fact it predated the ministry itself and no one who had ever fallen behind it had ever been seen again.

As a wild laugh was torn from the memory Sirius's lips, his head flashed backwards in face of his adrenaline fueled hysteria and James felt his breath catch as the man unwittingly brought him close enough to almost brush the sheer veil draping across the arch.

No, no, no.

This could not be right.

But with a final spell and a movement that James would remember for the rest of his life, he watched as his best friend fell, lost to this world forever.

And then the scream began.

At first, James didn't even realize it was human. Instinctively he assumed it came from the viel itself, the sound such a pure and raw embodiment of anguish that he automatically dismissed the idea that anything else could have made it.

But that wasn't right.

Instead, James felt his heart clench as his gaze was caught by a struggle breaking out in before the dias, the only movement in the wake of such a cry.

Harry.

And James thought he had seen pain on the boy's face before.

It was nothing to what he was seeing now. Nothing could ever compare the raw anguish he was witnessing as Remus had to forcibly restrain the child from jumping after Sirius.

The child had to be stopped from leaping to his death.

James' curiosity shriveled and died within his chest, its empty corpse nothing more than a dead weight pressing on his chest.

Gone was his need to learn more, his desire to understand.

He did not want to understand this madness. He did not want to understand how such pain was possible, why these insane events were happening.

This wasn't right and no amount of knowledge would ever change that fact.

It wasn't right.

Only Lily's quacking form, pressed tightly against his side held him place, the same thought that once brought movement to his shocked mind now holding him still. Lily shouldn't have to face this alone.

And so James swallowed the bile that was coating his throat and tried to face the memory only to find it fading again, the desperate call that had slowly become discernible as Sirius's name becoming garbled. The shapes were fading and blurred even as James watched, the mists of the pensive's shifting and twirling around the small group as a new memory began to take shape.

And yet James' paid no attention to change, his brain stuck on what had just happened; unable to process. Unable to move on.

It just wasn't right.

It couldn't be right.

Right?