A/N: Chapter 1 of my novel is now public! You can find it on patr(e)on (/KarmicAcumen) and Subscribestar (/the-peckish-black-hole). It's free.

Chapters 2 and 3 are up as well. Those of you who claimed up, down and sideways that you'd buy my original work can put your money where your keyboards are. Or not.

Prologue: The Mentalist

"-. October 30, 1981 .-"

There was no note from tomorrow.

It had happened before, when Sirius was tapped for overnight operations and they couldn't access his safehouse. It had also happened when unexpected developments prevented them from returning at the designated time. It could have been something similarly innocuous this time too. But with the next day being what it was, none of them were keen on working on that particular assumption.

Samhain was not an event to take lightly. Or too seriously.

Certainly not dismiss.

While Sirius busied himself going through the time turner's security and putting up a careless front, his wife frowned worriedly between the two of them. "James…"

"I'll double-check the Eye defences," said James Charlus Potter, even as they all knew it was beyond redundant at this point. Griffon's Eye was more discriminative of access than he was. "We can talk about everything else once there."

Lily looked no less worried, but that was a frequent look for her these days. The only thing he saw more was the fake bravado Sirius cloaked himself in. Not that he could blame them. The reasons for whatever earnestness there still was to his own confidence were growing fewer and more doubtful with each day that went by.

Twice.

The Time Turner chain settled around the three of them, and with twelve backwards turns of the hourglass, they were back to five minutes to mid-day. Then Sirius went to the memo deposit box and pulled out a second time turner – the one a different unspeakable had agreed to supply instead of using it himself on account of having no double life – and went back another 12 hours.

James was supremely doubtful he wouldn't eventually regret not knowing the particulars of how Sirius had managed that, though he was certain it involved some kind of favour.

James was also supremely doubtful that Sirius was the only Unspeakable using this kind of trick.

The wizard wished he could include some forewarning in the note he left for yesterday. But not only had the note of yesterday not included anything of the sort, he didn't trust even this vector of information enough to do it. Not without finding out who among the Unspeakables had been undermined. If it was among the higher echelons, having Sirius' transgression discovered and his time turner privileges revoked would be the least of their worries. And as much as they had to stick to the exact time windows in order to avoid any "seeing themselves seeing themselves" complications, that didn't apply to anyone else. There was every possibility that they had left themselves a note about tomorrow, but whoever it was had come through Sirius' vestibule – however he might have managed – and taken it before they could arrive today. It may even be whoever was supplying the second time machine.

He'd been spoiled, James thought wryly, by living each day twice and getting notes about the future. Even if they did have to be limited and worded in such a way as to make it seem they were no more than notes written by Sirius to himself.

Of course, if it was a case of some traitor having come by and taken the note before they could, it suggested that Sirius was the one being targeted in whatever manner again.

James Potter held back a sigh as the time reversal completed and they all apparated to the Griffon's Eye entry hall. They would inevitably learn what all would occur in the next 48 hours.

Sirius excused himself in favour of getting the 4 hours of sleep he needed to be functional for the rest of his second today. James and Lily wished him well, as they always did. Though an endless fountain of information, experience and influence, holding down two full-time jobs as both Unspeakable and Hit Wizard was hard work.

James could relate. As could his wife, he was sure. Being a full time parent and a full-time freedom fighter was hard work. "Us too. Rest first." He murmured as he wrapped an arm around her and laid his other hand on her belly. "Still no morning sickness today?"

"I think I might have adjusted faster," Lily said as she walked with him up the stairs. "Second time's the charm, I suppose."

She used to actually be optimistic and excited at her second pregnancy, but even that had a pall over it now. Just like everything else did these days. It had been long since the war only strained the budget of their hidden society. Now it was twisting Ministry law, alienating magical citizens and draining funding, manpower and importance away from essential services. Which only alienated wizards and witches more, sending them either into hiding or off to the arms of the Death Eaters or their political coalition. Which was getting less and less subtle by the week, what with the unmitigated success that Voldemort was enjoying despite lethal measures approved for Aurors and Hit Wizards, finally.

"This war is bleeding us dry," Lily said, reading him as James only ever allowed her. "It's weakening the very foundations of the Magical World… and so many people want to keep it going instead of looking to end it. It's not just You-Know-Who determined to keep it going now. Trying to end the war in any other way but a decisive victory isn't even on the agenda for the Ministry anymore. Or even the Wizengamot. Not with Crouch and Bagnold where they are. It's insane. At this point, what's the use? What's the point? What question is any of it supposed to even answer?"

"War is never the answer," James agreed as they entered their bedroom and flicked his wand at the candle bedside counter. "War is a demand and a question. It's means to an end."

And he had a feeling that the ultimate end wasn't change. Not to change or to break or, Merlin forbid, improve society. Although that was certainly how the war had been sold. Was being sold – as a means to affect change on their world. Voldemort and the Pureblood Supremacists wanted it changed into a blood caste-based society. Conversely, everyone else wanted things to go on as they were, even if it meant resuming the slow changing away from what Voldemort and the Pureblood Supremacists wanted. But both those arguments were too convenient, too transparent and too inconsistent with the actions of both sides. Thankfully it was still Voldemort's ilk that were committing the greater evil.

Or perhaps not so thankfully. That lack of ambiguity was hardly a silver lining now. Because absent of those justifications, the reality was that the war was only being fought for its own sake at this point. Either that, or it was just grandeur and scale of life and far-reaching impact bestowed upon a single person's childish wish to get revenge.

As James Potter got into bed next to his beloved wife, he wondered at uncertainty. He wasn't sure which possibility he liked less. He pondered certainty too, because there was plenty of it also. The certainty that, regardless of how effective his tactics and how complex his plans, Voldemort's reasons were probably fairly simple at the end of the line.

Power is not a means to an end. Power is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution. One makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.

That night James Charlus Potter dreamed of friends, enemies and lands far and near. Like his waking life, respite from Substance did not give reprieve from Desire. The Motion of the waking world was only substituted for that of the Astral currents. He did not enjoy the grace of respite even in his sleep anymore. But this, at least, was no ill matter. He had worked hard to reach this point, joining Will to Desire to master Desire by Will and learning to WILL to Will until Unconsciousness could no longer claim him unbidden.

He woke before his wife as he always did and allowed himself time to settle into the rest of himself. Settle and think about everything.

And when that didn't get him anywhere he didn't reach through dreams, he quietly rose from bed, dressed in the Robes of Purple and Gold and descended down from Griffon's Eye into the Eye. It used to burn his sight to descend so far into the White. But now his eyes withstood it as easily as they did the daylight and the Sun. Which was completely.

What a difference a year made.

Stepping into the White With No Shadow, James Charlus Potter walked to the center of the seemingly infinite, knelt down, relinquished his wand to lie on the ground in front of him, then he closed his eyes and tuned into the Astral.

He'd long since forgone using the Eye to gaze upon the Physical Plane of the Cosmos and the various manifestations of the physical world. As much as he wanted to further master the world of matter and energy, his enemy had far too much of an advantage in that. The physical was the plane best known to both of them, and all others since it was where all physical activities were performed, or on its varied sub-planes. But Voldemort had long since overtaken all others in the use of magic to manipulate those planes of manifestations of matter of degrees recognized by the senses of all other men. As well as some planes where manifestations occurred of degrees not recognized. James himself could see them, now, but seeing was not knowing, and knowing was not Mastery no matter how familiar the forms and degrees.

So instead he looked inward and upward at the forces and energies of which even the magical man of today was barely cognizant of. Beyond even a certain advanced soul who'd risen above the ordinary race limitations through craft and ritual.

James himself was only beginning to assert the Astral Plane, was only able to tune into the lowest of sub-planes nearest the Physical. But it was the sub-plane where the Thought Currents operated, and also in which the Astral Bodies of the embodied and the Auric Colors were visible. On this sub-plane the phenomena of Mentalism manifested. The system known as Magic that the ancient ones had contrived via mass coordinated Mentalism in the old days was also located here. It was an easily accessible and useable database of effects that any Ego with a wand could prompt into action with a mere movement and incantation. Charms, Jinxes, Curses, Transfiguration, Occlumency, Legilimency, they were just some of the many processes that Magic had recorded and kept in a myriad of variations here. It was enough to keep one busy for a lifetime and make people forget that wand-waving was only designed as a tutorial crutch for mere Initiates of the Occult.

Not that he'd ever had room to talk, until last year.

But the convenience of the Magic System and whether or not it stunted the development of soul into Ego was not his main concern today. More important was that this sub-plane was the one nearest to the ordinary Material Plane, and could be penetrated by those whose psychic faculties had become sharpened enough to developed their Astral qualities beyond those disciplines.

Telepathy. Astral Sensing. Clairvoyance.

Clairvoyance of the Future.

A misnomer of course. It implied actual existence somewhere of a foreknowledge or Foresight of the Future – which did not exist. The Cosmos – the Consciousness – did not know before the manifestation, for the knowing causes the manifestation. But Clairvoyance of the future did exist, although the secret had nothing to do with an extant Predestined future. Instead, it stemmed from the Laws of Orderly Trend and Sequence.

Notwithstanding the times when time spanned beyond the present Present into the past future from whence came those who walked backwards on the loop, like they were doing daily now.

Spontaneous prophets like Sybyll Trelawney could see – and to his endless grief had seen – into the existence of the shadows cast by the approaching events. Voldemort had learned of what she'd seen and had taken it upon himself to destroy those shadows.

And in absence of much hope that he could overcome Voldemort in his own talent sphere, James Charlus Potter also now delved and gazed into these shadows of the future.

As always, he started by contemplating the active causes operating towards bringing about the future.

Substance.

Motion.

Consciousness.

Earnest Demand. Confident Expectation. Positive Will. These were the three Coordinates of the exercise of Occult Power.

He turned Will against Desire far gone and considered all else's past as it led to his present.

Voldemort liked to claim that bloodline mattered more than anything, but what glimpses James had ever caught during the monster's lapses in control – on the Physical and elsewhere – proved lie to those words. The once-a-man's actions were those of someone who believed most everything in society is an invention of mortal people and no law can actually stop people from doing anything and everything they want. That there's no absolute judgement or commandment that forces people to act in a certain way – that The Law isn't. His acts were those of someone who believed there is just an illusion of rules, enforced by people's beliefs. Nothing is true, his lies revealed. Everything is permitted, his tantrums screamed. There is no Absolute Law. 'Do as thou wilt' shall be the whole of the law.

Or rather 'Do as I wilt,' says the would-be ruler of humanity.

The irony was that Voldemort's reasoning wasn't entirely groundless. The foundations of society were fragile and man had to be the shepherd of his own civilization. Man was the architect of his own actions and had to live with their consequences, whether glorious or tragic. Every generation imagined itself to be more intelligent than the one that had gone before it, and wiser than the one that came after it. But that reasoning wasn't entirely grounded in reality either. Man was the architect of his own actions, but he had to live with the consequences of everyone else's actions too, as well as the actions of everything else in nature. Everything that existed. Everything that moved. Everything that thought.

Substance. Motion. Consciousness.

Reality.

Reality in all its three distinct evolutionary forms that coincided separately on their respective layers of the physical world. He could see them all too, now. They were like black keys among the white on a piano's board. To say nothing of everyone above and below. Large and small.

From large know small. From one know all.

The tragedy was that Voldemort's entire existence was so utterly pointless. It was inevitable that a man like him, whose thoughts or desires were spiteful, brutal, sensual and so avaricious, would move through the world carrying with him everywhere such a pestiferous atmosphere. A man like that, who frequently dwelled upon one wish – one fear – would even unknowingly have formed for himself an astral attendant which, constantly fed by fresh thought, had probably been haunting him for years. Gained more and more strength and influence over him. It was easy to see that this fear, having long since grown into a Desire to be evil, would have had a disastrous effect on whatever moral nature he might have had, if any.

James wondered how thick Voldemort's astral self was with the loathsome beings that he would inevitably have created to be his companions, even if just unknowingly. Even for a master of outer magic such as him, James wouldn't be surprised if he had no awareness of the inner, higher forms of Occultism. Maybe he even actively avoided the Astral teachings of the Arcane. It was hard to fathom anyone choosing consciously to infest himself with the kind of aborted creatures that the man's thoughts would have coalesced into over so many years.

If only he would sod off somewhere to just be evil by himself! But that would be too convenient, wouldn't it? Required too much lack of ambition. No, it was their lot in life to suffer him becoming a dangerous nuisance to his fellow man, subjecting all who had the misfortune to come in contact with him to his evil. To say nothing of the moral contagion from the influence of the abominations with which he had chosen to surround himself with.

What a difference perspective makes!

Having pondered and listened long enough and briefly enough to tune into the rhythm, James Potter tuned higher along his Astral sight and gazed upon the skeins.

All things that were could also cease to be, but the memory of them could never truly be gone. The memory of all things remained in the Consciousness. All things living and not were connected and intertwined by the three Principles of existence that connected all living things through both space and time. James himself was an expert in using Magic to exploit the principle of Substance. He was a fairly deft hand at Motion even. But magicking and Doing were a realm apart from each other in both ease and potency, and necessity was steadily teaching him understanding of the Consciousness principle before those others two. So, as clearly as he could within the Rhythm of the planes he spanned, James Potter beheld the time and space through which he and his propagated.

He sought his wife's presence first. She was still sleeping, albeit lightly. Her Rhythm was steadily increasing even as it stayed distinct from that of else. Made it easy to see, along with the point where all her threads converged. Her Astral Body was bright but quiescent. Undisturbed. Relaxed within the Astral Bounds that he had willed so that she did not need to divert time away from motherhood to do it herself. Let the burden of looking beyond sit upon his shoulders so that the burden of motherhood needn't sit too heavily on hers. She had her own crafts that she pursued outside of it regardless. In aid of his. Aided by his. Apart but joined together. Division of responsibility. Balance of the sexes. James could see her presence and his own stretching for years into the past and centuries into the shadows of futures yet to be, through actions direct and not hardly. Ripples carried by the things and people they created and affected and would leave behind long hence.

He looked to Sirius next. He was in slumber and his Astral Self was deep in a dream. His rhythm was faster than both of theirs even in that state. Fitting for a man who lived as fully in the physical world as he did. This life was never one suited to evolve his Ego so much as feed it. That he outgrew his Personality as much as he did was a remarkable feat, for all that James himself Willed to his Desire more than Sirius did so himself for the longest time.

Then he looked across seconds, heartbeats and hundreds of miles to where a third Personality was moving across the coast far to the northwest. A man and his Demon. The influence he caused within the Astral Plane was difficult to see amidst those of the Wolf that rippled and grew like frothing from depths and mires far below. Most of what James could see stretched far from his direct influence – Remus John Lupin was on Order of the Phoenix business only tangentially related to them – but that separation was influence unto itself.

Like Sirius' obvious involvement as a full part of their life, Remus' estrangement was its own influence on them. A moving decoy deliberately conspicuous by design, to divert grasping regard that would otherwise assail them.

Peter contrasted the rest of them in that he still had no Ego at all. But his Personality, weak and timid as it might always have been, was finally going through the throes of Self Attainment. Their Secret hung heavy within him, a latticework of threads and ripples across Planar bounds that increasingly overlapped his own and Lily's and his son's the more time they spent at the Cottage home.

The accomplishments of them all and the things they had set in motion were evident to James Potter's Astral vision. He could see the individuals, societies and futures of their entire civilization bearing the imprint of their lives. So, too, did his life bear imprints of their lives, and theirs bore the imprint of his.

There was Death but there was no forgetting for that which lived through Substance, Motion and Consciousness, which was everything. Their effect would continue to grow like ripples in a pond. His own, too. It would grow ever greater the longer he walked upon the land. The further he followed through on his duties as a husband, as a father and as a man. Even now he could see the distant effects of his life on the future rippling back like those same ripples, converging upon the present. Upon him and his beloved and his household and his son.

If only he could actually read them now that he'd finally learned how! But the shadow of the future was obstructed by the cross-flow of the others' actions, and the occultation of the linchpin of his Desire within the Secret's bounds. What was that proverb? If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself? With every frontier overcome he discovered yet more consequences of his far-reaching actions of the past. With every consequence discovered, he got more reasons to question the supposed wisdom of those by whose word and advice he'd chosen to abide when he lacked wisdom of his own.

His old teacher and leader called forth conflicting thoughts and feelings like he always did these days, even abstract of the snarl that his impact on the world appeared to his Astral sight.

James Potter had been looking forward to starting his life as a father, even with the constant struggle of fighting a war at the same time. But it was tough being pulled in two directions, by his duty as a father and the duty to fight against the kind of dark future no father wanted to leave behind for their son. The present was important, but the future… oh, the future! How it pulled at him.

Still, he had always known that life would pose him trials and he would pass them all and do what needed doing. So as a newly-wed man who'd just buried his father and mother, he had nodded to Dumbledore and said that he was ready to do his part. Initially, the Order meetings had essentially been like the addresses in the Great Hall at Hogwarts, except with fewer people. Now, though…

James Willed his awareness away and tuned instead his thoughts into the artificial elemental that had itself grown much in thought. Turning WILL to Will still escaped him often, and turning Desire to Will required that he often renew that Desire. Fortunately, his mental crutch worked as well as it always did to bolster his resolve. All was well with his wife and his son of the present past. He knew it would be so after living through the day first-hand. But he never lost the urge to confirm for himself when he lived through the second today.

Now that he had, his resolve was sufficiently bolstered to contemplate the last snarl in his sight.

His relationship with Albus Dumbledore had become complicated since last year, when the status quo was upended by a young wizard who had no business being as disruptive as he was. It sparked James' decision to become proactive with the safety of his family. With his duties as a husband and a father and as a man. What kind of worth had he, if someone even younger had managed to outmaneuver and achieve more than the entire Order of the Phoenix combined? Suddenly, James Potter was no longer satisfied with the grim, rote reactivity that he'd fallen into since he acquired his far too personal stake in the war. But this meant going outside the operational guidelines of his leader. It meant lore and roots outside Albus Dumbledore's expertise and vouchsafing.

Then James learned of his Bloodline Guide's transition, confronted That Which Derides, and saw his leader's actions as they rippled up and down the stream of the world. Suddenly he was no longer Dumbledore's to mould.

The old man's actions rippled up and down Harry Potter's life more strongly and deliberately than James' own did, off and on. It prompted in James Potter great distress, dread and indignant outrage.

When Griffon's Eye later turned hostile to Dumbledore's presence along with half the Order of the Phoenix, James was not so much shocked or outraged as surprised that the Eye could take such unilateral decisions without him. Except it hadn't, as weeks and weeks of occult progression would let him comprehend later. It had been commanded to obstinacy. By ripples of Will from back and forth in time whose source was Will his own.

And James couldn't read any of it. Not the when, barely the how, and most frustratingly not the why.

His report during the last meeting of the Order he attended had been more unpleasant than all the previous ones combined. Albus had been reserved and the order had been disapproving, suspicious or pitying of James by turns. It depended on whether they considered it misfortune or incompetence on his part that he couldn't control his own ancestral home's defence measures. Neither of which James appreciated.

Years and years had passed since James had been led by upbringing and circumstance into a war under the leadership of his old headmaster. And only in the past year had he awakened to what a poor match they actually made. But Albus Dumbledore had been James' inspiration, and later became what the orphaned young father thought was his last hope to safeguard the remnants of his family. He'd done all Albus could think of to preserve that, without seriously considering if it was all he could think of. James had known that he was not living up to the example of his father in any meaningful sense of the word, but he'd done what he convinced himself was the only thing to do.

So it had been jarring to see Albus actively speak against the Black Phantom, even if not betraying. James hadn't previously dwelt much on how differently he and Albus (or others) would react to favourable serendipity. Or the appearance of it, since there was no such thing as coincidence under The Law. James himself had reacted with gratitude and resolve in the wake of that night, when Sirius was attacked and so strangely rescued. At least after the indignation over being blindsided, captured and set free by turns within the same night had run its course. Albus had not been the same, though, nor had most other Order members. Instead, he pointedly made sure his official stance was as ambivalent as possible to the single most effective independent factor of the war, simply because he was independent. And it took James himself becoming more independent before he actually pinned that reasoning down.

Then he'd started rethinking everything else in his past and never really stopped. His family most of all.

Now… James found that he wasn't angry with Albus for taking a hard-line stance against the Black Phantom. He was angry with Albus for doing it out of reasons that were entirely hypocritical. He was also disappointed that those reasons were based on little but fear. For such a great and influential man, he was still ruled by Desire. Because that's what fear was, in the end. Just another form of desire. Desire for everything you consider threatening to not be.

And who else did he know who had foremost influence over his life and was driven by the desire for everything he considered threatening to not be?

Realizing that the greatest and worst men he'd ever known were both driven by the exact same thing had been a sobering realization.

James had been angry with himself as well, when he realized just how much of his life he'd wasted after he left school, what with his reactionary, submissive and even sycophantic way of life. James Potter, who liked having the Order, liked being part of the Order and the direction it gave to his life when his world crashed around him and the war felt too large.

Now, nothing was the same. Now he had to live with the judgment that was constantly being meted upon all his past deeds by his own changed philosophy.

James Potter took all his misgivings, WILLED Desire to Will, then invested that Will into the Familiar Spirit he'd created to enforce his Will in the Astral world. And occasionally the physical world, something that grew more frequent and easy with each moonturn. Miles and miles away in their Godric's Hollow home, Leo perked up where he was inhabiting Lily's tomcat, a vessel as good as any from which to stand guard over him and his in the present past.

Alas, James Potter was no Master to make inner transmutation a perfect process, even operating two distinct thought lines at all times. But whatever overflowed or escaped of his feelings and mental currents, the Eye took in and distilled as it always did, adding whatever essence remained to the cord connecting his Astral Self to his ancestral Home. Or would have, if he hadn't instead diverted it to bind Lily closer to it instead.

He could nurture that ancestral bond of his own all by himself.

Which he did, all through the dawn.

When the man emerged from the Eye up into the castle proper, it was to find his wife putting the finishing touches on breakfast.

James Potter waited for Lily Potter to put the lids on the bowls and plates, then walked up to embrace her for however long it would take Sirius to come down from upstairs.

He wondered if she was already planning how to use the resulting Love and unspent sexual energy in a ritual or other. He also wondered if a time will come again when he wouldn't constantly think about how to squeeze even out of good living every last scrap of practicality.

"You feel like you've spent another age and morning having revelations," Lily murmured into his chest as she drew circles with her finger over his collarbone. "Care to share?"

"There is a…philosophy I've come across. As flowers are grown by rain, so is the soul grown by war. From suffering comes compassion; from cruelty, mercy; from violence, peace. We are not born when we come into this world. We are born when we learn who we are, and we can only learn by being tested. Adversity is the crucible, honor is the way, and enlightenment the reward."

"Sounds harsh but oddly beautiful," his wife said. Oh Lily. "Who said it?"

"You-Know-Who." Lily's finger suddenly stopped. Along with the rest of her. Even her breathing stalled. "It's not wrong. There is much we learn through introspection and self-awareness, through quiet and internal reflection. But there is a lot we learn in the face of wrath and pain and ruin as well. Things that cannot be learned in peace. Things you can only learn about yourself when you are forced to face the trial of them."

"… A person who has never missed a meal a day in their life may believe that hunger is terrible. That no matter one's circumstances, they should not go hungry." Lily sighed in understanding. "But a person who has starved knows it. The ideals may seem alike, but those two perspectives are not the same."

"Just so," James let his cheek rest on Lily's hair. "And so it is with honeyed words: what he said and what he meant are not the same."

Voldemort. Honor. Pah!

"Survival of the fittest. Rule of the strong. You-Know-Who. Dumbledore," Lily murmured, then paused and shook her head. "But no, that's not true either, is it? Both of them think the same. It's just what they do with the unfit that's different. The weak."

One of them wanted to save them. The other wanted to kill them. But ultimately, in both of their worlds it was the strong who ruled over the weak.

"It's ironic, isn't it," James mused. "That when confronted with the seeming embodiment of their shared philosophy, both Lord Hyphen and Albus declared the Black Phantom the enemy."

Sirius finally came down from upstairs, looking bleary but rested and already dressed in his Hit Wizard uniform.

They ate their breakfast in an atmosphere of earnest geniality mixed with contrived cheerfulness. Then Sirius left for work, promising to keep an ear out about anything that might or might not happen tomorrow. None of them would be holding their breath of course. They'd already lived today once and had neither seen nor heard anything of the sort.

Whatever would happen, it would be tomorrow and it would blindside them all.

They gave their goodbyes and Sirius left.

Once again, only the two of them were left.

James Potter watched his wife weigh in her mind all the plans and measures and safeguards and contingencies they'd devised. From having Sirius stay at the Eye, to moving all of them there to reside. Tomorrow. Or even right now.

Usually he'd let her think herself back to their current situation and how it wasn't worth breaking the Fidelius on Potter Cottage from the same fear of uncertainty that had been kept from becoming their undoing by that same protection many times in the recent past. But he'd finally trained himself out of needing such coping mechanisms. He was instead thinking of Astral skeins and how they were no different like so much else was no different. But he also thought about everything that was different this time. Time. History. Peter's deferred Decision. Deferred choices. Deferred regrets.

Themselves.

Samhain.

James cleared his throat, making Lily jerk out of her thoughts and pay attention to him again. "Wife. It need be said that our precarious situation may or may not conclude with me having failed as a wizard, as husband, as a father and as a man."

Lily gaped at him, horrified at his sudden confession or its blitheness or both, then immediately said that-

James raised a hand to stop her. He did not need her to argue or scoff or reassure. He needed her to think about what he said and consider.

Lily, bless her brilliant heart, did as he prompted and actually turned his words in her mind, even as her pallor moved closer and closer to white the more the seconds ticked on.

When she was done, she did not seem to have any words to give back.

It was just as well. "Plans for today – forget about them. Instead, we'll need your biggest cauldron, our whole stock of passionflower and all the acacia bark that we can find."

Lily understood what he wanted before he even finished talking, and it only made her look even more soulful, if that was possible. She threw her arms around him and held him with worry verging on desperation.

James Potter held his wife, made the best of his day, made the worst of his night, spent October 31 drawing circles and signs in the ground, then allowed himself a moment of doubtful optimism when the unexpected development turned out to be a Hit Wizard call to action down in France.

Then Samhain 1981 happened, and James Charlus Potter found out how badly he did and didn't fail as a wizard, as a husband, as a father and as a man.

Seven years from the day, his grave was finally visited by his foster brother, his brother and an orphaned son.