The Marauders Year Five Part 2 #Wattys2017

Should've Been Me

Should've Been Me

"James... Potter..."

The words were whispered. Hissed, even. James could feel them in the air, trembling like a breeze that touched his skin. He shivered and looked around, but the words seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once.

"James.... Potter...."

"Potter."

"Evans?"

And suddenly he'd found himself in a corridor. The corridor by the library. Lily Evans was pressed against the wall between his outstretched arms, his palms pressed to the stones on either side of her as he leaned in to kiss her... His mind spinning, whirling over all of the times he'd wanted to do this, and his eyes flitting across her lovely, plump lips, his realization that he was about to feel it's warmth against his mouth had his heart pounding... And then, suddenly Lily Evans wasn't Lily Evans anymore - her features melted away and it was Maryrose that was kissing him, and she'd turned back to herself from her disguise as Lily Evans only just before her mouth met his and he choked on the kiss, panicking... And she drew away, staring up at him with a look of terror on her face, her eyes wide, as though he'd betrayed her...

"I'm sorry Maryrose, I'm sorry, I didn't know. I'm so sorry," he stammered, the wind sucked from his chest as he stared at her, her face still horrified... "Please forgive me, please! You must forgive me, I didn't mean to kill you."

She shook her head no and James grabbed her shoulders, set to beg her for forgiveness....

And then it wasn't even Maryrose - it was a dementor he was holding by the shoulders and from the darkness beneath the dementor's hood came a great sucking sound as it inhaled, drawing him closer, and he could feel himself being pulled in... and then... even that changed and he tripped forward as there was naught but thin air beneath his hands and he fell against the wall.

And when he hit the wall, the world seemed to spin and it was suddenly the floor he was laying on and the floor melted into a bed, his bed, though it was a bed he'd never seen before. It was huge, wide, and he was beneath blankets and there was a voice, calling him.

"James... Potter..."

He rolled over and his feet struck cold wood floors - floors he didn't recognize... and he ran, jamming his glasses on his eyes as he moved through the bedroom door way, into the hall... He could hear crying and he ran toward it, the hallway growing longer and longer the more he ran... But the crying was loud and he had to get to it, and he suddenly got the idea to accio the crying person to him - a baby, he thought, it's a baby - and he'd catch the baby and he'd make the crying stop. So he reached for his wand but it was gone. He grappled the pockets over his chest and he realized that he'd left it by the bed in his dormitory and that was all the way back at Hogwarts and here he was in Godric's Hollow... "Blast," he said, "Where is my wand caddy? Sirius, you're fired!"

And Sirius had suddenly appeared - and he'd come from behind the curtains and suddenly it was Walburga Black's library and this was not the real Sirius, it was Maryrose in disguise again and Sirius's clothes were miles too large on her as his features melted back into hers again and James started crying and he said, "Please forgive me."

And Maryrose said, "I love you James."

He woke up with a start.

James looked around, his breath coming out wheezy, and found that they'd all fallen asleep... The telly was crackling with fuzzy white and black dots, casting a tremoring light around the room. Peter was sprawled across the carpet, rolled up like a burrito in his blanket. Sirius had turned into a dog at some point and curled up on the other bed 'round an old jumper of Remus's that had been left out in the Shack at some point - maybe the month before. And there on the bed beside James, separated by the wall of pillows that Peter had made, was Lily Evans.