The Life that Never Lived ? (Philosopher's Stone)

Awakening

With the air of one pulling off a murderer's hood, Lily pushed back the black bangs to reveal the mark upon that forehead.

"I don't believe it-" Lily murmured.

"It's really there-" Remus muttered.

"Like lightning-" James whispered.

The other three were stunned into silence, only managing to finish half a sentence, but Sirius, ever the rebel, burst out laughing. The others all exchanged worried glances, Sirius sounded quite deranged, but between loud guffaws he managed to speak. "Don't you guys see? This isn't real! It's got nothing to do with us. Maybe some alternate dimension where their Harry Potter was born with a scar on his forehead, but ours wasn't."

He went over to James and scooped baby Harry out of his arms, the little kid looked up at him with wide green eyes as he brushed aside the hair in the way and showed the others. "No scar, no problem."

James looked quite relieved and went over to kiss the center of his child's forehead as if in blessing for such a thing not existing, Lily and Remus, on the other hand, exchanged uneasy looks.

"We can't yet prove that Sirius," Remus said slowly. "There have been no dates, nothing to indicate when this book takes place. They didn't even say how old the baby Harry was in that story, and Voldemort apparently put that there according to Dumbledore. You were mentioned once, and I wasn't mentioned at all."

"Exactly!" James said, now starting to get excited. "That just proves what Sirius said. That's not our son."

All three boys stopped in their discussion as they heard something. It wasn't loud, or obvious, but a noise they all recognized none the less. Lily Potter had not moved an inch since the discovery of the scar and had merely been hovering over the familiar face with a look of devastation. It slowly turned to revelation, which had finally morphed to tender love. Slow steady tears had been trickling from her green eyes, splashing slightly onto his face. She did not seem aware of it, or anything else around her for that matter. What had alerted the men was a slight sniffling sound coming from her, as she slowly looked up at her husband.

"Don't say that James, please don't say that."

"But, Lils-" he started weakly but stopped when her eyes flickered back down.

"This is my son," she paused and took one step towards her husband, but still within the range of the sofa, then reached out and placed a hand on her only child in his godfather's arms. "Our son."

James seemed torn, his eyes flickering between the man on the couch and the infant in his best friend's arms. Sucking in a huge lungful of air, he finally said, "You, you want this to be true, do you? For us to-" his throat convulsed, he seemed incapable of getting the word out, but pressed on with everyone understanding him, "and our child to go and live with your sister."

She shook her head sadly from side to side and said quietly, "No not want. How could I ever want such a future? But it is ours. Our son grows up alive and healthy, and that's all that matters to me." She took her hand off the two boys and stepped forward to bury her face in James' chest.

With a look of defeat on his face, James wrapped her up tight and the two took a moment to accept what was to be.

Remus and Sirius were not pleased, but Sirius could come up with nothing to say to bring the conversation around back to his line of thinking. Remus opened his mouth, and with a determined look on his face, he said, "I think we should finally wake this Harry up. He might be able to answer a few questions."

"Maybe not Moony," James said slowly, still not looking up from his wife. "You read the letter, he probably has no memories and doesn't even know who he is, let alone where, or when, he is."