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 quietly.

"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 little baby Harry was in that story. 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 nonetheless. 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. "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 for us? 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 boy on the sofa 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."

Remus shrugged and raised his wand anyway, "Still, we've nothing to lose at this point."

No one in the room tried to stop him from using the spell to wake Harry, for they all had the same feeling about them; a sense of purpose, to strike out and fix what was wronged.

After a blast of light, he started to stir and raised his hand to his face where there were still a few wet spots from when Lily had cried on him. Then slowly, ever cautious, he opened his eyes and let them wander about the ceiling for a few moments before his eyes slid sideways to land on the four adults hovering over him.

For the briefest moment in time, something flashed in those emerald eyes, recognition maybe, but then it was gone to be replaced by solemn confusion.

He opened his mouth, closed it again and seemed to be mulling something over, then opened it again and finally said, "Hello."

This was hardly the response any of them had been expecting. Honestly, they were all expecting a barrage of questions the moment he found his tongue.

The boy was no danger to any of them, seeing as Remus had never returned his wand to his pocket, but the others still tensed up a bit as Lily went forward and lowered herself down to his eye level as she said quietly, "Hello yourself, do you know who I am?"

He frowned again, and he seemed to be struggling desperately with something before he answered, "No."

Lily nodded as if this did not surprise her, "My name's Lily Potter. Ring any bells?" she asked.

There it was again, an almost pained look about him as his mind grappled with something none of the others could see. The pause was longest of all so far until eventually he shook his head no in a depressed manner.

This time she frowned as if really hoping for a different response before asking gently, "Can you sit up?"

This too took a moment to process, but he then started shifting his weight around and looking down at his own body as if trying to remember how to do this as well. After a good ten minutes of seemingly nothing, he swung his legs down onto the carpet and sat up with shaky arms. Yet when he was done, he grinned up at them, seeming quite pleased with himself.

Now that he was sitting up, he seemed a bit more confident about himself and looked around the rest of the room and especially the other people with wide alert eyes. The others were just waiting, a bit tense still, for him to say something. They wanted him to make the first move, unsure how to proceed themselves.

After a time he cleared his throat and asked the room, "Do you know my name?"

Lily exchanged a look with James, who also came forward so that he was on eye level with him before he answered. "If you are who we think you are, then your name is Harry Potter, and you're our son."

He nodded once, his eyes flickering between the two and then said, "I can't remember anything. It's a bit disconcerting to not even be able to pull any kind of memory. But I believe you, I don't know why, but I guess I do."

"Go check a mirror," Sirius spoke up for the first time. "Trust me, you'll see exactly why."

"Very funny Padfoot." Remus rolled his eyes before turning to Harry, "Well then I guess we have to introduce ourselves since our dear friends have yet to, my name is Remus Lupin, and this is Sirius Black. That little baby he's holding is you by the way."

"Way to freak the kid out Moony," James muttered as Harry's eyes went wide and flickered to the baby in Sirius's arms. He then clutched his head again, pain flaring all over, before he relaxed again and asked, with agony still lacing his tone;

"What, but I mean, what?" he stuttered.

"Yeah no, I think we got that the first time," Sirius chuckled.

Lily reached forward and took hold of her son's hands gently, "We don't know how dear, but you're not from this time period. You shouldn't be this old right now. You were only born four months ago. Those," she gestured to the books on the table, "and a note came with you when you crashed down into our kitchen table. Does any of this ring a bell?" She asked kindly.

When Harry shook his head no, Sirius snorted and said, "Well I'd kind of hope not, since he was unconscious in everything you just described."

"Keep up the commentary Sirius and you won't be allowed to hold Harry for the rest of the day," James said in a pleasant voice.

Sirius scowled at him and tightened his hold on his little pup, but chose not to reply.

"So? What now?" Remus asked slowly, "I could try to reverse the memory charm placed on him, but it would be slamming a lot of stuff back all at once, could be dangerous. The kids lost his memories so he can't prove whether anything in here is accurate," he tapped the book looking around for some kind of answer.

Lily shot to her feet and snarled, "I told you Remus, this is my son. This is proven and nothing's going to change that so stop trying to say otherwise."

Remus quickly raised his hands in surrender and took a quick step back, while James said, "I'm with Remus, can't take the risk of trying to recover so many memories at one time. In fact, I think the best we could do is read these books with him, I'm rather curious myself about his life."

"I think that's a wonderful idea," Lily approved before sitting down on the sofa next to Harry.

Harry's eyes flickered around the room before settling on Lily, "So, err, if I read these books with you guys I'll remember everything again?" He confirmed.

"Maybe not everything," Remus conceded. "But hopefully these will help jog your memories. The more we replenish the more stuff should come back on its own."

It seemed that Harry didn't understand all of this, but he quickly nodded his head and agreed that he'd like to try.

"I have an idea!" Sirius chirped as his stomach rumbled. "Why don't we let Harry read the first chapter on his own, so that he's caught up with us? While he does that, we can eat."

"Sirius, you just ate two hours ago," Lily reprimanded.

"Yeah," he shrugged, "but you guys didn't, and I'm a bottomless pit."

"I like that idea," Harry agreed, eyeballing the book. Anything to get his memories flowing. He reached over and was about to grab it before he looked at his own hand and frowned, then looked up at his parents and said, "Err, where's a loo?"

James chuckled a bit before answering, "Down the hallway, second door on the left." Then he swished his wand to release the ropes that tied Harry's hands and ankles. "Sorry," he said sheepishly, "we didn't know-"

Harry shrugged as if he understood, on some deeper level, what James was hinting at. "Thanks," he said, then looked down at his legs.

Just like everything else he'd done, he sat there for a good few minutes before it seemed to occur to him that his legs would get up and move as he chose. He managed to walk over to the indicated door while only stumbling a few times and ramming into a dresser once.

Once in the kitchen, Remus gave a quick swish of his wand repairing the broken table, and when Lily bent down to start digging something out for a quick snack from a lower cupboard she spotted something gleaming now beneath their fixed furniture. Without the boys noticing, she filched it from the floor and entered it into her pocket.*

While Lily prepared a meal for them all, Harry managed to go into the bathroom for several minutes and just managed to close the book on his finished chapter when they all came back.

He locked eyes on his father for a long time, and they knew that he was probably comparing the sights he'd seen in the mirror to the man across from him. He then turned the replicated eyes on his mother. Taking in a deep breath he asked, "Why do I have so many scars?"

"Scars?" Lily asked, panicking immediately, "You only have the one." She reached forward and touched him gently on the forehead.

Harry relaxed under the touch and nodded, his fingers stopping the movement but still lingering as he continued, "Yes that one, but I have a few others." He raised up his fist and indicated some white writing on the back of his hand, though the words were too faded to clearly make out. He then lifted his shirt to reveal the other scar, dead center in his chest, another bolt of lightning.

All the adults exchanged horrified looks before looking back at Harry. Finally, Remus said slowly, "We don't really know, like your mother said, your time has come after us so this will be all new to us too. But I'm sure we'll find out."

Harry beamed at Remus, mostly for the 'your mother' remark, he seemed to like that.

A sudden flare of hope surged in Lily as she took a golden loop back out of her pocket and placed it in his hand, asking, "does this help at all?"

His eyes gleamed as he inspected it, before slipping it on as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Then his face fell as he kept looking. He added on without any real hope, "so I guess you wouldn't know about this either." He held up his left hand where the ring now proudly sat.

"Nope," Sirius said, popping the p for emphasis but his eyes lingering with maddening curiosity as well. "Though if you remember that first, I'd love to know."

Harry really did try as he gazed down at it, but all he got was the faintest of stirrings in his gut. He loved this ring and whoever it represented, but nothing came with it. Not a name or even the glimpse of the woman it was paired with.

"I'll read next," Lily offered, taking the book gently away from her son and flipping it to the right chapter, now just hoping to take that devastated look off his face.

"Look on the bright side, with these books here, we can change our future however we want," Sirius managed to get out before she started.

*Idea suggested by Nadiya C, this was such an adorable idea I had to rework this chapter just for that moment...and also I realized I never told that the table was repaired.