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+\section{Maze of Light}\label{maze-of-light}
+
+% \textbf{Story:} Maze of Light\\
+% \textbf{Storylink:} \url{https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2720074/1/}\\
+% \textbf{Category:} Harry Potter\\
+% \textbf{Genre:} Angst\\
+% \textbf{Author:} Lightning on the Wave\\
+% \textbf{Authorlink:} \url{https://www.fanfiction.net/u/895946/}\\
+% \textbf{Last updated:} 12/25/2005\\
+% \textbf{Words:} 6366\\
+% \textbf{Rating:} K+\\
+% \textbf{Status:} Complete\\
+% \textbf{Content:} Chapter 1 to 1 of 1 chapters\\
+% \textbf{Source:} FanFiction.net\\[2\baselineskip]\textbf{Summary:} AU,
+% short story set in my Sacrifices universe. James Potter faces a choice
+% that is either the answer to all his mistakes, or the worst one he's
+% ever made. Oneshot.
+
+\subsection{*Chapter 1*: Maze of Light}\label{chapter-1-maze-of-light}
+
+\textbf{Title:} Maze of Light
+
+% \textbf{Summary}: This is a short story taking place in the middle of my
+% novel-length story{Comes Out of Darkness Morn}, but chronicling an event
+% that's only referred to glancingly there. It probably won't make much
+% sense if you haven't read CooDM and its prequels. James Potter faces an
+% ancient artifact that will either grant him peace from his mistakes, or
+% end them forever.
+
+% \textbf{Warnings:} This is mostly gen, though James/Lily is referred to,
+% but I suppose it requires a warning for emotional upset.
+
+% \textbf{Disclaimer}: The recognizable characters, events, settings, and
+% spells referred to in this story are the property of J. K. Rowling, not
+% me.
+
+% \textbf{Maze of Light}
+
+James Potter halted outside the main hall of Lux Aeterna, and once again
+checked the small bag slung over his shoulder. Yes, he had the mirror,
+and the small silver knife, and the vial of poison in case something
+went very badly wrong and he had no other way to escape the Maze. He had
+confirmed that he had them in the old room he'd taken his for his own
+quarters, and again on the stairs, and again now.
+
+\emph{Stop stalling and get on with it, James.}
+
+He bowed his head and shivered, even though the voice was nothing more
+than the voice of his own thoughts. He'd become quite familiar with it
+over the course of the last few months, as he stayed in the Potter
+family linchpin, named for eternal Light, and tried to come to grips
+with what he had done and what he had allowed to happen in the past.
+He'd refused all letters from Dumbledore, read many others but not
+replied, and sent only one of his own, to Remus. Remus was the only one
+who might understand the storm that James found in his own thoughts
+whenever he glanced at them.
+
+\emph{I know I bloody well don't}, James thought, and then grimaced as
+he felt the artifact in the main hall give out a sharp pulse of magic,
+like sunlight on his face, even though the door between him and it was
+closed. The Maze was awake, then, and sensed him. Now the Light magic
+was waiting to see if he would come through, or turn his back and refuse
+it.
+
+He couldn't. He had refused enough in his life, and it had backed him
+into this corner. He didn't want to hurt anyone else, but no matter what
+he did---stayed here, or returned and confronted Lily and his boys and
+his friends and Dumbledore---he would. The Maze offered death, perhaps,
+but also a path out of this confusion.
+
+He had no other choice, and for once, instead of closing his eyes and
+huddling against the ground like a hare who'd just seen a threat in the
+hopes that it would miss him, he was going to face it.
+
+He took another deep breath, on the off chance that it might help, and
+pushed open the door.
+
+A flood of light greeted him, for all that it was night outside Lux
+Aeterna. The Maze had supposedly come from some other world where it was
+always day, part of the reason that it was able to continually shine.
+James blinked and shielded his eyes as he paced slowly forward,
+confirming his childhood impressions of the Maze as he moved.
+
+Yes, it still looked the same: silvery folds of walls and tunnels that
+nearly filled the room, blending and rushing into each other like water
+or foam, but undeniably sharp. The edges glittered like diamond. Light
+radiated from them, and from the heart of the Maze, which James couldn't
+see. \emph{Trying} to see it only resulted in afterimages. It was too
+much a mixture of silver and gold and white and the sun shining off
+polished glass. James blinked and looked away, and then took the mirror
+from his bag and held it up in front of him.
+
+He felt the heat glow through the mirror's polished silver and into the
+wooden frame, and then into his hands, as the Maze recognized his
+intention to enter it. The light abruptly dimmed, and then surged again.
+His request was granted.
+
+James sighed. \emph{Another excuse to hide taken away,} he thought, as
+he laid the mirror down on the floor and then removed the knife from the
+bag. A quick cut to the side of his right arm, and he dripped three
+drops of blood on the floor.
+
+His grandparents had declared themselves Light wizards and abandoned
+many of the old pureblood dances that favored the strong and bred people
+more likely to break than bend, but some of the ancient rituals were
+still essential for things like this, James's father had taught him. The
+Maze had once belonged only to itself, but it had resided in Lux Aeterna
+for generations now. It needed to know that the one facing it was really
+a Potter before he had a chance of surviving. There had been a nasty
+surprise a few generations back when it turned out James's
+several-times-great aunt was not, in fact, a Potter, and she had tried
+to enter the Maze anyway.
+
+There was no problem here, of course. Some of the protective glow
+diminished, and James could move nearer for the first time. He sealed
+the wound with a swipe of his wand and let the knife drop behind him. He
+realized that he was breathing lightly, so lightly he could hardly hear
+it himself, and that his chest felt tight and too warm.
+
+\emph{Another barrier passed.}
+
+And now there was only the Maze, and the tunnel in front of him, like a
+tunnel into the ocean, complete with a white edge that reached out and
+swept up to his feet like foam.
+
+James shivered.
+
+Light and Dark magic were divided by several differences, but only one
+mattered to the Maze. Dark wizards often relied on deception and
+subterfuge; almost every glamour had come from the wands of
+experimenting Dark wizards. Light relied on truth. The Maze would show
+him the results of his mistakes, force him to face, in brutal honesty,
+every rationalization he had made about them, and test his acceptance of
+them in the meantime. If he was unable to accept that he had made these
+mistakes and needed to change, the Maze would kill him, or perhaps trap
+him in limbo. Hence the vial of poison.
+
+Once he entered the Maze, he was honest, or he was dead.
+
+James closed his eyes, and remembered the expression on Lily's face the
+night he had left Godric's Hollow, the sudden devastating realization
+that had followed his first realization of the night---that a pureblood
+justice ritual had heard Harry's plea to take her magic, and
+\emph{listened} to it, and obeyed him. She had deserved to lose her
+magic, according to the ritual's impartial judgment.
+
+And he had been part of the reason that that had happened.
+
+He had no choice, not if he loved his family.
+
+James moved forward, and entered the Maze.
+
+\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
+
+James bowed his head and shut his eyes.
+
+He had faced the minor mistakes of his childhood, and accepted them
+easily enough. For the most part, he had made peace with them long
+since. It had been a mistake, in many ways, to train to become an
+Animagus when he learned of Remus's lycanthropy, and to teach Sirius
+when he asked, and to tease and cajole Peter until he went along with
+it. There were the mistakes that had caused his parents pain before he
+came to Hogwarts. There were the common pranks in Hogwarts, the times he
+had cheated on exams, the times when he had earned, and deserved,
+detention for his cruel remarks about the Defense professor's
+deformities. For the most part, they were old regrets, and James could
+put them aside.
+
+Not so easily this one. The scene waited for him on the Maze's wall,
+with infinite patience. It would go on waiting until the Maze decided
+that he would never accept it, and then he would have death one way or
+the other.
+
+James raised his head and opened his eyes.
+
+In the mirror, he watched himself bite his lip and shift anxiously back
+and forth on his bed in the sixth-year Gryffindor boys' room. Sirius was
+lying on his own, his gray eyes brilliant. Sirius had been happier than
+James had ever seen him that year, in the months after he finally fled
+his family and came to live with James instead. But the happiness often
+translated itself into glass-edged recklessness, deadly as the Maze's
+edges in its own way, and this was a time it had.
+
+``Come on, James,'' Sirius coaxed. ``It'll be fun.'' He paused---for
+effect, James realized, viewing this scene from the outside. ``I don't
+usually have to explain to \emph{you} how much fun something is,'' he
+said, a whinge creeping into his voice. ``Peter, sure. And you know how
+Remus needs to be prodded along. Come on. What's eating you?''
+
+The adolescent James lay back and folded his arms behind his head. ``I
+don't know, really,'' he said slowly. ``After all, it's just a more
+intense version of what we've always done.''
+
+The adult James flinched as the Maze made sure the words echoed in his
+ears. \emph{There's my first rationalization. And Merlin, of course it
+matters. We're talking about someone else's} life \emph{here, not his
+pride, and I've known since I was a child which one matters more.}
+
+``But I just don't think it's right.'' James bit his lip again.
+
+Sirius snorted. ``Come \emph{on}, James. It's \emph{Snivellus.} He
+deserves a good scare, especially after what he did to Peter the other
+day.''
+
+The Maze stilled the scene, and James sighed. ``I know,'' he whispered.
+``Sirius was only using that to butter me up. I know he didn't care all
+that much about what had happened to Peter.'' One thing the Maze was
+making sure he understood was how much Peter had seemed like a tag-along
+to his friends, more tolerated than welcomed. Of course, his fawning
+attitude played into that, but if James and Sirius were really as much
+moral paragons as he had thought they were in Hogwarts, they should have
+been able to forgive him through their superior understanding of human
+nature.
+
+But the James on the wall nodded, and then said, ``I can see that, I
+guess. When? Which night Remus transforms?''
+
+The scene blurred into fog, which coalesced into the younger James
+hurtling across the grass towards the Whomping Willow. He threw a rock
+that hit the knot precisely, hurried under the suddenly still branches,
+and ducked into the tunnel at its base, then thrashed through the
+darkness until he reached the door into the Shrieking Shack. He could
+hear Sirius barking joyfully, and the snarls of the beast Remus had
+become, and Snape's terrified screams.
+
+James threw the door open. He cast a Stunning Spell at the werewolf.
+Werewolves were usually better-equipped to resist them, but Remus had
+let his friends in on a secret: just after his transformation, he was
+still woozy, and could be taken down by a number of spells that
+otherwise wouldn't work on him. Now, he staggered and fell.
+
+James also Stunned Sirius, who was in his dog form, just to make sure he
+wouldn't interfere, and then grabbed Snape and pulled him out of the
+Shack. Snape said nothing at all until they were almost out of the
+tunnel.
+
+``Why, Potter?'' he whispered.
+
+``I couldn't let them kill you,'' said James, and then stopped. That
+sounded stupid even to himself, and he didn't say the words that burned
+on his tongue, because they were even more stupid. \emph{Lives are worth
+more than that. We've hurt each other, but it was just stupid school-boy
+stuff. This was worse.}
+
+The adult James bowed his head. He should have said them. Things might
+have been different if he had.
+
+Snape, though, sneered and wrenched himself away from James. ``You knew
+about it,'' he said. ``You knew about it, and you decided to come and
+stop them from killing me at the last minute.''
+
+``Yes,'' said James. And then, because he could, and Snape's sneer
+irritated him, ``And now you owe me a life debt, Snivellus, which you'd
+better not forget.''
+
+Snape threw him a glare full of poison, and then turned and stalked out
+of the tree. The adolescent James stepped free of the Willow, waited
+until he was sure Snape was gone, and changed into his stag form. Remus
+and Sirius would be coming out soon, and it would be better if he didn't
+look like the human who had Stunned the werewolf.
+
+James let out a shaky breath and scrubbed a hand over his eyes. \emph{I
+have no one to blame but myself for that part. I could have stopped
+Sirius when he was setting the prank in motion. I could have made up my
+mind to interfere earlier, so that Snape didn't almost die. I could have
+told Dumbledore if Sirius wouldn't stop, and he would have prevented the
+whole thing from happening. And then maybe Snape wouldn't hate me so
+much, and if he did end up becoming as important to Harry's life as he
+has, then he might not fight me as bitterly as I think he will if I try
+to take Harry back. And I wouldn't have wronged Remus as bitterly as I
+did, almost making him into the murderous beast that he worked so hard
+to avoid becoming.}
+
+But he hadn't said the words he should have. He was too much afraid of
+looking stupid, when a true Gryffindor would have risked it.
+
+The Maze let him go abruptly, and James moved on up the tunnel,
+shivering. He thought he knew when the next profound mistake would
+appear, and he was looking forward to facing that one even less.
+
+\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
+
+``No!''
+
+The Maze echoed with his shout, and it waited. James could feel the
+profound magic at the center of it, watching him without pity. The Maze
+was interested in justice and redemption, not mercy. If he refused now,
+then it would kill him, and give him no second chances.
+
+\emph{I have to live,} James thought. \emph{I have to see this.}
+
+Shaking, he opened his eyes.
+
+He saw himself standing in front of a fire, turned towards it. Behind
+him, in one of the chairs of the comfortable sitting room at Godric's
+Hollow, waited Dumbledore. He had been silent for some time, but now he
+spoke, his voice the gentle, implacable one of the Light's fabled
+leader, the one who coaxed even his political enemies into agreeing
+reluctantly that this was the best, the \emph{only,} course of action.
+
+``James.''
+
+The younger James in the image straightened his shoulders and turned
+around slowly.
+
+``It is the only way,'' Dumbledore said quietly. ``You know that the
+prophecy \emph{must} come true. Voldemort cannot be defeated otherwise.''
+The younger James winced at the Dark Lord's name, but nodded. ``And if he
+strikes at someone else, we may never know who that person is. We
+certainly will not be able to keep him safe and protect him as we should
+do, nor the person who, according to the prophecy, will be his shield
+and the one who loves him.
+
+If Voldemort strikes at your boys, then I believe the prophecy will
+come true through them. I have thought this ever since Lily had twins at
+the end of July. You know the prophecy speaks clearly of a younger and
+an elder. The younger boy would be Connor, destined to defeat Voldemort,
+and the elder Harry. But, to defeat Voldemort, Connor \emph{must} be
+marked, according to the terms of the prophecy. The Fidelius must be
+released. Voldemort must be encouraged to attack your sons, and not the
+Longbottoms or anyone else who might conceivably fit the prophecy. He
+knows only a few lines of it, not the whole thing, and this way we can
+deceive him.''
+
+``And you know that you and Lily would be able to make this sacrifice.
+You are both Gryffindors, brave and strong and devoted to the Light. You
+have both escaped Voldemort three times. You are the perfect
+candidates.''
+
+James in the image closed his eyes and swallowed. James, as himself, did
+the same things. The logic sounded horribly convincing, even now. What
+were his sons' lives against the fate of the world? Against the chance
+to attack Voldemort?
+
+But now he knew, he knew, what that bargain had cost Harry and Connor
+both. And it was about to cost another person nearly as much.
+
+James opened his eyes and watched.
+
+``But does Peter really have to go to Azkaban?'' his self in the image
+whispered. ``Couldn't we just lure Voldemort here and then explain what
+we did?''
+
+Dumbledore shook his head, his face kind but stern. ``We cannot, James.
+It is necessary that the Ministry and the rest of our world trust
+absolutely in the Light, and many people would see us as bating a trap
+with innocent children---''
+
+\emph{Which is what we did,} James thought.
+
+``---if we told them what was happening. Instead, we must make it seem a
+simple betrayal, and then tuck the traitor away where no one can
+question him. And you know that only Peter has the strength to go
+willingly to Azkaban. Sirius's mind would tear apart. Voldemort has
+already almost torn it apart, making him suffer as he tortured Regulus.
+Remus needs his friends too much. You need your family too much. Peter
+is already apparently a Death Eater, and Voldemort believes him jealous
+of you, to such an extent that he would betray his friends to their
+worst enemy. Make Peter your Secret-Keeper, and you free both Sirius and
+Regulus of their pain as well as insure the future of our world.''
+
+``Very well,'' the James in the image whispered.
+
+James remembered himself as having hesitated longer before agreeing. It
+was somewhat humiliating to discover that he had not.
+
+But it seared him more to be forced to remember, as he had forced
+himself not to remember for years, that he had willingly given up Peter,
+sent him to Azkaban and twelve years of insanity, and lied to his sons,
+telling both Harry and Connor that Peter had simply been evil, and
+jealous of his more talented friends. And then, when Peter had broken
+free this summer, James had believed, in terror, that Peter had come to
+take revenge on them for having sent him into living death.
+
+Peter had not hurt Harry, despite having access to him several times.
+
+\emph{I never thought he was good enough to be in Gryffindor. Instead,
+he's apparently strong enough not to blame us, or at least not to blame
+my sons for my mistake.}
+
+Why had he despised Peter so much, anyway? Because he was small and fat
+and not very clever?
+
+\emph{A stupid bunch of reasons to send someone to prison for twelve
+years.}
+
+James sucked in a deep breath. ``I agree,'' he whispered. ``I \emph{will}
+write to Peter, if I get out of here alive, and tell him I'm sorry.''
+
+The Maze eased its hold on him. The younger James and Dumbledore wavered
+and dissolved into mist. James moved forward, or perhaps backward; the
+tunnels had a habit of shifting, and with his eyes blinded by tears of
+guilt and shame, it was not always easy to tell where he was, or where
+he had been.
+
+\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
+
+James wiped his mouth carefully. He'd vomited several times, and now his
+head and his stomach both felt extraordinarily light. He didn't have to
+eat while he was in the Maze---the magic would keep him alive until he
+chose to either refuse the Maze's revelations or take the poison---but
+he felt emptier anyway, now that he had expelled most of the food he'd
+come in here with.
+
+He knelt there, and did not know if he could lift his head.
+
+The images were waiting, there.
+
+With a breath that he hoped would replace the lost food with courage,
+James faced them again.
+
+The Maze showed memories without a pause, without a break. It showed him
+his sons growing up. Connor was mostly the way that James had remembered
+him, sweet and innocent, his hazel eyes flashing like his father's when
+he played a prank, his fringe occasionally bouncing up to reveal the
+heart-shaped scar Voldemort's wand had left him with. Dumbledore's plan
+had worked. Voldemort had come to Godric's Hollow, shot the Killing
+Curse at the baby destined to defeat him, and been destroyed. Connor was
+growing up with his parents, sheltered, locked tight behind isolation
+wards to prevent any former Death Eaters from attacking him in their
+dead master's name. Oh, he was lied to, in that James and Lily had never
+told him the truth about the prophecy or Peter or how he was left open
+to attack on the night Peter broke the Fidelius Charm on Dumbledore's
+orders, but he was a relatively normal child.
+
+It was Harry who was entirely different from his memories---and this
+time, the Maze would not allow James to hide his head in the sand, or
+turn his back on the obvious signs that he had forced himself to miss.
+James in the images thought he had a perfect family. The Maze made sure
+his older self knew he did not.
+
+From the moment of the attack that both babies had survived, Connor with
+his heart-shaped scar, Harry with the vivid lightning bolt on his
+forehead and his magic inexplicably heightened after the confrontation
+with Voldemort, Lily had trained Harry to shelter, guard, and protect
+Connor, to be the shield standing between his brother and danger. She
+had trained him in complex spells that no child of five should have been
+able to master. She told him the tales of the First War, stories of
+torture and rape and murder that no child should hear. She insisted that
+he read histories of the wizarding world, to learn complex pureblood
+rituals and dances that might be essential in winning Connor allies
+someday, and practice the formalities until he could recite them in his
+sleep.
+
+\emph{My grandparents tried so hard to get the Potters away from that,
+to stop us from being ice-cold machines who would use the Killing Curse
+without a thought,} James said to himself, not for the first time, as he
+watched Harry go under the web at four that bound part of his magic
+away, because he was so powerful that Lily was afraid he might harm
+Connor. \emph{I was supposed to raise my children in peace and freedom.
+And what happened? I allowed one of them to become pureblood at the
+deeper levels, just because Lily thought it was necessary.}
+
+He'd had time to notice. Lily could never have hidden this from him so
+completely unless she had his willing cooperation. And James saw himself
+give it. He convinced himself that Harry was just studious, that the way
+he devoured books just meant he'd end up in Ravenclaw when he went to
+Hogwarts. He walked in on Harry practicing wandless magic, and told
+himself firmly that he must have been mistaken. He listened to Harry
+discuss, in cold detail, the deaths caused by Voldemort's Black Plague
+spell, and he scolded Sirius for scaring his son with horrible stories.
+He turned away from every opportunity to realize that he didn't live in
+a normal house with a normal wife and two normal children, but one
+normal child, a wife so dedicated to the war effort that she had made
+one of their sons a sacrifice, and one young man who hadn't been a child
+since he began reciting the vows to defend Connor, save him, and hide
+his talents, always, so that observers would think the miraculous
+rescues and spells had come from Connor himself. He saw, for the first
+time, how Harry's love for his brother was not natural, but obsessive
+and cultivated, growing around him like a vine, twisting him into a
+soldier before he was six.
+
+He'd allowed that to happen. He should have been a better guardian, a
+better father.
+
+The Maze bound him with chains of shame and self-loathing, and held him
+there as he vomited again over lost chances.
+
+He watched through hazy eyes as Harry and Connor went to Hogwarts.
+Connor went to Gryffindor. Harry, instead of going to Gryffindor as he
+should have, went to Slytherin---in large part thanks to Lily's intense
+training and the cunning he'd exercised in hiding that training from
+anyone else. James saw himself ask the Headmaster, several times, if
+Harry could be Re-Sorted, and Dumbledore regretfully refuse.
+
+\emph{I should have either supported Harry wholeheartedly, or pushed
+wholeheartedly to get him into another House,} James thought,
+shuddering. \emph{Not this---this half-effort, this believing the worst
+of Harry and then giving in the moment Albus told me I shouldn't push.
+What kind of a father am I?}
+
+A bad one, the Maze answered him, and dragged him on ruthlessly through
+Harry's second year, when Harry had first broken his arm in a Quidditch
+game and then had to remain at the school over Christmas, thanks to the
+havoc that Tom Riddle, Voldemort's younger self, had managed to wreak on
+his mind when he possessed Harry. Neither time had James visited Harry
+in the hospital wing. Lily had been deep in the middle of persuading him
+that Harry really was better off as a sacrifice, and that his seeing
+Harry at the moment would just encourage a love neither of them could
+afford, that the \emph{world} could not afford. They had to let Harry be
+the sacrifice the prophecy said he had to be. James had slowly come to
+agree with her. He'd let her make him agree with things he never should
+have.
+
+Then Harry had come home for Easter holidays, and Remus, convinced
+something was wrong and unrelenting in the face of Lily's reassurances
+that nothing was, had tried to kidnap Harry and take him somewhere safe.
+
+James watched, sick, from the outside, as he pulled a silver knife on
+one of his best friends, and forced Remus into going to Dumbledore.
+Dumbledore, of course, had \emph{Obliviated} Remus, unable to take the
+chance that he would disrupt the prophecy by trying to make Harry do
+something other than live for his brother.
+
+\emph{That's two apologies I owe Remus, then.} James swallowed thickly.
+\emph{Or three.}
+
+On the year turned, only this time James saw what had really happened.
+Harry had cast the \emph{Fugitivus Animus} spell on him and Lily, which
+made them forget for months that they even had a second son. Harry had
+done it because of the mental upset caused by his battle with Tom Riddle
+at the end of the year; if his parents had paid any negative attention
+to him at all, he might have killed them. It was safer to make them
+forget he existed, and to try to survive without their care.
+
+It was no wonder, James thought, numbly, from the middle of his shock,
+that Harry had turned to Snape for guardianship and his best friend,
+Draco Malfoy, for other kinds of understanding. They were the only ones
+other than Dumbledore who knew what had happened to Harry, and certainly
+the only ones who might have been able to help him heal. James and Lily
+quite happily existed in the fantasy that they had only one son, while
+Harry struggled to get his shredded thoughts and his vicious magic back
+under control.
+
+Then came Christmas, when Harry returned home to his family and removed
+the \emph{Fugitivus Animus} from Lily, because he wanted his mother
+back---and, in doing that, removed it from James as well, though he
+hadn't known that at the time.
+
+James put his hands over his eyes as he watched the confrontation
+between Harry and Lily, but their voices still echoed in his ears. Lily
+pretended to be sorry. Harry made plans for them to face the future
+together, as a family.
+
+Then Lily tried to bind Harry's magic again.
+
+Harry called the ancient justice ritual and stripped the magic from
+Lily, making her a Muggle, and vanished, along with a phoenix.
+
+And James left for Lux Aeterna, once again too much of a coward to
+confront Lily, or go after Harry, who had fled to the Malfoys', or do
+anything but retreat and hide. He'd justified it as needing time to
+think.
+
+He saw it for what it really was now.
+
+\emph{You were hiding from your responsibilities again, James. You
+should have been a better husband. You should have been a better father.
+You should have stood up, at some point, and told Lily that what she was
+doing was wrong. Instead, you have one son who's never learned the
+truth, and one son who's nearly died and teetered on the brink of
+insanity} multiple \emph{times, and a wife deprived of magic by an
+impartial ritual.}
+
+\emph{Good show, James.}
+
+Guilt perched on his shoulders and scraped them to the bone, but the
+Maze was not satisfied with that. It would not allow him to wallow.
+
+\emph{And why not?} James thought furiously, wiping at the tears on his
+cheeks. \emph{Wallowing is better than vomiting. I} like
+\emph{wallowing.}
+
+Because it was not enough.
+
+He would only hide in self-pity for the rest of his life if things went
+on like this. The Maze would not allow him to hide there, any more than
+it would let him hide inside itself. He was to be dragged forward into
+the light of honesty and truth, unless he refused and died.
+
+\emph{I have seen what I did that was so awful, mistakes piled on top of
+mistakes.}
+
+\emph{Now, what am I going to do about it?}
+
+James took a deep breath, and opened his eyes.
+
+\emph{Start by being a better father.}
+
+\emph{I'll bring the boys here for the summer, rather than leave them at
+Hogwarts, or in Lily's sacrificial care. I'll do what I should have done
+all along, and teach them about their heritage, their family---play my
+part in their education. I'll love them more, and tell them the truth.
+My bonds with both of them are so fragile right now. Connor won't trust
+me for hiding these last few months, and Harry won't trust me for hiding
+all his life.}
+
+\emph{I'll get them to trust me. No, more than that---I'll show them I
+can be trusted.}
+
+\emph{Lily\ldots{}}
+
+\emph{I love her, but there's no way she can be trusted around either of
+the boys right now. Connor would listen to her too much. Harry doesn't
+want to see her ever again. I'll wait, and send an owl to her when I
+can, to ask her to do something other than control them. I don't know
+how hard it will be to get her to agree to that.}
+
+\emph{I don't know how hard it will be to do any of this.}
+
+For the first time in years, though, James thought that it might not
+matter how hard this was. He had given up the life that held those
+memories. He'd kept looking at the images even when they made him sick.
+He'd already given up the temptation to back out when he stepped into
+the Maze.
+
+How could he ever have thought that he was unchanged, that he wouldn't
+change until the final moment passed and the Maze released him?
+
+Just by carrying through with the decision to step into it, he'd done
+something that would have been incomprehensible to the versions of James
+in these images.
+
+He threw his head back and laughed.
+
+The laughter had an immediate effect on the Maze. It bulged and rippled,
+and the silver walls appeared to rise up around him like crashing waves.
+James looked up, and saw himself reflected from half a dozen curves and
+corners, then seven, then twelve, then thirteen, then dozens of them.
+
+The Jameses were poised to fall on him, if he chose to continue. There
+were still consequences of his mistakes that he needed to see. There
+were still paths that he couldn't take without facing those
+consequences. There were still non-obvious ripples from his actions that
+would build into obvious ones in a short time.
+
+James smiled. He thought it very appropriate, after so many years when
+he'd hidden his own realizations from himself, that he hadn't realized
+his own decision until just now.
+
+``Yes,'' he said aloud, so the Maze would recognize it.
+
+Down came the sides, and buried him in honesty, buried him in horrible
+consequences to his sons, buried him in truth, buried him in Light.
+
+\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{\linethickness}\end{center}
+
+James lifted his head, slightly dazed. He was lying on the floor of Lux
+Aeterna's great hall. Behind him shimmered the Maze, gone back to its
+silver, quiescent state, the wards around it that prevented casual
+entrance burning. James stood slowly, and then shook his head as more
+images played through it in a storm.
+
+He'd seen Harry break free of the webs that held him prisoner, now and
+forever, and seen how much that scared Connor. He would have to work to
+heal not only the trust between him and his sons, but the bond that
+Harry and Connor had once shared.
+
+He'd seen Sirius, possessed by Voldemort, trap his sons in the Shrieking
+Shack. He'd seen Voldemort delay too long, and Sirius break free long
+enough to kill himself and take that bit of the Dark Lord with him. He'd
+seen Harry and Connor learn the truth about what had happened at
+Godric's Hollow the night that James and Lily abandoned them to their
+fate, and he'd seen Harry kill for the first time. It didn't matter that
+the kill had been a Death Eater; Harry would still need healing.
+
+He'd been able, briefly, to send a letter to Remus, then, the Maze
+transporting parchment and quill to him when it had felt his plan and
+approved of it. He'd wanted to tell Remus that he would go to his sons
+the moment he was free of the Maze.
+
+And that moment was now. Never mind that it was the middle of the night
+again, from the feel of the house's wards, and probably a few weeks
+later than the time when he had seen his sons simultaneously
+traumatized. Never mind that he had not yet properly mourned Sirius, or
+come to terms with his death. James was going to Hogwarts. He was going
+to retrieve his sons.
+
+\emph{If they will have me. I know they might not.} And that was a fear
+in him, a sickening fear, slamming against and biting at the inside of
+his stomach.
+
+But Gryffindors did not run from their fears. Gryffindors faced them,
+and fought anyway.
+
+James thought it was a truth he had forgotten for far too long.
+
+He made his way smoothly towards the door from the hall, his mind
+already working. One of the upper rooms had a Floo that corrected
+directly to Hogwarts's hospital wing, a relic of the days when traveling
+by the Hogwarts Express had been too dangerous for Potter children. He
+would contact Madam Pomfrey and ask her if he might come through.
+
+He would speak with his boys. He would speak with Remus. He would bring
+them all back here, and do what he could to repair the bonds he'd
+broken, or set new ones in place if the old ones could not be repaired.
+
+And then\ldots{}
+
+James's hand twitched. He'd faced his mistakes. He could help other
+people heal, but just remaining in Lux Aeterna and showing his sons
+their heritage and talking with his friends wasn't enough. His mistakes
+had rolled down and affected other people, and he wanted to make up for
+that, if he could.
+
+The Maze had made him face the moment when he'd broken and tortured
+Bellatrix Lestrange, likely sending her insane before she ever went to
+Azkaban. He'd given up being an Auror because of that, come back to
+Godric's Hollow and hidden his head in the sand. It was yet another step
+in a long dance of being afraid, of giving up when he encountered
+something that he didn't want to know, of turning away and refusing to
+acknowledge reality.
+
+James didn't think he could do that anymore.
+
+A war was beginning. He had money, he had people who would listen to him
+in the Ministry for his name and his deeds in the past, he had Auror
+training. And he had his courage back, now, or at least the means to
+stare his fear in the face.
+
+When his boys went back to Hogwarts after this summer, he planned to ask
+the Ministry if they could find any use for a Potter willing to fight
+again.
+
+He reached the door, spun, and bowed to the Maze, which glittered behind
+him.
+
+``Thank you,'' he said softly.
+
+The Maze glinted, and did not answer, which was enough of one.
+
+James walked through the door, his head high and his heart pounding with
+terror on the edge of joy. Time to go meet Connor and Harry, and then to
+go forward and meet the rest of his life.