Title: I See Fire
Author: BooksVCigarettes
Summary: Secrets never stay buried for long. The world is on fire and one way or another, Juliet Spencer knows that she will burn with it.
Disclaimer: I own Jules and Moira. Nothing else.
Rating; T for now
Author's Note: The song used in this chapter is 'November' by Tom Waits. I will eventually be putting together a playlist for this fic as it was largely inspired by music that I love.
1st November 1981
No shadow
No stars
No moon
No care
November
It only believes
In a pile of dead leaves
And a moon
That's the color of bone
All Saints Day had arrived and the news, the sad sorry fact, still hung in the air around them. She felt as though she was breathing in the grief, her lungs filling up, saturated with the heavy substance on each inhalation. Lily and James were gone and there was nothing that anyone could do to bring them back. Their bodies, still warm, had been brought to her department as soon as the Ministry Aurors had released them. These were not the first bodies to have been delivered into her care; not even the first bodies bearing the marks of the killing curse. But they were the first bodies that she had known in their living forms. The first bodies whose faces she'd looked into and smiled, whose arms had slung themselves affectionately around her shoulders, whose hands had taken the hand of her own child's.
November has tied me
To an old dead tree
Get word to April
To rescue me
November's cold chain
And so now, she stood in the tiny room that served as the breakroom, stockroom and office that she shared with Angus and Merryweather, waiting for them to come and tell her that it was time to perform the last offices before they could begin the post-mortem examinations. Any death that occurred beyond the boundaries of St Mungo's automatically required a post-mortem, and as the healers on duty it fell to them to escort the Potters' earthly vessels through the final sad ritual with as much grace and dignity as possible. The post-mortem charms would extract residual memories and secrets from the bodies, things hidden deep inside that could be extracted by grave robbers and sold on the black market or used to blackmail remaining relatives.
Or in this case, those wanting to find out what had happened to Lord Voldemort after he had disappeared from Godric's Hollow on Halloween night.
She shivered as the memories of just minutes before resurfaced when Millicent Bagnold, having accompanied the Potter's bodies to the St Mungo's mortuary, had stood in this very office - looking no less severe despite still being in her nightclothes - and relayed to the them all that early intelligence suggested that the baby boy had not only survived the killing curse, but had somehow managed to return it in the direction of the Dark Lord. The Minister for Magic had been solemn in relating this; all too aware that regardless of the news of Voldemort's apparent defeat, two young people lay dead out in the mortuary. Hopefully the final two in what had seemed like an endless parade of righteous soldiers in the war against darkness, but nevertheless two people who had not deserved to die and leave behind a child who would undoubtedly never know a day when he did not feel the great ripples of their loss throughout his life.
She reached up a hand and touched her cheek where only a few hours before, her husband's calloused fingers had caressed the soft skin there. He had arrived in the wee hours, before the bodies. He was exhausted; pale with the hollow sadness that death leaves in its wake. They had both cried when he told her that the Potters had been betrayed, that it was over - that only the baby boy remained.
Poor little Harry. She felt her eyes begin to fill once more as she thought of the scruffy haired infant with emerald eyes. He would be placed in the care of his mother's muggle sister and her husband; on this decision, the minister had been unmoveable despite their ardent pleas to let them look after him, to raise him as their own, a younger brother for their daughter who already loved him as such. No, the minister had shaken her head grimly, it would not be safe for him to grow up in this world. You would not be able to keep him safe. Her husband had argued the toss long after she had become resigned to it's fruitlessness, a near wild look in his eyes that frightened her a little. The minister was gentle but steadfast in her refusal, and when she eventually bade them a sympathetic farewell before turning on her heel to apparate, it was clear that her decision had not been an easy one.
He had wanted to stay to see the bodies a final time, but she had been firm, whispering against his ear that it would not lessen his grief to weep over the empty shells that no longer housed their souls. Remember who they were, she had murmured softly, holding him close. You don't need to see them like this.
Made of wet boots and rain
And shiny black ravens
On chimney smoke lanes
November seems odd
You're my firing squad
November
He had come back for one more kiss on his way out, as had always been his way. One more for the road, was his little saying. One more to keep me going until I see you again. He had lingered against her lips, the salt of their tears mingling with their kisses and whispered I love yous. He had stalled once more at the door, his fingers curled around the aged frame. He seemed to be searching for words, trying to remember some small thing he'd meant to tell her before but by now she was so familiar with his little idiosyncrasies that she mouthed them along with him. Give the Little One a kiss for me. Tell her Daddy will be home soon.
The Little One. She cast a glance at her watch. Probably still sleeping, limbs splayed out like a starfish, hair messier than if she had been out in a gale. She was tiny, and yet her character, the very essence of her existence, took up every available bit of space and she was wholly unapologetic about it. Something she had in common with her father.
A small knock at the door drew her from her thoughts and she opened it to find Merryweather, a sympathetic look on his kindly face "Angus and I were discussing it and if you… don't feel up to this, I'm sure we can-"
"-I'll be fine." She cut him off, reaching out to give his arm a squeeze "But thank you. I'll be along in a moment." Merryweather nodded, although it was clear that he was unconvinced.
Alone again, she turned to the ancient mirror that some thoughtful soul had placed on the wall at some point in the last millenia and tried with very little success to arrange her features into some semblance of calm.
"I know it's hard, dear." The mirror said sympathetically "You've had a frightful night."
No shadows
No stars
No moon
No care
Sighing, she turned away from the mirror and straightened her robes. Closing her eyes for a moment, she tried to go to the place in her head ruled by logic and science and all of the deep and ancient magic that accompanied her discipline. She felt her breathing even out and her shoulders square themselves, ready for the burdens that would be placed upon them. Just a few short hours and she would be home once again, her little one in her arms and her husband by her side. She knew that they would feel the loss of Lily and James Potter for many years to come, but as she walked out of the office and shrugged into a work robe, a small guilty voice at the back of her mind rejoiced that it had not been her own love that had been taken from her, that it wasn't his broken body laying on a cold slab in the mortuary, awaiting his final ritual.
At the time, she had thought of it as nothing more than a grateful prayer to whatever Goddess was listening that he had not been killed, that he would be allowed to watch their child grow into the fierce and headstrong beauty she was destined to become. That she would be spared the torture of grieving for him, and together they could grow old in a world that was safe and free from tyrants like Lord Voldemort.
Years later, whenever she watched her daughter at play, or when the first signs of her magical lineage began to show, that false sense of relief still haunted her.
Because little had she known, as she had joined Angus and Merryweather in the post-mortem suite, that in just a few short hours more grey-faced Aurors would come to rob her of such delusions.
November
It only believes
In a pile of dead leaves
And a moon
That's the color of bone