No copyright infringement is intended. All recognizable characters, events, locations, and references belong to J.K. Rowling.
The boy next door was not normal.
Of course, the apartment complex was not normal either. The building itself was rickety, the insect infestation was notorious, and it always smelled like something was decaying in the halls- of course the inhabitants wouldn't be of the upright sort.
She had expected that.
And for a while, the boy next door fit into the normal circle of the unorthodox.
When she had first moved in, struggling with a few heavy boxes, he had been heading into his own apartment. He indulged her with a perfunctory smile, noticed her troubles, helped her set the boxes in the doorway, and promptly headed back to his territory without the courtesy of a name or a handshake.
Which was fine; she wasn't there to make friends, now was she? So, she ignored the occasional barks and weird clopping noises; there was a strict no animals policy in the building, but if he wouldn't tattle about her pet canary, she wouldn't rat him out for his zoo. She also ignored the occasional moans and groans she heard, which, although quite disconcerting, she reasoned was only natural. He was human, and probably got bored of his hand after a while. Strangely enough, she rarely heard anyone enter or leave the apartment. He was, on the whole, a rather holed up person who, aside from the occasional animalistic noises, was completely silent.
But that was fine, too. She didn't exactly have time to concern herself with the mysterious stranger in the apartment next door, but it made for a good story.
"Hey 'Nita, what's your wonky neighbor boy been up to?" Alice or Chantelle or Marjorie would ask over drinks at Beefy's.
She would inhale the smoky musk of the pub and reply nonchalantly, "Well, last week..." and go off on some vaguely amusing story. They would all laugh and then move on to the next topic of conversation, which invariably drifted between their piss-poor pay grades, their broken romances, or their much more successful family members. In many ways, her friends weren't so much her friends as they were members of the same club of pitiful twenty-somethings.
It was a monotonous and slightly melancholy life, but the way she saw it, it was the swim in the icy river before the ultimate reward of dry land. Or, in her case, a published book.
105,763 words of utter bullcrap, but it was her bullcrap, so that made it an accomplishment to be proud of. Of course, the lady at the copy place didn't agree. It had been close to ten, the woman was preparing to close up shop, and along came this panting, sweaty woman with a briefcase of a hundred-some pages and a wad of cash in her hand. It had been around twelve when Anita staggered out of the store, deliriously happy as she skipped to the bus station with a much heavier briefcase in hand.
Even the trip up to her flat couldn't wipe the smile off her face. Normally, she would've been clutching pepper spray in one hand, a taser in the other, but tonight, she resolved that should a gunfight break out again in the hallway, her happiness would be enough a shield.
Of course, she regretted this later when, as she fumbled with keys, a loud gunshot went off in the hallway. Anita screamed, dropped the case, and stared as the white papers flew all over the muddy concrete and became damp, brown, and runny as the ink bled away slowly.
Another shot sent her scrambling to the floor. Praying that the gunman wouldn't see the quivering mass of undernourished librarian that crouched in the darkness. Hoping that the pages weren't completely lost because she had written all 105,763 words on a typewriter.
A few minutes passed. Silence. Safety?
Grabbing the pepper spray can, Anita slowly crawled back to her apartment door, crouched and-
Heard a moan beside her. No no no no no, I don't need this right now, I need to get back inside and away from this-
Another groan.
"Damn," she muttered and shuffled over to the noise, clutching the pepper spray. Just in case.
It was a man. His eyes were closed, and he was collapsed against the door of the neighbor boy's apartment. She shuffled a little closer, just enough to make out the pale face, dark hair.
It was neighbor boy.
His chest rose and fell in stuttered beats, but as far as she could tell in the dim light, he was uninjured.
She hesitated, then reached out, unsure of how to wake him. She felt the feverish warmth of his skin for an instant before his eyes opened, and a hand shoved something pointy into her jugular.
He collapsed against something hard and slipped down in pain- so much pain.
Was it his own? Gideon's? He could hardly tell, his damn chest hurt so badly. Flames were alighting his body, he was sure, and he would burn into charred shards. The rest of his body was cold. Too cold. He closed his eyes. It hurt too much to see.
It had been Snivellus, he realized in a moment of clarity. No, it had been some other Death Eater bastard, but the curse had been the same- Sectumsempra- which was as bad as being beaten by Snape himself. But, he reminded himself, he was not beaten yet. Bleeding to death was still not death.
Well, it was close.
The Ministry of Magic would be after him now. His Muggle neighbors would find his dead body with his wand in his hands come tomorrow morning, and the Obliviators would have to come to make them forget, and he would get a letter telling him he would be expelled for underage magic even though he had graduated two years ago, and Mother would send a Howler or two even though he had lost all contact with his family by now, and Moony would transform without him tomorrow even though the full moon was last week, and the Prewett brothers would take the mickey out of him for letting a Death Eater get the better of him even though they were most likely dead by now, and Lily would curse Prongs again for being such an idiot of a boyfriend- husband, now- because that's what he was and...
Through his delirium, he felt the faint heat of fingertips near his arm. Instincts honed from years of roaming with werewolves and stags and rats and from training under Moody's tutelage kicked in; his eyes whipped open while he instinctively shoved his wand into a warm throat.
But the hazy face was not a Death Eater. No, it was a girl. Not Lily, not Marlene nor Alice- who was she?
"Um, hi, I'm your neighbor. I don't think we've met, but are you alright? I heard something like a gunshot; were you hit?"
He shook his head.
"No? Okay, well, are you hurt? You look a bit out of it."
He shook his head. He didn't need this Muggle poking around in his business, in the Order's business. He tried to push himself up; he failed.
The girl slipped an arm along his back and heaved up, inciting a new wave of nausea and pain in him as he let himself be pulled to his feet. He closed his eyes as he wavered between the sight of the dimly lit hallway and blackness.
"Uh, hey, do you have a key on you? Your door-"
He grunted and waved his wand. The lock clicked, and the door swung open.
She paused.
The door had swung open. But he hadn't touched it. How-
Wait, no. I don't want to know. I just want to get this guy into his flat, go back to mine, and cry into a beer about my life.
She thought the same thing when the stick in the man's hand started fucking glowing.
Don't scream, don't scream, don't scream. It's a flashlight. A very thin flashlight, one of those new models.
Using the light from the flashlight-stick, she led the man down the narrow foyer, making sure his body did not collide with the myriad of furniture that lay cluttered around the apartment. Spying a small couch, she leaned his weight alongside it until he fell into the cushions.
"Uh, you're in your apartment now. On your couch. Do you need me to do anything else?"
Please say no, she prayed. There was something off about this man, something to do with the way in which he randomly appeared on the hallway floor, something to do with mysteriously opening doors and shining sticks, that made her want to run away like a madwoman.
Softly, "Essence..."
She paused in her attempt to leave and approached the couch, crouching down to his level.
"Sorry, what?"
"Essence of Dittany...little bottle...in counter..."
What the hell is Essence of Dittany? Some drug? Aspirin?
"Counter, right. Okay, uh, just let me turn the lights-"
"No!"
The man was suddenly alert, propped on his elbow, and much paler than before.
"Uh, I think you should probably lie-"
"No! No lights. They...they're tracking me," he said through gritted teeth.
"Just get...Essence-"
"-of Dittany, okay."
She was definitely scared, and common sense told her to run, call the coppers, to not stay with this man who was obviously involved with something fishy like the mafia or some gang.
But...he was obviously in pain, and she couldn't leave him like this. She would just get him what he asked for, call the police when she got back to her apartment, give an honest testimony, and move the hell out of this complex.
Grabbing the flashlight-stick, she made her way to small counter of the kitchen area, looking for a small bottle or some label that screamed, "I am some random medication or possible hallucinogen with a name from a Lewis Carroll novel."
What she did find were some newspapers but not from any publication she recognized. The Daily Prophet? And the headlines were ludicrous: 'Dark Lord strikes terror in Muggle neighborhoods?' 'Parents concerned for children's safety at Hogwarts?'
Forget mafia, this man was part of a full-on cult.
"Check the bloody drawer!"
Well, he sounds perfectly fine, she thought angrily. Finding a knob below the counter, she wrenched open the drawer to find tens of bottles and bandages and other medical supplies.
Who was this man? He didn't just have a first aid kit- he had half of a bloody hospital!
A groan echoed from the couch, followed by-
"It's a small brown glass bottle with a dragon head cap!"
"Okay, okay, I'm looking!"
Finally, she found a bottle that resembled the man's description, sent a quick prayer, and marched back.
"Uh, here you go, I think this is-"
"Take off my shirt."
"Come again?"
The man was fully upright now, scowling, and had his eyes screwed shut. He was in pain, that was obvious, but if there any injury to him, she could not see it.
"You need...I need you to help me...take off this shirt...to treat the...wound."
She was suspicious.
"I'm sorry, but I don't see anything-"
His eyes opened in a flash, grabbed her hand, pressed it to his collarbone, and threw it back to her.
She stared at her bright red fingertips and set her lips into a grim line before kneeling in front of him.
"Right, well, tell me what to do."
"The shirt...is torn at the wound...but you need to take it off to use...Dittany."
She helped him shrug off his jacket and raise his arms to remove the t-shirt. All that black- that was why she couldn't tell earlier that he was bleeding so profusely.
She schooled her features to not gasp. She remembered her mum saying that emergency care called for a cool head, not dramatics. Still, she cursed when she saw the wound running from clavicle to clavicle, dipping in a line toward the middle of his chest. Blood leaked in weak trails down his torso. The cut itself looked half healed, as if the skin had knitted itself back together along the left side of the wound, leaving behind an angry line that weeped red tears.
As he hissed in pain, she muttered, "Well, I'm calling the police right after this."
He grabbed her hand again, his face fierce and shadowed against the harsh light coming from the stick. It flickered as he stared into her eyes.
"No one must know."
"Uh, you're hurt. In case you haven't noticed, we can't fix this with a band-aid."
"No one must know."
They continued to stare at each other for a few more moments. It was a battle of wills, and she would have let it go on for a while longer had the left side of the wound not suddenly split open and begin to spill blood at an alarming rate.
"Oh my-"
The man let out a strangled gasp. His face paled, and the grip on her hands tightened tenfold, but he still managed to yell instructions at her.
"The Dittany!"
She yanked her hands from his and madly unscrewed the tiny bottle. The cap was attached to a dropper that oozed and acrid-smelling brown liquid.
"What am-"
"Just...pour...on..."
The man groaned and his eyes rolled backward into his head. She panicked; he could not faint on her, no, no, no, this was not okay, this was not-
She slapped him.
Not too hard, but forcefully enough that he was able to focus on her again.
"Pour...drops on..."
She got the gist, and tipping his chin back, gently squeezed a few drops of the Dittany along the wound...
...And immediately let out a soft scream as the points where the Dittany met skin issued forth billows of green smoke. She watched, both mesmerized and confused, as the cut flesh slowly knit itself back into one, leaving behind a puckered wound and drying tendrils of blood along the man's chest.
"What the hell..."
The man had his eyes closed and head tipped backwards, resting on the couch. He did not respond to her.
She leaned towards the man, smelled in the Dittany and the blood and the sweat and the delicious musky scent that coated his body. She lifted a finger to his nose. He was breathing. He was alive.
This is bonkers.
She got up quietly, placed the Dittany on the counter, and looked around for a pen or pencil. She rummaged through the drawers beneath the counter and found a small set of feather tipped quills and a pot of ink.
A cult member who also roleplays in Jane Austen, she resolved.
She wrote a quick note on the newspapers to remind him of what had happened in case he didn't remember when he regained conscious. She didn't write her name or who she was. Frankly, she would be perfectly happy to never see him again.
Finishing the note, she turned to leave but something in the newspaper caught her eye. It was a photo of an old man. He was standing with his fingers clasped at the bottom of the his long, white beard. His face- it was entrancing in its serenity, the placidity of his expression. He alone was calm in the sea of people who moved beside him, the men and women who walked-
The people were moving. They were walking. It was a newspaper. Yes, it was a newspaper, and the pictures were moving. On a newspaper.
She was going mad.
She shook her head, tossed the newspaper to the floor and ran out of the apartment. She ran through the hallway, across the papers littering the floor, and frantically struggle to open her door before collapsing inside her apartment.
What the bloody hell just happened?
He woke up to a thin face surrounded by a halo of messy black hair poking his nose.
James. Which meant Lily was close by.
"How are you feeling, mate?"
"Where is she?" was all he could think to ask.
James was beside him, his face bandaged and a new pair of round glasses perched on his nose. He heard someone rifling through the drawers. Lily.
"Who?"
He shook his head, confused for a moment as well. Who was "she?" All he could feel was a sharp ache in his chest every time he breathed.
"I don't know..."
"Sirius, mate, you're gonna come stay with us, okay? You're not safe here."
He shook his head, clarity sinking in quickly. It was too dangerous to have all three of them living too close to each other. Too obvious and too big of a target.
James became agitated. He stood up, started pacing.
"Sirius, listen to me. You're wounded. Badly. A little lower and they could've killed you!"
He smirked weakly at James' concern.
"It's been worse. Remember that time-"
"I don't care about that time, Sirius! I care about how you nearly died last night!"
Sirius rolled his eyes.
"James, we 'nearly die' every other night. If we don't 'nearly die,' we get 'badly hurt.' And last night, it just happened that both happened simultaneously."
James was still pacing, still glowering. Lily came to sit beside Sirius.
"How you been, Lils?"
"Better than you, I'm afraid."
Sirius cocked his head, taking in the purple bruise that ran along her arm.
"What happened last night?" he asked her.
"Well, the plan failed. Voldemort had already left. It was just a bunch of Death Eaters waiting to lay ambush, and we walked right into their trap."
"But didn't Peter tell us-"
"His information was wrong. Chances are they knew it was him in disguise and planted fake leads."
"But how did they know about his Animagus?"
"We don't know," James said, pausing. "We think it was..."
The way his voice petered off and the grim expression on Lily's face told Sirius what he needed to know. Snape.
"We were worried, Sirius," Lily said, taking his hand in hers. "You disappeared in the middle of everything, and we had no idea what happened to you."
"I...I was fighting with Gideon. Or Fabian. I can't remember who, maybe both, and someone hit me. Sectumsempra. I was bleeding. They Apparated me to my apartment, and...
"I tried to stop them, Gideon, Fabian, one of them. But they wouldn't listen. Said I had to get help. We were surrounded. Dolohov and five others. I would've died. Should've died."
"Sirius," Lily began softly.
He flicked his head like he was trying to get rid of an irritable fly. People died all the time, especially nowadays.
James sat next to him, let a hand rest on his back. Sirius shook it off, sat back heavily. He felt old. Old and tired.
"Say, mate," James said. "How did you get here?"
Sirius looked at him blankly.
"You're healed. And your shirt's half off."
As Sirius shook his head in confusion, Lily held up a newspaper.
"Well, I found a note. It was written on the Daily Prophet."
James snatched it, began reading it aloud.
"Found you next to apartment door, gave Dittany, did not break in, door was open, could not turn off flashlight-stick. Feel better."
"Flashlight-stick?" Sirius asked.
"His wand," Lily guessed, snatching it from the floor. "You or the woman probably used Lumos. Had to, the lights are all off."
"Woman?" asked James.
"Well, the handwriting is too good."
"That's-"
"I think it was a Muggle," Sirius broke in. "Didn't know what a wand was."
The three looked at each other, the same thought process running through each person's mind. If a Muggle had found Sirius, they would've seen the blood, the cut, the glowing wand, and the moving newspaper.
"Shit," James said softly. "Sirius, do you know who it could've been?"
"Someone on this floor? I don't know any of them."
"Well, there's nothing missing from the apartment, so it's probably not someone mental. And she's a girl. So we're looking for a nice Muggle girl."
"James, I could be a nice Muggle girl. We need more information," Lily scolded.
"What, do you want us to go look in every bloody apartment? The bird's probably scared out of her mind. We'll be lucky if she didn't telephone the police or a hospital."
Sirius tried to shift sideways but immediately stopped, wincing at the pain in his chest.
"Well, I think we should get you out of here Sirius. Just in case. If someone shows up, and the Death Eaters somehow trace-"
"I'm not going."
"Sirius, Lily's right. You could rotate between us and Remus-"
"I'm not going."
"Sirius-"
"I'm not going."
Silence.
"Hey Lils, I'll meet you back at the apartment, alright?"
Sirius felt a soft hand on his shoulder and heard a loud clap
"Sirius."
"James."
"Lily's pregnant."
"What?"
"She's pregnant."
"Who's the father?"
He deserved the punch.
"Congratulations, mate. Really. How long...you know."
"About three months? We found out today, actually. At St. Mungo's. Mary was there- you remember Mary Macdonald?"
"Yeah, that Irish bird. The pretty one."
"Yeah, her. She was the nurse who fixed up Lily. Did some routine tests on her, found out she was pregnant."
"Huh."
"Yeah. She asked about you."
"Mary?"
"Yeah."
"Huh."
"Still pretty."
"Aren't you married?"
"I can look."
"Does Lily know that?"
"Shut up. This is serious."
"No, I'm Sirius."
He deserved that punch, too.
"Sirius, Dumbledore thinks Lily and I ought to hide. With the baby, it's too dangerous for-"
"He's right. It is too dangerous. Voldemort won't rest until you and Lily are dead."
James was silent. He did not look at Sirius but at his hands.
"Prongs? Mate?"
"Nothing. It's just- this war is all we've known, since before we left Hogwarts. We always knew he was out there, and we always knew that we wanted to be a part of this fight, but we never imagined how much it would cost us.
"I'm going to be a father, Sirius. A father. Me."
Sirius let out a short bark. He suddenly felt breathless, the kind of lightheaded sensation he got after a burst of adrenaline wore off, and reality hit. James, a father.
"I want him to know something other than war, Sirius. I don't want him to grow up reading the Daily Prophet, searching for names and being scared he recognizes one of them, that one of them is a family member or friend or someone he knows. I want him to go to Hogwarts and raise hell there and find a girl and play Quidditch and-"
They both started laughing here, too caught up in the memories of the past and the memories of the future as they swirled into a single existence.
"Prongs, d'you get the feeling sometimes that we grew up too fast?"
"Yeah, Padfoot, I do."
…
"You know, mate, it could be a girl."
They looked at each other for a moment and laughed at the absurdity of the thought.
"Say, you think he'd like a toy broomstick? I saw a little one at some shop on Diagon Alley."
"Yeah, just don't tell Lily."
"Marauder's honor, mate. Marauder's honor."
Hello! This is my first HP fanfic. I'm leaving it as a oneshot for now, but I might return to it later since I really enjoyed this plot bunny. Fun fact: inspired by my very own annoying neighbor, although that person is by no means as much of a treat as Sirius Black. Thank you for reading, and please review/favorite/follow!