Chapter 1 – Starting Over

1st August 1978

Surprisingly, Sirius was organised.

He'd put a down payment on a flat before school ended and now, just a few weeks later, he and Remus were lugging their belongings through the door with the help of James - who was taking Sirius' broom up the stairs – and the Potters, who were floating a box full of kitchen equipment that Euphemia had insisted that they take.

Their speedy move wasn't because Sirius was particularly eager to get away from the Potters, of course, but rather because he didn't want to put them out any more than he already had. Remus, on the other hand, was quietly relieved to leave behind his detached father, and although he worried about the amount of money Sirius had spent on the deposit, the opportunity to start a new chapter of his life had become equally thrilling and scary.

"Where shall I put these boxes of clothes, Sirius?" Mr. Potter asked pleasantly, looking around the flat for the first time. It was a decent size - with a small kitchen leading off a sitting room that was furnished with a comfy looking, if slightly worn, sofa, armchair and a muggle television. "Which bedroom is yours?" He was standing in the corridor, looking at the amount of doors like something didn't quite add up.

"Err," Sirius stammered, stepping in front of James' dad, "that's alright, just leave them there, I'll do it later."

"Okie doke," Mr. Potter shrugged, lowering his wand and guiding the boxes into a neat pile. "Less work for me then!"

Behind him, James chuckled quietly and leant the broom against the wall. "Don't know where we're going to play this close to the city anyway," he lamented, frowning. "We might have to apparate somewhere."

"I'm sure you'll manage," Mrs. Potter said fondly, wrapping an arm around James' shoulder. "I can't believe you boys have grown up so fast!"

She smiled at Sirius, before grabbing the corner of his jacket and pulling him towards her. "You can come home any time," she said, hugging him. "The house will be so quiet, especially once James moves in a few weeks."

"Thank you," Sirius whispered against the top of her head, which now only just reached his chin. "For everything."

"Right," she replied, pulling away from him. "You be good." Her gaze flickered to Remus and she smiled softly, going to hug him too. "And you take care of my boy," she smiled. "We all know someone needs to."

James shot Sirius a look of embarrassment before pulling his mother away from Remus and saying, "Come on mum, let's leave them to it."

"Okay." She nodded reluctantly and followed James towards the door.

After another round of goodbyes with Mr. Potter, the front door shut behind James' family and Remus and Sirius were left alone in the flat.

"Well," Remus said, "you'd think we were moving to the other side of the world."

"Yeah," Sirius agreed. His eyes were a little glossy, but he smiled as he looked around their front room. "Maybe we really should start putting stuff away."

"We could start with the bedroom," Remus suggested innocently, making Sirius smirk.

"That sounds like a good idea," he said, but was immediately distracted by a distressed hooting coming from the cage by his feet. "Ah, it seems like Sir. Lancelot wants your attention more than me."

Remus leant down and let his owl out of his cage. He hooted once more and shot Remus a reproachful look before taking flight and perching precariously on Sirius' shoulder.

"Now he likes you more than me?" Remus complained. "You had to go in your cage for the journey Lancelot!"

"I don't think he's listening to you," Sirius laughed as Sir Lancelot obliviously cleaned his feathers. "You've betrayed him."

Remus sighed. "Maybe we should unpack the kitchen first then."

"Oh is that how it's going to be?" Sirius grinned. He shooed away Sir. Lancelot, who moodily flew to the nearest window, which Remus opened for him with a flick of his wand.

"We could just leave unpacking until tomorrow," he suggested, blocking the path to their boxes and wrapping his arms around Remus' waist. "We have all the time in the world for boring stuff like that."

"I guess you're right," Remus said with a growing smile, "it can wait."


18th August 1978

Remus had been dreading this night in a way that he hadn't dreaded the full moon since he was fourteen years old. Ever since his friends had become animagi – the lengths they had gone to help him never failed to fill him with warmth – full moons had become bearable.

With James and Peter shortly moving into flats just a few streets away from Sirius and Remus, they had promised to help them every month. "We'll always be there for you, Moony," James had said.

Remus knew that everything James said came with a sense of burning honesty, but that didn't mean he had to believe him. At Hogwarts they were a unit, the Gryffindor boys, the marauders. But now they all had separate lives and Remus knew things were going to change.

When he and Sirius had first looked at places to live a few months back, Remus had wanted to find somewhere with a secure basement or attic for him to transform without putting anyone else in danger, but Sirius had refused.

"You can't do that to yourself," he'd said. "I saw how bad your injuries were when you were shut up in the shrieking shack – you tore yourself to pieces. You can't go back to that. We'll find somewhere isolated, somewhere safe. You don't deserve to be locked up, Remus."

And true to his word, Sirius had found a huge forest in the middle of nowhere for Remus to transform. On the evening of the full moon, they apparated there and waited for James and Peter while gashes of red and orange spilled out of the sunset sky.

"Are you sure it's okay for me to transform here?" Remus said, scanning the trees for any sign of movement. "It looks pretty empty but it's still a public area. I could hurt someone."

"It's probably less dangerous than running round the forbidden forest," Sirius pointed out.

Remus knew this was meant to make him feel better, but his stomach twisted into knots with guilt. It would have only taken one mistake, one terrible accident, for a student to get too close to the forbidden forest and get bitten.

"And that's why we're here," Sirius added quickly. "To make sure no one gets hurt – including you. Me and James have always managed to keep you away from people."

James, however, was still nowhere in sight – and neither was Peter. The sky was growing dark, the moon was beginning to rise, and Remus could feel his bones begin to stretch and his muscles start to tear against his will.

"Do you think they got lost?" Sirius asked. "It's a pretty big forest. I thought my instructions were clear but maybe - "

"I don't think they're coming," Remus said, and the moment the words left his lips there was a small pop and Lily appeared in front of them.

"Lily," Remus exclaimed. "What are you doing here? I'm transforming any minute - it's not safe!"

"I know, I know, I'm only going to be here for a second," she said. "I just wanted to tell you that Peter's too ill to come and James had to stay late at Auror training."

"Oh," Remus said. "Well." He tried to think of the right words, but his brain was growing foggy. "Thanks for telling me."

"I'm so sorry, Remus," she said. "James really wanted to be here but he didn't have a choice."

"It's okay," Remus said, though it wasn't. "Now get out of here, please, there isn't much time."

"I'll see you in the morning, okay?" Lily said, and after exchanging a worried glance with Sirius, she disapparated.

"I guess this is how it's going to be from now on," Remus said. Night had fallen suddenly and Sirius was only visible through the thin slits of light filtering through the trees.

"Remus…" Sirius took his hand, but Remus tugged it away as his nails extended into claws and his whole body began to shake. The last thing he saw before he lost himself was the mixture of worry and fear distorting Sirius' face.


7th September 1978

It took several trips for James to apparate with all of his things to Lily's house. He wasn't sure how he'd accumulated so much stuff over the years - though his mum giving him gifts of everything from saucepans to new shoes probably added a lot to the pile. On his final trip with the same battered suitcase he'd taken to Hogwarts every year, his parents had hugged him repeatedly and they'd all shed a few tears. He gave them one final grin before he span around and reappeared in Lily's living room.

He went out to the front door to find that Lily and her mum were trying to cram a huge box of Lily's clothes into the car Lily's parents had given her as a moving out gift, but they were having some difficulty.

"I think you need to learn one of those spells that makes things bigger on the inside," Mary said. She had offered to help them move and had been at Lily's house for the past hour.

"Maybe I should just apparate some of my stuff directly to the flat," James suggested.

"No," Lily insisted. "It's harder to apparate to places you don't know well and if we're off by a few metres we're going to end up scaring the life out of our muggle neighbours."

James personally thought that this would be an excellent way to introduce themselves, but the ministry probably wouldn't agree.

Eventually, with a final shove from Lily's mum, the suitcase squeezed into the boot of the car. There was a rather alarming crack, but they all decided to ignore it in favour of nodding in satisfaction.

"You'll just have to keep that one on your knee," Lily told James, nodding at the suitcase left in his hand. "It's not that long a drive anyway."

James agreed, and while Mary ran upstairs to double check that nothing had been forgotten, Lily and James went back into the living room to say goodbye to Lily's father.

"Roger, Lily and James are leaving now," his wife told him gently, perching on the edge of his chair. "They've come to say goodbye."

The man looked up at Lily with confusion in his eyes, and Lily felt her breath catch. She'd realised while being at home for the last few months that his Alzheimer's had worsened considerably, but although she knew it was silly, she still hoped, whenever he looked at her, that he'd magically get better.

"Petunia?" he said questioningly, and Lily felt James' hand slip into hers. "She left home years ago."

"No dear," Lily's mum said, smiling sadly at her daughter. "It's Lily and James, they're moving to London together!"

"Oh," he replied, "of course." His eyes searched Lily's, and there was an edge of panic to them that made Lily deeply uncomfortable. Letting go of James' hand, she leant forward and wrapped her arms around her father. "Bye dad," she muttered against his cheek, "I love you."

"I love you too," he said back instinctively. Then added, "Lily," as an afterthought.

Nodding, Lily led the way back out of the room, to where Mary was waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

"All set?" she asked, and Lily nodded determinedly.

They all piled into the car - James in the front with his suitcase stuffed uncomfortably against his knees, and Mary in the back, wedged between the car door and one of the many boxes.

Lily's mum watched from the front door, waving as her daughter pulled the car out of the driveway. Lily waved back with a tight smile before turning the corner at the end of their street.

She reached down to turn up the radio, hoping that the loud music would distract her from the strange mix of feelings swimming around her head.

After forty-five minutes on the motorway and several wrong turnings once they got to the outskirts of London, they finally found the right street and the three of them spent over an hour carrying boxes and suitcases up the stairs to their flat. Using magic would have been quicker, but they didn't dare risk using it when their neighbours kept sticking their heads out of the door to offer them cups of tea or tell them about the neighbourhood, so by the time they were done they were all exhausted.

While Sirius and Remus had bought a fully-furnished flat with the money Sirius had inherited from his Uncle Alphard, James and Lily had decided to do up their own flat. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, when they pictured themselves flicking paint at each other and walking around furniture shops hand in hand, but right now it meant that all they had was a rickety table and sofa that the previous owners had left behind along with a bed that had been bought courtesy of James' parents. After checking that the sofa wasn't stained or infested with bugs, they all flopped down on it.

"Being an adult is exhausting," James said.

"The plus side is that we get the place to ourselves," Lily replied, and Mary groaned loudly.

"If you're about to start making out then I'm leaving."

"Are you sure?" Lily asked. "You could stay for dinner."

Mary pointedly opened up one of the small boxes labelled "kitchen". It contained a total of two saucepans and a mug.

"Fair point," Lily said.

"Thanks for helping," James added as they both got to their feet to see her out.

"No problem. I'll see you soon, yeah? I know I'm not living nearby but we should make plans soon."

"You can come for dinner as soon as we have to capacity to actually cook a meal," Lily promised and then hugged her.

Once Mary had left, they surveyed their empty flat and the piles of their possessions that they had nowhere to put.

"You know what we need?" Lily asked.

"A sofa that doesn't try to suck you in when you sit on it?" James suggested. "A wardrobe? Food?"

"No," Lily replied. "A cat."

James smiled. "Okay. A cat it is."

After unpacking what they could and making plans to hit the shops as soon as they were open the following day, James and Lily decided to head across the street to visit Peter, who had moved in the previous day.

He was obviously pleased to see them, but looked a little worse for wear when he opened the door, with dark shadows under his eyes.

"Remus and Sirius came over last night to celebrate the move," he explained. "They brought a lot of alcohol."

Peter, James noticed immediately, had had the foresight to buy some basic furniture before moving in. They all sat down at his kitchen table with it's mismatched chairs, and Peter boiled the kettle.

"My sixth of the day," he said, adding three spoonful's of sugar to his tea. "Seriously, if Sirius suggests a housewarming, say no."

"You're getting old, mate," James joked, sipping from his own cup. "How are you liking the new place anyway?"

"It's alright," Peter shrugged. "I'm near you all and it's not too far to apparate to work, so."

"Oh that's right!" Lily smiled. She'd been distracted by the alarming shade of green that decorated Peter's kitchen walls, but his mention of work caught her attention. Peter had recently gotten a job at the owl post office in Diagon Alley, and although it didn't sound like the most exciting job in the world, he was doing better than a lot of their other friends, who had failed to even start looking for jobs at all. "When do you start?"

"Monday," Peter said, "it seems fairly decent. There's a nice witch who works there - she gave me cinnamon biscuits at the interview."

"Oh really," James grinned. "Have a bit of a crush do we Wormy?"

"Don't be stupid," Peter argued, "she's about 40 or something."

"There's nothing wrong with an older woman," James laughed, and Lily elbowed him in the ribs.

"I'm sure you'll be great Peter," she told him.

Peter smiled, though it didn't quite meet his eyes. Lily wondered about him sometimes - although Remus and Sirius had had a bumpy start, they seemed to be settling into adulthood with a gentle ease that Peter didn't quite have. Even she and James, despite their empty flat, were fairly content, but Peter seemed to resent his sudden descent into adulthood.

"I start Auror training on Monday too," James said. "I don't know whether I'm looking forward to it or if I'm absolutely terrified."

"They're not going to put your life in danger on your first day, love," Lily said.

"I don't know," James said. "I met Alastor Moody when I went in to confirm I'd got good enough grades and he's the real deal - he doesn't seem like the type to start me off slowly."

"Well if you get bored of danger and glory, there's probably room for you at the post office," Peter said.

"I'll let you know," James grinned.

Looking at her watch, Lily sighed. "We'd better go," she said apologetically. "We still need to find sheets and pyjamas and stuff before bed, and be up early in the morning to get to the shops."

"Good idea," James said, standing up. "Sorry Pete, we'll see you soon!"

"Bye then," Peter said, watching them go.

Although his flat was properly decorated and much fuller than James and Lily's, when the two of them left, it seemed empty.


20th September 1978

Remus had been to a job interview that had been over the second he used the word "werewolf", and since this was the sixth time it had happened, he was feeling more than a little resigned. Were it up to him, he wouldn't mention his condition at all. But no, the ministry saw to it that that wasn't an option.

It had been a miracle that he'd been allowed to go to Hogwarts at all, he thought, and no one tended to get more than one miracle in their lives.

When he got home, he expected Sirius to be in the living room, but the room was empty.

"Sirius?" he called.

"In here."

Remus followed his voice to the bedroom and found Sirius lying on the bed, still in his pyjamas.

"What am I doing with my life, Moony?" he said, staring up at the ceiling. "You're being all responsible and everyone else has jobs and here I am in pyjamas with broomsticks on them doing absolutely nothing."

"It's not like you couldn't get a job if you tried," Remus pointed out.

"I know, I just - " He finally looked at Remus. "Your interview went badly again, huh?"

Remus lay down next to Sirius.

"Yeah. No surprises there."

"Something will come up eventually," Sirius said with a certainty Remus couldn't understand. "Or alternatively, we could stay on this bed for the rest of our lives and I'll use the rest of my inheritance to hire a cook to bring us pizza and toast."

"And cups of tea," Remus added.

"Yes, of course, mustn't forget the tea."

They turned their heads to look at each other and Sirius leant forward to kiss Remus on the nose, making him pull a face.

"This is good though, right?" Sirius asked. "Us. This flat. James and everyone being nearby. Our whole long and unplanned lives ahead of us."

"Right now is good," Remus confirmed. "It's the future that worries me. Everything feels suspended, like we're just waiting for something to happen to us. I don't know if that something is going to be good or bad."

"It'll be good," Sirius said. "I promise."


9th October 1978

James had been thinking.

He and Lily had been living together for a month now, and the ease of it was breath-taking. In the weeks leading up to their move, James had worried extensively that when they were suddenly in each other's constant company, without the buffer of his friends, that he and Lily would no longer work.

Thankfully, the truth of the matter was the exact opposite. They worked incredibly well together – from the moment they woke up in the morning and went to brush their teeth, to James feeding Peanut the cat while Lily poured them cereal, then coming home in the evening to make quick meals of pasta or rice and snuggle up together on the sofa.

Of course they'd argued, but James never felt as though they were ever in danger of breaking up. They'd argue, and they'd make up, and they'd carry on - together.

So James had been thinking about marriage. It was early, he knew, and they were young. Frank and Alice had announced their own engagement only a few weeks ago, and ever since he'd seen Lily giggling over wedding dresses James just hadn't been able to shake the image from his head - of Lily in a white dress walking down the aisle towards him.

He'd mentioned as much to Sirius, who had made a face at him. In the end though, even Sirius had agreed that they might as well, since it was inevitable anyway.

The problem was the asking. James didn't know how Frank had proposed. All he knew about marriage was what he'd learnt from his parents, who seemed to have been together forever. His father had proposed to his mother at the beach in summer time, and she'd thrown her ice cream in his face in pure surprise.

James had decided to make it his mission to not have anything thrown at his face. So he'd made a plan. He'd booked a table at a fancy restaurant, bought a beautiful diamond ring under the guidance of his mother, and was anxiously counting down the days until he could ask Lily to be his wife. He just hoped she'd say yes.

It was Thursday night, before James' planned proposal on the Saturday, when he and Lily were lying in bed together, that it happened.

Lily turned to him, still pink in the face and with wild hair from what they'd been doing a few minutes before. "James," she said seriously, putting a hand on his chest and shifting so that she was looking down at him.

Her green eyes shone with happiness and James felt a pleasant warmth inside him. "Mmm?" he prompted.

"I think we should get married."

"What?" James said, his heart had leapt into his throat and he sat up straight, nearly knocking heads with Lily in the process.

"I know it's soon," she shrugged, apparently completely calm, "but we love each other, and we live together, and I... I just want to be like we are now, forever."

"This isn't fair."

This was clearly the wrong thing to say, because Lily pulled the bed clothes up around her and her smile faded.

"Maybe this wasn't the best moment..." she started, but James shook his head furiously.

"No, no, no," he said desperately. "Lily, I was going to ask you to marry me this weekend!" He stumbled out of bed and dug around in his sock draw before triumphantly producing a ring box.

"I got you a ring," he said, sitting back down on the bed and handing her the box.

"You're kidding?" she asked, opening it. "Oh my god, I didn't - James, it's beautiful!"

There were tears in her eyes as she held her hand out wordlessly and watched as he slipped the ring onto her finger.

"So we're getting married?" Lily asked, looking from the ring to James, a huge smile breaking out across her face.

"It looks like it," James agreed. "Shall I cancel the table I booked at Riveria?" he teased. "It would have cost a fortune."

"Shall you - " Lily shook her head at him, but the laughter building up inside her quickly took over. "You're ridiculous," she said, pushing him in the shoulder until he fell back against his pillow. "And I love you. "

"I love you too," James grinned, his hands slipping around Lily's waist as she straddled him, leaning down to kiss him before pulling back with a wicked grin and saying, "screw the table, we'll have an engagement party instead."

"That," James agreed, leaning up to press their lips together once more, "sounds perfect."