I was in and out the rest of the day, and when I got home that evening, James asked me how it went. I had to think for a minute, to realize he was talking about my parents.
"Well, it didn't."
He was cutting vegetables on the kitchen counter, drawing the knife slowly back and forth over and through them. His fingers almost touched the base of the blade.
"Oh?" His voice nearly cracked in the attempt to sound surprised.
"Shut up." I punched him in the arm and his hand slipped, almost under the knife.
"What, are you trying to maim me?" He brandished the blade at me and I hooted. "So, you didn't go?"
"No, I didn't go."
He nodded and went back to carefully slicing a carrot.
"I'm still doing it though. Just not today."
"Your funeral. What did you do today, then?"
"I went grocery shopping. Bought these carrots. Mum." I reached for one, but changed my mind halfway there and leaned on the counter instead.
"Must have been a long line."
"I went through every carrot in the bin. Only the best for my Jamesie." I smiled. I wasn't careful enough and felt the scabs around the corner of my lip crack. It was time to reapply the ointment, but Lily was out at the library.
The next day I went to the Healer's office. Lily told me I could go alone, if I really wanted, but the way she said it, I let her come with me. She stayed in the waiting room when I went in to see the Healer.
The Healer unwound the bandages quicker than Lily did and left excess ointment piled up on the raw wounds. I felt it slide around when I moved my face.
"You should start letting it breathe," she said. "Begin by taking the bandages off in the evening, a few hours before bed. If you can stay still in your sleep and sleep on your back, you could even leave them off overnight." At the end of her sleeve, a colorful wooden bracelet dipped in and out of sight with the movement of her arm.
"The wounds are healing slowly." She squinted into my face. Her wire frames almost touched my skin. "Slower than I hoped they might." She took her glasses off and wiped them on her smock. "But they are healing. Now, do you have any questions or concerns?"
"I did want to ask something. Do you know, well, what my face is going to look like? When it's done. Healing, I mean."
She didn't hesitate. I was thankful, not to have to see her eyes soften or pity form. I reckon she'd seen things a lot more pitiful than me. "Well, there is going to be a lot of scar tissue. Around where you lost the eye in particular. Of course, we can do reconstructive spells. You'll get a prosthetic eye. Your nose is going to need a lot of work, for practical purposes, to open the airways so you can breathe more easily. We'll reconstruct the bridge. It's hard to predict how these things will turn out before they're done, but you're fortunate this happened now, and not twenty years ago. There's a lot we can do now." She turned around to the counter and frowned down at some papers. "Now, how is the pain?"
I scratched behind my ear. "I think I need to renew that prescription."
After the appointment, Lily and I went straight to the chemist. I took a dose of the potion in the w.c. when we got home and the lay the rest of the afternoon on the sofa while Lily talked on the phone in the next room, thumbed through magazines in the bay window, cooked lunch, held a one-sided conversation with me, and eventually said she was going to go take a nap.
She came back downstairs after about 30 minutes. She thought I was asleep and put the back of her hand on my forehead, then her palm on my cheek. She sighed big, theatrically, murmured something. I could even hear her rubbing her belly, the fabric scritching under her fingers. She got down on the floor by the sofa and put her face next to mine on the cushion.
"What happening to you?" she asked.
"I don't feel well."
"You don't have a fever."
"That's not the only way to not feel well, Lily." I didn't open my eye, but I did smile a little. I didn't want her to worry.
"Do you want some tea? I was about to make some."
"Yes, thank you." I opened my eye, meaning my answer to be a sign of gratitude. Meaning it to appease her.
Her eyes in front of mine were dimmer than usual in the unlit living room, but she smiled when I looked at her.
When she got up, I tried to hold my eye open for as long as I could, but after a minute I couldn't look across at the bay window and the dust floating in the hazy unlight and closed it again.
James got home after an hour. I sat up and stretched and yawned. "Hey, Prongs."
He flipped the light switch. "How long have you been sleeping?"
"I don't know. What time is it?"
"Wish I could nap all day."
"You could. You choose to have a job."
"It seems silly when you put it that way." James laughed and fell slack onto the couch beside me. After a pause, he looked at me. "How was the Healer?"
I didn't think hard enough before turning into Padfoot. The transition was hard these days. Scraps of Padfoot's face hung in tangled knots of meat and fur. It hurt, and the dog-I-didn't know any better than to swipe at the wounds with my paws.
James grabbed me where my front legs connected to my chest and pulled me up against his torso. He held my paws down so I couldn't irritate the wounds.
"If you keep this up, I'm going to have to get you one of those cone collars." He rubbed me behind the ears and smoothed the fur on top of my head and on my neck. I laid my heavy head against his chest. "I reckon this means things didn't go well. Padfoot always means something really good or something really bad." I licked at his fingers as they drifted near my face.
"Sometimes I wish I got a more cuddly animal to turn into. No one can be cross with a big shaggy dog. Stags are not so sympathetic. Not to mention the antlers tend to get stuck in doorways." He began collecting the fur I shed into a pile on the arm of the sofa. I closed my eye and relaxed all my weight into him. "This is such a convenient excuse for you not to have to talk. I hate it when you make it look like I'm talking to myself. I don't even know if you're listening-are you awake?" I felt air bending in front of my face, and my tongue shot out to lick his palm. He laughed, the laugh became a yawn, and he let his opposite palm rest on the crown of my head.
When I woke up, I was myself again, and James was still asleep with his hand on my head. I could hear the radio on in the other room and Lily's silverware rhythmically clinking against her dish.
I thought about going to talk to her. She was a good friend. It was almost too much goodness in one place. I went upstairs, tiptoeing to make sure she wouldn't hear.
They'd been thinking about getting decorative trim for the baby's room. Yellow duckies or something.
Lily was due in July. I still had my flat. There wasn't any sense in paying rent and it standing empty. Same way there wasn't any sense in James falling asleep with me while Lily kept company with the radio.
I lay down on the unmoored mattress and covered my face with a pillow. The pillow under my head slid off onto the floor. I tried to retrieve it, hooking my arm backward off the mattress, but my fingers couldn't find it. I took the pillow off my face and put it under my head.
I didn't fall asleep for a while. I thought about turning back into Padfoot.
The next morning, when James came up to the baby's room to give me a cup of coffee, he announced he'd got in touch with Remus and we were all going to meet up tonight.
"No dinner parties," I told him. I had the pillow over my face again.
"No, no dinner parties." He pushed down on the pillow, over my face, until I shoved him off.
"That hurts, dammit."
He spilled a bit of coffee on the floor and cursed. "Sorry, mate. But anyway, we're going to meet at a pub, all right? Is that all right with you?"
"What pub? I don't want to talk to Ed."
"Ed is very nice, but no, not that pub. Remus wanted to meet us in Hogsmeade."
"You know." I sat up and gathered all the covers up around my chest. "You didn't used to think 'nice' was such a high compliment."
"There's nothing wrong with nice. I'm being unduly nice to you right now." He thrust the cup of coffee at me.
"Thank you. And no, there's nothing wrong with nice. But it shouldn't be all you can say about a person."
"There are worse things you can say."
"But a lot better, too. Shit, at least be creative."
"You know, I don't even know what the hell we're arguing about."
"I don't know." I stood up and grabbed my jeans off the floor. "I think I'm going to move back home."
"Not this again." More coffee splashed out of the cup and onto the floor.
"Stop that, you don't want to move your baby into a dirty room."
James didn't say anything for a second.
I looked back at him. His eyes were unfocused behind his glasses.
"Yeah, a baby has to live here," I said. "That baby that's gonna come out of Lily sooner or later."
He didn't respond.
I buttoned my jeans and sat down next to him on the edge of the mattress. "I know, it's nutters. It's your own fault, though."
"Fault? It's the best thing that ever happened to me in my life."
"Okay. Then this 'best thing ever' is going to have to live here. Which means I'm going to have to move out."
"Yeah, eventually. Maybe in July. And even then, really, this is a big room, and a little baby. You probably don't even have to move out until he's like… seventeen. Most of the teen years he'll spend away, thank god, can you imagine having to live with our teenage selves?"
I laughed. James glanced at me, and his grin grew wide. "I mean, not that you've changed so much. But you'll get along with a five-year-old pretty well, might feel outclassed by the time he's eleven. Our two sons."
"What if you have a daughter?"
"You like playing dolls, don't you?"
"Action figures."
He giggled.
"But seriously, James, I can't be your son. Well, besides the physical impossibility-so help me god, if you make a time-turner joke about fucking my mum I'm leaving right now."
James doubled over and slapped me on the knee. "Hoo-boy, beat me to it; that would've been a good one, but wow, disgusting."
I clapped him between the shoulder blades. While he was still laughing, I said, "So, I'm going to leave soon. My flat, it doesn't make any sense paying for it and it standing open."
He stopped laughing and sat up. My hand slid off his back. "So quit your lease and move in here."
"Stop."
"We have the room. Honestly."
"Yeah. Where? I'm not sharing a room with your baby; I really thought you were joking about that."
"Are we wizards or aren't we? We'll make an add-on."
"Do you think Lily wants me living with your family permanently?"
"Lily loves you and you know it."
"More to the point, I don't want me living here permanently. I'm a grown man and this is pathetic."
"It's not pathetic." James sniffed indignantly. "You have a medical condition that needs treatment."
"I can easily do that myself. I have a mirror and functioning hands. And it's getting better."
James didn't have a quick rejoinder. He looked at the ground and said, "I'm glad it's getting better." I looked down at my functioning hands and picked at a patch of dry skin on my finger. James took an audible breath. "You're my family, Sirius, as much as anyone, and I don't know why it would be weird for you to live here, with a family you're a part of. And on top of that, a family takes care of one another, and obviously you need that right now."
I almost wanted to laugh. "What does that mean?"
"I just mean, sometimes. It's just that, I don't know, lately. I worry about you, sometimes."
I did laugh, then. James looked at me out of the corner of his eyes. Something about how clueless he was made me want to hug him. I grabbed his shoulders. "You stupid git. Don't worry, I'm fine. Shit. What, you think something bad happens and I lose half my face and I'm just going to fall apart?"
James laughed nervously and patted me on the back. He was well out of his element here.
I disengaged and felt around the bandages on my face. "Besides, my Healer said they can reconstruct my nose. Soon. I'm looking forward to the horrible scarring. I love the screams of children."
"That's-" James's eyes froze, and I could see all the way around his irises. "There won't be 'horrible scarring,' will there?"
"Relax, Prongs, I was joking. But honestly, of course there's going to be scars. Healer said they could put a prosthetic eye in, though."
"Who did it?" His eyes had narrowed. He was staring at my face, at the place where my left eye used to be.
"Come on, you know I don't know. If I ever saw them, if I remembered anything about them, wouldn't I have said something?" I stood up and moved toward the wall. "Of course I wish I knew who did it."
"It's malicious. The way they did it. It's spiteful, it's personal. It's someone you know. We know."
"Well, obviously. I've had some guesses, but what can I do?" I put my finger on a spot on the smooth wall and began to pick at the paint with my fingernail.
I could almost hear James tenting his fingers and furrowing his brow behind me. I could predict the number of times his jaw flapped open and shut while he considered whether or not to say what he was going to say.
"Regulus must know."
"He does not." I peeled off a half-inch square of green paint and crumbled it into dust.
"How couldn't he? He found you, he brought you back."
"Leave him out of it, okay? If he knew, why wouldn't he have said something? It doesn't make any sense. Just leave him alone."
I heard him get up. He was standing behind me. "I'm not accusing him of anything, Sirius. I'm just saying, maybe it's worth it to talk to him."
"Holy shit, are you joking?" I balled my fists and didn't turn around. "I can't even see him. You want me to send him an owl, or what? If he knew, he might not be where he is. Why wouldn't he say something like that?"
We went down and ate breakfast with Lily. She pretended not to have heard us arguing, or maybe she'd been in the garden. I always felt silly arguing with James. We didn't do it very often, not for real, and afterwards I felt like showering, or sometimes playing Quidditch.
"What do you have today, Lils? Baby appointment? Some kind of prenatal play date?" James asked.
I pushed the eggs around on my plate. I wanted a steak dinner at a restaurant. I thought about trying to ask a girl, and I remembered my face. Funny how easy it was to forget.
"I was thinking more like stealing Sirius's motorbike and going on a bender of some kind. Maybe a booze cruise. I can't find my sunglasses, though."
"Booze cruise?"
"It's a Muggle thing. You think it's too late for an abortion?"
"Shit, Lily, don't joke like that."
Lily laughed, showing off a mouthful of half-chewed sausage.
"You're both off your nut today, you know?" James looked like he had a stomachache.
"Maybe that'll get you to stop joking about 'prenatal play dates', you twat. Like to see you carry this thing around all day. You two are going out with Remus tonight, aren't you?"
"Yeah."
I sucked down the rest of my coffee and concentrated on keeping my eye peeled open. I imagined peeling it like a squishy grape. I wondered if I would wear an eyepatch when I took the bandages off for good. Probably not, if they thought I could have a glass eye. But maybe an eyepatch would cover more of the scars. It might be funny.
I had forgotten to take the bandages off last night. I still hadn't done that. I still hadn't looked at my bare face in the mirror. When I showered, the mirror fogged up so I didn't have to.
"Do you think they can make me a glass eye that actually sees?" I asked.
I think James may have been in the middle of a sentence. His mouth was hanging open a bit and he looked wounded. Lily snorted.
"Sorry."
"Don't be, thinking about your future bionic body parts is much more entertaining than whatever shite James was talking." She tweaked the end of James's nose. His face fell into a smile.
I pushed my plate away from me and put my chin down on my folded arms. I felt Lily's palm on my back. She rubbed circles across my shoulders, and I think she had her hand on James's shoulder, too. She said, "My boys." Her voice quavered.
I sat up. She had tears in her eyes. James already had his arms around her when I asked what was wrong. James kind of shook his head at me over her shoulder.
"Nooo…" Her voice trilled at the end. She had her face buried in James's shirt, so her voice was muffled too. "Nothing's wrong." Her arms were so tight around his neck, James's face was turning red. "I just, it's just that I love you both so much. And I'm going to have a baby. And I already love him so much."
James laughed and choked a bit at the same time. Lucky for him, Lily unlocked herself from his neck and threw herself around mine. Her face against my chest was wet and hot from crying. I smoothed her hair down and closed my arms around her back. Loving Lily was easy.
"Okay, okay, I'm sorry." Lily pulled away and wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands. James picked at the corners of his eyes with his fingertips and muttered something unintelligible. "Pregnancy hormones or whatever," Lily said.
"Yeah, and James has sympathy hormones." I smiled and wanted to put my arm around his shoulders, but I still felt a little strange about earlier.
"We're going to be a family." Lily started crying again.
A/n: BEFORE ANYONE ASKS, NO, at this time Mad-Eye Moody did NOT, in fact, have his celebrated "mad eye", which would render Sirius's question about his hypothetical bionic eye superfluous. Let me refer you to page 588 in the American edition of Goblet of Fire: "Mad-Eye Moody was sitting there—except that there was a very noticeable difference in his appearance. He did not have his magical eye, but two normal ones." Now, this scene takes place after Halloween 1981, if we are to extrapolate from Karkaroff's statement that "the Ministry is trying to—to round up the last of the Dark Lord's supporters" (p. 587). And obvi this story is taking place prior to that time. And in closing, let me also refer you to page 589 of the same edition: "'Why, yes…there was Rosier,' said Karkaroff hurriedly. 'Evan Rosier.' 'Rosier is dead,' said Crouch. 'He was caught shortly after you were too. He preferred to fight rather than come quietly and was killed in the struggle.' 'Took a bit of me with him, though,' whispered Moody to Harry's right. Harry looked around at him once more, and saw him indicating the large chunk of his nose to Dumbledore. 'No—no more than Rosier deserved!' said Karkaroff, a real note of panic in his voice now." And that is why Evan Rosier is my favorite minor Death Eater, because he is the psycho who took a chunk out of Moody's nose. It is my personal canon that he bit it off tbqh. RIP.
PS: Sorry for these author's notes, I couldn't help myself.
