-
Lily elbowed her husband in the side. He did try to straighten up, unfortunately the pepper-up had definitely worn off. Instead of propping himself up against her, he was now listing heavily against the kitchen cupboard.
"Right. Rosie, keep an eye on Remy for me. Harry help me get your father to bed."
James slurred something.
She took refuge in sarcasm, "Yes dear, of course you can make your own way upstairs without passing out, how silly of me." What she really wanted to do was spend ten minutes screaming at her brainless oaf of a husband for scaring her silly and then take an hour away from the children to make up for screaming at him.
Sadly James was far too exhausted for either of these excellent plans.
Harry came over and, while clearly willing to help, seemed rather puzzled as to how to go about it.
"Here Harry, take his arm." She flopped James' arm over Harry shoulders. Her son gave a little grunt of effort, shifted slightly and dug in. James was doing his best to help but it was obvious Harry was bearing most of his weight.
Lily had a moment of mother's disassociation and for an instant saw Harry as the child he had been. She blinked to clear her eyes and he was back as the young man he so obviously was. Her baby had grown up no matter how she tried to deny it.
"Upstairs, Mum?"
"Yes please Harry."
James faded as they walked and by the time they reached the top of the stairs she and Harry were basically carrying him. Lily hurriedly opened their bedroom door with her elbow and hip and they dropped James more or less gently on the bed. As soon as he hit horizontal, James curled up in a tight ball.
With a flick of her wand she spelled his boots off, then gently unhooked his glasses, leaving them folded on the bedside table, and drew the duvet over him.
Turning around she saw Harry was watching her with dark, shadowed eyes.
"Harry?"
"Is he going to be all right?"
"Yes, he's going to be fine. Too little sleep and too much magic. You know your father, he's too stubborn to admit he's human like the rest of us."
"But –"
"He's crashing from too much pepper-up, it's not supposed to be used like a super-powered version of coffee."
Harry's gaze sharpened and Lily could see the thought running through his mind. Trust her son to draw exactly the wrong lesson from this, he was just like his father.
"Harry James, I catch you abusing pepper-up while you're studying for NEWTs and you will regret it, young man."
"Yes Mum," he said meekly. Lily didn't believe a word of it, but that was a battle for later.
"You were very good with Rosalba and Remy this morning and I'm grateful."
Her son looked both pleased and surprised.
"Now I really need to go check up on things. Can I trust you to watch Rosalba and Remy for me while I'm gone?"
"Of course you can Mum."
Lily found herself believing him. The sulky, snappy teenager appeared to vanished under the stress of James' absence. She only hoped he stayed gone.
"Thank you Harry. Now I must run, tell Rosie and Remy goodbye for me. I'll be back for dinner." She gave him a quick kiss goodbye and hurried back down the stairs to the floo.
Before she stepped into the fireplace, she took a quick glance around and crossed her fingers. She hoped everything would be okay, but right now she needed to check up on James' idiot other half.
"Auror Headquarters."
-
Harry was half-way down the stairs when he decided it would be a shame to waste such a handy place to sit, so he let his shaky knees give way and collapsed ungracefully in a heap.
The Dark Moron taught him how to deal with shocks, but when the danger was over and his adrenaline had worn off, Harry never knew what to do with himself.
He has found his parents, parents that some other moron Harry didn't want. Harry didn't understand how other-Harry at all. He was frightened to hold on to closely in case they disappeared like the mirage parents he had imagined to comfort himself in his cupboard. Leaving them voluntarily wasn't something Harry could even attempt to wrap his mind around.
So he stopped trying, stopped thinking about his parents and siblings and concentrated on the easy bit.
The Dark Moron. Same shit, different dimension.
He felt a little bit sick at the thought of facing the Dark Moron again. Not that he doubted he could do it, he'd done it once before, and he had more to lose this time.
The click of a door snagged his attention and his head jerked up. Rosalba stood there clutching Remy.
"Harry."
"Hey Sis."
She bit her lip. "I'm so scared Harry," she whispered. Her shoulders where hunched and her face was partially turned away, as if she was ashamed.
"Hey no," he said quickly, standing up to go to her, "it's okay. I won't let anything happen to you. I promise."
"I'm not scared for me," she hissed, swiping at her eyes with the heel of her hand, "I'm scared for Dad."
"He's going to be okay. Mum said so."
"But what about next time. If You-Know-Who is starting to attack again, Dad's going to try and stop him and..." she ducked her head, hiding her face beneath her long red hair.
"Dad will beat him."
"Dad will beat him," echoed Remy.
"See," said Harry, "Remy agrees with me." Rosalba huffed and shifted her grip on the toddler.
"How?" she snapped. "You-know-who survived the Killing Curse. And I know they say it was because Mum was a Muggle-born, but that's rubbish, she's stronger than most pure-bloods."
Harry blinked incredulously and tried to translate that, "Mum AK'd the Dark Moron?"
"You know she did Harry. She's never forgiven herself for not killing him outright."
"That wasn't her fault."
"Don't even try and tell me it's because she was nothing but a weak mudblood."
"Of course it bloody wasn't." The knowledge his sister was only repeating opinions she clearly disagreed with allowed him to try and regain his temper. He took a deep breath and took a second to arrange his thoughts. "What I meant was, since Mum AK'd the Dark Moron and it didn't stick, he must have some sort of defence against an AK."
"Harry there is no defence against the killing curse."
Remy babbled louder, trying to snag their attention and started to wriggle.
"Give him here," Harry too the little boy and jogged him in his arms, trying to keep him distracted, because he wanted to keep talking to his sister, he didn't know when he'd get a better chance to steer the conversation the way he wanted.
"Well Sis, we both agree that Mum cast a successful AK and it should have killed him. Since it didn't he must have some defence against it, or maybe just dying in general."
"So what if he has. That just makes things even worse."
"No, because if we can work out how he did, we can make sure it doesn't work next time."
Harry was surprised how bad he felt manipulating his sister like this. If the Dark Moron had survived an AK, he must have made at least one Horcrux in this dimension too, but that wasn't something he could just announce. He needed to show some evidence of searching for the information and this conversation would help with that.
It had to be done, it was the only practical thing to do, but that didn't make him feel any better. It just felt wrong treating his sister as a dupe instead of an alley. Scolding himself mentally, he reminded himself now was not the time to start growing a conscience.
"Harry, people have been looking for the answer ever since it happened."
"Yeah well, if they're willing to accept the idea of a 'weak mudblood' it doesn't sound to me like they've been trying very hard."
"Oh." Rosalba lifted her hand to her mouth in surprise. Harry was pleased to see she no longer seemed so unhappy and instead looked intrigued. "You're right. Gosh."
"Hey, I'm your older brother, I'm always right." It wasn't until Harry said it that he realised that was something Bill Weasley said. And like the younger Weasleys, Rosalba just rolled her eyes at him.
"Shut up you prat, this important. I can't believe nobody's looked into it. Well, actually I can. Merlin, let me think. Okay, the best person to ask would be Mum, but she never talks about it. I think, secretly, she believes it is her fault it didn't work."
Harry snorted.
"We should ask Dad."
That wasn't what Harry wanted at all. "We can look into it ourselves."
"Harry, you know the parents don't want us involved in the war."
Harry bit down on his first response, that they were bloody involved whether they wanted it or not, and said, "We'd just be looking at books. You'd think Mum at least would be pleased."
Rosalba tapped her fingernails against her lower lip as she thought about that. Finally she smiled delightedly.
"You're right. She would. And we shouldn't bother Dad right now. He's too busy."
"Exactly."
They shared a conspiratorial smile.
-
The atmosphere at the Auror Headquarters was alarming relaxed for the day after a major attack by the Death Eaters.
Lily wasn't surprised.
James would have called in all hands. After the crisis, his own First Watch, Longbottom's Third and McKinnon's Fourth would have been released to recover from a two-day running battle with Death Eaters. Which meant Vraci's Second Watch had command.
James had been trying to dislodge Vraci from the Aurors since before he made Watch Captain. "You know," he'd said to Lily once, "I'd actually feel better if he was a Death Eater, because if he's genuinely that fucking incompetent, I'm embarrassed to even know him."
Second Watch was were James stashed all the pure-bloods who bought their way into the Aurors and anybody else he didn't trust to play with scissors. Lily never quite understood how, but in some inexplicable way that meant Second Watch was considered the beau ideal.
"Of course it makes sense," Remus had explained patiently, "It's tradition. The Second have the swankiest uniforms and First do all the work. Why wouldn't everybody want to be in Second?"
"Sirius is pure-blooded enough. If they'd let him join the Aurors, I could have made him Captain of Second. That would have sorted them out," sulked James.
"Mate, then you'd have to change your policy of dumping all the public relations on Second." Sirius attempted to cheer him up.
James just slumped further into his chair and deeper into his drink. "I've had to do that anyway. Vraci's either trying to get me fired, or he's even worse at PR than you."
"Nobody's worse than me at PR." Sirius passed him another bottle of beer, "You want me to poison him?"
James turned the offer down, but Lily had the feeling he was holding the idea of a (non-fatal) poisoning in reserve for emergencies.
None of which endeared Vraci to her, particularly since she was the one drafted to write James' press releases for him. It didn't help that Vraci considered himself something of a ladies' man. Lily had not shared this information with the men in her life.
"Mrs Potter, how delightful to see you again."
Lily cringed as he took her hand and pressed a moist kiss to the back. She reclaimed her hand as soon as possible and resisted the urge to scrub it clean.
"I believe your charming husband has already left for the day."
"I am aware, thank you. I am here to visit the MediWizards section."
"Yes, I should have realised you were here to see Black."
"So I'll be going." Lily walked past him quickly, twisting her body to avoid brushing against him.
She took a great breath of relief once she had made it around the corner. She dusted herself off and gave in to the temptation to rub her hand against the sleeve of her robe. Talking to Vraci always left her feeling like she needed a shower.
"You better appreciate this Sirius Black."
The MediWizard section attached to the Aurors were still had a subdued hum of activity as five exhausted, grey-faced Mediwizards staggered around seven bodies on the emergency beds. As Lily watched the Apparition Point flared to life and two cloaked figures appeared clutching one adult and three pre-teens between them.
The lead figure tried to walk forwards but tripped over his feet he was too tired to lift. Lily jumped forward to field him and his charges.
Sirius lifted his wobbly head and squinted at her, "It's Mrs Prongs. Why are you here?" his eyes crossed, "Are you here?"
"Sirius, you utter idiot."
"Oh yes, you're definitely here."
Lily shook her head, "Go home, idiot, before you keel over."
"Can't. Soon as I leave, Vraci will stand everybody down."
"But –"
"There's only Muggles left," he spat tiredly. "And who cares about them."
"At least stay here and send the others out."
With a visible effort he pulled himself upright. "I've only got my kids left. I'm not sending them out alone."
Lily glanced at the MediWizards, and, looking through the mud and weariness, could see they were all trainees barely older than Harry. She felt ancient in comparison.
"Where's everybody else?"
"Sent them home before they keeled over."
"Right." She pushed down the queasy mixture of anger, disgust and affection. "Give me a passport-medallion so I can use the Apparition point. In fact make it two and I'll round up Remus."
"No. Prongs would never, I would never, forgive me if you got hurt."
"I'm not going to get hurt," she as patiently as she could. Sirius was running on nothing but fumes. It wasn't fair to take her anger at others out on him. "Moony will be with me, and your trainees. James would never have left if the Death Eaters were still around."
"Might come back," said Sirius, more stubborn than anything human had the right to be.
Lily gave up on reasoned discourse, it rarely worked on him at the best of times, and went for a trick she'd seen James use.
"Stand down, Padfoot," she barked, "I'll keep watch."
"I,"
"Trust me, I'll keep watch."
Sirius let out a great sigh, his eyes rolled back in his head and Lily had to brace him before he hit the floor. Two of Sirius' trainees jumped in to help.
"Thank you Mrs Potter," said a girl with a scruffy plait and hollow eyes. "We were worried he was going to splinch himself or worse."
Lily bit down on her demand to know why they hadn't stopped him. Instead she said,
"Next time, if my husband's unavailable, call me."
"We couldn't, Mr Black would be furious with us."
"Not after I was finished with him he wouldn't be. Now where can we put him, if we can't send him home."
"There's a spare bed in the corner. Well it's not precisely spare, cause Fenwick and DeBoeck are already in it. They passed out about three hours ago and we didn't have anyone free to get them home."
"Great. Now somebody hand me two passport-medallions. And nobody better give me any nonsense about reporting this to Vraci."
"We would never." They all looked horrified at the idea.
"Thank you," she said, "for helping the Muggles I mean." It made her furious that what they were doing was so extraordinary that she should feel gratitude, but the average Wizard would have abandoned the Muggles without a second thought, and she was so grateful they hadn't.
"It is our responsibility," said the young witch with dignity. "Mr Black said we swore an oath to aid those in need and the Muggles don't have anybody but us." Her voice grew a gruffer and rougher as she quoted Sirius directly, "The Wizarding World is damn well going to clean up its own mess for once."
Lily forgot most of the time, because Sirius worked hard to make people forget, that he wasn't James' best friend just because they shared a fondness for pranks.
-
