Chapter 21: Home

"How is he doing?" Remus asked, stumbling through the apartment doorway and into the toasty warmth of the room. He brushed snow out of his hair and blinked the flakes off his eyelashes. The apartment held a magical heat that had been a lifesaver for them in the last few cold weeks especially since they had been forced to board up their magical fireplace for fear of attack. Since Kitty had compromised so many homes they didn't want to take their chances. Most Order members had moved back home and resumed life as usual once their homes had been determined safe, but they had quickly discovered Sirius's had been broken into with malicious intent.

Sirius and James were really the only ones left without a place to go, both being unable to fix up their apartments after the raids that had left them ransacked trashed and probably booby-trapped. Remus and Lily had dragged them back to their own apartment after the first night stuck in the drafty warehouse.

"Better." James said looking up from a sheet of scratch paper where he was once again jotting down notes. "He woke up long enough to ask me why I wasn't a scantly clad, busty nurse, so he'll be fine soon." He added with a wry smile.

"Great, just what we need…What are you writing? Can't be quidditch plans." Remus said thinking about the thing James most liked to scribble notes about.

"Order plans actually. I'm going to do this better. I'm going to be better at this job. The best." James said with determination. The top of the list, Remus noticed when James held it up, was to "follow instructions".

"That top one'll be the hardest for a marauder." He said taking off his coat and tossing it onto the heavily laden coat rack.

"Marauding is in my blood." James sighed.

"Still can be. I think. Just a bit more focused?" Remus suggested cautiously.

"That seems to be against the basic tenant of marauding." James replied grudgingly, and Remus couldn't argue against the validity of that statement. He began to walk over to the coffee table pushed tightly against the edge of the couch where James sat cross-legged. Not six inches away, spread out on the couch and still looking pale Sirius was lying surrounded by blankets.

"Prongs, I got this. Why don't you go get a shower and some sleep?" James shook his head and looked back down at the paper, where his notes were becoming increasingly incoherent. Remus was right up against the table when he insisted, "James go. I'll watch Sirius for a while."

James flustered for a moment then looked up. "It's fine, really. I… and… you have work in the morning anyway, I don't." He tried to explain. James looked back at his paper, but didn't continue writing. At his side Remus's lips bent into a twisted smile.

"Don't have work actually-"

James's face snapped up to his friends "What!" but before he could ask how Remus's boss had found out about his furry-little-problem Remus explained.

"I was named in the Daily Profit article about our little Azkaban event." He said nodding to Sirius. James didn't quite know what Remus meant, or why he was smiling. "Apparently my boss doesn't want rebel rousing nonsense in his shop. Doesn't want polarizing people working for him… The git." Remus continued, his eyes meeting James's, a delightfully marauderish twinkle in them.

"Fired on your own merits then?" James said suddenly matching the grin.

"Precisely. Wonderful isn't it?" Remus said with a short laugh, but he calmed himself. "So. . . anyway. I was hoping you might continue paying my rent? I feel like I've got a new calling that doesn't involve re-shelving books." Remus asked sheepishly.

"You only needed to ask." James said happily. He let out a breath of air, and looked at Sirius's pale face again. "You got this then?" He asked.

"100 percent" Remus assured.

"I made soup." Peter said setting a pot on the table and slipping into the seat next to his mother. The pot was full of a rich white soup and Peter ladled a bit into each of their bowls. His mother watched him the whole time. Peter settled into his seat and reached for his spoon but was stopped by his mother's warm hand covering his.

"I found your father." She smiled lopsidedly to him. Peter took a steadying breath, but his mother was already fumbling in her dressing gown pocket for something. Peter let her, trying to figure out how he was going to dispel her statements this time. "I found him." She said again, slipping a crumpled photograph out of her pocket. She pressed it onto the table and smoothed out it's crumpled corners. It was a black and white photo that had faded somewhat to brown. In it two people sat mooning at one another over a crowded dinner table. His mother looked young and happier than he had ever seen her. Next to her a round man sat in dark old clothing. He looked as bad a Remus, poor and threadbare, but delighted. Peter squinted at the pair, but no matter how hard he tried he couldn't reconcile the man in the photo with the man he knew to be his father. His mother had changed, but she was still the same person. This man was certainly not his father.

"Your father wants to meet you." His mother said with the same certain smile. Peter looked at her. She was definitely confused now.

"Mum, this isn't my father… I don't know who it is, but my father is Jacob Pettigrew." Peter explained shortly. He slipped the photo back across the table to his mother's bowl.

"No, no." His mother whispered into her empty bowl. She looked like a small child with her hair wild and her smile innocent. "I married Jacob to survive." Mary Pettigrew blinked down at the photo, then up to her son. "We survive Peter, you and I. We are survivors… Jacob isn't your father, but he was rich." She said in explanation. She pushed the photo back toward her son. Peter looked back down at the photograph before him. The man didn't look like Jacob Pettigrew, but now that he looked closer Peter could reconcile some things about this photo, a nose, eyebrows, ones he had seen several times before, in mirrors and pictures of himself. A struggle was rising in him. Squirming, Screaming.

"I love you so much." His mother went on over the sound of blood pulsing in his ears. She said it seriously, and there were tears on the edge of her voice. She was trying to look him in the eyes. Peter swallowed a lump in his throat and returned the gaze realizing she knew what he had been up to. His name hadn't been in the paper, but Remus's had, Moody's had and that was enough. Peter looked down at his bowl of steaming soup. The fear of loss mingled with everything else. He had watched Remus lose his mother that year, but that's what happened. If you picked a side, people around you died, just as innocents had on Lily's birthday and every week since. The names were stacking up in the newspaper clippings, in the notes, and lists the Order made each week. Sirius, one of the strongest people he knew had almost been added to the list. His mother was a survivor though- he put this together with the new information. She had given up a poor man she loved, the man who made her smile like he had never seen her do, for a Pettigrew who she knew had money and would provide for an unborn son.

His mother had sacrificed true love to survive. They were survivors, he and his mother, and he had almost died in a fight outside Azkaban prison, and for what? He truly didn't know anymore. All he knew was that only one side was going to come out alive. "We're survivors" his mother said again reaching out to stroke his cheek.

"Survivors." He reassured, finally understanding what she meant. They sat for a moment, then Peter resolutely picked up his spoon and pointed to his mother's bowl, "You should eat." He said quietly as he felt his life begin to shift.

January came around colder, and snowier than any of them had expected.

"Hurry up!" James called. He was bounding ahead hand-in-hand with Lily as they all traipsed through a foot of snow down a small quiet road. Churches and houses lined streets looking like a gingerbread town under a layer of white frosting. Remus and Sirius were holding up the back, both tired and cold, but it was Lily's birthday and James had pleaded with them to come for when he showed her her birthday present.

"You going to make it?" Remus asked when Sirius stopped again to pull in a lung full of stinging air.

"Yes." He grumbled back. It had been a month since he had come back to himself, and being treated like he was a fragile piece of glass was wearing on him. "It's just freezing out here," He added picking up his feet and trudging forward a little quicker than before. Remus watched his friend nervously and slowed his pace to match his friend's weary one. "Melinda says there won't even be much of a scar." Sirius added with a smile that was more in his eyes than his cold lips. He looked ready to show Remus the spot were the scars should be, but thought better of it when a frozen breeze passed by. "More'n I can say for you." He said instead, pointing a gloved hand to the three new thin, but deep, scratches now running over Remus's left eye and down his cheek.

Remus pulled a red callused hand out of his pocket and ran a few fingers down the parallel lines for probably the hundredth time since the full moon the week before. He sighed and replaced his cold hand in his pocket. "What can I say? Prongs and Wormtail are useless babysitters without you."

Sirius smirked. "I always told them I did all the heavy lifting, they never believed me. Not once."

Remus smiled back at Sirius, who wrapped an arm around his shoulder. "Don't you have a warmer coat?" He asked feeling his friend shiver under his arm. Remus shook his head and buried his face back into his fading Gryffindor scarf. Up ahead James had turned a corner and called to them again to hurry up.

After short walk down the next road leading out of the village James stopped suddenly in front of a warm brown cottage. Peter, Remus and Sirius caught up with Lily and James who were standing hand in hand in front of a wooden gate.

Once they were all gathered James nodded to himself, psyching himself up. "Okay." He encouraged.

"Okay!" Sirius called. Lily smiled to him then looked James in the eye, waiting as well.

"Lily Evens." He started, then stopped suddenly his face too busy breaking into a wide smile to continue. He looked around himself nervously then gave up, grabbed both of Lily's gloved hands and fell onto one knee in the deep snow. The marauders, knowing what was to come, were watching Lily closely. Peter snuck a camera out of an inside pocket of his coat. Sirius snuck his wand and a mini confetti cannon out of his, ready to shoot it off.

"James, we already-" Lily said giggling.

"Shut up Lily." Remus yelled, covering his mouth to pretend he hadn't spoken. Lily shot him a quick glare then immediately shut her mouth and smiled at James, inviting him to continue.

"So I thought you deserved this happening the right way." James said with a nervous cough. Lily mouthed "okay", letting him continue unimpeded. James gathered himself and started, as if reading off a script, "You take my breath away everyday." Sirius and Remus snorted to each other. This statement was one of the first thrown out in their brainstorming session. James didn't bother shooting them dirty looks, he was too busy staring at Lily's red hair sticking out the bottom of her hat, her green eyes sparkling despite the greyness of the day.

James dropped his right hand and reached back to his pockets looking for the ring, forgetting where he had stashed it. After an awkward few moments Sirius elbowed Remus in the side, and he immediately shook himself out of his stare remembering that they had given him the ring for safekeeping. He popped open his cloak and pulled a small box out of an inside pocket. He tossed it over to James who caught it gratefully, while Lily smiled bemusedly at them both.

James straightened himself, popped open the box and tried again. "This was my mother's, I had them send it out with their blessings." He told her leaving the script he and the marauders had written up behind. "This is your 19th birthday, you've made it a whole year in the Order. You've been mine for only a few months longer. You asked me to marry you in war, in fear and in a sudden realization of our mortality." James paused thinking through what he wanted to say. He could feel snow melting through the knee of his pants, but it didn't matter. "I want to ask you to marry me in peace times too. When we told you we knew about the Order, you said you wanted us to think about life. I've thought about it. I want my life to be with you. I want to grow old with you. I want to have kids with you and come home from a job to you, and…" James flustered. "I want you." James finished slowly rising to his feet. He reached out for Lily's hands and nodded to the house behind the wooden fence. Lily's face followed his nod. "I thought this would be a good start to proving that." He breathed out.

"A house?" Lily whispered a puff of breath visible in her astonishment.

"It's not bought yet, in case you don't like it. Remus helped me pick it out." James reassured. "He's been taking notes about what you hate about the apartment."

"James?"
"So?" James asked, bringing his right hand and her left up to their faces, the box with the ring between them. Lily didn't answer, but instead dropped his hand and reached around his neck pulling him in for a kiss that lasted so long James thought he could feel the extent of their forever on her lips.

At some point Sirius shot off the confetti cannon and told them to get a room. They pulled away, James's glasses fogged and Lily smiling radiantly. James fumbled with the ring box, while Lily worked to get her glove off. He slid the glistening ring onto her freezing fingers, then slipped his hand into hers and led her through the gate and into the house.

The others followed slowly behind.

"Remind me never to fall in love." Sirius whispered to Remus.

"It looks nice." Peter countered.

"I wasn't made for a happily ever after." Remus sniffed through the cold as the wooden gate of Godric's hollow snapped shut behind them.

Finite Incantatem