A/N: Happy Friday (to those of you that get the weekend off)! This was a long week, and I am looking forward to sleeping and working on my Halloween costume this weekend. Hope you guys are doing well, leave me a review and let me know how you liked this chapter!
AkariWolfPrincess, Thanks for your review! Poor Sirius, indeed. ForeverACharmedOne, I like to think that the cookie cutters were a collaboration between Newt and a certain baker, haha. Thank you for the long review~
"Service with a smile, Dear."
Chapter Twenty-Five: Familiar Ground
It was quiet at the Potter Estate. James sat in the shed in the back yard, carefully tracing pencil lines on a roll of parchment with ink, glancing up every few moments as Sirius cursed at his beloved motorbike, which still refused to start up.
"I don't understand!" Sirius growled, grabbing for the manual and flipping through it again. "Everything matches the diagram!"
"Battery?" James asked, thinking back to the very basic lesson on muggle vehicles they had gone through in muggle studies.
"I charged it!" Sirius said, checking the connection. "The wires are in the right spot, I tightened everything…"
"Hmm…" James considered, lightly blowing on his ink lines to dry them. "Petrol?"
Sirius' face fell; he made a fist and slammed his head into it. "Petrol! Fucking petrol! The tank had a leak over the summer I had to fix, that's right."
"So there's just none in there?" James said.
"Not a drop," Sirius sighed.
"Well, we can go to a muggle town and get some tomorrow," James nodded.
"I need muggle money, I ran out," Sirius said.
"Gringotts, too, then," James said.
"I wish they had those machines muggles have where you put in a card and you can take money out of your account without going to the actual bank," Sirius said.
"My mum says a lot of muggle stuff's been suggested, but the wankers making the decisions are afraid of having their money involved with anything remotely muggle," James said.
"It's so stupid, muggles are just better at some things," Sirius said. "They make better music, they have those bank machines."
"They have those ring-y things! You know, Remus has one, his mum uses it to talk to people," James said, racking his brain for the name. They had a test on it not long ago in class.
"Telephones!" Sirius said. "They're cool, yeah, faster than owls. And their films, and that… box thing."
"TB, no… TV?" James said.
"TV!" Sirius said. "And this damn motorcycle, if I can get it to work."
"You'll figure it out," James said. "Eventually. Probably."
"Well, petrol will at least be a good start," Sirius said.
Euphemia appeared in the doorway of the shed, left open in case Sirius managed to be successful in starting his bike. Her cloak was wrapped tightly around herself, her wand lighting her way.
"Aren't you boys cold with the door open?" she said.
"Not really," James said, gesturing to a jar filled with warm, blue flames on the table.
"Well, come inside, your father said dinner's nearly ready," Euphemia said. Sirius and James gathered together the ink and parchment, along with their jar of fire before following her back to the house.
"Any luck with your motorbike?" Euphemia asked as they entered the kitchen.
"Not yet, I need petrol," Sirius said.
"Is that difficult to get?"
"No, there's stations all over," James said.
"Oh, good," Euphemia said as Fleamont levitated plates and silverware from the cupboard to the table. "Now, go wash up, you're both covered in… ink? Grease?"
"Yes, both of those things," James said, glancing at his ink-stained fingers as he and Sirius walked off to do as his mother asked.
"If I were any greasier, I'd turn into Snivellus right before your eyes," Sirius said, he and James snickering.
"The world doesn't need the one it's got," James said. "Imagine two."
James set down the parchment and inks in his room, examining the half-finished cover of the map critically for a moment.
"It looks good," Sirius nodded.
"Yeah?"
"I tell you when your drawings look wonky," Sirius said.
It was true. James had attempted to draw one of the girls in Sirius' magazines the other day, only for him to lean over and declare that James had drawn her breasts lopsided.
Impressing Sirius meant he actually did a decent job.
"I think I'll put red ink there, around where we'll put 'The Marauder's Map,'" James said, pointing to the center of his drawing. "Our blood will blend in nice with it."
"Blood?" Sirius said as he headed to the bathroom they shared to finally actually wash up.
"Yeah, that's how you get those insults to work. Got to put a piece of ourselves in the map," James grinned. "Drop of blood from each of us."
"That's the kind of shit I lead MacPherson to believe I do as a worshiper of the devil," Sirius said. "And I am so into it."
I was quiet at the Evans residence, soft Christmas music playing as Mr. Evans fiddled with a model airplane and Mrs. Evans worked on needlepoint. The tree was lit and decorated. The fire was crackling.
There were four stockings above the fireplace, labeled "Fern," "Dudley," "Petunia," and "Lily."
Lily frowned every time she saw her sister's stocking, as Petunia would be absent this holiday, opting to spend it with her boyfriend's family.
She supposed she preferred the stocking being present rather than it being as absent as her sister. Although, either way, she was reminded of the fact that she hasn't seen Petunia since late June.
If nothing else, they wouldn't fight this Christmas. Petunia wouldn't mutter the word "freak" and give her the cold shoulder every time Hogwarts came up.
But there would be no laughing in embarrassment with her as their parents tunelessly sang Baby, It's Cold Outside to each other. Lily wouldn't have a chance to throw snowballs at Petunia throughout the visit until the older girl finally got fed up and an entire war was waged in their front yard.
"I'm, um. I'm going for a walk," Lily said, pulling on her coat. "See the decorations, clear my head."
"Be careful, Dear," Mrs. Evans said.
"Got your wand?" Mr. Evans said.
"Dudley! You know she's not allowed."
"Damn the law, if someone tries to hurt you, turn them into a frog," Mr. Evans nodded.
"Frog's a bit cliché, maybe I'll go with a flea," Lily said. She forced a smile and pecked the side of his forehead before stepping outside.
It was snowing lightly, Lily's breath fogging before her as she stuffed her hands in her pockets and started down the street, going nowhere in particular. Occasionally a car would pass, the driver waving as they went. She would force a smile and wave back, this town small enough that everyone waved.
It was so quiet.
She continued on, having arrived at Severus' street out of habit. She recalled riding her bike here when she was little, jumping off of it rather than stopping once she reached the Snapes' poorly-kept lawn and running across it to ring the bell and ask if Severus could come out to play.
Lily had done that so many times, it almost felt strange walking on this street rather than riding her mint-green bike with a basket in the front and streamers from the handles. Severus didn't have a bike, so he would balance on the back of hers, gripping her shoulders as she sped around the neighborhood and to the candy shop and to the park.
She wondered if they still had that bike somewhere.
She paused before the Snape residence, one of the few homes not decorated for the holiday. The lights were on inside, and when the girl listened carefully, she could hear the familiar, muffled sound of Tobias shouting. She couldn't make out quite what he was saying, and supposed that was for the best.
There was a reason that Severus was the one ringing her doorbell far more often than Lily ventured here as they got older. His parents used to be far more discreet. Now they were beyond the point of caring what the neighbors thought.
At least Severus was far away from it now, she supposed, as she continued walking, frown fixed to her face.
It wasn't long before she reached the park that she and Petunia would race to as children. Reaching forward, she brushed snow from the seat of her favorite swing before taking a seat. She wrapped her fingers around the cold chains and swayed half-heartedly, staring at her boots.
Petunia should be here. Severus should be here. She yearned for laughing so hard her sides hurt. She longed for competitions with Petunia to see who could swing higher.
She remembered trying to teach Severus to ice skate and the scowl he gave her when she presented him with a pair of Petunia's old skates to use. She smiled slightly at the memory of how distressed he'd been to find that they fit perfectly.
She remembered the year they sat by the fire as her father attempted to show Severus how to mend his ratty winter coat, having learned to sew in the army (where he never saw combat, but rather did quite a bit of paperwork). Severus said once he got to Hogwarts, he could just magic it fixed, and Mr. Evans simply smiled and said that a needle and thread should do in the meantime.
He still wore that coat, her father's stitches and patches still present. He'd grown into it now.
Lily knew she wasn't completely alone. She still had her parents, and it was nice having tea with her mother while her father worked on his models.
Still, she felt lonely. She wasn't sure why she missed Petunia so strongly, as it was clear from the previous Christmas that her older sister cared little for catching up or sparing her much time at all. Petunia had spent all her time on the phone, gossiping with her friends who, Lily later learned, had no idea Petunia even had a sister until the family had run into some of them at a picnic over the summer.
Surely this year would be no different if Petunia was present, and Lily's eyes teared up at the thought. She missed Petunia, the Petunia she knew when she was small, who kissed Lily's scraped elbow to make it better because Lily couldn't reach. She missed the Petunia that devised plans with her to steak cookies before dinner. She missed the Petunia who spent ages decorating her room and cooking pretend food for fancy pretend dinner parties with the prime minister, played by her most favorite stuffed giraffe. She missed the Petunia that snuck into her mother's vanity with her to smear makeup on their faces for this pretend dinner party.
The air felt even colder against her face as tears rolled down her cheeks, as she thought of all this, as she thought about the time when her sister liked her.
"What was I supposed to do, Tuney, not go to school?" Lily mumbled under her breath as she brushed her tears away. "Should I have passed up the chance to learn magic? I was eleven years old."
If that weren't enough, she hadn't even had a chance to say goodbye to Severus before boarding the train. She had given his Christmas gift to Dumbledore, asking if he would make sure it got to him, and the old man agreed.
She hated that the last thing she had said to him had been chastising during Slughorn's party. She didn't regret what she said, but she had hoped they would get to talk the next morning.
It had been so long since they properly spent time together. She feared the Severus she once knew would soon be long gone, along with the Petunia she once knew. Lily wiped at her eyes again, wondering what she could have done, what she should have done differently.
What if it kept happening? What if Marlene, Emmeline, and Dorcas all moved on to other things and hardly acknowledged she existed?
She didn't want that. She wanted Petunia back, she wanted Severus to stop avoiding her eye around his housemates. What did she have to do? Why was she so easy to replace with shallow girls glued to their telephones and sneering Slytherins determined to live up to the worst of their house stereotypes?
"Oh my gosh, I am so drunk!" came a giggling voice from a ways away, so shrill it cut right through Lily's thoughts.
Lily stood from the swing, creeping toward the nearby pine trees. She carefully moved the branches until she could see a small group of teenagers at a picnic table, passing a bottle of clear liquid around. A thin brunette danced sensually atop the table.
"You've had two drinks, lightweight!" one of the boys laughed before taking a swig from the bottle.
Lily recognized them. The boy with the bottle was Joey, a boy that used to eat crayons in primary school. The girl on the table was Tiffany, who was Lily's best friend at one point, then suddenly joined in with the taunting chants of "Ginger Jinx!" one week after meeting the new girl, Margaret.
Margaret was there too, seated beside Joey. She had grown into her nose since primary school. The last in the group was Benjamin, who cried when they were seven and Lily beat him in a race across the playground, claiming she had cheated somehow.
Benjamin still looked the same, just taller. Joey's jaw had gotten quite defined and he would almost be attractive if she could get the image of crayon in his teeth out of her head. Puberty had been kind to Margaret, not so much Tiffany, whose cheeks were speckled with acne scars and whose teeth were shimmering with painful-looking braces.
Lily hadn't thought of any of them in ages. The last time she saw Tiffany had been the summer after third year. The other girl acted as though she had never ditched Lily and called her names, hugging her and being friendly as ever. Lily had naively thought she had changed and attempted to spend time with her and Margaret at the mall.
It had ended with Lily tearfully catching the bus home by herself. People never changed the way you hoped they would. Some habits died hard, and taunting Lily's hair, clothes, and sex life (or lack thereof) had just been too tempting for them to resist.
And here Lily stood, an outsider looking in as this group of friends laughed, another sign that some things didn't change. She slowly set the branches back in place, wondering if there had ever been a time when she actually fit into the Muggle world.
She walked off, hoping her tears would dry before she got home, unwilling to explain all of this to her mother right now.
It was loud in the McKinnon household. Then again, it hadn't been very quiet ever since the birth of their second child, and now all five were home.
"So then he flies over to me and says, 'Hey, I'm pretty sure my arm isn't broken, it's just dislocated, you want to pop it back in for me?'" Marlene was saying to her older sister, Mallory, still in her healing uniform as the two sat on the couch.
Their parents were in the kitchen arguing about what the "proper" way to cook stuffing was, and had somehow dragged in Miles to mediate, who didn't know the first thing about stuffing. Max and Michael would occasionally yell at them to shut up as they were attempting to listen to a hockey match they had picked up on the radio, and took turns arguing over what exactly the rules were.
"Oh, Mar, you didn't?" Mallory cringed.
"We were in the middle of a close match and he's our best chaser!" Marlene said. "So, yeah, I kinda just…"
Marlene mimed shoving James' arm back into place. Mallory shook her head. "And he kept playing?"
"Yep. And we won, for the record."
"He could have really messed up his arm," Mallory sighed, shaking her head.
"For what it's worth, Promfrey said I put it right back into place and there was no fracture," said Marlene.
"He should be counting his blessings that us McKinnons are just natural healers," Mallory said.
"Didn't Max put you in a headlock when you first got here?" Marlene grinned.
"There are exceptions to every rule," Mallory said, glancing Max's way. Their brother made a face at them, to which they responded by sticking out their tongues and crossing their eyes.
"Besides," Marlene said as Max returned his attention to the radio and she and Mallory relaxed their faces, "James is probably not counting his blessings in regards to me either way."
"Oh no, did you break someone else's heart?" Mallory said in hushed tones.
"Oooh, does Mar-Mar have a crush on the Quidditch captain?" Max cooed.
"James and Marlene, sitting in a tree," Michael sang.
"I do not have a crush on James, gross," Marlene said, gagging slightly. She took one of the throw pillows from the couch and pelted it at Michael's head.
"So defensive! What will Lily think of this crush?" Michael said, effortlessly catching the pillow.
"Lily?" Max asked.
"James has been trying to go out with her basically since we broke up," Michael shrugged. "You're not his type, Mar."
"Well yeah, if he's into Lily than he clearly has standards, like having a clue and not wearing eyeshadow that makes you look like you rubbed crayon all over your face," Max nodded.
"Shall we smother them?" Mallory asked Marlene, grabbing another throw pillow.
"I thought we were healers?" Marlene said, taking a pillow as well.
"Any good healer knows that some people just can't be helped, now, go!" Mallory said. She and Marlene jumped over the coffee table as Max and Michael scrambled to their feet in an attempt to escape their sisters.
Miles walked into the living room a moment later, a blur of blonde hair rushing by him as his sisters attacked his brothers with pillows, Marlene finally managing to tackle Max to the ground.
"You know what? I'm going back to the stuffing argument," Miles mumbled to himself, turning his heel and returning to the kitchen.
It was loud in the restaurant. The Christmas holiday was always busy at Diane's, full of the usuals and an inflated number of tourists. Wait staff glided around each other on skates with the skills of those that had seen their fair share of holiday rushes and had balanced multiple trays on those dreadful wheels before.
Table four had barely been cleared before another couple settled into the booth for dinner. Emmeline skated over, pen and pad at the ready, her memorized script at her tongue.
"Welcome to Diane's! My name is Emmeline, I'll be your server this evening. Can I start you off with something to drink?"
Glancing up from her notepad, she paused slightly, watching the blonde woman eye her boyfriend with admiration.
Emmeline doubted Petunia would remember her. She had only met the older girl a handful of times and always briefly. But she knew it was her, it had to be.
Petunia and Lily didn't greatly resemble each other, but if Emmeline really looked, she found a similar nose, a similar complexion. Petunia's face shape was not all that different than Lily's, except perhaps that it was ever so slightly longer, stretched a bit. Petunia in general was stretched a bit, much taller than Lily.
Emmeline wasn't sure if Petunia's neck really was much longer than Lily's, or if Lily's haircut just hid it a bit better.
Petunia's eyes were blue, Lily's were a peculiar shade of green that was commented on rather frequently.
Lily definitely radiated a sort of warmth, and even as Petunia smiled lovingly at the plump man across from her, there was something about her that was just not approachable.
Emmeline briefly wondered if such comparisons were made when people met her and her mother.
"Are you listening?" the mustachioed man asked. When Emmeline's curious eyes darted from Petunia to him, she found nothing short of criticism in his face.
"A cream soda and a water," Emmeline said, scribbling on her note pad. "Coming right up."
The girl skated off to get their drinks, casting glances back their way as she did so.
Petunia didn't seem to be talking much, lightly stroking her boyfriend's large hand with her thin fingers, nodding along as he spoke with confidence.
They looked like a couple from a cartoon, she decided, with his stout frame and her elongated one. There was something about his posture, something about the way he talked, that made her think of characters designed to be villains, designed to be unlikable.
She returned to the table, gently setting their drinks down as he continued speaking.
"Thankfully Marge finally got rid of that hippie she was dating last year so we won't have to deal with him putting ideas of equal pay and such into her head this year. His hair was to his chin, a complete slacker, you should have seen it."
"I've never seen a single man look attractive with long hair," Petunia said. Emmeline could remember Lily mentioning taking a poster of David Cassidy from Petunia's room the summer before second year, featuring his shoulder-length locks.
"Hoodlums, the lot of them, it seems beyond their grasp to just get a job instead of sitting around complaining. The state of the world is just fine," he continued, sliding his glass closer to him.
"Are you ready to order?" Emmeline asked.
"Service with a smile, Dear," he said, gesturing to Emmeline's mouth. Emmeline took a deep breath, wondering why exactly it mattered whether she was smiling while taking his dinner order and why it bothered him so much.
This was not the first time she had gotten this comment.
She forced a smile, making a note to call Lily later to relay what she could about this encounter, and asked again, "Are you ready to order?"
It was quiet in the Pettigrew's kitchen, Peter's mother humming tunelessly as she prepared dinner and Peter played a game of wizard chess against himself. The old grandfather clock that used to actually belong to Peter's grandfather ticked loudly from the next room, and Peter's eyes wandered from the chess board to the pictures on the wall of various family members.
"Mum?" he said.
"Yes, my love?" Susanne replied.
"What was dad like?" Peter asked, the man very obviously absent from the pictures. "You never really told me much. I know he's a muggle and he left, but…"
Susanne was silent for a moment, very slowly and meticulously chopping an onion by hand rather than with the wand sticking out of her apron pocket.
"Your father knew what he could handle, and when it became clear that an infant that showed signs of magic very early was not one of those things, he left," she said finally, turning to glance back at her son. "That's really all you need to know."
"But I mean, what was he like before that?" Peter asked.
"I thought he was loyal and kind, I thought he was a good man, but obviously none of that was true," she said, returning her attention to her cutting board. "Because no good man leaves a woman to raise a baby all by herself. We're just lucky my mother took us in until I could afford to get us this place. The only good thing that I ever got out of that man was you, my love."
"Okay," Peter nodded, glancing back at the photos again with a frown.
It was loud in the Meadowes living room as Dorcas' father and uncle shouted at a hockey match on the television and kept arguing about whether certain things were legal or not. Dorcas and Josh could hear them very well in the basement, where they had set up a game of wizard chess.
"So then he tried to mark me down for not writing more about the plot of the book, and I had to fight him about it because he never mentioned that in the rough draft I turned in," Josh said.
"Did he end up raising your grade?" Dorcas asked. "Pawn to F-5."
"Yeah. But the whole thing was so stupid anyway. You're lucky you don't have to do book reports at Hogwarts," Josh sighed. "Pawn to F-4."
"Yeah but you're less likely to be physically harmed by your schoolwork. Emmeline nearly set herself on fire in potions class two weeks ago," Dorcas shrugged.
"Oh, someone set the chemistry lab on fire in October," Josh said. "And by 'someone' I mean Rocco."
"Rocco would," Dorcas said with a roll of the eye. "Rook to A-7. How's he doing, still alive?"
"Yep, he got suspended for the fire but he got back to school in plenty of time to almost set the chemistry lab on fire again before the holiday," Josh said. "How's the coven?"
Dorcas snorted, still not quite over the fact that her brother referred to her group of friends as that. "They're fine, when they're not having some kind of breakdown over a boy or something. I try to be supportive, but man, I don't get why they're so hung up on some of these boys."
"Are they all prats or something? Girls often like prats, I'm finding. Bishop to H-3."
"No, they're fine people to hang out with, I like them. Just not like that, you know? They don't do it for me," Dorcas shrugged. "Knight to C-6. And it's hard to think about boys with everything else going on. Exams and attacks…"
"Attacks?" Josh said, looking a mix of intrigue and concern.
"You can't tell mum and dad, okay? They'll just worry and there's nothing they can do," Dorcas said, glancing toward the staircase to make sure no one was eavesdropping. "But there's this… cult, I guess? Of dark wizards that hate everything muggle and think everyone should be 'pureblood' which basically means you don't have any muggle relatives."
"So they're like Wizard Nazis?" Josh said.
"Kind of, yeah. Thankfully their leader isn't in any real position of power, but there's been attacks every couple of weeks on muggles and muggle sympathizers," Dorcas said.
"Why are they so against muggles, then?" Josh asked, the chess game forgotten now.
"Because muggles and muggleborns are seen as less-than. Some of them actually think that muggleborns can only do magic because they stole it from someone else," Dorcas said with a roll of the eye.
"You've been making weird shit happen at least since you were three," Josh said.
"I know! And Lily's one of the top students in our class and she's a muggleborn. It has nothing to do with anything. But the more attacks there are outside of school, the shittier people inside school are," Dorcas said. "Like it justifies their shitty beliefs."
"People just want to feel superior to others without actually working at anything," Josh said. "Are you safe there, though?"
"At Hogwarts? Yeah, everyone's all talk," Dorcas said. "Don't stay up late worrying about me, Kid, you know my coven can hold our own."
It was quiet at the Lupin house. Remus skimmed through a comic book as his mother checked on a roast in the oven and his father fiddled with the dials on the radio, listening to no more than two seconds of each station before changing it again, indecisive.
"Hope!" Lyall said with a grin as Bing Crosby's voice crooned from a station he landed on.
"Our song!" she said, turning from the oven in time to see her husband bow to her dramatically and offer his hand. She giggled like a schoolgirl and took is hand, his other snaking around her waist as they effortlessly began to sway about the kitchen.
Remus watched with a small smile as his parents danced, having obviously been through these motions a number of times. They never once faltered, no one ever stepped on anyone's foot. Their eyes were fixed on each other's, mouthing along to the words as they went, like nothing else in the world existed or mattered.
It was nice.
He had been unable to stop thinking about what his friends had said on the train, and now, as his mother twirled while holding his father's hand, it was increasingly difficult not to think about their comments.
"Okay, hypothetically, you're not a giant prat that's afraid of dating."
"I'm not afraid of it."
"If you dated, would you date Vance?"
"I—I don't know, it's irrelevant!"
"It's very relevant!"
Remus had never thought about Emmeline that way before. She was a friend, a nice girl from class, someone to trade and talk about comic books with.
So why was it so easy to picture taking her hand in his and attempting to waltz to a song laced with static on the radio?
Emmeline with her bright blue eyes and lovely singing voice, her cute smile and the mole by the corner of her mouth.
Was she really sitting with her guitar and writing love songs? About him? It was difficult to wrap his mind around.
But he'd found himself thinking about sitting with her and reading comics, listening to music, her head on his shoulder. That wasn't difficult to wrap his mind around at all.
What was there not to like about her? Had he simply been unable to see what was right in front of him due to his apprehension about dating? Sirius was right; he was terrified of it.
But he wasn't terrified of Emmeline. He felt at ease around her. Maybe his friends were on to something?
The song came to an end and his parents shared a kiss, causing Remus to glance back down at his comic book with a slight frown. He was actually the only one of the Marauders that hadn't kissed a girl yet.
Sirius had kissed Brenda Fitzgerald from Hufflepuff in their first year, in what had been a week-long, laughable excuse for a "relationship."
James had kissed Marlene in their second year on a dare, throughout which Marlene could hardly stop giggling.
Peter and Gwen Watson had gotten particularly drunk after a Quidditch match and snogged in the corner of the common room the previous year. They occasionally joked about it now.
And Remus? A whole lot of nothing. He didn't date, so he certainly didn't go around kissing girls.
The image of Emmeline's red-painted lips was unusually clear in his mind.
He was afraid of dating, of getting close to someone that way, but it didn't mean that he didn't want to kiss someone, to feel the way that James felt when he'd go on and on about Lily, to smile the way his parents smiled when their song came on.
Would Emmeline be okay with the whole lycanthropy thing?
You don't even know if she likes you or if Padfoot and Prongs were just being idiots, Remus reminded himself, trying to shake all thoughts of the Ravenclaw from his mind.
It wasn't working.