Disclaimer: Contrary to popular belief, I've yet to visit England.
We don't have to breed.
We could plant a house.
We could build a tree.
I don't even care.
We could have all three.
They really were much too desperate a group to be considered celebrating, Sirius thought with a shudder. He was eerily reminded of holidays with his family as a child and teenager. Gross.
He had wanted to get a sizable group together to usher in 1980; surviving into a new decade was something to take pride in, if he didn't say so himself. They had all been underground for months now, and Lily had been acting so grim of late that he thought getting the old crowd together would do everyone some good. But that damn Comic Muse apparently had other ideas.
Marlene had graciously declined the invitation, opting instead to spend the evening with some guy (probably Fabian Prewett). Frank and Alice had been wrangled into visiting his parents, which was probably just as well. The week before they had sent a coded letter announcing her pregnancy, which, Sirius was sure, was what had sent Lily into her spell of sullenness. It wasn't that she wasn't happy for them, because he knew she was. Merlin's pants, she was Lily. The announcement had most likely reminded her that, for all intents and purposes, they should have just celebrated their son's first Christmas. He knew he had certainly thought about it.
Then there was Remus. Remus, Remus, Remus. Sirius was at the end of his rope where he was concerned. They'd seen him once since James and Vanessa's wedding, at Halloween, and they'd gotten one pitifully vague note from him on Sirius' birthday. Nothing else. He hadn't even responded to the invitation for New Years'. Something was definitely up, even Lily was admitting it. Sirius had gone to Dumbledore, his standard procedure for incidences with troubled friends, but the old wizard had just shrugged him off. Dumbledore might have been the greatest wizard in modern history, but sometimes he could be pretty damn irritating.
So that was how James, Vanessa, and Peter had wound up huddled around his fireplace at eleven-thirty at night, waiting for the decade to die. Had Sirius not been so distracted by the Remus predicament he might have been suspicious of Wormtail as well. Though he checked in more regularly than Remus and made more of a point of being involved, he still disappeared for weeks on end and deflected any attempts to discuss his life outside the Order. But he was Peter; he got freaky like that sometimes.
Then there were James and Vanessa. They were probably the reason Lily was hiding in the kitchen. She had made a big show of getting flour on nearly every clean surface in there and then insisted on cleaning it up the Muggle way. Having met her sister, Sirius couldn't help but worry that this wasn't some sort of psychological regression.
It wasn't that the Potters were annoying. On the contrary, they were always polite and happy and eager for company. But that was the problem, they reminded Lily too much of the way she and Sirius had been not even a year earlier, before their lives had been shattered and pieced back together. That, and the whole doppelganger thing really weirded her out even now.
James and Peter were embroiled in a game of Exploding Snap when Lily finally came out of the kitchen. Vanessa watched them with fascination, jumping back slightly and pressing a hand to her diaphragm at every Boom! Sirius hoped Lily wouldn't try to clear the soot off their coffee table by hand.
She sat down next to him on the sofa, and he took her hand. It was cold as ice. Reaching back, Sirius tugged the afghan off the back of the sofa and draped it over his wife. She scooted closer and settled in under his arm.
James glanced up at them. "What took you so long, Lily?" he asked as he slapped a card down.
Lily shrugged. "Just wanted to do it the old-fashioned way, I guess."
He wrinkled his nose. "Why?"
"Nostalgia."
Vanessa leaned forward, eyeing the cards with hesitation. "I would have come and helped you if I had known you wouldn't be using magic, Lily."
"No, Vanessa, you're a guest. It's fine."
Vanessa sat back, pacified. Prongs and Wormtail carried on with their game. They, apparently, hadn't noticed the clippedness of Lily's voice, but Sirius had. He drew her closer.
"Did you send Moony that pudding?"
She nodded. Sirius shook his head. "You know, sometimes I wonder if he even gets those food packages," he said.
"This one came back."
Sirius' throat dried. "What?"
She looked up at him, her green eyes flickering in the firelight. "It came back. I sent it out when Wormtail got here, and it came back a couple of minutes ago. I put it in the oven."
Sirius ran his free hand over his face. "Shit."
Lily's brows furrowed. "Sir, I'm starting to worry. I know I said to give him time, but this is so unlike him."
"What're you two talking about?" James asked, looking up from the game again.
Sirius' eye flicked back to Lily before he said, "Something's going on with Moony. Have you noticed anything, Prongs?"
He shook his head. "No, nothing out of the ordinary."
"Really, because we've only heard from him about four times in the last six months."
James sat his cards down, careful not to trigger an explosion. "Now that you mention it—"
"I noticed," Peter piped up. "I haven't heard from him hardly at all, either. And he's been really quiet at meetings, too. He just sits back in the corner."
"Have you gone to Dumbledore?" James asked.
Sirius' face darkened. "Of course. He said it was probably nothing and not to worry about it."
"Well, that's—"
"Infuriating?" Sirius spat.
Lily patted his hand, "If Dumbledore won't say, then it's probably something between him and Remus. Maybe he's got Remus doing something for him."
"Something he wouldn't tell his best friends about?" Peter offered incredulously.
Sirius rested his arm on his knee and his head on his hand. "This is ridiculous. As soon as the holidays are over, I'm going to suggest a meeting just to make sure everyone's okay. You know: show up, say hi, let us all know you haven't vanished from the face of the planet."
James and Peter nodded. Lily shifted beside him. "You know, Dumbledore's seriously considering officially declaring Caradoc missing. It's been a month and a half and nothing."
At that, James slapped his hand of cards down (Lily winced at the scorch mark) and sat back up on the loveseat beside his wife, who took his hand. Peter looked around nervously. Sirius turned to Lily. "You said you put Remus' pudding in the oven?"
"Yes."
"Do me a favor: Go take it out back and destroy it."
"Really now, Sirius."
"I'm being serious here, Lily."
"It's freezing out."
Sirius sighed and eased up from the sofa. "Fine, then I'll do it."
As Lily opened her mouth to protest, the clock struck twelve. Midnight. Well, the decade was over. Sirius could hear the pop, pop, pop of firecrackers in the distance as the Muggles celebrated. James seized Vanessa and kissed her full on the mouth. Peter raised his wand and made a noise that was supposed to sound, as far as Sirius could tell, like a kazoo. Sirius turned back to Lily, who was staring up at him thoughtfully. He leaned down and gave her a small kiss.
She took his face in her hands. "Calm down, okay."
James cleared his throat across from them. Sirius turned around. "We've got some news," James said, putting his arm around the perpetually smiling Vanessa.
A chill spiked through Sirius' spine, though he didn't know why. He looked at James expectantly; his friend seemed to enjoy building the suspense.
"Yes?" Peter finally asked.
Quiet, quiet Vanessa smiled even wider. "We're pregnant!" James all but shouted.
Sirius went numb. It was Frank and Alice all over again. He knew that somewhere inside him he was delighted for them, but he couldn't feel it just yet. Luckily, Peter immediately accosted the Potters with congratulations, distracting them from Sirius' awkwardness. After mentally slapping himself, Sirius congratulated them as well.
He turned to Lily, who was sitting stone still where he had left her. Her face was white, whiter than normal, and he was shocked she hadn't cracked a knuckle for how tightly she had clenched her hands together. Lily must have noticed him staring because she smiled tightly and offered the Potters her short congratulations. Then she shot up from the sofa, the afghan sliding from her shoulders.
"I'll get some drinks, shall I?" she said, taking measured steps into the kitchen.
Sirius watched her go and turned back to the other three; they sat very still and precariously quietly, gawking at the kitchen door. A worried crease set in between Vanessa's eyebrows, just the same as Lily. Then, as a unit, they swung their heads around to gawk at him. Nope, he wasn't going to explain it to them.
"I'll go help her." They didn't say a word.
He found her hunched on the floor by the cabinets, hand over her mouth to muffle the choking sobs, and for a flash of a second he could see the sixteen-year-old girl that had sat with him up at the Astronomy Tower until three in the morning.
"Oh, Lily." He crossed the kitchen and crouched down beside her, pulling her to his chest and holding her tight as she tried to catch her breath. Sirius could hear the guests talking in the living room; James was particularly loud, probably trying to drown out any noise Lily might be making. Good man, that Prongs.
"I'm sorry," Lily hiccupped. "I'm so, so sorry."
"S'alright," he whispered. "I know, Lily." He shuffled her so that she was sitting between his legs. She muffled her face against his jumper.
"I can't – hic – I just – hic – don't know – hic – not fair – hic."
"No, Lily, no." He pressed her face again his chest, as he could keep the pain at bay if he could only hold her close enough. He mumbled nonsense, anything that might help. "You're okay. Everything's okay. It'll be alright, you'll see."
"I know – hic – I know should – hic – I just – hic – so sorry – hic." And then her voice evaporated as she gave up on controlling her sobs.
Sirius sat and held her, utterly miserable. He was glad he couldn't see Lily's eyes; that would be unbearable. The firecrackers were banging again outside, though this time Sirius could hear faint voices laughing and shouting and enjoying life. Young people like him, the only difference being that they didn't have to worry about murderers or miscarriages or manic depression. No, it was just him, sitting on the floor of his kitchen, dying slowly under the weight of it all.
Well, one thing certain; the eighties were going to be hell.
So there we go. Another chapter. And here I thought it would take me about a month to get this thing down. I told ya'll things would be getting darker. If you'll recall, there's a scene in Goblet of Fire in which Sirius explains to the kiddos what life was like when the war took a turn for the worse. That's going to be sort of the theme (mood? atmosphere?) for this last quarter of the story.
The chapter title is Breed by Nirvana.
I've noticed something; the more often I update, the more reviews the lot of you leave. So I suppose it good for both of us that I've finished the next chapter and I'm knee deep in the one after. Expect chapter 30 to be up around this time next week. Who knows? I might get this sucker done by Christmas. Just don't hold me to that.
Til Next Time!
