When I woke up the next morning, I couldn't bring myself to crawl out of bed and go downstairs. The last way I wanted to start my morning was by listening to Vernon complain all through breakfast before I dropped him off at the car. By the time I came stumbling downstairs in the morning, my face had settled into a scowl. But when I stepped onto the foyer, the place was blessedly quiet, and most importantly, devoid of Vernon.

Vernon's coat was nowhere to be found by the door and his voice wasn't ringing in the distance. I was about to go looking in the kitchen when there was a knock on the door.

I opened it to find James standing on the threshold, his cheeks pink from the bitter cold outside, a scarf wrapped around his neck and toque pulled over his unruly hair. I tried not to think about how soft he looked and instead pulled him indoors.

"What are you doing here so early?" I asked him, dusting the snow off of his hat and shutting the door behind him.

"Dropped Vernon off at his car this morning so you wouldn't have to," James replied, his smile as sunny as ever. I was hit with the sudden desire to touch him and clenched my hands into fists to stop myself from reaching for him.

"That's so sweet of you to do," I said as I took the coat from his hands and hung it up. "You didn't have to do that."

"I know, but I figured I would save you the trouble of having to be around him longer than you wanted to be," James replied as he pulled off his hat. It was then that I saw the scratches and redness on his knuckles.

"What happened?" I asked James, frowning. I grabbed his hand and ran my fingers lightly over his knuckles.

"Nothing, don't worry about it," he said as he slid his hand out of mine and into his back pocket.

"That's not nothing," I insisted, tugging at his arm. "What did you do to your hand?"

"It's nothing, just slipped and fell and scraped my hand on the bricks-"

"Did you punch Vernon?" I interrupted. I caught the flush spreading across his cheeks and the guilty look in his eyes as he turned away from me. Slipped and fell my arse. James was many things but a man with no coordination was not one of them.

"He made some very...unkind comments about Sirius...and about you," he added quietly, looking up at me from under his lashes. "Are you mad at me?"

Why on earth he thought I would be disappointed about Vernon getting what he deserved, I couldn't say. I'd been itching to take a swing at the man myself for years.

"No, of course not, Petunia, maybe, but not me," I replied and took his hand in mine. "Let's get this cleaned up and healed."

We went to the kitchen and I sat him down on a wooden stool. I filled a bowl with warm water as the elves worked around me and then sat back in front of James with a small hand towel. I soaked the towel in the warm water and then dabbed at James's hand and cleaned off the dried blood.

He said nothing as I dabbed away but I could feel James's gaze heavy on me. I knew the look he'd have on his face, it was the same one he got when he was trying to understand a particularly difficult bit of wandwork. I was too afraid to look up and make eye contact. I felt like I was going to combust if I held his gaze for too long. When he was sitting this close to me, it was hard for me to focus on anything that wasn't him. I kept playing on loop how close he'd been last night, his lips by my ear, his breath on my neck.

I shivered at the thought.

I grabbed my wand and with a wave over James's knuckles, the little cuts and bruises on his hand faded from sight and his hand was as good as new.

"There you go," I said, and without looking at James, grabbed the bowl and towel and walked to the sink.

"How's Petunia?" James asked, his voice just a bit deeper than before. Normally, Petunia's feelings were written on her face, but last night, when the dinner had ended with Sirius's abrupt departure, I wasn't certain what her thoughts were. From her slumped shoulders and her dragging feet, she seemed exhausted.

"I don't know, she just seemed really tired last night," I said turning around. I rested my hands on the edge of the kitchen counter and leaned back.

"How's Sirius?" I asked instead.

"I haven't seen him since last night. I don't know if he's still asleep or hiding somewhere in the house," James replied with a sigh. "I don't think he wants to talk about it though."

"I still think we should go check on him," I replied. "Come on, let me put on something a little warmer and we'll go drag him from bed."

James followed me out of the kitchen and up the stairs to my room. I dug around my suitcase, looking for a warm sweater as James lounged on my bed and stared at the ceiling.

"James would you mind closing your eyes while I get changed?" I asked him, clutching my clothes to my chest.

"Oh, right," he said, and slapped his hands over his eyes. He nodded towards me, "I'm ready."

I rolled my eyes but changed in and out of my clothes as quickly as possible. "Alright, it's all clear for you now."

"Where's the rest of your family?" James asked as we made our way back to his house.

"I don't know, I guess they're sleeping in," I said with a shrug as I lowered my head against the wind that was blowing. "James, why do we never Apparate to your house, it would be a lot warmer, and faster, than walking."

"We have wards up to prevent it, can't trust anyone these days. It's just better if no one besides us can get in and out," he said to me. And just like that, I was reminded of what Sirius had said last night about his cousin.

"Do you think Sirius meant what he said about Bellatrix last night?" I asked James.

"Oh definitely, she's a bit of a psychopath, gets off on torturing and killing Muggles. She was a couple of years older than us, don't know if you'd noticed her," James said. I couldn't say that I had. In general, I tried to avoid paying attention to the shadier Slytherin's. I shook my head no in response.

"Well anyway, she's joined Voldemort now, to the surprise of no one, Walburga was, in fact, thrilled," James said.

"That's pretty messed up, just one more person I have to watch my back over," I said. When we'd made it to the Potter's place, James led us inside and he and I trudged up to Sirius's room.

When we got there, we found no sign of Sirius anywhere, he wasn't huddled under his blankets as both of us suspected, any signs that Sirius had slept in his bed were gone.

"Where else could he be?" I asked James as I turned around.

"We could try the library, but I'd put my money on the solarium," James said, ticking them off on his fingers.

"After you," I said. James grabbed my hand and led me out of the room. Even back out in the hallway, when we were walking side by side, he didn't let go, instead absentmindedly swinging our hands back and forth as we walked through the silent house. I enjoyed the feel of his rough hand against mine far too much to protest. It was no big deal, this is what friends did when they were comfortable around each other. They held hands. Sometimes one person's heart raced at the contact and that was normal. I could have arrhythmia for all I knew.

Sirius was not in the Potter's vast library, but we did find him in the solarium with a book in his hand, and Petunia for company of all people. She sat in a nearby chair, a book in her hand and a cup of tea nearby, quietly reading.

"This feels like an episode of the Twilight Zone," I muttered to James as I watched the two of them.

"What?"

"Nevermind, muggle reference," I said.

"What are you two doing here?" James asked as he plopped himself down onto an empty seat.

"Enjoying some peace and quiet," Sirius said, closing his book with a quiet snap. James and I stood awkwardly, unsure what to say or do. Without thinking, I moved closer to James, seeking his warmth for comfort. The hand he placed on the small of my back soothed some of the anxiety I was feeling.

"So, do you want to talk about what happened last night?" I asked quietly. Sirius leaned back and looked up at the ceiling for so long I thought he was never going to answer my question. I almost decided to change the subject before he said anything.

"I suppose we might as well, better to talk about my feelings rather than bottle it all up," Sirius said. He tossed his book aside carelessly and slid down in his seat, making himself comfortable. I could tell Petunia didn't want to care, her book was open but her eyes had long since stopped moving across the page. Her grip on the book had tightened, her posture frozen in the position she'd been reading in.

James and I took the only available seats left on a couch. I took one end, leaving James the space of the other side of the couch. I tried to hide my surprise when instead of taking the extra space, James planted himself right beside me, threw his arm around my shoulders and pulled me into his side so that my head rested against him.

I tried to act like my heart wasn't about to pound out of my chest. This was definitely something James and I did on a daily basis. Totally normal. Just two friends being besties. I had a hard time focusing on the words that were coming out of Sirius's mouth when I was too busy thinking about how good James smelled and how comfortable his body was to lay against and how badly I suddenly wanted to wrap myself around him and fall asleep.

Focus. Murder. Bellatrix. Do James later, I told myself sternly and pushed aside the distracting thoughts of James.

"Tell us what happened," James prompted quietly, his fingers absentmindedly moving on my arm in a soothing manner. I couldn't help but shiver, the movement sent me burrowing into James's side even more.

"So I said how Bellatrix had been arrested," Sirius said, he still wasn't looking at any of us. Petunia wasn't even bothering to pretend like she was reading. Outside I could see snowflakes begin to drift down from the darkening sky.

"They were muggles...a family...three kids, mom and dad," Sirius said quietly and went quiet for a moment. "The parents went out for the evening, left their kids with a babysitter, as you do, and when they came back, the babysitter was dead."

Petunia gasped quietly, her grip on her book growing white knuckled. I couldn't speak, couldn't even say anything, so scared to even breathe loudly, afraid I would break the spell Sirius had on us. It felt as if even the plants around us were holding their breath.

"They left her body outside so it would be the first thing the parents saw when they came home. The kids were tied to chairs and when their parents walked in they were ambushed. They tortured the kids while they forced their parents to watch….Merlin...I can't even imagine the screams," Sirius trailed off, his voice hoarse. He closed his eyes and rubbed them aggressively with one hand. His throat bobbed as he swallowed and took in a deep breath.

Petunia's eyes had gone glassy with unshed tears, her shoulders heaving as she tried to hold in her sobs. I couldn't do anything except stare past everyone to the snow falling outside. Sirius's words washed over me. The more he talked, the emptier I felt inside. Part of me knew I should be worried or scared because that could have been me, it could have been Petunia and yet…..I felt so separate from it all.

"From what Regulus told me, by the time they put those poor children out of their misery, their mother had become unresponsive. They didn't think she was even breathing by the end."

"And what happened after? Did they torture them too?" Petunia asked, her voice cracking at the end. James's arm tightened around me, pulling me into his side even more.

"No," Sirius said, looking at Petunia. "They had mercy on them and gave them a quick death."

"That's horrible," she whispered, her lower lip trembled as she held Sirius's gaze. And then her eyes turned to me, forcing me to look back at her. "How can you be so calm, didn't you hear him?"

I blinked at her.

"They're not the first victims Tuney," I told her, my voice surprisingly even.

"What?" she asked, her face contorting in confusion.

"It's not the first time this has happened," I repeated.

"What do you mean this isn't the first time this has happened? Do people just walk around murdering people at your end of reality?" Petunia asked, her voice rising in octave with each question.

I closed my hands, pressed my fingers to my lids and took a deep breath. On the exhale I ran my hands through my hair and said, "Things are a little complicated in the wizarding world right now."

"That's a bit of an understatement," snorted James. I dug my elbow into his side in response.

"Well then explain it to me!" Petunia demanded. She put aside her book and leaned forward in her chair, her eyes boring into me.

"There are those who believe that Lily's kind, witches and wizards born to families with no magic in them, have dirty blood or tainted blood," James explained. "And that somehow that makes them less than those of us who come from fully magical bloodlines. That somehow they don't deserve the magic they possess or to be part of our world."

"For a lot of old families who can trace their bloodlines across centuries, blood purity is everything to them," Sirius added. "My own cousin Andromeda was disowned from the family for marrying a man whose bloodline my family didn't consider clean enough."

"And some people go even further in thinking that we shouldn't be hiding from muggles, muggles should be hiding from us because we're more powerful," James said. A moment of silence followed as Petunia sat with the knowledge that we'd given her.

"And they're targeting these people now, muggles, and people from non-magical families?" Petunia asked, looking between the two boys. James nodded.

"So you mean to tell me, my little sister has been going to school where a bunch of psychopathic maniacs are running around who want to kill people like her? And you just never told me, Lily how could you?" Petunia pushed herself to her feet.

"I'm sorry Petunia but it's not exactly like we're on speaking terms, when exactly was I supposed to tell you about this stuff? You can't even bear to be in the same room as me, sometimes I think you'd be happy if I was one of the victims," I said defensively. I had come close so many times to telling Petunia and my parents everything that was happening in my world. But I didn't want to hear Petunia throwing it back in my face about how wizards were uncivilized and freaks for letting this happen.

"You're my sister, how could you think I would want you dead?" she whispered. I bit my lip to stop the tears from gathering and avoided looking her in the eyes.

"Anyway, there's nothing for you to worry about," I said, "no one at school is brave enough to try taking me on. Anymore."

Sirius let out a bark of laughter and said, "Lily gives some of the worst thrashings I've ever seen. I remember the first Slytherin to pick on you got beaten so bad you sent them to the Hospital Wing and none of them ever tried it again."

Some of the tension left Petunia's shoulders at the reassurance. "So it's just a small group then, this isn't turning into a big thing?"

I looked at Sirius, Sirius looked at James and then glanced back at me. I looked at Petunia and then looked back at Sirius.

"Uh yeah, they're just a niche group of extremists," James said unconvincingly. It sounded so insincere to my own ears that I didn't think Petunia would possibly buy it. But either she wanted to believe him so she wouldn't have to worry or she was a lot dumber than I thought.

Sirius gave a single loud clap and then leapt to his feet, making the rest of us jump. "You think the elves will let us mess around the kitchen and bake something?"

"I think they can be persuaded to take a few hours off," James said with a grin. I hadn't even noticed the tension in his shoulders until it had melted away with a change of subject.

"Excellent, let's go try our hand at baking," Sirius said and marched off before anyone could protest. Petunia was hot on his heels, as if equally desperate to escape the somber atmosphere.

"If your baking is anything like your potion making, half the house will be up in flames!" James yelled after them. "Well, we'd best go after them just in case."

James pulled me to my feet and threw his arm around my shoulder, keeping me stuck to his side. On instinct my own went around James's waist. I almost removed it but the way James tightened his grip on me at the touch and the way his grin widened on his face in pleasure made me keep it there.

I don't know how long we stood there gazing at each other before I finally cleared my throat and said, "Well we'd better get going, they might wonder what's taking so long."

"You're absolutely right," James said, nodding seriously. "Besides, we can just as easily make moon eyes at each other while we're in the kitchens."