True to his word, Remus and Sirius had gotten ridiculously drunk when they got back from the Ministry. They spent most of the evening draining a bottle of Firewhiskey that James and Lily had given them as a housewarming present when they'd moved into their flat together. They'd tearily recalled all their favorite memories of the two late into the night until they'd fallen asleep clinging to each other on the couch.
The next morning, Remus woke up first. He extricated himself from Sirius's vice-like grip and made his way to the bathroom to shower. If they were going to spend the day searching for Harry it would hardly do to smell like troll's breath while they did. He was in the middle of washing his hair when he felt Sirius's arms snake around his waist.
"I was alone." Sirius murmured against Remus's back. "I woke up and I was alone."
Remus remembered all those times at Hogwarts that Sirius had woken up from nightmares of what his parents had done to him. He would shoot up from the bed hyperventilating and sweating. While their other friends had slept like rocks, Remus was a light sleeper. He remembered how he would climb into Sirius's bed and encapsulate him in his arms until he could fall asleep again.
"You are not alone, Sirius," Remus replied. "Not ever."
A few minutes later, the two of them were sitting in the kitchen with tea on the boil and bacon frying away in the pan next to it. Sirius was staring off at nothing, his mind clearly elsewhere. Remus watched him carefully for a while before reaching out to guide his face toward his. "Sirius. We need to find Harry."
That seemed to take him out of his reverie. Sirius blinked a few times and a harder expression took residence on his face. "Yes. Where do you think Dumbledore sent him?"
Remus shrugged. "If I were the old man, I wouldn't have placed Harry anywhere in the wizarding world. Voldemort may be gone for now but his followers are still out there. They've only just begun arresting some of them. So, he most likely placed Harry with Muggles."
Sirius growled in frustration as he firmly planted his face in his hands. "Well, isn't that just lovely. He could be anywhere, Remus!"
"But he isn't just anywhere. Dumbledore would have placed him somewhere he thought he might be relatively safe. There would be someone in the Order nearby, I'm willing to bet, and there aren't many of us still alive, are there?" Remus observed.
He took the bacon from the pan and put it all on a plate before grabbing some bread and jam for the two of them. The kettle had begun whistling at obscenely loud levels so he took that from the stove too. While Sirius assembled their bacon and jam sandwiches, Remus made them both glasses of strong black tea with honey and creme.
Just as Sirius was about to ask Remus another question, a barn owl began tapping incessantly against the window. Sirius frowned and opened it, allowing the bird inside where it dropped a letter on the counter and promptly bolted out of the open window moments later.
"I guess he wasn't waiting around for a reply, eh?" Remus asked with a chuckle. He closed the window up and turned to ask Sirius what the letter was when he saw the man in question holding the opened envelope with shaking hands. The letter dropped to the floor and Sirius reached out to grab onto the counter.
"Sirius? What is it? What's wrong?" Remus asked.
Sirius wordlessly pointed to the envelope and the letter that had fallen out of it.
Remus picked it up and turned it over to read it before feeling his face go pale and cold. It was a letter from Gringotts Bank asking that they be present for the last will and testament of James and Lily Potter.
Meanwhile in Manchester...
Today was Petunia's day off. She had had Harry for just three days now but he and Dudley had taken to one another like sugar in warm water. Dudley was only a little bigger than Harry was but that didn't stop them from playing together. She'd sat the two of them on the living room floor while she folded clothes from the laundry.
She had to keep herself from crying when she realized that Harry hadn't begun to walk just yet. He was close, but he could only take a step or two before tottling over in a fit of bubbling laughter. Dudley seemed to think that was quite funny and had taken it upon himself to show Harry how to walk properly.
Petunia had just put away the laundry when she heard a knock at her door. Frowning, she went to answer it, wondering who on earth was standing on the other side. Since moving to Manchester, she had no real friends to speak of. She was far too busy. It was a far cry from her life as a social stay-at-home wife when Vernon was alive. She was surprised, then, to see a much older woman on the other side.
"Good morning, Mrs. Evans-Dursley."
The woman before her had mostly black hair, though stripes of grey were prominent throughout. She had narrow blue eyes and wore black-rimmed glasses that made Petunia think of a cat she'd seen in the park once. She looked old enough to be Petunia's mother and reminded her of her great aunt Hilda now that she was thinking about it. But that was hardly the oddest thing about the woman on her doorstep.
No, this woman was wearing long deep emerald-colored robes with black stitching and something black underneath. Her salt-and-pepper hair was pulled back into a tight braid which made it all the easier for the pointed black hat she wore to sit comfortably on her head.
"Who the hell are you?" Petunia asked warily. The woman seemed fine enough, but Petunia hadn't forgotten that her sister had been murdered by a person in her world only days ago. If this woman was here to cause harm to Harry...well, she hardly knew how much use she could be against a witch.
"Forgive my impropriety," the woman replied with a kind smile. "I don't believe we've ever met. My name is Minerva McGonagall. I work at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry."
As soon as the name escaped the woman's lips, Petunia was bombarded with a memory of Lily coming home for Christmas that first year at Hogwarts. She had regaled her parents of tales of ghosts gliding through walls, of a headmaster with a beard that nearly touched his feet, and of an older woman who could turn into a cat and back as if it were nothing.
"I know who you are," Petunia found herself saying. "Why are you here? How did you find me?"
The woman's smile dimmed slightly and a grim look crossed her face. "I know who you are. Lily Evans was your younger sister. She's why I'm here."
"She's dead. There's nothing I can do to help you."
"I am here to escort you to Gringotts Bank for a reading of the wills of Lily and James Potter. Bring the children if you wish. But we must hurry, you know. I've never apparated with babies before."
Gringotts Bank, Diagon Alley, London…
The bank was uncomfortably busy when Sirius and Remus arrived. It was a Saturday morning and that shouldn't have surprised them. But after being alone with each other for nearly a week, it felt odd coming back into a world with people whose lives had nothing to do with James and Lily and their deaths and grief. These people could wake up every day without a gaping hole in their chest where half their hearts had been ripped out.
"This way, Mr. Black," a surprisingly cheerful goblin named Normhook stated as he led them toward a side hallway that led away from the packed lobby. "It has been some time since last we had you, Mr. Black. Tell me, how is that darling little family of yours?"
Sirius and Remus shared an amused look with one another before Sirius replied, "Thankfully dead."
"Of course. And will you be withdrawing from your vault today, Mr. Black?" Normhook asked.
"Not sure yet, Normhook, but should I do so you will be the very first goblin to find out."
It was obvious that Normhook was a new addition to the Gringotts family. He looked much younger than the other goblin and hadn't yet seemed to develop that perpetual air of distaste that seemed to follow most of the goblins around. Remus found he appreciated that all the same. Normhook had genuinely smiled when he saw them and had thanked them for coming. It had sounded sincere. Remus decided at once that he liked him.
Normhook led them down the hall a few more minutes before leading them left, right, left, left, and right again. At the end of the hall, they were in was an enormous set of marble doors inscribed in golden glyphs of the goblin language. After placing one of his small hands against the center of the door, it briefly glowed golden and promptly disappeared.
Inside was a room with floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked all of Diagon Alley and some of Knockturn Alley. A worn wooden table that was likely older than all of Britain took up the middle of the room and was large enough for at least twenty-four people to sit at. There were two rather ancient looking goblins at the table. One had a beaten-up briefcase that was no discernable color. The other had a long and skinny scroll clutched in his hands.
But that was hardly the oddest thing they could see.
Sitting across from the goblin with the briefcase was a slightly frazzled looking horse of a woman who was absently bouncing an unfamiliar blonde toddler on her lap while speaking to a much older and more severe-looking woman Remus and Sirius might have recognized from anywhere. There was another toddler too. This one was crawling on the table toward the briefcase and giggling every time the goblin holding it would pull it further from his reach.
He had black hair that was already growing out of his head like bad grass. His emerald eyes sparkled in the daylight streaming in through the windows. But he looked slightly different from the last time Sirius and Remus had seen him.
Remus felt his arm cramp slightly as Sirius grabbed it tightly. "Harry!"
The boy in question looked toward the doorway at the sound of his name and his entire face lit up like a Christmas tree. "Siri!" And then he promptly attempted to crawl off the table toward Sirius.
The horse-like woman handed the blonde child in her arms to the other woman and shot forward to grab Harry just in time to keep him from toppling over onto the floor. The goblins had gotten up and given the little destructor a wide berth.
"Harry! You'll hurt yourself!" She grabbed him around the stomach like a puppy and put him on the floor to make his crawling easier. Then, she looked at the two of them in the doorway, though her eyes settled on the man with black hair and steel grey eyes who was looking at the black-haired crawling baby as if Christmas had come early. "Ah, yes. Sirius Black."
In another life, it might have come out rather condescending. Remus was surprised to note that it wasn't.
Sirius stared from the woman to Harry and back again several times, confusion on his face before breathing out, "Petunia Evans?! What the hell are you doing here?"