DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harry Potter, or any of the content referenced/quoted. Warning for swearing.
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The Interlude
Benjy, Dorcas and Caradoc fall shortly after the attack on Moody; Sirius' dark words slowly come true. He hasn't spoken to her since that last day, other than to grunt in her direction as he quickly vacates the flat after returning from a mission.
Em's nightmares grow stronger, until she can barely sleep. She hardly touches the bed she once slept in with Remus, instead choosing to curl up on the sofa inside one of his jumpers, desperately searching for what was left of his scent until Cass comes home and shoos her off to bed.
Sometimes, she stares at the cracks in the ceiling, just turning the words from her dreams over and over in head. It's always the same words, and the same woman screaming.
When she's not helping the Order, she takes walks through the park and around the base of Arthur's Seat. As the weather grows warmer, she watches families flock towards the hill, their sunshine happiness spilling over and tries to remember if she ever looked like that.
On July 31st 1980, a howler arrives to announce the birth of James and Lily's son, just hours after Frank and Alice's son Neville is born. Em, just awoken from a fitful night's sleep, is shocked when the howler announces the birth of a baby boy, Harry James Potter.
As the war mounts, Lily, James, Frank and Alice quickly return to the fight. Despite the tumultuous start in both of their lives, Harry and Neville are adorable children and they quickly steal their way into Em's heart.
Now permanently posted at the Edinburgh flat, Em often finds herself as the prime, and sole, candidate for babysitting the two magical children. Her time with Neville and Harry is few and far between, both mothers often electing to stay at home with their children, but the rare moments that Em is left in charge of the tots are some of the brighter spots from that last year of the war.
Neville is the first to learn how to crawl, but Harry is flying before he knows how to walk. It is around this time that Scratchers mysteriously appears at Lily and James' new home. It is unknown how he managed to get there exactly, but he proves to be a good guard cat for the new parents. Em is happy he has found a new home, feeling that her moping might have been getting too much for him.
But with the birth of the boy, the war changes. Em watches the Order members in the aftermath of their battles, bloodied with sharp grins that hide trembling hands and haunted eyes. She patches them up, gathers their sharp edges and tries to piece them back together - but she knows they will never be the same. As Sirius continues to evade her and James retreats more and more to Lily and Harry, the silence in Remus' absence grows deafening.
Perhaps it's a coincidence that battles become more bloody, that both sides fight more viciously, perhaps they're all just reminded of the things they could now lose if either side won. But Em doesn't much believe in coincidences.
1981 rolls in the same as 1980 and 1979, on a bloody tide and whispers of more disappearances and deaths, and the words from her dreams tumble around her head like a demented merry go round.
Harry and Neville's first birthdays come and go without much fanfare.
By the end of the 1981 summer, Em has stopped leaving the flat. Remus' letters have stopped arriving. Sirius has stopped talking. James and Lily have gone into hiding, so have Alice and Frank. Marlene disappears. Cass continues to try to hold the seams of their lives together.
The war continues.