Previously in the Darklyverse: The Order worked on adding spells other than Unforgivables to the curse-identification orb. The Gryffindors started an organization at Hogwarts called War Stories in an effort to educate students about the war and pureblood privilege and to improve inter-house unity. Marlene tried to get back on okay terms with Remus and Sirius. Now out of the Order, and having admitted her unreciprocated feelings to Marlene, Mary felt isolated from the other Gryffindors.
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September 8th, 1978: James Potter
"And right there in the corner, I want an armchair. I was thinking something blue, with sort of—of—what do you call them? Would you call them armrests? Things to rest your elbows on. Also leather, of course."
James screws up his face in concentration. "Do you happen to have dimensions for it?"
"Just, I don't know, armchair sized. Maybe a little wider than average. Oh, and there will need to be extra lumbar support—Dwight won't be comfortable sitting in it otherwise."
"And should it be a recliner?"
"That would be nice, yes."
"How's…" He swishes his wand, and a teal-blue leather armchair with armrests appears. "Try that on for size."
It's got a handle on the side to control its reclining capability, and when Dottie plops down in it to test it out, the cushion barely sags. "The cushion could have a little more give to it? Oh, and I should have mentioned—no feathers in the seat cushion. My husband is allergic."
A couple of wand waves later, Dottie is satisfied and forks out a money bag that she passes to James. He collects it, stuffing it inside his canvas bag, thanks Dottie again for her patronage, and Apparates back to Fluke-Nettles within minutes.
If you'd asked James three months ago what he was going to do with his life after graduation, he definitely wouldn't have guessed that he'd be working for an interior design business, using his Transfiguration skills to conjure up the exact walls and carpets and furniture that wizards around the U.K. describe to him. It makes sense in retrospect: Transfiguration was always his strongest subject, and it's awfully hard to do any conjuring if you don't have the talent for it the way James knows he does, and—well, people need habitable housing. Besides, James does rather like trying to envision products that will satisfy his customers, whether those customers aren't totally sure what they want or, the opposite, have an exact image in mind that they might have trouble articulating. But he would have thought that he'd be doing something… more important, he guesses, with his life.
He has the Order to give his life meaning, of course, and he's grateful to be working, knowing that Remus hasn't been so lucky. Still—sometimes he's with a client and he just marvels at himself for what he's doing there.
It's the end of the work day, so James gives Fluke-Nettles their cut of the profits for the day and Apparates home. Remus is there, of course, but Alice is still gone, which doesn't surprise James: Auror training frequently runs late.
"Hey, Moony," he yells as he dumps his Galleons in the drawer of his nightstand and then emerges into the living room.
Remus is sitting on the floor with scribbled on bits of parchment all around him. He looks exhausted but happy. "I just finished adding the Transmogrifian Torture to the list of curses that the orb covers," he says. "And Lily reckons she'll have more information about Sectumsempra within the next few days that will help us back that up as well."
"That's excellent," says James. He throws himself against the couch and groans. "Five clients today, and they all had multiple rooms of their homes that they wanted to do. My feet are killing me."
"You poor baby," Remus says sarcastically, but he's grinning when he says it, so most of the effect is lost. "You ready for the Order meeting?"
"Yeah. Pack up the orb; we should bring it with us in case there's an incident during the meeting."
They've figured out that the easiest way to transport the thing—it's heavier than it looks, which is to say really freaking heavy—is to Vanish it and then conjure it again when they've Apparated to their destination. Remus Vanishes the thing, and then they both Disapparate with a loud crack, materializing in the parlor room of Elphias Doge's house, where they're having tonight's meeting.
Most of the others are already there, including Edgar Bones, who's sporting a Head Boy badge on his school robes and who waves up at Remus and James. "Hey, all," says James, accepting a hug from Lily. "Alice will be along; she told us she was probably going to have to work late tonight again."
She appears twenty minutes later with Frank Longbottom, who's been going through Auror training with her, and Gideon Prewett is right on their heels. "Is that everyone?" asks Elphias. "Great! If everyone wants to come on into the dining room…"
There aren't enough seats for everyone, obviously, so James conjures a bunch more chairs, laughing at the crack Sirius makes about James taking his work home with him. Eddie comes over to sit with them, and James claps him on the back and says, "Head Boy! They chose wisely."
"I hope so," says Eddie. "I thought they were going to give it to Dirk, not me. I would have had an easier time handling the Quidditch Captain badge, but that went to Meghan."
"Are you and Meg still dating?" asks Peter, who's just fought his way through the crowd with Emmeline to get to them. (James claps him on the back, too.)
"Yep! We're planning on getting a place together once we graduate in June."
Dumbledore calls the meeting to order at that moment, and James shifts his attention to the head of the table where Dumbledore is standing. He's not used to seeing the Hogwarts headmaster outside of the castle, and he wonders whether Dumbledore is going to try to make small talk with him after they officially adjourn.
Most of what they cover is stuff James already knows: progress on the curse-identification spell, of course, and their efforts into finding a countercurse for Sectumsempra. Sturgis Podmore is still working on un-Imperiusing affected wizards, and Dorcas and Fabian have been spearheading recruitment. Also announced is Lily's starting Healer training in order to better equip her to deal with injured Order members coming back from missions.
"And that just leaves the report from our Hogwarts liaison, Edgar Bones," says Dumbledore when they've covered most of the agenda. "You'll know better than Minerva and I do about how the student body is faring."
"Well," says Eddie, "the good news is that there's a lot of pro-Muggle sentiment from where I'm standing. I've started up War Stories again with Dirk Cresswell—our first meeting was two nights ago—and most people seem to be reacting well and receptive to what we have to say."
"And the bad news?"
"We're definitely not reaching many of the Slytherins. Meredith McKinnon showed up and brought her usual friends with her, but we're not doing great when it's four Slytherins stacked against the rest of the lot."
Fabian suggests approaching Slytherins, particularly underclassmen, directly, while Benjy proposes that Eddie challenge each Slytherin already in the fold to bring one new person with them to future meetings and branch out from there. "Hang in there, buddy," says Dorcas, smiling at him. "You're doing good, important work. I hope it's not too lonely, being the only Order member left at Hogwarts. I'll keep coming by every month to liaise with you like last year, all right?"
All and all, it's not the most interesting meeting James has been to, though he's sure Eddie found the updates a lot more enlightening than James did. What's more interesting to James is the three-way dance that Sirius, Remus, and Marlene keep doing with their eyes all while the speakers are talking.
"So you're back on okay terms with Marlene, then?" he asks Remus after they get home and settle into their pajamas. "I noticed she said hullo to you both when we got done."
"Yeah, we… yeah. For now. I don't want to jinx it."
"I think it's great," says Alice as James kicks his feet up onto the coffee table. "If everybody's on speaking terms again, maybe we should have a little get-together so that all of us can properly catch up?"
"That sounds great," says Remus, but James asks, "What about Mary? It would feel weird to do something without her, but…"
Remus shrugs. "I know Marlene was still seeing her a little over the summer, but have they done that recently? I know there was some wedding drama."
"I think they're avoiding each other again," says Alice. "But I also think it would be too cruel to not invite her at all, even if word never got back to her that we met up."
Remus and James exchange a look, and then Remus says, "Well, I guess you can go ahead and send her an invite, then. I'm sure she'll make time for it."
They pick out a date, the Saturday after next: it's a full moon that night, but armed with Wolfsbane Potion Lily has been brewing for him, Remus should be okay as long as he leaves early enough. Alice retires to bed shortly after, wanting to send Mary an owl (she'll rely, safely, on word of mouth to reach the rest of the Gryffindors). James breathes a little sigh after he hears Alice's door latch closed; she'll always be his friend and he'll always love her dearly, but sometimes he doesn't really know what to make of Alice. She seems a little unmoored now that she doesn't have textbooks and essays to hide behind, and even living with James and Remus like she is, she seems to find a lot of excuses to avoid them and everyone, even as she's been the best of the bunch at keeping in touch via lunch dates and owl mail. He turns to Remus and says in an undertone, "Do you ever get the feeling that she's a little…"
"Lost?" says Remus. "Yeah. Yeah, all the time."
When he sees her on Saturday the sixteenth, Mary doesn't look well. She seems to have lost weight since graduating, and she's chopped off all her hair again, this time leaving even less behind and cropping it a centimeter from her skull. As James hugs her hello, he can practically feel her bones in his hands. "How are you doing, Mare?" he asks, pulling back and scrutinizing her with his hands still around her back.
"I'm okay. How are you?" she says automatically, and James wishes he knew how to get through to her.
Lunch is—strained. Mary won't look at Marlene, even though Marlene is staring at Mary, and everybody keeps touching on Order business and then shutting down that branch of the conversation faster than you can say Sectumsempra. James thinks back to that night in Gryffindor Tower when Mary called them all out on treating her with kid gloves, and he wonders whether what they're doing now is any more morally acceptable than that. This time, though, it's not just that they feel uncomfortable bringing these topics up to Mary: if information falls into the wrong hands, people like Mary could end up tortured and killed by Death Eaters who are trying to get to that information.
"So how's the wedding planning going, Mary?" asks Lily politely while they're waiting for the bill.
"Oh, just fine," says Mary. "We've scheduled the wedding shower for November—Ver will be sending out invitations soon. You're all invited, of course."
"I'm looking forward to it!" says Lily, so brightly that James almost believes her. "James and I haven't set a date for our shower yet, but you have to come. It'll probably be sometime before Christmas."
"Oh, a winter shower! That's awesome. Reg and I are doing our engagement photos this winter—we're going to try to time it so that we can do them outdoors in the snowfall."
"Ooh, who are you doing your shoot with? We could use a good referral…"
They're talking so raptly that the two of them don't seem to notice when Marlene sneaks a handful of gold from her pocket onto the table and stands up. She's halfway out of the restaurant when James makes up his mind and tosses some of his own gold down. "I'll meet you outside," he says to Remus, who's sitting on his left, and then he jogs to catch up with Marlene.
He catches her right at the door, and she holds it open for him so that they can step outside together. "You barely said two words in there," James points out gently, "and I noticed you couldn't take your eyes off of Mary."
"I just… she doesn't look good, Jay. I feel like it's my fault she's like this."
"You're not her life partner, Marlene. You don't owe it to her to not get close to other people just because she might get jealous."
"I know I'm not. I know I don't. But she…" Marlene seems to be debating with herself over something for a few moments, but then she shakes her coily hair out of her eyes and folds her arms. "I have no idea how to fix it," she says instead of whatever it was that had been going through her mind. "I just want to go back to sixth year, when I had her and Lily and it was fine. And Sirius, for that matter."
"What does your relationship with Sirius have to do with Mary?"
"Nothing. It doesn't. They're two unrelated things. I just mean I want them both back," says Marlene. She bites her lip and runs her hands up and down the tops of her crossed arms. "You should go back inside. I think I'm going to duck into the alley and Apparate back home."
"You sure? If you want some company, you're always welcome to come back with us."
"Yeah, but you live with Remus, and that's still… we're a little better, but we're still not great," says Marlene, sighing. "Anyway, I have Doc to come home to. He's been great—it makes me wish I'd gotten to live with him at least some of the time growing up."
"Too bad uncles don't usually get custody rights," James jokes, but the smile Marlene cracks in response is hollow.
"Anyway, I'll see you, James. Say goodbye to everyone for me."
He watches her retreating figure for a minute, wondering for the umpteenth time what Marlene's deal is and why his friends can't all stay friends with each other. He wishes he knew how to ask her what went so wrong and what he can do to help, but he already knows the answers: Marlene replaced Mary with Lily, and Sirius replaced Marlene with Remus, and the wounds still smart.
But what Marlene doesn't know is that nobody came out a winner here. Lily and Marlene lost Mary, and Remus and Sirius lost Marlene—so did James, sort of, by virtue of association—and if life is a series of tradeoffs, James wishes he could grab everyone he loves who are segmented into box-cabs and jump off the train.
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END OF PART THIRTEEN