Previously in the Darklyverse: Tensions rose between Lily and James about her recent visits to Snape. After moving to Canada, James remained a stay-at-home dad. Emmeline and Dumbledore returned from looking for Horcruxes, and when Mary offered to become Emmeline's Secret-Keeper., Emmeline moved in with her to avoid Sirius, who started staying at the flat with Remus and Alice. Remus planned to transform in Harry and Neville's presence.
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May 7th, 1982: James Potter
Every night after they put Harry down for bed is like a silent battle. It's not so bad earlier in the evening—Lily often leaves the house to get late dinners with her friends from Zoudiams Hospital, or James will savor his ability to leave the house, going on walks or popping over to Emosora, which is like British Columbia's version of Diagon Alley. Sometimes one or two of their friends from Hogwarts will Apparate over and visit on weekend mornings, and it's okay being around Lily with them in the house just like it is when Harry is up and about: having a third party present keeps their focus on them and off each other.
But by the time James and Lily find themselves alone together in the house, that's when things get weird. Lily retreats to their bedroom with the door closed, and James hangs out in the living room listening to the WWN and whittling blocks of wood with his wand for as long as he can before his eyelids start to droop. When he goes back into the bedroom, if Lily is still awake in there, he politely asks her about her day, tells her what funny things Harry did while she was at work, and nestles into bed to sleep. They don't touch, and they mostly just lie there in silence until one of them passes out.
So when Sirius says that he and Remus are coming over for the full moon, James's first reaction is relief. It gets lonely, feeling like he has nothing to say to the person he loves most in this world, and having Moony and Padfoot spend the night will be a welcome way to keep his attention off his crumbling marriage.
He really, really doesn't know how things got so messed up. Well, that's not entirely accurate—Lily seeing Snape and covering it up to James was how things got so messed up—but James would have expected their fight to blow over and life at home to go back to normal soon enough. Instead, the chill that iced over James's marriage stayed put, and James and Lily sort of—forgot how to act normal around each other.
The day seems to drag on forever as James waits with Harry for Remus and Sirius to arrive. It's not that James doesn't value all the time he's getting to spend with his son. A lot of parents would give anything to have uninterrupted days to watch their children grow up, and he's fortunate to be financially stable enough that he doesn't need to leave Harry to go to work. But—well, this isn't what he studied for seven long years at Hogwarts to do, is it? He was supposed to do more with his life than conjure furniture for people, then go into hiding in a cottage for over a year, and finally move out of Britain and spend all his days cooking lunches and reading the same Muggle books over and over again to his one-year-old kid.
Sure, he's done meaningful work with the Order—even here in Canada, he's been able to supervise raids from the house and call in reinforcements if they're needed, and he's been able to work on missions like repairing whatever's wrong with the curse-identification spell. But with the orb pretty much out of service, and their attempts to repair the spellwork all failing thus far, there hasn't been much to do on the Order front in a few months, and he's starting to get really restless.
He hasn't really talked about it with anybody, least of all Lily, but there's at least one person he suspects might understand. So when Emmeline swings by the house for an unexpected visit after he and Harry get home from the park, James sets Harry up with the toy broomstick Sirius got for him last year, which is sure to keep him occupied at least until Remus and Sirius arrive, and takes her aside in the kitchen.
"How is it being back from your trip with Dumbledore?" James asks her, unsure what exactly else he's supposed to be calling the period where she'd escaped the Imperius Curse and quit her job to go running off looking for Horcruxes.
"Weird. This is the first time I've left Mary's house since I got there. I'm just here to pick up the potion for the Fidelius Charm—I probably shouldn't still run around Wizarding Britain, but it'll be nice to have a little more security that I won't be murdered in my sleep."
"Look, I wanted to ask you…"
"Yeah?" says Em, stirring her tea.
"I wanted to ask you how you've been the last few days since you got back. I mean—you were doing something meaningful with Dumbledore, you know? Something important. And then…"
"You lot got hold of most of the Horcruxes in one night, and there was nothing left for me and Albus to do," Em concludes.
Feeling a little stupid, James mutters, "Can you call him Dumbledore? It's really weird hearing you call him Albus."
Emmeline grins. "Sorry. Habit."
It's just another thing that's been making James feel removed from her—like she's gone off and radically changed the landscape of her life until neither James nor anybody else fits into it anymore. "I just—I know I'm doing what I can for the Order, and I love spending time with Harry, I do. But being in this house with him day in and day out without making much progress on the war front, it's…"
"You wish you could do what I did," Em finishes for him. "And—what, you want to know how I'm coping with being back?"
James shrugs. "It was—it was supposed to be me, that's all. Months ago, Dumbledore asked me to help him kill Voldemort with him. The only reason I didn't is because Lily wouldn't let me."
"Don't blame Lily for wanting to keep you safe," says Em gently. "It's not her fault Dumbledore thinks the three of us are expendable now that we have Death Eaters coming after us."
"But knowing that didn't stop you from joining him."
"I know it didn't, but honestly? I went with Alb—sorry—with Dumbledore because I felt like there was nothing left for me here. I don't want you to feel that way about your life. I don't want anyone else to feel like I do—like they have to fight this war until it kills them because they have nothing without the war. Don't get so caught up in wanting to make a bigger difference that you lose sight of what you've got, James. You have a wife and a son who love you. I have an ex-boyfriend who orchestrated Marlene's death. There's a big difference."
"Pettigrew admitted that when you saw him? Marlene's death is really on him? Not that we didn't suspect it, but…"
"Well, he doesn't know for sure. They might have gone after her anyway around that time even if it hadn't been for him. But they knew from him that she was in the Order, and they also knew from him that she'd be at a family gathering that day."
"Shit," James mutters.
Emmeline nods and sips her tea, looking lost in thought. Finally, she adds, "I was running away from my life, James. I've had a bit of a death wish for years—you know that—and the thought of going off and getting myself killed wasn't a scary one to me. Now that I'm back, I wish I had the kind of family you do to come back to. Life isn't all about the grand gestures, you know? Most people go their whole lives without doing anywhere near anything as big as hunting Horcruxes, and that's the way it's supposed to be."
"You have family," James insists. "You have your sister, and you have us."
Em smiles wryly. "I know you lot love me, James, and I love you too, but let's be honest here: nobody in the Order cares for me anywhere near as much as Peter was supposed to. I put my faith in the wrong person."
"That's not fair. We would all die for you, if given the chance."
"Don't you see?" she cuts over him. "Relationships aren't supposed to be like that. Sure, you say you'd die for me—and I'd die for all of you, too—but nobody's living for me, are they? You have Harry and Sirius and Remus and Lily—"
James scoffs, and Em raises an eyebrow. "What?"
"Lily and I are… sort of on the outs. You know, because of the Snape thing."
Emmeline actually reaches across the table and slaps him on the cheek.
"Ow! Em, what the hell?"
"She loves you, you moron. Snape was her best friend in the world, and she never really got closure for that. She's just trying to figure things out. You shouldn't be holding her hostage over it. She loves you. Do you know what I would give to know that Peter loves me—that he ever loved me?"
"Lily—"
"Isn't perfect," Emmeline reminds him. "Cut her some damn slack, James Potter. Honest to god."
"Em—you don't have to run away from your life. I'm sorry if you feel like you're not close with any of us—if you feel like you're not one of my best friends—but you are."
"Yeah," she mumbles, looking suddenly abashed.
"And, uh—off topic, but I'm sorry about what's going on between you and Sirius right now."
"He told you about that?"
James admits, "A little. I know he—said some stuff while you were under the Imperius Curse. He wants to talk to you about it—I think he's just scared of what will happen if he goes there again."
"Yeah," Em says again. "Yeah, me too."
"He's coming over tonight with Remus for the full moon. You could stay and talk to him, if you wanted."
"No, I don't… it'll be really late at night in Britain by the time the full moon hits here, and anyway, I want to be long gone by the time Sirius gets here, if that's okay."
"Yeah, that's okay, but Em…"
"What?"
James ducks his head. "Take it from me: I know being in hiding is really demoralizing, and so is not going on raids or working. But you don't have to get yourself killed trying to be useful, okay? Snape's going to get the diary for us, and the goblins are going to figure out what to do about the sword, and then the only thing standing in our way will be a very mortal Voldemort. This is all going to be over soon, and when it is, you can find meaning again. I'll help you. Sirius will help you."
Emmeline shrugs. "Yeah. Maybe."
xx
Moonrise tonight is just before eight o'clock, which means Harry will be awake well past bedtime if he want to spend any real time with Moony in the evening. "When I asked Frank if he wanted to drop off Neville, too, he said he was worried about Neville getting off schedule," Sirius admits to James as they're waiting for Lily and Remus to arrive. Sirius, who woke up at two A.M. GMT to get here, is yawning. "But he'll bring him over for an hour in the morning before he goes to work—so, you know, like three in the morning here. I think he thinks it's worth it for Neville to learn that werewolves are okay."
Six months later, it's still strange to James that Frank knows Remus is a werewolf. There was no keeping it hidden from the rest of the Order when Peter went missing: word got out that Peter wasn't trackable because he was probably in rat form, and that raised questions about why Peter, James, and Sirius had become Animagi in the first place. Still, when not even the girls in their year knew about Moony until sixth year, it's hard for James to get used to anybody outside of their very close circle knowing Remus's secret.
The plan is this: as soon as Lily and Remus return from work, Sirius will transform and play with Harry until Remus transforms, too, at moonrise. Moony will probably pass out for a couple of hours, then drag himself up to see Neville for an hour around three before going back to bed until he's Remus again. Remus is the next to arrive, and the energy between him and Sirius is palpable, but James doesn't say anything, waiting for one of them to come to him with whatever's gone down between them. When Lily Apparates into the living room, she greets James with a peck on the cheek.
"Em stopped by earlier," he tells her. "She says thanks for the potion."
"Oh, anytime," says Lily. When she smiles at him, he can almost believe that it's sincere. "Is she all right? Ever since Malfoy cursed her…"
"Yeah, I know. I told her to owl us when the Fidelius Charm fully takes effect. We can start having her over for dinner or something, you know, so that she has somebody."
Sirius shifts guiltily in his seat, but Lily doesn't seem to notice. "Are you sure she'll even be willing to take us up on that? Em doesn't really like being around kids," she says. She keeps her voice low, but James doesn't think Harry has noticed what she's said: he's busy finger painting with Remus at the table.
"It's better to offer than to assume, isn't it? She can always say no if she doesn't want to come."
"Well, shall we bring in Harry?" says Sirius hastily. "I want to talk to him before I transform."
"Yeah," says James, not wanting to push it. "Moony! Can you bring Harry in here?"
A moment later, Remus emerges from the kitchen with Harry hot on his heels. "Uncle Sissi has something to show you," pipes Sirius. "But first, I have something very important to ask you. Can you keep a secret?"
"Yes!" Harry cries.
"Good. Now, Uncle Lupe and I are going to show you something tonight, but the only people that you can talk to about it are your parents and aunts and uncles. It's very, very important that you keep what you're about to see to yourselves. Do you understand?" Harry nods vigorously. "All right, then. You know how your dad and Uncle Lupe and I sometimes call each other by nicknames that nobody else does? Prongs and Moony and Padfoot?"
"Why?" Harry clamors.
"Well," says Sirius, "Daddy and Uncle Lupe and I can turn into animals, and we named each other after the animals we turn into. Now, Jamie isn't going to transform into Prongs tonight. He's a stag—you know, a great big deer—and it's hard for a great big deer to move around inside a house this size." Harry giggles. "But in a minute here, I'm going to turn into a dog named Padfoot. You like dogs, don't you?"
Harry claps his hands and exclaims, "Puppy!"
Sirius chortles. "Well, I'm going to be a lot bigger than a puppy. You'll see in a second. Are you ready?"
"Puppy! Puppy! Puppy!"
"Yeah, okay, you goof," Sirius says. He ruffles Harry's hair and squeezes his eyes shut. A moment later, there's a pop, and Padfoot swiftly replaces Sirius.
Watching Harry and, later, Neville play with Padfoot and Moony gives James the greatest pleasure he's felt in longer than he can remember. Harry, the more adventurous of the pair, delights himself by chasing Padfoot in and out of rooms and up and down the stairs; Moony, after he transforms, and Padfoot entertain him by play-fighting with one another for a while, and then Harry spends some time snuggling with Moony until it's time for bed.
When he arrives, Neville seems to be afraid of both of them at first, but Padfoot approaches Neville slowly and, when Neville doesn't dash away, gently pads into his lap and nuzzles the palm of his hand with his snout. Neville warms up after that, running a hand over and over through Padfoot's fur with a pleased expression on his face while Moony catches some sleep on the ground next to them.
"There's something important you have to understand," James tells Neville a while later as he's sitting on the couch with Moony, still fast asleep, sprawled across his lap. Lily by now has gone back to bed; Sirius is back in human form and chatting with Frank in the kitchen. "Uncle Sissi can turn into Padfoot and back again anytime he wants, but Uncle Lupe only gets to be Moony once a month, when the moon outside is full. Once he's the wolf, he can't turn human again until morning, and he has to drink a special potion that your Auntie Lily makes for him so that he knows what's happening when he transforms. A lot of werewolves can be dangerous when they transform because they aren't in control of themselves, and there's a lot of people out there who think they're bad people for that reason. But they're not bad, all right? There's nothing bad about Uncle Lupe. He's just—a wolf sometimes. He can't stop it, and it's not his fault. It's very important that you remember it's not his fault, okay?"
"Okay," say Neville shyly.
"Okay. Good. Now, your dad picked up an extra work shift today and has to get to his job soon, which means it's time for you to go back to your Gran's house for the day. I know, I know! But maybe Moony can come over again for next month's full moon, and you can see Padfoot again the next time you see Uncle Sissi."
After Frank and Neville take off, James tells Sirius, "I'm going back to bed for the rest of the night. I'm beat, and Moony's not even awake right now anyway. Did you want to stay the rest of the night? It might be boring for you. I know it's morning by now in Britain."
"Nah, I'll stay here and sleep a while, if that's okay with you. I had to get up in the middle of the night to get here for this."
"Are you all right to sleep on the sofa tonight, or do you want to conjure up a mattress?"
"Sofa's fine," says Sirius. "I'll transform again so that there's room for both me and Moony."
But by the time James wakes up and comes into the living room the next morning, both of them are human again, with Sirius wrapped in Remus's arms and wedged against the couch cushions. He looks from them to Lily, who's sitting in the armchair sipping a mug of tea, and thinks there might be hope for him and Lily yet.
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END OF PART TWENTY-ONE