Road of Life: Promises Unkept
Lone astronomer
Whose stuff this is: Not mine- J. K. R.'s.
Profit gained: None whatsoever.
Archive: Anywhere and everywhere, as long as I'm notified and the disclaimer stays.
Summary: Part two of The Road of Life.
* * *
What am I supposed to do
With all these blues
Haunting me
Everywhere no matter what I do
Watching the candle flicker out in the evening glow
I can't let go
When will this night be over
I didn't mean to fall
In love with you
And baby there's a name for what you put me through
It isn't love
It's robbery
I'm sleeping with the ghost of you and me
-BBMAK, Ghost of You and Me
* * *
Thomas and Clara McTavish had been voted World's Most Unusual Couple by their peers for six years running. They lived in a cozy house in Surrey with their pet owl, Fido, and an aging old cat called Rover.
Tom was a prominent police officer and a volunteer fireman, with a long history of rugby injuries. His wife worked in an office, playing messenger on odd days when she had to fill in for Sandra Figg, who was sometimes ill, or her usual position as a secretary in the defense office. Tom knew, although many of their friends didn't, that Clara was not a mere mortal, but a witch. Perhaps this was why their friends thought them so odd.
"What is it?" Tom asked Clara one evening. She looked unusually tired and stressed, and Tom told her as much. "So what's eating you?"
"Mphwer fdgum arflms.," Clara grumbled into her arms, which her head was resting on.
Tom waited patiently for clarification.
"A couple of troublesome higher-ups called a vote of no-confidence in Minister Fudge, and now we have to hold an election," she finally said.
"I don't see what's so bad about that," Tom confessed. "Wasn't he an incompetent fool?"
Clara sighed. "You might say that, yes."
"So what's bothering you?" Tom asked again.
"Potter," Clara answered simply, looking down at the documents the Ministry had sent her with his name and face on them, "is being difficult."
"Are you going to run or not?" a very annoyed Mrs. McTavish asked a very frustrated James Potter.
"Yeah," he answered finally, brushing hair away from his eyes. "I'll run."
"Great," she said, relieved. "Your friends up in the Defense department should be happy to hear that. They've been pushing for you for years."
James looked up, confused, surprised, and bewildered. "They have?"
Clara nodded. "Black and Lupin, one of the Unmentionable units, four teams of Aurors, the head of the Preventative Charms committee, and half the Board of Education."
Potter sat heavily in a chair. "That many?" he asked.
"You didn't know?"
James shook his head. "I had no idea I was that popular. That's frightening."
I'll say. "You'll have to make a campaign speech, of course," she continued, marking off a list on her fingers. "And you'll need a publicity agent…"
"Speech?" James said, alarmed. "I'm no good at this politics stuff…"
"I beg to differ, Ambassador. Sign here."
James touched the tip of his wand to the parchment. "Validatus."
McTavish filed the contract in her folder. "That's it then, Mr. Potter, you may go."
"Is he coming for dinner then, Sirius?" Mioré asked, tapping her wand at the dishes in the sink.
"He and Harry are just getting settled- things are too chaotic for them to conjure their own meals," Sirius responded. "Yeah, they're coming. We're supposed to help them unpack afterwards."
"Well, he shouldn't have left," Mioré maintained. She'd never quite forgiven James for leaving her husband without a best friend for all those years. She thought for a moment, "Will Harry's English be good enough for Muggle grammar school?" she asked. "Lily would have wanted him to go."
"Who's Harry?" Sierra wanted to know. "And Lily?" She'd just come through the Blacks' back door, trailing the Lupin twins and their wolf behind her. "And why wouldn't he speak English?"
Sirius sighed. "It's a long story," he said.
Vera, making herself at home at the kitchen table, narrowed violet eyes. She thought perhaps that Uncle Sirius didn't want to tell the tale. "So start at the beginning," she said, a hint of a smile playing on her lips.
"And when you get to the end," Fox continued,
"Stop," all three chorused, grinning near-identical smiles.
Filch will weep, Sirius thought with a smirk.
Mioré shook her head. "Are you sure they're not related?"
"Do you think he still has her?" Remus asked after he'd tucked Vera and Fox into bed, both of whom protested vehemently that they were 'not sleepy.'
"I should imagine so, after all the charms we put on her," Allya answered, mentally cursing the paperwork in front of her. "Be a shame if he hasn't."
Remus nodded. "Fine piece of work, she was. Does he know?"
Allya's forehead wrinkled. "He should," she answered. "But something tells me he doesn't."
"Is that the Diviner resurfacing?" Remus teased, peeking over her shoulder at the long, long list of preparations to be made. "Or just a harmless hunch?"
"Just a hunch," Allya answered, but added when he was out of range again, "I hope."
"Harry, you chipped the glass!"
He slung his rucksack over his shoulder and scowled, although she couldn't see it. "I didn't chip it, Morg. Scheisse passiert."
"Harold James Potter! Watch your tongue!"
"Watch your own, Morgana," Harry said irritably, following his father through the immense crowd of people in Diagon Alley. "Any idea where we're going, by the way?"
"Not a clue," the parchment answered from her frame, trying unsuccessfully to smooth her tangled curls. "Although I've got a feeling it's something to do with that Black fellow he spoke with in the fireplace."
"Maybe," Harry answered, wondering suddenly why all the people were staring at him. Maybe because you're talking to a piece of parchment? "Why're they all staring at us?" He stood on tiptoes, attempting to catch a glimpse of the back of James' head- he was farther ahead, trying to keep up with Arthur Weasley's long stride.
"It's the scar, dear," Morgana answered, wishing that she could tell him the whole truth. "It has to be."
"Why, it's Harry Potter!" one of the tiniest wizards in the alley exclaimed. "Hello, boy!" he shouted, shaking Harry's hand so hard that his arm nearly flew out of its socket. "How are you this fine day?"
"I'm, I'm fine, thank you, sir," Harry managed to stutter before James marched back to rescue him from the crowd. "What was that all about?" he asked his father.
James' eyes looked away and studied the ground suspiciously. "Just a fluke, I'm sure. How would he know who you are, after all? Must be some sort of mind-reader."
Harry wondered, not for the first time, if his father was lying to him.
"Harry!" Uncle Sirius yelled, breaking free of James' man-hug and tossing his godson in the air, despite the fact that he was eight and a half years old. "How are you?"
"Fine, thank you, and yourself?" Harry tried to reply to be polite (he didn't quite manage; there were too many other questions). Secretly, he thought his 'Uncle' was a bit insane.
"What's that on your head?" Sierra Black wanted to know, leaning in for a better look.
"Do you have a sister?" Vera asked, not catching the adults' collective wince. She had a gift for asking awkward questions.
"How come you aren't fat from eating all that lederhosen?" Archer relieved the silence with laughter. "What's so funny about that?"
"Lederhosen… are pants, Fox," his mother explained, grinning. "Oh, bugger. You boys aren't tired yet, are you?" she asked, watching the looks on the nearly-identical-but-for-age faces.
"No," James began.
"Then let the fiesta begin," Mioré exclaimed. And it did.
"I'm going to kill James Potter," Clara McTavish announced to Tom. "And his famous son, too."
Tom looked confused. "His son's famous? And why kill him?"
Clara sighed in frustration. "It's a long story, but basically he brought down the Dark Lord pretty much by himself." Thomas' mouth formed a round little 'o'. "I'd never really kill Harry Potter, of course, but James…" her voice trailed off. Spread around her in a messy pile were at least six different three-page-long interview requests, three from the most annoying reporter in all of history, Rita Skeeter. "Passed off our address as his own in one article in the Prophet, they did. And now…"
Tom surveyed the room appreciatively. "Quite the candidate," he said, hiding a grin.
Clara didn't even look up. "Quite," she muttered, and went back to her paperwork.
"He looks just like James," Mioré commented as Harry followed his father through the fireplace. "But he has his mother's eyes."
"It seems unusual that he wouldn't ask us about her," Sirius said. "I'd think the pain of her death would have faded some by now, if I hadn't known her myself." Lily's name was rarely spoken in the Lupin household. He sighed, dulling the throbbing ache in his heart somehow. "But he didn't, really. He was too young."
"And such a shame, too," Remus put in. "He also has her heart."
"Maybe James told him not to ask," Mioré continued, picking up the thread of conversation.
"Maybe," Allya said darkly, sipping her drink, "Maybe he doesn't know."
"What do you think of him?" Fox asked, settling in under the covers.
Vera Jean sighed somewhat dramatically. "I don't know what to think. He's awful quiet."
"Kinda like Sierra can get," Archer agreed, scratching at a scab that was nearly healed. "Almost a brooding kind of silence."
"Odd that they should be so quiet when their fathers are so outgoing," Vera mused, stretching her fingers out to the starry ceiling.
"Maybe he's got a troublesome secret," Archer Fox suggested, knitting his fingers together behind his head. He yawned then, rolling onto his side. "I'm going to sleep now- real tired. 'Night, sis."
"'Night, Fox," Vera replied, but he was already asleep.
END PART TWO
Okay, okay. Sorry this took so long. Florida was wonderful and I didn't get any writing done at all. So there. There will be a sequel to Chemical Reactions. I don't know when yet. I am now getting kicked off of the computer until I've done the homework for the four days I have missed. So sorry everyone, I'll try to be more punctual in the future. Really.