Road of Life 4: When Comes the Rain
l. a.
Summary: …
Disclaimer: Harry and the Marauders belong to J. K. Rowling, as do Hogwarts, the Ministry, and anything else from the Harry Potter books. Pardon me for taking over the sandbox.
Claimer: Poem's mine. Mine mine, even if it sucks.
Dedication: To the aunt I never had… never met, never saw, never even knew about until a few months ago. This series is for you, whoever you are, and wherever.
Note: Couldn't resist the reference to the X-files. See if you can spot it. (it's oh-so-easy) I tried to make it extra-long for taking so much time to write, but I'm afraid it just comes off as kind of lame. I do apologize for the extreme time I took writing it.
Question/Statement-thing: Oh. Taboo subject: James, dating?! What was I thinking? And reintroducing Cinda Green? So not a good idea! Ha, you have no idea what I have planned, do you? (Evil grin) Still, James, dating? If you have a problem with that, don't hesitate to tell me. I'm a pyro, anyway.
You can shine your shoes and wear a suit,
You can comb your hair and look quite cute,
You can hide your face behind a smile,
One thing you can't hide is when you're crippled inside.
You can wear a mask and paint your face,
You can call yourself a new race,
You can wear a collar and a tie,
One thing you can't hide is when you're crippled inside,
Well you know your cat has nine lives babe,
Nine lives to itself,
But you only got one and a dog's life ain't fun,
Mamma take a look outside.
You can go to church and sing a hymn,
Judge me by the color of my skin,
You can live a lie until you die,
One thing you can't hide is when you crippled inside
-John Lennon, Crippled Inside
Harry flopped down on his old, comfortable bed in his new, unfamiliar house with a sigh. It was well past midnight, not that he had to get up early the next morning, but he was only eight and a half years old. I had a sister, he thought wistfully, still not quite able to remember much about her. And I don't know anything about her. His dark eyebrows knit together. Because of Dad.
The thought was black and unpromising and ugly, and Harry pushed it away before it could take hold. He only meant what was best for me, he reasoned with himself. Besides, thinking bad things about his father always made him have a guilty conscience. Nobody could stay mad at James Potter except Harry's various aunts and uncles, anyway.
Used to having a wall on the left side of his bed, Harry turned over restlessly only to find himself on the floor. "Ouch."
A voice spoke quietly from his nightstand. "Are you okay, Harry?" She sounded concerned.
"I'm fine, Morgana," Harry said automatically. And then- "Morgana?"
"Hmm?" She sounded as sleepy as he felt.
"Did you know that I had a sister named the same as you?" Harry asked quietly, crawling back under the covers again.
"Yeah," Morgana's voice cracked. "Yeah, I did."
He rolled over on his side to hear her better. "Why didn't anyone tell me?" he asked. "Why didn't you tell me?"
Harry couldn't see the portrait, but he knew that she was examining her hands. "I didn't want to upset you," she said.
Harry was becoming more confused by the moment. "Upset me how?"
He heard her resigned sigh and visualized her finally looking up to meet his eyes. "I am your sister, Harry."
"Hello?"
The voice on the other end of the telephone line was quiet and at the same time guilt-laden. The handset shook in her grip. Something was not right. "This is she." The voice became graver, offering condolences. "He- I- yes, that would be fine." More mindless blather that was going right through her brain without being processed. "I- I'll be there in five minutes."
Clara McTavish replaced the receiver and grabbed her wand off of the shelf. Within seconds, she was gone from her home.
The man at the front desk was really friendly and helpful, and Clara wanted to use an Unforgivable curse on him. Perhaps he was a bit too friendly; given the circumstances, Clara wasn't in a very good mood.
It darkened considerably when the man who was taking care of matters in the morgue tried to hit on her. She Stunned him and erased all memories of inappropriate pickup lines from his brain. Clara also stuffed him in one of the drawers while he was still Stunned, and he deserved it. She checked the number on the piece of paper in her hand again. It can't be him.
Clara found the correct number and stood for a moment, composing herself. It would take all of her courage to open that drawer. She finally gathered it through reasoning- It's not him, anyway, so what harm is there in looking?
It was in this state of denial that she first saw the body of what had used to be Thomas McTavish.
Her wand, still in her hand after the Stunning and memory charms, clattered to the floor. Clara wasn't long in following it. As she buried her face in her hands, trying to block out what she had seen, the past two days seemed to mock her. I never even told him I loved him one last time.
The night guard found her there, on the floor by her fallen husband, at three o'clock in the morning, and called her a taxi.
The ceiling spun above her head and the bed beneath her seemed unstable. She was dimly aware that something had gotten or was about to get complicated and struggled to wake up fully. Instead, she managed to sit up in a panic and wake the man beside her, which made her sorry. Remus certainly needed all the rest he could get.
"Ally?" he called softly into the cold darkness. A strong arm reached up and pulled her back down under the relative comfort of the warm blankets. "Nightmare?" he asked sympathetically.
Allya, realizing fully that not every dream could be a premonition, sank into the familiar safety of her husband's loving embrace and shook her head imperceptibly, trusting that he would register the movement anyway just from knowing her so well. "Perhaps," she answered, closing her eyes. "I hope so, anyway."
A premonition, then. "Do you want to talk about it?" Remus' eyes were, as always, filled with compassion- although she couldn't see it in the dark, she knew it was there.
She sighed. "Let's just say it involved a very angry Sirius and a distraught and angry James."
Remus winced sympathetically. "That doesn't sound like much fun."
"It was awful- so bad that Sirius and Mioré moved away to live in Scotland. Everyone was really angry, and I can't figure out why." Allya was exasperated beyond words.
"Sirius and Mioré aren't going anywhere tonight," Remus said softly, stroking her hair in an effort to calm her down a bit. "James is just back from an incredibly long absence and not even Sirius is going to go getting peeved at him right off." He kissed her forehead, and in the darkness the comfort increased tenfold. "You've got to relax a bit, hmm?"
Allya sighed, conceding the point. "You're right. Too much stress lately. I've got to get a different job…"
Indeed, stress was a large factor at the office, though Ally could not be bound to a cubicle or desk of any sort. It was in Remus' office when the trouble arose that morning, and he decided that this time, when the shit hit the fan, it had scattered farther than he cared to estimate.
He could see Clara McTavish at her desk, distractedly throwing pencils at the ceiling. She looked rather sleepless and bored and bothered, and as it was barely a week since her husband had died he wondered why she was at the office at all.
What a mess.
He'd called her in earlier to ask her if she was okay. "Clara, sit down," he'd said, swiveling in his comfortable office chair and rubbing one hand over his eyes. She'd sat, looking absolutely one-hundred-percent blank, and hadn't said a word.
"I was very sorry to hear about your husband," Remus had said gently.
Clara had nodded, still mute.
"You really should be on leave," he'd continued. "To get over the shock, you know. Take some time off…"
At this, she'd adamantly refused.
And then he'd insisted that she talk to someone. It was the 'someone' involved that had probably put her off her work later on that day. "I'm sending you to the Minister," Remus had said, almost apologetically. "He's the best person to go to with this, at least until we hire an office psychiatrist. James does have some rather horrific experience in this field."
And he hadn't seen her for two hours after that.
What a mess, indeed. What have I done?
Despite the fact that it was a horrible idea, Clara was pretty much obliged to do what her boss asked her to and so, mere moments after the conversation that morning, she knocked meekly on his door, pushing it open and poking her head in. "Remus said you were expecting me." She resisted the childish urge to bite her lip and cower like a frightened puppy in the Minister's somewhat formidable presence.
Yet at that moment, James Potter looked anything but formidable. He looked, to put it bluntly, tired, overworked, and burned out. Remus is calling in a favor, he thought. Still, James nodded. "Take a seat."
So very like Remus, Clara noted, wondering exactly how far back the association went. She made a mental note to ask her boss about it.
James let out a frustrated sigh and propped his chin up on his elbows, leaning forwards. "So, Mrs. McTavish, what did my charismatic Defense minister send you in here for?"
And he doesn't know? "You really should read your reports, sir," she said, reflecting back on her days as his secretary, before she'd requested a transfer. Clara pointed to one ugly pink form buried beneath several olive ones that were only slightly more attractive.
James unfolded his glasses and set them on his nose, quickly reading through the memo. The silence in the spacious office grew somewhat uncomfortable. "I see," James said finally, and Clara felt even more uncomfortable. "You have my condolences, Mrs. McTavish."
"Just Clara," she said somewhat roughly, not wanting her deceased husband's name any longer for the memories it instilled.
James nodded sagely. "Clara. I assume this is what you came to talk about."
"What I was sent to talk about," she corrected somewhat icily.
James winced almost imperceptibly, drumming his fingers on the desk and examining its surface distractedly. Decision-making was supposed to be his strong point, yet it took a few seconds for him to decide how to best broach the subject. Finally sighing resignedly, he pulled a battered old frame out of his drawer and slid it across the desk to where Clara's head was hanging.
Clara looked up for a second, startled from her reverie by the sound of wood upon wood. She studied the picture before her, not quite sure what the Minister was up to. The initial lack of emotion in his voice when he finally spoke surprised her.
"We were eleven when we first met." The lack of emotion didn't last long.
And suddenly, she understood. I want to leave, Clara thought wildly, looking around the room for any possible means of escape. I can't hear him talk about this- She got up and stumbled blindly toward the door, but was quickly stopped by a simple gesture from James.
"I owe Remus a favor," James said, and his voice commanded her to look at him. "I've never talked about this before. I'd appreciate it if you listened."
Quite surprised and yet intrigued all the same, Clara slowly sank back into her chair, re-examining the old photograph.
It was a Muggle one, portraying a girl of about twelve with long, shining red hair and huge green eyes. Oddly enough, for a Muggle photograph at least, there was a large, snow-white owl perched on her arm. A wide grin had spread itself across the girl's face, and it was apparent that she was to become quite a beauty in her later years.
"I knew nothing until I met her," James continued. "Oh, we had our differences- we were nearly too different to be allowed sometimes. She was always the serious, practical one, while I was a fun-loving, idealistic prankster." He bit his lip, wondering how to follow that sentence. "We brought out the best in each other. And the worst."
Clara's eyes filled with understanding, and the mystery man before her suddenly became less of an enigma and something closer to human. "What was her name?"
"You've not heard all of the stories, then," James said quietly. "I'd have thought it required for a person of your post."
Clara, not understanding, gave him a questioning glance. "I beg your pardon. I don't get out much."
James laughed bitterly. "That makes two of us." He sighed. "Her name was Lily, and as you might've guessed, she was Muggle-born. We met at Hogwarts, and suffice it to say, we didn't get along like the best of friends." He slid another photograph across the desk. "Everyone knows my son- the Boy Who Lived. Nobody remembers the innocent face behind the woman who died."
A considerable ache built inside Clara's heart, only serving to add to her pain. Thomas and I never even had any children. I've nothing living to remember him by- not really. "Harry has her eyes," she said quietly, vowing not to cry. In her decision not to look at him, she missed completely the single tear that James wiped off of his cheek. She somehow felt, though reluctantly, that she had to share her story. "Thomas was a Muggle," she said, chewing on her lip. "I'm Muggle-born, too, so it was never a real problem between us. One of the things that first attracted me to him was his rather heroic tendencies. My cat got herself stuck up a tree, and as I was living in a Muggle neighborhood, I couldn't use magic to get her down. A friend of mine called the fire department for me and that's when I met Tom."
"He was a fireman?" James asked, raising his eyebrows. Those were the days. When Clara nodded, and before she went back to her tale, she thought she saw him almost smile weakly. (A/n: Click here for that story!) The next second, however, it was gone.
"It was a quick path to love," Clara reflected, head in her hands. A tear dripped, unnoticed, from her cupped chin onto the knee of her robes. "We were married in less than six months. I've yet to meet such a brave man." She sighed deeply. "In the end it was his undoing. Killed in a fire."
James flinched. "I'm sorry. You should take the day off-" he reached for his wand to cast her a request for time off-
Clara's hand stopped him and he looked up into her clear gray eyes. A simple shake of her head. "I cannot be alone today."
So she'd gone back to work, and there she still was.
Remus winced as the thirty-eighth pencil embedded itself in the ceiling tile, knowing that it could hold no more. Sure enough, a moment later the plaster, punctured by over fifty little holes (some of the pencils hadn't stuck) crumbled and fell onto Mrs. McTavish's head.
She didn't really seem to notice; just pulled out her wand and repaired the damage somewhat absently. And then, sure enough, she threw the first pencil again.
He didn't even remember Apparating home, much less removing his shoes, changing his robes, lighting the fire in the grate, and removing his quill from its stand. Yet the words stared up at him accusingly from the parchment- he could read them in the flickering firelight.
Puddles on a dirty street
Water, salt, and my cheeks meet
Bright umbrella and a crowded awning
When comes the rain
Raindrops fall on frosted glass
Each one merging with the last
I can't reconcile with my own past
When comes the rain
Funny that he didn't remember thinking up the words. They just seemed to flow from the end of the pen and he hadn't considered their meaning until they were down on paper. Sighing tiredly, he doused the fire and climbed into his cold bed.
Alone.
End part four.
-Five A-
Harry Potter, Cardshark
"He's in the garden."
Allya spun around to regard her daughter curiously. "What's that, angel?"
Vera Lupin gave her mother the open stare that intrigued so many. "You asked where Daddy was. He's in the garden- the back one with the black roses."
But I didn't ask her anything, Allya thought to herself, sighing mentally, and those roses are not black. Speaking of which, I'll have to berate Remus for moping in the cemetery again. "Thank you, Vera." She wondered privately if her daughter (who'd turned out to be slightly color-blind after all, and it was no wonder with two semi-canine parents) was telepathic or had simply spent far too much time with her. She also wondered how on Earth she was going to tell Remus what had happened.
"You quit," he said quietly, even before she'd called his name. She should have known he would have smelled her coming.
"Yes," she conceded softly, pressing her lips together. "I told you I would."
Remus nodded to himself more than to his wife, who was still behind him. He turned away from Jonathan's tombstone slowly, eyes questioning her motive.
"Too much death," Allya explained, lowering her gaze. "And I couldn't leave the twins without a mother, after all."
"You've been thinking about Mrs. McTavish's husband."
"Yes."
Remus nodded to himself again, thinking.
"I couldn't leave you in the state Clara is in," she clarified, looking at her toes. A second later she pressed an envelope into her hand. "I got this from Dumbledore yesterday."
His eyebrows furrowed, but he unfurled the parchment and began to read the loopy scrawl he recognized as the Headmaster's.
Scanning through the text, a thoughtful expression formed itself on his face. "Will you go?" he asked solemnly, face betraying nothing.
Nothing to an outsider. Allya read every breath and microscopic movement of every feature. "I don't know," she answered. "I just don't know."
"This seat taken?"
Her voice seemed familiar… an employee? Someone from the Ministry, an ex-Auror, perhaps? Someone he'd interrogated on his quest for Lucius Malfoy? James raised his head. "No."
Tall and slim, not to mention exquisitely beautiful, and every golden hair on her perfect head glinted in the muted, understated lighting that was the interior of the Leaky Cauldron. "Remember me, Minister? Cinda Green; I played Seeker for you back at Hogwarts-"
"I remember," James finally said, smiling and extending his hand. "Good to see you again."
"Well, sure," she replied. "Always good to have a reunion."
He smiled humorlessly. "Not always."
"No," Cinda agreed after a moment. "Not always."
There was an awkward pause in which neither spoke. James broke it tentatively. "The years seem to have treated you well."
She laughed- a sound not entirely unpleasant, if it did sound a little underused- and gave him a smile. "Amazing what a little magic can do after two failed marriages, no?"
James, somehow managing not to look at all surprised, delved with all his soul into the conversation.
"Thanks again for taking care of Harry for me."
She couldn't believe he was wearing a Muggle suit and tie. "It's no problem," she responded, smiling wanly. "It's not like I have anything else to do."
James paused before Apparating away, looking guilty. He opened his mouth to apologize- once again- but Clara waved him off. "Go," she said, slapping him with the rolled-up newspaper she'd been reading. "Have fun. Get kicked out of the restaurant. Make the morning papers."
James still looked skeptical.
"Go!" she cried, laughing and hitting him again, on the bum this time.
James half-smiled and raised his hands in surrender. "I'm gone, babe." And so he was.
Clara sighed and settled into her chair once more. The Boy Who Lived, ever the well-behaved nine-year-old, sat watching her with those soulful emerald eyes of his. Biting her lip as she remembered James' old Muggle-photo, Clara asked him tentatively, "So, kid, you know how to play poker?"
Harry shook his head no.
Clara smiled. "Great. Pull up a chair and roll up your sleeves…"
Two hours and an awful lot of cards later, Harry sat at the table, expertly performing the bridge and dealing out two hands for five-card stud. "…and deuces are wild," he finished, before picking up his hand.
Clara raised her eyebrows at the handful of cards she'd received- two kings and a two, making for three kings. Unusually good for five-card stud. She pushed a couple of the Every Flavor Beans into the middle of the table, watching as Harry did the same. "Call you on it," she said finally, and laid down her cards. "Read 'em and weep- three kings."
Harry tossed his cards beside hers. "Four aces," he said, sweeping the pile of candy towards him.
Clara grimaced and bit her lip. "I'm beginning to wonder if your father will appreciate this," she said ruefully, popping one of the chocolate frogs from the bag that lay open on the table into her mouth. "Maybe it should be our little secret."
Harry grinned. "I think I can handle that."
Harry was in bed ten minutes later, fast asleep another five after that.
Notes-
I'd like to thank everyone who I bounced ideas off of for this… and apologize for taking so bloody long. I don't know when 5b will be up, honestly I can't quite say, because I have been really busy lately (which is no excuse, I know).