Disclaimer: All characters and places belong to J. K. Rowling.

Life Had Just Begun

By Terra

Chapter Four: Arrangements

I numbly watched my wife hustle and bustle around the living room as she scrambled for her coat and boots.

"You don't want to come?" Lily asked for about the millionth time as she sat in a chair in the front hall.

"No, enjoy your mother's without me," I moaned. Just go already, I silently pleaded.

I usually enjoy the presence of my darling wife. I love the way she laughs. I love the way her hair sways from side to side when she talks. I love the scent of my wife floating in the air, digging itself into the fabric of our couch. I simply adore her.

However, I had completely forgotten that a pregnant witch's powers go completely wonky and usually mildly destructive. Over the course the day, Lily's powers had caused a door to fly off the cabinet, a chair to slide out from under me during breakfast, the table to collapse, a butcher knife to come flying at me, and my glasses to levitate off my face and out of reach for about an hour (I had a spare pair of glasses). Just before lunch, her powers electrocuted Crookshanks, caused our sandwiches to explode violently, set my shirt on fire with me wearing it, turned my hair green (it changed back after ten minutes), made biscuits magically appear and disappear in random places, like the shower, and the bathroom was turned into a rainforest for two hours. After lunch, a tree grew in our living room, then it turned into a dandelion, which I pulled out of the ground, books attacked me, our stairs became a steep ramp for thirty minutes, and I levitated against my will over the coffee table. All in all, I was not a happy husband and ready to see my wife leave for a long time.

"Maybe you should leave your wand here," I suggested tersely, "since, you know, you can't really control yourself right now."

"James, those were accidents! I doubt they'll happen that bad again."

"That's not what the doctor said."

Lily frowned and mumbled, "I said I was sorry."

"I know that you're sorry but I don't want you harming your parents by accident," I said, gritting my teeth as I tried not to lose my patience. My back still hurt from crashing on to the coffee table.

Lily sighed, "Fine. I'll leave it here." She placed her wand on the table. There was a silence between us, then Lily said, "You're not still mad at me, are you?"

"I'm not mad. I'm tense. I had a nerve-wracking day."

"I said I was sorry! Why don't you believe me?!" Lily responded.

"I do believe you! I just hurt a little right now." I clinched my hands. Please come, Mister Taxi-Man.

"No, you don't!" Lily choked up. I stood up, alarmed.

"Lily! Please don't cry!" Behind me, a seat cushion blew up. The cushion I had been sitting on.

Lily wailed, "I didn't mean that!" I looked at the cushion's remains. Delicate pieces of fluff floated in the air. It was almost comical. I looked back at the sobbing Lily. Smooth move, James, I thought, good job yelling at your pregnant wife and making her cry. I sat down beside her chair and held her hand, feeling guilty.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell at you. The coffee table is not a nice place to land. I know it's not your fault."

"I'm sorry about this whole rotten day," Lily sniffled.

"Let's just forget about everything that happened. Stuff blew up. It's over. It's not your fault." I rested my hand on her knee.

"But I'll be doing that for the next eight months."

"Well, we'll deal."

We sat in silence once more until Lily looked at me and asked, "Say, speaking of accidents, have you gone to Sirius' lately?"

Ouch. Forgot about Sirius. This wasn't my day.

"No," I moaned.

"Maybe you should. He just might think you're a rotten friend."

I murmured, "I am a rotten friend for not seeing him for two weeks."

"I'm just kidding. He'll understand that you've been busy," Lily said then added, "Besides, now's a perfect time to brag to all your friends that I'm pregnant."

"Hey, that's what you're doing, right?" I laughed. "You big bragger."

"Why else would I go to Mother's with my own free will?" Lily joked. A Muggle taxi pulled up in front. "That's mine, James." She stood up and put on her coat. "Don't forget to visit Sirius!" She kissed me on the cheek, looked at the couch and added, "And fix that cushion, won't you?"

She walked out the door as I waved good bye from the door until the taxi drove away. Taking her wand, I carefully placed it in its case upstairs in the closet, far from her reach, before gathering my own wand from the kitchen and fixing the cushion. I lit the fire in the fireplace and threw some Communication Powder in the flames.

"The home of Sirius Black," I told the flames, which turned white. Within moments, Sirius' head appeared.

"Funny," he said, "I was just about to call you."

"Want me to come over?" I asked.

"Fine, I'll get something on." The head of Sirius vanished and I Apparated away.

*** ***

Sirius Black is an unusual character and my best friend. I met him at Hogwarts and we wound up being sorted into the Gryffindor House, along with Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. He had a magnetic personality and was friendly to everyone. I, on the other hand, did not attract friends quickly. During my youth, I knew few playmates. Since the Potter was a pure-blood family (I can trace my lineage back to a Hogwarts founder, Godric Gryffindor), we mostly associated with other pure-blood families. The children of these families thought I was bizarre and either avoided me or teased me. Children of other wizarding families were terrified of the rumors of other pure-blood children and avoided me or thought me a snob and wanted nothing to do with me. My childhood was a lonely one and my self-esteem was badly bruised from my pure-blood tormentors. Such was my personality when I entered Hogwarts at age eleven.

When I arrived there and met Sirius Black, I wanted nothing more than to be his friend. I guess I sort of wanted to be him. I wanted his confidence and charisma. But, I thought to myself, Sirius Black would never want a boring kid like me to hang around with him so it was better to give up before I really looked stupid. For the first month, I kept my head down and did my work like I was told to do by my parents. I tried to attract as little as attention as possible and spoke to practically no one.

My father had given me an invisibility cloak before I left for Hogwarts. He wanted me to stay a good kid of course but sometimes the rules needed bending. In order to become a head boy, I had to work on my studies. However, the library was closed at certain hours. Of course, this rule was for bad kids who would go out at night and cause trouble, but good kids suffered because of it. I was not to be deprived of my studies so the cloak was to be used for studying late at night and not getting caught. I was strictly forbidden to use it for frivolous desires.

Late one night, I heard a bed creak in our dormitory. Curious, I investigated. I saw Sirius sneaking out of the room. I followed him all the way down to the common room. Gathering all my courage, I whispered, "Where are you going?"

Sirius jumped in surprise and twirled to face me. "Dang, you're quiet. I didn't even suspect you breathing back there!" Sirius hissed back.

"Where are you going?"

"I can't sleep," Sirius replied, annoyed, "so I'm going to the kitchens to get something to eat."

"But it's the middle of the night!" I whispered.

"Early in the morning, actually. Doesn't matter, anyway; I'm hungry." Sirius turned to continue his trek to the kitchens.

I was in such a dilemma. I could either do the proper thing and go get someone and tell them that Sirius Black was sneaking out or save his skin and let him go. I wanted Sirius to be my friend but I didn't want to break rules; Father would never allow it. But if I told on Sirius, he would kill me stone dead. Before I knew what I was doing, I said, "I have an invisibility cloak!"

Sirius stopped cold. "Excuse me?"

"I've got... an invisibility cloak?" I mumbled, instantly regretting my words. My father was going to kill me if he found out I was about to help Sirius sneak out.

Sirius blinked at me. "Why?"

"My father gave it to me for studying. I don't think he'll mind just this once. It would be awful if you got in trouble within the first month!" I explained that all in a rush, frightened. What had I done?

Sirius smiled. "I'm glad you're concerned for my safety. It's James, isn't it?" He stepped back towards me.

"Y-yes," I stammered.

"I'm Sirius Black," he said, offering his hand. I shook it. "But call me Sirius. Where's the cloak?"

"In the trunk," I murmured.

We crept back upstairs and I carefully opened my trunk and pulled out the silvery fabric.

"That's nice," Sirius commented. "How's it work?"

"You just put it over every part of your body and that's it," I sighed, handing it to him. I was dead. I was going straight to Hell for this.

Instead of putting the cloak on himself alone, he covered me with the cloak as well. "Like this?" he asked.

"Yes, like that but why did you cover me as well?"

"Don't you have to be invisible, too?" Sirius asked, grinning.

"For what?"

"To come with me."

I was in shock. "What do you mean 'come with you'?"

"Exactly that. You didn't think I'd just run off with your cloak now without you, did you?" Sirius pulled me up with him. "Come on, I hear they got cheesecake down there."

The trip to the kitchens was unbearable. I very nearly had a heart attack from stress. I couldn't afford to get caught; my father would absolutely kill me. What if I got expelled? I learned later, of course, that sneaking out at night was no reason for expulsion, but I had only been eleven at the time. We finally reached the kitchens after a short walk and Sirius tickled the painting. "I saw one of the fifth years do it earlier today," he explained, as the painting swung to admit us.

The kitchen was bustling with activity. A dozen or so House Elves ran this way and that way, preparing food for breakfast. Sirius removed the cloak from our heads and handed the cloak to me.

"What are those things?" Sirius asked, pointing at a female (at least, it looked more womanly than some of the other ones) House Elf.

House Elves didn't startle me since they had been in my house since before I was born. I shrugged, "House Elves, of course."

Sirius coughed. "Well, I had never seen one before, that's all. So, where's the cheesecake being kept?"

Three House Elves squealed with delight as they ushered us to a seat and served us cheesecake. Sirius looked absolutely flustered at the attention. I laughed, "Come on, they're House Elves. This is what they do, didn't you know that?"

Sirius mumbled, "No, not really."

"'No, not really'? What did you think House Elves did?"

Sirius didn't reply right away as if debating with himself whether or not to answer my question. Finally, he answered, "Actually... actually, I had never heard of House Elves before now."

"Never?!" I asked, startled. House Elves were a part of basic knowledge in my world. It was like not knowing the sky is blue or water is wet.

"No. Just never came up, I guess."

"Are you Muggle-born?"

Sirius shook his head. Before I could ask another question, he said, "Okay, I said one honest thing about myself, now it's your turn."

I shuddered. What would he ask? I didn't want to say something--something stupid to Sirius Black. It would kill me.

"What do you have against us Gryffindors?"

I blinked at him in shock. "Huh?"

"Well," Sirius replied, playing with his cheesecake, "you never talk to anyone. Are you mad that you didn't get to be with your pure-blood friends that wound up in Slytherin or something? Everyone's got a theory."

"'Friends'? What friends?"

"Uh... Malfoy... Parkinson... you know, the pure-bloods."

"I hate them! I hate them all!"

My words rattled in the kitchen. For years I had thought those words but had never uttered them. Alone with only my tears to console me, those words had repeated in my skull. Now, it was out in the open and the air seemed warmer.

"Geez, I thought all pure-bloods would be best buddies. Those Slytherins seem like great pals."

"Not to me," I answered. I told him of the taunts and cold stares. How they laughed at my ideas and pushed me down just because they could; made him understand the past eleven years of my life. They had made me shrink until I succeeded in disappearing.

"So, that's what you were doing--disappearing. You thought we'd treat you the same way?" Sirius remarked.

I nodded and Sirius smiled.

"Yeah, I know what you mean."

"You do?" Bright, popular Sirius Black was an outcast?

"Yeah. My neighbourhood isn't very fond of me either. But, see, I was lucky. I knew the two wisest people in the world. They told me not to disappear; that those kids didn't matter in the long run."

"Who are the two wisest people?" I asked.

Sirius laughed, like it was obvious. "My aunt Clarissa is the wisest and her friend, Elliot, is the second wisest but he's the most knowledgeable." Sirius went back to his cheesecake. "Elliot reads all the time. He has a million books and he's read them all. He taught me to read. Aunt Clarissa just knows all the important stuff--real-life stuff; true stuff. Everything about love, death, people; everything. She knows the truth about it. So, I'm just lucky."

"What are your parents like?" I asked, digging into my neglected cheesecake.

Sirius frowned slightly. "I don't know. They died."

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't've asked."

Sirius waved me off. "Don't worry about it. It was an accident. Could happen to anyone. Aunt Clarissa tells me that they were astronomers, which is why I'm named Sirius. Really big on stars and planets. They're up with them now, watching over me." Sirius paused in reflection over his parents. He didn't seem too saddened by their deaths; I saw more of a longing in his eyes. Maybe he believed they were truly happy with the stars. "So, what are your parents like?"

"Parents."

"That doesn't help me, James."

"I don't know what to tell you. My mother is kind and considerate and my father does the proper thing all the time. They're proud of me and want me to be Head Boy."

"I think you could do it," Sirius interrupted. "I glanced at your notes during one of the lectures. You take great notes."

"I'm not that good, Sirius."

"Whatever you say, James."

Since Sirius had proven himself to be open to questions, I asked, "So, where do you live?"

Sirius' fork hovered over his cheesecake and his face paled. "Around."

"That doesn't help me, Sirius," I replied, mimicking Sirius.

"You know, in a town with people. Around."

"Hogsmeade?"

"No."

I finally weaseled out of him the name of his town.

"You live in Quesera?!" I repeated after hearing the foul name. Quesera, also known as 'Recluse Proper,' was the home of the trash of the Wizarding World. Squibs, drug-addicts, prostitutes, and criminals made their shabby homes in that lame excuse for a city. Generations of Ministers had tried to fix the problem of Recluse Proper but the grime on the street wouldn't wash away and the people were dirty, through and through.

Or, at least, that what I always had been told before. There was no possible way Sirius Black could come from that hellhole!

"You got to be joking! Only drug addicts and Squibs live in Recluse Proper, not decent..."

Sirius cut me off, "Of course! That's what everyone thinks! Do you know you're the first person at Hogwarts I've even told that to? But everyone forgets that decent people do live there. People like Elliot and my aunt. Like me."

I didn't say anything. That was the first time that something my father had said was discovered to be wrong. Everything changed.

Sirius took my silence to mean disapproval. "Fine. Be that way. Every decent person does that in the end. No one wants to deal with Quesera trash."

"Don't go," I said as Sirius rose. "I didn't understand. I mean, how you were to know that I didn't like the pure-bloods and how am I supposed to know that Quesera isn't a breeding ground for evil. It's just perspective in the end, isn't it? Some people just won't let those stupid ideas go. People are stupid."

"Yeah, people are stupid," Sirius replied. He then whispered, "Like those pure-bloods you know. Really stupid." He smiled. "I won't let them do that anymore. I won't let you disappear."

Thus began our friendship. Through Sirius' influence, I did become bolder and more independent. Yes, I did rebel. I guess I refused to let myself disappear again, just as Sirius promised.

Three months before Lily got pregnant, Clarissa died. The coroner said that she most likely tripped on the stairs and hit her head, which caused internal bleeding. Unlike my parents and me, Clarissa and Sirius had been extremely close and her death severely broke him. Clarissa was the only family he had besides the Blacks, who don't really count.

The history of Clarissa and Sirius is an odd one. Sirius Black was from a well-respected Wizarding family with two astronomers as parents. His parents married right out of Hogwarts but when their marriage began to fall apart, they thought a baby would fix the problem. The baby turned out to be Sirius, but the marriage was still failing. His parents decided that a divorce was necessary. The day they went to discuss the legal matters, they left the then six-year-old Sirius in the care of his mother's sister, Clarissa.

When they were Apparating back, an errant car with a drunk driver at the wheel struck them, resulting in the couple to be chopped in half, leaving Sirius an orphan. According to their wills, they named Clarissa as the guardian of Sirius if anything should happen to them. The Black family thought that Clarissa was unfit to raise Sirius, but their real motive for concern was that they wanted Sirius' inheritance. A legal battle ensued.

In one way, the Black family was correct: Clarissa was mentally-damaged. Soon after the reign of Grindelwald, a madman called Evan Guildenstern came up with a "brilliant" theory about the Cruciatus Curse. He believed that the innocent would not be affected. Not merely innocent in a legal sense but completely pure and untarnished, like a baby. The number of Cruciatus Curse victims were pretty high after the reign and he wanted to prevent more tragedies. Like vaccination, he believed, if people had the Crucio performed on them while they were still "innocent", they would be immune to the curse and no one would be hurt ever again. It was a nice theory but it had a bunch of holes in it, I don't know the details. Anyway, his theory was dismissed by his contemporaries and rather than accepting the fact, he went renegade and kidnapped countless babies and toddlers to experiment on them. This scheme lasted for a year until he was finally retrieved by the authorities. According to reports, he was completely bonkers and he got a one-way ticket to Azkaban.

However, the damage he had inflicted on the babies was devastating. The curse causes brain damage after prolonged exposure so the babies were damaged beyond repair. One of these babies just happened to be the infant Clarissa, later to be Sirius' aunt. Clarissa was lucky in the sense that she was the newest and had the least damage. The bad news was that she was still heavily injured. While most of the parents resigned themselves to sending their children to St. Mungo's, the Tapps, Clarissa's family, went against popular advice and raised her at home. Clarissa never reached an intelligence level above a toddler and never attended Hogwarts, but Janet, Sirius' mother, was never ashamed of her sister and both Janet and Roger, Sirius' father, believed that Clarissa could lead a normal life like everyone else, regardless of her brain damage.

Unfortunately, not everyone else agreed with Sirius' parents' evaluations. Clarissa called on Elliot Turner to help her since she knew that if Sirius went with the Black Family, she would never see him again. Elliot called his brother, Lawrence, to serve as her lawyer for a discounted fee. As the story goes, at the end of the first day of court, little Sirius ran up to his uncle on the Black family side to show him a picture he had drawn during the case. The uncle rudely shoved Sirius away, telling him not to show him such pointless rubbish. Heart-broken, he went up his aunt Clarissa. Without any prompt, she gleefully admired his drawing and told him how wonderful he was. Lawrence watched the whole affair and decided two things. One, to not let such a horrible man win the custody of a little boy. Two, that he deemed it personal and no longer required payment. He fought for her case and won custody for her for free.

But if nothing else, Clarissa taught Sirius how to make a nice cup of tea to drink when one was upset, which Sirius was preparing when I Apparated to his home.

The flat Sirius lived in was not a disgrace but it wasn't the Ritz. It was a three-room with a bathroom with little furniture or food, which was alright keeping mind that only one man lived there. Sirius, from his experience in Recluse Proper, knew how to make small amounts of supplies make fantastic living conditions.

I flopped down on the sagging couch and rolled my head on the back of the couch, closing my eyes. "Hello, Sirius."

"Hi, James. You look like crap."

"Thank you, Sirius. I feel like it."

"You're an open book, James." I heard Sirius leave the kitchen and enter the sitting room. "Are you going to fall asleep on my couch?"

"I might," I replied, smiling. My smile quickly faded as reality snapped back into place. "Hey, do you have anything to drink besides tea?"

"Such as?" Sirius asked.

"An adult drink, Sirius."

"As opposed to a pre-pubescent drink?"

I raised my head to look at Sirius. "You know what I mean." Sirius turned to his little writing desk and picked up a letter. He read, " 'Dear Sirius, James is having some problems but he won't tell me what. He even went as far as to try to drown his sorrows in alcohol. Please find out what's wrong with him. Remus. P.S. If you value your life and eardrums, do not give James any alcohol. Lily was not pleased to find James at my house.' "

I felt my face getting hot as Sirius placed the letter back down. "So, that's why you were going to call," I asked.

"Yeah."

"Leave it to Remus to tattle on me."

"Leave it to Remus to notice that James Potter is suddenly a heavy drinker overnight." Sirius' smile faded. "Hell, even I could figure that out without the letter when your first request is for a drink."

"I've had a really awful week, okay?" I mumbled, burying my face in my hands.

Sirius shrugged his shoulders. "Who hasn't? Go on, tell me all about it."

"Well, on Saturday, we found out that Lily's pregnant..."

Sirius melodramatically put his hand over his heart and moaned, "Oh, Merlin! What a world! Lily is going to have your kid! How terrible! Of course, your wife having a baby would ruin your week!"

"I'm not done!" I shouted, feeling a little angry at Sirius' reaction.

"I thought babies were good things."

"They are but the rest of the week is much worse." I then related the epic of my week and as the story went by, Sirius became less and less comical.

After relating Lily's near destruction of our house, Sirius said, "Yeah, you did have a bad week."

"Someone believes me," I joked.

"But drinking isn't going to help you."

I sighed, "I know."

At that moment, the kettle sang and Sirius went to brew the Tapp Family's Secret Tea Recipe. He refused to tell anyone how it was brewed or what it was made from, but it had a magical effect of calming the nerves and clearing the head. That, and it cleared the sinuses, which was nice.

I sat in the sitting room, alone with my thoughts when courtesy struck me. "Sirius, how's work?"

"I wouldn't know. I got fired."

I jumped up from the couch. "What?! Again?!"

Sirius has the most annoying tendency to get fired for rather silly reasons quite frequently. After Hogwarts, Sirius could never seem to hold on to a job. At best, the workplace ran out of business. At worst, he was thrown out the window (yes, that happened).

"It wasn't my fault."

"What happened this time?"

Sirius nearly ran into me as he rushed to explain his case to my face. "Look, you agree with me that it's cold this winter, right?"

"Right."

"When it's cold, humans need heat, right?"

"Yeah."

"So, I'm working in the Mr. Gallagher's store with this thin stick that calls herself a woman with a family in freezing temperatures. I can manage but the girl is shivering to death. Weeks pass and we both reason out that Mr. Gallagher will understand that we need more heat in the room but he doesn't."

"I can see where this is going, Sirius," I replied.

"But you have to admit that he was being inhumane. Of course, the weather is getting worse and now I'm feeling uncomfortable. Well, enough was enough so I asked him if we could more wood in the fireplace."

"Why do I have the feeling you didn't ask very nicely?" I interrupted. Sirius wasn't a tactful person and often acted before he thought.

"You shouldn't because I did. Anyway, he just explodes at me like I was asking him to build a palace for us. To make a long story short, he fired me and that young girl is probably dead from hypothermia."

"Your week was awful, too."

"You mean last week. I got fired last week. I'm nearly broke, too," Sirius said softly. In silence, we went to check on our cups of tea and returned with them to the sitting room, both absorbed in our own thoughts.

It was terrible that Sirius lost his umpteenth job but, I admitted guiltily, I was more concerned about Lily's safety. What was I going to do when I was at work? How will Lily protect herself when she can't even perform magic properly, not to mention how she might not be able to move at the later stages of pregnancy? I wished I could watch her, protect her.

Maybe it was God. Maybe it was the intervention of my father or Sirius' aunt Clarissa. Whatever it was, at that moment, a ray of sunlight illuminated Sirius' face. An angel choir sang as I picked up the thought that would produce the stone to kill a lot of birds.

Here was a man without a job. Here was a man that needed money. Here was a man that was my best friend. Here was a man who could hold his own in a fight, turn into a fierce dog if the need arose. I needed a man without a job. I needed a man who would protect my wife without making moves on her. I needed a man that could hold his own in a fight.

I also had money to spare.

I knew very well that Sirius would not borrow money for any reason. But if I gave him a job, I could pay him money rather than give him money. If the task happened to scratch my back, what harm would be done?

"Sirius? You don't have a job, right?"

Sirius set his cup down. "Fired means no job, James. I know it's a foreign concept but yes, I have no job."

"Would you like a job?"

Sirius laughed. "No, of course not! I want to be kicked out on to the streets and starve! It's fun!" Sirius sobered up. "Yes, James. There are no jobs to be had."

"Not true."

"For Head Boys maybe."

I shook my head, grinning. This was perfect. "What if I gave you a job?"

Sirius stared at me in utter disbelief. "Where?"

"At my house."

"I'm not a House Elf."

"I didn't say you were." I explained to Sirius about my anxiety about leaving Lily as an open target as well as my desire for someone to at least help Lily prepare for the baby's arrival while I'm at work.

"So, I'm babysitting your wife."

"Exactly. You'll be a surrogate me."

"A surrogate you?" Sirius chuckled. "You're insane."

I leaned in close. "Look, Sirius, this will serve both of us. I know for a fact you won't accept money from me but lucky for you, I need you to do something which I am willing to pay you for. You get money, Lily gets protection. We're both happy. I'm not asking you because you don't have a job, I'm asking because you're my friend and I know you can do this."

Sirius closed his eyes in thought (a rare event to behold, Sirius thinking) as I stared at him. Sirius opened his eyes and looked down at me. "Fine. I'll be a body guard. Let's make the arrangements."

To be continued...

Author's Notes: Bonus points for anyone who can guess the significance that the names Elliot and Lawrence have to me. Review or e-mail at destinplot@lycos.com please!