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

Life Had Just Begun

By Terra

Chapter Twenty-two: Coming Home

After Sirius had stopped wailing and used up an hour in dead silence, he got up slowly, and announced, "I feel better now."

"I'm glad," I croaked, my voice causing a shock in my throat after so much holding in emotion and silence.

He sighed contently. "It's always good to talk to Aunt Clarissa. I just had to get that out of my system. Let's go home, James. I'm done." Nodding, I rose to my feet, stiff from my awkward position. He patted the tombstone with his hand, promised to be back soon, and turned to leave the cemetery. Before I followed, I stopped in front of Clarissa's grave, nodded at it, and ran after him.

*** ***

Sirius kept to himself, much like someone recovering from a terrible bout of the flu. He spent a lot of his moments in silence but it was a calm silence. The worst was over.

I spent my time visiting Lily and Harry or doing odd jobs here and there. Sirius helped me out usually or went job hunting. Whenever I visited Lily, he came along but only for a few moments, claiming one reason or another. He really went to visit Marguerite. The visits seemed to do Sirius some good. He said that although she couldn't remember him, she seemed to enjoy his visits.

"Doctor Harvey wants everyone who knows her to help with her therapy," he explained one night. "So, I'm doing the best I can." It was Sirius' therapy as much as hers. Sirius only feels satisfied when he is doing something, anything. He doesn't like to sit idle.

One night, as we ate dinner, I remembered Doctor Greenling. I had forgotten to tell Sirius about him so I mentioned the call.

Sirius' expression darkened. "Oh? Doctor Greenling?"

"Yes, he said he was a friend of your parents."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Yeah, you could put it that way. Did he mention he's a psychiatrist?" I nodded. He laughed bitterly. "And he wanted to offer his services to me?"

"Yes," I answered. "Well, I mean, what happened is pretty awful. He probably has cases like that all the time."

"He's been dying to pick at my brain since I was two years old." He tutted. "I hate that man. He's the worst thing that ever happened to my parents."

"He didn't seem that bad," I replied.

"You haven't seen him in action," Sirius answered. "See, when I was little, I had problems making friends at playschool. The kids were just meanies but my parents didn't believe me. So, they asked Doctor Greenling if he could figure out the problem." He stabbed a vegetable. "Of course, he had been dying to get his hands on me and my psyche since he met my parents. So, he does this weird test with me. Something with toys and people asking me questions about what I like and dislike."

"What was his conclusion?"

"Just about everything," he answered, then ticking off on his fingers, "I was becoming anti-social, depressed, hyperactive, and, to top it off, I was going to be gay."

I snorted with laughter. "You were supposed to be gay?!"

"I guess I grabbed a doll at the wrong time. Of course, it was all my parents' fault and they had better shape up or I would be dressing in drag and moving in a transvestite. My parents went out of their minds with worry about my mental health."

"What did they do?"

"I can't really remember. Finally, they listened to me for a change and went to the school to see how the conditions were. They saw that the place was bad for me and transferred me out." He rolled his eyes. "I bet he probably thought that we're having a lurid affair and Lily and Marguerite were just our cover-ups."

"You really hate this Greenling," I answered, laughing.

"He said a lot of crap about my parents' relationship. He made it worse if anything. If they hadn't…" he slammed his mouth close for a second, took a breath, and added, "Anyway, I definitely don't need him. What did you say?"

"I just said I'd tell you."

"Good." He shuddered. "God! I hate him. Every time he sees me, he acts like I'm still five years old. I half-expect him to pat me on the head like he used to do. I never liked him, never in my entire life. Ugh, he makes my skin crawl."

"Sorry to bring him up."

"Don't be. He's like a clogged up drain. Sooner or later, it catches up with you." Sirius ate another clump of meat and added, "Speaking of catching up, I was thinking about Whetstone today."

"Whetstone? What for?" I asked.

"He just popped into my head. Anyway, I was thinking about what happened the day we met up again, remember that?"

"When the beam nearly fell on his daughter?"

"And he had a fit about us being there? Well, I was also thinking about what happened with the Willow and I think I know why he had such a problem."

I raised an eyebrow. "Oh?" I leaned back into my chair. "Is this leading up to a joke?"

"No," Sirius answered, waving his hands in front of him. "I'm being serious. Okay, remember what happened with Snape and the Willow?"

"How could I forget?"

"And Dumbledore explained that whole life bond thing to you during detention?"

"Yeah, so?"

"How do you get a life bond?"

"By saving someone's life."

"And...?" Sirius prompted.

"What do you mean 'and'? There's no 'and'. You save the person's life, they're bonded to you."

"You have to put your life in danger in order to save them," he answered slowly. "That's the clincher. It's not just saving a life, it's saving a life at the risk of your own."

"Is there a point to this? Should I be cashing in on Snape's debt or something?"

"No. Think about what happened the day we saw Whetstone and his kid. What happened?"

"You were there!"

"Just tell me."

I rolled my eyes but I told him, "We saw Whetstone with his daughter. We talked. He gave me a cryptic message. We walked apart. The scaffolding fell. Lily rushed to..." It dawned on me as Sirius nodded his head. "She rushed to save the little girl. Lily ran under the beam and saved Alyssa Whetstone."

"Exactly. An eight-month along pregnant woman ran under a falling beam to save a young kid. Whetstone's daughter."

"That means the girl bound to her now!"

"And your son through her. So's Snape, through you."

"Wow," I cried. "He's connected to two people who are bound to the Potter family. No wonder he was furious. He was ready to tear my throat out when he found out about Snape's life bond."

"Well, at least he sort of likes Lily."

"Yeah, but he hates me and through me, Harry. Life bonds are tricky things. If you don't help whoever you're bound to and you're in a position to help, doesn't your heart explode or something alone those lines?"

"It's not pleasant, that's all I know. He probably doesn't want to take any chances with his daughter. Just try not to save my life at the risk of your own, okay?"

"Puts a whole new light to his reaction," I concluded. I shuddered. "I'd hate to have Harry bound to someone like that. I would be terrified that something would happen and his heart would explode. Ugh. I don't even want to think about it."

*** ***

When Harry was deemed healthy enough to leave St. Mungo's and go home, I was madly excited. I arranged and re-arranged the room about ten times that morning. Sirius, having some presence of mind left, rented a car for driving Lily and Harry home in.

At ten o'clock, a nurse wheeled Lily out of her room on a wheelchair as she carried Harry in her arms. His eyes, to my disappointment, had taken on my features: brown. To soothe myself, I noticed that his weren't as mucky-looking as mine. His seemed brighter, lighter, more like Lily's except for the colour. Besides, this meant that the child that had been haunting my dreams was just a nightmare. The boy in the dreams had green eyes and my son obviously had brown.

"Why are you in a wheelchair?" I asked.

"Hospital policy. Can you get the presents and cards still in the room?" Lily requested meekly. Shrugging, I went to the room and gathered all the gifts, deflating balloons, and assorted toys in an empty sack and walked back to Lily, who was still waiting in her wheelchair. "Want to push me?"

"Sure, anything." I pushed Lily to the tiny parking lot where Sirius was waiting by the car. She clapped with delight as Sirius indicated a baby seat that he had borrowed from Lawrence's family.

"They're not going anywhere today," he explained as she attempted to strap Harry in. "I have to give it back though."

"Well, we don't even have a car so it's not like we need one," Lily replied. "I think that'll do it. Do you think it's too tight or too loose?"

"He looks pretty secure," I commented. Lily sat in the backseat with Harry as I sat took the front beside Sirius, who was driving because I don't know how. "Now, don't drive too fast and try to avoid potholes," I told Sirius. Sirius gave me an evil grin.

Lily leaned forward to hiss into Sirius' ear, "We mean it!"

"I wasn't going to do anything," Sirius answered. "Say, James, want to take a spin like Peter's dad?"

"Keep talking like that and I'll be driving and we'll leave you here to walk back," Lily growled as she buckled her seat belt. Chuckling, he turned the car on.

*** ***

Sirius managed to avoid potholes and breaking speed limits (or maybe he tried to but failed) the entire way as Lily and I continually checked Harry over. Harry slept. Seeing that Harry was able to survive his first encounter with the world outside the hospital, we felt pretty confident.

Once we arrived home, we took out Harry gently in case we would hurt him. This took ten minutes in all. Within the first minute, Sirius gave up on us and headed inside as we debated on how to remove Harry without turning him into a Squib. But we proved ourselves worthy of carrying our own child unaided out of a car and into a house.

Still wrapped in blankets, we carried him over the threshold and tried to catch Harry's attention, who was still sleeping. "Look, Harry, we're home," Lily cooed. "This is our home and we going to stay here forever."

"Say 'hi' to Daddy," I added. "Wave at Uncle Sirius." Harry continued to sleep.

"Do you want to go to your nice, big room now?" Nodding, we walked up the stairs to put Harry in his now-completed room. We stood in the door and sighed. Harry squirmed and let out a tiny, creaky squawk that quickly died. We looked at each other and it finally hit us. We were now the sole protectors of tiny, defenseless human being. We would be bound to this life for many, many years in a bond stronger than any life bond imaginable. Everything in his life would begin and end with us. He would be looking up to us.

And we were terrified.

"Hey, James' mum is on the fire," Sirius announced behind us.

"Mrs. Potter?" Lily asked hopefully.

"Who else? She wants to know if you two are okay and if you need anything."

*** ***

"We hope we're not imposing on you," Lily apologized once my mother arrived. "It's just... you see, it's..."

"No trouble at all," my mother answered, patting her on the knee from her place on the couch. "I was scared when James was finally given to me as well. It's nothing to be ashamed of."

"Is it really alright with you to stay with us?" I asked.

"The manor is not going to fall to bits if I'm gone for a week," my mother answered. "I'm delighted that you even asked for me to stay. I wasn't expecting that when I called."

"We did sort of pounce on you though, sorry."

"Where is your mother, Lily?" my mother inquired.

"Oh, she hasn't called. She doesn't understand owl post or using the Floo and she is always forgetting the telephone number so sometimes I don't hear from her."

"Oh, well, I was just wondering because usually a young girl wants her mother in times like these."

"Oh! Well, I feel a tad safer with you, Mrs. Potter..."

"Abigail, please."

"Right. I feel safer with you, Abigail," Lily struggled with the name as if it was foreign, "because you're a witch and if something magical happens, you could help."

"I doubt anything will. I'm not casting doubt on my grandson but even the most advanced children do not show any signs until six months."

"But just in case," Lily quickly added.

My mother nodded. "Just in case. Anyway, I'm flattered."

Lily adjusted Harry in her arms. "Should he be sleeping so much? I mean, is that normal? Is there something wrong if he sleeps too much? Should I wake him up?"

"Lily, calm down," my mother interrupted. "Babies are always sleepy during their first month. It's perfectly natural. Trust me, you'll miss his sleepiness."

After an hour of talking about "what next", the doorbell rang. We all looked at each other. Do Death Eaters usually ring the doorbell? "I'll get it," Sirius offered. He went to the door and the caller nearly plowed Sirius over as she walked inside.

"Oh, thank you! My, Lily, you've redecorated!" It was Lily's mother. She was carrying two pieces of luggage and dressed in a beige summer dress with a thin red silk scarf tied around her neck.

"Mum," Lily greeted, astonished, "you're here."

"Why of course I'm here, my darling child!"

"You didn't call."

"Why would I need to?" Lily just stuttered at her with her eyes wide. Her mother swept further into the sitting room. She noticed my mother, who was currently holding Harry. She squealed, "Oh, Abby! I haven't seen you in ages! How are you?"

"I'm fine, Maude," my mother answered softly. I had forgotten about Mrs. Evans habit of adding an "e" sound to the end of any name, leading to her calling me "Jamesie". I knew that my mother hated to be called "Abby". It was Abigail, Mrs. Potter, or nothing.

Mrs. Evans leaned forward to look at Harry. "Tiny thing, isn't he?"

"James was smaller," my mother answered.

"Oh, right, didn't Jamesie nearly die at birth?" She spoke as if I had fallen down and scratched my knee at some point. My mother's lips went thin.

"Yes," my mother answered stiffly.

"That must of been awful," she commented. "Anyway, Harry looks better than he did when I saw him last. Of course, Dudley is much larger now."

"Dudley?" my mother asked.

"Oh, yes, my older daughter, Petunia, had a baby about a month before Lily. His name is Dudley and he is the prettiest little boy. Lovely, soft blond hair. Oh, he's precious." Lily looked like she was about to explode but her mother continued, "Of course, Harry is cute as well but he's just so tiny. It's worrisome."

"Harry is precious too," Lily snapped.

"Of course he is. Who said he wasn't?" her mother replied. "Anyway, I'm here to help out, Lily. Motherhood is hard work and it's my duty as your mummy to help you in your time of need."

"Actually, I was going to help out," my mother answered softly. "But seeing as you are here now, I guess I don't have to..."

"Oh," Mrs. Evans replied coldly, "oh, that's how it is. I see."

"No, it isn't like that," Lily answered. "I thought you might be busy..."

"No, it's perfectly alright. It's not like I'm your mummy and I love you."

"It wasn't like that," Lily protested. "You can stay. It's alright."

Mrs. Evans gave a long-suffering sigh. "Petty practically ran into my arms when Dudley came. They didn't call Vernie's mother. She didn't think I was busy."

"Mum, I'm sorry. Mrs. Potter happened to call first. I mean, Harry is her first grandchild and she's a witch..."

"Oh, I'm just a simple Muggle now?"

"No, Mum, that's not it! Please, just stay. Let's not fight over this. I didn't know you had the time."

"Of course I have the time. Harry's my grandson!"

"I'm sorry, Mum. You can stay. It's alright."

Mrs. Evans gave another long-suffering sigh. "I hope that Abby doesn't mind."

"I can share. That's alright with me," my mother answered.

"Good, then. Where should I sleep?"

*** ***

Mrs. Evans meant well. She was just a bit overbearing and childish. I'm glad that my mother was there because she gave us some degree of normalcy. It had been ages since I had lived with my mother and I had never noticed how spirited my mother could be. My mother had the most remarkably ability to complete insult someone while making it sound like a compliment. During the visit, all the gibes went to Lily's mother and she never caught on.

One such example was when Mrs. Evans was fussing over Harry, while saying, "Say hello to Granny! Yes, you love your Granny, don't you dearie?"

To which my mother commented, "Yes, Maude. You do look like a Granny."

"Why, thank you, Abby."

Lily and I just looked each other in shock. Did my mother just say that? It reminded me eerily of Peter telling outright lies to his mother and his mother just tittering and saying, "My, you're precious." Together, they taught Lily the basics of motherhood and my mother gave us both a shoulder to lean on when Lily's mother got too overbearing.

Two days after the mothers had arrived, I noticed that Harry's door was open slightly during one of his naps. Quietly, I opened the door more to peer inside. Sirius was leaning his arms on the railing of the crib, staring down at Harry. He was completely motionless, his face pensive and unreadable. He scarcely breathed as he stared down at my son. I nearly left, fearing that I had walked in on a private moment.

Suddenly, Sirius stuck out his tongue at Harry and said, "You blinked. I win." I relaxed the breath I didn't realize I was holding.

"Is he awake?"

"Yeah." Sirius hadn't removed his eyes from Harry. His face flickered back to the neutral expression. Quietly, he remarked, "Marguerite is being released tomorrow. Her family is picking her up."

"Oh."

"I thought I would visit her and maybe wait for her family with her. You know, keep her company."

"Is she going back to her house?"

"I think so. They're done with examining it for any leads."

"Did they find any?"

"No, of course not. That would be too easy." Sirius gave a weak burst of laughter before adding, "Anyway, I'll be gone in the morning. Think you three can survive Lily's mum until I get back?"

"I don't know. We always need reinforcements."

I stepped over to look at Harry and maybe to try to decipher what was going on inside Sirius' head. Harry stared up benignly at us and Sirius' face gave me no further clues close-up than far away. His eyes still not leaving Harry's, he said, "You can tell Lily now. It's alright now. She has to know sometime and now is a better time."

*** ***

That night, I told Lily all the details of Marguerite's accident and how Sirius took it. She was horrified that those two had to undergo all that strife while she was blissfully enjoying her new motherhood.

"They'll find them," she insisted, "they have to. Everything is going to work out for the best."

The next morning, Sirius was gone as he had promised. But by afternoon, he was still absent. "Maybe he wanted some time to himself," Lily suggested. By evening, he was still missing and we began to get worried. We listened to the Wireless to make sure that St. Mungo's hadn't been blown up or if there were any mass attacks. There was nothing newsworthy but that doesn't rule out everything.

After a restless night worrying if we had seen the last of Sirius Black and Harry demanding attention, we woke up and had breakfast. In the middle of toast, Sirius practically ripped the door off the hinges as he barged into the house and swept up the stairs. The four of us stared at each other in shock.

"Moody one, isn't he?" Lily's mother commented, shaking her head in disdain. "It's not even his house!"

Excusing myself, I followed after in his wake to find him gathering his clothes and personal belongings with an open empty suitcase on the cot. He appeared enraged, like he had just stepped away from a nasty shocking argument and still had some things to say.

"Hi, James," he growled, throwing a lump of shirts into the suitcase.

"Packing?"

"I'm leaving now."

"So soon?"

"Yes. I told you two days ago," he snapped.

"I know." Sirius continued to furiously pack heaps of clothes. "Where were you yesterday?"

Sirius slammed his comb into the pile and stared viciously outside the window, clenching his fists. "I want you to imagine the following scenario. A family member of yours is in the hospital and is being released. However, you have to work during the time that they are released. What do you do?"

"Ask if I can call off work for an hour or two," I answered.

He nodded vigorously. "Yeah! Yeah! So would I! So would any reasonable person! But do Marguerite's relatives? No." He turned to face me and looked like he was about burst a blood vessel. "Apparently, someone assigned her sister and my cousin to pick her up. She was released at ten o'clock in the morning. Do you know when they were going to come?" I shook my head. "I'll tell you. Five bleeding o'clock. Do you want to know why so late? Because they were 'too busy' to pick her up. They could not spare one hour to pick her up, drop her off, show her around her house since she doesn't remember it, and leave. She would have had to wait seven hours for them to pick them up."

"What happened to her?" I asked, wide-eyed.

"Well, I took her home obviously! By the way, when I did take her home, not one family member called her to see if she was okay. Not one. Not even the stupid sister to make sure if she reached home alright! They just came at five, didn't see her, and assumed her friend had taken her home without bothering to call to apologize!" Sirius was shaking in fury, his eyes livid. "And then they get mad at me for taking her home! Said I didn't have the right! Said I was..." Sirius cut off. He appeared to struggle with the words in his brain fighting to get out.

"What else did they say?" I asked gently.

"Who cares about what they said!" he answered defiantly. "I certainly don't care about what they said! What do they know anyway?! I don't believe anything they say! They use any excuse! Any excuse! It's just the same thing they've always said, just changed the words around! Doesn't mean a thing!"

"Okay, Sirius, I believe you. It wasn't important," I stammered.

Sirius wasn't done with his rant, exclaiming, "And they didn't even clean her kitchen!"

"The sister?"

"No! The Aurors! Just left the Dark Mark on the wall! And the..." he trailed off, his eyes appearing to be looking at the kitchen once again. He added quietly, "She can see flashes. Not close to knowing to what actually happening but she gets impressions, sights, sounds, little bits."

"What can she remember?"

"Two people. She remembers grabbing a knife but can't recall what happened with the knife. A knife was on the floor so I think that makes sense. And pain. And anger. That's it. I took her out of there. I don't want her... I just don't want her to relive that so soon." His head drooped as he turned back to the window, almost whispering, "She knows."

"Knows?"

"About the miscarriage. Harding told her during one of the last days." I stared at my feet as Sirius remained silent. He heaved a big sigh and commented, "Well, suitcase isn't going to pack itself."

"I'll help you."

To Be Continued...

Author's Notes: This chapter is code-named "The De-Angstifying of Sirius". Yes, I can hear the teeth gnashing from here. "Harry's eyes are GREEN. Green as a pickled toad! G-R-E-E-N!" or if you've only seen the movie, "BLUE! Blue, for Pete's sake!" I know what color his eyes are. Did I fail you on the Robert/Ron thing? No, and I won't fail you this time either. I took my AP United States History test today. I wrote the worst essays. They were miserable, really they were. At least the Document Based Question essay was something I knew about. The actual multiple choice part was okay. There were about ten I had no idea about. My friend Naisumi made the nicest poster for my locker with pictures of Yukino Miyazawa on it since she's so studious if a bit crazy (the problem is: is "she" Naisumi or Yukino? I'm not quite sure myself). My birthday is in two days, on May llth. I'll be seventeen years old. Only three more weeks of school and then one week of finals and then I'm done with junior year. YAY! I just realized I have a pet peeve: computer talk. You know what I'm talking about. Stuff like "who r u" and "y" and "whut eva". I just had some random person IM me and talk like that the ENTIRE TIME. Not only that, she was really rude to me. Argh! But, if you want to IM me (my AOL name is TerraC), that's okay. Just don't use that funky computer talk and make sure to tell me that you're a fan of my fic or I might think you're someone trying to talk to their friend Terra Cobble from Meadowbrook High or something. It has happened so many times to me, it's not funny. Can't anyone write down their friends' aliases correctly? Jeez. If you don't want to IM me, which is fine, you can still review with the button or e-mail me at destinyplot@lycos.com! I love reviews and I've never gotten a flame before so I'd like to see one! See ya later!