Disclaimer: You know the drill. I'm not JKR. I'll never be as famous as JKR. You see that writing below? It's not hers. It's not making any money. It's not serving for anything more than a pastime of a very bored writer. So don't sue me.

Please.

A/N: Sadly enough, my mother's making me update. I've got up to chapter eight written, but I was taking a hiatus from this story to finish The Garnet Snitch. Oh, well. Looks like that's over. Enjoy!

Somebody told me

That this is the place

Where everything's better

And everything's safe

Walk on the Ocean by Toad the Wet Sprocket

Chapter Three: Unforeseen

"So, is it easy?" Hermione asked conversationally as Harry handed her a burger. She nodded her thanks and worked at unwrapping the silver paper from the food.

Harry looked bemused. "Is what easy?" he asked as he tore the wrapper off of his own burger. He shook his left arm as it gave a slightly painful throb and bit into his burger with heavy anticipation. He hadn't eaten anything since the Leaky Cauldron, after all.

"Driving the motorbike, of course." Hermione gave her best friend a strange look. Her eyes narrowed as she noticed the fact that he was barely chewing on the burger, his thoughts obviously focused otherwise. When Harry got like this, it could hardly mean anything good. "Harry, are you feeling okay? You've been distracted all day."

Harry gave a very noticeable jerk. "Sorry—a bit tired," he mumbled into his burger. Swallowing, he said, "It's pretty easy, actually. Just takes a bit getting used to—want a go?" He gestured toward the window of the dingy fast food restaurant they had stopped in. Outside, the Beast gleamed even in the dusky light, a beauty of chrome and black. Even Hermione, who had never particularly admired anything with a motor, had to agree that the Beast was a fine bike.

"No, no, I'm fine with you driving. I was just curious."

They had been driving for days, it seemed to Hermione, although she knew it to be no more than a few hours. Her calves and feet had long gone numb, shaken to death by the bike itself, and her face felt quite greasy from all of the air that had been billowing into it all day. It had been at her request that they stop for at least a small bite to eat, and now they were sitting in the corner booth of some nameless restaurant that bore the words "Cheap Food!" in garishly bright letters on the massive front window. They were far from being the only patrons in there, but the number of people waiting impatiently for food, or grimacing food down, gave them a sense of security. Safety in numbers, Hermione would have called it.

"So how far are we from the Burrow?" Hermione asked, trying not to wince as she ate a pickle slice on the burger.

Harry checked the card that the twins had given him—Duncan, Hermione remembered. "About an hour, tops?" he guessed. "Maybe half an hour. Duncan's being tricky again."

Hermione personally thought that anything the twins made was destined to be dodgy, but she was hardly going to say anything. Duncan had so far guided them through the maze of back roads that the area had to offer, keeping them perfectly on the map that the twins had designed to throw any suspicious characters. It would have been quicker to go through on the M3, but Duncan had been absolutely insistent that they go his way.

They finished their burgers in silence, with Harry occasionally pausing to rub his arm or shoulder. When they were done, Hermione cleared the trash from the table while Harry headed outside to start the bike up. The aftertaste of the burger made her pull a face as she headed into the cooled evening air. Outside, Harry was sitting on the bike, but he had yet to start it up. Instead, he was looking up at the sky, where the first stars were beginning to show. As Hermione approached, he shook his arm and reached for the ignition.

Hermione stood beside the bike while she waited for Harry to start it up. "What's wrong with your arm?"

Harry didn't look at her; he was too focused on getting the engine to catch. "It's nothing, just a twitch," he grunted. "Ah, there it goes." The engine finally caught and immediately began purring sweetly, as though it had never been contrary. Hermione just rolled her eyes at his diversion, intent on questioning him later. Right now, Harry blinked an excited green gaze at her. "Hop on—I can't wait to get there."

Just as Hermione swung her leg over the seat, a blur of black sped across the edge of her vision. Before she could even think about it, her fingers were wrapped around her wand. Her eyes scanned the car park, but she saw nothing, aside from the dusty vehicles belonging to the patrons inside the fast food restaurant. "Harry, something's up," she hissed, knowing that he would hear her even with the engine. "I think I saw something—wand out."

In one fluid motion, Harry's wand appeared in his right hand, still clutching the handlebars. "What did you see?" he muttered back.

"Something—I don't know. Just get out of here." Hermione checked nervously over her shoulder, but could see nothing but an old Cooper Mini. "I'm probably jumping at shadows anyway…"

"No, no, you're not." Harry slowly wheeled the bike backwards, to where they could pull out from the car park unheeded. "Hold tight, I'm getting us out of here." After Hermione had obediently clutched his midsection, Harry jumped the bike once and kicked off. There was a loud "HEY! Inpedimenta!" behind them, but the hex missed. Harry pushed harder on the gas, cutting across a lane of busy traffic to avoid any more hexes.

Hermione looked behind them, but could see no Death Eaters in the fast food car park. Instead, all she saw was three men, dressed in crisp grey robes with some sort of logo on the left breast of each robe. By the time she could even think to study the logo and try to remember it, Harry had already zoomed down the road, and the restaurant was out of sight.

Ron was just unpacking his briefcase, a rather shabby affair that he had inherited from his Uncle Bilius, when the commanding shout from his mother shot up several flights of stairs. "Ronald Weasley! Get down here now!"

Groaning, Ron closed the suitcase again and crossed to the door. Why did the woman have to call him off of each task for every little thing? She probably wanted him to do something silly, like de-gnome the garden before bed. Shouldn't he be doing something more important, like playing Quidditch? Ron gave another almighty groan at the thought of de-gnoming the garden. Kid-stuff, he would have called it, had he been in the mood to talk. He was seventeen, for heaven's sake. And yet, he was still answering at the every beck and call of his mother.

"Yes, Mum?" he called back after he had passed Ginny's room. The door was closed and probably locked. Ginny had had about as much fun in Bristol as he had, so no doubt she wanted to be alone. The trip had almost been an utter disaster. Under his breath, Ron muttered, "What do you want now?"

Molly Weasley was standing in the kitchen, with a wooden spoon in one hand and a wand in the other. The hand containing the wooden spoon was up near her shoulder, and the spoon stuck out at a precarious angle. When Ron sauntered into the kitchen, she looked up from the cookbook she had been perched over. "Oh, there you are, dear. I thought you had gone outside."

Ron tried not to roll his eyes. Hadn't she heard him call back? He shoot a longing glance at the last rays of sunlight that were filtering dusky hues through the kitchen shutters. Instead of wasting time with Tyrone, his layabout of a cousin in Brighton, he could have been practising from the upcoming Quidditch season, where he was desperately hoping to shine. After all, he and Harry were the only seventh-years on the team, and Harry was already famous, but Ron had Keeper talent. Talent that, as Harry told it after a couple of butterbeers, was raw and untapped. Ron had the makings of a great Quidditch player deep inside, if Harry's boasts were to be believed.

"Would you go check to see if Dad left that thing of petrol in the shed? I've been meaning to try a few things with it. Hurry up," she said to Ron, who was slouching now. "Be quick about it—I don't like you out after sunrise."

"I'm seventeen," Ron pointed out, but he made sure that his steps across the kitchen were fast enough for Molly's approval. Once he was out of view of the kitchen's only window, however, he slowed his pace. The late afternoon air was perfect for a lazy stroll, and besides, he was exhausted from a week long of excruciatingly boring sightseeing. Tyrone was just like his father: fascinated with Muggles. He had talked without stopping for an entire week, making Ginny's and Ron's heads spin as he led them from one sight to another. Although Ron had particularly liked the day that they had spent on the beach, he was still quite a bit red, and now his skin was starting to peel. He wrinkled his nose as he ran his hand along the top tier of the wooden fence that ran along the path to the shed.

The shed was actually a favourite place of his, although he would never admit that aloud. Being the youngest son, Ron had always been fascinated with what his dad did, even if his dad only worked with Muggles. There was a great number of interesting objects in the rickety shed, boxy things and brightly coloured contraptions alike that Ron could stare at and tinker with for hours. He subconsciously stepped around the mop-bucket ("Look!" Arthur had cried after he brought it home, beaming, when Ron was seven. "It has a thing on it to wring out the mop! And it's not even magic!") and scanned his eyes along the shelves, looking for the bright red container of petrol.

Before he found it, however, his eyes stopped on something else. It was another object that Arthur had dragged home from work. Ron remembered that day; he had just turned eleven, about to start at Hogwarts, and his father had come in, excited like a new puppy with his toy. All of his brothers were still at Hogwarts, about to come home. They had got hours of use out of it, too, before the miniature car had just stopped working one day. Ron had been heartbroken, but even that hadn't allowed Arthur to fix it.

"I can't work magic on it, son," he'd said as the two sat at the kitchen table, poking and prodding the racy little car and its control box. "That's breaking the rules." He looked sad even as he picked up the car. "I'd better take this out to my shed, then." From there, Ron had only seen glimpses of the beloved toy sitting on the shelf in his dad's shed. Right now, he rubbed some of the dust off of the front fender and moved along, looking for the petrol container.

The bright red bucket was pushed into a dusty corner. Grunting heavily, Ron tugged it from its resting place and started to haul it down the lane, back to the house. About halfway there, he gave up on "a manly display" and grabbed up his wand, neatly swishing the petrol into the house. He made motions to put it on the table, but Molly screeched, "Don't put it there—I just scrubbed that!"

Grumbling under his breath, Ron waved his wand and set the cartridge on the floor. Without a word, he turned and headed toward the stairs.

A rumble from outside the Burrow made him pause, one foot on the steps. "Mum, do you hear that?" He craned his neck to look for the source of the noise, automatically fearing the worst, but all that he could see were the last rays from the dying sun. Nothing seemed to be thundering up the dirt road that led to the Burrow, so he shrugged and jogged up the steps.

Ginny had opened her door and was peering out onto the landing outside her room, her hair in a towel and a bathrobe tied on over her shorts and old T-shirt. She had stopped sleeping in a night gown, Ron noticed. The freckles that had multiplied after her time in the sun were white with exhaustion and she blinked tiredly at him. "I was almost asleep—but I thought I heard something."

Ron gave her a shrug. "Can't imagine what it could be. I didn't see anything outside when I looked." He peered at her face. "You okay, Gin?"

"F-f-fine," Ginny said through a yawn. "Soon as I figure out what that noise is, I'm going to kip." Pushing past him, she headed down the stairs, leaving a befuddled Ron behind. He frowned at her retreating back and then turned to continue the ascent to his room. He still had to unpack, after all, and check to see if Tyrone had scratched the broom that had become Ron's pride and joy.

Although he still flew the broomstick he had been given for becoming a Prefect, he chose only to fly that during Quidditch games. Otherwise, he flew the broom that he and his friends had spent all year designing. Madam Hooch had been throwing out old school brooms because the Ministry had donated several decent Comet 260's. On a random trip around the school, he and Harry had each snagged one of the trashed brooms. They took a second trip to fetch a broom for Hermione, determined to keep her in on the project. Any spare moments they had were spent stripping the brooms of old charms, and pestering Hermione until she aided them in finding better charms to patch up the brooms.

Now the broom, which Hermione had jokingly called Breakneck III (the name had stuck, and now each owned a Breakneck), lay on Ron's bed, a bare prototype. They had used several spells and potions to make the wood more supple, and several smoothing charms to make it more aerodynamic. Harry had been the official test pilot, as he was the best on a broomstick. With his feel for the motions, they were able to tweak the balance until it was almost perfectly aligned to that of the Firebolt (Hermione had changed it slightly, to avoid any hassles with copyright). Ron had done most of the math and had done a lot of research on different broom prototypes.

The fact that they had created a broomstick that balanced almost better than an international standard racing broom still boggled Ron. He had known that both Hermione and Harry were destined for greatness, for entirely different reasons, but he had never known that he held the same thing inside of him. After all, wasn't his fifth year nearly a disaster? And now here he was, the main inspiration for one of the best brooms to ever hit Hogwarts.

"Well, it makes sense, doesn't it?" Harry asked when Ron had mentioned his doubts to Harry. "I mean, being an inventor must run in your family, too. Look at your dad and the twins." Ron had nodded sullenly, a bit depressed to be thrown back under the shadow of his family. "Though," Harry had continued unknowingly, "I think that yours is so much better. Anybody can charm a car to fly! But a broomstick? That's…that's pure genius." And then he had clapped Ron on the shoulder and had used Ron's shock to get a head start in a race that he lost anyway.

So while Harry tested the brooms and Hermione brewed potions and occasionally helped him out with the equations involved, Ron struggled to achieve the perfect broomstick for both Keeper and Seeker. He knew every niche and cranny in his broomstick by now, knew how it felt in his hands as he soared from point to point, aimed and determined to keep that Quaffle out of those hoops. There was nothing more familiar than the grooves near the front that allowed a sturdier grip, or the slight jerk that let him know that he wasn't flying in a straight line…

"Professor!" he heard Ginny gasp downstairs.

Ron strained his ears for the reply of, "I'm hardly that, Ginny." before bolting down the stairs as fast as his legs could carry him. As Ron's legs had got a lot longer since the time he had plummeted down three flights of stairs (only to bounce at the bottom, to his mother's relief), he made it to the ground floor in record time. "Remus!"

Although still grey and careworn, Remus smiled at him. The wizard was wind-tousled and pulling some kind of trunk behind him. "I'm confused," Ron said before Remus could even begin a greeting. "Are you coming to stay with us or something?" He looked from Remus to Ginny, but the tired girl's expression was as puzzled as he felt.

Now Remus's smile turned cryptic. "You'll see," he said, and left it at that. "Could you help an old man with this trunk, though?" Although Remus looked ages older than most of the people he knew, save Dumbledore, Ron knew that he was younger than Arthur and just older than Bill. The two manoeuvred the trunk into an open space beside the hearth in the den with very little effort. Once the trunk (which bore no identification, Ron noticed) was secure, Remus straightened and dusted off his hands. "Is your mum home?"

Molly swept into the room, beaming. "You made it!" she said, and pulled Remus into a firm hug. "Arthur was worried—I got an owl from Amos telling me that they had to forcibly restrain him from visiting the Scrying Room more than necessary. Come, come, I've just made tea."

Remus allowed himself to be pulled from the room. "I hope you've made a lot," Ron heard him say as the two adults left Ron and Ginny to go into the kitchen.

Ginny immediately crouched by the trunk, running one finger along the edge. "That's odd," she said, eyebrows furrowing. "I'm sorry, but I imagined that Remus's trunk would be a lot…well, erm…shabbier." She leaned forward, getting a closer look. "But it has got claw marks."

"Wait." Ron's head snapped to the right, his eyes narrowing on the front door. "Do you hear that?"

"The rumbling?" Ginny stood up and looked at the front door as well. "It's been going on for quite some time." She unwrapped the towel from her hair, letting the wet locks slide onto the shoulders of the old T-shirt. Ron was pleased to see that it was one of his old Chudley Cannons T-shirts.

The rumbling was definitely getting louder, as though something very dangerous and large was getting closer and closer to the house. Swapping a nervous look with Ginny, Ron drew his wand from his pocket and started stepping cautiously toward the front door. Keeping behind the wall, he poked his head around the door, but saw nothing in the darkening evening. "Stay here," he told Ginny. "You're not allowed to work magic yet."

Although Ginny looked as though she definitely wanted to protest, she bit her lip and nodded once. Stealthy as a shadow, Ron slipped through the front door and crossed the front porch in two quiet paces, dropping easily into the bushes. It was a tactic he'd used to avoid the twins before, after all.

Crack!

Stealth, as well as dignity, flew out the window as Ron yelled and dropped his wand, immediately spinning around and putting up two fists. A pair of yellow eyes stared at him balefully, daring him to attack. Glaring back, Ron grumbled under his breath and collected his wand. "Fat lot of good I'd do up against a dark wizard if the first thing I do is drop my wand," he muttered. "Go on! Get! Lousy cat!"

Crookshanks gave his master's boyfriend a pessimistic hiss and hurried across the porch, bushy tail flicking behind him. Ron watched the cat go with self-disgust written on every feature. If his own humiliation wasn't bad enough, Ginny hadn't been listening to his orders. "Fighting the big bad dark wizards for me, Ron?" she asked teasingly, coming out on the porch. She wrapped her arms tightly around her middle, for the night was slowly becoming chilly. "How sweet. Hey, what's that?"

Ron straightened out of the bushes and squinted. "Looks like a headlight," he observed after a minute. "Why would we have a car come visit us here?"

"Not only that—a car with only one headlight?" Ginny's eyes followed the light's progress down the dirt road, definitely coming up to the Burrow. "That explains that noises we've been hearing."

Ron wiped his jeans off with his hand, still trying to cover the embarrassing incident in the bushes. He couldn't believe he'd been tricked into lying in ambush for a bloody car! And that cat… "Loud car," he snorted, as the engine revved. He turned to go inside, but Ginny suddenly gripped his arm. "What?"

Ginny's eyes were distant, as though she were looking at something he could not see. Lately, Ron had felt like that a lot, like perhaps Ginny could see a lot of things that he couldn't. He shrugged this feeling off, or tried to, as she tugged twice on the arm she was holding. "It's Harry and Hermione!" Her voice had dropped in urgency. "Quick—hurry up!"

Ron needed no further prompting. Long legs churning, he jumped from the porch and landed halfway across the yard. He could hear Ginny's snort of giggles behind him, followed by, "No accidental magic, Ron!" Ron ignored her; he had unconsciously been using magic to aid his jumps for years. He sprinted down the path that led to the road and skidded around the curve, sneakers leaving dust.

The engine cut off just as he sprinted into view. Sitting in front of him, riding what appeared to be a very large bicycle covered with huge chrome plates that gleamed in the expiring sunlight, was his best mate and his girl. They were just climbing off of the contraption as Ron bellowed, "Blimey! What is that thing?!"


"Why, it's a motorbike, of course." Sirius Black beamed proudly at the gigantic object he had just rolled out of the tiny backyard of his new flat. "It's quite probably the best thing on this side of the Atlantic. Sure, it's an American bike, but…"

James leaned over to closely inspect the "Harley-Davidson" logo that sat on the main body of the motorbike, pushing his glasses up his nose. "A Road King?" he read, quite puzzled. "Not only did you buy a Muggle bike, but you bought an American Muggle bike?!" He readjusted his glasses once again, as he often did when flustered, and blinked mulishly at his best friend.

Sirius, obviously unaware of James's current state of shock, beamed proudly. "Isn't she a beauty, though?" He ran a loving hand down the leather seat and moved it up along the handlebars, which had obviously been hit with a polishing charm. "I've got a lot of plans in store for this baby."

A loud throat-clearing noise reminded both young men of the presence of a third Marauder. Remus Lupin was leaning against the front door post, arms crossed and expression inwardly amused. Although he already had a few grey hairs, he looked fresh, his face scrubbed and red from the early October cold. The nice robes that he wore were a tribute to the fact that he had just arrived at Sirius's flat for a job interview. Looking at him, James felt a pang in his stomach. Just that morning, he had heard of a new werewolf legislature that was being written up in the International Confederation of Wizards. Things would be very rough for the young werewolf in the next couple of months.

Right now, however, Remus would remain oblivious. He sauntered away from the post now, crouching to inspect the motorbike. "It's a good bike," he observed after a minute. "However, you are aware that enchanting Muggle artefacts is against the law?"

The fourth Marauder snorted. "So's becoming an illegal Animagus." At eighteen, Peter Pettigrew was slowly growing out of the babyish chunkiness that had pestered him all the way through Hogwarts, but he was always be short and stocky. He had just landed a job as a clerk in the Magical Law Enforcement Squad, so the others saw less of him than usual. It had taken some wrangling for him to join the others for Sirius's unveiling of his greatest mystery. "Of course, creating a sentient map of Hogwarts is, also. What haven't we done that's illegal?"

Sirius was still admiring his new bike. "We haven't killed anyone."

James's expression turned dark. "We came close."

Before tension could rip through the air, Remus cleared his throat again and touched a finger to the Road King. "What are you going to name her? A bike like this, well, she's got to have a name." He looked frankly admiring, as he usually was of Sirius's newest ploy (especially one so great as this). "Can you even drive her?"

"Can I drive her?" Sirius sounded so deeply offended that one would think Remus had driven a sword through him. "Moony, have you no faith in me? Of course I can—with my eyes closed! As a matter of fact, why don't you have the first ride?" He looked positively ecstatic at the opportunity to show off his new toy. "You'll be the first Marauder besides me to ride on my 1959 Road King." He swung onto the bike easily and started it with a jump, grinning at the beastly roar. "My little beast!" he called to James and Peter. "C'mon, Moony!"

Looking understandably apprehensive, Remus clambered onto the bike with considerably less grace. Sirius, after all, still held the title for "Best Famous Last Words" for a stunt pulled in fourth year. "It's entirely safe," he'd said to James. "I checked it myself! Tied the knots, spelled them for the right people…" Even with Sirius's reassurances, the four boys had been hanging in mid-air, in their boxers, when the rest of the school had come in for breakfast.

The engine roared and heckled as the bike, carrying half of the faithful Marauding crew, sped from sight. James waved at it, laughing, and turned to Peter, grinning. "Never could sit still, could he?"

Peter was watching the bike go as well, one hand shading his eyes. "First a bike, what's next?" he asked rather morosely. "Where on earth would he get a Muggle bike? I mean, I know Padfoot is smart, but you know the kind of family he grew up in! It couldn't have been easy!"

"Since when has Padfoot shied away from something because it's hard?" James asked derisively. He checked his watch and sighed. "C'mon, Wormtail, let's go inside and loot his kitchen." He jumped the hedge between the driveway and the front door, stepping into Sirius's house without a second thought. The wards were taught to recognise him, and besides, he had stayed here several times. Somehow, the jokes about his being in the dog-house whenever he was forced to stay with Sirius would never get old, especially not to Peter.

"So how's work?" Peter asked as they entered the minuscule kitchenette.

James unscrewed the cap to a bottle of Toxic Butterbeer and poured two glasses, after making sure that the glasses were clean. Sirius, after all, wasn't known for his cleaning skills. Usually, Lily came in once or twice a month out of pity and cleaned the house for him. Now James peered at the kitchen counters, trying to figure out whether she'd visited lately or not. "Work's fine," he said bemusedly. "It could be worse, I mean. What with all of the stuff happening with Voldemort," and his expression darkened, "we've been up to our necks in paperwork."

"Haven't we all." Although he flinched, as he was prone to do, at James's use of Voldemort's name, Peter took the butterbeer from his friend and downed most of it unabashedly. Sirius had whole cases of the expired brand of butterbeer in his spare bedroom, all from an accidental meeting and some crafty summoning spells. When the Three Broomsticks had stopped selling Toxic Butterbeer, Sirius had merely summoned the unused cases to the spare bedroom. If the taste was a little off, it was good enough for getting drunk quickly that the young honestly did not have a problem. James replaced the bottle in the fridge now and nursed his own cup. "So, how's Lily, then?"

This brought a half-smile to James's face. "She's a lot better, actually." As he always did whenever he was talking about Lily, he ran a hand through his dishevelled hair. The normally-fiery witch had fallen into a depression of sorts after the deaths of her parents, so the group was constantly inquiring about her. "I still think that the eloping was really what she needed. 'Course, it was pure genius of you to throw us that reception."

Peter's grin glowed with an inner light from the praise. "Hey, what're friends for?" The reception, he had to admit, was probably his most brilliant idea. It had taken some serious co-ordinating, but the trio of Marauders had managed to get all of James and Lily's friends together in one room for a surprise reception when the two were supposed to return from eloping. Peter and Sirius had spent most of the reception convincing Lily that James had had nothing to do with the reception. "So she's okay, then? We in the clear?"

James took an over-large swig of butterbeer. "I can't wait until you get married, Wormtail."

Now Peter's grin turned confused. "What do you mean by that?" he demanded, eyebrows lowering. James was prone to make cryptic comments like this, and they always left Peter feeling as though he was sitting in the dust behind James's fast-paced life.

"There's no such thing as 'in the clear' once you're married." James shook his head, highly amused. "Right now, I'm safe 'cos Lily's at Simone's bridal party or whatever it is they're calling it now."

"A wedding shower, perhaps?" said a new voice, and the heads of both men swivelled guiltily at the sight of the short, red-headed witch posed in the doorway, one eyebrow arched and her expression suspicious. "And what was that you were saying, James?"

"'Lo, Lily," Peter said, grinning at James. His grin practically screamed, "You're in for it now, mate!" James gave him a dirty look before turning to his wife. Even Peter could see that the wheels in his head were spinning faster than any racing broom. Peter, meanwhile, was intent to at least help his friend out of that situation. "You got out of your, er, wedding shower rather early."

"Simone took the girls out for a couple of drinks. I wasn't interested—most of them are her new sisters-in-law and they're loud and obnoxious. Plus, they like vodka." Wrinkling her nose, Lily gave a half-shrug and crossed the kitchen. Her expression was slightly perverse, but she kissed James's cheek anyway. "By the way, I'll let you get away with it this time," she teased on her way to the fridge.

Peter coughed, although James thought that his cough sounded suspiciously like "Whipped!"

James seemed to have recovered the ability to articulate. "Not that it isn't a pleasant surprise, but what are you doing here, then?"

"She came with me," said yet another new voice. Although Peter jumped at the sight of Taurus Crockford standing in Sirius's tiny kitchen, James just raised an eyebrow. "Afternoon, James, Peter."

"Tuck?" James demanded, highly surprised to see his godfather's co-worker and best mate. Don Kempworth, James's godfather, generally kept very odd company, but James rather liked the eccentric old Tuck Crockford. Right now, however, he had a score to settle. "You haven't been hitting on my woman, have you?"

Tuck eyed Lily and shook his head. "Were she forty years older," he said in a mockingly mournful tone, and received a joking whack in the arm from James.

Lily rolled her eyes at the three of them. "Men, so possessive." James hid his smile when he saw that she had drawn her wand and was muttering cleaning charms to get rid of the clutter in Sirius's kitchen. If Lily didn't stop by out of pity, Sirius would be living in quite the pig-sty. Not that he was usually here to enjoy it, though, James thought as he shifted restlessly. When he wasn't training out in the field, Sirius would be working on his new motorbike, or visiting any of his friends. Lily and James kept a room in the Potter Manor for Sirius for the nights that he came to visit and couldn't Apparate home because he'd drunk too much.

Now Lily looked up from the charms and fixed James with such a look that he felt everything down to his toes go cold. However, she didn't have bad news. "I actually ran into Tuck on my way through London, James." Her voice was purposely light.

"Have you talked to my godfather lately?" James asked, eyes flicking from Lily to Tuck. He had understood the silent words conveyed in Lily's tone. "How is good old Don doing?"

Tuck removed the small, pointed cap he wore. "Don's doing wonderful. Still working on that project with me—we've made some real progress."

Now James's voice was neutral. "Real progress? Oh, good. Surely you'll come over to dinner tomorrow night, and bring Don? I understand that he's fond of Lily's rather famous ravioli." Really, he knew that the effusive old man was fond of any sort of cooking whatsoever, but ravioli was Peter's least favourite food. The young man wouldn't invite himself over then. "We haven't talked about the project in awhile."

"No, we haven't." Tuck's own expression was bemused as he looked about Sirius's kitchen. "You really should teach him some cleaning charms of his own, Lily. Might do him some good." With a wink to Peter and James, he pushed his cap back onto his head. "Thank you for the dinner invitation. You can expect us at half-past six tomorrow. Pass on my regards to Sirius." Without any further good-bye, he Apparated from the tiny flat.

Peter blinked. "I thought Padfoot had anti-Apparation wards up!" he said, looking confused.

"Must have them down for the day," James lied easily, a guilty feeling squirming around in his stomach as he reached for the bottle of Toxic Butterbeer in the fridge. "You know how lackadaisical Sirius can get about this place when he's been on assignment." That was an utter lie; after assignments, Sirius usually warded his flat with several nasty curses and hexes, all the result of so many years spent pranking at Hogwarts. Too many times, James had said a wrong word and had had to go to Lily to get elephant ears or an aardvark nose removed.

He felt Lily's eyes on him and turned, one eyebrow raised. "You are making ravioli tomorrow night, right?"

"As long as you haven't forgot that Isabelle and her new beaux are coming over for lunch," Lily said just as pointedly.

"Gosh," Peter moaned, stealing the bottle from James. He poured himself a hefty amount and picked up the glass, leaving the bottle from James. "You two are so—"

"Together?" suggested a familiar voice from the doorway, and Sirius came striding into his own kitchen. "Thanks, Prongs." Without warning, he snatched up James's glass and downed the contents. "My bike broke down about a block away—Moony and I had to push it."

Somehow, James thought, given Remus's uncanny strength, he suspected that Sirius had done less pushing than he boasted. Indeed, Remus came into the room a minute later, pushing sweaty hair out of his face. Out of sympathy, James grabbed three more glasses from the cabinet and poured them all a round. "I still don't know how you all can drink this stuff as much as you do," Lily said, wrinkling her nose at the taste. "It's a bit off."

"Wedding shower get out early or something?" Sirius asked her, an eyebrow raised. He had taken to memorising most everybody's schedules, and that included Lily. He had often had to remind her husband, who could be rather paranoid when he worked himself up to it, of where she was.

"You could say that." Lily flinched at the taste of the Toxic Butterbeer, but downed the rest of her glass anyway. It was common knowledge that she could drink James under the table without really trying, but the two had managed to avoid excessive drinking as of late. When Peter had pestered the pair about it, Lily had laughed and said, "Always the risk of getting pregnant, you know," leaving a very green Peter behind.

Sirius had just laughed at the thought of a Prongs Junior. Of course, he and Remus had then spent an hour plotting the age at which "baby Prongs" would receive his first broomstick and then what sort of mischief he would get up to during his first week at Hogwarts. This fun had been stopped by Lily, who had wisely stepped in and reminded the pair that as far as the couple knew, there was no Prongs Junior, and what if Prongs Junior turned out to be a girl?

"We'd have to call her Prongs-ette," Sirius had said without flickering an eyelash. "Either that, or little Lily."

Lily's aggravated response was that no child of hers would have the misfortune of being named after a flower.

"So, why'd the bike break?" Peter asked conversationally, turning to their friend. At the moment, they could only see the bottom half of Sirius, for he had managed to fit his head, arms, and upper torso into a cabinet in a desperate search for snacks. "Just the normal Muggle problem?"

"Muggle problem?" James asked mildly, trying to see over his friend's shoulders in hopes of good snack food.

"Yeah—you know—how things are always breaking. Engines and stuff." Peter shrugged and became quite enamoured with his drink, possibly embarrassed that he had insulted Lily's heritage.

She, however, had her eyes narrowed on Sirius, who remained obliviously in the cabinet. James winced in sympathy for his best friend; what was coming surely had to be painful. "Wait a minute—by bike do you mean motorbike or bicycle?"

Sirius retracted from the cabinet so quickly that James always swore that he had Apparated. "Uh, erm, er…"

"It's a Harley-Davidson 1959 Road King," James told his wife proudly, glad that he had remembered the official name. The dirty look Sirius shot him now promised him that while James was gaining brownie points with his wife, he was clearly losing favour with his best friend.

James's grin widened. He wasn't above wanting to see Sirius squirm just a little.

Remus, being the only person unafraid of Lily, decided to stick up for Sirius. "Oh, come on, Lily, it was perfectly safe," he said.


"Perfectly safe? Perfectly safe?!" Molly Weasley spun round angrily, nearly upsetting the kettle from the stove, where it was bubbling merrily, completely unaware of the tense atmosphere in the Burrow's tiny kitchen. "Remus, I know that you're a sensible man, but this time you've gone too far! Letting two seventeen-year-olds—who've never driven before—alone on English roads, on an ancient American motorbike belonging to an escaped convict is not just dangerous, it's not dangerous—it's downright foolhardy!"

The lines at the corners of Remus Lupin's mouth whitened at the thought of facing down this fireball of a woman. This was especially noticeable to Ron, Hermione, Harry, and Ginny, who were sitting at the table, eating in a rather subdued manner. They had spent the past few summers memorising the expressions on the faces of the adults in their lives, and this look of stolid fear was unfortunately quite common. Ron and Hermione kept locking eyes and sharing secret smiles when they thought nobody was looking, and Ginny was playing with her food, too unsettled by the fact that her mother was yelling at her old professor to eat much. Harry was just too tired to do much besides lift his fork from his plate to his mouth, but he kept his eyes on Remus.

Molly slammed a frying pan into the kitchen sink, sending an explosion of water everywhere. "Forget Death Eaters and Dementors! Just throw him on a motorbike and let him blow himself up!"

"The motorbike, I might remind you, belongs to Harry," Remus said, seeing his opportunity to speak in the dead silence. Harry's fork had stopped halfway to his mouth, and it quavered suspiciously. Hermione and Ron, recognising that Harry's anger was closer to the surface than it had been all day, exchanged a nervous look. "And it was safer to keep him away from all magical transport on today of all days, Molly. You know what the seventeenth birthday means—it's a wizard's most vulnerable day!"

"Magic doesn't work the way it's supposed to all of the time," Hermione whispered to Harry, hoping to head off an angry explosion. "Tomorrow, you'll have grown fully into your mature powers, but it's always a bit awkward on your seventeenth birthday."

"But a motorbike, Remus?" Molly was saying as Harry turned his attention away from Hermione. "You have no idea where that thing's been—he's never driven before—what if the Death Eaters had caught him unawares?"

Hermione and Harry locked eyes, each silently agreeing not to tell the adults about the near-attack at the fast food restaurant. They didn't need to worry anybody over that. Ron looked up from his stewed carrots and gave the pair of them a queer look. One eyebrow raised; he obviously knew that they were hiding something, and would interrogate them about it. Harry gave him a desperate look that screamed "Later!" in bold letters, and Ron finally nodded. Hastily, the youngest Weasley son stood up. "Great dinner, Mum," he said quickly, interrupting the argument. "I'm off to bed. You coming, Harry?"

Harry looked longingly at the food that was still left on his plate. "Give me a minute," he decided. "This shepherd's pie is too good to resist."

Ron's head swivelled to look at his girlfriend. Hermione cleared her throat and climbed to her feet. "I think I'll call it an early evening, too," she said, and Harry wondered if any of those in the room actually believed her. He certainly didn't. "Walk me up, Ron?"

The two disappeared from the room without another word, leaving Harry and Ginny with Molly and Remus. Harry sneaked a look at Ginny and was a bit surprised to see her playing listlessly with her food. The youngest Weasley usually had something to add to every conversation, a fact that had become more obvious over the past couple of years. Ginny was talkative, but she was nowhere near the annoyance that Colin Creevey managed to be on many different occasions. Harry's brow furrowed as he noticed the exhaustion in her pale features.

"—Should give the motorbike back, that's what he should do!"

Now Harry sat up with a jerk. "Give it back to whom?" he demanded, incensed. For some strange reason, he thought of the rather annoying attendant at the Ministry Impound Lot. "The last owner's dead! Giving it to the Ministry would just be stupid—they'd just scrap it! Besides, it's my bike. Sirius left it to me! And that bike's all I have left of him!" The words came out before he could stop them, but afterwards they seemed to hang there, obvious and open.

Reality seemed to shatter around him as he sat at that dinner table, incensed over a petty disagreement over a motorbike, of all things. Harry felt as though he had been glued to his seat, and that his shoes had been cemented to the floor. The fork in his hand was quivering madly; his body seemed distant and disconnected, almost leaden in a sort of way that puzzled him. It felt like there was cotton inside of his head, between his ears and eyes. Everything was strangely blurry and random. He wasn't angry, he knew; upset maybe, but never angry. So why was he reacting like this?

Remus and Molly weren't moving, Harry noticed in that strange disconnection from his body. Only Ginny was able to move much, and she was doing so very slowly. But her eyes locked with his anyway, slowly bringing out horror and disbelief. It was like his heart had accelerated and taken the rest of his body with it, but was leaving the world behind. Subconsciously, his hands flew up to his chest, clutching the skin over his heart. Later, he would notice bright red splotches that his fingertips had left behind there. Right now, he was too busy trying to work his mouth and demand help from anybody in the room.

But Remus and Molly had even moved, Harry had collapsed right out of his chair.