CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FORTY-EIGHT
Despite the fact that Jane wanted to be a Healer, she had only ever been to St. Mungo's once in her life. She had hoped that the next time she stepped foot in the hospital would be because she was doing her clinicals for classes. Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned, and she found herself sitting and waiting all alone, wondering if Mrs. Potter was going to be okay. No one was telling her anything, and Mr. Potter had disappeared a while ago to figure out what was going on, and she hadn't seen him since. Part of her wanted to go looking for him; the other part wouldn't let her move from her spot on her chair.
Mr. Potter had been the first person Jane had contacted, after the Healers, of course. She'd been in shock and didn't really know what to do, but she knew that Mr. Potter's office at the Ministry had a fireplace, so she immediately interrupted his work to tell him about the situation. Therefore, Mr. Potter had been the first to show up. She would've contacted James next, but she didn't have a clue as to where he was; all she knew was that he was with Lily, and that could've been anywhere. So, she got in touch with Sirius, who had left work early; he had yet to arrive owing to the fact that he was out looking for James.
Jane just stared at the floor in front of her, an ever-growing sickening feeling in her stomach and a multitude of questions racing through her brain. However, the questions that she kept coming back to were: What exactly was wrong with Mrs. Potter? and Was Mrs. Potter going to be okay? Surely, she would be, or at least, that's what Jane kept telling herself whenever the question would pop up in her head. The truth was, she wasn't sure what was going to happen. She felt as though if she were left alone much longer, she'd go mental; she just needed someone to sit and wait with her.
Jane's wish was granted when Remus turned up on the same floor as Jane, spotting her almost immediately and rushing to her. Jane figured that either Sirius sent him, or he'd just come on his own after hearing. Jane hadn't actually spoken Remus about it yet; when she'd popped her head into the fireplace in the back office of the White Wyvern, she'd spoken with a grouchy wizard named Vinnie and then to Sirius. Of course, Sirius must have let Remus in on the situation before leaving work to find James.
"Jane, are you alright?" he asked as he reached her before looking around and adding, "Has Sirius not got here with James yet?"
Jane shook her head.
"He must not be able to find him," Jane said quietly before finally looking up at Remus. "I thought you were working; Sirius said you were working today," she added as he sat down in the empty chair beside her.
"I was, but I left a bit early. I was worried, and it was pretty slow today anyway, I'm sure Vinnie and Malcom can handle it until the next shift starts," Remus said. "What happened?"
"I don't know. She was fine, and then, she went to the loo and didn't come back. She just passed out, and I couldn't get her to wake back up," Jane explained without taking a breath. "They took her to the back, and no one will tell me what's going on, and Mr. Potter went to find out something, but he hasn't come back either, and I can't stop worrying, and—"
"Jane, calm down," Remus said, halting Jane from her rapid-fire explanation, mostly because he could tell that she was about to put herself in a panic if she kept talking about it. He placed his hand on her back and patted her in a comforting way as she suddenly remembered to breathe.
"Remus, the last time I was here was after I lost my mum," she finally added quietly, and Remus nodded slightly.
"I know."
"I'm scared," she said; finally allowing herself to feel the full gravity of the situation. Remus watched as her already red eyes brimmed with tears, and he pulled her into his side as she tried to keep the sobs from escaping her lips.
"It'll be okay," Remus said, trying his best to console her as she wiped the tears away, desperate to keep a bit of composure.
Jane finally gained control of her emotions but left her head resting on Remus' shoulder as they waited in silence. After that, it wasn't very long before Sirius showed up with James and Lily in tow.
"What happened?" James demanded.
"I don't know," Jane said, taking a breath before going into the explanation she'd given Remus, but she was cut off.
"What do you mean you don't know?" James said. "Where's my mum?"
Jane flinched a bit; James hardly ever raised his voice at her. She tried to remember that he was distressed and to not take it personally. She went into her explanation, and James went to go find a Healer to demand to see his mother, Lily following behind him, trying and failing to calm him down. Sirius looked down at Remus and Jane and furrowed his brow.
"What are you doing here?"
Though the question sounded more genuinely curious rather than accusatory, Remus couldn't help but feel a twinge of defensiveness take over him because it didn't seem like something that his friend should have to ask him. Why wouldn't he be there for his friends?
"James' mum is in the hospital. I just figured I should be here for you guys," he answered. Sirius nodded slightly at the response but didn't say anything. He did, however, sit down in the empty chair on Jane's other side, and pulled Jane over to his shoulder instead.
It wasn't a big deal; after all, Jane was Sirius' girlfriend. That wasn't what bothered Remus. What bothered him was the small look Sirius had shot him while he did it. It was a look that Remus couldn't quite read, and frankly, he didn't care for it all too much. However, given the circumstances, Remus chose to let it go. After all, it probably didn't mean anything, and Sirius was probably feeling a little upset and confused at the moment.
Lily had managed to drag James away from whoever he'd been demanding answers from, and they all sat along the wall in the uncomfortable plastic chairs without talking to each other. Jane stared at her hand, which Sirius kept squeezing periodically, but the warmth of the action was lost on her; all she felt now after waiting for so long was a numbness. She wasn't quite sure which was better, feeling everything or feeling nothing, but she had to admit that the numbness was keeping her calm. Well, that and the fact that she was still clinging onto the idea of Mrs. Potter emerging from the place good as new. After all, that was one of the main reasons Jane wanted to be a Healer, the magical cures that Muggles couldn't even fathom. Surely, Mrs. Potter would be okay; she had to be.
"Which one of you is Potter?"
The five teens snapped their heads up at the witch standing in front of them with a clipboard in hand. James stood up.
"That'd be me. Is my mum alright?" he asked immediately.
"You can come see her now if you'd like," was all the lady responded with.
Jane and Sirius stood as well and made to follow James and the witch through the back doors but were stopped.
"Family members only," the witch stated.
"They are family," James said indignantly as he pushed past the lady, Jane and Sirius following behind him, leaving Remus and Lily behind as the two weren't sure if they should come back or not.
In retrospect, Jane should have known that something serious was going on. Mrs. Potter had looked ill for a while now, and she had seemed less willing to go out and do things. Jane had seen the white markings on her skin, and she'd brushed it off; she brushed it all off because Mrs. Potter was—well, she was Mrs. Potter; she was invincible, right? Apparently, not, and finding this out felt like being shot in the gut.
"We've been seeing your mother for a while now. The curse seems to have caused atrophy, which is growing, and though we've managed to slow the spreading, there isn't currently a known cure for this particular curse; it's always difficult when working with Dark Magic."
Jane could hear what the Healer was saying, but he sounded far away and out of focus, as if he were telling them all this from the next room over instead of standing right in front of them. It was the same with Sirius when he asked the Healer what exactly "atrophy" meant; everything just seemed so far away at the moment, like she wasn't really there.
"How long?"
Everyone in the room turned to look at James, who had been silent up until now. Jane turned her head slowly to stare at him, though she was having a hard time focusing on him as her mind raced.
"How long have you known about this?" he continued, and it became clear that he was talking to his parents. Focus shifted to the older couple, and Mr. Potter finally spoke up after a few moments of strained silence.
"Around a year now."
Jane felt as though her knees were going to give out at any second, and she leaned against the wall behind her to prevent herself from falling. Sirius took a sharp intake of breath at this news, his eyes stinging. James was the only one that actually spoke up.
"A year? A bloody year?!" he said. "And all this time, you never once thought to tell me?!"
"We didn't want to worry you, dear," Mrs. Potter spoke up. James flipped his attention back to the Healer.
"You said there's not currently a cure. Are there people working on it?" he demanded.
"We've been working on it for some time now, but truthfully, progress is slow," the Healer replied. "The odds of finding one before the atrophy reaches the lungs or the heart are—"
"Please, stop," Sirius said, cutting the man off, not being able to listen anymore, but James wanted to know everything.
"How long before that happens?"
"The best guess, if we continue with the same treatment that we have been, a year and a half at the most."
Jane and Sirius had immediately moved back into the Potters' on a temporary basis. They still had their flat in London, but they both decided that it wasn't where they were needed given the current circumstances. Mrs. Potter, who had been kept overnight at St. Mungo's for observation and treatments, had come home the next day with her left arm in a sling. She had yet to lose all movement in it, but when she did try, it would shake, making a lot of simpler tasks harder for her.
Jane, Sirius and James helped out around the house as much as they could without complaint. Jane had even skipped her Monday classes, and she would have skipped her Tuesday classes had Mr. Potter not forced her to leave the house. Similarly, Sirius had taken the weekend off work, but Mrs. Potter, while she didn't like the White Wyvern, hated the thought of any of them putting off their lives so that they could look after her; so, she'd finally made him start picking up his shifts again.
Jane wasn't sure if it had been Lily or Remus, but the news had been spread throughout their friend group. Lily was the first to visit, and she was also the most frequent, sometimes staying over to help out as well. Remus had been the next person to visit, followed shortly by Peter, then Mary and Marlene, then Alice and then Frank, the latter of which had yet to make up even though it was painfully obvious that they both missed each other.
Jane wasn't really sure how to feel about all of the visiting. On the one hand, it felt nice to see her friends, but on the other hand, the pity and sadness she could feel them exuding each time one of them showed up sometimes seemed to make things feel much worse. Outside of Lily, Remus and Peter tended to show up the most, and Jane didn't quite mind having them over as much. Despite the conflicting feelings, Jane handled it the best. James handled it the worst; sometimes, he couldn't even stand to hold a conversation with anyone, sometimes not even with Lily, sometimes not even with his parents, who Jane could tell he still harboured a lot of anger towards for keeping his mum's condition a secret from him for so long.
The three friends had vastly different ways of coping with what was happening. James' way of coping was anger. Jane occasionally heard him kicking things across his room or punching holes in the walls. He had never lost anyone before, and eighteen was too young to be dealing with something like this. Jane, when she wasn't helping out around the house, had started taking long walks to nowhere in particular to try and clear her mind. She found that she could think better when she was alone. Of course, most of the time, she only ended up breaking down and wondering how on earth she was supposed to deal with yet another major loss like this. And Sirius, well, he had his own patented technique of coping. He sought out the companionship of the bottle and other things, anything to numb the pain that comes with something like this. Jane chose not to count how many times he came home from a late shift at the White Wyvern smelling of Firewhiskey. Of course, none of it worked.
One Thursday afternoon, Jane had gotten back from her classes, and she had walked right into an argument that James was having with his father. She wasn't sure what it was about or how it had started, but it broke her heart. Over the years, Jane had heard James argue with his parents, but this was different. Screaming matches weren't something that typically happened in the Potter household, but there James was, his voice raised and firing out unnecessary remarks, hurdling them towards his father like metaphorical projectiles, and Jane could see the hurt that flashed across Mr. Potter's face as each one landed.
Jane dropped her schoolbag to the ground and grabbed James by the arm, pulling him up the stairs with her, which wasn't so easy to do. She managed to get him to the upstairs corridor before saying anything.
"What's going on?" she asked.
"Why don't you ask him, seeing as he started it," James spat out.
"I'm not talking about that; I'm talking about you!" Jane exclaimed. "What is wrong with you? Your mum's sick, and while everyone else is trying their best to make things better and easier for her, you're acting like a complete prat! You walk around acting like you've got nothing better to do than argue with your parents at every opportunity."
"You, of all people, are not going to give me advice on how to cope with this," James said, turning to walk away, but Jane grabbed his arm and spun him back around.
"What the bloody hell is that supposed to mean?"
"It means, little Miss Can't-Be-Bothered-To-Tell-People-How-She's-Feeling isn't going to be the one to shame me for feeling the way I feel," he said, his voice harsh. "You shouldn't be giving anyone advice!"
James had immediately stormed into his room, and for the rest of the afternoon, Jane hadn't seen him. She tried not to be too hurt by his words; after all, he was in just as much pain as she was, if not more. She planned on perhaps talking to him about it later when he'd calmed down a bit. It wasn't until after suppertime, which James hadn't left his room for, that Jane found herself in front of his bedroom door, knocking softly. Once she received no answer, she pushed the door open a bit and peaked inside to see James lying on his bed, staring at the canopy.
"You know, if you're just going to come in anyway, why bother knocking at all?" he said, and Jane sighed before walking in, leaving the door open behind her.
"James, please don't be like this," she said.
"That's funny, because I don't exactly remember you being especially pleasant after your mum died," he retorted.
"I wasn't; I tried to push everyone away, and I regret that," Jane tried to tell him. "Luckily, I had friends that wouldn't let me dig myself into a hole." James stayed silent, so Jane moved to sit on the edge of his bed and continued.
"You can't stay mad at them forever, James," she said, "and you can't keep treating them like this. You'll regret it."
"How are you not angry?" James asked, sitting up to finally look at her, his voice getting progressively louder. "They kept this from us for almost a year. They should have told me; I had a right to know! I'm their son!"
"I get where you're coming from, believe me, I do, but it must have been difficult for them. You know, maybe they didn't know how to tell you, or maybe they thought the Healers could help and they just wanted to give it some time first—"
"You know that's not an excuse. They should've told us. End of story."
Jane could feel herself becoming more irritated by the second.
"Well, they didn't, and no amount of you being angry is going to change that. They made a mistake; don't you think they've paid for it enough?" James didn't respond.
"Are you really going to spend your mum's remaining time being angry at her?" Jane asked.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, James knew she was right. Even if he wanted to be angry with his parents forever, he knew that he couldn't. However, that didn't stop him from being angry in the present. Being angry was a lot easier than being sad, which was the only other alternative that he could see, and when James was angry, he could get a bit mean sometimes; it just wasn't normally directed at his friends. Unfortunately, Jane was the only one around.
"What are you even still doing here?" he asked suddenly, catching Jane off guard. "You don't even live here anymore. It's been almost two weeks; you can leave now."
Around this time, Sirius had gotten back from one of his shifts and had promptly climbed the stairs only to hear the conversation being had. He walked to James' room and leaned against the doorframe, watching the two curiously, wondering what had happened.
Jane let out a small, humourless laugh.
"What? Are you trying to kick me out?" she asked in a disbelieving tone.
"You have a flat in London. You should probably make use of it because, quite frankly, you're getting on my nerves," James said, and Jane crossed her arms and rolled her eyes, still not believing the words coming from his mouth.
"You know why I'm here. I'm trying my best to help out around here—"
"You think I'm not capable of that?" James asked in an accusatory tone, "We're doing just fine; we don't need you here. She's my mum not yours."
Jane had never really been slapped in the face before, but she imagined that it felt similar to how she felt after hearing those words. The words were true, but the purpose behind them wasn't to merely state facts; it was meant to hurt, and it did the job perfectly as Jane just sat there completely shocked.
"Calm down, mate," Sirius said, having also been taken aback by the words just a little.
"You can piss off too," James said, snapping Jane out of her speechlessness. As Sirius made to step further into the room, Jane jumped up from her spot on James' bed to stop him, pushing him out into the hallway and telling him quietly to "just leave it" when James flicked his wand, effectively slamming the door behind them.
Jane could make out the faint smell of Firewhiskey on Sirius as she pushed him from the door, and it honestly just hurt her even more. She looked up at him with sorrowful eyes as he asked what had started her fight with James.
"How'd you get home tonight?" she asked, catching Sirius off guard.
"What?"
"How'd you get back from London?" she repeated the question. Sirius just stared at her for a moment, confused, before answering.
"Apparated."
Jane sighed as she shook her head in a disapproving way.
"If you keep drinking and then Apparating, you're going to end up splinched," she informed him, and he refrained from rolling his eyes.
"Come on, Janie, I only had a couple."
"Yeah, just like last night. And the night before. And the night before that," Jane said, trying to get her point across.
"Hey, don't lay into me just because Prongs was having a go at you," Sirius said defensively.
"I'm not 'laying into you,' I'm worried about you. You've never drank this frequently before," she pointed out.
"I work at a pub. It's not unusual to have a couple of drinks at the end of a long shift."
"Does Remus drink before he goes home every night?"
Sirius clicked his tongue in annoyance when she mentioned Remus.
"Well, I don't know, Janie. Why don't you ask him the next time he shows up here?"
Jane sighed as Sirius turned to walk into his room, closing the door behind him to let her know that she wasn't welcome to follow him. She walked into her own bedroom and leaned back against the door as she shut it behind her. She stared blankly at the room, the only thing denoting it as hers was her suitcase and some of the things sitting on the vanity tables, that and the monogrammed throw pillows that Mrs. Potter had yet to get rid of. Jane hadn't even fully unpacked her things yet, and honestly, she hadn't known that she and Sirius would be staying this long. Maybe James was right; maybe they should just go back to their flat. But, it felt wrong to leave now when Mrs. Potter was still adjusting.
Jane pushed herself away from the door and walked across the room to open the French doors to the balcony. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply as a small wind brushed past her and into the room behind her. The weather was getting milder, which meant Autumn was just around the corner. She opened her eyes and walked out onto the balcony, leaning against the parapet and looking up into the night sky, surprised to find it was a mostly clear night with only a few small clouds floating across the starry sky. She looked over to Sirius' empty balcony, almost expecting him to appear there so that they could sit and talk like they used to do some nights when they still lived with the Potters, but his doors remained shut.
Jane sighed and moved her gaze to look out over the back garden. The night was clear and the moon, though not full, was just bright enough for Jane to see that it hadn't been tended to recently. Weeds had overtaken some of the flower beds, and Jane could just make out the shape of gnomes as they scurried about every now and then. Her eyes travelled over the back garden to the small stone wall that bordered it. She stared into the treeline just behind the wall and remembered her first night at the Potters' during the Easter holidays of her second year; she remembered how James and Sirius had woken her up and how they had all ventured out to the small pond located not too far behind that very treeline. She hadn't been out there in a while now, and she wondered if James still found himself there every now and then; he had once told her it was one of his favourite places, and Jane couldn't help but wonder if it was just as abandoned as Mrs. Potter's back garden.
Jane took a step back from the parapet and lowered herself into one of the patio chairs, pulling up her legs to curl up a bit as she went back to looking at the night sky, thinking about how it would be nice to go back to those simpler times. And, she fell asleep to the sounds of crickets chirping and the light whistle of the night breeze.
Jane awoke almost an hour later; the wind had picked up slightly, and a strand of her hair kept brushing against her nose lightly, the tickling sensation pulling her from her sleep. She pulled her hand out from under the knitted blanket that covered her to brush the hair away before blinking a few times and wondering where the blanket came from. She turned her head to look around the small balcony, finding James sitting in the other patio chair, looking into the night with an unreadable expression on his face. Jane rubbed her eyes and sat up straighter in her chair, pulling the blanket closer to her as the wind continued to wash over her. James didn't turn to look at her, but he could see her moving from the corner of his eye, and the two sat in silence for a few minutes.
"I'm sorry," James finally told her in a quiet voice that Jane had rarely ever heard James use before.
"S'okay," she said, wrapping her arms around one of her legs and resting her head on her knee. She watched him as he sighed before taking off his glasses to rub his eyes.
"I just don't—I don't know how to deal with this," he admitted, voice breaking slightly.
Jane stood from her chair and pulled it across the balcony, getting it as close to James' chair as she could before sitting back down and leaning over to wrap her arm and the blanket around him, resting her head on his shoulder.
"It's gonna be okay, James," she told him. "It's not going to feel like it; in fact, you're gonna think that the pain's never going to end, and, I won't lie to you, it's going to be the worst pain you've ever felt. But I promise, you're gonna get through this."
James' had given up on rubbing at his eyes and finally let the tears rolled down his cheeks unchecked, and Jane could feel her own eyes stinging as he sniffled.
"How'd you do this?" he asked. "My mum's not even—" he stopped not able to finish his sentence, "—and it still feels like my heart's being ripped out of my chest. How did you even get up every day? How did you not just stop living?"
Jane pondered on his question for a bit, thinking back on her life after her mother's death.
"I wanted to," she admitted. "I wanted to just stop the world from spinning; then, afterwards, I wanted to just forget about it because that was easier. But see, there were these four boys that I went to school with that were always pestering me about opening up and such," she continued, a small, bittersweet smile forming on her face.
"What a bunch of wankers," James said, causing Jane to let out a chuckle despite the sorrow she felt before focusing on another issue.
"I know it's hard, but you have to stop being angry with them, especially your mum," she said softly. "You get the chance to make sure she's happy and that she feels loved, and not everybody gets that; some of us don't ever get to say proper goodbyes."
James didn't say anything, but he nodded his head a bit as though to say that he knew Jane was right and that he'd try harder. The two stayed in silence for a long while before finally deciding that they should turn in for the night, and when Jane crawled into her bed, she pulled the covers up to her chin and drifted off almost immediately, hoping that the days to come would be just a tiny bit better.