Instead of a honeymoon with a pure-blood husband she hated, Narcissa Black Lupin spent the night of her nineteenth birthday in a small cottage well behind the main house at the back of the Tonks's garden. It was quiet, safe, comfortable, and may well have been the night her first child was conceived.
James and Lily sold the Potter manor and moved to the cottage in Godric's Hollow. It was sad to lose the old place but the proceeds assured that Lily's family would be safe, and that if anything happened to James and Lily, their Harry would have plenty to live on without worrying about anything but his own safety. Not long after Remus and Narcissa told them about their pregnancy, James and Lily were expecting Harry themselves.
The magic of the soulmate bond grew stronger. The pregnancy stoked it like a bonfire. As it did, the meaning of the shade magic became more and more clear, landing painfully with the rumors and threats from the Death Eaters. By the time Harry was born, and they needed a Fidelius charm for their protection, they knew that the moment they would choose for their final soulmate spell as mortal beings was coming sooner than they had imagined.
Somewhere else, away from their knowledge, Frank and Alice Longbottom prepared in their own way to face Tom Riddle and keep him from their son, the one born on Harry's birthday. By design, James and Lily knew nothing about the Longbottoms so they couldn't betray one another. But James suspected Peter was still in touch with them.
It was nearly Halloween, the year Harry turned one, when Peter reminded James of the conversation they'd had about having to choose between saving a lover and a friend.
"Even if," Peter added, "even if the love was still one-sided? Would you choose to protect Lily over anyone else alive if she didn't yet love you back?"
"It's a complicated question, Pete," James had said. He was distracted, untangling Harry's fingers from his hair as the boy sat on his shoulders where James had stashed him to keep him out of trouble for a few moments. "Ideally, maybe. But in the real world, there are always more factors to consider than just love."
Peter wouldn't drop it. "Hypothetical, James. Just speaking in hypotheticals, all things being equal. What would you do?"
James wouldn't give a yes or no answer and Peter left palpably unsatisfied. He made the decision shortly after, and offered up James and Lily's whereabouts in an attempt to save Alice and to make himself into a great, but bad, man. His soul had been hardened by the Dark Lord's potions, but it wasn't torn until Peter chose it for himself.
Days later, Lily saw the Dark Lord coming for them. The vision came as Harry stood on the mat in the bathroom, shivering after his bath, wrapped in a warm towel, grinning at her as she fluffed the pouff of his silky, dark hair and kissed his rosy cheeks. Her chattering to him died away as the room flashed, as if a Muggle camera had gone off. It clicked and shuttered before coming back into focus again. And in the moment when the shutter was down, she saw smooth, grey bare feet stepping over her threshold, advancing up the stairs.
She cuddled Harry until he fell asleep and then went to wake James where he dozed by the fire in his father's armchair, saved from the manor. She eased onto his lap, between his arms, waking him slowly with teary kisses. The fire crackled and he held her close as she told him the time was nearly gone, and it could be any moment now.
They could run, delay as more people died - like Marlene and her entire family, like the Prewett brothers, like Regulus on his brave but doomed mission in the north. Or, they could stay and stop Riddle when he came. The prophecy, the one they didn't know Severus Snape had known to eavesdrop on when his spy galleon heard Dumbledore arranging to interview a new divination teacher, said they would only defy the Dark Lord three times. It had been three already.
They could hide Harry, give him to Dumbledore to raise hidden and secret somewhere. But no one could protect him like they could, and without their son to conduct the energy of their shade magic, it wouldn't be enough. James remembered how his parents' magic had flowed through him as they died. He never stopped feeling it inside him, around him, and he knew Harry would need that from them - the strength of his parents and generations of soulmate pairs before them. If he was going to act as the chosen one, he needed all of it.
James kissed the tears from Lily's cheeks. "We wait here. We stay together, all three of us. He attacks and we conjure the shield. It's our combined magic, and if we let it course through Harry, even if we die, he'll live. He'll live and Riddle will be blown to bits."
It wasn't a plan. It was a prophecy.
They spent the night loving each other in bodies made of this earth, the ones they would soon set aside to love each other differently. And when they were finished, they took Harry from his bed and slept with him held between themselves. He was clean and sweet and loved. With nothing to fear anymore, they spent the next day outdoors, in the cool beauty of the fall day.
And at night, he came. James bolted and ran to meet him, one last act of denial, defiant Potter to the end. Lily felt him struck down just out of her sight. He didn't make a sound, but she felt the blast of his shade as it surged into her body and soul. When Riddle saw her standing over Harry's cot, his red eyes were bulging, not heady with triumph but wracked with fear. He had watched the waves of gold fly up from James's body. They had swept over him, rocked him back into the bannister, warmed him like a shock of Muggle electricity. They rushed ahead of him up the stairs. They hadn't passed on, but were lighting the woman and the child.
He ordered her aside and she stood firm, her face shining, almost smiling, cooing comfort to the child, not a hint of fear in her expression. She had the look of someone who had already beaten him. It unnerved him, his wand shaking as he raised it.
He cast his killing curse anyway, and everything flared to gold before fading to blackness.
Sirius went mad when he heard James and Lily were gone. Marlene was dead, Regulus was dead, along with both of their parents. It was unbearable and with nothing left to lose, he chased after Peter, knowing who the Secret Keeper was and what must have gone wrong.
Mad as Sirius was, Remus knew he couldn't have killed Peter. The way the story was reported was wrong - everything was wrong. It ate at Remus. If he'd been on his own, he might have withdrawn from all the tragedy, maybe forever. But he was not alone. Narcissa held him up, and the drive to make the world into a just place for his little son Draco Howell Lupin to live in held him together.
In the aftermath of the war, Narcissa rallied what was left of the Black family to appeal Sirius's conviction. She worked the social and legal angles while Remus gathered James's old maps and proved Wormtail was alive. He was on the run, never caught, but not killed either. Sirius was not a murderer. He was free.
He came home to Grimmauld Place and begged Dumbledore to let him raise Harry there where Narcissa and Remus were already raising their little Draco. They were a family. What would it hurt to have one more loved and wanted child in the house? But Dumbledore refused. Harry could live in two places: with Petunia on Privet Drive, or in Canada with his grandparents, where he wouldn't go to Hogwarts and wouldn't be able to call on Lily and James's magic for more help if they it again. To live anywhere else but with blood relatives would end the protection of the shade magic to which little Harry and so many others owed their lives.
Though he couldn't raise him, Sirius made sure Harry knew him. What's more, he made sure Petunia and Vernon knew him, and that they cared for Harry properly, if not kindly.
When he was old enough for primary school, the Dursleys agreed to let Harry meet more of his adopted family as long as no mention was made of any "funny business." They brought him to a park near his school where Uncle Sirius was waiting with a tall man and beautiful lady with white hair and a sun hat with an enormous brim, almost like a witch's hat. She cradled a baby named Juno in her arms, introducing her to Harry before letting her Draco command all of Harry's attention. Draco was the same age as Harry, and he looked like the lady but with soft, warm brown eyes that made Harry feel happy.
"I'm Draco," he said, muscling through his shyness to grasp Harry's hand. "You're Harry Potter, who everyone loves. And we're going to play."
A breeze lifted Sirius's hair as he watched the pair scamper away to the swingset. Draco approached the world as if everyone loved him until proven otherwise. He wondered if he'd ever been the same, rubbing at the brand on his neck. He sat on the picnic blanket next to Remus, Narcissa, and baby Juno.
"Go to your Uncle Sirius, Juno Hope," Narcissa said, smoothing her clothes and stretching her spine. Remus watched her bend and move, never tired of seeing her.
Sirius bent his knees and sat the baby on his stomach, reclining against his legs like a human throne. "Little June-bug here will be cross that she can't go chasing after them," he said. "See that? You're the odd one out, Juno. The gooseberry, just like me."
Narcissa swatted at him. "Nonsense."
But Remus smiled to see Sirius smiling, something he didn't do nearly enough since coming back from Azkaban.
"They're here, aren't they," Remus said. "Our favourite soulmate pair. They're on this breeze, come to watch Harry meet his best friend and his tiny wife."
Sirius sniffed a laugh. "I do hope so."
"It's funny, isn't it darling? That they're already a pair, and they don't know it. When do you reckon they'll be able to tell?"
"No idea, love. I just hope they don't have to be at odds for seven years before they figure it out. Painful waste of time."
"What do they care for time? They've got forever, whether they know it or not. And they won't row like we did. Harry's not like that."
"No, but that spoiled little June-bug might be."
"What? No, she'll want to protect him."
"Protect? Stars help them, love."
"Ha! They won't need the stars. Not when they will always have you and me."