Sorry for the very rare updates. This chapter was actually completed in May 2020, but it's somewhat a filler chapter so I feel bad if I post it alone after a few months of inactivity.
Also, I wonder if Covid-19 affects the Wizarding World as much as our world. Covid-19 sucks, so please stay healthy, guys.
Warnings: Bullying a rat, cutting(?) hazard, and some fluff.
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For some reason, little Anna kept giving Peter a stink eye.
Remus patted his god-daughter's head in an attempt to soothe her ire. In the past few days, Anna always went to actively antagonise Peter without provocation. She was never like this; Anna was an expressive baby (Remus had an inkling that she was more exasperated than amused by the Marauders' daily craziness - Anna was Lily's daughter through and through) but never had she been repulsive towards any of them.
Remus had heard of the infamous baby's mood swings and would have left her to that, were it not for the fact that Anna's friends, Joseph and Daniel Weasley, had done the same.
Poor Wormtail. He always floundered whenever he was subjected to triple pouts.
...Wait. No. Curse Wormtail. He got to see triple pouts, and Remus had only seen one from Anna. Baby pouts were so cute, they ought to be illegal.
Anna's behaviour had become a bit too violent these days, though. Remus snatched her purple sword toy (apparently a gift from the younger Weasley twins) from her hands before she could fling it at the cowering Peter.
"Shush, no bullying Wormtail!" Remus admonished.
Anna crossed her chubby arms. "Hmph!"
Remus sighed in exasperation, before glancing at his friend. "Did you do something to her? The last time she was this pouty, Sirius stole the Weasley kids away so James could play with her."
"Huh?" Peter stared at Remus dumbly, before rapidly shaking his head. "N-no. I didn't do anything, I swear!"
Remus blinked, before squinting his eyes.
"...Right. I'm a Marauder, Wormtail. I'll know what you've done soon enough," he said jokingly.
Instead of waving him off with a smug grin as Remus had expected, Peter stiffened, before blurting out, "I-I didn't! I didn't do anything! Believe me!"
"What, what?" Sirius asked as he entered the room, a bowl of mushy something in his hands. It must be Anna's dinner. "Did Wormtail do something unforgivable?"
From the corner of his eye, he noticed Peter going even more high-strung. Remus shrugged, shifted Anna a bit on his lap before leaning forward to whisper conspiratorially to Sirius, "I suspect he's planning for our demise."
Sirius gasped theatrically.
"Why, the traitor!" he cried, before crouching in front of Anna and grinning devilishly. "What do you say, Ann? Should we prank evil Wormtail before he could prank us?"
"Yeah!" Anna exclaimed enthusiastically. She seemed a bit too eager, in Remus' opinion.
"Hey, hey. Eat your dinner first, Anna," Lily finally emerged from the kitchen, their own dinner floating behind her, with James carrying baby Harry in tow. She shot the remaining three Marauders the look.
"Hunger is the enemy," James chimed in, beaming when Anna shot him a surprised look.
They continued bickering throughout the dinner. Remus had to stop Anna from flinging her mushy food towards Peter several times, and he secretly despaired that the toddler was getting really skilled at delivering sneaky attacks. Were it not for his reflex, Remus would've failed to banish that one particular nasty shot aimed towards Peter's face. James' daughter was definitely a prankster.
Though why she always targeted Peter, Remus had no idea. He would've dismissed it easily, but Peter's own behaviour in the past week was not helping either. Even now, when the rest of the inhabitants squabbled over whether Harry would be a great Quidditch player once he grew up, Peter remained unusually silent, eyes glued to his meal.
Remus trusted his friends, but being cautious wouldn't hurt, especially with the war going on. After all, babies are good judges of character.
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"Hm? What's this?"
James picked up a strange-looking object from the carpet and turned it around, musing over what this thing was supposed to be. It had a handle and an oddly-ornamented guard, which meant it was some sort of a tool. The flat head reminded him of a wand or a bladed tool, like a dagger.
Except, no dagger had such a bizarrely jagged blade, and no dagger was as squishy as a sponge.
Anna's toy, perhaps? James recalled the Weasley kids gifting his daughter some trinkets, including that purple foam sword and something called a crayon. The thought of little Anna hanging around with those boys instead of him soured his mood, so he went back to inspecting Anna's newest toy in his hand.
...Which was tacky as hell. What was this? Where did Arthur get this? What kind of a sword was this replica supposed to be?
He bent the blade of the toy and swung it around. James had to admit, the strange toy was pretty cool. Perhaps, kids these days liked toy swords made by drunken foam-blacksmiths.
"James?" His wife asked as she got back from the bathroom with their daughter in her arms. "What are you doing? What's that?"
"Oh, this? I -"
He was about to see how sharp the tip of the blade was by nicking his finger when Anna shrieked like a banshee.
"Nu nu nu NU NUH!" She wailed and pelted him with her pacifier. "DON'!"
James yelped when the pacifier bounced against his spectacles, sending it flying from his head. The sudden impact surprised him, and when he finally regained his bearing, Anna was already on the carpet, hugging the strange toy possessively.
"Nuh! 'S mine!" She reiterated one last time.
Silence.
"...What do you say when you steal someone else's toy, James?"
"Oh shut up, Lily."
"..."
"...'M sorry."
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October 1981
Lily wanted to be useful, but it was hard to do so when you were on a run from a demented Dark Lord and had two infants to take care of.
The war had escalated quickly in the past few months. Voldemort and his Death Eaters were powerful now, gaining more and more followers and supporters, while the Order of Phoenix and the Ministry gradually lost their ground. Every week, news came of more deaths, more disappearances, more torturing. Oftentimes Lily could recognise some of the names in the list, and it would always remind her that death might be closer than she'd thought.
Especially with the news Albus had brought.
"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches...Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies...And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have the power the Dark Lord knows not…"
Lily looked down at the bundle in her arms, at the cooing bright-eyed boy that was her son, and thought the world was cruel. Surely, there were many other boys who fit the criteria as stated by the damn prophecy. Why must it be her Harry?
She squashed the thought guiltily. No child deserved to bear the burden of the prophesied. Not her Harry, and not other children either.
But she cursed Albus, nonetheless, for bringing the prophecy to their door. For being so careless to let the information leak to the enemy, bringing fear of death instead of hope for her loved ones. Vanquisher of the Dark Lord? Hah! They would die first before any child could even match the power Voldemort had.
Albus had practically squirmed and told her that the prophecy, for some reason, might not even hold true (which was strange and, not to mention, stupid, because it was a prophecy and Albus was being a tad contradictory there). But if the prophecy really came through, that meant the war may last longer than anyone would've expected. Harry, or any other child eligible to be the 'prophesied child', were still a mere infant, and for them to be marked equal by the Dark Lord, they would have to be at least mature enough to perform magic.
Lily had a feeling that Albus didn't tell them the full story, but she couldn't do anything about it. Albus had proven time and time again to be trustworthy. The Fidelius Charm was a brilliant idea; James told her that he'd trusted Peter to be their Secret-Keeper, while Sirius acted as a decoy. Remus had also secretly given them an emergency Portkey, in case the Fidelius Charm failed to protect them still.
The use of subterfuge between allies had shown her how fallen they had become. Even the Marauders began to distrust each other; James had eyed Remus' Portkey suspiciously, choosing not to touch it directly and accept it with a careful Wingardium Leviosa, because just recently it was confirmed that the werewolves had sided with the Death Eaters. Lily had a feeling that James only agreed to make Peter their true Secret-Keeper because Sirius, his brother in all but blood, was also a Black.
Lily was tired of war. Tired of the distrust and the fear. And the damn prophecy may or may not have suggested that the war would continue for at least another decade, which meant they would have to be on the run for years.
"Mama?"
So blessed her husband and her daughter for being such sweeties.
Lily shifted Harry a bit so that he remained comfortable in her arms while she crouched down to catch her daughter in a hug. Anna giggled, beaming when Harry greeted her with a shrill laugh. Lily heard clicking sounds of James' camera, before he joined them all in a group hug.
Despite the looming threat, they laughed freely. Lily ignored the tears in her eyes, because this kind of moment was all she needed to stay sane. James stole a kiss from her, earning a surprised squeal, before giving each of their children a peck in the forehead. They laid there on the carpet for a while, enjoying the ephemeral peace with each other.
"Say," James turned to lie on his side and patted Anna's head, before grinning at Lily. "What do you think of a mini Halloween party?"
Lily's smile faded a bit. "...Halloween?"
James must've noticed her unease, because his hand rose to brush her hair softly. "Mm. Y'know, costume parties, decorating, carving pumpkins? It's next week. We have nothing to do anyway, so might as well."
"What's 'Alloween?" Anna asked innocently.
It's like the Death Eaters -
"It's this fun thing we do every year," he explained to their daughter, cutting off Lily's dark thoughts. "Basically, we decorate the house with anything black and orange, and dress up like those people in your story books. I managed to snag some pumpkins before the lockdown, so we can carve those out and make funny faces from it." James leaned forward and whispered loudly in Anna's ear, "And there's also this thing called Trick-or-Treat where you can ask our neighbours for sweets, but since we can't go out, I'm sure we can bribe your mum for one."
Anna perked up, eyes widening in hope. "I can eat Choco-Fog?"
"You can eat as many as you want, sweetie." He stole a glance at her before quickly amending, "Only during Halloween, though."
Lily huffed. Anna was as much of a glutton for Chocolate Frog as James. He must've sneakily introduced the wonder of the wizarding sweet when she wasn't looking. Or maybe it was Peter. At least, Sirius and Remus were allergic to chocolate.
The simple thoughts managed to distract her, anyway. Lily gave her husband a grateful smile, to which he replied with a grin. Oh, how she loved this man.
"Well, then, should we start early?" James rose and stretched, before giving Lily a hand to stand up. "Anna, we should bribe your mummy with a carved pumpkin. Your grandpa taught me this spell…"
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Thanks for reading!
There are a couple of things I'd like to point out:
1. Harry Potter lore is a mess. But it's okay, we still love it anyway.
2. Peter Pettigrew, no matter how I look and analyse him, is simply not fit to be Voldemort's spy. Especially a spy within the Marauders. The Marauders seemed to be a very tight-knit group of friends who by then should've known each other very well. If Peter's behaviour in canon was more like Lucius' or even like Remus, I would believe that he was an actor good enough to fool his own best friends. But he wasn't, and he lived as a rat for years (which - my goodness, I know you're smart enough to frame Sirius for the Potters' and the muggles' deaths, but surely as a rat you could sneak into a ship or something and leave Britain for good. Not...not live as Scabbers for twelve years).
But, well, the deed was done, and Peter had ultimately betrayed his own friends for whatever reason. Okay, I can work with that -
Except, James trusted him enough to make him into a Secret-Keeper -
Why did he gave Dumbledore the Invisibility Cloak -
Why -
*noises of a flipped table.*
2. It's surprisingly difficult to get into Lily's and James' thought process, mainly because I know what would happen to them later on in the canon but they didn't. Try look at it this way: Nobody could predict Voldemort's abrupt demise on 31 October 1981.
The prophecy stated that "The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches," and, "the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal." For Lily, James and even Dumbledore, this could mean that the prophesied child would be the one to defeat the Dark Lord, which is horrible and ridiculous as Merlin's moldy pants! Said child would be at Harry's age at that moment, merely a powerless infant. The Dark Lord marking him as equal would mean that the prophesied child would have to grow to be as powerful as Voldemort in order to be acknowledged by him. That means, the First Wizarding War might have to last for a decade longer or more if Voldemort hadn't abruptly died on 31 October 1981.
Sure, "The power the Dark Lord knows not," suggests an advantage to the prophesied child, but that 'power' certainly could be anything. I highly doubt Dumbledore's first answer to that would be, "Aha! The power of Love!"
On a further note, the prophecy's next line is the most ominous: "And either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives." This suggests that death is inevitable for both the prophesied child and Voldemort himself. Dumbledore - if he chose to ignore the first few lines, and if he was ruthless enough - might as well stage for said prophesied child to die alongside Voldemort. Voldemort didn't know the second half of the prophecy anyway. But of course, Dumbledore can't possibly ignore the rest of the prophecy, and it'll only make the Potters and the Longbottoms panic, so he chose not to reveal that line in this fic. Maybe, just maybe, that line won't happen until the prophesied child is old and strong enough to fight Voldemort (which, in Dumbledore's opinion at that point in time, is also bad, because that means they'd have to wait for years, the war may last longer, more people will die and they're losing already - the dilemma is real, you see?)
(Then again, in this fic the prophecy might be bogus anyway. Remember what had happened a few chapters ago?)
3. Just to understand the timeline better, these are the things happening in the background before this chapter:
- Voldie gave the Horcrux diary to Lucius
- Regulus had defected and died, Kreacher is in the process of destroying the entrusted horcrux.
The next chapter will be up in a couple of minutes.