Hermione Black had been resting peacefully, the start of the Christmas season successfully behind her. Her children were both home, under her roof, and she was fully relaxed. Until something occurred to her.
Remus mentioned in passing that Harry was being a bit odd at school.
Lily mentioned that Harry said they had found several animals around the campus behaving oddly, or frozen all together.
How had she missed this, she wondered, as she sat bolt upright in her bed. She clutched her head, breath racing. "Sirius. Sirius, babe. Wake up." She said, shaking her husband. Sirius groaned and tried to roll away.
"Mione' is too bloody early..." He whined.
"Worse than that, it's still night. Wake UP." She repeated, her voice sounding with fear. This brought Sirius out of his sleepy stupor.
"What? What's wrong?" He said, very alert now, taking her face in his hand. He waved the other hand at a lamp, which on command, illuminated their room.
"The basilisk." She said, shivering.
"Huh?" He grunted, confused, but worried about how afraid she seemed.
"Harry. The basilisk. We forgot it." She shook her head. "No. No. I forgot it. How could I do that?" She was shaking, and Sirius drew her in closer.
"Darling, I know there are all sorts of rules. I know there are things you cannot tell me. But I think, at this point in time- If something out there has you this terrified... You have got to tell me. I can't fix it if you don't." He soothed her hair gently.
"In our second year, Harry, everyone thought he was the heir of Slytherin. But it was a Horcrux. We found them all, we destroyed them all. Somehow, in doing that, I thought that after that Halloween when you three took him down in the duel, it would fix it all. But..." She shook her head. He still died trying to kill Harry. And the Basilisk..."
"You keep saying basilisk... you seriously mean a big ass death snake?" Sirius ask, trying to get a grip on their situation.
"There was one. In the chamber. The Chamber of Secrets." She clarified.
"Okay." Sirius nodded, he seemed to be increasingly confused, but attempted to give his wife the support she needed.
"The Chamber of Secrets was a secret area of the school that had been built by Slytherin, containing a monster which could only be controlled by his "heir" and was to be used to purge the school of all those he deemed "unfit" to study magic. Like halfbreeds, muggleborns, the squibs in the potions program..." She looked to her spouse, her brown eyes searching his loving grey ones. "Sirius. In my time, it petrified me. Not as in 'I was afraid of it', but as in, I saw it's eyes in a mirror and turned into a statue. It was horrible. Like being a prisoner in your own head. You can see out, but do nothing..." She leaned into him, a tear sliding down her face.
"I'm so sorry, doll." Sirius said, before kissing the top of her mass of bedhead curls. "But I have to admit, I'm still confused. Did you have a nightmare about it or...?"
"No!" She said, admittedly a bit frustrated, pulling away to face him again. "No. I forgot it was there. In the school. Alone. They can go hundreds of years, dormant... But at a certain point they must wake up to feed."
"Fuck." Sirius abruptly stood up, pacing the floor, running a hand through his hair. "You mean that thing is in the school?!"
"It's always been in the school. I'm saying now it is loose in the school, with no one to command it." She said, watching as the reality of the situation dawned on her husband.
"How do we fight it?" He ask, still pacing between their bed and the wall.
"Well, Harry killed it with Gryffindor's sword, which Dumbledore's Phoenix brought to him..." Hermione said, and Sirius stopped moving, his jaw agape.
"OUR Harry? Harry who still sleeps with a plush octopus Remus got him for his fourth birthday?" Sirius questioned.
"He was very, very different as an orphan." She shrugged. "That isn't the point. The point is that students and staff now are in danger."
Sirius started over toward his wardrobe, flinging it open and pulling on a pair of black denim pants over his boxes. Hermione watched him, almost laughing for a moment, before she finally stopped him. "Sirius, sweetness, what are you doing?" She ask, tilting her head.
"I'm getting dressed. I have to go get Moony and Prongs, we need to go to the Ministry-" He said, looking at her like she was ridiculous for asking, and that this was the most logical thing in the world.
"And what will you three report? That your wife is an illegal time traveler?" She pondered. "And that they need to just trust you on this?"
At this, Sirius stopped. Hermione reached her hand out from the bed, waiting on Sirius. He slowly, and very annoyed, undressed back to his boxers, then flopped down beside her. She brushed his hair out of his face and kissed the tip of hid nose. "I'm sorry." He said, looking up at her. "Sometimes I forget that little detail."
"There is nothing you could do tonight, anyway. Or tomorrow. Harry could speak to snakes and still-"
"He still can." Sirius corrected. Hermione paled.
"What?" She sputtered.
"Harry. He's a parselmouth. There was a Potter back in the line that could do it, too." Sirius corrected.
"Well. Either way. Harry CAN speak to snakes, but in my time, it took us all year to find it. And if it's loose, it uses the piping of the castle to move around. There is no way to find it easily. We will have to make a plan." She finished, relaxing back down beside him.
"How do you figure?" Sirius ask, looking over at his wife, who had closed her eyes.
"Research." She replied casually. Sirius snorted.
"I was afraid you would say that."
Lily and James Potter were having an equally sleepless night in their home in Godric's Hollow. Lily was up for the third night in a row, ill to her stomach, curled up in a ball on the sofa in the sitting room. Something played on the tele, but she hardly cared. She felt nausea any time her eyes even opened, and she was trying very hard not to move until James returned with some ginger-ale and saltines. She groaned when she heard the door open and she sat herself up slowly. "You took for bloody ever." She grumbled.
"The corner shop didn't have what I was looking for. Had to pop into the city..." James explained. Lily wrinkled her nose and slowly opened one eye, hating how her head swam.
"The corner shop always has ginger-ale and saltines. What else could you possibly need? A comic?" She said, trying to be funny, but her tone came across harsh though her tensed state.
"Hear me out, love..." James said, reaching into the brown bag. He sat the box of crackers out on the coffee table, then the six pack of small ginger-ales, then he pulled a small white and pink box from the bottom and handed to the sickly redhead.
"A piss stick?" She snorted. "James... I know you wanted another baby, but they said after Harry..." She trained off, looking her husband over. He looked exhausted, but amused, and he ran an idle hand through his mess of brown hair.
"Stranger things have happened. And this is like... the fourth thing to come up that makes me wonder. Just- give it a go? I promise not to get my hopes up."
"Fine." She said, blowing a deep breath out of her nose. "If it will appease you, I'll have a piss on the stick. But after I have some salt and some carbonation. I feel like I'm on a boat in a storm." She eased herself back into the cushions. James cracked one of the cans open, and conjured a straw for her. He held it, and she took small sips. He then got her out a few crackers. She nibbled lightly at one for a bit, then another. After a few minutes, she sat forward, and nodded.
"Ready?" He ask quietly.
"It's just the loo. You promised me you wouldn't get too excited." She reminded him.
"I know what was said." He teased. "Do you need help?"
"No, no. I have it." She said, allowing him to brace her as she stood from the couch. She took the box with the pregnancy test and shuffled in her slipped clad feet down the hall.
It was a bit of an awkward moment, holding the test in her hands, waiting. Lily kept her eyes closed, listening to the ticking of the wall clock for four full moments to pass. She hated this feeling. It wasn't something she had to go through with Harry, she had found out when she went for an annual physical that she was six weeks pregnant. There was no warning with him. But now- She knew it was far fetched of an idea, but she still felt herself getting nervous. Excited, even.
The clock felt almost as if it was slowing down. Tick. Tick. Tick. Each one came slower. She counted, waiting for the two hundred and forty mark. Two-thirty-seven, two-thirty- eight... She opened her bright green eyes, blinking a few times to readjust to the light. Then she looked down.
The little pink positive sign looked up at her with an almost arrogant 'I told you so' brightness. She gasped slightly, covering her mouth. She sat for just a moment, dumbfounded, and she felt tears start to roll down her face, her heart swelling. A moment later, her nausea was forgotten, overtaken by joy.
"Lils? Are you okay?" James called from outside the door. "Did you get sick again?"
She jerked the door open without an answer, finding her husband on the other side of the door, taken aback by how quickly she opened the door that had been between them. He looked her over, and seeing her tears, swallowed. "Lily?"
"I don't know what to say." She said, handing him the test. He barely had time to look at the results before she wrapped herself around his neck, and he pulled her in tighter.
"How about 'You were right, James?" He laughed before kissing her.
"Those are not words in my vocabulary, sorry." She teased in return. He pulled her in for another kiss, he too, crying from joy now.
"Should we go wake Harry?" James ask, eyes wide and gleaming.
"NO." Lily said, a bit too forceful. James drew back slightly, but Lily smiled. "It's already so close to Christmas, why don't we get him a 'big brother' tshirt?" She suggested, hugging back into James' chest.
"That is a better idea." He grinned. "I love it."
"I love you." She replied, before suddenly tightening her grip and burying her face away from the light.
"Nauseous again?" James guessed, but Lily did not take the time to answer him before turning on her heels and slamming the door back closed in his face. He could hear her gagging and vomiting on the other side of the door. "Can I help?" He called.
"No!" She called back. "Just have me more ginger-ale ready and col-" She tried to reply, before having to stop and wretch again.
So, this chapter focuses on our other two main couples more, and has a bit more backstory as well as some plot set up. I hope you enjoyed reading it! Please review and let me know!