Resolutions

By Neurotica

Eight

Remus searched everywhere he could think of for his best friend. He checked Sirius' office in Auror Headquarters (Tonks had no idea where her cousin was and she swore on her life that none of them had talked to Rita Skeeter); he searched every floor on the Ministry, even stopping to ask the Minister herself if she'd seen the Head Auror, but to no avail. He'd gone to the Floo-watch section of Emmeline's department and asked the old wizard there if he could go back through all the Floo entries and departures from the Ministry within the last hour. Sirius hadn't used the fires. He checked all the Apparition charms and again with Tonks to see if anyone had used the Auror Apparition chamber. His final conclusion, though it gave him a very sinking feeling, was that Sirius had not been in the Ministry at all that day.

But rather than panicking right away, Remus thought reasonably about where else Sirius could have possibly gotten to—Auror Johnson had that day off; maybe Sirius, thinking he was the one who talked to Rita Skeeter, had gone to his home. Remus had no earthly clue about where the other Auror lived, but perhaps Sirius had been so incensed that he'd found out and gone to get—or beat—the truth from the other wizard. Another scenario, one that was very likely, but also the one Remus dreaded, was that Sirius had left Number Twelve only to have walked into a trap of some sort, and was currently being held captive by Voldemort or the Death Eaters.

With this thought firmly engrained in his mind, Remus Apparated back to Grimmauld Place, and started looking around for a sign of struggle or anything that could tell him what had happened to Sirius. (Bugger wizardry secrecy, he thought irritably, moving his wand in complicated movements. This is my brother we're talking about...)

Emmeline had spotted him from an upstairs window and came out to see what he'd found. "I don't know where he is," Remus said quietly, in case Naomi was listening. "I've sent him four patronuses, but he hasn't replied to any of them—he normally replies within ten minutes if he can... What if something's happened to him?"

Emmeline tried to assure him that Sirius was okay, but assuring another person only worked when the one giving the assurance believed what they were saying. "We've got to tell Naomi," she said, holding his hand tightly, trying to give him as much comfort as she could. "And Dumbledore... Have him get a search party going..."

"Yeah," Remus said hoarsely, trying to swallow a large lump in his throat. "Let's go inside, then..." He put his arm protectively around his wife's waist and led her into the house where Naomi and Harry had just come up the stairs.

"Where is he?" Naomi demanded. "And don't you dare try to sugarcoat it, Remus John Lupin."

Remus would have laughed at the fact that his ex-fiancée was calling him by his full name, but the dangerous look on her face, coupled with the fear of where his best friend could possibly be, held it back. "I don't know," he answered, feeling lost and helpless—a feeling he was familiar with and hated with every fiber of his being. "I've checked everywhere I could think of looking..." He could almost see Naomi's heart breaking at the news. She began to sway dangerously, and both he and Harry rushed to her side to keep her upright, leading her to the drawing room to sit down. Emmeline conjured a cold glass of water for her and she sipped at it carefully.

Remus left Harry and Emmeline to tend to her while he went to the kitchen to contact Dumbledore. He'd only just finished telling the Headmaster that Sirius was nowhere to be found when Harry practically flew down the stairs. "Remus!" he panted. "Naomi's water just broke! She's having the baby now!"

Remus' eyes widened and he felt whatever color was left in his face drain as he turned back to Dumbledore's head. "Go, take care of Naomi," the older wizard said in his infuriatingly calm manner. "I will continue the search for Sirius."

"Thank you," Remus said, already standing and halfway to the stairs behind Harry.

In the drawing room, Emmeline had managed to get Naomi standing up, though she was sweating and looking quite weak. "How do we get her to the hospital?" Remus asked, thoughts of Sirius driven from his mind for the time being. He'd want us to take care of Naomi first and foremost... He suddenly realized that travel with the pregnant witches when they began going into labor hadn't been discussed—they were supposed to have another month before Naomi gave birth.

Apparition and Floo were both out of the question, both being too dangerous for Naomi and the baby. Emmeline said their best bet was portkey. She quickly charmed the closest object she could find—a red satin pillow—to prepare for their travel. The two wizards stood on either side of Naomi, holding on to her arms tightly—when they arrived in St. Mungo's, they didn't need her getting dizzy and losing her balance.

Three seconds later, they were moving rapidly through a swirl of colors, and landed in the emergency area of the wizarding hospital softly. Emmeline told Remus later that she'd added a charm to the portkey to make it as safe as possible for Naomi and the baby. Harry stopped the first medi-witch that passed and hastily told her that Naomi was having a baby. The young brown-haired witch summoned a wheelchair for Naomi, and Remus helped her get comfortable before the medi-witch directed the wheelchair down a corridor and into a private room.

He and Emmeline answered all the questions thrown at them about Naomi—who her Healer was, how late into her pregnancy she was, how far apart her contractions were, and so on. Harry had been sent to contact Molly and Arthur while four more medi-witches, who seemed to have appeared out of thin air, and probably had, Remus mused, examined Naomi and prepared her for when the Healer arrived.

"What about Sirius?" Emmeline asked her husband quietly while Naomi was in between the crowd of hospital staff.

Remus shrugged helplessly. "I don't know what we can do right now. Dumbledore said he'd take over the search, and that we should stay with Naomi—Sirius would want us to do the same... I guess we just wait for news." He sighed shakily. "She still has four weeks... Why is she early?"

"Who knows," Emmeline replied. "It could be the added stress of today or it could be that the baby just wants to come now."

Ted Tonks arrived in the room in his lime-green robes with Harry, Molly, Arthur, Nymphadora Tonks, Charlie, Bill, and Fleur Delacour right behind him. One of the sterner-looking medi-witches raised an eyebrow at the crowd, and said, "Not all of you can stay in here. One person can stay, but the rest of you have to wait outside..."

They all looked at Ted who gave a half-shrug, looking rather amused, as if saying I wouldn't argue with her, if I were you. The group began to file out, but Naomi called for Remus. "Will you please stay with me?" she begged, her eyes wide and filled with tears as she calmed down from her latest contraction.

Remus looked at Emmeline, who smiled and nodded, and turned back to Naomi. "Of course I'll stay." He went to her side, took her hand, and sat in a chair beside the bed.

While Remus had been searching for him at the Ministry, Sirius had Apparated to the top of a rocky cliff on the western English seacoast. He'd looked around in complete confusion, his anger that one of his Aurors had allegedly talked to Rita Skeeter totally forgotten. He was pretty sure his destination was the Ministry, but he recalled that when he'd prepared to depart from Grimmauld Place, there'd been an odd distorting noise added to the normal Apparition pop, and he'd arrived in this place.

Figuring he'd just been so upset he'd messed up his destination, he prepared to correct his mistake. But he found he couldn't Disapparate. He raised an eyebrow. It seemed an anti-Apparition jinx had been placed on the area. He looked over his shoulder into the mouth of a dark cave, thinking he'd heard a noise, but not seeing anything.

Okay, time to think over my options, the Head Auror thought. I could try and take down the jinx... He tried, and felt a slight bounce in the magic of the area. Well, that didn't work. Someone must have guarded against that. That would mean I'm not alone here... Wherever here is... He tried to conjure a patronus to send to Remus and the others so they wouldn't worry, and they could come help him. His eagle-patronus appeared in front of him, but before it could soar off, it flickered a few times and disappeared. That's not goo... Well, he thought, looking all around him for a way off the cliff, I could start walking, but there doesn't seem to be any sort of path... I could try rock climbing, but the last time I did that was in third year with James, and I ended up breaking my leg...

While he was busy sorting through his options, someone was able to sneak out of the mouth of the cave without him noticing and quietly say, "Expelliarmus." But being the trained Auror he was, Sirius heard the whisper and spun around, not giving himself a chance to recognize his opponent and cry out, "PROTEGO!"

The disarming spell bounced away from both wizards and hit the side of the cave wall, making some of the rock crumble. "Sirius Black, it has been a long time," said the wizard from under a hooded cloak.

"MALFOY!" Sirius growled. He added in a few obscene names that made the blond Death Eater chuckle darkly as he lowered his black hood.

"Such language, Black," Malfoy said smoothly, smirking. "Do you kiss your slut of a wife with that mouth?"

"STUPEFY!" Sirius roared.

Malfoy blocked it lazily. "So angry, Sirius..."

"Don't you dare talk about Naomi, you sick son of a bitch," Sirius warned in a growl.

"Oh, but haven't you heard? We seem to share the same taste in women. I must say, she was very satisfying, if a bit aggressive..."

Anger beyond anything he'd ever felt was building up in his veins. He wasn't going to let anyone, least of all vermin like this, talk about his wife in any way... "DIFFINDO!" A nasty cut appeared on Malfoy's arm. Damn, I missed... Sirius had been going for the Death Eater's throat—normally, he aimed to capture his enemies, but this was beyond personal.

Malfoy sneered and growled. "Oh, I've waited so long for this, Black—I know you have as well. So why are we just standing here? STUPEFY!"

"PROTEGO! EXPELLIARMUS! DENSAUGEO!" Both the disarming charm and the teeth-growing spells missed. But his boil hex hit its target. "FURNUNCULUS!"

Malfoy grasped his face, screaming in both surprise and pain, but his pause in the duel didn't last long "PETRIFICUS TOTALUS! CRUCIO!"

Sirius dived out of the way just in time. "PETRIFICUS TOTALUS!" Again, he'd missed, but he blamed it on the odd angle he'd fallen into. "IMPEDIMENTA!"

The other wizard was hit dead-on and wasn't able to move an inch. Sirius grinned in triumph and was able to get himself off the ground and raise his wand before Malfoy could move again. "LANGLOCK!" Sirius yelled. The look on Malfoy's face when he realized his tongue was glued to the roof of his mouth nearly had the Auror doubled over laughing. But there will be time for laughing later... he thought. It's time to end this...

He began to speak a stunning charm, but Malfoy had cast a non-verbal Banishing charm, and Sirius was caught off guard. Before he realized what was happening, he was falling over the edge of the cliff, down to the rocky bottom...

Harry sighed heavily as he collapsed into a chair in the waiting room, his head spinning horribly. He'd barely been able to wrap his mind around the fact that his godfather was missing before Naomi's eyes had widened and she'd announced she was going into labor. He looked round at Emmeline, who was telling Tonks, Fleur, and the Weasleys what had happened—or rather, what she thought had happened—to Sirius. They all looked understandably horrified and worried, and Harry was already getting rather annoyed at Mrs. Weasley's sympathetic glances at him.

Something horrible was probably happening to Sirius right now, and they were unable to help, having to stay at the hospital. And Harry, no matter how old he was now, would never be permitted to go searching on his own.

What was worse was that Sirius would probably miss the birth of his first child—something that would undoubtedly break his heart. Why did all of this have to happen at the same time? Why couldn't the baby have held out for another four weeks like she was supposed to? Why did Sirius have to disappear now? Who'd sent that newspaper this morning, the one that had caused the Auror to leave Number Twelve so angrily? So many questions were invading the seventeen-year-old wizard's mind, and he didn't have answers for a single one of them.

Tonks approached him at some point during the hour and asked if he wanted to go get some tea. Looking around the room at the others staring at their feet or the walls, Harry readily agreed and followed the Auror out of the waiting room to the fifth floor tea room.

Back in Naomi's hospital room, Remus running through the same list of questions as Harry had been—when he wasn't trying to ignore the pain in the hand Naomi held in a death-grip during her contractions. He was doing his best to calm her, as hard as it was—she was worried about her husband, wondering where he was and if he was all right, but also if her daughter would be okay, even though she was almost a month early. Ted had done a quick evaluation and said both mother and daughter were just fine, regardless of how early it was. He said Naomi had a good five to six hours at the least before the baby would be ready, so he'd left to let her rest as best she could.

The contractions she went through were obviously painful; she had tears streaming down her face and she sniffed hard for long minutes after they passed. Remus did all he could to comfort her—told her jokes, retold stories from their childhood, talked about ordinary, everyday things. He held her hand tightly, rubbing her knuckles as her tears subsided. "Just calm down," he kept saying soothingly. "You'll be all right. This'll all be over soon..."

"I want Sirius," she sniffed quietly. "The baby can't come until he's here. He has to be here, Remus."

Out of old habit, Remus raised her hand to his lips and kissed her middle knuckle softly. "Dumbledore is doing everything he can to get Sirius here, Naomi. We just have to be patient."

"This baby is not patient." She winced painfully as she received a kick in her belly, as though her daughter was confirming the statement. "Do you think he's okay?"

Remus gulped. The last thing he wanted to do was lie to her, but he also didn't know how to answer. "He's tough," he settled on hoarsely. "He'll hold up his own, wherever he is."

Naomi nodded and relaxed into her pillows. A few minutes later, Remus felt the grip she held on his hand increase significantly as her next contraction began. He repeated his soothing words over and over like a mantra while she cried in pain, and when it had passed, he smoothed her hair back from her heavily sweating forehead.

"Thank you, Remus," she whispered tearfully when she'd calmed again.

"For what, love?" he asked, slipping back into his old routine for calming her from when they'd dated.

"For staying with me," she responded. "This is Sirius' job, but he's not here... You didn't have to stay, but you did. And you've no idea how much I appreciate it."

Remus smiled gently at her. "Don't mention it, Naomi," he whispered. "You know me; I'm willing to help any way I can."

She smiled back at him—the first smile he'd seen on her face all day. "In that case, do you think you could get me some ice chips?"

He laughed and nodded, releasing her hand, assuring a quick return, before leaving the room. He went down the hall and found the waiting room where his family and friends waited. Molly spotted him first and sprang from her seat, immediately demanding information on how Naomi was fairing. He calmly told them she was fine, that she'd just wanted some ice chips, and since magic wasn't allowed in the hospital unless one was a Healer or medi-witch, he'd had to leave her for a bit. Molly sternly told him to keep them updated, and once he promised he would, Emmeline took his hand and led him out of the room and down the corridor for Naomi's ice chips.

"Have you heard from Dumbledore?" Remus asked the moment they were out of earshot from the others.

His wife shook her head. "Not yet," she sighed. "Headmaster Dilys has a portrait here, you know, so I asked him to check Dumbledore's office—he wasn't there, so I assume that means he's gone looking for him."

Remus nodded slowly as they reached a cart with a young witch taking food and drinks to the patients. He asked for a large cup with ice chips, and he and his wife turned back towards the waiting room. "Naomi wants Sirius, of course," he said when Emmeline asked after the other witch. "Her contractions are still rather spread out, but she's in a good deal of pain—I won't be able to flex my fingers for the next week, at least."

Emmeline chuckled quietly and lifted his sore hand, kissing each finger as they reached Naomi's room. "Well, you take good care of her. Consider it practice for when the twins come."

He smiled and bent to kiss her. "I'll come back out later and update you. If any word about Sirius comes through, let us know."

"I will," she promised. "I love you."

"I love you too," he said, kissing her again before entering the room.

Harry was thoroughly relieved when Hermione, Ron, and Ginny arrived at the hospital. They'd been out in the orchard playing Quidditch with Fred and George when the others had left, and had found a hastily written note on the kitchen table when they'd come home for lunch. Harry quickly briefed them on everything that had already happened that day, and he and his friends spent an hour guessing at where Sirius could be. Harry finally grew weary of talking about his godfather; the more they talked, the worse Harry worried about it.

Remus had come out of Naomi's room a few hours later while the witch rested for the second time. The mother-to-be was taking a nap, so he'd decided to pop out and check up on everyone else. He passed Harry a few galleons and told him to take his friends up to the hospital cafeteria for a bite to eat. Harry deduced that he wanted to talk to the adults alone for a bit, and didn't argue—both to his and Remus' slight surprise.

Though he really had no appetite, and hadn't since breakfast, Harry bought himself and his friends sandwiches, bags of crisps, and bottles of pumpkin juice. The four teenagers sat at a corner table and tried to eat their meals mostly in silence. Harry was only able to choke down a few bites of his ham and cheese sandwich before he found himself unable to eat anymore, though Ginny and Hermione both tried to get him to eat the rest. To nobody's great surprise, Ron ended up eating what was left of Harry's sandwich and bag of crisps, along with his own meal.

They were nearly back to the waiting room again when a sharp pain ripped through Harry's head without any warning. His legs crumpled beneath him and he fell to the linoleum floor, crying out loudly in pain. Flashes of blurred images filled his mind, making his head hurt even worse. He knew what was happening— Voldemort was doing this to him. But the pain in his head wouldn't let him see whatever it was the Dark Lord wanted him to see clearly enough to make anything out of it.

Harry could vaguely make out the voices of his best friends and girlfriend calling his name worriedly. Ron helped him stand on his weak legs—he put his arm around Harry's waist, and one of Harry's arms around his shoulder. Ginny told people who'd been staring at the ordeal with wide eyes to bugger off as they went back to the waiting room as fast as they could manage.

"Oh my god," Emmeline exclaimed when she set eyes on Harry's deathly pale face. Remus jumped from the chair he'd occupied beside her and rushed over to take Harry from Ron. Arthur turned one of the waiting room chairs into a cot and Remus laid the boy down while Molly conjured cold packs, pillows, and other things to make him comfortable. Meanwhile, Charlie and Bill cast privacy and silencing charms around the room, and Tonks went to find her father. Nobody paid any mind to the fact that magic was strictly prohibited in the hospital.

The Tonkses returned moments later and Ted examined Harry thoroughly. "There's nothing wrong with him physically," the Healer told Remus as the two wizards went to check on Naomi some fifteen minutes later. (He'd told everyone not to worry about their use of magic; it had been an emergency, and he would personally see to it that none of them got any trouble from the Ministry for it.) "From what the other kids say, he seems to have had an attack of some sort. Does he have a history of this kind of thing?"

Remus nodded pensively. "Since he was five, as far as I know," he said hoarsely. "It's all from his scar and Voldemort," he added after making sure no one was listening in on them.

"Well, he should be okay," Ted said, looking only mildly surprised at the revelation Remus had just made about Harry. "It could be from stress as well..."

Remus nodded again, and opened the hospital room door for the Healer. Naomi still had her eyes closed, much to Remus' relief—it meant she was able to get a bit of rest. Ted ran a few tests with his wand and quietly told the other wizard that the baby would be ready to come out in about two to three hours. He then told Remus to contact him if anything else happened, and left again.

Remus silently took his seat beside Naomi and reached for her hand. He still wondered what happened to Harry, but when he'd left the waiting room after the examination, the boy was starting to close his eyes—Remus suspected Ted had performed a sleeping charm on him.

All the better, Remus thought idly and miserably. The less time he can worry about Sirius... I, on the other hand, have to wonder if Naomi is soon to be a widow, and if their daughter is going to be without her father...

Back in the waiting room, Emmeline sat on one side of Harry while Molly took the other, watching him fall asleep. Right after her husband and Ted had left, Harry asked her to use Legilimency to see what happened when he'd collapsed—he was too tired to explain it. She did, and she was quite disturbed to see the flashes the boy had been sent by Voldemort. For about a million and one reasons, she hoped and prayed to every deity in existence that they were false. Most of them depicted Sirius being painfully tortured, one showed him in a bloody crumpled heap. The only thing she could get from the surroundings of the vision was that they took place in a stone room—Emmeline assumed this was the Dark Lord's castle.

She'd sent Tonks and Charlie back to Number Twelve to retrieve the map developed back in January that helped Harry rescue Ron, and see if Sirius was anywhere on it. If he was, the young Order members were to send an emergency patronus to Dumbledore to alert him—hopefully the Headmaster would act quickly in arranging a rescue mission.

Beside her, Harry drew in a deep, rattling breath as he continued to fall into his charmed sleep. She reached out and took his hand just as a mother would for her sick son, and rubbed his fingers with hers, hoping she was comforting him in someway. It was helping her, at least...

Tonks and Charlie returned some thirty minutes later and reported that, no, Sirius had not been on the map, and the only Death Eater that had been missing from the Death Eater hideout was Malfoy (Snape was with Voldemort in one of the Potions rooms—Emmeline filed that away for a later time). This news helped to comfort Emmeline a little, but when Tonks said she'd thought of checking the Order map of England, that was when her mood really picked up. They'd located Sirius somewhere on the western seacoast with Malfoy—according to the colors of the dots, which changed depending on the actions of the Order member in question, the two wizards were dueling fiercely. Dumbledore had been contacted, and was currently in the process of gathering a team of Aurors to find and assist Sirius.

The look of relief on Remus' face when Emmeline had gone to tell him and Naomi the news lasted a good fifteen minutes. Naomi begged Emmeline to have her husband brought to her room when the other Aurors found him. Emmeline promised to pass the message along to Dumbledore.

Remus kept wondering aloud why he hadn't thought to check the maps, but Emmeline was quick to remind him that there'd been hardly any time between when he'd left the Ministry for Number Twelve, and when Naomi started going into labor.

Emmeline returned to the waiting room a short time after the stern medi-witch kicked her out again. She rolled her eyes and blew a kiss to Remus, who returned it, receiving an odd look from the old medi-witch—she must have been under the impression that Remus was the father of Naomi's baby, judging by the disapproving looks she shot at all three of them. Emmeline found she didn't care much for what the old hag thought; in a—hopefully—short time, Sirius would be arriving, and would be present for the birth of his daughter.