Chapter Thirteen - The Potters Senior
"You could not pay me to get into that."
"Oh, come on, Moony. It's perfectly safe." To illustrate his point, Sirius gave the sidecar newly attached to his motorcycle a hearty slap. In unison, three pairs of eyes stared between Sirius, the bike, and back again. Remus simply raised his eyebrows. Enough was said.
"Fine, Wormy?"
"No chance!"
"Cowards, both of you." James scoffed, and strode between them, plucking the goggles out of Sirius' outstretched hand and snapping the oversized accessories over his glasses. "I'll take it for a spin." Planting his hands either side he hopped into the sidecar, comically diminishing himself as most of his body folded up to fit in the small space.
"But what do we tell Lily when you don't come home for dinner?"
As James chuckled, Sirius stubbed his cigarette out of the concrete parapet and flicked it directly at Remus in response.
The Triumph motorcycle was Sirius' pride and joy, and he treated it with all the love and care that he did not even reserve for his friends. It had become a source of great humour and entertainment between the former Marauders that he would be more likely to marry the motorbike if he could than settle down with a wife. He had purchased it as an ordinary form of muggle transportation with his own earned, and converted to muggle currency, money.
Sirius had learnt and researched with more interest and dedication than he ever had in school to restore it to greater condition than he had bought it in. With a little assistance from his muggleborn cousin-in-law Ted Tonks, and some considerably less helpful assistance from Remus, to help him understand how it all worked together, he taught himself to ride it and suffered only a few injuries albeit one of which had landed him in St Mungos for a few days with a crushed left leg.
But merely riding the motorcycle had not been quite enough, no. With extensive care and skill, in time Sirius had enchanted it to fly, and at a speed which would rival most broomsticks. Ever ambitious to make it the best it could be, he had gone a step further again and attached a sidecar to carry a passenger.
Remus did not care a great deal for flying, though he could handle himself on a broom, but he drew the line at getting in a rickety looking sidecar that was designed to roll along the ground and soaring off a rooftop. At least…at being the first one to do that. He was not alone, Peter was firmly in agreement on that point and together they exchanged a glance that was equal parts humour and concern. Sirius threw one denim clad leg over the bike and hopped up onto the kickstarter with the other. Two sharp kicks and the engine roared into life, a few sharp revs and the friction of tyres on concrete whirred as the heavy vehicle gained speed and shot toward the far side of the roof. As its rider reared backwards, the front wheel lifted off the surface and in a blink, the whole bicycle disappeared over the edge. For two alarming seconds it didn't come back up. Was the additional weight of the sidecar too much after all?
Panic suddenly rising in his throat, Remus took off running toward the parapet with Peter close at his heels. They managed less than halfway before the sound of the engine grew louder again and the enchanted motorcycle shot back up into the air, with a triumphant whoop that barely carried over the roar of the vehicle. As he was buffeted back by a gust of air that flattened his hair against his forehead and let a partially disbelieving grin spread over his face, Remus vaguely heard an "I told you so!" as the enchanted motorcycle and sidecar shot off overhead.
"I missed them…"
Together Remus and Peter turned. Still in the doorway, one hand on the heavy metal door that led downstairs into Sirius' flat, stood Lily. Her cheeks were pink from running and her brilliantly green eyes were wide and watery. She was still dressed in her lime St. Mungo's robes, and her hair was coming loose from its ponytail.
Immediately, his good mood was sullied. Something was wrong, Remus could read it all over her face. Hurriedly he stepped towards her, "Did something happen?"
"Yes." Lily sniffed, and he wasn't sure she even noticed that she had reached up and brushed a stray tear from the corner of her eye. "But I need to talk to James first."
xxxXxxx
Sleekeazy's Hair Potion remained the highest selling and most widely used magically produced hair tonic long after the developer's retirement and showed, even now, no signs of lessening demand. Except amongst redheads, as for still unknown reasons, it tended to have unique and unpredictable effects on pigmentation. Upon invention of the massively successful potion, able to tame even the wildest locks, Fleamont Potter had doubled the already impressive Potter fortune, and upon retirement and selling the company, quadrupled it.
Fleamont and Euphemia had wed in 1918, but it was over forty years of marriage later that their first and only child was finally born. He was 67 years old, and she, 65 and had suffered through decades of struggling and failing to conceive before their miracle occurred.
James was the sole heir to the Potter lineage and, while he was raised in wealth, was most importantly raised with love. Surrounded by others as he grew up whose parents were thirty to forty years younger than his own, more often than not his parents were mistaken for grandparents, even by his in-laws.
When their only child entered their world, he became the absolute centre of it. Wanting for nothing, but never in excessive opulence, James Potter would be set up for life and though he would not need to, still raised with knowing the importance of hard work and earning your lifestyle.
He had always been a clever lad, if headstrong and stubborn in the company of others, but when at home, in the company of only his parents he knew to pretend he didn't see the trembling in their hands and legs as they aged. He would never have siblings, so it was their great joy when friends were in no short supply for their child, and, in time, love.
It was safe then, even in wizarding circles, to assume that James would not be so lucky to have as much time with his parents as others. He had known, expected even, particularly since unfortunate circumstances had taken the mother of one of his friends far sooner than she should have been.
Sixteen years after James was born, the generous and doting parents opened their home to another boy out of places to go and unwelcome in his own home, and Sirius quickly came to consider them as more parent to him than Orion and Walburga ever had been.
Lily, the vibrant, brilliant red headed muggleborn was without a doubt the best thing that had happened to him. Her unwillingness to tolerate his obnoxious, and certainly oft times smug attitude, she brought about the kind of change that only honest feelings could bring.
At last, in March 1979, in their late 80's, Fleamont and Euphemia lived to see their only son wed.
Only three months later, as June reached its peak, they were both admitted together into St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, each with advanced cases of Dragon Pox and tended to dutifully by their daughter in law.
Whilst treatment for the disease had come considerably further since the first documented cases in the early 1100s, it was a nasty and unpredictable illness, and once the greenish tinged skin began to seem scaly in appearance beneath the poxes, there was little to be done for the elderly.
The turn came quickly. Too quickly for Lily to get word to James, who had finally taken reprieve from his parent's bedside. Euphemia's hand was held tightly by her daughter in law as she died.
Fleamont, without his wife to stay strong for, lived only another day, in the company of his grieving son.
xxxXxxx
There was little to say in the way of solace after the loss of a loved one. Remus knew that well, and his own sad thoughts strayed inevitably back to his own mother's funeral as his gaze strayed from the backs of his friends to the fine marble memorial stone that marked the joint gravesite.
Being of such renown in the wizarding community, the Potter's memorial service had been published in the Daily Prophet and the turnout for the graveside funeral was nothing short of impressive. The area was a sea of blacks and greys as all manner of folk assembled to pay their respects to the Potters. He could smell the distinct scent of Sleekeazy's as the breeze picked up, carrying it from the back of the crowd where Hagrid, his usually unruly thick hair and beard was smooth and perfectly tamed, making the terribly hairy brown suit he wore even more wild looking. A touching gesture from a tender hearted giant.
The service concluded, the crowds began to trickle away in groups, pausing to pay their condolences to the bereaved, until few of them remained. Remus lingered back alongside Peter, whose round face and watery eyes were even more wet than usual. The thick black coat with its leather elbow patches was stiflingly unseasonal, but it was the neatest clothing he owned aside from the dress robes James had purchased them all for the wedding.
His green eyes came to rest on the figures directly beside the grave. Lily's arm was wrapped tightly around her husband's waist, offering him all the support he needed as she sniffled slightly.
Sirius, seemingly more of a mess than James himself, finally tore himself away from the graveside of his surrogate parents, and shouldered his way in between Remus and Peter, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his trouser pocket.
Remus caught Lily's eye as she glanced over her shoulder, pressing a kiss to James' as she did, and immediately got the message. Forcing down his own newly resurfaced lump of grief, the werewolf nodded and turned, following the brooding Sirius metres behind. Padfoot was unpredictable at the best of times.
There was a flash of orange and a thin stream of smoke wafted over Sirius' shoulder, as he trudged across the gravel pathway and finally stopped alongside a polished concrete crypt, leaning against the door without so much as a glance at the epitaph engraved on it.
"Not talking about it, Moony." The thin stream became a rush of exhaled smoke directly toward him that made Remus automatically screw up his nose and cough it away.
"I wasn't going to ask you to. Just…making sure you don't blow something up."
His poor attempt to lighten the dark cloud that had descended was met with a glower so fierce that for a second Sirius was unrecognisable, and the joke became a very real concern. Sirius' face had darkened like the very air did when a Dementor passed by. Remus lingered a few paces back, keeping a wary silence and an eye on his friend who took a long drag on the cigarette and turned his back. Anger and grief were bubbling away right beneath the surface and Sirius was a loose cannon when he was in a good mood.
Minutes passed and the Animagus still had not so much as turned around or moved more than to bend his elbow and raise the cigarette. Warily, Remus spoke to his back.
"Sirius, I know how-"
"No you bloody don't." The butt of the cigarette dropped to the ground and glowed in an orange ember.
"I do actuall-"
"No!" Sirius whirled around so fast that he startled Remus into taking a step backwards in shock. He had never, nor had any of his friends to his knowledge, seen Sirius shed so much as a tear. Not even when he'd been struck by a cruel parent. He was crying now, silver trails streaked his cheeks and disappeared into rough stubble. "Don't pull that rubbish on me, Remus."
"I'm sorry, rubbish?" And for a second, hurt pricked him and just a flash of irritation. "I just meant-" But he could not get so much as the rest of the sentence out before Sirius, the floodgates opened, interrupted angrily again.
"Yeah, we all bloody know what you mean. But at least you always knew your mum cared. I didn't have that until I was sixteen! So no, you don't actually know what the hell I feel."
Sirius spun on his heel and vanished from sight, leaving the werewolf staring wide eyed at the spot he had stood. He had never seen Sirius so wildly emotional at all, he was handling it far worse than James himself was. But then, he'd always been far more erratic, and James was not fool enough to be blind to his ageing parents.
Reaching up to scratch the back of his neck, he murmured aloud to nobody, "That went well." and started back toward the Potters' gravesite.
xxxXxxx
"Remus? Why are the new Celestina Warbeck novels in the middle of the Fantastic Beasts section?" Azalea Bennett, stuck her cerulean haired head out between the shelves, waving a copy of the famous singer's debut novel "Cauldron Full of Hot Strong Love", named for her best known hit.
"What? Ouch!" The back of his head collided hard with the underside of the ladder he had forgotten he had crouched beneath as he tried to coax a lost copy of the Book of Invisibility out of hiding. Throbbing pain radiated through his skull, only heightening the headache that had been raging in his temple all day.
"Risque romance novel…Graphorns and Grindylows...not a common pairing." The witch with uncommonly coloured hair adjusted her half moon glasses and flicked her wand at the door, turning the open sign to closed. "Care to fix that?"
"Right…sorry." He muttered, shoving a shaking hand into his pocket to hide the quivering as he shuffled past her to rectify the error. "I don't know what I was thinking."
"You've been all over the place for days, are you alright?"
Terrible for the most part. He'd come in late and the waning moon was still wreaking its havoc on him. "Perfectly. Just…distracted. I'll fix it, I'm sorry." But the witch was far from convinced and only stared back at him with a raised eyebrow. But to his relief she did not press it.
"I don't know why these famous singers think they should try writing as well, it's barely readable…incredible voice though."
That gave Remus pause for a moment and, irritated and in pain as he was, he spared a moment to arch an eyebrow right back at her as he levitated the novels from their incorrect place. "You've read it already?"
"No!" Azalea snapped a little too quickly and snapped shut the novel she had been thumbing through and tossed it into the air to join its fellows. Her defensive expression quickly gave way to a sort of curiosity that made Remus nervous. "You know, you've been here for months and I hardly know anything about you."
Had it been so long? He'd done better than he thought. "Oh really? Like what?"
"Like…" the witch hopped up and perched herself on one of the bookshelf ladders. "What's your de-" and her curiosity gave way to concern, "Remus, you're bleeding."
He had just turned around, twisting his neck so the collar of his robes pulled down, stinging against the contact with his skin. Quickly he raised his hand and rubbed the back of his neck, drawing away his fingers sticky with blood. "It's nothing."
Memory flashed through his mind.
"Where are the others?" Anxiety raced through him as Remus paced uneasily across the forest floor. Peter alone had come. It was unlike the others to miss a full moon without telling him first. "Where the hell are the others? This is cutting it fine."
"Didn't you get James' message? He s-said he sent an ow–" A loud hoot interrupted Wormtail's sentence and the Potters' handsome tawny owl soared down to land on a low branch in front of them. "Oh…that would be the one."
Quickly Remus crossed to the bird and all but snatched the note it held out on waiting leg, with an indignant screech the bird took off.
Remus, I'm sorry. Caradoc has called me into the Ministry. Auror business.
Padfoot should still be there.
"Bloody hell…" Remus cursed and crumpled the brief note into a ball which immediately combusted into flames in his hand. Every inch of his skin was prickling and burning as the wolf inside waited impatiently to burst from it. The animalistic impulses he usually tried so hard to suppress came freely to him now and the werewolf raised his head and sniffed the air. There was still no sign at all of Sirius, though at least James had a reason. Hardly anyone had seen hide nor hair of Black in the three days since the funeral.
He cast a gaze through eyes that were more pupil than iris at Peter who was standing there uncomfortably.
"I guess it's just me." The rat animagus swallowed nervously and shrugged. "Remus…I-I don't think I'll be much help out here."
At least he had voiced the concern that Remus felt himself without the werewolf having to sound like even more of a bad tempered animal than he felt right now. Peter could reinforce the charms that Remus had already raised, certainly; but while he was in no danger of harm in his animagus form himself, he would be no use in controlling Remus if something went wrong again.
The last rays of sunlight were giving way into dusk.
His head hurt like it was about to split in half. Every bone in his body hurt as it prepared to morph and change once more.
Fourteen years. Remus had suffered through over one hundred and seventy transformations and each remained as unbearable as the last. Clear thinking came to him with difficulty now. Until he thought of it with a sickening sort of dread. An extra layer of protection to the world.
"You're gonna have to chain me."
"I'm-what?!"Peter's voice became a squeak and his eyes bulged as Remus suggested the very thing that he'd never had to do before.
"For Merlin's sake, Wormtail, I know it's awful but…" Without either an enchanted building or large animals around to control him, it was the best he had even within the rest of the enchantments. "It's better than the alternative." He muttered, shrugging off his jumper and beginning to undress. No sooner had he tossed his shirt from his person than a wave of agony overtook him and he doubled over. The moon rise was close. Too close.
With considerable effort, he dragged himself near to the sturdiest looking tree, holding his wand as gently as he could in his fingertips so he wouldn't snap it in two with the next wave of pain.
"Won't you break them?"
"Almost definitely." Remus ground out through clenched teeth. "But…it's something. Here…" He tossed his wand over to Peter who fumbled but caught it, keeping his distance in a way that made Remus feel even more of a monster. "The incantation is…is Ligamen Catenae…they will change with me…"
"Remus…I'm sorry…" Wormtail cringed and took another step back as he raised his wand and aimed it at the werewolf. "...Ligamen Catenae…"
Immediately he felt the weight of iron crush hard against his chest as heavy chains wrapped around his shoulders, pressing hard into the exposed skin of his neck and forming a brutal collar around him. Another flick of Wormtail's wand and the end of the chain wrapped thrice around the trunk of the tree. Amidst the pain, shame weighed as heavily as the iron did as Remus found himself, by his own insistence, leashed like a vicious dog.
"I-I'll be back…in the morning…with your things."
"Wormtail…wait you're no-" But before he could ask his friend to stay, even as a rat to give him some companionship, Peter had apparated away. "...I guess not." He murmured.
It was only minutes before the moon rose over the horizon, and Remus the wizard lost all semblance of humanity. Only a scream on the wind, muffled and inaudible outside of the enchanted area.
He had snapped the restraining chain hours later in the throws of wild anger, though the collar remained until he could remove them in the morning. His neck was raw and bleeding, but he'd had no time to repair the damage.
Carefully he turned up the collar of his shirt self consciously and hurriedly turned the other direction. "It's fine."
"It looks awful."
"Yes, thank you for that, Azalea."
He'd been here too long. The sinking gravity of the realisation finally hit him. He'd been questioned three times in the last four months and five full moons he'd worked at Flourish and Blotts. He couldn't explain it away forever. He'd known this all his life. "I'm just distracted…I need to put in my notice."