A Second Life
Summary; in the long term ward at St Mungos is there a door, with a secret behind it. The name on sign is in pitch black letters, and it reads "J. Potter". Who is behind the door? What is it that they haven't told Harry?
Disclaimer; Nothing in this story belongs to me...
Author's Note; As the chapter title says does this chapter take place three months after last chapter.
Chapter Fourteen: Three Months Later...
"Remus!" Jessica shouted out from the sitting room of the cottage to wherever Remus might be. "I need help!"
Jessica was sitting down on the sofa with her shoes on her feet, but untied. She was now seven and a half months pregnant and found it very hard to bend forward and tie her shoes, and she was almost running later to her class. Sure her large stomach wasn't viewable, but that didn't mean that it was still there if somebody felt for it.
After a few seconds after she had called out for Remus, he came walking down the stairs carrying a letter which he put in his pocked during his descent. "What's the problem?" He asked.
"I need help tying my shoes." She answered. "I'm too fat."
"You're not that fat." Remus answered automatically and sat down in front of Jessica to help her with the shoes.
"I'm worried about Harry..." Jessica said. "There's not much time left before the first task and he has no idea what it might be. He's a minor, you know, shouldn't it only be right if they somehow slipped what it might be? And upon all of this he's fighting with Ron. I feel both sad and worried for him, there's less than a week before the first task. I'm terrified"
"All done." Remus said once he had finished tying her shoes. "Jessica..." He started to start a new subject with her, but she interrupted him.
"Tomorrow is the Hogsmeade trip for the school." Jessica said. "Hermione is trying to convince Harry to go, but he thinks that everybody will stare and point at him, he has had it very terrible with the other students since his name came out of the goblet of fire and especially with what that hag wrote in the Daily Prophet."
"He and Hermione can always spend the day here but..."
"Yeah, I'll tell them that, it sounds great." She smiled and stood up with her book bag.
"Jessica, can you wait for a minute?" He said to her. "I'm trying to tell you something."
"I'm sorry, Remus, but can it wait? I'm really running late." She responded to him with an apologetic smile and walked over to the fire place and flooed over to the school.
"The only problem is that it'll be to late then." Remus muttered to himself and took out the letter from his pocket again.
XxXxXxX
Harry refused to go to Hogsmeade with Hermione and it didn't go any better for Jessica.
"No." Harry said to her before she had even got the time to sit down with them at lunch in the great hall.
"What? I haven't even asked yet." Jessica said as she started to fill her plate with a large piece of the meat pie they were served today.
"I know what you are going to ask..." Harry said. "My answer is still no."
"Please..." Jessica begged. "It could be fun."
"Why don't you and Hermione go together?" Harry suggested a very reasonable deal with only one flaw.
"I'm not going." Jessica said. "Mary's coming tomorrow to check on the... You know." She didn't feel comfortable speaking loud about her baby when somebody might over hear.
"You want me to come with you?" Harry asked, hoping that she would say yes and he'd find an excuse to skip the Hogsmeade trip.
But Jessica shook her head. "No need to worry, I'll be alright. But I'd be better if I knew that you went along with Hermione and enjoyed yourself."
"Fine." Harry said grumpy. "But I won't go without the cloak."
Hermione wouldn't happy with this arrangement, she hated talking to him under that cloak, and she looked as though she was talking to herself, this she had told Jessica a few weeks earlier.
Harry changed the subject and told Jessica that he hadn't got a response from Sirius yet and it started to get worried. But the lack of response wasn't what worried Jessica. She still hadn't told him that she was pregnant with his child. But it wasn't of lack for trying, she had written several letters explaining, but all of them weren't good enough, there was something missing.
She didn't respond to Harry's worried with words, she simply nodded.
The only class she had before the day was over were potions, and throughout the whole class couldn't she stop thinking about Sirius, why hadn't he answered Harry's letter? Was something wrong? Had he been captured? Had he been killed?
When the class was over was it over an hour left until dinner, and Jessica remembered that Remus had something he wanted to tell her.
The cottage they had rented for the year was quite comfortable and perfect. It was placed at the outskirts of the village. It had a basement and on the first floor were the kitchen, one bedroom and the sitting room. On the second floor were there two bedrooms and the bathroom. Remus stayed there full time, even now before the baby had come.
There had been a spell put on the windows of the cottage so that everybody who looked into the windows wouldn't be able to see anything. This made things easier for both Jessica and Remus, no window peepers would be able to see anything.
This spell made Jessica feel more comfortable there; she didn't need to hide herself, like she needed at Hogwarts. She travelled between school and home by the floo in Madam Pomfrey's outer office, which was originally there for travel to St Mungos, the big wizarding hospital in London.
The moment Jessica stepped through the fireplace she dropped her book bag onto the sofa and lifted the spell which hid her stomach and dropped down onto the sofa, feeling quite exhausted. Whenever she sat down the baby started to move around and kick even more. Mary had last time told her that it was normal for the baby to move around a lot in the third trimester, it was to explore new movements and exorcise new muscles.
"Jessica?" She heard Remus call out from the kitchen.
Instead of answering him she stood up and walked over to the kitchen, where she was met by a rather shocking and peculiar sight. There was he, the man who had filled her thoughts so much these last months, sitting on a chair by the table. Still looking as starved and dangerous as before, only now he looked a bit cleaner.
"Sirius..." She said in a mere whisper, unable to say anything else. This wasn't exactly how she had imagined him to find out.
Remus stood up. "I think that there's something upstarts that needs my attention." He said and left the room.
"Remus did say that you had something to tell me, but I..." Sirius said. He made one quick glance down at her belly but quickly looked up again, like it would explode if he looked at it too long.
"I... Um..." Jessica said, but not sure how to continue. This was probably what Remus wanted to tell her this morning, but stupid Jessica refused to listen.
"I get it... You don't need to explain." He said. "It's none of my business."
Now Jessica understood that Sirius got it completely wrong, that he wouldn't automatically assume the obvious. "Really?" She answered him and walked a bit closer. "I'd say that it's completely your business, since you're the father and all that."
For the better part of the next hour Jessica and Sirius talked about everything, about the baby, Harry, the tournament and thoughts on why Harry's name had come out of the goblet of fire. After a while Remus joined the conversation.
Sooner that Jessica would have preferred did the clock on the wall showed five o'clock which meant that it was dinner time up at the castle. The three of them decided that they would for the moment split up, Jessica would go over to Hogwarts and invite Harry over for dinner, Sirius would clean himself up and change clothes and Remus would fix something up to eat for dinner.
Jessica first looked for Harry in the great hall, but she only saw Ron there, not Hermione and Harry. She found Hermione in the Gryffindor common room; she sat in front of the fire working on her homework for the weekend.
"Hey Hermione." Jessica said and sat down next to her. "Have you seen Harry?"
"No, not since charms ended." Hermione shook her head. "But I think that he's hiding out in the library again. Why are you wondering?"
"I was going to ask him if he wanted to come over for dinner." Jessica responded. "You should come as well; we have enough food to feed a small army."
"I don't know... I have some homework I'd like to be done before the weekend." Hermione said, motioning toward her books.
"Please." Jessica begged. "I'll help you; I don't think that you'd want to miss this dinner."
"All right."Hermione gave in and closed her books.
"Great. I'll go and get Harry; meet us in the hospital wing as soon as possible." Jessica said as she walked out of the Gryffindor common room.
She found Harry sitting in the library by the study table in the far corner where he sat hiding his face behind a book.
"Are you hiding?" Jessica asked him and sat down opposite him.
Harry lowered the book. "Is it that obvious?" He asked her.
"Not really, I just knew what I was looking for." She answered him. "Have you eaten yet?"
Harry shook his head. "I usually wait until the Great Hall is almost deserted."
"Why don't you come with me for dinner?" Jessica suggested. "I think that you really should."
She felt a sudden urge to tell him right there that Sirius was at their place, but she didn't since she had no idea who might be listening.
"Hermione's also coming." She said when Harry still hadn't answered.
"Okey, why not?" Harry said. He closed his book and put it back before following Jessica.
They met up, like said, with Hermione right outside the hospital wing. She hadn't been waiting there for a long time. They took turns flooing over to the small cottage Jessica called home these days. Jessica went first, then Hermione and last Harry.
Four people were waiting for Harry when he stepped out of the fire. He looked around the room, at first he didn't recognize Sirius because he looked... normal to be honest. His facial hair had been shaved off, his skin dirtless and his clothes were new and whole.
It took a while for Harry to realize who it was, he looked at him for a long time, but then his face shone up. "Sirius." He said, his whole showed how excited he was to meet his godfather after such a long time without a response from him.
"Hi Harry." Sirius said, just as happy to meet Harry again.
XxXxXxX
"I am completely terrified about the first task." Harry admitted to Sirius and the rest of the people sitting around the table in the kitchen. They had just begun eating dinner.
"I would also be terrified." Sirius answered him. "I think that I know what the first task is... I have spent the bigger part of the day snooping around the village hoping to hear or get a glance at what it might be, with it only being four days left until the first task some arrangements must have happened."
"What?" Jessica said, Sirius had not mentioned this earlier when they spoke. "You never told me that."
"Yes well..." Sirius said, stopping for a moment before continuing. "I didn't want to worry you."
"What is it?" Hermione asked.
"In the far end of the corner of the school grounds, on that big plot of land hidden around the forbidden forest." He began telling them. "They have four dragons there..." He finished.
Everybody in the room looked over at Harry who was staring straight forward with his mouth half open, clearly in shock.
"I'm going to die on Tuesday." He muttered after a while. "Oh God."
"Harry..." Jessica said. "You won't die... We'll help you figure something out."
But that didn't seem to convince Harry of anything, he was still as devastated.
"What species were the dragons?" Remus asked Sirius.
"Um..." Sirius answered, it was obvious that he didn't know. "Big and fire breathing." He offered up as knowledge.
"All dragons are big and fire breathing." Remus answered him back. "Jessica did your paper on the dragons in fifth year didn't she?"
Sirius just nodded, probably wishing to himself that he had done that particular paper. Instead he continued eating, not looking back at either Remus or Jessica.
"Don't worry Harry. We'll figure something out." Hermione tried to console Harry. "We will."
"I'm going to get face to face with a dragon, I'm pretty certain that I will die no matter how much you prepare me." Harry answered, now looking more terrified than ever.
But coming up with a strategy to battle a dragon and still manage to get out of it alive was actually quite harder than they imagined, the ideas were many but they were to easily shout down by the after effects.
Like for example Sirius idea on attacking the eyes of the dragons, what might happen after was; a) the dragon becomes crazy and starts to shoot out fire on everything around it, ending up with a dead Harry, b) the dragon becomes crazy and starts to stomp and whip his tale around, trying to hurt the person hurting him, this also ending up with a dead Harry, and finally c) a hell lot other thing which could result in Harry's death.
When the hour had become late and they had pretty much run out of ideas, Harry and Hermione decided not t return to the castle, but to stay at the cottage over night. And also remain there the better part of the next day.
Harry would be sleeping in the upstairs bedroom, Hermione in the other upstairs bedroom which belonged to Jessica. Remus had since they moved in here occupied the bedroom on the first floor and Sirius would spend this night on the sofa in the sitting room, whereas more permanent arrangement would be fixed tomorrow.
"... The crib is arriving sometime later this week." Jessica told him of the preparations they made for the baby. It was quite late at night and Sirius and Jessica were probably the only two still awake. "But it's going to arrive in pieces so somebody will have to put it together."
"I think that I can manage that." Sirius said.
"That'll be great." She said. "You know... you haven't said it yet."
"Said what?" He was confused.
"That we are going to have a baby."
He hadn't realized that he hadn't said it.
"The first step to dealing with something is to admit it, say it out loud." She continued.
Sirius smiled, Jessica always had a good way with words. "It's still hard to get that this is really happening." He was silent for a few moments before finally saying it.
"We're going to have the baby."
Author's note; I'm yet again sorry that it have taken so long since my last update, But I hope that you still like the chapter. I was kinda stuck writing about what would happen directly after last chapter so I decided to just rather long a head, which is something I think that I will in a way continue with.
Please still review.