Monday 16th March 1981
Godric's Hollow, 16:00
Lily batted James' hand away from her in irritation. He had been reaching for her stomach again and she just wasn't having it today. She felt all bloated and gross and not pretty at all so she didn't want anyone touching her, least of all her stomach.
"James!"
"Sorry," he said contritely. "I'm just so amazed that you're making a baby in there. Again."
"Well, I am," she said irritably.
Because said baby had decided that apparently Lily was going to get three nights in a row of restless sleep. Which was just awful and had none of the benefits of actually feeling a baby kick. It was too early for that which meant that it should be too early for pregnancy induced restless nights in her opinion. But their baby didn't think so, apparently. Hmpf. This one was going to be a trouble-maker. She just knew it.
Okay, maybe it was kind of sweet at how in awe James was about the whole baby and pregnancy thing. But still, he was a bit much sometimes. And he was constantly touching her. Did he really need to be constantly touching her? Was this because of the baby or had he always done that? Was it weird that she didn't know? Did people keep track of how often their husbands touched them? Was that a bit weird? It probably was.
Between James touching her constantly with these little touches and the baby just making her feeling horrible, Lily wasn't feeling a hiding except grumpy, really.
"Uh, Lily, why are you glaring at me?" James asked hesitantly.
Huh. She hadn't realised that that's what she'd been doing.
"This one's going to be trouble. I just know it. And it's all your fault."
"How is it my fault?"
She made an impatient noise. Wasn't it obvious?
"You're the troublemaker here. Kts those genetics that you've passed down!"
James gave her an amused look. "I don't think there's a troublemaker gene, Lils."
She crossed her arms over her stomach, she could feel a slight bump there now.
"I beg to differ."
"Uh huh."
"Don't placate me!"
James raised his hands in the air. "Okay, I won't. I'm sorry."
Which made her feel a bit better, enough to smile at him again, which he looked relieved about. And then she felt a bit guilty. She didn't mean to snap at him like that. Especially about something that wasn't really his fault. Completely, anyway.
"Our baby is going to be great no matter if they're a troublemaker or not," he said happily.
This made Lily grin as well.
"They are."
Their babies were going to turn into the sweetest, amazing children and hopefully good adults. Which was a daunting thing to think about. These tiny people becoming fully grown adults. She couldn't imagine Harry as a teenager, never mind an adult!
"I can't wait for everyone to know!
They're going to be so happy for us!"
Lily smiled indulgently at her husband. He ways did like seeing people's reactions to things. Especially if they were happy or funny reactions. Though, hopefully this would be the former and not the latter.
"I want to tell my parents before we tell anyone else." She said.
He nodded eagerly in agreement.
"That means you wait before you tell Sirius."
His face fell at that. And yes, normally she wouldn't count Sirius in the "everyone else" statement. Just this once she did though. She had this weird feeling that she wanted, no, needed her parents to be the first to know. Which was silly, she knew but still. Normally you told your parents this sort of news first, right? And with everything that had been happening, with the way their lives had changed ye again, she kind of wanted something normal to happen. Was that such a bad thing?
"Please, James," she said quietly.
Immediately James brought her into a hug and she put her face in his neck, breathing in his scent deeply.
"Hey, hey, what's brought all this on?" he asked gently, running his fingers through her hair.
She couldn't answer him. It felt like everything over the last few weeks had suddenly come into sharp focus. Going into hiding. James not returning to work. Deciding on the Fidelius Charm. Picking their Secret Keeper. Picking a Secret Keeper, the second time. Not telling anyone who'd they'd actually chosen. Peter did the telling of the secret through paper and not face to face. And, strangely, he could make his handwriting look very similar to Sirius'.
Technically, all of this made them even more safe but it seemed to overwhelm Lily even more. That's what it was doing, making her feeling overwhelmed. Like she was standing on a shot, right by the water and a massive wave was towering over her but she was stuck and couldn't move as it came crashing down over her. That's how she felt. Like she was drowning but not really drowning.
Now kt felt like she couldn't breathe. She made a gasping noise and nearly choked on her own sobs.
It was all just too much. Too much. She could do this. She couldn't handle it. It wasn't fair. Nothing was fair. Kt hadn't been for a long time.
Wednesday 18th March 1981
Tonks Home, 12:30
"You're basically a single mother while Remus is away," Andromeda pointed out gently. "Don't be so hard on yourself."
Dora sighed and leaned back in the chair. Why did she have to get common sense from her mother when she told her about her trouble sleeping despite feeling tired all the time.
"That's seems to be the only thing I've been good at these days," Dora muttered, head in her hands.
Work, well, training had definitely not been going well - she ended up on her side more often than not which got everyone laughing. Do you know how disheartening that was? Especially when your instructors laughed as well? It wasn't just awful, it was horrible. And because of that they didn't even comment on her spellwork which she thought had been pretty good! Even more disheartening. Why did she want to be an Auror again? Oh, how she wished that her training had been sled up like Sirius' was but no there had been too many deaths because of lack of skills. Whatever. That wasn't her problem!
Work, training, whatever, wasn't even the worst of it. What was the worst of it was the fact that because she seemed to be constantly tired, what with work, waking up at odd hours because Teddy was not happy. Which meant that she found herself not really enjoying being with Teddy.
Was that horrible? She felt like that was horrible. She was a horrible mum, that's what she was.
And she knew, in her heart, that she wasn't. But her heart wasn't exactly doing a pretty good communicating with her head. That would be nice, you know?
Actually, what would be even better would be if Remus was actually here. Oh, she knew that wouldn't solve all her problems but it would solve some of them. Most of them.
She swallowed heavily at the thought of Remus and glanced over to Teddy who didn't seem to realise that he was gone.
He better be back for Teddy's first birthday.
Saturday 21st March 1981
Unknown location, 06:30
Remus was on the ground, filthy, sweaty and he was pretty sure that there was still blood oozing out of him from somewhere. He just couldn't bring himself to care to find out where right now. Nor did he physically feel like he could because everything, and he meant everything ached. Every single part of his body ached. Even breathing too hard made every muscle complain.
How on earth was he supposed to recover from this and then do it all again in a month's time? He wouldn't be able to survive if something like this happened every time. There was just no way.
Full Moons sucked. Remus had known this from a very young age. The great big orb of glowing, silvery, light had never ever inspired awe or the feeling of safety in him. Especially not last night.
Yes, he had spent the first full moon in a long time away from all of his friends - his family- out in the wilderness for the first time ever. Remus had never done something like that before. He'd either tied up in the basement in his childhood home for the duration or there had been the shrieking shack and the subsequent escape in the Forbidden Forest. And sure, technically the Forbidden Forest was "wildness". The big difference between then and now was that then he had immediate access to good health care. Now, he very much had the opposite. You know, being in the damn woods with no evidence of civilisation in sight. Never mind civilisation that would be able to heal him.
He'd actually been relieved at the location for the full moon last night. The werewolves hadn't appeared to be trying to deliberately target people. This time, anyway. He knew they were planning something; he just didn't know what. But he'd put that out of his head in order to get through the full moon, feeling, well, not exactly happy but satisfied that no innocents were going to be harmed that night. Now he was thinking that it wasn't such a good idea. Because he was injured and Remus knew he didn't have the energy to heal himself properly. He needed help and there wasn't any nearby.
That was rough. Extremely rough. Rougher than it had been in a long, long time. Remus hadn't realised just how much having James and Sirius and Peter around for most of his transformations actually eased the whole experience. Even having only James or only Sirius there for the full moon helped greatly. This being completely alone, restraint free, was tough. His body hadn't ever ached like this before. Was this what it was like for other werewolves? No wonder they didn't want to interact with normal wizarding society.
Which made this whole experience all the worse. Even his full moons on the school holidays hadn't been this bad, he was sure. There was no way even if he did get chained to a basement wall. He didn't remember those being like this. Why was he reacting so badly? Not that there had ever been a good way or an easy way to transform but this was markedly horrible.
He tried to pull himself up into a sitting position but he only got halfway there before a pained gasp escaped him and he had to lie back down again. Only this time the world swirled above him.
Okay, he should have known that that was a bad idea.
Closing his eyes in an effort to not see the spinning sky, Remus breathed deeply. He still felt dizzy and ill, like he wanted to throw up even though that was the last thing he wanted to do.
He hadn't really eaten properly the last few days - not by choice there just wasn't a lot of food available. Or any food. So, he'd had to do without and scrounge some berries from bushes and things like that. Nothing that would actually fill your stomach but kept you going. Just about. He certainly didn't want to lose what little he had in his stomach by being sick. No, thank you. He needed his energy.
Instead, he kept his eyes closed and tried to slowly get his body moving again. Which was hard when even wiggling his finger hurt so much.
He didn't want to be here. He really didn't he wanted to be back home with Dora. With Teddy. With his friends. His family. Not out here in the cold and damp, injured and lonely. He wanted his pack.
And he wanted to be with the Marauders as well. Hanging out at the Flat or at... at...
Remus frowned. They so hu g out somewhere else other than the old flat. Though Sirius and Marlene still lived there so it was hardly the old flat but still. There was another place. Where James and Lily lived. He knew where that was, didn't he? He'd been there so many times - like course it had a name. But what was it? It was an easy one to remember. Just on the tip of his tongue...
No, it left him. Kt was like the name was just there in front of him. Just out of reach no matter how much he stretched forwards.
What was going on? He hadn't hit his head or something last night? He hadn't thought that he had a head injury but if he was forgetting something so basic as where his best friends lived then something had to have happened. Right?
Godric's Hollow, 14:00
Harry and Cassie quite happily babbled away at each other, hitting each other with their chubby hands every once in a while. They were actually so careful together, it was adorable. Even Sirius was unashamed to admit it.
"Waah!"
He quickly bent down and picked up his daughter.
It was adorable until one of them tried to boink the other on the head with aforementioned chubby hands. Then the wails started. And when one of them started crying, the other started crying.
"Waah!"
And there was Harry crying now. Lily swooped him up into her arms and started rubbing his back.
"Sorry," she apologised for his actions but Sirius shook his head.
Neville, on the other hand, was just sitting passive off to one side, watching all the shenanigans going on but not really interacting with the other two. Not with Harry and Cassie being the hooligans that they seemed to be.
Cassie reached out for Harry and babbled, "Ha, Ha-ha."
"Aw," Lily cooed, bending to kiss her on the nose. "She's asking for Harry!"
"Do I see a contract in their future?" Frank joked.
Sirius froze at that, the whole atmosphere changing for him at that one sentence, as James laughed it off.
"Don't even joke about that," he hissed, standing up abruptly.
Actually, he did more than that. He left the room, taking Cassie with him.
"Sirius-" Kingsley called after him hut he heard James stop him.
"Give him a minute to calm down."
"I didn't really mean-"
"I know. And Sirius does too. But it's kind of a touchy subject for him."
Sirius snorted and leaned his head against the wall in the hall. Touchy? That was putting it mildly though he appreciated James not saying why he reacted how he did.
"You're going to be free to do whatever you want," he told Cassie quite seriously.
She shrieked in glee at that.
Tuesday 24th March 1981
Auror Office, 09:00
"Black, Shacklebolt!" Moody barked across the cubicles. "You two are heading up the team to a Death Eater strike up in Cokeworth!"
Sirius jumped to his feet, pulling his robes on and making sure he had his wand secured in the same motion. Right, he was ready to go. He saw out of the corner of his eye that Kingsley had down the same.
"What's happening up there?" Sirius called back, striding out of his cubicle and across to the main board where several Senior Aurors were all standing. "And what numbers do I need to bring?"
Cokeworth. Cokeworth. Why did that sound like somewhere he should know? Had there been a raid there before? Where even was it?
"Looks like a Death Eater attack on muggles again," Moody said gruffly.
"How many dead?" Kingsley asked with a sigh.
Death Eaters tended to pick a few houses for sport or initiation tasks, unfortunately. Which meant a hell of a lot of clean up for them to do. Sirius wrinkly sent a memo to request an Oblivation team. He felt like they were going to need it.
"Just one house apparently. So be careful. Kt might be a trap."
Which was a fair point. Very rarely was just one muggle family that got hit. So, if that was the case this time, there had to be more to it.
"Will do."
Maybe they would actually get lucky for a change and actually manage to get to capture themselves a Death Eater. They hadn't managed that recently, not one of any worth, anyway.
"Who's coming with?" Kingsley asked.
"Don't have a team ready," Moody said with a frown. "Pick who you want."
"Appleby, Nolan, Vance!" Sirius shouted across the cubicles.
Those were the ones he definitely remembered seeing about half an hour ago. The dew not out in the field.
"Bones and Herron as well," Kingsley added.
Distractedly, Sirius nodded, liking all around them with a frown. Seriously, he'd been here before. He was sure of it. These houses with the colourful front gardens and those car things in the driveway. But when? How?
Something curled deep in the pit of his stomach. And it was not a good feeling. It was like dread but not quite dread. A sinking feeling, if you will.
He'd only been in the muggle world with Lily. Well, and by himself to get his motorcycle, obviously. But when kt came to muggle residential areas, that was down to Lily and going to her house.
And now the sinking feeling was fully-fledged dread. Lily's childhood home wasn't down here, was it? It was hard to tell, these streets were all twisty and he wasn't really sure where he was. He had normally apparated straight to Lily's house, never needing to pay attention to his surroundings. It probably wasn't her house. It wouldn't be. This was just going to be the house of some stranger that wouldn't be good news and it would be sad but it wouldn't be anything like it being Lily's parents. There was no way...
"You okay?" Kingsley asked when he realised that Sirius hadn't said anything and he'd had to be the one to give out all the orders.
He didn't reply. He couldn't.
"Sirius?"
That got Sirius moving. Literally. He took off at a run down the street, Kingsley and his other co-workers shouting after him. Which didn't matter. None of that mattered except for him figuring this out. And hoping against everything that he was wrong...
Sirius came to a skidding stop as he realised what house was right in front of him.
"No," he whispered.
"Get moving, Black!" Kingsley barked at him when he didn't move. "Get rid of that Dark Mark!"
