A/N: Amy's POV, this chapter is dedicated to diligent reader and reviewer, sarahmichellegellarfan1. I hope you enjoy this chapter! :D

-C

I was wiping Aludra's mouth of some particularly thick drool when Sirius came home with tears still in his eyes as he walked into the kitchen. I frowned at him.

"What is it?" I asked. "What happened? Lily and James-?"

"They're fine," Sirius said hollowly. "Caradoc Dearborn is missing."

My heart was pounding as I watched Sirius wipe his eyes and put the kettle on.

From his behavior, missing meant almost certainly dead. They just hadn't found the body yet. I could easily recall the face of Caradoc, who had been such a pleasant guest at our wedding. I hadn't met him many times, but the few times he'd visited the house he and Aludra had got on well, and I knew he and Sirius had really bonded from the first meeting Sirius had gone to. I reached out to touch Sirius's shoulder, but he shrugged me off.

"Dadadadada," Aludra babbled, and Sirius wiped his eyes again, turning and smiling sadly at Aludra, who reached out for him. He kissed her cheek, but he did not take her from my arms.

"Sirius…."

"He was suffering," Sirius said softly. "He had a sweetheart, you know, before I knew him."

I didn't have to ask why he didn't have the sweetheart anymore once Sirius had met him.

She was dead.

"She was pregnant," Sirius said, his voice rasping. "He told me the first day we met. When you were pregnant with Aludra I would stay up at night sometimes, terrified that Bellatrix would somehow manage to get you while I was away and…."

His voice cracked and Aludra actually began to cry at being more or less ignored by her father.

"Oh, princess," he sighed, pulling her into his arms and kissing her.

There were few things in the world Sirius couldn't stand. After all, he was immensely stubborn. But Aludra crying was definitely one of those things. I watched him and Aludra cry together as he attempted to soothe her, but she seemed to draw off her father's disposition and it only made it all worse. I didn't realize I was close to tears until the first one fell, and I quickly wiped it away.

One of us had to be free of tears, if only to comfort the other two.

"I'll finish the tea," I told Sirius. "You take Aludra and sit down. You look tired."

He did, too. I had said it mostly to get him to sit down, but he rubbed his eyes with his free hand and nodded. How much sleep had he been getting lately? It couldn't be nearly enough. I knew he would stay up sometimes and watch me sleep. My being pregnant made him anxious, especially with Albus's warning about the prophecy and our being potential targets, as if we hadn't been targets already.

"Have you thought of names yet?" Sirius asked when I brought tea out to him on the sofa. I took Aludra from his arms.

"I have some ideas," I said slowly. "But I haven't decided yet. Twins complicate naming."

"Why?" he asked before blowing across his tea. "Because you need more names?"

I shook my head, putting on a big smile while I bounced Aludra on my knee, trying to cheer her up. She'd stopped crying, but she was still looking at Sirius with obvious distress. Perhaps this was the first time she'd seen him not in good spirits, I realized, thinking back. It was quite a change, I had to admit to myself, and I couldn't blame Aludra for being upset. I could still recall the first time I'd seen Sirius upset about something when I was eleven. It had been horrifying.

"Not really," I said with a shrug. "There's that whole thing where you choose names that work with each other…"

"Like rhyming names?" Sirius said with his nose scrunching slightly. "Don't do that. Those are awful."

I laughed a little, and that seemed to make Aludra a little happier.

"Not rhyming names," I agreed. "I hate those. No, I was thinking like the same first letter."

Sirius tilted his head thoughtfully. He managed a better smile at his daughter, and she seemed incredibly heartened by this, reaching for him once more. He put the tea on the table and took her in his arms again, hugging her tightly, kissing her hair, which was still so fine, as mine had been for years.

"I feel like having siblings with similar names is one thing, but twins might be a bit…too much. They're already going to be confused enough if they're identical, right? Let's not make it complicated."

I nodded, thinking over my ideas for names.

"What if one of them has an 'A' name? They might end up looking like Aludra as well."

"Oh, I'd love that," he said with a genuine grin. "My three little princesses, looking just like their mum. That'd be lovely. No, I don't think it would be a problem. They won't have courses together or anything like that, right?"

He was better at this sort of thing than I would have given him credit for.

"I was thinking," I said slowly, "of using Arista for one of them."

"Arista," he said thoughtfully. "It's pretty. What would you call the other?"

"Lyra, maybe."

"Mmm, that's pretty too," he said, giving Aludra an animated grin. "Won't your baby sisters have pretty, pretty names?"

"Nanananana," Aludra began to babble happily.

They were star names, as Aludra's was, although not in Sirius's constellation. But especially as his brother and father were dead it seemed right to me to carry on that tradition to the next generation as much as possible.

Sirius would be melancholy again later, I knew, but the more I could distract him with our children the better. I didn't want Aludra to be upset every time Sirius was not in a good mood, but while that was what happened I wanted him to be happy as much as possible. I wanted her to think of Sirius as the happy person he was, the person he would have been if the war hadn't existed.

The next two weeks held even more pain for the Order, although there was some measure of joy in them as well. Sirius came home two weeks later covered in blood and with his eyebrows half burned off and I quickly put a mostly-sleeping Aludra down to bed and helped him into the shower.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Battle," he groaned. "Amy, love, I need burn paste when I get out, and you're going to have to heal the wound in my side before I go in."

Well, that explained where all the blood was coming from. We peeled off his clothes and I carefully Healed his side. There was a scar, though.

"Dark Magic," I muttered, touching the scar gently. "Oh, Sirius, what happened?"

"I'll tell you when I get out," he said, kissing my head. "I need to get all this grime off. And wash my burns before I…. Paste."

"Right," I muttered, and he turned on the water, climbing into the shower and immediately beginning to wash.

I went to the kitchen, which was where I kept the medical supplies because it was closer to the front door than the bathroom. I turned on the wireless, but there was some musical special, no news to be had. Turning it off again, I checked that the paste was still good before heading out to the sofa, where he would come to have it put on him, because the light was better.

There was a knock at the door.

I pulled out my wand and went to the door.

"Who is it?" I asked.

"Open up, Black," Mad-Eye growled. "We need medical attention. Sirius said to come here and tell him how it went down."

I hesitated.

Why would Sirius say that?

And then I realized that he'd left before it had finished, so things must have been very bad. I touched my abdomen.

He was thinking like a father.

"Black!" Mad-Eye barked. "Unless you want Peter bleeding out on your front porch."

I swore and let them in, glaring at Mad-Eye until I noticed that a rather large chunk was missing from his face.

"Merlin, what happened?" I asked, beginning to Heal Peter first, who had been hit with the same curse that hit Sirius, from the looks of things.

"Where's Sirius?" Mad-Eye demanded, flicking a bit of bloody hair out of his good eye.

"Showering," I said, turning from Peter's wound to Mad-Eye's. "Hold still, please, or I'll poke you and you'll need a second magical eye."

"That might be useful," he said thoughtfully, and I rolled my eyes. Of course he would consider something as stupid as getting two magical eyes. Only he would be so ridiculous. I healed the wound, but there was a large chunk out of his face. I winced. "I don't need to be pretty, Black. I just need to be functional."

Well, he was functional, anyway, and Sirius came out into the living room wearing just a towel, drying his hair with another towel. I could see the scar on his side more clearly in the new light and I winced at that, as well. He frowned.

"Did we get them?"

"Yes, Dolohov is being carted off to Azkaban," Mad-Eye told him as I forced Sirius to sit on the sofa so I could apply the burn paste.

"The papers don't know about the Order involvement?"

"No, no, just the Aurors. Your identities are safe."

I rolled my eyes. As if there was anything secret about the Order of the Phoenix. It was the worst-kept secret in the entire wizarding world.

"The Potters are sorting out the dead and injured that couldn't leave the site," Mad-Eye growled. "We'll get a count any time now."

"Do you have any burns, Peter?" I asked, turning to the surprisingly silent Peter, who sat watching me put burn paste on Sirius.

He was considering this question when there was a knock at the door. Sirius made to get up, but I stopped him and went myself.

"Amy?" James said, knocking again. "Amy, let me in."

"For Merlin's sake, James," I groaned, letting him in, "don't be so impatient."

He blinked at the sight of Sirius in a towel in the middle of the front room with Mad-Eye and Peter sitting there.

"Amy?" Sirius said. "Amy, I need more burn paste. I've got another spot."

I sighed, hurrying over to Sirius and daubing paste on a new burn. He gave me an apologetic smile as James paced the room.

"Sit down, James," I said dryly. "If you wake Aludra, I'll have your head."

James scowled at me, but he did as I asked. He sat down and rubbed his temples.

After a moment of expectant silence, Peter managed to splutter out, "Sorry about the sofa."

We all looked up at him and blinked and I realized he was talking about the blood and dirt and soot and ash covering the sofa, now that he and Mad-Eye were sitting on it. I bit a spot on the inside of my mouth so that they couldn't see the urge to bite my lip.

"Well," I said with a shrug. "These things happen, Peter. It's not that big of a deal. I'll clean it when you've left." I frowned at Sirius. "I reckon it could use a good clean, anyway."

James made a small choking sound.

"Oh, not like that," I sighed. "Bloody hell, James, not everything Sirius and I talk about is somehow sexual."

"No," he said, wiping his eyes under his glasses. "No, I'm sorry. I wasn't even listening to you, Amy. I…. I'm only here to report on the dead and injured."

"Go on, then," Mad-Eye growled, and Sirius's hand clasped in mine. I frowned slightly.

Who did he think was hurt or dead? What had he seen before he came home? After Caradoc's loss….

"Plenty injured, including a bunch of innocents who got caught in the crossfire," James said darkly. "We managed to patch all of them up. Thankfully no Muggles in the vicinity…" I winced. Where was this battle? "But we've got a couple of good men dead."

Sirius tensed.

He had known, or at least suspected. I looked up at his face as James announced that Gideon and Fabian Prewett were dead.

"Bugger," Mad-Eye growled. "Who's going to tell their sister?"

"Not me," Sirius, James, and Peter all declared quickly. I raised my eyebrows.

I'd never met Molly Prewett, but I'd heard stories. Well, she wasn't Molly Prewett anymore. She had eloped and now she was Molly Weasley. Maybe it was because I hadn't met her, or maybe it was because I wasn't male, but I did not understand the fear these men had of her.

"Dumbledore will probably do it," I said, rolling my eyes. "He's good at that sort of thing, anyway."

Natalie had told me all about how he had explained Ashley Elizabeth's death. It was much better than the letter I had received from our mother, which all but told me that not only was my sister dead, but my mother was becoming a basket case.

We all nodded, and James wiped his eyes again, sniffing loudly.

"Would you all like some tea?" I said softly, thinking that James likely needed some. He was the one who shook his head, though.

"No, no," he said thickly. "Lily will be expecting me back…."

"I'll have a quick cup before reporting," Mad-Eye said darkly. "If all we have to report are the dead, they'll wait. They can't get any more dead than they are."

James sobbed a single, strangled sob as he made for the door, waving goodbye without saying a word.

For me, one of the worst things about the war was seeing the Marauders, these boys who had always seemed so invincible, grow into men who cried and broke down just like everyone else. It was one thing to see Sirius get emotional about our children, as a father. It was something entirely different to watch James Potter crying for the dead.

It was something different to know that friends of my friends were dead, people I barely knew but liked well enough.

"I'll make that tea, then," I muttered as the door closed behind him.

The tea was quick to make, and the three of them were still sitting awkwardly on the sofa when I returned, Sirius still in his towel. I raised an eyebrow at him as I dispersed the tea, but I did not bother telling him to put clothes on. Sirius was incredibly comfortable in his skin. Peter had seen Sirius naked often enough, and it wouldn't make a difference for Mad-Eye anyway.

They were peacefully drinking tea when I realized that there was a scar I hadn't seen before on Sirius's skin and I knew that it must have been from when he saved me from Remus in werewolf form, back in school. He'd been hiding the scar from me all these years….

But while it wasn't a particularly attractive scar, I had a scar of my own from that night. I rubbed my thigh absently and glanced at Sirius's fresh curse scar.

None of us were going to be perfect, not with a war like this. As long as he didn't come out of it looking like Mad-Eye, I really didn't mind. Hopefully Aludra and our twins would live a scar-free existence. It was the sort of luxury wizards were supposed to have, but one that could not be in a world like the one we lived in.

"How is the pregnancy?" Mad-Eye asked, fixing both eyes on me.

I smiled.

It was sweet, how protective Mad-Eye was Aludra, and it seemed that he'd already grown attached to the idea of the twins before they'd even been born.

"Harder than the last one," I admitted. "I feel tired most of the time, and having a baby already demanding most of my attention doesn't really help."

Mad-Eye nodded.

"They look strange in there," he said. "Not even like children yet, really."

I froze. I hadn't thought about the fact that he could see my children in my womb with that eye. Sirius tensed slightly, as well, and said, "Mad-Eye, it's great and all that you can tell that they're in there and whatever, but it's creepy to say it out loud."

I got the sense, from his tone, that Mad-Eye not realizing that he was being socially awkward or inappropriate was a regular occurrence, the sort that required frequent reminders. Peter shifted uncomfortably on the sofa, holding his tea.

And then Aludra began to cry. I sighed.

"I'll get her," Sirius said, kissing my forehead. "She can help me get dressed."

He returned with a sleepy-looking Aludra several minutes later, fully dressed finally, and he looked like he was about to hand Aludra to Mad-Eye, but I gave him a stern look.

"As much as I'm sure Mad-Eye and Aludra would love to catch up," I said pointedly, "he does happen to be covered in things I do not want our daughter coming in contact with until she's much older and preferably in a Potions class."

Mad-Eye laughed, and Aludra started, smiling sleepily at him as she turned to find the source of the noise.

"Pettigrew and I had best be off," Mad-Eye said. "We need to report the deaths, anyway. Have a quiet night, Sirius. I suppose good is too much to ask for."

"Night, Mad-Eye," Sirius said, and I walked the bloody, dirty men to the door.

"Mad-Eye, be honest with me," I said softly, hoping that Sirius was too preoccupied with Aludra to be listening. "Should I be afraid?"

He fixed me once more with both eyes before one of them trailed toward my abdomen and I shivered.

"You should be vigilant, Black," he said. "We should all be vigilant."