A/n: Huge apologies for this chapter taking so so long. Life interrupted. Thank you for all the reviews and comments - I hope you enjoy this one!

Chapter Forty Five

On their first anniversary, Lily and James decided that a honeymoon was in order. It had not happened immediately after their wedding, partly due to the Death Eater attack and the revelations Helena had suffered, partly due to both of them feeling they were needed in the fight. And that was still true – they were still soldiers of the Order of the Phoenix, and there were more Death Eaters than ever to be fought- But that was the reason behind their choosing to go now. There might not be another chance. No one said it, admitted to thinking it or hinted in any way that it might be happening … but they were losing. Day by day, inch by inch, Voldemort's forces were advancing. More of the Order were dying, more Aurors were falling in the field. Dumbledore kept coming up with brilliant ideas that let them buy a little more time, a few more lives, helped them gain back a little more ground. Each time he did, there was a collective sense of relief. But one step forward and two back still meant they were moving in the wrong direction. Lily and James wanted to go on a honeymoon now and see a little of the world while they both still could. So, a few weeks before Christmas, they were planning on taking a delayed honeymoon.

Barcelona was the settled destination, and the settled babysitting service was the Black household. Helena had been lured by the prospect of a cup of tea and a natter over bakewell tart when Lily presented her with the request. She finished her mouthful of tart and put the dessert fork down delicately on the plate.

"Um … you want us to look after him?"

Lily did not look up from feeding Harry. They'd just started weaning him, trying to get him to accept little bits and pieces of solid food to see how he reacted to it. Judging from the expression on his face, he liked raspberry jam. "Yes," Lily said, retrieving the end of her finger from her son's mouth. "We're only going for a couple of days."

"Yes, but Spain is hundreds of miles away."

"And we're an apparition away. If you need us there's that funny little mirror thing James and Padfoot have got. As far as I know that should work anywhere in the world. But I can't see he'd be likely to come to more harm with you than with us."

"What about your parents?"

"They're in Japan on holiday."

"Mrs Potter?"

"Visiting her sister."

"Oh."

"Think of it as good practice for when you're parents." When Helena remained silent, Lily turned with a frown. "Helena? You are planning on having kids, aren't you? I mean, you don't have to, but-"

"But what? What have you assumed?"

"Well, I did assume, I suppose. Sorry."

Helena shrugged. "It's alright, Lily. Honestly, under other circumstances I probably would want children, but as it is …"

"The war won't last forever," Lily said comfortingly.

"It wouldn't make a difference if we won tomorrow. It's who I am that's stopping me."

"Helena, you can't let some ridiculous notion of tainted blood stop you from raising a family."

"Except it's not a notion, is it? Look at what I nearly became, Lily, that's only coming from one place, and it's him. I couldn't watch my children go through learning who their grandfather is, maybe even falling prey to the dark arts themselves … Best that the Voldemort line ends with me I think," she finished with a wan smile.

"And Sirius agrees with you?" Lily asked. "He doesn't care about that in your case."

"We haven't talked about it yet. But I'm pretty determined. It's why I renew the Contraception Charm every month since we got married."

"You have to talk to him."

"He won't be surprised."

"That doesn't mean he won't be disappointed," Lily said reproachfully.

Helena heaved a truly heartfelt sigh. Sometimes it felt as though she'd spent much of their relationship disappointing Sirius. But it wouldn't change her resolve. She couldn't risk it, neither of them could. Truly, there had to be something evil about the DNA her father had passed down to her, and there was no way on earth she would risk deepening that particular gene pool. Padfoot was an intelligent man, and logically she was completely in the right. It would be selfish beyond belief for her to have any child of her own. "I know," she said in reply to Lily. "But there's always adoption. In this war, there are bound to be orphans."

"But you're letting your fear overtake your chances of-"

"It's not fear. It's natural, sensible caution. We have Voldemort now, Lily, and let's say we do defeat him, and then I have a child who turns out to be truly live up to their grandfather's legacy? I'm sorry, but the only way to ensure that doesn't happen is, to my mind, ensure there is no legacy of any kind. And that's what I'll tell Sirius. He has to agree."

Lily looked as though she doubted it very much, but decided to drop the subject. "Well, it's between the two of you anyway. Now, Harry – he's still not sleeping through the night yet but hopefully we should at least have him weaned by the time we go, or there's formula if not. I realise it's a lot to ask when you're not blood relatives, but honestly you are family."

"And you and James really need some time to yourself," Helena pointed out with a smile, glad they were back on topics that made her feel less like she might be failing as a wife a mere four weeks after her marriage.

"Yes, we do. Now, the formula milk needs to be heated before you give it to him, and you can either do it in the muggle way, which involves placing it in a pan of warm water until it's the right temperature or-"

"-or the magical way which involves pointing a wand at it and no more effort whatsoever?"

"Or that."

There was, however, a seemingly endless list of things that Harry would or wouldn't need, as well as sneaky little tricks and habits he was starting to develop. Looking at her godson now, Helena wasn't sure she believed it. He was a) too young and b) far too cute. Although there was a little sparkle in those green eyes that spoke of a potential for mischief later on. She was pretty sure that (bar the sleeplessness), Harry wouldn't present her or Sirius with too much in the way of trouble. Pretty sure.

Less sure weeks later when Lily and James actually put the baby in Sirius' arms and flooed away with very cheery smiles. Harry did not cry, having been well used to seeing his godparents every few days. Both of them had become well-used to – although not fond of – changing his nappies, putting him down for a nap and trying to coax him to take some semi-solid food.

"I'm suddenly very scared," Sirius said, only half-joking.

"We'll be fine."

"I'm not worried about us, I'm worried we'll set Harry a bad example."

"Well, we'll just have to be on our best behaviour, won't we?" Helena picked up the bag that had come with Harry and walked past her husband up the stairs – giving his arse a quick squeeze on the way.

Helena hadn't broached the subject of their own children with Padfoot yet, and she wasn't planning on doing it while they were caring for Harry, either. Having a baby in the house meant that neither of them could be impartial. It was hard to look at her godson, and the joy he brought to his parents, without feeling a lump in her throat that she'd never experience that. On the positive side, she'd never have to experience childbirth, either, which proved there was a silver lining to every cloud. And neither would she have to face the midnight feed when Harry started crying later that night, just as Helena and Sirius were drifting off.

She elbowed him. "Harry's awake."

He elbowed her back. "So get up."

Elbow. "You. Formula's in the fridge."

Elbow. "Needs heating up. Off you go."

Elbow. "Why did we agree to this?"

Elbow. "Emotional blackmail- Ow!"

"Sorry," she said sleepily, and not apologetically. "But you're awake now, right?"

Sirius did get up in the end. But that meant that she had to get up at three a.m. And then five a.m. By eight the following morning, a straggly grey day was dawning over London, and Helena had seen more than her fair share of the night. It was definitely back to being happy about never having children. It almost looked as though her work was done for her too, since when Sirius came shuffling into the kitchen, looking like a zombie, he gave an enormous, groaning yawn.

"We're never doing this ourselves, right? 'Cause Lily and Prongs have to be some kind of super-people to be doing that every night."

She smiled. "Agreed. Hear that, Harry? Your mum and dad are superheroes."

Harry let out a noise that sounded agreeing and opened his mouth for another spoonful of mashed up banana. Helena obliged, but before the fruit had made it to his mouth, Harry's mouth had resolutely closed, and he wasn't opening it again.

"Come on, you like banana. Your mum told me it what your favourite. Come on, please, Harry, do it for Aunty Helena …"

Still not happening. When she did manage to get the banana to his mouth, it was promptly pushed out again, down his chin and thus onto the bib covering his chest. After ten minutes of this, Helena put the spoon down on the tray of the highchair. "I give up!"

Sirius smiled. "Honestly, Hellfire, haven't you got any imagination?"

"What do you mean?"

Sirius took her chair and picked up the spoon again, reloading it with banana. He then proceeded to act like a crazy person, moving the spoon around and up and down and in loops, all the way commentating like he was at a quidditch match. "And Black takes the quaffle, he's dodging beaters left and right, he's nearly unseated by a bludger coming from nowhere but he's hanging on, he's preparing to pass the quaffle onto Potter, but will Potter catch it and score …?"

To Helena's incredulity, it seemed to be working. Harry did open his mouth again.

"Oh, it looks like he will! Black hurls the quaffle, Potter catches it and …" the spoon made it inside Harry's mouth, and the banana was accepted. "… and Potter scores! The youngest Chaser every to do so, but the game's not over yet!"

"You are insane," Helena said matter-of-factly.

"I'm a natural, clearly," Sirius winked.

Much to Helena's astonishment, that seemed to be the case. Sirius managed to get Harry to eat an entire banana, a bottle of formula and was now handing him the end of a breadstick to gum on.

"How … How …?"

Sirius sent her a familiar cocky grin. "It's a gift." When Harry's' face began to crease in discomfort, he lifted him out of the high-chair and put him over his shoulder to wind him. It did work – except with the ensuing burp, a lot of milky vomit came up, all over the floor and down Padfoot's back. He immediately froze with an expression of utmost horror on his face. Helena had to clutch at the table top to keep her upright rather than fall about laughing. For all the time her hysterics kept her paralysed, Sirius was equally unmoving, apparently too disgusted to do anything but remain still.

"It's a gift," Helena finally gasped out.

"Can you- Just take him- We are never having kids, Hellfire."

She was still chuckling as she levered Harry from his godfather's arms, although she did hold him at arms' length. Wide green eyes regarded her innocently as Sirius began spluttering and swearing, stripping off his previously clean shirt. He threw it into the laundry basket with a wet splatter. Then he ruffled Harry's hair. "You are lucky I'm fond of your parents, little man. I'm going to change."

"Looks like I'm changing you then," Helena said to Harry. She wiped his face free of vomit, but that didn't help with the rest of his outfit. However, the work of ten minutes saw him in clean clothes. And a clean nappy, too, once she'd discovered that needed changing.

The rest of that day was devoted to preparation for Christmas. Neither of them enjoyed Christmas at all as children; only really at Hogwarts was it celebrated as the warm, colourful festival it was. In both the Malfoy and Black households, it was deemed too muggle, and therefore shunned. But this year was going to be different. To that effect, they cast an Undetectable Extension Charm onto the living room, meaning that the ceiling was about ten feet higher than normal, enabling them to set up the most enormous Christmas tree Helena had been able to find. It was the classic shape, the needles a dark, shiny green with its branches perfectly spread out. She had also spent a small fortune on Christmas decorations, including real minature stars to sit among the branches, twinkling prettily, and an angel that sang carols from the top of the tree in a perfect soprano.

"That's already the most irritating thing in the world," Sirius said, after one rendition of Silent Night.

"I think it's lovely. Really adds to the festive atmosphere," she smiled.

He grimaced as Oh Come All Ye Faithful started up. "I'm going to blow it up, Hellfire."

"I spent thirty galleons on it, you better bloody not."

"Fine, I won't blow it up."

"Thank you."

"Until Boxing Day."

"Are you going to help me decorate the tree or not?" she asked, hands on her hips and raising an imperious eyebrow at him.

"I think … not. Someone has to entertain Harry."

"Nice excuse."

He kissed her. "I thought so. Have fun."

"Can you at least help me get to the top of the tree?"

She stood on a chair and carefully maintained her balance while Sirius levitated it up. Helena was floating the lights around her in a twinkling, sparkling cloud. It looked a little like a softly glowing fog, and while she was twelve feet in the air, it felt very ethereal. She swept her arms in a circular motion, and the stars obediently went to where she wanted them. On the floor, Sirus had Harry propped up on the sofa with baubles floating around his head in a magical mobile. After the lights came the angel, which had now moved onto In the Bleak Midwinter. She floated it up to her but couldn't quite reach the summit of the tree without hitting her head on the ceiling. But if she leaned forwards just a little bit … She realised her mistake about a quarter of a second too late. She leaned forwards too far, and then she was going to fall, and then she was falling without any opportunity of stopping herself. The clearest thought was: Oh bollocks. This is going to hurt.

It did hurt – but not her. Apparently wary about his wife doing just what she had done, Sirius was already there to catch her. As a result he took her entire weight in breaking her fall, and crashed to the floor himself. Helena landed on top of him, landing mostly on his torso and completely winding him.

"Ow …"

"Thanks, Padfoot."

"You're welcome," he wheezed. "Just … don't do it again …"

"I'll try not to."

Sirius rubbed at his chest as she rolled off him, still looking in pain. "Merlin's beard, how much do you weigh?"

"How much did it feel like?"

"About half a ton," he replied, the shadow of a grin passing over his face.

"About that then, I suppose. Where did my wand go?"

A gurgle from the sofa answered that question; it had landed on the cushions next to Harry, who had picked it up and was currently trying to eat it. That didn't worry Helena nearly so much as the shattered bauble that was within an easy grasping distance of the baby. Sirius must have let them all go after lunging to catch her. Apparently finding that the wand was not terribly tasty, Harry reached out with it.

"No, Harry, don't-"

She cut off abruptly when Harry poked the shards of glass with the end of her wand; the pieces of the bauble immediately came back together to form a perfect whole. Giggling, Harry then went back to chewing on the end of the wand. His godparents watched, dumbfounded.

"So … not a squib then. Lily and James'll be pleased to hear that."

Helena got to her feet and picked Harry up. "It might be a good idea not to mention the sharp bits of bauble though … or the chewing on the wand thing."

They spent the next couple of days trying to coax magic out of Harry, but he didn't show any more signs of his burgeoning talent. It was clearly a fluke that he'd managed to perform a perfect Repair Charm – most early signs of magic were the result of pure instinct; to save life or limb or some other way to save the wizard. Neither of them really fancied throwing Harry out of the window, though, so decided against more extreme forms of ability tests.

"How did yours manifest?" Helena asked Sirius one evening after they'd put Harry down for the night.

"I was tripped down the stairs when I was seven."

"Tripped? By who, Regulus?"

"Hardly. He swore blind it wasn't him but I know it was Kreacher. Trip Jinx."

"What? Why?"

"Well, I never liked the little bastard. Maybe I smelled like a blood traitor even at that age."

She laughed. "Maybe. So what happened?"

"The huge chaise-longue in the lounge zoomed to the bottom. Gave me a nice soft landing."

"Were your parents pleased?"

"Not really. My mother had been reclining on it at the time."

Helena grinned at the image of the imperious, affectedly-stately Walburga Black being upended onto her drawing room floor.

"What about you?" Sirius asked.

"I'd made friends with a little girl who passed by our fence on her way to school, I think I was about eight. She was a muggle, just having the audacity to smile back at me. Lucius was at Hogwarts by then. One Christmas holiday he discovered I had a muggle friend."

"What did he do?"

"He wasn't stupid enough to attack me or her – he tried to blackmail me, said I'd do what he told me or he'd tell Father. And on about the third day of me being his personal slave, he ordered me to hand over a bracelet my grandmother had given me. He was going to sell it, I think, or maybe destroy it. I set his head on fire. He had to go back to school nearly completely bald," she said, smirking at the memory. "Of course, made good on his word and told Mother and Father I had a muggle friend. Never saw her again after that. I don't even remember her name actually. But, I was definitely a witch, that satisfied my parents – though in retrospect they couldn't have doubted it – and I was packed off to Hogwarts at the age of eleven. The rest is history."

They were woken at nearly three in the morning by the sensor nexus being triggered. Loud, wailing sirens broke out, deafening enough to raise the entire street and send Helena and Sirius charging down the hall to get Harry. Wands out and spells ready, Sirius scooped him up, the baby crying, upset and frightened by the unexpected noise. There were running footsteps on the stairs, coming thundering up to the second floor. Helena pushed Sirius towards the only escape method in the bedroom: there were unauthorised portkeys in every room. Anti-Apparition spells had been laid on, and the house was no longer connected to the Floo network.

"Go! Go!"

"I'm not leaving-"

"You have to get Harry safe, then you can come back, go!"

The door burst open just as Sirius made his decision: the duty of care he owed Harry won, and he grabbed hold of the frame of the mirror on the wall just in time. In a whirl of light and colour, they disappeared. Helena didn't see them go, her attention now focused on the two figures standing in the doorway. The point of her wand wavered: it was Lily and James. Both of them looked frantic. She deactivated the alarm.

"Helena, we need to-"

"Stay where you are," Helena ordered, raising her weapon once more when Lily made to step forwards.

"Where's Harry?"

"Safe. Why aren't you two where you're supposed to be?"

"Dumbledore got in touch, he said there was going to be a Death Eater attack and we had to get back here as soon as-"

"And how do I know any of that's true?" she demanded. "You both know the safeguards. Answer my questions and I can take you to Harry."

Lily and James glanced at each other. It was not a reassuring glance. It was a glance that said: Oh shit. An impulse to curse first and ask questions later shot through Helena; she suppressed it. She had no proof that it wasn't them, and she was living on Lily and James' good faith that she was no danger to the Order or their son. No hasty moves.

"Lily, when did I first start teasing you about liking James?" she asked.

James frowned. "Helena-"

"Quiet. I'm not taking you to Harry until you've answered, I mean it."

Lily swallowed. "Alright, I'll answer."

"Good. When did I start teasing you?"

A smile that looked forced came onto Lily's face. "You've teased me about it for as long as I can remember. Opposites attract, right?"

It was a fair guess. It was wrong, but it was a fair guess. She didn't bother smirking, glaring, or even saying, 'wrong answer'. Instead, she let her spell do the talking. "Stupify!"

Lily – or rather the Death Eater pretending to be Lily – went flying out of the bedroom and into the wall in the hallway. She slumped to the bottom of the wall, unconscious. The one impersonating James was hardly idle; he had the Cruciatus Curse on her before she could blink. The pain was indescribable. It felt like she was being cut open from the inside, boned like a duck, laid open and electric wires soldered into her nerves, fire in her brain. Then, suddenly, it was lifted. The reason why filtered slowly into her ears: Sirius. She could hear Sirius' voice. He'd come back for her, but he didn't know-

"Padfoot," she croaked. "Padfoot, don't-"

He didn't hear her, though, he couldn't, because the James-impersonator was speaking loudly enough so that her weak voice was drowned out.

"Sirius, mate, she attacked us! Look at what she did to Lily!"

She had to get up. She had to find her wand. If Sirius turned his back for even a second he'd be dead. She rolled onto her front, pushing herself up on shaking limbs. Wand. Where was her- In the corner of the room, having rolled away. She crawled towards it.

"Prongs, why would she-"

"Why do you think? Lady V's back, that's not Helena!"

Her fingers touched the warm wood of her wand just as the Death Eater noticed her move out of the corner of his eye. She sent another simple stunner at him. It caught him in the shoulder, though, which sent his body spinning and overbalancing. He fell down the stairs with a thunderous crash; his neck was at a very strange angle when he came to a stop at the bottom. Dead.

Standing in the doorway of their bedroom, Sirius seemed utterly petrified with horror. "What- He's-"

Helena dropped her wand. "-not Prongs," she said quickly.

For a moment, Sirius was clearly torn between two options. He came for her swiftly, grabbing her chin and turning her face to the light streaming through the windows. When he saw her eyes were blue, he swore loudly and violently. She was borne out that; when they looked at the bottom of the stairs, it was no longer James. It was a Death Eater neither of them recognised.

"Fuck! What about her?"

"Same."

Sirius pointed his wand at Lily's unconscious doppelganger. "Incarcerous."

Helena leaned against the doorjamb. "Thank you for coming back when you did."

"How did you know?"

"She couldn't answer my question correctly. And they obviously didn't want me to ask them anything. All they wanted was-" She cut off, yet more horror dawning.

"What?" Sirius asked urgently. "What did they want? You?"

She shook her head. "No. They wanted Harry."

A/N: Review please!