Lily's POV
It was Harry's first birthday.
Gifts arrived, but hardly any guests, except for Peter and Sirius.
Peter peered into Harry's face and said in an awestruck voice, "So this is the boy who's destined to defeat Lord Voldemort."
James frowned. "We don't know anything for certain, Worm."
Then, he said to Sirius, "What have you got there?"
"It's a broomstick," Sirius said. "I know it's a bit early, but I figured he might as well get a head start."
James grinned, the first excited expression I'd seen on his face in a long time. I smiled, too, and cooed at Harry in my arms.
"And this is from Remus," Sirius said, holding out a large stuffed wolf that was also big enough for Harry to ride.
"Moony bought this?" James said, confused.
"Yeah," Sirius said. "Said you've got to train the kid early to not be scared of wolves, or else Remus won't be able to play with Harry when he's older."
James let out a soft chuckle. "He's doing all right, then, if he's capable of making jokes like that."
"Well, he knows we don't trust him, that's for dead certain," Sirius said, more somber now.
Suddenly, the kettle on the stove whistled.
"Oh, that's the water for tea," I said. I turned to Sirius. "Here, hold him for a bit, won't you?"
"You're supposed to ask me!" James said indignantly.
Sirius cheerfully took Harry from my arms. Harry gurgled happily.
"Atta boy," Sirius said, lying down on the floor and playing airplane with Harry.
When I got back, Harry was cuddling against Sirius' side, sleeping peacefully.
"You know, you'd make a great father someday, Sirius," I complimented, handing Peter his tea cup and spoon for sugar.
Sirius snorted. "Yeah, right."
"That's why I picked you as Harry's godfather," James beamed. "I'm smart, right?"
"Prongs, how is it you manage to turn every single compliment into a compliment about yourself?" Sirius rolled his eyes.
"Sugar with your tea?" I asked Sirius.
"Nah, I'll skip," Sirius said. "This kid attached to me is plenty sweet enough. Look at him, drooling all over my brand new shirt."
"That's not brand new, is it? I thought you got that shirt ages ago from Raylynx on your birthday," Peter said.
"Oh right," Sirius said, in a casual voice that fooled no one. "I just say brand new whenever I do laundry cause it feels brand new afterwards."
"That's a clear sign you need to do laundry more often," I said half-stern, half-playful.
"I can see your abs between the buttons," James said. "You've definitely outgrown that shirt."
Sirius shrugged. "It's comfortable."
He carefully picked up sleeping Harry and nuzzled his nose.
"Where's your godmother, huh? Where'd she go?" he whispered softly.
James and I exchanged worried looks before Peter broke the atmosphere by asking for toast.
Later, Harry was back in my arms and tugging at my necklace again.
"You want it so badly?" I laughed. "Fine, here, have it."
I clasped it around his neck.
"Well, it's been fun, but I've got to get going," Peter said.
"Got some reporting to do- er- to Dumbledore," he said, as if he needed to clarify himself.
He got himself together and opened the door to leave, when he hesitated.
"Worm, what is it?" James asked, getting up.
"Are you scared of the rain?" Sirius teased, for it had, indeed, started to rain a little.
"I think you had a visitor stop by," Peter said. "Only, they didn't know quite where your house was."
I came to the doorway curiously as Peter walked out a ways and then brought back a wrapped gift.
James took it from him and unwrapped it. It was a wooden box, which had a toy Snitch inside.
"Looks like Harry's going to be a really good Quidditch player," Peter chortled.
"Padfoot? What's wrong?" James asked.
I turned to look at Sirius, who was standing behind me, frozen.
"Is that a Snitch?" he breathed out, though he clearly knew it was.
"Sirius?" I prompted.
"Seeker…" he murmured, and then bolted out of the house.
"Seeker?" I said, then it clicked. "Oh!"
I started to race outside with Harry still in my arms, but James grabbed me.
"We have to stay inside the house, Lils," he reminded me. "If we're seen, it'll break the Fidelius Charm."
"But Ray might be out there," I whispered desperately. "James, I-"
Words failed me when I read the same frustration in James' eyes.
"I know," James said heavily, and hugged me tightly.
I buried my face in his neck and tried hard to hold the tears burning in my eyes.
Raylynx's POV
I was standing in Godric's Hollow graveyard. It had just started to rain.
I imagined that I was allowed to bury Regulus here, and that I could tell Sirius that in fact, they were two brothers with the same bravery and the same beliefs, and that neither of them had ever been truly isolated from the other.
I thought of Alice and Frank, and James and Lily, and how wonderful it would have been if everyone was still alive and we were free to hold a real celebration for two boys who were, whether they knew it or not, very loved.
But what was the use of such thoughts, I wondered.
Suddenly, I heard the sound of someone sprinting towards the graveyard.
I turned, and approaching the other side of the gate I saw-
My breath caught, my heart stuttered, my mind froze-
"Raylynx! Lynx!"
Instinctively, I stepped towards him. There was warmth in his arms. I wanted to go to him.
No, Raylynx, pull yourself together!
Then, I completely panicked.
"No, don't you dare-!"
With a crack, I Disapparated.
Sirius' POV
I should have known.
The flowers on Marlene's gravestone… That had to have been Raylynx.
Where would she go to?
She was probably still in London.
She obviously wasn't at Lily's, and Marlene and Dorcas weren't here with us anymore, and she couldn't be at Alice's because of the Fidelius Charm.
That left only Remus'.
But why would she go to Remus and not me? Unless it's Remus she prefers.
My heart clenched as I turned into the vortex of Apparition.
Remus' POV
I was sitting alone in my shabby apartment, patching up another hole in my jacket.
I had my window open to let in the cool air and to listen to the comforting sound of rain. The rhythmic falling of rain filled up the constant emptiness I experienced.
In some ways, it had been a mistake to live with Raylynx. It made the solitude now that much harder to bear.
Just as I thought that, a Lynx Patronus jumped in through my window.
"Remus," the silvery Lynx spoke in Raylynx's hesitant voice. "Can you meet me? I think I'm outside your house, but I'm not sure. I've never been here before."
I raced down the stairs to the main gate, and wrenched it open.
Standing just a few feet away, dripping wet, and trembling, was Raylynx.
"Raylynx!" I ran out to her, so relieved to see her. I grabbed her arm, and started to lead her up to my flat.
"No, wait, Remus," she said, grasping my arm back and resisting me. "I haven't much time. I have to get going before someone finds me here."
"No one stops by here anymore," I reassured here, starting to get soaked myself. "You're perfectly welcome."
I once again tried to guide her back to the house, but she refused to move forward. She was trembling all over, but despite the rain, I didn't actually think that it was cold outside. It was, after all, the last day of July.
"You're not trembling because of the rain, are you?" I realized.
"I... I saw Sirius."
"Don't you want to see him?" I asked her.
"Of course," she said. "But it's so hard..."
I paused for a moment, unsure of how to respond.
Finally, I said, "Whatever you're here for, let's take it inside. This is nonsense, Raylynx. We're both getting drenched."
At last, she let me lead her inside.
"Are you sure this is safe?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Not for me, for you," she clarified.
"I told you, nobody comes around anymore. They're all convinced I'm the spy." I smiled grimly.
Raylynx leaned over and gripped my arm. "But I know you're not."
She twisted our arms slightly so that they were in the Unbreakable Vow position, and I could feel a string of warmth, like a magical chain, hum, passing energy between us through our arms.
"I can feel it," she said warmly.
Then, she let go and said, "I have something for you."
Suddenly, a loud pounding on the door interrupted our conversation.
Raylynx and I looked at each other, surprised.
The apartment was so small there was nowhere to hide.
The person slammed on the door again and then said impatiently, "Moony, I know you're in there. I see your light. Open the door!"
I started towards the door when Raylynx grabbed my arm. Her eyes pleaded with me not to open the door.
"I have to," I said quietly and then gently shouldered her aside to open the door.
Sirius, also dripping wet, started speaking as soon as he saw me. "Moony, have you, by any chance-?"
He stopped dead, though, when his eyes landed on Raylynx, standing uneasily some ways behind me. "Right," Sirius said, half in disbelief. "Right, of course."
He stood there for so long that I half-expected him to sink into the earth or at least, into my concrete doorstep.
"You're welcome to come in," I said in a detached voice.
Sirius slowly stepped in, but everything about him shivered with tension. He grit his teeth as he looked between myself and Raylynx.
"So…" Sirius said, trying to stay composed "So this is where you go, this is who you run to…"
Raylynx and I were both quiet.
I wanted to say something, but nothing could sufficiently explain, so I just let out a soft sigh.
The air was so tense; the room felt like a rubber band about to snap.
Finally, Raylynx said cautiously, "Sirius-"
"A year. You were gone for over a year," Sirius said listlessly. His voice grew into a growl, however, as he continued. "No warning, no contact, no nothing. Do you know how much pain you caused Lily, Alice, James, and Remus? None of us knew where you were or if you were even alive. You might have been dead in a ditch somewhere for all we knew. Worse, we had to suddenly doubt whether you really were the traitor."
I shot a guilty look at Sirius. I had known, through the Unbreakable Vow, that she was safe and that she was loyal.
"You know how painful it is when someone just ups and leaves," Sirius said. I knew he was referencing me and I felt even worse. "How could you do that to us? And it was right after Dorcas and Marlene… Just one more overwhelming loss to deal with in the midst of all this."
"I had to leave," Raylynx said quietly.
"Yeah?" Sirius retorted. "Where to?"
Raylynx was silent.
"I asked you…" Sirius said, anger creeping into his voice. "Where the hell did you go?"
Raylynx seemed to struggle with words for a moment before she finally said, "I can't say."
"You can't say?" Sirius said, horribly sarcastic. He stepped forward abruptly towards her. "You left for over a year! Surely you can say something."
Reflexively, I stepped towards her, too. I knew Sirius wouldn't harm her, but he was quite a big-statured person. He could easily hurt her without intending to.
Raylynx stared at him fiercely, not budging one bit.
"Tell me where you went," Sirius demanded, glaring down at her.
"I told you, I can't say," Raylynx retorted firmly.
"Why not?"
"Why do you think? If it was as easy as telling you everything in the first place, I wouldn't have left!"
Sirius turned away from her suddenly, rubbing his chin with his hand in vexed manner. He paced for a few seconds before he abruptly turned around. In a voice as abrasive and cutting as a knife, Sirius said, "Yeah… about that. You didn't tell me. Not even a note good-bye."
"I couldn't!" Raylynx said, starting to raise her voice as well.
"You could have said something," Sirius fired back.
"No, I couldn't have," Raylynx said immediately.
"I find that bloody difficult to believe. You're capable of opening your goddamn mouth and saying the two simple words 'I'm going', aren't you?" Sirius said bitingly, stepping even closer to her.
"If I did, would you really have let me go just like that? No! You would have demanded an explanation. Besides, it was hard enough to leave you as it was!" Raylynx blurted out. She suddenly blinked and then, for a split second, an embarrassed blush spread across her face as she realized she'd just confessed to him.
But Sirius was too far gone in his own anger to notice as he retaliated, "Clearly, not hard enough."
I sighed internally. He could be so thick-headed sometimes.
Sirius muttered bitterly, "Why come back at all? We're better off without you." He stared down at her resentfully.
Raylynx flinched a little.
I could understand why Sirius said this. It was because he had suffered so much when she left. Lately, after a little more than a year, he was just starting to let go of her. He had barely inched towards the first step and now she reappeared in front of him, with no answers, no nothing, only she was still exactly the same person he'd fallen in love with. That was the only thing he could be certain of: was that he loved her, but she probably wasn't going to stay. It terrified him to death.
Raylynx blinked furiously, and I could see a slight wetness gloss her eyes.
She said nothing, though, only sidestepped him, brushing past him to get to me.
I could see Sirius wilt a little at that moment, realizing what he had just said. Behind Raylynx's back, I saw him crumble with regret.
Raylynx's voice was thick as she addressed me. "I came to give you this."
She dropped a few phials on the table. They rolled around the table top, but didn't roll off. Each of them was labeled in her handwriting: "Wolfsbane Potion".
"It's a potion that was developed within the last couple years. It's a werewolf transformation prevention potion- but only for the mind. Your body will transform, but you will remain cognizant of your human identity to the point where you can resist the urge to harm others. Its effects aren't widely known, so be careful, but with the tester, it worked so long as he took it the evening before the full moon."
After saying all this, she let out a breath and said, "Anyways, I hope it works for you."
Her shoulders were up, but it was with downcast eyes that she left the room. The door softly snapped shut behind her.
Sirius fell onto the couch and pressed his palms hard against his eyes.
I sat at the table and picked up one of the phials and gripped it tightly in my hand.
A werewolf transformation potion for the mind. Could such a thing be possible?
Now I was the one trembling.
"Do you think it's real?" I asked Sirius, not daring to look away from the phial in my hand. I felt like I was dreaming and if I so much as blinked, it'd all disappear. I gripped it tightly.
"If she says so, yeah," Sirius said, getting up and approaching me.
"It must be nice to have someone so brilliant love you," Sirius said in a dead voice.
"Padfoot…" I said. I meant to finish with "it's not like that", but I was so immersed with gazing at the potion and trying not to get my hopes up so far that I wasn't really capable of coherent speech.
Sirius shook his head, as if to remind himself of something. Then, he said, "Sorry, Moony. This is all about you, not me." He picked up a phial himself and then put a hand on my shoulder.
"God, Moony, I hope this works," Sirius said wistfully. "I really hope this works."
"Yeah, me too," I said fervently. I was getting a bit dizzy; I was that hopeful, and at the same time, that afraid of hope. When I was little, my father had put me through all sorts of horrible and painful procedures to try to 'fix' me. His intentions were kind, but something broke in me when I was twelve and he put a magical muzzle over my face just before I transformed in the hopes that it would at least silence my whimpering and howls to stop our neighbors from hearing and to stop my mother from crying the whole night in response to my pained sounds. I hadn't been able to look them in the face since.
"The next full moon is only two days away," Sirius realized. His grip on my shoulder tightened. "I'll be here, Moony, and we can see if it works together."
"Thanks, Pads," I murmured, still unwilling to tear my eyes away from this phial held tight between my fingers and palm- this phial that promised so much.
Raylynx's POV
I had to wait here at least two days, so I could see how well the potion worked for Remus, but I didn't have anywhere to stay.
Dumbledore was sure to be keeping a watch on my house. I sighed and dissulurated myself again: My hair became a wavy blonde and my eyes turned hazel.
I headed to the Leaky Cauldron when I realized I was short on change.
I sighed and said, "The cheapest room, please."
Somebody stepped up beside me and I grimaced a little. Does this person not know what personal space is?
"It's under the washroom so it leaks, and it's a bit moldy, but it's only three Galleons and two Sickles," Tom told me. "Also, the door's a right bitch to open."
"That's fine, I'll take it," I said dismissively and paid four Galleons. I rested my hands on the counter as I waited for my change, tapping a finger irritably at how close this stranger was to me.
I received my change and the key.
I hurriedly stepped away from the counter, only to have the person step out and bump into me.
Irritably, I said, "Do you mind-?"
I fell silent when I saw that it was Sirius.
"I do mind," Sirius said.
I tried to play it cool, remembering that I was in disguise. Just play it off.
"I'm sorry, I think you've got the wrong person," I said.
I tried to step away again, but he grabbed my hand and turned it over, revealing my wrist.
"Yeah right," Sirius brusquely. "There are some scars no disguise can hide."
I glared at him, irritated. "What do you want?" I hissed at him.
He didn't answer, only gazed at me solemnly.
I ripped my hand away from him and said, "You want me to leave? Then I'll do that!"
At this Sirius bristled. I started to walk away from him, weaving through the groups of people having a good time in the pub.
"You're the one that left us!" Sirius said angrily, trying to push past a group of elderly ladies without knocking anyone over. "Don't you dare run away from me right now!" he yelled over their heads.
I finally made it to the stairwell and began to head down.
My room was just eight steps down from the stairwell. There wasn't even a hallway. This was the only room around here. It had probably once been a supply closet or laundry room.
I managed to get the key in the lock but struggled to open the door. Tom was right, I thought angrily. The door is a right bitch to open.
Sirius managed to get through the crowd of people just as I started yanking at the door knob. I had to really wrench at it to get it open. Finally, the door popped open.
Just then, Sirius managed to get behind me and reaching over me, slammed the door shut again.
"Are you kidding me?" I said, exasperated. "I just barely managed to get that open, Black".
"Black?" His mouth turned up in a grim smile. "We're back to being strangers now, are we?"
I pulled hard on the door knob and it started to peek open again when suddenly, Sirius' arms appeared on either side of me, slamming the door shut.
He looked down at me and said, "I know you didn't leave because I confessed to you. However you might have felt about me, you're too headstrong to be phased by something like that. You're too determined to accomplish whatever's going on in that head of yours to be swayed by other people's emotions. So why did you leave?"
Calm your heart, Raylynx. Calm yourself. Remember, you chose to give all this up.
"Fine," Sirius said, his voice going quiet. "Then why did you come back?"
I tried to take a deep breath without Sirius noticing before I answered calmly and truthfully, "I came back to see Remus." I came back to give him the Potion.
"See Remus?" Sirius repeated, even more quietly. For some reason, my answer deeply unsettled him.
"And… were you going to tell anyone else that you were back?" Sirius pressed.
"I can't even see Lily and James' house, or Alice and Frank's. And I don't want to burden the other Order members nor do I want Dumbledore to realize I'm back. So, no."
"What about me?" he asked straightforwardly.
"You're an Order member," I answered, trying not to fall apart. I knew I was being unforgivably unfair to him. But it would only make it harder if I gave in now. I had to leave after tomorrow. How could I give him false hope now?
"I'm an Order member, right," Sirius said, then bit his lower lip.
"What about Remus?" he asked, and his eyes caught mine. "Isn't he an Order member, too? Or is he… something more?"
Remus? Why does he keep bringing up Remus? What's Remus got to do with all this?
In my eyes, it was not Remus that intervened between us, but the ghosts of Marlene and Regulus standing between us.
But I couldn't explain this to Sirius anymore than I could tell him I'd been hunting Horcruxes.
I shook my head and tried to look away, but my eyes were mesmerized by his and I could feel him gazing deeply into me, trying to find my pain, to understand it, and to free me.
He grabbed both my shoulders tightly.
"What aren't you telling me?" he asked me through gritted teeth. "Why can't you ever let me in?"
I winced a little when he squeezed my shoulders too tightly.
His eyes widened and he immediately let me go.
"Sirius," I said, feeling my defenses starting to fracture. "You know how upset I was with the Order. You know I was thinking of leaving."
"But without telling me anything?" Sirius said. He was turned away from me.
He waited for me to respond, but I couldn't tell him what he wanted to know. I couldn't tell him that I had left to find the King's Wand and then to hunt Horcruxes.
Sirius' face was half-hidden in darkness as he said, "Remember when you were angry at me because I acted like I knew you only as a Gryffindor or as an Order member? When you called me out on that, I admired you so much. But now, the tables are flipped. You're the one treating me like I'm some stranger to you, and I don't really know what to do."
He turned around to face me again and waited for me to say something, but I couldn't find the right words to say. I wanted to ask him to stay, but I couldn't justify that request to myself.
Seeing that I was steadfast in my silence, Sirius' gaze hardened, and he left abruptly, going back up the stairs.
Stay, my heart called out to him. Stay.
The sound of his footsteps faded away.
With a shaking hand, I opened the door again and entered the dirty, dank room.
I closed it behind me and then slowly sank to the floor, my back dragging down the door.
I closed my eyes and pressed my hands against my eyelids, trying to keep the emotions inside.
This was why I didn't want to see him. Because every time I parted from him, the loneliness hit me harder than ever.
