The wizarding world was divided in two, and it made the atmosphere stir like a swirling storm cloud. There was the ubiquitous outrage towards the opposition that had kept wizards' wands in their hands for months after the fighting ended. James and Lily's recent fracas with blood purists were no longer the only scapegoat for fear. People were brawling in Diagon Alley, writing angry letters to the press and barging into Ministry offices. All the while, the rest of the wizarding world grew tired, happy to let the war drift into history. This demographic was steadily growing as the Ministry floundered.
The Aurors dug up old witness statements and dragged wizards back into the wizengamot. They visited homes and workplaces, bribing, pleading for information. They used the most tenuous, far-fetched leads to send the Aurors on their hunts. James' training became monotonous; the Psychology of Dark Wizards taking over all other modules of study. His exams were approaching, so he read his books and learned them to recitation.
It became commonplace to assume Bellatrix Lestrange was dead.
"She isn't dead," Andromeda told the Potters one late evening as they sat around the kitchen table.
"Nobody has seen her in weeks. The death toll has stopped," James reminded her, pouring her some more blackcurrant wine. "She isn't one to just give up." James glanced between Andromeda and Lily. "I'm... sorry."
"You think I'd mourn her if she was dead?" asked Andromeda with a cold smile. "You-Know-Who had a hold over her that was almost... telepathic." She took a long gulp of wine. "And her child will have been born by now, if she hasn't already ripped it out of herself..." Andromeda reached for the wine bottle. "...poor little thing."
James grabbed the bottle before she could, and pretending not to see her reach for it began to poor himself more wine. He held his glass aloft. "To Ted."
Ted was to be discharged the following day, and Andromeda would return to Austria with him. Nymphadora's absence was still an open sore in Andromeda's side, and so being around children was comforting. But she was itching for her own life again. Ted, no matter how shaken, was the only person able to truly comfort Andromeda through empty nest syndrome.
Lily, too, raised her glass. "To Baby Black."
The news of Sirius and Isabelle had made the Potters immune to the wizarding world's further descent into chaos and misery. A new life, as wild and bright as Sirius himself, would propel them into a better future just as Matilda had done. Sirius had his holy trinity: a pretty wife, a child on the way, and a business that boiled the blood of anti-muggle bigots. There was a new spring in his step. He quite literally skipped from place to place.
Andromeda raised her glass. "To Sweden."
That was poignant, and it silenced the table. The Potters' recent unease in Sweden had been unspoken until now. The beauty and the peace of the country was unquestionable and while they would visit one day, they did not feel at home. The wind was pregnant with tension. They felt little threat from Lestrange anymore but something was shooing them out of the door.
oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo
The number of days between full moons seemed to lessen with every passing month. Remus' complex of workaholism and determination to pave a war-free path for himself was an accepted sacrifice for his friends: a mindset of maturity which made the marauders almost proud to suffer. Remus was so pre-occupied with his mysterious 'law studies' that his lycanthropy became a handy excuse for him to see the others.
James sat with Remus on the evening of October's full moon. While Sirius checked the forest for muggles, James and Remus enjoyed Heli Norberg's pilchards on toast under her porch. Harry, kept awake past his bed-time to enjoy the rare company of Uncle Remus, was running around clumsily in Heli's garden. Matilda, wrapped up in four blankets, could now hold her head up. Remus held her, and marvelled as she leaned away from his shoulder to look at him.
"She's decided on green eyes," he noted, satisfied with this finality. "She's the clone of him."
Harry was running around Heli's garden, holding his hands up to the sky. The blue-ish green grass was still visible but turning frosty as the snow fell gently but densely, in chunky soft flakes. James winced as Harry's cloak kept blowing open, exposing him to the cold.
"I shouldn't be holding her," Remus looked at James with anxiety.
"Don't be daft, the sun's still out."
He looked doubtfully up at the sky, which was a deep blue colour. The sun had already set, which happened late in Sweden. He was still uneasy with the sun's unfamiliar comings and goings in Scandinavia.
" I'm very grateful for this..." in his free hand, he held an empty vial which had previously contained a wolfsbane potion brewed by Lily. He sounded sad. "I have something I need you to give to her."
He put down the vial, picked up his wand from the picnic table he was sat on, and pointed it at his satchel. An old, worn, bent paperback levitated out of the bag. James grabbed it.
"A collection of Tennyson," Remus told James. "Marlene lent it to me. I never gave it back."
It was a tatty, ugly edition from perhaps a decade ago. But James stared at it, astonished, naively looking for remnants of her. A trapped blonde hair or a finger mark. He sniffed the book, unashamed. It smelt of Remus' apartment: of spirits and bread and ink.
"Don't you want this?" he asked him, hoping he'd say no knowing Lily would treasure this echo of her best friend.
"I want her to have it," he smiled at James with sympathy. "I'm moving away again."
At first, James didn't understand the need for a parting gift. Since Sirius' move to Montreal, his contact with him hadn't been affected. Apparition was stomach-turning abroad but international portkeys were only slightly more jittery than domestic ones. But he realised Remus did not allow himself as much free time as the others, nor did he work in close proximity to the other two. He was in isolation.
"Where to?"
"Berlin," Remus smiled with half-hearted excitement. "Kreuzberg. I'm going to try my hand at urban living."
James smiled. "Happy for you."
"Plenty of big forests in Germany. I'd only have to apparate early enough."
"Sure."
"Can't hide in the woods for the rest of my life, you know? Or life will pass me by without me having gone anywhere or done anything."
James looked at him. Remus, who had committed to punishing himself for his biology many years ago, was speaking with someone else's reasoning. James thought of the faceless friends Remus sometimes mentioned from work and academic circles, research teams and lycanthropy groups abroad. All these people, who offered Remus a level of empathy James and Sirius never could, were providing Remus with the confidence James and Sirius had failed to. A Remus ready to chase his career and see the world was a Remus James had been trying to tease out for so long. Now that he was here, James felt loss.
"Don't be a stranger," James smiled at him.
"Of course not!". Remus shrugged, "of course, I'll have my work but I'll visit as often as I can."
"Will you be at Hogwarts for the memorial?"
Remus looked uncomfortable for a second, then, with a smile, "I will."
oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo
Six inches of snow fell onto the Potters' area of Sweden in a matter of minutes. Harry, who was now old enough to wade through thick snow banks and shake tiny icicles from branches, was in heaven. James spent whatever little time he had at home playing with Harry outside, both boys wrapped tightly in velvet cloaks and fur hats. When he was at the Ministry, Lily was confined in the house with a baby too young for the freezing temperatures and a restless toddler who spent hours with his nose pressed against the living room window watching the snowflakes fall.
Some days, the air was too cold even for Harry.
Confinement was easy when Harry was not so desperate to be outside. He was a boy who could entertain himself for an abnormally long length of time, and so Lily was able to sit at her desk in the living room, Harry sitting happily with his toy animals at her feet, while she wrote her book. Her book, which already boasted a hundred pages, had changed subject ten times before Lily had finally settled to write about everything there was to write about.
James believed Lily's book to be something of an epic. He lavished praised onto her to the point of nausea, declaring her writing to be a generation-defining masterpiece. While his theatrics were unnecessary, she hung onto his every word of critique, and handed him pages and pages of drafted scenes for his appraisal. His greatest compliment he did not say aloud. She found him reading books of his own accord. His love of reading had dipped during the war. Hers had peaked due to boredom while being in hiding. It made her smile to see his eyes following the lines on a page, rather than getting lost in dark memories.
But dark memories could not be avoided.
The last day of October came slowly, its arrival watched with baited breath.
It felt strange walking on solid ground; trudging across wet grass. Daylight was dimming. The guests walked in pilgrimage from Hogsmeade to the school through the grounds, in silence or low chatter. When they reached the hill by the shrieking shack, James and Lily exchanged flirtatious jokes about their activities in that rickety house. Matilda was asleep, tied to Lily's chest. Harry, walking on his own, was struck silent by the solemn faces of the strangers around him.
Not all of the pupils were in their dormitories, sleeping off their Halloween feasts. There were little groups of them, hiding behind statues, crouching by the banisters or peaking out through doorways, watching for the aurors, the order of the phoenix, and the Potters.
The great hall was arranged like a church. Despite the dozens of assemblies James had attended during his years at Hogwarts, he found himself reminded of the memorial they'd had in first year for a muggle studies professor who had died. His year group had been too young for muggle studies classes yet and nobody even knew who the professor was. Despite that, it was one of the saddest occasions James could remember.
"LILY!" squealed Emmeline Vance, her voice crashing through the atmosphere like lightening. She was stood waving from a seat near the front. "LILY! OVER HERE!"
Beside her was her healer lover, Cornelius Peck, who looked over his shoulder and waved at the Potters, trying not to be mortified.
The Potters shuffled down the second-to-front row towards Emmeline and Peck. The chairs were smaller than James remembered, and desperately uncomfortable.
"Where's the baby?" Lily whispered to Emmeline, eliciting a stunned stare from Cornelius.
"With the nanny, of course, why w-" Emmeline glanced down at the two children accompanying the Potters, and quickly stopped talking.
"Well, well, well!" began a familiar jolly voice. Arthur Weasley walked along the front of the congregation with his arms around two bored-looking red-haired boys. "Looks like I'm not the only one who missed the memo!"
James looked around in confusion. "Memo?"
Lily leaned towards him. "We're the only ones who brought kids."
"But Dumbledore invited the kids!"
Lily shrugged. Maybe Dumbledore didn't invite everyone else's kids. Maybe their kids were better than everyone else's kids.
"These are my eldest," said Arthur, gesturing to the boys. "Charlie and Billy."
"It's Bill," one of them mumbled.
Arthur gave a parental tut and rolled his eyes. "Young lads, eh?"
Lily looked around behind her, as rows began to fill, looking for Molly Weasley. She turned back round. "Is your wife not here, Mr Weasley?"
"Teething baby at home, by jove! And, ah..." Arthur looked to the back of the hall as though gazing out to a vast horizon. "Molly's a little sensitive about this sort of stuff. Best sit this one out. There's always next year!"
As Arthur whispered his farewells and sat down in the row in front of them with his sons, Lily was momentarily appalled at herself that she'd asked, and presumed Mrs Weasley would be in attendance at such an event commemorating the death of her brothers. But she felt James sharply turn to face the back of the room, and followed his gaze to see Sirius enter with Isabelle.
Though the news of their imminent parenthood was confirmed, Lily felt compelled, as many mothers do, to scan the woman for signs of pregnancy. Sure enough, Isabelle looked pale and haunted as though she'd discovered the news ten minutes ago. She held a hand to her belly, which was flatter than Lily's had ever been in her entire life.
The Blacks didn't notice the Potters when they took the last two seats available near the back. The room fell silent as Minister Bagnold walked in, followed by Dumbledore, who towered over her even though she wore sky-high heels.
When the Minister reached the podium, she gave a tired sigh.
"In all honesty, I'm not sure what all we're doing here."
The gathered were silent and uncomfortable.
"Of course, we're here because Albus, my friend, invited us. And when Albus Dumbledore calls, the loyal and the good shall follow."
James and Lily felt surges of House pride that followed after Quidditch matches.
"But are we here to mourn the dead? To cry victory? To make plans?"
James respected Bagnold. He respected that she knew the wizarding world was still in pieces.
"We've spent a year doing all those things. We've spent a year staring at the holes in our lives our loved ones left behind, we've counted our blessings to still be breathing and we've tried to move on. But how bloody far have we come?"
Members of the congregation exchanged looks.
"I doubt I'll be the Minister of Magic for much longer. Try as I might to hold on to this opportunity to put thinks right, this world is divided and I alone do not have the power or strength to pull the two sides back together."
As the Minister thought about her next words, Dumbledore barely moved, but James detected a sense of surprise in the old wizard. It made James wonder what Dumbledore thought of politics, and of politicians. Did he care about that circus at all?
"I sound as though I'm berating myself but I'm not," continued Bagnold. "It would be a miracle for one person to change the world, even in this little plot of life the wizarding world is crammed into. I have realised, rather late in the day, that life itself cannot be changed. Individual lives, however, are easy to transform." The Minister looked up, around at the audience with more life behind her eyes than before. "That is something we all must pledge to do."
Her audience straightened their backs.
"You tell me, in the year that has passed since the he died, what have you done to make things better for someone?"
A murmur. James' mind went to his daughter. Lily thought of Bathilda Bagshot, and of Snape.
"How many good deeds do you complete in a day? How many people have you helped? Without question, many of you in here today have saved many lives and many of you are heroes. But how many gloomy days have you brightened this year?"
James felt his stomach drop as he pictured Cygnus and Phineas Black, his grandfather and great-uncle, rotting away in that cold mansion, with Bodkin the elf, bottles of firewhisky and portraits of dead relatives coated in dust.
"Next time we meet, in three hundred and sixty five days from now, I want you to take your seats knowing that you have used your second life as a gift to others. It is the only way any of us will be free from that... that dark cloud... the fog." The Minister blinked slowly and rubbed the back of her neck.
oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo
On the hill as they watched the fireworks, the marauders stood with Cornelius Peck, who was making flutes of champagne disappear at an impressive rate. James, too, was inclined to knock back shots of firewhisky to numb the awkward feeling that the entire event had been inappropriate. While the Minister's speech had hit home, the Hogwarts feast that followed held an unpleasant aftertaste. James, Lily and their friends had fixed their attentions on Harry far more than was necessary. His messy consumption of the famous Hogwarts trifle was almost a perfect distraction to the rest of the feast in front of them that was usually wheeled out for celebrations, and although it was clear that an attempt was made to follow sombre with sweet, it did not feel much like a celebration.
The fireworks, at least, felt a little like a send-off. But most of the people missing from the congregation's lives had been dead for over a year. It felt like digging them up again.
There was an unintentional segregation between the men and the women when the fireworks began. Lily was stood with Emmeline, who was regaling her with woeful tales of Pearl, her lover's adopted niece, learning of the disastrous consequences of pulling on table cloths and opening Emmeline's expensive face powders, only to forget these crucial life lessons the next day. The new Black, Isabelle, unexpectedly walked right up to Lily with a hand on her stomach and a nervous smile on her lips.
"Wasn't the feast lovely?" she started. "It's the first meal I've been able to keep down all week."
"Congratulations, by the way," said Emmeline loudly yet unenthusiastically. "Put away your valuables now, because that thing will ruin your home."
Lily suppressed an embarrassed sigh. "Ignore my friend. Her path to motherhood has been unconventional."
Isabelle gulped. "I've got a long way to go before I have to worry about baby-proofing." She looked down at her stomach. "And yet, two months gone and I'm already ballooning."
Lily looked Isabelle up and down. She was still thinner than Lily had ever been.
"You seem a little anxious," Lily noted.
Isabelle let out a sigh just as a firework boomed louder than all the others over the valley. "I'm very happy and I have everything I've ever wanted," she stated. "Sirius will be a great father and will be very helpful to me."
Eloquent speech, Lily thought to herself. She got the sense that Isabelle's heart was tightly-bound. "Wow," Lily raised her eyebrows. "You make it sound so easy..." Isabelle, as Lily had anticipated, let her eyes widen in panic. "When I found out I was pregnant the first time, I was scared shitless..."
A large firework exploded in the sky, illuminating Isabelle's face for half a second long enough for Lily to see her gaze at her like a little girl presented with her dream doll's house. By the time the next firework went off, Isabelle had managed some facial composure. "Well, of course, there are one or two things giving me a little anxiety..." she compromised. She looked sideways at Lily. "Is it terribly painful?"
In her mind, Lily leafed through a rolodex of clichés and white lies before settling on honest simplicity. "Yes."
Isabelle gulped, and looked back up at the fireworks with a vacant expression.
"But it's worth it," Lily told her. When Isabelle looked at her again, she smiled. "You'll love your baby. And... you won't have to do anything alone."
Behind them stood the marauders with Healer Peck, who were reflecting on the flyers in their hands depicting a pumpkin with a candle flickering inside its head, underneath the words:
"INTRODUCING... THE HOGWARTS ANNUAL VICTORY BALL"
A dance was to be held in the great hall every Halloween for students and staff to celebrate the end of the war, and the death of Voldemort. It was something James' children would attend. He tried to summon feelings of outrage as some of the other guests were, but really, to be surrounded by death at Hogwarts would be nothing new at all.
"How are you holding up, Potter?" asked a rather tipsy Cornelius Peck, staring gloomily into his champagne glass. He held his hand out flat in front of James. It was shaking. "Personally, my tremors are due to cost me my job but at least the fireworks are pretty."
Remus tilted his head to one side. "Not enjoying yourself, Peck?" he asked, a little droll.
Peck rolled his eyes and gestured sloppily to the rest of the gathering. "Colourful lights and glasses of fizz... s'just a way of mass-bedazzling. S'just... a cheap distraction from our own trauma..."
Remus downed the rest of his glass of champagne and swilled it around his mouth, pondering the taste. He swallowed. "I don't imagine it was that cheap..."
"It's shit." The clusters of people around them, including Lily's group, followed the expletive.
Remus and James exchanged concerned glances while Sirius, holding Matilda, was in a trance. He smiled adoringly at the baby as he swayed to and fro, looking so motherly it was almost comical.
"It'll be my kid I'm holding soon, lads," he said at a wistful volume which no-one heard.
James slapped a hand on Peck's shoulder. "What's going on, Peck?"
Peck shook his head and took another gulp of champagne. "Nothing. I just don't believe the state of our world is anything to pat ourselves on the back for."
James looked up at the fireworks which, impressive as they were, were losing their majesty as Cornelius Peck spoke.
"We're all just Bagnold's victory trophies, and we're a bloody glum bunch..." Peck waved his empty glass and pointed it at the firework display. "This is just to polish us up a bit."
"Not Bagnold's biggest fan, are you, Peck?" Remus ventured.
"On the contrary, I volunteered in her campaigns." Peck took a deep breath and let go of his glass, which dissolved into smoke and vanished. "Her speech turned out to be the most authentic component of today." He ran his hands over his face and through his hair. "She's right. Bloody spot on. Small good deeds just don't happen anymore."
James exhaled and felt his stomach get heavy.
"This world used to be so... cosy," Peck continued. "But times changed and opinions evolved and beliefs became what they were." Peck shrugged. "Everyone is a stranger. Nobody has the energy for other people anymore."
James grimaced. "I fear I'm one of those people."
Peck looked serious. "Auror work is very important. They save lives, they-"
"Small good deeds, Peck," James reminded him. "Not heroism. I think that was Bagnold's point."
Peck looked puzzled. Of course a man like Cornelius Peck would struggle with the concept of a life lived selfishly. If he was not a man who'd dedicated his life to healing the sick, James and his comrades would be nauseated by Peck's heart of gold and Prince Charming physique. Unfortunately for James, Peck was the type of man sent to lesser men as a mirror, a tutor and a torment.
"I've already done my bit for the fate of the world and it hasn't been nearly as satisfying as you might think."
Peck studied James' face, then a strange smirk appeared on his face, followed by a chuckle that was unaided by the alcohol he had consumed. "James Potter, am I watching a self-revolution unfold?"
"I hope so."
It was Peck's turn to place a firm hand on his companion's shoulder. "There is always room for one more volunteer, my friend."
"On your ward?" asked James, not expecting to ask such a question but being pleasantly surprised that the notion had appeared.
"Anywhere."
oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo
A/N: That took a thousand years because I work 7 days a week am pregnant and depressed. Hope you have a relaxing holiday full of good books and lovely food and good deeds.
N x