Five Years Later

It took five years for the Potters to stop running. And each of those five years brought its own overwhelming challenge. Five battles, culminating in one hard-won victory.

The first year brought Elvina Black.

A fluffy blonde thing, like a duckling. Born in the French castle her mother was brought up in, as her mother had insisted. Born to the twinkling notes of French composer Jean-Louis Pamploelle as her mother had insisted. Born surrounded by Sommier women and the best healing witches France had to offer, as her mother insisted. Her father was in the room at least.

Sirius Black introduced his newborn daughter to his friends like an English King presenting the heir to his throne. The Potters and Remus were enchanted by the new glow in Sirius' face. He stood taller and smiled brighter. Sirius looked so optimistically to the future that he stopped looking over his shoulder, something which the others would not shake so soon. With Bellatrix Lestrange getting as close to them as Ted Tonks, the Marauders had become paranoid agoraphobes. Of course, they did not believe for one instant that the new child in the Malfoy's household was theirs. Opinion was divided as to whether the birth would have renewed her motivation or withered it. It was as though a big cat had escaped a zoo. They were both hunting and hiding from the hunted and the hidden.

It was sweet that Sirius had a new focus. But the vacant space that followed him around with the child was noticed by all. Something that everyone could recognise in loving, doting new parents was not present in Isabelle. The brightness that filled Sirius was clouded in his wife. So absolute was his devotion to his child that he did not seem to ever look to Isabelle for a moment of connection. So clear was his focus and his purpose that he flooded the space Isabelle had not filled with quiet resignation.

The Second Year was the year the Potters brought politics to St Mungo's.

Lily refused to accept Alice Longbottom's hopelessness. She blamed Cornelius Peck for suggesting for a second that Alice's head with slightly less permanently scrambled than Frank's. It gave Lily a flicker of hope which she ran with without much thought for where she was going. She was aided in her campaign to rehabilitate Alice by James' volunteering position on the ward. He read to children, he listened to the dying, he brought extra pillows and cups of tea. During his shifts, Lily worked on Alice. They spent their shifts at St Mungo's together, James with his patients and Lily with hers. Harry sometimes played with Neville. It worked for everyone. But Alice's recognition of Lily grew until it became dependence. Peck did not notice until it was too late.

Jantzen of Tiger Eye got wind of the Potter's involvement on the ward and commissioned a piece from Lily about kindness and community, which she accepted. His critique of her first draft was that it was too fluffy, so in went some choice comments about family and funding and responsibility. It was eye-opening, stirring stuff. It was dynamite.

Not even the water-tight protective charms and security at St Mungo's could stop the fear of attack. One cursed object made its way in, and the Potters were urged to keep away. This was when Alice Longbottom became uncontrollable.

Augusta Longbottom's already wavering opinion of the interfering Potters sank into active dislike. The Potters did not see her nor Neville for a long time.

The Potters kept themselves busy while the guilt and sadness ate at them; James with his training, Lily with her novel, both of them with the coaching of Sirius through parenthood and half-hearted assurances that Isabelle's melancholy was a storm that would soon pass.

Stirred by Lily's article in Tiger Eye, Andromeda Tonks (under the willing mask of Molly Weasley) campaigned for a ministry-funded carer's support group to be set up at St Mungo's. The politics of health became the number one talking point of the wizarding world.

The Third year made James an Auror.

James was sad to see Bertie Weasley relegated to the office, but breathed a sigh of relief as he joined Ammon and Valentine in the robing ceremony. A new sense of grief and regret enveloped him like a new cloak. Dozens of old friends had aspired to Aurorship before the war swept those dreams away. His parents would have been so proud that their only child had such a respectable position. The camaraderie of an Auror division felt like the strength of the old Order, only less like a family.

His new status pulled fresh wounds open even further. The Daily Prophet published a damning piece on the biased appointing of Potter, speculating that his role was payment or even a bribe for Voldemort's death. They practically pushed the Burke family to ramp up their assault on the Marauders. Josephina Burke ran her own smear campaign in Knockturn Alley against Sirius, discussing his barbarism and cruelty towards his mother with her customers. Her sons were her owls, flitting from window to window spreading vicious lies about the Potters. Following these threads of false rumour was Isiah Zabini, his gratitude to the Potters still strong, helpless to stop the smear campaign but able to tell the Potters who each wizarding family had chosen to believe. He reported this all for free, though James provided him with plenty of reward.

The smear campaign was not helped by James' pitiful first projects as an Auror. He was not chasing Bellatrix Lestrange, he was not hunting remaining Death Eaters, nor was he interrogating the likes of the Malfoys. He was, with his band of rookies, following weak leads. Wizards whose previous misdemeanours and associations with dark wizarding families were the only basis for their suspect status. James felt a fool. Their lines of enquiry were embarrassing. They only proved the Burke's assessments of the Potters to be true: they were meddlesome social climbers pushing a divisive agenda, and using their influence with people such as Bagnold and Dumbledore to get their way.

It was a sticky mess.

Lily found herself dragged away from her novel by a need to fight her corner at Tiger Eye, who were relishing the feud and would publish any old crap Lily handed in. Every few weeks or so, a scathing report in the Prophet about muggle-born troublemakers, rejection of wizarding tradition, nepotism at the ministry or the not-fit-for-purpose Auror department, and Lily would be compelled to publish a counter-piece. She was tired of it, and desperate to focus on what she enjoyed writing, which was her book. But to rise above the lies was to accept them.

The Fourth Year was the year that Sirius and Isabelle made a poor judgment call.

When Sirius told the Potters what he and Isabelle had decided to do, there was no pretence. Sirius came to them like a student who'd forgotten their homework. Lily buried her head in her hands. James stared at his best friend as though he'd gone mad. He had gone mad.

Children do not fix marriages. Especially when they lit the fuse in the first place.

Elvina, now walking and talking, barely saw her mother, who worked a concerning amount of overtime at the Minister's office.

At Harry's fifth birthday party, Lily braved an honest conversation with Isabelle.

Isabelle saw marriage and children as a compulsory part of a prescribed timeline. Sirius had come into her life at a time when the world was changing and the future was completely unknown. A handsome war hero ready to dote on her seemed like a gift of fate, which she took. But when the confetti fell and the world was still chaos, Isabelle still had a career to focus on. She still had choice. And her life became inordinately taken up with defending her husband and his friends against the vengeful and misunderstanding parts of their world. She even lived in a house that wasn't truly hers. She was a teddy bear during a thunderstorm to Sirius. She had hoped that this child would be hers. But her body had become unpredictable, her routine chopped up by sleepless nights, feeds, milestones. She could not let the chaos of motherhood sweep her up like Lily had. She could not relinquish control over her own life. But perhaps she could learn to. Perhaps she had not prepared herself enough mentally. Perhaps, with one more try, those mythological swells of love and bliss would come.

Isabelle accepted nausea and fatigue as part of the journey. She relished her bump. She rested while Elvina tore the house apart. She agonised with Sirius over names. She took leave from work early and allowed herself to switch off and think of nothing but the life inside her, and what that life would look like in the years to come. She even felt something towards Elvina.

But she grew abnormally large.

At Christmas, they arrived.

Their son and their second daughter.

Miraculous unpredictable chaos.

And something in Isabelle was lost forever.

The fifth year, when they were drowning and didn't think they would surface, one more fate card was handed to them.

They were renting a small cottage in a charming old town in Cornwall. Harry and Matilda had taken to chasing each other around Lily when she was hanging up the laundry on the washing line in the garden. Lily would then 'attack' whichever dared to crash into her. One day, Harry threw himself into her. He didn't hurt her, but panic flashed and she jumped away from him, holding her arm out to protect her stomach from him. James, who was shepherding a small herd of floppets as they ate the weeds in the garden, noticed this reaction straight away. He and Lily stared at each other. It was the first telltale sign and had happened twice before. A cautiousness. A fragility.

It couldn't have been timed worse.

Their days were already packed with caring for others. The Longbottoms, Ted Tonks, others on the ward, Sirius' growing brood and the slowly fading figure of their mother. Remus' slow acceptance of who he was, their own growing menagerie of creatures including their beastly owl and a phobic cat, neither of whom had taken well to Heli's pets. Zeena, the bulbous cat, claimed every surface as her bed. Vesuvius the moose-sized Doberman was even more difficult to make room for. As the children grew, so too did his enthusiasm for rough-housing. He bounded around the place, involving himself in Harry and Matilda's games, knocking over anything and everything, scaring Tuppy and infuriating Cadwal, disturbing the neighbours. The children thought it was hilarious. Their little garden was not large enough for him to burn his energy. They took him for endless long walks to the park and the beach, letting him zoom around with Padfoot until he dropped. Vesuvius was an almighty handful.

As the little life inside her grew, her energy waned.

Lily was loath to move again, but they had made a mistake renting such a small house. They had been too idealistic in their dream to live like the Weasleys, piled in together like sleeping puppies in a cosy shack. They needed somewhere bigger. They were growing in number.

Lily and James were working on a complex charm one evening when the children were in bed. They were sharing a bedroom (there were only two) and their parents were working out how to sneak another room onto their house which was rented from a grouchy wizard and had two muggle houses attached to either side, without anyone noticing, which would hold strong enough to house their unborn child.

They sat at the dining table, Lily flicking through spell books, James practicing extension charms on an old shoebox.

"It's too risky," Lily said at last. "We need to move."

"The children love it here," James reminded her.

Lily shrugged. "They won't love sharing a room with a third child."

A knock at the door.

Only a handful of ministry officials knew where they were. Sirius and Remus would only use floo to get to them.

They crept into the hallway, wands out. Lily stood guarding the stairs to where their children slept. James inched towards the door.

"It's me, Potter," said a gruff voice. "You'll want to hear this,"

James turned to his wife. "Moody."

He opened the door. The hissing of pouring rain was loud. Moody stood underneath a weather charm, dry and warm. He gave James a look he had never seen before.

"Alastor, what's happened?"

Moody gave a grim smile. "We've done it. At long last. It's done."

James and Lily exchanged worried glances.

"We've captured Lestrange."

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James watched the trial from under his invisibility cloak. It was complete pandemonium.

Bagnold continued to bang her gavel and call for order, but she could barely be heard. Shouts from all corners of the wizengamot drowned out any sort of sense. Objects were thrown. Fights broke out. Hysterics deafened James.

She looked so small. So harmless.

She was slumped against the bars that contained her, her unruly black hair hiding her face. James remembered her loud-mouthed taunting and deranged torments. It was all gone now.

Bagnold stood and angrily waved her wand in an oval shape towards the congregation. The shouting dimmed to muffled squeaking. The gathered wizards stopped, ashamed.

"Bellatrix Lestrange, you are standing trial for twenty nine counts of murder, thirteen counts of the use of the cruciatus curse, aiding and abetting Death Eaters, pervading the course of justice and failing to turn yourself in to Aurors. How do you plead?"

"Not guilty."

Uproar again. Bagnold rolled her eyes. "You can't be serious."

Lestrange pulled herself up. Her hair fell. James saw her pallid complexion and lifeless eyes. His stomach flipped.

"Where is your proof that I did not act under the influence of the imperious curse?"

"Voldemort is dead, Mrs Lestrange, he cannot curse you from beyond the grave."

"Not he. Others. Others still believe as the Dark Lord did, in the salvation of wizarding kind. I cannot say their names."

Bagnold looked doubtful. "Mrs Lestrange, we have over two dozen witnesses that saw you torture and kill people for information on Voldemort's enemies."

"I swear, I was cursed! I have been used, Minister. I was controlled by the Dark Lord and when he was slain, others used me to continue his work. They used my reputation to hide their crimes. They used the imperious curse on me, Minister!"

James couldn't believe his own ears. She was manipulative, calculating. He could scarcely believe wizards around him were weighing up her words even for a second.

"Who are these 'others', Mrs Lestrange?"

"I told you, I cannot say!"

"Then it will be inadmissible."

Lestrange gulped. "Very well. I was cursed by Lucius Malfoy."

The wizengamot went bezerk.

Bagnold furrowed her eyebrows. "You would betray your own brother-in-law, Mrs Lestrange? The man who has reportedly taken in your abandoned child?"

"Objection!" a man's voice echoed out. An imposing man with black hair and an unusually long black beard stepped forward. He was dressed in an expensive black damask cloak. "The gossip column from Witch Weekly does not constitute a reliable source of information, Minister."

James did not recognise this man. He peered around at the wizards stood near him, looking for familiar faces or people in his party. He seemed to be alone.

Bagnold glared at the man and turned back to the prisoner. "Lucius Malfoy has been interrogated; his wand examined. He has been cleared."

Bellatrix quickly shook her head. "You need to look again. He is meeting with the Dark Lord's closest followers, he is targeting mudblood families, he-!"

Bagnold banged the gavel again. "Watch your language, Mrs Lestrange!"

Lestrange lunged forward and grabbed the bars of her cage. "Minister, I beg you. I was thrown at the Dark Lord's feet when I was seventeen years old. My father hunted blood traitors for sport. He used his daughters as weapons, Minister. I've known nothing but the pureblood supremacy movement and I have been blinded by the Dark Lord's influence. You can take my wand. Banish me to a desolate island, I don't care, but I beg you, please don't send me to Azkaban!"

The chaos of the chamber was too much. Bagnold held Lestrange's gaze for a long time. She was entirely unreadable.

Bagnold took a deep breath. "We will hear the first witness. Emmeline Vance will testify that she was present when the accused tortured Frank and Alice Longbottom. Miss Vance, step forward."

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Several weeks later, they received an owl from Dumbledore.

As was Dumbledore's way, they were entirely in the dark about where they were going and what they were doing. But they had enough trust in the man to let him apparate them to the unknown.

He brought them to a small port on the bank of a wide river. Small boats drifted into one another in the harbour. Jaunty cottages lined the river, and woodland swept the horizon.

"This is Acterford-on-Gleek," Dumbledore told them as they looked at their surroundings. "It's undeniably pretty, albeit very slippery and treacherous in the winter months."

He walked on. James and Lily, puzzled, followed him.

They walked through winding narrow streets between ramshackle old cottages with cute front gardens and noisy chimes. Colourful bunting zigzagged down the streets and shop fronts displayed local cider, fishing equipment, floury loaves, handmade fudge and wellington boots. They joined the river again where it split, the river continuing into the main town and a canal pressing on along a willow-lined riverbank, dotted with colourful narrowboats.

"Professor, who are we here to see?" asked Lily. "I don't recognise this place."

"Nor should you, Lily," replied Dumbledore. "I apologise for dragging you along this way in your condition, but as you will soon see, it is rather important."

They pressed on along the canal. The pretty houses became sparser. They passed a very old pub called The Half Moon.

"The owners of this charming pub are Wilbur and Jocasta Reed. They are both werewolves."

"What?!" James and Lily stopped. They had never heard of a werewolf couple before.

"The Reeds are exceptionally kind and generous people. But we are not here to meet them today."

They continued.

Just as Lily was about to protest, her aching feet screaming at her to rest, they stopped at an old stone house.

"Here we are!"

Dumbledore opened the little wooden gate and they stepped into the house's sweet front garden, shaded by tall trees and bordered by mature shrubs and pretty flowers.

"These trees constitute part of the ancient oak forest up there" Dumbledore pointed to the lush slope that rose from round the corner to the edge of the horizon. "One can see why the Reeds would choose this location to settle down."

Dumbledore did not approach the front door. Rather, he strolled along the side of the house to a rusty metal bench. He sat, and surveyed the garden. "Exquisite," he smiled.

Bewildered, James walked over to him and joined him on the bench.

"Why are we here, Professor?"

Lily looked out beyond the walled front garden. After the maze of rooftops below them on the hill, the valley trailed out. A chocolate box perfect view.

Dumbledore took a deep breath.

"Minister Bagnold wanted to be here today, to fulfil her promise. But she is unfortunately tied up with the loose ends of Bellatrix Lestrange's case."

"Her promise?"

Dumbledore turned, and looked up at the house. "It's for sale."

The Potters stared.

Dumbledore stood. "This house was once owned by Roderick Bagnold. It was intended that is lycanthrope granddaughter live here once she finished Hogwarts, but she found a community in Germany to be a part of and had no use of it. The place has remained empty since Roderick died, his only daughter is settled in London and the entire wizarding world are wary of the pub landlords down the road."

Lush lawn. Birdsong. The sunlight light reflecting off the canal onto the walls of the house.

"It was Milicent's intention to gift you the house for free, but as all Ministry donations in excess of a thousand galleons must be formally declared and the relationship between the Ministry and yourselves is under dissection at present, Milicent thought it better to charge her asking price of nine hundred and ninety nine galleons.

James couldn't take it all in. Every corner of the garden, every stone of the cottage was perfect. "We can't. It's too much."

"Then don't, James! You're under no obligation to buy the house. I'm sure someone will see its beauty one day. It was only an idea given your lack of permanence during the hunt for Bellatrix Lestrange and your growing family. If it's not to your liking, you are welcome to continue your search."

"But Professor-"

"I must be going now. You're welcome to have a look inside to strengthen your resolve."

He walked back through the gate and was gone.

They stared at each other, in shock.

The shouting in their heads had stopped.

Inside, it was cold and dusty. There was a scurrying of creatures in the walls. They even found a fox in the kitchen. Dead crunchy leaves had blown in through broken windows and down the chimney in the lounge, where a log burner stood ready to be revived. Moths fluttered in window bays, creeping ivy choked some of the walls. Floorboards creaked. Doors were stiff. Water spluttered from the taps before pouring freely.

But they could see it. The space. Warmth. They knew the Christmas tree would go in the hall with the staircase twisting around it. They knew with soap and warm water, the big windows would be bright again. They could see a fresh breeze wafting long white curtains. Where Lily would sit and write. Where guests would sleep (there were enough rooms for. Where Cadwal would perch. Where they would grow tomatoes and cucumbers in the vast back garden.

Their future echoed throughout this house.

They sent an owl to Bagnold.

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A/N: Sorry this chapter's a bit late, did I miss something?

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