A/N: Thank you for reading and reviewing! Your kind words help me work through a terrible block I've been dealing with. Now enjoy!
Disclaimer: Harry Potter is owned by Jo Rowling. I own nothing.
Chapter 29 - 3.8 or "Boxing Day"
There was something inherently depressing about Boxing Day, Lily thought. While she knew of other families who had big celebrations or traditions, the Evans' house in Cokeworth always felt a bit deflated on the day after Christmas. Forget fancy feasts or family get-togethers – Boxing Day usually consisted of being told by her mother to tidy up her Christmas gifts and to eat the leftover turkey for lunch. Even the smell of the house seemed to echo her morose sentiments, the lingering aroma of cinnamon and chestnuts from the day before dissipating into the vaguely stale scent of wassail dregs and wilting pine. But on this particular Boxing Day, Lily was in high spirits, for her parents and sister were out for the afternoon, the kitchen smelled of ginger, and Severus had just arrived at her front door.
"Come on," she said, pulling his coat from around his shoulders before the door had even snapped shut on the dreary, grey afternoon. "I've got a surprise."
"What are you – hold on a sec –" Lily unwrapped the scarf from his neck and threw it over the stair bannister along with his long, tattered coat. "Hello to you too, Lily."
She paused in her endeavors to grin at him and then started down the corridor toward the kitchen, pulling his arm along behind her. "Hi Sev, hello hello, nice Christmas and all that, now come on!" The fact of the matter was, she was excited to tell him about his present. Pleasantries could be exchanged later.
She shouldered her way through the door that led to the kitchen and then spun around to watch his reaction as he entered the room behind her and surveyed their surroundings. The reaction, understandably, was a rather confused frown.
"What's the surprise?" he asked, his eyes lingering on the table full of baking supplies before darting around the rest of the room, clearly expecting something more exciting.
"Ginger biscuits!" said Lily. "The ones my mum makes that you like so much."
Severus frowned slightly and looked around again. "What about them?"
"We're going to bake some. You and me! It's my present to you, for Christmas, I mean. I thought we could spend the afternoon baking together, and then you could have the biscuits when we're finished."
She waited with bated breath for his reaction, some of her excitement ceding ground to her nerves. Truthfully, she had been hoping to get a bit of pocket money for Christmas with which to buy Severus's gift, but had received none. Spending time together with the promise of his favorite biscuits afterward, she reckoned, was her best option. Severus, though, stared at her as if she were completely mad.
"Baking?" he repeated, a strange look on his face. "Me and you?"
"It'll be fun!"
"Baking?"
"Yes!"
"Baking biscuits?"
She laughed and swatted his arm. "Yes, now stop that!"
He was still staring at her as though trying to determine how, exactly, she had sprung an extra head, but now there was a twinkle of amusement in his dark eyes and she thought he was trying to fight back a smile. "Lily, you are a rubbish cook. Must I remind you of the porridge incident of last summer?"
Lily bristled. "That wasn't my fault!"
"No one could get that burnt rock of porridge out of the bottom of the pot!"
"The instructions were unclear!"
"Your mum had to bin the entire thing and buy a new pot!"
"Yes, well…that's why you're here to help this time. Baking's rather like Potions, isn't it? So you and me working together ought to be great at it."
He started laughing now and it was such an authentic, happy, rare laugh that she couldn't help but join in. "All right," he said after a moment. "I'll try it. I have to say, food poisoning as a Christmas gift beats most of the other gifts I got this year…"
She smacked his arm again and ignored the bitter truth hidden under his sarcasm. "Stop taking the piss and let's get started, eh?"
But Severus didn't move from his spot by the door. "Where's your sister? And your dad?"
"Out," said Lily, smiling at the freedom of it. "Mum and Dad are having tea with old Mrs. Whitman and Petunia's got a new boyfriend she's visiting."
"Your sister's got a boyfriend?" Severus repeated, a rather disturbed look on his face.
"Disgusting, isn't it? He came round on Christmas Eve to try and brown-nose Mum, but I don't think it worked very much… Mum and Dad aren't very impressed with him. He was real smarmy. He's real skinny, too, and not much taller than she is, and Tuney is usually so judgmental about those things, but then I saw that he's got a car, so I think that's why she's seeing him."
"Yes, but why would he be seeing her?" Severus said, suddenly snide.
"What do you mean?"
"Your sister's a bitch, Lily."
"Severus! You can't say that!"
"Why not? It's true."
It was true, and Lily knew it, but that didn't mean that Severus was allowed to voice it. She glared at him. "Are you being rude so that I'll kick you out and you don't have to help me bake? Because it's not going to work."
He shrugged but seemed to recognize the look on her face and didn't press it. "I'll help you bake the stupid biscuits," he mumbled, his posture awkward and fidgety, "but first I…can I give you your gift?"
"You got me a gift?"
He nodded, not looking at her. "It's in my coat pocket. I'll go get it."
She watched as he disappeared through the swinging door into the hallway, taken aback by this turn of events. Aside from one time when he had brought her a few half-melted chocolates bundled in a napkin, he had never given her anything before, and she had certainly never expected anything from him. The assorted baking ingredients strewn across the kitchen table seemed shockingly pathetic all of a sudden. He returned a moment later with a small, thin parcel wrapped in newspaper, which he thrust into her hand with a gruff, "Sorry about the wrapping."
"That's all right." She stared down at the parcel, which was so light that she wondered whether there was anything at all hidden inside the newspaper. "You didn't have to get me anything, Sev."
"It's…well, it's not much."
"Thank you," she said, wishing he would meet her gaze.
"Go on and open it, then."
With delicate fingers, as if unwrapping a small injured animal, she pulled apart the newspaper to find a feather, smaller than most of the quills she used at school, but by far more beautiful than any she owned.
"Wow, Sev," she breathed, pulling the feather from the wrapping and turning it in her hand to inspect it more closely. It was a vibrant blue with flecks of gold that winked in the light. "It's wonderful!"
"I…I made it myself. It's a jobberknoll feather. They're really rare. I found it on the grounds and then I made some small transfigurations – the nib should be everlasting, it won't ever wear out. And I added the gold bits, but that was just a charm that I altered a bit, nothing too…too exciting…"
She smiled up at him, moved enough by the gesture that she was not even embarrassed by the prickling at the back of her eyes. "I think this is the most beautiful thing I've ever owned. Thank you, Severus."
He finally glanced quickly at her and then reddened and averted his eyes again. "Merlin, Lily, it's not a bloody tiara. It's just a quill…"
But it was more than that and they both knew it. The feather still in her hand, she closed the distance between them and hugged him gently. He remained stock-still, his arms hanging unsure at his sides, but she did not care.
"It's perfect," she told him in a quiet voice, the ends of his lank hair tickling the top of her arm. "Thank you."
At long last, he raised his arms and returned the hug, his body tense and his hand awkward as it patted her on the back. She pulled away after a moment and returned to the table, where she sat and smiled up at him. Everything about him seemed uncomfortable, disoriented, and he was once again avoiding her gaze.
"All right," she said, "let's get to baking. And now I'm going to feel like real rubbish if I accidentally poison you, so you've got to do most of the work."
The Bones family, it turned out, was enormous. When James had spoken of the Boneses coming over on Boxing Day, Sirius had assumed a handful of people for dinner, but the family that descended upon the Potter house throughout the afternoon could best be described as a mob, thirty people deep.
"…and that one's Amelia, with the short hair…and Francine, the blonde that looks a bit like a hawk there…and the tall one's Louise…they're sisters. Cousins, I think, of Stu and Eddie, and there's a brother too, Roger, but I don't see him…"
James and Sirius were sitting about halfway up the sweeping staircase in the foyer, watching the chaos of arrivals and attempting to abstain from the proceedings for as long as possible.
"That Louise is pretty fit," said Sirius, watching the statuesque brunette remove her cloak and hand it to Flora, who was now teetering under a stack of ten heavy, discarded cloaks.
James snorted. "Well she's a right prig. Wouldn't know a joke if it bit her on the nose. One time Stu swapped a singing saucer under her teacup and you would have thought he had put a dead mouse in her tea, the way she went on about it. Anyway, she's married to some big Ministry bloke…there he is…"
"James!" Mrs. Potter appeared at the bottom of the staircase, frowning up at them. "What are you two doing up there? Come down and say hello like a proper host."
"Be right there," said James, throwing Sirius a grimace and rising from his perch. Sirius followed him down the stairs and through the crowd, curious and slightly apprehensive as James greeted various Boneses and introduced Sirius with ease. His apprehension grew into a vague defensiveness when James moved to say hello to George and Abigail Bones, who were the only members of the family outside of Stuart that Sirius had ever met before and who, on their previous meeting over the summer, the boys had overheard speaking of their deep suspicions about Sirius and his last name.
"…sprouted up, haven't you?" old Mr. Bones was saying, his hand flat on the top of James's head as if trying to tamp down his unruly hair. "Your dad was small for his age, if I remember, but he always held his own in a duel, Fleamont did. I reckon you don't let the bigger lads give you much trouble, do you James?"
"No one gives me any trouble unless they want their lips transfigured into parsnips, Mr. Bones," said James with an innocent smile.
Mr. Bones gave a wheezy laugh and pulled his hand from James's head to pat him on the back. "That's the spirit."
"Don't encourage dueling, George," reprimanded Mrs. Bones, swooping in to plant a smacking kiss on James's cheek. "Hello, dear, good to see you of course."
"Hi Mrs. Bones," James said, sidestepping away from her and trying to wipe the red lipstick mark from his face. "Er, you remember my friend Sirius, don't you?"
"Nice to see you again," said Sirius, shaking both of their hands and doing his best to remember his manners. He was not particularly fond of George Bones after the conversation he had overheard, but he was certainly very fond of Mr. and Mrs. Potter and had decided to swallow any prideful inclinations to be rude to their friends.
"Ah, yes, the Black boy," said Mr. Bones, hanging onto Sirius's hand for a beat longer than was necessary. "Back again, I see."
"Yes, sir."
Mr. Bones seemed to be sizing him up and Sirius held his gaze with steely defiance. "You certainly do spend a lot of time here. I'd think you would want to see your own family over the holidays once in a while."
"Actually, I prefer to be near sane people over the holidays, when I've got the chance," said Sirius, unable to keep all of the bite out of his tone. Next to him, James sniggered.
"Sane people?" said an amused voice from behind them. Both Sirius and James turned to find Stuart Bones standing with another young wizard who Sirius didn't know. Stuart, whose hair had grown since he had left Hogwarts into a mop of brown curls that now grazed his shoulders, grinned at him and then cuffed James on the arm. "No idea what you're doing hanging round with James, then, mate. He's been off his rocker since he was in nappies."
"In fact," said the unknown wizard, who was stockier than Stuart and appeared to be a year or two older than him, "damned if I don't remember him stripping his nappies off and running round with them on his head."
James grinned at the pair, seemingly unfazed by the gibe. "Good to see you too, Eddie," he said, as George and Abigail were pulled into a conversation with other family members. "And damned if I don't remember your broomstick malfunctioning and me having to rescue you from the top of an old oak tree."
Eddie and Stuart both laughed. "Shit broom, that old Tinderblast was. Dad went and got his gold back the next day. Anyway, it was lucky for me you were such an ace flyer even as a six-year-old, James."
"Less lucky for you that he likes to remind you of his heroics once a year or so," Stuart said.
James laughed and then, as if just remembering that Sirius was standing next to him, said, "Oh, Sirius, this is Edgar Bones. Eddie, this is my friend Sirius Black."
Edgar Bones shook his hand with a pleasant enthusiasm. "Aye, I've heard of you. The Gryffindor Black, right?"
"That's right," said Sirius. "The one and only."
"There was a Black in my year at Hogwarts – Bellatrix?"
Sirius shivered dramatically. "Sadistic, stuck-up cow? Yeah, that's my cousin. Charmer, she is."
"My sympathies there," said Edgar. "That witch scared just about everyone in our year. Some of the professors, too, I reckon. Anyway, don't worry about our old granddad over there. He takes a while to come round. But me? I like you already."
Sirius gave him a wry smirk. "That's kind of you, knowing my cousin as you do."
"But you're a Gryffindor," said Edgar. "And I've never disliked a Gryffindor."
Stuart snorted back a laugh. "Oh yeah, Eddie? Does the name Thomas Chapman mean anything to you?"
Edgar rolled his eyes and let out a humph. "Chapman's no Gryffindor, I don't care which tower he slept in. No true Gryffindor would bring a Slytherin bit of skirt to a Quidditch victory party, I don't care how good looking Ellie Rowle was." He seemed to spot someone over James's shoulder and grimaced. "Bugger, there's Mum. C'mon Stu, we should head her off before she comes over here and starts berating us for not answering her owl this morning."
"Oi, sit next to us at dinner, won't you?" Stuart said to them as Edgar pulled him toward their mother. "The pair of you is bound to be more entertaining than the rest of this old group."
With assurances from both James and Sirius, the brothers disappeared. James was soon commandeered into a conversation with his father and one of the Bones uncles, and Sirius exchanged a few pleasantries with cousins whose names he had already forgotten before he slipped away unnoticed into the kitchen to see what Ant was up to.
Ant, it turned out, was busy preparing the feast to feed thirty people, though this did not seem to dampen his enthusiasm when Sirius sat down at the kitchen table to watch him work.
"Are you quite sure Ant can't get you anything, sir?" squeaked the tiny elf. "No juice? No tea? What about a quick roast beef sandwich to hold you over until dinner, sir? I can add just a taste of the gravy from the pot."
"Oh go on, then," said Sirius, and the elf glowed with excitement as he bustled to the stove to prepare the sandwich.
"It's been cooking for quite a while, sir, but you must tell Ant if it tastes – how do you say it? – up to snuff, sir!"
It was up to snuff. In fact, after Sirius devoured the first sandwich, he asked a beaming Ant for a second, aware in the back of his mind that he might be spoiling his dinner, but then with a laugh admitting to himself that he could probably eat four or five helpings and still be hungry for pudding. He had just finished licking the last bit of gravy off his fingers when the door to the kitchen swung open and Stuart Bones backed into it, his eyes darting around the hallway suspiciously as if checking for spies. With a relieved exhale, he closed the kitchen door, turned, saw Sirius, and let out a little yelp.
"Oh – sod it – sorry, Sirius, you startled me." He relaxed and then crossed the kitchen, throwing himself into the chair across from Sirius. "I thought you were my cousin Francine. She's been dogging me since I got here. Hey there, Ant! Been a while, mate."
"Can Ant get young Master Bones something to drink, sir? Or something to eat, sir?"
"Nah, don't mind me, I just came in here to hide – that is, if Sirius here doesn't mind the company?"
Sirius shook his head and shrugged at the older boy. "Why are you hiding from your cousin, then?"
"She won't leave me alone about this friend of hers who I, er, dated a while back. Thinks that just because I took the bird out once or twice that means we should be on our way to the bloody altar or some rubbish like that." He fished around in his pocket and extracted a half-empty pack of cigarettes. "You don't mind, do you?" Sirius shook his head again as Stu settled the cigarette between his lips and lit the end of it with his wand. "Want one? Wait –" He frowned around the cigarette and gave Sirius a dubious look. "How old are you again?"
"Fourteen," he answered, his eyes lingering on the ember that glowed red when Stuart inhaled.
"Fourteen," Stuart repeated, leaning backward in his chair and exhaling a spiral of smoke toward the ceiling. "Good age, fourteen. Had me a lot of firsts at fourteen. Anyway, want a fag? Only if Mrs. Potter catches us I'll claim you Imperiused me to get it."
The offered cigarette was a brisk reminder of being ten years old, forced awkwardly to visit the Avery house (as though his mother believed that surrounding him with other pureblood boys could make him buy into their prejudice, when in actuality it rendered the opposite effect) and Marshall Avery, his voice high-pitched and wavering at the time, showing Sirius the pack of Hiltons filched from his father's bedside table, the acrid taste of tar on his tongue as each boy tried to be tough in the gaze of the other.
He felt the urgent need to swat the cigarette out of Stuart's hand, but then shrugged and accepted it with casual fingers. This, this was his mother's just reward for the relentless attempts to indoctrinate him with the Avery family: a fourteen-year-old smoking a fag in the kitchen of a family she would undoubtedly despise, alongside a member of a different family she would undoubtedly despise. It felt poetic, he ruminated as Stuart leaned forward to light the end of the cigarette with his wand. Sirius inhaled and then gave a sharp, panicked set of coughs. To his credit, Stuart didn't laugh, but just slouched back in his chair with an easy, "Take it slow."
He concentrated on holding the smoke in his mouth and tried to ignore the burning sensation in his throat, but after a few more unsteady coughs, Sirius seemed to get the hang of it and tried to mimic the way Stuart's hand relaxed around the white paper as he raised it to his lips, the way he tilted his head back to exhale out of the side of mouth, the way he leaned over to ash the cigarette on Sirius's empty sandwich plate.
"Great place to hide, the kitchen," said Stuart after a minute of silent, contemplative drags. His eyes fondly surveyed the warm, massive room and Ant bustling away at the stove. "I've been coming in here to sneak a smoke since I was about your age, I reckon." As if remembering something, he waved his wand and vanished the smoke that was drifting around them.
"I'm not hiding," said Sirius, not knowing if this was entirely true. "I was just visiting Ant."
"Ah, well I am definitely hiding. Francine's been off her rocker about since she left Hogwarts. Though I guess I don't have much to complain about seeing as your cousin is Bellatrix Black." Sirius said nothing, though his tightened jaw must have given him away, for Stuart took another drag and continued. "I didn't know Bellatrix much, myself. Knew her sister, though, Andromeda. She was my year."
"Andromeda's not bad. She's the only one I get on with."
"Yeah? I haven't heard anything about her since we left school. What's she up to these days?"
"Married. With a baby."
"No shit? To who?"
"Ted Tonks."
"No shit." He took another drag and let the smoke roll out of his mouth in thin waves, apparently mulling this over. "Wait – Tonks – isn't he Muggle-born?"
Sirius coughed again and tried to play it off, though Stuart didn't even bat an eye. "Guess so," he said once his lungs were back in working order. "The family didn't like it, so Andromeda…well, she's not part of the family anymore."
"Merlin." Stuart waved his wand and vanished their smoke again. "Andromeda Black marrying a Muggle-born. Who would have thought? Brave of her, in this climate."
"This climate?" repeated Sirius.
"With the way things are going now. What with old Voldemort and his minions and all."
Sirius stared, his mind trying to break through the dizzy fog that buzzed about his brain. For one, he didn't want to come across as a dumb little kid who had no idea what Stuart was talking about and for another, he felt instinctively that he should be cautious in trying to glean more information.
"Voldemort?" he echoed.
Stuart waved a dismissive hand as if swatting at a pesky fly. "You Know Who. The Dark Lord. Whatever they want to call him, but I'm not scared of saying his bloody name, that's for sure."
"Right," said Sirius, the pieces clicking into place. The wizard his parents said would take over the Ministry. The one the Slytherins were recruiting for at Hogwarts. The one who wanted to dig up pureblood followers. A name, at last. "Me either. Voldemort." He paused, considering what Stuart had just told him. "Is Andromeda in danger?"
He shrugged, but Sirius got the impression it was an attempt at feigned casualness. "Nah. I doubt too many people even know she married Tonks. I was in her year and hadn't heard, so it can't be too well-known."
"My whole family knows," Sirius pointed out. "And we're not as massive as your family, but that's still a good chunk of purebloods."
A flash of something like worry crossed Stuart's face, but was snuffed out when he took a final puff of his dwindling cigarette and then snubbed it out on Sirius's sandwich plate. "She's a Black," he said simply. "It won't get so bad as to where anything could touch a Black. You've nothing to worry about."
"All right," said Sirius, contemplating his next question. "So…people know him? The…Voldemort bloke?"
Stuart looked at him sharply. "Know him? Know of him more like, but no, there's a lot of secrecy where he's concerned. The whispers of his name just started within the last year or so, though people are starting to shy away from saying it. Rumors are circling that it's cursed, but that's a load of rubbish, that is. Glad to hear you saying it."
"I'm not scared of some tosser pureblood who thinks he's royalty." Sirius mimicked the older boy and snubbed his butt out on the plate as well. "Sounds like he'd fit right in with the rest of my family."
With a final flick of his wand, Stuart vanished both the last curls of smoke and the remnants of the cigarettes from the plate. "The problem's not that he thinks he's royalty. The problem is the others who think he's royalty."
"Are there many of those people?"
"One's too many, isn't it?"
Sirius pondered this. "How do you know so much about it, anyway?"
"I've my ways," he said enigmatically. Then, suddenly, "Oi! Ant! When's dinner going to be served then?"
The tiny elf, who had been overseeing a large vat of potatoes which appeared to be mashing themselves, sprang to attention at the address. "Fifteen minutes, young Master Bones, sir. Can Ant get you something in the in-between time, sir?"
"Nah, thanks though," said Stu, standing and stretching with a sigh. "Best be getting back to make sure Eddie hasn't cursed Francine while I've been gone. Eddie's got himself a leggy blonde these days, but that doesn't mean Francine's not pestering him to go out with one of her hag friends. Eddie's a slow burn but if she bothers him enough, he'll start firing jinxes." He paused and then smirked. "Wouldn't want him to start a duel in the Potters' sitting room."
Sirius grinned at the image. "You sure about that?"
"No," Stu conceded, looking at Sirius conspiratorially out of the side of his eye, "but we wouldn't want to miss it if it came to pass, that's for sure. Let's go." He started toward the door to the kitchen and then stopped abruptly, pulling his wand out of his pocket once more. "Bugger, wait – here – Odvanesco." He circled his wand across Sirius's chest and then did the same to himself. "For the smoke," he explained at the look of questioning that Sirius shot him. "I've made that mistake enough times before to know the lecture from Mrs. Potter by heart. You're not ready for it yet, mate, believe me."
And with a wink, Stuart ambled out of the room, all long limbs and mop of hair. Sirius followed a few steps behind, his throat tickling and his stomach churning and his mind buzzing, but standing a bit taller in Stuart's shadow.
"No, hold on then – those ones there are too big, the dough's going to run together. You've got to make them more the size of…of a Sickle…"
Lily used her spoon to reapportion the size of the dough ball on the tray. "Better? How do you know all this, anyway?"
"It says right here in the instructions, Lily," said Severus with a note of impatience. Lily pulled a face at him.
"Well if someone had let us cut them into ginger men instead of boring old globby-balls, then I wouldn't have this problem, now would I?"
"I told you, if I'm just going to eat them anyway, why in the world would we waste our time cutting them into the shape of people?"
"Because we could've made a little Lily biscuit, and a little Sev biscuit, and the little Lily biscuit could have ripped the Sev biscuit's leg off because he's being a no-fun prat."
"People-shaped biscuits that don't actually move round or do anything…it's ridiculous."
"It's fun, Sev."
"It's my gift, Lily."
"Fine," she said, flicking a piece of dough at his face. "So tell me more about the new book you got."
"It's not new." He sent her a glare her as he wiped the goop from his cheek, but it was gone a second later. "It's secondhand – maybe thirdhand by the looks of it – and it's N.E.W.T. standard, so it's the text we'll start using in sixth year…"
Lily finished placing the last bit of dough and grinned up at him. "Only you would be excited to get a textbook for Christmas."
"…but it's got loads of information about Golpalott's First Law, which I need for the new idea I'm working on…"
"New idea? You didn't tell me you were working on something new. What is it, a potion?"
"Oh, er…" He pointed to the tray of dough balls distractedly. "Those need to bake now, right? Ten to twelve minutes, the instructions say."
"How do they look?" Lily asked, tilting her head as she examined the unbaked biscuits with a critical eye. "Do they look right to you?"
"They look fine. They look like dough."
"Shouldn't they be a lighter color? These seem a lot darker than when my mum bakes them."
"Maybe they're darkening with old age, as they've been sitting on that tray waiting to get baked for hours now."
"Shut it, it hasn't taken me that long. Now open the oven door for me, will you, before they fossilize."
The hot air from the oven bathed her face as she placed the tray gently on the rack, taking care to not burn her hand. It was only after she set the plastic, rooster-shaped kitchen timer that she took a moment to look around the small kitchen, her eyes lingering on the sugar that dusted her mother's old, creaky scales, the bits of dough that littered the table and the floor, even the smudge of flour that sat unnoticed on Severus's left wrist.
"Bugger," she said, sighing in defeat. "I suppose I have to tidy all this up now. Seeing as it's your gift and my house, it wouldn't be proper for me to ask you to help…"
She looked at him hopefully, but he simply sat down at the sullied kitchen table and gave her one of his patented 'I am not amused' looks. "If we were at my house, we could have it all washed up in a matter of minutes." He noticed the flour on his wrist and scrubbed at it as if it were a corrosive poison before adding as an afterthought, "As long as my mum and dad weren't around."
Not wanting him to see her eye-roll, she turned toward the sink and flipped on the tap to begin washing the mixing bowl. "I've told you before, even if your parents were out, and even if we ever went to your house, and even if I had my wand with me for some unknown reason, I'm not doing magic outside of school. It's not allowed and I don't care what you say, I don't want to be expelled."
"But that's just it, you wouldn't be expelled if you did it at my house. You would if you did magic here, because of the Trace, because only Muggles live here…"
"I live here. I'm not a Muggle, remember?"
"You know what I mean," he said quickly. "But a few spells at my house and the Ministry can't know it's not my mum doing them. Granted, she barely does magic ever, but that's only because of him… She's still a qualified witch…she's still allowed to do magic in her own house…"
Lily wrinkled her nose as she plunged her hands into the sudsy dishwater, disliking the feel of the slimy dough remnants against her skin. "You're not a qualified wizard, though, Sev, and I don't want you getting expelled either."
"I'm not going to get expelled. Avery and Mulciber do magic all the time outside of school…"
"Oh right, and if Avery and Mulciber do it, it must be a good idea. And besides, even if they were caught, you know they wouldn't be expelled…not with families like theirs. You and me, on the other hand…"
When Severus said nothing, she threw a pointed glance over her shoulder at him, but he was scowling at the floor. She supposed he didn't like her reminding him that he was not, in fact, so similar to the other boys in Slytherin. It was a blessing in her mind – if he were more like his housemates, the two of them would certainly not be best friends.
Refocusing on the washing up, she allowed the sound of the water to replace the need for conversation for several minutes before saying, "You didn't finish telling me about your new idea." He said nothing. "I guess it's a potion, then, if you need Golpalott's Laws to sort it out?" Still, no response. Lily set the newly-cleaned mixing bowl on the drying rack, flipped off the tap, and dried her hands on the tea towel as she turned to look at him.
"Earth to Sev? Best friend, here. Asking you a question. Would be having better luck chatting with this tea towel… Oi, Mr. Towel – oh, I can call you Tea? How lovely. Is it a potion you're making then, Tea? How's it coming along? What's it do?" When Severus only crossed his arms over his chest sullenly, Lily raised the pitch of her voice up an octave and moved her hand in the towel as if it had a mouth. "Why thank you for asking, Lily. Of course I'd be happy to tell you about my potion, only it's not going so well, since I have no hands with which to stir it, and no eyes with which to watch it, and no brain, no brain at all!"
At last, his stubbornness cracked and Severus let out an amused snort. She flicked the towel at him, brushing his neck with the corner of it. He flinched. "I wasn't supposed to tell anyone about the potion," he muttered at last.
"What do you mean, you weren't supposed to tell anyone? Says who?"
"Evan," mumbled Severus, staring fixedly at his own fingers.
"Evan?" Lily paused in wiping off the work surface to look up at him curiously. "Who's Ev – wait, Rosier? You're working on a potion for Evan Rosier?"
As though looking for something to distract him from the conversation, Severus stood up and began packing away the ingredients that were still strewn about the table. "It's not like that, it's just…we were talking one night and he mentioned something and I had an idea and I said I would look into it."
Not wanting to gape at him like an idiot, Lily turned her attention back to the flour-covered side. "All right," she said, searching for something to say that wasn't, 'You mean you're being friendly with someone who isn't me or Avery or Mulciber? It's about bloody time.' Instead, she said, "All right. Evan Rosier, huh? I didn't know you two were mates."
That was diplomatic enough, she reckoned.
Severus glanced up at her, but she kept her eyes casually fixed on the way the tea towel in her hand seemed to be doing nothing but moving the flour in broad circles across the worktop.
"I guess. It's not, you know, a big deal."
It was a strange pairing, Lily thought, though she would never tell Severus that. Evan Rosier, any reasonable person could attest, was the haughtiest, best looking, least cruel, and most normal of the Slytherin boys who Lily had come into contact with. He had never, at the very least, accosted her in the corridor or called her a Mudblood to her face. In the last few weeks before Christmas, he had also become the topic of quite a lot of Hogwarts gossip, having been seen on many occasions snogging Darlene Burke rather vigorously underneath the mistletoe.
"All right," Lily said for a third time, letting out a giggle that caused Severus to look at her curiously. "Could you tell me if it's a potion for lips chafed by too much snogging?"
Severus reddened and suddenly seemed very intent on closing the bag of sugar with the utmost precision. "You should see them in the common room," he mumbled. "It's disgusting, the way they thrash about together."
"Eurgh," Lily said, wincing at the mental image. "You'd think they'd want to find somewhere private at least. Who wants to see two thirteen-year-olds trying to swallow each other's faces?"
"Fourteen," Severus corrected.
"Hmm?"
"Fourteen. They're purebloods. They're fourteen."
Lily paused in the act of shaking the flour-laden towel out over the sink to look back at him, frowning. "What does being pureblood have to do with their age?"
"Oh you know… They say all the old pureblood families do what they can to time it so they have their children in autumn, so that the kids'll be older in the year than their classmates. They think it gives their kids a leg up to have extra time to develop magically before they start Hogwarts."
"You're joking."
He shook his head and went back to screwing the cap onto the cinnamon. "I'm not. We're lucky to be January, you and me. Wilkes is April. Mulciber and Avery like to take the piss about it whenever he does something overly daft."
Lily considered this new information with the same unpleasant lump in her stomach that she felt whenever she discovered some strange, twisted facet of pureblood culture. She thought of the pureblood Gryffindor birthdays she knew of – Adin was October, but Raeanne was February. Sirius Black, she seemed to recall, was sometime in autumn as well, though James Potter's birthday she thought was in the spring.
"It makes sense," Severus continued, only a slight note of annoyance to his voice. "Why wouldn't you try to give your kid an advantage if you can?"
"Right," she snapped, rolling her eyes. "Because being rich and pureblooded and being surrounded by magic from the day they were born and being able to do magic outside of school even though it's against the rules isn't enough. A few more months' worth of childhood development over the other kids really ought to do the trick!"
Severus said nothing, and Lily finished wiping the side down in silence, wishing she had not snapped at him. After all, the lunacy of the purebloods in his house was not his fault. An awkward discomfort hung in the air.
"So, the potion," she said in a half-joking tone, trying to bring the conversation back to a less bitter place. "If it's not a potion to make Rosier's lips baby soft or his breath minty fresh for all eternity, what is it then?"
"I can't tell you," replied Severus at once.
So much for less bitter. "Oh. All right."
"I told you I wasn't supposed to tell anyone."
Lily tried to hide her disappointment, reminding herself that it was good for Severus to have other friends. Especially other friends that weren't named Avery or Mulciber or Wilkes. "Okay then."
Perhaps he misheard her response as some sort of veiled, vehement argument though, because he became defensive at once. "It's not like you told me about that Babbling Beverage a few months ago," he said, closing the spice cupboard with a little more force than was necessary. "You went and did that all on your own with your mates, all top-secret like."
"I said okay, Sev. And are you still sore about that?"
"You weren't going to even tell me about it. I'm sure I only found out because James Potter snuck into your dormitory somehow and saw the cauldron…"
Lily fought back her rising irritation. "It was just a laugh, I told you before. And it wasn't even all that fun. We just sat around and chatted. You know, girl stuff. Nothing that would interest you."
Severus opened and closed his mouth a few times, as though trying to frame an argument in his head and coming up with nothing. At last, he said, "Well I can't tell you about my potion either. You know, boy stuff."
"All right," said Lily, losing her patience. "God, I said all right three times."
They stared at each other, both lost in their own stubbornness for a moment before Severus deflated and glanced at the oven. "Does it smell like something's burning to you?"
Lily, who had somehow forgotten entirely about the biscuits, sprang toward the little plastic rooster-shaped timer and saw that the dial was still set at ten minutes. "Oh sodding – it didn't ever start, the piece of rubbish, it never even began running." The rooster was dropped unceremoniously into the sink and began ticking as Lily jumped toward the oven and threw open the door. "How long do you think they've been in there?"
"Too long," said Severus, moving to her side to peer into the heat himself. "Those ones in the back look a little, er…well we should take them out."
There was nothing of it. Lily slumped down at the somewhat-clean table and buried her head in her arms with a moan as Severus pulled the tray from the oven and set it atop the stove.
"They're…they're all right," he said.
As her face was still pressed against her arms, Lily's response sounded something along the lines of, "Ngggroughffff."
"I mean," said Severus, inspecting one of the blackened biscuits with the tip of a spoon, "I quite like burnt biscuits."
"Tschhhhraaawnemay," said Lily.
Looking torn, he turned away from the tray and patted Lily awkwardly on the shoulder. She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. "I'll still eat them," he said. "I'm sure they'll be fine."
Lily gave him a watery laugh. "I'm sorry, Sev. You were right. I'm a rubbish cook."
"It's not your fault the stupid Muggle timer didn't work."
The smell of burnt ginger was becoming overpowering. Despite the dreary December cold, Lily stood to open the window above the sink, remaining there for a moment to let the fresh chill wash over her face before turning back toward him. "This was a terrible idea. I just gave you the worst Christmas gift you've ever gotten or ever will get for the rest of your life."
"Lily…"
"No. When you are old and wrinkly and your great-grandchild gives you a picture frame made of crusted bogeys, it will be a better gift than the one I've given you today."
"Don't say that…"
"And you gave me such a nice, beautiful quill…the most beautiful quill I've ever seen, and my clever idea was for the two of us to become Muggle bakers for the afternoon when I've never been able to cook anything in my life…"
"Lily…"
"I am a rubbish friend, Severus Snape. Throw me in the bin, drag me to the street, let the vultures peck out my eyeballs…"
"Lily!" he said loudly, laughing at her dramatics. She stopped her monologue and gave him a sheepish grin. "Yesterday my dad gave me an old, rolled-up TVTimes issue from six months ago. Yours isn't even the worst gift I've received this week."
"That's…that's awful," said Lily, caught off-guard by his laughter.
"Yeah," he shrugged, his laughter petering out. He plucked one of the burnt biscuits off of the tray and tossed it between his fingers a few times to cool it before taking a tentative bite. Lily watched as he pursed his lips and drew in a stream of cool air before chewing. There seemed to be more crunching going on than was usually necessary.
"Well?" she pressed, once the lump in his throat bobbed up and down to signal that he had swallowed and the look on his face had faded from full grimace to more of an anxious wince.
He seemed to be going through some sort of internal struggle with how to answer her. "It's not so…it's not so bad."
Now it was her turn to laugh, and though she tried to stifle it with her palm, it burst forth into the kitchen rather more loudly than she had anticipated. "You should…you should see your face! Hah! You look like someone's forced you to drink a Stinksap solution! Don't!" she shrieked, jumping toward him and smacking the rest of the biscuit out of his hand before he could take another bite. "Are you mad? Why would you eat more of that?"
"I don't know," he said, his eyes on the remains of the biscuit that had shattered on the tile floor like glass. "Er…are you all right?"
She wasn't certain if he was talking about the fact that she had just been dramatically teary or the fact that she was now giggling uncontrollably. Or perhaps it was the combination of the two.
"Yes, I'm fine!" she choked between laughs. "I should be asking you that. You're the one who…hah!…just risked life and limb to taste one of those monstrosities." She calmed her laughter and then said, overly seriously, "Are you feeling faint, Sev? Is your life flashing before your eyes? Do you want to tell me where your will and testament are stashed prior to your imminent demise?"
He chuckled as he bent down to pick up the many sharp pieces of biscuit that now littered the floor. "I don't think that'll be necessary." The charred pieces now in his hand, he straightened back up and gazed at them awkwardly. "What should I do with these?"
"Here." Using the wet tea towel as a buffer between her hand and the still-hot metal, Lily picked up the biscuit tray and held it out for him to deposit the pieces onto. Then she strode over to the bin and proceeded to dump the entire contents of the tray into it. When she turned back to him he was giving her a guilty, pitying look. "Sorry," she muttered. "I mean, about binning your Christmas present."
"It's for the best," Severus said, nodding sagely, his lips twitching. "Just do me a favor, all right?"
"Anything."
"For my birthday, maybe just ask the house elves to make me biscuits for you?"
From the depths of the sink, the plastic rooster dinged.
"…and so there I am, in the middle of the street in bloody Budapest, and Fenwick's disappeared to who knows where with his girl, and I've got nothing on but some trainers and the bath towel, and who should tap me on the shoulder?"
Edgar Bones threw triple knaves onto the table and looked up at James and Sirius, who were listening with avid attention. Next to his brother, Stuart was doubled up in laughter, his hand of cards pressed up against his torso as he held his quivering stomach. There was, James supposed, nothing to make him feel quite as special or quite as grown up as being allowed to play Arcana in the billiards room with the Bones brothers after dinner. Though for years he had been watching them play on Boxing Day, usually accompanied by cousins or uncles, he had never before been invited to participate. Now, though, he and Sirius sat around the square card table with Stuart and Edgar, throwing insufficient cards and listening to Edgar recount stories from his world travels.
"Who?" asked James at the same time Sirius gleefully answered, "The girl!"
"The girl!" roared both Edgar and Stuart, and even Edgar couldn't contain the breath of chuckles that fell forth from his mouth.
"From the night before?" pressed James, having almost entirely forgotten about the cards in his hand. "From the dragon training facility? The one with the birthmark?"
"Right you are. Size of a bloody giantess, she was, with these eyes that just…and these lips that just…" Apparently the virtues of her eyes and lips could not be adequately expressed in words, for Edgar clinched his face in what must have been some sort of vision of recalled ecstasy and didn't finish his thought. "Anyway, she taps me on the shoulder, holds out my wand to me, and says –" He put on an accent that he must have supposed sounded Hungarian, but in actuality ventured closer to French, "I haff found your waahnd. I beleeef it fell out from your tow-eel. Or, from somewheeer beneeef your tow-eel.'"
All three of Sirius, James, and Stuart burst into laughter. "'From somewheeer beneeef your tow-eel,'" Stuart repeated, wiping at his tears of mirth. "It gets me every time."
"So anyway," Edgar continued, once everyone had settled down and Sirius had played his hand, "I grabbed my wand, gave her a very grateful kiss –"
"Had to stand on the tips of his toes for that," laughed Stuart, nudging James.
"– and Apparated the hell away from there. Didn't see Fenwick again until we met up in Vienna the next week. And that's why I'm a wanted man in Budapest." He took a sip of the glass of firewhisky in front of him as Stuart threw a paltry low straight on the table. Smirking triumphantly, Edgar swiped the played cards and held up the lone card left in his hand for them to see. "And I believe, lads, that this means the last trick is mine," he said, throwing down the queen of spades.
"Oh not so fast," said Stuart, as both James and Sirius winced and threw down their inadequate eight of spades and ten of hearts, respectively. "I know your tricks all too well, Eddie – no pun intended – what with your picking the most opportune time to tell the Budapest story which you know always gets me laughing, but I am not so easily distracted."
With a flourish, Stuart revealed the queen of hearts, causing Edgar to groan in disbelief and Sirius and James to snigger at his gall.
"You jammy bastard, you were holding onto the Miss the entire round?" said Edgar, outraged.
"Indeed I was, big brother. Maybe next time you should pay more attention to the cards and less to your whimsical tales of traveling debauchery." With a wicked grin, Stuart plucked out the cigarette that had been tucked behind his ear during the round, barely poking out from his brown curls.
"You're not really going to smoke that in here?" asked Edgar, warily eyeing the cigarette as Stuart popped it between his lips.
"Those were our terms on the game, were they not? And seeing as my lovely Miss and I just kicked all of your arses from here to Budapest, I'm entitled to my smoke now."
The ice in Edgar's glass clinked harmonically as he took another swig and gave Stuart a disapproving look. "Just do us all a favor and vanish the smoke, then. You're a terrible influence, Stu, you know that?"
"And ever since you started dating Megan you've become an old, stodgy woman, Eddie, you know that?" said Stuart, lighting his cigarette with the tip of his wand and taking a long drag before winking at Sirius.
"I've an idea," said Sirius, pulling the pile of cards toward him and arranging them in a tight pile to shuffle, "for the wager on this round."
Edgar laughed and vanished the puff of smoke that his brother just expelled into the air. "All right, the Black's come to play. Let's hear it then."
Sirius grinned and flipped the deck of cards through his fingers, shuffling them thoroughly. From the sitting room down the hall, there was a great roar of laughter and all four of them froze for a moment as if caught in wrongdoing before turning back to their conversation.
"We'll take a page out of Stu's book, here," said Sirius, sharing a conspiratorial look with James and then nodding to the bottle of firewhisky that sat on the floor next to Edgar, "and if either James or I wins the round, you let us try some of that firewhisky."
Stuart snorted as Edgar slugged him in the shoulder. "What did I tell you? Terrible influence, you are."
"You're the one sucking down Ogden's over there like a three-Knut whore, you great hypocrite!"
"I think it's a brilliant idea," James said.
Edgar raised an eyebrow at him and crossed his arms over his chest. "Oh you do, do you? And what will we get if either Stu or I wins the round?"
James leaned back in his chair and tried to appear more confident than he felt when he said, "If you or Stu wins, then I won't pop into the sitting room afterward and tell my mum and your mum that you two have been corrupting us with firewhisky and fags and stories of giant Hungarian witches."
Stuart chuckled and Edgar let out a low whistle, eyeing James with skepticism or, perhaps, admiration. "Look at James, trying to blackmail us…"
"They grow up so fast…"
"All right," said Edgar, a bit of laughter slipping from his lips as though against his better intentions, "if you win we'll give you a few sips of the whisky, you little bastards, but I'll warn you now, it burns going down."
Nodding, Stuart exhaled a stream of curling smoke and then vanished it quickly. "And it burns more coming back up so, mind you, don't get sick."
Sirius grinned and began sliding the properly shuffled cards across the table to each of them in turn. "Deal," he said. "No pun intended."
"Terrible influences, we are," repeated Edgar, shaking his head.
"We never agreed to be role models, Eddie, it's just the burden we bear for being so interesting and charismatic and good looking…"
"And modest, you can't forget that…"
"Right you are, brother," said Stuart as Sirius finished dealing the hand. "If we teach you anything, lads, as your newly appointed and very influential role models, let it be the importance of modesty. The best method of exerting your brilliance is pretending to not be aware of it." He took a long drag, his lips pursed around the cigarette and his cheeks hollowed inward and then added, before even releasing the smoke, "Now let's get back to the cards before you all forget how bloody ace I am at Arcana, eh?"
They all laughed and played a few hands, commenting and ribbing one another here and there, before Sirius, whose mind was still on Edgar's Budapest story, asked, "Have you got any other good stories from your world travels, then, Eddie?"
"Many," said Edgar, discarding and rapping the table once with his knuckles so that Sirius threw him a new card from the deck, "but seeing how James here is blackmailing me with his knowledge of my sordid tales, I'll need to have a fair bit more firewhisky before I loosen my tongue again."
James swiped the trick from the table triumphantly. "No blackmailing necessary, Eddie, because there's no chance I don't win this round, just you wait."
"What about you, Stu?" Sirius continued. "Did you go on the Grand Tour when you finished Hogwarts too?"
"Not me." Stuart ashed his cigarette and stared at the cards in his hand a little too fervently to come off as completely casual. "Thought about it, but had other things to do round here, so my gallivanting abroad has been indefinitely postponed."
"Things to do?" asked James. "Like what?"
"Like chasing some skirt," added Edgar, and James was reminded forcefully of the way he and Sirius covered for one another when they were sidestepping the truth. "But that Kamana girl was worth it, surely."
"Like hell she was," Stuart muttered, throwing a pair of sixes down and swiping the trick. "High-maintenance bint she was. But I had other endeavors, didn't I? Couldn't turn down the lucrative opportunity to tend bar in London, could I?"
"It seems brilliant,"
"Tending bar in London? You and I have a very different definition of brilliant, mate."
"No, not that…the world tour after Hogwarts…you know they say Quidditch was invented in Japan – by Brits who got blown off course, of course – but I'd still like to go and see," said James. He looked at Sirius and raised his eyebrows. "What do you say? We finish school and go on the Grand Tour, you and me?"
"We should probably warn Japan now so they can start preparing," quipped Stuart.
"All right," shrugged Sirius as Edgar took the latest trick. "So long as we don't have to go to France."
"Amen to that," said Stuart and Edgar in unison.
James was feeling pretty confident about his chances to win the game when Sirius pulled the cards toward him to deal the last hand; as long as he was dealt the Miss, he'd get the win. They never found out who would have won that game, though, as Sirius had only dealt them each a few cards when a great flash of golden light exploded on the card table, leaving behind a small scroll of parchment and a long golden feather. They all gave cries of shock and pushed away from the table, Stuart and Edgar leaping to their feet.
"Shit…fuck…Fawkes…" breathed Stuart, who had burned his finger on his cigarette when he had leapt up and was now shaking his hand as if trying to fling the pain from it. "Now?"
"What's going on?" asked James, looking from one brother to the other in confusion.
Edgar ignored him and grabbed at the scroll, tapping it with his wand to unfurl it, his eyes flying over it as if trying to absorb the words instead of simply reading them.
"What's it say?" pressed Sirius, who was now, too, on his feet.
"Yeah, what is that? Who's it from?"
"Bristol," Edgar told Stuart, barely moving his lips as if doing so could block Sirius and James out of the conversation entirely. He looked back down at the parchment and then back up at his brother. "It's Orpington. Fuck. We've got to go. Now."
"You've got to go?" repeated James, incredulous, but no one paid him any attention at all.
Stuart was suddenly alert, his eyes wide, all traces of good humor vanished from his countenance. He stubbed what remained of his cigarette out on the table and vanished it in one fluid motion, straightening his shoulders and gazing at his brother with hesitance. "You all right to Apparate? How many of those have you–"
He glanced at the glass of firewhisky that was half-full and dripping condensation onto the card table. Edgar shook his head. "I'm fine. Not many. I'm fine."
"All right then," Stuart nodded. Edgar handed him the parchment, which Stuart looked at intensely for several moments, as if trying to memorize it. Then he straightened again and set the parchment on fire. It was a pile of ashes within seconds, and Stuart vanished that, too. "Ready?"
"Now hold on," said James, finally standing up like everyone else. "What the hell is going on?"
"James, look, we can't explain," said Stuart, acknowledging the younger boys for the first time since the mysterious feather and scroll had appeared. "We need you to be cool."
"Cool?" repeated James, dumbfounded.
"It's nothing to worry about," Edgar added, looking from James to Sirius with the utmost seriousness, "but we'll need you to cover for us with the old folks out there." He tilted his head toward the sitting room.
"Why? Where are you going?" James was now starting to get annoyed. "Why can't you tell us?"
"We'll…we'll explain later, mate," said Stuart. "But look, we don't have time to get caught up saying goodbyes. You two just…just tell them that Eddie wasn't feeling well and I took him home, and give them our regards, all right?" His eyes slid from James to Sirius, who was staring intently at him.
"All right," agreed Sirius. James spun toward his best friend, gawking at him.
"Good man. We'll explain later." Stuart said again, turning back to Edgar. "Let's go."
And without another glance, Edgar and Stuart turned on the spot and disappeared with a crack. The golden feather on the table vanished at the exact same moment.
"What's going on?" James asked Sirius, hoping he would have some sort of insight as to what had just transpired.
"No idea," said Sirius, as casual as ever. "Must have been important though. Look, we should go make their excuses and then claim we're turning in for the night, but first," he nodded toward the bottle of firewhisky, sitting forgotten on the floor by Edgar's vacated chair, and gave James a mischievous smile, "we should go stash that in your room."
James snorted, his confusion and concern over the Bones's sudden departure fading into excitement at the idea of trying some firewhisky. "Hullo," he said, leaning over to pluck the glass bottle off the floor. It was still more than half-full. "Not a terrible turn of events, I reckon."
"Plus," said Sirius, as they made toward the door to the room, "Stu gave me some good information earlier that I've got to tell you."
"Stu?"
"Yeah, when we were in the kitchen before dinner."
James tucked the bottle into his robes and crossed his arms over it awkwardly. "You were in the kitchen with Stu? That's where you disappeared to?"
Sirius grinned and lowered his voice to a whisper as they crept down the corridor toward the staircase, keeping out of sight of the sitting room where a large group of adults was still congregated. "Yep. We were sneaking a smoke."
"You were – he let you have a fag?"
"Keep it down," Sirius laughed while James goggled at him. They turned the corner and hurried up the stairs, not speaking again until they were hidden away in James's bedroom.
"I can't believe this," James muttered, stashing the bottle safely underneath his pillow and then turning to frown at Sirius. "You were off getting to smoke with Stu while I was having my cheeks pinched by his great auntie Anne. You lucky git."
"Look, let's go give their cover story and then come back here and I'll tell you all about it with the firewhisky, yeah?" When James gave a grudging nod, Sirius's grin only widened. "This has got to be the best Boxing Day in history."
James gave him a punch to the shoulder as they walked back out onto the upstairs landing, which, all in all, made him feel marginally better.
Something was not right.
Perhaps it was some sort of instinct or intuition that alerted him to this, or perhaps it was the fact that the clock on the wall showed three o'clock in the morning and all the lamps were still lit in his room, or perhaps it was that Sirius was asleep next to him on the bed, both of them having passed out on top of the bedding, but James knew that something was not right.
He sat up and scrubbed his eyes, peering around the room in blurry confusion before grabbing at the spectacles that poked out from underneath his pillow and shoving them onto his face. The bottle of Ogden's Old Firewhisky laid innocently between him and Sirius, and James stared at it, trying and failing to remember falling asleep. The amber liquid winked at him in the light and he noticed that – embarrassingly – the bottle was still half-full. He couldn't recall taking more than two sips of it before passing out and, based on the sight of his friend curled up and drooling on the bed next to him, Sirius hadn't lasted any longer than him.
"Sirius," James muttered, poking his arm none too gently. "Wake up, will you?"
Sirius responded by burying his head under one bent elbow.
"You fell asleep on my bed, you idiot, go get in your own bed."
Sirius swatted at the poking hand that was intruding so rudely on his slumber.
"Get up, you great –" James cut off and froze. There had been a loud thump downstairs, and now that he was listening with pricked ears, he could hear voices too. As if to ensure that he had read it correctly the first time, he looked at the clock again. 3:04 AM. "Sirius," he said, his voice low and urgent now.
The abrupt change in James's tone must have pulled Sirius out of his dreamland, for he opened one eye and squinted up at him. "What's wrong?"
"Do you hear that? There's people downstairs."
"It's probably your parents, still carrying on and having a good time with their mates."
"No – no way, there's no way. It's after three in the morning."
Sirius groaned and sat up, rubbing one hand over his face and frowning blearily at James. "So what, who do you think it is, then? Some sort of burglars?"
"Maybe," acknowledged James, pulling himself off the bed and digging clumsily through his school bag. When he straightened again, he was shaking out his silvery cloak. Sirius stared at him. "Come on, let's go check it out. Have you got your wand?"
With a yawn and a resigned nod, Sirius climbed off the bed and moved to join James, looking distinctly rumpled. "If it's burglars, they're not doing much of a job at being quiet, are they?" he grumbled as James threw the cloak over them both and they crept into the hall.
He had a point. The closer they got to the top of the stairs, the louder, more recognizable, and more panic-stricken the voices became.
"…and, God, they just came out of nowhere, dozens of them, and they had wards up…couldn't Apparate away if our lives depended on it…which they did…and Stu was caught up in the house…and…oh Merlin, oh Christ…if you die, you right bastard, I'll bloody kill you, you hear?"
"Is that…is that Edgar talking?" whispered Sirius, the pair of them pausing halfway down the staircase to look at each other in confusion and fear, almost.
"Did he say die?" James said, his ears suddenly feeling as if they had been plugged with cotton.
Sirius nudged him forward and they descended the remaining stairs as one, creeping across the foyer toward the sitting room, from where a warm, comforting voice floated familiarly toward them.
"He's not going to die. Do you hear me, Stuart, you are not going to die." It was James's mother, but she sounded different than usual. "Hand me that dittany, Fleamont… There we go, there's a good lad, Stuart. Edgar – Edgar – calm down, dear, and give him this potion. Tilt his head back, just like that…there we go…"
Forgetting that they were entirely invisible, they peered around the corner of the sitting room wall. Perhaps it was lucky that at that moment, Stuart Bones let out a low, piteous moan, for it masked the sound of James's gasp at the sight that was before them: Stuart, pale as death, lying prone in the shadow of the massive Christmas tree, with Edgar cradling his head and James's mother kneeling at his side, strumming her wand across his torso, where something was blossoming like a horrible, flattened summer bloom, it's tendrils leaking out across the rug toward the shoes of James's father, who was pacing. Blood. Lots of it. Too much of it. Ludicrous amounts of it pooled on the floor and streaked across Euphemia Potter's arms and saturating Edgar's robes. James swayed. He felt Sirius tense next to him.
"We've got to get him to St. Mungo's," James's father murmured, crouching down at Stuart's feet and holding them steady as if for something to do to occupy himself.
"We can't," Edgar cried. Even from across the room, James could see him shaking. "Like I said before, they know they got one of us. They'll be at St. Mungo's, waiting for someone to be brought in. I didn't know…I didn't know where to go…"
"He'll be all right," said James's mother, pausing in her ministrations to reach over and squeeze Edgar's hand. "The dittany's staunched the bleeding, he'll be all right. You did well, Edgar, getting him here."
"Hear that?" James almost crumpled in relief at the sound of Stuart's voice, as faint as it was. "I'll be fine, Eddie. You won't have to kill me for dying, after all."
"That's right, you'll be fine," James mother assured him, working her wand over the wound. "Only this was dark magic, I can tell. I'm not sure I'll be able to do much aesthetically…you'll have a scar, I'm afraid."
"That's all right, Mrs. Potter." Stuart's words were garbled together as if his mouth wasn't working completely, but there was still a habitual joking tone to them. "The birds'll love a scar…makes me more manly, yeah, Eddie? Are you crying on my head, you great prat?"
Edgar only sniffed and wiped at his face as James's father straightened again and resumed his pacing. "Matilda Orpington? She's…"
"Dead," Edgar confirmed, meeting Fleamont's gaze with red eyes. "Was dead when we got there, and there were others too. Maybe…five or six total? Caius Doge. I didn't recognize anyone else, but I didn't get a good look before they started attacking. They took the bodies…I…I don't know why they would, but they did…"
"And Voldemort?"
Voldemort. As though from a different life, James remembered Sirius telling him this name only a few hours before. They had not given it too much thought, more preoccupied with the way the firewhisky burned their throats and made them lightheaded.
"Gone," groaned Stuart from the floor. James's mother shushed him.
"Gone," repeated Edgar. "We thought maybe when…but no, it doesn't matter…he was gone a few minutes later."
James had had enough. Still outside the sitting room, he raised his eyebrows at Sirius, who gave him a one-shoulder shrug, and pulled the cloak from their heads. They did not waste another second before hurrying into the room and startling everyone.
"What's going on?" he said, staring from one surprised face to the next. "We heard you talking and Stu, oh Merlin…" The sight of the blood was much worse than it had been from the hall. Redder and thicker and more, somehow. James swayed again and his father moved toward them, clearly trying to block their view.
"Boys, now's not the time –"
James sidestepped him and moved toward his mother. The sleeves of her dressing gown were soaked through with blood. "What happened to Stu?"
"James, dear, go upstairs with your father," said his mother, clearly torn between moving toward her son and tending to her patient. "Stuart's going to be fine, all right? He's going to be fine."
"No," James said, defiant. He glanced at Sirius, who was frozen near the doorway, his eyes glued to the blood on the floor. "Stu looks like he's been ripped apart by a manticore and Eddie's here crying –"
"No, I'm not…"
"– and we heard you talking about Voldemort and that Orpington witch and bodies and we want to know what's going on!"
"James," said his father calmly, a heavy hand now on his shoulder, "Stuart will be just fine, and you've had a shock, but let the grown ups worry about it for now and…"
"No!" James said again, louder this time. He looked into his dad's familiar face, ready to scream or cry or hit something. There was smudge of blood on his cheek. James softened. "Dad, please…please just tell us what's going on. Please."
In the beat that followed, his parents exchanged a look that might have contained a lengthy conversation, for all its intensity. Edgar stood up and crossed his arms, his eyes still cast down at his brother, looking simultaneously much younger than his twenty-one years and like an old, beaten man. The room felt strangely small despite its vaulted ceiling and sprawling size. His eyes locked on his father, waiting for the rejection, the denial, the pacification, James formed his argument. Mainly, it centered around the fact that he was not a child. Nevertheless, he could smell the blood in the room. He was scared.
"All right," his father said at last, gravel in his voice. "Go to the kitchen, I'll be there in a few minutes and we can talk."
"But –"
"Go, James. Have Ant make you both a cup of tea and send Flora in here to help us. I'm going to help make Stuart more comfortable and then I'll meet you there, okay? All right, Sirius?"
Sirius swallowed and nodded, finally pulling his gaze away from the blood on the floor. "All right. Come on, James."
He did as he was told. It wasn't until Flora had hurried off to the sitting room and Ant had placed two steaming cups of tea on the kitchen table in front of them that they finally spoke.
"What the hell is going on?" James breathed.
Sirius shook his head, his face white, his eyes wide, but said nothing.
After a minute of silence, James, his voice cracking in a way that would have embarrassed him under different circumstances, said, "He's going to be okay. He'll be okay, right? Stu will?"
Something passed across Sirius's face. Resolve, maybe. He nodded automatically. "He'll be fine. Your mum's a good Healer. She said he'd be fine." Stubbornness, James realized, not resolve. It was as if Sirius was trying to will Stuart healthy with his own stubbornness.
"All right," James said, staring into his teacup, immensely grateful that Sirius was here beside him. That he was not alone.
After half an hour, the door that separated the kitchen from the corridor swung open and James's father walked in. He had, in the interim, pulled a dressing gown on over his blue pajamas, and James was relieved to note that there was no blood on him anymore, at least that they could see.
"Is he –"
"Stuart is going to be fine," his father said, lowering himself gingerly into the chair across from James and Sirius. "He's asleep upstairs, as is Edgar. Your mother has given them both a sleeping potion so that they'll be able to get some rest."
"What happened to him?"
"Thank you, Ant," he said, as the tiny elf set a third cup of tea in front of him. "Please go help Flora tidy up the sitting room, if you don't mind."
"Oh, yes sir, of course, right away, sir!"
James waited until the door had swung shut behind the elf before he pressed again. "Dad –"
"I only know what Edgar told us about what happened tonight, James, and he was in a right state, so I have only the bits and pieces." His father sighed and ran a hand through his white hair. "According to Edgar, he and Stuart left here early to meet Edgar's girlfriend and a few of her friends, though of course they asked you to lie for them and say that Edgar had fallen ill. It was unnecessary, as they are both full-grown wizards and may come and go as they please, but that is beyond the point." James exchanged a quick, confused glance with Sirius. He was pretty sure the feather and parchment that had appeared on the card table were not from any girlfriend. Why would Edgar lie about the lie?
"Apparently they were in Bristol," his father continued, "when they heard a commotion – screaming – and saw something in the sky that drew their attention, so they went to investigate. What they found was a house that was being used as a hideout for a group of Dark wizards."
"Led by him? By that madman? Voldemort?" Sirius asked
"Yes. It sounds as if Edgar and Stuart took some of them on, or maybe – I don't know – maybe they alerted Dumbledore first and then went in, it's unclear to me, but somehow they saw some…some bodies and then Stuart took a terrible curse to the stomach, which you saw, and eventually they made their way back here so that your mother could help him. I daresay if it had been much longer, he might not have…" He faded off, shifting to look at both of the boys closely.
"Dumbledore?" James asked. "What's Dumbledore got to do with anything?"
"Voldemort has been gaining power for the last several years. He's amassed a Dark and dangerous following. The Ministry has been turning a blind eye to the disappearances and violence. Dumbledore has not. He's spoken out against Voldemort, has even dueled with him a few times, from what I hear. People are beginning to say he's the only wizard Voldemort is afraid of."
"But…but I don't understand," said James. His insides felt as if they had turned to jelly and the cotton was back over his ears. "What's he want? This Voldemort bloke? Why would he kill people? I mean, what's he playing at?"
But it was Sirius who answered, not James's father. His voice was steel, his eyes stormy. "Muggle-borns. He hates Muggles and Muggle-borns."
"That's right," James's father said, meeting Sirius's hard gaze for a long moment before jerking his head in a nod. "He believes Muggles are lesser, and he believes Muggle-borns need to be…need to be weeded out of our world."
"Weeded out?" James repeated, horrified. "But that's absurd. That's…that's… I mean, people will do something. No one's going to just go along with that kind of rubbish."
"I hope you're right about that," his father said quietly. "I really do."
They fell into silence, each lost in his own distressed thoughts. James fidgeted with his teacup until he remembered he was supposed to drink it. He was cold. He hadn't realized until now how cold the house was. The Warming Charms from the day before had worn off and had not yet been recast for the following morning. He wished he had thought to drink his tea when it was hot. Beside him, Sirius sat frozen, staring into nothing. James thought he might be in some sort of shock. It was beyond rare to encounter a version of Sirius Black that was quiet and stationary. This only added to James's disturbed thoughts.
"I reckon it's time for you boys to get back to bed," said his father after a while. He seemed calm, wary, resigned. "It's very late – or early, I guess – and we've all had a bit too much excitement for one day."
"All right," James said, feeling too overwhelmed at the moment to continue the conversation anyway.
"Are you okay, Sirius?" James's father asked, surveying him with concern.
"Can we – can we ask…" Sirius fidgeted, meeting the man's eye and then looking away again. "I mean, tomorrow, can we ask more questions?"
"You may," he answered kindly. "I won't be able to answer them all, I'm sure. Much of this situation is a mystery to me as well. But you may both certainly ask."
Sirius nodded, swallowed hard.
"It's going to be all right, boys," said James's father as they all got to their feet. He put a warm hand on each of their shoulders. James fought the instinct to lean into him like a child. "These things will work out soon, I'm sure. Dark magic always burns itself out, in the end."
It occurred to James once he was cocooned back in his bed and unable to fall asleep, that there was something profoundly unsettling in realizing that for the very first time, he didn't believe the words coming out of his father's mouth.