Moonlight

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Marked

At the next Order meeting, Lily dropped a thick manila folder full of parchment documents onto the table for everyone to see. The folder was labeled, "Classified".

"I could get sacked for this, but I have to speak, despite my being an Unspeakable-in-training," she announced. "I have some information of grave importance concerning the Death Eaters and the Department of Mysteries."

The other Order members whispered and muttered amongst themselves. Remus, Sirius, Aurelia, James, Peter, and Dumbledore meanwhile watched her patiently and silently, waiting for her to continue once the side-conversations petered out.

"First of all, I have strong reason to suspect," Lily went on, flipping the folder open with her wand, "that Augustus Rookwood, one of the full Unspeakables there, is in fact a Death Eater, and is passing information from inside the Ministry itself to Voldemort." Ignoring the light frisson that went around the table amongst those still afraid to speak or hear the name of Voldemort, she added, "Also, more importantly, he is leading the Department's most recent project, which is nearly complete."

She caught Remus' eye, and Remus knew where this was heading. The project of which she was speaking was of course the construction of the Death Room. Surveying the members of the Order at large gathered there, Lily continued.

"The Department has been constructing a room called the Death Room, where, as you might have guessed, they plan to study the nature of death. To complete the project, they have the project leader--Augustus Rookwood--and his team out searching for the artifact they require in order to study it: the Gate of Death. And when I say the Gate of Death, I mean the Gate of Death."

Remus glanced around at his friends, who wore the same expression of awe as everyone else in the room wore, aside from Dumbledore, who continued to study Lily quite calmly.

"I believe," Lily concluded, flipping open more pages in the file with her wand, "that Rookwood is close to finding it: however, while I'm sure he plans to deliver it to the Ministry as promised, I have reason to believe that he will plan to try and use what information he gleans from it in Ministry work to aid Voldemort in dark deeds. Perhaps to build some mass-destruction weapon that can kill and slaughter in large numbers with one stroke. The situation here is critical."

Dumbledore nodded slowly. "I agree, Lily. I think it would be best then that you keep an eye on Rookwood and you and a few others ought to go and follow him when he goes to wherever he finds it, and corner him before he can take it to the Ministry. We need to expose him somehow, and get him caught red-handed in whatever it is he and his master are planning."

Lily nodded. It was then decided that Remus, James, Sirius, Aurelia, and Peter would be the ones to go with her. Then Aurelia said, "In fact, with my being an Auror, I could just bring him into custody once we have the evidence we need."

"Excellent," said Dumbledore. "Thank you, Aurelia. And you too, Lily."

Lily nodded, closed the folder, gathered it into her arms, and sat back down in her seat. But just as she did they heard a baby's cry from the drawing room. She smiled. "Sir," she said to Dumbledore, "I believe my son is hungry."

Dumbledore smiled too. "Indeed, I think so. You are excused."

"I'll fill you in," James whispered to her as she rose from her seat.

She thanked him and left to go and nurse the five-month-old Harry in the other room.

~

While lovers like Sirius and Aurelia, and the happily married Lily and James, were spending Valentine's Day morning over steaming cups of sweet hot chocolate, Remus was spending it buried in employment applications: filling them out, attaching copies of a cover letter and his resumé to each of them, and then sticking them in envelopes to be sent one-by-one by his owl, Blodeuwedd, currently having a well-earned rest in her cage in the kitchen. When he finished, he went to wake her up and have her deliver the first few, which were all going to commonplace locations. Then he sat in the kitchen and stared out the window with his own lonely cup of hot chocolate at the counter, waiting and daydreaming about all of the possibilities he might have had had he not been bitten by a werewolf.

He was sad that even Peter couldn't be around to visit him. This Valentine's Day, having no girlfriend anymore, he'd gone to spend the day with his mother, who was ill again.

When Blodeuwedd returned, Remus had the next stack of letters prepared for her to take, and gave her a treat for the road (and to compensate for all the mail he was having her deliver in one day).

Then he went to his father's old study and pulled out from the bookshelf a handful of both his father and his mother's books. He was in the middle of one of his father's, The Winter's Tale, a novel of classic wizarding literature, when Blodeuwedd returned to deliver the next batch of prepared letters. Over lunch he was reading through a book of his mother's full of classic Muggle poetry when Blodeuwedd returned for the very last few envelopes. Just like each time previous, Remus sent her off with a nice treat. When she returned, she had another treat, and then, he stroked her a bit while she perched on the back of a kitchen chair and allowed him to do so. While he was stroking her feathers affectionately, it struck Remus that Blodeuwedd was really getting on in years, and probably her time was almost up. The thought of that made him very sad. Blodeuwedd was the only living thing left from the time when his parents were alive and with him. When she died, he would not only be losing a faithful mail-carrier, but more of his parents too.

He spent the rest of the afternoon reading from the stack of his parents' books he'd pulled from the study bookshelf, warmed by the crackling fire in the fireplace. He continued to read while eating his little one-person dinner of a simple stew and a roll and a goblet of wine. After he'd eaten he washed his dishes, dried them, put them away, and returned to reading over a coffee.

At the moment he was now in the middle of reading one of his mother's favorite novels, a book by the 19th century Muggle author, Charles Dickens, called A Tale of Two Cities. He didn't know why he liked it so much come to think of it. He identified all too well with the character Sydney Carton, who held an unrequited love for Lucie Manette, who, even after she married her beloved Charles Darnay, offered poor Sydney her compassion, which brought tears to his eyes such as he had never shown anyone else before, and as it turned out, ended up sacrificing his life to save her husband's, by taking the hit for him at the guillotine (a sort of obsolete Muggle contraption used to execute people by way of chopping their heads off).

Pop!

Remus nearly dropped the book. He closed it and set it on the coffee table, peering over it to see--

"Lily?"

It was Lily's head in the fire, her hair matching perfectly with the flames....

He didn't like the serious look in her green eyes. "It's time," she said.

Remus knew what she meant and nodded his understanding. "Where are we meeting?" he asked.

She gave him the time and location. He said he would be there swiftly, and she thanked him before saying farewell. He said his farewell in return, and then after she popped out of sight, he extinguished the flames, and went to get his father's old Silver Arrow.

~

They flew under cover of night over vast lands, out beyond Britain, eastward, into mainland Europe, into the Transylvanian Alps, a part of the Carpathian mountain range. Lily was leading the party, tracking Rookwood and whoever was accompanying him all the way into a cave within the folds of the mountains. There they crept inside after Rookwood and his band. By the strange light of strange glowing white crystal stalagmites and stalactites from behind which Remus and his friends peered out, they recognized their quarries' faces. All of them were the faces of Death Eaters. There was Travers, Yaxley, the Carrows, another new recruit they'd only seen once before called Thorfinn Rowle, and Igor Karkaroff, who being from neighboring Bulgaria was probably able to really help Rookwood out in scaling the landscape for the large artifact they were now beholding, which for a moment Remus and his friends beheld themselves with incredible awe.

It was the Gate of Death.

There it was.

A magnificent stone archway built from the rock of the cave itself....

No wonder this cave was so particularly dark, and so particularly deep, for they'd had to go pretty deep down where it was very, very, very cold before they'd reached Rookwood and his Death Eater friends gathered here...yet at the same time, despite the dark, surrounded by these weird, brightly glowing crystalline lithic and dripping formations behind which they now hid....

With--was that a veil hanging in it...fluttering in the light breeze of the cave's draft...?

"...yeah, but how are we gonna move it?" asked Travers, his scratchety voice made echoey by the acoustics of the gallery.

"I don't know, Travers," said Rookwood scathingly. "Do you? Hmmmm?"

Amycus Carrow was curiously examining the great archway, and was about to take a step through the great big Veil--

"DON'T!" Rookwood half-screamed.

Amycus leapt back from the archway spastically, and stared in horror at Rookwood.

"You idiot!" Rookwood hissed. "This is the Gate of Death! The Gate of Death! When people die, their souls pass through this thing! What do you think'll happen if you, a living mortal, steps through its Veil? Hmmmm?"

"Erm, d-d-die?" Amycus croaked.

"Exactly!" Rookwood hit him upside the head.

"Ouch!"

"Then don't be stupid!"

"I say ve use Reductors and uproot it like a veed then schedule it for a Teleportation Charm of some sort," suggested Karkaroff.

"That's a start, Igor, a very good start," said Rookwood. "I think that'll work. Let me just pop back to the Ministry and set that up with the Department and you Igor will oversee this lot into blasting it from the rock. But be very careful. No falling in it. Wouldn't want to die now would we?" He laughed cruelly and gave Amycus a playful push that very nearly sent Amycus falling straight through the Veil.

Alecto gave Rookwood a resentful look behind his back but said nothing as she grabbed her shaken brother and shoved him back.

Rookwood stepped away from them, turned, and with a pop he Apparated. Igor meanwhile shouted orders, and the Carrows, Yaxley, Rowle, and Travers stood at a distance from the archway and hurled Reductors at its base.

Through the tumult, Remus felt Lily tap his shoulder. He looked over at her, and saw her beckon him to follow. Remus nodded, tapped Sirius, and showed him the same signal. When Sirius nodded, Remus turned and crept behind Lily along the rock. They were thankful for the sounds of blasting rock and loud bangs, because that covered the scraping sounds made by their feet as they made their way. With trepidation, Remus observed the archway tipping over. Karkaroff shouted a cry to the Carrows to keep it steady. The Carrows were at the ready. They kept it steady while the base of it was broken completely free from the cave rock by Yaxley's, Travers', and Rowle's Reductors. Finally Karkaroff shouted for them to stop.

At the same time, James and Lily shouted, "GOOOO!" and they hurled themselves out from the behind the rock, both of them brandishing their wands one-handed like the sword of Gryffindor. Remus, Sirius, Aurelia, and Peter followed fast at their heels, all of them raining spells on the unsuspecting Death Eaters.

The Death Eaters gave a cry of rage and rose to the challenge.

The hairs on the back of Remus' neck stood on end. He dived out of the way just as Alecto Carrow cackled, "Crucio!" and it turned the spot where he'd been standing into a smoking crater.

Impedimenta! Remus thought, hurling the jinx at Alecto.

Alecto flew backwards and hit the great wall of rock behind her. She slumped to the ground, but she was a tough one and got right back up. "Crucio!"

Remus dived and Alecto cackled again.

"What's the matter? Don't want to dance for me?" she taunted. "Crucio!"

Remus rolled over the ground, and had to crouch, covering his head with his arms to protect himself from the debris of the stalactite that crashed to the ground.

"Don't you know? Phoenixes don't like to dance!" her brother Amycus roared with laughter as he sent a Flagrate at Lily, which Lily managed to deflect with a flick of her wand and a cry of "Protego!" before the flames branded her with a great X across her chest.

But Remus didn't have time to be relieved. Alecto was advancing.

"I will make you like to dance then!" she howled. "Crucio!"

Remus took the hit this time. He was good at taking it, because the pain of his transformations was far worse than the pain of the Cruciatus. Not that much worse, but worse by comparison, and so to Remus, the pain was much less of a challenge to handle. It still made him quake and grit his teeth as he stood there, glaring at Alecto, who looked none too pleased that Remus wasn't writhing on the ground screaming his lungs out.

Remus pointed his wand, thinking through the pain, Rictusempra!

A jet of silver shot out of Remus' wand and hit Alecto in the stomach, not only lifting the Cruciatus off of him, but sending her doubling over and wheezing as she laughed breathlessly with the uncontrollable sensation that was caused by Remus' Tickling Charm. He straightened as she writhed on the floor, gasping and laughing raucously, stamping her feet on the ground, her eyes streaming, and he raised his wand. Petrificus Totalus!

Alecto seized up, and straightened out like a board. She became as stiff as a board too, and unable to move aside from roving her eyes.

A scream echoed off of the walls of the cave gallery, rising above the rest of the battle's tumult, as if demanding that all pay heed to it. Remus turned and looked just in time to see--

Aurelia, eyes wide with desperate fear, her golden hair flailing as she was--

Falling.

Through the archway.

Through the Veil--

"AURELIA!" Lily screamed and ran forward, but Peter, having just dealt with Karkaroff who was Petrified like Alecto and Amycus, grabbed her by the arm and held her back.

She wasn't the only one who screamed Aurelia's name.

"AURELIA!" Sirius ran towards the archway just as the Veil swallowed Aurelia and she disappeared completely behind it, the flutter of it the only indication that she had fallen through.

Remus saw James grab Sirius around the chest to try and keep him from diving in after her to his own death. "Sirius! Sirius! Stop it! It's too late!"

"No!" Sirius shouted as he struggled. "No, it's not! Let me go, James! I have to get her! I have to save her!"

"Let her go, mate! She's gone!" James was having a harder time keeping Sirius' locked in his grasp.

Remus ran at a sprint, hoping he got to them in time--

"No she's not!" Sirius hollered. "She's only just gone through! I've got to get her back!"

He shoved at James again and was almost free of him--

Remus reached them at last and grabbed Sirius around the chest too. "Sirius! Listen to James!" he yelled. "There's nothing you can do!"

"Shut up, Remus!" Sirius roared, his voice cracking up as he kicked at them. "Both of you! Just shut up and let go of me!--Aurelia! Aurelia!--Let go! I've got to get her back!"

But Remus and James held fast, their heels digging into the rock as they rooted themselves to the spot with all of their might. It was difficult though, as Sirius was jarring them both violently in his struggle to get away. Remus' arms were starting hurt, but he didn't care. All that mattered was that Sirius didn't go getting himself killed diving into the archway.

Sirius tried to raise his arms to punch James and Remus with his fist, while still kicking at them too. He tried to wriggle out of his long, black dragon-skin overcoat.

"She can't come back, Sirius!" James exclaimed windedly. "She can't come back because she's d--"

"SHE IS NOT DEAD, JAMES!--AURELIA! AURELIA! COME BACK! AURELIA!"

Meanwhile, Travers, with whom Remus gathered Aurelia had been dueling before she somehow took some ill-fated misstep that caused her to fall through the Veil in the first place, stood there near the archway, laughing cruelly and rounding up his comrades. Before they knew it, they all pointed their wands at the archway, sending it disappearing to its destination in the Death Room at the Department of Mysteries....

"I'LL KILL YOU, YOU BASTARD!" Sirius screamed at Travers. At last he managed to break free: he shoved Remus and James aside altogether, sending them both falling over onto their backsides. As Remus felt the pain shoot through his tailbone upon hitting the hard rock ground, he watched Sirius race up the rise of rock towards Travers, his wand raised.

"Crucio!"

Sirius' voice was not the only one that cried that incantation. Lily had as well. Previously she had been crumpled on her knees, choking back tears, but now she'd leapt to her feet, the desire to avenge the woman who had meant so much to her, whom she'd loved as a sister, burning as a green fire in her eyes as she followed Sirius up the rise of rock towards Travers, Peter groping and shouting after her. But Travers laughed and turned, shouting for his comrades to grab the fallen and follow, and with a pop!--

He was gone.

Then with more pops, they were all gone. Every last one of those Death Eaters got away.

Lily fell to her hands and knees, nearly losing her wand from her grip as a wave of sobs overwhelmed her. James leapt to his feet and ran over to her. He crouched beside her and pulled her shaking form into his arms. He rocked her gently, and whispered softly into her dark red hair.

Remus rose to his feet, almost entranced by Sirius, who had dropped to his knees in the very spot where Travers had been standing a mere moment ago. Cautiously Remus approached him, Peter even more so. When Remus reached him, he could see that he was trembling terribly, looking down at his wand in his hands lying limp in his lap.

"Sirius?" Remus said, his voice barely a breath of sound. He found that he was trembling a little himself.

Sirius raised his head slowly to gaze up at Remus with handsome grey eyes so desolate and lost and bright with grief.

Remus bowed his head. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

"She's gone..." said Sirius, his tone hollow and hoarse.

Remus felt Peter beside him, but Peter was quite silent.

"She was going...to be my wife..." Sirius croaked tightly. "My wife...."

Somehow, Remus, James, and Peter managed to coax and drag Sirius and Lily to their feet and bring the five of them back to headquarters at Elphias' mansion to give their report. It just so happened that Dumbledore was there speaking with Hagrid in the dining room about something, as Elphias led the battle-worn quintet in to see him. While Remus and Peter, and James holding Lily to him in one arm, stood before Dumbledore, who looked up at them from his conversation with Hagrid, Sirius stood off to the side instead, his grey eyes dark and stormy.

Dumbledore gazed at Sirius the longest. The two of them locked eyes, and for a fleeting moment, Remus thought that Sirius was going to fly at Dumbledore and wrap his hands around the older wizard's throat and squeeze--

"Sirius, yeh a'righ'?" Hagrid asked, peering at Sirius, his eyes crinkling.

Sirius did not answer him.

"Rubeus, will you excuse us a moment?" Dumbledore requested, still staring at Sirius.

"A'right, sir," grumbled Hagrid, lumbering to get up and then squeezing awkwardly (after a few moments of struggle) out through the door. There was a crack as the frame of the door broke, and Dumbledore pointed his wand without looking at it and repaired it. Then, at long last, he tore his eyes away from Sirius' and asked them: "What happened?"

Lily was the one to explain. She did not crack up, but there were tears still gliding down her beautiful face, as she informed Dumbledore that not only had they failed to lay hold of Rookwood's Death Eater cronies to expose Rookwood as a Death Eater to the Ministry, but also of how they had lost their dear friend--the dearest, most sisterly friend of Lily's--and Sirius' beloved fiancée, Aurelia Vega. When she finished, Dumbledore seemed, for the first time in Remus' eyes, uncertain of what to say. He looked between Lily and Sirius.

"I am sorry for your loss," he said at last. "Truly I am." He looked down at his hands gnarled with age. Slowly, as if with a great effort, he rose to his feet, surveyed them all, opened his mouth, closed it, and then swept from the room, gathering the scrolls he'd been going over with Hagrid into his arms as he did so.

When he'd gone, Sirius rounded on the others at once, James and Remus in particular.

"Why'd you do that, eh?!" he exploded at them. "Why'd you have to hold me back?!"

Remus opened his mouth but James beat him to it.

"To save your bleedin' neck, that's why!" he yelled. "To save you from being stupid and diving in after her! You realize you'd have died too if you'd have gone in after her?!"

"Yeah! So?! D'you think I'd have cared, James?! If it weren't for you and Remus, I'd be with her again right now!" Sirius kicked over a nearby chair and Remus, James, Lily, and Peter had to step aside as it crashed down onto the bit of floor where they'd once been standing with a loud thud.

"Sirius," Lily said, "I'm angry too, but you've--" Her voice broke "--you've got to think about Harry!"

"Yeah! Harry!" James asserted. "Our son! Remember him? You're his godfather! If something happens to me and Lily--if you're not there either--who's gonna look after him, eh? Lily's so-called 'sister'? Petunia?"

"Because Peter and I couldn't take care of Harry," Remus pointed out calmly. "I'm a werewolf which automatically denies me the right to take care of non-werewolf children without myself being married to a non-werewolf and--"

"And I've got my poor mother whose health is waning by the day to worry about," added Peter.

"Exactly!" said Lily.

"But Lily at least you've got a lover's shoulder to cry your eyes out on!" Sirius sneered, gesturing to James.

"Don't talk to her like that!" James shouted.

"Well, James, who've I got? Whose shoulder have I got to cry my eyes out on? Eh? No one! Aurelia is dead, and if she was here to give me a shoulder to cry on, I wouldn't need it, because she'd be HERE!"

Sirius seized a crystal goblet half-filled with water sitting quietly on the table, and hurled it at James. Lily shrieked and James dived out of the way. The goblet hit the wall behind him instead, where it burst into fragments of jagged broken glass and water in all directions.

"Sirius!" Lily snapped.

"Have you gone completely mad?" James demanded.

"You're not even trying to understand!" Sirius screwed up his face and spoke in a mock-whine. "'Oh what about Harry? Don't do anything stupid, Sirius, because we want you here even if you don't want to be!' I don't give a damn! And none of you are giving a fuck about how I'm--how I'm--" He grabbed his head in his hands and pulled at his hair, and half-whimpered, half-growled, struggling to find the right words.

He stared at James.

James stared back.

Slowly Sirius released the locks of his hair.

There was a tense pause. And then--

Sirius gave a roar of rage of and leapt at James. James threw up his arms to try and hold Sirius off. They both toppled right over a chair which fell to the ground with them. For a moment, Remus could only watch in horror as James and Sirius grappled on the floor, Sirius clawing at James' face, and James smacking at him in defense, shouting for him stop--

Lily was shouting at them to stop too, and was pulling out her wand.

Remus and Peter took up this cue, and pulled out their wands as well, so that the three of them shouted, "Protego!", directing the charm at Sirius and James. The Shield blossomed between them and threw them backwards in opposite directions, away from each other. James hit the back of his head against the wall, and Sirius hit the back of his head against the leg of the dining table. Both lay sprawled and panting on the dining room's Persian rug.

Lily went over to James and helped him to his feet, asking him if he was alright. And then they heard what sounded like the whimper of a wounded dog, and they all looked to see Sirius slowly sitting up and crying weakly.

Remus felt a lump rise in his throat. He'd never seen Sirius like this, had never seen him cry before.

"Oh...oh Sirius...." Lily tried not to start crying again herself.

"I'm sorry..." Sirius croaked. "James, I'm sorry...I'm so sorry...."

"Hey...don't--It's...alright, Sirius," said James, going to his friend.

"It's all my fault...all my fault...."

"No, it's not...it's not." James knelt down beside him, trying to make his voice sound strong, but Remus detected the betraying tremor on the second "not".

"There was nothing you could've done," he said, joining James in kneeling with Sirius. "There was nothing any of us could've done...."

Sirius grabbed onto the edge of the table and tried to pull himself up, but he stumbled because he was shaking so badly. James and Remus each took an arm and helped Sirius to his feet while Sirius' breath came in soft gasps he tried to choke back sobs. He sniffed and thanked them for their assistance. He inhaled deeply and tremulously, and held his head high, though there was no mistaking the bright glisten in his grey eyes. The first step he seemed like he was going to trip over his own two feet, but he held himself together. In a way he kind of half-stumbled to the door, where he twisted the knob, and wrenched it open.

"Sirius," James said quietly.

Sirius glanced over his shoulder, and put on a slight and quavery smile that Remus supposed was intended to be brave. "I just need some time alone," he said in a voice that was hoarse yet soft. "I--I'll be out in the garden...if you need me...." His smile faded instantly from his young and handsome face etched so terribly with grief. He looked away, blinking furiously, before stepping out of the room and closing the door gently behind him.

The rest of the friends stood in absolute silence. Remus bowed his head and tried to suppress, to not acknowledge--not just yet--the stirrings of his own grief for this tragedy that had come upon them.

James was the one to break the silence. "C'mon," he said, gesturing to the spilled water and shards of broken glass from the crystal goblet, and the toppled chairs. "Let's...clear this up."

~

Remus was right next to the door, leaning against the wall with his head tipped back and his eyes closed. He could feel Lily crouched on the floor beside him with her own back up against the wall. He knew Peter to be right across from her, slumped down on the floor and probably picking at the carpet hairs.

They were all listening to James and Sirius' heated discourse inside Sirius' South London flat.

"...me alone, James...don't understand...."

"...worried about you. We all are...been letting yourself go...."

"...if I have? Eh? What's the point...keeping yourself healthy...the point of bathing? You're just going to get dirty...what about eating...you're just going to keep getting hungry...?"

"Sirius, stop it! I mean it! You're starting to scare me. You're starting to scare Lily, and Remus, and Peter and everyone else in the Order too."

"What? Oh, for crying out loud, why can't the lot of you just leave me the fuck alone?"

"Sirius--"

"Shut up! Unless you can tell me a way that I can bring Aurelia back from the dead, I don't want to hear you fucking speak!"

"I can't take it anymore," said Lily.

Remus' eyes flew open, feeling Lily leap to her feet. He pressed closer to the wall to give her room to sweep past him and wrench the door open.

"Sirius Black!" she scolded, storming inside.

Remus glanced at Peter, who was indeed picking at carpet hairs. Remus shrugged and followed Lily. Peter, not wanting to be left behind, as usual, followed Remus, closing the door behind him.

It was the first time any of them had seen Sirius in a matter of weeks. And the sight wasn't quite as bad as Remus had imagined it, though he knew Aurelia would not have wanted to see Sirius like this regardless.

He had started up smoking wizarding (wormwood, not tobacco) cigarettes again, so the scene before them in the sitting room was a thin haze of smoke, and reeked with the stench of it too. Sirius meanwhile, in the middle of smoking one, was on his feet. But at the entrance of Lily, Remus, and Peter, he hunkered back down on the sofa and leaned over his ashtray on the coffee table. He was dreadfully unshaven, with a very dark five o'clock shadow (Sirius always kept a bit of stubble because it made him look cool, in his opinion, but this was extreme even for him, because it was already starting to look more like a beard and less like a stubble). His hair was also a bit longer, shaggier, and in need of a trim, and there were dark circles under his eyes like the ones Remus had right after each full moon transformation. Next to Sirius' ashtray on the coffee table, Remus also spotted an opened bottle of butterbeer, and beside that, a bottle of firewhiskey and a shot glass, which for the moment was empty, but Remus saw the faint dregs of the last shot on the bottom.

Sirius scowled at them all and took another drag on his half-finished cigarette. When he blew out the smoke and tapped a bit of the ash into the ashtray, he asked acidly, "What is this? A bloody intervention?"

"It's a damn good thing I didn't bring Harry to see you," Lily growled, folding her arms. "He's crawling now, and I'll bet he'd love to see you, but you're in no state to see him--unless you want his lungs smoked with this poison!" She gestured erratically at the smoke surrounding them, which she then proceeded to wave about with her hands, trying to get some of it away from her breathing space.

"Where is Harry then, if you didn't bring him?" Sirius grunted.

"Oswald and Augusta Longbottom are looking after him," replied Lily. "They're also looking after their grandson, Neville, as Alice and Frank are at work at the moment--to which I hear you haven't been since we last saw you weeks ago!"

"That's because I quit!" Sirius snapped.

"What?" Lily rounded on James.

James looked down at his feet and shuffled them.

"Did you know about this?" Lily demanded of him.

"I didn't want to make a big deal out of it," James answered quietly. "He just wants to be left alone. We should just...let him be."

Cautiously, Remus took a seat on the arm of the sofa. "Sirius."

"What?" Sirius demanded, not looking up at Remus as he sipped again on his cigarette.

"You can't let this ruin your life."

"Watch me."

"Would Aurelia want to watch you?"

"Don't you talk about her!" Sirius raised his stormy grey eyes to Remus, shaking his cigarette at him threateningly. Some of the ash on the end fell off and sprinkled Remus' increasingly threadbare robes, but he simply brushed it off onto the carpet.

"Sirius," said James.

"WHAT?" Sirius snarled with the cigarette balanced in his teeth.

"Remus is.... Remus is right. It'd break her heart to see you like this. Is that what you want?"

"Does it matter? Her heart's no longer beating anyway."

"But what if wherever she is now, she could see you? See you like this?"

Sirius glared at James, whipped the cigarette out of his mouth, and moved his jaw as though struggling to speak. He stamped his cigarette out in his ashtray, his eyes never leaving James', and then he reached over to where the rest of the pack lay next to the butterbeer bottle. He made to pull out another cigarette, and stopped midway. He stared at the pack. Remus leaned over and saw the desolation in his friend's face roughened a little by lack of shaving for practically an entire month.

He moaned and reached up to cradle his head in his hands while he leaned his elbows on his knees. "We couldn't even have a funeral for her..." he whimpered. "There wasn't a--a body and...."

Remus glanced about the room, and though his eyes stung and watered a bit from the smoke, he managed to make out what he hadn't took the time to notice before: Aurelia's things were still there from when she'd moved back in with Sirius--and they seemed to be left exactly as they had been when the two of them had left to go fight the fight in which she was killed about a month ago. All of her favorite albums of wizarding bands stacked with Sirius' collection, as well as her magazines, and a couple shirts of hers hung over the back of a chair.

He glanced at Peter, and then at James and Lily. Then he looked at Sirius again. Sirius was still hunched over with his head in his hands, white and trembling.

James went around the coffee table and sat down next to him on the sofa. Draped his arm around Sirius' shoulders. Sirius relaxed and leaned into his shoulder a bit while James pulled him a little closer.

"Look, it's going to be a totally shit time, okay? But you're making it more of one than it has to be by doing this stuff to yourself."

"I know...but...what do I do?" Sirius' hoarse voice was so soft they could just barely hear him.

"Get a grip for a start," said Lily, in a way that was almost half chuckled and half cried. Though she smiled, Remus could hear the tears in her voice. He could even see them glistening there in her pretty green eyes.

He felt Sirius looking at him, and he met his gaze with a sad smile of his own. "Yeah. She's right, you know, Sirius. People hate sissies."

Sirius seemed to try to laugh, but it came out a dry sob instead. There was no hiding the feeble upward tug at the corner of his mouth though as he tried to smile too. He made the same sound when Peter added, "I should know: I'm a sissy."

"You are not," said Lily, her voice cracking with laughter.

Remus reached over and ruffled Peter's hair. Peter averted his eyes bashfully.

After a pause, James said, "Look, Sirius, if anything, no one's ever going to shag you if you cry all the time, mate!" giving Sirius a gentle shake.

And out of Sirius tumbled a series of laughs and dry sobs as to bring tears to all of their eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At some point Ted marked his spot, closed the journal and tucked it inside his bathrobe pocket before gently adjusting Victoire in his arms and drifting off to sleep. He dreamed of her in many abstract fantasies, and was sad when the dreams ended and he was once again with the darkness behind his eyelids.

Only now it was not so dark. Instead of black, it was now a deep brownish orange.

Then something jabbed him in the shoulder.

Then again.

And again.

And again.

Someone was poking him--

"Cut it out..." he muttered, blinking his eyes open to see the window filled with the faint grey light of dawn. He heard a snigger, yawned and turned away from the window to see Rodger leaning against the back of a chair fully dressed in his school robes--and a smirk.

Victoire stirred in Ted's arms with a wide smile on her face and opened her eyes. At the sight of Rodger standing there smirking at them, her jaw dropped and her brows came together.

"Rodger!"

"So this is how it is now?" Rodger teased, gesturing towards them there lying in each other's arms on the common room window seat.

"Rodger, grow up, it's not like that, nothing happened," Ted grumbled as Victoire and he pulled away from each other and struggled to sit up.

"I'm only poking fun," said Rodger innocently.

Ted sighed, but he managed a grin. "I know you are. Vic, cut him a little slack. It's Rodger, remember?"

Victoire ran a hand through her flaming red hair slightly mussed up from sleep, though Ted did not care. Even like this, all bleary and somewhat disgruntled, he appreciated her beauty.

"I suppose I ca-a-an forgive you...Rodger," said Victoire, stifling a yawn. "Where's Cecilia?"

"She's still sleeping," said Rodger rather softly. He caressed the back of the chair against which he was leaning with his index finger. "I just thought I'd get up since I was having trouble getting back to sleep anyway. Breakfast's in half an hour though."

"Good, that'll give me another half-hour of sleep myself," said Victoire with satisfaction. She rose, dropped a kiss on Ted's forehead--which Ted returned with a kiss on her cheek--and then she made her way, gracefully despite her grogginess, to the girls' stairs and up the steps to the fourth year girls' dormitory.

~

That evening they had an excellent Quidditch practice, and their captain Morgan Wood was actually ecstatic about the following day's match. Even Ted had managed to stay on top of his game all throughout their drills and practice matches.

Afterwards, outside the locker rooms, Victoire and Cecelia were waiting for Ted and Rodger, respectively. Rodger went ahead of Ted with Cecilia, taking her arm and walking with her up the slope to the castle. Then Ted obligingly did the same with Victoire, giving her a kiss on her cheek, which she returned with a little a kiss on his jaw. Both of them smiling and swelling with happiness inside, they followed the rest of the Gryffindor team and Cecilia, walking hand in hand over the grassy, darkening school lawns.

"Do you remember when we were little, and we'd play at each other's houses?" Victoire asked almost tentatively.

Ted thought a moment. Before he'd had a crush on her, he of course already knew her as a childhood playmate. They had not just played at each other's houses, but had also been the prime makers of light-hearted mischief during a few weddings, most prominently at the wedding of Ted's godfather Harry and Victoire's Aunt Ginny, as well as the wedding of Victoire's Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione.

"I do remember that," he said softly. "God that seems so long ago though...."

Victoire let go of his hand and wrapped her arms around his arm, leaning her head on his shoulder. "Yes, it does seem awfully long ago...."

When Ted had been about eight or nine and Victoire about six or seven, they had lost touch because Victoire and her family actually left England for a couple of years to live in France with her mother Fleur's family, the Delacours, where her Aunt Gabrielle was just about finishing her schooling at Beauxbatons Academy of Magic. And then when they came back, Ted was starting Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and didn't see Victoire for most of the year, and by then Ted had become friends with Rodger, and at that age was more interested in spending time with his best male friend as opposed to his best female friend. Then of course, Victoire didn't mind playing with her siblings instead whenever Ted couldn't play. So by the time Victoire started Hogwarts too, Ted was already in third year, and they had become rather estranged from each other.

That is until one day in fourth year, when Ted looked at second-year Victoire and couldn't help but notice how wonderfully red her hair was...how pretty her chocolate brown eyes were....

"I'm sorry I wanted to spend more time with Rodger than with you when you got back from France," he said suddenly.

There was a pause, in which Ted was, for some reason, waiting tensely for Victoire to rip her arm away as the recollection became clear to her.

To his surprise, that was not what happened.

She nuzzled him reassuringly as they ambled across the grounds. "That's okay."

"You're not mad?"

"Why should I be? That was ages ago. We were kids. You became friends with Rodger, and I made new friends of my own here too." She leaned up and kissed his cheek, but in so doing, knocked them both off balance and they fell to the ground, with Victoire on top of Ted.

They looked at her each other.

"Are you okay?" Ted asked her.

"Yeah," Victoire whispered, her face glowing in the dark. Ted detected a smile in her voice.

Ted smiled too.

Then both of them laughed out loud.

"I love you," Ted chuckled, cupping her face in his hands.

"I love you too," whispered Victoire.

Ted felt a surge of sheer joy bubble up inside him, and he dropped a grateful kiss on her forehead before helping her up to her feet.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As time passed, Sirius cleaned himself up, and with a little wheedling from James, managed to get his job back at the Ministry. He quit smoking (again), shaved his face, and he went through Aurelia's things at their flat too. Yet there was dark brooding that clung to him, one which Remus could not define. But it worried him some.

Sirius was not quite the same as before, but Remus hoped that the black cloud of grief which still hung over him would clear up with more time. Then they started getting reports that Voldemort had recruited a few family members of his own victims into his ranks, and he done so not by torturing them or scaring them into it, but by tempting them into it--hitting them at what he considered their weakest point: their love for the ones they had lost by his hand. He offered them the fantasy that if they joined him, they could work together to bring their loved ones back from the dead, and surprisingly, some people were so delusional with grief and longing that they bought into it. Upon receiving this news at one of their Order meetings, Remus couldn't help but notice with an indefinable lurch in his stomach that Sirius' ears pricked up--at the idea of bringing the dead back to life, that is.

He didn't want to touch that, however. So Remus didn't say anything about the fleeting, almost hopeful gleam he thought he saw in Sirius' grey eyes worn with bereavement for his beloved Aurelia's untimely death.

In the meantime, the friends watched as James and Lily's young son grew from age seven-and-a-half months to nine months, where he crawled around in between their legs whenever they got together. A couple of times he and baby Neville Longbottom were both brought to the Order meetings so that their mothers could look after them--especially since now they were at the age where they dreaded being separated from their mothers for too long. After the meetings the Potters, the Longbottoms, and Remus, Sirius, and Peter would go into the drawing room and talk while they sat around in chairs, Sirius lounging as ever in the chaise-long, and all through this Harry and Neville would be sitting up all on their own in the middle of the floor, playing with magic blocks, babbling as if conversing with each other in their own private universe, dressed in baby overall shorts and a t-shirt. Harry had one that had a Snitch on it.

Interestingly, they appeared to get tired at about the same time. Harry would yawn and rub his little eye with his fist, and Neville would rub his too. They'd both roll over onto their hands and knees and crawl over to their own mothers, and Lily and Alice would find one of their shins serving as places for their sons to rest their sleepy heads.

That meant that it was time to pack up and go home.

Peter always had to leave straightaway then to see his poor mother, who according to him was getting really sick. But sometimes after he left along with the Potters and Longbottoms, Sirius might decide to lay on the chaise-long for a small while more before mustering the energy to go home himself, and Remus would stay with him. They never talked about Aurelia, or anything worldly or substantial. They stuck to light topics wherever they could find them, and then they too would go their separate ways: Sirius to his London flat, and Remus to his country cottage.

All the while, both Harry and Neville continued to grow. March had gone, and April and May had passed, and Remus kept himself busy with applying for jobs and Order work. Once or twice, he and James and Peter had to "put a leash on" Sirius, who occasionally had suicidal tendencies resurface during the very heat of battle. After a particularly nasty battle involving Death Eaters and Inferi, Remus, Sirius, James, Lily, Alice, Frank, and Peter, who were all on the mission together, managed to escape with their lives. It was the middle of June, and they decided that the next day--which they had off--they would celebrate the fact that they were alive to see another day. So they gathered at Frank and Alice's cottage for a summer dinner party (though Peter unfortunately could not attend because of something that came up with his ailing mother), where they laughed and talked (even Sirius managed it), ate and drank, and watched baby Harry and Neville at their play, now 10 ½ months old each.

This party was particularly memorable not only for the reason they were celebrating, but because Neville and Harry both said their first words (aside from "Ma" and "Da").

First it was Neville, who spotted a toad sitting on the windowsill of the kitchen window, which was open in the first place to allow the summer breeze in (but of course there were protective wards on the window regardless of whether it was open or closed). In any case, while sitting on the kitchen floor with Harry, both of them dressed in their little overalls, playing with pots and utensils Alice wasn't using, Neville looked up at the toad's croak, pointed and said, "Toad!"

He shouted so loudly that the toad was frightened and leapt off the sill and into the front garden outside. But Alice saw it happen, and clapped her hands excitedly while Neville kept yelling, "Toad!" over and over, presumably to make the toad reappear. While everyone else was praising Neville, Neville was completely unaware of his achievement, and kept yelling "Toad!" Harry was oblivious too, finding more interest in jangling Alice's set of measuring spoons.

Later, when Harry was creeping up a chair and about to creep and crawl right up onto the table where the food was laid out, Lily caught him and said "No-no, Harry." Harry's face broke into a fountain of tears and a great wail streamed out of his small mouth. He did not yet understand why he couldn't go explore where he wanted.

Lily scooped her crying son up into her arms and tried to distract him from what he'd wanted to do. But then Harry just got too caught up in crying and cried harder--and no manner of gentle dandling seemed to help.

James then had an idea, and he asked Lily to sit Harry down on the floor in the sitting room. While Neville was looking at a magical pop-up book (to pop-ups moved around, and weren't just flimsy cardboard, like Muggle ones) as he sat in Frank's lap, everyone else was quite aware of Harry's bawling.

"What're you going to try and do?" Sirius asked over the din.

"Hang on!" said James.

"How did this all start?" Remus asked.

"I told him not to climb onto the table," said Lily rather exasperatedly as she set the sobbing Harry on the floor.

"I think he's just caught up in crying though now," Frank observed.

"'Caught up'?" Sirius queried.

But before Frank could answer, James asked them to quiet down a moment while he took out his wand. Then he pointed it straight up at the ceiling, and muttered something which Remus couldn't hear over Harry's wailing. Then puffs of different-colored smoke erupted from the end of James' wand.

"Harry!" he coaxed. "Harry, look! Look, Harry! Look at what I've made here! Harry! Harry, look!"

Eventually Harry looked up from his hands, his face red and tears gushing from his green eyes. But when he caught sight of the colored smoke, a smile spread across his face, and he began trying to catch the smoke in his little hands, and clapped and laughed when James made the smoke puff out again.

"Magic!" Harry cried suddenly and excitedly. "Magic!"

The room gave a collective gasp.

"Did you hear that, James?" Lily practically squealed with delight.

Apparently James had noticed, because for a moment he paused in producing the pretty lights for Harry's amusement.

"I did," he laughed. "Your first word, Harry! My son said his first word!"

He set aside his wand, rose to his feet, picked Harry up, and spun him around, which made Harry laugh even harder as he shouted, "Magic! Magic! Magic!"

"Well done, Harry!" Sirius cheered. "And well done, Neville too!"

"They're smart ones," chuckled Remus. "They'll go far...." For a moment he thought of the time he and his father talked about when he himself had been a baby...how he had learned to do everything quite early, from smiling to laughing, talking, crawling, and walking...even in showing signs of magic to indicate that he'd turned out a half-blood wizard rather than a half-Squib. As he recalled this memory, he felt that old pang he got from missing his parents, and missing Ramirus too, wishing he could have found him, kept him safe....

"Remus! Yoo-hoo!"

Remus blinked and looked to see a mildly grinning Sirius dandling a laughing Harry on his knee. "W-What?" he said, rather dazedly.

Sirius shook his head, stopped dandling Harry, and held him up to Remus. "Your turn," he announced.

Remus rolled his eyes, and took Harry in his arms for a moment, dandling him the way he used to dandle Ramirus. "You're going to go real far, kiddo," he said with a light smile, even as Harry began poking his face exploratatively with his tiny fingers. "With parents like yours, there's no doubt about that."

~

October was particularly chilly that year. But Remus and his friends, through their continued work for the Order, and in watching young Harry and Neville grow--which heightened their determination to fight for a safer world--they made the best of the frostbitten air that signaled, in Remus' view, an early snow.

Harry and Neville seemed to keep people's spirits up with their innocence too, watching as Harry and Neville both accomplished standing up on their own two feet while clinging onto something. Pretty soon they'd be able to stand all on their own....

Even Sirius was managing to hold himself up a little better, and the darkness lifted some from his aura, which was much to Remus' secret relief, though he still didn't know why he ought to feel relieved in the first place. Peter as well was managing to get through it, despite the failing health of his mother, which seemed to worry him constantly now, because nowadays he couldn't seem to hide it. Every time Remus looked at him, he saw Peter's watery grey eyes hooded with shadows, and he was far quieter around their friends than normal. He hardly said anything much to them anymore, except in answers to questions about his mother, which always seemed to make Peter tremble a bit when he gave his replies.

This was why one night in late October, Lily wished to invite him over to her and James' house in Godric's Hollow for dinner, along with Remus and Sirius. Luckily they all got there in their turn before a big huge thunderstorm hit. One crack of thunder was so particularly loud that poor Peter jumped and squealed, shooting up a foot into the air off of his seat in the sitting room.

"Wormy, it's okay," James reassured their quaking friend. "It's just thunder."

"What's the matter?" asked Lily, who had a spatula in her hand. She was in the middle of making a roast, and Remus caught the aroma from the kitchen, and his mouth watered. He smacked his lips and took a sip of his wine.

"Peter got frightened by that crack of thunder," said Sirius, slouched in an armchair with his stocking feet propped up on an ottoman.

As the rumbling thunder settled, they distinguished a loud crying coming from upstairs.

"Oh dear, I think it woke up Harry," said Lily. She handed James the spatula. "Hold onto this for me?" She flashed him a smile and disappeared from the room. They heard the pounding of her feet as she went upstairs to see to the frightened baby Harry in his crib.

James stared after her a moment, a rather dreamy expression on his face. Remus leaned back in his chair, drinking in the sound of the rain outside--a sound he had always loved to listen to. They all seemed to be taking solace in it, the sound of the rain, the four Marauders sitting in tranquil silence.

Then there came a loud knock at the door, which made Peter jump again.

"Peter," James laughed and shook his head.

"Just the thunder," said Peter, more to himself than to anyone else, Remus suspected. "Just thunder...."

"I'll get the door," said James, rising to his feet. He took the spatula with him.

Sirius watched him go and then asked Remus and Peter, "Why'd he take the spatula?"

Remus shrugged. "Lily told him to hold onto it."

Sirius chortled, "Sometimes he acts like he did in school when they were dating. Poor lovesick fool he is, let me tell you." He traced the rim of his own wine goblet with his forefinger. As he stared down into the goblet, Remus imagined that he was thinking of his beloved Aurelia dead and gone.

He sighed and faintly listened to the sound of the security exchange at the door, and then heard the sound of it being opened and closed as someone wet was ushered inside from the storm.

He nearly jumped like Peter when their unexpected guest walked into the sitting room.

It was Dumbledore.

"Sir!" Peter squeaked, half-dropping his own goblet of wine.

Sirius looked around, and he jerked in surprise as well at seeing the Hogwarts headmaster standing there in James and Lily's sitting room.

"Good evening, Sirius, Remus, Peter," Dumbledore greeted them kindly. He was all dried off, which suggested that while James had taken his cloak he had performed a Hot Air Charm on himself to get the rainwater out quickly.

Remus, Sirius, and Peter returned the greeting, though somewhat numbly.

They heard Lily come down the stairs, and she entered the sitting room with Harry in his feet pajamas balanced on her hip. Harry meanwhile was shaking a Snitch rattle in his hand, no longer crying, but completely absorbed in shaking the rattle and hearing the sound.

"Albus!" said Lily upon seeing him. "I--This is unexpected. Good evening, how are you?"

"Not quite so grim as this storm," said Dumbledore with an enigmatic smile. Remus found his answer evasive but he did not press the matter. "And you?"

"We're alright, aren't we Harry?" said Lily, smiling at her son.

Harry shook the rattle and laughed. Then he tossed it aside and wrapped his arms around her neck, burying his face in her shoulder. "Ma," he said with a contented smile on his face.

"Harry," Lily said softly, and kissed his hair.

Dumbledore smiled as he observed the child. Then he surveyed the adults in the room and said, "I have an urgent matter to discuss concerning the Potters." He peered at James over the rim of his half-moon spectacles.

"Very well," said James slowly. "Erm...well, we're just about to sit down to dinner. Would you...care to join us?"

"Yes, I think that would be best, thank you," said Dumbledore with a courteous nod. "I realize that I've come--" He chortled "--on rather short notice...."

"Not at all, not at all," said Lily, going over to James and handing Harry to him. "Would you get Harry in his chair while I serve?" she asked him.

"Certainly," said James, giving Lily a quick kiss on the cheek before allowing her to brush past him and Dumbledore.

Harry reached after her, whimpering and grunting. At one year and approximately 3 months old, he often got upset now whenever he was separated from his mother.

Meanwhile, Remus, Sirius, and Peter took this cue to go into the little dining room and take their seats. An extra place was set between Remus and Lily for Dumbledore, and they all sat down together, with Harry in his high-chair at the corner of the table where he sat with his parents. On Remus' other side sat Peter, and then Sirius sat between Peter and James, right across from Remus.

Throughout the meal, the friends were waiting for Dumbledore to bring up the "urgent matter" he wished to discuss with them. But Dumbledore kept steering the conversation towards light-hearted topics, which the rest of them followed only because they knew they ought not press him to get on with what he needed to inform them of. Apart from that, Remus found this setting rather odd. The only time he'd ever eaten a meal in the same room as Albus Dumbledore was in the Great Hall at Hogwarts when Remus had gone there as a student. He found it strange to have his old headmaster sitting there right next to him eating roast and vegetables and potatoes with them at the Potters' dining table.

After they finished dinner, Lily whisked the plates away and then served them all little dishes of apple tart for dessert, and that was when Dumbledore saw fit to discuss the reason he had come to their house.

He picked at his tart a moment, clearing his throat, and as he did so, Remus caught a glimpse of the regular old human being that Albus Dumbledore was, the regular old human being that often hid behind the greatness and power that people normally saw when they encountered him.

Without taking a bite, he set his fork aside, all eyes on him, aside from Harry's--he was already busily digging into his tart with his hands. The wise old wizard leaned towards the Potters, his chin resting on his knuckles, looking both James and Lily straight in their faces, and said to them, "It would seem that Voldemort has you marked for death."

At the word "death", there was another earth-shaking clap of thunder, where Peter screamed and half-choked on his bite of tart.