Syzygy

SYZYGY.

A DARK FIC.

CHAPTER FIVE.

There was a pounding sound at the door.

Lily looked at James sharply.

"We're not expecting visitors," she began, sounding a little uncertain of this fact.

"Not for a while, at any rate," James said. Another bolt of lightning flashed across the valley, and thunder sounded, resonating off the mountains, very close by indeed. Peter covered his ears. He looked very uneasy.

"I'd better go see," Lily said. She detached Harry's grasping fingers from around her skirt and scooped the struggling baby off the floor.

James stood up, and crossed the room to the doorway. Lily brushed past him and opened the front door.

Two people were standing on the step, wrapped tightly in heavy, black travelling cloaks. They were silhouetted by a sudden flash of lightning.

"Can we come in?"

"We know we're early - but we weren't kept nearly as long in Polegate as we thought ..."

"We're bona fide guests ... we've even brought our own baby."

James held up the candle he was holding.

"Oh, thank Christ," he said.

"Power off?" Frank Longbottom asked.

Lily was already bustling around the little family. "You'd all better come in," she said. "Heavens above! Don't tell me you came in the MG! In this weather!"

Anne Longbottom shrugged out of her travelling cloak. The baby, Neville, was held tightly in a baby carrier, strapped across her front. He was asleep.

"It looked like good weather when we left," Frank was saying, as his shivering, fingers struggled with the dripping metal fastenings on his cloak. "I didn't think we'd need the roof, so I took it off and left it at home."

James took their cloaks, and went to hang them up in the hall cupboard. "Learned your lesson, then," he said, as he closed the door. Sirius and Peter had appeared in the doorway to the sitting room.

"Hi!"

"Sirius, hello!"

"'lo."

"Peter, Sirius," Anne nodded greetings.

"Anybody want a glass of wine?" Lily asked. "We were going to have a picnic outside in the back garden for the boys, but it seems slightly irrelevant, what with this rain ..."

"Picunik!" Harry gurgled, lunging for his mother's hair again.

"Why don't you come through?" Lily said, deftly flicking her auburn hair out of Harry's way.

"They're positively lethal at that age, aren't they?" Anne observed. Lily smiled.

"Ooh, just you wait!" Sirius taunted. "They'll be teenagers soon ..."

Lily shuddered. "Yes, James seems intent on turning this one into some Quidditch mad sports freak," she ruffled Harry's hair. Harry pretended not to notice. "At least they won't have that bloody Marauder's Map!"

"Not if I had anything to do with it," James snarled under his breath. "Bloody Filch ..."

"Fucking wanker," Sirius agreed. "You've still got the cloak, though?"

James nodded. "I think it's upstairs somewhere ..." his voice trailed off as another booming volley of thunder echoed like cannon.

"We've still not finished unpacking," Lily said, as they all trooped through into the kitchen. Peter had his wand out and was lighting candles, before levitating them to a point somewhere up near the ceiling, where they started bobbing up and down.

James set to uncorking a new bottle of wine. Frank and Anne took seats at the vast, teak dining table, and Anne, sighing with relief, began to undo Neville's fastenings.

"So," Lily said, setting Harry down on the tiled floor. "How've things been?"

"So so," Frank said. "I've been away a lot the last couple of weeks. There's been increased Death Eater activity up and down the country. It's really quite scary, isn't it dear?"

"He always sends me an owl, don't you, my little cuddlypuddles?" Anne cooed, putting a hand on his forearm and cradling Neville, who was still asleep, in her other arm.

"Whenever I can find one, squelchyplops," Frank replied.

James, out of sight, turned to Sirius, who was stifling a giggle, and mouthed, 'squelchyplops?' incredulously.

Wine sloshed into the glasses. Harry got to his feet, and toddled off somewhere. Nobody noticed him go.

"Has Dumbledore been pressing for you to perform Fidelius and go into hiding?" James asked conversationally, passing the glasses around. Neville stirred feverishly in his mother's arms.

"I have to admit, he seems bloody unconcerned about us," Frank said. "But then we're not as vital as you guys ..."

"Don't say that!" Lily cut in.

"No, no bitterness intended," Frank said hastily. "He may have mentioned it a couple of times, but I think if it comes to the crunch, we'll just have to take our chances. Did you hear what He did to Octavian Malfoy?"

"That Slytherin kid with the bad hair and the personal hygiene problem?"

Neville looked owlishly around the room. "Exactly the chap," Frank said. "He was about three years below us, wasn't he?"

Lily sipped her wine. "I honestly don't recall that well," she said. "I think I gave him a detention once, though. For being an insufferable little git."

"They only found his left leg," said Frank. "The entire house was blown to smithereens and his fiancée was found wandering around the woods nearby ... lost her memory ... thought she was a Patagonian hopping aardvark ..."

"This wasn't in the Prophet," Lily exclaimed.

"Well, would you expect it to be?" Peter asked. "Bloody horrible, that's what I call it."

"The fiancée said she was raped, too," Frank said. "Just goes to show. He's no respecter of family ties. Octavian was Lucius Malfoy's second cousin."

"Lucius?"

"The Butcher of Dartmoor," Lily said, elbowing James in the ribs. "You know ... Dark Mark, ten bodies found near Hay Tor. No evidence, of course."

"The Courts simply couldn't convict," Frank said. "Of course, they reckon Malfoy pulled a few strings and got a bent judge. Money will get you everything these days ..."

"Oh bollocks!" James exclaimed, apropos of nothing. "Where the fuck has Harry gone?"

***

Remus, being a sensible sort of chap, had put himself straight to bed upon arriving back at his dingy flat. He changed out of his clothes, pulled on his pyjama bottoms and gathered the duvet tight up around him. He felt very cold and very sick, and his stomach growled angrily.

Within five minutes he was asleep.

He was standing in a graveyard - he thought it looked like the graveyard at Godric's Hollow, but it had been so long since he'd visited James and Lily, that he could no longer be really sure. It was pouring with rain, and he was wearing some kind of Muggle jacket, bright red with all sorts of funny tags and little accoutrements.

There were two people standing next to him. One of them had bright red hair, and he was saying something that Remus could not quite understand. The strange vision faded away, and he awoke in a cold sweat.

The duvet was lying on the floor. But he didn't feel sick anymore.

***

"Harry!"

"He can't have gone far, he's probably just found a cosy spot to have a nap in," Sirius said, grinning from ear to ear. Lily rounded on him angrily.

"Oh bollocks, Sirius!" she exclaimed. "I left the fucking kitchen door open!"

James came out into the hallway. "Did you renew the baby proofing charms, Lily?" he asked.

Lily nodded. "Oh God, he's forever doing this to me. Harry! Come out, you little sod!"

"Anything we can do, Lily?" Frank had appeared in the doorway, holding Neville in his arms.

There was a sudden clatter from the kitchen, and the sound of a child crying. They dashed through into the other room.

Harry was suspended upside down about a foot off the floor, held aloft by a cloud of small, golden sparks. A cupboard door was open, and saucepans had spilled out all over the tiles.

"Thankfully the charms activated," Lily said. "Finite Incantatem."

The sparks dispersed as if they had never been, and she plucked the squalling Harry out of mid-air. "Could've been worse," she said.

"Nice charm work," Frank said.

"We're hoping to condition him," Lily said, only half-joking, as she ruffled Harry's hair and kissed the top of his head.

"Condition?" Sirius asked. "Will that leave him all soft and nice-smelling?"

"It means to train, Sirius," Frank said.

"... why take two Harries into the shower ..."

"It'll be like Pavlov's dogs ..."

"What's that, then?"

"Oh, a Muggle thing," Lily said. "Some Russian guy trained his dogs to eat food when they heard a small bell."

"Why didn't he use a quick spell, like everyone else?" Sirius asked. "Sounds like a waste of bloody time to me."

"He was a Muggle, you dense nitwit," Lily said.

"And what if they heard a bell when there wasn't any food?" Sirius continued, warming to his new theme. "Surely that would've meant dog drool all over the carpet ..."

"I'm sure he worked out the minutiae of the situation, Sirius," Lily said. Outside, another volley of thunder rolled across the valley.

"We have such trouble getting my drool out of the carpet," Sirius went on. "Poor Peter spends an absolute age with the detergent and a damp sponge."

"Perhaps if you'd hold your tongue ..."

"Can't ... too bloody big," Sirius said.

There was another flash of lightning, followed less than a split second later by a thunderclap so loud and so close that it made the china in the cupboards shake. It must have been right overhead.

"Did you hear that?" Anne called from the other room. The others came running back through. The blast had knocked the wine bottle clean off the tabletop. Thankfully it had bounced.

"That was very close," James said, looking worried. "I hope it didn't hit anything vital."

Lily handed Harry to him, and then crossed the room to pick up the telephone. Frank and Anne, who didn't have one of those strange, Muggle contraptions themselves, looked on.

"It's out," she said. "It must have hit a pole or something."

***

Remus scrubbed again at the mark on his arm. It was getting clearer, now ... far more distinct than it had been. Water cascaded from the tap as he rubbed soap onto it so hard that it almost hurt. Of course, it didn't make a blind bit of difference. Whatever it was, it remained inviolate. And it hurt, as well. It didn't hurt much. It was a low, dull, throbbing ache that penetrated into the bones of his wrist. It wasn't unbearable. But the pain, too, was becoming more noticeable. Remus had not told anybody about it. He didn't have a doctor of any kind to visit. He was alone.

They hadn't even invited him to the birthday party. He didn't know why. None of them had given him any kind of reason. Not James, Lily or Peter. Not even Sirius, whom Remus trusted and loved above all the others. Oh, Remus suspected the reason, of course. Rumours of a spy, a traitor, were running rampant around the Ministry of Magic, and the Minister seemed powerless to stop them ... or at any rate, he certainly wasn't trying very hard.

Sighing, Remus turned off the tap. From the kitchen, he could hear a radio programme ... a documentary about cheese-making in Somerset. He walked back through, and picked up the least dirty dishcloth, hanging from the back of his solitary, Formica dining chair. He patted his arm gently dry. How it ached!

Then he made another cup of tea.

He was just fishing the teabag out of his mug with a little spoon when there was a knock at his door. Remus sighed, abandoned the cup of tea on the worktop, and went to answer it.

There was a familiar looking man standing in the corridor outside. He had pale skin, sunken, dead-looking eyes and hair so blond it appeared silvery white. He was wrapped in a black cloak, fastened across the front with a clasp in the shape of a dragon, wings spread wide.

"We're very displeased, Lupin," he said.

END OF CHAPTER FIVE.

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER SIX ...