The Lost Generation (1975-1982)

The Lost Generation

(1975-1982)

Chapter Four

Liking and Loving

Tuesday, 25 August, 1976

Bill woke to the strident sound of his new baby brother demanding to be fed. He groaned, covered his head with a pillow, rolled over and attempted to get back to sleep. The baby’s wailing continued unabated. He lifted up his pillow and peered at the clock on the table between his bed and Charlie’s. In the grey pre-dawn light he could see that it was going on five o’clock. Blimey, Bill thought. I will be so glad to get back to school.... Finally, the baby’s cries lessened and ceased altogether. Bill assumed that his mother had settled into the rocking chair in the corner of his parents’ bedroom and put the baby to her breast at last. It had probably taken very little time for her to push her feet into her slippers and plod to the baby’s cot, then carry him to the rocking chair, but Bill had quickly been reminded that when a baby is crying, it seems like an eternity. He sighed. The baby wasn’t due until the third of September, but had been born early, on the twenty-second of August, almost two weeks sooner than expected. The early arrival had thrown the entire household into chaos. Well, he thought, if we had listened to Peggy, we’d have known.... On the morning the baby was born, Peggy had woken him early, standing next to his bed with her thumb in her mouth, grinning around the soggy digit. “Mum’s gonna have the baby,” she had said in a monotone, pulling her cheek away from her teeth with the thumb, then resuming her sucking. She didn’t look happy. Bill had stared at her, barely awake. He hadn’t taken advantage of the traditional summertime luxury of sleeping late now that his mother was so very, very pregnant. He was usually up with the sun, dressing and feeding Peggy and Annie, while Charlie sprawled across his bed, snoring softly, oblivious to the responsibilities Bill had taken on. But this day, Peggy was waking him earlier than usual; the sun was barely up. On the other hand, if he’d known how early the baby would wake him, he’d have considered this to be practically having a lie-in. “What’re you doing out of your cot already?” he asked her, barely able to speak, he was so tired. “Climbed,” she said simply, around her thumb. “Go back to bed,” he said tersely, rolling over and tucking his fist under his pillow, drawing up his knees again, closing his eyes against the morning. Several minutes passed. She didn’t move. He could hear her regular breathing behind him. “Mum’s gonna have the baby,” he heard her say again. “I know!” he exploded, turning around on the bed, punching his pillow. “You’ve been saying that all week. We know she’s going to have the baby. Leave me alone.” He rolled over again, squeezing his eyes shut, feeling faintly guilty for losing his temper. She wasn’t even four years old yet; he shouldn’t get hacked off at her. She would be going to the village school for the first time in September, along with Charlie and Annie. The thought made him a bit nervous; Peggy was very bright, but sometimes she still seemed very young to him, and he wondered whether his parents should have pressed the headmistress to allow Peggy to start school a year early. It was probably because of the baby, he reasoned, trying to imagine his poor mother dealing with both Peggy and a new life after sending Annie and Charlie off to school each day. Drat. Now he was thinking. She had started to make the wheels in his head turn round, so that it was less likely he would be able to drop off again. Drat drat drat. “She’s gonna have the baby today,” her voice cut through the darkness behind his eyelids. He fought the temptation to open his eyes to look at her, speaking half into his pillow. “The baby isn’t due for almost two more weeks,” he growled. “Go back to bed, Peggy. It isn’t time to get up yet. It’s Saturday morning--” “Mum’s gonna have the baby--” “Will you stop saying that?” he screamed in frustration now, losing the battle and sitting up, his messy red hair standing wildly on end. “Shut up, Bill,” Charlie muttered sleepily across the chasm between their beds. “Shut up, yourself, Chickie. I’m trying to get Peggy out of here.” “Don’t call me that.” “Chickie-Chickie-Chickie.” A muffled, “Sod off,” came from the vicinity where Charlie’s face was pressed into his pillow. “Mum’s gonna have the baby,” Peggy said again, still utterly composed. Bill seethed. “Annie!” he called. “Annie, come get Peggy and take her back to bed!” Through the wall he heard his other sister cry, “Do it yourself! It’s my birthday!” That was Annie. Of all of them, she was the only one skilled at not being exploited. No one took advantage of Annie Weasley. She hadn’t yet turned six, but she already seemed to be able to take in hand the people around her, bend them to her will, and handily avoid others bending her to their will. Bill had no idea how she managed it. Yes, I do, he thought, as he turned his body and brought his feet crashing down onto the floor next to his bed, scooping Peggy up into his arms and carrying her on his hip back to the girls’ bedroom. She manages it because I let her. And everyone else does, too. He put Peggy back in her cot and frowned at Annie, who was reclining in her bed with her hands behind her head, her face perfectly expressionless. “It isn’t your birthday today, it’s just your party today,” he reminded her. Her birthday was the first day of the term, so her party was being held early. “Yeah, and Mum’s going to ruin it by having the baby today,” Annie told him. He groaned. “Don’t you start--” “Peggy told me,” she said simply. “She knows about these things. She’ll be right. I don’t want her to be right, but she will be. You’ll see.” Bill looked at her with narrowed eyes. Was their little sister a Seeress? he wondered, not wanting to say this aloud. He turned and looked at her; she had curled up in her cot again, a stuffed tiger clutched to her chest, the thumb never leaving her mouth, her long red eyelashes on her pale, freckled cheeks. She looked so ordinary. She was probably just-- “Arthur!” he heard his mother cry out. “Arthur! Go get the midwife! My water just broke!” Bill swallowed. Mum’s gonna have the baby. Yes, she certainly was. The birthday party was canceled; five families had to be contacted to inform them of the change in plans. Then they had to be packed off to their aunt’s house in Bristol while their mother worked to bring the new life into the world. Bill insisted that he should stay and help boil water or something, but the first hair-raising cry he heard wafting down the stairs made it very hard for him to argue with his father when this idea was rejected. He stepped into the warm green flames and was soon tumbling out of the fireplace at his Aunt Meg’s house, glad he wouldn’t have to listen to hours of his mother in agony. Ten hours later, his aunt came into the sitting room where Bill had been reading The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2. Annie and Peggy were playing with dolls on the hearthrug and Charlie was trying to teach their aunt’s English bulldog to do tricks. He glared balefully at Charlie and adamantly refused to play dead, roll over, sit up or shake hands. Charlie sighed. “All right, then,” he said to the stubborn animal. “Stay there and don’t move a muscle or show a facial expression! Don’t do a thing! Good, good dog!” Bill looked up from his book and laughed. Normally Charlie was quite adept with animals, but Aunt Meg’s dog could pass for a statue most of the time. Part of the problem was that he was quite elderly. Their aunt said he would be something like two-hundred and ten years old if he were a wizard. Secretly, Bill thought Annie and the dog were kindred spirits. No one can tell you what to do, he thought enviously at the dog. If you don’t want to--you don’t. “Children! I’ve got exciting news! You have a new little brother!” Aunt Meg said, clapping her hands together. “Brilliant!” Charlie said enthusiastically. “Another brother!” Annie threw a pillow at him. For once, their aunt didn’t care. She was in her early thirties, but she and their Uncle Alfred had only been married for a couple of years, and didn’t have any children yet. “His name is Percy,” Aunt Meg went on, “and he’s good and strong and--” “Percy!” Charlie gasped, making a dreadful face. “What’d they want to go and give him a stupid name like that for? Surely it’s not too late to change it?” Aunt Meg put her hands on her hips and glared at her nephew. “Charles Weasley, you will behave. Percy’s a very nice name. Your mum told me she’s been thinking that’s the perfect name for the baby if it’s a boy ever since she read Bill’s first letter from Hogwarts.” She nodded at Bill. “One of the other Gryffindor boys in his year is named Percy, and she liked the name so much, she--” “Perry!” Bill exploded now, throwing down his book. “I told her that the other boys in my dorm are Alex Wood, Orville Simpson, Rembert Leonard and Perry Booth. It’s short for Peregrin. I don’t even call him by his first name, usually. Just Booth. Tell me she hasn’t named the baby after Booth.” His aunt frowned at him. “Perhaps if you improved your penmanship, your mother would have known that his name was Perry and not Percy. Honestly! I needed a translator to read the thank-you note you sent for your Christmas gift. You’d think with your mother standing over you while you wrote it, it might at least be legible,” she added knowledgeably. “So, since you wanted to be told this--No. Evidently your parents haven’t named your new brother after Booth, as you call him, seeing as his name isn’t actually Percy.” Bill groaned. “Aw, but she thought his name was Percy.” He bit back a dozen expletives which he knew would get his mouth washed out with soap. Perry. Percy. Damn. Alex will never let me hear the end of this, Bill thought.

Alex’s mother had also had a baby that year, in early May. The baby’s name was Oliver. Alex’s six-year-old brother was Leander. “Notice a pattern?” he’d said sarcastically to Bill when he’d found out the new baby’s name. Alex was sure to get wind of the Percy/Perry mix-up and milk it for all it was worth.

Peggy lifted her face to her aunt, looking as she had that morning, and said, “Mummy has replaced me.” Aunt Meg strode across the room and swung Peggy up onto her hip. “No, she hasn’t, pumpkin. You can share your mummy with the new baby.” “I was her baby and now he is.” Aunt Meg swayed, holding the small child. “Oh, Peggy, Peggy....” she crooned, “you’ll always be your mummy’s baby. Everyone’s always their mummy’s baby....” Peggy shook her head against her aunt’s shoulder, tears running down her face, her bottom lip pushed out, looking miserable. Bill bit his lip again, unable to contemplate what this must be like for her. He had no clear memory of being the one and only focus of his parents’ lives, as he was so young when Charlie was born. He didn’t remember not being a big brother. “Yeah, well I’m the one whose bloody birthday party was canceled,” Annie interjected grumpily. “Annie!” Aunt Meg exclaimed, scandalized. Bill noticed, however, that that was the extent of the reaction. Annie consistently got away with things that he and Charlie didn’t dare do, and saying “bloody” within the hearing of an adult who had power over them was one of them. They were permitted back in the house the following day, cautiously entering their parents’ bedroom, where their mother was enthroned in the massive carved maple bed, holding a very small, red, wrinkled thing which suddenly erupted in a squall of noise when it was hungry. Their father had wanted to take the next day off, but he received an urgent owl near bedtime and it looked like he would have to go into the office after all. The next morning, his father kissed his mother goodbye and Apparated to the Ministry. From that moment on, the day was complete and utter chaos. When his father arrived home, his mother, exhausted and disheveled, confronted him in the filthy kitchen, where there wasn’t a sign of tea. Peggy clung to her leg, crying, and Bill tried to pry her off, finally succeeding by falling backward and knocking his head on the kitchen table. Charlie and Annie were visible through the doorway to the living room, pulling each other’s hair and growling, “Say it!” and “No, you say it!” over and over. Upstairs, baby Percy’s howls finally became loud enough to be heard downstairs, and that noise started to drown out everything else. “Arthur Weasley,” Molly said to him with a quaver in her voice, barely audible over the noise the children were making, “tomorrow you are in charge of the children, except for Percy. If you cannot get the day off, then you’ll have to take them to the office. I can probably get Meg to take them for the rest of the month after that, but--I--I--I cannot take another day like this! I’ve had no sleep, Annie and Charlie are constantly at each other; Bill is at his wit’s end with Peggy; she keeps trying to climb on me when I’m nursing the baby; and I just can’t take it!” Her eyes were wild, and he patted her shoulders gently. “Of course, Molly,” he said in a soothing voice, as though she were a fractious pony. “Of course I can take them off your hands. A new baby is always very demanding, you want to focus on him...” She rubbed the backs of her hands across her eyes, which had dark circles under them. “It’s not that I don’t love them all,” she said tiredly. “I do. Right now it’s--it’s just too much. If Percy hadn’t been early, I could cope. After the new term starts, I should be fine....” she assured her husband.

Bill looked up at his parents from his spot on the floor; his head ached mightily, but the more alarming thing was the sight of his mother just going to pieces. He remembered his aunt saying something to his Uncle Alfred, something like, “I hope this time Molly has an easier time with the post-partum dep--” before her husband had noticed the children listening.

He had opened his eyes wide, gesturing to the four of them and saying, “Hush! Little pitchers....” His aunt had quieted, her lips drawn very thin. Bill regarded his mother; he knew she loved them all, but, he realized, gazing round at the disorderly house and Charlie and Annie each holding fistfuls of the other’s hair, sometimes it was probably hard to like them. Times like this. Arthur Weasley took his wife in his arms and crooned to her, as though the baby wasn’t howling at top volume, as though Charlie and Annie weren’t threatening to make each other bald. “Of course, Molly,” he said again. “I’m sure they’ll enjoy seeing the Ministry....” Bill gave up on sleeping and sat up groggily. They had never gone to work with their father before. Bill knew it was going to be his job to keep Peggy and Annie from getting into trouble--and Charlie too, but he couldn’t let on to Charlie that he was doing this. He was not looking forward to dealing with a stubborn Annie and a heartbroken Peggy all day. Peggy had done almost nothing since Percy’s birth but insist that he was going to replace her in their mother’s heart. That wasn’t how she put it, of course, but Bill could tell it was what she meant. And he had no idea when Annie was going to let go of the birthday party, but he strongly suspected she was going to be holding that grudge against their mother and Percy for years to come. The sun finally rose all the way and their father entered their room, already wearing his robes, his glasses perched on the top of his head. The red hair there was just starting to thin, ever so slightly. “Come on, boys! Time to get up! Exciting doings! You get to see what old Dad does to earn a living!” Bill looked sideways at the sleepy Charlie, who appeared to be singularly unenthusiastic. “Now, er, have you seen my glasses, boys?” he said uncertainly. They told him his spectacles were on top of his head. “Ah, there they are. Good, good!” he burbled, placing them across his nose, where they belonged. Bill and Charlie looked at each other. It was going to be one of those days. They dressed and Bill helped the girls dress; they ate breakfast and continued to listen to their father’s excited chatter about the things he would show them. “So, we’ll be going by Floo to the Leaky Cauldron,” he said needlessly as he spooned porridge into his mouth at the breakfast table. “You know the drill on that; you’ve all gone shopping with your mum. But this time, we’re not going to Diagon Alley.” His blue eyes twinkled at them all. “We’re going to be getting the Muggle Underground to a certain station.” He paused tantalizingly. Charlie rolled his eyes, as did Annie. “All right, Dad,” Charlie said tiredly. “Why are we going to a certain station?” “You’ll see!” their father crowed now. Bill and Charlie looked at each other; their father was very undignified when he was excited. Their mother kissed them all goodbye, still wearing her dressing gown, her hair looking like a frowzy orange mop. “Be good, all of you. And don’t touch anything, especially in your father’s office. Arthur, do be sure to keep any confiscated items out of reach of the children. You never know what some of those contraband articles have been enchanted to do.” Their father brightened. “There you go, children! You can watch me put revealing charms on contraband Muggle artifacts, to discover all of the spells that have been put on them! Doesn’t that sound exciting?” The four of them looked listlessly at each other. “Yeah, loads,” Annie said, rolling her eyes. “Annabel Weasley, you behave yourself,” her mother told her sternly. “I don’t want to hear about any pranks. It’s bad enough the number of times I had to go see the headmistress last year--” For once, Annie looked quite sheepish, but Bill wasn’t certain it wasn’t an act. “Yes, Mum,” she said meekly. They all stepped into the fire after she had kissed each of them. Bill went last. Just as he moved toward the flames he heard Percy awake and begin that characteristic wail. His mother turned and began to climb the stairs wearily, and then she whirled out of sight as he was swept through the Floo network to London.

* * * * *

Bill and Peggy had been through the streets of London in a taxi to get to King’s Cross, and then his mother had hired another to get the three of them all the way home from London at the end of the term (since old Tom didn’t want them going through the Leaky Cauldron again). But Charlie and Annie, who had never been in the Muggle part of London before, looked floored by its enormity when they stepped out onto the Muggle side for the first time in their short lives. Peggy held one of Bill’s hands and Annie the other as they walked to the nearest tube station. Bill watched his father fumble with the Muggle money needed to pay their fares; the younger children stared around at the station and the crowds of people, none of whom wore robes or pointed hats. Bill fought the urge to stare as well; he hadn’t been in the Underground before, either, but he didn’t want to look like a country bumpkin in the big city for the first time (even though this was pretty close to the mark). When the train pulled into the station and the doors opened, Charlie exclaimed, “Cor, Dad! The doors are magic! Muggles can do magic!” “Sssh!” his father cautioned him. “Quiet, Charlie! It’s done with eckeltricity, not magi--not what we use. I don’t really understand how it works, but--” Bill bounced excitedly on his toes; they were the only people left on the platform. “Let’s get on before it leaves, Dad!” “Oh, right, right,” his father said, hustling his brood onto the train just in time for the doors to snap shut behind them. Bill watched the Muggles closely as they stopped at each station and the mix of people around them changed constantly. His father’s wizarding robes earned him some curious glances, and one or two Muggles looked at each other and shrugged, saying, “Priest?” A good thing he’s not wearing his hat, Bill thought ruefully. For someone who adored Muggles, his dad was dreadful at passing as one, or even fully understanding the way they lived. Bill knew, for instance, that the word was electricity. When they pulled into Westminster station, their father hustled them off the train. Bill started to move toward the exit with his sisters in tow, but his father called his name. He turned, confused. “This way, Bill,” Arthur Weasley said to his eldest son, an amused glint in his eye. Bill frowned; his father was gesturing toward a wall with a variety of theatre advertisements on it. Something called Mousetrap seemed to be very popular. Muggles would watch anything, Bill had concluded long ago. “The exit’s this way, Dad,” he said, gesturing with his head. As the last of the Muggles who’d been on the train with them drifted away up the stairs, they were left standing on a lonely, deserted platform. His father was just hopeless sometimes. But this time his father knew something he didn’t. “Not for us, it isn’t.” He looked furtively around. “All right, you go first, Charlie. Walk right toward that wall and don’t slow down; just go straight ahead very quickly. Can you do that? Be a brave lad, there you go.” Charlie frowned and glanced at Bill, who shrugged. All right, his expression seemed to say. If I wind up in hospital because my dad told me to walk into a wall, he’ll get it from Mum. The ten-year-old walked forward, swinging his arms, looking like he was fighting the urge to put his hands up to defend himself from the wall, and then he--disappeared. “All right, Bill. You take Peggy and I’ll come after you with Annie. Take it at a good trot.” Bill stared at the wall where his brother had disappeared. He didn't like the barrier at King's Cross that took him to the Hogwarts Express, and he didn't like the looks of this, either. He walked forward, with Peggy slightly behind him, struggling to keep up with him. At what would have been the moment of impact, he winced, but forced himself to keep moving forward-- --and found himself in a tube-like corridor made of terra cotta-colored brick. Large red-orange tiles covered the floor. It was like being in a giant sewer pipe with a flat bottom. Their father appeared in the corridor with Annie a moment after Bill went through with Peggy, and he immediately turned to the left, still holding Annie’s hand. Bill, Charlie and Peggy followed them wordlessly. They walked some distance from the entry point, which did not have any particularly distinctive appearance on the magic side. Their father mumbled what sounded like a number, and Bill realized that his father had been walking looking at his feet, counting his paces. His father turned and smiled at him. “I’m used to Apparating. Had to get instructions for coming this way. Most of us come to work by Apparating, but it’s good to know this way as well. If there were a lockdown, Apparition wouldn’t be possible.” Then he seemed to think better of talking about lockdowns, and looked like he wished he could snatch back his words. In case of You-Know-Who, Bill thought. The summer had not seen an abatement of Death Eater activity. His parents had taken to reading the Daily Prophet and then throwing it in the flames before he or his siblings could read it. Once or twice, Bill had managed to nick the paper before it was burnt, but the news was so depressing he didn’t attempt this often. His father raised his wand and Bill saw that there was a slight indentation in one brick, which was the one his father tapped now with his wand. Suddenly, an archway appeared, and they followed their father through it. They were in a corridor that was identical to the first one. After a few minutes, it abruptly opened out into a large circular space that was about twenty feet in diameter, with numerous doorways around the perimeter. Bill stared at the people visible through the doorways; they didn’t look quite right. He watched a wizard carrying a box with a leaping furry thing in it. When he disappeared to the right of the doorjamb, it seemed that he should have reappeared in the doorway that was a mere six inches or so to its right. However, an old bald wizard, as wrinkled as a rhino, moved toward the wizard with the furry leaping thing, and it appeared that they would collide. He too disappeared, and did not reappear in the doorway where Bill had seen the first wizard, although it seemed that he should. Then Bill noticed that there were labels on the doorways. COEC, IUMO, DMGS, DIMC, DRCMC, and DMT were some of the legends. His father explained that the abbreviations were for Committee on Experiment Charms, Improper Use of Magic Office, Department of Magical Games and Sports, Department of International Magical Cooperation, Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures and the Department of Magical Transportation. They also saw the doorways for the Goblin Liaison Office, the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad and the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office, where their father worked. Bill frowned at the doorways, trying to work out just what was wrong. The people walking past them appeared suddenly, then disappeared just as suddenly. His father saw his perplexed look. “You want to know, don’t you son?” His dad didn’t have to say more than that. Bill nodded. “These are portals,” Arthur Weasley said, smiling. “When you walk through one of these doorways, you are in the actual location of the office on the other side. The portals are all really here, but the offices are spread out over the entire London Underground system.” “The Underground?” “During the war, the Muggle War Office used old Tube stations as military offices. They used stations that had already fallen into disuse. I remember my dad said they used them as air-raid shelters, when the need arose. Worked very well for that. I was sent up north during the war, of course, with the rest of the children, and Muggle children, too. Can you imagine it? Just about every child in the country, Muggle or wizard, packed off to the country. After the war, our Ministry made a deal with the Muggle Prime Minister to take over the old Underground Offices. They can’t be accessed by Muggles anymore; you can only get to them if you can Apparate or know how to get into here from Westminster Station. Except for Aldwych, but I won’t go into that right now. It’s much more convenient to use the portals than to Apparate around from office to office, which you can’t do anyway if you’re with a suspect.” Two of the portals were not like the others. One did not show an office with people bustling about; it was just a black rectangle, with no sign. The other didn’t look like a portal at all. It was another rounded corridor, brick covering every surface, like the passage from which they’d emerged. His father saw Bill looking at the dark doorway. “Unspeakables,” he said in a hushed voice. “Department of Mysteries. They can get out, but no one else can go in. Except I’ve never actually seen anyone come out of there...” Peggy stood staring at the black rectangle, her brow furrowed. She seemed to be listening intently. “Let me show you something else before we go to my office,” he said, taking his youngest daughter’s hand and dragging her down the pipe-like brick corridor, which slanted subtly downward. Bill and the others followed, and after it turned a few times, the round room with the office portals was no longer visible behind them. There were more than a few that their father hadn’t explained, but Bill didn’t question him as they continued on their way. After a few minutes, the corridor came to an end. They were confronted with a large bronze door with “MoM” in raised, ornately intertwined pewter letters. Their father said something Bill didn’t catch, and the door swung toward them. They entered and found themselves in another corridor, rectilinear now rather than rounded; Bill thought it looked remarkably like the corridors in the dungeons at Hogwarts. They all continued to follow their father. They turned another corner and came to another large bronze door. Their father pointed his wand at it and said, “Alohomora!” The heavy-looking bronze door opened and they entered. They were at the top of a room that was a kind of pit; serried rows of benches dropped off before them, rather like a square funnel, Bill thought. There was a flat, open space in the center. A chair sat in the middle of that open space, chains around the back and legs, leading Bill to believe that it was not reserved for the Minister of Magic. “Do you know where this is?” their father asked. “What do you mean?” Charlie asked back. “What’s above this? Above where we’re standing. Do you know?” All four children shook their heads dumbly. “Parliament.” He grinned at the shock on their faces. “Hasn’t Professor Binns covered this with you, Bill?” Bill had barely squeaked through his exam in History of Magic; he could never stay awake during the lectures. He avoided his father’s gaze. “What was London called in Roman times?” Bill thought, biting his lip. He thought he knew this one, but his answer was very uncertain-sounding. “Londinium?” His father nodded. “Right. Good. And do you know how long this chamber has been here?” He didn’t wait for an answer this time. “A very, very long time. Since before there was ever a place called Londinium. Before there was a Parliament, or a Prime Minister.” “Before kings and queens?” Peggy piped up, the thumb in her mouth making her words a little muffled. “Actually, no, Peggy. But it was before there was one king or queen who ruled all of Great Britain. Before there was a Great Britain, for that matter. This has been here since the days when there were many kings and queens on this island, ruling over many realms. In some places there were people called chiefs instead of kings or queens. Not just up in Scotland. And do you know what else there was?” Bill frowned and shook his head. His father sighed and looked around. “There was magic,” he said softly, his voice wistful. “I don’t mean that we don’t have magic now, of course. I mean that no one had to hide their magic. Wizards and Muggles lived side by side and no one worried about what would happen if a Muggle saw a spell being performed or a potion being brewed. Magical people were some of the most important in each village, in fact, and they could make a good living telling fortunes and providing elixirs for illnesses and giving people good luck charms for their new houses or as baby gifts....” He sighed again. “It was a golden age, when the walls we have today between wizard and Muggle didn’t exist, and it didn’t matter.” “What happened?” Annie asked. He sighed. “The Romans happened. Julius Caesar invaded Britain--when Charlie?” his father asked him suddenly. “Er--”Charlie hesitated. “Bill?” Bill bit his lip. “In 55 B.C.?” he said slowly, uncertainly. “Right!” his father said, grinning. Bill heaved a sigh of relief; Charlie didn’t seem to mind that his brother had answered for him. “Rome had already been expelling witches and wizards--usually astrologers--for almost a hundred years,” their father went on. “The invaders brought their anti-magic sentiments with them. Here, as in Rome, consulting a diviner or being a diviner--especially if you were talking about the fate of the Emperor or the state--was considered treasonous.” Bill glanced at Peggy, wondering whether she was listening. He saw Annie look at Peggy, too, as though her thoughts were the same as Bill's. Peggy was humming and skipping up and down the serried rows of benches, having a grand time, as though this chamber had really been built for three-year-olds to get their exercise. She seemed utterly carefree for the first time since the baby was born, as though everything their father was saying was completely over her head--which it might have been. Suddenly Annie dropped her grim, serious look and became a typical not-quite-six-year-old again, joining her sister in the game of skipping up and down the rows of benches. Charlie looked like he wanted to join them; he was nibbling at his nails, clearly getting restless.

Bill turned back to his father. He raised his voice to be heard above the racket of the girls leaping from bench to bench. “Treasonous?” he asked, perplexed. Arthur Weasley laughed.

“Yes. Asking about the Emperor’s fortune was considered treason because you might be a political rival, you see. And if the Emperor asked you to tell his fortune and you predicted his death, or the city falling to an invading army, it was also treason. Even if you were just reading the signs. Talk about being the bearer of bad news....Which means they didn’t really want to know what was going to happen, of course. And a wife who used certain, er, magic potions without her husband’s authorization could be killed, as well as the person who brewed the potion for her. Love potions were a witch’s or wizard’s biggest trade, usually, but they were completely illegal. In spite of this, Emperors were having potions made for them all the time, and Tiberius also had a court astrologer, Thrasyllus, who was considered the power behind the throne. As Emperor, he could follow the law or break it as he saw fit. Mostly, wizards and witches who told fortunes or made potions used magic to escape persecution or just accepted exile from Rome. Four thousand magical folk left Rome under Tiberius. “And then there was Caligula. He declared himself a deity and demanded to be worshipped. In Judea, in particular, people flatly refused, as it went against their religion. Many wizards, being rather independent-minded, didn’t buy into it either. Luckily, Caligula got himself killed, and the Judeans were safe for a little while longer. But it was only about thirty years longer. And then there was Nero, who decided to blame Christians for Rome burning, as many people were pointing the finger at him. Most people didn’t believe they were responsible, and wizards and witches worked at rescuing as many of them as possible, although many still died rather gruesomely.” Charlie whispered, “How?” His father raised his eyebrows. “Well, they were accused of burning Rome, so Nero--” He didn’t finish. Charlie got his meaning and swallowed. “Oh,” he said softly. His father smiled grimly and patted him on the shoulder. “In those days, since witches and wizards were considered highly suspect because they could tell fortunes--which could include foretelling death for the Emperor--and concoct powerful potions--which could be used to poison the Emperor--they were rather sympathetic toward other groups that were accused of treason just because they wouldn’t worship the Emperor. When witches and wizards were arrested on witchcraft charges, they didn’t just use their magic to get themselves out of prison--they also freed any other prisoners who were in similar situations, like Judean zealots, and later, Christians, both of whom would sometimes refuse to go, even when the prison doors were wide open. They had already decided to be martyrs.” Bill frowned. “Why would anyone die who didn’t have to?” But then he remembered that James Potter’s parents had died fighting to save others, and that they might have known they were doomed, and kept on anyway. His father grimaced and looked at him. “It’s a choice some people make, Bill,” he said quietly, and Bill was startled by the look in his father’s eyes; he knew with certainty that if he needed to lay his life down for any of his children or for their mother, Arthur Weasley would do it without question. “Well,” his father went on, “just a handful of years after Rome burned, the Empire finally succeeded in putting down the rebellion that had been going on for years in Judea. That’s been causing trouble for almost two-thousand years now, although ever since I went up north when I was young, Muggle war news depresses me dreadfully, and I avoid it when I can.... “The law of Rome had been the law of the land here in Britain since Julius Caesar had invaded, even though there were plenty of rebellious people here who didn’t like it. Technically, this was as much a part of the Empire as Rome itself, even though it was so far away. Whenever a Governor came into power who was more stringent about the anti-magic laws, wizards would move away from Londinium to the countryside, except for those who lived in Diagon Alley, which had been sealed off from the Muggle world after the invasion. Hidden by magic, some of them stayed here in the heart of the city, away from the prying eyes of the Romans.” He looked thoughtfully around the chamber. “After the Empire fell, now and then over the years, there were times when we had rulers who made it safe for magical folk to come out of hiding again. Do you know who one of them was?” He raised his eyebrows meaningfully at Bill, who was glad he knew this one. “Arthur,” he said with certainty. “Yes, Arthur!” his father crowed; then, as though they didn’t know their own father’s name, he said, “My name!” Annie happened to be skipping along a bench right next to them now; as she passed, she rolled her eyes. “And then what, Dad?” Charlie asked, genuinely wanting to know. Their father didn’t notice him giving Annie a sharp pinch on the arm. She winced, but seemed determined not to cry out in pain. She ground her right foot into Charlie’s left foot as their father stared at the ceiling, oblivious. “Ah, well, after Arthur died, it was a dark time. There were Viking invasions. It was a very difficult time. And then there were the Inquisitions. No one cared about what Merlin meant to King Arthur. No one seemed to remember that wizards used to break the Christians out of prison when they were arrested by the Romans. The church started cracking down on magic, calling it heresy, and witches and wizards were called heretics even though many magical folk were Christians. A number of clergy were wizards as well, and there were entire orders of monks and nuns made up of wizards and witches. It didn’t matter. They were branded as apostates and drummed out of the church, and sometimes hounded out of their homes and their villages.” “Couldn’t they use magic to fight back?” Annie asked, surprising Bill. He hadn't thought she was paying attention. Now she was standing on a bench a couple of rows down from them, trying to balance on one foot without falling over. Peggy was lounging in the chair at the bottom that was draped in chains; she was panting, out of breath. “Ah, but they didn’t want to hurt the Muggles. Some of them used magic to escape, but it was a point of pride among magical folk that Muggles were never to be hurt. If a Muggle wanted to hire you to put a terrible spell on someone else, that was a dreadful crime among our kind. I think after living peacefully with Muggles for so long, after Rome fell, it seemed unbelievable that they were no longer considered quite human. “Witches and wizards who were taken into custody tried to reason with their friends and neighbors. You see, they knew the people persecuting them. They weren’t faceless Roman soldiers whom they’d never seen before. They weren’t strangers. But suddenly, magical people weren’t to be tolerated. You asked about why someone would choose to be a martyr, Bill. Well, many of our kind allowed themselves to be martyred rather than harm a hair on the head of a Muggle or use magic to escape. It was later, during other witch-hunting frenzies of the Middle Ages, after the Crusades, that witches and wizards used magic, as they did under the Romans, or did things like putting freezing charms on the flames when they were burned at the stake.” He sighed noisily again. “They were convinced that their neighbors and friends couldn’t possibly just stand there and watch them die, cheering it on, even. But they did exactly that.” “And then Hogwarts was founded--” Bill said softly. His father nodded. “Yes. And because of the Inquisitions, Salazar Slytherin didn’t want Muggle-born students at the school. I think he may have lost some family members to the purges, but we don’t really know. The exact reason for his feeling that way is lost to time now. There were rumors that he went to France after his falling out with the other three founders, but that’s another thing we don’t know for sure.” They went back to their father’s office, the girls dragging their feet; they'd enjoyed romping about. They met his co-workers, and Bill could tell that the three younger children were itching to touch some of the confiscated items in the storeroom while their father wrote letters to people about the objects they had charmed. (He was feeling a little tempted himself, and wondered whether this was ever a problem for his father.) Bill glanced at one of the letters when his father had finished it and was busily writing a new one.

Dear Mr. Tansy, On behalf of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office, I would like to apologize for our having had to confiscate your bicycle. I appreciate that you were taking your dog to the vet for an emergency (I will give you the benefit of the doubt that it is a dog, as Dangerous Creatures is another department), but your neighbor, a respected Muggle history teacher, had an unobstructed view of this activity, which is in violation of the International Code of Wizarding Secrecy. It’s too bad he wasn’t a journalist, as no one would believe what he’d seen if he’d told. And you’re very lucky he’s not a bookmaker. Everyone believes every word they say. The bicycle will be returned to you after we have removed all charms from it. To aid us in our work, if you could owl us with the specific spells you have placed on it, that would be very helpful. So far we are, of course, aware of the flying spell (which, by law, can only be placed on brooms, and then only by licensed broom manufacturers). We assume there is a braking charm, as well, but we are uncertain whether it is a spell on the entire bicycle, much as a braking charm on a broom, or whether it goes into effect when one presses the lever to activate the Muggle brake. We have many artifacts to process every day and rather than spending hours and hours stripping down your bicycle, your cooperation would make our job much easier. (And your bicycle will be returned to you more quickly.) I do hope your neighbor is doing well after the Obliviators put that memory charm on him, and I hope he hasn’t forgotten too much of the history he teaches. (The Obliviator only had time to talk to him about the fall of the Roman Empire through the Magna Carta.) Once you have changed to transporting yourself by broom, I trust you will restrict yourself to flying at night? I do not believe more memory charms would be in your neighbor’s best interest, as the entire Middle Ages might fall out of his head if he gets another one. I look forward to hearing from you soon, Arthur Weasley
Misuse of Muggle Artifacts
Ministry of Magic
Bill frowned. “Letting him off rather light, aren’t you? And asking him to help you? What if he just tells you to sod--er, what if he says no?” Arthur Weasley sighed. “Almost all of them do. I hate to say it, but it’s usually the ones who aren’t very bright who cooperate. So we do wind up having to strip down most things ourselves, but in case someone really is interested in saving us the trouble, we reckon it can’t hurt to ask.” Bill carefully placed the letter back on his father’s pile and the four children sat on chairs around the perimeter of the room, swinging their legs impatiently. After a little while, their father looked up, saw how restless they were, and said, “Listen, Bill. Why don’t you take Charlie and the girls to the commissary for a little something? Here, I’ll draw you directions...” Bill and his brother and sisters left the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office, Bill in the lead, carrying the parchment his father had handed him and squinting at his father’s tiny handwriting. When they arrived, they discovered that it was empty except for a plump young witch who was putting cleaning charms on the tables and an old grizzled wizard who sat in the corner reading the Daily Prophet and pouring something from a hip flask into a cup of steaming hot tea. The four of them sat at a table well away from the old wizard, looking around carefully, and wondering how they were going to get food. After a few minutes, the witch saw that they were floundering, and she came to them and explained the system. They rose and went to get plates from a central table, and when they returned to where they’d been sitting, each of them addressed his or her plate to order. “Bread pudding with caramel sauce,” Charlie promptly said to his plate. “Spotted dick,” Annie told her plate imperiously. “What do you want, Peggy?” Bill asked her, unsure whether he should let her order on her own. “Turkish delight,” she said clearly to her plate, ignoring him. Bill shrugged, deciding to go along. “Trifle,” he said to his plate. Their mother would have a fit if she knew about the amount of sugar they were consuming before lunch, but their mother wasn’t here. They seldom had much in the way of sweets at home; puddings they had, after tea, and they had a little bit of pocket money they could use on sweets when they went to Diagon Alley. But they never had sweets this early in the day. “Bill, we’re going to need some flannels to clean up,” Peggy said to him at one point; her words were a little garbled, as she was chewing. Bill frowned. “To clean up what? They have people here who do that, or house-elves or something.” “But we’re going to need the flannels to clean up when Charlie spills his pumpkin juice.” Bill laughed. “Don’t have much faith in him, do you?” But a moment later, Charlie had knocked his arm into his goblet and spilled pumpkin juice down the middle of the table, necessitating some scrambling out of the way. Charlie frowned at Peggy. “You jinxed me! If you hadn’t said--” “She just knew, Chickie,” Annie broke in. Charlie growled at her. “Don’t call me that!” “Watch out, Annie--” Peggy started to say as Charlie reached out for a handful of his sister’s hair. “You could have told me sooner!” Annie complained, as her voice rose to a shriek. “Shut up!” Bill commanded them all. “You,” he said, speaking to Charlie, “clean up your mess. You,” he said to the girls, “take your food and eat at that table there. I don’t want to hear one more sound from any of you while we’re in here, understand?” They stared at him for a second, as though they’d never seen him before. Charlie slowly took his hands from Annie’s head and went to look for a flannel to clean the table. Soon they were all sitting and eating quietly again. When they had all finished except for Charlie, they rose to go. Bill took Peggy’s and Annie’s hands. “Coming, Charlie?” Charlie looked up at him in bliss, his brown eyes looking slightly glazed-over, his mouth full. “Naw. Oo go. I’ll ee dere zood.” Bill frowned at him. “I’ll be there soon,” Annie said, translating, an impatient edge to her voice. Bill nodded and turned to go. In the corridor, he said to Annie, “You’d better behave yourself in school this year, Annie. You’ve got to set an example for Peggy, and Mum will have enough to do with the new baby without you getting called up on the carpet all the time.” She bristled. “I was good last year.” He held her hand more tightly. “Not as good as you could have or should have been. I mean, that time you put those salamanders in Charlie’s lunch--” “That bloody sod grassed on me!” she exclaimed. Bill stopped, shocked. “Annie Weasley! You watch your mouth! Mum will be mortified if the headmistress hears you talking like that! That’s the sort of thing I mean. No more bad language, and no more pranks. You’re only six--or you will be in a week. What are you going to be getting up to when you’re at Hogwarts?” As they strode through the corridors, the girls having to struggle to keep up with Bill’s long impatient strides, Annie had a wicked little grin on her face. “You’ll see....” Charlie, in the meantime, had finished his pudding and sat back, patting his little round tummy contentedly and sighing. The witch had gone and the old wizard had stopped reading his newspaper. Charlie was suddenly aware that the old man was scrutinizing him. He swallowed, wondering how to leave without it looking like he was running from the man. Instead, the old wizard rose from his seat and began to walk across the room, a loud clunking noise being made on every other step. He stopped at Charlie’s table and peered down at him, his beady black eyes very sharp and critical-looking. His grey mane of hair hung partly in his face, his hands were gnarled, and his cheeks were fissured with too many lines to count. Charlie swallowed. Then, the man’s face suddenly broke into a smile. Broke was the most appropriate word, in Charlie’s opinion, as it caused something like a gash to cut across the man’s face. “Hello, there, laddie. Don’t have to ask whose bairn you are, do I?” Charlie didn’t reply, as he wasn’t certain what the man was talking about. “A Weasley, right?” Oh, Charlie thought, understanding now. “Yes, sir,” he responded, barely audible. “I’m a Weasley.” The old man nodded. “Speak up when you say that. Be proud of it, lad.” “All right,” Charlie answered, still whispering. “I--I will.” Charlie dared to stand now; his knees were knocking together. He didn’t know who this old wizard was, but he evidently knew his dad and liked him, so that was a good thing, he thought. Right? “I--I should be getting back to the others,” he said feebly, his voice still very soft. The old man nodded. “You tell your dad hello from Alastor. I’d come to see him, but we’d end up talking for an hour or two, and I have an appointment elsewhere. Which one are you?” “Which one?” “The eldest? Next eldest?” “Oh. I’m--I’m Charlie. Bill is the eldest.” He nodded his grey head. “Right, right. Well, you’ll be going to Hogwarts soon, then?” “Not--not until next September.” “That’s fine. You’ll do all right, lad. Don’t fret. There’s plenty I want to be terrified when they meet me, but you’re not one of them. You’ve no cause to fear an Auror at your age, I hope.” Oh, he thought. That explains it. He’s an Auror. Charlie swallowed, meaning to sidle toward the door, but suddenly, his attention was caught by the carved wooden foot he saw peeking out from under the old man’s robes. He looked up at the weather-beaten face. “Please, sir--do you have that because--because you’re an Auror?” Then he wished he hadn’t asked; it probably wasn’t quite polite to ask people about why they needed wooden legs. “This?” the old man said, knocking on the wood loudly with his knuckles. “Nah. I got that in the Great War. Place called Gallipoli. Do you want some sound advice, lad?” Charlie was starting to feel braver and nodded at the wizened Auror. “If anyone ever tells you to run flat-out at people firing machine guns while you’re holding nothing but a bayonet--don’t bother with your wand. Just run like hell in the opposite direction. Or tell’em to go to hell.” Charlie frowned now, not quite understanding this. But he said, “Um--all right--” The old wizard laughed now, slapping Charlie on the back. “There’s a good lad. Always know when to humor your elders, eh? Also not a bad piece of advice.” The Auror was rather alarming when he laughed. He kept his hand on Charlie’s shoulder and they walked out of the commissary together. Charlie was relieved to see that the old man was turning in the opposite direction from him. “Ta, lad,” he said before he left. “Don’t forget to tell your dad hello for me, and congratulations on the new Weasley. I have a wee gift for the bairn I’m sending along soon. You be good for your mum and don’t make any trouble, mind.” “Yes, sir,” Charlie said, less numb with fright, but not completely fearless, remembering that the Auror had seen him fighting with his sister. Would he tell? Somehow he thought not. The Auror clumped down the corridor and turned a corner, disappearing from sight. Charlie turned and ran back to his father’s office, hoping he was remembering all of the turns correctly. He was panting when he arrived; his father was showing Bill and his sisters an enchanted doorbell that evidently spewed insults at people the owner didn’t like. “Not at all inconspicuous,” their father complained. “And salesmen. The things it said to them. Even the postman, asking whether he had late-notices. The fellow did quite a lot of business with Muggles and was often late paying his bills, so the postman was evidently bringing a lot of notices of that sort. The bell was telling the postman to put the bills in--well, a rather inaccessible part of his anatomy,” he said, clearing his throat, remembering he was speaking to children. They all looked up in surprise when Charlie arrived, panting, in the doorway. His father looked concerned. “Charlie! Are you all right?” Charlie grimaced, unsure of how to tell his father that his friend had been rather frightening. “Er, yeah. I saw--I mean, I met a friend of yours. An Auror.” His father brightened. “Oh, really? Which one?” “He--he said his name was Alastor.” “Oh, yes. Moody. Well; I’m not surprised you look like that after meeting him.” He chuckled, but stopped quickly, seeing that his son didn’t think it was at all funny. “He couldn’t stop by?” “No. He said he had an appointment.” Charlie was feeling calmer and more collected now. “He also said congratulations on the new baby and he’d be sending a gift soon.” Arthur Weasley laughed. “Yes, I daresay he will. It will probably be another Dark Detector of some sort. He has them all over his place. You should see it. He’s always afraid someone’s going to ambush him in his own home. He even has his dustbins set to spray rubbish on anyone messing about outside his house.” He chuckled again. “No one else would be able to get away with that. And there were a couple of times when he nearly didn’t. But you know how it is; in these times, no one wants to be hard on an Auror, especially one like Moody who’s brought in so many dark wizards. It really should be interesting to see what he sends us; you should see some of the things he sent when you and the others were born,” he added, nodding at Bill and the girls. Bill frowned. “Why don’t we use them?” “Hmm?” his father asked, sitting at his desk again and pulling a stack of work toward him. “Why? Well, most of them aren’t really very useful on a daily basis. Well--one thing might be, come to think of it. He sent it when you were born, with instructions for adding to it as each additional child came along....” “What?” Bill wanted to know. His father shrugged. “It’s just a clock. Although it isn’t, really. It shows where the people in a household are, rather than telling the time. It’s not really a Dark Detector, per se, but it could be useful, I suppose, if we brought it down out of the attic and dusted it off. I’ve been scared to death of having Moody over at the house because I’ll have to bring that thing downstairs first. If he ever suspected we weren’t using it, he’d accuse us of relaxing our ever-present CONSTANT VIGILANCE!” he barked in a gruff voice very unlike their father, making them all jump. He cackled with glee afterward. “Moody’s got a bit of a reputation for being paranoid, in case you couldn’t tell. Good bloke though. As I said, one of our finest Aurors.” Bill sighed, looking at Charlie, wishing he’d met Moody-the-Auror. But nothing interesting ever happens to me, he thought wistfully, staring at the pile of work his father had to plow through. I bet I’ll wind up just like my dad, in a dead-end job with no possibility for advancement and too many mouths to feed. He sank his chin into his hands and settled down to wait for the long, long day to end.

* * * * *

Thursday, 1 October, 1976 Lily watched Severus Snape while they worked in Potions class. She was having a very hard time forgetting a prank that Sirius had played on Severus not long after the new term had begun. Should I worry? she wondered. Sometimes her fears seemed silly, sometimes not. She had to wonder whether Sirius was really antagonistic about her spending time with Severus because he was jealous, or because he genuinely thought Lily was in danger. The prank had occurred at dinner on the third Sunday of the term. It had started out as a wonderful end to a beautiful day, a golden autumn Sunday, when most of the students had gone out of doors to revel in the beautiful weather, flying their broomsticks, practicing Quidditch, or just lounging by the lake. At the evening meal, the ceiling of the Great Hall was a deep sapphire blue, with a crescent moon visible amid a crowd of stars. Lily had been sitting next to Cecilia at the Gryffindor table, James across from them. Lily remembered it very clearly: James, his prefect badge glittering on his robes, was laughing at something Sirius, who was seated next to him, was saying. There was a cheerful hubbub of conversation in the hall. Remus was sitting on James’ other side. She tried not to stare at him; she had just been with him a week earlier, after telling herself she wasn’t going to let this happen again. She felt weak, like the world’s worst person. Remus, as usual, had seemed oblivious to her inner turmoil. Now he leaned over his plate, shoveling in his food as though worried someone would snatch it from him any moment. He always eats that way, she reminded herself, and it occurred to her to wonder whether he usually had enough to eat at home. She was more and more aware of Peter Pettigrew’s crush on her; he was sitting next to her, as he usually did. Sometimes he made her very nervous. She would turn a corner in the castle and find him there, as though he’d been following her. She hoped James would never lend his Invisibility Cloak to Peter. She shuddered at the idea of him sneaking into the girls’ dorms.... Lily studiously ignored Peter, listening to Cecilia instead, laughing at something she knew was meant to be funny, hoping Cecilia wouldn’t actually ask her what she’d said. She glanced furtively over at the Slytherin table while Cecilia continued talking. Severus Snape was eating with his head down, not talking to anyone around him. She swallowed, looking at him. Sometimes he just seemed to emanate loneliness.... Severus jerked his head up suddenly and glared at another Slytherin boy, whose hawk-nose was more pronounced than his. Lily could tell the boy had said something Severus didn’t like. Then she saw that Sirius had risen and was creeping toward the Slytherin table with a goblet in one hand and something vaguely spherical and bulky in his other. Severus’ back stiffened, as though he had a vague awareness that someone was looking at the back of his head. She looked uncertainly at Remus, who was leaning around James Potter’s in order to have a better view of what Sirius was doing. She saw him turn to James briefly, grinning, before going back to watching Sirius. At that moment, she felt like she didn’t like her friends very much at all, even though she was still hopelessly in love with Remus. Just because you love someone, she reminded herself, doesn’t mean it’s easy to like them always. When Sirius reached the Slytherin table, he tapped Severus Snape on the shoulder. He whirled around, as though expecting it, and Lily saw Sirius discreetly hand the goblet and round item to the boy sitting next to Severus, who switched Severus’ goblet for the one Sirius had brought and placed the round item in the middle of Severus’ dinner plate. Even the Slytherins are in on it, she thought indignantly, wondering what exactly was going on, and feeling helpless to stop it. “What?” Severus barked at Sirius, turning away from his plate. The sound carried across the room, above the rest of the conversation. There was a brief lull, then the students went right on. “What what?” Lily heard Sirius say, looking like he was trying not to laugh. Severus glowered at him, then turned back to his dinner. When he saw the thing on his plate (Lily couldn’t tell what it was from across the room), he pushed it away from him in a panic, banging it into his goblet. Nervously, he picked up the goblet and gulped, but lowered it almost immediately and spit out the contents. Lily saw something red splatter on the tablecloth and his robes, and on the people on either side of him. “Eeeew--” some Slytherin girls complained. Severus turned angrily to Sirius. Was that blood on his teeth and around his mouth? Lily wondered. Blood. Sirius had given him a goblet of blood. When she realized this, she gripped her fork fiercely, having an incredible urge to stab Sirius Black with it. Sirius was back at the Gryffindor table now, laughing with Remus. She felt like stabbing him, too. Peter Pettigrew tried to be a part of their joke, laughing along, but he was largely ignored by the other boys. She turned and glared at him, and he cowered under her gimlet eye. James Potter glanced over at the Slytherin table; when he looked back at Lily, he seemed distinctly uncomfortable. Lily had to try very hard not to run to Severus and comfort him. It was equally difficult to resist putting a hex on Sirius Black. “Are you all right, Lily?” James asked her suddenly, looking concerned. “Why did he do that?” she demanded, as though Sirius weren’t standing right there. “How could you do that?” she said, addressing Sirius now, although she suspected it was the old vampire rumor rearing its ugly head again. “Why are you defending him?” Sirius wanted to know, glancing at Remus briefly out of the corner of his eye. Remus had sobered and was looking as cowed under her gaze as Peter, so she glowered at James instead, as she didn’t want to look at Sirius. But James glared back. “Don’t look at me. I had nothing to do with this.” “Oh, washing your hands, are you? And I suppose you’ve never had anything to do with anything that’s happened to Severus?” she said testily. He looked uncomfortable at that, turning to look again at the Slytherin table. When he turned back he was frowning. Suddenly, Professor McGonagall was standing next to Sirius. Lily could see that Dumbledore was standing over Severus, his hand on his shoulder. “Black,” McGonagall said imperiously. “Come with me. We have a detention to discuss,” she said, her mouth very thin. “And proper conduct at meals,” she added, each syllable very crisp. Lily felt very grumpy; Sirius didn’t even look a little remorseful as McGonagall led him away. He seemed to think a detention was worth having played the prank. As Lily worked by Severus’ side all though Potions class, she thought about the goblet of blood. Why would Sirius do that? she thought. Because he’s an insufferable git, that’s why, her brain answered. And because everyone thinks he's a vampire. She looked at Severus’ pale, pale skin, watched his dark eyes move over the potions ingredients. She had crossed the Great Hall after dinner on the night of the prank and had discovered the largest head of garlic she’d ever seen sitting on Severus’ plate. Why should he fear garlic? And then she remembered that he had to put a salve on his skin to be able to go sailing, and he had also mentioned that he and his uncle preferred cloudy weather for sailing. She had thought the vampire nonsense was exactly that, but now she wasn't so sure....What if he really was a vampire? It was this question, and the possible answer, that made her especially nervous. Oh, you’re being stupid, she tried to tell herself. It’s just a silly rumor. It couldn’t be. Still, when he asked her to stay to help him after the class was over, she hesitated, thinking of the goblet of blood, thinking of the enormous head of garlic. “I--I need to get some notes from--from James. Maybe another time?” she said nervously. He looked very disappointed, and started packing up his things. “Oh. Well, if you can’t stay, then I’ll wait until a day that you can.” He sounded forlorn, and she felt like a heel as she bolted after James and the others. But in the corridor, she found none of the Gryffindor boys. Sirius, Remus, Peter and James had just left moments before, and now only the other Slytherins were there, moving toward their common room (she assumed) while Cecilia, Moira and Myra moved in the opposite direction, toward the stairs to the entrance hall. As she stood in the corridor, contemplating the absence of the boys and biting her lip, Severus came up behind her, startling her. His steps were very quiet. “What’s wrong? I thought you had to--” “No,” she answered nervously. “There’s been a change of plan. Do you still want to work on a potion?” She tried not to be silly about this. She’d worked alone with him countless times in the dungeons; why should anything be different now that Sirius had played a woefully tasteless prank on Severus? And yet--it was. A little. Lily looked up at him, standing next to her at the work table. He seemed so much more mature since the new term had started. They had both performed well on their O.W.L.s, and he credited her with helping him do as well as he did in Potions. She was surprised he had asked her to stay to help him today, though, as Slytherin had a Quidditch match coming up soon against Hufflepuff, and he had been down on the pitch every afternoon between the end of classes and when dinner was served, to get in some practice before dark. Severus was the Keeper for the Slytherin team. While they waited for the potion to brew, they talked. Lily made sure she listened attentively as well as contributing to the conversation, and she found that he was opening up more and more--only to retreat and withdraw before she could delve too deeply into his psyche, his innermost thoughts, his desires and ambitions. There were times when he smiled at her and she thought, Yes. It will be different with Severus... Other times she thought, Same old story.... They had corresponded frequently during the summer, but his letters had always been very stiff and formal, very revealing about his day-to-day activities, very unrevealing about his inner life. She wondered for the millionth time what he was hiding. Finally, it seemed that the potion was almost ready. Lily leaned over his potions text, reading. “You know, Severus, you didn’t tell me why you wanted to make Eutharsos Potion, or what it was for--” Severus suddenly panicked and grabbed the book from her, putting it on the side of the cauldron away from her. “It--it doesn’t matter, does it?” his voice shook. “Thank you for your help. I would’ve botched it, most likely. Where are--your friends?” “They’re--off doing things they don’t want me to know about.” She assumed that they had managed to disappear quickly after class by using that map Remus had shown her. She sighed. “For the past year--” she began, then looked up at him, shook herself. She wasn’t going to dwell on how they seemed to be purposefully excluding her, whispering amongst themselves, disappearing mysteriously....Remus being distant with her except when he ‘needed’ her was only a part of it, really. She changed the subject back to the potion. “Actually, if you’d have boiled anything but the roots, you certainly would botched it up. But you still haven’t let me read what it’s for--” She reached for the closed book he’d set down just as he poured the potion into a beaker, straining it through cheesecloth. Lily was still paging through the book, searching for the right potion recipe. Severus stared uncertainly at the murky concoction and then drank it all down, just as Lily cried, “Aha! Here it is...” But as she read, Severus Snape began to feel rather peculiar. Each individual part of his body seemed to go to sleep, then wake up again. He looked at Lily; he could see deep into her clear green eyes, and each strand of hair on her head. Why, he thought, they aren’t all red. That one is gold, and that one copper....He was seeing everything with a clarity he’d never experienced before. Lily stared at him. His eyes looked a bit glassy; then he shook himself and his eyes looked closer to normal again. She realized that the potion had probably taken effect. She turned to the book again, still trying to figure out what he’d taken. Finally, she found the right entry. “Eutharsos Potion,” she read, “is brewed from the root of Eupatorium fistulosum, a common weed that grows to a height of seven feet. Over three-thousand years old, Eutharsos Potion increases a person’s courage and makes him feel safe whether he is or not. One of the most common fears is speaking to large groups; Eutharsos Potion has proved very effective as a method of assisting people with this fear....” Severus saw that she was frowning as she read, a vertical line developing between her brows. Still looking down at the book, she said, “I still don’t see why you need to...” But Severus Snape was feeling very different, very daring. He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. He looked extremely determined, and his eyes burned into hers. “Lily,” he said in a firm voice, no longer shaking. “I have to tell you something.” He pulled her closer to him; she looked up at him, perplexed. “I love you,” he said suddenly, and lowered his mouth to hers. Lily couldn’t move; she was frozen, unresponsive at first. It was starting to feel like Sirius all over again. No, she thought. I don’t want it to be like that. She had waited for so long for Remus to say that to her, especially in the throes of passion, but she’d never heard the words pass his lips. She thought, I should probably say it back to Severus. But did she feel the same way? She liked him a good deal, and she was attracted to him, but did she love him? And then she thought of the description of the potion in the book, but she tried to push this to the back of her mind as she slid her hands up around his neck. I like Severus, she reminded herself. I’ve wondered what it would be like to kiss him, and here it is, happening... He pulled her closer and she decided to open her mouth under his. He seemed momentarily startled, then clutched at her, and the fevered nature of the kiss increased. This is how it’s supposed to be, she thought. No furtive groping on the common room floor late at night, or frenzied coupling in an old dungeon storage room.... He was actually a very good kisser, and she felt her pulse quicken. Lily wanted to cry for joy--and then she wanted to cry for a different reason. No matter how hard she tried, she found that she just could not forget the potions text. And there was Sirius’ prank to consider. This situation was an improvement over Remus, but it still had its problems. Eutharsos Potion increases a person’s courage and makes him feel safe whether he is or not.... He needed to take a potion to approach me, she thought, feeling less sure that she wanted to be kissing him. The more she thought about it, the angrier she felt. Plus, there was still the vampire question. Finally, trying maintain her dignity (and especially, trying not to cry), Lily pulled back and slapped him hard across the face. “How dare you!” she cried, backing away from Severus, her chest heaving. She pulled her hair behind her with her hands, then nervously began twisting it into a coil. She wouldn’t look at him. He had an expression of complete and utter confusion on his face. “How dare I--” Severus began, baffled. For once, she let her emotions flow freely. “How dare you take that--that courage potion and then kiss me! Is that what it takes for a boy to tell me he cares about me and kiss me? I’m so sick of being treated like a disembodied brain floating around here, like I don’t exist from the neck down.” Or, she thought, being treated like I’m nothing but a body, as Remus has been doing. I’m a whole person! she wanted to scream. She felt like a dam had burst, as she voiced the frustrations that had plagued her for the previous two years. “‘Ask Lily, she knows the answer,’” she said in a snide, high-pitched voice. “I’m a human being! I have feelings, and needs. Taking a potion to talk to me is--insulting. Am I so scary?” she demanded of him. He looked at her with wide eyes, obviously a bit alarmed. He thought it might be a bit tactless to tell her, Yes. I’m scared to death to talk to you about how I feel. Why do you think I took the potion? Luckily, the potion was making him feel fairly confident, so he said, “No, Lily, that’s not it. I was just--just nervous. I’ve wanted to say this for so long...” He had. For so very long... “Then you should have just said it!” she spat at him. “Damn you...” she trailed off, looking like she was going to cry. She frequently looked on the verge of tears lately. He had wanted many times to enfold her in his arms and comfort her, tell her that whatever was frightening her or upsetting her, he would be her rock.... Thanks to the influence of the potion, he finally felt the confidence to step closer to her and put his arms around her. She acquiesced at first, putting her head on his chest, then pulled away, wiping her eyes, adopting a more businesslike manner. Perhaps, he thought, she realized that this was also because of the potion. She glared at him. “You meet me under the oaks by the greenhouses in four days time, or however long it takes that potion to wear off. Don’t take any more of it! Then if you want to tell me you love me and kiss me--well, we’ll see! But don’t you touch me until that damn potion wears off!” Her eyes were blazing, and she turned and stormed out of the room. Severus stared after her, his stomach clenching. Had she just told him to meet her by the oaks? To kiss her and tell her he loved her? He couldn’t quite believe it. And she actually had kissed him back. He touched his lips in wonder. She actually seemed to want him to profess his love without being under the influence of any foreign substances.... He smiled broadly and resisted the urge to give a little skip into the air. Yes! Lily Evans. Severus Snape and Lily Evans. He tried saying it out loud, then looked around guiltily, in case anyone heard him. And he saw, to his dismay, that someone had indeed heard him: a tall, thin, red-haired boy who was, despite his height, probably only in first or second year. The boy was standing in the doorway of the potions dungeon, and Severus thought he looked vaguely familiar. Gah. All of these children look alike. “What?” Severus Snape snapped at him. “Er,” the boy said uncertainly, looking like he was going to bolt any second. “I was looking for the Potions Master,” he said very quickly. Somehow, Severus Snape wasn’t convinced that that was what the boy had meant to say. “Well, he’s not here!” Snape answered him tersely. “Oh, okay,” the boy said, bolting. Severus Snape put his face into the corridor for a moment, watching the long, thin legs sprinting away from him as though he was running from death itself.

* * * * *

It had all started with just trying to get a good night’s sleep. Bill was tired of the noise around him in the second-years boys’ dorm. “I’ll bet you he is,” Alex Wood said, with an evil edge to his voice. “Bet you he isn’t,” Booth countered. “Is.” “Isn’t.” “Is.” “Isn’t.” “Then why did Sirius Black give him that goblet of blood? And the garlic? Did you see the way he acted about the garlic? And when he spewed the blood all over....even the Slytherins were disgusted. If no one else had been around, I bet he would have drunk every drop.” It had been rather spectacular, Bill remembered. Trust Sirius Black to play the prank of pranks. “Come on. They wouldn’t let a bloody vampire into the school. What’ll you be suggesting next? That the Head Girl is a banshee?” “She screams like one,” Orville Simpson groused sleepily. “Ha!” Alex said, triumphant. “You said bloody vampire. What other kind is there?” Bill sighed. He was very, very tired, having been writing a yard-long History of Magic essay until after midnight, including some things his dad had told him about the Emperor Tiberius, and now he couldn’t get any sleep for all of the noise in the room. “Someone go and offer to let him bite you, why don’t you, and find out that way?” Bill suggested irritably, punching his pillow. I got more sleep at home with a yowling baby in the house. “All right,” Rembert Leonard agreed. “Who should do it?” Orville Simpson asked, sounding more awake. Bill heard some movement and steps across the stone floor of the round tower room. Suddenly, in a burst of noise, the other four boys tore open his curtains and proclaimed, “Bill! Bill will do it!” they yelled gleefully. “You’ve got to offer yourself up to Snape, Weasley. See whether he makes a snack of you,” Booth said, smacking his lips. “I am not getting involved in this,” Bill told them, wondering if he’d get in a great deal of trouble for hexing all four of them. “It was your suggestion,” Booth pointed out. “Doesn’t anyone around here recognize sarcasm when they hear it?” “No,” Leonard said decisively. “If you do it--you can make one of us do something we don’t want to do,” Alex said with a wicked smile. Now Bill was feeling slightly wicked himself. “How about something you want to do?” Orville frowned. “What do you mean?” Bill looked at Alex. “I mean that if I do this, you,” he said to his best friend, “have to kiss Mary Ann Boxwood. On the mouth.” Alex looked appalled. “No! No way!” “If I can ask Snape--a possible vampire, according to you--to bite me on the neck, you can kiss the girl you’re crushing on.” “I am not--” Alex started to say. He was interrupted by Booth and Leonard repeating the sing-song chant, “Mary Ann and Alex, Mary Ann and Alex...” “Sod off,” Alex said grumpily, returning to his own bed. Bill rolled over to get back to sleep. In the morning, Bill had forgotten all about it, as though it had been a dream, but Alex reminded him after breakfast, after the first and second classes, after lunch, and when all of their classes were done for the day. He still had his end of the bargain to uphold. As they left their last class, Bill thought, Now I have to find Severus Snape and ask him to bite me. He grimaced at the thought. Erg. “Where do I even find him?” Bill asked Alex as they walked back to the Gryffindor common room. “What if he’s in his dorm?” Alex shrugged. “Then you wait until later.” When they reached the common room, Bill threw himself into a chair near the windows. A chess game was going on nearby. “No, really,” he said. “It’s a huge castle. How’m I supposed to find one person in this place? He could be anywhere.” Suddenly, the twin girls from sixth year looked up from their chess game. Bill couldn’t remember their names. “If you’re looking for someone, ask James and Sirius,” one of them said. “They always seem to know where everyone is,” the other one said. Bill felt very grumpy; he did not really want someone to solve his problem. Alex grinned at him evilly. “Go on then, you. Get up to their dorm and ask them.” Bill grimaced and dragged himself to the spiral stairs. He trudged up, up the stone steps until he was on the level where the sixth years lived. The door was locked and he heard a muffled hum of conversation behind it. He knocked loudly, hoping they wouldn’t hex him for disturbing them. He heard footsteps approaching the door and it was swung open by James Potter, who immediately grinned when he saw Bill. “Weasley! Hullo there. What can I do for you?” Behind Potter, Bill saw that Peter Pettigrew and Remus Lupin were hurriedly pulling the curtains around a four-poster with a lot of parchments on it. “Um. Those twin girls in your year. Downstairs. They said you could help me find someone. In the castle,” he added awkwardly. Potter got a wise look on his face and ushered Bill into the room, locking the door securely. “Well. You came to the right place,” Potter told him conspiratorially. “Sirius! Get out the you-know-what.” Sirius Black nodded and went to his wardrobe. He opened the door, which was mirrored on the inside, and rummaged among some boxes on the floor. However, in the mirror, Bill could see that that wasn’t where he was getting the you-know-what from. After he saw Black slip a piece of parchment from the pocket of a robe hanging in the wardrobe, Black made some more pointless noise with the boxes, and finally turned round with the parchment. Pettigrew, of all people, yelled, “No!” and jumped at Black, putting himself between him and Bill, seemingly to keep Bill from seeing the parchment. “Do you want him to see it?” Pettigrew demanded of Black, who looked chagrined. “Sorry. You’re right,” he said quietly to the small boy. Raising his voice, he said to Bill, “You wait over there. You’ll get your information, don’t worry. But--turn around.” Bill turned, and he noticed that in this position, the open door of another wardrobe was at the perfect angle to give him a clear view of what Black was doing with the parchment, reflected in the mirror on that wardrobe’s door. Bill heard him say, as he touched his wand to the parchment, “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.” Bill covered his mouth to keep them from hearing his gasp (he wasn’t supposed to be able to see what they were doing) as lines began to draw themselves all over the parchment. It was a map, he could tell. A map of Hogwarts castle! But how would that help him find Severus Snape? “So,” Black said, “who are we looking for, then?” Bill swallowed. “Snape.” There was nothing but silence behind him. “Snape,” Sirius Black repeated without inflection. “That’s right.” James Potter said, “That’s easy. We just left him. He’s down in the potions dungeon.” “Sirius!” Pettigrew said now. Bill heard the parchment being rattled. “Look how close together their dots are! It’s like--like one dot!” Bill wanted to turn around, but he willed himself to stay put. “I’m going down there,” he heard Sirius Black say stiffly, obviously very angry. “No, Sirius,” Potter said, his voice shaking. You don’t know--” “But--what if he’s--you know--” James Potter was sounding very annoyed. “Oh, come on, Sirius. You’re the only one who really believes that--” “I’m not! Even the Slytherins--” “And you’re going to take their word for it?” Potter countered. Sirius Black began cataloguing every unlikable thing there was about Severus Snape. Roughly every other item on the list was He’s a slimy Slytherin. It seemed to Bill that Remus Lupin had been very quiet. Now, reflected in the wardrobe mirror, Bill could see that he was staring at the map. “Send Weasley,” he said softly. “What?” Sirius said, interrupting his anti-Snape diatribe. He had reached number forty-three: He’s a really, really, really slimy Slytherin.

“Send Weasley. He’ll be an intrusion. It’s better than one of us.”

“But he might--” Sirius began.

“Shut it, Padfoot,” Remus said suddenly. “That’s rubbish and you know it. Send Weasley. That’s all that will be necessary. He’s looking for him anyway.” He resumed contemplating the map. Bill was mystified about how a map could tell him where Snape was, but then he saw in the mirror that Remus had taken out his wand; he tapped the map and said, “Mischief managed.”

Bill swallowed. The map disappeared again. They had charmed a parchment to reveal its secrets only with a password. Another password wiped it clean. Bill couldn’t believe it. It was an amazing piece of magic, and he was fairly certain it wasn’t on the Hogwarts curriculum for any year.

“Th-thanks,” Bill stuttered out, trying to walk toward the door without looking at the wardrobe where he knew Sirius Black was returning the parchment to its hiding place (its real hiding place, not in the boxes on the floor of the wardrobe, as he wanted Bill to believe). When he was on the landing again, he heard them securely bolt the door and resume the hum of conversation.

All the way down to the dungeons, he just kept marveling at the map he’d seen, still wondering what the “dots” were, and how a map could help you locate a person. Then he stopped, remembering a conversation he’d overheard at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall the previous spring.

James Potter had been talking about meeting his girlfriend in the library, and he had said, “The trouble is--there’s something I need to get from a certain place, for which I need a certain product from Mr. Moony, Mr. Padfoot, Mr. Wormtail and Mr. Prongs. Trouble is, I think Remus has just what I need....”

Bill remembered that Sirius Black had said something about giving “it” to Remus that morning. “He sometimes feels the need to go off alone the day before,” he had added. “You know. He can use it to make sure no one sneaks up on him.” And Bill had wondered what could possibly keep a person from sneaking up on you? Other than an Invisibility Cloak, and he didn’t think that was what Black meant. And up in the dorm, Remus Lupin had called Sirius Padfoot....

It must have been the map they were talking about, Bill decided. The map must--it must show the locations of people in the castle. As he realized this, his heartbeat increased. They could do anything, go anywhere, with such a map, he realized.

Since Sirius Black was evidently "Padfoot," the other names must be the codenames his friends were using. He wondered which one was Moony, which Wormtail and which Prongs. Prongs? he thought. Odd, that. Why would you use a codename like Prongs? Wormtail wasn't much better. Moony was all right. That was probably Pettigrew, he guessed. All he ever seemed to do was moon about after Lily Evans.

He was still thinking about this when he reached the corridor outside the potions dungeon, but he stopped when he heard something very strange. A girl was yelling in the dungeon, and Bill couldn’t believe what she was saying:

“You meet me under the oaks by the greenhouses in four days time, or however long it takes that potion to wear off. Don’t take any more of it! Then if you want to tell me you love me and kiss me--well, we’ll see! But don’t you touch me until that damn potion wears off!” Bill was even more shocked when Lily Evans, of all people, stormed into the corridor, her eyes blazing. He pressed himself into the wall, and she passed without his presence registering; she looked blinded by rage, so he wasn’t completely surprised. What he was interested in was knowing was who had she been talking to? Then, he heard a voice in the dungeon say, “Severus Snape and Lily Evans.” Bill walked toward the door, seeing the boy he’d come looking for looking uncharacteristically dreamy and lovesick. When Severus Snape looked up and noticed Bill’s presence, his face closed up. Bill didn’t even remember their exchange precisely; he remembered later that he made up something about looking for the Potions Master, who wasn’t there. When Snape told him as much, very tersely, Bill went tearing up the stairs out of the dungeon, having no idea what he would tell Alex Wood and the others. If he told them what really happened, what Lily Evans had said, they’d never believe him. But if Severus Snape was a vampire, Lily Evans, for one, certainly didn’t seem to mind.

* * * * *

Notes: In the Pensieve chapter of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Moody does not yet have his magical eye, and that is supposed to be after Voldemort's fall. As such, he does not yet have his magical eye in this chapter, and no one has yet given him the name of "Mad-Eye." Earlier in GoF, Charlie speaks of going to work with his father and meeting Moody, so this is my version of that. (Bill does not say he met him, so I did not have anyone but Charlie actually speak to him.) Readers who are familiar with my fic Harry Potter and the Psychic Serpent will recognize some incidents that are mentioned in that story, although they are presented from a different point of view here. I first developed my concept of the Ministry of Magic's physical description for Chapter 30 of Psychic Serpent, where the reader may get Harry's perspective on it. The only other thing I have to add at this time is that I do not consider the film(s) to be canon, so please, no one else tell me that James Potter was a Seeker, not a Chaser. J.K. Rowling called him a Chaser in an online chat well before the film was released. While it is true that she approved many things for the script, I can only assume that she approved his Quidditch position changed to Seeker because, frankly, it doesn't matter one way or the other. Since I made James a Chaser back when I started writing Psychic Serpent, well before the film's release, a Chaser he shall remain in my universe.

Many, many thanks to Andrew (Peglander) , Lara Gill (Practical Magic), and Aurinia for doing the beta work on this chapter.