In Curves, Not Angles

Part 4

The baby kicked once, rather emphatically, while Sirius was doing the crossword.

"What?" he asked of it, hands spread, the pen still clutched in one hand. "I'm telling you, 72 across is definitely 'alchemy.'"

James, from where he was sitting across the breakfast table, snorted softly.

Even that small sound was very audible just now. They were the only two -- well, three -- people in the house; Peter and Remus had gone to work not long after Lily left, but James had stayed, saying he couldn't go anywhere while Lily was on assignment. Too nervous, Sirius thought. Too anxious for her to get back. "Are you arguing with my child over the Prophet Puzzler?" James asked.

"Real junior genius you've got here," Sirius said, as he filled in 72, 73, and 46 down for good measure. "I'll start him on the acrostics next."

"We don't know yet," James murmured.

"Well, maybe a word search first, really; he can work up to the others...." Sirius paused, belatedly sensing a disconnection in the conversation. "James?"

"We don't know if it's a boy or a girl," James said. He turned in his chair, a scroll curling down from one hand, his quill in the other. "Or I don't, anyway. They always say witches do, but Lily hasn't told me." His voice dropped. "I thought you knew that."

Something nervous twisted within Sirius. "It's just easier to say," he said, staring. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

James shook his head and looked down at his papers. "Sorry," he muttered. "I --"

Sirius' voice took on a warning tone. "Prongs?"

"I just wonder how much attention you pay, sometimes," he said. "Lily... said you can --"

All at once things clicked into place.

"Lily said I can be inconsiderate?" Sirius asked, somewhat sharply. "You don't need to remind me. And I'm busy considering every possible detail of all this just now, James."

James didn't apologize, but his expression softened and he set down his letters, watching Sirius all the while. Neither of them said anything else until Sirius let out a sigh.

"You have no idea," Sirius said, while he filled in 74 across -- ash. "Lily may have told you what it's like, but...."

He trailed off, listening as if he could hear the baby somehow, like he -- or she, maybe, but somehow he doubted it -- would explain everything. Lacking any assistance from within, though, Sirius was left to try to describe things on his own.

"It's... just so there. You can't get away from it. Everything you do, every breath you take, you're aware that there's this baby, here--" His left hand dropped to his stomach, and for the first time he just left it there while he thought. "And you're utterly responsible. For everything. You're not just feeding it or watching it but actually carrying it, sustaining it --"

James still wasn't saying anything. Sirius felt almost unnerved. "I don't know what to do. No one ever prepares you for this sort of thing. Not me, anyway." He swallowed. "I hope it's different if you're a girl. I don't know what they get told about all this before it happens, but someone better be warning them."

"Is it so terrible, then?" James said.

There was something in his voice, Sirius realized, that nearly sounded hurt -- enough so to shock Sirius into dropping his pen.

"No!" he exclaimed. "It's --"

He stopped, looking down at his hand -- Lily's hand -- resting on her stomach.

"It's not terrible," he said quietly. "Just... overwhelming."

James set down his papers and came around the table, sitting beside Sirius. He didn't touch him, although he looked like he wanted to -- like under any other circumstances he would have been hugging Lily. "I'm sorry," he said awkwardly.

"No," Sirius sighed, leaning back and rubbing his eyes. "You're probably as nervous as I am."

"At least as," James whispered.

Sirius almost said, It's not you who's stuck in here if anything goes wrong, but he held his tongue. Instead, he looked at James, whose face looked drawn and pale, and whose hand was hovering uncertainly above his knee.

"You can if you want," Sirius murmured, guessing what it was James wanted to do.

James pushed up his glasses, then nodded, while his hand drifted over and rested beside Sirius' on Lily's stomach. They just sat there, waiting, for a long moment. When there was a small flutter of movement beneath their hands, James sighed, and leaned against the shoulder of his wife and best friend.

"Your mommy's out there," he said softly to the baby, rubbing back and forth in a slow arc. "But she'll be back."

Sirius watched James when he repeated it, his voice quiet and layered with meaning. "She'll be back for us."

And his eyes were focused down at the baby like the force of his need alone was going to make it true.

----

Lily ought, she supposed, to have been nervous at best. Terrified wouldn't have been entirely out of order, really. But after twenty minutes of stalking through the underbrush in a scraggly, unpleasantly-damp forest, listening to Moody's growled admonitions about stealth and vigilance, the nervousness was being replaced by another unproductive emotion: annoyance. She was actually grateful when they got close enough to the target site that he ordered total silence.

She and Moody had to keep casting silencing charms on themselves, too, to muffle the inevitable branch snaps and muddy footsteps. Visually, their shield was somewhat less impressive. Lily wanted to groan aloud at Moody's suggestion, but she had little choice but to go along with it. "It's not what they'd expect," Moody whispered at her as they crouched down.

Lily, glaring out from her makeshift camouflage shrub, and getting poked in the ear by a wayward branch while she did it, had to agree.

Once we're there, Moody had told her, I'll look to see how many people are being kept here. If it's just the captives, we'll move in. If there are more, we'll plan for combat.

Lily held her breath, staying as still as she could while she waited for Moody's signal. She could nearly hear that eye spinning in his head as he studied the trees in front of them, and whatever lay beyond.

Finally she heard a harsh whisper, charmed for her ears alone.

"It's a cloaking spell. Those three trees -- the center one has new growth coming out the bole -- are an illusion. It's really an overgrown cabin." As always, with cloaking spells of this type, once she knew what was really there, the falsehood melted away. Lily found herself staring at the old building, its windows boarded over and its door heavy and dark.

Moody scooted forward, taking his foliage with him. Lily tried not to shake her head as she followed. "Two people in there," he said; his magical eye was still roaming, staring through the walls. "It's our girls."

All at once, he sounded sober. Lily lost the thread of her annoyance and turned to stare. "No one else," he said. "They've gone for now. Had their fun, I suspect." He sounded grim. "I can keep watch. You get them out of there."

"Moody, what hap--"

"Doesn't matter," he snapped. "But they're hurt, so go carefully. And hurry." He paused. "I don't see any detectors or spy-spells outside the building. You can... probably skip the shrub."

Lily cast a quick glance heavenwards, shoved off the branches with all due speed, and crept toward the building.

Detectors, no, she confirmed as she approached -- but wards, yes. She knew it, could feel it as soon as she got near. And this, she realized with a sinking feeling, was why Moody had wanted Sirius, who knew all about these. There was layer after layer of dark magic seals on the doors and the windows, blocking any possible place someone could get in -- or out. Lily spread a hand wide before the doorpanel, trying to gauge how many of the spells were inside and how many were within.

Sirius is so much better at this than I am, she thought wearily, peering at the windows to see if they were any simpler than the door. I can work the charms, but the layers of deception hiding this I just have no gift for...

"What's the holdup?" Moody asked in her ear, as clearly as if he were standing beside her. Lily resisted the urge to look back over her shoulder at him.

After a deep breath, she replied as steadily as she could. "It's multilayered. Just looking for the trigger...."

More privately, her inner voice of common sense was beginning to walk her through it. Go sensibly. Do the outside wards first -- they don't look like they're linked to the ones inside....

Lily pulled out her wand and hovered it before the door, murmuring the words that would pull apart the first layer of the web.

Before her, the spell outlined itself in green -- fortunately, the net of spell-threads wasn't as delicate or skilled as many she'd seen. Her wand made it shiver, then arc toward the slender birch rod as if it were magnetic. She spoke a few more words, making sure the entire net was connected -- then she pulled.

Like a jumper unraveling by pulling out one thread, the spell fell apart into frayed strings of magic, then vanished into thin air. It wasn't until the green light faded entirely that Lily breathed again.

And then she started over.

Two layers in and she was down to the surface of the building. Lily shook a lingering bit of net from the wand and touched her hand to the door this time -- then pulled it away, swearing. The wood was hot.

While she shook her hand in midair, she heard another gruff whisper in her ear. "Getting there, are we?"

"Hush up, Mad-Eye," she muttered.

The words surprised her -- she'd never have been so impolite -- but from Sirius, all it did was make Moody snort and fall silent. Lily cast a cooling charm on her hand and tried again.

Warmer here, cooler there... hotspots, she realized, as she drifted her fingers across another one. The wards behind were linked at those points. Lily braced herself and tapped her wand over one of them, repeating the unraveling spell in as firm a voice as she could.

It took hold, but this time the ward came apart differently.

She grimaced and choked back a sound of disgust -- the disintegrating spell looked like worms, like burrowing bugs, fat and blood-red and wriggling as they crawled through the wood and fell to earth. Behind them, a hundred little holes in the wall smoldered and smoked.

Lily shook her feet sharply, wincing, as she felt them hit her feet -- even the leather of Sirius' shoes smoked. These things almost reminded her of blobs of lava, molten hot but rapidly cooling in the open air until all that remained was black, crumbling rock... she stepped on one, crumbling it to ash, before lifting her hand to the door again and finding it was cool.

"I've got it," she whispered, casting her eyes across the wood for any signs of remaining magic. Seeing none, she gripped the doorknob and --

-- screamed, seeing her mistake too late, for the last spell left was imbedded into the knob like the ward at the Forest House, and instead of flaring in a warning it was outright burning through her hand.

She pulled it away, nearly crying with the searing pain and seeing bits of skin still clinging to the knob -- but somehow she'd twisted it just far enough. The door, all its protections finally gone, swung in.

Lily clutched her hand (Sirius' hand, oh, God, I've hurt him) to her chest, ignoring Moody as he demanded to know what had just happened. She felt almost dizzy, and the pain turned her stomach, nearly making her retch --

But as she looked blindly forward, and then slowly focused on the room, she remembered who she was here for -- and that they'd likely just been through worse.

Lily took a deep breath, whispering a painkilling charm over and over until she'd managed to get herself ready.

When she walked in, the door swung shut behind her.

---

"Do we have any idea what she's doing?"

Peter shuffled aside a stack of papers with ink-stained fingers, one thumb almost looking black. Remus stared at it as Peter leaned his elbows on the vacated space and scrubbed his forehead with his fingertips.

"Could be anything," he muttered. "Obviously it's about the missing girls, but...."

Someone walked past Remus' chair, jostling him sharply. Remus shot a look over his shoulder; the passer-by didn't acknowledge him, and Remus couldn't quite suppress a flash of bitterness. Here at the Ministry, where Peter worked by day, werewolves were recognized by everyone -- and not at all welcomed.

"Listen, Lupin," Peter said -- no informal address from him either, not in this office -- "we can't talk about it here."

"I'm just nervous," Remus said under his breath. After a minute of scanning the room for anyone else who might be listening, Peter gave him a sympathetic look.

"I'm always nervous when James goes out too," he said. "Or you." He thought about it and laughed. "Or me."

"Big scary world out there," Remus murmured, knowing how Peter would respond to the old line --

"Lots of monsters," he finished, and winked.

Remus sat still, suppressing a sigh. It wasn't the monsters he was truly worried about this time, though -- not the ghouls or ghosties or things that went bump in the night, or the vampires, or goblins, or the werewolves like himself. No, it was the people he worried about -- his lover and his friend out there against the Death Eaters, the traitors, the ones you wouldn't recognize in the street or even if they were right in front of you, or waiting behind you with a knife.

"You got us into this, you know," Remus whispered.

Peter looked down at his papers. An awkward, almost sad look of guilt had slid over his face. "I never thought it would get this complicated."

Looking at him like that, Remus almost felt guilty in exchange. "Since when is magic ever simple?" he asked.

"Or anything else," Peter said, smiling wryly.

"Point."

Peter leaned forward, blinking owlishly. "Listen. If you're worried about Sirius, Lily's going to take better care of him than anyone but you would. Probably even better than Sirius would. You know how reckless he gets."

Remus managed a single nod at him, running one hand back over his his tousled brown hair.

"And James is taking care of Sirius, too," Peter continued. "He won't let him do anything stupid, not now. In all honesty they're probably both safer like this."

"Maybe you're right," Remus said, sighing.

Somewhere above him, something clattered; Remus glanced up to see the mechanisms of the Ministry at work, the magically-powered devices that kept the engine running, kept things moving from place to place, and shuttled orders around. Mostly ineffectual orders, he knew, which was why the real Order existed. And sometimes they were harmful, and hurtful, and bearing his own registry number....

Which was why he fought, too.

"He'll be back tonight," Peter said, and cleared his throat. "She'll, I mean. Be back. And I'll come by the house, see what I can do."

Remus nodded.

"I'm sorry, Remus," Peter said, very quietly. "We'll make this right."

Remus rubbed the back of his neck. "Thanks," was all he said.

With that, there was another sound above his head, a soft fluttering, like paper -- and he looked up to see a paper airplane swoop over Peter's desk, drop to his waiting hands and unfold. Peter read it over, making a face. "So much for lunch," he muttered, flipping over another stack of papers to find something beneath. "I... have to take this. Sorry."

Remus nodded and got up. "I have to get back too," he said, not mentioning the menial job he was returning to. Even something at the Ministry would have been better than his job; Peter knew it as well as he did, which was why he didn't say anything at all. Remus sighed and turned away from the desk.

"Are you coming to the house after work, too?" Peter asked as he stepped away.

Remus paused, looked over his shoulder, and nodded the obvious yes. Then he hunched into his coat and made his way for the hallway, trying to stay as inconspicuous as possible among the other people he didn't trust: everyone else around him.

Big scary world out there, he thought as he went, edging between two wizards who were looking down their noses at him. Lots of monsters....

---

The cabin was dark, and hardly even helped by Lily's shaky Lumos -- she was casting with the wrong hand, for she'd had to hastily bind her right with a handkerchief she'd found in Sirius' coat. There wasn't time for a proper healing spell yet, and her hand still burned, like the spell had wormed under her skin and stayed there.

In the dim light she wasn't sure what was around her, but she was almost glad the illumination didn't reach the floor. She felt for certain there oughtn't be anything in this building that would squelch under her feet as she stepped, and nothing that smelled like this.

There's only two people in here, she thought as she turned, holding her wand high. That's all Moody saw --

Her light struck the shape of a long-dead body, tied to the wall and dangling limply, unrecognizable in decay. She choked and turned away, covering her mouth with her own wounded hand.

Two living people, that is....

And she had to get them out of here.

"Who's there?" she called, realizing she had to risk it in order to find them in this murk. There was only a small, scrabbling noise in reply; Lily held up her wand again, willing it to go brighter. "Where are you?"

"Who is-- what...."

A woman's voice. Lily rushed toward it, hoping she wouldn't stumble. Up there, just ahead, she could see something--

"No!" another voice cried, and her silhouette shrank back. "Not again, don't, please...."

"I'm here to help," Lily said, her own voice shaking. "I'm L-- Sirius Black. I'm not with them."

Finally she could see who she'd been sent to rescue. Two young women, looking vaguely like the photographs she'd seen -- but thinner, paler, bearing new bruises -- were tied up and huddled against the wall. Rosalind, the smaller one, looked sunken and scared, and Mary....

Lily bit her lip, looking at that red hair, so much like hers, but matted with blood at the scalp.

"I'm getting you out of here," she whispered, fumbling at the knots binding their hands behind their backs. They stayed firmly knotted; she pulled harder.

"They said they'd be back," Mary said. "Said they'd be back and finish us off like -- like him --" She was staring across the room where Lily'd seen the body. Lily didn't turn around to see it again. "Said they'd finish us off and leave us to die out here...."

"Leave us to die in the mud like the Mudbloods we are," Rosalind finished weakly.

Something in Lily's heart clenched hard. Even in the midst of all this, it only took that simple sentence to make memories swim up --

The first time she'd heard the word, and learned what it meant. The smug look on her own sister's face when she'd learned what it meant. Snape, on that horrid day at the lake when she'd tried to defend him and he still threw it at her. And that day she'd walked in on James and Sirius, fighting -- the first time she'd ever heard them fight -- and Sirius was shouting....

"Ever since you fell for that Mudblood bint you've been treating us like--"

She looked down at Sirius' hands.

He hadn't finished the sentence. James had hit him before he could manage it. But she'd never forgotten it, never forgotten what it was like to hear James' best friend, Sirius, the purest of purebloods, call her that behind her back.

I never really forgave him, she realized, as she looked up at the two trembling women before her.

He'd have been here if I hadn't had to go in his place, she thought. He wouldn't have stood for this, ever. You know he didn't really mean....

She bit the inside of her cheek, then pulled out her wand again, carefully clasping her -- his -- wounded hand around it. After a deep breath, she murmured the unbinding. The ropes holding both girls instantly detached and spun away.

"Can you walk?" she asked, as gently as possible. Mary curled her legs up and started to lever herself upwards, wincing, but managing it. She nodded tightly. Rosalind, though, just shook her head.

"I don't know," she whispered.

"You can do it, honey," Mary murmured back. Rosalind looked up desperately at her friend, reaching up to clutch her hand, but she still couldn't move. Lily went immediately to her side, helping lift her to her feet.

"One step at a time," Lily said, shoving her wand into her belt. "Go easy. And don't look at anything. I'll lead you."

Rosalind nodded, leaning wearily against her side as they went to the doorway -- Lily leading, her arm tight but careful around Rosalind's waist, and Mary on the girl's other side, stubbornly walking on her own and not letting Rosalind slip.

When they made it outside, Moody was there, his hat pulled down to hide his surely-swiveling eye. "They all right?" he demanded.

Lily adjusted her grip, staring right back at him. "One back there isn't. Identify him if you can -- he deserves a burial. Then burn this damned place down." She adjusted her arm, gripping Rosalind's other hand over her shoulder and not caring how much it hurt to hold on. "I'll Apparate them to our wing at St. Mungo's."

Moody nodded crisply, giving her a good hard look. Something in that gaze, she thought, still looked almost suspicious, and with his magical eye hidden she couldn't tell what he was looking at, or what on earth he could see -- but he said nothing except a gruff "Good work, Black," before he turned away.

Lily glanced over her shoulder once more at Moody, who'd already gone into the house, before Rosalind whispered, "Can we go?"

Lily held on tight; Mary clasped Rosalind's hand and leaned close. "I'm ready," Mary said in a pale but firm voice.

Mudbloods all, Lily thought, and we're not falling....

They disappeared with a solid crack, just as Moody reemerged with the body and swiftly turned back to cast his own spell.

The last thing Lily sensed from their surroundings was a cloud of green-tinted, foul-smelling smoke, as the Death Eaters' secret hideout -- one of many, she thought bitterly, just one of many -- went up in flames behind them.