A Chance You Only Get Once

Chapter Nine
On the Homefront

A week ago, there was nothing to distinguish the residence of Mr and Mrs David J. Potter from that of its neighbors except the sign in their yard proudly proclaiming their lawn the winner of the Green Acres Finest Grass Award. A week ago, the residence of Mr and Mrs David J. Potter was indistinguishable from the other houses along its street. It was whitewashed the exact shade of the house that faced it, had the same green shutters as the house to its right, and had a large black front door identical to the house on its left. Every day at the same hour that all other perfectly respectable and utterly normal businessmen returned home, Mr David J. Potter drove his respectably normal car into his paved driveway and, waving cheerfully at his wife at the kitchen sink through the lacy curtains of the window, made his way into his house.

A week ago, no one had suspected the deep betrayal that the residence of Mr and Mrs David J. Potter had enacted on them all. The model home, apparently identical in creed and purpose to its neighbors, had been revealed for what it truly was. The surprised neighbors had awoken to see the startling proof that the Potter residence had betrayed them all. Some things were obvious at once, while others could be forestalled by the talent for denial that such neighborhoods possessed. Half of the green shutters had been torn from the windows and lay strewn across the lawn, the windows they had protected having shattered their glass all over the garden that was Mrs David J. Potter's pride and joy. The front door was open and swinging on its one remaining hinge at the slightest breeze. At the respectable hour of nine in the morning, the car was not pulling out of its driveway like all the others along the street. At the respectable hour of six in the evening, it still had not moved. Most disturbing of all, the Green Acres Finest Grass Award had been torn from its post and lay muddy and dirty in the middle of the lawn.

On waking that first morning, the particular friend of Mrs David J. Potter (though no one could fathom why the perfectly ordinary Mrs Potter would associate with the neighborhood oddball) noticed a faint, glowing green mist that hung over the residence of Mr and Mrs David J. Potter, and she knew. She knew why the Potter House's cover had been blown.

Scotland Yard swarmed over the house that first morning; Aurors, that first night. Finding nothing, the police filed away the bizarre incident and moved on. Finding nothing, the Aurors informed the Daily Prophet grudgingly of the tragedy and moved on to the next broken home. Now, for almost a week, the residence of Mr and Mrs David J. Potter had stood empty and forsaken, the bodies of the stalwart Mr Potter and the kind Mrs Potter in a small cemetery with no epitaph on their tombstone beyond their names and assumed date of death.

It was in the dead of night, when no respectable person on the street was awake to see the sight, their eyes averted from the Potter house on principle, that two people stole quietly up the ruined lawn and through the swinging doorway and into the residence of Mr and Mrs David J. Potter. While the street was shocked and repelled by the changes of the Potter House, what the pair found more disconcerting to witness by the light of their flickering candles was the parts of the house that remained deceptively the same as if nothing had happened in the house at all. The flowers were unwatered and wilting; the ashes from the fire in the den were strewn about the overturned furniture; pictures in the front hall had been shaken from their nails and fallen to the ground. All this could be born.

The dishes, half washed in the sink, standing waiting as if for Mrs Potter to return to finish them, however, pierced the hearts of the intruders. The beds, all neatly made upstairs, made them avert their eyes in anguish. The study with Mr Potter's papers still strewn across his desk with his briefcase open beside them made their arms sag as they turned the light from their candles away from the sight. The place was kinder by the light of candles to those who had grown used to the sight of the house in the brighter light of the couple's electricity. It did not reveal how much the house had once been. It was properly respectful of what the house had lost.

The pair had walked through the house in silence but stopped in the den. Both were staring down at the cruel chalk outlines that the hapless detectives and policemen had drawn before hauling away the bodies of Mr and Mrs David J Potter. The woman broke the silence that had hung about them like a shroud since they entered the house, indeed since they had met to travel to the house. "That just leaves the cats," she said, pulling her eyes at long last from the outline that grotesquely displayed the position Mrs Potter's body had been found in.

The man swung the small bag of photographs, memorabilia, and other small valuables and heirlooms over his back to forestall saying anything. He could not take his eyes from the chalk drawings. He said nothing; he had said precious little to the woman in many long years, and he wondered if he ever would speak to her again when they now no longer had their sister to coax them into an occasional truce. No longer had their sister.

"Which one do you want?" the woman grunted, looking anywhere but at her brother or the chalk marks.

"What?" the man voiced purely from surprise.

"Atlanta would skin us alive if we left her cats here," the woman said with an edge to her voice, surprised at how many words they had exchanged. Without Atlanta, she hadn't expected them to exchange that many words in the course of a decade. Without Atlanta.

Her brother said nothing. "And I'm not taking them both."

"Fine," he almost snarled, finally tearing his eyes from the outline that had most assuredly been Atlanta Potter's slighter form. "Where's James?" he barked, looking around bitterly for the boy as if expecting him to materialize out of thin air.

"In hiding. You know that," the woman all but snapped. For once neither took offense, their own grief taking over everything. Both expressed grief or distress by letting loose their anger, often with disastrous consequences when they were distraught in each other's presence. This time, however, their grief ran so deep it replaced all other awareness. Atlanta had been the only family that hadn't turned on the pair, including each other. She had been undaunted when the family turned away from her and gone on with her life merrily, marrying a full-blown Muggle. She managed somehow to still be involved in the world into which she was born, however. In all of their lives, the two people standing in the ruined den of the ruined house had openly loved only one person, their sister Atlanta. Now she was gone. Gone.

"James should be here," the man insisted stubbornly.

"Probably doesn't even know yet," the woman added bitterly, too wrapped up in her loss to be shocked that they could talk so freely with each other after losing Atlanta. Losing Atlanta.

"James," the man sneered. "This is all James's fault. If she hadn't -"

"Shut up!" the woman screamed over him. The both stared at each other in surprise for a long moment. The woman's voice was shaking with anger and other emotions that were threatening to erupt as she said, "There was no one that Atlanta loved more than James."

"He wasn't even -" her brother tried again.

"In every way that mattered, James was Atlanta's child!" she bellowed over him, almost as if trying to convince herself. A moment later, in a very soft voice, she added, "She probably would have chosen this, if it meant her life or James and Lily's."

"It's their brat Harry that he wants," he snarled bitterly, almost as if he wished he could trade Harry's life for his sister's.

His sister caught this in his voice and rounded on him, "Which is exactly why we can't let him have him."

"Atlanta's sacrifice," he said a moment later, surprising her with his accord, "Must not be wasted."

"Above all else," she added, drawing herself up, "No matter the cost."

"What can two Squibs do against the power of Voldemort?" he asked sullenly. He sounded bitter, bitter that his life would be devoted to the hopeless cause for which his sister had died. But he would do it because she would have wanted Harry protected, and he would do anything for Atlanta who had loved him.

"I don't know," his sister replied gruffly, sounding as if this had given her a purpose she had desperately needed to cling to. "But David and Atlanta kept him at bay for years with just these two cats." Her lips twisted into a wry smile that matched the one on her brother's face.

"In that case, I'll take Mrs Norris."

"I'm fine with Mrs Figg."

It was only when they had stolen back out into the night that James Potter commented softly to his wife, "There you are, Lily, we don't have to take the cats." They had witnessed the entire conversation with the distinctly eerie feeling that they were under a massive invisibility cloak, but it was not James's comfortable old cloak but the Fidelius Charm that obscured the vision and hearing of those around them. In fact, James had lent the cloak to Dumbledore to protect Sirius whom even he thought was their Secret Keeper. It was a very complicated reason that they didn't tell Dumbledore this, no small part being his faith in Snape. They knew they could trust Dumbledore, but he had the unfortunate habit of telling the people he thought should know. It was most distressing even if those people would never betray their secret.

Adjusting Harry on her hip, Lily strode over and took her husband's hand. She gave it a squeeze when she saw his eyes fall yet again on the cruel outlines of their bodies. She felt tears stinging in her eyes even as she watched one slide down her macho husband's cheek. "It's best," she whispered in his ear, knowing that he had wanted the cats that his mother had poured so much of her time into training. "With Fluffy just a baby, not to mention Harry here."

Harry began to fuss again when he heard his name, beginning to recognize that word if not realize that it meant himself. The young parents had been hard pressed to keep Harry from crying in the dismal house. "Yes," James said hollowly, taking his son from Lily's hip and holding him close for a long moment.

"Is there anything that they left that you wanted?" Lily asked, an emphasis on the "they" that James didn't like.

"That's how they are, Lily, and they're in mourning," James said his voice thick with emotion. "And no, they got everything important here."

"All right," Lily replied, deciding to let the matter of his aunt and uncle lie. She slid under James's free arm and snaked her own around his waist. James convulsively crushed her to him for support as he cast one last long look around the ruined house that had been his home.

"You and I of all people should know that denying love doesn't mean that it's not there," James said quietly into the dreadful stillness that rested on the room in place of Atlanta Potter's brisk, cheerful constant activity and David Potter's droll humor and slow, deliberate movements. Lily burrowed deeper into James's embrace. "Those two only admitted to loving my mother in all their lives, but deep down they loved every Potter with all of their hearts. Even the two newest Potters," James said with a slight smile down at his son and wife.

"I couldn't doubt them now, when I heard what they'd do to protect us," Lily admitted in a whisper.

"Good," James said gruffly, turning from the room and pulling Lily out along with him.

"Though one does doubt the love of someone who tries to poison you at your wedding," she said almost playfully a moment later, trying to rouse James from the stupor the house had put on him.

"It would just have made you sick," James said, automatically defensive. Lily smiled to herself; he hadn't always been so forgiving of that little abortive prank. "And it doesn't really matter if they love you or not, Lily. I love you enough for all the rest of the world." He looked down into her eyes so intensely that she caught her breath. She reached up to kiss him softly.

Harry let out a cry, disliking being ignored by his parents for any length of time. Chuckling slightly, Lily took Harry from her husband and bounced him up and down until he settled. Then they stole out into the night.

The two couples left the house to the disapproving stares of its neighbors until such a time that a brave realtor decided to take the place in hand. They all slipped out into the night, one pair darting from shadow to shadow to remain unnoticed and the other unnoticed in all the world to everyone save one man in whose loyalty they had entrusted their lives. They both knew that the burdens of inanimate objects that they had come to rescue from graverobbers truly meant little or nothing to the old couple; it was the live burdens that they carried away that had meant the world to Mr and Mrs David J. Potter: two cats in whom they had entrusted their safety and one small boy for whose safety they had given their lives.

* * *

The train whistle blowing as it pulled into Hogsmeade station startled them all awake, to one degree or another. Remus's and Peter's eyes snapped open immediately, and Sirius groggily stretched. James opened both his eyes then pointedly closed them again in protest. Marissa and Lily both shifted, emitting soft moans of protest almost in unison as they snuggled closer to Remus and James who were acting as their pillows.

The next moment, the compartment door burst open and with an excited cry, Mundungus pounced on Marissa. Startled completely awake by the forceful embrace, Marissa appeared to be shaking herself and trying to get her bearings even as she returned her brother's hug. The excitement also forced Lily to wake, letting out a contented sigh, a slight smile on her face. Then she opened her eyes, looking up expectantly into the face of James Potter. James was looking extremely proud of himself during this performance, right up to the moment she let out a scream and dove back wildly as if he were about to attack her. Her flailing arms hit Sirius in the head even as she scurried back away from James and into his lap. It took her another few seconds to realize that and scurry to her feet.

By this point everyone but James was laughing hysterically. James was just staring at her, which she found even more disconcerting than her friends' amusement. Brushing at the now wrinkled clothing, Lily held her head up high as she tried to muster any remaining dignity. This brave effort was thwarted by Mundungus launching himself at her to give her a hug. Stumbling slightly before regaining her balance, Lily awkwardly put her arms around him briefly.

"Well," Sirius said looking as forlorn as they had ever seen him, "let's go face the vultures." Nervous smiles were exchanged across the compartment at his comment.

After a brief argument among the boys about who would hand down the girls' suitcases (which was settled by the girls yanking them down themselves in frustration), they made their way into the corridor and down the steps off the scarlet train. It was a little known fact that it was only recently that the train ride had become an Express on the holiday runs, not having to accommodate so many students. Dumbledore had proposed it as a safety measure when he became Headmaster, and the parental pressure that had recently elevated had convinced the Board of Governors to ratify it in the wake of the war against Voldemort.

So it was only their parents and guardians who had been allowed onto Platform Nine and Three-Quarters that day. That was the only reason that Fabian Prewett had permitted his brother to ride the Hogwarts Express rather than being picked up directly from Hogwarts. There had also been a battle of by no means small proportions about the wisdom of Gideon leaving the castle at all. Gideon had countered with his impending graduation and the stories of penetration of the sanctum of Hogwarts, but both brothers knew that what had swung the deal was the same reason that Gideon wanted to spend his vacation in hiding: his brother shouldn't be alone whenever it was at all possible for Gideon to be with him.

The truth of this statement was strikingly apparent from the first glimpse of the wraith that Fabian Prewett had become. Anna Prewett had formed the habit of laughingly telling anyone who asked what it was like being married to one of the most wanted men alive, "He wouldn't eat a bite if I didn't threaten to turn him in to the Death Eaters." Whether or not this had been true, it looked quite as if Fabian saw little reason to eat or sleep without Anna around to urge him. The frown lines were so pronounced on his face Gideon wondered if he had smiled since December. His skin was pale and his face drawn. His movements, however, were purposeful and confident. He was a man with a mission. Two, in fact: he yearned for revenge and to protect his baby brother with equal vigor. It was all that he had left in the world.

Looking at the waste his brother had become without his loving, charming, cheerful wife, Gideon could almost regret the heroics that had destined them to this fate. He could almost curse that he had ever found that bomb that would have destroyed Hogsmeade, had ever thought the presence of Lucious Malfoy and Peter Parkinson suspicious when they were supposedly there to visit their younger sisters. He could almost curse that he had remembered that Valerie and Alexia had pointedly stayed up at the castle that day. Almost.

Finding the bomb and defusing it, even if he couldn't prove the Malfoys and Parkinsons involvement, had instantly made Gideon pursued by the Auror department for a future job and pursued by Voldemort to meet his Maker. He also believed that this was what had prompted his teachers to give him such overwhelming marks on his final exams last year to install him as Head Boy. Looking at the ruin of the once proud Fabian Prewett, whose eyes had shone so brightly with pride when he first realized what his kid brother had done to save the town, Gideon was immensely glad that no amount of magic could transport this image back to that fateful day in Hogsmeade. He didn't trust what he would have chosen had he known. It had not seemed like a choice to him at all at the time.

Gideon walked over to his brother, fighting to keep his head from hanging, and was hastily ushered into the smaller room on the platform that only members of the Order of the Phoenix could enter or notice. "How are you?" Fabian asked gruffly, looking down at his brother.

"I'm fine, there have been no plots that I've been aware of," Gideon answered clinically because it was the only way he could bear to speak to this totally unexpected version of his brother.

Fabian let out a snort, looking about in a very paranoid manner. "You're in one piece at least," he conceded, looking his brother up and down as if to make certain of this fact. "The Order's meeting tonight. Your report on the happenings at Hogwarts is expected."

"I really don't see why Dumbledore isn't making that one."

"You are a member of the Order of the Phoenix, little brother," Fabian said sternly. "It is an immense honor for someone of your age and an immense responsibility. You were hailed as a hero, is it so hard to do as you are told?" There was a very long silence. "Come on, we've got to get you to the safe house before someone besides your girlfriend notices where disappeared to."

Lizzie tried not to watch as Fabian led Gideon off the platform, but she was too new at this secrecy business. She was completely unaccustomed to having to hide her feelings. She wondered what she thought of losing Gideon this way. He was a dangerous man to care for; in the blink of an eye, she could lose him or be killed to get to him. That wasn't the kind of risk you took for a school boy crush. And yet...Lizzie couldn't shake the impression that had it just had a chance to grow it could have been so much more than that.

She let herself be led away by her smiling and utterly unsuspecting mother, happily unaware of all the turmoil in the world that her daughter had come, in less than seven years, to embrace.

Half the length of the platform away, Remus Lupin was being embraced formally by his parents who were apprising him of his schedule even as they made polite inquiries as to his schoolwork. The one thing they would never ask him was about his lycanthropy. Of that they would never speak, lest they have to face it again. They never could understand that Remus faced it everyday; that he could not escape from it. Waving forlornly to his friends, he turned to follow them. His gaze stopped on Marissa who was helping Gus struggle to get her suitcase down off the train (he had insisted on carrying it for her). She noticed him as well and gave him an encouraging smile, mouthing the words "cradle robbers" at him behind his parents' turned backs.

Remus grinned, then hastily schooled his expression before his parents could see such a "ridiculous, fool look" on his face.

Marissa grinned as well, savoring the smile before turning to face her father. He would surely be there if Gus was. The smile slid slowly off her face as she scanned the crowd for him, dread seeping into her heart for the inevitable meeting. What did you say to a man whose son you had kidnaped because you loved him more but to whom you had relinquished custody when he begged it of you? Not to mention your father.

When she finally spotted his face in the crowd, she saw the all too familiar closed expression on his face and a cold set to his features. Her heart sank. Had she truly been expecting to see the father of her earliest memories rematerialize? She barely remembered that man anymore. This cold one she was all too familiar with.

With Mundungus under her arm and a suitcase in her other hand, Marissa approached the man she barely knew, "Hello, Father."

"Marissa," he said in the same even, empty tone. Or rather, niether voice could be said to be quite empty, but rather any emotions that might show through it tightly controlled. Their eyes met for a second that lasted a year, then both quickly averted their eyes. It was still too fresh to be so quickly resolved. Marissa could not trust him yet, not yet. "Do you have all your things?" he said in a stilted voice. Marissa nodded, the fact that his mere presence on the platform to meet her showed that he had made some progress lost on her still uncharitable mind. "Good, let's go."

It was with a heavy sigh and a hanging head that Marissa made her way through the barrier into the Muggle world, her brother looking up at her anxiously.

James, Peter, and Sirius shook their heads at the forlorn scene, wordlessly exchanging their dismay that their cheerful friend could wear a look of such worry. Remus had already been shepherded away from "the dregs of polite society" that he called friends by his socially conscious (to put it mildly) parents. It had been his parents that had kept them from seeing the truth for almost a year, never dreaming that the such a determinedly model family could have such a skeleton in its closet. "Before the vultures show up," James said, casting a glance over the crowd gathered on the platform, "I've got to ask and I don't trust putting it to paper, where in the world did you pick this up, Peter?" James was holding a small object carefully as if afraid it would bite him.

He had expected them to hoot and hiss upon seeing it, but Peter looked troubled and Sirius oddly thoughtful. "As long as you don't tell me it was Snivellus's I think I can handle it," James said with an attempt at a laugh. He had expected an answering one, but none came.

"James," Sirius began slowly, looking as if he were struggling to find words. "Lily was out last night."

"What in the hell does that have to do with anything?" James exclaimed, "All I'm asking is if you have any theories as to what Peter picked up..." Noticing Lily standing nearby he quickly added, "From that rat last night." Why he felt the need to add this he couldn't quite say, he merely felt that it would be wise.

"Something a rat picked up?" Lily said innocently, not trying to pretend that she hadn't overheard them. She was smiling almost amiably as she looked pointedly only at Peter, the only Marauder in the trio that she was not angry at. "Dennis lost something..." she trailed off, flushing guiltily. "Last night. Did you find it?" Peter and Sirius stared at her, wondering how she could be so blunt however much she despised James. Surely she knew that this would kill him.

James was staring at her as if he had never quite seen her before. Not in the sappy, romantic way that was occasionally true of James Potter as he beheld Lily Evans, but a look of shock, betrayal and almost...disgust. "Well, can I have it back? I was rather excited when he first mentioned it," Lily went on, unaware and undaunted by the incredulous stares she was receiving on three fronts. Were they that sensitive about Dennis even after a month?

"Lily, you...you..," James trailed off, unable to string words together, robbed of words and feeling as if he had been robbed of everything. "You really..."

"Potter, Dennis is my boyfriend, grow up and get used to it," Lily snapped at him. "Now give it back to me, will you?"

James's features contorted grotesquely for a moment, then rearranged into an expression of cold anger. He threw it at her, barely restraining himself from flicking it at her hard enough to hurt her. "There you are, Evans," there was no pride, bluster, or adoration in his voice, it was pure coldness.

Lily did not register that he had reverted to her last name or the iciness of his tone. Her mind was numb as she beheld the condom in her limp hand. Her mouth fell slightly open in shock, but no words or breath came for a very long moment. "Would it kill you to at least be kinder about this bombshell, Evans?" Peter said angrily as he walked away. Lily barely heard him.

"Even if you're mad at him, Evans," when she remembered later, it was the surname on Sirius's lips that hurt almost as much as the name on James's, "I didn't think you would hurt him like this, I thought you'd have a little modesty about something that would hurt him so deeply." His voice held disappointment more bitter than Peter's anger and Potter's coldness.

Lily still could not tear her eyes from the condom, her mind whirling with a thousand denials each as ineffective as the next. It was not until she heard her mother's excited squeal that she recovered enough to push it out of sight and follow her parents in a daze. She had never wished so heartily that she had an owl at home; she needed desperately to talk to Marissa. She was the only one who could make sense of this mess and possibly even make amends with the Marauders.

Or was this the perfect way to finally distance herself from them once and for all? To be rid of the Marauders? Was it what she wanted now that she had the chance?

Only one thing was certain in her muddled mind, it was a good thing that Dennis wouldn't have to face her until she'd had a week to calm down.

* * *

"I'm Luke Skywalker, I'm here to rescue you," Gus cried, pulling off a rather absurd looking mask that he had at last proclaimed would have to do. Marissa, still unsure how to play her part, gasped and stood quickly from the chair.

"Aren't you a little short for a strong tropper?" she said, feigning her character's surprise.

"No, no, Riss, it's storm trooper!" Gus yelled in frustration, breaking character in an unheard of fashion.

"I'm sorry, Gus, I am trying," Marissa exclaimed, just as exasperatedly.

"We can't play this if you don't learn everybody's names!" Gus insisted. Marissa stifled a sigh. It would be much easier to remember all of the character's names if she weren't still trying to figure out what in the world was going on in this "galaxy far, far away." On top of everything else, she kept calling lightstabbers wands and the "force" wandless magic.

Marissa thought she would seriously reconsider playing this game at all if it weren't for the fact that her father had been the one to take Gus to see the movie that had so enthralled her younger brother. He had good reason to be obsessed then, since it was the first thing that his father had tried to do with him in his memory. Possibly ever, but Marissa didn't like to remember those first years. Marissa had stumbled upon this knowledge purely by accident when she had gone down to the kitchens the second day of her vacation to ask Mavi to help her understand the complicated plot.

"Oh, that silly film. I'd love to help you, Marissa, dear, but I didn't take him," Mavi said as she kneaded the dough. Marissa's visit had given her an excuse to go all out, something Mavi loved above all things. This included making fresh bread every night. "Your father took him," she added before Marissa could get visions of Gus wandering the streets alone.

Mavi actually stopped and looked up at Marissa for her reaction. Mostly Marissa was just shocked. And pleased. Enormously pleased. Maybe her father would try after all. She had half convinced herself that he wasn't when she realized what late hours he still worked.

Gus had also made several friends in the neighborhood since all the boys who were sick of polo matches and stuffy formal arrangements loved to hear of his much embellished "kidnaping." He went off with them most afternoons, leaving Marissa to entertain only him in the morning and the evening. Mostly she just frustrated him with her inability to comprehend the Star Wars Saga. That was another thing. How could one film be a saga anyway? Or was a saga just one thing? Oh, why was she worrying about this anyway?

Marissa felt like she was in an alien world, perhaps one near that galaxy far, far away. Gus and her father were doing things together (he had even corrected a line from the film she was trying to stutter out), Gus wasn't trying to over monopolize her time, and she felt completely cut off from the wizarding world. She wished that her father's newfound interest extended to the purchase of an owl. The boys at least should have been kind enough to write to her. They had owls in spades after all.

Marissa sighed. She knew that they couldn't, any of them. Except James, they were all in houses where their parents would frown on them using their owls to write a Muggle-born (Sirius), girl not in their plans for their son (Remus), or anyone (Peter).

All in all, her week home hadn't been as horrible as she had half-expected it to be or as wonderful as she half-hoped that it would be. She wondered briefly if this in-between wasn't worse than either situation she had expected. Marissa gave Gus a weak smile and tightened the strange side buns that she had tried to shape out of her hair to Gus's satisfaction.

* * *

Peter's week, on the other hand, was going much worse than he had ever anticipated. His mother had picked him up alone at the platform and they had had a surprisingly pleasant ride home. Later Peter thought darkly that she had wanted to get all the news of his life then so she could be free to give his father hell over not being there with her with a clear conscience. And that was precisely what she proceeded to do. Despite the fact that he had no good excuse, Harold Pettigrew fought back just as vehemently. It was this same argument that continued for five full days with them dragging in everything from Emily Pettigrew's mother to Harold Pettigrew leaving the dishes in the sink one night twelve years ago. Somehow it still managed to be about him not being on the platform the entire time, however.

Mr and Mrs Pettigrew were masters at arguing. Almost artists. Matched with anyone else, they would have dominated the household absolutely. Matched together, they never ceased fighting for that supremacy. It was driving Peter mad. Why couldn't they just divorce if they hated each other so much? They would never even have to see each other again since Emily Pettigrew was a Muggle and unlikely to continue in the wizarding world.

However, even that solution was denied them. In a bizarre twist of fate, they actually loved each other. Through it all, they loved and needed each other. They just wanted to be the one who was always right too. It was maddening. Peter was fairly sure that he was going to go mad at least. And he couldn't even flee to Marissa's house anymore.

And his friends hadn't written to him or invited him over. He hadn't really expected Sirius to do that, and let's face facts, when James was eating well off his mother's pie he never thought of anyone else, but Remus would have wanted a lifeline out of the hell his parents were undoubtedly putting him through. Surely he would have welcomed company as much as Peter would have welcomed getting the hell out of that house. Why hadn't he owled Peter?

Peter put his hands over his ears in frustration as his parents began to go at each other over the state of the laundry ten years ago. Then he heard what he dreaded most of all, "PETER!" his mother's voice bellowed out, "COME TELL YOUR FATHER I'M RIGHT!" And there it was, the only proof that they did in fact remember that he was in the house. Peter dropped his head down onto the desk, not caring how hard he hit it.

* * *

Sirius, on the other hand, would be overjoyed if his parents chose to simply ignore his presence. The thing that scared him the most was that his mother was being nice. Nothing good could come of that.

"Oh my darling eldest son!" Krysta Black called in a truly horrible voice. Sirius had harbored hopes for a very long time that she was not his natural mother. After all, she was so very old, it was entirely possible that she had been past child-bearing age ten years before he was born by the look of her. No such luck however. She was entirely capable of bearing children, as seeing her fat with Regulus had proved.

What disturbed Sirius even more than being called "darling" was the startling reference to himself as the "eldest" son. Krysta Black had born several sons and daughters before Sirius. They had just been fortunate to die before she could get her claws too deeply ingrained in them to stop them from fleeing from her into the netherworld. Apparently she thought of the "weaklings" as quite replaceable. Krysta Black had the unnerving talent to remove completely from her memory, words, and actions all people who displeased her. And she thought of dying as something terribly weak and displeasing.

She hadn't spoken Andromeda's name or made the bleakest reference to her or, indeed, any instance where she had been in the same room, ever since Cornelia Black chucked her out into the street straight from King's Cross Station, still carrying her Hogwarts trunk. The most maniacal part of this was that Andromeda hadn't turned seventeen for three days after that. So there she was: constrained from using magic, had no idea what a pound or a shilling was, and without even enough magical money to call the Knight Bus.

Somehow she had made it to Ted Tonks' house. But she hadn't stayed there. Sirius wouldn't be surprised if Andromeda suddenly reappeared in Krysta Black's vocabulary now that she had gone back over to the dark side. She was still blasted off the tapestry, but it was more difficult to be "reowned" than disowned.

Owned. That's what Sirius was, and he knew it. "Coming mother," he said through clenched teeth.

"Oh there you are darling!" she cried happily a moment later when he tromped down the stairs to the receiving room. The only conceivable reason that she would call him "darling" was if they had company. Important company. Lethal company. "Come quickly, I want you to meet someone." She rose and came over, gripping his shoulders in what obviously looked like a maternal way but in fact was an excuse to dig her nails into his shoulders while hissing at him, "Stand up straight you lousy ragamuffin. This is your entire future you're meeting. Keep a civil tongue in your head or don't say anything at all."

Aloud, she said in a devastatingly cheerful voice, "Sirius, it is my pleasure to introduce you to Mr Lucius Malfoy." Sirius stopped dead in his tracks, not caring when his mother pressed her nails so deeply into his flesh that she drew blood. Sirius felt like he had gone blind. Seeing that man, as cool as you please, in his living room had deprived him of the will to move and the ability to see and speak. "What are you doing you little ingrate! MOVE!" his mother hissed in an unhearing ear. She shoved him roughly forward and he took an unsure step. In this way she moved him across the room and threw him down in a chair.

Laughing gaily as if it were nothing abnormal for her son to instantly lose all motor skills upon meeting a stranger, she offered them man a teacake. But Lucius was no stranger. Sirius knew his sneering face all too well. "He must be so overwhelmed to meet such a famous personage!"

Lucius laughed once, a black kind of laugh that silenced even the consummate pretender Krysta Black. "I am more of an infamous personage, Mrs Black," he said with a sneer on his face that said that he knew perfectly well the true reason for Sirius's catatonic state. If Sirius had been in any state to pay attention, he would have realized how much his mother must need this man for her to not immediately jump to her feet and claw his eyes out for calling her "Mrs Black" instead of "Lady Black." But Sirius was too absorbed in the memory of the last time he had seen that particular sneer on Lucius Malfoy's face.

Remus had heard it first. His ears had pricked up suddenly, his face turning a highly unnatural color. "Do you hear that?" he asked in a hoarse voice that made them stop instantly.

After a long moment, James asked, "Hear what?"

But Remus didn't stop to answer, he pelted down the passage, a look of terror in his eyes. Bewildered, the other Marauders had followed him. As they ran, it became loud enough for them to hear it too. Five almost completely unused passages down, James had frozen midstride, clutching his heart with a stricken look on his face. "Dear Merlin, it can't be!"

"This way!" Remus shouted back gruffly. Two corridors later, Sirius heard it too. Screaming, pleading, a girl's voice, a terribly familiar girl's voice crying for help. Then a sinister snarl, "No one can hear you, you foolish girl." Lucius Malfoy's voice.

Sirius's face assumed a glare, and he very nearly let out a dog-like growl. If his mother thought he was going to sit here and quietly exchange pleasantries with that...that...monster who had...

He leapt to his feet, his eyes fiery but his jaw locked so tightly with anger that speech was impossible. "Sirius! Sit down!"

"Please, please leave me alone!"

"Stop your pathetic whining you filthy little halfblood!"

"Lucius has come a great many miles to speak with you about a wonderful opportunity, Sirius," his mother said in a dangerous voice that Sirius didn't even hear. Lucius was looking highly amused. Just as he had when they finally rounded the final corner.

Marissa was screaming as he tore at the buttons of her blouse. She fought him with one hand, the other arm hanging limply from her shoulder, broken in the struggle for another garment. Her sweater, robes, and skirt were a twisted mess in a pile that lay halfway down the hall from where they were. Malfoy was half-undressed himself. A feeble shirt that Malfoy was beginning to rip in his impatience was all that was protecting her from him.

It was all that Sirius could do to keep from leaping at the man as he had then. He gave absolutely no thought to the fact that he was unarmed. Lucius, apparently, did not. He was twirling his wand in a casual manner that was nevertheless a pointed warning to Sirius. For a flash of a second, Sirius didn't give a damn.

But before he could fly at the man who had taken the light, however briefly, completely from Marissa's eyes, he spoke, "Go ahead, Sirius, attack me."

Mrs Black sputtered a moment, then stared at Lucius Malfoy with something almost akin to fear. "How else, Krysta, shall I determine the worth of your eldest son?" The emphasis on "eldist" was just slight enough to be effective.

"He's on holiday from school, the ministry will be here in the beat of an owl's wing if he does magic," she protested in a hard, cold voice.

"No magic is allowed outside of school."

"No magic is allowed in the corridors, boys," was all that Lucius Malfoy said when he had been overpowered by four younger boys. Even with the four of them working together, it was a close thing for the third years to drive the seventh year away from their friend. Giving Marissa, who had sunk down into a ball when he had been pulled off her, a particularly contemptuous look, he had assigned all the boys detentions and swept coolly from the corridor.

James and Sirius had sprung after him, Peter standing about indecisively. However, before they could round the corner he had disappeared down a secret passage they hadn't yet discovered. That had begun their driving desire to know them all.

Remus was on his knees beside Marissa, afraid to touch her after what she had been through. All their hearts broke at the sight of her curled in on herself, trying to hide from the world, sobbing harder than they had ever seen anyone sob. "Get her robe, Peter, we'd better get her to Madam Pomfrey," Remus said. Marissa's eyes looked up, red and wild and seeking comfort. Sirius was relieved that the force of such a gaze was fixed on Remus instead of him.

The next moment, Marissa had launched herself into Remus's arms and was clutching at him as if he were her lifesaver in a stormy sea.

Sirius launched himself at the man. Immediately, he was thrown back up against the wall. "Mr Malfoy!" Sirius's mother cried in protest. "He is unarmed!"

"And unwise," he said in a biting, cold voice. "He knew the score would have to be settled someday."

"That charge!" she cried with a sudden realization. "Oh, Mr Malfoy, he was so young! Of course he couldn't understand!"

"He was not properly instructed," Lucius sent her a look of contempt. "That I concede. But the insult must be settled nevertheless."

Sirius, just getting his bearings back, tried to dive at Lucius again, but halfway there was hit with the most blinding pain he had ever experienced. It seemed to go on for years. When it stopped, his eyes were red with burst blood vessels from the force of the unearthly cry that was ripped from his throat. So Sirius never saw how shaken his mother was from hearing such a cry torn from her son's throat.

"He is unarmed and helpless and on his back!" she cried in protest, on her feet now.

"And just as he will appear before the Dark Lord!" Lucius roared back. "And if you want him presented at all, Lady Black, you will not interfere! No one else is coming to see you, no matter how much your husband may purchase himself out of the coming war. No one else will come for the boy, Gryffindor friend of a Potter and Pettigrew that he is! If you want him in the service of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named you will not interfere!"

So Sirius never saw his mother's pain, only heard her soft acquiesce. Then the pain returned and he was writhing, his body contorting in the throes of anguish while Lucius Malfoy looked coolly on. It went on and on until Sirius knew that it would never end. He would be stuck forever in his sea of misery and pain until he drowned in it. Then he realized that he had a way out, he could forget this pain, if only...

"Kreacher! Take the curse!"

Just before Sirius could give in, just before his mind could snap, the pain abruptly lifted and a high-pitched, terrible cry filled his ears. Kreacher the house elf lay in a crumbled heap for several agonizing seconds before Lucius lifted the curse. Not sparing him a glance, he turned to his mother as if nothing more remarkable than a spelling bee had occurred. "Gryffindor that he is, he would be useful to the Dark Lord. I will come to collect him in three days time. Be ready."

"I...will...never...join him," Sirius croaked softly.

"What was that?" Lucius said, looking down at the crumbled heap that was Sirius for the first time in a voice that betrayed any emotion.

"I will...never join him!" he replied in a slightly stronger voice.

"Imperio," Lucius said casually.

The bliss that took over his mind was wonderful after the agony of the Cruciatus curse. Only one thing save him, it was Lucius Malfoy's voice that was whispering in his head. "I...will...NEVER JOIN HIM!" Sirius cried after a moment's battle. He would not obey the man who had done that to Marissa just because he said a spell. He would never join Voldemort.

Lucius turned to Krysta Black with an icy fire in his eyes. "Good day, Mrs Black."

"But I will!" Regulus cried, bounding down the stairs just as Lucius raised his wand to apparate.

"What did you say?" Lucius asked, turning to the boy who stood so proudly before him.

"I will join the great Dark Lord!" Regulus shouted proudly.

"Crucio." For an agonizing minute, Regulus screamed and fell to the ground where he writhed in pain. Then Lucius Malfoy lifted his wand slightly and the pain ceased. Regulus's tensed muscles relaxed.

"Do you still want to serve the Dark Lord?" he said coldly.

"Yes, your honor."

"Yes, your honor, what?"

"I will serve the Dark Lord with my life and death," he said.

"I will come to collect him in three days time. Be ready." Then Lucius Malfoy was gone, leaving Krysta Black standing in her living room with two of her sons collapsed on the ground in an exhaustion that went far deeper than they had ever known, their sides chosen forever.

* * *

One of the Black boys would live to regret his decision. He would live to writhe in the consequences as painfully as he had in the throes of the Cruciatis curse. He would endure someday what Gideon Prewett endured at the very moment Regulus Black made his fateful choice.

Gideon knew that he would never change that day, but he had had no idea what it would demand of him. Lizzie. Fabian. Anna. Michael. Freedom. For Gideon was not free. He was currently in the bowels of the Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. He would not learn the location or official name of this place until his graduation. He was a full member in name only, it seemed. He was treated with honor but trusted with no secrets. Hailed as a hero but given no assignments except to watch.

Watching was hard for him to do. Hard enough watching the people who would have joined in the killing of his nephew and sister-in-law had they been only a few years older, but the other kind of watching was still worse. He had to watch people walk away from him. No one he cared about would die because of him. He couldn't bear it. For he was being watched too, so he had to watch them all walk away. Again and again. Lizzie was only the deepest cut, not the first nor the last.

The merry babble of the students released from the castle could make him forget the conversations he had heard about the danger this Hogsmeade excursion may entail. It could make him forget even his brother's words of warning. It was Christmas; it was the best time of the year; the snow falling everywhere made the town look like it was made of frosted gingerbread. What could possibly go wrong?

Then Gideon saw them. They had no place here. Lucius Malfoy and Peter Parkinson, walking briskly away from the town just as the students were reaching it. They could have been going up to the castle to see their sisters, realizing they weren't in the crowd that day. Weren't in the crowd...

Valerie Malfoy and Alexia Parkinson had been conspicuous in their absence that morning. Lucius Malfoy and Peter Parkinson were now conspicuous in their presence. Gideon might have ignored this, put it off as some of his older brother's paranoia wearing off on him, if he hadn't seen the look in Lucius Malfoy's eyes as they passed quickly through the students. There was nothing conspicuous in his walk, in what he was saying to Parkinson, but his eyes were greedy and shining with an unholy light.

"Get back! Back to the castle!" Gideon had screamed at the top of his voice from the middle of the crowd. "Back! BACK YOU FOOLS! Get back to the castle!"

A prefect had gripped his arm, "What, are you trying to start a panic?"

"Run for your lives!" he bellowed desperately.

"Shut up, Prewett!"

Gideon wrenched his arm out of Amos Diggory's grasp and set off at a run for the town. If they wouldn't turn back, he'd have to find it before it went off. He probably had time, they would have set whatever it was to go off when the students were at the height of their tour of the town. Just enough time for everyone to get careless. Not that it would matter if it was the kind of device Gideon thought it might be.

Diggory was running right behind him, clearly thinking Gideon out of his mind. What chaos reigned on the hill just beyond the town Gideon never knew.

Where? Where would they hide it? On main street? That would cover the most bases, but how would they install it without anyone noticing? A store? Zonkos? Honeydukes? With all the storekeepers preparing frantically but excitedly for the student invasion?

Hog's Head would be the easiest place to hide it, but the Three Broomsticks would suit their purposes better. And if there was just the right amount of confusion in the pub...

Dodging Amos, Gideon pelted toward the pub, sliding on a patch of ice on the doorstep and right through to about the middle of the floor. Running the rest of the way to the counter, he demanded of the astonished Madam Rosmerta, "Did Malfoy and Parkinson come in here!"

So surprised by his bizarre entrance, she answered immediately, "Here a few minutes ago, left just after that nasty spill Tom took."

Neither was yet infamous. Both were thought quite respectable, at least as respectable as young men could expect to be. No one in the pub understood his frantic next question.

"Where did they sit?"

"What is this, Prewett? Have you gone mad?" Amos bellowed from the doorway, having finally caught Gideon.

"Where did they sit?"

"Contain yourself or I will have to ask you to leave," Madam Rosmerta said coldly, not sounding in the least as if she would be sorry to do this.

"Where did they sit?"

"What's gotten into you, Prewett?"

"Where did they sit?"

"You're disturbing my customers!"

"Where did they sit?"

"Over there, that booth by the window for Merlin's sake!" she cried, evidently deciding she would get further by pacifying him.

Gideon immediately whirled and practically dove at the table. Every eye in the pub was fixed on him as he ran his hand under the table, through the napkins and bar nuts, along all the seats, until he finally found what he was looking for on the underside of the chair leg. It was only weeks later that Gideon realized that he could have set it off by brushing against it if it had been another kind of bomb.

He pulled the small device off and held it up, peering at it closely. The worst was that he had no idea how long he had to defuse it. He thought of just bashing it with something sufficiently heavy, but knew that it would be made better than that. Malfoy was nothing if not thorough. "Merlin's Staff!" Amos cried when he realized what Gideon was holding. Stronger oaths were exchanged by most of the patrons, and Madam Rosmerta's face went so white she blended with the snow Gideon had tracked across her immaculately clean floor.

"I'm going to vanish it," he announced to the anxious bar. "Unless anyone here knows how to deactivate it." Even as he spoke, Gideon knew that the only people who would know how to deactivate such a creation of dark magic would not be the kind who would do it. He took out his wand and, hoping that he would not exacerbate the problem, made the dangerous contraption disappear in the blink of an eye.

Then the Aurors descended.

"Remembering that day again, little brother?" Fabian Prewett said quietly as he entered the room. Gideon looked up at him, slightly surprised. Fabian smiled weakly, "I think of it often as well, little brother. It was the day that changed your life."

"And yours," Gideon said faintly.

"In all your life, no matter what marvels you may accomplish, I will never be prouder of you than I was that day," Fabian told him stirringly.

"And now?" Gideon asked.

Fabian smiled weakly again. "I will always be proud of you, little brother."

"Fabian," Gideon stared at him earnestly, "If it had been only my own life...I would have gladly traded it for Anna and Michael's."

The meager smile fell off of Fabian's face. "And I would give my life to have their own spared as well, but that choice was not given to us."

"It was my choice," Gideon said softly, looking down at his feet. "It was the choice I made that day, though I didn't know it."

Fabian actually looked angry for a moment, and in the prison of self-blame Gideon believed it directed at himself. "Don't - you - ever - say - that -again," Fabian said in a deathly quite voice.

"If I hadn't had to be such a hero that day you wouldn't have had to be protecting me this Christmas," Gideon said, unable to let go of the blame now that he had at last had the courage to claim it. It had been torturous for him to do so, but he had done it and Fabian would have to let him carry the burden openly now.

"If you..," Fabian was inarticulate with rage, walking right up to his brother and glaring down at him. "You are not the only one in this world who has offended You-Know-Who Gideon Prewett!" Towering over him, Fabian yelled down in his face, "I am an Auror and an Order member fighting him everyday! So was Anna! And a Muggle-born! Do you think you are the only one to ever thwart his plans? You've always had a touch of dangerous arrogance, Gideon, but this is too much! You cannot take this burden solely on yourself. Many, many things could have changed that - that terrible day. Not just that one, and that is the one that I would not change. How dare you take this on yourself?"

Gideon just stared at him. "Fabian..."

"And don't think that I don't know how you push people away at school, think that mere association with you will spell their doom! Well you are not the only mark that You-Know-Who has in mind and you are not the only one allowed to make that decision!"

Gideon was speechless for a moment, then he asked softly, "So you don't think that I should keep Li...people from being around me?"

Fabian lost the angry look in his eyes and plopped down heavily on the chair next to Gideon. "Maybe it's just because I'm an inordinately selfish person, little brother, but I wouldn't trade my time with Anna for anything, even the knowledge that she was safe somewhere married to someone else. You see how I am now without her, half-alive if that. That's how we both would have been without each other, Gideon. Whether it is better than death I do not know. I have never died, but I think it often. I loved every moment that I had with Anna and Michael, little brother, and I wouldn't trade my life with them for anything, even to prevent their deaths.

"It was a choice we both had to make in the world we live in now."

* * *

Remus had been glib about his transformation to his parents and himself. He had laughed that it was a welcome respite from the cotillions and parties his parents had thrown at him with a vengeance. He had laughed that it was a relief to get out of the house that was so starched everything stood out at right angles, from the people to the clothes to the furniture.

Empty laughs, all of them. Not that his parents new the difference anymore. As much as he may hate the house that demanded perfection from one whose life would always be surrounded by scandal, the small shed that his parents practically threw him in three nights a month was far worse. It was their shame. They could not accept that he had shamed them, they put all the shame on the shed, on the locks, on the moon. They ignored that it was him so that they could rail against the shame of the necessity of the shed and the locks and rail against the moon. Hate openly the "howls of the shed" as if their son who was sitting right there had had nothing to do with it.

The shed gave them something to hate and fear and call their shame. It gave voice to what even they knew they should not say directly to their son. Mr Lupin was a social climber and a big-shot at the ministry. Mrs Lupin was a mountaineer. Their son was to be received by the highest society, his way paved for him in all things, his life to be seen under a microscope and never faulted, but their son was a werewolf.

Now there was only one objective: to hide it for as long as possible. It was quite possible, even, that it would never be discovered. He was a Lupin, and respect followed that name. He was the son of Evelyn McKinnon, and no one suspected a McKinnon. He would never have to tell an employer if he was placed high enough in the Ministry out of Hogwarts; he would never be suspected at social functions if it could only be assumed that he was having an affair. His wife may not even have to be told if the proper woman, who would accept an "other woman," could be found. There was a chance.

And it all hinged around what was in that horrid shed.

Their son. Though they would never admit it, even to themselves.

Remus was the only one who could blow their cover. Lawrence Lupin was so determined not to bring any suspicion on himself that he turned down an assignment to work on a potion to cure lycanthropy by saying "All werewolves should be exterminated, that would cure the world of lycanthropy." The worst was that he repeated this story at home to Evelyn, citing it as a reason to worry they were suspected. Evelyn Lupin supported her husband's words at every social engagement where the event was discussed. Neither of them thought of the young Remus's reaction to their machinations. He must understand the need to save face, he was the son of a socialite and a politician.

But Remus did not understand, and as such, he was the threat to the Lupins grand plan. The shed would reveal them to all eyes. The howls would betray them. Remus knew what they meant. He would betray them; he would reveal them; he would toss them from society and dash all their dreams. Remus the Werewolf would never be anything else in his parents' eyes.

Remus never missed his friends more on the nights of the full moon than the torturous nights he spent in the shed on his parents' property.

* * *

James was having a splendid holiday except for the fact that Lily Evans, the girl he firmly believed was or would be the love of his life, was clearly sleeping with a twat like Dennis Wemmick. James knew Lily's record. She had given her virginity to that...that...that thing.

Lily. Evans. Had. Slept. With. Dennis. Wemmick.

That was the only thing that he could think, and it tortured him. Bad enough to think of her holding hands with him in the corridors. That image was burned into his brain inescapably. Bad enough to think of her kissing him. That would haunt him to his dying day. But to have to face the fact that she...that she would...

James really hadn't thought that Lily would sleep with him. He had thought he knew her well enough to know she wouldn't give herself to that prat. She held him to such a high standard if he was to ever achieve boyfriend status like Wemmick had done so easily; it had seemed only fitting that the standard for whom she would make love to and especially give her virginity to would be catastrophically high. How could she not see that Wemmick couldn't possibly meet such a standard?

How could she flaunt it so? How could she stand there and look him in the eye without so much as blushing? Be indignant that he was affected? How could she be so cruel?

James loved her and hated her all that week, and the two emotions dueled. In the end, it was difficult to say which won.

Strangely enough, it was his surly Uncle Argus who most disapproved of this new attitude in him. James had expected the visit of Uncle Argus and Aunt Arabella to go more smoothly than in the past because his new mood so neatly matched their permanent one. While his adopted mother Atlanta Filch Potter had accepted her life as a Squib without question, her brother and sister had never stopped resenting it and the rest of their family for turning away from them. Then again, Atlanta had embraced a nonmagical life and married a Muggle David Potter while Argus and Arabella still clung to the dregs of the wizarding world.

Another of the myriad of things that Uncle Argus and Aunt Arabella resented was James himself. When Dumbledore had found the baby of Aurelia Meliflua and Rhys Watterby on the doorstep of Hogwarts, he had appealed to Atlanta and David Potter to adopt the boy, knowing that they could not have children themselves. They had exchanged a quick glance and immediately agreed. Legally in both the magical and the muggle world, the abandoned boy had become James Morgan Potter. He had been told before entering Hogwarts, knowing that the truth would come out there anyway.

It was not hard to see why Uncle Argus and Aunt Arabella resented their sister's new son. He was a full-fledge wizard, and a damn good one too, around to remind them of their inadequacy at what they had come to think of as their only haven. For neither Argus nor Arabella Filch ever dared love anyone after the betrayal of their families. They didn't have the necessary trust. Save one person, their sister Atlanta who had never turned on them. They couldn't even stand each other, but they loved Atlanta.

Everyone loved Atlanta Potter, David and James most of all. David had the same detached curiosity about the wizarding world that Atlanta practiced. James didn't want any other parents, certainly not the ones that had abandoned him. With the Potters, he wasn't an illegitimate, unwanted baby, he was a beloved and much desired son. They had offered James the chance to take the name Meliflua or even Watterby, good old pureblooded names. He had never shied away from the Muggle name of Potter.

Uncle Argus and Aunt Arabella now wished that he had. They would have been indignant five years ago if he had taken either name over the one that suited Atlanta so, but now they scorned that he would put his parents (meaning his mother) in danger by taking her name along with whatever fool stunts he would accomplish. For they knew that James was making waves at Hogwarts and that soon he would be making waves in the wizarding world. Soon he would bring his name the attention of He Who Must Not Be Named, and that could mean death for the kind, decent pair who had so lovingly taken him in. Selfish, ungrateful boy.

It was Wednesday that Arabella finally decided that it was time to have a chat about the boy with her sister. "Atlanta," she said, sitting down at the kitchen table as she watched her sister prepare dinner that night from scratch, a concept of cooking that eluded Arabella, "You know how I love James."

"Yes, of course, Bella," Atlanta replied casually. If she did, she was the only one who knew this and undoubtedly the only one capable of believing it.

"And we're both so proud of him," she said again, careful to set the stage just right. "But, well, he's a great wizard, Atlanta."

"I know," Atlanta said in a glowing voice. "Have you seen his marks at school? Without even trying if I know that little imp," she said fondly, her voice bubbly with pride. "Imagine what he'll do when he's finally mature enough to set his mind to something. Besides causing trouble that is," she laughed.

"Precisely, Atlanta," her sister pounced, leaning forward slightly in her eagerness to explain her position. "James will be a great wizard, powerful and clever and you've done marvelously teaching him latin and logic and such things, but you've done an even better job of ingraining morals into his stubborn head."

"Not such a good job of it, with all that he gets up to at that school," Atlanta said with a positively ferocious false glower for the benefit of James who had just come down the kitchen stairs on his way to the den. He reached for one of the muffins she had made, but Atlanta slapped his hand and shooed him out, "You'll spoil your dinner, James Potter. Now get! Get!"

Only when he was safely out of earshot did Arabella speak again, "I'm not talking about being the prim and proper little gentleman. He can see through you in the blink of an eye as easily as I can: you're delighted to have a rogue on your hands. What I mean is that you've instilled a basic decency and goodness in him."

"Why I'd be shamefully remiss in my parental duties if I did not!" Atlanta cried in surprise.

"I know you think so, Atlanta, that's why I felt I needed to talk to you," Arabella plowed on. "You've given him honor and a sense of justice, and a nature that...for all it's disregard of stuffy rules, has a firm grasp of right and wrong."

"While I'm flattered that you think so highly of my rearing of the boy, Bella," she began.

"Don't you see, Atlanta? A powerful, resourceful wizard with those qualities is as good as dead in the world we live in now!" Arabella burst out emotionally.

Atlanta stopped cooking, stopped smiling, and stopped breathing. A very long moment later, she resumed the first and last but not the second. She said nothing to her sister. "He's dangerous to himself and...to you, Atlanta."

"It's a mother's job to protect her son, Arabella," she said tightly. "I won't shy from doing anything that I can."

"But how much longer do you think what you can do will be enough?" Arabella challenged. "How much longer do you think that you can hide James behind a Muggle name and a watchcat?"

"I don't know!" Atlanta cried loudly a moment later, her grief plain. There was a long silence that extended to the other rooms in the house as well. "But I'm not a witch, Arabella, I have nothing else to offer him."

It was the first time that Arabella Filch had ever heard her sister speak regretfully of her Squib status. As if on cue, the ever watchful Mrs Figg the tabby cat slunk into the kitchen and jumped onto Atlanta's shoulder. Mrs Potter had trained this cat so well it almost suggested that she was not, in fact, completely bereft of magical ability. Mrs Figg had shadowed James almost since her infancy, trained to watch where he went and warn Atlanta if he looked to be in impending danger.

Even now, knowing that James was completely safe a room away, both women shuddered at the implied warning of her presence.

"Is it time to have your litter, precious?" Atlanta asked the cat with a smile of approval for her warning.

"You do know that Mrs Figg can't answer you, right, Atlanta?" Arabella said in a tone of deep skepticism.

"Don't listen to the mean old lady, she doesn't like any cats," Atlanta cooed undaunted. Arabella rolled her eyes expressively. Atlanta just laughed and whispered something to the cat. To her horror, the cat immediately walked (heavily) to Arabella and rubbed against her side. Arabella leapt to her feet in alarm and glared at her sister.

Atlanta picked up the cat and carried her to the place she had prepared for just this event. "Do you want any of the litter, Bella?" Atlanta asked innocently.

Arabella didn't dignify that with a response. Atlanta continued gaily anyway, "I've convinced David that we need to keep one more. Mrs Figg is getting old, I'm going to train the runt of her litter to take her place. As you've just suggested, I can't be off my guard."

"Why the runt?" Arabella prompted her sister obligingly for her favorite adage.

"Runts never run out on you," she said as if it were a new saying for her. In reality, she had been saying it since she was old enough to understand what it meant that she was the last of the three triplets out of the womb. "They barely made it on their first race."

"Know what you're going to call this one?" Arabella asked, again without real interest.

"Mrs Norris if it's a clever female, Mr Tibbles if it's a trainable male."

"The runts are always female in this house," Arabella replied.

* * *

Lily hated Petunia's new boyfriend. Almost as much as she hated her own at the moment. A condom! A rubber! After what, a month? He expected her to... And she was going to introduce him to her family!

Petunia was too young for a boyfriend, and this one... The great oaf was three years older than her and far too full of himself. He was even worse than Potter! Potter... Lily didn't like to think of Potter these days. Prat or not, he was still a person who appeared to be attached to her. And it killed her for anyone, even James Potter, to think that she was some sort of scarlet woman.

And that was precisely the opinion that Vernon Dursley had come to form of her. A fifteen year old dating a twelve year old had no right to condescend to prostitutes let alone his girlfriend's sister in Lily's opinion. What was Petunia thinking? What were her parents thinking letting this smug, gargantuan man-child who called them Bean and Morgan instead of Mr and Mrs Evans date Petunia? He didn't even call Lily's grandmother Mrs Vine! He had no respect, and obviously thought that his shit didn't stink.

What did Petunia even see in him? Did he have some hidden appeal? Hidden way down deep somewhere? Was Vernon Dursley even deep enough for that?

Lily had spent almost full week fuming about Vernon Dursley so much that she still didn't quite have an idea just what exactly she was going to say to Dennis when he arrived. Sirius's words rang in her head "sugary and oily and overly slick" "If you have to spread it on that thick it can't be real marmalade." How had she not seen it before? He was too perfect.

No pureblooded wizard actually had good taste in Muggle literature. It just wasn't possible. Not to mention music. He was too smooth, too suave. In many ways, he was as full of himself as James Potter himself! Potter! Poor Potter!

She smiled tightly through the meeting of her parents, then pulled him away amidst tolerant smiles and one self-important suggestive glance (Vernon), took him on a tour of the house. No one thought that either of them was interested in the house. Lily just had a very different interest than they all thought.

She dragged him directly to her room (not considering what a boy who already expected sex from her would think of this) and slammed the door. "Nice bedroom," he said with a smile that suddenly Lily did not like in the least.

Lily wordlessly went to her desk, picked up the Item, and threw it at Wemmick. She crossed her arms and stared at him, daring him, defying him to wriggle his way out of this. To be smooth and slick and oily and try to explain this away. It would be a very entertaining show. Lily hated cats with a passion, but at this moment she resembled nothing more than one who had decided to play with a helpless ball of yarn until she had reduced it to a tangled mess.

Dennis caught it and looked down, his expression not changing except for a growing grin on his face. "Well, I've learned you're not shy, Lils, but I didn't expect you to be quite this forward." He sent her quite a look. "I'm totally in accord."

"Do not call me Lils. Only one person is permitted to call me Lils," Lily said stiffly. Dennis looked up in slight surprise at her tone. "And have you looked closely at that?"

Dennis gave her a highly amused look, "I recognize one, Lily."

"Did you recognize that one by any chance?" she said icily.

Finally beginning to understand that his girlfriend's tone was not a flirty or suggestive one, Dennis took a second look at what she had thrown at him in what he was beginning to understand was not a suggestive maneuver. For a moment he stared dumbly, then all of a sudden, his eyes widened in sudden understanding. He looked up at her in slight alarm, obviously trying to revamp the entire conversation, "Lily, I...where did you get this?"

"Potter found it," she said, staring at him furiously.

Wemmick seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as if he were off the hook, "Oh, Potter, what are we both going on about then?" he asked smoothly. Lily stared at him in disbelief. He really thought that he could weasel his way out of this one now? "It's Potter, Lily, he'd do anything to sabotage this relationship. Why did you even bring this up?" He had the gall to sound offended that she didn't trust him over Potter.

"Because he didn't know it was yours when he told me about it," she answered coldly, not breaking her furious gaze. "Said he got it off a rat he saw dropped it."

"We met Sirius that night," he said persuasively.

Lily might have faltered, if it had been a lesser matter. She might have yielded if it hadn't been for the look he had given her when he thought that she was willing earlier in the conversation. "Who didn't learn about a rat from me!"

"I saw him in the halls on my way back, he was very upset Lily, I think I said something that might have given him the hint he needed," Wemmick said with a perfectly straight face.

That settled it, Dennis Wemmick was a rat. "That's quite a trick, considering he walked back to Gryffindor Tower with me."

Even Wemmick could see that he was trapped. "What do you expect, Lily, when you act the way you do? I should have known that you were just a tease," Dennis said almost vindictively, "You led me on, don't be mad because I followed along." Apparently, he thought he had nothing to lose.

"Get out," she said through clenched teeth.

Dennis just gave her an openly lewd look, "You probably wouldn't have made a good lay anyway." The contempt in his voice was too much after a week of Vernon Dursley.

"GET OUT OF MY HOUSE YOU PATHETIC LITTLE SQUIB!!!" Lily yelled loud enough to shake the foundations of the house. She chased him out too, "You and your overactive little wand get out of here before I transfigure you into a penis! It'd probably be a wasted effort, that's all you've got on your mind you pathetic, fake, snake-charmer!

"I don't know what made you think I'd be one of your little wind-up witch toys, but I'm not that kind of girl!" she yelled, shoving him out the front door. Dennis Wemmick stumbling down the front path fearfully, tripping over the gate, Lily slammed the door and turned to face her startled family. And Vernon. They were all staring. Vernon, however, was looking far too calculating for her tastes.

"Just what kind of girl are you?" he asked, sounding like he was on the verge of understanding.

It was only then that Lily realized how many of the words she had yelled at Wemmick violated the Statute of Secrecy. And Vernon Dursley looked far too close to figuring it out.

Just when Lily was thinking that this holiday couldn't possibly get worse, Petunia started screaming.

* * *

"That's IT!" Peter yelled, flying down the stairs at his wits end, "You haven't stopped screaming at each other since I got home! Do you realize that? You couldn't even play family for a week? Scratch that, I'd take an hour!" Peter stood before his startled parents, standing up to them for the first time in anyone's memory. "Why don't you two just get divorced like any normal people who are this miserable around each other?" he hollered at them, spinning on his heel and marching out of the room again.

There was blessed, glowing silence for a full minute.

Then they began arguing about whose fault it was Peter was angry with them.

* * *

Neither parent had spoken to Sirius since the meeting with Lucius Malfoy. Krysta and Christophus Black had made much over Regulus who had been carried to his bed and fussed over constantly. Sirius had been left on the floor. It was Kreacher who rescued him when his parents were safely upstairs cooing over Regulus, their new little Death Eater. It was Kreacher who helped the fifteen year old who could barely stand after the successive hits with the curse to his own small room to recover.

Kreacher the house elf would do anything for any member of the Black family. He was not only a devoted but an adoring house elf who took to Sirius most of all. He brought Sirius food against Krysta Black's orders when he was sentenced to darkness and a stint of starvation even though it meant ironing his hands afterward. That kind of pain didn't dull their bond.

For Kreacher, for all his groveling, thought of Sirius as his brother. Merlin knew he didn't have any family of besides the Blacks. Sirius saw him that way too, a substitute for Regulus who was such a massive disappointment. Kreacher was agreeable company even if he was excessively agreeing. He took care of Sirius after the curse even though he had to put his ears in the oven afterward. He took Sirius into his own room even though it meant he had to sleep in the cold, dank basement.

These small hurts did not dull the friendship of Sirius and Kreacher, but the pain of the Cruciatus curse eventually would. For Kreacher wanted the approval of Krysta Black more than anything. He had Sirius's, what he wanted was the impossible: a small nod from his mistress. He would always remember that she had loved the ungrateful, spiteful, worthless son she loathed more than the one who adored her. He would forever be nothing to his mistress because he was worth less than even her hated “eldest” son.

The pain of the curse had ended when Lucius Malfoy raised his wand, but it would never cease to work its evil on the mind of the house elf. That was the nature of Unforgivable Curses. Left alone with Krysta Black, Kreacher's decay would be rapid, and the day would come when Lucius Malfoy would be very glad indeed that he had planted that fateful seed of resentment in the house elf.

* * *

Remus sat in the stuffy jacket in a ritzy box where his parents had invited a great host of "important people" to watch Quodpot. Remus was trying not to glower at the lot of them. They were so false, so altered in a crowd. They subscribed to the hiding in plain sight school of keeping a secret. Remus subscribed to the hiding in a hole somewhere and never coming out school.

He wondered if his parents would be happier if he went somewhere and did just that. After a very long debate, Remus decided that they wouldn't, as it would be awkward to explain it to meddlesome high society.

Evelyn McKinnon Lupin was laughing gaily. Lawrence Lupin was railing against vampires in a self-righteous and impotent fashion. Ministry colleagues and contacts drooled all over them. Their children knew. Certainly not the secret, but they knew that there was something wrong with "that Lupin boy." Remus Lupin didn't fit into his parents starched and ironed world.

He wanted back to his scruffy, trouble making friends. The kind his parents ignorantly thought were "no good" but were the only good thing he had in his life. What other group had he ever been a part of but the Gryffindor six? What group would ever mean so much again? What he had now didn’t feel like a real family. And what girl could he ever ask to give him one of their own?

* * *

The gray fluffball that was Mrs Norris very nearly wasn't born. Her first few hours were very touch and go as well. Atlanta insisted (after the scare was over) that it proved that she was the strongest one of all.

James, who knew that he would have to get used to the idea of midwifing if he wanted to enter into the magical creatures sector, made the mistake of allowing his mind enough freedom to spontaneously generate the question: Merlin's staff, what if Wemmick wasn't careful and he got Lily pregnant? After this, not even his mother's passed on love of training and caring for animals could keep him paying attention to anything else. Would Lily have to marry that twat? Or would she wise up and dump him? Or he run out on her (that pillock just would too!) and leave her to turn to James? But even if she did let it bring them together, every time he looked at the kid he would see Lily and Dennis going off to some quiet little corner of the castle and -

GAD! He had tried all week not to get that mental picture in his head! He hadn't slept, not trusting his subconscious not to come up with an image; he hadn't aloud himself to think, not trusting his thoughts not to wonder dangerously; he hadn't spoken, not trusting his words not to stray into a dangerous area to suggest one to him.

Now there it was, what he had struggled so hard against. And all thanks to that bloody cat! Unfortunately, that was quite a literal description now. There had to be someway that he wouldn't have to do the midwifing. The private sector (the Ministry was far too conservative for his tastes) had to have some solution.

He'd think about that later, right now the only thing he could concentrate on was getting the Disturbing Image out of his head immediately. He left the room.

All four adults ignored his departure, but looked up in shock a moment later when they heard him screaming incoherently as he banged his head mercilessly against the wall in desperation. Atlanta nodded at David to go restrain their son before he hurt himself. Arabella nodded at Argus: it was clearer than ever that the boy was dangerously crazy.

* * *

Petunia yelled the whole truth out to Vernon, eliminating any chance that he could be made to forget Lily's odd vocabulary. Mr and Mrs Evans later confided in Lily ( frustratedly ) that they had almost had Vernon Dursley out the door. Then Petunia saw with approval how badly Dursley had treated her sister and now that he knew, how in the world would they get rid of the onerous prick?

Apologizing, Lily explained the situation that had led to the "seemingly nice boy" that they had just met being thrown bodily from their house as their daughter screamed at him. They all knew their daughter's temper, but they were as outraged as she when they understood the full tale. They even absolved her of her unintentional reinforcement of Petunia and Vernon's (they said) wavering bond.

Would they never be rid of him now? What would he say about Lily if Petunia ever showed him the door as she had shown Dennis? Why must relationships always be so disastrous?

* * *

There was an uneasy truce between Marissa and her father. It was better than the open warfare of February and better even than the blatant unconcern of the past years. Seeing how he had taken an active part in Gus's life at long last, Marissa had half expected to see a glimpse of the father she had had once and now barely remembered. He was a completely different man. Jerome Fletcher did not even physically resembled the man he had been then.

Marissa had come home expecting nothing and still managed to be disappointed. It was a relief to see Gus actually able to talk to him, wonderful to not have him beg her to kidnap him again, heartwarming to hear the word "dad" on her brother's lips however tentatively he used it. But nothing that happened that week made Marissa willing to use that word again herself.

Not even a conversation they had the night before she would return to Hogwarts. Gus was upstairs, ready to have a sleep over in her room for their last night together, but she paused in the living room. She walked half the distance to her father who was sitting in a large armchair reading his work papers. A small lamp lit the space where two identical chairs sat. Her father always sat on the one to the right of the lamp. If Marissa tried to remember very hard, she could vaguely recall a woman that she knew from pictures was her mother sitting in the chair.

"I - Are you dropping me off at King's Cross tomorrow?" she asked hesitantly.

Without looking up, Jerome Fletcher shuffled his papers and said, "I have to work. Mavi's taking you and Mundungus."

"I - I just wanted to tell you now then," she stuttered, still terrified of this man for some unfathomable reason. "That I really appreciate all that it is you've - you've been doing with Gus. Thank you for -"

"Not blowing his chance you condescended to give me?" he said lightly, still not looking up. "You have a lot of gall, Marissa, and a lot of presumption." Deciding to call the encounter a wash, Marissa strode wordlessly from the room. Her father looked up after she had gone and said to the empty room, "Just like your mother."

* * *

Their "rest" from school had made all of the Gryffindors quite glad to be returning to the safety of Hogwarts where at least all the problems they encountered could be written off as petty, adolescent conflicts. At least in other people's minds. There, at least, they had their friends to help them fight their battles. Almost like family, just without the drama. Marissa, so outraged by Lily's brief account of her and Wemmick's break-up, nearly attacked Dennis when he crossed the barrier. Lily had said gruffly but not disapprovingly afterward that she had only wanted her to give the bracelet back for her.

After that, Lily had been allowed to join Peter and Sirius who were standing on the platform waiting for James and Sirius. Marissa stood with Gus, laughing and trying to understand yet again the difference between the "Force" and magic. A few Ravenclaw purebloods found this exchange so hilariously ridiculous that when Sirius arrived, he sent them off with a boil-hex when he saw the annoyed looks Marissa was shooting them. Granting him an identical one for his efforts, she turned back to the patiently explaining (yet again) Mundungus.

James, a little behind him, veered for the train when he saw Lily in his fellow Marauder's company and made his way directly to the train, feeling betrayed.

They had just begun Worst Easter Holidays Contest when Lizzie Walker burst through the barrier into Platform Nine and Three Quarters. Sirius's attempted Death Eater recruitment and torture session as well as family estrangement was awarded first prize over Lily's break-up and Vernon encounter, Peter's lack of sleep from the fighting, and even Remus's lonely transformation and equally frightful social engagements (the former described in code because Lily was there). No sooner had they thumped him on the back in congratulations and sympathy then Gideon was led by his brother out onto the platform from the Order secret entrance. Lizzie ran right up to him, and stopped just short of throwing her arms around him.

She looked as if she had hardly slept and the worry lingered behind her eyes even as she saw that he was quite all right. "I don't think I've slept four hours all holiday, Gideon," she confirmed his immediate reaction to her blood-shot eyes and haggard appearance. "I've been doing a lot of thinking, and here it is: I love you, and not just in the way that every Hogwarts couple feels like they have to say. I mean I love you, forever, have children, get married, face down V-Voldemort himself if I have to kind of love. And I don't care what risks there are, I can't live half alive, always wondering what if. I love you, Gideon Prewett, and that's worth any risk to me. You may not want to risk me, but damn it, I don't care! You're worth it to me, and I'm not going to let you ignore me. Nobleness is a great thing, Gideon, but it should only go so far!"

Gideon regarded her for a second when she had stopped her speech. "Schoolboy crush, yes, that can be smashed by Voldemort's threat, but I truly love you, and you're not shutting me out of your life for anything!" She looked as if she might go on, but Gideon stopped her by pulling her to him and kissing her soundly. Right there for the whole world to see.

"Well, I guess not everyone had a crappy holiday afterall," Lily remarked with a slight smile on her face.