Darkness Dying

June 28, 1980
 
 
It was the evening of the Strawberry Moon, and Sirius grew nearly giddy with delight as he and his two companions drew closer to the tiny cabin. It had been built and abandoned long ago; from its ramshackle appearance, no one would ever have guessed that it was reinforced to contain a wild creature of boundless determination and enormous strength. So far as Sirius and his friends knew, no one recalled the cabin’s existence; and therefore the possibility that someone might realize that it was not what it seemed to be was moot.
 
Drawing a finger to his lips to silence James and Peter, Sirius pulled his wand from his belt and held it against his throat. He then murmured a charm that would temporarily alter his voice. A slow smile spread across James’ face as he cottoned on to Sirius’ plan. Peter looked torn between admiration for the odd ways in which Sirius’ mind worked and sympathy for Sirius’ victim.
 
Sirius approached the dilapidated structure and pounded on the door.
 
“IS SOMEONE IN THERE?” he bellowed. “WHO LOCKED THIS DOOR? THIS SHED IS ON MY MANOR, AND I’LL NOT HAVE SOME COMMON RIFFRAFF USING IT FOR A HIDEOUT!”
 
It took but a moment for the door to unlatch, seemingly of its own volition. Behind the door stood a frightened-looking Remus Lupin.
 
The fright on Remus’ face vanished almost instantly. “Padfoot, that is about as far from being funny-- James?” he interrupted himself.
 
“At your service.” James swept into a low bow.
 
“You shouldn’t be here!”
 
James shrugged and brushed past Remus into the cabin. “I’ve been here loads of times and you’ve never had a problem with it before.”
 
“But Lily is eight months along!” Remus exclaimed, as if James did not know.
 
Sirius cocked his head in thought as he, too, entered the cabin. He turned around theatrically in the small space. “It does seem rather odd that you would leave your wife at a time like this.” A warning look came into James’ eyes, but Sirius either did not notice or did not care. “I would think that you would want to be home, asking her how she feels every few seconds and stomping around the nursery wondering if you should change the colors again. Unless . . . Lily kicked you out?” he raised his eyebrows suggestively.
 
“Lily did not kick me out,” James said witheringly.
 
“She kicked him out,” Sirius mouthed to Remus and Peter, who had also come into the shed and re-locked the door. The manor house to which the shed belonged was some distance away, but nonetheless it would not do for the foursome to draw attention to themselves.
 
“She suggested that I come out here tonight. She likes Remus. She thinks I should be here. That is in no way comparable to ‘kicking me out.’”
 
“She suggested that you come here and spend time with people other than her. And notice that Remus tried to get rid of you, as well. Face it, Prongs,” Sirius declared, spreading his arms wide. “Nobody likes you.”
 
James hung his head obediently. “Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, guess I’ll go eat worms,” he said sadly. His sorrow would have been more convincing, however, had he not been smirking. His marriage to Lily was something out of a fairy tale, and everyone present knew it.
 
“See, Moony, we have to let him stay,” Sirius took up. “We can’t leave him alone eating worms. It wouldn’t be right.”
 
Peter nodded in agreement. “Besides, this is the only time when we don’t have to think about, well, you know . . .” he trailed off.
 
Sirius did know. Everyone in the wizarding world knew; a war was a difficult thing of which to remain unaware. He did, however, dislike the tendency of many wizards and witches to say “you know” instead of “the war.” Professor Dumbledore, a man whom Sirius admired nearly to the point of hero-worship, had long been attempting to convince his fellow warriors to call their enemy by his name, “Voldemort,” instead of by the moniker many had adopted: “You-Know-Who.” Yes, everyone knew who. According to Dumbledore, though, the population at large would be less frightened if people would simply *say* the name of the Dark wizard who frightened them. A word was only a word. By the same token, then, Peter should have said “This is the only time when we don’t have to think about the war.”
 
Sirius was too fond of Peter to reprimand him over such a thing, however. Peter had told Sirius in prior discussions that he simply disagreed with Dumbledore. The people of the wizarding world were frightened enough as it was. They were frightened to speak to strangers; they were frightened to socialize; they were frightened to shop; they were frightened to allow their children to go to school; they were frightened even to go outdoors. For the most part, though, the wizards and witches in questions swallowed their fears and continued on with their lives. Why, then, should they be forced to do one more thing which frightened them and speak the name of the Dark Lord? Such was Peter’s logic.
 
Peter happened to be correct in this case, Sirius mused, no matter what his choice of words had been. On the night of the full moon, everything seemed simpler. Fear and cynicism melted away in favor of the raw emotions involved in curbing the destructive tendencies of a werewolf who happened to be a close friend. Although Sirius was not prone to long bouts of introspective behavior, he was fully aware that Remus’ lycanthropy was the tie that bound the four friends together two years after their graduation from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Friends often drifted apart during the transition from student life to adult life. The danger of such a rift was especially strong during a time of war that required all full-fledged members of society to work long hours to the exclusion of socialization of any sort. But Sirius, James, and Peter were unwilling to forgo their tradition of Apparating to a fore-chosen location to meet Remus on the night of the full moon. Ministry paperwork, Quidditch schedules, course outlines, training programs, and secret errands run for Professor Dumbledore all became irrelevant when one thought of Remus’ predicament.
 
Remus’ transformations were not nearly so violent or painful now that he had survived adolescence, but his friends still refused to allow him to face his monthly ordeal alone when they could avoid it. Sirius, James, and Peter were all able to read lunar charts as well as Remus himself could, and they made arrangements months in advance when a blue moon or a total lunar eclipse, as had occurred the previous September, threatened to send Remus’ wolf-form into a frenzy of self-mutilation.
 
During those months when schedules and routine transformations prevented the foursome, or parts of the foursome, from meeting, Sirius still thought often of his friends. The moon, full or not, reminded him of all that they had achieved together. Each transformation into his animal form had the same effect. James. Remus. Peter. Their lives at Hogwarts had been so inextricably linked to Sirius’ own life that even thinking their names could still bring a smile to his face.
 
The evening light was dying, and Sirius was brought back to the present place and time by Remus’ shudder. The transformation would soon begin. “I should take these off,” Remus said, gesturing to his robes. The robes were the oldest ones he owned, and were well-worn already, but Remus obviously hoped that they would survive to serve during a few more transformations.
 
“YES! TAKE THEM OFF!” Sirius immediately shouted.
 
“TAKE IT ALL OFF!” James joined in.
 
Sirius and James grinned at each other and began to chant in chorus: “HO, HO, HEY, HEY, MAKE THE WOLF GO ALL THE WAY! HO, HO, HEY, HEY, MAKE THE WOLF GO ALL THE WAY! HO, HO, HEY, HEY, MAKE THE WOLF GO ALL THE WAY!”
 
Peter and Remus rolled their eyes at one another. “Want me to take your wand?” asked Peter gently.
 
“Thanks,” answered Remus gratefully, handing the slender stick to his friend.
 
Peter carefully averted his eyes as Remus began to remove his clothing. Instead, he focused on the still-hollering Sirius and James. “I still can’t believe them sometimes,” he commented softly.
 
“Neither can I,” admitted Remus.
 
“You can’t BELIEVE us?” Sirius interrupted in mock indignation, having broken off his chant. “You think I’m a liar. I’m hurt. Aren’t you hurt, James?”
 
“After the way you’ve all treated me tonight, I don’t think I can be hurt any more,” sniffed James.
 
“See what you’ve done to the poor deer?” asked Sirius. “Pun intended.”
 
“I’ve been pun-ished enough, Padfoot,” James returned.
 
“I think we’d better pun-ctuate this argument before it goes any further,” Sirius concurred.
 
“I agree. We don’t want to be too pun-chy tonight.”
 
“No. The rising of the moon is a very pun-ctual thing.”
 
Remus and Peter observed this performance in a mixture of awe and disgust. “Wormtail?” asked Remus in a stage whisper. “How would you feel about leaving them here tonight?”
 
Peter did not have a chance to reply, because Remus’ body shuddered once more. “Go change. Now,” Remus commanded tightly. Peter, James and Sirius hastily scrambled outside the shed. There they became rat, stag, and dog; and moments later a mournful howl told them that Remus had transformed as well.
 
Padfoot, the black dog so enormous he hardly seemed to be a dog at all, nudged at the door with his nose and barked sharply. His bark was answered with a challenging snarl, and the door shot open quickly beneath the werewolf’s weight.
 
At first, the wolf seemed to be infuriated at the mere existence of the world. The sight of the other animals calmed him, though, and the rest of the night was spent playing at games to which the rules did not particularly matter.
 
The next morning, the small group Apparated itself to Remus’ flat. When James, Sirius, and Peter had assured themselves that Remus’ injuries were minor and that he needed nothing more than sleep, they left him to it.
 
At the last instant, Sirius failed to raise his wand and turned to face Remus. “You’re certain you’re all right?” he asked.
 
“I’ve been doing this for sixteen years, Padfoot,” answered Remus wearily. “You and James and Peter don’t need to take a night out of every month to look after me.”
 
“It makes us horrible people, I know,” Sirius agreed.
 
“There are plenty of reasons why you’re horrible people.”
 
Sirius smiled and disappeared.
 
 
July 31, 1980
 
 
As it happened, Remus did pass the next full moon alone. Lily was then mere days from giving birth to her and James’ first child, and a particularly brutal Death Eater attack forced both Ministry workers like Peter and aurors-in-training like Sirius to work especially long, hard hours.
 
Four days after the full moon, then, he was surprised to see his fire spring to life. He had been quite contentedly simplifying a lesson plan a Ministry official had suggested for the youngest students at one of the wizarding primary schools that had remained in business despite the war. The school was currently offering three-week summer sessions at which the children could learn simple tricks to defend against Dark Magic. Of course, these slights of hand and pieces of knowledge would never save a life; but, to some extent, they soothed the fears of children and parents. That alone made the classes worthwhile. However, the Ministry workers who were by law required to approve the plan had no idea as to how much information of what form young children were capable of digesting. Remus seemed to have a gift for such work, and as it allowed him to avoid human contact during the days surrounding his transformation, he was more than pleased to do it. Additionally, his hours were flexible, and he was therefore able to do any secret work that Dumbledore requested of him quite easily. James was in a similarly convenient position. He played Quidditch professionally and cultivated a stupid-athlete persona only as a cover; in truth, his energy was focused on the war.
 
James, as it happened, was the one who was calling Remus.
 
“James?” he asked, slightly startled.
 
“Get to Saint Mungo’s. Now,” was all James said before vanishing.
 
Remus jumped up and fumbled for his canister of Floo Powder. Something must have gone wrong with Lily and the baby his mind chanted urgently. Today was Lily’s due date; it had been circled on the calendar of each of her friends for months.
 
He threw the powder into his fire and seconds was in the entryway of the famed magical hospital. Once there, he looked around, temporarily helpless. James had only said to come to Saint Mungo’s.
 
“Over here!” called a sign. Remus walked over to read it. “What are you looking for?” the sign prompted, not content with the speed at which Remus was reading.
 
“Maternity?” asked Remus dumbly.
 
“Give me a name,” the sign demanded disdainfully. “A doctor. A patient.”
 
“Potter.”
 
The sign transformed itself into a flashing arrow. “Follow me!” it commanded, scooting down a corridor and turning sharply to the left. “At the top,” it announced when it reached a moving staircase. “Have a nice day.”
 
At the top of the stairs there was indeed a small waiting room, inhabited by three familiar figures. James was walking rapidly around the room’s perimeter and Sirius was chasing him. Peter, though, was sitting down and looking relatively calm, so Remus was able to assume that the situation was more desperate in James-world than in the ordinary world.
 
“Remus!” James stopped abruptly and Sirius nearly slammed into his friend. “What took you so long?”
 
It had been considerably under five minutes since James’ disembodied head had barked instructions into Remus’ small flat, but Remus replied nonetheless. “I had a disagreement with a sign.”
 
James shook his head. “You should have hexed it.”
 
“Because hexing in a hospital is such a good idea,” completed Sirius flatly.
 
“Why are we in a hospital?”
 
“My child is being born?” suggested James in a tone something like the one the sign had used.
 
“Why didn’t the healer just go to your house?”
 
James threw his hands in the air. “Lily feels better about doing it this way. From a Muggle family. Most Muggles have their children in hospitals.”
 
“Lily never wants to do things the Muggle way,” Remus observed. It was true, too; from the time he had first met Lily, at age eleven, the Muggle-born witch had been eager to learn anything and everything about the magical world. Her curiosity and determination had led to her appointment to the position of Head Girl at Hogwarts and to a place in Professor Dumbledore’s elite group of defenders against Voldemort.
 
“This time she did,” said James.
 
“Why are you out here?”
 
“It’s the way they do it, for the most part.” He looked worriedly toward a closed door.
 
“I’m sure she’s all right. This happens every day,” Remus said, though his words sounded somewhat hollow.
 
Sirius, standing out of James’ line of sight, rolled his eyes and shook his head.
 
“It doesn’t happen to me every day,” James returned. He resumed his earlier pacing. “What were we thinking, bringing a child into this kind of a world? Did you read the Daily Prophet today?”
 
“Are you implying that you read something besides your Quidditch statistics?” Sirius interrupted.
 
Remus shot Sirius a silencing look. Sirius snorted. “I’ve heard everything he has to say already. In two minutes you’ll want me to help you shut him up.” He flopped down into a chair beside Peter.
 
Remus returned his attention to James. “Yes, I read the Daily Prophet today.”
 
“There was another attack.”
 
“I know.”
 
“How incredibly selfish is it of me to bring a defenseless little human being into this situation? That’s part of the reason we decided to do it, you know. Why we got married right out of Hogwarts. Why we’re having a child when we’re barely twenty years old. If you want to do anything in times like these, you have to do it right away, before you lose your chance.”
 
“Well, you didn’t lose your chance.”
 
James, having already found a new subject, ignored Remus. “Did you know that they put charms on these doors so you can’t make them transparent?” he asked, during the whole of his attention to the mentioned door.
 
“I wonder why,” said Remus dryly.
 
“Told you you’d come around to my point of view. Told you so,” Sirius yelled out.
 
Remus’ eyes drifted from Sirius to James and back again. “We have to calm him down before he sprains something.” He sat down on Sirius’ other side.
 
“That’s what I’ve been saying. They frown on using magic in the waiting rooms, but we could always hit him over the head.”
 
“The cure might be worse than the problem.”
 
“But we wouldn’t have to listen to him any longer.”
 
“We could get him to think about something else.”
 
“Not likely. He won’t even talk about his Quidditch stats.”
 
“I suppose he wouldn’t.”
 
“Look. He doesn’t even care that we’re talking about him like he’s not even here. Ordinarily, he hates that. He doesn’t even like it when we talk to him about something we’ve obviously talked about among ourselves before.”
 
In fact, James was ignoring his friends entirely and was pacing wildly across the room. Each time he reached a wall, he un-balled his fist and slapped it before turning on his heel and crossing the room again. Eventually, he became tired of this state of things and sank down against the wall that concealed Lily.
 
Sirius rose to his feet, closely followed by Remus and Peter.
 
“Prongs.” James did not respond. “How many Snapes does it take to light a candle?” Sirius was not above resorting to insulting former classmates when he was looking for a surefire way to make his friends laugh.
 
“How many?” asked James warily.
 
“Three. One to light the candle and two to pull his greasy hair out of his eyes so he can see what he’s doing.”
 
Sirius gave Remus a hard nudge, and Remus assumed that it was his turn. “How many Lestranges does it take to light a candle?”
 
“How many?” asked Sirius.
 
“Just the one. He marries a woman smart enough to do it for him.”
 
“Also true of our James,” Sirius pointed out. “Peter? Your turn.”
 
Peter shook his head. “Just leave him alone.” Peter adored James (not that Remus and Sirius did not) and he hated to see him in any sort of distress or to tease him in any way.
 
Peter, Remus reflected, always supported the member of the odd quartet who was currently the object of the others’ ridicule. Although the mockery was never sincere-- it was in fact intended to make its target relax and not take life too seriously-- Peter tended not to join in. He seemed to fear that he would cross the line from friendly teasing into malice; he was one of those rare victims of schoolboy scorn who recalled how he felt as a victim when he was placed in a position of power. The teased often made the most vicious teasers; but such had never been the case with Peter. Peter was willing to join in verbal sparring matches only when it was required to keep from insulting the target-- for example, Remus suspected that Sirius would be deeply offended if he passed a day during which no one told him to shut up.
 
As it happened, though, no one was forced to come up with a new way to keep James from climbing the walls. A healer’s assistant poked her head out from the door and asked the father-to-be to come inside. James was gone with a quickness not matched even by his speed on a broomstick.
 
 His three friends eagerly awaited his return, which was not overly long in coming. James had run into the room breathless and full of uncontrolled energy. When he returned, though, his movements were anything but uncontrolled. In his arms he carried a tightly-wrapped bundle which could only be one thing. Sirius was at James’ side instantly, with Remus and Peter a half-step behind. “Can I . . .?” Staring at the black-haired infant in his friend’s arms, Sirius seemed to be experiencing a rare bout of speechlessness. James, however, understood.
 
“Of course. He’s your godson.” James angled himself to transfer the child to Sirius’ embrace.
 
“It’s a boy, then?” asked Sirius, almost hesitantly taking the baby and staring down at it.
 
“Harold James. Harry,” James elaborated.
 
“Naming him after yourself?” Sirius raised his eyebrows.
 
James nearly blushed. “Lily insisted.”
 
“How is she?” asked Remus.
 
James beamed. “Wonderful. The healer said she’d call us back in in a minute. They’re just finishing up. You should have seen Harry when they checked him out and put the protective spells on him. He didn’t cry at all.”
 
Harry’s eyes had been open when he and James had first emerged, but now he had fallen asleep; and Sirius was careful not to wake him as he handed him to Peter. Peter smiled first with wonder and then with amusement. “He’s got hair just like yours.”
 
All four chuckled in agreement, and James directed his attention to Harry. “I am so, so, sorry,” he whispered.
 
“Think of all the galleons you’ll save on combs,” Sirius suggested. “They won’t do any good, so you won’t have to buy any.”
 
James stood transfixed, not responding to Sirius’ barb. “I can’t believe I have a son. I barely feel older than him, myself.”
 
“Oh, come on. You and Lily have been paragons of maturity and virtue ever since you got together. If not before. Your having a child is perfectly sensible. It’s not like you’re me.”
 
“Exactly what I want to hear from his godfather.” James seemed to come back to himself slightly. “Peter, give him to Remus.”
 
Remus shook his head. “That’s illegal.”
 
James growled. “It’s a stupid clause that they put in to pass a stupid law, and it won’t stand up when someone challenges it, anyway.”
 
Remus considered reminding James that he had no way of knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that the law forbidding werewolves from touching children beneath a year in age had no merit, but decided that such a suggestion would only anger the new father further. Additionally, he had no desire to detract attention from James by slipping into what he had to admit was perilously close to self-pity. Thus, he held out his arms and accepted the still-sleeping infant. The four young men stood grouped tightly around the child as if in awe of him, and Remus thought with a smirk how amused their ten- or even five-years-younger selves would have been to see this spectacle.
 
“But Moony?” asked James.
 
“Yes?”
 
“You can’t play with him on the full moons until he’s at least fifteen.”
 
“You expect he’ll be an Animagus by then?” asked Sirius with a grin.
 
James nodded firmly. “He’s Lily’s and mine, after all.”
 
“Will he be a stag, too?” Sirius tilted his head as if to get a clearer look at Harry. “I think he looks dignified and noble, don’t you? We could call him ‘Pronglet.’”
 
James did not answer because the healer emerged once more. “If you’d bring the baby back to his mother?” she asked, smiling at the little group.
 
“Thank you. Come on,” commanded James.
 
“James?” Remus dropped his voice almost to a whisper in deference to Harry. “I doubt that Lily wants us all to go in there.”
 
“That’s where you’re wrong. She specifically said that she did. And she specifically said that you would be the one who’d be thoughtful enough to consider that she might not want you to, and then she said something about wondering why someone as nice as you put up with the rest of us. And that rather put me out. So come on, before I become further put out.”
 
They left the waiting room in a soft wave of snickers.