Surpassing Danger
Chapter 68: Let's Go Home (Year 7)
By Anne B. Walsh
Author Notes:
There will come a day when characters die, when angst is in plentiful supply, when the world is dark and dreary and cold, but this is not that day…or, in other words, please enjoy this chapter of happy times!
"And so the Pack and Pride, and their friends and fellow fighters," Sirius muttered as he typed, "began not to return to normal, because nothing goes back to the way it has been, but to find their new normal. To build their lives in the time and place now theirs, and look for ways to keep some of the more painful things that had happened to them from ever happening again." He grinned at the sketch and letter lying next to his typewriter. "For instance, a little place called the Center for All to Magically Explore the Lifestyles of Others Today, or, a bit more manageably, Camelot…"
"Tell me this seems wrong to somebody else," said Ron, peering around at the long-empty house, now ringing with cheerful shouts and the din common to construction sites the world over, magical and Muggle alike. "I mean, we'd talked about setting up a place where all sorts of people could meet, a sort of crossover point between the Muggle world and the magical one, but here?"
"It fits all the criteria we were looking for, except one, and that might actually make it better." Hermione was examining the carvings on a doorframe leading into a small, dark room shrouded in curtains. "A big old house that no one's using, that has connections to the magical world, and that we can set up like a home where a mixed Muggle-magical family lives, even though one never did. Why does it matter that we took it from the other side of the dividing line than we originally thought we might?"
"It doesn't. What matters is who it used to belong to, and what's down there." Ron pointed out one of the windows towards a low hill not too far distant, into the side of which, though it was not visible from this vantage point, a ramshackle hut had been built. "Are we going to tell the Muggles, 'Oh, and just in case you're wondering, the biggest magical bastard in the last hundred years, who thought you were all filth, this was his dad's house and his mum was born just over there'?"
"We won't lie to them if they ask, but why should they ask?" Hermione got to her feet and crossed the entryway of the Riddle house to join her fiancé. "As far as they'll ever know, we chose this place for Camelot because it's fairly easy to get to, because it's big and roomy and has the right look to it, and because it was empty and falling to pieces and supposedly haunted so we could get it cheap. We don't have to mention that it was empty and falling to pieces and supposedly haunted because of Tom Marvolo Riddle, but I think it's kind of ironic, don't you? That some of his earliest murders set the scene, so to speak, for a place that will try to undo everything he did?"
"What of it can be undone." Ron slid an arm around Hermione's shoulders. "Some wounds never heal right, or at all."
"I know." Hermione leaned into the embrace with a sigh. "But we do what we can with what we have, and we go on." She laughed a little, wearily. "Which sounds horribly like one of those things well-meaning people tell you after bad things happen, that you want to punch them in the face for saying, but what other words are there?"
"Maybe you don't want to use words," suggested Ron, and reached around with his other arm.
Neville, coming in from one of the back rooms, cast a quick Privacy Spell and Disillusionment over his friends before the rest of his work group arrived.
"But, of course, there are lots of different ways to bridge the gap between the worlds." Sirius had only to turn his head to see the tiny drawing on the edge of a scroll Hermione had brought to his attention when he'd expressed surprise at the event he was about to chronicle. "You can do it with big fancy buildings and mythical names and loads of planning, or you can do it with just a couple of words, if they're the right ones to the right person at the right time…"
Percy paused at the corner of the Huley house to catch his breath and compose himself. Remembering a snatch of conversation he'd heard between his twin brothers nearly a year before, he'd presented himself to Crystal's parents earlier in the morning, for an interview as illuminating as it had been terrifying. Now, here he was, standing in the chill of an early December day, about to talk to a girl who held the power in her slender hands to change his life forever.
Strange how none of the battles I've fought in were nearly so frightening as this one single moment…
Summoning his courage, he stepped around the corner.
Crystal, on her knees near a small thicket of bushes, looked around and smiled to see him, but held up a hand to stop him where he was. "Don't come any nearer," she said softly. "You'll scare them."
"Them?" Percy looked closely towards the thicket, and after a moment was able to discern among the interwoven branches the shapes of tails, whiskers, paws. "Cats?"
"Two of them. I think they may have got out a window, or run away from a car, because they don't look like they're wild, and they seem to think human beings should pay attention to them." Crystal held out her hand, and a small, black-and-white nose emerged from the branches to sniff at her fingertips before being withdrawn. "Can you send those dishes over here, the ones I left by the back door? I think maybe if I feed them they'll stay."
Percy circled his wand once, magically tying together the two small bowls of shredded fish and the broad dish of water into a single item, then levitated that item and carefully traced its path through the air towards Crystal, setting it down beside her without spilling a drop. Crystal picked up a piece of the fish and held it out, and a brown-striped nose poked out of the branches this time to investigate, before a set of gleaming teeth neatly nipped the food away from her.
"Excellent." Crystal pushed the dishes closer to the thicket, then got to her feet and backed away slowly. "I'll leave them to that—it's nice to see you, Percy. Come and sit down?" She nodded to a wooden bench set up beside a small garden bed, and Percy joined her there, wondering at the strangely brittle overtone in her voice. "How's your family holding together? I'm sorry I haven't been able to come up and visit much, but one of my sisters just got engaged and Mum's in full wedding-madness mode."
"We're not as bad as we could be." Percy adjusted the collar of his cloak as the wind picked up slightly. "It's not been easy, of course, it's never easy to lose someone you love, but…"
"But I was right." Crystal folded her hands across her knee and gazed at them. "Fred lost his center, his counterbalance, when George died, and it sent him what I've heard called 'fey'. It was all over him, every time we went out on a mission, if you knew where to look. He'd never have risked your life, or mine, or any of his other partners, but saving his own life simply didn't factor into his equation any more. And eventually he found the right place and time for that attitude to save us all." She smiled a little, sadly. "I don't think I'll mind so much, losing those memories."
"I'm sorry?" Percy was half-tempted to draw his wand and do a self-diagnostic spell, to be sure he hadn't been struck with a curse that scrambled the words in certain sentences to mean things that they simply could not mean. "Lose what memories?"
"That's why you're here, isn't it?" Crystal shrugged. "I'm a Muggle, and I'm not going to be connected to your world any longer, now that George is dead and the war's over. I know too much for just some girl floating around out here at large. So I'll have to be, what's it called, Obliviated. Memories wiped out." She snapped her fingers in front of her forehead. "Don't know what I am going to think happened in this year and a half or so, but I'd appreciate it if I didn't quite forget some things. How much fun we've had together. All the good we managed to do. Maybe some of the bad, too, to keep me motivated to find what's worst in my own world and fight against it as best I can."
"I…you…that…" Percy closed his mouth firmly when he heard himself babbling like one of Professor Snape's test subjects and counted to ten backwards in Mermish. "No," he said when he thought he had himself under sufficient control to do so. "And not no, I won't leave you those memories," he added hastily as Crystal stiffened. "But no, that's not why I'm here. Not at all."
"Oh." Crystal shrugged, a seemingly careless movement. "Are they going to send someone out to do it specially, then?"
"There's been a bit of a shift in the Ministry's policy on such things." Percy chose his words carefully, but could do very little about the smile which kept trying to escape his control. The "shift" had involved several shouting matches among Ministry officials, two duels (one of which had been summarily ended by his mother with the application of a Muggle broomstick to various parts of the duelers' anatomy), and a huffy resignation by a high-ranked wizard who had looked flabbergasted when Percy had immediately conjured him a box with which to clean out his office. "So many Muggles learned about the wizarding world over the course of the war that it simply wouldn't be safe to Obliviate all of them, so we're taking things on a case-by-case basis."
"And what's the basis for my case, then?" Crystal's tone was still stiff, half-formal, half-hurt. "That I'm too unimportant to tell anyone that magic is real and be believed?"
"No, that you're too honorable to tell anyone things that you've been asked to keep a secret," Percy shot back. "Do you really think I'd—" He bit his tongue in the middle of the next word. "That was uncalled for. I'm sorry."
"So am I." Crystal turned to face him fully for the first time, her expression softening. "I jumped to conclusions, and I shouldn't have. I was just…" She sighed. "It was so wonderful, to be allowed to be there," she said wistfully. "To see it all, and learn about it, learn about this whole other world that runs right alongside the only one I ever knew. So I can't do magic myself—so what? I can't fly, either, but that never stopped me from watching the birds. Even the war had its own kind of wonderful, because there I was, proving them all wrong, fighting right alongside the boy I loved, even though he had magic and I didn't. Only then came Hogsmeade, and I didn't defend him well enough." Her eyes went distant, hard, cold. "And he died."
"Do you think that's your fault?" Percy kept his gaze on the bushes, out of which a slender cat, attractively patched in black and white, was beginning to slink. Her shyer sister, mantled and masked in brown tabby, twitched her nose at the bowls of food from cover. "Do you blame yourself?"
"Sometimes. Especially late at night, when I lie in bed awake and it all comes back again." Crystal bowed her head, her eyes closing tight. "It is my fault, or if it's not, it ought to be," she murmured. "I was there, right there beside him. If I'd shot a little faster, a little straighter, or if I'd seen that particular Death Eater was targeting him, or even if I hadn't been there at all to distract him…"
"Crystal, please." Percy reached out to touch her shoulder. "Don't do that. You might as well say it's my fault, because I wasn't there, or at least not in time."
"You were in time for me." Crystal's voice wavered, but the words were entirely understandable. "You took a huge chance. You dropped your shield while I was still crazy, and I nearly killed you. I wanted to kill you, because you were alive and he wasn't."
"But you didn't do that." Percy waited until Crystal looked up, until her eyes met his. "You couldn't do that," he said, as calmly as he could manage. "That's not who you are."
Crystal twitched her shoulder impatiently, throwing his hand off it, and got up to pace. "Nice of you to say, but how do you know who I—" She stopped mid-step, then put her foot down before she fell and turned to face him, staring at him with a peculiar intentness. "Oh," she said softly, and again, "Oh." Scrubbing her hands across her face, she exhaled a half-laughing breath. "Well, that certainly explains a great deal. How long?"
"How long…" Percy repeated dubiously.
"How long have you been looking at me like that without my noticing it," Crystal elaborated. "Or wanting to look at me like that, even if that famous Percy Weasley self-control wouldn't let you do it."
Percy kept himself from wincing with an effort, and knew that his ears had begun to glow red from the mingled look of amusement and something else (he refused, even inside his head, to call it tenderness) which Crystal was bestowing on them. "For a great deal longer than I should have been," he admitted. "It helped, some, to remind myself that you loved George, that you were happy with him."
"Which I was." Crystal glanced over towards the two cats, who had their noses in the bowls of food now. "And I would have been gone on loving him and being happy with him, I think. But the night he died, there in Hogsmeade, the girl who loved him died too, and I was born. I'm a little rougher, a little angrier, a little nastier than that girl was. And I can do things, terrible things, the kind of things that would have made her break down crying or run away screaming. I can never quite let myself forget that." She met Percy's eyes again. "Can you?"
"Forget it? No." Percy got to his feet. "But I don't think it's a bad thing to know yourself better. Or to be capable of a few terrible things, in a world where terrible things are sometimes needed." He swallowed, gathering his courage. "He spoke to me that night at Hogwarts, you know. George did. In that moment of light, when Voldemort was defeated, he spoke to me. If you believe that."
"I believe it." Crystal stood quite still, her hands folded at her waist. "What did he say?"
"That he wanted the people he loved to be happy." Percy had never wished so desperately that he could look away, but Crystal's eyes held him in a spell more binding than any Imperius. "And that life was too short to waste time."
"That's funny." Crystal smiled a little. "That's just what he said to me, down in Sanctuary, a minute or two before that. Well, that and something about having courage to face up to the changes that were coming to me, which I thought meant going back to being a clueless little Muggle. But now…" She looked once more at the cats, took two deliberate steps away from them, then turned back to Percy. "Well, don't just stand there," she said. "Get over here and kiss me."
Nearly a minute later, Crystal leaned against Percy's shoulder, catching her breath. "I'll never think about the phrase 'detail-oriented' quite the same way again," she murmured.
"I believe that was a compliment, so thank you." Percy brushed a bit of Crystal's hair out of her eyes. "Will you come over to the Burrow for lunch? Mum made chicken last night."
"I thought you'd never ask."
Hand in hand, they walked back to the house, a pair of cats following in their footsteps.
"I never thought, when I walked out on being a pureblood all those years ago, that I'd get such a kick out of seeing the old places put back into shape." Sirius grinned at a series of photographs pinned to a board on his wall, showing the gradual recreation of a pureblood manor house from showplace into home. "And Mum's probably spinning in her grave faster than a Keeper who's been Bludgered halfway through a Starfish with Stick, because after a motion by Tonks, seconded by Charlie, and duly voted through by the rest of the company, number twelve, Grimmauld Place, is now officially on the Floo Roster as 'Headquarters'! Nothing to how Lucius must be writhing to see what the Pride's up to in his precious house, of course…"
"How in the world did you get so much done so fast?" Danger asked in awe, sliding her arms out of her coat. The entrance hall of what had once been Malfoy Manor gleamed and glowed in the light of the candles floating in midair (she wasn't about to ask who'd purloined the spell from Hogwarts), the wood paneling on the walls burnished to very nearly the same state of shine as the bronze stair railings.
"We didn't. The house-elves did." Hermione let her hand rest on one of the newel posts of the banister. "Dobby and Winky told us very firmly that we had schoolwork to do, and we were not to get involved. I have a feeling they may have 'borrowed' a few of their friends' off-hours, but you know house-elves."
"If they're not overworking, they're not happy." Danger smiled, gazing up at the broad windows above the front door, across which some enterprising decorator had painted a design of snowflakes. "So does every room look this good?"
"Some of them look better. Though Luna and Ginny and I did have to come in a few times and deal with little things like color matching." Hermione grimaced. "Winky means well, but she doesn't always understand what looks good to humans and what doesn't, and Dobby…"
"Dobby is both a house-elf and male, and therefore not to be left unsupervised with fabric swatches and paint cans at any time." Danger paused, a thought striking her. "Although, you could always let him have his way in one spare bedroom. Just for fun. And if any unsuspected Malfoy relatives pop up, claiming they have a right to stay here…"
Hermione laughed so hard she had to sit down on the stairs.
"They did let us help with some of the fun parts," Meghan was telling her mother in another part of the house. "Like stripping off the old wallpaper!"
"Which you did using my new broomstick." Harry glared at his sister. "And covered it, and yourself, and everything else in the room, in wallpaper paste from sometime around, I don't know, 1740?"
"I am going to regret asking this question." Aletha put her fingers to her forehead. "I know I am going to regret asking this question. And still, I am asking this question. How in the world do you strip wallpaper with a broomstick?"
"Well." Meghan beamed innocently. "You get a little strip started, and then you attach it to the twigs of the broomstick, and then—"
"Where are we going, exactly?" Remus asked, walking forward with his hands obediently shielding his eyes.
"Just outside, behind the house." Fox's voice and scent both read to Remus as somewhere between mischief and gloating. "We're almost there. Moony, step up, over the rocks—all right, Padfoot, you're there—good. On three. One, two, three."
The Marauders removed their hands from their eyes and took in the sight before them.
"That," said Sirius, sounding somewhat awed, "is a Quidditch pitch. That is a regulation Quidditch pitch."
"Couple steps up from playing out in the Weasleys' orchard." Fox had his hands in the pockets of his robes and a highly satisfied smile on his face. "Never be quite as much fun as that was, of course, but that's only because we can't sneak out of the house when you're not looking now…"
"But if you want to talk about a happy Christmas…" Sirius switched his gaze to the next set of photographs down, all filled with people in their holiday best, grouped comfortably in front of their grandly decorated Christmas trees, and waving frantically or calmly as their natures dictated. "Mad, of course, completely mad, what with the Den, the Burrow, the Manor Den, the Landing Zone, Headquarters, Hogwarts, and every other place we had to make our calls. But that was the days before and the days after. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, we spent as just us. Just the Pack, at the Marauders' Den, one last time before we all head off to work on our new lives.
"And then came my birthday." Tapping the words out on the keyboard, Sirius could not quite repress his grimace. "I don't usually mind my birthday. Matter of fact, I usually like my birthday quite a bit. There's cake, and presents, and people being nice to me. But this birthday was something a little out of the ordinary…"
"One final gift, from an anonymous donor." Aletha passed the brown-paper-wrapped parcel to her husband. "It arrived this morning, and the owl looked like it'd come quite a ways."
"Hmm." Sirius shook the box, then sniffed it a few times. "Doesn't rattle, doesn't smell like much of anything." He frowned. "Kind of suspiciously like not much of anything. It was clean on the threat test, right?"
Aletha nodded. "No active spells, and a few passive ones, but completely harmless. Sound-producing and motion, and not at a level of either that could possibly do damage to a human being. No Muggle problems, either—it tested clean for every explosive and poison I know, and I know quite a few."
"May we?" Danger held out her hands. Sirius passed the parcel to her, and she and Remus both lowered their heads and sniffed. After a moment, Danger shook her head, but Remus had a thoughtful look on his face.
"What?" Sirius pointed at his friend. "You know something. What is it?"
"I thought…" Remus waved a hand dismissively. "Never mind, I was wrong. It's nothing. Go on and open it if you're so curious."
"Well, if you insist." Sirius tore into the parcel, revealing a shallow white box with a last name written in a looping handwriting on it. "Who'd be getting me American theme park merchandise?"
Danger began coughing, but held her napkin to her mouth and gestured for Sirius to open the box. Remus was resting his chin in his hands, looking with intense interest at his friend. Aletha, looking from one of her Packmates to the next, had begun to smile.
"What do you know that I don't?" asked Sirius suspiciously. "You didn't all get together and rig up something that's going to explode in my face when I open it, did you?"
"This isn't us." Aletha shifted her position in her chair, freeing her wand arm for a quicker draw. "But I would definitely say caution is indicated here."
"If this turns out to be your aunt sending me some kind of dog toy, I'm not going to think it's funny." Sirius set the box on the table, scooted his chair back, drew his own wand, and used it to flip the lid back.
Seven finger-tall figurines were revealed, nestled into little foam cut-outs.
"Hey," Sirius began, staring at the bearded faces, "aren't those the seven—"
Seven sets of tiny ceramic eyes blinked open.
"They're onto us, men!" shouted the figurine wearing spectacles. "Run!"
In a flurry of movement which should have been impossible for such tiny things, the miniature statues leapt out of their box, scurried across the tabletop, shimmied down the legs, and bolted for the door of Aletha and Sirius's quarters. Sirius cast a hasty Summoning Spell, but groaned as it shattered on impact with the fleeing ceramic back.
Somebody charmed them resistant to Summoners. Which probably means I can't Banish them or Stun them or levitate them either…
His mood was not improved by his Packmates' fits of laughter (Danger had one hand across her belly and the other on her chest, and Remus had put his head down on the table) or by what he had heard the figurines singing as they vanished into the corridor.
"Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's 'round the school we go, till Sirius Black comes and brings us back, hi-ho, hi-ho…"
I'm going to have to physically chase them down and grab them. One by bloody one. By myself.
If I ever find out who sent me these damned things…
"You know who sent those to him, don't you?" Aletha asked when she had enough breath to say anything.
"Of course." Remus blotted his eyes, looking over at Danger, who was still trying to regain her own breath, handicapped by the fits of giggles which recurred every time she started to calm down. "Who else could it be but the person we used to send silly little gifts of just this type, and whose name we once found on a list of the Seven Dwarves in Latin?"
"I didn't think he could have been killed between the time we saw him last and the time the battle ended." Aletha smiled, gazing out the window into the bright February morning, one hand resting on the curve of her stomach. "So he's out in the world somewhere, and in a good enough mood to repay a few debts. And to do it with style."
"I'll say," Danger finally caught enough breath to wheeze. "Did you see the look on Sirius's face?"
"Who wants to bet," said Remus thoughtfully, "that Grumpy the dwarf will be the hardest to catch?"
The day blurred for Sirius, one episode of dwarf-stalking after another. Happy was one of the easiest to find, as he'd darted into Moaning Myrtle's bathroom and settled in at the base of one of the toilets, while Sneezy had made for the hospital wing and Bashful for the kitchens.
Probably feels a kinship with the house-elves. They don't much care to be looked at either.
Doc had chosen, for reasons Sirius didn't understand, to make his way up to the Astronomy Tower, from where he had been scooped up by a passing owl. Sirius had finally caught up with them in the Owlery, where the owls had been playing catch with the yelling dwarf.
Only one of them who was happy to see me coming…
Sleepy had been fairly difficult to find, since Hogwarts had a far larger number of beds available than Sirius had ever thought about before, but once the correct bed had been tracked down (in a guest suite near the Slytherin common room), Sirius had simply walked into the room and scooped up the snoring dwarf from his place on the pillow.
Not sure who'd want to sleep in the dungeons, but I bet the Slytherins feel the same way about the towers.
He'd had very little luck finding Dopey until he had the bright idea to change forms and request help from some of the castle's resident cats. Within an hour, two sleek black felines had slipped into his quarters, herding the sixth dwarf along between them.
Six down, one to go. Sirius tucked the now-quiescent form of Dopey back into his slot in the box and turned towards the door. All right, if I were a grumpy dwarf, where would I hide?
As though on cue, a silver streak shot in through the door and turned into an Augurey. "Would you kindly come and collect your dwarf," it said in Professor Sinistra's voice, distinctly annoyed in tone. "He's terrorizing the entire girls' dormitory."
"Well, well." Sirius snickered to himself as he hurried out the door. "Wonder whose adolescent fantasies that could be playing out…"
He had a feeling his Packmates thought he was still ignorant of who could have sent him such a kindly present as this. In truth, it had dawned on him at some point between the second and third dwarf-hunts, and a quick sniff under the padding in the box had revealed the truth.
There wasn't much scent caught in there, but it was enough.
Still, he'd played the fool before to entertain his family, and didn't mind doing so again. If it amused them to believe he didn't know the origin of this gift, he wouldn't enlighten them.
Not to mention that little girl of Charlie and Tonks's. I see them looking at me sideways sometimes when we go over to Headquarters and I'm letting her chew on my ears, or try to catch hold of my tail. They know who her blood parents were—and they think I don't. He shook his head, amused. Honestly, why do they think I'd care? It's not like she's responsible for what Wormtail did.
"Besides, he finished out his life on the right side of things, Wormy did," Sirius murmured, ducking into a secret passage which would take him down to the Slytherin dormitories far more quickly than the open stairs. "He spied for us, risked his life, eventually gave it up. To screw Voldemort over, and to keep his daughter and my son safe. Everything else?" He shrugged. "Not my department."
Emerging into the dungeon corridor, he followed the sounds of screaming, pasting his best Auror-professional look on his face. Laughing at teenage girls was unwise at any time. Laughing at Slytherin teenage girls who owned functional wands was the height of unwisdom.
And whether or not that's officially a word, it's still true.
"Wise or not, I ended up the day without being hexed, though I did get a couple of little love-bites here and there." Sirius rubbed the spots on his hand and bestowed a less-than-fond glare on the innocent-looking white box, which reposed on his desk between his mug of tea and an order form for Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes. "But the year rolled on, and the older kids piled into their N.E.W.T.s, those of them who decided to go that route. Fox took his from home, the way he's been handling most of his other lessons for the year, and Ron opted out entirely, seeing as he has the family business to go into…"
"Assuming the results hold up to it, Harry's headed for the Auror Office, and Neville's deciding between that and becoming Sprout's assistant at Hogwarts," Ron explained to Maya as they stocked shelves in the back room at the Diagon Alley branch of WWW. "Fox isn't sure if he wants to do anything outside the Den quite yet, but he figured he might as well get the tests over with while all the seventh year stuff he's been doing's still fresh in his mind."
"What about Hermione?" Maya straightened the stacks of Skiving Snackboxes. "Not that I think there's much of anything she couldn't do, but has she made up her mind about it yet?"
"Don't let this get any further than Lee, but if they'll take her, she really wants the Department of Mysteries." Ron grinned, separating the different types of firework by shape. "Suits me fine. She can think deep thoughts all day long at work, and then she'll come home and I'll help her relax, give her some laughs, let her remember there's more sides to life than just thinking."
"Which is definitely something she needs." Maya nodded. "Speaking of things people need, did you have a chance to finish that count on the possible Muggle-salable items? If that new categorization of your dad's is going into effect soon, Lee wanted to have our stock ready to go before any other store has a chance to catch up…"
"Which brings us around to right now." Sirius sat back in his chair, folding his hands behind his head and stretching. "Lovely, lazy summertime. Time to help Moony and Danger and Letha work up their new curricula for next year. Danger's got loads of new material, what with all the Muggles who were involved in the war somehow, and Moony has Minerva's approval to add an hour a week practicum for his upper levels, use of the potion piece for defense and offense. And Letha's adding some of those potions to her upper level classes as well, so there's plenty to do there. Besides that, there's just the everyday fun of living, and we also had to put the Den in order for our two new arrivals…"
"Speaking of which," said Aletha, arriving at the door with a bundle in her arms. "Someone is awake, and would very much like to see his daddy."
"Would he, now." Sirius pushed back his chair, spun it around, and held out his own arms for his son. Marcus James Black, who would be two weeks old on his big brother Harry's eighteenth birthday tomorrow, regarded his father solemnly over the corner of his blanket on which he was sucking. "And who's my big boy, then? Who's the best baby ever? Who would never even think of biting his daddy's fingers like his big sister, or screaming in the night like his big brother, hmm?"
"Who's probably learned a great deal from being taken care of by James and Lily for several years?" Aletha countered, resting her weight against the doorframe. Her labor had been fairly easy as such things went, but as Sirius was well aware, men and women measured pain differently.
What she thought of as "easy" would have had me screaming my head off and begging for mercy before we'd even made it through an hour…
He grimaced a little, then quickly restored his face to neutral as Marcus's lips trembled in distress. Speaking of pain, doing without Danger's help on full moons is wearing Moony down faster than I like. The Wolfsbane lets him keep his mind, all right, but it doesn't do anything about the pain those damn transformations cause, and it's so complicated in its own right that trying to add a pain-blocker to it would be more likely to ruin it than to help anything.
"What's got you so worried?" Aletha came into Sirius's study and seated herself in the most comfortable of his guest chairs, leaning back with a little sigh of relief. "Something about Marcus, or something else?"
"Moony." Sirius rescued the corner of blanket as it began to disappear into Marcus's mouth in alarming proportions and held it out for Aletha to charm clean before substituting his Pack-pendants, which Marcus began to suck even more enthusiastically than he had the blanket. "His wolf side's…hungry, I guess would be the best word for it. Or maybe angry. His bond with Danger kept that part of him subdued for so long, and now it's back and wilder than ever. How long before it gets so bad even the Wolfsbane can't keep it under control?"
"I wouldn't panic if I were you." Aletha's eyes had drifted half-shut, as though she were thinking or remembering hard. "I'm looking for better formulations whenever I have time, and there's a reason we have the strong room in the cellar here, and in their quarters at Hogwarts. Even if the wolf gets the better of him one night, he won't be able to escape, and the only people with him will have animal forms at their disposal."
"Yeah, but…" Sirius shrugged. "It'd scare him silly, and for good reason. If the Wolfsbane can stop working for him, with everything he's got going for him, how can we be sure someone else's lycanthropy won't figure out how to mutate and get around the potion for them too?"
"Is there a particular reason you're set on borrowing trouble today?" Aletha opened one eye to regard him. "Or are you just looking for some new big problem to replace the war?"
"Why would I be—okay, maybe I am," Sirius conceded after running the last few things he'd said through the checklist he used to determine if one of his characters was being rational or not. "But that doesn't mean I'm wrong, Letha. This could be bad."
"It could be, but it isn't yet, and we'll all work together to keep it from getting that way." Aletha smiled as Marcus kicked a foot enthusiastically into the air. "Even the littlest of us."
Sirius sighed. "I just hope it's enough."
His pendants warmed, making Marcus squawk in surprise, an instant before a ball of green fire burst into being in midair. "If you could perhaps lend us a hand downstairs?" said Remus's voice, carefully calm, from the center of the flames. "I'm told it's time to go."
"Well, well." Tucking Marcus into the crook of one arm, Sirius got to his feet. "On our way. You're going to have a little sister," he told the baby as the flames vanished, crossing the room in two strides and holding out his other hand to help Aletha up. "Her name's going to be Nadia, Nadia Abigail Lupin, and you're going to love her, and take care of her, and torment her to within an inch of her life. Not too much, though, or she'll give you a hotfoot like you'll never forget…"
Far away, Luna Lovegood Beauvoi stood at an upper window of her home, gazing north, towards Hogwarts.
"The one with the power to vanquish the dark curse approaches," she murmured with a smile. "Born to those who have long defied her, born as the seventh month dies…"
Author Notes:
No, I just can't resist the chance to be cryptic, not even here, with only two chapters to go. That's right, we have only Chapters 69 and 70 left in the main Dangerverse! Want hints? Go back to Facing Danger and read Chapter 32, specifically the story Remus tells Hermione about the origins of lycanthropy. Then think about the life of Remus Lupin to this point…
But I have said too much already.
Chapter 69 will, I hope devoutly, be posted tomorrow…happy tenth anniversary to the DV a day early just in case! It is a little-known fact that the original Chapter 1 of LwD was in fact posted on this day in 2004. However, it was a truly terrible piece of drek, and was quickly replaced, the very next day, by the version which is still visible to this day. Therefore I consider October 26, rather than 25, the true birthday of the Dangerverse, and the appropriate day to finish off one of the broadest plot arcs that this story has encompassed.
The final chapter, Chapter 70, "That They Lived", will be in the style of an epilogue, and will take place quite a long time in the future. What happens between the two? Well, those stories will be told another day…maybe. Depends on what I do next with my writing, and how I choose to do it. As ever, please pop over to annebwalsh.com and have a look at Anne's Randomness, my blog, or hit up facebook.com/annebwalsh.page to keep up with those two topics, and (for nearly the last time, gulp) I'll see you soon!