𝐑𝐄𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐒-ℍ𝕒𝕣𝕣𝕪 ℙ𝕠𝕥𝕥𝕖𝕣❥

𝐃𝐇 𝟖

The smile on Emily's face suddenly disappeared when she remembered the last conversation she had with her pops, telling him he was weak.

For all Emily knew, that could be the last thing she ever said to her dad, she knew how dangerous this situation was and there was no certainty that she would make it out alive. And there was no certainty that Remus would make it out alive. Remus would die thinking his daughter thought of him as weak

When, in reality, Emily couldn't admire her father more.

Emily looked around at the floor. The sky outside was growing brighter: A shaft of light revealed bits of paper, books, and small objects scattered over the carpet. Evidently Sirius's bedroom had been searched too, although its contents seemed to have been judged mostly, if not entirely, worthless. A few of the books had been shaken roughly enough to part company with their covers, and sundry pages littered the floor.

Emily bent down, picked up a few of the pieces of paper, and examined them. She recognised one as part of an old edition of A History of Magic, by Bathilda Bagshot, and another as belonging to a motorcycle maintenance manual. The third was handwritten and crumpled. She smoothed it out.

Dear Padfoot,
Thank you, thank you, for Harry's birthday present! It was his favorite by far. One year old and already zooming along on a toy broomstick, he looked so pleased with himself, I'm enclosing a picture so you can see. You know it only rises about two feet off the ground, but he nearly killed the cat and he smashed a horrible vase Petunia sent me for Christmas (no complaints there). Of course, James thought it was so funny, says he's going to be a great Quidditch player, but we've had to pack away all the ornaments and make sure we don't take our eyes off him when he gets going.
We had a very quiet birthday tea, just us and old Bathilda, who has always been sweet to us and who dotes on Harry. We were so sorry you give couldn't come but the Order's got to come first, and Harry's not old enough to know it's his birthday anyway! Harry was very much upset because he hasn't seen Emily in ages! Both me and James are missing our sweet little angel and we're also missing her older brothers! They've both grown up so much it's scary! Emily's 1, Ethan's 3 and Eric is 4, how crazy?

James is getting a bit frustrated shut up here, he tries not to show it but I can tell — also, Dumbledore's still got his Invisibility Cloak, so no chance of little excursions. If you five could visit, it would cheer him up so much. Wormy was here last weekend, I thought he seemed down, but that was probably the news about the McKinnons; I cried all evening when I heard.

Bathilda drops in most days, she's a fascinating old thing with the most amazing stories about Dumbledore, I'm not sure he'd be pleased if he knew! I don't know how much to believe, actually, because it seems incredible that Dumbledore

Emily's extremities seemed to have gone numb. She stood quite still, holding the miraculous paper in her nerveless fingers while inside her a kind of quiet eruption sent joy and grief thundering in equal measure through her veins. Lurching to the bed, she sat down.

She read the letter again, but could not take in any more meaning than she had done the first time, and was reduced to staring at the handwriting itself. She had made her "g"s the same way Harry did.

Emily set the letter down on the bed, smiled at it before running back over to her room.

She sat down beside Harry and stroked his face softly, "Harry, you've got to wake up. I've got to show you something."

Harry groaned and opened his eyes, "Is- eh- everything alright?"

"Better than alright."

Once Harry had read the letter, the two now sat on Sirius' bed, Emily saw the mixed emotions settling onto Harry's face.