"Time is fleeting, madness takes its toll... but listen closely, not for very much longer, I've got to keep controooooool... I remember doing the Time Warp... Drinking those moments when... the blackness wolud hit meeee and the voooooid would be calling.... LETS DO THE TIME WARP AGAIIIIIIN..."
Remus and Bradley both looked up.
Sirius had just stepped up onto the coffee table, stepping carefully around the several pages of drawings and comic books that the pair of them had splayed about between them. Bradley's eyes were wide as Sirius theatrically waved his arms. He looked at Remus, who had already turned back to the drawings.
"Ignore him and he'll go away," Remus murmured.
"Oh but I won't," Sirius sang out. "I won't, I won't, I won't, for tomorrow is finally - at last - at very - very - very last my court hearing!" He sang the words.
It had been two weeks - somehow or another, time had managed to fly by. Possibly it had something to do with being two weeks closer to rent being due again and no money in their coin purses to so much as purchase an extra can of mushy peas to spare that it seemed to be flying by. Or else it was just because the first of the three weeks of Sirius's house arrest had been so bleeding L O N G that the subsequent ones had just flurried by in what seemed like an instant. No giant attacks, no heart dragons, no further arrests, and no further fights had transpired. Things had just... gone on.
The only new thing that had transpired during the two weeks was the fact that Bradley had decided he wished to create his very own comic book - Wolf Boy, it was called - a story about a young boy turned werewolf who managed to keep his mind and battle evil werewolves, using his greatest weakness as a strength to protect others. Wolf Boy was essentially a slightly developed stick figure in the earliest issue of the comic, which Bradley had drawn himself in the suitcase one night after Remus and Sirius had tucked him in and Sirius had recited a story about a dog called Snuffles who ate sausages which made him cry for reasons unknown.
Well, now Wolf Boy was being given a bit more treatment as Remus had helped Bradley develop a more dimensional version of the character, and was busy trying to teach him how to draw Wolf Boy in some classic super hero poses, drawing it out himself, then erasing it and letting Bradley re-draw over the faint erased lines on the page. He was getting really good at it, and Remus was sure that within the week Bradley would be able to freehand draw many of their prescribed poses. Soon, Remus reckoned Bradley would be drawing the character with no problem and he was quite proud of Bradley for the enthusiasm with which he was learning how to draw Wolf Boy.
Even if the premise of the book made Remus a wee bit uneasy.
Otherwise, though, most everything else was exactly the same. Sirius had found himself unable to speak whenever he tried to figure out how to talk to James about the love magic he'd accidentally-sort-of-on-purpose performed, and though Lily kept trying to corner him to talk about what he knew was her suspecting him of having done it, he'd managed to avoid the conversation, unsure what to say to even Lily about it. Meanwhile, he and Remus had also not talked much about it - Remus flat out refusing to be the one to divulge James's time travelling secrets. "It isn't my secret to tell, Sirius, you know that, just like he wouldn't tell anyone about --" and Remus had stopped because what James or Sirius would and would not tell of Remus's secrets was, after all, a recently resolved, but still touchy subject.
The other thing that had not changed - much to Lily's upset - was the status of the Potters' parentage.
"I'll bet ol' Prongs is purposely shooting blanks so he gets all the fun but none of the responsibility," Sirius said, smirking and elbowing James.
"That is scientifically impossible," Remus said. "You can't - shoot blanks - on command."
Sirius continued elbowing James, making him flush.
But it was a less funny story when Sirius was up in the middle of the night, teary eyed and hugging himself as he felt Lily's breaking heart night after night.
"You know, Prongs, you should be eating more cruciferous vegetables," Sirius announced one night at the Potters for dinner, shoving a bowl of brussels sprouts at James. Dora wasn't feeling well and had gone to bed early.
James stared at Sirius, "Excuse me?"
Even Remus raised an eyebrow, staring at Sirius across the table.
"Cruciferous vegetables," Sirius said, "Leafy greens. And legumes."
"Legumes?" James asked, smirking.
"Beans to the lay-person," Sirius answered.
"I know they're bloody beans --" James said, rolling his eyes. He watched as Sirius spooned a couple brussels sprouts onto James's plate, too, eager to get them off of his own plate.
"What are you on about?" Remus demanded.
Sirius said, "Cruciferous vegetables and legumes increase a man's sperm count."
Lily choked on her pumpkin juice so hard that some of it came out of her nose and she covered her face and got up and rushed to the kitchen for a napkin.
Remus stared at Sirius.
James was honking with laughter, "Why the bleeding hell --"
"I looked it up in the encyclopedia," Sirius said.
"You looked -- alright, I have a lot of questions," Remus said. "First off, what the hell did you look up that came up with that?"
"Male fertility," Sirius answered.
Remus looked at James helplessly. James smirked, "Gone looking for dirty pictures, were you?"
"For your information, the diagrams in the encyclopedia are wholly unexciting once you've seen a real man," Sirius said as Remus covered his face and shook his head and sank into his chair so only his curls could be seen over the edge of the table.
Lily returned and said, "Can we not discuss the diagrams in the encyclopedia in front of innocent ears?" she gestured at Bradley.
Bradley looked up, he'd been so engrossed in drawing he hadn't been paying attention to the conversation at all, "What?"
James was wheezing, face down in his folded arm.
"I was just telling James to eat his vegetables," Sirius told Bradley.
"Oh." Bradley glared at the brussels sprouts, "Better him than me."
But she also noticed that, despite how they were making fun, James really did eat all the brussels sprouts on his plate, and she appreciated the effort.
Otherwise, though, it really had been a very dull two weeks.
But at least - at last, at last, at last - Sirius was finally going to have his trial and hopefully get the bloody hell out of the flat. He swore he was going to spend an entire day outside once he was allowed to, even if it was just sitting on the park bench across the street and smoking all day - assuming he could afford the cigarettes, that is.
And so he danced on the coffee table, singing the Rocky Horror Picture Show and reveling in the idea of maybe that day might just be tomorrow.
It was Thursday - Sirius's trial next morning (as Sirius was singing about at the flat in East London that very moment) - and Lily was in his Dora's room, carefully using the tools the healers at Mungo's had given them to descale Dora's skin between sessions at the hospital. Dora was hugging her blankets to her chest, her back bare, staring down into her lap and biting her lips as Lily used the silver tweezers to pluck the nasty silver scales. Each one made Dora's face wince as it pulled free, her skin red beneath the places where the scales had laid. Lily dropped them one by one into a tray that sat on the bed beside them.
Neither spoke the entire time Lily was patiently working on the task. When she'd finished pulling all the scales - about twenty, which was an unnervingly high number - Lily carefully applied a healing salve to cover the spots of raw skin.
Lily stood up and disappeared the tray and scales and used her wand to clean off the tools and her hands as Dora pulled her robe back around her shoulders, tying it off at the waist and wiping her eyes of tears that had fallen.
"Have you taken your medicine yet?" Lily asked.
Dora nodded.
Lily carefully put the descaler away in the little pouch they kept it in and slid it into the drawer of Dora's nightstand. "I'm sorry if I was too rough, I - I'm still getting used to doing it. I was trying not to hurt you."
"You did a very good job," Dora reassured her. She watched Lily picking things up and putting them away for a few moments, and then she said, "You'll be a very good mum, Lily."
Lily was quiet a moment, then sniffled, "If I ever get to be." She was staring to become convinced that Harry was a bit of a dream, some figment of her imagination, an over-realistic dream that had never really happened at all.
"You will," Dora answered.
Lily stared very hard at the task she was focusing on. Then, "How do you know if - if you're - unable to... have...?"
"Charlus and I tried for years," Dora confessed. "I told you, about Harry."
Lily felt her throat constrict. She nodded.
"When it is meant to happen, it will, honey. Not a minute sooner." Dora watched Lily a moment, then said, "Ah but when it does, it's so worth it - all this worrying and waiting and wondering. It's entirely natural. Every mum wonders and worries while they wait." She reached out and her palm touched Lily's forearm.
Lily looked at Dora Potter. "Yeah?"
"Yes. I promise. You're not the first to worry. And honestly, you've only been trying a short time, just be patient, love." Dora smiled comfortingly. "Your little mister or miss will come along soon enough."
But Lily couldn't help but worry.
That very night, after she and James had finished their latest efforts toward making their family, Lily immediately turned herself about and stuck her legs up on the headboard of the bed, her pelvis elevated by the pillows and the angle of her legs.
James stared at her, still breathing hard, and raised his eyebrow in amusement. "What on earth are you doing Evans?"
"Gravity," she panted by way of explanation.
He stared at her and started to laugh under his breath
"What?"
"Is this another of Sirius's ridiculous suggestions?"
"Well, he said a head stand, but --"
"Bloody hell." James shook his head. "I don't think Sirius Black, of all people, knows anything of what he's talking about when it comes to making children, Evans."
"Well it makes sense!"
"Does it though?" James asked, head tilted slightly.
"I mean - if you think about it... At this angle, everything is going the right direction at least..."
James laughed - "the right bloody direction!" - and looked up, staring up at her legs. He leaned over and kissed the outer side of her thigh, then fell back into the pillows, shaking his head.
It felt like mere seconds after his head hit those pillows that he was sitting up. "Lily!" he shouted, his stomach twisted and his body trembling. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't breathe! he was gasping and she suddenly was there, enveloping him and he fell against her, his face in her neck, clutching onto her with desperation. "Lily - Lily - Lily -"
"James breathe, honey," she begged. She grappled with him and caught his face in both her palms, stilling him and staring into his brown eyes, "Shhhh," she breathed, "Hey.. Hey. James. Hey. Look at me. Look. Look at me. It's alright! It's alright." She brushed away tears with her thumbs. "James. Baby, shhhh..."
James eyes slowly focused on her and his nerves began to calm... his gasps slowing... heart rate returning to normal, adrenaline burning off... and he started to shiver with cold, the moment passed and his body catching up with his whiplash of emotional response.
"It's alright," Lily whispered.
James nodded. He brought his own hands up to cover hers on his face and he held her there a moment longer, closing his eyes and centering himself on the sound of her voice. "I'm sorry," he whispered.
"Don't be sorry, love," Lily replied. She let him gather himself a bit longer before her hands slid away from his face and he slowly lay back into the pillows, staring at the ceiling. She watched his chest rise and fall as he stared... and stared... Lily hesitated, then, "James?"
"Huh?"
"Please."
He stared at her.
"Please," she begged a second time, her eyes wide. "It's - it's moments like this - when... when I could take some of this off of you if only -- and I --"
James shook his head. "Evans it's moments like this that I don't want you to have to feel."
Lily's eyes filled with tears, "But what would you do if it was me that was having these horrible nightmares and - and you had - a way to - to help and I wouldn't - wouldn't let you?"
"Evans --"
"James, I love you. I love you so much and I can't stand it when you're in pain!"
Their eyes met.
"Please."
"Not yet."
"When."
"I don't know."
"James.
"Evans. Please. I - I promised you --"
"But --"
"Evans!" James's voice was anguished. He stared into her eyes, took her hands in his, and said lowly, "Not. Yet."