Chapter Sixty Nine
Cassie and Sirius appeared that evening, just like always, and Lily, lounging on the sofa, grinned as she watched them chatter. James was waving his arms around as he shouted jubilantly at Sirius and Harry was giggling, his eyes following the movements from where he sat in Cassie's arms.
"No but I'm telling you Prongs," Sirius interrupted, just as loudly, "if you had the tail of a Blast-Ended Skrewt then you'd have to have something really cool to counter that, and not even dragon wings would work."
"Padfoot," he sighed. "Padfoot, Padfoot, Padfoot. Blast-Ended Skrewts can mess you up; imagine if they could fly. If it were a Flobberworm then fine, I agree with you, nothing can save it but Skrewts are nasty buggers."
"You can tell he never paid any attention in Care of Magical Creatures," Cassie muttered.
"I'm not sure I even took it," Sirius laughed. "I certainly don't remember turning up to any of the classes..."
"Did you turn up to any of your lessons?" Lily teased.
Sirius gasped. "I am mightily offended by that Lily Evans," he said. "I will have you know that I managed to make at least two of my lessons a week."
"And Transfiguration," James added.
"Well of course, missing Transfiguration is just not done. McGonners would have come to the dorm and transfigured me into a newt, then kept me in a jar on her desk and personally hand delivered me to each of my lessons. Not that I would have minded of course - quality time with my favourite woman is always delightful."
"What, even when you're a newt?"
"Newts," he told Cassie, "are a highly intelligent species who will, I predict, one day contribute far more to society than we currently believe they are capable of."
"Alright Sirius, hand over the Firewhiskey, you've had more than enough now," Lily sighed.
"Who are you, my mother?" He grimaced and shook his head. "Terribly sorry Lilypad darling, you're nothing like my mother so don't take it personally. I wish I hadn't brought her up now. I need another drink to get her out of my head. Come here Harry, distract me."
"He can't walk Padfoot," James replied. "And even if he could, he has no idea what you're saying."
"Honestly," he sighed, "it's almost as if nobody wants to listen to me! They take one look at my handsome face and decide that nothing of any importance is going to come out of my mouth - which is horribly wrong by the way, as I'm sure you all know because look at me - and turn their bloody ears off."
"He's a baby Sirius, he doesn't care about you."
"Oh not this drivel again. Everyone loves me."
"Not if you don't shut up soon," Cassie muttered, earning herself a playful slap on the arm.
"You wound me," Sirius pouted.
"Well your face wounds my eyes."
That evening, once Harry was in bed, Lily lay beside James with her eyes shut. She was just drifting off to sleep when she felt a soft finger hover near her nose. James, almost certainly still drunk from their celebratory drinks after they won the game, was lightly tracing her features. She opened her startlingly green eyes and looked at him before laughing; his hair was ruffled and his glasses were falling off his face because he was lying on his side. "What are you doing?"
"Just memorising your perfection," he said with a wink. "You have such soft skin."
"I love you too James," she giggled.
"I never said I loved you."
"I sort of assumed it was implied."
"Not in the slightest actually." She shifted in the bed and rolled over to face him properly. "Well that's a shame," Lily whispered. "I was under the impression that you did."
"Well..." he dragged it out much longer than was necessary, making Lily laugh again. "Yeah alright I suppose I do love you."
"Great. So can you stop poking me in the face when I'm trying to sleep?" she joked.
"Lily," he groaned, "honestly woman where's your sense of romance?"
"James, if you don't let me go to sleep, you will suffer for it in the morning." He looked at her silently for a minute as his mind processed her words, pecked her on the lips and rolled over. "Night then."
"Night James. I love you."
"Eh," he shrugged, "we'll see."
One of the only things that kept Lily and James sane that spring, aside from Harry, were the visits from their friends, and even these were depressingly few. Neither of them had ever thought that they could tire of watching Harry, but once they had spent nearly a year in almost solely his company, Lily and James were both ready for a change. The only place that either of them did manage to go was to Bathilda's house just down the road. She was witty, and the 'duty calls' (as Lily deemed them) to visit an old lady had slowly become a highlight of their weeks, even if just because it meant they could leave the house. Apart from the fact that Bathilda received no visitors at all, having outlived a lot of her family, the rest of which were too busy leading their own lives to bother with her, the stories she told Lily and James were scandalous; Lily, however, doubted some of them - Bathilda seemed too old to be able to remember everything accurately. It was clear, though, that Dumbledore had known her; he had vouched for each to the other side - Bathilda was wary of meeting new people because of her age and the 'dark times we live in, Albus' and this explained the protective enchantments that she also had on her house.
Lily had once asked her why, but all she really got out of Bathilda was conjecture. "I was a Hogwarts professor you know, until quite a while ago... Goodness me, it must have been before Albus even attended Hogwarts. It doesn't seem like a very important fact but one never can tell what would be important to You-Know-Who... And I suppose I am quite a renowned magical historian too; if You-Know-Who were to want something he could come me and I'd be completely unprepared. Anyway, you never quite know when you're going to receive a visitor that you don't want and aren't expecting," she had said as she tottered around her kitchen, "and especially in these times an unwanted visitor could be... well worse than usual. Regardless, I think it's wise for everyone to protect their houses at the moment... and I'm sure they have except you likely just haven't met anyone who has. I do always find that young folks are a lot more likely to do something stupid that puts them in unnecessary danger - a strange habit when you consider that I, for example, have already lived for such a long time, and you have a long time left to live. I assume, rightly I hope, that you and your friends do actually want to stay alive, and yet here people are wilfully ignoring their safety. Well not you children of course, Albus did tell me you have a lot of protection on your cottage." Lily just sat there and let her rambling wash over her, grateful that for once she could have a conversation that wasn't with James.
However, the rest of the time she was close to going mad, even when they covered a pram with the Cloak and went out for walks, which were too few for Lily to really recuperate. "God I even wish I had work," Lily groaned. "Or that I could just hand him over to Cassie and Sirius."
"If only," James sighed as he cleaned up after Harry once again. They hadn't seen any of their friends for about month now; Sirius was off chasing adventure with the Order, something which occasionally made bitter anger rise at the back of James' throat, Cassie had just left to go abroad in an attempt to rally support against Voldemort, Remus was still hiding out in some forest somewhere and Peter was almost constantly at meetings, although with whom James had no idea.
"Hopefully everyone will be able to come over for his birthday though," Lily continued, watching Harry as he reached for her hair which, mercifully, was tied up in a bun to prevent him from pulling on it. She smiled at him and waved her fingers cheerfully, ignoring the sinking feeling in her stomach.
"Maybe we could go to Cornwall for a couple of weeks, just for a change of scene," James suggested. "I know Dumbledore said we had to hide but it's been months and nothing has changed."
"You know it's not safe James."
"Look if You-Know-Who is going to find us, he's powerful enough to find us regardless of where we are. Yes, we have protective spells on the cottage but do we really think it's enough? The number of people dying is rising, and some of these people were the best trained Aurors around, I'm sure they had hundreds of enchantments on their houses."
"Half of them were fighting Death Eaters James," Lily murmured.
He fell silent for a minute and ruffled his hair angrily. "We could disguise ourselves," he said finally. "I could take the Cloak and cover Harry with it - it's really not that much different going to Cornwall than it is going to Bathilda's house."
She looked at him and rubbed her temples. "I wish we could James, you know I do, but... you know what Dumbledore said. Don't you trust him?"
"Not as far as I could throw him," he said with a wry smile. "There's something very dodgy about an old man who is his age and still working in a school. Besides, he has so many well-connected friends he must be hiding something."
Lily laughed and rolled her shoulders, trying to ease the tension which seemed permanently stuck underneath her muscles these days. The argument was dispersed for now, but she felt it brewing and she could tell it would come up again.
"We could even drive there, you know," James said one afternoon as they strolled through a field. "It would be nice to get away."
"We can't," she sighed. "You know what Dumbledore said."
"I don't understand why you won't go! You're breaking his rules as we speak!" James cried.
"It's driving me crazy too James!"
"Then why won't you agree to this? He'll never know! Lily I can't sit here any longer! I'm going insane! It's been a year since Dumbledore told us to go into hiding and nothing has happened! In anyone else's mind that would mean we were safe!"
"It's not safe James! He could find us; he could kill Harry! You heard what Dumbledore said, you know he's not going to stop at anything to get to him! This is just what he wants; it would be like handing Harry over to him on a silver platter and saying, 'Here! Here's our baby! You have our permission to kill him!' This is probably exactly what he wants! He wants to let us fall into a false sense of security and do something stupid like this and then he'll... pounce!"
"We need to do something Lily, look at us! It's been slow but you can't deny that this has taken its toll on us - I feel tired all the time and I can't physically face the thought of going home after this walk! It's a beautiful summer afternoon, we should be out enjoying it somewhere instead of cooped up in our sitting room. It's Harry's first summer, he should be... I don't know, making sandcastles!"
"We have a garden James."
"It's not the same and you know it. If I knew we'd be spending so much time here I would have bought a bloody farm so that I could fly around the fields, instead of a cottage with a bloody lawn."
"It's not exactly a small garden-"
"That's not the point and you know it!" he shouted, cutting her off. "I can't stand what this is doing to us Lily; life would be so perfect if we didn't have this stupid war and we could just chill and take life as it comes and appreciate everything. Instead we're standing here arguing in the middle of a field. All I need is a short break, we could make it safe-"
"Of course we can't make it safe! Think about all the protection other Order members had! Think about Cassie's parents!" Lily paused for a moment and collected herself then resumed speaking more calmly. "Think about the future James, please. We just have to sit tight until they defeat You-Know-Who. We'll have years and years to go on as many holidays with Harry as we want; we can travel round the world with him for all I care when this is over. You can take him to a thousand World Cup matches, and camp with him for months; we can visit all of our friends with him, and he can have sleepovers, and play Quidditch in the garden, and bring friends from Hogwarts over and we'll drop him off at the beginning of every school year... We can do everything with him James, but right now we have to sit tight and do what Dumbledore told us to. You trust him, right?"
"I suppose so," James grumbled.
"Good, because I do too."
"Although it doesn't mean I'm not angry with him."
"With him? Why? Why not You-Know-Who for the whole... wanting to kill us aspect?"
"Well obviously I am not his biggest fan, but Dumbledore was the one who told us not to leave the house whereas I do not, thankfully, know You-Know-Who personally. It's a more distant hatred."
"Oh... wonderful," Lily said, cracking a small smile as they turned around.
Hi everybody, standard apologies are in order if anyone is still sticking around with this! Very sorry I haven't updated in ages, life is hectic as per usual, I will finish it soon (thank the Lord because this is the summer before the Halloween) so bear with! I will aim to say that it will be no more than another... let's say three chapters before this is finally done (can't believe I've been writing this for three years... boy oh boy how time flies eh..?! And Dwelling on Dreams was done in six weeks... While this is substantially longer I... kind of wish it wasn't!) Anyway I have been suffering from writer's block for the past about... twenty chapters which it was it was so slow and torturous but I knocked the second half of this chapter out in about an hour so let's hope I can get the rest done now that I'm back in the groove.
Anyway, if you are still here please please please vote on this and comment at least so I can just gauge who actually made it to the end (if I were reading this as it was uploaded I am sure I would be infuriated by how slow the updates are/were so I'm very proud of whoever did manage to stick it out).
Love and hugs and I am going to go and write some more for once!