Chapter Seventy
Unfortunately for Lily, Harry's birthday was not as sociable as she had hoped it would be. Cassie still hadn't returned from abroad, and Sirius was... well Sirius was somewhere, and although he had sent Harry an amazing present and had promised to make it up to them, she knew that it was the lack of his real, physical presence that very afternoon that James had missed the most. They had been exchanging the odd letter when they could, and she had a half-written thank you letter to him on the kitchen table, but it paled in comparison to seeing him in person. From Remus there had been no word, although she was sure that he would reappear soon, and Frank and Mary had said that they couldn't leave their house either because Neville was too young. Their most recent visitor had been Peter, who had dropped by the week before with a present for Harry and an apologetic smile on his lips.
"I really am sorry I haven't been round much Prongs," he had said as he sat in their kitchen. "Only all this Order business is... well it's mad and I've been running this way and that. I didn't realise how much time had passed until I saw how much Harry has grown!"
"Honestly it's fine Wormy, don't worry about it," Lily replied. "We understand. James would be doing exactly the same thing if he could."
"Can't say I'm not jealous though," James said, running his hand through his hair. "Never thought I'd get bored of Lily's company but... well there it is really." They all laughed and Peter snorted, "Surely not. I'll have to tell Padfoot when I see him! Well, if I ever do see him."
"Merlin, if only we were still at Hogwarts. I could do with an enormous prank to get all of the tension out of me. But there's no one here to do it to... Well and no one to do it with really."
"Surely you could go out as Prongs for a couple of nights though? I'm sure Lils wouldn't mind... if you feel that rough. It wouldn't be the same without the others but..."
"I have once or twice but yeah, it's just not the same without all four of us. I mean, Moony's furry little problem is terrible, but it did provide a lot of fun nights over the years." James grimaced and thought of his friend, out in the wilderness somewhere where nobody appreciated his sarcastic comments or the subtle eye rolls that let you know whatever was happening was far too amusing for him to take it seriously, especially when it involved McGonagall scolding them in her office.
"He's... about as fine as he can be, considering the circumstances," said Peter, interrupting his thoughts. "I saw him not too long ago in an Order meeting; he looked a lot skinnier than usual - although Moony could never keep any weight on anyway, even with all that chocolate - and a bit beaten up, but he's alive and in a better state than some of the people around at the moment."
"Oh good," Lily said, breathing a sigh of relief. "It's so tiring worrying about everyone else when you can't do anything to help them. I hope he comes over; I know he was having trouble with his jobs and I just want him to be alright, especially with what's happening with the werewolves at the moment."
"If I see him again next month I'll get on his case and make sure he comes to see you," Peter promised.
"Thank you Peter," she smiled. The evening had stretched itself out along all the streets before he left, dusting the roofs of the houses with the shadow of a night that seemed only half there.
So instead she was waiting for Bathilda in the garden, who was the only person who had said she would make it round for tea that afternoon. She had been spending the majority of her days outdoors in the garden, taking advantage of the summer weather to lounge around with her favourite books and hoping that they might distract her. Although the days seemed too bright and cheerful for anything bad to happen, The Daily Prophet was full of terrible news about what was happening outside their sleepy village. Just the other day it had reported that the body of Ed Thomas - one of the Prefects from their second year, as well as James' first Quidditch captain - had been found. That afternoon, she had found James locked in their bathroom, and the voice that claimed he was fine sounded too strained for it to be true. The back pages of The Prophet were now devoted to lists of people who were missing and the confirmed deaths as they were discovered, as well as pleas for information on family members; the list of people who had been found alive and well was dwarfed by everything else. Every morning Lily tried to put the paper down without reading the back but she couldn't - even though she knew that she wouldn't be able to do anything, she needed to know. In the back of her mind lingered the knowledge that their friends in the most dangerous places were there without anyone really knowing because it was Order business. The first she would hear of it would be if Dumbledore reported them missing, and that didn't seem very likely.
As she sipped on her smoothie a large plum landed dangerously close to her head. "Sorry Lily!" James shouted. He had decided to view the garden as a test of his agility and cornering on his broom and had somehow managed to make some of the trees grow into circles which roughly corresponded to goalposts, although for lack of a Keeper (as well as size constraints) he had made them smaller than necessary. "It tests my accuracy," he had said, "and when Harry is bigger I can enlarge them so that he can practise Keeping. True Quidditch wonders can play anywhere and it'll give him an advantage when it comes to team selection anyway." Thus, he had spent a lot of the past few weeks clutching Harry to his chest as he flew around trying to throw plums through the hoops. When Lily had asked him why, he had replied that Harry needed to get a sense of what it was like to fly if he were ever to follow in the footsteps of his Quidditch prodigy father.
"But he's barely a year old," she had said. "Flying him around isn't going to make any difference as to whether he can fly decently himself."
"Silly Mummy doesn't understand," James whispered to Harry, who burbled as if in agreement. Still, she said nothing except to be careful and that if he fell off and killed their son she would kill him. Harry certainly enjoyed it, she could hear him laughing from where she sat, and it cheered James up no end. When they had unwrapped the miniature broom from Sirius, James had practically shouted with glee. "You're so excited you'd think it was for you," she giggled as James held Harry on it. Within a few minutes he appeared to have got the hang of it, although Daia was not as pleased about it as James was. After that, and the incident with the vase, Lily had placed a ban on using the broom inside.
"Can't you see he's going to be amazing though Lily!" James had grinned. "He might even be better than me, you know!"
"Lord please save me," she prayed teasingly. "I can barely handle one James Potter, let alone two."
"Two and a half actually." Confused, she frowned at him and James elaborated. "Well there's me, and then there's the new and improved version, which is Harry. So he's sort of... a James and a half."
"I really hate you, you know that right?"
Lost in her book, it seemed like moments later that the gate opened and Bathilda emerged, carrying a little parcel. James and Harry sped round a tree and stopped short when they saw Lily talking to her. "Ah, a welcoming committee," James joked as he dismounted, still holding Harry with one arm. "It's nice to see you again Bathilda, I'm sorry I couldn't make it last Thursday."
"Oh no, no problem at all don't you worry James. You children really cheer me up regardless of how often I see you. The rest of my family live abroad and since Grindelwald... Well nothing's really been the same since then."
"It must have been terrifying for you, not knowing what was happening over there."
"Well yes but I think it was better when it was distant than now; it's far too immediate now," she sighed.
"Why don't you and James chat and I'll make some tea and get the cake and we can sit outside?" Lily suggested, already slipping inside and heading to the kitchen.
As Lily sorted everything out, Bathilda handed James the parcel she had been carrying; unwrapping it to reveal some woollen gloves, he showed them to Harry who immediately grabbed for them before deciding that they weren't actually as interesting as he had thought before.
"They're not much," Bathilda was saying, "and they won't be useful until the winter, but I thought it might be nice to have something home-knitted, since Lily told me that Harry doesn't have any grandparents, and I don't really have anyone to knit anything for. Lily doesn't really seem like she knits either."
"No they're great, thank you so much," James replied, watching Bathilda as she fussed over Harry and trying not to laugh as he remembered a conversation he had had with Lily previously.
"He may as well still have all four grandparents considering how much she dotes on him," she had said. "But I feel bad; she's just a bit mad and lonely."
"Must be horrible to outlive your family and know that the ones that are left don't care enough about you to come and see you," James agreed. "Although sometimes I do worry that she might kidnap Harry and raise him on those horrible sweets that she's always trying to feed us."
"She'd try to feed them to him too if I hadn't told her he's on a strict no sugar diet because apparently it interferes with children's magical ability," Lily laughed. "And then she gave me a half hour lecture on how parents these days are too worried about everything and how it doesn't hurt anyone and how I ought to love Harry regardless of whether he's magical or not. In the end I had to tell her he's allergic to it and that his magical ability would be affected because he would die. To be fair though, he probably would choke on one."
"Does she even have children?"
"Not as far as I'm aware," she laughed.
After about two hours, in which Bathilda had constantly tried to convince them that Grindelwald had stayed in Godric's Hollow and had been friends with Dumbledore, she left. As she stood by the gate and hugged them all in turn, she was still chattering. "Mark my words," she babbled, "Albus is a good sort and he's cleverer than a bag of frogs, especially if the work he did in his youth is anything to go by, but he did get mixed up with the wrong people - although I suppose I can't really blame him - and I think it will come back to bite him. Just watch yourselves, you two, he knows what he's doing and he'll let you in on it, but who knows if he's told you the whole truth. Don't trust anybody, either of you; it would be such a shame for anything to happen to your perfect little family. Don't let your guard down - it's been a long time but a year really isn't all that long in the scheme of things."
"It was very nice to see you Bathilda; see you again soon," Lily said, pressing a kiss to her wrinkled cheek.
"Yes, yes of course. Doesn't do to linger out in the open like this. Stay safe you two."
They waved at her for a minute before turning around. As they headed up the path James chuckled. "She's very paranoid, isn't she? It's a wonder she leaves her house at all."
"You'd think that we'd be the ones worrying," Lily agreed with a snort of laughter.
"Best get inside; we don't want to linger out in the open..."
"Trust no one," she said and James elbowed her conspiratorially. "But always trust Bathilda."
A few days later Dumbledore reappeared at their house; James smiled as he let him in and remarked on how long it had been since they had last seen him. "I hope everything's going well with the Order...I know Cassie was away and Remus has practically vanished off the face of the Earth."
"The Order is doing precisely as well as it can under the current circumstances," Dumbledore replied. "While I do not condone Barty Crouch's methods, and have told him so, his Aurors have succeeded in killing many of the giant tribes..."
"If only it didn't have to come to that," Lily sighed.
"True, but I think perhaps the tides are beginning to turn in our favour," Dumbledore said.
"So we're safe then? We can leave the house?" James blurted. His face lit up and, for a fraction of a second, Lily was reminded of the boy he had been when they were at Hogwarts.
Dumbledore frowned and shook his head slowly. "Unfortunately not; now, more than ever, you two need to stay safe. Now that our resistance is starting to succeed, Voldemort will almost certainly remember the prophecy; I do not doubt that he will link this change in events to his failure to look for Harry before. If he devotes any time to searching for you, instead of to gaining power like before, it will not be long before he finds you."
"But what about the protective spells on the cottage? I thought-"
"They are strong," he said, cutting across Lily, "and enough to delay him and his followers, but Voldemort is a powerful wizard; I doubt that it would take him long to dismantle them."
"You said they would keep us safe!" James yelled. "Do you mean to tell us that you've let us sit here, for the past year, when he wanted to kill us and Harry, without enough protection to actually keep us alive?"
"Not in the slightest. I was hoping, James, that I would receive news of Voldemort's plans before he came anywhere close to discovering where you and Harry lived. Rather pleasingly, I must say, I was right."
"You mean you know that he's looking for us now?" James asked, instinctively reaching for Lily's hand.
"I know that he means to begin looking for you as soon as he can; properly and personally this time, rather than just sending out Death Eaters to search places he thinks might have a connection to you. I have come, therefore, with a proposition. You do not have to take it, although I do, of course, suggest that it would be wise to do so."
"What is it?"
"I am going to place a Fidelius Charm on you and your house," Dumbledore said. "I have been told that Voldemort continues to look for you, and although the various protective spells I have already put on you and your house have worked so far, I think that this is the best way to ensure that you and Harry remain truly safe. Once the charm has been cast Voldemort could stand outside your house and not see you, as long as the Secret-Keeper doesn't tell him."
"Are you sure we're worth the effort?" Lily asked.
"Of course you are," he said, piercing them with his eyes, "I personally heard the prophecy and if Voldemort puts enough store by it to hunt you down himself then young Harry will have the best chance of anyone at defeating him."
"But he's just a baby!" James said. "How could he possibly defeat Voldemort?"
"The prophecy said that Voldemort will mark him as his equal, but he will have a power Voldemort knows not. I don't know how this will work until it happens, but we need to protect you. Do you have someone trustworthy you can hide the secret with? You need someone more than trustworthy, someone who would hide the secret with their life and protect it until the end of time."
"All of our friends would," Lily replied.
"Padfoot," James said instantly. "I trust him with my life, he would never betray us."
"Are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure; I've known Padfoot for almost my entire life. I trust him above everyone else. He would die rather than betray us."
"You can't make this choice in vain James, this charm has the potential to save your life," Dumbledore said seriously. "Now is not the time to be afraid of offending your friends. Lily?"
"I trust Padfoot as well; the only person apart from James that I trust more is Cassie."
"Are you both certain? I will gladly be your Secret-Keeper if you wish."
James and Lily rejected Dumbledore's offer saying, "No, our friends are perfectly trustworthy. They would never betray us; Padfoot is the perfect choice. He also told me he's been thinking of going into hiding, which would make it doubly hard for Voldemort."
Dumbledore sighed wearily. "I'll tell him then."
"Wait! Could we- could we please tell them? Their house is safe and I... I feel like I need to explain to Cassie why we didn't choose her," Lily said, seeing a flicker of hesitation in Dumbledore's eyes before he acquiesced. "You'll need to be very fast and very careful," he said. "If Voldemort finds you while you're out, everything we have fought for will have been for nothing."
"I promise," Lily said fervently, already looking forward to leaving the house and seeing Cassie again. As Dumbledore left, he saw the Cloak hanging up alongside their coats and he stopped, intrigued. "What's this?" he asked. He let the material run through his fingers, marvelling at how slippery it was.
"It's an Invisibility Cloak," James replied.
"Really?" Dumbledore asked, turning from the Cloak to look at James. "Where did you find it?"
"In a trunk in the attic of my parents' house," James replied. "Dad said it was his dad's, and that he inherited it when he died. I was only supposed to inherit it when he died, but I took it while I was at school - although Dad knew what I was up to really. It's an old family heirloom, and apparently my ancestor started this tradition of keeping the Cloak a secret, although I have no idea why. Everyone's obeyed it though. There's a ton of junk up in the attic; that's the problem with being an 'old Wizarding family' - too many people have died and nobody wants to bin their old rubbish. Surprised it wasn't full of Doxies or anything when I found it, but then my mum was always really good at keeping the house free of things like that."
"Might I have a look at it? It won't be for long and I'll return it as soon as I'm finished; I'm one of those people that loves old rubbish."
"Sure; why not? Not as if I'm going to be leaving the house any time soon is it?"
Hi everybody! I'll just repeat my plea for you to vote for this, and to share it with your friends and, for those of you who don't follow me on here, I'll also just repeat my earlier announcement.
I have (finally!) finished The Next Great Adventure, and the last chapters will be uploaded over the next few days. For once I will be sticking to a schedule for the next uploads, which will be this:
Friday 18th
Sunday 20th
Tuesday 22nd
Thursday 24th
(And possibly a bonus upload on Christmas if you're all very nice to me)
Each chapter will be uploaded at 2pm GMT and, if it isn't up on the specified days by about 2.30 please feel free to send me abuse asking where it is.
So share the love and ruin your friends' lives by telling them to read this now that it's finally done and, if you've stuck with it to the very end, like I said last week, I'm so impressed and really happy. I must, somehow, have done something right somewhere along the way and you all deserve a lot more from me than I can give (although maybe a virtual hug would suffice...)