Chapter Seventy One
James and Lily had asked Dumbledore to wait for a while before casting the spell so that they could say goodbye to their friends for the foreseeable future, but it was a while before they managed to organise anything with them.
The first people they spoke to were Frank and Alice, who looked grave and shook their heads worriedly when they told them. "It's the only option that makes sense," Alice said, "but I wish this wasn't happening now."
"It is rather unlucky that we're alive during the 'reign' of one of the most powerful Dark wizards ever, isn't it?" James smirked. "Although I suppose everyone thinks the same way whenever anything bad happens."
"It is rather macabre to want to live through something like this," Lily chuckled.
"It will all be fine," Alice said as they hugged goodbye. "I can feel it. We're all going to come out on the other side and meet up and this will fade, eventually, until it feels like a bad dream. Everything will be well in the end."
Next on their list was Remus, who dropped by unexpectedly one afternoon. James, bored out of his mind, had decided that he wanted to make a cake, and so had been experimenting with a new recipe he had found in one of Dorea's books. "It's almost as if," he said as he squeezed Remus so tightly he couldn't breathe, "you have a special, werewolfy sense for when food is around."
"If I did do you think I would look so skinny?" Remus joked.
"You're not skinny Moony you moron; you look absolutely stacked. I've never seen anyone in better shape, not even Sirius." Remus laughed and Lily, coming downstairs with Harry shrieked, practically throwing him at James as she grabbed Remus in a hug. "Oh Remus!" she mumbled into his bony shoulder. "I've missed you!"
"I've missed you too Lily," he said. "Life has been tough without you all in my life."
"Are you back for good?"
"Yes I think so," he smiled. "It'll be nice to have a proper bed and some hot food for once." Lily and James frowned and James, putting about half the cake on Remus' plate, said, "But you've been gone for ages."
"I know." Remus looked haggard and his clothes, already a bit worn, now consisted more of the patches than the actual material.
"Stay for dinner Moony," Lily offered. "Harry hasn't seen you in months and I think he's been missing you."
"Not to mention James, I'm sure," he said with a lopsided smile.
"Well Moony, I won't lie: it was tough. But, after a while I overcame it; now that you're back I'm beginning to wonder how I managed to cope without your glorious sarcastic running commentary."
"Just the same as ever, I see," Remus snorted. "But I don't know about dinner Lil; all I really want to do is go home and sleep."
"You can stay here! I'll lend you some pyjamas; in fact, I'll give you some pyjamas - I have a perfectly ugly pair that Sirius got me for Christmas. You can keep those."
"Oh god, not those ones!" he said. "I will take any attempt at bribery except those."
"I'm sure we could find a stash of chocolate somewhere..." James tried again.
"Tempting..."
"Well Moony," interrupted Lily, "the main problem is that Dumbledore is going to cast a Fidelius Charm on the cottage soon. So we need to see you before we... well can't. But if there is anything we can use to bribe you, I'm sure James will try."
"Lily, guilt-trips are just as bad as bribery," he chuckled. "Sirius is the Secret-Keeper isn't he?"
"You're not upset about it, are you?" James asked. "You know you're one of my closest friends, don't you?"
"Of course I do Prongs, and I wouldn't expect anything else, if I'm honest. I'm not upset - you could hardly contact me anyway for half a year!"
"Good." His face crumpled into a smile and he grinned at Remus as he ate his cake. "Anyway, once this has all... blown over, we can have a reunion. It'll be enormous."
"As big as the New Year's Eve?"
"Of 1977?" Remus nodded. "Bigger," James said. "So much bigger your pretty little head can't imagine it. You couldn't imagine it even if you could imagine everything in the imaginable universe."
"But Peter ended up sleeping in your bath," he said. "And Sirius stole a goose! You tried to hatch a basilisk! I'm not sure a bigger night than that is morally acceptable."
"Oh er... did I? And why didn't you stop Remus, you paragon of all the virtues?"
"Well... you threatened to hex me-"
"I always threaten to hex you."
"Yeah, that's true. But it was funny. And... I kind of wanted to see how you would deal with raising a basilisk."
"But they can kill you Moony! I could have died! We all could have died!"
"James, Sirius was so drunk that he though a goose was an acceptable substitute for a chicken and you let him try to get a goose to hatch frogspawn. By the way, I would like to point that it's a chicken's egg underneath a toad, neither of which you had. And you fell over into your pond as you two ran through the garden trying to catch the goose that Sirius had set loose! Besides I was drunk too so..."
"Oh yeah that was a great party," he grinned. "Did you enjoy that night Lily?"
"Yes, although I will admit that that was when I really, truly realised that you are... well, to put it lightly, one of the biggest prats in the history of idiocy. It was amusing though, and I'm pretty sure Mary peed herself laughing when you fell into the pond."
"Why are you all so cruel?" he moaned. "You're uninvited from the sleepover Moony."
The next day, once Moony had left, they flew to London under Disillusionment Charms. They landed in a quiet street and turned the corner, unlocking the door to the building which housed Cassie and Sirius' apartment. The stairs were devoid of any people and their footsteps on the stone floor echoed through the empty hall. When they reached the fourth floor, James knocked on Cassie and Sirius' door; after a few moments it opened to reveal Cassie, who squealed with delight. "Merlin! James! Lily! What are you doing here?" she exclaimed.
"Came to see you of course," James replied as she squashed him in a tight embrace. "But how did you know it was us? We put Disillusionment Charms on."
"It's one of our protective enchantments," Sirius explained, Cassie's shouts having drawn him over. "Takes effect on the door to the building." Cassie released James, who was instantly seized by Sirius, and moved on to Lily and Harry.
"So what do you really want?" Sirius asked when they were sitting inside.
"What, we can't just come round for a chat?" Lily gasped.
"Course you can but you're under house arrest and you haven't broken it for over a year."
"Well..." James said, "not quite. Besides we are under strict orders to be as fast as possible."
"Okay sorry, let me correct that - you haven't broken it for us in over a year," Sirius said with a smirk. "So what is it?"
"We er... had a visit from Dumbledore about a week and a half ago, who told us we're still not safe," Lily began.
"Apparently You-Know-Who will probably begin to believe that Harry is the reason he's beginning to lose some of his supporters," James interrupted bitterly. "Because obviously it has nothing to do with Barty Crouch and his Aurors," he said, rolling his eyes. "And killing my son is the way to stop them."
"And you thought you had issues when Lily would barely look at you," Sirius teased.
"So because of the whole... 'we don't want to end up dead' thing, Dumbledore said he would cast a Fidelius Charm on us and our house," Lily continued, ignoring Sirius, "and we need a Secret-Keeper."
"I'd rather that you weren't dead too, if that helps," Cassie said with a tentative smile that looked, from a certain angle, as if it were closely related to a grimace.
"So we decided that we would like you to be our Secret-Keeper Sirius," James said.
"I'm so sorry Cassie," Lily whispered as Sirius spoke to James, eagerly accepting his suggestion. "I would have suggested you, but I don't want you in any more danger than you already are."
"Everyone's in danger Lily," Cassie said. "I would have loved to feel like I was doing something useful, keeping you safe. I can't really help now."
"Yes you can. Keep Sirius safe and you'll keep us safe. If it's any consolation to you, we rejected Dumbledore as well. I've just been quite worried about James, so I thought that agreeing to have Padfoot as our Secret-Keeper would keep him happy. People who aren't the Secret-Keeper won't be able to visit us, and you and me... well we're fine aren't we?" she muttered. "Letters, the occasional visit, we'll be fine with that won't we. Me and you, we'll see each other soon but James and Sirius... they need to see each other. James isn't dealing well with being shut up, so I thought that him being able to see Padfoot would cheer him up a bit. Dumbledore still hasn't returned his cloak..."
"So this genuinely is the last time I'll see you now?" Cassie said, tearing up.
"It won't be for long, I promise. Everything will be over before you know it," Lily said as she hugged Cassie tightly.
"But what if Voldemort never dies? I might never see you again," Cassie sniffed. James came over, accompanied by Sirius, and stood awkwardly beside Lily. "We should probably go," he whispered after a minute.
"Of course you will! And Sirius can keep you updated and I'll send you thousands of letters, I promise!"
"You know I will," Sirius said. "I'm always talking about James. When am I not talking about him?" he said sarcastically as James punched him lightly. "Although I don't really think you want to hear about James."
"Sure?" Cassie asked tearily.
"Of course I'm sure. I'll send you a letter a day," promised Lily. "And you have to swear to reply."
"Of course I will."
"Good," Lily smiled. "I'd better go; we promised Dumbledore that we wouldn't be out for too long." She stood up, followed by Cassie, and the four of them moved towards the door, exchanging hugs. Cassie handed James back to Lily only moments before she was attacked by James, who squeezed her so tightly she thought her ribs might crack. "I will see you soon Cass," he swore, "and we will crack out the brooms and reunite the victorious Gryffindor Quidditch team, and we will train Harry up to be better than we ever were."
"He'll make the team in his first year-"
"That's against the rules," James sighed sadly.
"Well your Dad shouldn't have ended up in the Forbidden Forest then, should he?" she mumbled.
"Although..." James said, changing tack, "it is against the rules."
"And he'll be Quidditch Captain by his third year and he'll win the trophy every single time and he'll be the best Chaser anyone has ever seen."
"He'll be even better than me," James agreed. "But he'll be so good that he could play any position. In fact, he'll invent one-man Quidditch."
"Exactly."
"Exactly. And you and I will hang out all summer once this is over, and you'll see me so much that you'll wish you never had to see me again."
"I already do," she laughed.
"Ouch. 'Scuse you Jones," he said, loosening his grip to feign offence. "Watch it or I'll not see you again."
"Oh what a pity. Life will be unendurable without you."
"Damn right it will."
"Wish this hadn't got in the way," she mumbled.
"We should have been friends sooner," he said. "You should have tried out for the team sooner."
"You should have grown up sooner," she retorted.
"Still haven't," he winked.
"Goodbye James," she said, exasperatedly before turning to Lily.
"It was lovely to see you and Harry," Cassie said, hugging her and kissing Harry on the nose as he stared at her with emerald eyes identical to his mother's. "Goodbye my gorgeous godson," she grinned as Harry laughed and reached out to grab a lock of her hair.
Lily and James headed down the spiral stairs, James carrying Harry on his hip; when she could see them still standing outside, Lily blew them both a kiss and waved, smiling desperately at the two of them. James waved with his free hand before trying to get Harry to wave too; after a minute he gave up and waved again before winking and turning back round. The last thing Cassie and Sirius saw of him was his hand running through his hair as his tall figure vanished down the stairs.
Reaching behind, James grabbed Lily's hand and, once she had ducked into the cupboard where they had hidden their broomsticks, they headed outside.
Lily cast a Disillusionment Charm on James and Harry, and James returned the favour on her; then, mounting their brooms, they set off home.
"Merlin you need to start shrinking, or learn to fly yourself," James muttered to Harry about halfway through the trip. Holding his broom steady with his knees, and using the confidence he had picked up from years of playing Chaser and messing around in gardens with friends and family, he swapped Harry from one arm to the other. "At least I knew that the Quaffle would fall slowly if I dropped it," he grumbled. Harry just laughed and dangled his hand above the glowing lights of the city. "Yep, it's very pretty isn't it Harry," James said. "So many people down there and none of them know we're up here. None of them have any idea at all." He turned to look at Lily, reassuring himself that she was still there, and smiled at her.
"We should get a rucksack to put him in or something," she shouted to him. James laughed and nodded, shifting Harry under his arm. "Please don't drop him," she called. "I'd hate to have been in hiding for all this time only for him to die out here and not even because of You-Know-Who after all that."
"I'll do my best," James replied, "he is our only son after all."
Fallen at the first hurdle but this time it isn't my fault (the Internet at my house has died a death which is really rather unhelpful!)
Hope you enjoy this chapter, as per please vote and comment :)