chapter five - our hope
We made it to Hogwarts rather safely. I got to see a very different side of Esme and Aubrey, one that reminded me so much of myself at that age.
Esme kept up with Fred and George's banter with a fiery attitude. She teased Fred every single time he teased her, and she smirked the entire time. She was insanely flirty with him. It was such innocent flirtation, and with every single time she batted her eyelashes at him as she playfully said something slightly insulting, I watched him fall deeply entranced with her. With each time that Esme countered one of his joke with one of her own, I watched his smile slowly start to show a sort of infatuation.
It was mildly concerning.
George seemed to agree, as with each time that Fred's expression made it clear how much he was falling into a trance, George's expression began to turn into one of pure concern for his twin.
Each time that Fred grinned as Esme's giggled softly, George's eyebrows furrowed further into a unibrow. Every time my daughter rebutted one of Fred's comments with that innocent smirk on her face as she gently elbowed him, George looked more, and more, disgusted.
That part was quite amusing.
I then watched as Aubrey and Hermione began to talk about school. I had never really seen her passionate about anything school-related, but they were both looking forward to Potions, Arithmancy, and Divinations.
I was a little sad to hear them talk about it, as Trelawney had both of them in her class. I had 6th and 7th years and specific 4th and 5th-year classes that only applied to those that had passed their previous Divinations exams with an Outstanding. I was overjoyed when Esme had gotten an O on her exam the previous year, as that meant she was in my fifth year class for 'Advanced Divinations'. It differed slightly to Trelawney's fifth-year curriculum as it was faster paced, and focused on the things she did teach, but also the things that she didn't.
Now we kind of thought that perhaps I am not a Seer, but rather just a defense against Voldemort.
Albus had done the scheduling the way that he had to entice more students to try harder to get higher grades in Divinations while keeping Trelawney from believing that he was trying to edge her out. Most students found Trelawney infuriatingly fake, and while both of us knew that she was not, it was hard not to understand why.
He believed Divinations to be a very vital topic to be knowledgeable about, but the number of students in 6th and 7th-year Divinations was incredibly low every year. There were maybe ten seventh-years each year, most of them from Ravenclaw, and just a few more sixth-years per year, also mostly Ravenclaw. Due to the tiny class size for the sixth and seventh years, both were in the same block. Trelawney's seventh-year curriculum is the same as what my sixth-year curriculum is planned to be. My planned seventh-year curriculum is impossible to teach properly without knowing the previous year's curriculum, so this year's seventh-years haven't learned it yet.
It was extremely disheartening, but it was what it was.
Albus and I hoped to increase interest in the class, but there was not a lot we could do right away. It'll be a couple years before we see much improvement.
Aubrey was never one to be very excited about schooling, but something seemed to be different this year. I wondered if maybe Minerva somehow managed to convince her to work harder, or maybe she was given some sort of exciting offer from her. I wasn't sure.
When we'd arrived at Hogwarts, Esme and Aubrey hugged me and Remus to say goodbye before darting off with their friends. Lilian clung to me, her hand tightly grasping mine until I introduced her to Hagrid.
He managed to gently coax her to stay with him while Remus and I took a carriage up to the school.
"Do you see them?"
"Of course I do. Do you?"
"Yeah."
"I'm not surprised."
He'd been asking about the thestrals, something I had seen since I first started getting the death visions. I learned very quickly that someone can only see them if they've seen death.
I wondered if it was the Prewett brothers' deaths that made Remus able to see them.
A moment later, I realized.
Then, I wondered if Harry could see them.
Seeing the castle again, for the first time in so many years was... as breathtaking as the first time.
The magic that soaked the grounds of Hogwarts had a very distinctive feel, and even without being able to feel magic as strongly as I used to, I could very easily feel Hogwarts' magic.
That was another thing I had lost after Voldemort was vanquished. The death visions stopped, but the first thing I noticed I lost was the ability to feel someone when they were using magic. I could still feel existing magic, and I could very faintly feel when someone had previously used magic, but it was like a metal detector type of thing. I couldn't feel Remus as he cast Lumos, but if I came back to the spot, I would be able to feel the magic there.
I also lost access to the reserve of magic. I could still feel it, but no matter how hard I tried or how much I needed it, it never opened.
It nearly got me killed when Remus, Dean, and I went with a handful of other Aurors to arrest Bellatrix, Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange after they tortured Alice and Frank Longbottom into insanity. I had not been aware of the reserve's seemingly unbreakable lock until Rodolphus physically attacked me and pinned me to the ground after I had gotten Bellatrix bound and illusioned. He used the Cruciatus curse on me, over and over again as he held me on the ground.
Remus hit him over the head with a rock, knocking him out and freeing me from the worst torture I'd ever experienced. That was the last time I went with Aurors to capture Death Eaters, mostly because I ended up stuck in a hospital bed for a month.
I had gotten Bellatrix, that was all that mattered.
When we made it into the castle, we both went directly into Great Hall for the feast. As we walked down the middle, passing where we usually had sat as kids, it felt so foreign. I had glanced at our spot, where we all sat every year. The tiny glimpse I'd seen of James, Sirius, and Lily all smiling widely at one another was nothing more than a memory.
I knew I'd have them a lot here, this was my childhood just as much as Potter Manor had been.
It occurred to Remus first, and when we got to our seats at the staff table, he turned to me and lowered his voice.
"The moment that Albus introduces you as Jemina Black, the entire student population will know who you are. I sincerely doubt they won't start whispering, and I know you don't want Harry to find out that way."
"Shit, you're right. I can't be introduced as Potter, that'll be even more obvious."
"Just tell him not to give a surname."
I turned to the monotone drone and sighed heavily. Severus was to my right and was clearly eavesdropping. I refrained from stabbing him with the knife on the table, but if he so much as looked at me again, I would.
"I did not ask you, now did I?"
"Jem-"
"Then find your own solution to your petty problems."
"You genuinely should not be testing me, Severus. Any pity that I felt for you when we were schoolmates is long gone. You are nothing more than a problem in my life, and I will hurt you if you try to act like we are friends," I could see the confused annoyance on his face as he turned his head ever so slightly. I growled, lowly, "Don't even look at me."
His eyebrows raised and he looked straight ahead again.
I would never forgive him for telling Voldemort about that Prophecy. I know that he had no idea that Voldemort would target Lily, and I knew that he begged for her life, but I could not forgive him for being the entire reason that Voldemort targeted my brother.
No amount of apologies and good advice would make up for that.
When Albus came up the aisle and went to his seat, I quickly stood and made my way to him. I leaned between him and Minerva, smiling to her as I did so.
"Yes, Jemina?"
"When you introduce Remus and me, please try to skip over my surname. If it is announced to the entire school, everyone will start whispering about how tragic it was that I lost my brother and husband, and someone will accidentally whisper it to Harry."
"And we cannot introduce her as Potter," Minerva whispered to Albus. He nodded gently, and Minerva smiled tightly to me, "Good on you for realizing that."
"Anything to protect Harry, you know that."
Minerva nodded as I pulled back and went to my seat. I informed Remus that Albus knew, and it wasn't a problem.
Lilian was sorted into Gryffindor, and people seemed to whisper just a bit about her name, but not enough to be concerned. They seemed more distracted by the scene that Draco Malfoy had made with Harry. I'm not sure what it was about, but based on Harry's reaction, it hit him hard.
So, of course, I worried about him all night.
And I couldn't sleep, so I made a really dumb decision and decided to go to Remus' office after I got Biscuit set up in my personal quarters. His classroom, office, and personal quarters were just a floor below mine, so it wasn't a long trek.
I did not go there for obscene reasons, I just needed someone to talk to, and I really didn't want to be alone.
He seemed to be having similar problems, as he was wide awake in his office when I walked in. I wore a pair of pajamas with my cloak over top - just in case I ran into a student out after curfew - but I had a small fleece blanket wrapped around my shoulders under the cloak. He looked up in surprise when I cracked the door open, peeking my head in the tiniest bit to see if he was in there.
"Bloody hell, Jemina, you scared me."
"Sorry," I smiled sheepishly as I opened the door enough for me to squeeze through and closing it. I undid the clasp on the cloak with one hand, holding the blanket under it in place. Remus watched me, his eyebrows furrowed in concern. I realized what he might have thought I was doing, and I couldn't help but laugh as I pulled the cloak off to reveal my blanket wrapped shoulders, and unfortunately bare legs. My pajamas were shorts and a tank top, hence the blanket. I could see the disappointment mixed into the relief on his face when I laid my cloak on the table beside the door. I smiled weakly at him, "I can't sleep, and I don't want to be alone."
"You sounded so young when you said that. Reminded me of the times you'd come to our dorm to sleep beside James or Sirius after a bad night."
"It feels so weird being here, doesn't it? It's just you and I now, and being here reminds me of that," I smiled weakly as I sat in the chair in front of his desk. It was a large leather chair, and it was so much more comfortable than I anticipated. I pulled my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms, and the blanket, around them. Remus furrowed his eyebrows as I shrugged, "It makes me miss them so much more."
"Do we have to talk about them? I know talking is therapeutic, or whatever, but I'd rather not right now."
"Of course, what do you want to talk about?"
"The fact that I have no bloody clue what to teach. I know what, in general, that I should do, but at the same time, I don't know. You know?"
"I do," I smiled as I nodded. Remus looked frustrated and tired, and I felt very awful that he had been alone trying to prepare for teaching a metric ton of children. It was less stressful for me, as I had been helping the girls with their summer work since Esme started Hogwarts. I had a good idea of the thought process that her professors used to come up with syllabuses. I tried to calm Remus' nerves, "Bounce some ideas off of me."
"Have you already finished your outline for the year?"
"Merlin, not the year," I laughed lightly. Remus smiled as I rolled my eyes, "I have the first two months outlined, but after that, it's mostly ideas and general things that I want to incorporate. I plan to give them monthly syllabuses, and do subjects on a monthly basis instead of quarterly."
"I'm surprised you don't have until Christmas done at least. I have most of the first semester outlined, I just don't know how to ease them into Boggarts."
"You're doing Boggarts that early?"
"We learned them in our third year."
"At the end of our third year, yeah. We were also being taught by a drunk, so it is entirely plausible he just forgot to do the lesson until later," As I talked Remus started smiling widely, and he looked like he was remembering the same things I was. I shrugged, "It's a good idea, to start Boggarts soon. It'll make teaching them about the scarier things in life easier."
"What do you think Harry's is?"
"I don't know him, Remus. There's no way for me to have any idea. I don't even know what Aubrey's would be. Are you doing the Boggarts with any other classes?"
"I'm doing a lesson with 3rd, 4th and 5th year. When Esme was a third year, their professor had Voldemort on the back of his head. Last year, they had Lockhart."
"It's good that they have such a genuinely amazing wizard teaching them this year. I'll feel better knowing that Esme actually knows how to handle a grindylow," I grinned at Remus. It felt so nice being able to chat with him like we used to. It seemed that as long as there was a full desk between us, we weren't anxious messes around one another. His chuckle proved me right, "Will you be teaching the 5th years about Patronuses?"
"I'll teach them about Patronuses, yes. I will teach 7th years how to cast it if, as a class, they decide they'd like to try to learn."
"If Harry asks you to teach him, will you?"
"Of course I will, he's James' son, Jem. If it helps protect him, I will spend every single waking hour trying to teach him. I presume you're not going to ask if I'll teach the girls?"
"Esme will likely ask me once you teach about them, and then Aubrey will ask once she learns that Harry's learning it. Lilian won't ask, not until she needs it," Remus nodded, smiling. I looked away from him for a moment, instead looking at the floor, "I'll tell them to ask you first though since you are their teacher."
"Are you okay?"
"Mostly. I'm very anxious about having a nightmare, and I'm incredibly nervous about tomorrow, but yeah. I'm alright."
"I'm sorry that I can't do more to comfort you."
I smiled weakly, nodded, but didn't say anything. There was nothing I wanted more than to sit on his lap and just let him hold me. I hated feeling like this, so afraid and weary of existence. I had gotten so used to not having nightmares. It had taken years for them to stop being almost constant, and then they were replaced by dreams of James that made me cry, but I genuinely preferred dreaming of my dead brother over watching my parent's deaths.
The memories made me sad, but that was better than the horrifically terrifying nightmares.
The idea that because of dementors, I could go back to having terrible, horrific nightmares of death every night... the idea that I'd stop having dreams of happy memories with my brother scared me. As sad as they made me, I loved having dreams of him more than anything. It was all I had of him that felt real.
At some point, pictures stop being enough. I could have a million pictures of my brother, but they still weren't enough. Those dreams, which were mostly just memories that I already had replaying in my mind in perfect clarity, made it easier to cope with the fact that I would never make new memories with him. They made me feel as though he wasn't so far away.
Maybe I relied on them too much, but I didn't care. I miss James with every single breath I took that he didn't.
"What's your first lesson going to be?"
"Introductory. I want to explain what the point of the first lesson set will be, which is to first strip their image of what Divinations is and then introduce them to why it is such a monumentally important art. I want to introduce myself, and if they have questions for me about my part in the war, as I know they will, I want to make sure they understand that I am partially more than just a Divinations professor. I'm a mother, and I want to be able to give them the best chance at success that they can possibly have. I want them to feel comfortable coming to me for help in any subject. Besides, Albus suggested that in my downtime, since I have only had four classes, I take on tutoring and being a guidance counselor of sorts."
"Will you answer questions about Sirius? Or Lily and James?"
"No, I won't. Especially questions about Sirius, I don't need anything getting back to Harry right now. I'll try to plead with them not to go gossiping about me, which, Merlin knows how impossible it is. I know Aubrey will do her best to keep Harry from hearing too much."
There was a long pause.
"Do you want to stay here tonight? I can go grab a cot and you can have the bed?"
"No, thank you though. I'm just going to go back to my office and work on my lesson plan. I'll see you in the morning."
Remus nodded, and I took my queue to leave. I could tell he was growing more and more tired, he was yawning every few minutes at this point, and I just knew him. He would never outright tell me he was tired, or to leave, but I knew when he was.
I tied the corners of the blanket wrapped around my shoulders together as I stood up. Remus watched me closely, and I wished I could read the expression on his face. As I lifted my cloak and wrapped it around my shoulders, Remus got to his feet and came around the desk. He moved to stand in front of me, towering over me like he literally always did.
He stared at my face, his eyes searching for something. I didn't know what he wanted to know, and I wished he would just ask me.
The tiniest bit of panic sprouted in my chest when Remus took a step closer and leaned towards me. My mind went into a tailspin, but it settled almost immediately when he wrapped his arms around my shoulders, pulling me against his chest.
It was just a hug.
I smiled widely as I wrapped my arms around his back, cherishing the moment that seemed to significantly final.
"Hey, Jem."
"Hm?"
"I love you."
"I love you too."
I went back to my office alone. The entire walk, I fought back tears. All I could think about was the fact that it had felt so final. It felt like a goodbye hug, the kind that you give to someone you're not going to see for a long while. The kind that two people who were so happy and in love give to one another when they finally admit that it'll never work.
But it could have. That's why I couldn't help but cry. Remus and I could have worked. We had every reason, every chance to work, there were virtually no problems in our relationship that didn't already exist within our friendship. Nothing that we hadn't been prepared for.
Except for Hope.
Thinking of her broke the dam on my feelings. As I shoved through the door to my office, I put a hand over my mouth as, suddenly, it felt like I was drowning.
I hated this feeling more than anything in the world. The pain that was so seemingly endless, the way that it felt like I would never be able to take a deep breath again. It was painful, and it felt so utterly hopeless. I was far too familiar with this pain. I'd felt it when my parents were murdered, with my brother-in-law when he died and when I had to tell Sirius. I felt it when one of my close friends, Eilene, was murdered. I felt it strongest when my brother and my best friend were murdered; when my husband was arrested and wrongly sentenced to life in Azkaban. I felt when I was so utterly terrified of my premature baby girl dying.
And I felt it when I lost my daughter.
Lilian may have pulled through and survived what seemed impossible for such a tiny little girl, but Hope didn't even have a chance.
Thinking about how happy we were, how happy Remus was, at the idea of having a little baby girl brought nothing but excruciating pain. Thinking about how he withdrew, so fully and endlessly, from me, from everyone, when we lost her.
I found out that I was pregnant when I was almost two months along. I hadn't been feeling well, but Lilian had just gotten over a cold, and I figured I had gotten it and it was lingering.
That morning Aubrey, who was in her first year, and Esme, in her third year, were coming home for the Christmas holidays. Lilian wanted to surprise them with a big lunch, and despite not liking to cook, Remus agreed to help Lilian prepare for it. They knew that I hadn't felt well, and both wanted me to rest.
And I had been thinking, a lot. It had been almost an entire month that I hadn't felt well, and even though I was on birth control, I knew my record.
The night before, I had gone to a convenience store and bought a Muggle pregnancy test. Remus was in the kitchen with Lilian, and I was four floors up, in my bathroom. I was sitting on the toilet with the lid closed, staring at the wall ahead of me. The test was sitting on the tub edge beside me, and my heart was racing. My hands were tightly clasped in front of me, my elbows resting on my knees, one of my legs bouncing incessantly.
I had waited for the allotted time and had taken a deep breath before looking at the test. I sighed heavily when there was one little line, and as I stood up and grabbed it, ready to toss it, I noticed the faint, little line beside the first one.
It was so very light that I was almost convinced that it wasn't there.
Still, I wrapped the test up and tossed it in the trash. I knew that my best option was to go to Arlo and Genevieve to get proper testing, but I was reluctant to see her.
That was a story for another time.
Alas, I made an appointment for the following week, right before Christmas, and told Remus that it was relating to the fact that I was still feeling unwell. He took it with stride and didn't question me. Esme insisted she wanted to come along, I tried to dissuade her, but when that girl makes up her mind, she's steadfast and stubborn as a mule.
So she came with me, and Genevieve told me that I was 8 weeks pregnant. Esme was far more excited than even I was. I hadn't told the girls about my previous miscarriage, a pregnancy I didn't know I had until I lost it, so that was the first time that Esme had a chance of having another sibling. She has so much love to give, I was surprised she hadn't been bothering me about another sister or a brother.
Which, for the record, Esme wanted a brother so badly.
As happy as I was, I was also very not. I had been happy about a baby, with Remus, but I couldn't help the guilt that had crept into my mind every time that I even thought about Sirius.
I waited until Christmas, swearing Esme to secrecy, and told Remus in the morning before the girls came to wake us. I had gotten a tiny little bib that said 'Daddy's Sunshine', and he didn't even take a second to realize. At first, he was incredibly afraid, he had been wary about having a child of his own his entire life since he's a werewolf. He was afraid that he'd pass the genes onto his child, and that was the last thing he wanted to do.
But he couldn't hide the ridiculous smile that had been plastered on his face. A smile that rivaled that of even Esme's when she heard. He'd never admit it, but he loved being a father figure for my daughters more than anything.
He had loved them as if they were his own even before we got together. I knew that was the one thing that would never change.
His love for being a father figure for them made him want to be a father. Lilian already considered him her own father, but Esme and Aubrey had never made the leap from father figure to their father. They loved him dearly, but both of them were loyal to Sirius' image. Not that Lilian wasn't, she just knew he didn't know she existed. She had no loyalty to a father that didn't even let me tell him he had another daughter.
So, slowly but surely, with every appointment that Genevieve told Remus and I that our baby showed no signs of lycanthropy, he fell more and more in love with the idea of our baby.
We found out she was a girl shortly before his birthday, on accident.
We had wanted to wait until she was born, but Genevieve's assistant slipped. Remus grinned like a child, and I laughed at the irony. Another girl, James would've been furious.
We found out she had no chance to survive long outside of my womb three days before my birthday. We had just picked a name that morning; Hope.
I was induced on my birthday, and she lived for two hours and fifty-three minutes.
Remus held our baby girl as she took her last breath. As I sat with my knees to my chest, crying harder than I had ever cried. It was absolutely, bloody awful, far worse than losing Fleamont.
We had a nursery for her, a crib, toys, a rocking chair in the corner with a fleece blanket. We had stacks on stacks of diapers, a million baby wipes and jars of baby food. We were far over-prepared, but I knew that all we would want to do is sit with her and coo for hours on end. I knew that neither Remus or I would want to leave her in order to stop by the store.
So we over-prepared.
We counted our chicks before the eggs hatched, and we suffered dearly.
I had let the girls chose if they wanted to meet their sister. Esme wanted to, but Aubrey and Lilian couldn't stand the thought of watching her die.
So, when our baby took her last breath, her eldest sister sat beside me, her arms wrapped around me trying her damnest to comfort me as she softly cried with me. I cherished every single moment that I had with Hope, every single moment, but it wasn't enough.
We went home, and I had to plan another funeral. We had pictures of her, and her blanket and hat, and everything that we could keep. We just didn't have her. We wanted her, more than any of the things that they gave us. None of it could ever replace her, and while Genevieve knew this, she did what she could to comfort us. She made sure we kept whatever we possibly could.
She made sure we got her handprints and her footprints, that we got a little lock of her hair. She made sure that we got the blanket and hat, arguing with the Healer that tried to take them from us. She made sure we got the time that we needed with her, preventing any of her coworkers from pressuring us into giving Hope to them. Genevieve made sure that we could grieve as we needed to. She ensured that we were comfortable and cared for when we finally had to say our final goodbye to our beautiful little Hope.
Remus was inconsolable. Absolutely, wholly, undescribably inconsolable. Even Lilian couldn't make him smile, and she had made him smile the day after his father died.
We started fighting about nothing, and soon we realized that we couldn't survive that loss together.
Remus moved out, and I didn't speak to him for nearly a month.
When he came back, it was to get the rest of his stuff. He said there was no way we could be together after that, not right then. He said he needed to heal on his own, grieve his daughter on his own.
At that moment I understood the heartache that Sirius felt when I pushed him away after Fleamont's death. At that moment, my view of Remus changed. He did the one thing he promised to never do; he left me. He left me to grieve the loss of our daughter, alone.
All I had was Lilian, my 10-year-old daughter, who had no idea how to even comprehend a loss like that on her own, let alone how to comfort me.
No matter how much I loved Remus, part of me would never be able to completely forgive him for that, just as part of me will never be able to fully forgive Sirius for choosing Azkaban over his family.
I didn't sleep, I simply couldn't.
By the time the sun rose, and the clock said it was time for breakfast, I had been sitting in the same spot on the floor inside of my office for the last four hours. Not a single part of me wanted to get up, but I had to.
As I struggled to get to my feet, I felt like my heart had been skinned and salted. Every inch of my body hurt, and no matter how badly I wanted to lay down and go to sleep, it was the first day of classes, and I had students to teach.
Standing in front of them, introducing myself with a smile, I felt like a fraud. I went through every day of my life thinking about the people that I have lost, but still, I lived, survived.
They didn't.