Lavinia woke up the next morning half convinced she'd made the events of the previous night up. Except Sirius was sprawled out on the bed behind her and there on her nightstand was the ring, tucked into its little box. Exactly where she'd left it.
The smile that spread across her face seemed to stay put for the next week or more. Everything felt like it was floating, like the war might have been put on pause just for her. Just for this joy. It hadn't of course, but that was hardly the point. Lavinia felt light and floaty and so buoyed by her happiness that nothing in the world could bring her down. In short: she was as happy as she had been in months. In years, maybe. And she savored every moment of it.
The only problem Lavinia encountered with her engagement was that she had no idea how to tell people. It seemed odd to her, to just insert such a thing into a conversation, like she was looking for congratulations when the reality was, she didn't particularly care if anyone else in the world knew, as long as it was real.
So she was more than glad that on the whole, she didn't have to bring it up. When she walked into work a few days later, Bertie took about five minutes to notice the ring on her finger and his response was one she was sure she would cherish forever.
He had paused when handing her a potions flask and stared at her hand before breaking into a wide, delighted smile. "Oh child," he'd said, shaking his head slightly and patting her hands. "I hope this is the start of a very long and happy story."
Lavinia had positively beamed at him. People had been wishing her a happily ever after, had told her they hoped this was the happy ending she deserved and she appreciated the sentiment, she really did, but it had kept striking her that this wasn't supposed to be the end of anything. And of course, Bertie of all people wouldn't view it as an ending.
A long and happy story. Yes, she thought later that day, she very much hoped it would be.
Miriam's response was equally delightful, although for very different reasons. In the employee lounge after their shifts had ended, the two girls were sitting, exchanging news when Lavinia told her, very awkwardly, that Sirius had proposed. Miriam had screamed. Not squealed or gasped but screamed, loudly enough that a healer had come running into the room to ask if everyone was okay.
"Of course I'm not okay!" Miriam had retorted , glaring at the man like he had just said something truly idiotic. "She's getting married! She's finally bloody getting married! Do you know how long I've been waiting for this!?"
The man, who, Lavinia reasoned, probably knew Miriam, if not personally, then at least by reputation, had simply rolled his eyes and left. Lavinia couldn't blame him. She herself was fighting the urge to roll her own eyes.
Miriam, however, utterly unperturbed by the man's response, simply turned back to Lavinia. "Tell me everything," she demanded, smiling brightly enough that Lavinia couldn't resist mirroring the expression.
"What's to tell?" she asked, laughing slightly. "He got down on one knee and asked the question and I said yes.
Miriam gave her an exasperated look. Evidently, Lavinia had completely missed what the other girl thought was a very obvious point.. "Where were you?" she elaborated. "How did he do it? Was it terribly romantic? Did you cry? You totally cried, didn't you?"
Lavinia frowned, feeling more than slightly called out. And how Miriam had any idea that Lavinia tended to cry when faced with anyone honestly and freely loving her was an entirely different question. But Miriam was now watching her with a wide smile and bright eyes and Lavinia couldn't bring herself to deny the poor girl some explanation.
"We were at home and it was two in the morning and I was in my pajamas. I don't think romantic is exactly the right word, but... well. I may have cried," she admitted, her voice trailing off a bit as she blushed.
But the other healer just cackled. "Of course you did," she laughed, waving a dismissive hand at the news of Lavinia's emotional response. "And of course you were in your pajamas. Merlin, Vinny, that's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard."
Lavinia snorted and rolled her eyes, both at the nickname and the sentiment. "Only you, Miriam," she muttered, shaking her head. "Only you."
Miriam wrinkled her nose and waved a hand at that and they spent the next ten minutes arguing about whether or not a proposal in the wee hours of the morning while wearing pajamas was romantic or not. Or rather, Miriam argued why it was and Lavinia shut up and listened to her talk herself out, rubbing the ring on her finger and smiling, not just at the memory of the words Sirius had said, but at the joy it seemed to have brought to her friends. And Merlin knew they could all use a little joy in their lives. So Lavinia was glad to bring happy news and in return, she laughed and smiled right along with her friends' responses.
Actually, the only reaction that made Lavinia laugh more than Miriam's had, however, was James's. Sirius had told both James and Lily alone in part because Lavinia, between work and healing for the Order didn't have a lot of free time and in part because they had all agreed that it was best to limit visits to their scheduled grocery runs, which usually happened when Lavinia was at work.
The result was that Lavinia only heard about James's and Lily's initial response second hand and it seemed almost shockingly normal. Sirius had told her that Lily had been excited and said congratulations and James did too and that Sirius was going to be nursing a bruise on his arm from where James had punched him "to make sure he was real".
The truly delightful part came several weeks later, when Lavinia received a letter from James. This was in and of itself wildly unexpected because James simply didn't usually write letters. Lily was the one who updated them on news and such and they always came addressed to "Padfoot" to make them less easy to trace. This was a good thing, not just because letters being intercepted was a real issue, but also because James's handwriting was nearly illegible, as Lavinia found out on the afternoon in early July when she received James's letter.
It was addressed simply to "sunshine" which made Lavinia smile and shake her head before she flipped the envelope and broke the seal. Then she pulled out the parchment and read:
Dear Sunshine,
I'm bored as hell. This won't surprise you, probably, but Dumbledore has insisted that we can't leave the house for anything. Not even to walk across the bloody street for some fresh air. Something about good old Voldy. He says he'll elaborate at the thing-of-which-we-do-not- speak-because-owl-post-isn't-safe, which apparently, we are allowed to leave the house to attend. Funny how that works.
Lily insists that writing letters to people will make me less restless. I don't really believe her, but I'm humoring her anyway. And I'm writing to you for various reasons. Chiefly that Sirius would never let me hear the end of it if he found out how bored I actually am and if you tell him, I will be obliged to hate you forever. Sorry, but as I'd probably get a letter back about how much he's been doing and all the places he's been etc etc, I can't risk it. It would drive me insane. Which would be the point, obviously.
Also, I don't know if you're going to the thing-we-don't-talk-about, but if not, could you possibly watch Harry while it's happening? If you are, then don't worry. We can always leave him with someone else, but Lily and I agree that you ought to have the chance to spend some time with him.
Let me know as soon as possible so we can plan and please fill your return letter with many details about how you've been doing nothing at all interesting and work is boring and I'm not missing out on anything at all.
Thanks in advance,
James
P.S. If you and Sirius get married before I'm allowed to leave the house, I will kill you. Just a heads up.
Lavinia snorted and shook her head, setting the letter down on the coffee table. James certainly wrote the same way he spoke. It was like having him in the room, actually, which was a bittersweet feeling. She missed him. It had been months and months since she'd seen him or Lily or Harry and though she knew their absence was for the best, it still hurt sometimes. She missed James's goofy presence, annoying though he could sometimes be. She missed the way he called her Sunshine and that sardonic smirk that always followed. But of course, their safety had to come first.
As for his threat in the postscript... Lavinia rolled her eyes again. She and Sirius had only briefly discussed the actual logistics of getting married. Lavinia wasn't particularly in a hurry. She didn't actually understand what the point of a wedding really was. It seemed like little more than an excuse to have a party. Which was all well and good, and certainly an excuse she would happily take except that parties weren't at all feasible these days. Besides, she already had a ring on her finger and the promise of forever. An actual ceremony was just a technicality. So they'd agreed that it would be best to wait until after the war was over to have a proper ceremony and in the meantime, they'd fill out the paperwork whenever they got around to it.
Mentally shaking herself, Lavinia grabbed the envelope, letter and her mug of tea and headed for her room. She set all three down on her desk before settling into her chair and writing a response to her apparently terribly bored friend.
Dear James,
I promise we won't get married until you can leave the house. At most, we'll sign the paperwork, but given the state of the Ministry right now, it'll probably be months before it actually goes through and is official. We already agreed that a ceremony will have to wait. Not that I'm really complaining. I don't particularly want to deal with wedding dress shopping. Do you think I can get married in my pajamas? I mean, I got engaged in them, right, so if they're good enough for that... Lily would probably kill me though. My friend Miriam might too, or she might love the idea. She's unpredictable that way. I think you'd like her, though the combination of you two might make any room you're in combust from the sheer chaos of it. I'll have to keep that in mind when the time comes to pick venues.
On a more serious note: I didn't actually know that a Thing was coming up, so I'd guess I'm probably not going. I'd love to watch Harry if it makes your lives easier. My only request is that you please, for the love of Merlin, give me an instruction sheet. I don't know anything about children and I wouldn't know where to start. And if you turn this into a prank, I will torture you with reports of every useful and fun thing Sirius is doing while you are stuck at home.
As for reports of my own life: I don't do much. I go to work. I come home from work. I make dinner, sometimes. Wonderful and boring, I promise. At least by comparison to my daily routine, you really aren't missing anything. That said, I'm sorry you're bored and I'm sorry you're housebound, I know that must be hard on you. Hopefully Dumbledore offers a good explanation and hopefully being stuck in the house is short lived. If you can, you should come by after the Thing and we can have a nice tea or something. Like old times.
Love,
Sunshine
Lavinia read it over a few times, searching for any details that might give away times or locations that were better kept secret. Finding nothing obvious, mostly since she didn't know the times or locations of much of anything anyway, she folded the parchment up before attaching it to Paris's leg and sending him off and out the window, into the late afternoon sunlight.
For a long moment, she watched Paris flapping away, becoming smaller and smaller against a bright blue sky. She hoped James would be okay. She was certain that the worry of putting his family in danger would keep him from doing anything stupid, but she could only imagine how restless he was probably getting. James had never been particularly good at sitting still, much less being confined to the same house for weeks on end. She suspected he was rather like Sirius that way and that if the time ever came for their house to go into hiding, Lavinia would be begging Lily for any survival tips she had about how to deal with a housebound partner who hated sitting still.
Which, of course, brought her to the question of why exactly Dumbledore had requested the Potters become truly housebound in the first place, to the extent of not leaving the house for anything. They'd already been in hiding, had already been taking every precaution. Indeed, judging by Lily's letters, the most they'd left the house for lately was to have tea with the slightly crazy old woman who lived just down the street. What could have changed that? What was bad enough that they couldn't afford to risk being exposed for even a minute or two?
Lavinia sighed and pushed off the window sill, grabbing her tea before heading back to the living room. It wouldn't do to dwell on such things, not when she knew she'd get nowhere. And she'd find out soon enough, she supposed. Whenever the next meeting was, anyway. She was fairly sure James would tell Sirius what the reason was and Sirius would tell her. Fairly sure. These days, she knew it was risky to trust anyone, but she knew James trusted Sirius without question and Sirius trusted her with similar ease. At least she hoped he did. He certainly seemed to anyway.
She pushed those thoughts away too. That was a rabbit hole of overthinking she didn't need to go down. It was bad enough that everyone else was second guessing people. She didn't need to start with that too. Especially not with her fiance.
She couldn't suppress a smile at the word. Fiance. A ridiculous french word, really, but even so it filled her with a bright and undying sort of joy. And even if the logistics of getting married in a time like this were a mess, even if the actual ceremony didn't happen for months or even years, Lavinia didn't care. Because though she admittedly like the sound of husband more than fiance, it still meant just about the same thing, at least in her mind. It mean he loved her. It meant he would keep loving her. It meant he wanted to spend forever with her just like she wanted to spend forever with him. Even if these days, forever wasn't something anyone could promise.
She sighed then and sat back down on the couch, pushing away her thoughts and picking up her latest book, intending to bury herself in it and utterly glad to have some fantastical world she could escape to where I love you stretched across worlds and lifetimes. Where always coming back meant more than just trying to stay alive until tomorrow. Where people could make a million promises. And follow through on each and every one of them.
She wondered then if maybe she should have suggested to James that he try reading. On the other hand, James didn't usually have the patience for reading, even when he'd been forced to n school, and Lavinia didn't see why that would have changed so maybe it was for the best that it hadn't occurred to her.
Shaking her head, Lavinia refocussed, reminding herself that James would be fine. She'd see him soon, too. And with that thought making her feel a bit better about the whole thing, Lavinia lost herself in the pages of a good book.
A/N: Welp. I wrote the chapter. And I'm sad. And that's all I have to say about that. (Forest Gump, anyone).
In other news, I forgot to mention that the song I referenced in the beginning of yesterday's chapter is called "I Need You to Turn To" by Elton John. The first track on the album is "Your Song" which is by far the better known love song, but "I Need You to Turn To" is (at least to me) about loving someone and needing someone and knowing that sometimes you're a bit needy and a bit dependent and flawed, but recognizing that that's okay and that even if, at the end of the day, you need to be able to stand on your own two feet, there's no harm at all in having someone you can turn to when things get tough. Also if y'all are on Quotev, I mentioned this in an activity post and may have been more coherent there, so, you know, check it out if you want. Or not. I may have said the exact same thing, but I'm too lazy to check rn.
Also, random logistical thing: I finally got around to sort-of-not-really beginning edits on the early chapters of this, which may or may not continue bc I'm lazy af. Idk if y'all get notifications, but that's a thing. And also Wattpad is not cooperating so... I'm working on that.
Anyway, as usual, I hope y'all enjoyed and I'll be back again tomorrow!