Yea Verily
1977: Auld Lang Syne
Summary: It's 1977, and the first war is about to begin. The Order is founded. The Death Eaters are recruiting. The Marauders are graduating. People fall in love. People marry. People die. Everyone has a story to tell. Remus/Sirius. Alice/Frank. James/Lily
Rating: PG-13
Words:8,589
A/N: This is a very ambitious project, and I'm not sure if I'm off to a good start. While the emphasis is going to be on the Marauders, Lily, and Alice & Frank, a lot of other characters will be given their own stories and parts. I am playing around with characterization some, so bear with me if you don't feel like someone is acting in a strictly canon (or more probably, fanon) way. Hope you enjoy reading this.
Prologue: December 31, 1976- January 1, 1977
For the past 45 minutes, Remus Lupin has not been able to feel his fingers. For the past 25, he has not cared. It is the last hour of 1976, and there are grander things afoot than worrying about dropping temperatures. Besides, the mug of firewhiskey that has made his hands very cold has also made his stomach very warm.
It is only a few days after the full moon. That, and a three-hour trip to James’ house by Knight Bus, has left what parts of Remus’s body he can still feel seem like soggy cardboard. He is heavy and stiff and unwieldy, his bones tender and sharp with newness. But the moon, a slim crescent short of full, is dazzling-bright on the snow and the company is good and the silent night that stretches tight and cold and clear over the earth will soon die in a riot of color and sound, victim to a field’s worth of Filibuster’s Finest.
Remus takes a long draw of his drink then exhales happily. A white plume of breath goes rushing skyward.
“Ash I was shaying,” slurs James haughtily to Peter. He is drunk. And when James is drunk he argues and lectures and is a prat but is also sometime-eloquent and always-hilarious.
They are all drunk, the three of them, James, Peter, and Remus, and are sitting on a pile of blankets on the magic carpet landing above what used to be a hippogriff stable but is now James and Sirius’s room. James’ house is large and old, and his family can afford to suffer the absurd whims of two seventeen-year-old boys.
“I,” James stops and blinks owlishly, pupils dilated hugely behind his glasses, “What wash I shaying?”
“Falcons,” mumbles Peter blearily. He is lying flat on his back, his round stomach rising slow and steady. As he speaks, he makes a dramatic gesture with his drink. Remus eyes it warily, not wanting Peter to waste good firewhiskey.
“Right,” says James. “Falcons,” he moistens his lips with his tongue, “Bloody arrogant lot, hate the blokes, they-“
“Your uncle flies for the Falcons,” points out Peter unnecessarily. Everyone at Hogwarts is well aware that James’ uncle flies professionally.
“Yesh,” glowers James, unused to being contradicted, “and, well, he’sh a bit of a prat, ishn’t he? And anyway Pettigrew, if you weren’t drunk off your arsh, you wouldn’t have the ballsh to-”
“Eureka!” shouts a voice, “I have found it!”
The trap door next to Remus’s elbow springs open with a clatter, (“Shit,” laugh-swears Remus, barely managing to save his drink.) and out clambers the fourth and final Marauder, all black hair and laughter and shiny white teeth.
“Eureka,” booms Sirius again, and he kicks the door shut.
Sirius has drunk slightly more than Remus and Peter and a lot more than James, but is a lot less drunk. He looks it too, clear eyed and smiling and striding purposefully across the landing towards James’ nest of quilts. There is a certain set to his shouders, though, instinctively recognized as mischief of the liquored kind.
“Found what?” asks Remus, settling back into a cross-legged position, content watch the scene unfold through heavy lids.
Sirius doesn’t answer. His eyes are locked on James, who has sat up suddenly, posture stiff. His eyes are fixed on a thin, folded piece of parchment Sirius has clutched in his hands.
“Merlin no,” mutters James.
“Merlin yes” answers Sirius, teeth bared in a horrible grin.
“That’s not…” breathes James.
“Oh,” says Sirius, licking his lips slowly, “It is.”
James lets out a little moan and crumples, “Noo...”
“Yes!” crows Sirius, “last year’s resolutions!”
Quick as a cat, James is off, springing for Sirius’s legs.
Sirius is faster. He jumps out of the way, dangling the paper high above his head though James is on hands and knees. Peter, sensing action, sits up and opens bleary eyes. Remus, vaguely thinks that alcohol and the very high, very unprotected platform do not mix. Were he not so inebriated, something tells him, he would try to stop Sirius and James as they wrestle, kick, yell, bite and curse for the parchment. There is a 25-foot drop, he reckons, from here to several broken bones.
The snow, says the small, considering prefect voice that is dry and authoritative and not used often enough, should be soft at least.
“New Year’s Resolutions 1976,” shouts Sirius, dancing out of reach of James’s wild punches. “First Resolution: I, the Right Honorable James H. Potter,” Sirius ducks and weaves while still reading loudly, a marvelous feat, “do hereby declare and resolve to convince one Lily A. Evans-”
James lets out a moan and a whimper and collapses drunkenly, hopelessly at Sirius’s feet.
“I hate you,” he mutters, “Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate.”
Sirius cackles and reads on.
(And days of Auld Lang Syne)
In London, a Muggle nightclub has burst into flames.
“Fuck fuck fucking fuckity fuck fuck,” growls Alice.
Snowflakes and ash like tattered lace drift gently onto her hair and eyelashes. Her back is freezing but her front is warm as she faces the fire, wand clutched tightly in her hand. Above the spectacle of the burning nightclub hangs a more gruesome one. A skull, bright green, with a snake for a tongue makes a mocking beacon.
Alice glares at it. Over the screams, faint but there, is high-pitched wild laughter. “Bastards,” she mutters, shaking slightly, “Bastards.”
“Language Pendleton,” murmurs Frank to her right. His face is pale and thin in the flickering firelight, and she knows he is just as angry as she is.
“Shove it Longbottom,” she tells him anyway. There is no sign that just three hours ago the two were in bed together.
Frank glances down at her and manages a smile, “Always a charmer Pendleton.”
Alice grits her teeth. I love Frank, she tells herself, because he can find humor in every situation.
She still wants to hit him.
“Now,” he says, rubbing his hands together and looking suddenly old and tired and grim, “Are we going to wait for those Obliviator idiots, or are we going to do our job and save some people?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” grins Alice. She twirls her wand, “Watch my back,” and heads into the flames.
(And days of Auld Lang Syne)
Sirius is grinning gleefully at James, the parchment of resolutions folded and bouncing gently against his thigh. James slumps despondently, resigned to his fate.
For the third year running he has failed to make Lily Evans his girlfriend, and unless he somehow manages to do so in the next twenty-five minutes, will have to suffer Consequences.
“Well Prongs,” smirks Sirius, standing triumphantly over his victim, “looks like it’s lizard scales for you.”
“Wait,” says Peter slowly, finally understanding what’s going on, “but he did go out with Evans! They went, they went to, uh,”
“Hogshmeade!” crows James, leaping to his feet. His glasses dangle from one ear and his hair sticks up in absurdly straight lines from his head. “Ha! That’sh right! Wormtail I could kissh you!” He faces Sirius smugly, “No shcales for me this year!”
Sirius narrows his eyes. “I’m not so sure…” he says softly. The very idea of losing his prey makes him pale, agitated, and sulky. “It was only one date. Doesn’t qualify as ‘dating,’ if you ask me.”
“Me ‘n Wormtail shay it countsh,” argues James, and he and Sirius seem in danger of another wrestling match.
“Your vote doesn’t count!” snarls Sirius, slamming his fist, the parchment crumpled inside it, into his other hand. “That’s Black versus the House Elves, third year!”
James grits his teeth and flexes his hands. But he can’t-especially when he’s drunk- argue with precedent. The Marauder’s may break everyone else’s rules, but they never break their own. “Damn,” he growls and sits back down.
There is the threatening, dooming silence of a stalemate, which would mean a fight. What cannot be solved through words, is done through wands. All three turn to Remus, who has been watching the proceedings through a haze of exhaustion and alcohol.
“Er,” he blinks, “What?”
“You’re tiebreaker,” points out Sirius, settling down next to Remus and looking remarkably cogent and persuasive for someone who has ingested an entire bottle of firewhiskey. “Whaddya say?” He tilts his head slightly and leans in toward Remus, smiling deviously, at once self-conscious and condescending. It is a look designed for a maximum effect of camaraderie and can make Remus do anything, “Is James going to spend the next two weeks covered in scales and singing like a canary or what?”
“Erk,” sputters Remus, trapped. He ducks his head. “Do I have time to consider?”
There is a slight pause, and then Sirius nods, magistrate by virtue of sobriety, but disappointed not to find an instant ally. “Fair enough. Let’s move on to the other resolutions.”
James scowls and snorts and crosses his arms as Sirius reopens the scrap of parchment. “Resolution two: I, James Potter, blah, blah, blah, resolve to win the Quidditch cup for the glory of the Gryffindor house, blah, blah, blah.” Sirius frowns, “Well he-we-,” he glares at James, “did that. What else? Turn Snivellus into a girl. Ah, that was fun; he was actually quite attractive in a large nosed, sickly kind of way. And, last one for Mr. Arseface over here,” James sticks out his tongue, “Get less detentions than Padfoot, that rocks-for-brains, under-endowed, effeminate- Hey!”
James cackles, “Fair ish fair!” though how something written a year before can be vengeance is unclear, and swoops forward. He grabs the list from Sirius’s hands. “I’ll read for Wormtail,” he announces. He adjusts his glasses pompously and glances at the list. “Aw c’mon Pete,” he whines, eyes bouncing off the crumpled paper and towards Peter, “You’re boring.”
Peter turns a blotchy pink and stares at his hands. “Sorry,” he mumbles.
James sighs and makes a magnanimous gesture. “No matter, no matter. Anyhow,” he clears his throat. Remus begins to nod off, and Sirius pokes him in the side.
“Hey,” he says quietly beneath James’ trumpeting, “Stay awake now. You still have to vote against Prongs.” He grins conspiratorially and Remus’s stomach does a funny flippy-thing that he attributes to too much firewhiskey and Mrs. Potter’s pies.
“Right,” mutters Remus wearily, shaking his head, “Right.”
(And days of Auld Lang Syne)
The flames are high and hot and thick. Unnatural green tongues lick upwards from the floor. Alice quickly applies a flame freezing charm, the kind used in the middle-ages when the Muggles had that lovely witch burning craze. The slight tickling sensation is annoying, but Alice quickly gets used to it. She is simply relieved that the charm works against what is an obviously magical fire. The screams are louder now, and she prays fervently that their owners will survive long enough for her to save them.
She soon stumbles upon a gaggle of sobbing girls. They are pretty and young and covered in soot. They stare at Alice with wild eyes as she comes barreling through the flames. She slides to a halt. They all look uninjured, trapped by the flames but not hurt by them.
“Through there. It’s safe; I’m a friend,” she yells, gesturing back the way she came where the flames stand utterly still.
They don’t move, and, but for one who is weeping softly, fall silent. Alice hesitates. She badly wants to comfort them. To hug them and tell them everything is all right. But people are still screaming and she doesn’t have the time. Part of being an auror, she reminds herself, is about making hard decisions, and she’s had to make harder than not wiping the noses of a bunch of crying girls.
“MOVE!” she bellows. They jump, and start running, some primal instinct taking over. People listen to whoever sounds like they’re in charge
One girl, the crying one, lingers. Alice glares at her, and the girl moans and shakes her head, clearly near hysterics. “Please,” she gasps, “please. My best friend…Danah…she’s back there…”
Alice bites her lip and, tentatively, pats the girl, who can’t be much younger than she is, on the shoulder. “I’ll look for her,” she tells the girl with all the confidence she doesn’t have, knowing deep down that Danah, whoever she was, is dead.
“Thank you,” sobs the girl, and she stumbles off after her friends.
Alice moves on. She finds a couple next. The woman is unconscious, and there are several cuts across the man’s face.
“There was an explosion!” he blubbers to Alice as she directs him toward safety, “We were near the back, and there was a boom and everyone started screaming and something exploded and hit Sammy and people were dead and and there was…”
“Shhh,” soothes Alice, “I know. I know. Now I need you to go this way so you and Sammy can get some medical help.”
The man nods, dazed, and walks off mechanically. Alice hopes his girlfriend is all right.
After that, she mostly just finds bodies. Charred and undistinguishable, Alice feels sick looking at them. These were people, she thinks, people with lives and families and hopes and futures. If nothing else, her job makes her amazingly aware that she is alive.
It is not always a good feeling.
She has made it towards the worst now. Bodies, or what is left of them, lie in thick piles. Everything is charred black, and, even though there is no fire here, Alice believes herself to be at the origin of it. By her own reckoning, she is towards the back of the largest room. A quick scope of the wall, which amazingly remains standing, turns up what looks like a back entrance. Probably how the killers got in. A rash of anger pebbles up, and she fights it back.
Anger is good, it keeps you wary and fuels you. But not this clawing, blinding, suffocating kind. This kind can only get her killed.
“Well hello,” coos a voice, feminine and sultry, “is this?”
Alice twirls, instantly sliding into a dueler’s stance. Standing near an unrecognizable piece of half melted, soot-streaked metal is a tall, dark haired woman, her face hidden behind a mask.
(And days of Auld Lang Syne)
“Resholution two,” booms James, “passh Transhfigurashion.” He rolls his eyes. “We all didzat.” Peter’s blush deepens. James continues, oblivious, “Resholution three, learn how to dance.” James glances up, startled, “Did you?”
Peter nods shyly, and James’s eyes are mischevious behind his glasses. “Alright then,” he commands, “Let’shee.”
Peter rises unsteadily, clenching pudgy hands into blocky fists. “There’s no one to dance with,” he mumbles to his feet.
“Nonsense,” says Sirius, goofy with drink and the late hour, “Prongs and me can both dance. It’s a pureblood thing.”
He gives James a significant look. James chooses to ignore it. “You’re better at it Padfoot,” he says, plastered but correct.
Sirius shakes his head mournfully, but stands, swaying only slightly.
“Coward,” he hisses at James. He turns to a bemused Peter and bows, “I assume I’m the lady then?”
“And a very pretty one at that!” catcalls James. Remus giggles his agreement.
“Shut up,” growls Sirius and flips them the bird. He sobers quickly and examines Peter with a critical eye. “You’re drunk you know.”
Peter sways and shrugs. “Can still dance alright.”
Sirius lifts his eyebrows, “If you say so,” he smirks and holds out his arms, “Well, sweep me off my feet.”
It’s absurd. Sirius is a head and a half taller than Peter and doesn’t know the woman’s steps very well. Peter though, amazingly, seems to know his. He is very clearly drunk, and his grip on Sirius seems tight and awkward. All the same, he manages to lead Sirius through what Remus thinks could be a waltz…or the polka. Remus knows many things, but dancing is not one of them. There are even a few twirls, sending the two spectators into gales of laughter.
Finished, Peter manages a quick, sketchy bow to his partner. Face bright red, he plops down and hides behind his hands. Sirius sits down as well, next to Remus, and looks impressed. He spreads his hands helplessly.
“What can I say? The rat can boogie.”
James looks briefly disappointed, but his normal cheerfulness quickly reasserts. He thumps Peter on the back. “Good on you Wormtail.” Peter squeaks behind his hands.
“Right then,” continues James, “looks like that’sh his lasht one.” He waves the parchment in front of Peter. “Read for Moony Pete.”
Slowly, Peter removes his hands from his face. With tentative fingers he takes the paper and smoothes it out on his lap. “Okay…er, I, Remus John Lupin do, on the 1st of January in the year of our lord 1976, resolve to do the following items so that,”
“You don’t have to read all of it Wormatil,” interjects Sirius. He is beginning to look bored and leans his head on Remus’s shoulder.
“Oh,” Peter blinks furiously, “Right.” He clears his throat, “Resolution the first: Read 75 books.”
Sirius snorts his disgust into Remus’ jaw. “And how many books did you read Moony?”
Remus smiles dreamily. “Two hundred thirty-four.”
“And I’m boring,” complains Peter half-heartedly. He shakes his head scornfully and looks back down at the paper, “Resolution the second, be a nicer person.”
Everyone groans. Sirius swats Remus on the leg, “ Laaame Lupin,” he whines.
Remus rubs his injured leg absentmindedly. “Well,” he asks softly, grinning, “Did I succeed?”
There is a moment of contemplative silence, then a chorus of “Yeah,” and “Bloody pansy,” and, “Bashtard.”
Sirius shifts against Remus, trying to get comfortable.
“You’re too bony,” he hisses at Remus, who is feeling rather red, then glares at Peter, “Well Wormtail. Read on.”
“Don’t see why,” grumbles Peter, “It’s just going to be like…” he trails off and his eyes go wide. He squeaks. “Whoa.”
James, languishing on his stomach, perks up. “Whoa what?” he demands, eyes glimmering with interest.
Peter stares at Remus, awed. “Lose virginity,” he whispers, near reverent.
(And days of Auld Lang Syne)
“Looks like a little girl playing at being an auror,” says a man’s voice. It comes to the right of Alice. Out of the corner of her eye, she notes a man, also tall and dark haired and wearing a mask, leaning with crossed arms against a melted piece of equipment. Flames flicker at his feet.
“Do you think the master will mind if we kill her?” the woman asks. She seems completely uninterested in the threat Alice poses, but Alice can tell by the tension in the woman’s shoulders and hips that she is sprung tight, ready to send off a dozen curses as soon as Alice moves.
They shouldn’t be here, thinks Alice furiously, the bad guys never stick around.
The man shrugs. He is much more careless than the woman. It would take him much longer to get out his wand and defend himself.
“I don’t see why,” he says, bored and casual among the carnage, “When he left he said we could do as we please so long as we didn’t get caught.”
The woman tilts her head, and Alice knows deep in her gut that she is making a pouty face. “But we’ll have to do it quickly,” she whines, “I’m sure there’s a dozen more little blood traitors like her crawling around. It won’t be any fun.”
Alice’s gut goes tight. These people are sick, she thinks. She’s heard enough.
“You’re under arrest,” she says, boldly taking a step forward, “For arson, the willful destruction of Muggle artifacts, the use of magic in front of non magical people, and murder. As magical persons, you have certain rights. You have the right to-”
“Aw! How cute!” cries the woman, “She thinks she can arrest us! Can we keep her Teddy-Bear?”
“Stupefy!” shouts Alice in her head. It is the regulation spell. The one an auror must always try to use first. A red beam of light goes flying from her wand. The woman curses and spins. She’s too slow. It hits her in the shoulder and she stumbles.
“Crucio!”
(And days of Auld Lang Syne)
No one speaks. Sirius disentangles himself, and Remus feels a sudden, disorienting lost. But then everyone is asking him questions and whatever he is feeling is swept away.
“When?”
“With who?”
“How was it?”
“Did you?” It is James, eyes wide and bright with interest.
Remus bites his lip and nods. And, for reasons he doesn’t understand, addresses Sirius, who is looking stunned.
“Yeah,” he answers, carefully, “Haven’t you? I mean, I thought, er,”
Sirius shakes his head. “No…I…”
“But I thought…with Florence…in fifth.”
Sirius shakes his head again, eyes hidden behind his dark hair. Remus stares at him, feeling awkward and guilty and weird.
“With who?!” jumps in Peter, oblivious and excited.
“With Dorcash, obvioushly,” chuckles James, and cuffs Peter upside the head. He squints at Remus, “It wazh with Dor, right?”
Remus nods. “Yeah, of course.” He rubs his hands together self consciously, as if trying to wash off some crime. “Er, right before the summer hols, and, then, er,” he blushes deeply, “a few times during it.”
“How was it?” Peter presses eagerly for information.
“Pervert,” mutters James under his breath, but he looks at Remus expectantly.
Remus shrugs and refuses to look at Sirius.
“Awkward,” he confesses. Identical looks of disappointment cross Peter and James’s faces. “Well,” he retracts, “the first time was. After that,” and a grin can’t help but cross his lips, “it got a lot better.” (He remembers dark hair and slim hips and red lips.)
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Sirius speaks. His voice is petulant and hoarse.
Remus looks thoughtful, but he still won’t meet Sirius’s eyes. “I don’t know,” he answers honestly, “I guess I thought if I told you guys it would be er, a score. And well, it wasn’t. It was er,” and he whispers the last part into his drink, the drink he has not been drinking ever since Sirius stormed up from the deep, “special.”
Snorts of amusement from Peter and James, Sirius continues to look dour.
“Unbelievable,” sighs James, “Moony hashex before me or Padfoot. No offenshe Wormtail,” he adds hastily.
Peter shrugs with deep, sad understanding, “None taken.”
“Shex,” moans James. He throws himself down onto his back and sighs exaggeratedly. “Shex with Lily. Shex. Shex. Shex.” He sits back up, grinning broadly. “Well, I know what the rest of ush are gonna have for rezholutions thish year.”
Sirius kicks him. “Shut up.” But he doesn’t say it with any meanness and now seems thoughtful rather than upset.
“Hmmph,” mutters James. He looks at Peter. “Well Wormtail, ish that it for our deflowered one?"
Peter nods, and passes the list to Remus. “Yeah. So just Padfoot then.”
James nods gravely, but ruins it by smirking at Sirius. “Nervoush?”
“You wish,” snorts Sirius. “You’re gonna be the only scaly one come morning.”
“Ish that a threat?” blusters James.
“It’s certainly not a come on you pillowbiter,” sneers Sirius.
“Oy, I’m the pillowbiter?” James draws back, affronted.
“Yeah, and I’ll-”
It’s the tired, rehearsed squabble of brotherhood. Six and a half years of knowing every aspect of one another’s life, these are words said so many times they have lost their meaning. It’s an act and a habit, more of a comfort than it is anything else. But all the same, Remus doesn’t want to have to explain to Mrs. Potter how Sirius and James both ended up falling off the platform and broke their necks.
“Resolution one,” he breaks in firmly, loudly. The cold and the conversation have sobered him up some. Sirius and James halt reluctantly, and Remus fixes them with his Prefect Scowl.
“Good boys,” he mutters then glances down at the parchment and quickly finds Sirius’s resolutions. There are four, very dark and written in Sirius’s neat, round, slightly girlish hand.
The parchment is thin and soft, with stark fold lines from spending a year only Sirius knows where and crumpled from being fought over. There is something almost comfortingly boyish and silly about it. Remus reads the news. He isn’t sure how long a tradition like this can last.
He squeezes his eyes tightly shut. He is, he realizes, still very drunk.
(And days of Auld Lang Syne)
Training takes over immediately. Alice ducks the curse. Crucio? she is thinking somewhere in her mind, An Unforgivable? They’re mad!
“No time!” hisses the woman, on her knees and clutching her shoulder. The man, very briefly, glances at the women. “Kill her!”
“Expelliarmus!” yells Alice. The man’s wand goes flying, and Alice catches it in her left hand. “Stupe-“
“Avada Kedavra!”
Alice falls and rolls as a green beam of light slices through the air where her chest just was. She scrambles to her knees, tucks the man’s wand into her robes, and aims her wand at the woman, all in one fluid motion.
The woman is gone.
“Fuck,” swears Alice. She crouches and spins, there.
“Expelliarmus!” yells Alice again, just as the women shouts another death curse. The two spells meet, and the woman’s is stronger. It shatters Alice’s disarming spell and goes flying toward the auror. Alice leaps to the right and the spell slams into the ground.
A hand grabs Alice’s arm. Too late, she realizes, she lost track of the man. Unarmed, but not neutralized.
“Give me my wand you blood traitor bitch,” he hisses, his hand creating a ring of bruises around her arm.
“You could certainly use one,” she snarls, and knees him in the crotch just as she stabs her wand into his chest and shouts, “Stupefy!”
The man goes flying back, nearly yanking Alice’s arm out of its socket. She goes sprawling, her chin slamming into the charred floor. The woman screams a name (Rudolph?) and goes rushing toward the man.
“Stupefy!” Another red arc sings out of Alice’s wand as she scrambles to her knees.
Too far to the left, the spell is off and now the woman is twirling, her wand clutched tightly in her good arm, “You bitch!” she shrieks, “You bitch!” She raises her arm (“Petrificus Totalus!” shouts Alice) and is gone.
Alice blinks. Her breath is sharp and ragged in her throat. They disapparated. They’re gone. An intense feeling of disappointment descends.
“Fuck,” she mutters, trembling. “Fuck.”
(And days of Auld Lang Syne)
“Resolution one,” Remus repeats, “Get Moony drunk off his arse.” He glares at Sirius, who is smiling impishly.
“I succeeded long before this,” he boasts.
Remus rolls his eyes, glad that Sirius is being a spaz again. “Prick,” he mutters, smiling, “Resolution two, steal three pairs of girl’s underwear.”
James snickers, and leans toward Sirius, “Sozat wazh wot zat night in Miggy’s offishe wazh all about.”
Sirius nods. “Exactly,” he beams. “Tartan.”
He and James burst into laughter.
“Who else?” asks Remus, amused and exasperated.
Sirius smirks and holds up two fingers, his second victim. “Morgan Deirdre.”
Peter gasps. “And she didn’t find out and take your balls?” His eyes are very wide.
“Well,” says Sirius, grimacing, “I can’t say she didn’t try.” He rubs his crotch gently at the memory, and there is a group wince of empathy.
“Wazh zat the day Moony found you naked and shcreaming in the Owlery?” asks James, thinking back.
“I wasn’t screaming! I was just…”
“Wailing manfully?” supplies Peter helpfully.
Sirius nods. “Yes, exactly. Thanks Peter. And, er, yes. That was.”
Neither James nor Remus can hide their grins. Morgan Deirdre was a slim, short fifth year Hufflepuff who wore pink scarves and was arguably the best dueler in the entire school. She was a chaser for the Hufflepuff team and could get very, very mean. After a match with her, James had spent a week in the Hospital Wing.
“Braver man than I,” smirks James. “You’re a pshycho. Alright, lasht conquesht.”
Sirius tenses and inches away. “Evans,” he says with sparkling teeth and sparkling eyes once he’s safely behind Remus.
“WHAT?!” roars James, and he launches himself at Sirius. He slams into Remus who goes sprawling backwards with James’s weight on him. Sirius flees. “What?!” roars James again.
His hands and then knees and heels dig into Remus’s ribs as he flails to his feet.
“Shit!” snarls Remus, feeling fresh bruises bloom atop old ones. Sirius pauses mid-skip to twist his head and look at him, and promptly trips over Peter.
Peter yells. Sirius yells. And then James is there, hands wrapped around a laughing Sirius’s throat and pinning him to the floor, Peter trapped in a tangle of legs.
“You bashtard!” yells James, “You utter, utter bashtard!”
“Merlin,” chokes Sirius, tears of hilarity streaming down his face, “Merlin Prongs, calm down.”
“You shtole Lily’sh underwear you bashtard! You shtole Lily’sh underwear!”
Remus isn’t sure if Sirius is gasping out of laughter or pain. He staggers to his feet and lurches over. Gripping James by the shoulders, he pulls back with all his strength. He misses the days when James was a shrimp and Remus towered over all of them. Even so, it’s enough. James goes sprawling back, slamming into Remus and knocking him over.
“Fuck,” swears Remus, James now in his lap. He clamps his arms around James’s shoulders (unnatural werewolf strength his skinny werewolf arse) as the boy struggles to fly at Sirius.
Sirius, still laughing, sits up straight and rubs his throat. Peter looks shellshocked. Finally, James goes limp.
“You can let go now Moony,” he grumbles, glowering. “I have decided not to kill Padfoot, much as he deserves it.”
“I don’t believe you,” Remus informs him coolly. He wonders what time it is. Surely it’s near midnight by now?
“…Please?” pleads James.
Remus sighs. “Fine then,” and lets go. James makes a sudden movement, as if he were about to attack Sirius, but then falls onto his butt, looking glum.
“Bashtard,” he mutters. A thought seems to occur suddenly. He looks up at Sirius eagerly, “Do you shtill have ‘em?” he asks. “Whaddid they look like?”
Sirius stares at him, stunned. He laughs.
“Later,” he tells James, sniggering, “Now, I have one more, I think?”
Remus nods and then looks around for the paper. He finds it crumpled and forlorn a few feet away.
“Last resolution, beat Peter at chess.” Remus blinks. “That’s oddly… I don’t want to say mature, but, er, not silly?”
Peter was very good at chess and Sirius very bad. He didn’t have the patience before it.
“Did he?” asks James. He’s skeptical.
Peter’s mouth is a grim, thin line. “Yeah...” he mutters regretfully, “I underestimated him.”
“Last time you’ll do that Petey ol’boy,” smirks Sirius, cat smug.
“I don’t know if I’m more impressed that Sirius beat Peter at chess or that we didn’t hear about it for months afterwards,” says Remus, bemused.
James nods his agreement, and Sirius’s gray eyes get mean and narrow.
“What was it that you said again Remus?” He leans forward with a nasty smile on his lips, “Oh yes, I remember now. I didn’t say anything because…it was...special.”
Remus flushes and for the first time that night, he feels anger, sick and hot, go racing through his limbs. Sometimes it is amazing how quickly Sirius can draw a reaction from him.
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” he asks, teeth gritted.
Sirius’s eyes are guileless and deceptive. “Nothing,” he says sweetly, “Nothing at all.”
Remus crumples the paper in his fist.
(And days of Auld Land Syne)
“Alice!” someone shouts, sounding worried, “Alice!”
She recognizes the voice. “Oy, Frank, over here.”
Frank appears, coming from a different direction than that which Alice came did. He jogs over, his face smeared with soot and his sweaty hair plastered to his forehead.
Coming close, he frowns. “What happened?” he asks immediately, “I heard shouts.”
Alice sighs and wants very badly to lean against Frank for a moment. But the chance of getting caught is too high. The consequences are too great.
“Got into a duel, sir,” she reports, voice flat and expressionless. “A wizard and a witch in Knights of Walpurgis masks were caught at the crime scene. I was threatened, and they appeared to be discussing the crime. I-“
“Dammit Alice,” hisses Frank. “There’s no one here. You can just tell me.”
Alice screws her eyes tightly closed. Suddenly she feels like crying. “I placed the two under arrest. After facing resistance and more threats, I attempted to neutralize the woman, judging her to be the greater threat. The man responded with an Unforgivable curse. Several minutes of dueling commenced. The duel ended with the man and woman disapparating.”
She opens her eyes, and Frank’s jaw is very tight and straight.
“Fine,” he snaps, “If that’s how it’s going to be…” he straightens his posture and glares down his nose at his girlfriend, at his subordinate. “Commendable job in search and rescue operation Pendleton,” he barks. “However, upon engaging the alleged criminals, you should have called for back-up. Due to your lack of foresight, two suspects managed to escape. Upon arriving at the Ministry, you are required to file a report. When the captain arrives, you will report to him what you just reported to me. Clear?”
“Clear sir,” answers Alice, eyes set on Frank’s chest.
There is a pause, a hesitation, and both know what they should do, what the ethical thing to do is.
Neither, it seems, are very ethical.
Alice collapses into Frank’s arms, and he kisses the top of her head.
“Alice,” he whispers, “Alice you numbskull, you have to stop running off like this.”
They are silent for a long moment, content to be sharing the same space, breathing the same air. Content to be alive and together. Then, slowly, with a heavy sigh, Frank pulls away. He stares down at Alice thoughtfully. She blinks up at him, tired and shaken and bone-deep sad. She just wants to go to her flat-or his flat- and cry until she doesn’t have anything left in her, then sleep until she gets it all back.
“You know,” says Frank softly, “it’s the new year.”
Alice is taken aback, because it is. It is 1977 or near enough; Christmas was only a week ago. She shakes her head. “I completely forgot.”
Frank smiles gently. “Well, here’s a way for you to remember.” He drops to a knee.
“Alice Pendleton,” he intones gravely, magically producing a ring from somewhere on his person, “Marry me?”
(And days of Auld Lang Syne)
James, though drunk, is watching Remus and Sirius narrowly and steps in.
“Looksh like that’sh it then!” he says, almost too loudly and cheerfully. “How much longer till midnight?”
Sirius’s head twists quickly towards James. “Oh no you don’t,” he cries. His smile is still malicious, but there’s honesty to it, more teasing and less cruel. “You don’t get away that easy!” He stabs his index finger at James. “We still have to hold court.”
James freezes, eyes wide. “Er…damn.”
Sirius smirks, “I say yes, Wormtail says no.” He faces Remus and arches a friendly eyebrow, whatever tension that was there before now gone. “Whaddya say Moony? Does a single, disastrous date with Evans count as dating?”
Remus opens his mouth to weigh in on James’s side. Not because he agrees with James more than he does Sirius, but because James isn’t such a complete, barking mad prick. Because James doesn’t spin Remus through a carousel of emotions that leave him sick and confused.
Because Sirius is Sirius, and Remus hates him for that sometimes.
“Sorry Prongs,” he says, shrugging, “One unsuccessful drink at the Three Broomsticks isn’t ‘dating.’”
James blinks. Remus blinks. He hastily opens his mouth to correct himself. But then…it doesn’t matter. James is yelling and Peter is trying hard to not to laugh and Sirius has flung himself onto Remus and is hugging him fiercely around the middle and Remus is happy and stunned and silly and drunk and young.
The explosions of the fireworks more than cover up James’s screams of anguish: “Remus Lupin” he shrieks, face purple and orange and gold and green, “Remus Lupin, you are dead!”
(And days of Auld Lang Syne)
Alice gasps; her hands fly to her open mouth. All thoughts of the present situation beat a sudden retreat. She completely forgets where she is, and her reaction, she realizes somewhat ruefully much later, is sterotypical.
“Oh Frank!” she exhales, hands now fluttering down to clasp her chest, “Oh Frank of course!” Shaking and shocked, Frank rises to his feet. He grins nervously at her and pulls the engagement ring out of the plush velvet box and slips it on her finger. He doesn’t let go of her hand. The two stand there, beaming at each other, feeling ridiculously happy amidst the tragedy.
Alice stands on tiptoe to kiss Frank like he’s never been kissed before. She smooths one hand along his jawline, brushes aside a dark curl with another. She leans into him, lips parting slightly. Both of them are beginning to breathe just a little too shallowly.
“Pendleton! Longbottom! What in the fucking hell do you think you’re fucking doing?”
They spring apart, guiltily, like Hogwarts fourth years caught snogging in the broom closet.
It is only Caradoc. He looks fierce. But then, he is Caradoc Dearborn, and he always looks fierce. But now the flickering, dying green light of the flames is turning his face, handsome and hard, into all angles and shadows and grim, straight lines. His brown hair is shorn close to his skull and his Auror robes are ripped and stained. A body, hopefully still alive, is flung, almost as an afterthought, over one broad shoulder. He scowls as he jogs over to Frank and Alice.
“What the fuck are you thinking? You fucking idiots, fucking Dolohov is here. What the fuck’s he gonna do if he sees you like this? Have some fucking discretion.”
Then he spots the ring on Alice’s finger and does a double-take. He howls with laughter. With one giant hand he slaps Frank on the back.
“Longbottom, you old dog,” he wheezes, “Some place to propose.”
Frank grins slightly, still unsteady, “I was going to tomorrow, but, uh…” He shrugs, quizzical and helpless in the face of his own actions. “She seemed so upset,” he murmurs, more to himself than Alice or Caradoc.
“No matter,” says Alice, “I would have had the same answer then as I did now.”
She looks around one more time at all the bodies. Everything comes rushing back. A heaviness falls on her shoulders, and she feels bent beneath it.
“Nothing more we can do for them,” she says sadly, “Might as well report to Dolohov, and let the Maggles clean up.”
Maggles was the term used by the Auror department for those in the Magical Law Enforcement Squad, the ones who couldn’t cut it as an Auror.
Frank and Caradoc both nod, and the three, or four if counting Caradoc’s friend, stumble out of the building, putting out what flames remain as they do so. Outside they find their squad’s captain, Dolohov, and a gaggle of Maggles.
“’Bout time he showed up,” mumbles Frank. Even though he is Dolohov’s lieutenant, the two don’t get along well.
When they first started dating, back when Alice was a new Auror and insecure, she had sometimes felt that part of the reason Frank dated her was out of a perverse satisfaction in doing something Dolohov wouldn’t have approved of.
“Did you say something Longbottom?” drawls Dolohov, laconic in the way that the purest of the purebloods are. Alice’s back goes up, and she realizes that her squad captain reminds her of the killers that escaped. She shakes her head. She’s letting Frank get to her.
“No sir,” snaps Longbottom, and he springs to attention, staring at a point somewhere beyond Dolohov’s ear. A few of the Maggles titter, but a glare from Caradoc, standing at attention best he can with an unconscious Muggle, quickly silences them. Belatedly, Alice follows Caradoc and Frank’s example.
Typically, Dolohov decides to pick on her.
“Pendleton,” he smiles, silk and honey, “What a pleasure to see you.”
His line of sight makes it clear what part of her it is a pleasure to see. Next to her, Frank goes stiff. He is trying hard not to slug his superior.
Dolohov’s only doing it because I’m the first woman he’s had in a squad, she reminds herself, and only the third women ever in the department. He’s just trying to make me feel like I don’t belong, the sexist prig.
She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t have to; nowhere is it written that one must make small talk with the squad captain.
Dolohov’s lips curl into a slight sneer. “I see,” he mutters.
“See what sir?” asks Alice innocently. “My eyes are up here.”
Dolohov stiffens and turns several interesting colors. The Maggles gasp. A few chuckle awkwardly. Frank goes even stiffer.
The sudden hacking sound is Caradoc forcing back a laugh. He shakes his head helplessly when Dolohov, now purple, turns his icy eyes onto him.
“Sorry sir,” coughs Caradoc, “Swallowed air when I should have inhaled.” He coughs again, and Dolohov opens his mouth. Caradoc cuts him off, “Requesting your permission sir, I have little of interest to report. I will file a full report upon return to the ministry, but now request permission to bring civilian to a mediwizard.”
Dolohov is silent for a moment, sure that in some way Caradoc is getting a jab in. But he has no proof, and nods permission. Caradoc snaps a quick salute and sucks in air. He goes off chuckling.
Dolohov’s eyes return to Alice, and she knows she is in for it. The captain does not take lightly to being made a fool of. Something dark is flickering behind his eyeballs.
“Very funny Pendleton,” he snaps, having not yet hit upon her punishment, “Make your report.”
She tells him the same thing she told Frank, only adding that: “I was successful in disarming the male wizard. Requesting permission sir, I will hand said wand over to forensics.”
Frank shuffles and glances at her out of the corner of his eye, surprised and slightly hurt. Alice does nothing. It’s not that she purposefully didn’t tell him. She just forgot.
Dolohov’s breath hitches. “Let me see the wand,” he says sharply, immediately.
Alice blinks, but does as she is ordered. With her own wand, she taps the one in her pocket, and it goes levitating up. She’s already touched it, but she wants to contaminate it as little as possible. Dolohov has no such qualms. He snatches the floating wand and shoves it into one of the deep pockets of his robe.
“Job well done Pendleton,” he grunts, seeming to forget about her wiseass remark, “Dismissed. Report back to Ministry in two day’s time for a full debriefing.”
Alice doesn’t argue. She knows she just came within an eyelash of a suspension, but something about the wand has unhinged Dolohov. Caradoc’s example in mind, she whips out a quick salute and disappears.
She winds up at Frank’s flat. She stares at the door, purple and peeling paint, then lets herself in. She knows the spell. It’ll be awhile yet before he’s home. Being the lieutenant, he has a lot more responsibilities than a lowly grunt like her. Yawning, Alice sits down on his couch, an ancient flowered thing she suspects was found in his parents’ attic. A couple more hours won’t hurt, she tells herself, I can wait that long.
(And days of Auld Lang Syne)Sometime after the four of them stumble down the trap door and collapse in piles on the floor, Sirius wakes up. His head hurts, but not as much as his friends’ will. It is mostly dark, in that eerie, stillborn stage when the moon has dropped behind the horizon and the sun has yet to appear above it.
He stumbles to the toilet, groggy and disheveled. Coming back out, he nearly stumbles over Remus.
Sirius stares at him. He is sprawled out on the floor. One arm is flung over his face, the other is flopped over his stomach. A blanket lies crumpled at his feet, and Sirius can see goose bumps pebbling Remus’s arms and the thin strip of stomach shown where his shirt rides up.
Sirius leans down and covers Remus with the blanket. Straightening up, he frowns down at Remus, perplexed. He shakes his head, lets out a single clipped bark of laughter, and staggers back to his bed.
He does not remember the incident come morning.
(And days of Auld Lang Syne)
Around dawn, Frank wakes Alice up. Very gently, so as not to startle her, but she is still up in a flash, hand reaching for her wand. She calms down as soon as she figures out where she is.
“Hey,” says Frank, speaking and smiling softly. He is leaning over her, one hand on her cheek.
“Hey,” Alice says back, equally soft. She yawns and sits up. Gray light is beginning to filter through a window. Her teeth feel fuzzy, and every bone in her body aches. Frank sits down next to her, grimacing.
“How are you?” he asks.
Alice shrugs, “I’ll live. You?” She leans against him, and he begins to stroke her hair. It’s an absentminded gesture, but one full of affection.
“I will too,” he grunts, “May not want to for awhile. But I will.”
Alice huffs a laugh softly into his chest, “Good to hear.” A quiet moment of domestic tranquility follows until Alice breaks it with a, “Hey, about the wand, I-”
Frank cuts her off with a dismissive gesture. “Relax,” he tells her, “You were stressed. You forgot. I understand.”
Alice wonders how long it took him to reach that understanding and is suddenly, achingly glad that this is the man she has decided to spend the rest of her life with. “Good,” she mutters, then, “Dolohov sure seemed shaken about it though.”
Frank nods. “Sure did. Merlin knows why knowing him. Man’s insane.”
“Hmm…” says Alice noncommittally. Frank isn’t very soft, but he is very warm. She might just fall back asleep.
He snorts, “Whatever. Not my problem.” He rubs a thumb along her ear, “You were brilliant Alice, but you’re gonna get yourself kicked out if you say things like that. Dolohov’s an idiot, but he doesn’t like people showing him for one.”
“I know,” mumbles Alice, “I’ll be a good girl and watch my tongue.”
Frank pinches her earlobe, and she glares up at him to grumble. But it was only a ploy to catch her attention. He is wearing a huge grin. “Not for long, you won’t,” he informs her, “I checked protocol. There’s no precedent for aurors getting engaged, not enough females in our history. But in other departments, whenever two people who work together become engaged, they’re assigned to different tasks.”
“Which means…?” asks Alice.
“Which means,” says Frank, pressing her nose, “As soon as we announce our engagement, you’re getting transferred to a different squad and won’t have to put up with that slimeball anymore. I know Scrimgeour’s been looking for a good man, or, er, woman, to put on the dragon smuggling ring.”
“Ah,” says Alice. “That’s good. I’m glad.”
She is too tired to think about the future beyond more sleep.
“Good,” says Frank, “I’m glad you’re glad.” He chuckles lightly. “So, fiance, it appears we have the day off. Whatever shall we do? Your wish is my desire.”
“I’m sure,” drawls Alice dryly. She sighs, “Right now, I just want to sleep.”
Frank is silent for a moment, then sighs heavily. “Me too love,” he says.
He stands up, takes Alice with him. She squeals and struggles in his arms, but not seriously, and allows herself to be dragged to the rumpled queen bed that takes up most of his bedroom. He dumps her on it, and she quickly grabs all the covers and cocoons herself. Frank laughs, and the center of gravity shifts as he sits down.
“Happy New Year,” he tells her, pulling some covers away.
Alice snuggles up next to him. “Happy New Year,” she whispers back.
He is already asleep.
(And days of Auld Lang Syne)
“He’s struck again,” says Minerva McGonagall wearily, leaning in the doorway to Dumbledore’s office.
She looks grim.
Dumbledore sighs and stares glumly down at his hands. He hasn’t slept that night. He doesn’t sleep most nights.
“I know,” he replies softly.
Minerva doesn’t ask how. She would have been surprised if he hadn’t. She adjusts her glasses, a nervous tic.
“Most casualties yet. They even attacked an auror.”
Dumbledore nods. None of this is new. He is thinking. McGonagall lets him.
Finally, he says, “Inform Minister Bagnold I wish to have a meeting with her and whomever else she thinks is pertinent.”
Minerva nods, “Anything else Albus?”
Dumbledore smiles slightly, “Always have to be one step ahead Minerva.” He pulls open a drawer in his magnificent desk and takes out a stack of parchment. “I’ll have some letters I’ll want sent when you return.”
McGonagall exits. Dumbledore does not immediately begin his correspondences. He sits back in his chair and gazes out the window. The grounds are quiet, still. Fresh snow fell during the night, and everything is smooth and white and pure. Smoke drifts lazily from Hagrid’s cottage and for once the Forbidden Forest is tame; its dark boughs bent and innocent beneath the snow. The students, what few remain at the school for break, sleep warm in their beds, unaware of the changing world. It is peaceful, and it is a peacefulness he would (and someday will) die to protect.
He bends over the parchment and writes, by the time McGonagall returns he is finished, or almost. There is a list of names as well, and he hesitates to put the last two names down. He hands her the first copy of the letter and, after a hesitation, the list.
McGonagall reads the letter quickly her lips thinning and going white as she does so. Finished, her eyes skim over the list and then snap onto Dumbledore.
“Very well Albus,” she says, her voice tight and thin from suppressed emotion. “I’ll send the letters out immediately.”
She turns to leave again.
“And inform Ms. Evans and Mr. Potter as well,” says Dumbledore, winning the war against his heart.
Minerva freezes and turns to stare at him. “But Albus!” she exclaims, “They’re so young!”
“And Tom will kill them all the same,” sighs Dumbledore, “They are adults Minerva. They must learn the world is not as safe as Hogwarts.”
There are other, better reasons for his decision. But Dumbledore is in no mood to justify. He can barely justify it to himself.
Like sending babes to the slaughter, he thinks. The war hasn’t even officially begun, and already he is tired.
“That will be all Minerva,” he tells his right-hand. “That will be all.”
Minerva nods, not trusting herself to speak, and leaves.
Fawkes, his plumage a glorious sunset of colors, trills a question.
Dumbledore shakes his head. “No Fawkes, “he answers, “Tom is an entirely different man from Grindelwald. This will be an entirely different war.”
Dumbledore does not realize it is the new year. If he did, he would not much care… It is a difficult thing to spend most of one’s life old.
Summary: It's 1977, and the first war is about to begin. The Order is founded. The Death Eaters are recruiting. The Marauders are graduating. People fall in love. People marry. People die. Everyone has a story to tell. Remus/Sirius. Alice/Frank. James/Lily
Rating: PG-13
Words:8,589
A/N: This is a very ambitious project, and I'm not sure if I'm off to a good start. While the emphasis is going to be on the Marauders, Lily, and Alice & Frank, a lot of other characters will be given their own stories and parts. I am playing around with characterization some, so bear with me if you don't feel like someone is acting in a strictly canon (or more probably, fanon) way. Hope you enjoy reading this.
Prologue: December 31, 1976- January 1, 1977
For the past 45 minutes, Remus Lupin has not been able to feel his fingers. For the past 25, he has not cared. It is the last hour of 1976, and there are grander things afoot than worrying about dropping temperatures. Besides, the mug of firewhiskey that has made his hands very cold has also made his stomach very warm.
It is only a few days after the full moon. That, and a three-hour trip to James’ house by Knight Bus, has left what parts of Remus’s body he can still feel seem like soggy cardboard. He is heavy and stiff and unwieldy, his bones tender and sharp with newness. But the moon, a slim crescent short of full, is dazzling-bright on the snow and the company is good and the silent night that stretches tight and cold and clear over the earth will soon die in a riot of color and sound, victim to a field’s worth of Filibuster’s Finest.
Remus takes a long draw of his drink then exhales happily. A white plume of breath goes rushing skyward.
“Ash I was shaying,” slurs James haughtily to Peter. He is drunk. And when James is drunk he argues and lectures and is a prat but is also sometime-eloquent and always-hilarious.
They are all drunk, the three of them, James, Peter, and Remus, and are sitting on a pile of blankets on the magic carpet landing above what used to be a hippogriff stable but is now James and Sirius’s room. James’ house is large and old, and his family can afford to suffer the absurd whims of two seventeen-year-old boys.
“I,” James stops and blinks owlishly, pupils dilated hugely behind his glasses, “What wash I shaying?”
“Falcons,” mumbles Peter blearily. He is lying flat on his back, his round stomach rising slow and steady. As he speaks, he makes a dramatic gesture with his drink. Remus eyes it warily, not wanting Peter to waste good firewhiskey.
“Right,” says James. “Falcons,” he moistens his lips with his tongue, “Bloody arrogant lot, hate the blokes, they-“
“Your uncle flies for the Falcons,” points out Peter unnecessarily. Everyone at Hogwarts is well aware that James’ uncle flies professionally.
“Yesh,” glowers James, unused to being contradicted, “and, well, he’sh a bit of a prat, ishn’t he? And anyway Pettigrew, if you weren’t drunk off your arsh, you wouldn’t have the ballsh to-”
“Eureka!” shouts a voice, “I have found it!”
The trap door next to Remus’s elbow springs open with a clatter, (“Shit,” laugh-swears Remus, barely managing to save his drink.) and out clambers the fourth and final Marauder, all black hair and laughter and shiny white teeth.
“Eureka,” booms Sirius again, and he kicks the door shut.
Sirius has drunk slightly more than Remus and Peter and a lot more than James, but is a lot less drunk. He looks it too, clear eyed and smiling and striding purposefully across the landing towards James’ nest of quilts. There is a certain set to his shouders, though, instinctively recognized as mischief of the liquored kind.
“Found what?” asks Remus, settling back into a cross-legged position, content watch the scene unfold through heavy lids.
Sirius doesn’t answer. His eyes are locked on James, who has sat up suddenly, posture stiff. His eyes are fixed on a thin, folded piece of parchment Sirius has clutched in his hands.
“Merlin no,” mutters James.
“Merlin yes” answers Sirius, teeth bared in a horrible grin.
“That’s not…” breathes James.
“Oh,” says Sirius, licking his lips slowly, “It is.”
James lets out a little moan and crumples, “Noo...”
“Yes!” crows Sirius, “last year’s resolutions!”
Quick as a cat, James is off, springing for Sirius’s legs.
Sirius is faster. He jumps out of the way, dangling the paper high above his head though James is on hands and knees. Peter, sensing action, sits up and opens bleary eyes. Remus, vaguely thinks that alcohol and the very high, very unprotected platform do not mix. Were he not so inebriated, something tells him, he would try to stop Sirius and James as they wrestle, kick, yell, bite and curse for the parchment. There is a 25-foot drop, he reckons, from here to several broken bones.
The snow, says the small, considering prefect voice that is dry and authoritative and not used often enough, should be soft at least.
“New Year’s Resolutions 1976,” shouts Sirius, dancing out of reach of James’s wild punches. “First Resolution: I, the Right Honorable James H. Potter,” Sirius ducks and weaves while still reading loudly, a marvelous feat, “do hereby declare and resolve to convince one Lily A. Evans-”
James lets out a moan and a whimper and collapses drunkenly, hopelessly at Sirius’s feet.
“I hate you,” he mutters, “Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate.”
Sirius cackles and reads on.
(And days of Auld Lang Syne)
In London, a Muggle nightclub has burst into flames.
“Fuck fuck fucking fuckity fuck fuck,” growls Alice.
Snowflakes and ash like tattered lace drift gently onto her hair and eyelashes. Her back is freezing but her front is warm as she faces the fire, wand clutched tightly in her hand. Above the spectacle of the burning nightclub hangs a more gruesome one. A skull, bright green, with a snake for a tongue makes a mocking beacon.
Alice glares at it. Over the screams, faint but there, is high-pitched wild laughter. “Bastards,” she mutters, shaking slightly, “Bastards.”
“Language Pendleton,” murmurs Frank to her right. His face is pale and thin in the flickering firelight, and she knows he is just as angry as she is.
“Shove it Longbottom,” she tells him anyway. There is no sign that just three hours ago the two were in bed together.
Frank glances down at her and manages a smile, “Always a charmer Pendleton.”
Alice grits her teeth. I love Frank, she tells herself, because he can find humor in every situation.
She still wants to hit him.
“Now,” he says, rubbing his hands together and looking suddenly old and tired and grim, “Are we going to wait for those Obliviator idiots, or are we going to do our job and save some people?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” grins Alice. She twirls her wand, “Watch my back,” and heads into the flames.
(And days of Auld Lang Syne)
Sirius is grinning gleefully at James, the parchment of resolutions folded and bouncing gently against his thigh. James slumps despondently, resigned to his fate.
For the third year running he has failed to make Lily Evans his girlfriend, and unless he somehow manages to do so in the next twenty-five minutes, will have to suffer Consequences.
“Well Prongs,” smirks Sirius, standing triumphantly over his victim, “looks like it’s lizard scales for you.”
“Wait,” says Peter slowly, finally understanding what’s going on, “but he did go out with Evans! They went, they went to, uh,”
“Hogshmeade!” crows James, leaping to his feet. His glasses dangle from one ear and his hair sticks up in absurdly straight lines from his head. “Ha! That’sh right! Wormtail I could kissh you!” He faces Sirius smugly, “No shcales for me this year!”
Sirius narrows his eyes. “I’m not so sure…” he says softly. The very idea of losing his prey makes him pale, agitated, and sulky. “It was only one date. Doesn’t qualify as ‘dating,’ if you ask me.”
“Me ‘n Wormtail shay it countsh,” argues James, and he and Sirius seem in danger of another wrestling match.
“Your vote doesn’t count!” snarls Sirius, slamming his fist, the parchment crumpled inside it, into his other hand. “That’s Black versus the House Elves, third year!”
James grits his teeth and flexes his hands. But he can’t-especially when he’s drunk- argue with precedent. The Marauder’s may break everyone else’s rules, but they never break their own. “Damn,” he growls and sits back down.
There is the threatening, dooming silence of a stalemate, which would mean a fight. What cannot be solved through words, is done through wands. All three turn to Remus, who has been watching the proceedings through a haze of exhaustion and alcohol.
“Er,” he blinks, “What?”
“You’re tiebreaker,” points out Sirius, settling down next to Remus and looking remarkably cogent and persuasive for someone who has ingested an entire bottle of firewhiskey. “Whaddya say?” He tilts his head slightly and leans in toward Remus, smiling deviously, at once self-conscious and condescending. It is a look designed for a maximum effect of camaraderie and can make Remus do anything, “Is James going to spend the next two weeks covered in scales and singing like a canary or what?”
“Erk,” sputters Remus, trapped. He ducks his head. “Do I have time to consider?”
There is a slight pause, and then Sirius nods, magistrate by virtue of sobriety, but disappointed not to find an instant ally. “Fair enough. Let’s move on to the other resolutions.”
James scowls and snorts and crosses his arms as Sirius reopens the scrap of parchment. “Resolution two: I, James Potter, blah, blah, blah, resolve to win the Quidditch cup for the glory of the Gryffindor house, blah, blah, blah.” Sirius frowns, “Well he-we-,” he glares at James, “did that. What else? Turn Snivellus into a girl. Ah, that was fun; he was actually quite attractive in a large nosed, sickly kind of way. And, last one for Mr. Arseface over here,” James sticks out his tongue, “Get less detentions than Padfoot, that rocks-for-brains, under-endowed, effeminate- Hey!”
James cackles, “Fair ish fair!” though how something written a year before can be vengeance is unclear, and swoops forward. He grabs the list from Sirius’s hands. “I’ll read for Wormtail,” he announces. He adjusts his glasses pompously and glances at the list. “Aw c’mon Pete,” he whines, eyes bouncing off the crumpled paper and towards Peter, “You’re boring.”
Peter turns a blotchy pink and stares at his hands. “Sorry,” he mumbles.
James sighs and makes a magnanimous gesture. “No matter, no matter. Anyhow,” he clears his throat. Remus begins to nod off, and Sirius pokes him in the side.
“Hey,” he says quietly beneath James’ trumpeting, “Stay awake now. You still have to vote against Prongs.” He grins conspiratorially and Remus’s stomach does a funny flippy-thing that he attributes to too much firewhiskey and Mrs. Potter’s pies.
“Right,” mutters Remus wearily, shaking his head, “Right.”
(And days of Auld Lang Syne)
The flames are high and hot and thick. Unnatural green tongues lick upwards from the floor. Alice quickly applies a flame freezing charm, the kind used in the middle-ages when the Muggles had that lovely witch burning craze. The slight tickling sensation is annoying, but Alice quickly gets used to it. She is simply relieved that the charm works against what is an obviously magical fire. The screams are louder now, and she prays fervently that their owners will survive long enough for her to save them.
She soon stumbles upon a gaggle of sobbing girls. They are pretty and young and covered in soot. They stare at Alice with wild eyes as she comes barreling through the flames. She slides to a halt. They all look uninjured, trapped by the flames but not hurt by them.
“Through there. It’s safe; I’m a friend,” she yells, gesturing back the way she came where the flames stand utterly still.
They don’t move, and, but for one who is weeping softly, fall silent. Alice hesitates. She badly wants to comfort them. To hug them and tell them everything is all right. But people are still screaming and she doesn’t have the time. Part of being an auror, she reminds herself, is about making hard decisions, and she’s had to make harder than not wiping the noses of a bunch of crying girls.
“MOVE!” she bellows. They jump, and start running, some primal instinct taking over. People listen to whoever sounds like they’re in charge
One girl, the crying one, lingers. Alice glares at her, and the girl moans and shakes her head, clearly near hysterics. “Please,” she gasps, “please. My best friend…Danah…she’s back there…”
Alice bites her lip and, tentatively, pats the girl, who can’t be much younger than she is, on the shoulder. “I’ll look for her,” she tells the girl with all the confidence she doesn’t have, knowing deep down that Danah, whoever she was, is dead.
“Thank you,” sobs the girl, and she stumbles off after her friends.
Alice moves on. She finds a couple next. The woman is unconscious, and there are several cuts across the man’s face.
“There was an explosion!” he blubbers to Alice as she directs him toward safety, “We were near the back, and there was a boom and everyone started screaming and something exploded and hit Sammy and people were dead and and there was…”
“Shhh,” soothes Alice, “I know. I know. Now I need you to go this way so you and Sammy can get some medical help.”
The man nods, dazed, and walks off mechanically. Alice hopes his girlfriend is all right.
After that, she mostly just finds bodies. Charred and undistinguishable, Alice feels sick looking at them. These were people, she thinks, people with lives and families and hopes and futures. If nothing else, her job makes her amazingly aware that she is alive.
It is not always a good feeling.
She has made it towards the worst now. Bodies, or what is left of them, lie in thick piles. Everything is charred black, and, even though there is no fire here, Alice believes herself to be at the origin of it. By her own reckoning, she is towards the back of the largest room. A quick scope of the wall, which amazingly remains standing, turns up what looks like a back entrance. Probably how the killers got in. A rash of anger pebbles up, and she fights it back.
Anger is good, it keeps you wary and fuels you. But not this clawing, blinding, suffocating kind. This kind can only get her killed.
“Well hello,” coos a voice, feminine and sultry, “is this?”
Alice twirls, instantly sliding into a dueler’s stance. Standing near an unrecognizable piece of half melted, soot-streaked metal is a tall, dark haired woman, her face hidden behind a mask.
(And days of Auld Lang Syne)
“Resholution two,” booms James, “passh Transhfigurashion.” He rolls his eyes. “We all didzat.” Peter’s blush deepens. James continues, oblivious, “Resholution three, learn how to dance.” James glances up, startled, “Did you?”
Peter nods shyly, and James’s eyes are mischevious behind his glasses. “Alright then,” he commands, “Let’shee.”
Peter rises unsteadily, clenching pudgy hands into blocky fists. “There’s no one to dance with,” he mumbles to his feet.
“Nonsense,” says Sirius, goofy with drink and the late hour, “Prongs and me can both dance. It’s a pureblood thing.”
He gives James a significant look. James chooses to ignore it. “You’re better at it Padfoot,” he says, plastered but correct.
Sirius shakes his head mournfully, but stands, swaying only slightly.
“Coward,” he hisses at James. He turns to a bemused Peter and bows, “I assume I’m the lady then?”
“And a very pretty one at that!” catcalls James. Remus giggles his agreement.
“Shut up,” growls Sirius and flips them the bird. He sobers quickly and examines Peter with a critical eye. “You’re drunk you know.”
Peter sways and shrugs. “Can still dance alright.”
Sirius lifts his eyebrows, “If you say so,” he smirks and holds out his arms, “Well, sweep me off my feet.”
It’s absurd. Sirius is a head and a half taller than Peter and doesn’t know the woman’s steps very well. Peter though, amazingly, seems to know his. He is very clearly drunk, and his grip on Sirius seems tight and awkward. All the same, he manages to lead Sirius through what Remus thinks could be a waltz…or the polka. Remus knows many things, but dancing is not one of them. There are even a few twirls, sending the two spectators into gales of laughter.
Finished, Peter manages a quick, sketchy bow to his partner. Face bright red, he plops down and hides behind his hands. Sirius sits down as well, next to Remus, and looks impressed. He spreads his hands helplessly.
“What can I say? The rat can boogie.”
James looks briefly disappointed, but his normal cheerfulness quickly reasserts. He thumps Peter on the back. “Good on you Wormtail.” Peter squeaks behind his hands.
“Right then,” continues James, “looks like that’sh his lasht one.” He waves the parchment in front of Peter. “Read for Moony Pete.”
Slowly, Peter removes his hands from his face. With tentative fingers he takes the paper and smoothes it out on his lap. “Okay…er, I, Remus John Lupin do, on the 1st of January in the year of our lord 1976, resolve to do the following items so that,”
“You don’t have to read all of it Wormatil,” interjects Sirius. He is beginning to look bored and leans his head on Remus’s shoulder.
“Oh,” Peter blinks furiously, “Right.” He clears his throat, “Resolution the first: Read 75 books.”
Sirius snorts his disgust into Remus’ jaw. “And how many books did you read Moony?”
Remus smiles dreamily. “Two hundred thirty-four.”
“And I’m boring,” complains Peter half-heartedly. He shakes his head scornfully and looks back down at the paper, “Resolution the second, be a nicer person.”
Everyone groans. Sirius swats Remus on the leg, “ Laaame Lupin,” he whines.
Remus rubs his injured leg absentmindedly. “Well,” he asks softly, grinning, “Did I succeed?”
There is a moment of contemplative silence, then a chorus of “Yeah,” and “Bloody pansy,” and, “Bashtard.”
Sirius shifts against Remus, trying to get comfortable.
“You’re too bony,” he hisses at Remus, who is feeling rather red, then glares at Peter, “Well Wormtail. Read on.”
“Don’t see why,” grumbles Peter, “It’s just going to be like…” he trails off and his eyes go wide. He squeaks. “Whoa.”
James, languishing on his stomach, perks up. “Whoa what?” he demands, eyes glimmering with interest.
Peter stares at Remus, awed. “Lose virginity,” he whispers, near reverent.
(And days of Auld Lang Syne)
“Looks like a little girl playing at being an auror,” says a man’s voice. It comes to the right of Alice. Out of the corner of her eye, she notes a man, also tall and dark haired and wearing a mask, leaning with crossed arms against a melted piece of equipment. Flames flicker at his feet.
“Do you think the master will mind if we kill her?” the woman asks. She seems completely uninterested in the threat Alice poses, but Alice can tell by the tension in the woman’s shoulders and hips that she is sprung tight, ready to send off a dozen curses as soon as Alice moves.
They shouldn’t be here, thinks Alice furiously, the bad guys never stick around.
The man shrugs. He is much more careless than the woman. It would take him much longer to get out his wand and defend himself.
“I don’t see why,” he says, bored and casual among the carnage, “When he left he said we could do as we please so long as we didn’t get caught.”
The woman tilts her head, and Alice knows deep in her gut that she is making a pouty face. “But we’ll have to do it quickly,” she whines, “I’m sure there’s a dozen more little blood traitors like her crawling around. It won’t be any fun.”
Alice’s gut goes tight. These people are sick, she thinks. She’s heard enough.
“You’re under arrest,” she says, boldly taking a step forward, “For arson, the willful destruction of Muggle artifacts, the use of magic in front of non magical people, and murder. As magical persons, you have certain rights. You have the right to-”
“Aw! How cute!” cries the woman, “She thinks she can arrest us! Can we keep her Teddy-Bear?”
“Stupefy!” shouts Alice in her head. It is the regulation spell. The one an auror must always try to use first. A red beam of light goes flying from her wand. The woman curses and spins. She’s too slow. It hits her in the shoulder and she stumbles.
“Crucio!”
(And days of Auld Lang Syne)
No one speaks. Sirius disentangles himself, and Remus feels a sudden, disorienting lost. But then everyone is asking him questions and whatever he is feeling is swept away.
“When?”
“With who?”
“How was it?”
“Did you?” It is James, eyes wide and bright with interest.
Remus bites his lip and nods. And, for reasons he doesn’t understand, addresses Sirius, who is looking stunned.
“Yeah,” he answers, carefully, “Haven’t you? I mean, I thought, er,”
Sirius shakes his head. “No…I…”
“But I thought…with Florence…in fifth.”
Sirius shakes his head again, eyes hidden behind his dark hair. Remus stares at him, feeling awkward and guilty and weird.
“With who?!” jumps in Peter, oblivious and excited.
“With Dorcash, obvioushly,” chuckles James, and cuffs Peter upside the head. He squints at Remus, “It wazh with Dor, right?”
Remus nods. “Yeah, of course.” He rubs his hands together self consciously, as if trying to wash off some crime. “Er, right before the summer hols, and, then, er,” he blushes deeply, “a few times during it.”
“How was it?” Peter presses eagerly for information.
“Pervert,” mutters James under his breath, but he looks at Remus expectantly.
Remus shrugs and refuses to look at Sirius.
“Awkward,” he confesses. Identical looks of disappointment cross Peter and James’s faces. “Well,” he retracts, “the first time was. After that,” and a grin can’t help but cross his lips, “it got a lot better.” (He remembers dark hair and slim hips and red lips.)
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Sirius speaks. His voice is petulant and hoarse.
Remus looks thoughtful, but he still won’t meet Sirius’s eyes. “I don’t know,” he answers honestly, “I guess I thought if I told you guys it would be er, a score. And well, it wasn’t. It was er,” and he whispers the last part into his drink, the drink he has not been drinking ever since Sirius stormed up from the deep, “special.”
Snorts of amusement from Peter and James, Sirius continues to look dour.
“Unbelievable,” sighs James, “Moony hashex before me or Padfoot. No offenshe Wormtail,” he adds hastily.
Peter shrugs with deep, sad understanding, “None taken.”
“Shex,” moans James. He throws himself down onto his back and sighs exaggeratedly. “Shex with Lily. Shex. Shex. Shex.” He sits back up, grinning broadly. “Well, I know what the rest of ush are gonna have for rezholutions thish year.”
Sirius kicks him. “Shut up.” But he doesn’t say it with any meanness and now seems thoughtful rather than upset.
“Hmmph,” mutters James. He looks at Peter. “Well Wormtail, ish that it for our deflowered one?"
Peter nods, and passes the list to Remus. “Yeah. So just Padfoot then.”
James nods gravely, but ruins it by smirking at Sirius. “Nervoush?”
“You wish,” snorts Sirius. “You’re gonna be the only scaly one come morning.”
“Ish that a threat?” blusters James.
“It’s certainly not a come on you pillowbiter,” sneers Sirius.
“Oy, I’m the pillowbiter?” James draws back, affronted.
“Yeah, and I’ll-”
It’s the tired, rehearsed squabble of brotherhood. Six and a half years of knowing every aspect of one another’s life, these are words said so many times they have lost their meaning. It’s an act and a habit, more of a comfort than it is anything else. But all the same, Remus doesn’t want to have to explain to Mrs. Potter how Sirius and James both ended up falling off the platform and broke their necks.
“Resolution one,” he breaks in firmly, loudly. The cold and the conversation have sobered him up some. Sirius and James halt reluctantly, and Remus fixes them with his Prefect Scowl.
“Good boys,” he mutters then glances down at the parchment and quickly finds Sirius’s resolutions. There are four, very dark and written in Sirius’s neat, round, slightly girlish hand.
The parchment is thin and soft, with stark fold lines from spending a year only Sirius knows where and crumpled from being fought over. There is something almost comfortingly boyish and silly about it. Remus reads the news. He isn’t sure how long a tradition like this can last.
He squeezes his eyes tightly shut. He is, he realizes, still very drunk.
(And days of Auld Lang Syne)
Training takes over immediately. Alice ducks the curse. Crucio? she is thinking somewhere in her mind, An Unforgivable? They’re mad!
“No time!” hisses the woman, on her knees and clutching her shoulder. The man, very briefly, glances at the women. “Kill her!”
“Expelliarmus!” yells Alice. The man’s wand goes flying, and Alice catches it in her left hand. “Stupe-“
“Avada Kedavra!”
Alice falls and rolls as a green beam of light slices through the air where her chest just was. She scrambles to her knees, tucks the man’s wand into her robes, and aims her wand at the woman, all in one fluid motion.
The woman is gone.
“Fuck,” swears Alice. She crouches and spins, there.
“Expelliarmus!” yells Alice again, just as the women shouts another death curse. The two spells meet, and the woman’s is stronger. It shatters Alice’s disarming spell and goes flying toward the auror. Alice leaps to the right and the spell slams into the ground.
A hand grabs Alice’s arm. Too late, she realizes, she lost track of the man. Unarmed, but not neutralized.
“Give me my wand you blood traitor bitch,” he hisses, his hand creating a ring of bruises around her arm.
“You could certainly use one,” she snarls, and knees him in the crotch just as she stabs her wand into his chest and shouts, “Stupefy!”
The man goes flying back, nearly yanking Alice’s arm out of its socket. She goes sprawling, her chin slamming into the charred floor. The woman screams a name (Rudolph?) and goes rushing toward the man.
“Stupefy!” Another red arc sings out of Alice’s wand as she scrambles to her knees.
Too far to the left, the spell is off and now the woman is twirling, her wand clutched tightly in her good arm, “You bitch!” she shrieks, “You bitch!” She raises her arm (“Petrificus Totalus!” shouts Alice) and is gone.
Alice blinks. Her breath is sharp and ragged in her throat. They disapparated. They’re gone. An intense feeling of disappointment descends.
“Fuck,” she mutters, trembling. “Fuck.”
(And days of Auld Lang Syne)
“Resolution one,” Remus repeats, “Get Moony drunk off his arse.” He glares at Sirius, who is smiling impishly.
“I succeeded long before this,” he boasts.
Remus rolls his eyes, glad that Sirius is being a spaz again. “Prick,” he mutters, smiling, “Resolution two, steal three pairs of girl’s underwear.”
James snickers, and leans toward Sirius, “Sozat wazh wot zat night in Miggy’s offishe wazh all about.”
Sirius nods. “Exactly,” he beams. “Tartan.”
He and James burst into laughter.
“Who else?” asks Remus, amused and exasperated.
Sirius smirks and holds up two fingers, his second victim. “Morgan Deirdre.”
Peter gasps. “And she didn’t find out and take your balls?” His eyes are very wide.
“Well,” says Sirius, grimacing, “I can’t say she didn’t try.” He rubs his crotch gently at the memory, and there is a group wince of empathy.
“Wazh zat the day Moony found you naked and shcreaming in the Owlery?” asks James, thinking back.
“I wasn’t screaming! I was just…”
“Wailing manfully?” supplies Peter helpfully.
Sirius nods. “Yes, exactly. Thanks Peter. And, er, yes. That was.”
Neither James nor Remus can hide their grins. Morgan Deirdre was a slim, short fifth year Hufflepuff who wore pink scarves and was arguably the best dueler in the entire school. She was a chaser for the Hufflepuff team and could get very, very mean. After a match with her, James had spent a week in the Hospital Wing.
“Braver man than I,” smirks James. “You’re a pshycho. Alright, lasht conquesht.”
Sirius tenses and inches away. “Evans,” he says with sparkling teeth and sparkling eyes once he’s safely behind Remus.
“WHAT?!” roars James, and he launches himself at Sirius. He slams into Remus who goes sprawling backwards with James’s weight on him. Sirius flees. “What?!” roars James again.
His hands and then knees and heels dig into Remus’s ribs as he flails to his feet.
“Shit!” snarls Remus, feeling fresh bruises bloom atop old ones. Sirius pauses mid-skip to twist his head and look at him, and promptly trips over Peter.
Peter yells. Sirius yells. And then James is there, hands wrapped around a laughing Sirius’s throat and pinning him to the floor, Peter trapped in a tangle of legs.
“You bashtard!” yells James, “You utter, utter bashtard!”
“Merlin,” chokes Sirius, tears of hilarity streaming down his face, “Merlin Prongs, calm down.”
“You shtole Lily’sh underwear you bashtard! You shtole Lily’sh underwear!”
Remus isn’t sure if Sirius is gasping out of laughter or pain. He staggers to his feet and lurches over. Gripping James by the shoulders, he pulls back with all his strength. He misses the days when James was a shrimp and Remus towered over all of them. Even so, it’s enough. James goes sprawling back, slamming into Remus and knocking him over.
“Fuck,” swears Remus, James now in his lap. He clamps his arms around James’s shoulders (unnatural werewolf strength his skinny werewolf arse) as the boy struggles to fly at Sirius.
Sirius, still laughing, sits up straight and rubs his throat. Peter looks shellshocked. Finally, James goes limp.
“You can let go now Moony,” he grumbles, glowering. “I have decided not to kill Padfoot, much as he deserves it.”
“I don’t believe you,” Remus informs him coolly. He wonders what time it is. Surely it’s near midnight by now?
“…Please?” pleads James.
Remus sighs. “Fine then,” and lets go. James makes a sudden movement, as if he were about to attack Sirius, but then falls onto his butt, looking glum.
“Bashtard,” he mutters. A thought seems to occur suddenly. He looks up at Sirius eagerly, “Do you shtill have ‘em?” he asks. “Whaddid they look like?”
Sirius stares at him, stunned. He laughs.
“Later,” he tells James, sniggering, “Now, I have one more, I think?”
Remus nods and then looks around for the paper. He finds it crumpled and forlorn a few feet away.
“Last resolution, beat Peter at chess.” Remus blinks. “That’s oddly… I don’t want to say mature, but, er, not silly?”
Peter was very good at chess and Sirius very bad. He didn’t have the patience before it.
“Did he?” asks James. He’s skeptical.
Peter’s mouth is a grim, thin line. “Yeah...” he mutters regretfully, “I underestimated him.”
“Last time you’ll do that Petey ol’boy,” smirks Sirius, cat smug.
“I don’t know if I’m more impressed that Sirius beat Peter at chess or that we didn’t hear about it for months afterwards,” says Remus, bemused.
James nods his agreement, and Sirius’s gray eyes get mean and narrow.
“What was it that you said again Remus?” He leans forward with a nasty smile on his lips, “Oh yes, I remember now. I didn’t say anything because…it was...special.”
Remus flushes and for the first time that night, he feels anger, sick and hot, go racing through his limbs. Sometimes it is amazing how quickly Sirius can draw a reaction from him.
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” he asks, teeth gritted.
Sirius’s eyes are guileless and deceptive. “Nothing,” he says sweetly, “Nothing at all.”
Remus crumples the paper in his fist.
(And days of Auld Land Syne)
“Alice!” someone shouts, sounding worried, “Alice!”
She recognizes the voice. “Oy, Frank, over here.”
Frank appears, coming from a different direction than that which Alice came did. He jogs over, his face smeared with soot and his sweaty hair plastered to his forehead.
Coming close, he frowns. “What happened?” he asks immediately, “I heard shouts.”
Alice sighs and wants very badly to lean against Frank for a moment. But the chance of getting caught is too high. The consequences are too great.
“Got into a duel, sir,” she reports, voice flat and expressionless. “A wizard and a witch in Knights of Walpurgis masks were caught at the crime scene. I was threatened, and they appeared to be discussing the crime. I-“
“Dammit Alice,” hisses Frank. “There’s no one here. You can just tell me.”
Alice screws her eyes tightly closed. Suddenly she feels like crying. “I placed the two under arrest. After facing resistance and more threats, I attempted to neutralize the woman, judging her to be the greater threat. The man responded with an Unforgivable curse. Several minutes of dueling commenced. The duel ended with the man and woman disapparating.”
She opens her eyes, and Frank’s jaw is very tight and straight.
“Fine,” he snaps, “If that’s how it’s going to be…” he straightens his posture and glares down his nose at his girlfriend, at his subordinate. “Commendable job in search and rescue operation Pendleton,” he barks. “However, upon engaging the alleged criminals, you should have called for back-up. Due to your lack of foresight, two suspects managed to escape. Upon arriving at the Ministry, you are required to file a report. When the captain arrives, you will report to him what you just reported to me. Clear?”
“Clear sir,” answers Alice, eyes set on Frank’s chest.
There is a pause, a hesitation, and both know what they should do, what the ethical thing to do is.
Neither, it seems, are very ethical.
Alice collapses into Frank’s arms, and he kisses the top of her head.
“Alice,” he whispers, “Alice you numbskull, you have to stop running off like this.”
They are silent for a long moment, content to be sharing the same space, breathing the same air. Content to be alive and together. Then, slowly, with a heavy sigh, Frank pulls away. He stares down at Alice thoughtfully. She blinks up at him, tired and shaken and bone-deep sad. She just wants to go to her flat-or his flat- and cry until she doesn’t have anything left in her, then sleep until she gets it all back.
“You know,” says Frank softly, “it’s the new year.”
Alice is taken aback, because it is. It is 1977 or near enough; Christmas was only a week ago. She shakes her head. “I completely forgot.”
Frank smiles gently. “Well, here’s a way for you to remember.” He drops to a knee.
“Alice Pendleton,” he intones gravely, magically producing a ring from somewhere on his person, “Marry me?”
(And days of Auld Lang Syne)
James, though drunk, is watching Remus and Sirius narrowly and steps in.
“Looksh like that’sh it then!” he says, almost too loudly and cheerfully. “How much longer till midnight?”
Sirius’s head twists quickly towards James. “Oh no you don’t,” he cries. His smile is still malicious, but there’s honesty to it, more teasing and less cruel. “You don’t get away that easy!” He stabs his index finger at James. “We still have to hold court.”
James freezes, eyes wide. “Er…damn.”
Sirius smirks, “I say yes, Wormtail says no.” He faces Remus and arches a friendly eyebrow, whatever tension that was there before now gone. “Whaddya say Moony? Does a single, disastrous date with Evans count as dating?”
Remus opens his mouth to weigh in on James’s side. Not because he agrees with James more than he does Sirius, but because James isn’t such a complete, barking mad prick. Because James doesn’t spin Remus through a carousel of emotions that leave him sick and confused.
Because Sirius is Sirius, and Remus hates him for that sometimes.
“Sorry Prongs,” he says, shrugging, “One unsuccessful drink at the Three Broomsticks isn’t ‘dating.’”
James blinks. Remus blinks. He hastily opens his mouth to correct himself. But then…it doesn’t matter. James is yelling and Peter is trying hard to not to laugh and Sirius has flung himself onto Remus and is hugging him fiercely around the middle and Remus is happy and stunned and silly and drunk and young.
The explosions of the fireworks more than cover up James’s screams of anguish: “Remus Lupin” he shrieks, face purple and orange and gold and green, “Remus Lupin, you are dead!”
(And days of Auld Lang Syne)
Alice gasps; her hands fly to her open mouth. All thoughts of the present situation beat a sudden retreat. She completely forgets where she is, and her reaction, she realizes somewhat ruefully much later, is sterotypical.
“Oh Frank!” she exhales, hands now fluttering down to clasp her chest, “Oh Frank of course!” Shaking and shocked, Frank rises to his feet. He grins nervously at her and pulls the engagement ring out of the plush velvet box and slips it on her finger. He doesn’t let go of her hand. The two stand there, beaming at each other, feeling ridiculously happy amidst the tragedy.
Alice stands on tiptoe to kiss Frank like he’s never been kissed before. She smooths one hand along his jawline, brushes aside a dark curl with another. She leans into him, lips parting slightly. Both of them are beginning to breathe just a little too shallowly.
“Pendleton! Longbottom! What in the fucking hell do you think you’re fucking doing?”
They spring apart, guiltily, like Hogwarts fourth years caught snogging in the broom closet.
It is only Caradoc. He looks fierce. But then, he is Caradoc Dearborn, and he always looks fierce. But now the flickering, dying green light of the flames is turning his face, handsome and hard, into all angles and shadows and grim, straight lines. His brown hair is shorn close to his skull and his Auror robes are ripped and stained. A body, hopefully still alive, is flung, almost as an afterthought, over one broad shoulder. He scowls as he jogs over to Frank and Alice.
“What the fuck are you thinking? You fucking idiots, fucking Dolohov is here. What the fuck’s he gonna do if he sees you like this? Have some fucking discretion.”
Then he spots the ring on Alice’s finger and does a double-take. He howls with laughter. With one giant hand he slaps Frank on the back.
“Longbottom, you old dog,” he wheezes, “Some place to propose.”
Frank grins slightly, still unsteady, “I was going to tomorrow, but, uh…” He shrugs, quizzical and helpless in the face of his own actions. “She seemed so upset,” he murmurs, more to himself than Alice or Caradoc.
“No matter,” says Alice, “I would have had the same answer then as I did now.”
She looks around one more time at all the bodies. Everything comes rushing back. A heaviness falls on her shoulders, and she feels bent beneath it.
“Nothing more we can do for them,” she says sadly, “Might as well report to Dolohov, and let the Maggles clean up.”
Maggles was the term used by the Auror department for those in the Magical Law Enforcement Squad, the ones who couldn’t cut it as an Auror.
Frank and Caradoc both nod, and the three, or four if counting Caradoc’s friend, stumble out of the building, putting out what flames remain as they do so. Outside they find their squad’s captain, Dolohov, and a gaggle of Maggles.
“’Bout time he showed up,” mumbles Frank. Even though he is Dolohov’s lieutenant, the two don’t get along well.
When they first started dating, back when Alice was a new Auror and insecure, she had sometimes felt that part of the reason Frank dated her was out of a perverse satisfaction in doing something Dolohov wouldn’t have approved of.
“Did you say something Longbottom?” drawls Dolohov, laconic in the way that the purest of the purebloods are. Alice’s back goes up, and she realizes that her squad captain reminds her of the killers that escaped. She shakes her head. She’s letting Frank get to her.
“No sir,” snaps Longbottom, and he springs to attention, staring at a point somewhere beyond Dolohov’s ear. A few of the Maggles titter, but a glare from Caradoc, standing at attention best he can with an unconscious Muggle, quickly silences them. Belatedly, Alice follows Caradoc and Frank’s example.
Typically, Dolohov decides to pick on her.
“Pendleton,” he smiles, silk and honey, “What a pleasure to see you.”
His line of sight makes it clear what part of her it is a pleasure to see. Next to her, Frank goes stiff. He is trying hard not to slug his superior.
Dolohov’s only doing it because I’m the first woman he’s had in a squad, she reminds herself, and only the third women ever in the department. He’s just trying to make me feel like I don’t belong, the sexist prig.
She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t have to; nowhere is it written that one must make small talk with the squad captain.
Dolohov’s lips curl into a slight sneer. “I see,” he mutters.
“See what sir?” asks Alice innocently. “My eyes are up here.”
Dolohov stiffens and turns several interesting colors. The Maggles gasp. A few chuckle awkwardly. Frank goes even stiffer.
The sudden hacking sound is Caradoc forcing back a laugh. He shakes his head helplessly when Dolohov, now purple, turns his icy eyes onto him.
“Sorry sir,” coughs Caradoc, “Swallowed air when I should have inhaled.” He coughs again, and Dolohov opens his mouth. Caradoc cuts him off, “Requesting your permission sir, I have little of interest to report. I will file a full report upon return to the ministry, but now request permission to bring civilian to a mediwizard.”
Dolohov is silent for a moment, sure that in some way Caradoc is getting a jab in. But he has no proof, and nods permission. Caradoc snaps a quick salute and sucks in air. He goes off chuckling.
Dolohov’s eyes return to Alice, and she knows she is in for it. The captain does not take lightly to being made a fool of. Something dark is flickering behind his eyeballs.
“Very funny Pendleton,” he snaps, having not yet hit upon her punishment, “Make your report.”
She tells him the same thing she told Frank, only adding that: “I was successful in disarming the male wizard. Requesting permission sir, I will hand said wand over to forensics.”
Frank shuffles and glances at her out of the corner of his eye, surprised and slightly hurt. Alice does nothing. It’s not that she purposefully didn’t tell him. She just forgot.
Dolohov’s breath hitches. “Let me see the wand,” he says sharply, immediately.
Alice blinks, but does as she is ordered. With her own wand, she taps the one in her pocket, and it goes levitating up. She’s already touched it, but she wants to contaminate it as little as possible. Dolohov has no such qualms. He snatches the floating wand and shoves it into one of the deep pockets of his robe.
“Job well done Pendleton,” he grunts, seeming to forget about her wiseass remark, “Dismissed. Report back to Ministry in two day’s time for a full debriefing.”
Alice doesn’t argue. She knows she just came within an eyelash of a suspension, but something about the wand has unhinged Dolohov. Caradoc’s example in mind, she whips out a quick salute and disappears.
She winds up at Frank’s flat. She stares at the door, purple and peeling paint, then lets herself in. She knows the spell. It’ll be awhile yet before he’s home. Being the lieutenant, he has a lot more responsibilities than a lowly grunt like her. Yawning, Alice sits down on his couch, an ancient flowered thing she suspects was found in his parents’ attic. A couple more hours won’t hurt, she tells herself, I can wait that long.
(And days of Auld Lang Syne)Sometime after the four of them stumble down the trap door and collapse in piles on the floor, Sirius wakes up. His head hurts, but not as much as his friends’ will. It is mostly dark, in that eerie, stillborn stage when the moon has dropped behind the horizon and the sun has yet to appear above it.
He stumbles to the toilet, groggy and disheveled. Coming back out, he nearly stumbles over Remus.
Sirius stares at him. He is sprawled out on the floor. One arm is flung over his face, the other is flopped over his stomach. A blanket lies crumpled at his feet, and Sirius can see goose bumps pebbling Remus’s arms and the thin strip of stomach shown where his shirt rides up.
Sirius leans down and covers Remus with the blanket. Straightening up, he frowns down at Remus, perplexed. He shakes his head, lets out a single clipped bark of laughter, and staggers back to his bed.
He does not remember the incident come morning.
(And days of Auld Lang Syne)
Around dawn, Frank wakes Alice up. Very gently, so as not to startle her, but she is still up in a flash, hand reaching for her wand. She calms down as soon as she figures out where she is.
“Hey,” says Frank, speaking and smiling softly. He is leaning over her, one hand on her cheek.
“Hey,” Alice says back, equally soft. She yawns and sits up. Gray light is beginning to filter through a window. Her teeth feel fuzzy, and every bone in her body aches. Frank sits down next to her, grimacing.
“How are you?” he asks.
Alice shrugs, “I’ll live. You?” She leans against him, and he begins to stroke her hair. It’s an absentminded gesture, but one full of affection.
“I will too,” he grunts, “May not want to for awhile. But I will.”
Alice huffs a laugh softly into his chest, “Good to hear.” A quiet moment of domestic tranquility follows until Alice breaks it with a, “Hey, about the wand, I-”
Frank cuts her off with a dismissive gesture. “Relax,” he tells her, “You were stressed. You forgot. I understand.”
Alice wonders how long it took him to reach that understanding and is suddenly, achingly glad that this is the man she has decided to spend the rest of her life with. “Good,” she mutters, then, “Dolohov sure seemed shaken about it though.”
Frank nods. “Sure did. Merlin knows why knowing him. Man’s insane.”
“Hmm…” says Alice noncommittally. Frank isn’t very soft, but he is very warm. She might just fall back asleep.
He snorts, “Whatever. Not my problem.” He rubs a thumb along her ear, “You were brilliant Alice, but you’re gonna get yourself kicked out if you say things like that. Dolohov’s an idiot, but he doesn’t like people showing him for one.”
“I know,” mumbles Alice, “I’ll be a good girl and watch my tongue.”
Frank pinches her earlobe, and she glares up at him to grumble. But it was only a ploy to catch her attention. He is wearing a huge grin. “Not for long, you won’t,” he informs her, “I checked protocol. There’s no precedent for aurors getting engaged, not enough females in our history. But in other departments, whenever two people who work together become engaged, they’re assigned to different tasks.”
“Which means…?” asks Alice.
“Which means,” says Frank, pressing her nose, “As soon as we announce our engagement, you’re getting transferred to a different squad and won’t have to put up with that slimeball anymore. I know Scrimgeour’s been looking for a good man, or, er, woman, to put on the dragon smuggling ring.”
“Ah,” says Alice. “That’s good. I’m glad.”
She is too tired to think about the future beyond more sleep.
“Good,” says Frank, “I’m glad you’re glad.” He chuckles lightly. “So, fiance, it appears we have the day off. Whatever shall we do? Your wish is my desire.”
“I’m sure,” drawls Alice dryly. She sighs, “Right now, I just want to sleep.”
Frank is silent for a moment, then sighs heavily. “Me too love,” he says.
He stands up, takes Alice with him. She squeals and struggles in his arms, but not seriously, and allows herself to be dragged to the rumpled queen bed that takes up most of his bedroom. He dumps her on it, and she quickly grabs all the covers and cocoons herself. Frank laughs, and the center of gravity shifts as he sits down.
“Happy New Year,” he tells her, pulling some covers away.
Alice snuggles up next to him. “Happy New Year,” she whispers back.
He is already asleep.
(And days of Auld Lang Syne)
“He’s struck again,” says Minerva McGonagall wearily, leaning in the doorway to Dumbledore’s office.
She looks grim.
Dumbledore sighs and stares glumly down at his hands. He hasn’t slept that night. He doesn’t sleep most nights.
“I know,” he replies softly.
Minerva doesn’t ask how. She would have been surprised if he hadn’t. She adjusts her glasses, a nervous tic.
“Most casualties yet. They even attacked an auror.”
Dumbledore nods. None of this is new. He is thinking. McGonagall lets him.
Finally, he says, “Inform Minister Bagnold I wish to have a meeting with her and whomever else she thinks is pertinent.”
Minerva nods, “Anything else Albus?”
Dumbledore smiles slightly, “Always have to be one step ahead Minerva.” He pulls open a drawer in his magnificent desk and takes out a stack of parchment. “I’ll have some letters I’ll want sent when you return.”
McGonagall exits. Dumbledore does not immediately begin his correspondences. He sits back in his chair and gazes out the window. The grounds are quiet, still. Fresh snow fell during the night, and everything is smooth and white and pure. Smoke drifts lazily from Hagrid’s cottage and for once the Forbidden Forest is tame; its dark boughs bent and innocent beneath the snow. The students, what few remain at the school for break, sleep warm in their beds, unaware of the changing world. It is peaceful, and it is a peacefulness he would (and someday will) die to protect.
He bends over the parchment and writes, by the time McGonagall returns he is finished, or almost. There is a list of names as well, and he hesitates to put the last two names down. He hands her the first copy of the letter and, after a hesitation, the list.
McGonagall reads the letter quickly her lips thinning and going white as she does so. Finished, her eyes skim over the list and then snap onto Dumbledore.
“Very well Albus,” she says, her voice tight and thin from suppressed emotion. “I’ll send the letters out immediately.”
She turns to leave again.
“And inform Ms. Evans and Mr. Potter as well,” says Dumbledore, winning the war against his heart.
Minerva freezes and turns to stare at him. “But Albus!” she exclaims, “They’re so young!”
“And Tom will kill them all the same,” sighs Dumbledore, “They are adults Minerva. They must learn the world is not as safe as Hogwarts.”
There are other, better reasons for his decision. But Dumbledore is in no mood to justify. He can barely justify it to himself.
Like sending babes to the slaughter, he thinks. The war hasn’t even officially begun, and already he is tired.
“That will be all Minerva,” he tells his right-hand. “That will be all.”
Minerva nods, not trusting herself to speak, and leaves.
Fawkes, his plumage a glorious sunset of colors, trills a question.
Dumbledore shakes his head. “No Fawkes, “he answers, “Tom is an entirely different man from Grindelwald. This will be an entirely different war.”
Dumbledore does not realize it is the new year. If he did, he would not much care… It is a difficult thing to spend most of one’s life old.