FIC: It's Not Over (3/??)

[sokorralewis]

Title: It's Not Over
Section:  3 of ??
Category: Harry Potter (Athena-verse)
Rating: PG due to Language
Pairings: Athena/Sirius,  Athena/Other, James/Lily
Summery:  While investigating the bedroom he had gotten, James Black uncovers a photo album that brings back some memories for his parents.  Both sad and happy.



After everyone was doing whatever they planned for the evening, James decided to investigate the house. After all, it was his family home for generations; he wanted to get to know the people that had driven his parents to leave home and everything behind. He decided to start in the room he'd be staying in.

The room he had been given to sleep in belonged to his Uncle Regulus. He knew that much from the fact that the walls were decorated in Slytherin colors and there were still things scattered around the room as if it hadn't been touched except for a quick cleaning to keep the dust at bay since the day Regulus had died. Old school books, clothes, even posters still remained. The closet was still filled with school uniforms.

At the end of the four-poster bed was a chest. Inside were the normal things one would find, blanket sets, pillow cases. However while investigating the chest; James made an even bigger discovery. A series of floorboards rose when he hit it trying to keep a hold on where he was standing while leaning to find out what was at the bottom of the chest. He paused in his search to look at the floor boards. The chest had covered them up normally, but since he moved it to have more room to search, they had been uncovered. Under the floor boards was a collection of artifacts (if that was what you would call them) that one would not expect to find in a pure blood boy's bedroom. There were a couple of books by muggle authors (in particular The Dead Zone and Jonathon Livingston Seagull), some comic books, a wooden box with some muggle money, a record player and a few Beatles and Rolling Stone albums, a couple hardbound notebooks and one photo album.

Jamie picked up the photo album first, opening it to find various pictures of Regulus and others. There were quite a few of him and Sirius. Some had slightly burned edges which made James wonder if perhaps his grandmother had decided to wipe all pieces of Sirius from the house and Regulus had rescued some. He knew that if his mother had ever been that mad at Zara, he'd probably do the same thing.

He did start to notice that the pictures were in chronological order. The book wasn't that big, so there were only so many pictures. There was enough however to get a picture of his parent's childhood. Athena was in a lot of the pictures, usually with James and Sirius and later Remus.

Towards the back of the book was a page with a single picture. It was Muggle in nature which surprised him, given the location. It looked like the Great Hall from Hogwarts, with Gryffindor Banners hanging around in the background. The focus of the picture was a group of friends though, sitting at a table in front of the banners. It must have been cold outside as they all were wearing winter clothes. He could recognize most of the people in the picture, even though he knew them as much older then they were there. His parents sat next to each other to the left, his mother slightly leaning on his father with her arm around his shoulder, paying attention to whatever James was saying. They were both smiling and looked like they were laughing. Beside Sirius were James and Lily, both looking extremely happy. James was clearly telling the story. Too bad it was a muggle picture or Jamie would have tried to read what he was saying. In front of that group sat Remus Lupin, and a blond-haired boy he didn't recognize. No, that was wrong. He did recognize the boy, but he didn't know the name. His mother would never identify him when they would be looking at pictures at home (which was rare, mostly it was done with Lily and James who also ignored the presence of this boy).

Below the picture in a silver script was 'The Marauders and Friends - June 1977’. He ran his fingers over the words. The writing wasn't his mothers, nor James and Lily's. He turned the page but before he could get a good look at the picture and its description a voice caught him of guard.

"What's that?” He looked up to see his father leaning in the doorway. He looked a little more presentable then earlier that day, but he still looked weak and a little worn down.

"Aren't you supposed to be in bed?"  When James and Lily had left him an hour before after a few hours of talking they had said he had looked really tired.

"Couldn't stand not moving around. I was going to go downstairs when I noticed you looking at that," he said pointing to the photo album. "You left the door open.” Sirius walked in and sat on the floor next to him, slowly as he was still not as great as he would like people to believe.

He then noticed the pile of muggle items that James had put aside. Curious he looked at them.

“Are these yours?”

“No, I found them under the flooring here,” he responded with a motion towards the open storage area. “I figured that they were either yours or Uncle Regulus hid them for you are they were his.”

“Well, I’m relatively sure they aren’t mine. I’d ask your mother.” Sirius found it odd they were there at all. Even if they somehow ended up being Athena’s he couldn’t see Regulus saving it. The pictures were one thing, Regulus was always a bit sentimental, but he wouldn’t have saved albums and books.

Deciding to think about it later he switched his attention over to the photo album and was surprised once again. There was a picture from the last week of school. They were all outside by the lake. James, Remus, Peter and Sirius were playing around towards the right of the picture with a snitch. Lily and Athena were on the other side talking. It was a Wizzarding photograph, so every so often he could see Athena and Lily turn their head and glance at the Marauders with a smile. It was the day after his relationship with Athena had changed and about two weeks before Lily and James had announced their engagement.

He didn’t know who had taken it or how it had ended up in my brother’s procession. At the moment he was just remembering the moments around that photograph?

~*~
June 1977

Sirius awoke the next morning with a very healthy headache. Groaning, he moved over so he wasn’t quite falling off the bed, only to find his way blocked by another body. He curled up around it, deciding to let it go. He often had girls in his bed, maybe not so many this past year, but still enough that it wasn’t a new experience.

Without opening his eyes (damn sunlight), he tried to figure out who he’d brought back this time. Whoever she was had long hair, it was everywhere. Smelled like lilacs and had really soft skin. He risked an eye and opened it to look at her. Blond hair. Blond hair that smelled like lilacs.

Oh, God Athena. How the hell did he get Athena in bed with him? Oh, right. He was her ‘ruiner’. Gee, didn’t that sound lovely. He let the gentlemen come out and beat the bloody crap out of the other voice. He tensed when she made a sound and shuffled in her sleep, bringing her closer to him.

He had to admit, bad reasoning aside, that there was something natural about this. Like she was supposed to be there, like she belonged there. He sat up a little and brushed her hair off her face. She looked peaceful, like she had no worries. And the necklace was gone. He kissed her collar bone.

“Sirius, what are you doing,” she mumbled half asleep. Her eyes hadn’t opened so he wondered how she knew it was him, since he hadn’t figured it out right away.

“Kissing you. How’d you know it was me?”

“Pine. You’re the only guy I know who regularly smells like the woods.” She smiled and opened her eyes. “And I took a potion yesterday to overcome the hangover. I must have forgotten to give you some.”

She leaned up and kissed him on the side of the mouth before fall back on the bed and wiggling her way back to comfortable.

“Sorry. What time is it?” He smiled at her. They could sleep in today so she wasn’t worried about classes.

“I really don’t care. I’m not getting out of bed till this headache goes away.”

“Poor baby.”

“Nice hair.” She reached up at that commented and felt her bed hair. It was everywhere.

“Your fault, and your hair isn’t exactly perfect, Mr. Suave.”

“You’re very cheerful today.”

“Again, hangover potion before hand. And notice I’m not killing you. I didn’t even have to write the bloody note.”

“You say that now, but if you hadn’t, I’d be dead and you’d be calling Lily up here to help you dispose of the body.”

~*~

They arrived at the Seventh year special breakfast where only the seventh years and some of the professors dined. This was one of the special things happening during their last week of schooling. A special late breakfast time was wonderful. Plus they all sat at one table so house sorting was suspended. Athena sat between Lily and Remus while Sirius, James and Peter took the other side. They took up the end of the table closest to the doors.

Things were good till Adrian Kovac appeared. The Hufflepuff seeker had been interested in Athena for awhile now, but it seems now that officially she was available, he had finally gotten up the courage to ask her. That was not the bad part. The bad part was that Athena had said yes.

James and Lily said nothing of it, despite that both were a little stunned. James noted the hurt expression that Sirius quickly covered up. Remus and Peter, having come back to the boy’s dorm last night knew what had happened between Sirius and Athena watched with shocked expressions. Athena seemed to be oblivious to everyone else’s response.

Later, after breakfast was over and the Marauders left to go play near the lake, Lily took Athena aside.

“What’s going on?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why are you going out with Adrian? I thought you were with Sirius.”

“First of all, I’m not with Sirius. Not in any official capacity anyway and we both agreed it would be just a one time thing, although how you know about it I don’t know.”

“James thought you two would get together by the end of the year. Said something had changed between you at New Years.”

“I’m not sure what James means.” Lily sighed. She knew Athena was lying but she also knew now was not the time to push it.

~*~

Sirius wasn’t sure who he was more annoyed at, Athena or himself. He knew she hadn’t expected an actual relationship beyond what they already had. Usually he didn’t go for long term relationships anyway, but somehow that morning he had wanted one.

He wasn’t in love with her, not in the way you’d expect. He loved her as a friend, one of his best friends really. Perhaps it was better this way. They wouldn’t go down that road and end up ruining their friendship when eventually they ended it.

But it still hurt that they didn’t even talk about how they were going to deal with what they had done. Not even a ‘this is just a random thing’ speech from either one of them. James kept giving him looks, as if asking if he was ok, which he was. He was ok, and they would be ok. James believed in that romantic stuff that they had long ago stopped believing in. Fate, destiny what-not. Athena in particular didn’t believe in that. She believed there were too many factors to control to have a destined fate. Not to say she didn’t believe in love, she did. She just didn’t think it was all the roses that everyone seemed to think it was.

It didn’t matter much anyway. The night, a dozen death eaters attempted to attack Hogsmeade. The Marauders, Athena, and Adrian had all been apart of the battle. At the end, Adrian died and everyone at least had one minor injury. James and Peter had been hurt the most, but luckily medical help arrived soon. That was what cemented Athena’s desire to become a medi-witch and his own to become an Auror.

~*~

“You know, I remember that picture.” Both Jamie and Sirius looked up to see Athena standing behind them with a look of contemplation. “Regulus took it.  He was experimenting with various cameras. He told me he took it afterwards.” She sat down on the floor in front of them and got a closer look at the photograph. “It was our last week at Hogwarts, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. Right before the whole Hogsmeade incident.” Jamie raised an eyebrow in confusion as both his parent’s faces turned sad at that moment.  Neither seemed to catch it as no explanation came forth. So he just turned the page.