the broken places

They’ve got a short leash on him. Remus can’t claim to be surprised, not after what he did - absolute silence for months near forces The Order to keep a closer eye on him, but the trade off is steep. Not being there, with James and Sirius - not being allowed to help - he hasn’t been able to sit still. Not since the others headed out. He had tried to do something useful, folding blankets and fluffing pillows and washing dishes by hand, but tasks had run short and something inside of him could not stay still, so Remus had taken to pacing. Skulking through the house, feeling all too much like a caged animal.

It’s the sound of a key in the door that has him lurching to the couch, trying to look less - less wild. More like the settled figure he projects, less of a risk, less like someone about to outstay their welcome in a home already full enough without him. It’s the sort of talk Remus knows James and Lily would bat away and insist against, but he knows he can’t stay too much longer. No one wants a stray - even friends. He’s only just settling against the cushions when James’ appearance has him lurching up again.

“What happened?” It’s Sirius. Remus knows already - even without knowing what happened, without having to be told. That look on James’ face is reserved just for Sirius. Something went wrong. Remus is across the room in an instant, though he holds back at the last moment, hands hanging useless by his side.

Stepping back into the cottage, James finds himself squinting against the soft glow of several lamps in the living room and his gaze falls to his watch, noting the late hour. Remus had stayed up. And, he guesses, judging from the state of the house, had been anxious tidying. James knew that things had been hard on Remus, that since his return people had been treating him with kid gloves and as if he couldn’t be trusted - something James knew would be pricking at a very deep insecurity inside the other man.

And normally, James would do his best to soothe his friend. That no matter his conflicted feelings about Remus’ behaviour and choices, he would want him to feel safe and loved and appreciated.

That was, of course, however, the role of a James who had not just spent the last few hours beside what could have been Sirius’ deathbed. This James was far, far more frazzled.

Glancing down at the blood smeared down the front of his shirt, James lifts a hand and carelessly rakes it through his hair, tugging tightly on the strands as he does so. “Mission went badly,” he says, eyes watching the cautious way Remus approaches him, “I don’t know, I wasn’t there. He was paired with Fabian and Lily. Bellatrix got him.”

There’s no need for more words. He and Remus both know exactly the vendetta that Bellatrix Lestrange held for her estranged cousin.

“He’s fine now, he’s at Mungo’s. He’s awake, or he was...Lily made me come home,” James says, voice cracking with the effort, “We almost lost him, Moony.”

He was being short with her, and Lily knew she deserved some of that. But, at the same time, there had never been a lack of temper inside of Lily Evans; even when she was just a little girl swaddled in her mother and father’s arms, her voice was strong and her grip tight. Some said it came with the red hair, Lily would argue it was just who she was. When life snapped at her, she refused not to snap back. That defensive habit of her’s welled up inside and she had to fight the urge to be short in return. “James, I trust you more than anyone in the world,” she insisted as patiently as she could. 

“But…” A deep inhale. “But there are some things that I need to learn to deal with on my own. I need space to think - to figure things out for myself. After I found out about the baby there’s been so many things for me to sort out in my head and my feelings and this was one of them. I needed to work on something to combat this. I needed to act and I wasn’t sure with what and then it came to me and I wanted to create it.” Lily shook her head and cut herself off. She had led him to the table, the one place she had hoped to serve as many guests as she could invite for dinner and never having had the chance to use it that way just yet. The war kept them all busy. Instead, it was filled with papers and folders - that night especially.

“This is it. Rhea is… it’s from mythology.” James knew she loved those books. As a little girl, the magic and stories inside them had always inspired her. “Titan mother of the Gods, there’s a whole story where she saved her son Zeus… It’s just a code word.” She handed him a paper with the name and a lion symbol. “It also refers to research, hospitality, extraction and care. It’s for mothers and their children - the ones in danger from the curse.” Lily spoke with a sense of confidence now as she explained. “We’re going to offer a safe house for child expecting families, especially the muggleborn and halfbloods. It’s all explained there. They’ll all be able to support one another and receive care together in a safehouse - maybe more safehouses when we can get them. We’ll be doing research on how to fix this and how to keep the mothers and children safe while they’re in our care.”

James’ arms are still tightly crossed against his chest, despite his desire to drop them. He knew that he was being somewhat unreasonable; that Lily very rarely hid things from him, and when she did, she was likely to have a good reason for doing so. But something about his innate stubbornness, combined with his own terror and anxiety about everything around them made it impossible for him to relax. “Do you?” he says sharply, before his face softens, shooting his wife an apologetic glance.

“And you’re allowed that. You’re allowed figure things out for yourself like that...but you could have told me so,” James says finally, his voice unwavering, “That’s when you say ‘hey James, I need to figure some things out on my own’, and funnily enough, I’m actually capable of giving you space, you know.” Casting his eyes over the mess that was their dining room table, unsure of how he had ever missed such a thing, James frowns down at the scattered piles of parchment, not trusting himself to speak again, lest he say something stupid that he might regret.

Instead, he listens, head tilted in Lily’s direction despite his determination not to look at her just yet. He knew that were he to see her face for long enough, all of his pent up frustration was likely to just melt away and he refused to let that happen just yet. James hums lightly in response to her musing, recognising almost immediately Lily’s proclivity for anything mythological before he feels the full weight of his stomach drop beneath him, his head jerking upwards. “You’re going to start a safe-house? You?” he says, forehead creased, as his words splutter out in a panic, “Lily...the kind of danger that would put you in...you can’t.”

James' feet drag against the still-slightly frozen ground with exhaustion. He only truly lamented the loss of Apparition at a time like this, when he had to fly a broom halfway across the country in the middle of the night. His clothing is still splattered with streaks of Sirius’ blood and there are large, purple bruises under his eyes from exhaustion.

If James had had his way, he would never have left the hospital, would never have left Sirius’ side, but Lily had all but forced him to leave, promising to watch over the other man. Placing all of his faith in his wife, as James was wont to do, he had returned to their cottage in a haze, determined to change his clothing and forego a nap; anything to return to his best friend sooner.

As the front door creaks open and James’ house keys jangle in his hands, his eyes are automatically drawn to the soft flickering of light in the living room, and he takes a few steps forward, peering inside.

His mouth curled into a distressed frown, James tries his hardest to look reassuring, for Remus’ benefit, but he knows that he fails miserably, his shoulders shrugging in defeat.

“He’s okay. He’s alive.” 

Lily had spent days silently researching on her own, hoping to gather enough intel and information to create a convincing argument for the Initiative’s necessity in the Order. Today had finally been the day she presented the entirety of her plans to her tier as well as those superior. Now that everything was set up and approved, Lily had gone home fully rejuvenated with her success. But there was also another matter to attend to: telling her husband.

So when he finally came home that night she hadn’t expected him to bring it up before her. She hadn’t expected him to know, not when he hadn’t been at the meeting and certainly not when it hadn’t been her to tell him. “How did you-?” Lily cut herself off, tense shoulders falling flat and her head shaking. “James… it’s something for the Order.” She approached him. “Until tonight, none of it was relevant, okay? No one knew. And keeping it to myself until now wasn’t for any other reason than trying to concentrate on my own.” Two years ago, Lily had pressed pause on her own career goals to commit fully to the Order - but this had certainly been the first time she took something completely into her own hands. If her husband understood just how ambitious his wife and former Prefect to Head Girl could be, Lily figured he might eventually realize it’d been something she hoped to do since the very beginning.

… Not that that would change how disappointed he’d be she hadn’t been the one to tell him. Lily was filled with apprehension as she gestured for James to come with her to the large guest dining room. The table had been covered with her research and papers, ready for her to show James after she’d had a moment to prepare him. But now that easing him into her plans was out the window, Lily wasn’t sure how to start explaining. 

For the first time since he was a lanky fifteen-year-old, James feels uncomfortable in his skin. There was something almost crawling beneath the surface, as if the tension and the fighting and the constant pressure was starting to build up, hurtling toward an inevitable explosion. Had he been sleeping properly and eating properly, James might have been able to think things through rationally.

But instead, the exhaustion that tattooed his very being seemed to rule and so James was overcome with a feeling of almost betrayal.

He shared everything with his wife, literally everything, and yet she had been hiding things from him. His arms are crossed tightly across his chest and before he can quite stop himself, James takes a step back from Lily’s advance, needing a moment of separation while he dealt with the tattered ball of feelings that were festering deep in his gut. “People mentioned it at the Estate,” he says gruffly, eyes fixed on one half of LIly’s face, practically staring at the blank wall behind her at the same time, “I overheard. Your name got mentioned.” His sentences are sharp and James hates himself for being short with her, almost as much as he hates being left out of the loop.

How was he supposed to protect Lily when he didn’t know everything he should be protecting her from?

“Yeah, but I’m not anyone, Lily. I’m your husband. Your partner. You’re supposed to tell me these things,” he retorts. James knew what Lily was like, knew the stubbornness that ran through her veins just as well as he knew the stubbornness that ran through his own, and it hurt that couldn’t trust him with this. That she hadn’t let him in on her inner thoughts and ideas when he so often spilled his everything to her.

James follows Lily into the dining room (ever so unsure as to why they even needed a formal dining area in the first place), his arms still crossed tightly against his chest and his feet dragging petulantly against the floor. He does not speak as he enters, knowing it was now down to Lily.

If she even wanted to.

Sirius hated being the reason for the distress that he clearly saw all over James, but what could he do? For once, Sirius really hadn’t gone out looking for a fight, focused on trying to find something he wasn’t even sure of in the event that their former leader might have left something useful behind for them. It was supposed to be quick, in-and-out, maybe no longer than an hour, and then they were supposed to regroup and leave to debrief. Simple. Bellatrix wasn’t supposed to be there, and with that ghastly mask he wouldn’t have known it was her in the first place if he wasn’t able to recognize his cousin’s voice anywhere. No one else wanted to murder him as much as she did, and in that moment, they were finally alone.

He always thought he could take her hit for hit if it ever came down to it, and briefly he did as he landed an unforgivable on her, but ultimately he was proven wrong. Once she found out he survived… Promise me to stay safe.

“You know I can’t,” he whispered, looking into James’ eyes and forcing himself to hold them. James looked a wreck, and here he was stuck to his bed, unable to try and comfort his best friend. “This is war, Jamie, and she has a vendetta against me, you know that. Once she figures out I survived somehow, I’ll be surprised if she tries to be careful again before attacking. I can only promise to do what I can, but that’s all. I won’t make you a promise I can’t keep.” A blush dusted James’ cheeks, and Sirius beamed as he confirmed it. Lily’s pregnant. He didn’t need to know the how, and he didn’t need to worry about the future with the Curse, but right now, he was absolutely ecstatic, trying to shove himself out of bed to go to him and stopping when a sharp pain went through his body. 

“Get your bloody ass over here so I can hug you, Prongs. You’re gonna be a dad!” He paused, then smiled wider. “I’m gonna be an uncle! Holy shit!”

For almost his entire life, James had felt things in extremes. He laughed hard, he hurt hard, he fell hard. When James Potter befriended someone, they got all of him; the joys, the sadness, and his unending loyalty, no matter what they did. Despite the loud and angry claims of a certain former classmate, James had not thrown himself down the passage of the Whomping Willow out of a sense of self-guilt and to cover his own arse. He had felt guilt, of course, but it was the guilt of knowing he had let Sirius down, that he had let Remus down, and the knowledge that he would always use whatever power he had to ensure that those he cared for would be safe.

For every inch of love that his friends had been deprived; from Sirius and Marlene’s families, to Lily’s sister, to Remus and Peter’s insecurities and loneliness, James had made it his job to love them tenfold.

So to see Sirius splayed out in front of him, to be covered in his blood and to know that had he been any later, he would have lost the first and best friend he had ever had, had broken something inside James that he wasn’t sure he was able to fix. A burning rage seems to bubble inside him, and not for the first time, but perhaps for the most violent, James was overcome with the urge to show Sirius’ former family exactly what he thought of them.

“Then you make a promise that you’ll bloody well try to keep,” James blurts finally, both hands raking through his hair despite the dirt and blood caked beneath his fingernails. “I know reckless is your middle name, but you can’t add ‘stupid’ to it as well. If you bloody die on me, Black, I swear on Merlin’s saggy ballsack that I will drag you back from whatever blasted afterlife there is, just so I can murder you again, okay? You don’t get to fucking leave me. You signed that friendship contract, alright.” James laughs derisively, blinking back the few tears he can’t quite keep away, “I’ll get your name fucking stamped above my ass if I have to, but you’re not dying on me. I forbid it.”

Moving closer to Sirius’ bed, James throws his arm loosely around his best friend, smacking a loud and wet kiss to the other’s forehead. He tries to be as gentle as he can, determined not to hurt the other boy, but Sirius’ enthusiasm is infectious and James finds himself bouncing slightly on the spot. “You’re going to be a godfather, actually,” he says, tilting his head a little. “There’s no one else we want. Well I mean...Frank’s pretty great, and so are the Prewetts, and I suppose we probably shouldn’t rule out old Vern just yet…”

Something in her, something quiet and tense that Alice hadn’t even really taken notice of her, relaxes when she realizes the figure, backlit against the glow of the hall, is just James. James, who wasn’t at the party - who was at Hogsmeade instead. A different kind of attack. Is it wrong for Alice to wish she had been there, too, rather than at the party? At least that kind of violence is one she knows how to fight; slinging spells and running breathlessly to aid comrades is Alice’s job, both in the Order and the Ministry. Sitting around and grimacing out polite nothings between her teeth and unknowingly ingesting something meant to kill her is more difficult to fight.

“Can’t say you’re wrong on that one,” He does so often look like he’s up to something, “What’re you waiting for out -” She frowns, face going taut with pain for a moment as she shifts herself on the bed, curling knees up and turning on her side to better face the door, cheek pressed against the cool fabric of the pillow, “Out there? Trying to scare some poor mediwitch?” Alice tries to sound like she’s fine. Like this isn’t terrifying. She has been through worse, but still - still.

She wonders who else is in the hospital tonight. Other Order members were hurt, but Alice isn’t sure who; Frank hadn’t been and she had shooed him off to be debriefed and sleep in an actual bed tonight rather than the uncomfortable chair tucked in the corner of her room.

This isn’t right. How had no one noticed? Someone slid poison into the drinks and Alice hadn’t seen it, hadn’t been paying enough attention to spot the culprit. She has her suspicions, of course - so many Ministry employees leave her feeling uneasy and curious about their intentions - but she hasn’t any idea where to start.

James remains in the doorway for another long moment, although he takes a small step forward as to not accidentally creep Alice out. He had only heard of what had happened at the Ministry through passing; having been so caught up with Sirius and his accident that he’d barely had time to even sit down, let alone read up on the inevitable incident reports that would be clogging up everyone’s in-tray. 

It had been a night for chaos, it seemed, and yet somehow James had been lucky enough to miss both incidents by the skin of his teeth; something that caused nothing less than a crippling conflict inside him. Could he have been able to stop either thing from happening? Or would he have ended up in his own hospital bed beside his colleagues, his friends?

Jerking forward at the sight of Alice’s pained face, James moves further into the room, his forehead crumbled in a frown. Like most people, he hated seeing others in pain, but it always seemed to be so much worse when one genuinely cared about the person in question. As much as they all joked that he was Alice’s work-husband, despite the presence of her actual husband in the office, James considered her one of his closest friends and one of his favourite people to work with; which only made the whole ‘almost losing multiple people’ thing even worse than it had been.

“Frightening mediwitches, being generally handsome, considering sticking a portrait of myself on the wall outside to see if anyone would notice...you know me; the usual,” James teases, although his tone is less jovial than normal, and he eventually gives up entirely. “There was an attack at Hogwarts. Sirius’ is here as well. They kicked me out, so I’ve been wandering, and I wanted to check up on you all.”

Mary chuckles, “If you two are old and boring, then what does that make me? At least you’re still technically teenagers, full of life. I’m a twenty year old grandmother. Pretty much every waking moment I spend wishing that I was actually at home with a book.” She jokes, though, lately, her own company was more lonely than anything else, her mind far too active even when she didn’t want it to be, running through thoughts and emotions quicker than she could keep up, and keeping her far too distracted to do anything so pleasant as reading. “Not right now, of course. Right now I’m happy because you’re cooking and are probably the only person I know who can do it.”

Mary hums. A date. It seemed so… normal, it made her smile. Even while everything seemed so dark around them, she could depend on James and Lily to be something better, something brighter. While it could just as easily make her jealous, she actually found comfort in their relationship, something true and solid and good in a world that was ever changing and becoming increasingly worse as time dragged on. “I think she’ll like that. Of course, she’d probably still like it if you did absolutely nothing and just sat on the couch. I don’t know if you’ve realised, but I think she quite likes you.”

“Sometimes Mare,” James says with a shallow laugh, “I feel like the oldest teenager on the planet.” It was odd to think about sometimes, that he had somehow managed to achieve so much before he had even turned 20: a wife, a house, a baby, and yet he still felt so lost and confused on a regular basis. “I feel like I’d give a lot to be able to just go back to Hogwarts for a few weeks. Play a few pranks, pretend to pay attention in class...make me feel like a...well, like a kid again.” Winking joyfully at Mary and her compliment, James leans against the closest surface, wishing he still had his wooden spoon to wave about. “Cheers, MacDonald. My mami would be proud. She taught me almost everything she knew.”

For some other people, admitting they had planned a stupidly romantic date for their wife might be a cause of some embarrassment, but James was far beyond such things. There was no pretending that he wasn’t utterly besotted with Lily, and had been for several years, and if taking her out and adopting a kitten together was enough to make her smile as of late, James was all too willing to give it a try. Merlin knew they needed it. “Hell, I’d hope so. Given she married me and all. I mean I know I’m a sunning specimen, but she’d have to have appreciated my personality too, right?” he laughs, shifting forward as the oven timer chimes.

“Ready for this?”

At first James thinks he heard incorrectly. It had only been in passing and his head was often in the clouds as of late, so it would have been easy to pass it off as a misunderstanding. He had barely taken his first sip of coffee, holed up in the kitchen when he had first heard the voices. The sound was muffled and barely audible, but there was no ignoring the name mentioned, not when James had always been so in tune to it: Lily.

In a moment he was not proud of, James’ mug had slipped from his grip, shattering on the tiled floor and he had found himself with his ear pressed against the kitchen door, not wanting to alert those speaking to his presence.

He had not learned much, aside from a few keywords here and there, but it was enough to send his already high-stress levels into a new form of overdrive. James was glad that he had the night off, but as he took the first few steps past their front gate, the waves of uncertainty rush over him again, and he can’t stop the tense twisting inside his stomach.

The front door opens with ease and barely a creak and for a long moment, James soaks in the familiar warmth. His ears are already pricked to the sound of his wife’s presence nearby and her greeting barely leaves her lips before he finds his own words blurting forth.

“Mind telling me actually what the Rhea Initiative is?  Or are we already at the stage of marriage where we’re keeping secrets?”

Creative, considerate and so endearingly so. All the passing years and all that they had been through since the war begun and James had not lost that tact. When all hope seemed lost and when things looked the bleakest - it was her husband and only him to whom she looked first. He was her steady light. No matter the circumstance, he always found a way of making things brighter. With all the fear and the apprehension about their baby, James had still managed to cook up a surprise that he knew she would love. 

And maybe it was the hormones, and maybe it was all the excitement, but Lily’s heart seemed fit to burst. Her smile hurt. It could all her restraint not to wrap him in the tightest embrace just so she could spare the kitten from getting smushed. But as if reading her mind, he came close and offered a loose hug. And it was better than nothing. Lily leaned into it, her cheeks sore from a that joy she had not been able to feel for some time. However brief it might last, it was a small moment like this that made all the pain and suffering of their lives worthwhile. 

I feel like I’m going to need a lot of that. “I think we both will,” Lily said with an affectionate tone, looking down at the kitten with a face full of love. She would not take James’ apprehension as anything more than natural. They were both inexperienced and afraid. But she had no reservations that her husband was practically created to be a wonderful caretaker after watching him with his friends for as long as she had. “Oh, I am not letting her go,” Lily said briskly in response. Her face, for a moment, comically serious. “She is our’s now. A mini Potter.” A smile broke through, though Lily turned to look at the last few kittens and it pained her not to just grab the entire box. “They’ll find homes too, right? She’s making sure of it? You’re going to have to take me home quickly before I lose every ounce of self-restraint I have left, James.”

Angling himself just enough to encase Lily against him, while causing no damage to the kitten between them, James holds his wife close to him for a long, silent moment. They obviously were able to spend copious amounts of time together: their commitments to the Order, nor his job, had changed that, but James couldn’t help but feel a little bit needy when it came to Lily as of late. Perhaps it was the residual fear of losing her like he had others before or some form of hormone she was exhibiting, but James relished in any opportunity he could to have her near.

Pulling away reluctantly, James holds the kitten equally as close, eyeing off its tiny face with a slow smile. It was hard to feel anxious and stressed when looking at something so utterly tiny, which James supposed was half the reason he wanted them to adopt a cat in the first place: for one more sense of normality in the whirlwind that was their lives as of late. It was simply an added bonus that Lily was so utterly besotted with the thought.

“I just draw the line at dressing the kitten up, or purchasing it a crib,” James says lightly, allowing the note of amusement to flood his voice. It was well and good to joke that the cat would be their baby, but he knew that their actual child, should they get there, would be a whole different story. One that he was certainly not ready for right this second, and was highly unsure he would be ready for come Lily’s due date. Handing the kitten back into Lily’s grasp with a laugh, James shakes his head casually, despite the widening grin in his cheeks. “Minnie Potter, hey?” he notes, “What do you say we name her for the Professor who brought us together? Seems only fitting and all.” Spotting Lily’s gaze, James nudges her away from the box with a gentle hand to her lower back, unable to stop his sly smile. 

“I’m pretty certain that your lack of self-restraint is what got us into our ‘other’ situation, so let’s not add a whole carton of kittens to the mix, hey?” he teases, watching the way the kitten curls underneath Lily’s neck. “Most of them have already been adopted and are just waiting to be picked up. If there are any left over...well, I’m sure we know a few people who could use the company, hey?”

Sirius knew he was in for it the moment James cast a silencing charm on the room, and no matter how he braced himself, he would never fully be prepared for the onslaught that was James Potter’s mother henning.

He could vaguely remember James and Amelia arriving earlier that day, focused mostly on the hurt that filled his entire body and the lightheadedness that came with quite a bit of blood loss. Everything had been blurry around the edges, and then he’d heard James’ voice–James, who seemed to save him time and time again. Sirius wanted to be the one to save him in return for once, or take some of his burdens away, because Merlin knew that he deserved to have an easy life. What he saw now only reinforced that thought: his best friend soaked in his dried-up blood, looked stressed to high heaven, and seemed as tired as Sirius felt. He winced at what the actual fuck, Padfoot and sighed.

“Look, you act like I went and found the fight. I was literally just doing my job, and then the she-devil popped up out of no where and had it out on me. Much as I act like it, I don’t actually have an active death wish.” Passive, maybe. Sirius opened his mouth to continue defending himself, but something James said stuck out like a sore thumb, and his jaw dropped instead. “Your kid? James, are you and Lily..?”

Holy shit,  he was going to be an uncle, wasn’t he?

James’ reputation for mothering his friends had long since preceded him, although he was unsure of just how many people outside his circle of friends was aware of it. Nevertheless, there was no pretending that Sirius didn’t know exactly what he was in for from the moment James uttered the first charm. It wasn’t that James wanted to lecture his best mate; Merlin knew they had gotten into shitloads of strife together in the past, but there was a distinct difference between ‘detention’ and ‘confrontation with Bellatrix Lestrange’ that had catapulted James straight into levels of stress he hadn’t felt in at least three days.

In fact, it may have sent him past his current record of stress levels and straight into a new stratosphere of stress, if the way James’ heart had raced and stuttered and ached for the last few hours meant anything. His own skin was tacky with dried sweat and blood, and James was fairly certain his hair was three times the mess it normally was, and not in the ‘just got off a broom’ sexy way but the ‘hey my best friend almost died and I feel like I wanted to die too’ way.

Sirius’ protests and explanations fall on almost-deaf ears as James’ own start to ring and he leans heavily against the closed door, lest he do something embarrassing like collapse to the floor. “You gotta promise me to stay safe. You have to stay safe,” James blurts, feeling the slight blush that echoes on his cheeks as he realises what he had said. Well, that wasn’t how I wanted to do it, he thinks, before signing deeply and meeting Sirius’ dark eyes. “Lily’s pregnant,” he says, realising this was the first time he had spoken of such a thing to someone who wasn’t the woman in question. “’bout seventeen weeks. We think it was the wedding night, maybe just before.” An almost-hysteric laugh bursts from James’ chest before he can stop it, and he’s surprised to find his eyes damp with unshed tears, “I’m gonna be a dad, Padfoot.” 

“How can he possibly be lonely with so many wonderful neighbours over at Plainview?” Mary questions, making a show of acting aghast. Though Plainview was small enough that everyone knew everyone else living on the seventh floor – and the fact that they were all Order members certainly helped – it wasn’t difficult to feel a little lonely at times in a place like that. Though Mary knew her neighbours, it was difficult to talk to them about a lot of the things she was going through, even if it felt like they were all going through the same things – she hadn’t considered that other people living there might feel the same way about the place.

“Hm…” Mary hums, clicking her tongue as she considered the question, “It depends on the cat. Clyde wouldn’t because he’s exceptionally lazy. If you get a younger cat, they might try and hunt him, but they usually give up on that once they realise the bird isn’t going anywhere.” Mary herself had never had an owl, but they’d been a staple of Hogwarts dorms, and, for the most part, her cat had always left them alone, even when he was young. 

“Good idea.” She says with a nod, “You have to make sure their personalities mesh. Kind of like wands.” She laughs. Many people hated the way cats were so temperamental, preferring dogs for that exact reason. Mary had always liked it, appreciating the fact that the animals had distinct personalities and moods, like her, they could be two completely different creatures depending on what sort of mood had struck them that particular day. “A date?”

“You know how he is. Sirius Black is an exceptionally needy human being,” James says, although his tone is filled with nothing but warmth toward his best friend. If it came down to it, James was pretty glad that Sirius liked to visit as often as he did: it made James feels as though not everything had changed once they had graduated Hogwarts. Time might go by, but James Potter and Sirius Black still needed one another more than anything.

“I was planning for a younger cat, one that’s a bit lively. We’re becoming quite old and boring around here as of late,” James says with a laugh, “We need a little one around here to spark it up.” The words slip from his mouth just before James can realise the deeper connotation of them, and he swallows roughly, hoping beyond anything that Mary won’t make any links. In any other circumstance, it would seem natural for their friends to assume a baby may come along sooner rather than later; they had married so quickly after all. But with both the war and the curse, James hoped it would take far longer for any of them to make a connection.

Smiling brightly at Mary’s question, glad for the distraction from his current existential crisis, James finishes bundling up the little pastries and slides the tray into the heated oven, before turning to lean heavily against the kitchen bench. “Yeah, a date. Her birthday’s coming up and all, so I wanted to take her out, see her dad. Do something just...dumb and married coupley. Distract us from the...well, the hell it is out there at the moment.”