Unofficial Portkey Archive

Chapter Seven

"I'm a failure, Pete," James said, putting his hands over his head. Sirius and Remus refused to listen to him whine, so he went to the next in line. Peter, ever wanting to please James, offered to take him to the nearest bar. Though it was Muggle, it had the stuff to make James happy, or, in this case, more depressed.

"No you're not, Prongs!" Peter chirped hopefully, as the bartender brought by another whiskey. "You just...need a bit of encouragement."

James hiccuped. "My mum, my best mate, Remus, nobody's been able to-hic- help me!" he said, banging his head on the table. "Get me firewhiskey!" he whined. Peter kicked him to shut him up.

"Have you gotten yourself a girl yet?" James asked, sighing, and looking at him forlornly.

"No, Prongs, I haven't-"

"You need a girl. You're still a virgin," he stared at the ceiling. "More firewhiskey!"

"Prongs!" Peter flushed. "Look, I think you've had enough-"

"I'm not a bloody house elf!" James growled, grabbing the front of Peter's robes. "Get. Me. MORE!"

"Potter, kindly quiet yourself before I break the statute on secrecy and hex you quiet," came a hoarse voice from down the bar.

It took a moment for the two of them to register who was mocking them from a little corner in the bar. Peter, the more sober of the two, realized it first and was quick to switch to cautionary mode. James, after blinking and swaying a bit, stood up, nearly knocking his stool over. He went for his wand, but Peter stayed his hand.

"All right-hic- Snivelly?"

Severus Snape poured some more vodka into his tiny little glass. Then he turned his head to look at James, who was near falling on himself. He turned around the look straight again. "Better than you, apparently."

"Having fun killing the Muggles?" James asked, throwing his hands around. "Going to hex everyone here when you're done drinking their stuff?"

Snape took another drink, and sighed. "Your feeble mind cannot...." he trailed off.

"I haven't heard you taunting me from behind that mask, there, Snivelly, afraid you'll get caught- "

"James..." Peter whined, pulling him back down.

"Your fat friend is right, Potter, you're making a scene."

"Not so tough out here in the open, are you?" James said, throwing his hand out and knocking over the bottle of whiskey. He didn't even make notice to it. Snape said nothing, but continued to drink.

James, hand still on his wand, was about to whip it out and hex Snape when there was a loud banging noise from the doorway. James turned his head slowly to see who it was, grabbing onto Peter for support.

"Forget what day it is, idiot?" came a snarling voice. Sirius marched over to James and Pete, seething. "I've been looking all over the bloody place for you! And here you are, getting drunk?"

This set James off again. "Sirius, I'm a failure!" James whined, throwing himself onto Sirius and clinging to him.

"Black, please stop this disgusting display of bonding," Snape sneered from the bar. "It's making the rest of us ill."

Sirius pushed James off of him gently (but James clung to his arm) and turned to the source of the voice. "Snivelly? Of all the bars...huh?" He noticed the almost-empty bottle of vodka and smiled. "What's the matter? Killing innocents taking its toll on you?"

Snape said nothing, but downed another glassful.

"Paddy, Paddy, Paddy," James clawed at him. Sirius rolled his eyes and put both of his hands on James' shoulders.

"Look, we have to be somewhere, remember?" he said, very vaguely. "Do you think you can Apparate?"

"I-erm-don't think that's a good idea," Peter shook his head. "He's had a fair bit-"

"And why the hell did you let him have it?!" Sirius turned on him. "Not too smart, Peter, not too smart."

Peter retracted into himself, but then said, "You can use my fireplace...if you want..."

Sirius hoisted James' arm over his shoulder and shook his head. "Fine, I suppose it's the least you can do after you got him into this state."

Sirius turned to look around the bar, but Snape had disappeared. He adjusted James on his shoulder again and helped him out of the door.

When Sirius and James appeared in Dumbledore's office, a group of people were already there. The office was spacious, but nearly bursting at the seams from all the people in it. Sirius had to drag James by the arm into a corner so that he wouldn't attract attention in his drunken state. When they passed by Dumbledore, who was talking with Frank Longbottom, both of them gave him odd looks, but maybe it was because James had burst out laughing while pointing at Frank.

After securing a chair in a very unobtrusive corner, Sirius plopped James down and stood in front of him, shielding him from view. He was most irked at his best friend for not thinking about the meeting, but he wasn't going to let him make a fool out of himself, because that's what best mates were for.

Lucky for James, (as she would have made a very large scene yelling at him) Lily was on the other side of the room, chatting animatedly with Alice, and did not notice how her boyfriend's head was lolling about.

However, as soon as James spotted her, he let out a large cry of anguish that caused several people to turn and stare at him. Sirius cleared his throat loudly.

"Stomach virus," he nodded, and people scooted away from the two of them.

"Why the bloody hell did you get drunk?" Sirius hissed to James after they had gone.

"I'm a failure!" James moaned rather loudly. Sirius shushed him, but decided not to provoke James to talk further. All Sirius wanted to do was get this meeting started and over with so he could get James home to sleep it off.

Dumbledore seemed to have finished his chat with Frank and rose to his desk, a symbol that the meeting was starting. James' head was still bobbing up and down on it's own, but there was really nothing Sirius could do about it that wouldn't bring more attention their way, so he tried to make the both of them as inconspicuous as possible, but there was no need. As long as Sirius had known him, Dumbledore had that talent of silencing a room with a single hand wave.

Sirius had only vaguely understood why Dumbledore called all of the Aurors together. They always had things to talk about, whether it was about the latest movements of Voldemort or talking about problems with communication between Aurors, but Sirius knew that it was something more. The feeling of being back in Hogwarts, at least for Sirius, made him feel so connected with Dumbledore and made him want to reaffirm his allegiance to him. And with so much uncertainty among Aurors, it was a good feeling.

And speaking of uncertainty. "Frundus Musell's location was known by only myself, Bartemius Crouch, and a select group of other people," Dumbledore said, heavily, of a muggle-born official who was recently found murdered in the spot most considered him to be safe in. "Though we are not quick to jump to conclusions, we are afraid that someone very high up is leaking information. Therefore, I must caution you to not speak idly to co-workers or friends."

Sirius' eyes narrowed and they swept the room. He noticed Remus was not in attendance.

"These spies may be under the Imperious Curse, or they may be threatened, or they may even be doing it of their own free will. They may lie in the Ministry, they might be your neighbor, they may even be your best friend."

Remus' absence was taunting Sirius again.

"However, I urge you that we must stay united, else we will fail," Dumbledore warned. "These are untrusting times; we cannot see all ends. But one thing is certain. What Lord Voldemort wants is to break up the resistance against him. He will do that by planting distrust in all of us. Do not let him do it."

"Albus," came the small voice of Alice Longbottom. "You're telling us that there is a spy, but you're also telling us that we must trust each other."

Dumbledore nodded, gravely. "There is a fine line between caution and distrust. Be cautious, but do not accuse idly of treachery. When we all start accusing, the real spy may slip through our fingers."

He suddenly broke into a large smile. "To end this meeting on a lighter note, we have successfully foiled ten Death Eater attacks and saved twenty-three people!"

The Aurors looked among themselves shiftily. That was only half of what they had accomplished last month.

Dumbledore rose from his seat and signaled the end of the meeting. Sirius turned to James and saw, gladly, that he had fallen asleep.

However, when Sirius turned around, Lily was standing in front of him

"What's wrong with him?" Lily asked, curiously.

"Um..." Sirius gulped. "Stomach virus...you know..."

Lily looked concerned. "Why didn't he tell me!?" She leaned down to check his temperature. That was when she got a whiff of his breath. Her face hardened.

"Stomach virus, hm?" she sniffed, grabbing the scruff of James' neck away from Sirius. "We'll see about this 'stomach virus.'" She walked into the fireplace and Floo'ed to her flat with James in tow.

"You asked for it, James..." Sirius rubbed the back of his head. He caught Dorcas' eye from across the room and she winked at him. Smirking jovially, he sauntered across the room, and the two of them Apparated away together.

Lily was nearly hoarse when she Apparated to Remus' flat two hours later. She had decided to go check on Remus because back at her own flat, James was near tears in headache pain and loud gasps of pleasure were echoing in from the flat next door.

Remus was fast asleep in bed, and looking quite peaky. Lily sat down on the edge of the bed and put a warm hand to his bare back.

"Remus?" she shook his slightly. He blinked and looked up, yawning slightly.

"Lily?" he rolled onto his back and sat up. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to give you your medicine..." she frowned at the bruise encompassing his chest. "Remus, that looks horrible."

"Doesn't hurt," he lied.

"I'm sure..." she pulled out a large glass container of a purple gel substance. "Are you hungry?"

"No, not really," he lied again, but this time his stomach gave him away.

"I'll go fix you something, all right? You start rubbing this on," She opened the container and handed it to him. He gagged.

"Couldn't you do something about the smell?" He covered up his nose.

"Well, you aren't going out on a hot date tonight, now are you?" Lily said, pointedly. "Would you rather be in even more pain during your transformation?"

"It doesn't hurt-"

"Don't lie to me Remus, it doesn't work," she said, standing up and kissing his forehead. "I'll be back in a little while."

She set herself to working in the kitchen, and nearly blew a gasket when Remus came wobbling out of his bedroom.

"I'm fine, really," he said, pointing to the less-full container.

"Good," she went back to making lunch for Remus. "Do you know what the idiot did today?"

"There is no telling..." Remus snorted.

"He showed up drunk to Professor Dumbledore's meeting!" she nearly shrieked.

"Was Sirius drunk too?"

"No...at least, I don't think so..." Lily thought. "The numbskull told me that the idiot had a stomach virus!"

Remus was used to these loving "pet names" for his two best mates. "Well, I'm sure he was trying to save you the trouble of being mad at James."

Lily bit her lip, worried. "I'm really...he's been acting very odd lately."

Remus played with the napkin. "Er...odder than usual?"

"Yes...Remus, please don't laugh at me for thinking this but..."

"I wouldn't laugh at you," Remus says, honestly.

"I think he's trying to propose to me," Lily flushed.

"Really?" Remus looked surprised. "Well, that's great!"

"Yes, but the problem is that he can't seem to get it out...and maybe that's not even it...maybe there's something else wrong with him."

"Perhaps-"

"Professor Dumbledore told us that he thinks there might be a spy among us," she started slowly. "You don't think that he's..."

"Lily, of course not," Remus shook his head. "As if there would be a spy among our group?"

"You're right, you're right...maybe this Auror business is getting to him...has he told you anything?"

"Nope, can't say that he has," Remus shook his head. He wasn't going to spoil the surprise of knowing that there was a surprise for James. "But I don't think he's in any sort of trouble."

"He knows that he can tell me if he is, right?" Lily said, handing Remus his lunch.

"Yes, he does. And we would tell you if there was something life-threatening going on with him," Remus assured her.

"And you don't think he's a spy?" Lily asked.

"Do you think he's a spy?" Remus tilted his head.

"No, not really," Lily laughed. "I'm really grasping for straws here..."

"Are you worried that he's going to propose?"

"Oh, hell Remus, I don't know!" Lily came around to sit down next to him. "I mean, for one thing, we're really young. I'm not even twenty yet! And for another, our jobs just...what if one day he dies? Or what if I die? Or what if we hate each other and get a divorce?"

"In the first place," Remus said, putting his hand over hers to quiet her. "You worry too much."

"I know."

"In the second place, if either of you should die, Merlin forbid, would you rather spend the rest of your life wishing that you had married him?" He patted her hand again. "It is better to know what it feels like to do something and hate it, than to spend the rest of your life wondering how it might have been."

"Better to love and lost than never to have loved at all, right?" Lily smiled.

"And I don't think that James would let you divorce him. He'd throw himself off of a building if you left him, I'm sure."

"He would not!" Lily pushed Remus playfully.

"He would too," Remus pushed back.

"He's going to get sick of me one day..."

"After nine years of gawking after you?" Remus shook his head. "I doubt it."

"You're a good guy, Remus," Lily put her head on his shoulder. "You'll make some girl very happy some day."

"I don't think that's a possibility," Remus scooted away from her. "Anyway-"

"Remus?" Lily asked, concerned. "Why is that not a possibility?"

"Don't think you've read the latest article in the paper, hm?" He pushed the Daily Prophet over to Lily and opened it to the fifth page.

"'New werewolf regulation takes steps further to keep half-breeds in line. The new law, which states that werewolves are not permitted to live with humans-' Oh this is ridiculous!" Lily fumed.

"Not really, I mean, I really shouldn't be allowed to live with others, I might bite-"

"One evening, Remus, one evening you are a danger to others. And they should have enough sense to just get out!" She nearly tore the paper up in her hands.

"Well, it's just as well, you know. No one in their right mind would live with a werewolf-" He trailed off, knowing the angry look in Lily's eyes would just worsen if he continued.

"You are a human being, Remus," her voice shook. "You are a human being and don't ever let anyone else tell you differently. These people-" she gestured to the paper. "These people are horribly nasty people."

"Lily-"

"I'm sending my idiot over tonight," she stood up, sniffing. "You take care now." She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. "I'll be by tomorrow. And don't forget to put that stuff on your bruise every hour on the hour."

"Yes Mum."

"Oh you..." she threw her arms around him and hugged him. He winced as she made contact with his bruise, but hugged her back. She wiped tears out of her eyes and looked at him. "They shouldn't be allowed to treat other people like that, Remus. You wait, one day things will be different, even if I have to pass all of the legislation myself."

"Lily, don't worry about me...I'm used to it-"

"But you shouldn't have to be used to it," Lily sighed. "I'm sorry that people treat you this way..."

"But you don't," Remus smiled at her. "And James, and Sirius, and Pete...that's all that matters in my mind."

She kissed him again on the forehead. "You go get some sleep. I'll send along the boys later on."

Remus nodded and Lily Disapparated.