Beyond Hogwarts cont; Chapter Thirty-Eight

-=Beyond Hogwarts, cont.; Chapter Thirty-Eight=-

Funerals were getting to be a matter of course, Lily thought dryly as she stood a few feet away from the edge of Marlene’s grave two days later, watching the pallbearers carry the formerly brilliant, brave, and friendly witch’s casket towards the dark and uninviting hole cut in the frozen ground. Almost everyone that was able to come had done so; this was the first mass funeral at which the wizarding community had been completely outraged. It was one thing to kill people because of the dislike of a race-not that it was perfectly fine to do so; quite the contrary-and it was another to murder a pure-blood witch whose only fault had been to witness her friend being blown to bits without an apparent cause besides a fat lot of light. No one except the members of the Order of the Phoenix could see rhyme or reason in this.
   As the days after the McKinnon family’s murder went by, more and more wizarding children were being withdrawn from Muggle schools and private wizard-run schools for those not yet in Hogwarts and were growing accustomed to being home-schooled. Unless there was a pressing reason to, no one flew at night anymore, and it was not considered odd anymore for people to frequent charm shops in search of luck-bringers and ill-fortune guarders. A new business had been founded in London, one composed of wizards that had made it their profession to erect protective wards around homes and other buildings, and they did not have an open space even for more than a fifteen-minute lunch break until Christmas.
   Lily was growing dangerously worried for Severus. She had seen him only very infrequently as of late, and he looked horribly sick; he constantly looked exhausted, his eyes were ringed with dark gray, the pallor of his face was growing close to transparency, his usually impeccable posture was wilting slightly, something it had never done before, and it was only seldom that she could wring a smile from him.
   Finally, she was able to figuratively twist Arabella’s arm to the point that she was given a complete schedule for one week’s working hours, and the last Wednesday in November contained a free evening; she was off from four in the afternoon onwards. Informing James that he would be sitting through dinner with Severus that night, she owled her friend with an informal invitation in the way of a command to visit.
I am not taking no for an answer; you’re coming to dinner at six o’clock on Wednesday night and that’s that. I do not care if Lord Voldemort has you down to de-bone prisoners of war without magic tonight; you are excusing yourself and taking the time out of your schedule to tell me if James is only being nice about my crème brûlée, which he insists is quite good was an excerpt of her imperious letter, one intentionally written to make him laugh. Severus never failed to find it amusing when she pretended to be an almighty, commandeering empress, but, consequently or not, Lily opened the wreathed door to him on Wednesday night at six with a platter of twisted chocolate wands balanced on one hand.
   “Hullo,” she smiled tantalizingly, holding out the mound of sweets. “Here, come inside and have some.”
   For a moment, the old glitter returned to his eyes, and he accepted the offer, feeling like a mannikin with dust on its shoulders as Lily brushed the snow off of his cloak before taking it from him to hang it up.
   “You really are the god of punctuality,” Lily laughed. “Come on, dinner’s ready. We’re actually eating in the dining-room tonight, instead of in the library.”
   “You’ve discovered migration, I see,” Severus commented, but let himself be pulled across the hall to the aforementioned dining area. He noted that someone had clearly had been having fun with Christmas decorations; large, draping billows of red silk ornamented the area just below the place in the entrance hall where the ceiling ended and the wall began; gold stars were dancing around the silk and all over the ceiling to well-known Christmas tunes that little silver stars were playing on actual minature instruments, fir and pine branches were placed in vases and decorated with sprinklets of snow and gilded walnuts hung on a golden string, and evergreen garlands were looped around the banister of the large staircase that led up to the first story of the house.
   “It isn’t December yet,” he pointed out, brushing a bit of gold stardust out of his hair as he was led into the dining-room.
   “Yes, that’s what Sirius said,” Lily grinned. “But it’s snowing outside, so we thought we’d get a head start, since the weather is.”
   James, under strict orders of politeness to Severus, greeted him with a benevolent nod, and Severus responded rather stiffly, taking the proffered seat. However, the food whisked onto the table by both Lily and Slenka was quite good enough to make amiable enemies out of the two of them, and dinner passed relatively well. James was controlling himself decently, Hogwarts was not mentioned, and Severus was not being provoking.
   “I was not lying about the crème brûlée,” James informed Severus, when it came around to dessert, as he sat eyeing the large bowl of the custard and caramelized sugar crust. “She doesn’t seem to trust my word for it, though.”
   “Yes, because right after tasting it you popped a Cockroach Cluster in your mouth and didn’t realise what it was until after you’d swallowed it!”
   “Well, true,” James admitted. “But that is entirely beside the point.”
   “I don’t suppose the words ‘Is not’ would be accepted right now, would they?” Severus asked, donning an amused expression.
   “You heard about Marlene McKinnon and her family, didn’t you?” Lily broke in quickly.
   “Oh, yes.” Unaccountably, Severus suddenly fidgeted, and he appeared quite uncomfortable. “Yes, it was..ah…talked about.”
   “What’s wrong?” Lily queried perceptively, taking his wine-glass from him and refilling it. He looked up quickly and met her glance before turning his attention to the spotless tablecloth.
   “He-the Dark Lord’s-beginning to suspect something. More people keep showing up at those raids than are supposed to, and-“
   “How does he know how many people are supposed to show up on raids?” James asked, indignant.
   “We have spies within the Ministry,” Severus said in the tone of one talking to a supremely dimwitted child. “I would have thought that even you would be able to figure that out by now.”
   “You have got to be joking,” James protested. “The Ministry does checks on everyone periodically-there’s no way-“
   “Mr. Potter, have I, during the entire course of our deplorably long acquaintance, ever joked?”
   “No,” James acknowledged, “but now would be a really nice time to start.”
   “As the case stands,” Severus said irritably, “I am not joking. Of course we have spies within the Ministry, Potter; what kind of overthrowing force would we be if we didn’t?”
   “You could always uplift the tone of your army by getting rid of the loony in charge,” James answered mildly. “But go on.”
   “Your band of idiots had better be more careful,” he responded coolly. “That is all I have to say.”
   At a commanding glare from Lily, James forced his face into a painful smile and nodded. “Er…yeah, thanks.”
   Amused, Severus raised his eyebrows at Lily and met the same “get-along-with-him-if-you-don’t-want-to-be-cursed-into-flobberworms” stare. Comprehending exactly why James had not hexed his ears into the toilet at his last remark, Severus shut his mouth.
   “You couldn’t tell us who those spies are, could you?” James asked hopefully, spearing a chocolate-raspberry mousse ball on the end of his fork.
   “I happen to like living,” Severus said condescendingly. “And living without much pain.”
   Letting the subject drop and not commenting, as he would have liked, that quite a lot of other people would be delighted if Severus would expire, and that, if the subject were ever put to the vote, Severus would most certainly be kicked into a volcano without delay, James settled for reaching across the table and taking control of a plate of chocolate pudding and heaping about half of it onto his plate.
   After dinner, Lily insisted that Severus stay the night. “It isn’t healthy,” she told him, “this holeing yourself up in your laboratory and not having any contact with anyone else at all.”
   “I most certainly do speak to other people!” Severus retaliated, indignant.
   “Yes, since Death Eater meetings are so unforced and social, of course. You are spending at least one night without your mess of potions, and you are not staying up half the night, either.”
   “But I have to-“
   “Do you want the blue room or the red one?”
   “I-“
   “Fine, then. Slenka, would you light a fire in the lilac room next to the small staircase, please?”
   “No!” Severus yelped. “That is, er-red will be fine.”
   Lily smirked in his general direction. “I thought so.”
   “You’re turning into a worrywart grandmother,” James grinned, slinging an arm over her shoulder. “Come on, it’s late, and we have work tomorrow.”
   Giving in with a laugh, Lily hooked her arm through Severus’. She walked him to his room, where she spent a few minutes checking the state of the fire, setting down an assortment of sweets on the bedside table, drawing the curtains, lighting the candles in the elaborate bronze candle brackets fastened to the wall above the bed, and checking the supply of towels in the connected bathroom.
   “There,” she finally said. “I hope I haven’t forgotten anything.”
   “Most people would let their house-elves do this,” Severus enlightened her by way of an answer.
   “Yes…but this is a bit more friendly, don’t you think?” She plumped up one of the red velvet-covered pillows, cast a last glance around the room, and nodded. “Do you need anything else?”
   “No-no, I’m fine,” he assured her. “Go to sleep.”
   “I will,” she smiled. “Goodnight, then!”
   With a whisk of her long, auburn braid, she hugged her friend and left the room, closing the door with a soft click. And, for quite some time after she had vanished, Severus, temporarily out of touch with reality, could not take his eyes away from the door through which she had disappeared. The scuffling of a busy house-elf just in front of his door startled him out of his reverie, and, swearing at himself under his breath, he deliberately refrained from letting his gaze wander to that particular spot until he fell asleep.
   The next morning, James awoke before Lily did; Vera, now a grownup and sleek cat, had fallen asleep on his neck, acting for practical purposes just like a furry muffler. Yawning and shoving Vera aside gently, James drew the curtains open, noted the increase of snow on the balcony since the past night, and glared at the clock, which advertised that he and Lily would have to be at work in an hour and a half. Resignedly, he shook Lily gently by the shoulder.
   “Wake up,” he whispered. “Seven-thirty, and we’ve got work.”
   “Umm,” Lily mumbled through a curtain of hair. “No…”
   Languidly, she sat up, shaking her head. Something about her appearance, though, struck James as a bit out of the usual.
   “Are you feeling all right?” he wondered, scooting closer to her. “You’re all…pale.”
   “Bit of a headache,” Lily said, shrugging it off. “Is it still snowing?”
   “I’ll get you some coffee,” James promised. “You look as if you haven’t slept all night.”
   “That’s about the way I feel,” Lily smiled. “Coffee sounds good.”
   Slipping his arms into a blue bathrobe, James hurtled downstairs in his typical style of ex-Chaser with too much sugar in his bloodstream. Smiling vaguely at her husband’s antics, Lily swung her legs out of bed and stepped towards the bathroom.
   Suddenly, taking her by surprise, her knees buckled underneath her and she fell quite ungracefully to the floor. She was startled more than anything else, but the next moment she was forced to fight back a wave of nausea that swept her body, leaving her with an aching throat and stomach.
   “Ow,” she whispered, leaning against the bathroom doorframe. “What on earth…”
   “I gave Slenka the order for coffee,” James announced, returning with a bounce in his stride. “I-say, Lily, what’s wrong?”
   Swiftly kneeling next to her, he pushed her hair out of her face and took her chin in his hands. “Tell me. Are you all right?”
   “Just…sick, I think,” Lily replied, rubbing her throat ruefully. “I almost was sick; it hurt badly trying not to be. Might have had too many sweets or something.”
   “You’re staying home today,” James decided with finality. “I’ll fix Arabella and the rest somehow, but you’re staying here. In bed.”
   “Okay,” Lily sighed, letting her head drop onto his shoulder. Slipping his other arm underneath her knees, James picked her up and set her down carefully on the bed.
   “I’ll tell Sirius and Remus and Peter to come and look in on you,” he said, pulling the blankets back over her. “And-er, want me to get Snape to stay?”
   “He can’t; he’s got to be somewhere,” Lily mumbled through the pillow. “It’s all right.”
   “I’ll ask Lora, then.”
   “I won’t be much company,” Lily warned drowsily. “You-go to work.”
   He did leave for work eventually, a half-hour early, and he dropped in at Sirius and Remus’ flat, Peter’s temporary room in a Hogsmeade lodging-house, and Lora’s apartment. Severus left, too, though he would have much rather stayed behind, but Lily insisted that she wasn’t really all that sick.
   Just after Severus left, Lily tried to pick up a book from her bedside table, but before she could do so, her eyelids closed and she was fast asleep. Hazily, she dreamed of a blizzard and James dressed in a long, white, furry robe with Father Christmas’ sack of presents slung over one shoulder, but around ten o’clock the dream drifted away and the vision that slipped into her sight was that of Lora, comfortably ensconced in an armchair, and knitting away at something that looked like a long, thick, lavender worm.
   “Hullo,” Lora greeted her. “Feeling better?”
   “Er,” Lily said intelligently. “What’s that?”
   “What, this?” Holding up the purple worm, Lora examined it carefully. “It will eventually be a scarf. I’m teaching myself how to knit.”
   “Oh.” Shaking her head, Lily sat up, moving the cat off of her feet. “That’s a pretty color.”
   “I like it,” Lora stated. “Anyway, are you feeling better?”
   Lily nodded. “Almost perfect, really. Just a bit tired. I don’t know what was wrong earlier.”
   “Yes, James was a bit worried,” Lora admitted, putting her knitting aside and winding up the ball of yarn. “He Apparated into my flat and asked if I could please keep you company today, as you were feeling sickly, but he looked as if you had managed to cut off your arm.”
   “He worries too much,” Lily said indistinctly, reaching for a piece of toast from a platter on a table that Lora had moved next to the bed, along with the armchair. “Well, at least this means a day away from the Ministry. And James said that he’d get Sirius and the rest to check in, so we’ll have company.
   “Sirius?” Lora asked, suddenly alert. “Oh.”
   “What about him?”
   “Er, nothing,” Lora flushed. “I-no, nothing, really.
   Sirius did, indeed, drop by around noon, just when Lora and Lily were sitting down to lunch in the large living-room. The snow had let up a bit, and, with the curtains on the French windows drawn, the crystalline white landscape could be seen clearly from the long divan filled with pillows, the one that the two women were occupying.
   “Hullo,” he greeted them, swinging carelessly into the room. “James said you’re sick.”
   “I was sick,” Lily corrected. “I’m feeling quite all right now. Have some casserole?” She gestured towards the glass bowl on the table with her fork. “We’ve got to have some help eating it, don’t we, Lora?”
   “Oh-er, yeah,” Lora said wittily, mentally smacking herself the split second after the words left her mouth. “Of course. We’d love to. Have help, that is.”
   “Sit down,” Lily invited, patting the pillow next to her and moving away the folds of green velvet that had been draped carelessly across the lounge. “Lora, hand me a plate, will you?”
   Obligingly, Lora passed Sirius the third white china plate that the two had brought out for anyone that might drop by. “So,” she asked, “do you know if anyone else will be visiting the lonely and the sick?”
   “Remus can’t,” Sirius said, heaping the dish with casserole and pie. “Work. Peter should be coming, though; he was rather delighted when he heard there was a chance to have a decent meal for once. None of us can cook, you know,” he grinned. “We’re all hopelessly incompetent, though Pete’s better at it than either Remus or me. I still burn water, though,” he said thoughtfully. “Talents like that have made the take-away Irish restaurant down the street from our flat rich.”
   “Well, come over more often, then,” Lily invited languidly, trying to ignore the advancement of what promised to be a severe headache. “Our house is too big for just four.”
   “Four?”
   “Slenka and Vera.”
   “They can’t take up that much room, can they?” Sirius asked skeptically.
   “Vera has shed enough for me to construe several dozen cats out of her discarded fur, and Slenka scuttles around so quickly that she seems like three elves instead of one. But this house is still quite large.”
   “You’re complaining about having a mansion,” Lora noted, “and you are making me want to hit you.”
   “I’ll stop, then,” Lily said, acquiescing uncharacteristically and letting her head fall onto a pillow. The absence of a comment, however, puzzled Sirius into scrutinizing her carefully, and he drew his eyebrows downward after a few moments, setting his plate aside.
   “Lily-you look as if you’ve been hit with a battering ram,” he stated unkindly. “You’re not quite all right.”
   “Oh, Merlin,” Lora exclaimed, jumping up. “Lily, you should have told me that you weren’t feeling okay; I wouldn’t have dragged you downstairs-“
   “I’ve got a headache,” Lily interrupted. “Stop fussing over me, honestly!”
   “That’s the Lily I know and love,” Lora nodded. “You’d better try to sleep some more. I’ll get Slenka to give you some sort of concoction.”
   Sirius stood up from the divan gallantly, picking up a white afghan, shaking it out, and draping it carefully over Lily. “Take care of yourself,” he murmured, gently tucking the blanket around her shoulders.
   “You said about the same thing just before we went to fight the Death Eaters on that first raid,” Lily said wryly. “I do not plan to die from a headache.”
   “I will rephrase, then. Don’t do anything stupid, like a snowball fight while you’re still sick like this,” Sirius amended with a smirk. “I’ll see you tomorrow, probably.”
   Softly, he closed the door to the large living room, stepping across the marble entrance-hall floor as silently as he could. In the kitchen, Lora was briskly whisking together two powders in some warm milk.
   “Hey,” Sirius muttered nervously, “tell me if she gets any worse, willl you?”
   “Oh-yeah,” Lora agreed, flicking a strand of hair away from her eyes. “You’ll be at home?”
   “No-at work-until six, that is. I’ll be home after that. Lora, promise you’ll tell me?”
   He was standing so close to her; his dark, worried, fascinating eyes were fixing her with a funny gaze that she could not understand, and Lora could not have given any other answer than one in the affirmative. Nodding reassuringly, she patted him on the arm.
   “She’ll be all right. She-well, everyone gets sick once in a while, and Lily’s been well too long not to have a little attack just now. Go on to work; I know your lunch hour’s up.”
   “See you, then,” Sirius said lightly, pulling his mouth into a half-grin before Disapparating. Left behind, Lora, pink-cheeked and rather disgusted at herself, poured the doctored milk into a mug and left for the living-room, doggedly fixing all of her concentration on not letting the milk slop over the brim.
   After another longish nap, though, Lily was on her feet again, and was actually rooting through her potions closet with the help of Peter and Lora, the former of which stayed for about an hour, to see if anything needed restocking and writing down the names of the potions that she intended to rebrew and replace. James found her that way when he came home, and he was practically childish in his relief at finding her feeling well.
   With many thank-yous and an unaccepted invitation to stay the night, Lora left for the evening, and James saw Lily to bed early before leaving to go on a ten o’clock shift for the Order of the Phoenix; the members of the Order were inconspicuously accompanying Minister Bagnold to an International Wizarding Council meeting in Romania.
   James and Mad-Eye Moody, who, according to Sirius’ prediction, never would get rid of that nickname, were occupying the hotel room next to the Minister’s; they were to switch off with Elphias Doge and Aberforth Dumbledore at six in the morning.
   Exhausted, James Flooed home as soon as he could, desperate for an hour’s worth of sleep before he left for the Ministry again. However, scarcely had he entered the bedroom, intent on dropping like a dead weight, than he was jerked wide awake by a discomfortably pale Lily, slumped in one of the two armchairs.
   “Lily!” he groaned, dashing over to her in the very manner of a stalwart knight. “Merlin, what happened?”
   “I was really sick this time,” she answered, trying to smile faintly. “It’s not so bad.”
   “Rubbish!” he said sternly. “You’re bloody ill, that’s what’s wrong, and I’m routing Dr. Nicholsen out of bed this minute.”
   “I don’t need a doctor!” Lily protested, but she might as well have nodded enthusiastically for all the good it did her. Quite firm on this point, James deposited her on the bed, muffled her up in several layers of blankets, and informed her that he would be back terrectly before Disapparating for the man who was starting to become the family doctor.
   Grumbling that James “was damned lucky that the Killing Curse was illegal”, Dr. Nicholsen accompanied him back home and upstairs to where Lily was lying. He did not really resent the Potters, though he did wish that their ailments would strike at reasonable hours. But he was always paid amply and over the amount that he charged, so that idiosyncrasies of that sort could be overlooked.
   “I will leave you to bring me some coffee and to wash up, Mr. Potter,” he said authoritatively, nodding a good-morning to Lily. “You may come back in approximately forty-five minutes.”
   “Sure,” James nodded. “I’ll have a coffeepot downstairs waiting for you when you finish.”
   Pulling a pair of navy blue robes off of a hanger, he left the room, stopping by Slenka’s little room briefly to wake her before moving to the bedroom just down the hall of his and Lily’s with the comfortably large bathroom, whistling under his breath as he turned the taps on in the shower enclosure. He had a trusting faith in Dr. Nicholsen, and he had no doubt that whatever was wrong with Lily would be cleared up quickly.
   Later, feeling much more awake after a shower and change of clothing, James swung into the kitchen, glancing appraisingly at the mound of hot, buttered toast, bacon, and eggs smoking happily on a large platter. Three cups of coffee were sitting on the counter, and he gulped his down in half an instant before biting into two pieces of toast at once.
   “D’licious,” he mumbled, nodding his thanks to Slenka. Swallowing, he picked up the doctor’s coffee and finished off his toast. “Thanks awfully. Listen, we might need you in a bit, depending on what the doctor says, all right?”
   “Slenka will be in the kitchen, master,” the elf replied, brushing a crumb off of the green dress that Lily had prevailed upon her to accept when she first came to live with them. “Master only needs to call.” Rising up on tip-toe, she waggled her ears curiously. “Master, Slenka wonders…is miss very sick?”
   “Oh, no,” James reassured her, “she’s probably just got a bit of a fever or something. She’ll be up and around in no time.”
   “Those will shortly become very famous last words, Mr. Potter,” Dr. Nicholsen interrupted, a twinkle in his eyes, as he stepped into the dining-room doorway. “Is that my coffee you are holding?”
   “Er-yeah,” James said, puzzled. “Um…how, ‘famous last words’? Sir,” he added.
   “Come out here with that coffee,” the doctor invited, gesturing to the entrance hall. “I have some good news for you.”
   Perplexed and slightly excited, James followed him into the by now brightly lit hall. The sun was just rising, and bright, clear shafts of light were streaming through the windows, punctuated here and there with an orange and pink glow. The clouds in the sky had dispersed to promise a clear day of sun with only a few occasional snow flurries.
   “Mr. Potter,” Dr. Nicholsen said cheerfully, “allow me to congratulate you.”
   “Oh-er.” Curiously, he tilted his head to the side. “For what?”
   “For something wonderful indeed,” the medic smiled. “You are going to be a father in about eight months.”
   Caught severely by surprise, James barely restrained a gasp. “What?”
   “Your wife is in fine health otherwise,” the doctor reassured him. “She will be-“
   “Holy Merlin,” he whispered. “You’re serious? That…oh, wow.”
   “I will leave you to tell your wife,” Dr. Nicholsen winked. “I will leave behind some prescriptions with your house-elf before I go, and you are free to call upon me whenever you feel the need to.”
   “Wow,” James murmured softly, hardly hearing the doctor. Slowly, he made his way towards the stairs, walking as if he had just woken up from a dream. “I…bloody hell, I’m going to be a father. This…just…I don’t believe it; this is fantastic. A…wow. I-oh, my God, this is great!”
   Energy started flowing back into his body, and, with an irrepressibly drunken and happy grin plastered onto his face, he vaulted upstairs, his sock-clad feet thundering both carelessly and deliriously on the stairs and floorboards. Slipping into the bedroom, he almost flew across the floor and knelt down next the bed, gently taking Lily’s hand.
   “Lily!” he whispered, shaking her tenderly. “Lily, wake up!”
   Her eyes fluttered open slowly, and an indulgent smile crept to her face. “What is it?”
   Just looking at her sent a flicker of warmth through his body; she was beautiful. Blissfully love-struck, he leaned over and kissed her directly on the lips.
   “Lily, listen-you, me-we’re going to be parents!”