James and Lily Die
Sirius and Remus had spent the evening in bliss.
Remus had a day off from the university and Sirius had a day off his team practice so they had decided that their children didn’t need to have 100% attendance whilst in reception so they had told the school both had come down with a horrible stomach bug and whilst the school may not have believed them, neither twin went in on the day. They had taken the twins to the zoo and then out to lunch at one of their favourite cafes in London before arriving home and making cupcakes and pizza dough for the rest of the evening. It had been a day of fun and family and they fell asleep in a den in the lounge that both Archer and Nova had insisted on making once the cupcakes were baking and who were they to say no.
Neither thought anything could go wrong. Until it did.
Sirius’ isn’t sure what time his phone rings but he knows it’s not a time in which he wants to be awake. It’s still dark out and he has Archer curled into his side, soft puffs coming from the 5-year-old. It’s comforting for a moment until Sirius reaches over presses the answer.
“Hello, is this Sirius Black?” a woman answers that Sirius makes out in his sleep.
“Yes, this is him, who is this?” Sirius questions and manages to shuffle himself out of the den and from his son’s grip. He stumbles out into the hallway so he can focus on whoever is disturbing his sleep.
“This is Nurse Margret from London Memorial; it is my understanding that you are Mr and Mrs Potter’s emergency contact.” Sirius feels his blood freeze, “They were brought in at 2:43am and they have just been identified.” She adds and Sirius pulls his phone to check the time – it’s nearly 4am, it took them over an hour to identify them.
“I will be there in 20 minutes.” Sirius answers and hangs up the phone. He’s telling himself that everything will be ok, everything will be fine. He runs back to the den and quickly finds Remus and gently shakes him awake. “Remus, Remus!” Sirius whispers and very slowly does Remus wake up, moving around slightly and rubs his eyes as he did when they were 11 sharing a room in boarding school. “For love of God Remus,” Sirius says his voice a little louder and that’s pulls his husband into consciousness.
“W-wha? Siri?” Remus questions still confused.
“James and Lily are in the hospital, a nurse just called me.” Sirius explains and Remus is up in an instant. They try not to wake either child up as they get them into the car – a promise they made when they had the twins, no matter what the situation, they would always take the kids with them. Sirius was too afraid to become his parents so refused to even let them get a babysitter for the kids, always making sure either him or Remus is available for them.
Remus drives them to the hospital and Sirius gets out the car the moment Remus reaches the front doors before he goes off to find somewhere in which to park the car. Sirius rushes in through the front doors and anxiously taps on the front desk.
“Hi, sorry, Mr and Mrs Potter were brought in over two hours ago. Where are they?” Sirius questions. He doesn’t bother to introduce himself and go with pleasantries, he needs to know about his friends. His family. The nurse looks down at her computer and begins to type away increasing Sirius’ fears.
“Mr Potter is in room 4034, Mrs Potter is- I cannot find where she is at this moment but I will have a nurse find her for you and meet you in room 4034. Their son, he’s in the nurses’ room on the same floor as Mr Potter. I’ll have a nurse find you there.” She explains and Sirius nods. He’s embarrassed enough to say he’s been in this hospital far too many times before, too much of Remus’ Lupus paired with Archer’s epilepsy and too many teammates have ended up there with concussions. He finds his way to room 4034 and could almost cry when he realizes it’s in fact the ICU. He’s only ever been in the ICU once before and that was when Harry was born. Lily had many complications having him and they were only 20 when they had him and James couldn’t decide whether he was delighted over the birth of his son or in great worry for Lily.
“Hi, I’m looking for James Potter- a nurse downstairs told me he would be here- and his son.” Sirius says rather nervously. A nurse that looks only about 25 nods and takes him over to a room and Sirius cannot express his relief when he sees Harry in the room.
“This is the boy? Yeah?” The nurse asks and Sirius almost rejoices in the informality of it – he’s never enjoyed the stockiness of hospitals. “I’ll go grab the report and find out status on his parents.” She tells him and leaves the room.
Sirius turns his attention back to Harry. He doesn’t look 11, he looks so much younger and Sirius can’t help but go over and hug him. Harry’s flicking through some book that he presumes one of the nurses got for him. He’s not really looking at the pages, focusing on something that is in his head rather than on pages.
“Hazza?” Sirius says and Harry immediately turns his head around and almost gives him a half smile. He’s got a few stitches in his forehead along with bruising around his eye. He’s got an icepack on his left arm that Sirius couldn’t see before. “Hey bud, how you doing?” Sirius asks as he moves over to sit next to him. His godson shrugs and moves over to curl up into Sirius’ side. Sirius isn’t sure how long they spend like that but eventually another nurse walks into the room.
“You must be Mr Black?” she questions and he nods. “So, I’ve got some updates on-”
“Sorry, we got lost.” Sirius then hears Remus say and his husband walks into the room. He’s got both twins at his side; both clearly having woken up and in a confused haze just followed Remus up. “Sorry.” He adds and joins them on the sofa to the other side of Harry, the twins picking up the book Harry was previously looking at.
“No worries. Besides, I think it’s probably better to have this conversation with one adult.” The nurse says and Remus nods to let Sirius follow her out of the room. The nurse takes Sirius into a separate room and gestures for him to sit in a seat closet to the back wall. He sits down as the nurse does and he feels something wrong. “Harry has a few stitches in his forehead from the glass shattering, along with a few others bruising but nothing to major. However, he does need to have an x-ray done on his wrist, we’re just waiting to have one booked. Mr Potter has had surgery already, when he first arrived for some internal bleeding and some shattered rib cages and is now in recovery in the ICU but not quite in the clear.” The nurse takes a pause. “Mrs Potter, Mr Black I am sorry to say but Mrs Potter died in surgery.” Sirius feels his heart stop for a moment. Lily dead. He needs to explain to his 11-year-old godson that his mum isn’t coming home and his dad isn’t ok.
“Thank you. Any advice on how to tell their son?” Sirius questions.
“I can find someone from family services to tell him if you would like.” The nurse offers but Sirius shakes his head. He doesn’t want to put Harry through that. “Well, tell him calmly and let him know it’s ok to feel his emotions. The nurses’ station is just outside if you need anything.” The nurse tells Sirius and leaves the room.
Sirius several moments to gather himself before he finds the courage to go and tell Harry that he’s never going to get to see his mum. He walks back into the room to find Harry going through the book with the twins and Remus sat peacefully watching them. He takes a few moments to just watch his family, everything in that moment is perfectly ok. Harry’s parents are still alive, he’s going to see his mum any moment. Remus’ best friend is alive and it’s all ok.
“Sirius, love, are you ok?” Remus then turns to him. He can see the light slowly go from his eyes and he wants nothing more than to take back the last 30 seconds. “Let’s go talk outside.” Remus then says and says something to Harry that he can’t quite work out and then takes Sirius outside the room. “What happened?” Remus then asks.
“She’s dead. Lily’s dead.” Sirius manages to say and in an instant Remus has pulled him into a tight hug. He doesn’t want the hug to stop, he wants to stay in this bubble forever. They’re just about to pull apart when they hear a loud beeping noise and a load of nurses all rush by them. Sirius feels sick. “Remus- that’s- it’s James’ room.” Sirius feels tears once again come to his eyes. Remus squeezes Sirius and takes him back into the room with Harry and the twins. They can give Harry five more minutes.
“Hi, Harry, let’s go get you up to have an x-ray?” A nurse comes in. Harry gives the nurse a silent nod and starts to follow the nurse out the room but stops and turns back to Sirius. He looks so scared to go up on his own. “You can come up with him.” The nurse says and Sirius turns to Remus who gives him a sad nod so Sirius goes up with Harry.
He’s been to the x-ray department in the hospital far too many times than he cares to admit. Several of those times he’s been the one having an x-ray done and has actually only broken his arm three times playing football so he likes to say that’s an improvement compared to their teammate Oliver who’s broken both arms, a leg, and several toes several times, not all at the same time but the team has witnessed his girlfriend shout at him about him being so careless.
It doesn’t take long for the x-ray to happen and it turns out that he has broken his arm and needs to have a cast on it for 6 weeks. The nurse very kindly gives Harry a red cast and gets Sirius to fill out lots of paperwork for Harry before they can go back up and re-join Remus.
“Ah, Mr Black. I need to talk to you.” A nurse pulls Sirius over and he sends Harry to go into the room with join. Sirius follows a nurse into a separate room and she sits down next to him. “Mr Black, I’m very sorry to say but Mr Potter passed away. He unfortunately succumbed to his injuries.” She tells him and everything goes silent. He can see her words moving but he can’t process anything that it being said and wants this to be the worst dream possible and wake up to his family in the lounge. “Mr Black? Mr Black?” the nurse says and Sirius nods. “I’m really sorry.” She says and he nods.
“What happens now?” he asks.
“So, the corner will deal most things. Then we can coordination with a mortuary about sorting the bodies out for a funeral. That’s as far as the hospital will do unfortunately.” Sirius nods.
“Thank you.” Sirius says to the nurse who gives him a small pat and leaves the room. Sirius has to take a minute to gather himself before he can go and tell Harry and Remus. It turns out that he doesn’t need to wait to go and tell him as they come to him.
“Padfoot?” Harry asks as they walk into the room.
“Hey buddy. Come here.” Sirius says and pulls Harry into his arms. Sirius takes a few moments to embrace his godson. “Harry, I need to tell you something.” Sirius says and Harry nods looking up to Sirius with wide eyes. “Harry…your mum and dad…they’re both dead.” Sirius manages to say. He can see everything in Harry’s brain move, him processing the information.
“It’s my fault.” Harry says and both Remus and Sirius look at him confused. “I asked to go in the car.” He explains.
“Harry, it’s not your fault. It was just a freak accident, it’s not your fault.” Remus says clearly seeing Sirius faulter to find an answer. “Please don’t blame yourself.” Remus adds and Harry nods and tears start to fall down his face. Remus pulls him into a tight hug and places a few gentle kisses to Harry’s forehead. “Hazza, do you want to come to ours? Get changed?” Remus suggests. He knows they need to go; they can’t stay at the hospital all night. Harry nods but he doesn’t make any movement to leave.
“I’ll go get the twins.” Sirius says and leaves the room. He knows Sirius often shuts down when somethings emotional for him, he’s done it since they were 11. Harry watches as Sirius leaves and looks over to Remus with the saddest eyes he’s ever seen.
“Come on Haz, we can get something to eat when we get back to ours, we’ve got some ice-cream.” Remus suggests. It’s something that Lily suggested to him when his dad died, they spent the night curled up on the sofa eating Ben and Jerrys ice cream and watching movies. Harry nods and grabs a hold of Remus’ hand and they walk out of the room to find Sirius with the twins waiting outside. Remus checks with some nurses before the actually leave, Sirius needed to sign some things for Harry to leave before they go to find the car.
The drive home is in complete silence and when they finally arrive Remus wants to just stay in the car and never leave. There’s still the fort in the living room that he needs to deal with and he knows that getting the twins to sleep is going to be a mission and that getting Sirius to do anything is going to be difficult and Harry is too young to be going through the loss that he is.
It takes them almost 20 minutes before anyone makes a move to get out the car and it’s Archer that does it. Slowly, they all clamber out the car and file into the house. Sirius goes straight upstairs and Harry stands in the doorway as if he’s a stranger if their house despite being there only a few days prior for dinner.
“Harry, we built a fort with the twins do you want to go sit in there and I can go get ice-cream?” Remus suggests. Harry nods and moves into the living room. Remus manages to get both twins up and into their beds in less than 20 minutes. Once he had successfully put them to bed, despite the fact that Archer had gone in Nova’s bed and Nova had gone in Archer’s bed, he went to go find Sirius. It didn’t take long because he could hear his husband’s cries coming from their bedroom.
He gently knocks on their bedroom door and finds him curled up on their bedroom and he wants so much to just turn back time so he isn’t suffering. He walks over to Sirius and ever so gently sits down next to him.
“Sirius, love,” Remus starts but doesn’t really know where to go. What can you say to something who has just lost their best friend? For once Remus feels lost for words, loss for a comforting sentence or comforting phrase. “Sirius, Harry is downstairs, we are going to have ice-cream.” Remus says. He knows there’s nothing he can do to take away Sirius’ pain or to make him feel any better. “Do you want to come? We have the Ben and Jerrys you like.” He offers. He doesn’t get a response other than chocked sobbed. “Sirius please, even if you’re sobbing I’m sure Harry wants to see his Godfather.” Remus tries. He can’t deal with Harry on his own, he’s not the only who’s lost a best friend so he needs Sirius with him, even if he’s sobbing. “Please Sirius.” He begs. He feels close to tears himself but he doesn’t want to be another person in the house crying, someone needs to be stable. Sirius doesn’t do anything so Remus takes a deep breath and then leaves the room, closing the door as he does so.
He jogs down the stairs to get the ice-cream from the freezer and some spoons. As he enters the lounge he can hear a mixture of Harry bawling from the floor and what sounds like a news report. He feels a sinking feeling.
He walks into the room and finds a report about James and Lily’s death right on the TV, pictures of the car wreck and watching the EMTs pull their bodies from the car and just in the background if you look very closely you can see a blurred version of Harry standing on the side of the road with blood down his face and another EMT walk over to him. When Remus can unfreeze, he goes over and quickly switches the TV to Netflix.
“Everyone at school is going to know.” Harry whispers. His voice is shaky and it sounds pained. The worst part is it’s true. Even though James and Sirius are the best out of their team in protecting their family life, of course the whole knows about their spouses and their children and somehow their pets, even Harry’s hamster. The report of their death is going to be all over the news for at least 3 days and in the morning they’ll get a call from the team and probably their lawyers and all others that he can think of but he doesn’t want to. Harry deserves to not have the worst night of his life documented.
“Yeah they are.” He doesn’t lie. Harry doesn’t deserve that. “But you don’t have to go into school tomorrow. You can take the time you need.” Remus promises. “Anything you want.” He adds.
“I want Pumpkin, and Judy.” Harry says. He’s talking about the hamster and the cat. They’ll both be at the Potter house, no doubt Judy will be curled up on James’ pillow, despite James constantly saying that he doesn’t like the cat that Lily and James had begged him to get. Pumpkin will most likely be in her cage in Harry’s room. He and Sirius got the hamster when Harry was in year 6, he was being bullied and needed something to keep him busy in the afternoons, that way he wasn’t reflecting on it so much.
“We can go get them tomorrow. Once I’ve taken the twins to school we can go get them. You can come on the school run if you want, no one is going to say anything.” Remus says. Harry nods. “Now, let’s have some ice-cream and watch a movie.” Remus finishes, they don’t need to be reflecting on the tragedy, they can stuff their faces and for an hour just watch mindless cartoons: SpongeBob, Harry picks SpongeBob.