James laid on the couch, his son’s screaming traveling from upstairs and ringing in his ears. He grabbed a pillow and put it over his face, attempting to block out the noise.
“James.”
“Hm?”
“Harry’s crying.”
James sighed. “I can hear that,” he said in a muffled voice.
He heard a tongue click, and then footsteps ascending the staircase. He removed the pillow and sat up, rubbing his eyes. He stared at the floor for five minutes, trapped in time, while the noises upstairs faded into the distance. He stood up and went over to the coat rack by the door, reaching into a black leather jacket and pulling out a carton of cigarettes. He went upstairs, quietly sneaking past Harry’s nursery and went out the window at the end of the hall, onto the balcony. Breathing in the air and leaning against the railing, he snapped his fingers and lit the cigarette. He put it in his lips and inhaled, letting it burn his throat and then coughed the smoke out.
“James?” He heard from inside the house. He turned around and faced the empty street. There was shuffling behind him and then a hand on his back. “James.”
He smoked again. “Lily.”
“What are you doing?” She took the carton from his hand. “Where did you get this?”
“Sirius’ jacket,” he mumbled.
“You don’t smoke.”
“I don’t.”
“So why are you?” James didn’t respond. Lily leaned against the railing, facing the house. They were both in their pajamas, leaving little protection from the cold winters night, but neither of them seemed to care. Lily sighed and took a cigarette out, lighting it and smoking with him. “I hope this isn’t some newfound coping mechanism.”
James shook his head. “It’s not.”
“You’ve always hated the smell.”
“No.” He paused and breathed in. “It smells like Moony.”
Lily looked away from him and at her cigarette. “Oh.” She felt something in her stomach come up and refused to let herself feel it, so she threw it on the ground and stomped it out. “Missing him, are you?”
“Aren’t you?”
“I’m always missing Remus, he’s my best friend. You get to see yours constantly.”
“Remus is my best friend too.” James had an edge to his voice that softened as he went on. “And Pete, and Marlene, and Mary, and Gid, and Fab, and Alice, and Frank-“ he stopped, afraid to choke on his next words.
Lily pressed her shoulder into his side. “But it’s different, isn’t it?”
“How do you mean?”
“…I miss my girls. They’re like my family. Well, not like my family, but a real family. The kind we’re all meant to have.” She blinked back the tears in her eyes. “And I don’t- I don’t know how you get through every day knowing yours is gone, James. I mean, fuck, just the separation alone is killing me.”
James glanced at her and turned around to lean next to her. She put her head on his shoulder and he wrapped an arm around her. “I don’t.” He felt her tense, but continued anyway. “I try not to let myself think about them. And it-“ he swallowed. “It hurts… it kills me, that I have to do that, but I have to. If I let myself remember, for a minute, what happened, I’ll be stuck remembering forever. I just know it. And then Harry won’t have a functioning father. And Harry really, really needs me, Lils, needs us. We need to be okay. If not for ourselves, then for him.”
Lily was silently crying. “All I wanted… all I’ve wanted since I knew he was coming- James, I thought we wouldn’t be alone in this. I thought Harry’s family would be so big, he’d be sick of it by the time he was one. Instead it’s just us.” She kicked the wall behind her and faced out again, staring at the stars above them. “It’s just us,” she whispered.
James let a tear roll down his cheek and wiped it away before facing his wife. “It is just us. No one is coming to save him. No one is coming to save us.”
“Fuck off.”
“His life has been doomed from the start, the same as all of ours. But we’ve made it this far.”
“I think having a death threat from a dark lord over your head is a little bit more imminent of a danger than anything we ever had to suffer.”
James shook his head. “No. Think of Sirius.”
“What?”
“Blood traitor. Kicked out of one of the most prestigious blood lines in the wizarding world. Voldemort has always had a knife over his head.”
Lily scoffed. “That’s different.”
“Remus. Half-breed. He shouldn’t have been at Hogwarts in the first place, but now he’s off behind enemy lines, fighting for us. You think that doesn’t make him a target?”
“James-“
“We’re all fucking targets in this, Lily, we’re all losing everything. We’ll never get our lives back. This will be the only thing we do, day after day. Try to remember what we’ve done, what might’ve been, who we were before the darkness, and none of it fucking matters, because that boy-“ he pointed at the window “- is the only hope we have left. You heard the prophecy. He will lead to Voldemorts downfall. If we have to sit in this house and keep him safe from harm until that SOMEHOW happens, then we will. We will sit in our own misery, and ruin his whole fucking childhood, because of COURSE we won’t be able to raise him in the happy, loving household we’ve always dreamt of having together BECAUSE WE’RE FUCKING BROKEN LILY. We are in pieces. Our most vital pieces are missing. They’re gone.” James let himself feel all his pain and he cried. “They’re gone.”
They were quiet for a while, trying to collect their thoughts and put themselves back together.
“We’re never getting out of here,” Lily asked. “Are we?”
James shook his head. “No. No.”
Lily chuckled and James looked down at her. “I remember on the train, on the last day of school, Mary asked me and Marlene which of the three of us was most likely to get pregnant first. And I said Mary, but it would be an accident of course. But that baby would be loved more than anything, even if the father wasn’t in the picture, because I would raise it with her, and Marlene and Dorcas would raise it with her. And there was no way we’d ever let her be alone, even though she’d make a fantastic mother and of course she’s strong enough to do it by herself, but she’d never ask for help, even if she wanted it. And she’d want it. They agreed. Just knowing that there are girls there for you, in your corner, always, is all the support we need. Not that you’re not everything to me, James. And not that you’re not the best father ever, broken or not broken. But… it should’ve been all of us. Me, you, Mary, Marlene, Dorcas, Remus, Sirius, Peter. But they’re off fighting a war for us, for him.” She gestured back to the house. “To keep him safe. They’re risking their lives for him. And they may not even live to know him.”
“Don’t say that.”
“But it’s true. Fuck, James, when we left, did you even see Mary? I mean, I’d be surprised if she’s even still working for the Order at this point. She looked so lonely, despite all of us. And now she won’t even get to meet her godson.”
James nodded, understanding. “Yeah. Pete was the same way. Withdrawing toward the end.” He smiled sadly. “He used to laugh so much when we were kids. When we were at Hogwarts. And now… fuck, I don’t think I’ve even seen him smile since we graduated.”
“We’re all disappearing.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re all losing ourselves. We’ll never be the same as what we once were. Fuck James, do you think we’ll ever be happy again? I mean, properly happy? Have a stupid party like we used to without these thoughts circling our minds?”
James sighed. “I think we’ll be happy again. Of course I do. We have to hold out hope for that, or we’ll crumble. But it will never be the same. We have all this built up inside us now. Sirius lost Regulus and refused to talk about it, even after all this time. Remus will never say where he’s been or what he’s been through. I’m don’t think Peter will never smile again, Godric knows what he’s been through working with all the Death Eaters and vile at the ministry, having to listen to all their hatred day after day. As long as Marlene and Dorcas fight, even after the war is over, they will always be faced with another war for so many different reasons. Mary…she probably won’t even come back after all this is done. But… despite all that, we need to have hope. We need to.”
“…I made so many wishes, James. For the life I wanted. None of them included just you. Our little family is enough, for now, but I need everyone else. Even if they aren’t fully themselves. I need them.”
“I need them too.” James kicked the railing and slammed his fist against the top. “I’m gonna fucking kill that dirty little traitor. Once I find out who they are. How could you be so fucking evil that you’d condemn a child, your friends child, to death before he is even born?”
“I don’t know.” Lily shook her head. “I don’t know.” She slid to the ground, and James went with her. “What do we do?”
James shrugged. “Try, I suppose. For him. That’s what everyone else is out there doing. We can try… give him a childhood filled with love, even if it’s just from us, until it’s safe for him to exist outside this home.”