First night talks and nightmares
Aurora sighed as she put Teddy down in the bed that was provided. She was kneeling down, tucking him in when she felt Fred step up behind her. "Tomorrow?" he asked.
"I just don't want them to know yet. Remus will know as soon as I say Teddy is his that he died. I'm pretty sure Sirius has already figured out he's dead and Marlene too." Fred pulled his now sobbing girlfriend into his arms and back to their room.
Fred just cuddled Aurora into his chest and let her cry for all she had lost and all she was going to have to relive in these books. He just couldn't believe how bad it really was at the Dursleys, how much Aurora had lived through, and how kind and giving she had turned out, and he had a feeling that a lot of the reasons she hadn't turned her back on the Wizarding world or become the next Dark Lady was due in large part to Cedric.
Neither were looking forward to the nightmares that Aurora would have tonight.
Hermione fell into Ron's arms the moment the doors closed behind them and cried. They hadn't even reached Hogwarts in the books yet and already her best friend, her sister, had been through so much.
Ron just rocked his fiancé and got them ready for bed. He knew it was going to be a long few weeks to get through the rest of these books and he wasn't sure he wanted to hear how much worse Aurora's life was. He knew that she didn't tell him a lot of things and he was grateful he was finally going to learn; he was under no illusions it was going to be easy though.
Amice was laying in Draco’s arms. It was hard to be in this room with her parents and her brother. She hadn’t seen her father smile like he was earlier in six years, and her mother had barely spoken since Cedric was killed. She had adored her big brother, and when he had started dating Aurora, it made him so happy. “This will work won’t it Draco,” Amice sighed, “Cedric will live right?”
“I really hope so, Amice. For you and Aurora both,” Draco said, thinking of how this would not only help his girlfriend and Aurora, who after the last few years he considered to be one of his best friends, but how this would affect his parents as well. “I know that no matter what happens though, no matter what timeline, I will always love you.”
“They should learn when Aurora learns,” Luna said, shutting the door behind her.
“I know, I just…” Neville started. But Luna knew him so well at this point that he didn’t even have to finish. She just walked over to him, taking her clothes off along the way.
“Things will work out as they should. And even if something happens to Lily and James this time, know that you and Aurora will grow up as siblings like you were supposed to all along.” Neville just nodded, following Luna’s movements carefully.
“I love it when you go all seer on me.”
The Marauders, Lily and Marlene were the last six left in the main room. Lily was the first to break the tension, and it wasn’t what anyone expected her to say, “So when exactly were you planning on proposing. From the way you spoke earlier, I’m assuming that you already have a ring and everything and were making a plan, even though we’ve only been together for a month and only just went on our first date.”
She tried to sound severe, but she couldn’t help the joy that infused her voice. After she had given into James and finally said yes, she realized that she had been denying her attraction to him for years. They just fit together, and she had trouble remembering sometimes why she had fought so hard against him.
His three friends just laughed at him, while James rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “Mum sent me the family ring when I told her that we had a date today.” Lily smiled at him, curling into his side.
Remus opened his mouth, trying to find the words, but was cut off by Sirius, “I don’t want to talk about the fact that all of us are most likely dead within the next 4 years.”
Peter looked at his friends, “Surely some of us had to have survived.”
“Do you really think that we would have allowed Aurora to be raised by muggles if any of us were alive,” Remus looked at Peter, causing the young man to blush. “I might not be able to raise her, but I wouldn’t have stayed away.”
“She’s pack?” Lily asked.
“She’s pack,” Remus just agreed.
Sirius, James and Peter stared at her. “What, he’s not subtle, and we were Prefects together for 2 years.” The other three Marauders chuckled, they should’ve known that Lily knew, she was the smartest witch at Hogwarts at the moment.
“Aurora has already said that a lot of things about everyone will be explained in the 3rd book, so let's just get a good night's sleep,” Marlene started. “I have a feeling that we’ll have even more questions after reading tomorrow, and I don’t want to dwell on things that we don’t have the answers to at the moment.” Everyone else nodded in agreement, getting up from their spots, James and Sirius kissing Lily and Marlene good night.
Severus, Regulus and Barty had been led into Lucius and Narcissa’s room. “It seems that we have chosen the wrong side,” Lucius drawled. The three current Hogwarts students didn’t say anything. They had been planning on receiving their marks in two days, and to learn that the man that they were set to follow, who touted Pureblood supremacy, was a half blood, was a blow to two of them.
All of them had wondered why they were brought here, and while Severus had been Lily’s best friend at one point, he had ruined that and saw no other choice in front of him. Now he learns that she dies. He would do anything to prevent that from happening.
“We can not simply renounce the Dark Lord, and I have no desire to follow that fool Dumbledore,” Narcissa sneered. “But perhaps we could work with the others.” She shuddered a little thinking about working with blood traitors, and mudbloods but she would do what she had to to protect her family. And it would be nice to reconnect with her more sane sister, and she had always been fond of Sirius, even if he was a Gryffindor.
Severus cringed, thinking about working with the people who had tormented and bullied him for the last six years. ‘If it keeps Lily alive,’ he repeated over and over in his mind. “I would be willing to work with the others, as long as those four are kept far away from me.” No one had to ask who the four he spoke of were.
“Then we’ll continue reading these books, and learn what we need,” Regulus said. He was tired and just wanted to go to sleep and hope that his relationship with his brother could finally go back to the way it used to be.
Several hours later, the Marauders room and Lily’s room, as well as all the time travelers were awoken by the screams of Aurora, the room of requirement not canceling the sounds from those rooms. James, Lily and Sirius had run to the room they saw her enter earlier and the sight before them scared and shocked them. Aurora was thrashing and calling out, “No Peter don’t!”
Fred was trying to wake her up, but she just kept screaming. “Go get Amice!” he yelled to the people in the door.
“I’m right here,” she said, rushing into the room before anyone could even turn to go get her, climbing into the bed and wrapping Aurora up in her arms and legs to stop her thrashing. Her voice lowered into a soothing tone, “It’s ok RayRay. It wasn’t your fault. You brought him back to us, and you lived. That’s what mattered to him.” She just kept repeating it over and over in Aurora’s ear, and slowly Aurora calmed down, no longer screaming but sobbing her heart out.
James and Sirius were now terrified. What had happened with Peter? They didn’t want to jump to conclusions but had he done something to hurt Aurora. There was no way, he was their brother, he would never hurt a child.
“I’ve got her now,” Fred sighed sadly. “Thank you Ami.”
“She’s my sister,” was all Amice said, climbing out of bed. She smiled down at Aurora now awake, clutching her necklace, sobbing in Fred’s arms, apologizing over and over. As she left the room, she pulled the three still standing in the doorway along with her.
“Is,” Sirius cleared his throat, “is she going to be okay?” As soon as he asked he knew it was a stupid question, but he had never seen anything like that, and he grew up in one of the darkest families.
“No,” Amice said, “but she is getting better.”
Meanwhile, Fred just sat rocking Aurora, “You have nothing to apologize for.”
She shook her head, disagreeing, but couldn’t think of anything to say that they hadn’t already said hundreds of times. She loved Fred, she wouldn’t be with him if she didn’t but there wasn’t a day that she didn’t miss Cedric, and wonder what their life would have been like if he hadn’t been killed, and being in the same room as the man who killed him was harder than she ever thought it would be. She could deal with everything else, and intellectually she knew that four years changes a person, and right now he couldn’t imagine betraying his friends, but the devastation he had caused was innumerable by that one act.
It took another hour of soothing and whispered “I love you’s” between Aurora and Fred before she finally fell back asleep, followed quickly by Fred.
Ron and Hermione were the first ones awake the next morning. They were joined shortly by Ginny, Neville and Luna, who started cooking breakfast, knowing that Molly would be up soon and would take over the cooking duties. Everyone slowly filtered out of their rooms, woken by the smell of bacon, and quickly dug in, and as predicted, Molly took over cooking. It wasn’t long after taking over that she rushed from the room.
Fred came out of his room, carrying a still sleepy Teddy, running into his mother on the way back to the kitchen. “You always did say that George and I gave you trouble with the smell of eggs,” he said walking into the room, setting Teddy down in one of the available booster seats, and getting him some of the hotcakes and sausages.
Aurora, Luna and Draco came into the kitchen shortly after, with Draco handing James, Lily and Sirius a potion vial on his way to grab food. “Pepper-up,” Lily asked after a quick sniff.
Draco huffed out a small laugh, “You’re as good as they said you were.” Lily sat up a little straighter in pride. “I thought you three could use it after last night.” The three that had witnessed Aurora’s nightmare just nodded solemnly and downed the potion.
It took another 20 minutes for everyone to finish breakfast, before they all filed into the main room to continue reading, Molly and Andromeda taking Charlie, Percy and Nymphadora to the nursery. As everyone was getting settled, Aurora called out, “Tizzy!” and a small female elf appeared in front of them, she had a small dress with the Potter and Black crest on its skirt. “Tizzy is being taking young Master Lupin for his bath now mistress.” Remus jerked his head in their direction, shock etched on his face.
“Thank you Tizzy,” Aurora said, handing Teddy over to the elf. “Please bring him to the nursery when you are done. I’m sure Charlie and Dora would love to play with him.” Looking down at her lap for a moment, Aurora seemed to struggle, before she finally looked back up at Remus, “I wasn’t sure exactly how to tell you, this just seemed easiest.” She shrugged, uncomfortable by the looks she was getting, not realizing that the fact that Remus was alive to have a son when Aurora was 17 meant that he wasn’t dead during her childhood, and they couldn't figure out why he had left her to grow up alone.
“Shall we get to it then,” Kingsley said, breaking the tension that was growing in the room.
“Can I read?” Regulus asked, not waiting for an answer and picked up the book, turning to the correct page.