Baby Harry laughed loudly as the curly-haired man blew a raspberry against Harry's stomach, Harry's hands feebly slapped at the man's head, only serving to amuse the man even more and prompt him to do it again, earning some more laughter from Harry.
"You like that, don't you?" The curly-haired man grinned as he held Harry up in the air, the man rubbed his nose against Harry's before pretending to bite down on it while making a biting noise that caused Harry to laugh again.
"Sirius," A woman's voice - Harry's mother's voice - called. "Pass him here, it's time for his milk," Lily told Sirius as she walked over and looked at Sirius expectantly.
"But we were playing, weren't we, Pup?" Sirius protested, looking to Harry for support. Harry giggled and clapped his hands together several times before he tried to reach out and grab Sirius's hair, though Sirius managed to pull his head back just in time for Harry to miss.
"You can play later, besides, that's all you do." Lily rolled her eyes as she gently took Harry away from Sirius and held him in her arms. "Now, let's get you all nice and fed, yeah?" She asked before kissing Harry on the forehead.
"Do we have any firewhiskey in the kitchen?" Sirius asked hopefully.
"You are not drinking firewhiskey in this house with Harry around." Lily glared at him, narrowing her eyes.
"Why?" Sirius pouted. "It's not like he'll remember it." He argued, only to shrink back under a look from Lily that clearly warned him that he would be suffering extreme amounts of pain if he disobeyed her order. "Okay, okay, fine," He said quickly, holding his hands up in surrender. "No drinking in front of the kid, I swear."
"That's better," Lily's face softened but she still stared at him with narrowed eyes, as if she expected him to pull out some firewhiskey the second she looked away. "now, how long did you say James would be?"
"I don't know," Sirius answered honestly with a small shrug of his shoulders. "It depends on ole Crouch, he's running all the aurors ragged. I had a two-hour meeting with him the day before yesterday. So, if James's telling Crouch he wants to leave the auror force to stay here then he's probably still getting shouted at. Say what you want about the bloke but he does seem determined to stop Volde..."
"Don't say his name!" Lily hissed quickly.
"What? It's fine," Sirius said dismissively. "We're under a fidelius charm and..."
"The charm is not foolproof and it can be broken with enough magic and the right minds," Lily cut in. "If you say his name then it'll be the magic of the charm against the magic of his taboo, if the charm holds out then it'll at the very least narrow our location down for them, understand? The charm works best when people don't know about it. Got it?"
"Right," Sirius gulped slightly. "Sorry, Lily."
"Next time, don't question the charms mistress." She smirked at him.
"I bow to your superiority, oh mighty mistress," Sirius said actually bowing to her. Lily let out an amused noise and picked up a milk bottle before the two of them sat down on a sofa.
"So, how's Remus doing?" Lily asked as she put the nipple of the bottle into Harry's mouth.
"I haven't seen him for a while," Sirius admitted. "Firstly, because old Dumbledore sent him to go and try and get the wolf packs on our sides."
"I've told Dumbledore so many times to stop sending Remus to the wolves," Lily huffed. "The wolf packs have already joined you-know-who and those that haven't won't break their neutrality for anything that Dumbledore is willing to offer. I swear, that man never listens to anyone."
"I known," Sirius agreed. "If he did listen to other people then his clothes might not be so bright. Anyway, Remus got back a few days ago, but apparently, he had to go to several meetings with family members to discuss the state of his family. He's the last remaining member of the family that was born a Lupin, but he's also a werewolf, so he's basically screwed over by the state of things."
"That's horrible," Lily frowned before brightening slightly. "Wait, did he go on that date I tried to set him up with?" She smiled, thinking about the date she planned for Remus to go on with one of her friends.
"No, no he did not." Sirius rolled his eyes.
"What? Why not?" Lily demanded, not raising her voice because of Harry who was happily driving from his milk bottle.
"The usual excuse." Sirius snorted.
"I can't, I'm a werewolf." Lily and Sirius recited at the same time, both doing their own impression of Remus.
"Honestly, why would it have mattered? Her aunty was a werewolf, she wouldn't have cared, I told him that." Lily complained.
"Hey, don't shoot the messenger." Sirius raised his hands in surrender. "But I do agree with you, I actually once spent the night with a werewolf myself. Let me tell you, she was nowhere near as hairy as one might expect, well...apart from..."
"Ah!" Lily said sharply before gesturing to Harry. "Finish that sentence at your own peril."
"Fine," Sirius sighed, in his opinion, Lily was just being dramatic, it's not like Harry would remember any of this. "anyway, how are things going with your sister?" He asked.
"Not great," A sad look appeared on Lily's face. "We haven't talked in ages, I told her she has a nephew and she just complained that there was another 'freak' in the world."
"If you ask me, Lily, your sister is the real freak here."
"Why?" Lily frowned. "Because she's a muggle?"
"Because she's an absolute bit..." Sirius paused as he remembered that Harry was still here and Lily apparently had rules about that. "She's a B-I-T-C-H with one of those upside-down 'i' thingies at the end."
"You mean an exclamation mark?" Lily said with a light laugh.
"Yeah. one of those," Sirius said dismissively. "You of all people know that I got no problems with muggles and whatever, but your sister...I mean...sweet Merlin, how the hell are the two of you related? She's worse than you in literally every way possible."
"She's not that bad," Lily said half-heartedly.
"Yeah, she is," Sirius insisted. "I mean, look at her. She falls short on looks, personality, and everything in-between."
"I know, but she's still my family, Sirius." Lily protested.
"Yeah," Sirius let out a deep breath. "We don't always get to choose our family, do we?" He raised a hand and stroked the top of Harry's head. "But, for what it's worth, we can make new families. Look at me, I had nothing, my mother rules our house and hates me for not being a pureblood prince, my brother's too busy trying to impress her, my father barely cares about me and my cousins have either run away or got married to more prats I want nothing to do with. But they're not my family, not really, the only way we're related is by blood. James, little Harry here and you, you three are my family." He finished by giving her a warm smile.
Harry opened his eyes and found himself sitting on his bed in the Gryffindor boy's room, he opened his bed curtains and looked around, not seeing anyone. He took a deep breath before he closed the curtains and lay back down on the bed.
'Hardly the sort of behaviour that one would expect from a death eater,' Venom commented. 'There are many more memories of him and your parents, I've watched them repeatedly and have seen no signs of deception from him.'
'Maybe...maybe he's a good actor.' Harry ran a hand through his hair, not knowing what to think.
'No,' Venom insisted. 'I'm sure he wasn't acting.'
'You don't think it was him?' Harry asked.
'I'm saying that it's possible it might not be,' Venom explained. 'Though, I could be wrong.'
'So, keep our guard up but don't act rashly?' Harry summed up.
'Basically, yeah.' Venom agreed.
'Sirius and my Mum were talking about a guy called 'Remus Lupin', what are the odds of it not being the new defence against the dark arts teacher?' Harry asked, rubbing his eyes as he did so.
'It is him,' Venom replied. 'I've seen a couple of other memories that have him in it.'
'I wonder why he didn't talk to me about it,' Harry sighed.
'Might have been because of the last memory we have of him talking to your mother.' Venom guessed.
'What memory? What happened?' Harry asked quickly.
'I can show you, but you might not like it.' Venom warned.
'Show me.' Harry told him without hesitation.
'If you insist.'
"Remus, it's been too long." Lily smiled brightly as she pulled Remus into a one-armed hug while holding Harry in the other arm. "I haven't seen you in ages," Lily added as Remus closed the door behind him.
"Sorry about that," Remus apologised as he took off his trench coat and hung it up on the coat rack by the door. "I've had a hectic few weeks to say the least," He told her as the pair walked into the living room and sat down after Lily gently placed Harry in his play-cot, leaving him to enjoy the myriad of toys in there with him. "how's Harry been doing?" He asked once Lily had sat down next to him.
"Oh, he's just brilliant," Lily smiled brightly, looking as if Remus had just asked her about her favourite topic in the world. "He rarely ever cries and he's learning things quite quickly for his age." She told Remus, looking quite proud. "Obviously, he gets his intelligence from me, and not his neanderthal of a father," Lily added before staring in Harry's direction. "Isn't that right, sweetie?" She cooed at him. Harry, not really knowing what was going on, simply smiled and clapped his hands. "That's right." Lily smiled at him before turning back to Remus who was giving her his own smile. "Anyway, how have things been going with the wolf packs?" She asked.
"Not that good, I'm afraid, not that good at all." Remus let out a deep sigh as he ran one hand over his face. "The majority of the packs have declared their loyalty to You-know-who, though luckily there are some packs out there that haven't joined them, unfortunately, they are few and far between, not to mention that I haven't been able to convince any of them to join our side of the war."
"Oh wow, such a shame, wonder why nobody predicted that." Lily deadpanned before shaking her head. "I told Dumbledore countless times that sending you wouldn't do any good."
"I thought it would," Remus admitted. "I mean, Albus Dumbledore was asking for their help, that would've gotten a lot of people to at least consider the idea."
"Remus, those wolves weren't like you," Lily replied in a soft voice. "The 'great, Albus Dumbledore' didn't take them into Hogwarts and give them the opportunity to have a good education, most of them didn't really even see the point in it. They figured that they wouldn't get jobs anyway."
"Yeah, but once we win the war then surely things will get better," Remus replied. "Besides, what does that have to do with anything?"
"It means that they didn't grow up like other people, hearing about how good of a person Dumbledore is. As far as they're concerned, he's just another rich, old man who hadn't helped them," Lily explained. "Or at least that's what I'm guessing. Either way, Dumbledore should have listened to me, I told him to waste less time on the werewolves."
"Anyway, how's James and Sirius doing?" Remus asked, deciding to change the subject.
"Sirius is fine I suppose, he's still pretty much just a man-child, but he's been proving himself to be a good godfather." Lily shrugged. "I'll admit that I had my doubts about him but James apparently knew what he was doing when he appointed Sirius as our backup. Sirius comes here as often as he can, normally at least once a week. Though he does mix it up just in case. As for James, he's still a man-child as well, but he's definitely improved from school. Still, things aren't exactly perfect anymore."
"What do you mean?" Remus asked, leaning forward slightly to give her his full attention.
"Well, I think we're both just stressed, you know?" Lily sighed. "I mean, between the war and raising Harry and barely ever leaving the house, we're all getting a bit frustrated. I mean, James goes out once a month now, he can't stand staying inside for so long. I think he just finds a forest and transforms into his stag form before running around, at least that's my guess."
"I don't see why James is complaining," Remus lightly commented as he scooted slightly closer to Lily. "If I was James, and you were my wife, I don't think I'd ever want to leave."
"You'd get tired of me eventually," Lily laughed, her cheeks slightly red from Remus's comment.
"Unlikely," Remus said with a small shake of his head. "You're perfect, Lily, just the way you are."
"I'm really not," Lily blushed, dipping her head slightly.
"Yes, you are, Lily." Remus insisted. "I mean, look at you, you have a brilliant mind and you are undoubtedly one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen in my life."
"You're being really flattering right now," Lily commented, looking up to stare at him. "Is there something you're after?" She asked suspiciously, wondering if Remus was trying to butter her up for an apology for something. That was exactly the sort of thing that the Marauders (James and his little gang of friends) would do.
"W...well, there is one thing." Remus gulped.
"What?" Lily asked curiously. Remus didn't respond, not straight away, instead, he simply leaned his head forwards, bringing himself closer to Lily. "Remus?" Lily froze in shock as Remus's lips neared her own, they were only a centimetre from touching when Lily quickly pulled her head back.
Remus opened his eyes and found himself staring directly into Lily's beautiful emerald green orbs, and given the way they were blazing with anger, he could not help but feel like he had just gotten himself into serious trouble. That feeling was proven right when Lily had slapped him across the face, hard.
"I...I can't believe you!" Lily yelled before pushing him back.
"Lily, I'm...I'm sorry but I..."
"Sorry?! Sorry?!" Lily shrieked before she shoved him again, causing him to fall off the sofa. Thankfully for him, he was able to avoid going on the floor and instead was able to simply stand up. Unfortunately, for him, Lily stood up as well, looking at him with more anger than he had ever seen her direct at him. "What the hell was that?!" She demanded to know.
"I'm...I...I wasn't thinking and..."
"Clearly not!" Lily snapped out her agreement.
"It's just...you said that you and James were having a hard time and..."
"Just because my husband and I argue, it doesn't mean that he's not my husband!" Lily hissed. "I'm not the type of girl who cheats on her husband and it's offensive to me that you'd even consider that I would."
"I..."
"James is your friend!" Lily cut him off. "And you tried to kiss his wife?!"
"I'm sorry, Lily, it's just..."
"Leave!" Lily hissed, pulling out her wand, causing Remus to pale slightly.
"Now, Lily," He began. "I think that..."
"Remus, I won't ask again, leave this house, now!" She ordered, Remus gulped before sending her an apologetic look. He very wisely nodded his head before doing as she said, leaving the house."I can't believe him!" Lily rolled in frustration before turning and seeing Harry stare at her with wide eyes.
"What the fuck?!" Harry demanded as he snapped awake.