Chapter 8 of 8
After all is read and said
After a lot of anguishing chapters. After rejoicing at Remus recovery and crying at Dumbledore’s Death. After becoming outraged at the discovery of Severus Snape’s role on James and Lily’s death and finally deciding that he was one huge egotistical bastard who cared only for himself. After celebrating Voldemort’s defeat. After crying at the realization of Remus’ imminent death because of his lycanthropy and getting outraged at Sirius attitude towards Harry when he was about to leave for the United States and then scoffing at Sirius being so, so Sirius when he turned up on the plane, and of course, Remus glaring at him for being tricked. Lily finally finished the last sentence with a smile, “They’re finally happy!” James and Remus nodded. Mrs. Potter dabbed at her eyes and Mr. Potter squeezed her shoulder. Sirius on the other hand was taking the papers from Lily’s hands and looking for something.
“Where’s Moony in this epilogue?”
“Sirius I-“ Remus started.
“No you didn’t!” Sirius yelled.
“Sirius it’s fine. I’ve always known,” Remus started again.
“IT’S NOT FINE!” he yelled.
Remus inhaled deeply.
“Sirius, it’s like my older self explained. Frankly I am quite happy that I managed to live that long.”
“Greyback was older and had been a werewolf for longer and he was fine and dandy,” Sirius growled.
“It varies and there is nothing you can do about that,” Remus said calmly.
Sirius fumed and turned to James, “So now what? We tell Dumbledore about Pettigrew?’
James bit his lips, exchanged glance with Lily and said, “About that. Lily and I talked and we decided not to change anything.”
“WHAT?” Sirius yelled.
“If we change something everything could come out worse,” Lily said.
“Worse than you all dead and me and Harry alone?”
“You are not alone,” Mrs. Potter said, “You are finally happy. Voldemort is gone.”
“If we change something we could all end up dead and Voldemort in power, do you want that?” Mr. Potter said and looked at his wife. “And how could we change anything about Helen and I, we don’t even know how we died.”
“No, but you can’t just stand there and do nothing! You can’t tell me James, you’ll just look in Pettigrew’s face knowing what he will do and make him Secret Keeper. You can’t expect me to go after him and leave Harry to the Dursleys!” Sirius pleaded.
“We don’t,” James said, “That’s why we are going to do a memory charm on all of us. Including Peter. Dad knows of a spell that will memory charm anyone that came in contact with this information in case Peter has already blabbed to anyone. The charm has a time period. We will set it to end after all is done. I think by the time of this epilogue is fine.”
Lily nodded her agreement, “We’ll write letters so you can give to Harry. So he can know how we feel about him and this,” she said.
“I’ll write one too,” Remus said.
“Us too,” Mr. Potter nodded to his wife.
“Letters? You mean we read all this for nothing?” Sirius cried.
“No, not for nothing. For me and Lily to be able to know how wonderful our son is, even though we’ll have to suppress that memory. For mum and dad to know their grandson.”
“You have to write the outer envelope Sirius. It will be addressed to you and once you open it the charm will break,” Lily explained.
Sirius was shaking his head.
“We’ll let you come to terms while we write,” Remus said and motioned for the others to leave.
Sirius huffed and threw the book at the floor. He noticed a parchment falling of the book and went to read. His eyes gleamed.
After a long time they came back with the envelopes and handed Sirius a quill. Reluctantly he addressed it.
“I already put the counter charm in the envelope. Go to the owl post office and get a timed owl. When you come back I’ll do the charm,” Mr. Potter said.
Sirius nodded and left.
There was a soft tapping at the window and Sirius let an owl in. he retrieved the envelope and was surprised to see his own writing in an envelope addressed to himself. He opened it and was even more surprised to find five envelopes addressed to Harry in familiar handwriting. He almost missed the white glow coming from the envelope that suddenly filled the whole house. When the glow vanished he only managed an:
"Oh, Bugger."
"SIRIUS ORION BLACK!" came a cry and an enraged Remus Lupin thundered in the living room.
"Hi, Moony," he tried sheepishly.
"Hi, Moony. Hi, Moony. You, You. We agreed! What did you do?" he yelled.
"I kind of sent a timed owl to Harry that should have reached him right before he healed you from the silver poisoning telling him that the only way to heal you was if he cured your lycanthropy and that one day I would explain but that right then I didn’t know about the note. And I kind of put something personal that Peter wouldn’t know so he knew this time there was no trick, and well, he did," He winced out.
"He almost died in the process! He was out for a whole week instead of just a day. We agreed not to change anything Sirius!"
"And I didn't! Everything else happened the same but that tiny detail. And Harry was never at risk because that was before he had control so I thought his magic would stop him if he wasn’t able to. And I thought he’d have a chance there because once he started mastering his power he wasn’t able do the big stuff anymore."
"That tiny detail could have changed everything, Ugh, I don't know what to do with you" Remus pulled his hair and paced frustrated.
"Look, I know I took a big chance but I wasn't going to loose you, ok. The thought of losing both you and Prongs was just too much. I realize that Prongs and Lily couldn’t be saved, but not you. And after all we’ve gone through. After actually living the maybe losing you and seeing what the thought of you being dead did to Harry I back my decision up. The godfather in me wants to kick me for risking Harry but the friend does not regret what I did, so you can just spend the rest of your very long magically enhanced life angry at me," Sirius said valiantly.
Remus came up to him and Sirius flinched thinking he was going to strike him but was engulfed in a hug instead.
"You are a moron and this is absolutely the stupidest thing you’ve ever done. Thank you." Sirius nodded his head as he buried it in Remus’ shoulder and they stayed that way a long time until Sirius said in a horse voice.
“Er, Moony. There’s something else.”
Remus looked at him and Sirius bit his lip.
“Remember when we arrived here in the States, right after Harry’s graduation at Hogwarts?” Remus nodded. “Well, you made a comment. You said that it was too bad that James and Lily would never get to know what a great son they had.”
“Yes,” Remus said suspiciously.
“Weeeeeeeeeeeeeellllllllll,” Sirius said and fidgeted with the hem of his sleeves. “I kind of thought, and then researched and then, wrote and then sentthebookstothepast.”
“Excuse me?”
“I didn’t exactly write. I used a spell. On Harry. With his consent. Well I tricked him. I said I wanted to test a spell and promised that no one other than family would ever see the books. The spell kind of wrote what Harry lived through his perspective. Some of mine too. I tried. I guess that because of the connection between Harry and Voldemort we got kind of some of Voldemort too. Because Harry felt it at the time, don’t really know why-“
“YOU’RE THE ONE THAT SENT THE BOOKS TO THE PAST?”
Sirius flinched and rubbed his ears, “Yeah, I even sent a note.”
“I didn’t see any note.”
“Er, em. I kind of found it in the last book when you were all writing your letters and I was kind of distraught and when I read the note I had the idea for sending Harry his note so I kind of hid the note where I knew it would keep for decades.”
“Where is the note?” Remus said through gritted teeth.
Sirius walked quickly out of the room and came back with “The Marauders code of Mayhem”, sliced the back cover and took a piece of parchment from inside. He handed the note to Remus who read and laughed. Sirius scowled and read the note again.
Dear Marauders,
I’ve sent these so Prongs and Lily could get to know their son.
Padfoot
PS: I tried aiming for Prongs head. Hope I got you.
After composing himself, Remus shook his head. “What will we do with you Padfoot. No qualms whatsoever with meddling with time.”
“Well, I just thought-“
“The problem Padfoot is you didn’t.” Remus shook his head throwing an arm over Sirius’ shoulders and pulling him close. “But thanks to your luck, everything ended well and James and Lily did get to know Harry, and even got a little closer after that reading. And we had thought that was because of the time we spent reading “Lord of the rings”, Remus chuckled. “And Harry will know that they knew.”
Sirius smiled and then scowled.
“I have horrid aim.”
Remus burst out laughing and only stopped when sound of racing feet met them and soon a ruffled toddler ran in the room.
“Daddy, daddy!”
Sirius picked the toddler up and straightened him up.
“You had to name him after all of us,” Remus snorted.
“Well, yeah!”
“Are you going to tell Harry you are trying for another one today?” Remus asked.
“Yeah, I hope he doesn’t laugh this time. Moony that wasn’t funny,” he glared at Remus who was laughing.
“Why Uncle Moony laugh?” the toddler asked.
“Because there is nothing else to do when your father is the topic,” Remus patiently explained.
“Kay.”
“No not ok. Moony! Stop poisoning my son!”
“Mummy say we go meet Hawwy and Anna and Evan.”
“Yes we are, are you two ready?” Came a voice from the door and Sirius’ wife came in.
“Almost, Sirius and I just have to ask Dobby a favor.”
“We do?” Sirius asked confused.
“Yes we do, for James and Lily.”
“Oh,”
“Then I’ll take him,” said Jocelyn picking R.J and leaving.
“Say Moony when are you and Kimberly tying the knot?” Sirius asked with a cheeky smile.
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Remus said blushing.
“Yes you do.”
Remus smiled and said, “Yes, it’s nice to know I can. And can have kids. But Harry will always be our eldest.”
“That he is”
Sirius saw Remus taking an old parchment from his pocket and crossing something off it.
“Moony?” Sirius asked recognizing the parchment.
“Hum, well, see,” Remus started fumbling, “I may have left something for myself to find before Harry’s third year. But I didn’t change anything!” he cried defensively. Sirius laughed.
In England a middle aged woman screamed when her friend pointed out her purple hair.
The end