Thicker than Water (Marauders Era) PART II

12 April, 1996 - Fireplace

Lavinia and Sirius were still sitting on the bed when, several minutes later, they heard Remus calling their names.

"In here!" Sirius replied, twisting around to look at the door. Lavinia followed suit, peering over her shoulder as the door opened and Remus, looking rather out of breath, stuck his head in.

"Harry's downstairs. In the kitchen fireplace," he explained, the words a bit breathy.

Lavinia stared at him, utterly shocked even as Sirius jumped up, halfway to the door before Lavinia had even properly registered what had happened.

"How the hell did he get there?" Lavinia demanded, standing as well, her brain feeling rather slow as it worked through the confusion.

"Floo network," Remus supplied, frowning at her even as he ushered Sirius out of the room ahead of them.

"Yes, I know that," Lavinia countered, shaking her head and hurrying down the steps after Sirius. "But Arthur said the Hogwarts fires are under strict surveillance. So how did he get through? And what the hell is so important?"

Sirius swore slightly and Remus shot a panicky sort of look at Lavinia as all of them seemed to reach the same conclusion: something must be wrong. There was no other reasonable explanation for why Harry would go through whatever trouble he had to get past the Ministry's floo blocks to talk to them.

The three of them clattered into the kitchen out of breath and with worry written all over their faces to find Harry peering out of the kitchen fire with an almost bored expression that made Lavinia's fear stutter into confusion.

Sirius, however, either didn't notice or didn't care and merely dropped onto his knees before the fire so he was at eye level with Harry. "What is it?" he demanded, his eyes scanning every bit of Harry's face like there might be answers written there. "Are you alright? Do you need help?"

Harry blinked, apparently confused by the urgency in Sirius's voice. "No," he admitted, shaking his head. "It's nothing like that, I just... wanted to talk about my dad."

Lavinia stared at the face sticking out of the fire, her head scrambling for an explanation for this that didn't involve Harry being... well. Dramatic. It was dangerous to use floo in and out of Hogwarts and surely Harry had been paying enough attention to know that. So what about James was so important that he was risking it?

Sirius and Remus, who was now kneeling on the floor as well, exchanged a look of confusion before turning back to Harry, waiting for some explanation, apparently as confused as Lavinia was. Thankfully, Harry, with a slight blush of what might have been embarrassment creeping onto his cheeks, began speaking quickly enough that Lavinia suspected he knew he didn't have much time.

And Harry told them about a memory he had seen in the pensieve. A memory that had come from Severus. And as Harry spoke, explaining what he had seen, Lavinia felt her heart dropping down out of her chest, her stomach sickening slightly as that day came back to her too.

When Harry finished his story, he looked almost pleadingly out at Remus and Sirius, like he needed an explanation for this. Like he was desperate for them to say that it had all been a dream or that there was some context he was lacking. But they couldn't. And Lavinia knew it. Because she had been there that day. And there was nothing to justify James's actions. He had been... well. He had been cruel. Arrogant and immature and cruel. And Lavinia could only imagine what it had felt like for Harry, who had so frequently been told by Remus and Sirius and probably plenty of others that his father had been such a wonderful man, practically a saint, to suddenly see this side of him.

It was Remus who managed to find words first and he sighed slightly. "I wouldn't like you to judge your father on what you saw there, Harry. He was only fifteen."