Blood Status || Marauders Era

Chapter 102|| Leo Cronus Black

It had been a week after the big mission that Dumbledore had sent twelve of his precious Order on. It had also been a week since Lily had fixed Remus's wound, and it seemed that he was doing better, even coming to visit us once and see how we were doing. Remus was a very understanding person, but he was also someone who forgot very easily, as soon as he was walking again, he took it upon himself to volunteer to do secret missions again.

On the other hand, it had also been a week after Sirius had turned up at the Potter manor with a small baby wrapped in a silver blanket who was extremely thin for its age. The baby, we had soon discovered, was a boy. The certain baby boy, whom, after we had fed and clothed and placed it back into a schedule full of things it needed in the first place, was a handful.

I was almost certain that Sirius had used the excuse of an innocent civilian kidnapping to bring his illicit child into the world. The baby was too much like Sirius in his actions and his appearance that it was extremely confusing. It was easy to tell that the boy was around Harry's age, about four months old. However, for a four -month- old, the boy was using his magic rather well it was almost too amusing.

The tiny child had taken it upon himself to just disappear, one moment he was sat in a crib next to the bed, the next, he was either on the bed itself or he was placed comfortably on the sofa in the living room. When he first did this, I was extremely scared and thought some force had taken him again and that he would be gone for good. But it appeared that he just liked the couch more than his crib.

The week after we had brought him home and bought things for him to survive, Sirius and I had sat on the couch for a well - earned rest. Leo was taking his turn now to visit Lily and James, as they had said that we should take Harry the day before, and they would take Leo that day. This gave the two of us time to relax and have a glass of wine, and talk, and most importantly, swear. 

"Thank fuck. I can say bad words again," Sirius clapped loudly, pouring himself another drink. "Calm yourself, we don't need you getting drunk. You have a responsibility now," I warned him. Sirius frowned but said nothing as he grabbed his full glass and sat back next to me on the sofa, seemingly in deep thought. Before I could ask him what he was thinking about, he asked, "What should we name the child?"

I froze, it was a bad move, but I hadn't even thought of naming the baby. Sirius obviously had, however, because he began to ramble about how he had wanted to name a child this all of his life and how he thought that the name 'Leo' was a perfect boy's name. "Leo? What about his middle name?" I asked, surprised he had picket out a rather normal name for a child and not something ridiculous and immature.

"You choose. After Leo, I'm lost," Sirius grinned, it seemed his brain had only presumed that a first name would be the only name. I was deep in thought, Leo was a star name, but my name was a goddess, my whole family on my father's side were named after Greek gods and such. I thought for a while longer, ending up with two names, "I like Cronus or Icarus. Cronus is the youngest titan; Icarus is the son of the labyrinth maker."

"I like Cronus, it sounds rather powerful, youngest titan but he still overthrew his dad. Leo is Latin for Lion, he'll be super cool, I can feel it," Sirius said, happy at our decisions. I laughed, the name was pretty cool, especially for a baby boy, I ruthlessly compared it to Harry and immediately felt slightly bad but also very proud at how good we'd picked the name, and also went with its meanings.

"I miss my son," Sirius said after drinking his fourth glass, he was lying with his head in my lap, his legs longer than the sofa, his eyes closed. There was a silence as I froze, registering his use of the phrase 'my son', it seemed that he hadn't noticed, as he still kept his eyes closed, his hands holding the drink very tightly. "Sirius, you've just ..." I began.

Sirius sat up, looking me in my eyes, "I've just said it again, haven't I? I said it once at James' and I never heard the end of it that day. I also said it once in conversation with Peter and he just froze, looking at me. Now I've just done it again." It was a strange reaction, but I just smiled, listening to him ramble on about how many times he'd called Leo his son and how he'd actually grown to think that they were actually blood.

"In fact, I'm going to tell everyone that I ever meet that Leo Cronus Black is my son. He has a cool name, he looks like me, you even say he acts like me. The boy practically is me," Sirius stood up, aiming to open the door dramatically and step to get the baby, but instead, as soon as he stood up, he fell forward, the drink spilling across the carpet. It scared me at first because the spillage of red wine looked a lot like blood.

"Sirius, are you okay?" I asked, crouching down to check he hadn't broken his nose or something from face planting on wood and thin carpeted flooring. The man just whispered, "I'm fine. Completely okay. But I spilled my drink. I am completely not okay." He said, whining like the actual baby as he sat up, holding onto the bottom of his shattered glass like a prize.

"Sirius, give me the glass or you're going to get hurt," I told him, and no matter of his actual answer, I took the glass anyway, vanishing it and the rest of the broken shards, cleaning the red stain of wine in a matter of seconds. "It vanished. Just like magic," he sighed drunkenly. I tilted my head; it was always my favourite version of drunk Sirius when he forgot he was a Pureblood wizard and thought he was an ordinary Muggle.

"Athena, darling, are you a witch? It's okay if you are, because I'm not going to burn you at the stake or anything. In fact, all I'm going to do is make sure that you keep hidden and not reveal yourself to anyone else. We can't have James or Marlene setting you on fire tomorrow if they find out you can do spells," he slurred, giggling at the thought of James and Marlene finding out I was a witch.

"Sirius honey, shut up," I said, noticing a brown owl tapping on the window, a letter tied to its leg. I walked over, away from the vice like grips of drunk Sirius, to open the window and retrieve the letter from the barn owl. Throwing open the window, I heard Sirius scream, "Ah, it's cold!" but I ignored him, grabbing the letter and thanking the owl who flew off shortly afterwards.

Sitting on the sofa, I opened the letter to Lily's familiar neat handwriting, and inside, the parchment read:

Ash and Padfoot,
The baby is completely fine, if you're worried about that. But you will need to get him from here as soon as you can. I have had a visit from the headmaster and have found out that we need to go into hiding. He didn't say much, only that we need to choose a secret keeper and something about a prophecy. I cannot go into much detail in case this letter is intercepted, and we also need to use code or nicknames, so I came up with the idea of your stupid ones from school that you always called each other.
Love,
Doe (call me that in your letters, and don't ask me, I didn't come up with it.)
I did!

I smiled, recognising James' handwriting at the end, it was obvious that he came up with the idea, she may not be an animagus but she still had a Patronus, so that was an obvious choice of nickname. I was also glad that Leo was safe and that she was informing me of the situation she was in. Sirius wasn't in the right levels of sobriety to understand this letter, so I would tell him later tomorrow.

It all sounded suspicious, if they were using a secret keeper, that must mean the Fidelius charm, and using that charm means they would be hidden away from the world, almost like prisoners in their own home. Then, there was the matter of the prophecy, who did it concern? and why? what was happening? I was more thinking about 'the headmaster', he informed them, and my question was, was he always, right?