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At Least There Were Memories


The rumor about James and Lily sleeping together spread through the entire castle to the extent that it was impossible for the Gryffindor fifth years to walk from class to class, even, without hearing at least a couple wolf-whistles aimed their way or else some guy trying to high-five James in the corridor. James made a point of inserting himself in the middle of the Marauders to make it harder to do - he didn’t want to be high-fived for this. He wanted to forget. It hurt too much to remember exactly how perfect he’d felt in those first few seconds of waking up, seeing her in that light, a glowing, blurry ginger smudge of beauty… James Potter would’ve given up every ounce of magic in his body if he could just hold Lily Evans again - and every knut in the vault of Gringott’s if he was actually bloody sober for it!

“We slept together, like literal actual sleeping,” James said to everyone who dared speak to him about it. “It wasn’t like that.” The words were repeated constantly, it seemed, and sometimes Sirius would step in and snap them when James started getting tired of saying it, and even Peter did a couple times.

Remus, meanwhile, tried to stick with Lily during their walks down the corridor because for every high-five and congratulatory slap on the back James was receiving, Lily was getting that back in glares from the girls. Obviously her friends didn’t say anything nasty - quite the opposite, Ali Prewitt received a detention for fixing a hex on a Slytherin girl during the fourth years potions class - but other girls whispered about her. More than once, Lily walked past a cluster of girls and heard a cough that sounded an awful lot like the word slut.

Lily and Remus sat on the stairs one night toward the end of February, her crying into his chest and shivering. One of the first years had asked about the rumors and Lily had yelled “I didn’t sleep with him, I’m not a slut!!!!” at the top of her voice and everyone in the common room had turned to look as she ran out the portrait hole and into the corridor. James had leaped up to go after her, but Remus had shaken his head and told James he wouldn’t be very helpful in this situation and went himself. Lily sobbed into Remus’s shoulder while he just patted her back and told her everything would be okay.

In addition to all that happening, another thing making its way through the castle was the word werewolf - but not directed at Remus, thank Merlin. It was because somehow or another the story of what happened with Greyback had made it’s way around the castle and students were worrying that the werewolf would find a way into the castle.

“He’ll eat us all,” worried Ollie at the table in the common room one evening. He looked quite terrified.

Wally turned to look at Ollie, “Don’t worry about it, Olls!” he said, flinging his arm about the smaller boy, “No dirty, disgusting nasty old werewolf is gonna get in here. We’ll skin it alive before it does!” He smiled and squeezed Ollie’s shoulders, then, looking up at Remus, he said, “Isn’t that right? No werewolf’s gonna get within ten feet of Ollie before we’ve blasted it to smithereens!”

Remus nodded, feeling sick, “I wouldn’t let any werewolf hurt you, Oliver, I promise,” he said thickly.

Wally smiled, then turned back to Ollie, “See? No blasted werewolf’s gonna get by Remus Lupin! He’s the bravest, most smartest person in the whole school. If anybody could hex a werewolf to death it’d be him.”

The first years, of course, knew how much the words broke Remus’s heart.

Remus cried himself to sleep silently that night, so quiet that only Sirius knew of it… Sirius who sat up all night holding him, whispering, “You’re not a monster,” over and over in his ear and stroking his head long after he’d fallen asleep, staring across the room at his own pale reflection in the little mirror on the wall, telling himself that everything would be okay, eventually, and the dark anger in his chest would go away… “You aren’t a monster,” he whispered to himself… but he wasn’t sure he believed it anymore than Remus Lupin seemed to, and Sirius had sat with his eyes closed, tears streaming down his cheeks, too, feeling the stirring of that dementor-like cloud inside of him, thinking of Newt Scamander’s words.

James hadn’t heard the last of the werewolf incident, either. He’d received a howler from Dora and Charlus - which may even have been how the werewolf story got out…

FIGHTING WEREWOLVES, AT FIFTEEN YEARS OLD! YOU ARE A CHILD! A CHILD!! WEREWOLVES ARE BARBARIC CREATURES, JAMES! THEY ARE DANGEROUS!! THEY WILL KILL YOU AS LOOK AT YOU - EVEN KILL THEIR BEST FRIEND ONCE THEY’RE CHANGED!! YOU CANNOT BE FIGHTING THEM - YOU ARE NOT A TRAINED AUROR, IT IS NOT YOUR DUTY TO BE FIGHTING ANYBODY!!! YOU ARE TO STAY IN THAT CASTLE, SAFE AND SOUND, FOR THE REST OF THIS TERM OR YOU WILL BE IN VERY BIG TROUBLE WHEN YOU COME HOME FOR SUMMER!

In all the commotion of Dora Potter’s yelling, nobody noticed it when Sirius got a letter from his mum as well - it was the third one to come since the beginning of February. Sirius looked it over silently and shoved it into his pocket before anyone - even Remus - could spot it. He didn’t want to talk about it, and he quickly returned to his breakfast, his stomach turning, and only looked up when Dora’s voice said his name.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME, JAMES CHARLUS FLEAMONT POTTER? YOU ARE TO STAY… IN…. THAT… CASTLE!!! ……..AND THAT GOES FOR YOU, TOO, SIRIUS BLACK! DON’T MAKE ME COME UP THERE!!!!”

James had burned fire-engine red as the parchment had turned to ash and fallen onto the breakfast table and he’d heard snickers of don’t make me come up there for several days from the other Gryffindors.

“Bleedin’ under appreciated,” muttered Sirius, annoyed, “We are the reason Greyback’s behind bars again!”

And he was. The Daily Prophet had reported it, shown a picture of it, of Fenrir Greyback sitting in his cell, growling and baring his horrid canine teeth at the camera, clutching onto the bars of his cell in Azkaban.

It was the only good thing that had come out of the whole situation, really.

Aside from the memories James was dwelling on constantly, that is.

At least there were the memories.




On the last morning of February 1976, the Ministry for Magic received another box from the Dark Lord, reminding Bartemius Crouch of the deal that Voldemort had raised in their last correspondence.

Heed my words, the Dark Lord does not wait forever. You will not wish to hear from me again before you’ve enacted a registration of all muggle-borns.

Accompanying the note had been an ear - Harold Minchum’s left ear, to be exact.




“A registry of muggle-borns and half-bloods?” Remus was staring at the Daily Prophet on 1 March. He’d dropped his bagel and smear when he saw the headline on James’s copy of the Daily Prophet, which was still being paid for as James shoved the knuts into the delivery owl’s pouch. Remus looked ‘round at the other three, eyes wide. “Why would that do that?”

Sirius said, “The Ministry’s mental. What’re they thinking?”

“They aren’t thinking,” James said.

“They might as well issue a list of folks for Voldemort to go after as to take up a muggle-born registry. What good could they possibly do with that?”

“A what?” Lily Evans had just come over and was taking a seat between Remus and Ali Prewitt at the table - though Ali was busy talking to Frank on her other side - although it appeared they, too, were talking about the registry.

“A registry of half-bloods and muggle-borns,” Remus replied. “Anybody not of pureblood’s supposed to be on the list.” He had shaken out the paper and was looking over the article now as Lily stared, gape-mouthed over his shoulder at the news. “Says here that Dumbledore refuses to release the names of his muggle-born students - good on you, Dumbledore! But the Ministry is working on legal action that will force the headmaster to consent.” He frowned and looked ‘round at Lily, who had put her hand on his shoulder. “I mean… eventually he’ll have to if this isn’t stopped altogether....” his eyes scanned the page. “Bloody hell. And, the muggle-borns are required to register their wands as well! What utter dung.”

Lily said, “Why would they do that!”

“To make sure none of the wands are stolen,” Sirius murmured. He’d been unusually quiet for several minutes and his voice was flat now, compared to how Sirius usually sounded.

They looked at Sirius, the lot of them. “What?” asked Lily, who was still the only one that didn’t understand the weight of the practice.

Sirius looked up, “That’s what they do. They register wands and make sure none matching the descriptions and weight have been reported stolen or missing,” he explained. “The implication is that they believe the muggle-borns may have… may have stolen them… that they couldn’t get wands from Ollivander’s because they… aren’t… actual witches and wizards.” He paused and they all slowly let that thought sink in. “They did it back in the 20’s. Didn’t they?” he looked at Remus.

“Did they?” Remus asked, eyebrow raised… and then he remembered the homework he’d been reading aloud to Sirius a few days before and how they’d gone over the registry of 1922 and how it had impacted the release of the list of the Sacred Twenty-Eight houses of pureblood ancestry. He said, “Gosh, yeah, they did. You’re right. You lot, this isn’t good.”

James balled his fist, “The Dark Lord’s got something to do with this. He’s obviously got his hand at the ministry again. Blasted bastard needs to stay the hell out of other people’s business!” James was talking about You-Know-Who and the Ministry, of course, but his words held the passion of being about Severus Snape and his interference with James and Lily. He slammed his fist on the table, “Minchum wouldn’t put up with this bullshit from Voldemort! He wouldn’t! The real Minchum would slay Voldemort dead before he’d register the muggle-borns!” James shook his head as Peter reached up to steady the pumpkin juice glasses James had nearly knocked over with the force of his fist on the wood table. “Somebody needs to stop this before it gets too far! Somebody needs to ruddy find Harold Minchum and get him back to the Ministry, where he belongs!”

“I’m sure they’re trying to,” Remus said.

“If they’re trying as hard as they were trying to stop Greyback last month, then they’re doing a shoddy job of it, aren’t they?” Sirius said, “We stopped Greyback ourselves.” He waved between himself, Peter, James, and Lily Evans. “The bleedin’ Resistance couldn’t even get themselves together - you think the damned Ministry for Magic’s going to do better? Especially when they’re down Mad-Eye Moody and the Prewett brothers?”

Remus frowned.

James looked around darkly. “We need the Order.”

“Yes,” Sirius hissed, turning to look at James, “YES.”

Peter squeaked nervously. “We - we do? What’re we going to do?”

“We need to find the Minister,” James hissed, “Before the Ministry does something stupid.”