Red by rockinfaerie
Chapter Notes: I hope the French is correct! And the musician mentioned in the Muggle newspaper should be identifiable.
A large, aged radio had obscured the delicately painted saucers on the kitchen dresser for days. Lining its top were large, irregular buttons, which reminded the onlooker of a jawless set of discoloured teeth, and jutting from the machine at an awkward angle was the aerial “ a thin metal line which allowed an anxious English voice to crackle intermittently through the grilled speakers.
Outside, the French countryside was scorched yellow by a hot summer sun, which shone fiercely from its brilliant and cloudless sky. The trees by the kitchen window were untroubled by any suggestion of wind, but their shade did appear to provide some relief from the intense heat, for beneath the cluster that stood beside the white walls James could see his mother, reclining on a chair and nodding at something her friend, Isabelle, had said as she looked up from her painting easel.
“So what do you think?” asked Sirius, biting into a large tomato, procured from the yellow bowl on the table.
“…Of you buying a growling Muggle bicycle?” James asked, laughing as he tore a piece from a baguette that lay on the counter. The kitchen was a cool refuge from the midday heat.
“A motorbike,” Sirius corrected, grinning at the very thought.
He had seen Sirius' enthusiasm a few days before, on passing through the narrow streets of the nearby village. A huge, gleaming “motorbike” “ as he had called it “ had been standing upright outside a small shop, and had immediately caught Sirius' eye. Though James had been more interested in a small game taking place across the road “ involving kicking about something that mildly resembled a Quaffle “ he followed his best friend to the Muggle machine.
It appeared to James an excessively complicated mode of transport to become enamoured with. But when its long-haired owner emerged from the shop, gave them both a salutary nod, climbed onto the saddle and roared off down the road, leaving behind a long trail of dust, he could see why it appealed to Sirius. Sirius had always held a deep admiration for anything that would revolt Mrs Black “ which included loud noise, dirt, and any type of Muggle artefact whatsoever “ and this apparatus seemed to be a perfect combination of all three.
Since then, Sirius had mentioned the machine from time to time, but it was only this afternoon that he voiced any desire to actually buy it.
“It'd be a good way to get around,” he continued brightly, “and I have the money Uncle Alphard left me “”
“We'll improve it, I suppose?”
“But of course!” Sirius exclaimed, popping a grape into his mouth. “Improvements, as I call them… are perfectly legal in this country.”
“I suppose that takes a bit from their appeal,” James said mildly, passing the dresser upon where the old radio was perched.
“In this country, they're legal “ just look at Isabelle's underwater Citroën. But at home, it's a different matter…”
“Everything's a different matter at home,” James said, frowning slightly and twitching the radio aerial so that the WWN voice became clearer.
“The European Ministries have called for a halt to the mass exodus of wizards from Great Britain…” the voice said, worried but eloquently.
Sirius shuddered, turning to look through the window at the calm countryside that surrounded them.
“…The European Ministries, gathered at an emergency council in Vienna this morning, expressed not only their concern for the suffering of the people of Great Britain, but concern for the rest of the European continent, and a wish to contain the violence in its country of origin in the hope that You Know Who's ideology and influence will not spread elsewhere.”
“Prominent objectors to this proposal included Professor Albus Dumbledore, who dismissed this notion of containment as ‘an act of complete barbarity’, and described the total isolation of You Know Who's power as ‘in this manner, impossible’.”
James knew that he looked as pale as Sirius did, but tried not to look very anxious for his friend's sake, nudging the aerial so that the grim voice faded into unintelligible static.
“So, will we go and get that mugglebike?" he asked brightly, succeeding in keeping the shake out of his voice. Sirius grunted, and followed him out into the glaring sunlight.
His mother smiled from under the large brim of her sunhat as they passed. “Where are you two going?” she asked, the shadows of the leaves overhead dappling her face.
“Into the village,” James answered, sticking his hands into his pockets and walking in what he hoped was a reasonably unassuming manner.
Both women nodded, and James and Sirius set off down the dusty avenue and towards the main road.
In the afternoon heat the village was rather sleepy; on the upper parts of buildings the painted shutters were closed tightly, to keep the interior cool, and the whitewashed walls gleamed in the sunlight. They walked in the shade beneath the awnings of the bakery, past the sweet sights and smells that issued through its large display window.
“What makes you think we'll find that bike bloke again?” James asked suddenly.
“Fate,” Sirius shrugged.
The street sloped gently downwards towards an old stone church, its spindly spire seen even from Madame Demarchalier's house. As they approached it, so an elderly man approached them. He hobbled, his two thin legs supported by a dark stick, which clacked against the cobbled ground as he walked “ a third beat to his footsteps. In the crook of his left arm was a striped carrier bag, and the remaining wisps of white hair on his head were smoothed onto his skull as though drawn there.
Sirius, his mood brightening at the prospect of speaking French to a local, slowed his pace and said simply “ and correctly “, “Bonjour Monsieur.”
The man said nothing, but stopped and raised his grey eyes coldly to Sirius, before passing his gaze to James. The wrinkles in his face were so deep that it seemed they had been carved there by a knife, and the skin on either side of his prominent chin drooped over his tight shirt collar like putty. His fist tightened around his stick, whitening the weathered skin on his knuckles. For a moment his stood in this position, staring, almost accusingly, at them both. Then he turned his face away, and continued his hobble up the street.
“Not too friendly, is he?” asked Sirius, shielding his eyes from the dazzling sun with his hand as he watched the retreating Muggle's hunched back.
“Perhaps he has his reasons,” James mused.
“I mean, my French is hardly that bad…”
They passed the grey stone church and crossed the large village square “ where stood a tall war memorial “ and onto a narrower street than the one they had been on, which James recognised from previous occasions by the peeling red paint on the front of the newsagents. On a metal rail in front of the window were stacked rows of fresh newspapers.
“Anything interesting?” asked Sirius, as James picked one up and set about mentally translating some of the headlines.
“Mainly that a famous American singer died yesterday,” he replied, somewhat mystified at the lack of news about Britain in the Muggle paper. “It says here he's some sort of king…”
Sirius glanced at the oddly still photograph of a dark-haired man. “Never heard of him,” he said, shaking his head.
“Anything from home, though?”
“No.”
James had just tossed the newspaper back onto the rack when both boys heard a distinct buzzing sound. It quickly grew louder, and seconds later, a motorbike whizzed around the corner, leaving the pages behind James fluttering in its wake. Instantly, Sirius was off, running as fast as he could in its direction, James following suit and quickly catching up.
They found themselves out on the square again, and it was still rather empty, save for the motorcyclist, who was in the process of removing his helmet. A thick stream of smoke emitted from the engine, almost obscuring the large wheels of the bike.
“Is it the bloke from the other day?” asked James as Sirius, as though in a trance, stepped towards it.
“Salut,” said the motorcyclist politely as he saw them approaching. James saw that he was a few years older than they were, and that it was, indeed, the very same young man from the previous day. He tried to wave the fumes away, but to no avail, and now the thick grey clouds were accompanied by small spluttering noises from the engine.
“Salut,” James replied, as Sirius eyed the smoking vehicle with an expression of intense longing.
““La moto te plaît?” asked the motorcyclist somewhat incredulously.
“Oui, elle lui plaît beaucoup,” replied James, whose knowledge of French, which had deteriorated since starting secondary school, had returned somewhat now that he was surrounded by it once again.
“What did you say?” asked Sirius, who was deaf to any of the language he may have learned from his mother during his early days by way of simple rebellion, but naturally did not want to be left out of any conversation.
“He asked if you liked the bike, and I said that you did, very much.”
“Ah “ you are uhh… English?” asked the man as he bent down to examine the spluttering exhaust pipe.
They nodded, and he stood “I'm afraid…” he said, gesturing to the billowing smoke, “this bike is no good, no good. This bike… uh... regardez.” He pointed at the metal frame, which was covered in a thick layer of orange, peeling rust. “Et là aussi” “ he pointed to the saddle, which on close inspection was ripped, revealing the yellowish stuffing inside.
“But it works!” exclaimed Sirius, who seemed to be even more attracted to the machine now that he saw how unkempt it was.
The French man shook his head. “Non. Too loud. Too big. Too, uh… smoking.” He laughed good naturedly at his attempts, and then shook his head, grinning, and returned to his native language to explain.
“Je n'ai pas acheté cette moto,” the man told James. “Un ami me l'a donnée, mais elle ne marche pas. C'est un peu dangereux…”
“He didn't buy it “ his friend gave it to him, but it doesn't work. He also says it's a bit dangerous.” James watched the smoke rise to the sky.
“Tell him I'll buy it,” said Sirius determinedly.
“Bye?” the owner repeated blankly.
“Il veux acheter ta moto,” said James, and the man looked at him as though questioning both of their sanities.
“Mais pourquoi?” he turned to Sirius. “Why? It is… look “ it is no good!”
“Because I want to,” answered Sirius, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a bundle of notes. “It's all “ what do they call it? - Sterling “ sorry.”
The man refused at first to accept Sirius' offer, and even his words. He seemed to think the younger man was mad, but having confirmed with James that this was a serious and worthwhile transaction, he accepted the bundle, stepping bewilderedly away from the motorbike.
“Merci beaucoup,” said Sirius gratefully, bending down and tracing with his fingertip a thin line of rust, as though it were a particularly fine detail on a work of art.
“Merci,” James echoed, and the man nodded, his mouth still slightly open in disbelief. They watched him until he disappeared onto a side street, when instantly James stopped the flow of smoke from the exhaust, coughing as Sirius raised his arms in delight.
“What'll your mum say when we bring this filthy thing back to the farmhouse?” Sirius asked as they walked the motorbike up the street that led in that direction.
“Oh, I'm sure Isabelle will convince her it was a worthwhile investment, even if it doesn't look too well.”
“If my mother saw it, she'd go completely spare,” declared Sirius proudly. “It's loud, it spits, it smokes… Merlin, it's the Muggle version of me!”
“Yes, wheels and all.”
“I'll give it to her for Christmas if I ever get sick of it.” Sirius said decidedly. “No wait “ that would be a bit too kind.”
Now that the road was deserted they relinquished their hold on the motorbike and let it go by itself, happily chugging along between them. The sky was a dazzling blue, and the road so dusty that as they walked swirls of brown powder formed behind them. Lining the edge of the road were hedges, divided at times by a narrow wooden gates “ the pedestrian entrances to cottages and farmhouses along this stretch.
“I can't wait to get back to Hogwarts,” said Sirius suddenly, after some time of walking in silence.
Their shadows were beginning to stretch, and James paused to kick at a stone, the dust clouding in swarms about his legs.
“Do you think they'll actually close the British border? To ‘contain’ Voldemort and his cronies?”
Sirius frowned for a moment, before deciding what he thought. “Nah,” he said with a shrug. “Besides, even if they do, they'd give us plenty of warning…”
“Yeah,” said James angrily. “Then as many people as possible would leave, except for the ones who side with him, and then what's left to fight him? Muggles? That's just giving him exactly what he wants. Once he has Britain, he won't stop “ he'll get Ireland, and then he'll come here, then he'll keep moving around until he gets all of Europe… and then it's wherever the Hades he likes!”
“Dumbledore won't leave,” said Sirius confidently. “As long as he's around there's some kind of resistance. And if there's some kind of resistance, I'm fighting with it.”
“We'll be the resistance.”
His voice seemed to echo along the stretch of road, and a slight wind blew the dry earth up from it. The yellowing leaves swayed beneath the sunlight, casting shadow changes on the dry, thirsty path, and as James ran his hand through his hair, thinking of life back home.
Along the path to their right was a row of parched flowers, planted just beneath a little red gate, shadowed by thick branches above. James squinted against the sunlight at the tree “ its leaves seemed to whisper to him in the faint breeze “ when suddenly he became aware of a figure standing beneath it.
“Sketch!”
Instantly, Sirius' most recent purchase hit the ground, skimming along the road until it came to a stop, right at the gate which stood before the man. They both ran after it heaving it up off the ground and brushing the dust off it.
“Désolé,” James said in apology to the man, whom he suddenly recognised. In the shadows his face looked different “ even older somehow “ his wrinkles were hewn so deeply that they now looked like scars. His knuckles gripped the gate as they had a stick, hours before, and his nostrils were flared in what appeared to be anger.
He stared at them again, that same cold, long stare, before commencing his fist-shaking diatribe. His rapid French, James could not understand, but they both knew what it contained, having heard the same indignant tones in English many times before.
They ran as fast as they could while pushing the heavy bike in front of them, and it wasn't long before they were at a safe distance from him, turning into the avenue that led to Isabelle Demarchalier's house.
“Do you think he saw…?”
“The motorbike being pushed by no-one?” Sirius laughed. “In some ways, I hope he did!”
As had been expected, James' mother did create a bit of a fuss when they brought the bike up to the house “ “It's so dusty “ Sirius, dear, why didn't you get a new one, if anything?”
But once assured that it would not go near her until they had worked on it, she was content with Isabelle's suggestion that they put it in the yard behind the house, where they could work on it that evening, and she laughed as they described the previous owner to her over dinner.
“But I suppose Muggles don't see the potential of their items in the way wizards do,” she mused, as Isabelle poured red wine into their glasses. “What are your plans for it, Sirius?”
“I'll paint it, for a start,” answered Sirius.
“Black, I presume?” asked Isabelle, handing James a plate of bread.
“Naturally,” James affirmed.
“And then?” Mrs Potter asked, helping herself to the salad.
“You'll see,” said Sirius rather enigmatically.
“I look forward to it,” said James' mother with a smile.
She clipped back a strand of her hair with a wave of her wand, and James saw with some surprise that her hand looked very old and pale. He had always known his parents to be quite a lot more "grown-up" than he was, but now as he looked across the table at his mother he realised that she was looking rather frailer than he was used to seeing her. Though she had been in good spirits since they had met at King's Cross Station, he couldn't help but notice that she wasn't as active as she had been, preferring to stay at the farmhouse than even to go into the village, where the shops and cafés were.
“Isabelle,” he started suddenly, being strangely reminded of this by his mother's appearance. “There's a man we encountered “ twice. He seems to live in a house near here with a red gate.”
“Yes. That would be Monsieur Henri Champney. Why, how did he treat you?”
“With contempt, to be honest,” answered James, thinking back to the expression on the elderly man's face.
Isabelle sighed, drumming her slender fingers against her fork. “Yes, I think that could be expected in relation to both of you.” She lifted her fork onto the plate before elaborating. “As you both know, the War of Grindelwald coincided with a Muggle war, which was on a scale more massive than anything they could have possibly imagined. Millions of Muggles were senselessly slaughtered “ many on the battlefield.”
“When I first came to this region with Luc” “ she glanced at his photograph beside the radio “” in the 1930s, Champney was an entirely different man to the one you met today. He was a highly extroverted fellow “ he'd throw parties at his house for neighbours, always reaching out to the shyer types to make sure they got involved. He wrote articles for the national newspapers and was held in high esteem for his opinions on different matters, and was always seen kicking a ball about with his two treasured sons, Alexandre and Etienne.”
“When the war broke out in thirty-nine, Alex and Etienne Champney, who were at that time about your age, perhaps a little bit older, joined the army. Henri was so proud to see them in their uniforms, believing that they would fight and win the cause. I remember him waving them off from the square, believing they would be home by Christmas.”
“Neither young man returned. They became posthumously decorated heroes of the war, held as a shining example for others. The war memorial at the centre of the square has their names on it, and Henri goes there every single day, without fail, regardless of his state of health.”
“But I know that he does not go to that square to see their names set in stone. He goes there thinking of the day he proudly watched his boys leave, and waits, in vain, for them to return. All other activity has lost meaning to him.”
A sad silence filled the kitchen following the story of Henri Champney and his dead sons, and the elderly face “ the sad, scarred face, coming back from another empty visit to the square “ appeared in James' mind as clearly as if the hunched man stood before him now. He remembered the declarations he and Sirius had made as they walked beside his house, and wondered with a shudder if Henri Champney's sons had said the same things long ago.
Later that evening, James and Sirius stood outside in the cool night air, admiring their handiwork. The motorbike was now a gleaming black, with a comfort-charmed saddle, invisibility power, and silencer spells. Currently, the main thing left to do was to make it capable of flight, which they considered the easiest of all improvements they could make to it.
The sky above them was very clear “ a scatter of stars shimmered beyond the dark surrounding slopes, and above them that faint wind blew again, dropping leaves into James' hair. He smiled as he pulled one out, remembering how close they had sat, beneath the branches of the silver beech tree.
Merlin, he missed her.
Every night, to the sound of Sirius' snores, he would lie awake, thinking about her, worrying about her. At times, he didn't expect that he would ever see her again, and on these occasions he was filled with an overwhelming and unanticipated sense of despair. Peter and Remus, they both knew, were perfectly all right. Neither had left Britain, but Remus, because of his condition, lived in an isolated region, and would therefore not be exposed to outbreaks of violence, which in recent times had been happening in urban areas. Peter, who up until recently had lived in an apartment in Liverpool, had gone to live in an aunt's house by the sea, and James expected, from his letters, that he was faring well there.
But Lily…
Lily he knew next to nothing about. His greatest concern was that she was Muggle-born, and, as she had mentioned that rather blissful night of the Quidditch Cup Final, she would be spending her holidays with her older sister, who, according to her, knew very little about magic. He knew she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself, but in recent weeks even the most experienced of aurors had gone missing, leaving not a trace of evidence behind. Some of his most fearful imaginings had contained hearing the news that she had been killed, and he would shake himself from these ordeals wondering at them.
The summer holidays had approached at excessive speed once the Quidditch Final and the drudgery of exams had passed. For most students, it had been an occasion unlooked forward to, and James had been no exception. There was nothing at all unpleasant about Isabelle Demarchalier and her farmhouse “ quite the opposite, in fact, but a terrible uncertainty in Britain had grown at that time regarding how the War, as they were now terming it, would progress. Muggle and Wizard casualties were mounting, and many families were fleeing for their own safety.
Professor Dumbledore had quashed rumours of Hogwart's imminent closure at the end-of-term feast, promising that it would certainly be “open for business” come September, but James had heard many of his fellow students' plans not to return, and had shuddered at the possibility of their so doing involuntarily.
Since the night of the final “ which he had dwelled on constantly “ James had been without exception denied every chance to speak with Lily alone, much to his annoyance. The exams had overwhelmed an entire week, and in their run-up the teachers had ensured that each sixth year was present at supervised study “ an ordeal that he and Sirius, try as they might, could not escape. Hogwarts was (as they were severely reminded by McGonagall after one near-successful attempt), primarily focused on educating them, and therefore did not exist “ according to her “ to serve the purpose of a playground.
Thus, he had been forced to comply, and the only audience he had had with Lily Evans had been within the crowded confines of the library, with a sniggering Sirius at his side and the room frequently shushed into total silence by the vicious Madam Pince. On these occasions he had tried to content himself with watching her from a distance, now and then exchanging smiles as she looked up from her textbooks, but this had not satisfied him.
More frustrating still, was the fact that there had been no further chance meetings, and she had seemed in no rush to talk to him of her own accord, which now, during these brief despairing moments, caused him to question his memory of that night, the night of the Quidditch Cup Final “ had he simply imagined that she felt the same way about him as he did about her?
Then, with the activity of exams themselves, and the full moon which preceded them by a matter of days, he could no longer afford to put his energy into thinking of her with such high expectations. He had resolved to do nothing about the matter until he received some sort of sign from her (which was a move he currently regretted). For those weeks he had kept to his resolution, but though he succeeded in ridding expectations of any kind from his mind, he had been utterly unable to stop thinking about her.
He sighed loudly, wrenching several stalks from the ground and threw them up into the air. Watching the short dry blades flutter away into the darkness, he thought once more about how her hair had felt against his fingers when he pulled the pieces of grass from it that night.
Smoke from Sirius’ cigarette wafted towards him, and for a short while moths fluttered around its light as they stood, admiring the motorbike from various angles.
“So,” said Sirius, crouching down at the back wheel and vanishing the cigarette from his hand. “We’ll put the first flight charm here “ and here.”
“Then the second one should go on the front wheel “ and a third for steering.”
They set to work, Sirius at the back, James at the front.
It took the best part of an hour, but they finally got the physics of the charms into a perfect balance. By this time, his mother and Isabelle had retired to bed; the lights in the orange-roofed house had been extinguished, but neither James nor Sirius, in spite of their efforts, were tired. Together they walked across the field towards the orchard, the balmy night air soothing the dry ground.
“Do you remember when you first came to Godric’s Hollow?”
“How could I forget?” laughed Sirius, as they sat on the orchard fence, looking at the globe of stars above them. “We went on a hunt “ with your winged horses “ and I had no idea what to do.”
“Yeah… with Dad and his friends.” James looked across the fields at the farmhouse. “Billy Forde was there “ do you remember him? He made you drink brandy when you caught a chill.”
“And I was what age “ eleven? Yeah, because you thought it would be a nice idea for us to walk across the stream in bare feet “ in the middle of bleeding March “”
“You followed me,” James interjected, laughing. “Merlin, I’ll never forget the look on your face when you got onto Redback “ I had thought until then, that Sirius Black wasn’t afraid of anything!”
“Well, as I think Sir Billy Forde himself put it, I was “a city lad, more used to stairs than stars. Besides, Redback was a bit much for a beginner.”
“I used to throw things at Billy when I was younger “ that’s why he preferred you “ I didn’t get any brandy that time.”
“Where is he now?”
“Merlin knows,” replied James, leaning back as far as he could from the fence without falling off. “He once said that he’d love to live on the sea, and go wherever the boat would take him.”
“Do you remember that Christmas when we camped in the ruins of the manor, and the ground floor filled with snow?”
“It was like a preparation for the Shrieking Shack “ only with snow, I mean.”
“I love that place.”
“Me too.”
“I can’t wait to see Hogwarts again,” said Sirius, stretching out his arms and closing his eyes, as though imagining waking up in his four-poster.
“Yeah… but I’m worried to see how it’ll have changed.”
Sirius nodded, looking closely at him as though trying to detect something.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Sirius answered mildly... “Do you remember when the Slytherin team attempted to kidnap you before the final match in second year?”
“They got more than they bargained for,” he recalled fondly.
“You hexed the captain’s nose until it resembled the shape of a banana,” Sirius laughed.
“Good times,” said James with a grin.
The silhouettes of the farmhouse and the church steeple beyond it were the only thing in sight that stayed still as a breeze rippled through the grass, rustling the leaves of the orchard trees behind them until they dropped to the ground like confetti. The sky was dotted with innumerable pinpricks of light, clustering and spreading to form constellations and shapes of one’s own imagination.
“Are you in love with her?”
“Lily?” asked James, caught completely off guard.
“Don’t give me that ‘deer caught in wand-light’ look,” Sirius chuckled. “It’s been obvious to me for quite some time, so you might as well admit it.”
“All right,” he said quietly. “Yes, I think I am.”
“You think you are?”
James sighed, looking at his feet. “I know I am.”
Sirius clapped his hands in victory, and James sat still, trying to smile at Sirius’ expression but finding it quite difficult to do so.
“Sirius,” James said, suddenly quite panicked, “I don’t even know if and when I’ll see her again! All this stuff we’ve been hearing on the WWN, and “”
“It’s all in the stars Prongs,” said Sirius, jumping off the fence and gesturing to the night sky. “What are the chances that you’re both up there already?!”
“Merlin,” James moaned, rubbing his hand through his hair. “I’m going to bed.”
He jumped off the fence and left the rustling leaves behind him, walking across the scorched field, beneath the stars with Sirius at his side, and towards the whitewashed house with the orange tiled roof, past the gleaming black motorcycle “ the fruit of their labour, now more than ready to take to the skies...
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And many thanks to Tinn Tamm for the French language editing - hugely appreciated!