Spreading the News
There was no funeral for Benjy as there had been for Marlene. There was no body to be mourned over, no body that was complete, anyway. No one spoke at all that evening, not unless it was absolutely necessary. Even then, no more than a few words were exchanged. There was just too much to deal with. The others who had died, the innocent shoppers who had only come to enjoy a fun day in Diagon Alley, they had to be turned over to their families. The Aurors dealt with that. The rest of the Order who were not Aurors merely pretended to be just like them, shoppers who had come out for a fun day turned into chaos.
Finally, when that was finished, the Order was free to go home for the evening. Remus and Sirius tried to convince Peter to come spend the night at their place, as they believed that no one should be alone right now, not after everything that had happened, but Peter wasn’t having it. He could take care of himself. That was what he told them. They supposed it didn’t matter anyway; as for the first time since they moved in, Sirius’s flat was absolutely silent. Remus’s head was hurting him badly and he made a beeline for his bedroom, shutting the door behind him and he fell asleep the instant his head hit the pillow. Sirius rummaged through the freezer and found a handful of ice, stuffing it into a rag and holding it on his bruised arm. He didn’t even wait to get to his own bedroom; he fell asleep on the couch.
James and Lily had also tried convincing Peter to spend the night at their flat, as it was definitely a lot safer thanks to the special wards Dumbledore had put up for them. But again, Peter refused. He went straight to his own flat and fell asleep without much trouble. Peter may have fallen asleep without any severe trouble, that didn’t mean that he didn’t have anything plaguing his thoughts. Why did Sirius insist that he fight? Peter didn’t want to fight. He hadn’t chosen to join the Order of the Phoenix! His friends had shanghaied him into it. He didn’t want to fight. He wasn’t a fighter. He never had been. Yet they insisted that he do so. To prove what? That was what he wanted to know. What were they trying to prove?
The Death Eaters were far more powerful than they could ever hope to be.
James sat in the single armchair in the living room of his flat. He had never been so bloody tired before in his life, yet he couldn’t sleep. His eyelids drooped, yet his mind was on overdrive, the images of what he had seen that day flashing before his eyes. His friends had been hurt “ Sirius was going to have a difficult time using his arm for a few days and Remus was bound to have a monstrous headache when he woke up the next morning. And Benjy… poor Benjy. Apparently it hadn’t been the collapse of the store that mutilated him like that, the explosion had been aimed at him and he hadn’t had enough time to get out of the way or block the spell. And Alice had been the first to see him.
He doubted the woman would ever be the same after witnessing what she did.
“James?”
James glanced up to see Lily hovering across the room. He had been so grateful that she hadn’t been hurt badly, aside from a few scrapes and bruises. Her face was still pale from the shock of their fallen comrade. James imagined they all felt terrible. Benjy had been one of the first of the Order they had fought alongside “ Benjy and Marlene. They were both gone now. How many more times were they going to have to deal with this? He didn’t think he could take it anymore. He had already had to say goodbye to two people he respected already. He didn’t want to do that again.
He nodded to let Lily know he was listening. She came further into the room; though there was a tentative air about the way she walked. “I… I’m not sure if you remember, but there was something you asked me in Diagon Alley today.” For all she knew, James wasn’t in his right mind when he blurted the question out. She would understand if he hadn’t meant it, but she would be undeniably disappointed.
James knew at once what she was talking about. Maybe when he had asked her it had seemed spur of the moment, but it wasn’t. He had been thinking about it only minutes before he ran into her. Hell, he had asked Sirius for his opinion on it. James had meant it; he wanted to marry her and she had to know that. “What I asked you still stands,” he told her honestly. Now came the worst part “ waiting for her answer. Lily had hated him throughout the majority of their time in Hogwarts. They had only been going out for a year or so. But James had meant it. Sweet Merlin, he meant it. He wanted to marry her!
“And I say yes.”
James blinked, sure he had heard wrong. Surely Lily hadn’t just said that she wanted to marry him. “Excuse me?”
“I want to marry you.”
“Are you serious?”
Lily was close to rolling her eyes at him. What was he not understanding? She had said yes. Trust James to be a fool right now. “Yes, James.”
James was standing up now, slowly advancing on her. “You used to think I was a prat whose head was so big it would knock me off my broom!”
Lily nodded slowly, her cheeks pink from embarrassment that she had once said that. Maybe she had meant it then, but James had been different then. He had been a prat, at least socially. She soon learned that was not the case. “I remember that.”
“You should have hated me for the rest of my life for destroying your friendship with Snape! You said you’d rather go out with the Giant Squid than me. Did the Giant Squid finally get someone?”
Lily stifled a chuckle. James was getting a bit hysterical now. “No, I’m sure the Giant Squid is still available.”
“And if it wasn’t?”
In an effort to shut him up, Lily closed the gap between them and pressed her lips against his. When they pulled apart, she stared James straight in the eye, a smile curving at the ends of her lips. “I want to marry you, James Potter. I bloody love you and want to marry you.”
When James arrived at Sirius and Remus’s flat the next day, beaming from ear to ear, Sirius knew at once what he was so happy about. James absolutely insisted Remus Apparate and get Peter so he could tell them all what had happened. When the two returned, Peter clearly looking bewildered, James announced that he was getting married. Though slightly stunned at first, his friends were happy for him and Sirius immediately suggested they should go celebrate. It didn’t take much persuading for them to all eventually end up at the Three Broomsticks, though they firmly kept the Firewhiskey away from Sirius.
They were no doubt thrilled for James, but none of them wanted to witness another drunken escapade from Sirius. If that happened, James just might not make it to his wedding day.
There had been little to no wedding plans made yet, as James and Lily had only been engaged for not even a single day, but James was sure of one thing. He knew who he wanted his best man to be. He was sure Sirius would need little convincing to fill the part. So when he got Sirius alone and asked, he was proven right. Sirius was absolutely thrilled at the prospect of being his best friend’s best man. He was happy for Lily and James and would do anything to make their big day the best that it could be.
James and Lily had a few people they wanted to inform about their engagement. Maybe James’s parents should have been at the top of the list, but James had thought of his best friends first, information he would withhold from his parents when he saw them. He could just picture the look on his mum’s face if she found out she hadn’t been the first to find out her son was getting married. He wouldn’t blame her, but he’d rather she not know. James honestly wasn’t even sure if his parents were home, so he didn’t bother ringing the bell when they got to the Potter Mansion. He just let himself in. He and Lily were instantly greeted by the Potters’ House Elf, Willie, who was busily cleaning up the living room.
“Master James! Miss Lily!” Willie said happily, scurrying over to meet the two.
“Hey, Willie,” James said with a smile at the House Elf. “How are you?”
“Willie is wonderful! Is Master Potter expecting you?”
“No, he’s not. Are my parents at home?”
Willie nodded. “Master’s mother is in the kitchen and Master’s father is in his study. Shall Willie get them for you?”
“Yeah, thanks, Willie.” James and Lily watched as the House Elf bounded off to find his parents.
“I love that House Elf,” James said, turning to Lily with a grin on his face. Despite the species difference, he always considered Willie as one of the Potters. She could be named Willie Potter and he wouldn’t have a problem with it. Most wizards thought they were cut above the House Elves, but James didn’t think that was true. Willie had been around since he was born and was getting quite on in age, but still as energetic as ever.
It didn’t take long for Willie to return with Mr. and Mrs. Potter, both of whom were surprised to see their son and his girlfriend standing in their living room. They hadn’t been expecting them, though they were not displeased that they were there. James could go for long stretches without visiting home, though he never meant to. But this was big news and he couldn’t wait to share it with his parents. They loved Lily, they would be thrilled.
“James, what are you doing here?” Hannah asked, stepping forward to hug her son and kiss him on the cheek.
“What, I can’t visit my parents?” James asked cheekily as his father clapped him on the shoulder and greeted Lily.
“Of course you can,” Hannah said happily. She hadn’t seen her son since Christmas and she had been hearing stories of the awful things happening, especially the fight in Diagon Alley. She wasn’t thrilled when James wanted to join the Order, but he was too much like his father and she wasn’t going to ask him not to. He was an adult now and had to make his own decisions. Even if they were dangerous, they were the right ones. “Come into the kitchen, I’ll have Willie cook something up.”
James, Lily and Charles followed Hannah into the kitchen as James hastened to tell his mother, “We can’t stay that long; we’re doing some “ ah “ some news spreading.”
This got his mother to stop. She revolved on the spot and glanced from her son to his girlfriend, a tiny smile forming on her lips as she suspected what it was they were to tell them. “What kind of news are you spreading?”
James and Lily looked at each other with small grins on their faces. It was fun to see the reactions they would get. James cleared his throat and faced his parents. “We’re getting married.”
There was absolute quiet in the room for the quickest of moments before Hannah let out a shriek of joy that rivaled any James had ever heard before. “Married? Oh, James! That’s wonderful!” She hurried forward and pulled both her son and her future daughter-in-law into such a tight embrace that James could barely beg her to release them. “James, you picked the most wonderful person to be your wife!”
Lily felt her cheeks redden, and she was sure her face must be purple because she was certain she was turning blue from lack of oxygen. “Thank you, Mrs. Potter,” she managed to gasp out.
Finally Hannah released the two, allowing her husband to step forward to hug them both, thankfully in a way so that they could still breathe. “And I won’t have you calling me Mrs. Potter anymore,” Hannah said to Lily firmly. “I’ll accept Hannah or Mum.” Lily nodded. She would probably end up calling Mrs. Potter Hannah, as she could never call anyone except her own mother Mum. “Oh there’s so much to do now! Do you know when you want to have the wedding?”
James and Lily glanced at each other. They hadn’t exactly been engaged for a long time; they hadn’t even told everyone they wanted to tell yet.
Charles seemed to realise this. “I think this is still relatively new to them.”
“The most we’ve done is picked Sirius to be my best man,” James told his mother and father, both of whom nodded knowingly. They didn’t expect anything different of that decision.
Mrs. Potter clapped her hands together excitedly. “Lily, I’ll help you with the planning.” Hannah knew Lily’s mother had died over a year ago and this would have been one of the woman’s happiest moments if she had been around for it. The least she could do was help her son’s fiancé in the planning, if she wanted the help.
Lily smiled genuinely. “I would really like that.”
Willie suddenly appeared at Hannah’s side with a bottle of faerie wine in her hands. “Does Mrs. Potter wish to make a toast?”
Charles grinned at the tiny House Elf. “We would like that very much, Willie.” And he went to find four wine glasses and a small glass of water for Willie, from the cabinet. Within minutes, they all had their glasses. As was customary in the Potter Family, Charles made the toast. “In all the terrible things that have been happening, it’s nice to see something as wonderful and normal as a wedding can happen. To James and Lily.”
“Hey, I think one of the houses yawned!”
“James…”
“No, seriously Lily. I think one of them did. One of the windows did it, I think. Personally, I can’t blame the house. This is the dullest neighborhood I’ve ever seen.”
Privet Drive was certainly a boring place; at least that was how it appeared to the witch and wizard. It looked as though the entire street was made up of the same square houses which, now that she looked carefully, she saw this was the truth. The only variances were the cars in the driveway. Yet Lily knew this was the perfect place for her sister and her sister’s husband to live. They were two incredibly boring people who hated anything abnormal. Privet Drive certainly appeared as if it was a place where nothing out of the ordinary would ever occur. The Dursleys had gotten what they wanted. Lily truly didn’t want to be here, but she had news she had to deliver.
Unlike Petunia, Lily was going to let her sister know that she was getting married and give her the option of attending the wedding. If Petunia chose not to accept the invitation, that was her choice. At least Lily would have given her the opportunity.
“You think this is the place people go when they lose all hope in their own sorry lives?” James asked curiously as he and Lily walked up the street, looking for number four. There was a cheeky smirk on his face that Lily could not help but laugh at.
“Possibly,” Lily agreed. She definitely wouldn’t be caught dead living in so mundane a place. She could almost believe James when he claimed one of the houses yawned. Even the architecture would get bored in this neighborhood. She suddenly stopped and nodded at one of the boring, square houses. There was a shiny, golden four above the mailbox at the front door. “There it is.”
James placed his hand on Lily’s shoulder and gently squeezed it. After the scene Petunia and Vernon had almost caused at their own wedding, he could understand why she wasn’t eager to run into the house. “Let’s get this over with, shall we?”
Lily swallowed with difficulty and led the way to the front door. She raised a hesitant fist, hovering over the door as she wondered whether what the odds were that James would let her bolt right now. She knew he didn’t want to be here anymore than she did. He loathed Petunia and Vernon, and he had only met them once. She couldn’t imagine how much more he would loathe them after a few more meetings. Probably almost as much as he hated Severus, except he knew he couldn’t hex his fiancé’s family. Finally, fed up with her own stalling, she knocked loudly on the door.
There was barely a minute that passed before the front door opened and Petunia Dursley appeared. She had, for a moment, looked eager to see who had come to call. Her face fell almost instantly when she saw who it was. “What do you two want? Didn’t you have enough fun humiliating me at my wedding?”
“How exactly did we humiliate you?” James asked thoughtfully, though he was seething already. They had done nothing except offer their congratulations to the newlyweds. It had been Petunia and Vernon who had made it into more than what it was. “All we did was try to congratulate you.”
“James,” Lily said warningly, sensing that he was about to indulge his temper.
“No, really, I want to know. What did we do to embarrass you and your husband?”
Petunia’s already thin lips narrowed even thinner as she stared at the man before her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It wasn’t supposed to mean anything,” James said evenly. “I was just saying that you’re so worried about what others think of you that you’ll embarrass yourself in an attempt to stop people like us from embarrassing you.” Okay, so it did mean something, but James was enjoying himself right now. Talk in circles, confuse Petunia Dursley a bit.
Then a gruff voice sounded from inside the house. “Petunia, who’s at the door?”
It didn’t take long for the massive form of Vernon Dursley to appear behind his wife. Like Petunia, his face fell into a disgusted grimace the moment he saw the man and woman standing on their porch. “What do you want?” he snapped bitterly.
“That seems to be the popular question, doesn’t it?” James muttered quietly to Lily, his eyes fixed on the vast man who was speaking to them. “We did come to share some news we think is pretty amazing, but I doubt you’ll think the same.”
It was true. With the reception they had received so far, James doubted neither Petunia nor Vernon would much care if they found out the two were going to be married. But Lily wanted her sister to know this and they were going to tell them. “Lily and I are getting married.”
There was dead silence. Everywhere. It seemed that the rest of this sleepy town had gone quiet as well, even if they hadn’t heard the news James had just revealed. The witch and wizard glanced from Vernon and Petunia, waiting for one of them to say something before they took matters into their own hands. James and Lily weren’t stupid enough to believe that their news would be welcomed, that Vernon would be breaking out the wine and toasting them the way James’s parents had done. But they at least expected them to say something.
So when Petunia and Vernon slammed the door shut on the two, James and Lily could not keep their mouths from falling open. “What complete arses,” James hissed under his breath before taking the liberty of stepping forward and pounding on the front door.
“James, what are you doing?” Lily asked, eyeing her fiancé with wide eyes. He looked as if he’d break the door down.
“They’re horrible! At least you tried to be happy for your sister when you found out what she was marrying and they can’t do the same?” James continued to pound on the front door when there was no answer. If they didn’t open up soon, he wasn’t sure he could restrain himself from whipping his wand out and blasting the door open.
Lily could understand why James was furious, but this was her battle to fight. Petunia was her sister; Vernon was, unfortunately, her brother-in-law. If anyone had to deal with their stupidity, it should have been her. She stepped forward and placed a hand on James’s shoulder, guiding him away from the doorway.
“What are you doing?” James asked, looking over his shoulder at her.
“Let me handle this,” she told him firmly. She pulled her wand out of her pocket, after making sure there was no one around to see her do so, and pointed it at the lock. “Alohomora!” She grinned, satisfied, when she heard the faint click as the locks disengaged. She pushed the door open and nodded for James to follow her inside. James did so eagerly, wanting to see just what his future wife had up her sleeve.
The inside of the house was nearly as boring as the outside, what with its walls lacking any nice colours, as well as the furniture. Though it was all very clean, they could both admit that. It looked as if specks of dirt were just as unwelcome in this house as they were. Actually, Lily and James were probably more unwelcome. Lily paused in the hall, trying to figure out where the kitchen was before she saw a door at the end of the hallway. She could hear her sister’s furious voice coming from behind it. Her lips thinning into a dangerously tiny line, she marched forward, ready to give the Dursleys a piece of her mind. She pushed the kitchen door open; pleased to hear the yelp of fright issuing from her sister’s mouth as she did so.
“How did you get in here?” Petunia shrieked.
“I have my ways,” Lily told her dismissively, rounding harshly on her. “Listen to me right now, Petunia. You’re not being fair to me or to James. We come here to tell you about us getting married because we had the decency to do so, unlike you. You only had the foresight to send me a letter at the last minute, telling me not to even bother showing up! Sweet Merlin, do you think I didn’t want to know my only sister, the woman who used to be my best friend, was getting married? Do you honestly hate me that much?”
Petunia said nothing, though her mouth twitched at Lily’s last words. Lily and James, however, did not notice this. On the other hand, Vernon was turning a nasty shade of puce as he listened to Lily. “Don’t you speak to my wife like that!” he snapped at Lily.
“Don’t you talk to her like that,” James shot right back.
Lily dragged her gaze away from her sister and fixed it on Vernon. “She’s my sister; I can speak to her in any way that I like.” She rounded back on Petunia. “So I decided to come and tell my sister about what is probably the biggest thing to ever happen to me and that’s how you react? You slam the door in my face? What kind of person does that?”
Petunia again said nothing and Vernon was rising out of his seat at the kitchen table. James, however, shot him such a dangerous glare that Vernon actually sat back down. Lily needed to get this out now. Merlin knew if she would ever get the chance to do so again. Lily was upset and it showed in the way her voice was starting to get hysterical. “Lily,” James said softly, trying to get her to calm down.
But she didn’t seem to hear him. “Petunia, Mum and Dad couldn’t be at your wedding! Doesn’t that mean something to you? That our own parents couldn’t be there, wouldn’t you want your sister to be there? Wouldn’t you be able to put your anger with me aside for just a few hours so you could have family at your wedding? That’s what I’m doing. I want you to come to my wedding. Merlin knows why I do, but I want you there. I want my sister there and unless you’ve got a life-threatening reason why you can’t be, you’d better be there.”
Before anyone knew it, Lily had spun around and marched back through the kitchen door. James, who was left standing in the kitchen, glanced from Petunia to Vernon. In an attempt to break the awkward silence that had befallen them all, he said, “Err… well, I’m sure Lily will let you know when the wedding is.” And he hurried out of the room.