Characters: James Potter and Remus Lupin Date: January 12, 2000 Location: Grimmauld Place Rating: PG to R depending on language Summary: After trying several times to compose a response to Remus' owl, James gives up and just replies in person. Status: In Progress
James wasn't even sure what he was doing anymore. Since his split with Lily he'd been staying at inns in different places, trying to find the best place to get a flat of his own. He had wanted somewhere safe, but still enough in the thick of things that other Order members could get to him easily enough in an emergency. Since Harry and Lily had slipped through his fingers, though, he'd been staying in the ininterrupted quiet of Harry's flat in London.
It was a barren place, Harry had been slowly giving away little pieces of himself to good homes over the last year or so. There were some clothes still in moving boxes in the closet, a few of Orion's things here and there, and a video collection James didn't dare go near just in case Harry was like him and there was a stash of porn hidden there. Other than that the place was mostly bare, there was no painful packing up to do to get rid of his son's things and James suspected that was exactly what Harry had wanted.
He had been at a loss since that day, not sure if he was coming or going. He spent his days looking back over the years, seeing all the chances he'd had to better protect his family that he hadn't taken. He could have taken them out of the country when Harry was still a baby like most smart wizards had done, or changed their names and gone into real hiding. Once Walburga had gone it would have been simple enough to become Blacks, and they and Sirius could have lived quietly and never become fugitives.
He did his best to beat himself up over these things in mourning, but it always came back to the fact that Harry and Lily never would have stood for running away. Muggle blood had run in both their veins, they could never have given a fight that was theirs if not James'. All he really could do was look back on calmer days and wish things had been better, that his little boy hadn't had to come crying to him scared that he was going to die when he'd first noticed people calling him the 'chosen one', that his wife hadn't been forced to hide away in safehouses and spend more time with refugees than her family.
The owl from Remus had not improved his mood much. It wasn't the fact that Remus was owling, it was the reminder that Sirius and Regulus were still in enemy hands. Alive, James was sure because he just knew that if they had been killed it would have been as widely announced as Harry's and Lily's murder. No, they were still alive and no doubt suffering, and something had to be done. He just didn't know what...no amount of research into Azkaban revealed any way in or out without the aid of an inside source.
James tried three different times to respond to Remus' owl, but what could he really say? They'd both just lost what basically amounted to large chunks of their lives, none of that could easily be communicated through bits of parchment sent back and forth. He finally gave up entirely and tossed the missive in the rubbish bin, quill and all, grabbing his coat and warding the flat door on his way out. It was cold as he Apparated right from the hallway to the street outside of Grimmauld Place, glancing around before taking the steps two at a time and disappearing out of sight as the Fidelus charm on the place enveloped him. He knocked twice before sliding his hands into his pockets and leaning against the door jamb to wait. Had Sirius still been here he would have barged right in, but Remus had just suffered a loss and he didn't need an unexpected intrusion into his home while he was ill at ease. Moony was a cute, bookish little furrball, yes, but James didn't ever want to be on the receiving end of one of the very well-learned werewolf's hexes.