Marjorie Underhill woke with a start, too, though she was many, many miles away from Iceland. There was no crackling fire to greet her, only the moonlight streaming through her bedroom window, casting everything in lavender-blue. She stared at the gnarled tree outside.

A soft sprinkle of snow drifted past the window pane, and she pushed herself up, smiling at the first flakes of the new season as they sparkled and danced through the sky. She got up and went over, pushing the window up and breathing deep the scent of the cold and ice as it crackled, imagining the flakes were making soft music, like the high end of the piano's keys.

Marjorie was just about back to sleep when she heard a thump in the hallway and she sat up. A familiar muttered curse and she smiled to herself, pulling her dressing robe from her reading chair and sliding it onto her shoulders before poking her head out the door. There was her father in the hallway, just about to slip into his room.

"Evening daddy," she said quietly and he looked up from where he was turning the knob on his door with practice stealth.

"Nothing gets by you," he muttered, shaking his head.

"I learned from the best," she smiled. Then, "How was the First Task?" her brows cinched in concern.

Harry Underhill sighed heavily and shook his head. "Those poor kids," he muttered, "And the poor dragons as well..." He drew a deep breath, "But I must say, Harry Potter performed as brilliantly as I ever could've imagined. Even Amos had to agree... he was quite impressive. Even if he was of-age and trained as hard as the other champions, he still would've been impressive. But to consider he's only 14 and never trained a day in his life, apart from quidditch... He really is his father's son."

Marjorie smiled, knowing what a great compliment such a thing was coming from her father, who had always held James Potter in the highest regard. "So he made it through, then?"

"Made it through - with top marks! Tied with Krum for the very top spot!" her father bragged. "Summoned a broomstick and drew the dragon off her nest... had the egg in near record time." He sighed, remembering the move, he smiled, "James would've been damned proud."

Marjorie smiled tightly. She didn't remember James Potter personally, only from the myriad of stories her father had told her over the years. She hesitated, then, "I take it there wasn't any security issues like you were worried about, then?"

Underhill shook his head, "No sign of Black." His voice hardened and he stared at his hand on the door knob. He sighed.

"Daddy, maybe it's time to let the Ministry handle it. It isn't your case anymore."

"It's always been my case. It'll always be my case. They can put Kingsley on it all they wish, but that case was mine. I was the one who made the arrest, I was the one who --"

"Daddy," Marjorie said, her voice lowering, "I know. I know you feel responsible. But it isn't your fault he got out."

Underhill stared at his own hand, at the way the wrinkles in his skin puckered around his knuckles and the scars that resided, knicks in the flesh that he'd collected over years of hard work at the Ministry. He'd taken down so many Death Eaters in the years immediately following the end of the first war, starting with Sirius Black and, later, Fenrir Greyback. But it didn't feel like enough. It wasn't ever enough because he couldn't arrest Voldemort - can't arrest a dead man - and he felt the deaths of James and Lily Potter could never be fully avenged as a result. Having Black on the loose was that much more of a slap to the face. What he wouldn't do to have it to do over again and just take Black out when he had the chance.

He could still see Sirius Black, head thrown back, laughing.

Laughing.

The sound of that howling sound echoed in Underhill's nightmares. So callous, so uncaring, so blatantly unashamed for the betrayal that none of them had ever expected. Of all the people to have back-stabbed his friends... Underhill still couldn't believe it.

But he'd admitted it, Black had.

With his own mouth.

Even as Underhill had hushed him, had begged him to shut the hell up... "You're damning yourself, Black," he'd hissed, and Sirius had only howled the louder as the incarcerus had wrapped about his wrists, as the smoke had risen from the gaping hole in the pavement, as the muggle policeymen and fire attendants had come and begun their work, shouting in shock, attributing Black's work to a bombing...

"It's my fault he's alive," Underhill muttered, "Therefore it's my fault he was capable of escape." He shook his head.

If he'd just done it then, when his wand was pressed to Sirius's back... like he'd been trained to do, like he'd trained others to do...

Any other auror on the scene would have done it.

But Underhill looked at him and saw the scared kid singing Queen songs in a cell. Underhill heard James Potter advocating for his best mate back in 1979. James didn't know then that Black would be the one that would end his own life, just two years later, and the life of his wife, the one that would make his son an orphan... Hadn't known Black would escape in 1993 and try to finish what he started that Halloween night. James Potter didn't know he pleaded for the man that would come back to try to murder his son.

Would James have pleaded differently then if he knew?

Underhill was sure of it. James Potter would have utterly and completely destroyed anything and anyone that threatened his boy.

Underhill's hand shook against the knob.

Marjorie stared at her father. She knew all the thoughts, all the arguments, the guilts... she had listened to her father list them off a thousand times and recognized the ghosts that swarmed in shadows behind his eyes.

"Come on daddy, let's get you to bed," she suggested. He was having a nightmare standing up in the hall.

When she'd got him to bed, a tender reversal of long faded times when he had tucked her in, she wandered downstairs to make herself a cup of tea before returning to her room. She sat in her chair, holding her cup, eyes falling on a small strip of photos from one of those silly muggle photo machines, tucked into the edge of a frame on the wall. The photo machine had been on a boardwalk in Bristol, and it had been years ago now - at least five or six - since the photo strip had been made.

The faces staring back at her from the photos were contorted in funny expressions, laughter in their eyes, tongues lolling out, smiles wide... They were happy faces, happy times. She could still hear the jokes and giggles, could still feel his strength as he enveloped her in his arms as the camera flashed like lightening.

Why was Storm Lyson on her mind tonight, she wondered? Was he safe, wherever he was? She hoped so.

She finished her tea and lay the cup on the little table beside the chair. She sighed and slipped the robe off, throwing it onto the chair and crawling back into bed. She'd dream of him, she knew before her head even hit the pillow. She could already feel the ghost behind her own eyes creeping in...

Sirius Black sat on the edge of the bed in the room at the inn, his knee bouncing nervously, smoke streaming from his nostrils, fingers nervously picking at his nails as he studied the cigarette.

Waiting.

The door opened and Oliver Kent all but fell into the room, tripping over the empty tray and dishes Sirius had shoved out side after rating the mysteriously appearing meals that had come, delivered directly and left in the hall after a knock on the door. Oliver cursed. He looked exhausted and drunken. He closed the door and it banged shut, the china on the tray tinkling.

"What's happened?" Sirius asked, scared of what might have made Oliver feel it was worth drinking away after the first task. "Is everyone alright? How's Harry??" Sirius leaped up to his feet.

Oliver slouched over to the bed, kicking off his boots as he walked, leaving them as they landed, and chucked himself into the mattress, the springs squealing as he fell.

Sirius stood over him, "Oi! What happened?"

Oliver rolled over and stared up at Sirius. "Wally's a medic you - you know. At the tourney." He smashed his face into the pillow.

Sirius said, "But how's Harry?"

Oliver muttered something into the pillow. Sirius grasped a fistful of Oliver's silky golden hair. "Merlin that is soft," he muttered as he wrenched Oliver's head up. "How is my godson, Kent?"

"First place. Hardly a scratch on 'im. Done - very - well..." he was out before he'd finished the last word.

Sirius sighed and dropped Oliver's head down to the pillow. He stared at the floo, a fire crackling in the hearth, and he sat on Oliver's trunk at the end of the bed, his legs crossed before him in a lazy pretzel, and stared at the flames.

Of course he did well, Sirius thought, the anxiety he'd held onto all day finally diminishing a little bit.
Of course he did. He is James's son. It is in his blood to be brilliant. He ought never to have doubted.

He rubbed his chest along the sternum, fingers feeling the slight bulge of the scar there, hidden by the tattoo that inked his skin. It ached sometimes, when Achlys had been particularly nasty, a dull pulse that seemed to throb deep into his tissue to his core. It had been tight and terrible all day, but now it released, and he felt like he was breathing after a long day of holding his breath in anticipation of bad news. Achlys had promised him it would come - after the task. But here he was, bad newsless.

"Fuck you, Achlys," he whispered.

"I never said which task," was all she replied.

Sirius's rubbing fingers slowed and he swallowed back the chill that such a threat posed. He glanced at Oliver, asleep and smelling of mead, and he wished he could get every detail of the task from him. He wanted to know what Harry had done, what Harry had accomplished...

His eyes flitted to the floo again.

Could he chance another visit with Harry?

He got up and went to the fireplace.

He was about to open the little box of powder on the mantle when there was a clicking on the window and he jumped at the unexpected sound, cursing and tripping over one of Oliver's discarded boots. "Ferfuckssake," he muttered when his heart rate calmed and he realized what the sound was - an owl at the window.

Sirius pushed the window up, careful to keep the cover of the curtain.

The tiny owl hovering at the window, he recognized. It was the tiny, irritating little git of a bird he'd wrestled into delivering a letter to Harry over summer, when he'd needed privacy that was not granted by Hedwig, Harry's rare snowy white owl (a creature from Iceland, he thought, making the connection to his husband's assumed whereabouts with sadness). The tiny bird looked quite self important as it barely managed to flutter over the sill, a letter tied and hanging from a string about his leg. The letter dangled - the bird's leg was too small to hold the tome close to itself like most owls did, but just let the letter spin in the air below him.

Sirius watched the bird drop to the floor.

He'd seen balls bigger than that thing.

Like tennis balls.

(What were you thinking, pervert?)

Sirius sat and untied the letter, seeing Harry's handwriting and flaring with excitement.

"Thank Merlin's balls," he muttered (here he did not mean the tennis variety). He yanked away the string and unrolled the letter, eager to see what Harry had to say...