"I'm so sorry for your loss."

Jasper nodded vaguely.

If he had a knut for each time someone had said that to him that day... he would be a rich man. A rich man whose riches could not buy him the only thing he wanted.

He stared, unseeing, at the wall of the small home where he, Ethel, and Edgar had been living. Around him, people milled about, talking in hushed tones, holding small plates of cheeses and crackers.

"Tragedy..."

"Such a shame..."

"...after all he's been through...."

Jasper closed his eyes, trying to blot out the sound of the low voices. He wanted to scream at them all to get the fuck out, to go the fuck away. They weren't welcomed, they shouldn't be here; they needed to go and leave him alone. Leave - him - alone.

There was a thump beside him on the next couch cushion and an arm went 'round him. Numbly, Jasper looked up to see Sirius Black. His throat tightened.

"Hey."

Jasper's insides ground with irritation. "Aren't you going to say it?"

"Not today. It didn't feel like the time for it."

"Treating me differently because of what's happened, ey?"

Sirius shook his head, "Just being serious for once."

Jasper looked down at his knees.

"Listen, I can't picture it, what you're going through. I'd lose my ever-loving mind if I was in your shoes," Sirius said gently. "But that doesn't mean I'm not here for you, Odair."

Jasper took a deep, shaking breath.

"I'm really sorry mate."

"I swear if even one more person says that to me, I'll blast their brains out." Jasper looked at Sirius with wide, wet eyes.

"Alright," Sirius answered. "I take it back then. I'm not sorry."

"Thank you."

Sirius's lips twitched slightly before returning to the frown.

Suddenly Lily was standing before them. She cleared her throat, and Sirius looked up, "Well hello Lilith." He looked to Jasper, and patted his back. "Looks like Lil's found you, ey?"

Jasper raised an eyebrow at Sirius.

"Too soon?"

Jasper said, "Fuck off, Sirius," but he said it with the shadow of a smile, and Sirius's eyes sparked.

"Close to a joke, Odair - I'll take it." Sirius stood up and nodded to Lily, then disappeared into the crowded room.

Lily sat down, silent for a long moment.

Jasper's voice was low, fighting breaking, when he finally spoke. "He was only thirteen."

Lily put her hand on Jasper's knee.

"Thirteen..." Jasper gasped. He shook his head and sank his face down to cover his eyes. "I don't remember what I was doing at thirteen but I am bloody positive it wasn't jumping into the line of the killing curse to save someone else."

Lily said, "He was very brave, Jaz."

Jasper kept his eyes covered.

Lily sat quietly, not moving her hand, letting Jasper feel in silence, but not alone. She closed her eyes, too, and for a moment it was as though she were absorbing the pain he felt, as though she could feel it, traveling through her left hand and up her arm into her heart. Jasper's shoulders became visibly less hunched, and when he lowered his hands, the clench of his teeth had loosened, and his eyes, although still filled with sorrow, were no longer dark with despair.

Lily drew her hand back from his knee. She stared at her palm a moment, and felt a thrill of surprise to see several tiny gold sparks fading against her skin.

"Thanks, Lil," Jasper said, looking at her with a sad smile, "You really know how to comfort a friend in need."

Lily nodded. She didn't know what to say, what to think. It had been a long time since she had done unintentional magic, but her palm was tingling from a spell she had not cast, her heart knotting with Jasper's lifted pain. She smiled weakly, her mind racing through whatifs and hows, as Jasper excused himself and went to talk to Ethel Needlemire across the room.

Jasper's was not the only family the masked Death Eater visited. Several other families were torn apart or even massacred - mostly members of the Ministry whom James had never heard before. He sat reading the Prophet in the morning at his desk in Mr. Underhill's office, trying to hold back the rage he was feeling at Voldemort.

How dare he? James wondered. How dare anyone? How could a human look into the eyes of another human and kill them? How could they fail to see the pain they caused, see the gaping hole in family portraits? Did they not have siblings and spouses the same as any of the men and women whose lives they took...?

The office door opened and Mr. Underhill entered, shrugging off his overcoat and hanging it on the coat rack beside the door. He looked at James with surprise, then straightened his tie and went 'round to his desk. "Early, Potter?"

"Yes sir," James murmured.

Underhill sat and looked about at the paperwork ans his ledger, his finger scrolling down appointment listings James had carefully penned in. His eyes migrated to James as he folded the Prophet neatly and shoved it into his bag.

Mr. Underhill cleared his throat and James looked up. "Sir?"

"I have a case that I am working on," Underhill said slowly, "A recent disappearance. You may have seen some lot about it in your paper just now, although it may possibly have been overlooked as well, given the dramatics of the Fortescue's attack."

James sat up straighter, "Which one, sir? They reported on several."

"A girl." Underhill stood and came around his desk, over to James's desk. He put a photograph down before James. "Daughter of a prominent wizard in the Ministry, well - step-daughter. His wife's, from a previous marriage. She was accompanying him to the Ministry the morning of the battle on the Atrium floor, and her father was killed."

James lifted the photograph, looking at the young girl. She couldn't be more than eight or nine.

"Her mum's a muggle, but we have reason to believe that Grant - her father - knew she had magical ties. Either muggleborn or half blood, we are unsure as we don't know who her true father is."

James eyed the photo, feeling that she looked familiar, though he couldn't quite figure where he'd seen her features before.

"I'd like you to work the case."

James looked up. "Excuse me?"

"I'd like you to work the case. Figure out where she is."

James felt a chill tremble along his spine. Flashbacks of Number 12 Grimmauld Place shivered through his mind, flashes of Lucy Mitchum and Maryrose Jenkins flitted through his mind. Time turners and ruined experiences, changes that couldn't be undone, artefacts and timelines... Last time he'd been asked to save a girl, things had gone very terribly wrong.

His throat ached. "Sir, I - I dunno if I'm ready for that."

Underhill shook his head, "I am sure that you are."

James took the file Underhill held out to him.

"You have my clearance to resources, and you can use Longbottom to assist as needed. Let me know if you need any thing from me to help. I think your months here at the Ministry have gone very well, and you've gotten excellent reviews from Alastor and the Prewetts. I have all the confidence in the world."

James did not have that same confidence. "Maybe a less important case..."

"This one, Mr. Potter." Underhill turned back to his own desk and sat down, opening the next case in his stack. "Read it through, and let me know if you've got questions."

"Yes sir."

And so James bent forward over his first unsolved case file.

"You only just started the training program," Remus argued.

"That's our Prongs!" Sirius barked.

Remus ignored Sirius, his face clouded with concern. "Have you even been properly trained in taking on cases? In the footwork involved? What's he thinking? Is he mad?"

James shrugged, "This is what I basically was saying when he assigned it to me. Underhill insisted."

Remus pulled the folder closer. "May I?" he asked, indicating opening the folder up.

James nodded. "It stays between us though, mate."

"Of course," Remus mused, and he turned to the file to begin reading.

Sirius popped the lid off a bottle of soda, taking a long sip, then lowering himself into a chair at the table, in the seat backwards. "Maybe you're just that fuckin' talented - you'll be head of the department before you're twenty-five."

James snorted. "No."

"Minister by Thirty!"

"Absolutely not."

"You'd be stellar. Better than Minchum."

"To be fair he's turned out to only be lukewarm," Remus murmured.

"Bastard," Sirius sighed.

James leaned back in his seat and rubbed his eyes under his glasses. "It's just so much responsibility - this case. I mean, this kid's life depends on me figuring out who and why and where she is. I just don't know if I can handle it. It brings back so many memories."

Remus nodded, understanding.

"Well you did alright last time, didn't you?" Sirius demanded.

James shrugged.

Remus looked up from the file to look at James, and their eyes met. Remus raised an eyebrow, discreetly asking James if he was okay. James shrugged again.

"Perhaps he heard about your brilliance before and he's decided to give you a go on account of it," Sirius said. "Knows you know how to save the day already!"

Remus was still looking at James. "You don't suppose that is it in a way?" he asked, "That he knows the past?"

"Doubt it. Doubt anyone from the Ministry truly knew," James said, "Surely Dumbledore would have been in loads of trouble for -" James broke off, looking at Sirius as he scratched his side feverishly. James shook his head.

Remus shrugged, "Perhaps not. He is Dumbledore after all. Perhaps he's immune to... some things."

James shrugged.

Sirius looked from one to the other, "What are you lot talking in code for?"

"Because neither of us wishes to bring you O-U-T," James spelled.

Sirius jokingly cocked his head.

Remus chuckled.

James ran his hand through his hair. "There were LOADS of cases on his desk this morning,"James complained. "Loads! Why do I get the one case that's sure to mess with my brains?"

Sirius rubbed the top pf James's head and crunched his fingers. "Brain eater, starving, malnourished. Not enough... brain.. cells.. to .. survive..." he mimed as though his hand were a brain-consuming creature and made it fall sideways in its "death".

"Oi if it's hungry and malnourished from me, I can't imagine how starved it would be trying at eating your brains," James retorted.

"Oh, savage!" Sirius grinned.

"She looks familiar," Remus mused.

"Doesn't she?" James said, sighing. "I couldn't figure out who she reminded me of. Could he whoever it is might be her biological dad." Sirius leaned over to look at the photo, laying his head on Remus's arm.

Remus stared at the photo.

There was a rushing sound in the other room, and Sirius sat upright, paused, listening, then bolted from the room.

James shook his head.

"And he says he's not a dog," Remus said.

"Idiot," muttered James, smirking.

There was a crash from the living room, and James's smirk wiped clean. He looked at Remus, who closed the file and they both scrambled to the living room.

Jasper Odair stood just a few feet from the floo, a lamp broken on the floor, Sirius holding Jasper's shaking shoulders from below. Remus and James hurried forward, James pulling Jasper back from Sirius's precarious grasp as Remus reparoed the lamp.

"Lilllly," groaned Jasper, "I gotta talk -- Lily... very help..."

James recoiled at the smell of firewhiskey on Jasper's breath. "Gods alive," he muttered. "How much have you had, Odair?"

"Too much! But not... a'nuff neither," Jasper tottered and James gently directed his falling body onto the couch, where he sank into the center cushions. "Still feeling too much, just too, too much."

Remus went to the kitchen and returned a moment later with a cup of hot herbal tea and a large lemon slice. Sirius stood a few paces away, back to the wall beside the mantel, staring onto the scene with dark, eyes. "Here," Remus said, holding up the cup.

Jasper shook his head.

"It'll help you at sobering up," Remus said.

"Don't wanna," Jasper muttered stubbornly. He looked at James. "Where is Lily?"

"Her classes, I expect," James replied, glancing at the clock. "She'll be here soon." He half sat beside Jasper, facing him. "What can I do?"

"Lily helps, Lily's - she - she listens... lighter when Lil... I..." Jasper struggled to string words together. "Knows about Edgar... she's so good, Lily... I... you're a lucky Potter... a luck... I should've dueled you!"

"Yeah mate," James murmured, not following Jasper's thoughts.

"Sooo dizzy, Potter..."

"I know."

"He's dead, Potter."

"I know, I'm sorry."

"Don't SAY that," Jasper said.

James looked taken aback by the ferociousness of Jasper's voice, but before he could reply, Sirius was swooping in. "Odaaaaair's that attitude, you drunken mother fucker." He pushed his way between James and Jasper, all but shoving James off the couch. He put a palm on Jasper's arm. "Oi, you smell like the floor of a whorehouse."

Jasper laughed. He actually laughed.

James and Remus stared on in awe as Sirius Black, with all the irreverence in the world, comforted Jasper's mourning soul, talking smack and cracking jokes, making puns, and easing the tension in the room.

He would've made an excellent Healer, Remus thought. Just as good if not better than Doug Melachor, who Remus still saw at least once a week.

By the time Lily arrived, Jasper was asleep sprawled across the Marauders' couch at the flat in East London.