James lay on the couch, legs up on the arm of the sofa, a book on quidditch lay open on his lap.

After the game earlier, he had given Oliver a bunch of books when they'd left, and really had sent off an owl for a monthly copy of Quaffle Talk to be delivered to Fortescue's for Ollie. 

"I could've got him subscribed to it myself, mate," Jasper said to James when Oliver had excitedly bragged that James had signed him up for the magazine. 

"Yeah, but you're already doing so much," James said, "Consider it part of his training."

"Which I'm going to pay you for," Jasper said.

"No you're not," James argued. "I was hired for a price and I'll do my job for the price I was offered." James winked at Oliver, who grinned.

Jasper had sighed and said, "Well, one day, I'm going to repay the favor to you."

"How's that?"

"Free ice creams for mini-Potters," Jasper answered, smiling.

James laughed, "And the mini-Potters will enjoy it profusely."

He smiled now, wondering what flavor ice creams the mini-Potters would ask for and reached up to dog-ear the page of his book so he wouldn't lose his place.

Suddenly Lily's hand slipped over his shoulders from behind. She was bent over, leaning down onto the arm of the couch, her hands on his chest and her cheek pressed to his as she looked at the book he was reading. "Do I have to paint myself gold and grow wings to get you to look at me, Mr. Potter?" she asked.

James thought for a moment. "I mean, would you be willing to do that?"

Lily laughed and kissed his cheek.

"Is that a yes?"

"Maybe for Halloween."

"I can't wait." James grinned and looked up at her as she started to stand up. "Wait," he said, and she bent back down, kissing him, and he smiled, enjoying the taste of her lips.

When she drew back, she stared down into his eyes and said, "We should have a proper date."

"Yeah? When?"

"Soon."

"That new Bond film where he's in space is opening in a couple weeks."

"Okay, yes, but let's have one sooner, too."

"Okay. When?"

"Soon," Lily persisted.

James laughed. He closed the book on his lap, tossing it onto the cushion, and turned so he was kneeling on the couch, facing her. Because she was standing up and he was kneeling, she was taller than he was. "Evans," he said.

"Potter," she giggled because the tone he'd said it in so very much reminded her of his tone in third year.

He cleared his throat, "You can't just say soon and just expect that to be answer enough."

"No?"

"No," James said, "You've got to be more clear so that a bloke knows what he's doing or else you'll have to simply be pleased by whatever it is a bloke tries at doing."

"Oh?"

"Yeah," he said. "So there."

"And what will my bloke do to please me?"

James's lips twitched and his nostrils flared holding back the laugh, then his lips parted and hung up on his tooth and he said, "Evans."

"What? You're the one saying you're going to please me!" Lily said, "All I did was ask what you were going to do." She stared at him with big bright green doe-eyes and pouted her lower lip a bit.

"First, we'd go out to dinner."

"Good start, solid."

"Yes, we'd go to that place you liked with the drippy candles and the gents in the corner playing the accordion."

"The pub?"

"Nooo, you know - that Italian place in London. The one with the drippy candles and the gents in the corner playing the accordion."

"Yeah, that happens at the pub, too." She was teasing him. She knew where he meant, but the look on his face was funny and she smiled, feeling like the old days when they would banter and she'd tease him that she didn't know it was his birthday.

"Not the drippy candles... and these gents in the corner playing the accordions are sober. And paid to be there."

"Oh those gents."

"Yes, those gents."

Lily laughed, "Do go on."

"Alright so we'll go to that place for dinner and we'll order loads of delicious things and share them because even though I don't particularly like sharing, you do and I know that about you. So we'll share and I'll feed you some of that lemon cake you like at the end."

"I do love that lemon cake."

James nodded, "Then, we'll take a walk." 

"Where will we walk?"

"Through Hyde Park and the Gardens."

"Lovely."

"We'll see those swans Sirius is always on about."

"So this is after the swan-upping then, of course."

"Of course," James nodded. "Then we'll come back to Godric's Hollow and have a snog by the fountain."

"Where we learned you really are thick."

"Yes, because that's the most important thing that happened by that fountain, ever, in the history of all of time."

"Right."

"There's talk at the Ministry of installing a placard."

"Excellent."

"One of those brass plates that marks a site of historical significance, you know?"

"Perhaps they'll let you press your hands in the cement like they do with celebrities."

"Wouldn't that be novel!" he chortled, then, "And speaking of novel, when we're done pressing my hands in the cement and having our placard dedicated, then we'll come back here and we'll read whatever book you're reading to me by that point, and set a fire so Sirius can't interrupt us by coming through the heart..."

"Might have to set fire to Sirius himself if he knows we're having a date night."

"I'll conveniently let him borrow the auror hand cuffs that night, that'll keep him busy."

"Remus will appreciate that, of course."

"Of course."

"Then what?" Lily asked.

"Merlin's beard, Evans, do you never get tired?"

"From dinner, a walk, a snog, and some light reading?"

" Sounds like a grand date to me," he said. "What am I missing?" His eyes sparkled.

"You know what you're missing."

James grinned. "I should think we would just go to bed after all that."

"Mhm, exactly," she murmured.

James paused as she wrapped her arms around him and started kissing his face. "Is that it, Evans? You want to go to bed with me? The Quidditch Captain? I always knew me being a Quidditch Captain turned you on, didn't it, Evans?"

Lily laughed, "Bugger off, Potter."

"Just like old times," he said.

Sirius, Remus, and Bradley lay on their backs in the observatory of Newt Scamander's suitcase. Bradley was finally feeling the Full Moon's effects,  

Through a good deal of the afternoon, Bradley had been quiet and sort of down, and now, laying in the observatory, he had been silent, listening to Remus and Sirius talk and be silly, but not really adding much to the conversation himself. Slowly, as the minutes ticked by, even Remus and Sirius had quieted and now there hung over them a sort of melancholy as the sun was beginning to go down. 

Bradley's belly ached and turned, curling up.

"You alright?" Remus asked him quietly.

Bradley's voice was small, "Yeah."

Sirius looked over. 

"Hey you played really great today," Remus said.

Bradley didn't answer.

"I was really proud of you," Remus added.

"We all played really great," Sirius interjected.

Remus rolled his eyes and looked at Sirius, "Yes, I'm proud of you, too, Sirius."

Sirius grinned.

Remus turned back to Bradley. The boy's little shoulders were curved inward and his head carefully turned so Remus couldn't see his face. "Bradley?"

"What?"

"You're sure you're alright?"

Bradley nodded.

Remus put a hand on the little shoulder and Bradley sniffed and Remus felt like his suspicion was confirmed at the sound of the little sniff. He sighed and sat up, his spine cracking as he did so, his bones stiff and he winced, but it was too important that he say what he had to say...

"I'm sorry about the broomstick earlier."

Bradley inhaled sharply and turned his face even further from view, burying it into his own shoulder.

Sirius sat up now, too. "It doesn't matter you're not a wizard," he said bluntly.

"Sirius," hissed Remus, but Sirius's words were what made Bradley roll over and sit up, too, and Remus glanced at Sirius, then back to Bradley in surprise.

Bradley was staring right at Sirius. "Of course it matters," he said, "It matters a lot."

"Nobody 'round here is going to love you any less for it, and I know damn well Tina and Newt are over the moon about you so they're not going to love you any less or anything," Sirius said.

"Yes, that's right, we all love you so much," Remus said.

Bradley sighed, "I know that."

"So what's the matter then?" Remus asked.

Bradley said, "I don't get to BE magic, that's the matter! All I get to be is - is a wolf. I don't get to have a wand or go to Ilvermorny, I don't get to be a magizoologist when I grow up, I don't get to have my own magic suitcase full of creatures and go on adventures with my dad, I don't get to disapparate across the sea and fly on broomsticks and make potions and be cool like all of you. I have to be just an ordinary muggle with an ordinary life and watch everyone else be amazing and magical."

Remus frowned.

"Oh you are so not ordinary," Sirius said, shaking his head. "You're so fucking unordinary, it's mental! How could you think you're ordinary?"

"Because I'm a muggle."

"Muggles aren't all ordinary!" Sirius said, "I mean there are a lot that are but there's a lot of ordinary wizards, too, not everyone who is magical is extraordinary or amazing or cool just because they're wizards, just like not everyone who's muggle is boring or ordinary. Mate, the extraordinary, amazing, cool stuff has nothing to do with magic or with Hogwarts or wands or broomsticks or potions or any of that!"

"What's it to do with then?" Bradley asked.

"Obviously it's your heart!" Sirius said fervently. "Obviously!" 

Remus nodded, "Yes exactly, just what Sirius has said. Being cool isn't something that comes with a package deal with the wand and the spell books or something."

"And who's to bloody say you can't have a magical suitcase of creatures? You already bloody do, don't you? You're sort of IN one if you didn't notice!"

"That's very true. You do. And you take care of the creatures there all the time! Clearly you could be a magizoologist, even without the magic."

Bradley's smile was small, but it was there.

They would've gone on encouraging him, but the moon was rising and Sirius had to leave before the transformation took place - the werewolf was so much more protective over the pup, that much they remembered from fifth year, and Remus refused to allow Sirius to try to be in the room while they were transformed because of it, not wanting to bloody Snuffles. So Sirius kissed Remus goodnight and told him to be bloody careful, and Bradley waved bye as Sirius slipped out the door and the moon began its change on Remus and Bradley.

Outside, Sirius sank to the floor, too, feeling the pain in his spine and he closed his eyes, covering his face with his hands and gasping, tears pouring over his cheeks, feeling the things Remus was feeling and very near to being unable to breathe...

None of the other Marauders knew Peter had taken up smoking. They hadn't noticed. Not even Sirius had noticed when at first his cigarettes were disappearing a bit faster than usual from his pockets, and he didn't notice when Peter carefully replaced a couple packs that he'd taken too many from and simply gave Sirius new ones to make up fro what he'd taken. Nobody noticed, Peter thought, because nobody paid attention.

They also hadn't noticed that he didn't always come home after work, that some nights, he snuck in well after two in the morning, exhausted and run down. He fell into bed those nights, still in his clothes and shoes, and simply slept until nearly noon the next day sometimes, and he'd hear Sirius singing and playing records and sneak by before Sirius ever knew he'd been in the flat at all.

Peter sat on a bench in the park across the street from the flat in East London, the Knight Bus having just pulled away, and he was smoking, looking over a map of the London Underground. Marble Arch would be the closest station to get off on, and he was piecing together the route from Waterloo to Marble Arch as he looked it over. Lamberth North with a change to the red at Oxford Circus, it wouldn't be that hard of a route, really, he could get to Speaker's Corner with no problem next morning...

His hands shook as he folded up the Underground map and stuck it in his pocket, looking instead at the bright green paper he held, black print upon the sheet read:

MUGGLES AND SQUIBS DESERVE TO KNOW - THE MUGGLES HAVE EARS SO LET THEM HEAR - KEEPING SECRETS HELPS NO ONE - LET THEM DEFEND THEMSELVES AGAINST ATTACKS - THE MINISTRY CONTROLS YOU WITH LIES - COME AND HEAR THE TRUTH YOURSELVES! SPEAKERS CORNER 10 JUNE!

He shivered and folded it up, too. 

It had been on the tip of his tongue to show it to James earlier, when he'd first got back from fetching the broomsticks from Quality Quidditch Supplies. It had been a young wizard at Diagon Alley who had pushed the sheet into Peter's hand. But James was so charged up over the quidditch, and all that Peter had put the sheet away.

He slipped it into his pocket again now and sighed, letting out a stream of the smoke that he never quite inhaled, but more held in his mouth for a second, as long as he could stand the taste of it, which wasn't very long, really. Sirius would say he wasn't smoking right. But then again Sirius always said Peter didn't do anything right. So of course he didn't smoke right. Sirius would say he was wasting cigarettes. And maybe he was. Maybe he was wasting a lot of things. Like time.

Peter felt like he was wasting a good deal of time.

He looked up at the full moon, high in the sky overhead, thinking about time, thinking about his watch, thinking about the second hand on it, moving... and he could remember Voldemort's laughter as he'd held the second hand still... could remember the way his heart had clutched, the way his world had stopped...

Yes, he was wasting a lot of time.

But how does one fix it when time is being wasted? Time can't move slower and there are responsibilities and places to be and do and bills to pay and things that society expects and demands and forces upon everyone and there's things beyond control of any one person - things like Dark Lords and corrupt governments and being let down by others... being forgotten by others, being overlooked by others, being a nobody.

How do you fix it when you're nobody even in your own circle of friends?

He was too much of a coward to fix anything himself, Peter reckoned. In a world like this, sometimes it's terrifying enough just to live and breathe in and out, not to mention to have to face dark things far bigger than an ordinary life demanded...

Peter put out the cigarette and pushed himself to his feet and walked back to the flat, passing by the low-lit curry shop windows, his hands pushed down into his pockets. His eyes met Oni Lamm's as she stared out the window, staring at the full moon overhead from a booth just inside the shop. She stared at Peter through the glass and Peter paused walking to stare back. 

Tentatively, she waved a palm to him in a silent greeting.

Peter waved back, then kept on walking, his mind still spinning.

If only there wasn't a Dark Lord, if only Ottalie Potter had succeeded in taking out that threat that loomed over them all, but especially loomed over Peter, it seemed... if only...

If only someone else would give it a go.