Dora Potter lay in her bed that night, acutely aware of being the only person in it.

Although on the outside of things, she seemed to have been coping very well with the loss of Charlus, on the inside, Dora felt like she was completely hollowed out. Especially at times like this, when the empty space beside her felt like it stretched a hundred miles wide.

She put her palm squarely against a pillow she'd turned, just over where his heart would be if it was him, and she whispered, "I miss you."

She stared at her arm, at her wrinkled fingers, how they splayed over the imaginary chest of the pillow beside her. Her wedding band around her ring finger was old and the gold not as shiny as it had been the first time she'd put it on. She never took it off, not even at night these days, and she stared at it, wishing she was wrapped as tightly around Fleamont Charlus as the band was around her finger.

There were opalescent green scales already growing around her elbow, despite having done the descaling with Lily just two nights before. Four of them, she counted, and she frowned and closed her eyes.

"I have to see our grandbaby, Flea," she whispered. "I have to see. I know our grandbaby is coming soon. I have to see."

The night stretched on nearly as long as the empty space on the mattress beside her.

(Illustration by @wolfstarmoonypadfoot - Thank you for giving this life!)

Down the hall in James and Lily's room there was no empty space on the mattress. The mattress was overcrowded, rather. Lily lay in the center of the bed, James on one side, Remus on the other, Peter squashed on the other side of James, and  bulk of black fur sprawled across all four sets of legs, and an orange ball on James's chest, which purred loudly. The black bulk of fur kept lazily kicking at the orange ball, and James would catch his foot with reflexes built up playing catch and release with the snitch. Lily clutched both Remus's and James's hands in hers, and Remus's free hand stroked the head of the dog, which lay on his abdomen. Peter's fingers curled around the top edge of the blanket, head against James's shoulder, James's second arm bent up in an arch to curl over his own head on the pillow.

"How do you reckon she got the time turner?" James murmured into the dark.

"Mopsus," Peter guessed.

"Maybe one of her friends," suggested Lily.

"Dumbledore," Remus said.

The dog groaned and shifted his paw over his eyes.

"An assassination attempt," whispered Peter, "Your Aunt was mad."

"If only it had worked," Remus said quietly, "Things would be so different for us now."

"Our lives would be normal," Peter put in.

He wouldn't be able to haunt me, James thought.

The dog whimpered.

Lily squeezed her fingers 'round James's fingers.

"She told dad You Know Who was going to kill me," James whispered.

"I thought she said you were going to kill You Know Who?" Peter input.

Remus was quiet, "How was it worded again?"

"'He's going to kill him'," Lily quoted. "That's the way Dora said it."

"Well that could go either way," Remus said, "Depending on the context."

"Mrs. P said that Ottalie said 'by the time your son is grown' and Mr. P interrupted her, so the context was broken up," Peter said. "And Mrs. P wasn't there when it happened, she's repeating what she remembers Mr. P saying of it, and Mr. P might have even remembered and told her backwards if it was really said like that."

They were all silent, weighing in their minds how to interpret what they knew.

"It's so brave of her to try at doing the assassination attempt, though," Peter whispered reverently.

"It sounds like something we would do," scoffed Remus. He paused as the dog's head lifted up from his abdomen and said, "No. I'm not saying we should do it. Put your head back down and get that thought out of your brain this instant."

The dog sighed and laid his head back down.

"Can you lot even imagine what it must be like turning time?" Peter asked.

"I reckon it's terrifying," whispered James.

Lily's hand tightened even more. Remus stared at the ceiling with wide eyes. The dog lay very, very, very still.

"You have no idea what happened after you changed things. Stuff's just not the same as it was. And people think you're mental because you don't know what happened in your own life. It's like waking up from a coma and finding it's been months since you were awake and life's just gone on without you... Except you have consequences for things you didn't even... that you don't remember doing..." James's voice was low.

"I didn't think of all that," Peter said. "Blimey. What'd you do, learn all that from one of your books?"

"Yeah," James answered lamely. "Doctor Who episodes, you know. Fiction." He was quiet.

Peter said, "Reckon Dierks Bell is any relation of Derek's?"

"I mean, is there more than one Bell family?" Remus asked.

"No," James admitted, "Probably not. But quite a lot of branches."

The dog let out a out somewhere between a bark, a whimper, and a laugh.

"But your mum said your dad didn't approve of them, of Ottalie's friends, I mean," Remus pointed out.

"Yeah, Dad didn't approve," Lily said.

"It sounds like he might've judged them too quickly, though, if they were for killing You Know Who," Peter pointed out, "Right? It sounds like the names might've made him judge them? Or Alphard at least?"

"Well he knew better about the Black family by then," James said, "Knew you couldn't judge a person by their last name. He knew mum by then."

They were all quiet for several long moments then, the weight of everything settling on them.

"Maybe what she fixed was us rescuing you in sixth," Lily whispered.

"Maybe," James said.

"Or the Fallengunder fight somehow," Remus said and he felt the dog press his nose to the scarring on his arm in response.

"Or maybe it has something to do with the watches," Peter suggested.

Again, silence.

"Why do you reckon they changed the group's name to Death Eaters from Knights of Walpurgis?" Lily asked. "The Knights sound so much more terrifying and solemn. Just the name makes the hair on my arms stand up. It's so creepy."

"It's old English. Etan. It was to destroy or consume something... to take mastery or control over it. The name means to destroy, consume, and take control over death," Remus said. "I suppose that it indicates that You Know Who wishes to control who lives and who dies."

"Or to conquer death altogether," Lily whispered, a feeling like falling coming over her, the words in Regulus's writing swimming before her mind's eye.

"You really are a Remcyclopedia," James murmured.

"I just... remember things," Remus answered.

One by one, starting with Peter, they began to fall asleep. Snuffles lay awake, listening contently to all their breathing, feeling the variation in their inhales and exhaled as their bodies rose and fell beneath him, synchronous and individual all at once. He could feel the restless unease of their minds slowly drifting to the peace of sleep... he sighed himself, feeling his own tensions drifting...

Suddenly, a flare of panic, a spike in a calm. He looked to James, whose face was fluttering in and out of wince.

Snuffles moved slowly to keep from disturbing Lily, Remus, and Peter, and carefully crawled his way so that he was laying specifically on James. Roger, disturbed, made a disgruntled sound and moved onto Peter, kneading and then curling up on the boy's stomach. Snuffles paws dropped onto James's shoulders and muzzled at James's chin and cheeks until he woke up, the wince fading away and his eyes focusing on the black dog, the grey eyes peering at him from behind dark fur.

James's breath was shaky and Snuffles lay his head down against James's cheek, absorbing the stress James was feeling through his entire body. Somehow, feelings like stress and anxiety were so much easier to take on as Snuffles, Sirius thought it must be the nature of a dog, to feel it and let it go so easily, and he could feel it coming out of James and into his dog form and casting away into the universe.

He thought of James talking about how great it was to have a talent that came easily that one could do for others who needed it and Sirius knew that this one was his.

James put his arm around the bulk of Snuffles, rubbing the soft fur behind the dog's ears. They lay like this for some time before James finally whispered, "I know what you did."

Snuffles lifted his head and looked into James's eyes again.

"I know what you did and I think it's kind of shitty that you did it without my permission, especially since I'm sure Evans told you I didn't want her to do it."

Snuffles's ears flattened in shame.

James stared at him for several moments, letting him feel guilty. Then, "I do appreciate it, though," he whispered. "You thinking it's worth taking on all the things I feel and - and whatever." He sighed, "I just love you a whole bloody lot and I didn't want you to feel the way I do. About a lot of things. I dunno how much of what I feel you feel, I'm not sure how it works, really, I don't dare to ask Evans too much about it, I just know she does it and it hurts her sometimes and I hate that about it. But whatever it is you feel from me, know that none of it is your fault. I'm only here to feel it because of you."

Snuffles kept his ears flat and pressed all the harder into James's chest.

"Everyone else I know would've moved on if something happened to me," James whispered. "Even Evans... I've held on for Evans so many times but, like, I know she would be alright without me. I know she'd have you lot, you know? But you." James was quiet.

Snuffles shifted and wriggled against James, pressing his nose into his neck persistently.

"I know, mate," James whispered. He paused, bit his lip and said, "I don't say that because I think I'm some great hero, mind, I don't think you like rely on me to survive or anything, I don't think you're weak. I mean that I know how I'd be if you ever were in my place and gave up. We've had this talk before. You know how I feel about you and what I'd be if you were gone. Wrecked, that's what. And I know you'd be the same. So whatever you feel from me, there's an awful lot, you know? Whatever it is... It's not your fault, nor will it ever be. I owe you more than I have in me to give."

James hugged the dog very closely and he whispered, "If anything ever did happen to me, though, you have to promise me that you'd take care of yourself and of Evans, too. You have to swear it to me that you'd be what I couldn't. You're the only one I'd trust to do it."

Somehow, as the dog stared into his eyes, James just knew that the dog was thinking: I solemnly swear it.