Black Eden

(I am very, very sorry this chapter has taken so long. I\'ve been having some personal problems, like having to move with 1 weeks notice, and then not having internet for ages. Well. I\'m all good now. So, I apologise AGAIN and hope you don\'t hate me!)

Harry, still trapt in what he thinks is reality, is at the moment stunned.

He almost had a family. He was almost a Snape. Lucius Malfoy was a good person even if he was a git. He was almost a fucking SNAPE for fucks sake! A Snape. Harry Snape. Although, considering, Snape would have changed his name most likely to something atrocious. Like Severus Junior. Harry shuddered, much to the amusement of Young-Sirius.

\"Even Snivellus couldn\'t fuck up a kid too much, could he?\" Young-Sirius sounded uncharacteristically optimistic. Harry eyed him and the other teen flushed lightly with a grin on his face.

\"Alright, next memory!\" the blue eyed boy said and clapped his hands, then cupping one and bringing it down to a mysterious looking puddle that had formed on the hardwood floor between them. They were still in the Potters home of Godric Hollow, in baby Harry\'s nursery room. Harry felt a slow, burning longing to go upstairs to where he knew his parents lay sleeping unaware.

Young-Sirius sprinkled the puddle water over Harrys hand and - nothing changed. The boy in front of him just smiled a familiar smile with a twinkle to rival that of Hogwarts headmaster, and put a hand to Harry\'s shoulder indicating he should move. Which he did, towards the door and out it. He was floored -

- it was no longer night, and his parents were alive and well and sitting on a couch with the baby - him - in his fathers arms and he looked just like him and oh my god it was too much for Harry who\'s breath was coming too fast and too harsh and oh dear god his parents were there and alive and they were talking and looking so goddamned alive that he couldn\'t believe it and he had to stop thinking just to process it.

As he was still unthinking, a large bang echoed throughout the large but comfortable house, and a loud voice accompanied by a quieter voice were heard:

\"JAAAAAAAAMES!\"

\"Shut up, Siri! Honestly you can\'t just-\"

\"PRONGSIIIIIIIIIIIIIE!\"

\"-barge in when there\'s a-\"

\"JAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMES!\"

\"-baby.\"

\"Prongsie, old man, how nice it is to see you!\"

Sirius started to throw his arms around James, who was still holding the semi-sleeping baby Harry, then thought better of it. He carefully scooped the baby up and deposited it like it was a piece of vile trash into Remus\' arms. Then he threw his arms around James, making Lily laugh and Remus sigh.

\"It\'s been too long, Padfoot.\" James said, still holding tightly onto Sirius, who looked almost exactly like the Sirius standing next to Harry. Grin and all. \"Moony,\" he acknowledged his other friend, his eyes lingering on his face for a little too long as though searching for something.

Smiling uneasily, Remus nodded slightly and then looked down to avoid further scrutiny. He pretended to be absorbed in the bundle of baby in his arms, and when it opened it\'s eyes, he breathed an \"oh\" of air.

\"It really has been too long hasn\'t it? Since the end of school, yeah?\" James said, sadly. By the look of himself, he could average that he was maybe 6 months old. Sirius, Remus and his father hadn\'t seen each other in 6 months? Why the hell not?

\"Sit down will you?\" Lily said quietly but firmly, reminding Harry of his mother. Remus carried the baby in his arms with him and arranged himself into a comfortable looking arm chair too the side of the couch that James and Lily sat on. Sirius leaned against Remus\' chair, inspecting the baby like it was a potion that at any moment could explode.

\"So - what does it do?\" Sirius asked, lightly poking the baby who still in sleep grabbed the offending finger and nuzzled it, smiling. Looking aghast but not removing his finger, he looked to Remus for help.

\"It\'s a baby. It does . . . baby things,\" Remus surmised, looking down into the clear green eyes that crinkled when the thin-but-not-too-thin baby smiled. It was a perfect combination of James and Lily.

\"So what\'s its name?\" Sirius asked, looking for all the world like this was something he\'d never been told.

Lily rolled her eyes in mock exasperation. \"Sirius Black! It\'s a him, and his name is Harry James. Now pick him up and LOVE HIM or I will tell Severus about the love letter, the pie, and the perfume.\" Sirius paled severely and quickly picked the baby up.

\"Not so rough, Padfoot! It\'s little and can\'t defend itself.\" Remus said when he grabbed the little thing under the arms and swung it up into his arms.

\"It smells.\" He held Harry away from him, like it was a foul thing. Remus held his hands up in a silent gesture of \'I\'m not taking it\' with a slightly amused expression on his mouth and in his golden eyes. \"But Moony,\" he pleaded, \"it smells.\" His aristocratic nose wiggled. James laughed from his place on the ruby colored sofa. There was a large window behind Remus, with cream colored curtains that were open and allowing light to filter in, illuminating the scene.

\"Oh come off it,\" Lily said haughtily, standing up gracefully and making Harry\'s breath catch. That was his mother. As she held her arms out to take the bundle of baby from Sirius, Harry swore he could almost feel her arms around him, smell her scent. Faint oranges and lily scent left him after a moment, when Lily left the room with Harry in tow.

He looked on at the three remaining men. Sirius plopped down gracelessly in Lily\'s abscence, and flung an arm over James\' shoulders, cuddling up and propping his chin on his shoulder.

\"How are you?\" Remus asked, with a tentative smile. James grinned.

\"Bloody brilliant. It\'s like all my dreams have come true in one go. I honestly thought Harry would never come out! It took AGES and AGES and Lily was screaming at me the entire time about how she\'d never let me have sex with her again, and thank god I\'m pretty sure she didn\'t remember that bit and I\'m almost positive I fainted. Lily likes to remind me of it every once in a while because you know, she\'s just that way. But really! Harry is absolutely wonderful unless he\'s shitting or puking or whatnot, and that is to be expected what with him being a baby and all. It\'s so beautiful when he\'s sleeping and Lily\'s rocked him to sleep and she\'s holding him in the chair and-\"

Sirius whacked James in the side of the head with the flat of his palm. Not too hard, but enough to shut him up.

\"What the fuck\'d you do that for?\" James asked angrily.

\"Well, if you weren\'t turning into such a pussy then I wouldn\'t have to! Remus is less of a pussy than you are, no offense Moony,\" Sirius said with a glance at the golden haired boy, Remus growled low in his throat. \"Honestly, Prongs, you haven\'t seen us in months due to your being all hidden and secretive from Voldemort and now here you are, seeing me,\" Remus growled again at this, \"and what are you doing? I\'ll tell you. You\'re blathering on and on about the BABY. The baby, James. The baby. It\'s. A. Baby. It shats, it cries, it whines, it sleeps. What\'s so amazing about it? And you\'re totally being a pussy.\" Finishing his tirade he retreated to the opposite corner of the sofa, facing James.

By this point Remus was livid, quite angry and not exactly sure why. Maybe it was that James was receiving Sirius better, even though they were in an argument at the moment, or that he was referred to as a pussy, but he was mad.

\"Fucking - fuck!\" he couldn\'t speak with his usual finesse, nor with the vocabulary he usually reserved for Sirius, James and Peter.

Sirius and James looked at him, like they were expecting his head to pop off suddenly, which he thought it might very well do.

\"You - and YOU!\" he stuttered, totally unlike himself. Standing up from the chair, he walked to the door, opened it, and spoke before slamming it. \"Good bye, James. Tell Lily I\'m sorry I couldn\'t stay but that Sirius is really quite a prick as are you and that I\'d like to speak to her as soon as I could without you two fuckheads in the room.\" Slam.

Sirius and James blinked together in perfect synchronization. Sirius turned to James.

\"I think it\'s that time of the month,\" he said simply, as though that explained everything.

James smiled a bit sadly, \"I think it\'s more than that.\" Sirius arched a black eyebrow in question.

Sighing, he explained partially, not revealing what his friend had told him the summer before in long letters. \"He\'s not feeling well, he thinks it\'s something to do with Moony, but he isn\'t sure. It\'s not something he can control . . . he\'s trying, but it\'s not easily done. You know Remus, he\'ll fight it until it either wins or loses and he\'ll be miserable through the entire thing and still smile like he always does. You never know really what\'s going on behind his eyes.\"

\"I know,\" Sirius said quietly, \"I know.\"

They sat there in silence, unmoving. Harry was thinking that the \'memory\' was over and hadn\'t vanished yet, but then his father spoke with a wary tone.

\"How - how has it been, Siri?\"

Sirius sighs and leans his head against the couch, flinging an arm in a gesture of defeat over his eyes as he began to speak. \"It\'s been hell. His grandmother - the one who used to knit him socks and send them during hols - died a while back and then his grandfather - the one who gets drunk and then starts speaking in Latin and Remus\'ll be talking back like it\'s all normal - found out about Moony and disowned Remus. His parents are in Latvia now for some stupid reason, research or something,\" he said this with a look beneath his arm to James, who immediately understood that the research was about werewolfies, \"and so they aren\'t able to do anything, and Remus was staying with his grandfather and now he\'s staying with me in my flat and refusing to talk to me about any of it and MERLIN is it difficult to just sit there watching him be all Moony-ish and miserable and FUCKING CRANKY AS HELL. The day before yesterday - do you know what he did?! - he blew up at me because I put the spoon on the wrong side of the dish while setting the table. It\'s a spoon. And don\'t even get me started on the fact that I haven\'t had a good shag in ages and ages and aaaaaaaaaages! I am suffering here. I\'m at the point where I\'d shag him in his sleep if I thought I could, because it would be the only way. That, or Imperio! Fuck, James, it\'s so different. And I think he\'s jealous of the baby thing you two have. It\'s utterly icky.\"

James, who\'d been making sympathetic noises and nods at all the right places, just sighed heavily at the end of the tirade.

\"I don\'t know what to say. I can\'t really relate, Lily\'s been perfect. Almost, anyway. About Moony wanting a baby, I\'m happy for you but I don\'t think you\'ll make a good father. You\'d teach it swears and nasty tricks and oh dear god I can\'t imagine a mini-Padfoot running amok in the world, creating chaos and havoc wherever he was let loose. I am sorry that I\'ve not seen you both in so long, but it can\'t be helped. Dumbledore wants us in hiding and you know, Dumbledore knows everything. And McGoogles has visited!\" he said this last part with an exaggerated gasp of happiness. \"Lily was rather jealous, I must say, of the attention I lavished upon dear Minerva - the sight of her, feathered hat and little spectacles set my heart a-racing. I daresay, I almost jumped her at the door and crushed her dear little - well, not little - hat!\"

Sirius chuckled. Conversation was less tense between them until Sirius suddenly slapped himself in the head a good 30 minutes later and exclaimed \"SHIT!\" whilst rocketing off the couch.

\"Remus doesn\'t have a keeeeeeeey!\" he shouted after him, running out the door, stopping, slapping himself again, and then apparating out with a pop.

James shook his head at his friend. His completely insane friend.

\"Lily!\" he called. After a beat of silence, then an affirmative \'yuh uuuh ow ow HARRY that\'s my HAIR there sweeite\' he yelled, \"Siri and Remy left.\"

Lily walked in holding the baby, who was in turn steadfastly holding her hair hostage with an angelic smile on his face.

\"Oh, why?\"

\"Remus wants a baby,\" James said, in a mock-Sirius tone, pronouncing the words with the perfection Sirius used, that had been bred into him and taught to him with dire consequences if he did not learn how to behave and act in a society that he did not want to be in, by his mother. He\'d tried to stop talking like he was a \'fucking prince of fucking everything\' but even then, his words were sharp-edged and crystal-clear, like his evil mother had taught them to be.

Lily sighed, wincing a bit as she attempted to shuffle the little wretched green eyed blob of human mass that had lovingly attatched itself to her hair.

The picture before Harry stilled and vanished, the background shimmering away first, leaving the ghostly images of his parents and himself for a few seconds longer.


Me-Notes:

-- yet again, I feel the need to apologise.

-- thank you for those who have reviewed! I really, really appreciate it! *hugs and kisses to everyone*

-- I don\'t know where I\'m going with the story. I really don\'t. In the beginning of writing this, okay yeah, I had some sort of direction in where I thought I might want to head. But now . . . I don\'t know. I\'m hoping the story will just fall into place as I write (which I will be doing a lot more of now!) and well . . . yeah.

-- SORRY THAT THE LAST FEW CHAPTERS SUCKED!

-- oh, and please review :) I\'ll write more, and post it even if you don\'t, but it is nice to be acknowledged for what I write. even if you say \"you suck\" I\'ll still smile. Heh. Yeah. I\'m weird.