The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part One

Defragmentum

James spent the first day back at the Auror Training Program worried about Lily, and how she was doing back at the flat with her broken wrist. She hadn't wanted to worry her mum, so she hadn't been home since it had been broken at Mungo's. She'd done okay the two days since the attacks, when James had insisted on being absent from his studies, but upon her insistance he'd gone in. Still - there was no telling if Lily was truly "perfectly alright" as she'd claimed without him being there. It made him antsy and short-tempered so that he blasted Frank Longbottom a bit too hard with a stunning spell during training, knocking the young auror clear off his feet and across the room.

But all had been well when he got home - Sirius had stayed home with Lily instead of going in to do his degnoming work, and the pair of them had enjoyed a lovely day together around the flat without James and Remus at home. They'd returned to the flat to find a delicious dinner prepared and a hyperactive Sirius, eager to share that he'd helped with the cooking.

"Great, we're being poisoned," James had joked. Remus had chuckled, but James saw him closely inspecting the food as he helped to set the table, too.

Since the fight in the square and the attack at Mungo's, the four of them had been largely quiet about the entire affair, depsite Peter Pettigrew's questions about what he had missed whenever he came 'round.

"Read the room, Wormtail," Sirius had grunted once when Peter had been persistantly asking question and after question, "None of us bloody want to talk about it, alright?"

It was as though they all wanted to forget about the war for a few days to recover their spirits. Not talking about the battle was the only way, it seemed, to shut it all out for just a little bit at least. It became an unspoken rule, it seemed, that upon crossing the threshold of the flat, all discussion of You Know Who and the Death Eaters became taboo. The flat was not a part of the world, they seemed to have decided collectively, and therefore the mess and pain that plagued the world should not be welcomed into it. The flat was a safe place.

"D'ya reckon that we can keep on like this forever?" James asked Remus one night as the pair of them walked down the street toward the lighted windows, having met up by chance on their ways home.

Remus shrugged. "Dunno," he replied. Then, "It feels a bit like the Shrieking Shack, doesn't it?"

"Yeah it does," James said, smiling.

Remus paused walking, staring up at the glow behind the curtains that hung in their living room windows. "I reckon it's the love we have for each other that keeps the rubbish out."

James nodded. "The place is teeming with the stuff, isn't it?"

It was then that James decided that above all else, the home that he built with Lily must be filled with love the same way that the Shrieking Shack had always been, the same way that the flat now always was. It was important, he realized. Having light and love within the four walls was the only way to keep out the darkness.

So it was with a whole new resolve that James worked on the house in Godric's Hollow a couple days a week. He used no magic still. It was important to him that every stroke of paint, every nail, every bit of restoration be done entirely and completely with nothing except his own two hands.

After that talk with Remus, he thought he might understand why it seemed so imperative to him. It was like weaving love into the very walls of the house, as though every nail he drove in was fortifying the little cottage more and more, making it stronger against the darkness with every stroke of paint. The work was worth it, every bit of it. He spent his time imagining how Lily would be surprised to learn of the house and the work he'd done, and he thought about how he'd tell her and when, wanting every detail to be perfect.