The Marauders: Year Six #Wattys2017

No Sugar Tonight

No Sugar Tonight

James woke up during the night, moonlight playing on his face, to find he'd fallen asleep in his clothes, trainers and all, laying across his bed where he'd fallen over after sitting up playing the game half the night. They all had - in fact, the only change from his last conscious memory was that at some point Sirius must've woken up because he'd transformed into Snuffles and was wrapped around beneath Remus's knees the way he did when Rey's legs bothered him from the moonlight, his head curled about to rest on top of Remus's abdomen, Remus's fingers wrapped into the shaggy hair atop the dog's head. James glanced to his right and blinked at the sight of Lily Evans, violet in the moonlight, who had fallen asleep there beside him on his bed, her red hair splayed out about her, all pretty-like. He stared at her a moment... He realized, when she did it a second time, that what had woken him up was a whimper from Evans. Her face was turned into a frown, and she twitched... a bad dream.

Carefully, James reached over and gently ran his fingers over her cheek. "Wake up, love," he whispered. When she didn't, he gently cupped her face. "Evans," his voice was soft, "Wake up, Evans, you're having a nightmare."

It took a few tries at it before she woke up, a panicked expression on her face as she stared at him for several long moments as he leaned over her, worry upon his face. She was busy catching her breath... tears glistened about her cheeks.

"Hey, shhh," he whispered, and he inched a bit closer, stroking her cheek ever so gently with the backs of his fingers. She rolled over into him then and wrapped her arms around his chest, burying her face in his shoulder and crying. James didn't know what to do at first, but then he slowly brought his arms around her and held her, his hands on her back, carefully staying in appropriate places only, and he pressed his cheek against the side of her head and whispered in her ear, "I'm here, Evans. Whatever it is, I'll keep you safe, I promise."

She continued on blubbering and he softly rubbed her back and wondered what was making her so sad, but she fell asleep without telling him. Not wanting to disturb her, James took his glasses off and slid them onto the nightstand by stretching his arm - they fell onto the floor and he heard a crack as they hit the carpet. He sighed. Whatever - he'd have somebody do a reparo in the morning, he thought, and he closed his eyes.

A train car was overturned on the morning commute outside of London the next morning. Seventy-two muggles were inside when it happened. Twenty-seven died and the others were injured. No one could understand how it happened - security footage in the stop where the car had turned was mysteriously, unexplainably missing - just meters of blank tape. The aurors had done a thorough job of obliterating the minds of the witnesses and the victims themselves all believed they'd heard squealing rails before it had occurred. The green smoke of the skull and snake mark that hang hung above the tubestop had been magicked away...

The attacks on the muggles were getting bigger... flashier... harder to cover up... and Harold Minchum continued to vow his vengeance against the Dark Lord. "Coward!" he called Voldemort the next morning in the article about the attack that ran in the morning edition of the Daily Prophet. "Attacking the defenseless is something only a coward does!"

But many could not help but speculate that perhaps, given all that had happened in the last year since the election, all the attacks from the ever-elusive Voldemort and his followers, perhaps Harold Minchum was all words...

Lily woke first - and thank goodness, too, because she found herself in James Potter's arms, lying horizontally across his bed, her face smushed into the wrinkled white oxford that covered his broad chest. She was all curled up into him, his great wide arm curling from beneath her neck across her back to protectively hold onto her shoulder - his other arm having fallen away at some point, his hand on his own stomach where it had landed now, face strange looking without the glasses. She had one hand splayed upon his chest, the other wrapped about his shoulder, curled so she was holding onto his arm that ran beneath her. She felt her throat go tight and she wiggled carefully away.