well, it's a start...

[James Sirius Potter]

Restless was far from the word on how Sirius had been feeling these past couple of weeks. On the verged of insanity from boredom covered it a little bit better. Sleep for three hours, get up and eat all he could stand to eat, have a drink, smoke a cigarette and sleep again was pretty much the first week. One night he and Claire had a long talk though, and that gave him a little something to think about and something to work on and keep him busy in the second week of his medical leave from work. It was definitely a nice change from just lounging around the house, but of course, he had to promise Claire he would still take it easy. No craziness. That was definitely a hard promise to keep mentally, but his current physical status made it much easier to keep in the end.

During that second week, Sirius and Claire compiled a list of people they trusted and knew would be more than willing to at least hear them out for the first meeting. After that, Sirius used his free afternoons to track down those people and convince them to meet himself and Claire one night. Most of them of course, agreed without question. Others, they didn't want to hear it. At the end of the week though, they had a small number of people who planned to meet them one night their house until he and Claire decided on a permanent headquarters location. In the mean time, they already knew these were people they could trust so he was not worried about having everyone over. After all, the pair of them were a slight bit more paranoid than ever after the most recent events and had put the most powerful of protection spells they knew on their house and Albus house as well.

Finally it was that night though and Sirius would never admit that he was a little more nervous now than he had been before to state his case. He had been thinking about it all week but now it was time. Usually, Sirius is calm and collected as a leader. Which was why at such a young age of 14 he was captain of his Quidditch team, and by age 28 the head of the Department of Mysteries as he is still today. Tonight however, he was more than a little nervous. Not because of speaking in front of people, but of telling them the complete truth. From who attacked his family, kidnapped Ethan, were causing all the disappearances to the amount of followers this man already had. He had personal letters from the man, a psychopath. If these people were going to help them, they needed to know everything. And so far, the media had done a very good job of keeping any of this out of the news.

Maybe it was just the fact that he felt like he was the one potentially ruining lives by bringing them out of the darkness by showing them what was really going on in the world. Since the world his father had saved had rebuilt, from the time he was born, people had done everything they could to keep from thinking about the past. Denying anything that looked like it could cause another problem. All the while, allowing a problem to brew underground until it was strong enough to come back. To fight them all, to take over where Lord Voldemort had left off. That was Blackwell's plan, Ethan had told them everything he could remember, which considering the boy was basically a genius, was a lot considering the condition he was found it. Sirius just didn't want to be the one to ruin the sense of security they had lived with their whole lives... No one was going to try something like that again, they had believed. They were dead wrong.

Sitting on the steps of their porch, Sirius stared out at the snow covered ground. January was almost over already, but it was still going to be freezing for a month or so at least. He hated the cold these days because every injury he had acquired over the years seemed to ache in the cold. He had thought old guys were full of shit saying that as a teenager and young adult but boy was he paying for that now. He stretched out his legs in front of him and downed what was left of the drink he had made after dinner and laid back on the steps lighting a cigarette. He closed his eyes and sighed exhaling smoke and ran a hand in his hair. Everyone would be here soon, so he better start thinking about how he was going to start all this. At least he knew that he had Claire there to help him out, and that when he started to run out of things to say he could just turn it over to her.

[Claire Pierce]

Of course he had managed to find a new project while he was supposed to be at home resting, relaxing, and recovering for a month. Of course. She hadn’t been surprised, because he was, after all, easily distracted from the standard purpose to obsess over a new plan and always had been. There were so many times at work that he would suddenly look up and say, in that tone that she both loved and hated, “Claire! What do you think about…” or “Shit, I’ve just had the best idea. How about we…” Sometimes she just wanted to throttle him but usually settled for yelling about how much work he had to do. “Come on, Sirius, you’ve got, you know, cases!” and files, and trainees to handle, and meetings to plan, and people to speak to.

Sadly, she couldn’t use that excuse right now for two reasons: for one thing, he literally did not have work to do because of his medical leave from work. Yes, she brought some files and papers home for him and the occasional message, but for all intents and purposes, Claire was currently the head of the Auror department as she ran things in his place. Of course if they really wanted to look at it in an honest light, they both knew that Claire was the second head of the department in all but title as it was.

And yet, she had come home one day to the proposal of the new Order and it was one project she couldn’t refuse pursuing, wouldn’t try to dissuade him from. It was the right thing to do, after all, and he needed to do it – there was only so much they could do from a Ministry-regulated department. Claire and Sirius could only dodge the rules, make their own guidelines, and generally do what they want to an extent, which drove her up a wall. This would allow the risk-taking, reckless Sirius and thoughtful but strong-minded Claire to truly pursue the issues they wanted to fix, and in their own way…with her guidance, obviously.

Sirius had promised her, sworn to her, that he wouldn’t be as reckless and thoughtless – he wouldn’t dangle his life out there as he always did – anymore, and yet they were basically ignoring that in some ways now. It couldn’t be helped and it was necessary now, she reasoned to herself.

It didn’t mean she wasn’t terrified for him, for family, for everyone involved – but it had to be done, and so she tried to ignore it all now as she tidied the house while pushing all thoughts from her head. Claire had volunteered her – their – house as meeting place and headquarters for the time being, and she was already at work finding a new location to protect beyond belief like the house was (honestly, it was insane how much the house was protected. She was incredibly paranoid, but with good reason).

She had a speech mentally prepared. She had answers to any questions or concerns that could come up. She had planned the entire meeting with Sirius. And yet she didn’t feel ready.

Sighing heavily, Claire stepped outside to where Sirius was sitting on the porch. It was frigid outside and Sirius was smoking a cigarette, which she figured might be more of a response to worries than just habit; he had been trying harder recently to reduce the frequency with which he smoked after years of her comments, arguments, pleas, and reasons. “You know, if I had known that dating you would help encourage you to reduce your habits, maybe I would have gone for it earlier,” she mused as she sat beside him. She smiled a little, a chill and shiver going through her body at an especially cold gust of wind over the snow-coated yard. “Nervous?” she asked finally, leaning into him comfortably. It was about ten minutes before people were scheduled to arrive, and so she took advantage of the last moments she had with him where everyone present knew they were together, because nobody arriving were aware of it yet. She was starting to feel ready to tell people, but honestly it was the last thing on her mind these days.