Chapter Eighty-Four
Alphas
When the darkness tries to get me,
There's a light that just won't let me,
It might take my pride, and my tears may fill my eyes,
But I'll stand back up
(Stand Back Up - Sugarland)October 17th, 1978Sometime in the middle of the night, Mia opened her eyes and exhaled softly at the
feel of Padfoot surrounding her fox form—the constant sense of safety. It was just the two
of them, there on Remus's bed. Breathing in deep, she pulled the scent of Moony in as
though she were afraid it would fade with time should he never return to them.
Closing her eyes, she remembered a time when they had not been a pack; when they
had not even been proper Animagi yet. Long ago, in the Room of Requirement, where Mia
dug her hands and bare feet into the dirt, closing her eyes and focusing on the faux full
moon in the sky that connected her to Remus.
She recalled the feel of something pulling her toward the outside of the castle. The
Familial Bond that tugged her toward James, the Soul Bond that pulled her always closer
to Sirius—forever connected through their magic—and then, something she had not
known at the time, an invisible string that took her to the Shrieking Shack then back into
the Forbidden Forest. A connection she now knew to have been the unprovoked Pack
Bond.
It had been invisible at the time, though now she could almost see it behind her
closed eyes: a tight silver string that wrapped itself around her and tugged from behind her
where Padfoot was sleeping.
She focused her energy, visualising her magic, and followed the string as it broke
off, leading out of the flat and into Godric's Hollow. She could almost see Potter Cottage
in the vision where she found a red-haired witch sleeping up against a large stag. A book
on werewolves had fallen from her hands onto the floor, bathed in the moonlight seeping
in through the window.