#my sister closest in age is Sydney and my two other sisters etc etc

[slurpingnoise]

can you imagine if I was named Rodney

[padfootdidit]

on the road to you (pt.1)

It’s here! The first chapter of my Jellicoe Road AU :) I’ve really enjoyed writing this and so I hope you guys all like it. It’s based on Melina Marchetta’s ‘Jellicoe Road’, which is one of my favourite books. (It’s okay if you haven’t read it the book, it’s still possible to follow the fic.) Atm I’m hoping there’ll be 6 chapters in total, though I can’t promise a regular posting schedule. If you have any questions/thoughts/etc just shoot me a message <3

Thank you so much to Jess (@theodoornott) and Linds (@snapslikethis) for betaing this and thank you to Caroline and Ellie (@jiilys and @alrightpotter) for loving the idea and cheering me on :) 

Also I know it’s sort of cheating but I’d like to give this first chapter as a belated birthday present to the ever beautiful Ria (@gxldentrio), whose smile makes the world a better place.

Word count; 4,778 & Rating: G (some swearing)

Read it on AO3!

Prologue

My father took one hundred and thirty-two minutes to die. I counted. It happened on the Jellicoe Road. The prettiest road I’ve ever seen, where trees made breezy canopies like a tunnel to Shangri-la…

We were going to where my parents had met, so many years ago. They wanted to show me what loved looked like, because they weren’t sure I would ever see it for myself. That’s when the other car hit us and everything changed. My mother only took twenty seconds to die and, once she had, I heard her voice immediately. She was in the other car, not quite crying, but almost. She asked me to crawl through, said she couldn’t move and that her sister needed help. Lily, she said she was called, and her sister was Petunia, except she wasn’t Petunia anymore because she’d stopped breathing. I took Lily’s hand and we counted to hundred and thirty two and then a boy named Sirius came along on his bike and saved both of us.

People asked me later why I thought we’d been spared and, although I couldn’t say it out loud, I thought it was because someone knew we had to, to save each other.

CHAPTER ONE

Twenty Two Years Later

I’m dragged out of bed at one in the morning and led downstairs by the seniors. Girls and boys who will be gone tomorrow and won’t have to suffer through another summer of war. They tell me to be quiet, as if I’m about to yell out to our house father that I’m being kidnapped, and push me first through the bike shed door. My eyes take a second to adjust to the torch light and by the time I can check who’s in the room, the meeting has begun.

“We leave tomorrow and pass the baton on to you. You’ve all been trained and now it’s time to use that training to win the war, ” the leader of Darling house says solemnly.

“All the leaders have chosen who shall be in charge,” the-one-in-charge-right-now says. And then all the house leaders look at me, and I see Hermione’s shoulders visible drop. Everyone, myself included, had thought it would be her. Ron had said they wouldn’t choose someone with such temperamental people skills and I wish I had listened. If I had, I might have been prepared. As it happens, I’m not and my house leader has to nudge me forward.

“You aren’t the obvious choice, Harry,” he says, and all I can think is no kidding. “But you know this place better than any of us and we trust you.” The one-in-charge-no-longer hands me The Purple Book, we watch the seniors leave, and then all eyes turn to me.

“Plans, Potter?” Draco spits. I know he’s probably going to be more of a pain in my arse than the Cadets.

“Granger is my Deputy.” Not exactly awe-inspiring first words, but I need to set up my authority and back up quickly.

Hermione crosses her arms. “Thank you.” She doesn’t sound very thankful.

“We need the Prayer Tree.” Cho Chang says, and my stomach drops a bit.

“We don’t need the Prayer Tree, you just want it because of -”

“Draco, shut up.” I interrupt before he can finish his sentence. He’s already done the damage though, and Hermione shuffles over to put her arm around Cho.

Hermione glares at Draco. “I say we try for the Prayer Tree.”

“It’s not top priority,” I point out. “If we need anything, it’s the paths to town.”

“Jock can’t handle an extra five miles?” Draco’s insults have never been particularly refined and so it’s easy to ignore him.

“We’ll draw up a game plan tomorrow. Let’s go to bed.” I hold the door open for the girls and ensure I’m at least a metre away from Draco for the walk back to the houses. Hermione hugs Cho, wishes me good night and vanishes into Lachlan house. Draco slinks off silently. Being the ever noble gentleman, I make sure Cho makes the extra 50 yards to her house okay before turning back to my own.

I hope I’ll be able to make it up to my room without anyone seeing me, but everyone is waiting up for me. Neville reaches me first.

“So? Who is it?” He asks, all the others waiting just as eagerly for my answer.

“It’s me.” I hold up a hand. “Go to bed, we’ll talk tomorrow.” The juniors groan, but I can tell they’re excited because I have to go down twice in the night to tell them to shut up. Neville is almost as bad, except he picks up that I want to be left alone by my third yawn and says goodnight.

I get into bed and turn the light off, rolling onto my side so I can look out of the window. Down by the river I can see Lupin’s house, the attic window lit up. I want to go tell him, ask him for help, but he’ll just tell me off for being up and out so late, so I roll away and go to sleep.

The next morning I have to face my house and the teachers. Somehow, I survive the formal head of house ceremony without punching Draco in the face. His voice is audible the whole time as he whispers to his cronies, Crabbe and Goyle. I don’t have to pay attention to know he’s trying to convince everyone around him that I’m too mentally unstable for the job. Running away from school with one of the enemy will give you that reputation. Only I know the whole story though, so I just ignore him as Dumbledore congratulates me on becoming a house leader and Lupin winks at me from the teacher’s table.

Afterwards, the leaders gather in the bike shed and spend an hour wasting time arguing over what should be our aim to get back. Cho quietly fights for the Prayer Tree whilst Draco comes up with anything other than what I suggest. Eventually, I break.

“Right. As productive as this is, I think we should check all the boundaries. Draco and Cho, go back to the houses so the teachers don’t get suspicious. Hermione, with me.” I pick up the map and The Purple Book and get out before I can be questioned. Hermione catches up with me by the first bike trail and well fall into step.

“So, are we good?” I ask once we’ve been walking in silence for five minutes.

“You made me Deputy. We’re alright.” She smiles, and I’m glad we haven’t lost several years of friendship over the senior’s choice. “You heard who’s the new Townie leader?”

“There were rumours about it being one of the Patils.”

“Well, according to Luna Lovegood, it’s Ron.”

“Ron Weasley?”

She smiles, her expression sort of nostalgic. “The one and only.”

“The meetings will be fun. The Weasleys are always easy going.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Hermione says as we come to a stop by the closest boundary to the Cadet camp.

“What? Why?”

“Ginny is head of the Cadets.” Hermione looks at me, waiting for a reaction.

It takes all my strength not to give her the satisfaction, but my voice is calm when I reply, “How?”

“Well, she’s one of their best.”

“But they’re brother and sister.” I turn to look at the currently non-existent Cadet camp. “Can that work?”

“She spends most of her time in Sydney, the only difference between her and the other Cadets is that she’s here every holiday.” Hermione, as usual, is right. Being the only girl in her family, Ginny Weasley had taken it upon herself, at the tender age of eleven, to apply to one of the best schools in the country, without telling her parents. Molly and Arthur Weasley had only found out about it when they received the acceptance letter. Then, a year later, Ginny had managed to persuade the school to allow girls on to their all male Cadet programme. No one had been sure if she did it so she could see her family more often, or if she had a genuine interest in joining the army. Even when we’d spent three days together on the run, I hadn’t been able to figure it out.

“Do you think Ron knows yet?” I ask, still refusing to look at her because I’m not sure I look nonchalant enough.

“Judging by the fact he hasn’t given up the leadership, no, I don’t think he does know.” She smirks to herself and we continue walking.

“At least it will be an interesting first meeting then.”

They meet James and Peter exactly a year after the accident. Sirius has kept them alive, his sharpness and his energy the only thing to stop them from trying to join their families. Every day he was there, giving Lily piggy back rides and teaching Remus poker. Whenever Lily started to cry because the memory of Petunia was wilting in her mind, Sirius was there. If Remus couldn’t smile because all he could remember was his father hating him instead of loving him, Sirius was there. He was a beacon for both of them and they were his haven. That year, the best school in the country decided they could improve so set up a six week summer education project for the year eights to year eleven as part of the Cadet programme. They would set up camp during September and leave at the end of October. Sirius couldn’t wait. He was excited for the war games.

Peter noticed the broken flowers first, but James saw the girl. She was watching them from the other side of the road, an angel.

“Look.” Peter nudged James and pointed to the flowers the Cadets in front of them had trodden on. There were four poppies and one other flower James couldn’t identify. They were meant to be there, the circle of stones around them suggesting a purpose. He couldn’t be sure that the girl looked sad because the flowers were destroyed, yet both he and Peter jogged around the stones and agreed to come back the next day.

All of them were there then. Remus holding Lily’s hand and Sirius wearing the same expression a guard dog wore when there was an intruder. James recognised the girl from yesterday and waved tentatively.

“You’re doing it wrong.” Sirius called across.

“Want to help?” James replied.

“We’re sorry.” Peter added, looking at James reproachfully.

“It always happens.” Remus dismissed the apology, checked if the road was clear and then crossed, leading the girl too. Sirius followed disdainfully.

“They have to be here though.” Lily said softly as she knelt beside Peter and showed him how the seed should be planted.

“We only have poppies.” James told her, wanting her to speak to him. ‘“I wasn’t sure -”

“Petunia. She was - it was a Petunia.” She pulled a seed from her pocket and held her palm out flat so he could see.

They don’t introduce themselves until the flowers are planted, forgetting they don’t know each other for a moment whilst their hands are all buried in the soil together.

At the same time the next day, the boys returned and the trio were there, waiting. It’s the same until the Cadets leave. Sirius was always last to cross, and James and Peter have to earn the smile on his face. It took them three weeks to see his energy and by that time they know Remus and Lily. The two are like parts of a circuit which need Sirius, their switch, their current, to turn them on and make them come to life. In their tent at night, James and Peter wondered if they would ever be part of that circuit.

The next year they looked for a sign as the Cadet bus pulled onto the Jellicoe road. A sign that their friends hadn’t forgotten them, moved on, let the lights go out. And they get one.

Lily, Remus and Sirius came out of the forest, chasing the buses on their bikes until Lily tired and skidded to a halt. Sirius kept up for the longest, pointing to the tree that stood above all the others so Peter and James would know where to meet them. As Sirius turned to bike back to the others, James leant across to whisper in Peter’s ear.

“Let’s never lose them.”

It was James and Sirius’ idea to play war. The two were always trying to one up the other with their shooting skills, James never having used a loaded gun unless under supervision but having had vigorous hours of routine training, whereas Sirius had grown up with bullets in his kitchen drawers and had taught himself. They were both tall and skinny, agile beyond any of the others’ capabilities, so the only real competition was between them. Except when it came to sprinting. Lily would seem to have finished the race before either of the black-headed boys got off the mark, something Sirius had grown accustomed to but James could never quite seem to let go.

“You can be the messenger.” He said to her when they were all sitting down by the river, Sirius paddling and trying to find stones to fit in his catapult.. Peter and Remus were playing cards, vaguely listening to the plan.

“I don’t want to be the messenger. I want to be the general.” Lily sounded indignant, which was how she usually sounded whenever James underestimated her. She liked to make out that it was a regular occurrence, when really it was only the occasional slip up.

“You can’t be the general. You’ll have to be a general.” Sirius said, crouching to inspect the river bed.

“How many generals are there?” Peter asked, grinning smugly as he won the hand.

“Three.” James said.

“One for each region. The town,”

“- the school, -”

“- and the Cadets.” Sirius finished. Finishing each other’s sentences was a new habit and Lily rolled her eyes.  “You and Remus will lead the school, Peter and I will lead the Cadets and Sirius will lead the townies. If they can comprehend the basic rules of warfare that is.”

Quick as a flash, Sirius had his catapult loaded and James groaned as a pebble smashed into his shin. “You little shit!” They were lost for a moment as James launched himself up and charged at Sirius who, ever the quick thinker, shot off another catapult and then dived into the river, disappearing. He and Lily had been practicing holding their breaths and so James stood on the bank, watching the water. The record was three minutes so far.

“How are we going to persuade everyone else?” Remus had given in to Peter’s superior skills and joined James on the bank.

“They’re all bored out their minds. At least we are.” Peter said, shuffling the cards.

“I’m ready to throw myself into the river and never come up.” Lily agreed, rolling onto her back and looking up at the sky. “Running away is a lot less hassle than starting a war.”

“No ravishing in running away.” James said, looking over his shoulder and taking the opportunity whilst Lily’s eyes were shut to stare at her bare legs.

“You’re a perv.” Remus said and knocked James’ shoulder.

“Was he looking at me again?” Lily asked innocently, leaning up on her elbows to look at James.

“No.” James says at the same time Remus and Peter both say “Yes.” Lily grins.

Sirius surfaces then, clothes and hair plastered to his body, twenty metres down from where he went under. He gives James the middle finger and swims to shore, James waiting for him to reach the group before tackling him to the ground and sitting on his chest. They tussled for a moment and then collapsed next to each other, shit eating grins on their faces.

“Do you think you can explain the rest of this game to us now?” Remus asked dryly.

“It’s not a game.”

“It’s war.” They said, and sat up. It took them another ten minutes to actually begin to explain the game because James pulled a purple book from his back pocket and Remus, Lily and Peter spend eight minutes tearing into the two of them for writing rules. Finally, everyone agreed to shut up and Sirius and James began. By the end of the explanation of the game, and the then fifty six rules, it actually sounded appealing. As Peter has said, everyone was bored out of their minds so it probably wouldn’t even be difficult to persuade all the other townies, students and Cadets to join in.

“Which one of you will lead the school?” Sirius asked.

“Lily.” Remus said, without even consulting her. She didn't seem to mind. “All the house leaders will be on the board of war, and there will be one supreme leader.”

“James will lead the Cadets and I’ll be his Deputy.” Peter added.

“And I shall rule the townies!” Sirius punched a victorious fist into the air and Lily nudged him so he fell onto his side.

“Loser.”

“Is what you’ll be when I win.” He retorted.

“We’ll have to make a map. People won’t be able to just remember the boundaries.” Remus said.

“We’ll draw a map.”

“Three maps. One for each.”

“And then -”

“We go to war”. They all grinned at each other and, at that moment, no one would have guessed any of them had ever known sadness.

We spend the week before the Cadets arrive reminding the juniors of the boundaries and battling over what we should try and trade for first. Cho resolutely campaigns for the Prayer Tree as our first priority, Draco continues to be a dick about everything, and Hermione remains both peace keeper and my only ally in the push for the paths to town. Ron has apparently been grounded by his mother, so we can’t set up a meeting with the townies and it’s becoming increasingly obvious how weak we actually are. None of the seniors had hinted at anything, just left it to us to sort out their mess.

The paths were lost four years ago, the Prayer Tree last year and, although we owned the waterways and all of the land actually belonging to the school legally, we were pretty isolated. The townies and Cadets could move around with ease since the Townies gained the paths and the Cadets got the bike trails. Even one of those would cut the walk to town down to ten minutes for us. Most of the other territories we had were useless because we couldn’t access them without trespassing on someone else’s land or because it didn’t give us any advantage.

“Except for the Club House.” Lupin says once I’ve finished complaining to him.

I frown. “The Townies have the Club House.”

“But you own the moat.” He circles the tiny waterway, symbolised by a thin blue line, on the map which technically means the Club House is on an island.

“There’s a bridge. We don’t own the bridge.”

“Who does?” He asks, taking a sip of his lemonade and then leaning back in his chair. I saw him last week but he looks older already. No one’s sure exactly how old Lupin is and I’ve just always figured he’s in his early thirties, even though he looks like he survived a war.

“No one.”

“Get rid of the bridge.” He looks smug. “Then you have a bargaining chip.”

I pause, look at the map, back at him and then back to the map again. “Are you suggesting destruction of property?”

“Your parents would have approved.” Immediately he realises what he’s said and looks away, the self hatred visible on his face. This happens sometimes. He slips up and breaks whatever promise he broke to whoever he made it about keeping me as much in the dark as he can about my parents.

It makes me hate him, just a little bit. They were my parents and all I know is that my mother left me at the 7-11 on Jellicoe Road when I was 11 and never came back for me. Add that to running away and my reputation looks even worse. Lupin knows them, or knew them, and I’m pretty sure he’s the only link I’ll ever have to them. He picked me up fifteen minutes after my mother drove away and I’ve lived with him since, at the house at the end of the Jellicoe School property, by the river. I can’t remember much before I came here, just a patchwork of different wallpapers, a slither of light under a door and, the pièce de résistance of my memories: being swung between two giants, my feet barely grazing the floor, flying.

I take the map from the table and tuck it into my pocket. “Guess that ends today’s session then.”

“You don’t have to go.” Lupin starts as I stand up and move towards the door. “I -”

“Forget it. I’ve got a war to win anyway.” I force a smile and slam the door behind me, knowing he won’t follow. He never does. I stand on the veranda for a second, trying to stop my hands from shaking. They don’t stop so I make to go before noticing the table. It’s an old lawn table, two green plastic chairs tucked neatly in beneath it. On top of it is the manuscript, held down by two paperweights even though there’s no wind. It looks thicker than last time.

Lupin has been writing it for as long as I can remember. It’s never in order and I only sneak reads when I’m alone in the house but I feel more connected to the characters in there then my own parents, sometimes they seem even realer than Hermione and Neville. I push away the thought of snagging a few pages and start a jog up to the houses, trying to clear my mind. It doesn’t work and when one of the year eights attempts to ask me for homework help, I just ignore him and climb the stairs to my room.

I pay for ignoring the kid the next day when Neville confronts me, nervously, about it. We’re serving the juniors and I’m embarrassed that they can hear him reprimanding me. Luckily, he’s cut short because one of Cho’s girls bursts into the hall and skids to a halt next to me.

She bends over and clutches her knees. “Cadets. Here. Meeting. Decided.” She pants, accepting a glass of water one of my year nines hands her. Everyone who hears looks to me expectantly. Flitwick, our house father, is watching from the dessert station and I know I’ll have to come up with an excuse for the girl’s interruption.

“What are the details?” I ask, snapping the serving gloves off my hands and guiding her away from the eavesdropping juniors.

“Cadets arrived ten minutes ago and Ron sent a messenger, Ernie Macmillan, saying he wants a meeting tonight.”

“Where’s Macmillan now?”

“Being watched by two of our year tens. They’re on the girls rugby team.” She says, almost defensively.

“Right. Tell him we agree to the meeting. Eleven o’clock on neutral territory.” I cast around for somewhere neutral with a building we’d be able to break into. “The Barn. And then go tell all the other house leaders I want to see them in the bike shed after lunch. You got that?”

She hands me the glass, nods and then runs out, dodging clamouring juniors who want to know what’s going on. I join Neville again and whisper the news to him, raising an eyebrow at any kid who lingers too long. Once everyone’s been served we gulp our own lunches down, make a lame excuse to Flitwick about the girl asking us to join some of the other houses on a bushwalk, hand over responsibility of the kids to him and head towards the bike shed.

Cho’s already there and when Hermione and Draco have arrived, we get to business straight away. “This is it. I’m going to take Hermione and Neville and -”

“Why them?” Draco interrupts.

“Hermione is my Deputy, plus she knows Ron and Neville is back up.” I say assertively. Draco looks Neville up and down and then scoffs. Neville blushes, Hermione rolls her eyes and it’s all very not focused. “Anyway. I have a plan.” I tell them what I’ve come up with, shout down Hermione’s objections and Draco’s alternative suggestions, thank Cho for her support and then end the meeting because I want to get on with the plan as quickly as possible. By the time all the juniors are in bed, the plan has been carried out and I lie in bed staring at my clock, wishing time would move faster.

We’re the second ones to arrive at the Barn and I’m grateful that we beat the Cadets. Ron greets me with a handshake and an awkward slap on the back because that’s what acquaintances who are now opposing leaders do apparently. Hermione refuses to look him in the eye and I make a mental note to find out why. He introduces us to his Deputy, Seamus, and we chat for awhile about how shit being at school is. Then the Cadets arrive.

Ginny comes in first and Ron’s draw drops, proving Hermione right, and now I’m the one refusing to meet a Weasley’s eye. Not that she looks at me particularly, just spares a nod and a glance in my direction before taking the last seat at the trestle table.

“What the fuck?” Ron finally manages to spit out.

“You kiss our mother with that mouth?” Ginny asks, tipping the chair back casually. I’d forgotten what she sounded like and I press my heel into my shin until it hurts so I don’t get distracted. I’d forgotten what she looked like too. Sort of. Far prettier than any girl at school. Except pretty didn’t really begin to cover it.

“What the fuck?” Ron repeats and the two girls behind Ginny snigger. Maybe there’s something in Sydney’s water because they too are incredibly pretty. “How are you leader?”

“I’m the best there is.” She answers, probably having expected a reaction similar to this.

“And no one told me?” Ron whips around to look accusingly at Seamus.

Seamus holds his hands up in surrender. “I had no clue. They kept it pretty quiet.”

“Didn’t want to give you any sort of advantage now, did we?” Ginny says, sickly sweet. I press my heel harder into my shin. “Now we’re all acquainted…” her eyes flash imperceptibly to me, “should we try to fight this war?”

The first war council ended with nineteen new rules in what has come to be known as The Purple Book and a very rough draft of a map. It had been discovered that none of them were very good artists, aside from James who bragged so much about it Sirius stole the pencil from him and snapped it, that they’d have to get one of the Jellicoe School’s art students to do it.

All in all, it hadn’t been a great success. Peter blamed Sirius and James for arguing too much, James blamed Sirius for being too much of a prat, Sirius blamed Lily for being too greedy with territory, Lily blamed Peter and Remus for being too pedantic about rules, and Remus blamed Lily and James for distracting each other too much. So much so in fact, that rule number 63 was ‘there can be no cavorting between enemy leaders’.

They held a war council every night for a week until the map had been finalised, everyone else had been brought on board and there were two hundred and six rules in The Purple Book.

The War officially started during the last week of the Cadets stay and it only took a day for there to be a broken arm, thirty new rules, and a capturing of territory by the Townies. Sirius, as it transpired, was an excellent strategist and it took James the rest of the week to capture the territory back. On the last day of the Cadets stay, they called the ceasefire until next year and said goodbye to James and Peter. Just like they did they did every year, Lily, Remus and Sirius followed the buses on their bikes for as long as they could and waved furiously until they vanished off the Jellicoe Road.

When the buses came back the next year, The Purple Book had 558 rules in it.