Notes: I know that JKR mentioned only Arthur in regards to the bike after the war, but this is, after all, fan fiction, and so I've taken some creative liberties. This fic marks a first for many things, but mentioning all of them would be telling, wouldn't it? Hopefully it simply won't be apparent.

Suffice it to say that this began as one of those plot bunnies that I thought would fester in the back of my mind and ultimately disappear, but then became so much more than I ever thought it would be — all in the span of two days. Thanks so much to pigwithhair at Checkmated for the beta! Comments and constructive criticism are always welcome.

Shifting Gears

It sat in a corner of the dilapidated shed for several years before anyone thought to look its way.

When someone finally did, the grime and dust of those years had settled a translucent shroud upon it, causing it to fade seamlessly into the background of the workshop's cluttered landscape. Even though it had been somewhat cleaned, the fact remained that the machine wasn't so much an entire it as it was a small mountain of mangled parts; no one had touched it after Arthur Weasley ventured back to the Tonks' and salvaged it from the pond in which it had crashed. He had hastily retrieved the scraps, meaning to repair it someday, but once the war had fully engulfed them, everyone had promptly forgotten its existence as they truly began to fear for their own.

One who looked closely enough could still discern faint and long-dried muddy streaks imprinted on the pieces.

Standing in the doorway, teeth chattering and hands numb from the biting February cold in spite of the Warming Charms on her clothing, she regarded the sad pile of metal, reflecting. Finally, she nodded decisively to herself before sprinting the length of the garden back to the house.

She stamped the snow off of her boots, siphoned the extra water off with her wand, and greeted the family members eating breakfast in the kitchen as she unwound her thick scarf. A glance at the clock told her the whereabouts of the person she needed to speak with, and she paused only to peel off her coat and deposit it on an armchair in the living room before she threw a handful of Floo powder into the blazing fire and named the Ministry of Magic as her destination.

.:.

"Isn't it ace?" Sirius beamed as he presented his new-but-old self-indulgence to his friends with a grand flourish. While Remus would sigh loudly before both promptly and adamantly refusing to accept a ride, James still whistled appreciatively, and Peter, following his lead, exclaimed excitedly that it had to be the best vehicle built ever.

There in the Potters' tidily maintained front garden, the motorbike seemed to sit in blatant defiance of its well-kept surroundings as steam puffed from the cooling engine and oil steadily dripped from some unknown location into a gleaming puddle directly below the seat. Compared with its previous owner, it could even be said that man and machine shared a striking resemblance, both slightly worn and sagging with age.

"Don't expect me to send you flowers when you — or what's left of you, anyway — is lying bandaged and unrecognizable in a hospital bed," Remus warned, crossing his arms.

"Ah, you say that now, Moony, but you'll send me room-loads if that happens. Which it won't," Sirius added sagely. "Besides, the danger's the whole point. Birds love this sort of thing."

Remus snorted. "Not if they fall off while you're trying to impress them with your flying tricks."

"Prongs, do you hear this? Moony apparently thinks so little of my skills as to predict that I'll not only break every bone in my body, but those of any girl who makes the mistake of trusting me!" Sirius exclaimed indignantly as James shook his head.

"Truly, the faithless break the spirit," he said solemnly. "And you know how fragile Padfoot's is."

"Like a daisy, crushed underfoot by a werewolf's paws," sighed Sirius.

Peter nodded emphatically in agreement, and Remus answered dryly, "Better your daisy-spirit than my neck."

"You'll end up on that bike one way or another, Remus Lupin," James threatened, smirking and sliding his hands into his trouser pockets. "Willingly, or not."

Much as Remus protested, James was ultimately right.

.:.

Beginning had been difficult enough with attempting to designate days when they would both be available. However, after exchanging several ideas and possibilities, they concluded that it would be best to dismantle what still remained and rebuild the entire thing — especially since no one could say for sure how structurally sound it would be otherwise.

While most of the parts had been saved from the murky depths of the garden pond, there was still enough missing as to cause a good bit of perplexity (and, in her case, countless bouts of swearing under her breath). Several trips to a nearby shop and a good amount of impressive but unfortunately non-communicative gesturing and explaining later, a Muggle mechanic stood in front of what the two of them had managed to pick and place together into the skeleton of the original structure. Squatting next to the mound of pieces left over, the man sifted through and took inventory of what they needed, rattling off items as they occurred to him. Ginny took notes as the elder Weasley struggled to keep his enthusiasm in check and remember not to ask too many questions.

The final list was slightly over a third of a roll of parchment long. Her father argued with her initially, firmly refusing to allow her to use the Quidditch earnings she'd saved. Eventually, though, he conceded to her reasoning; it was, after all, hers to give. That much they had agreed upon.

.:.

She should've known. Hands on hips, she watched as the dark shape grew larger and more distinct before landing with a jolting thud on the lawn in front of her, billowing the folds of her gown back.

"Shit, Lils, 'm sorry," James swore as he clumsily alighted from his perch behind Sirius and stumbled towards her, looking genuinely apologetic.

"You smell like exhaust. And petrol." Stepping forward to straighten his tie, Lily leant in close to his chest and inhaled. "And wet dog."

"Yeah, sorry about that," Sirius said cheerfully, brushing imaginary dust off the shoulders of his jacket and smoothing a hand over his hair. "Although, to be fair, he pushed me into the lake first."

Rolling her eyes skyward but unable to contain a smile, she replied. "Well, I hope you're grateful that I know one hell of a Scent Charm. Otherwise, I'd have to murder you lot for showing up to the wedding in this state."

Her hands slid upwards until they were locked securely behind her groom's neck, and he exhaled an audible sigh of relief.

Secure in the knowledge that yes, Lily Evans did in fact still want to become Lily Potter, James slipped both arms around her waist.

"So, after we're properly married and all, because Padfoot did offer, as part of his wedding gift, you know, we could go to the reception on his —"

"No," Lily interjected immediately.

"Nice try, mate, but married men don't look nearly as rugged and fit as single men when they ride one of these," stated Sirius matter-of-factly. He patted the leather seat as he spoke and, when James released a mournful, longing sound, his bride promptly seized him by the forearm and steered him towards the enormous white tent pitched on the other side of the field.

.:.

Even though much of the work still involved a great deal of guessing and the odd magical shortcut, they both sensed that they were finally beginning to grasp the mechanics of the thing. For the most part, they wordlessly operated in tandem, occasionally breaking the companionable silence to ask the one to hand the other a tool, or consult for an opinion about exactly where the hell a certain screw or rod went.

When the Weasley children had been younger, the boys had showed fleeting interest in the foreign objects their father fiddled with in his spare time, but none of them had ever decided to equally undertake a project with him (much less of this size) before. Although, to be fair, most of his experiments had been kept secret, especially since the little ones displayed an astonishing incapability to refrain from sharing everything with Molly. Many, given the opportunity, would probably not have ventured to partake in the work anyway. Muggle objects were and would forever be Arthur's passion, and they had all been perfectly content to leave them to him — until now.

Pausing for a moment, he watched his youngest child as she worked intently, occasionally poking out the tip of her tongue through her teeth, as she was wont to do while concentrating. He smiled as she pushed a loose tendril of coppery hair out of her face and left a wide, greasy smudge that curved down to her temple. During a chance moment when she happened to catch his tender gaze, she stopped her labor to ask shyly what he was looking at; he replied with more than a hint of pride that he found it difficult to recall she had once been small enough to dandle on his knee.

At the slight crack in his voice, she dropped the wrench she'd been holding and took hold of his hand to give it a squeeze.

.:.

Although he had merely eyed the machine curiously at first, when it gave a booming roar the toddler clapped his hands in delight and raised his chubby arms imploringly. His godfather laughed and dotingly obliged, ruffling the baby's naturally tousled dark locks as he easily lifted him onto his lap. Once seated with steady hands securing his small body, Harry took to slapping his tiny fists against the handlebars as he belted out a roar of his own.

Swelling with pride, Sirius's face had just begun to take the shape of the 'I-told-you-so' at his lips when Lily promptly ordered, "Don't."

"Oh, come on, Lily. Just admit Pads was right — for once." James grinned and dodged her outstretched palm as it swung to swat his arm.

"I resent your implications, good sir. Although, if I were you, I would choose your words more wisely, seeing as I'm the one who has both your progeny in my arms and an escape vehicle handy."

Snorting, James retorted, "I'd bloody love to see you try, with Protective Mother Extraordinaire here. She's like a bear, or — ah — ow! A tiger! Yes, a tiger!" At her raised eyebrows and fist, he rubbing his smarting shoulder and hastily finished. "Anyway, point is, you wouldn't get far."

.:.

On the first of April, everyone had become accustomed to the still hush that accompanied the observance of the day.

George still accepted gifts and good wishes with gratitude, but with notably less fervor and spirit than he had before. It grew easier with time, naturally gravitating towards each other to fill the chasm and share warmth, learning to speak of the past with more joy than grief.

Sometimes, though, the carefully sewed patches strained at the seams from the effort of hiding the gashes, especially on a date that had previously been noted with particularly boisterous activity, now reduced to a quiet family gathering. Afterwards everyone awkwardly sectioned off into their respective couples and returned to the places they now called home. No one could deny the weighty absence that still lingered even after the passage of several years.

Arthur found himself beginning to drift towards the massive tarp-covered lump hidden behind the shed, and eventually submitted to the urge to continue tinkering alone for a while; he simply needed something to busy his hands. His boy had been like that, memory suddenly saw fit to remind him: constantly in motion, always creating something new to elicit those smiles he sought, that laughter he reveled in.

Later, when his wife sensed his absence and thought to look for him, she searched for a good half-hour before finding him there in the garden sorting nuts and bolts on the grass, face down turned and lips determinedly pressed together. As she drew him close, he responded likewise, encircling her in his arms as he pressed his face to her shoulder where the treacherous, salty drops could sink unseen and disappear into the dark wool.

.:.

Fear and panic speared his sides as Sirius pressed himself closer to the motorbike, constricted his lungs until he gasped for breath. It helped very little that the wind rapidly tore away the oxygen before he could fully inhale. Below him, pinpoints of light glittered brightly in the darkness and dotted the landscape in clusters, marking homes and streets and cities and towns as he careened through the air above them.

Fuck, he thought, not going fast enough, this isn't the damn time for the engine to fail, something's happened, something's gone horribly wrong, oh God oh God oh God, Remus hasn't heard from James and Lily in hours and no one has seen Wormtail for just as long, if not longer, bloody fucking hell… should've known that the little git couldn't be trusted to be their Secret Keeper, it's all my fault…

He mentally shook himself, berating himself for jumping to conclusions that couldn't be confirmed. It would be all right; he was on his way there now, and Lily and James would hear him landing, then come outside to let him in the front gate. As they always did.

Hours later, they would find Peter loitering about somewhere and laugh at Sirius's stupidity, his momentary lack of faith in the one person who wouldn't possibly betray them.

Seized with a desperate sense of hope, he nudged the vehicle, urging it to move forward with more speed, because time was ticking and sliding away from him, and he had to know.

.:.

Old debates never became more comfortable with age and wear, as homemade jumpers did; they lingered on the fringes of discussions, biding their time until the right moment before slinking into the open. Waiting until someone would mention that one subject and veer recklessly into the dangerous, but unfortunately familiar, geography that left everyone bruised from the venture.

The argument was so well-worn that Ginny finally snapped and released the volley of acerbic replies she had been withholding, knowing that doing so would only cause the anger to radiate in her throat and chest for much longer afterwards. Flushing as she raised her voice, she made it plainly clear that, when she and Harry were prepared to move out of their flat into a house large enough to accommodate a family, they bloody well would.

Her mother had meant well, but it seemed as though that small amount of matronly attention niggled and bore into the back of her brain as she stalked across the back garden, fuming.

It was just that there were boundaries, limits that apparently escaped parental comprehension.

Some girls sat and cried when frustrated, but she chose to storm towards that small clearing. Roughly tugging at the canvas draped over their work, she threw the cloth aside so that she could attack the parts they hadn't touched yet with a vengeance, feeling a juvenile sense of satisfaction in rummaging about in the toolbox and making everything rattle and clang as loudly as possible while she hunted for what she needed.

She wanted something to occupy her thoughts, to provide an outlet for her emotions — more than anything, she longed for the labor, the distracting, strength-draining sort of toil that would leave her with dirty hands and a sense that she'd accomplished something.

Three hours later, when she had single-handedly rebuilt most of the engine and wrung her rage dry, she returned to the house and wound her arms around her mother's neck apologetically.

.:.

"Take it," Sirius said firmly, pushing a handlebar towards the man who lumbered over to him with a hesitant expression. "You need it more than I do."

Afterwards, he strode through the dark with a painfully heightened and refined sense of purpose that would never have seized and propelled him into motion if it weren't for the current circumstances. He would find him, the sniveling, traitorous coward, and he would shatter every bone, rend every vital organ twice over for the two lives that had been ripped away from him — and savor every moment.

It was ironic, how he had charged towards a truth that he would never have wanted to believe when he had known precisely where to look; though he tread with determination, he required nothing other than his own legs to carry him across a distance he could only estimate.

In the span of a few hours, the contents of the world had been bottled and then abruptly tipped upside-down, jarring the very foundations of everything they had all held dear and fought to defend. That heavy stone had been dropped into the pool of their universe, raising waves that would ripple outwards in action and thought and deed fueled by loss, by grief, by emptiness, by guilt.

Things weren't going to hell — they were already in it. And if he had to burn, he would rather blaze.

.:.

Breathing heavily from both excitement and exertion, she blinked away a bead of sweat that threatened to slide into her eye before telling her father that he should be the one to try it first. He asked her if she were sure, since she'd been the one who both remembered and thought to repair it; she nodded, urging him to go ahead.

With a wave of his wand to cast a Braking spell as a precaution, he firmly clamped a hand to the grip and stomped down heavily upon the pedal, just as the mechanic had demonstrated.

There in the July sunshine, coated in blotches of oil, it rumbled quietly, alive and waiting for someone to kick back its stand and hurtle upwards to the skies again.

.:.

Snugly secured in a nest of blankets, the little boy regarded the enormous man with wide, iridescent eyes, and that one piercing glance nearly broke Hagrid. Hands shaking and vision misty, the groundskeeper scooped the bundle into his arms and straddled the motorbike once more.

At some point, the baby's eyelids, reddened and swollen from crying, finally drifted shut as the soothing rhythm of the machine vibrating and humming beneath him lulled him to sleep.

When he had been safely deposited on the front steps of number four, Privet Drive, that engine thundered back to life, and Harry turned without waking towards the sound. Facing it as it gradually rose up, up, fading… and then it was gone.

.:.

"You really didn't have to get me anything," Harry repeated.

"Oh, yeah? Because I was going to return this if you didn't want it," quipped Ginny, hand clasped in his as she pulled him through the house towards the back garden.

He raised an eyebrow. "I've already got season tickets to all of your games, a flat in London, a Ministry job —"

"Fame, fortune, me — I know. There isn't much to give the wizard who already has everything." Grinning impishly, she came to a dead stop in the kitchen doorway and turned to face him before tilting her face upwards for a kiss, which he gave more than obligingly. Another followed. And, for a handful of long moments, the gift was forgotten.

Finally, she placed both hands on his chest and pushed back.

"It took me months to prepare, so I hope you do me the favor of being a gentleman and tell me how wonderful it is, even if you don't want it."

"Since when am I not a gentleman?" he asked with mock incredulity.

"You should be thankful you're so bloody good-looking," she teased, gripping the lapels of his shirt to pull him closer, "or you'd be a right insufferable prat."

Heaving an exaggeratedly loud sigh he said, "I do tend to have that general impression on people."

"Now shut your eyes. And no peeking, Potter, or I shall have to punish you," Ginny ordered, adopting a serious tone. At his lifting an eyelid a fraction, she playfully swiped his rear with the cotton handkerchief she'd conjured with her wand before securing it over his eyes.

"Wait here," she whispered in his ear.

Throwing open the door and racing halfway down the lawn, she stopped to yank the tarp off for the last time, heart battering almost painfully against her ribcage in thrilled anticipation while she gave everything a final once-over. Satisfied, she smiled and inhaled, steadying herself before sliding onto the leather seat.

"Can I look now?" Stepping onto the stoop, Harry lifted a hand to finger the bottom of the blindfold.

"All right! You can look," she called, stretching her long legs before her.

During the next few seconds, she shifted slightly, squinting to see him raise a hand to his forehead in order to shield his eyes from the sunlight and make half a sweep of the back garden with his gaze before — ah. Even from that distance, she could see every line in his lean body tense with recognition.

And, just as quickly as she had become giddy with expectation, anxious uncertainty dripped over her like hot wax when she could not gauge from his reaction what he was feeling. Perhaps she had been mistaken, she thought in panic as he slowly ambled down the grassy slope, eyes bright, until he stood in front of her.

"It's yours now, if you want it," she said carefully, studying his expression more closely as he trailed a hand down the side of Sirius's motorbike until he reached her knee.

He swallowed thickly, pausing for a beat before replying quietly, "I — yeah. Yeah, I think I do."

And then his arms were looping around her waist, causing the entire bike to tilt to the side as he pulled her flush against him and pressed his face into her neck.

"Thanks."

Feeling a warm drop splash against her skin, she tangled her fingers into his hair.

"Happy birthday, Harry."