op (maldito) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-09-03 02:20:00 |
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Entry tags: | door: harry potter, james potter, remus lupin, sirius black |
Who: Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, & James Potter
What: A disastrous reunion
Where: Small cottage in woods, as requested
When: Recently
Warnings/Rating: Much boyish anger and wand-brandishing.
The coordinates for apparating dispersed and wards put into place, James paced old, creaking wood with hands clasped behind his back, wand fenced by white knuckles. He was alone in the cottage he’d leased, situated, as was necessary, precisely in the middle of nowhere. It was a yellow structure, patched plaster, surrounded by untrimmed thickets of trees, brush, thorns, and with a pond growing green like a boil from the west wall. With two stories and a cellar, it was more than space enough for three boys just out of Hogwarts (and Lily and Wormtail, should they ever materialize). There were only two bedrooms, yes, but as they’d shared one room for the majority of seven years, it hardly counted against the place. James had spent the majority of the two days prior assembling furniture (with magic, of course)—sturdy, squat beds splayed with newly purchased linens, wardrobes erected next to mirrors. There was a kitchen and pantry, stocked with food James remembered from his mother’s own kitchen, as well as his and Lily’s. He was a terrible cook, but they needed to eat. It had a few wood-topped counters, distinctly sway-backed cupboards done up in a country white, and a long, long cherry wood table with benches detailing its sides protectively. There were three fireplaces—all river stone and wide-mouthed, one in the kitchen, one in the sitting room, and one in the larger room with two beds that reached toward the pond on the bottom floor. Upstairs was narrow, dusty with spiders and age. There was a slope-roofed room and spindling bed, a toilet older than the boys would be even in the current year, and a closet. It was cozy. As night drew drapes over the sky and the windows dimmed, James lit a fire. It was distraction. Books, hastily purchased with money from the Potter vault (the key had been in a robe pocket, mysteriously enough), were floating near the door, awaiting proper placement, some growling with impatience, and the dark brown wood of a new bookcase was stacked nearby. A sofa, used, worn and blue, was piled with quilts and feather pillows. There were boxes, unopened, containing ingredients in thick, glass jars—lacewing fly, leeches, knotgrass, shredded boomslang skin, and on. There were three cauldrons atop one another and an old, old moon chart on dry parchment. James had been busy. But as the hour drew nearer that Sirius and Remus were to arrive, he found himself too distracted to work. Sweat stained his brow and his dark hair was more as mess than ever. In tatty, second-hand robes (perfect for housework), he swished and laced between the various paraphernalia of young wizards and war-making. He missed his invisibility cloak. It was almost certain that he had forgotten one thing or another, but no doubt one of his friends would inform him of such soon enough. There was only an inkling of worry sprouting in his mind. James was a trusting person. Last he knew, the Wizarding world was waging war, split in half by ancient ideals and a need for power, but he’d found Diagon Alley calm and rearranged, with no clues as to what had occurred in the years between his last memory and his most recent. He didn’t want to worry about it—that was something else best left to one of the other Marauders. Remus had not intended to come. As Remus had told James on the scroll, he intended to remain in the Forbidden Forest and, from there, to go onto Hogwarts, where he hoped the Restricted Section would fill in some much needed information. He was frustrated with his friends, and he was feeling the exhaustion that came with the days immediately following the moon. He'd intended to remain where he was, researching and putting together a proper timeline for the missing years. If they were, in fact, missing. He was not as trusting as James. He'd never been as trusting as James, and he'd never had Sirius' bold disregard for danger. He'd spent a lifetime carefully being hidden away and moving from town to town, and he knew when to be cautious, and this was one of those times. Even if the year was truly 1999 and not 1978 at all, it didn't mean any existing threat was eradicated. Just as they were displaced, others could be displaced. Even if everything proved true that had been said upon the scrolls, it did not guarantee safety. But then, Remus didn't view the world as the others did. Since graduation, he'd spent his time working for Dumbledore and attempting to find out what the werewolf involvement was in the war. There had been no real work for him upon graduation, and there had been no money. Dumbledore had, again, offered him a chance to do something meaningful, and Remus had not been able to deny the Headmaster. All of this meant he'd spent months listening to Death Eaters converse, and listening to them plan. He'd begun to suspect Sirius of dreadful things that he could not believe the boy he'd secretly been infatuated with could be involved with, and he knew his absences had been noted by the others as well, and their trust in him was not what it had once been. But there was one truth, and it was incontrovertible: Someone within the Order was a spy, and it was someone close to them. The information being bandied about could not be acquired otherwise. This was the life Remus had been living, and he couldn't shuck it off like the cloak as James wished him to. And so, Remus had decided it best to refrain. And he would have done, had the proper little timeline he'd been constructing not left him concerned enough to try one last time for some resolution. Unfortunately, the information available to Remus had was not entirely valid, and the suspicions that had been growing for months only strengthened after his perusal of the material before him. Sirius had spent years in Azkaban, yes, but there was no public pardon or exoneration of his person. What was certain was that Sirius had, at some point, escaped his prison. What also seemed certain was that James and Lily had perished had the Dark Lord's hand, and that Peter had been killed by Sirius while attempting to save the Potters. That was all Remus had to go on, and it was more than sufficient to warrant concern, which was the sole reason that Remus appeared at the door of the cottage. His robes were tatty brown, and he bore bruises from the moon upon his sallow face. At eighteen, he looked both younger and older than his years, and he looked tired, most of all. Remus waited upon the landing, and he took in a rather endlessly deep breath. Sirius apparated precisely on the spot James had indicated, somehow managing to spin and land mid-step so that a split-second after he appeared he was already a step away from where he’d originally been, a trick that took considerable practice and skill. Wand out and already walking down the lane in the direction of the house, Sirius was wearing a recently laundered set of wizard’s robes so blue they were black, and they fluttered at his heels as he strode forward. Underneath he was wearing what was obviously taking him around Muggle London before this mess with the time turning, a set of artfully torn blue jeans, a thin shirt with black lettering that showed his collarbones, and motorcycle boots with buckles that clicked. The combination was exactly the kind of thing that would irritate his mother and make both wizards and muggles stare. He spied Remus’ scrawny form awaiting on the porch of the house in the distance, and made his pace slightly longer as he approached, accelerating until he got a good view of the other man. His wand was relaxed down at his side, and he gave the werewolf a roguish grin out from under all those carved Black features. “Made it, did you?” he asked, looking pleased as he jogged up the steps and kept going until he was close enough to give Remus a one-armed hug, if the man stayed still long enough. It was an awkward endeavor, as he had something in the fist of his left hand and his wand in his right. He hadn’t seen Remus during the moon, as after a night of skulking around the various entrances to the Shrieking Shack, his twenty-four hours had been up at dawn and he’d been shoved back into Michael’s mind like so much dirty laundry. Sirius’ grin stayed plastered wide on his face regardless, and the resemblance to a midnight and jean whirlwind grew stronger. “James!” Sirius bellowed at the door, expecting the other man to come running and obviously not caring if anyone was around to hear. He tried to keep a grip on Moony if he could manage it, because he expected he was going to have to drag the sandy-haired man on through the door by his arm, with the werewolf protesting about discussions and having other things to do the whole way. There had been time - and Remus was quite willing to admit that it was rather recently - when seeing Sirius and, subsequently, having Sirius throw an arm about him, would have made his heart beat rather dangerously quick. Now, seeing the dark haired boy - Sirius and James were very much still boys in his estimation - made his pulse quicken for entirely different reasons. His wand, tucked away beneath the ratty brown robes, came out almost immediately. It was thoughtless, stepping away and wriggling free, and then extending the wand toward Sirius. His hand shook, but his fingers were tight upon the cypress wood, and he didn't look away, even when Sirius called for James. Remus was quite small compared to James and Sirius. Even Peter, who was nothing impressive, was larger than he, but he was very good with hexes, and he knew how to play keep-away better than anyone. After all, it had been the only way to keep anything in his possession during his Hogwarts years, when Sirius and James became quite fond of pouncing for chocolate and other sweets. The wand would not be leaving his fingers. "Observant, as always, Padfoot," was Remus' reply, and there were dots of sweat along his brow, a common thing after the moon, that icy pallor and malaise that followed for a week or so still heavy upon him. And he couldn't help but wonder how Sirius could do the things he would, apparently, go on to do. Yes, there had been doubts since graduation, suspicions, but Remus had never expected it would go this far. James was like a brother to Sirius. Peter had always been someone Sirius could take or leave, depending on the day and his mood, but James? It was almost inconceivable. The only explanation, truly, was Lily, and the fact that Sirius didn't like being upstaged or cast aside, but Remus would never have believed it, had he not read it in various publications within Hogwarts. And now here he was, wand outstretched and anger in his pallid eyes. The door was nearly wrenched off hinges aged and screaming in rust, excitement having flared and caution having failed to temper. James’ smile was so wide as to threaten fall off his face. He appeared as he ever was: tall boy, black hair in a state McGonagall had threaten to take points for, happy to hear the sound of his name bellowed, and as animated as Sir Cadogan. His glasses had slithered down his nose from the action and gravity of vaulting boxes and half-built furniture in his haste, and he had to tip his chin high to peer through them at his mates gathered on the stone stoop. Immediately, in a flash of confusion and stunted understanding, the wild grin deflated. Something was wrong. So very wrong. James shoved his glasses back where they belonged. Remus stood apart from Sirius, wand withdrawn and aimed fully at the other boy, his expression flat, if not wary. Pale-face like a moon, sweat condensed on skin, he… was… there was no humor in the exhaustion evident and that worried James.—And Sirius, he was himself, torn trousers and heavy boots, indigo-black robes of a fine make and the royal features of the Blacks adulterated into a smile that was sure to be hexed off his face. “Oy, what’s this?” James was thoughtless as he stepped outside, pushing the boy’s wand down with good-natured irritation, but no caution, as if he never would honestly expect a spell to erupt from the wand’s tip. His frown was a Head Boy’s admonishment for being caught snogging in the Astronomy Tower, one that whispered, not so slyly, he’d been there not too long ago himself. But, Merlin, was his heart hammering. “Having a row already? He try to nick your chocolate, Moony? I’ve some inside. Let him keep his nose, yeah? He’s not much without it.” James moved away from the smaller boy and draped an arm over Sirius’ shoulders, to drag him, bodily, into the maw of that old house before anything else could happen. He flashed his friend a concerned look—a question of worry in black eyebrows and a tilted frown, but said nothing more. It would not be fair to say that the wrongness was entirely Remus’ fault. Sirius realized something was off way before James paraded onto the porch, because he was used to Remus enjoying his hugs, or at least not going poker straight and hauling back. After he shouted for James his own grin stayed bizarrely still for about three seconds before it fell off his face like wet snow in spring. He looked much more like his parents without the grin, faintly haughty and calculating as his dark eyes narrowed down and he automatically shifted his shoulders to face Remus and not the door any longer. Sirius was not the kind of man to back down from a fight, and so he only rotated and watched Remus keenly as the familiar gold eyes went flat with suspicion. Sirius had been doing a good bit of research himself, and he knew that he knew ten times what James did about this peculiar little world they found themselves in. The clean, sharp expression on his face seemed to tighten, and anyone who knew him well would see the danger signs of a hurt Sirius becoming an angry Sirius. It was very slight, mostly in the eyebrows and the position of his head as he drew back against his shoulders. Sirius knew that he would never betray James and Lily, not in any circumstance, not in any time or any world. He wasn’t sure what had happened to Peter, but he knew that if someone betrayed James and Lily, and it wasn’t him, then it had to be Remus. James just didn’t trust anyone else on that level, and there was some empty spots in what he had been able to find that made Sirius think Voldemort had managed to get through some very strong enchantments to kill his friend. It was faintly possible someone else was involved, one of Lily’s friends perhaps, or one of Dumbledore’s rare mistakes, but it was so unlikely Sirius was ready to take any hostile behavior as confirmation of his worst fear. “I haven’t done anything,” Sirius replied, tensely, in complete contrast to his manner a moment ago. “As someone should remind you, Remus,” he added quietly. His own wand had now come out three inches from his body, a movement that was so slow it was barely noticeable, and he was watching Remus’ eyes to see a spell coming before it manifested. Sirius’ left hand unclenched and a tiny square of what appeared to be bound paper the size of postage stamps fell out onto the porch, making a very faint tapping like a stack of parchment falling as it impacted the old wood. Sirius stepped out of James’ embrace without taking his eyes off Remus’. Remus knew precisely what anger looked like on Sirius' face. He knew what it looked like when it was just beginning, before Sirius himself had even realized he was bent out of shape over something. He knew what it looked like when it was thoughtless and cruel, before Sirius took someone down with words in the way of Blacks. He'd seen it often enough with Severus, and he'd never been brave enough to put himself in the path of that anger, not when it could cost him his closest friend. It was entirely cowardly, that, and Remus had wondered if - as the years passed - he would have been sorted into another house, given his own cowardice. He knew right from wrong better than most, and yet he never stood himself in the way of Sirius and James when they were being dreadful and cruel, and it was all thanks to cowardice. But he knew that look on Sirius' face, and he knew precisely what Sirius' strengths were in a fight. Remus, you see, was terribly observant. It was the way of people on the outskirts, and he was no different than most in that regard. There was no surprise when Sirius shrugged James off. James might be willing to push aside a wand, careless git that he was, but Sirius knew better. That had always been the difference between James and Sirius. There was a darkness beneath Sirius' jokes and pranks that did not live in James. James was cruel in the way of bullies, but Sirius was dangerous in the way of old blood, and Remus had always known that. It had made Sirius a quick suspect, as dreadful as it was. It was no different than the suspicions cast his own way through life. The werewolf, surely, was the one responsible. The Black, surely, was the one to blame. And yet there they stood, wand to wand, and Remus would not hesitate, should it come to that. "Prongs, do go inside," Remus said calmly, not looking at the boy who had been clinging to Sirius moments earlier. His golden gaze was set firmly on Sirius, unwavering and questioning, hurt and angry. His jaw was a tight line, hard and nothing of the sickly boy that usually filled his shoes. "You've not done anything yet, Padfoot," Remus corrected. He could tell Sirius had been reading, as he had done. At least Sirius didn't discount every recommendation. "Or have you already begun it? I can't tell, really." It was all very calm. The wand didn't so much as twitch, but there was a ready spell on Remus' lips. Sirius was better at spells, of course. Sirius had been raised in a family where magic was like breathing, and Remus had made do with a muggle mother and secrecy. It was a disadvantage, but not enough of one to make Remus lower the wand. James had grown out of his thoughtless cruelty for the most part. It had gone the way of adolescence shed, unsavory aspects of character rooted in a childish selfishness cast off by eventuality and simple maturity. Lily certainly would have informed anyone who would listen that her husband was far from mature, and she was right, but he was no longer insufferably immature, which seemed the key difference in tipping her own opinion in his favor. (Dumbledore, it seemed, had been wise to make James Head Boy. Remus was the likely candidate, and should have done wonderfully well, but the older wizard saw something in the Potter boy that promised more, if only he should learn to handle responsibility. And so he had.) —None of it, however, prepared him for the scenario playing out on the porch under a blanket of stars that seemed almost a mockery of normalcy. Trees wandered drunkenly about the house, ringing the pond, and everything appeared as it should, all save for the boys with their wands drawn and eyes narrowed, as if they stood opposite, rather than together. James was gobsmacked as Sirius left his side. He peered between his friends, from pallid, bruised werewolf, to snappish, superior Sirius, and he opened his mouth, intent on warning the gents to stop being gits when Remus ordered him inside. He did no such thing. They knew more than he did—which was the reason for gathering, to share and explain those things the enchanted journals made too risky. They were to work together, as they always had, to place themselves in this new context and figure out where to go from there. They were not meant to row with one another like a couple of spoilt children with the training of duelists. James was not blind to the sickle sliver of hurt in the blacks of Sirius’ eyes, one that would burgeon into an anger larger than the Whomping Willow if fed. He saw in Remus a deep distrust, cut into him as the white scars that crossed his chest and back. All three boys were adept wizards, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, but very good in their own ways, clever and powerful. All three knew it. Sirius had his own wand at the ready, a packet of some curiosity fell to the ground. The situation that was already volatile needed only an accelerant to go up in flames. There was no need to consider. Eleven inches of mahogany, held in a James’ overly casual hand, leveled itself at Remus. Brown eyes dimmed in their own entitled anger. That their meeting should be reduced to this over whispers or scraps of knowledge—that their friendship should suffer for stupidity—infuriated the boy and he refused to stand aside as his mates turned one another to piles of ash for some imagined slight. “Put the wand down, Remus,” he warned his friend. “Now.” Sirius’ face was an easy read for his friends, who knew him so well. The pinprick of hurt that began when Remus pulled out of his greeting had been hidden under a wave of what he liked to think was haughty indifference to censure, but all it did was cover it up, like a needle buried under the skin. It simply kept driving deeper, and the blood was turning dark in the swimming depths of his eyes. Remus’ last flood of words turned that obvious injury into a towering range. Spots of color appeared on both of Sirius’ cheeks under the carved bones under the stretched pale skin, and his nostrils flared as the rage flooded into his face. “Oh can’t you!” Sirius shouted, obviously at the end of his short patience and ready to say things he’d regret later. “Well maybe I can’t tell what you’ve done either, except sneak around and try to avoid me since we got here! What am I supposed to think of that!” This kind of anger was not common, usually reserved for dealing with Regulus’ sneering taunts or the singularly effective shrieks of Sirius’ mother. He wanted to throw away his wand and punch Remus in the face just to feel his fist impact, but he was smart enough to know that if he took one step he’d be hexed into next year if he didn’t keep his wits about him. They both knew that James would not go back inside like a spurned puppy, not like Wormtail would have done, but Sirius had not been sure if James would take his side in the matter. He hadn’t even known there would be sides, as he hadn’t known exactly how Remus would react to the lies this future told. Peculiarly enough, James’ confidence seemed to soothe Sirius’ anger, and he took a shaking breath and deliberately turned ninety degrees to face the way he had come, giving Remus his shoulder and the side of his head as targets. Sirius’ wand dropped down to point at the floor again, and he was calmer now that he knew James wasn’t going to let Remus hex him. “Shall we get it out into the open, Moony?” Sirius snapped, his voice tight with anger. He pointed his wand at the floor and gave his wand a little twitch, all impatience. The tiny stack of postage stamps popped back into its original size, revealing itself to be a stack of Daily Prophets about the height of Sirius’ waist. He had obviously bewitched them smaller to carry them easier. The cord had come loose and the newspapers spilled out all over porch, and the uppermost one (clearly placed there for full effect) bore a lined, skull-like face staring out from the printed ink. The headline glared out at them all from the floor. BLACK STILL AT LARGE For a moment, it was as if Remus was a second year again, watching the antics of James and Sirius, and entirely unable to even approach them. They had been so untouchable, the two best friends, and Remus had watched quietly from the corner of the Gryffindor tower, unwittingly making himself an enigma, all while Peter tried to win them with blatant adoration. Even when James and Sirius decided he was challenging enough - with his disappearances and his secrets - to focus on, Remus had always known it was them, together, and everyone else slightly removed. He'd felt it more keenly as the years had gone on, but he'd never commented on it. Remus was not the sort to comment on such things, but he noticed them, and he felt them. When James had begun chatting up Lily Evans - in those early days when she made him grovel at every opportunity - he'd thought himself lucky. Sirius, always in need of an audience, had been around more. But there was no Lily here, and things weren't what they ought to be, and James' wand reminded him of that quite succinctly. Remus would have apparated away then, unable to handle his two closest friends having turned on him (the fact that he'd drawn first was, of course, insignificant), and he was (admittedly) tired and stressed from the moon, and entirely frustrated that no one would listen to his concerns. He was as frayed as the tatty robes he wore, and that came from months spent in the woods, lying to the werewolves for Dumbledore. James acted as if there wasn't a war on at all, and Remus still felt right in the thick of it. Perhaps the summer had changed him, because the boy he had been at school would not have fled, and yet he very much wanted to just then. But it was Sirius' snapping voice that kept Remus grounded, wand still at the ready, even when Sirius dropped his own. He didn't look toward James, and he didn't look toward James' wand; James had made a choice, and Remus understood it. He would not look at the other boy; he could not. "I've been precisely where I told you I would be," he reminded Sirius, calm in his voice, despite the maelstrom that howled within his eyes. He watched the papers fall into place, and he showed no surprise whatsoever at the image and headline on the front. "You're rather busy in a year's time," he said, the sadness that creeped into his voice unmistakable. Too, there was a question there. Something that wanted to be proven wrong, to be told that everything he'd read about Sirius' actions had been a falsehood. As animals prowling the grounds of the school past curfew, as a silly circus of boys turned wild on green, one grew accustomed, even sensitive, to the language of the body, a flick of ear or squint of eye, a paw in dirt, thumping and angry—what it meant, when, and why. It translated form and James knew as Sirius turned on his heel what he was doing. How many times he’d been at his mate’s side during tense moments, he didn’t know, but he knew the tension in the boy’s muscles and the rattle of breath from the bottoms of lungs as well as he knew the intricacies of his own body. He shot Sirius a glance, and frowned, obviously puzzled, when Remus didn’t mirror the drop of the wand. Keeping his own aloft and aimed at the narrow chest, James rolled his eyes at the bickering. He was still in the dark as to the precise source of the disagreement, but he knew whatever it was couldn’t have been worth all the bloody shouting. He muttered to himself and, following Sirius’ lead, shoved his own wand into his pocket, only just restraining himself from disarming Remus out of habit. He crossed his arms over his chest and absolutely glowered, keenly aware of the lack of eye contact. Remus himself might never had the courage to stand up to his friends when they crossed from right to wrong and back again, but James was not the werewolf. He positively protected what he believed, should it come under attack—and those who’d done nothing wrong, should they come under attack. James saw no reason for drawing his wand on Sirius, and whatever knowledge Remus had, whatever reasoning, it surely wasn’t something to attack over. They were meant to be friends. A cascade of sudden Daily Prophets caught James’ attention and he abandoned his thoughts. The headline atop the pile caught his eye, boasting a face vaguely familiar in its structure, but rendered so gaunt and hollow as to defy recognition. James blinked at the paper and squatted to fetch the copy. He ignored the winking photos elsewhere and skimmed the article as he’d skimmed many a-potions lesson a year prior (or… 21 years prior?). Remus might have thought it, but James was no idiot and he understood a war was on, or had been on. His face as he read was serious. It didn’t last. “How’s it that you’ve made the front page and I haven’t?” He asked Sirius with an inching smile. It was obvious he didn’t believe a word of the nonsense the newspaper reported. The Prophet was as vulnerable as any media and as Sirius committing the crimes detailed was so unbelievable and utterly impossible to James’ mind, he was able to write them off, simply and with absolute faith. It never occurred to him that it could be otherwise. “It says here you murdered 13 people, including Peter and Muggles. Seems an awful bit of trouble for Wormtail.” There was a scoff and James tossed the paper down. He looked at Remus. “This is what you’re rowing about? This rubbish? Honestly, Moony, what’s gotten into you?” In a typical sweeping change of mood that marked the mercurial Black race, Sirius’ face returned to its normal colour long enough to look properly annoyed. He had gone to rather a lot of trouble to dig out everything that he supposedly did, stopping just short of breaking into the Ministry one mad morning after a full night of reading calm factual accounts of his supposed mass murdering spree. James wasn’t even going to be properly impressed by it. What does a wizard need to do to get some jaws to drop around here? Sirius tipped his head toward Remus, a completely familiar angle of movement that usually precedented a shared look of exasperation when James said something particularly empty-headed. Sirius had to stop himself mid-motion, as he remembered that sense of camaraderie was apparently not appropriate when your mate was pointing a wand at your heart. Apparently forgetting to rage at Remus for the moment, Sirius shot James a glare, his wand now loose at his side and the majority of his chest available for Remus’ most exotic curses. “It’s not just in the Prophet, you git. It’s historical fact, according to this world. And apparently this,” he pointed one slender finger (his left, as he still had his wand in his right) at the newspapers, “happened right after you and Lily kicked the bucket.” He sounded like James had just refuted a magical theory that they were about to use on a world famous prank. Sirius’ voice rose slightly at the end of his next sentence. “There are books about it.” Sirius yanked a chin at Moony. “Ask the professor here.” Obviously Moony had gone to the library, and maybe he even had a copy of The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts Vol. 1 and Vol. 2. Sirius hadn’t been able to find one single mention of him in the second volume, not even in the final “Battle of Hogwarts” which he found even more disturbing than being sent to Azkaban. Remus couldn't believe James' reaction at first, and then he realized that it was so entirely James that it was practically textbook. As soon as he'd learned of James' fate, he knew James' trusting nature had caused all of this. James and Sirius were inseparable, and there was no way James would ever doubt Sirius, even with the proof right before him. "It isn't rubbish," Remus began, all the frustration of not being heeded in recent weeks bubbling over into the words. He would have continued on, but Sirius was glaring, and it was rather impossible to ignore Sirius when he glared. Remus listened, and he almost lowered his wand, but then Sirius yanked his chin at him, and the wand straightened once more. He stared at the other boy, though he didn't truly need to. He knew precisely what Sirius looked like, angrily jerking his chin at him. It was the mention of professor that made Remus pause, because - unsurprisingly - that was the first thing that had given him any pause about the events mentioned in the Hogwarts library. He scoffed, and it was a small scoff, something born of self-loathing from the age of four, and he exhaled strongly before he lowered his own wand. "Don't call me that," he said, the words unnecessary things, rather unimportant in the grand scheme of things. And while Remus had no real interest in looking at James, the hurt there too raw, he did so. And it was perfectly clear, given his countenance, that this was to be his last attempt at this. "Sirius is right, of course. I can verify all of it, James. The way history tells it, you and Lily have a son called Harry. One evening in October, Sirius sells you out to Voldemort. You and Lily both die, and Sirius kills Peter in the process. Sirius is taken to Azkaban, where he remains for fifteen years, until he escapes when the Dark Lord returns. He remains a fugitive, I believe, to this day," he said, not looking at Sirius as he said the words, though there were shadows at the end of his sentence, doubts. "Oddly, no one seems to be looking for him, but there were countless dead at the Battle of Hogwarts," and here, his voice caught only slightly, "and he could have presumably been among them." Remus paused. "Dumbledore already knew there was a spy, James. There was already suspicion, even before all of this," he finished, motioning at the papers. Sirius flared up again toward the end of this speech. “I do not sell anyone out!” he shouted, at the very top of his voice. He bared his teeth at Remus, the big dog growling at the wolf, and there was some similar posturing, but his wand did not rise again, still forgotten at his side. This was utter nonsense. James glared at both boys with an irritation that was a very close cousin (Black-close) to that they’d seen every morning over seven years at Hogwarts, the obvious sort that he lobbed at any who attempted to rouse him too early and for the entirety of their first two periods. Eyebrows laid flat to the rims of spectacles and his lips were thin. As an act of distraction, he mussed the back of his hair as he thought on the information he was being force-fed, spoon crashing through clenched teeth. He knew there was already suspicion. He knew death came with war—he’d seen enough of it before the sudden switch of realities. He knew. He bloody well understood. Being spoken to as a child had never been something James enjoyed. He was used to being treated as an intelligent being and felt entitled to such. There was a divisive cut of hand through the summer air. “Yes, I understand what the rubbish says, Remus, but Sirius wouldn’t—” James’ attempted interjection was cast aside by the sheer volume of Sirius’ own and he physically stepped to the side, disconcerted by the rage. He held the door frame and sighed, forcefully. Canine growling he’d never understood. Rankled, James simply uttered under his breath and shrunk the newspapers back to their portable size, a small spray of Prophets, perfect for Wormtail, white on the old stone. There was only a moment’s pause. His head snapped up before Remus could get a response in. The boy’s own voice was raised now. Birds fluttered away from a tree leaning overhead. “Shut UP, the pair of you. We’re not enemies! Whatever has happened, it hasn’t happened yet. I’ve not died—we’ve not done a thing. You twats would do well to remember that.” Remus knew that dog in ways that were difficult to explain. He'd no control over the wolf, but the wolf was part of him and, however much Prongs and Wormtail had been part of the system they'd developed to deal with the moons, Sirius had always been able to get the closest as Padfoot. The wolf knew that snarl, and the wolf considered the dog within the man a strange type of companion, and it was hard not to snarl back, especially so close to the moon. It was James' glare that helped Remus keep the wolf in check, and he didn't have time to respond to Sirius shout before James was going on again. Remus' head snapped back to James, with the now shrunken papers and his perpetual disbelief. "If you're not going to listen to a word I say, then I'm going," he said, and his voice wasn't loud as Sirius' had been. There was a hint of growl to it, a leftover thing that unintentionally reminded all of them that he was not as they were, he was not human and normal and in control. He'd read about a Wolfsbane potion while at Hogwarts, but it didn't exist in his time, and he couldn't even imagine it silencing the creature that lived within him. The stress showed on his face then, and he merely shook his head at James. "You want to discount it all, James. I can't discount what I've read. I can't discount that we're all dead, save Sirius. All of us. Every last bloody one." Remus tucked his lowered wand away, and he looked to Sirius again. "You read it. We failed, even if we ignore what you do or don't do, we failed. Voldemort lived, and he came back and destroyed everything. Did you see the names, Sirius? Everyone we knew, all dead, nearly." And he couldn't be James and pretend none of that happened, not when he'd spent days living it in a dusty library. "And we've no way of knowing if Voldemort is here now, brought here just as we've been," he said, attention turning back to James. "Ignore what you will, Prongs, but don't ask me to." “What you’ve read!” Sirius mimicked, in a cruel undertone that corkscrewed down a sharp slope toward something much bigger and darker than mere temper. He pushed his wand away into the depths of his robes, deciding on the spot that even if Remus was a traitor, he wouldn’t dare try to take them both at the same time, and besides he wasn’t likely to be anyway. Sirius could do that, could make up his mind and then change it in the course of several seconds, because he wasn’t actually trying to do any convincing. He was raging at the situation, working out what felt horribly like ice growing on the back of his throat where it met his spine. “Well, if you’ve read all about it, then it must be true, I must turn into a raging lunatic with no provocation and bump off Wormtail of all people.” He gave a great snort of derision. “Have you been to Godric’s Hollow yet?” he asked Remus, now ignoring James so pointedly that it was no doubt done to communicate just how thick Sirius thought James was acting. “Have you seen the house? Or what’s left of it anyway.” Sirius’ angry colour had not returned, and he was now so pale that his chin stood out against the color of the dark blue robes hanging askew off his shoulders. His eyes rolled with a sudden frenetic lack of control and he gestured wildly with one hand. “There’s a bloody ruin, that’s what there is, a ruin and a graveyard.” He whirled upon James and jabbed a finger at the other boy’s chest. “Don’t you tell me it hasn’t happened. We haven’t done it, but it’s bloody well happened, and instead of sitting there and telling us what a load it is maybe you could figure out what to do about it before Remus here decides to take a shot at me and gets himself hexed.” Again Sirius bared his teeth at Remus in a disdainful imitation of a smile, but this one had a trace of devil-may-care, a hint of daring. He might have liked Remus to have a go, just so he could work out some of this… whatever it was. James felt the brunt of his friends’ frustration. It fed into his own, a mounting pressure on the back of his heart, a chokehold on his throat, some miserable enchantment no magic could reproduce, so much like the night Sirius lured Snape to the Willow, all manner of juvenile cruelty at play, James haphazardly wondered if something more had happened to snag on time. The chain of a time turner a gold loop tangled in itself, upended again and again—Snape hadn’t been led to the tree and he hadn’t nearly died, and it was going to happen again, with details swapped? Remus and Sirius went back and forth, personalities at odds, before both rounded on him. James fixed his spectacles with unusual stoicism, a reaction most unlike him. He retreated through the still-open door, into the fire-lit mouth of the house. “Quite,” he responded in a clipped syllable, from that front room. His temper flared as well, a bright thing that wanted to be heard as much as anything else, but James was better at reigning it in now than he had been in years past. They were not going to get very far with wands aimed at one another’s chests. He rummaged in a crate, until he came up with a leather journal in hand. “We need the details filled in. Do you suppose we could find out from the Muggles whose heads we reside in? They appear to know Sirius.” Remus watched James retreat into the house, and his patience, already thin, snapped like a twig. He looked at Sirius, who he understood much better in this moment than he understood James, and then he looked at the open doorway. "I said I wouldn't stay if you didn't listen, and going inside is not listening, Prongs," he said, exhaustion joining the frustration in his voice. It didn't help that Remus knew nothing about residing in a Muggle. Yes, he'd read the scroll, and he knew what was being said. He even knew that Sirius had alluded to someone in his mind, but he'd no personal experience with that, and it was all too much for Remus, who was still feeling the chafe of having both of his friends pointing their wands at him. Too, it felt like James had just discounted every single thing he'd admitted to feeling, and he was done with all of it. "We're not children anymore, Prongs, and I'll not stay and be discounted like a child," Remus said, still from the yard. It was, he knew, the first time he'd stood up to the headstrong James Potter, but there was no swallowing back the words now. "I tried to tell you how it felt and what I'd read, and no, I've not been to Godric's Hollow either, Padfoot, but I've been to the school. I've seen the markers where everyone fell, and I've seen the memorials. I've talked to the werewolves, and I've heard the tales. I've been to Hogsmeade. It's all true. However it happened, it's true, and it's horrid." He looked to James again. "And you might not mind terribly, being dead, James, but I mind it for you. I mind it for Lily, and for Peter, and for Dumbledore. I mind it for Dorcas and Gideon and Fabian. I mind it for the McKinnons, and the Bones, and the Longbottoms. I mind it for a child of the Weasleys that isn't even born, and I mind it for a wife I never have met. I even mind for Snape. I mind it for myself. I'm sorry if you've no way to comprehend that." His voice shook, and it was no real surprise. He'd always been the quieter one among them, but he had never been as stoic as they. "I'll be in the Forbidden Forest, should anyone need. Whoever these Muggles are, they aren't here, and we need to know what's happening in this place." Remus looked at Sirius, his expression tempering to something kinder for a mere moment. "I hope you're right, Padfoot. I hope there's more to it." He meant that. It showed in his eyes that he meant it. Sirius minded being dead. He had made a decision weeks ago not to mention what Logan had said about he, Sirius, being dead too, unless someone else dug it up. He thought bitterly that Moony would just use that as an excuse to say that he had to have been defeated by someone in the Order or something equally ridiculous. It was obvious to him that all the evidence was just going to make James more determined to disprove it, that he was going to stick stubbornly by Sirius’ word the same way he would have stuck by Remus if the situation were reversed. Sirius and Remus were made of darker, more suspicious stuff, and Sirius knew that, but he was not feeling especially forgiving toward the werewolf, who was a few inches away from stamping his foot and bawling that no one would listen and it wasn’t fair. Sirius thought, mutinously, that Remus could have at least considered that the evidence was wrong, because it was wrong. Sirius would never do the things they wrote about in that paper. Of course Remus minded about all those people. Did he mind about Sirius? No, he didn’t. All he cared about was some girl none of them had ever met. That particular bit of information made little slivers of ice in Sirius’ heart grow teeth. Sirius realized he had been staring down at the place where the alien man with his face had been glaring up at him out of black and white only a moment before, and he looked up. Remus was saying something that was meant to be sympathetic. Sirius just stared at him. He was supposed to feel grateful for this little bit of emotion? After he’d just been called a mass murderer? “Thanks ever so. Let us know what your friends in the Forest say, since they’re going to be so much more helpful than anything I could say about what I would do.” Words dripping venom, Sirius turned away and swiped at his hair to underline how much he refused to care about this betrayal. “If you decide to see sense, you know where we’ll be.” He disappeared into the house. Remus didn't wait to hear anything more. As soon as Sirius disappeared into the cottage, Remus disapparated without another word. James had been listening. He could clearly see his friend on the steps outside, his robes patched as ever, worn as ever, as James loitered in the entryway with an expression of supreme confusion behind thick spectacles. A few hovering books clapped to the floor. James wasn’t stung by Remus’ words. He was surprised, astonished at the derision evident behind the listed names, and the assertion that he was treating his old classmate as if he were a child. It sounded to him as if Remus assumed no one cared as much as he did, which was quite blatantly untrue. He opened his mouth to respond once again and was interrupted by Sirius. There was a goodbye. Of sorts. James’ journal was tossed aside with a scoff. Remus was gone with an inward rush of air and James flicked his wand to slam the door behind Sirius without blinking. He stepped carefully through the room and sat gingerly on one sunken cushion of the old sofa. James sighed, mussing his hair once again. “That was a bloody disaster.” The boy lifted his glasses and rubbed a sleeve on one side. “I don’t know how he expects us to discuss a thing when he only trusts his own word and nothing more.” There was a frown and James looked to the other boy. Sirius did not sit. He did not stride across the room the same way that he had accelerated over the porch, he just stepped, moving with the air of someone distracted by heavier things than gravity. He didn’t bother staring out at the spot where Remus had disappeared, knowing better than to wait for someone who had disapparated to reappear, and the slam of the door behind him didn’t make him jump. The interior of the isolated little house was depressing in comparison to the loud, snug little flat Sirius had obtained for himself in London, back before this mess. He looked glum as he let his eyes adjust. Sirius nudged James’ belongings out of his way and paced to one end of the room, idly looking through the kitchen without actually seeing any of it. “He just believes what everyone else here believes. What they wrote in books and on walls, and what they say to each other. He believes them, and not me.” Sirius had meant to say ‘us’ but it didn’t come out that way, and he didn’t correct it. Sirius turned from the kitchen and started pacing the other way, circumnavigating the room. His wand had reappeared, and he was tilting it back and forth between his hands. “I don’t think he expected you to side with me like that. I don’t think he was actually going to curse me. He just thinks I might turn around and kill you whenever it’s convenient.” He looked at the ceiling. “Thought, anyway. He left, so he must not think it now.” He made a hissing sound of bitter annoyance. With the angry energy that so often consumed the Blacks, Sirius paced, prowling back and forth over wood worn soft by years, his hair on end. The jet of haughty eyes roved over blocks of partially assembled furniture, a darkness to them that James had seen a handful of times before. The boy on the sofa leaned back, notch of spine at the neck on cushion. His fingers felt at the smooth mahogany of his own wand with distraction. “Is that to suggest the infamous Sirius Black waits for convenience? Shows how much he knows. Honestly,” said James lightly with a crescent moon of a smile, fast-waning, but white in black. He paid the hiss no mind, just as he focused his sights on the line of his wand as it rested against the rough-made velvet of his robes. He was frustrated himself and it showed in the tension of his shoulders and the thoughtless fussing of hair, but James wasn’t keen on deepening the hole that had eaten its way through the fabric of friendship. Not where Sirius might see. He had sided with his best mate, yes, but he was Remus’ friend as well, and he didn’t want more damage done. There was a pause. The fire crackled and spit. “We need to discover the truth of it, of course. However death comes to me, I’d rather put it off as long as I can. Suppose we were to find a vial of veritaserum in our possession when we went to meet my so-called son…” James glanced up from his wand, flames shining on the glass of his spectacles. Sirius ended up by the fire again. Staring into it, he thought of the fire in the Gryffindor Common Room, and all the fine times the four of them had had there, plotting their monthly excursions, debating the best way to make a map that showed who was coming, seriously discussing the next steps toward becoming animagi. Idly, one of Sirius’ hands floated up and sunk into the knot of hair behind his left ear, stroking it as he thought, and as it fell away it settled on his left shoulder, his arm hanging off his long fingers as he folded it and stared blankly at nothing. After a moment he unfolded it and turned. “Death isn’t coming for you,” he snapped. “It did already. We just have to find out why. It’s not happening again.” Sirius hesitated. “Veritaserum takes too long to brew, and people guard it too well. We might be able to come up with something else though. Something enchanted that tells us when you lie, a chair maybe, or something you wear. It wouldn’t last long and if he was very good at lying, he might fool it, but at least it’s something.” Through another short pause, Sirius chewed on nothing and then, out of nowhere, said, “It could be Remus that’s the plant, James.” James was too used to Sirius’ snappish replies when the boy was angry to react with more than a roll of the eyes. The Black fuse was notoriously short and the sparks short-lived, if they went untended and unstoked. He felt the heat of the fire as it warmed his legs where they stretched over tip-towered books and ended on the paltry thinness of a green rug. Brightness reflected off of his lenses as he tilted his chin upward to turn his eyes to Sirius. “If I had my cloak, fetching it wouldn’t be an issue. As it is, I’ve no idea where it went. Bugger,” he swore, scratching beneath black hair with his wand as his mother warned him not to do more times than he could count. He considered what one might enchant to inspire truth. He tapped his chin with the wand. “What of a sneakoscope? Keep it concealed and unless it went off, the boy wouldn’t know.” James smiled at his own brilliance, before the thing was knocked off of his face with all the speed of death ensured by the Killing Curse. He gave Sirius an incredulous look, sharp behind the thick lines of his glasses. His lips slipped into a frown. “Come now. Not you as well. You were barking at him like mad for fingering you, now you want to do it to him?” There was so much disbelief in James’ voice, it nearly broke as it grew louder. The sneakoscope was a good idea, of Sirius flashed James a faintly admiring look with gleaming dark eyes. James always came up with brilliant ideas that wouldn’t get them caught; Sirius was the one that came up with the really adventurous skullduggery that typically landed them in detention. Sirius always maintained that his plans were more fun, though. The best ones were always the two of them improving and manifesting, though. James tended to catch the gaping holes called “consequences” in Sirius’ plans, and Sirius tended to make James’ plans more risky and more successful at the same time. Now that was settled, Sirius reached into his robes and pulled out his wand. He had been working on making that movement fast and fluid for years, at first to show off, and then for dueling. Remus had always been a little faster on the draw, perhaps because he was always half-expecting enemies… Sirius gave the fire a last gloomy look. Remus was faster on the draw but Sirius was better at casting once they were out. It was hard to think of the other boy as an enemy. For a second Sirius looked shamefaced, but he pulled out of it immediately and put on an angry expression out of sheer stubbornness. “It’s got to be someone. He’s been getting cozy with those mad wolves, the ones that want to take over and turn people for fun.” “Actually—” James sat up on the sofa, concern etched in his features, everything glinting in the orange. He attempted to resurrect information, an off comment, in a week full of far too much information for a big-picture wizard like James. It had been odd enough that something about it snagged in his mind, waiting for relevance. The boy scoffed, as if he could not believe he was about to say what was on his tongue. He fluffed thick hair. “Harry—the boy—he went all odd when I mentioned enchanting his entry to you, myself, Moony, and Wormtail. He said, he would not include Peter and if he saw him, it would be… ugly, I believe.” There was a frown, a pursing of lips, and a wand that rolled in moist palms. James stared hard at Sirius, entering a duel with his own conscience—with his own honor. It was over in a moment. He sat back and laughed to himself. “But he wouldn’t. It’s utterly impossible. Rat or not, he’s no rat,” said the boy aloud, as if doing so would confirm the validity of this hypothesis. It just didn’t make sense. Peter was a meek thing, fond of his mates. He idolized his fellow Marauders, and the Dark Lord certainly wouldn’t choose Peter as a minion. The idea was just as laughable as the first and James grinned. “Can you imagine? It would be a terrific joke.” Sirius stared at James. His dark eyes were blank with disbelief under the roguish fringe, and he swiped it from his eyes a second later. His laugh was rough after so much thinking, a little thicker and darker than it should have been. Like a bark. “That’s ridiculous. What could Wormtail tell anyone? How to find a hole to hide in?” Sirius shook his head slowly, straightening the blue robes over his smooth shoulders. Obviously giving up on the conversation for now, not wanting to discuss it into the ground in case he got angry again, Sirius headed for the door. “I’m going to put some more protections on this place. Some things in the woods, at least, a little farther out.” He could use a run, anyway. “I might put some detectors down the lane. It won’t hurt to know someone is apparating before they’ve done it.” Sirius turned sharply on his heel, leaving behind the papers and not even asking what James planned on doing for dinner. Sirius was the kind that would worry about food when he got hungry, but not before. |