The Children's Crusade
Disclaimer--- NOT mine, not mine, not mine.
Inspired by a piece of art by Azmin.
If life has ever promised them anything, it’s that there are a million possibilities out there and all they must do is run blindly ahead, grasping at the night to get them redeemed.
His mother would say that grasping is too low in society’s rungs for his bloodline, but he has found that nothing bad has come of this yet. Until tonight. Until wards fell and students were screaming and all hell was breaking loose.
He’d seen James’s face, a marble visage of his best mate, his countenance chiseled in determination, honor, and a twinge of fear. He’d seen the Head Girl, and recent addition to their little band of boy-men, Lily straightening her spine and walking long, measured strides toward the inevitable. He’d seen Peter, the wide-eyed misfit in their group of eccentric oddities, shake his head as if awakening from some hazing vision and, then, settling into the reality around him with a remarkable calm.
He’d seen Remus, eyes marked with some unequal mix of duty and darkness, look straight at him with wordless promises of the emotion that has been building in both their hearts, but has yet to be named.
He feels too old to be in his skin. Simply having seen these four things, he should be older.
When the Head of his House announced that Death Eaters were attacking Hogsmead, he’d stood wordlessly, obvious to James, Lily, and the Perfects organizing escape routes for the children around them. Then he’d moved to McGonagall.
“And if we’re to fight?” She turned to him, eyeing him with exhaustion written on her brow.
“Fifteen minutes, Mr. Black, meet up in the front hall.” He’d nodded and exited the portrait hole and into the hall. Immediately after him, he heard it swing open again. He’d seen Peter in the doorway and nodded to him, not expecting anything. But Peter had often surprised, throwing off that mousy disposition, in the same way he had the first time he’d hexed Kenneth Yaxley first year or turned into Wormtail fifth year, and began to march to the front hall for battle as well.
“Should we take cloaks?” Peter asked, eyes drawing back to Gryffindor Tower.
It was ironic, he thought, looking down at his bootlaces, that he would be considering what to wear into a war.
“It’s cold, but they might get in the way,” he’d replied, unsure himself.
Then it is Remus in the doorway, jogging to catch up with them. He catches Sirius by the elbow and slows their forward progress to a stop.
“Wait for the other two.”
James follows quickly, loosening his robe around his throat and speaking to the Marauders in a deep tone saved for only the most important moments, in the times that prove that he is, in fact, their leader.
“No one has to…” he clears his throat and tries again as Lily appears in the shadows of the hallway, “I won’t be ashamed of you if you don’t want to fight.” But Sirius moves closer, one of these five children too old from war, and cuts him off.
“I never thought I would find all this here. I never thought I’d find the people I love. I love… I have to fight them. They’ll take it all away if they-“ And James silencing him with a tug at the shoulder into a tight embrace. There is a feather heavy hand on his shoulder and at James’s back as Remus steps up, wordless and yet so clear spoken. Lily is ghosting across the stones to join the small grouping as Peter takes the other shoulder, opposite Remus. They stand, five unbreakable friends, looking to each other for comfort and strength. It is a silent moment in the middle of terror and running feet.
Then the wards fall.
It’s like a heavy glass vase falling. As it is knocked over, its descent to the floor is slow and poetic, and any quick moving Seeker could reissue life, but it impacts, shattering piece after piece as each shard and point hits the ground. They all feel it. Their safety melts away, falling to impact on stone.
Those few seconds of security are stolen from them and they all take a deep breath, preparing to rush forth and fight for the world they have barely entered. Peter speaks with the authority he rarely has,
“We stick together, stay together.” They move away from the Gryffindor Common Room.
“We watch each others’ backs.” Lily’s voice agrees, serene and strong. James stops them with his even tone.
“We watch out for each other, forever. We’re…” he struggles for the word that cements their relationship, much like he searches for inspiration for his pre-match Quidditch speeches. Somewhere out near the front gate, something explodes.
“It’s time.” Remus speaks and they all begin their march forward once more.
He thinks that maybe he’s grasping at the future right then, walking down moving staircases and across tread-worn flagstones to stand with his professors and other seventh years preparing to fight Godknowswhat.
“…you may stay if you are of age, everyone else I must ask to go back to your common rooms…” He hears McGonagall’s voice drifting in the hallway, over whispering portraits and the strange rumblings of impending battle. Then Dumbledore’s strong voice rises over these noises as well.
“Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,
Teach us something please…”
They join in, Peter singing to the Arrow’s Quidditch tune, Lily to some Muggle Christmas carol, James in a toneless baritone that might be “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” and Remus in his own rearrangement of The Beggar’s Opera. And Sirius tries to sing along with something, anything, but all he can do is think about how his eyes are brimming with tears at the prospect of his brain being filled with bits fluff and he thinks, damn, it’s true, my brain is rotting. Then he feels Remus’s hand in his and he just breathes.
Then they end slowly, person after person, like rounds of a canon of “Michael Row Your Boat Ashore” and they stand silently, no lines of a well trained army, but children, huddled in their school robes and House scarves. And Sirius thinks of Remus telling him about the Muggle Crusades and how legions of children were sent to fight for a piece of ground.
Just like this place is holy to me.
Then someone blasts a hole into the front doors. There are screams. Remus’s fist tightens in Sirius’s, but neither cry out or flee. Dumbledore is turning slow, sad eyes across his makeshift troops, his Crusaders. He raises his wand over them and casts something that rains silver, sorrow-kissed glitter down on them.
It is the only benediction we will receive.
Then the doors are opened. Out on the grounds, the warden of Hell has let loose his minions. Black caped terrors are running through the gates, up the hill, past the lake, their siege upon Hogwarts.
Petite Flitwick, brandishing his wand like a sword, gives a mighty yell and runs forward, as if leading a charge of the Saxons. James and Sirius join in, the two most notorious troublemakers the school had ever known, running with all the force and determination of escaping from a herd of irate Slytherin. Remus is running at Sirius’s side, face set, nostrils flaring, every inch Marauder. Peter is at James’s side, trembling, but refusing to be left behind. Lily, like some banshee, hair blazing behind her like a red standard is right there with them.
There is nothing that can describe war. There are smells and noises that cannot be compared to other incidents. Beyond that, the actual substance of the fight is like nothing he has known before. No school lesson could prepare him for the first flash of green that hits Ellen Drymee and takes the life out of her like a breath. He doesn’t stop to reflect, just thrusts out his wand and begins calling out his magic.
They space out, about an arm’s length apart, fighting in a line against monotonous black cloaks and hoods, shadowing horrors of silver masks that further hide the monstrosities of humanity. It is like some toddler’s nightmare, the horrors not fully realized, but the very sight of the attack is bated with unspeakable dread. He wishes only to awaken alive in Remus’s arms, his loved ones near and safe.
Lily’s shout of “stupefy” glistens like a crescendo over the chorus of “Crucio” and “Avada Kedavra”.
Peter’s wand is flashing and jutting like the flip and jab of a dagger, flying with his quick, sharp cries.
James is hexing and disarming with a resolve that speaks of waves wearing away a mountain.
Remus is deathly silent, his spells felling enemies with the meticulous accuracy that he applies to his studies.
This is all that is needed to chase away the trepidation; his spells, which have never ceased, now come with a certainty he finds remarkable. He barely thinks.
Contortum, deflagro, digitis concrepare, depilo, eviscero.
Yes, somewhere in his brain he knows that he has just thrown a magical spear and killed a man, destroyed another by fire, snapped someone’s fingers off their hand, ripped all the hair off a screaming woman, and disembowel another, but he cannot stop long enough to consider this. He is simply casting and defending, charming and protecting. He hopes.
Someone steps directly before him, clearly challenging him personally. The masked dueler whips a dark-wooded wand in a tight circular flick, like the curl of the “J” in Remus’s signature or the curve of his kissed lips as he smiles. Sirius returns with a snap of his wrist.
Ictum.
A spell to smite, his memory supplies. The dueler stomps forward and jabs with a blast of gray light. Sirius shifts his wand forward in his fingers, using the heel of his hand to drag his wand above his shoulder in a wide arch.
Conglacio.
The hex they’d used to freeze the entire fourth year Slytherin class inert for two hours. The dueler is brazen now, flustered from too many near misses. His opponent tries a simple hex; he casts the anti-hex easily. Then swish, swish as his raises his wand straight up like climbing a ladder.
Decollo.
A hex created in the fifth century to behead the Huns under their leader Attila; another dark lord whose magic Muggles had long ago forgot. His enemy falls. He does not linger to think about the way gravity affects body and lonely head at different rates. He offers a quick glance to his left, James, Lily, Peter all alive and moving like toys all animated at different intervals on a shop’s shelf. He turns to his left, there the precision and grace of Remus and his magic. Before him now, a new mask and he lets the magic surge in his veins.
“Hello, bloodtraitor.”
He is surprised. Surely, he is related to eighty percent of the silver masks opposite him, however, to hear a voice that he has long associated with his tender cousin is jarring.
“Cissy?” he asks, surprise echoing in his voice.
She is not engaging him in battle, simply holding a raised wand’s tip trained at his heart.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he snarls.
She stiffens, still unable to throw off a curse. Then he knows, for as much as she claims their bloodline, it is for the finery and gala balls and flirting boys, not for the Dark Magic.
He calls on the few claims to his name that he still retains; the voice of the Heir of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black speaks.
“Get the hell out of here. Get Reg. Get Regulus and get out of that damn mask and get the hell out of here.”
And she falters with that authority. Gray eyes behind the steel of mask do not disguise this. Then she is turning on her heel, running, and calling for her youngest cousin. He is mildly disgusted to know now, for a fact, that his baby brother is marked for the Dark Lord at the impressionable age of sixteen.
This thought is fleeting, too, for another hood steps forward.
The Crusade continues, but he is not fighting for some rectory or vision given by sleep. He falls two more before he considers that this Light he is defending must be the very essence of life and love. Is he afraid? Sirius wonders.
He looks left again and sees that Peter is grimacing and holding his right arm close to his body.
Past him, he sees Lily who is now hip-to-hip with James, fighting like they are two parts of one whole.
The three of them are moving within their safety net of an arm extension’s grasp, like an umbilical cord to their life source, one another.
If that is true...
His eyes fly back to Remus. Yes. Yes, that must be the truest thing he’s ever known. These four, illuminated by the red haze of Hogsmead burning, are the Light itself. Yes, his very essence of life and love.
Suddenly, he’s terrified.
What if this, this wondrous gift he has just realized is stolen from him? He moves closer to Remus’s side, smelling the ashy winds of burnt thatch roof, sweat, and hostility. Remus’s eyes flash up to his face for only a scant second before the clash resettles in on them.
“Moony! I think I love you!” His voice is rough from the smoke and the late hour, but he hopes that it is tender enough to convey his honest intentions. Remus’s eyes flick back to him again.
“Padfoot, you are a ludicrous fool. Only you would try a line like that here!” He smirks at the retort; the laughing tone in his lover’s voice has carried his true message loud and clear.
He dives back into the foray, strengthened by unspoken declarations. He is grasping now, unlike any other time he has before. His wand flashing flicks of hexes and trembles of boils, he simply says again, with more ardent authority:
“Remus Lupin. I love you.” And swish, flick, counter flick equates the fall of another robed villain.
“Sirius,” Remus’s voice is affectionate and beautiful, out of place in this battlefield, like a violin in a crowd of bleating sheep, “the feeling is reciprocated ten-fold. Now, my love, please focus on what you are doing before you lose a limb.”
There is no way to keep the grin from his face. He knows he should be solemn and focused, but he is giddy and simply unable to stop being so. He worries only for a second about the students and their idle gossip. “I saw Sirius Black fighting and he looked like he was enjoying killing people. He’s a Black through and through.” The inner monolog wipes the grin from his face.
Now, there are three before Remus and he. He sees that they advance with the intent to engage them. In some ways, Sirius is proud that they are standing out as those worthy to duel, but this feeling is diminishing.
Suddenly, it’s as if someone has recalled the Death Eaters. They all jump back from their fights with burnt-by-fire reactions, hanging half-cast curses in the smoke-hazy night. Some of the Light continues to channel spells, but he begins to align his shield charms.
The change in the air, a day-bright light awakening the drowsy sleeper in the dead of night, is immediate. It saunters in, tangible and heavy, like wet denim clings to summer-kissed skin, and he feels the hairs on his arm prickle and the Black blood in his veins points in recognition of Pure Dark Power. He opens his mouth to shout a warning, but there is no time.
Lord Voldemort is upon them.
If he was once a man, he cannot tell for sure. Sirius can make out shoulders and wrists, perhaps a waistline hidden in thick folds of robes. He recognizes Power, Holy Dark Power and he feels his lineage in his skin clawing to climb out. But his eyes locate eye sockets and where the window to the soul should stand, there is only the portal to Hell. He hears the portion of his brain where Padfoot abides screaming mixed messages: raise heckles while whimpering. He agrees.
Remus is backpedaling, shoving his slender, bony palm into Sirius’s hipbone and forcing them backward. They conjoin, a strange, mix matched, labeled platoon of Potter, Evans, Pettigrew, Black, and Lupin against the sold-souled, murdering Riddle. Five wands are raised, five breaths are clipped. Remus has not moved his hand from Sirius’s hip. Padfoot issues a growl.
Sirius is grateful that someone said something, since they are facing their death, however, he did wish that his last words had been constructed with more finesse than his canine persona produced. Lily is actually snickering.
Voldemort is smirking.
“You think you are brave, do you, Bloodtraitor?” Red irises rest on his gray and he feels the seductive brush of mind-accessing-mind. He knows he is not strong enough to fight off this force, so he simply seeks to misdirect.
Quidditch.
Play: the Puddledunk- full broom speed to mid-pitch, shirk right, hit Bludger down at 45-degree angle… Chaser to follow Bludger in nosedive, as Bludger rounds on player; side step two hops… which looks like a dance…
Interruption, like static on the wireless. His thoughts are no longer going in the direction he was guiding them.
The Black’s Gala Masque of his fourth year. His crimson dress robes and a feather and satin mask shaped like a fox. The time signatures of the Quadrille. Dancing opposite the little French heiress Syagria Godenot, whom his parents wanted him to court. Bellatrix with her stunning purple silk robes bunching around her hips as some black haired relative is growling “yeah, yeah, mmmm… just like that.” Last year’s pale green dress robes transfigured sapphire blue worn by an uninvited guest, whose hair looked like champagne that night. Hands, slender and bony, snaking around his middle. Remus’s voice, made fearless by a mask, saying “I feel like a Montague breaking into the Capulet Hall” and his own voice questioning “Am I then Tybalt or Paris?” and the reply, sultry and low, “I was thinking more that you be ‘this holy shrine’ for ‘from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged’.” And then finding a hidden stone corner to pass sin back and forth-
No. Nothing emotional.
Alpha. Beta. Gamma. Delta. Epsilon. Zeta. Eta. Theta. Iota. Kappa. Lambda. Mu…
“Moooo-ney! Moony! Moony!” Eyes, crusted in sleep, glaring up. Crimson curtains filtering daylight into some strange, pink camouflage on a pale, scared complexion. His hands pulling back the duvet. His lips seeking out tender hip flesh and coarse, unsunned hair and just-awoken erection. Soft, pleading moans and thrusts-
NO.
Vivre. To live. Je vis. I live. Tu vis. You, singular, live. Il vis. He lives. Elle vis. She lives. On vit. One lives. Nous vitons. We live. Vous vivez. You, plural, live. Ils vivent. They, masculine, live...
A shining golden key hanging from a red ribbon. Shining golden eyes glancing from the extended key up to his face. “Move in with me…” A creeping smile and a tawny haired laugh-
--The Tomb Time Potion, to make one look like decaying dead. 5 mL of still water to a boil in a white hot caldron, add 3 grams of whittled eackling root, fold in .6 grams of Fluxweed and 2 grams of celery seed, when potion turns a hazy lavender sprinkle in a smidgen of powdered fambule, stirring at a half-heartbeat’s pace anti-clockwise…
The dull starlight illuminating the Shrieking Shack. The sound of his heartbeat. The sound of a flutter faster thump-thump of Remus’s as they began to passionately push off school robes for the first time-
Gryffindor! Gryffindor! Home to the brave and the strong! Gryffindor! Gryffindor!
Yay, your courage may get you ripped limb-from-limb! Aye, your chivalry may get you eaten by banshees! Pause not, Godric’s soldiers, fling into the fray! Take pride in victory! Take courage in defeat! Gryffindor! Gryffindor! May we live to see their demise!
He feels the sensation like bursting to the surface of a lake and dragging in much needed oxygen. His mind is his own again and Lily has stepped in front of the Marauders, wand extended before her with a locked arm, magic flaring out a blunt force into Voldemort’s chest.
James and Peter are firing off the same curse, hoping that the power of three will delay the so-called Dark Lord’s Legilimency. Remus is clutching at Sirius’s hip so tight that his knuckles are flaring through his skin. His eyes scream worry, but there is no time for such sentiments. Sirius raises his wand again and he fires off a Belittling Jinx. Remus is in motion again now too, but his fingers stay fastened to Sirius’s pelvic bone.
Riddle’s eyes flash the red flares of dawn and he slashes his wand dramatically across his chest throwing all five backward six meters. It is now that Sirius notes that somehow, damn magic, they have been separated from everyone else. It is them verses Riddle. Alone.
James jumps up first, casting a shielding charm as Voldemort’s next silent curse leaps at them. Sirius clamors to his feet, secures a hand into James’s back, physically holding him and the shield up while flicking his wand up and under. His spell illuminates the corpses strung on the grass (I suppose we’re not completely alone.) before being countered by Voldemort. Judging by his slash of wand, Remus issues an Expulsion Charm that fails as well.
Lily, all red-headed temper, lets out a war yell and her wand issued out a blue lightening streak which jumps the boundaries of James’s shield and hit Voldemort in the chest, knocking him back a few steps. James takes the moment to glance at Sirius. They have been able to speak wordlessly for years and both black-haired men mirror this stare.
We have no hope of beating him.
Sirius gives an abrupt nod and James returns it. They both stomp forward firing dual spells like the twins they practically are. For each blast they set forth, they advance a step. Voldemort is simply flicking his wrist as if he is shooing off a fly instead of the Marauder’s best charms. They are within a meter of him now, his skin toothpaste white and devoid of perspiration or worry. He looks at them in pure amusement and throws them backward into their friends. The five fall down hard for a second time.
“That was pure stupidity, you morons!” Lily yells while Remus swishes out from his chest without breaking his elbow. Sirius hauls himself back to his feet and watches with stalling horror as Voldemort tilts his head, as if humored, and then simply tips his wand at Remus Lupin.
Remus’s yell is sharp edged with pain.
His body folds inward, his arms grasping his abdomen, then one arm up to his forehead, mouth open in shuttering breaths.
Sirius grabs Remus from behind across the shoulder, pulling him into his arms, as if his arms will shield his lover from the onslaught of pain. Sirius and James are exchanging magic to create some form of force field around them while Peter, who has been tending his injured arm, lines up his next ambush of curses. Remus has buried his face into Sirius’s neck, whimpering into his Oxford shirt. There is an ooze on Sirius’s Adam’s apple and he knows its not tears slicking his skin.
Now, James turns left to Sirius, who is holding Remus on his feet, and issues a desperate, set face and they charge. Sirius bends his arm back, wand poised like his Beater bat with the agility of his viola’s bow, feeling the trails of sweat running down his neck, and leans his cheek into feather-soft champagne hair. Over Remus’s head, Peter’s voice has faltered mid-charm, his tremor of fear now matured into genuine terror. James’s wand arm is extended full out and he is screaming out Latin. Lily runs up behind James shouting her demands, apparently accepting the “pure stupidity” of their volley as their only chance for survival.
The amber refection of the fire in Hogsmead has somehow been lost to the green haze of the Unforgivables and he wonders if this is how he will die: Rowan wand in his right hand, Remus Lupin in his left, fighting at his best friend’s side under an Avada Kedavra sky.
Remus shudders and his weight leans into Sirius’s chest.
“Easy, Moony,” he whispers into Remus’s temple, “we’ve got to take on Voldie just a little more.” And Remus grinds his teeth down and jerks his body free of Sirius’s hold, turning quickly and launching off a spell. Sirius grabs onto Remus’s bicep to hold his steady, trying to ignore the open wound on his love’s face.
His hold is not enough; Remus is swaying back into Sirius’s chest, his legs unable to hold him up. Sirius grasps him about the waist and Remus’s shoulder blades dig into his diaphragm. Both of them raise wands again and send out spells. Desperation has set in; nothing seems to faze the Dark Lord.
But, fazed or not, his humor at this little quasi-war is finished. He levels his wand at them and fires off a comet of death. Sirius registers what curse that must be. He hears Lily screaming wordlessly.
Remus…
So he pushes their combined body weight forward, hoping to shove Remus out of the curse’s field. As they’re falling, time slows to a languid sigh, he feels gravity and sweat-soaked school vest and Remus’s hiccupped cry and he sees, out of the corner of his eye, the impending green Unforgivable.
He tightens his grip on his love and hopes that death lives up to the hype.
Thus, he is surprised when the curse completely misses and he lands heavily on Remus. He pulls himself up to his knees and rolls Remus so that he can face him. The slash on his face has bled into his hair making the fringe on his forehead look rusted. He brushes his wand across his face, casting a Clotting Charm before cradling the bleeding boy to his chest.
His breath is nothing more than Padfoot’s pant. He watches as Peter is thrown backward and falls limp after his head impacts a stone. He sees Lily’s fear-filled face as she launches another attack. He memorizes James’s frantic parry. His eyes drop to Remus who is clutching his school vest, on the verge of passing out.
“Go help,” he gasps.
“I love you, Moony.” He runs his hand across Remus’s face, thumb pausing on his lower lip.
“Love you, now go.” He presses a desolate kiss to the bloody forehead then leaves him resting on the dew-damp grass. Rowan wood begins to channel magic again, but it is unfocused. He is tired. No, exhausted. He is separated from his heart by four meters, his heart whom is hurt.
When did I become such a bloody woman?
He takes a blast to the chest and is a rock tossed off a cliff, falling without grace into the backs of Lily’s knees. She falls onto his chest, her elbow landing in his chin with a bone-on-bone sting. He shoves her onto her feet as best as he can while he clamors back up.
“We gotta quit falling down. We look like we’re incapable of walking; they’ll take away our Apparition license if we keep this up.” She glares back at him, a facial expression that would be something like humor if it were any other situation.
James and Voldemort are dueling, true dueling. James is putting up a fair attempt for being completely outgunned. Both Lily and Sirius are poised, ready to jump back into sparring. James takes a hex and his spine seems to melt as he falls.
“James!” He’s not sure if he or Lily scream it louder, but as Lily runs to him, he takes his place as James’s second. As they trade spells, Voldemort speaks.
“You bloodtraitors would make fine Death Eaters. Your passion is admirable. If your devotion were turned-“
“Then we wouldn’t be bloodtraitors, now would we? No, I feel that I speak for all of us here when I say, fuck no.” Padfoot has given up on being afraid and has reared up, snarling, growling, and preparing to attack. Sirius listens to his canine instincts and launches his body forward, throwing his weight into the snake-like wizard’s chest. Voldemort is falling onto his back when he issues the Cruciatus Curse.
Their fourth year DADA professor had said that the Curse was “unimaginable pain.” Clearly, he had never been cursed. Sirius has some great imagery to share with that professor.
At first, its like someone has taken fire-hot iron spikes and shoved them under all ten of his toenails. Then, its like Niffler are burrowing in between the disks in his spine. No, they’re using a Blasting Curse on the disks in his spine. There must be a hell of a fortune in his back. The muscles in his legs are both constricting and extending simultaneously. His neck is tightening up like he’s choking. His head is unable to focus on anything at all. Well, he smells chlorine. Or bleach. Or maybe both. But that hardly seems important right now.
He can’t remember to breathe. He can’t remember to force his heart to beat. If deprived of oxygen for too long, he will driven insane. Of course, this is what he remembers.
Oh, and Remus.
He remembers Remus in this purging of his sanity.
Those slender fingers grasping the spine of a book in the Library’s stacks. His ever-scuffed black leather shoes. His hair crimping and swirling when the air is humid. Low, hoarse chuckles when passed a note in class. Licking his lips, locking gazes with his boyfriend before seductively blowing out his candle. Smudges of a late night snack on his final essays.
He hopes these are the things he keeps when he loses his mind. At least then, he’d know what true love was made of.
Then it’s over. His ribs hurt. His skin aches. His fingernails moan. His eyelashes sob. He doesn’t want to breathe because that will make every pore strain and throb all the more. He is vaguely aware of Dumbledore’s voice bellowing and the returning noise of the rest of the war. It all seems distant and muffled.
Then Lily grabs his wrists and she drags him back to the little sanctuary she has established. Peter is leaned against the Marauder’s favorite beech tree, now conscious. Remus is lying at Peter’s feet watching James Episkey his gash. Lily, the weary hen, deposits Sirius close to his mates, her nest of boy chicks. There are a few stray spells cast around them, but the Death Eaters appear to be retreating now that Dumbledore has engaged Voldemort.
The five lie there, just grasping for clean air to breath in a night so filled with death, watching the fires of Hogsmead cast ruby reflections in smoke and clouds. Sirius loses track of time, but he watches the dew set in, feels his friends draw closer to each other to ward off the cold, sees the dawn whisper of pink in a gray then mauve sky.
Perhaps they were assumed to be corpses, because it is clear morning before someone comes to collect them, hours after the others were taken to be cared for. Dumbledore himself visits them and invites them to tea when they are well. They all nod agreements and return to their sullen silences.
The next day, in the Hospital Wing, someone shows him the front page of the Daily Prophet. It screams about “five students who battled You-Know-Who alone and survived!” and how a seven hundred Galleons reward was offered for any information that helped supply the identities of the students. This seems to inspire the Evans’s and the Lupin’s and the Pettigrew’s and the Potter’s to plot some kind of haven and the five are whisked away to the Potter estate. He feels like some kind of awkward extra wheel: while he has his old bedroom, all of his belongings are split between Hogwarts and his flat, and, of course, he has no parental chaperon.
They aren’t themselves and they know it. The term is suspended, but they pick through their homework anyway, working silently together around the formal dining room table under the scrutiny of whatever parent is lifeguarding at that moment. He wants to make an off-color joke about pulling Remus into the airing closet or putting a dungbomb in Lily’s knickers, but it’s impossible with the constant attention, it makes him feel ever more out of sorts.
They will break, they know this too, they are children and, yet, are no longer.
Peter is the first.
They’re crowded into the sitting room, Mrs. Potter knitting to the wireless’s hum, Mr. Potter and Mr. Lupin discussing business, the Evans and the Pettigrew’s playing bridge, Mrs. Lupin, with soft eyes, watching Remus pretend to read, Lily idly brushing her hair, and James and Peter playing Wizarding Chess. Sirius himself is sitting on the arm of a chair watching the fire and the people in the room.
Peter hasn’t made a move in some time and James doesn’t seem to be bothered, although the pieces are starting to get indignant. Over their jeers, Peter speaks into the stillness.
“I killed people.” And they see a little, terrified boy where previously there was a shell-shocked seventeen-year-old. And he sobs. Then James reaches across the board and puts a hand on Peter’s arm. Remus deserts his book, Lily her brush, and Sirius his chair. They move in, gathering in around him, silently and understandingly. The adults try soothing words but receive accusatory glares of you don’t understand, you weren’t there as they’re dismissed.
Two nights later, James is screaming in his sleep. Padfoot lumbers across the hall, climbs onto the double mattress, and soothes his fears before he awakes the rest of the house. Padfoot is still and strong as James wraps his arms around the dog’s neck and sobs into his fur.
The next night, Remus hears the screams too. Peter does also. That night a friend and a rat join a dog and a boy on the mattress. The next night, they have to Engorgio the bed so that a girl can join them. The next morning, over brunch, Mr. Pettigrew makes a lewd joke about orgies and Mr. Evans glares at the boys. Lily bites into her tomato and calmly says,
“Nightmares.” Her father retorts about getting a nightlight. His wife shushes him. Lily remains steady and says,
“Maybe if you’d been used for Voldemort’s personal target practice, you’d understand.” And she breaks down. Sirius is the closest, so he wraps his arm around her and pulls her into a hug. Peter excuses himself from the table and leads the grieving girl and her band of protectors into the parlor.
That night, squished on James’s bed, Remus scoots toward Padfoot, resting his cheek on the dog’s shoulder blades, and begging in whispers for him to transform. Before he can stretch boy-limbs, Remus is forcing his way into Sirius’s arms. Remus is snuffling hot air onto Sirius’s collarbone, while clinging to his torso, his personal security.
“Sirius… oh, Sirius…” His snuffling turns into sobs and the others wake up. All he can think to do is rock Remus back and forth and press intermittent kisses to his brow.
“It’s all right, love. Vous êtes sûr, mon coeur. It’s all right.” Even after he has cried himself asleep and the other three have settled back in together, a pack sleeping in their den, Sirius sits up watching over them.
He does not break the next day. Or the next. Or the next. Then, one afternoon, James suggests a pickup game of Quidditch, parents against their offspring, and he snaps.
“Shall I go and get them then? ‘Wotcher, Mum and Dad! Fancy a quick match with my mates and me? Oh, do bring your masks along as some of my mates are Mudbloods and you can practice your Muggle hunting skills.’” And he kicks a hole in the drywall of the hallway and then storms up the steps. He flings open the door to the bathroom and slams it shut again. The mirror gasps in surprise, so he slams his palm against his reflection. There is no relief there, so he pounds his fists into the wall again and again, terrified and furious, spouting off explicatives. He hears the door open, but he doesn’t turn or stop his cursing.
“My family-my whole blood-obsessed, psychotic family-are Death Eaters. They attacked us. My cousins… my brother… I think I saw my father… I know I heard my uncle…attacked us. Tried to kill us.” He hits the wall again, gritting his teeth, and spitting out the words that he has to say, because if he doesn’t he thinks that he might be eaten alive like his parents’ hate has swallowed them.
“I murdered them. Without remorse. I cut people open. I fucking beheaded someone. I murdered them. I didn’t even stop long enough to find out if I was related to them… just killed them. I am just like them. I just killed…” And a slender-fingered hand grasps his wrist, pulling his arm back. A second arm wraps around his waist and pulls his body into a warm embrace. There are kisses pressed into his neck and he dissolves into tears.
“I’m here, Sirius. I’m here. You’re not like them. You aren’t like them, Pads.” And his body feels too heavy for him to hold up alone so he’s glad that Remus has him. James joins them in the small bathroom, putting his huge palm over Sirius’s hair and rubbing slow circles like he does to Padfoot’s scalp. Peter sneaks in, finding space leaning against the wall that Sirius has abused, just standing close. Lily opens the slapped mirror, retrieves some balm from the medicine cabinet and tends to his bleeding knuckles without any words.
Later, Mrs. Lupin lets herself into the bathroom. Lily and James are sitting on the lid of the toilet, sharing the space by clinging to one another. Peter is sprawled in the empty bathtub, feet dangling over the side. Sirius and Remus are sitting on the floor; Sirius is curled into Remus’s lap. Remus is stoking Sirius’s hair. Sirius wonders what she must think of this.
“It’s dinner time, pets. Will you come down?” And none of them move. None of them respond. Sirius feels Remus raise his face to his Mum and the rumble of his soft voice reverberates through Sirius’s cheek.
“Maybe soon, Mum.” And unlike any of the other parents, she seems to understand. She makes to leave, but pauses, then turns from the door and squats down on the floor.
“You lot,” her voice is gentle as if she is speaking to infants, “have been through an ordeal and we understand that. But you have to tell us what happened so that we can help you.” She waits.
That would be good. “Hi, Mrs. Lupin. I love your son and I’m a murderer. Care to help us move into our first flat?”
But James, ever civil, supplies a fair answer where the others are silent. His voice is even and unemotional, as if he is reading statistics about annual rainfall.
“War chose to attack innocent children. We chose to fight and protect everything we love. War took our childhood.”
And as Mrs. Lupin weeps, Sirius thinks,
The Children’s Crusade of the Muggles’ history was a failure. The children were either killed or sold into slavery or something even worse. They never even got to the battlefield. Voldemort made sure that didn’t happen. He brought the war to us.
Of all the things he’s grasped for in his lifetime, he wants only to undo the simply truth that James has remorselessly stated.
War took our childhood because we wouldn’t give up what we loved.