Alignments Day *ahem* 31
wellymuck Day 31
Series title: Alignments
Series summary: Friends come together and pull apart under the pressures of the first war with Voldemort.
Series rating: PG-13
Author: magnetic_pole
Word Count: 2500
Day 31: Things That Shouldn't Have Been Said, April 1981
Summary: All they do these days is snipe at one another. Eventually someone's bound to be hit.
Warnings: It’s 1981, folks.
Note: This is the first installment in Part 5: April 1981. Due to the fact that I missed a few days in April, we still have several installments left this week.
Part 5: April 1981
In retrospect, Sirius thought, the whole night had been a mistake. Every part of it. From the beginning. But, if he had to be completely honest with himself, he had to admit he had been a large part of the problem.
They were at a small, half-empty wizarding restaurant in Cardiff, celebrating the wedding engagement of Lily’s roommate from Hogwarts, Hestia Jones. The first sign of things gone wrong, Sirius thought, was the fact that the bride-to-be wasn’t present. Delayed in the Floo, Lily said, but these days that could mean anything, from technical difficulties in the system to the collapse of the Ministry that ran it. True, a year ago Sirius would have welcomed the collapse of the Ministry of Magic; it was archaic and elitist and utterly ineffective at stopping the violence that was now overshadowing their lives. But this year he was exhausted and more cynical; when this Ministry went down it was certain to be replaced by one hand-picked by Voldemort. If indeed Voldemort intended to govern. Sometimes Sirius suspected that he might simply be aiming at chaos. Better to have intermittent Floo service than none, he thought.
The second sign of things gone wrong was the fact that no seemed to care whether the bride-to-be was there or not, and even the slowest drinkers were already on their second or third firewhiskey. Sirius surveyed the table. True, they were not all Hestia’s closest friends--Lily had organized the dinner and asked the usual suspects along--but usually they were a more congenial group than this. James and Lily were seated at one end of the table, bickering over Lily’s schedule and James’ child-minding duties, heads close together. Alice was deep in conversation with Frank but peering over her shoulder suspiciously every few minutes. Peter was shredding the paper label from a Butterbeer bottle with short, twitchy fingers. Where was Susan? At Lily’s perhaps, minding Harry and Neville. Remus was seated next to him, starting morosely into his drink, unusually withdrawn, lost to the outside world. Remus fumbled absently in the pockets of his robes and drew out a packet of Muggle cigarettes.
“Don’t,” Peter said sharply when he realized what Remus was about to do. He set his empty bottle down on the table with a loud clink. “No point in drawing even more attention to ourselves.”
Remus looked up blankly, then started to slip the cigarettes back into his pocket. Sirius looked from Remus to Peter.
“Let them look,” Sirius said scornfully. “It’s not like he doesn’t have friends if someone takes offense at his Muggle habits.”
“Don’t, Sirius,” Remus said in a weary voice. The cigarettes were gone, and he was back to his drink. “All we do these days is bicker.”
There was a point when Sirius would have been ready to defend Remus’ disgusting Muggle habits to the death, but now he hesitated. All right? he asked silently with a quick look and a rueful smile. Remus returned the smile half-heartedly. All right.
“Are we sure that Floo is secure?” Alice asked suddenly from the other end of the table, dropping the pretense of conversation with Frank altogether.
“I checked it twice,” Lily said shortly.
“Anti-Apparation charms?” Alice asked.
“Got it, Alice,” Lily said.
“Still,” Alice said, tight-lipped. “Could check again. Constant vigilance,” she added. Sirius snorted, but Alice hadn’t meant it as a joke.
“You know, if Hestia isn’t here soon I think we should go,” James said. “You know what Moody says about Lily and Alice being in the same spot at the same time.”
“Let’s give it a little while longer, James,” Lily pleaded. She and James fell back into their earlier conversation. Alice watched the Floo, and Frank watched Alice. Peter resumed decimating the bottle labels.
They fell back into a moody silence, broken only by the paper rustle of Peter’s wrappers.
*
Twenty minutes later they were joined by Hestia, who arrived with a dozen apologies and Edie Johnson and two other friends. “Floo problems,” she said regretfully and sat down between Lily and Alice. Lily signaled the house elf for the food.
“The Ministry can’t keep the Floo running,” Sirius said darkly to Remus. The Ministry was good for very little these days, in his opinion. Good thing they’d found the restaurant before the Floo problems began. They could Apparate back home.
“We’re understaffed,” Peter said churlishly looking up from his bottles. “I was on Floo duty myself last week. It’s hard work.”
"Having a hard week, Peter?" Remus asked.
This comment seemed to open a floodgate for Peter, who suddenly began to talk rapidly as dinner appeared--about Floo duties, about his extra hours at the Ministry, about how exhausted he was, about all his Order responsibilities, about his shifty and suspicious assistant, and again about how very tired he was.
His complaints passed by Sirius unremarked. He hated Peter’s incessant complaining, the way he hated James’ tiresome talk about new Ministry directives and Remus’ moody silences and Alice’s obsessive checking and double-checking of the security wards and Lily’s stubborn attempts to keep acting as if life were normal, arranging dinner parties as if anyone really cared whether Hestia Jones got married or not. Sirius scowled. Not that Hestia Jones wasn’t a lovely girl, but everyone was on edge, and this evening was clearly a mistake. He was contemplating the last of the Firewhiskey in his glass when suddenly Peter’s last comment caught his attention.
“You passed out at work? You fell asleep, you mean, or you fainted?” Sirius asked.
Peter looked startled; he clearly hadn’t thought Sirius was paying any attention. “I’m not sure,” he said thoughtfully. “I was there, at my desk, and suddenly everything went black, and I was on the floor. It’s happened twice.”
Remus looked up, suddenly paying attention, too.
“Peter, you know that’s not safe,” Sirius said angrily. “You sign release papers for Azkaban. The last thing we need is for someone to sign a release for the few Death Eaters we’ve managed to convict.”
“I’ve got things under control,” Peter insisted.
“Maybe you should take some time off,” Remus suggested quietly.
“Or quit,” Sirius said. “We could use your help full-time with the Order.”
“I just got promoted,” Peter said, frowning. “Junior Departmental Secretary. I’m not asking for time off now.”
“You’ve got to be careful, Peter,” Remus said mildly.
“I don’t need time off. We’ll all tired,” Peter said quietly but firmly. “I shouldn’t have complained.”
The first mistake. Peter had offered an apology of sorts, Merlin knew how rarely that happened, and Sirius should have backed off. He knew this, even at the time. Remus was ready to move on to a new topic, he could see out of the corner of his eye. But Sirius was tired, and he was angry at Peter’s obstinacy, and he was worried about him, and he couldn’t help himself.
“Peter, it’s dangerous. Ask for a transfer or some time off,” he urged. "Better you step aside now, before something happens.”
“We don’t all have an inheritance to live on, Sirius,” Peter said with a warning note in his voice. “This job is important to me.”
“Well, being Junior Secretary isn’t going to be worth very much if the Death Eaters come for you,” Sirius said. “You’ll be respectable but dead.”
“I’ve got it under control, Sirius!” Peter said, red-faced and angry now.
“It doesn’t sound like it,” Sirius said, but he felt Remus’ elbow in his side, and he closed his mouth before he could say anything else. They finished eating in silence.
*
It was the end of the night, and Hestia was leaning over their end of the table, thanking them for coming. “Where’s Susan?” she asked Peter. “I missed her.”
Peter coughed. “She’s minding the babies. Harry and Neville. Likes to do that kind of thing.”
“Are you two having your own engagement soon?” Hestia asked with a shy smile. “Susan’s always loved babies.”
Peter flushed and looked awkward, but Hestia took that as a yes, gave him a squeeze on the shoulder, and moved on.
There was an awkward silence at their end of the table.
The second mistake. Too tired, too cross, too much to drink, too much frustration with Peter, who could be such a bloody hypocrite at times.
“Make an honest woman of her, Pete, if you care about respectability so much,” Sirius said. It had started off as a joke--a mean one, perhaps--but there was an edge to his voice he hadn’t intended. He realized immediately that he had gone too far: Remus was stepping on his foot so hard that it hurt, and Peter looked as if he’d been slapped.
Peter’s face slowly turned from white to an angry, humiliated pink. “I’m not doing anything as nearly awful as you are,” he said to Sirius in a whisper.
“Peter,” Remus said, intervening. “Calm down. It was a joke. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I do too know what I’m saying,” Peter said, loudly and angrily, suddenly turning his wrath on Remus. “No one listens to me, but I know what you’re doing.” Peter stood up, his face red and his voice rising with anger. “Potter. Control the werewolf. And get your friend Black out of his bed. Before it’s too late.” He Apparated with pop.
Sirius suddenly realized that all eyes were on him and Remus, even some from adjoining tables in the restaurant, and the stillness in the room was deafening. Alice was looking at Remus with large, frightened eyes. Lily looked at Remus, then Sirius, then Remus again. James sat with clenched jaws and shot Sirius a venomous glance. Sirius returned it.
Edie got up abruptly, pulling Hestia and her other friends with her. “Time to go, I think.” They were gone in an instant.
“Remus,” Alice said helplessly, appealing to him. Frank took her by the elbow. “I think...we need to go,” Frank said, pulling Alice up from the table. “Lily...sorry...” They Apparated, as well.
Remus stood up, pale, lips thin and set. “Sirius, ten minutes here to talk to James. After that, our flat.” Sirius swallowed audibly. Remus disappeared.
James’ fists were clenched on the table, and he and Sirius were glaring at one another. Lily touched him gently on the shoulder. “James. Calm down.”
“Go home, Lily. I’ll be there in a moment.” Lily left.
*
When the table was otherwise empty and normal conversation had resumed in the restaurant, James spoke. “You can’t do these kinds of things, Sirius.”
Sirius was silent, sullenly, angrily silent.
“Really, Sirius. This is important. Our friendships. Life and death. You can’t make a joke of them. You’ve got to grow up.”
Sirius looked at him, confused.
”Look, what Peter did just now was wrong, I know, and I’ll talk to him. But I don’t know what you told him to give him that idea. You can’t play games like this. You can’t do this to Remus. It’s not his fault he...” James took a deep breath. “Has the problems that he has.”
“Problems?” Sirius knew his voice had a dangerous edge to it, but he was long past control.
“Sirius, you know what I’m talking about.”
“No,” Sirius said coldly. “I don’t think that I do. What are we talking about, James?”
James stared at Sirius. “I’m not playing this game with you. Remus has...problems, and as his friends we have to deal with them, help him overcome them. It’s the same thing as the werewolf. You know he’s in a vulnerable position. Don’t make jokes, don't make it any harder for him. Not now, when things are so bad.”
Mistake number three: Sirius held his tongue. Later he would realize this was his last chance to say something, before he and James silently and half-consciously agreed that Sirius would never say anything at all. It wasn’t that Sirius didn’t take risks, and it wasn’t that Sirius ever really cared about the consequences. But this was James, and James was different.
They stared at each other for a moment, and then Sirius turned to leave. He heard James, behind him, curse and slam his hand down on the table.
*
Remus was lying face down on the bed when Sirius arrived back at the flat.
“I’m sorry,” Sirius said, standing in the doorway, unsure whether he was welcome in the bedroom, in the flat. “I can’t tell you how sorry.”
“I know,” Remus said, his voice muffled by the pillow. He sighed. “It’s not just you. It’s everything. It’s Peter. It’s me. I always knew that’s what Peter thought. It was bound to happen somehow.” His voice turned wry. “Though maybe not in such a humiliating way.”
Sirius gathered his courage and sat on the edge of the bed. He reached out to put his hand on Remus’ back, then thought better of it.
“Was that as damning as I thought it was?” Remus asked. “Do they all know now? Lily? James? Alice? The others? I mean, I suppose now they all know about the wolf, that was clear, but about us? Did they take that seriously, what Peter said?”
“I don’t know. James thinks I’m a bastard,” Sirius said. “And he might be right. But I’m not sure what he thinks. Although...” Sirius paused, compelled to tell the full truth. “He thinks you’re compromised. And you need protection.”
Remus rolled over on the bed and looked at Sirius sadly. “Is that how it is?”
Sirius nodded.
“What do you think about Lily and Alice? About Edie?”
“I don’t know,” Sirius said honestly.
”Here’s the thing,” Remus said with a sigh, sitting up against the headboard, pulling his stocking feet underneath him. “I’m being blackmailed. Look. Here.” He reached in a pocket and pulled out a small sheet of parchment that had been rolled and twisted so much that it had lost its shape. Sirius unrolled it gingerly. One sentence was penned across it.
Meet me at the Hog’s Head on Wednesday night at 8:00 if you want to keep your secret.
They sat in silence for a few minutes.
“The irony of it all is that I’m not even sure which secret I need to be worried about.” Remus said, a touch of amusement in his voice.
Sirius smiled. “I always knew someone would run across your collection of romance novels. Very incriminating. I would have hidden them better.”
They laughed. Remus' shoulders relaxed somewhat.
”So,” Remus said after a moment. “I’m thinking about going into hiding. I’m a liability these days. I’ve done all I can do for the Order. Peter hates me, and the others won’t trust me now.”
Sirius opened his mouth to protest but then closed it again.
“We always knew I couldn’t hold out forever. I should have distanced myself from Voldemort's supporters a long time ago. I haven’t learned that much from them recently. It's not worth it, for me or for the Order.
“Who knows what’s going to happen with Lily and Alice,” Remus said, gathering momentum, sounding as if he was beginning to convince himself. “You don’t need me to worry about, too.”
”We could do Fidelius,” Sirius said slowly. “I’ve been researching it, in case Lily or Alice needs to use it.”
“I have another idea,” Remus said.
Next chapter: Turned
Series title: Alignments
Series summary: Friends come together and pull apart under the pressures of the first war with Voldemort.
Series rating: PG-13
Author: magnetic_pole
Word Count: 2500
Day 31: Things That Shouldn't Have Been Said, April 1981
Summary: All they do these days is snipe at one another. Eventually someone's bound to be hit.
Warnings: It’s 1981, folks.
Note: This is the first installment in Part 5: April 1981. Due to the fact that I missed a few days in April, we still have several installments left this week.
Part 5: April 1981
In retrospect, Sirius thought, the whole night had been a mistake. Every part of it. From the beginning. But, if he had to be completely honest with himself, he had to admit he had been a large part of the problem.
They were at a small, half-empty wizarding restaurant in Cardiff, celebrating the wedding engagement of Lily’s roommate from Hogwarts, Hestia Jones. The first sign of things gone wrong, Sirius thought, was the fact that the bride-to-be wasn’t present. Delayed in the Floo, Lily said, but these days that could mean anything, from technical difficulties in the system to the collapse of the Ministry that ran it. True, a year ago Sirius would have welcomed the collapse of the Ministry of Magic; it was archaic and elitist and utterly ineffective at stopping the violence that was now overshadowing their lives. But this year he was exhausted and more cynical; when this Ministry went down it was certain to be replaced by one hand-picked by Voldemort. If indeed Voldemort intended to govern. Sometimes Sirius suspected that he might simply be aiming at chaos. Better to have intermittent Floo service than none, he thought.
The second sign of things gone wrong was the fact that no seemed to care whether the bride-to-be was there or not, and even the slowest drinkers were already on their second or third firewhiskey. Sirius surveyed the table. True, they were not all Hestia’s closest friends--Lily had organized the dinner and asked the usual suspects along--but usually they were a more congenial group than this. James and Lily were seated at one end of the table, bickering over Lily’s schedule and James’ child-minding duties, heads close together. Alice was deep in conversation with Frank but peering over her shoulder suspiciously every few minutes. Peter was shredding the paper label from a Butterbeer bottle with short, twitchy fingers. Where was Susan? At Lily’s perhaps, minding Harry and Neville. Remus was seated next to him, starting morosely into his drink, unusually withdrawn, lost to the outside world. Remus fumbled absently in the pockets of his robes and drew out a packet of Muggle cigarettes.
“Don’t,” Peter said sharply when he realized what Remus was about to do. He set his empty bottle down on the table with a loud clink. “No point in drawing even more attention to ourselves.”
Remus looked up blankly, then started to slip the cigarettes back into his pocket. Sirius looked from Remus to Peter.
“Let them look,” Sirius said scornfully. “It’s not like he doesn’t have friends if someone takes offense at his Muggle habits.”
“Don’t, Sirius,” Remus said in a weary voice. The cigarettes were gone, and he was back to his drink. “All we do these days is bicker.”
There was a point when Sirius would have been ready to defend Remus’ disgusting Muggle habits to the death, but now he hesitated. All right? he asked silently with a quick look and a rueful smile. Remus returned the smile half-heartedly. All right.
“Are we sure that Floo is secure?” Alice asked suddenly from the other end of the table, dropping the pretense of conversation with Frank altogether.
“I checked it twice,” Lily said shortly.
“Anti-Apparation charms?” Alice asked.
“Got it, Alice,” Lily said.
“Still,” Alice said, tight-lipped. “Could check again. Constant vigilance,” she added. Sirius snorted, but Alice hadn’t meant it as a joke.
“You know, if Hestia isn’t here soon I think we should go,” James said. “You know what Moody says about Lily and Alice being in the same spot at the same time.”
“Let’s give it a little while longer, James,” Lily pleaded. She and James fell back into their earlier conversation. Alice watched the Floo, and Frank watched Alice. Peter resumed decimating the bottle labels.
They fell back into a moody silence, broken only by the paper rustle of Peter’s wrappers.
*
Twenty minutes later they were joined by Hestia, who arrived with a dozen apologies and Edie Johnson and two other friends. “Floo problems,” she said regretfully and sat down between Lily and Alice. Lily signaled the house elf for the food.
“The Ministry can’t keep the Floo running,” Sirius said darkly to Remus. The Ministry was good for very little these days, in his opinion. Good thing they’d found the restaurant before the Floo problems began. They could Apparate back home.
“We’re understaffed,” Peter said churlishly looking up from his bottles. “I was on Floo duty myself last week. It’s hard work.”
"Having a hard week, Peter?" Remus asked.
This comment seemed to open a floodgate for Peter, who suddenly began to talk rapidly as dinner appeared--about Floo duties, about his extra hours at the Ministry, about how exhausted he was, about all his Order responsibilities, about his shifty and suspicious assistant, and again about how very tired he was.
His complaints passed by Sirius unremarked. He hated Peter’s incessant complaining, the way he hated James’ tiresome talk about new Ministry directives and Remus’ moody silences and Alice’s obsessive checking and double-checking of the security wards and Lily’s stubborn attempts to keep acting as if life were normal, arranging dinner parties as if anyone really cared whether Hestia Jones got married or not. Sirius scowled. Not that Hestia Jones wasn’t a lovely girl, but everyone was on edge, and this evening was clearly a mistake. He was contemplating the last of the Firewhiskey in his glass when suddenly Peter’s last comment caught his attention.
“You passed out at work? You fell asleep, you mean, or you fainted?” Sirius asked.
Peter looked startled; he clearly hadn’t thought Sirius was paying any attention. “I’m not sure,” he said thoughtfully. “I was there, at my desk, and suddenly everything went black, and I was on the floor. It’s happened twice.”
Remus looked up, suddenly paying attention, too.
“Peter, you know that’s not safe,” Sirius said angrily. “You sign release papers for Azkaban. The last thing we need is for someone to sign a release for the few Death Eaters we’ve managed to convict.”
“I’ve got things under control,” Peter insisted.
“Maybe you should take some time off,” Remus suggested quietly.
“Or quit,” Sirius said. “We could use your help full-time with the Order.”
“I just got promoted,” Peter said, frowning. “Junior Departmental Secretary. I’m not asking for time off now.”
“You’ve got to be careful, Peter,” Remus said mildly.
“I don’t need time off. We’ll all tired,” Peter said quietly but firmly. “I shouldn’t have complained.”
The first mistake. Peter had offered an apology of sorts, Merlin knew how rarely that happened, and Sirius should have backed off. He knew this, even at the time. Remus was ready to move on to a new topic, he could see out of the corner of his eye. But Sirius was tired, and he was angry at Peter’s obstinacy, and he was worried about him, and he couldn’t help himself.
“Peter, it’s dangerous. Ask for a transfer or some time off,” he urged. "Better you step aside now, before something happens.”
“We don’t all have an inheritance to live on, Sirius,” Peter said with a warning note in his voice. “This job is important to me.”
“Well, being Junior Secretary isn’t going to be worth very much if the Death Eaters come for you,” Sirius said. “You’ll be respectable but dead.”
“I’ve got it under control, Sirius!” Peter said, red-faced and angry now.
“It doesn’t sound like it,” Sirius said, but he felt Remus’ elbow in his side, and he closed his mouth before he could say anything else. They finished eating in silence.
*
It was the end of the night, and Hestia was leaning over their end of the table, thanking them for coming. “Where’s Susan?” she asked Peter. “I missed her.”
Peter coughed. “She’s minding the babies. Harry and Neville. Likes to do that kind of thing.”
“Are you two having your own engagement soon?” Hestia asked with a shy smile. “Susan’s always loved babies.”
Peter flushed and looked awkward, but Hestia took that as a yes, gave him a squeeze on the shoulder, and moved on.
There was an awkward silence at their end of the table.
The second mistake. Too tired, too cross, too much to drink, too much frustration with Peter, who could be such a bloody hypocrite at times.
“Make an honest woman of her, Pete, if you care about respectability so much,” Sirius said. It had started off as a joke--a mean one, perhaps--but there was an edge to his voice he hadn’t intended. He realized immediately that he had gone too far: Remus was stepping on his foot so hard that it hurt, and Peter looked as if he’d been slapped.
Peter’s face slowly turned from white to an angry, humiliated pink. “I’m not doing anything as nearly awful as you are,” he said to Sirius in a whisper.
“Peter,” Remus said, intervening. “Calm down. It was a joke. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I do too know what I’m saying,” Peter said, loudly and angrily, suddenly turning his wrath on Remus. “No one listens to me, but I know what you’re doing.” Peter stood up, his face red and his voice rising with anger. “Potter. Control the werewolf. And get your friend Black out of his bed. Before it’s too late.” He Apparated with pop.
Sirius suddenly realized that all eyes were on him and Remus, even some from adjoining tables in the restaurant, and the stillness in the room was deafening. Alice was looking at Remus with large, frightened eyes. Lily looked at Remus, then Sirius, then Remus again. James sat with clenched jaws and shot Sirius a venomous glance. Sirius returned it.
Edie got up abruptly, pulling Hestia and her other friends with her. “Time to go, I think.” They were gone in an instant.
“Remus,” Alice said helplessly, appealing to him. Frank took her by the elbow. “I think...we need to go,” Frank said, pulling Alice up from the table. “Lily...sorry...” They Apparated, as well.
Remus stood up, pale, lips thin and set. “Sirius, ten minutes here to talk to James. After that, our flat.” Sirius swallowed audibly. Remus disappeared.
James’ fists were clenched on the table, and he and Sirius were glaring at one another. Lily touched him gently on the shoulder. “James. Calm down.”
“Go home, Lily. I’ll be there in a moment.” Lily left.
*
When the table was otherwise empty and normal conversation had resumed in the restaurant, James spoke. “You can’t do these kinds of things, Sirius.”
Sirius was silent, sullenly, angrily silent.
“Really, Sirius. This is important. Our friendships. Life and death. You can’t make a joke of them. You’ve got to grow up.”
Sirius looked at him, confused.
”Look, what Peter did just now was wrong, I know, and I’ll talk to him. But I don’t know what you told him to give him that idea. You can’t play games like this. You can’t do this to Remus. It’s not his fault he...” James took a deep breath. “Has the problems that he has.”
“Problems?” Sirius knew his voice had a dangerous edge to it, but he was long past control.
“Sirius, you know what I’m talking about.”
“No,” Sirius said coldly. “I don’t think that I do. What are we talking about, James?”
James stared at Sirius. “I’m not playing this game with you. Remus has...problems, and as his friends we have to deal with them, help him overcome them. It’s the same thing as the werewolf. You know he’s in a vulnerable position. Don’t make jokes, don't make it any harder for him. Not now, when things are so bad.”
Mistake number three: Sirius held his tongue. Later he would realize this was his last chance to say something, before he and James silently and half-consciously agreed that Sirius would never say anything at all. It wasn’t that Sirius didn’t take risks, and it wasn’t that Sirius ever really cared about the consequences. But this was James, and James was different.
They stared at each other for a moment, and then Sirius turned to leave. He heard James, behind him, curse and slam his hand down on the table.
*
Remus was lying face down on the bed when Sirius arrived back at the flat.
“I’m sorry,” Sirius said, standing in the doorway, unsure whether he was welcome in the bedroom, in the flat. “I can’t tell you how sorry.”
“I know,” Remus said, his voice muffled by the pillow. He sighed. “It’s not just you. It’s everything. It’s Peter. It’s me. I always knew that’s what Peter thought. It was bound to happen somehow.” His voice turned wry. “Though maybe not in such a humiliating way.”
Sirius gathered his courage and sat on the edge of the bed. He reached out to put his hand on Remus’ back, then thought better of it.
“Was that as damning as I thought it was?” Remus asked. “Do they all know now? Lily? James? Alice? The others? I mean, I suppose now they all know about the wolf, that was clear, but about us? Did they take that seriously, what Peter said?”
“I don’t know. James thinks I’m a bastard,” Sirius said. “And he might be right. But I’m not sure what he thinks. Although...” Sirius paused, compelled to tell the full truth. “He thinks you’re compromised. And you need protection.”
Remus rolled over on the bed and looked at Sirius sadly. “Is that how it is?”
Sirius nodded.
“What do you think about Lily and Alice? About Edie?”
“I don’t know,” Sirius said honestly.
”Here’s the thing,” Remus said with a sigh, sitting up against the headboard, pulling his stocking feet underneath him. “I’m being blackmailed. Look. Here.” He reached in a pocket and pulled out a small sheet of parchment that had been rolled and twisted so much that it had lost its shape. Sirius unrolled it gingerly. One sentence was penned across it.
Meet me at the Hog’s Head on Wednesday night at 8:00 if you want to keep your secret.
They sat in silence for a few minutes.
“The irony of it all is that I’m not even sure which secret I need to be worried about.” Remus said, a touch of amusement in his voice.
Sirius smiled. “I always knew someone would run across your collection of romance novels. Very incriminating. I would have hidden them better.”
They laughed. Remus' shoulders relaxed somewhat.
”So,” Remus said after a moment. “I’m thinking about going into hiding. I’m a liability these days. I’ve done all I can do for the Order. Peter hates me, and the others won’t trust me now.”
Sirius opened his mouth to protest but then closed it again.
“We always knew I couldn’t hold out forever. I should have distanced myself from Voldemort's supporters a long time ago. I haven’t learned that much from them recently. It's not worth it, for me or for the Order.
“Who knows what’s going to happen with Lily and Alice,” Remus said, gathering momentum, sounding as if he was beginning to convince himself. “You don’t need me to worry about, too.”
”We could do Fidelius,” Sirius said slowly. “I’ve been researching it, in case Lily or Alice needs to use it.”
“I have another idea,” Remus said.
Next chapter: Turned