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The Much-Condensed Life of Sirius Black [Harry Potter]
Title: The Much-Condensed Life of Sirius Black
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Sirius (Gen)
Summary: Takes place the night of Cedric's death, in the Hospital Wing of Hogwarts. Sirius ponders his priorities. Or rather, his priority-- he only has one.
A/N: Super-thanks to brighty18 for beta-ing a newbie.
Word Count: 2992
The Much-Condensed Life of Sirius Black
I watched him sleep. I didn't think I could have rested had I wanted to, and I did not want to. My whole life had shrunk down to this, lost all other meaning. It had never had much meaning to begin with, but I found my way in friends and in causes worth fighting for. It started with my first cause, both a cause and a friend: Remus. I’d never known anyone who should be treated more kindly. Even without anyone knowing his secret he was used, never seemed to stick up for himself. Years later I came to understand that he believed it was the only way to make himself valuable to others, let them take advantage of him. We tried to teach him otherwise. Even friends will use each other, but no one took advantage of Remus, not even of his position as Prefect. That, he gave to us willingly. I pushed past the fog of missing, broken, half-mended happy memories to the one I sought:
A Slytherin named Eliot Haimes took Remus's homework, recopied it, and turned it in as his own, right in front of most of the class. It was in History of Magic, so he didn't fret about being noticed by a professor who preferred not notice the students as much as possible. Once the work was graded, though, Remus was in trouble. Professor Binns didn't ask who had cheated off of whom and he probably didn't care in the slightest, but he issued detention to them both. A week's worth of detention. I had no reason to notice or care at the time, but this all occurred two days before the full moon. Moony was given a hard, physical job moving in crates of new books and editions for the library. Dumbledore would have rescued him soon, with the moon impending, but we didn't know that. Remus looked sick by the second day, so James stood up in the middle of History. He cleared his throat and all eyes turned to him as he declared the sins of Eliot Haimes and decreed Remus' innocence. Professor Binns had the audacity to suggest that the Remus, the quiet lad with no friends to defend him, should have stood up to Haimes, who had four Slytherin thugs around him at all times (three of whom were either closely or distantly related to me, I had noted with unease). I remember my frustrations mounting and, before I knew it, I was on my feet. I can't remember precisely what I said, but I know it was passionate and I gesticulated a lot and I threw a book at some distant cousin. I remember that very clearly because Professor Binns' keen idea was that I could do Remus's detentions instead of him. I quite was happy with the idea and I said so to the room of mixed Gryffindor/Slytherin first years.
Remus? He smiled. I think it may have been the first time I'd seen his smile. That night in the common room Remus told us that Haimes had been bothering him since the start of the term. Prongs ranted about injustice, Wormtail agreed with him, and I - I remember this flawlessly - I said this talk could get us nowhere; we needed to have a plan. I'd been awfully quiet since being sorted two weeks earlier. I knew I'd been singled out and shepherded towards a path that could only lead me to familial estrangement. But when I saw the fiery glint in James' dark eyes, the way he leaned over the table in response to my idea, I knew why I counted him a friend. I smiled, and James' return smile was decidedly more devious than even my own.
Remus was watching the rest of us intently. It was natural he would object to any prank. When I shifted my smile back to him, though, he said, "I do know he goes to bed earlier than most other Slytherins, and that he's terrible at potions, but I don't know much else about him." He looked, well... He looked slightly terrified to be truthful.
"He's terrible at everything," I muttered before sitting back to think.
It would be our first prank together. That was how fate was born one night in the Gryffindor common room.
Molly Weasley was sound asleep in her chair, slumped back and making uncomfortable-sounding gurgling noises in the back of her throat. The older Weasley boy had taken an empty bed. Ron and Hermione were in piles of blankets on the floor next to me. They'd fought that hard-edged slumber that comes with the slackening of adrenaline until Mrs. Weasley and the older boy were asleep. They'd gathered some blankets off a couple empty beds and dropped them on the floor. I'd watched them, wishing they would go to sleep. They looked nearly as tired as Harry.
"Will he be alright?" Hermione whispered. Her face was contorted in worry. I thumped my tail against the floor and nodded. She nodded back and settled on the ground.
Ron was quiet for a great long while. Hermione was starting to drift to sleep. I nearly jumped when Ron finally spoke. I'd thought the boy was dropping off as well.
"You know, I thought... I mean, I didn't really think it, but I felt like Harry just wanted to be famous. More famous, I mean. By having his name drawn out of the cup." He paused again. "I didn't talk to him all first term." That did explain the mood Harry's letters had taken at that time. He'd seemed so miserable. I could read between those lines easily enough.
"I'm so stupid," Ron moaned, leaning his head against the wall. "It's just, I've never been famous at all. I mean, half the time I wonder if my own family can remember who I am with so many people around." I thumped my tail again to let him know I was listening and flicked an amused glance at Molly. "But Harry's famous for all the wrong reasons. I'd much rather be completely unknown than attacked near most every year at school. And on top of that to not have any family and have to live with those foul Muggles Dumbledore leaves him with." Ron looked up at me for the first time. "I mean, they're really awful to him. They don't hardly feed him or anything. I can't imagine what it was like, all those years. He's got this fat pig of a cousin, Dudley. Merlin, if I had to live there I'd run away. I guess Harry did run away summer before last, didn't he? We'll try to get him back this summer. I know he doesn't want to go back there." Ron sighed.
I did know some of this. Not, perhaps, this much, though again, I'd learned to read between the lines. I wished so badly that I could offer Harry a home. (On the heels of this, I wished I could have offered Harry a home to grow up in and a place to be a boy, and on the heels of that was always the last wish: that I could offer Harry a past in which I had been the Secret Keeper and though I'd be dead, James and Lily would be here in the hospital wing. Not true. Harry wouldn't even need the hospital wing.) I wondered briefly if Remus would be up to taking him for the summer, but I knew he would refuse. Remus was more afraid of himself than anyone who knew him was of him. He always had been. Then again, Moony had never met the Wolf where I knew its temperament inside and out, knew what it would and would not do where Moony didn't. Moony would either not believe me or not understand if I try to explain that Harry smelled like James smelled like Stag smelled like Pack, and while the scent was not a strong one, it was enough of one that the Wolf would never break by Padfoot for the boy. Well, not unless the Wolf felt threatened, like that night when Wormtail-- But that was my point exactly. I understood the Wolf, better than James or Peter had for the fact that I, too, could think like it and understand its most subtle body language.
I guessed none of that mattered, though. Dumbledore seemed strangely insistent that Harry let his relatives lock him in a room with bars on the windows and no food.
Ron was yawning and I pushed some more of the blanket towards him. "Thanks," he muttered. "Goodnight." Without another word he curled up on the cold stone floor and fell asleep.
I, alone, was awake. I walked around the bed so that I was between Harry and the door. It was a useless precaution; anyone wanting him badly enough could easily circumvent the door. Still, it made me feel better. And then I just... watched him. My whole life had shrunk down to this, lost all other meaning. I had no job, no home, no safety. I had spent twelve years in Azkaban trying to dismiss my nagging worries about Harry, and never successfully. When I escaped, many people were convinced that I was obsessed with Harry, that I wanted to kill him. They were half right. I had nothing, and no reason to be free at all except for this.
"Lily and I have talked about it, what do you think about being a godfather?"
"Do you think that's such a good idea? I'm a good authority figure, aren't I?" I chuckled at the idea of setting rules or-- Merlin save me-- enforcing them.
"It's an honorific, Sirius. I have no intention of up and dying."
"Well, in that case…" I laughed.
"I do want a promise though." James was suddenly very serious.
"Name it, then." Though this was Prongs, and I didn't need to hear it to agree to it.
"The person we choose to be Harry's godparent... You'd, you know, have to take care of him if-- I mean, really take care of him. Like we would if we were there."
"Of course. I'm hurt you think you had to say so." It was not a joke.
James never mentioned it again. When times grew darker and things more uncertain, he never confirmed it, he never reminded me of my promise. I needed no reminder. He needed no reassurance. We'd set the deal in something more permanent than stone.
And yet, I'd failed, hadn't I? I'd been framed and taken to Azkaban where I could think at length about the last wishes of James and Lily and how I could never fulfill them. I would be lying to say I hadn't become obsessed. I was fixated enough to escape when danger changed from a paranoid fear in the back of my mind to a present threat in the halls of Hogwarts.
James and Lily had died for him, and I too would have done. Would do, still.
I laid my head on the side of Harry's bed. Prongs had been like a brother to me - more of a brother than my own, anyway - and this was his little baby boy. I'd seen him the day after he was born.
Harry was sleeping every time I checked in on them. We joked that Harry was avoiding me. He would wave his arms in slumber and I said he was dreaming of being a great wizard.
Lily answered, "Or else he's going to be the conductor of a symphony."
James responded with an affection nearing reverence, "We shall have to see, won't we? He is his own man."
"Very small man then." I reached out to touch his hand. I could not get over the impossible softness of his skin.
James laughed. "I wonder every minute who he will turn out to be. Have children, Sirius. There's nothing in the world like having a son."
Harry's hands flicked and moved in his sleep as though not a minute had passed between those moments in the days after he was born and this dark day fourteen years later. Unexpectedly, Harry's twitching hands found my head. Harry's fingers curled through my fur, burying deep in my coat, pulling with uncomfortable strength. I could not complain. I may never have children, but this boy - this moment - it was close enough to touch the sensation. As long as he could cause me pain I knew he was alive and well, and my world had shrunk down to that need alone.
The vow James had asked of me was, it seemed, entirely unnecessary. There was instinct here, an ancient power, a high magic. I loved him. I adored him. I loved his pride and his recklessness and his intellect and his unbelievable courage and the way he tried to protect and take care of me. I was so proud of who he had become. I thought that James would have died of pride if he had lived. In that moment I felt that not even Voldemort could have gotten through me to Harry. My love was too consuming, my wrath was too hot, my heartache over my lost friends still seared too keenly. We might have dark times ahead, but I would see to it that they were not as dark for Harry as they could otherwise be.
And afterwards, I think, a vacation would be the right course of action. Ron and Hermione could come too. No doubt they would love to see the haunted Incan ruins of Peru, or take a trip down to Atlantis to hear the mer-sirens that had been the city's ultimate downfall. The catacombs of Paris had exceptionally interesting curses and ghosts. Harry should love that. His parents had honeymooned there. Paris, not the catacombs, though no doubt James would have done had Lily let him.
I spent the rest of my sleepless night planning the vacation in my mind. Even if it were never to pass, I felt better thinking it would come, visualizing an end to this madness. I wondered if Harry had a girlfriend and automatically added a faceless fifth to our little traveling troupe. I did not dare to hope enough to add a sixth.
Later that night, after Dumbledore arrived and we'd had the harrowing confrontation with Cornelius Fudge (a man who lets Death Eaters walk free, imprisons his strongest allies, and disregards the frankest of warnings) Dumbledore sent me to assemble what I considered a small army: The Order. The task was to locate and round up the group of people - the surviving members, anyway - who’d helped in the fight fifteen years ago. I spared a thought for their faces when I turned up at their doors. Would I have to withstand more people, friends and allies, accusing me of James and Lily's deaths? Could they be convinced as easily as Remus of my innocence? It didn't matter. I'd figure it out. I knew I was strong. If Dementors couldn't break me, the mistrust of my friends was powerless against me.
When Dumbledore asked me to go, Harry,tired enough to have passed beyond pride, sputtered, "but..." That one sound had more effect on me than I could credit. I soothed Harry. I would see him again and he would be safe. Dumbledore wouldn't dare send me if this was in doubt, and now that the real Moody was restored to his post, I was more sure of Harry's security than ever.
I did learn something about myself in that one word, though. Where Dementors and distrust and violence and starvation had failed to break me, one small word nearly did. Harry. I'd lost the boy once already by getting myself put out of commission. I knew it was my job to make sure it didn't happen again. Last time...
I was terrified that Voldemort was coming back for Harry. I was shaken to my core, with understanding that this was all my fault. When Hagrid refused to hand the boy over, I understood. They blamed me-- everyone would blame me. And everyone had thought I was the Secret Keeper, so they would blame me for more than I was guilty of, but maybe that was best. I was as guilty as if I had cast the Unforgivable Curse myself.
"At least take my bike." I could barely stand to part with it; it was the symbol of my freedom. But I wouldn't need that anymore, would I? I doubted I'd have freedom long unless I could find and catch Peter.
"Are you sure? I know you're right attached--"
"Take it! Go. Quickly."
"Well, alright."
"Take... take care of him." My voice shook.
"No harm'll come to Harry while Dumbledore is watching."
I nodded as my old school gamekeeper took to the sky with my bike and my godson. I knew in that minute that everything I had planned, had hoped for and lived for, had changed.
And if I'm honest with myself, there's only a small part of my mind that wants to prevent Voldemort from rising to power again for the sake of the wizarding world, lot of good it's done me. The larger part is only willing to wage this war in order to keep Harry safe. He never will be truly safe as long as the Dark Lord lives. Finally, I can help him.
And maybe it's my ego - people do like to say it's well-endowed - but I think that Voldemort would have done better to fight the entire wizarding world and to have left me and mine out of it, because now his only path to success lies through Sirius Black. And I am not moving.
---
A/N2: You are reading this at my brand-spanking-new fic community, but I wouldn't recommend watching it yet as I plan to transfer all my fics here and your friend's page may get busy with them.
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Sirius (Gen)
Summary: Takes place the night of Cedric's death, in the Hospital Wing of Hogwarts. Sirius ponders his priorities. Or rather, his priority-- he only has one.
A/N: Super-thanks to brighty18 for beta-ing a newbie.
Word Count: 2992
The Much-Condensed Life of Sirius Black
I watched him sleep. I didn't think I could have rested had I wanted to, and I did not want to. My whole life had shrunk down to this, lost all other meaning. It had never had much meaning to begin with, but I found my way in friends and in causes worth fighting for. It started with my first cause, both a cause and a friend: Remus. I’d never known anyone who should be treated more kindly. Even without anyone knowing his secret he was used, never seemed to stick up for himself. Years later I came to understand that he believed it was the only way to make himself valuable to others, let them take advantage of him. We tried to teach him otherwise. Even friends will use each other, but no one took advantage of Remus, not even of his position as Prefect. That, he gave to us willingly. I pushed past the fog of missing, broken, half-mended happy memories to the one I sought:
A Slytherin named Eliot Haimes took Remus's homework, recopied it, and turned it in as his own, right in front of most of the class. It was in History of Magic, so he didn't fret about being noticed by a professor who preferred not notice the students as much as possible. Once the work was graded, though, Remus was in trouble. Professor Binns didn't ask who had cheated off of whom and he probably didn't care in the slightest, but he issued detention to them both. A week's worth of detention. I had no reason to notice or care at the time, but this all occurred two days before the full moon. Moony was given a hard, physical job moving in crates of new books and editions for the library. Dumbledore would have rescued him soon, with the moon impending, but we didn't know that. Remus looked sick by the second day, so James stood up in the middle of History. He cleared his throat and all eyes turned to him as he declared the sins of Eliot Haimes and decreed Remus' innocence. Professor Binns had the audacity to suggest that the Remus, the quiet lad with no friends to defend him, should have stood up to Haimes, who had four Slytherin thugs around him at all times (three of whom were either closely or distantly related to me, I had noted with unease). I remember my frustrations mounting and, before I knew it, I was on my feet. I can't remember precisely what I said, but I know it was passionate and I gesticulated a lot and I threw a book at some distant cousin. I remember that very clearly because Professor Binns' keen idea was that I could do Remus's detentions instead of him. I quite was happy with the idea and I said so to the room of mixed Gryffindor/Slytherin first years.
Remus? He smiled. I think it may have been the first time I'd seen his smile. That night in the common room Remus told us that Haimes had been bothering him since the start of the term. Prongs ranted about injustice, Wormtail agreed with him, and I - I remember this flawlessly - I said this talk could get us nowhere; we needed to have a plan. I'd been awfully quiet since being sorted two weeks earlier. I knew I'd been singled out and shepherded towards a path that could only lead me to familial estrangement. But when I saw the fiery glint in James' dark eyes, the way he leaned over the table in response to my idea, I knew why I counted him a friend. I smiled, and James' return smile was decidedly more devious than even my own.
Remus was watching the rest of us intently. It was natural he would object to any prank. When I shifted my smile back to him, though, he said, "I do know he goes to bed earlier than most other Slytherins, and that he's terrible at potions, but I don't know much else about him." He looked, well... He looked slightly terrified to be truthful.
"He's terrible at everything," I muttered before sitting back to think.
It would be our first prank together. That was how fate was born one night in the Gryffindor common room.
Molly Weasley was sound asleep in her chair, slumped back and making uncomfortable-sounding gurgling noises in the back of her throat. The older Weasley boy had taken an empty bed. Ron and Hermione were in piles of blankets on the floor next to me. They'd fought that hard-edged slumber that comes with the slackening of adrenaline until Mrs. Weasley and the older boy were asleep. They'd gathered some blankets off a couple empty beds and dropped them on the floor. I'd watched them, wishing they would go to sleep. They looked nearly as tired as Harry.
"Will he be alright?" Hermione whispered. Her face was contorted in worry. I thumped my tail against the floor and nodded. She nodded back and settled on the ground.
Ron was quiet for a great long while. Hermione was starting to drift to sleep. I nearly jumped when Ron finally spoke. I'd thought the boy was dropping off as well.
"You know, I thought... I mean, I didn't really think it, but I felt like Harry just wanted to be famous. More famous, I mean. By having his name drawn out of the cup." He paused again. "I didn't talk to him all first term." That did explain the mood Harry's letters had taken at that time. He'd seemed so miserable. I could read between those lines easily enough.
"I'm so stupid," Ron moaned, leaning his head against the wall. "It's just, I've never been famous at all. I mean, half the time I wonder if my own family can remember who I am with so many people around." I thumped my tail again to let him know I was listening and flicked an amused glance at Molly. "But Harry's famous for all the wrong reasons. I'd much rather be completely unknown than attacked near most every year at school. And on top of that to not have any family and have to live with those foul Muggles Dumbledore leaves him with." Ron looked up at me for the first time. "I mean, they're really awful to him. They don't hardly feed him or anything. I can't imagine what it was like, all those years. He's got this fat pig of a cousin, Dudley. Merlin, if I had to live there I'd run away. I guess Harry did run away summer before last, didn't he? We'll try to get him back this summer. I know he doesn't want to go back there." Ron sighed.
I did know some of this. Not, perhaps, this much, though again, I'd learned to read between the lines. I wished so badly that I could offer Harry a home. (On the heels of this, I wished I could have offered Harry a home to grow up in and a place to be a boy, and on the heels of that was always the last wish: that I could offer Harry a past in which I had been the Secret Keeper and though I'd be dead, James and Lily would be here in the hospital wing. Not true. Harry wouldn't even need the hospital wing.) I wondered briefly if Remus would be up to taking him for the summer, but I knew he would refuse. Remus was more afraid of himself than anyone who knew him was of him. He always had been. Then again, Moony had never met the Wolf where I knew its temperament inside and out, knew what it would and would not do where Moony didn't. Moony would either not believe me or not understand if I try to explain that Harry smelled like James smelled like Stag smelled like Pack, and while the scent was not a strong one, it was enough of one that the Wolf would never break by Padfoot for the boy. Well, not unless the Wolf felt threatened, like that night when Wormtail-- But that was my point exactly. I understood the Wolf, better than James or Peter had for the fact that I, too, could think like it and understand its most subtle body language.
I guessed none of that mattered, though. Dumbledore seemed strangely insistent that Harry let his relatives lock him in a room with bars on the windows and no food.
Ron was yawning and I pushed some more of the blanket towards him. "Thanks," he muttered. "Goodnight." Without another word he curled up on the cold stone floor and fell asleep.
I, alone, was awake. I walked around the bed so that I was between Harry and the door. It was a useless precaution; anyone wanting him badly enough could easily circumvent the door. Still, it made me feel better. And then I just... watched him. My whole life had shrunk down to this, lost all other meaning. I had no job, no home, no safety. I had spent twelve years in Azkaban trying to dismiss my nagging worries about Harry, and never successfully. When I escaped, many people were convinced that I was obsessed with Harry, that I wanted to kill him. They were half right. I had nothing, and no reason to be free at all except for this.
"Lily and I have talked about it, what do you think about being a godfather?"
"Do you think that's such a good idea? I'm a good authority figure, aren't I?" I chuckled at the idea of setting rules or-- Merlin save me-- enforcing them.
"It's an honorific, Sirius. I have no intention of up and dying."
"Well, in that case…" I laughed.
"I do want a promise though." James was suddenly very serious.
"Name it, then." Though this was Prongs, and I didn't need to hear it to agree to it.
"The person we choose to be Harry's godparent... You'd, you know, have to take care of him if-- I mean, really take care of him. Like we would if we were there."
"Of course. I'm hurt you think you had to say so." It was not a joke.
James never mentioned it again. When times grew darker and things more uncertain, he never confirmed it, he never reminded me of my promise. I needed no reminder. He needed no reassurance. We'd set the deal in something more permanent than stone.
And yet, I'd failed, hadn't I? I'd been framed and taken to Azkaban where I could think at length about the last wishes of James and Lily and how I could never fulfill them. I would be lying to say I hadn't become obsessed. I was fixated enough to escape when danger changed from a paranoid fear in the back of my mind to a present threat in the halls of Hogwarts.
James and Lily had died for him, and I too would have done. Would do, still.
I laid my head on the side of Harry's bed. Prongs had been like a brother to me - more of a brother than my own, anyway - and this was his little baby boy. I'd seen him the day after he was born.
Harry was sleeping every time I checked in on them. We joked that Harry was avoiding me. He would wave his arms in slumber and I said he was dreaming of being a great wizard.
Lily answered, "Or else he's going to be the conductor of a symphony."
James responded with an affection nearing reverence, "We shall have to see, won't we? He is his own man."
"Very small man then." I reached out to touch his hand. I could not get over the impossible softness of his skin.
James laughed. "I wonder every minute who he will turn out to be. Have children, Sirius. There's nothing in the world like having a son."
Harry's hands flicked and moved in his sleep as though not a minute had passed between those moments in the days after he was born and this dark day fourteen years later. Unexpectedly, Harry's twitching hands found my head. Harry's fingers curled through my fur, burying deep in my coat, pulling with uncomfortable strength. I could not complain. I may never have children, but this boy - this moment - it was close enough to touch the sensation. As long as he could cause me pain I knew he was alive and well, and my world had shrunk down to that need alone.
The vow James had asked of me was, it seemed, entirely unnecessary. There was instinct here, an ancient power, a high magic. I loved him. I adored him. I loved his pride and his recklessness and his intellect and his unbelievable courage and the way he tried to protect and take care of me. I was so proud of who he had become. I thought that James would have died of pride if he had lived. In that moment I felt that not even Voldemort could have gotten through me to Harry. My love was too consuming, my wrath was too hot, my heartache over my lost friends still seared too keenly. We might have dark times ahead, but I would see to it that they were not as dark for Harry as they could otherwise be.
And afterwards, I think, a vacation would be the right course of action. Ron and Hermione could come too. No doubt they would love to see the haunted Incan ruins of Peru, or take a trip down to Atlantis to hear the mer-sirens that had been the city's ultimate downfall. The catacombs of Paris had exceptionally interesting curses and ghosts. Harry should love that. His parents had honeymooned there. Paris, not the catacombs, though no doubt James would have done had Lily let him.
I spent the rest of my sleepless night planning the vacation in my mind. Even if it were never to pass, I felt better thinking it would come, visualizing an end to this madness. I wondered if Harry had a girlfriend and automatically added a faceless fifth to our little traveling troupe. I did not dare to hope enough to add a sixth.
Later that night, after Dumbledore arrived and we'd had the harrowing confrontation with Cornelius Fudge (a man who lets Death Eaters walk free, imprisons his strongest allies, and disregards the frankest of warnings) Dumbledore sent me to assemble what I considered a small army: The Order. The task was to locate and round up the group of people - the surviving members, anyway - who’d helped in the fight fifteen years ago. I spared a thought for their faces when I turned up at their doors. Would I have to withstand more people, friends and allies, accusing me of James and Lily's deaths? Could they be convinced as easily as Remus of my innocence? It didn't matter. I'd figure it out. I knew I was strong. If Dementors couldn't break me, the mistrust of my friends was powerless against me.
When Dumbledore asked me to go, Harry,tired enough to have passed beyond pride, sputtered, "but..." That one sound had more effect on me than I could credit. I soothed Harry. I would see him again and he would be safe. Dumbledore wouldn't dare send me if this was in doubt, and now that the real Moody was restored to his post, I was more sure of Harry's security than ever.
I did learn something about myself in that one word, though. Where Dementors and distrust and violence and starvation had failed to break me, one small word nearly did. Harry. I'd lost the boy once already by getting myself put out of commission. I knew it was my job to make sure it didn't happen again. Last time...
I was terrified that Voldemort was coming back for Harry. I was shaken to my core, with understanding that this was all my fault. When Hagrid refused to hand the boy over, I understood. They blamed me-- everyone would blame me. And everyone had thought I was the Secret Keeper, so they would blame me for more than I was guilty of, but maybe that was best. I was as guilty as if I had cast the Unforgivable Curse myself.
"At least take my bike." I could barely stand to part with it; it was the symbol of my freedom. But I wouldn't need that anymore, would I? I doubted I'd have freedom long unless I could find and catch Peter.
"Are you sure? I know you're right attached--"
"Take it! Go. Quickly."
"Well, alright."
"Take... take care of him." My voice shook.
"No harm'll come to Harry while Dumbledore is watching."
I nodded as my old school gamekeeper took to the sky with my bike and my godson. I knew in that minute that everything I had planned, had hoped for and lived for, had changed.
And if I'm honest with myself, there's only a small part of my mind that wants to prevent Voldemort from rising to power again for the sake of the wizarding world, lot of good it's done me. The larger part is only willing to wage this war in order to keep Harry safe. He never will be truly safe as long as the Dark Lord lives. Finally, I can help him.
And maybe it's my ego - people do like to say it's well-endowed - but I think that Voldemort would have done better to fight the entire wizarding world and to have left me and mine out of it, because now his only path to success lies through Sirius Black. And I am not moving.
---
A/N2: You are reading this at my brand-spanking-new fic community, but I wouldn't recommend watching it yet as I plan to transfer all my fics here and your friend's page may get busy with them.