History and Humanity
Sirius had been to Small Heath twice before in his life.
The first time, he had been sixteen and recently freed from his family. Sirius had been so elated to be living with the Potters, granted a week to stay with Remus and his family, that nothing had bothered him.
The second time, Sirius had been eighteen. It was the day after Sirius finished Hogwarts and Sirius had been angry. Remus was preparing to go undercover with a pack of werewolves and Sirius didn’t want him to go. They had fought about it and when Sirius saw Remus’s ‘family’, he had been furious.
“What do you want?” Sirius had been leaning on the back of the building where Remus’s flat was and he scowled at the boy staring at him.
Remus’s mate, Arthur, was a riot. Arthur was a bit serious, but he liked to fight and drink so Sirius and he got along just fine. John Shelby was a prankster at heart and Sirius took to him like nothing.
It was bloody Tommy Shelby that Sirius couldn’t stand. Even when he had been thirteen, there was something strange about Tommy, something that made Sirius want to lash out at him.
Maybe it was his eyes, too big and strange. It might have been the way he was small and quiet and reminded Sirius too much of his own younger brother.
It could have been his clothes, the ratty black trousers with patches on the knees. Tommy looked thin, unwell, but damn if he didn’t act as if he were the Prince of his town.
Mostly, Sirius was sure his dislike was from the way that Tommy looked at Remus as if he had a claim on Remus, some claim that Sirius couldn’t touch.
“You’re letting him leave?” Tommy asked, staring at Sirius with his large eyes that were too light, too blue. They made Sirius feel strangely exposed, as if Tommy could see clear inside of him and wasn’t very impressed.
“Who?” Sirius had been smoking and just because he could, he didn’t admit he knew precisely what Tommy meant until he took another drag off his smoke. “Remus?” Sirius scoffed. “You think it’s a game, kid? There’s a bloody war happening. I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
Not that Sirius understood, not really. Remus went on about how he was the only one in the Order who could go underground and keep an ear open for news from the werewolves. The largest pack that Dumbledore knew of were in Brunswick… and what would happen if Remus were hurt? If he were - were killed?
Sirius wasn’t daft, he knew what the war would cost them all. Sirius believed enough in the vision of a world without purebloods sneering in the streets at muggleborns that he was eager to sign up to fight for it. Sirius wanted to one day face his parents and let them see that he was the one who had been right all along.
Sirius joined the right side, the good side.
Sirius was good.
Remus though… Remus had no reason to go and Sirius didn’t like it. Remus talked about loyalty and repaying his debt, but his education wasn’t worth his bloody life.
Stupid stubborn Gryffindor.
“If he gets killed…” Tommy stepped up to Sirius and he was bloody short for fifteen, scrawny too. Sirius could look down his nose at him, though he felt that Tommy considered them equals.
“I will kill you,” Tommy whispered to Sirius, more threatening than dramatic. “I will find you, and I will kill you.”
“Mate.” Sirius scoffed again and flicked his cigarette away, too uneasy to even burn the chill of Tommy’s threat away with the rush of nicotine. He fixed Tommy with a smirk, a mask that was self-deprecating and hate-filled.
“If he gets killed, I’ll be the next one in the grave.”
Sirius thought that it would be himself and Remus who died in the war. If Remus died, Sirius would go out in a blaze of glory in the middle of a battle against death eaters.
James, Lily, and Peter would survive… Sirius had been so sure of everything that day.
It was only Tommy’s eyes that mocked Sirius and warned him that he might not know everything.
Tommy Shelby’s eyes, as Sirius could see, hadn’t changed.
In fact, nothing in the godforsaken town of Small Heath seemed to have changed at all.
Sirius had journeyed quite a ways to get there, once he realized that he had been warded away from apparation. It had been Sirius’s first guess on where Remus would go, where he would take Harry.
And wasn’t that a lark? Remus Lupin had kidnapped Harry Potter. That was the story Sirius heard in Hogsmeade - that the defense professor ran off with the Potter boy. When Sirius snuck on the school grounds, it was all but confirmed by Harry’s friends.
The two of them, the girl with the cat and the boy with Wormtail, had been walking near the lake with their heads bent together. Sirius dared to sneak up and follow them, wagging his tail as the lovable stray he was, and heard them writing a letter together.
“Tell him Oliver’s spitting mad,” the boy - a Weasley - said cheerfully.
“Ronald!” The girl put the quill she held behind an ear so she could smack the boy. “Harry might be upset! Or scared! Or - or being tortured!”
“Oh, come off it,” the boy scoffed. “Does Lupin really scream ‘I torture kids’ to you?”
Sirius woofed in quiet agreement. It would have been a sight to see, Remus working as a professor. Remus was crass, crude, cunning when he wanted to be… but Remus adored kids. Even with as much slack as Sirius and James gave Remus, it had only made sense for Remus to be the one given the prefect badge.
Though Sirius always wondered what made Dumbledore choose James as Head Boy… was it because of James’s top marks in sixth year or the battle where he defended a group of students from Voldemort when he had attacked Diagon Alley over the summer?
Remus didn’t seem hurt any, he told Sirius he was happy to not have as many responsibilities in their seventh year and James was happy to work with Lily. It had all worked out, Sirius just thought Remus had deserved the badge more.
“You never know,” the girl said, trying to sound more wise than Sirius was sure any third year was. “I think…” The girl suddenly looked around and Sirius began quickly sniffing at a pile of snow, not really able to hide his black fur in the white snowfall that covered the grounds. Satisfied there weren’t any humans that she knew of nearby, she leaned toward the boy again.
“I wouldn’t have said anything, because I thought Professor Lupin was quite kind really, but… I think he’s a werewolf,” the girl whispered quickly. “Remember our lesson on boggarts? We thought his boggart had been a crystal ball? I think it was the moon.”
The boy’s eyes bugged out and Sirius wanted to smack him for the sudden fear on his face.
“But then he’d…” The boy went pale, just a smattering of freckles on milky skin. “Blimey, Hermione, I reckon you’re right! He’s always getting sick, remember?”
“Exactly.” The girl nodded and Sirius barely kept from snarling. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with werewolves, it’s not as if Professor Lupin chose to be one, I’m sure, but he did choose to take our friend.”
And wouldn’t Sirius love to know why?
So Sirius traveled to Remus’s hometown, deciding to get two things out of the trip. Most importantly, Sirius wanted to know that Harry was alright. If Harry had written to his friends, then he was fine. Sirius was also hoping that if he left Hogwarts for a few days, Peter might assume Sirius left to follow Remus.
If Peter didn’t run in the twelve years Sirius had been in Azkaban, he wouldn’t run then either. Peter might assume that he was safe, that Harry and Remus had been Sirius’s targets all along, and then return to the Weasley boy’s pocket.
Which would be when Sirius would catch him.
In the meantime, Sirius had taken to skirting around the edges of Small Heath. There was a quiet buzz to the ground, nothing Sirius would recognize or sense on two legs. It was subtle, but Sirius had been sure there were wards in place.
It meant that Remus was there, of that Sirius was certain.
Sirius spent two days padding along the edges of the town, waiting to find Remus or Harry. Typically, the first person Sirius would find would be Tommy Shelby. Sirius was sniffing along a trail, thinking it might have been a trail Harry walked before, when he found an old barn. It wasn’t anything fancy, but Sirius could smell horses inside.
Where there were horses, there were often rats. Sirius needed to eat and he didn’t dare transform, which meant rats were better than nothing.
Sirius let himself in the barn, sliding between a few loose boards, and his tail automatically wagged when he picked up a familiar smell. It was Harry and James and made Sirius want to track the source immediately.
There was someone in a stall, but Sirius ignored them since he could tell it wasn’t Harry or Remus. Sirius focused on the smell and followed it up a rickety set of steps. There was a loft, a few bales of straw, and some sort of equipment Sirius didn’t recognize.
Sirius whined when he couldn’t find the source of the smell. It was definitely a Harry-smell, but he wasn’t there. Sirius snuffled around and was ready to begin barking when his nose hit something hard.
Something hard and invisible.
Sirius bared his teeth and carefully grabbed the edge of the fabric he could feel, if not see. As Sirius pulled on it, a large wooden crate came in view.
Why the hell was James’s - Harry’s - cloak being used to hide a box? Sirius kept a corner of the cloak in his mouth and tried to sniff at the crate. It didn’t smell like anything familiar, maybe metal?
Sirius wasn’t able to investigate much more than that before footsteps could be heard running up the stairs.
“Oi! Bad dog!”
Sirius turned and - he could have been sixteen, eighteen, again - there stood Tommy bloody Shelby.
Partly because he could and partly because Sirius had never liked Tommy, Sirius growled at him. It felt good, getting some aggression out and seeing Tommy’s eyes widen the slightest amount. Bastard always seemed so emotionless, unless Remus was involved.
Even with as much time as had passed, Tommy still looked like he had as a boy. Blue eyes that were too cool, too cold. Pale skin. Sirius thought he could see a few light scars on his face - served him right.
The satisfaction of growling at Tommy only lasted for a second before Tommy reached in his coat pocket and pulled out a gun. Sirius had seen guns before, he had seen Remus use them and listened to him rant about how the Order should ‘blow Voldemort’s head off and be done with it’. Sirius had never used one before, never had a need to.
On four legs though? Sirius didn’t like his odds against a bowl-let.
“Drop it, now,” Tommy ordered Sirius, the gun aimed right at his face. “Drop it.”
Sirius didn’t want to drop James’s - Harry’s - cloak, but he wanted to find out if guns were as dangerous as Remus made them sound even less.
“Now get,” Tommy ordered Sirius when the cloak slipped from his jaws. Tommy waved the gun toward the stairs. “Get the fuck out of here.”
Sirius might have given up the cloak, he wouldn’t leave it behind though. When Tommy reached for the cloak, Sirius planted his arse on the straw covered floor and growled at Tommy quietly.
“God, I hate dogs,” Tommy muttered. He holstered his gun and kept an eye on Sirius as he carefully grabbed the cloak and shook it out.
Dogs probably hated Tommy, so Sirius wasn’t bothered by him hating one of the greatest animals on earth.
“Do not bite this again,” Tommy told Sirius firmly.
How could a bloke hate dogs and think they were intelligent enough to understand orders?
Tommy covered the crate with the cloak again and Sirius wanted to know why. Why did Tommy have the cloak that smelled like James and Harry? Why was it being used to cover a box full of metal?
Where was Harry?
As much as Sirius Black detested Tommy Shelby, he could at least recognize that Tommy was a source of information. Sirius planned to follow him until he said something about Remus, but Tommy turned out to be the kind of bloke who talked aloud when he worked.
For a while, Tommy muttered a lot about guns, which Sirius gathered were hidden inside the crate. Tommy used one of the equipment pieces - a sort of stick with hooks on the end to scoop with - to remove horse shite from a stall while he talked to himself about the guns.
Sirius didn’t care about Tommy’s guns or the royal detective sent to Small Heath to find the guns. All Sirius cared about was —
“And fucking Remus…” Tommy leaned on his shovel-thing and stared off in the distance. Tommy looked troubled, wistful… Sirius had known it at sixteen and eighteen, he didn’t need to see proof of how big of a torch that Tommy carried for the good half of Sirius’s heart.
Sirius barked and then bared his teeth in satisfaction when it made Tommy startle.
“Do you not have an owner?” Tommy asked, sneering in Sirius’s direction. “Shoo, mutt, before I gift you to John’s kids.”
John had kids? That was a lark, John used to be as wild as Sirius… maybe he changed. Twelve years was a long time for a bloke to grow.
“Or…” Tommy stared at Sirius hard enough that Sirius felt worry prickling in his stomach.
Tommy didn’t…? Remus didn’t tell him, surely? There had to be something that Remus kept just for them, just for the marauders. If Remus didn’t tell Dumbledore… would he have told —
Sirius didn’t let himself think the question he didn’t want the answer to. As much as Remus called Arthur his best mate, it had been Tommy who tracked Remus with his eyes, Tommy who Remus looked at after cracking a joke.
“Come.” Tommy dropped his shovel-thing and snapped his fingers at Sirius abruptly. “I know a boy who could use a dog.”
Sirius only went with him because he was curious, not because Tommy Shelby ordered Sirius Black around… not like he probably still did Remus.
It caused an ache in Sirius’s chest to think about what might have happened between Remus and Tommy while Sirius was in Azkaban…
Sirius trotted alongside Tommy through Small Heath and wondered where they were headed. As much as Tommy had been talking in the barn, he was quiet for their walk. Sirius did manage to sneeze on his posh shoes a few times when Tommy’s cigarette smoke tickled Sirius’s nose.
Tommy seemed disgusted, which only made Sirius happier.
Tommy had just finished wiping off his shoe for the second time when Sirius got a whiff of something - someone - that made his tail wag of its own accord.
Harry. It was Harry.
Sirius barked and started running down the sidewalk, around the corner, and —
There he was! Harry!
Harry looked strange in his grey coat and trousers, too Birmingham, but it was him! Sirius ran to him, his barks spilling out when Harry saw him and gave a small and puzzled grin.
“Hey, boy…” Harry tried sticking his hand out for Sirius to sniff and Sirius licked it instead. That made Harry laugh and immediately bury his hand in Sirius’s fur to scratch and wipe himself off.
“Ah, there you are.” Tommy caught up to them and Sirius should have bloody known… he should have.
Tommy didn’t smile at Harry, but it seemed about as close as a cold bastard as he was did to smiling. Harry did smile, only too happy to see Tommy.
If everyone in the world adored Tommy bloody Shelby, then Sirius Black was dead.
“Is this your dog?” Harry asked Tommy, making Sirius whine.
Sirius had seen Harry at least half a dozen times… hadn’t he? At Petunia’s house then at Hogwarts… Sirius had seen Harry fly, cried out when he watched him fall… Harry had spent an afternoon by the lake in October, feeding Sirius bits of chicken.
“God no,” Tommy said, curling his lip as if Sirius would want to be owned by a prick like him.
“I found him in the stables this morning. I thought perhaps you may want a dog,” Tommy told Harry. “I’ve no use for one, but he may be trainable.”
“Sit… sit.” James howled with laughter when Sirius made himself stand on his back two legs.
“He’s a fuckin’ terrible pet,” Remus said, grinning from where he lounged on Sirius’s bed. Remus winked at Sirius and it made Sirius’s tail wag while he tried to wink right back. It didn’t work, but it did make Remus laugh until he was rolling around on the bed.
“I’d take him out back and put him down,” Remus swore between his wheezy laughter. “Nobody wants a dog that can’t be trained.”
“Plus…” Peter threw a bone they had in the air then began laughing when Sirius caught it in his mouth. “I think he’s got fleas, mates.”
“Oh.” Harry blinked at Tommy while Sirius made himself look like the most well-behaved and lovable dog there was. Harry kept scratching Sirius, but he did it more slowly while he considered it.
Sirius couldn’t go home with Harry, Remus would be there (probably?). And apparently someone else…
“I don’t know how Barty will be if I bring a dog home,” Harry said. “He’s - er… well, he’s a bit better, now, but Hedwig flew in this morning and scared him.”
Barty?
“Hedwig?” Tommy asked, the wrong question. “Your owl?”
“Yeah, my friends sent her with a letter,” Harry explaining, beaming once again.
Harry looked happy, Sirius could see it. It made Sirius happy… even if everything was wrong and Harry was grinning at Tommy and someone named Barty was living with Harry…
Sirius had been smacking his head on the metal bars, crying and screaming in equal amounts. Everything hurt and Sirius didn’t know when his laughter turned to sobs, when those sobs turned into screams.
James… and Lily…
“It was Peter.” Sirius curled in on himself and whimpered the words that he should have said when the aurors arrived. “It was Peter. Peter.”
It was cold and Sirius shivered as his cries ran dry and his anger chilled to something that seeped in his bones and dragged him to the ground… connected him to the stone floor.
Azkaban was a frozen wasteland where humans were thrown to die… Sirius had fought against it at first, tried to keep himself warm with thoughts of his godson and the Order… anyone who might question why Sirius would have betrayed James?
Sirius had spit in Dumbledore’s face that he would never join Voldemort, not as a spy, not as anything. Sirius would go down fighting for what was right with his - his James.
Sirius’s James…
Had they buried him? Buried him beside Lily? Did Remus have Harry? Had Regulus returned?
Was anyone coming for Sirius?
It might have been weeks, months… time moved differently in Azkaban with the eternal grey skies and the chilling fog from the dementors. All Sirius knew was that one moment he was alone and the next there were others being thrown in cells in his block.
“Little bitty Siri!” It was Bellatrix’s mad cackle that brought the first bitter smile to Sirius’s face since he had landed in his cell.
“If they catch Lucy and Cissy then it’ll be a Black family reunion.”
That sounded like one of the Lestrange brothers, Sirius didn’t know which. It didn’t matter much, everyone had known that they were one and the same.
“Finally got your dues?” Sirius shifted around in his cell to try and find Bellatrix through the bars that singed his skin with a warning against trying to escape. When Sirius squinted, he thought he could see Bella’s black curls.
“My dues, your dues, we’re all due!” Bellatrix laughed again and Sirius sighed.
Crazy bitch.
The cell just across from Sirius had someone else in it, someone it took him a minute to recognize. The body curled up was a bloke, one with flat blonde hair and - if he looked up - Sirius would know his eyes would be blue.
“Welcome to the club,” Sirius called to him. “I told you that you’d regret it.”
Barty Crouch Junior uncurled slowly and his eyes were wet, his mouth twisted in a hate-filled glower. It wasn’t Sirius’s fault that Barty - Reggie - had chosen the wrong side… It wasn’t Sirius’s fault that they took the mark of a wizard destined to be on the wrong side of history.
“Yeah? You also told Reg that you’d always be there for him,” Barty spat, channeling the same anger that would flare up in Sirius when the dementors gave him enough space.
It was a low blow and even Bella hissed down the corridor from her cell.
“You think I didn’t try?” Sirius demanded. “I did what I could! Reggie could have came to me instead of fleeing!”
“Fleeing?” Barty scooted closer to the bars so he could smash his face against them and ensure his words could cut Sirius as deeply as he wanted. “Reg is dead, Black. He’s dead! He’s dead and it’s YOUR FUCKING FAULT!”
Dead?
Sirius reeled backward and tried to turn his face, hide from Barty. It didn’t stop him because hurt people hurt people and Barty wanted Sirius to feel his misery and pain —
All Sirius knew was pain; Barty didn’t need to pile it on with his words that were knives directly to Sirius’s heart.
“He left us! He left me! And why? Because of you! Reg couldn’t stand not knowing where you were and what happened? He’s dead!” Barty laughed, mocking and cruel. “REGULUS IS DEAD AND YOU MIGHT AS WELL HAVE KILLED HIM YOURSELF!”
Sirius only knew one Barty, but he was gone… Sirius had seen his body removed, saw the wooden cross when he left the island that Azkaban haunted.
So who the hell was living with Sirius’s godson?
The more they Harry talked with Tommy, walking together and talking like they were old pals, the more sick that Sirius felt. It was nausea that climbed up his throat while Tommy jealously asked Harry about ‘lessons with Barty’.
“Barty’s actually a bit of a genius,” Harry told Tommy, walking with one hand calmingly in the fur of Sirius’s neck. “I guess he got twelve OWLS and NEWTS.”
“How the hell does he do it?” Sirius hissed to James, staring uncomprehendingly at where Regulus and Barty were sitting at another table in the library. Sirius was firmly ignoring the sandy-haired werewolf sitting with them, since Remus was being a berk and Sirius was pretending he didn’t exist.
“How does who do what?” James asked. James and Sirius weren’t James-and-Sirius again yet… but Sirius was hopeful they would be soon.
“Bloody Crouch!” Sirius said in a hissing whisper. “He’s taking twelve OWLS this year!”
“Is he?” James looked up from the transfiguration text he had been reading and adjusted his glasses that had slipped down his nose. James peered over where Barty sat curiously. “How do you know?”
Sirius knew because he heard Barty telling Remus about it and Remus sounded sooo impressed.
It wasn’t impressive… it was mental.
“Never mind that,” Sirius said, waving his hand. “There’s no way one person can fit twelve classes in their timetable, right?”
“Not without a time turner,” James quipped. There was a grin, a hint of the pre-prank James shining through. “You can tell he doesn’t have quidditch or dates to work around, eh, Padfoot?”
It was an attempt to make Sirius laugh and so Sirius did.
“Some men flaunt intelligence to hide other flaws,” Tommy told Harry while ice settled in Sirius’s veins. “Has the staring stopped?”
“Er… mostly,” Harry said, sounding rather like a liar to Sirius. “I think he’s a bit confused? I dunno. Every now and again he thinks I’m my dad?”
“Baby Prongs…” Sirius was in awe when he held his godson for the first time. Sirius’s fingers, clean even if they were stained, traced every tiny line of Harry’s face. He looked so much like James… even his black hair was messy already.
“Looks just like me, huh?” James was grinning so broadly that Sirius didn’t have the heart to take the mickey out of him.
“You’d think I was completely unnecessary,” Lily said with a roll of her eyes, too soft and happy in her marriage and motherhood to have any bite to her tone.
“She is, isn’t she?” Sirius cooed down at his sleeping godson. “All you need is Padfoot, right, baby?”
Harry might look like James, but Sirius was sure he’d eventually be Harry’s favorite person.
“I see.” Tommy pulled another cigarette from the posh silver case he carried them in; couldn’t just use the box, not him.
“Have you talked with Remus?” Tommy asked, Remus’s name pouring off his tongue; too familiar and tangled in the history they shared.
Had Tommy ever seen Remus after a transformation when he was aching and bleeding, cut by his own claws? Had Remus ever held Tommy through a nightmare, chasing away the cold with his heated lips? Did they love one another? In the way that Sirius had loved Remus - when they said there was a spy… Sirius thought - he thought Remus with his strange family that reminded Sirius too much of his own… Sirius thought if it wasn’t him, it wasn’t James… it had to be Remus… - so fully?
It broke Sirius to think they did - it made him so angry that he might have burned down the horrible town and never even noticed the heat of the flames.
“Er… a bit,” Harry told Tommy, shrugging. “He said - well, he said that… if I wanted to stay and all, I guess he - maybe a bit illegally, mind you - sort of adopted me?”
Sirius turned his head sharply, his own less-than-animal-like surprise going missed by Harry. Harry had his head ducked and Sirius could see the edges of his lips curled up, a tiny pleased blush spread on his cheeks.
Remus… adopted… Sirius’s godson?
Remus adopted Sirius’s godson?!
“He did,” Tommy said, responding to Harry and answering Sirius’s swirling question too casually. “A judge owed our family a favor and we cashed it in. It was quick, quiet, legally binding.”
Oh, was it? So quick? So legally binding?
Sirius ignored the way that Harry had been crying, his nose had been bloodied and his face darkening with a bruise, the night Sirius watched him flee from his home —
Sirius left with only a trunk in one hand, his wand in the other. His hands couldn’t quit shaking, even his teeth were chattering with the reverberations of the cruciatus.
There was no where for him… not one place where he could hide from his family, from the legacy they were going to force him to follow.
Take the mark? The mark of Voldemort?
Sirius had laughed, but who was laughing then?
It was dark and even the hooting of a bird in the distance made Sirius jump, not as much as hearing James’s voice calling to him from somewhere.
“Sirius Black.”
Black… black as his heart, James’s hair, the pupils of Mother’s eyes when she spat at him…
Sirius was a Black, but he stopped and sat on a curb so he could pull his mirror from his bag. When he saw James and James saw Sirius - pale and bleeding from his nose - Sirius was a Black with one place to call home.
— Harry didn’t need to return to a place where he wasn’t wanted, but Remus had taken Harry from Hogwarts, taken him from Sirius.
“I guess…” Harry paused in the street, the corner where Sirius knew a pub was to the right and there were a few buildings with residences to the left. Harry was looking up at Tommy like Tommy had done him a great favor, and maybe he had.
“Thanks then,” Harry said. His fingers tightened in Sirius’s fur and Sirius let out a soft woof of pain, more from the baby that was being taken from him again than anything else.
“Give him to me, I’m his godfather.”
Sirius wasn’t fast enough, he wasn’t there quick enough to save James, to save Lily… but there was Harry, so small and scared in Hagrid’s large arms.
James was gone, Sirius could see his brother - but Harry was there and he was Sirius’s godson.
“Dumbledore said I’m ta take him directly to him,” Hagrid said, shifting his arms and avoiding Sirius’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Sirius.”
Sorry? He was sorry? Harry was Sirius’s godson? Why was he…?
The Secret Keeper.
Only a few people knew who it truly was, the rest assumed it was Sirius.
“I understand,” Sirius said, he did. “Take my bike, Hagrid. Tell Dumbledore I’ll be along soon.”
Sirius would find Peter - would crack open his head to find out why he betrayed James - then he would go get Harry.
Hagrid left on Sirius’s bike and Sirius held James’s hand until he needed to go… he needed to find Peter, find Remus, get the baby that James trusted to him.
“Of course.” Tommy touched the bill of his flat grey cap and there was something finally showing on his face, some fleeting emotion that proved he wasn’t actually inhuman.
“I would welcome you to the family, but I may not have done you any favors,” Tommy told Harry. “Regardless, we are having a meeting at my home tonight. Tell Remus he is to bring you; Barty he can leave at home.”
Harry laughed when he agreed and Sirius decided that he needed to find out who Barty was, where Remus was… what the hell was going on in Small Heath.
Harry ran to one of the buildings, letting himself inside, and Sirius took off when Harry tried to whistle for him to join him. Sirius would love to, but he couldn’t risk seeing Remus… or Barty… who Sirius had seen die.
There had to be another Barty… another one who knew James and had achieved twelve OWLS and NEWTS. Another Barty that didn’t have the dark mark and didn’t torture Frank… one that Remus - who adopted Sirius’s godson - would have felt was safe to live in the house with the Boy-Who-Lived.
Kidnap and illegal adoptions and… what the hell was Remus Lupin up to?
Sirius made himself at home in an alley just across the way from Harry’s place. It smelled like rubbish, the cold air was thick with sludge and all sorts of smells that made Sirius want to retch. It was fine though, Sirius could curl down and hide his nose under a paw while he watched the door Harry disappeared in.
It took a while for Sirius’s limited patience to be rewarded. By the time the door opened again, it was dark out. Sirius could see Harry leaving again, covered with a grey coat and a scarf that looked handmade. Just behind Harry was — Sirius whined, a quiet whimper.
There was Remus, healthy and smiling. He looked ridiculous, in his short-sleeve shirt and grey trousers. Remus was never cold though, always like a little fire burned inside him. Sirius saw it as a sign of fate, proof that Remus was the warmth Sirius needed to keep away his constant aching coldness.
Remus didn’t spare a glance toward the alley where Sirius waited, and why should he? If Remus were to look for Sirius, it wouldn’t be for a welcoming party, would it?
“I heard there’s a traitor.”
Remus was laid up on his bed with an ice pack against his chest. Sirius could see a deep cut oozing out, clawed there by another werewolf probably.
“There is,” Sirius said carefully, measuring his words and his face.
The Order was too sure of it for it to not be true. The attack that the Prewett twins led; the one meant to be a surprise? It had been Gideon and Fabian who were surprised when they arrived to free the seven half-blooded Wizengamot members being held and tortured only to face a dozen death eaters.
Only the inner circle had known about that attack and until the very moment the twins were attacked, the house they were in had been mostly unguarded. It wasn’t the first time that information had so clearly been released to Voldemort and his followers. It was making everyone paranoid, afraid that anything they said to anyone could get their loved ones killed.
Molly had just buried both her brothers the day before Remus returned from his mission.
“Does Albus —” Remus hissed when he shifted and it pulled at the cut. Sirius wanted to reach out to him, to touch him and tell himself that Remus was home and safe and alive.
But someone was sharing information and nobody knew who.
Sirius knew it wasn’t himself, it wasn’t James or Lily. Peter was more terrified of speaking than anyone. There weren’t many members of the inner circle left… and only one that Sirius thought might have the bollocks to go between the two groups so confidently.
“Does he know who it is?” Remus asked Sirius after he adjusted himself on the bed they shared, the one close enough to headquarters that Sirius was always prepared to jump when summoned.
“Nobody’s sure.” Sirius leaned against the wall and watched Remus carefully. Three days ago, there was no one that Sirius trusted more. That was before Gideon and Fabian had been killed, before Sirius had to accept that someone was selling them out to Voldemort one or two at a time.
“Yeah?” Remus finally picked up on Sirius’s tone, his closed off body language. It made Remus begin to shut down, Sirius could see it.
For years… Sirius wanted to be so close to Remus that they shared a mind, a heart. Remus would let Sirius get close, almost let him fully inside, then he would shutter down, push him away some.
James wasn’t like that, not with Sirius. So, for once, it wasn’t Sirius’s fault.
“Who do you think it is, Sirius?” Remus asked Sirius with a sudden bite to his voice. “You’ve always got ideas. Who do YOU THINK IT IS?”
“Don’t fucking scream at me,” Sirius said, taking a step away from the bed and curling one arm around his stomach. “I want to talk about this, yeah? Let’s just… Circe, Remus, can we talk?”
“Of course we can,” Remus said, snarling his lip. “Tell me first that you defended me, Sirius. Tell me that when they said there was a traitor, that you defended me the same way you would have James.”
Sirius had… at first. Sirius had sworn that it wasn’t any of the marauders. When Remus’s ventures into the werewolf territory was brought up, Sirius had roared that Remus was there as a spy for the Order.
Then Dorcas said something, one comment. It was one bloody comment and Sirius couldn’t stop thinking about it.
“If Remus sold us all out…” they were outside, sharing a joint. Dorcas inhaled deeply, dramatic sod. She smirked when she exhaled, sharing a secret look between them. “We’d never know he did it until we were all dead.”
Sirius laughed and agreed. Remus was brilliant, cunning, clever beyond any of the others. Remus would… Remus would have the know-how, the confidence, the courage to walk right up to Voldemort and tell him anything he wanted to know.
“I did,” Sirius said. He dropped his eyes, hating the hate he saw in Remus’s eyes. “At first.”
Remus was silent and Sirius wasn’t expecting it when a book flew across the room, striking Sirius in the face.
“Get out,” Remus spat. “You defended me AT FIRST? Get the fuck out, Sirius! Go before I get out of this bed and choke you with my bare fuckin’ hands!”
Sirius did. Sirius left, even if it was his flat. Sirius fled and he was nearly to Dorcas’s place when he stopped to hit the ground on his knees, retch in the ditch.
Remus never denied it.
They hadn’t trusted each other.
Sirius thought it might have been Remus… Remus left Sirius to waste away in Azkaban for years.
If Sirius were Tommy Shelby…
No, best not to think about that.
Sirius waited for Remus and Harry to disappear before he decided to take a small risk in favor of ensuring Harry’s safety. Once Sirius knew that Harry was truly safe there, he could return to Hogwarts and find Peter.
It was dark enough for Sirius to shift back to his own two feet, blending in with the rubbish in the alley with the rags he wore. Even Sirius’s hair, tangled and matted with filth, made him look more animal than human.
Once Peter was captured, once justice was served and Harry was safe… Sirius would take a shower. Bloody hell, he would take the longest shower and find an entire grocery store to consume.
First though, Harry.
Sirius snuck across the road and walked right up to the door. The wand Sirius nicked from Grimmauld Place, one that belonged to Sirius’s great-uncle Alphard, was touched to the locked knob with a whispered spell to unlock it.
That door led to a set of stairs, clean and lit with sconces magically burning along the walls. Sirius got the impression that Remus wasn’t trying to hide his magical status, he didn’t care at all to flaunt who and what he was to his town and family of muggles.
Sirius was grinning the slightest bit to himself, thinking of Remus the rebel, just as he nudged the top door open to Remus’s flat. It was the same one he lived in as a boy, Sirius was sure of it. The old man that raised Remus, the muggle werewolf, wasn’t there, but that didn’t mean the flat was empty.
“You!” Sirius raised his wand and was met with a raised one in return.
Barty Crouch Junior stood in the middle of a sitting room and had a wand pointed at Sirius, looking as startled to see Sirius as Sirius was him. Even with as much as Harry had said, Sirius saw Barty die.
Barty wasn’t dead… he was wearing a tan woolen jumper, denim trousers. He looked older, the same way Sirius must. The blue eyes were the same - hollow - and he looked as thin as he had just before he died.
“Me.” Barty had the audacity to grin at Sirius, a twisted thing that didn’t warm his deadened eyes at all.
Sirius had a rush of questions, half a dozen he tried to get out at once while the wind blew and shifted the building, causing a creaking on the stairs behind him.
“How did you — no, why are you here? What’s your — what the hell is going on here?!”
“That’s what I’d like to know.”
Sirius froze in place when he felt a wand press against the back of his head. If Sirius dared inhale, he would have smelled the same soap that Remus had used their entire lives.
“Remus.” Sirius kept an eye on Barty, saw where Barty’s wand moved. Sirius didn’t lower his, he wouldn’t. “I see you’re letting just anyone in your home now.”
“It’s interesting, isn’t it, Sirius?” Remus stepped up behind Sirius and Sirius could feel the warmth radiating off him, the heat that had once belonged solely to Sirius.
“It turns out that everyone’s got their secrets, right?” Remus said, his wand jabbing Sirius hard. “How about we sit down and you can start to share yours, hm?”
Sirius? Share his secrets? Sirius had no secrets, none. Sirius had told Remus every single thing that was inside of him - every horrible thought, every twisted and dark corner that made him so damned ugly on the inside.
Sirius wasn’t the one with a dead death eater in his flat, he wasn’t the one kidnapping and adopting teenagers.
If anyone had any explaining to do, it was Remus.