The Assignment
He hadn’t called me Siri in years. Wouldn’t let me call him Regs either, once I’d come home from my first year in Gryffindor House. Said it wasn’t a dignified enough way to address the future head of the House of Black, now that I’d disgraced the family.
Was this really a plea for help? Or a ploy to gain information about the Order?
Could it be a trap?
It was such a long time since we were close. Since we’d done more than look at each other passing in the halls at school. I didn’t know him any more.
I could still see the glee in his face when he said anyone who hurt our family deserved to be banished.
Just as clear was the image of Regs looking up the front hall stairs at me, his dark eyes full of indecision as I begged him not to stay with our parents in Grimmauld Place but to come away with me to Diagon Alley...
What is the truth of this, Regs?
And I found the words in my head mirrored those on the page. If you remember all that we were to each other when we were small, meet me!
I’d stared down at the hasty scrawl that was in such contrast to my brother’s usually even script and made my decision that I would be there to meet him at the Leaky Cauldron. But how could I explain the wordless tug of eagerness, excitement, fear and foreboding that had lain waiting and watchful in my gut all day, or the pull of the two names on that page?
Siri…
Regs…
“Give it a rest, Peter!” To my surprise it was Remus’s stage-whisper that pulled Peter’s gaze away from me. “Come on! You remember that look, don’t you? He’s going to meet a girl!”
“Oh, oops, right! Er… sorry, Sirius!” stammered Peter, his face growing red. “Anyone I know?”
“Like he’d tell the whole Order here!” exclaimed James, flashing me a big grin, then leaning in close. “By the way, Sirius, is it anybody I know? Like Pony-Tail, maybe?”
“James, really! What a thing to ask! It’s none of our business after all!” said Lily. “And, by the way, who, exactly, is Pony-Tail?”
He turned to look up at her. “A girl…”
“Well, obviously, a girl.” She folded her arms across her chest. Tapped her foot. Gave him her green-eyed glare. Still, with having just got a dose of it in the sitting room across the hall, I could tell it wasn’t quite genuine.
But it was creating the desired effect. Amid chuckles and a few backward curious glances, the last few Witches and Wizards drifted out through the doorway.
“Anyway,” James turned to me and took up the discussion as though it had never been interrupted. “Sorry for springing all this on you without checking first. Everything’s come up so fast… I just figured you’d want to be in on it…”
“What time does this person want to meet?” I interrupted him.
“Nine. Wanted a pair of us, wearing green and orange rugby shirts so they could identify us.”
“What are rugby shirts?” asked Peter.
The same question had flitted through my mind, but had given way to a more important one.
“Nine, you say?” I looked at James to make certain I had it right. Could I make it by then? I narrowed my eyes, studied the possibility. Regs at six. An hour would be seven. Later if the talk between us got to flowing. Seven thirty or a few minutes after… Allow time to apperate him off to my flat if he needed to lay low while he decided what he wanted to do. After all, if he was fed up enough with Voldemort to seek my advice, he’d get a pretty thin welcome back in Grimmauld Place. A few minutes to get him settled, show him where I kept food, tea and butter beer…
James was nodding. “Yeah, that’s right. Nine.”
“Okay,” I told him. “Let’s go for it. Tell me about this pub then. Where is it? If I leave my bike here and apperate back to meet you by ten to eight or so, would we be able to make it there on time?”