Chapter 1
It was a calm night, there had been a brief reprise in the onslaught of attacks from the Death Eaters and the Marauders weren’t going to take it for granted. James and Peter were playing chess at the coffee table of the main living room in Potter Manor and Sirius was sprawled across the sofa with his legs propped up on Remus’ lap. There was a frown on Sirius’ face as he struggled with a new muggle contraption. He saw it in a store in muggle London and bought it. The muggles called it a ‘Rubik’s cube’ or something like that. All Sirius knew was that it was really frustrating him. No matter which way he turned the layers of the cube, the colours wouldn’t all match up. In a moment of frustration that he did not at all regret, Sirius threw the cube across the room. It hit James in the back of the head.
“Ow! Sirius- What was that for?” James exclaimed, rubbing the back of his head with a grimace. Peter started laughing.
“It doesn’t fucking work!” Sirius said with a scowl.
“So why did you throw it at me?” James asked exasperatedly. As James’ attention was diverted from the chess game, Peter slipped one of James’ bishops up his sleeve with his index finger held in front of his lips in a gesture for Sirius to ignore it.
Sirius winked at Peter and then continued, “I did not throw it at you. It flew from my hands out of the pure evil that is contained within that mental torture device. Be careful, it may attack you again!”
James, used to Sirius’ antics, gave him a deadpan look and then picked up the Rubik’s cube and threw it back at Sirius, who screamed and threw his arms up to cover his face. Only for nothing to hit him. Confused, Sirius hesitantly lowered his arms and glanced around the room with suspicion.
His eyes landed on Remus and he gasped. His boyfriend had put his book down, had apparently caught the Rubik’s cube out of the air and was now somehow solving it. Sirius watched in a state of shock whilst Remus solved the cube in just over a minute. He then gently tossed it over to Sirius who barely managed to catch it.
Sirius looked from the cube to Remus then back and forth quickly over and over again. The werewolf looked back at him with a smug smile before he picked his book back up again.
“How-“
“You should play quidditch.” James said, ever the quidditch fanatic.
“I’m not really a fan of having even more health problems.” Remus said with a sigh, knowing where this conversation would keep going.
“Just saying, you would make a good-“
“HOW DID YOU DO THAT?” Sirius yelled, finally broken out of his shock.
“It’s not that hard, my mum taught me a year or so ago.” Remus replied simply, turning back to his book.
“Have you made a deal with the devil?” Sirius asked with his eyes narrowed.
“No?” Remus replied, knowing that he couldn’t go back to reading for the next hour, he put the book down and put his full attention on Sirius. Amber eyes meeting grey.
Sirius opened his mouth to speak when the wards ringed at the same time as a crack sounded out through the room. The four leaped to action, pulling out wands and pointing them at . . . Kreacher?
Sirius’ eyes narrowed “Kreacher leave, you are not welcome-“
Then he took in the house elf’s frazzled state, “Master Regulus is in grave danger, unfortunately, the blood traitor is the only one who can help him.” Kreacher said with a grimace.
Sirius froze as he processed the words. Regulus. Reggie. His little brother. His brother who needed his help. The brother he’d regretted leaving for years. Although he had never given up on Regulus, he still had to ask, “How do I know that this isn’t a trap?”. Regulus was still a death eater after all.
“There’s no time, Kreacher cannot ask someone else. Kreacher is already disobeying the young master by coming here.”
Sirius had never seen the house elf look so afraid in all his life. Maybe that was why he decided to trust him.
He grabbed a sword from the coffee table. They’d found it in a raid and had found out that it burst into flames in the presence of dark magic, which made it very useful for them in the war.
Grabbing Kreacher’s shoulder, Sirius ordered the house elf, “Take me to my brother.” He closed his eyes tight as the world spun away from around him.