“What’s in the bag?”
Sirius popped out of the lifts at Tony’s flat, rather annoyed to be taken away from Harry. Sirius was giving Tony the honors of revenge on Barnes (Sirius couldn’t call him James anymore, not even to himself), and then the berk went and called for him anyway.
The first thing Sirius noticed in Tony’s flat was the return of the sitting room furniture that had Pietro, Nat, Clint, Bruce, and Rhodey all sitting on it. Pietro, Clint, and Nat had cards in their hands and Rhodey and Bruce were talking to each other quietly.
“Where’s Rogers?” Sirius asked with a bitter scowl.
According to Clint, Rogers had Barnes twice- once back in March before Harry ever came to New York and then once just a week before he snatched Harry -and Sirius wasn’t real keen on seeing his face anytime soon.
“Parker didn’t find it prudent to inform him that he caught Barnes,” Nat said, looking up to smirk at Sirius. “Last I checked, Steve was still in Montana.”
“Good for Peter,” Sirius said approvingly.
As much as Sirius generally didn’t care for kids that weren’t Harry, that Peter kid was growing on him. Sirius had taken him with him on their search for Harry and the two of them got to talking- Sirius talked about magic, Peter talked about his bloody weird powers.
Peter was smart as a whip, but witty and a bit of a dick too. He reminded Sirius quite a bit of Remus back when he’d been less of a prat.
If Harry and Peter ever got their heads out of their arses, Sirius wouldn’t be bothered much by Peter hanging around more often.
“Tony in there?” Sirius asked, jerking his thumb toward the office. Before anyone could answer him, Sirius heard a bang behind the door that sounded like someone apparating.
“What is that? Shot four or five?” Clint asked.
“Five,” Rhodey said absently, his fingers flying over his phone screen. “There’s not going to be much of Barnes to bury at this rate.”
“Good,” Bruce murmured as he too did something on his phone. “House cleaning’s going to charge extra for the blood though.”
Sirius barked out a laugh, his misery at seeing Harry hide from his friends beneath James’ old cloak diminishing some.
“I’ll go see if he needs help then,” he offered brightly.
“Want us to deal you in when you get done?” Pietro asked, a teasing light in his eyes.
“Can’t, I’ve got a bunch of wild animals in my flat,” Sirius quipped. He winked at Pietro before knocking once on Tony’s office door and sliding inside.
“Bloody hell.” Sirius was certain his eyes were wide while he took in the mess of Tony’s office. Barnes was strung up from the ceiling in Peter’s queer webbing he tried to explain to Sirius once and dripping blood from his face and what Sirius had to assume was his leg. Tony was sitting on his desk with a calm mask that Sirius knew was barely masking a tsunami of rage while he kept a black muggle gun aimed up at Barnes.
“Is he dead?” Sirius asked curiously. It was hard to tell that Barnes was even a human beneath the mess of webs and blood.
“Unfortunately not,” Tony said shortly. Tony looked rough, real rough, but Sirius figured they all did.
“He keeps healing himself,” Tony added, nodding toward a pool of blood that Sirius could just barely make out a couple lumps that he assumed were the muggle bullet things.
Sirius averted his eyes quick, actually not fond of blood, only to notice a black duffel bag by Tony’s feet.
“What’s in the bag?”
“I was hoping you might know,” Tony answered without looking away from Barnes. He used his foot to slide the bag toward Sirius, dragging it through the blood and leaving a sick smear on the floor. “Take a look.”
Something told Sirius he really didn’t want to look in that bag, but since Barnes was Sirius’ fault to start with, he took a deep breath and stepped forward to flip the bag open with his foot.
And then Sirius turned around and lost his battle against the nausea that had been teasing him since he entered the office, sicking up right on Tony’s floor.
“Are those heads?!” Sirius asked once his head stopping spinning and his stomach quit churning. Sirius grabbed his wand and vanished his mess, along with the blood covering the floor since it seemed like he was going to be there for a minute.
Sirius had seen a lot of horrible things in the last war- he’d seen the aftermath of muggle torture and death eater revels. Sirius had seen dead kids and heartbroken widows screaming for their lovers—
And Sirius was pretty sure that ‘heads in a bag’ still took the cake.
“Are they?” Tony asked. Sirius glanced at him and saw that he hadn’t looked away from Barnes even once during Sirius’ mild fit. “Anyone you recognize?”
Sirius wasn’t a bloke who was caught off guard often, he rather prided himself on being able to roll with the punches, but Sirius gaped at Tony then in complete surprise.
“Anyone I… recognize?” he repeated slowly. “Mate, you want me to pull the bloody heads from the bag and identify them?”
Sirius liked Tony, really. He’d liked Tony back when he’d been young and dumb and partying. Sirius liked Tony a damn sight more when he sent his godson to him and Tony stepped up as a parent in an admirable stride.
But Tony had lost the damned plot and Sirius didn’t feel like helping him find it.
“He says they’re wizards, do you know them or not?” Tony asked impatiently, keeping the gun aimed at Barnes.
“Do you think I know every wizard in the world?” Sirius asked blankly. “We don’t exactly get together for tea at weekly meetings.”
“Sirius, check the fucking heads.”
Sirius swallowed his bile down when it seemed like Tony wasn’t taking the mickey and hesitantly reached down to grab a human head.
The first he grabbed, he did it blindly, only holding it up by the hair for a second to glance at the face.
Then Sirius did a double take.
And then Sirius let out a startled and semi-hysterical bark of laughter.
“This- this is Lucius Malfoy,” he said, disgust and glee bubbling up in equal parts at the familiar blonde hair and the empty eyes.
Sirius was entirely bemused when he looked up and saw Barnes’ blue eyes were open and watching him.
“Why…? How…?” Sirius wasn’t even sure which question he wanted answered. “Where’d you find Lucius Malfoy??”
It took Barnes a minute to answer, Tony really did a number on him.
“He was here and then I caught a ride back to their base with him,” Barnes said.
Mad bastard.
“You can’t catch a ride— nevermind,” Sirius sighed and shook his head. You couldn’t talk sense into crazy people; Sirius had 15 years of living with his mother as proof of that.
With a smidgeon less apprehension, and after Tony cleared his throat in an impatient noise, Sirius reached back in the bag and pulled out…
Sirius looked across the hall, sticking his tongue out at Narcissa and Bellatrix. They’d go running off to tell Sirius’ mum first thing, but Sirius didn’t have to worry about that until summer.
Sirius Black, Gryffindor.
Sirius laughed again, feeling so terribly free for talking his way out of Slytherin, and tossed his arm around his new roommate’s shoulders.
“Remus Lupin, I think this is the start of a beautiful year,” Sirius declared. “It’ll be me, you, and James all year! We’ll be the best of friends!”
Remus, who Sirius was liking more and more, stabbed Sirius’ hand with a fork; not hard enough to draw blood, but hard enough that Sirius got the message to let go of him.
“Who is James?” Remus asked Sirius, looking up and down the table of Gryffindors.
“There!” Sirius said, stretching his head up to see the boy from the train with the messy black hair and glasses, chatting up some kid while they waited to be sorted.
“We met on the train, we’re basically destined to meet,” Sirius told Remus with the air of someone who knew what he was talking about even while he sort of made it all up. “The stars aligned and you’re here too though- the three lions! The three musketeers! The triple marauders!”
Remus raised a brow when they heard the Sorting Hat call out ‘GRYFFINDOR!’ and a boy with a round face, watery eyes, and flat blonde hair came running uncertainly toward their table.
“I hope the marauders have room for a fourth, if James even come here,” Remus said with a cocky little smirk that had Sirius scowling immediately.
The stars were aligned, Sirius was meant to make great friends that day, he knew it.
His father was the one who taught Sirius to read the stars when he’d been just a boy- Sirius was eleven and a professional at it by then.
“What’s your name?” Sirius asked the new boy rudely, one ear pricked to listen for Potter, James to be sorted.
The new boy sat across from Remus and he smiled uncertainly at them.
“Peter,” he said quietly, shy it seemed. “I’m Peter Pettig—”
“GRYFFINDOR!!”
“Yes!!” Sirius immediately jumped up and climbed right up on his bench to cheer louder than anyone when James got sorted.
James looked up where Sirius was whooping and making a spectacle of himself and their eyes met and James was beaming and Sirius knew he read his stars right.
Sirius and James were the greatest of friends and they forced Remus to be their friend immediately.
Sirius didn’t like Peter Pettigrew, not for a while. He was kind of a baby and cried in his sleep a lot. It was embarrassing.
James cried the first couple of nights, but Sirius gave him a pass because he had nice parents who he missed so it was fine to cry for a couple of days. But when Peter was still crying by December, Sirius had enough.
“Oi, shut up,” Sirius hissed after yanking back Peter’s bed curtains. Remus had been in the Hospital Wing the night before and he still looked sick and Sirius was tired and Peter was too old to still be crying.
Peter blinked at Sirius and sniffled. “I’m sorry,” he said pathetically. “I just- I…”
Sirius sighed when Peter burst in tears again and resigned himself into climbing in Peter’s bed so he could shut the curtain and try to keep Peter from waking the others.
“You’re not a baby, Peter,” Sirius told him. He sat cross legged at the end of Peter’s bed and tried to ignore the memories of being in the same position with Regulus before. “You’ve gotta quit sniveling, it’s annoying.”
Peter sat up and wiped his face off with his sleeve, looking so bloody ridiculous that Sirius had to actually bite his tongue so he didn’t insult him.
James didn’t like it when Sirius ragged on Peter, even though Peter was ruining the dorm with his… his…
Boringness.
“I’m sorry,” Peter said to Sirius. He looked down at his lap and began twisting his blanket in his hands. It was what Mother would call fidgeting and it would get a curse for doing it in front of company.
So Sirius grabbed some of Peter’s blanket and began fidgeting with it too.
It was fun being the biggest disappointment ever; or, it would be, until Sirius had to go home that summer.
“I- my older brother was a Gryffindor,” Peter said meekly. “He graduated a couple of years ago.”
Sirius didn’t really care, but he figured he wasn’t sleeping anyway and listening to Peter talk about his brother was better than thinking about his own.
“He died, last spring,” Peter said dully, his pale eyes tearing up. “He was the adventurous one, you know? Brave and funny and everyone loved him. And I’m just…” Peter looked up at Sirius and Sirius could see he looked miserable. “I’ll never measure up to him,” he said sadly. “I thought I’d feel closer to him in Gryffindor, but I just feel like a fraud.”
Rats.
Sirius really didn’t want to be friends with Peter, but something in his horribly sad story struck a chord in Sirius’ chest and he scooted around until he was sitting stiffly next to Peter with his head leaned back on the headboard.
“I’ve got loads of practice being a big brother,” Sirius said boastingly. “So I’ll make you a deal- if you stop crying so much, I’ll be sort of like your big brother and you won’t even have to measure up to me because I’m a disappointment and a failure.”
Peter laughed quietly. “You sound proud of that.”
“Oh I am,” Sirius beamed. “I’m the first Black in centuries to go to Gryffindor.”
Because, if nothing else, Sirius was an excellent negotiator.
“I think I’m the first Pettigrew ever to have to talk the hat into putting me here,” Peter said with a sigh. He laid his head on Sirius’ shoulder, which was uncomfortable but Sirius did just offer to be his brother, and pulled the blanket over both of them.
“Thanks, Sirius,” he said.
Sirius looked down and for just an instant, he imagined he was looking at thick black curls instead of flat blonde hair.
“That’s what friends are for,” Sirius told him firmly.
It wasn’t until Peter fell asleep and Sirius went to his own bed that he wondered what house the hat wanted to put him in…
… probably Hufflepuff.
“THEY TRUSTED YOU!” Peter yelled at Sirius, using the exact line Sirius wanted to use.
Sirius trusted Peter.
When Dumbledore became suspicious of a spy in the Order, Sirius and James agreed that it wasn’t Peter.
Peter was their little brother who needed them to watch out for him.
It couldn’t be Peter.
Not the fourth Marauder.
Sirius stared at Peter as he blew up the street, slipping away as his clever little rat animagus.
Slytherin, Sirius thought abruptly to himself while he cracked under the weight of everything going so completely wrong.
Sirius was sure that the hat wanted Peter and Sirius both in Slytherin and they talked it into Gryffindor.
And because of it, the greatest person Sirius had ever, or would ever, meet was dead.
Sirius held up Pettigrew’s head and felt a million emotions rush through him—
Vindication.
Grief.
Joy.
Anger.
Peter, the fourth marauder, was dead.
Wormtail, the traitor, was dead.
“Friend of yours?” Tony asked, his voice breaking through the memories and emotions crushing Sirius’ chest.
Sirius swallowed hard, refusing to shed a tear for the coward that killed James.
“No,” he said, replacing Pettigrew a little more gently back in the bag beside Lucius. “He’s no friend of mine.”
Sirius closed his eyes to steady himself for a moment before he grabbed the final head-
Which he promptly dropped with a girlish shriek that he hoped Pietro didn’t hear from the sitting room.
“Yeah, okay… okay…” Sirius jumped up and hastily backed from the bag, his eyes wide and his pulse thrumming quickly. “I… yeah, it’s time to get Albus.”
“What? Why?” Tony asked, still not looking away from where Barnes was stuck to the ceiling.
Sirius reckoned that Tony was worried Barnes would escape again, run off to some small part of the world where they couldn’t find him.
“Because when he’s got two death eaters and Voldemort’s head in a bag, it’s time to let Albus know,” Sirius hissed shakily, more focused on Voldemort than Barnes.
Tony’s eyebrows shot so far up his forehead that Sirius couldn’t see them beneath his dark hair he usually had styled.
“He killed Darth Vader?” he asked, much too calmly, as he lowered the gun and finally looked away from Barnes to glance appraisingly at the bag. “Damn.”
Damn was such an understatement that Sirius didn’t even have the words to reply. ‘Damn’ was for stubbing your toe or wrecking your bike, ‘damn’ was not for the most feared wizard in the world to be decapitated by a muggle and have his head stuffed in a bag.
“Damn again,” Tony swore under his breath when his phone chimed. Sirius gladly looked away from the bag - the way that Peter was dead in the same bag with Malfoy and Voldemort himself was fair… it was sick… - to see Tony frowning at his phone.
“Jarvis, tell Hermione not to give Harry so much as an aspirin until I get there,” Tony barked. He turned his exhausted face up to Barnes and sneered in a way that was so like Harry that Sirius wanted to laugh and cry in equal measures.
“I’ve got to go give pain medicine to the kid you tried to kill,” he snarled. “Sirius, can you watch him until I get back? I’ll get the bag to Gandalf, but we don’t need Inspector Gadget around to help.”
Sirius nodded and debated his best course of action…
Killing Barnes would feel really good, but that was the same impulsive thought that led Sirius to Azkaban. Barnes deserved to be ripped from limb to limb, Sirius wanted to do it, but Tony would.
Tony was going to kill Barnes like Sirius was going to kill Peter all those years ago and that wasn’t what Harry needed either time.
And, as much as Sirius wanted as little to do with him as possible, Sirius needed to have Albus sort out Voldemort’s head in the damned bag.
“Take your time,” Sirius said airily. “Make sure Harry’s comfortable, Hermione has a habit of clinging.”
“Might be good for him,” Tony sighed. Just before he sat down the gun, Sirius saw a flash of fury pass over his face and he twitched when Tony aimed it up and shot Barnes again.
It was fair.
It wasn’t like their kid had serum in his veins that let him heal like Barnes had.
“I’ll be back,” Tony said, a warning and a parting in one.
Sirius waited until the door shut behind Tony to summon the bag and Barnes both and turn on the spot to apparate away.
Tony didn’t live through the first war with Voldemort; all he saw was someone who hurt Harry she deserved death. And Sirius agreed completely, but first he needed Albus to confirm that Barnes had actually - probably accidentally - saved Harry from a much worse enemy.
The way Barnes threw up when they finally made it to Grimmauld, covering the grimy floor in vomit, was rather a silver lining.
“Where are we?” Barnes asked warily. Sirius didn’t bother replying until he had Barnes petrified and tied up, refusing to let him find an opportunity to escape.
“Hell,” Sirius said flatly. He levitated Barnes to the dining room table and reinforced the ropes to keep him in the chair. It was a rare moment, but Sirius had hoped to see Remus or Tonks around, someone to send the message for him. “Don’t think I’m saving you, I’ll kill you myself the second I find out what I need.”
“Have at it,” Barnes said, his voice devoid of any emotion. His eyes flicked around curiously, but Sirius hadn’t seen him struggle at all. His eyes landed on Sirius when Sirius took a seat beside him. “I’m going to guess based on Tony’s stellar aim that Harry’s leg isn’t so great?”
Sirius curled his lip up in genuine dislike, a fierce anger trying to break through his forced calm.
“You don’t actually want to ask me about my godson right now,” Sirius said coldly, his eyes narrowed and begging Barnes to make a move. “You’ve ruined his life,” he spat.
Barnes closed his eyes. “I saved him.”
“We’ll agree to disagree.”
“They were going to kill him,” Barnes insisted.
“AND YOU DAMN NEAR DID IT FOR THEM!” Sirius screamed, slamming his hands on the table and glared in Barnes’ eyes. “YOU TOOK THE ONLY PART OF MY FAMILY LEFT AND YOU ALMOST KILLED HIM! MAYBE YOU DID, BECAUSE THAT KID THAT CAME HOME? THAT SCARED KID WITH ONE GOD DAMNED LEG? THAT IS NOT MY GODSON.”
Something in Barnes’ confident eyes cracked, a well of emotion shining through that Sirius didn’t want to see.
“I saved him,” Barnes repeated quietly, closing his eyes then and making it easier for Sirius to despise him. “I saved him. I saved him.”
It was nearly pity that Sirius eyed him with. Everyone who said Sirius was mad - ‘Azkaban broke him’, ‘he wasn’t sane to start with’, ‘look at the family he had’ - should take a long hard look at Barnes before they started throwing stones at Sirius.
“You’re wrong,” Sirius said, all the fight leaving him. He looked at the bag and felt a cold chill go down his spine. “I’ve got no idea what you did, but saving Harry wasn’t part of it.”
Sirius then levitated the black duffel bag to the table and then worked hard to settle his emotions, a tricky task on a normal day.
“Who else would I ask?” James said with a crooked smile. He and Sirius both looked down at the tiny bundle in Sirius’ arms. “You’re my only family left, Pads, you’re a good man and you’ll be a great godfather.”
“You’d trust me with your son?” Sirius asked, choking up on his words and grateful that James ignored the traitorous tears that escaped him.
James wrapped his arm around Sirius’ shoulders and the three of them stood connected.
“I’d trust you with anything,” James said solemnly. “And Harry’s my everything.”
“Expecto Patronum,” Sirius whispered in the present, flicking his wand and praying it worked.
“Oh.”
Sirius blinked at the patronus that he hadn’t been able to cast in years.
It… it had changed.
“Albus, bring your pensieve, it’s an emergency,” Sirius said slowly, eyes misting over while he looked at the new form of his patronus. “You know where to find me.”
With what looked like a gleeful yip, Sirius watched his little mini-Padfoot, complete with big youthful eyes and a missing back leg, bound through the walls of the house before going to Hogwarts to fetch Albus.
“That used to be a stag,” Sirius said quietly, unusually solemnly, as he sank down in the chair at the head of the table beside where Barnes was tied up. Barnes didn’t look like he was listening, but Sirius was an old hat at talking to himself. “There’s a lot of lore about patronus; some say it’s the thing that protects you, or the thing you’d most protect. Mine- mine used to be a stag,” Sirius said, swallowing hard. “For James…”
James had laughed his stupid arse off when Sirius first cast his patronus, teasing him that maybe Sirius was in love with him.
Sirius laughed and shoved him, saying James loved himself enough for a dozen people.
But when Sirius thought about it, when he climbed in James’ bed to sleep with his best friend in the world - his true brother - it made sense really. James had always been Sirius’ safe place, since they first met. Why wouldn’t he be Sirius’ patronus too?
And now… and now Sirius had a little Padfoot Junior that Sirius was meant to keep safe… and the bloody thing was missing a leg.
I’m sorry, James, Sirius thought glumly, swinging his legs up on the table and linking his fingers behind his head.
Sirius was meant to keep him safe… watch over him… be a godfather…
Instead, he brought a madman straight to Harry’s own home and started the obsession that lost Harry his leg.
Sirius looked over at Barnes, raising a brow where he sat in binds with blood drying in dark red patches across his nearly healed skin.
“Objectively, you’re not even that hot,” Sirius lied. Not that any level of fit was worth the pain and misery that Harry was going through, but Sirius still couldn’t believe the way he let his prick lead to Harry getting so hurt.
Some bloody godfather he was.
Barnes raised his own mocking brow at Sirius. “So you’re saying that our heated romance is dead?” he asked deadpan.
Sirius snorted and flicked his wand, silencing Barnes.
Yeah, Sirius was done with all forms of romance for quite some time.
Clearly, he had shit taste.