Unofficial Portkey Archive

Chapter Twenty-One

James opened the door to Sirius' office, peering inside timidly. Since returning from his meeting with his brother, Sirius had said absolutely nothing to anyone, and had spent his time staring off into space. He had written several letters and every single owl that he had sent off had come back with the letter unopened.

Sirius didn't look up when James opened the door, so James opened it further and walked in anyways. "Hey mate."

"'lo," Sirius responded.

"Want to tell me what happened?" James offered.

Sirius sighed and looked out the window. "Nothing except that everything my parents thought about me was true."

"Well, that's good, isn't it?" James smiled. "They're a bunch of dudders-"

"No, Prongs, the part about me being a reckless, selfish idiot," Sirius growled.

"You aren't-"

"What sort of a bloke gets his younger brother smashed and pumps him for information?" Sirius asked him.

James blinked at him. "What?"

"I had every intention of getting Regulus tipsy so the idiot would listen to me," Sirius shook his head. "But.....then he started talking about things that....well....I frankly didn't expect him to be a part of...and so I kept telling him to drink up."

"Well, that's all right-"

"No!" Sirius stood up, angrily. "I used my kid brother! No matter if I hate my parents...he doesn't deserve that."

"Padfoot, it's all right-"

"No, it's not!" Sirius said, going to the window, a note of panic in his voice. "Snape found out."

"Snivellus?" James blinked. "The hell was he doing there?"

"Molesting goblins, hell I don't know!" Sirius exclaimed. "The point is, he's....he could go to Voldemort and tell him that Regulus was telling me information.... and he could kill Reg."

"He can't touch him while Regulus is in school," James shook his head. "This could be a good thing, you know, if Regulus is a traitor, he can't join the Death Eaters and-"

"Regulus won't let a little thing like talking to be stop him from making my parents proud of him," Sirius said, disgusted. "And what's worse....Snape was right."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, I think you just said an oxymoron-"

"No, Prongs, he was!" Sirius said, putting his head against the charmed window. "If Regulus is killed, it's my fault."

James stood up to join him by the window. "Padfoot..."

"Why, James?" Sirius said, looking moodily at the fake landscape in front of him. "Why couldn't I stop myself?"

"What did he say?"

Sirius closed his eyes. "He said that there was a lot of money exchanging hands to keep things quiet. He said that every single pure-blood family that was on Voldemort's side attended the wedding of Bellatrix and Rodolphus, and that it was kept quiet because of a lot of money. He said that Marlene was killed because of an exchange of money between the Death Eaters and the dock handlers."

James shook his head, unable to comment on that.

"He also said that there was a spy in our ranks, very close up. That's how they knew that Marlene was going on the boat, because of the spy. He says that nobody knows exactly who it is, though," Sirius closed his eyes disgusted. "I made him pass out, Prongs. He's my brother."

"It was....an accident....?" James tried.

"No, I knew what I was doing," Sirius opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling. "Which is why what I did was even worse. I treated him like some sort of common.....he's my brother."

"You need to get out of here," James said. "Go take a walk, or something. Get your mind off of it."

"I'm waiting for my letter," Sirius said, looking out his door. "I keep sending it, hoping that he'll open it."

As he said it, the owl came fluttering back in, dropping the unopened letter onto his desk.

"Go on," James pushed at him. "Get out of here. Get some fresh air.

Sirius grabbed the owl and attached the letter to its leg. But the owl, frustrated with flying back and forth with the same letter, pecked at him and flew out the door, dropping the letter into the trash can on the way out.

"Can I borrow your owl?" Sirius said, looking to James.

"Mate, give him a few days to cool down," James said, picking up the letter out of the trashcan. "Then you can try again." He came back and pushed Sirius a little bit. "Come along then, I'll go with you, and we'll go get a drink-"

"Merr!"

"Er....we'll go for a walk, then," James corrected himself.

"Hey James! Hey, hey Sirius!"

The two of them stopped their aimless trek across the town, and turned around to see one of the Prewett twins fighting his way through the crowd to get to them.

"Hey, mate, didn't you hear me?" the twin said.

"No, sorry," James said. Sirius opened his mouth to ask, but the twin cut him off.

"Gideon," he answered with a wry smile.

"Ah," Sirius said, slowly.

"Look, I just wanted to ask you to tell Moody that Fabian and I weren't going to be around for a while. Molly just went into labor, and we've got kid duty in the waiting room. I left Fabian all alone with three kids-"

"Three kids, you say?" Sirius said, getting an idea.

"Yes, soon to be five-"

"Why don't I come with you to help out?" Sirius asked. "I have a lot on my mind."

"But-" James eyes widened.

"Don't be a pussy, Prongs, it's just kids," Sirius muttered. "Let's go then, hm?"

"Oh...all right...are you sure?" Gideon said. "They're a handful."

Sirius shrugged. "It's no problem."

James whined.

"Well, thanks..." Gideon said. "So, what's bugging you so much that you'd want to babysit three kids."

"Oh, you know," Sirius said, sarcastically nonchalant. "I'm just a fucking idiot-" Sirius announced as they walked into St. Mungo's. He didn't even notice the affronted looks or the mothers putting their hands over the ears of their children with trunks and duck feet.

"Ah, I see."

"I was...." Sirius sighed. "I don't know."

"Here we are," Gideon said, just as a loud crash echoed from within. James made another sound of protest, and hopped from one foot to the other. Gideon cracked the door and peered in, making sure that no children were within hitting range of the door.

"What's going on in there?" Sirius asked, amazed.

"Erm....their other uncle, Bilius, decided it would be a good idea to feed them a bit of chocolate for being so patient. Then the berk left us," Gideon grumbled and jumped when something slammed against the door. James was the only one to jump.

"Give Uncle Fabian back his wand, Charlie- OW!"

"Uncle Fabian is pur-ple!"

"On the count of three, we're going to run inside," Gideon said to James and Sirius. "Because if the door is left open, one of them will run out. Got it?"

"Yes," Sirius said, nodding.

"All right..." James muttered.

"One....two....THREE!" Gideon said, swinging open the door and jumping inside. Sirius and James hopped in just as quick, and sure enough, one of the little red-headed terrors was headed straight for the open door, but Gideon slammed the door before he could get to it.

"Where have you BEEN!?" Fabian, who was, indeed, purple, bellowed.

"I found help," Gideon said, holding his arms ready to catch one of the red-headed children who was waving around Fabian's wand. Unfortunately, every time the child waved the wand, he would turn something in the room into something else.

This became a problem when the chair became a loud barking dog.

"Are they crazy?" Fabian asked, staring wildly at Sirius, who expertly turned the dog back into a chair. Gideon shrugged and brandished his wand to turn the rest of the zoo back into waiting room furniture.

"It's all right, James, you can peel yourself off of the wall," Sirius grumbled at him. At the first, James had planted himself against the wall so as to not draw attention to himself.

"I-If you say so..." James said.

"Sit down, you bloody berk," Sirius rolled his eyes and plopping down on the floor. James hesitantly joined him and then noticed that Gideon and Fabian had left them behind.

"Hey! Where'd they go!" James said, whining.

"Probably to get some coffee," Sirius said, stretching a bit. "They've probably been dealing with these brats for hours."

"Chicken shit!" chanted one of the said "brats" as he ran a circle around James.

"Ah, I remember you," Sirius growled, grabbing him in his tracks and throwing him over his shoulder. The other two were alerted by the giggling and squealing of the child and ran over to jump on top of Sirius as well.

James watched in fascination as all of the chaos in the room was concentrated in one area, on top of Sirius. And even though he had three kids climbing on top of him, he somehow seemed to be managing the situation perfectly.

"How'd you get so good with kids?" James asked.

"Cousins," Sirius snorted. "And Reggie I guess..."

"He's not so much younger than you are, though-?" James asked.

"Well, you see....I was the only fun cousin that the ickle ones had to play with," Sirius said, expertly keeping all three kids on his back at once. "Nobody else would get on the floor and wrestle during family functions."

"I'm sure," James chuckled. "I'd imagine your parents weren't too pleased."

"I think by that time they'd given up trying to make me behave," Sirius sniggered. "After I got sorted, everyone just pretended I didn't exist. I only came to the functions to piss them off."

"Little blokes getting tired...." James cooed when the youngest yawned.

"Let 'em fall to sleep on their own," Sirius sat up, shaking his messy hair back into place.

"I've always wondered, Padfoot," James said, cautiously, as if he knew that the subject was painful for Sirius. "What made you decide?"

"To do what?" Sirius asked, watching the second youngest fall to exhaustion.

"Decide to not be a Death Eater-sort of person," James shrugged.

Sirius shrugged. "It never appealed to me in the first place. I didn't think that I was better than anyone else, personally. So it made no sense to think that just because I was born a certain way that I was better than anyone else."

"Is that why you think the Sorting Hat put you in Gryffindor?" James said.

"Possibly. Or possibly because I refused to be in the same house as Snivellus."

James choked on air and started laughing. "You told the Sorting Hat that you didn't want to be in the same house as Snape and it listened to you?!"

Sirius nodded smugly. "Stupid git had been a bane on my existence for eleven years, and I told the Sorting Hat that he wouldn't live to see his seventh year if we were forced to live together."

James stared at him, awestruck. "And here I thought that you'd been noble and told the Hat that you disagreed with everything that Slytherins stand for and that you wanted to be good!"

"Well, I told it that too, but I think the fact that I threatened to come find it with a pair of scissors if it put me in the same room with Snivelly might have helped...." He pulled the final kid off of his back and placed him next to his brothers. "We can't all be descendants of Godric Gryffindor, you know," he winked.

"Yes well," James snorted. Before he could retaliate further, the door opened again and Gideon and Fabian came back in with giant cups of coffee. They stopped short when they saw the scene at hand. During their conversation, all three kids were lying down and asleep.

"Stunning spells?"

"Sleeping charms?"

"Child skills," Sirius answered, grinning.

"How's your sister?" James asked.

"Still in labor," Fabian answered, sitting down in a chair and putting his hand to his head.

"How much longer?" James asked.

"A lot longer," Gideon grumbled. "It took her eight hours to get her first kid out, and from then the time's just increased with each one. I'd say we're looking at early tomorrow morning."

Sirius peered at his watch and let out a laugh. "They'd be born on April Fool's Day, you know? I'd kill to be born on April Fool's day."

"Why?" James asked.

"Because, I could tell everyone that it was my birthday and then tell them to do this big giant elaborate party for me, and in the middle of it, right as they are about to cut the ten-layer chocolate cake with fudge icing, and after I've opened all of my presents, of course, I would tell them 'Nope! Sorry! April Fool's Day!' and then take the cake and my presents before anyone could hurt me. Then, the next day, I would be all upset at everyone for not knowing that my birthday was on April first."

James raised his eyebrows. "You've had a lot of time to think about this, haven't you?"

Sirius shrugged. "No, not really."

Boom.

"The hell was that?" James said, grabbing at a chair nearest him as the earth shook beneath him.

"Earthquake in London?" Gideon asked, also bracing himself.

Boom.

"Impossible," Sirius shook his head and stood up. He paused to look at the children who were still sleeping. "They'll be all right in here."

Boom.

"For the moment, at least," Fabian said, pulling out his wand. The four of them decided to not use the lift and hoof it down the stairs. When they reached the bottom floor of St. Mungo's, they knew that they were definitely needed, because people were walking in with serious injuries.

Injuries like their heads bashed in.

Ignoring them for the moment, the Aurors pushed their way through the stream of hysterical people into the street.

"Sweet Mother of Merlin....." James said, his eyes traveling upwards, and growing wider by the second.