Rating: R for language and adult themes.
Title: Remembrance
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters, settings, and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling as published by, including and not limited, to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books, Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. The use of these characters and settings is for entertainment purposes only; no infringement is intended or should be inferred. Additionally, locations in and around the United Kingdom are used as a basis for "historical reality" or in a purely fictitious manner.
Spoiler Alert: Books 1-5.
Summary: In a way he was angered and in a way he didn't care. He was a Pureblood, he was a Black. He should have been sorted into Slytherin like his half-brother and his three cousins.
But he wasn't. He was sorted into Gryffindor. Because he had a heart. Because he did care, even when his breeding and his birthright told him that he shouldn't.
Pairings: James/Lily
Author's Notes: This is not a happy Marauder-era fic, but it is James/Lily from Sirius' viewpoint. My Marauder-era stories to date have either been very short and sweet or goofy; this one is not. It is, however, extremely profane, as I imagine Sirius Black would be…so, if you are sensitive to vulgar language, please do not read this fic. Also, I did make up his middle name. In many ways the story isn't really canonical.
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REMEMBRANCE
[] DARKNESS, DEEP WITHIN
____________________________________
And just like that, he was gone.
He disappeared. Slipped away.
Vanished.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It was what he did. It was what he was supposed to do.
It was how Sirius knew that they were on the move.
Again.
They kept coming. They would not stop.
At first they started with the Muggles. When they were in school, when they were all still in school, the damned Death Eaters started with the Muggles.
In a way he was angered and in a way he didn't care. He was a Pureblood, he was a Black. He should have been sorted into Slytherin like his half-brother and his three cousins.
But he wasn't. He was sorted into Gryffindor. Because he had a heart. Because he did care, even when his breeding and his birthright told him that he shouldn't.
There was no fidelity to the Dark Mark. He was Sirius Fucking Black (all due respect to Tonks). He didn't give a shite about the fucking Death Eaters or their fucking noble cause. Fucking family standing be damned. "I'm Sirius Rigellus Black, fucking blood traitor and fucking proud of it!" he'd yell at his younger half-brother.
He often wondered how it was that Andromeda was ever placed in Slytherin. She was cunning and resourceful but she was nothing like the others in that fucking House. She shone like the constellation she was named for, shone against the dark and the dank that was the House of Salazar Slytherin at the beginning of Voldemort's unfuckingholy crusade.
When he said he didn't care about the Muggles dying, he never meant it. His friends knew that. Wormtail, Moony, Prongs...they knew that he never meant it.
Sometimes he just couldn't help that Black tongue of his.
And sometimes it was easier to pretend not to care. It hurt too fucking much.
When Peter Pettigrew, their Wormtail, went into hiding, deep hiding, Sirius Black knew that the Death Eaters were on the move again.
They were hunting.
They were hunting all those who stood against Voldemort.
Remus Lupin. Alastor Moody. Himself. Minerva McGonagall. Albus Dumbledore. Dorcas Meadowes. Ted Tonks. Andromeda Black-Tonks. Sturgis Podmore. Kingsley Shacklebolt. Fabian Prewett. Caradoc Dearborn. Gideon Prewett.
Those who thrice defied him.
The Potters. The Longbottoms.
Those who opposed Voldemort, those who supported the Order of the Phoenix, it was a long list, longer than he cared to remember.
Because it was growing shorter by the day.
Every day, the Death Eaters took a name, two, three names, off of that list.
They started with the Muggles when they were still at Hogwarts, and then they graduated to the Muggle-borns. Then they moved on to the Purebloods who stood against them.
They killed the single. They killed entire families.
Sometimes there was blood. Sometimes it was clean.
It depended upon which Death Eater lead the raid.
Some were berserkers, wolf brigades, sweeping in like the storm troopers that Lily Evans made him read about in Sixth Year, destroying everything, literally rending lives and flesh asunder.
Some were cold and methodical, clinical, in their approach, as if they viewed the murders as an art form. Or as some Muggle surgical procedure.
Sirius thought that these were the worst of the two. Because the clean ones, those sick fucks, they truly, deeply enjoyed it.
He should have known that Voldemort was one of those. He should have bloody fucking known.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The Dementors were keen on bringing these to the surface. They were among the damned things' favourites. Something about these memories satisfied them greatly.
The memories leading up to the Dark Night.
Making him relive the mistakes that he made gave them much pleasure.
Twelve years of being administered to by the crossbred Lethifolds made it so that his mind would unwillingly tread the same path without them.
He would close his eyes and time would reset.
It was a year before.
They had started to kill members of the Order.
They didn't start with the Aurors or the Hit Wizards, no, not the fucking great Death Eaters, why start with those who could bloody defend themselves?
No, they went after the members who were either recent graduates of Hogwarts or who had jobs in the Ministry of Magic, jobs with nothing to do with being an Auror or Hit Wizard or even an Unspeakable. They went after the easy prey.
Sirius wanted them all dead for that.
Not just Sirius, but other members of the Order.
They killed...their old Head Boy and his wife...they just had a daughter.
For fuck's sake, Bones and his wife just had a daughter and the fucking Death Eaters killed her too.
It made him think of his cousin and her twat of a husband, Tonks. Yes, Tonks got up his bloody nose, Tonks was constantly arse over tit, but Andromeda loved the sodding bastard.
Somehow, Tonks managed to father a child despite the bloody beating he was giving his body with the liquor, fucking killing his liver every other night. But he still managed to give Andromeda a sprog.
Grudgingly, Sirius...loved Ted fucking Tonks for that.
Once you got past the instantaneous growing of facial hair or the turning pink plaid with a Scarsdale orange twist, she was a cracking kid.
Sirius loved his niece for that.
He wondered how she was. If she was still doing that thing with her hair, wearing it short but changing the colour every hour to something from a child's paint box.
He wondered if Nymphadora (what a bloody name) was still looking after Harry.
His Harry.
His godson.
James and Lily entrusted their first born, their only born, to him.
And he fucking killed them.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
This part...yes, this part, the Dementors fucking loved this part.
Making him think about James and Lily.
While they were at Hogwarts, no one would have ever thought that they would be together. That they would be husband and wife.
No one, that is, other than Prongs.
Prongs was a stubborn bastard.
James pursued Lily with an intensity he usually saved for Quidditch. He was a mad Chaser, bloody brilliant on the pitch. Though Sirius would never say it aloud, James was a bloody dream to watch on a broom. The man took to flying like a jarvey took to cursing. It was natural.
And it was a sight to see, Sirius thought, a bloody sight to see.
Prongs took to pursuing Lily with the same natural aplomb. And it was a sight to see.
The swotty, flame-haired Evans, great Merlin's beard, she was a thorn in his arse. When she was named Prefect...Sirius thought he might have to do something drastic. Like fling her from the Astronomy Tower.
She was all right, but...a little on the priggish side.
After he met her sister and brother-in-law, Sirius understood why.
There was something in her that James fancied, though. Something that captivated the poor sod. She was a good looking bird. She was fit. Slender. Pale, but not a sickly pale, ye olde tales of lore porcelain kind of pale. Her hair was a lovely shade of red. A coppery, shiny, wavy red. There was a hint of mischief in her green eyes, an inkling of the not-so-swotty side. Her eyes alone, a brilliant emerald tone, made many a boy's knees weak. When she levelled her gaze upon you, near all hope was lost. One way or the other, Evans would get you, whether it be by docking points for Spellotaping their mate Pettigrew to the bench in the Common Room, to assigning detention for hexing the trousers and knickers off of Regulus, Rosier, and Lestrange in the Courtyard (detention with Filchy was fucking worth that), to actually boxing his and Moony's ears and dragging them down the hall, if Evans saw you, she had you.
Sirius imagined it was the same with James. All Lily had to do was look his way, and then the berk was love-struck.
It took a while to convince Lily, however, and this was where James being a stubborn bastard came in quite handy.
It took him nearly two years to break down her resolve. Sirius knew from mere observation (as well as through some creative spying and bribery) that Lily thought James to be nothing more than a self-aggrandising prat. Which, give Evans her due, wasn't far off the mark. But Sirius knew his mate and knew that James was having a bit of a put on. It was easier to stick with the stereotype, safer as well. Prongs was the prat who played Quidditch, Moony was the shy one who was a bit swotty, Wormtail was a bit of an anorak, and he, Padfoot, was the loud and obnoxious one.
But they were more than the labels that Hogwarts had attached to them, labels that they willingly bore and even hid behind. James was very intelligent, and a fine wizard, had a wicked sense of humour, always up for a wheeze, and loyal beyond the usual bounds. After all, it was James' idea for him and Peter to learn to become Animagi in order to ease Remus' suffering at the dawn of every new moon. James led the charge for them to master the craft in secret and to protect Remus and to keep his affliction secret.
The only other person among the student body who knew about Remus' condition was Evans. And then, later, due to his bloody stupidity, that fucking Snape.
If it weren't for James, Severus would have been killed. It wasn't Sirius' intention (though, he had to admit, he wouldn't have cried much if Snivellus had died), but he did want the greasy git to have the fear of God or Vishnu or Mohamed or Buddha or someone put into him.
James could be hard, but deep down, he was a sensitive lad.
Perhaps that was what won Evans over.
Evans was most discrete about Remus' condition. When she discovered that Severus had been sent to the Shrieking Shack on a night when Remus most definitely was not himself (Evans was a clever girl, the brightest witch of her age, so it took her barely any effort to know), she kept that a secret as well. She had to tell the Headmaster, though, as Severus was scuffed up and as he was screaming bloody murder. The last thing that they needed, that Hogwarts needed, was for the greasy git to tell all of Slytherin that Remus was a werewolf.
That Evans...she was what the Americans would call a top-shelf woman.
When James and Lily finally began dating, after an intricate and complicated antagonistic courtship, Remus took credit for bringing them together. The swotty prick actually took credit for it. He told Sirius that it was the only good thing to ever come from his being bitten as a child.
Sirius had agreed and then promptly hit him in the shoulder for being right.
Watching Potter court his intended was of some amusement. Time after time he would approach Lily, and time after time she would rebuff him. But James kept trying.
Stubborn bastard. He should have been a ram or a goat instead of a stag.
Then he could have been called Stinky or something instead of Prongs.
Sirius liked the idea of that.
James kept giving chase and Lily kept ignoring him. But Sirius and Remus could see the ice begin to melt. They would report back to James on it. Not so much Remus as him. Remus, the soft-headed wally, had gotten close in that platonic way with Lily and was too fucking noble to use the friendship to Prongs' advantage.
They'd flown his boxers from the Gryffindor Tower for that.
But Lily was starting to see James in a different light. When they finally became boyfriend and girlfriend, it was as though the entire bloody school had heaved a sigh of relief. Finally. At bloody last. What took you so fucking long?
But the relief was short lived. For soon after James and Lily were together, in their last term, in the months and years following graduation, things worsened. Voldemort and the Death Eaters increased their attacks, the number and the intensity. Things became very bad after graduation.
Very bad...
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Prongs and Evans became James and Lily Potter not long after graduation.
Though none of them said it aloud, there was the feeling that there might not have been enough time for them to have an extended engagement. At any rate, it was obvious that they were meant to be together. Once one got past all of the sniping and the name-calling and the prefecty/Head Girl/prat on a broom type things. James and Lily worked. They looked right together. They worked well together. They complimented one another, James with his confidence and skill and Lily with her intelligence and grace. It even felt good to say their names together. James and Lily Potter.
Sirius was the best man. Remus was the ring bearer. Peter was the flower boy.
It seemed that, once they finally were married, things went to hell around them.
The Boneses were murdered.
The McKinnons were slaughtered.
Dearborn went missing.
Benjy Fenwick, a Slytherin who had been spying on the Death Eaters, was found. Well, as much as he could be found. Benjy Fenwick had literally been blown to bits. It took the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and Saint Mungo's some time to even declare that the...remains were his.
The Death Eaters had figured it out. It took them some months, but they had finally sussed the Order of the Phoenix.
It astonished Sirius, continued to astonish Sirius, that James and Lily had faced Voldemort two times before and had survived. The Longbottoms, the newly married Frank and Alice, had done the same. Sirius was both worried (though he'd never say so) and relieved (that either) about the Potters and the Longbottoms. Having defied Voldemort and his Happy Fun Gang was enough to be put on their fucking list; but to go against Voldemort himself and to walk away, twice?
Meadowes, who had defied Voldemort, had been personally hunted down and murdered by him. She was strong. She was as strong, if in some ways not stronger than James or Lily, Frank or Alice. How was it that she died when they didn't?
Sirius didn't care then. All he knew was that his classmates, his compatriots in the Order were being slaughtered to the left and right of him and that, so far, the Potters had been fortunate.
As dark as their days were, as tense as the situation had become, there were moments of light.
Lily discovered that she was preggers.
Bloody Prongs was going to have a sprog.
The Marauders rode again that night and got arsed.
Lily was there to reprimand them, clean them up, and then wreak her vengeance the next morning when they suffered the Hogsmeade Hangover.
After that night, James was much more serious.
They all were.
There was a child to consider.
James and Lily took Sirius aside a couple of months later and asked that he be the child's godfather. That he be responsible for the child should anything happen to either of them.
At first, Sirius didn't want to hear anything of it. They had faced Lord Fuck Me If You Please Voldemort and had come out standing. Twice. The Longbottoms had done the same (and they were expecting a child as well). They would be fine.
Besides, Sirius was fucking rotten with children. Sure, he had a grand time with Nymphadora (rotten luck with that name) but he could always give her back to Andromeda.
He would be a terrible godfather.
But, James and Lily, especially Lily, persisted.
Remus was of a better temperament, he was better read, not Sirius.
But Remus had his time of the month.
And Peter...a trainspotter wasn't the first person one usually thought of when seeking care for one's child.
So, it was Sirius.
He grudgingly accepted the duty, but James knew he was full of shite. Sirius was on a cloud. He was after being someone's godfather. And not just any someone, but the son or daughter of his best mate and one of the finest women in the world.
Sirius was well chuffed.
And then Fabian and Gideon Prewett were killed.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Sirius had heard the name Weasley before, but wasn't certain of the context until he heard about the deaths of the Prewett brothers.
They were the younger brothers of Molly Prewett, who had married Arthur Weasley years before. They had...several kids, three sons, and Molly was with a sprog herself.
Her brothers were both Aurors. Bloody good ones. So good that it took five Death Eaters to finally take them. And the Prewetts took three of the fuckers with them.
When he heard that, Sirius swore that when it came to be his time, he would do the same. Take the fuckers with him to hell or where ever.
After the Prewetts were murdered, that's when James and Lily decided to go into hiding. It was actually Lily's decision. She was quite the planner, always pragmatic.
James, on the advice of Dumbledore, chose Godric's Hollow, though.
Together, he, James, Remus, Lily, and Peter worked on the wards. James and Lily charmed and protected the house, especially the nursery. Peter made the house Unplottable. He and James and Remus worked on a Fidelus Charm.
Then James asked him to be their Secret Keeper. That was integral to a Fidelus Charm. Sirius accepted. He kept their secret for a year; well over a year, to the birth and beyond.
He kept James and Lily and their son, his godson, Harry James Potter, he kept them all safe. As he swore to do.
Sirius had to be constantly on the move, constantly shifting, arriving, leaving. He wasn't certain why, but the Death Eaters had taken an interest in him. It wasn't enough that they had claimed two of his cousins as their own and his younger half-brother. It wasn't enough that Voldemort had Regulus killed when he tried to leave. Stupid fucking boy. He had no idea of who or what the Death Eaters were about.
Stupid, sad, boy.
Voldemort had targeted him. Sirius reckoned it was because he was so close to the Potters. The Death Eaters were drawing closer to him. He knew they were coming for him.
And so he did the one thing that he regretted above all others. The one thing that haunted his days, his nights, his every moment since.
He, without the knowledge of James or Lily, made Peter Pettigrew the Secret Keeper.
Peter Pettigrew, who was easily manipulated.
Peter Pettigrew, who wasn't nearly as talented as they were.
Peter Pettigrew, who followed them around since First Year.
Peter Pettigrew, who had been spying for Voldemort.
Peter fucking traitor fucking bastard fucking cunt Pettigrew fuck you.
Sirius wept many bitter tears in Azkaban, as always, to the delight of the Dementors.
It was clean. There was no blood. There were no bodies, other than Harry.
Sirius had found him in the rubble of the Potter home.
There was a hole in Godric's Hollow. It would never compare to the hole in Sirius Black's soul.
It wasn't Peter's weakness that killed James and Lily.
It was the fear, the cowardice, of one Sirius Black that killed them. He and he alone could wear that crown of shite. He killed them. Not Peter. He did.
For twelve years he lived with the knowledge that he had killed James and Lily. That James had, in a desperate but noble, always noble, attempt to protect his wife and child had faced off against Voldemort one last time.
And had died.
That Lily, with a fierceness that was of her own nature yet amplified by the love of a mother, enraged by the sound of her husband's death, offered her life for that of her infant son, his godson, Harry.
And then she died.
And then little Harry James, all on his own, did what his father, his mother, did what the Prewetts, what Dearborn, what Meadowes, what the Boneses and McKinnons could not.
He lived.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Sirius wondered how his godson was, if his godson was okay.
He wondered if his godson ever got round to figuring out that Hermione liked him. Gods, she reminded him of Lily. The brightest witch of her age...
Sirius wondered what life might have been like for them if he hadn't been such a fucking coward. If he hadn't surrendered to his fears just like Peter did.
They might yet still be fighting against Voldemort. They might have defeated Voldemort. The possibilities caused him pain.
The Dementors used to love that. He even saw one lick its...lips in anticipatory glee.
But he was far away from the Dementors now. Far away from their grasp, their kiss. He was even further away from Harry. From Remus. From Dumbledore. From everyone.
It was grey in this world. A sticky sort of grey. The colour felt as though it clung to one's limbs, stuck to one's clothes. Pulled yet stood fast when one tried to move against it.
Grey.
Unendingly grey.
There were moments of light. Not so much light as white. Then moments of dark. Not so much dark as black.
There were times when he fancied that the impact point on his chest still smarted from where Bellatrix struck him with Stupefy. He knew that it wasn't possible, but...
Too much time had passed.
No time had passed at all.
Bloody fucking veil of whatever. Who in their fucking mind would leave one of the damned portals to hang in the Department of Mysteries? Stupid fucking Ministry of Magic. They should have put the goddamn thing in a closet, out of the way.
Instead, they left it out in the middle of all fuck so Bellatrix could blast him into it, leaving him stuck in...where ever the fuck he was.
Some grey expanse of boring shite.
Nothing to do there but wait.
Remember and wait.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
And just like that, he was gone.
He disappeared. Slipped away.
Vanished....
†