Blood Traitor

Chapter Two

July, 1976

Sirius woke up with the feeling that something had changed since he was last conscious. He opened his eyes, and, as things focused, realised that he was inside, lying on a bed, and shirtless. Groggily, he lifted his face out of the pillow and peered around what he now saw was James' room. His tousle-haired friend was sitting at a desk prodding a piece of parchment; next to the desk his state-of-the-art broomstick stood beside his fencing foil.

Sirius' heart sank. He had left his foil at Grimmauld Place! Slytherin would have a field day if he were unable to compete in the dueling tournament. Well, he would have his wand, obviously, but it wouldn't be good enough to only participate in one section of the competition. Slytherin were especially determined to win this year, too, and he had vowed not to let them...

But at the moment he had other things to think about. "Er, James, mate," he quipped, "you haven't ravaged me in my sleep or anything, have you? Only I haven't got a shirt on." And if you did, could you do it again, because I missed it, he added to himself.

"I thought it might revive you from your faint," James replied sarcastically. "You prat, I asked my mum what to do and she said loosen your clothing." Mrs Potter was a mediwitch, and the Marauders had often owled her with problems they wouldn't even take to Madam Pomfrey.

"Ah. Obviously my shirt was so loose it's fallen off, then. I'll just walk around naked, shall I?" Sirius asked. To his surprise, instead of answering with a joke, James looked away- was he blushing? -and tossed Sirius the parchment sitting on his desk.

"Post came from your family. I'd've chucked it out the window, but it bit me." Sirius recognised the type of letter immediately. It was a Pestering Postcard, which the upper class considered more genteel than Howlers. It followed the recipient around until it felt he had explained himself satisfactorily in his response. Some wizards, the Blacks included, might attach a variant of the Imperius Curse so that the Postcard could not be ignored.

He poked it with his wand experimentally. It latched onto the end with its paper teeth, and a brief battle ensued as Sirius struggled to regain his wand. Finally he beat it back onto the desk, after singing it with a curse and, in return, getting his fingers bitten a few times.

"Prongs, help me blast the spells off this, would you?" James nodded and linked arms with Sirius, who tried very hard not to think about how close to each other they were standing.

"On three, then," said James. "One...two...dispello incantatem!" they chorused. After many curses by the Slytherins, Remus had discovered how to take spells off objects before you touched them, which had proved very useful. The only drawback was that it took two people to work up enough power, and they had to be touching. Which might not be so much of a drawback after all.

The Postcard leapt into the air, shivering, and then sank back down, now an ordinary piece of parchment. Sirius picked it up and opened it, stepping forward into the light from the window.

Boy (note to self: must think of better way to address him),

It has come to our attention that you are still in possession of two items belonging not to you personally but to the Black family. We have interpreted your departure as a relinquishment of the family name, due to the fact that you carved into the wall of your room several inappropriate comments regarding your relations. (Note to self: must paint over wall.) Therefore we demand the return of these items immediately.

Kreacher

Speaking for Mr and Mrs Black

"Who the bloody hell puts notes to themselves in a letter?" asked James, reading over Sirius' shoulder.

"Our mad house-elf, that's who," Sirius said grimly, snapping open his suitcase. He had no idea what he had brought along that might belong to the Black family. It wasn't as though he had made off with their best china. He soon discovered a silver pendant that he hadn't meant to pack, and, much to his dismay, his prized pocketwatch. It told everything from the lunar phase to the temperature to what would be a good thing to have for lunch today, and it traditionally belonged to the oldest son.

"Oh no," James said when he saw what Sirius had found. "How'll we remember what classes we've got without that to remind us?"

"We could ask Remus," Sirius suggested, but without much enthusiasm. Last year they had set the compass on the watch to track Snape so they could sneak up on him to attack. James regularly used it to assess Quidditch conditions, and Remus had charmed it to flash red whenever one of the professors was angry with them, which was all the time. Peter could be kept fascinated by it for hours, although often as not he ended up breaking it.

"Don't send it back. Here, I'll Transfigure this- er- dirty sock to look like your watch, and we'll send them that instead. C'mon, Padfoot, think of all the pranks we won't be able to play because we don't know where Snivellus is."

"Or," said Sirius slowly, "think of the bargaining power this'll have over my parents." He could get his foil back, maybe some more clean robes. Possibly he could even get Regulus to return Really Nasty Ways to Curse People, Volume XIV. He grabbed some parchment and a quill from James' desk and dashed off a reply.

Former parents,

Here's your pendant. I'll give you the watch if you send me my sword and the rest of my clothes. And Regulus, you bugger, give me back my book. You know which one I'm talking about.

Sirius

Glancing it over, he decided to cross out "you bugger" in case Regulus decided to try one of those curses on him. And also because he didn't really have a problem with buggery as such. Not that Regulus, or anyone else, needed to know that. He rolled up the letter with the pendant inside.

"Is Saturn still here?" he asked.

"See for yourself," James said, pointing out the window.

Sticking his head outside, Sirius saw the raven the Blacks used for people they didn't know very well or didn't like much, instead of Saturn, the more formal grey owl. He groaned inwardly. "Hey, Minae. C'mere, you beast. I've a letter for you." Minae eyed him coldly and hopped closer. "That's it. A little more." Slowly, the raven hopped closer and closer towards him, and then attacked. He let out a stream of curses, but managed to attach the letter through the rain of pecks she had unleashed on him. Finally he finished and shook her off his arm.

"Get out of here, you bloody bird," he muttered. "I hate that thing. Why does all the post from my parents have to attack me?" Looking down at himself, he realised that he had been pecked rather more severely than he had thought. Gashes covered his arm all the way up to his shoulder, and there were even one or two on his chest.

"Brilliant, Padfoot. You've just fainted, you might as well lose a lot of blood. Here, let me fix that." James picked up Sirius' arm and began spelling his cuts closed, pressing his fingers to each wound in turn and repeating a healing charm over and over. Sirius ignored the thought that James was going to have to touch his chest. Then he ignored the fact that James actually was touching his chest now. He looked pensive, as though he were about to speak. Maybe-

"Hey," James said. "D'you think Evans still thinks I'm a massive git?" And that was it, Sirius realised. When he was thinking about James, James would be thinking about Lily. Always.

"Well, considering you were the last time she saw you, I'd say yeah, mate. You'd have to do something to change her mind." And there it was again: he could say nothing for himself, only be the perfect supportive friend and hope against hope that James could somehow change his mind for himself. That was it.

"Sorry. D'you know what we should do? To replace your watch? We could make this massive map of Hogwarts..." And James was off on one of his grand projects again. Sirius grinned and listened.

***

July, 1994

Remus was waiting for him when he and the hippogriff landed in front of his house. Sirius had known he would be, of course. He had never even wondered whether Remus had moved during the years he had been in Azkaban. He just knew that Remus would be there, ready for his arrival, after the week in which Sirius had flown about the country so that he could be seen in various locations.

Neither of them had said anything, but simply cooperated in tying Buckbeak to a tree out back, getting dinner ready, and making up the couch for Sirius to sleep on. Not a single word was spoken until much later, when the ex-prisoner had begun to search for an extra toothbrush that Remus might have. Instead, he had found a bottle of hair gel.

"You don't style your hair," he commented gruffly as Remus walked into the bathroom to see if he could help.

"It isn't mine." A pang of jealousy shot through Sirius, but of course his old friend could have other people stay in the house. It was perfectly fair, it would have been reasonable even if Sirius had been there, and he had been gone for twelve years.

"Whose is it?" he asked, failing to stop himself from being curious. After all, he could ask if he wanted to.

"Yours and James'," Remus replied, as if the two of them had left it there last week and he had simply forgotten to return it. He turned to Sirius, looking into his eyes in the mirror. He spoke very quietly when he spoke next. "Sometimes I forget and I buy things for you."

Sirius smiled, and a thousand memories the Dementors had taken from him came rushing back.

***

September, 1971

Sirius had been to Platform 9 ¾ before, but this was the first time he had ever been on the train. His mother had made him memorise a list of other Hogwarts first-years it would be acceptable to socialise with, but he thought he might have a look around first.

"Hullo," he said to a blond boy in the compartment he had just entered, sticking out his hand. "What's your name?"

"I'm Remus," the boy answered, starting a little. On second glance, Sirius knew that he was definitely not on the list Mrs Black had provided. His clothes were far too shabby, and his face was smudged. He took Sirius' hand as though he was scared it would bite him- or perhaps scared that he would bite it, but Sirius couldn't see why this would be.

"I'm Sirius," he replied in turn, shaking Remus' hnd confidently and firmly, as his father had taught him to do.

"Really, my name's Remus," the boy said, looking slightly offended. It took Sirius a moment to understand.

"What? Oh, I know. I meant my name is Sirius." Remus blushed, mumbled something, and dropped Sirius' hand, looking at the floor. After a moment he looked back up, and they both grinned at the misunderstanding.

At that instant, something came flying through the door Sirius had just come through. He dove out of the way, falling into the seat next to Remus. Looking back at the blur, he found that it was two boys having a fight. After another minute, it turned out to be one boy fighting another who was trying to escape. Sirius weighed the situation in his mind and decided it to step in.

"Right, help me pull them apart," he said. Remus looked apprehensive, but nodded. Sirius plunged himself into the fray with abandon, followed a minute later by Remus. Nervous as Remus was, he fought like a wild animal. Sirius fought like a gentleman, and would likely have been pummeled if his strength hadn't compensated for his decorum. Soon a short, pudgy boy was struggling to get away from Remus, while Sirius was forcibly restraining a lanky boy whose eyes seemed to be hammering nails through the other's head.

"Give me back my wand, Pettigrew," the lanky boy spat. The pudgy one cowered in fear.

"I haven't got it!" he squeaked, his eyes darting to the door. "Snape has, he just said I did. I haven't, really, James!" James tried to pull free from Sirius, but he tightened his hold.

"He was on the other side of the room from me!" James shouted. "You were right next to me! You were- let me go, why don't you?" he yelled at Sirius.

"Why don't we just check whether he has the wand or not?" Remus suggested sensibly. James stared at him for a minute, then nodded. Sirius released him, only to grab him as he darted for Pettigrew again.

"Steady on." Sirius nodded to Remus, who turned out Pettigrew's pockets, revealing plenty of dust, a few scraps of parchment, and a toad, but no wand. "Believe him now?"

James was still glaring at Sirius, but nodded reluctantly, and this time he made no move when he let him go. "I'm James, that's Peter," he muttered grudgingly.

"Sirius, and he's Remus. D'you want your wand back from whoever's got it?" James broke into a grin.

"Snape won't know what's hit him."

Later, Sirius remembered that Severus Snape was on his mother's list of people with whom he might associate. He didn't much care.

***

March, 1973

"He's a werewolf?"

"Shut up, Peter," Sirius and James chorused. It was something they had grown quite used to saying over the past year and a half. This time it secretly confirmed Sirius' belief that Peter was an idiot; the two of them had finally realised about Remus almost a month ago. Since then they had been doing research.

Sirius had to admit it had bothered him at first. He had grown up listening to a litany of complaints against halfbreeds, after all; but he had never met anyone less likely to be dangerous than Remus. Remus was the only one kind enough to keep Peter from collapsing in fear every three seconds. He patted James' wounded pride when the professors' assessments failed to live up to his image of himself. He was the only person Sirius trusted enough to speak to seriously or ask for help. If Remus was a slavering monster, then more people should be slavering monsters. This seemed to be beyond Peter's comprehension.

"But werewolves are vicious! They eat people! They have enormous fangs and yellow eyes and big gaping mouths and-"

"Not when they're human, they don't," a very small voice piped up behind Sirius. His eyes locked with James' in shock for an instant before he turned around. They hadn't expected him to be back so soon, they had planned to give him a big speech about how it didn't matter to them, and now he was going to think they were whispering behind his back. Which actually they were. But not because they hated him. Which was what he probably thought.

"We know you wouldn't eat anybody, Remus, I'm more likely to eat someone than you are." Remus didn't look like he believed Sirius. He was mumbling something about "leave you alone, won't bother you", but James interrupted him.

"What d'you think we'd do, turn you in? You're our friend, you've never hurt anybody, and we couldn't do our homework without you. You're the best person we know. We don't care that you go all moony once a month."

"We love you, mate." James looked horrified.

"Well," he corrected, "not actually love you as such, I mean I suppose you could say that if you wanted to, which I don't, but I guess Sirius can say it-"

Nobody was paying him the slightest bit of attention. Remus had engulfed them all in an enormous hug. Later Sirius always thought of that moment, wondering when he had first fallen in love with Remus. And sometimes he remembered it when he was wondering whether he was in love with James as well, and remembered that Remus had accepted his love when James had not.

***

December 24, 1983

There is no Christmas in Azkaban; Sirius knows this by now. There are no calendars either. He has no way to know that it is Christmas Eve, just before midnight, yet he does. And if he is wrong, no one will ever know.

He would like to be dramatic and say that it is the worst Christmas Eve he has ever had, but this is not true. His first Christmas in Azkaban was the worst. Christmas is almost everybody's favourite holiday, and it is the Dementors' favourite holiday as well. It is the day when even the oldest prisoners remember their lives before.

Sirius thinks perhaps he has more bittersweet memories of Christmas than any other prisoner in Azkaban. Memories of drinking brandy with James in the dormitory until they were calling everybody "sweetheart"; of elegant and despicable soirées at Grimmauld Place; of snowball fights which always ended in three sweating bodies heaped together in the cold snow and Peter off sulking somewhere else; of sneaking into the kitchens and asking the house-elves to make certain traditional Christmas dinners that no-one in his right mind would eat and then sending them to Snape; of nearly impaling himself on his first foil at the age of three.

Memories of drinking wine with James; of drinking rum with Jams; of drinking just about anything alcoholic with James; and once of drinking champagne with Remus to celebrate something he can't even remember- but he does remember that when Remus is drunk he gets sleepy and curls up on Sirius' shoulder, breathing in his ear, and being so comfortable and warm next to the fire that Sirius couldn't move even if he wanted to.

It is impossible, but somewhere in the distance Sirius thinks he hears bells strike midnight.

Merry Christmas.