Blood Traitor

Chapter Four

August, 1976

"Oy, Sirius." James wandered into the living room, frowning over a bit of parchment. "D'you know a family called the D'Anguis?" Sirius paused, in the middle of executing a lunge with his newly-returned foil, and pondered the question.

"Not personally, no. I think our house-elves are related, though, Kreacher's always muttering things about his cousin Kinky."

"Kinky?" James looked as though he were about to explode with laughter. He was singularly bad at keeping a straight face for the strange names used by more traditional wizards.

Sirius shrugged and put away his foil. "I've weirder in my family."

"You haven't," said James, with the glint in his eye he always got when he knew a great joke was coming.

"I have. My great-great-aunts were named Chastity, Purity, and Bugger All This For A Lark." James snorted and fell onto the sofa. Resisting the urge to do something abysmally stupid like tickling him, Sirius added, "Anyway, what about the D'Anguis?"

The frown returned. Wordlessly, James handed him the parchment. Cordially invited...now that you have your OWL results...opportunity for the future... "So? Standard recruitment party, they want us to work for the Department of Enchanted Coffee-Tables or something like that."

"Read the bottom." Sirius did, and abruptly sat on the sofa next to James.

"They wouldn't." This explained James' scowl, which was deepening even as they spoke. "Mudbloods and half-breeds not allowed? Not surprising they'd think that, but to actually put it on an invitation- they've got no bloody tact- they-" He cut himself off.

"And there's an owl from Moony, they sent him one too." Oh, fuck. It wasn't the kind of thing Remus would brush off lightly, not like the dumb werewolf jokes they occasionally heard at school. This would hurt him. The stupid things people did when they didn't know who someone was- but it would be even worse if they did know. It was damn stupid.

"James," said Sirius cheerfully, "how would you like to kill someone today?"

"Very much, thank you." They lapsed into angry silence for a few minutes, until James said, "But it's not as if we didn't know this was coming."

"What do you mean?" asked Sirius, knowing perfectly well what he meant.

"Oh, wake up, Sirius, there's been a huge bloody secret war on for the past couple years, and you and I know it perfectly well. Remus knows a little, even Peter might suspect, but my dad's an Auror and your family's a load of evil gits, and even if we've been pretending everything's fine we know what's going on. It's going to go public this year, my dad heard Lucius Malfoy say so, and invitations to dinner are the least of it. If I-"

"Wait a minute," Sirius interrupted. "Do you think this is a Death Eater recruitment party?" James stopped short.

"Oh my god," he breathed. Staring down at the letter, he slowly nodded. "Of course. Of course. And- look, we have the chance to infiltrate it! We can spy on the Death Eaters, we can report the information to Dumbledore, we can maybe stop them from hurting someone! This is brilliant, Padfoot. I'm going to owl Moony and ask him to come."

"What- no! You can't do that, you idiot, he'll feel awful. I'm all for the infiltrating, but if you make Remus sit through an entire evening socialising with people who think he's evil, I swear to Merlin I will hex your broomstick with a Snitch-Repelling Charm. I won't let you do that to him." James simply looked at him.

"He'd want us to trust him enough to help," he said. And fuck it all, he was right. He hated it when James was right. In his opinion, James should stick to devising fun and harmless adventures.

But life wasn't going to be like that anymore, he realised. Adventures weren't going to be fun and harmless. James wasn't going to be his best friend, first and foremost, before all other people. And he wasn't going to be able to protect Remus from his werewolf nature forever. He sighed.

"Give me a quill. I'll write it."

***

"Remus! Over here!" Sirius grinned and waved madly as he landed his Cleansweep next to the D'Anguis' shed. The answering smile from Remus was slightly uncertain, but Peter, trailing along behind, was positively bouncing.

"Sirius! James! You'll never believe the feast they have inside, it's enormous, there must be twenty-seven different kinds of jelly..." While Peter babbled on and on, Remus and Sirius exchanged something halfway between a hug and a punch on the arm. It seemed to strike the appropriate balance between "friendly" and "heterosexual", so Sirius grinned at him again.

"Oy, what's wrong?" asked Sirius when Remus didn't smile back.

"Nothing. Just this place gives me the creeps."

"Well, yeah, that might be because it's clearly evil and dark and creepy and did I mention evil?" He passed his broomstick to the wizard placing them inside the shed. "How was France?"

"Full of tourists wearing leather and riding motorcycles," said Remus. Somehow, he seemed to think this was a bad thing.

"Motorcycles, you say?"

"Um...yes, I think I said that. Am I going to regret it?"

"Remus, old friend, you've just given me an idea." This induced a look of panic. "I think we're going to go shopping for motorbikes tomorrow. What do you think, Prongs?"

"Of course. Let's skip the leather, though, shall we?"

"But James! That would be no fun!" Remus' look of panic began to be replaced by a twitching at the corner of his mouth.

"You're just doing this to annoy me," he said confidently.

"Er...no, not really. I want a motorbike," Sirius confessed. "But I will promise not to wear leather if you promise me not to...er...well, I can't think of anything stupid you would do, so that's no good. Bring on the leather, then."

"You guys are really weird," said Peter, finally halting his litany of what foods were present.

"If you wear leather, then I have no choice but to wear my traditional family kilt," threatened Remus. Sirius smiled.

"Looking forward to it."

"Now that you've all determined your outfits for the season, can we proceed to defeating evil?" demanded James. "By the way, Sirius, your cousin is walking into the house with Lucius Malfoy."

"Damn it, I hoped I wouldn't have to see Bella until the Christmas holidays. Or ever," said Sirius, turning around to look.

"No, the pretty one. Narcissa. I forget, is she evil, or just stupid?"

"If she's coming here with Lucius Malfoy, she's really stupid," growled Sirius. "He is far too old for her. And completely disgusting, as well. You wouldn't believe his interpretation of Ministry reform." Remus' hand brushed his shoulder lightly.

"It's okay," he said, so quietly that no one but Sirius could hear. "You don't live with her anymore; you don't have to worry about them." If only it were true. He had done nothing but worry about them since he had left, and now it looked as though he was going to have to worry about Narcissa again.

"Would you guys just come inside and look at the food?" demanded Peter. Laughing, James cuffed Peter on the head and started up the path with him. With a slightly embarrassed look at each other, Remus and Sirius followed, the latter cursing under his breath all the way.

Narcissa was still in the vestibule when they entered, although Malfoy had gone on inside. A house-elf was attempting to hang her cloak on a peg far too high for it to reach, while she looked on impatiently. It must have surprised her when Sirius swooped in, hung up both her cloak and his own, and nodded to her. However, she quickly regained her composure.

"Joined the party, have you?"

"Just stopping in," he replied, wondering what exactly her words meant. "Nice to see you, Cissy."

"Why'd you leave?" she asked abruptly as he turned to go. He turned back, puzzled. He knew what it meant when she asked questions in that tone of voice; it meant I have to tell you something but I'm going to pretend it's your job to tell me. It had always annoyed him.

"Why do you care?"

"Was it because of Lucius? I'm sorry, if it was. Perhaps he's a little extreme, but you don't know him, Sirius. He's such wonderful company, and he's been quite successful in the Ministry so far. He's really kind."

"He's really rich," said Sirius. But Narcissa looked genuinely worried, as though she actually cared about his opinion, so he expanded. "He doesn't care about you, Cissy. He knows you're pretty and rich and respectable. And he's way too old for you."

"I don't care."

"Well, you bloody well should care, it's really not-"

"I'm going to marry him," she whispered.

"What?" For a moment Sirius forgot that he had cut off ties with his family, shocked into cousinly devotion. "He asked?" She nodded.

"I'm going to finish school first, of course-"

"Oh, wake up," he interrupted, unconsciously echoing what James had said a few days before. "D'you think it matters to him if you finish school or not? You'll turn seventeen in December and you'll be married the instant you step off the train back home. It makes him look good, that's the only reason he cares. Cissy- do what I did. Leave, leave now, you can stay with us at the Potters' if you like. It'll all be okay." He had grabbed her hand as he talked. She shook it off now.

"I am going into the party," she said coldly. "Good-bye." And with that she left. Sirius turned back to his friends, who quickly pretended not to be staring.

"No help for that sort," said James.

"You almost convinced her, though," said Remus. "D'you want me to try? I think if someone talked to her, she could change her mind."

"No- it's okay," answered Sirius, although he wasn't sure whether it was. "She can do whatever she wants, she's older than I am anyway."

"I want food," Peter announced, and marched into the hall without them. When the others followed a moment later, they had completely lost sight of him. It would be impossible to search for one, short individual in such a crowd. The place was packed with wizards and witches of all ages, not only those in their year.

"Oh my god," said James. He swallowed nervously. "Even if only half of these people know what this is- if only half of these are supporters of the pureblood movement, let alone Death Eaters- we're screwed. There are not enough Aurors to take on that many people."

"I need alcohol," said Sirius. Amused, James snorted at him.

"After that lecture you gave me the other day? Hah! Not bloody likely!"

"Since when does Sirius give lectures about alcohol?" asked Remus, only half-listening to the conversation. His eyes were fixed on someone across the room, someone Sirius couldn't see with his only-human eyesight.

"If he had been drunk anywhere except outside Snape's flat, it would have been fine," said Sirius. He hadn't told James what he suspected were Dai Llewellyn's true intentions, and didn't plan to.

"You're just mad because you had to be invisible when we met the greatest Quidditch player of all time," James said, brushing off his comment. "Who are you staring at, Remus? Anyone attractive?"

"No," said Remus shortly. "That man over there- his name's Macnair, he has a job killing dangerous creatures. He was in France when I was, and the newspapers there said that he had killed a werewolf that had been safely captured and drugged. Someone told him it was illegal, and he said he didn't care, that it was best to hex first and ask questions later."

"I agree," said Sirius. "It would be better to hex him before he asks me any questions."

"Where did I put that list of people to kill?" said James, rummaging through his pockets. "Oh, and should I put your cousin on it, Sirius?"

"I wish you wouldn't do that," Remus answered, again barely speaking, so quiet that he could hardly be heard in the bustle of that crowd. So that had been why he had sounded preoccupied in his letter from France. Sirius wished he could do something to help, but as his only idea was to snog him senseless, it didn't seem as though he could do anything about it.

"You and Lily Evans," said James. "You get so worried about cursing people. Hey, d'you think she might be here? Would she be wearing formal wear, d'you suppose? Maybe something strapless?"

"I can't decide whether you have a one-track mind, or ADD," said Sirius. "And she's Muggleborn, you idiot, of course she's not here. Really, Remus, are you all right? Are you sure you don't mind being here?"

"I'm fine. I think I might agree with you on the alcohol, though. For once."

"Hopeless intoxication, here we come," said Sirius cheerily. "All right, James, tell us when you see anything evil, and we'll pour a bowl of punch on it. In the meantime, the bowl of punch will be used for drinking out of."

"Well, don't leave me here," said James. "You'll need help lifting that punch bowl. I reckon the best way to make it lighter is to remove its contents."

"Actually," Remus replied, "I thought that if we got some of the Death Eaters drunk, we might have an advantage." Sirius and James stared at him in apparent confusion. "Because we would be sober," he clarified.

"Why is that an advantage?" asked James.

"Never mind," said Remus, rolling his eyes at Sirius. "It wasn't much of a plan anyway. Just don't drink too much, okay?"

"I would never drink too much," Sirius declared. "In fact, there's no such thing. You see, as long as you're standing up, you're still sober, and if you're not standing up, you're not capable of drinking any more."

"Naturally," James agreed. When they reached the table, there proved to be no punch, but there were several glasses of wine, and he snagged one for each of them. Remus looked less enthusiastic than did the other two, but accepted it anyway.

"Oy! Sirius!" Sirius turned around to find Frank Longbottom motioning towards him with a glass of wine, Andrew Macmillan in tow. Andrew looked rather nervous. That was understandable; the last time he had talked to James and Sirius, they had turned him into a tomato, and he had nearly been served for breakfast. Neither of them had anything against the boy, but as he had happened to be handy at the time, he had been the unfortunate victim of their demonstration.

Cheery greetings were exchanged all around, except on Andrew's part. When everyone had asked how everyone else was, and had been summarily slapped on the back, Frank pulled the others over to a table out of the way of the buffet-style feast.

"Weren't you supposed to be interning with the Aurors?" Remus asked Frank as they cleared some space amongst the dishes.

"Oh, I was. They started me off doing paperwork, but then Alastor Moody came in and said I would never learn anything that way, so he took me to work with him and the Prewetts in the Research Department. Course, Moody thinks 'research' means 'creeping around at midnight in the most dangerous place you can possibly find', but it was wicked. Anyway, I'm off now, have been for about a week."

"You've worked with Alastor Moody?" Sirius asked, impressed. "That's bloody amazing! I didn't know you could get a summer job like that."

"Oh, yeah," Frank answered. "I mean, they're all about secrecy, but Moody put me through about a hundred tests and said I was perfectly trustworthy and might as well get to do something. I can't pass on too many details, but of course the three of you'll know a lot about it already, and Andrew was working with me, so..."

"So...then..." James checked that no-one was listening, and leaned forward. "You'll know about the war, then?" Frank's eyebrows drew together, and he nodded conspiratorially.

"All they've been working on for weeks. Moody was all for keeping it under wraps, but Melinda Tarragon- she's the founder of DWW- she said it won't be up to our side whether it's secret or not." That was the most definite news any of them had heard about the war yet. DWW stood for DarkWizardWatch, and ever since Grindelwald it had been the best source of information on human threats to the wizarding community.

"Does she know who the leader of the Death Eaters is?" asked Sirius. That had been his main concern ever since he had begun to suspect that his brother's pureblood organizations were in fact branches of the Death Eater movement. If it was someone who knew him or his family, then his friends might easily be in danger- even more than they already were, due to Remus' lycanthropy and James' relations to the Aurors.

But Frank shook his head. "She doesn't know. Sometimes says she doesn't want to. She says we'll all know soon enough, and no use worrying about it until then. But personally, I don't think it's anyone who's actively involved in the wizarding community. Can't have been for years."

"Not-" Sirius lowered his voice even more- "not Lucius Malfoy, then?"

"Not a chance of it," Frank said firmly. "I've had to have followed him a dozen times this summer. He's in it up to his neck, though, I imagine. But he won't have it proved."

"But you haven't heard any new information since your work ended?" interrupted James, looking interested.

"Yeah. Why?"

"Well, look," said James, running a finger around the edge of his wine glass, "it's not the sort of thing we should talk about here. But- Frank, you saw the note at the bottom of the invitation? Didn't you think that was a bit out of the ordinary for a normal recruitment party?"

"Course," said Frank. "Offensive, that was, but if they- hang on, you're not saying- this many people? At a recruitment party? There's no way. They're very careful about who they ask in, Moody's tried infiltrating them before and it just doesn't happen. There's no way they'd ask along the general public like this."

"But you must admit there's something wrong about this place."

"I'd agree with you on that one, mate. But it can't be recruitment. If they were so open about membership, you'd bet the entire wizarding world would know about the war by now."

Remus nodded. "I thought there was something odd about it, when you two said they wanted to enlist all of us. It makes sense that Death Eaters would be here, and obviously it's not quite the normal sort of recruitment party, but I don't think they would just say, 'all right then, the lot of you, would you fancy being a Death Eater for a lark?' Which means-"

"-that it's not recruitment after all," finished Sirius. "But then, why no mixed-blood? Just simple prejudice? I don't think so. There has to be a reason for a statement like that, that's why James and I thought it looked odd in the first place."

"What do you know, Frank? Anything like this every shown up?" James asked.

"They don't need much in the way of connections," Frank said thoughtfully, "but they might still need numbers. Maybe they don't want more Death Eaters. Maybe they just want people who look like they're supporting them. D'you think it might be a fear tactic?"

"That doesn't quite seem right-" Sirius started, when he noticed Peter approaching. It wasn't that he didn't trust Peter, he told himself, he'd only stopped talking because he was surprised.

"Where've you been?" Remus asked. Something seemed to be worrying him about Peter, too. The younger boy looked as though he'd had too much to drink, which generally didn't happen unless he was with James and Sirius.

"You've got to come see this, you guys," he said, excitedly. "You wouldn't believe it, back at the dessert table, it's amazing. Come on!"

"Later," James said impatiently, waving at Peter to sit down. But, unusually, Peter didn't listen.

"No, really, you have to come now. I can't explain it, it's just- well, come see!" The boys shrugged at each other and stood, Remus rising last and reluctantly. There is something wrong about this, Sirius thought, but it must just have been the atmosphere of the place.

Peter led them back through the crowds of people, towards the table of desserts at the far end of the room. Sirius caught sight of Narcissa in the crowd; he was about to say something to her, but she just smirked at him, seemingly amused. And then Peter led them past the dessert table, into a hallway and through a set of rooms, and Sirius heard James ask, "hey, where are we going?" but then another door opened and a voice boomed out of the darkness in front of them.

"Imperio."