Standing Outside the Fire

"This is how it is--this is why you're not in the Order--you don't
understand--there are things worth dying for!"
--Sirius Black, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

If I'd known how much he meant that, maybe I could have stopped him, or at least said goodbye. But that wasn't my choice to make. The choice to live or die was his alone, and now that time has passed and I've had a chance to look back, I think he knew it, too. For him, there were always things worth dying for, and if you were afraid to take the risks, then you weren't really living. He was tired of not living. Dumbledore once said to Voldemort that there are things worse than death. I think for Sirius, merely existing in safety while others risked everything was his fate worse than death.

Harry Potter Songfiction: "Standing Outside the Fire"

Standing outside the fire

Standing outside the fire

Life is not tried, it is merely survived

If you're standing outside the fire

This is, as it always has been, a story of loving, hating, living, dying, risking, and of course, choosing. It is a story of friendships. It's supposed to be a story about me, the "Boy Who Lived," but I think that it's not just about me. That maybe it never was about me at all, and that I just got thrown into it by fate. This story began years before I was even born. It began with the friendships of four men. In many ways it's their story, not mine, so to understand my story, you need to hear theirs. Four friends from four very different backgrounds, but brothers nonetheless. Closer than blood relatives.

To understand this story. To understand this death, you must understand how it began.

It began with four friends.

Peter Pettigrew...Wormtail

We call them cool

Those hearts that have no scars to show

The ones that never do let go

And risk the tables being turned

Wormtail. Even now, it's hard for me to think of him as a Marauder, as one of their friends. I know most of his story from Remus and Sirius, although I've seen some of it firsthand. This was a man who grew from a frightened boy. He was a boy who would never be "cool" without someone's help. And he desperately wanted to be.

As much as I want to say that he was an evil person, I can't. And I think that's what hurts the worst. He was a betrayer, but not by nature. He was turned that way, through lack of care, ridicule, and worse. He was in many ways like Kreacher. A house elf among humans. What hurts is that it could have been different. He never had to be this way. And it was his friends, not his enemies, who unwittingly turned him against them. I would never blame Sirius, Remus or my father for knowingly hurting him, but even they wouldn't deny the part they unintentionally played.

Peter was hurt so much, that he lost the ability to take risks. He refused to be hurt anymore. He refused to walk the wire. He would never die for a friend, because he couldn't understand that sort of loyalty, even after the others had changed their ways and grown up, trying to draw him in. Trying to really make him their brother. He always felt that they could turn on him.

So Wormtail turned first.

Sirius Black...Padfoot

We call them fools

Who have to dance within the flame

Who chance the sorrow and the shame

That always comes with getting burned


This is one of the hardest for me to talk about, which is why I need to say it now while I can. Sirius was more to me than a family friend. He was my godfather. He was like a father, a best friend, a brother. His death affected me more than my father's because I actually knew Sirius. I watched him die... And I knew he wouldn't have if it weren't for me... but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Sirius was the black sheep of the Black family. He was the rebel. While the rest of his family were joining the dark followings, he was fighting them. He walked the line every day, just by doing what he believed in. Because Sirius wouldn't live a half life. He wanted to really live or it wasn't worth existing at all.

And he risked everything for those he loved. For what he did, he deserved at very least a medal and honors. Instead, he was given a jail sentence, hatred by both sides of the war, and death. Most of the time people misjudged him. He wasn't the type to talk about his choices. He just did them, so people only knew the consequences of his actions. He was thrown into hell for those consequences.

But you've got to be tough when consumed by desire

'Cause it's not enough just to stand outside the fire

But even though I know he regretted one choice, I don't think he regretted much else. He did what needed to be done. Sirius never broke.

By the time I met him, he wasn't the same man his school chums had known. He was haunted and damaged. But he was whole. That spoke volumes for him.

He saw hell and survived.

Remus Lupin...Moony

We call them strong

Those who can face this world alone

Who seem to get by on their own

Those who will never take the fall

Remus... Moony... Professor Lupin. A man of many talents, and many faces. And I mean that quite literally. We all have a dark side that comes out occasionally. Remus' dark side is just a little more real than most of ours. Guess that's what happens when you're a werewolf.

The Mauraders were an oddly balanced group. Peter was the eternal follower. Sirius, the cool prankster. My father, the althletic leader. And... a touch of irony here... Remus... the werewolf... was the good boy. When the others goofed around, he focused them. In return, their mischief, rule breaking, and unfailing loyalty kept him sane when his body failed him. But in spite of his illness, or perhaps because of it, Remus was strong. He survived for eleven years without getting close to anyone. He protected others from himself and protected himself from the world by building a wall and burying himself in his books.

It was his friends who tore down his walls and stripped his defenses. They forced him to rejoin the world.

Taught him to break rules and skip homework and get into trouble and experience life.

And, in a world where fear, prejudice, and violence ran rampant, they did the unthinkable.

They taught him to trust.

James Potter...Prongs

We call them weak

Who are unable to resist

The slightest chance love might exist

And for that forsake it all

My father. There's so much I suppose I should say, but all I know about him boils down to one thing: Faith. The three people he trusted most in the world wound up being a werewolf, a traitor, and the disowned heir to a dark wizarding family. Yet he placed his life in their hands. Some would have called it foolish, his worst character flaw.

But he believed in them. His brothers wouldn't forsake him. Each of them had gone out on a limb for him at one time or another. He couldn't betray them by losing faith in their love.

They're so hell-bent on giving, walking a wire

Convinced it's not living if you stand outside the fire

He loved living on the edge, but he never dreamed that his greatest risk would be in trusting his best friends.

His death shattered them. One a betrayer in hiding. One a convict, left to die. One alone, left to suffer.

He risked it all to keep them together. And he lost it all.

Nothing left to show from his life, but memories, death and a hurting friend...

...and me...

Standing outside the fire

Standing outside the fire

Life is not tried, it is merely survived

If you're standing outside the fire


Which brings me back to my story. Even though for most of my life I never knew these men, they shaped me. Their actions set the stage for my story.

There's this love that is burning

Deep in my soul


My father showed me to trust and even love where others wouldn't. The best gifts don't always come in the prettiest packages. And the best friends don't always have the most money, best family or cleanest past.

Constantly yearning to get out of control

Remus taught me to face my fears, that friendship is a powerful medicine, and most importantly, that your personal demons don't have to consume you.

Wanting to fly higher and higher

I even learned something from Peter. That succumbing to jealousy and the desire to rise in power can destroy everything that's really important.

I can't abide

Standing outside the fire

And from Sirius I learned some hard lessons: the power of love, loyalty, and even more important, the power of choice. For good or bad, Sirius always made his own choices and he accepted the consequences of his actions. From him I learned that you can't take risks without getting burned.

And risks and choice are a part of life and death.

What makes his death bearable is the fact that he didn't fear it. He didn't ask for his fate, but he lived life for the moment.

Standing outside the fire

Standing outside the fire

Life is not tried, it is merely survived

If you're standing outside the fire

And now the stage is set, and I'm ready. Voldemort had better watch out, because I've made my choice.

And I'm not afraid to get burned.

"Life is not defined by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."