Fidelius Week

Fidelius Week

by Weaver

Part Two of Seven

Starring Hiding!Sirius, Jumpy!James and Pathetic!Peter

In which the Fidelius Charm is performed, Padfoot´s fur stands on end, Peter is ever so angsty, and Sirius hides out at a place we all know and love. Danger grows stronger; shadows hover closer.

*

"The Fidelius Charm is the most effective and secure method of hiding a person or people. However, it does have a weakness, namely the fact that those using the Charm rely utterly on one person´s faithfulness (hence the name Fidelius). If the Secret-Keeper (the man or woman to whom the Secret is entrusted) chooses or is forced to betray the Secret, the person or people hiding under the Charm are then helpless, the nature of the Fidelius being such that powerful spells cannot be performed by them without negating the effects of the Charm."

--Quentin Trimble

The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection

Dragon Night International Publishing

London 1979

Thursday: Keep My Secret Safe

A tentative knock on the door announced the arrival of Peter, looking as though he hadn´t slept all night. Harry staggered a few steps towards him before falling and crawling the rest of the way. "Mow. Mows!"

Peter bent down to scoop up the toddler, wishing he were anywhere else. "Mouse has work to do today, little one. You´re going to disappear."
Harry wriggled around in his arms and gave him a very sweet smile.

"You ready, Pete?" James came hurrying out of the kitchen, drawn and anxious, wand in hand. "Are you sure you´ll be OK with this? You look ... tired."

No! No, I´m not going to be OK! Get someone else to Keep the damn Secret, someone who won´t sell you out as soon as possible. "Yeah, I´ll be fine. You don´t look so good yourself... but then, that´s nothing new."

James laughed, a smile fleeting across his anxious face like a sunbeam fighting through stormclouds. "Same old Mouse. I don´t know why I even let you in this house. Come help sort this out - Lily´s having issues with the precise arrangement of the mountain roots."

"...mountain roots?" Peter echoed, trying to stop Harry from bomb-diving out of his arms. "Where on Earth do you find mountain roots?"

"You should hear the other stuff we´ve got to get. The easiest thing to organise was the demiguise hair... where did I put my wand?"

"You´re holding it."

James looked sheepish. "Oh. Sorry. What was I saying?"

"You were saying something to distract yourself from worrying about this Charm we have to perform in five minutes," Peter said smoothly, grinning when James stopped to stare at him. "See, I know you too well. So what are these ingredients you need that are so hard to come by?"

"Not really ingredients," Lily said, as they entered the kitchen where a collection of very odd-looking objects were arranged in apparently meaningless positions. "More aids to help the Charm along. It´s all about hiding, right, so we have things that are almost impossible to find."

"The noise of a cat walking," James said. "And the breath of a fish..."

"...the beard of a maiden, the saliva of a bird, the roots of a mountain..." Lily added, pointing out things that made Peter´s eyes hurt to try to focus on.

"...and the sinews of a bear. I don´t know where that last bit comes in," James said, grinning, "but it´s supposed to be a part all the same."

"You sure the Charm doesn´t call for James Potter´s elegance when dancing? `Cause there´ve been a few occasions when you displayed your spectacular lack of same..." Peter ducked the wand James tossed at his head. Harry chuckled, gazing up at Peter with those impossibly green eyes, and Peter felt a painful throb of guilt. He´s so young. Please, if anything out there cares, let them get away safely when I betray them.

"Is something wrong, Mouse?" Lily was watching him intently, the troublesome mountain roots forgotten. "You look odd."

"No, no, I´ll be fine. You guys should be worrying. You´re the ones who´ll be vanishing from the face of the earth in, oh, approximately two minutes."

Lily gulped, and James lost his smile. "Let´s get this over, then," he said, scooping Harry up and wrapping an arm around Lily´s waist. "You know what to do?"

They make the perfect family picture - James tall and handsome, Lily pretty and motherly, Harry the most adorable baby anyone knows. I wish I didn´t have to destroy all that. Please, let them get away! "Yeah, all ready." He stepped into the arrangement of the eye-damaging magic objects and took a deep breath. "Let´s go."

*

Outside, by the white picket fence, a large black dog sat quietly. At the first flash of blue-white light, all the hairs along his back rose; the corresponding surge of power emanating from the house made him yelp. Sparks danced along his shaggy coat.

The lightning flashed eight times more, each time increasing the levels of magic in the air surrounding the house to the point where it was almost unbearable for the silent watcher. By the time the power had surged wildly eight times, he resembled a giant black pompom more than anything else with the amount of magic static in his coat.

The final surge built the magical pressure to almost exploding point - and then abruptly collapsed in on itself. The dog, his coat back to normal, felt the power turning itself around and somehow inverting completely, so that he could no longer sense anything.

Softly, a breeze stirred his coat, and fallen leaves stirred in the grass by his feet. The house behind him flickered once, twice, and then it was as it had always been. A short, cloaked man let himself out, shutting the door behind him; the house seemed empty.

At the gate the man paused, seeing the dog, and laughed shortly. "Aren´t you supposed to be hiding?"

The dog barked. If he could have spoken, he would have told the man that he was hiding, hadn´t he ever heard of hiding in plain sight, nobody knew what he was and why didn´t the man just go home and relax?

"It all went off without a hitch," the man told him. "I don´t know why Lily was worried. And they want you to write to them, but don´t get offended when they don´t write back, `cause they can´t. And I´m absolutely wrecked, I´m going home to sleep." There was a soft pop of air filling the vacuum where the man had been until then.

Supremely unconcerned, the dog padded off down the road, leaving the silent house behind.

*

It's done now. All I can do is wait. If He summons me, then I´ll tell Him - I don´t have the strength to resist Him. I hope only He´ll leave it for a week or so, because I´m sure James and Lily said something about leaving in a few days just to keep safe. Just think, I´m the only one in the whole wide world who can even see them now. They´ve put absolutely all their trust in me.

And I´m about to betray it all.

But it´s not my fault! If He hadn´t taken Anne, so many yesterdays ago, then I wouldn´t be His unwilling spy, I´d be able to be happy like I always was before. Weakness, that´s what they taught us in Slytherin. See your opponent´s weakness and take advantage. And my weakness is my beloved wife Anne Prewett, and they know it - He knows it.

The rat scurried around and around the empty room. If it was a man it would have been pacing; but if Peter had stayed a man he wouldn´t be able to think so clearly. Humans had such messy emotions, always getting in the way. He could keep most of that out when he was the rat.

I could even live like this permanently, I think. It´s so much simpler than human life. But I´d never do that, because I´d be no use to Anne if I lived like a rat. And I just want her to be safe... I just want her not to hurt any more. And if I give Him the Potters, He could even be so glad He´ll let her free... I know how much he wants James and Harry. And if they´ve gone by the time He summons me, well, what then? I´ll still hopefully have pleased Him, and Anne will be safe, and James and Harry and Lily will be safe too.

It´s a dangerous game I´m playing, but it´s the only way...

*

The Light side had many safe-houses for wizards in hiding - far too many, and almost all of them were full to overcrowding. Sirius found himself taking refuge that night with a large redheaded family in a ramshackle building that reminded him sharply of his own childhood. No names were exchanged, naturally, but the housewife- who was pregnant with her seventh child - welcomed him with a warm smile and a home-cooked feast, and her husband, when he discovered Sirius had no definite plans, spent several hours discussing the best way to ensure he stayed safe. Sirius felt terribly guilty about accepting their hospitality like that, when he was a complete stranger and had to remain that way.

"When we win this war, I´ll come back and thank you," he told the housewife, later that night. "If I could, I´d tell you why I´m running and when I´ll be able to come back, but Dumbledore reckons the less anyone knows the safer I´ll be."

"We know the routine, dear," the woman told him, smiling. "Almost every week there´s another fugitive through here. We won´t ask questions."

"Do you know the Potters?" Sirius asked. He didn´t know why he was talking so much; the words just spilled out of him. Maybe it´s the war. You can´t trust anyone any more, and I miss talking to people. "They´re the nicest couple you´d ever dream of meeting - they have a son just this one´s age." He tousled the youngest boy´s fiery red hair affectionately. "They´re the kind of people I wanted to be. Still do."

"No, I don´t think we´ve met them," she said thoughtfully. "I´ve heard the name, of course - I believe they´re quite active in the resistance?"

"Absolutely. We´d all be dead a few times over if not for James... `course, they´re in hiding now, so that´s over. Vol--" Sirius caught himself in time, noting the fright on the woman´s face, "--I mean, You-Know-Who is concentrating everything he´s got on killing them. That´s kind of why I´m here."

"Don´t say any more!" she said, frowning suddenly. "You shouldn´t have even said that much. I don´t want to be able to link you with anyone, do you hear me? You could be putting them in more danger."

"Sorry," Sirius said, somewhat abashed. "I´m just - it´s good to talk to people again."

"You should sleep, you look done in. In the basement - I´ll get Art--my husband to show you - we´ve set up a room. I´d have you upstairs, it´s so much more comfortable, but of course you don´t want to be around if we´re attacked in the night."

"Thank you." He refrained from saying any more, afraid he´d let something slip.

I´m not good at stealth! I´ve never needed to hide anything before, not really, except for Moon--except for Lupin´s secret. Maybe I shouldn´t have hidden that...

Sternly, he pulled his thought away from the pain that lay in that direction. I still have James and Peter, and Lily and Angel, and I would die before I let harm come to them. It´s not as if there´s anyone else any more.

*

Inside the silent, almost-empty house in Godric´s Hollow, Harry was shrieking with laughter as James tossed him up into the air, and Lily was shaking her head and sighing noisily. It would have been a perfect family picture... if they´d been visible to anyone but each other.

As it was, the slight, shadowed figure hovering outside the windows couldn´t see a thing.

*

Revised 11th January 2003

Note: The items used in the Charm are from Norse mythology; Odin used them to create the rope that binds the Fenrir Wolf.