May Angels Lead You In
"an' Sirius Black turns up, on that flyin' motorbike he used ter ride." (Prisoner of Azkaban, p153, British Edition)
He already knew what he would find before he arrived.
With Peter's absence it could only mean one thing.
He landed on the dark street and was still shocked by the scale of the destruction; it looked like a dragon had torn its way out through the roof. Even as he began to run he felt hope blossom in his chest; with that amount of damage to the house there had obviously been a fight.
If there had been a fight then there was hope someone had escaped. There was no Dark Mark.
He shoved the gate open; realising that every single ward around the house had failed. A little of that hope suffocated in his chest. Voldemort had done the job properly; yet he stubbornly refused to believe his best friends were dead. Not Lily and James, not Harry; there was simply too much Life in them for them to be gone.
He found himself hesitating at the door though; for once afraid to open it and discover what was inside the dark, ruined house.
On any other day he would have knocked and waited to see James' grinning face, or Lily smiling with Harry balanced happily on her hip. Not tonight though. Not tonight.
How stupid he had been to suspect Remus; when all they had done for him. Moony was a true Gryffindor; he would never have given up Lily and James. Peter, on the other hand, well… they had known for years he was a rat.
He pushed the door open and lit his wand; James was sprawled at the bottom of the stairs. He closed his eyes for a moment as the tears rose; he blinked them back and stepped past the body of his friend. There would be time to say goodbye later, but Lily could be upstairs and he needed to see for himself.
As he stepped past, he noticed Prongs didn't even have his wand; he glanced into the sitting room and saw it discarded on the sofa. Only Prongs would have tried to stop Voldemort with his bare hands; even his Quidditch reactions hadn't saved him this time.
He set foot on the stairs, biting his lip hard and desperately trying not to lose what little hope he had left. Lily had to be alive; Lily couldn't be dead, she just couldn't. She was Lily Potter for Merlin's sake, and people like Lily didn't just die!
At the top of the dark stairs he found the door to the nursery open and he stepped through it to find himself in a room open to the night sky.
It was strangely quiet; the stars shone high above and his wandlight stretched across the floor until it reached a woman's body. He closed his eyes, knowing that the last of his hope was extinguished; if Lily and James were dead then Harry was gone too. He didn't think he could bear to cross the uneven floor to the crib to see his Godson's body for himself.
He fell to his knees in the doorway, wanting to howl his grief to the world as he knew Moony was somewhere; two men alone and friendless beneath the full moon. As he thought of his friend he felt another pang; Moony thought he was Secret Keeper. Only Lily, James, Peter and himself knew the full story; even Dumbledore didn't know.
He was going to have to explain himself.
Something rustled in the darkness.
He leapt to his feet; wand pointing about him. If there were any of Voldemort's followers still here then he would send them straight to Hell; Aurors be damned.
There was a whimper and he found his feet walking him across the slanted floor; amazingly the crib was undamaged. Avoiding Lily's body he bent and looked into the cot.
A pair of green eyes looked back hopefully.
'Harry!' he managed to croak.
He bent down and picked up the little boy, wrapping him in his blanket as he did and hugging the little figure to his chest, 'Merlin, Harry, you're alive! How are you alive?'
The tears suddenly came and he found them flooding down his face as the little boy looked up at him with concern. There a cut on his forehead, but it didn't look bad. He turned away, making sure the little boy didn't see the figure on the floor and started as he heard something move downstairs.
His wand was in his hand again in a flash and revealed that a single person was downstairs; could James actually be alive? He had seemed so lifeless…
'Who's there?' he called, knowing he could apparate away in a flash if he needed to.
'Hagrid, Dumbledore sent me.'
'Hagrid?'
A huge figure loomed in the doorway, stooping down to peer through, 'Black? Is that you? Is… is anyone alive?'
He opened his mouth, 'L…L…' but the words wouldn't come out so he said, 'I've got Harry.'
The huge man regarded him for a moment, and then said, 'I'm sorry, Sirius.'
He crouched and pushed is way through the remains of the doorway, placing a hand on his shoulder and looking down at the little bundle of blankets. He smiled sadly and shook his head, 'It shouldn' have happened like this… not like this…'
'What do you mean?' Sirius asked, looking up with a face shining from tears.
'He's gone… V… bloody You-Know-Who's gone… Dumbledore says so, he says it's over.'
'You mean…?'
'Lily and James… they stopped him, I don' know how, but he's gone, Sirius.'
Sirius continued to look uncomprehending and Hagrid could only feel pity for the young man; he'd lost two of his best friends that night.
'Sirius?'
'Yes?'
'I… I need to take 'Arry; Dumbledore's orders, he's going to live with his Uncle and Aunt.'
Sirius looked up, confused, 'Hagrid; I'm his Godfather.'
'I know… but, Dumbledore said, an' well; they've got their own kid. They'll know how to look after him.'
'I know how to look after him, Hagrid!'
'He'll have a family!'
'Alright, I can't argue here; not with… with…' he choked on the words and hugged Harry a little tighter, 'Hey, little man, you're going to go with Hagrid now; your family will look after you. I'll see you soon.'
He hugged him one last time and handed the small bundle to Hagrid, 'Take care of him; in fact, Hagrid.'
'Yeh?'
'Take my bike; it's outside. You know how it works?'
'Yeh, thanks, you'll look after Lily and James?'
'Yeah, until the Aurors get here.'
He shook the huge man's hand and watched him shrug back through the doorway, a few moments later he heard his bike start and the roar of the engine faded quickly.
Only then did he turn to Lily, he walked slowly across the floor and knelt beside her, 'I'm so sorry, Lily. I'm so, so sorry; it's all my fault.'
He closed her eyes and picked her up; carrying her down to her husband and his best friend.
He put them in the sitting room; he had never imagined he might have to lay them out, next to each other, lifeless and cold. Then he conjured a white sheet and covered them both, noticing that even as he had laid them down; their hands were touching.
It seemed appropriate; ever since they had started going out they had always been touching each other, almost accidentally; holding hands, leaning against the other, a brush of lips against a cheek, feet beneath a table, a hand around a waist; Lily and James were always touching.
He adjusted a corner; noticing James was wearing his reading glasses and smiled sadly at a memory:
"They look so stupid though, Padfoot!"
"Nah, they make you look, sort of… studious."
"Padfoot..."
"Alright, alright…I take it back!"
He sat down on the sofa in the darkness, waiting and thinking.
It wasn't Remus after all; it was Peter.
There had been no struggle.
He had either been ambushed or he had gone willingly.
Suddenly the events of the last year slotted into place and everything made sense.
The Bones, The Prewetts, The Meadowes, Benjy, Caradoc… none of them had been chance encounters, they had all been planned and no one wanted to believe there was spy in the Order. But there had been.
He clasped a hand to his brow, Marlene. The tears fell faster than before; he was a grown man and he hadn't cried since his first night at Hogwarts. Not even at Marlene's funeral; the tears simply wouldn't come, no matter how awful he had felt.
Oh, what had Peter done…
He sat in the darkness, watching over the bodies of his best friends and suddenly knew what would come next. Hagrid might not have been clever enough to realise it, but if only four people knew who had really been Lily and James' Secret Keeper then the Aurors were almost certainly coming for him right now.
They were coming for the wrong man.
How times had changed.
What had happened to those first days; the days when James had taken the four of them and showed each of them who they could be, that they were better than they could have possibly believed. It had been what James did; he befriended people and he brought out the best in them. He had even done it to Lily.
He had shown Sirius it simply didn't matter what people thought of you, or said about you as long as you had friends who understood you. He had shown Remus the same; who cared if he was werewolf? They became Animagus just to prove a point. He had even shown Peter, the little, undeserving traitor, that it didn't matter if you weren't particularly clever or sporty; it was your friends and actions that made you who you were.
Sirius would have given his life, as would Remus, as had James, and they had been foolish enough to believe Peter would have done the same. Eleven years… eleven years and the boy had still fooled them all.
He kept his vigil until the first Auror popped into existence in the front garden.
'Thank you, James, thank you for everything. Goodbye, Lily, I wish I'd had a sister like you. Say hi to Marlene for me. I'm alone now; Moony will hate me, please don't hate me. I'm sorry.'
The Auror lightly pushed the front door open and cast the spell, 'He must have gone, Sir,' he reported to the man a few paces behind him.
'Very well, we'll take care of the bodies.'
'With your permission, Sir, I'd like to be on the case to go after Black; I knew the Potters, they were good people.'
'Very well, Shacklebolt, I'll have you transferred.'
'Thank you, Sir.'
In the darkness down the street a young man watched the Aurors enter the ruined house; there was no one he knew who could help him, there was no place for him to go. He'd never been able to thank his friends for what they had done for him.
The man who had stepped into the house had been full of hope.
'Give me one chance and I swear I'll find you, Peter.'
"White an' shakin', he was. An' yeh know what I did? I COMFORTED THE MURDERIN' TRAITOR!" (Prisoner of Azkaban, p153, British Edition)
A/N: Inspired by Hear you me – Jimmy Eat World