My name is Sacrilia Lupin and I was born to save the lives of the people I love.
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I was sat in my usual chair, waiting for my husband to return. He was half an hour late, but that was nothing new- him and James always got carried away. He would leave most nights to check on his best friend and his godson, and at half ten I would sit in my armchair and wait for his return. Then we would talk, or most nights make love. Every night he would say that "I should be in bed" but we both would know that I wouldn't be able to sleep without knowing he was home, by my side, protecting me, loving me as he had for five years. Tonight was one of the nights he was late.
By half eleven I grew concerned, he would never be this late as he knew I would worry. We shared the same main priority, to make sure the other was happy. People often said that we were two halves of a whole, soulmates, we would move in sync. I sat for an additional five minutes, but couldn't stay there much longer I had to floo the Potter's house.
This would probably be something that we would laugh about in the future, silly, worrying Lia Lupin. Always worrying, a heart too full of love. Nevertheless I reached into the pot of emerald powder on the mantelpiece and threw it into the roaring flames. I braced myself to see him and James sat drinking in the living room, having had one too many and unaware of the time.
"The Potter's" I shouted, kneeling down and putting my head in.
What I didn't expect was to be thrown back from the fire with force, flying back into the couch with my head knocking against it as I did. I couldn't understand why I couldn't use the floo, that had never happened before. As I rose to try again there was a knock at the door. A smile creeped up around my lips, it must be him, he'd be standing at the door with a bouquet of flowers and a guilty yet roguish smile which would melt away any anger I had about him being late. I walked to the door, opening it carefully as I always did as a precaution to see the familiar light brown hair of my brother. As I pulled up the latch the light of the hallway revealed more of his face, his expression was one of pain and shock. His eyes were full of grief and confusion.
"Remus?" I asked, my voice could be considered comedically high.
Remus Lupin walked into the house, slowly like a funeral march and blindly like he couldn't see anything.
"Remus? What's wrong?" I repeated, closing the door behind him and rushing to my brother- my hand clutching his arm with fear.
"It was Sirius" Remus said, his voice terrifyingly cracked, broken, hollow. He hadn't even been quite this upset when our grandmother had died, and he was very close to her.
I stared at him for a moment, confused and terrified. Where was my fiance and what had he done? "What was Sirius?"
Remus turned to look me in my eyes, our eyes a mirror of each other- both a beautiful hazel with flecks of blue. "Sirius sold out James and Lily... to him..."
"No, he wouldn't" I said instantly, James was his best friend why would he do that, the man was a brother to him.
"Lia listen to me. They're gone. James, Lily, Peter. 12 innocent muggles. All because of him" Remus croaked, his eyes full of tears and truth.
Abruptly I moved towards the stairs. Then I slowly turned to the broken form of my brother then asked. "Where is he?"
"Azkaban" Remus whispered, before he collapsed onto the floor, bringing his knees up to his face and sobbing, his sobs echoing around the high-ceiling hallway. I half-ran up the stairs, unnoticed by the griefstricken Remus before collapsing on my bed, finally allowing myself to sob with broken cries.
I slowly reached out to the bedside table with a quivering hand to pull the single flower from the vase on my bedside table. My sobs increased as I held the flower in my hand, staring at the flower which had been brilliant and purple just three hours ago. It had now wilted, just like the man who had given it to me to signify the first day we met...
I hated it when Remus left for Hogwarts. Not because I was jealous, as I knew my time was yet to come, but because I missed my big brother so much. He was the best big brother you could ask for, he'd chase off the muggle kids if they picked on me for being weird and put a plaster on my knee if I fell over then would make me laugh so I would forget. It felt like I was an only child when he left, I love my Mum and Dad to pieces- but they just aren't the same as a big brother.
When we went to see him off at Kings Cross I cried, when he saw me sobbing he clung to me.
Then he whispered in my ear. "You'll be here one day Lia, but in the meantime look after Mum and Dad, they'll be worrying"
I looked over his shoulder at my parents, who looked over the moon that he had got a place but I could see the underlying worry in their eyes. It had been hard letting him go, my parents never dreamed he would get a place at Hogwarts with his condition. In fact, I don't think anyone did. The headmaster had had a tree planted with a shack concealed inside, so Remus would have a place to go when he transformed. We had all been prepared for him to never get a place, but the fact that he could go to a school was still sinking in.
"I love you Remus, please be careful" I whispered back.
Remus pulled away from me and let our identical eyes meet. "I love you too, I'll owl you every week I promise"
I nodded and wiped the tears from my eyes as Remus went over to be grappled by my mother who was sobbing too, then to be hugged by my father who's eyes were slightly watery.
"Bye everyone!" Remus called brightly, with a nervous undertone. My brother gave one last wave before pushing his trolley and owl in the direction of the train, following behind two students who must have been in his year. One was a girl with long red hair, and the other was a tall, skinny boy with longish black hair- I didn't know then, but both would become very important in my life.
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Remus kept his promise to write to me every week, and he told me how he shared his dormitory with six other boys. It only took a week to become best friends with two of them, James Potter and Sirius Black. A couple of months later he told me of how he'd befriended some boy called Peter Pettigrew who they had saved from Slytherin bullies. I felt genuinely pleased for him when he told me about how he finally felt like he fit in, and how despite the fact they didn't know of his condition they still seemed to care when he made excuses every full moon.
I'd grown stronger myself since he had left, i only had myself and no tough big brother to defend me. A couple of months after my brother left I'd been playing on the park near our house with two muggle girls I'd been friends with for a while. We were approached by some nasty muggle boys who had been nasty to me a couple of years back who wanted their revenge, as the whole neighbourhood knew my brother had gone to boarding school. They came and pushed me and my friends around, taking our beads we'd been using to make bracelets and scattering them. I stood up and faced the biggest and ugliest one who's mean, piggy little eyes met mine.
"Got a problem Sacrifreaka?" he asked, sniggering with his little friends.
"Leave her alone" my friend Rosie called, but shut up quietly when one of the other boys kicked her.
"Oi! Freak I'm talking to you!" the boy shouted, his spit flying in my face.
Anger fizzed through me and I brought my knee up to his crotch, all I'd been expecting was a shout of pain, but I had got so much more.
"It's burning! My widgey is burning! My widgey is on fire!" the bully shouted, his voice full of terror.
His friends doubled over in laughter at him, as did mine. The bully had his hands clutched to his crotch and he was running around shrieking. Finally he ran off out the park, with his friends in pursuit. I was never picked on again after that day.
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He returned in the summer with a confidence I hadn't seen in him since his attack, and my parents finally stopped worrying quite as much as they knew he was happier than he'd ever been. Remus and his three friends had an agreement over the summer, that they would visit each other and hang out as often as possible. After a week Remus asked if they could come round our house, my mother of course agreed as she wanted to meet the three boys who made her son so happy.
Only two of them arrived at first, James and Peter. James was a tall, skinny boy with jet black hair and round glasses. He was wearing a quidditch jersey and jeans, somehow looking passable as a muggle despite his quidditch sportswear. Peter was in many ways to opposite of James, he was short and plump with sandy brown/blonde hair and had a nervous aura around him. Peter wore a large jumper and jeans with clumpy trainers. Remus brought me to meet the pair of them but as they greeted me I didn't say anything, when I tried I couldn't feel the words coming out of my mouth. As a child I had never spoken much, other than around family, not because I was shy- just because I couldn't think of what to say with people. Remus gave up and made excuses for me, dragging his friends away to play quidditch and leaving me to draw.
I'd always been a talented drawer my mother would say, as a child I drew owls and cats and dragons and hippogriffs and my mother would put them on the little pinboard we have in the kitchen for all to see. So I settled myself down under the large apple tree beside our house and started to draw the match from what I could see, occasionally they would bob out of view but they would always come back clutching a quaffle. After twenty minutes I was absorbed in my drawing and unaware of the world around me, that was until I was interrupted by an unfamiliar voice.
"You're an amazing drawer"
I jumped about a mile at the sound of a young boys voice and raised my head to be face to face with a stranger, well a stranger in looks but I knew who he must be. Sirius Black was tall, but not as lanky as his friend, but also shared black hair but his was longer and fell to his chin. Sirius had piercing grey eyes and smooth porcelain skin, he was one of those boys where it was obvious he would grow up to be very handsome.
"Sirius, right?" I asked, surprising myself with speech. Somehow I felt more comfortable around him than the others.
"Sacrillia right?" he shot back, his lips pulling back into a perfect toothed grin.
I winced at the mention of my name, which I'd always hated.
"Not a fan of your name then?" Sirius asked, surprisingly perceptive for a nearing teenage boy.
"No, it's over the top and not even a proper name" I shrugged, watching him continue to grin.
"I think it's a beautiful name" Sirius said, a ladies man even then.
Flushing deeply I replied "Well, Sirius is too. Makes me think of the stars"
He shook his head in disbelief. "That's what I'm named after, all my family are named after constellations"
"You see THAT is beautiful, the fact that you're named after constellations. Not because you have some random name" I said, it felt really odd being able to converse this easily with someone out of my own family.
"I'm sure it has a meaning that you don't know of yet, everything does" Sirius said, bending down to pick a flower out of my mothers plant border. "Everything in the world is beautiful, in it's own way"
Sirius carefully threaded the bright purple flower into my golden hair before pulling back. "Except Slytherins"
We both laughed and he walked away, over to where the others were playing quidditch. With a smile I added a fourth boy to the drawing, in his hair was a hint of purple, as if there was a flower threaded inside.
The memories were raw in my mind right now, I had to get out of this room- our room. Pulling myself off the bed I slowly wandered downstairs, my brother had stopped crying by now but just stared at the wall opposite him, as if he couldn't see anything. His head snapped up at the sound of my footsteps and the pain in his eyes made my own fill up with tears. So there I stayed on the bottom step, sobbing with grief for my best friend, grief for Remus losing all of his best friends, and grief for the man I knew. The man who sold out the one person in the world who was like a brother to him was not the man I fell in love with, it felt like My Sirius had died.
My standing there sobbing was like a trigger for Remus, he got up suddenly and crossed to me before letting me sob into his warm, comforting arms.
"I'm so sorry this happened" he whispered in my ear, as I felt a drip down my neck. He was crying again.
I pulled out of our embrace for a moment and caught the tears with my fingers. "It's not your fault, it's his. I don't know how, or why he would do this but he did it and what's done is done"
"I'm just sorry I couldn't save him from You-Know-Who," Remus said raggedly.
"Nobody could Re, that's the problem, nobody can save them once they've gone to the dark side" I whispered, pulling him back into the hug and bursting into fresh tears.
We both cried until the tears ran their course, and when they did we talked for a long time. Remus told me everything that happened starting from when You-Know-Who attacked the Potters to Sirius' arrest and I told him of how Sirius' behavior hadn't particularly changed. Finally I asked the question I'd been scared to ask, scared of the answer.
"What about Harry?" I asked, fearing for my godson.
Remus gave his first smile of the night. "He's safe, living with Lily's sister"
"How did a little boy stop the darkest wizard of all time?" I asked, shaking my head.
"That, I'm guessing, will be the biggest mystery of the next few years" Remus said.
After that we sat in silence, watching the sun rise and listening to the distant celebration of a world apparently free of evil. It was like they were the only wizards in the world not celebrating, except Harry Potter.