Under the Same Stars
As Jessica sat on her cabin alone, she was looking at the sky through all the small openings on the poorly built roof. The walls were all made of clay and wood, with palm-leaf roof, it was all falling apart and there were openings all around her, both in the roof and the walls. Her bed was made of straw, every inch of her body hurt from all the badly slept nights.
Her thoughts were all the way home now, how everybody was doing and what had changed since she left. It's late October now, and her third anniversary away from home. She had eight jobs she needed to get done and she got through them pretty quickly, when she got to her last mission she still had six months to go before completing her two years mark, but the unexpected happened and she's been working on the same case for a year and a half, to add to the pain she was not even close to solving this one out.
She was in the Amazons rainforest, working under cover as a nurse trying to figure out what did the unusual wounds in the natives. She had no luck so far, all of them seemed too scared to say anything and when someone did decide to tell her, it was always to same story, vampire bats.
The story didn't really make sense, since Jessica researched the bats and found out that the bats used its sharp teeth to scoop out a small amount of its victim's skin and the wounds she was dealing with were much bigger than that, some of the victims didn't even survive, and people would go missing and the same story was told over and over again, vampire bats took them. She tried to get to their minds lots of times to find out the truth but she didn't find anything, seemed like someone modified their memories, and for that reason she knew there were magic involved.
All of this was really frustrating to Jessica, she wanted to go back home to her family, friends, and most of all Sirius. All of a sudden cold breeze came from all directions, she realized she dozed off, and looked at the sky and it was black now, all the stars were gone, she felt chills. First thing that came to her mind was to get her wand and put a spell on her cabin, just in case it rained, not letting the water come in.
She was ready to do it so, but she saw through the cracks on her walls that someone was watching her, he was just a few inches outside her cabin, she set the wand down on the table, and went to make some tea, hoping he would leave soon.
She was way to used to the same man watching her every move. First time she noticed him, he was hiding behind the bushes from far away, and he came closer and closer as the days went by, now he was always close, sometimes he would go to the window and stay there until Jessica got tired of him and went to sleep. The staring didn't bug her as much, the only fear she had was that he saw her doing magic, she was more careful now that she knew he is always there, but in the beginning she might of done something he was not supposed to see.
It was getting cold now, she decided to go lay down to warm up a bit, but before she did she heard a song, echoing loud from the distance, she recognized it, it sounded like a phoenix. She went to the door and considered before opening it, but opened it anyway to take a closer look, trying to find where the song was coming from, she looked at the men, and for her surprise he was not looking at her, but at the wand she left on top of the table.
Go inside and get the wand, was the first thought on her mind, as she turned around to go back inside but she heard the phoenix again, this time louder, she knew it was close, the next moment the bird flew by her and went inside stopping on her bed.
She went inside, leaving the door open, she knew at once that it was Fawkes, Dumbledore's phoenix, and it was holding a letter with its beak. Her heart was racing now, she knew it couldn't be good news. She opened the envelope and recognized Dumbledore's hand writing.
Dear Jessica,
I am afraid I come with dreadful news.
Early this evening our worse fears came true.
Voldemort found the place where your dear friends
Lily and James, were hiding.
He went for them, and
I am sorry to be the one that tells you,
but he murdered both,
the only one that survived was their,
one year old son, Harry.
I talked with Atticus Brisson and he agrees,
that you should come back at once.
I must warn you,
we have reasons to believe you are in danger,
so I ask be careful and watchful.
It will be safer if you use muggle
ways to come back.
Do not use magic.
Your Dad is arranging a way for you to come home,
but you will need to call
him for instructions.
I will tell you more when I see you.
One last word of caution,
don't trust anybody,
we witnessed betrayal tonight.
Your boss is sending some people to get
your luggage, pack before you leave
but just take the essentials with you.
She knew getting a letters could not be good news, but she never dreamed it would be that bad. With tears running down her cheek she reached for her trunk under the bed, shaking beyond normal. She turned around to start packing her heart stopped with surprise, standing in front of her and holding her wand was the native man that always watched her.
"What are you doing?" she asked at once not even thinking on the possibility he would not understand her. "Give me back my wand."
He stared at her and did nothing.
"Give it to me." She insisted. "Do you understand me?"
After a few seconds he nodded and put the wand back on the table, Jessica quickly went over to get the wand and with Dumbledore's letter on mind she pointed it at him.
"What do you want?" She asked shakily, still crying a bit.
"You do magic?" he said.
"Do you speak English?" she was surprised.
"Doctor teach me, few years back. You use that to do magic?" He asked pointing at the wand.
"I don't have time for this." She turned around and started getting everything she could find and sticking it in her trunk.
"Me see you do magic before," he said again trying to get her attention, but he failed, the only thing it worked for was to remind Jessica to modify his memory before she left.
Fawkes flew away when she finally closed her trunk, she pointed her wand at the man but he spoke before she could cast any spells.
"Me do magic too." She froze and was ready to ignore what he said ,when he looked at an apple on top of the table and made it levitated and move towards her a few inches before it fell.
The wand was lowered at once, she was amazed by it.
"We never had any records of a wizard born in this area," she finally said putting her wand back on her pocket. "I need help, can you help me?"
He nodded.
"I need a telephone do you know where I can find one right now?"
He nodded again and went for the door. She followed.
Jessica never went outside in the dark before, it was very scary. He went right into the forest and she followed, after a few minutes they got to the village where Jessica worked, she usually took the road to work and I took her a forty minute walk to get there.
The man stopped in front of a library, it was really small, one room, with no more than one hundred books.
"I can't go in there, it's already closed." But he ignored her, walked to a window and very carefully opened it. He held it open, without thinking twice she climbed inside, but he stayed outside holding the window and looking around. Since she knew where the phone was she went straight to it, before dialing a felling of guilt came upon her for calling London from that phone.
The telephone barely rang when her dad picked up. "Hello, Jess is that you?"
"Yes dad, I don't have a lot of time."
"It's okay, I arranged for a friend of mine to go pick you up and he is on his way. You will have to go meet him at the airport."
"Okay," she replied but had no idea how she would manage to do that, since the one lane airport was across the lake. "Dad, what is going on? Why am I in danger?"
"Sweetie I really can't say anything, but you will be here in the morning and I will tell you…" he stopped talking and she heard a loud bang on the background, she was sure someone apparated there.
"Who is that dad?" But he never replied the phone went dead. Panic came over her, first thing that came to her mind was to apparate at her house, but Dumbledore's words came to her mind again: no magic, use only muggles way.
Now more than ever she wanted to get home, she went outside and helped the native guy close the window carefully.
"I need to get to the airport," but the man stared at her like he didn't understand. "Plane," she tried again, trying to make a plane with her hands, this time he understood and he was looking at the lake she had to cross to get there. "How can I get across that, this time at night?"
"Me take you," he said walking to a small canoe.
"No you won't, is too dangerous."
"Me have something you want," he insisted.
"Really? And what is that?"
"The bites, my people have, me know where they come from," he was already pushing the canoe to the lake and without hesitating she helped him. It was the first time someone offered to talk about it, and she ready to hear it.
As they started the cross, she opened her backpack and pulled her invisibility cloak out. She was not sure in what kind of trouble she was in but she needed to be protected just in case something came along.
"I need to cover myself but I will be here, just tell me what you know," she said putting the cloak over her.
"It's a werewolf."
"I already thought of that and I don't think so," she said feeling disappointed. "Because none of those people became one, and werewolf bite is highly contagions."
"The white man bites, not the werewolf," he said.
"What do you mean? Are you talking about two people?" She was very confused.
"No, one person, he bites when he is not werewolf."
"A werewolf that bites when is not full moon?" she was disgusted. "How come there are no records of a contagions werewolf bite then?"
"He kill when he bite on full moons," he said very quietly.
"And how do you know all this?"
"He kill me sister. He bite her then kill her, me see everything, but he do not know."
"That is why he didn't modify your memory…" she was looking at him and he was nodding, she looked at the dark lake for a few seconds trying to sink in everything, when he spoke again.
"You help me then?" he asked.
"Depends, what do you want?"
"Me want to learn magic."
"I will try to help you. I don't know why the Ministry didn't track you down before." But the truth was, she did not know if she could help him or not, since she never heard of a full grown man starting out with the basics.
The rest of the cross was very quite, and gave the time for Jessica to come back to reality, her best friend murdered, and she had a son, a little boy that survived the attack of the most feared wizard of all times. It was too much for her, tears came rolling down face again.
As they approached the other side she tried to dry all her tears before she took her cloak off.
He walked in front of her, carefully looking around, for any potential danger.
"What is your name?" she asked, when she finally realized she didn't know his name.
"Pacon Iawi."
The rest of he way was really quiet. When they got to the place, a small jet was already waiting.
"Are you Jessica Thompson?" A tall man went out of plane.
"Depends who wants to know."
"Uh, you are tough, they gave me this to make you believe me," he said getting a small package out of his pocket.
She took it and she could not believe what she saw inside, it was the ring Sirius gave her for Christmas.
"You sure got here fast," she said putting the ring on.
"Your mother is friends with my wife. She knew I was in Brazil and arranged this emergency pick up with my wife," he got her backpack and went inside the plan.
"How did you get the ring?" she asked when she finally got back outside.
"Oh, your dad told me to meet two guys, they had my payment and your package." He was walking around the plane, checking little things. "We need to get going, they want you back by morning."
Jessica hurried inside wrote a quick letter, got the invisibility cloak and went outside again to give it to Pacon.
"Listen to me," she said giving the cloak to him. "Get back to my cabin, put the cloak on when you get there. Someone will come to get my luggage, wait for that person. Only reveal yourself if you are sure he is there for the luggage and not something else. Give him the letter, I am asking him to take you with him. Do you understand me?"
He nodded
"Do you want to come?" she asked again.
"Yes."
"See you in London then."
The pilot called her again and she knew it was time to go.
It took them all night to get to London, and Jessica did not close her eyes to whole flight there, in fact, she cried most of the way. The pilot tried talking and asking her things, but she was not in the mood to talk, most of the times she found easier to ignore the man.
When she got out of the plane she saw a black car waiting for her, with a tall black suited man standing by it, she recognized him as an Auror. He opened the car door, when Jessica finally jumped off the last step, and Remus came out. She dropped her backpack on the floor and ran to embrace him, crying more then ever, he pushed her away carefully trying to dry her tears.
"You are not supposed to trust me just yet," he said getting a small package out of his pocket. "I need to give you something."
He opened a small box and inside was the necklace her parents gave her; the same Christmas Sirius gave her the ring. "I believe this goes well with that ring of yours." She held it very tightly.
"Are my parents alright?" she asked as the car drove away.
"Yes, they are now safe at the Ministry," he replied.
"Who apparated at my house last night?"
"First someone looking for you, but Dumbledore got there right after and scared him away," he replied
"Him who?" she demanded.
"I think I will let Dumbledore tell you the story."
But something on Remus voice started to worry her now, his grief seemed to go beyond Lily and James death, something was very wrong, the problem was she did not know what.
"How come they send you and not Sirius?" she asked him.
A long silence followed, Jessica was very nervous now.
"Remus, is he okay?" Still, he didn't say anything, just sighed loudly. "I need you to answer me, what's wrong? Why won't to say something?"
"Because, I am not the right person to tell you all the details," he said silently.
"Is he alright Remus? I mean, is he hurt?"
"No he is not hurt, but he is not alright either." For the first time in her life what she saw in Remus eye terrified her, something really bad happened.
She covered her mouth with horror. "Is he dead?"
"No," he seemed a bit annoyed. "I thought you would have figured it out by now."
"I am sorry," she said puzzled. "I have no idea what you are talking about."
"Jessica, listen to me," Remus said firmly. "Lily and James were hiding. What is the most efficient way for them to do that?"
She thought for a second and then, "Fidelius Charm." She looked at him, Remus nodded, then it hit her. "Oh my goodness, Sirius was the secret keeper. Remus, what did Voldemort do to him? What did he do to make Sirius tell where Lily and James were hiding?"
"This is hard," looking her in the eye now. "Voldemort did not do anything to him, he is fine." He paused for a minute, Jessica knew it was hurting him to tell her. "Voldemort did not force him to say anything."
"No, this got to be a mistake," she said scowling at Remus. "You can't believe all this Remus. Sirius would never give their friends life to Voldemort."
A new feeling came over her, she was panicking, her heart beating a thousand miles an hour, while in her mind she kept saying "it can't be true", "this is a mistake". "He was not the secret keeper," she said aloud. "It was someone else."
"Be reasonable, who is the only person James would trust as a secret keeper? Dumbledore offered himself but James refused it." Jessica was silent she did not know what to say or think. "Jessica, Dumbledore is inside waiting for you, I am sure he can give you more details."
They were in front of the Ministry visitor entrance now, she was quick to get off the car and Remus followed, she wanted to get away from Remus, she was furious because she thought he should know better than believing such a lie. In matter of seconds they were inside the Ministry and Remus was taking her to her parents.
She did not even look around while going in, she felt miserable and every one around her seemed extra joyful for some reason. Before long she heard her parents talking inside a room, she rushed in and found them there, safe; they hugged, Willy was the last one to let go.
After her family let go she looked around and saw Dumbledore and a man she did not know in the room as well.
"You guys can't believe Sirius betrayed James, he would never do that," she was quick to say.
"Jessica, please sit down, we need to talk," Dumbledore said kindly.
She sank into the chair Dumbledore pulled out for her, feeling her heart getting tight with pain once again.
"You need to understand some things involving your friends death," Dumbledore continued. "Now, are you sure you want to hear it now? If you are tired we can wait for a better time."
"No, I need to know what happened. And why won't you tell me where Sirius is? Is he hiding too? Is he in danger?"
"We will get to Sirius. But first lets talk about Lily and James," Dumbledore walked behind her putting his hand on her right shoulder. "When I heard Voldemort was seeking the Potters I suggested they go into hiding, told them to use the Fidelius Charm. That way they would be protected from danger, I offered to be their secret keeper myself, but they refused and said Sirius would do it, then he would go into hiding as well."
Her spine was getting cold; she did not like the direction the conversation was going. She heard it from Remus, but the second time was even worse. Her mind filled with thoughts, but she quickly send them away so she could hear what Dumbledore was saying.
"In my understanding not long after a week after they went into hiding the Potters were attacked by Voldemort. He murdered Lily and James, but was unable to kill their child, Harry."
"What do you mean unable? Did someone stop him?" she asked confused.
"No, it was only him and the baby, and some how Harry survived and Voldemort vanished, he is gone, at least for now. Something in Harry stopped him, and he lost his powers."
For a few seconds no one spoke, Jessica was picturing the scene over and over again trying to understand what happened.
"And do you all believe Sirius gave them away?" she asked.
No one spoke, they all stared at her, without saying a word. She felt the urge to start cursing at them, but didn't.
"Where is he?" she lost her temper, she was screaming now. "Say something."
Remus came forward, and very calmly said, "No one knows where he is."
"The Ministry has a lot of men out there looking for him," said the man she did know.
"I need to go find him, I need to know what happened," she went for the door but her dad got on the way, blocking her. She tried to push him away, but he stood still like a rock in front of the door, she felt angry and said even louder then before, "Get out of my way, what are you people doing?"
"Jess, listen to me," her Dad said, trying to hold her shoulder, but was failing because Jessica was struggling trying to push him out of the way.. "I've seen Sirius just a few hours ago he is fine, he is not hurt, he was not attacked."
"He is innocent, you got to believe me." She finally stopped struggling.
"My dear," Dumbledore started speaking again, "think for a moment and be reasonable. Sirius was their secret keeper, they were found. Few hours after it happened Hagrid saw him at the scene of the crime, totally unharmed. The Ministry is looking for him for questioning. I hate to think Sirius Black gave his friends away to Voldemort, but all facts to point to that."
"You can't possibly believe he would do such a thing," she couldn't believe what they were saying. "Remus, are you buying all of this?"
"I really don't want to, but he did change a lot since you left," said Remus,
"This is ridiculous," she roared. "Sirius would never betray his friends. I know that is an explanation to all of this, he is innocent."
"That is why we need to find him, so he can tell us his side of the story, but things do not look good right now," the strange man said again.
"I think you guys are all mad to even suspect him," she said trying to dry her tears, but more came running down her face. "Why I am in danger then? And why is my family here?"
"Jess when you called last night," her mom spoke for the first time since she got there. "Sirius apparated right in our living room, your dad hanged up the phone before he could get to you. Sirius was furious, he was not the same. He looked like a mad men, like he was out of his mind. I thought he was going to attack your dad, he was yelling and cursing. Said he was going to find you. I honestly thought we were history. But Dumbledore knocked our door and scared Sirius way."
"Of course he wants to find me," her temper boiling high. "And he is right, you all think he betrayed his friends, I am the only one that believes Sirius would never do a thing like that."
At that moment someone knocked in the door and came in. They called the strange man out, they called him Fudge, she recognized that name, he was the Junior Minister from the Magical Law Enforcement Squad. Jessica could not speak anymore, she felt sick, no one dared to say a word.
"Do you think they found Peter?" Mrs. Thompson asked softly.
"I don't know," replied Dumbledore. "Let's wait and see."
"Why are they looking for Peter?" Jessica asked.
"The Ministry just wants to make sure all Sirius friends are safe, and Peter is no where to be found." Dumbledore said calmly.
Jessica did not even feel like speaking again, it was the worse pile of rubbish she ever heard. Sirius would never harm any of his friends and the fact that everybody actually believed he could was sickening to her.
Fudge came back in the room, and the look on his face was not comforting.
"So, any news? Did they find Peter or Sirius?" Dumbledore asked.
"Yes, they actually found both," he said. Jessica's heart came into a sudden stop. "Peter found Sirius, they told me Peter was trying to make Sirius pay for what he did to the Potters. So he cornered Sirius in the street. Of course, that was foolish; Sirius attacked him, in a street full of muggles. But the Ministry got there on time to at least capture Black."
Everything was so confusing to her. Sirius attacking Peter? That did not make sense, very smoothly she asked. "Where did you say Peter found Sirius?"
Quickly and without thinking he said. "Here in London, Margery Street."
She knew exactly where that was. It was a very busy street off King's Cross Road. Everybody in the room was looking at her, most people shaking their heads at her. She had to go see him.
"Jessica don't do anything stupid," she heard Remus urge.
Next thing she knew Dumbledore was coming on her direction, he tried to hold her by the arm, but before he could get to her… CRACK, she was gone.
Few seconds later she was in the heart of London, on Margery Street, for a moment she thought she was in the wrong place, she looked around trying to find Sirius. She saw a crowd of people on the very end of the street. Thinking that must be where Sirius was she broke in to a run.
Lots of muggles were standing around what looked like a crater in the middle of the street, water shooting everywhere from and cracked sewer below. As she got closer she heard some one laughing. She fought her way through the muggles trying to get a closer look and what she saw was shocking. There were at least twelve bodies all over the street, judging by their cloths there were all muggles and she saw a heap of bloodstained robes near where Sirius himself stood. The loud laughter she heard was from him, he sounded like a mad man, just like her mom said, not at all like the Sirius she remembered.
Couple of workers from the Ministry were holding him by the arm, he did not even resist, he just let them. Then, he saw her, Jessica was on the opposite side of the crater looking in disbelieve. Their eyes met, and for one second the madness on his eyes was gone, for a second she saw the sweet yet desperate Sirius she knew. He struggled a little trying to break free. Yelled "JESSICA…" but they were gone, disappeared before her eyes.
Some one pulled her by the arm, it was Remus. He looked very angry and started shouting at her. "Do you have any idea what your parents and Dumbledore went through to make sure you were safe? To bring you here? To protect you? They were trying to keep you away from him and you just pop up in front of him? What were you thinking…" his voice faded, she saw Sirius, he murdered a dozen of muggles and Peter, his friend. She felt sick to her stomach, and did not know what to think. "Jessica are you listening to me?" Remus asked in a calmer voice.
She looked at him, he looked deeply in her eyes and she felt like he understood her pain. "Oh Jess, I am so sorry things turn out this way." He hugged her, as she finally lost it and started sobbing on his shoulders.