Infallibility
A/N: You may find this story is unreservedly melodramatic, but I'm not even doing to apologise. XD
Sirius Black stared at him from across the room with grey eyes that were faded and haunted with unknown horrors. It was the sort of look you'd give someone just before the world was about to fall apart, and perhaps, for Black, it was.
He was crumpled in a heap on the floor, one arm wrapped protectively around his middle. From behind skeleton-thin fingers, and the robes that had probably once been a mocking grey colour, Albus saw the crimson that was seeping freely from three large cuts. There was a puddle beside him as well.
Sweeping his robes backwards, Albus knelt by the dark-haired man's side, careful to avoid the blood. Gently, with his thumb, he turned Black's neck so that they were practically nose to nose. The younger man gave him a dazed, almost-smile, exposing the broken, rotten teeth and raw gums.
"So we caught you," Albus said, surprisingly quietly.
"Yes, you did."
"You couldn't have thought we'd really let you get to Harry."
Black blinked sluggishly, the ghost of a smile dropping into a grimace. The knuckles around his middle tightened noticeably.
"No," he said quietly, after a long moment of silence. "Of course not. Then again, it wasn't Harry I was after."
"Really, Mr. Black?"
"Yes." For a moment Black looked slightly dazed. He blinked violently, wheezing, and Albus caught sight of the crystal drops of perspiration on his parchment-white skin. "Not-" He wavered and glanced down at the floor of a second. "Not that it matters anymore."
"It doesn't?" Albus said thoughtfully. Black only shook his head valiantly, although the movement was so slight it might as well as been a twitch.
Albus settled back on the heels of his feet, bones aching. "I've always wondered where we went wrong with you, Mr. Black. You always seemed so unflinching loyal, perhaps, and most importantly, to James Potter." Albus ignored the slight flinch that ran across Black's face at his late-best friend's name. "Thirteen years ago, had somebody told me you would end up leading him to his death I would had thought they'd had too much ale in the Three Broomsticks."
The dark-haired man's lip quivered and a short bark of almost insane laugher seemed to bubble up from deep within him. "I wouldn't have betrayed James," he said, shaking. "I didn't betrayed James." It almost sounded like he was trying to convince himself.
Feeling enigmatically tired, Albus said passively, "You were their Secret Keeper, Mr. Black."
"No, I wasn't." The whispered dental was said so softly Albus almost didn't hear it. "We-"
"Mr. Black," Albus said loudly, cutting across the muttering man, "James Potter told me himself only days before the attack at Godric's Hollow-"
"That's what we wanted you to think!" Black said quickly, his gaze tightening and his voice came out as an almost croak at the sudden volume. Assertive he wasn't about to be interrupted again, he said more serenely, "That's what we wanted everyone to think."
Albus felt a seed of doubt grow in his mind. Or perhaps it had always been there.
When the events of Halloween all those years ago had come to pass, although they had been unbelievable by all those who had known the infamous duo that James Potter and Sirius Black had been, it had been easy to sign off Black's actions off as loss of sanity and grief; and then form the conclusion that he had been a spy and a traitor to all those closest to him afterwards.
"Everyone knew how close I was to James," Black said. "I was the obvious choice. Our plan was to let me send the Death Eaters on a wild goose chase, while the real Secret Keeper would be in hiding." He swallowed. "Invariably I would be caught – I always knew that that would happen – and when it did I thought it would have been better if I hadn't have known anything." Black glanced at the ceiling for a moment, blinking forcefully. When his gaze once again settled on Albus, his eyes were red-rimmed. "I was afraid… that Voldemort would have found a way to make me talk."
And finally, everything seemed to make sense.
"You switched," Albus said softly, sighing, "without telling me."
Black seemed relieved he had come to this conclusion. Breathing deeply as if he had just been doomed to drown but he'd been plucked from the ocean, he said, "Yes."
"So you changed to…?"
"Pettigrew." The name was spat with so much candid, furious pain that if Albus had even considered the thought of this all being another lie, it was banished from his mind.
Black continued, a rage that had been forged for thirteen years burning in his eyes: "But the dirty rat was working with Voldemort the entire time. He gave up James and Lily's location the day after Lily recast the bloody charm…" A short sob was torn from his throat, but he covered his mouth with a shaking hand.
The sight made Albus want to weep. Oh Sirius, you brave, too-loyal fool…
"What happened next, Sirius?" he said placidly.
Something a kin to surprise – or perhaps it was a traitorous sort of hope – flashed across the dark-haired man's face.
"You believe me," he whispered.
Yes. "I am more inclined to believe this truth than the story that the Ministry released thirteen years ago. It was always hard to consider the thought that you had willingly betrayed James."
"And yet you didn't come," Sirius said through gritted teeth. "I didn't get a trial. I wasn't even asked one question!"
Albus felt the need to cave in on himself. "That is a simple failure of an old man, I'm afraid."
Sirius stared for a moment longer then seemed to pull himself together.
"I went to check on Worm – Peter," he said slowly, his gaze cold. "We had agreed that I would check up on him at least once a fortnight; make sure his Wards were intact and so forth. He wasn't at his flat when I turned up. There were no signs of struggle. It was just empty.
"Naturally I was worried sick that something had happened to Peter. Or to James and Lily. I went straight to Godric's Hollow. Pro-" He choked, jaw tightening. "- He was just lying there, by the door. His glasses were broken. I think I fixed them and put them back on his face. The bastard actually had the audacity to look surprised, as if he could have taken on Voldemort without a wand…
"Then Harry started crying. For a moment I thought Lily would come running down the stairs with Harry in her arms, saying she'd hidden and that Voldemort hadn't been able to find them." Sirius swallowed. "It was Hagrid, not Lily. I wanted to take Harry with me but Hagrid said-" his hand tightened around his shredded middle.
"I went after Peter and found him on a Muggle Street. I was almost close enough to get a clear-shot with a Stunning Spell when he saw me. He stared at me and then he cut off his own finger. The action was so bazar that I stopped dead, wondering if he was under the Imperious Curse. Then started screaming at me – something like 'James and Lily, Sirius, how could you?' Before I could stop him, he blew the street apart with his wand behind his back. I was knocked back into a store front by the blast and for a moment I thought he'd killed himself. But then I saw him transform and escape down the sewer as a rat."
"A rat?" Albus queried, but in his mind he was forming the lost pieces to the puzzle that had never quite gone together. Transform… "He was an Animagus?"
"We all are – were. James, Peter and I. James and I had been having suspicions back in First Year about Remus, but we only found out for certain that he had Lycanthropy the year after. Since that moment we attempted to find anything to help him. Potions, spells, cures," Sirius enumerated. "We studied Healing Magic in our spare time as well."
"You became Animagi while still in school?" It wasn't that hard of a concept, Albus supposed. James and Sirius had been inexplicably bright – and knowing of it too – while at Hogwarts.
"Peter needed all the help we could get," Sirius said bitterly, "but we all managed to complete the change in our Fifth Year." The Headmaster said nothing for a long time, staring at the window considering. "Remus can verify everything I've just told you," he add, wrongly interpreting the growing silence.
"That won't be necessary." Albus sighed, long and hard, and once again found it hard to meet the dark-haired man's eyes. "I believe you," he said.
A headache was forming behind his eyes, and he rubbed them with his thumb and forefinger behind his glasses. "Why didn't you tell me about the change in Secret Keepers?"
Sirius' bloodless lips tightened. "I didn't trust you," he said forthrightly, his confidence seeming to gather. "Perhaps it was selfish of me to want to keep only my friends alive, but I didn't trust you to make the decision between ending Voldemort or giving up the Potters location if the opportunity portrayed itself… or if you had been their Secret Keeper.
"James agreed with me," he continued. "He wouldn't have done anything to endanger Harry or Lily. I've seen people hero-worship others, but in the end we're all human – others perhaps a little bit less, but still human. None of us are infallible."
Albus settled back on himself, considering. Sirius Black, from the first moment he had stepped through the doors of the Great Hall in his first year, and subsequently into Albus' awareness, had been different. Brilliant and undoubtedly dangerous, but most of all different; able to see where others were blind. Finding doors where others only saw windows…
As a child Sirius had been able to see the darkness of his family, and resisting the temptations, he had been brave enough to run away from the all the narrow-minded and bigoted views that had been forced upon him since day one.
And the dark-haired man before him was right of course. Albus often forgot – and perhaps it had been age or the simple knowledge that he was wiser and smarter than most average men that had induced this mistake – that a forest is compromised from trees; that mortal men shed blood, buy into hope, and make foolhardy blunders in their attempt to do what was right.
In his age Albus knew that losses were losses, and as one person died another would take its place. He hadn't even stopped to consider that every man, woman, child was irreplaceable to others.
Distantly he thought of Grindelwald and Ariana, but pushed away the still-sore memories. It was better to be shielded from pain then dwell on it.
"And anyway," Sirius continued, "any world without James and Lily and Harry was not one that I considered worth living in."
"Yet here you are," Albus murmured, struck from his thoughts, "living in a world without James and Lily."
Sirius sat up a little straighter, one hand scrabbling at the floor for purchase. For a pitying moment Albus considered helping the dark-haired man sit up properly, but couldn't quite bring himself to touch this terrible fault of his and make it a reality.
"You think I am living?" Sirius laughed. Then coughed. Crimson blood pooled behind his teeth, seeping through the rotten cracks. "I feel like I have been sleepwalking these last thirteen years of my life – or at least wishing that this has been some nightmare of mine. Paranoia from the war plaguing my dreams."
He stopped and glanced out the window. The light of the Full Moon reflected off his eyes, making them molten silver.
"If it weren't for the knowledge that Harry was still alive, I would have given up long ago. I made a promise to Lily and James to protect him, and I never-" Sirius closed his eyes. "-I never got too fulfil their wishes. I'm perhaps the worst godfather in existence."
"You couldn't be more wrong," Albus said, his heart tugging as Sirius only snorted unbelievingly.
"You know that I cannot overturn your sentence, Sirius."
The last shimmer of brilliance that had been playing in the dark-haired man's eyes went off as fast as the flick of a light switch.
Rigidly he said, "I know."
The pale gaze fell to the floor; when he looked back at his old Headmaster, his expression was almost heart-wrenchingly pleading. "Tell Harry about me," he whispered, "and not just the bad stuff. I don't want his memory of me to be as a failure, not matter how much I might be."
Sirius gave him a weak ghost of a grin before slipping back to his staid, painful countenance.
"Keep him safe, Professor. Please."
Finally, he reached over a grasped the dark-haired man's hand, drawing it away from the gashes covering Sirius' side and middle. He drew his wand and carefully traced it over the deep wounds that, by the looks of them, Remus had made while transformed. The flow of blood seemed to ease and slowly the cuts began to disappear, leaving only faint pink lines that would scar over and eventually fade.
As he let the man's hand go, he heard Sirius whisper, "Thank you", and knew, for certainty, that he meant it more than for just healing him. Part of him wondered if he truly deserved to be thanked and forgiven.
Albus had made many mistakes in his life; Grindelwald for one; his family for another. As he reached the door to Flitwick's office it occurred to him that of all the things he had been wrong about before, Sirius Black was one of the worst; a deep, bitter regret.
And he was resolute, for once, to fix it. "I think," he said, sending one last glance at the huddled figure on the floor, "that you will be able to keep him safe yourself."
"What-?"
"My dear boy, never give up hope."
A/N: Although in some parts of this it may seem like Bashing, I did not write this story with that intent. I am by no means a great fan of Dumbledore; to be honest I've always seen him as one of the most frightening of characters because he truly does care but he still makes mistake after mistake and nobody calls him out upon it – apart from a small few in Deathly Hallows – because he is Albus Dumbledore a.k.a. untouchable.
From the moment we heard Sirius' story and found out that he was innocent, I've always thought him a character that didn't believe in blind trust – both a strength and a weakness – which is polar opposites too James. I sort of just wanted to write a Fic where someone calls Dumbledore out on his bluster.
So no flames please – but tell me what you thought. I have no beta reader so if you spot any spelling/grammar mistakes then please tell me and (at some point) I try and get around to fixing them. Thanks! XD