~The Extent of Innocence~

"I am innocent! I am fucking innocent!"

My shrieks bounced off the corridor walls in vain.

"Innocent…innocent…innocent…"

Softer and softer until the only thing left is my hysterical sobbing.

I didn't do this. I know I didn't. I couldn't have. I don't have the potential to hurt someone I love so much. To kill the three people that I lived for.

James, you know. You know me too well.

I ball my hands into fists and slash them across my eyes. Maybe I did.

The last few days are just a blur, just a haze.

I bend to my knees and bile flows from my throat, burning as it reaches the floor like water.

I haven't even eaten for the past five days. I don't have the strength to murder.

All I can remember is a sea of faces, and tiny islands of houses and streetlights flickering through dark nights as I passed them on my motorcycle. Tiny children's cries and screams. And screams. And those desperate screams that come in the last second, when you're cornered in, caged in by death and evil, and there's no way out. The smell of despair is in the air around you and you're measuring out your last seconds with breaths that come from deep in your stomach, and gag you with a strength you didn't know you still had in you. Kill me now. Kill me now. You're too tired to be brave, too scared to be paralyzed with fear.

And like a house on top of a hill, the Potter home looms into view as I approached it. I was about twenty yards off when I saw the silhouettes, fifteen when I heard the first scream, ten when I saw the flash of green light, five when I heard the final one. As my first foot hit the pavement, a little baby's crying filled the night. It started so wearily and so strained that it sounded like it had been crying for hours. Like he had been crying for hours.

I knew this child. He was like my own. I held him the day he was born, my eyes filled with tears when he found the courage to stop sobbing and curl his fragile hand around my pointer finger, when he looked up at me with a mixture of adoration and reverence and curiosity. I ran a hand along the back of his neck, toying with the fine, blond hairs that babies always have at the base of their skull. I kissed his forehead and he let out something between a coo and a giggle. It was the happiest, most innocent, pure sound I've ever heard. It makes me both cry and smile to think of it.

My boots thumped out a course to the door, the shards of wood dangling where a door should have been. I shoved aside so much broken glass and ripped material I must have cut myself seven times over, but I didn't feel it then. I just remember James' body lying so still on the kitchen floor. I'd never seen anybody before then or since that was so goddamn motionless. It wasn't a peaceful kind of stillness, either. It was like he'd been stopped right in the middle of fighting with everything he had, like the force gave him nothing else to do but fall back and die, even if he wanted to keep on going.

I don't know. Maybe it was the fact that he didn't look tranquil that told he was dead, but I didn't stop to check on him. I went straight to the living room.

I used to love Lily. Shit, I do love Lily. I've never stopped loving her. She was the subject of my childhood pestering, my adolescent infatuation, and my adult adoration. But she only had eyes for James. And I respected that and stepped back. I respected whatever God-given gift they'd been sent.

I bent over her body. I gently pulled her off Harry. I smoothed down her curls and kissed her cheek and held her against me. My tears spilled onto the carpet by her feet, and my howls rose into the cold, night air, but nothing brought her back. She slumped against me as I finally loosened my grip and choked back my tears.

I was so raw with pain and dulled with death that I just laid a hand on Harry's chest. His eyes were closed, his face was drawn, but I felt it. There was the weakest heartbeat pulsing beneath my fingers. I took a shaky breath and took my hand away and closed my eyes. Then I pushed back the little wisps of hair framing his face and gently fingered the tender skin around the cut. I ripped off a shred of my shirt and pressed it to his wound, trying to stop the bleeding before he lost consciousness. When he felt the pressure, he opened his tiny mouth and let out a pathetic howl, flailing a fist weakly in my direction, trying to stop the sting. I cupped my hands around his back and brought him to my chest, his breath short and jerky against my ear, his sobs quieter and softer as my familiar scent soothed him to sleep. I sat him across my knees and pulled my wand out of my back pocket, touching his forehead briefly as I conjured up healing spells. The gash was inflicted by powerful Dark Magic, more powerful than even I had the wisdom and the strength to overcome. So I cast a potent slumber over him as I wrapped him in my cloak and hurried out into the sinister night.

Perhaps it's all in the way you look at it.

To most, the night was dark yet filled with hope that lit up all the corners that they couldn't see into before. Lord Voldemort had been overthrown; they were finally getting to begin a new chapter in their lives: one of freedom, justice, and joy. Their new lives wouldn't be the same as before Voldemort came to power; life would be tinged with the sadness his reign inflicted upon almost everybody, but this life would be dictated by good and that was all that mattered.

To some, this night was bleaker than any they had ever known. Death eaters were trapped like deer in headlights. They had openly pledged their support to the Dark side—where should they go now that it had been defeated? I was sure many of them would choose to spew proverbial bullshit, somewhere along the lines of they didn't know what they were doing, they had been forced to kill and destroy and ruin by Lord Voldemort, they were innocent. And the sad fact is, I was also sure this would work for most of them.

But to me, this night was simply sinister for none of the reasons above. My whole life had been taken away in one swoop; everybody I loved had been killed. I'm sure Lily and James' deaths were honorable because they stopped Voldemort, but that didn't change the fact that they were gone. Forever. And I would be blamed for them. To everybody at the Ministry, I was their Secret-Keeper. I gave them away. I was guilty. The first wizard I saw would end this night of innocence, with this little boy between my arms.

"Sirius? What are yeh doin' here?"

"Hagrid," I ran a hand over my face and tugged at my chin briefly before meeting his confused eyes again. "The Potters were murdered by Voldemort tonight. Their son, Harry, managed to live through the ordeal. He also crippled Voldemort. He is gone. The Dark reign is over."

"Sirius," he croaked, tears already shining in his shaggy beard.

"Don't ask me questions, Hagrid," my tone was sharp, final. "I don't have answers. Just get Harry to Dumbledore immediately. He'll know what to do."

"Sirius," he tried again, raising his arms in a helpless gesture.

It almost brought an ironic smile to my face, this big man looking as lost as a child, but I suppressed it. "You must seek out Dumbledore immediately. The boy is not safe yet. And take my motorcycle. I won't be needing it anymore."

"Sirius, I can'…" He mumbled, shoving his eyes down in the direction of his feet.

"Did you hear me, man? Voldemort's supporters will be after this child as soon as they hear of their lord's destruction! Take him to safety now!"

He nodded dumbly, shuffling across the distance between us to accept the bundle of cloaks from my arms.

"Sirius?" He turned back around once he reached the motorcycle.

My heart caught in my throat. But he couldn't have known. Not yet, at least. Only a few knew that I switched Keeping duties with Peter.

"Yes, Hagrid?" My tone was gentle now that the only responsibility I had was to accept my fate.

"It's goin' ter be all righ'. The Potters, I mean. They died fer a good cause, fer a good cause."

I allowed a single tear to cross my cheek before I took a shaky breath and stood resolute. I smiled sadly. "Thank you, Hagrid."

He shook his head solemnly and swung one leg over the bike that I spent so many hours polishing and languishing over. He gathered his cloak around to cover Harry and added a few blankets to the bundle. He faced his head in the direction of his journey and took off as I heard the first Muggle commotion behind me.

So how far does my innocence stretch? Am I still innocent because I simply made fatal mistakes?

Because I thought but never knew?

Because I said but never did?

Because I acted but was too late?

Oh, James, did you know? Do you know? Do you think I'm innocent?

I let out another animal cry that scares even me as a dementor stops by my cell and reaches out a putrid hand through the bars. I scramble back against the wall, my weeping a little quieter now, my sobs a little less violent now.

What is the extent of my innocence?