Infidelity
A short story by the one known as Padfoot
Sorry about the cursing, I don't expect him to act all angelic in this situation.
R/R
"Did you hear?"
"What?"
"About the Potters!"
"The Potters?" A scraggily-haired man with deep brown eyes looked up.
The two men who had been talking looked down at him.
"They've just gotten away from Godric's Hollow! You-know-who showed up!"
"DAMN!" The man yelled, jumping to his feet and running out of the Leaky Cauldron.
It was several moments of blind panic before he remembered to Apparate. He ended up standing wobbly on the front yard of what had just the night before been the seventh house on the right of the street in Godric's Hollow.
Two official Ministry of Magic brooms were parked one the driveway and their owners, a podgy, short man with balding black hair and a taller, thinner red-haired man stood smoking cigarettes near the porch. The whole area was marked off with "MINISTRY OF MAGIC CRIME SCENE" yellow tape.
Another man stood just behind them, hands nervously combing out his long, graying black hair.
"What happened? What happened to Lily and James?!"
"Are you family? Close friends?"
"Yes, dammit!" He spat, causing the one who wasn't an officer to step back.
"Friend?"
"Yes."
"Name?"
"Lupin. Remus, Lupin." He said, his mind spinning.
"Lord You-Know-Who showed up at their house around eleven last night. The night of Halloween. James Potter put up a fight… and Lily Potter died protecting their son. They are both at Saint Mungo's Morgue."
An odd contraction flitted through Remus' face. They were dead.
"I'm supposing that…he…murdered Harry, too?"
The older man stepped closer, his wild eyes looking tired and red.
"No. He has been relinquished into the care of Albus Dumbledore who will, and probably already has, found a more permanent home for the child."
"What about me? Or Sirius?!"
The man motioned for the cops to leave them. They walked off without a word.
"I am Alastor Moody. I work for the Ministry as an Auror. I am supposed to question you about the death of the Potters."
"You honestly don't think…!"
"I honestly don't think you did, it is only my job. Where were you last night around eleven?"
Remus tried to remember. "I have been in hiding most of the time, I went out for a drink and for some dinner."
"Where and who might have noticed you?"
"Leaky Cauldron, and its bartender, Tom."
"I'm sure it will check out. Do you have contact with a… let me see… Sirius Black?"
"He's been staying in London." Remus said quietly. Thoughts had begun to drift into his head.
The Potters had used the Fidelius Charm. Only one think could break Fidelius. And that was Infidelity. Breaking the trust. And Sirius had been the secret keeper!
Was Sirius capable…of that?!
Remus grabbed his wand and apparated to the middle of London.
~*~
"Umm…hi." Remus said quietly to the bookkeeper of a small London hotel.
"Would you like to reserve a room?"
"Yah… I'm looking for a man who checked in here named Sam Brown."
"Let me see…. Ballard…here we go, Brown, Sam? Room 117."
Remus took a deep breath and wandered down the hallway to room 117. He stopped and knocked twice on the door. It flung open.
"Remus!"
Something was terribly wrong. Remus realized that Sirius must have heard the news. His hair was even less neat than usual, his eyes were puffy and red, and he was holding a box of Kleenex.
"Are you alright?"
"Alright? Do I like ALRIGHT? That son-of-a-witch killed James! And Lily!" Sirius sniffled and blew into a Kleenex.
Sirius flopped down on the bed and beat the pillows. His fist slammed against the headboard and he howled in pain.
"WHY?!"
Remus grabbed Sirius' wrists. "Get a hold of yourself. Sitting here and moping ain't gonna bring them back. I need to talk to you!"
"I know… it's not…" The door burst open. A tall, long legged, blonde room service girl was standing there.
"I have a visitor for Mr. Brown."
"Uh… Sam…that's you." Remus whispered, nudging Sirius in the ribs. Sirius slammed the door behind her and pulled on jeans and a black t-shirt. He opened the door and walked down the hall.
Sirius's eyes flickered around the room. There was only the desk clerk and a bell boy. Remus blinked. Was it a wizard under a cloak? Memories flooded back.
~*~
"You see this, Remus?"
"What? I don't see anything." But even James' voice had nothing to see. He wasn't there. Something tapped him on the shoulder.
"You don't see it? Excellent!" Came James' voice from right in front of him.
"What the?"
"It's an Invisibility Cloak, Remus. I can go anywhere and not even Pringle can catch me!"
Remus' jaw had dropped. James had pulled the cloak off. He had let Remus try it on, feeling so proud of his latest gadget.
Invisible. James had loved being invisible so much.
And now Remus would give everything just to see him again.
~*~
"Remus?" Came Sirius' hoarse voice. "Hello?"
Remus snapped back to the present.
"I'm going to do a bit of business, I'll be back tonight, meet me at the Leaky?"
"Sure, Sirius, I just need to talk to you some time." Remus said through gritted teeth.
~*~
"Did you hear?"
"About what?"
"Sirius Black!"
"Black?!" The same brown-haired man's head shot up. The two men talking looked down at him.
"Yeah, Black. The Secret Keeper for the Potters! He went on a murdering spree today!"
"What…who did he kill?"
"A wizard named Peter Pettigrew and a whole slew of muggles!"
"And when the hit-wizards showed up, he just stood there, laughing maniacally as they drug him away."
"He sold the Potter's out to Voldemort."
"Damn!" Remus yelled again, running once again from the Leaky Cauldron into the street. He grabbed for the nearest newspaper.
It confirmed what the men had said.
~*~
Watching from a window, Remus listened to Crouch, Moody, and Dumbledore talk to Sirius Black. Sirius has been tied to the chair in the rooms of the Ministry of Magic.
Crouch was speaking. "I suggest no less than life in Azkaban. All the evidence points without question."
"He's due a fair trial, Bartemius." Dumbledore reasoned.
"There's no point. It would be a waste of our time."
"If he is indeed guilty, life is less than he deserves." Moody put in.
"You think he should be given death?"
"No, let him suffer." Moody snarled.
~*~
"It can't be right, it can't."
Alone in the world. That's where Remus was. Two years had passed since those two days that had changed his life.
The Potters gone, Peter dead, Sirius incarcerated. What was left to live for?
THE END
A/N I really wanted to write a short story, so that's what brought about "Infidelity." If you didn't know fidelus means "trust" in Latin, as Infidelity would mean something along the lines of "Breaking the trust." And what would Fidelius mean?
I've been doing a lot of work on my web page Harrywood! It's all about the HP Movie, and I'm working on putting a Latin-English translations for many of the spells and other things in the books. Like…
Aurora means lights, as in "Auror"
Nox means "dark," how they turn out the Lumos charm.
Lumo means "light," as in Lumos, to light your wand
Veritas means "truth," as in Verita Serum, truth potion.
Oh well…
http://www.fly.to/harrywood
Thanks!
~* PADFOOT *~