A/M: I do not own Harry Potter. It belongs to the wonderful and talented J.K. Rowling
The soft roar of his motorcycle engine strangely relaxed him as he rode high through the dark skies. If he was being honest he was really afraid of going back here, the place where it all his best friends had died to save their son. Immediately he felt guilty not because he didn't keep an eye on Peter but because he didn't push his anger aside and focus on what really mattered; Harry.
He could only imagine how much better the young man's life would have been but if Azkaban taught him anything it was that you can't dwell on past decisions and honestly he didn't know he would ever been able to cope with everything that led to Lily and James's deaths if it wasn't for being imprisoned.
He mostly felt bad for Harry though because the boy never had known what a true family was. He could have gave him that and much more but his younger self thought that getting revenge was a better choice. Now he knew better, especially after what Harry had just gone through. Not only did he watch another boy murdered in cold blood in front of him but he also witnessed Voldemort be reborn and had to fight him for the third time. If he could help it, Harry would never have to face those types of situations alone again.
That was part of the reason he was going back to the scene of the crime. He landed softly and dismounted his bike. He looked up at the old house which was still in ruins from the attack. He stared at it for a moment, afraid to go in, because last time while he did retrieve Harry, he did it the easy way skipping Lily and James's body and just apparated straight to the nursery and apparated out straight away. That's when his life changed; he saw the rat and rushed to give Harry to Hagrid instead of actually thinking about the situation at hand.
Finally, he decided that he had gathered enough courage and held his breath. He reached his hand slowly to the old rusty iron gate and pulled it open apprehensively and let go of his breath when nothing happened. The walk to the front door, which was blown completely off its hinges, felt like an eternity and when he reached the doorway stopped.
He took his first step into the house carefully and suddenly all the images he had played out in his mind came back to him. He looked down at the spot where he imagined James dropped lifelessly and the tears won the battle he was fighting to hold them back. The war he was waging with the contents of his stomach was soon lost as well and he began to doubt why he even came here. Then he remembered the boy that was a spitting image of his father except for those stunning green eyes and everything became clear. He was doing this for Harry.
He knew James wasn't the type of man without a plan and just knew that his friend had left something behind that he was supposed to see. When he thought about it, it made him feel even guiltier because James dropped several hints before that fateful night but in his rage Sirius forgot all about it. Now he could only hope that nothing had been touched and whatever he needed to see was still in place.
He found the place he had been looking for, James's Study, and quickly opened the door hoping that everything was still in its place. Miraculously, nothing had been touched except for the ceiling that had huge spider webs in the dusty corners of the room. His heart racing, he rushed to the desk and quickly pulled it apart looking for a clue that would help him. So far he was unlucky and only found some old pictures of Lily and James's wedding and pictures of a baby Harry zooming around on his toy broom. They were in a dusty photo album which he imagined was because of they had sat here unharmed for so long. He also noticed that on the backs were dates and times of everything, must have been Lily's doing.
He stopped when he came to a picture of James, Remus, Peter and himself from their old school days. He scowled at Peter's joyous carefree face angry that the traitor could ever be so happy. He took the picture from its sleeve and tried to set it on fire but was shocked when it wouldn't light. It must have had an anti-fire charm on it, which mad sense to Sirius but didn't stop him from inspecting the photo more.
He flipped it over and noticed Lily's writing just like all the other photo's but decided to cast Specialis Revelio on it hoping like hell something would come up. His face lit up when James's writing slowly began to appear on the back of the photo.
"For those who seek knowledge, seek the stone where my fathers stand tall and speak the words of the Marauders."
Sirius was puzzled, not because the riddle was hard to figure out, but because it was so easy. Anybody who knew anything about the Potter family knew that in their ancestral home was the great Hall of Statues where every head of the Potter throne had a statue made shortly before they died. He wondered if James's had gotten one of himself built and put there. He surely had a big enough head for it.
In that instant it all dawned on him. The only reason that Sirius himself knew this information was because the Potter home was his home after he had ran away and highly doubted that anybody else knew. That meant that this message was specifically left for him and he was supposed to go there. It also meant that James had expected him to find this message sooner and probably it was his intention that Sirius raised Harry in the same home that James himself was raised in. Matter of fact, James often joked how it was even safer than Hogwarts.
Deciding that he knew what he needing to do next he grabbed the photo album decided to inspect it for any other clues later and rushed outside to put up wards on the home so that nothing else would be disturbed. He decided to leave his Bike, he didn't have enough time to fly to Potter Manor because it was getting close to morning and surely Dumbledore would be checking in on him soon. He left it in the yard and made a metal note to return it back to Hagrid later; he really had no use for it anyways.
Sirius turned on the spot to the point where they had all had to go to before making the short walk to the home because the house was supposed to have anti-apparition wards and unplottable. He didn't expect the wards to still be up but was again surprised they were still going strong. For the second time he felt like an idiot as he remembered when he back to his own ancestral home and found the Kreacher was still keeping most but not all of the wards up. While the Black family only had one house elf alive at the time, Sirius remembered that the Potters had multiple elves which meant that they probably could keep all the wards up. He hoped that the wards were still keyed to him and that they still remembered him. He didn't really feel like dealing with a bunch of angry house elves.
When he reached the front door and knocked he realized that to make it that far the ward still were keyed to him so he opened up the door and froze when he saw four really old house elves and what must have been their children waiting at the front door with kitchen knives ready to pounce. Luckily for Sirius they did remember him.
Snoopy, who Sirius remembered was the head elf, smiled and in an old weary voice slowly spoke. "Master's Padfoot, yes. We have been waiting for you yes. Is Master Harry with you?"
Sirius paused before he spoke and said "No not this time, I promise to bring him the next time I visit."
"Please soon. Snoopy does not have much time left and I would like to see how big he has grown before my time comes, yes. Master says that you must go the Hall of Stone. I am too old to take you, yes, but I my son Droopy would be most happy to take you."
"Thank you Snoopy, I promise to bring him soon. Droopy if you would lead the way?"
A small elf bowed deeply, he must have been the runt of the family because he face touched the ground. Sirius had a small feeling that Harry would like Droopy the most and couldn't wait to bring him there.
A lot of memories came back as he walked through the large house that was different than his own. The Potter's were odd purebloods in that fact they didn't have tons of Family portraits lining the walls of their ancestral home. Not that the Blacks had many either, instead they had the family tapestry that his mother took the time to ruin when she blasted the faces off the wall that she didn't like. Now that he thought of it, most of the true Most Noble and Ancient Houses didn't have but a few portraits but each had something distinctive about their homes that was different than everyone else's. The Potter's just happened to be the Hall of Stone.
James and he never really went there when they were kids, James told him that the place was kind of spooky and freaked him out but always felt as if James was hiding something about the room from him. One day he found James coming from the room smiling and when he questioned his friend he said that his father made him go there to meet his ancestors. Sirius didn't really get it, how could James be introduced to stone?
He reached the room and Droopy bowed and quickly disappeared to leave Sirius alone with the stones. The room was round with generation after generation of the heads of the Potter household lining the outside of the walls. There had to be at least five hundred statues. He didn't know that the Potter family was this old. Sirius was amazed by the detail of every stone and wouldn't be surprised if any of this was the work of the Goblins. It took him a while to find the Statue of James's father but when he did, it was the statue next to him that caught his eye. It was of a large Stag and Sirius couldn't help but smile because it had to be James's own. Of course it was the only non-human statue in the whole place but it definitely fit James personality. He always wanted to be different. He couldn't help it as the tears started to flow freely again.
Quickly refocusing, he turned back to James's dads' statue and spoke "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."
A first nothing happened and Sirius was disappointed because he didn't know what else the words of the Marauders would be but then then the middle of the room started spinning and a spiral staircase appeared leading down into an unknown room. He slowly walked down the stairs into a dimly lit tunnel and he could hear a faint buzzing noise coming from the light at the end. He walked very slowly down the tunnel which again seemed like the second eternity he had walked that night and gasped when he reaching the archway.
"Padfoot, it's about time you showed up" was the last thing Sirius heard before he faded to black.
A/N: So what do you all think?