All I could do was laugh.
As flashes of red surrounded me, as those I had once considered my friends and my allies suddenly turned on me, all I could do was laugh. The old boy was smarter than I had ever given him credit for. He was far from the "weak, talentless thing" that I had thought him to be, and my lapse in judgment had cost me everything that I had ever held dear to me.
But I could only laugh.
I laughed because they couldn't see – because, for the first time in his bloody life, Pete had out-witted me. Ha! I laughed because I'd fallen for it – hell, we had all fallen for it!
Even as magical binds encircled my wrists and my ankles, even as I fell forward onto my knees, I laughed.
Mad-Eye hobbled forward and grabbed me roughly by the robes, dragging me back to my feet.
"Sirius Orion Black," he spat, his 'mad' eye surveying me, "you're under arrest." Of all things, I chuckled, shaking my head. "For the murder of Peter Pettigrew," I threw my head back, barking with laughter and earning a sharp shove from someone I did not see. Moody continued to read off my list of alleged offenses, and with each of them, my laughter grew louder. He listed the name of each bloody muggle, both eyes unwavering. His regular eye narrowed into a glare as he came to the final charge, "and for performing as an accessory to the murder of James and Lily Potter."
My laughter died in my throat, and I fell suddenly silent. The smile dropped from my lips. I glared at the older man – a man I had grown to respect over the last year for his numerous eccentricities and his passion for dark-wizard catching– and wrenched out of his grasp, falling promptly back onto the street. For just a moment, I was still.
I could still see him, sprawled out in front of the stairs. I knew it was no use, but I shook him anyway. I shook him, begging him to tell me that all this was a joke - the greatest prank of the century! He just stared back at me, his hazel eyes dull and lacking the laughter that should have been there. I closed them. He'd have wanted me to close them. He wouldn't have wanted to see the destruction around him; he wouldn't have wanted to watch Aurors pick through his belongings. I could see Evans, too. "I'm a Potter, now, Sirius," she had told me after the wedding. "You can call me Lily." I hadn't. I enjoyed the rise I got out of her; I enjoyed the soft sighs and the indignant rolls of the eyes. But now, those bright eyes had closed; she was motionless, covered in debris – I never even would have seen her there if it weren't for that hair of hers. I didn't even bother trying to wake her; death was written all over her lily-white skin. Perhaps I should have.
There was a lot that I should have done.
I laughed again – because, in a way, I was responsible for everything they'd accused me of. Lily and James were dead because of me.
I should have been dead, not them. It should have been my corpse zipped up in a body-bag. At least my best mate – my brother in all but blood – would have been safe; his wife would have been safe. His son would have been securely tucked away in his bed, not shipped off to Surrey to live with Lily's estranged sister.
It was all my fault.
"Take him away," Mad-Eye snarled.
I threw my head back and laughed as a pair of Auror's yanked me off the asphalt. I didn't know why I was laughing anymore. Irony aside, two of my best friends were dead, my godson was an orphan, and I had apparently purchased a one-way ticket to Azkaban. But I couldn't stop.
The laughter bubbled up my throat, beyond my control, and they carried me away, giggling like a madman.