1.
McGonagall actually cries.
Sirius didn't think it was physically possible, but as he looks around at the crowd gathered in the Great Hall, he sees that Lily's speech has produced a fair few misty eyes.
But Sirius doesn't cry – heck, he's a Marauder after all. And he definitely didn't cry that time he finished reading Hairy Snout, Human Heart, no matter how much James insists he did. That was just hayfever.
Yet he is a bit sad to be leaving this place. It will take some getting used to sleeping in his own room, and even though James will be sharing the flat with him he still feels he'll lose some of the immediacy that their dormitory had. There'll be no more Quidditch pitch or sneaking to Hogsmeade or competitions to see who can make Filch faint with rage the most. And there'll be no more house-elves to cook him impromptu midnight snacks – that'll be a real bitch. But, on the other hand, he'll have another excuse to have Remus in his flat in the middle of the night.
His fellow students begin to clap as Lily steps down from the podium, red-hair flashing in the glow from the windows, and suddenly Sirius doesn't want to leave his seat. Maybe he could transform into Padfoot and hide in some deserted upstairs corridor for a few more hours, just until he's ready to say a proper goodbye. They've been so busy planning a slew of last minute pranks that he hasn't had the time to appreciate the fact that he's actually leaving Hogwarts; the first real home he's had.
But then there's the familiar scraping of wood on stone as his classmates get up for the final sail across the lake, but Sirius remains sitting.
He feels a warm hand clasp his own and looks up into Remus's face.
"Are you coming?" he asks, letting go of Sirius's hand before someone else notices.
Sirius sees James and Peter standing a few feet away watching him.
"Of course I am," he says lightly, springing up from the bench. "Who needs school anymore?"
2.
The first Saturday he and James have free from work, they visit a second-hand motorcycle shop behind Camden market.
Sirius walks between rows of motorbikes in varying states of disrepair, while James attempts to make small talk with the Muggle shop owner.
"... and there was just no way West Ham should'a been relegated," the Muggle says fervently, "them FA fat cats just want as much money as they can get, got no love for the game at all. What team d'you support?"
Sirius bends down to check the state of the brake pads on a newish-looking Yamaha as James flounders.
"Eh – the London Kickers," he says wildly, shooting Sirius a look that clearly says you know I know nothing about football, and I'm going to kill you for putting me in this position.
"The London what?" the owner says, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. "Are you trying to take the piss, son?"
"They're his high school team," Sirius says, wiping his oily hands on his jeans as he stands up. "James was never one much for football, you'd rather play netball wouldn't you?"
"Netball," the muggle says, smirking at James, "I thought that was a girls' sport?"
"Well, you could never keep up with the boys could you, Jamie?" Sirius grins as James's face blushes deep red.
The Muggle gives James and Sirius one last suspicious look, before walking over to another customer who just entered the shop.
"I'm gonna fucking kill you, Padfoot," James hisses as soon as the owner's out of earshot.
Sirius sniggers and continues to the back of the shop where there's a sign that reads Vintage Bikes. Now this is more like it, Sirius thinks to himself as he looks at the shining chrome and leather machines, much more pleasing to the eye than the coloured fibre-glass imitations that line the front of the shop.
He looks at the price-tag dangling from the handle of a 1948 Vincent Black Shadow, does some quick mental arithmetic to work out how many paycheques it would take for him to reach the figure listed and comes to a conclusion.
"Prongs, can I borrow a hundred galleons?"
3.
Peter's beer dribbles slowly down the side of the armchair as he falls asleep, wrist dangling loose tipping the bottle neck south.
Sirius doesn't bother with it. He's too warm and comfortable and pleasantly drunk to care at the moment. Anyway, it's nothing that a quick scourgify in the morning won't clean.
James is out for the evening – something about Lily and a dwarf, though Sirius isn't sure if he's remembering that right – and after work Remus and Peter both found their way over to his flat.
He sighs and leans back into the sagging leather couch, and the fingers of Remus's hand that's lying on his thigh give three quick taps – ready, steady, go – and Remus turns his head to nuzzle at the crease behind Sirius's ear.
"Not when Wormtail's still here," Sirius manages to mumble breathily, as Remus's lips work their way across his cheek to his own.
Remus huffs exasperatedly and Sirius can smell the faint trace of beer on his breath.
"Peter," Remus says.
"You'll never wake him now."
"Peter, get up now. I want to snog Sirius and you're in the way," Remus says loudly.
The effect is instantaneous: Peter's beady eyes snap open, mouth agape, and disapparates before Sirius has even begun to laugh.
4.
"You owe me, Black," James says around a mouthful of cereal, as he waits for Sirius to sign an IOU slip.
"Think of it as the next year's rent," says Sirius, opening the kitchen window for the morning post owl.
"You said I was your brother, and brothers didn't need to pay rent."
"You'd been feeding me Firewhisky shots all night! I'd've let Snape stay in my bed rent-free if he'd asked." But he signs the IOU anyway, as a tawny post owl hops onto the windowsill. James is smiling in satisfaction as he relieves the owl of its letter.
The envelope's unaddressed, but Sirius thinks the thin, sloping handwriting on the parchment is somewhat familiar. James passes the letter over to him, mouth set.
Same place as last time.
9pm
5.
"You're as subtle as a wounded Erumpent, Black," Mad Eye Moody snarls as Order members brush past them in the hallway.
"Nobody noticed me, and anyway it's just a bit of fun," Sirius retorts, trying to sound casual but something of the petulant teenager seeps through.
"Just a bit of fun," Mad Eye repeats, face twisting in anger. "Listen, Black, this isn't about Hogwarts House rivalries any more – this is the real thing. You say the wrong thing, confide in the wrong person and it's not going to be detention; it will be death or worse. We aren't messing around here, and neither is Voldemort – so get your fucking act together, and don't ever let me see you ride up to a meeting on that goddamn motorbike again,"
Sirius doesn't know what to say to that. He kicks at the skirting board with his foot, avoiding Moody's eyes.
"This is what I said to Dumbledore," growls Moody. "This is why you can't have kids in the Order."
Sirius looks up at that. "I'm of age, and I'm not at school anymore."
"Then start acting like it."
6.
Sirius sets down his quill with a sigh and stares out of the small office window to the cobblestone street outside. It's getting dark already as the autumn night draws in, sucking out the last rays of summer sun as the shoppers stream out of Diagon Alley and head home. He's supposed to be reading about the 1648 International Magical Cooperation treaty, but the print is so small and language so arcane that Sirius can't concentrate on the terms of agreement for longer than three minutes at a time.
He's been working as an assistant at Goldstein & Son Legal Solicitors for two months now and, besides from the occasional boring treaty, Sirius has found the job to be surprisingly enjoyable. Surprising, because he's entering the profession that his father had planned him to enter all along, following in the footsteps of past Black patriarchs. However, he's not going about it in the way that firstborns of the Noble House of Black should do – with a Ministry internship courtesy of familial connections, a few years practicing, then a few bribes to land a cushy position in the Wizengamot – he's doing it the hard way; starting as an assistant then hopefully being promoted to a trainee under Mr Goldstein's supervision.
He also made sure to only send his resume to solicitors' firms that had no policy against representing Muggleborns – he didn't want his mother to get the idea that he was trying to reform his ways.
But he enjoys the work. In what other profession do you get paid to be an argumentative git?
And in ten years from now, when Sirius does land that seat on the Wizangamot through sheer determination and skill, his first act will be to abolish the laws that prohibit employment of werewolves.
7.
Remus's hair is still wet and cold droplets land on Sirius's bare chest, like pinpricks to his flushed skin.
He runs his hands up Remus's back, fingers tracing the curve of his spine, as Remus guides them in a steady rhythm. There was something Sirius wanted to say to him, but right now all that fills his mind is the here and now, the paleness of Remus's skin, his short gasps of breath and the urgent heat between them.
"That's it, that's it," Sirius chants softly. His words fade into short gasps and incoherent babbling. Yes, this is right.
He comes sooner than he wants to, with an embarrassingly high-pitched whimper against Remus's throat, but he keeps thrusting until Remus looks like her is out of air. Finally his teeth clench and he inhales sharply, one hand gripping Sirius's shoulder.
Remus rolls off him and onto the bed beside him, as Sirius's fingers rake lightly across Remus's collarbone. He stares at the bite mark, still visible in the darkening room, and traces the old scar with the pad of his thumb.
Remus lets him look longer than he ever has before.
8.
Sirius is late for work and is scarfing down a piece of dry toast when the Patronus shoots in.
At first he's taken completely aback, thinking he must still be asleep or that he's somehow confused the orange juice with the Firewhisky, when the silver rabbit opens its mouth and says in a panicked voice, "It's Benjy – come quick, I can't hold them off for much longer!"
Without pausing for thought, Sirius turns on his heel and disapparates.
He lands on the frosty moor, wand drawn and narrowly misses being struck by a jet of purple light. He sends a stunning spell in the direction the light came from, and sees that he's just apparated into the midst of a battle. He recognises various Order members in the melee, before a masked figure appears from nowhere in front of him and Sirius has no option but to duel.
His socked feet slip in the mud – he never thought to put his shoes on before he left the flat – as he stumbles backwards, trying to remember any other curses other than a Stunning spell as the Death Eater bears down on him, deflecting his spells with seemingly little effort.
He tries to concentrate, but all around him echoes cries and yells and the drumming of his own heartbeat. What if he dies out here, right now; in his socks and unable to perform anything more threatening than a Stunning spell? What about Remus – he won't have awoken from his transformation, he won't know what's happening.
Suddenly, a voice, a bone-chillingly high voice, echoes across the moor louder than any of the cries of the duelers: "Leave it". And in an instant the Death Eaters disapparate.
Sirius is still reeling from the abrupt end of the duel, all his senses are taut and eager to fight, to strike out. He realises he's continuing to fire Stunners into the now empty space in front of him.
He looks around and sees a dozen other Order members are nearby, including Peter and Mad Eye. Some are clutching at wounds, others staggering over to Mad Eye, who is their unofficial commander in battle.
There's blood staining the grass and Sirius doesn't see Benjy Fenwick amongst those left on the moor. Behind them, a little way up a slope, lies the derelict farmhouse that Moody suspected was a meeting point for Death Eaters. Well, Sirius thinks, the events of the last fifteen minutes have proved that suspicion to be right.
He begins to stumble towards Moody and the others – slightly dizzy as the adrenaline courses through him – when he sees a red-headed someone crouching over a prostrate figure on the ground.
Heart in his mouth, Sirius rushes over to Lily and James.
"James!" he cries as soon as he reaches them. "Are you okay? What –"
"He's okay. He caught the blast of a confringo spell, he's just a little dazed that's all," Lily says. She sounds too calm – though maybe it's just the Healer training kicking in, for when Sirius looks at Lily he can see the worry etched on her face.
"I'm okay," James pants, taking her hand in his. "Where's Remus?"
"He was still under the sleeping draught when I left him," Sirius explains. "He won't have woken up yet."
Sirius helps lift James to his feet and they make their way over to the small crowd now gathered around Moody. Peter comes and stands beside them, his expression oddly blank.
"Why did they disapparate?" Emmeline Vance is asking Moody. "What was that voice?"
"Moody sighs heavily. "That was the voice of Voldemort. He ordered them to retreat."
"Why? We were outnumbered, they easily could have... you know...finished us."
"Voldemort's smart," Moody replies, magical eye spinning in all directions. "He knows he can disappear people one at a time in the middle of the night and not be caught, but killing twenty of us here in broad daylight – he's to waiting to have a big attack that will frighten everyone more than they already are, and this wasn't the time to do it. By backing off now he makes us all more scared and hopes that the Order will consequently disband, leaving his way clear."
Sirius swallows, unable to believe this is actually happening. Half an hour ago he was following his mundane morning routine, and now this. He can't wrap his head around it. A crow lands a short distant away and begins to peck at the remains of something lying on the ground.
"Has anyone seen Fenwick?" Moody asks to the Order members.
"Maybe he was never here," Frank Longbottom says, holding a handkerchief to a gash in his cheek. "Maybe the Patronus was an impostor, and we've just walked into a trap."
"No," replies Moody firmly, "you can't imitate another person's patronus, and Fenwick and Podmore were on the schedule for last night's surveillance duty. Podmore's been knocked out, but when he's revived I'm sure he'll be able to confirm that Fenwick was here. In the meantime, let's work on the assumption that Benjy Fenwick sent the patronus himself."
"Well, maybe they dragged him into the trees," suggests Frank, pointing to a small copse of trees a few yards away from them.
As a group, the Order members begin to head over to the trees, searching for any sign of Benjy. The crow flies away as the group approaches. They have almost reached the trees when Emmeline lets out a scream –
"Oh, Merlin! Benjy!"
Sirius feels his stomach turn over as he looks at the patch of ground where Emmeline is staring in horror. The scene is like something from those Muggle horror films Sirius sometimes goes to see, only much more vivid; at Emmeline's feet lies a fragment of human skull, blood and other fluid seeping over the marsh-grass, an eyeball, still attached to the empty socket by a thin thread of muscle, stares upwards at them. More screams and gasps of shock follow as, one-by-one, the Order members realise that the ground around them is littered with the shrapnel of a human body.
James and Lily turn towards each other, shielding their eyes, while Peter stands and stares at the carnage before him as though numb to the trauma.
Sirius feels his stomach lurch and retches; once; again, and once more.
END OF PART 1