Author's note: Second chapter! Thank all of you so much for following, reviewing and putting favorite on this story! I hope you enjoy the chapter. If you find any errors, please contact me so I can fix them.
Disclaimer: Harry Potter doesn't belong to me
Warning: This fic is M rated for a reason. I won't hold back on swearing and mild sexual situations, you can now proceed.
HPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHP
Sirius woke up, neck cracking as he lifted his head up. He blinked a few times, groaning all the while at the bright light on the other side of the room. He tried to move his hands but found them tied up behind his back. He looked around desperately, trying to find the person responsible for what was happening.
A thousand questions went around in his head as he struggle against the bonds holding him in place: "Where am I?" "Who put me here?" "Where is Harry?" "What happened to Lily and James?" "Where is Remus?" "Why am I here?"
As focused as he was he never noticed two people walking in the room until they were in front of him. He looked up as he felt a wand in his throat, confused as he first took sight of the two wizards in front of him.
"Remus? Why are you pointing your wand at me?"
Remus looked at him confusedly and exchanged a look with a calm looking Dumbledore.
"Why wouldn't I? You just sold two of your best friends to Voldemort"
Realization filled Sirius face "I didn't, I already told you, it was the rat"
"Can you prove it?" Asked Remus furiously as he pressed the wand further into Sirius throat
Dumbledore gently pulled on Remus' hand leaving Sirius a bit of space to breathe
"Would you say the same thing under veritaserum?" Asked Albus peacefully as he held up a small bottle of the potion to Sirius' eyes
Sirius nodded determinately, staring at Remus straight in the eye "Of course"
Dumbledore and Remus exchanged another look, the later looking angrily at Sirius.
Dumbledore popped the cork out of the bottle and motioned Sirius to open his mouth; he did so without breaking eye contact with the werewolf. A few drops of the potion fell in Sirius tongue and a few seconds later his normally bright grey eyes became unfocused, his head lolling to the side. Dumbledore nodded at Remus whose anger mask had fallen, leaving nothing but sadness behind. Letting out a small sigh he turned to the drugged man.
"State your name"
Sirius head lolled back a bit "Sirius Orion Black" he slurred out
Before Albus could say one more word Remus interrupted him "Who was the Potter's secret keeper?"
"Peter Pettigrew"
Both men stared at him incredulously. Remus walked away from his friend and paced around with a hand combing through his hair.
"When did Peter Pettigrew become the secret keeper?"
"I convinced James and Lily to switch to him because nobody would think he was the secret keeper"
Dumbledore looked back at his old student feeling sad as he kept pacing around the room
"Why didn't you tell anyone?"
"Because we didn't want anyone to know"
Dumbledore looked at Remus worriedly; he had stopped pacing and was now pulling at his hair repeatedly.
"Is there something more that you want to ask Remus?"
He shook his head from side to side and kept staring at the far wall, lost in his thoughts. Albus took another small vial out of his robes' pocket and coaxed Sirius mouth open. A few seconds after the antidote had been applied Sirius eyes cleared, he shook his head from side to side and looked over at Remus and then his eyes wandered to Dumbledore. He nodded at him, a small sad smile coming to his face as he waved his wand, getting rid of the bonds holding him to the chair.
Sirius rubbed his wrists, staring intently at Remus. After a few silent minutes Remus turned back to them looking older than ever, before walking the few steps towards Sirius and grabbing him in a rough hug. They both hugged for what seemed like a long time before pulling apart, patting each other on the back, faces full of tears.
Dumbledore watched the exchange sadly and waited patiently until they were done before he cleared his throat.
"Remus, Sirius, please follow me to my office, we have some things we should talk about."
Both men nodded and followed the old headmaster out of the room. They were halfway there when Sirius head jumped up to stare at Remus.
"Where is Harry?" Remus opened his mouth to respond but before he could do so Sirius interrupted him again "What happened to James and Lily?"
Remus stared at Sirius anxious face for a moment before answering. "The three Potters are with Madam Pomfrey, Harry was quite injured last night, but she already fixed him up, he is sleeping peacefully. James and Lily on the other hand, we really don't know what happened to them, but she gave them a potion that is keeping them still and peaceful"
"That's not entirely true Remus, I may have an idea of what happened to James and Lily last night" Albus quieted as the two men stared at him anxiously, and turned to look at the gargoyle in front of his office "Sugar Quill" He said quietly to the statue who bowed and turned away revealing the stairs
Albus sat down on his chair and stared at the men in front of him; both were pale and appeared to be suffering from the stress caused by the last few hours.
"I must say first of all, that the robes and wand you found Remus, both belonged to Voldemort"
The marauders stared at Dumbledore dumbly, and Sirius cleared his throat "What does that mean exactly?"
Albus smiled briefly "The Dark Lord has been defeated yesterday, at Godric Hollow"
Both gaped "I thought it was Death Eaters who attacked yesterday"
Dumbledore chuckled darkly "What James and Lily are suffering right now was caused by a powerful person, not a simple Death Eater" Albus shook his head and cleared his throat "Would you two like a cup of tea?"
Neither responded, but Albus called a house elf anyway, who in just a minute had an entire tea set and small pastries for the Headmaster and his guests
"Cut the chase Dumbledore, what happened yesterday at Godric Hollows?" Asked Sirius tiredly
Albus took a long sip of his tea before answering "It appears as both James and Lily have been tortured to insanity" He looked at the two men sadly, both were pale and distressed "We really don't know his reasons, but it appears as he was trying to have a bit of fun and decided that this was the best way to appease his boredom" He said with disgust, Sirius and Remus looked like they might vomit.
The Headmaster leaned into his crossed hands "From what Pomfrey had collected, James is much more affected than Lily. My guess is that he was growing tired for casting the Cruciatus as he was cursing Lily, so he just decided to leave her early and try to kill young Harry"
Remus cleared his throat, trying to get past the knot that had formed "Why?"He asked in a low voice "Why did he do that?"
Albus took another sip and proceed to tell them about the prophecy, as he finished a thick cloud of silence formed around them. For several minutes nobody spoke, each of them sorting out their own thoughts.
Sirius finally broke the silence "So this means…?"
"This means that Harry has defeated the Dark Lord"
Silence reined again, broken this time by Remus "How did Harry survive?"
Albus leaned back in his chair "Love is a powerful tool, is what ultimately saved him" As the two men stared at him confusedly, he proceed "Lily protected him until the last moment, that protection and her love for her son formed a barrier Voldemort couldn't get through, that barrier is what turned the killing curse back to him, ending his life"
Dumbledore served himself another cup as Remus and Sirius tried to make sense of what he was saying.
Suddenly Sirius turned his head to look at the Headmaster, an angry look on his face "We need to find Peter, that motherfucker needs to pay for what he has done" He said darkly
Remus nodded rapidly, and Albus answered peacefully "We need to find him yes; I also need to talk to the minister and to the Aurors department head so we can put an official arrest warrant"
They talked about the searching for a couple of minutes, finally agreeing to have Albus give an announcement about Voldemort's falling and the searching for the traitor.
They drank their tea after that, staying silently as Dumbledore wrote down a few things in a piece of parchment.
Remus interrupted the quill's scratching wonderingly "Do you think there is a way for James and Lily to recover from this?"
Abus kept writing as the two marauders looked at him anxiously. He finally put the quill down and turned to the men.
"You should talk to a specialist at St Mungo, insanity doesn't really have a cure, at least not for know, but I'm sure someday there is going to be one."
HPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHP
"What are we going to do Moony?"
Both Sirius and Remus were standing on a secluded part of the Hospital Wing. Both Lily and James were laying on beds next to each other, their son, Harry, sleeping peacefully on his godfather's lap.
Remus shook his head "I don't know Padfoot, I really don't know"
Sirius let out a sigh, his eyes never leaving the still bodies of his friends.
"I don't want to leave them in St Mungo"
Remus looked away from the Potters and turned to Sirius "Why?"
"There are still death eaters on the run, when they realize that they are the reason their Dark Lord isn't alive they will want to hurt them" Sirius sighed and looked at the peaceful little boy in his arms "Harry too"
Remus put a hand through his hair and turned his eyes back to Lily and James "What is your plan then?"
Sirius bit his lip "I think we should treat them at Grimauld Place, I have more than enough money to afford house visits from healers and all the treatments they are going to need"
"What are we going to do about the rat?"
"We are going to help the Aurors, I want him to rot in Azkaban as soon as possible"
Remus nodded and turned to Sirius confusedly "Why Grimauld though? It's certainly not your favorite place in the world and it is full of dark objects"
"It must be absolutely filthy too; my mother's house elf is old and an asshole" Sirius sighed and let his gaze wander down to Harry "But it's under the fidelius so it's safe and private, and it's really big, so we won't have any space problems" He made a pause "I don't really want to go there, but it's our best option, I don't want to go through moving right now"
"Yeah you are right" Remus made a pause to lean back in his chair "This is going to be hard isn't it? I still can't believe J-James and Lily…" Remus stopped talking in fear that if he continued he would start crying again, he was damn near it as well.
Sirius nodded, remembering all the crying they did after getting out of Dumbledore's office.
"Yeah me neither"
They both stayed silent after that, a lot had happened in the last few hours, and they were still uncertain about everything, the future, what had happened… They needed answers and it wasn't time yet to receive them.
HPHPHPHPHPHPHPHPHP
Theresa Vega Abram was working at St Mungo on November 3 1981. It had been quite a day so far. As a spell damage specialist she was normally very busy, but today the hospital had been kind of quiet.
The biggest emotion that day had been on the morning as all the wizarding radio stations stopped their usual programming to play Dumbledore's announcement. Her co-workers had been quite excited to hear their old headmaster's voice, but as an Ilvermony graduate she hadn't been really interested in hearing the old man. At least that was until he told all of wizarding Britain about Voldemort's defeat. The hospital staff was quite excited to say the least, cheers and squeals of happiness were heard all over St Mungo from staff and patients alike.
So she was quite surprised when one of the nurses told her that the boss was calling for her to go urgently to his office.
She opened the door to the head of the spell damage department office, the home of a sweet old healer who looked like he had been alive for more than one hundred years. His smiling face welcomed her as she opened the door, followed by the unknown faces of two 20 year old men and a baby that was about a year old.
"Mrs Abram! Nice seeing you today" Said the old healer, Jeffrey Horton, with a big smile "These young men over here are Sirius Black" He pointed to the young man on the left, who had long black hair and grey eyes "Over there is Remus Lupin" He pointed to the young man on the right, who had sandy hair, brown eyes and quite a few of scars on his face "And last but not least that is Harry Potter" He pointed at the baby on Remus' lap who was happily chewing on a stag plushie, he had a mop of black hair and startling green eyes.
He recognized the boy's name instantly; he had been, along with his parents, the main focus on the news that morning.
"Nice to meet you, I'm Theresa Vega Abram" She said as she shook their hands.
She stood by her boss side as she examined the faces of the two men in front of her. Both looked exceptionally tired, with deep dark circles under their eyes, messy hair and overall unkempt appearances. Her maternal instincts constricted her heart, the only thing she wanted to do was grab those boys and fix whatever was wrong.
"You see Theresa, and old friend of mine, his name is Albus Dumbledore I'm sure that you know him, has asked me for my best healer, so I immediately thought of you, would you like to take the job? "
"What would this job entail exactly?"
Sirius exchanged one look with Remus and then turned to her "We need you to take care of our two friends" He made a pause as Theresa nodded confusedly "They have been tortured to insanity with the cruciatus curse" Sirius explained as the healer paled
"Of course I will help, are you looking to start on the trials to look for a cure?"
Remus nodded and handed her a stack of papers "That's the information the Hogwarts matron has collected about the effect the cruciatus had on their bodies"
Theresa nodded and held the papers tightly to her chest "When will you like to begin?"
"Well you see Mrs Abram, they have a small request for this job" Mr Horton interrupted, his usually happy demeanor had gone serious due to the explaining of the case "They will like to treat their friends at their home"
Theresa's mind voice started screaming at that, telling her to not take the job, reminding her of the horrors of house hospitalization. The high possibilities of infection on her patients, the lack of silence and of resources, all in all house hospitalization was not good, and she didn't want anything to do with it.
But this time she knew the back-story. The sight in front of her, the faces of the two hopeful men and the green eyed toddler, tugged at her heartstrings. She wanted to help this people, even if she had to go through the inconvenience of not treating them at St Mungos.
"Of course I accept, I will do everything possible to ensure that your friends will recover"
R&R
