Chapter 2: Needed Space

Sirius and Remus jumped with a start as they heard a loud crack from behind them and turned around, whipping out there wands, only to stumble and fall in shock at what they saw. There lay an unconscious James bleeding heavily from a lost limb and patches of flesh that had just disappeared.

"Prongs, mate! What happened to you! What's going on, who did this to you!" a frantic Sirius yelled.

"Sirius, go to St. Mungos and get someone quickly! We can't move him when he is like this, I'll try to stop the bleeding. Hurry!" yelled Remus. He whipped up his wand and summoned a small bottle of dittany as Sirius disapparated to go get professional help. He couldn't imagine what could have happened to James. He assumed he must've splinched, but this badly? James was a highly accomplished wizard who would never make a mistake such as spliching and definitely nothing of this degree.

Mere minutes later, although it felt like hours passed, Sirius apparated with a healer along side of him. The healer was shocked at the state James was in and wasted no time in stabilizing him before sending out a patronous which charged away with much urgency. Seconds later, three more healers arrived and crowded around James. Remus and Sirius waited anxiously to see if their best friend would survive this ordeal. Sirius, never the patient type, started pacing and banging things. Remus, the most patient of the ir group of four, was on edge and wringing his hands nonstop. About an hour and a half later, the healers came out of the bedroom James was stationed in.

"Your friend has been given a dreamless sleeping draught. We have corrected his body from the splinching and we think we soothed his body enough that the torture won't be a-" one of the healer's started before he was interrupted by Sirius and Remus.

"Torture?" they exclaimed in unison.

"What? How? Why? When?" Sirius started asking getting angrier and angrier with each word. No one hurt his best mate like that. Remus's legs wouldn't support him anymore causing him to collapse on to the sofa, his eyes wide in shock and surprise.

"We don't know, unfortunately," the healer answered Sirius. "We've been trying to contact his parents but we haven't heard from them. We have contacted the aurours office. These are dark time Mr. Black, we must suspect the worse.

"May we accompany the aurours?" Remus managed to ask in a very shaky voice. "We want to know what it was that our friend needed to go through."

"Of course, I'll make the arrangements."

-line-

The potions lab was ruined. Just about everything was smashed and many valuable potions and records were destroyed. Sirius and Remus were the first to discover the wreckage and they were only able to stand the sight for a few heart beats before the reality hit them. In the idle of the floor laid an unrecognizable burnt carcass, which was later identified as Mr. Potter, and Mrs. Potter's limp cold body was propped against a lab table looking much like a rag doll. The aurours went about the process mathematically taking blood samples to be identified, and tracing for any lingering magic.

Sirius, easily the proudest and strongest of will and the most emotionally set was in tears. The Potters were his family for the past four years. They took him in and cared for him. Something he had never experienced from his own parents. Remus was crying, James's mother and father were always kind to him. In fact, he was rather attached to him because Mr. Potter was the one that helped to take care of him and his furry little problem. He had known them more than twice as long as he'd known James. They were nothing but kind and supportive to him. It was thanks to them he could live with himself, knowing his condition. Mr. Potter was undergoing a research to help protect him during his monthly transformations, he did not deserve this. Why was the world so unjust?" If the Potters had to die, why could it not have been a peaceful ordeal?

The Aurour squad came out of the room to confront the two teens. "We've determined that this was the cause of a dark wizard group called death eaters. Have you heard of them before?" Both the teens nodded. It was mostly a rumor in the wizarding world but many slytherins swore by their new Dark Lord. "Well, we've been combating their group in secret for the past few months. They have become increasingly bolder and trying to strike fear into the wizarding world through brutish tactics. We caught a small group of them a few weeks ago and Mrs. Potter was the judge of it. You didn't really need much of a judge really, they had just graduated from Hogwarts and celebrated by going to a muggle bar and torturing two dozen muggles, all in their Dark Lord's name. Anyway they were convicted to Azkaban for a decade and a half, and that was lenient, believe me, but it looks like they were looking for revenge. We are sorry for you and your friend's lost, but we must ask you not to publicize this to anyone till it is released in the prophet. We are trying hard to prevent chaos gripping and I doubt that it will be published for a couple months at least."

"That isn't fair to James though!" Sirius protested loudly. "He'll have to relive it all over again! We can't do that to him."

"Definitely not," Remus agreed, "he needs help getting over this."

"You are missing my point," stated the aurour, "it is perfectly acceptable to talk about it between you three, but no one else. Anyone else will be considered treason against the Ministry." One rarely saw Remus lose his temper, but when he did he was one of the scarier things a person saw I his life. Sirius recognized the symptoms right away, having been on the receiving end just a few months earlier when he nearly had Remus kill Snivellous. He quickly started down another road.

"What about the Potters' bodies? What is going to happen to them?" Sirius asked, shocking Remus out of his anger. It was odd to see Sirius the cool headed one. In fact, it was like their roles were reversed. "If we may, we would like to bury them."

"Fine, do what you need to with the bodies," said another more annoyed aurour, "as long as they are not buried in public, or leave this property what you do with them doesn't matter to us. We have work to do, so go play with your dolls or whatever it is you kids do these days." Remus's anger began to flare once more but Sirius halted his arm and jerked his head indicating to let it drop. This did not go unnoticed by the leaving aurour. "Smart frien you've got there, now behave yourself unless you want to be thrown into Azkaban yourself." With that he turned and stalked away. As the rest of the Aurour team left, one lingered for a final word with the two teens.

"What do you want?" snarled a pissed off Remus. The Aurour was taken aback by the viciousness in Remus's voice but only lowered his eyes, which both of them noticed were wet from recent tears.
"I knew the Potter's too. Mr. Potter saved my life twice, they didn't deserve this to happen to them. I'm sorry and I want to apologize for my colleagues' rudeness. It's not that they don't care, we've just been seeing this much too often and we need our emotional side to be as hard as bedrock, otherwise that's how we'll end up." Remus sobered almost immediately, not because of the words but because of another grieving individual. "Anyway, I wanted to give you this, your friend must've dropped it, tell him congratulations for me." He placed a warm object in Remus's hand and turned to left.

Remus and Sirius looked down into his hand and saw a dirty blood stained Head Boy badge. Both boys gawked at it in disbelief.

"I don't believe it," Sirius said, "I thought it would be you for sure." Remus just shook his head sadly. How come this always happened? Of the few things he was passionate about, they were taken away to him by James, first his love for Lily, now this.

"Come on Sirius," he sighed, "we have work to do here." He would never admit to his friends any of these things of course. It wasn't James fault they both fell for the same girl and Remus was too cowardly to speak up about it or that Dumbledore picked James to be the new Head Boy. The Marauders were the best friends one could wish for, he would not strain that friendship over something so trivial.

They carried down the remains of Mr. and Mrs. Potter and dug them graves next to a willow tree overlooking the Potters' coy pond, it was the favorite place of the Potters to watch the sunset as a family. It was the hardest thing either of them had to do, and they were both glad that James was not there to witness it. They left the place without looking back, tears streaming down their faces. It was the worst day of their lives.

-line-

It was a week later, Remus was sitting at the kitchen table, Sirius was out at a bar. He'd gone every day after the incident and would not return till early the next morning, go to sleep wake up in the afternoon hung over start to recover and head back to the bar. Remus had wanted to do the same thing but new that James could wake up at anytime. He heard a rustling and he turned around to see a very stiff James stumbling out of the bedroom. Remus stood up to help him but he was stopped by James raising an upholded hand indicating to leave him be. So Remus backed up and took a good look at James. No not James, James was lively and care free, a pick me up to everyone he was around. If you were around james you couldn't help but smile and laugh. This James looked broken. His eyes were sunken and his hair was messy, but not in a carefree way, but in a way that made him look like a man who had lost everything.

James opened his mouth to speak but closed it, he tried again but closed it again. On his third a painfully hoarse voice that did not belong to James croaked "H… h… ow…lah…ng… long?" This simple act brought tears to Remus's eyes. How could he help his friend? He seemed like he had died beside his parents.

"The healers have had you on the draught of living death for the better part of a week James. They said that you will still be weak for most of a month but…"

"Thanks Remus," James cut in, which caused him to break into a fit of coughing. He could barely speak. "I'm going home now," he whispered so softly Remus had to lean in to hear it.

"James don't. Stay here with Sirius and I, we'll help take care of you." It was at that moment that Sirius stumbled in saw James and stopped dead in his tracks. Looking at him as if inspecting a horrid piece of art he stated,

"You look horribl-" the rest was interrupted as he threw up his nights dinner and beverages all over the floor. Remus groaned, this was the third mess he had to clean up in the past two nights. James wasn't amused either. He turned to leave but Remus grabbed hold of him.

"Prongs, wait! Please think about this, if you stay you'll have Sirius and I here to help you. There isn't anything for you back home. I'll go get you some more clothes but please stay here. I'm begging you James." James just looked at him straight in the eye, there was no life behind them. He bowed his head slightly and Remus sighed in relief.

"I'm sorry Remus," he stated simply as Remus began to look panicked again. "I have to go. Besides, it looks like Sirius needs more help anyway." Remus turned to look at Sirius who had fallen asleep in his own sick. Remus scrunched up his face in disgust.

"Well, at least take this with you," Remus said as he went to the counter and picked up a dull object. When Remus placed it in his hand, James looked down to see it was his Head Boy badge. "Congratulations, James." Remus said with a sad smile. That smile faltered once he looked at James's face. There were tears flooding his eyes until the overflowed and started to wash over his other features.

"I'll never be able to hear my parents say that," James said quietly, "they never knew, I'll never to know how happy they would have been." James knew what a wreck he was. He knew he should've stayed but he had to get away, from these people, who were like family to him, yet they weren't family, how could they replace what he lost? He needed time to be left alone so that he could gather his thoughts and put everything in order.

As soon as James had apparated, Remus slumped into a chair. The three of them were grieving for the Potters had basically adopted the marauders these past few years. Only James did not have family issues, well till a week ago. Sirius's parents were cruel to him and even went so far as to disown him a few years into their Hogwarts career. He stayed at the Potters, until just this summer when he and Remus moved into this apartment. His own parents were devastated about him being bitten and refused to accept that he could continue to live in their grief. His father only talked to him in soft whispers like he, Remus, was on his deathbed. Remus's mother would cry most of the time they saw him. His life would never be the same, it was within that first year that Mr. Potter became the closest thing to a father he had. Peter, well, they didn't know too much about his family. They knew that his mother was terminally ill and that his father did not make things better by bringing in new girls every night to sleep with. They had no idea how Wormtail was treated at home, but it couldn't be like they were all treated at the Pooters. They were all loved, like they were really a part of the family. Remus would always be thankful to James for bringing him into this small loving family, which was why it hurt him so much to be bitter about James's Head Boyship. He had wanted to prove to his parents that he could still be a normal person, in fact, he wanted show them he was better than normal. Remus mentally berated himself, for these thoughts were not truly sincere. All he wanted to be was normal, with normal friends and a normal family. He did not need to excel, his friends came first, before his petty foolishness. Yet he couldn't help but feel a bit relieved when James had left instead of staying there. Remus needed time away from James to get his head on straight. Even Remus could be selfish at times