Disclaimer: I own nothing. I'm sure we've all got better things to worry about than whether or not I'm trying to pull of the literary heist of the century...
Sirius had been unable to stay at Mate's Night at the Three Broomsticks for very long. He had received an urgent summons from Gringotts, about thirty minutes into their drinks. Not quite sure what it could be, the boys had insisted he go attend to it, as his partial absence would just give them all an excuse to get James out of the house again. Sirius had been missing these nights with his best mate desperately, and would have done whatever he could to get James out of the situation he was in.
He just didn't know how.
The Gringotts summons had been in regards to his family. His mother had died. While he wasn't upset in the least about it, he was curious as to why he was being informed as though he were part of the family.
As it turned out, Sirius was only supposed to be told if there was no one else around to take care of family matters; it seemed he was not as entirely disowned as he had always suspected. The Blacks may have hated him, but in lieu of outside options, having a shitty Black head up family matters was preferable to having none at all apparently.
Narcissa and her husband had been on a "trip" to the continent since the birth of their son, so for all intents and purposes they were out of reach. Andi was looked down upon even more than he was because of her marriage and the subsequent birth of half-blood Dora. And Bella? Well apparently she, her husband, brother-in-law, and Bardy Crouch Jr. had been picked up for the torture of Alice and Augusta Longbottom earlier that very evening. The thought chilled him to the bone.
The Longbottom's had been under the same protections as James and his family. That meant that someone must have killed Leonidas Longbottom, Frank's father, to bring down the manor's defenses. As the Potter's secret keeper, the fact that he was here to hear about this horrible news was good for them, because it meant that he was alive.
It meant that they were safe.
But he would have to watch his back even more closely from now on.
Sirius took care of the paperwork that the Black family's Accounts Manager had been worried about and then left the otherwise empty bank. Looking at his muggle time piece , a gift from Lily, he saw that it was already the first of the month, and past time that the boys would be done at the pub. He figured though, since he had just been reinstated into his namesake, and as acting head no less, that there was some excuse to risk the wrath of a very pregnant witch in order to celebrate with his best mate.
With that thought in mind, he stopped by the Leaky, bribing Tom with an excessive amount of gold, for the 17 year old brandy he knew the barkeep had a few extra bottles of in the back. Liquor suitably in hand, he enlarged the motorbike he had stashed in his pocket and set off into the misty London night.
Sirius was used to not being able to see the Potter's cottage from the air. As the secret keeper, he was the only one who could see it without outside aid, and the only one knew where it was without being told, but he still had to be in the vicinity to get there. Touching down on the cobblestones near the edge of the hamlet of Godric's Hollow, he made his way to the extra picket fence gate that he knew indicated the entrance to the Potter's protective wards. He looked down at the gate as he opened it, as it always seems to stick a little on the uneven ground. His head whipped up moments later when, after stepping across the ward threshold, the smell of burning heat and smoke met his nostrils.
The bones of an old cottage lay in ruins before him. Inside himself rage a paradox of searing icy sensations. Agony and fear and everything in between. Falling to his knees, he watched the contents of his stomach mix with the mud and ash of the front garden without resistance.
How could this have happened? He asked himself as he stared down at his own sick, in denial of the scene laid out before him.
He was still alive. No one could break through the Fidelius Charm, that's why they had used it. The people he told could not tell others. Who had he told? Where had he slipped up? How? How? How? How? Remus, Peter, Dumbledore ….. Marlene….Frank and Alice… but they had also been attacked tonight, hadn't they?
That couldn't be a coincidence, which meant that there must have been some amount of foresight on the Dark Lord's end. How long had they had this information? If the situation was serious enough that Bella would risk being arrested in the act (which had indeed happened) that could only mean that the Dark Lord was involved personally… he had come here. But again, HOW?
His canine sense of hearing perked up, breaking him out of his morbid brainstorming. It wasn't quite a whimper, almost as if that would take more effort than could be mustered. It was such a quiet sound, a distressed stoppage of breath that caused tiny vocal cords to tense and release automatically. So quiet. So very quiet in an eerily quiet scene of destruction and chaos.
He stepped softly into the cottage, searching around the first floor wherever he could reach. Nothing. No blood, no bodies… that had to be a good thing, right? Still, he could hear that faint struggle for life, somewhere in the ruinous hellscape surrounding him. It must be upstairs. He could see from the ceiling above him that the second floor was not in a state to hold much more the whole family was up there, and he hoped to Merlin and every other entity, ancient and mundane, that he could think of, that they weren't, then they would be even worse off should the floor beneath them collapse.
He quickly summoned one of the extra brooms James kept in the shed out back and flew carefully up to the second floor. He hovered, sifting through the wreckage as delicately as his could. Every minute that passed without finding anything filled him with both hope and dread. Where was James?
Finally, he made his way over to Harry's nursery. He remembered the last time he stopped by Lily was in the process of starting to convert it back to an infant nursery for baby number 2. He could see the charred remains of baby books, tiny shoes, and even the absurdly giant, black stuffed dog that he had given Harry for his first birthday.
And blood. He could see so much blood. And the smell… He gave in to the horrified shudder that ran its way through his body. There was blood everywhere but still, no bodies.
The sound was coming from inside this room though, of that he was certain. Was it Harry? It had to be. His godson must still be alive after all of this, he just needed to find him. He floated over Harry's crib. Blood soaked the sheets and mattress, but there was no Harry.
No matter where he looked, no Harry.
No anybody.
He was going crazy.
Finally, he noticed a portion of the room where the roof had already collapsed. It was across the room from where the front wall had been blown out, which defiantly drew the eye away from smaller areas of destruction. There was blood over here too. And as he inched the broom forward the sound was actually becoming audible to his human sense of hearing as well.
This must be it. Someone, Harry, was in this rubble. Slowly, piece by piece, he started levitating the bits of house up and out of the way. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt his beloved godson by allowing debris to further crush him if it collapsed. Finally after what seemed like forever, he had cleared the necessary debris away, and what he saw shocked him more than he could describe.
There on the floor, still attached to the placenta lying next to it, was a small, pale blue child gasping for breathe.
A/N: Hey there. Thanks to everybody who took a look at the chapter. I appreciate the Favs and Follows as well. And a special thanks to Halariel and random-lemon for leaving reviews. I, of course, am a glutton for such things.
This is another short chapter leading up to the main action in the story. It goes along with what will be coming in chapter 3. Once again, it has only been lightly edited for formatting purposes, so it is very far from perfect. Questions and comments are appreciated. Thanks again, everybody.