Hi everyone,

thank you for the nice reviews. I`m very glad to know that some of you like the story so far. Hopefully it will stay this way. I believe this chapter will give you a better idea regarding the main plot. All reviews are welcome, criticism as well as positive comments :)

Please note that the chapters are probably going to get progressively longer as the story continues.

Enjoy the read.

~o~

Chapter 2 – Heading with Heads

21st October 1981

Sirius Black still sat at the bar, still deep in thought. Mentally he was preparing for tomorrow's errands he would definitely have to make before work, coming up with a list of items he needed to purchase to ensure that Voldemort would not too easily be able to track him down.

"Er, excuse me?!", a voice said.

But Sirius continued to stare straight ahead, trying to figure out if the miniature spell would work on his motorcycle. He was not planning on leaving his baby behind, not if he could avoid it. He was thinking about whether to hide in the Muggle world or move to random locations every few days, when something – or rather someone – tugged at his sleeves. Jerking out of his daydreams, Sirius turned around only to see a woman looking at him with attention.

"May I?", she asked, pointing to the menu which was buried under Sirius' elbows. He gallantly slid it over for her to have a look at it.

"I'd recommend you this one here", he said nodding to his glass, "excellent Scotch."

The woman gave his drink an investigative look and then smiled.

"I'll have the same", she told the barkeeper and sat down. Sirius, now curious, observed the woman from the corner of his eye. She seemed young, with dull brown hair and a small noise, but her smile was pleasant.

"Christine", she said noticing that Sirius was staring at her. Sirius' mouth twitched slightly.

"James", he responded. He had good reason not to use this own name. Usually muggle women found it rather curious, but most importantly, it was too distinctive of a name to be used casually in this war time, even with muggles. Moody had drilled it into his head – constant vigilance!

As he and Christine chatted and then began to quite clearly flirt with one another her smile grew larger and larger and Sirius' as well. He knew he shouldn't be irresponsible and staying up this late would ensure that he did just that. He knew he would have to postpone a large portion of his errands to the day after, but this coincidental meeting turned out to lift Sirius' spirit. For a few hours, he felt lighter than he had for quite some time, since learning about the prophecy looming over his godson. He felt like he was supposed to be, a careless, young man, free of too much worry. Between a drink and Christine's easy smiles, he momentarily pushed his troubles away.

When the bar closed in the middle of the night, he decided to accompany his new acquaintance to her home. The streets weren't safe at night, especially not in this climate and not for a pretty, drunk girl and quite frankly, Christine had been enjoying herself tonight. This is how Sirius found himself in a muggle taxi, whose driver rushed through the deserted streets of London seemingly knowing here to go. He wondered how long it would be before he would ever have a night out like this one. Going into hiding did certainly not come with many perks, he thought. As the car halted at a traffic light, Sirius looked through the window, his eyes tired. Next to them was a small park, almost hidden in the dark. Sirius yawned and felt the tiredness slump over him. He really needed his bed and hoped that no one would have the stupid idea to floocall him early in the morning. He certainly would have preferred apparating home, he'd be sleeping now if he hadn't felt obliged to see Christine home.

Then, when the traffic light turned green, Sirius saw a figure walking by. He jerked up and sat straight, his tiredness instantly gone. Quickly turning his head around he tried to have a second look, but the taxi already sped forward. Sirius however was quite sure who he had seen. He knew the shape of one of his best friends more than well and that man back there on the sidewalk sure seemed to be Wormtail. But the strange thing wasn't the blunt chance of encountering him in the middle of London. No, they were passing the streets near Charing Cross Road. The Leaky Cauldron lay there, so it was normal to meet some magical folk in the surrounding area. No Sirius' problem was that Peter was not supposed to be there. He was supposed to be home, recovering from the flu. It had been only yesterday that he had told him, Lily and James that he wasn't feeling too well right after he had agreed to be the Secret Keeper. Today, Sirius was sure, he had called in sick at work. Sirius knew because he had offered to bring him lunch, but Peter had refused, saying that he did not want to infect Sirius as well. So, if Peter was too sick to want his friends to come and comfort him, what by Merlin's mighty manhood was he doing walking around the streets of London completely alone at night?

Sirius felt uneasy.

There must be a reason, a simple reason. Just don't panic Padfoot, this means nothing. This is Peter! You know him! He would never…

But whatever reasoning Sirius used to wilfully distract himself from the evil conclusions his mind was rushing to, a tiny seed of doubt had been planted and gotten stuck in his head as the Yellow cab hurried through the empty streets.

~o~

When Sirius awoke the following morning he did not know why he felt so disheartened at first, then the memories of last night came back. The bar, the Scotch, the girl – and Peter. Sirius shook his head at the thoughts. This simply wasn't possible. It must have been someone else. He was sure of it. He had been drinking, it had been late and Sirius probably would have been half asleep.

He decided to end his ridiculous thoughts and shower. Fresh water always cleared his head and soothed his mind. He resolved not to dwell on it. It couldn't have been Peter. It wasn't Peter. Period.

Midday had past once he exited his bathroom completely dressed. As Sirius had anticipated yesterday he would not be buying the magical equipment today, if he wanted to be on time for work. Not that he cared much about that, but still, he had to maintain appearances. After devouring a quickly summoned bowl of cereal, Sirius flooed to the ministry. Security had been tightened after the last attacks which meant that now even the Aurors had to be thoroughly checked. Sirius did not mind however, if anything the ministry should have thought of stricter security rules beforehand. If they had, the Prewett brothers might still be alive, he mused.

Entering the Auror office was never pretty. With the war raging and rapidly spiralling out of control, the Auror headquarters was usually a place full of chaos and hectic rush. Therefore, Sirius was rather surprised to find it mostly empty. Two colleagues sat at their desks, heads buried deep in piles of paperwork, but everyone else was not around, except for his boss Berenice Dobbs and, unfortunately, her superior, Bartemius Crouch.

"Morning boss", Sirius greeted jovially, before turning to Crouch with a respectful nod, "Sir."

Crouch responded nodding silently. Sirius briefly marvelled at Crouch's ability to do everything with just this slight hint of disapproval as soon as it involved Sirius. Sirius hated Crouch's guts. Not only was he a power-hungry politician, but he was the one who had tried to derail Sirius' ambition to become an Auror. He had effectively forbidden him from entering the Auror forces after his Hogwarts graduation and had forced Sirius to join the Magical Law Enforcement Patrol where he had to undergo a much less demanding training. He had resented Crouch for preventing him from following his goal and for holding his family's quite public support for the Dark Lord against him, effectively punishing Sirius for his genetics instead of believing in his choices. But fortunately there had been others who had believed in Sirius, even after rumours about his dead brother being a Death Eater reached Crouch's ears. Thanks to Dumbledore's and Moody's advocacy, after the first year of training Sirius had been allowed to take a test determining whether he would qualify as an Auror. He had passed it with flying colours and has been since then a part of their training team. He'd graduated top of his class only last June, receiving his Auror certificate from a less than amused Crouch. Sirius really hated his guts, but he was not stupid enough to show it, if he didn't want Crouch to stonewall each and every one of his missions.

"So, what happened, boss? Where is everyone?", Sirius asked Berenice, ignoring Crouch's intense gaze.

"Diagon Alley", she answered, "an attack has occurred there in the early morning. The Raumer family has been found dead."

"The potion shop owners?", Sirius inquired.

"Yes. Both parents were Muggelborns. They're dead, just as their children."

Sirius froze. He tried not to think about Lily and James, but hearing that an entire family had been annihilated made it difficult. He was very well aware that Voldemort was working to achieve the same goal with his friends.

"Was it an initiation?", Sirius asked darkly und Berenice nodded.

"We do believe so. The children showed signs of the Cruciatus curse, but we will know for sure once the Mungo finishes its report."

"Shall I go and help the others then?", Sirius asked.

"I don't believe this will be necessary, Mr. Black", Crouch interjected, "your colleagues are already in Diagon Alley conducting the investigation. As you may see, this office is understaffed right now, I would strongly prefer you to stayed put."

Berenice nodded solemnly.

"Stay here. There is nothing we can do anyway."

"As you say", he responded and moved to his desk, while Crouch was accompanying Berenice to his office, undoubtedly to further inquire about the circumstances of the attack.

"Boss, wait!"

Berenice's head reappeared in the doorframe.

"What is it, Black?", she asked impatiently.

"I just wanted to know... do we have an estimate on when the attack occurred?"

Berenice frowned.

"Must have been around four or five in the morning. But as I said, we'll know more once the healers have examined the bodies."

And without waiting for him to respond, she rushed down the corridor following her superior.

Sirius grimaced. His mind was putting things together against his will; stupid suspicions which were unfounded. They had to be unfounded! But the problem was, he knew for a fact that a church clock had been striking four o'clock when he had deposited Christine at her place in Camberwell, which was a twenty minute drive from the Leaky Cauldron. Thus, from where his incredibly stupid mind told him he had seen Peter. And now there has been a Death Eater attack which certainly looked like an initiation ritual. Sirius groaned and sat down at his desk. It looked like this would be going to be a long, long day.

~o~

It had been a long day indeed. But if Sirius had to summarise it in a few words, they would have been 'what if'. He didn't want to follow his string of thoughts, but still the question 'what if it was Peter?' rummaged continuously through his head.

What if? What if? What if?

At work he had been seriously distracted, but no one even noticed since everyone fussed over the recent attack, and rightly so. With Sirius not having been at the scene of the murder, he wasn't able to contribute much. He had however spoken to some of his colleagues who had been there and they had confirmed the suspicions that a new Death Eater had joined Lord Voldemort's ranks. The enemies seemed to increase by the day, whereas their allies thinned out, either dying or fleeing the country. Sirius thought of how hard the Order had been hit in the last few months, with the Prewetts, Edgar Bones, Marlene McKinnon, Dorcas, Benjin and Caradoc all dead within the last year. Every time Sirius thought about his fellow order members, he felt icy water rush through his veins. It could easily have been him, or James or Remus or Peter. Anyway, the statistics of recent developments did not bode well for the future. They were on the verge of losing the war and they knew it.

Not long before Sirius' shift was over, the preliminary report from St. Mungo Hospital reached their office, confirming Berenice's suspicions regarding the time of death. The healers determined it to be around five o'clock for the whole family. The report also clearly stated that there were signs of torture on both, the parents and the children. Hurting innocent children was one requirement to be let into Voldemort's inner circle; Dumbledore's spies had confirmed that much. Sirius felt like he wanted to throw up at the thought of torturing three-year-olds. They needed a plan to stop this sick wizard and all his followers from taking over Wizarding Britain and they had to do it quickly.

Nevertheless, the instant Sirius left the Auror office and went home, he didn't think about the brutal murderer and the disappointing lack of evidence at the scene. His mind swirled around another issue. This day had given him quite a lot to think about and even if he didn't want to, Peter was on the forefront of these thoughts...

~o~ ~o~ ~o~ ~o~ ~o~ ~o~