He opens the door, doesn't stop to hang up his coat in the small hallway, and steps into the sitting room.
Sirius is there.
He is sitting on the sofa.
He is holding a baby on his lap. Harry.
He is giving Harry a bottle of milk.
He is crying.
Remus stands there, taking in these things slowly. He can't speak. He can't process why this can be happening, why the baby is here, in their flat, instead of safely at home, in hiding with his parents.
Sirius looks up at him, tears coursing down his face, crying silently as his body shakes with sobs, face twisted into a voiceless howl.
He looks back, helplessly. At last he finds his own voice. 'Sirius. Pad? What…?' He takes three quick steps and crouches down at Sirius's feet, arms around his legs, taking care not to squash the baby.
Sirius does not shake him off. That's something. 'He killed them. He fucking killed them,' he croaks.
It feels as if there has been an earthquake. Sirius can only mean James and Lily. But he must be wrong. Voldemort was after Harry. If James and Lily are dead, how can Harry have survived?
The baby has fallen asleep. He looks around, sees the little bassinet from Godric's Hollow, the one kept in the sitting room downstairs. Sirius must have brought it. Very gently, he takes the baby from Sirius's arms and places him in the basket, covers him with a little blanket, the one Lily knitted while she was pregnant. Only then does he notice the jagged mark on his forehead.
'What happened to Harry?' he whispers, not wanting to wake the baby. 'Sirius? Tell me. What's happened?'
Sirius is now sitting with his head buried in his hands, long black hair falling in a veil over them, Harry's bottle on the floor at his feet. He has stopped crying. Something has calmed him for the moment. He pulls himself to his feet and takes Remus's hand and leads him into the bedroom next door. He sits hunched at the foot of the unmade bed, where he can still see the bassinet. Remus sits beside him. He leaves a small gap between them, not sure where he stands with Sirius.
And Sirius tells him. About how he went to see Peter yesterday, to ask if he'd like to go with him to surprise the Potters for Halloween. How he had persuaded – or thought he had had to persuade – Peter to become secret keeper for the cottage at Godric's Hollow just days before. How it had seemed like such a clever idea. How Peter's deserted flat made him suspicious, made him go directly to the Hollow. How he had seen the Potter's front door hanging on its hinges.
He has to stop and take deep breaths for a while before he can tell Remus what happened next. How he found James lying dead on the floor in the hallway, Lily upstairs in front of Harry's cot, the baby crying with a bleeding cut on his head, the nursery blasted apart, stars visible through the hole where the roof had been, the moon on its first waning night. How Voldemort was nowhere to be found. How Hagrid had turned up soon after, saying Dumbledore had sent him to collect Harry. How they had argued. How he had told Hagrid that he was taking the baby, that James and Lily had wanted him to if anything happened to them, had made him guardian, that the old bastard could climb down from his ivory tower and come to Phoenix Street to have it out with him if he had anything to say about it.
How he was so, so wrong. How he knows Peter was the traitor. How it is all Sirius's fault for trusting the wrong person, for not trusting the right one.
He turns and takes Sirius in his arms. Sirius cries hard again into his chest, as he tries to absorb what he has been told. None of it makes sense, that Voldemort would leave without killing Harry. But Harry is still alive. And James and Lily are dead.
As Sirius's sobs die down, he holds him at the shoulders and tells him quickly, quietly, where he had been all those times over the past year. How Dumbledore had sent him to search out Greyback and the rest of them in the New Forest den where they had camped. How he was to try to win them over to their side, make assurances of easing the anti-werewolf laws once Voldemort was toppled from power. How it was too late, their loyalties already bound up with Voldemort who allowed them such freedom to indulge their desire for human blood. How they had forced Remus to stay and transform with them the previous night. How he had never betrayed the Order. Never betrayed James and Lily. Never betrayed Sirius.
After listening in silence, Sirius says nothing. Instead he lies down and sleeps, exhausted. He must have been up all night too. Remus curls behind him, resting his forehead between Sirius's shoulder blades while he can't be shrugged off. He can't sleep. His head spins with everything he must take in. James. Lily. Peter. Harry. Oh god, they have a child now, if Sirius will let him do this. A child with a werewolf – impossible. But it must be possible. He will find a way to make it possible.
*** I couldn't do it in the end, couldn't send Sirius to Azkaban – that's JKR's job. Let's see how this works out. Reviews are miniature toy brooms and Honeyduke's chocolate as always. ***