You're Joking Right?

They walked to breakfast at Morag's Mess, a cafe a few blocks away from Sirius' flat that was managed by little bint with wild, mud coloured hair and piercing blue eyes who just happened to be absolutely smitten with Remus, who was unfailingly polite in the face of all of her unwanted attention and sexual advances. Had it not been for the fact that she never charged them for their meals, they would never have stepped foot into the place ever again after the first time they went. It had been rather horrific. She had been all over him. There had been a marriage proposal. There was a denial of said proposal.

There were tears.

From James. He had sworn it was the most beautiful thing he had ever witnessed and how dare Remus deny such a lovely woman such a wonderful opportunity. Bloody Potter.

Sirius had hexed him...What?...Someone had to do it.

Yet Morag's Mess became a frequented spot for the Marauder's, more for the comedic value than anything else. It had actually been a really spectacular establishment, in Sirius' opinion...before everything turned to shit. Sirius hadn't been in there for a couple of months now.

He suspected Remus may have continued to come here by himself in the past few months, since a waitress (fortunately not Tina; the one in love with Moony) called Moira, was friendly with Remus and seemed surprised to see Sirius accompanying him. Sirius felt guilty that Remus had resorted to coming here without anyone to protect him from Tina just to eat.

He didn't dare broach the topic with Remus though, who seemed to sense what he was thinking, and silenced him with a look. Well, that was that then.

No heart to heart with Moony this early in the morning.

It was only nine.

And had it been up to Sirius, which it most certainly was not, and unlikely to be for a very long time, he would still be asleep. Dead to the world. All warm and cozy and unconscious. Curled up on the sofa. 'With Remus...' that traitorous and remarkably blunt conscience of his whispered. This was his punishment for decorating the great hall with Snape's underwear in fourth year, he was sure of it.

Curled up on the sofa with Remus.

On second thoughts, maybe it was best that they were up and about. Not curled up anywhere. That there was a good arms length between Sirius and Remus.

That was very good.

Bloody Hell, Black! Shut up you idiot!

Okay. Okay.

Shutting up now.

No chance of him going all creepy again.

He forced all thought of creepiness from his mind and mucked about with Harry. Sirius thought he heard Remus mutter something about 'infantile' and 'daft mutt', but he couldn't be sure.

It was a quiet event. Sort of nice though, kind of...normal. Or as normal as something could be without ever having actually done it before.

Remus had a pot of tea and toast with butter and blackberry jam and read through the local muggle paper (the moving pictures in The Prophet tended to catch they eyes of the muggles and were best left at home) whilst Sirius had a proper breakfast with eggs and bacon and tomato and a muffin and swindled a couple of sips of tea from Remus while he wasn't looking, and entertained Harry.

Once they were done there, which was coincidentally the exact moment Tina entered the cafe for her shift, they walked (or in Remus' case, fled) down to a little park a couple of blocks further away and spent the morning playing with Harry and showing him the 'duckies' swimming in the pond.

After a little while Sirius decided he needed a break, it was rather difficult to act as though he wasn't itching the chase the bloody birds around a bit, especially when that tiny bit of his brain that was all canine was twitching excitedly at the edge of his consciousness.

Chase the ducks.

Chase the duck.

That duck. That one. No. No. That one.

Chase. Chase. Chase the duck.

Duck.

It drove him to distraction. He suspected Remus was aware of canine instincts and their maddening single-mindedness. Not that Remus would ever admit to having canine urges. He would never admit to the wolf being that much a part of him. Like he would never admit to actually liking being roped into ridiculously absurd pranks that surely would have earned them all detentions for at least and week and would be an abuse of his prefect status.

A cold gust of wind blew through the trees and made Sirius shiver. He hoped he'd put Harry in warm enough clothes. It was colder than he had thought.

The fallen autumn leaves danced across the ground, swept up and thrown back to earth in the sharp air. Sirius thought it was rather beautiful. It wasn't because it was pretty or peaceful, though.

Because it wasn't. Not in the slightest.

Not to Sirius at least.

It was beautiful to him because he could feel the agitation of the earth. Her impatience at the too slowly changing weather. Feeling it was incredible. It was exhilarating.

The rustling of the leaves across the sullen ground and the wind whipping through his hair made him feel so alive.

And he loved how it made him feel.

Because at that moment he wasn't feeling the pain and the grief and the worry of whether or not Harry was warm and the scary feeling fluttering around his stomach that he couldn't quite place. He couldn't feel himself. Instead he was feeling the shift of the earth. Feeling the changing of her colours. Feeling the magic soaring through the wind.

It was brilliant.

It was why Sirius had been so determined to make his motorbike fly. So that he could feel the wind and the magic. Always. It was unlike anything else Sirius had ever felt.

It was incredible. Real magic.

Magic that allowed him to believe it was enough to simply be alive at that very moment and feel the weak sunlight on his face and the wind in his hair and the sound of rustling in his ears.

It was like he was everything and nothing at the same time. As though anything was possible and nothing else mattered but the fact that it could.

As though he could be more than his family's outcast. More than just a Black. Less than a Sirius Black.

Just a Sirius.

Just him.

It was all he had ever really wanted. As a young child all he had wanted was a friend who didn't shy away from him for being one of those Blacks. As an angst ridden teenager all he had wanted was to be left alone, not lusted after by stupid bint's who though his estrangement from his family made him some sort of dark and brooding romantic, (like that Darcy fellow in that book Lily loved and forced Remus to read).

It didn't. All it did was make him volatile and stupid. Ask Remus. He could vouch for that. He had been on the receiving end of Sirius' severe temper and idiocy more than anyone else. More than Snivellus even.

Sirius truly hated himself for that. That he had punished Remus for his own shortcomings. Punished him for forgiving something that ought to have been unforgivable. For being a better person that Sirius could ever be.

For being Remus.

Even now, as a man, Sirius couldn't escape his heritage. His wretched history. His birthright. The curse of a pure bloodline. He had never been allowed to forget the despicable poison coursing through his veins. Sirius had never been afforded that freedom. And he had never been brave enough to seek it for himself.

He didn't think he deserved to be free of it.

Suffering was his repentance.

Sirius pulled a cigarette from his pocket and watched Remus and Harry explore the reeds at the waters edge. Harry appeared to be taken by something they had discovered lurking there.

Sirius shoved a hand into his pocket to make sure that his wand was still there. It was. Also found was handkerchief that he was pretty sure wasn't his, a ball-point pen and an old, mostly faded ticket from a quidditch game he and James had gone to a couple of months prior. Interesting.

He held the wand tightly in his palm.

Because something felt off.

Not wrong, exactly, but he felt like he was not the only one watching Moony and the baby. He had an inkling in the tips of his fingers that there was magic in the air, wizarding magic that wasn't his or Remus'.

He wasn't naive. And he was only really stupid when he lost his temper. He knew they weren't safe.

And he also knew he could very well be right. They could very well be being watched.

Voldemort may be gone, but his followers - Death Eaters - were not. Harry was still ridiculously vulnerable. And Sirius knew the majority of his family would love to claim his murder as their own accomplishment. Bellatrix especially, since he had bested her at their last meeting. He hoped regrowing the bones in her leg had been fun for her. He would have dearly loved to watch it. Watch her suffer. It would only be fair.

And then there was Remus. He was a target too.

Though he had not the fame of Harry or the family of Sirius, he was a member of the Order of the Phoenix. That alone meant he had practically signed a death warrant. Not to mention he was a close friend of the Potter's and of Sirius. Not to mention the fact that he was a werewolf. His condition wasn't common knowledge, but he was on the registry, though, mercifully, not the public one. He wouldn't have survived school if he had been.

His case had been classified, an ongoing investigation, and as the werewolf who attacked him had never been caught, his name had never been revealed to the public.

Remus' case had been one of the worst attacks reported in Britain, there had been quite a lot of press surrounding it; a very small child, savaged nearly to death by Fenrir Greyback in an act of revenge against the child's father. It had made the front page of The Prophet.

Sirius vividly remembered being read the story by his father in the dark and terrifying (for a little boy) library of Grimmauld Place. His father had been quite involved in the Ministry and had all the intimate details of the case, excluding the identity of the child, of course. He had imparted his knowledge of the attack to his son, as a reminder about how foul those monster's were. How inferior. How inhuman.

The story had terrified Sirius, and with the selflessness only small children possessed (and with the heart his mother had failed to beat out of him), he had, trembling violently, asked his father if the other child was alright. If they were hurt. His father had snorted, and told Sirius, 'the child,' he spat, 'is a monster too, it ought to be executed,' and then Sirius was chased off to bed by Kreacher, effectively ending that conversation.

Sirius did not forget it though.

It had given Sirius nightmares. For years. They had not been frequent, but they had lingered in his dreams, even at twelve, at Hogwarts.

The thought of a child, he had always imagined it had been a little girl, innocent and angelic and beautiful, being ripped apart by a terrible, evil monster never truly left his tortured subconscious; long, sharp teeth ripping delicate flesh, screams for help unanswered, consumed by terror, crippling fear and agonising pain. It had been too awful to imagine.

That didn't stop Sirius from trying though.

One night, after a particularly violent nightmare about the werewolf and the little girl, Sirius had woken up, screaming bloody murder. Heart racing and shaking like a leaf, he had burst into tears. Terrible, embarrassing, humiliating tears. He tried to muffle them with his pillow but it hadn't worked.

Someone had heard them.

Sirius heard the pad of bare feet across the cold floor and the rustle of his drawn curtains and he felt a small, bony body settle under the covers beside his own. He didn't need to move the pillow from his face to know who it was. Peter wouldn't have dared come near an upset Sirius, let alone slip under the covers with him and James would have been too embarrassed to do so.

It had been Remus.

Of course it had.

Remus in striped pyjamas with a handkerchief in his pocket and kind words on his lips. He had calmed Sirius down and given him the handkerchief to dry his face. He had listened patiently as Sirius had told him all about the dream, about that night in the library. He had been too wrapped up in his story to notice the terrified expression on Remus' face.

Once he had finished his tale, Remus had told him quietly that he felt sure the little girl was doing just fine, that Sirius should just forget about her, because she wouldn't want him to suffer for her. Sirius had told him that he couldn't just forget about her, every girl needed a knight in shining armour, after all. Remus had chuckled softly, and told him that maybe she didn't need a knight to save her. Maybe all she needed was a friend.

Sirius had told Remus he was daft, and asked why on earth would she want a friend when she could be swept off her feet by a brave and charming knight and be taken to his castle and live happily ever after.

Remus had giggled that time, sensing Sirius was no longer upset and now just being a prat, and smacked Sirius on the back of the head and told him to go to sleep.

Less than two months later Sirius and James and Pete discovered Remus' secret.

It hadn't been until that night that Sirius realised that the little werewolf that had haunted his dreams for over half his life may not have been a little girl at all. Silently Sirius had crept across the floor and over to Remus' bed. He had quietly slipped through the curtains and crawled underneath the covers, searching beneath the blankets until he found a small bundle of boy, of Remus, curled in on himself, buried under all the blankets. Brown eyes met grey under the cover of darkness.

"It was you, wasn't it?" Sirius had whispered, though, by now, he knew the answer. The little girl of his nightmares was already fading from his mind. Replaced by a small little boy, with big brown eyes, rosy cheeks and light brown hair that was currently mussed up from the blankets. He dreaded the thought of his next nightmare, for he knew it would not be the girl being torn apart by a monster, but his friend. It would be Remus, had been Remus, who had felt his flesh being torn from his little body, his screams that went unanswered for far too long, and his broken body that would haunt Sirius for days after.

Remus had looked at him, really looked at him, and for the first time, it had made Sirius' stomach all queasy and he felt sort of see-through.

"Yes," Remus had whispered back just as quietly, his voice weak and watery.

"I'm so sorry, Remus."

"It's alright," he replied, "I-I was lucky. I survived. Most others...most others didn't." The thought of Remus being lucky to survive that made had made the twelve year old Sirius want to throw up.

Actually, it still made Sirius feel the desire to throw up even now, at twenty two.

"So I guess I don't need to borrow a suit of armour anymore, do I?" Sirius had asked, all of the sudden feeling slightly stupid.

"No. Not unless your expecting a house-elf rebellion tomorrow. In that case I think I would like one too," Remus laughed. Sirius laughed a little too.

"Did you really mean what you said?" Sirius asked, suddenly curious, "That night. About just wanting a friend?"

Remus nodded and Sirius felt so sorry for him that it hurt. Sirius had grabbed his friends hand and held it tightly. "Well," He said, all bossy and proud, "James and Peter are your friends and I'm your friend," he said tapping Remus on his forehead, "and you'll never be able to get rid of us. So you'd better just deal with having two more friends than you wanted. Am I clear, Lupin?"

"Clear as crystal, Sir." Remus told him, all serious looking. Sirius had poked his tongue out at him and they dissolved into muffled laughter. A sort of sleepy stillness settled over them and Sirius had felt his eyelids getting heavy. He had wanted to sleep, and he knew he didn't want to got back to his own bed. "Remus, I...do you mind if I stayed the night? Just, just so I know you're alright?"

"Okay," Remus had whispered back, the smallest smile on his sleepy face. Sirius remembered that moment most clearly; Remus' face, obscured by the blanket, a small smile on his lips and their hands clasped in between them. They had fallen asleep, buried in the blankets, hands still intertwined tightly together.

Twelve years old and both too aware of the cruelty of the world to be natural. The world had not been a very kind place for either of them, and that made them different from their other friends, made their friendship more special. More exclusive. He understood Remus in a way James or Peter couldn't and in return, Remus was willing to see Sirius in a way neither boy would be brave enough to.

That night, Sirius had failed to fully comprehend the simple fact that Remus did not need a knight in shining armour. He wasn't looking to be rescued or saved. And if Sirius was being honest with himself, he had been failing spectacularly to comprehend that ever since. Some irrational part of him could not let go of the need to protect the boy, or rather the man, who was looking at the ducks with Harry in his arms.

Merlin knows he tried.

He failed. So many times.

And on more than one occasion he was what Remus had needed protection from. It hurt to admit that but it was true.

Again, Sirius wondered why on earth he was made responsible for another life, why he was Harry's Godfather.

Why him?

It really wasn't fair to Harry.

He was caught so deep in his thoughts that he did not see the elderly man with a long white beard in dark purple robes, pointy matching hat and half-moon spectacles until a quiet voice broke the silence and said, "Good morning, Sirius."

Sirius fell over.

Lying on the ground and trying to restart his heart, Sirius looked up at Dumbledore in disbelief. Did he think that was funny? He sacred Sirius half to death.

It did explain why he felt like he was being watched though.

"Shall I join you down there, Mr Black? You look a little lonely," Dumbledore said jovially looking down at Sirius, collapsed on the ground, a familiar twinkle in his eye, though there seemed to be some sort of tension around his crinkly face. Sirius couldn't tell whether he was glad to see the man or a little bit annoyed. He had been waiting for another visit, but at the same time, it would end their little outing. He really had been enjoying himself, even the little walk down memory lane.

"No. No, I was just, ah, getting up," he said, scrambling to his feet and dusting himself off. He looked back to the pond and found Remus with a now crying Harry tucked up in his arms, headed towards he and the Headmaster.

"Good lad, now...ah, good morning Remus," he said as Remus came to stand beside Sirius, "I see that young Mr Potter has had enough of the park."

"Good morning, Professor," Remus called over a loud wail from Harry, who seemed to be in need of a nap.

"Sorry Professor, he's really tired. It's been a big week for him. Sorry," Remus said apologetically to his old Headmaster, bundling the baby close to his chest and rocking him gently. Harry almost instantly ceased wailing, his cry reduced to a sorry little whimper.

Honestly, Moony had a gift.

It was quite ridiculous how good he was with children. Even Lily, the Lily Evans, the most brilliant witch and most capable mother Sirius reckoned had ever existed, had on multiple occasions sought Remus ought to get Harry off to sleep when her and James' attempts had failed.

"There is nothing to apologise for, I believe its been a big week for all three of you," Dumbledore said kindly. He wasn't wrong there. Sirius was absolutely knackered. And Remus looked exhausted. "But I'm afraid I must ask for a little more of your time."

"What's happened?" Remus asks, before Sirius can even comprehend what the implications of Dumbledore's words. Never misses a beat, Moony does.

"Peter Pettigrew is dead." Remus gasped, "Bellatrix Lestrange and her husband are in Azkaban. Frank Longbottom is in St Mungos. Please, you are both required at the Ministry immediately."

Peter Pettigrew is dead.

Peter Pettigrew is dead.

The rat was dead. Just like Lily and James.

What?

"Fuck," Remus said, a look of disbelief on his face. Sirius swore from shock.

Remus didn't swear in front of people. Ever. And certainly not in front of Dumbledore.

Dumbledore almost looked amused. Almost. He wasn't, though.

"Gentlemen?" he asked, his foot tapping the ground, arms crossed. Sirius wondered when Dumbledore had slept last. He didn't think it was anytime recent.

"Ministry, yeah?" Sirius asked, grabbing hold of Remus' hand.

"Yes, your office should suffice," Dumbledore told him.

Closing his eyes, Sirius disapparated from the park, with Remus and Harry by his side.

Not sure how I feel about this chapter. Your feedback would be much appreciated! Black Reaver. xox