Particular Stars

"We are all of us in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."

"You'll never guess what just happened," exclaimed Sirius Black, halfway between exasperated fury and laughter. His friends looked up from their various pursuits (Remus Lupin, having succumbed to a desire for cleanliness, was washing the dishes, and the Potters had their heads bent together over a housing catalogue).

"It's late…" began Lily disapprovingly. Sirius suppressed a sigh. James, having looked up from the catalogue, made a shushing motion at Lily, who turned to glare fiercely at him. Sirius stepped in quickly, before a full-fledged quarrel could start—it was quite late, and if James and Lily had a row while he and Remus were there, the chances that he would ever get to share his surprising story would decline sharply. It was odd, Sirius reflected idly, that James claimed he and Lily weren't quarreling enough—they certainly seemed to do it all the time in his apartment. Unless James missed a different sort of quarreling…? The whole James-and-Lily, Lily-and-James thing was much too confusing, he decided. Lily was so unappreciative of James—always glaring at the most insignificant comments. Sirius didn't know what James saw in her—or rather, he knew—her hair, her smile…nevertheless, he was…concerned for his best friend. Yes, concern was perfectly natural. If only…

But that was unimportant. These considerations flashed through his mind as he launched immediately into his story. At first, his friends were skeptical, but it wasn't long before they were hanging on every word, and he had lost himself in his narration:

"So I've been following Peter's trail for awhile now," Sirius began. "I lost the little rat outside Hampstead the other night, but I picked up the trail again in Dublin, and tonight I finally found the bastard. Only someone else found him first—can you believe it? I know I haven't been putting the hours in—other considerations—but to think that scumbag eluded me for at least a couple minutes longer than he did my bitch of a cousin!"

Here he was obliged to pause, as Lily scowled on behalf of womankind and James grinned and demanded clarification he didn't need. There was only one cousin Sirius would label thus…

"Bellatrix! I mean, standing there, as bold as anything, in some rotten apartment building I take it Peter had been hiding in, and there he was, scavenging for something—I don't know, mind, but I got a glimpse and it sure looked like a photograph—but anyway, there they both are, and I would've stormed in but honestly, if I'd gone in there demanding vengeance of Peter I would've ended up having to defend him against Bellatrix, which would have been a real waste. So I waited, Disillusioned, peering down a hole in the roof. Peter sniffed the air, and Bellatrix shot a spell at him but it missed at the last second, and then she said—

'You sent my Lord on a wild hippogriff chase to the Potters'!'

—and Peter, in a real turnaround from the whole meek and mildness usual stuff, came back with—

'What about what happened at the Longbottoms? Worse than a wild hippogriff chase, right?'

—and she frowned him down. She was furious! She said, all prim and proper—

'That is irrelevant.'

—Of course Peter doesn't stand for that! Oh no! Who knew he had so much spunk? He went—

'Irrelevant! Yeah, right: everyone knows you're crazy about him—'

'How dare—!' she started, eyes snapping in that way they do when she's about to take your head off, 'You always were a fool, you little rat! Crucio!' and as you can imagine, Peter started screaming in pain. Bella put her hand on her hip, in typical triumphant fashion, and I really think she would have tortured him into insanity."

Sirius paused for a moment, unsure whether he was reveling in that possibility, or recoiling from it in horror. Uncertainly, he cleared his throat and continued:

"But then, there came the unmistakable sounds of a few bumbling Aurors (someone should do something about that—honestly, if Mad-Eye Moody had been there—!) because you could hear them plain as day:

'Hurry! Open this door! Someone's being tortured!'

They stated the obvious with more flair than you'd have any reason to suspect. Then I guess Bellatrix must have heard them (although it isn't like her to pay much heed to the outside world once she's got her claws into someone) because just as they finally managed to get the door open (what a bunch of fools they must have been!) there was a resounding Crash!"

It reverberated through the room for awhile, and when I chanced a more thorough glance down I saw Peter's robes crumpled on the floor, one solitary finger gleaming pristinely. The rest of the blood was the first Auror's, I'm afraid—Bellatrix must've taken him out too."

The rest would have been a bit dodgy (my crazy cousin's more than a match for five ordinary Aurors in a fair fight) but the second one was a real quick study. Bellatrix was still a bit dazed from the blast, and he shot a well-aimed, well-timed Disarming Jinx her way. They managed to tie her up before she pulled the knife in her boot, so the casualties were relatively minimal (of the five Aurors, I'm positive at least two have got broken ribs, and my heart went out to the one she kneed in the groin)."

At any rate, they dragged her away, but before they left I heard her laughing. In the doorway, she whispered, 'Your trick, little rat,' which I have to admit, made absolutely no sense to me. I mean, Bellatrix! Well, I suppose she really is crazy."

I checked the room after the Aurors and my beloved cousin had gone, and Pete had chucked our yearbook in a corner filled with cobwebs and at least one rat hole—not to mention the droppings. There's no doubt about it, James—Peter was definitely playing for the other team. I'm sorry, mate."

Sirius finished his story on a mournful, rather than a triumphant note, but this suited his companions. They did not share Sirius's fascination with Bellatrix, not being acquainted with that tempestuous lady, but they were all profoundly shocked by Peter's apparent demise: James because an innate and incurable optimism had led him to hope the whole thing would prove to be some terrible mistake involving the Imperius Curse and boatloads of veritaserum; Lily because to turn to the Dark Side and not throw oneself on Dumbledore's mercy as soon as one realized what one had done seemed to her the act of a lunatic or a fool, and although Peter had never impressed her with his intelligence in school, she hadn't thought him such an idiot as that; and Remus because the thought, bitterly suppressed, that Peter, the little rat, would outlive them all, had more than once occurred to him.

Sirius, glancing round at them all, found himself thanking his lucky stars (especially his own particular star, for which he had been named) that he was lucky enough to have friends like these. They were here—they were safe. What else mattered?