Thanks: Many many thanks goes to Elvengirl9 and Maethril Aranel/Sara for betaing this chap for me, I really appreciate it guys, you did a wonderful job, couldn't have posted this without you :-D P.S – thanks very muchfor the quote Sara!
Year: 1972, 2nd Year
Sirius' Story:
Quote of the Day: 'Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It's not something you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything.' –Muhammad Ali
It was a chilly winter morning on a Sunday in the second week of December, and James, Remus, Peter and I were sitting in the Great Hall, eating our daily breakfast.
It had been a fairly lazy morning as I had woken up late. I was always a late riser, and I especially loved Sundays because I could sleep in longer unless James, Remus or Peter made too much noise getting up (which they seemed to do a lot of; they always make a habit of being noisy when they wake up. I have a feeling it's just to annoy me. Well, actually, I know they do it to annoy me).
Anyway, because I rose late, James and Peter had already had breakfast. Remus, however, had risen late as well, so we went down to breakfast together.
"Hey, look, there's some owls waiting for you," James said, pointing at two owls sitting on the Gryffindor table as we walked into the Great Hall. James and Peter had decided to come down with Remus and me to breakfast—we had decided to have a snowball fight afterwards.
What better way was there to spend a Sunday than throwing snowballs as hard as you can at your friends until they surrendered?
I couldn't think of one.
I looked at the two owls, groaning instantly as I recognised the sinister-looking one. It was Zade, my parents' owl. The stupid owl hated me and always pecked me whenever I got near it. Not that I ever tried. The owl waiting for Remus was a daily prophet owl. Remus had taken out a subscription to the Daily Prophet at the start of the second year for reasons unknown to me. The only interesting thing about the paper was the crosswords.
As I sat down at the Gryffindor table, Zade plunged forward and pecked me hard on the hand as if to say 'Take your effing letter so I can get out of this dump!'
"Ow! You stupid owl!" I said. It continued pecking me while I tried to pull the letter off its leg. "If you'd stop pecking me, maybe I'd be able to get the letter off your leg so you can get lost!" I snapped at Zade.
"Sirius, owls can't talk back in case you hadn't noticed." James smirked with obvious enjoyment as Zade started to claw at me. He'd pay for it later when a snowball would hurtle smack bang into his face. That would soon wipe the smirk off.
"I'm well aware of that, James. I know the stupid thing can understand me though!" I replied, finally yanking the letter off Zade's leg and receiving two nips on the hand for 'stupid' and the violent motion I had used in pulling the letter off.
"Now get lost!" I said as I swatted it away. It hooted and took flight after cuffing me over the head with the edge of its wing.
I glared at the owl. "I swear, if that thing was capable of murder, it'd do me in."
James and Peter laughed.
"I don't blame it, the way you treat him," Peter remarked.
"Shut up Pete," I replied as I ripped open the letter to read it. There was another letter inside the envelope. This made me curious. I opened the first one; it was, of course, from my parents.
It read:
Sirius,
Don't bother coming home for Christmas; we don't want you here if you wish to continue your acquaintance with blood-traitors and half-breeds. As there is no way to convince you otherwise of discontinuing your relations with these people, we do not want nor need your presence at Number 12 Grimmauld Place.
Merry Christmas,
Cyrilla and Amias Black
"What a lovely Christmas greeting, don't you think?" I said sarcastically to James as he and Peter leant in to read it. I was, of course, not really bothered by the letter. I was so used to letters like these that I shrugged them off these days. In fact, it was a wonder they hadn't raved on about how bad my friends were for another five feet of parchment. Maybe they had given up. But I suppose that was way too much to hope for.
I had not even intended to go to Number 12 Grimmauld Place this Christmas; I only would have went if my parents had demanded it. I no longer called that place a home, nor those people my family. Rather, Hogwarts was my home, and Remus, James and Peter were my family.
"So lovely," James replied as I unsealed the second letter. To my surprise, it was from my cousin, Andromeda.
Dear Sirius,
I've heard you're not coming to Number 12 Grimmauld Place for Christmas–well, rather, you were told not to come home for Christmas. Whatever the reason, I don't blame you and I know you won't be there anyway. That is a pity; I wanted to talk to you about a couple of things. I'm at Grimmauld Place now with my father and mother. Listen, can you try and be at the Gryffindor common room fireplace one day in the Christmas holidays? I would like to talk to you. Send word back with a school owl. Zade will take it straight to your parents.
All the best,
Andromeda
I read over the letter again. I wondered what Andromeda wanted to talk to me about and why. Sometimes we'd keep in contact via letters, and I wondered what she wanted to tell me that she couldn't write in a letter. I thought of her boyfriend, Ted Tonks; maybe it was something about him that she hadn't told the family yet. Last time we had talked about Ted Tonks was in the summer, when things weren't that serious between them (or so I thought) and Andromeda hadn't told her parents about it yet. Maybe it was something to do with that. Whatever it was, it had me curious. Very curious.
"I wonder what she wants to talk to you about," James wondered aloud.
"James, did I say you could read my letters?" I asked, pretending to be annoyed. I didn't really care if James read my letters or not, unless they were really private. Even then, I'd probably tell him anyway. James and I kept hardly any secrets from each other.
"Nope," he replied casually, not needing to add 'but I'm going to anyway'.
"So are you guys going home for Christmas?" I asked Remus, James and Peter.
"I'm not," James replied.
"I don't know yet," Peter said.
I looked over at Remus, who was immersed in the Daily Prophet whilst bringing his cereal-laden spoon up to his mouth. I laughed as he almost missed his mouth. He turned the page, and after a few seconds his eyes grew wide and he dropped his spoon, which fell to his plate with a loud clatter.
"Remus?" I said, though he wasn't paying any attention to any of us—his eyes were fixed on the paper in disbelief.
"What's the matter?" Peter asked Remus.
Remus didn't reply. After a while he lowered the paper slowly. His hands, I noticed, were shaking. I wondered what was so bad that he had read in the paper.
"Remus, what is it? What's in there?" I asked as I seized the paper from Remus' shaky hands. I scanned the page with James and Peter doing the same over my shoulder. Apart from a small ad about Mrs. Skowers' all-purpose remover, there was a story about some missing people. It read:
MISSING WIZARD NUMBERS INCREASE AS MINISTRY TAKES ACTIONAnastasia and Wesley Sheppard, famed founders of the Muggle Appreciation Guild, seem to have mysteriously disappeared with no clue as to their whereabouts. The 42 and 46-year-old couple, living in the quiet town of Appleby disappeared sometime early last week, but were only reported missing yesterday when a neighbour contacted the Ministry to report the couple's mysterious disappearance.
"I haven't seen them for about ten days," Anita Gretell, the neighbour who reported to the Ministry, said, "Which is unusual for the Sheppards, as they like to drop in every so often. It is very strange…they seem to have vanished without a trace."
And the circumstances are very strange indeed. Upon questioning the neighbours, it has been found that the Sheppards have been missing for over ten days. It seems that the couple has vanished; no one knows of their possible whereabouts.
The disappearance of Anastasia and Wesley Sheppard is yet another addition to the rising number of mysterious disappearances that have been reported this year alone.
The Daily Prophet can exclusively reveal that missing person cases are indeed more common than we think, "Over fifty wizards go missing every year," an unnamed Ministry insider revealed. The informer further went on to state, "Some are never even found."
Despite this cynicism, the Ministry states that they "are doing our best to uncover these mysterious disappearances; all of our most dedicated and professional members are working to find those in question."
A Ministry spokesperson said the following: "We would like to console families and friends of missing wizards in saying that we are quite confident that they will be found."
If you have any information concerning the whereabouts of the missing people, it should be reported to the Ministry of Magic Investigative Police instantly by owl.
After reading the article, I looked at Remus again. He seemed a little pale.
"Remus, do you know these people?" I asked bluntly. There was no other way to put it, really.
After a while he replied. "Yes… they were – they are close friends of my parents…" he explained.
"Oh." James said.
"Are you okay?" Peter asked, concern written in his eyes.
"I'm… I don't know…" he said quietly. "… I… I hope they'll be able to find them. Mum and Dad are very close to them, and… I…" Remus trailed off.
"Of course they'll find them! They have to, they have the best of the Ministry members on the case! How can they not find them!" James said.
"But they haven't found any of the others yet, have they?" Remus replied.
"That's because they probably weren't taking it as seriously before. Now that more people have disappeared, they'll have to do something about it," I said to try and comfort Remus.
Remus looked at me. "Yeah, maybe you're right," he said quietly. But I knew he didn't believe it.
We sat in silence. None of us really knew what to say or do to help Remus; there really wasn't anything we could do.
Of course we had known that people had gone missing over the past year, but it was only every so often. The disappearances were always followed by a couple of months where nothing happened at all. This was the first time that the disappearance of names in a paper had affected one of us directly.
"Hey Remus—it'll be all right. I'm sure the Ministry will be able to find them," I said, though only half believing it. If the Ministry still hadn't found any of the other missing people then it was doubtful that they'd find the Sheppards.
Remus didn't reply.
"So, do you want to go have a snowball fight or something?" I asked James, Remus and Peter. The happy mood that had surrounded just half an hour before had quickly dissipated.
"Yeah, okay," Peter said. James nodded.
"Remus?" I asked.
"No, I don't think so… I think I'll go back up to the tower," he replied, standing up and walking back to the entrance hall before we had a chance to say anything. I made to follow him, but James pulled me back.
"Sirius let him go. I think its best we leave him alone. He needs to be alone," James said.
"Shouldn't we comfort him, or talk to him or something?" I said, looking after Remus' retreating figure. I wanted to comfort him at least. He had always been there for me when I needed it. I remembered the time when Bellatrix and Narcissa had made me so angry and confused the day after Hallowe'en in first year and Remus had been there for me.
I wanted to be there for him now.
"Yes, but he needs time to be alone first," James said. I guessed James was right, so I let him grab my arm and pull me out of the Great Hall and towards the large oak doors.
As we opened the doors, a chilly wind hit our faces and I reached up to cover up my face a little more with my scarf. Fortunately, I had dressed for the freezing weather, so I wasn't too cold.
"It's bloody freezing out here," Peter complained. Somehow, it suddenly didn't feel like throwing snowballs full speed at my friends was a fun thing to do on that particular Sunday. Nor, it seemed, did James and Peter.
"I don't really feel like a snowball fight after all," James said, his cheeks red from the cold wind.
"Me neither," I agreed.
"Can we go back inside then?" Peter asked. I nodded and we made our way back inside the castle.
"Well, what are we going to do now?" I asked.
"Hey, we could explore the castle a bit more," James said.
"Yeah! Let's do that," Peter replied. Peter always seemed to want to do whatever James suggested at the time.
"Well, you two go ahead. I think I'll go back to the common room," I said. I wanted to be there for Remus as he had been for me when I needed it. For some reason, it just seemed important at the time.
"All right, we'll catch up with you later then," James said. I nodded. I could tell that James was also concerned about Remus, but he knew that it would be better if only one of us went to comfort him. That was just the way things were done with Remus.
"See ya," Peter said.
As I turned around and made my way back to the Gryffindor common room, my mind turned to the missing people that had vanished without so much as a clue to their whereabouts. It was very strange indeed. At the start, when the first person went missing, Murphy Dillagle I think was his name, people didn't seem to notice much or even care. They just read it in the Daily Prophet and didn't even think much about it so long as it didn't concern them. They went about their daily lives without so much as a second thought about it. And I must admit that I was one of those people. When I first heard about people going missing I didn't think much of it, and life went on. After all, people went missing all the time, for whatever reason may be.
Looking back now at my second year and the year it all started happening, I realise how stupid and oblivious everyone really was. Voldemort was disposing of people quietly in the early years and we didn't even notice until the worst started happening. Or maybe we didn't want to notice. I know that that was how some people see it; they didn't want to acknowledge the fact that there was a Dark Lord rising, ready to destroy everything the wizarding community had protected and built for so long. Some people didn't want to believe it and therefore they didn't. They tried to live in a dream world, where everything was right. Unfortunately, it wasn't long until these people saw reality and what was really happening in the world.
Quite suddenly I found myself at the portrait hole, facing the Fat Lady.
"Flobberworm." I said the password and the portrait hole swung open to let me in.
I climbed through the portrait hole and found the common room to be relatively full, as it was a chilly Sunday in December and no one particularly wanted to go outside (unless they were like James, Peter, Remus and I, who had planned to go outside for a snowball fight).
I scanned the room for Remus, but found only other second years and older students hanging about, so I made my way up to our dormitory.
When I arrived at the dormitory door, I pulled it open and stepped inside—only to find an empty room. There was no sign of Remus whatsoever; indeed, it looked exactly the same as when we had left it this morning. I wondered where Remus could be. I had been so certain that he'd be up in the dormitory that I hadn't thought that he'd be anywhere else.
I turned around and made my way back down the staircase.
I spotted Alexandra Bennett and Lily Evans, fellow second years, sitting in the corner. I decided to ask them where Remus was.
"Hey, Alex, Lily," I greeted them. Lily looked at me indifferently, mumbling a 'hello' and Alex returned my greeting.
"Have you seen Remus by any chance?" I asked.
"Yes," Alex said, "He came in about twenty minutes ago. He went to his dormitory and when he came back he had some parchment with him. Why do you ask?" Alex asked.
"I was just looking for him, that's all," I replied.
"He might've gone to the Owlery," Alex suggested.
"Okay, thanks," I said before turning around and making my way, yet again, out of the portrait hole.
I made my way through the corridors to the Owlery.
When I finally reached the Owlery I thought that Remus might not be there anymore, but I opened the door to have a look anyway, and there he was, standing at the windowsill, surrounded by owls and looking out into the landscape beyond. The Owlery was very cold and draughty because there was no glass in the windows so the owls could fly in and out. It would have been amusing if there was glass in the windows though. I can't tell you how many times I've seen birds fly into a window because they don't know it's covered in glass…
Remus seemed to go to the Owlery a fair bit, even though he didn't own an owl himself. He liked to look after the other owls there. Remus liked animals quite a bit and the owls seemed to like his presence as well.
"Hey Remus," I said, closing the door behind me. The owls surrounding Remus hooted and flew back up to their perch. Remus turned around to face me.
"Sirius," he said. "Why are you here?"
"Well, I could ask you the same thing," I replied, but seeing the look he gave me I quickly added, "I came to see you."
"What for?" he asked, turning back to the window.
"To see how you were," I replied.
"I'm fine."
I walked closer to him, "No, you're not. And that's perfectly obvious to me," I said, joining him at the window.
Remus didn't reply.
I really had no idea what to say. It's a lot harder to comfort someone than to be comforted by someone. Then I remembered that I had to send Andromeda a letter to tell her if I could talk to her or not, "Do you have spare parchment and some ink?" I asked Remus.
He silently handed some over to me. I scribbled a quick note to Andromeda and went in search of a school owl. None of them seemed to want to send my letter or come down from their perches. I don't know what the stupid animals had against me anyway.
"Hey, you! Yes you, you silly owl! Come down here and make yourself useful! Yes, you! Come and send my letter!" I said to a wide-eyed owl looking down at me. He promptly turned around on his perch and faced the other way. "Hey! I said send my letter! You've got nothing better to do! What's the use of you if you can't even send a letter! Damn owl!" I yelled up at it. As it were, it didn't reply. Owls can't talk, but I knew it understood me. Owls are very smart creatures. To further insult me the said owl chose that moment to do its business – which narrowly missed my head. I cursed again.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Remus shake his head, the hint of a smile forming on his lips.
"Won't one of you stupid animals send my letter!" I said, looking up at the owls, which all seemed to ignore me and my requests.
"Sirius. That's not how you treat an animal if you want it to obey you," Remus said finally, seeming to enjoy the way the owls were ignoring me. "You have to coax it down, not yell and insult it," he said, walking over to me.
"Well, you do it then. They don't like me." I said, handing him my letter. Remus rolled his eyes, a small smile playing on his lips. He muttered something that sounded distinctly like 'wonder why?'
Remus held up the letter. "Come on Orrill, come down and you can send this letter," he said in a coaxing voice. Instantly, and to my slight annoyance, the owl that nearly pooed on me flew off its perch and landed delicately on Remus' outstretched arm. "Good Orrill, now you can send this letter for this nutter so he won't annoy you anymore. There's a good owl," he said softly to the owl while he attached the letter to its leg. 'Orrill' hooted happily and Remus patted it before it took off out the window to deliver my letter.
"Orrill?" I asked, raising my eyebrow. "On first name terms, are you?"
Remus gave a small smile. "Well, Dumbledore told me some of their names and he said I could name the others because he was hard done naming one," he replied. I had never known that about Remus. Already it felt as if I was learning more about him and that I was comforting him in some small way.
"Really? Dumbledore let you name the school owls? Cool," I replied. I wanted to name an owl.
"Yeah, I came up here once during first year and Dumbledore was here, checking on them, and we got to talking and he said I could name them if I wanted, because he couldn't think of any."
"That's neat," I said. "Oh, and as for that nutter comment…I'll let it slip this time, but you better watch out next time." I grinned at him.
Remus smiled fully this time.
I sat down on one of the ledges near the wall. "So, is this where you come when you disappear sometimes?" I asked, looking around at the large circular room.
Remus came to join me. "Sometimes," he replied. "It's like when you go to the lake. Sometimes, I come up here."
"Isn't it strange…" I said, musing.
"What?"
"That we each have a different place to go to when we need to think, or be alone, or sort things out," I explained.
Remus nodded.
We let a comfortable silence slip between us. Then, after a while, I spoke softly. "So are you going home for Christmas?"
He didn't reply for a while. "Yes. I mean, I think I should, I want to see my family. See how they're coping with… well, everything." He drew patterns in the dust on the floor.
"Yeah," I said. "Listen Remus, I'm sure the Ministry will find them." I hoped that would comfort him.
"You really believe that?" he asked, looking at me. I didn't know what to say. I hadn't expected him to ask that. I couldn't lie to him. I actually didn't know if they'd find them or not. After all, they still hadn't found the other people that had gone missing.
"I… I don't know what I believe, Remus. But isn't it better to have hope, however little it may be, than no hope at all?"
He stared at me, hazel eyes boring into my own. "Yes. Of course."
I felt as though, in that one moment, I had truly offered him comfort.
"Why are all of these people missing, do you think?" Remus asked me after a while.
"I really don't know. It's strange. But I think we'll find out; whether in a while, or very soon, I think we'll find out. It might be just that they wanted a bit of peace and quiet, or maybe it's because of the normal reason people go missing…" I trailed off, not knowing the normal reasons why people vanished without a trace.
"No," Remus said. Drawing patterns in the dust again, he traced a circle with his finger. "I think it's more than that. It's more than the normal reasons, Sirius. I think something is really happening. I don't know what, but this is too mysterious to turn out to be normal. Too strange—even for a wizarding community."
I realized Remus was totally right. It was too strange. After all, who had ever heard of people mysteriously disappearing without any clues? It was indeed strange. Suddenly, a feeling of uneasiness crept over me. My spine tingled, as if an invisible hand had run an icy finger down my back.
"It is strange. Strange indeed." I replied.
"Yes. I think something will, or has to happen," Remus replied, placing his finger in the middle of the circle and making an imprint, "I just wonder what it's going to be…"
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Author's Notes: Dun dun dunnnnn… he he he. Yes, I'm evil. But you'll get over it. Soooooo soooooo sorry for taking so long to update… again! Meep! My computer chucked a spastic and I was very busy! Dont hurt me. lol.