Ron stumbled ahead, sinking to his knees. He knew those locks of black hair, and that bushy mane.
He flipped one of the corpses over. Emerald green eyes stared back at him, but they were empty. Cold. Lifeless.
Dead Harry reached out and grabbed one of Ron's hands. His eyes weren't empty anymore. Ron stared into the hate in them.
"You could have saved us." His voice was not harsh, not angry. It was quiet. It was flat. What hit him like a bucket of cold water though was the unspoken implication: you didn't.
Then Sirius rushed forward and the Boggart changed.
This time, a face not unlike Harry's stepped out. Dark brown eyes behind round-rimmed glasses and untidy black hair. He pointed his wand at Sirius.
"You didn't take care of our son," said James Potter. "You left him when he needed you the most."
He took a step forward, stared right into Sirius' glistening eyes. "If I had known, I would never have made you a godfather."
Ron didn't know how he did it, but Sirius' eyes hardened. He said,"Accio!" and James' glasses flew into his hand. The Boggart fumbled around blindly, and Sirius let out a long, barking laugh. It disappeared with a crack.
Ron didn't know why the charm wasn't needed, but he could hazard a guess. Someone like Sirius should have no right to laugh like that in the face of their greatest fear, and yet Sirius had done it.
As if he had heard Ron's thoughts, Sirius sat down beside him. "It wasn't easy," he said. "James was more than a friend to me. He was family."
"I guess that's why it worked so well," Sirius said, frowning. "I know James. He'd never be that cruel."
Ron swallowed thickly, his own eyes swimming. Boys don't cry, he told himself, but all he could remember was that awful time last year, when he hadn't believed Harry. He'd failed him as a friend then, but that wasn't what worried Ron. It was that one day he would muck it all up and Harry would never come back. He would die, or go off somewhere, and leave him alone.
"When I told Snape to go down the passage to the Shack, I wasn't thinking clearly," Sirius said. "Narcissa had just informed me that the Dark Lord was taking interest in Regulus. My younger brother. All I could see at that time was my brother. Scared. Weak.
Going to serve Voldemort."
"He was always the kinder one among the two of us, though," Sirius continued. "Even when they said mean things. Polite, well-mannered,
he was the ideal son. I was the hothead, the one who charged in first. But he was also the one who would lie so that the elves wouldn't get into trouble, who figured out that Remus was a werewolf, but never told anyone else. He helped me sneak out of house when I escaped to the Potters."
"But at that time, all I could think was: the Slytherins corrupted him. They deserve to die, every one of them. I watched that scene, over and over again, in Azkaban, and I laughed. I laughed at the irony. I knew I wasn't innocent. I had thought that thought many times. It was no worse than what the Death Eaters used to justify their acts."
"My point is, I made a mistake. I'd been coping with my home situation unhealthily, taking it out by hexing people who didn't deserve it. Even with Snape, although he could be cruel to us, we went too far sometimes."
"But in sixth year, James understood that wasn't going to do. We had to grow up. Otherwise we'd be no better than people like Bellatrix, who delighted in hurting others for no reason at all. And he never blamed me. Never. He said that I'd fucked up royally. But he also said that if my own friends didn't give me a chance, who would?"
"That's why I could finish it off so easily. James was never like that. Of course I'm scared of losing his approval. Of earning his anger. But that's because he's the only family I ever had, and now Harry is it too."
There was quiet for several moments. They watched a spider crawl up its web near the wardrobe. At last, when it felt like his throat would burst with the words he wanted to say, Ron got up and left the room.
He didn't thank Sirius. He didn't need to. The message was clear. Don't fail where I failed. Protect him.
Ron was done pretending.