22 April 1996
Remus bent over Grimmauld Place's kitchen table, frowning thoughtfully down at his copy of the Order's maps of the Department of Mysteries. There were a number of discrepancies, he had come to realize, between the maps that the Order had procured and the actual layout of the department, as Moody remembered it from the half-dozen times he'd visited it as an Auror. It seemed that the Order's maps were woefully out-of-date. Well, either that, or the Department of Mysteries changed far too frequently for anyone to be able to keep track of it in a map…
"Sirius?"
Remus jumped and looked around in alarm. Then, he caught sight of Harry's nervous-looking face bobbing up and down in the green flames of the kitchen fireplace, and his heart came to a screeching halt.
"Harry?" he exclaimed hoarsely, leaping to his feet and bounding toward the fireplace. "What are you—what's happened? Is everything all right?"
"Yeah," Harry said immediately, his expression growing even more nervous. "I just wondered—I mean, I just fancied a…a chat with—Sirius."
Remus blinked. Then, he jumped to his feet.
"I'll call him," he said quickly, already heading toward the basement stairs. "He went upstairs to look for Kreacher—he seems to be hiding in the attic again…"
Remus raced up the main staircase, taking the steps two at a time until he stumbled into the attic doorway. Sirius was hunched over a cluster of old cardboard boxes, frowning; he looked up when Remus came in, his expression perplexed.
"No sign of him up here," Sirius said. "I wonder if he really has gone and died somewhere—but we'd smell something, wouldn't we—?"
"Sirius—it's Harry," Remus interrupted breathlessly, clutching his side. "He's here—in the Floo—"
But Sirius had already turned and taken off through the attic door at the mention of his godson's name. Remus hurried after him and, moments later, they both swiveled into the basement kitchen and dropped to their knees in front of the fireplace grate.
"What is it?" Sirius asked Harry urgently, sweeping his long dark hair out of his eyes; Remus too gazed at Harry in concern. "Are you all right? Do you need help?"
"No—no," Harry said hurriedly, looking alarmed by Sirius's tone. "It's nothing like that. I just wanted to—talk…about my dad."
Remus turned and shot Sirius a look of surprise, and he knew from Sirius's expression that he was thinking the same thing. Whatever Harry wanted to discuss about his father had been worth the risk of getting caught using the Floo at Hogwarts.
"All right," Sirius said slowly. "What about him?"
"So, I—er—was in Snape's office for my Occlumency lesson," Harry began haltingly. "But…he had to leave to take care of something, and…I—I saw the…pensieve on his desk."
Remus stiffened. Next to him, Sirius raised his eyebrows.
"And, well, I went inside it," Harry said this very quickly, as though doing so might disguise the recklessness of it. "And the memory—Snape's memory—it had you both in it, and Wormtail, and…and my dad. It was after one of your O.W.L.s fifth year—you all went down by the Black Lake, and…Snape was there, too."
Remus felt his heart tighten slightly in his chest. He remembered this day—and the aftermath of it—all too clearly. That day, James and Sirius had singlehandedly lost one hundred points for Gryffindor—and Remus had received a talk from Dumbledore that had very nearly made him cry from how ashamed he'd felt…
"And suddenly, my dad started hexing him," Harry continued, sounding quite distressed now, "and then—well, you joined in, Sirius—and my mum came, and…she tried to get you both to leave him alone, but—you didn't…"
Harry trailed off, looking between Sirius and Remus with a very miserable expression on his face. Remus swallowed, glancing sideways at Sirius. His friend was gazing steadily at Harry as though he'd never quite seen him clearly before.
Finally, after a long, charged moment, Remus cleared his throat.
"I wouldn't like you to judge your father on what you saw there, Harry," he said gently. "He was only fifteen—"
"I'm fifteen," Harry interrupted in an indignant voice.
"Look, Harry," Sirius said quietly, still gazing at Harry with a very odd expression on his face. "James and Snape hated each other from the moment they set eyes on each other—it was just one of those things. You can understand that, can't you? I think James was everything Snape wanted to be—he was popular, he was good at Quidditch, good at pretty much everything. And Snape—" Sirius paused, expression hardening, "—Snape was just this little oddball who was up to his eyes in the Dark Arts, and James—whatever else he may have appeared to you, Harry—always hated the Dark Arts."
"Yeah," Harry said, his expression relaxing slightly, though he still looked unconvinced. "But he just attacked Snape for no good reason, just because—well…just because you said you were bored," he finished softly, glancing at Sirius.
"I'm not proud of it," Sirius said immediately.
Remus bit his lip, looking at Sirius for a moment. The strange, unreadable expression on Sirius's face was growing ever stranger by the minute.
"Look, Harry," Remus said finally. "What you've got to understand is that…your father and Sirius were the best in the school at whatever they did—everyone thought they were the height of cool, even if they sometimes got a bit carried away—"
"If we were sometimes arrogant little berks, you mean," Sirius put in shrewdly. Remus half-smiled at him, shaking his head.
There was another moment's pause. Then—
"He kept messing up his hair," Harry exclaimed in frustration.
Remus and Sirius looked at each for a moment; then, they both burst out laughing.
"I'd forgotten he used to do that," Sirius said softly, a distant look in his eyes.
"Was he playing with the snitch?" Remus asked Harry, grinning broadly.
"Yeah," said Harry. His expression was discomfited, now, as he glanced between Remus and Sirius. "I…I just thought…" he trailed off, sounding pained. "Well, I thought he was a bit of an idiot."
"Of course he was a bit of an idiot—we were all idiots," Sirius said briskly. "Well—not Moony, so much," he added, glancing at Remus—and, in spite of everything, Remus's heart leapt slightly at the old nickname, just as it always did.
He shook his head at Sirius. "Did I ever tell you to lay off Snape?" he asked in a low voice. "Did I ever have the guts to tell you I thought you were out of order?"
"Yeah, well," Sirius said quietly, gazing at Remus. "You made us feel ashamed of ourselves sometimes. That was something."
Remus stared back at his friend, floored by this remorseful tone.
"And," Harry's persistent voice quickly brought Remus's attention back to the fireplace, "he kept looking over at the girls by the lake, hoping they were watching him!"
"Ah, well, he always made a fool of himself whenever Lily was around," Sirius said, rolling his eyes. "Couldn't stop himself showing off whenever he got near her."
"How come she married him?" Harry asked in an anguished voice. "She hated him!"
"Nah, she didn't," Sirius shook his head.
"She started going out with him in seventh year," Remus smiled at Harry.
"Once James had deflated his head a bit," Sirius explained, smirking.
"And stopped hexing people just for the fun of it," Remus added.
"Even Snape?" asked Harry.
"Well," Remus began hesitantly, "you see, Snape was a special case, Harry. I mean, he never lost an opportunity to curse James, so you couldn't really expect James to take that lying down, could you?"
Harry's eyebrows furrowed. "And my mum was okay with that?"
"She didn't know too much about it, to tell you the truth," Sirius said slowly. "I mean, James didn't take Snape on dates with her and jinx him in front of her, did he?"
Harry was avoiding both Sirius's and Remus's eyes now, instead gazing at a spot somewhere on the kitchen wall behind them. Remus glanced sideways at Sirius and found him frowning deeply at Harry, a very determined expression on his face.
"Look," he said sharply, and Harry snapped his gaze onto his, swallowing. "Your father was the best friend I ever had, and he was a good person. A lot of people are idiots at the age of fifteen. He grew out of it."
Harry sighed heavily. "Yeah, okay," he said in a gloomy voice. "I just never thought I'd…feel sorry for Snape."
Sirius looked like he wanted to argue this point, but Harry's words had suddenly ignited a different curiosity in Remus. He stared at Harry, brows knitting. "Now that you mention it," Remus said slowly, "how did Snape react when he found you'd seen all this?"
"Oh," Harry said coolly. "He told me he'd never teach me Occlumency again. Like that's a big disappoint—"
"He what?" Sirius bellowed angrily, bounding suddenly onto his knees and causing Harry to inhale a mouthful of ashes in shock.
"Are you serious, Harry?" Remus asked sharply. "He's stopped giving you lessons?"
"Yeah," Harry said, his voice slightly hoarse from coughing up soot. He glanced between Sirius and Remus with an expression of bewilderment. "But—it's okay, I don't care. It's a bit of a relief, to tell you the—"
"I'm coming up there to have a word with Snape!" Sirius said emphatically, curling his hands into fists and starting to climb to his feet. Remus had to seize the hem of his robes and wrest him back down to the kitchen floor.
"If anyone's going to tell Snape, it'll be me," he told Sirius pointedly; Sirius just glared at him. "But Harry, first of all, you're to go back to Snape and tell him that on no account is he to stop giving you lessons. When Dumbledore hears—"
"I can't tell him that—he'd kill me!" Harry burst out, sounding scandalized. "You didn't see him when we got out of the pensieve—"
"Harry, there is nothing so important as you learning Occlumency," Remus said severely, surprising even himself at how sharp he sounded; he didn't blame Harry from blinking at him in astonishment. "Do you understand me? Nothing."
"Okay, okay," said Harry quietly, looking disconcerted. "I'll…try and say something to him, but it won't be—" He broke off abruptly, his expression suddenly tense. "Is that Kreacher coming downstairs?"
"No," Sirius said, glancing in the direction of the basement stairs. "Must be somebody on your end…"
Harry's eyes widened.
"I'd better go!" he said hastily—and with a faint pop, his bobbing head suddenly disappeared from the flames, which returned to their normal color.
There was a long silence, as Remus and Sirius both stared at the spot Harry had just vanished from. Swallowing heavily, Remus turned and looked at Sirius. The same odd, inscrutable expression from before had returned to his friend's face; his right hand was still loosely clenched in a fist.
Remus blinked.
"Padfoot?" he asked softly, and Sirius jumped, looking at him.
For a moment, Sirius didn't say anything. Then, with a sharp shake of his head, he turned and stared at the fireplace again.
"I'd forgotten," he said, with difficulty, "about that thing James used to do with his hair."
Remus chuckled. "Never stopped doing that, did he?" he said fondly. "D'you remember the summer before our fifth year? Every time he messed up his hair, we copied him. Drove him mad."
Sirius smiled, but something about it looked forced. He shook his head. "It's funny though, isn't it?" he said slowly. "That we forgot he did that—I never imagined…I thought I remembered everything about him."
Remus gazed at his friend. "It's been a long time, Sirius," he said quietly.
Sirius's jaw tightened slightly, and he turned his gaze down to his knees. "I wonder what else I've forgotten."
Remus grimaced. "Well, I hope you've forgotten what he got like whenever he had a few drinks in him."
Sirius barked out a gruff laugh. "Merlin, he really was the worst of us all when he was drunk. Always started crying, the miserable sod."
"He had so many quirks," Remus mused. "So many bad habits—it's a miracle we managed to live with him for so long without cursing him."
"Remember how often he used to lose his wand?" Sirius rolled his eyes. "I swear, he ripped the dormitory apart every day looking for it."
"He'd leave it everywhere," Remus laughed, shaking his head. "The number of detentions he got for forgetting to bring his wand to class…" He trailed off, and for a moment, there was silence between the two of them, as they both looked into the fireplace.
"I always wondered," Sirius said hoarsely, "whether he'd—whether he'd forgotten his wand when…"
Neither of them finished the thought, but Remus knew exactly what Sirius was suggesting. The same thought had occurred to Remus hundreds of times in the past fifteen years. But he had never once thought to ask to see the official Auror report on the murder—he couldn't bear the thought of having those suspicions confirmed.
"He'd have been a good dad," Sirius said abruptly, and Remus looked at him. Sirius's face was pinched and unreadable again; Remus's heart gave a painful twinge.
"He was a good dad," Remus said firmly. "Even for that one year."
Suddenly, Sirius met his eyes, and it was with a jolt that Remus realized his expression was filled with anguish.
"Harry…he's nothing like we were, is he?" Sirius croaked.
Remus stared at him. "What do you mean?"
"The way he talked about James," Sirius continued in a distraught voice, "the way he talked about—about that memory—"
"He was just shocked, is all," Remus insisted. "He…he'll be all right. He knows his father was a good man. We'll just have to continue to reaffirm it—share those sides of James with him this summer, no matter how painful it might be…"
"But Remus—the way he talked about him…it's like he's never been allowed to do anything wrong. He's never been a teenager, never just messed up something small. He doesn't know—he's never—" Sirius broke off, covering his forehead with his hands and shaking his head. "I keep trying to talk to him like he's a teenager, but—how can I, Remus? This is a boy whose parents were murdered in front of him, who's been marked since before he was born. How can he be someone he's never been given the chance to be?"
Remus gazed at his friend, feeling his heart constrict painfully in his chest. Pressing his lips together, Remus reached out and gripped Sirius's shoulder. Sirius raised his head and looked at him, his jaw clenched.
"Harry must continue his Occlumency lessons," Sirius said harshly. "I won't have him putting his mind in danger because of the way his father and I acted in school."
"I'll talk to Severus," Remus said immediately. "I'll ask to meet with him here—or maybe in Hogsmeade. I won't tell him what it's about."
Sirius looked like he wanted to argue—to storm into Hogsmeade and demand to speak with Snape himself—but he seemed to think better of it. He gave a stiff nod.
"Maybe I should owl Dumbledore," he said darkly. "If anyone can talk sense into Snape, it's him."
"No," Remus shook his head. "Minerva said we shouldn't try and contact him. He's laying low for the moment, investigating some things underground for the Order—now that he's no longer at Hogwarts."
Sirius expression filled with fresh bitterness. With a derisive snort, he climbed to his feet. "How noble of him," he snapped, stalking toward the liquor cabinet.
