Chapter 1
Sirius abruptly sat up taking a deep breath. He looked around wildly, trying to get his bearings. He was confused as to what exactly happened. In his mind, he was still at the DOM fighting a chaotic duel with spells flying around. His adrenaline high, he felt as though it was not even a second ago despite the fact that he must have been unconscious for a while.
Sirius paused momentarily after getting up. Slowly he stretched his muscles and breathed in. He felt better than he could remember in recent memory, no longer feeling like he was trapped in an old man's body. He had more energy, his mind felt clearer and more focused and moving did not hurt or cause any strain at all. He felt like a huge burden was taken off his shoulders, this was what he felt like before Azkaban. There was no comparison, it was like day and night.
'Maybe they finally got a healer to take a look at me.' Sirius mused. 'I bet even a regular run-of-the-mill healer could find a ton of things wrong with me, that I have overlooked or had been unable to fix myself.'
He looked around a fairly non-descript room and realized it looked vaguely familiar. He reasoned that maybe he was knocked out and moved to some location by the Order so that he wasn't captured by the Ministry. But something did not seem right. Fighting his growing apprehension Sirius moved straight towards the door. Getting through the doorway he froze.
He was looking at the living room of his apartment. The problem was that as far as he was aware this apartment was sacked over fourteen years ago. He hesitantly moved towards the table and noticed a copy of Daily Prophet haphazardly thrown there.
October 31st, 1981.
His brain briefly stopped functioning. 'What the hell...?' He wondered if this was some kind of dream or maybe a hallucination from the curse he took. He looked through the window and noticed it was dark outside. No, he decided, if there was even a sliver of a chance that this was real he had no time to waste.
He sprinted towards the door and as soon as he was outside the wards he apparated towards Godric's Hollow. The slight discomfort that had often kept him from apparating in his youth was easily ignored after all he went through in Azkaban.
He popped right in front of James's cottage. He ran straight for the door not even looking around. Just as he was about to grab the door handle it flew open revealing a silhouette stepping out from inside.
Hagrid was going through the door with Harry in his arms. He stopped in his tracks when he spotted Sirius.
"What the hell do you think you're doing with my godson Hagrid?" Sirius growled snapping his wand from its holster. His stomach lurched as he knew he was too late after all but forced himself to focus on the situation at hand. He started thinking on his feet and he realized he had to play it off like he had no idea what was happening if he didn't want to raise suspicion.
"Dumbledore sent me. 'Arry needs to be taken to him, he says." Hagrid boomed, stepping from foot to foot, looking like he wanted to get around Sirius, which was obviously impossible considering his size.
"Well, Dumbledore is not the one making decisions where Harry is concerned. Where's Lily and James?" Sirius snapped.
"They... they're dead. Upstairs." Hagrid suddenly started sobbing.
"What!? Give him to me." Sirius snapped and ripped his unconscious godson from Hagrid's hands. "Where are the aurors? Have you called them in? You must have, right? How did you know to come here... how did Dumbledore know to send you!? Why are you trying to take my godson from the house where his parents were just murdered!?" Towards the end of his questioning he was practically yelling.
Despite having already been aware of what had happened the whole situation still made Sirius furious. He had no idea what Dumbledore was playing at, but there was something wrong with his morals, if his reasoning allowed him to justify pulling stuff like that. He still had no idea how the old headmaster could have known what happened so fast, but that would have to wait.
"I... I's just come here. On Professor Dumbledore's orders. He said to take little 'Arry to him." Hagrid stuttered out.
"Well fuck his orders. The fuck is wrong with you?! You just told me Lily and James were murdered and you have the gall to step over their bodies and try to kidnap Harry minutes after their deaths?! Just because someone told you to? Well, fuck Dumbledore! And fuck you too, you big hairy cunt. What the fuck is wrong with you?!" Sirius repeated moving back into the house and towards the fireplace.
All things considered, Sirius could understand not wanting to go through the ministry at the moment. There were substantiated rumors about the ministry being infiltrated and that was definitely something to be concerned about in this situation. With the overall chaos, no one would go out of their way to prosecute Dumbledore, especially when it was somewhat justified. But remembering Dumbledore's actions last time he took matters into his hands and being aware of the end result Sirius immediately flew off the handle. Knowing what he knew now, he was aware that if Hagrid had been allowed to leave here with Harry there was a chance he would not have seen his godson for years to come. There was no way he was going to take the chance that Dumbledore would suddenly start acting like a reasonable person, now that Harry's future was on the line.
"But... Dumbledore's orders..." Hagrid seemed completely at the loss.
"I said fuck his orders!" Sirius threw a fistful of floo powder towards the fireplace. "Auror office!".
"Sirius? What is it?" Kingsley answered the call.
"There has been an attack on Potter cottage! Hagrid says James and Lily are dead... Send a team here." Sirius sniffed when he finished the sentence, his emotions getting better of him.
"What!? Wait there! I'll get Moody and we'll be there." Kingsley shouted and sprinted away.
"What..." Hagrid started saying.
"Just fucking wait a fucking second." Sirius snapped and started pacing around.
Not even a minute later Moody, Kingsley, and Robards burst through the door.
"What is going on here Sirius?" Robards asked. He was a Senior Auror and Sirius's partner. It was a bit unconventional to be partnered with a Senior Auror straight away, but due to the war, his high combat potential was taken into consideration.
"Well, I guess I should start with why I'm here. I came running 'cause Wormtail – the secret keeper - was missing from his apartment. I was getting suspicious of him, he was acting out of sorts these last few days. I went to check on him and he wasn't there, at this hour of the night. He was supposed to stay there at all times, with just me and Remus coming over to visit him. I immediately came here to check on James and Lily and ran into Hagrid here, in the hallway. He was trying to make away with Harry." Sirius ground out. "'On Dumbledore's orders' he says. Well, I told him he's not taking my godson anywhere and asked where James and Lily were. He says they... their bodies are upstairs." Sirius said with tears in his eyes. Despite having gone through this before, he did not have to fake his emotions. The fact that he was literally minutes too late to save them was enough. "There's also something wrong with Harry. He's unconscious and has a bleeding curse scar on his forehead."
The three men had gone through a myriad of expressions. "Kingsley go check upstairs, Robards secure the perimeter." Moody barked out. "We have to get the boy to Saint Mungos. For now, you two are coming with me to the Ministry. You will have to confirm your stories there." He said and they stepped through the floo, Sirius following.
"No!" Sirius immediately protested. "We have to call in a healer for Harry, a private one if there's no other option. He can't just be left at Saint Mungo's considering what happened. It's not safe for him, even with Auror guard." Sirius said with a furious expression. He would hardly budge on this, they could hardly just leave him with a random healer after the Dark Lord has just been vanquished. That was just asking for something to happen.
Moody mused it over for a second. "I guess he will stay with Bones then and we'll call in a healer while you're questioned." Leave it to Mad-Eye to remain suspicious of him even at such a moment. Well, at least he wasn't trying to disarm or stun him or anything. Sirius could only imagine the shit-show if a duel were to break out at this place and time.
Amelia Bones came running. She was a tall, athletic woman, nearly Sirius's height, with light brown hair and eyes. Sirius wasn't sure what their relationship was at the moment. They had been dating through most of his time at Auror Academy and a bit after, but eventually, the war took its toll on both of them. She lost her brother Edgar, and his wife, and started to look after her niece Susan. Sirius meanwhile was entangled with work and the Order business more than ever, with the whole prophecy situation and the war taking turn for the worse.
He was not looking forward to trying to figure it out. It all happened almost fifteen years ago in his mind so he doubted reconciling with his younger love interest would go smoothly. Hell, he couldn't even recall with any degree of detail what their past few interactions were like.
She looked at Sirius with sympathy. "I will take him for now. Get things sorted out. The quicker you get it done the quicker you get to see him again."
Sirius nodded gratefully, but then grimaced, as he handed his wand to Moody. "Lead the way."
END
