He nearly jumped out of his skin when Fudge's head appeared in the fire. What could he possibly be needed for at this hour? You-Know-Who was gone for good, everyone said, and most attacks didn't come til night! "Cornelius!" he said out loud, "What on Earth...?"
"There's been an attack! You've got to come right away, we're going to need Obliviators and Aurors and--"
He glanced around the room, looking for his Auror's robes but they weren't anywhere nearby. "What happened? Where?"
Fudge rattled off the address for a Muggle street as he darted around the room looking for those damned robes. "Aha!" he said finally, "There they are!" He grabbed the offensive robes and shook them out. "I'll be there right away, Fudge," he said, pulling them over his pajamas. Running a hand over his head and wishing he had time to brush his hair, he grabbed his wand and Apparated.
Shaking off the weird feeling in his stomach that Apparating always gave him, he glanced around to get a good idea of what was going on.
As soon as he did, he wished he hadn't.
He would've recognized that face anywhere - how many times had he seen it laughing and joking with its best friend, running around the school, teasing, flirting, just having a good time? How many times had he been jealous of that face? Jealous of that laugh?
But, somehow, he was not jealous of this laugh. It sounded like a madman's laugh, not the normal laugh of Sirius Black. He shuddered as he thought that name. Sirius Black, standing in the middle of a torn-apart street, a mess of blood-stained robes and dead bodies all around his feet, holding a wand, and laughing. Somehow he knew he would never forget that image.
Someone yelled his name and he jumped, realizing he was standing frozen to the street. He quickly strode over to Sirius - he never thought he would see that face, think that name, and think of him as a crazy murder - and looked at his fellow Aurors. "What happened?"
"Blew apart the street. He confronted Pettigrew - you know Peter Pettigrew, don't you? Went to school with them?"
He nodded shortly, not wanting to think about it even though that was the only thing he could think about.
"Well, Peter tried to fight him, didn't work too well, Black blasted him to pieces." The other Auror dashed forward to help restrain Sirius.
However, he didn't see that it was necessary. Sirius was going willingly enough with the other Aurors, so he busied himself by bending over the heap of ruined robes at his feet. Lifting them, he could see the bloodstains clearly, spattered all over the robes. He sighed, and set them down for someone else to take, and looked around at the rest of the sidewalk. Looking past the bodies of Muggles, something caught his eye. Wrinkling his forehead, he went to take a look.
When he bent down and saw what the object was, he gulped. Looking back at Black, he listened closely to the insane man's laughing for the first time.
"Finger in a box, finger in a box..." Sirius was saying, tears running down his cheeks like rain. "Finger in a box..."
He swallowed, hard, and looked back down at the object in front of him. Lifting it gently, he yelled out to the Auror he had been talking to before. "Hey," he said, "I think you better come have a look at this."
The other man glanced at Sirius once, then seemed to realize that there were plenty of people there to drag him away, and ran over. "What's going on?"
He held up the thing he was holding, and watched as his fellow Auror's eyes widened.
"Finger in a box..." the Auror said in amazement.
He nodded, then held it out. "Would you do it?"
The other Auror nodded, pulled out his wand and conjured a box. "We should send it to his mother, she..."
He nodded, and set the finger gently inside the box, then took it and tucked it into a pocket of his robes. Then he sighed. "Let's get down to business, shall we?"
The rest of the next few hours was spent questioning Muggles, cleaning up the ruined street, explaining things to Muggle please-men, and on and on. If he had thought that getting the whole story behind Black's odd behavior would make him feel better, he was wrong.
The sick feeling in his stomach that had started as soon as he saw Sirius laughing insanely got worse. He found out that Peter had been yelling about betraying Lily and James. Lily and James! He felt like he should cry, but he couldn't. He could hear Sirius' voice in his head: "Finger in a box, finger in a box, finger in a..."
He squeezed his eyes shut at the memory, trying to shut out the echoes of that laughter, that insane laughter that was so different from the normal, happy, ecstatic laughter that he usually heard from Sirius. The two types of laughing blended together in his head, so that it went on and on, mocking him.
He felt his stomach roll and pulled a piece of paperwork in front of him, focusing on it to try and shut out the sound in his ears.
It worked; for a little while. He felt a little insane himself, walking around and hearing nothing but crazy laughter. Finally his boss told him to go home early, seeing how he looked a little sick and understanding that this must have been a hard day for him. Everyone knew how he had admired James and Sirius.
So he Apparated home, planning on catching up on some paperwork to keep his mind off that horrible laughter that did not seem to want to leave him alone.
But as soon as he found himself inside his house, he found he couldn't lift a quill without his hands shaking so hard that he dropped it. All he could do was sit in his armchair in front of the fire, staring into the flames. Memories were washing over him like powerful ocean waves that he couldn't stop with all the magic in the world, and he couldn't shove them away for later. It was as if he was standing in the ocean with his feet glued to the sand, unable to stop the waves or run away.
The flames in front of him seemed to twist in front of him, so he could see nothing but faces; Sirius laughing, James laughing with him, Remus Lupin sitting beside them looking torn between amusement and anxiety for whatever prank they were planning, Peter looking terrified of them both.
Peter! Timid little Peter! He remembered how often he had felt disgust for the kid, hanging out with the others but not really being part of the crowd. But he had been a true friend to the last, unlike Sirius whom he had admired so much.
Suddenly, he stood up and grabbed one of the Sneakoscopes sitting on his mantle shelf and flung it at the wall, feeling a wicked sort of satisfaction and glee when it shattered against the wall into a million pieces. As if something had burst inside him at the sound of it crashing, he sat back down, buried his head in his hands and cried like he had never cried before.
For once he was glad he lived alone, so no one could see the sobs that wracked his body, making him shake violently as if he was having seizures. Tears poured out of his eyes onto his hands, and he cried as if he would never cry again.
Slowly, the sobs went away and the tears fell slower and less frequently until there was nothing left but his extremely wet hands and tear-streaked face. The sadness and memories went away until there was nothing left but a blank feeling of there being nothing he could do. He supposed this was called acceptance.
With a sigh, he got up and gathered the shards of his Sneakoscope. As he threw it away, he felt dimly as if he was throwing away his old life, his old feelings about Sirius and Peter, his old fear of Voldemort, his old everything. Dusting his hands off, he went to start making dinner.
It was time to start all over again.
He yawned, feeling exhausted, and let his eyes open to meet blackness. It was a few minutes before he remembered that he had had a dream, and he had to think a minute to remember what it was.
When he finally remembered, he smiled grimly. He hadn't thought about that in years. Of course, with the recent events that kept somehow appearing in the newspaper, it was no wonder he was remembering it again.
He thought he had thrown out his old life that evening, but now he realized he hadn't, not really. Though he still felt disgust and a little fear for Sirius, his old admiration had never quite gone away. The man was a genius, whether he was insane or not - how else could he have broken out of Azkaban?
Out of habit, he shuddered at the thought of the wizard prison. How Sirius had escaped that place was beyond him. That admiration bordering on awe was still there, whether he liked it or not.
He sighed and rolled over. There was plenty of time to think of this in the morning. With a huge yawn, he rolled over and went to sleep.
Just outside his house, a big black dog took a few steps out of his cave to get a good look at the house. The dog studied it for a minute, then nodded to itself. Then it turned around and went back into the cave, planning to tell Remus in the morning that they had to come here; he was definitely part of the "old crowd."