Author's Note. - Hey. This is my little Sirius story. Wooo hooo for me. - Sorry. OK so this is about the days and nights leading up to the Potter's death and Sirius's capture. This is a rather weird fic and it goes off into weird trains of thought sometimes. - But yeah. PLEASE READ AND REVIEW. - thank you.
Disclaimer... As u might have guessed I am not JK Rowling, I don't own anything. - Only the choice of words to write this story in. LOL.
Last Cheerful night.
I walked cheerily into the muggle pub, James at my side. Remus and Peter were leaning on the bar, some shots in front of them, though obviously untouched. I grinned, a warmth spreading through me as we stepped out from the bitter cold of the evening autumn air into the glow of the small pub near James's house. I felt happy and upbeat at being with my friends. But also a glum ignored fear spread through my body like ice, freezing over my true feelings about the months, maybe years coming. James couldn't run with his family anymore. Voldemort had cornered us, everywhere we turned he seemed to be waiting and ready to do what he came to accomplish.
It was only after three years of running that Dumbledore had finally mentioned the Fidelius Charm. Of course Dumbledore offered to be secret keeper but I insisted I did it. I would die for James and he for me before either one of us gave up to Voldemort. All the plans had been made. We would perform the charm tomorrow night. Tonight was our last night as the four of us, we would always go out for a drink on a Friday night in the local pub and tonight would be no different. After being chased around England for almost three years we were finally back at Godrics Hollow, much to Lily's relief. Being pregnant on the run, she told us many times, was not at all fun. And now she had baby Harry to look after. We had had a rushed baptism for the small baby (In which I had been named Godfather to him) in a small town on the boarder of Scotland before apparating to Plymouth to throw Voldemort off our tail.
James had told us many times we should go and live our own lives and let them run but nothing he could say would make us leave his side. James and Lily had both given up their jobs at the Ministry only four years after they had gained them. They had both entered the Ministry straight after Hogwarts but when they found out Voldemort was after them they fled, leaving their jobs instantly.
Lily was now back at the house with the little rugrat. (As I called him.) He made me laugh; he was like James in every way even though he was only just over a year old. The excitement in his eyes, the way he could fool his mother into thinking something was wrong then he would go crawling around the room, trying to find something to play with. But that was no use dwelling on now, it would all be gone soon.
Tonight would be the last time I saw any of that. Any of that happiness I knew when I was with my friends and their family. I was to perform the charm, making myself their secret keeper and then run, run as far away as possible. I had already decided I was going to America. Living there for a while disguised as a muggle though listening for any news that Voldemort was gone. Though I was looking forward to moving to America in some small way, the thought that I would never see the closest people to me again was haunting me at every waking and sleeping moment. My nights were filled with nightmares of Voldemort finding me and torturing me to find where the Potter's lay. I knew I would never break, even Voldemort knows it but still he tortures me, endlessly for the secret I will never tell.
I smelled the warm pub air. A strong drift of liquor and cigarette smoke drew into me. A warm welcoming smell, as I tasted the air on my lips. My friends now all stood at the bar, talking absently, ignoring the impending doom that surrounded the next day. Acting like this was a normal Friday night, that we would all get drunk beyond all recognition, James would go home and be yelled at by Lily for coming home legless and Remus, Peter and I would go back to the apartment we owned in the town near by. We preferred muggle pubs to the wizarding ones. The wizard pubs never seemed happy enough for us to have a good time. The worry and pain Voldemort had caused destroyed the usual atmosphere of a pub. Instead of happy drunks dancing, singing out of tune at the top of their lungs and acting like happy drunks do, there were only depressed wizards, trying to drown their sorrows in the bottom of the empty ale tankard.
The plan for the night was to go to the local muggle pub for a few drinks before going into town to find some fun on our last night. Lily had highly objected to this plan. She was certain that we would run into Voldemort and get ourselves killed but we persuaded her that we needed one last wild night out before the Fidelius charm was performed. After an hour of begging and persuading from James she finally decided to let us go, only she told us that if we let James do anything stupid Voldemort wouldn't have a mission to accomplish. Of course we agreed but Peter, Remus and I were never going to let James go out on his last night without doing 'something' stupid.
I leaned on the bar between James and Remus. Peter sat on a barstool and leaned forward on his elbow, a puzzled look on his face that I couldn't make out. I stared into his unfocused eyes. He was gazing into space, obviously thinking about something but I couldn't work out what it was. Deciding it was nothing I went back to enjoying myself. I smiled as James told some joke with a non-existent punch line. All his jokes were the same.
"Ready for some fun?" Remus asked. A broad grin spread on his cut face. I grinned cheekily back at him. I knew we were all still eighteen years old at heart, sneaking into Hogsmead and into the cellar of the Three Broomsticks to get some ale. We always left a thank you note to Madam Rosemerta along with the money for the alcohol we took. We would have walked straight in and asked for some, we were eighteen after all, but we knew the news would travel back to the school and we would get in more trouble than we could imagine for sneaking out while Voldemort was at large.
"Fill me up." I replied. Remus called the bartender for a bottle of tequila and we started pulling slammers. Soon enough Peter was completely legless; he never could hold his drink. James, Remus and I continued until we had consumed the whole bottle and we were all rather drunk. Suddenly James's jokes, even more stupid and pointless than usual seemed extremely funny.
"Ok, Ok, I got one." Remus stammered. "A man walks into a bar..." Remus slammed a hand on the bar a lot harder than he should have. "Ouch."
James, Peter and I burst out laughing, Remus looked at us with a bemused statement. He didn't understand that he had actually ended a joke without knowing it. His drunken eyes filled with confusion for a second as he retraced the joke out loud.
"A man walks into a bar..." He said back to himself. "Ouch. I don't get it."
"Walk into the bar Remus!" James managed to tell him through laughs.
"Why?" Remus asked, the bemused statement still not vanishing from his face.
"Just do it." I chimed in.
Remus stood up; his legs rather shaky form the alcohol. He took a few drunken paced away from the bar, turned around and walked into it at full speed. He fell backwards, his eyes closed in pain and he looked like he was about to black out. James, Peter and I leaned over; nearly falling off the stool's ourselves, and stared down at Remus with drunken worry. Remus lay still for a moment, then opened his eyes and looked up at us.
"Walked into a bar... ouch. I get it." Suddenly his laughs erupted from his mouth, getting down shakily from my stool, almost falling over myself, I helped Remus back up onto his stool.
"On, on I think!" James exclaimed after we had all finished laughing.
"Yes, on with the quest as Sir Cadogan would say." I joined.
"Brilliant idea." Remus commented. "No more bars please. Especially metal ones." He added making us all start laughing again. As I said things that are usually crap jokes are extremely funny when people are drunk.
"Yes" Peter squeaked.
We stumbled out into the bitter cold; all leaning on one another for support though none was stable enough to be leant on. But somehow we reached the thing muggles called a car park. Leaning on a brick wall we gathered the sanity left in our alcohol soaked brains. I pulled myself to standing and helped the others do the same.
"I think we'd better group apparate." I mumbled. "We'll lose each other otherwise."
"Yeah, for once Sirius has a non lethal idea." James replied causing us to laugh again. It took us a few moments to compose ourselves but when we did we al pulled out our wands and pushed the tips together. Each of us gripped his wand tightly and we apparated to the nearest muggle city, which happened to be Birmingham.
"Right where now?" Peter squeaked.
"Night club." I answered.
"Sirius, we are twenty five. Not twenty one." James replied. "I don't go to night clubs. I have a son." James' eyes widened and he grabbed his wallet; he pulled out a moving picture of Lily and Harry. "Have you seen my son?" He asked me like we'd met a few moments ago for the first time. I grinned and laughed.
"Yes, I have seen your son you idiot." I replied.
"Oh," James answered. "That's good."
"So where are we going?" Remus asked a few minutes later.
"Bar somewhere." I replied lazily.
The alcohol was moving into the next stage and I was beginning to feel tired. I grabbed onto James' shoulder and the four of us began to walk down the street towards the nearest Bar. Soon we found a large bar that looked very interesting and we went inside. The mahogany wood on the walls shone a deep, dark red. A young brunette woman in her early twenties was behind the bar along with an old sour-looking man. The four of us felt our way up to the bar, holding on to tables, chairs and sometimes people who looked at us like we were a contagious disease. Finally we reached the bar. We sat on the stools and leaned heavily on the bar. Peter looked on absently, staring at the liquor bottles lined up on the shelf. The man passed us a few times but we didn't want to speak to him. I watched as Remus stared blankly at the young waitress. It was completely obvious to everyone around us that he thought she was attractive. But I suppose that he didn't realise his eyes were popping out of the sockets because he was out of his mind due to the large amounts of hard liquor we had consumed. I looked over at the young waitress, she looked a little younger than us, maybe twenty one or twenty two but I couldn't tell if my assumptions were correct because I didn't really trust my eye site at this moment. I watched out of the corner of my eye as the girl served a few more customers before holding out my hand.
"Waitress." I called, my voice wavering on different keys as I spoke.
"Yes, sir. What would you like?" She replied. Her voice held a firm note but a soft tone as she walked over and leaned on the bar in front of us.
"Umm..." I thought for a moment. "I don't know." I replied sheepishly.
"You've come from another bar haven't you?" She replied, a smile flickering across her face.
"Of course not." James replied sarcastically. "We are alcoholics and we came to the bar to sober up." At this Remus coughed with laugher and promptly fell off his stool.
"Don't mind moony, he can't handle his drink."
"I can too." Remus yelled from the floor.
"Fine, fine, you just keep believing that." James said out of the corner of his mouth so only Peter, the waitress and I could hear him. It took Remus a while to stand up again but when he did he seemed a lot more sober than he did than before he had fallen to the floor. I took it upon myself to remedy that fact.
"Umm, four large..." I tried to think of a strong drink that wasn't straight liquor. "Umm..."
"Here try this." The waitress suggested. She opened some bottles and poured something into four glasses. She handed us the drinks and put the bottle on the table.
"What is it?" Peter asked suspiciously.
"It's rum and coke, only I kind of tripled the amount of rum." The waitress grinned a cheeky grin before walking off to serve a different customer.
"On the count of three." James said picking up his glass.
"Ok." Remus replied, gripping his own glass in his scarred left hand. Remus had been through a lot in his life; being a werewolf and all. It was now the middle of the lunar cycle so he had fully recovered from his last transformation and it was about two weeks until his next but he had acquired a few scars over the years.
I picked up my glass as did Peter. We each covered the top of our glass with our free hand. The four of us loved doing shots; we thought it more fun than beer and ale like the other wizards usually drank so any hard liquor drink we drank like it was a shot.
"Ready?" Peter asked.
"Go!" James replied.
"One...two...three" As we counted we banged the glasses on the bar then as soon as we said three we brought the glasses us and downed as much as we could from the glass. The rum burnt my throat as I swallowed it as if I was swallowing liquid fire but I kept drinking. Finally I felt the last drops of liquid pass my lips and I slammed the glass back on the bar. Swallowing the last of the fire I opened my mouth and stuck out my tongue. I was sure that everyone around me could see my tonsils as I tried to get air into my mouth to cool it down. Remus and James had finished their drinks like I had but Peter was only half way through but he was still gulping small amounts. James, Remus and I began banging our fists on the table, urging Peter on and finally he finished his drink.
"WOOOOOO." I yelled sounding a lot more like my dog form than I would of liked.
The night carried on like that. Us drowning our fears, worries and pain that was coming with the sunrise. We drank more and more; the waitress grew hotter and hotter as alcohol soaked my sponge like brain. I don't remember a lot more from that night, only that I felt like lead weights in my feet as we walked to a safe place to apparate from. We apparated straight to the front door of Godric's Hollow, standing shivering on James's front doorstep we said our goodbyes. Remus left first. He was about to throw up and he didn't feel like going into the house to do it. He apparated quickly after nodding reassuringly and hugging one of his best friends goodbye. Peter then left, he said he needed to go and check Remus was ok but James and I both knew that he knew we wanted a minute alone.
"I'm going to miss you Padfoot." James sighed as he leant silently on his front door.
"Ditto." I replied. James knew I was never good at goodbyes. We stood in silence for a moment before James said something that would change history.
"I wish you didn't have to be the secret keeper." He whispered. We knew that there had been a spy, someone close to us. I had my suspicions but I had never aired that I thought Remus might be a spy. I couldn't bring myself to admit the thoughts I had that one of my closest friends would turn against us.
"What do you mean?" I asked innocently. It was weird but the alcohol seemed to vanish as our conversation turned to a serious note, as did James's.
"You know Dumbledore could do it." James commented. We had this conversation a thousand times.
"I know. But I would feel safest knowing I was the one who knew where you were. The only one." I replied.
"But Voldemort will know it is you. It is obvious. You are the one I trust most in the world, I know you would die for me before betray me." James explained.
It was hard to admit it but he was right. The first person Voldemort would go for would be me. We stood in silence as I tried to think of a way to throw Voldemort off the scent. I felt terrible about admitting it to myself but I didn't trust Remus enough to let it be he, the only person left was...
"Peter." I said quietly.
"What?" James replied. Thoughts began reeling in my mind. It was obvious. Peter, Voldemort would never suspect we would use him. Everyone knew he was the weakest in the group, it was perfect.
"Peter, James. Voldemort would never suspect it."
"No, Voldemort would work it out." James replied.
"Not if we took Peter into hiding. Peter, Remus and I would go into hiding. Voldemort would suspect it was me we were trying to protect but it would be Peter. Think about it Prongs. Who is the last person you would think of to be able to perform this charm."
James thought for a moment then smiled.
"Peter." He grinned.
"Exactly. If he can't do it then we'll use me. But please trust me old friend." I assured him.
James nodded in agreement.
"We can't tell anybody. Not Dumbledore, not even Remus." I warned.
"Yes, it is safest if nobody knows." James agreed.
I smiled at my friend. This would be the last time I would see him in god knows how long. I had gone three years seeing him every day and now I wouldn't see him at all. I would never know how he was or how little Harry was growing. I could never get in contact with him. I could feel the tears welled up in my eyes as I looked at my best friend in the world. I extended my hand, which James shook lightly but the grip didn't end. We just stood, our hands gripped together as we stared at the floor. Finally I gave up my pride and hugged my friend. He patted me on the back.
"I'll miss you Prongs." I said finally pulling away.
"Me too Padfoot." James replied. I walked down the path, down to the old, white, waist high gate. As I gripped the top the white paint flaked off in my hand. Turning around I took one last look at Godric's Hollow. James leaned back on his door, his hands stuffed in his pockets. I could no longer see the features on his face, only a faint outline of his messy black hair on top of his pale face. I stared for a second then let go of the gate.
"Goodbye." I whispered and disappeared into the darkness.
Disclaimer... As u might have guessed I am not JK Rowling, I don't own anything. - Only the choice of words to write this story in. LOL.
Last Cheerful night.
I walked cheerily into the muggle pub, James at my side. Remus and Peter were leaning on the bar, some shots in front of them, though obviously untouched. I grinned, a warmth spreading through me as we stepped out from the bitter cold of the evening autumn air into the glow of the small pub near James's house. I felt happy and upbeat at being with my friends. But also a glum ignored fear spread through my body like ice, freezing over my true feelings about the months, maybe years coming. James couldn't run with his family anymore. Voldemort had cornered us, everywhere we turned he seemed to be waiting and ready to do what he came to accomplish.
It was only after three years of running that Dumbledore had finally mentioned the Fidelius Charm. Of course Dumbledore offered to be secret keeper but I insisted I did it. I would die for James and he for me before either one of us gave up to Voldemort. All the plans had been made. We would perform the charm tomorrow night. Tonight was our last night as the four of us, we would always go out for a drink on a Friday night in the local pub and tonight would be no different. After being chased around England for almost three years we were finally back at Godrics Hollow, much to Lily's relief. Being pregnant on the run, she told us many times, was not at all fun. And now she had baby Harry to look after. We had had a rushed baptism for the small baby (In which I had been named Godfather to him) in a small town on the boarder of Scotland before apparating to Plymouth to throw Voldemort off our tail.
James had told us many times we should go and live our own lives and let them run but nothing he could say would make us leave his side. James and Lily had both given up their jobs at the Ministry only four years after they had gained them. They had both entered the Ministry straight after Hogwarts but when they found out Voldemort was after them they fled, leaving their jobs instantly.
Lily was now back at the house with the little rugrat. (As I called him.) He made me laugh; he was like James in every way even though he was only just over a year old. The excitement in his eyes, the way he could fool his mother into thinking something was wrong then he would go crawling around the room, trying to find something to play with. But that was no use dwelling on now, it would all be gone soon.
Tonight would be the last time I saw any of that. Any of that happiness I knew when I was with my friends and their family. I was to perform the charm, making myself their secret keeper and then run, run as far away as possible. I had already decided I was going to America. Living there for a while disguised as a muggle though listening for any news that Voldemort was gone. Though I was looking forward to moving to America in some small way, the thought that I would never see the closest people to me again was haunting me at every waking and sleeping moment. My nights were filled with nightmares of Voldemort finding me and torturing me to find where the Potter's lay. I knew I would never break, even Voldemort knows it but still he tortures me, endlessly for the secret I will never tell.
I smelled the warm pub air. A strong drift of liquor and cigarette smoke drew into me. A warm welcoming smell, as I tasted the air on my lips. My friends now all stood at the bar, talking absently, ignoring the impending doom that surrounded the next day. Acting like this was a normal Friday night, that we would all get drunk beyond all recognition, James would go home and be yelled at by Lily for coming home legless and Remus, Peter and I would go back to the apartment we owned in the town near by. We preferred muggle pubs to the wizarding ones. The wizard pubs never seemed happy enough for us to have a good time. The worry and pain Voldemort had caused destroyed the usual atmosphere of a pub. Instead of happy drunks dancing, singing out of tune at the top of their lungs and acting like happy drunks do, there were only depressed wizards, trying to drown their sorrows in the bottom of the empty ale tankard.
The plan for the night was to go to the local muggle pub for a few drinks before going into town to find some fun on our last night. Lily had highly objected to this plan. She was certain that we would run into Voldemort and get ourselves killed but we persuaded her that we needed one last wild night out before the Fidelius charm was performed. After an hour of begging and persuading from James she finally decided to let us go, only she told us that if we let James do anything stupid Voldemort wouldn't have a mission to accomplish. Of course we agreed but Peter, Remus and I were never going to let James go out on his last night without doing 'something' stupid.
I leaned on the bar between James and Remus. Peter sat on a barstool and leaned forward on his elbow, a puzzled look on his face that I couldn't make out. I stared into his unfocused eyes. He was gazing into space, obviously thinking about something but I couldn't work out what it was. Deciding it was nothing I went back to enjoying myself. I smiled as James told some joke with a non-existent punch line. All his jokes were the same.
"Ready for some fun?" Remus asked. A broad grin spread on his cut face. I grinned cheekily back at him. I knew we were all still eighteen years old at heart, sneaking into Hogsmead and into the cellar of the Three Broomsticks to get some ale. We always left a thank you note to Madam Rosemerta along with the money for the alcohol we took. We would have walked straight in and asked for some, we were eighteen after all, but we knew the news would travel back to the school and we would get in more trouble than we could imagine for sneaking out while Voldemort was at large.
"Fill me up." I replied. Remus called the bartender for a bottle of tequila and we started pulling slammers. Soon enough Peter was completely legless; he never could hold his drink. James, Remus and I continued until we had consumed the whole bottle and we were all rather drunk. Suddenly James's jokes, even more stupid and pointless than usual seemed extremely funny.
"Ok, Ok, I got one." Remus stammered. "A man walks into a bar..." Remus slammed a hand on the bar a lot harder than he should have. "Ouch."
James, Peter and I burst out laughing, Remus looked at us with a bemused statement. He didn't understand that he had actually ended a joke without knowing it. His drunken eyes filled with confusion for a second as he retraced the joke out loud.
"A man walks into a bar..." He said back to himself. "Ouch. I don't get it."
"Walk into the bar Remus!" James managed to tell him through laughs.
"Why?" Remus asked, the bemused statement still not vanishing from his face.
"Just do it." I chimed in.
Remus stood up; his legs rather shaky form the alcohol. He took a few drunken paced away from the bar, turned around and walked into it at full speed. He fell backwards, his eyes closed in pain and he looked like he was about to black out. James, Peter and I leaned over; nearly falling off the stool's ourselves, and stared down at Remus with drunken worry. Remus lay still for a moment, then opened his eyes and looked up at us.
"Walked into a bar... ouch. I get it." Suddenly his laughs erupted from his mouth, getting down shakily from my stool, almost falling over myself, I helped Remus back up onto his stool.
"On, on I think!" James exclaimed after we had all finished laughing.
"Yes, on with the quest as Sir Cadogan would say." I joined.
"Brilliant idea." Remus commented. "No more bars please. Especially metal ones." He added making us all start laughing again. As I said things that are usually crap jokes are extremely funny when people are drunk.
"Yes" Peter squeaked.
We stumbled out into the bitter cold; all leaning on one another for support though none was stable enough to be leant on. But somehow we reached the thing muggles called a car park. Leaning on a brick wall we gathered the sanity left in our alcohol soaked brains. I pulled myself to standing and helped the others do the same.
"I think we'd better group apparate." I mumbled. "We'll lose each other otherwise."
"Yeah, for once Sirius has a non lethal idea." James replied causing us to laugh again. It took us a few moments to compose ourselves but when we did we al pulled out our wands and pushed the tips together. Each of us gripped his wand tightly and we apparated to the nearest muggle city, which happened to be Birmingham.
"Right where now?" Peter squeaked.
"Night club." I answered.
"Sirius, we are twenty five. Not twenty one." James replied. "I don't go to night clubs. I have a son." James' eyes widened and he grabbed his wallet; he pulled out a moving picture of Lily and Harry. "Have you seen my son?" He asked me like we'd met a few moments ago for the first time. I grinned and laughed.
"Yes, I have seen your son you idiot." I replied.
"Oh," James answered. "That's good."
"So where are we going?" Remus asked a few minutes later.
"Bar somewhere." I replied lazily.
The alcohol was moving into the next stage and I was beginning to feel tired. I grabbed onto James' shoulder and the four of us began to walk down the street towards the nearest Bar. Soon we found a large bar that looked very interesting and we went inside. The mahogany wood on the walls shone a deep, dark red. A young brunette woman in her early twenties was behind the bar along with an old sour-looking man. The four of us felt our way up to the bar, holding on to tables, chairs and sometimes people who looked at us like we were a contagious disease. Finally we reached the bar. We sat on the stools and leaned heavily on the bar. Peter looked on absently, staring at the liquor bottles lined up on the shelf. The man passed us a few times but we didn't want to speak to him. I watched as Remus stared blankly at the young waitress. It was completely obvious to everyone around us that he thought she was attractive. But I suppose that he didn't realise his eyes were popping out of the sockets because he was out of his mind due to the large amounts of hard liquor we had consumed. I looked over at the young waitress, she looked a little younger than us, maybe twenty one or twenty two but I couldn't tell if my assumptions were correct because I didn't really trust my eye site at this moment. I watched out of the corner of my eye as the girl served a few more customers before holding out my hand.
"Waitress." I called, my voice wavering on different keys as I spoke.
"Yes, sir. What would you like?" She replied. Her voice held a firm note but a soft tone as she walked over and leaned on the bar in front of us.
"Umm..." I thought for a moment. "I don't know." I replied sheepishly.
"You've come from another bar haven't you?" She replied, a smile flickering across her face.
"Of course not." James replied sarcastically. "We are alcoholics and we came to the bar to sober up." At this Remus coughed with laugher and promptly fell off his stool.
"Don't mind moony, he can't handle his drink."
"I can too." Remus yelled from the floor.
"Fine, fine, you just keep believing that." James said out of the corner of his mouth so only Peter, the waitress and I could hear him. It took Remus a while to stand up again but when he did he seemed a lot more sober than he did than before he had fallen to the floor. I took it upon myself to remedy that fact.
"Umm, four large..." I tried to think of a strong drink that wasn't straight liquor. "Umm..."
"Here try this." The waitress suggested. She opened some bottles and poured something into four glasses. She handed us the drinks and put the bottle on the table.
"What is it?" Peter asked suspiciously.
"It's rum and coke, only I kind of tripled the amount of rum." The waitress grinned a cheeky grin before walking off to serve a different customer.
"On the count of three." James said picking up his glass.
"Ok." Remus replied, gripping his own glass in his scarred left hand. Remus had been through a lot in his life; being a werewolf and all. It was now the middle of the lunar cycle so he had fully recovered from his last transformation and it was about two weeks until his next but he had acquired a few scars over the years.
I picked up my glass as did Peter. We each covered the top of our glass with our free hand. The four of us loved doing shots; we thought it more fun than beer and ale like the other wizards usually drank so any hard liquor drink we drank like it was a shot.
"Ready?" Peter asked.
"Go!" James replied.
"One...two...three" As we counted we banged the glasses on the bar then as soon as we said three we brought the glasses us and downed as much as we could from the glass. The rum burnt my throat as I swallowed it as if I was swallowing liquid fire but I kept drinking. Finally I felt the last drops of liquid pass my lips and I slammed the glass back on the bar. Swallowing the last of the fire I opened my mouth and stuck out my tongue. I was sure that everyone around me could see my tonsils as I tried to get air into my mouth to cool it down. Remus and James had finished their drinks like I had but Peter was only half way through but he was still gulping small amounts. James, Remus and I began banging our fists on the table, urging Peter on and finally he finished his drink.
"WOOOOOO." I yelled sounding a lot more like my dog form than I would of liked.
The night carried on like that. Us drowning our fears, worries and pain that was coming with the sunrise. We drank more and more; the waitress grew hotter and hotter as alcohol soaked my sponge like brain. I don't remember a lot more from that night, only that I felt like lead weights in my feet as we walked to a safe place to apparate from. We apparated straight to the front door of Godric's Hollow, standing shivering on James's front doorstep we said our goodbyes. Remus left first. He was about to throw up and he didn't feel like going into the house to do it. He apparated quickly after nodding reassuringly and hugging one of his best friends goodbye. Peter then left, he said he needed to go and check Remus was ok but James and I both knew that he knew we wanted a minute alone.
"I'm going to miss you Padfoot." James sighed as he leant silently on his front door.
"Ditto." I replied. James knew I was never good at goodbyes. We stood in silence for a moment before James said something that would change history.
"I wish you didn't have to be the secret keeper." He whispered. We knew that there had been a spy, someone close to us. I had my suspicions but I had never aired that I thought Remus might be a spy. I couldn't bring myself to admit the thoughts I had that one of my closest friends would turn against us.
"What do you mean?" I asked innocently. It was weird but the alcohol seemed to vanish as our conversation turned to a serious note, as did James's.
"You know Dumbledore could do it." James commented. We had this conversation a thousand times.
"I know. But I would feel safest knowing I was the one who knew where you were. The only one." I replied.
"But Voldemort will know it is you. It is obvious. You are the one I trust most in the world, I know you would die for me before betray me." James explained.
It was hard to admit it but he was right. The first person Voldemort would go for would be me. We stood in silence as I tried to think of a way to throw Voldemort off the scent. I felt terrible about admitting it to myself but I didn't trust Remus enough to let it be he, the only person left was...
"Peter." I said quietly.
"What?" James replied. Thoughts began reeling in my mind. It was obvious. Peter, Voldemort would never suspect we would use him. Everyone knew he was the weakest in the group, it was perfect.
"Peter, James. Voldemort would never suspect it."
"No, Voldemort would work it out." James replied.
"Not if we took Peter into hiding. Peter, Remus and I would go into hiding. Voldemort would suspect it was me we were trying to protect but it would be Peter. Think about it Prongs. Who is the last person you would think of to be able to perform this charm."
James thought for a moment then smiled.
"Peter." He grinned.
"Exactly. If he can't do it then we'll use me. But please trust me old friend." I assured him.
James nodded in agreement.
"We can't tell anybody. Not Dumbledore, not even Remus." I warned.
"Yes, it is safest if nobody knows." James agreed.
I smiled at my friend. This would be the last time I would see him in god knows how long. I had gone three years seeing him every day and now I wouldn't see him at all. I would never know how he was or how little Harry was growing. I could never get in contact with him. I could feel the tears welled up in my eyes as I looked at my best friend in the world. I extended my hand, which James shook lightly but the grip didn't end. We just stood, our hands gripped together as we stared at the floor. Finally I gave up my pride and hugged my friend. He patted me on the back.
"I'll miss you Prongs." I said finally pulling away.
"Me too Padfoot." James replied. I walked down the path, down to the old, white, waist high gate. As I gripped the top the white paint flaked off in my hand. Turning around I took one last look at Godric's Hollow. James leaned back on his door, his hands stuffed in his pockets. I could no longer see the features on his face, only a faint outline of his messy black hair on top of his pale face. I stared for a second then let go of the gate.
"Goodbye." I whispered and disappeared into the darkness.
