He landed at Peter's hideout. "Hey Wormtail!" he called, getting off the motorcycle in front of a small cottage set deep in the woods.
"Wormtail! Peter!" he called again, pushing the door open and walking in, a slight seed of fear growing in his mind, preying on his already tense nerves.
There was no answer.
Sirius's stomach slipped a notch. The Potters... Voldemort... Secret Keeper... No...
"Lumos!" he whispered, holding his wand out in front of him. A light breeze lifted his tousled hair, only emphasizing the stillness in the cottage. The light played on his face, all of a sudden grave and serious.
He lit the fire in the fireplace with a flick of his wand and slowly looked around, dreading what he would see.
There was nothing to see. The cottage was bare. After a moment the significance of that struck him. Peter's personal possessions weren't there.
Sirius cautiously backed out of the cottage, his heart hammering in his throat. The sound of his twigs crunching underfoot sounded uncomfortably loud in the dead silence of the night.
"No..." he whispered, willing it not to have happened. "Please, let Peter just have had to flee, please, not what I think, oh god, no! Not Lily and James! Not my wee little godson! NO!" he screamed aloud, shattering the silence of the night like a crystal glass thrown against a wall.
He jumped onto his motorbike, shaking with fear and anger, and roared off into the air.
"No... no..." he whispered repeatedly, trying to deny what he knew for a certainty. A tear glistened on his cheek. "Please... Not Lily and James.... Oh God! What have I done?" He thought about Wormtail and a red rage filled his head, making his vision swim. "Bloody traitor... That rat of a person! We trusted his with our lives! Why did I make them change Secret-Keepers? I would have died rather than betray them to Voldemort. Yes, I would have, no matter how much he tortured me. Lily and James meant too much to the Light Side... We haven't a hope without them. It will be my fault if Voldemort has to got to them. All my fault..."
He flew over Godric's Hollow, and a great lump formed in his throat as he saw the house that had held so many dreams for the young couple, blissfully in love and uncaring of the shadow that drew over them. It was destroyed, gone totally. The confirmation of his worst fears was almost like a physical shock to him, despite having suspected it.
"Hope, Sirius, hope," he told himself fiercely, fighting off the creeping feeling that he was being suffocated. "They could have survived, they could have got away..." Deep down inside, he knew they were just empty words. He couldn't believe them himself.
He landed by a giant of a man, who was standing by the cottage, clutching something in his arms tightly.
"Hagrid, where are they? What happened?" he asked shakily, dreading the answer that he already knew.
"Dead," mumbled Hagrid. He seemed to be trying his hardest to bottle up some great emotion inside him.
"Oh god! No! No...," whispered Sirius, looking at the ruins. It had happened, like he had feared it would. His stupidity and cowardice had cost a young, brilliantly talented couple their lives, and the Light side the only hope they'd ever had.
Visions of memorable days spent at Hogwarts crowded his head, and his vision blurred with tears. He'd been there when they'd picked out this house before their wedding. He, James, Lily, Remus (Forgive me, Moony, for not trusting you...), and Peter, yes, that two-timing double-crosser. They'd thought of nothing but happiness, Lily's emerald eyes shining as she said, "It's perfect!" James with his arms around his fiancee, face alight with joy and hopes for the future... He'd been there at the wedding, right by James' side, sharing in the happiest moment of his best friend's life... He'd been there when Harry had been born, James fussing around like it was the end of the world, Lily's eyes dancing with joy... Why had they ever trusted Peter? He'd always been so timid and afraid, hanging around them so he could share in their popularity... And now he was sticking to Voldemort, wanting to share his power. It had been so goddamned obvious who the spy was, and they'd ignored the truth. And because of that, his friends were dead now... In the deep, shadowed recesses of his mind, he could hear Lily's and James's laughter echoing, Lily's infectious giggle, and James's whooping guffaw. And it made him want to cry. "I'm sorry Lily, I'm sorry Prongs, it's my fault..."
"Sirius, it's all righ'. He was goin' ter get ter 'em sooner or later. It's nobody's fault bu' You-Know-Who's," sniffed Hagrid, patting Sirius on the shoulder. "But Harry here's survived!"
"He has?" Sirius was pulled out of his reverie. "How? Voldemort would never leave any of the Potters alive. He knows too much is at stake."
Hagrid flinched at the sound of Voldemort's name, but handed Harry to him. Sirius looked down into those bright, questioning green eyes. We teased Lily because green was a Slytherin colour... How's she'd laughed... He snapped back into reality, and his body shook with suppressed emotion as he ran his finger lightly down the lightning-shaped scar on Harry's forehead. Harry wailed with pain, and Sirius jumped. "A scar of Voldemort's curse... I wonder how he survived it," he said softly.
"I don't know, but I've got to take the baby to Dumbledore. He'd probably know."
"Give him to me, Hagrid. I'm his godfather, I'll take care of him," Sirius said quietly.
Hagrid shifted uncomfortably. "No, I've got my orders, I've ter take him ter Dumbledore..."
"I guess Harry's safer with him. All right, Hagrid. Take my motorbike. I won't need it anymore," said Sirius in a grim voice. There was just one though in his mind, crowding out grief and anger, one though that directed every action he performed. It was like a battlemarch playing in his head, directing his steps.
He was going to get Wormtail for this if it was the last thing he did.
DISCLAIMER: All the characters in this belong to JKR, so does Godric's Hollow, Sirius's flying motorbike, but everything else is mine (Doesn't leave much else, does it?)
Note how I hinted at why they actually switched Secret-Keepers. I don't think the only reason is what Sirius said in the 3rd book. There was probably a small element of cowardice and fear involved, and probably that's why Sirius convinced them to use Peter. He perhaps wasn't sure if he could face Voldemort's torturing... Apologies for Hagrid's accent. I can't do it very well.
REVIEW!!!!!!!! You could really make my day by reviewing, you know... Just a few seconds is all it takes....
Thank you everybody who's reviewed 'I love the way you love me' and 'No' separately. I'm sorry to those who reviewed 'No', because I had to delete that and put it up again as a chapter of this.
