Revolutions

Chapter 7: Solace

By Seadragon

~

We were creeping down halls that we had run and leapt through laughing just a few hours earlier. It was strange how much night fall could change a place. We had a couple near misses, one such resulting in me and Natalie pulling Alex out of a trick stair. He had forgotten to jump over it while explaining to me about the Restricted Section.

Fortunately, we wouldn't need any books from there. The books on Dad were there for anyone who had suffered amnesia to look up. It seemed that no normal witch or wizard would ever have to look him up. They all knew him by name and sight.

But they wouldn't tell me a thing about what he did, or who he fought. Or why he felt the need to disappear. They just told me that I would find out soon enough. That was why we were going to the library.

The library, when we got there, was completely empty. Which, I suppose, should really be obvious. Most people don't wander around in a library of all places at midnight. You have to be pretty desperate I guess. Natalie locked the doors and Alex lit a row of torches. It was certainly larger than the library at my old school. Row upon row upon row of bookshelves. The books they held were definitely different, I don't recall ever seeing Basilisks, the Complete Guide to Surviving the Encounter.

Then again, I don't even know what a Basilisk was, but if they were as dangerous as the title made them out to be, I don't want to.

Alex must have seen me looking at that particular book. It had been left on one of the tables, Alex and I had gone to sit there while Natalie got all the books I would be wanting. "Your Dad fought one of those once."

"What? A Basilisk?" I looked at the book again, and the charming illustration on the cover. "Er, shouldn't he be able to fit in a matchbook then?"

"He won."

"Oh. I guess that would explain the whole alive thing then." Slightly disturbed by the book, I pushed it away from me. Who would want to read a book with the picture of a giant snake, with big yellow eyes, and blood dripping from its mouth on the cover? The human body parts just off to the side of the big reptile didn't make it anymore endearing.

I think Alex would have laughed if it wasn't for Natalie coming back right then. In her arms was a pile of books that just might have rivaled the Basilisk. She dumped them on the table and took a few deep breaths.

"Your turn Alex." She managed to gasp out between breaths. Alex sighed and pushed his chair back. Just before he got up, I grabbed his arm.

"What? You mean there's more?" This time he did laugh.

"Are you kidding me? There are enough books on your Dad to fill this whole library. They just don't have them all."

I moaned and put my head in my hands. "We're going to be here all night."

Natalie nodded and sat in Alex's recently vacated seat. "You bet. And probably all of tomorrow night as well. Hell, we're going to be here every spare minute for the next month if you want to know everything."

"How do you know everything?" I asked her, raising my head a little to look at her.

"He was my parents' best friend. They told me all about him. Besides, everyone except the muggleborn first years in this school knows everything about him. A good part of the History of Magic and Defense Against the Dark Arts curriculum every year is about him." She smiled reassuringly. "You'll get used to it soon."

"Not so sure about that." I muttered as Alex returned with an armload of books, which, is possible, was taller than Natalie's had been. Once he had dumped them on top of the ones already there, he pulled a chair from another table over. "Er, why are you guys reading this too?"

Natalie rolled her eyes. "Nobody knows everything. There are pieces here and there, and you have to put them together for yourself. The only person who does know everything that happened delights in not talking. Or, more accurately, disappearing. Besides, Alex here knows next to nothing."

"Well, we have to start somewhere." Alex said with a sigh, looking morosely at the giant pile of books. "What do you want to know first?"

"I'd like to know who the hell he is." I muttered.

"Sorry? You're going to have to speak up."

"Right, sorry. Umm, I guess could we start at the beginning?" I asked him, eyeing the books nervously. Now that it came down to it, I wasn't sure if I even wanted to know. "What was the first thing he did?"

"He was born." Natalie said. I hadn't really pegged her as one to joke around during a serious time, so I figured she must actually mean that. "I mean, his parents were two very powerful people. Both Gryffindors, and members of the Order of the Phoenix."

Already this was over my head. How were they going to describe anything when I didn't know the first thing about this world, and what had happened in it. I didn't know the laws, what was right and what was wrong. I was as lost as a new born baby. If I wanted to get through this, I would need a point of reference.

"Nat, he doesn't know what the Order of the Phoenix was. Hell, all I know about it is that he was a key member, and that it crumbled after his disappearance."

"Well, not exactly." Natalie said slowly. A look of brief panic clouded her eyes, but she rushed on. "But the Order of the Phoenix was a very secret organization. Professor Dumbledore was the leader since its founding in the first war. Most of the Weasleys were members."

"Oh." That was all I could manage at the moment. This went a lot deeper than I had previously thought. It went back decades.

"But never mind that now. You should start with this one. Very informative. Really." Alex had been digging through the books while Natalie had tried, and failed, to explain to me what the Order of the Phoenix had been. He handed me a thick book titled The Life and Times of Our Heroes: Volume XI. I took it, and nearly dropped it. It probably would have been lighter if it had been a solid slab of stone.

With a sigh, I opened it to the index and scanned the headlines. There was only one. Harry James Potter: From the Beginning to the End (continued in volumes XII, XIII, XIV, and XV). I blinked. It hit me then, I would never know it all. I would never understand it all. I would never be able to judge them. I couldn't question what they did, because I would never understand what they had to do, what choices they had had to make. I would never really know what had happened in those years before me.

And I was okay with it.

I opened it to the first page and began to read.

Some of the things, no, most of the things, that I read frightened me. That, and angered me. I had never known that Dad was abused as a child, or that he had lived with his aunt and uncle. I hadn't even known he had an aunt and uncle. I didn't know that his parents had been killed, but he had survived what no living creature ever had before, and never will again.

I hadn't known what kinds of pain and suffering he had been through. And I just couldn't see it reflected in who he was today. He was always cheerful, except when I mentioned Sirius.

"Who's Sirius Black?"

Alex looked up from the book he was reading, titled The Boy-Who-Lived. He tried to give me a reassuring smile, but I was beyond that now.

Natalie also looked up. "You already know that. He was your father's godfather, and your grandfather's best friend." She said sharply.

I would have glared at her, but there was all too much to take in to waste energy on such pointless things. "So you've said. I want to know who he really was. What he did, why he died."

Seemingly void of emotion, Alex tossed me a book, simply titled The Book of Black. "Read the last chapter." He said tonelessly, before returning to his own book. I flipped through the pages until I reached the final chapter.

The chapter was titled End of an Era, and in the first paragraph I found myself despising these people. Luckily, Sirius Black had been the last, and, as I had found out, he was dead, with no children. But he hadn't seemed like what this book described the Blacks as in the portrait. I suppose he had been young then, but it didn't seem possible for someone to change so much.

The real shock came a couple pages into the book. So far they had just outlined his childhood, and how he was the first Black in Gryffindor ever. How he became one of the Marauders, a group of four Gryffindor boys, bent on wrecking havoc everywhere they went. And became best friends with James Potter, fellow Marauder, and the only child of the Minister of Magic. It looked like he hadn't changed since. But was I ever wrong. I had reached the page about him becoming the Potter's Secret Keeper, to hide them from Voldemort.

How he had betrayed them.

How he had practically killed them.

And how my father had survived.

And then, a short list caught my eye. The names of the Death Eaters' who had assisted in the planning for this night.

I dropped the book and barely noticed as it tumbled to the floor. I stared with unseeing eyes at the table, trying to comprehend what I had just read. Natalie and Alex had looked up when the book hit the ground with a thud.

Natalie looked at Alex sharply. "What exactly was in that book?!" Alex shrugged wildly and grabbed the book. He scanned the pages I had been reading before coming to a halt at the bottom of the fifth page in the chapter.

A soft "oh." was all that came out of his mouth. Wordlessly, he handed the open book to a confused Natalie. She too read it, before closing the book and putting it down.

"James." She said gently, trying to get me to look at her. I ignored the pleading tone in her voice. Whether because I didn't hear it, or just didn't want to, I'm not sure. Everything seemed so blurry around me. And not just my surroundings. I don't even know who I am. My past was hazy, my future was foggy.

And the only thing that could change it was an explanation, and a good one. Even then, things would be uncertain. Could I even trust my parents after what they had done to me? How did I know that everything else wasn't a lie as well?

And that was the thing, I didn't, and I couldn't.

Lies made for an unstable world.

And mine was about to collapse.

I think Alex and Natalie tried to get me to listen to them. I think they tried to get me to stand up. But I don't know. I just don't know. Sound was absent from the stupor I was in, and it was as though I was surrounded by fog.

I seem to remember following them blindly to a couch a few feet away from our table. From there, nothing was what it seemed, and everything was twisted. Reality made no sense anymore. I could dimly hear their whispered conversation, before everything went quiet. And then there was no noise, no light. No life.

And in the darkness, I found my solace.