(Note from the author: These are not my characters, my world, or my
situations. They all belong to J. K. Rowling, and are protected by
copyrights.)
(Note about groomsmen/men of honor: For the sake of this story, I'm going to call them men of honor. When my aunt and uncle got married, they called them men of honors for some reason, so that's what I'm used to calling it.)
(Note for readers under 13: Again, violence, etc. It's PG-13. Don't read ahead if you're under 13. Thank you.)
"Now listen to me," Moody said, as they trekked through the streets in the dark of the night, "You still are all hot off the press. You still aren't ready for this sort of thing. But I'm warning you, I will not take kindly to any of you that decide that you know better than either Dumbledore or me. You understand?"
"Yes, sir," James said from behind him, and Remus nodded. The entire Order had been called to an abandoned street. Well, it was abandoned now.
Minutes ago, it had been filled with Death Eaters torching Muggle homes. Now the sky was ablaze with fire as the entire street of houses went up in smoke. Muggles were still trapped inside. Some were already dead.
At least five Dark Marks hung over their heads.
It had been one day since they had been let out of training, and already a catastrophe had struck.
"So what exactly are we supposed to be doing?" Sirius asked.
"Hush up, Mr. Black," Moody snapped, "I'm trying to find our colleagues in this smoke."
They walked through the debris and rubble that was now starting to crowd the streets of the cobblestone road. It was an old neighborhood.
Screams came from all around them.
"Frank! Is that you?" Moody said, pushing past a Muggle woman in a space blanket. Frank Longbottom stood talking to Crouch again, and he waved the six of them over.
"There are at least twenty Muggles left in there!" he was shouting at Crouch.
"There's nothing we can do, Mr. Longbottom," Crouch snapped, "I'm not wasting my men's lives to rescue dead bodies."
"They're alive, Bartemus!"
"What's the problem here," Moody said, stepping in between the two of them.
"Crouch says that we don't have clearance to retrieve the bodies and/or rescue survivors," Frank said.
"And since when does Mr. Crouch have the authority to make such calls," Moody snarled, his eye swiveling to look at the older man.
"Since he was made the head of this department, Alastor," Crouch retorted, "Now take your daycare and move out."
There was a scream from inside the closest building. Remus looked up in horror, and peered through the flaming window. The scream hadn't been one of an adult. It had been a child. An innocent Muggle child.
"Now you listen to me," Moody said, drawing closer, "Just because there isn't any Death Eater here for you to arrest doesn't mean that we clear out and ship off. There are victims in there that I'm going to rescue."
Remus heard the scream again.
"Please! Please help me! Mum! Dad!"
It was a boy.
A little boy.
"Take your hero game somewhere else," Crouch said, "We need all of you to go looking for the ones responsible for this. Not clean up their mess. Now get going."
Moody gave him one murderous look, and then turned on his heels, and motioned for his five newly inducted members to follow him.
"Come along," he said, stalking back to the Portkey that they had taken to the sight, "All of you."
He turned around to look at the four of them, "We've got some rats to catch," he then swiveled around, and grumbled to himself, "Crackpots and the Ministry, wanting the best. Pah. That's a load of . . ."
Four.
There had only been four of them.
His eye swiveled back in his head, and through his skull. There stood Mr. Black, next to James, who was holding Lily's hand, who was next to Peter, and next to Peter . . .
"Where's Lupin?" he demanded, turning around again to look at them.
They shrugged, and then looked back at where they had been standing.
"REMUS! NO!" James shouted.
Remus was quickly making his way closer and closer to the flames, reaching to break the window of one of the houses. James felt his hand let go of Lily's as he ran back to stop him. He was going to kill himself!
Moody sighed, took a swig from his hip flask, and waved them back, "Come on, now children. Let's go get your idiot friends out of the fire."
By the time that James had reached Remus, he had crawled in through the large window, and into the flames. He couldn't see him.
Without thinking, he jumped in, holding his cloaks up to his mouth. It was so dark, and foggy. Smoke engulfed him as he went in farther.
"REMUS?" he shouted through the debris, "LUPIN! ARE YOU IN HERE?"
He heard a scream from a room off to the side, and he jumped over a fallen wooden beam, "REMUS!"
A muffled sound.
"Are you in here?" he shouted.
Not a word.
"REMUS! ANSWER ME!"
"Over here, James! Quick! There's a little boy! He's hurt!"
James turned in the other direction, and jumped up the stairs. Another wooden beam fell from the ceiling, missing him by inches.
"James? Where are you?" Lily's voice sounded from downstairs.
James shot his head to look at the hazy silhouette of his fiancee, and shouted, "No! Lily, no! Stay back! There's a kid up here . . ."
But Lily didn't listen to him. She was soon jumping over the flames trying to burn her robes, and the two of them were climbing the stairs.
"I swear," James said, "Sometimes it'd be good if you listened to me."
They turned a corner, and was hit by the blackest smoke that any of them had ever seen. They coughed, and then dropped to the ground, gasping for air.
"Remus?" James hissed.
"I'm in here!" he shouted, "Quick! Help me! He's badly hurt!"
James and Lily crawled across the corridor, and finally turned into a room that looked like a nursery. There stood Remus, the little boy crouched in the corner, unconscious.
The two of them stood, and ran to his side. But Remus wasn't responsive. He was looking straight ahead of him, his eyes gazing into nothingness.
"Moony?" James hit his shoulder, "Come on, we have to . . . Moony?"
Remus didn't answer.
"Remus, are you all right?" Lily said, looking him in the eyes.
"I can always count on you to save your friends," Remus said, in a voice that did not sound like his own. James knew that tone. It was snakelike . . . evil . . .
"Lily," he said, staring at his friend, "Run."
Lily had the little boy in her arms now, and looked at him incredulously, "What?"
"Run, Lily," he said, louder now, "Get out of here."
"Too late, Potter," Remus said. But this time, there was another voice. Speaking simultaneously with him, "You are both mine."
And then, out of the fires and smoke of the entrance, came the shadow of a demon.
Voldemort had returned.
He nodded his head, and Remus collapsed, in a heap, his breathing shallow. James looked to him in horror.
"Come," Voldemort said, "Come with me."
And then he raised his wand.
"JAMES!" Sirius coughed, running upstairs. He had heard a commotion upstairs. One that sounded like a large explosion.
God, if anything had happened to those three . . .
Nothing had happened. It was probably just his imagination.
"Get out of the way, Mr. Black," Moody pushed him out of the way as he flew up the emblazoned stairs, "Don't think that I'm trusting you to lead us into something."
Sirius glared.
"Lily? Remus? James?" Peter shouted through the house. No answer. Sirius turned to him.
"Come on, Wormtail, they're up here!" he shouted.
"Right," Peter said, following Sirius to where Moody had escaped to.
Moody rounded a corner. Black smoke. Too much of it to be natural. Something was wrong here . . . he couldn't see anything . . .
"Hello, Alastor."
A blow to the head from behind. Moody fell to the ground with a "oof!" and his eye popped out of its socket.
"The greatest Auror," the voice came from behind him, towering over him. It was with a very thick accent, "Outdone by me."
The smoke cleared for a moment, so Moody could see the face of the man in front of him. It was a face that only he knew. Holding a white mask, and cloaked in black, was a rigid face that was sneering at him.
"Dolohov," he choked, as "Dolohov" raised his wand to his throat.
"Good. You remember me, old friend," he said, raising his wand, "You shouldn't have let me live."
Moody couldn't see. He was down. The old Auror was going to die at the hands of a Death Eater.
"Avada -"
"NO!"
A shadow came out of the fire, and tackled Dolohov. The two of them slammed into the wall, and hit the ground. Another beam from above fell, and Dolohov coughed.
"YOU FOOL!"
Moody scrambled to his feet, picking his eye off of the floor, and pulled out his wand, "Expelliramus!"
The Death Eater's wand went flying, and the shadow jabbed his own wand at Dolohov's throat.
But Dolohov just laughed.
"Don't you laugh at me," the shadow growled, and Moody blinked. He knew that voice.
"It's too late, you fool," Dolohov laughed in the unknown rescuer's face, "They're gone. They're as good as dead."
There was a pop! And Dolohov had disappeared from sight.
"NO!" The shadow felt through the smoke, trying to find his body, "NO! WHERE ARE THEY? WHAT DID YOU DO TO THEM!?"
The shadow stood up, and Moody could see the face of the man who had saved his life. And he grew rigid with surprise.
Sirius Black looked back at him, his eyes hollowed. He pushed his hair out of his face, and he ran past Moody into the nursery. His stature was illuminated by the flames as he stared aimlessly into the room. No one was there, except for a small boy in the corner.
He scanned the room for Lily . . . for Remus . . . for James . . . no one.
They were gone.
"SIRIUS! MR. MOODY!" Peter shouted from the staircase, "THE HOUSE IS COLLAPSING!"
Moody brushed past Sirius, and into the burning nursery. He picked up the boy, and then rushed out.
"Follow me, Mr. Black," he said briskly as he headed for the stairs.
"What about them?" Sirius shouted.
"We can't save them now, Mr. Black," Moody shouted as he descended onto the next level, "He has them."
"NO!" Sirius cried, "NO! I'M NOT LEAVING! JAMES! REMUS! LILY!" he screamed, running into the room.
"Padfoot, come on!" Peter squealed, "Come on! We have to get out of here!"
The roof above Sirius creaked, and he desperately ran into the room, "PRONGS!"
"I'm leaving, Sirius!" Peter shouted from the stairs, and then his voice disappeared.
"JAMES!"
"MR. BLACK!" Frank's voice came from downstairs, "SIRIUS! COME ON! THE HOUSE . . ."
Sirius dropped to his knees. They were gone. He had them. Voldemort had James.
And he would kill him.
He should have been here.
He should have been faster . . .
The smoke engulfed Sirius as he saw Frank's figure in the entrance way. Sirius let his body drop, laughing.
"Why do you think that you have to laugh?" James had asked.
He couldn't stop himself. The tears just came. They were gone. He hadn't been there to save them.
He felt Frank's arms hoist him to his feet, and then force him to walk out of the nursery, down the corridor, down the stairs, and through the broken window.
And Sirius couldn't stop laughing.
(Note about groomsmen/men of honor: For the sake of this story, I'm going to call them men of honor. When my aunt and uncle got married, they called them men of honors for some reason, so that's what I'm used to calling it.)
(Note for readers under 13: Again, violence, etc. It's PG-13. Don't read ahead if you're under 13. Thank you.)
"Now listen to me," Moody said, as they trekked through the streets in the dark of the night, "You still are all hot off the press. You still aren't ready for this sort of thing. But I'm warning you, I will not take kindly to any of you that decide that you know better than either Dumbledore or me. You understand?"
"Yes, sir," James said from behind him, and Remus nodded. The entire Order had been called to an abandoned street. Well, it was abandoned now.
Minutes ago, it had been filled with Death Eaters torching Muggle homes. Now the sky was ablaze with fire as the entire street of houses went up in smoke. Muggles were still trapped inside. Some were already dead.
At least five Dark Marks hung over their heads.
It had been one day since they had been let out of training, and already a catastrophe had struck.
"So what exactly are we supposed to be doing?" Sirius asked.
"Hush up, Mr. Black," Moody snapped, "I'm trying to find our colleagues in this smoke."
They walked through the debris and rubble that was now starting to crowd the streets of the cobblestone road. It was an old neighborhood.
Screams came from all around them.
"Frank! Is that you?" Moody said, pushing past a Muggle woman in a space blanket. Frank Longbottom stood talking to Crouch again, and he waved the six of them over.
"There are at least twenty Muggles left in there!" he was shouting at Crouch.
"There's nothing we can do, Mr. Longbottom," Crouch snapped, "I'm not wasting my men's lives to rescue dead bodies."
"They're alive, Bartemus!"
"What's the problem here," Moody said, stepping in between the two of them.
"Crouch says that we don't have clearance to retrieve the bodies and/or rescue survivors," Frank said.
"And since when does Mr. Crouch have the authority to make such calls," Moody snarled, his eye swiveling to look at the older man.
"Since he was made the head of this department, Alastor," Crouch retorted, "Now take your daycare and move out."
There was a scream from inside the closest building. Remus looked up in horror, and peered through the flaming window. The scream hadn't been one of an adult. It had been a child. An innocent Muggle child.
"Now you listen to me," Moody said, drawing closer, "Just because there isn't any Death Eater here for you to arrest doesn't mean that we clear out and ship off. There are victims in there that I'm going to rescue."
Remus heard the scream again.
"Please! Please help me! Mum! Dad!"
It was a boy.
A little boy.
"Take your hero game somewhere else," Crouch said, "We need all of you to go looking for the ones responsible for this. Not clean up their mess. Now get going."
Moody gave him one murderous look, and then turned on his heels, and motioned for his five newly inducted members to follow him.
"Come along," he said, stalking back to the Portkey that they had taken to the sight, "All of you."
He turned around to look at the four of them, "We've got some rats to catch," he then swiveled around, and grumbled to himself, "Crackpots and the Ministry, wanting the best. Pah. That's a load of . . ."
Four.
There had only been four of them.
His eye swiveled back in his head, and through his skull. There stood Mr. Black, next to James, who was holding Lily's hand, who was next to Peter, and next to Peter . . .
"Where's Lupin?" he demanded, turning around again to look at them.
They shrugged, and then looked back at where they had been standing.
"REMUS! NO!" James shouted.
Remus was quickly making his way closer and closer to the flames, reaching to break the window of one of the houses. James felt his hand let go of Lily's as he ran back to stop him. He was going to kill himself!
Moody sighed, took a swig from his hip flask, and waved them back, "Come on, now children. Let's go get your idiot friends out of the fire."
By the time that James had reached Remus, he had crawled in through the large window, and into the flames. He couldn't see him.
Without thinking, he jumped in, holding his cloaks up to his mouth. It was so dark, and foggy. Smoke engulfed him as he went in farther.
"REMUS?" he shouted through the debris, "LUPIN! ARE YOU IN HERE?"
He heard a scream from a room off to the side, and he jumped over a fallen wooden beam, "REMUS!"
A muffled sound.
"Are you in here?" he shouted.
Not a word.
"REMUS! ANSWER ME!"
"Over here, James! Quick! There's a little boy! He's hurt!"
James turned in the other direction, and jumped up the stairs. Another wooden beam fell from the ceiling, missing him by inches.
"James? Where are you?" Lily's voice sounded from downstairs.
James shot his head to look at the hazy silhouette of his fiancee, and shouted, "No! Lily, no! Stay back! There's a kid up here . . ."
But Lily didn't listen to him. She was soon jumping over the flames trying to burn her robes, and the two of them were climbing the stairs.
"I swear," James said, "Sometimes it'd be good if you listened to me."
They turned a corner, and was hit by the blackest smoke that any of them had ever seen. They coughed, and then dropped to the ground, gasping for air.
"Remus?" James hissed.
"I'm in here!" he shouted, "Quick! Help me! He's badly hurt!"
James and Lily crawled across the corridor, and finally turned into a room that looked like a nursery. There stood Remus, the little boy crouched in the corner, unconscious.
The two of them stood, and ran to his side. But Remus wasn't responsive. He was looking straight ahead of him, his eyes gazing into nothingness.
"Moony?" James hit his shoulder, "Come on, we have to . . . Moony?"
Remus didn't answer.
"Remus, are you all right?" Lily said, looking him in the eyes.
"I can always count on you to save your friends," Remus said, in a voice that did not sound like his own. James knew that tone. It was snakelike . . . evil . . .
"Lily," he said, staring at his friend, "Run."
Lily had the little boy in her arms now, and looked at him incredulously, "What?"
"Run, Lily," he said, louder now, "Get out of here."
"Too late, Potter," Remus said. But this time, there was another voice. Speaking simultaneously with him, "You are both mine."
And then, out of the fires and smoke of the entrance, came the shadow of a demon.
Voldemort had returned.
He nodded his head, and Remus collapsed, in a heap, his breathing shallow. James looked to him in horror.
"Come," Voldemort said, "Come with me."
And then he raised his wand.
"JAMES!" Sirius coughed, running upstairs. He had heard a commotion upstairs. One that sounded like a large explosion.
God, if anything had happened to those three . . .
Nothing had happened. It was probably just his imagination.
"Get out of the way, Mr. Black," Moody pushed him out of the way as he flew up the emblazoned stairs, "Don't think that I'm trusting you to lead us into something."
Sirius glared.
"Lily? Remus? James?" Peter shouted through the house. No answer. Sirius turned to him.
"Come on, Wormtail, they're up here!" he shouted.
"Right," Peter said, following Sirius to where Moody had escaped to.
Moody rounded a corner. Black smoke. Too much of it to be natural. Something was wrong here . . . he couldn't see anything . . .
"Hello, Alastor."
A blow to the head from behind. Moody fell to the ground with a "oof!" and his eye popped out of its socket.
"The greatest Auror," the voice came from behind him, towering over him. It was with a very thick accent, "Outdone by me."
The smoke cleared for a moment, so Moody could see the face of the man in front of him. It was a face that only he knew. Holding a white mask, and cloaked in black, was a rigid face that was sneering at him.
"Dolohov," he choked, as "Dolohov" raised his wand to his throat.
"Good. You remember me, old friend," he said, raising his wand, "You shouldn't have let me live."
Moody couldn't see. He was down. The old Auror was going to die at the hands of a Death Eater.
"Avada -"
"NO!"
A shadow came out of the fire, and tackled Dolohov. The two of them slammed into the wall, and hit the ground. Another beam from above fell, and Dolohov coughed.
"YOU FOOL!"
Moody scrambled to his feet, picking his eye off of the floor, and pulled out his wand, "Expelliramus!"
The Death Eater's wand went flying, and the shadow jabbed his own wand at Dolohov's throat.
But Dolohov just laughed.
"Don't you laugh at me," the shadow growled, and Moody blinked. He knew that voice.
"It's too late, you fool," Dolohov laughed in the unknown rescuer's face, "They're gone. They're as good as dead."
There was a pop! And Dolohov had disappeared from sight.
"NO!" The shadow felt through the smoke, trying to find his body, "NO! WHERE ARE THEY? WHAT DID YOU DO TO THEM!?"
The shadow stood up, and Moody could see the face of the man who had saved his life. And he grew rigid with surprise.
Sirius Black looked back at him, his eyes hollowed. He pushed his hair out of his face, and he ran past Moody into the nursery. His stature was illuminated by the flames as he stared aimlessly into the room. No one was there, except for a small boy in the corner.
He scanned the room for Lily . . . for Remus . . . for James . . . no one.
They were gone.
"SIRIUS! MR. MOODY!" Peter shouted from the staircase, "THE HOUSE IS COLLAPSING!"
Moody brushed past Sirius, and into the burning nursery. He picked up the boy, and then rushed out.
"Follow me, Mr. Black," he said briskly as he headed for the stairs.
"What about them?" Sirius shouted.
"We can't save them now, Mr. Black," Moody shouted as he descended onto the next level, "He has them."
"NO!" Sirius cried, "NO! I'M NOT LEAVING! JAMES! REMUS! LILY!" he screamed, running into the room.
"Padfoot, come on!" Peter squealed, "Come on! We have to get out of here!"
The roof above Sirius creaked, and he desperately ran into the room, "PRONGS!"
"I'm leaving, Sirius!" Peter shouted from the stairs, and then his voice disappeared.
"JAMES!"
"MR. BLACK!" Frank's voice came from downstairs, "SIRIUS! COME ON! THE HOUSE . . ."
Sirius dropped to his knees. They were gone. He had them. Voldemort had James.
And he would kill him.
He should have been here.
He should have been faster . . .
The smoke engulfed Sirius as he saw Frank's figure in the entrance way. Sirius let his body drop, laughing.
"Why do you think that you have to laugh?" James had asked.
He couldn't stop himself. The tears just came. They were gone. He hadn't been there to save them.
He felt Frank's arms hoist him to his feet, and then force him to walk out of the nursery, down the corridor, down the stairs, and through the broken window.
And Sirius couldn't stop laughing.