Padfoot
Do you know what I hate?
Disloyalty. Distrust. When you feel that little bit of fear growing inside you that makes you wonder if you're safe turning your back on your best friends. Most people are lucky enough to go through life without ever having to wonder if the people they've grown up and trusted their lives with are trying to kill them. I wasn't so lucky—I've never been lucky.
I suppose fate smiled on me when I was born into a wealthy family, but it was a family that hated me. I was a Gryffindor and they were all Slytherins… Do I really need to explain any further? I physically cut them out of my life when I was sixteen, but really I had shut them out long before that. I began a life that was good.
At eleven, I had made friends with the three other Gryffindor boys in my year. At twelve, I learned that one of our friends was a werewolf. At fifteen, the other three of us became Animagi. At sixteen, I ran away from home. At seventeen, I got a place of my own and built my own life. At eighteen, I graduated form Hogwarts and joined the Order of the Phoenix. At twenty, I was best man at my best friend's wedding. At twenty-one, I became a godfather to their son. That's all that really matters about the first years of my life. That is, that's all that really matters to the public. My private life is mine; if it becomes relevant, I'll share it, but until then, it's not important to tell the world.
My life beyond when I was twenty-one really is history, though it's been twisted so that it's really more like myth. It's a story about betrayal and paranoia. It begins with the paranoia.
Someone was after James and his family, and that was an issue close to my heart. James was like a brother to me, Lily was like a sister, and Harry was like my own son. I pride myself on being as loyal as is humanly possible, or more. I show no fear when it comes to matters of my friends, or matters of many other things, for that matter. People often thought I was kind of wild and insensitive; I never minded that reputation, because I was young and danger was fun. I still think things that don't have at least a small risk are pretty boring, but I've learned that being known to the world as a rebel—with or without a cause—can be dangerous. It made people think I wasn't a loyal friend, and if there's one thing I'll keep insisting until time ends, it's that I am a loyal friend. I want the world to know that, if they know nothing else about me. Forget that I was rich and popular and handsome and powerful if you want, I don't care. But remember that my conscience is clear about my loyalties.
I was bound and determined to keep James, Lily and Harry safe, if I had to give up my own life or anything else in order to do it. I can say with a straight face and complete sincerity that if Voldemort had been willing to take my life in exchange for theirs, I would have prostrated myself before him. But I knew about the prophecy, so I knew that would never work. Besides, James was just like me; he would have tried to stop me from giving myself up for him. Suicide is never the answer, no matter how hopeless life seems. Never.
At first, it wasn't really hard to keep the Potters safe. Dumbledore is just as smart and tricky as Voldemort, if not more so, and he understands the way the Dark Arts think to a degree that's really uncanny. But then things changed, and it became obvious that Harry was the one in the prophecy. Voldemort had chosen him.
Those of us who were close to the Potters began receiving owls trying to persuade us to give up information:
You are losing this war. Soon, we will control the world and be merciless against those who have not supported us. It is not too late for you to repent and join the winning side. Give us information about your friends, and we will not consider you an enemy.
If you do not join us, you will be considered an opponent. If you're not with us, you're against us. Surrender before you are forced to.
Needless to say, I got more than a few. So did Remus and Peter; there was no doubt about who the Death Eater's meant by the phrase "your friends;" the Potters and Dumbledore himself. At first I simply ignored the owls, but when they didn't stop, I wrote back:
I will never turn over my friends to you, no matter what you threaten me with. I would sooner die than live in your world.
You say you'll consider me an opponent if I don't support you, and that if I'm not with you, then I must be against you. Well, just so there's no confusion—I am your opponent. I am against you.
Kill me if you want, but that will just give my friends another reason to want you dead. My godson included.
I don't know if they knew who my godson was, but I'm sure they could figure it out. It was my own way of threatening them, showing them that I knew what they wanted and I knew what their weakness was. I thought that these owls were a nuisance, of course, but not really a problem because none of our friends would give in to the threats, no matter how persistent they were.
I always hate being wrong, but in matters like these where life and death are at stake… People really need to be sure they know what they're getting into when they let me down.
A few weeks after the owls started, it became clear that someone had cracked. The Death Eaters had information about the Potters, who started receiving very personalized threats. Someone left a bouquet of petunias on their doorstep, with a card that read, We can kill her, too. Lily knew it meant her sister, and although they were enemies, the threat showed an intimate knowledge of her life. It unnerved her. It unnerved all of us—only a very few people knew Lily had a sister at all. Someone on our side had to have told them. Someone was a traitor. We didn't know who... I was beginning to get an idea, though, of who might be stabbing us in the back. I didn't want to think it, it didn't want it to be possible, I told myself over and over that it was impossible, but the suspicion lurked unbidden in the back of my mind.
The most terrifying was the one threat that we never even told Dumbledore about. One morning, when James opened the door to grab the newspaper, he found a sight that nearly made him sick—a dead fawn. The note tied around its grotesquely bent neck had two words scrawled in sharp, black writing: Little Prongs.
They summoned me right away when they received it. When I Apparated in their living room, Lily was clutching Harry and crying, and James was white as a ghost and shaking as he wandered about aimlessly.
"What is it?" I asked as soon as I saw them.
Wordlessly, James pointed to the open door, and I saw the carcass of the animal lying there, innocent eyes staring blankly. It made me, too, feel dizzy with horror. I remember fighting the bile in my throat as I closed the door so that I wouldn't have to look at it. Not that closing the door made a difference when the image had seared itself into my mind's eye.
They had every reason to be so terrified; Little Prongs was my nickname for Harry, because he looked so much like his father. The joke was that it was his Indian name. The only people who knew about it, besides those of us in the room, were Remus and Peter. That meant that one of them was the spy, and had told Voldemort every detail of our lives. The feeling I got at that moment, of my stomach dissolving and sinking beyond the core of my body, was unforgettable and horrible, without a doubt one of the worst sensations which a human being can endure. This confirmed my suspicion.
I remember looking into James' face and seeing a terror there that I had never seen in my life. James was as fearless as me, and yet here he was on the verge of tears. His son was his life, and Voldemort wanted him dead, and one of our best friends was helping that happen. There was nothing I could say. There was nothing I could do. I hate being helpless.
It was Dumbledore who came up with the idea, two days later, that would keep them safe. We never did know why the timing was so exact—maybe he did know about the threat. At the time, we were all just too grateful that there was hope for Harry to think about the logistics.
Now we come to the part everyone knows. Dumbledore suggested the Fidelius Charm, and James insisted that I be the Secret Keeper. That's all people know; the rest is lies and careful omissions. For example, no one thinks of the fact that James and Lily didn't want to perform the charm in the first place. In order for their home to be a secret, they would have to uproot entirely and move to a new neighbourhood. They didn't want to destroy their old lives, but they knew they didn't have a choice. They had to do it, for Harry.
Their son was over a year old by now. He was walking, he could say a few words: "Mama," "Dada," "food," "no," and "hi." Attempts as his own name came out as "Ha-ee"…and then there was "Siiiiis!" That was what he called me, and he always said it with exuberance. James tried to coin the moniker "Uncle Padfoot," and though he could manage "Unnle Paffoo" when he really tried, Harry seemed to have more fun fitting as many i's as possible into my name to draw out that one syllable indefinitely. Even when he was fifteen, I looked at Harry and saw the grinning baby who called me by those titles. I don't think he ever caught me just watching him and smiling, remembering…wishing…
It is true that James and Lily wanted me to be their Secret Keeper. They confronted me about it the very day after Dumbledore had presented them with the concept.
"You're Harry's godfather," Lily said. "We've already entrusted you with the most important thing in the world to us."
"We know that we can trust you," James told me. "And right now… It's impossible to know if we can trust anyone else."
I know it cost him a great deal to say that. I could hear it in the way his voice dropped, and I hated that the world had become a place where people as wonderful and James and Lily Potter didn't have anyone to trust. I wonder if they knew that my answer was as difficult for me to give as it was for them to receive.
"I would do anything for you," I began. "Anything. And that includes this. But I don't think I'm the smartest choice."
They both stared at me in disbelief. "Why not?"
I shook my head. "I'm too obvious. It'll take the Death Eaters about a minute to find out that you've used the Fidelius Charm, and then who's the first person they're going to run to? I'm not saying I'd crack under torture, because there's no way in hell that I would, but I just think it would be safer to use someone who they won't even think of."
"You're not suggesting Dumbledore, then, I guess," said James slowly, frowning. "He's just as obvious as you."
I nodded. "I'm suggesting we figure out which of our friends is the spy—Remus or Peter—and then make the other your Secret Keeper."
Lily gasped. "That's so dangerous! What if we guess wrong?"
I didn't want to have to say this… It was the worst thing I'd ever had to do. I have never so dearly wished to be wrong about something—and yet so regretted it when that wish came true.
Yet at the time, I was sure. I forced the words out. "I don't think we will guess wrong. I think I know who the spy is."
The silence that greeted these words was not unexpected. Like me, Lily and James didn't want to think that any of their friends could be responsible for the horrors in their lives, and though they were intellectually aware that it was true, they couldn't admit it to their hearts. Hearing me say it made it somehow more real, to them and to me.
"Oh," said James in a flat voice finally. Then, anger growing in his tone, "But… how can you be sure? How can you even suspect that one of our friends—?"
"I don't want to," I interrupted him, before he could go off on a rant. "Believe me, I love our friends as much as you do, and I desperately wish that… But that's not the point. I've been thinking about this for a long time, and I think there's only one conclusion we can come to."
More silence. I wanted them to ask me to say it, to force me to. They didn't want to. I couldn't blame them.
"It's… I think it's…Lupin."
I called him by his last name because it was less personal. Remus was our smart, fun friend that we talked to about just about anything. Moony was our once a month crazy adventure buddy on four legs. They wouldn't betray us; Lupin, however, might. Calling him by a title I normally didn't use made him seem like a stranger.
"Remus?" breathed Lily.
"Why?" demanded James.
They didn't believe me. I closed my eyes. Why did they have to make this so hard for all of us? Why couldn't they just accept it?
Not that I could accept it, if I was honest with myself. Idly saying that Remus was a traitor was one thing, but to actually act on that suspicion was something I didn't know if I could face.
"Because he's smart," I said. "And he's independent. And he'll do anything to get friends. And he's experienced with lying and concealing information."
"But he's loyal. He's our friend, and he'll do anything for us."
"I know, James, I know!" I pounded the table with my fist, frustrated with the whole situation. "But Peter's our friend, too, but one of them's… Look, don't you think it's hard enough for me to suggest this? I don't want to believe it either, James, I don't, but we have to! For our own safety! For Harry's safety!"
"You're making me choose between my most trusted friends and my son?" James shouted, standing up.
I rose to my feet as well. "Voldemort's making you choose! If it were up to me, none of us would ever have to doubt each other! No Dark Lord would be trying to kill you and none of our friends would be stabbing us in the back!"
"I don't want to sink to his level by turning on the people who, for all I know, are trying to save me—"
"I'm trying to save you, James! And for all you know, they're trying to kill you! We don't know anything for sure!"
"Then how do I know you're not the traitor?"
His voice came out in booming tones, ringing through the room. I couldn't think of an answer. We simply stared at each other. Then Lily said in a quiet, firm voice, "James, sit down. Sirius…"
I sat before she could tell me to and ran my fingers through my hair, exasperated. I didn't know whether his accusation was proving my point or not. "God damn it," I whispered in frustration.
"Sirius," said Lily after a moment of unbearable silence, "We know you're only trying to help, we know you'd never do anything to hurt us…"
"No," I said calmly. "No, you don't know that. You believe it, and I know it, and I hope to God you keep believing it, because it's true. But you don't know it. You don't know who you can trust. Maybe you can't even trust Dumbledore. You have to choose who you're going to trust, and you also have to choose who not to trust. I can tell you what I would do…and what I believe…but that's all, because I don't know any more than you do."
Another silence followed this, but it was a clear, calm, resigned silence instead of that horrible stunned silence attached to my previous revelations. Then James said quietly, "So what would you do?"
"I would trust me, Dumbledore, Peter, and each other. And that's all."
Silence again.
"Why… why not Remus?" Lily asked tentatively.
"All I'm saying is, if I were a Death Eater, I'd find Remus a much better ally than Peter. Peter follows us around, James, worshipping the ground we walk on. Remus has a mind of his own, and he's smart. He's faced oppression all his life, I guess he could think the Death Eaters are a good way to seek some revenge. I'm sure they wouldn't turn down a werewolf among their ranks."
"There's more to Remus than just lycanthropy," James snapped irritably.
"Don't you think I know that? But Death Eaters would certainly find that a valuable asset, wouldn't they? It's like I said before. Remus likes to be liked. Not just that, he desperately needs acceptance to survive. If he finds a group of people that appreciate all aspects of him, even the darker ones, wouldn't he want to join? Wouldn't he do anything to fit in?"
"We appreciate all aspects of him," James retorted stubbornly.
"Have you honestly never wished that he wasn't a werewolf?"
Silence again. The stubborn silence of James Potter when he doesn't want to admit that I'm right.
"So what do we do?"