Padfoot

            As per the Plan, I visited Peter's house two days after the Fidelius Charm took place.

            First I looked around the outside of it; no signs of a struggle.  Good… Good…

            Then I knocked on the door.

            No answer.

            "Peter?" I yelled, knocking harder and ringing the doorbell.  In these times of tension, it didn't take much to set my body on fire with terror.

            No answer.

            "Wormtail!  Peter!  Wormtail!  Peter!"

            I was becoming hysterical, I knew it, I pounded frantically on the door, I ran around the house and looked in all the windows, I saw nothing but darkness.

            "Alohomora!" I bellowed at the nearest entrance, the glass back door.  In my uncontrolled fear, the spell went erratic and shattered it; I didn't care.  I darted into the house, over shards of broken glass.

            The house was quiet.  It looked as though Peter had simply gone out.  But he wouldn't have.  We had made arrangements that I would look in on him tonight.  Unless he had forgotten…

            My heart was pounding in my throat, in my head.  If he had forgotten, if he was causing me this stress just because he was an idiot…

            He's always been an idiot, I though viciously, becoming irrational in my frustration and angry fear.  At school, it had made him eager to fawn over James and I, and Remus, the spy and traitor.  Peter was always so easy to convince of anything.  He would crack under the slightest provocation.  Whatever else we could say for Remus the spy, he was hard to convince of anything once he'd made up his mind.  He would stick to what he believed, and…

            "Oh God…"

            It struck me so suddenly and heavily that I couldn't believe it hadn't done so before.  I hated myself—but I was now the only one who could possibly save the Potters, because I was the only one who knew the truth.  Everyone thought I was the Secret Keeper, even Remus, Remus the friend, not the spy, the friend.  Only Peter knew… Peter the spy.  And now, because of him, I couldn't get to James when he needed me.

            I swore loudly, over and over, screaming, every word I knew.  My thoughts were a barely coherent babble under the icy cold idea lodged firmly at the forefront of my mind—Find them before it's too late.

            I looked around desperately, hoping the answer would jump out and find me, but of course it didn't.  And now I was so consumed with a fright that rendered me utterly childish that I wanted to take it out on something.  Or someone.

            With a mindless cry of fury, I slammed my fist into the nearest object, a lamp, and felt the glass shatter beneath my knuckles.  Yet its glittering fragments showed me the answer as they rained down on a piece of paper on which were written a few words in handwriting I would have known anywhere, that of James Potter.

            Godric's Hollow.

            That was it; that was where they were.  It couldn't be anything else.  The information was general enough that he could reveal it instead of the Secret Keeper, but it would be enough for me to find them.

            If I had to die fighting Voldemort, at least I would die for the Potters, for James and for Lily and for Harry, the little boy whose life they had trusted me with in more ways than one.  A living testament to their love for each other and their faith in me and all that was good in the world.

            Don't think now, just act.  Hasn't that always been your motto, Sirius?

            I sprinted outside to where my motorcycle awaited, jumped onto it and took off, the motor's roar echoing my own internal screaming.  I flew to Godric's Hollow as quickly as I could force the bike to go, not feeling the cold wind on my face.  Nothing could be colder than the fear that almost paralyzed me.  I don't remember the flight.

            I arrived at Godric's Hollow.

            I don't know how I didn't die on the spot—

            I don't know how I didn't just drop onto my knees where I stood and sob until my body ran dry—

            I don't know how I didn't physically fall apart at the sight—

            I stumbled blindly across the smoking ruins of their home… I was shaking violently, I could barely stand—

            Their bodies…

            A saw what looked like a hand, visible from underneath a large piece of debris, a piece of what had been their home.  It was a man's hand.  I don't know where I summoned the strength from, but I heaved what looked to me like half a wall of off the body of James Potter.  He wouldn't want to be hidden like that.  I wanted to look into his face again.

            He was beaten.  He was bruises and blood.  Underneath the mask of death, I could see the face of the person whom I had sworn to protect, that face that would remain forever fixed in an expression of defiance, so fitting for the man who wore it, whom I put above anything and everything else…

            Everything except the two other people who were here somewhere…

            I cast around helplessly

            Red hair.  Only Lily had hair like that, deep and vibrant red.  I always thought her hair reflected her passion for life.  Its colour was not diminished.  I looked more closely; most of her body was exposed.  She was not as covered in blood and death as her husband.  She looked more pure.  Her face was one of desperation.  She hadn't died fighting, as James had, I could tell.

            My heart performed another lurch that threatened to make me ill, when I saw what lay next to her—stuffed animals.  A stag.  A dog.

            oh God oh God she died next to Harry protecting him oh God

            And I did drop to my hands and knees, silent tears pouring from my face, when I saw his tiny body… The body of a baby… not moving… I couldn't form thoughts adequate to express the injustice of this murder, this horrible, horrible, blind violence and death.  I could look James in the face, I could look Lily in the face, but Harry…

            I forced myself.  I wouldn't hide from this.  Damn it, I was a Gryffindor and I was loyal and James had seen worse things.  The least I could do was look at his son, damn it.  That was nothing compared to what they had endured.

            I forced my eyes up, to look at those of young Harry, and instantly felt a new sensation so powerful that it made me light-headed… relief…

            He was breathing.

            He was bleeding.

            He was not moving.

            And he was not dead.

            I let out a strangled cry, almost against my will.  He wasn't dead!  I hadn't failed my friends in what mattered most!  His was the most important life, and Voldemort had not taken it.

            How?  The question emerged to ripple dumbly under my numb brain.  I found I didn't care.  It didn't matter how, it just matter that it was true.  Laughter was bubbling up from inside me.  How could I be kneeling here, next to the lifeless bodies of my friends, and laugh?  Because Harry was alive, that was how.

            I crawled across the rubble to him and picked him up clumsily.  He was unconscious, and there was a cut across his forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt.  But he was alive…and he was mine now.

            Terror stabbed me.  I was Harry's guardian and godfather.  He was my godson, I knew that consciously, but—I had always told James that all my job as godfather entailed was leading him into a life of trouble-making.

            "Godfather, right?" I had said.  "Like the Mafia.  I'm the Godfather."

            "Yeah, and then it's my job, as the father, to steer him straight again," James had agreed.

            But now James wasn't here.  I had to be the father, too.  Somehow I thought I would be much better at being a bad influence than a good one.  Remus would be the good guy… Remus, who was innocent, because Peter was guilty—

            Peter.  He was out there somewhere.  He had sold us all out.

            I would kill him.

            Another realization struck me.  No one else knew about Peter.  They all thought I was the Secret Keeper.  When the world found out about this… they would hunt me down and let Peter go free…

            I was the only one who knew the truth.  Even Dumbledore's word was against me, and Remus'…

            Again I cursed myself for not trusting Remus.  For being an idiot.  I had been so sure.

            I wouldn't have risked so much if I hadn't been sure, I told myself furiously.

            That doesn't matter, I answered myself.

            I could still try to make it up to them, in some small way.  I could raise Harry into a good person and strong wizard.  I could find Peter—and kill him—the way he deserved to die—before the Ministry found me.

            There I knelt, with my twin responsibilities, one of which was beginning to stir in my arms.  He was starting to cry; I felt more helpless than him.  At least he knew what he was supposed to do.  I didn't know where to begin.

            "Oh, Harry, please don't cry," I whispered, standing up to walk with him the way I had seen Lily do.

            Could I be a mother, too?  Could I be everything to this child?  If I didn't, who would?

            I wiped the blood from his forehead, flinching at the sight of the cut.  Voldemort had wounded him badly.

            Where was Voldemort?  And why was Harry not dead?  Hadn't he been the target?  I was scared to even think such questions, for fear that I would get answers I didn't want.

            Because I couldn't think of anything else to say, and because I was still unused to using his name without those of his parents nearby, I said in a sing-song voice as I walked, "Harry, Harry, please stop crying, Harry.  Harry Potter, don't cry, Little Pr—Little Harry.  Baby Harry."  I wanted him to stop so that I could go hunt down Peter, but I knew it was ridiculous to think that I could now that I was a fugitive and, for all intents and purposes, a single father.

            "Harry?"

            I jumped, though I recognized the gruff voice.  "Hagrid?"

            His figure was unmistakable.  He was massive.  He stepped through the rubble, looking around in horror.  "Sirius?" he asked quietly.

            I realized I was shaking slightly, and I held Harry tighter to stop myself.

            "Hagrid… What are you doing here?"  I know I was being paranoid, but I didn't know who I could trust.  Except Harry.  Except Remus.  Everyone else was out to get me.  Everyone else thought I had been the Secret Keeper.  I didn't occur to me then that even Remus would, of course, believe me guilty; all I managed to think about him was that he had not been a traitor, and that made him my friend.

            "Dumbledore sent me," Hagrid replied, and I could hear him controlling the tears behind his words.  "He said… You-Know-Who… disappeared."

            "What?  Lord Voldemort is gone?"

            "Harry's alive, isn' he?  Tha' means You-Know-Who didn' do what he wanted.  Summat stopped him."

            "But what?  How could anything stop him?"

            Hagrid only shook his head, closing his eyes to block out the images of death and destruction that saturated the senses here in Godric's Hollow.  That name still means death to me.

            "Can I… Can I hold Harry?" asked Hagrid after a moment of silence, looking up at me with those beetle eyes.

            "Of course."

            I handed the baby, the last Potter, over to the huge man, who carefully took him in his own massive arms with impressive gentleness.  He was used to caring for animals as delicate as wounded unicorns, after all, though in my mind, Harry was a far more pure and vulnerable creature.  He would never, in future years, be as innocent as he had been on that day—that was the day he lost his innocence forever.

            We stood there, looking at the child who meant everything to everyone just then, and finally I said, "I should take him somewhere safe."

            "No, Sirius, I'm supposed ter take him."

            I looked up into Hagrid's eyes.  "What?  What did you say?"

            "Dumbledore told me I'm supposed ter bring Harry to a place he's got set up fer him, with his family, some relatives of his mother's…"

            Lily's words echoed in my mind, dark words about her sister who hated all things magical.  It was unacceptable that Harry Potter should live with such people.  It was just wrong.  I didn't know who the hell Dumbledore thought he was, suggesting that.

            "Lily's relatives are Muggles!" I said viciously.  "He doesn't belong with them!  He belongs in our world!"  I heard my voice trembling.  As much as I felt dwarfed by my new responsibility, I didn't want Harry taken out of my life.  He was my last link to anything good in the world.

            "I'm jus' gonna do what Dumbledore told me ter."

            "That's not what Lily and James wanted," I insisted, still frustrated by the fact that neither my voice nor my body would stop trembling.  One more thing I had lost control over.  I wouldn't lose Harry.  "I'm his godfather, Hagrid, give him to me."

            "Sirius, I've got orders," Hagrid said, holding Harry steadfastly.  "If yeh've got a problem, talk ter Dumbledore, 'cause I'm not about ter change anything he's got planned."

            His advice gave me a sudden inspiration.  If I let Harry go, just for now, to live with his relatives, whom I was still convinced were horrible people, I would at least be free to find Peter.  Then, once my name was cleared, I would take everything up with Dumbledore, who would rearrange his plans and give Harry to me.  It would be a little tricky, since the Ministry was surely hunting for me already, but I could do it; finding Peter would take a day at the most.  He was predictable.  The one thing he'd ever done that I hadn't expected was—

            Well, I knew what I was dealing with after this.

            "Okay," I said finally.  "Take my bike, Hagrid.  I won't be needing it anymore."

            I offered the bike because it was so well-known as property of Sirius Black, who was now a criminal on the run.  It hurt me almost as much to say goodbye to that bike as it did to say goodbye to Harry, for some stupid reason.  I guess because it was like admitting that my life had been changed forever, and I was no longer free, just a rebel without a cause.  I had a damn good cause now, but no real way to rebel, other than to find Peter and make him puppy chow.  Woof.

            I make little jokes in the worst situations; everyone knows that I'm approaching my most traumatized when I start making stupid jokes, and that I'm there when I actually start laughing at them.

            "Thanks, Sirius," Hagrid said.  "Yer sure?"

            "Absolutely.  I have…things to do.  I won't need it."

            "I'll see yeh, then."

            "I hope so."

            I watched Hagrid fly away, taking everything I valued with him.  He shrank in the distance, and my mind returned to the moment.  I Disapparated, bound for Peter's house; he would go there, since he had nowhere else to run.  If he was smart, he would know I was after him… so it was likely that he wouldn't suspect a thing.

            It's hard to remember how much I hated him just then— The years of pure venom I built up against him all blur together, so that it's hard even for me to remember a day when I didn't wish him the pain of a thousand deaths.  I still yearn to wring the life out of his worthless rat neck…

            I waited outside his house, on his doorstep, for him to return.  He shouldn't have made me wait so long; it only gave my rage a chance to simmer and boil and reach an all-consuming level, so that all I could see in my mind's eye was myself killing him—images of his death—of James and Lily's bodies—Harry crying—Hagrid flying away—the end.

            Sunrise bled across the horizon.

            How I spotted him I don't know, other than to say that my whole body was so tuned to seek him out that I could have spotted him from further away then I did.  I froze, like a dog that had found its prey, because that's what I was.  But I did not have the patience of an animal; they never kill for emotional reasons, for revenge.

            I leapt to my feet and screamed, "PETER!"

            He jumped; he physically left the ground.  He was wringing his hands, his eyes darting around, looking perfectly terrified.  He had known I was looking for him.  He couldn't have been that stupid, even though I had hoped he was.  No, he knew me well enough to know that his life was forfeit if I found him, and so he no doubt had been slinking around, avoiding me, and when he had gone so many hours without encountering me, had decided to chance returning to his home.

            Do I know my old school friends or what?

            Obviously not.

            I whipped out my wand, not caring that we were in a Muggle area, and Peter bolted.  I went after him, my bloodlust granting me preternatural endurance and speed.  My heartbeat pounded out my mantra.

            Peter.  Traitor.  Wormtail.  Traitor.

            Harder and faster…

            Murder.  Traitor.  Peter.  Wormtail.

            Over and over…

            PETER!  TRAITOR!  WORMTAIL!  MURDER!

            He darted into an alley.  I let out a cry of victory through my ragged breathing as I drew near his hiding place.  Less than a block away.  Now I had him.  Now I would kill him.

            He jumped out, tears streaming down his face, which was twisted in agony.

            "HOW DARE YOU CRY FOR YOURSELF!"  I roared.  He couldn't have been crying for anyone else.  I believe it to this day.

            The Muggles all around drew back, transfixed in shock.

            "Sirius, no!"

            Mothers clutched their frightened children to them, terrified by the confrontation.

            "I'LL KILL YOU, PETER, BUT YOU DESERVE WORSE!"

            Sobbing, he cried out at the top of his voice, in the middle of a street full of staring Muggles, "LILY AND JAMES, SIRIUS, HOW COULD YOU!"

            I realized in one thunderstruck moment what he was doing, but it all happened so quickly.  He drew a knife, he cut off his finger—

            I thrust my wand in his direction—

            "PETER, YOU—"

            Never before or since did Peter Pettigrew move more quickly than another one of the Marauders.  I didn't hear the incantation, or I don't remember it, or it was lost in my own fury.  I did feel the blast.

            It was not strong enough even to hurt a wizard like myself, but as I felt its force wash over me I knew it was more than adequate to take the life of a Muggle, and there were many Muggles within even closer range than I was…

            When the smoke cleared, there was no Peter.  There was his finger lying amid tatters of his robes and his blood.

            There were bodies everywhere… Muggle bodies… Those left alive were screaming, running…

            I knew what he had done.  He had not simply let the blame fall to me by default; he had framed me.  Not just for betraying the Potters, but now for murdering all these people, as well as himself.

            He had killed James and destroyed his family.

            He had sentenced me to lifetime of suffering in Azkaban.

            He had left Remus alone to pick up the pieces of all our grief and betrayal.

            He had gotten away clean.

            In a sick way, it was brilliant.

            And I laughed.

            It swelled within me and burst out, all my hyperextended and stretched emotions, in laughter.  The Ministry officials were coming, swooping down out of nowhere.  They had just been waiting for this.

            I laughed.

            "How many dead?"

            "I'm still counting."

            "Oh, God, children…"

            But not Harry!  He was safe with his relatives.

            I laughed.

            "He said he was going to kill Pettigrew."

            "Witnesses said he mentioned Lily and James."

            "Of course, he was their Secret Keeper."

            "And a Death Eater."

            Yes, that was Peter, their Secret Keeper and Death Eater.  Their personal Death Eater.  They thought it was me!  How silly!

            I laughed.

            "Sirius Black, you are under arrest for the crime of murder."

            That was why I was being manhandled, handcuffed, taken away.

            And still I laughed.

            What else could  I do?