A/N: waves: hi! I wish you all a happy Valentine's I forgot to mention that on the previous chapter and I didn't realize I put it up on Valentine's Day until Jennie pointed it out. Which is pretty cool. This story is getting longer and longer all the time. Any way I want to give a special shout out to harrypotterfan52 you, my fair lady, rock my world:). Big shout out to you as soon as I can get my muse back and finish Peter's chapter for September 1, 1971. It's almost done. Seriously. Sorry about the dely I've been sick. The next chapter should be up shortly. Anyway...wish me luck, I'm sending in a submission to the Iowa Young Writer's Studio! (I don't know how to make a nervous smiley but it goes here.)

Truly and Always

-The Evil Duck

The Child of The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black

-Interlude II-

Getting There

January 1976

Remus looks around the room. It's seven o'clock in the morning on Friday, he's probably been awake for hours, but I'm just getting up, as is Peter. We are only awake because Remus has lit all the candles in the room, pulled back our curtains, and yanked off our blankets to make sure we won't be late for classes. Bloody Prefect.

"Where's Sirius?" he asks. Sirius is usually the last one awake, and the hardest to wake up. If left to his own devices Sirius would go to bed at about three in the morning and wouldn't wake up before noon. This is why Remus never leaves Sirius to his own devices. Sometimes it's like having McGonagall as a roommate.

"He isn't here," I shrug.

"I can see that," says Remus. Wormtail is now interested too.

"No I mean he isn't at school, he left at about four," I tell them. "'He isn't at school?'" Remus repeats.

"He's in London," I say.

"He's where!" Moony looks at me disbelievingly.

"London, you know it's the capital of England, really big city in the south, Sirius lives the--"

"I know what London is, but what is he doing there on a Friday in the middle of term!" It's that badge I swear, his Prefect badge is the source of all this eerie authoritativeness. Without it on he's just Moony, with it on he's the Prefect formally known as Remus Lupin.

"He's going to talk to Amethyst."

"On a Friday in the middle of term?" Remus repeats himself.

"Yeah, it's very important," I nod throwing myself out of bed searching for my glasses, which always manage to get themselves lost.

Remus inhales deeply, "tell me exactly what's going on."

"Right," I say and I begin to tell him...

"I couldn't sleep. It must have four in the morning (or something like that, it was far too early to actually figure out what time it was) but there was something keeping me up. Actually, more accurately , it was the lack of something keeping me up. Sirius was still awake so he wasn't moaning, rolling around, talking, or doing any of the usual bizarre things he does in his sleep, it's really harmonic to me after five years of having to deal with it. I have trouble falling asleep without him making his weird dog noises. I mean, when they're absent because he's with...female company...I can manage to fall asleep because he isn't smoking, well not in front of me at least. But last night...er...this morning he was. You, Moony, were choking most of the night. I was going to shout at Sirius but my brain wasn't working properly. Don't you hate that feeling when you aren't awake, but you aren't asleep and no matter how desperately you want to yell at the stupid prick in the bed next to yours you don't have the strength to open your mouth?

"So, I rolled over and fell out of bed and banged my head against the floor. I reached up to grab my glasses and the blurry shape that had pulled back the drapes to his bed turned out to be Sirius. He had a lit cigarette in his mouth and had a small box opened on his bed.

"'What?' he asked as if I'd done something wrong. Me of all people.

"'Good morning to you too, Padfoot,' I nodded and some how managed to get into a sitting position, 'go to bed, will you? You're keeping some of us up.'

"'Not tired,' he said, blowing one of those annoying smoke rings, which really can't be terribly hard to do. You know, I've finally worked out the spell he uses to make all those funny smoke shapes, the dragons, ships, lions, and all that. I could probably do it. Scratch that, of course I could do it, I just don't want to.

"'Right then,' I said. He had letters spread out all over his bed and when I got closer to have a look at them he yanked the curtain closed.

"'D'you mind?' He asked from his bed.

"'Yes actually,' I told him. He didn't respond. 'What's wrong now?'

"'Nothing,' He said.

"'What is it?' this time I pulled open his curtains. He's kept all of her love letters in a box under his bed or something like that. 'What the bloody hell are you doing?'

"'I...y'know...I...love her, James...' he said pathetically, hopelessly, very unPadfoot like in most respects."

Wormtail makes a small starstruck 'ah' noise, as if he's in awe of Sirius for falling in love. He's just never out of awe I suppose, but around me it's understandable. I don't know what he sees in Sirius.

"'Yeah, I know. I got two galleons because of it,' I said."

"Why did you get two galleons?" Remus interrupts. He isn't part of this bet.

"I bet Sirius back in first year that he would believe in love by the end of our seventh. That was two galleons, but there are also two galleons on whether Evans and I will wind up together in the end."

Remus starts to laugh and Peter soon joins in.

"What?"

"I want in on this," says Remus, "I could use the galleons."

"But how are you going to pay me when you lose?" I ask Remus.

"Oh," he says, "I think I'll manage. So two galleons that you and Evans will never date."

"Fine," I say, "but I don't accept IOU's."

"I'm in too! I'm in too!" says Peter.

"I'm going to be bleeding rich," I say.

Remus snorts and Peter giggles. "Continue," says Remus.

"So Sirius said, 'but she's--look, you're like a brother to me. The only family in the world that I give a rat's arse about, but she--well, she's almost my best friend, mate. We're friends, nothing more. What if I...?' He stared at his bed.

"'Hang on,' I said, 'are you trying to tell me that Sirius Black, self proclaimed 'sex god' and resident man-whore of Hogwarts doesn't know how to ask a girl out?'

"'This is different,' he blushed, he's been doing that a lot lately and it's starting to creep me out, 'she's different.' He looked back at me and saw that I'd picked up one of her letters and he went to grab it from me. Of course I was standing and could turn away from him, he was sitting on his knees and at a bad angle, in other words I easily evaded him. You should read the mush they've been sending to each other, and he thinks he's nothing but a friend to her. I've never heard a bigger load of tosh.

"It's like Dear Sirius, my friend Ella keeps trying to set me up with her brother, but he's no where near as much fun as you, and Dear Sirius I miss you so much! I can't wait until I get to see you again! and they're all signed Love, or Always, well, the recent ones at least. The early ones aren't so mushy and are signed from or something boring like that, anyway, I read the letter out loud and Sirius got really mad at me and his eyes turned something like red , I swear, and he would of killed me had I not tossed back the letter.

"'I never thought I'd ask you this James, but what to I do?' He said.

"I've to tell you I was horrified. But I told him what I was thinking, 'honestly, mate? you've got to tell her. You've got this chance, this one shot, to be happy for the rest of your life--'

"'But what if--?' he said

"'What if nothing,' I like to think I sounded rather wise," (Remus snorts) "'you never know until you try something, right? Capi every Diem? Live in the moment, don't think of the consequences? Do what's in your heart? Isn't that supposed to be your territory? What's the worst that could happen, mate?' I think I may be becoming a Legimancer because when he looked at me I saw everything he thought could go wrong.

"'How do I tell her?' he said, 'write a letter? Dear Am,' he mimed writing in the air. I snorted at the nickname and he threw a pillow at me. 'I'm actually falling in -- Hell, do you know how hard it is for me even to say that word?'

"'Very,' I guessed and he nodded. 'You should tell her in person,' I told him.

"'The next holiday is Easter and I don't plan on going to "the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black" for that. I want to see her, but I don't want to have to deal with my family...I want to see her now.' "'So what's the problem?' I asked.

"He looked up at me, 'I don't really know. Tell the professors I died or something, I'm going to London...'

"I said, 'Padfoot, there's only small problem.'

"'That being,' he was already getting dressed.

"'How are you planning on getting to London. It's a bit far away mate, us being in Northern Scotland and all.'

"'Point,' he said, you could see the little gears turning in his head, 'Right, I'm going to apperate.'"

"You're joking," Remus interrupts, "we haven't quite figured it out yet! For all you know Sirius could be spread out all over Britain."

"That's brilliant!" said Wormtail with his eyes glowing, "I wish I could do that!"

"Nah," I say, "we're fifteen year old Animagi, we can do anything. Besides Sirius and I have done it a few times already. It isn't that difficult. I don't see why we're supposed to wait until we're seventeen to--"

"Because it's dangerou--," Remus starts but rolls his eyes, "I don't know James. So what, he snuck into Hogsmede in the middle of the night and Apperated across the country?"

"Yeah, why?" I ask.

"Nothing," he says in that Prefect way of his, "no reason at all. I should have suspected as much. So what, if we don't hear from him by noon we should assume he's dead?"

"Nah," I say, "we should give him at least until tomorrow. If he lost a leg he should have retrieved it by then."

Elsewhere:

You learn things in life, right? Lesson number one for January 28, 1976: never try to apperate great distances when the most you've done is from one side of Hogsmede to the other. I'm lucky I'm still whole. The question is, where the Hell am I?

Let's see, it's about four AM in Scotland and it's still dark here, so that means I'm hopefully in the same time zone. Okay, I'm defiantly in a Muggle town, which is why it's good that it's still dark out. There's an open petrol station, sign's in English, always a plus. So I go into the little office where there's a bloke sleeping behind the counter. I say "Hello," he doesn't move, I say it louder, nothing.

"Oi! Mate! Wake up!" That's got him.

"Sorry 'slate. You been there long?" He says without really raising his head of the counter. He's got a very thick Irish accent and that's got me worried. Sure, it wouldn't be as far as that time James accidentally wound up in Hawaii, but still pretty far off the mark. I'm praying he's an immigrant or something and I'm at least in the right country.

"No, er, I was just wondering what town I was in exactly?" I ask. He raises an eyebrow and smirks a little. It's not an arrogant smirk more of a 'you're worrying me' kind of thing.

"Innsmoth, just outside of Cork," he says.

"Cork?" Oh fuck, "as in Ireland? I'm in Ireland?"

"Yeah, why? Where are you going?"

"London," I'm already past the pumps.

"By foot?" he calls.

"Not quite," I say, "you're dreaming."

"I figured that already," he calls, and I'm gone with my fingers crossed.