Sorry for the slight delay, I had to write the chapter for my other fic, I hope this installment was worth the wait.

As always, a huge thank you to Ambush99 for betaing this chapter!

Chapter 35

"Sirius!" James said, desperately shaking the still, unresponsive figure. Panic grew, as his friend continued to be limp, unmoving and cold to the touch. Had Sirius' warning come to pass? Had his killing curse deflected off the horcrux and hit Sirius? Had he killed his best friend? He couldn't have, Sirius had been so alive and full of life moments before. But then, he thought shaking his head, so had most victims of the killing curse.

"Padfoot, come on! Don't do this to me, I can't do this alone!" James whispered, laying a hand on his friend's still shoulder. He frowned. Why hadn't he done it before? Hesitantly, he rested two fingers on his friend's neck and waited. He let out the breath he didn't realise he was holding. Sirius was alive, but what had caused his collapse? Could it have been blood loss? He looked down at the still bleeding hand, and hastily wrapped it, knowing that he'd need to clean it out before he healed it.

"Padfoot," he said, again shaking the unresponsive figure. "Mate, what the hell is happening?!" Still no response. No nothing. He closed his eyes for a moment. What the hell did he do now? He couldn't very well pop into St. Mungo's. He needed to… he almost slapped himself as Sirius' last words came back to him. 'Whatever happens, as soon as the Horcrux is destroyed, you need to apparate out of here'. "Fuck Sirius, you're not making it easy for me are you. Accio locket," he said pointing at the still smoldering wreck of a horcrux. Gathering their bags together, James wrapped his arms around Sirius and apparated.

He staggered forward, weigh down with two bags and the limp form of his best friend, as he landed hard in their latest location. The Isle of Sheppey, a low lying island in the Thames estuary. The settlements tended to occupy the coastal areas, leaving most of the inland untouched, save the numerous power lines criss-crossing the island. He gently lay his friend down, covering him with his cloak. "Mate," he said quietly, shaking him. Still no response. But he was still breathing, and the blood didn't appear to have soaked through the crudely made bandage.

He stood and quickly started to mutter the familiar words, setting up the various protective wards. He flicked his wand towards Sirius' tent, setting it up. "I've said this before and I'll say it again, mate you are really not making this easy for me," he said, dragging his friend's unconscious form into the tent and out of the elements. Once he had Sirius settled on the bed, he ran a diagnostic spell over him but it came back with nothing. Nothing to explain his friend's present, unconscious state. "Sirius, what the hell is happening?" he muttered to no one in particular. Figuring his friend wasn't in any immediate danger, he sank down and leant against the bed. What a crazy twenty four hours it had been. Had it only been twenty four hours since he had met Sirius in the woods he thought, has he took his glasses off and rubbed his face. So much had happened, yet so little time had passed. Twenty four hours ago he'd been blindedly following some orb, which had somehow lead him to Sirius. Who had sent the orb? He knew it hadn't been himself or Sirius. How had they known where Sirius and he had been? He raked his hands through his completely dishevelled hair. Was someone tracking them? Their intentions did not appear to be ill, but maybe that was the plan. Get both of them in the same location before killing them. Maybe that's what was happening to Sirius. Maybe the magic was so dark it wouldn't be picked up by any diagnostic spell. Was he just sitting here, with his unconscious, defenceless friend, waiting to die? He sighed, what could he do? He wasn't going to leave his friend but if he continued to apparate with an unconscious body, he would exhaust himself. The wards he had set were good, they had served him well so far. So reason would stand they would continue to serve him well. He would just have to wait. Wait for Sirius to come around, that's if he ever did. Sighing, he picked up the dog-eared book that lay in the corner of the tent. 'Lord of the Rings; The Return of the King'. Well, he thought, I've got nothing else to do, as he flicked open the book.

He shivered slightly, as he felt himself return to the conscious world. He felt as though he'd either been trampled by a herd of hippogriffs, or had a brutal case of dragonpox, or perhaps both. He struggled to blink his eyes; his eyelids felt so heavy. It was as though a giant was sitting on his chest whilst poking him with a stick. His head felt like it was going to explode. He shivered again, he felt so cold, as though he'd never be warm again. He groaned as the light filtered through his barely open eyes, like a knife to his skull.

"Sirius!" James exclaimed, hearing the first signs of life from his friend. "Mate!" He frowned when he was only met with a groan. "Sirius! Padfoot!" he called out urgently, shaking him gently.

Sirius groaned again, dragging a heavy hand up to his eyes. He forced his sluggish brain to cooperate, to work out why he was here and why he felt like death warmed up.

"Sirius!" James practically yelled.

"James, please," Sirius said in a near whisper.

"Are you okay? What happened?" James demanded.

"James…"

"Sirius!"

"Please James," Sirius pleaded. "Please mate," he said in a near whisper, as he sat up, letting his head fall into his hands.

"What the hell happened?"

Sirius closed his eyes, as each word felt like a white hot knife to his skull. He shivered again. "Just give me a minute," he whispered.

"Okay, but…" James started, but trailed off as Sirius held up his hand. "Mate, are you okay?"

"Apart from feeling as though I got in a bar fight with Hagrid and have the world's worst hangover, yeah, I guess I'm okay," Sirius finally said, slightly licking his dry lips as he spoke. "We didn't go out drinking did we?"

"No," James said slowly, looking at his friend with concern.

"No, of course not, horcruxes," Sirius replied quietly, as he rubbed his temples. "Did we actually destroy it?"

"Yeah," James said as he slowly withdrew the broken and soot stained locket from his pocket.

Sirius looked at the locket for a moment before replying. "Thought we'd done with this and all," he said, as he pointed to his head.

"Sirius?"

"It happens when horcruxes get destroyed."

"What happens?" James demanded.

"I get affected by it."

"What the hell?"

"James, please," Sirius whispered, closing his eyes again and resting his head against his hands.

"Fine," James hissed in a near whisper. "But what the hell?! When I asked if there is anything I should know, didn't you think it pertinent that this might be something I should know?!"

"Sorry, okay."

"For fuck's sake Sirius! I spent the last three hours thinking I'd killed you. Or thinking you were dying and about a million things in between!"

"I was out for three hours?" Sirius said looking up.

"Yeah."

"Last time it was only an hour," Sirius replied quietly, resuming his previous position.

"Last time!?" James exclaimed, glaring at his friend. "You need to tell me what the fuck is going on, right now!"

"James…"

"Fine," James growled, as he dug into his bag. "Drink this."

"What is it?"

"Pepper-up."

"What? Isn't that for children with colds or something?"

"Shut up and drink it."

"Fine," Sirius snapped back. He would have rolled his eyes but he reckoned the pain wasn't worth it. Necking the shot in one gulp, he returned his glare. But as he did his vision became clearer and more in focussed. The blinding headache faded, and the aches faded.

"Helped?"

"Yeah, thanks."

"So, what should you have told me?" James demanded, eyeballing his friend.

Sirius sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I, well the first, the only time it happened, was when Moody and I destroyed a horcrux."

"Wait, you've destroyed one?"

Sirius nodded. "Yeah, Voldemort's acceptance letter to Hogwarts. Look mate, I'm sorry I didn't mention I'd destroyed a horcrux until now."

"It's okay, I'm sure you had your reasons."

"But…"

"Sirius, you had your reasons. Sure, I would've loved to have known, but it's okay. What made me..." James stopped and sighed for a moment. "It's just, before we destroyed that horcrux, I would have liked to have known you were affected by them, that's all."

"I'm sorry, I just, I don't know."

"It's okay," James replied, patting his friend's shoulder. "Just, me not knowing you'd react to a horcrux being destroyed could have put us in a very dangerous situation."

"Fuck, mate I'm so sorry, I didn't even think of that," Sirius exclaimed, looking away for a moment. "I was, I don't know, I wasn't even sure it would happen again. It was when I had caught that virus that was going around."

James nodded, he remembered it well. Everyone in his department had it at one stage. He could remember a summoning from Moody, receiving it with the same nervous fear he'd had when he was an auror. Sirius hadn't been overly ill, he probably should not have been at the office type thing, but he didn't look as though he'd passed out and been unresponsive for an hour.

"You think I'm being stupid."

"No," James replied, shaking his head. "Just when Moody told me to take you home, was that after you had destroyed the horcrux?"

"Yeah," Sirius said nodding.

"He destroyed it whilst you had a virus?"

"Yeah," Sirius said with a shrug. "I hadn't been badly affected by the virus. Sure, I felt a little run down, but nothing that would concern me. I still continued to work in the field, and believe me I wouldn't do that if I thought I was compromised."

"So, it was unlikely it was the virus," James stated, carefully eyeing his friend. "Everything pointed towards the horcrux."

Sirius took a careful sip of water before replying. "I guess, but I think we, I know I was, in denial. It was the first one we destroyed; we didn't have any data to go on. Now, we have destroyed the second one, I guess we can safely say I'm affected by them. You saw what it did when it was alive…"

"I did," James started. "But…" He started and stopped again. He ran his tongue over his lips for a moment, as he pondered his next words. "Well, you were alone with it for so long, and with the pressures you are under… I wonder if it's not so much the horcrux, but the extreme stress you are under."

Sirius nodded. "Probably," he replied simply.

"Not that I don't think the horcrux affected you, and I think it would to a lesser degree if you had someone to share the burden, but, well yeah."

"That was profound."

"Piss off Padfoot," James laughed. "No, I just think the horcrux certainly played a part, I just don't think it's the sole reason."

"Thanks and sorry," Sirius said dipping his head.

"Well, you wouldn't be a brother if you didn't piss me off," James laughed, grinning from ear to ear. "Shall we have a celebratory meal?"

"Sure, what do you have?'

"Well, we have," James said slowly, as he dug in and withdrew something with great panache. "We have a can of the most delightful Tesco's spaghetti hoops."

"Great," Sirius said, looking wistfully out the tent door.

"Piss off," James exclaimed, throwing the book at his friend.

"You've been reading this?" Sirius asked, picking up the dog-eared book.

"Well, whilst you were catching up on your beauty sleep, yes."

"Did you enjoy it?"

"Still trying to figure a lot of things out. I get the ring is evil and needs to be destroyed, but how are they suddenly in Mordor?"

"It's the third book of a trilogy," Sirius replied, taking another careful sip of water.

"That would explain a lot. Bunch of lightweights really," James mused.

"What?"

"So the ring has to be destroyed or Sauron will achieve global domination, right? But they only have one to destroy, we have six. We still have to find potentially four more."

"You must have been bored."

"Plus what kind of wizard is this Gandalf? Surely you just apparate straight to Mount Doom, drop the ring in, job done and be back in time for last orders," James said with a slight grin.

"You're such an idiot."

"Ha! Genius you mean," James said as he sat up and flung an arm around his friend's shoulders.

"Yeah," Sirius said slowly, his voice trailing off towards the end. His head dropped slightly as he thought about what he was going to say next. "Mate, the horcruxes."

"No," James said quickly, raising his hand to silence his friend. "No, we destroyed one today, so we are going to take the rest of the day off from them."

"No James, we need to discuss them. Maybe not what they are and where they might be, but we need to discuss them all the same. I've been hunting them alone for so long, I've forgotten what it's like to have a partner. Like when I was an auror, I did a lot of work solo, then you joined." Sirius sighed and put down the flask of water. "You need questions answered. I didn't even think my potential reaction should have been mentioned, but how wrong was I?

"But…?"

"No James, what do you need to know?"

James sighed and leant back against the nearby cupboard. "I don't know. Maybe, okay," he said sitting up, staring at his friend. "Okay, what happens to you when a horcrux is destroyed?"

Sirius took a breath and paused for a moment as he pondered his thoughts. "I guess it feels like I've been hit by the whomping willow, slammed straight into a wall and then the wolf's attacked me. Then it's darkness and blank."

"Until you come around and feel as if you've been in a fight with Hagrid and hungover?"

"Yeah, basically yes."

"But nothing else? I mean last time you were a little shaky and out of it for the rest of the day, but the next morning you were fine."

Sirius nodded. "I don't know how much of that was the virus and how much the horcrux, but I'm still a little run down now, just like I'm recovering from the flu or something."

"Okay, but visions, pain or anything?" James asked nervously.

"Are you worried the horcrux found a new host?" Sirius asked, watching his friend. "No," he said shaking his head. "No I don't think so. I think, well I would like to think I would know if another horcrux embedded itself in me, but honestly, I don't know. I don't think it has, but who knows?"

James nodded again. "Okay, that's fine. We just need to have everything packed up and attached to you when we destroy the next one. That way I just need to grab you and apparate straight out of there."

"Okay," Sirius said slowly. "James, is there anything else you need to know?"

"Nope," James said shaking his head.

"James…?"

"No, we are not going to mention those bloody things until tomorrow. Plus we have a celebration meal to look forward to; spaghetti hoops on stale bread," James replied with a huge grin.

"Great…" Sirius replied with a smile. "What I've always been looking forward to."

"Supplies are low mate, it's all I can I offer and I don't think Padfoot should go hunting tonight."

"No, but we'll buy some supplies tomorrow."

"How?" James replied, pulling out the light envelope. "I'm almost out of Muggle money and we can't exactly skip into the wizarding world for supplies!"

"It's fine, I've got a Muggle bank account. The goblins are ensuring it always has a certain amount of money in it," Sirius replied calmly.

"What?! Surely the Ministry will use it to track us!?" James exclaimed.

"They won't. The goblins will never give them the information. My vault is one of the oldest there, and as long as there's gold in it, the goblins won't care," Sirius said simply, as he ran a hand through his hair.

"Fine," James sighed. "What do you reckon, a couple of glamour charms?"

"I reckon so, it'll be like when we were aurors," Sirius said grinning. "Can you remember when Moody was disguised as that old woman?"

James laughed. "Yeah, he was in a foul mood for weeks!"

"Well, you did make the mistake of laughing," Sirius said with a raised eyebrow.

"You miss him don't you?"

"Yeah," Sirius replied quietly. "He did a lot for me."

"He was kind of like a father figure to you, wasn't he?"

Sirius nodded slowly with a slight smile. "Growing up I never really had anyone. My uncle was great, but he was barely there. My parents hated him and thought him a bad influence. They only invited him to formal family events out of obligation. But in the space of a couple of years, I suddenly had your parents and Moody. I never really had any direction before then. I just knew I wanted to do the opposite of whatever they did. It was your parents and later Moody who taught me that all my anger and energy wasn't wrong, it was just misdirected and undisciplined. That I was intelligent and talented, I just lacked direction."

"You are still legendary for the fact that you are the only person to be recruited to the auror department straight from school."

"Yeah, it still didn't stop me from fucking up."

"No, but you survived and you somehow rebuilt your life. Do you wish Moody was here rather than me?"

"No."

"Why? You've destroyed one horcrux together, surely he would have been the safer bet."

"Little problem there mate, he's dead."

James sighed. "You know what I mean. Hypothetically speaking, if he was alive would you have preferred him to me on this mission?"

"No," Sirius said shaking his head. "Would I have liked him somewhere in the background, so I could still ask questions? Sure. There's no escaping the fact, he was a far more powerful, knowledgeable wizard than both of us. He cared about me greatly, but in the end, I needed something else. We are dealing with some really dark magic. We are dealing with our mortality. It sounds stupid, but I needed someone who could make me laugh and forget about what we're dealing with."

"So I'm just along for comic relief, despite the fact I'm dragging your unconscious arse to safety," James said with a grin and raised eyebrow.

"Yup, and I needed someone of inferior intelligence, it makes me feel better," Sirius said grinning.

"Piss off," James laughed. "So where are we picking up supplies tomorrow?"

"Sittingbourne," Sirius replied. "We'll get noticed here but Sittingbourne is large enough and a commuter town, so we should be able to slip through unnoticed."

"Well until then, it's spaghetti hoops on stale bread," James said, as he opened the can. "Merlin, what I'd give for some proper food."

"Tell me about it," Sirius replied, as he started to hack away at the bread with his wand. "Tomorrow mate, tomorrow we'll eat like kings."