"The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution."

~ J.K. Rowling

Or

"The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off."

~ Joe Klaas

Chapter Ten: The Unwelcomed, Overwhelming Truth

Sirius had spent the night on Remus's floor again, so Remus assumed that Sirius would be the reason that he woke up extremely early the next morning. This was not the case however.

Before the sun had even rose, Remus was yanked out of bed and thrown to the floor. The cool flagstone was pressed up against his cheek and, having tried to catch himself, his hands were stinging. "What the-" Someone grabbed him by the shoulders and yanked him around.

"What went on between Bella and her sister the other day?" James' face was extremely close to his and his eyes were red. If Remus had been a bit more awake, he might have correctly assumed that James had not gone to bed last night.

"I take it Lily told him." Sirius sat up from the other side of the room, causing James to jump slightly, not having expected anyone else to be there. Sirius reached his hands up over his head and stretched lazily. "Don't know why you're surprised, mate."

"Shut up, Sirius." Remus groaned. He pushed James away from him as gently as he could. "Lily wasn't lying to you." He said once he had pushed himself off the ground. "Bella wants the king dead. We both heard her say that. Her sister was trying to talk her out of it, but she seemed… unstable."

James took a deep, ragged breath and pushed his hair back, "She wouldn't do something like that." He muttered. Sirius stood up and walked over to where James and Remus were seated and joined them on the floor.

"Back home, everyone kno- thought that your dad was responsible for Cygnus' death."

"I know but… he was a horrible man. He had magic…"

Before Remus could even begin to worry about what would happen to him if James were to find out that he himself had magic, Sirius let out a sharp breath. "Having magic doesn't make you a bad person." Remus tried not to look grateful, but he made a mental note to thank Sirius later.

"What he did with it made him a bad person." James countered, not giving evidence to whether or not he agreed with Sirius. "He tortured people. My father had to put an end to it. He saved Bella's life. Why would she want to hurt him?"

"I would never speak against your father," Remus said softly putting a hand on James' shoulder. "But if that's what happened, why would your father lie about Bella's sisters being dead?"

"He must not have known. I was there when this all happened. There was a large fire. My father ran out of the Black Manor with Bella in his arms. She was the only one that he could carry. The other girls were too old, too big. Bella was only twelve or thirteen. He saved her. I saw him." James turned to Sirius. "You had to have been there too, yes? Tell him that that's what happened!" He looked slightly hysterical, his glasses skewed and his hair more out of place than usual. "Tell him what happened!"

"James, mate," Sirius sighed, rubbing his palms against his eyelids. "Cygnus was bad news, and your father did everyone a favor by killing him, I won't dispute that." James tried to interrupt, but Sirius spoke over him. "However, the way that I heard it, your dad wasn't the hero of the story."

"What do you mean?" James asked, shaking his head. Remus was getting worried about him. Everything that he was being asked to take in in such a short amount of time, it couldn't be easy for anyone.

"Your dad came there to kill Cygnus." Sirius said. "He was trying to eradicate magic from the land, and Cygnus was never quiet about the fact that he had magic. He told just about anyone who would listen. Your dad challenged him. Everyone knew by that point that Cissy and Dromy had magic too, but Druella, their mum, she kept Bella's magic a secret from everyone. I don't even think Bella knew she had magic for the longest time."

"Bella has magic?" James voice was hoarse.

"Yes. But your dad didn't know. I'd say that we can safely assumed that he still doesn't know." Sirius shrugged. "I don't think that it was a coincidence that she was the only one that he saved from the fire."

"I think that's enough for now." Remus said, pushing himself off the ground and helping James to his feet. "I say we get you some food and then send you off to bed."

"I need to know-"

"Anything that you need to know can wait until later." Remus wasn't about to let this go. James couldn't even stand by himself right now. Yesterday's events would have been traumatic enough if he hadn't found out all these secrets about his family.

Rather than carrying James all the way back to his own room, Remus sat him down on his own bed, took Sirius by the arm and pulled him out the door.

"You're not just going to leave him in there, are you?" Sirius sat down at the table and picked up an apple from the bowl of fruit. "There's an open window."

"He'll be fine." Remus turned away from Sirius and started looking through a large stack of books that was balancing precariously on the back counter. Remus heard the floorboards creaking from overhead and instantly felt bad for having woken Dumbledore. Though, he would know better than Remus what to do about James.

"What are you boys doing up so early?" Dumbledore asked as he slowly made his way down the stairs. "It's not even dawn."

"It's James." Remus answered, putting down the book he had been leafing through. "We told him- Actually, I don't think I'd gotten around to telling you everything yet." After a brief explanation of everything, on both Sirius and Remus' part, Dumbledore was caught up to speed. "Now James is in my room and I was hoping that you could give him something to calm him down, maybe help him to sleep?"

"Yeah, do you have a potion or something?" Sirius asked.

"I was thinking a tea." Remus glared at Sirius.

"I think I have something that might help."

"Why can't we just let him work through this on his own? Why does he need help?"

"There are some in this world that know very little heartache, Sirius. And when it inevitably finds them, they need our help working through it." Dumbledore said as he turned to a large oak cabinet hung on the wall over the stove and rifled through its contents. He pulled out a small teacup, a strand of some type of red flower and jar full of something brown. "We shouldn't leave James to fend for himself simply because we envy him."

"I don't envy that prat." Sirius scoffed. "He's a pounce with a bad attitude."

"The same could be said about you." Remus sighed, falling onto a chair. He rubbed his eyes and let out a yawn. He had stayed up rather late last night in case Lily had showed up after her talk with James. He hadn't expected James to show up; storm the training ground, head out to the tavern, yes. But he figured that James would have wanted to be alone. "Where do you think Lily is?"

"Home. Asleep." Sirius muttered, taking another large bite of his apple. "Where she should be."

"I'm sure she's fine, Remus." Dumbledore looked over at him kindly, measuring a spoonful of the brown stuff.

"Didn't you break her heart the other day? You should give her some space."

"Sirius," Remus snapped, slamming his fist on the table. "Can you stop being an arse for just a few minutes? It's already been a long day and the suns only just coming up."

"Did I hit a sore subject? Maybe you were lying to yourself then? Maybe you do have feelings for our little redheaded maiden. Maybe the only reason you said no had to do with-"

"Sirius." Dumbledore said gravely. He looked at Sirius over the tops of his glasses. Sirius started to grind his teeth together but Dumbledore didn't need to say anything more. He mixed in a few more herbs and then held up his completed concoction. "All finished."

Remus walked up and accepted the cup from him. "Hopefully this will do him some good." He sighed as he walked over to his door. "I'd like to get some more sleep if I could." When he pushed open the door, he didn't see James laying on his bed as he should have. He looked behind the door and on the other side of the bed on the floor, but he didn't find him. "Bloody hell." He stomped his foot on the ground and spun around. "He climbed out the window." He announced to the room. "James climbed out the bloody window."

oOoOo

Peter Pettigrew didn't have much family and he didn't have many friends. He considered Remus to be a friend and he talked to a boy named Benjy every now and then, but that was about it. If he was anyone else, he might consider Lily to be a friend, she came down to the stables often enough, but she was beautiful so he considered himself lucky instead.

When the fires had been lit in Leefside, Peter had the harrowing task of getting all of the knights horses out to them, which he was alright with because he was a good stable boy. Luckily for him, many of them didn't need a saddle or they were able to put it on themselves, all he had to do was make sure that the Prince's horse was put together. He did Remus's as well, because he knew how uncomfortable Remus was when it came to horses.

Peter considered himself to be a good friend, that is why he helped Remus out as much as he could. He always gave him the most easygoing horse, and the most comfortable, reliable saddle.

This morning however, Peter was not feeling as though he was a good anything. He had done something wrong.

When all the knights were in Leefside, putting out the fires, a man rode into the stables and asked Peter a series of questions. At first, Peter had just assumed that this man was new to town and he needed a place to keep his horse while he went out and did whatever he came here to do; Peter was only half-right in this assumption. He quickly realized that all of the man's questions had to do with the castle and the Knights. He wanted to know when they were going to be back, what floors of the castle were accessible to the public. When Peter showed signs of discomfort, the man had chuckled and pulled out a small bag.

Peter sat at home, sitting across from his sister as their mother served them breakfast.

"Lucy, dear," Their mother said solemnly. "Try and eat something."

Lucy smiled weakly at the older woman and picked up her toast, bringing it to her lips and taking the smallest bite she could. Peter closed his eyes and went through the number of coins that had been in that bag that the stranger had handed him. Five gold, seven silver, ten bronze and six coppers.

"What time do you have to be at work, Peter?"

Peter shook his head and looked over at his mother. "Not for a little while still."

"Could you walk your sister over to Madam Pomfrey's? I have to get going early this morning and-"

"It's not a problem, mum." Peter reached over and took hold of his sister's hand. "I like walking with Lucy."

Out on the street a little while later, Lucy was taking her second break in the last ten minutes. Sitting on an old barrel the quiet, mousy girl sat and watched as a group of children started a game of tag in front of their parent's shops. She smiled and Peter thought again of the coins in his pocket.

He didn't know who that man was, or what he was planning on doing with the information that Peter had given him, but it had to be worth it. If he could get more time with his sister, if he could make things easier for her, it had to be worth it. She had never gotten to play street games with the neighborhood children, or race her brother to the kitchen for sweets, or go to school, or climb trees, swim in the river, dance at festivals, have a drink at the tavern…

"Peter?" He looked over at his sister. "What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing, Lucy." He pinched her cheek and then helped her to her feet. "Let's get you to Madam Pomfrey, alright?"

"Alright." She sighed. "I do hope things are better today."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, after the fire yesterday…" She trailed off, already out of breath. Peter put an arm around her and tried to help her as much as he could.

"Right. There must have been a lot of people in the hospital yesterday." She nodded. "Nobody was too badly injured, were they?"

"One man broke both his legs…" She took a few deep breaths and slowed down a bit. "But no one died."

"That's good." Peter nodded. He could see the hospital now, but it was still going to take a while to get there. Lucy pulled away from him and sat down on someone's chair this time. The woman who owned the chair walked out of the shop that it had been in front of and was about to shout at them when she saw who it was.

"Lucy!" The woman bent over and hugged her. Everyone loved Lucy.

Soon Peter had her on her feet again. When they reached Madam Pomfrey's, the nurse was already waiting for them at the door. "Good to see the two of you." She greeted, pulling Peter in for a quick hug before putting an arm around Lucy's middle and helping her inside. Peter said his goodbyes from outside the door, for he never liked going inside.

With the money, he could get his sister some real help, find someone who could work out what was wrong with her and then fix it. It didn't matter what that man had wanted that information for, it was worth it because Lucy needed help. And if he didn't help her, who else would?

oOoOo

Lily had spent the better part of the morning pacing the length of her kitchen before she had forced herself to leave. She was just going to walk around town aimlessly, hoping that someone would stop her and distract her, but she found her feet moving her in the direction of the castle. She told herself that it was a force of habit, because whenever she left her house, it was to go to work, but she knew that that was a lie.

Last night, she had bloody well taken James's heart out of his chest and then torn it to shreds before handing it back to him in all its mangled glory. She felt responsible for whatever backlash may occur, and she knew that she was headed up to the castle to find him, to see how he was doing.

She had sat with him for quite a long time last night, neither of them saying a thing, until he stood up and walked away. She hadn't tried to follow him, call after him, or offer any words of comfort, and that seemed callused now that she was looking back on it.

"Lily?"

Lily looked over and saw a group of girls walking towards her, two of which looked slightly familiar. "Do I know you?" She asked, trying to force a smile.

"You met us at Hagrid's the other day." The blonde girl said with a toothy grin. "Dory here had been chased up a tree."

"That's right." Lily nodded. "I'm sorry, but you'll have to remind me of your names."

"Not a problem. I'm Marlene, and that's Dory," She pointed to the girl with long brown hair. "And you haven't met Mary yet."

"Pleasure." The girl stuck out her hand and her short brown curls bounced as she nodded.

"Well," Lily had remembered the entire exchange between herself and the other girls now and was starting to get nervous. She didn't want them to start badmouthing the king again when they were so close to the castle, nor did she want James to appear and see her around girls who were badmouthing his father. "I was just heading in, but it was nice to see you again."

"Wait!" Dory grabbed hold of her arm to prevent her from walking off. "We were just wondering why there isn't any training today. The knights are all waiting around, and James hasn't showed up yet."

"I don't know anything about that." Lily lied. "Though, shouldn't they be in Leefside?"

"Oh yeah. Well, Remus said that you worked in the castle, so we figured we would ask."

"I work for Lady Bellatrix, not the prince." She pursed her lips. The three women before her all exchanged looks with one another before Mary crossed her arms over her chest.

"May I ask what we did to offend you?"

Lily wanted to laugh and stomp her foot at the same time. She would love to lecture them on what was and what was not okay to say after an attempted assassination of the king, but she really needed to find James now, especially now that she knew he hadn't taken the knights to Leefside. "I don't know what you're talking about." She said instead. "I'm just running late today."

"Oh," Marlene stepped aside and waved her on. "Didn't mean to hold you up."

"It's not a problem." She said, not wasting any time and marching on towards the castle. As soon as the three girls were out of her sight, they were also out of her mind. She had to focus on James right now.

When she reached the prince's room, she found it empty. There were no dishes to indicate that he had eat breakfast, no laundry to show that he had dressed for the day, and his bed was immaculate. There were two options here, since it was so early, Remus either cleaned James' room faster than he normally did or, James had never come back to his room last night.

She started on her way to Dumbledore's quarters, hoping to either find Remus, or ask Dumbledore where he had gone. She was so focused on what she was doing, that she didn't notice Bellatrix appear at the end of the corridor.

"I thought I gave you the day off." She spoke sharply, snapping Lily out of her thoughts. She looked up quickly and took an involuntary step backwards. "What are you doing here?" She must have realized how harsh she was sounding, because she then smiled and clasped her hands together, trying to make herself appear unassuming.

"I just wanted to make sure you didn't need me." Lily replied, clasping her own hands behind her back, trying not to look as frightened as she felt. Bella inspected her for a moment and then she grinned, a more honest looking smile.

"No you didn't." She said, sounding as though she were teasing Lily now. "You're here to see James, aren't you?"

"Why would you say that?" Lily said about a half second before she remembered how she had managed to get Bella to leave her and James alone the night before.

"Oh, don't play stupid with me, Lily. You and I have been friends for a very long time. You can't hide these things from friends. You fancy my brother." Lily gapped at her, but she didn't know how to judge this Bella, the Bella who seemed like the old Bella. The one who hadn't tried to murder the king and who wasn't involved in the burning of a town. Lily had always liked this Bella, but she was now aware that this Bella was just an act. "I always knew this was going to happen though. I called it from the very beginning- If you count the beginning as when I noticed that James fancied you anyway." She laughed.

"I wasn't here to see the Prince, my lady. Honestly, I was checking in with you. You gave me the day off so late yesterday that I wasn't sure if it was my tired mind that had dreamt it up, or if it had actually happened. It seems as though it was real though, so I'm sorry if I was a bother. I'll just be on my way." Lily curtsied.

"You were checking on me?" Bella's voice went tight again.

"I said 'checking in', ma'am." Lily swallowed, feeling the immense change in atmosphere. "Making sure that I wasn't needed."

"Do you not believe that I am capable of making decisions on my own, Lily?"

"I never said anything of the sort-"

"Because I assure you that I don't need to have my actions questioned. Especially not by someone like you. You are a-"

"Lily!" Both women turned around to see James walking down the corridor, looking as though last night had never happened. That is, until he turned to Bella. Lily noticed that his back straightened and his lips pressed together just slightly. "Sister." He nodded at Bella.

"Good morning, James." Bella smiled sweetly, all traces of her anger completely gone. "Look who came to find you." She waved his attention over to Lily. "I bet the two of you had quite the interesting conversation last night."

"Quite interesting." James agreed, taking a small step towards Lily and away from Bella. "Wouldn't you agree?" He turned his head towards Lily and then moved to put his arm around her shoulders.

"Yes." She squeaked, not knowing where he was going with this, but she was sure that no matter what happened, he wouldn't let Bella harm her. Although, Bella did have magic. And as far as she knew, James did not. If an altercation were to break out, and Bella resorted to using her magic, then neither James nor Lily would have any chance at all.

"Lily had all kinds of interesting things to say."

"I knew it would all work out for you, James." Bella reached out and squeezed James' hand. The bottom of his jaw moved from side to side, but he didn't pull his hand away. "I told you that you had nothing to worry about. You're very handsome and clever, and I just knew that you would win her over in the end."

Another jut of his jaw and Lily could tell that he was not in any frame of mind to speak to Bella right now. He believed her, whatever he had done after he had left her last night had helped him to see the truth. "We'd appreciate if you could keep this a secret." Lily said, looking away from James and forcing herself to look Bella in the eye. "I don't think this is something that the king would approve of."

"The king disapproves of much." Bella nodded in agreement. "I won't say a word to anyone."

"I don't want Lily working for you anymore either." James said firmly. Lily felt him pull her closer to his side, which made it difficult to look up at him in shock, but she still managed.

Bella on the other hand, didn't think this was strange at all. "Of course." She laughed. "It would be preposterous to have her waiting on me now." She put her hand over her heart and reached out to pat Lily's cheek. "We've had fun, no?"

"There's no reason that you shouldn't continue to have fun." James' voice was getting more and more strained. Lily had to get them out of there.

"It will just be a different kind of fun now." Lily reached out and took hold of James' hand. "But if you need any help till you can find a new maid, I'd be more than happy to lend a hand."

"I'm sure that won't be nece-"

"I think Lady Bellatrix can speak for herself." Lily said with a smile, trying to overcompensate for James' quickly deteriorating mood.

"James is right though. I'll make do."

Shortly after that, Bella excused herself and James started dragging Lily down the corridor to a set of doors that she had never passed through before. He pulled on of the cast iron handles and motioned for her to enter.

It was a library. The room had to be larger than the Great Hall, and it was full of rows and rows of bookshelves. There was a great stone fireplace in the very middle of the room, resembling a well, and there were about a dozen tables strewn about the room with stacks of books piled atop them. There were more books in this one room than Lily had ever seen in her entire life. The amount of knowledge that this room held, was greater than anything she could hope to accumulate in her lifetime. She ran her fingers over the spin of a book and took a deep breath before James spun her around and snapped her back to reality.

"Are you angry with me?" He asked.

"For firing me?" Lily shook her head. "I'm not mad."

"Well that makes one of us." He ran a hand through his hair and started pacing.

"You're angry with me?"

"Not at you- I'm just angry in general. She's been a sister to me for the last five years and now she's trying to kill our- my father? What would possess her to do something like that? And my dad! Why is he lying about her family being dead if they're not? What even happened to her family that caused her to hate him so much? Who am I supposed to be angry with here, Lily? They're both lying to me, and apparently they're both capable of murder.

"And how does Remus know all this before me? He got here a few months ago and already he knows more about my family than I do."

"You're not angry with Remus." Lily took a seat at one of the many tables and started tapping her fingers on the table. "You're simply frustrated."

"There is nothing simple about what's going on." He took a seat across from her.

"Of course not." Lily said quickly. "I never meant to imply that. I just meant that you should be careful not to take your anger out on the wrong people."

"I don't need your advice."

"I would be one of the wrong people to take your anger out on." Lily turned the corner of her lip up. James closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"I know." He pushed his glasses up to his forehead and rubbed his eyelids with his palms. "But I don't even know where to begin with this situation." Lily didn't have an answer for him so she turned towards the pile of books and picked the one off the top. She ran her fingers across the golden title and then opened the book and flipped through some of its pages. The pages were slightly yellowed and the edges of most of the pages were worn and tattered.

"Are you a fan of Mullen?" James asked, resting his chin on one of his hands and pointing at the book with his other.

"I'm sorry?" Lily asked, setting the book down.

"Kenneth Mullen, the author of the book you're holding."

"Oh," Lily tapped her fingers on the book and then pushed it across the table. "Books have always fascinated me. How someone could sit down and write out all those words, stringing them together in a way that can move people to tears. So many people can do that." She motioned around the room. "It's extraordinary."

Something that looked close to a smile appeared on James' face. "Who is your favorite?"

Lily bit her lip and strained to remember. "My mother used to read me The Lion in my Dream. It was a children's story and I have no idea who wrote it, but that was always my favorite story. She would have me sit in her lap and she would put on different voices for all the characters." She laughed. "Her voice for the dad was the voice she used to use to imitate my father. All gruff and low, but she would have to change her whole face to get her voice to sound like that." She fell quiet after that, and for a while the only thing that either of them could hear was the crackling of the fire.

"Truman Goad." James said after a while. When he was only met with a confused look from Lily he added, "Truman Goad wrote The Lion in my Dream. It was one of my favorites growing up as well. I fancied myself as brave as characters in that book. At one point I had drawn an entire collection of pictures to go along with the story."

"Do you still have them?"

"Unfortunately I don't. I gave them to the nursemaid who used to take care of me as a child. Did you ever read Bears in my House or Birds on the Moon?" He was actually smiling now.

"Can't say that I have." Lily shrugged. "We only had a few books. Most of the stories that my mum would tell me were made up."

"Well, Bears in my House is a good one and you should give it a read." James laughed a bit. "My cousin and I used to reenact it when he would visit. I think I've got a copy of it in my room. I'll let you borrow it some time."

"Oh, you don't have to do that."

"I think you'll enjoy it." James insisted. "And it's not as though loaning you the book would be a difficult thing to do."

"I know that. It's just…"

"What?"

"This is rather embarrassing." Lily scratched at her head and started to shew on the inside of her cheek.

"I told you I was in love with you a few weeks ago." James said dryly. "I don't think you're going to top that." Lily tried not to smile, but she didn't quite manage.

"Alright, well… I never learned how to read."

Instead of looking at her like she was stupid, as she had feared, he looked confused. "Why not?"

"My mum… died- when I was too young to have learned, and then my dad never had time and my sister never had the patients."

"You never went to school?"

"We didn't have the money for that." Lily laughed. "My father is a blacksmith, in case you forgot. After my mum- after she died - I would help Hagrid- the keeper of the keys and grounds- I would help him out around his farm. He'd give me a few silvers and coppers when he could spare them and I got to play with a dog that was probably three times my size. I wish I could have gone to school, but I had a good childhood."

James was quiet for a while. "I can teach you how to read."

"There's no reason for that." Lily shook her head, though she was unable to stop herself from looking around the room again. "I'm a maid-"

"No you're not." James interrupted, a smile spreading across his face. "I fired you. You're not a maid anymore. You're actually unemployed. And now, you're my student."

Lily tried to ignore the unemployed comment for now, and focus on James. He was supposed to be having a mental break down right now, and he possibly was, but he seemed to be focusing on her. "You can't teach me to read. Not now. You've got knights to train and a sister to watch out for-"

"I don't know what I'm going to do about Bella and my father right now, and I've got knights to watch them until I work it out. And training is in the morning, evenings I've got absolutely nothing to do." He stood up from his chair and ran a hand through his hair, looking excited. "We could meet here after training."

Even if Lily didn't have a desire to learn how to read, she didn't think she would have been able to say no to James just then. He looked so genuine in his excitement that Lily's stomach jumped a little.

He held out his hand, "Do we have a deal?" Lily couldn't help but laugh.

"We have a deal." She nodded, taking his hand.

oOoOo

James had gone back to his room after his meeting with Lily in the library. He paced back and forth for almost an entire hour, trying to focus on Lily, but his mind kept forcing Bella back in. He didn't want to believe that she had tried to kill their father, but Lily, Remus and Sirius had no reason to lie to him, and Sirius's story about what had happened to Bella's family was very similar to other versions that he had heard. The additions, his father setting the fire to kill the wizard and his magic children, that sounded like something that he would do. And if his father really had killed Bella's family, then he couldn't really blame her for wanting him dead.

It was all very confusing, and that's why he was trying to focus on Lily. Normally, this would not have been a difficult thing to do given his feelings towards her.

After an hour, he gave up and decided to go down to the training grounds and see if his knights had started training without him. Luckily, they had. It appeared as though Amos had stepped up as leader and was having everyone run laps around the Black Lake, which was only about a hundred meters from the castle.

When James arrived, he noticed that Amos wasn't the only one not running. Arden was leaning against a tree with his arms crossed and an angry look on his face. Remus was also there, sitting with Sirius on some boulders near the shore of the lake. A couple women were sitting with them.

"When did this become a spectator's sport?" James asked, walking towards Remus. The way he saw things, he probably owed Remus an apology for everything that happened this morning.

"I knew you'd make it down here eventually." Remus shrugged, jumping up from the boulder and meeting James in the middle. "You alright?"

"I'm fine. And I'm sorry." He rubbed the back of his neck. "For manhandling you, and shouting at you, and for climbing out your window."

Remus laughed. "It's fine. And you're sure that you're okay?"

"No. But I just want to train right now." Remus nodded.

"Then have at it. Arden will be glad that you're back."

"Yeah, how did Amos get put in charge?"

"I think that was by his own vote." Remus shrugged. "Nobody seemed to care much except for Arden. Lance didn't seem too thrilled, but he went along with it. Leefsides been taken care of as well, there wasn't much more for us to do, though we might want to send some food over to them tomorrow." James nodded and kicked himself for forgetting about the fire.

He turned to address his knights, who had stopped running laps and gathered around him and Remus while they had been talking. "I'm sorry I was late this morning, I had some family business to attend to. I'm here now though, so why don't we split off into pairs and work on our sword play." As everyone split off, he stepped away so that no one would try to partner with him and then looked around. He never realized how many people he had under his control before. There were two dozen knights out here this morning, but they were only James' personal knights, the ones that he hand-picked. These men would do anything James asked of them because they trusted him, and he trusted them. And he was glad that he had them, because over the next few weeks, he had a feeling that he would be asking them some pretty sensitive favors.

He couldn't ask just anyone though, because while he trusted all of them to protect him with their lives, he didn't know if he could count on all of them to hold his word over that of his father's. Treason was a very dangerous thing to ask of someone, even if it was coming from him.

He knew that he could count on Arden and Frank, who were off sparing one another to his left, looking more playful than anything else. He rolled his eyes, but didn't say anything. They were both very close friends and, Arden at least was extremely suspicious of everything. James knew that he could tell either of them anything and it would stay between them.

Amos he wasn't sure about. He was a great knight, but he was also extremely loyal to the crown. Same went for many of the other elite, noblemen's sons. Amos was different only in the fact that he was friends with people like Arden and Frank who were nobles, just of a lesser status than him. Amos also considered himself James' friend, and maybe that made him trustworthy. James scoffed and started chewing on the inside of his cheek. He was going to need more than three men.

Fabian and Gideon seemed like good options. He continued to scan the field. His eyes fell upon Sirius, who was still sitting by the women down by the shore.

James jutted his jaw out and tried to decide how he felt about Remus's friend. He was brazen, brave, a bit stupid and he acted entirely on impulse. He seemed like a good man though, if a bit lost. "Remus?" Remus, who was still standing beside James, turned and gave him an inquisitive look. "Do you trust Sirius?"

"I do. I can give you my word that nothing spoken of this morning will leave that room." James nodded, not having thought to ask Remus to make sure that Sirius wouldn't tell anyone about Bella. Though it was good that Remus felt so sure, he hadn't even hesitated. Sirius was good with a sword, he had been able to best Fabian and Gideon at the same time, and James wasn't entirely sure that even he could do that. Actually, he was quite certain that he couldn't.

"Good, but that's not why I asked."

"Oh?"

"You're sure that you trust him?"

"Completely." Remus pressed his lips together and crossed his arms. "What's going on James?"

"Black!" Sirius's head jerked in their direction and James waved him over. He saw Sirius sigh and then tussle one of the girl's hair before standing up and walking at an extremely leisurely pace towards them. James gave Remus a look and Remus just shrugged.

"He doesn't really care much for people telling him what to do."

"Well he's going to have to get over that." Remus didn't have time to ask any questions because James decided to go and meet Sirius halfway.

"Your highness." Sirius swept into an exaggerated bow and James found it hard to contain an eye roll. This was going to be a bit painful for both of them, but James still thought that it was a good idea. Sirius knew Bella after all, it would be useful in more ways than one to have Sirius on his side.

"I want you to go up to the armory and-"

"Hold on a moment, mate." Sirius held up his hands and stuck James with an arrogant smirk. "Remus is your manservant, not me." James took a deep breath and nodded.

"I want you to go up to the armory and find a sword that suits you. We have extra armor along the back wall, find something that fits you and then get back out here." Sirius cocked his head to the side, looking as though he were at a loss for words, which James figured was a first for him. "Today, if that works for you." He added, feeling a smirk of his own forming.

"What exactly are you saying, Potter?"

"I'm saying that I want you to train with the rest of my knights."

"That's what it sounded like." Sirius shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his smirk reappearing as quickly as it left. "And while I'd love nothing more than to show up each and every one of your knights, I feel as though I ought to remind you that I myself am not one of them."

"You are now."

AN: I'm a couple days late with this one for those of you who have noticed that a new update comes roughly every fifteen days. I apologize for that. Reviews are always awesome-sauce, same as ya'll.