Firstly, apologies for not updating for so long. As I said in my other story, things were a bit busy with uni, and I just couldn't bring myself to proof-read and post the chapters I had (because I'm actually almost done writing this)

Huge thanks to all of you who reviewed, this story actually passed 200 reviews! :D You guys are awesome! :)

harryislife: Thanks! That's very much what I was going for. I think it is hard to strike the right balance when it comes to Dumbledore, especially as there are some rather strong opinions out here. Painting him just black or white just wouldn't do his character justice.

Skybox: Thank you! I really like those moral dilemmas about leaders having to make hard choices - and I tend to get a bit carried away philosophizing about it - so I'm glad to know at least some people aren't bored by my ramblings :D

BadAZKenB: I did think about that, yeah, but instead went for the way I portray it here for plot reasons. I think it's not completely unjustified, as we see Death Eaters lurking outside Grimmauld Place in DH, when the Fidelius Charm is still (partly) active. Snape can't have told them about it, because in that case they could just go in an search the place, but they have to know it is there, or standing watch wouldn't make sense. I know that's rather feeble, and there's contradicting information in other parts of the books, but it's be the version I'll be working with. I hope you'll forgive my sloppiness!

Guest: I usually updated once or twice a week, but evidently this has been broken. I am however very much determined to get back to one chapter a week, so fingers crossed ;)

This chapter was a really hard chapter to write, as it goes rather dark towards the end. I apologize in advance.


When my fist clenches

When Harry awoke the next morning, the sofa next to him was empty, and for a moment panic flooded him. But then there was the creaking noise of the door opening, and when he turned his head he saw Sirius walking in, already dressed in fresh clothes and with a breakfast tray in his hands.

He was smiling, though it looked a little strained. "Morning, Prongslet. Thought we might have breakfast in here today, what do you say?"

Harry slowly sat up. "What about Remus?" he asked anxiously. "Is he alright?"

For a moment the cheerful smile seemed to falter, and Harry's stomach plummeted, but then it returned, and his godfather looked just as cheerful as he had before. "Bit roughed up, but nothing bad. I got him down and put him to bed. He's fine."

Relief flooded Harry, and the pressure on his chest lifted somewhat. "Can I see him?"

Sirius didn't answer at first, stopping to set down his tray with unusual care. "Better wait a bit," he finally said, turning around to hand Harry a glass of orange juice. "He's sleeping now, and it's best we don't wake him up."

Immediately, Harry felt guilty. "Sorry! I didn't...I just wanted to make sure he's okay," he muttered dejectedly.

"And that's very kind of you, Prongslet," Sirius said, sitting down beside him and ruffling his hair. "But we'll let him sleep for now, alright? You can visit him later, maybe make him a cup of tea. I'm sure he'd like that."

Harry nodded eagerly, feeling the worry leave him for the first time in days. Remus was okay. They were all okay. They –

Kreacher.

Harry nearly dropped his slice of toast when the Oompa-Loompa returned to his mind. Was he...

He must be. Sirius would have mentioned if there had been an accident last night.

But what if he didn't know? What if Kreacher hadn't listened to Harry, and had gone back upstairs? He seemed to have no problem with locking spells; maybe he could get through the wards as well? An image came into his mind, of the Oompa-Loompa lying in some dark corner, bleeding, dying...

"I need to do some cleaning," Sirius suddenly spoke, and Harry nearly jumped, having almost forgotten he was there. "Would you be okay on your own for a while? Remus left you some homework, didn't he? I won't be long, just an hour or so."

Harry was so relieved he didn't even stop to think about what sort of cleaning Sirius meant, too focused on the opportunity to check on Kreacher. So he simply nodded, wolfing down his breakfast as fast as he could and running upstairs as soon as he was finished.

His first idea was to race directly to Kreacher's room, but he could hear Sirius coming up the stairs behind him and decided that it would be safer to go to his room first, and wait for his godfather to go downstairs again.

His room looked just as he had left it the night before, with no indication that Kreacher had been here. Yet when Harry deposited his pyjamas on his bed he found something lying on his pillow, something small and silver.

Picking it up he realized it was metal, a button of some sorts. It looked very old yet had obviously been taken care of well. It shone in the light, and Harry could recognize a tiny snake engraved in it.

He wondered where it came from; he had never seen it before. It looked expensive, not like it had come from the sort of clothes that Sirius or Remus wore. Maybe it was left over from the people who had lived here before? But it seemed unlikely that it had been here the whole time; surely Harry would have noticed.

Come to think of it, it seemed rather obvious that somebody had placed it on his pillow on purpose. Maybe...maybe Kreacher had put it there? As a sort of gift? It did look similar to the sort of things that he kept in his nest.

Maybe it was his way of saying thank you to Harry for allowing him to stay here?

That means he was here last night. And that he is safe.

Harry felt a smile creep onto his face. Everything was alright. Remus was fine, Sirius was fine and Kreacher was fine. He could try to visit Kreacher later, and when Remus would wake up Harry would make him a cup of tea, and maybe they could read together again.

Whistling, he set about doing his homework.


Sirius was worried.

Remus had been in a terrible state that morning, and despite his best efforts, his situation had improved little over the day. He had been unconscious when Sirius came to free him that morning, and there had been a very nasty gash at his leg. After seeing the amount of blood pooled around it, Sirius had for a terrible moment thought the werewolf was dead.

But there had still been breathing, if very shallow, and somehow he had managed to get Remus down the stairs and into his bed. With the help of dittany – the supply of which was dwindling worryingly – he had seen to most of the other wounds, yet the leg had not stopped bleeding until about lunch time, when Remus had finally woken.

"P-Padfoot?"

Relief flooded Sirius, immediately followed by concern when Remus tried to sit up. "Wow, careful there. You did quite a number on your leg. How are you feeling?"

"Trampled by at least a hippogriff, more likely a dragon," Remus mumbled, his head falling back onto the pillow with a pained grunt. "What time is it? How's Harry?"

"Half past twelve. And he's fine; he's in his room doing homework. Told him you were sleeping and that he could come and visit you later."

"Good," Remus said, his eyes already closing. "Don't let him come in here."

"Wasn't going to. Are you hungry? Got some soup downstairs that I was going to warm up for us."

But Remus didn't answer, and Sirius realized he had already fallen asleep once more. He cast a worried glance at the gash on his leg. To his relief, no fresh blood was seeping through the bandages. There was just one bottle of blood replenishing potion left, and even though they had a basic supply of potion ingredients he had neither the time nor the skills to make more. If the wound hadn't closed, Remus would probably have bled to death. Sirius shuddered at the thought.

Even so the werewolf looked ghostly pale, and he knew he would have to find another excuse for Harry to keep the boy out of Remus' bedroom. If he saw him in this state, Harry would surely get frightened again, and there had been more than enough of that already.

With a sigh, he rose to his feet, sloppily cleaning up the blood from the sheets – he had no illusions; they were ruined. But luckily there was an ample supply of bed sheets in this house, some of which even were curse-free.

Carefully closing the door behind himself and putting a silencing spell on it for good measure he went over to his godson's door. "Harry? Up for some lunch?"

"Coming!" The door opened and Harry appeared, an ink splotch on his forehead and a bright grin on his face. "I'm almost done with maths!" He announced proudly, following Sirius down the stairs in excited leaps. "Is Remus up now?"

Sirius winced, fighting to keep the smile on his face. "I just checked on him, and he was still sleeping. Maybe give him a bit more rest, shall we?" Harry's grin faltered a little, and not wanting him to worry again Sirius quickly added: "How about we try and build the cheese tower again after lunch? We still haven't managed to reach the ceiling."

Thankfully that worked, and indeed kept Harry busy almost the entire afternoon. Sirius tried to be cheerful for Harry's sake – and building a shaky tower out of old building blocks and, once they had run out, anything else they found in the study, was rather fun – but his mind kept wandering to Remus. He slipped out a few times to check on the werewolf, yet there was little change. He was still sleeping – or unconscious; Sirius wasn't certain - but towards the evening a mild fever broke out, growing stronger with alarming speed.

By the time it got dark outside, however, Harry was clearly getting suspicious when Sirius told him that Remus was still asleep.

"Is he okay? He didn't sleep this long last time..."

"It varies. He just needs some more rest this time."

"But won't he get hungry?"

Sirius forced a smile. "I'll put some food next to his bed," he promised. "That way he can eat as soon as he wakes up."

"Okay," Harry made, looking unconvinced. "Good night, Sirius."

Sirius flinched at the dejected look on Harry's face. "Don't you want me to read to you before bed?"

But Harry merely shook his head, pulling the blankets further under his chin. "It's okay. I don't want Remus to miss anything."

"That's...that's very nice of you, Prongslet," Sirius managed, hoping his voice didn't sound too choked. "We'll read two chapters tomorrow to make up for it. Sleep tight, little one."

After making sure the door to Harry's room was closed he walked over to check on Remus. The fever was still raging, though at least it hadn't increased any further. Sirius knew it was nothing unusual, that it often accompanied rough transformations, but he still felt relief at that. Much experience as he had with bandaging up combat wounds, when it came to actual healing he was rather useless.

"Don't you dare die on me, wolf," he muttered, reluctantly rising back to his feet when it became apparent that there was nothing more he could do right now. "Or I'll burn all your precious books. And your Genesis albums." When there was no reaction to his threat he sighed and left the room, slowly wandering back downstairs.

He was unsure what to do with his time. He felt like listening to music, but since he neither wanted to wake up Harry nor cast a silencing spell, in case the boy needed something, anything loud was out of the question. In the end, he settled for one of Remus' Dire Straits records. He hadn't listened to them much – whenever James and he had been there, "proper" Rock had usually won out – but Lily had been a fan as well, and he remembered listening to it in their home quite a bit after they had gotten married.

The soft guitar brought back memories, memories of nights spent laughing despite the war. It had been a dark time, yet they had found light in each other's company, the cheerful comfort of the five of them – and, soon, the promise of a sixth one.

"Well, that's depressing," he muttered to himself, sinking back onto the couch and grabbing the newspaper from the day before. Looking at the date, he groaned. Monday, 30th of May. Which meant that today was the 31st...

"Oh, sweet Merlin."


"But she wanted a June wedding!"

"Oh, for the love of Merlin. It's one day!"

"Yeah...but it's Lily. She's scary. Maybe we should try somewhere else."

"Shut up, Wormy. Look, it's a nice place; there's tons of trees and shrubbery that will be blossoming – chicks dig that flowery shit – and it's far away from everywhere so we won't have to worry about muggles. Just sign it."

James still seemed unconvinced, and turned to Remus, who'd been silent so far. "What do you think? How pissed will she be?"

The werewolf shrugged, looking around awkwardly. Sirius knew he felt everything but comfortable about the posh decor around them. "I don't think she'll mind the date. And Padfoot's right, this is a good place. Should be easy to secure."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Pretty sure Voldy has better stuff to do than crash a wedding. But I'll take it. Two to one, Prongs. Sign the bloody paper and let's get out of here. I don't trust that valet guy with my bike."

After two more seconds, James finally relented, a slow smile spreading on his face. "It does look beautiful," he said thoughtfully, looking around the lawn that surrounded the tiny stone church. Then a grin came onto a face, the sheepish sort that Sirius had seen so often on him since Lily had finally agreed to go out with him.

"I'm gonna get married in three months," he said, looking rather dumbfounded at his luck. "Lily's gonna marry me!"


Sirius rose to his feet, slowly walking over to the cabinet where he had stored the liquor behind some ancient books, safely out of Harry's reach. He had promised himself not to drink with Harry close by, but he felt like today he was allowed an exception.

Harry was probably asleep by now, safe, happy. And Sirius would only have one glass, little enough so that he could still be there for Harry in case he had any nightmares.

Pouring himself a generous measure he sat back down again. Brothers in Arms played in the background. Sirius winced, helplessly letting the memories rush over him.


"You know, if you played your cards right you could totally hit that. She keeps looking over to you."

Remus did not seem pleased at that. "Not really why we're here, is it?" he asked, chagrined.

"Of course it is! What else are weddings for?"

"I'm not going to answer that. Did you at least make sure everything is ready? Lily'll be here in an hour. Do you have the rings?"

Sirius rolled his eyes, patting his breast pocket. "I'm not completely-" And felt nothing.

Fuck.

Remus stared at him, obviously reading his sudden silence correctly. "You didn't-"

"They must've fallen out while I was flying here!" Sirius cried, feeling panic flood through him. Only last week Lily had hexed him for sleeping with the witch who was supposed to supply the cake – and who, after a rather appalling encounter the next morning, had since refused to have anything to do with any of them ever again – and Sirius was still not certain if his right ear had grown back fully. He could only imagine what she would do to him if she found out he had lost their wedding rings.

"Get Peter!" he commanded, already on his way to the field where he had parked his bike. "And find some brooms. We'll have to go look for them!"

Remus groaned. "Is it too late to talk to that girl instead?" he muttered, looking over the Potter cousin who had indeed been eyeing him.

"Stop being so selfish, Moony! We're here for a wedding, not to chat up girls!"


Sirius chuckled at the memory. It had taken them almost an hour of scouring the countryside to find the rings – and after that day, neither of them ever had trouble with the summoning charm ever again, having cast it nonstop for ages – but they had managed to get back to the church in time.

The box had a few smudges of dirt on them, but luckily James and Lily were so besotted with each other that they probably wouldn't have noticed if he had given them plastic toy rings out of a muggle happy meal.

Peter's hastily borrowed dress robes – his own had been beyond salvaging after he had fallen into a muddy pond, and the ones they had found were several numbers too large – had raised a few more eyebrows, but luckily he had never been known for his style and nobody had asked after it.

It had been a great day. Warm, sunny, with birdsong and fluttering butterflies directly out of a soppy muggle film, and for a few blissful hours they had forgotten the war raging around them, and the horrors that lay beyond the little stone church.

It hadn't been his own wedding – he had never planned on having one, anyway – but to Sirius it still was one of the happiest days in his memory, topped only by Harry's birth.

Looking at James and Lily he had for the first time in months seen a future full of promise. Not the ever darkening prospects of Voldemort taking over, of people dying faster and faster, but a glimpse of what could be – would be – once the war was over.

The week after he and Peter had almost been killed on a mission when a couple of Death Eaters ambushed them. A month later, Horatio Finley, who had been a year below them at Hogwarts and joined the Order just a day prior, had been hit by a killing curse, and in November Dragon Pox had broken out in Euphemia and Fleamont Potter again, now for the final time. But for just one day, they had been happy.

Watching James carefully slide the thin gold band on Lily's finger, the dopey grin on his face of a man who could barely believe his luck, Sirius had felt certain that that future would be theirs.

It'll be alright.

Except it hadn't.

He filled himself another glass, barely noticing he did so.

And though we were hurt so bad

In the fear and alarm

You did not desert me

My brothers in arms

He chuckled hollowly at the lyrics, draining his glass.

"Yeah right."

Of course they had deserted them.

James...died so bravely, fighting till the last moment. But died nevertheless, leaving Sirius with a hole in his chest that would never be filled.

Peter ...the vile little rat, who should've drowned in the pond that day. Oh how he wished to know where he was now, how he wished to drain every last drop of life from him, make him cry, make him beg, make him sorry for what he had done.

And Remus...

He betrayed you, too. Did he even try to find out the truth about what happened? Did he even visit you once?

He tried to fend off the thoughts.

He's there now. He believed me, he helped me. He's bleeding to death up there because he would not leave me.

And he deserves it. He let you rot in hell for six years, his own brother. He was always a spineless coward, always the teacher's pet. Of course he didn't protest when Crouch sent you off, of course he didn't try to get you a fair trial. Even now he wrote to Dumbledore behind your back. He's probably been writing him more letters every week...

No. He didn't know. He couldn't-

He could've checked. Would you have come to see him, if your roles had been reversed?

Sirius fell silent. He knew the answer.

Of course he would've gone to see Moony. He had suspected him of being the traitor – and he was not proud of that – but that didn't mean that he wouldn't at least have tried to talk to him, if only to find out his motives. To make sure that it really had been him.

The voice in his head was gloating at him in triumph.

Remus didn't come. He didn't care.

Feeling the anger rising in himself Sirius quickly poured himself another glass.

A part of him knew that it was wrong drinking so much, that he was going way past the limit he had set himself. But that part was steadily drowned out as warm fuzziness engulfed him, dulling the pain that filled his mind.

We're fools to make war

On our brothers in arms

Slowly, the music faded away, until the crackling of the fire was the only sound in the gloomy study.

It was strange, really, Sirius mused as he looked around, how the room could look so different at night. During the day, with Harry swirling around it like a personified ray of sun – he really was pissed if that was the sort of imagery his mind came up with – it felt like home, like the place where he belonged.

But now that the laughter had died down all the darkness returned. The blocks scattered on the floor weren't a cheese tower, but Regulus' old toys, loaded with so many memories it hurt to even look at them.

The pictures they had put up on the wall weren't happy memories, but attempts to cover the unnaturally light patches of wall where the portraits of his ancestors had hung. And the desk that stood in one corner wasn't an improvised school desk but his father's. Even looking at it Sirius could feel the dread and disgust he had felt all those times he had been called in here, to be admonished by a stern Orion Black for one or the other crime against etiquette.

He drank another glass, fighting to keep the demons of his past at bay. It didn't work as well as having Harry around did.

Realizing the bottle was empty he sighed, and slowly rose to his feet. The ground swayed a little – another stupid curse by his ancestors? He snorted in contempt, and shot an Incendio at the nearest rug, smiling in grim satisfaction as the once expensive Persian turned into ash.

I can't wait to find a new home to live. It'll be the sweetest day of my life, sending this whole place to hell.

Slowly he made his way up the stairs, shooting a hateful glare in the direction of his mother's portrait as he passed it. Just you wait, bitch. You'll be the first to burn.

Reaching the first floor he had to lean on the wall for a bit, trying to regain his balance. Bloody spells.

That's when he noticed that Harry's door was opened a crack. Sirius frowned, almost certain he had closed it earlier. Or was he wrong? His brain felt rather fuzzy; it was difficult to remember.

Better check on him, just to make sure.

Slowly, he walked over to the door, carefully poking his head inside.

At first he could see nothing, as the curtains had been firmly closed. But then his eyes adjusted to the darkness, and he could make out the mop of black hair, the sheets rising rhythmically with peaceful breathing. He was just about to retreat when something else caught his eye. Movement, at the far side of the room. A small shape, crouched over the school bag that lay abandoned below the window. Long fingers, large ears...

"You!"

Sirius felt rage surge through him, as the anger that he had struggled to keep under control all evening finally broke through.

"You slimey little git!" he hissed, his voice so full of fury that he barely managed to keep it down as he rushed over to the house-elf.

"I told you to stay out of here!"

Kreacher yelped in surprise, spinning around and ducking away from the approaching wizard, fear and hate in his enormous eyes. "Kreacher only-"

"Stay away from my godson!" Sirius hissed, drawing his wand. He dreaded to think how long the house-elf had been in here, and what he had planned to do. Destroy Harry's belongings, as he had done so often to Sirius back when he was still a child? Or something even darker – had he tried to plant some cursed object in Harry's things, hoping to hurt him?

"The brat-"

"DON'T CALL HIM THAT!" Sirius roared, raising his wand. He hadn't planned to actually harm Kreacher – give him a kick, maybe – but now, hearing that word – a word that he had heard so often during his own childhood – his fury finally boiled over.

"Expu-"

"No!"

Sirius froze, mid-movement, as suddenly found himself staring into green eyes, huge with fear and confusion as Harry looked at his godfather's wand, pointed directly at his chest.


Not Sirius' greatest hour...

Do I still get a review? :)