Yawning widely, Sirius wandered down the stairs, listening for the distant sounds of breakfast being made in the kitchen. His stomach was grumbling loudly and if, he checked his watch, noting that it was already 1:00, he had missed breakfast, surely lunch would still be there… or at least tea… Sirius paused; he could hear no one downstairs. His sleep-fogged mind tried to consider what this might mean, but the only thing he could come up with was that he might have to find his own food.

Stell would make him something, or Remus would, they always had some sort of snack ready for the late risers, primarily Sirius, or others who dropped by the Order for a few minutes in the afternoon. A particularly loud growl from his stomach jolted Sirius back into his journey down the stairs, and he continued thudding loudly down each step, hoping someone would hear him.

When he reached the great room, he stumbled slowly across the hall into the kitchen. It was dark, no one was there… He looked around blurrily, wondering what was going on. In the kitchen a pot full of something that had been burnt into a charred black lump of gook was sitting on the still burning stove. Sirius turned it off, beginning to become really perplexed. Someone had been half through slicing a cantaloupe on the counter and several dirty dishes sat on the table.

"Hello?" Sirius called, sticking his head around the corner and looking up and down the hall. No one answered. Sirius wandered over to the coat rack in the mudroom. It was empty looking and sad. All the cloaks except his were gone. Feeling that he was missing something, Sirius wandered over to the fire place and took a handful of floo powder.

He stuck his head in the grate and considered his options. Remus and Stell stayed at the Order most nights. Peter… He could try Peter's apartment. "Peter Pettigrew!" he exclaimed. A moment later he was staring into Peter's empty living room. Again, things were left in disarray; no one appeared to be home.

Pulling his head back out of the fire, Sirius sat up and began to actually think, something he hadn't done yet this morning. Where could everyone had gone in such a rush? Why hadn't they woken him? Why hadn't they turned off the stove or finished making him breakfast?

In a sudden wave of understanding, Sirius began to panic. Where else could they have gone, except to fight Voldemort? Something terrible must have come up and it must have been horribly urgent, they had left in such a rush… His heart began to pound and his palms started to sweat. His head was spinning and the breath caught in his throat. He couldn't think anymore, he couldn't concentrate. Sirius thrust his head back into the fire, "P-Potter's Home! Godric's Hollow!" he choked.

"Hello!" he shouted as the Potter's den came into focus. "Is anyone, anyone at all, there?" For a terrible moment no one answered, but then Sirius heard the sound of running feet and the wails of a baby.

"Sirius!" Lily exclaimed, leaping on to her knees and kneeling by Sirius's head. Tiny Harry was clutched in her arms and she appeared to be halfway through changing him.

"What are you-"

"What's happened-" He and Lily both spoke at the same time.

"I woke up late and everyone was- no one was- They all left!" Sirius exclaimed hysterically.

"Oh, Merlin!" Lily said desperately, shaking her head in disbelief. "You haven't heard?"

"No!" Sirius said, trying to prepare himself for the worst. His brain didn't seem to be working; he couldn't focus or think of anything.

"The Prewetts thought they'd tracked down a death eater at last and… They were searching; some of the others came with them… We didn't know what happened… Stell just managed… Somehow they got a message to us… Things were bad, they said, and they needed back up… Something happened, I don't know, everyone had to go… And they told us and James- he said- James had to go… and he made me stay here, he said someone had to look after Harry and he left-" Lily broke down, tears streaming down her face.

"I haven't heard anything, all morning! I'd been waiting and waiting! I thought maybe you'd come to tell me what had happened. You scared me so much… I thought James… I thought he'd…" But Sirius wasn't absorbing any of this.

His mind was stuck on one thing, "Stell?" he managed at last. Lily could only nod, her brilliant green eyes filled with tears, and little Harry wailing, tiny fists flailing wildly.

"Where?" Sirius asked.

"I don't know," Lily gulped, "All they told us was this." She held up a scrap of paper with two words scrawled across it: Little Hangleton.

"He went by floo. Said that." Sirius nodded and quickly removed his head from the fire. He checked himself hurriedly, he was still wearing yesterday's robes, but that was fine, and though he still hadn't eaten, somehow he didn't feel the least bit hungry anymore. His wand was in his pocket. He didn't go anywhere without it anymore after the embarrassing episode where James had apparated on him in the middle of the night to tell him that Harry was being born. Sirius had thought he was being attacked but he hadn't been able to find his wand anywhere in the dark, as it was on the floor halfway across the room.

Sirius paused, took a deep breath and plunged his hand back into the jar of floo powder. He quickly crawled back into the fireplace and gasped "Little Hangleton!" Again he was spinning through the floo network, watching the grates whirring past him. At last he fell face first onto a hard wooden floor.

Slowly he picked himself up. He was in a deserted room filled with cobwebs. The single window was shattered and everything was silent. Sirius glanced around desperately, wondering where to go. The cloudy sky was beginning to darken already and the air had grown chilly. Behind him, Sirius saw a plain wooden door and, for lack of anything better to do, he went through it.

It lead outside to a small garden. He appeared to have been in a large, forgotten looking, stone mansion on the edge of a little village. To his left were the houses of the village, some with lights in the windows and some with smoke curling out of their chimneys. Everything was quiet, peaceful and calm. It didn't seem to be the place where a death eater might be found.

Sirius turned to look down the hill. Here there was a graveyard. It seemed to be taken right out of a ghost story with its crooked tombstones and twisted trees. As far as being the site of a horrible magical duel went, the cemetery looked a lot more promising than the village. Sirius wandered slowly down the hill, his ears straining against the eerie calm.

Quickly Sirius fell into his animagus shape, loping easily down the hill. When he got to the gate, he stopped nervously, listening and sniffing the air. He thought he could smell the lingering stench of magical fire, but it was a long way off. He picked up his pace, falling behind gravestones and keeping his eyes wide open so that he would see any attacker before they could see him.

Ahead he saw two trees whose branches blocked his view, on the trunk of one was obviously the burnt mark of an ill-aimed spell. Heart pounding, Padfoot advanced slowly, pausing to smell a footprint in the damp earth. He was getting closer. All around him now were the marks of spells that had missed their targets and the whiffs of magic in the air where getting stronger. He tried to listen, but his heart was hammering so loudly he could hear nothing else.

In front of him loomed a great marble headstone. And behind it… behind it he could hear voices! Padfoot slowly crept forward to peer around the edge of the grave.

Nothing could have prepared him for the devastation that met his eyes. Trees were scorched and black and there were… bodies. Padfoot was afraid to get closer, afraid of who might be lying only a few meters away from him with blood on their robes… In the distance there were people standing, talking… A few were bending over others and someone was sobbing.

Padfoot crept forward, carefully edging around the nearest corpses. Were these friends or foes? He studied the four figures in his view; it was too dark and they were too far away for him to see properly and he couldn't hear what they were saying. He began to step forward when he heard someone call his name behind him.

"Padfoot?" He whirled around, baring his teeth, a low growl escaping him. It was a moment before he realized that the only people who would know him in this form were…

"James?" Sirius gasped, immediately changing back into his human form. James was crouched on the ground, checking someone who lay nearby. His face was pale under the grime and he was shaking, but he appeared to be all in one piece.

"I'm so sorry," Sirius whispered, coming toward him.

"It's not your fault," James said, "I suppose you were asleep and no one had time to get you." James sounded exhausted and he looked as though the shock of what had happened hadn't hit him yet.

"What happened?" Sirius asked quietly.

"I don't know. Stell apparated to our house and said we needed to come here right away. All she could say was that they'd sent out a group of Order members to investigate a possible death eater sighting and something had gone wrong. Lily wanted to come too, but I made her stay with Harry. There was a huge fight, death eaters everywhere… We were losing, but then Dumbledore showed up and they all left pretty quickly."

"Who's… Is everyone….?" Sirius was too afraid to voice the question which had long been on his mind.

James shook his head. "That's Mad-Eye over there with Dumbledore, Edgar Bones and Professor McGonagall," he said, gesturing to the small group of people standing in the distance. "Remus is alright, he had to go right away because it's full moon tonight. Other than that…" James looked out at the numerous people lying on the ground.

"I've seen Dedalus Diggle. He's gone a bit funny, but he'll be alright… Emmeline Vance apparated away a little while ago, she took Elphias Doge with her, you know, the one with that funny green hat? They got him pretty badly, but she thought he'd be alright if she took him to St. Mungo's…"

"Who are… all these people?" Sirius asked, waving his arm out over the remaining casualties.

"Some are Aurors from the ministry… But, a… a lot of them are us, Order members…" James's eyes shone dully behind his grimy glasses. He looked too tired and beaten to cry and he didn't seem to be able to name anyone else.

Sirius felt bad asking him for names, but he had to know, "Peter?"

"I don't know," James said, "I haven't seen him all day, I didn't know he was here."

"Stell?" Sirius asked at last, he'd been avoiding mentioning her until now, too terrified at what might have happened.

James shook his head, "I haven't seen her yet. I bumped into her earlier, when we were still fighting. She was doing well. Some people have already left; she might have gone to find you."

Sirius bit back a wave of emotion and turned back to James, "Anyone else you know for certain about?" he asked.

James studied him carefully, "You want to know?"

"I have to find out. Please, just tell me."

James nodded, "Alright," he said resignedly. James sighed, sitting down on a tombstone and thinking. "I saw Sturgis Podmore. Remember him? He was a few years younger than us…"

"Was he the one Emmeline was always yelling at?"

"Yeah, that was him. Well, he doesn't look good. I think I felt a pulse… He was so still though… I'm no healer, but I'll be surprised if he makes it."

"Anyone else?" Sirius asked.

James glanced at Sirius again, as if measuring him. Finally he nodded his head. "Joanna."

"Is she… still alive?" Sirius asked.

"No, they got her with a killing curse," James said. They were silent for a moment, staring at the ground. "There was nothing you could have done," James said at last, "By the time I got here, it was almost over."

Sirius did not reply, he just sat quietly watching a single leaf drift slowly to the ground.

James stood finally, turning to Sirius, "Come on, we have to find everyone who needs help. Let's keep looking."

Sirius heaved himself to his feet and followed James to the next person. He was a ministry worker. He lay with his legs twisted oddly and his eyes eerily open. James checked his wrist and than shook his head sadly. The wandered on, looking for others. Sirius didn't like kneeling by the corpses and checking for a pulse, but he felt it was the least he could do.

James, who was walking ahead of Sirius, stopped abruptly. Sirius heard a sharp intake of breath, and hurried over to him, looking to see what he had found. Sprawled elegantly across the ground, back to back and lying as though they'd been fighting off ten death eaters at once, were Gideon and Fabian Prewett.

"I saw them before… They saved my neck more than once today. There were a whole bunch of death eaters fighting them, but they were doing well…" James looked at the brothers, aghast. He fell to his knees and reached for Fabian's wrist, but it was no good. Even Sirius could see that the Prewetts would never wake up.

"Hey! You two! What've you found-" Mad-Eye Moody, Edgar Bones, McGonagall and Dumbledore had come up behind them. Moody, who'd been calling to them, fell silent when he reached them.

"What is it, Alastor?" Professor McGonagall asked as she climbed the small hill to where the Prewetts lay. "Oh," she breathed, "Oh no." Everyone looked sadly at the ground, holding back tears or shaking their heads in disbelief.

"So many innocent lives…" Dumbledore said somberly.

Edgar Bones nodded, "The poor Longbottoms…"

"What happened?" James asked, his voice shaking.

"The cruciatus curse. They were tortured, we thought to death, but apparently they're still alive. We think Voldemort thought they had information he could use. They've been taken to St. Mungo's," he said.

"They had a son," James said.

Edgar Bones nodded, "That will be taken care of until the Longbottoms can be revived."

"Who were they fighting? Who used the cruciatus curse on them?" James asked, angrily.

A second later, James wished he hadn't asked, "Bellatrix Lestrange."

Sirius turned away from the others, staring out over the appalling scene before them. The wind tossed his dark hair and his grey eyes were sad and distant.

Suddenly, something across the clearing caught Sirius's eye. It was a pale blue cloak. A chillingly familiar pale blue cloak. Silently, Sirius swept away from the others, hardly daring to breathe as he ran across the grass. He leapt over a tombstone and landed beside her.

Stell lay with her face turned away from him, her thick brownish hair was tied up in a ponytail and one hand still clutched her wand. Sirius rolled her onto her back. She was deathly pale and there was a wide gash in the side of her head where she'd hit it on a stone. Slowly, Sirius sat down on the hard ground and pulled her limp frame onto his knees.

Sirius took a deep shaking breath and placed his ear to her chest, closing his eyes in concentration. At first he thought there was nothing, but then he heard the dull steady pulse of her heart. Relief swept over him and at last the tears fell.

"Stell," he choked, "Stella… You can't give up. You said you'd never leave me…"

Suddenly she coughed, her mouth fell open and her chest heaved. Her breathing was heavy and ragged, but it was there. After a moment, her eyes opened and she looked up at Sirius's face, as if seeing him for the first time. A feeling so powerful it made him want to stand up and sing, sob his eyes out, and never let go of the cold hand in his all at the same time, swept over him.

"I knew you'd come for me," Stell whispered.

"Who's he found?" Edgar Bones asked James.

"Stell," James replied softly, tears for Sirius blurring his vision as he watched Sirius bending over the lifeless form.

"Poor kid," Moody grunted.

"I don't suppose… she couldn't have survived, could she?" Professor McGonagall asked without much hope.

At last James decided Sirius had had enough time on his own. He wandered slowly down to the place where Sirius knelt.

"I'm sorry mate, really sorry…" James croaked, trying to imagine how he'd feel if he lost Lily.

But then, when he reached them, an amazing sight met his eyes. Stell was lying in Sirius's arms, there was a cut in the side of her face that seemed to have bled heavily, and her breathing was shallow and rough, but she was gazing up at Sirius with such love that James knew she would live.

Untraceable happiness washed over him, he turned to the others on the hill, "She's alright! She's alive!" he cheered. They hurried down the hill, weaving around the tombstones.

Dumbledore moved quickly for a man of his years, in seconds he was on the ground beside Sirius, gently prying Stell away from him, "Episkey!" he said, placing his wand gently by the gash on her head. The blood stopped oozing from the wound and new, pinkish skin started to grow across it. "That should help a bit, but we need to get her to St. Mungo's…Can you tell me what else hurts? What spell was used?" Stell blinked up at Dumbledore, apparently trying to make sense of what he was asking her.

"Are you dizzy?" Edgar Bones asked, kneeling on the other side. "Can you breathe alright? Please, Sirius! We're trying to help her!" he said exasperatedly.

"Sirius," Dumbledore said gently, "We need to find out what's wrong."

"Come on," James coaxed, placing a hand on Sirius's shoulder and easing him away. "She's going to be alright, Padfoot."

Sirius nodded silently, looking dazed. "She's alive…"

A/N: Thanks for reading! Happy Thanksgiving!