Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own any of the Harry Potter characters. Everything belongs to JK Rowling, and I'm merely allowed to play around with them. No copyright infringement is intended.
NOTE FROM A VERY HAPPY AUTHOR! I just wanted to thank you for all the reviews, guys! You see, since yesterday, 'The Right Path' is officially the most reviewed HG/RAB story, any category! :D That made me so happy! Anyway, on with the chapter. So, a lot of answers should be given in this chapter, so keep up! :)
Chapter 41
-o-O-o-
Sirius Black was angry.
Sure, he was often angry, but never had he felt such a wrath burning deep inside his chest. It felt worse than when he had heard Hermione had left him for his brother, and that had been his epitome of anger, up until now.
But now, it was no longer anger burning through his veins. It was pure, murderous rage. Suddenly, Sirius knew how Remus had felt the day Mary had died over two years ago. There was only one word echoing through his brain:
'Murder. Murder, murder, murder.'
He didn't know what that word was referring to, whether it was the committed or the about to be. In any case, he was prowling the busy streets of Muggle London, waiting for someone, while this word bounded about in his head like a happy goat.
Finally, he heard a voice behind him. "Sirius?"
It was squeaky, and sounded very much afraid. Sirius spun around growled: "Peter."
"What did you want, Sirius?" Pettigrew asked, his eyes darting to edges of the street, probably looking for an escape in case Sirius lost his temper.
"I want to know why." he hissed, while a voice in his head yelled at him to kill the bloody traitor.
"Why what?" Pettigrew squeaked, his voice becoming slightly higher.
"Why, Peter?" Sirius yelled. A few Muggles shot disapproving glances at him, but no one stopped to watch. Perhaps it was the fact that Sirius had a mad glint in his silver eyes, or just his big muscles, but either way, they were left alone. "Why did you betray James and Lily?"
"I didn't mean to!" Peter defended himself. "The Dark Lord... He had powers you do not know of! He made me! I swear I didn't mean for James and Lily to die!"
"Liar!" Sirius snapped. "You've always been a liar! You've been a filthy little traitor from the start! No wonder you were eager to become their Secret Keeper!"
"I wasn't!" he squeaked.
"Shut up!" Sirius yelled.
"No, Sirius!" Pettigrew yelled back.
"You dare-" the other started, but Pettigrew cut him again.
"Yes, I dare! You don't know what it was like!" he yelled. "I only wanted one thing, and the Dark Lord promised it!"
"But now he's dead!" Sirius answered. "So you come back weeping to my feet and expect me to forgive you!"
"I know!" Peter yelled. "But even if he was alive, he couldn't have given it to me either!"
"You realised that a bit late, you snivelling little bastard!" Sirius hissed.
"Will you listen?" Peter asked. "Will you please, just, listen? For once in your fucking life, Sirius, top thinking only about yourself!"
If they hadn't been in a street full of witnesses, Sirius would have given in to temptation and killed Pettigrew, right there, and right now.
"I wanted James." the murderer explained.
Sirius froze. He'd wanted James? As in...
"I've been in love with James ever since I knew him." he continued.
Yeah. As in... that sense.
"At first, I thought it was just friendship, but I tagged along with him more than you or Remus, when we were supposed to be an 'all equal' group of friends." he said.
"You killed him, Peter!" Sirius yelled. "What an act of love that was indeed!"
"Let me finish!" the turncoat shouted. "In was only in fifth year, when we were doing all these Animagi thingies that I realised that it was love. Remember Sirius, it was the year I told you I was gay."
Sirius didn't believe it. He couldn't believe it!
"And I wanted him so bad, but he was just going on and on about Lily and how wonderful she was and how she was the love of his life and blah and blah and blah."
Sirius' hand was itching towards his wand, just there in his cloak pocket, a few centimetres away...
"I think you can guess what happened next." Pettigrew teased. "I grew to hate Lily Evans. I felt for her what you feel for me right now. She had everything I wanted, and she was denying it."
Sirius did his best to keep his cool, but it wasn't working very well.
"I guess it could have been worse." Pettigrew amended. "In any case, there was that day, we were in Charms class, and I was staring at James, when your dear cousin Bella poked me in the shoulder."
Sirius felt disgusted.
"She told me about the Dark Lord wanting to make the world a better place, freeing the world of Mudbloods and all that kind of bullshit. I, quite frankly, didn't give a rat's arse about it, no pun intended. I was not racist or anything, and Muggles were of no importance to me."
Sirius almost rolled his eyes. Of course, Peter was Half-blood, so he didn't mind Muggles like Sirius was supposed to.
"But then she said something interesting. She said that if I joined his cause, the Dark Lord would give me anything I wanted. I remember... My eyes had darted towards Lily and I had asked: 'Will he mind if I kill a Mudblood?' And she had laughed."
Sirius knew what he was talking about. Bellatrix's very weird but still very scary laugh had always traumatised him.
"So I joined the Dark Lord, and I asked him if, when the war was over, I could kill Lily Evans and have James Potter. He promised them to me. I did everything I was told, and I hid my real identity from all of you."
Somehow, Sirius knew what was going to happen next.
"And then Hermione arrived. She almost popped out of nowhere, and she didn't trust me. I thought she knew my secret, but somehow, it seemed improbable to me. Then you two started dating, Remus found Mary and Lily stopped ignoring James. I was left alone and in pain."
This part should have made Sirius feel bad, but all he could see was red.
"Sure, you two had your ups and down, you fighting your brother to get her and all that... But at least somebody admitted their love to you."
"James never loved you that way!" Sirius snapped.
Pettigrew sighed. "I know. I was just going to slip a love potion inside his tea everyday or something, once the Dark Lord gave him to me, but back to the story."
Sirius didn't know what else there was to say, but Pettigrew continued anyway.
"I continued by deeds to the Dark Lord, all the while joining the Order to report back information as a spy. And, one day, I was assigned to my first real mission with the other Death Eaters..."
Sirius understood everything. "Egypt..." he growled.
"Yes, Egypt." Peter sighed. "I wasn't really with my Aunt, of course, and if you'd listened more closely to me, you'd have realised my aunt died in fourth year. Anyway, we had you in such a good posture, and then Regulus had to fuck up."
Sirius froze.
"He handed his wand to Hermione, and in a couple of seconds, you were all free... All but one."
He smiled evilly and Sirius saw the traces of Death Eater that polluted his mind.
"Yaxley was holding her, and I had her at my mercy. I fired the Killing Curse, but then some stupid wench had to get in the way." he growled.
"You killed Mary." Sirius whispered, his voice disbelieving.
"Yes, I killed Mary. Then I started shaking. You must have thought I was crying, but what I did was shake with anger. When Remus tried to kill me, I didn't stop him, because I thought that I deserved that for missing my target. I had been so close I could feel the elation of murdering someone you truly hate... Almost Horcruxe-like... And then I missed."
"You bastard." Sirius whispered. He was so angry he couldn't even raise his voice.
Pettigrew smirked. "I know right." he said.
"Do you even know, or care, what Mary's death did to Remus?" he hissed menacingly.
The murderer shrugged. "I know, but no, I didn't care. I was planning my next move. I was wondering when my next chance to kill Lily would be. And then something popped in... Something I didn't like... Someone was called to investigate."
"Marlene..." Sirius realised, appalled.
He nodded. "Yes, Marlene. Of course, I had to kill her too, else she'd have told the whole Wizarding world about me and my cover would have been blown like a leaf in the wind." He smiled. "She had a nice, clean death, and I dumped her body in front of the pyramid, waiting for someone to go looking for her."
Sirius held his head in his hands as it was threatening to explode. "I bet you killed Hermione, too. Regulus probably decided to join us and tell us about you, you set a trap up, she went to save him and you killed them both."
Pettigrew started laughing. People around them turned around to watch the small throwing his head back as peals of laughter escaped his throat. "You're so stupid Sirius!" he declared. "They're not dead!"
"You're lying!" Sirius yelled suddenly, the wrath back inside his chest.
"Have I been lying to you today?" Pettigrew asked. "Sure, I'm not a very good source, but I have been perfectly honest for most of today, so you could, at the very least, feel like I'm telling the truth... For once."
"Prove it." he snarled.
"I can't prove it." he argued. "But you know she's alive anyway. Don't you?"
"No!" Sirius yelled, pulling out his wand.
"Really?" Pettigrew asked. "You really are stupid! But let me finish my story first. I became Secret Keeper and told the Dark Lord about the Potters' location. The next day, I begged him to leave James be. He could kill Lily if he liked, but James had to live."
"But he didn't listen, did he?" Sirius hissed.
Pettigrew sighed. "No, he didn't. And now I live in pain-"
"Pain?" Sirius shrieked suddenly. "What do you know about pain! I live in pain! My best friend and his wife are dead, my other best friend is depressive, all of this because you killed them! I live in agony! Even my brother and my fucking fiancée are dead now!"
"How many times will I have to tell you?" Pettigrew asked rhetorically, shaking his head. "They're alive! At least, Hermione is, and if she is, Regulus probably is too."
"That's not true!" Sirius yelled, wanting so badly to raise his wand.
"You still don't get it, Sirius, do you?" Pettigrew taunted. "Haven't you noticed something weird lately? Somebody arriving just as Hermione left? Somebody who seemed to get along very well with Lily, James and Remus? Someone protected by the walls of Hogwarts? Someone who arrived with a boyfriend in tow, a boyfriend who looked so incompatible with her?"
Sirius froze. No, I couldn't be...
"Someone..." Pettigrew mused. "Like Stella Sinistra?"
"No..." Sirius said, out loud this time.
"Yes Sirius!" Pettigrew announced, a mad little giggle in his voice.
"No!" Sirius said, louder, this time, as his wrath burned up like a bonfire inside his chest, higher and higher.
"Yes!" Pettigrew insisted. "She never loved you! She loved everyone but you! She's been hiding from you, trying to keep her true identity hidden so that you wouldn't piss her off like you always did at school, and even after that!"
Sirius raised his wand. "I'm warning you, Peter!" he snarled. "One more word..."
"And you'll do what? Kill me?" he asked, before throwing his head back and laughing. "She never loved you! Give up! She only slept with you because Hermione Granger was nothing more than a slutty whore! Just a cheap, slutty who-"
"Fulgur Maxima!" Sirius yelled, his wand aimed between Pettigrew's eyes. The bright yellow curse left his wand and crackled around the air menacingly.
There was a bang, and Sirius was thrown back onto the pavement, some twenty feet from his original standing place. His head was ringing, and when he tried to stand up, to world turned dangerously to one side and he fell back down again.
It was a few minutes before he could sit up and look around at the scene around him. There was dust everywhere, and Muggles were huddled over at a place, close to where he had been standing. He stood up carefully and walked slowly to them. He could see them talk, but the only thing he heard was a low ringing sound in the back of his head.
As he approached, they looked at him in horror and backed off. Some even ran away. They enabled him to go and look at what they were talking about. In the centre of their circle lay a pile of ashes with, in the middle, a single bloody finger.
Sirius smiled. "I did it." he said, then started laughing out loud. "I did it!" he said again, this time shouting it, though. He threw his head back and laughed hysterically. There was a dull throb in his heart as he knew that his life was worthless now, but for now, all he thought about was how he'd killed Pettigrew.
Sirius tripped over something and hit his head on the pavement, but he didn't stop laughing. He laughed and laughed and laughed, a very hysterical sound, but he didn't care at all. He looked around him, still laughing, and saw dead bodies on the floor. He started counting them, just for fun, but when he arrived at eight, a sudden dizziness took over.
He rolled onto his side and threw up, but as soon as he was done, he started laughing again. In the distance, the ringing sound subsided and he saw a wizard in long, deep blue robes walk towards him. The wizard picked him up and started dragging him to... Actually, Sirius had no idea where the wizard was dragging him to. Just that he was dragging.
There was a bright red light and, the next thing Sirius Orion Black the third knew, he was in a cold cell, in solitary confinement in Azkaban prison, for the next twelve years of his life.
-o-O-o-
Ta-daaaaa! We're nearing the end now! Only one or two chapters left, and an epilogue! :) This sort of makes me sad, I've worked so hard on this story and I don't want to leave you guys! :/ There should be a sequel though, so if you want to read that, be my guest. Anyway, as always, please leave a review, I really, really, really want some. :D They make my day, and I always answer them.