Prologue
31 Oct. 1981
Godric's Hollow
"Lily! James!" Sirius shouted, darting up the walk to the tiny cottage perched crookedly at the corner of Bumbling Alley and Lycoris Lane, and skidded to a stop as the path twisted, the house coming fully into view. The front door had been blasted open from without, torn clean from it's hinges, and from here, Sirius could clearly see the scorch mark obliterating the portrait of Arrhenius Potter, James's twice great uncle. Worse than that, though, far, far more terrible, was the hole that had ripped through the roof, the tattered ruins of the nursery in clear view, and hanging high, high above that the mark of death and ruin, the first sign that all was unwell. His heart stopped.
No. No, they aren't…
Clutching his wand tightly, Sirius stepped into the small entryway. To his left, the dining room lay, immaculate and slightly dusty - Lily and James never used the dining room, except for that one time Dumbledore had visited, they had much preferred the warm kitchen. Do prefer, he corrected himself, because they were alive , Merlin-dammit, James had gotten out of plenty of scrapes before, and Lily was utterly brilliant, and… They're fine. Probably hiding somewhere.
But Sirius couldn't stop thinking of the other times he'd found the Dark Mark hanging over a friend's house, of the McKinnons mutilated bodies on display in their dining room, of the Fawleys with their eyes gauged out.
Heart pounding, pounding, pounding, Sirius crept forwards. He followed the signs of a fight into the living room - a portrait blasted off the wall, its occupants vanished; a scorch mark on the floor; slowly melting slivers of ice, sharp as knives, impaled through the couch. Glass crunched under his feet; Lily's precious crystal, shattered to pieces. Finally, he came to the back of the house, right before the rear staircase, and there-
Sprawled on the ground before the stairs as if he'd been thrown back by a Knockback Jinx, hands limp on either side of his head and wand fallen onto the ground, lay James Potter.
Sirius lunged forwards, an anguished sound escaping him like that of a wounded animal. "James, no, James, please…"
But James Potter did not respond. Could not, in fact. Not anymore.
He's d-
Sirius couldn't make himself finish the thought, even as the knowledge settled into his bones. James Potter was gone, You-Know-Who had gotten to him, had k-
He swallowed back the lump in his throat; he couldn't think about it, had other concerns–
Lily.
He had to find Lily, and the girls. Sirius staggered to his feet, and up the stairs, his heart pounding and aching, each beat sending this awful twisted anguish through his chest, and he couldn't …
Thoughts thick with grief, he didn't see the other man until a wand was shoved in his face. Sirius reared back, too late, expecting pain or death, and wouldn't that be a relief, an end to the ache in his heart… but no spell came.
"Black," a silky, darkly amused voice said, "still as careless as ever, I see."
Sirius jerked towards the other man, his former classmate, in fact. "What're you doing here? Voldemort-"
"Is hardly in the position to notice my absence or lack thereof," Snape finished for him, and now, a note of anguish had entered his voice, much like the pain Sirius himself was feeling-
He looked at the man more closely. As ever, it was an unpleasant sight - limbs not quite as lanky and awkward as in their school years, though his cheeks had taken a hollow note like never before, and there were dark shadows under his eyes, and he was as pale as that vampire Sirius had met in Peru, but… It was the eyes that truly showed it all, dark and pained , as if the man's heart had been ripped out, and…
"Lily?" The word twisted out of him, another awful ache settling in his heart.
Severus Snape stared at him, lips parted, but no mocking comment came, no cutting remark or cruel, cruel jab, nothing at all escaped the man, and then, abruptly, he turned, heading back down the hall with a murmured, "See for yourself."
And so Sirius Black found himself obediently following after the surly potions apprentice - or was it master, now? Sirius hadn't paid much attention in Order meetings… - and it was certainly something that his sixteen year old self would've screamed at him for. Back then, Severus would've cursed him upon arriving at a suitably abandoned location, like Sirius himself would've done given the chance, but now… Well, now, neither of them particularly cared enough about the other to bother with the extra effort.
If Sirius was going to curse the man, he'd do it in plain sight of all.
Then, he entered the nursery, and all thoughts of Severus Snape flew from his mind. The room had been, and there was no other possible word for it, devastated . It was as if a tornado - named Voldemort - had swept through the nursery and demolished everything in sight. Ruins of plaster and wood chips and even bits of roof tile littered the floor from where the ceiling now opened to the sky, and the little window that peered out on Lycoris Lane was gone, but only because half of the wall had been blasted out along with much of the roof. The little corner bookshelf had been knocked asunder, and several indignant portraits were shouting, or Sirius supposed they were shouting, as no sound escaped.
It was as if, Sirius realized with dawning horror, some massive explosion had torn through the room and shredded everything. Everything, that is, save for the little crib where two pairs of hazel eyes stared up at him.
"They're alive?" Sirius choked out. It was… impossible, wonderful, a miracle.
Severus did not respond, and Sirius glanced over to see the man gazing down at Lily's body, hair red like her own blood pooling around her head, though, of course, there wasn't any blood, not when she'd been killed with the Killing Curse. There was such an expression of raw pain on the man's face that Sirius couldn't help but feel as if he was intruding on some private, intimate moment.
Sirius jerked his gaze away and approached the crib. The twins gazed up at him. They were identical, very nearly, except one of them had clearly been crying at some point, cheeks tearstained and eyes red, but the other stared up at him blankly, silent as death. Did she not understand? No, of course, neither of them did, in all likelihood…
He knelt in front of the crib, forcing a smile. "Hey."
"Mama?" one girl sniffled. Euphie, Sirius thought. It was hard to know which was which, but there were slight differences in their magic, and Sirius had always had a sensitivity to such a thing… Severus would probably make some scornful remark about him needing to rely on magic to tell his goddaughters apart; the other man certainly had no difficulties in that capacity.
"She's gone away for a little while," Sirius explained, and there was a pained noise from behind him. Sirius pretended not to hear it. "I'm sure you'll see her again one day." We all will, after we die. Perhaps it was that reminder that spurred him to action, and he picked the youngest Potter up, then turned to Snape. "We need to get them out of here. Take them to St. Mungo's, report what happened."
Severus stared at the far wall, a curious blankness entering his expression.
"The girls could be hurt," he added when the man didn't move.
Severus jolted, eyes meeting his for a moment, and they were empty, this dull glaze like that of a doll's, this terrible, terrible hollowness the way that a puppet might look once its many, many strings had been severed. It was as if all the life had been drawn out of him, all the thousand thin, shimmery threads that held him up snipped by one cruel slash. A shiver crept down Sirius's spine, wrong, wrong, wrong, a voice murmured.
Wordlessly, he moved forwards and reached for Hattie - Sirius started, almost raised his wand to stop him, but this was what he'd asked, wasn't it? Besides, they were Lily's daughters , Severus would never harm them… and, if he had long since descended into that murky darkness that was the Madness, then they had all been long since doomed - the man knew far too much for any of the Order to survive his treachery.
There was no noise as the man Apparated away with Hattie, not even the softest of pops , and Sirius tried desperately hard not to consider what that meant.
No, instead, Sirius followed after him; as he twisted away into the crushing oblivion of Apparition, his gaze fell on Lily, and there was something truly terrible about the look on her face, the brightness of her eyes, the tilt of her lips, wrong and awful and so, so similar to the way her face would light up after she'd had some particularly clever plan that went wonderfully, perfectly right . Yes, for all that Lily Evans-Potter lay dead on the floor of her own daughters' nursery, she'd been smiling.
Then, with a sharp CRACK! Sirius vanished.
