A/N: This is my fourth (and probably final) installment in my 'ANL' series in which Sirius is a free man and Wormtail found guilty of betraying the Potters. By this point the plot has diverged from canon quite a bit, but there will still be elements of it weaved into the story, and of course we all know vaguely how it ends. I hope you will enjoy it!

Chapter One - Darkness Rising

It certainly was a bizarre set up.

Dumbledore had taken a guest room on the third floor of number twelve, Grimmauld Place, and only Harry, Sirius and the members of the Order of the Phoenix knew he was still alive. And Ron, Hermione and Ginny of course, who Sirius couldn't blame Harry for telling too, though of course they had been sworn to secrecy.

'Mysterious Death and Disappearance of Albus Dumbledore' featured as the headline of the Daily Prophet, the day after he was supposedly killed by Snape. The story was that the death eaters had taken his body, given they could not find him to bury, and of course there were many holes in the story which were being filled with wild rumours.

"The death eaters do not all believe he is dead." Snape reported as he came round for an Order meeting. "The Dark Lord is tasking some of his followers with searching for him. Are you sure you are safe here, Albus?"

Sirius rolled his eyes. "You want to take him to your muggle house in Cokeworth, Snape? Let's see how long he lasts there with no magical protection."

His father, who had been extremely paranoid among his many other flaws, had spent about three decades setting up guards around number twelve, Grimmauld Place. The place was impenetrable unless the secret keeper gave you the address.

"The Dark Lord wishes for me to be headmaster at Hogwarts." Snape told them now, choosing to ignore Sirius as usual. "He is quite sure he will have control of the ministry before the end of the month."

"That's good." Albus said. "Especially as I heard the Carrows are to be employed there too. I am glad to know there will be someone at the helm I can trust to care for my students."

Sirius stopped himself from speaking with difficulty. Did Dumbledore know Snape at all?!

"It will certainly be a challenge as most of the student body and staff believe me to be responsible for your death, Albus."

"My dear man, we all know how well equipped you are to take on a challenge." Dumbledore said generously.

They were all taking on challenges in the weeks that followed Harry's return from Hogwarts.

There were more strange disappearances and attacks on muggles and muggleborns than ever. Kingsley and Tonks were working overtime at the ministry trying to decipher who was operating under the imperius curse and who they could trust (very few, apparently).

Sirius had also had a challenge in the form of his godson and a promise he'd made to him on the first day of the holidays.

When Harry had told him he was dropping out of Hogwarts to look for horcruxes himself he'd not been delighted at first, but had soon agreed to it. It was exactly what James would have done, and Sirius could quite understand it.

Dumbledore, however, had other thoughts on the matter.

"It's very important that Harry finishes his education." He said, as Sirius told him what Harry had planned.

Sirius had sighed. "We can't stop him dropping out of school. He's almost of age now. He wants to join the Order."

"I cannot allow that to happen. His education must come first."

Harry hadn't been happy. "He can't stop me!" He said defiantly when Sirius told him the news.

"Well he is in charge of the Order." Sirius said. "So he probably can."

"Well I'll just go off hunting horcruxes on my own then." Harry said.

"I'd really rather you didn't."

Harry fixed him with a very hard stare. "Sirius, I'm the one who has to defeat Voldemort. I wish you and Dumbledore would stop treating me like a child."

"Just let us help you." Sirius said. He wasn't even sure Harry did have to defeat Voldemort alone. It seemed to be something Dumbledore believed, but Dumbledore could be wrong, couldn't he? "By the time it comes to taking Voldemort out, you might have finished Hogwarts anyway." Surely it would take more than twelve months to find and destroy the hidden parts of Voldemort's soul. They could be anywhere in the world, after all.

"Besides, having someone at Hogwarts we can trust will be a big help." Sirius added in an obvious attempt to persuade his godson that he didn't really want to be fighting in the Order.

"Yes, because we can't trust Snape."

Sirius had reluctantly admitted to Harry that Snape had been intending to kill Dumbledore on the headmaster's orders, but neither of them really believed his innocence anyway.

"Yeah." Sirius agreed. "And if that foul git is headmaster you'll want to be there to do as much damage limitation as you can. I wonder who he makes head boy…"

"I suppose it will be good to have another quidditch season." Harry admitted grudgingly.

Sirius grinned. The battle was won, and Harry was returning to Hogwarts for his final year of education.

Before that though, there were two weddings to attend to.

Remus and Tonks had of course asked Sirius to be the best man at theirs.

It was quite a quiet wedding, with just a few members of the Order and Tonks' parents in attendance.

The last wedding Sirius had attended was of course James and Lily's. Looking round at the gathered crowd now he couldn't have imagined anything more different.

James and Lily had married not long after graduating Hogwarts. The wedding had been wild and uncontained, with copious amounts to drink and ridiculous speeches. They had been young, carefree and not yet battered by the war they were all about to be hit by. There had been merriment, laughter and it had been the best day of James, Lily and probably Sirius' lives. Except perhaps for the day Harry had been born.

Today however was a sober, contained affair. The officiant had an air of wanting to get the whole thing over and done with quickly about him, and several of the guests left soon after the ceremony.

"Well, a little time has passed since the last wedding Remus and I were at together." Sirius said, getting to his feet to deliver his best man's speech at the end of the wedding breakfast. "But he hasn't changed all that much since our teenage years." He continued, smiling at his friend. "He's always been a careful planner, he's always made good choices and a more decent, genuine bloke you couldn't hope to meet."

Remus and Tonks were both smiling at him. Tonks even had tears in her eyes. He supposed it was rather out of character of him to be singing anyone's praises like this.

"And of course my wonderful cousin's daughter, Tonks, or Dora, should I say." He grinned at the young woman. "I've never seen Remus as happy as he is when he's with you. Thank you for giving him everything he's ever wanted. And welcome to the family, er, I mean vice versa!" Of course Tonks was already family.

Ted Tonks laughed and then he got to his feet to give his speech.

Sirius had to admit, Dora had a good family. He knew his cousin was devoted to her daughter, and her father clearly cared very deeply too.

"I feel like the luckiest girl in the world!" She said, beaming at everyone as she and Remus took to the dance floor.

This, for Sirius at least, was certainly a good comedic moment of the wedding. Though he knew Remus had been practicing the first dance for many weeks, he still managed to get half the moves wrong and step on Tonks' feet several times.

He didn't ridicule him too much for it though. He'd let him off on his wedding day.

"So, you're fighting in this Order too then." Andromeda said coolly as he found himself at the bar with her.

Sirius liked Andromeda. She'd always been his favourite cousin, although he had to admit the competition wasn't steep.

"You sound like Narcissa when you say things like that, Andromeda." He told her, smiling at the woman, whose aloof nature (no doubt a result of her upbringing) had never quite left her.

She sniffed (which didn't really help her case). "Well I must say I don't really approve. Why can't our Nymphadora just work for the ministry if she insists on fighting the way she does?"

Sirius rolled his eyes. "She's safer working for the Order than she is the ministry. Half the staff are Voldemort supporters and the other half are so incompetent they'll be no use to her as backup. We'll take care of her."

Andromeda fixed him with another customary cool look. "I'm sure you've not changed that much over the years. How are Ted and I to know you won't lead her off on some reckless, foolhardy abandon?"

Sirius pretended to be hurt by the comment. "Why cousin, when have I ever given you the impression I would do something like that?!"

Of course it was a rhetorical question. The number of times he'd led his brother Regulus astray as a child were surely more than either of them could count.

He felt an odd sort of spasm run through his chest as his brother came to mind again.

He'd discovered just a few weeks ago that it was Regulus who had discovered Voldemort's locket horcrux and had taken it from its original hiding place in the cave. As Sirius had hated the whole lot of them, he'd thrown the thing away on discovering it in the house (along with any other remains of his dark family), of course having no idea it contained the very piece of Voldemort's soul they were seeking to destroy.

He still wasn't sure exactly how he felt about the news that his brother, who he'd barely spoken to since leaving home at sixteen, was actually not the useless swine he had assumed him to be since the boy had been sorted into Slytherin aged eleven.

Of course he'd spoken to no one about it. Remus was usually best at getting him to open up, but as his best friend had quite understandably different priorities at the moment, he had been left to brood.

The worst thing was, thanks to him and the total hatred and dismissal of his family, they no longer had the locket. It had been right there in the house!

Andromeda left to congratulate her daughter again and Harry joined him. "You alright?"

Harry was looking at him in a way that reminded him of both his mother and father simultaneously. He nodded. "Yeah. Good day for Remus, eh?"

Sirius had to admit he'd had his concerns that his friend would let his perpetual self-pitying get in the way of this chance for happiness, but fortunately he had accepted Tonks' love for him and Sirius was very glad for that. His best mate really never had looked happier than he did today.

"Bill and Fleur next." Harry reminded him.

"It was the same in the last war." Sirius told his godson. "Everyone getting married quickly. I suppose they wanted to make sure…" But he left his sentence trailing. Nothing bad was going to happen to any of them. He couldn't let himself think like that.

They enjoyed the rest of the wedding and waved Remus and Tonks (or should she now be called Lupin?) off on their mini break. Of course they weren't going away for long. They needed to be on call if they were needed by the Order. And, in these dark times, they always were.

It wasn't until the day of Bill and Fleur's wedding though that they got the news they'd all been dreading.

It was Kingsley Shacklebolt who alerted them. Scrimgeour had been killed. The ministry had fallen. The death eaters (now ministry workers) were on their way.

Knowing it would be a lot easier to capture and torture information out of members of the Order now it was sanctioned by law, Sirius and the others fled.

Ron grabbed Hermione, Sirius grabbed Harry, the Weasleys grabbed their children and they all disapparated, leaving Ron's Great Aunt Muriel, who had been enjoying a waltz with Viktor Krum on the dance floor, looking seriously put out.

Barricading themselves inside number twelve, Sirius turned in panic to Harry. "You OK?"

"No. I'm still stuck at the Burrow."

"What's going on?"

It was Dumbledore. He'd been disappointed not to have had a chance to have attended the party, particularly as his old friend Elphias Doge was in attendance.

"The ministry have fallen." Sirius relayed to him. "Scrimgeour is dead."

Dumbledore nodded seriously as though he'd been expecting the news. "It was only a matter of time. Who's in charge now?"

They found out the very next day.

Pius Thicknesse replaces Rufus Scrimgeour as Minister for Magic

Sirius knew Thicknesse. He'd worked under Amelia Bones in the department for magical law enforcement. Clearly he was under the imperius curse now though. He wondered if it had been Rookwood or Travers who had cast it on him. He knew both men had connections with the ministry.

"Oh -"

He swore as he read the next article.

It was a photo of Harry, above which was the headline:

Harry Potter: Wanted for Questioning about the Death of Albus Dumbledore

"They want to question Harry about your death?" He said to a very alive Albus. "Wouldn't it just be easier for us to just open the door and prove to the ministry you weren't dead?"

Dumbledore shook his head. "It is easier this way. Severus is now fully trusted among the death eaters, and Draco is safe."

"But if they know it was him who killed you, why are they after Harry?!"

"It gives them an excuse to try and capture him, and also discredit him in the process."

Sirius shook his head. Things were looking very bad indeed. He wasn't sure how his godson was supposed to go back to Hogwarts now the entire wizarding world had been told to report any sighting of him to the ministry.

Harry wasn't too upset by this news. "Good. I'll go looking for horcruxes instead." He said on seeing the article.

"And how are you going to do that?!"

"Under my dad's cloak of course!"

Sirius supposed it would be quite hard to stop him. Especially as he was now of age.

"Ron and Hermione want to help me."

Of course they did.

"But I suppose I have you, Remus and Tonks."

Sirius nodded. He was still unsure what he'd done to earn Albus' trust, but he was glad the hunt for the horcruxes didn't fall on just Harry's shoulders.

With Albus in the house with him now, the two of them had some good conversations together.

"I wonder if you might feel somewhat irrelevant if everyone knew what you know about how to defeat Voldemort." Sirius asked the older man in a blunt and rather obvious attempt to delve into his psyche.

He was very glad Dumbledore had been more forthcoming with what he knew about the horcruxes, but he was still trusting very few people with the knowledge.

The aged wizard sighed and stroked his long white beard. "It's not that, Sirius. It's just that people have a tendency to organise whatever truths they find and when that happens they lose all their power."

Albus had always been a great philosopher and a speaker of many deep truths. In Sirius' younger years he'd found it more irritating than interesting, but he found he was understanding the older man much more as he matured himself.

He frowned as he attempted to decipher what Albus was saying this time. "You mean it won't be as powerful if more people know about it?"

"Weapons of power are dangerous if not treated very very carefully. Knowledge is such a weapon."

"I get that we can't trust the ministry, but why don't we get the whole Order on the case? They could take a piece of soul each."

"Hunting horcruxes is a task I can entrust to very few. Telling you went against my better judgement. Although I am glad I did." He added as Sirius opened his mouth to express his offence.

"Telling me what you were up to might have just saved your life." Sirius told him which was perfectly true. He'd known exactly what Albus had been planning with Snape and Draco, and so was ready to act (quite literally) when the time came for his 'death'.

"Well let's hope it destroys Voldemort's to the same degree."

They ran through the list of possible locations for horcruxes again.

"Have you spoken to Kreacher yet?"

Sirius glowered. He'd been putting off speaking to his house elf, who there was a possibility had stolen the locket back from when he'd attempted to throw it out a few summers ago, as the creature was so loathsome the very idea made his skin crawl.

"He's settled in well at the kitchens, so I am told." Albus smiled. "The other elves are delighted by his recipe for steak and kidney pie."

The idea of Kreacher holding court with the other elves in the Hogwarts kitchen was certainly not a pleasant one for him.

"I know I probably should." He admitted. He was really running out of excuses for why he shouldn't speak to the elf now.

"I understand your feelings towards him are… less than friendly."

That was certainly true. The bloody elf had tried to get him and Harry killed last summer.

"But it's the best lead we have, if RAB really is Regulus."

"It is." Sirius said. He recognised the handwriting on the note instantly. "Though I still have trouble believing it."

Regulus had been obsessed with Voldemort as a teenager. He'd had a little book in which he would collect clippings from articles that featured the man and his followers. While Sirius, James and the others had been solely focused on ways they could stop the darkness that was seeping through the wizarding world like garroting gas, Regulus couldn't wait to join the death eaters.

Sirius could well remember the first time he'd mentioned it over dinner. His parents had been needling him (again) about his ambitions for after Hogwarts and he'd been putting them off (again) with more and more ridiculous careers as, quite frankly, someone had to provide the entertainment in that ghastly house, when Regulus had piped up.

"I want to join the death eaters."

Sirius had rolled his eyes as his parents turned in rapturous delight to their younger son. Honestly, you'd have thought he'd just announced he'd been appointed mayor.

"Sirius can become a grindylow translator if he wants, I'm actually going to do something meaningful with my life."

"You must speak to Bellatrix." His father had said, his tone one of hushed secrecy as if he was imparting rare and much sought after knowledge. "She supports… the cause also."

Of course Sirius' whole family supported 'the cause'. Anyone who was all for pureblood rights and banishing muggleborns was alright by them.

They never actually signed up for the death eaters themselves. Sirius supposed it would be too much hard work for people who'd never done an honest day's worth in their lives, but they were delighted for others to further their warped ideals on their behalf.

"What do you want to join the death eaters for?" He'd asked, half annoyed, half curious. "What has this Dark Lord' you're so obsessed with promised you personally?" He knew his brother, as a typical Slytherin, would do nothing if there wasn't anything in it for him.

Regulus glanced at his parents, and it was in that moment that Sirius thought he understood.

His brother didn't really care about Voldemort. He'd just swallowed all the tripe their parents had fed them both their whole lives. He believed he, and they, were superior to the muggleborns because they were pureblood. He wasn't doing this for any reason at all apart from his own stupid pride and, Sirius was quite sure, in a vain attempt to make their parents proud.

"It's because you ask questions like that that you won't amount to anything in life." His mother had snapped. She turned back to Regulus and the venom and hatred that had twisted her features while talking to him were gone in an instant. "At least we have one son with proper wizarding pride."

But as it turned out, they had none. Sirius wondered if his brother might have come to him for help if he hadn't left them all for good at the age of sixteen. Of course he'd seen Regulus at Hogwarts after that but they'd barely spoken except to fight with one another. If he'd become disillusioned with Voldemort, why hadn't he reached out?

But Sirius had the answer to that too. It was his bloody Slytherin pride. Would Sirius have made him suffer first before helping him? Of course he would have, and Regulus couldn't possibly hear 'I told you so' from the older brother he'd done all he could throughout his teenage years to be different from.

He knew it didn't do to dwell on the past, but he had to wonder how different things might have been if his brother had come to him for help.

"It's not such a surprise for me." Albus said, a knowing sort of look in his blue eyes that made Sirius realise the headmaster had known his brother at Hogwarts too.

"Well what am I supposed to do now?!" They couldn't reverse the clock. It was too late to save Regulus. He was dead, and nothing they could do would bring him back.

"You can talk to Kreacher."

"Oh -"

But fortunately Dumbledore's wry chuckle cut off his curse.