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When they first met, Sirius knew that he would be by James’s side for a very long time.
There was no question about it, not really; Sirius Black saw the world in James Potter. Even when they were only eleven years old, it was clear that they were best friends, bonded for life. Nothing could pull James Potter and Sirius Black apart. Everybody knew it.
Fast friends as they were on the Hogwarts Express, when they both were Sorted into Gryffindor it became a sure thing: they would be inseparable.
Not long after their arrival at Hogwarts, they befriended two other boys: Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. Well, befriended may not be the right word in the latter case, but Peter looked up to James and Sirius, and James and Sirius were happy to let him, until they were not a duo, nor a trio, but a quartet. Often, James and Sirius would prank and hex other students, while Remus would watch on with something that wasn’t quite amusement, but wasn’t quite disdain either, and Peter would watch and cheer, stepping in to help if they really thought he could.
Nothing could’ve shaken their connection. Not even realizing that Remus was a werewolf in their second year came anywhere near tearing them apart.
“We’re friends,” James told Remus, at the time, quite firmly. “We don’t care what you are. You’re still our friend.”
While Sirius and Peter were more uncertain, James’s unfaltering sincerity was enough to encourage them to agree.
For Sirius, it always was.
As young boys do, they spent their first years at Hogwarts getting into trouble and eventually learning how to break the rules without getting into trouble. All the while, they were exploring every section of the castle, discovering secret passageways and neat little tricks—like how to get into the kitchens, or how to convince Peeves the Poltergeist to leave them alone, maybe even respect them a little bit—that would help them out for years to come. For Sirius, it was the happiest he ever was; even during their second year, when his brother Regulus came to Hogwarts and was Sorted into Slytherin, he had never felt so far away from his family.
James was pure-blooded like him, but his family was warm and kind where Sirius’s was cold, cruel, hateful in every sense of the word. At some point, James must have mentioned something to his parents, because every time an owl brought a package from home for James—usually including sweets and a heartfelt letter—one arrived for Sirius as well. They never talked about it, but before he had even met James’s parents, Sirius felt, for the first time, like he had a real family.
It wasn’t long before he did meet them, though. His own parents were beyond grateful to be rid of him for weeks at a time during the summers, and the Potters never protested to having him over. When he first visited, between their second and third year, he told them he wouldn’t stay long, certain that they would want to be spending the holidays with their only son.
“Nonsense,” Mr. Potter told him, kindly. “You’re welcome here as long as you want to be here.”
“Any friend of James’s,” Mrs. Potter added, “is a friend of ours too.”
And so, every year after that, Sirius spent most of his summers with the Potters; Christmasses, too, and even Easters sometimes, though there were times when he and James would instead opt to stay at Hogwarts, especially as their course loads grew heavier. Remus and Peter had their own families to return to, but even if Sirius knew, deep down, that the Potters were not his family, Mrs. Potter embraced him as if he were her own son, and Mr. Potter was just as happy to talk to him as he would be to talk to James, and, really, Sirius couldn’t imagine his life without James in it at all, anymore, so surely blood didn’t matter?
They were brothers, Sirius thought. Closer than any others. Absolutely nothing could get between them.
At first, James’s crush on Lily Evans had seemed to be less of an advance towards the girl herself and more a way to rile up their arch enemy, Snape, who apparently took great pride in being Evans’s best friend, despite his more unsavoury relationships with his fellow slimy Slytherins. It started sometime in their third year, and Evans would always grow irritated with James, call him arrogant or mean or a bully, and then turn away from him in a huff of annoyance.
Sirius thought it was funny, for a while.
But when James’s infatuation with Evans persisted, it grew harder and harder to convince himself that James was just trying to get one up on Snape. He chased her and flirted with her and asked her out constantly, even when she said no, never, not in a million years, and something very nasty began to blossom in Sirius’s chest, a painful possessiveness he had not realized he was capable of.
It only grew worse when James started talking about Evans even when she wasn’t around.
“I don’t understand why you like her so much,” Sirius finally snapped one day. They were nearing winter break of their fifth year, and James was telling the others about his next plans to ask Evans out. Something about showing off his flying skills to her, Sirius didn’t know; he had stopped listening when his ears had started pounded and his jaw had clenched at the mention of her name.
James frowned at him. “Well, she’s pretty, isn’t she? And smart, really smart, you’ve seen the way Slughorn raves about her, mate.” Already, his lips had turned back up into a fond smile.
Sirius stood up before he even knew what he was doing. Glowering down at James, he snapped, “You’re better than that,” before turning and leaving the Gryffindor common room, his blood boiling.
They never fought, he thought bitterly as he made his way out to the grounds. It was snowing lightly, but he found that not even the cold weather could rid him of the nasty, uncomfortable heat spreading throughout his body.
But he was right, of course, wasn’t he? James could surely have anybody—he was smart, handsome, talented, and everything in between—but he refused to take his gaze off of Lily Evans. Occasionally, he would see other girls, but they never lasted, because he only cared for Evans’s attention.
Sirius stayed out there until dinner that day. Nobody came to find him.
Like him, they had no idea why Sirius was so angry about James’s interest in Evans.
But they didn’t talk about her again for quite some time, and nobody brought Sirius’s outburst up, either.
As far as Sirius knows, it was another two months before James even asked Evans out again.
That year, Sirius did not join the Potters for Christmas. Instead, he stayed at Hogwarts with only a handful of other students, amongst them, Snape.
But they never talked, and Sirius never bothered to approach him without James there.
There was something off about Snape, Sirius often thought, aside from his company and his fixation with the Dark Arts and his overall rather disgusting self. No, he was interested in Remus, in figuring out his secret. and he went about it with more than a desire to simply know. He was creepy, obsessive, and certainly up to no good, and not in a good way.
Sometimes, it seemed like he knew. Sometimes, it seemed like he didn’t.
But as the school year pressed on, Sirius began to grow tired of it.
“He won’t hurt Remus,” James pointed out one day. It was early March, and warmth was already beginning to creep into the air. “Dumbledore won’t let him.”
“Yeah, but—”
“I’m serious,” James told him. “We shouldn’t worry about that slimy git. Come on, we’ll be late for practice.”
James was good at ignoring it, though. Sirius couldn’t help it if he wanted to get Snape to back off. Remus was their friend, wasn’t he? And he was only trying to protect him.
The plan that formulated in his head was simple enough. If Snape really knew what Remus was, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to listen to Sirius. And what could it hurt, really, if Snape thought that Sirius and his friends were completely evil? He would tell Evans, surely, and the worst that would happen is she would never speak to James, or let him speak to her, again.
And, suddenly, the idea sounded like a very good one.
Before the next full moon, Sirius told him how to get past the Whomping Willow. He didn’t tell James or Peter about it, and he certainly didn’t tell Remus, but Sirius told James they should take their time going to down to join Remus that night—as they had been doing for months, now, since their success with becoming Animagi—the night Snape would surely be going after Remus, and, well, they never kept secrets, so when James asked him why, he was honest.
He had never seen James look so disturbed before.
“You— What did you say? You sent him down there?”
“I didn’t send him,” Sirius protested. “He wanted to know, didn’t he? It’s hardly our fault if he gets hurt.”
“Of course not,” James snarled. “It’ll only be Remus’s!”
With that, he had left, taking his Invisibility Cloak with him.
The next day, rumours began to fly everywhere. James Potter, people were whispering, had saved Severus Snape’s life.
But James wouldn’t speak to Sirius. He wouldn’t even look at him. Whatever awful feeling had driven Sirius to tell Snape about the way past the Whomping Willow, the feeling he felt now, with James ignoring him, was a thousand times worse.
Remus was upset, too, but, for some reason, he was not as cold to Sirius as James was.
In fact, a few days after it all happened, Remus pulled Sirius aside and said to him, “You really should talk to James.”
Sirius was stricken. “What are you talking about? Can’t he talk to me himself?”
This seemed to annoy Remus. “Well, I would say so, but he seems rather put-off about something. Couldn’t imagine what that could be.”
“I was only—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Remus cut in. “I’ll forgive you, and so will James, if you just talk to him about it.”
But it made no sense. Sirius could understand if Remus were angry—after all, Snape could’ve found out his secret—but James? James, who agreed that Snape was slimy and irritating and deserved all he got from them and worse? It made no sense.
Still, Remus didn’t expect a response, and left Sirius in the corridor as he headed off to their next class, hurrying to catch up to James and Peter.
Sirius thought about it.
He thought about it for three days.
Three silent, unhappy days.
And then it was James who approached him.
“Let’s go for a walk,” he said.
It was one of the first days of Easter break, surely one of the warmest of the year. James looked very serious, rather unlike himself; Sirius got the feeling that he had spent a lot of time thinking the past few days.
“Okay,” Sirius agreed readily.
James led him out of the common room and down to the grounds, where they chose to settle by the lake. Because of the holidays, many students were at home, and those that remained were too busy with their friends to pay James and Sirius any mind.
After they had been sitting for some time, James finally said, “What you did was stupid.”
Sirius scoffed. “He had it coming, really. Who does he think—?”
But James was shaking his head. “I don’t care about Snivellus,” he said, and the renewed use of the nickname made Sirius relax slightly. “I’m talking about Moony. All of us, really. If we’d all been down there and he’d found us, we could’ve all been in trouble. And,” he added, though this was with more hesitation than the rest, Sirius thought, “if Moony had hurt him, d’you think he would be okay with that?”
Sirius looked at the lake, chest tight. “I hadn’t thought about that,” he muttered.
“You don’t think much,” James said, fondly. “Sorry I was being a prat.”
Sirius glanced at him, unable to keep the sudden grin off his face. “You? A prat? No way.”
They both laughed at this, and it was like the argument had disappeared entirely.
“Really, though,” James said after a moment, growing more serious again. “I don’t want to go so long without talking to you again. You’re my best mate, y’know?”
Sirius’s chest swelled, and his smile widened. “Well, of course,” he said importantly. “I’m irreplaceable.”
“That’s one word for it,” James muttered, but his lips were pulled up, too, and Sirius knew, with more certainty than anything else in the world, that there was nothing that could ever get between he and James apart—especially not sodding Snivellus Snape.
They were inseparable. Brothers, in every sense of the word. They loved each other the same, and they always would.
That summer, Sirius grew fed up with it all.
Regulus, ever the perfect son, was the apple of their parents’ eyes. Sirius certainly didn’t envy him, but one thing Regulus had always had that Sirius hadn’t was the ability to keep from angering their parents. Their mother, in particular, had a tendency to go overboard.
Really, Sirius was no stranger to abuse. His time away from his family was a happy reprieve from it, but he would always return at the beginning of summer, and until he managed to escape to James’s, he would be stuck dealing with it.
But he was older, now. Nearly an adult.
If they wanted to scream at him, hit him, hex him—well, let them, because he could scream and hit and hex, too.
This was clearly something they weren’t pleased with, however. Any time he fought back, it made them more intolerable. They had been getting worse every year since he had gone to Hogwarts, but this year was especially bad. Regulus, at least, was already preparing to join the Death Eaters and make his parents proud.
So, after one too many ridiculous arguments about blood purity and Sirius’s disgusting habits, he left.
They had spent years and years trying to bend him to their wills, and he wouldn’t have it anymore. No, the Blacks were hardly family for him; his family was Remus, Peter, and James and his parents. He could hardly be bothered to give a damn about whatever he was leaving behind—a house for shelter, his inheritance, half of his belongings—but it struck him after he had stormed out, his trunk still packed from his return to Hogwarts behind him, that he really had nowhere to go.
No, that wasn’t exactly true.
But from London to the Potters’ home would be quite a distance to travel, and the heat of the summer would wear him down immensely. Rather, he was closer to Diagon Alley, and so he made his way there, certain he had enough Galleons on his body to at least afford a room at the Leaky Cauldron for a night.
It was still a considerable distance to walk, but hardly out of the question for him. He made it there well before dusk, and paid for a room without hesitation. If anybody in the pub recognized him, or knew he wasn’t yet of age, they didn’t say it. The night was uncomfortable, but still an improvement from Grimmauld Place, and in the morning, Sirius borrowed an owl from one of the visitors so regular they may as well be called residents, and sent a letter off to James.
Within only a few hours, James and his father had come by to collect him.
“All right, mater?” James asked, concerned.
“Fine,” Sirius said, and he meant it. “Sorry to make you come all the way out here.”
“Doesn’t matter,” James said shortly. “Better here than there.”
The bitterness in his tone was enough to make Sirius laugh, which seemed to startle James. “What? I’m serious!”
“I know,” Sirius told him, still snickering. “It’s touching, really. You almost make it sound like you hate them more than I do.”
“Well, that would be impossible,” James said dismissively, “but of course I’d hate anybody who hurt you. They’re arseholes.”
Respectfully, Mr. Potter said nothing.
“That’s true,” Sirius conceded. “Thanks for coming for me, though.”
James grinned crookedly. “I’d never leave you behind, mate.”
Sirius spent the rest of his summer with the Potters, but it was much different this time than any other time he’d stayed there. This time, it felt more permanent, he supposed, like he belonged there, almost as if he were a Potter himself. He wasn’t, of course, but it felt nice to pretend, at least for a bit.
If nothing else, it made it more certain that they were as close as brothers, but something about the word felt wrong, now, and Sirius could only assume it was because his own brother was so dreadful, and was part of the reason why Sirius had left in the first place.
When they returned for their sixth year at Hogwarts, though, Sirius still couldn’t shake the feeling that something had changed. It was only in October that Sirius figured it out:
James had changed.
He was a little taller than last year, but aside from that, he wore his smile a bit differently. He was more modest, mature, helping their underclassmen rather than hindering them, and while he never missed an opportunity to hex Snape, he certainly wasn’t going out of his way to make a show out of it, or anything else, for that matter.
He was not the only one who noticed.
“He’s trying to impress Lily,” Remus said one day, sitting next to Sirius while James helped Peter with a Transfiguration essay.
“Huh?”
“She called him arrogant,” Remus reminded him. “Said he was too full of himself to date her. So he’s trying to change.”
An awful feeling twisted Sirius’s stomach. “What are you trying to say, Moony?”
He shrugged. “Nothing, really. It just seemed like you were wondering.”
Well, sure, but…
Remus was still looking at him, almost as if he saw something in Sirius that Sirius did not see in himself.
“Right,” Sirius said after a moment. “But that’s ridiculous. Why can’t he just get over her?”
“Why do you want him to?” Remus challenged.
Sirius didn’t know what to say.
“Either way,” Remus continued, “I just thought you might want to know, before he finally manages to win her over and all.”
“He won’t,” Sirius said, and the words surprised him, but they did not seem to surprise Remus.
Instead, his friend just offered him a sad smile. “Maybe you should talk to him,” he suggested. “If you really feel so strongly about it, I mean.”
Sirius stared at him, something unpleasant swirling in his chest. “Why would I want to stop him?” he asked weakly.
Remus’s eyes searched his face briefly, and then his shrugged. “Dunno,” he said, but Sirius knew it was a lie.
Before either of them could say another word, though, James looked up at them and said, “Padfoot, help us out, would you?”
Sirius knew that he didn’t really need any help—more likely, he was just getting tired of practically writing Peter’s entire essay for him—but he was grateful to get away from Remus, at the very least.
Still, the conversation did not disappear from his head. For weeks, Remus’s words haunted him, but their underlying message never reached him.
Finally, Sirius just asked him.
Remus didn’t seem to be expecting it, but he suggested they go for a walk around the grounds, which Sirius, quite suspicious now, accepted with only mild hesitation.
“Maybe I shouldn’t be assuming,” Remus said as they walked around the lake. He seemed far more interested in his shoes than in Sirius. “But, well, you’ve always had a different relationship than the rest of us.”
“Of course,” Sirius said thickly. “We’re best mates.”
“Are you sure?”
Sirius stopped. Remus did too, but he still refused to look up.
“What in the world are you saying, Moony?” Sirius demanded. “We—we’re like brothers! We’re closer than anybody, and we always have been, so—”
“I’m not saying that’s not true,” Remus said quickly, finally lifting his gaze. “I just mean that there might be more to it than that.”
Sirius’s mouth was very dry.
“Just think about it,” Remus said, voice very soft. “Maybe I’m wrong, but I’ve known you a long time. Both of you. It would be hard to miss.”
With that, he turned and left Sirius behind, but Sirius could hardly hear him walking away, his heart was beating so fast.
Well, of course, he had always admired James. He was his first friend, after all, and a damn good one at that. And, sure, James was attractive, but Sirius didn’t need to be attracted to him to know that—maybe he’d had a few odd dreams, over the years, but he had always supposed that was normal, when one was a teenager. So what if Sirius thought James could do better than Evans? He could; there were very few people, in Sirius’s opinion, who deserved James’s affectons. He was the best person Sirius knew, and he ought to be with someone just as good as he was. Sirius certainly didn’t think he was that person, but…
It wasn’t exactly a bad thought, being James’s most important person. James was his, after all, and had been for years. Of course Sirius loved him; it didn’t mean he was in love with him. Yes, he thought Evans was the wrong person for James, but clearly Evans thought the same thing, or she wouldn’t keep turning him down. Sirius just wanted to protect James. That was what they did. Protected each other.
Whatever Remus thought he saw, he was wrong. Sirius really did just want the best for James—and, at the end of the day, he knew he wasn’t it, either, but what difference did it make? James loved him. He loved James.
They were like brothers. Nothing more, nothing less.
Remus never brought it up again, though.
Unfortunately, he didn’t really have to.
The longer Sirius spent thinking about it, the more it made sense. He spent more time looking at James than he thought he used to, but when nobody called him out on it, he came to understand that nothing had changed, other than how aware he was that he was doing it.
Like Remus said, James’s maturity and modesty only grew. Evans still rejected him, but they were friendlier, now; she had even started calling him James, instead of Potter.
In a sick effort to keep his mind away from James, Sirius threw himself into relationships with girls left and right. He’d already had a reputation as a ladies’ man, but he’d never really been overly interested in sex or anything. Not with girls, at least. Not with someone other than James, his mind supplied unhelpfully.
Now, though, he tried to be. It was awkward at first, but once he knew what he was doing, it was easy, and it at least made other people think he didn’t fancy James, of all people.
Except Remus, that is.
“I’m sorry,” he said one day.
Sirius did not need to ask what for.
“I just...I assumed you already knew.”
Sirius laughed at that. “Clearly, you were wrong.”
Remus did not continue the conversation.
By the time their sixth year was coming to an end, Sirius felt miserable in a way he never had before. But after the final Quidditch match of the season, when it was certain that Gryffindor had won the cup, he was swept up in the rambunctious celebrations of his housemates, and he hardly had to think about anything but their excitement at winning.
James and Sirius broke into their stash of smuggled-in Firewhisky, sharing it around the common room with a few others that had had the same idea. At some point, though, they separated from the party, sitting together near the fireplace and chatting about the next year’s Quidditch season.
“I think we could do it again,” James was saying, his words somewhat slurred by the drink in his hand. “Don’t you, Padfoot? Bloody fantastic, that was, we beat them so hard.” He grinned, and now his tone was somewhat conspiratorial. “We make a good team, you know.”
Sirius wasn’t sure if he was talking about the seven players, or just the two of them.
James leaned closer, still. “Doesn’t it make you so happy? Dunno why we haven’t won before this year.”
Sirius snorted. “We weren’t good enough, Prongs.”
James looked very offended, suddenly. “I’m good at everything, you git.”
“Everything?” Sirius shook his head in disbelief. “No way. You’re not that good.”
“I am so!” James had not stopped leaning in. Sirius wondered if the alcohol had addled his depth perception that badly. “Quidditch, Transfiguration, drinking”—he held up his cup for emphasis, though the effect was lost as some of the liquid sloshed out of it and onto Sirius’s lap. He didn’t seem to notice—“erm, cooking”—this was a lie, but Sirius didn’t say so, not when James was so close to him, the smell of Firewhisky rolling off his tongue—“snogging,” he finished, looking quite smug, as if to say beat that.
“Snogging?” Sirius almost laughed. “Yeah, right, Potter. I’ve snogged more girls in the past week than you have in your whole life.”
Something dangerous flashed in James’s eyes, and he grinned.
Sirius’s stomach lit on fire, and it had very little to do with the Firewhisky.
“Oh yeah?” James challenged, leaning even closer still. He was so close now that his next words were hardly even a whisper: “If you’re so good, then prove it.”
They were very drunk, of course. James more so than Sirius, probably, but it didn’t matter.
James did not need to tell him twice.
Sirius closed the miniscule gap between them, his lips hitting James’s with far more force than either of them were surely expecting. James gasped against his mouth, and the sound of his glass hitting the floor echoed distantly in Sirius’s ears. It didn’t matter. Nothing else mattered, except for James’s hands, coming to tangle in Sirius’s hair, James’s warmth, seeping into him due to their close proximity, James’s lips, so much softer than Sirius had been expecting, but perfect, so perfect, the only thing Sirius had ever wanted, would ever want…
He didn’t know how long they kissed for, but they did so with a sort of desperation that both of them rarely displayed otherwise. Their hands roamed, dishevelling hair and skewing robes. Sirius was determined to commit every inch of James to memory, every angle of him, every sensitive spot that made him moan against his mouth…
But when they pulled apart, it was because someone was calling their names. Blinking slowly, Sirius looked up to see Remus and Peter.
Remus looked pained, but Sirius couldn’t possibly understand why.
“That’s enough,” he told them. “It’s not fair.”
Not fair? That made no sense. Sirius opened his mouth to say so, but a sideways glance at James silenced him.
He looked guilty, Sirius thought, but then he turned away, fixing his glasses and his robes with a muttered apology, apparently to Remus.
Peter, for his part, seemed just as confused as Sirius.
“You should get to bed,” Remus said. This was to Sirius. His voice was oddly kind, considering he had just been telling them off.
“Moony—”
“I’ll get you some water,” Remus interrupted, and then he dragged Peter away to do exactly that.
Sirius watched them walk away, dry-mouthed.
After a moment, he ventured, “Prongs?”
James still would not look at him.
“Prongs.”
Nothing.
“James.”
Now, James looked up, and Sirius felt his heart leap into his throat.
“I’m sorry,” James rasped, and then rose on unsteady feet. “I’m sorry, Sirius.”
“James, wait—”
But James wasn’t listening. He turned and fled without another word. It was the first time Sirius had ever seen him run away from something.
Shortly after, Remus and Peter returned.
Remus offered him a glass of water. He drank it sullenly while Remus and Peter sat down across from him.
“I thought…” Remus stopped, biting his lip. “I thought...if I didn’t stop you, you would’ve done something you regretted.”
Sirius laughed. It hurt his chest. “Something worse than that, you mean?”
Remus winced. “Sirius, I’m—”
“I don’t want to hear another apology,” Sirius snarled. “It didn’t mean anything. It doesn’t matter.”
Remus looked hurt, for some reason. But Sirius couldn’t be bothered to take back what he’d said, either way.
“Maybe he won’t remember in the morning,” Peter offered, but the words hung between them, poised like little daggers above Sirius’s chest.
“Yeah,” he said, anyway, hollowly. “Maybe he won’t.”
Sirius didn’t know if that was better or worse than the alternative.
When he went to bed that night, the alcohol in his system lulled him to sleep quickly, but could not stop the fragmented dreams of James which haunted him for the next six hours.
It was all anybody could talk about the following morning.
James Potter and Sirius Black had snogged in the Gryffindor common room.
Sirius wished he could take it all back, but he could still remember the feeling of James’s lips, the way James squirmed under the touch when Sirius’s fingers ghosted over his hips.
The stares were awful. The flirtatious girls were worse. But nothing could compare to the way James looked at him, a sort of agony in his eyes that Sirius desperately hoped he was imagining, but knew he was not.
Despite it all, though, Sirius couldn’t help the small part of him that was glad if had happened. He would never touch James like that again, but that meant he had to savour it all the more now that he had.
It was awkward, but they would move past it. They always did.
Sirius was right; within mere weeks, it faded away entirely, until things were back to normal.
But they were not really normal. Not completely.
Every time James said they were brothers, Sirius felt the words more like a stab in the heart than anything else.
Still, he would grin. “‘Course we are,” he would agree. “Best mates. Nothing between us.”
It was the only lie he had ever told James.
Somehow, though, he was sure that James knew.
But they never talked about it. And while Sirius ached with the weight of his secret, he was glad that they didn’t.
Even if James wouldn’t love him that way, at least, this way, they would stay close.
Inseparable.
Brothers.
It hurt Sirius more than he would ever admit.
That summer, Sirius moved out of the Potters’ house. He was seventeen, now, and his uncle Alphard had inherited him a rather impressive amount of gold. While Sirius was sure he had paid the consequences for his actions, he was grateful to be able to make it on his own, finally.
Freedom was not as easy as he had always thought it would be, however.
James visited, sometimes, but with the war worsening as the years carried on, he never stayed long.
“I don’t know if my parents are safe,” he admitted one day, after they had spent the afternoon tinkering with Sirius’ newest catch, a motorbike they had charmed to fly together. Sirius respectfully did not look at him, knowing James likely didn’t want to be saying this, but was just scared enough to let it slip out.
“What do they think?” Sirius asked quietly.
James shook his head helplessly. “They tell me not to worry, but I can’t help it. I know they worry about me, too, but, well, we’re pure-bloods, aren’t we?” Still, they both knew that being a pure-blood meant very little anymore, not if you were the wrong sort.
“I dunno, Prongs.” Sirius glanced out the window of his flat, uneasy. “I can hardly say I’m worried about my family.”
“Don’t be dumb,” James muttered. “We are your family.”
The words did not soften Sirius’s chest as they once used to.
Instead, he continued with, “Regulus will be joining them soon. The Death Eaters, I mean.”
“Don’t.”
Now, Sirius met James’s eyes. The fierceness there was shocking. He couldn’t look away, not even if he had wanted to.
“You’re not like him,” James said. “Who cares if he wants to throw his life away to some lunatic like You-Know-Who? You won’t do that.”
Sirius said nothing. It was not that he worried about becoming like Regulus, not really, not anymore, but…
James’s gaze softened. “And if you have to fight him,” he added, “then we’ll be right there with you, backing you up.”
Somehow, it was exactly what he needed to hear.
He grinned. “I know. Now, what do you say we test this motorbike out?”
They rarely talked about the war after that. None of them really wanted to think about it, knowing that they would be deposited into it as soon as they graduated in ten months.
Instead, they devoted their seventh year to having fun, tying up all their loose ends, and trying their best to pretend none of what was happening outside of Hogwarts’s walls existed at all.
James and Evans—”Lily, Sirius,” Remus reminded him gently—were named Head Boy and Head Girl. If Remus was disappointed that he had lost the position to James, he didn’t show it.
“It means he’s matured,” he said instead. “Enough that Dumbledore and the Heads of Houses think he deserves it.”
It meant that he was spending a lot more time with Evans, though, and Sirius could not help it that the thought made him feel sick.
Still, it was a surprise to nobody when, in early February, they started dating.
They spent the following Hogsmeade weekend together, while Remus and Peter consoled Sirius, who—very unsuccessfully—tried to convince them he was all right, really, it didn’t matter, because he didn’t feel that way about James.
“I think you’re a better person than you think you are,” Remus told him, between three glasses of Butterbeer (he had not allowed Sirius to drink anything stronger).
“What d’you mean?”
Peter looked uncertain, as well.
“I mean for letting him go out with her,” Remus clarified. “There aren’t a lot of people he would listen to if they told him it was a bad idea, but, well, if it were you…”
Sirius didn’t like the implications of this.
Did he really have the power to ruin James’s relationship with Evans, before it had even really begun? He wasn’t sure, but Remus sounded fairly confident, and he knew Remus was right far more often than he was wrong.
“Lily’s nice, though,” Peter ventured. “I think he really likes her. Don’t you, Padfoot?”
He took a long drink, trying to ignore the stinging in his eyes.
After a long moment, he said, “Yeah. I think he does, Wormtail.”
It was nowhere near a lie. Lily Evans was a good match for James; what one lacked, the other made up for in tenfold. And they clearly liked each other just the same, despite all the years Evans had spent rejecting James. In fact, when they started seeing each other, it was not James, but Evans, who asked.
Sirius will not say he cried about it, but Remus and Peter know as well as he does that this was not the truth.
They never told a soul, though.
James would never find out.
Sirius likes to think that, in the years after they graduated, he and James were closer than ever.
When James was engaged, Sirius was the first to know.
When James was married, Sirius stood beside him as his best man.
When Lily became pregnant with their child, James insisted that Sirius would be its godfather.
Harry James Potter was a blessing to all their lives. While Sirius eventually came to see Lily as a friend, rather than competition—as if he had ever even been a competitor—it was the birth of her son that made Sirius certain that, while it had hurt, he had made the right decision in supporting her relationship with James.
Sirius spent as much time with James, Lily, and Harry as he possibly could. Though he was not the one who got to hold James at the end of each day, he was still a part of their family. It was one thing that never changed. Even after Mr. and Mrs. Potter had passed away (thankfully, in circumstances quite unrelated to the war), James had never stopped considering Sirius family.
And, in every sense of the word, he was.
In the years after they graduated, they were closer than ever. One drunken kiss in the Gryffindor common room after a successful Quidditch season long behind them, Sirius never doubted that James would be by his side forever. He knew it. Had known it since they were just kids.
And so, when James, Lily, and their infant son were suspected to be immediate targets of Voldemort himself, it was only natural that James would ask Sirius to be their Secret-Keeper.
But Sirius said no.
“It would be too obvious,” he insisted. “I’d never betray you,” he added quickly, as if it was even a valid concern at all, “but he’d come for me immediately.”
James looked pained. Even if he had been the one to ask it, Sirius somehow doubted he had realized that the question was much deeper than it sounded. “Will you be our Secret-Keeper?” he has asked, voice hushed, but what he’d really meant was “Would you be willing to die for me?”
The answer was yes, of course he would, what a ridiculous question to ask. Sirius couldn’t imagine his life without James in it. Surely, if James was in danger, Sirius would do anything to protect him.
That was what they did, after all.
Protected each other.
They decided on Peter, in the end. He was loyal to no ends; when he had had nobody, James, Sirius, and Remus had taken him in. They had not been a duo, nor a trio, but a quartet. The Marauders. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs.
There was nobody, Sirius was sure, that Peter loved more than them.
But for Peter, love didn’t matter.
Sirius knew, as soon as he went to Peter’s.
There was no sign of a fight, of a struggle, of anything that indicated he had given up Lily and James involuntarily. Certainly no sign that he had died for them, as Sirius himself was sure he would have done, if it had come down to it.
He didn’t need to think about it. He was at the Potters’ house in Godric’s Hollow before he even knew where his feet were carrying him.
The house was in ruin. It was a dreadful sight in the dark of the night, but Sirius did not stop to dwell on it.
He saw James first.
Sirius had experienced awful things in his life. Abusive parents, more than willing to use Unforgivables if he was too difficult for them; his only blood brother, his first friend, growing up to become a Death Eater; fighting with the Order of the Phoenix, risking his life every time and never thinking twice about it…
Spending years and years in love with James, never telling him, never wanting to break them apart…
But nothing, nothing could compare to this.
His breaths were ragged as he knelt beside his best friend’s body. He could not speak, not even if he had wanted to. His shaky fingers moved over James’s face, and then, with a deep breath to steel himself, he closed James’s eyes.
It was so peaceful, he could have been sleeping..
But his body was already cold. His chest did not rise, nor fall. The room reeked of death.
Sirius couldn’t say how long he stayed there, his heart surely stopped alongside James’s, but, eventually, he got up.
James had died for his family, as he once thought Sirius would do, too.
Maybe...maybe, Lily and Harry had survived.
He checked every room in the house, but found nothing until he came to Harry’s room. There, on the ground, looking almost as peaceful as James, was Lily. Her blank green eyes stared above, forever unseeing.
Sirius could not breathe.
And then—
There was a noise, from the crib.
Crying.
Lonely, painful crying.
Harry.
Sirius stepped over Lily’s body, making haste to his godson. There, in the crib, was Harry, just as alive as the last time Sirius had seen him. He was a little bigger, but was otherwise the same, except for an oddly shaped scar on his forehead, and the devastated cries he gave, telling Sirius that, even if he didn’t really understood, he knew his parents were gone and wouldn’t be coming again.
Without another thought, he leaned down and picked Harry up, holding him close. His heartbeat was loud and fast, but Harry did not seem to mind, crying into his shoulder without a worry to anything else.
The shock did not lessen, not even when somebody else came into the room. When they saw him there, they stopped, and Sirius turned to look, throat tight.
“Hagrid?”
Hagrid blinked, seeming more surprised to see Sirius here than Sirius was to see him.
After a moment, the large man said, “I’m here to take Harry. Dumbledore’s order, yeh see.”
Sirius held Harry closer, eyeing him uncertainly. “What are you saying, Hagrid? I’m his godfather. Harry will come with me, of course.”
Hagrid didn’t seem to want to argue, but he shook his head. “Dumbledore’s made—made some arrangements, yeh see. Lily’s sister—Muggles, o’ course, says they’ll keep ‘im safe.”
Sirius stared at him.
“Dumbledore’s orders,” Hagrid said again, but he sounded very far away.
Sirius was not sure when he conceded, or why, but eventually he did, and he said, his voice quite flat, “Take my motorbike, then. It’s just outside.”
Hagrid seemed confused. “Won’t yeh—?”
“I won’t need it,” Sirius cut in. “Just—keep Harry safe.”
Hagrid nodded, and turned and left without another word, Sirius’s godson cradled carefully in his arms.
Sirius looked down at Lily, bile rising in his throat.
Deep down, he knew—this was his fault.
Had he been their Secret-Keeper, she would not be dead. James would not be dead. Harry would still be safe, with his parents, none the wiser to the threat hanging over all of their heads.
This was his fault.
He had told them that they could trust Peter.
Peter.
Anger coursed through Sirius at the thought, stronger than his grief, stronger than all the love and life he had left behind with James the second he saw his dead body.
He would pay, Sirius thought mutinously. He would pay for this, and Sirius would be the one to make him.
Leaving the Potters’ house, Lily and James’s bodies, and all of his happiness, all of his youth, all of his love he knew resided with James behind, Sirius turned his sights forward, to Peter. To vengeance.
To the absolute nothingness his life had suddenly become, without James in it.