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He finds it on his night stand one morning, placed at just the right angle to catch the sun and glint the early morning light into his eyes. It's broken; he can tell that from the moment he tries to undo the clasp and it holds fast. The locket is heavy and big in his hand, more ornament than practical, but Sirius knows that someone wore it once. He can feel the magic seeping out of it as he tosses it between his hands, careful not to jostle Moony because it's only Sunday and, as much as he promised he was okay the night before, Sirius knows his body still aches from the full moon Friday.

It had been fifteen days and Sirius still had no idea where the locket had come from. When the flat was empty and he was home, he'd take it out of the bottom drawer in his desk - he'd charmed it locked and if Remus thought it was strange, he never mentioned - and toss it between his hands. Sirius had always been rubbish at figuring locks out. He'd tried every unlocking charm he could think of; he'd even tried some of the more creative hexes James had taught him when he was learning them in the Academy. He'd been a terrible lock-pick in Hogwarts, and he hadn't gotten any better since he'd left.

He wanted to turn to Moony or Lily because he was pants at researching and he knew it. So far he'd discovered that the ornate S was probably for Slytherin. He hadn't figured that any of the Slytherin family would have be sentimental enough to even own a locket, but two years out in the world had taught him that not everyone could be categorised as easily as Hogwarts had made it seem.

Sirius turned it over in his palm then, trying the lock again without magic. It still wouldn't open. He wasn't sure if he should open it. After two weeks of playing with it a bit every day, trying to solve the mystery, he'd felt the darkness inside it creeping into his skin. He figured it might have been a trap. It was too perfect, really; Sirius loved puzzles and this was too big of one not to unravel. He should have brought it to James or Dumbledore right away. A mysterious locket had appeared on his bedside table in the middle of the night. Clearly something nefarious was at work.

He hadn't though. He'd kept it to himself and worked on picking the lock between spending time with Moony, drinking with James, and working shifts at St. Mungo's. The mystery took his mind off everything that was going wrong around him While he was prodding at the magic keeping it locked he didn’t have to think about Gideon Prewett being dead or Moony’s disappearing acts that checkered the month more than they should have. He didn’t worry about Peter running off to parts unknown to try and gather allies in France and Iceland. There wasn’t even room for him to think about his job, really, because he got too caught up in trying to figure out what sort of locking hex was keeping the thing closed and how it managed to feel warm even when he hadn’t touched it in days.

It was stupid and it was probably going to get him killed, he decided. With a sigh, he dropped it back into the bottom drawer of his desk, charmed it locked, and stood up.

There was dinner to consider and Moony would be home soon. He didn't have time to be mucking about with Dark artifacts that someone had decided to give him. At any rate, he was exhausted from his shift and wasn't in the right head space to deal with whatever was in it.

He poked around in the cold cupboard for a bit, fishing through whatever Remus had brought home the last time they'd been out shopping. He found some chicken, then some potatoes in the pantry, and thought a little more on what to do with the bloody locket. Sirius knew what he should do, of course. He considered that while he set the chicken to fry. He should have brought it to Dumbledore the moment it appeared on his bedside table. He wasn't sure why he hadn't, actually, other than as some odd curiosity. For a few days, he'd wondered if it was something Remus had picked up in the shop, but that had been a flimsy excuse that had barely worked on him.

He'd wanted to figure it out himself. There wasn't much glory for a second-year Apprentice Healer. He'd managed to be the center of attention for seven years at Hogwarts and then, once they'd all left and gone into real jobs, he'd sort of faded into the background. He wasn't spectacular any more, just sort of useful. Figuring out some Dark artifact would make someone other than his friends remember he existed. It was stupid of him, but when he peeled back all the excuses, the glory of it was all that was left.

The sound of the front door swinging open brought a smile to Sirius' face. The only person who used the front door was Moony, and Moony meant that Sirius would be able to get out of the funk that he'd been digging himself in to. It had been happening more and more lately, which Sirius found odd. His friends were all still alive, he loved his job, and he frequently had mind blowing sex. By every measure, his life was generally good. Few people were untouched by the war, but his little circle had remained intact. That should have been enough.

When Remus rounded the corner into the kitchen, Sirius felt the corners of his lips quirk up into another smile. The chicken was almost finished, the potatoes were baking nicely, and Remus was wearing that awful striped jumper that Sirius loved because it was so Moony.

"Hallo," Remus said as he set his things down and took in Sirius, sprawled out as well as one could in a kitchen chair. "Being a lay-about?"

Sirius chuckled and dragged himself to his feet. "Hardly. Just resting a bit."

"Mmm," Remus agreed against Sirius' lips as he kissed him. Sirius wound his arms around Remus. He liked this, holding Moony. It grounded him. "Long shift?"

"Too long," Sirius murmured. Remus' fingers had snuck underneath his shirt and the press of Moony's skin against his made him shiver a little. "I had Little Anne today."

He felt Remus' breath hitch in his chest. "Is she getting better?"

"No," Sirius answered. "No. She's. They don't expect her to. I'm not sure why they bother. People don't come back from that."

Until Anne had come into the spell damage ward, Sirius hadn't really understood the price of war. He'd treated dozens of men and women, all of age, all fighting for the cause. Anne had been a shock. She was seven, still playing with dolls for Merlin's sake, and she'd been tortured. He'd come home shaking and he'd thrown up twice the first night she'd been in the ward, just thinking about it.

Remus had no words for him. For once, Sirius was glad; he didn't want the empty ‘I'm sorry's that he had to dole out dozens of times a day. There was nothing anyone could say that would bring Anne back. She was going to spend the rest of her life in St. Mungo's, drawing scribbles with dull crayons and not understanding the world around her.

Eventually they broke apart. The chicken had, luckily, been saved by a spatula that had deposited the two pieces onto plates. They sat down across from each other and stared down at the meal for a while before Sirius had enough of the oppressive silence and sighed. "How was the shop?"

"Fine," Remus murmured. "Nothing unusual. I don't know why Dumbledore has me set up there, unless it's some ploy to keep me gainfully employed."

"I told you, you're more than welcome to-"

"No, thank you," Remus said. "It's boring, but it's something. Better than what I would've gotten on my own, at any rate. And Dumbledore might actually believe there's something to be seen down there. Although I'm not sure why Death Eaters would need a violin."

"Well, they are all about proper breeding, aren't they?" Sirius paused to chew and then chuckled a little. "Malfoy probably plays the violin."

"Imagine Snape." Remus was almost giggling, and it made Sirius smile and forget about his day. "Imagine Snape trying to play the oboe."

The rest of the meal was quiet, broken by comments about the food and what little news there was in the Prophet. When dinner was finished and Remus had seen to making sure the plates were properly washed (the charm on the sponge had been a little haphazard, and it tended to draw soap bubble pictures on the dirty plates instead of washing them off), they sat together on the sofa. They leaned against each other as Remus read aloud from whatever book he'd picked up, some Muggle curiosity about a bloke named Holmes, and Sirius considered the implications of telling Remus about the locket. When Remus put the book aside, Sirius decided to throw caution into the wind.

"Moony."

Remus looked over at him and raised an eyebrow. Sirius could almost hear the drawled ‘go on, Padfoot' that Remus was thinking, but this was important.

"I've. Well. I found something and." He pushed himself up off the sofa and crossed the room to the desk. Once he'd unlocked the drawer and plucked the locket out, he sort of lost his nerve. It took him almost a minute to turn around. "It's Dark," he said, holding it out.

Remus was up and across the room in no time. There was concern etched across his features and Sirius suddenly felt completely stupid for keeping it to himself for the last fifteen days. Maybe it hadn't seemed like a big deal to him - how could it have, with his history and his damned family? - but Remus was an ace at Dark Arts and from the way he worried his lip between his teeth as he turned the locket over in his hands, Sirius knew it was different, somehow.

"Where did you get this?" Remus asked softly.

"It was on the night stand," Sirius admitted.

Remus looked up from the glinting gold. "And you didn't mention it?"

"I didn't." Sirius sighed and raked a hand through his hair. "I didn't want to worry you."

Moony had been full of worry. After nine years of knowing the man, three years of being whatever they were to each other, and two years of sharing a bed, it was hard for Sirius not to know how to read every one of Moony's moods. He'd been quiet and spent most of his time at home reading or scribbling notes. He constantly checked his pocket-watch, an eighteenth birthday gift from James two years ago that was like the clock in the Potters' living room, charmed to show what everyone was doing. Not that it mattered. All five hands were nearly always on ‘mortal danger'.

"So someone came into our flat, into our bedroom and left a Dark locket on the bedside table and you didn't think I needed to know?"

Sirius shifted awkwardly against the desk. Moony didn't shout, not usually, but his voice was dangerously close to it. Sirius knew it had been stupid to keep it a secret, but it wasn't like he could change the past. It wasn't like Remus didn't know that Sirius was usually doing something stupid. Insanity ran in his family; he was bound to get a little of it. "I re-warded the flat," he said, like that was going to help calm Remus down.

"Have you opened it?" His voice sounded a little high pitched, like he was frantically trying to keep himself in check and not punch Sirius in the mouth.

"Can't."

"Oh, so you've tried." Remus was still flipping the locket between his fingers and Sirius wanted to snatch it back and tell Remus that it was his. It felt a little too much like a chapter of Lord of the Rings, so he kept his fingers to himself and watched the candlelight reflect off the gold instead.

"Well..."

"Did you consider," Remus said, "that whoever left this knew how obsessed you were with figuring out puzzles and planned to let it kill you?"

Sirius flinched. Remus had the uncanny ability to cut through all of Sirius' barriers and make him realize what an idiot he was being. He'd hated it in school, but out here in the world it helped. Listening to Moony now made Sirius feel like an dolt for keeping it a secret. "I-"

"Don't, Padfoot."

They were both quiet for a while. Remus was staring at the locket and Sirius was watching Remus' hands. "We'll take it to Dumbledore," Remus finally declared.

Sirius is confused by Dumbledore's reaction. He looks more curious than angry and Sirius was sure that he was in for it; withholding something Dark and hiding information that their position - their home, Sirius reminded himself - had been compromised is a potentially deadly thing. Even Moony is quietly angry with him in the corner, sitting with Lily and distracting her with tea. James is disappointed; Sirius can tell by the way he keeps rubbing his nose, pushing his glasses up with his fingers. Peter is deadly silent in a chair by Dumbledore. His eyes are on the locket, wide and watering from not blinking. There's that sinking feeling in Sirius' stomach, like he's disappointed everyone around him.

"On your night stand?"

Sirius nodded. It was after one in the morning and he'd been awake for twenty hours. The exhaustion from his shift seemed like it was a lifetime ago because he'd been answering questions about the bloody locket for hours, now. He'd repeated the story at least four times. Every time he told it, he felt worse. Obviously it had been a stupid decision to keep the locket for himself, he knew that. Every time he went back over the details, though, James would get more frustrated and Lily made noises from her chair.

It was kind of scary that someone had managed to get into his and Moony's flat and leave it on their night stand. He understood that part. He'd spent the morning he found the locket re-warding the entire place; sure, he'd tried to convince himself that Remus had brought it home for a few days, but it was a thin excuse that he hadn't even believed. Someone had brought it to him and he didn't know who. Moony had already hammered that home. He didn't need another lecture about it.

"Why didn't you say something sooner?" James asked. He collapsed into the chair across from Sirius and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. He looked older than he should have, sitting like that. There were bags under his eyes and his face was pale, like he'd spent all his time indoors or slept through the day like a vampire. Sirius supposed he hadn't been sleeping much at all, lately. The violence was escalating.

"It seemed stupid," Sirius murmured. "I didn't even realize. I mean. I knew it was magical, but I didn't realize that it was. Dark. Not right away."

He didn't want to explain how it felt like everything in Grimmauld Place had felt. He hated talking about his family and he hated even more how it had taken him until he was sixteen to really feel the evil there. James looked like he wanted to say something, but he leaned back against the chair and rubbed his nose again. Sirius almost snapped at him to stop it, but he checked himself right before the words came out of his mouth. James was upset with him, but he wasn't angry like Remus or distantly curious like Dumbledore and at the moment, Sirius liked the idea of having someone around him that wasn't either of those things. Peter just looked horrified, which possibly made him the best of the bunch, even though he’d kept his mouth shut the entire time they’d been in Dumbledore’s office.

The room was silent again for a while. If it weren't for the Anti-Apparation wards around the school, Sirius would've taken the lull as an opportunity to consider the discussion closed. He had a feeling, though, that if he stood up and went for the door, Dumbledore would hex the door locked.

"I'd like to keep this, Sirius," Dumbledore said.

"Of course." Like Sirius hadn't known he wouldn't be allowed to keep it. It would go to Moody, or to some other more qualified person in the Order. That was all right, he decided.

"The more pressing matter is, of course, who delivered it." Dumbledore tapped his fingers against his desk in a slow rhythm. It echoed against the stone in the otherwise silent room and if it had gone on for long, it probably would've put Sirius to sleep. "How are your wards? Or rather, how were they before you changed them?"

"Perfectly functional," Sirius answered. "Nobody else can even find the front door. The floo's pass keyed and you can't Apparate in." He sighed. "There's no way anyone could've gotten in without causing a racket."

"No human, at any rate,” Dumbledore agreed. "Perhaps we'll start there."

"Where?"

Dumbledore offered him a benevolent smile. "I think that's enough for the evening. No doubt poor Lily would prefer a bed to a chair, and all of you have duties to attend to in the morning."

Sirius glanced over at Lily who was hunched forward in her chair as best she could around her swollen belly. She was rubbing her back and gave Dumbledore a tight smile. Sirius didn't really know why they'd all been dragged along. Dumbledore had called for the others when Remus had woken him up and Sirius would probably never understand Dumbledore's motivation for anything, so he let the question go unanswered. His brain was too abused to think any more.

By the time he stumbled out of the fire place and back into the flat, he was ready to fall face first on the carpet and sleep there. He wasn't sure if Moony would want him in the bedroom, anyway, and he was too tired to deal with a row.

When Remus took his arm and guided him down the little hall passed the washroom and in through their bedroom door, Sirius let out a little huff of air. At least something was going right. He would have dealt with a night on the couch, but the bed was better for more reasons than comfort.

When Sirius woke up, Remus was still curled up around his pillow. Sirius wasn't sure if it was a good thing because the morning could go one of two ways: either Remus was over it and they would enjoy their day off together, or Remus wasn't over it and wanted to fight about it.

Remus' breathing was still even so Sirius slipped out from under the covers, trying not to jostle the bed at all. Once he'd made it out of the bedroom, he padded down the hall and into the kitchen. He made himself some oatmeal, the sort that changed colour when you stirred it - not like Remus' boring old apple flavoured kind. For a while he sat there thinking. Even though the day had the potential to explode in his face, he felt better than he had in ages.

Maybe it had been that locket. He swirled his spoon around his bowl thoughtfully, watching the tint change from red to blue, then to yellow. Dark objects affected people; he knew that well enough from before he'd run away. He was miserable living with his parents for a dozen reasons, but that feeling of Darkness pushing in on him always made it ten times worse. Because of that, Sirius often had a difficult time noticing Dark things. Sometimes he would watch people around him shiver from the feeling before he even thought about it. Dark Arts marked a person, warranted or not, and Sirius hadn't been able to wash it away.

His oatmeal was cold when he finally took a bite. Cursing softly, he grabbed his wand and muttered a heating spell. As he ate, Sirius wondered how long it would be before Remus crawled out of bed and how exactly the scene would play out. He didn't want to torture himself over it, but he couldn't get the thoughts out of his head. Moony had every reason to be mad at him. Sirius just couldn't help but hope that Moony wasn't going to use that Voice on him, the one that always made him feel like he should transform and cower with his tail between his legs.

Sirius was supervising the sponge when Remus came stumbling down the hallway.

"Morning," Remus mumbled. He stood in the center of the room by the table for a moment, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. Sirius couldn't help the smile that came to his face; he loved the way Moony looked in the mornings with his hair all wild and his t-shirt rumpled from sleeping in.

"Morning," Sirius answered. "Well, early afternoon."

Remus glanced up at the clock and squinted.

"Look, Moony," Sirius started. He felt awkward trying to have a normal conversation when he knew there was a breach of trust between them.

"Don't, Sirius. It's done with. You know you've been an idiot."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"Not even going to thwack me with a rolled up paper?" Sirius asked. He felt his lips quirk up into a smile that matched the one Moony was trying to hide.

"Well, now that you mention it..." He reached for the Prophet on the table as he sat down and, after apparently thinking about it, left it where the owl had dropped it. "I do hope you've learned a lesson."

Sirius nodded and knocked the sponge away; it had been creeping towards him all through their conversation. Apparently, soap art on plates wasn't good enough for it any more. "It was a stupid thing to do and I'll never do anything like it again."

Remus nodded. "It was awful enough for Dumbledore to take special interest. It could've really hurt you." He looked worried, and Moony's worried face was always like a shot to the heart for Sirius. Remus had enough problems, he didn't need Sirius adding any more to the pile.

"I know."

"Good." Remus stared up at him, chin in his hands. "Make me tea? As penance?"

Sirius turned, tapped the teapot, and chuckled.

They are kissing, shirtless, on the bed. Remus' hands are wandering and Sirius is gasping against his mouth, silently willing Moony to get on with it, to move his hands just down and to the left and touch him, for Merlin's sake. Their breathing is ragged, loud; almost loud enough to drown out the pop of Apparation echoing down the hall. They both freeze. It's impossible. The Anti-Apparation wards are set to shake the whole flat if they're taken down, but neither of them has felt anything.

They both sat there, staring at each other. They were still panting and, despite the shot of terrified adrenaline that was pumping through Sirius' veins, he was still hard. Remus got himself together first, grabbed his wand, and ran for the bedroom door. Sirius stayed frozen, kneeling on the bed in shock.

Remus shouting startled Sirius out of his shock. He didn't remember picking up his wand but it was there in his hand as he hurried down the hall. He rounded the corner and ran straight into Remus' back. They both lost their footing, but Moony had quick reflexes and he caught Sirius before he fell. Dazed, Sirius wondered why they weren't being cursed.

"I think I've figured it out."

Albus Dumbledore was standing there. He was smiling benevolently at them, which grated Sirius' nerves to no end. Dumbledore could have warned them that he was testing the wards, perhaps checked to see that they weren't busy before he scared the living hell out of both of them. He'd interrupted what was working up to be an excellent shag and it had been a while, so Sirius was twice as irritated as he normally would’ve been.

"What, pray tell, have you figured out?"

Moony gave him a sidelong glance and Sirius wondered if that had come out as sharp as he thought it had.

"How the locket managed to get into your flat, of course."

Sirius and Remus were both quiet, watching Dumbledore as he poked around the living room. Remus looked like he wanted to escape back into the bedroom and make himself more presentable; his obsession with discretion was usually one of Sirius' pet peeves, but that was outweighed by Dumbledore being completely, obnoxiously obtuse.

"And?" Sirius snapped.

Dumbledore seated himself on the sofa and motioned for Sirius and Remus to join him. Remus opted for the chair, probably so that he wouldn't need to sit next to Sirius and could pretend that he hadn't just been about to shove his hands down Sirius' trousers. Sirius took a series of deep, calming breaths before he sat down as far away from Dumbledore as the couch would allow.

"Tea?" Dumbledore asked. He conjured a pot and three cups. Sirius declined as politely as he could manage and barely stopped himself from twitching when Remus dropped a sugar cube into his tea like there was absolutely nothing wrong in the world.

They were silent again. Sirius considered the benefits of setting the room on fire just so everyone would make some noise. “I don’t mean to be rude-”

“Oh, I doubt that,” Dumbledore said pleasantly. “From the state of things, I’m sure you found my intrusion to be ill-timed.”

Remus was bright red and trying to hide his face behind his teacup. Sirius wasn’t sure if he should be flabbergasted by Dumbledore even vaguely discussing sex or if he should have been angry at Remus for being so ashamed that they’d been about to have it.

“Well, it was,” Sirius muttered rebelliously. He crossed his arms and pointedly ignored Remus’ incredulous stare. “What are you going on about, then?”

“I’ve managed to Apparate into your flat.”

“We noticed,” Sirius replied. “Nearly gave us heart attacks.”

Dumbledore waved his hand dismissively. “I’ve been working on it since our last conversation. Incidentally, Remus, diverting the Apparation to France is probably one of the more clever alterations I’ve seen on a ward in years. The shopping in Paris was quite nice.”

“Thank you,” Remus said. He was fighting down a proud smile, though his hands were still shaking a little.

“After half a dozen tries to get around the wards, I remembered that clever Muggle Ockham, and simply had a house elf Apparate me in.”

“A house elf?”

Dumbledore nodded and sipped his tea. “Remember how I told you that no human could get through your wards?”

Remus and Sirius both nodded. Sirius was more dumbstruck at the fact that they hadn’t warded the flat against house elves than he was intrigued by whatever Dumbledore had to say, but Remus had leaned forward in his seat. Of course, Sirius thought, he’d gotten over the fact that he was shirtless in front of Albus Dumbledore because he’d gotten caught up in some academics. That was pure Remus.

“Well, considering the... social status of most of the families that would like to see us dead, it’s reasonable,” Remus said after a moment. “People leave holes for things they don’t expect. I wasn’t expecting house elves, so my ward didn’t guard against them.”

“Very true. Which leaves us with one last mystery.”

Sirius gave Dumbledore an irked, expectant look. “Which is?”

“Are there any house elves that would want you dead, Sirius?”

That wasn’t what Sirius had been expecting. “Wouldn’t it be more their owners I should be thinking about?”

“No, I don’t think so.” Dumbledore tapped his fingers against his teacup. “Much like Remus didn’t consider the magic of a house elf, I doubt a Death Eater would consider an elf as a viable means of trying to murder you. They would have, more likely, left the locket for you at Saint Mungo’s.”

Sirius supposed that was Dumbledore trying to be reassuring, but it wasn’t. Sirius was going to be looking over his shoulder at work for weeks, watching for black robes and silver masks. He was probably going to ward his office, co-workers be damned.

Dumbledore was silent, sipping his tea and waiting calmly for an answer. Sirius had almost forgotten the original question. Once he realized he was supposed to be figuring out if a house elf wanted him dead, he sat there thinking for a while. House elves didn’t come to the hospital for treatment and, though there were a hand full to cook the meals and do the wash, Sirius hadn’t actually seen a single one since he started working there two years ago. House elves weren’t seen if they didn’t want to be, and after life in his mother’s house, he would have happily never laid eyes on another one again.

The elves at Hogwarts had always fallen over themselves to help Prongs and Sirius whenever they’d gone down into the kitchens. Their pranks had left a few awful messes - Tindy and Piccoli had even mentioned scrubbing the exploded chicken and rice mess from the Slytherin common room to them right before Christmas hols sixth year - but they’d never complained about it. Sirius wasn’t sure that normal house elves complained at all.

That made him think of the one abnormal house elf he knew. He tried so hard to not think about life with his parents; Kreacher hadn’t even crossed his mind until then, not as more than a spark across the back of his brain. And Kreacher probably did want him dead. His dear old Mum definitely did; she hated him before Reg had gone missing or died or whatever had happened to him and now he was the only Son of The Ancient and Noble House of Black left. She probably wanted to do him in before she kicked off.

“There’s my mother’s elf,” Sirius finally said. “And my mother, besides.”

“Your mum would’ve been more direct,” Remus said as he came back into the room. Sirius hadn’t even noticed that he’d gone, but he wasn’t surprised that Remus had gotten dressed and he’d even brought a shirt for Sirius, which made Sirius laugh to himself. “She’s not the kind of woman that goes for quiet vengeance.”

“She’s not the kind of woman that goes for quiet,” Sirius amended. “And I couldn’t figure out how to get the bloody thing open. If she was going to kill me, it would’ve exploded as soon as I picked it up and taken half the flat as well.”

Remus snorted quietly and tossed the shirt at Sirius. “Kreacher would’ve wrung your neck in your sleep, from all the stories I’ve heard.”

“Surprised he didn’t think of it before. That elf is mad.”

Dumbledore was silent, stirring the cold dregs of his tea with his spoon. “Well, then. Perhaps it wasn’t meant to kill you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sirius asked. “And no more riddles, please.” His voice was a bit sharper than he’d intended it to be, but he didn’t particularly care. People were dying; it wasn’t the right time to act all wiser than thou and make puzzles out of everything.

“We have all been operating under the assumption that the locket was designed to kill you.” Dumbledore paused while Sirius pulled the shirt over his head. “Perhaps it’s more complicated than that.”

“Like?”

“Perhaps the opposite is true. Maybe you were meant to discover it so that we would know something.”

Remus’ eyebrows rose a little. “House elves don’t usually deal in puzzles. And they can’t do anything against their owners’ orders, can they?.”

Dumbledore shrugged. “Regardless, it’s an interesting angle to examine. We’ve been looking at the locket as if it were a Dark object meant to kill.”

“Aren’t most Dark objects meant to kill?”

“Or at least maim,” Remus added.

“No, I shouldn’t think so.” Dumbledore vanished the tea things and stood up. “Very few answers and quite a lot of questions. I will keep you updated.”

“Let us know before you pop in next time,” Sirius called as Dumbledore tossed some floo powder into the fireplace.

Remus glared at him and slumped back into his seat. “What?” Sirius said. “It’s polite to send a message or floo-call.”

“It’s Dumbledore,” Remus pointed out. “He’s not. You don’t get to admonish his manners.”

“You’d be singing a different tune if he’d popped in while I was having my way with you and bit down,” Sirius retorted.

Moony grimaced and then sighed, tucking his knees up under his chin. “Well, the mood has been properly killed and it’s late.”

Sirius closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the couch. “You’ve got to work in the morning?”

“Yeah.”

“At the rate we’re going, we might as well be flatmates,” Sirius grumbled.

The cushion shifted and he cracked an eye open. Remus had sat down next to him and offered Sirius a little smile when he saw Sirius looking. “It could be worse.”

“Oh? However so, Moony?” Sirius wasn’t in the mood to fight about it, but their relationship had been getting shoved to the side, ignored in favour of the greater good, or something. It was bad enough that he played pretend with Remus’ mum and dad and the rest of the world, but he was tired of losing the little bit of happiness he did have.

“We could be dead. We’re still here and when this is over-”

“What’s the point of it if we let this fall apart?” Sirius asked. “Honestly, Remus. What are we fighting for if we’re not fighting for the right to have this?” He gestured between them.

“We’re fighting for our lives, Sirius. At least I am.” Remus’ arms slipped around Sirius’ shoulders and he pressed a kiss against his temple. “And we’re not letting this fall apart. I love you.”

Sirius closed his eyes again. This was good and familiar. He turned his head a little and caught Remus’ lips with his. Fighting for their lives seemed like desperation. Fighting for this was so much nicer. They kissed for a while, slow and languid, until Remus broke away from him and shifted a bit.

“You don’t really think this is falling apart, do you?” he asked.

Sirius rested his head back against the sofa again. “No,” he decided. “And I’m not going to let it, Remus. War be damned.”

Sirius had never had any doubts about helping with the war. It wasn’t like anyone could really stay neutral in the whole thing, even though people tried. Voldemort didn’t let people stay on the sidelines, not if they also wanted to live. When he’d turned seventeen, he’d gone to Dumbledore and asked how he could help. Sirius never regretted that decision, he knew he needed to pick his side and fight for it, but he wondered where his life had gone. The violence had been stepping up and he spent half of his free time patching up Order members. Remus was doing whatever Dumbledore had him doing outside of working at the music shop and watching for suspicious behaviour.

Between ten hour days at the hospital and long nights with cursed and torn up Order members in their spare room, he practically had to schedule time to spend with Remus. He kind of resented how much he’d have to give up. Peter worked regular hours at the Ministry and spent every other weekend abroad, trying to gain sympathy. Prongs did his Auroring, and that was dangerous, but he’d been given mostly desk duty the last few months because of Lily’s pregnancy. Remus ran off sometimes, to do whatever it was Dumbledore asked him to do, but it wasn’t half as time consuming as Sirius’ work.

“What are you thinking about?” Remus threaded his fingers through Sirius’ hair. Sirius leaned into the touch.

“Everything,” Sirius admitted. “I’m so tired, Remus.”

“I know.” Remus leaned in closer. "Let's get to bed, Sirius. It'll be better in the morning."

It wouldn't be and Sirius knew it, but it was one lie that Sirius didn't mind.

He wakes up in the middle of the night to someone banging on his bedroom door and screaming his name. It is the third time in as many days that his night has been interrupted. He's still naked, curled around Remus, and his mind foggily wishes that whoever is at the door would go away and let him have a night to himself. No one would be knocking if it isn't urgent, though, and Sirius pushes his selfishness away as his mind starts to rise up from the fog of sleep.

Sirius tugged his trousers on as he hopped across the bedroom floor to the door. Moony was stirring, grumbling about another late-night wake up call, but Sirius didn’t have the time to apologize for having to deal with whoever it was. He was still buttoning the fly on his trousers when he opened the door. He took one look at Peter, red in the face and horrified-looking, then rushed back to the bed so he could grab his wand off the table.

"What's wrong?" he asked. He knew Peter understood what he really meant. Who’s hurt?.

"It's James," Peter said. "He's." He looked like he was going to vomit.

Sirius pushed him out of the doorway, back towards the fireplace. "What happened?"

"An ambush, I think," Peter said. "He's. I don't know how he got home, Sirius. I don't. I don't know-"

Sirius quieted him with a look. "He's at home?"

Peter nodded. Sirius turned and Disapparated on the spot. He appeared outside the front door, grateful for a moment that James and Lily weren't as obsessed with security as Remus was and hadn't completely locked the place down. He could still find the front door, which was something.

He spent a minute trying to figure out the password to get the knob to appear. Peter popped in at his elbow and hurriedly said "I solemnly swear I am not a Death Eater," which Sirius would've remembered eventually. He pushed the door open and swore, because James was sprawled on the couch with Lily beside him and for a moment, a split second that nearly had Sirius on his knees vomiting, he thought James had to be dead.

He gave Peter a little shove back towards the street. "Go get Remus," he ordered before he slammed the door behind him and rushed over to the sofa.

Lily was sobbing. There was so much blood and it was everywhere, soaking into the cushions and covering James' clothes. When he got closer he could see that James was still breathing little shallow breaths that barely made his chest move. He had his hands pressed against his stomach and Sirius was sure that if he moved James' hands, there wouldn't be anything keeping his guts inside of him.

He could barely make out what Lily was saying. She was hysterical and all he could hear was the sound of his heart beating in his ears, anyway. His whole body was shaking and all he could think about when he reached to move James’ hands away from his stomach was what Healer Tinley had told him on his first day of training about not treating friends and family.

James’ shirt was ripped away under his hands. There was a clean slice - made by a spell, only a spell could be that neat - and Sirius could barely make that out through all the blood.

"Got to." Sirius choked back a sob. "Prongs, you have to move your hands."

James didn't move. His short, shallow breaths didn't change, which was a good sign, really, and if it were anyone else Sirius would have been able to handle it. This was James, though. Laughing, smiling, boisterous James and Sirius was staring at him in a pool of his own blood, split open across the middle.

His hands were shaking as he pushed James' away. The blood streaked away in a messy trail and Sirius pulled back, horrified. There were thick scorch marks around the slice; James' skin was charred black. Sirius' fingers shook when they curled around his wand. He wasn't going to be able to hold it steady, he wasn't going to be able to do this - he could hardly remember the words to the diagnostic spell and if he couldn't hold his damn wand steady, he was never going to be able to undo any of the damage.

He closed his eyes and tried to pretend that it was someone else, some unknown stranger that wasn't his best friend and his brother. His hand wouldn't stop shaking and his mind was going fifteen different places but there wasn't enough time. No one curse could do that much damage - nothing could burn and slice and tear up a man's insides like that. He had to figure them out and counter them and stop Prongs from bleeding to death in the meantime.

James had three minutes, maybe less before he was going to stop breathing. Sirius was too frozen. Having him do this was an awful idea and James was going to die because he couldn't remember how to slow someone's heart down and replenish their blood without potions. He'd done it dozens of times before but he couldn't remember.

Lily screamed again, something indistinguishable and probably unhelpful, anyway. Two minutes. The front door slamming open startled him and made him look up from the scene on the sofa. Peter and Remus had arrived, gasping for breath. Moony shoved his bag at him - Sirius could hear the vials clanking harmlessly inside, and suddenly it was like the world had started again. Lily's screams were louder. Peter was breathing so heavily, it hurt to listen to. Every nerve in his body felt lit up and he shoved his hand inside the bag, groping for the two or three vials of Blood Replenishing Potion he had in there. One minute, he thought dimly as he forced James to swallow.

He picked his wand up off the floor again. His hand was steadier this time. He remembered.

By the time Sirius had worked through the web of curses on him and gotten the wound closed, it had been twenty minutes. James was pale and Lily was still hysterical, though Sirius thought Remus must’ve given her something. He hadn’t had time to worry about Lily stressing herself into labour or Peter, who had been quietly staring and hadn’t moved from the chair by the door since he’d come back with Remus.

It took Sirius three tries to clean the blood off his hands. James still wasn’t out of danger, he’d lost too much blood for that and three vials of potion was hardly enough to keep him alive for long, but he was in one piece again and Sirius thought it was okay to take a moment to quietly lose his mind.

“Is he going to be okay?”

Sirius looked up at Peter. “He needs to go to Saint Mungo’s,” he said. “I can’t. I.”

Peter nodded slowly and stood up from his chair. For a moment he looked like he was going to fall over; he was pale and shaking, maybe worse than Sirius, but he steadied himself enough to grab hold of James, heft him up into a sitting position, and Apparate.

Sirius felt the tension slip out of him little by little. James was okay. He needed more Blood Replenishing Potions and a proper mediwizard, but he was going to live. Once he calmed down enough to be able to hold his wand steady, he could Apparate to the hospital and see for himself that James was breathing normally and in one piece.

He glanced over at Remus and Lily. Moony had obviously given her something in her tea or maybe cast a charm. She wasn’t hysterical any more, at least. Once he’d gotten himself together and scrounged up a shirt and some trainers, he’d take her to the hospital and she’d get to see James. Someone could look at her, too, he thought. She could have stressed herself into labour. Sirius counted himself lucky that he hadn’t had to deal with that, too. James half dead on the sofa had been enough for the night. He was grateful he didn’t have to deal with delivering a baby, too.

“All right, Padfoot?” Remus asked him. He was watching him carefully, like he thought Sirius would need a Calming Draught of his own. Sirius wondered why Remus wasn’t completely out of control too, but then he remembered that Remus woke up bloody and confused often enough that he could at least keep himself level at the sight of someone laid out and ripped apart.

Sirius nodded. “Lily okay?”

“As well as she can be,” Remus said. He slipped down onto the floor next to Sirius. “Prong’s’ll be okay, too, right?”

“Yeah,” Sirius answered. He leaned forward, pressing his nose into the crook of Remus’ neck. “I thought he was dead, Remus.”

Remus didn’t say anything, he just sat there with his hands in Sirius hair, whispering reassurances into his ear. Sirius was still trembling, but he’d be okay to Apparate soon and then he’d be able to let James absolutely have it for nearly dying.

His moment was up. Lily may have been calmed down but she wasn't okay; James would murder him if Sirius let anything happen to her or the baby and Sirius would never forgive himself if he was having a pity party for himself and didn't notice something was wrong.

He practically had to drag himself across the floor. Once he stopped in front of Lily, she looked down at him and let out one quiet, strangled sob. "He'll be okay, Lily," Sirius said. "He's. Jenkins or Tinley or someone'll look after him. He'll be okay."

He wasn't sure who he was trying to convince because Sirius knew that until he saw James up and alert, he wouldn't believe that he'd be okay. Lily started crying harder and he grabbed onto the arm of the chair and hoisted himself up to his feet so he could wrap an arm around her. She buried her face into his shirt and Sirius looked up helplessly at Moony, but he was busy trying to vanish the blood on the couch.

"I thought he was dead," Lily managed to get out. "I thought. I."

"Shh," he soothed. "He's not, he's all right. Wormtail's going to make sure he's all taken care of." He smoothed her hair down and closed his eyes. "James is going to be fine, Lily. I'm worried about you right now."

She let out another sob that was half a hysterical laugh. "I'm not being held together by. By magic and luck."

"No," Sirius agreed. "But James'll kill us both if you have that baby while he's unconscious. You've got to calm down." He cast a diagnostic spell as stealthily as he could manage. He didn't much like her blood pressure, but whatever Remus had given her was keeping her body under control even if it wasn't doing much for her emotions. "We'll go together and someone can look at you, too."

"I don't want to be prodded," she said. "I want to check on James. I've just got to see him. Not. Not." Not laid out in a pool of his own blood in the living room, Sirius' brain supplied. He cringed.

"We will, we will," Sirius promised. "I'm going to go change and-"

"Don't you dare Apparate anywhere without me." Lily clutched onto his shirt tighter. "I'm not being left behind."

Sirius gently pried her hands away. "I'm just going to go upstairs and get something of James', okay? I'm not going to go anywhere, Lils. Not without you, all right?"

He chanced a look at the sofa again. The blood had faded down into the fabric like an old wine stain but five times as big as one should have been. Moony was looking a little green in the face, but he trusted that he was well enough to get Lily to the hospital without splinching. He didn't trust himself, that was for sure. He was probably going to leave half of himself behind in the Potters' living room in the state he was in without trying to Side-Along someone.

When he came back down from the bedroom, Remus and Lily were both standing at the bottom of the stairs, waiting. Moony was holding up most of Lily's weight and she was clutching onto him almost as hard as she'd been holding Sirius' shirt. There wasn't any blood on her dress, Remus had apparently seen to that, and the room smelled sterile, like he'd done his best to disinfect the entire place.

"I'll take you both," Remus said when Sirius stepped down in front of them. "You're not in any state to go Apparating to London."

Sirius very nearly told him that he could manage it, but when he searched Moony's gaze, he'd clearly made up his mind. He nodded, then Remus gripped his arm and the world closed in on him.

Sirius is falling asleep at his desk. He went directly to his office from James’ hospital room and he really doesn’t have the patience for spell damage today. He wants a nap and, more to the point, he wants to sleep through the rest of the war. It is closer to home now, with James laid up in a room. His colleagues talk like the war is a curiosity and he wants to scream at them or possibly hit them with something hard until they realize that they are all potentially victims. The clock on the wall dings, reminding him that he’s made it to lunchtime without breaking anything. He wonders if, in the five hours after he scrounges up a sandwich from the cafeteria, he’ll be able to stop himself from losing his mind.

When Sirius opened his office door, he hadn’t been expecting to see Remus there, hand up and poised to knock. They stared at each other for a minute before Sirius managed a tired, tiny smile. “Coming to visit?”

“Coming to see if you wanted company for lunch.”

Sirius shrugged. Now that his own panic had subsided into quiet anger, he could see that Remus was just as upset as he was. Moony had his own way of showing emotion; it had been the first puzzle Sirius had ever wanted to figure out at Hogwarts. He’d put most of the pieces together, but sometimes Remus was still a mystery.

Sirius could see it, though. Remus’ lip was swollen from worrying it between his teeth and his thumbnails were bitten down to stubs. When Remus put his hand on Sirius’ shoulder, Sirius could feel the little tremors in it, like he hadn’t quite recovered from seeing James bloody and broken on the sofa.

The cafeteria was mostly empty. Sirius supposed that Peter and Lily were still in the hospital, probably in James’ room, but he was glad that Moony had come to have lunch with him alone. He didn’t like to admit that he needed Remus sometimes because it made him feel a bit like a girl, but there was a reason he loved Remus. There were a hand full of people in his life that really understood him, but Remus did more than that. He couldn’t really explain it with words and if he could have, he never would’ve told anyone anyway. It was nice, though, having someone to rely on and someone who would put up with all of his nonsense with a smile on their face.

“I thought you had to work,” Sirius said.

“I did,” Remus answered. “In the morning. Took the afternoon off to come make sure James was okay.”

Sirius didn’t ask how James was. Remus would’ve told him if anything had gone horribly wrong, and Jenkins was doing rounds on spell damage for the morning. Sirius was still fuming, anyway.

“Are you okay?” Remus asked.

Sirius grunted a little and plucked an apple out of the basket towards the front of the lunch buffet. He wasn’t very hungry. He was too busy drafting an epic tirade to lay into James when he woke up. What sort of an idiot goes and nearly gets himself killed? James-Bloody-Potter, that was who, apparently.

They took a table furthest away from the doors after Sirius shelled out an obscene amount of gold for an apple and a sandwich. Lunch time was a lull in the day at Saint Mungo’s. Death Eaters liked the dark, cowards that they were, and most of the patients showed up in the early morning or late at night. Remus picked at his sandwich and tried to start a conversation, but Sirius wasn’t in the mood. He ate his apple in silence while he watched Remus tear off bitesized bits of bread and cheese.

“Dumbledore wants me on a mission next weekend.”

Sirius looked up from the remains of his apple. “Next weekend is the moon,” he pointed out. “Tell Dumbledore to sod off.”

Remus shrugged. “I’ve got to go.”

“Bollocks, you’ve got to go. You’re going to be ill.” Sirius started picking the core apart with his fingers angrily. “What use are you going to be if you’re all laid up from the moon?”

Remus didn’t say anything. The anger inside Sirius welled up a little. He hated when Remus got all quiet. Everyone knew what Sirius did, what James and Peter did for Dumbledore. It was Remus who was a big fucking mystery. Sirius shared everything with him; he thought it was kind of the point of being in a relationship with someone. Remus was a wall sometimes, particularly when it had something to do with the Order of the Phoenix.

He knew, somewhere inside his brain that it was the exhaustion speaking. He had a short fuse anyway and being tired never helped. He was scared about James, too. As much as he wanted to say that it was anger and anger alone it wasn’t; he was terrified that one day he wasn’t going to make it in time. With Remus gallivanting off every so often, shrouded in secrecy, it was almost too much. He wanted to scream.

“And what about the moon? If you’re off doing whatever Dumbledore wants you to do, what are you going to do about the damn moon?”

“I’ll be fine,” Remus told him.

“You won’t,” Sirius snapped. “Without us there you’ll tear yourself to pieces, Remus.”

Remus sighed, shook his head, and stirred his soup. “I did it for nearly a decade without you and James and Peter, Sirius. It’s one time. I’ll survive.”

“What if you don’t? This is your life, Remus, not some. Not. It’s not a game.”

“Right, my life. Dumbledore asked me to do this and-”

Remus was cut off by Sirius’ apple core exploding. They both looked down surprised at the mess on the table. Sirius hadn’t accidentally blown anything up in years. He hadn’t realized he’d been angry enough to do it in the first place.

“So it’s your life and my life now. Separate. Maybe I wasn’t so wrong about being flatmates,” Sirius growled out.

“Stop acting like a petulant child, Sirius,” Remus whispered furtively. “You’re making a scene.”

“You’re acting like a twat. I just put my best friend back together and now you’re telling me that you’re going to go rip yourself into pieces because Dumbledore can’t wait three extra days for you to be healthy enough to go on a mission.” Sirius wiped the apple pieces into a pile and vanished them. “I’m tired of you acting like every breath you take is for the greater good, Remus. I’m fucking exhausted every day and I’m tired of these stupid secrets and I don’t care if I’m acting like a petulant child.”

Sirius felt like maybe everything had been leading up to that. The previous months had been filled with ignoring the problems in front of them. Sure, they pretended that everything was okay and that the most worrisome thing in their lives was what they were going to do for dinner, but it wasn’t and it hadn’t been addressed since Remus had taken his first mission after the April moon.

This was the biggest problem in Sirius’ life. They could talk around it all they wanted to but it still trembled under the surface of their skin every time they touched. Secrecy may win or lose wars but what about the people in them? When did winning become something that had to be done even if they all died? What was the point, if there was no one left to enjoy victory?

Remus would tell him that it was the price they paid for getting involved. Sirius didn’t like to talk about it because he didn’t want to hear what Remus had to say, honestly, because he was wrong. They were doing what was right and sometimes doing what was right hurt, sometimes it killed you, but Sirius couldn’t remember the last time he’d shagged or gone to the cinema with Lily or dared to show his face in the Leaky Cauldron for a drink. He couldn’t see what good winning was if he lost everything on the way there and it was starting to feel like he already had. Moony had never been so distant in all the years they’d known each other, not even after The Incident and the awful aftermath.

There came a point where doing something for the greater good wasn’t the right choice. Here and now, sitting with Moony and wondering if he was ever going to find out what he was hiding, what he was doing, and where he was going - well, Sirius had reached the tipping point.

“We’re not doing this here.” Remus was quiet, almost whispering but not quite. “I’ll see you at home.” His eyes were cast down, focused on the spot where Sirius had vanished the bits of apple, and then he was gone, up and out the door before Sirius could get a word out. He cursed loudly and barely stopped himself from making several crude gestures when the witch at the till shushed him.

He shoved his chair backwards from the table and spent the walk back up to his office considering how awful it would be to live the rest of his life as a dog so he’d never have to talk about it.

It’s early afternoon and Sirius is listening to records in the living room. He’s sprawled out on the floor, missing Moony in spite of the fact that he’s absolutely livid with him, and generally being an absolute bum when Dumbledore’s phoenix Patronus finds him. Sirius is just completely delighted to get up, put on some trousers, and make his way to Hogwarts. It was exactly what he wanted to do on his day off. Trudging across the Hogwarts grounds in the middle of the afternoon is as high up on Sirius’ list of things to do as getting mauled by a hippogriff or going to visit his mum.

While Sirius was crossing the Hogwarts grounds, he’d thought up at least seven creative ways to make Dumbledore’s day as awful as his was turning out to be. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Dumbledore, he just wasn’t particularly fond of him recently. He’d been putting Moony in danger, and that was the quickest way irritate Sirius. Remus would probably resent being treated like he was delicate, but he was sometimes and he didn’t need to be going on secret missions to parts unknown when he was most vulnerable. If Remus didn’t come home, Sirius would probably strangle Dumbledore with his bare hands and not regret it at all.

Hogwarts was creepy in the summer, Sirius decided after he’d pushed open the door. Only three people called the castle home when students weren’t running about everywhere. Aside from Dumbledore, Hagrid, and Filch, only the ghosts were around. Even at night when he used to wander around with James, Peter, and Remus, the castle still felt alive. Now it was dead and empty; his footsteps echoed on the walls louder than they should have.

It took a few creative guesses at the password to get by the gargoyle guarding the entrance to the Headmaster’s office, but then he was finally there. It felt a little more alive up in Dumbledore’s tower, at least; he could hear the instruments tinkering away in the office and Fawkes was chirping. When he knocked, Fawkes’ melody faltered. The door swung open. For a moment, Sirius felt like he was back in sixth year, serving one of his dozens of detentions for The Incident - no less than he deserved, but never easier.

“I see you’ve made it here in one piece,” Dumbledore said.

Sirius stepped into the office. He saw the locket sitting in the centre of Dumbledore’s desk. There was a scroll of parchment next to it, unfurled and written on front and back.

“More or less. What was so urgent?”

Dumbledore stepped away from the bookshelf he’d been standing by and turned to Sirius. “There are ways of detecting magical signatures, I’m sure you know.”

Sirius nodded and took the seat Dumbledore was motioning at. “Yeah, we use Detection Charms all the time. Helps the Aurors figure out who to blame for a curse. But there’s ways to hide it.”

“For wizards,” Dumbledore agreed. “You did no such thing when you were trying to unravel the mystery the locket presented. I’m sure others have employed Anti-Detection Charms on that very same artefact. But there was another signature, fainter than yours. An acquaintance of mine in the Department of Mysteries was most helpful in separating the signatures and identifying them.”

Sirius tapped his fingers against his knee. They were both quiet for a while. “Yeah, but the signature doesn’t help if you haven’t anything to compare it to. It’s like checking if a letter is forged or not. You need the real thing to compare and get a match.” Sirius thought for another minute. His fingers were still beating out a rhythm on his kneecap. “Don’t you?”

“Correct. As it were, the Aurors keep a record of magical signatures for known criminals, among others. The second signature had a match in their records.”

“Who is it, then? Malfoy?” Sirius stilled his fingers and cocked his head to the side. “Snape?”

“Neither.” Dumbledore paused for a moment and smoothed down the feathers on Fawkes’ wings. “It was Regulus Black.”

It felt like all the air had left Sirius’ lungs. He couldn’t breathe, his stomach felt filled with ice and none of it made any sense at all. Regulus had wanted out, that was what the rumours were before he disappeared and was presumed dead. “Is he alive?”

“No. Regulus is indeed dead.” Dumbledore paused a moment, not long enough for Sirius to process what he was saying but long enough for him to understand the words. “I’m sorry.”

The last bit of hope that Sirius had been holding onto fizzled out. Reg had been obnoxious and too eager to please his parents but he’d been his brother. Wrong side of the war or not, Sirius hadn’t wanted him dead. “Oh.” He clasped his hands together in his lap and hoped Dumbledore didn’t notice that he was shaking. “That doesn’t explain much at all, though.”

“But, my boy, it explains nearly all of it. My sources tell me that Regulus felt he was in too deep. I do not think it is too much of a leap to imagine this locket may have been in Voldemort’s possession; possibly the theft was the reason your brother was killed.”

“That doesn’t explain how it got into my flat,” Sirius pointed out. “Reg went missing a year ago.” The logistics of it were a good distraction. If he focused on the facts, he could ignore the fact that his stomach was churning and he felt as though he wanted to curl up into a ball and cry.

Dumbledore nodded. He sat down gracefully in his chair and tapped his wand against the parchment scroll by the locket. “Regulus was a resourceful young man. I’m sure that if he knew his demise was eminent, he would have found a way to get a message to you if he wanted.”

“Sure, but why take a year to get it to me?” With a glance at the locket, he sighed. “And why not, you know, send a note along?”

“As for the latter, I have suspicions but nothing worth saying. Regarding the time, I can’t help but wonder if it wasn’t the messenger who waited.”

It felt as though something had clicked into place in Sirius’ head. That bloody elf had been poking around in his flat. Of course it was Kreacher; the damnable little monster would have done anything Regulus asked of him. “Kreacher,” Sirius finally said. “Bloody Kreacher.”

A crack sounded in the air. Fawkes stopped singing.

“The nasty blood-traitor calls and Kreacher must answer, Kreacher must, because Master Regulus tells him to.”

Dumbledore was staring at a point over his shoulder. Sirius was frozen in his seat. He didn’t want to turn around. He didn’t want to see the wretched little elf. Suddenly, it didn’t matter why Regulus had sent him the locket or why Kreacher had brought it to him a year after Regulus’ disappearance. Looking at Kreacher would remind him of everything he left behind and talking to him, well. Talking to him would cement the fact that Regulus was dead into reality. He couldn’t leave it to Dumbledore. Kreacher wouldn’t answer him. It was a miracle that he’d even been listening for Sirius to call him. Before Sirius ran away, it was work to get that stupid elf to do anything he wanted and afterwards, though he hadn’t tried, he’d been thoroughly disowned and figured Kreacher was more than happy to ignore him and curse his existence rather more loudly than he’d done when Sirius was a kid.

He couldn’t leave it to Dumbledore. If Regulus had told Kreacher to bring him the locket, he’d probably told him to answer Sirius’ questions, too, but he doubted Regulus had ordered the bedamned elf to listen to what he said outside of questions. He clenched his hands into fists and twisted around in his seat. They both watched each other for a while. Kreacher was rocking back on the heels of his feet like he wanted to flee, hands twisting in the tea cozy around his waist. “Kreacher.”

“The nasty blood traitor is talking to Kreacher. Mistress would weep, mistress would weep...”

“Stuff it,” Sirius ordered. “Why are you here?”

“Master Regulus says Kreacher must come if the ungrateful scourge of the house calls.” Kreacher was practically hopping from one foot to the other. He obviously didn’t want to be there and for some reason Sirius was grateful that the feeling was mutual. On the other hand, he didn’t want to deal with his mother’s insane house elf for longer than necessary and he had a feeling that this conversation was going to take much longer than it would have if he’d been talking to Regulus.

Sirius’ patience had been whittled down to nothing in the last week. As if Remus arguing with him and James being an idiot hadn’t been enough, he’d had to deal with most of Saint Mungo’s long-term patients all week and he hadn’t been getting sleep because Order members kept getting themselves cursed. Here he was, being confronted by his childhood in the form of a self-important, hateful house elf. It made him grit his teeth and bite back a growl.

“Why did Regulus tell you to come if I called?” Sirius ground out. “And were you in my flat?”

“Master says if Kreacher cannot destroy it, he must give it to nasty Sirius. Kreacher tried, Kreacher tried! Kreacher fails Master Regulus so Kreacher does what Kreacher is told.”

Sirius took a deep breath. It didn’t help. “You brought me the locket.”

Kreacher let out a wail. “Kreacher does as Kreacher is told!”

“Yes, yes, you did great. I’m sure Reg would be proud,” Sirius snapped. “What is it?”

Kreacher stared up at him with huge, wide eyes. He looked like he was going to cry. “Master Regulus would be proud of Kreacher?”

“Sure.” Sirius could feel a headache blossoming behind his eyes. “I don’t understand what the locket is, Kreacher.”

“It is the Dark Lord’s locket,” Kreacher said. He was still bouncing from foot to foot but he looked less anguished about the entire ordeal. “Master Regulus stole it from the secret place.”

“If I may make a suggestion,” Dumbledore interrupted. “Perhaps it would be easier if Kreacher told us the story straight through.”

Maybe it was childish of him, but Sirius didn’t want to go home and deal with Moony after spending all day in Dumbledore’s office. They were still fighting about the mission Remus was dead set on going through with and Sirius’ temper was in tatters. If they got into it, he would break things and Remus would probably leave. It didn’t matter that Sirius had just found out his brother had stolen something important to the Dark Lord and gotten himself killed by a bunch of Inferi. Breaking plates wouldn’t be an Appropriate Response according to Remus Lupin, so Sirius did the only thing a dubiously respectable twenty year old man would do and Disapparated to James’ parents’ house.

James was still laid up from the ambush on the fifth and everyone had thought it was wiser for him to hole up with his parents until he was well enough to get around on his own. Lily practically had a target painted on the back of her robes and even though she could hold her own probably better than James could, there was the baby to think about. Mum and Dad Potter weren’t exactly young and spry, but there was strength in numbers these days, particularly when the majority of the numbers were pure blooded.

He let himself in, surprised that they hadn’t changed the wards and half in the mind to give Dad Potter a talking to about security. Once he was standing the foyer, though, he felt kind of ridiculous. Sure, he had an open invitation to their house and he’d spent two years borrowing their spare room, but it seemed kind of ridiculous for him to go running over there instead of acting like a grown up. He shifted awkwardly and thought about turning around and leaving, but Mum poked her head out of the kitchen.

“Sirius!” she said happily. “Come to see Jamie?”

“Yeah,” Sirius answered. “Sort of, I mean-”

“Come, come; have some tea with us.”

Sirius had never stood a chance against that woman. She’d probably made biscuits and Sirius was weak for Mum’s baking. He followed her through the kitchen and into the sitting room. James was laid up on one of the sofas with his feet in Lily’s lap. Mr. Potter was in his chair by the window with the Prophet open in his lap. Why he was bothering, Sirius didn’t know. It wasn’t like there was any news in the damned rag.

“Hullo, Padfoot,” James said. “Coming to check and see if all my fingers and toes are working?”

Sirius shook his head and sat down opposite him, next to where Mum had sat on the other sofa. Her knitting basket was crammed with red and gold and something that suspiciously looked like a baby blanket sat half finished on the low table beside it. “You seem healthy,” he said. “And besides, I’m not your Mediwizard.”

“Too right. If you were, I’d be lodging a complaint.”

Sirius snorted. James cackled a little until Lily silenced him with a look. “We’re really very grateful, Sirius,” she told him. “I can’t thank you enough for what you did.”

“Just make sure that git Apparates to the hospital next time.” Sirius didn’t want to sound angry, but he was still pissed as hell at James for going home with his stomach ripped open. Lily didn’t need to see that and Sirius sure as hell wasn’t the right person to put James back together. He’d barely been able to speak, let alone steady his hand to perform counter-curses. Lily was still shaken up about it - it was written all over her face and Sirius knew James could see it as well as he could, maybe better.

“Message received, Sirius,” James answered. A little smile quirked his lips up. “For the ninth or tenth time.”

“It’ll take at least three more to stick,” Sirius muttered. “And, anyway. I didn’t come to chat about your health, although I see you’re eating up all the attention you can get.”

James eyed him critically for a few seconds before he shook his head. “Fighting with Moony?”

Sirius took the tea cup Mum offered with a sigh. “Is it that obvious?”

“You’ve a look,” James said, waving his hand dismissively. If James were to be believed, Sirius had a look for everything.

Sirius sent a glare at him while he sipped his tea. “It’s not just that. I’ve been by Hogwarts to see Dumbledore about the-” he chanced a look at Mr. and Mrs. Potter. Mum had gone back to knitting and Dad was reading the paper; they were pretending to idly chatter but Sirius knew a little about eavesdropping and they were doing it. “You know. And. We’ll talk later, but.”

He wasn’t sure how to word ‘my brother’s dead and he was killed by some inferi whilst trying to steal from Voldemort’. He wasn’t sure if he should. James had enough on his plate already and Lily looked about one crisis away from a nervous breakdown. James wasn’t well and it was wearing on both of them. Prongs always rankled when he was forced to be still for more than ten minutes. Lily worried too much. Neither of them needed to hear about Regulus.

He should have just gone home. It still sounded like an awful idea, though. He wondered if there was some deep meaning to that. Maybe things weren’t great, but he still should have felt like he could’ve gone to Moony instead of running to James.

“Does it have to do with Remus?” James asked quietly. He’d been watching Sirius like he was the ill one. Sirius probably looked as if he were about to topple over. He supposed that Moony was the only person that he worried about that much.

“No,” Sirius replied. He sighed again and set his tea down. “It has to do with Regulus.”

James dragged himself up onto his elbows and leaned forward. “Is he alive? Did they find him?”

Sirius shook his head and stared down at his hands, splayed on his knees. “No. No, it’s just. I always thought maybe. Maybe. He got away? But. He’s dead. Dumbledore, he said he had some sources and then. Well, he’s.” His hands were trembling and he wasn’t sure why. He’d more or less known that Regulus was dead for a year. He’d had more than enough time to let it sink in and process it, but hearing the truth of it hurt a great deal more than Sirius wanted to admit.

“Do you know. I mean.” James let out a frustrated huff of air. “Was he trying to get out? Were the rumours right, or...?”

Sirius nodded. “Yeah. Apparently so. Obviously, I mean. He was doing something to... subvert the forces of evil or something, I’m not sure. He was still being an idiot, but.” Mrs. Potter squeezed his shoulder. Sirius let himself sit there for a minute with his eyes closed and body trembling.

It didn’t make sense. He hated his family. It had been years since he’d spoken to Regulus civilly and after he’d run away, it was all they could do to not hex each other in the hallways when they ran into each other. They’d hurled insults at each other, played nasty pranks daily, and generally hated each other. Sirius had been fine with that. He’d even been fine with Regulus being dead a year ago, but once he’d heard the rumors that Regulus had pulled his head out of his arse and realised that he didn’t much like killing people - well, that changed things, didn’t it? He was still an idiot and Sirius still wanted to beat him senseless, but he hadn’t wanted him dead. Some things couldn’t be undone by getting his name burned off a tapestry.

They were quiet for a while until James coughed uneasily. “What’s wrong with Remus?”

He was pants at changing the subject, Sirius decided. Utterly awful at it. Dredging up his fight with Moony wasn’t going to make him feel better and James should have known that, but he was a bit dim at the best of times. Usually it was reassuring or at least funny, but sometimes it made Sirius twitch. “He’s being Moony. Running about on secret missions and not telling me a thing.”

“That’s nothing new,” James pointed out.

Sirius shrugged. “It’s different.”

The conversation was going to get awkward fast. He wasn’t sure exactly what Mum and Dad Potter knew about him and Remus. He’d never said anything and Remus wouldn’t have uttered a word about it to anyone. James wasn’t the world’s most circumspect person, though, so it was possible that he’d told them.

James shrugged and lounged back against the cushions. “Well, you know, things will work themselves out.”

“I don’t think so,” Sirius murmured. “Not this time.”

“What did you do?”

Sirius looked up sharply. Everyone always automatically put the blame on him and that wasn’t really fair. Well, most of the time if something went south it was his fault, but Moony wasn’t a saint. Just because he’d come up with harebrained schemes in school didn’t mean he was useless at relationships. “Nothing,” he answered. “Well, I got a bit angry with him. But he deserved it!”

James’ incredulous look matched Lily’s exactly. It was disgusting, what marriage had done to them, Sirius decided. It was like they were one person and he briefly hoped that he and Moony hadn’t gotten like that. He doubted it, though. They hardly occupied the same space nowadays and it was hard to mimic someone you never saw.

“What were you fighting about?”

Sirius chanced a look at Mum. She was knitting but she was frowning, and clearly paying attention to their conversation. He wanted to heft James up onto his feet and drag him into a different room because, really, it was awkward. He supposed they knew all about his shirtlifting ways but he wasn’t about to advertise it because Remus would get angrier at him. Sirius didn’t care what people thought of him. Remus was used to hiding things.

“Missions, of course,” Sirius finally answered. “It’s stupid but. I mean, I’m afraid that he’s going to get himself killed and no one’s going to know where he is to help him.” He took another sip of tea. “He’s going off again on the thirteenth.”

James scrambled up into a sitting position again. “The thirteenth?”

Sirius nodded and scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’ve been thinking up ways to murder Dumbledore for the last twenty hours, just in case something happens to him. Because I will, Prongs. Especially this one. It’s needlessly risky.”

“Never thought I’d see the day Sirius Black called anything needlessly dangerous,” Mum said. Sirius turned a little to look at her. She had a sad smile on her face. “Remus knows what he can and can’t do, Sirius. You have to trust him.”

“He doesn’t-”

She put her hand on his arm and he stopped in the middle of his protestation. She knew. He could see it in her face and he half wanted to hit James for telling her when he knew how Moony felt about people knowing.

“It’s all right to be scared,” she said. “I’m frightened every time one of you boys are off fighting. You just need to trust him.”

Sirius shook his head. “I do trust him. I just.” He took a deep breath. “If something happens to him, I don’t know what I’d do. And he won’t say where he’s going or who he’s meeting....”

No one said anything for a while. Sirius stared down into his empty teacup while Lily and Dad Potter talked about the weather and some opinion article and the Prophet. None of it seemed important. None of it was. It was all just stupid smalltalk, distractions from the real problems they were all having. Sirius didn't particularly want to talk about that, either, but whether it was going to rain didn't matter in the face of his brother being dead and Remus being a secretive bastard.

James eventually pushed himself up to his feet and staggered a little. Sirius’ instincts pushed forward and he hopped up to steady him. “Are you daft?” Sirius asked him once they’d both managed to not fall flat on their faces.

“You said we’d talk later. It’s later.”

Lily reached across the space and put a hand on James’ arm. “It can wait until after dinner,” she said. They shared a look and after a few tense seconds that seemed to stretch on forever, James nodded and let Sirius set him back down onto the sofa.

Dad Potter cleared his throat and all four of them turned their heads towards him. “Did you listen to the match on the Wireless yesterday, Sirius?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Sirius said as he settled back down next to Mum. “Well, parts of it between patients.” James should probably take lessons, he decided, because the Puddlemore United game was a much better distraction from all the darkness than talking about his fighting with Moony.

By the time Sirius has gotten through the backlog of patients he'd had waiting for him that morning, it is nearly six and most of the other Junior Healers have gone home for the evening. Visiting hours are closed; they end at five instead of eight now, since the violence is getting worse and the hospital gets a bit crazy after dinnertime. Sirius is grateful that he isn't in his trauma rotation any longer because the seven-to-seven overnight shifts had been enough then and if he had them now, he would probably quit. He realises that he hasn't been home in over twenty-four hours and for a fleeting moment as he heads to the Apparation point on the first floor, he almost wants to volunteer to stay.

There was going to be a fight when Sirius opened the front door. He knew that, he’d registered it in his head when he agreed to sleep in the guest room at the Potters’ house the night before. Ostensibly he had agreed to spend the night because it’d been too late to go home by the time he finally had finished telling James and Lily the story Kreacher had relayed to him, but really he’d just wanted to put off another row. He needed time to cope with what he’d learned and for all of Moony’s good qualities, he was the sort of man that didn’t deal well with irrationality.

He still had questions. James and Lily had added more to the pile in the back of his head, but there wasn’t a way for him to find the answers. The only person who knew had been drowned by a lake full of Inferi. What was Voldemort hiding? Why was a locket so important, anyway? Sirius couldn’t help wondering if it wasn’t all a trap. As a child, he’d had it drilled into his head to never underestimate a house elf’s magic. He couldn’t imagine that whatever Ancient and Inbred House of Pure Bloods Voldemort came from hadn’t warned him of the same thing.

Sirius wasn’t getting anywhere with his thoughts and he was still staring at the front door to his flat. Normally that would’ve been fine, but currently the front door looked a bit like a brick wall to everyone else living on the floor and he didn’t want Germane Wilkins peering out and starting rumours. It had been bad enough when they moved in. Remus had spent two weeks Apparating in and out because he didn’t want anyone to start thinking that they were together, like no two men had ever platonically shared a flat without the neighbours batting an eyelash and besides, they were together, so Sirius didn’t see what the big deal was. Of course Moony was still so far in the closet that he was in danger of finding himself in Narnia one of these days, so it was a big deal to him.

Still, it was going on dinnertime and they hadn’t seen each other since the previous morning. It wasn’t like avoiding Remus was going to make the problem go away. Every hour was making the fight that much worse and Sirius wasn’t dumb, he knew exactly what he was doing. He squared his shoulders and twisted the door knob.

The flat was eerily empty. Remus wasn’t in the living room or the kitchen; the bathroom was empty and the bedroom was, as well. Sirius paused at the door to the spare room. There was candlelight leaking out from under the door and it was obvious that he was in there. Remus had to have heard him come inside. The door made a racket and there was a charm that sounded a bell as soon as someone touched the knob.

He should have sent an owl. It was stupid of him to just run off and not let Moony know that he was okay. No matter how angry Sirius was, there was a war going on and Remus didn't need the stress of wondering if Sirius was alive or not, especially not in the week leading up to the full moon. Sirius knew he deserved whatever he was going to get, but that didn't make pushing the door open any easier. He wanted to transform and curl up on the couch just so he wouldn't have to deal with it, but he was going to have to eventually.

Remus didn't look up from the desk when Sirius came inside. From how tense his shoulders looked, Sirius knew that Remus was aware of him being there. It was only a matter of time before Remus turned around and let him have it. They stayed like that for a while; Sirius with his hand on the doorknob and Remus with his back turned, scribbling notes out of a book.

Sirius didn't want to be the one to crack. He didn't want to start talking because somehow that would put him more at blame, he knew that. For as much as Remus hated when people were irrational and out of control, he sure as hell did a good job of getting there himself when he was angry.

Right when Sirius was about to give up and resign himself to a night on the couch, Remus set his quill down and turned around in his chair. “Where the hell have you been?” he demanded.

“James', and hello to you, too.”

Remus let out a short, humourless laugh. “Why, hello, Padfoot. Sorry I've spent twenty four hours wondering if you were dead in a back alley somewhere. How was James' house?”

Sirius gripped the doorknob and tried to reel his temper in. He deserved it, he knew it; he'd been acting like an arse since Remus told him he was going on that stupid mission, maybe before that, and it was about time everything boiled over. Things had been tense for weeks, no matter how they tried to play it down. “I forgot to owl, I'm sorry.”

“You're always sorry, Sirius,” Remus replied. He got up to his feet and Sirius took a step back instinctively. “You're always so sorry, but you never stop to think and I've spent the better part of six years wondering if anything ever gets through that thick skull of yours.”

Screw the temper, Sirius thought dimly. “I've been fucking busy, Remus,” he snapped back. “It's not as though you tell me where you're going every time you up and leave. It's all hush-hush with Remus Lupin. Some big bloody secret. I leave for one night and you've got your fucking knickers in a twist over it!”

Remus clenched his fists at his sides and took a step forward. “Don't throw my missions back in my face right now, Sirius. We're not talking about war, we're talking about us and how you utterly disregard that I might want to know that you're safe.”

Sirius let go of the door and crossed the distance between them. “Oh, right, it's not completely the same thing or anything.” Sirius could hear the anger lacing his voice and as much as he wanted to just stop and try to have a reasonable discussion about it all, he couldn't. “You can hop off on secret missions doing Merlin knows what for days at a time while I sit here wondering if you're going to come back in one piece, but I need a night off to spend with James and Mum and Dad Potter and it's completely different. Bullshit, Remus.”

Remus shoved his shoulder a little and tried to walk passed him but Sirius grabbed onto him. They grappled for a moment, neither of them able to get enough leverage to gain the upper hand. “You've been a selfish idiot,” Remus ground out. “I'm sick of it.”

“And you've been a secretive, cold-hearted arse!” Sirius answered. “I'm sick of it, I'm sick of you, and I'm sick of fucking England!”

Remus froze suddenly. His hands dropped away from Sirius and there was something in the back of his eyes that Sirius had never seen before. “What's gotten into you?” Remus asked softly. He sounded broken and Sirius felt his anger deflate. Being mad at Moony wasn't an excuse to hurt him. “I thought it was the locket, but it's gone and.”

“My brother's dead,” Sirius told him flatly. “Drowned in a lake of Inferi, trying to steal from Voldemort.” He turned around and sat down hard on the neatly made bed in the spare room. “I didn't. I.” He buried his head in his hands and bit down on his lip. There were tears pricking at the back of his eyes, though he was trying to will them away because Sirius Black Did Not Cry, especially not over his family.

He felt the mattress shift. Remus' arms wound around his middle and he leaned into the touch. “I'm sorry I didn't owl,” Sirius said quietly. “I just. I couldn't think straight, I. I needed to be there and.”

Remus shushed him. Sirius didn't want pity; he'd rejected it from James and Lily and it was the very last thing he wanted from Remus. What he needed was this, though. Remus' warmth and the sound of his breath. Even though they'd been a half second away from breaking each others' noses, it didn't matter. Remus understood why he hadn't been able to come home and that had dissolved enough of the anger so that they could put off the rest of the fight for a little while longer. Sirius had lost enough in his life already, he didn't want to risk losing Moony because he wasn't all there just then.

When Sirius felt like he wasn't going to burst into tears or punch Moony out of misplaced anger, he sighed and looked up from his hands.

“All right, Padfoot?” Remus asked him.

“Yeah,” he answered. “I think we can-”

“We'll talk about it in the morning,” Remus said. “It can wait.”

Sirius pursed his lips and looked away, out the tiny window above the bed. “I'm really tired of waiting, Remus.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Remus asked, though the vitriol from earlier was gone, replaced by a softer, nicer tone that Sirius appreciated. It sounded more like Moony before they'd gotten the lives sucked out of them by war.

He looked back over at Remus and considered him in silence for a while. “It means that I'm tired of putting off my life for this war.” Remus started to say something, but Sirius squeezed his fingers and Remus fell silent. “When's the last time we went round the pub together, or with James and Peter? When is the last time we went out and had dinner? It's been months, Remus. I'm not trying to be ignorant of the situation, but it seems kind of pointless to fight for a life that isn't there any longer.”

“You think I'm ignoring you for the war?” Remus asked. He sounded kind of startled, like he'd never expected that Sirius would be thinking that.

“I think we're all... just sitting idle. Like this whole thing isn't part of our lives, it's outside of it. 'S'not just you, Moony,” Sirius said. “It's everyone. And it's driving me crazy, because this is our life. We're not going to get the time we waste back.”

“Fighting a war isn't a waste of time.”

Sirius shrugged. “Maybe not to you. I. I mean.” He growled a little in frustration. He hated talking about his feelings. Thinking about them was one thing, but saying them out loud to someone else made him feel silly, or like a character in one of those books that were so popular with the second year girls in Hogwarts.

“I’m trying to understand, Padfoot,” Remus told him. His mouth was set in a frown and Sirius reached up and brushed his fingers against the side of his face. He wanted to wipe his hand across Moony’s mouth and erase it. He hated the sadness that everyone carried around lately, as if it actually weighed them down.

“I’m not making sense.” Sirius looked away suddenly, back out the window. “I know we have to do this,” he said, “but I don’t understand the part that says we have to sacrifice everything. What’s the point? Doesn’t he win if we do that?”

“He wins when we’re dead.” Remus caught Sirius’ hand in his and squeezed their fingers together. “When we’re dead and gone and there’s no one left that will stand up and tell him that he’s wrong, then he’s won.”

Sirius shook his head. “We’re cowering in fear, Remus,” Sirius said. “Look at us, all of us. We’ve locked ourselves up in our houses and turned off the lights. Our friends can’t find us unless they know where to look. We can’t go out because we’re afraid we’ll get massacred. Voldemort’s already won.”

“You don’t think that.” Remus was pleading, like Sirius was lying to get a rise out of him and he wanted Sirius to stop it.

He wasn’t. It was a perfectly good metaphor for what they’d all done. There was a web of magic surrounding their lives. They were all hiding because if they didn’t, they’d die. Voldemort may have just been a wizard, but he was a general, too. This wasn’t the Goblin Rebellion of 1483 or Grindlewald’s war in the forties. Voldemort played dirty, in the dark and in the shadows. He killed wizards in their beds, he didn’t wait for a battlefield.

“We’re alive, we’re still fighting.” Remus said desperately. “We’ll beat him.”

“We can’t touch him,” Sirius snapped. “Nobody can touch him. He’s more of a coward than we are and we’ll never be able to find him because of it.”

Remus sighed and squeezed Sirius’ hand again. “I know where he is,” he whispered.

Sirius’ head snapped around, eyes wide. “What?” He felt cold, suddenly, like he wasn’t sure if he was dreaming or if he should still be holding Remus’ hand. Moony, his Moony, somehow knew where Voldemort was? Moony wore frumpy jumpers and drank tea with too much sugar in it and sang badly in the shower. He didn’t lurk around in dark alleys, following after Dark wizards. He was the sort of man who had a hard time choosing between a good book and a shag, for Merlin’s sake.

Moony worried his bottom lip between his teeth and then looked up. “I’ve been. Well. Dumbledore’s been sending me to-”

“Setting you to finding. Having you.” Sirius spluttered in rage for a few seconds. His temper threatened to boil over again and he did let go of Remus’ hand because he thought he’d squeeze it off in an effort to keep himself from Apparating to Hogsmeade, running to Hogwarts, and giving Dumbledore a swift kick between the legs. No one was allowed to put Moony in danger, not even Albus bloody Dumbledore, because Moony was his and he wasn’t really sure if he could survive without knowing that Moony was there to hold him together.

“It wasn’t like I was meant to find out, you know,” Remus offered, like that was supposed to diffuse Sirius, or something.

Sirius almost hit him. When Remus had gone to work at the music shop, Sirius had lost his mind with worry. Maudlin’s Music Emporium was only in Diagon Alley technically, because the old woman who owned it had bricked over the door that opened into Knockturn Alley and used what had been the back door as the entry. It was a poky little shop with a dubious clientele and Sirius had spent three weeks worrying that Moony was going to get killed because everyone knew he was Dumbledore’s man.

He’d had a shouting match with Dumbledore over it, even. It wasn’t that Sirius thought Remus couldn’t hold his own - he could. Sirius just wasn’t comfortable with Remus putting himself at risk like that. Then the secret missions had started, which had set Sirius’ nerves on edge even more. Remus had been determined to help however he could and Sirius knew that he needed that. Moony needed to feel useful, so he kept his peace about it. None of Sirius’ guesses about what he was doing had come anywhere near ‘stalking Voldemort’ because that just hadn’t seemed possible.

“Sirius.”

Remus’ voice drew him back into reality and he looked up. Remus was watching him carefully, like he thought Sirius might actually hit him. The look on his face was enough to force Sirius to temper his anger and take a few deep, calming breaths. “What has he been asking you to do, Remus?”

“I promised not to tell,” Remus answered quietly.

Sirius shifted a little, leaning closer. He brought his hands up and cupped Moony’s cheeks in his palms, pushing down the urge to pull away when Remus flinched. “You swore you’d never lie to me.”

“I’m not-”

“Please,” Sirius whispered. Sirius stroked his thumbs across Remus’ rough, unshaven cheeks. “Please, Remus.”

Remus covered Sirius’ hands with his own and pulled them down between them. He was fidgeting with Sirius’ fingers, which was familiar and nerve-wracking at the same time. “Dumbledore wants it to be a secret,” Remus said.

“We can’t do this anymore,” Sirius told him. “Look at us, Remus. We’re poisoning ourselves. Haven’t you noticed how awful the silence is?” It was awful. Everything had been rotting out from under them for months. The gap between them had gotten so wide, half the time Sirius felt like he was sitting next to a stranger.

February had stretched lazily into March in a fog of drinking and celebrating birthdays, and then spring had come, bringing secrecy and silence biting at its heels. By the time summer was peaking over the horizon Sirius couldn’t remember the last time they’d talked about anything more meaningful than whose turn it was to do the washing up or what was going on at work. It was going to kill them, or at the very least it was going to kill what was left of them, and Sirius didn’t know what he’d do with himself if he came home one day to find that Moony had gone.

Sirius picked Remus’ hands up and kissed across his knuckles. “Who gives a damn what Dumbledore wants? Does he think I can’t manage to keep a secret?”

But he wasn’t a good secret keeper, Sirius reminded himself. His thoughts turned to old memories, dredging up things that were better off forgotten. A hundred and fifty three detentions hadn’t undone the damage. Of course Dumbledore didn’t think Sirius was able to keep a secret. He hadn’t been at fifteen and, aside from growing a few inches and getting away from his family, not much had changed.

Remus’ fingers curled into his shirt. “Don’t, Padfoot,” he said. “It’s not like that. It’s not just you. Nobody’s supposed to know.”

“I’m not just anyone,” Sirius protested. He looked up from his lap and studied Remus’ face for a while. He was arguing with himself, probably trying to figure out if it was going to be easier to have Dumbledore disappointed with him or Sirius quietly angry.

Remus sighed and Sirius watched the last bit of resolve behind his eyes crumble away. “You can’t tell anyone.”

“I promise,” Sirius answered immediately.

“Werewolves,” he said so softly Sirius thought it was an exhalation of breath for a moment. “I’ve been sent to try and gather support. I-”

Sirius supposed that Remus was still talking but he couldn’t listen, he couldn’t really process anything else at the moment. He wanted to hit Dumbledore, scream at him until his voice was in tatters and he was exhausted, but he wasn’t about to get up and leave Moony. Not now, when the wall that had been built between them was finally coming down. He could bottle up his rage for later, or throw it in the bin because Remus had told him. It hadn’t been there on the surface but it had been underneath his skin, itching at the corners of his mind and making him feel distant.

This was the reason that Sirius had been in such an awful mood. He’d know it, somewhere in his head, but he’d never been able to put his finger on it and now that he could see it, it was like something inside of him broke and everything rushed forward. They’d spent most of their time talking about the weather, for Merlin’s sake; Sirius wasn’t sure how he’d missed how separate they’d become. James and Lily made disgustingly similar faces and could hold conversations without ever saying a word because they didn’t keep secrets from each other. They didn’t let the war tear them apart.

At some point Remus had stopped talking and was staring at him. “Padfoot?” he asked cautiously. His fingers unwound from Sirius’ shirt and he reached up, fingertips brushing across Sirius’ jaw and that snapped him out of it. All the angry worry, all the fear that they were falling apart and nothing was going to stop it happening was brushed aside. All that mattered was Remus’ fingers on him, trembling against the hinge of his jaw

Sirius moved suddenly, pushing forward against Moony and they both crashed to the mattress in a jumble of arms and legs. Sirius kissed wherever he could reach; Remus' hands were tangled in his hair and then they were under his shirt, pushing it up and up until Sirius broke away and yanked it off. Remus' jumper joined it on the floor a moment later and then they were kissing again, messy and familiar and this, this was what was missing. He was glad they found it again before it was too late.

It was worth fighting a war if it meant he could have this, Sirius thought. Remus fumbled with the button on Sirius' fly, then the zipper, and Sirius tumbled headlong into bliss, coherent thought forgotten.

There have been two days of relative silence in the war. Sirius doesn't know if this is a good thing because silence could mean that something big is planned and the idea of a Death Eater raid on Diagon Alley or a try at toppling the Ministry is terrifying. It has been two days of nothing for Sirius and Remus because they both had recognized the need to actually speak to each other. Sirius sees this as an excuse to take out the motorbike, despite Remus' protestations, and they drive out of the city, miles and miles away from Saint Mungo's and the music shop. They drink whiskey on top of a hill and Sirius drunkenly names all of the constellations he can remember. Remus fills in the silence with their stories, weaving pictures out of words that Sirius scantly hears. It's like they're seventeen again, and it's beautiful.

“D'you remember the cat I nicked from Merigold Braybuck?”

Remus turned his head to the side and regarded Sirius oddly. “The cat that you were absolutely in love with?”

“Yeah,” Sirius answered. “Wonder what happened to that cat.”

“I have it on good authority that it is still up in the Tower, and it is still named McGoggles, and Professor McGonagall still isn't very pleased with it.”

Sirius let a grin spread across his face. The air was warm, he was fairly drunk, and Remus wasn't acting odd. They were sharing a blanket on a hillside and passing a flask between them. It was like Hogwarts again, not like they were in the middle of a war and overworked and stressed to the teeth; it was nice. “Too bad I couldn't keep old McGoggles.”

“That cat hated me, Sirius.” Remus took a swig from the flask and passed it back to Sirius. “And, besides, you said it would be better to leave her with Elaine Clearwater. Couldn't strip Gryffindor of their mascot or something, I don't remember.”

Sirius laughed and turned over onto his stomach. “Well, I left the cat there because she hated you and if I had to pick, Moony, my love for McGoggles was never as strong as my burning teenage lust for you.”

Remus snorted. “McGoggles, honestly. It's not even that creative of a name.”

“McGonagall hated it, though. When you're sixteen, mate, that's all that matters.”

“When you're sixteen and Sirius Black, that's all that matters,” Remus corrected. “At any rate, the cat's still there. Probably will be for years.”

Sirius brushed his hair out of his eyes and drank a gulp of whiskey. “I miss school,” he said, mostly to break the silence.

“You're drunk.”

“Just because I miss school?”

Remus eyed him warily. “Because you're intentionally forgetting all of the things you hated. That's either time or alcohol and it hasn't been that long since we left.”

“Better than fighting a bloody war, Moony.”

“Mark the calendar, Padfoot; you've discovered logic.”

Sirius thwacked Moony on the shoulder and drank down another gulp of whisky. “'M just tired of being a grown up. S'like that book you made me read in fifth year.”

“What?”

“The one with the fairies and the evil pirate.”

“Peter Pan?”

“Yeah,” Sirius said. “That one. Wanted to be a lost boy.”

“I remember,” Remus answered quietly. “Have you been thinking about tomorrow?”

Sirius didn't want to talk about it. Of course he'd been thinking about tomorrow. They were going to have to go back to the real world. Then Remus would go off on his mission and Sirius would be stuck in the flat with nothing but his thoughts. He wondered if he couldn’t just pop up to Hogwarts and steal his cat back so he’d have some sort of companionship while he worried about Remus getting killed by other werewolves, which was something he’d never had to worry about before. The cat wasn’t there, though, wouldn’t be back until September and who knew what the world was going to look like then?

“Been trying not to,” Sirius admitted. He scooted over and pressed himself up against Remus’ side.

Remus murmured something in agreement, but Sirius was too busy watching the hillside. He'd seen something – someone. It had been a person, definitely. He reached for his wand instinctively, ready to twist around and curse, but Remus put his hand over Sirius' and shook his head. “S'Peter,” he said.

“Don't curse me,” Peter said in a rush as he ran up to the blanket.

“That wouldn't be very sporting, would it?” Remus answered. “How'd you find us?”

“Dumbledore said,” Peter told him. “He sent me to tell you about a meeting tonight.”

“We're drunk,” Sirius answered. “And on holiday for at least four more hours.”

Peter watched Sirius slump down onto the blanket with an unimpressed look across his features. He turned to Remus instead, apparently deciding that he was more sober and more likely to agree to go to a meeting. Both were probably true, but Sirius was a little put out that no one was listening to him. “He's asked for you two specifically.”

“I can't make Sirius go,” Remus said. Sirius was sure that wasn't true. If anyone could manipulate him into a Sobering Charm and an Order meeting it was Remus, although it would involve things Remus probably wasn't willing to do on top of a blanket on a hillside.

Peter looked dubious. “You could try.”

“He bites.” Remus was practically laughing into the flask that he'd somehow stolen back. Sirius was suddenly doubting that Remus was more sober.

Peter raked a hand down his face, groaning. “Stop being disgusting and come to the meeting. I trudged all the way out here to get you.”

“I wasn't being disgusting,” Remus muttered. “And anyway, it's not like some great hardship. What, did you Apparate on the other side of the hill?”

“I missed by a mile, thank you very much.” Peter crossed his arms. “James told me that I could knock you out and drag you back if I have to. I'd like to not do that, but if I must....”

“I would eat you,” Sirius said, “if you tried it.”

Peter shifted uncomfortably. It wasn't much of a threat when they were both human, but Sirius had plenty of opportunity to turn Peter into a light snack. “You could just come with me,” Peter suggested. “That would be easier on the both of us.”

“You could just sod off,” Sirius retorted. “I'm angling to get Moony drunk enough for a hillside shag. You're not helping.”

Peter let out a strangled sound that was remarkably similar to a drowning rat. Sirius wasn't sure if it was more of a squeak or a gargle, but it made him laugh silently against Remus' side. A grin tugged at the corner of his lips as Sirius slid his hand across Remus’ hip and let his fingers settle into the dip just under his hipbone. Remus blushed and shook his head, mumbling something about Sirius being ridiculous but he didn't move away.

Sometimes it was utterly fun to torture Wormtail. "Fine," Sirius told Peter. He didn't take his eyes off of Remus. "When do we have to be there?"

"Soon," Peter said. Out of the corner of his eye, Sirius noticed that Peter had turned away and was facing the way he came.

"Give us an hour, would you, Pete?" Sirius asked. Peter let out another groan, then there was a pop of Apparation, and they were alone again.

It's after three in the morning when the meeting finally breaks up. The sobering charm is starting to fade but the buzz is gone, replaced by the beginning of an unpleasant hangover and a feeling of dread inside Sirius' stomach. They've been asked to stay behind, and when James stays in his seat, hand locked with Lily, he realizes they're all meant to stay. A two-day high on whiskey and love isn't enough to stave off the darkness that manages to seep back into Sirius without a fight. He hopes that whatever Dumbledore has to say is good news because he isn't sure he can stomach any more of the bad.

Once the room was empty save the six of them, Dumbledore pulled the locket out of his robes and set it on the table. All of their eyes were trained on it. The gold somehow managed to catch light when there was almost none in the room. Sirius wondered if that wasn't part of the spell somehow, whatever spell it was, or if it was something that the maker had worked into it.

“We are all familiar with the story of how this came into our possession,” Dumbledore said. “So I will not force you to hear it once again.”

Sirius glanced around the room. Everyone was watching the locket and Dumbledore. He could barely hear a sound, not even breathing. He felt the sudden need to cough but held it back.

“Do you know what it is yet?” Lily asked. James' hand, which had been absently rubbing her back, stilled.

“I have a very good guess,” Dumbledore answered. “And my guesses are usually correct. Do you know what a Horcrux is?”

Remus took in a sharp breath. “It can't be,” he said. “No one's mad enough to make a Horcrux.”

“I believe the usual rules do not apply when we speak of Lord Voldemort,” Dumbledore answered. "I feared there was a twist in the path to victory for some time.” When Sirius looked up from his lap, he saw Dumbledore stroking his beard thoughtfully.

"Feared what?" Remus asked. “If it's a Horcrux, we have it and we can destroy it, and it'll be done.”

"I still have no idea what a Horcrux is.” Sirius was sure he was speaking for James, Lily, and Peter, too. “And why it's so awful.”

“It's a bit of soul,” Remus said. He turned to Sirius and he had his Professor face on. “When you kill someone, you can take a bit of soul that splits off and stuff it into something. Since it's separate from you, you can't die if you're killed because there's still a piece of soul left.”

Sirius wasn't surprised that Voldemort had one of these. He probably had dozens, given all the murdering he'd been doing. He was more concerned with how Remus knew all about them. Remus had been ace in Defence and, while Sirius hadn't usually paid attention in class, he would've noticed them talking about splitting up a soul. He wasn't exactly likely to pick up that sort of information in a music shop, even if it sat on the corner that turned onto Knockturn Alley.

“What I fear is that this is not the only Horcrux Lord Voldemort has created.” Dumbledore was watching all of them in turn, eyes flicking from one face to the next.

“Probably has a bucketful,” Sirius agreed.

“Wouldn't that be dangerous?” Lily was staring at the locket intently, like she was going to be able to figure out its mysteries by glaring at it. That worked on people – it had worked on Sirius many times – but he doubted a locket that had been crammed full of Dark Lord would respond to the glare. “You can't just split a soul willy-nilly.”

Remus and Dumbledore both shook their heads. "No,” Dumbledore agreed. “If this is the case, however, it would be the first time anyone had made more than one Horcrux, and as such, I cannot begin to imagine how many times the soul could be split. Which brings us to our next dilemma, unfortunately.”

“Which is?” James asked.

Dumbledore motioned to the locket. “I cannot fathom how many of these Voldemort has created, where he's hidden them, or what objects he's used. Not much is known on the-”

Dumbledore was cut off by Sirius shooting up out of his seat, sending the chair skidding backward into the wall. “I know how to do it,” he said excitedly. “I know how to do it.”

“Do what?” James was watching him carefully like he thought Sirius was going to explode or something.

“Find them.”

“How?” Peter had stood up out of his chair, too, and he was watching Sirius like he was afraid he'd gone mad. Sirius probably looked absolutely cracked, that was true, but he'd finally figured out a way to be useful and, damn it, he'd been waiting a long time for that. A mischievous grin spread across his face; it felt foreign, like it was from another life. Sirius watched as James’ lips slowly quirked up to match Sirius’.

“We're going to make a map,” Sirius said, and then he Disapparated with a pop, leaving everyone staring at the spot he'd disappeared from.

He wasn’t surprised when James appeared next to him a half-second later.

“The shack?” James was looking at him like he’d grown a new head, but he’d followed Sirius so he had to have known where he was going.

Despite its decrepit appearance, the Shack was actually quite well-built although somewhat neglected in the Cooling Charms area. The air was awful, full of dust and it smelled stale. Sirius resisted the urge to kick out a window - it probably wouldn’t work and he’d just wind up with a broken foot - and cast a charm instead. It didn’t help the stifling quality of the air, but at least it was cool, oppressively stale air.

“I wasn’t about to start plotting in front of everyone,” Sirius finally answered. He conjured a ladder against the far wall, away from the broken piano, and started groping for the catch once he made it to the top rung. “And, anyway, everything we need is in here.”

“Not everything,” James pointed out. He slid down the wall until he was sitting on the dusty floor and looked up. He watched Sirius try to find the ring blindly for a while, then sighed. “We don’t have a map of England.”

“That’s the easy bit,” Sirius grunted. His fingers hooked around the rusty little ring and he tugged, nearly toppling over off the ladder, but the box pulled smoothly away from its hiding place. Dust kicked up and he coughed. They’d left their legacy here two years ago, at the end of seventh year, and no one had been up in the rafters since then.

“You say it’s easy,” James murmured. “Finding parchment thick enough for the Map took almost as long as mapping the school.”

He clambered down the latter and settled on the floor next to James. James was breathing hard and his arms were wrapped around himself. Sirius fretted a little. He still wasn’t well, he shouldn’t have been Apparating yet and he definitely shouldn’t have been over exerting himself. Some things took time, even with magic, and James still had a week left on the potions and was still being held together by spells. “You all right?”

“Fine, Padfoot,” James answered through clenched teeth. His hands were balled into fists. James wasn’t fine, not by any stretch of the imagination, but Sirius trusted himself to have put James right and Jenkins to have no let him out of bed until he was able to move around on his own. “Just waiting for an explanation.”

Sirius watched him for another minute. James met his eyes and held Sirius’ gaze, unblinking. “Fine,” Sirius muttered. He popped the lid off of the box and grimaced as the two pieces scraped together. “We’re looking for bits of soul, right?”

“Right.”

He dug through the box. Everything was in there, from pranking materials to notes to journals and old quills. It was meant to be like a time capsule. They’d gotten the idea from Remus, who’d told them about his mum burying one with her school mates when they graduated. He tossed aside a few dungbombs, a poorly preserved sugar quill, and a pair of Prongs’ socks before he found what he was looking for.

The Marauder’s Map had been their crowning glory. It had taken the better part of a year to map out the whole castle and then another full year to work out the enchantments. Moony had done most of the research. They’d set Peter to do the recon since he was small enough when he went Rat to evade professors. James and Sirius had done most of the cartography. It gave Sirius phantom pains just thinking about it. He’d spent hours reproducing Peter’s hastily drawn notes into the same series of runes over and over again. It had been a Great Scheme, just like Animagery before that and finding out Remus’ secrets before that.

Sirius held up the journal victoriously when he’d managed to extract it from the grasp of a pair of Terrifying Taranculas - one of them tried to bite his hand and he thwacked it on the head with his wand. Whoever had thrown them into the box would suffer later, Sirius decided, because a set of gag vampire tarantulas had been an awful idea in ‘76 and it was still an awful idea four years later. He dusted some stray dried mandrake leaves off it, fingers absently tracing the gold embossed 6 and 7 charmed onto the cover and flipped it open. Sirius pressed his finger against the middle of the front page and traced a circle anti-clockwise against the parchment. The motion left an inky, smudged trail against the paper and Sirius knew it had worked.

Speak friend and enter, the page prompted in Moony’s tidy handwriting, curved around the upper arc of the circle. Sirius waited patiently.

Stuff your Tolkien, Moony. Sirius grinned at his own handwriting, slanty and larger than Moony’s, opposite it at the bottom. Who’s there?

“Mr. Padfoot,” Sirius answered, then he pressed his thumb into the middle of the circle. The two handwritten lines disappeared, ink seeping back down into the smudgy circle and then all of it faded away into the parchment before it burst forward again, filling the page with tiny, cramped notes.

Sirius looked up at James. He’d stopped breathing heavily and he looked relaxed enough, head back against the wall, staring at Sirius. “What do you need that for? Don't you have the runes memorized? I could re-draw that map in my sleep.”

“We're not trying to re-map Hogwarts. I don't think that would be particularly useful.” He tossed the book at James so he could re-pack the rusted metal box and put it away. They'd come back for it in eight more years, like they'd planned to. It would just be missing the journal and that was all right.

“No, we're trying to find bits of soul. The Map wasn't designed to show us parts of people.” James was flipping through the book and he laughed suddenly. “Oh, this is the bit with Ivan Muddleworth and that little minx-”

“Peter never did forgive her,” Sirius mused as he hefted the box back up the ladder.

“I wouldn't either. Imagine, a Hufflepuff tramping around behind your back with a Slytherin.”

Sirius shoved the box back into its hiding place then he peered over the ledge and checked to make sure it was properly hidden. He could have spelled it, but it seemed like cheating almost. The glamour on it made it ancient-looking and it blended in well enough with the rest of the shack that it was safe to say no one would find it. If anyone dared to go inside the shack at all. He hopped down the last three rungs and Vanished the ladder. “Well, Muddleworth got his and then some for that, if I remember,” Sirius said. He offered James a hand and hefted him up to his feet.

“He did,” James agreed. “I can't believe this was so long ago.” He flipped pages again. “I mean, you were still dating birds and I was still pining after Lily from afar. Look here, you were seeing one of the McNellie sisters, or both, I'm not really sure.”

“It's called stalking, Prongs, not pining.” Sirius sniggered a little, then he straightened up. “It's going to take you two years to read the damn thing and that can wait until the war is over, so let's get out of here, find Moony and Wormtail, and get on with it.”

“I'm still not sure how you're going to manage to set a map to find bits of soul.” James shoved the book into his pocket while Sirius grabbed hold of his arm and then suddenly they found themselves behind Sirius' building. “And anyway, there's no guarantee that he's not made everything Unplottable.”

Sirius tapped his wand against the back exit and the door popped open. “There's ways around that, you know,” he said, exasperated. “We mapped Hogwarts. That's about as Unplottable as you can get.”

“Well, we weren't trying to pin it down on a map, like.”

Sirius stopped on the stairs and turned to look at him, incredulous. “Are you really that thick?” he asked him. “What do you think we were doing, drawing pictures?”

James rolled his eyes and pushed passed Sirius. “That's not what I mean. What floor is it?”

“Third,” Sirius answered. “And that's exactly what you meant, you just didn't realise how stupid it was going to sound when it came out of your mouth.”

James made it to the landing first. Sirius wasn't sure if he was pushing himself or if he really was feeling all right – the incident in the shack could have been a fluke, just James putting out too much magical energy to follow Sirius' Disapparation. Sirius tugged him down the little hall to the front door. Either way, the faster he got James into a chair, the better he would feel about the whole situation.

“Going to feel a bit weird,” Sirius warned as he tugged James through the door. James yelped, apparently not realising that the brick wall was actually the door, and he shivered once they were both inside. Moony and Peter were both sitting on the sofa with cups of tea. Clearly they'd been expected.

It’s the morning of the full moon and Sirius knows he should sleep in. The night will be long and it is barely nine in the morning when he rolls out of bed. Peter is asleep in the spare room. Sirius can hear him snoring through the door and it’s comforting in a familiar sort of way. The journal is on the low table by the sofa in the middle of a pile of parchment scraps; some half-started, experimental maps; and an empty bottle of Ogden’s.

Sirius landed on the couch with a muffled thump and an exhausted sigh. He was used to being tired but he wasn’t used to the mental exhaustion. They’d spent hours pouring over the tiny notes in the book. All four of them had been trying in a scant few hours to piece together a year’s worth of research that was haphazardly scrawled between prank ideas and gossip in minuscule lettering.

There had been a bit of the tracking charm between Peter’s romp with Eliza Hampton and one of James’ many Odes to Lily. Between a duel with Snivellus and a warning from Sirius to James - (It is NOT ON to wank with your mates in the room, Potter) - there had been a paragraph in shorthand about skirting Unplottable spells. Remus still hadn’t figured out what Rect. and Opch meant, but he hadn’t much liked Sirius’ idea of rectum for the former.

All night, an endless stream of memories kept coming back full force. The map had been tied in with everything they’d done for two years. There were sketches of Ravenclaw Tower surrounded by Sirius’ musings on what sort of summer job to get so he wouldn’t have to beg off the Potters for everything. He’d gone and worked for a cafe that summer and had discovered that Muggles had a magic of their own - combustion and electricity and steam. It was confusing and disorienting for a few weeks, and he was sure he’d made a fool of himself, but Evans had owed James six Galleons on account of her betting that Sirius wouldn’t ever have gainful employment ever.

Between bits of Slytherin, shakily drawn on parchment scraps and Spellotaped in, Peter waxed poetic about how excellent it was to be a rat when one was sneaking around Slytherins. James had filled a page with reasons why Hufflepuffs were excellent Arithmancy partners, beginning and ending with they’re a cheerful lot and they don’t notice when you cheat off them. Beneath it there was a diagram of the Hufflepuff common room.

All of it had followed Sirius into his dreams and he mentally ticked that off as the reason that he hadn’t been able to sleep much. He’d been sixteen again and the world had been a little more fair; Evans wasn’t Potter, not yet, and Remus wasn’t his - at least not the way he was now. Their lives had been a series of adventures that weren’t deadly and the days were marked with classes and pranking.

He’d turned seventeen sixth year, in the middle of December. The moon was waning and the lot of them were making plans for Christmas hols because there wasn’t another full moon until January, so Moony was free to go where he pleased. Sirius had gone to Dumbledore the day after his birthday, still hungover from smuggled Firewhiskey and smoking too much dried madrake the night before. He’d asked what he could do to help, like he had every night for the ninety-five nights he’d spent in detention in Dumbledore’s office, and he finally got an answer.

Sirius sat up, plucked the journal off the table, and turned it over carefully in his hands. It was like a Horcrux or maybe more like a Pensieve, but it felt like he'd hidden a part of himself in there, something more than memories. All of his hopes and his fears, all of their triumphs - (Bet Moony got Os across the board!) - and all of their mistakes - (Detention with Dumbledore again. Only a hundred more to go.) - were written down like a map to their souls.

He thumbed through it, half searching for more clues but mostly looking for some sort of split. When had they become adults? It hadn't been graduation, it couldn't have been; he would have remembered that. And anyway, their last night at Hogwarts had been mostly a blur of drinking and drugs and one last prank on the Slytherins. He'd shagged Moony in the dorm while Peter and James had gone out for one last raid on the kitchens. There was a ring on Lily's finger and Moony was coming home with him, not going back to his parents' cottage; Peter had already been recruited by the Ministry. They'd been grown ups, clutching onto memories for one last night.

In fifth year, before everything had gone to hell with The Incident and before he ran away, he'd sworn that he'd never grow up. He'd wanted nothing more than to be a Lost Boy, tramping around in search of adventure. But he had grown up; he couldn't have avoided it, not when there was a war on and his friends were in danger.

The trick to the map had been the part of themselves they'd put inside it. Magic was about intent and determination more than it was about Latin words and wands. Magic was inside of a person; they channelled it through a wand, but most the time the words weren't half way out of a wizard's mouth before the spell went shooting forward. They'd built the map around that power. They'd willed it into life and by doing that, they'd given it a part of their own. It wasn't Dark magic, not quite, but it was old magic, the sort that was bred into a wizard's bones but forgotten by disuse.

Sirius knew it wasn't going to be simple. Every line and every arc of this new map was going to have to be redrawn. His fingers would cramp from writing the same six runes over and over; Moony's head would ache from chanting and channelling every ounce of magic he had into the spells that would bring the map to life. They couldn’t take two years, not this time. They weren’t making a map for adventure or glory. It wasn’t an idea sparked late at night by four bored schoolboys who needed something to occupy them.

It would be long nights and tired days. Exhaustion would set into their bones before too long. It wouldn’t work if they didn’t get absolutely knackered from it, Sirius was sure of that. Some things couldn’t be made with a few mumbled words and a flick of the wrist. Sometimes, you had to pour every bit of your own energy into a thing to make it work. There would be rituals and that noxious smelling clear ink and the whole thing would have to be coated with sap from Devil’s Snare with a bound straw brush. He’d worry about the ink running but of course it wouldn’t because it was magic.

The work proved the intent. It was impossible to create something from nothing; Horcruxes and magical maps took pieces of you with them: they both required life to be breathed into them. The fundamental difference, Sirius realized, was that Voldemort used others and they used themselves.

He raked his hands over his face, dropping the journal into his lap. He hadn’t slept enough, clearly, since he’d been sitting there for the last half hour lost in his thoughts, philosophising adulthood and magic. This was where he thrived, though. Moony had studied hard and Peter had mimicked; James could recite a book by heart after thumbing through it once. Sirius knew magic. The madness that had run down his family tree in a streak had manifested differently in him. He could understand magic at its core, use it, manipulate it. It was one thing to cast a spell and know its purpose; it was something entirely separate to understand how it worked, to know how a hex would spiral out of the tip of a wand, which way it would twist in the air, and precisely how it would land.

They didn’t teach that at Hogwarts. He wasn’t entirely sure that it could be taught. The few times he’d tried to explain it, James and Remus would stare at him like he’d gone mental. It didn’t make magic easier. Sirius reckoned sometimes it was harder. He thought too much about what he was doing. It delayed his reactions and made him crap at duelling, but it made him good at this. Map making wasn’t about skill, it was about patience and cleverness. Sirius wasn’t patient, that was Moony through and through, but he was clever.

There was so much to do and not enough time to do it in. They’d had the locket for a month and Regulus had stolen it ages ago. Who knew how often Voldemort went back to check on it? Dumbledore hadn’t precisely said that finding the Horcruxes was an urgent matter, but he’d told Remus not to go off on whatever mission he’d wanted him to take that morning. Peter’d said that Dumbledore would be checking in that afternoon before moonrise to see how they were doing.

James would be back soon but not before eleven. Peter could sleep all day and probably should, bless his rodent heart. He knew he should go back into the bedroom and curl up with Moony until James made a racket coming in. With one last look at the journal, he hefted himself up off the sofa and stumbled back down the hall.

By the time Dumbledore arrived at six, they’d made good progress. James had scrounged up a bit of parchment that was probably thick enough to make a map on and Remus had tiredly figured out most of his shorthand, although there were still a few phrases that were a mystery. Moony got snappy in the hours before the full moon. Sirius had ordered him into the bedroom with a cup of chamomile an hour before and James had set Peter to compile a list of everything they’d need.

Sirius had spent the Moonyless hour alternating between covertly watching James to make sure he was okay enough to trounce around with them and trying to figure out how to change the magic to detect bits of soul. It wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d made it out to be when Peter had asked, but Sirius kept his silence on it. He didn’t want to worry anyone, and he would figure out it. He had to.

He was rewriting an enchantment when Dumbledore tumbled out of the fireplace. “Good evening,” he said as he dusted his robes off. He glanced around the room. “Has Remus already departed?”

“Yeah,” Sirius lied. He met Dumbledore’s gaze and held it, daring him to call Sirius out on the truth. If Dumbledore knew that Remus was in the other room, sipping tea and fidgeting with nerves, he didn’t say a word. “We’ve pretty much stalled without him, though.” That was the truth, at least.

Dumbledore nodded and sat next to Peter, who fidgeted nervously like somehow Dumbledore was going to figure out that they all planned on going off in an hour to break half a dozen laws. Sirius had a feeling that Dumbledore knew something was off about Remus’ transformations because they were all unreachable for the entire night, but he was absolutely certain that Dumbledore had no idea what actually went on.

“But you’ve made progress?”

“Loads.” With Peter half way to a seizure and James suddenly struck silent, Sirius was going to have to be the spokesman. He supposed that was fine. He’d spent enough long, never-ending nights talking to Dumbledore in school. The awe had worn off somewhere around detention fifty-six. He was an odd bloke, but he was still just a person. “Remus figured most of it out. We’ve... done it before.”

Dumbledore arched an eyebrow.

“We mapped Hogwarts.” He held up the journal but didn’t offer it over. James choked a little and looked up sharply at Sirius. It was one thing, he supposed, to offer up a map without explaining the origins, but Dumbledore would never accept that. He had no idea what Remus and Peter had said when he and James had scarpered out of the meeting abruptly but he doubted they’d made a peep about the Map. Moony would forever be a Prefect and Peter lost the ability to speak multi-syllabic words around authority figures. Great at parties, Wormtail, but not particularly good at meetings.

“Similar to your efforts here?” Dumbledore asked him.

Sirius nodded and resisted the urge to twitch. It was against every one of the Marauder Ethics to tell a Professor about a prank or a scheme, but four years separated him from when he’d fiddled with the magic holding the Map together. Anyway, this was the real world and his friends were in danger. Schoolboy promises weren’t sacrosanct.

He explained the map as simply as he could. Dumbledore peppered the conversation with questions, but Sirius was careful not to give too much away. The part of Sirius that was still a sixteen year old boy would never let him tell Dumbledore everything, but he gave out enough information to satisfy his curiosity.

When James tapped two fingers on his knee - a signal to warn him that moonrise was twenty minutes away and they needed to get Remus somewhere safe as soon as possible - Sirius wound the conversation down.

With ten minutes to go, Dumbledore stood up. “You’ll keep me updated?”

“Of course,” Sirius said. “I’ve got to go check on Remus, before.”

Dumbledore waved him off. “Send my good wishes along with you,” he said as he tossed a dash of floo powder into the fireplace. As soon as Dumbledore spun out of view in the flames, Sirius was running down the hallway towards their bedroom. They were cutting it extraordinarily close. He had eight minutes to get Remus, Apparate to the shack, and stow his clothes and wand so Moony wouldn’t destroy them over the course of the night.

Remus was pacing. He looked up at Sirius when he burst into the room and let out an agitated breath. “Waiting until the last minute, Sirius?”

“Dumbledore wouldn’t leave,” he gasped out. He caught Remus’ elbow with his hand, turned on the spot, and prayed that the night would go smoothly.

When the moon sinks beneath the horizon and Remus begins to change again, back into himself, Sirius hides under the bed. He isn't afraid of Moony, Moony would never hurt him so long as he's Padfoot, but it hurts to watch. When it's over and he takes his paws off his snout, James ducks his head under the bed - human again, and not so out of place in a bedroom as he is when he's got antlers - and tells Sirius to stop hiding. He's out in a second, human before he crosses the distance to Remus, and he spends five minutes fretting over every cut and bruise. James and Peter take their leave, dual cracks of Apparation marking their exit, because this part of it isn't meant for them to share, not any longer.

Sirius found that in the mornings after the full moon had set, Remus liked body heat more than anything else. A werewolf’s body temperature was five degrees higher than a human, and in the hours right after moonset, Moony was always cold. In school they’d piled blankets on top of him and uttered warming spells under their breath. After they’d gotten together and James and Peter had figured things out, Sirius had preferred to do it himself.

Once Remus’ transformation back ended, he hefted him up onto the decrepit twin bed and curled as close to him as possible. Sirius couldn’t really sleep because for him at least, being wrapped up around Moony under the blankets was stiflingly hot. It helped, though. Moony slept better than he ever had with warming charms on.

There was sweat tickling the skin above his lip and he felt a little feverish, like he was going to start getting the shakes from how warm it was underneath the blankets. There was no way he was going to sleep until Remus stopped shaking and kicked the blanket away, which would be another hour or two. Despite the exhaustion that was fogging up his brain, he supposed it was all right that he was thinking about their project and how he was supposed to reverse engineer spells he hardly remembered.

It would be easier with the original map. Filch had probably burned it, though, so Sirius didn’t have much hope for getting it back and being able to use it. At least they weren’t actually starting from scratch. They had all of the research and James had excused himself as soon as the moon set to go check on Lily and find a map. Peter scurried off after James to go find the ingredients they’d need for the rituals. It wouldn’t take two years, it probably wouldn’t even take the better part of a month. Sirius just needed to figure out how to alter the charms to find parts of soul.

He could ask Lily, he supposed, but the idea was sour in the back of his throat. This was theirs and as much as he loved Lily like a sister, she was outside of it.

Moony shifted in his sleep and Sirius pulled his head out of the crook of his neck to stare down at him. There was a scrape up by his temple, wide and shallow and red with blood. He brushed his fingers across it and muttered a healing charm, watching as the skin knit back together. Remus was the reason he’d become a healer. Everyone knew it, even if they didn’t talk about it. This time, right after moonset when Remus was hurt and needed someone to mend him... Sirius didn’t think anything else would have felt so right.

If they could finish the map inside of the month, Sirius was certain that the war could be over by his next birthday. He could turn twenty-one in a peaceful world with a party at the Three Broomsticks. Everyone could drink themselves into a stupor because no one would have to be waiting, hyper vigilant, for an attack. He could have Moony on one side and James on the other, laughing uproariously with Lily and Peter. The world could be everything that he’d hoped it would be in school. All they had to do was kill a madman.

Remus’ foot connected with Sirius’ shin and he cursed quietly.

“Moony?”

“S’hot,” Remus mumbled.

Sirius chuckled softly and shoved the blankets down. Remus sighed and turned over, pulling weakly on Sirius’ arm until he curled as close as he could. “What’s wrong?” Sirius asked him softly as he brushed Remus’ fringe away from his eyes.

“Nothing,” he murmured. “Just glad you’re here.”

“Better than transforming alone?”

Remus said nothing and for a moment, Sirius thought he’d slipped back into sleep. “That’s not what I meant,” he said.

“I don’t understand.” Sirius moved his hand down to Remus’ shoulder and traced lazy, lopsided circles against his skin.

“Just...” Remus let out a contented sigh. “Just here, Pads.”

“I’d never leave,” Sirius swore. He pressed a kiss against Remus’ temple. “Do you think we can do it?”

“Do what?”

“Save the world.”

Remus laughed quietly and wound his fingers into Sirius’ hair and pulled him closer, which Sirius hadn’t thought was possible. “If anyone can, it’s you.”

“I want to do it,” Sirius told him.

“Do what?”

Sirius pulled away just enough so that he could watch Moony’s face. “Once we figure the map out, I want to go and get them.”

Remus opened his eyes and looked up at him. “It’ll be dangerous.”

They watched each other for a while silently. Moony wanted to know why, Sirius could see it in his eyes. “Regulus died getting the locket,” he said. “His. The last thing he did was tell Kreacher to bring it to me. I...”

“It’s not your obligation, Sirius,” Remus told him. “You don’t have to.”

“I know.” Sirius kissed him again, this time on the lips. “I just feel like I should.”

They were quiet again. Moony was resting against him with his eyes closed, exhaustion written across his face. “You should sleep,” he said eventually. “You have to be as exhausted as I am.”

“Can’t shut my brain off,” Sirius told him. “You’re the one that needs the rest anyhow. I can sleep when we go home.”

Remus shifted again until his nose was pressed up against Sirius’ chest. “I’ll have to take time off from the music shop,” he murmured tiredly.

Sirius’ fingers, which had been stroking up and down Moony’s spine, stilled. He had the time off for the moon, of course; Dumbledore had set that all up when he’d gotten Remus the position. There wasn’t anything for Moony to worry about, at least not until tomorrow when he was healed and could manage to move around on his own. It was normal for Remus to be tired and aching in the hours after the full moon, and maybe a little disoriented, but more about what had happened the night before because he didn't retain the wolf's memories. “What are you on about?”

Remus peeked open one eye and looked up at him. “To find the Horcruxes,” he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“You want to go together?”

“I think so.” Remus tugged the sheet up over his shoulders and left a wet kiss on Sirius’ chest. “I don’t even want to imagine what sort of trouble you’d get into without supervision.”

Sirius grinned.