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Little J


Sirius dropped back-to the stone wall in the graveyard, his bum in the damp grass. James stood beside him, staring across the street. The sun was sliding into dusk, and the street lamps snapped on as they stood there. “I don’t think he’s home,” James said. Sirius rolled so he was kneeling beside the wall and peered over the stones. “No lights,” James continued, pointing to draw Sirius’s attention to the windows.

“Good. I don’t want to see him.” Sirius murmured.

“Yeah. And if he has any idea what’s best for him, then he doesn’t want to see me,” James agreed.

Sirius crawled over the stone wall and landed on the other side. “I need my boots and my jacket. And, of course, the motorbike.”

James climbed over the stone wall, too.

The two boys looked up and down the street and ran across the pavement, Sirius carrying the rucksack he’d speedily packed up at the Potter’s house over his shoulder. In the distance came the hum of the heat bugs as the night fell and the air cooled marginally as the sun dipped even lower over the horizon. Sirius and James ran up the driveway in the shadows of the stout little trees that lined the right side of the carpark and pressed their backs to the garage door. Sirius licked his lips. “Alright,” he whispered. “There’s a door through here that goes into the kitchen, which connects to the living room. That’s where it happened. On the couch. That’s where my stuff should be. Unless he moved it. But hopefully it’ll be right there still and this’ll be really in and out.” He paused and looked at James. “Thanks for helping me, Prongs.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world, Padfoot,” James answered.

Sirius bent down and pressed his wand to the handle of the door. “Alohamora,” he whispered and it clicked.

“Good luck,” he whispered. He bent and pulled open the door halfway as carefully and quietly as he could… and James ducked under, followed by Sirius. Sirius lit his wand, illuminating the inside of the garage - all Ace’s tools and the two motorbikes standing side-by-side. Sirius watched James duck for the door, whisper the spell, and push his way into the kitchen. Sirius went for the Gryffindor red bike and he tilted it up, knocking the kickstand up from the ground, and started for the door, using his wand to keep the door open just high enough for the bike to slid under and into the dim light outside.

James meanwhile was inside the house. Sirius hadn’t wanted to come in, and James couldn’t blame him. If he’d been taken advantage of that way, he wouldn’t want to go back to the place again, either. He tiptoed as quietly as he could over the tile of the kitchen and into the carpet of the living room, peering about for a sign of Sirius’s stuff. His wand glowed eerily off the stuff in the room.

Ace’s ususal mess of take out containers and plastic cups littered the coffee table and the mantel over the fireplace. James’s heart stopped, though, when his wand light illuminated Ace, asleep on the couch - or maybe passed out.

James paused in the doorway and stared at him, his face churned in anger. He raised his wand - intending to hex Ace Dante for what he’d done to Sirius - perhaps play a bit of hanging him upside down as he’d done to Severus Snape, just leave the filthy bastard hanging from the ceiling and go -- but he heard Lily’s voice in his head telling him not to and so he tucked the wand away and used every ounce of his strength not to do it.

He found Sirius’s jacket and boots flung into the chair beside the couch and he plucked them up from the cushion, throwing the jacket over his arm and carrying the boots by the laces. He turned and started to go when Ace Dante rolled over, his eyes opening and he stared into the darkness at James.

“Who the fuck are you?!” Ace’s voice quivered, “What the fuck are you doing in my house?!”

James stared at him. “I’m - er -”

“Are you one of Little J’s guys?” Ace asked, and James heard the same paranoid worry in his tone as Sirius had carried that night talking about the floor moving. “I don’t have it all yet. I’m working on it, I’m sorry… I’m sorry.” And Ace scrambled up and reached in his pockets and produced a wad of muggle money that he threw onto the coffee table. James stared at it, then looked at Ace. “Please. Tell him I’ll get the rest to him. With interest. Really soon, really soon. Please. I’m sorry.”

James improvised, “I dunno man, he’s really pissed about what you did to that kid.”

“What?”

“Little J,” James said, “Heard about what you did to that kid, that Sirius Black lad? And he’s pissed about it. Says he’s gonna teach you a lesson.”

The blood drained from Ace’s face.

“Says he’ll mess you up bad if you do it again. To anybody.” James bent and plucked the money up from the coffee table. “I’d definitely leave the kid alone if I were you. And maybe lay off the drugs, ‘cos really, you don’t need to be like that. You could be a nice guy if you weren’t such an arsehole.” He turned and started toward the door. “Oh… and we’re taking the motorbike.”

James turned, tucked the wad of bills into Sirius’s leather jacket’s pocket, and carried the boots and the jacket out through the front door, his heart in his throat as Ace sat trembling on the couch behind him.

Sirius was out front, he’d rolled the bike out to the street and he sat now, straddling it. He’d snitched one of Ace’s helmets, too, a smooth black thing that he was busy buckling beneath his chin. He had promised Dumbledore, after all. And he watched as James ran across the lawn with his stuff and he grabbed at his boots and jacket with excitement as James reached him, glancing back at the house to be sure Ace wasn’t looking out. “Quick,” James jumped aboard the motorbike, “Drive away.”

Sirius jumped up and started the transmission and the bike roared to life - not a bleedin’ thing wrong with it, as it had never really needed any parts at all - and Sirius steered them away from Ace’s driveway, his hands gripping the bars tightly, the front wheel a teensy bit wobbly, but much smoother than the other times they’d driven motorbikes in their devious plans, and Sirius bit his lip as the polished body hummed between his thighs as they drove past Bathilda Bagshot’s house and over the ridge by the Dumbledore house to the small pull-off that overlooked the lake halfway ‘round the block to the Potter’s. Sirius pulled over and eagerly kicked off the trainers he’d been borrowing from James and jammed his feet into his boots.

“Bloody hell,” he whispered, “That’s so much better.” And he grabbed for his jacket, hugging it to his chest before he shrugged it on, then slung his rucksack strap over his head again.

James climbed off the bike. “You’ve got a map, yeah?”

“Yes, and the point me spell will show me which way I’m travelling, too,” Sirius said, nodding. “I packed the two-way mirror, so I can tell you when I get to Iceland.”

“Excellent,” James nodded. He stood there before Sirius, his glasses reflecting the street lamps that surrounded them. “Bleeding hell, I’m going to worry about you. It’s a long way.”

“Yeah, but I’ll be alright.”

“You best be.”

Sirius took a deep breath, then flung his leg over the motorbike, which was still humming, the engine running, smoke coming out of the exhaust. He tightened the helmet strap, leaning against the handlebars, his eyes worried. He looked at James. “I love him, James.”

“I know.”

Sirius took a deep breath and glanced back over his shoulder, back the way they’d come, then back to James again. “Thank you again.”

James nodded. “Of course, mate.”

“Prongs? Do you reckon Moony will forgive me?”

James said, “I hope so, Sirius.”

Sirius took a deep breath, then nodded. That was the best answer he could expect. He let up on the brake and the bike slowly moved forward, pulling away. James stood and he watched as Sirius circled ‘round and pulled out to the center of the street. “Guess it’s time to see if those modifications we did last summer are still functioning, ‘ey?”

James smirked. “Be safe.”

“Aw… darling, of course,” Sirius answered. And he pressed the gas and the bike launched forward and Sirius reached into his pocket, withdrawing the wand and he tapped the bike’s headlamp and it flickered on and he pulled up on the bars and the bike slowly lifted off from the ground, first one tire and then the next, and James watched as Sirius went up - up - up - up… over the rooves of the houses, over the trees, into the clouds and slowly, hazily, he disappeared among them, another star in the sky.

James sighed as he lost sight of the headlamp and finally he shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and started walking home, thinking about Sirius and everything that had happened- laughing to himself about how shocked Sirius would be when he found his money was back, and how paranoid poor Ace Dante was probably feeling, waiting for Little J - whoever the hell that was - to come and pound the daylights out of him for what he’d done to Sirius. And James hoped that Ace might actually learn a lesson and clean himself up because of it.

James came about the cul-de-sac his house was on and he passed a couple muggle cars that were parked along the curb and ran his hand through his hair, messing it up, and he glanced about before stepping over the line where the fidelus charm reached, hiding the Potter house from view…

He was so deep into thinking that at first he didn’t notice the figure on the stoop of the house… but as James approached, the silhouette became more defined, stepping out of the shadow into the pale moonlight… hair messier than usual, clad in a jumper, even in the terrible heat.

James’s jaw was dropped.

“Where is he?”

James stared in surprise, speechless.

“Where’s Sirius? Where is he?”

“Remus? What’re you doing here?”