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Serious Sirius


“Sirius, wait!” James jogged, sloshing through the wet grass and mud, until he’d caught up with Sirius. He ran his hand through his hair as he slowed to a walk beside his mate, his fingers pushing the clingy, wet strands back from his forehead where they’d tumbled as he ran. He fell into pace beside Sirius, neither saying anything for at least a hundred paces as they neared the edge of Hagrid’s vegetable patch, which he’d been working on preparing for the spring planting. Hagrid’s hut puffed smoke from the chimney. They paused there, Sirius sitting on one of the large stones Hagrid had used to mark off the patch. The two boys fell into silence for quite some time.

Then, “You aren’t really serious, about the Dark Lord and the Forbidden Forest, were you?” James asked.

Sirius had been looking down at his fingers and he looked up at the question. “Of course I was serious,” he replied.

James took a deep breath.

“All my life, James, I’ve grown up hearing about how bloody brilliant Voldemort is and how my parents wanted me to follow in his footsteps and become a Death Eater. They made me believe that I couldn’t be a good wizard unless I hated muggles and muggleborns and halfbreeds and bloodtraitors or anyone else who didn’t think the way that they do. Well it’s ruddy stupid, the lot of it, and I know more than ever now that I’m at Hogwarts how mindlessly horrible that hatred that they hold up in themselves is. But I know, too, that all it takes is the right charismatic wording and anybody can believe that stuff. I know the right person in the lead, pushing out these thoughts and beliefs, would be able to convince an awful lot of people into believing all that rubbish, too. And they shouldn’t be allowed to. But if nobody does a blessed thing about stopping You-Know-Who… well, it’ll not only happen but the good will be outweighed by the evil and then everyone’ll be thinking that way. Next thing you know, there will be killings…” Sirius shook his head. “If Dumbledore and Moody want to overlook the truth, they ruddy well can. But I can’t, James. I just can’t. And if there’s anything in this world that I can do to stop it happening… anything I can try, however mad it might be, I’m going to do it. I’m going to do it until he’s stopped. And if that means I die trying, then so be it… I don’t want to be alive in a world that Lord Voldemort controls anyway. I’ve done that already. Done it every day of my life at Number 12, Grimmauld Place. I refuse to let it happen.”

Silence fell over them again as Sirius’s words sank in.

James sat down next to Sirius so they were elbow to elbow and James’s trainers were side-to-side with Sirius’s. After a pause to stare on at their feet together, James said, “So we all stun him at once, you say?”

Sirius looked over his shoulder at the side of James’s face. “Four stunners at once should be strong enough to hold him, don’t you think?”

“P’haps,” James agreed, nodding. He chewed his lip, then turned so he was straddling the rock, facing Sirius. “Alright. So how do we do this?”

“We’d take the mirror into the Forbidden Forest, however far it takes to get to the edge of the Hogwarts grounds. Surely there’s a map of the boundaries some place? And then -- well…” He rubbed his chin.

“Just summon him, once we’re all in a formation, ready-like, yeah?” James mustered every ounce of his bravery to keep his voice steady as he could as he said it. Even talking about the Dark Lord was bringing a bit of a twist to his stomach.

Sirius nodded slowly. “It’ll have to be me who does the summoning,” he said.

“We could do it together,” James said.

Sirius shook his head, “I’d have the best reason for him to come. I reckon he’s not going to just apparate across the bloody country for a bunch of random kids calling out to him. But me… Well, I could tell him I’ve been thinking on it and I wanted to help him… wanted to bring some honor to my family after all I’d done this year to disappoint them. Tell him I’m a Black through-and-through, and I’m on his side, and that I - I found a way for him to get into Hogwarts.” He swallowed back the nervousness in his voice, too, as James had done.

James nodded, “That’s good.”

“Then once he apparates, we all blast him with the stunners at once. When he’s stunned, we bring him up to the castle and tell Dumbledore the whole truth. There’s no way he can deny everything we’ve said by then, once we have You-Know-Who in our possession like that. We won’t get in any trouble.” Sirius paused, then, “And bloody hell - so what if we do! So what if we get expelled! I don’t give a damn, do you? Not compared to saving the entire wizarding world… the muggles, too, for that matter - there’s not telling what he’d do to them. Some things are just more important than grades - even Remus and Lily would agree with that!”

James took a deep breath, “Oh definitely. This is way more important!” He looked off across the grounds toward the Forbidden Forest’s edge. “I’ll reckon there’s a map of the grounds in that book Remus always goes on about - Hogwarts: A History. That’ll show where the grounds end so we know how far out into the forest we’ll need to go before Voldemort could apparate.”

Sirius was excited now, “You’re right! There’s got to be!”

James nodded, rubbing his palms over his knees, “Well, we’ll have to talk Remus and Peter into going along…”

“Would be nice if Lily would, too,” said Sirius.

James’s eyes widened, “Lily? Why would we bring Lily?”

“She’s the best at spell casting! We might need her if anything goes wrong.”

James frowned, he rather loathed the idea of Lily being out in the Forbidden Forest, even if she was with the four of them, especially given what they were thinking on doing. He’d much prefer it if Lily stayed safe in the castle. He didn’t say all that though. Mostly because he wasn’t sure what to say about it. He wasn’t sure what it was about the idea of Lily being out there that made him feel so sick and sweaty in the palms… “Well, after we talk whoever’s going to go along into coming, then what? When do you want to do this?”

“At night. In the dark.”

“I figured as much, but… when?”

“Soon,” Sirius answered. “The sooner the better because we don’t want him getting stronger.”

James shook his head, “Certainly not.”

Sirius looked over the grounds at the rolling hills and the blackness of the lake and the forest far beyond. “I think we need to do it before the next full moon.”

“Okay.” James stood up.

“We need to talk to the others about it. Tonight. Get some concrete plans,” Sirius said.

The boys walked back to the castle together with a sense of urgency in their step, talking about how to go about convincing Peter and Remus it was a good idea, what they had planned.




Lily was asleep in her bed that night, starlight the only thing illuminating the bedroom, when she awoke to the feeling of something jabbing at her shoulder. She started and looked about, breathless, to find a little house elf crouched in the dark beside her bed, his great flappy ears bent low across his head. He wore a little pillowcase, embroidered with the Hogwarts coat of arms on the chest. He stared up at her timidly. “I’s is sorrys, miss,” the elf croaked just above a whisper, “I is being sent to wake you.”

“Sent to wake me?” She asked, “By who?”

“The Potter boy and his friends,” the house elf said, “They is finding Libby in the common room, miss, and they is telling me to come and tells you to come to sees them in the common room, by the fire, miss.” Libby hobbled foot to foot. “I is been stoking it, miss, so it is warm for your toesies.” He smiled up at her, wide yellow eyes quite pleasant once you got past the shock of how huge they were compared to the rest of Libby’s face.

“Thanks,” Lily said, and she rolled to the side, putting her feet into a pair of bunny-eared slippers and tugging her pale pink bathrobe ‘round her shoulders. Libby disappeared with a crack. Carefully, Lily snuck down the steps to the common room, where she found Sirius, James, Peter, and Remus, sitting ‘round the fireplace, looking very serious.

“What’s all this?” She asked.

Sirius motioned for her to have a seat. He was the only one standing. Remus and Peter were crammed side-by-side on the couch, James opposite Lily in the other overstuffed chair. Sirius took a deep breath once she’d been seated and cleared his throat. “Okay, I know we’ve had a row between us this afternoon about this idea that Lily had for what we could do with the mirror, but --”

“We’re not still on that ruddy topic, are we?” Groaned Remus, “Sirius, c’mon now mate. You can’t have thought this all the way through. There’s no way you’re serious.”

“As serious as my name,” he replied. Sirius said, “Guys. this idea is crazy, yes, I’ll be the first one to admit it’s crazy, but that’s exactly what might make it work. It’s really a brilliant idea, given us by the brilliant Lily.”

Lily stared wide-eyed at them, “I was joking when I said it. It wasn’t a real suggestion.”

“Nonetheless, it is brilliant,” Sirius said.

Peter twitched, “You’re going to be killed if you even try it.”

“I won’t,” Sirius said, “None of us will. We’re going to stun him before he could even get half of the killing curse off his mouth.”

Remus said, “Sirius, we are First Years! Our magic is not as powerful as his. Peter can barely do the stunning spell. Even you can resist it.”

Peter turned pink.

“That’s why all of us - as many of us as possible - stun him all at once. The combination of all our stunners will be enough!” Sirius said.

James said, “And his guard will be down, he won’t be expecting it, remember.” He looked around at them, “Guys, this can work, Sirius is right. We could be famous! Famous for saving the entire world. Don’t you want to be famous?”

Lily said, “Of course it’s not don’t you want to save the world, it’s all about being famous and feeding your ego. You’re willing to risk your life and all the lives of everyone around you for being famous!”

“I said we’d be saving the world, too,” James said, “Famous is just what we’d get out of it is all.”

“I don’t want anything to do with it,” Lily said, standing up, “Or you, at all,” she added, looking into James’s face. “You’re all mad if you do it.” She looked at Remus, “And you know it.” With that, she stomped off up the stairs to the girl’s dormitories and a moment later her bedroom door closed.

James wouldn’t have said it to the others, but he was quite relieved that she had gone. That meant Lily Evans, at least, would be safe in the Gryffindor common room - protected. Something very deep in James’s stomach was glad for that.

Sirius’s voice shook only slightly as he said, “I’ll do it alone if I have to. If you lot don’t do it with me, that’s fine, it’s up to you, but I’m going. I can’t not give it a go. I feel like… like this is my destiny. It’s what I’m meant to do. But we’ve got better odds of it working for every additional stunner that’s shot at him. Me alone -- that really may not be enough. I don’t know. But I’ve got to try.”

Peter’s wide eyes moved between the other three boys nervously, shifting from one to the other to the other.

“I’m with you, mate,” James said solemnly.

Remus was rubbing his forehead, “Oh bloody hell,” he groaned. “This is a terrible… awful… ridiculous… stupid idea.” But even as he said it, his tone gave in. He looked up at Sirius, “Fine, alright. I’ll help.”

Sirius ran over and clapped his arms ‘round Remus in a hug.

All three of them turned. “Peter?” Sirius asked.

Peter’s face twitched. His lip quivered. His spine shivered. He very much did not want to go anywhere near the Forbidden Forest - not to mention into it to summon the Dark Lord. He didn’t want any part of it, either, and he wished he had the nerve to say so, as Lily had. He felt very much like he wanted to cry as they all three stared at him. Peer pressure squeezed his heart nearly out of his chest, however, and he squeaked, “Alright… okay, yes. Okay.”