- Text Size +
Brave


Minerva McGonagall sat in the office of Albus Dumbledore, quite tired and unnerved, rubbing her forehead from a headache brought on with worry. Dumbledore steepled his hands before his face and stared down at the desktop, lost in thought.

“Albus,” McGonagall said thickly, “What does the Dark Lord want, torturing a - a boy like this?” She looked up at the headmaster with tear-filled eyes and her jaw quivered slightly. Looking at her, Dumbledore was reminded of when Minerva McGonagall was a child herself. It seemed ages ago - and yet, perhaps, not so long ago at all. He looked away before a smile for the memory could play upon his lips - now was not the time. She stared up at him stubbornly, though. “Albus,” she repeated, “James Potter is just a child and --”

“Minerva,” Dumbledore interrupted, “James Potter, or any of your sixth year Gryffindors, are children no longer.”

She fell silent.

“I believe what the Dark Lord is after,” Dumbledore murmured slowly, “Is something that James Potter is only somewhat connected to… and may very well not be connected at all.”

Minerva raised an eyebrow.

“Best to keep such things to oneself, Minerva,” Dumbledore explained, “And so I cannot go into much detail, but I believe that what the Dark Lord seeks is information which the Blind Seer has.”

McGonagall waved her wand, producing a linen handkerchief with a dark green M stitched into the corner. She dabbed her eyes with it. “The Blind Seer?” she asked, voice croaky and thick with Scottish lilt, “But Albus, Mopsus is dead!”

“Time does not die, Minerva,” Dumbledore murmured, and he pushed his chair back from the desk and walked away, toward the phoenix on his stand by the fireplace, his fingers roaming over the scarlet and gold feathers that covered the handsome bird’s back. Fawks leaned into the stroking palm, his beak nuzzling against Dumbledore’s forearm, nipping gently at the dark magenta robes. “Yes, it seems that whatever we do to stop it, time never does stop, does it?” his voice cooed the words.

Minerva turned to look at him, her fingers still clutching the handkerchief. “But what does James Potter have to do with the Blind Seer?”

“Everything. Or nothing. Of that, I am not entirely sure.” And he raised his hand from the bird, and Fawkes stretched his wings and let out a tiny belch of smoke that rose in a curling tendril. “That is something that only Time can tell,” Dumbledore added, watching the twisting puff of smoke until it burst apart against the ceiling.






Remus Lupin’s whimpers echoed through the tunnel of the Trophy Room Passageway. Sirius hurried along through the dark, biting his lighted wand between his teeth as he rolled up his sleeves and jumped the gaps in the floor around the bluebell flames until he got to the alcove. Remus was laying across the little couch, his legs up on the armrest, holding a pillow over his face to muffle the sound of himself as he cried and Sirius hurried over, sliding to his knees beside the couch. “Moony… I’m here, Moony,” he said, and Sirius dragged the pillow away from Remus’s tear-stained face, which was blotchy with red flush to his cheeks and wet from the tears that had leaked across his nose.

“Sirius,” he whimpered and he hugged Sirius ‘round the neck, wincing even as he did it at the pain shooting up his spine and knees from the movement, but he grit his teeth because hugging Sirius meant a good deal more to him than the comfort in his joints. “Sirius, it isn’t even the full moon yet…”

“I know, Moony,” Sirius said, drawing back from the hug. He looked Remus over, concerned.

“It isn’t for another week,” Remus murmured, “It hurts so bloody much, what am I going to do for another whole week?”

Sirius said, “I’m going to take care of you, that’s what.” Remus winced as Sirius started to rub the tight muscles in Remus’s shoulders, staring down into his eyes. “I’m going to see to it that you’re alright, that’s what.” He paused for a moment and reached into his pocket. “Speaking of which…” he held up a few sprigs of aconite and stripped a couple of the leaves from the little branch, “Here you are.”

Remus chewed the leaf thankfully, though it was little help against the intense pain he was feeling. “I’m sorry I was no help in the rescue,” he said thickly.

“No help? Moony, it was your idea to create the bloody map of Durmstrang! It was your idea that saved Pete!”

Remus was quiet, chewing the leaves in silence as Sirius’s hand worked the muscles in his arms.

“I’m going to turn you over so I can rub your back,” Sirius warned him and Remus grit his teeth to hold back anguish as Sirius did exactly that with a few flicks of his wand and Remus grabbed onto the pillow beneath his head and dug his fingers into it, squeezing as tight as his bones would allow him to, taking on the pain in near silence. “You’re brilliant, Moony, you’re always brilliant. You’re the most brilliant of the lot of us.”

“I nearly got Chriselda Blythe killed,” Remus murmured. He paused, then, “Sirius. Derek Bell was there.”

“Come again?” Sirius asked.

Remus explained, voice strained, “I - I fell down, when we were escaping the Death Eaters, in the hallway upstairs. And it was when the Prewetts, Dorcas, Bilius, and Chriselda arrived and she had leaped forward to help, her and Dorcas, and one of the Death Eaters had shot the killing curse and --” he realized how mad what he was about to say would be, “And Derek Bell blocked it. Derek Bell saved us.”

“Remus,” Sirius said, “Derek Bell’s long dead.”

“I know,” Remus replied, “I know, but I know what I saw, too.”

Sirius reached up to feel Remus’s forehead, which was hot with fever, and he frowned and returned to rubbing the knots that lined his boyfriend’s spine, his fingers expertly loosening the painfully tight muscles, bringing some small relief to Remus’s agony, though far from eradicating it from his body. The knots were so deep that after Sirius worked them out, as soon as he moved on to the next one, the prior one began to return.

“Is James alright?” Remus asked.

“They say he is,” Sirius replied. He watched his fingers moving, watched the twitching of Remus’s skin beneath his administrations.

“Haven’t you spoken to him yet?” Remus questioned.

Sirius shook his head. “He was only awake for a very short amount of time, Madam Pomfrey said. Minnie talked to him some… I s’pose he must be alright…” Sirius looked anxious. “Lily came and we sat playing cards on the next bed over ‘til Dumbledore arrived with Mr. and Mrs. P. Then Lily had to go to the Ministry - her mum was waiting to collect her there, he said - and I came to look for you. I went to the dormitory first. Pete said this was where you were.”

Remus nodded. “I hurts as much as a full moon night, Padfoot.”

Sirius frowned, “I’m sorry, Moony.” He paused. “Why do you reckon… with the moon so far off…?”

“I don’t know,” Remus replied.

Sirius frowned.

Remus was quiet a moment. “But I know that you’re making it better by being here.”

Sirius bent forward and pressed his lips to Remus’s forehead. “For that, I’m glad.”

Remus closed his eyes at the touch of Sirius’s kiss.

“We’ll figure out what’s making you so moony, Moony,” Sirius said. “I’ll write to Mr. Scamander.”




James stirred, his eyes flickering open.

A slice of harsh sunlight cut through the high vaulted windows and he winced his eyes closed again. He half expected to hear the high-pitched cackling of Voldemort and he waited, his heart beating fast against his ribs.

Instead, he heard a much gentler, more familiar voice.

“James?”

He opened his eyes slowly and there, in the seat next to his bed, sat his father.

Charlus Potter reached over and took James’s hand in his own. “There you are, my boy.”

“Dad?” James asked as Charlus brought his son’s hand to his face. “Dad.”

“James. Oh thank Merlin.” Charlus scooted even closer and his chair scraped the hospital wing floor. “I’m so sorry, my son… I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, dad,” James replied weakly.

Charlus squeezed his son’s hand, “Are you alright, Jamesy?”

James nodded. He wouldn’t tell his father about the pain shooting up from his shoulders through his back as the skelegro did it’s work, nor of the twisting sickness in his stomach that had started from the nightmare that he’d just woken from. He wouldn’t tell Charlus of the echoing in his brain, the hissing voice speaking hexes and streams of filhy hatred that shook him to his very bones just remembering it… He wouldn’t. He couldn’t tell Charlus all that for as he stared up at his dad - whose face still held several of the thick scales from the Dragon Pox - James realized that at some point he had become the one who needed to be brave. And so he swallowed back all of the fear that shoot him and he said, “Dad, I’m alright.”

Charlus was near to tears. “You are so brave, my son... What you’ve been through…” he shook his head, “So brave.”

James didn’t know how to reply. He turned his head and he found his mother asleep on the other side of him, her head on the mattress by his hip, her arms clutching as though she refused to let him go… Her hair was all ruffled funny, frazzled, her face pale. His eyes flickered to the empty next bed over and he turned to look at Charlus. “Where’s Sirius?” he asked.

“Dumbledore sent him back to the dormitory,” Charlus replied.

James hesitated, then, “Sirius if you’re under the cloak --?” he requested. But of course nothing happened - Sirius was gone with Remus in the passageway. James wasn’t sure if he was relieved or upset that Sirius wasn’t there. He felt a funny combination of the two emotions and he looked at his dad. Charlus was still staring at him, watery eyed. “Aw dad, it’s alright, really,” he said, “Ol’ Voldie didn’t hurt me that bad, really. You - you needn’t be crying…. Really. I’m alright.”

“We thought we lost you,” Charlus said thickly. “We thought for sure --”

James shook his head, “You haven’t lost me.”

Charlus pressed his face against him and closed his eyes, breathing in the scent of his only son, his precious son… his miracle, who proved himself to be as such time and again. “You are so very brave, James… so very brave…”

James winced slightly at the pressure against his ribs and he held his breath.

It was at some point - at some point after this, as Charlus clung to him and after Dora had woken up and had a similar conversation with him - that James Potter realized perhaps Voldemort had taken a good deal more than he realized away from him. Voldemort had taken away the boyhood and left behind James Potter, the man. And that, he realized, was something that ought never be stolen from a person… especially not as brutally as Voldemort had done. And he realized, too, that it wasn’t just his own that had been stolen away, it was also Sirius’s and Remus’s and Peter’s too. It was hundreds of others in the wizarding world whose young lives were being affected by his reign of terror over the world at large. It was hundreds and thousands of young wizard kids whose parents needed them to stay brave, whose chances at being carefree were coming to a close the closer and closer Voldemort came to taking over…

Determination filled James suddenly - positively flooded him. It was a burning sort of determination, too, the sort that consumes entirely…

Voldemort’s time at the top of the wizarding world would come to an end.

His power would be stopped.

His laughter would be silenced.

Voldemort would be ended.

He would be killed.

He, James Potter, would see to it that the Dark Lord’s demise came if it was the last thing that he ever did.




Meanwhile, far away, in a cave, in the dark, glowing green hollow of the cavern, Voldemort was laughing still. Regulus Black was on his knees, clutching the edge of a stone basin, his eyes still squeezed tightly shut against the onslaught of nightmares and horror that still traversed his veins as the dementor’s venom snaked it’s way through his body. The Dark Lord extracted the memories and the nightmares from his temple - long strands of trembling, near fluorescent thoughts - and dropped them into the basin, stirring with a flick of his wand, his thin lips parted into a sleek smile.

“Yes… yes,” he whispered as the potion in the basin brewed, as it changed from white to grey to a thick, nearly metallic silver, like mercury, undulating on it’s own, the pain reflecting on the surface of it before it went still and seemed nearly solid, the reflection of the Dark Lord’s face upon it. “Yes, this will do nicely when the time comes.”

Regulus panted, shivering, “When… when what time comes… my… Lord?”

Voldemort did not reply, but only grinned all the more sinisterly, the green glow reflecting off his terrible features. He raised his wand.

Regulus would remember none of what happened.

He would not remember the potion - though his body ached with the heaviness of the pain and anguish it had caused. He would not remember the ghostly ship or the green glowing cavern. He would not remember the sea of dead that they had crossed over, nor the stone doorway whose price was blood… He would not remember the things Voldemort said, the secrets that had been divulged to him about that cave, about Voldemort’s plans…

Obliviate,” the Dark Lord had whispered.

Regulus woke on the shore of the Black Lake opposite the castle of Hogwarts, left deep in the Forbidden Forest. Slanting shafts of dying afternoon sun cast long shadows from the turrets of the castle across the still surface of the water. Snow scattered over the shore and Regulus sat up, shivering in the cold of a wind that blew over the water, the laughter of the Dark Lord still echoing about the walls of his mind.