Better Late Than Never

November 1st, 1981

Sirius woke up that morning with a sense of foreboding weighing down on his chest. He had lain in bed for a few very long moments; sun peeking through the faded curtains and patterning him in stripes. He couldn’t remember how to breathe.

Eventually, when his lungs were taking in air as they were supposed to, he wrenched himself out of bed. He was all out of sorts. His thoughts were jumbled, his head pulsed with a headache, he couldn’t quite tell his left from his right, and the Rememberall sitting on his dresser—a gag gift from James, though it turned out to be rather useful—was clouded.

His eyes fell on the shattered bottle of Firewhiskey lying in a puddle a few feet away, and realized that he was probably hung over. He was most nights now, ever since the McKinnons were killed.

He didn’t want to think her name, but it invaded his fractured thoughts anyway, like it always did, no matter how hard he tried.

Marlene.

Salty tears dripped down his face and he angrily wiped them away with the rumpled comforter on his bed. A little known fact was that Sirius Black was a sad, angry drunk.

Frustrated, he grabbed his wand from his nightstand and held it to his temple, muttering a few Sobering charms. The fuzziness faded, but the anger and sadness didn’t.

No one knew how hard he was taking Marlene McKinnon’s death. He’d only told James after a pretty tough binge one night, but he loved her. He loved her so goddamn much and he thought he’d finally found her, the one that would make him all gushy and as intolerable as James was seventh year when he finally got with Lily. Marlene could’ve been it for him.

Now he’d never know.

It didn’t help, of course, that her death had come so shortly after Regulus’. Sirius was never much of a brother to Reg, there would never come a time where he wouldn’t regret that, but he cared about him. He felt so fucking guilty that he hadn’t helped him more, been there for him more instead of high-tailing it from Black Manor and becoming a permanent resident at the Potter Estate. Maybe… if he had stayed… he could’ve convinced Reg not to go down that path. He could’ve convinced him to get out from under their parents’ fucking humongous shadow before it ate him alive.

He could’ve been there to help even when, despite it all, Regulus decided to turn coats and leave Voldemort once and for all.

But he wasn’t. Regulus was all alone when he decided to turn against Voldemort, and it had cost him his life.

Regulus. Marlene. The Prewett Brothers. He wasn’t sure how much more death he could take before it destroyed him.

He’d never gotten a chance to tell all this to James because James had his own life to worry about. Voldemort was targeting his son. His entire family. Sirius was lucky if he even saw old Prongsie on a full moon.

After a while, Sirius pulled on some (barely) clean clothes and shoes, shoving his wand in his pocket. Maybe he’d go bother Wormtail for a little bit. Go bring him along to James’ or the Three Broomsticks and they’d have a pint or three. Who the hell cared if it was still morning? There was a Muggle saying that it was five o’clock somewhere, and he firmly believed in it.

With a pop, he Apparated to Peter’s meager flat in a Muggle town not far from Godric’s Hollow. All the Marauders lived in the vicinity. It had been convenient when James and Lily wanted a night for themselves and needed a babysitter. Usually, all three of them would come at the same time and keep Harry company, playing silly games and teaching him words that Lily would smack them for later.

James and Lily never left the house for more than a few hours, and when they’d gone under the Fidelius charm, not at all. The last bit of correspondence he had from them was a letter Lily sent about Harry’s birthday gift. He chuckled when he read that Harry had nearly killed the cat with his little broom. From the sound of it, Harry was going to make a fine Quidditch player some day. He might even put James to shame. It would do the bastard good to be one-upped by someone. And the added bonus of it being his own son! He couldn’t wait for the day. It’d be like Christmas.

“Wormy!” Sirius hollered. His voice echoed and swirled the dust motes in the air. “Wormtail! Get your fat arse out of bed and come to the pub with me!” It was only when he didn’t hear annoyed groaning from the bedroom that he realized something was wrong.

“Peter, you prat, wake up!” Sirius yelled again, slightly more than a note of panic seeping into his voice. He kicked open the bedroom door and saw the bed was perfectly made up. It didn’t even look slept in. In fact, the entire room looked like it had never even seen a tenant.

Sirius’ stomach dropped to his feet. No. No no no no no. Peter was not… could not…

It was like he had taken a thousand bludgers to the head.

Peter was the spy.

He had suspected Remus… alienated Remus… nearly ruined a friendship because of his stupid stupid paranoia and it wasn’t even the right person!

Sirius couldn’t bring himself to move. The wood flooring could have transformed into roots, wrapping around his legs and pulling him into hell for all he cared. He had one, bone chilling thought.

He needed to go tell James and Lily.

The sense of foreboding that had threatened to crush him earlier in the morning came back full force. He couldn’t fathom the power of his emotions in that second because he needed to go tell James and Lily, they needed to take Harry and get out get out get out get out

He Apparated to Godric’s Hollow and splinched himself on the way. A solid chunk of his calf was missing but he didn’t give a bloody fuck, he didn’t fucking care, he needed to find Lily and James—

Sirius saw the smoke floating into the sky and fell to his knees. A few houses. He just needed to make it past a few more houses and then he’d know, maybe it was a neighbor? Bathilda Bagshot left her oven on, maybe?

The gravel dug into his skin and cut at him but Sirius was numb to it all. He felt the same way he did when he got plastered one night and Lily had knocked him upside the head for being reckless and administered one too many Sobering charms— Lily.

Sirius saw the house. Debris littered the grass all around the explosion sight. His heart—that stone cold heart of his, shattered—caught in his throat and he wished he had choked on it in that second because he could not deal with the way he was feeling. Hysteria clawed at him like an angry monster.

The explosion was centered in Harry’s nursery. Sirius’ vision blurred.

Stumbling, Sirius walked through the front door, knocked right off its hinges. Wood was splintered all over the entrance. He kept walking.

He stared at his feet as he walked up the staircase, the pain from his injury rolling through him over and over and he thought for one, desperate moment, that he’d rather a Dementor’s Kiss than this. He’d rather have no soul than feel like this.

He paused absolutely when his foot hit another. A foot that was not his. A foot that was completely limp and attached to a completely limp, cold, dead body.

Sirius found himself looking at the dead body of his best friend. His brother. The only true family he had left.

James had died with his eyes open, sprawled at a terrible angle on the staircase. The banister around him was destroyed; his glasses had been flung halfway down the hall, probably from spell impact.

A sob wracked through his body and Sirius doubled over. With two bloody fingers, he shut James Potter’s eyes forever.

As if to torture himself further, Sirius kept walking. Down the hall, to the other door that was not so much a door as it was a doorframe. He went in only two steps before he stopped.

Lily had, mercifully, died with her eyes shut. He didn’t know if he had the strength to shut hers, too. He didn’t want to leave his blood when the physical evidence of his failure was already everywhere he looked.

Sirius lifted his grey eyes to the crib. There was a baby in it, but the baby wasn’t moving. Harry was completely still in that crib, too still for a baby that was supposed to be alive.

The only answer, of course, was that he wasn’t. None of them were.

The Potters were dead, and it was Sirius’ fault.

He ran out of the house, banging against things and leaving them in more of a state than they already were. Collapsing onto the pavement outside, he dry-heaved, over and over until his throat hurt and his chest burned.

Then, he saw it. A flash of brown scurrying down the street in the corner of his vision. He almost didn’t believe it.

Sirius ripped his wand from his pocket and aimed it at the scurrying thing, the rat, and screamed louder than he ever thought possible. The rat seemed to stumble for a moment, before it swelled in size. A head seemed to shoot straight through the rat’s mouth, the rest of the body tumbling forward in a gross display.

“Pettigrew!” Sirius shrieked, moving forward so fast that his wand was pressed against his best friend’s throat. “They trusted you! And you betrayed them!” Sirius didn’t know how he hadn’t suspected Peter before this very moment. The signs were all there—Peter had aged a thousand years because of the stress. He used to be strong and healthy-looking, broad shouldered with a mischievous gleam in his eyes.

Now, his once-thick hair was sparse at the top. His skin was sallow and had a sickly sheen in the light. His eyes seemed to morph between confidence and the watery, beady eyes he possessed in Animagus for. In rat form.

“I did what I needed to do to survive!” Peter squeaked back, his Adam’s apple bobbing under the pressure of the wand. Sirius saw red. He saw a whole fucking sunset.

“They would have died for you,” Sirius said lowly, disgust and hatred mixing together so completely they could not be separated. “They would have protected you until their very last breath.” Muggles from the surrounding houses were looking out of their windows, curtains held open with fear mingled curiosity. Some were out in their front yards. They were drawing too much attention but Sirius couldn’t bring himself to care.

Peter let out a strangled sob, his clothes dingy and eyes bloodshot. He was a shell of himself. There was nothing he could say. Nothing would make this better.

Sirius was so wrapped up in his own rage that he didn’t see the knife.

The metal was dull and didn’t catch the light very well, but it didn’t matter because Peter used it to cut off his pinky finger.

Faster than Sirius ever thought him capable of, Peter had thrown Sirius back and screamed for the entire street and possibly the world to hear, “SIRIUS BLACK GAVE JAMES AND LILY POTTER UP TO VOLDEMORT. SIRIUS BLACK KILLED THE POTTERS!”

Sirius aimed his wand and spit so many curses they all meshed together he didn’t know what he was saying.

Then three things happened:

Aurors from the Ministry Apparated on to the scene.

Peter Pettigrew cast a curse so strong that everything exploded all at once. The pavement was ripped up to reveal the pipes beneath it.

Sirius Black passed out.

***

The only course of action necessary to save Sirius from impending doom, Lily had said, was to simply go to the Ministry and properly explain the situation. Sirius wasn’t the Secret Keeper, and he did not kill twelve people. Remus failed to see the simplicity in that.

James rather fancied the idea of punching the Minister for Magic repeatedly in the face until she agreed to let Sirius go. (The truth was, Millicent Bagnold was a lovely woman. She had done everything to the best of her ability during the war, and still was. James was more than a little stressed.)

That was exactly why, after a brief family check-up with the Healers at St. Mungo’s, Remus went to the Ministry with Lily instead of James, who stayed back at HQ with Harry. He’d watched them battle it out, communicating only in sighs, raised eye brows, and head tilts, because Harry was finally, miraculously, asleep.

They left via Floo, which turned Remus’ stomach over. Of all the methods of magic transportation, Floo was his least favorite. Any kind of magic transportation had an odd effect on him, really. Sometimes he wondered if it was some kind of side effect of his “furry little problem” and then chose not to dwell on it much longer.

Remus stumbled when they landed in the Ministry, and Lily gripped his arm to help steady him. It was oddly desolate. Lily said in a soft whisper, as if she was afraid she would disturb something, that she would have thought that the defeat of Voldemort, however temporary it might be, would have been cause for massive celebration.

Not a soul was present. To tell the truth, Remus was a little glad for it. More than just a few people knew his secret now and he didn’t much like seeing revulsion destroy a person’s features, especially when it was in response to him.

They entered the elevator and Remus pressed the button, placing a firm hand on one of the handles above his head. Lily tapped her nails nervously against the railing.

Remus was hit all over again with the beautiful fact that they were alive. James, Lily, and Harry were all alive. In the course of only a few hours, he had lost all of his friends and then got them back. Fear and grief had become part of his very being, as much a part of him as the wolf. He kept wondering if it was all a dream and that he’d drunk himself into a stupor (like he had planned when he realized that the next full moon was in ten days and he would be facing it completely alone). Remus was waiting to wake up.

The elevator doors dinged and opened, revealing the wide lay out of the Minister for Magic’s floor. None of the usual security measures were in place. Remus found it rather disconcerting that he and Lily were able to walk right up to Millicent Bagnold’s office and knock on the door.

Remus had raised his fist to knock, but the door opened before he was able. A weary voice drifted to his ears, coming from a body draped over a small couch in exhaustion.

“If you’re another one come to tell me about the breaches of the International Statute of Secrecy, I will tell you exactly what I told everyone else: I reserve our inalienable right to party. A war’s just been won, if you haven’t quite noticed.”

Remus glanced at Lily to take in her reaction, and partly just remind himself that she was there and alive enough to have a reaction in the first place. She looked rather stunned for only a fraction of a second. Perhaps less.

“Actually, Minister, I’ve come to speak to you about Sirius Black.” Millicent jumped upright, her back facing her audience.

“Sirius Black? Haven’t you heard of celebrating? Why worry about him when Voldemort’s dead? He’s just lolling about in one of the interrogation rooms. All day we’ve been trying to get the bastard to spill the location of the Potter house so we can retrieve their bodies. Did you know Veritaserum doesn’t work on Secret Keepers? You’d think a man who killed twelve Muggles and ratted his closest friends out to Voldemort wouldn’t mind—” She turned around and abruptly stopped. “Oh Merlin, I’m seeing things again, aren’t I?”

Lily smiled shyly, and Remus would have laughed if Sirius’ life wasn’t hanging in the balance.

“You’re not seeing things, Minister,” Lily assured. Millicent looked to Remus for confirmation, and he nodded. Remus held a great amount of respect for Millicent Bagnold, partly because she was still well-liked by the wizarding population despite the circumstances, she fully supported the Order and kept their existence a secret from those who were less inclined, and she knew what he was and treated him no differently because of it.

“How’d you survive?” Millicent demanded, standing up and coming a bit closer.

Lily’s smile turned into a smirk that held secrets. “Magic. But really, we came to tell you the truth about Sirius.”

Millicent raised an eyebrow. “And what truth would that be?”

“Sirius wasn’t our Secret Keeper. It was Peter Pettigrew. Peter,” Remus felt a sour taste spread through his mouth as Lily spoke the name, “can be linked to more than just a few sabotaged missions in the Order.” Her expression turned dark. “Particularly the ones concerning the McKinnons and the Prewett Brothers. We’re more than certain that he cast the spell that killed the Muggles.”

Millicent observed them for a very long, careful moment. “This changes things,” she said finally. It was in that moment that Remus got a sense of how very tired Millicent looked. She wasn’t old by any means, but her face had worry lines carved like canyons. Silver threaded through her dark hair. Purple bruises lingered under her eyes and her posture was stooped. In fact, every part of her seemed to sink down a little bit, like she was Atlas and she had shrugged off the world.

Millicent spoke again. “But it doesn’t change much.”

Fear was a flower seed planted in Remus’ stomach, blooming in his throat and choking his words. He could only reap what he sowed.

Lily was looking at him.

Remus had to be logical about this. He had to think. Part of being a menace to society just for existing was being carefully controlled.

“What does it change?” He said lowly, when the flower in his throat had wilted and died.

“He gets a trial instead of a straight shot to Azkaban. Several eyewitnesses place Sirius Black at the scene with a wand to Peter Pettigrew’s throat. Nearly the whole neighborhood saw him blast Pettigrew to bits. Now, even if Sirius were set up, he’d need a damn good lawyer to get him out of a charge for twelve counts of murder. Even if Peter were the one who cast that spell, we’d need proof. Someone who was at the scene and saw it, perhaps. Hell, Peter himself would do just fine if he was alive.”

“Peter is an unregistered Animagus,” Lily blurted out. “He’s still alive. He has to be. He must have cut off his own finger, cast the spell, and transformed.”

A brilliant spark of hope flickered in Millicent Bagnold’s eyes. “Then we need to find Peter Pettigrew.” Silence fell over the three of them. “He’s a few floors down, if you wish to see him.”

****

Remus walked into the room holding Sirius first and was promptly horrified. He had helped Sirius with a more than healthy share of post-Order mission injuries before, but even that hadn’t prepared Remus for the sight before him.

Sirius was sitting on the floor and had a dirty bandage wrapped around his calf, blood saturating the fabric. His entire was body was covered in a thin sheen of sweat, his hair was greasy and matted, and the room stank of vomit. Cuts crisscrossed his face. His clothes were torn and ripped and stained with blood that might not have been his. His head lolled at an unnatural angle on his shoulders. It was impossible to tell that he was even alive, nonetheless alert.

But alert he was. “Come to kill me, Remus?” Sirius said despairingly, a manic grin spread across his face. He was watching him through his eyelashes. “I’d welcome it, you know. It’s my fault they died. I told them to use Peter and because it, our best friends and their child are dead.”

Remus searched desperately for something to say and came up with nothing. He could only say his name.

“Sirius—”

“Don’t say it, Moony. Don’t you fucking dare say it’s not my fault. Just let me die like a coward.”

“Padfoot they’re not dead—”

“I SAW THEM!” Sirius shrieked, thrashing on the ground so violently it appeared as if he were under the Cruciatus. “I SAW THEIR BODIES!”

That’s when Lily let out an audible sob, and Sirius’ eyes finally fell on her. All the fight left him.

“I’m hallucinating,” Sirius said flatly. Lily went to him and kneeled by his side, grabbing his hands in hers.

Remus fell into place beside them, gently pulling out his wand and charming new, clean bandages on Sirius’ leg.

“You’re not hallucinating,” Remus said softly.

“We’re alive, Sirius. All of us. James wanted to come down here and punch every Dementor and Ministry Official in the face to get you out.” Lily smiled and her tears mixed with it. Remus felt his own, hot and persistent, trail down his cheeks.

A dreamy, disbelieving look suddenly took over Sirius’ face. “Tell me then, Hallucination Lily and Remus, do you think I could still make the cover of Witch Weekly?”