The Life that Never Lived ? (Prisoner of Azkaban)

HERMIONE'S SECRET

The four of them felt so emotionally strained they didn't know what to do anymore. None of them made a move to stop Harry, they just wanted this done with. The only comfort they had left was that this hadn't happened yet, they still had Sirius right here with them.

Harry's hands were shaking terribly as he went for the book. He couldn't seem to get rid of that fear, that lingering something that told him Sirius was going to die. Then why had he felt so confused when Sirius had tried to comfort him about the patronus...was it possible his instinct was finally wrong? He desperately hoped so with everything in him, it was the only thing forcing his words out.

Lily made a rasping noise, like she agreed but the thought was to terrible it shouldn't have ever been put into words. She knew whoever was speaking was of course talking about Harry, but it didn't erase that implanted fear that she was soon going to have to hear about Sirius really...

James snarled, he'd never heard such a ludicrous thing in his life! He was, probably irrationally some higher reasoning tried to protest but he kicked it away, blaming Snape for this whole mess, for what happened to Sirius! If Snape had never showed up then they would have gotten out of there so much sooner, then Remus wouldn't have transformed at that time, then the rat wouldn't have gotten away! This was Snape's fault! He remembered that promise he'd made to Lily, that he wouldn't kill him until they heard everything, but as far as James was concerned this was irredeemable and that Death Eater was dying as soon as he took care of the other one. Now if only they could figure out why they couldn't leave, he really hoped Harry would remember that soon.

"The minister?" Lily muttered with the smallest pinch of hope, trying to figure out if he would have shown up just to collect a body, maybe Sirius wasn't dead yet and he had to show up because he escaped again?

"I'd roll over in my grave I'm sure," Sirius muttered, then received a very sharp pinch from Remus for that, but he didn't even bother to snap back for it this time, he was still intent on reminding them as much as possible he could still make jokes, no matter how bad.

"Probably," Remus said with just a tad of smugness, vividly remembering Sirius having scraped his head, repeatedly, against the tunnel ceiling and how he would have laughed at that any other time, he'd just been a little too distracted to really appreciate it at the time.

'Least I did something useful,' Harry couldn't help but think, still feeling he'd done more harm than good this night. If only he'd been faster and stunned Pettigrew, if he'd stayed out of Sirius' way and let him take care of the rat, instead he'd stood by and let Sirius be caught. If he'd just let Remus and Sirius kill Pettigrew when they'd had the chance they would have had a body and all the proof they needed. Harry knew better than to say anything like that out loud though, because by now he knew they would all try to defend him. Something that still felt a little foreign.

"No, no, no," Lily snarled. "Now they'll never believe a word you say!"

"They wouldn't have believed me if Snape hadn't said anything," Harry grumbled.

"There's still got to be, something-" Remus tried, but he broke himself off and instead just fell back against the couch, feeling utterly defeated. It was three kids and a werewolf's word against probably Dumbledore himself, what chance did they have? Sirius' only hope was somehow making a run for it again, and that was assuming he was even still alive!

Sirius made a 'pfft' noise. The ironic thing was Harry hadn't once wanted to 'catch' him. Oh sure he'd wanted to do some other things, but that hadn't been on the list.

Lily wanted to argue the point, but the problem was she couldn't. From Snape's point of view Harry had gone the past two years, well even this year, and gotten away with a lot, but that was because Snape couldn't see past Harry to the things he'd done. If Harry hadn't stepped in, unspeakable things could have happened. She was as proud of her son for all of those things as any mother could be, and she really wanted to shove it in Snape's face he needed to get over himself.