Up To No Good

Epilogue

1 November, 1981.

The knocking on the door to Grimmauld Place nearly made Sirius jump out of his chair; it was the heaviest knocking he'd ever heard, as if a giant had shown up at his doorstep for tea.

As it turned out, it was Rubeus Hagrid.

He hardly heard any of the words Hagrid was saying, only that there had been an attack at the Potters. No other word on it.

Sirius offered his motorbike. He didn't need it anymore--not that he'd even given it any thought, only that Hagrid would get better use out of it.

Please let me come with you, he'd asked.

But Dumbledore had given him orders to go alone. There were rumors... Nothing confirmed... he'd get back to him later.

James and Lily Potter had been murdered.

As for Harry... He'd fully expected the child would have been dead alongside them, but no. By some miracle, not anything Sirius understood, Harry was alive. The Dark Lord himself had tried to kill Harry. But he couldn't. He hadn't been able to. And as proof, the child had a lightning scar, the shape of the Curse's wand movement.

But it was more than that. When Sirius head there were three bodies discovered at Godric's Hollow, he'd feared the worst. That Harry Potter had perished along with his parents... but no. The third was Voldemort himself.

He'd been defeated... by a child?

He'd begged Dumbledore to let him take Harry, at least at first. He'd written half a dozen letters and torn them all up in succession, because deep down he knew that not only was he incapable of raising James and Lily's child, but because it was his fault they were dead, that Voldemort himself had gone after them Halloween night.

I'm going to find Peter... I'm going to find him and I'm going to kill him with my bare hands. My bare hands.

But it wasn't Peter the Ministry came for once they'd caught wind of the betrayal. No... he, Peter, and the Potters had been the only ones who'd known about the last-minute switch. He'd fought the Aurors who showed up at his door, screaming that he was innocent, that he'd rather die than betray his friends.

But the evidence was against him. Peter himself had testified to it. And so when they placed him in Azkaban, his only companion was the knowledge that he did not deserve his sentence.

And sometimes, when he was in human form and the dementors were far enough down the hall when he had half a mind, he'd scrape into the stone floor.

I hope you're safe, Harry... I will not fail you, not like I failed James and Lily.

Mischief Managed.