All the Young Dudes ( Sirius' Perspective )

The War : Autumn 1978

You are just a victim

You are just a find

Soon to be a casualty

A casualty of time

You are just a concept

You are just a dream

You’re just a reflection

Of the new regime

 

Early September

Sirius crawled out of bed slowly, careful not to wake the boy sleeping next to him. He stretched, silently, and looked back down at the sandy curls splayed across the pillow. In sleep, Remus was as peaceful as ever, lips slightly parted, chest rising and falling with his breath. Sirius had to resist the urge to lie back down, to press kisses to his forehead, his chin, his cheeks, until he came awake, blinking and yawning and smiling.

It was too early for that. And besides, Sirius had a mission.

He dressed quickly and silently, a skill he’d perfected as he’d been assigned more and more missions that kept him out late, past the time that Remus fell asleep—or, in cases like these, forced him to wake early, while the sun was still no more than a suggestion of grey light on the horizon.

It had been a strange end to the summer, a mixture of domestic mundanity (borrowing recipe books from Mrs. Potter, studying cleaning spells once the bathroom began to develop a mouldering smell, unpacking boxes, buying a lamp) and the whirlwind danger of new missions (midnight raids, advanced defensive manoeuvres, high-level guard duty).

Towards the end of July, Sirius and James had been sent with a larger group on a raid that ended in a skirmish—no serious injuries, and they had both managed to hold their own in the fight. After that, they’d found themselves thrust into the middle of the war, upgraded to higher-risk missions that were both thrilling and terrifying.

Sirius loved it. He loved the rush of it, the adrenaline that coursed through his veins in a duel, the heady rush of euphoria when he managed to stumble away from what he knew, logically, could have been a life-threatening situation, but still somehow felt unreal—like he was a boy playing soldier, and the prize for making it out unharmed was a slap on the back from Gideon and a free round at the Leaky Cauldron.

And he hated it. He hated the helpless jaw of fear that closed around his neck whenever he lost sight of James on a mission, not knowing where he was or what might have happened. He hated the resentment that he’d begun to notice in Moony’s eyes, when Sirius and James were sent off for another round of guard duty while he and Peter were still being sent to collect dead portkeys or deliver messages. He hated the relief that he felt, hated himself for hoping that Remus would never be sent on another mission like the ones with the werewolves again, even though he knew Moony was aching to prove himself, just the same as the rest of them.

It crept into their conversations, a strange, sickly tension, an argument that they both refused to have. Instead, they fought about other things—whether to get a television (Sirius didn’t want one; he’d had enough of moving pictures at Grimmauld Place) or how much time Sirius spent working on the motorbike (Remus thought that the flying charms he was perfecting were both dangerous and childish).