All the Young Dudes ( Sirius' Perspective )

The War : Autumn & Winter 1980

I sat down to my supper, ‘twas a bottle of red whisky

I said my prayers and went to bed, that’s the last they saw of me

Don’t murder me, I beg of you, don’t murder me

Please, don’t murder me

When I awoke, the Dire Wolf, six hundred pounds of sin

Was grinning at my window, all I said was come on in

Don’t murder me, I beg of you, don’t murder me

Please, don’t murder me

 

Wednesday 3rd September 1980

Seagulls screeched overhead, dipping and soaring in the grey sky. Sirius turned up the collar of his leather jacket against the cool breeze that came in off the sea, bringing the smell of salt and brine with it.

“We should come back here next summer,” he said, kicking up sand as he walked, “When it isn’t so bloody dreary out.”

Lily smiled. “That would be nice,” she squinted up at the clouds, “We could start teaching Harry to swim…”

Sirius grinned, imagining little Harry paddling about in the foam. They could build sandcastles, and chase seagulls, and sit around a campfire at night to roast marshmallows…

It was a lovely little fantasy, and he clung to it as he and Lily skulked around Broadstairs, searching for any signs of the illegal merperson poaching ring that the death eaters were supposedly running. Apparently, the aquatic beings had petitioned Dumbledore—and therefore the Order—for help, insisting that Voldemort’s followers along the southern coast were picking off lone merpeople and dragging them out of the water, carting them off for some unknown purpose.

It was just one more atrocity in the string of long, unfathomable crimes that Voldemort’s followers continued to commit. More and more often, it seemed that the Order was left scratching its head, wondering what the purpose was behind the death eaters’ actions as they continued to experiment with increasingly obscure forms of dark magic. Nobody had a clue as to what Voldemort could possibly want with merpeople—though Sirius wondered if it had anything to with the unicorn he and James had found all those months ago; if the death eaters were continuing to conduct similar experiments on magical creatures.

Things were only made more confusing by the increasing insistence on secrecy within the Order itself. As the violence worsened and more of their number were caught in the crossfire, Moody and Dumbledore began to institute new precautionary protocols, instructing everyone to avoid sharing the details of their missions even with other Order members. It was bleakly practical; if anyone was captured, they needed to limit the access to crucial information that the death eaters could obtain from a single person. As the months wore on, Sirius began to suspect that Dumbledore was likely the only member in the entire Order who actually knew for certain what everyone was up to.

In the end, their trip to Broadstairs didn’t turn up anything useful, and Sirius and Lily returned to the Potters’ house disheartened and with aching feet from hours of walking. Peter and Remus were already there, Peter bouncing little Harry on his lap and Remus curled in the armchair with a book. James was napping on the sofa, glasses askew.