The Marauders: Year One | #Wattys2016

The Terrors of Sirius Black

The Terrors of Sirius Black


Sirius was quite surprised, when they reached the Gryffindor dormitories, that Peter wasn't there. "Where do you think he's gone, then?" he asked as James knelt down at his trunk and started rooting around inside it.

"Dunno," said Remus distractedly, watching James with wide, excited eyes, eager to see the cloak.

James said, "Who cares? He needs to work on adjusting his attitude! At least we let him follow us around, rather than chasing him off, the little toad."

"He's just a bit socially awkward is all," said Remus wisely.

"Bloody jealous is what he is," replied Sirius.

"And annoying," added James, "Him and that prattling on he does – talking too much when he ought not to be – it's going to be the death of me."

Sirius laughed, "Doubt you could die from Peter talking."

James shrugged, "I'm sure I'll find a way to go about it." He was holding a little box in his hands and Remus was staring at it, about ready to combust with excitement by this point.

"Well go on then," he begged, jumping foot to foot with the excess energy, "Show us the invisibility cloak!"

James laughed and stood up, putting the box down on the bed. Sirius and Remus clustered closer, their eyes wide, looking over James's shoulders. It was just an old stationary box that James had cleaned out back home to keep the cloak safe when he wasn't using it. Nobody would ever think to look in an old stationary box for something like an invisibility cloak, so he'd figured it would be safe there. He slowly lifted the lid off and the other two leaned even closer so that they could see as the liquid-silver material came into view, resting innocuously in the bottom half the box.

"It doesn't look invisible," whispered Remus in an awed voice.

"Of course it doesn't," said Sirius, "They never do until you put them on or else how would you ever find one?"

Remus breathed, "Dunno. I suppose they would be a bit easy to lose if they were invisible."

James lifted the cloak up from the box and shook it out, the boys backing up to form a circle around the cloak as it shimmered and seemed to almost reflect the room around them. Carefully, James drew the cloak around his shoulders and disappeared before their very eyes. Sirius let out a hoot of excitement as Remus's eyes popped large in his face. "You really can go invisible!" he cried.

"Told you," came James's voice from behind them.

The boys turned 'round, following the sound of James's voice, and Sirius was laughing with a wide, amused smile on his face. "Merlin's beard!"

James tugged the cloak back off of just his head so that it seemed to be floating apart from a body and Remus's eyes nearly fell out of his head, he was so surprised at the sight of it. Sirius's laughter only grew as James wiggled his head about in a funny manner and sing-songed, "Look't me, I'm the opposite of Nearly Headless Nick – you can call me Nearly Bodiless James!"

Remus clapped his hands appreciative of the little show James was putting on, "Hilarious!" he cried, "Bloody hilarious!"

"Imagine the things we could get done with this cloak?" said Sirius, rubbing his hands together, "Imagine the pranks?"

"I'd meant to prank you before I showed you," James admitted. "It was going to be brilliant. But then Peter and his big mouth --"

"Can I have a go?" begged Remus.

"Sure," James replied, and he tugged the cloak off and handed it to Remus, who eagerly snatched it up and wrapped it around himself, disappearing. "Dad gave it to me so we could finish the map," James said to Sirius, "Not only that, but he told me a very interesting bit of information, too. Apparently back in his day, there was a rumor going 'round that the last caretaker before Filch knew all the secret passageways 'round the castle. That's how Filch is getting around. There's secret passageways all over the school... and," he added as Sirius was all but salivating at him, "There's a map, probably some place in Filch's office."

Sirius's eyes danced with glee, "We need to get our hands on that map!"

Remus pulled the cloak half off so that he looked like he'd been cut down the center and both James and Sirius started laughing. "My Dad wouldn't ever do anything as cool as this, James, your Dad must be great! Mine is too busy following all the rules, he's a real stickler for rules."

Sirius didn't say it, but he thought, Other than the one about you not attending Hogwarts, maybe. "My parents are always breaking rules," he said aloud, thinking of all the times over the summer that his mother had used illegal curses on him. "Nothing cool, though," he added quickly.

"My dad was a trouble maker in his time," James explained, "Like Bilius. In fact, I told him the Filibuster Firework story and he thought it was hilarious! Laughed about it so hard he was wheezing. I reckon giving me the cloak was Dad's way of passing on the torch."

Suddenly there came a shriek of surprise from behind them and they turned to see Peter disappearing from the half-opened door, a sack of cookies and butterbeer on the floor where he'd dropped them when he'd looked in and seen half of Remus.

James was practically crying for laughter, "His face, though, did you see his face?" he whimpered, doubled over, clutching his stomach.

"Probably scared the pants right off him," agreed Sirius.

Remus tugged the cloak the rest of the way off, laughing in spite of himself, and handed it to Sirius. "I better go get him before all of Gryffindor thinks I've been cut in half," he said, and he ran off after Peter, careful to step over the sack of treats.

That night, Sirius fell asleep thinking about all the things they were going to do with the cloak now that they had it. He'd laid awake for so long, thinking on all the adventures they'd have, that it was impossible to tell exactly when he'd gone from imagining to dreaming, but at some point he'd fallen asleep and his dreams carried on. In his dreams, though, he had used James's cloak and found the secret passageways in Hogwarts and he was exploring them, finding all these interesting tunnels and places that the passageways led to. He raced down them, his hair flopping messily 'round his eyes, always eager to find the next place that they would take him.

But then the dream took a darker turn and he found a passageway that led from Hogwarts castle to his mother's library back home at Number 12. He stepped slowly out of the doorway that had opened up behind the family tree that his mother moved so dearly. Sirius looked up at it and saw all the names she'd blasted away over the years... finally coming to his own. He touched the smoldering hole where he'd once been and felt as though he couldn't breathe. Blasted from his own family tree? He fell to his knees, his fingertips clutching the spot.

"No son of mine will be a filthy mudblood lover!" came the shrieking sound of Walburga's voice from behind and Sirius turned to see her, raving mad, her eyes bright with hatred that he recognized from all the times she'd disowned various family members for fraternizing with muggles. "Stain on the house of Black! Crucio!" She waved her wand at him and the spell hit him full in the chest and he fell to the floor, writhing in pain as she shot him with spell after spell, shouting at him, "Dog! Filthy muggle-lover! Worthless, wretched boy! Crucio! Crucio!"

He tried to crawl away, but try as he might he just couldn't and the spells just kept hitting him again and again and again and he could barely breathe and he was crying, sobbing, and he felt the hot tears on his face. "Please," he begged, "Please, don't – oh don't – don't!" Then, he finally was able to turn over and he tried to pull himself away, back into the passageway through which he'd come but there, in the doorway, stood a great big werewolf, glowering down at him with bright red, hungry eyes, his green-yellow teeth dripping with poisonous saliva, growling.

"No, please! Please stop! Please, stop!" Sirius sobbed, squeezing his eyes tightly shut, shaking and twisting and trying to get away from the curses and the wolf. "Don't, no, stop --"

And then there was a hand on his shoulder as he tossed and turned.

"No!" he cried, "No, stop, don't touch me, leave me alone!"

"Sirius!" said a voice, "Sirius!"

"No – no – no don't, don't," he begged.

"Sirius!"

The hand shook him once good and hard and he opened his eyes with a start and realized he wasn't in his mother's library at all and there were no curses striking his body and no hungry werewolf about to eat him. He was laying in bed and the hand on his shoulder was James, staring down at him with a look of great concern, his wand tip illuminated to a dull glow. Tears flooded Sirius's face and, despite how embarrassed he felt to be crying like that in front of his friend, he couldn't stop and he sat up and clutched hold of James desperate to feel some sort of friendly contact. James wrapped his free arm around Sirius, still holding aloft his wand, and petted his back. Sirius was covered in sweat and the sheets were quite damp and he was struggling to breathe he was in such a panic.

"Sirius it's alright," said James thickly, "It's okay, you're okay. Whatever it was, it was just a dream."

Sirius just couldn't stop, though, and, afraid he'd wake up the other boys, James suggested, "Why don't we go down to the common room and get a cup of tea? That'll help. C'mon." He pulled Sirius up and out of the bed, shouldering his weight as best he could, and guided him down the stairs to the common room. Once he'd deposited Sirius into the most comfortable chair in the room, James carefully stoked the fire up a bit as it was dying in the hearth.

Images of his angry mother still flooded Sirius's mind. He hugged his knees to his chest and tried to calm his racing heart and heavy breathing, trying to convince himself that it had been a dream and nothing more, but it was awfully hard to do.

"Here," James handed Sirius a cup of hot tea. "I found a house elf that's going to change your sheets, too, so they won't be all sweaty when we go back to bed." James sat down on the chair next to Sirius and stayed quiet while Sirius sipped his tea appreciatively. When the tea was nearly gone, Sirius held it in his palms and enjoyed the warmth of the fire on his feet and the feeling of James breathing beside him. He felt safer, sitting there in the common room with James, than he'd felt in quite a long time. James glanced over at him. "That must've been quite the nightmare, huh? You alright now, mate?"

Sirius nodded, putting the cup down on the coffee table before them, "I am now, mate," he said.

"Good," James said. He patted Sirius's knee and looked back at the fire.