The Marauders: Year One | #Wattys2016

Serious Sirius

Serious Sirius

"Sirius, wait!" James jogged, sloshing through the wet grass and mud, until he'd caught up with Sirius. He ran his hand through his hair as he slowed to a walk beside his mate, his fingers pushing the clingy, wet strands back from his forehead where they'd tumbled as he ran. He fell into pace beside Sirius, neither saying anything for at least a hundred paces as they neared the edge of Hagrid's vegetable patch, which he'd been working on preparing for the spring planting. Hagrid's hut puffed smoke from the chimney. They paused there, Sirius sitting on one of the large stones Hagrid had used to mark off the patch. The two boys fell into silence for quite some time.

Then, "You aren't really serious, about the Dark Lord and the Forbidden Forest, were you?" James asked.

Sirius had been looking down at his fingers and he looked up at the question. "Of course I was serious," he replied.

James took a deep breath.

"All my life, James, I've grown up hearing about how bloody brilliant Voldemort is and how my parents wanted me to follow in his footsteps and become a Death Eater. They made me believe that I couldn't be a good wizard unless I hated muggles and muggleborns and halfbreeds and bloodtraitors or anyone else who didn't think the way that they do. Well it's ruddy stupid, the lot of it, and I know more than ever now that I'm at Hogwarts how mindlessly horrible that hatred that they hold up in themselves is. But I know, too, that all it takes is the right charismatic wording and anybody can believe that stuff. I know the right person in the lead, pushing out these thoughts and beliefs, would be able to convince an awful lot of people into believing all that rubbish, too. And they shouldn't be allowed to. But if nobody does a blessed thing about stopping You-Know-Who... well, it'll not only happen but the good will be outweighed by the evil and then everyone'll be thinking that way. Next thing you know, there will be killings..." Sirius shook his head. "If Dumbledore and Moody want to overlook the truth, they ruddy well can. But I can't, James. I just can't. And if there's anything in this world that I can do to stop it happening... anything I can try, however mad it might be, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it until he's stopped. And if that means I die trying, then so be it... I don't want to be alive in a world that Lord Voldemort controls anyway. I've done that already. Done it every day of my life at Number 12, Grimmauld Place. I refuse to let it happen."

Silence fell over them again as Sirius's words sank in.

James sat down next to Sirius so they were elbow to elbow and James's trainers were side-to-side with Sirius's. After a pause to stare on at their feet together, James said, "So we all stun him at once, you say?"

Sirius looked over his shoulder at the side of James's face. "Four stunners at once should be strong enough to hold him, don't you think?"

"P'haps," James agreed, nodding. He chewed his lip, then turned so he was straddling the rock, facing Sirius. "Alright. So how do we do this?"

"We'd take the mirror into the Forbidden Forest, however far it takes to get to the edge of the Hogwarts grounds. Surely there's a map of the boundaries some place? And then -- well..." He rubbed his chin.

"Just summon him, once we're all in a formation, ready-like, yeah?" James mustered every ounce of his bravery to keep his voice steady as he could as he said it. Even talking about the Dark Lord was bringing a bit of a twist to his stomach.

Sirius nodded slowly. "It'll have to be me who does the summoning," he said.

"We could do it together," James said.