Harry Potter One Shots

Every Boy Should Have a Dog

All rights belong to the author, Rhapsody Belle

"James! James!" Out of breath and with a wicked stitch in his side, Sirius rounded the corner, neatly careened into the wall and tumbled to a heap on the stoop of the apartment James and Harry had been living in ever since Lily's death two weeks prior.

The door opened, spilling light onto Sirius' face. "Sirius?" he heard James say. "Good lord, man. Here."

"Peter!" Sirius croaked, picking himself up with the aid of James' outstretched hand. "You have to get out of here! Take Harry and leave! Peter's a Death Eater!"

"I know," James said with a sad little smile. "We were hoping you wouldn't find out. But now that you have..."

James raised his wand, and Sirius had one shocked moment to register the stark black ink on the inside of his best friend's forearm before the world went sickly green and then faded away.

oOoOoOoOo

Astonishingly, he woke up.

Briefly, he wondered if this was the afterlife, but he eventually decided it wasn't. He'd never been one for religion, but he was pretty sure that the afterlife eased all pain from the business of life, smoothed away all the rough spots, and renewed one in time for the Pearly Gates. Since he currently felt like he'd been trampled by a herd of erumpets, tossed into the Black Lake for the giant squid to snack on, then dragged into one of Binns' history lessons, he felt comfortable in presuming he wasn't dead.

He was fairly certain all his parts were in order, since they ached so damned much, but he quickly discovered that while he'd been unconscious someone had trussed him up like a Christmas goose, and dumped him in a rather cozy armchair, so he couldn't visually verify he was completely intact. He wiggled a little bit, trying to get his fingers loose, but whoever tied him up had a talent for knots. And he only knew one person who could tie such tight, intricate knots.

"Awake, are you?" came James' voice, as if the mere thought of him had been a summons. Light flared close enough to shine directly into Sirius' eyes. He yelped and jerked away, eyes squeezed shut against the brightness. "Sorry about that," James said, and the light dimmed down to more acceptable levels. Sirius cautiously opened his eyes, blinking them furiously to try and clear away the spots.

He was simultaneously unsurprised and supremely disappointed to find himself in the tastefully decorated living room of the apartment in Kent he'd helped James pick out after the cottage at Godric's Hollow had been destroyed. There was the extra couch he had lying around his flat and had donated to James' cause. A few boxes left to be unpacked. The Quidditch magazines scattered about, a silent wizard's radio, Harry's toys stacked untidily in one corner... Sirius' breath caught in his chest, forming an agonizing lump at the thought of his godson.

Come to think of it, where was Harry?

"He's asleep in his bedroom," James said, unnervingly. Sirius whipped his head around to glare daggers at him, but found his eyes being drawn to the brazen design carved into the flesh of James' forearm. "You always have that expression on your face when you're thinking about him, mate."

Sirius snarled, and wrenched at the ropes binding him. "What the hell, man? Since when did you follow along with pureblood bullshit? Do you go Muggle-bating too? I thought you were better than that."

"It isn't the propaganda or Death Eater hobbies that interested me," James said. "Protection for my family, that was what interested me."

"What about Lily?" he cried, still futilely struggling for his freedom. He tried to tip himself over, flailed as best he could. Really, anything he could think of to get free and wrap his hands around his captor's throat. It was easier to think of him that way, because former best mate just hurt far too bloody much to contemplate. He succeeded only in throwing himself fairly painfully out of the chair and onto the floor. Even that didn't deter him from ranting. "Voldemort killed her, James! Merlin's balls, she was your wife! Did you just stand by and let it happen?"