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saudadeonly · 4 years

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i loved and i loved (and i lost you)

Read on ao3. Chronologically posted second.

Death Eater! Sirius Black AU

The three times James Potter lets Sirius Black get away.

(And the one time he doesn't have to.)

Word count: 11453

___

I. December 1978

James’s breath fogs in the cold winter air as he heaves a frustrated sigh. He aims a kick at a small stone he finds particularly offensive but as it flies off and bounces on the paved ground he finds his irritation is no less present. “This is a waste of time,” he says as he crosses his arms in a vain attempt to shield himself from the biting cold. The warming charm he cast a couple hours ago has worn off and the streets around them are too crowded with Muggles for him to renew it without risking exposure.

“I wasn’t aware,” Remus says placidly from beside him. He, of course, thought to bring along a pair of gloves and a hat with a large ridiculous tassel so he’s looking positively toasty. “You hadn’t said so for the past 6 and a half minutes.”

James scowls. “Don’t be a prat.”

“Pot, kettle, black.”

James holds in a wince at the last word, fingers tightening almost unconsciously on the wand in his pocket. Chancing a glance at his friend, he finds his face equally strained for a moment before it smooths back into absent amusement, though it seems less genuine than before.

Well, if Remus won’t say anything about it, then neither will James. Absently, he notes that it’s a game they, along with Lily, Peter and another handful of Order members, have been playing since the mistress of 12 Grimmauld Place sent Peter and the two of them scampering away a couple of months ago, accompanied by a set of strong words and well-aimed jinxes. Their letters to the same address had been coming back unopened long before that.

“I just don’t see a point in patrolling here, of all places,” James grumbles in lieu of addressing a serious topic—pun not intended—and kicks another stone down the street. “It’s not a really note-worthy place, for anyone and especially not Death Eaters.”

“Moody’s orders,” Remus reminds him with the air of someone who’s done this a hundred times and tired of it, which James finds unfair, because, really, he’s only done it sixty-seven times. “We’ll just check for any abnormal activity and we’ll be on our merry way.” He bumps his shoulder against James’s. “You’ll be home before supper.”

It does little to lift James’s spirits—Lily is on duty at the headquarters until midnight, when James is supposed to relieve her so on top of having to freeze his ass off because of Moody’s bloody paranoia he’ll have to come home to a cold and empty house too.

At his petulant silence, Remus sighs. “I know this has been hard on all of us, Prongs, but really, there’s no need to be so—”

Remus’s would-be talking to is cut short by the sudden screams coming from the main square.

Sharing a reproachful look with his old friend, James dashes down the street toward the screams, pushing through the crowds who exclaim and huff at him, while Remus follows close behind, the picture of apologetic politeness compared to James’s rudeness.

They reach the main square at the same time, though, stopping side by side just in time to see a masked wizard upend an elderly woman mid-air while another five send streaks of light shooting at fleeing Muggles, laughing as the poor people topple over, helpless against their wands.

James is at a loss. He’s been an active member of the Order for the better part of six months and this is by no means his first mission, solo or otherwise, but it is the first time he has seen the Death Eaters’ cruelty in person, the way they taunt and mock their victims as they convulse on the ground.

Luckily for him, Remus seems to have his head on straight. He pulls James by the back of his overcoat until they’re both hidden in the shadows. He mutters a low incantation and a moment later, a silver streak shoots from his wand, bounding into the dark sky.

James stirs and starts for the square, but Remus stops him again, the grip on the collar of James’s robes surprisingly strong for someone so thin.

“Are you mad?” Remus demands, voice lowered to a whisper. “You want to go against six trained Dark Wizards on your own?”

James gives him a crooked smile, though it falls flat. He always used to have at least one other companion with even worse impulse control than his. “Well, not on my own, of course, Moony. I have you.”

Remus rolls his eyes, but must consider him deterred enough he releases him and uses his free hand to flick his sandy hair out of his eyes. “I’d rather not have my ears screamed off today, thanks,” he says.

One of the muggles in the square lets out a particularly blood-curdling scream and James tightens his grip on his wand.

“Moony,” he implores.

But Remus is as unaffected by his wide eyes as he has ever been. There has really ever been only one person whose eyes he isn’t immune to. He only levels him with a stern look. “We’re not good to anyone dead. It might even hurt the Order if we get captured.”

James has no good argument to that but before that can be properly obvious, there’s a streak of silver light through the night sky and a large horned owl of the same colour materialises in front of them.

“We’re on our way,” it says in Dorcas’s voice. “Do not engage until we arrive.”

“Well, too late for that,” James says, raising his wand as a dark figure splits off from their companions and slips into the dark alley, silver mask glinting in the moonlight. James curses under his breath. Talking Patronuses, while an incredibly quick and effective way to communicate with other Order members, are not very inconspicuous.

The Death Eater approaches, wand raised, and tilts their head as they examine the two of them. “Well, well, what do we have here?” they crow in a low but delighted voice. “If it isn’t baby Potter and little Lupin.” They cock their head to the side, strangely patronising even without the use of their face, and James’s fingers go white on his wand. “Here to play heroes, are you?”

“Certainly.” Remus is a picture of quiet confidence, his form perfect, his hand steady. If it weren’t for the way his eyes flick towards James just for a second, James might’ve thought him to be catching up with a Hogwarts classmate over tea. “Someone has to, if you insist on being the villain, Wilkes.”

Aidan Wilkes—for it is indeed Aidan Wilkes, James can see now, in the thin blond hair that shines green in the light of Death Eaters’ spells, and the pale scarred hand holding on to his wand—seems to not have expected to be recognised, but Remus always has been exceptionally observant. Wilkes sends his reply in the form of a purple light at James, who deflects it with a murmured “Protego.”

It gives Remus enough time to send a silent spell flying his way, but Wilkes easily dodges and takes a step back. They trade spells that way, some spoken, some wordless, and James finds his frustration returning with a vengeance when neither they nor Wilkes prevail. There’s two of them and only one of him and he thinks that the math there should be obvious.

He knows, of course, why they can’t beat the damn bastard—while they use spells hardly above the level they used for one of their more elaborate pranks back at Hogwarts, Wilkes fires curses at them that James hasn’t even heard of, much less experienced, and when one of particularly nasty ones grazes his shoulder, he finds he can hardly move his left arm.

The curses under his breath come quicker when he realises Wilkes has managed to retreat so far that one of the other Death Eaters jumps them from the left and they’re forced to dive to the ground to avoid the streak of green light.

Sharing a look with Remus, they spring back to their feet and press their backs together, spells shooting from their wands before they’re even fully balanced, James’s toward the new Death Eater and Remus’s toward Wilkes.

Now, James is a decent duellist, not the top of their Duel Club at Hogwarts—that honour belonged to the two most important people in his life—but he’s ended up walking away from his duels almost unscathed more times than his opponents have.

The problem is, the Death Eaters have obviously have come here to have fun and James has to assume that obliterating a couple of barely-out-of-Hogwarts wizards has to be more entertaining than simply suspending a few Muggles in air and laughing as they scream in terror.

They gather round Remus and James as they take notice of them, the Muggles they were tormenting only moments before falling to the ground. Their cackles of delight can be heard even over the sound of the explosion one of Wilkes’s spell causes.

“Just when I thought today was going to be boring,” one of them says and James sends a Backfiring Jinx—just to make things less boring for him—at him just as he shouts, “Flipendo!” He’s blasted back several metres, hitting the side of a tall building.

The one second James paid attention to him was one second too long—he is hit with a Knockback Jinx of his own, feeling like a giant has just punched him in the chest, and sent flying across the square. He lands on the cobblestones, the breath knocked out of him, black spots dancing in his vision.

He gasps for air and grapples for his wand with one hand, fixing his glasses with the other, but when he finally grabs onto something, it’s not the wooden handle of his wand but a hand, shrivelled and tiny, but still warm.

With horror, he looks to the side to see the elderly woman that was first to go up in the air blankly staring at him, blood trickling out the corner of her mouth.

He shakes his head—there’s no time to be horrified right now—and grabs his wand which rolled to the side to rest right next to the hip of the woman.

Once again, a bloody moment too late.

“Don’t move,” says a menacing voice above him, the end of a dark wand pointed at him.

The Death Eater standing in front of him is tall and lean, the intricate patterns on his silver mask almost beautiful. But there is something in the way he holds himself, high-strung and casual all at once, that seems almost reserved for one particular—

There are several successive cracks—James counts five—and the Death Eater is blasted to the side before he can so much as turn.

Marlene McKinnon—Merlin’s socks, he’s never been so happy to see her in his life—offers James a hand, which he gladly accepts, and gives him a stern look that seems almost as alien on her as a smile on her girlfriend. “I thought you weren’t supposed to engage.”

James gives her a sheepish look. “To be fair, they engaged us.”

Marlene doesn’t seem impressed but she shrugs it off. “I’ll let Lily and Dorcas do the lecturing,” she says instead, flashing him a lopsided smile.

She turns on her heel and sends a turquoise light toward Wilkes, who was just making a slashing motion toward Remus. Another swish of Marlene’s wand and he is out cold on the floor.

The remaining four Death Eaters seem to be reconsidering their life choices right about now as the combined strength and wrath of Marlene McKinnon, Lily Evans, Dorcas Meadowes, Frank Longbottom and Alice Fawley comes thundering down on them, along with rejuvenated Remus and James.

James stops only for a second to admire the sight of his fiancée dancing out of reach of one of the Death Eaters’ purple spell, her hair flying behind her as she sends a retaliating hex back. He smiles to himself, then plunges back into the fight, sending a Disarming Spell to divert a dark stream meant for Dorcas, who fluidly blasts her opponent back.

“Where’s your master now?” shouts Marlene at them, the taunt in her voice obvious as the Death Eaters flock together, retreating step by step. One—James thinks it’s the one that blasted himself back—even Disapparates. “Where is he now to hide you, you cowards?”

“Here I am, McKinnon,” says a voice, high and cold.

They all turn toward the source of it and James has to ask himself how it all went so horribly wrong so quickly.

A tall figure, garbed only in a set of elegant black robes and lacking shoes, stands in the middle of the square, the wand in his hand held almost loosely. His eyes are red, skin white and face almost snake-like, but despite himself James can still find something barely human in the tilt of his high cheekbones, the curve of his smiling lips.

Lord Voldemort holds out a hand to his followers, who, as if driven by some innate force, pick themselves up off the ground and drift toward their master. Even Wilkes, who should have been unconscious, gets up and joins him.

James moves a step closer to his friends, making sure to position himself directly in front of them.

Voldemort’s eyes focus on him first. “James Potter,” he drawls in his bone-chilling voice. His fingers slide along the length of his wand. “I heard quite a lot about you.”

James swallows. “All bad things, I hope,” he answers, shifting so that his useless arm isn’t exposed, his wand hand twitching in preparation to be raised. He is profoundly glad his voice doesn’t shake.

He chuckles, but the sound carries no humour. “Depends on who you ask.” His eyes flick toward the last Death Eater to join them, the one Marlene blasted away from James, his mouth curving up the tiniest bit before they focus back on James. “I must admit, I hoped the purity of your blood might lead you to me, but I see you need a bit of a stern hand.”

James opens his mouth, whether to tell him to sod off to hell, or to imply the same with his curses, but he’s already looking away from him and towards Marlene.

“Same goes for you, McKinnon,” he says, then adds with a glance at each of the Order members, “Longbottom, Fawley.”

All good, respectable pureblood families, though out of the four of them, Marlene is perhaps the furthest away from her family’s beliefs—while not outright blood supremacists, her grandparents are by no means fond of Muggles or Muggleborn, though her parents seem to counteract that with the way they adore Dorcas, a witch technically not a Muggleborn but close to it with her squib mother and Muggleborn father.

“The rest of you, of course, are not as worthy of following me as they are, but given the good things I heard about your talents, I will let you join me.”

Grave silence rules the square, no one daring to even let out a breath.

Lily slips her hand in James’s and though his fingers are still half-numb he is glad for it, trying to convey his gratitude through running his thumb over her knuckles.

“Rot in hell,” Dorcas spits, a deliberately Muggle saying, and just like that, all of their wands are pointed at the darkest wizard of all time.

James has a feeling they’ll all die tonight.

Voldemort seems unperturbed. “I thought you might be inclined that way—the old fool must have his claws deep inside you—so I brought along someone who might be more motivational than me.” He turns to the Death Eater directly on his right, the one that stood above James. “Prove to me they’re worthy.”

The Death Eater ducks into a shallow bow, his hood falling off as he straightens, revealing a shock of night-dark hair. “My Lord,” he murmurs and takes a few steps forward, still to the right of his master and nowhere near hiding him from their view. He walks with an easy sort of grace, strides even and measured, the back of his robes billowing behind him as if compelled.

Just like before, James finds something familiar in the way he moves, the way he carries himself, as if he’s made not of mortal flesh but of stars and steel, and there’s really only one family, pureblood or not, that James can think of that hold themselves like that.

And James knows, somehow, though perhaps it isn’t so strange all things considered, even before the Death Eater stops and pulls off his mask, knows and dreads and feels whose face they will see underneath that mask. And he prays, prays to every deity he knows, every god or goddess he has ever heard of that he is wrong, that it isn’t his dearest friend who is about to stand opposite of him.

His prayers go unanswered.

Sirius Black removes his mask with little dramatics. That particular flair of his seems to have been reserved for the way he grins at them, slow and crooked and so Sirius his chest cracks open, because he knows that smile, the one he’s seen millions of times before, the very same one that used to fall apart in a matter of seconds.

“Hello, James.”

Strangely enough, the first thing James notices about his friend that he hasn’t seen in roughly half a year—a hundred and sixty-eight days but who’s counting—is that his hair is much shorter than the last time he saw him, cut just above his ears, but still managing to retain its elegant wave. Sirius loved his hair—he used it as one of the many ways to drive his mother up the wall—and threatened anyone who so much as dared to tease him about cutting it with a gruesome death and James has never been convinced it was purely a joke.

The second thing that catches is eye is the prominence of his cheekbones and the hollowness of his cheeks, as if someone had sucked anything he could spare out of him. He wonders if Sirius has been eating enough, or even at all.

The third thing he registers—and really, he needs to get his priorities straight because this one is perhaps the most important—is the fact that Sirius Black, who has hated everything to do with Dark Magic since the day he met him, who has despised his family and their affiliations for much longer than that, is a Death Eater.

Someone lets out a sound that is between a choke and a sob. Marlene, James thinks. Marlene, who bleeds love and light like she was born for it, who adores Sirius above everyone else, her first ally, her first friend, who hexed Caradoc into oblivion just last week because he dared to imply Sirius had turned.

“Sirius kept some questionable beliefs when I first met him, I’ll admit,” says Voldemort, but his voice sounds far away to James, who currently has the mental capacity only to stare at Sirius. “But he has proven to be one of my most loyal servants and he is matched only by his dear cousin in terms of capability. Just proves my point of how remarkable such noble Houses are.”

A shadow passes Sirus’s face, gone quicker than James can blink and he convinces himself he must have imagined it.

“What did you do, Sirius?” Lily asks, voice as ashen as her face.

James squeezes her hand.

“What I should have done a long time ago, Lily,” Sirius says easily. “I was wrong before; this is where I’m meant to be. Serving eternally by the side of the most powerful wizard of all time.” His eyes flick toward someone behind James’s back and he can take an educated guess as to who’s standing behind him when something shifts in those grey eyes. He looks away and drawls on, “You can too. You take my hand and all that you have done against us, will be forgiven.” His hand, wandless and long-fingered, rises to stop mid-air, waiting palm-up for a clasp that James knows will never come.

Us. There was a time James was a part of that us. Now, looking into the face that is familiar and alien at once, too smooth, too cold, too impassive—for Sirius Black is a lot of things but impassive is not one of them—he finds he no longer wishes to be.

James lifts his wand higher. “Who are you?” He is terrified to see his hand tremble. “What did they do to you?”

“I’m me, James. They did nothing to me. Ask me anything and you’ll see.”

His voice is so calm, so reasonable, so very unlike Sirius James wants to throw up. He can’t speak past the lump in his throat.

“What did you do to him?” Marlene screams, wand pointed not at Sirius but at the dark figures behind him.

Voldemort throws a look at Sirius, a cruel smirk curving his lips. “Convince them or they’re dead, Black,” he says, the words barely more than a hiss. “I’m getting bored.”

Sirius’s hand shakes almost imperceptibly. “James, please,” he murmurs and James doesn’t think anyone other than Lily or him can actually hear him.

James shakes his head. “I’d rather die.”

Sirius’s face changes at once, harsh lines surrounding his mouth, a furrow between his thick brows. His hand drops, hanging limply by his side.

“So you shall,” the Dark Lord drawls. He looks to his Death Eaters, voice nothing short of bored as he orders, “Finish them.”

Alice, ever the vicious Hufflepuff, is the first one to throw a spell. It shoots right past James’s ear and heads straight for Voldemort, bathing the silver masks of his followers in red light.

He deflects it with a lazy flick of his wand, lazily prowling towards them, while the Death Eaters shoot forward. “Is that all you can manage, little Alice?”

Instinctively, James steps in front of Alice and feels more than hears the others do the same. Lily’s hand is still in his and he squeezes it.

Sirius has put his mask back on and his wand is a mere blur in the air as he sends a blue stream of light towards James, who barely manages to shout the incantation for a shield, though he can feel the shock of the hindered curse reverberate within his bones.

“You’re going to pay for that!” Lily shouts and throws a well-aimed Stinging Hex that hits Sirius straight into the chest and Merlin, James loves that woman, he adores her more than he has ever cared for anything else in his life. “Bloody traitor! Expulso!”

The stones at Sirius’s feet explode, throwing him several metres back, but he twists mid-air like a cat and manages to soften his landing with a shield charm. “Is that all you got, Evans?” he taunts, already making a circular motion with his hand.

James pulls down Lily just in time to avoid the pale light, and then they’re forced to twirl away as the Dark Lord himself starts for them, Alice now lying on the ground with a deep wound down her side.

“You are fools,” he says, brandishing his wand with a rather dainty swish. “You could’ve had everything in my service.”

“Everything but our dignity,” James mutters.

“Let’s be honest, James, you haven’t had that in years,” Sirius says and James doesn’t regret the Bat-Bogey hex he throws his way, an old reflex from their school tussles, in the slightest—but like always, Sirius is ready and gracefully dodges, laughing as he does.

“You’re on the battlefield,” he crows, then demonstrates that fact with a swish of his wand that sends Dorcas spinning in circles and then crumpling to the ground. Marlene’s face is a mask of fury, but Sirius seems oblivious as he drawls, “Act like it.”

James is forced to tear his eyes away from Marlene’s wand pointed directly at Sirius when Voldemort sends a jet of green light towards him, forcing him to jump to the side and land on the cobbled stones for the second time that night, which his tingling arm doesn’t take kindly to. Pain flares up from the tips of his fingers all the way up to his neck.

“James!”

But James doesn’t get to answer Lily, for there is another flash of green light and a number of cracks, announcing new arrivals.

“Expulso!” yells a familiar voice, deep but raspy, and James lifts his head just in time to see Sirius flail through the air along with his master and the rest of the Death Eaters.

He looks toward the sound of the voice and finds Moody standing in the middle of the square, the Prewett brothers and Benjy Fenwick behind him already firing curses at the fallen Death Eaters. Brilliant, brilliant people.

Voldemort is gone before the spells reach them.

The rest of them try to follow but most of them lost their wands and one of them, possibly Wilkes, is hit just as he grabs his, going down like a puppet with cut strings.

James ignores the pain still flaring up his arm, grabs his own wand and starts toward Sirius, who has managed to scramble away from the worst of the curses, though he seems to hold his leg precariously. His wand lies just out of his reach.

James points his own at him.

Sirius looks up at him, though James can see nothing of his face except for his eyes, which seem to almost match his silver mask. It is a beautiful thing, James can see now, intricate patterns engraved into it and he realises a beat later that they’re constellations, stories written in it, though James was pants enough at Astronomy to not recognise any of them. Black, indeed.

“Are you going to kill me, James?” he asks, hand blindly searching for his wand as he keeps their eyes locked.

“Why?” James demands in lieu of answer, hand trembling.

“I can’t answer that.”

“You—you could’ve come to us! To me!” His eyes sting but he promises himself he won’t cry. “You didn’t have to—”

“You’re right, I didn’t,” Sirius says, lifting his chin in that pureblood way of his, the way his mother did right before she hexed him so thoroughly he barely managed to get himself home. It rattles him to his bones that he can recognise Walburga Black, the epitome of hate, of everything that is wrong in this world, in his closest, dearest friend, a boy he considers—considered his brother. “I chose to.”

“Potter!” Moody barks. “Finish him!”

It’s a second James takes to glance at the grizzled Auror, but it’s enough. In his peripheral vision, he sees Sirius’s fingers close around his wand and he turns, the light shooting out his wand more of a manifestation of his anger, confusion and pain than an intended spell.

It hits bare stone, sending up a flurry of dust.

Sirius is no longer there, only a smatter of blood on the cobbles proving that he once was.

He feels arms around him then, strong gentle arms that are accompanied by a voice that he loves more than anything else in the world, and he lets himself sag against Lily as she murmurs in his ear, “You’re okay, we’re okay, we’re okay, . . .”

But as he recalls Sirus’s face, hard and ruthless, he isn’t so sure.

II. December 1979

The sun isn’t supposed to set for hours but James feels as if the warm autumn sunrays can’t reach him in the cocoon of darkness and numbness he has enclosed himself in.

The words of his parents’ oldest friend, Mrs Jowles, might as well be coming from underwater. The crowd around him, far smaller than it is supposed to be—but such is the time of war—seems blurry. His hands, clasped in front of him so tightly the knuckles are white, are trembling but he can’t muster up enough will to hold them still.

The grave in front of him is barely big enough to fit the complementary urns of his parents—the nearly frozen earth proved to be quite a challenge to dig up, even for wizards and their wands—but he thinks they might’ve liked it to stay so close together. He stares, not really seeing as the remains of their bodies are lowered into the earth, and clenches his jaw in an effort to keep the tears at bay.

It takes him a full minute to realise that Mrs Jowles has stopped speaking and is now looking at him with a mix of pity and expectancy. He wishes Lily were here. Or Remus. Or Peter. Or—he doesn’t let himself think of that last name.

He moves forward, toward the pile of dirt next to the hole. As their closest living relative, as their only living relative, it falls on him to cover them in the first layer of earth.

The tradition is to use your wand to lift and lower the soil into the ground, but that feels too detached, too formal, so James drops to his knees next to the pile, uncaring of staining his white trousers, and grabs a handful of the earth, letting it fall onto his parents’ urns. He does it again and when he reaches for the earth for the third time, he realises his shoulders are shaking.

Mrs Jowles touches his shoulder. She doesn’t say anything to him, as is customary, but he understands all the same. He stands up and walks back to his previous position, watching as people form a line to pay their respects.

Something wet and cold hits his palm and he looks down, his hand automatically going for his wand once he sees the big black dog by his side.

It’s been over a year but James would recognise Padfoot, with his dark shaggy fur and sharp grey eyes, anywhere, anytime and probably blindfolded, too. He looks as bad as James feels, his tail hanging so low it touches the muddy ground, his fur wet and clear eyes unusually downtrodden. He looks like he isn’t here to pick a fight at all.

James drops his hand from his wand. If Lily were here, she’d probably hex Padfoot and then him, and Remus would kick him bloody—James, that is. But they’re not, both sick at home, Lily from pregnancy and Remus from the full moon the previous day, so James doesn’t think of it twice.

Padfoot whines, so low it’s barely audible, and buts his head against James’s thigh gently. He waits a moment, as if preparing for James to bat him away and then, when he doesn’t, he sits back on his haunches and presses himself against James’s leg.

James runs a hand over the dog’s fur and finds that, though it’s wet, it is as soft as ever. He traces a pattern on top of his head and tugs on one of his ears, then gently slides his hand to Padfoot’s neck and holds on to the fur there. It must hurt Padfoot, the strength with which he does it, but he doesn’t let out one sound. “You’re lucky I don’t hex you,” he mutters.

Padfoot lets out a sound that’s between a growl and a whine and they both know that James’s threat is empty. He’s gripping the fur of his neck too fiercely for it not to be.

So they stand, Padfoot and James—not Padfoot and Prongs, not James and Sirius, because those people don’t exist together, not anymore—side by side, as they haven’t for ages, watching as people lower themselves to their knees and grab handfuls of earth to cover their parents.

At the very end, Padfoot whines again and starts forward. James lets him go, his fingers numb for a completely different reason now, watching as Padfoot crawls across his belly towards the grave and pushes the last of the soil over the grave.

James watches, unable to look away as the big dog, his oldest friend, his most trusted companion, noses the dirt, the expression on his face so inherently human, so damnably crushed, that James wants to scream.

A blink; then Padfoot ambles back to James’s side, graceful even as a dog, no trace of that emotion in his eyes now, and together they walk away from the grave.

Usually, a wake would be held after such an event, but in times like these, one doesn’t want to dally anywhere, much less gather in big groups for an extended period of time.

James is quite content to have his wake consist of getting drunk on cheap whiskey with Peter, who is due to return from his Order mission this evening, while Lily and Remus watch on with sad eyes and then get them safely to bed.

He glances at the dog next to him, his hands clenching into fists. Quite content, yes.

He waits until they’re far enough, until he’s heard enough cracks of disapparition he can be sure most of the people have gone and will not see him arguing with a dog, as so many of his classmates have. Then he whirls on Padfoot. “Shift,” he orders.

Padfoot doesn’t listen, like he never has. Instead, he sits and stares at him with big eyes, charmingly innocent enough that James stops to consider if this is just a stray mutt who looks eerily like his best friend’s Animagus form. He dismisses the thought as soon as Padfoot cocks his head—there’s far too much defiance in his expression to be canine.

“I’m not going to talk to you while you’re a dog.”

Padfoot lies down, putting his head on his front paws and looking up at him in a way that seems to say, Well, you’ll have to.

James pinches the bridge of his nose. “Padfoot…”

There are so many things he’d like to say to Sirius Black and not Padfoot, because for all of their foolish youth’s nicknames there is a definite line between the two. What in the name of Merlin’s pants were you thinking, for one. Or, how could you be so bloody stupid. Why did you do it. Then they turn softer, these things that James doesn’t dare think of even in the dead of the night. I miss you. Tell me you don’t hate me. Tell me it’s all an act. Come home.

The words bubble up in his chest, swirling and mixing and burning, but they refuse to come out, content to simmer until they’re acid that will claw its way up his throat. Instead, all that comes out is, “I’m sorry about Regulus.”

Padfoot’s ears perk up and he lifts his head, grey eyes suddenly much less clear. He yips, this small acknowledgement of his baby brother that splits James’s soul right down the middle.

James heard about the death of the youngest scion of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black from Moody, who made it sound like the death was a cause for celebration, the first of many bull-headed purebloods to fall, rather than a tragic loss of a boy who was barely out of Hogwarts. They hadn’t even found a body to bury, he was informed in that sharp, no-nonsense way of Moody’s. It hadn’t hit him until then, not really, how divided Sirius must be in the war.

No matter which side Sirius chose, he would end up standing opposite one of his brothers.

“I know he meant a lot to you.” James bends down and scratches behind Padfoot’s ears, where he remembers he likes it best. His heart swells and then cracks at the seams when Padfoot leans into his palm.

He pushes back to his feet. “I should go,” he says, watching as Padfoot picks himself off the ground as well. “You’re not coming with me, are you?”

Very slowly, Padfoot shakes his head.

James knew, but it still hits a part of him he didn’t even know was still within him. It tastes bitter and harsh but familiar and sweet, a word James knows all too well and doesn’t want to say out loud. He’s forgiven Sirius for a lot of things over the years, stupid and messy and cruel as they were, and he hasn’t regretted one of them. It scares him to think that he might forgive him for this too.

If Sirius wants his forgiveness at all.

He doesn’t fool himself into thinking this past hour was anything more than a momentary truce, Sirius acknowledging that he’s hurting and that he’s not going to add onto that hurt for the sake of whatever they once were—though some days, he doubts that was real, too. Or perhaps it’s for the sake of his parents, who he adored and was adored by. The next time they meet on the battlefield, neither one will hold back, he’s sure of it.

He turns and starts walking away because it somehow doesn’t feel right to simply disappear from Padfoot’s view. They’ve always had a way of poking and prodding at each other with only their actions, though it’s only ever been for fun.

He’s just about to disappear on the spot, when he hears a voice call out, “Jamie.”

That nickname—the nickname that his mother used to call him and then stopped when she realised how much it hurt him after, after, after—feels like a punch to the stomach.

He turns and finds Sirius standing where Padfoot was only moments before, his hair wild around his hollow face. His robes, dark and elegant, seem to hang off his lean frame. James wonders if that’s what he looks like, too.

A moment later, he remembers he should probably pull out his wand and his hand dives into his pocket.

But Sirius doesn’t reach for his own, though James can clearly see it’s strapped to his forearm, right over the dark brand. Instead, he shoves his hands into his pockets. “When my time comes,” he says, “mourn me.”

He vanishes into thin air just as James’s fingers close around the handle of his wand.

III. February 1980

“And remember,” Marlene says, jabbing a finger into James’s chest, “don’t start fights you can’t finish.”

“But it’s a rescue mission,” says Cyrilla Hayes before James can ask why Marlene had to point him out, her dark eyes uncertain and reproachful as only new members’ are these days.

“Exactly,” Marlene says, turning her sharp eyes on the young witch, who seems to shrink under the attention of that piercing brown gaze. People say that war hones a person, gives them an edge that later takes years to dull, but James likes to think Marlene came screaming into the world with that edge and is finally alive now that she gets to cut with it. “We don’t need other people to get caught too. You’re no use to us then.” She gives the poor girl another scrutinising look and says, “You’re with James. Podmore, with Vance. Silas, you’re with me.”

James sees Jeremy Silas, another new addition, share a look with Cyrilla, half terror, half exasperation, before she turns towards James, offering him a shy smile.

James doesn’t consider himself a war veteran, not by a long shot, but it’s astounding how he can feel the ache in his stomach, the exhaustion in his bones, both razor-sharp and ditchwater-dull, as he meets the eyes of the young witch before him. He returns her smile, though it feels thin, even to him.

“Okay,” Marlene says loudly, “does everyone know where we’re going?”

They nod.

“Good. Let’s go.”

The six of them appear on a field somewhere in the south of England. There’s nothing around them for kilometres, but for a shabby-looking barn, with a blown-off roof and more missing planks than present. It hardly looks an appropriate place for a Death Eater rendezvous point but the intel from one of Voldemort’s sympathizers tells them otherwise.

“There are three entrances,” Marlene says, voice carrying even over the wind that whips her long blonde hair about her face, covering and uncovering the patch of dark bruises along the line of her jaw. She still refuses to tell anyone where she got them and rejects any offer to have them healed. “James, take the left one, Vance the front one, we’ll take the back one.”

James salutes her and just catches the edge of her smile before she casts a disillusionment charm on herself and then Silas. He copies her, rapping his wand against the top of Wilhelmina’s head, then on himself and watches as Sturgis and Emmeline do the same.

He starts towards the left side of the barn, making sure that Cyrilla is following him. “Stay close,” he murmurs to where he thinks she is, “and save your energy for spells you really need.”

He takes her lack of response as confirmation and sends out a few prodding spells that determine what kind of spells have been cast on the barn.

They all seem to match the information the young wizard told them—the usual number of protective enchantments, a few dark curses that chill James down to his bones and a couple of jinxes—but they are also all negated by the spell the aspiring Death Eater cast on them, making them able to pass through the enchantments as easily as Voldemort himself.

The door opens with a tap of James’s wand and he slips inside, the scuff of boots on the wood telling him that Cyrilla is right behind him.

The hallway in front of them is dark, lit with blaring spheres of light that cast long looming shadows on the splintered walls. There’s a set of dark, wide doors at the far end, with golden whorls and peeling paint, light shinning through the cracks around their hinges.

James starts forward, keeping his feet light and close to the walls to make as little noise as possible, and makes sure his wand doesn’t waver.

Just as they are a meter away from the doors, a scream pierces the air, making Cyrilla let out a squeak that has him pressing a hand to her mouth and against the wall.

It takes James a few seconds to will his heart into a normal rhythm again and only then does he realise that the voice, that high, pained voice is not only screaming but begging, too.

“I don’t know, please, I don’t know any—” It breaks on the last word, barely-there sobbing replacing it.

“Finish her, Rosier,” says another voice, completely at odds with the first one—level, deep, bored. “She doesn’t know anything.”

James doesn’t see Cyrilla’s eyes, but he can guess they’re wide open and panicked by the quickness of her breath against his palm. “Are you with me?” he asks lowly.

He feels her nod against his hand, though her breath is still shaky. He wishes, not for the first time, that Lily were with him.

“Good,” he says. “Follow my lead.”

There’s another, younger voice that says, “She must know something.” There’s a crack and the woman shrieks, short and sharp. A moment of silence, then, “Crucio!”

James bursts through the door just as the woman—Wilma Hughes, an important ministry official and a witch well-known for her muggleborn pride, he can see now—starts to scream. There is no time to take a look around the room but he does manage to register the three other bodies lying haphazardly against the far wall.

“Stupefy!” he shouts and Lucius Malfoy, the only Death Eater in the room wearing a mask but easily recognisable by his long, blonde hair, raises his wand to deflect it just late enough it knocks him back a few steps.

The young Death Eater that James now recognises as Evan Rosier, just a year younger than him, attacks first, twirling his wand as he shoots a dark spell at Cyrilla, his blonde curls pasted to his forehead as he ducks Cyrilla’s retaliating curse.

There’s a third Death Eater, but James doesn’t recognise him though his pointed teeth, bared in a vicious sneer, and a long, yellow nails present an idea that James would rather not entertain. “Finally, a good meal,” he growls and pounces toward James.

He is thrown to the side by a jet of white light, landing him on the cold floor, where he lets out a sound that seems to be something between a yip and a growl.

“Good aim, Silas!” says Marlene’s disembodied voice, promptly followed by a streak of red light toward Malfoy, who, this time, does manage to send the spell hurtling toward the wall, which shatters into splinters.

“Lestrange!” he roars.

James sends a wordless spell his way, but misses when he’s forced to duck away from the grey-haired man, dancing out of his reach as he pounces on him.

“Your left, James!” Marlene shouts.

He turns just in time to put up a shield charm for a red jet of light from Rosier. James growls and slashes with his wand.

Rosier goes down, dark eyes wide as a red line appears across his belly, but not before he manages to send a badly-aimed stinging hex that hits James’s shoulder.

The third door bursts open just in time with James’s hiss, revealing an unmasked, stocky man with a shock of dark hair, holding Emmeline Vance in front of him, his wand pressed to her bleeding neck.

The movement in the room stills. Even the supposed werewolf doesn’t move.

“Drop your wands,” says Rabastan Lestrange, “or I’ll kill her.”

“Don’t,” says Emmeline, short hair soaked with blood. Her voice is slow and barely discernible. “Rescue mission.”

The werewolf, just a couple paces away from James, sniffs the air and licks his lips. “Let me have her, I’ll convince them right away.”

“Back off, Greyback,” snaps Malfoy, eyes focused on Emmeline and Lestrange.

Greyback slinks back, lips curling up in an expression James can only describe as pure hate. “Yes, sir,” he murmurs.

James takes a step forward, hands raised up but his wand still in his fingers, and finds both Lucius’s wand and Greyback’s eyes following his movement. “Rab, old chap, why don’t we talk about this rationally?” he says, voice surprisingly calm considering the situation he’s in.

Rabastan presses his wand deeper into Emmeline’s neck, drawing out a yelp from her. “Nothing to talk about,” he growls, but James can see his eyes darting around uncertainly. He’s always been a tad brighter than his brother, Rabastan, clever and uncertain where Rodolphus is more brawn than brain, and he must be coming to a conclusion that standing three against four can’t come out all that well for him, in the end.

“Look, we’ll just take what we came here for,” James says, moving one more step forward.

“Potter,” Marlene warns just as Rabastan slinks one step back, dragging Emmeline with him.

He ignores her. “You give us the prisoners—they’re of no use to you, really—and we won’t drag you to Azkaban for it,” he says instead, to Rabastan.

“Certainly,” Lucius sneers, grey eyes narrowed as they slide from James to Rabastan. “Kill her, they’re obviously not interested in keeping her alive.”

“No!” shouts Sturgis as he enters the room, a dark-haired man shuffling in front of him. His wand is pressed just below the man’s jawline, another, darker one tucked behind his ear, while he holds the man’s hand behind him. “You kill her, I’ll kill him.”

“Thanks for the heads-up, Rab,” drawls the man and James would recognise him by voice alone, even if he didn’t raise his head and reveal a face he knows all too well. “Really, a simple ‘Hey, Sirius, intruders,’ would’ve done the trick. Wouldn’t have even had to use verbs.” He blows a stray strand of his hair, shorter again by now, out of his eyes and manages to look down on Rabastan even with his hands pulled back. “Tosser,” he mutters.

“You should’ve paid more attention,” Lucius says, unimpressed. “Shouldn’t have let your guard down.”

“You told me you had everything handled,” Sirius growls. His flashing eyes find Cyrilla’s, who seems to be torn between vomiting and fainting. “Hex him,” he says and James recognises the dryness of his voice, the thinly-veiled contempt behind the words.

Cyrilla looks to James, who shakes his head at her imperceptibly.

Not yet, he mouths.

“Kill him, if you want,” Lucius drawls, mouth curving up at the glare Sirius shoots his way. It’s not hard to see parts of his old friend in that defiant look. “I don’t care much for him.”

“The Dark Lord does,” Rabastan says, biting the inside of his cheek. James can see his wand slowly dropping from Emmeline’s neck. He must be redoing his calculations.

James looks at Marlene, her disillusionment charm, like all the others’, long gone by now, who mouths a spell at him. He’s accustomed to the silent communication by now, understands it as he understands so very few things these days, so he nods and nudges Cyrilla, whispering to her, “Follow my lead.”

“Let her go,” Podmore says, voice low, as his blue eyes stare at Rabastan.

Rabastan flexes his fingers in Emmeline’s hair, eyes on Lucius. “He will be displeased—”

“Now!” Marlene shouts, a blue light already flying from her wand, Silas, James and Cyrilla’s following only moments later.

It’s impossible to tell which spell is whose but they all manage to do damage of some kind. They blow up the floor in front of the unmoving bodies, the door just behind Rabastan and one of them even manages to hit Malfoy’s hair before he can dodge fully, singeing a good part of it off.

James sees Rabastan let go of Emmeline, who stumbles forward, only half conscious, but Podmore, pushing Sirius away forcefully enough he falls down, catches her just before she hits the ground.

Podmore’s eyes catch James’s, wide and panicked, and James shouts over the sound of shooting spells.

“Go, go!”

Podmore doesn’t need further encouragement. Shooting one last spell at Malfoy, he whirls on the spot, Emmeline in his arms, and disappears.

He’s not the only one to do so. Rabastan must have decided he prefers his head intact and is gone with a crack and a swirl of dark robes, followed by Malfoy, who at least manages to get in a couple of good curses before he disapparates.

“Son of a banshee.” Sirius is lying on the floor, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Cowards,” he shouts toward the space where the other two Death Eaters previously were. “Bloody cowards!”

James raises his wand to stun him, but is forced to aim it at Greyback, when he launches himself at him. The spell hits, weak and poorly-aimed as it was, but Greyback seems to be affected only for a moment, then shakes it off and lands on James, knocking his glasses off his face.

They go tumbling back on the floor, Greyback snapping his teeth, sharper and longer than a human’s should be, as James tries to keep him at arm’s length. His yellow nails try to scrape at him, and James remembers how careful Remus has always been with them, taking care not to scratch—less often bite—them deep enough to draw blood for fear of infecting them with even a fraction of his curse.

“Petrificus Totalus!” he shouts and Greyback falls back, unmoving except for his sharp eyes trying to convey his hatred for James through sheer force of will.

James grapples for his glasses and shoves them back on just in time to see Silas disappear with two of the unconscious wizards, Marlene following just a few seconds later after she’s levitated Wilma Hughes and the third wizard close enough to be able to touch them both. Cyrilla is standing above Rosier, wand pointed at him as she starts murmuring an incantation. He can barely hear the start of the spell on her lips—

“No!” It’s Sirius who shouts, which stands to reason, since he’s the only one still able to, and careens right into Cyrilla a split second before she’s finished the spell. The thick ropes she conjured up fall just a few centimetres away from Rosier.

Sirius lands in front of Rosier, his knees making a sound impact on the creaking planks, and throws his hands out, hair a mess, eyes a storm as he looks up at Cyrilla. He’s wandless, his wand lying just in front of the door, where Podmore must have dropped it, but that doesn’t seem to stop him from saying in a low, dark voice, “You’ll have to go through me.”

“Stupefy!” James shouts, slashing his wand downward, but Sirius is just as fast.

“Protego!” he says, so forcefully James is knocked back by the mere throwback of his own spell.

James sees Cyrilla send another stunning spell towards Sirius but, just like James’s, it bounces off his shield and hits the wall next to the door James and Cyrilla came through.

He stands up and walks toward the two of them. He can see up close the blood trickling out the side of Sirius’s mouth and the ring of bruises on his collarbone, far too dark to have been dealt to him today. Then the thin scar right along his cheekbone, stark even against his fair skin, and James wonders if it was Walburga who dealt it to him, or someone else entirely.

Sirius keeps his eyes on Cyrilla’s wand, still pointed right at him, although he does glance at James when he stops beside her. The right sleeve of his robes is torn, revealing the long red gash down his forearm, his hair is a mess and he looks as pale as a sheet, but still, there’s nothing but defiance in his eyes when their gazes meet.

“Stand aside, Sirius,” James says, calmly levelling his wand at him.

Sirius is still a large wound on his heart, not quite open anymore, but festering still, full of anguish and rage and something James can’t put a name to, but it’s been long enough that he has dealt with it in the best way he could—which is to say, not at all—and is ready to do what it takes to not let this end the way all their other meetings in the past two years have ended.

“No.”

James gives him no further warning. This time, his spell is silent, only a quick slash of his wand through the air.

Still, Sirius is prepared. “Protego!” he shouts again and his shield reflects red as James’s spell hits it. Cyrilla’s follows only a second later, but it doesn’t do any damage either.

Sirius’s face pales by the second, mouth pressed tightly together, a crease between his brows as he concentrates on warding off the spells that they shoot at him. He deflects each one. It’s only been a minute when he says, “You’ll have to use an Unforgivable.”

James stills. Cyrilla, her face drained of colour, does too.

“You won’t get through this, not before Evan wakes up, or Greyback frees himself, or someone comes looking for us, with these amateur spells.” His eyes are dark, darker than James has ever seen them, malice written in the corners of his mouth when they turn up and James thinks, what happened to you, what happened, whathappened. “You’ll have to use an Unforgivable.”

James’s mouth is dry. His hand, the one holding his wand, lowers just a bit.

Sirius tilts his head. “Have you ever done that, James?” he asks, voice a low drawl, the one Peter used to call a part of his pureblood mask. Doesn’t seem like it was a mask, after all. “Used an Unforgivable on someone?” He chuckles, low in a way that sends shivers up James’s spine. “You have to really mean it, you know. To control, to torture,” he says, “to kill.”

“Shut up,” James says.

“James,” says Cyrilla.

James closes his eyes. He wishes Lily were here, he does, more than he has ever wished for anything. She’s the only one that can build back up what Sirius so carelessly tears down.

“Steady hand, James,” Sirius crows. “Make your parents proud.”

Bile rises in James’s throat, unbidden and bitter, clawing and tearing, and James hates him, he hates him with every bone in his body, with every beat of his heart, with every breath he takes, he hates him, he hates him, he hates him.

Except, he doesn’t. Not really.

But Sirius always has known how precisely to get to him.

“Shut up!” he roars, wand trembling as he points it back at him.

There was a time Sirius would flinch when people yelled at him all of a sudden. He would draw back and his eyes would shutter for a few seconds, dark and distant. Only minutes later, he would act as if nothing had happened. They learned with time to not yell, but to speak in even tones, even when they were furious with him. No one ever asked him why he flinched, but they could all guess. He never did manage to convince them entirely that his home life was only a few and far between arguments with his parents.

Sirius doesn’t flinch now, only looks at him. There is something in his eyes, something beyond the humour and offence that James recognises as a part of his dear friend, softer and perhaps almost human. “Go home, James,” he says and there is none of the previous mocking in his voice now. He sounds, above all, tired. “Your wife is waiting.”

“James, we can’t—”

Cyrilla is cut off when Sirius hits the floor with the flat of his palm and shouts, “Expulso!” which cracks the wooden planks and sends up splinters of them flying up in the air. Sirius shouts something else, sounding suspiciously close to a summoning charm, but James doesn’t have the time to dwell on it—the old barn seems to have taken one spell too many today, despite how weak the last one was, and it starts collapsing in on itself, the horrendous cracks along the wooden planks almost in sync with James’s frantic heartbeat.

He grabs Cyrilla’s hand and disappears on the spot just a second after he’s heard the crack of disapparition in front of him.

The sound of the roof hitting the ground follows him, echoing in his ears, even after his knees have landed on the carpeted floor of the Order Headquarters.

*********

I. March 1983

Dodging what James is sure is a horribly dark curse from who he is pretty sure is Mulciber, he is painfully aware that he’s losing the battle, not to mention the war has probably already been lost, too.

The spell hits the stone behind him, a large chunk of which explodes into dust, showering down on James and probably turning his hair a charming example of salt-and-pepper.

Well. At least it’s a lovely day to be meeting imminent death. The birds outside aren’t chirping—even they, he supposes, are not dumb enough to come near this, which, on the other hand, says a lot about him—but at least the sun is shinning and it’s unusually warm for this time of year, so, really, James has no complaints.

He wasn’t expecting to reach twenty-three, anyway.

He fires off a spell at Mulciber, who deflects it easily and retaliates quicker than James can even think of producing a shield charm. The curse that just grazes his neck, sending a sharp stab of pain up to his brain, is a stark reminder how out of practice he is. But people tend to get lazy when they’re forced into hiding for over two years.

“Bloody bastards,” Dorcas mutters beside him and really, it’s only thanks to her, Marlene, and Gideon that James still has not only all his limbs but also his head attached to his body. Her spell hits Amycus Carrow, his mask knocked off his face a few spells back, making blood gush out his nose in a torrent.

He presses his hand to staunch the bleeding but it’s only a matter of seconds before the blood seeps through his fingers.

James doesn’t have time to see what happens to him because Alecto Carrow jumps in her brother’s space, jumping not toward Dorcas but James and he’s forced to dodge once again when she sends a green light his way.

“Alecto!” Amycus growls, looking like something out of one of those horror films Lily so adores with the blood having surrounded his mouth and now running down his chin. “We’re not allowed to kill him! The Dark Lord wants him alive!”

“Shame,” Alecto says with a pout and sends a purple light James’s way.

Diverting it towards a particularly ugly tapestry on his right, he asks his companions, “Any ideas on how to get rid of these losers?”

Gideon inflicts a gash on Dolohov’s chest before he answers, “None. There’s too much of them.”

James copies his movement on Alecto, but she dodges, quick as a snake, snickering up until the point he shoots off a spell that has her stumbling several metres back. He wants to finish it off with a stunning spell but she dodges and here they go again.

Marlene’s wand is a blur as she swings it so quickly her opponent, Rodolphus Lestrange himself, is suspended mid-air and then forcibly thrown into the wall behind him. At least she is not out of practice, even if the blood gushing from her forehead down the side of her face tells a slightly different story.

“We need to distract them,” she says, pushing back her blood-matted hair while already taking on the once again able, if a bit unsteady on his own feet, Amycus Carrow.

How exactly that was to be executed remains a mystery to James because he feels, before he sees, the approach of cloaked and hooded figures drifting down the hallway, just a few centimetres off the ground. They turn towards them, as if beckoned, moving now quicker, quicker, quicker.

The cold that seeps into his bones, that sinks into his soul, is not an unfamiliar experience but it has been a long, long time since he last felt it. His lungs can’t take in air anymore, the breath in them frozen, and as he lifts his wand to say a spell, any spell, his arm seems to be made of lead, and all he can remember is his parents’ urns lowered into the ground, Sirius’s impassive face, the dark brand on his forearm, Peter’s screams as he begs and begs not to be taken, Lily’s tear-streaked cheeks as she sobs and heaves until there’s nothing left in her anymore.

He tries to push it away, to think of Lily walking down the aisle toward him, as radiant as the sun when she beams, red hair like a fiery crown.

“Expecto patronum,” he says. A wisp of silver-blue light streams out his wand, but it’s blown away before James can even take a breath. He’ll die, oh Merlin, he’ll die, or maybe something worse, and he’ll leave everyone he’s ever loved behind.

He failed. He failed Lily and Harry and—

Harry. Harry. He thinks of Harry, of his dark mess of hair, of his bright green eyes, everything he’s ever loved, cherished, adored. Harry, roaring with laughter as he zooms around on his broom, squishing the cat to his chest, shrieking with joy as he sits atop James’s shoulders. Harry, reaching up to him to be snuggled, grabbing up after puffs of smoke from James’s wand, curled tightly against Lily’s chest and dozing off.

“Expecto patronum.”

The light looks like something now, almost, almost, but someone laughs, low and cackling, and it’s gone, this thing that gave him reprieve, that reminded him he should fight.

Should he fight?

“Expecto patronum,” someone says—it might be Dorcas, or Marlene, although probably not Gideon—but their voice is just as weak as he feels and what might have been a bird disperses.

“Take them,” says a harsh voice.

The creature is in front of him, leaning his face up to its own, or to where it might have a face, and James’s fingers loosen around his wand. His mind is no longer trying to conjure up Lily or Harry or Remus. Instead, it’s Remus’s thin body with deep gouges down his back, his sides, his legs; it’s Lily’s motionless body, hair fanned out around her face as blood runs down her face; it’s Harry screaming and sobbing, green eyes full of tears; it’s all he has ever feared.

A bright form slams into the Dementor in front of him, sharp teeth digging into the creature’s neck and throwing it away from him with such force it knocks aside several of its companions.

James blinks, feeling the warmth it radiates even from so far away, and sees the Patronus clearly only for a moment before it bounces ahead and pulls the Dementors off Marlene, Dorcas, Gideon, throwing them aside as if they are nothing more than mist. It’s large and lean, four-legged, with a long snout and pricked ears, and a thick tail, and James thinks, Moony.

Marlene whoops, weak and barely-there, but it might be the best sound James has heard all day.

“What the—” starts Dolohov, but he’s blasted back against the wall right next to Lestrange, along with the Carrows and Mulciber. They’re levitating in the air, all five of them, only a moment later, and are viciously bounced up and down, from ceiling to floor—James thinks their impact on the stone is a sound he will not forget for a long, long time, because he can physically hear their bones fracturing—exactly three times before they land in a heap of limbs and groans right next to a griffin gargoyle.

“Dear me,” says a deep, muffled voice as a new figure strolls into the hallway, his wand raised in front of him. He’s dressed in dark robes, tailored to his tall, lean form exactly, his hood drawn up just enough to reveal a sliver of night-dark hair. The Patronus, having successfully driven away all dementors, bounds toward him, wrapping around his knees and revealing his teeth in a canine smile that James hasn’t seen in many, many years, however familiar it is. Its blue-silver light illuminates the newcomer’s face—or rather, his mask, but James recognises the constellations, the moon engraved into that mask, too. “I didn’t mean to be quite so gentle with them.” He flicks his wand and the gargoyle tumbles over the limp Death Eaters with a high-pitched whoop.

None of them so much as groan.

“I’ve wanted to do that for ages,” Sirius says and pulls off his mask, his grin a sharp glint of teeth. Padfoot at his feet disperses as he takes a step forward, depositing his wand back into his holster, and offers James a hand. “Come on, Jamie, up and at ‘em.”

James looks at the hand in front of him, palm up, long fingers slightly crooked, and thinks back to the last time Sirius offered him a hand. It’s been years, years since that fateful night James’s world came crashing down around him and a part of him thinks that he shouldn’t take it now either. Not just because Sirius helped them now, once. It could all be a trick.

But it hasn’t been the only time Sirius has helped them, has it?

So James meets Sirius’s eyes and takes his hand. He lets him pull him up and into his arms, his own coming up to fist in the back of Sirius’s robes, as dark and elegant as ever. He smells faintly of dust and smoke, but underneath it there’s menthol and wet dog and somehow, despite all the years, all the hate, despite everything, really, that still makes him feel like he’s finally, finally home.

“I didn’t doubt you for a second,” he says into Sirius’s shoulder.

Sirius’s snort of laughter is familiar and alien at once, sharp and bark-like, but more subdued, too, as if he isn’t quite used to it anymore; that’s alright. James can reintroduce him again. He’s done it before. Sirius's fingers on the nape of his neck tighten. “I sure hope you did.”

#harry potter #sirius black #james potter #post hogwarts #first war with voldemort #lily evans #remus lupin #death eater sirius black #not really #but technically #marlene mckinnon #dorcas meadowes #ocs #in a world three degrees north

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futurewriter2000 · 5 years

Text

Thieves - pt. 2

A/N: I love this. I don’t know why. I just do. I wantd to write it sooner but my computer is dead so I am pleading my dear older sister to borrow hers. And also the fact that I watched the whole Anne Wih an E AND IT IS SO DAMN GOOD AND CUTE AND OMG I SHIP EVERYBODY SO BAD!

You could say that without your sister’s book, you had to do everything the hard way, which was indeed....hard to do. You sat on the edge of your bed with your small cup of coffee inbetween your hands and sitting on your knees.

You were so tired. Merlin, so bloody exhausted that you almost fell asleep sitting up. The stupid bloody thing was that the pile of your books were still in front of you, neatly laid one on the other and untouched.

The test is tomorrow and what do you do? Stare. At. Nothingness.

“I hate this.” you say and your roommate who has been behind books for the last three days smiled.

“You haven’t even tried.”

“Because I can't." you snapped at her with an ugly glare and as she tried to scold and shout, you just didn't let her." I can't! I'm tired! I should be going to Hogsmeade! - You know what! Fuck it! I'm going. " you got on your feet and started changing.

"You are the most careless and irresposnible person I know." she rolled her eyes.

You stopped where you stood, turning around slowly and raising your eyebrow at her. "Thank you." your upper lip twitched, intimidating your roommate and smirking as you took the last bit of clothing from your warderobe.

“When did you get this jacket?” she asked, quirking her eyebrow.

You let your hair fall on the jacket and with a twirl you smiled mischiviously at her.

“Don’t know. “ you winked and left through the door.

This was your new style. You’ve been pondering what to wear with this jacket for at least the whole time you should have been studying. You were thinking since it was a bit oversized, black and leather it would end up nice with some black jeans, your new black heel-boots and yellow top.

It was autumn, you wanted to feel it, breathe it, live it.

You ran upfront, wanting to catch up with that specific Ravenclaw who was dressed as it was the wicked winter of the south pole. He hated the cold. You were close to wrap your arm around his and say something teasing, as you always did to him, but there was a grasp on your own arm that caused your attention to turn away from the Ravenclaw.

“I like the jacket. Is it new?” he pulled you in a slow pace, his eyes looking distantly in front.

You rolled your eyes and walked alongside him. “It is. You fancy it?”

“I might, yes.” he continued to stare yet you could see his jaw clenching. “Might I ask where have you got it from?”

“Hmm..” you wondered at the sky. “It doesn’t come to mind right now.”

He stepped in front of you, just before you were both about to enter the treshold of Hogsmeade. His lips were in a smile yet his eyes were telling a different kind of story that just made you feel some sort of satisfaction over your own little theft.

“You give it back to me right now, Bee and no harm will be done.”

“Bee?” you let out a snort of laughter.

“Tiny and unpredictable.” he grinned and let out a hand. “Now come, on. Give it back.”

“Give what back?” you dug your palms in the jacket pocket and took a few steps back.

He bit his lower lip. This wasn’t just any jacket of his. This was his jacket. That was the jacket James gave it to him on his 16th birthday. This was the jacket- the everything to Sirius and more. He didn’t want for anybody else to wear it.

But then again, you book was special too. To you it wasn’t just your sister’s book of every cheat for suceeding in Hogwarts but it was so much more to you as well. You just couldn’t let it be taken from you. You didn’t want for anybody else to have it.

“Give it back.” he grumbled.

“Give what back?” you continued to test him.

“You know what I want.” he was now a step too close.

“And you know what I want.” you stared up at those blazing eyes.

“It’s just a book, (y/l/n)! It’s got everything inside. How can you be so bloody selfish and petty about it!” he snapped and tried to reach for the jacket.

“It’s not just a book, Black! At least not to me! You give it back to me and I’ll make sure this jacket will come back to you safe and sound but until then, you take yourself a step back before your dick pays the consequences.”

He stared down on you. He wanted to grab it, he truly wanted to tore that jacket off you but- no. That wasn’t him.

“Fine.” he lifted his hands above his shoulders and took a step back. “The book for the jacket. Fair and square.”

“That was all I asked for.” you kept your eyes locked with his, backing away slowly. “Tonight after Hogsmeade.”

“Tonight then it is.”

---

Sirius sprinted into the room like his life depended on it. He went straight for the night stand but felt himself grow more nervous when the book wasn’t there. He dug his hands under the pillow, under the bed sheet, lifting the matress, under the bed-

“You alright there, mate?” James peeked up from his own book and continued to stare at his friend with confusion.

“Where is it?” Sirius was now desperately throwing out his warderobe, clothing after clothing.

“How was Hogsmeade?” James put down the book and had now plain attention on Sirius.

“Tragical without my best mate.” Sirius flashed him a smile before running back to his bed and turning the matress over and over again.

“As flattered as I am, how come I still don’t know what on earth are you looking for?”

Sirius stopped and turned to him with wide, confused eyes. “Uh- book.” he stood and stared at James. “You know...the-the book that I stole from Bee.”

“Bee?” James laughed and leaned back on his pillow. “You know she only will hate you more if you provoke her like that.”

Sirius grinned and winked at his best friend. “Hate is an overrated word to use for it.” he went back to his night stand. “Have you-” he popped his head up so James could see him. “- seen the book?”

“Not a clue of where you put it. You guarded it like it was gold.”

“What do you mean not a clue? It had to be here!”

“Maybe Moony-”

“Moony what?” Remus walked in with a smile and walked to his side of the room. He looked over to the wrecked side of the dorm and let out a giggle. “Missing something Sirius?”

Sirius’ head popped back up. “What gave you that idea, Moony?” Sirius was now blowing off the strands of his locks that fell before his eyes.

“Must have been the wind whispering to me.” Remus teased.

“MuST haVE BEEn the wINd whispERING to mE.” Sirius mocked and started to pull the drawers out of the night stand. “Seriously, Moony, have you seen the book.”

“Haven’t got a clue, mate.” Remus laid back on his pillow and closed his eyes.

Sirius was now lying on the floor with his arms spread above him and his legs below. “She is literally going to murder me.” he stared at the ceiling while James and Remus exchanged a glance and started laughing.

---

You waited for Sirius for about fifteen minutes now. You couldn’t figure out what took him so long. The jacket was wrapped around your arms and you kept it tight and close. However, the more you waited the colder it got so you looked down on the jacket and wrapped it back around your body. It covered you nicely, warm and it smelled so wonderful. Till now you didn’t even appreciate the warmth, feeling and the smell of it. The leather was so nice to brush your fingers on it. There was a hole on the inside of the jacket and that led your eyes to fall on the inner pocket. You furrowed your eyebrows at it and let your curiousity get the better of you. You reached in and pulled out a silver ring. It was wonderful to look at it, truly. What got most of your attention was the shimmering engraving on the inside.

‘Toujours Pur’

“Always pure.” you mumbled under your breath.

“OI!” someone put their hands on your shoulder and gently leaned themselves over.

You jumped scared, letting the ring fall on the ground and roll away. “Fuck!” you didn’t even turn around to see who it was, just dived right into it. Your hands spread around and around but it wasn’t until you turned around and see it lying at his feet.

He leaned down to pick it up, a simper on his lips.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to- I mean it’s just that-”

He smiled and offered you a hand. “It’s alright.” he said after you reached out and let him lift you. “Wouldn’t mind losing this.” he looked down at it but quickly put it away in his pocked.

You looked at his hands, hips- “No book.” you crossed your arms in front of your chest meanwhile a smirk played on your lips.

“Yeah...about that.” he took a deep breath in and swayed on his feet.

“You do know the test is tomorrow?” you stood where his eyes could reach you.

He squeezed his eyes shut and grit his teeth. “I do and well-”

“Guess you won’t be needing this.” you tugged the jacket around your waist and started walking away.

“Bee- darling-” he quickly stepped in front of you “-honeey.” he spoke sweetly, letting the name drag on his tongue.

“Honey?” you quirked an eyebrow.

“Bees do love their honey.” he tried to ease the tension meanwhile you only let yourself stare. “Okay. fine. I lost the book, alright.”

“You did now?” you spoke surprisingly calm.

He narrowed his eyes, confused? Relieved? “Yees??”

“Well...” you started taking off the jacket and giving it back to him. “I was growing very fond of this jacket.” you started so grin at the handsomely, confused boy.

“But- your book?” he continued to tense the skin between his eyebrows.

“You sure it didn’t get stolen?” you beamed and winked at him yet he couldn’t quite figure it out, which only made it more amusing to you.

He watched you disappear into the dark, his eyebrows still knitted together and his mind still processing the information. He looked down on his jacket, back up at you, turned around, turned back around and finally: “She stole the book back!”

#Sirius Black #sirius black x reader #sirius black imagine #Marauders #the marauders #marauders era #marauders x reader

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teenremus · 5 years

Text

meeting sirius black / asking you out would include...

a/n: idk why i’m having so much trouble writing lmao oopsies it’s been a hot minute. i’ve had 0 motivation for 0 reason anyway here u go request something pls :)

gryffindor!reader

- he had his eye on you since the sorting hat ceremony

- he thought you were. so cute. and you being placed in the same house was him was just all the better

- while he had had interest, he didn't see you much after that first day and forgot about you

- until fifth year

- you were in the same potions class

- of course, it had been a while

- it wasn't until the middle of first term when he recognized you

- after dicking around with remus in the back of the class, the two of them were separated

- and your usual partner, severus, had gotten replaced

- you didn’t really know severus, besides the snide comments you’d received from him on more than one occasion

- but you weren’t too ecstatic about sirius either

- you prepared yourself for the most excruciating annoyance for a lifetime

- but it wasn’t that bad ??? surprise surprise

- it took a moment for him to piece together where he knew you from

- but when he placed it, he smirked to himself, although you didn’t seem too keen on talking to him with your head in a textbook

- he found it uncomfortably silent

- “i’m sirius, love.”

- “y/n.” you didn’t look up

- “love sounds better.”

- you hated that you blushed, but you did

- you told yourself it was just some pickup line

- but he had genuine interest in you

- it showed every day

- he’d keep talking to you

- and you started to warm up to him more and more

- not only metaphorically, but physically

- his constant compliments made your stomach do jumping jacks

- remus sat behind you during all that time

- and was getting increasingly annoyed at the slow burn

- “you going to ask her out, mate, or are you sitting around waiting for someone else to?”

- “oh, piss off, moony”

- that made him nervous though

- and he started to notice the lingering gazes from some ravenclaw fellow in your class

- when he watched him graze your hand to reach a jar of dried bat wings, he was fed up he got jealous a little too easily

- when you came back with the jars of ingredients, he spoke immediately

- “what do you think about going out with me?”

- “pardon me?”

- “what would you think of you and me getting together?”

- “i think it would be nice”

- “good”

- “so are you asking me or not, wanker?”

- “well, yeah. i thought that was clear enough.”

slytherin!reader

- you knew who sirius was

- of course you knew who sirius was

- the blood trailer your house mates had shit talked into oblivion

- and while you weren't a believer that he was a blood traitor, you did believe he was complete and utter arse

- you'd been witness of him every day leaning against one of the doors to the great hall, with a different girl

- when quidditch season started up, you had joined the team

- and after an interaction on a training field, you had learned he was on his team as well

- it was a screaming match between your team captain and his

- you had to diffuse the situation

- “michael, come on, we still have time later. we don’t have a match for a few weeks. let it go.”

- you quite literally had to pull him away

- you made eye contact with sirius and james as you turned him away, and did your best to ignore the arrogant smirks that blanketed their thankfulness

- you saw him up close again at the match against gryffindor, standing across from each other and not breaking eye contact as the ref read out the rules

- once in the air, the game had been going swimmingly

- gryffindor - 7, slytherin - 10

- the game had traveled up farther in the sky with each point gained, the crowd could barely see you anymore with the amount of clouds

- it was a struggle in getting the quaffle

- “woah! guys, look out!” someone screamed

- you stopped your broom in its place and looked to see that everyone else had done the same, and you wondered what was going on

- you looked up, and saw somebody falling

- “holy shit, that’s sirius!” it was another gryffindor you couldn’t place

- no one was making any moves to save him, some continuing on with the game and snatching quaffles again— he kept falling

- “ah, bloody hell”

- you dropped the quaffle that had been tucked under your arm and quickened your broom’s pace as you dove down to catch him

- he was just beneath your grasp, your fingers barely touching his uniform

- when you finally got ahold of the fabric, he almost pulled you down with him

- you moved your grip to his forearm instead, and stopped your broom from diving down any further, or in just a few seconds you’d end up hitting the ground

- you were sure he’d be passed out

- but apparently not

- he brushed his hair out of his face with his free hand, then held onto the broom as he looked up

- “seems ive fallen for you, y/n.”

- “that is,,, absurdly lame, sirius.”

ravenclaw!reader

- it was through detention, of course

- you’d never noticed him because you’d been sleeping

- but he knew you

- or at least, he knew of you

- he thought you were so beautiful and he truly wondered how you kept getting into detention like this

- but he wasn’t complaining

- he rarely saw you outside of whatever classroom confined the two of you, so he knew what you were doing wasn’t as much of a spectacle as his pranks were

- could’ve been cheating, he considered

- but you were a ravenclaw, he figured it was doubtful

- sirius has never spoken a word to you, by the time he had reached detention each day you were already asleep. when it was time to leave, you were one of the first to escape

- until detention was held by professor binns

- he took wands, homework, any sources of happiness or busy work for the students to do

- including sleeping

- he wanted you to suffer in boring, magic-less silence with nothing to do but stare at the walls

- sirius was not having it

- when he got bored, he got really annoying

- he just kept asking questions

- “what’s the capital of the moon?”

- “do you reckon dumbledore keeps quills in his beard? as well as all the crumbs, of course.”

- it went on

- the continuous detentions was worth seeing you smile, even if it was beneath your hand

- you wondered if this was what you were missing out on all the times you slept

- when sirius wasn’t looking at you, you were looking at him, taking in his features

- he had almost caught you

- james definitely caught you

- but didn’t say anything, just winked in your direction to let you know he knew

- when james didn’t show up one day, sirius was alone

- or would have been, if he hadn’t sat down next to you

- “so, what’re you in for?”

- “would you believe me if i told you filch doesn’t like it when his office is broken into for fireworks?”

- he leaned back in his chair, almost impressed “hm. impressive............... but-“

- there was a long pause, and he pulled himself up again and rested his elbow on the table as he looked at you

- “i know a place you can get them for free. hogsmeade with me this weekend?”

- mcgonagall’s shushing broke the conversation

- silence again, just for a moment before she looked down at her desk

- “i’d love to.”

hufflepuff!reader

- he had run into you on the courtyard

- or rather, spotted you

- yelling unintelligibly at someone

- which is not what he expected from a hufflepuff

- a crowd was formed around you, occasional flinches as your wand waved around

- he weaseled his way through the crowd with his mates with a smile on his face, ready to spot some action

- he spotted the back of your head, arms flailing wildly as you yelled at an annoyed, but taken aback, severus snape over his continuous racist and arrogant comments about everyone and everything in the world

- which just made it even better

- sirius was losing his mind

- he had to hold onto james and remus as he laughed

- with an off insult saying "your nose is more inflated than your ego" and the accidental wave of your wand, a white spark had come out of it

- the rooting and howls of laugher had stopped all around the formed circle

- james, peter, remus and sirius has stopped as well and froze where they stood

- severus looked beyond your shoulder in shock and a smile crawled up his face

- you turned around quickly, mouth drawn open when you realized you had cast something

- a boy with dark hair was behind you, hands over his face

- when he pulled them away, his eyes were crossed in awe as he looked down at his nose

- it was twisting and turning, as it grew bigger and bigger and took up more of his face

- severus was laughing now

- “shut it” you said quickly, a short wave of your arm his lips were gone and replaced with nothing but skin

- his shouts were muffled and ignored

- “oh, my merlin. i am so, so sorry-“

- he started to laugh

- so hard he had to close his eyes

- his friends laughed with him

- “you’re laughing? you alright? that spell didn’t get to your head, did it?”

- he looked at your face for the first time

- oh, merlin, he didn’t expect you to be so pretty

- he was not ready

- this beautiful girl so worried and pampering him

- “is that your nose or are you just happy to see her, mate?” peter whispered, trying to hold back his laughter

- james was quick to speak when sirius couldn’t find his voice

- “oi! i think he deserves an escort to madame pomfrey, yeah?”

- “yeah, he’s not looking too well!” remus chimed in

- you began to walk him to the nurse, trying your hardest not to stare down the elephant on his face in the room

- “i’m y/n.”

- “i’m sirius.”

- his voice was more nasal than usual

- madame pomfrey was annoyed more than anything, but the trip lasted no more than a few minutes before his nose was back to normal

- you looked at him

- he was cuter without an absurdly large nose

- it was easier to see how the light caught in his eyes now

- “i’m so sorry-“

- “don’t worry about it, love. make it up to me with a trip to hogsmeade?”

- you were caught incredibly off guard

- “yes, i mean, yes. of course.”

#sirius black #sirius black headcanon #sirius black x reader #sirius black one shot #reader x marauders #marauders x reader #marauders era #harry potter imagine #reader x sirius black

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paperish-main · 6 years

Text

Sarah J Maas Transcript (2/3)

I did not expect the transcript to blow up as much as it had! I apologise for the delay in getting these out, they take a lot of time to make and I just didn’t have it last weekend. This goes on straight from the last one, linked here.

I’m willing to answer any questions!

---

Interviewer: A lot of love on the stage –

SJM: Where are all my moonies at?

Interviewer: So Sarah, both ACOTAR and Throne of Glass feature some pretty inpirational, badass women – who are the women in your life who were inspirational to you?

SJM: I was lucky enough to grow up surrounded by an amazing group of women. I grew up surrounded by women who never told me I needed to put limitations on myself or my dreams or my expectations or my future because I was a girl. There was never any of that. One of my heroes is actually my grandma. She’s just the most amazing woman ever – she’s eighty-seven years old, she’s about fife feet tall and she’s like a little firecracker, but her story is like… kind of like my story that I like to share.

But my grandma was born in Germany, in Frankfurt, in 1930, and… my grandma was born into a Jewish family. You can imagine what it was like to be a Jew… born in Germany… in the 1930’s… not great. But she actually had a pretty happy, early childhood. Her family was pretty well-off and she had a very loving mother and father and little brother. But as the years wore on, and the Nazis rose to power, things started to get worse, bit by bit. And – with the gold stars – but then it started to really get more intense. One of these instance was, um, my grandma was walking home from school and she was surrounded by a bunch of German school children with stones in their hands. And they literally, they stoned her and she was hit in the head by one the rocks, blacked out, doesn’t remember anything after that, or how she got home, or anything.

That really prompted my great-grandfather to realise that Germany, for them, as Jews, was no longer safe and they had to get out before it got even worse. So he decided to put a lot of their valuables – jewellery, art, they had very valuable camera – into hiding with their friends, all across Europe. To jump ahead… they never got any of that back.

Then he took all of their assets and liquidated them, all to buy tickets to go to England. For himself, his wife, my grandma, her little brother and then myy gread-grandmother’s parents, who lived in Poland and had a very successful textile factory. They were all ready to go to England to get out of Germany, but my great-grandmother’s parents didn’t want to leave Poland.

Things in Poland hadn’t gotten that bad yet, and they had a pretty successful factory that they didn’t want to abandon, they’d been their for generations. So they didn’t want to go. And then my great-grandmother refused to go if it meant leaving her parents behind… so they wound up not going to England. They stayed in Germany.

…And not too long after that, Kristallnacht happened. My grandmother still remembers that night when the Nazis and the Gustapo broke into their house. She remembers the man coming in and his giant trenchcoat and with his giant machine-gun, and she remembers her father being taken away that. And they didn’t see him again.

And it was after that my great-grandmother realised that her children were in grave, grave danger, and that they could soon be killed for being Jewish. She made the incredible decision – the decision I can’t even imagine making – to put my grandma and her little brother, her children, onto a train to get out of Germany and go basically into the arms of strangers. Into an aid organisation that was getting Jewish children out of Germany and putting them across Europe.

And I have no idea how – I – I can’t even picture that moment where she put her two kids – my grandma was about eight, her little brother was around six – she put them onto that train, and said goodbye to them. She had no idea where they were going, who was going to look after them, the world was going to hell… like, I can’t even imagine making that choice. But she did it, and she went back to her family in Poland.

My grandma and her little brother were separated pretty quickly. My grandma spent the next few years literally being hidden all across Europe, basically out-running the Nazis as they spread. She was hidden in church basements, she was hidden in schools, and she wound up being placed with a fammily in Brussels, who had a son who was around her age.

They took in my grandma, hiding her and basically treated her as their own daughter. But when the Nazis invaded Belgium, they actually took her with them to evacuate Brussels… and my grandma still remembers the grid-lock of cars on the highway fleeing the city, and how cars were just bumpered and not moving, and the Nazi planes swept in and began shooting the people of the highway and the cars standing next to their car – she remembers having to hide in a ditch and having to push the car at night when it was safe when the planes weren’t flying overhead. And this family realised, because my grandma was Jewish, it could get them killed and worse than that, it could get their son killed. And my grandma realised that, as well.

[--I stopped recording here. The next video starts a little after. Basically, her grandmother doesn’t blame them at all and is sent away and ends up in a church basement somewhere. Somehow, social workers find her a little while after and she has the chance to be shipped off to safety in America--]

SJM: -- and my grandmother said, “I’m not getting on the boat.” And they said, “Why?” And she said, “I’m not getting on the boat without my little brother. Find my little brother.” And they said, “He could be dead. We have no idea where he is. He could be anywhere in Europe, he could have been killed months or years ago.” And she just said, “I’m not getting on the boat without my little brother. Find him.”

And the social worker actually listened to her. The social worker actually looked. And they found him hiding in a church… a couple of miles down the road.

And so they got him, onto the boat, with my grandma – one of the last boats to ever get out of Europe with Jewish children. It breaks my heart – every time I tell this story, it breaks my heart not just because of what my grandma did, but also just thinking about the kids who were left who were left behind. Who didn’t get onto the boats.

So they sailed to America, and it wasn’t until my grandma – and she says this, to this day – it wasn’t until they saw the Statue of Liberty as they sailed into the New York harbour that she knew that she was safe. And from there, they were placed with a Jewish family, in upperstate New York, and they raised my grandma and her little brother as their own.

The war eventually ended, and they had not heard from their parents or what happened to them. They had no idea. My grandma and her little brother quickly adapted to American life. They learned English, they loved being Americans and then they got the news that their father was alive.

It took him a while, after the war, to find them because my great-grandfather, after he was taken away by the Nazis, kind of shuttled around to various concentration camps. For years. And, he sruvived Auschwitz and was moved to Buchenwald. He was in Buchenwald when it was liberated. He actually stayed after the liberation because while he had been in the camp, he had formed pretty close bonds with the rabi. He and them, while they were in the concentration camps, actually continued practising all the Jewish holidays under the Nazi guard’s noses.

But after the campe was freed, he and the rabi stayed because they realised there was a large number of young adults who were too old to receive the aid a lot of the children were receiving to get them out of the camps, but they were still basically kids who had no family, nowhere to go, with no money and nothing. So he and the rabi stayed and forged documents –

[I stopped recording again. In the end, her great-grandfather found his kids, but they also learned what happened to her great-grandmother. She had been smuggling Jews while in her parents’ textile factory, and were unfortunately, they were discovered by the Nazis and were killed.

They continued to live in America, and Sarah’s grandmother eventually married her grandfather. She’s apparently still as lively as ever, and does things like sky-diving and bunjee-jumping to this day.

She went on to say that her grandmother’s story and personaltiy greatly influenced Yrene’s story and character. There is a moment in Tower of Dawn where Yrene feels the presence of all of the healers before her and their jounrey to reach Torre, and that is a moment that Sarah has felt towards her own ancestors.]

That’s where I’ll end today’s transcript. I apologise for any typos. After this, we go into more of a Q&A about the books again, and Sarah answers some more questions (one of them is on Elain’s mating bond with Lucien). So far, we have convered twenty minutes of the recording and have another eleven to go. There will probably be about one (or two) more. I will do them whenever I get the chance (most likely the weekend after next) but please know that I am quite busy around Christmas!

Thank you for all the notes on the last transcript !! >.<

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gracieyvonnehunter · 5 years

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16 great documentaries from this year and how to watch them

Pahokee and Sing Me a Song are among the fascinating nonfiction films that started touring the festival circuit in 2019. | Sundance / Participant Media

From con artists to cults, nonfiction cinema is rich right now.

A “documentary” is never just one thing. It might be a memoir, a polemic, a comedy, a thriller, a romance — the sky’s the limit. Truth is frequently stranger than fiction, and if we’re lucky, much more interesting, too. Nonfiction movies can teach us about the world we live in through the stories of people living halfway around the world or right next door.

Many of 2019’s documentaries are no exception, and many of the finest were recently shown at the DOC NYC film festival, the biggest documentary festival in the country. Here are 16 worth noting, ranging from heartbreaking family stories and illuminating explorations of social issues to tales of cults and con artists.

American Factory

youtube

American Factory is a documentary about the 2014 reopening of a closed GM plant in Dayton, Ohio — by a Chinese company that makes automotive glass — and the ensuing cultural clashes that put some bumps in the road. Veteran documentarians Steve Bognar and Julia Reichert train their cameras not only on the people involved but also on the tasks and materials of factory work, giving less-familiar viewers an idea of how complicated and difficult it can be, as well as how valuable skilled labor is. American Factory tackles the challenges of globalization with much more depth and nuance than most other reporting on the topic, precisely because it steps back to watch a story unfold over time and also resists easy generalizations. It’s both soberly instructive and fascinating.

How to watch it: American Factory is streaming on Netflix.

Anbessa

vimeo

Anbessa takes a magical realist approach to the moving story of Asalif, a 10-year-old living with his mother near an enormous condominium complex on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Their shack now stands in a poor community in the shadows of government-built condos; Asalif is forced to scavenge to help keep his family afloat. But despite his difficult circumstances, Asalif has a vivid imagination and big dreams, and director Mo Scarpelli worked with him to bring those dreams to life. Anbessa follows Asalif as he dresses up as a lion — “anbessa” is Ethiopian for “lion” — and imagines chasing away the hyenas he can hear outside at night. It’s a metaphor for the encroaching land developers, and the film takes us inside Asalif’s stories to help us understand his world.

How to watch it: Anbessa is currently screening on the festival circuit and awaiting distribution.

Apollo 11

youtube

Apollo 11, directed by Todd Douglas Miller, harnesses the iconic images of the moon landing to powerfully retell the story of the Apollo 11 mission. But Miller’s film does a lot more than retread familiar history. Using never-before-seen footage and audio that has been meticulously scanned and restored, Apollo 11 moves from launch to safe return in a way that makes you feel as though you’re living through the mission. There’s minimal onscreen text, a couple of very simple illustrations to show the craft’s trajectory, and no talking heads. The result is a grand and awe-inspiring film.

How to watch it: Apollo 11 is streaming on Hulu and available to digitally rent or purchase on iTunes, Amazon, YouTube, Google Play, and Vudu.

Blessed Child

Obscured Pictures

A Unification Church mass wedding in Blessed Child.

Journalist Cara Jones and her three siblings were raised by their loving parents in a cult: the Unification Church, commonly known as the “Moonies.” Now an adult, Jones has left the church but struggles with the loss of her community and a changed relationship with her family. In Blessed Child, her first film, Jones goes on a journey with the help of one of her brothers to discover why people joined the church, why they left, and how their lives were affected and changed by the experience. Blessed Child is as much memoir as history, and it perceptively mines an experience many people have: If you were raised in a restrictive or insular community, what does it mean to grow up?

How to watch it: Blessed Child is currently screening on the festival circuit.

The Edge of Democracy

youtube

Taking a sweeping but personal view of contemporary Brazilian politics, filmmaker Petra Costa shows what it looks like when a country finally embraces democracy after years of military dictatorship — and then squanders its progress as it moves toward far-right authoritarianism. Costa, who is Brazilian herself, makes no claims of objectivity; instead, she weaves her family’s story into that of her country’s and asks devastating questions about peace, democracy, and living in a slow-motion, real-world horror story. Can it happen elsewhere? And can a country return from the brink?

How to watch it: The Edge of Democracy is streaming on Netflix.

For Sama

youtube

There have been many documentaries in recent years about the bombings and humanitarian crisis in Aleppo, and many of them have been excellent. But For Sama is a new take on the subject, and it’s truly outstanding. Waad Al-Kateab and her husband, Hamza Al-Kateab, a doctor, are native Syrians who were living in Aleppo when Syrians began to protest their government and President Bashar al-Assad. Their daughter, Sama, was born in 2016, and the family remained in Aleppo — with Hamza running a hospital — as the bombings continued.

Eventually, they left, and Waad and British documentarian Edward Watts edited years of footage she’d shot in Aleppo into For Sama. The film movingly documents life in Aleppo and in Hamza’s hospital during the yearslong siege while also offering an explanation, addressed to young Sama, for why her parents kept her in a dangerous place and why their work was important.

How to watch it: For Sama is currently screening around the world. Check the film’s website for details.

Honeyland

youtube

Honeyland is a vibrant, fascinating, and sober documentary that examines a serious issue — the endangerment of bees — by way of a human portrait. Hatidze Muratova is the last beekeeper in Macedonia. She lives on a quiet, secluded mountain and cares for her elderly mother as well as her apian charges. Her life’s work, as she sees it, isn’t just to keep the bees; it’s to help restore balance to the ecosystem around her, and bees are a vital part of that mission. But Muratova’s sense of solitude is disrupted when a family of nomadic beekeepers arrive, seeking honey to sell.

The newcomers not only disrupt Muratova and threaten the insects’ existence but also invade an established way of life on the relatively untouched mountain. As the film progresses, different ways of thinking about commerce — as well as beekeeping and the natural world — come together in a story that is sometimes funny, sometimes beautiful, and often enlightening.

How to watch it: Honeyland is available to digitally rent or purchase on iTunes, YouTube, Amazon, Google Play, or Vudu.

The Kingmaker

youtube

Lauren Greenfield’s new film The Kingmaker centers on one of the most famously extravagant women in recent history: Imelda Marcos, former first lady of the Philippines. When Marcos and her husband, dictator Ferdinand Marcos, were driven into exile in the United States in 1986, Imelda left behind a stash of more than 1,000 pairs of shoes. That might be the only thing a lot of people know about her. But there’s much more to Imelda Marcos — and that’s what Greenfield dives into in The Kingmaker.

Imelda is interviewed throughout the film, and at first, we only hear her side of the story. But then Greenfield slowly fills in what’s missing and challenges her subject’s outright fabrications by talking to people who remember the reign of terror that was the kleptocratic Marcos regime, drawing a line between that reign and the more recent rise of the murderous authoritarian Rodrigo Duterte.

How to watch it: The Kingmaker is currently playing in select theaters and will air on Showtime in early 2020.

Knock Down the House

youtube

Knock Down the House is the rare documentary about today’s American political landscape that might make you shed happy tears. It’s about four progressive Democratic candidates — all women — who ran primary campaigns against establishment Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections: Amy Vilela in Nevada, Cori Bush in Missouri, Paula Jean Swearengin in West Virginia, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York. Documentarian Rachel Lears followed the candidates, who all live in very different communities with different political terrains. They weren’t all successful — only Ocasio-Cortez won her race — but the film is uplifting and hopeful for anyone who wants their political candidates to truly represent the communities they serve. Whether or not you agree with a given individual’s politics at every point, Knock Down the House makes it clear that there’s a hunger to upend America’s politics as usual.

How to watch it: Knock Down the House is streaming on Netflix.

Midnight Family

youtube

Nine million people live in Mexico City, but the government maintains only 45 ambulances to cover that entire population; private ambulance companies have stepped in to pick up the slack. Midnight Family follows one such company run by the Ochoa family, who ride their ambulance through the streets overnight, hoping to beat their competitors to the scene of a sudden illness or accident so they can help — while also gaining business. It’s difficult work, and it clearly feels ethically tricky. But director Luke Lorentzen manages to capture the Ochoas’ compassion and their own economic instability, as well as the heart-thumping adrenaline rush that often accompanies their line of work. The result is a sweet, fascinating portrait of a group of people trying to make the best of a bad situation, and sometimes succeeding.

How to watch it: Midnight Family opens in limited theaters December 6.

Midnight Traveler

youtube

In 2015, the Taliban called for the death of Afghani filmmaker Hassan Fazili. Fazili, along with his wife (and fellow filmmaker) Fatima Hussaini, and their two daughters, fled the country, becoming refugees as they traveled across Europe — sometimes in very hostile places. Midnight Traveler is the family’s story, shot mostly by Fazili, who documents the family’s journey and their struggle to maintain some semblance of a life in trying circumstances. It’s part memoir, part home movie, part documentary of an experience that millions of people all over the world are having right now — and it’s a must-see.

How to watch it: Midnight Traveler is available to digitally rent or buy on iTunes and Amazon.

Mother

vimeo

Slow, lyrical, and heart-rending, Mother is an intertwined tale of two mothers. The first is Pomm, a Thai woman who works around the clock in a Thailand care facility home to patients with Alzheimer’s, most of whom are white and wealthy Westerners; Pomm’s own children live many hours away. The second is Maya, a Swiss woman with early onset Alzheimer’s whose devoted husband and daughters are making the painful decision to put her into the Thailand facility thousands of miles from home, for the sake of her quality of life. Director Kristof Bilsen crafts a film that’s moving and always surprising, exploring love and sacrifice that transcends distance and memory.

How to watch it: Mother is currently screening on the festival circuit and awaiting distribution.

Narrowsburg

Narrowsburg is a bizarre true-life con story.

Narrowsburg is a bizarre true-life con story, one that ended up roiling an entire town. The tiny upstate New York hamlet of Narrowsburg one day discovered that two glamorous strangers had arrived — both of whom had connections in the film business. The strangers launched a film festival (which they proclaimed would become the “Sundance of the East”) and shot a movie with the whole town’s involvement. But then things got very, very weird. Director Martha Shane keeps you guessing about what was really going on — Narrowsburg is full of twists — while also crafting a poignant portrait of the allure of show business in American life.

How to watch it: Narrowsburg is currently screening on the festival circuit and awaiting distribution.

One Child Nation

youtube

Director Nanfu Wang grew up in rural China under the country’s “One Child” policy, which was in effect from 1979 to 2015. Her own parents had two children, since the law made an exception for families in rural areas, as long as the children were at least five years apart — but not until after her mother narrowly escaped involuntary sterilization. Many other women were not so lucky, forced into sterilization and abortion against their will. The policy’s mental, physical, and emotional toll on China, especially its women, was tremendous. Through a documentary that is part personal, part journalistic, Wang explores the ramifications of the One Child era. It’s a harrowing but essential film that confronts and confounds Western ideas about agency, choice, reproduction, and bodily autonomy.

How to watch it: One Child Nation is streaming on Amazon Prime.

Pahokee

Sundance Film Festival

The teenagers in Pahokee are full of life — and ready to get out.

Pahokee is a small town on the shores of Florida’s Lake Okeechobee, and there’s a waning number of jobs and resources available to the people who live there. But Pahokee High School is a beehive of activity, and that’s where filmmakers Ivete Lucas and Patrick Bresnan focus on four students in their final year of school — all of whom hope to get out of town once they graduate. Following the students through their daily lives as they participate in sports and other extracurricular activities, navigate personal relationships, and work toward future aspirations, Pahokee is in some ways a familiar high school tale. But it’s also a story of a vibrant town told through its young people, and it explores, often with humor and grace, the forces that shape how Americans live today.

How to watch it: Pahokee is currently screening the festival circuit and awaiting distribution.

Sing Me a Song

Participant Media

Life does not turn out as expected in Sing Me a Song.

For a very long time, the country of Bhutan was shut off from the outside world — but in recent years, the internet has arrived. For Sing Me a Song, director Thomas Balmès carefully and patiently chronicles the way that the country’s new connectedness changes how young Buddhist monks live in their monastery. The center of the film is Peyangki, who was the 8-year-old subject of Balmès’s documentary 2013 Happiness. Now, as a teenager, his formerly idyllic life has become fraught with tension and distraction — as well as, poignantly, romance. Each frame is pristine, peaceful, and stunning, which only underlines the sharp changes in the young monks’ lives.

How to watch it: Sing Me a Song is currently screening on the festival circuit.

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timalexanderdollery · 5 years

Text

16 great documentaries from this year and how to watch them

Pahokee and Sing Me a Song are among the fascinating nonfiction films that started touring the festival circuit in 2019. | Sundance / Participant Media

From con artists to cults, nonfiction cinema is rich right now.

American Factory

youtube

How to watch it: American Factory is streaming on Netflix.

Anbessa

vimeo

How to watch it: Anbessa is currently screening on the festival circuit and awaiting distribution.

Apollo 11

youtube

How to watch it: Apollo 11 is streaming on Hulu and available to digitally rent or purchase on iTunes, Amazon, YouTube, Google Play, and Vudu.

Blessed Child

Obscured Pictures

A Unification Church mass wedding in Blessed Child.

How to watch it: Blessed Child is currently screening on the festival circuit.

The Edge of Democracy

youtube

How to watch it: The Edge of Democracy is streaming on Netflix.

For Sama

youtube

How to watch it: For Sama is currently screening around the world. Check the film’s website for details.

Honeyland

youtube

How to watch it: Honeyland is available to digitally rent or purchase on iTunes, YouTube, Amazon, Google Play, or Vudu.

The Kingmaker

youtube

How to watch it: The Kingmaker is currently playing in select theaters and will air on Showtime in early 2020.

Knock Down the House

youtube

How to watch it: Knock Down the House is streaming on Netflix.

Midnight Family

youtube

How to watch it: Midnight Family opens in limited theaters December 6.

Midnight Traveler

youtube

How to watch it: Midnight Traveler is available to digitally rent or buy on iTunes and Amazon.

Mother

vimeo

How to watch it: Mother is currently screening on the festival circuit and awaiting distribution.

Narrowsburg

Narrowsburg is a bizarre true-life con story.

How to watch it: Narrowsburg is currently screening on the festival circuit and awaiting distribution.

One Child Nation

youtube

How to watch it: One Child Nation is streaming on Amazon Prime.

Pahokee

Sundance Film Festival

The teenagers in Pahokee are full of life — and ready to get out.

How to watch it: Pahokee is currently screening the festival circuit and awaiting distribution.

Sing Me a Song

Participant Media

Life does not turn out as expected in Sing Me a Song.

How to watch it: Sing Me a Song is currently screening on the festival circuit.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2XoBaNu

#Vox - All

0 notes

shanedakotamuir · 5 years

Text

16 great documentaries from this year and how to watch them

Pahokee and Sing Me a Song are among the fascinating nonfiction films that started touring the festival circuit in 2019. | Sundance / Participant Media

From con artists to cults, nonfiction cinema is rich right now.

American Factory

youtube

How to watch it: American Factory is streaming on Netflix.

Anbessa

vimeo

How to watch it: Anbessa is currently screening on the festival circuit and awaiting distribution.

Apollo 11

youtube

How to watch it: Apollo 11 is streaming on Hulu and available to digitally rent or purchase on iTunes, Amazon, YouTube, Google Play, and Vudu.

Blessed Child

Obscured Pictures

A Unification Church mass wedding in Blessed Child.

How to watch it: Blessed Child is currently screening on the festival circuit.

The Edge of Democracy

youtube

How to watch it: The Edge of Democracy is streaming on Netflix.

For Sama

youtube

How to watch it: For Sama is currently screening around the world. Check the film’s website for details.

Honeyland

youtube

How to watch it: Honeyland is available to digitally rent or purchase on iTunes, YouTube, Amazon, Google Play, or Vudu.

The Kingmaker

youtube

How to watch it: The Kingmaker is currently playing in select theaters and will air on Showtime in early 2020.

Knock Down the House

youtube

How to watch it: Knock Down the House is streaming on Netflix.

Midnight Family

youtube

How to watch it: Midnight Family opens in limited theaters December 6.

Midnight Traveler

youtube

How to watch it: Midnight Traveler is available to digitally rent or buy on iTunes and Amazon.

Mother

vimeo

How to watch it: Mother is currently screening on the festival circuit and awaiting distribution.

Narrowsburg

Narrowsburg is a bizarre true-life con story.

How to watch it: Narrowsburg is currently screening on the festival circuit and awaiting distribution.

One Child Nation

youtube

How to watch it: One Child Nation is streaming on Amazon Prime.

Pahokee

Sundance Film Festival

The teenagers in Pahokee are full of life — and ready to get out.

How to watch it: Pahokee is currently screening the festival circuit and awaiting distribution.

Sing Me a Song

Participant Media

Life does not turn out as expected in Sing Me a Song.

How to watch it: Sing Me a Song is currently screening on the festival circuit.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2XoBaNu

#Vox - All

0 notes

corneliusreignallen · 5 years

Text

16 great documentaries from this year and how to watch them

Pahokee and Sing Me a Song are among the fascinating nonfiction films that started touring the festival circuit in 2019. | Sundance / Participant Media

From con artists to cults, nonfiction cinema is rich right now.

American Factory

youtube

How to watch it: American Factory is streaming on Netflix.

Anbessa

vimeo

How to watch it: Anbessa is currently screening on the festival circuit and awaiting distribution.

Apollo 11

youtube

How to watch it: Apollo 11 is streaming on Hulu and available to digitally rent or purchase on iTunes, Amazon, YouTube, Google Play, and Vudu.

Blessed Child

Obscured Pictures

A Unification Church mass wedding in Blessed Child.

How to watch it: Blessed Child is currently screening on the festival circuit.

The Edge of Democracy

youtube

How to watch it: The Edge of Democracy is streaming on Netflix.

For Sama

youtube

How to watch it: For Sama is currently screening around the world. Check the film’s website for details.

Honeyland

youtube

How to watch it: Honeyland is available to digitally rent or purchase on iTunes, YouTube, Amazon, Google Play, or Vudu.

The Kingmaker

youtube

How to watch it: The Kingmaker is currently playing in select theaters and will air on Showtime in early 2020.

Knock Down the House

youtube

How to watch it: Knock Down the House is streaming on Netflix.

Midnight Family

youtube

How to watch it: Midnight Family opens in limited theaters December 6.

Midnight Traveler

youtube

How to watch it: Midnight Traveler is available to digitally rent or buy on iTunes and Amazon.

Mother

vimeo

How to watch it: Mother is currently screening on the festival circuit and awaiting distribution.

Narrowsburg

Narrowsburg is a bizarre true-life con story.

How to watch it: Narrowsburg is currently screening on the festival circuit and awaiting distribution.

One Child Nation

youtube

How to watch it: One Child Nation is streaming on Amazon Prime.

Pahokee

Sundance Film Festival

The teenagers in Pahokee are full of life — and ready to get out.

How to watch it: Pahokee is currently screening the festival circuit and awaiting distribution.

Sing Me a Song

Participant Media

Life does not turn out as expected in Sing Me a Song.

How to watch it: Sing Me a Song is currently screening on the festival circuit.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2XoBaNu

#Vox - All

0 notes