Title: Explaining Death to a Dog
Author: MelWil
Rating: PG13
Disclaimers: They’re not mine - I’m just playing
Feedback: lina_wilson@hotmail.com
Summary: Sirius is getting used to death
Author’s note: Part of the Tearstains Universe. The title comes from some book that I saw in the bookstore - Amanda said I should pick a title and write fanfiction about it. So I did.

~*~

There are times when the sound of your own name is prelude to disaster.

Like, when a corrupt Ministry official, with a nasty snarl, reads out a list of ‘convicted’ murderers, and your name is on the top. Or when you’re up to no good whatsoever and the unmistakable voice of authority (usually Professor McGonagall) has your name on the tip of their tongue. Or when someone wants a favour that you really can’t give - and there’s no possible way to say no.

Or when the voice speaking your name is low and urgent and it has nothing to do with sex or good food.

“Sirius”

He was sitting at the kitchen table, cracking the top from his boiled egg when he heard it. He supposed that Lucretia (standing in the background, her face shaken) had let the Minister in, but he was still surprised that they had received no forewarning.

“Good morning, Minister.” There was a sense of dread lurking in the pits of his stomach, but he did his best to hide it with a smile.

“I’m afraid that I am the bearer of bad news, Sirius.”

She paused, waiting as Lucretia sat next to him. Sirius felt his wife linking her hands through his. He took a deep breath, and waited for the inevitable.

McGonagall lifted her chin and adjusted her glasses. “Harry and Ron went out on a routine inspection last night. There was an ambush - terribly unexpected - and I’m afraid . . . “ Her voice faltered and her lips thinned. “I’m afraid that they managed to kill Harry.”

Lucretia gasped and began to cry. Sirius absently patted her hand as he waited for the news to sink in.

~*~

Christmas: 1980

“Padfoot! Hey Padfoot!”

Sirius looked up, surprised to see his best friend’s head sitting in his fireplace.

“James? What are you up to?” James had to be up to no good. Maybe he was planning something elaborate for Lily’s present. Sirius grinned at his friend, expecting a mischievous grin in return.

James’ face remained solemn. “Padfoot, we need you. Can you come over?”

Sirius took a bite from his toast. “But I thought you wanted me to come over later. Lily wanted to decorate without my expert assistance.” He was looking forward to a Potter Christmas. Lily was cooking dinner for them, and Sirius had bought almost a tonne of toys to give to little Harry.

“Please come over now, Sirius. We’ve got . . . “ James turned, looking at something behind him. We’ve got an emergency.”

“What?” Concern rapidly replaced Sirius’ grin. “What is it?”

“Just get here.” James’ head disappeared with a tiny ‘pop’.

Sirius left his breakfast on the kitchen table and rushed to collect his cloak. Mindful of the anti apparation charms that James had placed on his house, he apparated to the tiny courtyard behind the residence, then quickly trudged through the snow to towards the back door.

James was waiting for him. “Thanks for coming.” He took away Sirius’ cloak.

“What’s wrong?” Sirius demanded. “It’s not Harry is it?”

“No.” James stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked forward and back on his heels. “Lily’s with Harry. It’s her parents; we just heard.”

Sirius nodded. some small part of him - of all of them - had been dreading this for a while. Lily was just too high profile for a Muggle born. “When?”

“Yesterday.” James led him into the kitchen. The table had been set up for a festive breakfast, but there was no sign of food.

The two men sat. “Was it you-know-who?” Sirius asked.

“No.” James closed his eyes, scratching at his temple. “It appears that it was just some random minion. Just a flunky.”

Sirius wracked his memory, trying to remember Lily’s family history. "Doesn’t Lily have a sister too?”

James nodded. “She’s fine. Lily never talked about her sister, so I doubt Voldemort’s guys even know she’s alive.”

Sirius winced at the use of Voldemort’s name. “Where is Lily?”

“Upstairs.” James’ forehead crinkled with worry. “She’s with Harry. She won’t bring him down. She just keeps holding him up there, keeps crying over him.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “He hasn’t even seen the Christmas tree.”

“Can I try?” Sirius asked, gesturing towards the stairs. With James’ nod he climbed to the upper level, not knowing what he would find.

Lily was curled up in the rocking chair, clutching Harry tightly. The boy, Sirius noted, was squirming, but Lily’s grasp was uncompromising.

“Lily?” He spoke quietly, unwilling to disturb either of the pair.

Lily raised her head. Her hair was loose and tangled around her face and her eyes were red and puffy. “They didn’t do a clean job. That would have been too simple, too humane.” She clutched Harry even closer, and the child began to whimper. “They tortured my parents, Sirius. They tied them to their kitchen chairs and hit them with curses. They told them horrible things about me, terrible lies about their youngest child. And then they killed them.”

“Oh, Lily.” Sirius leant forward and pressed his lips against her forehead. Gently he removed her arms from around the baby and gathered Harry up. “Let me take this one down to his Daddy. There’s a lovely Christmas tree down there with many, many presents underneath.”

Lily pushed her hair from her eyes, watching as Sirius took Harry from the room. “Look after him,” she whispered.

“Sure.” He took Harry down to James, who clutched his son tightly.

“Do you want to see a Christmas tree, Harry?” He looked back at Sirius. “Thank you.”

“I’m just going to.” He pointed up the stairs. “You know.”

While he was away, Lily had tied her hair into a thick braid. She gazed at Sirius through red eyes. “How . . . how do we do this, Sirius? How can we exist when they take away the people we love? When they take away the . . . the worlds that we know?”

“We just do it, Lily. We do it for the people who are alive.” He gathered Lily into his arms and she wept on his shoulder.

“They’ve stolen my world, Sirius. My parents were my last real connection with the Muggle world and they stole that from me. How can I be me if I’m not a Muggle born?”

Sirius just held her silently and let her cry. Later, when her tears had dried a little, they would go and open Harry’s presents. There would be explanations and inquiries that wouldn’t tell them anything. And in the end, Lily’s parent’s would still be dead.

~*~

The hospital corridor was too long. They had lengthened it during the first war, and again, even further, during the second war. It had provided extra room once, but now it just provided some resemblance of privacy.

The photographers had been camped outside the hospital when Sirius arrived. They clamoured around him, anxious to get photos of the Boy Who Once Lived’s godfather. Obviously they hadn’t seen Harry’s body then.

The Weasleys were sitting in a tiny waiting room. Molly was crying softly, while Arthur, whose hair had finally given up and gone grey, patted her on the back. The older boys were camped down in the corner, leaning forward and talking in low murmurs. George, (the healthy twin, Sirius thought) was sitting next to his mother, gazing into space, while Percy paced a ruler-straight pattern across the far side of the room.

“Sirius.” George was the first to notice him. “I’m sorry.”

Sirius nodded. He knew that Harry’s death hadn’t hit him yet, that he hadn’t given it a chance to sink in. It could wait for a while. “How is he?”

Mr Weasley shook his head. “We don’t know. I’ve used all the Ministry powers I have, but they won’t tell us anything. We don’t know anything.”

“What about Ginny? And James?” Sirius remembered how excited Harry had been when James was born. He wondered whether Ginny and Harry had the chance to tell the Weasley’s about the other child before . . .

“Minister McGonagall’s with them.” Arthur smiled grimly. “They have to go into hiding. It was their contingency plan.”

“Oh.”

He remembered Harry, a few years back, explaining the contingency plan. Harry wanted to keep his family safe if he was injured or if he died. “There’s a possibility it’s going to happen.” He told Sirius.

Harry was more prepared for his death than anyone.

~*~

October 1981

“We have to change.” Sirius insisted.

Lily handed him a cup of tea and sat down next to James. “But Sirius, we agreed on you. You’ve done all the preparation for it.” Her voice dropped and they had to lean forward to hear her. “We trust you Sirius.”

James finished the last of his tea and swirled the leaves around the bottom. “And therein lies the problem, doesn’t it Padfoot?” He gazed at the tea leaves briefly and then pushed the cup across the table. “Everyone knows that we trust you. Everyone would expect you to be our secret keeper.”

“I already think there’s too many people who know I’m your secret keeper, Prongs. It’s not safe.” Sirius cracked his knuckles and grimaced. “I probably have six or seven Death Eaters after me already.”

“They’re not going to stop, just because we change our secret keeper, Sirius. You’re going to an awful lot of trouble for nothing.”

Sirius nodded. He’d spent a full couple of hours wondering what the Cruciatus curse felt like. “You’ll be safe though. You’ll be alive.”

“Who should we get?” Lily asked. “There’s not too many witches or wizards who I’d want to be our secret keepers.”

“Peter would do it,” Sirius said. ‘He doesn’t have any dependents or anything. He’d do it.”

James nodded, worry lines creasing his forehead. “Okay,” he said finally. “When should we tell Remus?”

Sirius bit his lip. “I’ll tell him. You . . . you should just get into hiding. As soon as possible.”

“Okay.” James stood, helping Lily to her feet. “We’ll do it tonight.” He walked around the table and pulled Sirius into a hug. “We love you, Padfoot. You know they, right?”

“Yeah.” Sirius looked up at Lily who had tears in her eyes. “Peter will be here any second now. I really should go.”

Lily wrapped her arms around both James and Sirius. “We’ll be all right,” she murmured. “The danger will be over and we’ll be back here before we know it. Peter will look after us . . .”

The neighbours - Muggles, apparently - talked of green light. Lots of green light, they explained. Green light and the most terrible screaming.

Sirius rushed to the house without even realising what he was doing. He was the first one there, the first one to burst through the open doors, the first one to see the bodies . . .

James lying on the floor of the living room, his wand - broken and twisted - was clutched in his hand and his face was most determined. Lily was lying on the floor of the nursery, her hair loose and fanning around her face.

Harry was in his cot, crying as if his world had fallen apart.

~*~

“We’ve done this too many times,” Sirius put a heavy glass on the table. “I’m getting tired of it.”

“The wake?” Remus produced a bottle of Muggle liquor (cheaper and more potent, he told them, defending his choice). “How does one tire of attending wakes?”

“It’s not the wakes, exactly.” Ron poured the butterscotch coloured liquid into his chipped coffee mug. He’d had a drink or two already, but that was no reason to abstain. “It’s those pesky deaths that come first.”

For some reason, Remus found the term ‘pesky deaths’ hilarious, and Sirius watched with bemusement as his friend slid to the floor laughing.

“You shouldn’t be laughing.” Ron adopted a stern face. “People are dead.”

Remus climbed back into his chair and Sirius tried to look sensible.

“Hey, is Hermione coming?” Remus took another long drink. “I wouldn’t mind seeing Hermione.”

“No,” Ron’s lips thinned, “she’s too busy up at Hogwarts.”

“So,” Sirius changed the subject quickly, “who’s wake will be next? Are there any Malfoy’s left?”

“We need death for a wake.” Ron reminded him.

“And death is so . . .” Remus trailed off and his eyes found Sirius’. Sirius nodded.

“I understand.” He said.