The Marauders: Year Six Part 2 #Wattys2017

James!

James!

"We have to find James," Sirius said the moment they were far enough away from the door way so that he felt they could speak in muted tones again. He glanced over his shoulder. "If that's what he's doing to Regulus --" He shook his head, then looked around the corridor they'd come to a stop in.

"Where are we, do you reckon? In relation to the castle?" Lily asked.

"Dunno," Sirius replied.

The walls were dark and the torches barely it lit the hall, which seemed to stretch away endlessly in either direction. Lily shivered as a draft moved down the corridor, chilling her from behind so that she clutched her elbows beneath the light cardigan she wore over her Christmas party dress. Her hair hung a bit ragged about her face, pulled down from the fancy style her mum had put it in for the party sometime during the flight north in the Morris Mini.

They started walking along the corridor, glancing in doorways as the passed.

"It's his birthday," Sirius murmured.

"What?" Lily looked over.

Sirius was carefully not looking at Lily, his eyes casting about the walls of each room he peered into. "Regulus," he answered.

"Today is?" Lily asked.

"Yeah," Sirius said, "Christmas."

Lily murmured, "And I thought mine was bad for being too close to the holidays."

Sirius said, "I didn't wish him a happy one. And now he's being cursed." Sirius was quiet a moment, then, "I haven't wished him a happy one in years, though, I s'pose he isn't much surprised by my forgetting to now."

"I'm sorry."

Sirius sighed, "I'm a terrible brother."

"You aren't."

"I am."

"You're my brother, remember?" Lily asked, "You aren't terrible to me."

Sirius paused. They were just about to turn a corner in the corridor and they stood there, in a flickering pool of torchlight. The shadows cast by the features of his face made him look so profoundly sad...

"You're James's brother, too," she pressed, "And look how far you've come for him."

Sirius's eyes flickered to hers. "I should've been here two bloody weeks ago, shouldn't I?" he asked quietly.

"We both should've, Sirius," she whispered.

He swallowed and his eyes rolled up toward the ceiling, fighting back emotion. "He better be alive."

"He is," Lily said. "He has to be."

"If he isn't... if he isn't and I could've saved him... if I'd just... noticed..." Sirius shook his head.

Lily was about to say something - something to make him feel better - something to comfort him - to tell him that it would be okay, that it wasn't his fault, that nobody noticed... when there was a loud, echoing shout from down the hallway.

"THERE YA ARE!"

They both looked up down the hallway and there, through the darkness, came the hulking form of Evan Rosier.

"Fuck. Run." Sirius pushed Lily down the hallway as Evan Rosier drew his wand and shot a stunner at them, cracking the wall behind Sirius, even as he scrambled after Lily into the dark.