Lone Wolf | SIRIUS BLACK

Chapter Forty Five

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November, 1981

SEEING HARRY had renewed the fight within me. I may not have known Sirius's exact whereabouts but it didn't matter. I was indebted to him, and I wanted to even the score of who had saved who by protecting him.

So far I had 1 and Sirius had who knew how much in relation to rescuing me. Probably too many times of rescue for a woman who claimed she wasn't a damsel in distress, yet flailed her arms and panicked when she was scared of anything bigger and more violent than a rabbit. Yet, also, I was supposed to be a werewolf.

The entire system had screwed up on me. Or I on it. It. Didn't. Matter.

Tonight was about finding Sirius because I refused to let the man I loved take the fall for my own idiocy.

"Where are you going?"

I didn't bother turning around as I continued to stuff clothes into a worn duffel bag. I was used to people just strolling in randomly now. It wasn't like this was my house, paid for by my money — with a fake identity attached so nobody got suspicious. Anyone could come in as they damn well pleased, as so shown by the most recent case — Remus Lupin.

"To break Sirius out of Azkaban." I crammed another article of clothing inside the bag.

I may as well have been honest. Remus would have guessed it in the next second anyway, and then he would react in the same way he was about to.

Remus had my duffle bag in his arms in the next moment, fulfilling the mini prophecy I had just made up.

"No you're not."

I had imagined he would agree. That he would help because this was his friend. His brother. I thought he would see that we needed to stand together united after Lily and James fell. After we lost Peter to claims that Sirius had murdered him, the secret keeper of James and Lily.

I still didn't know if I believed that was what happened, but if I were to choose anything, I would be turning against one of them. I never wanted to choose between my friends. And yet I was ready to go against one now, since Remus Lupin was standing before me, a shell of his former self where I couldn't see even a speck of who had once been there. That loyalty... Just up and gone.

How could it have been so casually snuffed out to be replaced with the common talk of the rumour mill. What had all of us become? I expected my downward spiral, it had been evolving since killing Constance, but I didn't expect this darkness to befall my friends. Who we once were was replaced by such strange identities. I couldn't recognize these new lies.

"I am." I made a move for the bag but Remus somehow continued to hold it out of my reach. "You know he didn't do it, Remus."

His stony expression didn't change, but I watched his lip quirk and that was enough. Horror filled me up, spilling over even.

After everything if he thought...

"No. No you can't think he did it. Sirius would die before giving up Lily and James to Voldemort. We all would!"