The Woes of Padfoot

Chapter One: Failure and Atonement

Disclaimer: Everything in the Harry Potter world belongs to JK Rowling

"No, I just think he's been very lonely for a long time', said Hermione simply.

The Order of the Phoenix, page 145.

Sirius would have laughed if he had the energy as he stared at himself in the cracked mirror of Grimmauld Place. His hair was long, lank and greasy; a far cry from the well-groomed and stylish hair of his Hogwarts days. His once handsome aristocratic face was now gaunt, hard and almost sallow. The grey eyes that had once been mercurial, bright and mischievous were now leaden, brooding and pensive.

He looked at himself with barely disguised self-loathing and thought that this was a just punishment for not being able to save—to save…Sirius banged his fist against the wall, shaking the plaster of the old master bedroom and trembling badly himself.

After all these years, he could still not forgive himself for what at Halloween when the two people he cared for the most in the world, the two people who were like a brother and sister to him, were murdered because he had been too thick-headed to see that the traitor was not Moony but Wormtail of all people!—weak, pathetic, snivelling Wormtail! By Merlin, if Harry hadn't spared Wormtail's life, Sirius would have killed Wormtail with his bare hands and watched him squeal, twitch and suffer in just retribution for all that he had done.

Grimmauld Place was silent. Harry and his friends were back at Hogwarts; Molly, Arthur and Moony on Order business and even bloody Kreacher was lurking off somewhere in the wide outside world while Sirius was stuck in a mouldy, dark house with only painful memories as company.

Sirius squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his fists tightly, attempting to block out the images of that devastating night when Prongs and Lily died that plagued him still like great stabs in his gut, reminding him of his great failure. Those were the memories that replayed over and over in his head in that dank and soulless cell in Azkaban like one of those Muggle horror films that Lily had once made him watch. Prongs, Lils…I am so sorry…Sirius struggled for a few minutes but then gave in and allowed those awful pictures to envelope him for what else did he have now but memories? If this was the only way to connect to Prongs, then so be it…

He arrived at the smoking heap of Godric's Hollow and felt his stomach heave violently as he saw the Dark Mark hanging ominously above. He heard sirens piercing the night sky and knew that within a few moments, the house would be swarming with Muggles.

He threw his motorcycle down carelessly and sprinted to the almost destroyed house, his brain screaming: PRONGS! LILY! HARRY! PRONGS! Sirius could not think straight, his nostrils filled with smoke, his eyes watery from smoke. All he wanted to see was that the Potters were alive. Surely he was only being neurotic, he repeated to himself. Wormtail is merely out on a brief holiday… Moony is the traitor…

He glanced around the charred living room, his mind racing, his heart thudding erratically. Where was Prongs? The far off sirens were disrupting his chain of thought. His chunky motorcycle boots crunched on glass. "Prongs!" he called out hoarsely. "Lily? Harry? It's Padfoot here!"

Sirius shakily got out his wand and whispered 'Lumos'. His mouth dropped open and his eyes widened. Every sound and thought faded into the background as his gaze fixed on a lifeless figure by the remains of an overturned couch with familiar messy black hair.

Sirius' throat closed up and his head thudded erratically as he ran over to his best friend and scooped him up into his arms, cradling his head carefully. "Prongs?" he whispered desperately. "This is not funny. Please wake-up! I'm here now. Everything is fine!" But Prongs did not move. He merely stared back at Sirius with blank eyes that were frozen in a state of shock.

Hot tears burst from Sirius' eyes. Why wasn't Prongs moving? Sirius took in Prongs' dusty body that was flickered with dirt and water, rage filling him. How dare some one leave his best friend sprawled out in the mud like trash? He expected Prongs to suddenly sit up with that charming grin, his eyes sparkling with mischief and say: "Miss me, did you, Padfoot?" His eyes…Sirius' gaze moved to Prongs' eyes. Where were his glasses?

Sirius' breathing became ragged and he felt as if he were about to burst. "His glasses," stumbled Sirius, "his glasses…he can't see without them…I'll find your glasses for you, Prongs…who took your glasses? You can't see…you can't see…you can't see…"

Then something clicked in Sirius' mind. Prong was dead. That final, irrevocable word. Dead. Prongs wouldn't be slipping on those glasses any more and grinning. There would be no more nights around at Prongs' house, joking with Lily, holding little Harry, fighting Death Eaters side by side. He was no longer able to reminisce about Hogwarts with Prongs, teasing and laughing with him…

The sheer magnitude of that realisation sent Sirius over the edge. He howled and hollered to the sky, sobbing unashamedly over the body of his brother, best friend and bulwark as if he could sound to the world that Prongs had fallen. His tears dropped over Prongs' face, cleansing it of dirt. Sirius' rocked back and forth with Prongs' body in his arms, weeping still.

He had failed Prongs.

Sirius was crying himself by the time that fickle, teasing and cruel Memory had released him from her torturous stranglehold. He wiped his dirty face with his grubby sleeves and sank to the floor exhausted, wrapping himself up into a little ball. His breath was laboured and he repeated under his breath: "This is my penance, this is my penance…"

He deserved to be reminded of his gross failure everyday of his life. It was at his urging that Prongs and Lily had decided to take on that stinking rat as their Secret Keeper. If wasn't for him, then they would still be alive. He could still picture the lifeless corpse of Prongs, the flaming red hair of Lils that poked out from under a heap of heavy wood that had once been the stairs…Sirius choked on his tears, feeling as if he was slowly being driven mad but this is was his atonement, his way of redeeming himself for failing his best friend who had never failed him, who had always been there for him. And how did Sirius repay him? Get him and Lils bloody killed.

He punched a fist into the wall again, letting out a strangled sob. He was just so lonely. He missed Prongs so intensely that often he liked to pretend that dear Harry, the boy who Sirius looked over like a son, was Prongs, for they looked so alike. Then Sirius would shake himself and feel guilty for doing such a thing. No one could ever replace Prongs and it was not fair to Harry but at the same time, it made Sirius feel happy for a brief moment to pretend that his best friend was alive and well and the events of Halloween were a bad dream.

Of course there was Moony, but Sirius rarely saw him and when they were together, it was so different to their times at Hogwarts. Moony defended Snape, much to Sirius' annoyance and told Sirius not to be childish and rise to Snape's obvious baiting. Moony didn't even call Snape, Snivellus anymore, for Merlin's sakes! Moony was always so grave, tired and irritatingly logical. He had told Sirius countless times in a weary voice that it was time to put childish rivalries aside and focus on the real problem at hand: Voldemort.

It galled Sirius that no one listened to him about how slimy Snivellus was and that he was not reformed, despite the reassurances of Dumbledore. Sometimes Sirius felt like hexing Snivellus with a devastatingly destructive curse—perhaps even kill him—when he would smirk at him and say in that silky voice that it was his entire fault that his precious sidekick Potter and his wife were dead. Snivellus, of course, would say it into his ear in a room full of people because he knew that Sirius wouldn't dare touch him while there was a full audience around them.

Moony and Sirius could not even talk about Hogwarts and the Marauders without bitterness, pain or anguish. It seemed that everything from Halloween onwards had tainted their time there and Sirius could still not open up to Moony about the full horrors of Azkaban. He had allowed Moony a glimpse of the darkness he had endured but did not elaborate any further. Instead, he would fall mute and brood for a full couple of days and leave Moony looking after him with a tired and worried face. Also, Sirius never mentioned to a living soul what he saw at Godric's Hollow. He did not see how anyone would be able to understand what he went through despite Moony's probing and promises of support to share the burden.

Sirius refused to mention Wormtail's name in any conversation and if his name did come up, he would spit on the ground and curse and withdraw into a sullen impenetrable shell, so after countless attempts by Moony to get him to accept the fact that Wormtail was a human, Moony gave up and came to a silent understanding that Wormtail was never to be included in any conversation unless Sirius brought him up first.

The subject of Prongs was an even more delicate matter. Sirius could talk about him animatedly sometimes but then on most other occasions, Sirius' eyes would become hollow and his lips would narrow and he would shut himself up with Buckbeak for a long period of time, allowing no one to coax him out of his room. Not even Moony could understand or begin to comprehend the gravity of the guilt that Sirius bore. He had pointed out to Sirius on numerous occasions until he would limp from exhaustion that neither Prongs or Lily blamed him but Sirius obstinately refused to listen to reason and insisted that his self-inflicted mental torture was a just punishment for having failed Prongs when he needed him the most.

Sirius lay flat on his back, his arms out wide as if he were on some sort of cross and stared up at the cracked ceiling that matched his own emotional state. He wished so much at that point that Prongs would waltz into the room with his wand tucked into his back pocket (ignoring Moody's constant shouts that his buttocks would get blown off if he left his wand in his back pocket), ruffling his hair and grinning, urging Sirius to get off his arse.

Sirius could picture him so well that it was both simultaneously pleasing and torturous. Time had not dulled the void that Prongs left in his life. It only brought it home to Sirius that his best friend was not alive and he could not believe that he had to live this half-life without him in it. Indeed, could one even call this living? Cooped up in a haunted house with Kreacher and the shrieks of his dastardly mum's portrait for company, barred from the outside world and still thought as a criminal by the majority of the Wizarding population and denied the right to gain guardianship of his beloved godson—could this be called living at all?

This miserable existence was a far cry from the one he and Prongs had envisaged at the end of seventh year as they had stood together on the Quidditch pitch, the wind blowing their robes and hair like they were two immortal gods. They had thought in their naivety and supreme confidence to be famous aurors, ridding the world of prejudice, violence and corruption. They had imagined to reach the age of Dumbledore, revered by the wizarding world for their feats of courage and teach a new generation of mischief makers.

But Fate, that capricious mistress, had been brutal and ripped away from Sirius the two people in the world he could least afford to lose.

The dull echoes of the empty house only served to make Sirius long to go back to that time by the Quidditch pitch when he and Prongs seemed to have the world at their feet.

End of Chapter One—Please review and tell me what you think of the characters' portrayals or the story in general!

Thanks!