Every Boy Should Have A Dog

November 14th, 1981

"James! James!" Out of breath and with a wicked stitch in his side, Sirius rounded the corner, neatly careened into the wall and tumbled to a heap on the stoop of the apartment James and Harry had been living in ever since Lily's death two weeks prior.

The door opened, spilling light onto Sirius' face. "Sirius?" he heard James say. "Good lord, man. Here."

"Peter!" Sirius croaked, picking himself up with the aid of James' outstretched hand. "You have to get out of here! Take Harry and leave! Peter's a Death Eater!"

"I know," James said with a sad little smile. "We were hoping you wouldn't find out. But now that you have..."

James raised his wand, and Sirius had one shocked moment to register the stark black ink on the inside of his best friend's forearm before the world went sickly green and then faded away.

oOoOoOoOo

Astonishingly, he woke up.

Briefly, he wondered if this was the afterlife, but he eventually decided it wasn't. He'd never been one for religion, but he was pretty sure that the afterlife eased all pain from the business of life, smoothed away all the rough spots, and renewed one in time for the Pearly Gates. Since he currently felt like he'd been trampled by a herd of erumpets, tossed into the Black Lake for the giant squid to snack on, then dragged into one of Binns' history lessons, he felt comfortable in presuming he wasn't dead.

He was fairly certain all his parts were in order, since they ached so damned much, but he quickly discovered that while he'd been unconscious someone had trussed him up like a Christmas goose, and dumped him in a rather cozy armchair, so he couldn't visually verify he was completely intact. He wiggled a little bit, trying to get his fingers loose, but whoever tied him up had a talent for knots. And he only knew one person who could tie such tight, intricate knots.

"Awake, are you?" came James' voice, as if the mere thought of him had been a summons. Light flared close enough to shine directly into Sirius' eyes. He yelped and jerked away, eyes squeezed shut against the brightness. "Sorry about that," James said, and the light dimmed down to more acceptable levels. Sirius cautiously opened his eyes, blinking them furiously to try and clear away the spots.

He was simultaneously unsurprised and supremely disappointed to find himself in the tastefully decorated living room of the apartment in Kent he'd helped James pick out after the cottage at Godric's Hollow had been destroyed. There was the extra couch he had lying around his flat and had donated to James' cause. A few boxes left to be unpacked. The Quidditch magazines scattered about, a silent wizard's radio, Harry's toys stacked untidily in one corner... Sirius' breath caught in his chest, forming an agonizing lump at the thought of his godson.

Come to think of it, where was Harry?

"He's asleep in his bedroom," James said, unnervingly. Sirius whipped his head around to glare daggers at him, but found his eyes being drawn to the brazen design carved into the flesh of James' forearm. "You always have that expression on your face when you're thinking about him, mate."

Sirius snarled, and wrenched at the ropes binding him. "What the hell, man? Since when did you follow along with pureblood bullshit? Do you go Muggle-bating too? I thought you were better than that."

"It isn't the propaganda or Death Eater hobbies that interested me," James said. "Protection for my family, that was what interested me."

"What about Lily?" he cried, still futilely struggling for his freedom. He tried to tip himself over, flailed as best he could. Really, anything he could think of to get free and wrap his hands around his captor's throat. It was easier to think of him that way, because former best mate just hurt far too bloody much to contemplate. He succeeded only in throwing himself fairly painfully out of the chair and onto the floor. Even that didn't deter him from ranting. "Voldemort killed her, James! Merlin's balls, she was your wife! Did you just stand by and let it happen?"

"No." James waved his wand, and Sirius found himself floating back into the armchair.

"So, what then?" he growled. "Did you do her in yourself?"

"No," James said as he sat down on the couch across from Sirius and reached for the pitcher sitting on the end table beside him. He poured a goblet full, and set the pitcher back down. "Harry and I weren't home when she died. Pumpkin juice?"

Sirius glared at him suspiciously, and if he could have moved his arm, he would have smacked the goblet right out of James' hand. And likely followed that up with a right hook into James' jaw. A swift kick to the jewels probably wasn't out of order either, come to think of it. And if he could get his hands on a wand, oh ho... Things would get very cathartic rather quickly if he could catch hold of a wand for even two seconds.

"Piss off," he snarled.

James shrugged and set the goblet down on the table. "If I wanted to kill you," he pointed out, "I would have done it when I had the drop on you, mate. Poison in a cup of pumpkin juice isn't my style."

Sirius laughed bitterly. "Before today, I'd have said that turning on your friends and having your wife killed wasn't your style either. Shows what I know." He paused, tried to swallow back the sour taste of betrayal in his mouth, and eyed James up and down. "So why'd you do it?" he asked finally.

James lifted and dropped one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. "It wasn't supposed to mean Lily's life, Padfoot," he said, and Sirius thought he could detect a note of real regret in his former best friend's – no, no. Captor's. – tone. "She started wondering where I was going when I went out at night. Lily wouldn't have understood..."

"That's for damned sure."

"He knew about the prophecy, Padfoot," James said quietly. "He knew about the possibility Harry was the one spoken of. 'Born to those who have thrice defied him.'"

"What?! How?"

"Snivellus told him. The Dark Lord said Snivellus came begging for Lily's life after he figured out it might be Harry. Damned be me, and damned be my son, so long as Lily was alright. So the Dark Lord offered another chance, to be thrice defied and once submitted. He promised Harry's life would be spared if I joined him, and took the Dark Mark." He shrugged again, scratching idly at the skin surrounding his Dark Mark. "So I did."

"You can't trust that snake to keep his promises," Sirius protested. "Look at what he's done already!"

A strange, tiny smile played about James' lips. "He already has, Padfoot."

A sick feeling sank into Sirius' gut as it dawned on him exactly what James was talking about. "The Longbottoms," he said. "He didn't go to Godric's Hollow... he went to the Longbottom's place. My god, James. He murdered Frank and Alice, and old Augusta! He orphaned Neville!"

"Their son or mine," James said. "And it wasn't going to be my son. Potters protect their own, no matter what it takes."

Sirius was quiet for a long time, and James didn't seem inclined to break the silence. He didn't understand, and more to the point, he didn't want to understand. "And Lily?"

"Lily was a liability. I knew someone was coming, so I took Harry, told Lily I was going over to see Peter, and Disapparated about five minutes before they were due to show up. I'm told it was quick and relatively painless. Over almost before it started." He tilted his head and looked faraway. "I have no reason to disbelieve my source."

"So this is what's become of the great son of the House of Potter," Sirius spat. "A disinterested, apathetic, cold and vicious git. A traitor of the worst sort. Your parents must be rolling in their graves, Prongs." The barb hit home, Sirius saw, but he declined to follow it up with another salvo. The man he'd known was lost, as dead as Lily in his own way, and any more words were wasted breath. Another long, pregnant pause. "Are you going to dirty your hands this time, or will one of your little Death Eater friends come over to take care of me, like they took care of Lily?"

James blinked, looking oddly shocked. "I'm not going to kill you, Padfoot," he said reprovingly. "I couldn't do that to such a good friend as you."

"No," Sirius said bitterly. "Not your friend. Just your wife. What do you intend to do then? Let me go?"

"No. I can't do that." James bowed his head, and twirled his wand between his fingers. He nodded to himself, and both his head and his wand came up. Sirius had that same creeping sense of dread that had presaged every argument with his family during the holidays, and he burst into another flurry of frantic need to escape his bonds before James carried through with whatever that unsettling expression on his face promised he would.

"Christmas is still a bit off," James said absently, and began swirling and slashing his wand through complex configurations. For no particular reason, Sirius remembered that Ollivander had proclaimed it excellent for Transfiguration. To his great horror, he felt his body twisting, melting and shrinking in a way that was sickeningly familiar but completely out of his control. "But I think Harry will be pleased with an early gift."

Sirius opened his mouth to shout at James, to shout for help, to do something to stop what was happening to him. Barks, not words, erupted from what was no longer his mouth but his muzzle. The ropes binding him loosened, and he scrambled free at last, only to land on four legs instead of two. Already, the man was fading away, slipping back behind the facade of the dog. He whimpered and cowered away, suddenly confused.

James smiled and reached out to scratch Padfoot behind the ears. Padfoot skittered back a few paces, no longer certain of what he was doing here, or why he was afraid. James persisted with soothing words and gentle pets and eventually Padfoot relented. After awhile, it even felt pleasant, and Padfoot hesitantly wagged his tail.

"Every boy should have a dog," James said softly.