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Chapter 306 Pettigrew Peter's News!!
Sirius's choice had driven James into a quiet fury.
They argued—alone, behind closed doors.
And that argument later became the so-called "evidence" used against him.
People said Sirius betrayed James because they'd quarreled.
But only Sirius and James knew the real reason:
They had just done something unbearably cruel.
Even they couldn't forgive themselves for it.
But that child—
That child couldn't remain in the wizarding world.
Afterward, Sirius and James told everyone that Lily had only given birth to Harry.
The "other child" was fake, a trap, a rumor.
They calculated that whether or not the Death Eaters believed the rumor, they would never let the second baby go.
And they were right.
The Death Eaters eventually threw the child into the middle of a battlefield.
Sirius had rushed toward him—pretending to rescue him—but in truth, he was leading the Death Eaters away.
But Lily… Lily must have realized something.
She was too sharp. Too perceptive.
He remembered how she kept casting Protego over the baby, again and again, never letting her guard completely fall.
She sent James to lure the Death Eaters away… yet she herself kept watching the baby like a hawk.
But she couldn't protect him every second.
And Sirius, terrified of what the truth might become, made his decision.
He took the child.
Carried him away.
And left him in a Muggle institution.
He even used an alchemical device from the Black family to suppress the baby's magic—turning him into a Squib.
He couldn't bring himself to kill the child.
He couldn't.
But a child with Voldemort's aura… a child who could doom James and Lily…
There was only one path left.
The child must never return to the wizarding world.
Whether he lived or died, he had to vanish in the Muggle world.
Only then would no one learn that Lily had given birth to a child touched by Voldemort's blood.
But when the baby was gone… Lily's eyes had gone cold.
She didn't say anything, but she knew.
Sirius felt it.
She didn't look at James the same way anymore.
She stayed home more, clinging to Harry, as if terrified they would throw her last child away.
But she worried too much.
Harry was entirely James's son.
No one would ever discard him.
Then the Prophecy emerged.
A child born at the end of July.
A child destined to defeat Voldemort.
A family that had defied the Dark Lord three times.
Dumbledore told them Voldemort would most likely choose James and Lily.
He offered to become their Secret-Keeper.
James refused.
In front of Dumbledore, James publicly chose Sirius.
But in private, they made two secret arrangements:
One: James's house.
Two: Darren's Muggle orphanage.
Both James and Sirius feared that Voldemort might find Darren.
If Voldemort sensed a child connected to him…
Everything would fall apart.
So Sirius acted as the Secret-Keeper for the orphanage.
And Peter Pettigrew became the Secret-Keeper for James's house.
As for Lupin—
He was a werewolf, and in those paranoid days, they couldn't fully trust him.
So they told him nothing.
And Peter…
They didn't tell him too much either.
Yet Peter still betrayed them.
He sold James and Lily to Voldemort.
He caused their deaths.
Sirius had suggested, long ago, that they should confide everything in Lily—hide together, let him be the single Secret-Keeper, let no one die.
But it was too late.
James and Lily died.
And Sirius became the traitor.
He tried to kill Peter.
Peter escaped.
And Sirius—unable to face the children of James and Lily—walked into Azkaban and never tried to leave.
For years, he lived in darkness.
Until recently.
Until he realized something that shattered everything:
Darren—who had been turned into a Squib—appeared at Hogwarts.
Not powerless.
Not broken.
But powerful.
Students entering Azkaban for work said his name often.
Sirius listened whenever he had a moment of clarity.
He stole copies of the Daily Prophet when he could.
When he saw Darren's photographs—Darren defeating monsters, helping students, fighting Death Eaters—his heart twisted.
Love and guilt, tangled together.
The child he had abandoned.
The child he had feared.
The child who shared James's blood.
Back in the wizarding world.
"How…?" Sirius wondered over and over.
Had Voldemort found him?
No. Voldemort was dead. Harry had defeated him.
So Darren could appear openly.
If only no one blamed Lily or James… Sirius had never wanted things to go this way.
Whenever he remembered what he had done—using alchemical force to drag a baby's magic away—his hands shook.
Even Death Eaters didn't harm infants.
Even they hadn't killed Darren.
But he—
He had stripped the child of magic.
He had been worse than the Death Eaters.
But the boy survived.
He returned.
That itself was mercy.
Voldemort gone.
James and Lily gone.
Sirius imprisoned.
What more could he do but rot?
Sirius closed his eyes in bitterness—
"Every time I come here, it feels gloomy…
This is Black? The evil bastard himself…"
A disgusted voice snapped him awake.
Sirius opened his eyes.
A pudgy wizard stood before his cell.
Sirius didn't recognize him.
"…Can I see your newspaper?" Sirius rasped.
The man blinked, surprised, but eventually handed it through the bars.
Sirius flipped through eagerly.
Darren's name had been in the papers constantly lately.
Even though Sirius feared Darren's origins…
He still knew the child held James's blood too.
Sirius owed him.
At the very least, he needed to know how the boy lived.
The last time he'd read the news, Lockhart's fans had harassed Darren.
Apparently Lockhart had suffered some incident at school afterward.
Sirius had felt unreasonably relieved reading that.
That was something James would have done—skinny, cheeky troublemaking.
Today, though, the paper held little.
Just a small letter from a female fan.
A shallow piece about Lockhart.
Two sentences mentioning Darren testifying against him.
Sirius frowned in disappointment.
He skimmed forward.
There had been something about the Weasleys on the front page.
He wondered how they were doing—his old Order of the Phoenix friends.
He turned to the front.
"Ministry of Magic Staff Wins Grand Prize!"
The headline sat over a large photograph.
The Weasley family stood smiling.
And on Ron's shoulder—
curled like a lazy pet—
was a rat missing one toe.
Sirius's entire body went rigid.
He sat upright.
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