Chapter 21: Sirius's Information
"I've got it!"
Sirius came tearing into the library, looking grimly pleased with himself.
James, Remus, Peter and Petunia leaned forward eager and yet afraid.
Sirius sat down in the free space between Petunia and James, and leaned over the table. The others all followed suit. But all Sirius whispered was:
"We've got to meet somewhere else, and all of us together. This is really important. I've got all the information."
The others nodded mutely.
"I'll go get Lily, and we'll meet at Myrtle's place, yeah?" James said.
"Sure," everyone agreed, and Petunia, Remus, Sirius and Peter got up and headed towards the bathroom.
No more than ten minutes later, Lily and James arrived, panting and out of breath.
"She... made... us... run... the entire way... here," James panted, pointing a finger at Lily.
"Whatever," Petunia quickly interjected as Lily playfully swatted James' arm, not feeling up to watching them flirt.
Sirius, sensing Petunia's unease, turned to the group and began to talk.
"Well, we've got the place to corner him. Apparently he never really goes out to do the dirty work himself, unless it's really important. You know what I mean."
Petunia felt proud that he had felt her mother was a big enough threat to kill her personally. Her mother had been a good woman, a powerful witch, a loving mother. These memories gave her a little shimmer of... something. Not happiness, really, but something that gave off a similar, deceptive glimmer.
Thoughts like that were wrong, and they hurt Petunia more than she could describe. After all, she would feel even better if her mum and dad were still alive. Much better. Maybe even a little bit happy.
Sirius was continuing: "But he obviously keeps loads of Death Eaters as protection. This may be extremely obvious, but all I could get out of Regulus as to when to attack was when he was having a really big attack, so his best followers are involved. But not too big, 'cause then he'll be part of it."
"Well, we could've figured as much out," Remus said in his slow way. "But did your brother know when that might be?"
"Well... he gave me a pretty good idea as to when the best time within our limits would be... it seemed Christmas day is the day."
"Alright then. Did you find out what his protection will be like then? And where will he be? ..."
Petunia broke off. He would tell them if he knew. But he shouldn't keep them waiting like that. She was so nervous.
"He said that he would be in some 'secret cave'. Apparently he's going to be doing something 'really important' in there, and he's not letting his protection come very close to where he'll be. And his protection won't be very strong, 'cause most of the Death Eaters will be 'on an important mission involving Muggles, Mudbloods and getting drunk', (hey, he said it not me, don't look like that Lily!). In fact, he kind of hinted that there will probably only be guards about our age. So that's good. And, 'Tunia, I know you were about to ask where the cave is. Well, I don't know."
At Petunia's disappointed look, he hastily continued.
"But I know how we can find it. You see, as most of the guard will be underage, a fair amount will be leaving from this school. And we'll just follow them."
"Wow, Sirius," Lily said in awe. "How did you get all this out of your brother?"
At Sirius' look, James and Remus began to speak of something else. Instantly, Sirius joined their blabber, and Lily, realizing her mistake blushed and did the same.
Peter, however, repeated Lily's question. But his voice didn't sound impressed and slightly curious like Lily's had. His voice sounded frightened, cold and... betrayed? Did he wish they hadn't found out? Was this sad excuse for a Gryffindor that big of a coward?
"Look, Pete," Sirius said. "I don't really want to talk about it, yeah?"
Perhaps sensing Sirius' unwillingness to share this, or perhaps just intimidated by the looks he was receiving, Peter left it at this.
"It's settled then," James said.
"Back to studying like crazy, I presume?" Lily asked, trying but failing to hide her great anxiety.
"No, wait. We have to plan out exactly what we're going to do," Petunia said hastily, hoping she had been able to hide her nerves better than her sister had managed.
"What do you want to plan?" James asked. "We know that we're going to follow the 'guards' to this cave place, and then we'll just pelt them with the spells we've learned, 'till we can get past. Then, we'll get through any obstacles using the same technique."
"Right," added Sirius,” and if when we reach You-Know-Who we're still alive, then we'll let 'Tunia do the honors."
"But," James continued (the two were really quite comical at times; it was like only one person was talking), "if she doesn't kill him at the first shot..."
"Which she won't," Sirius threw in.
Petunia shot him an angry look, and he shrugged as James continued.
"We'll start pelting him with any spell that we can think of, while Petunia will sneak up behind him and hit him with the killing curse or something, as he will be distracted by us."
Petunia and James had figured this plan out in the library earlier.
She hadn't liked the sound of sneaking away while her friends fought Voldemort, but it was the only way. And besides... what James didn't know was that Petunia was going to give Voldemort some sort of warning. She needed the upper hand to defeat him, it was true. But she would never, ever kill a person from behind without warning. She might be a Hufflepuff, but never a coward.