The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part One

Digging Machine

Attacks like those at Fortescue's became a near daily occurrence. Wizarding officials from the Ministry were constantly disapparating to the latest places where Death Eaters had struck. The place was always marked by the glowing smoke of the Dark Mark, hovering high in the sky above the kill, a terrible green omen of death and ruin.

People were becoming afraid to go just about anywhere, and it showed. Sirius could see it in the silence of the once bustling streets of Diagon Alley, which he flew his motorbike to each morning to work. Those who were in the streets moved quickly and glanced at Sirius suspiciously. He might've been offended but they looked at each other that way, too, and some of them were so jumpy that he imagined they looked in the mirror that way as well.

"They locked me up for being scared of the Grim," Bilius said, shaking his head as he and Sirius worked in a large garden north of London, chucking gnomes over a high fence. "Rich, innit? Now that they're all afraid of omens, nobody's being locked up for being paranoid now, are they?"

Sirius carefully concentrated on his gnome.

"Sayin' I'm crazy," muttered Billius, letting fly a fat gnome who shrieked as he soared over the fence, "Well they're the crazy ones now."

"You aren't crazy, mate," Sirius replied. "At least, not in a bad way."

Bilius chuckled. "You've always got just the words to say, don't you, Sirius Black?"

"I'm a particularly well spoken sonuvabitch, yes," Sirius nodded, grinning.

The work of degnoming was back breaking, despite it's easiness, and the heavy gloves that they wore to protect from gnome bites were thick and made of dragon hide so that they made Sirius's palms sweaty and sticky by the end of the day. He would knot his hair up in a big bun at the top of his head because that was the only way to keep the stands of it from sticking to his neck as rivulets of sweat ran down in beaded trails from his scalp. He and Bilius took turns using the aquamenti charm to cool each other off, spraying torrents of cold water at each other as they worked.

Sirius was finding Bilius to be excellent company, and although he talked entirely too much about the myriad of children that the Weasleys were popping out every other year, Sirius thought that Bilius might just be one of his best mates - possibly his best mate outside of the Marauders, of course. Possibly, he thought, even better than Peter Pettigrew.

"REDUCT---"

"If you bloody finish that spell, I'll blast you back into the Founders' Age," James said, reaching out and grabbing Sirius's wand arm, rolling his eyes. "I swear, you're an idiot."

Sirius grinned, eyes twinkling with mischief, and pulled his arm out of James's grasp, slipped his wand through the knot of hair at the back of his head, and held up his palms in surrender. "You promise, though?" he asked.

James shook his head, "You'd enjoy a good blasting from me far too much, Black."

Sirius opened his mouth to reply, but at that exact instant Remus cleared his throat.

"Even your boyfriend knows it," James chided.

Peter puffed and lowered the shovel in his hands. "Is anyone else going to help me dig this stupid hole at all?" his forehead was covered with sweat and as they all turned to hear his complaint, a giant droplet slid across his face and fell from the tip of his nose. "Seriously, make the fat kid do all the hard work, why don't you?"

"I'm just giving you a head start is all, Wormy," Sirius answered, and he sat himself down on a pile of firewood, stretching out so he was laying across it, heavy booted feet hanging limp over the sides as he propped his head up on his leather jacket. "Once I join in, I'll be a digging machine. I'll be digging circles 'round you. You'll see." He closed his eyes.