Sirius pulled his head out of the fire and sat back, scowling. He'd just about had it with being told to stay put, to play by the rules and keep out of trouble. So what if Lucius Malfoy had recognized him in animagus form? He and James had been in worse fixes when they were kids, had pulled much more dangerous stunts than sneaking into Hogsmeade for a quick visit. In fact, they'd snuck into Hogsmeade so many times over the years that the last time Sirius had smelled Amortentia, he'd caught a whiff of the aroma of the Honeydukes cellar among the mingled scents of woodsmoke and Remus's hair.
Well, said a voice in the back of Sirius's head that sounded like a cross between Remus and Hermione, you didn't have the entire Wizarding World on the lookout for you back in the day, did you? It's much more dangerous now.
"Oh, stuff it," muttered Sirius, prodding the fire moodily with a ghastly old poker whose handle was shaped like a human thigh bone. He hoped it wasn't a real bone, but knowing his family, it probably was.
"Did master say something?" Sirius turned sharply to see Kreacher creeping through the doorway, giving his usual exaggerated bow when Sirius looked at him.
"No," said Sirius shortly. "Get out and leave me alone."
"As master wishes," Kreacher said obediently, bowing again. "For Kreacher must serve him, disgrace though he is, the filthy blood-traitor…"
"OUT," barked Sirius, and Kreacher shuffled out of the room without another word, casting Sirius dark glances.
Sirius sighed and returned to prodding the fire. He was immensely satisfied when a log that had been mostly reduced to charcoal broke in two, releasing a shower of orange sparks and sending a small cloud of ash into the air.
Sirius hated being locked up. He'd spent enough of his life cooped up in unpleasant places, hadn't he? First here, as a child, disallowed from venturing out into the Muggle world after his brief friendship with a Muggle girl from down the street. Then in Azkaban, unjustly imprisoned for Wormtail's crimes, struggling to maintain his grip on reality. And now back here again, in this appalling old house full of cursed furniture and the worst kinds of memories. For all that the Dementors forced him to relive his darkest moments, Sirius thought this house could give them a run for their money. Every room, every door, every bit of decor brought old pain welling up in Sirius's mind, from the kitchen where his mother had hit him for the first time to the door of his old room, where she'd stood as she read that letter from Remus, eyes popping, then screamed and screamed at him until he blacked out from rage and terror and didn't come back to his senses until he was out on the street with nothing but his wand and a number of fresh bruises. Then there was the chair he'd been sitting in the first time Regulus, at the age of nine, had called him a House traitor, his eyes filling with tears as he said it; the desk where Sirius had been forced to sit for hours on end, writing Toujours Pur with a long black quill until the words were etched in scars on the back of his hand; the stairway where he'd been made (when he was twelve) to mount a freshly decapitated house-elf's head, still dripping with blood, on the wall along with its ancestors. Being back here, trapped here, was a fresh kind of torture, and no one seemed to realize it. He'd thought Harry, at least, would be sympathetic—the boy had, after all, grown up in a house nearly as horrible as Grimmauld Place—but even Harry seemed determined to make sure Sirius stayed as he was, stuck here for the foreseeable future.
He just wants you to be safe, said the voice in his head reasonably. You can't blame him for caring about you.
"Yes I bloody well can," grumbled Sirius, then realized he was talking to himself and lapsed into silence once more.
A few minutes later, the front door opened and closed, and Sirius heard footsteps crossing the entryway. He couldn't bring himself to care who it was, but then the footsteps started up the stairs and he recognized the careful, even gait.
"Sirius?" came Remus's voice from the stairwell. "Where are you?" Sirius had a brief, ridiculous, wonderful image of living in a house somewhere peaceful, Remus calling "I'm home" as he came back from work and hung his coat by the door before joining Sirius, curling up next to him on the couch and closing his eyes. Then the drawing room door scraped open, and Sirius was jolted back to reality, and turned to see Remus entering the room.
He frowned when he saw where Sirius was sitting. "What are you doing by the fire?" he asked, with the suspicion born of having lived in the same room as James and Sirius for seven years.
"I was talking to Harry," Sirius said shortly, setting down the poker.
"You were—" Remus's eyes moved to the tin of Floo powder sitting on the hearth. "Talking to Harry? Sirius, what—"
"Well, Ron and Hermione were there too," Sirius amended, as if this changed things.
"And what," said Remus, his voice even but dangerous, "what in the name of Merlin possessed you to do something so unbelievably stupid? Do you have any idea how dangerous—"
"I had to answer Harry's letter," Sirius said stubbornly. "And spare me the lecture, Moony, Harry and Hermione have already given me an earful."
"As well they should," snapped Remus, sitting down in a chair whose arms were carved in the shape of basilisks. "Sirius, you can't just go Flooing Hogwarts whenever you fancy a chat with Harry. What if you'd been spotted?"
"I made sure it was just them before I called," Sirius explained, fully aware that this was not really an adequate answer. "I'd been checking every hour to see if they were alone. I'm not an idiot."
"You're doing a damn good impression of one," retorted Remus, leaning forward in his chair. "What were you talking to them about, anyway? You said Harry sent a letter?"
"Yeah," said Sirius. "He wanted to know about the Ministry interfering at Hogwarts. And about Hagrid. I couldn't have explained it well enough in a letter, so—" he shrugged "—I called."
Remus sighed wearily and dropped his head into his hands, elbows on his knees. "I always knew you'd be the death of me someday," he said through his hands. "Why couldn't you have waited for one of us to come back? You know, someone who isn't the most wanted criminal in Wizarding Britain?"
Sirius was quiet for a few seconds, then said sullenly, "I just wanted a glimpse of someplace that wasn't here. Can you blame me for that?"
Remus looked up and studied Sirius. "No," he admitted. "I know it's awful for you, being in this house."
Sirius picked at the rug he was sitting on. He could remember lying on this rug so many years ago, reading a Muggle science fiction book, when his father kicked him roughly out of the way, snatched the book out of his hands, and threw it into the fire. He could remember the way the pages had curled and blackened in the flames, could remember wondering what it would feel like to burn to death.
"It's like being fifteen again," Sirius said quietly, staring unseeing at the rug. "Every time I walk into a room, I flinch like she's about to start screaming at me again. I never thought I'd have to go through that again."
"I know." Remus drew a hand over his face, looking tired and drawn. The full moon was over a week away, but the everyday hardships of impending war were wearing him down. "I wish it wasn't like this. But Sirius, please, you have to consider the risks! Can't you understand what it would do to us if you were caught?"
Sirius gave a hollow little laugh. "I'm not exactly doing the Order much good as it is. You've got the house, you don't need me for anything else."
"Don't we?" said Remus quietly, his face very pale. "In case you hadn't noticed, Padfoot, I need you. And more than that," he added, "Harry needs you. You're the closest thing he's got to a father, and with everything going on he's going to rely on you a lot."
"He can rely on you, can't he? Everyone knows you're the responsible one."
Remus shook his head. "I'm not as close to Harry as you are. Just like I was never as close to James as you were. You seem to have a way with Potters...anyway, Harry knew me as a teacher first and that's how he knows me best. It's different. You're his godfather, you're the one he confides in."
"He reckons Lucius Malfoy recognized me on the platform," Sirius said.
"What?"
"He's got no proof," Sirius said quickly. "It's just a hunch he and Hermione have, really."
"Hermione's hunches are rarely wrong," Remus noted.
"As I recall, she thought you'd been helping me into Hogwarts just last June," Sirius reminded him, but Remus waved a hand.
"She was panicking then, quite understandably. You did make a rather terrifying sight that night, and you had just attacked Ron. And then I showed up and gave you a hug, and she already knew I was a werewolf…" He trailed off. "Well, she was wrong then, but if she and Harry both think Malfoy recognized you, I'm willing to bet she's right. The Death Eaters will all know you're an Animagus by now, and I'm sure Wormtail gave them a very accurate description of Padfoot."
"But nobody in Hogsmeade would know," countered Sirius, then realized he'd made a mistake when he saw a new frown forming on Remus's face.
"Hogsmeade? What's Hogsmeade got to do with it?"
"I, er—" Sirius wilted slightly under Remus's glare, and dropped his eyes back to the rug. "I wanted to meet up with them in Hogsmeade," he confessed. "I would've been careful!" he added defensively. "It would've been safe, we sneaked into Hogsmeade all the time as kids, I know it like the back of my hand." He rubbed the back of his right hand, where Toujours Pur had been etched long ago.
"Yes, but when we sneaked into Hogsmeade, we weren't wanted by the Ministry of Magic and recognizable to Voldemort's inner circle," Remus said, echoing the voice in Sirius's head. "Merlin, Sirius, what were you thinking?"
"No need to talk me out of it," Sirius grumbled. "They already said they wouldn't do it."
"Good." Remus looked grim.
"James would've done it," muttered Sirius.
Remus sighed. "Well, James was nearly as reckless as you were, wasn't he? He didn't really understand the risks of what he did. But we've been through this—Harry isn't James, and he's not your mate, he's your godson. No, listen," he added as Sirius opened his mouth. "James was a great friend and a brave one, but you know perfectly well that he was also a spoiled pureblood brat. He'd always had everything he could wish for—gobs of money, parents who doted on him, immense popularity wherever he went—you know it all."
"I know," Sirius said. "I told him as much at the end of fifth year, you know. Gave him a lot to think about, I reckon."
"Really?" Remus looked interested for a moment, then returned to the subject. "The point is, James succeeded at everything, and he was never afraid of losing because it just didn't enter his mind that he could lose. He cared about us, as much as he knew how, but he was never afraid of losing us. In his mind I think we were all immortal.
"Harry, on the other hand, had a very different childhood from James. He lost his parents at the age of one, he was raised by people who couldn't care less if he got squashed by a bus on the way home from school, and then, at eleven, he was thrust into a world where he's known as a hero. He's had to face Voldemort three times since he started school, and just a couple of months ago he watched a schoolmate get murdered in front of him. Harry's been through hell already, and he's only fifteen, and it's only going to get worse from here until Voldemort's dead."
Sirius made a noise low in his throat, a doglike growl of anger at the injustice of the world. "He shouldn't have to worry about all that, he's just a kid."
"No, he shouldn't, but he does have to. He hasn't got a choice. And you're the person he looks to for guidance, and I think Harry knows perfectly well how lost he'd be if you got thrown back in prison. He needs you, Sirius, more than James ever did. It's a hell of a way to respond, tossing your life and freedom around like they don't matter when Harry's relying on you like that."
"I don't want to be relied on," muttered Sirius. "I hate being relied on. I never wanted to be reliable."
"Well, you're stuck with it," said Remus, standing up. "And I know that thinking before you act has never really been your strong suit, but please try to consider the consequences before you go risking everything on a whim. All right?"
Sirius looked up at him, then back down at the floor. "All right," he said, scowling.
"Good." Remus's face softened. "Now, I'm going to go have something to eat. Espionage is hungry work." He turned and walked toward the door.
"I'll join you in a bit," said Sirius, still sitting on the floor. He wasn't actually hungry, but he did want company. "And, Moony?"
Remus paused, turning. "Yes?"
Sirius gave a hint of a smile. "Thanks."
"Anytime," said Remus, returning the smile. "Talking sense into you is one thing I pride myself on being good at."