"Sirius, I suggest you calm down," Remus said levelly. Sirius was panting with rage, not unlike an exceptionally angry dog, his gaze still on the offending slip of parchment that he held at arms' length, as if it were a poisonous snake.

"I…can't…believe it," he said, his voice shaking with fury. "He expects us to believe him?"

"I am no more happy than you are, Sirius, but you cannot possibly make a logical decision in your state. Have you not thought that the letter is hexed? Really, all your Auror training was for naught."

Sirius looked up at Remus, then set the parchment down on the table, reading the words that made his blood boil once more, knowing that the shaky scrawled words were written with the hands of the sickest, most undeserving person of life that dwelled on the planet.



Sirius and Remus,

I hope you can forgive me for my terrible deeds. I wish to repent. There is a plot to harm Harry. I want to fulfill my debt to him. Come to the hangnail in Stoab's Hill at midnight tomorrow, or I fear Harry will suffer a worse fate than anyone should deserve.

Peter

"Unbelievable," Sirius said, shaking his head, trying to take deep breaths to control the wave of rage that coursed through him.

Remus, who hadn't had twelve years in a hell-on-earth prison to stew on Peter's betrayal, had become much more cynical wherever he was concerned. "I believe he is playing us for fools," he said crisply, blinking once.

"You don't say!" Sirius balled his hands into fists. "Who does he think we are, idiot sophomores?"

"He can't possibly expect us to trust him," Remus said, incredulous at what Peter's letter suggested. "Whatever trap you've sprung for us, Peter, is not going to be put into effect."

"Unbelievable," Sirius exhaled once more.

"I'm simply insulted that he would think we are this stupid," Lupin said mildly, as he glanced down at the letter once more. "'Terrible deeds,'" he quoted. "Perhaps the biggest understatement that existence has ever encountered."

"Whatever fate he wishes us to believe will befall Harry cannot possibly be worse than what I'd like to see done to him," Sirius growled.

"Has the owl departed already? I would dearly love to drive a spear of some sort through it," Remus said, a mischievous glint surfacing in his cloudy, weary grey eyes.

Sirius shook his head wildly. "D'you think Dumbledore should see this?"

"I do," Lupin agreed. "We should Floo it to him at once. Perhaps he can detect a hidden meaning to it."

"Or a hidden curse," said Sirius, not putting it past the traitor's new friends to try to inflict some harm on them.

Lupin moved toward the fire, grabbing a pinch of emerald-green powder and sprinkling it onto the crackling flames. "Deliver this to Dumbledore's office," he said clearly, depositing the parchment in the fireplace, and watching it swirl in a helix up into the chimney, the sound of rustling feathers sending it somewhere else.

He turned, and in a gut-wrenching moment, Lupin realized that the sound of feathers had come from a harassed-looking owl, which looked like Minerva McGonagall's Wisdom. Sirius was holding a new piece of parchment, and his face had gone a more horrible white than Remus could ever have imagined, his eyes bulging and hands shaking the paper.

"Sirius?" Remus asked, not wanting to know what tidings Wisdom had bore.

"Harry," Sirius choked. "They've taken Harry."

Remus' blood ran cold. He turned to the fireplace, where a former friend's information had just been dismissed and sent to higher powers. The fire seemed to grow and laugh hollowly at Remus, who could only stare silently in return.

A/N Alright, I had this plot bunny stored away for a while; all my fics have nothing to do with each other, it's so weird. Anyway, please please please review, or else I'll be like Silver Phoenix with the review songs and refuse to update quickly. I hope you enjoy it…I like this one's plot…please review and leave suggestions for plot developments as well as critiques if I'm representing anything wrong. I'm also working on something about McGonagall…enjoy!/b