by Amy
<><> A man stood before a mirror, razor in hand, occupied in removing the remains of a beard from his face. The flickering candlelight complicated this task a bit. That was one thing every Ministry safe house had stacks of--candles. The man would have traded most of them for a sharper razor.
<><> There was a tapping at the dark metal grille above his head. The man reached up and lifted a lever and the slats of the grille turned, letting in daylight partially blocked by a small, beaked silhouette. The Ministry owl slid an envelope between the slats, then took off with a busy flapping of wings.
<><> The man laid the letter next to the candle while he finished shaving. Then he slit the envelope with the damp razor-blade and pulled out a sheet of paper. Written on it in plain Muggle ink was a single word: "Fidelius." It was signed "Lily and Prongs."
<><> "Finally," the man said aloud. He had already exchanged his robes and black cloak for dark trousers and a button-down shirt. Now he grabbed the blazer lying over the back of a chair. He pointed his wand at his eyes, and a muttered word darkened them from brown to their usual black. He blew out the candle and started up the narrow wooden stairs in the dark.
<><> Sirius Black paused to look at the small Tudor style cottage before striding up the walk and knocking softly on the door. The grain of the wood twisted itself into the semblance of a small face, which asked in a husky tone, "Who comes?"
<><> "Padfoot," Sirius replied, and the face disappeared. A few moments later, a tall, thin man with untidy black hair opened the door. Sirius stepped in, and the man closed the door, muttering a locking charm. He turned around, and the two embraced.
<><> "James," Sirius said bluntly, "if it's bad enough to put that face on the door, you shouldn't have waited for me."
<><> "We didn't want to just...disappear on you like that. Besides, there's no Secret-Keeper we'd rather have. Dumbledore himself offered, but..."
<><> "You should have taken his offer. You're a fool, Prongs," Sirius said, but he was smiling. James led him into the dining room, where an auburn haired woman was spooning cereal for a baby with her green eyes and James's wild hair. Sirius walked over and kissed her on the forehead. "It's been too long, Lily. Harry's twice the size he was when I saw him last." Harry smiled winningly at him, cereal smudging his chin. He had gotten a couple of teeth as well, since Sirius had last visited.
<><> "How did your mission go, Sirius?" Lily wiped her son's face.
<><> "I haven't been to the Ministry yet, so I can't tell you much, but--one of us is definitely a spy." His throat hurt as he said it.
<><> "Who?"
<><> "I...I'm afraid it's Moony--" the Potters' eyes filled with shock--"but there's no proof," he said hastily.
<><> "All the more reason to do the charm soon, then." James's tone was filled with resolution.
<><> Lily spoke. "Sirius, if you haven't guessed, we want you to be our Secret-Keeper."
<><> There, they'd said it. Now it was his turn. What was he supposed to say? That he didn't trust himself? Tell his childhood friends not to trust him, to get someone else? He took a deep breath.
<><> "Lily, James, I-I'd like nothing better, but..." They looked at him curiously. "You-Know-Who, won't he guess, when he can't find you? When he figures out it's the Fidelius charm, won't he assume it's me? You know what I do--what if I got caught? I'd try, but I've seen what he does to his prisoners." His voice threatened to break, but he kept it in check.
<><> James and Lily looked at one another. It was clear they hadn't considered that. "Who should we use, then, Sirius?" James asked levelly.
<><> "Use Peter. No one would ever suspect him. That way, no matter what they do to me, I can't tell them."
<><> "All right, Peter then. But let's not tell anyone about the switch, if you don't mind. Safer that way." Sirius nodded in wordless agreement. They hugged again, and as Sirius walked to the door, James whispered "Thank you Padfoot, old friend."
<><> Sirius Black felt the sun on his face. He opened his eyes, and the sun-dazzle made his headache worse. Why did he have a headache? He tried to remember the night before. An odd smell, flashes of green light--My God! he thought. Why am I still alive?
<><> He remembered looking into those red eyes and telling almost everything he knew about Lily and James. You-Know-Who knew all of their childhood transgressions now, he had no doubt. But not the Potters' secret, because he didn't know the Potters' secret! And not about Peter, because He-Who-must-Not-Be-Named didn't ask about Peter!
<><> Despite the pounding in his head, Sirius sprang to his feet. He regretted the sudden movement, stumbling to the sink, where he lost what was left of last night's dinner. The afternoon sunshine streamed through his window as he splashed water on his face, and Sirius Black felt an irrepressible triumph fill him. He hadn't told, because he didn't know!
<><> It had been a week. Sirius had gone about his life as he had ever since Voldemort intensified his campaign against the wizards, but with a far lighter heart. Lily and James were safe, Peter was in hiding, and although the Dark Lord's visit had left him miserably sick for two days afterward, he had gotten off more lightly, perhaps, than anyone else in history. He felt like whistling as he walked along the sidewalk between the drab cement towers of low-rent apartments, but he had never quite mastered the ability.
<><> He pulled open the glass front doors of one of the towers, nodded to a mother and child retrieving their mail, and pressed one of a grid of small red buttons. He waited a moment, but there was no response. Shrugging, he pressed it again. And again. The mother entered a code on a keypad beside the inner doors, and she and her daughter disappeared within. Sirius caught the door before it could close behind them. He spotted the door to a stairwell, and was on his way up before the surprised building superintendent could ask if he needed help.
<><> Three flights later, he pulled open another door. He felt unexplainably anxious as he walked down the hall to the entrance marked "43". He rapped on the door, four times, in the pattern that had been one of their secret codes as schoolboys. No answer. He whispered "Alohomora," but the door had not been locked. Dread congealed in his stomach. He pushed open the door.
<><> It opened onto an ordinary Muggle apartment, small and plain, but not cheerless. Everything was in the same place and condition it had been in when Sirius had rented the apartment, furnished, for a friend. A few long strides and he peered into the kitchen, then the bedroom. The place might never have been lived in--certainly there was no sign of anything unusual. Except.... except for a faint smell, one that did not belong in any honest home.
<><> Sirius hissed every foul word he could think of, a string of expletives ending with "Wormtail," said like the worst of them all. He loped into the hall and down the stairs, changing as he went. In less than a minute, a huge black dog shot past the bewildered superintendent and raced down the street.
<><> Sirius's motorcycle landed, coughed once, a cloud of smoke, and was silent. The smoke quickly lost itself in the dust and fouler smelling haze hanging about what had once been a small Tudor cottage. There was a smell of burnt wood and less wholesome fuel, and a lingering odor which Sirius was coming to recognize far too easily.
<><> For an endless moment, he just stood there, waiting for his mind to admit the impossible. Then he threw his head back and howled. A detached part of him was reminded of Moony; it wondered that he could produce such a sound without changing form. The rest had lost itself in his cry. When it came back to him, it was spent. He wiped his face on his sleeve; it was soaked.
<><> Something glinted as the sunlight pierced the clouds and smoke. Sirius made his way toward it, climbing over and around bits of rubble. It was James's wedding ring. He assumed the man wearing it was James, though his body was burnt beyond recognition. His glasses, the frames twisted and the lenses warped, lay about a foot away. Sirius could not tear his eyes from them, try as he might. A high, thready wail drew his attention away at last.
<><> It was Harry. He lay in his mother's arms. She looked as if she was sleeping; not a mark was on her, but when Sirius touched her shoulder, she was cold and stiff. Her child whimpered again, so Sirius took him from her, gently. He had a deep, jagged cut on his forehead. Sirius cleaned it with the edge of his shirt, then sat down on the remains of a wall, holding the child so he could not see his parents' bodies. He began to cry, silently, but although his tears fell on Harry's face, they did not disturb him, or even keep him awake.
<><> When, eventually, the Hogwarts gamekeeper came, Sirius said as little as possible, for fear of breaking down completely. He allowed Hagrid to comfort him, but was not comforted. He was too tired, and too unaware, to protest when Hagrid took Harry away from him; to be taken, he said, to his mother's sister and her husband. He even lent him his motorcycle, his treasure. He doubted he'd need it any longer.
<><> After Hagrid left, he surveyed the wreckage a last time. The little blazes had finally extinguished themselves, and the scene was black and gray, colorless beneath the evening clouds. The investigation team would be here soon--not that any was needed. The wind hissed, raising swirls of dust and cinders, and a black dog loped through the streets of Godric's Hollow, following a trail known only to itself.
<><> In an alley in a small commercial area in London, a dog lifted its head from the trail. A moment later, Sirius Black had returned to his real form. He gripped his wand and stepped around the corner into the main street, smiling grimly as he glimpsed his quarry. He took two long strides forward, and clapped his hand on the shoulder of one of the passers-by in a friendly fashion.
<><> The man spun around, but smiled when he saw who had accosted him. "Sirius! How good to see you! But have you heard the terrible news?" He assumed an expression of almost comical dismay.
<><> Sirius tightened his grip on the man's shoulder. The mousy face, which would not quite meet his eyes, whitened in pain. "Wormtail, you bastard. Why? What did he promise you?"
<><> "Me?" squeaked Pettigrew. "What are you talking about, Sirius?" He had begun to sweat.
<><> Sirius eyed him with disgust. "I'm sure the Ministry will want to see justice done, properly and legally, but otherwise I'd kill you myself." The knuckles of the hand holding his wand whitened. "Petrificus to--"
<><> "Sirius, how could you?" Pettigrew yelled, interrupting the spell. "YOU KILLED LILY AND JAMES!" Something almost like a smile swam across his face.
<><> "Eradii morte!" In the moment of complete silence that followed Pettigrew's outburst, Sirius realized that this was no spell he had ever heard before. He saw a flash of gray trickle through a storm drain.
<><> Then the world exploded.
<><> When he awoke, he was in a small, featureless white room. He was lying on a narrow cot with a stiff but clean mattress. As he sat up, he glimpsed himself in the small mirror hanging above the equally small sink. His face was pale and unshaven, and he had a bandage on his left temple.
<><> He turned to the door of what he quickly realized was a cell. It had a small, barred window. He peered out of it. He saw that his cell was one of several along either side of a corridor. At the near end, two wizards were talking. One was in uniform, obviously a law-enforcement officer. The other held a briefcase in one hand and a roll of parchment in the other.
<><> The officer escorted the second wizard toward Sirius's cell. He sat down on his cot, wondering what would happen next.
<><> The door opened and the man came in. He set his briefcase down in a corner. "Good afternoon, Mr. Black. I'm Adam Portico, your court-appointed lawyer." <><> "My what?" Sirius blinked. <><> Portico gave him a look that was part pity, part disgust. "Mr. Black, you have been charged with collusion with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, with giving He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named information leading to the deaths of Lily and James Potter, with use of magic before Muggles, with use of forbidden Dark magic, with the murder of twelve Muggles, and the murder of Peter Pettigrew.
<><> "Quite frankly, you have almost no chance of being proven not guilty, and even if I were capable of it, I'm not certain I'd want to defend you successfully. However, the law demands that you must have fair representation in court, and I will do my level best, although this is plainly a lost cause."
<><> Sirius gaped at him.
<><> "Now, tell me everything you did last Tuesday...."
<><> The entire trial went something like that. Sirius testified, of course, but his testimony was balanced and overridden. Even Albus Dumbledore testified, reluctantly, that to the best of his knowledge Sirius Black had been the Potters' Secret-Keeper. Several Muggles were brought in, before the Memory Charm was performed on them, and they reported, albeit in a somewhat bewildered fashion, Pettigrew's outburst and the succeeding explosion.
<><> A jury of Sirius's peers found him guilty on all charges. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in Azkaban, the infamous wizard fortress.
<> Peter Pettigrew was awarded the Order of Merlin, First Class, posthumously. His mother was sent his right forefinger, all that had been found of him. It was interred with all due ceremony.
<><> The thought made Sirius sick, but he did not have much time to dwell on it. The day he heard was the day he arrived in Azkaban.
<><> Twelve years. He knew it was somewhere around that amount, although he had given up counting the days around the same time he had given up trying to kill himself. Neither had availed him anything.
<><> He was in human form, although sanity was easier to maintain as a dog. He had heard an unusual amount of activity that morning, and if someone with human eyesight looked in on him, he would prefer they not discover his secret.
<><> A wave of primitive despair washed over him, and he knew a dementor was coming. He resisted the urge to transform; he heard footsteps, and as dementors always moved in unearthly silence, he knew someone else must be coming as well.
<><> There was a rattle of keys, and a corpse-like hand pushed his door open a crack. A metal dish clattered as it was placed on a stone ledge beside the door. Through the crack, he glimpsed the dark, cloaked form of the dementor, and--a wizard?
<><> "Minister Fudge?" he said--or tried to say. It came out as more of a croak. When was the last time I spoke to someone else? he wondered. He tried again, and this time produced recognizable words.
<><> "Sirius--Sirius Black? Ah, um, good morning, Mr. Black." The Minister of Magic was plainly not accustomed to conversing with convicts.
<><> "Minister Fudge, if you are done with your newspaper, might I have it?" Black fought to keep his cool. It had been years since he had had news from outside.
<><> "Well, I don't see how it could do any harm..." Fudge gingerly placed the newspaper on the ledge beside the dish of prisoners' rations.
<><> "Thank you, Minister, and good day," Sirius said calmly as the dementor locked his door and led Fudge away. As soon as he thought they were out of earshot, he pounced on the newspaper.
<><> "'The Daily Prophet,'" he read aloud, noting the date. Then, he began to devour the paper. He didn't just read it, he absorbed it, trying to extrapolate from it all the news he had missed in the last twelve years.
<><> On the third page, the first headline was:
<><> Beneath it was a picture of a very large, smiling family. Every one of the children had freckles. They were plainly Weasleys, as the article attested. One of the boys had an arm around his younger sister and was smiling in an embarrassed fashion. On his shoulder was--
<><> A rat.
<><> Missing a toe.
<><> On its right front foot.
<><> Sirius recognized it instantly. Azkaban might have threatened to destroy his sanity, but it hadn't affected his memory. He had seen that creature countless times, when the man within it had been a friend. And one last time, briefly, when he had not been.
<><> Hogwarts. He's at Hogwarts.
<><> Sirius had known that Pettigrew was not dead, but he had assumed that he had fled the country, perhaps gone to live as a Muggle. Now he knew that was not the case.
<><> "Had to stick around, Wormtail," he muttered, "had to see if your big friend was coming back. Bet he never got a chance to reward you for betraying Lily and James." He resisted the urge to spit. Somehow, he would do what he had failed to do twelve years ago. All he had to do was escape....
<><> He almost laughed at himself. All he had to do was escape from the most feared wizard prison in the world, one that could make Alcatraz look like nursery school. A prison guarded, no less, by soul-drinkers, who would kill him--or anyone--at the drop of a hat.
<><> But he couldn't do nothing, now that he knew where Pettigrew was. So he resolved to wait as long as necessary. An opportunity must come; even dementors are not infallible. One day, the door would be left ajar, or the window bars come loose (he'd been prying at them for years). Something would happen, and he would be ready.
<><> He settled down, dog-form, to wait.