"Remus!" Minerva's shrill voice caught him as he descended the stairs down from the professors' table. "Meeting. In the staff room. Now."
"One moment, I'll be right there," Lupin called behind him as he tried his best to wade through the flood of students.
Dumbledore was just a little ahead of him, but after the din he could not hear his calls. Adrenaline raced through his body. What would he say? Just come out with it? Peter Pettigrew is alive. We've been wrong all these years, locked an innocent man in the worst place on earth.
Out in the corridor he called, "Dumbledore!"
The aged wizard seemed not to hear, but he was gaining. He would be upon him in seconds. Then, seeming out of nothing, two Ministry agents stepped in front of him. They were both taller than he was, each placing a hand on his shoulders gently, but with a hint of menace.
"Professor Remus Lupin," one of them said, in a flat voice. "We need to have a word with you."
"Of course, of course," Lupin had eyes for nothing but Dumbledore. "In one moment. I just must have a word with the headmaster. Headmaster!" He tried yelling, but Dumbledore had just rounded the next corner, and these men weren't letting him move at inch. "Please." He turned to them. "It is of grave importance."
"So is this. Now please, Professor." The man gestured, like a host, in the opposite direction.
There was no escape. They guided him down the corridor, though he felt that there was a very thin line between this and being dragged. He'd missed his opportunity, not to mention that this probably meant that the jig was up completely. Lupin looked upwards as the two burly wizards steered. The familiar ghost of Nearly Headless Nick hovered near the ceiling watching with concern.
They sat him down in his own office, and Lupin fought to look anywhere but the wardrobe. He knew Sirius would be able to hear every word they said and he prayed that he would stay still. His friend had always been smart, but who knew what twelve years in Azkaban had done to his judgement?
The one who had spoken to him out in the hall got up to lock the door. He was dark skinned with very short cropped black hair and a scar across his jaw. The other had a blond military cut and a rather pudgy face. They didn't look like the normal Department of Magical Law Enforcement agents. Fighting in the First Wizarding War Lupin had seen all kinds, but he could not place where these agents could be from. A new division within the Ministry perhaps? Whatever they were they did not look particularly friendly. Scar took a seat across the desk in the chair which was usually his, and blondy sat on the corner of the desk so that he was looking down at him.
Scar wrinkled his nose at his ragged travel case, looking at him with disdain.
"Gentlemen," Lupin began, trying to keep up his calm facade. "What can I do for you? And may I enquire as to your names?"
"It would be better." Scar leaned across his desk, crushing the piles of papers. "I think, if we were to remain anonymous. We're here on behalf of the Ministry in response to your headmaster's complaints regarding the Azkaban guards, but we have another mission as well. Have you heard of the Magical Divergence Census Project?"
"I'm afraid to say that I haven't."
"That's quite alright, it's very new. We're getting our start here at Hogwarts, along with at the Ministry itself."
The blond took over then. His voice was higher, more nasally, lacking the intimidating gravel of the previous man. "Too much in the wizarding world goes on outside the scope of the Ministry's gaze. Information, Professor. It's the weapon of the future. We're building a data base. All witches, wizards, and... creatures, of interest will be required to fill out a file. They must also be willing to submit to check-ins regularly throughout their lives, keeping the Ministry updated as to their current place or places of residence and future plans."
This was not what he had feared, but the wizard's words struck Lupin the wrong way all the same. "Couldn't that be considered an invasion of privacy?"
Scar scoffed. "What's privacy when the database we're building will solve crimes in a third of the time? It could even prevent an organization like You-know-who's from forming in the future. We hope that soon it will be common place, part of living in the magical world. We'll start here in Britain but through the International Council of Warlocks it could go global. Even muggleborns are required to have files, and young behavioural cases. It's really any divergence at all, from the norm."
"I'm sure, Professor," Blondy leaned so far forward that Lupin was forced to sink all the way back into his chair, "that you must understand why you're one of our first stops. Dumbledore must have a lot of faith in you, placing you in a position so close to children."
Lupin concentrated on his breathing. Fill the lungs. Exhale slowly. Fill the lungs. There was a bang from the wardrobe. Both men stiffened, wands out.
"What's that?"
"Just a Bogart," Lupin reassured, cursing Sirius mentally with every vial slur he knew. "I teach defence against the dark arts. It's good for the children to have hands on learning, I find."
So he was lying, but despite his Bogart being the moon there was nothing Lupin feared more at that moment than what the agents would find if they were to open that wardrobe. Thankfully they did not pursue it and Sirius had the good sense to stay silent for the rest of the ordeal. And what a thoroughly unpleasant ordeal it was. The survey was long and intricate, delving into bad parts of his past he did not wish to revisit, and addressing his very worst fears. What made things worse was that avoiding certain truths was not an option. Scar had an object Lupin had never seen before that he called a deception-sphere. It was a black marble that would hover in the air if it sensed a lie. He knew that devices like this were imprecise and not admissible in court, but all the same. They treated him like a criminal, something he was used to, but it dawned on him that young muggleborn students would be subject to nearly the same process.
How could Fudge have possibly allowed something like this? It was prejudice, persecutory, and strangely reminiscent of Voldemort—if the dark wizard had cared at all for red tape and bureaucracy. Remus felt that this was the sort of thing he would have gone to Dumbledore about if hadn't had a much more pressing matter to discuss with the man when he finally got the chance.
When the agents finally left, Lupin slumped forward, head in hands. He felt as if he'd just had tea with a dementor so drained was he of any happiness. No sooner had the door closed then the wardrobe cracked open slightly. Cautiously, a black dog hopped out. Lupin didn't look up at first, and Padfoot slumped down beside his chair, head on paws. They sat like that for quite some time before, shaking himself from his daze, he got up to finally get Sirius some clothes.
They were about the same size so he pulled out a set of robes from his travelling case.
"Man, Remus," Sirius was back in human form again. "Do you own anything without a hole in it? Those are almost as ratty as my current clothes."
Lupin threw them at him wordlessly. "Well, this is the longest I've kept a job in three years, if you want the truth."
Sirius winced. "How great we've all turned out. And think how much promise the four of us showed back in Hogwarts."
He went into the wardrobe to change and Lupin, as his eyes had landed on it where it lay on his desk, had opened the map.
"I solemnly swear I am up to no good."
Sirius peaked his head out, hurrying over to rejoin him. It really was like old times. He scanned the parchment closely searching for Peter Pettigrew. There he was, down in the dungeons, in Snape's private quarters.
"At least we know where he is," Lupin said, trying to sound positive. "You won't be searching blind anymore. Seriously Sirius, the fat lady. What were you thinking? The whole school slept in the great hall that night. I've never seen the children so scared."
"I was thinking I wanted that slimy waste of air dead," said Sirius, in a deep voice that sent an uncomfortable chill up Lupin's spine. "I couldn't have cared less if they sent me back to Azkaban. I just wanted him dead... dead like they are."
It took Lupin a few seconds to figure out how to respond. "And am I to take that past tense as a good sign?"
There was a grunt from the man standing behind him. "You're right. In there it's easy to lose sight of reasons for living, aside from revenge. But I have Harry... and you..." he trailed off.
Just then something caught his eye on the parchment before him, but he did not point it out to Sirius, knowing that it would be impossible to keep him from coming with him.
"I have to go to bed," said Lupin, trying to sound nonchalant. "Please promise you'll stay in there, won't you?"
"I will tonight, but we'll discuss it again tomorrow."
As Sirius shut himself inside Lupin hurried from the room, folding the map but not wiping it. He locked the door, not to keep Sirius in, but more so as to keep others out. What he had seen had been three names, all clustered very close together, and conspicuously not in their dormitories where they should have been. Harry Potter and his two friends, how very much they reminded him of the marauders, as they'd called themselves. How ridiculous it was, thinking back.
When he'd first glanced at the map they three had been standing very close to another cluster of names which he had not recognized, spying obviously. But now they stood alone in the second floor corridor, still not moving. This concerned him slightly.
When he stepped from the stairwell the concern make a quick jump to terror. It was very cold, the kind of cold that reached right to ones core. The lanterns that normally lit the corridors had gone out and he couldn't help the feeling of dread that had settled over him. Dumbledore had left and here they were, first night, wandering the corridors. They very thought of the parasites drifting into one of the dorms made anger well up, pushing away the fear.
Rounding the next corner he saw them; three dementors, clustering near the wall around something he could not see.
"Expecto Patronum!" This time he chose the memory of when his friends had first shown him their animagus forms and he'd realized that—for the first time in his life—he wasn't alone anymore.
He'd never let anything happen to Harry. He owed James that and so much more. A massive, sliver wolf irrupted from his wand. It chased the dementors down the hallway before circling back to where they had been, as if concerned for the children under the cloak.
The piece of familiar fabric crumpled to the floor to reveal a very pale and trembling Ron and Hemione, supporting Harry between them. He was unconscious. As the light from his patronus faded away Lupin lit his wand and took the limp boy from his two friends, laying him gently on the floor. Right now was not the time for scolding.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
Both nodded, eyes still wide. He had no chocolate with him, but they waited there all the same for Harry to come around. During that time, Hermione told him something interesting. They'd been spying on the Ministry agents, the ones in the suits, and they had observed something shocking.